Chapter 4

_Scene: Same. Table cleared of all but vessels of fruit, cocoa-nuts, etc. Queen and Taig sitting in front, Nurse and Dall Glic standing in background_.

_Queen_: Now, King, the dinner being at an end, and the music, we have time and quiet to be talking.

_Taig_: It is with the King's daughter I am come to talk.

_Queen_: Go, Dall Glic, call the Princess. She will be here on the minute, but it is best for you to tell me out if it is to ask her in marriage you are come.

_Taig_: It is so, where I was after being told she would be given as a wife to the first man that would come into the house.

_Queen_: And who in the world wide gave that out?

_Taig_: It was the Gateman said it to a hawker bringing lobsters from the strand, and that got no leave to cross the threshold by reason of the oath given out by the King. The half of the kingdom she will get, they were telling me, and the king living, and the whole of it after he will be dead.

_Nurse_: There did another come in before you. Let me tell you that much!

_Taig_: There did not. The lobster man that set a watch upon the door.

_Queen_: A great honour you did us coming asking for her, and you being King of Sorcha!

_Taig_: Look at my ring and my crown. They will bear witness that I am. And my kind coat of cotton and my golden shirt! And under that again there's a stiff pocket. _(Slaps it.)_ Is there e'er a looking-glass in any place? _(Gets up.)_

_Dall Glic_: There is the shining silver basin of the swans in the garden without.

_Taig_: That will do. I would wish to look tasty when I come looking for a lady of a wife. _(He and Dall Glic go outside window but in sight.)_

_(Princess comes in very proud and sad.)_

_Queen_: You should be proud this day, Nuala, and so grand a man coming asking you in marriage as the King of Sorcha.

_Nurse_: Grand, indeed! As grand as hands and pins can make him.

_Princess_: Are you not satisfied to have urged me to one man and promised me to another since sunrise?

_Queen_: What way could I know there was this match on the way, and a better match beyond measure? This is no black stranger going the road, but a man having a copper crown over his gateway and a silver crown over his palace door! I tell you he has means to hang a pearl of gold upon every rib of your hair! There is no one ahead of him in all Ireland, with his chain and his ring and his suit of the dearest silk!

_Princess_: If it was a suit I was to wed with he might do well enough.

_Queen_: Equal in blood to ourselves! Brought up to good behaviour and courage and mannerly ways.

_Princess_: In my opinion he is not.

_Queen_: You are talking foolishness. A King of Sorcha must be mannerly, seeing it is he himself sets the tune for manners.

_Princess_: He gave out a laugh when old Michelin slipped on the threshold. He kicked at the dog under the table that came looking for bones.

_Queen_: I tell you what might be ugly behaviour in a common man is suitable and right in a king. But you are so hard to please and so pettish, I am seven times tired of yourself and your ways.

_Princess_: If no one could force me to give in to the man that made a claim to me to-day, according to my father's bond, that bond is there yet to protect me from any other one.

_Queen_: Leave me alone! Myself and the Dall Glic will take means to rid you of that lad from the oven. I'll send in now to you the King of Sorcha. Let you show civility to him, and the wedding day will be to-morrow.

_Princess_: I will not see him, I will have nothing to do with him; I tell you if he had the rents of the whole world I would not go with him by day or by night, on foot or on horseback, in light or in darkness, in company or alone!

_(Queen has gone while she cries this out.)_

_Nurse_: The luck of the seven Saturdays on himself and on the Queen!

_Princess_: Oh, Muime, do not let him come near me! Have you no way to help me?

_Nurse_: It's myself that could help you if I was not under bonds not to speak!

_Princess_: What is it you know? Why won't you say one word?

_Nurse_: He put me under spells.... There now, my tongue turned with the word to be dumb.

_Taig: (At the window.)_ Not a fear of me, Queen. It won't be long till I bring the Princess around.

_Princess_: I will not stay! Keep him here till I will hide myself out of sight! _(Goes.)_

_Taig: (Coming in.)_ They told me the Princess was in it.

_Nurse_: She has good sense, she is in some other place.

_Taig: (Sitting down.)_ Go call her to me.

_Nurse_: Who is it I will call her for?

_Taig_: For myself. You know who I am.

_Nurse_: My grief that I do not!

_Taig_: I am the King of Sorcha.

_Nurse_: If you say that lie again there will blisters rise up on your face.

_Taig_: Take care what you are saying, you hag!

_Nurse_: I know well what I am saying. I have good judgment between the noble and the mean blood of the world.

_Taig_: The Kings of Sorcha have high, noble blood.

_Nurse_: If they have, there is not so much of it in you as would redden a rib of scutch-grass.

_Taig_: You are crazed with folly and age.

_Nurse_: No, but I have my wits good enough. You ought to be as slippery as a living eel, I'll get satisfaction on you yet! I'll show out who you are!

_Taig_: Who am I so?

_Nurse_: That is what I have to get knowledge of, if I must ask it at the mouth of cold hell!

_Taig_: Do your best! I dare you!

_Nurse_: I will save my darling from you as sure as there's rocks on the strand! A girl that refused sons of the kings of the world!

_Taig_: And I will drag your darling from you as sure as there's foxes in Oughtmana!

_Nurse_: Oughtmana ...Is that now your living place?

_Taig_: It is not.... I told you I came from the far-off kingdom of Sorcha. Look at my cloak that has on it the sign of the risen sun!

_Nurse_: Cloaks and suits and fringes. You have a great deal of talk of them.... Have you e'er a needle around you, or a shears?

