[#A Play# (Oxford University Press Paperback ed.1969) CHARACTERS CYMEN CLODESUIDA, #His Wife# MARTINA, #His Daughter# QUICHELM, #His Elder Son# CHELDRIC, #His Younger Son# TADFRID #His Brother-in-Law# OSMER #His Brother-in-Law# COLGRIN, #His Steward# ANNA, #Colgrin's Wife# HOEL, #A British Prisoner# MERLIN A MESSENGER SCENE: #A Jutish Farmstead,# A.D. 596]

[#A Jutish farmstead, both within and without. To the left a group of# #trees ; to thc right a shed, in which# COLGRIN, #an elderly man, is# #asleep among the straw. Enter# QUICHELM. #He hammers at the# #farm door.#] QUICHELM. Hyo, there! Who's awake? Where's The welcome of women for warfarers? Where's my Wodenfearing mother? Hey! hey! Spare some sleep for us: Leave us half a snore and a stale dream. Here's your battery of males come home! Our bones are aching; we're as wet As bogworms. Who's alive in there? COLGRIN. There's an infernal clatter. What's the matter? Foof!. Straw in the nostrils. That's bad. Who's blaspheming in the thick of the mist? I've got you on my weapon's point. (Where the Valhalla is it?) QUICHELM. Colgrin, You scrawny old scurfscratcher, is that you? COLGRIN. Frog-man, fen-fiend, werewolf, oul, elf, Or whatever unnatural thing you are Croaking in the voice of Master Quichelm Who I happen to know is away waging war, Stand away from the swiping of my sword. (Where in thunder did I put it?) QUICHELM. Runt of an old sow's litter, you slop-headed Pot-scourer, come here, you buckle-backed Gutsack, come out of there ! COLGRIN. That 's The young master. There's not a devil In the length of the land could pick such a posy of words

And not swoon smelling it. Here I come, Here I come. Welcome home and so forth. QUICHELM. Woden welt you for a sheeptick, where's my mother? COLGRIN. That's a nice question. I must ponder. Maybe asleep in her cot. Or not. QUICHELM. I'll carve your dropsical trunk into a tassel. Where's my sister? You were left to guard them, Not to roll your pig-sweat in a snoring stupor. Tell me where they are before I unbutton your throat. MARTINA [#entering.#] We're here, Quichelm. I knew you'd come to-day. The cows this morning were all facing north. Are you whole and hale? QUICHELM. Look me over. Ten Fingers. You can take the toes for granted. Where's my mother? MARTINA. We went to early rite. I wanted to stay and keep a watch out for you But she made me go; you know what she is. COLGRIN. That's what I said. Gone to early rite. And my wife with her; a devout woman, but dismal In some respects. They'll be back just now. The sun's arisen. QUICHELM. You get stuck Into some work, you whitebellied weasel. By dugs, I think I'll strike you anyway. COLGRIN. Wasn't I there as bright and bristling As Barney the boarhound, just as soon as I heard Your honour's foot creak over the bridge?

MARTINA. Beat him to-morrow. Let's be affable. Is father all right? And Cheldric? QUICHELM. Cheldric's all right. MARTINA. Why not father? Stop picking at your teeth. Something is wrong. Was father killed? I knew it. The house was crowned with crows this morning. QUICHELM. Shut up. None of us is killed. Are you still here? COLGRIN [#going in.#] No, sir, no. It's what You remember of me. There 's trouble coming. I see that. [#Enter# CLODESUIDA #and# ANNA.] CLODESUIDA. Quichelm, you're back!. Oh, fortunate day. ANNA. Welcome home. QUICHELM. Yes, the battle's finished. CLODESUIDA [#to# ANNA.] Rouse the fire up; and find them food. [#Exit# ANNA.] MARTINA. Don't expect pleasure. CLODESUIDA. Something is wrong. Is your father With you, and well? QUICHELM. He's much as when you saw him. CLODESUIDA. Much? What's that, much? Has he been hurt? QUICHELM. No weapon has touched him. CLODESUIDA. Then he's ill? Why do you talk to me in a kind of cloud? What has happened? QUICHELM. Mother, we breathe cloud. It's the chief product of this island.

CLODESUIDA. Don't provoke me! Where is your father? QUICHELM. Coming up the hill. MARTINA. Dimly, yes; I can just see the shapes of them. CLODESUIDA. And Cheldric, too? And your uncles? Yes, They all come. The mist is confusing. I could imagine There are five of them. QUICHELM. So there are. My father Brings a prisoner. CLODESUIDA. A prisoner? Are we To have an intolerable Saxon here? QUICHELM. An even greater strain on your toleration: A Briton. A British slave who fought for the Saxons. CLODESUIDA. But why? Why bring a benighted Briton here? I thought those heathen had been tidied away, once And for all. And the Country's healthier for it. Your father 's demented. QUICHELM. You would have said so If you had seen him as we saw him in the battle. Like a madman, he saved this Briton when we'd have killed him: Burst in among us, blaspheming against Woden, Broke his sword in the air--he swore it broke Against a staggering light--and stood roaring, Swaying in a sweat of wax, bestraddled Over the fallen Briton. And then, as though The beast which had bragged in his brain had leapt away, Became himself again, Only in a fury with the light which broke his sword. CLODESUIDA. How could the sword have broken?

You make me afraid To see him. Are you sure that he blasphemed? That's the worst of all. It's hard enough To live well-thought-of by the gods. MARTINA. We haven't Enough cattle to placate them more than twice a year. He knows we have to be careful. QUICHELM. They're here. And you haven't heard the worst. CLODESUIDA. The worst? What worse can there be? Quichelm, What else? ... QUICHELM. Don't let him know that I've been talking. He'd lay me flat. CLODESUIDA. He'll notice how I tremble. [#Enter to the house# CYMEN, #his brothers-in-law# TADFRID #and# OSMER, #and his younger son# CHELDRIC. CLODE- SUIDA #and# MARTINA #stand staring at him.#] CYMEN. Well? Have I come home? Or is this a place Of graven images? What's the silence for? I've laid down arms, so that arms Could take me up, a natural expectation. Where's my wife? CLODESUIDA. You can see me. Here I am. CYMEN. Where s my wife? Where's the head on my breast? Better. Where's my daughter? Where's the white Hand hanging on my shoulder? Better, better. I'll have a cup of mead. Where's my mead? Where the devil's my mead? Have I got to wring the water out of my shirt To get a drink?

COLGRIN [#appearing.#] Here's your mead, my lord: And the bees were proud to make themselves drunk To make you drunk, and welcome home, my lord, And Woden worship you and your victory, Hear, hear! CYMEN. Loki lacerate you for a liar And my foot in your teeth. COLGRIN. Quite so, exactly. CYMEN. Wash my feet. Well, here's gut-comfort, anyway. Who can be called defeated who can still imbibe And belch? CLODESUIDA. Defeated? Have you come back defeated When I sacrificed a good half-goat.... CYMEN. No doubt The wrong half, my jewel: the hind-quarters, And it brought us rumping home. Well, I'm still good enough for a bad joke. Liquor. Down the throat, sunshine ; hum A lazy day to my inside. I'll doze In the meadow of my stomach. There's no warmth in a wife. CLODESUIDA. Who turns me cold? What besides defeat Have you still to tell me? CYMEN. Ask the dumb icebergs behind you. Take stock of those long jowls, my jewel, Those ruminating thundercoloured bulls Your brothers : and our pastry-pallid sons Who look on their father with such filial Disapproval. A fine resentful march This night has been, with no moon and no Conversation : nothing to break the monotony Except Tadfrid spitting once in every mile

And twenty-seven gurks from Osmer. Spit some words at me instead, and gurk Away your grudge. I'm tired of this subterranean Muttering. Where's that water? My feet want comfort. TADFRID. That 's what this house will want before long, and may Our guilt be forgiven us. CLODESUIDA. What kind of talk is this? CYMEN. Tell her, tell her. I'm humble. CLODESUIDA. Do you say that? Guilt, forgiveness, humility? What next? Are you mad? CYMEN. Tell her I am or you'll strangle yourselves With an unspoken truth. CLODESUIDA. Has none of you the courage To speak? TADFRID. Even though he's our overlord, And though he may not at the time have been fully responsible-- OSMER. Let me tell her, Tadfrid ; I speak faster. It was approaching dusk, last evening. We were catching a bright victory in our caps, When Eccha, the earl, was killed by a thrust from the spear Of this British brat: And we were at the boy in the bat of an eye To give him joy of our vengeance and a shove To doom and a damned journey into dust, When Cymen, our chief, our lord, your maleficent Male-- CLODESUIDA. Though you're my brother I'll beat your mouth If it passes a lie! TADFRID. It's the truth that he says.

