FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 itfH 
 
 W.B.YEATS
 
 ^^^>l---<----«!t,--.<-t?C^^ i^'<---'t^'--J.fl*-'0-^^ 
 
 i
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS
 
 •The 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO - DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 FOUR PLAY 
 FOR DANCER 
 
 BY 
 
 W. B. YEATS 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1921 
 
 All rights resened
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 Copyright, 1921, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1921. 
 
 FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY 
 NEW YORK
 
 SRL£ 
 URC 
 
 r 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Two of these plays must be opened by the unfolding 
 and folding of the cloth, a substitute for the rising of 
 the curtain, and all must be closed by it. The others, 
 "The Dreaming of the Bones" and "Calvary," should 
 have the same opening, unless played after plays of the 
 same kind, when it may seem a needless repetition. All 
 must be played to the accompaniment of drum and 
 zither and flute, but on no account must the words be 
 spoken "through music" in the fashionable way; and 
 the players must move a little stifily and gravely like 
 marionettes and, I think, to the accompaniment of drum 
 taps. I felt, however, during the performance of "The 
 Hawk's Well," the only one played up to this, that 
 there was much to discover. Should I make a serious 
 attempt, which I may not, being rather tired of the 
 theatre, to arrange and supervise performances, the 
 dancing will give me most trouble, for I know but 
 vaguely what I want. I do not want any existing form 
 of stage dancing, but something with a smaller gamut 
 of expression, something more reserved, more self- 
 controlled, as befits performers within arm's reach of 
 their audience. 
 
 The designs by Mr. Dulac represent the masks and 
 costumes used in the first performance of "The Hawk's 
 
 v
 
 vi FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Well." The beautiful mask of Cuchulain may, I think, 
 serve for Dervorgilla, and if I write plays and organ- 
 ize performances on any scale and with any system, 
 I shall hope for a small number of typical masks, each 
 capable of use in several plays. The face of the speaker 
 should be as much a work of art as the lines that he 
 speaks or the costume that he wears, that all may be 
 as artificial as possible. Perhaps in the end one would 
 write plays for certain masks. If some fine sculptor 
 should create for my "Calvary," for instance, the masks 
 of Judas, of Lazarus, and of Christ, would not this 
 suggest other plays now, or many generations from 
 now, and possess one cannot tell what philosophical 
 virility? The mask, apart from its beauty, may sug- 
 gest new situations at a moment when the old ones 
 seem exhausted; "The Only Jealousy of Emer" was 
 written to find what dramatic effect one could get out 
 of a mask, changed while the player remains upon the 
 stage to suggest a change of personality. At the end 
 of this book there is some music by Mr. Rummel, 
 which my friends tell me is both difficult and beautiful 
 for "The Dreaming of the Bones." It will require, 
 I am told, either a number of flutes of which the flute- 
 player will pick now one, now another, or an elaborate 
 modern flute which would not look in keeping. I pre- 
 fer the first suggestion. I notice that Mr. Rummel 
 has written no music for the dance, and I have some 
 vague memory that when we talked it over in Paris he 
 felt that he could not without the dancer's help. There 
 is also music for "The Hawk's Well" by Mr, Dulac,
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 which is itself an exposition of method, for it was writ- 
 ten after a number of rehearsals and for instruments 
 that have great pictorial effect. 
 
 "The Dreaming of the Bones" and "The Only Jeal- 
 ousy of Emer," bound together as Two Plays for Danc- 
 ers, were printed on my sister's hand-press at Dundrum, 
 County Dublin, and published in a limited edition in the 
 spring of 19 19, while "At the Hawk's Well" makes 
 a part of the edition of The JVild Swans at Coole, 
 printed at the same press in 19 17, though not of the 
 later edition of that book published by Macmillan. "At 
 the Hawk's Well" and "The Only Jealousy of Emer" 
 are the first and last plays of a series of four dealing 
 with Cuchulain's life. The others are my "Green 
 Helmet" and "Baile's Strand." "Calvary" has not 
 hitherto been published. 
 
 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" ; but 
 neither that nor any of these plays could have existed 
 if Mr. Edmond Dulac had not taught me the value and 
 beauty of the mask and rediscovered how to design and 
 make it. 
 
 W. B. YEATS. 
 
 July 1920.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 At the Hawk's Well .... 
 The Only Jealousy of Emer . 
 The Dreaming of the Bones . 
 
 Calvary 
 
 Note on the First Performance of "At 
 
 Hawk's Well" 
 
 Music for "At the Hawk's Well" . 
 Note on "The Only Jealousy of Emer" 
 Music for "The Dreaming of the Bones" 
 Note on "The Dreaming of the Bones" . 
 Note on "Calvary" 
 
 the 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 51 
 69 
 
 83 
 89 
 103 
 107 
 127 
 133 
 
 IX
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Guardian of the Well in "At the Hawk's 
 
 Well" ....... Frontispiece 
 
 Design for Black Cloth used in "At the Hawk's We 
 Musician in "At the Hawk's Well" 
 Old Man in "At the Hawk's Well" . 
 Mask for Old Man in "At the Hawk's Well" . 
 Mask for Young Man in "At the Hawk's Well" 
 Young Man in "At the Hawk's Well" . 
 
 1" 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 13 
 
 15 
 
 XI
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL
 
 PERSONS OF THE PLAY 
 
 Three Musicians {tlieir faces made up to resemble 
 
 masks) . 
 The Guardian of the Well {ziitJi face made up to 
 
 resemble a mask) . 
 An Old Man {wearing a mask). 
 A Young Man {wearing a mask). 
 
 The Time — the Irish Heroic Age. 
 
 The stage is any bare space before a wall against 
 which stands a patterned screen. A drum nnd a gong 
 and a zither have been laid close to the screen before 
 the play begins. If necessary, they can be carried in, 
 after the audience is seated, by the First .Musician, who 
 also can attend to the lights if there is any special light- 
 ing. JVe had two lanterns upon posts — designed by 
 Mr. Dulac — at the outer corners of the stage, but they 
 did not give enough light, and we found it better to 
 play by the light of a large chandelier. Indeed I think, 
 so far as my present experience goes, that the most 
 effective lighting is the lighting we are most accustomed 
 to in our rooms. These masked players seem stranger 
 when there is no mechanical means of separating them 
 from us. The First Musician carries with him a folded 
 black cloth and goes to the centre of the stage towards 
 the front and stands motionless, the folded cloth 
 hanging from between his hands. The two musicians 
 enter and, after standing a moment at either side of the 
 
 3
 
 4 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 stage, go towards him and slowly unfold the cloth, 
 singing as they do so; 
 
 c-5^ I call to the eye of the mind 
 
 A well long choked up and dry 
 
 And boughs long stripped by the wind, 
 
 And I call to the mind's eye 
 
 Pallor of an ivory face, 
 
 Its lofty dissolute air, 
 
 A man climbing up to a place 
 
 The salt sea wind has swept bare. 
 
 As they unfold the cloth, they go backward a little 
 so that the stretched cloth and the wall make a triangle 
 
 Design for Black Cloth used in "At the Hawk's Well." 
 with the First Musician at the apex supporting the 
 centre of the cloth. On the black cloth is a gold pattern 
 suggesting a hawk. The Second and Third Musicians 
 now slowly fold up the cloth again, pacing with a 
 rhythmic movement of the arms towards the First 
 Musician and singing:
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 5 
 
 What were his life soon done ! 
 Would he lose by that or win? 
 A mother that saw her son 
 Doubled over a speckled shin, 
 Cross-grained with ninety years, 
 Would cry, "How little worth 
 Were all my hopes and fears 
 And the hard pain of his birth!" 
 
 The words ''a speckled shin" are familiar to readers 
 of Irish legendary stories in descriptions of old men bent 
 double over the fire. While the cloth has been spread 
 out, the Guardian of the Well has entered and is now 
 crouching upon the ground. She is entirely covered by 
 a black cloak. The three musicians have taken their 
 places against the wall beside their instruments of 
 music; they will accompany the movements of the 
 players with gong or drum or zither. 
 
 First Musician {singing) 
 
 The boughs of the hazel shake, 
 The sun goes down In the west. 
 
 Second Musician {singing) 
 
 The heart would be always awake. 
 The heart would turn to its rest. 
 
 {They now go to one side of the stage rolling up 
 the cloth. A Girl has taken her place by a square blue 
 cloth representing a well. She is motionless.)
 
 U-'- 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 First Musician {speaking) 
 
 Night falls; 
 
 The mountain-side grows dark; 
 
 The withered leaves of the hazel 
 
 Half-choke the dry bed of the well; 
 
 The guardian of the well is sitting 
 
 Upon the old grey stone at its side, 
 
 iWorn out from raking its dry bed, 
 
 Worn out from gathering up the leaves. 
 
 Her heavy eyes 
 
 Know nothing, or but look upon stone. 
 
 The wind that blows out of the sea 
 
 Turns over the heaped-up leaves at her side; 
 
 They rustle and diminish. 
 
 Second Musician 
 I am afraid of this place. 
 
 Both Musicians {singing) 
 
 "Why should I sleep," the heart cries, 
 "For the wind, the salt wind, the sea wind 
 Is beating a cloud through the skies; 
 I would wander always like the wind." 
 {An Old Man enters through the audience.) 
 
 First Musician {speaking) 
 
 That old man climbs up hither. 
 Who has been watching by his well 
 These fifty years.
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 
 
 Musician in "At the Hawk's Well."
 
 8 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 He is all doubled up with age; 
 The old thorn-trees are doubled so 
 Among the rocks where he is climbing. 
 
 ( The Old Man stands for a moment motionless by 
 the side of the stage ivith bowed head. He lifts his 
 head at the sound of a drum tap. He goes toivards 
 the front of the stage moving to the taps of the drum. 
 He crouches and moves his hands as if making a fire. 
 His movements , like those of the other persons of the 
 play, suggest a marionette.) 
 
 First Musician (speaking) 
 
 He has made a little heap of leaves; 
 He lays the dry sticks on the leaves 
 And, shivering with cold, he has taken up 
 The fire-stick and socket from its hole.^ 
 He whirls it round to get a flame; 
 And now the dry sticks take the fire 
 And now the fire leaps up and shines 
 Upon the hazels and the empty well. 
 
 Musicians (singing) 
 
 '^"O wind, O salt wind, O sea wind!" 
 Cries the heart, "it is time to sleep; 
 Why wander and nothing to find? 
 Better grow old and sleep." 
 
 Old Man (speaking) 
 Why don't you speak to me? Why don't you say 
 "Are you not weary gathering those sticks? 
 Are not your fingers cold?" You have not one word. 
 While yesterday you spoke three times. You said:
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 
 
 n 
 
 Old Man in "At the Hawk's Well."
 
 lO 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 "The well is full of hazel leaves." You said: 
 "The wind is from the west." i\nd after that: 
 "If there is rain it's likely there'll be mud." 
 To-day you are as stupid as a fish, 
 No, worse, worse, being less lively and as dumb. 
 {He goes nearer.) 
 
 Mask for Old Man in "At tKe Hawk's Well." 
 
 Your eyes are dazed and heavy. If the Sidhe 
 
 Must have a guardian to clean out the well 
 
 And drive the cattle off, they might choose somebody 
 
 That can be pleasant and companionable 
 
 Once in the day. Why do you stare like that? 
 
 You had that glassy look about the eyes 
 
 Last time it happened. Do you know anything?
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL ii 
 
 It is enough to drive an old man crazy 
 To look all day upon these broken rocks, 
 And ragged thorns, and that one stupid face, 
 And speak and get no answer. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 {zvho has entered through the audience during the last 
 speech) 
 
 Then speak to me, 
 For youth is not more patient than old age; 
 And though I have trod the rocks for half a day 
 I cannot find what I am looking for. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 Who speaks? 
 Who comes so suddenly into this place 
 Where nothing thrives? If I may judge by the gold 
 On head and feet and glittering in your coat, 
 You are not of those who hate the living world. 
 
 Young Man 
 [ am named Cuchulain, I am Sualtam's son. 
 
 Old Man 
 I have never heard that name. 
 
 Cuchulain 
 
 It is not unknown. 
 I have an ancient house beyond the sea.
 
 12 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Old Man 
 
 What mischief brings you hither, you are lilce those 
 Who are crazy for the shedding of men's blood, 
 And for the love of women? 
 
 Young Man 
 
 A rumour has led me, 
 A story told over the wine towards dawn. 
 
 Mask for Young Man in "At the Hawk's Well." 
 
 I rose from table, found a boat, spread sail 
 And with a lucky wind under the sail 
 Crossed waves that have seemed charmed, and found 
 this shore. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 There Is no house to sacl<: among these hills 
 Nor beautiful woman to be carried off.
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 13 
 
 Young Man 
 
 You should be native here, for that rough tongue 
 
 Matches the barbarous spot. You can, it may be, 
 
 Lead me to what I seek, a well wherein 
 
 Three hazels drop their nuts and withered leaves, 
 
 And where a solitary girl keeps watch 
 
 Among grey boulders. He who drinks, they say. 
 
 Of that miraculous water lives for ever. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 And are there not before your eyes at the instant 
 Grey boulders and a solitary girl 
 And three stripped hazels? 
 
 Young Man 
 
 But there is no well. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 Can you see nothing yonder? 
 
