The Hour Glass | Page 2

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