OSMER. All right. It's the truth that I say. Like a bear-sark blundering He hit up our downcoming swords, sprang in As white as a water-spout spinning in a full moon, Shouting 'The gods can go and beg for blood! Let 'em learn of us!' TADFRID. Word for word. 'Let 'em learn Of us.' CLODESUIDA. It's certain they heard! OSMER. From that moment, you could feel it, The sky turned round, Ceaulin's men broke through, Thor, in the scarlet dusk, swore and swung, And Woden rode in rancour, as well he might, And trod upon our dead. TADFRID. And so we slogged Out from defeat, and he lugged the Briton with him. CLODESUIDA. Is it believable? CHELDRIC. Look, father's weeping. QUICHELM. A nice inheritance we have, all watermarked With tears. CLODESUIDA. Who's this man, spilling sawdust Like an old puppet? I never saw him till now. You make me ashamed, in front of our sons. CYMEN. Can't I Have tears of rage? Why not the hot spout Of indignation? Is it better to spew? By the thousand and three thews of the muscular god, Some fiend of this land came at my back! I was thrown by a trick.

TADFRID. He should stand in the winter sea Till his clothes freeze to his flesh. It's the only way To be sure of a store of magic against such an evil. CLODESUIDA. And catch death? That's an efficacious magic If you like. It's more decently religious To offer a sacrifice, than to offer himself To an early grave. OSMER. What devil was it that damned him To its own design? Can he tell us that? CYMEN. Some ancient Damp god of this dooming island, who spat The fungus out of his mouth and caught me napping. I curse this kingdom, water, rock and soil! I accuse and curse the creaking of its boughs And the slaver on the mouth of its winds! It makes A fool of me! Too many voices rasp Out of decaying rafters, out of every cave And every hole in the yellow sodden hills. This is the golden future our fathers died for! The gods look at it! Here's the slice of fortune They came to carve with their courage When they pitched themselves on the narrow, shuddering sea To deal and duck death under the hanging chalk. I stack my curses on those first rich rumours Which fetched us here, rollicking with ambition. I curse the muck and gravel where we walk. I'd curse each singular soaking blade of grass Except that a grey hair ties me for time. Here we live, in our fathers' mirage. Cities, they'd heard of, great with columns, Gay cities, where wealth was bulging the doors And the floors were sagging with the weight of gold.

The orchards rang with fruit, the hills moved With grain like a lion's mane, and wherever A river sauntered the fish swam, and eels Reeled in bright mud. Flocks were fair, And cows like pendulous fountains of alabaster Went lowing over land where silver skulked Waiting for skill; a land where summer days Could call to one another across the night Under the northern pole. So here we live And choke in our father's mirage. Dreams they were, As well we know; we live in the skull Of the beautiful head which swam in the eyes of our fathers. Our ploughshares jag on the stumps of moonwhite villas. And my brain swerves with the sudden sting of one Of the island gods, the down-and-out divinities Moping, mildewed with immortality. Cross-boned on weedy altars. I curse this land That curses me!. OSMER. Then cut yourself clear of its curse And win this house again for Woden, before We all know worse. [#He drags forward# HOEL, #the Briton.#] Here's the land you loathe, In bone and blood. Break its back. CLODESUIDA. We have always Been god-fearing, but now it appears he fears More gods than he knows what to do with. What can we do? TADFRID. Obliterate the cause of sin. Do the undeed, The death-lack which lost us our victory. Where's the difficulty? OSMER. There is no difficulty. Here's the quivering black-haired flesh,

As live as it was that time our blades were on him. Well, we swing back on time, and hope the gods Forget the indecision. TADFRID. It may seem now To be somewhat in cold blood, but in fact his death Was given to him in the battle yesterday; This is merely the formal ceremony, which was overlooked. QUICHELM. Kill him; make us respectable again. I feel that all the gods are looking at us. CHELDRIC. Do, father, kill him, as any other fellow's Father would. CLODESUIDA. Not inside the house! The walls would never let his death go out. CYMEN. No, nor anywhere here, I'll tell you all Darker things yet. I have a great fear. CLODESUIDA. Fear? Will you say that to the ears of your sons? CYMEN. I say I fear myself, or rather That not-myself which took my will, Which forced a third strange eye into my head So that I saw the world's dimensions altered. I know no defence against that burst of fire. [#To# HOEL.] You can tell me; what flogged away my strength, What furtive power in your possession Pulled the passion of my sword? Name that devil! I'll have our gods harry him through the gaps Between the stars, to where not even fiends Can feed. Name him! HOEL. Who? Who am I to name? I swear to God I know nothing of what you mean. CYMEN. What God is that? You swear to a God? What God?

HOEL It was my grandfather who knew him well. The One God, he's called. But I can't remember The details; it's a long time ago that I saw My grandfather, and I'm the last life Of my family. OSMER. Send him where the moles Can teach him to dig in the dark. TADFRID. His brows are marked With the night already; douse the rest of him And let's get to bed. CYMEN. Why shouldn't we give you the mercy You showed to Eccha our earl? HOEL. It was all in the way Of battle. I only expelled him from the world As I let out my breath singing to the fame Of Britain. TADFRID. The fame of Britain ! The fame of Britain Is sung by us now. Let him echo Eccha Into death, with the same ease. OSMER. Easy death, Easy as shutting a door! CYMEN. This door shan't shut Till I find what devil keeps it. OSMER. Then, by plague, I'll void my vows of allegiance to this damned house! TADFRID. And I; like a rat I'll run Before the water rises. CLODESUIDA. Do you forget Your wife and children? A sacrifice, Cymen, This one sacrifice for our peace of mind.

