The Unicorn from the Stars and Other PlaysYeats, W. B. (William Butler)
General
The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
Ireland -- Drama; Irish drama
WISE M. When do you see them?
FOOL. When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one,
something happy and quiet like the stars--not like the seven that move,
but like the fixed stars. [_He points upward._]
WISE M. And what happens then?
FOOL. Then all in a minute one smells summer flowers, and tall people
go by, happy and laughing, and their clothes are the colour of burning
sods.
WISE M. Is it long since you have seen them, Teigue the Fool?
FOOL. Not long, glory be to God! I saw one coming behind me just now.
It was not laughing, but it had clothes the colour of burning sods, and
there was something shining about its head.
WISE M. Well, there are your four pennies. You, a fool, say "glory be
to God," but before I came the wise men said it.
FOOL. Four pennies! That means a great deal of luck. Great teacher, I
have brought you plenty of luck!
[_He goes out shaking the bag._]
WISE M. Though they call him Teigue the Fool, he is not more foolish
than everybody used to be, with their dreams and their preachings and
their three worlds; but I have overthrown their three worlds with the
seven sciences. [_He touches the books with his hands._] With
Philosophy that was made from the lonely star, I have taught them to
forget Theology; with Architecture, I have hidden the ramparts of their
cloudy heaven; with Music, the fierce planets' daughter whose hair is
always on fire, and with Grammar that is the moon's daughter, I have
shut their ears to the imaginary harpings and speech of the angels; and
I have made formations of battle with Arithmetic that have put the
hosts of heaven to the rout. But, Rhetoric and Dialectic, that have
been born out of the light star and out of the amorous star, you have
been my spear-man and my catapult! Oh! my swift horsemen! Oh! my keen
darting arguments, it is because of you that I have overthrown the
hosts of foolishness! [_An_ Angel, _in a dress the colour of embers,
and carrying a blossoming apple bough in her hand and a gilded halo
about her head, stands upon the threshold._] Before I came, men's minds
were stuffed with folly about a heaven where birds sang the hours, and
about angels that came and stood upon men's thresholds. But I have
locked the visions into heaven and turned the key upon them. Well, I
must consider this passage about the two countries. My mother used to
say something of the kind. She would say that when our bodies sleep our
souls awake, and that whatever withers here ripens yonder, and that
harvests are snatched from us that they may feed invisible people. But
the meaning of the book may be different, for only fools and women have
thoughts like that; their thoughts were never written upon the walls of
Babylon. I must ring the bell for my pupils. [_He sees the_ ANGEL.]
What are you? Who are you? I think I saw some that were like you in my
dreams when I was a child--that bright thing, that dress that is the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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