Chapter V: KING LEAR'S WIFE. (1911-13.) Published in "Georgian (2)

"Open your window when the moon is dead,
And I will come again.
The men say everywhere that you are faithless....
And your eyes shifty eyes. Ah, but I love you, Gormflaith...."
This is not hers: she'd not receive such words.

GONERIL.
Her name stands twice therein: her perfume fills it:
My knife went through it ere I found it on her.

LEAR.
The filth is suitably dead. You are my true daughter.

GONERIL.
I do not understand how men can govern,
Use craft and exercise the duty of cunning,
Anticipate treason, treachery meet with treachery,
And yet believe a woman because she looks
Straight in their eyes with mournful, trustful gaze,
And lisps like innocence, all gentleness.
Your Gormflaith could not answer a woman's eyes.
I did not need to read her in a letter;
I am not woman yet, but I can feel
What untruths are instinctive in my kind,
And how some men desire deceit from us.
Come; let these washers do what they must do:
Or shall your Queen be wrapped and coffined awry?

_She goes out by the garden doorway._

LEAR.
I thought she had been broken long ago:
She must be wedded and broken, I cannot do it.

_He follows GONERIL out._

_The two women return to the bedside._

THE ELDER WOMAN.
Poor, masterful King, he is no easier,
Although his tearful wife is gone at last:
A wilful girl shall prick and thwart him now.
Old gossip, we must hasten; the Queen is setting.
Lend me a pair of pennies to weight her eyes.

THE YOUNGER WOMAN.
Find your own pennies: then you can steal them safely.

THE ELDER WOMAN.
Praise you the gods of Britain, as I do praise them,
That I have been sweet-natured from my birth,
And that I lack your unforgiving mind.
Friend of the worms, help me to lift her clear
And draw away the under sheet for you;
Then go and spread the shroud by the hall fire--
I never could put damp linen on a corpse.

_She sings._

The louse made off unhappy and wet;--
Ahumm, Ahumm, Ahee--
He's looking for us, the little pet;
So haste, for her chin's to tie up yet,
And let us be gone with what we can get--
Her ring for thee, her gown for Bet,
Her pocket turned out for me.

CURTAIN.

THE CRIER BY NIGHT

_TO
MY DEAR SCRIBE_

PERSONS:

HIALTI, a Northman.
THORGERD, His Wife.
BLANID, an Irish Bondmaid.
AN OLD STRANGE MAN.

THE CRIER BY NIGHT

_The scene is the interior of a cottage near a misty mere and among unseen mountains on a wild night of late Autumn. In the back wall area door to the left and a long low window in the middle; the latter is shuttered on the outside, and on door and window the wind-driven rain rattles. In the middle of the left-hand wall a door leads into an outhouse; near it is a loom: toward the front of the right-hand wall another door leads to a sleeping-chamber; a settle extends along this wall and in front of it a long table is set. Two rushlights burn on the table. A round hearth is in the middle of the house; its smoke rises into a luffer which hangs from the thatched roof between two beams. The floor is thickly strewn with rushes. There are several wooden stools about the hearth, on one of which HIALTI is sitting mending harness. THORGERD is standing near the loom, spinning with a distaff._

HIALTI.
THE lass is late about; where is she now?

THORGERD.
Let the lass be. What is the lass to you?
She is my lass to handle as I will--
My father gave her to me for my own,
And so I use her as I use my gear....
"She will not last" say you? Well, what of that?
I know gear must wear out, being well used;
Shoes must be trodden under-foot all day,
Though in the mire they go and to the mire;
The hearth-fire wastes the irons used to tend it:
I am the huswife--leave the house to me
And buy me new gear when the old is rotten.

HIALTI.
You drive her over hard. In the cold dark,
Hours ere the thin late dawn, she was afoot,
And she has been afoot each moment since:
The butter will not come now without fire,
But I was wakened in the frosty night
By the slow moaning of her weary churn,
And when I rose she stood here without shoes--
She said you took them from her; so I sought,
And gave her them again, and lit the fire.
She dare not sleep with half your tasks undone,
But you slept and your sleep was all her rest;
Yet in her land 'tis you would be the thrall.
You shut the hens in from the storm all day,
But she must trudge with peat-mull in a swill
Up from the water-side and down all day....

THORGERD
Spare her and have my firing spoilt? Not I.
Had it been sodden, how could you light her fires?

HIALTI.
You drive her over hard.

THORGERD. What is it to you?
Fodder and yoke your neats, see to your swine,
Put them to breed, and leave my stock to me.
If this is over hard, what will it be--
Last week she still could smile sometimes, so yet
She smiles too often for my happiness.
What money did the calves fetch at the fair?

HIALTI.
Where is she now?

THORGERD. What money did the calves
Fetch at the fair last week?

HIALTI. Where is she now?

THORGERD.
I spilt the water; she must needs draw more.

HIALTI.
The roof-drip at the door would fill her pails.

THORGERD.
What money did the calves fetch at the fair?

HIALTI.
You need not ask; you had it all to hoard.

THORGERD.
You kept some back; who bought them?

HIALTI. He who paid.

_The outside door opens and, as the rain drives in, BLANID enters carrying two pails of water by a yoke. Her short-sleeved, frayed, hempen smock is dripping-wet; an old cart-strap is buckled about her middle; her ankles are bare, but her feet are covered by shapeless brogues; her matted hair is cut short, and she has an iron collar about her neck. She sets down her pails, and with difficulty shuts and bolts the door against the wind. Then she carries her pails into the outhouse; as she moves about within she is heard to sing to a tired, monotonous tune._

BLANID.
The bird in my heart's a-calling through a far-fled, tear-grey sea
To the soft slow hills that cherish dim waters weary for me,
Where the folk of rath and dun trail homeward silently
In the mist of the early night-fall that drips from their hair like
rain.

