The Hour Glass | Page 2

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