Irish Folk-History Plays
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a5^.e. Y • O *'^ ^' ^<. ^^^ 1^ "^^^0^ .0 .„.„. I « o V ^oV ^°^ 4?-^ o hO >» * o. O* Jk in ^JA <*^ ?5^^ O N O ^ <rJ Cr> <. ^..tA/dH^ ^ £3 c:> A Irish Folk-History Plays By Lady Gregory First Series : The Tragedies Grania. Kincora. Dervorgilla Second Series : The Tragic Comedies The Canavans. The White Cockade. The Deliverer Irish Folk-History Plays By Lady Gregory, ^^''^ First Series The Tragedies Grania—Kincora—Dervorgilla G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London Ebe Ifnicfterbocfter press 1912 Or It 1112- Copyright ipia BY LADY GREGORY These plays have been copyrighted and published simultaneously in the United States and Great Britain. All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages. All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved, in the United States, Great Britain, and all countries of the Copyright Union, by the author. Performances forbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for the right of performing these plays or reading them in public should be made to Samuel French, 28 West 38th Street, New York City, or a6 Southampton Street, Strand, London. Tt;be Knfcfeerbocfter prew, tiew ]l?eck ©CU309749 THESE THREE PLAYS CONCERNING STRONG PEOPLE OF THE WORLD I OFFER TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT ONE OF THE WORLD'S STRONG MEN CONTENTS PAGE Grania I KiNCORA 69 Dervorgilla 155 GRANIA Persons Grania Finn Diarmuid Two Young Men Act I Scene: The scene is laid at Almhuin in Ireland, Time, evening. Inside a richly decorated tent; a fire in brazier centre, a high candlestick at each side; a table with round loaves and wine. An opening at each side of tent, Finn is leading in Crania; she is wearing a golden dress and jewels. Music and joyous shouts are heard outside. Finn: My five hundred welcomes to you, Grania, coming into Almhuin. Crania: I thank you, Finn. Finn: Who would be welcome if it was not the King of Ireland's daughter, that will be my wife to-morrow? Crania: Your people that were outside and on the road lighted all the district with fires as I came. Finn: We would have been better prepared if your coming was not so sudden at the last. You did not come too soon, that is a thing that could not happen. But the big house of Almhuin will 3 4 Grania not be set out fit for you till to-morrow, and it is in the tents of our captains you and your com- pany must be sheltered to-night. Grania: It was my father, before going to Lochlann, said he must leave me in a husband's care. Finn: Who would protect you if I would not? Grania: I am sure of that. Are you not the best of all the world's big men? Finn: They told me you could have made great marriages, not coming to me? Grania: My father was for the King of Foreign, but I said I would take my own road. Finn: He has great riches and a great name. Grania: I would have been afraid going to him, hearing talk of him as so dark and wild looking, and his shield tusked with the tusks of a boar. Finn: You were not in dread coming to me, and you so delicate and so cherished? Grania: I had an old veneration for you, hear- ing all my lifetime that you are so gentle to women and to dogs and to little children, and you wrest- ling with the powers of the world and being so hard in war. Finn: It would be strange any person not to be gentle with you. Grania: And another thing. I had no wish to go travelling forth and hither to strange countries, and by strange seas. I have no mind for going Grania 5 through crosses. I would sooner pass my life at Almhuin, where I ever and always heard there are wide white halls and long tables, and poets and fine company. Finn: Your father has a good house. Grania: There was little to listen to but my father planning the wars in Lochlann. There was no pleasant stir in it, unless what there might be in myself. Finn: It may be you will tire of Almhuin itself after a while. Grania: There will be good company. I have heard talk of the men and the captains of the Fenians, of Oisin and Osgar and GoU, that came to meet me a while ago. Finn: The man you will think most of is not with them to-day, that is my own kinsman, Diarmuid. Grania: I heard of him often. They say him to be the best lover of women in the whole world, and the most daring in the war. Finn: He has a good name from gentle and simple, from the big man and from the poor. Those even that have no call to him, cannot but love him. Grania: It was he fought seven days and seven nights with the terrible wild ox upon the mountains. Finn: Any time I am tired or fretted, all he could do for me he would not think it enough. I 6 Grania Grania: Where is he at this time, that he did not come to meet me with the rest? Finn: I sent him to a far lonesome hill where I have a secret store of treasiires and of jewels. It is right there should be a good man to guard them upon the road. It is for you he is bring- ing them, he will be here within a short while. Grania: It is likely it is a man of that sort a woman would find it easy to love. Finn: Did you ever give a thought to any man in the way of love? Grania: I did—at least I think I did—but that was a long time ago. Finn: Who was he? Did he belong to your own place? Grania: I do not know. I never heard his name—but I saw him. Finn: Did you speak to him? Grania: No, he was but as if a shadow, that came for a moment and was gone. Finn: Tell me all the story. Grania: They had been hunting—there were a great many strangers. I was bade keep away from the hall. I was looking from a high window —then there was a great outcry in the yard—the hounds were fighting, the hounds the strange men had brought with them. One of them made as if to attack a little dog I owned at the time— screamed out at the hounds. Then a yotmg man Grania 7 ran out and beat them away, and he held up my little dog to me, laughing, and his cap fell off from his head. Finn: Did they not tell you his name? Grania: I was shy to ask them, and I never saw him again. But my thoughts went with him for a good while, and sometimes he came through my dreams.—Is that now what you would call love? Finn: Indeed, I think it is little at all you know of it. Grania: I heard often in the stories of people that were in pain and imder locks through love. But I think they are but foolishness. There was one of a lover was made go through a fire for his sweetheart's sake, and came out shivering. And one that climbed to his darling's window by one golden thread of her hair. Finn: There are many such tales and there are more in the making, for it is likely the tearing and vexing of love will be known so long as men are hot-blooded and women have a coaxing way. Grania: I asked the old people what love was, and they gave me no good news of it at all. Three sharp blasts of the wind they said it was, a white blast of delight and a grey blast of discontent and a third blast of jealousy that is red. Finn: That red blast is the wickedest of the three. 8 Grania Grania: I would never think jealousy to be so bad a smart. Finn: It is a bad thing for whoever knows it. If love is to lie down on a bed of stinging nettles, jealousy is to waken upon a wasp's nest. Grania: But the old people say more again about love. They say there is no good thing to be gained without hardship and pain, such as a child to be born, or a long day's battle won. And I think it might be a pleasing thing to have a lover that would go through fire for your sake. Finn: I knew enough of the heat of love in my time, and I am very glad to have done with it now, and to be safe from its torments and its whip and its scourge. Grania: It being so bad a thing, why, I wonder, do so many go under its sway? That should be a good master that has so many servants and is so well obeyed. Finn: We do not take it up of ourselves but it sweeps us away before it, and asks no leave. When that blast comes upon us, we are but feathers whirled before it with the dust. Grania: It is a good thing surely, that I will never know an unhappy, unquiet love, but only love for you that will be by my side for ever. {A loud peal of laughter is heard outside.) What is that laughter? There is in it some mocking sound.