Three Wonder Plays

Three Wonder Plays

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Wonder Plays, by Lady I. A. Gregory This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Three Wonder Plays
Author: Lady I. A. Gregory
Release Date: January 4, 2005 [EBook #14588]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THREE WONDER PLAYS
By LADY GREGORY
Drama
Other works:
SEVEN SHORT PLAYS. FOLK-HISTORY PLAYS. 2 VOLS. NEW COMEDIES. THE GOLDEN APPLE. THE DRAGON. OUR IRISH THEATRE. A
CHAPTER OF
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. THE KILTARTAN MOLIERE. THE IMAGE AND OTHER PLAYS. THREE WONDER PLAYS.
Irish Folk-Lore and Legend
VISIONS AND BELIEFS. 2 VOLS. CUCHULAIN OF MURITHEMNE. GODS AND FIGHTING MEN. SAINTS AND WONDERS. POETS AND DREAMERS. THE KILTARTAN POETRY BOOK. THE KILTARTAN HISTORY BOOK.
* * * * *
HUGH LANE'S LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENT WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE DUBLIN GALLERIES.

Three Wonder Plays
By
Lady Gregory
G.P. Putnam's Sons London & New York
Note
These plays have been copyrighted in the United States and Great Britain.
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages.
All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and all countries of the Copyright Union, by the author. Performances are forbidden and right of presentation is reserved.
Application for the right of performing these plays or reading them in public should be made to Samuel French, 26, Southampton Street, Strand, London, W.C.2.

Made in Great Britain by THE BOTOLPH PRINTING WORKS GATE STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.2
CONTENTS
THE DRAGON
ARISTOTLE'S BELLOWS
THE JESTER

THE DRAGON
ACT I
PERSONS
The King The Queen.
The Princess Nuala.
The Dall Glic (THE BLIND WISE MAN).
The Nurse.
The Prince of the Marshes.
_Manus, King of Sorcha_.
_Fintan, The Astrologer_.
Taig.
Sibby (TAIG'S MOTHER).
Gatekeeper.
Two Aunts of the Prince of the Marshes.
Foreign Men Bringing in Food.
The Dragon.

ACT I
_Scene: A room in the King's house at Burren. Large window at back with deep window seat. Doors right and left. A small table and some chairs_.
_Dall Glic: (Coming in with tray, which he puts on table. Goes back to door.)_ You can come in, King. There is no one here.
_King: (Coming in.)_ That's very good. I was in dread the Queen might be in it.
_Dall Glic_: It is a good thought I had bringing it in here, and she gone to give learning to the Princess. She is not likely to come this side. It would be a great pity to annoy her.
_King: (Hastily swallowing a mouthful.)_ Look out now the door and keep a good watch. The time she will draw upon me is when I am eating my little bite.
_Dall Glic_: I'll do that. What I wouldn't see with my one eye, there's no other would see with three.
_King_: A month to-day since I wed with her, and well pleased I am to be back in my own place. I give you word my teeth are rusting with the want of meat. On the journey I got no fair play. She wouldn't be willing to see me nourish myself, unless maybe with the marrow bone of a wren.
_Dall Glic_: Sure she lays down she is but thinking of the good of your health.
_King_: Maybe so. She is apt to be paying too much attention to what will be for mine and for the world's good. I kept my health fair enough, and the first wife not begrudging me my enough. I don't know what in the world led me not to stop as I was.
_Dall Glic_: It is what you were saying, it was for the good of the Princess Nuala, and of yourself.
_King_: That is what herself laid down. It would be a great ease to my mind, she was saying, to have in the house with the young girl, a far-off cousin of the King of Alban, and that had been conversation woman in his Court.
_Dall Glic_: So it might be too. She is a great manager of people.
_King_: She is that ...I think I hear her coming.... Throw a cloth over the plates.
_Queen: (Coming in.)_ I was in search of you.
_King_: I thought you were in Nuala's sunny parlour, learning her to play music and to go through books.
_Queen_: That is what I thought to do. But I hadn't hardly started to teach her the principles of conversation and the 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