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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Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

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CATHLEEN

There is a something, merchant, in your voice
That makes me fear. When you were telling how
A man may lose his soul and lose his God,
Your eyes lighted, and the strange weariness
That hangs about you vanished. When you told
How my poor money serves the people – both —
Merchants, forgive me – seemed to smile.

FIRST MERCHANT

Man’s sins
Move us to laughter only, we have seen
So many lands and seen so many men.
How strange that all these people should be swung
As on a lady’s shoe-string – under them
The glowing leagues of never-ending flame!

CATHLEEN

There is a something in you that I fear:
A something not of us. Were you not born
In some most distant corner of the world?

[The SECOND MERCHANT, who has been listening at the door to the right, comes forward, and as he comes a sound of voices and feet is heard through the door to his left.

SECOND MERCHANT [aside to FIRST MERCHANT]

Away now – they are in the passage – hurry,
For they will know us, and freeze up our hearts
With Ave Marys, and burn all our skin
With holy water.

FIRST MERCHANT

Farewell: we must ride
Many a mile before the morning come;
Our horses beat the ground impatiently.

[They go out to R. A number of peasants enter at the same moment by the opposite door.

CATHLEEN

What would you?

A PEASANT

As we nodded by the fire,
Telling old histories, we heard a noise
Of falling money. We have searched in vain.

CATHLEEN

You are too timid. I heard naught at all.

THE OLD PEASANT

Ay, we are timid, for a rich man’s word
Can shake our houses, and a moon of drouth
Shrivel our seedlings in the barren earth;
We are the slaves of wind, and hail, and flood;
Fear jogs our elbow in the market-place,
And nods beside us on the chimney-seat.
Ill-bodings are as native unto our hearts
As are their spots unto the woodpeckers.

CATHLEEN

You need not shake with bodings in this house.

[Oona enters from the door to L.

OONA

The treasure-room is broken in – mavrone – mavrone;
The door stands open and the gold is gone.

[The peasants raise a lamenting cry.
CATHLEEN.
Be silent. [The cry ceases.
Saw you any one?

OONA

Mavrone,
That my good mistress should lose all this money.

CATHLEEN

You three upon my right hand, ride and ride;
I will give a farm to him who finds the thieves.

[A man with keys at his girdle has entered while she was speaking.

A PEASANT

The porter trembles.