_Taig: (His hand goes to breast of coat, but he withdraws it quickly.)_ Here ...no ...What are you talking about? I know nothing at all of such things.

_Nurse_: In my opinion you do. Hearken now. I know where is the real King of Sorcha!

_Taig_: Bring him before me now till I'll down him!

_Nurse_: Say that the time you will come face to face with him! Well, I'm under bonds to tell out nothing about him, but I have liberty to make known all I will find out about yourself.

_Taig_: Hurry on so. Little I care when once I'm wed with the King's daughter!

_Nurse_: That will never be!

_Taig_: The Queen is befriending me and in dread of losing me. I will threaten her if there is any delay I'll go look for another girl of a wife.

_Nurse_: I will make no delay. I'll have my story and my testimony before the white dawn of the morrow.

_Taig_: Do so and welcome! Before the yellow light of this evening I'll be the King's son-in-law! Bring your news, then, and little thanks you'll get for it! The King and Queen must keep up my name then for their own credit's sake. _(Makes a face at her as King comes in with Dall Glic, and servants with cushions. Nurse goes out, shaking her fist.) (Rises.)_ I was just asking to see you, King, to say there is a hurry on me....

_King: (Sitting down on window seat while Servant arranges cushions about him.)_ Keep your business a while. It's a poor thing to be going through business the very minute the dinner is ended.

_Taig_: I wouldn't but that it is pressing.

_King_: Go now to the Queen, in her parlour, and be chatting and whistling to the birds. I give you my word since I rose up from the table I am going here and there, up and down, craving and striving to find a place where I'll get leave to lay my head on the cushions for one little minute.

_(Taig goes reluctantly.)_

_Dall Glic: (Taking cushions from servants.)_ Let you go now and leave the King to his rest.

_(They go out.)_

_King_: I don't know in the world why anyone would consent to be a king, and never to be left to himself, but to be worried and wearied and interfered with from dark to daybreak and from morning to the fall of night.

_Dall Glic_: I will be going out now. I have but one word only to say....

_King_: Let it be a short word! I would be better pleased to hear the sound of breezes in the sycamores, and the humming of bees in the hive and the crooning and sleepy sounds of the sea!

_Dall Glic_: There is one thing only could cause me to annoy you.

_King_: It should be a queer big thing that wouldn't wait till I have my rest taken.

_Dall Glic_: So it is a big matter, and a weighty one.

_King_: Not to be left in quiet and all I am after using! Food that was easy to eat! Drink that was easy to drink! That's the dinner that _was_ a dinner. That cook now is a wonder!

_Dall Glic_: That is now the very one I am wishful to speak about.

_King_: I give you my word, I'd sooner have one goose dressed by him than seven dressed by any other one!

_Dall Glic_: The Queen that was urging me for to put my mind to make out some way to get quit of him.

_King_: Isn't it a hard thing the very minute I find a lad can dress a dinner to my liking, I must be made an attack on to get quit of him?

_Dall Glic_: It is on the head of the Princess Nu.

_King_: Tell me this, Dall Glic. Supposing, now, he was ...in spite of me ...to wed with her ...against my will ...and it might be unknownst to me.

_Dall Glic_: Such a thing must not happen.

_King_: To be sure, it must not happen. Why would it happen? But supposing--I only said supposing it did. Would you say would that lad grow too high in himself to go into the kitchen ...it might be only an odd time ...to oblige me ...and dress a dinner the same as he did to-day?

_Dall Glic_: I am sure and certain that he would not. It is the way, it is, with the common sort, the lower orders. He'd be wishful to sit on a chair at his ease and to leave his hand idle till he'd grow to be bulky and wishful for sleep.

_King_: That is a pity, a great pity, and a great loss to the world. A big misfortune he to have got it in his head to take a liking to the girl. I tell you he was a great lad behind the saucepans!

_Dall Glic_: Since he did get it in his head, it is what we have to do now, to make an end of him.

_King_: To gaol him now, and settle up ovens and spits and all sorts in the cell, wouldn't he, to shorten the day, be apt to start cooking?

_Dall Glic_: In my belief he will do nothing at all, but to hold you to the promise you made, and to force you to send away the King of Sorcha.

_King_: To have the misfortune of a cook for a son-in-law, and without the good luck of profiting by what he can do in his trade! That is a hard thing for a father to put up with, let alone a king!

_Dall Glic_: If you will but listen to the advice I have to give....

_King_: I know it without you telling me. You are asking me to make away with the lad! And who knows but the girl might turn on me after, women are so queer, and say I had a right to have asked leave from herself?

_Dall Glic_: There will no one suspect you of doing it, and you to take my plan. Bid them heat the big oven outside on the lawn that is for roasting a bullock in its full bulk.

_King_: Don't be talking of roasted meat! I think I can eat no more for a twelvemonth!

_Dall Glic_: There will be nothing roasted that any person will have occasion to eat. When the oven door will be open, give orders to your bullies and your foot-soldiers to give a tip to him that will push him in. When evening comes, news will go out that he left the meat to burn and made off on his rambles, and no more about him.

_King_: What way can I send orders when I'm near crazed in my wits with the want of rest. A little minute of sleep might soothe and settle my brain.

_(Lies down.)_

_Dall Glic_: The least little word to give leave ...or a sign ...such as to nod the head.

_King_: I give you my word, my head is tired nodding! Be off now and close the door after you and give out that anyone that comes to this side of the house at all in the next half-hour, his neck will be on the block before morning!

