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

Whom would I drive away?

FOOL

I won’t tell you.

WISE MAN

Not if I give you a penny?

FOOL

No.

WISE MAN

Not if I give you two pennies?

FOOL

You will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but I won’t tell you!

WISE MAN

Three pennies?

FOOL

Four, and I will tell you!

WISE MAN

Very well, four. But I will not call you Teig the Fool any longer.

FOOL

Let me come close to you where nobody will hear me. But first you must promise you will not drive them away. [WISE MAN nods.] Every day men go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills, great black nets.

WISE MAN

Why do they do that?

FOOL

That they may catch the feet of the angels. But every morning, just before the dawn, I go out and cut the nets with my shears, and the angels fly away.

WISE MAN

Ah, now I know that you are Teig the Fool. You have told me that I am wise, and I have never seen an angel.

FOOL

I have seen plenty of angels.

WISE MAN

Do you bring luck to the angels too?

FOOL

Oh, no, no! No one could do that. But they are always there if one looks about one; they are like the blades of grass.

WISE MAN

When do you see them?

FOOL

When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet like the stars – not like the seven that move, but like the fixed stars.

    [He points upward.

WISE MAN

And what happens then?

FOOL

Then all in a minute one smells summer flowers, and tall people go by, happy and laughing, and their clothes are the colour of burning sods.

WISE MAN

Is it long since you have seen them, Teig the Fool?

FOOL

Not long, glory be to God! I saw one coming behind me just now. It was not laughing, but it had clothes the colour of burning sods, and there was something shining about its head.

WISE MAN

Well, there are your four pennies. You, a fool, say ‘Glory be to God,’ but before I came the wise men said it.

FOOL

Four pennies! That means a great deal of luck. Great teacher, I have brought you plenty of luck!

    [He goes out shaking the bag.

WISE MAN