Three Wonder Plays Part 18

_Princess_: Oh, that is not right! He to be dead and I living after him!

_King_: He was surely n.o.ble and high-blooded.

There are some that will be sorry for his death.

_Princess_: And who should be more sorry than I myself am sorry? Who should keen him unless myself? There is a man that gave his life for me, and he young and all his days before him and shut his eyes on the white world for my sake!

_Queen_: Indeed he was a man you might have been content to wed with, hard and all as you are to please.

_Princess_: I never will wed with any man so long as my life will last, that was bought for me with a life was more worthy by far than my own!

He is gone out of my reach; let him wait for me to give him my thanks on the other side. Bring me now his sword and his s.h.i.+eld till I will put them before me and cry my eyes down with grief!

_Gateman_: Here is his cap for you, anyway, and his cleaver and his bunch of skivers. For the champion you are crying was no other than that lad of a cook!

_Queen_: That is not true! It is not possible!

_Gateman_: Sure I seen him myself going out the gate a while ago. He put off his cook's apparel and threw it along with these behind the turfstack. I gathered them up presently and I coming in the door.

_King_: The world is gone beyond me entirely!

But what I was saying all through, there was something beyond the common in that boy!

_Queen: (To Princess, who is clinging to chair.)_ Let you be comforted now, knowing he cannot come back to lay claim to you in marriage, as it is likely he would, and he living.

_Princess_: It is he saved me after my unkindness!...

Oh, I am ashamed ...ashamed!

_Queen_: It is a queer thing a king's daughter to be crying after a man used to twisting the spit in place of weapons, and over skivers in the place of a sword!

_Princess: (Gropes and totters.)_ What has happened?

There is something gone astray! I have no respect for myself.... I cannot live! I am ashamed. Where is Nurse? Muime! Come to me, Muime!...My grief! The man that died for me, whether he is of the n.o.ble or the simple of the world, it is to him I have given the love of my soul!

_(Dall Glic supports her and lays her on window seat.)_

_Nurse: (Rus.h.i.+ng in.)_ What is it, honey?

What at all are they after doing to you?

_Queen_: Throw over her a skillet of water. She is gone into a faint.

_Dall Glic: (Who is bending over her.)_ She is in no faint. She is gone out.

_Nurse_: Oh, my child and my darling! What call had I to leave you among them at all?

_King_: Raise her up. It is impossible she can be gone.

_Dall Glic_: Gone out and spent, as sudden as a candle in a blast of wind.

_King_: Who would think grief would do away with her so sudden, there to be seven of the like of him dead?

_Nurse: (Rises.)_ What did you do to her at all, at all? Or was it through the fright and terror of the beast?

_Queen_: She died of the heartbreak, being told that the strange champion that had put down the Dragon was killed dead.

_Nurse_: Killed, is it? Who now put that lie out of his mouth? _(Shouts in her ear.)_ What would ail him to be dead? It is myself can tell you the true story. No man in Ireland ever was half as good as him! It was himself mastered the beast and dragged the heart out of him and forced down a squirrel's heart in its place, and slapped a bridle on him. And he himself did but stagger and go to his knees in the heat and drunkenness of the battle, and rose up after as good as ever he was! It is out putting ointments on him that I was up to this, and healing up his cuts and wounds!

Oh, what ails you, honey, that you will not waken?

_Queen_: She thought it to be a champion and a high up man that had died for her sake. It is what broke her down in the latter end, hearing him to be no big man at all, but a clown!

_Nurse_: Oh, my darling! And I not here to tell you! You are a motherless child, and the curse of your mother will be on me! It was no clown fought for you, but a king, having generations of kings behind him, the young King of Sorcha, Ma.n.u.s, son of Solas son of Lugh.

_King_: I would believe that now sooner than many a thing I would hear.

_Nurse: (Keening.)_ Oh, my child, and my share! I thought it was you would be closing my eyes, and now I am closing your own! You to be brought away in your young youth! Your hand that was whiter than the snow of one night, and the colour of the foxglove on your cheek.

_(A great shouting outside and burst of music.

A march played. Ma.n.u.s comes in, followed by Fintan and Prince of the Marshes.

Shouts and music continue. He leads the Dragon by a bridle. The others are in front of Princess, huddled from Dragon.

Queen gets up on a chair.)_

_Ma.n.u.s_: Where is the Princess Nu? I have brought this beast to bow itself at her feet.

_(All are silent. Ma.n.u.s flings bridle to Fintan's hand. Dragon backs out. All go aside from Princess.)_

_Nurse_: She is here dead before you.

_Ma.n.u.s_: That cannot be! She was well and living half an hour ago.

_Nurse: (Rises.)_ Oh, if she could but waken and hear your voice! She died with the fret of losing you, that is heaven's truth! It is tormented she was with these giving out you were done away with, and mocking at your weapons that they laid down to be the cleaver and the spit, till the heart broke in her like a nut.

_Ma.n.u.s: (Kneeling beside her.)_ Then it is myself have brought the death darkness upon you at the very time I thought to have saved you!

_Nurse_: There is no blame upon you, but some that had too much talk!

_(Goes on keening.)_

_Ma.n.u.s_: What call had I to come humbugging and letting on as I did, teasing and tormenting her, and not coming as a King should that is come to ask for a Queen! Oh, come back for one minute only till I will ask your pardon!

_Dall Glic_: She cannot come to you or answer you at all for ever.

_Ma.n.u.s_: Then I myself will go follow you and will ask for your forgiveness wherever you are gone, on the Plain of Wonder or in the Many-Coloured Land! That is all I can do ...to go after you and tell you it was no want of respect that brought me in that dress, but hurry and folly and taking my own way. For it is what I have to say to you, that I gave you my heart's love, what I never gave to any other, since first I saw you before me in my sleep! Here, now, is a short road to reach you!

_(Takes sword.)_

_Prince of Marshes: (Catching his hand.)_ Go easy now, go easy.

_Ma.n.u.s_: Take off your hand! I say I will die with her!

_Prince of Marshes_: That will not raise her up again. But I, now, if I have no skill in killing beasts or men, have maybe the means of bringing her back to life.

_Nurse_: Oh, my blessing on you! What is it you have at all?