The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 4 of 8. The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement

FOOL

Do not stir! He asked for a sign that you might be saved. [All are silent for a moment.].. Look what has come from his mouth.. a little winged thing.. a little shining thing… It is gone to the door. [The ANGEL appears in the doorway, stretches out her hands and closes them again.] The Angel has taken it in her hands… She will open her hands in the Garden of Paradise.[They all kneel.

CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

Peter Gillane

Michael Gillane, his Son, going to be married

Patrick Gillane, a lad of twelve, Michael’s Brother

Bridget Gillane, Peter’s Wife

Delia Cahel, engaged to Michael

The Poor Old Woman

Neighbours

CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN

Interior of a cottage close to Killala, in 1798. BRIDGET is standing at a table undoing a parcel. PETER is sitting at one side of the fire, PATRICK at the other.

PETER

What is that sound I hear?

PATRICK

I don’t hear anything. [He listens.] I hear it now. It’s like cheering. [He goes to the window and looks out.] I wonder what they are cheering about. I don’t see anybody.

PETER

It might be a hurling.

PATRICK

There’s no hurling to-day. It must be down in the town the cheering is.

BRIDGET

I suppose the boys must be having some sport of their own. Come over here, Peter, and look at Michael’s wedding-clothes.

PETER [shifts his chair to table]

Those are grand clothes, indeed.

BRIDGET

You hadn’t clothes like that when you married me, and no coat to put on of a Sunday more than any other day.

PETER

That is true, indeed. We never thought a son of our own would be wearing a suit of that sort for his wedding, or have so good a place to bring a wife to.

PATRICK [who is still at the window]

There’s an old woman coming down the road. I don’t know is it here she is coming?

BRIDGET

It will be a neighbour coming to hear about Michael’s wedding. Can you see who it is?

PATRICK

I think it is a stranger, but she’s not coming to the house. She’s turned into the gap that goes down where Murteen and his sons are shearing sheep. [He turns towards BRIDGET.] Do you remember what Winny of the Cross Roads was saying the other night about the strange woman that goes through the country whatever time there’s war or trouble coming?

BRIDGET

Don’t be bothering us about Winny’s talk, but go and open the door for your brother. I hear him coming up the path.

PETER

I hope he has brought Delia’s fortune with him safe, for fear her people might go back on the bargain and I after making it. Trouble enough I had making it.

[PATRICK opens the door and MICHAEL comes in.BRIDGET

What kept you, Michael? We were looking out for you this long time.

MICHAEL

I went round by the priest’s house to bid him be ready to marry us to-morrow.

BRIDGET

Did he say anything?

MICHAEL

He said it was a very nice match, and that he was never better pleased to marry any two in his parish than myself and Delia Cahel.

PETER

Have you got the fortune, Michael?

MICHAEL

Here it is.

[MICHAEL puts bag on table and goes over and leans against chimney-jamb. BRIDGET, who has been all this time examining the clothes, pulling the seams and trying the lining of the pockets, etc., puts the clothes on the dresser.

PETER[Getting up and taking the bag in his hand and turning out the money.]

Yes, I made the bargain well for you, Michael. Old John Cahel would sooner have kept a share of this a while longer. ‘Let me keep the half of it until the first boy is born,’ says he. ‘You will not,’ says I. ‘Whether there is or is not a boy, the whole hundred pounds must be in Michael’s hands before he brings your daughter to the house.’ The wife spoke to him then, and he gave in at the end.

BRIDGET

You seem well pleased to be handling the money, Peter.

PETER

Indeed, I wish I had had the luck to get a hundred pounds, or twenty pounds itself, with the wife I married.

BRIDGET

Well, if I didn’t bring much I didn’t get much. What had you the day I married you but a flock of hens and you feeding them, and a few lambs and you driving them to the market at Ballina. [She is vexed and bangs a jug on the dresser.] If I brought no fortune I worked it out in my bones, laying down the baby, Michael that is standing there now, on a stook of straw, while I dug the potatoes, and never asking big dresses or anything but to be working.

PETER

That is true, indeed.

[He pats her arm.BRIDGET

Leave me alone now till I ready the house for the woman that is to come into it.

PETER

You are the best woman in Ireland, but money is good, too. [He begins handling the money again and sits down.] I never thought to see so much money within my four walls. We can do great things now we have it. We can take the ten acres of land we have a chance of since Jamsie Dempsey died, and stock it. We will go to the fair of Ballina to buy the stock. Did Delia ask any of the money for her own use, Michael?

