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Title: Under Milk Wood -- A Play for Voices
Author: Dylan Thomas
eBook No.: 0608221h.html
Language: English
Date first posted: June 2006
Date most recently updated: Nov 2015

This eBook was produced by: Colin Choat

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Under Milk Wood
A Play for Voices

by

Dylan Thomas

First published 1954

                        UNDER MILK WOOD















        [Silence]







        FIRST VOICE (Very softly)







To begin at the beginning:







It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless



and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched,



courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the



sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea.



The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night



in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat



there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock,



the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds.



And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are



sleeping now.







Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers,



the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher,



postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman,



drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot



cocklewomen and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft



or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux,



bridesmaided by glowworms down the aisles of the



organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the



bucking ranches of the night and the jollyrodgered sea. And



the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields,



and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wetnosed



yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly,



streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs.







You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.



Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded



town fast, and slow, asleep. And you alone can hear the



invisible starfall, the darkest-beforedawn minutely dewgrazed



stir of the black, dab-filled sea where the Arethusa, the



Curlew and the Skylark, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover,



the Cormorant, and the Star of Wales tilt and ride.







Listen. It is night moving in the streets, the processional



salt slow musical wind in Coronation Street and Cockle Row,



it is the grass growing on Llaregyb Hill, dewfall, starfall,



the sleep of birds in Milk Wood.







Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning in



bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and



bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, sucking mintoes,



fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a



domino; in Ocky Milkman's lofts like a mouse with gloves;



in Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour. It is to-night



in Donkey Street, trotting silent, with seaweed on its



hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot,



text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercolours



done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy. It is night



neddying among the snuggeries of babies.







Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding through the



Coronation cherry trees; going through the graveyard of



Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed;



tumbling by the Sailors Arms.







Time passes. Listen. Time passes.







Come closer now.







Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the



slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night. Only you



can see, in the blinded bedrooms, the coms. and petticoats



over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth,



Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing dickybird-watching



pictures of the dead. Only you can hear and see, behind the



eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes



and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wishes



and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams.







From where you are, you can hear their dreams.







Captain Cat, the retired blind sea-captain, asleep in his



bunk in the seashelled, ship-in-bottled, shipshape best



cabin of Schooner House dreams of







        SECOND VOICE







never such seas as any that swamped the decks of his S.S.



Kidwelly bellying over the bedclothes and jellyfish-slippery



sucking him down salt deep into the Davy dark where the fish



come biting out and nibble him down to his wishbone, and



the long drowned nuzzle up to him.







        FIRST DROWNED







Remember me, Captain?







        CAPTAIN CAT







You're Dancing Williams!







        FIRST DROWNED







I lost my step in Nantucket.







        SECOND DROWNED







Do you see me, Captain? the white bone talking? I'm Tom-Fred



the donkeyman...we shared the same girl once...her name was



Mrs Probert...







        WOMAN'S VOICE







Rosie Probert, thirty three Duck Lane. Come on up, boys,



I'm dead.







        THIRD DROWNED







Hold me, Captain, I'm Jonah Jarvis, come to a bad end, very



enjoyable.







        FOURTH DROWNED







Alfred Pomeroy Jones, sea-lawyer, born in Mumbles, sung



like a linnet, crowned you with a flagon, tattooed with



mermaids, thirst like a dredger, died of blisters.







        FIRST DROWNED







This skull at your earhole is







        FIFTH DROWNED







Curly Bevan. Tell my auntie it was me that pawned the ormolu



clock.







        CAPTAIN CAT







Aye, aye, Curly.







        SECOND DROWNED







Tell my missus no I never







        THIRD DROWNED







I never done what she said I never.







        FOURTH DROWNED







Yes they did.







        FIFTH DROWNED







And who brings coconuts and shawls and parrots to my



Gwen now?







        FIRST DROWNED







How's it above?







        SECOND DROWNED







Is there rum and laverbread?







        THIRD DROWNED







Bosoms and robins?







        FOURTH DROWNED







Concertinas?







        FIFTH DROWNED







Ebenezer's bell?







        FIRST DROWNED







Fighting and onions?







        SECOND DROWNED







And sparrows and daisies?







        THIRD DROWNED







Tiddlers in a jamjar?







        FOURTH DROWNED







Buttermilk and whippets?







        FIFTH DROWNED







Rock-a-bye baby?







        FIRST DROWNED







Washing on the line?







        SECOND DROWNED







And old girls in the snug?







        THIRD DROWNED







How's the tenors in Dowlais?







        FOURTH DROWNED







Who milks the cows in Maesgwyn?







        FIFTH DROWNED







When she smiles, is there dimples?







        FIRST DROWNED







What's the smell of parsley?







        CAPTAIN CAT







Oh, my dead dears!







        FIRST VOICE







From where you are you can hear in Cockle Row in the spring,



moonless night, Miss Price, dressmaker and sweetshop-keeper,



dream of







        SECOND VOICE







her lover, tall as the town clock tower, Samsonsyrup-gold-maned,



whacking thighed and piping hot, thunderbolt-bass'd and



barnacle-breasted, flailing up the cockles with his eyes



like blowlamps and scooping low over her lonely loving



hotwaterbottled body.







        MR EDWARDS







Myfanwy Price!







        MISS PRICE







Mr Mog Edwards!







        MR EDWARDS







I am a draper mad with love. I love you more than all the



flannelette and calico, candlewick, dimity, crash and merino,



tussore, cretonne, crepon, muslin, poplin, ticking and twill



in the whole Cloth Hall of the world. I have come to take



you away to my Emporium on the hill, where the change hums



on wires. Throw away your little bedsocks and your Welsh



wool knitted jacket, I will warm the sheets like an electric



toaster, I will lie by your side like the Sunday roast.







        MISS PRICE







I will knit you a wallet of forget-me-not blue, for the



money, to be comfy. I will warm your heart by the fire so



that you can slip it in under your vest when the shop is



closed.







        MR EDWARDS







Myfanwy, Myfanwy, before the mice gnaw at your bottom drawer



will you say







        MISS PRICE







Yes, Mog, yes, Mog, yes, yes, yes.







        MR EDWARDS







And all the bells of the tills of the town shall ring for



our wedding.







              [Noise of money-tills and chapel bells







        FIRST VOICE







Come now, drift up the dark, come up the drifting sea-dark



street now in the dark night seesawing like the sea, to the



bible-black airless attic over Jack Black the cobbler's



shop where alone and savagely Jack Black sleeps in a



nightshirt tied to his ankles with elastic and dreams of







        SECOND VOICE







chasing the naughty couples down the grassgreen gooseberried



double bed of the wood, flogging the tosspots in the



spit-and-sawdust, driving out the bare bold girls from the



sixpenny hops of his nightmares.







        JACK BLACK (Loudly)







        Ach y fi!



        Ach y fi!







        FIRST VOICE







Evans the Death, the undertaker,







        SECOND VOICE







laughs high and aloud in his sleep and curls up his toes as



he sees, upon waking fifty years ago, snow lie deep on the



goosefield behind the sleeping house; and he runs out into



the field where his mother is making welsh-cakes in the



snow, and steals a fistful of snowflakes and currants and



climbs back to bed to eat them cold and sweet under the



warm, white clothes while his mother dances in the snow



kitchen crying out for her lost currants.