The bird in my heart's a-flutter, for the bitter wind of the sea
Shivers with thyme and woodbine as my body with memory;
I feel their perfumes ooze in my ears like melody--
The scent of the mead at the harping I shall not hear again.

The bird in my heart's a-sinking to a hushed vale hid in the sea,
Where the moonlit dew o'er dead fighters is stirred by the feet of
the Shee,
Who are lovely and old as the earth but younger than I can be
Who have known the forgetting of dying to a life one lonely pain ...

_She returns from the outhouse._

THORGERD.
Come here; give me your shoes; quickly, I say.
Why must you go shod softly? Give me your shoes.

_She takes them and puts them on the fire._

Is there some joy so deep within you still
That I have missed it though 'tis bright for singing?
It shall not be so long; sing while you can.

BLANID.
No joy ever sank deep enough for singing;
Trouble and all the sorrowful ways of men
Must stir the sad unrest that ends in song.
Joy seeks but peace and silence and still thought;
But those who cannot weep must sing for ease,
And in the sound forget the thought that smote it.

THORGERD.
I am made glad, hearing your misery;
Yet all the shapeless, creeping, shivering sounds
You wail about the house will make me share it.
Your songs of faery and nameless kings
And things that never happened long ago
And an unknown, impossible, shadowy land
Are useless as the starlight after moonset
That will not light men homeward from the fair--
Nay, useless as its melting down thin water:
If you must sing, sing truth to gut-strong tunes
Of Gunnar or of Freya or Andvari,
Vineland the Good and the old Western sea.

BLANID.
Things need not happen that they may be true;
Although impossible, they may be true--
The things that matter happen in the heart.
All earthly truth is true but for a time,
Whilst ages may be altered by one dream--
The things that matter happen in the heart ...

THORGERD.
Useless as starlight or the aimless wind.

BLANID.
The wind is all the souls of those sad dead
Who will not stay in Heaven for love of earth;
Hither and thither they surge to find the gate
They see and know not on its new, strange side,
For they have learned too much to be let back.
Ah, some have learned too much before they die.

_As she crosses the house at the back HIALTI turns and, catching her hands in his, draws her toward him._

HIALTI.
Is it too hard, the thought of that lost vale?

BLANID.
It is too hard, because I must so love it
That were I free I should go there no more,
Lest I should hate it. I must always suffer,
I only suffer this way rather than that--
'Tis the eternal suffering of love
Must search me somehow with love's pitilessness
To make me know all souls; what matter how?
O, I am but a troubled dream of God's,
And even His will can alter not His dreams;
Yea, He is dreaming me a little while--
I must be dreamed out to the hardest end,
Returning then to be unknown in Him;
I shall be Him again when He awakes.
Ah, God, awake, and so forget me soon.

_THORGERD, swinging her aside by the collar on her neck._

Set on the water for the porridge; go.

_BLANID goes into the outhouse; THORGERD continues to HIALTI._

Why must you hold her hands and hold her eyes?

HIALTI.
Under each dark grey lash a long tear slid,
Like rain in a wild rose's shadowy curve
Bowed in the wind about the morning twilight.

THORGERD.
Have done; I know; you left the fair at noon
To reach the copse just at the young moon's setting--
I could not find her till i' the night-hid copse
A woman's voice sobbed "If he would but come..."

HIALTI.
It is not true; you know it is not true.
Let her alone; you know that I must love you,
And if she loves me she will know it too
And hurt herself far more than you can hurt her.

THORGERD.
I hear you say it: and afterward?... Perhaps
My little shears are sharp as any knife.

HIALTI.
You would not kill her?

THORGERD. When have I grown kind-hearted?

_She lays her hand on his shoulder and, leaning her mouth to his ear, speaks in a low, distinct voice._

Slit nose and lip and where's her beauty then?

_He starts from his stool._

Nay, are my kinsfolk as far off as hers?

_He turns away as BLANID enters with an iron pot which she hangs from a hook over the fire, and a pitcher of milk which she sets on the table._

_THORGERD takes the pot from the fire._

Here's too much water; it will never boil,
And if it did the mess would be too thin.

_She pours water from the pot upon the floor, then hangs the pot over the fire again._

Set out the bowls, and finger not their lips.

_BLANID goes again to the outhouse, and, returning, sets three bowls with spoons on the table, and a jar of meal by the hearth._

Though porridge needs meal you shall not think for me;
Do nought until I bid you--once. The grain.

_BLANID goes yet again to the outhouse and returns with a bag of grain._

You know what grain is for; why do you stand?
Your feet are mine. Down to the quern. Get down.

BLANID.
There's meal in plenty for to-morrow.

THORGERD, _laying down her distaff to make porridge._
Ay,
But is there meal in plenty for next month?
You may be dead then; therefore you must toil,
That I may need to do no aching tasks
Until my man can buy another drudge
From the next herd; for so we shall forget you.

BLANID, _kneeling by the quern between the window and the door,
and commencing to grind grain._
You hate me far too subtly to forget me;
There is not enough kindness in your heart
To let you thus forego your joy of hate.
Then, too, despite the accident of death,
I cannot go from here against my will.

THORGERD.
You shall not die ere I have done with you;
And death shall only come by suffering
Until you are too feeble even to suffer.

BLANID.
The sound of death is ever in mine ears,
Monotonous as the night's infinity
Wherein I was once born where salt winds sweep
The wailing of the waters of the West.
I die, but you can ne'er have done with me.

THORGERD, _the porridge being made._
Come, drudge, lift off the pot and fill the bowls.

