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

Cian.
Let’s show the food that’s in the basket.
Mayor.
[Who carries an Ogham stick.] No,
I must get through my speech or I’ll forget it;
Besides, there is no reason why he’d eat
Till he has heard my reasons.
Cian.
It were better
To show what we have brought him in the basket,
For we have nothing that he has not liked
From boyhood.
Brian.
For we have not brought kings’ food
That’s cooked for everybody and nobody.
Mayor.
You are not showing right respect to me,
Or to the people of Kinvara, when you wish
That something else should come before my message.
Seanchan.
What brings you here? I never sent for you.
Cian.
He must be famishing, he looks so pale.
We had better get the food out first. I tell you,
That we have brought the things he likes the best.
Mayor.
No, no; I lost a word at every cross road
And maybe if I do not speak it now
I’ll have forgot it.
Cian.
Well, out with it quickly.
Seanchan.
Why, what’s this foolery?
Mayor.
No foolery;
A message from the richest, best born townsman
Of your own town, and from your aged father.
Cian.
Run through it while I am getting out the food.
Mayor.
How was I to begin? What was the word
That was to keep it in my memory?
Wait, I have notched it on this Ogham stick.
“Chief poet,” “Ireland,” “Townsman”; that is it.
Chief poet of Ireland, when we heard that trouble
Had come between you and the King of Ireland
It plunged us in deep sorrow, part for you,
Our honoured townsman, part for our good town.
The King was said to be most friendly to us,
And we had reasons, as you’ll recollect,
For thinking that he was about to give
Those grazing lands inland we so much need,
Being pinched between the water and the rocks.
But now his friendliness being ill repaid
Will be turned from us and our town get nothing.
But there was something else – I’ll find the word
That was to keep it in my memory.
“Pride” – that’s the word, – we would not have you think,
Weighty as these considerations are,
That they have been as weighty in our minds
As our desire that one we take much pride in,
A man who has been an honour to our town,
Should live and prosper, therefore we beseech you
To give way in a matter of no moment,
A matter of mere sentiment, a trifle,
That we may always keep our pride in you.
Seanchan.
Their pride, their pride, what do they know of pride?
My pupils do not know it, for they beg
From the King’s favour what is theirs by right,
And how can men, that God has made so weak
They need a rich man’s favour every day,
Know anything of pride?
Cian.
[To Mayor.] You have spoken it wrongly.
You have forgotten something out of it about the cattle dying.
Mayor.
Maybe you do not know, being much away,
How many of our cattle died last winter
From lacking grass, and that there was much sickness
Because the poor had nothing but salt fish
To live upon. The people all came out
And stood about the doors as I went by.
Seanchan.
What would you have of me?
For there are men that shall be born at last
And find sweet nurture that they may have voices
Even in anger like the strings of harps.
Yet how could they be born to majesty
If I had never made the golden cradle?
Mayor.
What is it? “Father” – “Mother”; that is it;
Your father sends this message.
Cian.
He is listening.
Mayor.
He says that he is old and that he needs you,
And that the people will be pointing at him
And he not able to lift up his head
If you should turn the King’s favour away.