        FIRST VOICE







And in the little pink-eyed cottage next to the undertaker's,



lie, alone, the seventeen snoring gentle stone of Mister



Waldo, rabbitcatcher, barber, herbalist, catdoctor, quack,



his fat pink hands, palms up, over the edge of the patchwork



quilt, his black boots neat and tidy in the washing-basin,



his bowler on a nail above the bed, a milk stout and a slice



of cold bread pudding under the pillow; and, dripping in



the dark, he dreams of







        MOTHER







    This little piggy went to market



    This little piggy stayed at home



    This little piggy had roast beef



    This little piggy had none



    And this little piggy went







        LITTLE BOY







wee wee wee wee wee







        MOTHER







all the way home to







        WIFE (Screaming)







Waldo! Wal-do!







        MR WALDO







Yes, Blodwen love?







        WIFE







Oh, what'll the neighbours say, what'll the neighbours...







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Poor Mrs Waldo







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







What she puts up with







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Never should of married







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







If she didn't had to







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Same as her mother







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







There's a husband for you







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Bad as his father







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







And you know where he ended







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Up in the asylum







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







Crying for his ma







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Every Saturday







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







He hasn't got a leg







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







And carrying on







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







With that Mrs Beattie Morris







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Up in the quarry







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







And seen her baby







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







It's got his nose







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







Oh it makes my heart bleed







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







What he'll do for drink







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







He sold the pianola







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







And her sewing machine







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







Falling in the gutter







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Talking to the lamp-post







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







Using language







        FIRST NEIGHBOUR







Singing in the w







        SECOND NEIGHBOUR







Poor Mrs Waldo







        WIFE (Tearfully)







...Oh, Waldo, Waldo!







        MR WALDO







Hush, love, hush. I'm widower Waldo now.







        MOTHER (Screaming)







Waldo, Wal-do!







        LITTLE BOY







Yes, our mum?







        MOTHER







Oh, what'll the neighbours say, what'll the neighbours...







        THIRD NEIGHBOUR







Black as a chimbley







        FOURTH NEIGHBOUR







Ringing doorbells







        THIRD NEIGHBOUR







Breaking windows







        FOURTH NEIGHBOUR







Making mudpies







        THIRD NEIGHBOUR







Stealing currants







        FOURTH NEIGHBOUR







Chalking words







        THIRD NEIGHBOUR







Saw him in the bushes







        FOURTH NEIGHBOUR







Playing mwchins







        THIRD NEIGHBOUR







Send him to bed without any supper







        FOURTH NEIGHBOUR







Give him sennapods and lock him in the dark







        THIRD NEIGHBOUR







Off to the reformatory







        FOURTH NEIGHBOUR







Off to the reformatory







        TOGETHER







Learn him with a slipper on his b.t.m.







        ANOTHER MOTHER (Screaming)







Waldo, Wal-do! what you doing with our Matti?







        LITTLE BOY







Give us a kiss, Matti Richards.







        LITTLE GIRL







Give us a penny then.







        MR WALDO







I only got a halfpenny.







        FIRST WOMAN







Lips is a penny.







        PREACHER







Will you take this woman Matti Richards







        SECOND WOMAN







Dulcie Prothero







        THIRD WOMAN







Effie Bevan







        FOURTH WOMAN







Lil the Gluepot







        FIFTH WOMAN







Mrs Flusher







        WIFE







Blodwen Bowen







        PREACHER







To be your awful wedded wife







        LITTLE BOY (Screaming)







No, no, no!







        FIRST VOICE







Now, in her iceberg-white, holily laundered crinoline



nightgown, under virtuous polar sheets, in her spruced and



scoured dust-defying bedroom in trig and trim Bay View, a



house for paying guests, at the top of the town, Mrs



Ogmore-Pritchard widow, twice, of Mr Ogmore, linoleum,



retired, and Mr Pritchard, failed bookmaker, who maddened



by besoming, swabbing and scrubbing, the voice of the



vacuum-cleaner and the fume of polish, ironically swallowed



disinfectant, fidgets in her rinsed sleep, wakes in a



dream, and nudges in the ribs dead Mr Ogmore, dead Mr



Pritchard, ghostly on either side.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







Mr Ogmore!







Mr Pritchard!







It is time to inhale your balsam.







        MR OGMORE







Oh, Mrs Ogmore!







        MR PRITCHARD







Oh, Mrs Pritchard!







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







Soon it will be time to get up.







Tell me your tasks, in order.







        MR OGMORE







I must put my pyjamas in the drawer marked pyjamas.







        MR PRITCHARD







I must take my cold bath which is good for me.







        MR OGMORE







I must wear my flannel band to ward off sciatica.







        MR PRITCHARD







I must dress behind the curtain and put on my apron.







        MR OGMORE







I must blow my nose.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







In the garden, if you please.







        MR OGMORE







In a piece of tissue-paper which I afterwards burn.







        MR PRITCHARD







I must take my salts which are nature's friend.







        MR OGMORE







I must boil the drinking water because of germs.







        MR PRITCHARD







I must make my herb tea which is free from tannin.







        MR OGMORE







And have a charcoal biscuit which is good for me.







        MR PRITCHARD







I may smoke one pipe of asthma mixture.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







In the woodshed, if you please.







        MR PRITCHARD







And dust the parlour and spray the canary.







        MR OGMORE







I must put on rubber gloves and search the peke for fleas.







        MR PRITCHARD







I must dust the blinds and then I must raise them.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







And before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its shoes.







        FIRST VOICE







In Butcher Beynon's, Gossamer Beynon, daughter, schoolteacher,



dreaming deep, daintily ferrets under a fluttering hummock



of chicken's feathers in a slaughterhouse that has chintz



curtains and a three-pieced suite, and finds, with no surprise,



a small rough ready man with a bushy tail winking in a paper



carrier.







        GOSSAMER BEYNON







At last, my love,







        FIRST VOICE







sighs Gossamer Beynon. And the bushy tail wags rude and ginger.







        ORGAN MORGAN







Help,







        SECOND VOICE







cries Organ Morgan, the organist, in his dream,







        ORGAN MORGAN







There is perturbation and music in Coronation Street! All



the spouses are honking like geese and the babies singing



opera. P.C. Attila Rees has got his truncheon out and is



playing cadenzas by the pump, the cows from Sunday Meadow



ring like reindeer, and on the roof of Handel Villa see the



Women's Welfare hoofing, bloomered, in the moon.







        FIRST VOICE







At the sea-end of town, Mr and Mrs Floyd, the cocklers, are



sleeping as quiet as death, side by wrinkled side, toothless,



salt and brown, like two old kippers in a box.







And high above, in Salt Lake Farm, Mr Utah Watkins counts,



all night, the wife-faced sheep as they leap the fences on



the hill, smiling and knitting and bleating just like Mrs



Utah Watkins.







        UTAH WATKINS (Yawning)







Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, forty-eight,



eighty-nine...







        MRS UTAH WATKINS (Bleating)







Knit one slip one



Knit two together



Pass the slipstitch over...







        FIRST VOICE







Ocky Milkman, drowned asleep in Cockle Street, is emptying



his churns into the Dewi River,







        OCKY MILKMAN (Whispering)







regardless of expense,







        FIRST VOICE







and weeping like a funeral.







        SECOND VOICE







Cherry Owen, next door, lifts a tankard to his lips but nothing



flows out of it. He shakes the tankard. It turns into a



fish. He drinks the fish.







