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TITLE: THE HOUR GLASS
AUTHOR: W.B.YEATS
EBOOK: E06717 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

THE HOUR-GLASS
A MORALITY
BY W. B. YEATS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

A WISE MAN
A FOOL
SOME PUPILS
AN ANGEL
THE WISE MAN'S WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN

SCENE: A large room with a door at the back and another at the side
opening to an inner room. A desk and a chair in the middle. An
hour-glass on a bracket near the door. A creepy stool near it. Some
benches. The 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, for
this is a hard 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 colors 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 bares, 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 Teigue 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 hill, 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 Teigue 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 color
of burning sods.

WISE MAN. Is it long since you have seen them, Teigue 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 color 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. Run away
now. I must ring the bell for my scholars.

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 Teigue 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. [He touches the books with
his hands.] With Philosophy that was made for 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 horseman! Oh! my
keen darting arguments, it is because of you that I have overthrown
the hosts of foolishness! [An ANGEL, in a dress the color of
embers, and carrying a blossoming apple bough in his hand and with
a gilded halo about his 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 must be different, for only fools and women have thoughts like
that; their thoughts were never written upon the walls of Babylon.
[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 color 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 yon got for me?

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