MICHAEL

She did not, indeed. She did not seem to take much notice of it, or to look at it at all.

BRIDGET

That’s no wonder. Why would she look at it when she had yourself to look at, a fine, strong young man? it is proud she must be to get you; a good steady boy that will make use of the money, and not be running through it or spending it on drink like another.

PETER

It’s likely Michael himself was not thinking much of the fortune either, but of what sort the girl was to look at.

MICHAEL [coming over towards the table]

Well, you would like a nice comely girl to be beside you, and to go walking with you. The fortune only lasts for a while, but the woman will be there always.

PATRICK [turning round from the window]

They are cheering again down in the town. Maybe they are landing horses from Enniscrone. They do be cheering when the horses take the water well.

MICHAEL

There are no horses in it. Where would they be going and no fair at hand? Go down to the town, Patrick, and see what is going on.

PATRICK[Opens the door to go out, but stops for a moment on the threshold.]

Will Delia remember, do you think, to bring the greyhound pup she promised me when she would be coming to the house?

MICHAEL

She will surely.

[PATRICK goes out, leaving the door open.PETER

It will be Patrick’s turn next to be looking for a fortune, but he won’t find it so easy to get it and he with no place of his own.

BRIDGET

I do be thinking sometimes, now things are going so well with us, and the Cahels such a good back to us in the district, and Delia’s own uncle a priest, we might be put in the way of making Patrick a priest some day, and he so good at his books.

PETER

Time enough, time enough, you have always your head full of plans, Bridget.

BRIDGET

We will be well able to give him learning, and not to send him tramping the country like a poor scholar that lives on charity.

MICHAEL

They’re not done cheering yet.

[He goes over to the door and stands there for a moment, putting up his hand to shade his eyes.

BRIDGET

Do you see anything?

MICHAEL

I see an old woman coming up the path.

BRIDGET

Who is it, I wonder? It must be the strange woman Patrick saw a while ago.

MICHAEL

I don’t think it’s one of the neighbours anyway, but she has her cloak over her face.

BRIDGET

It might be some poor woman heard we were making ready for the wedding and came to look for her share.

PETER

I may as well put the money out of sight. There is no use leaving it out for every stranger to look at.

[He goes over to a large box in the corner, opens it and puts the bag in and fumbles at the lock.

MICHAEL

There she is, father! [An Old Woman passes the window slowly, she looks at MICHAEL as she passes.] I’d sooner a stranger not to come to the house the night before my wedding.

BRIDGET

Open the door, Michael; don’t keep the poor woman waiting.

[The OLD WOMAN comes in. MICHAEL stands aside to make way for her.

OLD WOMAN

God save all here!

PETER

God save you kindly!

OLD WOMAN

You have good shelter here.

PETER

You are welcome to whatever shelter we have.

BRIDGET

Sit down there by the fire and welcome.

OLD WOMAN [warming her hands]

There is a hard wind outside.

[MICHAEL watches her curiously from the door. PETER comes over to the table.

PETER

Have you travelled far to-day?

OLD WOMAN

I have travelled far, very far; there are few have travelled so far as myself, and there’s many a one that doesn’t make me welcome. There was one that had strong sons I thought were friends of mine, but they were shearing their sheep, and they wouldn’t listen to me.

PETER

It’s a pity indeed for any person to have no place of their own.

OLD WOMAN

That’s true for you indeed, and it’s long I’m on the roads since I first went wandering.

BRIDGET

It is a wonder you are not worn out with so much wandering.

OLD WOMAN

Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart. When the people see me quiet, they think old age has come on me and that all the stir has gone out of me. But when the trouble is on me I must be talking to my friends.

BRIDGET

What was it put you wandering?

OLD WOMAN

Too many strangers in the house.

BRIDGET

Indeed you look as if you’d had your share of trouble.

OLD WOMAN

I have had trouble indeed.

BRIDGET

What was it put the trouble on you?

OLD WOMAN

My land that was taken from me.

PETER

Was it much land they took from you?

OLD WOMAN

My four beautiful green fields.

PETER [aside to BRIDGET]

Do you think could she be the widow Casey that was put out of her holding at Kilglass a while ago?

BRIDGET

She is not. I saw the widow Casey one time at the market in Ballina, a stout fresh woman.