BLANID, _having filled two bowls._
The pot is empty.

THORGERD. But the bowls are full.

HIALTI.
Now give the lass some supper; fill her bowl.

THORGERD, _pouring milk over the porridge._
There's but enough for two; I'll make no more.
Here, take the pot and scrape it at the quern.

_HIALTI and THORGERD draw stools to the table; BLANID carries the pot to the outhouse and returns to the quern; supper proceeds in silence for a few moments, then HIALTI rises and offers his bowl to BLANID._

HIALTI.
Share with me, lass; I need no more to-night.

_Before BLANID can taste the porridge THORGERD strikes the bowl from her hand._

HIALTI, _indignantly, as he reaches to THORGERD'S bowl._
She shall have yours; go you and make us more ...

_He is interrupted by a distant wailing which is heard through the storm._

THE VOICE.
Ohey! Ohey! Ohohey!

BLANID.
Master, I hear one calling in the night.

HIALTI, _in a subdued voice._
It is the wind across the chimney-slates.

THE VOICE.
Ohey! Ohohey!

BLANID.
Master, a man is calling in the night.

HIALTI.
An owl, storm-beaten, drowns down the long mere.

THE VOICE, _sounding nearer on a gust of wind._
Ohohey! Ohohey!

BLANID.
Master, one lost is helpless in the night.

THORGERD, _gently and with an eager smile._
Ay, lass, good lass; go, lass, and seek for him--
Maybe he sinks amid the marshy reeds;
Bring him to warmth and supper and a bed.
I'll shut the door; the light will only daze you.

HIALTI, _leaping to the door in front of BLANID, and setting his
back to it._
No, no; back, girl, get back. (_To THORGERD._)
You murderess,
You know it is the Crier of the Ford,
Who wakens when the clashing waters rise
And the thick night is choked with level rain.
He is not seen; he was not born; he gathers
His bodiless being from the treacherous tarn.
His aged crying gropes about the storm
To snare the spent wayfarer to the ford,
Or draw some pitiful helper to the ford,
And drown them where the unknown water swirls
And strangle them with long brown water-weed:
He seeks their souls for his old soul to feed on,
Because it has no body to nourish it.

THORGERD, _hastily yet sullenly._
How should I know?

_She grips BLANID'S shoulder and hurries her to the outhouse._

Get in with you to your straw.

_She thrusts her into the outhouse and shuts the door upon her; then she turns to HIALTI._

Fool, now I know you love her behind your heart.

HIALTI.
I have no mind to waste a half-spent thrall
To prove I love you; and to buy another
Would need more money than eight red-polled stirks.

THORGERD.
Choose between her and me; if you take her,
I take the land.

HIALTI. I love you overmuch
To set you equally against a thrall.

THORGERD.
What, do I touch you when I touch your fields?

HIALTI.
To-morrow I must drive the sold ewes home
And lead more bedding from the bracken-fell
If the storm clears--it is well stacked and dry;
So we must be a-stirring by lantern-light,
Since now you will not have the lass go with me
To milk, but go yourself although three cows
Will not let down their milk to you at all,
You drag their teats so: waking-time comes soon--
Best get to bed.

THORGERD.
And leave you to go to your straw's wench?

HIALTI, _taking a rushlight in his hand._
Here are enough of your unfaithful words;
I'll alter this to-morrow.

THORGERD. Ay, to-morrow.

_HIALTI enters the sleeping-chamber; after watching the door close upon him, THORGERD, her hands clenched and her arms rigid, swiftly steps half way toward the outhouse; then, suddenly relaxing into a pause and smiling with tight lips as she shakes her head slightly and sharply, she turns to the table again, doffs her coif and draws her hair down, blows out the remaining rushlight, and follows HIALTI into the sleeping-chamber._

_Henceforth the cottage is only lit by the ever-dying fire. A long, empty silence ensues, broken only by the tumult of the storm and the tinkle of the sinking embers._

_Then the outhouse door opens slowly and from it BLANID steps listeningly across the house, in front of the hearth, to the door of the sleeping-chamber, remaining there for a little time with her ear against the door-boards; then she returns noiselessly across the house, behind the hearth, pausing near the house door._

BLANID, _in a hushed voice._
If day were only darkness melting down
From darkness into darkness like this rain,
Lost ere 'tis known, then I might always sleep
And sleep and dream I was a queen once more--
She does not know I was a jewelled queen,
For so I spoil her of new heights of joy
In which she might for haughtiness fondle me.
O, I would sleep in that old Crier's arms,
Enduring silence harder than all else,
A mote shut into one cold, kneaded eyelid
Of the dead mere; and dream into the wind,
And cling to stars lest I should slip through space;
And dream I am the body of him I love,
Who yields me only kindness, never love--
O me, that misery of hopeless kindness.
But I'll not die and leave him to her lips;
Though I can never have him she shall not;
For I can use this body worn to a soul
To barter with that Crier of hidden things
That, if he tangles him in his chill hair,
Then I will follow and follow and follow and follow,
Past where the imaged stars ebb past their light
And turn to water under the dark world.

_She goes out into the storm, leaving the door open behind her. Presently she is heard singing to a chant-like, ever-falling melody._

I stand in the sick night, whose hid shape is my own shape,
As dazed life in the flickering hearts of old men;
I think like a lean heron with bald head and frayed nape
Motionlessly moulting in a flat pool of a grey fen,
Whose sleep-blinked horny eyes know it can ne'er moult again.

My age-long cry droops in the hoar unseen stars that shake
Until their discordant rays make darkness inside the sky;
My bare cry shivers along the slimy rushes of the drowned lake--
Weariful waters, do you hear a soul's hair tingling your veiled
feet nigh?
I stand outside my keen body, yearning into you as I cry.