        FIRST VOICE







P.C. Attila Rees lumps out of bed, dead to the dark and still



foghorning, and drags out his helmet from under the bed;



but deep in the backyard lock-up of his sleep a mean voice



murmurs







        A VOICE (Murmuring)







You'll be sorry for this in the morning,







        FIRST VOICE







and he heave-ho's back to bed. His helmet swashes in the dark.







        SECOND VOICE







Willy Nilly, postman, asleep up street, walks fourteen miles



to deliver the post as he does every day of the night, and



rat-a-tats hard and sharp on Mrs Willy Nilly.







        MRS WILLY NILLY







Don't spank me, please, teacher,







        SECOND VOICE







whimpers his wife at his side, but every night of her married



life she has been late for school.







        FIRST VOICE







Sinbad Sailors, over the taproom of the Sailors Arms, hugs



his damp pillow whose secret name is Gossamer Beynon.







A mogul catches Lily Smalls in the wash-house.







        LILY SMALLS







Ooh, you old mogul!







        SECOND VOICE







Mrs Rose Cottage's eldest, Mae, peals off her pink-and-white



skin in a furnace in a tower in a cave in a waterfall in a



wood and waits there raw as an onion for Mister Right to



leap up the burning tall hollow splashes of leaves like a



brilliantined trout.







        MAE ROSE COTTAGE (Very close and softly, drawing



             out the words)







Call me Dolores



Like they do in the stories.







        FIRST VOICE







Alone until she dies, Bessie Bighead, hired help, born in



the workhouse, smelling of the cowshed, snores bass and



gruff on a couch of straw in a loft in Salt Lake Farm and



picks a posy of daisies in Sunday Meadow to put on the grave



of Gomer Owen who kissed her once by the pig-sty when she



wasn't looking and never kissed her again although she was



looking all the time.







And the Inspectors of Cruelty fly down into Mrs Butcher



Brynon's dream to persecute Mr Beynon for selling







        BUTCHER BEYNON







owlmeat, dogs' eyes, manchop.







        SECOND VOICE







Mr Beynon, in butcher's bloodied apron, spring-heels down



Coronation Street, a finger, not his own, in his mouth.



Straightfaced in his cunning sleep he pulls the legs of



his dreams and







        BUTCHER BEYNON







hunting on pigback shoots down the wild giblets.







        ORGAN MORGAN (High and softly)







Help!







        GOSSAMER BEYNON (Softly)







My foxy darling.







        FIRST VOICE







Now behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers in the



streets rocked to sleep by the sea, see the







        SECOND VOICE







titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and buttontops, bags and



bones, ash and rind and dandruff and nailparings, saliva



and snowflakes and moulted feathers of dreams, the wrecks



and sprats and shells and fishbones, whale-juice and moonshine



and small salt fry dished up by the hidden sea.







        FIRST VOICE







The owls are hunting. Look, over Bethesda gravestones one



hoots and swoops and catches a mouse by Hannah Rees, Beloved



Wife. And in Coronation Street, which you alone can see it



is so dark under the chapel in the skies, the Reverend Eli



Jenkins, poet, preacher, turns in his deep towards-dawn



sleep and dreams of







        REV. ELI JENKINS







Eisteddfodau.







SECOND VOICE







He intricately rhymes, to the music of crwth and pibgorn,



all night long in his druid's seedy nightie in a beer-tent



black with parchs.







        FIRST VOICE







Mr Pugh, schoolmaster, fathoms asleep, pretends to be sleeping,



spies foxy round the droop of his nightcap and pssst! whistles up







        MR PUGH







Murder.







        FIRST VOICE







Mrs Organ Morgan, groceress, coiled grey like a dormouse,



her paws to her ears, conjures







        MRS ORGAN MORGAN







Silence.







        SECOND VOICE







She sleeps very dulcet in a cove of wool, and trumpeting



Organ Morgan at her side snores no louder than a



spider.







        FIRST VOICE







Mary Ann Sailors dreams of







        MARY ANN SAILORS







The Garden of Eden.







        FIRST VOICE







She comes in her smock-frock and clogs







        MARY ANN SAILORS







away from the cool scrubbed cobbled kitchen with the



Sunday-school pictures on the whitewashed wall and the



farmers' almanac hung above the settle and the sides of



bacon on the ceiling hooks, and goes down the cockleshelled



paths of that applepie kitchen garden, ducking under the



gippo's clothespegs, catching her apron on the blackcurrant



bushes, past beanrows and onion-bed and tomatoes ripening



on the wall towards the old man playing the harmonium in



the orchard, and sits down on the grass at his side and



shells the green peas that grow up through the lap of her



frock that brushes the dew.







        FIRST VOICE







In Donkey Street, so furred with sleep, Dai Bread, Polly



Garter, Nogood Boyo, and Lord Cut-Glass sigh before the



dawn that is about to be and dream of







        DAI BREAD







Harems.







        POLLY GARTER







Babies.







        NOGOOD BOYO







Nothing.







        LORD CUT-GLASS







Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock.







        FIRST VOICE







Time passes. Listen. Time passes. An owl flies I home past



Bethesda, to a chapel in an oak. And the dawn inches up.







              [One distant bell-note, faintly reverberating







        FIRST VOICE







Stand on this hill. This is Llaregyb Hill, old as the hills,



high, cool, and green, and from this small circle, of stones,



made not by druids but by Mrs Beynon's Billy, you can see all



the town below you sleeping in the first of the dawn.







You can hear the love-sick woodpigeons mooning in bed. A dog



barks in his sleep, farmyards away. The town ripples like a



lake in the waking haze.







        VOICE OF A GUIDE-BOOK







Less than five hundred souls inhabit the three quaint streets



and the few narrow by-lanes and scattered farmsteads that



constitute this small, decaying watering-place which may,



indeed, be called a 'backwater of life' without disrespect



to its natives who possess, to this day, a salty individuality



of their own. The main street, Coronation Street, consists,



for the most part, of humble, two-storied houses many of which



attempt to achieve some measure of gaiety by prinking



themselves out in crude colours and by the liberal use of



pinkwash, though there are remaining a few eighteenth-century



houses of more pretension, if, on the whole, in a sad state



of disrepair. Though there is little to attract the hillclimber,



the healthseeker, the sportsman, or the weekending motorist,



the contemplative may, if sufficiently attracted to spare



it some leisurely hours, find, in its cobbled streets and



its little fishing harbour, in its several curious customs,



and in the conversation of its local 'characters,' some of



that picturesque sense of the past so frequently lacking in



towns and villages which have kept more abreast of the times.



The one place of worship, with its neglected graveyard, is of



no architectural interest. The River Dewi is said to abound in



trout, but is much poached.







                              [A cock crows







        FIRST VOICE







The principality of the sky lightens now, over our green



hill, into spring morning larked and crowed and belling.







                           [Slow bell notes







        FIRST VOICE







Who pulls the townhall bellrope but blind Captain Cat? One



by one, the sleepers are rung out of sleep this one morning



as every morning. And soon you shall see the chimneys' slow



upflying snow as Captain Cat, in sailor's cap and seaboots,



announces to-day with his loud get-out-of-bed bell.







