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Tales And Novels, Volume 1 by Maria Edgeworth

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Tales And Novels, Volume 1




_Mrs. Ulrica_. Was it about this purse you were dreaming?--(_shows the
purse which the children found in the wood_)--Come, take it into your
little hands, and waken and rouse yourselves, for you must come and
give this purse back to the rightful owner; I've found him out for
you--(_Aside to Christina and Eleonora_). And now, ladies, if you please
to go up into the gallery, you'll see something worth looking at.

[_Exeunt_.]

SCENE--_A hall in Count_ HELMAAR'S _Castle.--Peasants rising from supper
in the back scene_.

_1st Peasant_. Here's a health to the poor man's friend; and may every
poor man, every poor honest man--and there are none other in Sweden--find
as good a friend as Count Helmaar.

_Enter_ CHARLES, _eagerly_.

_Charles_. Count Helmaar! is he here?

_Omnes_. Heyday! Charles, the sleeper, broad awake! or is he walking in
his sleep?

_Charles_. Where's Count Helmaar, I say?--I'd walk in my sleep, or any
way, to get a sight of him.

_1st Peasant_. Hush! stand back!--here's some of the quality coming, who
are not thinking of you.

[_The peasants all retire to the back scene. Count_ HELMAAR, CHRISTINA,
_and_ ELEONORA, _appear, looking from a gallery. Enter_ ALEFTSON _and_
CATHERINE _at one door, Mrs._ ULRICA _at the opposite door, with_
CHRISTIERN, _followed by the two children._]

_Cath._ (_springs forward_.) Christiern! my husband! alive!--is it a
dream?

_Christiern_ (_embracing her_). Your own Christiern, dearest Catherine.

[_The children clap their hands, and run to their father._]

_Ulric._ Why, I thought he was my father; only he did not shake hands
with me.

_Kate._ And Mrs. Ulrica hid me hold my tongue.

_Christiern._ My Ulric! my little Kate!

_Mrs. Ulrica._ Ay, my little Kate, you may speak now as much as you
will.--(_Their father kisses them eagerly._)--Ay, kiss them, kiss them;
they are as good children as ever were born--and as honest: Kate, show
him the purse, and ask him if it be his.

_Kate._ Is it yours, father?--(_holds up the purse_).

_Christiern._ 'Tis mine; 'twas in my knapsack; but how it came here,
Heaven knows.

_Ulric._ We found it in the wood, father, as we were going home, just at
the foot of a tree.

_Charles_ (_comes forward_). Why, mayhap, now I recollect, I might have
dropped it there--more shame for me, or rather more shame for them--
(_looking back at his companions_)--that were playing the fool with me,
and tumbled out all the things on the ground. Master, I hope there's no
harm done: we poor peasant fellows have brought home all the other
knapsacks safe and sound to the relations of them that died; and yours
came by mistake, it seems.

_Christiern._ It's a very lucky mistake; for I wouldn't have lost a
waistcoat which there is in that knapsack for all the waistcoats in
Sweden. My Catherine, 'twas that which you gave me the day before I went
abroad--do you remember it?

_Charles._ Ay, that she does; it had like to have been the death of
her--for she thought you must be dead for certain when he saw it brought
home without you--but I knew he was not ead, mistress--did not I tell
you, mistress, not to give way to sorrow while there was hope left?

_Cath_. O joy! joy!--too much joy!

_Aleft_. Now are you sorry you came with me when I bade you?--but I'm a
fool!--I'm a fool!

_Ulric_. But where's the cap and coat you used to wear?

_Kate_. You are quite another man, uncle.

_Aleft_. The same man, niece, only in another coat.

_Mrs. Ulrica (laughing)_. How they stare!----Well, Christiern, you are
not angry with my master and me for keeping you now?--but angry or not, I
don't care, for I wouldn't have missed seeing this meeting for any thing
in the whole world.

_Enter Count_ HELMAAR, ELEONOKA, _and_ CHRISTINA.

_Christina_. Nor I.

_Eleon_. Nor I.

_Helmaar_. Nor I.

_The Peasants_. Nor any of us

_Helmaar (to little Ulric)_. My honest little boy, is that the purse
which you found in the wood?