HIALTI, _within._
Is that the lass sobbing a song in sleep?

THORGERD, _within._
The wind, the wind, and so as much as she.

BLANID, _still out of doors, singing._
Old father of many waters, can you feel my soul touching yours?
I know that to greet your calling leaves me no more any yea or nay;
Yet I too am of kin with lost woods and sedgy shores,
So come secret as your black wind and take the dark core of my
heart away,
Ere you beget me on death to be still-born to an unlit day.
Ohey! Ohey! Ohohey!

THE VOICE. Ohohey! Ohey!

HIALTI, _within._
Is there a woman's voice inside the wind?

THORGERD, _within._
... the unclean Crier croaking ... cover your ears ...

_BLANID re-enters the house hurriedly; she shuts and bolts the door, hardly knowing what she does; she falls on her knees with her back to the door, breathing quickly and hard, and swaying backward and forward, her face hid in her hands._

_Again and again a terrible blast of wind strains at the unyielding door._

THE VOICE, _close at hand._
Open, open; I cannot open; open.
I cannot come to you unless you open.

BLANID, _muttering behind her hands._
I will not go ... I can do nothing else ...
It shall not enter ... O, it is in my heart ...

_She totters fearfully to the door, after many hesitant backward glances, and opens it slowly and as if she had never known how to open it. She reels against the wall and stands there motionlessly, clutching it with flat hands and outspread arms, as a stooping figure swathed in a rain-coloured, rain-soaked cloak and deep hood enters. Wisps of white hair flutter in the mouth of the hood, and one flicker of the fire-light shows in its depths a soft, shrunken, beardless face with an almost lipless, sunken mouth._

THIS OLD STRANGE MAN, _speaking always in a low, even, mournful
voice._
A spirit calling in an old, old tongue
Forgotten in lost graves in lonesome places;
A spirit huddled in an old, old heart
Like a blind crone crouched o'er a long-dead fire;
A spirit shrinking in the old, old hills,
Dreading to step down water or hollow night:
Some seek me dreaming one last hope of joy;
Some have been made too wise by too much joy
And seek me longing for deeper misery,
Knowing that joy is weary in unending,
Changeless and one and easy in low perfection,
While misery has as many shapes as evil
That all must learn, and is made new for ever
By fear of pain desired for love of passion;
But feel, O you who call me through the night,
I bring you neither joy nor misery
But only rest so slow and sad and sodden
You will not know of it--you shall only rest
And lose your soul in my soul evermore.

_Sounds of heavy breathing are heard from the sleeping-chamber during his speaking. He is continually reaching to BLANID with his muffled, unseen hands, but she holds them from her as continually._

BLANID, _always in an eager, suppressed voice._
I have known joy--I know not what it was,
Mead-fumes that filled me cooling to one drop;
I have known misery--a self-numbed sting
That showed me but another joy to lose;
These were too small, I will have only rest,
And lose my soul in your soul evermore.
But if I die into your drooping limbs
I must be mingled there with him I love;
You may not reach him by your hoary crying,
But raise some human wail for help and light
And he will come and I must follow him
Past where the imaged moon shakes like a soul
Pausing in death between two unknown worlds.

THE OLD MAN.
A sign, a plighting, and I do your will.

BLANID, _winding her arms about his arms from one side, so that
he cannot touch her, and burying her face in his hood._
Kisses. 'Hast drained my soul's blood in each kiss.

THE OLD MAN.
I go, I go; make me not come again,
For I am in you, you must melt to me
Past where the imaged dark shuts bending lovers'
Close, unseen-imaged faces within life....

_Keeping his face turned toward BLANID, he recedes to the door, where he ceases to be seen in the wind that scurries past._

THE VOICE, _immediately and far away._
Help; help; the marsh-lights 'wilder us! A light!

_BLANID shuts the door. The fire has now sunk so low that as she crosses the house she is only visible in the half-dark as a dim shape. She pauses by the hearth._

BLANID.
Nay, but I touch toward my joy at last,
And Christ and all His Saints go out like candles
When mass is said and the priest's cup is wiped....

THE VOICE.
The water laps our waists! Help, help! A light!

BLANID, _running to the sleeping-chamber door._
Master, I hear a calling....

_After an interval she strikes the door, crying loudly._

Master! Master!

HIALTI, _within._
Has the flood washed into the shippon?

BLANID. Nay;
There is a pitiful shrieking in the dark.

HIALTI, _within._
It is the Crier; break sleep no more for that.

THORGERD, _within._
The ox-goad shall reward you when dawn comes ...
Wake us once more and you shall waken often,
Ay, very often, until you dread to sleep ...

BLANID.
I heard that trailing cry like maddened fir-boughs;
Now I hear words--is there a woman's wail?

THORGERD, _within._
A woman? Let her drown.

HIALTI, _within._ I come. I come.
Reach down the lantern and light it, light it, light it.

_Standing on a stool, BLANID lifts a lantern from a nail in one of the beams and, carrying it to the hearth, kneels there and seeks to light it with an ember._

THORGERD, _within._
You shall not go; it is a lie of hers;
You shall not go ...

_A brief struggle in the sleeping-chamber is heard._

HIALTI, _within._ So; stand you from the door.
Get donned; make up the fire; have water boiling;
And send the wench to lie in your warm form
Ready to cherish what stiffening thing I bring.

BLANID, _to herself, lighting the lantern and smiling mischievously._
Yea, I shall cherish a stiffening thing for her.
Lantern, you are as dim as a little soul,
Yet the least soul can light a man to Heaven,
And you might lead him home; but I am like God,
Who makes souls from His aches--I will not ache,
You shall not have a soul, I suck it back.