CYMEN. What peace can we have until I know Whether or not the same misshapen fire again Will burn me? I've still got rags of reason To make our stark apprehension decent, And you shall be modest with me, or else bad-luck Will leer at the lot of us. If we kill him and bury him, I shall fill my lungs with relief and forget my fault And the flame will be on me while I whistle at a clear sky. No! This walking wound in my strength can walk on, Wake me in the morning, see me to my bed; He shall stand between me and the door so that his shadow Falls across everything I do: so every Moment shall have spears addressed to that dark Which lies in wait for my will. Alive, He's ours; dead, who knows to what Unfriendly power he will have given himself? Scowl at your own stampede of panic, Not at me. Look; the sun puts down The mist at last and looks out across the day. Here comes the burning sea of honey Over the grey sand of our defeat. We'll salute the sun that makes us men. Fill up the cups! [#To# COLGRIN.] O gigantic heart, beating in the breast of the sky, Lordlust the white-hot lion of the air, We are the men of the earth; our metal shouts With light only for you. (For chick's sake, Fill 'em up, fill 'em up!)-- Give us huge harvest, potency and dominion. Make us pluck all from the teeth of this island. My strength comes back. By splendour, I'll send fear sprawling. By the zenith, I'll set My foot on the neck of the dark and get the gods

Again. [#He throws# HOEL #to the ground and puts his foot on his neck.#] Glory of life, I live! We'll drink to our restored prosperity: The sustaining sinews of tremendous Thor; The unwearying, turbulent, blazing loins of Woden! We raise our cups and drink, to the power of the gods, This toast: 'Let us love one another.' [#His cup falls from his hand. He stands trembling.#] OSMER. What madness is this? CLODESUIDA. What words are these? TADFRID. He has fallen Foul of his brain again, protect us! CHELDRIC. 'Let us What,' did father say? QUICHELM. 'Love one another'; What a way to honour the gods! CLODESUIDA. He's not himself. It's the patter of delirium he talks; A lack of sleep. CYMEN. I'm in good health! No-one shall excuse this fiend that twists my tongue, By saying I'm sick! Show, show, show, Devil! By the first yowl of the world's first babe I'll be the master of my own voice! Show! Come out of your secret place and let me See you climb to my sword. This time it means Death, your precious Briton's end, I kill him! [#He makes to kill# HOEL, #but his sword is against# QUIC- HELM. QUICHELM. Father!

CLODESUIDA. No! Hold him! He's battle-blind. OSMER. You madman, it's your son, Quichelm. What's The matter? Here's the road you have to take, The black-haired enemy. Turn here. CYMEN. It seems All one, it seems all one. There's no distinction. Which is my son? QUICHELM. Can't you see me? I'm your son. CYMEN. And my enemy, My own flesh. My sword knew you. Deny it: My sword understood. Distinction has gone! CLODESUIDA. Take him and make him sleep; it must be The burning of his body. I'll not believe He is mad. Get him to rest and sleep. Dip him In sleep, that blue well where shadows walk In water over their heads, and he'll be washed Into reason. This has taken my strength, too. CYMEN. All right, I'll sleep. I'll count myself as over For a while. But let not you, not one of you, Step between me and what's to come. This house Is on my back; it goes my way. Dare nothing Against the Briton, or dread will stay with you Forever, like pock-marks. We'll master this mystery, His death can keep; his death can wait for me. [#Exeunt# CLODESUIDA, CYMEN, QUICHELM, CHELDRIC. OSMER. And we're kept jangling in the pocket of uncertainty While Woden wonders how to spend us. TADFRID. And sleep Will lay us open to all the supernatural riffraff

That ever came crawling out of cobwebs. Pleasant Dreams. OSMER [#to# COLGRIN.] Take him to the barn. Hanging for you, if he escapes. COLGRIN. A rope isn't my style. I haven't the neck for it. [#Exeunt# OSMER #and# TADFRID.] COLGRIN. Lowest form of life ; that's you. Next to lowest, me. So you can show respect. We'll make the barn A guard-room. Get inside. This dizzy-dazzy World made of morning sun and fog-spittle Is nothing to do with you. Orders are otherwise. HOEL. Try to think of it: I might by now Have been wading about in the sway of death, But I'm blinking at the light; my head swims with it. COLGRIN. It doesn't do a man any good, daylight. It means up and doing, and that means up to no good. The best life is led horizontal And absolutely unconscious. Get inside ! You flick of muck off the back hoof of a mule! There's a point in being sworn at; it gives you something To hand on to your fellow men. Now mind, No monkey-tricks, no trying to escape, I've got you covered--if I knew where I'd put my weapon. HOEL. Where do you think I should escape to? COLGRIN. Why, You'd skit off home. HOEL. That's where I've just escaped from When I escaped death. Here I lie-- Hanging on to what was once my country, Like an idiot clinging to the body of his dead mother. Why don't you hack me off her? Why don't you?

Fool I was, fool I was, not to hug their swords When they bore down on me. Why don't I settle To a steady job in the grave, instead of this damned Ambition for life, which doesn't even offer A living wage? I want to live, even If it's like a louse on the back of a sheep, skewering Into the wool away from the beaks of crows; Even like a limpet on a sour rock. I want to live! COLGRIN. Me too; Horizontal and absolutely unconscious. But they keep us at it, they keep us at it. [#Enter# ANNA.] ANNA. Who at it? Not you at it. Don't you Think he's ever at it; nobody's at it Except old Anna. The farm's a hive Of indolence : the place might as well be rubble. Six upstanding men lying down, and nine Cows lowing themselves into a cream cheese. [#She goes into the barn to take-down the washing from where# #it hangs on# COLGRIN'S #sword stuck in a post.#] I won't say you're in my way But I can't get to where I want to come to. COLGRIN [#to# HOEL.] My only wife! ANNA. I'll take these into the sun. Nothing ever dries in this country. COLGRIN. There's my weapon! There's my dimpled sword ! What do you mean, woman, Hanging wet linen all over it? It's wrong If it's rusty. ANNA. And a man is, too; and you're So thick with rust you'd choke if you blew on yourself.

COLGRIN. I'm on special duty, Anna; I'm put to guard A sad and savage Briton. ANNA. He needn't think He'll be savage with me. He's caused a lot of trouble Having to be conquered, and that's enough from him. I shall probably get to be fond of him, but I'll never Like him. It wouldn't be right if I did, when you think Of all our men who've been killed killing these heathen. And #this# isn't going to get the baby washed. COLGRIN. What baby washed? ANNA. Can't I coin a phrase if I want to? [#Exit# ANNA. #Enter# MARTINA #carrying an empty bowl.#] COLGRIN. My sword for a clothes-line! Stand to attention. Here's my lord's daughter Look as though you're working. HOEL. At what? COLGRIN. Here, Plait some straw. MARTINA. Good morning, Colgrin. COLGRIN. Good-morning. It's a bright day, lady, for the season. MARTINA. Time, too. They made us wait for it. I'm old with being young in a long winter. I've almost forgotten how to walk on flowers. COLGRIN. Everything would be all right if we'd been granted Hibernation. MARTINA. We're not very favoured. The gods Mean us to know they rule. Are your gods any Kinder, Briton?

HOEL. When I was a boy I was only Allowed to have one, though in that One, they said, There were three. But the altars are broken up. I've tried To pick away the moss to read the inscriptions But I've almost forgotten our language. I only know The god was both father and son and a brooding dove. MARTINA. He's a Christian, Colgrin; and if you ask my mother She'll tell you that's worse than having no god at all. We have a Christian queen, though we try to keep it Dark, and in one of our prayers to the gods we say Give us our daily bread and forgive us our Queen. But we drove the Britons into the mountains; for years They've lain furtively in the setting sun, Those who live. Why aren't you lurking there, too? You should be crouching craven in a cave Warming your hands at the spark of your old god Who let you be conquered. HOEL. After my father was killed The Saxons kept me to work for them. My father Had always said What can one god do Against the many the invaders have? And he remembered earlier gods who still Harped on the hills, and hoped they would rally again. But they were too old. They only raised Infatuated echoes, and wept runnels. Then all the Britons were killed or fled, all Except my grandfather and my hip-high self. Him they kept for working metals which he did With his whole heart, forgetting the end of his race In a brooch design. He told me once How I'd been given in water to the One god. Soon afterwards he died, beating silver.