PETER [to OLD WOMAN]

Did you hear a noise of cheering, and you coming up the hill?

OLD WOMAN

I thought I heard the noise I used to hear when my friends came to visit me.

[She begins singing half to herself.I will go cry with the woman,For yellow-haired Donough is dead,With a hempen rope for a neckcloth,And a white cloth on his head, —MICHAEL [coming from the door]

What is that you are singing, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN

Singing I am about a man I knew one time, yellow-haired Donough that was hanged in Galway.

[She goes on singing, much louder.I am come to cry with you, woman,My hair is unwound and unbound;I remember him ploughing his field,Turning up the red side of the ground,And building his barn on the hillWith the good mortared stone;O! we’d have pulled down the gallowsHad it happened in Enniscrone!MICHAEL

What was it brought him to his death?

OLD WOMAN

He died for love of me: many a man has died for love of me.

PETER [aside to BRIDGET]

Her trouble has put her wits astray.

MICHAEL

Is it long since that song was made? Is it long since he got his death?

OLD WOMAN

Not long, not long. But there were others that died for love of me a long time ago.

MICHAEL

Were they neighbours of your own, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN

Come here beside me and I’ll tell you about them. [MICHAEL sits down beside her at the hearth.] There was a red man of the O’Donnells from the north, and a man of the O’Sullivans from the south, and there was one Brian that lost his life at Clontarf by the sea, and there were a great many in the west, some that died hundreds of years ago, and there are some that will die to-morrow.

MICHAEL

Is it in the west that men will die to-morrow?

OLD WOMAN

Come nearer, nearer to me.

BRIDGET

Is she right, do you think? Or is she a woman from beyond the world?

PETER

She doesn’t know well what she’s talking about, with the want and the trouble she has gone through.

BRIDGET

The poor thing, we should treat her well.

PETER

Give her a drink of milk and a bit of the oaten cake.

BRIDGET

Maybe we should give her something along with that, to bring her on her way. A few pence or a shilling itself, and we with so much money in the house.

PETER

Indeed I’d not begrudge it to her if we had it to spare, but if we go running through what we have, we’ll soon have to break the hundred pounds, and that would be a pity.

BRIDGET

Shame on you, Peter. Give her the shilling and your blessing with it, or our own luck will go from us.

[PETER goes to the box and takes out a shilling.BRIDGET [to the OLD WOMAN]

Will you have a drink of milk, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN

It is not food or drink that I want.

PETER [offering the shilling]

Here is something for you.

OLD WOMAN

This is not what I want. It is not silver I want.

PETER

What is it you would be asking for?

OLD WOMAN

If anyone would give me help he must give me himself, he must give me all.

[PETER goes over to the table staring at the shilling in his hand in a bewildered way, and stands whispering to BRIDGET.

MICHAEL

Have you no one to care you in your age, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN

I have not. With all the lovers that brought me their love, I never set out the bed for any.

MICHAEL

Are you lonely going the roads, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN

I have my thoughts and I have my hopes.

MICHAEL

What hopes have you to hold to?

OLD WOMAN

The hope of getting my beautiful fields back again; the hope of putting the strangers out of my house.

MICHAEL

What way will you do that, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN

I have good friends that will help me. They are gathering to help me now. I am not afraid. If they are put down to-day they will get the upper hand to-morrow. [She gets up.] I must be going to meet my friends. They are coming to help me and I must be there to welcome them. I must call the neighbours together to welcome them.

MICHAEL

I will go with you.

BRIDGET

It is not her friends you have to go and welcome, Michael; it is the girl coming into the house you have to welcome. You have plenty to do, it is food and drink you have to bring to the house. The woman that is coming home is not coming with empty hands; you would not have an empty house before her. [To the OLD WOMAN.] Maybe you don’t know, ma’am, that my son is going to be married to-morrow.

OLD WOMAN

It is not a man going to his marriage that I look to for help.

PETER [to BRIDGET]

Who is she, do you think, at all?

BRIDGET

You did not tell us your name yet, ma’am.

OLD WOMAN

Some call me the Poor Old Woman, and there are some that call me Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.

PETER

I think I knew someone of that name once. Who was it, I wonder? It must have been someone I knew when I was a boy. No, no; I remember, I heard it in a song.

OLD WOMAN[Who is standing in the doorway.]

They are wondering that there were songs made for me; there have been many songs made for me. I heard one on the wind this morning.