_Dall Glic: (Hurriedly.)_ I'm going! I'm going.

_(Goes.)_

_King: (Locking door and drawing window curtains.)_ That you may never come back till I ask you! _(Lies down and settles himself on pillows.)_ I'll be lying here in my lone listening to the pigeons seeking their meal. "Coo-coo," they're saying, "Coo-coo."

_(Closes eyes.)_

_Nurse: (At door.)_ Who is it locked the door? _(Shakes it.)_ Who is it is in it? What is going on within? Is it that some bad work is after being done in this place? Hi! Hi! Hi!

_King: (Sitting up.)_ Get away out of that, you torment of a nurse! Be off before I'll have the life of you!

_Nurse_: The Lord be praised, it is the King's own voice! There's time yet!

_King_: There's time, is there? There's time for everyone to give out their chat and their gab, and to do their business and take their ease and have a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green grass in the heat of the day, without being pestered and plagued and tormented and called to and wakened and worried, till a man is no less than wore out!

_Nurse_: Up or down, I'll say what I have to say, if it cost me my life. It is that I have to tell you of a plot that is made and a plan!

_King_: I won't listen! I heard enough of plots and plans within the last three minutes!

_Nurse_: You didn't hear this one. No one knows of it only myself.

_King_: I was told it by the Dall Glic.

_Nurse_: You were not! I am only after making it out on the moment!

_King_: A plot against the lad of the saucepans?

_Nurse_: That's it! That's it! Open now the door!

_King: (Putting a cushion over each ear and settling himself to sleep.)_ Tell away and welcome!

_(Shuts eyes.)_

_Nurse_: That's right! You're listening. Give heed now. That schemer came a while ago letting on to be the King of Sorcha is no such thing! What do you say?...Maybe you knew it before? I wonder the Dall Glic not to have seen that for himself with his one eye.... Maybe you don't believe it? Well, I'll tell it out and prove it. I have got sure word by running messenger that came cross-cutting over the ridge of the hill.... That carrion that came in a coach, pressing to bring away the Princess before nightfall, giving himself out to be some great one, is no other than Taig the Tailor, that should be called Taig the Twister, down from his mother's house from Oughtmana, that stole grand clothes which were left in the mother's charge, he being out at the time cutting cloth and shaping lies, and has himself dressed out in them the way you'd take him to be King! _(King has slumbered peacefully all through.)_ Now, what do you say? Now, will you open the door?

_Queen: (Outside.)_ What call have you to shouting and disturbing the King?

_Nurse_: I have good right and good reason to disturb him!

_Queen_: Go away and let me open the door.

_Nurse_: I will go and welcome now; I have told out my whole story to the King.

_Queen: (Shaking door.)_ Open the door, my dear! It is I myself that is here! _(King looks up, listens, shakes his head and sinks back.)_ Are you there at all, or what is it ails you?

_Nurse_: He is there, and is after conversing with myself.

_Queen: (Shaking again.)_ Let me in, my dear King! Open! Open! Open! unless that the falling sickness is come upon you, or that you are maybe lying dead upon the floor!

_Nurse_: Not a dead in the world.

_Queen_: Go, Nurse, I tell you, bring the smith from the anvil till he will break asunder the lock of the door!

_(King annoyed, waddles to door and opens it suddenly. Queen stumbles in.)_

_King_: What at all has taken place that you come bawling and calling and disturbing my rest?

_Queen_: Oh! Are you sound and well? I was in dread there did something come upon you, when you gave no answer at all.

_King_: Am I bound to answer every call and clamour the same as a hall-porter at the door?

_Queen_: It is business that cannot wait. Here now is a request I have written to the bully of the King of Alban, bidding him to strike the head off whatever man will put the letter in his hand. Write your name and sign to it, in three royal words.

_King_: I wouldn't sign a letter out of my right hour if it was to make the rivers run gold. There is nothing comes of signing letters but more trouble in the end.

_Queen_: Give me, so, to bind it a drop of your own blood as a token and a seal. You will not refuse, and I telling you the messenger will go with it, and that will lose his head through it, is no less than that troublesome cook!

_King: (With a roar.)_ Anyone to say that word again I will not leave a head on any neck in the kingdom! I declare on my oath it would be best for me to take the world for my pillow and put that lad upon the throne!

_(Queen goes back frightened to door.)_

_Gateman: (Coming in.)_ There is a man coming in that will take no denial. It is Fintan the Astrologer.

_(Fintan enters with Dall Glic, Nurse, Princess, Taig, Manus and Prince of the Marshes crowding after him.)_

_King_: Another disturbance! The whole world would seem to be on the move!

_Queen_: Fintan! What brings him here again?

_Fintan_: A great deceit? A terrible deception!

_King_: What at all is it?

_Fintan_: Long and all as I'm in the world, such a thing never happened in my lifetime!

_Queen_: What is it has happened?

_Fintan_: It is not any fault of myself or any miscounting of my own! I am certain sure of that much. Is it that the stars of heaven are gone astray, they that are all one with a clock--unless it might be on a stormy night when they are wild-looking around the moon.

_King_: Go on with your story and stop your raving.

_Fintan_: The first time ever I came to this place I made a prophecy.

_Dall Glic_: You did, about the child was in the cradle.

_Fintan_: And that was but new in the world. It is what I said, that she was born under a certain star, and that in a score of years all but two, whatever acting was going on in that star at the time she was born, she would get her crosses in the same way.