 Young Man 
 
 I but see 
 A hollow among stones half-full of leaves. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 And do you think so great a gift Is found 
 By no more toil than spreading out a sail. 
 And climbing a steep hill? Oh, folly of youth, 
 Why should that hollow place fill up for you,
 
 14 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 That will not fill for me? I have lain in wait 
 For more than fifty years to find It empty, 
 Or but to find the stupid wind of the sea 
 Drive round the perishable leaves. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 So It seems 
 There Is some moment when the water fills It. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 A secret moment that the holy shades 
 
 That dance upon the desolate mountam know, 
 
 And not a living man, and when It comes 
 
 The water has scarce plashed before It Is gone. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 I win stand here and wait. Why should the luck 
 Of Sualtam's son desert him now? For never 
 Have I had long to wait for anything. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 No ! Go from this accursed place, this place 
 Belongs to me, that girl there and those others, 
 Deceivers of men. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 And who are you who rail 
 Upon those dancers that all others bless?
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 
 
 15 
 
 Young Man in "At the Hawk's Well."
 
 i6 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Old Man 
 
 One whom the dancers cheat, I came like you 
 When young in body and in mind, and blown 
 By what had seemed to me a lucky sail. 
 The well was dry, I sat upon- its edge, 
 I waited the miraculous flood, I waited 
 While the years passed and withered me away. 
 I have snared the birds for food and eaten grass 
 And drunk the rain, and neither in dark nor shine 
 Wandered too far away to have heard the plash, 
 And yet the dancers have deceived me. Thrice 
 I have awakened from a sudden sleep 
 To find the stones were wet. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 My luck is strong. 
 It will not leave me waiting, nor will they 
 That dance among the stones put me asleep; 
 If I grow drowsy I can pierce my foot. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 No, do not pierce it, for the foot is tender. 
 It feels pain much. But find your sail again 
 And leave the well to me, for it belongs 
 To all that's old and withered. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 No, I stay. 
 {The Girl gives the cry of the Jia'uk.) 
 There is that bird again.
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 17 
 
 Old Man 
 
 There is no bird. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 It sounded like the sudden cry of a hawk, 
 
 But there's no wing in sight. As I came hither 
 
 A great grey hawk swept down out of the sky, 
 
 And though I have good hawks, the best in the world 
 
 I had fancied, I have not seen its like. It flew 
 
 As though it would have torn me with its beak, 
 
 Or blinded me, smiting with that great wing. 
 
 1 had to draw my sword to drive it off, 
 
 And after that it flew from rock to rock. 
 
 I pelted it with stones, a good half-hour. 
 
 And just before I had turned the big rock there 
 
 And seen this place, it seemed to vanish away. 
 
 Could I but find a means to bring it down 
 
 I'd hood it. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 The woman of the Sidhe herself, 
 The mountain witch, the unappeasable shadow, 
 She is always flitting upon this mountain-side. 
 To allure or to destroy. When she has shown 
 Herself to the fierce women of the hills 
 Under that shape they offer sacrifice 
 And arm for battle. There falls a curse 
 On all who have gazed in her unmoistened eyes; 
 So get you gone while you have that proud step 
 And confident voice, for not a man alive 
 Has so much luck that he can play with it. 
 
 C
 
 1 8 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Those that have long to. live should fear her most, 
 
 The old are cursed already. That curse may be 
 
 Never to win a woman's love and keep it; 
 
 Or always to mix hatred in the love; 
 
 Or it may be that she will kill your children, 
 
 That you will find them, their throats torn and bloody, 
 
 Or you will be so- maddened that you kill them 
 
 With your own hand. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 Have you been set down there 
 To threaten all who come, and scare them off? 
 You seem as dried up as the leaves and sticks, 
 As though you had no part in life. 
 
 {Girl gives hawk cry again.) 
 
 That cry! 
 There Is that cry again. That woman made It, 
 But why does she cry out as the hawk cries? 
 
 Old Man 
 
 It was her mouth, and yet not she, that cried. 
 It was that shadow cried behind her mouth; 
 And now I know why she has been so stupid 
 All the day through, and had such heavy eyes. 
 Look at her shivering now, the terrible life 
 Is slipping through her veins. She is possessed. 
 Who knows whom she will murder or betray 
 Before she awakes In Ignorance of It all, 
 And gathers up the leaves! But they'll be. wet;
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 19 
 
 The water will have come and gone again; 
 That shivering Is the sign. Oh, get you gone, 
 At any moment now I shall hear It bubble. 
 If you are good you will leave It. I am old. 
 And If I do not drink It now, will never; 
 I have been watching all my life and maybe 
 Only a little cupful will bubble up. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 I'll take It in my hands. We shall both drink. 
 And even If there are but a few drops, 
 Share them. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 But swear that I may drink the first; 
 The young are greedy, and If you drink the first 
 You'll drink It all. Ah, you have looked at her; 
 She has felt your gaze and turned her eyes on us; 
 I cannot bear her eyes, they are not of this world, 
 Nor moist, nor faltering; they are no girl's eyes. 
 
 {He covers his head. The Guardian of the Well 
 throws off her cloak and rises. Her dress tinder the 
 cloak suggests a hawk.) 
 
 Young Man 
 
 Why do you gaze upon me with the eyes of a hawk? 
 I am not afraid of you, bird, woman, or witch. 
 
 {He goes to the side of the well, which the Guardian 
 of the Well has left.)
 
 20 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Do what you will, I shall not leave this place 
 Till I have grown immortal like yourself. 
 
 {He has sat down, the Girl has begun to dance, 
 moving like a hawk. The Old Man sleeps. The dance 
 goes on for some time.) 
 
 q/- First Musician {singing or half-singing) 
 
 O God protect me 
 
 From a horrible deathless body 
 
 Sliding through the veins of a sudden. 
 
 ( The dance goes on for some time. TJie Young 
 Alan rises slowly.) 
 
 1^ First Musician {speaking) 
 
 The madness has laid hold upon him now, 
 For he grows pale and staggers to his feet. 
 
 {The dance goes on.) 
 
 Young Man 
 
 Run where you will, 
 
 Grey bird, you shall be perched upon my wrist. 
 Some were called queens and yet have been perched 
 there. 
 
 {The dance goes on.) 
 
 First Musician {speaking) 
 
 I have heard water plash; it comes, it comes; 
 
 It glitters among the stones and he has heard the plash; 
 
 Look, he has turned his head. 
 
 ( The Hawk has gone out. The Young Man drops 
 his spear as if in a dream and goes out.)
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 21 
 
 "^ Musicians {singing) 
 
 He has lost what may not be found 
 Till men heap his burial mound 
 And all the history ends. 
 He might have lived at his ease, 
 An old dog's head on his knees, 
 Among his children and friends. 
 {The Old Man creeps up to the well.) 
 
 Old Man 
 
 The accursed shadows have deluded me, 
 The stones are dark and yet the well is empty; 
 The water flowed and emptied while I slept; 
 You have deluded me my whole life through. 
 Accursed dancers, you have stolen my life. 
 That there should be such evil in a shadow. 
 
 Young Man {entering) 
 She has fled from me and hidden in the rocks. 
 
 Old Man 
 
 She has but led you from the fountain. Look! 
 The stones and leaves are dark where it has flowed, 
 Yet there is not a drop to drink. 
 
 {The Musicians cry "EofeF' "Eofer and strike 
 gong.) 
 
 Young Man 
 
 What are those cries? 
 What is that sound that runs along the hill? 
 Who are they that beat a sword upon a shield?
 
 2 2 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Old Man 
 
 She has roused up the fierce women of the hills, 
 Eofe, and all her troop, to take your life, 
 And never till you are lying in the earth, 
 Can you know rest. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 The clash of arms again I 
 
 Old Man 
 
 Oh, do not go! The mountain Is accursed; 
 Stay with me, I have nothing more to lose, 
 I do not now deceive you. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 I will face them. 
 
 {He goes out no longer as if in a dream, but 
 shouldering his spear and calling) 
 
 He comes! Cuchulain, son of Sualtam, comes! 
 
 {The Musicians stand up, one goes to centre with 
 folded cloth. The others unfold it. While they do 
 so they sing. During the singing, and while hidden by 
 the cloth, the Old Alan goes out. When the play is 
 performed with Mr. Dulac's music, the Musicians do 
 not rise or unfold the cloth till after they have sung 
 the words "a bitter hfe.")
 
 AT THE HAWK'S WELL 23 
 
 {Songs for the unfolding and folding of the cloth.) 
 
 •y^ Come to me, human faces, 
 Familiar memories; 
 I have found hateful eyes 
 Among the desolate places, 
 Unfaltering, unmoistened eyes. 
 
 Folly alone I cherish, 
 
 I choose it for my share, 
 
 Being but a mouthful of air, 
 
 I am content to perish, 
 
 I am but a mouthful of sweet air. 
 
 lamentable shadows. 
 Obscurity of strife, 
 
 1 choose a pleasant life, 
 Among indolent meadows; 
 Wisdom must live a bitter life. 
 
 {They then fold up the cloth, again singing.) 
 
 "The man that I praise," 
 
 Cries out the empty well, 
 
 *'Lives all his days 
 
 Where a hand on the bell 
 
 Can call the milch cows 
 
 To the comfortable door of his house. 
 
 Who but an idiot would praise 
 
 Dry stones in a well?" 
 
 "The man that I praise," 
 Cries out the leafless tree.
 
 24 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 "Has married and stays 
 
 By an old hearth, and he 
 
 On naught has set store 
 
 But children and dogs on the floor. 
 
 Who but an idiot would praise 
 
 A withered tree?" 
 
 {They go out.) ~^
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 
 
 25
 
 PERSONS OF THE PLAY 
 
 Three Musicians {their faces made up to resemble 
 
 masks) . 
 The Ghost of Cuchulain (wearing a mask). 
 The Figure of Cuchulain {wearing a mask). 
 Emer {masked, or their faces made up to 
 
 ElTHNE Inguba resemble masks). 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe {wearing a mask). 
 
 Enter Musicians, who are dressed and made up as 
 in ''At the Hawk's Well." They have the same 
 musical instruments, which can either be already upon 
 the stage or be brought in by the First Musician before 
 he stands in the centre with the cloth between his hands, 
 or by a player when the cloth is unfolded. The stage 
 as before can be against the wall of any room, and the 
 black cloth is used as in "At the Hawk's Well." 
 
 {Song for the folding and unfolding of the cloth.) 
 
 First Musician 
 
 A woman's beauty Is like a white 
 Frail bird, like a white sea-bird alone 
 At daybreak after stormy night 
 Between two furrows upon the ploughed land: 
 A sudden storm and it was thrown 
 Between dark furrows upon the ploughed land. 
 
 27
 
 28 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 How many centuries spent 
 The sedentary soul 
 In toils of measurement 
 Beyond eagle or mole, 
 Beyond hearing or seeing, 
 Or Archimedes guess, 
 To raise into being 
 That loveliness? 
 
 A strange unserviceable thing, 
 
 A fragile, exquisite, pale shell. 
 
 That the vast troubled waters bring 
 
 To the loud sands before day has broken. 
 
 The storm arose and suddenly fell 
 
 Amid the dark before day had broken. 
 
 What death? what discipline? 
 
 What bonds no man could unbind 
 
 Being imagined within 
 
 The labyrinth of the mind, 
 
 What pursuing or fleeing. 
 
 What wounds, what bloody press 
 
 Dragged into being 
 
 This loveliness? 
 
 {When the cloth is folded again the Musicians take 
 their place against the wall. The folding of the cloth 
 shows on one side of the stage the curtained bed or 
 Utter on which lies a man in his grave-clothes. He 
 wears an heroic mask. Another man with exactly 
 similar clothes and mask crouches near the front. 
 Emer is sitting beside the bed.)
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 29 
 
 First Musician (speaking) 
 
 I call before the eyes a roof 
 
 With cross-beams darkened by smoke; 
 
 A fisher's net hangs from a beam, 
 
 A long oar lies against the wall. 
 
 I call up a poor fisher's house; 
 
 A man lies dead or swooning, 
 
 That amorous man, 
 
 That amorous, violent man, renowned Cuchulain, 
 
 Queen Emer at his side. 
 
 At her own bidding all the rest have gone; 
 
 But now one comes on hesitating feet, 
 
 Young Eithne Inguba, Cuchulain's mistress. 
 
 She stands a moment in the open, door, 
 
 Beyond the open door the bitter sea. 
 
 The shining, bitter sea, is crying out, 
 
 {singing) White shell, white wing! 
 
 I will not choose for my friend 
 
 A frail unserviceable thing 
 
 That drifts and dreams, and but knows 
 
 That waters are without end 
 
 And that wind blows. 
 
 Emer {speaking) 
 
 Come hither, come sit down beside the bed; 
 You need not be afraid, for I myself 
 Sent for you, Eithne Inguba. 
 
 Eithne Inguba 
 
 No, Madam, 
 I have too deeply wronged you to sit there.
 
 30 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Emer 
 
 Of all the people in the world we two, 
 And we alone, may watch together here, 
 Because we have loved him best. 
 
 EiTHNE Inguba 
 
 And is he dead? 
 
 Emer 
 
 Although they have dressed him out in his grave-clothes 
 
 And stretched his limbs, Cuchulain is not dead; 
 
 The very heavens when that day's at hand. 
 
 So that his death may not lack ceremony, 
 
 Will throw out fires, and the earth grow red with blood. 
 
 There shall not be a scullion but foreknows it 
 
 Like the world's end. 
 
 EiTHNE Inguba 
 
 How did he come to this? 
 
 Emer 
 
 Towards noon in the assembly of the kings 
 He met with one who seemed a while most dear. 
 The kings stood round; some quarrel was blown up; 
 He drove him out and killed him on the shore 
 At Baile's tree, and he who was so killed 
 Was his own son begot on some wild woman 
 When he was young, or so I have heard it said; 
 And thereupon, knowing what man he had killed,
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 31 
 
 And being mad with sorrow, he ran out; 
 
 And after, to his middle in the foam 
 
 With shield before him and with sword In hand, 
 
 He fought the deathless sea. The kings looked on 
 
 And not a king dared stretch an arm, or even 
 
 Dared call his name, but all stood wondering 
 
 In that dumb stupor like cattle in a gale, 
 
 Until at last, as though he had fixed his eyes 
 
 On a new enemy, he waded out 
 
 Until the water had swept over him; 
 
 But the waves washed his senseless image up 
 
 And laid it at this door. 
 
 ElTHNE InGUBA 
 
 How pale he looks ! 
 
 Emer 
 
 He is not dead. 
 
 Eithne Inguba 
 
 You have not kissed his lips 
 Nor laid his head upon your breast. 
 
 Emer 
 
 It may be 
 An Image has been put into his place, 
 A sea-borne log bewitched into his likeness. 
 Or some stark horseman grown too old to ride 
 Among the troops of Mananan, Son of the Sea, 
 Now that his joints are stiff.
 
 32 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 ElTHNE InGUBA 
 
 Cry out his name. 
 All that are taken from our sight, they say, 
 Loiter amid the scenery of their lives 
 For certain hours or days, and should he hear 
 He might, being angry, drive the changeling out. 
 
 Emer 
 
 It is hard to make them hear amid their darkness, 
 And It is long since I could call him home; 
 I am but his wife, but if you cry aloud 
 With that sweet voice that is so dear to him 
 He cannot help but listen. 
 
