The King's Threshold; and On Baile's Strand Part 1

The King's Threshold; and On Baile's Strand.

by William Butler Yeats.

A PROLOGUE.

Footnote 1: Written for the first production of "The King's Threshold" in Dublin, but not used, as, owing to the smallness of the company, n.o.body could be spared to speak it.

_An OLD MAN with a red dressing-gown, red slippers and red nightcap, holding a bra.s.s candlestick with a guttering candle in it, comes on from side of stage and goes in front of the dull green curtain._

_Old Man._ I've got to speak the prologue. [_He shuffles on a few steps._] My nephew, who is one of the play actors, came to me, and I in my bed, and my prayers said, and the candle put out, and he told me there were so many characters in this new play, that all the company were in it, whether they had been long or short at the business, and that there wasn't one left to speak the prologue. Wait a bit, there's a draught here. [_He pulls the curtain closer together._] That's better.

And that's why I'm here, and maybe I'm a fool for my pains.

And my nephew said, there are a good many plays to be played for you, some to-night and some on other nights through the winter, and the most of them are simple enough, and tell out their story to the end. But as to the big play you are to see to-night, my nephew taught me to say what the poet had taught him to say about it. [_Puts down candlestick and puts right finger on left thumb._] First, he who told the story of Seanchan on King Guaire's threshold long ago in the old books told it wrongly, for he was a friend of the king, or maybe afraid of the king, and so he put the king in the right. But he that tells the story now, being a poet, has put the poet in the right.

And then [_touches other finger_] I am to say: Some think it would be a finer tale if Seanchan had died at the end of it, and the king had the guilt at his door, for that might have served the poet's cause better in the end. But that is not true, for if he that is in the story but a shadow and an image of poetry had not risen up from the death that threatened him, the ending would not have been true and joyful enough to be put into the voices of players and proclaimed in the mouths of trumpets, and poetry would have been badly served.

[_He takes up the candlestick again._

And as to what happened Seanchan after, my nephew told me he didn't know, and the poet didn't know, and it's likely there's n.o.body that knows. But my nephew thinks he never sat down at the king's table again, after the way he had been treated, but that he went to some quiet green place in the hills with Fedelm, his sweetheart, where the poor people made much of him because he was wise, and where he made songs and poems, and it's likely enough he made some of the old songs and the old poems the poor people on the hillsides are saying and singing to-day.

[_A trumpet-blast._

Well, it's time for me to be going. That trumpet means that the curtain is going to rise, and after a while the stage there will be filled up with great ladies and great gentlemen, and poets, and a king with a crown on him, and all of them as high up in themselves with the pride of their youth and their strength and their fine clothes as if there was no such thing in the world as cold in the shoulders, and speckled s.h.i.+ns, and the pains in the bones and the stiffness in the joints that make an old man that has the whole load of the world on him ready for his bed.

[_He begins to shuffle away, and then stops._

And it would be better for me, that nephew of mine to be thinking less of his play-acting, and to have remembered to boil down the knap-weed with a bit of three-penny sugar, for me to be wetting my throat with now and again through the night, and drinking a sup to ease the pains in my bones.

[_He goes out at side of stage._

THE KING'S THRESHOLD.

SCENE: _Steps before the Palace of KING GUAIRE at Gort. A table in front of steps to right with food on it. SEANCHAN lying on steps to left. PUPILS before steps. KING on top of steps at centre._

_King._ I welcome you that have the mastery Of the two kinds of music; the one kind Being like a woman, the other like a man; Both you that understand stringed instruments, And how to mingle words and notes together So artfully, that all the art is but speech Delighted with its own music; and you that carry The long twisted horn and understand The heady notes that being without words Can hurry beyond time and fate and change; For the high angels that drive the horse of time, The golden one by day, by night the silver, Are not more welcome to one that loves the world For some fair woman's sake.

I have called you hither To save the life of your great master, Seanchan, For all day long it has flamed up or flickered To the fast-cooling hearth.

_Senias._ When did he sicken?

Is it a fever that is wasting him?

_King._ He did not sicken, but three days ago He said he would not eat, and lay down there And has not eaten since. Till yesterday I thought that hunger and weakness had been enough, But finding them too trifling and too light To hold his mouth from biting at the grave I called you hither, and have called others yet.

The girl he is to wed at harvest-time, That should be of all living the most dear, Is coming from the South, and had I known Of any other neighbours or good friends That might persuade him, I had brought them hither, Even though I'd to ransack the world for them.

_Senias._ What was it put him to this work, High King?

_King._ You will call it no great matter. Three days ago I yielded to the outcry of my courtiers, Bishops, soldiers, and makers of the law, Who long had thought it against their dignity For a mere man of words to sit among them At my own table; and when the meal was spread I ordered Seanchan to good company, But to a lower table; and when he pleaded The poet's right, established when the world Was first established, I said that I was King And made and unmade rights at my own pleasure.