_Dall Glic_: The cross you foretold to her was to be ate by a Dragon. You laid down it would come upon a twelvemonth from this very day.

_Fintan_: That's it. That was according to my reckoning. There was no mistake in that. And I thought better of the Seven Stars than they to make a fool of me, after all the respect I had showed them, giving my life to watching themselves and the plans they have laid down for men and for mortals.

_King_: It seems as if I myself was the best prophet and that there is no Dragon at all.

_Fintan_: What a bad opinion you have of me that I would be so far out as that! It would be a deception and a disappointment out of measure, there to come no Dragon, and I after foretelling and prophesying him.

_King_: Troth, it would be no disappointment at all to ourselves.

_Fintan_: It would be better, I tell you, a score of king's daughters to be ate and devoured, than the high stars in their courses to be proved wrong. But it must be right, it surely must be right. I gave the prophecy according to her birth hour, that was one hour before the falling back of the sun.

_Dall Glic_: It was not, but an hour before the rising of the sun.

_Fintan_: Not at all! It was the Nurse herself told me it was at evening she was born.

_Queen_: There is the Nurse now. Let you ask her account.

_Fintan: (To Nurse.)_ It was yourself laid down it was evening!

_Nurse_: Sure I wasn't in the place at all till Samhuin time, when she was near three months in the world.

_Fintan_: Then it was some other hag the very spit of you! I wish she didn't tell a lie.

_Nurse_: Sure that one was banished out of this on the head of telling lies. An hour ere sunrise, and before the crowing of the cocks. The Dall Glic will tell you that much.

_Dall Glic_: That is so. I have it marked upon the genealogies in the chest.

_Fintan_: That is great news! It was a heavy wrong was done me! It had me greatly upset. Twelve hours out in laying down the birth-time! That clears the character of myself and of the carwheel of the stars. I knew I could make no mistake in my office and in my billet!

_King_: Will you stop praising yourself and give out some sense?

_Fintan_: Knowledge is surely the greatest thing in the world! And truth! Twelve hours with the planets is equal to twelve months on earth. I am well satisfied now.

_Queen_: So the Dragon is not coming, and the girl is in no danger at all?

_Fintan_: Not coming! Heaven help your poor head! Didn't I get word within the last half-hour he is after leaving his den in the Kingdoms of the Cold, and is at this minute ploughing his way to Ireland, the same as I foretold him, but that I made a miscount of a year?

_Nurse: (Putting her arm round Princess.)_ Och! do not listen or give heed to him at all!

_Queen_: When is he coming so?

_Fintan_: Amn't I tired telling you this day in the place of this day twelvemonth. But as to the minute, there's too much lies in this place for me to be rightly sure.

_King_: The curse of the seven elements upon him!

_Fintan_: Little he'll care for your cursing. The whole world wouldn't stop him coming to your own grand gate.

_Princess: (Coming forward.)_ Then I am to die to-night?

_Fintan_: You are, without he will be turned back by someone having a stronger star than your own, and I know of no star is better, unless it might be the sun.

_Queen_: If you had minded me, and given in to ring the wedding bells, you would be safe out of this before now.

_Fintan_: That Dragon not to find her before him, he will ravage and destroy the whole district with the poisonous spittle of his jaw, till the want will be so great the father will disown his son and will not let him in the door. Well, good-bye to ye! Ye'll maybe believe me to have foreknowledge another time, and I proved to be right. I have knocked great comfort out of that!

_(Goes.)_

_King_: Oh, my poor child! My poor little Nu! I thought it never would come to pass, I to be sending you to the slaughter. And I too bulky to go out and face him, having led an easy life!

_Princess_: Do not be fretting.

_King_: The world is gone to and fro! I'll never ask satisfaction again either in bed or board, but to be wasting away with watercresses and rising up of a morning before the sun rises in Babylon! _(Weeps.)_ Oh, we might make out a way to baffle him yet! Is there no meal will serve him only flesh and blood? Try him with Grecian wine, and with what was left of the big dinner a while ago!

_Gateman: (Coming in.)_ There is some strange thing in the ocean from Aran out. At first it was but like a bird's shadow on the sea, and now you would nearly say it to be the big island would have left its moorings, and it steering its course towards Aughanish!

_Dall Glic_: I'm in dread it should be the Dragon that has cleared the ocean at a leap!

_King: (Holding Princess.)_ I will not give you up! Let him devour myself along with you!

_Dull Glic: (To Princess.)_ It is best for me to put you in a hiding-hole under the ground, that has seven locked doors and seven locks on the farthest door. It might fail him to make you out.

_Nurse_: Oh, it would be hard for her to go where she cannot hear the voice of a friend or see the light of day!

_Princess_: Would you wish me to save myself and let all the district perish? You heard what Fintan said. It is not right for destruction to be put on a whole province, and the women and the children that I know.

_Queen_: There is maybe time yet for you to wed.

_Princess_: So long as I am living I have a choice. I will not be saved in that way. It is alone I will be in my death.

_Manus: (Coming to King.)_ I am going out from you, King. I might not be coming in to you again. I would wish to set you free from the promise you made me a while ago, and the bond.

_King_: What does it signify now? What does anything signify, and the world turning here and there!

_Manus_: And another thing. I would wish to ask pardon of the King's daughter. I ought not to have laid any claim to her, being a stranger in this place and without treasure or attendance. And yet ...and yet ..._(stoops and kisses hem of her dress)_, she was dear to me. It is a man who never may look on her again is saying that.