 EiTHNE Inguba 
 
 He loves me best, 
 Being his newest love, but In the end 
 Will love the woman best who loved him first 
 And loved him through the years when love seemed 
 lost. 
 
 Emer 
 
 I have that hope, the hope that some day somewhere 
 We'll sit together at the hearth again. 
 
 EiTHNE Inguba 
 
 Women like me, the violent hour passed over, 
 Are flung into some corner like old nut-shells. 
 Cuchulain, listen.
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 33 
 
 Emer 
 
 No, not yet, for first 
 I'll cover up his face to hide the sea ; 
 And throw new logs upon the hearth and stir 
 The half-burnt logs until they break in flame. 
 Old Mananan's unbridled horses come 
 Out of the sea, and on their backs his horsemen; 
 But all the enchantments of the dreaming foam 
 Dread the hearth-fire. 
 
 (She pulls the curtains of the bed so as to hide the 
 sick man's face, that the actor may change his mask 
 unseen. She goes to one side of platfonji and moves 
 her hand as though putting logs on a fire and stirring 
 it into a blaze. While she makes these movements the 
 Musicians play, marking the movements with drum 
 and flute perhaps. 
 
 Having finished she stands beside the imaginary fire 
 at a distance from Cuchulain and Eithne Inguba.) 
 
 Call on Cuchulain now. 
 
 Eithne Inguba 
 Can you not hear my voice? 
 
 Emer 
 
 Bend over him; 
 Call out dear secrets till you have touched his heart 
 If he lies there; and if he is not there 
 Till you have made him jealous. 
 
 Eithne Inguba 
 
 Cuchulain, listen. 
 
 D
 
 34 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Emer 
 
 Those words sound timidly; to be afraid 
 Because his wife is but three paces off, 
 When there is so great a need, were but to prove 
 The man that chose you made but a poor choice: 
 We're but two women struggling with the sea. 
 
 ElTHNE InGUBA 
 
 my beloved, pardon me, that I 
 
 Have been ashamed and you in so great need. 
 
 1 have never sent a message or called out, 
 Scarce had a longing for your company 
 
 But you have known and come; and if indeed 
 
 You are lying there, stretch out your arms and speak; 
 
 Open your mouth and speak, for to this hour 
 
 My company has made you talkative. 
 
 What ails your tongue, or what has closed your ears? 
 
 Our passion had not chilled when we were parted 
 
 On the pale shore under the breaking dawn. 
 
 He cannot speak: or else his ears are closed 
 
 And no sound reaches him, 
 
 Emer 
 
 Then kiss that Image; 
 The pressure of your mouth upon his mouth 
 May reach him where he is. 
 
 ElTHNE Inguba (starting back) 
 
 It Is no man. 
 I felt some evil thing that dried my heart 
 When my lips touched it.
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 35 
 
 Emer 
 
 No, his body stirs; 
 The pressure of your mouth has called him home; 
 He has thrown the changeling out. 
 
 ElTHNE Inguba {going further off) 
 
 Look at that arm; 
 That arm Is withered to the very socket. 
 
 Emer {going up to the bed) 
 What do you come for; and from where? 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 I have come 
 From Mananan's court upon a bridleless horse. 
 
 Emer 
 
 What one among the Sidhe has dared to lie 
 Upon Cuchulain's bed and take his image? 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 I am named Bricriu — not the man — that Bricriu, 
 Maker of discord among gods and men, 
 Called Bricriu of the Sidhe. 
 
 Emer 
 Come for what purpose?
 
 36 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 {sitting up parting curtain and showing its distorted 
 
 face, as Eithne Inguha goes out) 
 I show my face and everything he loves 
 Must fly away. 
 
 Emer 
 
 You people of the wind 
 Are full of lying speech and mockery: 
 I have not fled your face. 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 You are not loved. 
 
 Emer 
 
 And therefore have no dread to meet your eyes 
 And to demand him of you. 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 For that I have come. 
 You have but to pay the price and he is free. 
 
 Emer 
 Do the Sidhe bargain? 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 When they would free a captive 
 They take in ransom a less valued thing. 
 The fisher when some knowledgeable man 
 Restores to him his wife, or son, or daughter,
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 37 
 
 Knows he must lose a boat or net, or it may be 
 
 The cow that gives his children milk; and some 
 
 Have offered their own lives. I do not ask 
 
 Your life, or any valuable thing; 
 
 You spoke but now of the mere chance that some day 
 
 You'd be the apple of his eye again 
 
 When old and ailing, but renounce that chance 
 
 And he shall live again. 
 
 Emer 
 
 I do not question 
 But you have brought ill luck on all he loves; 
 And now, because I am thrown beyond your power 
 Unless your words are lies, you come to bargain. 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 You loved your mastery, when but newly married, 
 And I love mine for all my withered arm; 
 You have but to put yourself into that power 
 And he shall live again. 
 
 Emer 
 
 No, never, never. 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 You dare not be accursed, yet he has dared. 
 
 Emer 
 
 I have but two joyous thoughts, two things I prize, 
 A hope, a memory, and now you claim that hope.
 
 38 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 He'll never sit beside you at the hearth 
 Or make old bones, but die of wounds and toil 
 On some far shore or mountain, a strange woman 
 Beside his mattress. 
 
 Emer 
 
 You ask for my one hope 
 That you may bring your curse on all about him. 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 You've watched his loves and you have not been jealous 
 Knowing that he would tire, but do those tire 
 That love the Sidhe? 
 
 Emer 
 
 What dancer of the Sidhe, 
 What creature of the reeling moon has pursued him? 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 I have but to touch your eyes and give them sight; 
 But stand at my left side. 
 
 {He touches her eyes with his left hand, the right 
 being withered.) 
 
 Emer 
 
 My husband there.
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 39 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 But out of reach — I have dissolved the dark 
 That hid him from your eyes, but not that other 
 That's hidden you from his. 
 
 Emer 
 
 Husband, husband! 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 Be silent, he is but a phantom now 
 And he can neither touch, nor hear, nor see; 
 The longing and the cries have drawn him hither. 
 He heard no sound, heard no articulate sound; 
 They could but banish rest, and make him dream, 
 And in that dream, as do all dreaming shades 
 Before they are accustomed to their freedom, 
 He has taken his familar form; and yet 
 He crouches there not knowing where he is 
 Or at whose side he is crouched. 
 
 {A JVoman of the Sidhe has entered and stands a 
 little inside the door.) 
 
 Emer 
 
 Who is this woman? 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 She has hurried from the Country-Under-Wave 
 And dreamed herself into that shape that he 
 May glitter in her basket; for the Sidhe 
 Are dextrous fishers and they fish for men 
 With dreams upon the hook.
 
 40 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Emer 
 
 And so that woman 
 Has hid herself in this disguise and made 
 Herself into a lie. 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 A dream is body; 
 The dead move ever towards a dreamless youth 
 And when they dream no more return no more; 
 And those more holy shades that never lived 
 But visit you in dreams. 
 
 Emer 
 
 I know her sort. 
 They find our men asleep, weary with war, 
 Or weary with the chase, and kiss their lips 
 And drop their hair upon them; from that hour 
 Our men, who yet knew nothing of it all. 
 Are lonely, and when at fall of night we press 
 Their hearts upon our hearts their hearts are cold. 
 
 {She draws a knife from her girdle.) 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 And so you think to wound her with a knife. 
 
 She has an airy body. Look and listen; 
 
 I have not given you eyes and ears for nothing. 
 
 ( The Woman of the Sidhe moves round the crouch- 
 ing Ghost of Cuchulain at front of stage in a dance 
 that grows gradually quicker, as he slowly awakes. At 
 moments she may drop her hair upon his head hut
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 41 
 
 she does not kiss him. She is accompanied by string 
 and flute and drum. Her mask and clothes must sug- 
 gest gold or bronze or brass or silver, so that she seems 
 more an idol than a human being. This suggestion 
 may be repeated in her movements. Her hair, too, 
 must keep the metallic suggestion.) 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 Who is It stands before me there 
 Shedding such light from limb and hair 
 As when the moon, complete at last 
 With every labouring crescent past, 
 And lonely with extreme delight. 
 Flings out upon the fifteenth night? 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 Because I long I am not complete. 
 What pulled your hands about your feet 
 And your head down upon your knees, 
 And hid your face? 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 Old memories: 
 A dying boy, with handsome face 
 Upturned upon a beaten place; 
 A sacred yew-tree on a strand; 
 A woman that held in steady hand. 
 In all the happiness of her youth 
 Before her man had broken troth, 
 A burning wisp to light the door; 
 And many a round or crescent more;
 
 42 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Dead men and women. Memories 
 Have pulled my head upon my knees. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 Could you that have loved many a woman 
 That did not reach beyond the human, 
 Lacking a day to be complete, 
 Love one that though her heart can beat. 
 Lacks it but by an hour or so? 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 I know you now, for long ago 
 I met you on the mountain side, 
 Beside a well that seemed long dry. 
 Beside old thorns where the hawk flew. 
 I held out arms and hands; but you. 
 That now seem friendly, fled away 
 Half woman and half bird of prey. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 Hold out your arms and hands again; 
 You were not so dumbfounded when 
 I was that bird of prey, and yet 
 I am all woman now. 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 I am not 
 
 The young and passionate man I was. 
 And though that brilliant light surpass 
 All crescent forms, my memories 
 Weigh down my hands, abash my eyes.
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 43 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 Then kiss my mouth. Though memory 
 Be beauty's bitterest enemy 
 I have no dread, for at my kiss 
 Memory on the moment vanishes: 
 Nothing but beauty can remain. 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 And shall I never know again 
 Intricacies of blind remorse? 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 Time shall seem to stay his course; 
 
 When your mouth and my mouth meet 
 
 All my round shall be complete 
 
 Imagining all Its circles run; 
 
 And there shall be oblivion 
 
 Even to quench Cuchulain's drouth, 
 
 Even to still that heart. 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 Your mouth. 
 
 {They are about to kiss, he turns away.) 
 O Emer, Emer. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 So then it Is she 
 Made you impure with memory.
 
 44 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 Still in that dream I see you stand, 
 A burning wisp in your right hand, 
 To wait my coming to the house, 
 As when our parents married us. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 Being among the dead you love her 
 That valued every slut above her 
 While you still lived. 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 O my lost Emer. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 And there is not a loose-tongued schemer 
 But could draw you, if not dead, 
 From her table and her bed. 
 But what could make you fit to wive 
 With flesh and blood, being born to live 
 Where no one speaks of broken troth, 
 For all have washed out of their eyes 
 Wind-blown dirt of their memories 
 To improve their sight? 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 Your mouth, your mouth. 
 
 ( Their lips approach but Cuchulain turns away as 
 Emer speaks.)
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 45 
 
 Emer 
 
 If but the dead will set him free 
 That I may speak with him at whiles 
 By the hearth-stone, I am content- 
 Content that he shall turn on me 
 Eyes that the cold moon, or the vague sea, 
 Or what I know not's made indifferent. 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 What a wise silence has fallen in this dark I 
 
 I know you now in all your ignorance 
 
 Of all whereby a lover's quiet is rent. 
 
 What dread so great as that he should forget 
 
 The least chance sight or sound, or scratch or mark 
 
 On an old door, or frail bird heard and seen 
 
 In the incredible clear light love cast 
 
 All round about her some forlorn lost day? 
 
 That face, though fine enough, is a fool's face 
 
 And there's a folly in the deathless Sidhe 
 
 Beyond man's reach. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 I told you to forget 
 After my fashion; you would have none of it; 
 So now you may forget in a man's fashion. 
 There's an unbridled horse at the sea's edge; 
 Mount; it will carry you in an eye's wink 
 To where the King of Country-Under-Wave, 
 Old Mananan, nods above the board and moves
 
 46 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 His chessmen in a dream. Demand your life 
 And come again on the unbridled horse. 
 
 Ghost of Cuchulain 
 
 Forgive me those rough words. How could you knosv 
 That man is held to those whom he has loved 
 By pain they gave, or pain that he has given, 
 Intricacies of pain. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 I am ashamed 
 That being of the deathless shades I chose 
 A man so knotted to impurity. 
 
 {The Ghost of Cuchulain goes out.) 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 (to Figure of Cuchulain) 
 
 To you that have no living light, but dropped 
 From a last leprous crescent of the moon, 
 I owe it all. 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 Because you have failed 
 I must forego your thanks, I that took pity 
 Upon your love and carried out your plan 
 To tangle all his life and make it nothing 
 That he might turn to you.
 
 TPiE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 47 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 Was it from pity 
 You taught the woman to prevail against me? 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 You know my nature — ^by what name I am called. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 Was it from pity that you hid the truth 
 
 That men are bound to women by the wrongs 
 
 They do or suffer? 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 You know what being I am. 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 I have been mocked and disobeyed — your power 
 Was more to you than my good-will, and now 
 I'll have you learn what my ill-will can do; 
 I lay you under bonds upon the instant 
 To stand before your King and face the charge 
 And take the punishment. 
 
 Figure of Cuchulain 
 
 I'll stand there first, 
 And tell my story first, and Mananan 
 Knows that his own harsh sea made my heart cold.
 
 48 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Woman of the Sidhe 
 
 My horse is there and shall outrun your horse. 
 
 ( The Figure of Cuchulain falls back, the Woman of 
 the Sidhe goes out. Drum taps, music resembling horse 
 hoofs.) 
 
 EiTHNE Inguba {entering quickly) 
 
 I heard the beat of hoofs, but saw no horse, 
 And then came other hoofs, and after that 
 I heard low angry cries and thereupon 
 I ceased to be afraid. 
 
 Emer 
 
 Cuchulain wakes. 
 
 ( The figure turns round. It once more wears the 
 heroic mask.) 
 
 Cuchulain 
 
 Your arms, your arms. O Eithne Inguba, 
 
 I have been in some strange place and am afraid. 
 
 ( The First Musician comes to the front of stage, the 
 others from each side and unfold the cloth singing.) 
 {Song for the unfolding and folding of the cloth.) 
 
 The Musicians 
 
 Why does your heart beat thus? 
 Plain to be understood 
 I have met in a man's house 
 A statue of solitude. 
 Moving there and walking; 
 Its strange heart beating fast
 
 THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER 49 
 
 For all our talking. 
 
 O still that heart at last. 
 
 O bitter reward 
 
 Of many a tragic tomb ! 
 
 And we though astonished are dumb 
 
 And give but a sigh and a word, 
 
 A passing word. 
 