[Sings.] Do not make a great keeningWhen the graves have been dug to-morrow.Do not call the white-scarfed ridersTo the burying that shall be to-morrow.Do not spread food to call strangersTo the wakes that shall be to-morrow;Do not give money for prayersFor the dead that shall die to-morrow.

they will have no need of prayers, they will have no need of prayers.

MICHAEL

I do not know what that song means, but tell me something I can do for you.

PETER

Come over to me, Michael.

MICHAEL

Hush, father, listen to her.

OLD WOMAN

It is a hard service they take that help me. Many that are red-cheeked now will be pale-cheeked; many that have been free to walk the hills and the bogs and the rushes, will be sent to walk hard streets in far countries; many a good plan will be broken; many that have gathered money will not stay to spend it; many a child will be born and there will be no father at its christening to give it a name. They that had red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake; and for all that, they will think they are well paid.

[She goes out; her voice is heard outside singing.They shall be remembered for ever,They shall be alive for ever,They shall be speaking for ever,The people shall hear them for ever.BRIDGET [to PETER]

Look at him, Peter; he has the look of a man that has got the touch. [Raising her voice.] Look here, Michael, at the wedding clothes. Such grand clothes as these are! You have a right to fit them on now, it would be a pity to-morrow if they did not fit. The boys would be laughing at you. Take them, Michael, and go into the room and fit them on.

[She puts them on his arm.MICHAEL

What wedding are you talking of? What clothes will I be wearing to-morrow?

BRIDGET

These are the clothes you are going to wear when you marry Delia Cahel to-morrow.

MICHAEL

I had forgotten that.

[He looks at the clothes and turns towards the inner room, but stops at the sound of cheering outside.

PETER

There is the shouting come to our own door. What is it has happened?

[Neighbours come crowding in, PATRICK and DELIA with them.

PATRICK

There are ships in the Bay; the French are landing at Killala!

[PETER takes his pipe from his mouth and his hat off and stands up. The clothes slip from MICHAEL’S arm.

DELIA

Michael! [He takes no notice.] Michael! [He turns towards her.] Why do you look at me like a stranger?

[She drops his arm. BRIDGET goes over towards her.PATRICK

The boys are all hurrying down the hill-sides to join the French.

DELIA

Michael won’t be going to join the French.

BRIDGET [to PETER]

Tell him not to go, Peter.

PETER

It’s no use. He doesn’t hear a word we’re saying.

BRIDGET

Try and coax him over to the fire.

DELIA

Michael, Michael! You won’t leave me! You won’t join the French, and we going to be married!

[She puts her arms about him, he turns towards her as if about to yield.OLD WOMAN’S voice outsideThey shall be speaking for ever,The people shall hear them for ever.

[MICHAEL breaks away from DELIA, stands for a second at the door, then rushes out, following the OLD WOMAN’S voice. BRIDGET takes DELIA, who is crying silently, into her arms.

PETER[To PATRICK, laying a hand on his arm.]

Did you see an old woman going down the path?

PATRICK

I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen.

THE GOLDEN HELMET

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

Cuchulain

Leagerie

Conal

Emer, Cuchulain’s wife

Leagerie’s Wife

Conal’s Wife

Laeg, Cuchulain’s chariot-driver

Red Man

Horseboys and Scullions

Three Black Men

THE GOLDEN HELMET

A house made of logs. There are two windows at the back and a door which cuts off one of the corners of the room. Through the door one can see rocks, which make the ground outside the door higher than it is within, and the sea. Through the windows one can see nothing but the sea. There are three great chairs at the opposite side to the door, with a table before them. There are cups and a flagon of ale on the table.

At the Abbey Theatre the house is orange red, and the chairs, tables and flagons black, with a slight purple tinge which is not clearly distinguishable from the black. The rocks are black, with a few green touches. The sea is green and luminous, and all the characters, except the RED MAN and the Black Men are dressed in various tints of green, one or two with touches of purple which looks nearly black. The Black Men are in dark purple and the RED MAN is altogether dressed in red. He is very tall and his height is increased by horns on the Golden Helmet. The Helmet has in reality more dark green than gold about it. The Black Men have cats’ heads painted on their black cloth caps. The effect is intentionally violent and startling.

CONAL

Not a sail, not a wave, and if the sea were not purring a little like a cat, not a sound. There is no danger yet. I can see a long way for the moonlight is on the sea.