_(Turns to door.)_

_Taig_: He is going to run from the Dragon! It is kind father for a scullion to be timid!

_Queen_: It is in his blood. He is maybe not to blame for what is according to his nature.

_Manus_: That is so. I am doing what is according to my nature.

_(Goes, Nurse goes after him.)_

_Queen: (To Dall Glic.)_ Go throw a dishcloth after him that the little lads may be mocking him along the road!

_Dall Glic_: I will not. I have meddled enough at your bidding. I am done with living under dread. Let you blind me entirely! I am free of you. It might be best for me the two eyes to be withered, and I seeing nothing but the ever-living laws!

_Prince of Marshes: (Coming to Princess.)_ It is my grief that with all the teachers I had there was not one to learn me the handling of weapons or of arms. But for all that I will not run away, but will strive to strike one blow in your defence against that wicked beast.

_Princess_: It is a good friend that would rid us of him. But it grieves me that you should go into such danger.

_Prince of Marshes: (To Dall Glic.)_ Give me some sword or casting spears.

_(Dall Glic gives him spears.)_

_Princess_: I am sorry I made fun of you a while ago. I think you are a good kind man.

_Prince of Marshes; (Kissing her hand.)_ Having that word of praise I will bring a good heart into the fight.

_(Goes.)_

_(Taig is slipping out after him.)_

_Queen_: See now the King of Sorcha slipping away into the fight. Stop here now! _(Pulls him back.)_ You have a life that is precious to many besides yourself. Do not go without being well armed--and with a troop of good fighting men at your back.

_Taig_: I am greatly obliged to you. I think I'll be best with myself.

_Queen_: You have no suit or armour upon you.

_Taig_: That is what I was thinking.

_Queen_: Here anyway is a sword.

_Taig: (Taking it.)_ That's a nice belt now. Well worked, silver thread and gold.

_Queen_: The King's own guard will go out with you.

_Taig_: I wouldn't ask one of them! What would you think of me wanting help! A Dragon! Little I'd think of him. I'll knock the life out of him. I'll give him cruelty!

_Queen_: You have great courage indeed!

_Taig_: I'll cut him crossways and lengthways the same as a yard of frieze! I'll make garters of his body! I'll smooth him with a smoothing iron! Not a fear of me! I never lost a bet yet that I wasn't able to pay it!

_Gateman: (As he rushes in, Taig slips away.)_ The Dragon! The Dragon! I seen it coming and its mouth open and a fiery flame from it! And nine miles of the sea is dry with all it drank of it! The whole country is gathering the same as of a fair day for to see him devour the Princess.

_(Princess trembles and sinks into a chair. King, Queen and Dall Glic look from window. They turn to her as they speak.)_

_Queen_: There is a terrible splashing in the sea! It is like as if the Dragon's tail had beaten it into suds of soap!

_Dall Glic_: He is near as big as a whale!

_King_: He is, and bigger!

_Queen_: I see him! I see him! He would seem to have seven heads!

_Dall Glic_: I see but one.

_Queen_: You would see more if you had your two eyes! He has six heads at the least!

_King_: He has but one. He is twisting and turning it around.

_Dall Glic_: He is coming up towards the flaggy shore!

_King_: I hear him! He is snoring like a flock of pigs!

_Queen_: He is rearing his head in the air! He has teeth as long as a tongs!

_Doll Glic_: No, but his tail he is rearing up! It would take a ladder forty feet long to get to the tip of it!

_Queen_: There is the King of Sorcha going out the gate for to make an end of him.

_Dall Glic_: So he is, too. That is great bravery.

_King_: He is going to one side. He is come to a stop.

_Dall Glic_: It seems to me he is ready to fall in his standing. He is gone into a little thicket of furze. He is not coming out, but is lying crouched up in it the same as a hare in a tuft. I can see his shoulders narrowed up.

_Queen_: He maybe got a weakness.

_King_: He did, maybe, of courage. Shaking and shivering, he is like a hen in thunder. In my opinion, he is hiding from the fight.

_Queen_: There is the Prince of the Marshes going out now, and his coach after him! And his two aunts sitting in it and screeching to him not to run into danger!

_King_: He will not do much. He has not pith or power to handle arms. That sort brings a bad name on kings.

_Dall Glic_: He is gone away from the coach. He is facing to the flaggy shore!

_Queen_: Oh, the Dragon has put up his head and is spitting at him!

_King_: He has cast a spear into its jaw! Good man!

_(Princess goes over to window.)_

_Dall Glic_: He is casting another! His hand shook ...it did not go straight. He is gone on again! He has cast another spear! It should hit the beast ...it let a roar!

_Princess_: Good little Prince! What way is the battle now?

_Dall Glic_: It will kill him with its fiery breath! He is running now ...he is stumbling ...the Dragon is after him! He is up again! The two Aunts have pushed him into the coach and have closed the iron door.

_King_: It will fail the beast to swallow him coach and all. It is gone back to refresh itself in the sea. You can hear it puffing and plunging!

_Queen_: There is nothing to stop it now. _(To Princess.)_ If you have e'er a prayer, now is the time to say it.

_Dall Glic_: Stop a minute ...there is another champion going out.

_King_: A man wearing a saffron suit ...who is he at all? He has the look of one used to giving orders.

_Princess: (Looking out.)_ Oh! he is but going to his death. It would be better for me to throw myself into the tide and make an end of it.

_(Is rushing to door.)_

_King: (Holding her.)_ He is drawing his sword. Himself and the Dragon are thrusting at one another on the flags!