 Although the door be shut 
 And all seem well enough, 
 Although wide world hold not 
 A man but will give you his love 
 The moment he has looked at you, 
 He that has loved the best 
 May turn from a statue 
 His too human breast. 
 
 O bitter reward 
 
 Of many a tragic tomb! 
 
 And we though astonished are dumb 
 
 Or give but a sigh and a word, 
 
 A passing word. 
 
 What makes your heart so beat? 
 Is there no man at your side? 
 When beauty is complete 
 Your own thought will have died 
 And danger not be diminished; 
 Dimmed at three-quarter light 
 When moon's round is finished 
 The stars are out of sight. 
 
 m
 
 r50 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 O bitter reward 
 
 Of many a tragic tomb! 
 
 And we though astonished are dumb 
 
 Or give but a sigh and a word, 
 
 A passing word. 
 
 {When the cloth is folded again the stage is bare.)
 
 THE DJ^EAMING OF THE BONES 
 
 51
 
 PERSONS OF THE PLAY 
 
 Three Musicians {their faces made up to resemble 
 
 masks) . 
 A Young Man. 
 A Stranger {wearing a mask). 
 A Young Girl {wearing a mask). 
 
 Time — 191 6. 
 
 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, as in preceding 
 plays, while the others take their places. Then all 
 three sit down against the wall by their instruments, 
 which are already there — a dru7n, a zither, and a 
 flute. Or they unfold a cloth as in ''At the Hawk's 
 Well," while the instruments are carried in. 
 
 {Song for the folding and unfolding of the cloth.) 
 
 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? 
 
 53
 
 54 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Have not old writers said 
 That dizzy dreams can spring 
 From tlie 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. 
 
 {The three Musicians are now seated by the drum, 
 flute, and zither at the hack of the stage. The First 
 Musician speaks.) 
 
 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.)
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES S5 
 
 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, 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.
 
 S6 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Stranger 
 
 You know some place of refuge, have some plan 
 Or friend who will come to meet you? 
 
 Young Man 
 
 I am to He 
 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
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 57 
 
 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 that was 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; 
 Some lived through their old lives again.
 
 58 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Stranger t j 
 
 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 t., . , 
 
 Ihis 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 Bailevelehan 
 
 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.
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 59 
 
 (sinffing) 
 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 round the stage once. 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 once. 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.
 
 6o FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 (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. 
 
 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.
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 6i 
 
 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? 
 
 Young 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 commandment 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 
 
 But 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.
 
 62 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 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 
 To drive the living, should they meet its face, 
 Crazy, and be a terror to the dead. 
 
 Young Girl 
 
 But these 
 Were comely even in their middle life 
 And carry, now that they are dead, the image 
 Of their first youth, for it was in that youth 
 Their sin began. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 I have heard of angry ghosts 
 Who wander in a wilful solitude. 
 
 Young Girl 
 
 These have no thought but love; nor joy 
 But that upon the instant when their penance 
 Draws to its height and when two hearts are wrung 
 Nearest to breaking, if hearts of shadows break.
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 63 
 
 His eyes can mix with hers; nor any pang 
 That is so bitter as that double glance, 
 Being accursed. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 But what is this strange penance — 
 That when their eyes have met can wring them most? 
 
 Young Girl 
 Though eyes can meet, their lips can never meet. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 And yet it seems they wander side by side. 
 
 But doubtless you would say that when lips meet 
 
 And have not living nerves, it is no meeting. 
 
 Young Girl 
 
 Although they have no blood, or living nerves, 
 
 Who once lay warm and live the live-long night 
 
 In one another's arms, and know their part 
 
 In life, being now but of the people of dreams, 
 
 Is a dream's part; although they are but shadows, 
 
 Hovering between a thorn tree and a stone. 
 
 Who have heaped up night on winged night; although 
 
 No shade however harried and consumed 
 
 Would change his own calamity for theirs. 
 
 Their manner of life were blessed could their lips 
 
 A moment meet; but when he has bent his head 
 
 Close to her head, or hand would slip in hand. 
 
 The memory of their crime flows up between 
 
 And drives them apart,
 
 64 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Young Man 
 
 The memory of a crime — 
 He took her from a husband's house it may be, 
 But does the penance for a passionate sin 
 Last for so many centuries? 
 
 Young Girl 
 
 No, no; 
 The man she chose, the man she was chosen by 
 Cared httle and cares Httle from whose house 
 They fled towards dawn amid the flights of arrows, 
 Or that it was a husband's and a king's; 
 And how, if that were all, could she lack friends, 
 On crowded roads or on the unpeopled hill? 
 Helen herself had opened wide the door 
 Where night by night she dreams herself awake 
 And gathers to her breast a dreaming man. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 What crime can stay so in the memory? 
 What crime can keep apart the lips of lovers 
 Wandering and alone? 
 
 Young Girl 
 
 Her king and lover 
 Was overthrown in battle by her husband 
 And for her sake and for his own, being blind 
 And bitter and bitterly in love, he brought 
 A foreign army from across the sea.
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 6s 
 
 Young Man 
 
 You speak of Dermot and of Dervorgllla 
 Who brought the Norman in? 
 
 Young Girl 
 
 Yes, yes, I spoke 
 Of that most miserable, most accursed pair 
 Who sold their country into slavery, and yet 
 They were not wholly miserable and accursed 
 If somebody of their race at last would say: 
 "I have forgiven them." 
 
 Young Man 
 
 Oh, never, never 
 Shall Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven. 
 
 Young Girl 
 
 If some one of their race forgave at last 
 Lip would be pressed on lip. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 Oh, never, never 
 Shall Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven. 
 You have told your story well, so well indeed 
 I could not help but fall into the mood 
 And for a while believe that It was true 
 Or half believe; but better push on now. 
 The horizon to the East Is growing bright. 
 {They go round stage once. The musicians play.) 
 So here we're on the summit. I can see 
 The Aran Islands, Connemara Hills,
 
 66 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 And Galway in the breaking light; there too 
 
 The enemy has toppled roof and gable; 
 
 And torn the panelling from ancient rooms; 
 
 What generations of old men had known 
 
 Like their own hands, and children wondered at, 
 
 Has boiled a trooper's porridge. That town had lain, 
 
 But for the pair that you would have me pardon, 
 
 Amid its gables and its battlements 
 
 Like any old admired Italian town; 
 
 For though we have neither coal, nor iron ore, 
 
 To make us wealthy and corrupt the air. 
 
 Our country, if that crime were uncommitted. 
 
 Had been most beautiful. Why do you dance? 
 
 Why do you gaze, and with so passionate eyes, 
 
 One on the other; and then turn away, 
 
 Covering your eyes, and weave it in a dance? 
 
 Who are you? what are you? you are not natural. 
 
 Young Girl 
 Seven hundred years our lips have never met. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 Why do you look so strangely at one another. 
 So strangely and so sweetly? 
 
 lYouNG Girl 
 
 Seven hundred years. 
 
 Young Man 
 So strangely and so sweetly. All the ruin. 
 All, all their handiwork is blown away
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 67 
 
 As though the mountain air had blown it away 
 Because their eyes have met. They cannot hear, 
 Being folded up and hidden in their dance. 
 The dance is changing now. They have dropped their 
 
 eyes, 
 They have covered up their eyes as though their hearts 
 Had suddenly been broken — never, never 
 Shall Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven. 
 They have drifted in the dance from rock to rock. 
 They have raised their hands as though to snatch the 
 
 sleep 
 That lingers always in the abyss of the sky 
 Though they can never reach it. A cloud floats up 
 And covers all the mountain head In a moment; 
 And now it lifts and they are swept away. 
 {The stranger and the young girl go out.) 
 I had almost yielded and forgiven it all — 
 This is indeed a place of terrible temptation. 
 
 ( The Musicians begin unfolding and folding a black 
 cloth. The First Musician comes forward to the front 
 of the stage, at the centre. He holds the cloth before 
 him. The other two come one on either side and unfold 
 it. They afterwards fold it up in the same way. While 
 it is unfolded, the Young Man leaves the stage.) 
 
 (Songs for the unfolding and folding of the cloth.) 
 
 The Musicians (singing) 
 
 I 
 
 At the grey round of the hill 
 Music of a lost kingdom
 
 68 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Runs, runs and Is suddenly still. 
 The winds out of Clare-Galway 
 Carry it: suddenly It Is still. 
 
 I have heard In the night air 
 A wandering airy music; 
 And moldered In that snare 
 A man Is lost of a sudden, 
 In that sweet wandering snare. 
 
 What finger first began 
 Music of a lost kingdom? 
 They dream that laughed In the sun. 
 Dry bones that dream are bitter, 
 They dream and darken our sun. 
 
 Those crazy fingers play 
 
 A wandering airy music; 
 
 Our luck Is withered away. 
 
 And wheat In the wheat-ear withered, 
 
 And the wind blows it away. 
 
 II 
 
 My heart ran wild when it heard 
 The curlew cry before dawn 
 And the eddying cat-headed bird; 
 But now the night Is gone. 
 I have heard from far below 
 The strong March birds a-crow, 
 Stretch neck and clap the wing. 
 Red cocks, and crow.
 
 CALVARY 
 
 69
 
 PERSONS OF THE PLAY 
 
 Three Musicians (their faces made up to resemble 
 
 masks) . 
 Christ {wearing a mask). 
 Lazarus {wearing a mask) 
 Judas {wearing a mask). 
 Three Roman Soldiers {their faces masked or made 
 
 lip to resemble masks) 
 
 At the beginning of the play the First Musician 
 comes to the front of the bare place, round three sides 
 of which the audience are seated, with a folded cloth 
 hanging from his joined hands. Two other musicians 
 come, as in the preceding plays, one from either side, 
 and unfold the cloth so that it shuts out the stage, and 
 then fold it again, singing and moving rhythmically. 
 They do the same at the end of the play, which enables 
 the players to leave the stage unseen. 
 
 {Song for the folding and the unfolding of the cloth.) 
 
 First Musician 
 
 Motionless under the moon-beam, 
 Up to his feathers In the stream, 
 Although fish leap, the white heron. 
 Shivers In a dumbfounded dream. 
 
 71
 
 72 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Second Musician 
 God has not died for the white heron. 
 
 Third Musician 
 
 Although half famished he'll not dare 
 Dip or do anything but stare 
 Upon the glittering image of a heron, 
 That now is lost and now is there. 
 
 Second Musician 
 God has not died for the white heron. 
 
 First Musician 
 
 But that the full is shortly gone 
 And after that is crescent moon, 
 It's certain that the moon-crazed heron 
 Would be but fishes' diet soon. 
 
 Second Musician 
 God has not died for the white heron. 
 
 {The three musicians are now seated by the drum, 
 flute, and zither at the hack of stage.) 
 
 First Musician 
 
 The road to Calvary, and I beside it 
 
 Upon an ancient stone. Good Friday's come, 
 
 The day whereon Christ dreams His passion through. 
 
 He climbs up hither but as a dreamer climbs.
 
 CALVARY 73 
 
 The cross that but exists because He dreams it 
 Shortens His breath and wears away His strength. 
 And now He stands amid a mocking crowd, 
 Heavily breathing. 
 
 {A player ivitJi the mask of Christ and carrying a 
 cross has entered and now stands leaning upon the 
 cross.) 
 
 Those that are behind 
 Climb on the shoulders of the men in front 
 To shout their mockery: "Work a miracle," 
 Cries one, and "Save yourself" ; another cries, 
 "Call on your father now before your bones 
 Have been picked bare by the great desert birds"; 
 Another cries: "Call out with a loud voice 
 And tell him that his son is cast away 
 Amid the mockery of his enemies." 
 
 {Singing) 
 
 Oh, but the mockers' cry 
 Makes my heart afraid. 
 As though a flute of bone 
 Taken from a heron's thigh, 
 A heron crazed by the moon, 
 Were cleverly, softly played. 
 
 {Speaking) 
 
 Who is this from whom the crowd has shrunk, 
 As though he had some look that terrified? 
 He has a deathly face, and yet he moves 
 Like a young foal that sees the hunt go by 
 And races in the field.
 
 74 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 {A player with the mask of Lazarus has entered.) 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 He raised me up. 
 I am the man that died and was raised up; 
 , I am called Lazarus. 
 
 Christ 
 
 Seeing that you died, 
 Lay in the tomb four days and were raised up, 
 You will not mock at me. 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 For four whole days 
 I had been dead and I was lying still 
 In an old comfortable mountain cavern 
 When you came climbing there with a great crowd 
 And dragged me to the light. 
 
 Christ 
 
 I called your name, 
 "Lazarus, come out," I said, and you came out 
 < Bound up in cloths, your face bound in a cloth. 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 You took my death, give me your death instead. 
 
 Christ 
 I gave you life.
 
 CALVARY 75 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 But death Is what I ask. 
 Alive I never could escape your love, 
 And' when I sickened towards my death I thought 
 I'll to the- desert, or chuckle in a corner 
 Mere ghost, a solitary thing. I died 
 And saw no more until I saw you stand 
 In the opening of the tomb; "Come out!" you called; 
 You dragged me to the light as boys drag out 
 A rabbit when they have dug Its hole away; 
 And now with all the shouting at your heels 
 You travel towards the death I am denied. 
 And that is why I have hurried to this road; 
 And that is why I claim your death. 
 
 Christ 
 
 I have conquered death 
 And all the dead shall be raised up again. 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 Then what I heard Is true. I thought to die 
 
 When my allotted years ran out again; ' 
 
 And that, being gone, you could not hinder It; 
 
 But now you will blind with light the solitude 
 
 That death has made; you will disturb that corner 
 
 Where I had thought I might lie safe for ever. 
 
 Christ 
 I do my Father's will.
 
 76 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 And not your own ; 
 And I was free four days, four days being dead. 
 Climb up to Calvary but turn your eyes 
 From Lazarus that cannot find- a tomb 
 Although he search all height and depth : make way, 
 Make way for Lazarus that must go search 
 Among the desert places where there is nothing 
 But howling wind and solitary birds. 
 
 {He goes out.) 
 
 First Musician 
 
 The crowd shrinks backward from the face that seems 
 Death stricken and death hungry still; and now 
 Martha, and those three Marys, and the rest 
 That live but in His love are gathered round Him. 
 He holds His right arm out, and' on His arm 
 Their lips are pressed and their tears fall; and now 
 They cast them on the ground before His dirty 
 Blood-dabbled feet and clean them* with their hair. 
 
