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

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
Perishing; 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 perishing also. I cannot give way
Because I am King, because if I give way
My nobles 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 grass-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,