_Princess_: Oh, close the curtains! Shut out the sound of the battle.

_(Dall Glic closes curtains.)_

_King_: Strike up now a tune of music that will deafen the sound!

_(Orchestra plays. Princess is kneeling by King. Music changes from discord to victory. Two Aunts and Gateman rush in. Noise of cheering heard without as the Gateman silences music.)_

_Gateman_: Great news and wonderful news and a great story!

_First Aunt_: The fight is ended!

_Second Aunt_: The Dragon is brought to his last goal!

_Gateman_: That young fighting man that has him flogged! Made at him like a wave breaking on the strand! They crashed at one another like two days of judgment! Like the battle of the cold with the heat!

_First Aunt_: You'd say he was going through dragons all his life!

_Second Aunt_: It can hardly put a stir out of itself!

_Gateman_: That champion has it baffled and mastered! It is after being chased over seven acres of ground!

_First Aunt_: Drove it to its knees on the flaggy shore and made an end of it!

_King_: God bless that man to-day and to-morrow!

_Second Aunt_: He has put it in a way it will eat no more kings' daughters!

_Princess_: And the stranger that mastered it--is he safe?

_First Aunt_: What signifies if he is or is not, so long as we have our own young prince to bring home!

_Gatekeeper_: He is not safe. No sooner had he the beast killed and conquered than he fell dead, and the life went out of him.

_Princess_: Oh, that is not right! He to be dead and I living after him!

_King_: He was surely noble and high-blooded. There are some that will be sorry for his death.

_Princess_: And who should be more sorry than I myself am sorry? Who should keen him unless myself? There is a man that gave his life for me, and he young and all his days before him and shut his eyes on the white world for my sake!

_Queen_: Indeed he was a man you might have been content to wed with, hard and all as you are to please.

_Princess_: I never will wed with any man so long as my life will last, that was bought for me with a life was more worthy by far than my own! He is gone out of my reach; let him wait for me to give him my thanks on the other side. Bring me now his sword and his shield till I will put them before me and cry my eyes down with grief!

_Gateman_: Here is his cap for you, anyway, and his cleaver and his bunch of skivers. For the champion you are crying was no other than that lad of a cook!

_Queen_: That is not true! It is not possible!

_Gateman_: Sure I seen him myself going out the gate a while ago. He put off his cook's apparel and threw it along with these behind the turfstack. I gathered them up presently and I coming in the door.

_King_: The world is gone beyond me entirely! But what I was saying all through, there was something beyond the common in that boy!

_Queen: (To Princess, who is clinging to chair.)_ Let you be comforted now, knowing he cannot come back to lay claim to you in marriage, as it is likely he would, and he living.

_Princess_: It is he saved me after my unkindness!... Oh, I am ashamed ...ashamed!

_Queen_: It is a queer thing a king's daughter to be crying after a man used to twisting the spit in place of weapons, and over skivers in the place of a sword!

_Princess: (Gropes and totters.)_ What has happened? There is something gone astray! I have no respect for myself.... I cannot live! I am ashamed. Where is Nurse? Muime! Come to me, Muime!...My grief! The man that died for me, whether he is of the noble or the simple of the world, it is to him I have given the love of my soul!

_(Dall Glic supports her and lays her on window seat.)_

_Nurse: (Rushing in.)_ What is it, honey? What at all are they after doing to you?

_Queen_: Throw over her a skillet of water. She is gone into a faint.

_Dall Glic: (Who is bending over her.)_ She is in no faint. She is gone out.

_Nurse_: Oh, my child and my darling! What call had I to leave you among them at all?

_King_: Raise her up. It is impossible she can be gone.

_Dall Glic_: Gone out and spent, as sudden as a candle in a blast of wind.

_King_: Who would think grief would do away with her so sudden, there to be seven of the like of him dead?

_Nurse: (Rises.)_ What did you do to her at all, at all? Or was it through the fright and terror of the beast?

_Queen_: She died of the heartbreak, being told that the strange champion that had put down the Dragon was killed dead.

_Nurse_: Killed, is it? Who now put that lie out of his mouth? _(Shouts in her ear.)_ What would ail him to be dead? It is myself can tell you the true story. No man in Ireland ever was half as good as him! It was himself mastered the beast and dragged the heart out of him and forced down a squirrel's heart in its place, and slapped a bridle on him. And he himself did but stagger and go to his knees in the heat and drunkenness of the battle, and rose up after as good as ever he was! It is out putting ointments on him that I was up to this, and healing up his cuts and wounds! Oh, what ails you, honey, that you will not waken?

_Queen_: She thought it to be a champion and a high up man that had died for her sake. It is what broke her down in the latter end, hearing him to be no big man at all, but a clown!

_Nurse_: Oh, my darling! And I not here to tell you! You are a motherless child, and the curse of your mother will be on me! It was no clown fought for you, but a king, having generations of kings behind him, the young King of Sorcha, Manus, son of Solas son of Lugh.

_King_: I would believe that now sooner than many a thing I would hear.

_Nurse: (Keening.)_ Oh, my child, and my share! I thought it was you would be closing my eyes, and now I am closing your own! You to be brought away in your young youth! Your hand that was whiter than the snow of one night, and the colour of the foxglove on your cheek.

_(A great shouting outside and burst of music. A march played. Manus comes in, followed by Fintan and Prince of the Marshes. Shouts and music continue. He leads the Dragon by a bridle. The others are in front of Princess, huddled from Dragon. Queen gets up on a chair.)_

_Manus_: Where is the Princess Nu? I have brought this beast to bow itself at her feet.

