The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 3 of 8. The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars

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William Butler Yeats

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Год написания книги

2017

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[Making a sign upon the air.]

Come hither, hither, hither.

SECOND MERCHANT

I can hear
A crying as of storm-distempered reeds.
The fading and the unfading fires rise up
Like steam out of the earth; the grass and leaves
Shiver and shrink away and sway about,
Blown by unnatural gusts of ice-cold air.

FIRST MERCHANT

They are one with all the beings of decay,
Ill longings, madness, lightning, famine, drouth.

[The whole stage is gradually filled with vague forms, some animal shapes, some human, some mere lights.

Come you – and you – and you, and lift these bags.

A SPIRIT

We are too violent; mere shapes of storm.

FIRST MERCHANT

Come you – and you – and you, and lift these bags.

A SPIRIT

We are too feeble, fading out of life.

FIRST MERCHANT

Come you, and you, who are the latest dead,
And still wear human shape: the shape of power.

[The two robbing peasants of the last scene come forward. Their faces have withered from much pain.

Now, brawlers, lift the bags of gold.

FIRST PEASANT

Yes, yes!
Unwillingly, unwillingly; for she,
Whose gold we bear upon our shoulders thus,
Has endless pity even for lost souls
In her good heart. At moments, now and then,
When plunged in horror, brooding each alone,
A memory of her face floats in on us.
It brings a crowned misery, half repose,
And we wail one to other; we obey,
For heaven’s many-angled star reversed,
Now sign of evil, burns into our hearts.

FIRST MERCHANT

When these pale sapphires and these diadems
And these small bags of money are in our house,
The burning shall give over – now begone.

SECOND MERCHANT

[Lifting the diadem to put it upon his head.]

No – no – no. I will carry the diadem.

FIRST MERCHANT

No, brother, not yet.
For none can carry her treasures wholly away
But spirits that are too light for good and evil,
Or, being evil, can remember good.
Begone! [The spirits vanish.] I bade them go, for they are lonely,
And when they see aught living love to sigh.
[Pointing to the oratory.] Brother, I heard a sound in there – a sound
That troubles me.

SECOND MERCHANT

[Going to the door of the oratory and peering through it.]

Upon the altar steps
The Countess tosses, murmuring in her sleep
A broken Paternoster.

[The FIRST MERCHANT goes to the door and stands beside him.]

She is grown still.

FIRST MERCHANT

A great plan floats into my mind – no wonder,
For I come from the ninth and mightiest Hell,
Where all are kings. I will wake her from her sleep,
And mix with all her thoughts a thought to serve.