I
understand
it all.
Yeats
A YOUNG KING.
Cuchulain, take the oath.
There is none here that would not have you take it.
CUCHULAIN.
You'd have me take it? Are you of one mind?
THE KINGS.
All, all, all, all!
A YOUNG KING.
Do what the High King bids you.
CONCHUBAR.
There is not one but dreads this turbulence
Now that they're settled men.
CUCHULAIN.
Are you so changed,
Or have I grown more dangerous of late?
But that's not it.
I understand it all.
It's you that have changed. You've wives and children now,
And for that reason cannot follow one
That lives like a bird's flight from tree to tree. --
It's time the years put water in my blood
And drowned the wildness of it, for all's changed,
But that unchanged. --I'll take what oath you will:
The moon, the sun, the water, light, or air,
I do not care how binding.
CONCHUBAR.
On this fire
That has been lighted from your hearth and mine;
The older men shall be my witnesses,
The younger, yours. The holders of the fire
Shall purify the thresholds of the house
With waving fire, and shut the outer door,
According to the custom; and sing rhyme
That has come down from the old law-makers
To blow the witches out. Considering
That the wild will of man could be oath-bound,
But that a woman's could not, they bid us sing
Against the will of woman at its wildest
In the shape-changers that run upon the wind.
[_CONCHUBAR has gone on to his throne. _]
THE WOMEN.
[_They sing in a very low voice after the first few
words so that the others all but drown their words. _
May this fire have driven out
The shape-changers that can put
Ruin on a great king's house
Until all be ruinous.
Names whereby a man has known
The threshold and the hearthstone,
Gather on the wind and drive
The women, none can kiss and thrive,
For they are but whirling wind,
Out of memory and mind.
They would make a prince decay
With light images of clay,
Planted in the running wave;
Or, for many shapes they have,
They would change them into hounds,
Until he had died of his wounds,
Though the change were but a whim;
Or they'd hurl a spell at him,
That he follow with desire
Bodies that can never tire,
Or grow kind, for they anoint
All their bodies, joint by joint,
With a miracle-working juice
That is made out of the grease
Of the ungoverned unicorn.
But the man is thrice forlorn,
Emptied, ruined, wracked, and lost,
That they follow, for at most
They will give him kiss for kiss;
While they murmur, 'After this
Hatred may be sweet to the taste.
