Play · 1892 · The Countess Cathleen

Scene IV

1 min

Scene.—A wood near the Castle, as in Scene 2. The Spirits pass one by one carrying bags.

First Spirit

I’ll never dance another step, not one.

Second Spirit

Are all the thousand years of dancing done?

Third Spirit

How can we dance after so great a sorrow?

Fourth Spirit

But how shall we remember it to-morrow?

Fifth Spirit

To think of all the things that we forget.

Sixth Spirit

That’s why we groan and why our lids are wet.

The Spirits go out. A group Of Peasants Pass.

First Peasant

I have seen silver and copper, but not gold.

Second Peasant

It’s yellow and it shines.

First Peasant

It’s beautiful.The most beautiful thing under the sun, That’s what I’ve heard.

Third Peasant

I have seen gold enough.

Fourth Peasant

I would not say that it’s so beautiful.

First Peasant

But doesn’t a gold piece glitter like the sun?That’s what my father, who’d seen better days,Told me when I was but a little boy—So high—so high, it’s shining like the sun,Round and shining, that is what he said.

Second Peasant

There’s nothing in the world it cannot buy.

First Peasant

They’ve bags and bags of it.

They go out. The two Merchants follow silently.

Text: The Countess Cathleen, seventh edition, revised (T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1912). Public domain.