Scene 1 - Page 2

another loaf.

TEIG. And when that's gone?

MARY. There is the hen in the coop.

SHEMUS. My curse upon the beggars, my Curse upon them!

TEIG. And the last penny gone.

SHEMUS. When the hen's gone,
What can we do but live on sorrel and dock)
And dandelion, till our mouths are green?

MARY. God, that to this hour's found bit and sup,
Will cater for us still.

SHEMUS. His kitchen's bare.
There were five doors that I looked through this day
And saw the dead and not a soul to wake them.

MARY. Maybe He'd have us die because He knows,
When the ear is stopped and when the eye is stopped,
That every wicked sight is hid from the eye,
And all fool talk from the ear.

SHEMUS. Who's passing there?
And mocking us with music?

(A stringed instrument without.)

TEIG. A young man plays it,
There's an old woman and a lady with him.

SHEMUS. What is the trouble of the poor to her?
Nothing at all or a harsh radishy sauce
For the day's meat.

MARY. God's pity on the rich,
Had we been through as many doors, and seen
The dishes standing on the polished wood
In the wax candle light, we'd be as hard,
And there's the needle's eye at the end of all,

SHEMUS. My curse upon the rich.

TEIG. They're coming here.

SHEMUS. Then down upon that stool, down quick, I say,
And call up a whey face and a whining voice,
And let your head be bowed upon your knees,

MARY. Had I but time to put the place to rights.

(CATHLEEN, OONA, and ALEEL enter.)

CATHLEEN. God save all here. There is a certain house,
An old grey castle with a kitchen garden,
A cider orchard and a plot for flowers,
Somewhere among these woods.

MARY. We know it, lady.
A place that's set among impassable walls
As though world's trouble could not find it out.

CATHLEEN. It may be that we are that trouble, for we--
Although we've wandered in the wood this hour--
Have lost it too, yet I should know my way,
For I lived all my childhood in that house.

MARY. Then you are Countess Cathleen?

CATHLEEN. And this woman,
Oona, my nurse, should have remembered it,
For we were happy for a long time there.

OONA. The paths are overgrown with thickets now,
Or else some change has come upon my sight.

CATHLEEN. And this young man, that should have known the woods--
Because we met him on their border but now,
Wandering and singing like a wave of the sea--
Is so wrapped up in dreams of terrors to come
That he can give no help.

MARY. You have still some way,
But I can put you on the trodden path
Your servants take when they are marketing.
But first sit down and rest