Two plays for dancers
William Yeats




William Butler Yeats

Two plays for dancers




PREFACE

In a note at the end of my last book 'The Wild Swans at Coole' (Cuala Press.) I explained why I preferred this kind of drama, and where I had found my models, and where and how my first play after this kind was performed, and when and how I would have it performed in the future. I can but refer the reader to the note or to the long introduction to 'Certain Noble Plays of Japan' (Cuala Press.)



    W. B. Yeats. October 11th. 1918



P. S. That I might write 'The Dreaming of the Bones,' Mr. W. A. Henderson with great kindness wrote out for me all historical allusions to Dervorgilla.





THE DREAMING OF THE BONES


The stage is any bare place in a room close to the wall. A screen with a pattern of mountain and sky can stand against the wall, or a curtain with a like pattern hang upon it, but the pattern must only symbolize or suggest. One musician enters and then two others, the first stands singing while the others take their places. Then all three sit down against the wall by their instruments, which are already there – a drum, a zither, and a flute. Or they unfold a cloth as in 'The Hawk's Well,' while the instruments are carried in.


FIRST MUSICIAN


(or all three musicians, singing)

		Why does my heart beat so?
		Did not a shadow pass?
		It passed but a moment ago.
		Who can have trod in the grass?
		What rogue is night-wandering?
		Have not old writers said
		That dizzy dreams can spring
		From the dry bones of the dead?
		And many a night it seems
		That all the valley fills
		With those fantastic dreams.
		They overflow the hills,
		So passionate is a shade,
		Like wine that fills to the top
		A grey-green cup of jade,
		Or maybe an agate cup.
		(speaking) The hour before dawn and the moon covered up.
		The little village of Abbey is covered up;
		The little narrow trodden way that runs
		From the white road to the Abbey of Corcomroe
		Is covered up; and all about the hills
		Are like a circle of Agate or of Jade.
		Somewhere among great rocks on the scarce grass
		Birds cry, they cry their loneliness.
		Even the sunlight can be lonely here,
		Even hot noon is lonely. I hear a footfall —
		A young man with a lantern comes this way.
		He seems an Aran fisher, for he wears
		The flannel bawneen and the cow-hide shoe.
		He stumbles wearily, and stumbling prays.

		(A young man enters, praying in Irish)

		Once more the birds cry in their loneliness,
		But now they wheel about our heads; and now
		They have dropped on the grey stone to the north-east.

		(A man and a girl both in the costume of a past time, come in. They wear heroic masks)


YOUNG MAN

		(raising his lantern)
		Who is there? I cannot see what you are like,
		Come to the light.


STRANGER

		But what have you to fear?


YOUNG MAN

		And why have you come creeping through the dark.

		(The Girl blows out lantern)

		The wind has blown my lantern out. Where are you?
		I saw a pair of heads against the sky
		And lost them after, but you are in the right
		I should not be afraid in County Clare;
		And should be or should not be have no choice,
		I have to put myself into your hands,
		Now that my candle's out.


STRANGER

		You have fought in Dublin?


YOUNG MAN

		I was in the Post Office, and if taken
		I shall be put against a wall and shot.


STRANGER

		You know some place of refuge, have some plan
		Or friend who will come to meet you?


YOUNG MAN

		I am to lie
		At daybreak on the mountain and keep watch
		Until an Aran coracle puts in
		At Muckanish or at the rocky shore
		Under Finvarra, but would break my neck
		If I went stumbling there alone in the dark.


STRANGER

		We know the pathways that the sheep tread out,
		And all the hiding-places of the hills,
		And that they had better hiding-places once.


YOUNG MAN

		You'd say they had better before English robbers
		Cut down the trees or set them upon fire
		For fear their owners might find shelter there.
		What is that sound?


STRANGER

		An old horse gone astray
		He has been wandering on the road all night.


YOUNG MAN

		I took him for a man and horse. Police
		Are out upon the roads. In the late Rising
		I think there was no man of us but hated
		To fire at soldiers who but did their duty
		And were not of our race, but when a man
		Is born in Ireland and of Irish stock
		When he takes part against us —


STRANGER

		I will put you safe,
		No living man shall set his eyes upon you.
		I will not answer for the dead.


YOUNG MAN

		The dead?


STRANGER

		For certain days the stones where you must lie
		Have in the hour before the break of day
		Been haunted.


YOUNG MAN

		But I was not born at midnight.


STRANGER

		Many a man born in the full daylight
		Can see them plain, will pass them on the high-road
		Or in the crowded market-place of the town,
		And never know that they have passed.


