Three Wonder Plays | Page 2

branches of
relationships and kindred of the big people of the earth, when she
plucked off the coverings I had put over the cages, and set open their
doors, till the fiery birds of Sabes and the canaries of the eastern world
were screeching around my head, giving out every class of cry and call.
_King_: So they would too.
_Queen_: The royal eagles stirred up till I must quit the place with their
squawking, and the enchanted swans raising up their heads and pecking

at the beadwork on my gown.
_King_: Ah, she has a wish for the birds of the air, that are by nature
light and airy the same as herself.
_Queen:_ It is time for her to turn her mind to good sense. What's that?
(Whipping cloth from tray.) Is it that you are eating again, and it is but
one half-hour since your breakfast?
_King_: Ah, that wasn't a breakfast you'd call a breakfast.
_Queen_: Very healthy food, oaten meal flummery with whey, and a
griddle-cake; dandelion tea and sorrel from the field.
_King_: My old fathers ate their enough of wild herbs and the like in
the early time of the world. I'm thinking that it is in my nature to
require a good share of nourishment as if to make up for the hardships
they went through.
_Queen_: What now have you within that pastry wall?
_King_: It is but a little leveret pie.
_Queen: (Poking with fork.)_ Leveret! What's this in it? The thickness
of a blanket of beef; calves' sweetbreads; cocks' combs; balls mixed
with livers and with spice. You to so much as taste of it, you'll be
crippled and crappled with the gout, and roaring out in your pain.
_King_: I tell you my generations have enough done of fasting and for
making little of the juicy meats of the world.
_Queen_: And the waste of it! Goose eggs and jellies.... That much
would furnish out a dinner for the whole of the King of Alban's Court.
_King_: Ah, I wouldn't wish to be using anything at all, only for to
gather strength for to steer the business of the whole of the kingdom!
_Queen_: Have you enough ate now, my dear? Are you satisfied?
_King:_ I am not. I would wish for a little taste of that saffron cake
having in it raisins of the sun.
_Queen_: Saffron! Are you raving? You to have within you any of the
four-and-twenty sicknesses of the race, it would throw it out in red
blisters on your skin.
_King_: Let me just taste one little slab of that venison ham.
_Queen: (Poking with a fork.)_ It would take seven chewings! Sudden
death it would be! Leave it alone now and rise up. To keep in health
every man should quit the table before he is satisfied --there are some
would walk to the door and back with every bite.
_King_: Is it that I am to eat my meal standing, the same as a crane in a

shallow, or moving from tuft to thistle like you'd see a jennet on the
high road?
_Queen_: Well, at the least, let you drink down a share of this tansy
juice. I was telling you it would be answerable to your health.
_King_: You are doing entirely too much for me.
_Queen_: Sure I am here to be comfortable to you. This house before I
came into it was but a ship without a rudder! Here now, take the spoon
in your hand.
_Dall Glic_: Leave it there, Queen, and I'll engage he'll swallow it
down bye-and-bye.
_Queen_: Is it that you are meddling, Dall Glic? It is time some person
took you in hand. I wonder now could that dark eye of yours be cured?
_Dall Glic_: It is given in that it can not, by doctors and by druids.
_Queen_: That is a pity now, it gives you a sort of a one-sided look. It
might not be so hard a thing to put out the sight of the other.
_Dall Glic_: I'd sooner leave them the way they are.
_Queen_: I'll put a knot on my handkerchief till such time as I can give
my mind to it.... Now, my dear (_to King_), make no more delay. It is
right to drink it down after your meal. The stomach to be bare empty,
the medicine might prey upon the body till it would be wore away and
consumed.
_King_: Time enough. Let it settle now for a minute.
_Queen_: Here, now, I'll hold your nose the way you will not get the
taste of it.
(_She holds spoon to his mouth. A ball flies in at window; he starts and
medicine is spilled_.)
_Princess: (Coming in with Nurse.)_ Is it true what they