 {Sings) 
 
 Take but His love away 
 Their love becomes a" feather 
 Of eagle, swan or gull. 
 Or a drowned heron's feather 
 Tossed hither and thither 
 Upon the bitter spray 
 And the moon at the full.
 
 CALVARY 77 
 
 Christ 
 
 I felt their hair upon my feet a moment 
 And then they fled away — why have they fled? 
 Why has the street grown empty of a sudden 
 As though all fled from it in terror? 
 
 Judas {who has just entered) 
 
 I am Judas 
 That sold you ror the thirty pieces of silver. 
 
 Christ 
 
 You were beside me every day, and saw 
 The dead raised up and blind men given their sight, 
 And all that I have said and taught you have known, 
 Yet doubt that I am God. 
 
 Judas 
 
 I have not doubted; 
 I knew it from the first moment that I saw you; 
 I had no need of miracles to prove it. 
 
 Christ 
 And yet you have betrayed me. 
 
 Judas 
 
 I have betrayed you 
 Because you seemed all-powerful. 
 
 Christ 
 
 My Father 
 Even now, if I were but to whisper it.
 
 78 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Would break the world in His miraculous fury 
 To set me free. 
 
 Judas 
 
 And is there not one man 
 In the wide world that is not in your power? 
 
 Christ 
 My Father put all men into my hands. 
 
 Judas 
 
 That was the very thought that drove me wild, 
 I could not bear to think you had but to whistle 
 And I must do; but after that I thought 
 Whatever man betrays Him will be free; 
 And life grew bearable again. And now 
 Is there a secret left I do not know, 
 Knowing that if a man betrays a God 
 He is the stronger of the two. 
 
 Christ 
 
 But if 
 'Twere the commandment of that God Himself 
 That God were still the stronger? 
 
 Judas 
 
 When I planned it 
 There was no live thing near me but a heron 
 So full of Itself that it seemed terrified.
 
 CALVARY 79 
 
 Christ 
 
 But my betrayal was decreed that hour 
 When the foundations of the world were laid. 
 
 Judas 
 
 It was decreed that somebody betray you — 
 
 I'd thought of that — but not that I should do it, 
 
 I the man Judas, born on such a day, 
 
 In such a village, such and such his parents; 
 
 Nor that I'd go with my old coat upon me 
 
 To the High Priest, and chuckle to myself 
 
 As people chuclcle when alone, and that I'd do it 
 
 For thirty pieces and no more, no less, 
 
 And neither with- a nod, a look, nor a sent message. 
 
 But with a kiss upon your cheek. I did it, 
 
 I, Judas, and no other man, and now 
 
 You cannot even save me. 
 
 Christ 
 
 Begone from me. 
 {Three Roman soldiers have entered.) 
 
 First Roman Soldier 
 He has been chosen to hold up the cross. 
 
 {During what follows, Judas holds up the cross 
 while Christ stands with His arms stretched out upon 
 
 it.) 
 
 Second Roman Soldier 
 
 We'll keep the rest away; they are too persistent; 
 They are always wanting something.
 
 8o FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Third Roman Soldier 
 
 Die In peace. 
 There's no one here but Judas and ourselves. 
 
 Christ 
 And who are you that ask your God for nothing? 
 
 Third Roman Soldier 
 
 We are the gamblers, and when you are dead 
 We'll settle who is to have that cloak of yours 
 By throwing dice. 
 
 Second Roman Soldier 
 
 Our dice were carved 
 Out of an old sheep's thigh at Ephesus. 
 
 First Roman Soldier 
 
 Although but one of us can win the cloak 
 
 That will not make us quarrel; what does it matter? 
 
 One day one loses and the next day wins. 
 
 Second Roman Soldier 
 
 Whatever happens is the best we say 
 So that it's unexpected. 
 
 Third Roman Soldier 
 
 Had you sent 
 A crier through the world you had not found 
 More comfortable companions for a deathbed 
 Than three old gamblers that have asked for nothing.
 
 CALVARY 8 1 
 
 First Roman Soldier 
 
 They say you're good and that you made the world, 
 But it's no matter. 
 
 Second Roman Soldier 
 
 Come; now let us dance 
 The dance of the dice-throwers, for it may be 
 He cannot live much longer and has not seen it. 
 
 Third Roman Soldier 
 
 If he were but the God of dice he'd know it, 
 But he is not that God. 
 
 First Roman Soldier 
 
 One thing is plain. 
 To know that he has nothing that we need 
 Must be a comfort to him. 
 
 Second Roman Soldier 
 
 Begin the dance. 
 
 ( They dance round the cross, moving as if throzving 
 dice. ) 
 
 Christ 
 
 My Father, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? 
 {Song of the folding and unfolding of the cloth.) 
 
 First Musician 
 
 Lonely the sea-bird lies at her rest. 
 Blown like a dawn-blenched parcel of spray 
 
 G
 
 82 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Upon the wind, or follows her prey- 
 Under a great wave's hollowing crest. 
 
 Second Musician 
 God has not appeared to the birds. 
 
 Third Musician 
 
 The geer-eagle has chosen his part 
 In blue deep of the upper air 
 Where one-eyed day can meet his stare; 
 He is content with his savage heart. 
 
 Second Musician 
 God has not appeared to the birds. 
 
 First Musician 
 
 But where have last year's cygnets gone? 
 The lake is empty; why do they fling 
 White wing out beside white wing? 
 What can a swan need but a swan? 
 
 Second Musician 
 God has not appeared to the birds.
 
 NOTE ON 
 
 THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF 
 
 "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" 
 
 83
 
 NOTE ON THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF 
 "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" 
 
 A COUPLE of years ago I was sitting in my stall at the Court 
 Theatre in London watching one of my own plays, 'The King's 
 Threshold.' In front of me were three people, seemingly a 
 husband, a wife, and a woman friend. The husband was 
 bored ; he yawned and stretched himself and shifted in his seat, 
 and I watched him with distress. I was inclined to be angry, 
 but reminded myself that music, where there are no satisfying 
 audible words, bores me as much, for I have no ear or only 
 a primitive ear. Presently when the little princesses came 
 upon the stage in their red clothes, the woman friend, who had 
 seemed also a little bored, said: "They do things very well," 
 and became attentive. The distinguished painter who had 
 designed the clothes at any rate could interest her. The wife, 
 who had sat motionless from the first, said when the curtain 
 had fallen and the applause — was it politeness or enthusiasm? 
 — had come to an end, "I would not have missed it for the 
 world." She was perhaps a reader of my poetry who had 
 persuaded the others to come, and she had found a pleasure 
 the book could not give her, in the combination of words and 
 speech. Yet when I think of my play, I do not call her to the 
 mind's eye, or even her friend who found the long red gloves 
 of the little princesses amusing, but always that bored man ; 
 the worst of it is that I could not pay my players, or the 
 seamstress, or the owner of the stage, unless I could draw to 
 my plays those who prefer light amusement or have no ear for 
 verse, and fortunately they are all very polite. 
 
 85
 
 86 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Being sensitive, or not knowing how to escape the chance of 
 sitting behind the wrong people, I have begun to shrink from 
 sending my muses where they are but half-welcomed ; and even 
 in Dublin, where the pit has an ear for verse, I have no longer 
 the appetite to carry me through the daily rehearsals. Yet I 
 need a theatre; I believe myself to be a dramatist; I desire to 
 show events and not merely tell of them; and two of my best 
 friends were won for me by my plays, and I seem to myself 
 most alive at the moment when a room full of people share the 
 one lofty emotion. My blunder has been that I did not discover 
 in my youth that my theatre must be the ancient theatre that 
 can be made by unrolling a carpet or marking out a place with 
 a stick, or setting a screen against the wall. Certainly those 
 who care for my kind of poetry must be numerous enough, if 
 I can bring them together, to pay half-a-dozen players who can 
 bring all their properties in a cab and perform in their leisure 
 moments. 
 
 I have found my first model — and in literature if we would 
 not be parvenus we must have a model — in the "Noh" stage 
 of aristocratic Japan. I have described in Certain Noble Plays 
 of Japan (now included in my Cutting of an Agate) what has 
 seemed to me important on that most subtle stage. I do not 
 think of my discovery as mere economy, for it has been a great 
 gain to get rid of scenery, to substitute for a crude landscape 
 painted upon canvas three performers who, sitting before the 
 wall or a patterned screen, describe landscape or event, and 
 accompany movement with drum and gong, or deepen the 
 emotion of the words with zither or flute. Painted scenery 
 after all is unnecessary to my friends and to myself, for our 
 imagination kept living by the arts can imagine a mountain 
 covered with thorn-trees in a drawing-room without any great 
 trouble, and we have many quarrels with even good scene- 
 painting. 
 
 Then too the masks forced upon us by the absence of any 
 special lighting, or by the nearness of the audience who 
 surround the players upon three sides, do not seem to us
 
 NOTE ON "AT THE HAWK'S \VELL" 87 
 
 eccentric. We are accustomed to faces of bronze and of 
 marble, and what could be more suitable than that Cuchulain, 
 let us say, a half-supernatural legendary person, should show 
 to us a face, not made before the looking-glass by some leading 
 player — there too we have many quarrels — but moulded by 
 . some distinguished artist ? We are a learned people, and we 
 remember how the Roman theatre, when it became more 
 intellectual, abandoned "make-up" and used the mask instead, 
 and that the most famous artists of Japan modelled masks that 
 are still in use after hundreds of years. It would be a stirring 
 adventure for a poet and an artist, working together, to create 
 once more heroic or grotesque types that, keeping always an 
 appropriate distance from life, would seem images of those 
 profound emotions that exist only in solitude and in silence. 
 Nor has any one told me after a performance that they have 
 missed a changing facial expression, for the mask seems to 
 change with the light that falls upon it, and besides in poetical 
 and tragic art, as every "producer" knows, expression is mainly 
 in those movements that are of the entire body. 
 
 "At the Hawk's Well" was performed for the first time in 
 April 1916, in a friend's drawing-room, and only those who 
 cared for poetry were invited. It was played upon the floor, 
 and the players came in by the same door as the audience, and 
 the audience and the players and I myself were pleased. A 
 few days later it was revived in Lady Islington's big drawing- 
 room at Chesterfield Gardens for the benefit of a war charity. 
 And round the platform upon three sides were three hundred 
 fashionable people, including Queen Alexandria, and once more 
 my muses were but half welcome. I remember, however, with 
 a little pleasure that we found a newspaper photographer 
 planting his camera in a dressing-room and explained to him 
 that as fifty people could pay our expenses, we did not invite 
 the press, and that flashlight photographs were not desirable 
 for their own sake. He was incredulous and persistent — a 
 whole page somewhere or other was at our disposal — and it 
 was nearly ten minutes before we could persuade him to go
 
 88 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 away. What a relief after directing a theatre for so many 
 years — for I am one of the two directors of the Abbey Theatre 
 in Dublin — to think no more of pictures unless Mr. Dulac or 
 some other distinguished man has made them, nor of all those 
 paragraphs written by young men, perhaps themselves intel- 
 ligent, who must applaud the common taste or starve! 
 
 Perhaps I shall turn to something else now that our Japanese 
 dancer, Mr. Itow, whose minute intensity of movement in the 
 dance of the hawk so well suited our small room and private 
 art, has been hired by a New York theatre, or perhaps I shall 
 find another dancer. I am certain, however, that whether I 
 grow tired or not — and one does grow tired of always quarry- 
 ing the stone for one's statue — I have found out the only way 
 the subtler forms of literature can find dramatic expression. 
 Shakespeare's art was public, now resounding and declamatory, 
 now lyrical and subtle, but always public, because poetry was 
 a part of the general life of a people who had been trained by 
 the Church to listen to difficult words, and who sang, instead 
 of the songs of the music-halls, many songs that are still 
 beautiful. A man who had sung "Barbara Allan" in his own 
 house would not, as I have heard the gallery of the Lyceum 
 Theatre, receive the love speeches of Juliet with an ironical 
 chirruping. We must recognize the change as the painters did 
 when, finding no longer palaces and churches to decorate, they 
 made framed pictures to hang upon a wall. Whatever we 
 lose in mass and in power we should recover in elegance and 
 in subtlety. Our lyrical and our narrative poetry alike have 
 used their freedom and have approached nearer, as Pater said 
 all the arts would if they were able, to "the condition of 
 music"; and if our modern poetical drama has failed, it is 
 mainly because, alwa3^s dominated by the example of Shakes- 
 peare, it would restore an irrevocable past. 
 
 W. B. Y., 1916.
 
 MUSIC FOR 
 
 "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" 
 
 By EDMOND DULAC 
 
 All rights of performance reserved by Edmond Dulac 
 
 89
 
 A NOTE ON THE INSTRUMENTS 
 
 In order to apply to the music the idea of great simplicity of execu- 
 tion underlying the whole spirit of the performance, it was necessary 
 to use instruments that any one with a fair idea of music could learn 
 in a few days. 
 
 The following offer hardly any difficulty, while they provide a 
 sufficient background of simple sounds which the performer can, after 
 a very little amount of practice, elaborate at will. 
 
 A plain bamboo flute giving the appropriate scale. 
 
 A harp, a drum and a gong. For these last two, any instruments 
 on oriental lines with a good shape and a deep mellow sound. 
 
 For the harp an ordinary zither, such as shown in the design of 
 the musician, can be used. The strings, beginning by the lower ones, 
 are grouped in nine or ten chords of four notes consisting of: the key- 
 note, two strings in unison giving the fifth above, and the octave of 
 the key-note. 
 
 Ex: fe=^-^^ 
 
 Beyond these chords there are seven double strings tuned to any 
 pentatonic scale that suits the play. 
 
 The tuning of the chords and free strings would be altered ac- 
 cording to the performance, and several flutes giving different scales 
 would be required. 
 
 The same chords and scales should be used throughout any one 
 play. 
 
 The instruments are distributed as follows: one musician plays 
 the drum and gong, one the flute, the singer takes the harp. 
 
 The drum and the gong must be used at times during the per- 
 formance to emphasize the spoken word ; no definite notation of this 
 can be given, and it is left to the imagination and taste of the musi- 
 cian. 
 