YOUNG MAN

		My Grandam
		Would have it they did penance everywhere
		Or lived through their old lives again.


STRANGER

		In a dream;
		And some for an old scruple must hang spitted
		Upon the swaying tops of lofty trees;
		Some are consumed in fire, some withered up
		By hail and sleet out of the wintry North,
		And some but live through their old lives again.


YOUNG MAN

		Well, let them dream into what shape they please
		And fill waste mountains with the invisible tumult
		Of the fantastic conscience. I have no dread;
		They cannot put me into jail or shoot me,
		And seeing that their blood has returned to fields
		That have grown red from drinking blood like mine
		They would not if they could betray.


STRANGER

		This pathway
		Runs to the ruined Abbey of Corcomroe;
		The Abbey passed, we are soon among the stone
		And shall be at the ridge before the cocks
		Of Aughanish or Bailevlehan
		Or grey Aughtmana shake their wings and cry.

		(They go round the stage once)


FIRST MUSICIAN

		(speaking) They've passed the shallow well and the flat stone
		Fouled by the drinking cattle, the narrow lane
		Where mourners for five centuries have carried
		Noble or peasant to his burial.
		An owl is crying out above their heads.
		(singing) Why should the heart take fright
		What sets it beating so?
		The bitter sweetness of the night
		Has made it but a lonely thing.
		Red bird of March, begin to crow,
		Up with the neck and clap the wing,
		Red cock, and crow.

		(They go once round the stage. The first musician speaks.)

		And now they have climbed through the long grassy field
		And passed the ragged thorn trees and the gap
		In the ancient hedge; and the tomb-nested owl
		At the foot's level beats with a vague wing.
		(singing) My head is in a cloud;
		I'd let the whole world go.
		My rascal heart is proud
		Remembering and remembering.
		Red bird of March, begin to crow,
		Up with the neck and clap the wing
		Red cock and crow.

		(They go round the stage. The first musician speaks.)

		They are among the stones above the ash
		Above the briar and thorn and the scarce grass;
		Hidden amid the shadow far below them
		The cat-headed bird is crying out.
		(singing) The dreaming bones cry out
		Because the night winds blow
		And heaven's a cloudy blot;
		Calamity can have its fling.
		Red bird of March begin to crow,
		Up with the neck and clap the wing
		Red cock and crow.


THE STRANGER

		We're almost at the summit and can rest.
		The road is a faint shadow there; and there
		The abbey lies amid its broken tombs.
		In the old days we should have heard a bell
		Calling the monks before day broke to pray;
		And when the day has broken on the ridge,
		The crowing of its cocks.


YOUNG MAN

		Is there no house
		Famous for sanctity or architectural beauty
		In Clare or Kerry, or in all wide Connacht
		The enemy has not unroofed?


STRANGER

		Close to the altar
		Broken by wind and frost and worn by time
		Donogh O'Brien has a tomb, a name in Latin.
		He wore fine clothes and knew the secrets of women
		But he rebelled against the King of Thomond
		And died in his youth.


YOUNG MAN

		And why should he rebel?
		The King of Thomond was his rightful master.
		It was men like Donogh who made Ireland weak —
		My curse on all that troop, and when I die
		I'll leave my body, if I have any choice,
		Far from his ivy tod and his owl; have those
		Who, if your tale is true, work out a penance
		Upon the mountain-top where I am to hide,
		Come from the Abbey graveyard?


THE GIRL

		They have not that luck,
		But are more lonely, those that are buried there,
		Warred in the heat of the blood; if they were rebels
		Some momentary impulse made them rebels
		Or the comandment of some petty king
		Who hated Thomond. Being but common sinners,
		No callers in of the alien from oversea
		They and their enemies of Thomond's party
		Mix in a brief dream battle above their bones,
		Or make one drove or drift in amity,
		Or in the hurry of the heavenly round
		Forget their earthly names; these are alone
		Being accursed.


YOUNG MAN

		And if what seems is true
		And there are more upon the other side
		Than on this side of death, many a ghost
		Must meet them face to face and pass the word
		Even upon this grey and desolate hill.


YOUNG GIRL

		Until this hour no ghost or living man
		Has spoken though seven centuries have run
		Since they, weary of life and of men's eyes,
		Flung down their bones in some forgotten place
		Being accursed.


YOUNG MAN

		I have heard that there are souls
		Who, having sinned after a monstrous fashion
		Take on them, being dead, a monstrous image




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