When I had grown the Saxons let me fight for them And gave me a little freedom in exchange. MARTINA. Enough for my father to take from you. It's a pity You had to be born a Briton. I'm forced to hate you. HOEL. If I had been a Saxon ... MARTINA. We should have killed you To win your land, but considered you a brother. COLGRIN. We should have killed you with consideration. It isn't less fatal, of course, but it adds an air Of glory, and we shake hands in Valhalla. [#Enter# CLODESUIDA.] CLODESUIDA. Martina, come, if you please! Two hands aren't enough To card and spin, and my brain goes with the wheel Round and round in a horrible suspense. What are you doing? MARTINA. Watching the herons. I'm coming. They haunt the dregs of the mist like ghosts Left on the yellow morning by a tide of sleep. CLODESUIDA. Where did you take the bowl of meat? MARTINA. Where? CLODESUIDA. I saw you come back from that old decaying Tooth of a tower. And here's a string Of bramble on your skirt, and burrs, and cleavers. What were you doing there? MARTINA. I go very often. Particularly when the house is overbearded With splendid uncles. CLODESUIDA. Carrying a bowl of food?

MARTINA. Mother I have to eat. CLODESUIDA. Do you have to eat Among bird-droppings and birds' bones and beaks And owl-chawn mice and dead flies? Is that Nicer than your uncles? The tower's a spitting-place For all benighted life, a filthy ruin. You have someone hidden there. MARTINA. Suppose I have ... CLODESUIDA. I do suppose you have; and I shall find who. I wear myself out securing us to thc gods With every device that's orthodox, sacrificing To the hour, to the split minute of the risen sun. But how can I keep them kind if always They're being displeased by the rest of you? It isn't Easy to keep on the windy side of Woden As anyone knows. Who have you hidden in the ruin? MARTINA. Hardly anyone at all. A very old man: Old enough to be his own grandfather. CLODESUIDA. But why-- MARTINA. I dug him up. He was rather buried. I found him in the quarry where it caved in. His beard was twisted like mist in the roots of an oak-tree, Beaded and bright with a slight rain, and he was crying Like an old wet leaf. His hands were as brown as a nest Of lizards, and his eyes were two pale stones Dropping in a dark well. I thought I couldn't Very well leave him where he was. CLODESUIDA. You should Have left him, until we could find out more about him. Is he natural? Is he good or evil? Out of the quarry! He might be as fatal as a toadstool.

MARTINA. Maybe, maybe, Maybe. He comforts me. CLODESUIDA. He comforts you ! In what way comfortable? Now we come to it. What does he do? MARTINA. He screws up his eyes and looks At my hand and tells my future. It's better Than always having to placate the gods For fear something should happen. Besides, I like To know. He says, as far as he can remember, Though he has a terrible memory for names, His name is Merlin. HOEL [#to# COLGRIN.] What did she say? COLGRIN. She said I was so thick with rust I'd choke if I blew. My sword for a clothes-line! HOEL. Merlin ! CLODESUIDA. I only hope He has done no harm to us yet, whatever he is, Whatever his tongue clinks at, sitting with the rats. It's no good having gods at the door if there Are devils on the hearth. Your uncles, one or both, Shall see him. HOEL. She calls him Merlin. She has caught An echo that booms in the deepest cave of my race And brings it here, out into the winter light! MARTINA. You shall see him for yourself. Here he comes, with the red earth still on him And his beard springing surprises on the breeze. He promised not to break his hiding. Well, You see how old he is. And how confused in the sun. With two days' growth of shadow from the tower.

[#Enter# MERLIN.] You've broken faith. You promised you'd lie low. [MERLIN #moves on towards# HOEL.] CLODESUIDA. What is he after? MERLIN [#to# HOEL.] Ail i'r ar ael Eryri Cyfartal hoewal a hi. Ar oror wir arwa. HOEL. Peth yw ... peth yw ... I can't remember How to speak. I use the words of the Saxons. CLODESUIDA. Another heathen! Did you know he was a Briton? Is that why you hid him from me? MERLIN [#to# HOEL.] A British voice. It breaks a fast of years; I roll you Wonderfully on my tongue. I was half asleep But I heard you. This wide harp of winter Reverberates. I had stupidly imagined The human landscape had left me for ever. The face of the foam for me (I told myself) Until I die. All your expectation Of friendship, old man (I said to myself) Is a wink from the eye of a bullfinch Or the slower solemnities of a tortoise Or a grudging goodnight from the dark lungs of a toad. And then your voice alights on my ear. I bless you From the bottom of my slowly budding grave. CLODESUIDA. You must speak to my brothers before we let you wander All over our land. HOEL. Madam, this may be Merlin. Still Merlin. Do you understand? MERLIN. You are surprised, I see, to find me still Giving and taking the air. You think I should long ago

Have sunk to the golden bed of the troubled river. But I have obstreperous garments that keep me floating. I merely float, in a desultory, though Delighted, kind of way. And my garments begin To be heavy. Presently, on the surface of life, You may observe a doting bubble, smiling Inanely at the Sun until it dissolves, And then you'll know the time has been. HOEL. It has gone Already for us. We're lost and scattered. MERLIN. Be lost And then be found. It's an old custom of the earth From year to year. I could do something; But I lost my trumpet of zeal when Arthur died And now I only wind a grey note Of memory, and the hills are quiet. CLODESUIDA. Did you hear What I said to you? MARTINA. Father has come from the house [#Enter# CYMEN.] CLODESUIDA. Oh, you should be sleeping. CYMEN. No sleep came. An occasional shadow across my bed from a cloud Of weariness, but the glare of the brain persisted. Where is the Briton? CLODESUIDA. There in the barn, there, Talking to an old man of his tribe, or an old Sorcerer, or some brewer of trouble. We should rid the country of these things which aren't ourselves.

CYMEN. Rid the brain of uncertainty, rid the heart Of its fear. [#He goes to the barn.#] How did this old man come here? The kingdom has been scoured of you islanders. What are you hanging about for? MERLIN. I pluck at my roots But they won't be fetched away from a world which possesses me Like an unforgettable woman who was once my own. I walk on the earth, besotted by her, waiting To bring to her the devotion of my dust. HOEL. It's Merlin. He's still among us. CYMEN. What is he? Is it one of your superstitions, A damned invention of the air? Tell me What your existence is or, by the night, I'll ask your flesh with a sharper edge to the question. Come on, now; are you superannuated god Or working devil, or mere entangled man? MERLIN. No god, I hope; that would take too much Endurance. Whatever man may be I am that thing, though my birth, I've been given to believe, Had some darkness in it. But then, which of us Can say he is altogether free of a strain Of hell in his blood? My father could be called Pure man, if such a thing existed. CYMEN. Then What powers pursue us here? You know this island Thoroughly. Parade your spirits, good And bad, and I'll identify the mischief!

CLODESUIDA. Will you ask #them#, men of the race We conquered? MARTINA. Ask the prisoner If he isn't a Christian. He's a godless Christian Even if he can't remember. CLODESUIDA. Why can't we get rid of them Once and for all? The gods will strike at them And everyone knows how carelessly they aim. The blow May fall on us. COLGRIN. Colgrin will catch it, Colgrin Is sure to catch it. The rest of the world will dodge And I shall be in the way. CYMEN. I'll ask the louse In the filthy shirt of a corpse in the bottom of a ditch If I can learn what it is I've learnt to dread. I lay on my bed and felt it stand with its feet Planted on either side of my heart, and I looked Up the tower of its body to find the face To know if it meant to help or hinder, But it was blotted out by a shield of thunder. Am I to sacrifice without end and then Be given no peace? The skirts of the gods Drag in our mud. We feel the touch And take it to be a kiss. But they see we soil them And twitch themselves away. Name to me What mocked me with a mood of mercy and therefore Defeat. Who desired that? MERLIN. Who, apart From ourselves, can see any difference between Our victories and our defeats, dear sir? Not beast, nor bird, nor even the anticipating Vulture watching for the battle's end,