 Scales for the Instruments 
 
 The Harp. _ 
 
 Free stnitg!.- — 
 
 90
 
 MUSIC FOR "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" 
 
 (To Be sung tuithout accompaniment as they unfold'ihe eurJa'w, 
 
 ^ zj^zSrj ^ l 
 
 1 call to the eye of the ■ juind A well long choked up and dry And 
 
 boughs long stripped by the wind, And I call to the mind's eye Pall • or of an ' ivory 
 
 ^£, ^ f ^ ^^^^ 03=£p= m^^^ ^^^^ 
 
 face Its lofty dis-so-lute air, A man climbing up to a place The salt sea wind has swept bare. 
 
 p^^^^^Sg"#i ^^ ^5i ^ ^fe gp=g 
 
 I have drcamedofa lifesoon done. Will he lose by thator win? A mo-ther that saw her 
 
 -^k 
 
 son Dou-bled o-vera speckled shin Cross-grained with nine-ty years Would cry, " How 
 
 Uttlo -worth Were all my hopes and fears And the hard pain of his birth 1 
 
 91
 
 92 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 To hi sung as tie') sit down. 
 
 ¥~^f- 
 
 ^^ =M ^ j^-^ ^ ^=jt: J^ 
 
 ^m- 
 
 The boughs of the hazel shake,' The sun goes down in the west. The 
 
 k-^^-^ ■ ' 
 
 :f=l- 
 
 =^= 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 Speaking : 
 " Night falls," etc. 
 
 heart would be al-ways a - wake, Theheart would turn toils rest. 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 jE^i=i==bJ£?^ 
 
 H 
 
 s=^ 
 
 
 : - IC.^. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Z3t—lt- 
 
 3^ 
 
 =^il— J-1^ 
 
 =S=S=^=*=>t 
 
 =P=5C 
 
 ]_J»- 
 
 ^ 
 
 *' Why should I sleep," the heart cries, '"For the wind, the salt wind, the sea wind Is 
 
 -^^ 
 
 St: 
 
 :;=ti
 
 MUSIC FOR "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" 93 
 
 ^ 
 
 ?^il=i^^=fe^^i^^=^p 
 
 Sptakhg : 
 "That old man," etc. 
 
 EE 
 
 beai-ing a cloi^d through the skies; I wouM wander al* ways like the wind.' 
 
 -*» — -*- ^ 
 
 :*zz«z 
 
 '^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 fg:: 
 
 -ftr. 
 
 Speakirg : 
 " He has made a little heap of leaves," etc. 
 
 r=£E^^ 
 
 ^3E^Ed3: 
 
 -4- 
 
 J — J!_«S ^ 
 
 Harp. 
 
 "O wind, O salt wind, O sea wind I" Cries the bean, " it is time to 
 
 !_ •.•- _ ! -<«■ I ■»- ^1 S- i -»: J 
 
 — 1 it — I *-'-! — « 1 — < i '-I— — 91 F^ 
 
 ^^^^- 
 
 =^E 
 
 ;=!=;= 
 
 EiE 
 
 ^^S^^^ 
 
 sleep, Why wander and no-tbing to find. Better grow old and sleep." 
 
 ai^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 eeSee: 
 
 ^^ 
 
 'i 
 
 PRELUDE TO THE DANCE 
 
 To begin ivhtn the Touiig Man sayt : 
 
 "Ah, you have looked at her '. . . " 
 
 a » « Flute. Slew.
 
 94 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 accelerate 
 
 ,^i.y^ 
 
 J, 
 
 ri»rjr- 
 
 3 
 
 -s — » 
 
 f^" 
 
 — =^ 
 
 3 
 
 ^=^E 
 
 
 « 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ ■ — 
 
 3= 
 
 
 -i^^i- 
 
 
 -jg-^- 
 
 =£2-^ 
 
 r"^- 
 - ^ a ^ 
 
 -1 — 
 
 =- 
 
 
 =B 
 
 ""•"^ '- — 
 
 
 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 
 
 -^rx 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 '^ 
 
 — 
 
 in
 
 MUSIC FOR "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" 95 
 
 THE DANCE 
 
 The Dance is played through to A, begun again at going to B, 
 begun again at and played to the end, omitting the passage 
 from A to B. Thus it ought to last about 3J<2 minutes. 
 
 ^^s Dance hjoitiilcn totie PrtluJt iy a soft roJl 
 on the gong ivhiU the girl begins to move. 
 
 Flute, 
 
 Sl^^ 
 
 -''— 4- 
 
 Harp. 
 
 
 
 1 T"*^" 
 
 
 h^g: • -1 
 
 r^- 
 
 > 
 
 W^-^^^-- 
 
 _^_=: 
 
 — ^ — p 
 
 :^=^^ fe^_ 
 
 -is>^ — 
 
 -^ 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 Drum and Gong. 
 
 -~s n j:i, n ji_ n n_^n 
 
 ^m 
 
 — t 
 
 Gong. Dnim. 
 
 
 U-- 
 
 m 
 
 .cres • cen • do 
 
 
 1^ 
 
 1^^^^ 
 
 rtac 
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ — r 
 
 w 

 
 96 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 
 J-,-4— — --J-J-J— 
 
 :^±r= 1~'='-^- 
 
 diminuendo . 
 
 ^:;|i?=^l 
 
 C*= 
 
 ^i«— 
 
 ^^ 
 
 \t=^ 
 
 
 N K S 
 
 
 :Jin^u^niA. 
 
 ^'■j ^-i J 
 
 
 i^^J^A^. n .Tn JNJ! 
 
 Gong. 
 
 ^,^=^ 
 
 ^:eeee.W- 
 
 
 m 
 
 cfes - cen '"do • . • , 
 
 'bB t- 1«- 
 
 =iE=S 
 
 -|S^^ 
 
 ^P 
 
 ;t^= 
 
 r 
 
 1^ 
 
 j'j'j'.m sij'ij'j', ^^smj-, J'ssj'j's j-mj-s, Ji^j-.^.^j- x^ 
 
 + - ■■ *■ — t- >■ I -t- ■ + - ■ *■ -t- ■ * t -■*- — — — — — A 
 
 Gong. 
 
 i-U= 
 
 J. J. 
 
 6> I Sm I ! I J- 
 
 diminuendo 
 
 louder and /aster 
 
 sg^ 
 
 SS-- 
 
 l»=q 
 
 5s^ 
 
 ^5^:^^; 
 
 
 iimj:^ j:.^j:.'y^_jyy:;^. //////, j-j^iy:^ 
 
 i^=jy= 
 
 ^ 
 
 C^ 3ar-^ /(> sigh -^ A 
 
 gis 
 
 S 
 
 ^ 
 
 :3= 
 
 122= 
 
 // 
 
 ^=P5= 
 
 — 1-** rt»s^ 
 
 iffi 
 
 ilf 
 
 jji^'j j.jjj-jjj.jjjjj-j.'x.'"^ X— ' s--- x r^ 
 
 -\ ( -1- 
 
 — 1 -I *- 
 
 Gong. 
 
 Gong.
 
 MUSIC FOR "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" 97 
 
 speaking '. 
 " God, protect me," etc. 
 
 '^^^^^^M^^^^m 
 
 slower 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^=^ 
 
 rT 
 
 'TZii^^n :.rA /2 
 
 ^ 
 
 =^ 
 
 Drum. Gong. Drum. Gong. Drum. 
 
 .^B» IV *S N^ g~|N^^v- 
 
 r^>' slow 
 
 a little quicker 
 
 
 FF 
 
 P15: 
 
 ^=--^^ 
 
 hjjla^^^^^^ 
 
 m 
 
 
 S^= 
 
 ^==:fe^==. 
 
 
 *:^ 
 
 /aster and faster to the end . • • 
 
 ^ J ^• — 
 
 
 ->— — g^^^|— — t— —— j— t — I I — I h i I -^ ' ^- ^l ^-i 1 
 
 speaking : 
 " The madness has laid hold upon him." 
 
 M 
 
 *=--g 
 
 r^sJH^d^gsJ^ife ^fe ^^ 
 
 3^ ahnipt 
 
 ^t^f^ 
 
 gj^fe 
 
 
 :£ :g: :£ . f. :^ 5: T 
 
 /// 
 
 
 ^X^ ^n ^ in Lfir^ tn m m i::i ^ ^^j^ in in m ^ j 
 
 ^ dim. 
 
 r-i ^^-t KW "-s^ 
 
 -«»-* *=-*— 
 
 Cong. 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Speaking ; 
 ** Run where you will . . , 
 ,^^ ,,— *^ ^^-^ x*»N y*^ sloiver '^ very slow 
 
 m. 
 
 ft 
 
 
 ==0i 
 
 
 ^/ P l?p 
 
 -3aS=**- 
 
 ::sc=zp=l=:i=zgr 
 
 
 Gong. 
 
 Qrum. 
 
 Speaking ! 
 " I have heard water splasli."" 
 
 At tie end of the Dance begins a ioft roll on the gong 
 Harp. 8ve'" 
 fe ^ ^-^^ 
 
 and so on till they sing" He has lost what may oot be found 
 
 p^ 
 
 11 
 
 
 J^_^—^iESl 
 
 Fluti. 
 
 ^H 
 
 He has lost what may not be found 
 
 Till men 
 
 ^iE^^ 
 
 Happ. 
 
 1^ 
 
 M- •«■. -m- -m- -m- ••«- -m- -m- -m- ~m- ■'- -m-
 
 MUSIC FOR "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" 99 
 
 heap his bu-rial mound 'And all the history ends. He might have lived at his ease An 
 
 k^^. 
 
 ^--^ 
 
 
 m. 
 
 i*-s-- 
 
 mi-^^^- 
 
 ■f — r— F 
 
 -»■-*-■»■ 
 
 r=M-f =i^ 
 
 m 
 
 ■m- -m- 
 
 -I — r 
 
 -1 1 r 
 
 m 
 
 
 old dog's head 
 
 on his knees A-mong bis children and friends. 
 
 iM:^ 
 
 ?& 
 
 fe 
 
 very sl<nv 
 
 = p ~- ^ j= p 
 
 gg»=^=^ -*- 
 
 -t 1- 
 
 '^^^ 
 
 -t=:^-. 
 
 I I 
 
 To be sung before they rise to unfold tJie curiam. 
 
 e^ 
 
 !=g ^^= j^g EE;^| 
 
 Flute. 
 
 ^3^ 
 
 S^^^ 
 
 ^S3ES 
 
 Come to 
 
 Harp. 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 I3=S2 X 
 
 risz. 
 
 i^-^i^^ 
 
 me hu-man fa • ces, . Fa • mi - liar me-rao • ries, I have found hate - ful eyes A
 
 lOO FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 ^^^^. 
 
 ^^P^^^^ 
 
 mong the de-so-late pla-ces, Un-faltering, un-moistened eyes. Fol-ly a-lone I cherish 
 
 i^^^^ 
 
 I chose it for my share, Be - Ing but a mouthful of air, I am con-tent to perish. 
 
 I am but a mouthful of sweet air. O ■ lamentable shadows, Obs • cu • ri • ty of strife, 
 
 I choose a pleasant life, A -mong in. do-lent meadows, Wisdom must live a bit-ter life.
 
 MUSIC FOR "AT THE HAWK'S WELL" loi 
 
 To he lung ivhile they unfold and fold up the curtain. 
 
 " The man that I praise," Cries out the empty \l'en, " Lives 
 
 ■^=^ — ■■ — '^ — «' '^ '^ 
 
 .^3 V- 
 
 
 all his days Where a band on the bell Cao call the milch cows To the cooifortable doorofhishouse. 
 
 —Ti — r. 
 
 ^^^^^ 
 
 Who but an idiot would praise Dry stones in a well?" 
 
 "The man that I praise," Cries out the leafless tree, "Has 
 
 mairied and stays By an old beanb and h« On naught has set store But children and dogs on the floor. 
 
 $ 
 
 0= 
 
 I I 
 
 ^^^^^1 
 
 V/bobutan idiot would praise a withered tree?"
 
 NOTE ON 
 "THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER" 
 
 103
 
 NOTE ON "THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER" 
 
 While writing these plays, intended for some fifty people in 
 a drawing-room or a studio, I have so rejoiced in my freedom 
 from the stupidity of an ordinary audience that I have filled 
 "The Only Jealousy of Emer" with those little known con- 
 victions about the nature and history of a woman's beauty, 
 which Robartes found in the Speculum of Gyraldus and in 
 Arabia Deserta among the Judwalis. The soul through each 
 cycle of its development is held to incarnate through twenty- 
 eight tj'pical incarnations, corresponding to the phases of the 
 moon, the light part of the moon's disc symbolizing the sub- 
 jective and the dark part the objective nature, the wholly dark 
 moon (called Phase 1) and the wholly light (called Phase 15) 
 symbolizing complete objectivity and complete subjectivity 
 respectively. In a poem called "The Phases of the Moon" in 
 T/z^ fVild Swans at Coole I have described certain aspects of 
 this symbolism which, however, may take 100 pages or more 
 of my edition of the Robartes papers, for, as expounded by 
 him, it purports to be a complete classification and analysis of 
 every possible type of human intellect. Phase 1 and Phase 15 
 symbolizing, however, two incarnations not visible to human 
 eyes nor having human characteristics. The invisible fifteenth 
 incarnation is that of the greatest possible bodily beauty, and 
 the fourteenth and sixteenth those of the greatest beauty visible 
 to human eyes. Much that Robartes has written might be a 
 commentary on Castiglione's saying that the physical beauty 
 of woman is the spoil or monument of the victory of the soul, 
 for physical beauty, only possible to subjective natures, is de- 
 scribed as the result of emotional toil in past lives. Objective 
 natures are declared to be alwajs ugly, hence the disagreeable 
 appearance of politicians, reformers, philanthropists, and men
 
 io6 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 of science. A saint or sage before his final deliverance has one 
 incarnation as a woman of supreme beauty. 
 
 In writing these little plays I knew that I was creating 
 something which could only fully succeed in a civilization very 
 unlike ours. I think they should be written for some country 
 where all classes share in a half-mythological, half-philosophical 
 folk-belief which the writer and his small audience lift into 
 a new subtlety. All my life I have longed for such a country, 
 and always found it quite impossible to write without having 
 as much belief in its real existence as a child has in that of 
 the wooden birds, beasts, and persons of his toy Noah's Ark. 
 I have now found all the mythology and philosophy I need in 
 the papers of my old friend and rival, Robartes.
 
