THE HOUR-GLASS: A MORALITY

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

A Wise Man

A Fool

Some Pupils

An Angel

The Wise Man’s Wife and two Children

THE HOUR-GLASS: A MORALITY

A large room with a door at the back and another at the side, or else a curtained place where persons can enter by parting the curtains. A desk and a chair at one side. An hour-glass on a bracket or stand near the door. A creepy stool near it. Some benches. A WISE MAN sitting at his desk.

WISE MAN

[Turning over the pages of a book.]

Where is that passage I am to explain to my pupils to-day? Here it is, and the book says that it was written by a beggar on the walls of Babylon: ‘There are two living countries, the one visible and the one invisible; and when it is winter with us it is summer in that country, and when the November winds are up among us it is lambing-time there.’ I wish that my pupils had asked me to explain any other passage. [The FOOL comes in and stands at the door holding out his hat. He has a pair of shears in the other hand.] It sounds to me like foolishness; and yet that cannot be, for the writer of this book, where I have found so much knowledge, would not have set it by itself on this page, and surrounded it with so many images and so many deep colours and so much fine gilding, if it had been foolishness.

FOOL

Give me a penny.

WISE MAN [turns to another page]

Here he has written: ‘The learned in old times forgot the visible country.’ That I understand, but I have taught my learners better.

FOOL

Won’t you give me a penny?

WISE MAN

What do you want? The words of the wise Saracen will not teach you much.

FOOL

Such a great wise teacher as you are will not refuse a penny to a fool.

WISE MAN

What do you know about wisdom?

FOOL

Oh, I know! I know what I have seen.

WISE MAN

What is it you have seen?

FOOL

When I went by Kilcluan where the bells used to be ringing at the break of every day, I could hear nothing but the people snoring in their houses. When I went by Tubbervanach, where the young men used to be climbing the hill to the blessed well, they were sitting at the crossroads playing cards. When I went by Carrigoras, where the friars used to be fasting and serving the poor, I saw them drinking wine and obeying their wives. And when I asked what misfortune had brought all these changes, they said it was no misfortune, but it was the wisdom they had learned from your teaching.

WISE MAN

Run round to the kitchen, and my wife will give you something to eat.

FOOL

That is foolish advice for a wise man to give.

WISE MAN

Why, Fool?

FOOL

What is eaten is gone. I want pennies for my bag. I must buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak. And I want snares to catch the rabbits and the squirrels and the hares, and a pot to cook them in.

WISE MAN

Go away. I have other things to think of now than giving you pennies.

FOOL

Give me a penny and I will bring you luck. Bresal the Fisherman lets me sleep among the nets in his loft in the winter-time because he says I bring him luck; and in the summer-time the wild creatures let me sleep near their nests and their holes. It is lucky even to look at me or to touch me, but it is much more lucky to give me a penny. [Holds out his hand.] If I wasn’t lucky, I’d starve.

WISE MAN

What have you got the shears for?

FOOL

I won’t tell you. If I told you, you would drive them away.

WISE MAN

Whom would I drive away?

FOOL

I won’t tell you.

WISE MAN

Not if I give you a penny?

FOOL

No.

WISE MAN

Not if I give you two pennies?

FOOL

You will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but I won’t tell you!

WISE MAN

Three pennies?

FOOL

Four, and I will tell you!

WISE MAN

Very well, four. But I will not call you Teig the Fool any longer.

FOOL

Let me come close to you where nobody will hear me. But first you must promise you will not drive them away. [WISE MAN nods.] Every day men go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills, great black nets.

WISE MAN

Why do they do that?

FOOL

That they may catch the feet of the angels. But every morning, just before the dawn, I go out and cut the nets with my shears, and the angels fly away.

WISE MAN

Ah, now I know that you are Teig the Fool. You have told me that I am wise, and I have never seen an angel.

FOOL

I have seen plenty of angels.

WISE MAN

Do you bring luck to the angels too?

FOOL

Oh, no, no! No one could do that. But they are always there if one looks about one; they are like the blades of grass.

WISE MAN

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 MAN

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 MAN

Is it long since you have seen them, Teig 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 MAN

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 MAN

Though they call him Teig 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. 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 spearman 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 colour of embers! But I have done with dreams, I have done with dreams.