Nor a single mile of devoted dispassionate ground. All indifferent. Much more so your gods Who live without the world, who never feel As the world feels in springtime the stab of the spear And the spurt of golden blood, Winter's wound-in-the-side, the place where life begins. Nothing, it seems, cares for your defeat. CLODESUIDA. How did I say these Britons would answer you? It shames us to stand and listen. Didn't we conquer them? MERLIN. Quest and conquest and quest again. It might well Make you fretful if you weren't expecting it. CYMEN. You are conquered. Both you or this boy I can destroy now, and no questions asked. MERLIN. Death is what conquers the killer, not the killed. How pleasant it is to talk, even In your language. I have a way--your daughter May have told you--of looking ahead, having made My peace with Time, at some expense to my soul. It's curious to know that in the course Of the movement of years which wears away distinction, You, and moreover your conquerors, will bear Kindly and as though by nature our name, the British Name, and all the paraphernalia, legend And history, as though you were our widow Not our conqueror. And well may the weeds become you. CYMEN. You're a hideous old wiseacre Of sheepbitten kale. But give me an answer. If, as you imagine, our gods have no care Whether we win or lose, what cuckoo power Is it that usurps the nest of my soul? MERLIN. You ask an old pagan? Old Merlin, old Eternal suckling, who cannot drag his lips

Away from the breast of the earth, even to grow Into the maturity of heaven. Nothing can wean him Until his mother puts upon her nipple The vinegar of death, though, when I walked Between the dog-rose hedges of my manhood, It was in a Christian land: in Arthur's land. There I gleamed in the iris of creation's Eye, and there I laughed as a man should, Between the pillars of my ribs in the wide Nave of my chest. A Christian land. There It was, and old Joseph's faithful staff Breaking into scarlet bud in the falling snow. But, as I said at the time, the miracle Was commonplace: staves of chestnut wood And maywood and the like perform it every year. And men broke their swords in the love of battle, And broke their hearts in the love of women, And broke the holy bread in the love of God. I saw them ride away between their loves Into a circle of the snow-white wind And so into my head's old yellow world Of bone. CYMEN. Your Christian land was weak, it shook Down, it burnt, its ash was blown Into our food and drink. What I'm inflicted with Is strong, destroying me with a cry of love, A violence of humility arrogantly Demanding all I am or possess or have ambitions for, Insistent as a tocsin which was sounded When the sun first caught on fire, and ever since Clangs alarm with a steady beat in the wild Night of history. This doesn't come

From the watery light of what you think you remember. A lashing logic drags me away from my gods. Let it face me like a man! MERLIN. It may be already This power has faced you like a man, on a certain Century's peak from which the circling low land Is, to eternity, surveyed. Still, still, Earth winds delicious arms; it isn't strange Our human eyes should close upon her, like a flower Closing on a globe of dew, and wish to see Nothing but this. And here am I Doting into oblivion. CLODESUIDA. Send him off, With his ancient ramifications; go to sleep And be well. CYMEN [#to# HOEL.] Do I have to come to you again? You, a speck of the dust which three of our generations Have marched over: what light flung from you To me? Why did my strength startle from your Futility? HOEL. On my soul, I've done nothing against you Except to make war. I've known nothing except Your mercy; that indeed was a kind of light to me. I want to live, having a life in me Which seems to demand it. MERLIN. Having a death in him, too: That death by drowning in the river of his baptism From which he rose a dripping Christian child In a land which had become a grave to us all, Though in that grave of Britain old Merlin, for one, Was happy enough because he could hold, both hill

And valley, his leafy love in his arms, Old pagan that he is. HOEL. The weather of twenty Years has blown me dry and long lost me All the charms I ever had of that. MERLIN. The spirit is very tenacious of such water. CYMEN. The spirit again! You nod and look beyond me, And pretend to know nothing. Do you dare to say The world has a secret direction passing the gods? And does it run through me? [#To# CLODESUIDA.] Take me from them. I'm mad, mad to talk to the slaves. CLODESUIDA. Rest, Cymen. CYMEN. I am alive and so there is no rest. CLODESUIDA. It's you who churn up the air; the air itself Is as unruffled as ever. Trust our gods And put these heathen to work. [#Enter# ANNA.] ANNA. Master, master, master! Where is the master? The wolves, the savages! An old woman's no use! Oh, the master! CYMEN. What's the matter? ANNA. So many wolves, the fields Are a bear-garden--ma'am, your brothers!--grey, Snarling, vicious, a terrible pack--they're into The sheep! CYMEN. The sheep! CLODESUIDA. Brothers, help, help us, Wake, the wolves have come!

ANNA. The sheep and the lambs, All we have! MARTINA. In the daylight, in daylight, too! What could have brought them? ANNA. Why, hunger, hunger, the appetite, The spite of the belly! [#Enter# TADFRID, OSMER, QUICHELM, #and# CHELDRIC.] OSMER. What's the cry? CLODESUIDA. The wolves! They're falling on the flock! TADFRID. So it begins, Bad-luck already. OSMER. Down to them, then, and save What's still for saving. [CYMEN #has already snatched# COLGRIN'S #sword and gone ;# HOEL #also, ahead of him. Now the rest follow, shouting to# #scatter the wolves.# ANNA. I'm fit for nothing now But whisking eggs, I'm trembling so. Why should such things be? Such fangs, I have Sharp pains in the back just to have seen them Gnashing in the light. [#Seeing# COLGRIN]: Why are you here, You, taking up space as though time didn't begin Until the day after tomorrow? Do all legs move Except the two that keep the ground away from you? Why don't you go and help? COLGRIN. My dear, good woman, I'm here on duty. ANNA. What duty would you mean, I wonder? The prisoner's gone.

COLGRIN. All the more reason Why the other half of the arrangement should stand. If the horse gets out of the stable it doesn't mean The stable is justified in following. I'm a man who can be relied on. ANNA. So you are. Well, at least when your time comes to be buried They'll have no trouble keeping you under the ground. But why should wolves be set upon us? Men Make enough misfortunes for themselves, without Natural calamities happening as well. The old gentleman agrees. MERLIN. Considerable Age makes me nod; I neither agree Nor disagree. I'm too near-sighted now To be able to distinguish one thing from another, The storm-swollen river from the tear-swollen eyes, Or the bare cracked earth from the burnt-out face, Or the forest soughing from the sighing heart. What is in one is in the other, a mood Of rage which turns upon itself to savage Its own body, since there's nothing except itself On which anger can alight; it sinks into time Like a sword into snow And the roots receive all weathers and subsist, And the seasons are reconciled. When, years ago, The Romans fell away from our branching roads Like brazen leaves, answering The hopeless windy trumpets from their home, Your tribes waged winter upon us, till our limbs Ached with the carving cold. You blackened The veins of the valleys with our dried blood. And at last

Your lives croaked like crows on a dead bough And the echoes clanged against you. But I can hear Faintly on the twittering sea a sail Moving greatly where the waves, like harvest-home, Come hugely on our coast: the men of Rome Returning, bringing God, winter over, a breath Of green exhaled from the hedges, the wall of sky Breached by larksong. Primrose and violet And all frail privileges of the early ground Gather like pilgrims in the aisles of the sun. A ship in full foliage rides in Over the February foam, and rests Upon Britain. COLGRIN. He's in the clouds, you see; he's away On his own; he's blowing about like the hairs in his beard. ANNA. Maybe, yes, and maybe also his beard Has caught on something. He seems to have brought The other side of the hill into his head. It's good to see--we anticipate little enough-- And certainly to-day, I noticed myself, Winter is wearing thin; it's beginning to show The flowering body through. COLGRIN. It s a hard time, The spring; it makes me lose all my energy. [#Enter# CLODESUIDA.] CLODESUIDA. Did you see it, did ever your eyes? He must be as wild As an animal in his heart! Who ever saw Such wrestling between hand and claw? ANNA. Such what Such wrestling? I hadn't hard enough eyes

