The Two Kings

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1914from Narrative and Dramatic Poems221 lines

King Eochaid came at sundown to a woodWestward of Tara. Hurrying to his queenHe had out-ridden his war-wasted menThat with empounded cattle trod the mire;And where beech trees had mixed a pale green lightWith the ground-ivy’s blue, he saw a stagWhiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.Because it stood upon his path and seemedMore hands in height than any stag in the worldHe sat with tightened rein and loosened mouthUpon his trembling horse, then drove the spur;But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed,Rending the horse’s flank. King Eochaid reeledThen drew his sword to hold its levelled pointAgainst the stag. When horn and steel were metThe horn resounded as though it had been silver,A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound.Horn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled thereAs though a stag and unicorn were metIn Africa on Mountain of the Moon,Until at last the double horns, drawn backward,Butted below the single and so piercedThe entrails of the horse. Dropping his swordKing Eochaid seized the horns in his strong handsAnd stared into the sea-green eye, and soHither and thither to and fro they trodTill all the place was beaten into mire.The strong thigh and the agile thigh were met,The hands that gathered up the might of the world,And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speedAmid the elaborate wilderness of the air.Through bush they plunged and over ivied root,And where the stone struck fire, while in the leavesA squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out;But when at last he forced those sinewy flanksAgainst a beech bole, he threw down the beastAnd knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instantIt vanished like a shadow, and a crySo mournful that it seemed the cry of oneWho had lost some unimaginable treasureWandered between the blue and the green leafAnd climbed into the air, crumbling away,Till all had seemed a shadow or a visionBut for the trodden mire, the pool of blood,The disembowelled horse.King Eochaid ran,Toward peopled Tara, nor stood to draw his breathUntil he came before the painted wall,The posts of polished yew, circled with bronze,Of the great door; but though the hanging lampsShowed their faint light through the unshuttered windows,Nor door, nor mouth, nor slipper made a noise,Nor on the ancient beaten paths, that woundFrom well-side or from plough-land, was there noise;And there had been no sound of living thingBefore him or behind, but that far-offOn the horizon edge bellowed the herds.Knowing that silence brings no good to kings,And mocks returning victory, he passedBetween the pillars with a beating heartAnd saw where in the midst of the great hallPale-faced, alone upon a bench, EdainSat upright with a sword before her feet.Her hands on either side had gripped the bench,Her eyes were cold and steady, her lips tight.Some passion had made her stone. Hearing a footShe started and then knew whose foot it was;But when he thought to take her in his armsShe motioned him afar, and rose and spoke:“I have sent among the fields or to the woodsThe fighting men and servants of this house,For I would have your judgment upon oneWho is self-accused. If she be innocentShe would not look in any known man’s faceTill judgment has been given, and if guilty,Will never look again on known man’s face.”And at these words he paled, as she had paled,Knowing that he should find upon her lipsThe meaning of that monstrous day.Then she:“You brought me where your brother Ardan satAlways in his one seat, and bid me care himThrough that strange illness that had fixed him there,And should he die to heap his burial moundAnd carve his name in Ogham.” Eochaid said,“He lives?” “He lives and is a healthy man.”“While I have him and you it matters littleWhat man you have lost, what evil you have found.”“I bid them make his bed under this roofAnd carried him his food with my own hands,And so the weeks passed by. But when I said‘What is this trouble?’ he would answer nothing,Though always at my words his trouble grew;And I but asked the more, till he cried out,Weary of many questions: ‘There are thingsThat make the heart akin to the dumb stone.’Then I replied: ‘Although you hide a secret,Hopeless and dear, or terrible to think on,Speak it, that I may send through the wide worldFor medicine.’ Thereon he cried aloud:‘Day after day you question me, and I,Because there is such a storm amid my thoughtsI shall be carried in the gust, command,Forbid, beseech and waste my breath.’ Then I,‘Although the thing that you have hid were evil,The speaking of it could be no great wrong,And evil must it be, if done ’twere worseThan mound and stone that keep all virtue in,And loosen on us dreams that waste our life,Shadows and shows that can but turn the brain.’But finding him still silent I stooped downAnd whispering that none but he should hear,Said: ‘If a woman has put this on you,My men, whether it please her or displease,And though they have to cross the Loughlan watersAnd take her in the middle of armed men,Shall make her look upon her handiwork,That she may quench the rick she has fired; and thoughShe may have worn silk clothes, or worn a crown,She’ll not be proud, knowing within her heartThat our sufficient portion of the worldIs that we give, although it be brief giving,Happiness to children and to men.’Then he, driven by his thought beyond his thought,And speaking what he would not though he would,Sighed: ‘You, even you yourself, could work the cure!’And at those words I rose and I went outAnd for nine days he had food from other hands,And for nine days my mind went whirling roundThe one disastrous zodiac, mutteringThat the immedicable mound’s beyondOur questioning, beyond our pity even.But when nine days had gone I stood againBefore his chair and bending down my headTold him, that when Orion rose, and allThe women of his household were asleep,To go⁠—for hope would give his limbs the power⁠—To an old empty woodman’s house that’s hiddenClose to a clump of beech trees in the woodWestward of Tara, there to await a friendThat could, as he had told her, work his cureAnd would be no harsh friend.When night had deepened,I groped my way through boughs, and over roots,Till oak and hazel ceased and beech began,And found the house, a sputtering torch within,And stretched out sleeping on a pile of skinsArdan, and though I called to him and triedTo shake him out of sleep, I could not rouse him.I waited till the night was on the turn,Then fearing that some labourer, on his wayTo plough or pasture-land, might see me there,Went out.Among the ivy-covered rocks,As on the blue light of a sword, a manWho had unnatural majesty, and eyesLike the eyes of some great kite scouring the woods,Stood on my path. Trembling from head to footI gazed at him like grouse upon a kite;But with a voice that had unnatural music,‘A weary wooing and a long,’ he said,‘Speaking of love through other lips and lookingUnder the eyelids of another, for it was my craftThat put a passion in the sleeper there,And when I had got my will and drawn you here,Where I may speak to you alone, my craftSucked up the passion out of him againAnd left mere sleep. He’ll wake when the sun wakes,Push out his vigorous limbs and rub his eyes,And wonder what has ailed him these twelve months.’I cowered back upon the wall in terror,But that sweet-sounding voice ran on: ‘Woman,I was your husband when you rode the air,Danced in the whirling foam and in the dust,In days you have not kept in memory,Being betrayed into a cradle, and I comeThat I may claim you as my wife again.’I was no longer terrified, his voiceHad half awakened some old memory,Yet answered him: ‘I am King Eochaid’s wifeAnd with him have found every happinessWomen can find.’ With a most masterful voice,That made the body seem as it were a stringUnder a bow, he cried: ‘What happinessCan lovers have that know their happinessMust end at the dumb stone? But where we buildOur sudden palaces in the still airPleasure itself can bring no weariness,Nor can time waste the cheek, nor is there footThat has grown weary of the whirling dance,Nor an unlaughing mouth, but mine that mourns,Among those mouths that sing their sweethearts’ praise,Your empty bed.’ ‘How should I love,’ I answered,‘Were it not that when the dawn has lit my bedAnd shown my husband sleeping there, I have sighed,“Your strength and nobleness will pass away.”Or how should love be worth its pains were it notThat when he has fallen asleep within my arms,Being wearied out, I love in man the child?What can they know of love that do not knowShe builds her nest upon a narrow ledgeAbove a windy precipice?’ Then he:‘Seeing that when you come to the death-bedYou must return, whether you would or no,This human life blotted from memory,Why must I live some thirty, forty years,Alone with all this useless happiness?’Thereon he seized me in his arms, but IThrust him away with both my hands and cried,‘Never will I believe there is any changeCan blot out of my memory this lifeSweetened by death, but if I could believeThat were a double hunger in my lipsFor what is doubly brief.’And now the shape,My hands were pressed to, vanished suddenly.I staggered, but a beech tree stayed my fall,And clinging to it I could hear the cocksCrow upon Tara.”King Eochaid bowed his headAnd thanked her for her kindness to his brother,For that she promised, and for that refused.