_(All are silent. Manus flings bridle to Fintan's hand. Dragon backs out. All go aside from Princess.)_

_Nurse_: She is here dead before you.

_Manus_: That cannot be! She was well and living half an hour ago.

_Nurse: (Rises.)_ Oh, if she could but waken and hear your voice! She died with the fret of losing you, that is heaven's truth! It is tormented she was with these giving out you were done away with, and mocking at your weapons that they laid down to be the cleaver and the spit, till the heart broke in her like a nut.

_Manus: (Kneeling beside her.)_ Then it is myself have brought the death darkness upon you at the very time I thought to have saved you!

_Nurse_: There is no blame upon you, but some that had too much talk!

_(Goes on keening.)_

_Manus_: What call had I to come humbugging and letting on as I did, teasing and tormenting her, and not coming as a King should that is come to ask for a Queen! Oh, come back for one minute only till I will ask your pardon!

_Dall Glic_: She cannot come to you or answer you at all for ever.

_Manus_: Then I myself will go follow you and will ask for your forgiveness wherever you are gone, on the Plain of Wonder or in the Many-Coloured Land! That is all I can do ...to go after you and tell you it was no want of respect that brought me in that dress, but hurry and folly and taking my own way. For it is what I have to say to you, that I gave you my heart's love, what I never gave to any other, since first I saw you before me in my sleep! Here, now, is a short road to reach you!

_(Takes sword.)_

_Prince of Marshes: (Catching his hand.)_ Go easy now, go easy.

_Manus_: Take off your hand! I say I will die with her!

_Prince of Marshes_: That will not raise her up again. But I, now, if I have no skill in killing beasts or men, have maybe the means of bringing her back to life.

_Nurse_: Oh, my blessing on you! What is it you have at all?

_Prince of Marshes: (Taking bag from his Aunt.)_ These three leaves from the Tree of Power that grows by the Well of Healing. Here they are now for you, tied with a thread of the wool of the sheep of the Land of Promise. There is power in them to bring one person only back to life.

_First Aunt_: Give them back to me! You have your own life to think of as well as any other one!

_Second Aunt_: Do not spend and squander that cure on any person but yourself!

_Prince of Marshes: (Giving the leaves.)_ And if I have given her my love that it is likely I will give to no other woman for ever, indeed and indeed, I would not ask her or wish her to wed with a very frightened man, and that is what I was a while ago. But you yourself have earned her, being brave.

_Manus: (Taking leaves.)_ I never will forget it to you. You will be a brave man yet.

_Prince of Marshes_: Give me in place of it your sword; for I am going my lone through the world for a twelvemonth and a day, till I will learn to fight with my own hand.

_(Manus gives him sword. He throws off cloak and outer coat and fastens it on.)_

_Nurse_: Stand back, now. Let the whole of ye stand back. _(She lays a leaf on the Princess's mouth and one on each of her hands.)_ I call on you by the power of the Seven Belts of the Heavens, of the Twelve Winds of the World, of the Three Waters of the Sea!

_(Princess stirs slightly.)_

_King_: That is a wonder of wonders! She is stirring!

_Manus_: Oh, my share of the world! Are you come back to me?

_Princess_: It was a hard fight he wrestled with. ...I thought I heard his voice.... Is he come from danger?

_Nurse_: He did. Here he is. He that saved you and that killed the Dragon, and that let on to be a serving boy, and he no less than one of the world's kings!

_Manus_: Here I am, my dear, beside you, to be your comrade and your company for ever.

_Princess_: You!...Yes, it is yourself. Forgive me. I am sorry that I spoke unkindly to you a while ago; I am ashamed that it failed me to know you to be a king.

(_She stands up, helped by Nurse_.)

_Manus_: It was my own fault and my folly. What way could you know it? There is nothing to forgive.

_Princess_: But ...if I did not recognise you as a king ...anyway ...the time you dropped the eggs ...I was nearly certain that you were no cook!

(_They embrace_.)

_Queen_: There now I have everything brought about very well in the finish!

(_A scream at door. Taig rushes in, followed by Sibby, in country dress. He kneels at the Queen's feet, holding on to her skirt_.)

_Sibby_: Bad luck and bad cess to you! Torment and vexation on you! (_Seizes him by back of neck and shakes him_.) You dirty little scum and leavings! You puny shrimp you! You miserable ninth part of a man!

_Queen_: Is it King or the Dragon Killer he is letting on to be yet, or do you know what he is at all?

_Sibby_: It's myself knows that, and does know it! He being Taig the tailor, my own son and my misfortune, that stole away from me a while ago, bringing with him the grand clothes of that young champion (_points to Manus_) and his gold! To borrow a team of horses from the plough he did, and to bring away the magistrate's coach! But I followed him! I came tracking him on the road! Put off now those shoes that are too narrow for you, you red thief, you! For, believe me, you'll go facing home on shank's mare!

_Taig: (Whimpering.)_ It's a very unkind thing you to go screeching that out before the King, that will maybe strike my head off!

_Sibby_: Did ever you know of anyone making a quarrel in a whisper? To wed with the King's daughter, you would? To go vanquish the water-worm, you would? I'll engage you ran before you went anear him!

_Taig_: If I didn't I'd be tore with his claws and scorched with his fiery breath. It is likely I'd be going home dead!