 MUSIC* FOR 
 "THE DREAMING OF THE BONES" 
 
 By WALTER MORSE RUMMEL 
 (1917) 
 
 * See Note on Music, page 108 
 
 All rights of Performance reserved by W . M. Rummel 
 
 107
 
 Music of tone and music of speech are distinct from each other. 
 
 Here my sole object has been to find some tone formula <which ivill 
 enhance and bring out a music underlying the ivords. The process 
 is therefore directly opposed to that of tone-music creation, ivhich 
 from the formless directly creates its tone form, ivhereas I seek to 
 derive a formless overfloiv from the already formed. 
 
 First Musician: A medium voice, more chanting than singing, not 
 letting the musical value of the sound predominate too greatly the 
 spoken value. 
 
 The First Musician uses a Plucked Instrument (harp or zither) 
 to reinforce the notes of his song in unison or in the octave. (It 
 is advisable not to reinforce each note sung, but only each beat, 
 unless certain difficulties of pitch V70uld necessitate the reinforcing 
 of such note.) 
 
 During the symphonic moments of the play the Plucked Instru- 
 ment assumes a more individual part. 
 
 Second Musician: Using a Flute, of a soft and discreet quality. 
 
 Third Musician: Using a Boived Instrument, one-stringed, more like 
 a Hindu Sarinda, perhaps with a sympathetic vibrating string, 
 giving a nasal sound. This part furnishes a bass, a sort of 
 horizon to the song, and becomes more individual in the sym- 
 phonic parts of the play. 
 
 Fourth Musician: Using a Drum, preferably also an oriental model, 
 played with the palm and the fingers of the hand. The drum 
 part is indicated by — (long) and " (short). The numbers below 
 these indications signify the fingers employed. The using of the 
 palm of the hand is indicated by P. 
 
 In case there are only Three Musicians, the Second and Third 
 Musicians can alternatively take the Drum part in places where they 
 are unoccupied. 
 
 All instrumental music, especially during the speaking parts, must 
 alivays leave the voice in the foreground. 
 
 W. M. R. 
 
 108
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 
 
 The stage is any hare place in a room iiith a ivall beyond it. A 
 screen or curtain hung luith a pattern of mountain and sky can i 
 stand against it, but the pattern must only symbolize or suggest. , 
 
 Three (four) Musicians enter. One stands singing ivhile the others 
 
 sit doivn against the ivall by their instruments ijuhich are already 
 
 there: a plucked instrument, a boived instrument, and flute and 
 drum. 
 
 First Musician (singing) 
 
 1ST Mvs. ' OHJciousty giustiotiing — — r =- — =: 
 
 Why does my heart beat so ? 
 
 IzgEfp ^^zE^ ^P 
 
 Did not a shad • ow pass? 
 
 hurriedly . , returning^ to •movement 
 
 * \ Indicates a slide (portamento) of the voice, after oriental fashion— sec subsequent applications. 
 
 109
 
 no 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 tvcnly 
 
 I intensely 
 
 ^i^g^e 
 
 ims 
 
 i^ff^ 
 
 ^-te=t- 
 
 EeE^ 
 
 dizzy dreams can spring From the dry bones of the dead? 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ^g^jg^ 
 
 
 E^ 
 
 cofKtn^ out 
 
 retarding _sHgh tly 
 
 { 
 
 ^=E 
 
 ^^^■=r- 
 
 a^ 
 
 :5Et 
 
 ^ 
 
 hurrying* 
 
 JE^f^^J^^^ ^ ^^fg^-^^^ ^^^ll ^^^ 
 
 ^:dK 
 
 ±t 
 
 And many a night it seems That all the val - ley fills With those fan-tas - tic dreams. They 
 
 ^ a^- 
 
 g^ 
 
 3£g^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 e 
 
 ^^E 
 
 ^5 
 
 i=-t 
 
 / 
 
 7;t //w^, intensely 
 
 
 ^^l^^^^^pppp 
 
 ^5t 
 
 ::^ tf y gg 
 
 B^E^ 
 
 over • flow the hills, So passionate is a shade Like wine that fills to the top A 
 
 ^^. 
 
 n=^=^ 
 
 - I r- 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 5^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^P^e=4 §^=; 
 
 St 
 
 ^ 
 
 H^
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES iii 
 
 'm^^^^^ ^^^=^=^=^ ^^^: 
 
 grey-green cup of jade, Or may -be an a • gate cup. 
 
 =Mt=; 
 
 5g3p 
 
 -r 
 
 retardi ng - 
 
 ^f^^ 
 
 ZTt 
 
 ^ 
 
 ill 
 
 =1= 
 
 ^ 
 
 1ST Mus. j rpj^g j^^^^ before dawn and the moon covered 
 
 {speaking) J 
 3RD Mus. I [ P^^^ ^^:a=g=^ 
 
 up. The little village of Abbey is covered up ; 
 
 1ST Mus. 
 
 2ND Mus. 
 
 {Jltite) 
 
 
 pn^ — I — F 
 
 ii^^^E^-i 
 
 I. The little narrow trodden way that runs 
 
 From the white road to the Abbey of Corcomroe 
 
 ' Is covered up ; and all about the hills 
 
 2. 
 
 I. Are like a circle of Agate or of 
 
 I. f Jade 
 
 Somewhere among great rocks on the scarce grass 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 * See footnote, p. 109.
 
 1 1 2 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 I. 
 
 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. 
 
 I. He seems an Aran fisher, for he wears 
 The flannel" bawneen and the cow-hide 
 
 ' ■ shoe. 
 I. 
 
 ■He stumbles wearily and stumbling prays. 
 
 'mf -gr:: r=» 
 
 ^^ffi 
 
 mf- 
 
 -S u> =1 — 1 S, .- N^ - 
 
 2. i 
 
 (^ Toung Man enters praying in Irish) 
 
 Chorus 
 
 ^^HE^I^^^^.Once more the birds cry in their loneliness. 
 
 •Kit: 
 t '^
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 113 
 
 1. But now they wheel about our heads ; and now 
 
 They have dropped on the grey stone to the north-east. 
 
 .3. 
 
 -i-4» 
 
 (yf Young Man and Touttg Girl come in) 
 'i \ 
 
 — . ■ 1 3d ■ 1 1 
 
 PS^"EE^ 
 
 
 n 
 
 inf 
 
 -PH. 
 
 :S±-fz 
 
 : s/=- p : 
 
 No music until page 56, line 13. 
 
 Young Man: For fear their owners might find shelter there. What 
 is that sound? 
 
 3- 
 
 s/^=- p held 
 
 long 2 a 
 
 P 3 p 3 
 
 i 5 
 
 Stranger: An old horse 
 
 3- 
 
 A''o music until page 58, /zk^ 18, 
 Stranger: Or grey Aughtmana shake their wings and- 
 
 .(11^ 
 
 THE WALK AROUND THE STAGE 
 
 Two steps may be taken to each musical measure, making it a very 
 slow figurative step. This will mean about 24 steps to one walk
 
 114 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 around the stage (Round). The last two steps may be twice as long 
 {in time), accompanied by certain movements of expectancy. In cal- 
 culating that each step amounts to half a metre, the length of the 
 stage would have to be of five metres. 
 
 I metre 
 
 (C 
 
 5 jnetres 
 
 5 metres 
 
 :)} 
 
 I metre 
 
 : 12 metres in all. 
 
 If necessary the two opening measures may be repeated at will, the 
 same at beginning of each round. 
 
 As to the spoken part preceding the song in each round, this must 
 be arranged for by the singer. The singing voice must be able to 
 easily enter in time at its proper place. The spoken part, however, 
 can be begun before the time indicated for it in the music, or after, 
 according to the speed of speech. The rhythm of the music should 
 be sloiv. 
 
 Stranger : — cry, 
 
 ICT ROUND. In a slaw myuerioui rhythm 
 
 2ND MlTS. 
 (Flute) 
 
 1ST Mus.*^ 
 
 3RD Mus. 
 {Bow Instr.y 
 
 Steps ; 
 
 Dreamingly^ always in background 
 
 Speaking : They've passed the shallow well 
 and the flat stone Fouled by the 
 
 m. 
 
 ;^._ a __i.j 
 
 z^ ^^=^=^=^!==S— J^" : ]~^ ^ J-i J-- 
 
 p Insist on rhythm 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^f.—h- 
 
 I 
 
 il'/t) 
 
 2 
 
 '■{ 
 
 their beads. 
 
 m^=^=^- =;^^ ^—J^-l^ ^^^^n^=^t^:i:^^i 
 
 drinking cattle, the narrow lane y have carried Noble or peasant y- An owl is crying out above 
 Where mourners for five centuries/ to his burial, / 
 
 1 J ^ 
 
 m/ Weirdly expressive without, however, covering the voice 
 
 56 7 8 9 10 
 
 ♦ The 4th Musician may double the plucked instrument, giving the same rhythm.
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 115 
 
 tea — 
 
 l3==r^^;g^S=^^ 
 
 Expressive but in time on account o/the 'walking 
 
 gg 
 
 P^i? 
 
 Singing : Why shouli) the heart take fright 
 
 W^ ^-J- — ^L^ =^=^t=^-- 
 
 1^=^^^^ 
 
 '•\ 
 
 ^S 
 
 II 
 
 12 
 
 fulte in l/ie iackground 
 
 '3 H 
 
 '•{ 
 
 I.. 
 
 ^-=ti:^5=3=tr 
 
 
 r5 
 
 VVhat sets it beat - ing so ? 
 
 
 The bitter sweetness of the night Has 
 
 ^^=^- 
 
 - ^^^^ ^^^^m 
 
 E^ 
 
 «s 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 i3 
 
 [ 
 
 '^^ 
 
 '-^^ 
 
 j^ ^z=C:1^°g-| ^ ^^li g --^=-^^ 
 
 ^^E^ 
 
 made it but a lonely 
 
 Red 
 
 19 Za 21 22 
 
 • All small notes sung as indicated, lefore the beat, but nevertheless very short.
 
 ii6 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 V4ry rhvlhmic anti styong. 
 
 H 
 
 V-fi£:; 
 
 i^ 
 
 ZS:-?^Z 
 
 
 :r»=3^ 
 
 If 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 -^ 
 
 =[»= 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 bird of March, begin to crow, Up with the neck and clap the wing, Red cock, and crow. 
 
 / roughly 'W 
 
 w=^-. 
 
 ©=^^=^= 
 
 =:iir 
 
 =f — ^Ivn 
 
 I*!?::: 
 
 =^*=^ 
 
 / plucked roughly 
 
 2'3 ;>a;/j« 
 
 
 24 
 
 pause 
 
 pause 
 
 2Nn ROUND. 
 
 H 
 
 E^^5E^-iE^E=?*5??3^:l=^ZHE=~= 1=^^ 
 
 spoken : And now they have cUmbcd through 
 the long grassy field. And passed 
 
 *-^ 
 
 
 
 '^^g'. 
 
 m 
 
 mf 
 
 5 
 
 1^ 
 
 E§^ 
 
 M 
 
 ibm—^z 
 
 
 a 
 
 the ragged thorn trees and y hedge ; and the tomb-nested owl At the 
 the gap In the ancient ^ foot's level beats with a vague-wing. 
 
 mf »^ 
 
 Singing- : My 
 
 l^ggiE^^=g^EE^}Eigg=feE:-^^^^gS^g^^j 
 
 
 
 =i^^-=s=ffi 
 
 r^ to-g=r=!!gg g 
 
 10 
 
 II 
 
 12
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 117 
 
 •{ (S r^ ^ — "S ^^^ — ^ — * ^^5 ^^z 
 
 head 
 
 is in a cloud ; 
 
 I'd let the whole world go. My 
 
 ^E^E^=^^^ 
 
 ^£ 
 
 13 
 
 E^ 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 «S 
 
 16 
 
 • { ^ -faE:^^^^g=-^^^^ = 
 
 emphasizing 
 
 - ^j " T , '^ f*""^ ^ m ^ I 
 
 -&S 
 
 ^^1^= 
 
 
 ras • cal heart is proud 
 
 ^ — 1^ 
 
 re - mem - ber- 
 
 i«3=. 
 
 re • mem - ber • Ing, 
 
 1^— — -^-^i^ — ^-g^--=^---i 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 '9 
 
 20 
 
 '•{ 
 
 ^igrz 
 
 ::P=5=:2J*;l2*=ili, 
 
 ^=^:Ei-:^^^f-|«= 
 
 P?T7 yhythmic and strong 
 
 «*: 
 
 "^^m 
 
 ~fc=:: 
 
 / r 
 
 ^_^^^^.^^^ 
 
 ^^. 
 
 
 -& ' r 
 
 Red bird of March, begin to crow, 
 
 ing. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ->1 --1 l*- 3 
 
 / roughly 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 ^m 
 
 f5=^ 
 
 "KT~. =^ — grnrrp--- 
 
 mf 
 21 
 
 2% 
 
 / /'lucked roughly
 
 ii8 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 Up with the neck and clap the wing. 
 
 Red cock, and crow. 
 
 3.^^2=1^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^m 
 
 H 
 
 pause 
 
 SRD ROUND. 
 
 ^^^=^ 
 
 Speaking : They are among the stones above the 
 ash, Above the briar and thorn 
 
 ^=S^^ 
 
 m/ exfresiive 
 
 5 6 
 
 ^i^ 
 
 and the scarce grass ; Hidden ibfim The cat-headed bird is 
 
 amid the shadow far below •' crying out. 
 
 m^ 
 
 Singing : The 
 
 1S^^^=S^ 
 
 r*=i: 
 
 N - N 
 
 m 
 
 *==ls==fc 
 
 r*z=:«t±at 
 
 '■{ 
 
 -ftjt- 
 
 =e=m 
 
 ^ 
 
 -P^ 
 
 m 
 
 10 
 
 II \z,
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 119 
 
 !•- 
 
 ^eain • ing bones cry out 
 
 — ft — ,, 
 
 be • cause the night winds blow And heaven (is) a cloudy blot ", Ca» 
 
 ^^ 
 
 H-^-XHt- 
 
 .^^^ 
 
 ^■ 
 
 E&EE^ 
 
 -^='- 
 
 3.{i^ 
 
 pp 
 
 13 
 
 H 
 
 'S 
 
 16 
 
 «7 
 
 18 
 
 -{ 
 
 '■{ 
 
 * Very rhythmic and strong 
 
 ^S. 
 
 sfcfe^^c 
 
 i^^^^ 
 
 C5;e:: 
 
 r»:Pr, 
 
 /f 
 
 =tia^ 
 
 ^^i^^5S 
 
 
 la-mi • tj' can have its fling. 
 
 i*- — -=mz 
 
 ^^^^^ 
 
 i^ 
 
 zjit^z^^zi p-^-H-viB^l'^^ 
 
 Red bird ofMarch.begintocrow, 
 
 •5E£ 
 
 §1 
 
 / roughly 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ?i^3 
 
 19 
 
 B^t^S-^ 
 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 22 
 
 / plitcked roughly, 
 2 3 pause 
 
 
 Up with the neck and clap the iving, Red cock, and crow. 
 