        SECOND VOICE







The Reverend Eli Jenkins, in Bethesda House, gropes out of



bed into his preacher's black, combs back his bard's white



hair, forgets to wash, pads barefoot downstairs, opens the



front door, stands in the doorway and, looking out at the



day and up at the eternal hill, and hearing the sea break



and the gab of birds, remembers his own verses and tells



them softly to empty Coronation Street that is rising and



raising its blinds.







        REV. ELI JENKINS







Dear Gwalia! I know there are



Towns lovelier than ours,



And fairer hills and loftier far,



And groves more full of flowers,







And boskier woods more blithe with spring



And bright with birds' adorning,



And sweeter bards than I to sing



Their praise this beauteous morning.







By Cader Idris, tempest-torn,



Or Moel yr Wyddfa's glory,



Carnedd Llewelyn beauty born,



Plinlimmon old in story,







By mountains where King Arthur dreams,



By Penmaenmawr defiant,



Llaregyb Hill a molehill seems,



A pygmy to a giant.







By Sawdde, Senny, Dovey, Dee,



Edw, Eden, Aled, all,



Taff and Towy broad and free,



Llyfnant with its waterfall,







Claerwen, Cleddau, Dulais, Daw,



Ely, Gwili, Ogwr, Nedd,



Small is our River Dewi, Lord,



A baby on a rushy bed.







By Carreg Cennen, King of time,



Our Heron Head is only



A bit of stone with seaweed spread



Where gulls come to be lonely.







A tiny dingle is Milk Wood



By Golden Grove 'neath Grongar,



But let me choose and oh! I should



Love all my life and longer







To stroll among our trees and stray



In Goosegog Lane, on Donkey Down,



And hear the Dewi sing all day,



And never, never leave the town.







        SECOND VOICE







The Reverend Jenkins closes the front door. His morning



service is over.







                           [Slow bell notes







        FIRST VOICE







Now, woken at last by the out-of-bed-sleepy-head-Polly-put-



the-kettle-on townhall bell, Lily Smalls, Mrs Beynon's



treasure, comes downstairs from a dream of royalty who all



night long went larking with her full of sauce in the Milk



Wood dark, and puts the kettle on the primus ring in Mrs



Beynon's kitchen, and looks at herself in Mr Beynon's



shaving-glass over the sink, and sees:







        LILY SMALLS







Oh there's a face!



Where you get that hair from?



Got it from a old tom cat.



Give it back then, love.



Oh there's a perm!







Where you get that nose from, Lily?



Got it from my father, silly.



You've got it on upside down!



Oh there's a conk!







Look at your complexion!



Oh no, you look.



Needs a bit of make-up.



Needs a veil.



Oh there's glamour!







Where you get that smile,



Lil? Never you mind, girl.



Nobody loves you.



That's what you think.







Who is it loves you?



Shan't tell.



Come on, Lily.



Cross your heart then?



Cross my heart.







        FIRST VOICE







And very softly, her lips almost touching her reflection,



she breathes the name and clouds the shaving-glass.







        MRS BEYNON (Loudly, from above)







Lily!







        LILY SMALLS (Loudly)







Yes, mum.







        MRS BEYNON







Where's my tea, girl?







        LILY SMALLS







(Softly) Where d'you think? In the cat-box?







(Loudly) Coming up, mum.







        FIRST VOICE







Mr Pugh, in the School House opposite, takes up the morning



tea to Mrs Pugh, and whispers on the stairs







        MR. PUGH







Here's your arsenic, dear.



And your weedkiller biscuit.



I've throttled your parakeet.



I've spat in the vases.



I've put cheese in the mouseholes.



Here's your...                    [Door creaks open



        ...nice tea, dear.







        MRS PUGH







Too much sugar.







        MR PUGH







You haven't tasted it yet, dear.







        MRS PUGH







Too much milk, then. Has Mr Jenkins said his poetry?







        MR PUGH







Yes, dear.







        MRS PUGH







Then it's time to get up. Give me my glasses.







No, not my reading glasses, I want to look out.



I want to see







        SECOND VOICE







Lily Smalls the treasure down on her red knees washing the



front step.







        MRS PUGH







She's tucked her dress in her bloomers--oh, the baggage!







        SECOND VOICE







P.C. Attila Rees, ox-broad, barge-booted, stamping out of



Handcuff House in a heavy beef-red huff, black browed under



his damp helmet...







        MRS PUGH







He's going to arrest Polly Garter, mark my words.







        MR PUGH







What for, dear?







        MRS PUGH







For having babies.







        SECOND VOICE







...and lumbering down towards the strand to see that the



sea is still there.







        FIRST VOICE







Mary Ann Sailors, opening her bedroom window above the



taproom and calling out to the heavens







        MARY ANN SAILORS







I'm eighty-five years three months and a day!







        MRS PUGH







I will say this for her, she never makes a mistake.







        FIRST VOICE







Organ Morgan at his bedroom window playing chords on the



sill to the morning fishwife gulls who, heckling over Donkey



Street, observe







        DAI BREAD







Me, Dai Bread, hurrying to the bakery, pushing in my



shirt-tails, buttoning my waistcoat, ping goes a button,



why can't they sew them, no time for breakfast, nothing for



breakfast, there's wives for you.







        MRS DAI BREAD ONE







Me, Mrs Dai Bread One, capped and shawled and no old corset,



nice to be comfy, nice to be nice, clogging on the cobbles



to stir up a neighbour. Oh, Mrs Sarah, can you spare a loaf,



love? Dai Bread forgot the bread. There's a lovely morning!



How's your boils this morning? Isn't that good news now,



it's a change to sit down. Ta, Mrs Sarah.







        MRS DAI BREAD TWO







Me, Mrs Dai Bread Two, gypsied to kill in a silky scarlet



petticoat above my knees, dirty pretty knees, see my body



through my petticoat brown as a berry, high-heel shoes with



one heel missing, tortoiseshell comb in my bright black



slinky hair, nothing else at all but a dab of scent, lolling



gaudy at the doorway, tell your fortune in the tea-leaves,



scowling at the sunshine, lighting up my pipe.







        LORD CUT-GLASS







Me, Lord Cut-Glass, in an old frock-coat belonged to Eli



Jenkins and a pair of postman's trousers from Bethesda



Jumble, running out of doors to empty slops--mind there,



Rover!--and then running in again, tick tock.







        NOGOOD BOYO







Me, Nogood Boyo, up to no good in the wash-house







        MISS PRICE







Me, Miss Price, in my pretty print housecoat, deft at the



clothesline, natty as a jenny-wren, then pit-pat back to my



egg in its cosy, my crisp toast-fingers, my home-made plum



and butterpat.







        POLLY GARTER







Me, Polly Garter, under the washing line, giving the breast



in the garden to my bonny new baby. Nothing grows in our



garden, only washing. And babies. And where's their fathers



live, my love? Over the hills and far away. You're looking



up at me now. I know what you're thinking, you poor little



milky creature. You're thinking, you're no better than you



should be, Polly, and that's good enough for me. Oh, isn't



life a terrible thing, thank God?







                 [Single long high chord on strings







        FIRST VOICE







Now frying-pans spit, kettles and cats purr in the kitchen.



The town smells of seaweed and breakfast all the way down



from Bay View, where Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard, in smock and turban,



big-besomed to engage the dust, picks at her starchless bread



and sips lemon-rind tea, to Bottom Cottage, where Mr Waldo,



in bowler and bib, gobbles his bubble-and-squeak and kippers



and swigs from the saucebottle. Mary Ann Sailors







        MARY ANN SAILORS







praises the Lord who made porridge.