[A horn sounds.LEAGERIE

Ah, there is something.

CONAL

It must be from the land, and it is from the sea that danger comes. We need not be afraid of anything that comes from the land. [Looking out of door.] I cannot see anybody, the rocks and the trees hide a great part of the pathway upon that side.

LEAGERIE [sitting at table]

It sounded like Cuchulain’s horn, but that’s not possible.

CONAL

Yes, that’s impossible. He will never come home from Scotland. He has all he wants there. Luck in all he does. Victory and wealth and happiness flowing in on him, while here at home all goes to rack, and a man’s good name drifts away between night and morning.

LEAGERIE

I wish he would come home for all that, and put quiet and respect for those that are more than she is into that young wife of his. Only this very night your wife and my wife had to forbid her to go into the dining-hall before them. She is young, and she is Cuchulain’s wife, and so she must spread her tail like a peacock.

CONAL [at door]

I can see the horn-blower now, a young man wrapped in a cloak.

LEAGERIE

Do not let him come in. Tell him to go elsewhere for shelter. This is no place to seek shelter in.

CONAL

That is right. I will tell him to go away, for nobody must know the disgrace that is to fall upon Ireland this night.

LEAGERIE

Nobody of living men but us two must ever know that.

CONAL [outside door]

Go away, go away!

[A YOUNG MAN covered by a long cloak is standing upon the rocks outside door.YOUNG MAN

I am a traveller, and I am looking for sleep and food.

CONAL

A law has been made that nobody is to come into this house to-night.

YOUNG MAN

Who made that law?

CONAL

We two made it, and who has so good a right? for we have to guard this house and to keep it from robbery, and from burning and from enchantment.

YOUNG MAN

Then I will unmake the law. Out of my way!

[He struggles with CONAL and shoves past into the house.CONAL

I thought no living man but Leagerie could have stood against me; and Leagerie himself could not have shoved past me. What is more, no living man could if I were not taken by surprise. How could I expect to find so great a strength?

LEAGERIE

Go out of this: there is another house a little further along the shore; our wives are there with their servants, and they will give you food and drink.

YOUNG MAN

It is in this house I will have food and drink.

LEAGERIE [drawing his sword]

Go out of this, or I will make you.

[The YOUNG MAN seizes LEAGERIE’S arm, and thrusting it up, passes him, and puts his shield over the chair where there is an empty place.

YOUNG MAN [at table]

It is here I will spend the night, but I won’t tell you why till I have drunk. I am thirsty. What, the flagon full and the cups empty and Leagerie and Conal there! Why, what’s in the wind that Leagerie and Conal cannot drink?

LEAGERIE

It is Cuchulain.

CONAL

Better go away to Scotland again, or if you stay here ask no one what has happened or what is going to happen.

CUCHULAIN

What more is there that can happen so strange as that I should come home after years and that you should bid me begone?

CONAL

I tell you that this is no fit house to welcome you, for it is a disgraced house.

CUCHULAIN

What is it you are hinting at? You were sitting there with ale beside you and the door open, and quarrelsome thoughts. You are waiting for something or someone. It is for some messenger who is to bring you to some spoil, or to some adventure that you will keep for yourselves.

LEAGERIE

Better tell him, for he has such luck that it may be his luck will amend ours.

CONAL

Yes, I had better tell him, for even now at this very door we saw what luck he had. He had the slope of the ground to help him. Is the sea quiet?

LEAGERIE [looks out of window]

There is nothing stirring.

CONAL

Cuchulain, a little after you went out of this country we were sitting here drinking. We were merry. It was late, close on to midnight, when a strange-looking man with red hair and a great sword in his hand came in through that door. He asked for ale and we gave it to him, for we were tired of drinking with one another. He became merry, and for every joke we made he made a better, and presently we all three got up and danced, and then we sang, and then he said he would show us a new game. He said he would stoop down and that one of us was to cut off his head, and afterwards one of us, or whoever had a mind for the game, was to stoop down and have his head whipped off. ‘You take off my head,’ said he, ‘and then I take off his head, and that will be a bargain and a debt between us. A head for a head, that is the game,’ said he. We laughed at him and told him he was drunk, for how could he whip off a head when his own had been whipped off? Then he began abusing us and calling us names, so I ran at him and cut his head off, and the head went on laughing where it lay, and presently he caught it up in his hands and ran out and plunged into the sea.