Two plays for dancers

EMER

You ask for my one hope
That you may bring your curse on all about him.

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

You've watched his loves and you have not been jealous
Knowing that he would tire, but do those tire
That love the Sidhe?

EMER

What dancer of the Sidhe
What creature of the reeling moon has pursued him?

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

I have but to touch your eyes and give them sight;
But stand at my left side.

(He touches her eyes with his left hand, the right being withered)

EMER

My husband there.

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

But out of reach – I have dissolved the dark
That hid him from your eyes but not that other
That's hidden you from his.

EMER

Husband, husband!

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

Be silent, he is but a phantom now
And he can neither touch, nor hear, nor see;
The longing and the cries have drawn him hither.
He heard no sound, heard no articulate sound;
They could but banish rest, and make him dream,
And in that dream, as do all dreaming shades
Before they are accustomed to their freedom,
He has taken his familiar form, and yet
He crouches there not knowing where he is
Or at whose side he is crouched.

(a Woman of the Sidhe has entered and stands a little inside the door)

EMER

Who is this woman?

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

She has hurried from the Country-Under-Wave
And dreamed herself into that shape that he
May glitter in her basket; for the Sidhe
Are fishers also and they fish for men
With dreams upon the hook.

EMER

And so that woman
Has hid herself in this disguise and made
Herself into a lie.

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

A dream is body;
The dead move ever towards a dreamless youth
And when they dream no more return no more;
And those more holy shades that never lived
But visit you in dreams.

EMER

I know her sort.
They find our men asleep, weary with war,
Or weary with the chase and kiss their lips
And drop their hair upon them, from that hour
Our men, who yet knew nothing of it all,
Are lonely, and when at fall of night we press
Their hearts upon our hearts their hearts are cold.

(She draws a knife from her girdle)

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

And so you think to wound her with a knife.
She has an airy body. Look and listen;
I have not given you eyes and ears for nothing.

(The Woman of the Sidhe moves round the crouching Ghost of Cuchulain at front of stage in a dance that grows gradually quicker, as he slowly awakes. At moments she may drop her hair upon his head but she does not kiss him. She is accompanied by string and flute and drum. Her mask and clothes must suggest gold or bronze or brass or silver so that she seems more an idol than a human being. This suggestion may be repeated in her movements. Her hair too, must keep the metallic suggestion.)

GHOST of CUCHULAIN