        FIRST VOICE







Mr Pugh







        MR PUGH







remembers ground glass as he juggles his omelet.







        FIRST VOICE







Mrs Pugh







        MRS PUGH







nags the salt-cellar.







        FIRST VOICE







Willy Nilly postman







        WILLY NILLY







downs his last bucket of black brackish tea and rumbles out



bandy to the clucking back where the hens twitch and grieve



for their tea-soaked sops.







        FIRST VOICE







Mrs Willy Nilly







        MRS WILLY NILLY







full of tea to her double-chinned brim broods and bubbles



over her coven of kettles on the hissing hot range always



ready to steam open the mail.







        FIRST VOICE







The Reverend Eli Jenkins







        REV. ELI JENKINS







finds a rhyme and dips his pen in his cocoa.







        FIRST VOICE







Lord Cut-Glass in his ticking kitchen







        LORD CUT-GLASS







scampers from clock to clock, a bunch of clock-keys in one



hand, a fish-head in the other.







        FIRST VOICE







Captain Cat in his galley







        CAPTAIN CAT







blind and fine-fingered savours his sea-fry.







        FIRST VOICE







Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen, in their Donkey Street room that is



bedroom, parlour, kitchen, and scullery, sit down to last



night's supper of onions boiled in their overcoats and broth



of spuds and baconrind and leeks and bones.







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







See that smudge on the wall by the picture of Auntie Blossom?



That's where you threw the sago.







                    [Cherry Owen laughs with delight







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







You only missed me by a inch.







        CHERRY OWEN







I always miss Auntie Blossom too.







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







Remember last night? In you reeled, my boy, as drunk as a



deacon with a big wet bucket and a fish-frail full of stout



and you looked at me and you said, 'God has come home!' you



said, and then over the bucket you went, sprawling and



bawling, and the floor was all flagons and eels.







        CHERRY OWEN







Was I wounded?







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







And then you took off your trousers and you said, 'Does



anybody want a fight!' Oh, you old baboon.







        CHERRY OWEN







Give me a kiss.







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







And then you sang 'Bread of Heaven,' tenor and bass.







        CHERRY OWEN







I always sing 'Bread of Heaven.'







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







And then you did a little dance on the table.







        CHERRY OWEN







I did?



        MRS CHERRY OWEN







Drop dead!







        CHERRY OWEN







And then what did I do?







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







Then you cried like a baby and said you were a poor drunk



orphan with nowhere to go but the grave.







        CHERRY OWEN







And what did I do next, my dear?







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







Then you danced on the table all over again and said you



were King Solomon Owen and I was your Mrs Sheba.







        CHERRY OWEN (Softy)







And then?







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







And then I got you into bed and you snored all night like



a brewery.







         [Mr and Mrs Cherry Owen laugh delightedly together







        FIRST VOICE







From Beynon Butchers in Coronation Street, the smell of



fried liver sidles out with onions on its breath. And listen!



In the dark breakfast-room behind the shop, Mr and Mrs Beynon,



waited upon by their treasure, enjoy, between bites, their



everymorning hullabaloo, and Mrs Beynon slips the gristly



bits under the tasselled tablecloth to her fat cat.







                         [Cat purrs







        MRS BEYNON







She likes the liver, Ben.







        MR BEYNON







She ought to do, Bess. It's her brother's.







        MRS BEYNON (Screaming)







Oh, d'you hear that, Lily?







        LILY SMALLS







Yes, mum.







        MRS BEYNON







We're eating pusscat.







        LILY SMALLS







Yes, mum.







        MRS BEYNON







Oh, you cat-butcher!







        MR BEYNON







It was doctored, mind.







        MRS BEYNON (Hysterical)







What's that got to do with it?







        MR BEYNON







Yesterday we had mole.







        MRS BEYNON







Oh, Lily, Lily!







        MR BEYNON







Monday, otter. Tuesday, shrews.







                        [Mrs Beynon screams







        LILY SMALLS







Go on, Mrs Beynon. He's the biggest liar in town.







        MRS BEYNON







Don't you dare say that about Mr Beynon.







        LILY SMALLS







Everybody knows it, mum.







        MRS BEYNON







Mr Beynon never tells a lie. Do you, Ben?







MR BEYNON







No, Bess. And now I am going out after the corgies, with my



little cleaver.







        MRS BEYNON







Oh, Lily, Lily!







        FIRST VOICE







Up the street, in the Sailors Arms, Sinbad Sailors, grandson



of Mary Ann Sailors, draws a pint in the sunlit bar. The



ship's clock in the bar says half past eleven. Half past



eleven is opening time. The hands of the clock have stayed



still at half past eleven for fifty years. It is always



opening time in the Sailors Arms.







        SINBAD







Here's to me, Sinbad.







        FIRST VOICE







All over the town, babies and old men are cleaned and put into



their broken prams and wheeled on to the sunlit cockled cobbles



or out into the backyards under the dancing underclothes, and



left. A baby cries.







        OLD MAN







I want my pipe and he wants his bottle.







                         [School bell rings







        FIRST VOICE







Noses are wiped, heads picked, hair combed, paws scrubbed,



ears boxed, and the children shrilled off to school.







        SECOND VOICE







Fishermen grumble to their nets. Nogood Boyo goes out in



the dinghy Zanzibar, ships the oars, drifts slowly in the



dab-filled bay, and, lying on his back in the unbaled water,



among crabs' legs and tangled lines, looks up at the



spring sky.







        NOGOOD BOYO (Softly, lazily)







I don't know who's up there and I don't care.







        FIRST VOICE







He turns his head and looks up at Llaregyb Hill, and sees,



among green lathered trees, the white houses of the strewn



away farms, where farmboys whistle, dogs shout, cows low,



but all too far away for him, or you, to hear. And in the



town, the shops squeak open. Mr Edwards, in butterfly-collar



and straw-hat at the doorway of Manchester House, measures



with his eye the dawdlers-by for striped flannel shirts and



shrouds and flowery blouses, and bellows to himself in the



darkness behind his eye







        MR EDWARDS (Whispers)







I love Miss Price.







        FIRST VOICE







Syrup is sold in the post-office. A car drives to market,



full of fowls and a farmer. Milk-churns stand at Coronation



Corner like short silver policemen. And, sitting at the



open window of Schooner House, blind Captain Cat hears all



the morning of the town.







                 [School bell in background.



                 Children's voices. The noise of



                 children's feet on the cobbles







        CAPTAIN CAT (Softly, to himself)







Maggie Richards, Ricky Rhys, Tommy Powell, our Sal, little



Gerwain, Billy Swansea with the dog's voice, one of Mr



Waldo's, nasty Humphrey, Jackie with the sniff....Where's



Dicky's Albie? and the boys from Ty-pant? Perhaps they got



the rash again.







          [A sudden cry among the children's voices







        CAPTAIN CAT







Somebody's hit Maggie Richards. Two to one it's Billy Swansea.



Never trust a boy who barks.







        [A burst of yelping crying







Right again! It's Billy.







        FIRST VOICE







And the children's voices cry away.







              [Postman's rat-a-tat on door, distant







        CAPTAIN CAT (Softly, to himself)







That's Willy Nilly knocking at Bay View. Rat-a-tat, very



soft. The knocker's got a kid glove on. Who's sent a letter



to Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard?







