The Hour Glass

The Hour Glass

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hour Glass, by W.B.Yeats
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Title: The Hour Glass
Author: W.B.Yeats
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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