To put them again on those poor bleating lambs. Are the wolves away now? Are the wolves away? I still shake for the sake of those sheep. CLODESUIDA. The wolves Are beaten off. But the Briton killed the grimmest, The greatest: with his hands, with his hands as bare As mine: met and mauled the scavenger, with a grip Under the blood and froth of the jaws, he shook And choked the howling out of its fangs And forced it to a carcase. It was horror And hope and terror and triumph to see it. ANNA. The boy? The Briton? with bare hands? MERLIN. Like a shepherd With a lion. COLGRIN. With his bare hands? ANNA. It's just as well To hang the wet linen on your sword, You heavy hero on my conscience. [#Enter# TADFRID, OSMER, QUICHELM, #and# CHELDRIC.] CLODESUIDA. It's a tale I'll tell to my grave! My heart is hammering And still hugging the fearful sport of the struggle. What shall we do to reward him? OSMER. Reward him? his death Can reward him. Who's the fool who's going to kiss Future trouble? Who does, deserves to lie With the grass growing up through a crack in the skull. CLODESUIDA. What do you mean? Didn't he enlist himself Against our disaster? TADFRID. But in what power's name? Osmer fears--

OSMER. And very properly fears. I'm not quite a child in this cleft-stick of life. [#Enter# CYMEN.] CYMEN. Are you still rolling your marbles of thunder? I hear what you say. Still breaking wind to make A hurricane. I am very tired. OSMER. And so Are we all with anxiety. And so no doubt Are the crouching gods who contain their final leap Waiting for wisdom from us. TADFRID. And not holding For long, now that the first roar has come. CYMEN. That may be. I know well enough The weight of the silence that's on our shoulders now. I move under it like the moving mole That raises the hackles of dead leaves. Under me, silence; round me, silence, air, The wind hushing the world to hear The wind hushing the world; and over me, Silence upon silence upon silence, Unuttering vapour, unutterable void. What do you want me to do? OSMER. Make retribution Before we're godsmitten again. TADFRID. A sacrifice. OSMER. The only possible sacrifice, the Briton. CLODESUIDA. Can they be right, Cymen? Certainly We must do what is necessary, though when I saw the wolf destroyed-- OSMER. As now you shall see Our luck's neck fractured, unless we act.

The Briton sprang on the back of a punishment Justly put upon us by the gods. TADFRID. That's so. And by what muscle, except a devil's, Could he elbow himself between our gods and us? OSMER. It's perfectly proper that we should contest our punish- ment, If we can. The gods relish a knock or two Before they lean back and insist on being Propitiated. But by no right does this Briton Break in and ruffle them beyond all hope. His demon rams him to it to make our world The worse for us. QUICHELM. We've got to be free of him. Cut him to quiet. He's a flint that's going to skag us. Hit the spark of life out of him, father. TADFRID. What else but a power of the dark would send him Scudding into the teeth and talons Of a probable death, for us, his enemies? If you let him live among us-- [#Enter# HOEL, #helped by# MARTINA. #His shoulders have been# #clawed by the wolf. They walk across to the barn, watched in# #silence by the others.#] CYMEN. I will sacrifice. OSMER. Then back we come to easy breathing And a chance of pleasure. CLODESUIDA. Let me think of the harm He would do us, his brain's blackened teeth, And not sicken at his killing. What the gods Want we'll give them, even though our blood Freezes.

CYMEN. I will sacrifice. I'll pay off whatever dark debts there are And come to the morning, square. I am tired, tired Of being ground between the staring stones Of air and earth. I'll satisfy the silence. Bring me one of the white goats. TADFRID #and# OSMER. A goat? CYMEN. One silence of death is as deep as another To satisfy the silence. It will do To patch wherever a whisper from above Can still creep out. Bring me the goat. CLODESUIDA. But this Can't please them if they demand the Briton? OSMER. It's livestock thrown away. TADFRID. Look, he goes TO pray to them. CYMEN [#at the altar.#] Gods, our gods, gods Of the long forced-march of our blood's generations Dead and living. Goaders, grappling gods, Whose iron feet pace on thunder's floor Up and down in the hall where chaos groaned And bore creation sobbing. Boding gods, Who broad in the universe consume our days Like food, and crunch us, good and bad, Like bones. What do I do by sacrifice? The blood flows, the ground soaks it up, The poisoned nightshade grows, the fears go on, The dread of doom gropes into the bowels, And hope, with her ambitious shovel, sweats To dig the pit which swallows us at last. The sacrifice is despair and desperation!

The deed of death is done and done and always To do, death and death and death; and still We cannot come and stand between your knees. Why? By what stroke was the human flesh Hacked so separate from the body of life Beyond us? You make us to be the eternal alien In our own world. Then I submit. Separation To separation! Dedicated stones Can lie asunder until the break is joined ! [CYMEN #throws down the stones of the altar. The rest, except# HOEL, #throw themselves in horror on to the gronnd.#] Answer, then, answer! I am alone, without hope. The outlaw, no longer the groveller on the knee. Silence me!. Come down and silence me! Then at least I shall have some kind of part With all the rest. [#They wait.#] Not even that? Is separation between man and gods So complete? Can't you even bring me to silence? [#A voice from a short way off is heard calling 'Cymen!# #Cymen of the Copse!'# CYMEN #stands startled. The rest raise# #themselves partly from the ground in apprehension. The voice# #calls, again, nearer.#] CYMEN. What is it? Who is it? I am here on my ground. [#Enter a# MESSENGER.] MESSENGER. Cymen of the Copse, is he here? CYMEN. I'm that man. MESSENGER. You're summoned to the general assemblage Of all householders, copyholders, smallholders, and tenant- farmers, At the command of Ethelbert, lord and king of Kent,

To receive the person and words of Augustine Exponent of the Christian god. Proper precautions are being taken, and all Provision made, to protect each person present From being taken at a disadvantage By the craft of any spirit whatsoever, Evil or good. Therefore you will take your stand Not under the king's roof But where the air keeps open house And the sun in the sky suffers all for all, Or at least if any charms are set afoot They will be less concentrated, owing to the wind. CYMEN. Am I called to the king? MESSENGER. You assemble on the western hill TO receive the person and words-- MERLIN. Of Augustine Sent by Gregory of Rome who on a market-day Saw angels where we see our enemies. ANNA. He knew, that's what he said, he saw them coming In a ship full of primroses from Rome! CYMEN [#to the# MESSENGER.] I am slow to understand you. I was up On the bare back of dreadful thoughts. Who chose That you should come to me now? What ground Am I dismounting onto, your ordinary summons To the king? MESSENGER. You find it unpleasant? The news, I see, Has reached you already, and distaste, I suppose, Is understandable, though all you're supposed to do Is to sit and give the appearance of paying attention Out of consideration for the queen.