                  [Rat-a-tat, distant again







        CAPTAIN CAT







Careful now, she swabs the front glassy. Every step's like



a bar of soap. Mind your size twelveses. That old Bessie



would beeswax the lawn to make the birds slip.







        WILLY NILLY







Morning, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







Good morning, postman.







        WILLY NILLY







Here's a letter for you with stamped and addressed envelope



enclosed, all the way from Builth Wells. A gentleman wants



to study birds and can he have accommodation for two weeks



and a bath vegetarian.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







No.



        WILLY NILLY (Persuasively)







You wouldn't know he was in the house, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard.



He'd be out in the mornings at the bang of dawn with his bag



of breadcrumbs and his little telescope...







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







And come home at all hours covered with feathers. I don't



want persons in my nice clean rooms breathing all over the



chairs...







        WILLY NILLY







Cross my heart, he won't breathe.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







...and putting their feet on my carpets and sneezing on my



china and sleeping in my sheets...







        WILLY NILLY







He only wants a single bed, Mrs Ogmore. Pritchard.







                        [Door slams







        CAPTAIN CAT (Softly)







And back she goes to the kitchen to polish the potatoes.







        FIRST VOICE







Captain Cat hears Willy Nilly's feet heavy on the distant



cobbles.







        CAPTAIN CAT







One, two, three, four, five...That's Mrs Rose Cottage.



What's to-day? To-day she gets the letter from her sister



in Gorslas. How's the twins' teeth?







He's stopping at School House.







        WILLY NILLY







Morning, Mrs Pugh. Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard won't have a



gentleman in from Builth Wells because he'll sleep in her



sheets, Mrs Rose Cottage's sister in Gorslas's twins have



got to have them out...







        MRS PUGH







Give me the parcel.







        WILLY NILLY







It's for Mr Pugh, Mrs Pugh.







        MRS PUGH







Never you mind. What's inside it?







        WILLY NILLY







A book called Lives of the Great Poisoners.







        CAPTAIN CAT







That's Manchester House.







        WILLY NILLY







Morning, Mr Edwards. Very small news. Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard



won't have birds in the house, and Mr Pugh's bought a book



now on how to do in Mrs Pugh.







        MR EDWARDS







Have you got a letter from her?







        WILLY NILLY







Miss Price loves you with all her heart. Smelling of lavender



to-day. She's down to the last of the elderflower wine but



the quince jam's bearing up and she's knitting roses on the



doilies. Last week she sold three jars of boiled sweets,



pound of humbugs, half a box of jellybabies and six coloured



photos of Llaregyb. Yours for ever. Then twenty-one X's.







        MR EDWARDS







Oh, Willy Nilly, she's a ruby! Here's my letter. Put it



into her hands now.







            [Slow feet on cobbles, quicker feet approaching







        CAPTAIN CAT







Mr Waldo hurrying to the Sailors Arms. Pint of stout with



a egg in it.                 [Footsteps stop







(Softly) There's a letter for him.







        WILLY NILLY







It's another paternity summons, Mr Waldo.







        FIRST VOICE







The quick footsteps hurry on along the cobbles and up



three steps to the Sailors Arms.







        MR WALDO (Calling out)







Quick, Sinbad. Pint of stout. And no egg in.







        FIRST VOICE







People are moving now up and down the cobbled street.







        CAPTAIN CAT







All the women are out this morning, in the sun. You can



tell it's Spring. There goes Mrs Cherry, you can tell her



by her trotters, off she trots new as a daisy. Who's that



talking by the pump? Mrs Floyd and Boyo, talking flatfish.



What can you talk about flatfish? That's Mrs Dai Bread



One, waltzing up the street like a jelly, every time she



shakes it's slap slap slap. Who's that? Mrs Butcher Beynon



with her pet black cat, it follows her everywhere, miaow



and all. There goes Mrs Twenty-Three, important, the sun



gets up and goes down in her dewlap, when she shuts her



eyes, it's night. High heels now, in the morning too, Mrs



Rose Cottage's eldest Mae, seventeen and never been kissed



ho ho, going young and milking under my window to the



field with the nannygoats, she reminds me all the way.



Can't hear what the women are gabbing round the pump. Same



as ever. Who's having a baby, who blacked whose eye, seen



Polly Garter giving her belly an airing, there should be



a law, seen Mrs Beynon's new mauve jumper, it's her old



grey jumper dyed, who's dead, who's dying, there's a



lovely day, oh the cost of soapflakes!







                                      [Organ music, distant







        CAPTAIN CAT







Organ Morgan's at it early. You can tell it's Spring.







        FIRST VOICE







And he hears the noise of milk-cans.







        CAPTAIN CAT







Ocky Milkman on his round. I will say this, his milk's as



fresh as the dew. Half dew it is. Snuffle on, Ocky,



watering the town...Somebody's coming. Now the voices



round the pump can see somebody coming. Hush, there's a



hush! You can tell by the noise of the hush, it's Polly



Garter. (Louder) Hullo, Polly, who's there?







        POLLY GARTER (Off)







Me, love.







        CAPTAIN CAT







That's Polly Garter. (Softly) Hullo, Polly my love, can



you hear the dumb goose-hiss of the wives as they huddle



and peck or flounce at a waddle away? Who cuddled you



when? Which of their gandering hubbies moaned in Milk Wood



for your naughty mothering arms and body like a wardrobe,



love? Scrub the floors of the Welfare Hall for the



Mothers' Union Social Dance, you're one mother won't



wriggle her roly poly bum or pat her fat little buttery



feet in that wedding-ringed holy to-night though the



waltzing breadwinners snatched from the cosy smoke of the



Sailors Arms will grizzle and mope.







                                              [A cock crows







        CAPTAIN CAT







Too late, cock, too late







        SECOND VOICE







for the town's half over with its morning. The morning's



busy as bees.







                            [Organ music fades into silence







        FIRST VOICE







There's the clip clop of horses on the sunhoneyed cobbles



of the humming streets, hammering of horse- shoes, gobble



quack and cackle, tomtit twitter from the bird-ounced



boughs, braying on Donkey Down. Bread is baking, pigs are



grunting, chop goes the butcher, milk-churns bell, tills



ring, sheep cough, dogs shout, saws sing. Oh, the Spring



whinny and morning moo from the clog dancing farms, the



gulls' gab and rabble on the boat-bobbing river and sea



and the cockles bubbling in the sand, scamper of



sanderlings, curlew cry, crow caw, pigeon coo, clock



strike, bull bellow, and the ragged gabble of the



beargarden school as the women scratch and babble in Mrs



Organ Morgan's general shop where everything is sold:



custard, buckets, henna, rat-traps, shrimp-nets, sugar,



stamps, confetti, paraffin, hatchets, whistles.







        FIRST WOMAN







Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard







        SECOND WOMAN







la di da







        FIRST WOMAN







got a man in Builth Wells







        THIRD WOMAN







and he got a little telescope to look at birds







        SECOND WOMAN







Willy Nilly said







        THIRD WOMAN







Remember her first husband? He didn't need a telescope







        FIRST WOMAN







he looked at them undressing through the keyhole







        THIRD WOMAN







and he used to shout Tallyho







        SECOND WOMAN







but Mr Ogmore was a proper gentleman







        FIRST WOMAN







even though he hanged his collie.