_She extinguishes the light. HIALTI hurries in half-dressed._

HIALTI.
Canst find a rope?

BLANID, _pointing._ Behind the settle there.
_To herself._
'Tis a good rope and has two rotten strands;
'Twas meant to make good tinder on the morrow.

THE VOICE.
Help; help! A light! Come for the woman's sake!

HIALTI, _holding out his hand for the lantern._
Hearken and haste; give me the lantern--now!

BLANID.
Master, it will not light....

HIALTI. Will the storm pause?

THE VOICE.
Ohohey! Ohohey!

HIALTI.
Will that dark Crier linger? I must go.

_She catches his outstretched hand and kisses it ere, snatching it away, he flings the house door wide open and dashes outside. Soon the sound of his footsteps is lost in the storm._

BLANID, _relighting the lantern and starting up._
Master, Master, the light!

_Pausing and sending the lantern crashing on the hearth with both hands._

He shall not have it!

_She stands with her hands gripping her breasts, leaning forward toward the open door; her breathlessness is all that is heard; she stretches her arms to the night._

BLANID.
I feel as if my long, long hands could reach
Down to the water's heart to pluck him from it.

THE VOICE.
Will no one ever come?

HIALTI, _out of doors._ I come; I am nigh.

BLANID.
Ay, he is nigh; but soon he will be far.
I dare not thus fall through the world for him.
O, I shall hear him ... do not let me hear him ...

_She throws herself on her face on the floor and, covering her head with the strewn rushes and clasping her hands over them, lies there moaning._

HIALTI, _far off, shouting ever more madly._
Thorgerd, Thorgerd ... your hands ... the world slips past me ...
Save ... under ... under ... under ...
Aa-h ...

_The shouting ceases suddenly at its height._

BLANID, _muffled and choking._
Her name ... her name ... why did he not think my name? ...
But she has lost him, and I kissed his hand ...

THORGERD, _rushing from the sleeping-chamber in her night-gear._
Where is the wench?... Make haste--another light:
I heard him dying. O, this prater's breath
Will blow his life out ... Kindle a light and come ...

THE VOICE.
Ohey! Ohohey! Ohey!

BLANID.
Nay! Nay! Nay! I dare not, I dare not ...
That Crier will drown me too ...

THORGERD. That is nought to me;
Get to your feet ... What, shall I seek a way
To supple you?

BLANID. O, do not hurt me again ...
He dies ... it is my deed ... I dare not come ...

THORGERD.
You are too mean to stir his life one thought;
It was the Crafty Crier--I heard that wail ...

_The fire is now wholly out, so that the cottage is absolutely dark and nothing is visible._

THE VOICE, _near at hand._
Ohohey! Ohey!

THORGERD, _fiercely._
Where are you?... O, the Crier is heaving o'er ...

_A gust of wind and rain is heard to sweep into the cottage through the open doorway, shifting the rustling floor-rushes as though feet touched them. THE OLD STRANGE MAN has entered._

BLANID, _being heard to start to her feet._
There is another breathing in the house ...
He is here ... this darkness is not black enough,
The darkness at light's core alone could hide me ...
Grope for my hand--hold fast and take me home ...

_She is heard to sink to the floor again._

THE OLD STRANGE MAN.
Sister of that old race dead in the hills,
Why will you make me come to you once more?
You know you must go down a long withdrawing
To reach the unlit places of your heart,
Which are the night within my unknown eyes
Beyond all stars; so let me touch you once.

_BLANID is heard to drag her prostrate body through the rushes toward THORGERD._

BLANID.
Mistress, I am your thrall; you will keep your own ...
I clasp your feet, I kiss your clutching feet,
I lick your feet all over with my tongue,
I will tell you somewhat that will yield a vengeance
For you to work; so do not let me go....

THE OLD MAN.
I see you, you white terror with shaking flanks,
Straining to feel me with your hard-shut eyes,
But now I need you not; not yet; not yet.
Your man is drowned and this is it who bargained
Its death for his; will you not give it to me?

THORGERD, _laughing._
I am glad he is dead; now I may only love him,
And know no more that last distress of stooping
So far from me as this at my feet must be.
No vengeancing could pay for thoughts of her:
I will not know that such can be in life,
So I will neither yield nor succour her.

_She speaks no more, nor moves._

THE OLD MAN.
Give it to me; it is mine, give it to me;
I cannot take it while it touches you.

_A silence._

BLANID.
I have slain him and I fear to go to him ...
Put out my eyes, and rope me with the dogs--
Nay, strangle me to-morrow; but save me now.

THE OLD MAN, _his voice growing fainter and fainter._
Ah, come, you daughter of an ancient earth,
Come down among the folk your heart can know,
You darling of the past, you long-dead queen.
Your aged soul is strange among these men,
As strange as it would be in Paradise;
But once I knew you ere you were begot,
And in the unchanging silence of my heart
There waits a star for you to finish it.

_A silence._

You little trembler of a dew-drop dawn,
You are as old as water that makes new dew;
And when the dew falls it runs down to peace.
The end of sorrow is in sorrow's heart
With those who loved and knew the unknown end
Of mothering you a thousand years ago.
Come, then, from her who shapes new pangs for you,
And rest and rest and rest for evermore.

_A silence._

One day you will awake and call to me;
And I shall listen for the doubting cry
Until the stars have worn the sky too thin,
And I am drowned within the light beyond....

_His voice is lost in the gradual wail of a gust of wind; then it is heard outside and afar._

Ohey!