And that it was the men who ruled the world, And not the men who sang to it, who should sit Where there was the most honour. My courtiers, Bishops, soldiers, and makers of the law Shouted approval, and amid that noise Seanchan went out, and from that hour to this, Although there is good food and drink beside him, Has eaten nothing. If a man is wronged, Or thinks that he is wronged, and will lie down Upon another's threshold until he dies, The common people for all time to come Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold, Even though it is the King's. He lies there now Peris.h.i.+ng; he is calling against my majesty, That old custom that has no meaning in it, And as he perishes, my name in the world Is peris.h.i.+ng also. I cannot give way Because I am King, because if I give way My n.o.bles would call me a weakling, and it may be The very throne be shaken; but should you That are his friends speak to him and persuade him To turn his mouth from the ill-savouring grave And eat good food, he shall not lack my favour; For I will give plough-land and grazing-land, Or all but anything he has set his heart on.

It is not all because of my good name I'd have him live, for I have found him a man That might well hit the fancy of a king Banished out of his country, or a woman's, Or any other's that can judge a man For what he is. But I that sit a throne, And take my measure from the needs of the state, Call his wild thought that over-runs the measure, Making words more than deeds, and his proud will That would unsettle all, most mischievous, And he himself a most mischievous man.

_Senias._ King, whether you did right or wrong in this Let the King say, for all that I need say Is that there's nothing that cries out for death In the withholding of that ancient right, And that I will persuade him. Your own words Had been enough persuasion were it not That he is lost in dreams that hunger makes, And therefore heedless, or lost in heedless sleep.

_King._ I leave him to your love, that it may promise Plough-lands and gra.s.s-lands, jewels and silken wear, Or anything but that old right of the poets.

[_He goes out. The PUPILS, who have been standing perfectly quiet, all turn towards SEANCHAN, and move a step nearer._

_Senias._ The King did wrong to abrogate our right, But Seanchan, who talks of dying for it, Talks foolishly. Look at us, Seanchan, Waken out of your dream and look at us, Who have ridden under the moon and all the day, Until the moon has all but come again, That we might be beside you.

[_SEANCHAN turns half round leaning on his elbow, and speaks as if in a dream._

_Seanchan._ I was but now At Almhuin, in a great high-raftered house, With Finn and Osgar. Odours of roast flesh Rose round me and I saw the roasting spits, And then the dream was broken, and I saw Grania dividing salmon by a pool, And then I was awakened by your voice.

_Senias._ It is your hunger that makes you dream of flesh Roasting, and for your hunger I could weep; And yet the hunger of the crane that starves Because the moonlight glittering on the pool And flinging a pale shadow has made it shy, Seems to me little more fantastical Than this that's blown into so great a trouble.

_Seanchan._ [_Who has turned away again._]

There is much truth in that, for all things change At times, as if the moonlight altered them, And my mind alters as if it were the crane's; For when the heavy body has grown weak There's nothing that can tether the wild mind That being moonstruck and fantastical Goes where it fancies. I had even thought I knew your voice and face, but now the words Are so unlikely that I needs must ask Who is it that bids me put my hunger by?

_Senias._ I am your oldest pupil, Seanchan; The one that has been with you many years, So many that you said at Candlemas That I had almost done with school, and knew All but all that poets understand.

_Seanchan._ My oldest pupil. No, that cannot be; For it is someone of the courtly crowds That have been round about me from sunrise And I am tricked by dreams, but I'll refute them.

I asked the pupil that I loved the best, At Candlemas, why poetry is honoured, Wis.h.i.+ng to know how he'd defend our craft In distant lands among strange churlish Kings.

And he'd an answer.

_Senias._ I said the poets hung Images of the life that was in Eden About the childbed of the world, that it, Looking upon those images, might bear Triumphant children; but why must I stand here Repeating an old lesson while you starve?

_Seanchan._ Tell on, for I begin to know the voice; What evil thing will come upon the world If the arts perish?

_Senias._ If the arts should perish The world that lacked them would be like a woman That looking on the cloven lips of a hare Brings forth a hare-lipped child.

_Seanchan._ But that's not all.

For when I asked you how a man should guard Those images you had an answer also, If you're the man that you have claimed to be, Comparing them to venerable things G.o.d gave to men before he gave them wheat.

_Senias._ I answered, and the word was half your own, That he should guard them, as the men of Dea Guard their four treasures, as the Grail King guards His holy cup, or the pale righteous horse The jewel that is underneath his horn, Pouring out life for it, as one pours out Sweet heady wine--but now I understand You would refute me out of my own mouth; And yet a place at table near the King Is nothing of great moment, Seanchan.

How does so light a thing touch poetry?

[_SEANCHAN is now sitting up. He still looks dreamily in front of him._

_Seanchan._ At Candlemas you called this poetry One of the fragile mighty things of G.o.d That die at an insult.

_Senias._ [_To other PUPILS._] Give me some true answer.

For on that day we spoke about the court And said that all that was insulted there The world insulted, for the courtly life, Being the first comely child of the world, Is the world's model. How shall I answer him?

Can you not give me some true argument?

I will not tempt him with a lying one.