        THIRD WOMAN







Seen Mrs Butcher Beynon?







        SECOND WOMAN







she said Butcher Beynon put dogs in the mincer







        FIRST WOMAN







go on, he's pulling her leg







        THIRD WOMAN







now don't you dare tell her that, there's a dear







        SECOND WOMAN







or she'll think he's trying to pull it off and eat it,







        FOURTH WOMAN







There's a nasty lot live here when you come to think.







        FIRST WOMAN







Look at that Nogood Boyo now







        SECOND WOMAN







too lazy to wipe his snout







        THIRD WOMAN







and going out fishing every day and all he ever brought



back was a Mrs Samuels







        FIRST WOMAN







been in the water a week.







        SECOND WOMAN







And look at Ocky Milkman's wife that nobody's ever seen







        FIRST WOMAN







he keeps her in the cupboard with the empties







        THIRD WOMAN







and think of Dai Bread with two wives







        SECONE WOMAN







one for the daytime one for the night.







        FOURTH WOMAN







Men are brutes on the quiet.







        THIRD WOMAN







And how's Organ Morgan, Mrs Morgan?







        FIRST WOMAN







you look dead beat







        SECOND WOMAN







it's organ organ all the time with him







        THIRD WOMAN







up every night until midnight playing the organ.







        MRS ORGAN MORGAN







Oh, I'm a martyr to music.







        FIRST VOICE







Outside, the sun springs down on the rough and tumbling



town. It runs through the hedges of Goosegog Lane, cuffing



the birds to sing. Spring whips green down Cockle Row, and



the shells ring out. Llaregyb this snip of a morning is



wildfruit and warm, the streets, fields, sands and waters



springing in the young sun.







        SECOND VOICE







Evans the Death presses hard with black gloves on the



coffin of his breast in case his heart jumps out,







        EVANS THE DEATH (Harshly)







Where's your dignity. Lie down.







        SECOND VOICE







Spring stirs Gossamer Beynon schoolmistress like spoon.







        GOSSAMER BEYNON (Tearfully)







Oh, what can I do? I'll never be refined if I twitch.







        SECOND VOICE







Spring this strong morning foams in a flame in Jack Black



as he cobbles a high-heeled shoe for Mrs Dai Bread Two the



gypsy, but he hammers it sternly out.







        JACK BLACK (To a hammer rhythm)







There is no leg belonging to the foot that belongs to this



shoe.







        SECOND VOICE







The sun and the green breeze ship Captain Cat sea-memory



again.







        CAPTAIN CAT







No, I'll take the mulatto, by God, who's captain here?



Parlez-vous jig jig, Madam?







        SECOND VOICE







Mary Ann Sailors says very softly to herself as she looks



out at Llaregyb Hill from the bedroom where she was born







        MARY ANN SAILORS (Loudly)







It is Spring in Llaregyb in the sun in my old age, and



this is the Chosen Land.







    [A choir of children's voices suddenly cries out on one,



                              high, glad, long, sighing note







        FIRST VOICE







And in Willy Nilly the Postman's dark and sizzling damp



tea-coated misty pygmy kitchen where the spittingcat



kettles throb and hop on the range, Mrs Willy Nilly steams



open Mr Mog Edwards' letter to Miss Myfanwy Price and



reads it aloud to Willy Nilly by the squint of the Spring



sun through the one sealed window running with tears,



while the drugged, bedraggled hens at the back door



whimper and snivel for the lickerish bog-black tea.







        MRS WILLY NILLY







From Manchester House, Llaregyb. Sole Prop: Mr Mog Edwards



(late of Twll), Linendraper, Haberdasher, Master Tailor,



Costumier. For West End Negligee, Lingerie, Teagowns,



Evening Dress, Trousseaux, Layettes. Also Ready to Wear



for All Occasions. Economical Outfitting for Agricultural



Employment Our Speciality, Wardrobes Bought. Among Our



Satisfied Customers Ministers of Religion and J.P.'s.



Fittings by Appointment. Advertising Weekly in the Twll



Bugle. Beloved Myfanwy Price my Bride in Heaven,







        MOG EDWARDS







I love you until Death do us part and then we shall be



together for ever and ever. A new parcel of ribbons has



come from Carmarthen to-day, all the colours in the



rainbow. I wish I could tie a ribbon in your hair a white



one but it cannot be. I dreamed last night you were all



dripping wet and you sat on my lap as the Reverend Jenkins



went down the street. I see you got a mermaid in your lap



he said and he lifted his hat. He is a proper Christian.



Not like Cherry Owen who said you should have thrown her



back he said. Business is very poorly. Polly Garter bought



two garters with roses but she never got stockings so what



is the use I say. Mr Waldo tried to sell me a woman's



nightie outsize he said he found it and we know where. I



sold a packet of pins to Sinbad Sailors to pick his



teeth. If this goes on I shall be in the workhouse. My



heart is in your bosom and yours is in mine. God be with



you always Myfanwy Price and keep you lovely for me in His



Heavenly Mansion. I must stop now and remain, Your Eternal,



Mog Edwards.







        MRS WILLY NILLY







And then a little message with a rubber stamp. Shop at



Mog's!!!







        FIRST VOICE.







And Willy Nilly, rumbling, jockeys out again to the



three-seated shack called the House of Commons in the back



where the hens weep, and sees, in sudden Springshine,







        SECOND VOICE







herring gulls heckling down to the harbour where the



fishermen spit and prop the morning up and eye the fishy



sea smooth to the sea's end as it lulls in blue. Green and



gold money, tobacco, tinned salmon, hats with feathers,



pots of fish-paste, warmth for the winter-to-be, weave and



leap in it rich and slippery in the flash and shapes of



fishes through the cold sea-streets. But with blue lazy



eyes the fishermen gaze at that milkmaid whispering water



with no nick or ripple as though it blew great guns and



serpents and typhooned the town.







        FISHERMAN







Too rough for fishing to-day.







        SECOND VOICE







And they thank God, and gob at a gull for luck, and



moss-slow and silent make their way uphill, from the still



still sea, towards the Sailors Arms as the children







                                               [School bell







        FIRST VOICE







spank and scamper rough and singing out of school into the



draggletail yard. And Captain Cat at his window says soft



to himself the words of their song.







        CAPTAIN CAT (To the beat of the singing)







Johnnie Crack and Flossie Snail



Kept their baby in a milking pail



Flossie Snail and Johnnie Crack



One would pull it out and one would put it back







O it's my turn now said Flossie Snail



To take the baby from the milking pail



And it's my turn now said Johnnie Crack



To smack it on the head and put it back







Johnnie Crack and Flossie Snail



Kept their baby in a milking pail



One would put it back and one would pull it out



And all it had to drink was ale and stout



For Johnnie Crack and Flossie Snail



Always used to say that stout and ale



Was good for a baby in a milking pail.







                                                [Long pause







        FIRST VOICE







The music of the spheres is heard distinctly over Milk



Wood. It is 'The Rustle of Spring.'







        SECOND VOICE







A glee-party sings in Bethesda Graveyard, gay but muffled.







        FIRST VOICE







Vegetables make love above the tenors







SECOND VOICE







and dogs bark blue in the face.







        FIRST VOICE







Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard belches in a teeny hanky and chases



the sunlight with a flywhisk, but even she cannot drive



out the Spring: from one of the finger-bowls a primrose



grows.







