William Yeats - The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 4 of 8. The Hour-glass. Cathleen ni Houlihan. The Golden Helmet. The Irish Dramatic Movement

A Wise Man

A Fool

Some Pupils

An Angel

The Wise Man’s Wife and two Children

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.

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.

Give me a penny.

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

Won’t you give me a penny?

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

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

What do you know about wisdom?

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

What is it you have seen?

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.

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

That is foolish advice for a wise man to give.

Why, 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.

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

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.

What have you got the shears for?

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

Whom would I drive away?

I won’t tell you.

Not if I give you a penny?

No.

Not if I give you two pennies?

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

Three pennies?

Four, and I will tell you!

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

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.

Why do they do that?

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.

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.

I have seen plenty of angels.

Do you bring luck to the angels too?

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.

When do you see them?

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.

And what happens then?

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.

Is it long since you have seen them, Teig the 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.

Well, there are your four pennies. You, a fool, say ‘Glory be to God,’ but before I came the wise men said it.

Four pennies! That means a great deal of luck. Great teacher, I have brought you plenty of luck!

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! [