 Speahittg — 
 
 The Stranger : 
 We're almost, etc 
 
 No iHitsic
 
 I20 
 
 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 CLOSING SONG 
 
 The Musician iiiging 
 
 ■JD Mus. •[ 
 
 1ST Mus.' 
 
 3RD Mus. 
 
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 iH-z 
 
 Si^ 
 
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 At the grey round of the hill 
 
 Mus • ic of a lost kingdom Runs, 
 
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 runs and is suddenly still. 
 
 The winds out of Clare-Gal-way Carry it: 
 
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 deeply expressive 
 
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 Slo^vin^ up a little 
 
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 In time 
 
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 suddenly it is still, 
 
 1 have 
 
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 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 121 
 
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 m/ 
 
 i 
 
 w 
 
 ^- 
 
 
 Slightly faster . 
 
 heard in the night air A wandering ai • ry mu • sic ; 
 
 And moidered m that 
 
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 returning to movement 
 
 ^^ 
 
 E;iplgg=5i5-j;feg; g^gg=;;E BSE=i 
 
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 snare A man is lost of a sudden, In that sweet wandering snare. • • 
 
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 deeply expressive 
 
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 Coming out plaintively, ■witlumt disturbing the melody __. 
 
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 What 
 
 fin • ger first began Mu • sic of a lost liingdom? 
 
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 122 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 bit-ter, They dream— and dark -en our 
 
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 A little tnore vigorous. 
 
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 crazy fingers' play A 
 
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 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 123 
 
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 wandering airy music; Our luck is withered a - way. 
 
 And wheat in the wheat • ear 
 
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 , . Very tinsel 
 
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 getting fain tcf 
 
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 withered, And the wind blows it a - way. 
 
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 Vcfy tense • 
 
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 'ntolto r More vigorous and alive. 
 
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 My heart ran wild when it heard The curlew 
 
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 124 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 2. 
 
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 cry before ihe dawn And the eddying cat- headed bird ; 
 
 
 cahft again 
 
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 But now the night is gone. 
 
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 iil 
 
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 Kfry rhythmic and strong. 
 
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 I've heard from far below The strong March birds a • crow , 
 
 Stretch 
 
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 / roughly 
 
 / roughly plucked
 
 THE DREAMING OF THE BONES 125 
 
 p SJowef _ 
 
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 neck and clap the wing, . '. . . . Red cocks, and crow. 
 
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 Paris, Sef>remier 1917.
 
 NOTE ON 
 "THE DREAMING OF THE BONES" 
 
 127
 
 NOTE ON "THE DREAMING OF THE BONES" 
 
 Dervorgilla's few lines can be given, if need be, to Dermot, 
 and Dervorgilla's part taken by a dancer who has the training 
 of a dancer alone; nor need that masked dancer be a woman. 
 
 The conception of the play is derived from the world-wide 
 belief that the dead dream back, for a certain time, through 
 the more personal thoughts and deeds of life. The wicked, 
 according to Cornelius Agrippa, dream themselves to be con- 
 sumed by flames and persecuted by demons; and there is pre- 
 cisely the same thought in a Japanese "Noh" play, where a 
 spirit, advised by a Buddhist priest she has met upon the road, 
 seeks to escape from the flames by ceasing to believe in the 
 dream. The lovers in my play have lost themselves in a different 
 but still self-created winding of the labyrinth of conscience. 
 The Judwalis distinguish between the Shade which dreams 
 back through events in the order of their intensity, becoming 
 happier as the more painful and, therefore, more intense wear 
 themselves away, and the Spiritual Being, which lives back 
 through events in the order of their occurrence, this living back 
 being an exploration of their moral and intellectual origin. 
 
 All solar natures, to use the Arabian terms, during life move 
 towards a more objective form of experience, the lunar towards 
 a more subjective. After death a lunar man, reversing the 
 intellectual order, grows always closer to objective experience, 
 which In the spiritual world Is wisdom, while a solar man 
 mounts gradually to the most extreme subjective experience 
 possible to him. In the spiritual world subjectivity is Innocence, 
 and Innocence, in life an accident of nature, is now the highest 
 
 129 
 
 K
 
 I30 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 achievement of the intellect. I have already put the thought 
 in verse. 
 
 He grows younger every second 
 
 That were all his birthdays reckoned 
 
 Much too solemn seemed ; 
 
 Because of what he had dreamed, 
 
 Or the ambitions that he served, 
 
 Much too solemn and reserved. 
 
 Jaunting, journeying 
 
 To his own dayspring. 
 
 He unpacks the loaded pern 
 
 Of all 'twas pain or joy to learn, 
 
 Of all that he had made. 
 
 The outrageous war shall fade; 
 
 At some old winding whitethorn root 
 
 He'll practise on the shepherd's flute, 
 
 Or on the close-cropped grass 
 
 Court his shepherd lass. 
 
 Or run where lads reform our daytime 
 
 Till that is their long shouting playtime; 
 
 Knowledge he shall unwind 
 
 Through victories of the mind. 
 
 Till, clambering at the cradle side. 
 
 He dreams himself his mother's pride. 
 
 All knowledge lost in trance 
 
 Of sweeter ignorance. 
 
 The Shade is said to fade out at last, but the Spiritual Being 
 does not fade, passing on to other states of existence after it 
 has attained a spiritual state, of which the surroundings and 
 aptitudes of early life are a correspondence. When, as in my 
 poem, I speak of events while describing the ascent of the 
 Spiritual Being, I but use them as correspondence or symbol. 
 Robartes writes to John Aherne, under the date of May 1917, 
 a curious letter on this subject: "There is an analogy between 
 the dreaming back of the Body of Passion" (I have used instead 
 of this term the more usual term Shade), "and our ordinary 
 dreams — and between the life of Spirit and Celestial Body 
 taken together" (I have substituted for both terms the less 
 technical, though, I fear, vague term Spiritual Being), "and 
 those coherent thoughts of dreamless sleep, which, as I know
 
 "THE DREAMING OF THE BONES" 131 
 
 on my personal knowledge, coincide with dreams. These 
 dreams are at one time their symbols, and at another live with 
 an independent life. I have several times been present while 
 my friend, an Arab doctor in Bagdad, carried on long conversa- 
 tions with a sleeping man. I do not say a hypnotized man, 
 or even a somnambulist, for the sleep seemed natural sleep 
 produced by fatigue, though sometimes with a curious sudden- 
 ness. The sleeper would discuss the most profound truths and 
 yet while doing so make, now and again, some movement that 
 suggested dreaming, although the part that spoke remained 
 entirely unconscious of the dream. On waking he would often 
 describe a long dream, sometimes a symbolic reflection of the 
 conversation, but more often produced by some external stim- 
 ulus — a fall in temperature in the rooms, or some condition 
 of body perhaps. Now and again these dreams would interrupt 
 the conversation, as when he dreamed he had feathers in his 
 mouth and began to blow. Seeing, therefore, that I have 
 observed a separation between two parts of the nature during 
 life, I find no difficulty in believing in a more complete separa- 
 tion, affirmed by my teachers, and supported by so much tradi- 
 tion, when the body is no longer there to hold the two parts 
 together." 
 
 I wrote my play before the Robartes papers came into my 
 hands, and in making the penance of Dermot and Dervorgilla 
 last so many centuries I have done som.ething for which I had 
 no warrant in these papers, but warrant there certainly is in 
 the folk-lore of all countries. At certain moments the Spiritual 
 Being, or rather that part of it which Robartes calls "the 
 Spirit," is said to enter into the Shade, and during those 
 moments it can converse with living men, though but within 
 the narrow limits of its dream. 
 
 K 2
 
 NOTE ON "CALVARY" 
 
 133
 
 NOTE ON "CALVARY" 
 
 I HAVE written the little songs of the chorus to please myself, 
 confident that singer and composer, when the time came for 
 performance, would certainly make it impossible for the audi- 
 ence to know what the words were. I used to think that sing- 
 ers should sing a recipe for a good dish, or a list of local trains, 
 or something else they want to get by heart, but I have changed 
 my mind and now I prefer to give him some mystery or secret. 
 A reader can always solve the mystery and learn the secret by 
 turning to a note, which need not be as long as those Dante 
 put to several of the odes in the Convito. I use birds as symbols 
 of subjective life, and my reason for this, and for certain other 
 things, cannot be explained fully till I have published some part 
 at any rate of those papers of Michael Robartes, over which 
 I have now spent several years. The following passage in a 
 letter written by Robartes to Aherne in the spring of 1917 
 must suffice. "At present I rather pride myself on believing 
 all the superstitions of the Judwalis, or rather in believing that 
 there is not one amongst them that may not be true, but at first 
 my West European mind rebelled. Once in the early morning, 
 when I was living in a horse-hair tent among other similar 
 tents, a young Arab woke me and told me to come with him 
 if I would see a great wonder. He brought me to a level place 
 in the sand, just outside the tent of a certain Arab, who had 
 arrived the night before and had, as I knew, a reputation as 
 a wonder-worker, and showed me certain marks on the sand, 
 I said they were the marks of a jackal, but he would not have 
 this. When he had passed by a little after sunrise there was 
 not a mark, and a few minutes later the marks were there. No 
 beast could have come and gone unseen. When I asked his 
 explanation he said they were made by the wonder-worker's 
 'Daimon' or 'Angel.' 'What,' I said, 'has it a beast's form?' 
 
 135
 
 13^ FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 'He goes much about the world,' he said; 'he has been in Persia 
 and in Afghanistan, and as far west as Tripoli. He is inter- 
 ested in things, in places, he likes to be with many people, and 
 that is why his Daimon has the form of a beast, but your 
 Daimon would have a bird's shape because you are a solitary 
 man.' Later on, when I mastered their philosophy, I came to 
 learn that the boy had but classified the wonder-worker and 
 myself according to their division of all mankind into those 
 who are dominated by objects and those who are dominated 
 by the self or Zat, or, as we would say, into objective and 
 subjective natures. Certain birds, especially as I see things, 
 such lonely birds as the heron, hawk, eagle, and swan, are the 
 natural symbols of subjectivity, especially when floating upon 
 the wind alone or alighting upon some pool or river, while the 
 beasts that run upon the ground, especially those that run in 
 packs, are the natural symbols of objective man. Objective 
 men, however personally alone, are never alone in their 
 thought, which is always developed in agreement or in conflict 
 with the thought of others and always seeks the welfare of 
 some cause or institution, while subjective men are the more 
 lonely the more they are true to type, seeking always that 
 which is unique or personal." 
 
 I have used my bird-symbolism in these songs to increase the 
 objective loneliness of Christ by contrasting it with a loneliness, 
 opposite in kind, that unlike His can be, whether joyous or 
 sorrowful, sufficient to itself. I have surrounded Him with 
 the images of those He cannot save, not only with the birds, 
 who have served neither God nor Caesar, and await for none 
 or for a different saviour, but with Lazarus and Judas and the 
 Roman soldiers for whom He has died in vain. "Christ," 
 writes Robartes, "only pitied those whose suffering is rooted 
 in death, in poverty, or in sickness, or in sin, in some shape of 
 the common lot, and he came especially to the poor who are 
 most subject to exterior vicissitude." I have therefore repre- 
 sented in Lazarus and Judas types of that intellectual despair 
 that lay beyond His sympathy, while in the Roman soldiers
 
 NOTE ON "CALVARY" 137 
 
 I suggest a form of objectivity that lay beyond His help. 
 Robartes said in one of the conversations recorded by Aherne: 
 "I heard much of Three Songs of Joy, written by a certain old 
 Arab, which owing to the circumstances of their origin were 
 considered as proofs of great sanctity. He held the faith of 
 Kusta ben Luki, but did not live with any of the two or three 
 wandering companies of Judwalis. He lived in the town of 
 Hayel as servant to a rich Arab merchant. He himself had 
 been a rich merchant of Aneyza and had been several times to 
 India. On his return from one of these journeys he had found 
 his house in possession of an enemy and was himself driven 
 from Aneyza by the Wahabies on some charge, I think of 
 impiety, and it was then he made his first song of joy. A few 
 years later his wife and child were murdered by robbers in the 
 desert, and after certain weeks, during which it was thought 
 that he must die of grief, his face cleared and his step grew 
 firm and he made his second song. He gave away all his goods 
 and became a servant in Hayel, and a year or two later, believ- 
 ing that his death was near, he made his third song of joy. 
 He lived, however, for several months, and when I met him 
 had the use of all his faculties. I asked him about the 'Three 
 Songs,' for I knew that even on his deathbed, as became the 
 votary of a small contentious sect, he would delight in exposi- 
 tion. I said, (though I knew from his songs themselves, that 
 this was not his thought, but I wanted his explanation in his 
 own words) : 'You have rejoiced that the Will of God should 
 be done even though you and yours must suffer.' He answered 
 with some emotion: *Oh, no, Kusta ben Luki has taught us 
 to divide all things into Chance and Choice; one can think 
 about the world and about man, or anything else until all has 
 vanished but these two things, for they are indeed the first 
 cause of the animate and inanimate world. They exist in God, 
 for if they did not He would not have freedom, He would be 
 bound by His own Choice. In God alone, indeed, can they 
 be united, yet each be perfect and without limit or hindrance. 
 If I should throw from the dice-box there would be but six
 
 138 FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS 
 
 possible sides on each of the dice, but when God throws He 
 uses dice that have all numbers and sides. Some worship His 
 Choice; that is easy; to know that He has willed for some 
 unknown purpose all that happens is pleasant ; but I have spent 
 my life in worshipping His Chance, and that moment when 
 I understand the immensity of His Chance is the moment when 
 I am nearest Him. Because it is very difficult and because 
 I have put my understanding into three songs I am famous 
 among my people.' "
 
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