A DIALOGUE FOR NATIONAL FOLK WEEK
       
Characters in order of appearance: 

Master of Ceremonies on Hobby-horse. 
Annie, Queen in disguise. 
Fool, King, also in disguise. 
Prince, their son, seeking opportunity to kill his father. 
Doctor. 
Villagers. 

Enter Master of Ceremonies on Hobby-horse.  As he prances
around, he sings:

         Aloft, bold tods of curding cloud 
              Annie’s hair and all 
         cuddle and clod with padded tread, 
              but Annie’s best of all. 

         Below, tree-rods, thick budded, beaded, 
              Annie’s breasts and all 
         dot their shadowed undershed, 
              but Annie’s best of all. 

         Coddy seedlings sud and fidget, 
              Annie’s hair and all 
         blade their biddings, drive their blood, 
              but Annie’s best of all. 
  

         Dodgy tadpoles thread and paddle, 
              Annie’s hair and all 
         nudge the weedings in their flood, 
              but Annie’s best of all. 
  

         Cadgy spiders tread and trundle, 
              Annie’s hair and all 
         bind their bundles in their snoods, 
              but Annie’s best of all. 
  

         Giddy woods and heady maidens 
              Annie’s hair and all 
         braid their bodies, breed their moods, 
              but Annie’s best of all. 
  

Enter Fool and Annie, hand in hand. 

           Fool:   I take love in, so to give more out. 
          Annie:   I give love out, so to take more in. 
              F:   When she turns away, I follow her: 
              A:   When he turns away, I follow him. 

        Together:   Sing, hey diddle-diddle! 
                           When we turn from each other 
                           we meet in the middle! 

              F:   She holds me in that I might forget, 
              A:   I let him go that I might know more: 
              F:   but when I awake I remember again, 
              A:   while I have forgotten, like an open door. 

        Together:   Sing, hey diddle-diddle! 
                           When we turn to each other 
                           we split in the middle. 

             F:   When I go, she knows that I’ll soon be back: 
             A:   when he comes, I know that I’ll lose him soon. 
             F:   And so it goes on, as day follows night, 
             A:   as heat follows cold, as night follows noon. 

         Together:   Sing, hey diddle diddle! -- 
                           This is love’s riddle. 

Annie retires.  Fool advances. 

           Fool:  When I was born and opened by eyes, 
                  dumb as a pot, I was yet all-wise. 

                  To cry and speak became my bent 
                       as I grew older.  So wisdom went. 

                       Then, full of words, what had I left? 
                       Of wisdom I was now bereft. 

                       Now the greatest wisdom in the land 
                       only a Fool can understand. 
  

Enter Prince with Dog, his hand on his sword-hilt.
All watch the Dog as it wanders, sniffing the vegetation. 

           Fool:  A nosing dog that wets a flower 
                  reminds me of a wasted hour. 

         Prince:  A dog found bedded in the hay 
                  reminds me of a wasted day. 

              F:  A dog that howls in ghostly fear 
                  reminds me of a wasted year. 

              P:  A barking dog without a tooth 
                  reminds me of a wasted youth. 

              F:  A drooling dog that licks a knife 
                  reminds me of a wasted life. 

              P:  A buried dog beneath the floor 
                  reminds me -- I can bide no more! 

Prince draws sword and makes sudden attach on Fool who
tries vainly to defend himself and falls dead.  Consternation.
Master of Ceremonies gallops to and fro calling for Doctor. 

Enter Doctor, who stands over corpse muttering incantations
and making grotesque gestures. 

Doctor (examining mouth):
                  Whose tongue was sharper than the brier, 
                  his words are licked away by fire. 
        (thumping chest): 
                  Whose lungs, twin bellows, pumped the mind, 
                  his breath is swallowed by the wind. 
         (peering into eyes): 
                  Whose eyes drew in as they fell on, 
                  his sight is sucked up by the sun. 
         (tapping skull): 
                  Whose thoughts were neither late nor soon, 
                  his mind is taken by the moon 
         (examining ears): 
                  Whose ears were true, or they were sly, 
                  his hearing floats along the sky. 
         (feeling pulse): 
                  Whose runnels throbbed within their dreams, 
                  his blood goes mingling with the streams. 
         (examining limbs): 
                  Whose bones were clothed in comely worth, 
                  his flesh shall rot within the earth. 
         (standing up): 
                  All this I see on a Monday morn 
                  while two babes a second are being born! 
         (giving vent to a piercing scream): 
                RISE UP FOOL, AND LIVE AGAIN! 

Fool rises.  Enter Villagers, two of them bearing a rustic throne.
Fool seats himself and is crowned with vegetation. Master of Ceremonies:
With soul new mewed in body plain our Fool returns to life again. What he has found between woe and well, in curious travels, he will us tell. Fool: As I stood floating, rooted withal on up-downstairs in Nowhere Hall I saw, unseeing, my dear wife-mother become my father and my brother, become my sister, all my kin, all the offspring of Adam’s sin thrusting me away as they held me tight in the howling dumbness of day-night. But when I saw that these were me, how could I stay but start to flee? how could I flee but gather the past and tear it to shreds to make it last? I know my curses to be a blessing when I, a naked man undressing, became a skirted woman bare reading the rune of the crawling hare, for with me under the screaming trees sat Boadicea on her knees And Boadicea lay and knelt till I heard every sword-tip that she felt and touched every feeling that she saw in the long-lost struggle of her endless war: and while the still hare loped and sped, the living rose up to quell the dead. The dead lay down to breed the quick and graves were dug to heal the sick. And as I wandered, rooted still, a dreaming fool going under a hill, nine frozen streams ran over the whole to heat the maggot in my soul. And better still, in growing worse, the Saxons blessed me with a curse while Christians, with One God of All, offered the freedom of His thrall. But alas! time was and I was not: ere I was born I was forgot. Then King Harold, raging like a water-marrow shot his eye at a Norman arrow. My one-eyed life of years no-years watered the raindrops with its tears. Monk-king-warriors with iron laws tore the sweetness from my jaws. yet I could wait while moving on, die and be my new-born son, scatter the limbs of the living folk, cram the cock back into its yolk and hide my heaven in the earth until my death should give it birth. Now lying standing above below-stairs I can when I cannot unpair the pairs, be together alone and sigh without breath, be selfish and selfless in one living death. For in day-night and howling dumb you push and hold me with your thumb. Brother is sister, all are kin, all the children of my sin: all me, all mine, though through another I eat my father and beget my mother. Thus truth from the hill-top bottom of a well ever comes never in a heaven-bred hell. Master of Ceremonies: Let the dancing begin! The villagers dance until dusk. Exeunt.

                      (1967)