_Ulric_. Yes, and it's my own father's.

_Helmaar_. And how much money is there in it?

[_The child opens the purse, and spreads the money on the floor_.]

_Ulric (to Mrs. Ulrica)_. Count you, for I can't count so much.

_Mrs. Ulrica (counts)_. Eight ducats, five rixdollars, and let me see how
many--sixteen carolines[2]:--'twould have been pity, Catherine, to have
lost all this treasure, which Christiern has saved for you.

[Footnote 2: A rixdollar is 4s. 6d. sterling; two rixdollars are equal in
value to a ducat; a caroline is 1s. 2d.]

_Helmaar_. Catherine, I beg that all the money in this purse may be given
to these honest peasants. (_To Kate_) Here, take it to them, my little
modest girl. As for you and your children, Catherine, you may depend upon
it that I will not neglect to make you easy in the world: your own good
conduct, and the excellent manner in which you have brought up these
children, would incline me to serve you, even if your husband had not
saved my life.

_Cath_. Christiern, my dear husband, and did _you_ save Count Helmaar's
life?

_Mrs. Ulrica_. Ay, that he did.

_Cath_. (_embracing him_.) I am the happiest wife, and--(_turning to kiss
her children_)--the happiest mother upon earth.

_Charles_ (_staring up in Count Helmaar's face_). God bless him! I've
seen him face to face at last; and now I wish in my heart I could see his
wife.

_Christina_. And so do I most sincerely: my dear brother, who has been
all his life labouring for the happiness of others, should now surely
think of making himself happy.

_Eleonora_ (_giving her hand to Helmaar_). No, leave that to me, for I
shall think of nothing else all my life.

At least 13 ways of looking at a blackbird

Int én bec
    ro léic feit
    do rind guip
    glanbuidi
    fo-ceird faíd
    os Loch Laíg
    lon do craíb
    charnbuidi

This weird little scrap of Irish syllabic verse, probably from the 9th century, consists of just 24 syllables, broken up into eight short lines, which have somehow continued to echo in modern Irish verse: the little lyric seems to have stuck; it has proved itself, in Seamus Heaney's words, to have "staying power".

First used in a metrical tract of the 11th century to illustrate a metre called snám súad, the lyric might be translated, literally, as: "The little bird which has whistled from the end of a bright-yellow bill: it utters a note above Belfast Lough – a blackbird from a yellow-heaped branch" (in a translation by Gerard Murphy). Or perhaps: "The little bird has whistled from the tip of his bright yellow beak; the blackbird from a bough laden with yellow blossom has tossed a cry over Belfast Lough" (translation by David Greene & Frank O'Connor).

Perhaps the poem's recent appeal has something to do with the character of the plucky little bird singing out over Belfast – the site of so much tragedy during the past three decades. Blackbird = poet? That, at least, is one way of looking at it.

Poetic versions, and rewrites, and reinterpretations of the poem abound, by John Montague, and John Hewitt, and Seamus Heaney, and Thomas Kinsella (in The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse), and Tomás Ó Floinn (in modern Irish), and by the current director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Ciaran Carson.

Carson tells the story of how, when appointed as the first director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, he saw a blackbird pecking around in the little garden outside the School of English and thought it might make an interesting symbol for the newly established centre for creative writing. And so "The Blackbird of Belfast Lough", in word and image, became the Centre's motto and emblem.

Some years later, as writer in residence at the Heaney Centre, I found myself in conversation with two artists, the brothers Oliver and Rory Jeffers. We'd occasionally meet, the three of us, on Saturday mornings to drink coffee and to talk about art and literature, and Oliver would sometimes bring along work-in-progress and Rory would try to explain to me the structure and meaning of the language of images (which I never understood). On a whim, and high on caffeine and big ideas, I thought I would invite a number of local and international artists to read "The Blackbird of Belfast Lough" in its original Irish and its English translations, and to make of it what they would. Which is how I found myself putting together an exhibition now on show at the Heaney Centre.

In his preface to the exhibition catalogue Seamus Heaney suggests that the images might be a way of keeping "the perpetual motion machine of art on the go". I couldn't – obviously – have put it better myself.

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