ANGEL

I am the Angel of the Most High God.

WISE MAN

Why have you come to me?

ANGEL

I have brought you a message.

WISE MAN

What message have you got for me?

ANGEL

You will die within the hour. You will die when the last grains have fallen in this glass.

[She turns the hour-glass.

WISE MAN

My time to die has not come. I have my pupils. I have a young wife and children that I cannot leave. Why must I die?

ANGEL

You must die because no souls have passed over the threshold of Heaven since you came into this country. The threshold is grassy, and the gates are rusty, and the angels that keep watch there are lonely.

WISE MAN

Where will death bring me to?

ANGEL

The doors of Heaven will not open to you, for you have denied the existence of Heaven; and the doors of Purgatory will not open to you, for you have denied the existence of Purgatory.

WISE MAN

But I have also denied the existence of Hell!

ANGEL

Hell is the place of those who deny.

WISE MAN [kneels]

I have, indeed, denied everything, and have taught others to deny. I have believed in nothing but what my senses told me. But, oh! beautiful Angel, forgive me, forgive me!

ANGEL

You should have asked forgiveness long ago.

WISE MAN

Had I seen your face as I see it now, oh! beautiful angel, I would have believed, I would have asked forgiveness. Maybe you do not know how easy it is to doubt. Storm, death, the grass rotting, many sicknesses, those are the messengers that came to me. Oh! why are you silent? You carry the pardon of the Most High; give it to me! I would kiss your hands if I were not afraid – no, no, the hem of your dress!

ANGEL

You let go undying hands too long ago to take hold of them now.

WISE MAN

You cannot understand. You live in a country that we can only dream about. Maybe it is as hard for you to understand why we disbelieve as it is for us to believe. Oh! what have I said! You know everything! Give me time to undo what I have done. Give me a year – a month – a day – an hour! Give me to this hour’s end, that I may undo what I have done!

ANGEL

You cannot undo what you have done. Yet I have this power with my message. If you can find one that believes before the hour’s end, you shall come to Heaven after the years of Purgatory. For, from one fiery seed, watched over by those that sent me, the harvest can come again to heap the golden threshing-floor. But now farewell, for I am weary of the weight of time.

WISE MAN

Blessed be the Father, blessed be the Son, blessed be the Spirit, blessed be the Messenger They have sent!

ANGEL

[At the door and pointing at the hour-glass.]

In a little while the uppermost glass will be empty. [Goes out.

WISE MAN

Everything will be well with me. I will call my pupils; they only say they doubt. [Pulls the bell.] They will be here in a moment. They want to please me; they pretend that they disbelieve. Belief is too old to be overcome all in a minute. Besides, I can prove what I once disproved. [Another pull at the bell.] They are coming now. I will go to my desk. I will speak quietly, as if nothing had happened.

[He stands at the desk with a fixed look in his eyes. The voices of THE PUPILS are heard singing these words:

 
I was going the road one day —
O the brown and the yellow beer —
And I met with a man that was no right man:
O my dear, O my dear!
 

Enter PUPILS and the FOOL

FOOL

Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Who is that pulling at my bag? King’s son, do not pull at my bag.

A YOUNG MAN

Did your friends the angels give you that bag? Why don’t they fill your bag for you?

FOOL

Give me pennies! Give me some pennies!

A YOUNG MAN

What do you want pennies for? that great bag at your waist is heavy.

FOOL

I want to buy bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for the time when the sun is weak, and snares to catch rabbits and the squirrels that steal the nuts, and hares, and a great pot to cook them in.

A YOUNG MAN

Why don’t your friends tell you where buried treasures are? Why don’t they make you dream about treasures? If one dreams three times there is always treasure.

FOOL [holding out his hat]

Give me pennies! Give me pennies!

[They throw pennies into his hat. He is standing close to the door, that he may hold out his hat to each newcomer.

A YOUNG MAN

Master, will you have Teig the Fool for a scholar?

ANOTHER YOUNG MAN

Teig, will you give us your pennies if we teach you lessons? No, he goes to school for nothing on the mountains. Tell us what you learn on the mountains, Teig?

WISE MAN