The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 2 of 8. William Butler Yeats

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      The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 2

      The friends that have it I do wrong

      When ever I remake a song,

      Should know what issue is at stake:

      It is myself that I remake.

      THE KING’S THRESHOLD

To Frank Fay

BECAUSE OF HIS BEAUTIFUL SPEAKING INTHE CHARACTER OF SEANCHAN

      PERSONS IN THE PLAY

      King Guaire

      Seanchan (pronounced Shanahan)

      His Pupils

      The Mayor of Kinvara

      Two Cripples

      Brian (an old servant)

      The Lord High Chamberlain

      A Soldier

      A Monk

      Court Ladies

      Two Princesses

      Fedelm

      THE KING’S THRESHOLD

      Steps before the Palace of KING GUAIRE at Gort. A table in front of steps at one side, with food on it, and a bench by table. Seanchan lying on steps. PUPILS before steps. KING on the upper step before a curtained door.

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’s 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.

OLDEST PUPIL

      When did he sicken?

      Is it a fever that is wasting him?

KING

      No fever or sickness. He has chosen death:

      Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring

      Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom,

      An old and foolish custom, that if a man

      Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve

      Upon another’s threshold till he die,

      The common people, for all time to come,

      Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold,

      Even though it be the King’s.

OLDEST PUPIL

      My head whirls round;

      I do not know what I am to think or say.

      I owe you all obedience, and yet

      How can I give it, when the man I have loved

      More than all others, thinks that he is wronged

      So bitterly, that he will starve and die

      Rather than bear it? Is there any man

      Will throw his life away for a light issue?

KING

      It is but fitting that you take his side

      Until you understand how light an issue

      Has put us by the ears. 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 amongst them

      At my own table. When the meal was spread,

      I ordered Seanchan to a lower table;

      And when he pleaded for the poets’ right,

      Established at the establishment of the world,

      I said that I was King, and that all rights

      Had their original fountain in some king,

      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.

OLDEST PUPIL

      I can breathe again.

      You have taken a great burden from my mind,

      For that old custom’s not worth dying for.

KING

      Persuade him to eat or drink. 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 all my hope’s in you,

      And certain of his neighbours and good friends

      That I have sent for. While he is lying there

      Perishing, my good name in the world

      Is perishing also. I cannot give way,

      Because I am King. Because if I gave way,

      My Nobles would call me a weakling, and it may be

      The very throne be shaken.

OLDEST PUPIL

      I will persuade him.

      Your words had been enough persuasion, King;

      But being lost in sleep or reverie,

      He cannot hear them.

KING

      Make him eat or drink.

      Nor is it all because of my good name

      I’d have him do it, for he is 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 overruns the measure,

      Making words more than deeds, and his proud will

      That would unsettle all, most mischievous,

      And he himself a most mischievous man.

[He turns to go, and then returns again.

      Promise a house with grass and tillage land,

      An annual payment,