BLANID, _speaking at longer and longer intervals._
O, you have saved me from such evil things
As writhed like tangled tree-roots outside space
Ere God made Himself from them; and for this
My Virgin shall reach down from God's two knees
Whereon She sits, and kiss you for Her own.
My body was yours; now you have saved my soul
My soul is utterly yours to serve in living,
To clothe your soul and be your very heart
In love and soft, unconscious giving of life.
Mother, I have done evil--punish me;
Because we loved him, love me and punish me:
I have sinned, I have parted lovers--be cruel to me
And cleanse me that I may keep near you two...
Think in how many ways you can torture me;
Let me rake up the fire and heat an iron
For you to have your will upon my body--
One thigh is yet unseared ... Will you not speak? ...
I love him, I tell you ... I love him, I love him, I love him ...
I kissed his hand; do you hear? I kissed his hand--
Our Hialti's hand ... I'll make you hurt me yet,
Cold anger is shuddering down your tense thighs;
Feel, this is your foot upon my upturned face,
I lift it across my eyes, wide-open eyes--
Bear down and crush them full of eternal night ...
Speak to me now ... O, will you never speak?
You thrust me down into that Crier's bosom;
For in your heart you make me be unborn
Within a lonely place you never heard of,
Yet if I loose your feet he will return
And I must follow and follow and follow and follow
Past where my imaged thoughts repeat the world,
Till shattered waters break the imaged dream ...
You saved me once; will you undo that greatness?...
We are the tears that God wipes from His eyes:
Lone thoughts will thrust me forth--save me from them ...
Ah, but my lonely love can succour me:
Think, if I drown, 'tis to my Hialti's arms,
To cast you from his heart for ever more;
He will not even know you are forgotten ...
Sister ... Thorgerd....

_THORGERD draws in a long breath so sharply that it sounds to stab her repeatedly._

Ay, you will hate me as you used to do--
Will you not hate me as you used to do?
I was so happy when you still could hate me....
I fear it, but you make me go.... Speak once....

_After a long silence BLANID is heard to rise and go slowly to the door._

BLANID
Ohey! Ohey!

THE VOICE, _outside._ Ohohey!

_With a laugh of abandonment BLANID is heard to run into the night; there is a brief silence; then one far-off, long shriek is heard from her._

THE VOICE.
Ohey! Ohohey!

_In the cottage THORGERD is heard to fall heavily to the floor._

_The curtain descends on silence and darkness._

THE RIDING TO LITHEND

_TO EDWARD THOMAS_

_HERE in the North we speak of you,
And dream (and wish the dream were true)
That when the evening has grown late
You will appear outside our gate--
As though some Gipsy-Scholar yet
Sought this far place that men forget;
Or some tall hero still unknown,
Out of the Mabinogion,
Were seen at nightfall looking in,
Passing mysteriously to win
His earlier earth, his ancient mind,
Where man was true and life more kind
Lived with the mountains and the trees
And other steadfast presences,
Where large and simple passions gave
The insight and the peace we crave,
And he no more had nigh forgot
The old high battles he had fought._

_Ah, pause to-night outside our gate
And enter ere it is too late
To see the garden's deep on deep
And talk a little ere we sleep._

_When you were here a year ago
I told you of a glorious woe,
The ancient woe of Gunnar dead
And its proud train of men long sped,
Fit brothers to your noble thoughts;
Then, as their shouts and Gunnar's shouts
Went down once more undyingly
And the fierce saga was put by,
I told you of my old desire
To light again that bygone fire,
To body Hallgerd's ruinous
Great hair and wrangling mouth for us,
And hear her voice deny again
That hair to Gunnar in his pain._

_Because your heart could understand
The hopes of their primeval land,
The hearts of dim heroic forms
Made clear by tenderness and storms,
You caught my glow and urged me on;
So now the tale is once more done
I turn to you, I bring my play,
Longing, O friend, to hear you say
I have not dwarfed those olden things
Nor tarnisht by my furbishings._

_I bring my play, I turn to you
And wish it might to-night be true
That you would seek this old small house
Twixt laurel boughs and apple boughs;
Then I would give it, bravely manned,
To you, and with my play my hand._

30 JUNE 1908.

I. M.

2ND LIEUT. PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS

244th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery;
killed at a forward observation post in the
battle of Arras, on Easter Monday,
April 9th, 1917.

PERSONS:

GUNNAR HAMUNDSSON.
HALLGERD LONGCOAT, his wife.
RANNVEIG, his mother.
ODDNY, ASTRID, and STEINVOR, Hallgerd's house-women.
ORMILD, a woman thrall.
BIARTEY, JOFRID, and GUDFINN, beggar-women.
GIZUR THE WHITE, MORD VALGARDSSON, THORGRIM
THE EASTERLING, THORBRAND THORLEIKSSON
and ASBRAND his brother, AUNUND,
THORGEIR and HROALD, riders.
Many other Riders and voices of Riders

In Iceland, A.D. 990.