_Sibby_: Strip off now that cloak and that body-coat and come along with me, or I'll make split marrow of you! What call have you to a suit that is worth more than the whole of the County Mayo? You're tricky and too much tricks in you, and you were born for tricks! It would be right you to be turned into the shape of a limping foxy cat!

_Taig: (Weeping as he takes off clothes.)_ Sure I thought it no harm to try to go better myself.

_Prince of Marshes: (Giving his cloak and coat.)_ Here, I bestow these to you. If you were a while ago a tailor among kings, from this out you will be a king among tailors.

_Sibby: (Curtseying.)_ Well, then, my thousand blessings on you! He'll be as proud as the world of that. Now, Taig, you'll be as dressed up as the

best of them! Come on now to Oughtmana, as it is long till you'll quit it.

_(They go towards door.)_

_Dragon: (Putting his head in at window.)_ Manus, King of Sorcha, I am starved with the want of food. Give me a bit to eat.

_Fintan_: He is not put down! He will devour the whole of us! I'd sooner face a bullet and ten guns!

_Dragon_: It is not mannerly to eat without being invited. Is it any harm to ask where will I find a meal will suit me?

_Princess_: Oh, does he ask to make a meal of me, after all?

_Dragon_: I am hungry and dancing with the hunger! It was you, Manus, stopped me from the one meal. Let you set before me another.

_King_: There is reason in that. Drive up now for him a bullock from the meadow.

_Dragon_: Manus, it is not bullocks I am craving, since the time you changed the heart within me for the heart of a little squirrel of the wood.

_Manus: (Taking a cocoa-nut from table.)_ Here is a nut from the island of Lanka, that is called Adam's Paradise. Milk there is in it, and a kernel as white as snow.

_(He throws it out. Dragon is heard crunching.)_

_Dragon: (Putting head in again.)_ More! Give me more of them! Give them out to me by the dozen and by the score!

_Manus_: You must go seek them in the east of the world, where you can gather them in bushels on the strand.

_Dragon_: So I will go there! I'll make no delay! I give you my word, I'd sooner one of them than to be cracking the skulls of kings' daughters, and the blood running down my jaws. Blood! Ugh! It would disgust me! I'm in dread it would cause vomiting. That and to have the plaits of hair tickling and tormenting my gullet!

_Princess_: (_Claps hands_.) That is good hearing, and a great change of heart.

_Dragon_: But if it's a tame dragon I am from this out, I'm thinking it's best for me to make away before you know it, or it's likely you'll be yoking me to harrow the clods, or to be dragging the water-car from the spring well. So good-bye the whole of ye, and get to your supper. Much good may it do you! I give you my word there is nothing in the universe I despise, only the flesh-eaters of Adam's race!

CURTAIN.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I wrote _The Dragon_ in 1917, that now seems so many long years away, and I have been trying to remember how I came to write it. I think perhaps through some unseen inevitable kick of the swing towards gay-coloured comedy from the shadow of tragedy. It was begun seriously enough, for I see among my scraps of manuscripts that the earliest outline of it is entitled "The Awakening of a Soul," the soul of the little Princess who had not gone "far out in the world." And that idea was never quite lost, for even when it had all turned to comedy I see as an alternative name "A Change of Heart." For even the Dragon's heart is changed by force, as happens in the old folk tales and the heart of some innocent creature put in its place by the conqueror's hand; all change more or less except the Queen. She is yet satisfied that she has moved all things well, and so she must remain till some new breaking up or re-birth.

As to the framework, that was once to have been the often-told story of a King's daughter given to whatever man can "knock three laughs out of her." As well as I remember the first was to have been when the eggs were broken, and another when she laughed with the joy of happy love. But the third was the stumbling-block. It was necessary the ears of the Abbey audience should be tickled at the same time as those of the Princess, and old-time jests like those of Sir Dinadin of the Round Table seem but dull to ears of to-day. So I called to my help the Dragon that has given his opportunity to so many a hero from Perseus in the Greek Stories to Shawneen in those of Kiltartan. And he did not sulk or fail me, for after one of the first performances the producer wrote: "I wish you had seen the play last night when a big Northern in the front of the stalls was overcome with helpless laughter, first by Sibby and then by the Dragon. He sat there long after the curtain fell, unable to move and wiping the tears from his eyes; the audiences stopped going out and stood and laughed at him." And even a Dragon may think it a feather in his cap to have made Ulster laugh.

A.G.

Coole, February, 1920.

ORIGINAL CAST

"The Dragon " was first produced at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 21st April, 1919, with the following cast:

The King BARRY FITZGERALD

The Queen MARY SHERIDAN

The Princess Nuala EITHNE MAGEE

The Dall Glic (The Blind Wise Man) PETER NOLAN

The Nurse MAUREEN DELANY

The Prince of the Marshes J. HUGH NAGLE

Manus--King of Sorcha ARTHUR SHIELDS

Fintan--The Astrologer F.J. MACCORMICK

Taig FLORENCE MARKS

The Dragon SEAGHAN BARLOW

The Porter STEPHEN CASEY

The Gatekeeper HUBERT M'GUIRE

Two Aunts of the Prince of the Marshes {ESME WARD {DYMPHNA DALY

ARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS

PERSONS

_The Mother_.

_Celia_ (HER DAUGHTER).

_Conan_ (HER STEPSON).

_Timothy_ (HER SERVING MAN).

_Rock_ (A NEIGHBOUR).

_Flannery_ (HIS HERD).

_Two Cats_.