The Hour-Glass by W.B. Yeats

DRAMATIS PERSONAE / A WISE MAN / A FOOL / SOME PUPILS / AN ANGEL / THE WISE MAN'S WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN

SCENE: A large room with a door at the back and another at the side / opening to an inner room. A desk and a chair in the middle. An / hour-glass on a bracket near the door. A creepy stool near it. Some / benches. The WISE MAN sitting at his desk.

WISE MAN [turning over the pages of a book]. Where is that passage / I am to explain to my pupils to-day? Here it is, and the book says / that it was written by a beggar on the walls of Babylon: "There are / two living countries, the one visible and the one invisible; and / when it is winter with us it is summer in that country; and when / the November winds are up among us it is lambing-time there. " I / wish that my pupils had asked me to explain any other passage, for / this is a hard passage. [The FOOL comes in and stands at the door, / holding out his hat. He has a pair of shears in the other hand.] It / sounds to me like foolishness; and yet that cannot be, for the / writer of this book, where I have found so much knowledge, / would not have set it by itself on this page, and surrounded it / with so many images and so many deep colors and so much fine / gilding, if it had been foolishness.

FOOL. Give me a penny.

WISE MAN. [Turns to another page.] Here he has written: "The / learned in old times forgot the visible country. " That I / understand, but I have taught my learners better.

FOOL. Won't you give me a penny?

WISE MAN. What do you want? The words of the wise Saracen will not / teach you much.

FOOL. Such a great wise teacher as you are will not refuse a penny / to a Fool.

WISE MAN. What do you know about wisdom?

FOOL. Oh, I know! I know what I have seen.

WISE MAN. What is it you have seen?

FOOL. When I went by Kilcluan where the bells used to be ringing at / the break of every day, I could hear nothing but the people snoring / in their houses. When I went by Tubbervanach where the young men / used to be climbing the hill to the blessed well, they were sitting / at the crossroads playing cards. When I went by Carrigoras where / the friars used to be fasting and serving the poor, I saw them / drinking wine and obeying their wives. And when I asked what / misfortune had brought all these changes, they said it was no / misfortune, but it was the wisdom they had learned from your / teaching.

WISE MAN. Run round to the kitchen, and my wife will give you / something to eat.

FOOL. That is foolish advice for a wise man to give.

WISE MAN. Why, Fool?

FOOL. What is eaten is gone. I want pennies for my bag. I must buy / bacon in the shops, and nuts in the market, and strong drink for / the time when the sun is weak. And I want snares to catch the / rabbits and the squirrels and the bares, and a pot to cook them in.

WISE MAN. Go away. I have other things to think of now than giving / you pennies.

FOOL. Give me a penny and I will bring you luck. Bresal the / Fisherman lets me sleep among the nets in his loft in the / winter-time because he says I bring him luck; and in the / summer-time the wild creatures let me sleep near their nests / and their holes. It is lucky even to look at me or 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.