THE RIDING TO LITHEND

_The scene is the hall of Gunnar's house at Lithend in South Iceland. The portion shewn is set on the stage diagonally, so that to the right one end is seen while, from the rear corner of this, one side runs down almost to the left front._

_The side wall is low and wainscotted with carved panelling on which hang weapons, shields, and coats of mail. In one place a panel slid aside shews a shut bed._

_In front of the panelling are two long benches with a carved high-seat between them. Across the end of the hall are similar panellings and the seats, with corresponding tables, of the women's dais; behind these and in the gable wall is a high narrow door with a rounded top._

_A timber roof slopes down to the side wall and is upheld by cross-beams and two rows of tall pillars which make a rather narrow nave of the centre of the hall. One of these rows runs parallel to the side wall, the pair of pillars before the high-seat being carved and ended with images; of the other row only two pillars are visible at the extreme right._

_Within this nave is the space for the hearths; but the only hearth visible is the one near the women's dais. In the roof above it there is a louvre: the fire glows and no smoke rises. The hall is lit everywhere by the firelight._

_The rafters over the women's dais carry a floor at the level of the side walls, forming an open loft which is reached by a wide ladder fixed against the wall: a bed is seen in this loft. Low in the roof at intervals are shuttered casements, one being above the loft: all the shutters are closed._

_Near the fire a large shaggy hound is sleeping; and ORMILD, in the undyed woollen dress of a thrall, is combing wool._

_ODDNY stands spinning at the far side; near her ASTRID and STEINVOR sit stitching a robe which hangs between them._

ASTRID.
NIGHT is a Winter long: and evening falls.
Night, night and Winter and the heavy snow
Burden our eyes, intrude upon our dreams,
And make of loneliness an earthly place.

ORMILD.
This bragging land of freedom that enthralls me
Is still the fastness of a secret king
Who treads the dark like snow, of old king Sleep.
He works with night, he has stolen death's tool frost
That makes the breaking wave forget to fall.

ASTRID.
Best mind thy comb-pot and forget our king
Before the Longcoat helps at thy awaking....
I like not this forsaken quiet house.
The house-men out at harvest in the Isles
Never return. Perhaps they went but now,
Yet I am sore with fearing and expecting
Because they do not come. They will not come.
I like not this forsaken quiet house,
This late last harvest, and night creeping in.

ODDNY.
I like not dwelling in an outlaw's house.
Snow shall be heavier upon some eyes
Than you can tell of--ay, and unseen earth
Shall keep that snow from filling those poor eyes.
This void house is more void by brooding things
That do not happen than by absent men.
Sometimes when I awaken in the night
My throbbing ears are mocking me with rumours
Of crackling beams, beams falling, and loud flames.

ASTRID, _pointing to the weapons by the high-seat._
The bill that Gunnar won in a far sea-fight
Sings inwardly when battle impends; as a harp
Replies to the wind thus answers it to fierceness,
So tense its nature is and the spell of its welding;
Then trust ye well that while the bill is silent
No danger thickens, for Gunnar dies not singly.

STEINVOR.
But women are let forth free when men go burning?

ODDNY.
Fire is a hurrying thing, and fire by night
Can see its way better than men see theirs.

ASTRID.
The land will not be nobler or more holpen
If Gunnar burns and we go forth unsinged.
Why will he break the atonement that was set?
That wise old Njal who has the second sight
Foretold his death if he should slay twice over
In the same kin or break the atonement set:
Yet has he done these things and will not care.
Kolskegg, who kept his back in famous fights,
Sailed long ago and far away from us
Because that doom is on him for the slayings;
Yet Gunnar bides although that doom is on him
And he is outlawed by defiance of doom.

STEINVOR.
Gunnar has seen his death: he is spoken for.
He would not sail because, when he rode down
Unto the ship, his horse stumbled and threw him,
His face toward the Lithe and his own fields.
Olaf the Peacock bade him be with him
In his new mighty house so carven and bright,
And leave this house to Rannveig and his sons:
He said that would be well, yet never goes.
Is he not thinking death would ride with him?
Did not Njal offer to send his sons,
Skarphedin ugly and brave and Hauskuld with him,
To hold this house with Gunnar, who refused them
Saying he would not lead young men to death?
I tell you Gunnar is done.... His fetch is out.

ODDNY.
Nay, he's been topmost in so many fights
That he believes he shall fight on untouched.

STEINVOR.
He rides to motes and Things before his foes.
He has sent his sons harvesting in the Isles.
He takes deliberate heed of death--to meet it,
Like those whom Odin needs. He is fey, I tell you--
And if we are past the foolish ardour of girls
For heroisms and profitless loftiness
We shall get gone when bedtime clears the house.
'Tis much to have to be a hero's wife,
And I shall wonder if Hallgerd cares about it:
Yet she may kindle to it ere my heart quickens.
I tell you, women, we have no duty here:
Let us get gone to-night while there is time,
And find new harbouring ere the laggard dawn,
For death is making narrowing passages
About this hushed and terrifying house.

_RANNVEIG, an old wimpled woman, enters as if from a door at the unseen end of the hall._

ASTRID.
He is so great and manly, our master Gunnar,
There are not many ready to meet his weapons:
And so there may not be much need of weapons.
He is so noble and clear, so swift and tender,
So much of Iceland's fame in foreign places,
That too many love him, too many honour him
To let him die, lest the most gleaming glory
Of our grey country should be there put out.

RANNVEIG.
My son has enemies, girl, enemies,
Who will not lose the joy of hurting him.
This little land is no more than a lair
That holds too many fiercenesses too straitly,
And no man will refuse the rapture of killing
When outlawry has made it cheap and righteous.
So long as any one perceives he knows
A bare place for a weapon on my son
His hand shall twitch to fit a weapon in.
Indeed he shall lose nothing but his life
Because a woman is made so evil fair,
Wasteful and white and proud in harmful acts.
I lose two sons when Gunnar's eyes are still,
For then will Kolskegg never more turn home....
If Gunnar would but sail three years would pass;
Only three years of banishment said the doom--
So few, so few, for I can last ten years
With this unshrunken body and steady heart.
(_To ORMILD_)
Have I sat down in comfort by the fire
And waited to be told the thing I knew?
Have any men come home to the young women,
Thinking old women do not need to hear,
That you can play at being a bower-maid
In a long gown although no beasts are foddered?
Up, lass, and get thy coats about thy knees,
For we must cleanse the byre and heap the midden
Before the master knows--or he will go,
And there is peril for him in every darkness.