Thereon the bellowing of the empounded herdsRose round the walls, and through the bronze-ringed doorJostled and shouted those war-wasted men,And in the midst King Eochaid’s brother stood.And bade all welcome, being ignorant.

Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.

In brief

Summary

A queen of Tara chooses mortal love over a king from the otherworld.

King Eochaid, riding home to Tara, fights a huge white stag in a wood. It guts his horse, then vanishes with a cry of terrible loss. At Tara he finds the hall silent and his queen, Edain, alone with a sword at her feet. She asks him to judge her, and tells her story. His brother Ardan fell ill with a secret love for her, and out of pity she agreed to meet him in a woodman's house. There a stranger with "unnatural majesty" revealed that he had caused Ardan's passion to lure her there. He had been her husband in a former, immortal life, and he came to claim her. She refused him: love matters because it is brief and ends in death. The stranger vanished, Ardan woke cured, and Eochaid thanks her both for what she promised and for what she refused.

Lines to remember

Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.

Knowing that silence brings no good to kings,

She builds her nest upon a narrow ledge

Line by line

Lines 1 to 11The white stag
At sundown, riding ahead of his war-weary men and captured cattle, Eochaid enters a beech wood west of Tara. In the green and blue light stands a stag "Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea", taller than any stag in the world. He spurs his trembling horse at it.
Lines 12 to 23Horn against sword
The stag charges and rips the horse's flank. When sword meets horn, "The horn resounded as though it had been silver", a sound both sweet and terrifying. The locked fight is compared to a stag and a unicorn meeting on the Mountain of the Moon, and the stag's horns pierce the horse.
Lines 24 to 45The wrestle and the vanishing
Eochaid drops his sword and wrestles the beast by the horns through bush and mire, while "A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out". He throws it against a beech and kneels with his knife, but it vanishes, crying like one "Who had lost some unimaginable treasure". Only the mire, the blood and the dead horse remain.
Lines 46 to 68Silent Tara
He runs to Tara and finds no sound at all, not a door, a mouth or a slipper. "Knowing that silence brings no good to kings", he enters and sees Edain alone in the hall, pale, gripping the bench, a sword at her feet: "Some passion had made her stone." She waves him away.
Lines 69 to 86A queen asks for judgment
She has sent everyone away because she wants his judgment on one "Who is self-accused": herself. She reminds him that he left her to nurse his brother Ardan through a strange illness. Eochaid's first words, "He lives?", and his claim that nothing else matters while he has them both, show how he trusts them.
Lines 87 to 108Ardan's secret
She nursed Ardan, but he would not name his trouble, saying only that some things "make the heart akin to the dumb stone". She pressed him: even if the secret were evil, speaking it would do less harm than silence, which breeds "Shadows and shows that can but turn the brain".
Lines 109 to 130The cure she offered
She whispered that if a woman had done this, her men would fetch that woman even from across "the Loughlan waters" to cure him. Driven beyond himself, Ardan sighed that she herself could work the cure. She left him, and for nine days her mind went "whirling round / The one disastrous zodiac".
Lines 131 to 150The tryst in the wood
After nine days she told him to go, when Orion rose, to an empty woodman's house west of Tara, where a friend would cure him: she was offering herself. That night she found Ardan there fast asleep and could not wake him. Near dawn, afraid of being seen, she went out.
Lines 151 to 173The stranger's claim
Among the rocks stood a man of "unnatural majesty" with eyes like a hunting kite's. His craft had put the passion into Ardan to draw her there, and Ardan will wake cured. He tells her that he was her husband when she "rode the air", before she was "betrayed into a cradle", and has come to claim her.
Lines 174 to 203Mortal love defended
She answers that she is Eochaid's wife and happy. He scorns any happiness that must "end at the dumb stone" and offers palaces in the air where nothing wearies. She replies that love is precious because it is mortal: love "builds her nest upon a narrow ledge / Above a windy precipice".
Lines 204 to 214Refusal and dawn
He seizes her; she thrusts him away, crying that no change could blot out "this life / Sweetened by death". The shape vanishes from between her hands. She staggers against a beech tree and hears the cocks "Crow upon Tara", as ordinary day returns.
Lines 215 to 221The homecoming
Eochaid bows and thanks her "for that she promised, and for that refused": he honours both her pity and her faithfulness. The herds bellow, the soldiers pour in shouting, and Ardan stands among them, cured and welcoming everyone, "being ignorant" of all that happened.

Themes

Mortal love

The centre of the poem is Edain's answer to the stranger. He offers love without age or weariness; she chooses the love that dies. She loves her husband more because "Your strength and nobleness will pass away", and her image of love as a bird nesting on "a narrow ledge / Above a windy precipice" makes danger and brevity the source of its worth.

Two worlds

The title's two kings are Eochaid, king of Tara, and the stranger, a king of the otherworld who once had Edain as his wife. The otherworld breaks into the human one through a white stag, a sleeping sickness and a figure with "unnatural music" in his voice. Each time it withdraws, it leaves real traces behind: mire, blood, a cured man.

Honour and trust

Edain names herself "self-accused" and asks for judgment before she will look at any man. Eochaid does not judge; he thanks her. His reply, "for that she promised, and for that refused", finds honour in both her pity for Ardan and her loyalty to him, and the final picture of Ardan "being ignorant" shows a household made whole.

Context

The Two Kings was first published in a book in 1914. Yeats took the story from the old Irish tale of the wooing of Etain, in which Etain, once the wife of Midir of the Sidhe, is reborn as a mortal and marries Eochaid, king of Tara. In the tale his brother falls sick for love of her. Yeats calls the brother Ardan, leaves the stranger unnamed, and makes the heart of the story Edain's refusal.

Yeats had used Edain before, in "The Harp of Aengus" within The Shadowy Waters. Here the manner is plainer and harder than in his early Celtic poems: the fight with the stag is physical and bloody, and the argument for human love over faery immortality is made in direct speech.

Form

Two hundred and twenty-one lines of blank verse, unrhymed five-beat lines, told as one continuous narrative with a short break before the last six lines. Most of the poem is Edain's own speech, which quotes Ardan and the stranger inside it. Split half-lines mark each change of scene, so the story runs on without pause, like a told tale.