The Countess
Cathleen
comes!
Yeats
I will sell half my soul.
FIRST MERCHANT.
How half your soul?
THE PEASANT.
Half my chance of heaven.
FIRST MERCHANT.
It is writ here
This man in all things takes the moderate course,
He sits on midmost of the balance beam,
And no man has had good of him or evil.
Begone, we will not buy you.
SECOND MERCHANT.
Deal, come, deal.
FIRST MERCHANT.
What, will you keep us from our ancient home,
And from the eternal revelry? Come, deal,
And we will hence to our great master again.
Come, deal, deal, deal.
THE PEASANTS SHOUT.
The Countess Cathleen comes!
CATHLEEN [_entering_].
And so you trade once more?
FIRST MERCHANT.
In spite of you.
What brings you here, saint with the sapphire eyes?
CATHLEEN.
I come to barter a soul for a great price.
FIRST MERCHANT.
What matter if the soul be worth the price?
CATHLEEN.
The people starve, therefore the people go
Thronging to you. I hear a cry come from them,
And it is in my ears by night and day;
And I would have five hundred thousand crowns,
That I may feed them till the dearth go by;
And have the wretched spirits you have bought
For your gold crowns released and sent to God.
The soul that I would barter is my soul.
A PEASANT.
Do not, do not; the souls of us poor folk
Are not precious to God as your soul is.