ORMILD, _tucking up her skirts._
Then are we out of peril in the darkness?
We should do better to nail up the doors
Each night and all night long and sleep through it,
Giving the cattle meat and straw by day.

ODDNY.
Ay, and the hungry cattle should sing us to sleep.

_The others laugh. ORMILD goes out to the left; RANNVEIG is following her, but pauses at the sound of a voice._

HALLGERD, _beyond the door of the women's dais._
Dead men have told me I was better than fair,
And for my face welcomed the danger of me:
Then am I spent?

_She enters angrily, looking backward through the doorway._

Must I shut fast my doors
And hide myself? Must I wear up the rags
Of mortal perished beauty and be old?
Or is there power left upon my mouth
Like colour, and lilting of ruin in my eyes?
Am I still rare enough to be your mate?
Then why must I shame at feasts and bear myself
In shy ungainly ways, made flushed and conscious
By squat numb gestures of my shapeless head--
Ay, and its wagging shadow--clouted up,
Twice tangled with a bundle of hot hair,
Like a thick cot-wife's in the settling time?
There are few women in the Quarter now
Who do not wear a shapely fine-webbed coif
Stitched by dark Irish girls in Athcliath
With golden flies and pearls and glinting things:
Even my daughter lets her big locks show,
Show and half show, from a hood gentle and close
That spans her little head like her husband's hand.

GUNNAR, _entering by the same door._
I like you when you bear your head so high;
Lift but your heart as high, you could get crowned
And rule a kingdom of impossible things.
You would have moon and sun to shine together,
Snow-flakes to knit for apples on bare boughs,
Yea, love to thrive upon the terms of hate.
If I had fared abroad I should have found
In many countries many marvels for you
Though not more comeliness in peopled Romeborg
And not more haughtiness in Mickligarth
Nor craftiness in all the isles of the world,
And only golden coifs in Athcliath:
Yet you were ardent that I should not sail,
And when I could not sail you laughed out loud
And kissed me home....

HALLGERD, _who has been biting her nails._
And then ... and doubtless ... and strangely ...
And not more thriftiness in Bergthorsknoll
Where Njal saves old soft sackcloth for his wife.
O, I must sit with peasants and aged women,
And keep my head wrapped modestly and seemly;

_She turns to RANNVEIG._

I must be humble--as one who lives on others.

_She snatches off her wimple, slipping her gold circlet as she does so, and loosens her hair._

Unless I may be hooded delicately
And use the adornment noble women use
I'll mock you with my flown young widowhood,
Letting my hair go loose past either cheek
In two bright clouds and drop beyond my bosom,
Turning the waving ends under my girdle
As young glad widows do, and as I did
Ere ever you saw me--ay, and when you found me
And met me as a king meets a queen
In the undying light of a summer night
With burning robes and glances--stirring the
heart with scarlet.

_She tucks the long ends of her hair under her girdle._

RANNVEIG.
You have cast the head-ring of the nobly nurtured,
Being eager for a bold uncovered head.
You are conversant with a widow's fancies....
Ay, you are ready with your widowhood:
Two men have had you, chilled their bosoms with you,
And trusted that they held a precious thing--
Yet your mean passionate wastefulness poured out
Their lives for joy of seeing something done with.
Cannot you wait this time? 'Twill not be long.

HALLGERD.
I am a hazardous desirable thing,
A warm unsounded peril, a flashing mischief,
A divine malice, a disquieting voice:
Thus I was shapen, and it is my pride
To nourish all the fires that mingled me.
I am not long moved, I do not mar my face,
Though men have sunk in me as in a quicksand.
Well, death is terrible. Was I not worth it?
Does not the light change on me as I breathe?
Could I not take the hearts of generations,
Walking among their dreams? O, I have might,
Although it drives me too and is not my own deed....
And Gunnar is great, or he had died long since.
It is my joy that Gunnar stays with me:
Indeed the offence is theirs who hunted him,
His banishment is not just; his wrongs increase,
His honour and his following shall increase
If he is steadfast for his blamelessness.

RANNVEIG.
Law is not justice, but the sacrifice
Of singular virtues to the dull world's ease of mind;
It measures men by the most vicious men;
It is a bargaining with vanities,
Lest too much right should make men hate each other
And hasten the last battle of all the nations.
Gunnar should have kept the atonement set,
For then those men would turn to other quarrels.

GUNNAR.
I know not why it is I must be fighting,
For ever fighting, when the slaying of men
Is a more weary and aimless thing to me
Than most men think it ... and most women too.
There is a woman here who grieves she loves me,
And she too must be fighting me for ever
With her dim ravenous unsated mind....
Ay, Hallgerd, there's that in her which desires
Men to fight on forever because she lives:
When she took form she did it like a hunger
To nibble earth's lip away until the sea
Poured down the darkness. Why then should I sail
Upon a voyage that can end but here?
She means that I shall fight until I die:
Why must she be put off by whittled years,
When none can die until his time has come?

_He turns to the hound by the fire._

Samm, drowsy friend, dost scent a prey in dreams?
Shake off thy shag of sleep and get to thy watch:
'Tis time to be our eyes till the next light.
Out, out to the yard, good Samm.

_He goes to the left, followed by the hound. In the meantime HALLGERD has seated herself in the high-seat near the sewing-women, turning herself away and tugging at a strand of her hair, the end of which she bites._

RANNVEIG, _intercepting him._
Nay, let me take him.
It is not safe--there may be men who hide....
Hallgerd, look up; call Gunnar to you there:

_HALLGERD is motionless._

Lad, she beckons. I say you shall not come.