CLODESUIDA. She would like to make heathen of us all! We're on poor enough terms with the gods as it is Without seeming to keep open minds. OSMER. They're only Hesitating over the choice of weapons They mean to use against us. TADFRID. The sky is clear, The sun still shines, but there's little doubt Their indignation is mounting under the self-control Of the horizon. Let the king indulge the queen If it keeps her wife-minded, but here more than ever We've got to remain rigid with reality. MESSENGER. In my opinion you're taking devoutness too hard. The gods won't object to our being a bit diplomatic. I'll leave you to make your way, Cymen of the Copse. CYMEN. Time makes my way, and I go on with time. What is contrives what will be. Yes, I shall come. [#Exit the# MESSENGER.] TADFRID. Will you go and leave us now to suffer In whatever suffering comes of your blasphemy? OSMER. Let him go. CLODESUIDA. But now of all times isn't the time; He's so wretched from his brainstorm of wrong, Every pore of his skin's wide open to punishment. OSMER. Let him go, let him go. CYMEN [#to# HOEL.] Your god has come, perhaps, Or lies in wait on the lips of a man from Rome. Strange. As though a spirit in you, like A wild fowl hiding in the mere of your flesh, Heard the sound far off and flew up clamouring Rousing a spirit in me. We're in the path

Of change. And I must go to meet the change, Being unable to live unaltered. HOEL. Is it true Indeed? Is the One god making his way again In through the many? CYMEN. I go to know. I go to dare my arm into the thicket To know what lifts its head there, whether rose Or tiger, or tiger and rose together. Be undisturbed, my dear disturbed wife. If I rock, it's with the rocking of the world ; It will get me to sleep in time. As for the rest of you, Wait, with a certain degree of trust. Yes, you can build up the altar again if you must. It will be somewhere to sit when the days are warmer. Meanwhile, the silence keep you, the silence Be gracious unto you and give you -peace. [#Exit# CYMEN. TADFRID #and# OSMER #have started, and now# #continue, to rebuild the altar.# CLODESUIDA #watches# CYMEN #on his way.#] CLODESUIDA. Should he go? He walks steadily enough now, Very much as he does behind a plough. Is this only A lull on his brain? Can he avoid trouble After what he has done? TADFRID. The air is clearer without him. And let's hope the bloodshot eyes above us Have followed him and don't still fix on us here. QUICHELM. It was awful to watch him. We must make it right with the gods. They can't expect sons to carry the blame for fathers. Would they make us suffer because of our blood?

HOEL Yes; Or from whose example would men have learnt that trick? OSMER. You'll scream yourself sorry if we turn ourselves to you. MARTINA [#to# HOEL.] You're still a Briton, even though I have Washed your wounds. Lie low, and don't make trouble. CHELDRIC. Our mother's blood flows in us too, uncle, And mother fears the gods. Won't that be taken Into account? CLODESUIDA. The same with the gods as with men; Women are only camp-followers, they take Our obedience for granted. If #we# blasphemed They would pinch our cheeks and resume the course of history As though nothing had happened. We succeed or suffer According to our men. ANNA. Then I roughen my hands For a fine lark. CLODESUIDA. Day's work is still to do, Whatever the day's doom. I have no hope To be able to know what hope to have. My hands Can only draw their everyday conclusions. ANNA. Yes, we must busy ourselves, and try to forget The complication of what's up there beyond us. [#To# COLGRIN.] Are you still rooted to the spot with duty? COLGRIN. Unavoidably static. OSMER. Get onto your work. COLGRIN. But suppose the prisoner-- OSMER. Suppose You do what you're told and quick. COLGRIN. Quick? I'll suppose Anything once; but that's not how I am. I was born midway between the quick and the dead.

ANNA. Budge over a little farther from the grave. [#Exeunt# CLODESUIDA, COLGRIN, #and# ANNA.] TADFRID. What do we mean to do? The altar stones Now stand as they were. But not to them. To them the stones are still pitching and blundering From jutting god to jutting god, down The scowling scarp of their everlasting memory. They say the gods were formed Out of the old hurt pride of rejected chaos Which is still lusting for the body of the world we walk on. OSMER. If they'll give us time and the merest shove In the lucky direction we're leaning to already, We shall be able to elude the allegiance to Cymen Which is such an obstacle in the way of well-doing, Nullify guilt and mollify the gods And bury the brat's guts for good in the ground. You shall see; it will be as I say If the gods give us time. TADFRID. But Cymen claimed His death to himself. OSMER. We'll do it in his name; If a moment which insists on action Comes while he's away, he would expect us To live the moment for him. TADFRID. If the crisis came. QUICHELM. What's the talk? Do you think we're in for the worst? Do you see any hope that we can relax Now that father's gone, or what's your guess? CHELDRIC. Isn't the danger less? OSMER. Come away from here. I've got a screw of courage you can chew;

We're not committed to damnation yet. Let your sister stay. We'll pray, with a certain purpose. [#Exeunt# TADFRID, OSMER, QUICHELM, #and# CHELDRIC.] MARTINA. They hate you ; and that's easy to understand. We have existence on such hard terms, As though birth into the world had been a favour Instantly regretted. We haven't the air To spare for strangers. I hope the claw-marks heal. I've done my best for them. HOEL. Thanks. Are you going in? MARTINA. Of course. There's nothing to keep me here. HOEL. No; there's nothing. MARTINA. What do you want? HOEL. I wonder What it was that came and wielded your father and left me Alive? MARTINA. I'll not worry about my father, Nor my mother, nor my uncles nor, between ourselves, The gods. The universe is too ill-fitting And large. I am very careful about small Things, such as wearing green in the third month Or bringing blackthorn under the roof; But the big things, such as gods, must look after themselves. HOEL. Still, I'm curious about the One god. I've never completely shaken him off. He seems To insist. MARTINA. You re a born heathen. Get some sleep. You look too tired to be hated And that won't do at all. HOEL. Do you have to hate me?

MARTINA. It isn't one of my easiest duties. But how else Can we keep our footing or our self-esteem? Now sleep and look malignant when you wake. HOEL. Sleep, yes. My fields need rain. Sleep Can drench down and welcome. [#Exit# MARTINA. HOEL #lies in the straw and sleeps.#] MERLIN. Welcome, sleep; Welcome into the winter head of the world The sleep of Spring, which grows dreams, Nodding trumpets, blowing bells, A jingle of birds whenever the sun moves, Never so lightly ; all dreams, All dreams out of slumbering rock: Lambs in a skittle prance, the hobbling rook Like a witch picking sticks, And pinnacle-ears the hare Ladling himself along in the emerald wheat: All dreams out of the slumbering rock, Each dream answering to a shape Which was in dream before the shapes were shapen; Each growing obediently to a form, To its own sound, shrill or deep, to a life In water or air, in light or night or mould; By sense or thread perceiving, Eye, tendril, nostril, ear; to the shape of the dream In the ancient slumbering rock. And above the shapes of life, the shape Of death, the singular shape of the dream dissolving, Into which all obediently come. And above the shape of death, the shape of the will Of the slumbering rock, the end of the throes of sleep Where the stream of the dream wakes in the open eyes

Of the sea of the love of the morning of the God. Here's an old man whiling away a spring Day, with thoughts so far beyond the moss He roots in, they're as nebulous As the muted flute of a dove to the root of a tree- Never mind. However warmly I curl My tail around my feet and admire myself Reflected in the nut before I bite, Still I observe the very obdurate pressure Edging men towards a shape beyond The shape they know. Now and then, by a spurt Of light, they manage the clumsy approximation, Overturn it, turn again, refashion Nearer the advising of their need. Always the shape lying over the life. Pattern of worm in the sand was not the shape, Nor the booming body of enormous beast, Nor the spread fan of the blue-eyed quivering tail, Nor the weave of the nest, nor the spun wheel of the web, Nor the maze and cellarage of honey, nor The charts and maps of men. The shape shone Like a faint circle round a moon Of hazy gods, and age by age The gods reformed according to the shape, According to the shape that was a word, According to Thy Word. Here's more than half A pagan whiling away the spring sunshine. The morning has come within a distant sight Of evening, and the wandering shadows begin To stretch their limbs a little. I shall move Myself, into the quiet of the tumbling tower, For an hour or two of casual obliteration And break more ground for dreams.

[#Exit# MERLIN. #Enter, after a pause#, MARTINA #with a bowl# #of food. She goes to# HOEL, #who is still asleep.#] MARTINA. You're even less of an enemy when you sleep. Wake up. You've gone where we're all of one size. Bring yourself back and know your station. HOEL. Yes? This isn't where I sleep. Why is my heart So heavy? MARTINA. Here is food. You have to be A good enemy and eat. HOEL. You went indoors. I thought you might not come back again. MARTINA. Aren't you hungry? HOEL. Perhaps. From where I sit On the kerb of sleep I feel I know you better Than I did before. Take the bowl in your hands And let me eat the food from there. MARTINA. Am I your servant? HOEL. I'm your servant. I slept When you said sleep, and I'll eat like a tame swan Out of your hands. MARTINA. Too black for a swan, You'd make me a good shadow. I'll ask my father To give you to be my personal shadow, To walk behind me in the morning, and before me In the evening, and at noon I'll have you Under my feet. HOEL. I shall adjust myself Easily to noon. MARTINA. You'll feel humiliated And bite the dust.

HOEL. I shall feel delighted And kiss the sole of your foot. MARTINA. It's clear you're nothing But a poor-spirited Briton if you're willing To become a girl's shadow. HOEL. Yes, indeed ; A poor-spirited Briton; you remind me In good time. MARTINA. But a Briton who, if he were a Jute, Would be brave and agreeable. So be glad of that. HOEL. What simple-witted things the affections are, That can't perceive whether people are enemies Or friends. You would think the strong distinction Between race and race would be clear even to the heart Though it does lie so retired Beating its time away in the human breast. MARTINA. You talk of nothing that interests me. Eat Your food. [#Enter# TADFRID, OSMER, QUICHELM, #and# CHELDRIC.] OSMER. You see, she has gone to him again. It's the way I said it would be. His damned contagion Spreads. TADFRID. It flies first to the weakest place. That girl sees nothing but an eye and a mouth And doesn't care. QUICHELM. She can go and eat grass Before I call her sister again. OSMER. She gives us The grounds for getting him where the gods want him. He is ours and his blood's as good as gone to them.

If we hesitated now even Cymen would say We were as puny as pulp. MARTINA [#to# HOEL.] You look so sad. [#She kisses him on the forehead.#] QUICHELM [#leaping forward.#] Leper-flesh! CHELDRIC. He snared her! MARTINA. What's so wrong? QUICHELM. You and the flicker of your rutting eyes are wrong! OSMER. Toleration has gone to the limit. Now We strike. You black pawn of the devil's game, Come out. HOEL. Why, what is it you mean to do? OSMER. Make much of you, make a god's meal of you, And make our peace with you, with you as peacemaker, And not too soon. It's a quiet future for you. I said come out. MARTINA. No! My father said he was not to be harmed! OSMER. He wouldn't say it now. Uncertainty Has dandled us enough to make us sick For life. Now we're not going to fob The gods off any longer. QUICHELM. Must we wait? Give me the word, and I'll fetch his cringing carcase Out for you. MARTINA. Don't dare to touch him! TADFRID. Niece, We must submit to the wish of what we worship. We rid the world of an evil. Let's not rage. We do what's demanded of us, with solemnity, Without passion. Fetch him out.

MARTINA No you shall not! OSMER. Take her! [CHELDRIC #drags back# MARTINA #and holds her.# OSMER #and# QUICHELM #fetch# HOEL #to the centre of the stage.#] MARTINA. Cowards! HOEL. Let me live, do, do Let me live. TADFRID. Bring him to the tree; we'll offer him In Woden's way, the Woden death. Come on; We'll be well out of our fear. MARTINA. Cowards, cowards Cowards, sneakthieves, only dare with father gone ! [#They fasten him to the tree with his arms spread.#] HOEL. Is this the end indeed? Where now for me? MARTINA. Father! Father! HOEL. Son and the brooding dove. Call him again. MARTINA. Father! OSMER. We set this house Free from fear and guilt and the working of darkness. QUICHELM. We clean our hearts. TADFRID. The sun flows on the spear. The spear answers the sun. They are one, and go To the act in the concord of a sacrifice. HOEL. Death, be to me like a hand that shades My eyes, helping me to see Into the light.

OSMER. Woden, we pay your dues Of blood. TADFRID. Receive it and receive us back Into a comfortable security. [OSMER #makes to plunge the spear.# MARTINA #breaksfree of# CHELDRIC #and crying 'No!' tries to prevent the stroke.#] [#Enter# CLODESUIDA.] CLODESUIDA. Have they struck at us again, the gods? What more Have we to bear? MARTINA. Look, look! CLODESUIDA [#covering her eyes.#] It has to be For our good; we must endure these things, to destroy Error, and so the gods will warm towards us. QUICHELM. Here comes my father home! OSMER. Well, home he comes. We're in the right. TADFRID. He will understand this tree By reason of our plight had to bear such fruit. [#Enter# CYMEN. #He goes towards the barn, near which# CLODESUIDA #is now standing.#] CYMEN. Clodesuida, a peaceful heart to you now. I am well; I have seen our terrible gods come down To beg the crumbs which fall from our sins, their only Means of life. This evening you and I Can walk under the trees and be ourselves Together, knowing that this wild day has gone For good. Where is the Briton? You still think You must be afraid and see in him The seed of a storm. But I have heard

Word of his God and felt our lonely flesh Welcome to creation- The fearful silence Became the silence of great sympathy, The quiet of God and man in the mutual word. And never again need we sacrifice, on and on And on, greedy of the gods' goodwill But always uncertain ; for sacrifice Can only perfectly be made by God And sacrifice has so been made, by God To God in the body of God with man, On a tree set up at the four crossing roads Of earth, heaven, time, and eternity Which meet upon that cross. I have heard this; And while we listened, with our eyes half-shut Facing the late sun, above the shoulder Of the speaking man I saw the cross-road tree, The love of the God hung on the motes and beams Of light, as though-- MARTINA. Father! [CYMEN #turns and sees# HOEL.] CYMEN. Is it also here? Can the sun have written it so hotly on to my eyes-- What have you done? OSMER. The unavoidable moment Came while you were gone-- CYMEN. What have you done? TADFRID. Would #you# not break the body of our evil? CYMEN. I will tell you what I know. Cut him down. O pain of the world!-I will tell you what I know. Bring him here to me. CLODESUIDA. We have to live.

CYMEN. We have still to learn to live. [#They bring# HOEL #to# CYMEN.] They say The sacrifice of God was brought about By the blind anger of men, and yet God made Their blindness their own saving and lonely flesh Welcome to creation. Briton, boy, Your God is here, waiting in this land again. Forgive me for the sorrows of this world. MARTINA. You haven't made the sorrow-- CYMEN. All make all: For while I leave one muscle of my strength Undisturbed, or hug one coin of ease Or private peace while the huge debt of pain Mounts over all the earth, Or, fearing for myself, take half a stride Where I could leap; while any hour remains Indifferent, I have no right or reason To raise a cry against this blundering cruelty Of man. OSMER. Shall we let the light of our lives Be choked by darkness? CYMEN. Osmer, What shall we do? We are afraid To live by rule of God, which is forgiveness, Mercy, and compassion, fearing that by these We shall be ended. And yet if we could bear These three through dread and terror and terror's doubt, Daring to return good for evil without thought ; Of what will come, I cannot think We should be the losers. Do we believe

There is no strength in good or power in God? God -give us courage to exist In God, And lonely flesh be welcome to creation. Carry him in. [#As they carry# HOEL #away# CYMEN, CLODESUIDA, #and# Characters MARTINA# following, the voices of Augustine's men are heard# #singing.#] THE END