        SECOND VOICE







Mrs Dai Bread One and Mrs Dai Bread Two are sitting



outside their house in Donkey Lane, one darkly one plumply



blooming in the quick, dewy sun. Mrs Dai Bread Two is



looking into a crystal ball which she holds in the lap of



her dirty yellow petticoat, hard against her hard dark



thighs.







        MRS DAI BREAD TWO







Cross my palm with silver. Out of our housekeeping money.



Aah!







        MRS DAI BREAD ONE







What d'you see, lovie?







        MRS DAI BREAD TWO







I see a featherbed. With three pillows on it. And a text



above the bed. I can't read what it says, there's great



clouds blowing. Now they have blown away. God is Love, the



text says.







        MRS DAI BREAD ONE (Delighted)







That's our bed.







        MRS DAI BREAD TWO







And now it's vanished. The sun's spinning like a top.



Who's this coming out of the sun? It's a hairy little man



with big pink lips. He got a wall eye.







        MRS DAI BREAD ONE







It's Dai, it's Dai Bread!







MRS DAI BREAD TWO







Ssh! The featherbed's floating back. The little man's



taking his boots off. He's pulling his shirt over his



head. He's beating his chest with his fists. He's



climbing into bed.







        MRS DAI BREAD ONE







Go on, go on.







        MRS DAI BREAD TWO







There's two women in bed. He looks at them both, with his



head cocked on one side. He's whistling through his teeth.



Now he grips his little arms round one of the women.







        MRS DAI BREAD ONE







Which one, which one?







MRS DAI BREAD TWO







I can't see any more. There's great clouds blowing again.







        MRS DAI BREAD ONE







Ach, the mean old clouds!







                       [Pause. The children's singing fades







        FIRST VOICE







The morning is all singing. The Reverend Eli Jenkins, busy



on his morning calls, stops outside the Welfare Hall to



hear Polly Garter as she scrubs the floors for the



Mothers' Union Dance to-night.







        POLLY GARTER (Singing)







I loved a man whose name was Tom



He was strong as a bear and two yards long



I loved a man whose name was Dick



He was big as a barrel and three feet thick



And I loved a man whose name was Harry



Six feet tall and sweet as a cherry



But the one I loved best awake or asleep



Was little Willy Wee and he's six feet deep.







O Tom Dick and Harry were three fine men



And I'll never have such loving again



But little Willy Wee who took me on his knee



Little Willy Wee was the man for me.







Now men from every parish round



Run after me and roll me on the ground



But whenever I love another man back



Johnnie from the Hill or Sailing Jack



I always think as they do what they please



Of Tom Dick and Harry who were tall as trees



And most I think when I'm by their side



Of little Willy Wee who downed and died.







O Tom Dick and Harry were three fine men



And I'll never have such loving again



But little Willy Wee who took me on his knee



Little Willy Weazel was the man for me.







        REV. ELI JENKINS







Praise the Lord! We are a musical nation.







        SECOND VOICE







And the Reverend Jenkins hurries on through the town to



visit the sick with jelly and poems.







        FIRST VOICE







The town's as full as a lovebird's egg.







        MR WALDO







There goes the Reverend,







        FIRST VOICE







says Mr Waldo at the smoked herring brown window of the



unwashed Sailors Arms,







        MR WALDO







with his brolly and his odes. Fill 'em up, Sinbad, I'm on



the treacle to-day.







        SECOND VOICE







The silent fishermen flush down their pints.







        SINBAD







Oh, Mr Waldo,







        FIRST VOICE







sighs Sinbad Sailors,







        SINBAD







I dote on that Gossamer Beynon.







        FIRST VOICE







Love, sings the spring. The bedspring grass bounces



under bird's bums and lambs. And Gossamer Beynon, school



teacher, spoon-stirred and quivering, teaches her



slubberdegulleon class.







        CHILDREN'S VOICES







It was a lover and his lass, with a hey and a ho and a hey



nonny no







        GOSSAMER BEYNON







Now, now, now, your accents, children. It was a lover and



his lass, with a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no







        SINBAD SAILORS







Oh, Mr Waldo







        FIRST VOICE







says Sinbad Sailors







        SINBAD SAILORS







She's a lady all over.







        FIRST VOICE







And Mr Waldo, who is thinking of a woman soft as Eve and



sharp as sciatica to share his bread-pudding bed, answers







        MR WALDO







No lady that I know is







        SINBAD







And if only grandma'd die, cross my heart I'd go down on



my knees Mr Waldo and I'd say Miss Gossamer I'd say







        CHILDREN'S VOICES







When birds do sing hey ding a ding a ding



Sweet lovers love the Spring...







        SECOND VOICE







Polly Garter sings, still on her knees,







        POLLY GARTER







Tom Dick and Harry were three fine men



And I'll never have such







        CHILDREN







                ding a ding







        POLLY GARTER







                        again.







        FIRST VOICE







And the morning school is over, and Captain Cat at his



curtained schooner's porthole open to the Spring sun tides



hears the naughty forfeiting children tumble and rhyme on



the cobbles.







        GIRLS' VOICES







Gwennie call the boys



They make such a noise.







        GIRL







Boys boys boys



Come along to me







        GIRLS' VOICES







Boys boys boys



Kiss Gwennie where she says



Or give her a penny.



Go on, Gwennie.







        GIRL







Kiss me in Goosegog Lane



Or give me a penny.



What's your name?







        FIRST BOY







Billy.







        GIRL







Kiss me in Goosegog Lane Billy



Or give me a penny silly.







        FIRST BOY







Gwennie Gwennie



I kiss you in Goosegog Lane.



Now I haven't got to give you a penny.







        GIRLS' VOICES







Boys boys boys



Kiss Gwennie where she says



Or give her a penny.



Go on, Gwennie.







        GIRL







Kiss me on Llaregyb Hill



Or give me a penny.



What's your name?







        SECOND BOY







Johnnie Cristo.







        GIRL







Kiss me on Llaregyb Hill Johnnie Cristo



Or give me a penny mister.







        SECOND BOY







Gwennie Gwennie



I kiss you on Llaregyb Hill.



Now I haven't got to give you a penny.







        GIRLS' VOICES







Boys boys boys



Kiss Gwennie where she says



Or give her a penny.



Go on, Gwennie.







        GIRL







Kiss me in Milk Wood



Or give me a penny.



What's your name?







        THIRD BOY







Dicky.







        GIRL







Kiss me in Milk Wood Dicky



Or give me a penny quickly.







        THIRD BOY







Gwennie Gwennie



I can't kiss you in Milk Wood.







        GIRLS' VOICES







Gwennie ask him why.







        GIRL







Why?







        THIRD BOY







Because my mother says I mustn't.







        GIRLS' VOICES







Cowardy cowardy custard



Give Gwennie a penny.







        GIRL







Give me a penny.







        THIRD BOY







I haven't got any.







        GIRLS' VOICES







Put him in the river



Up to his liver



Quick quick Dirty Dick



Beat him on the bum



With a rhubarb stick.



Aiee!



Hush!







        FIRST VOICE







And the shrill girls giggle and master around him and



squeal as they clutch and thrash, and he blubbers away



downhill with his patched pants falling, and his



tear-splashed blush burns all the way as the triumphant



bird-like sisters scream with buttons in their claws and



the bully brothers hoot after him his little nickname and



his mother's shame and his father's wickedness with the



loose wild barefoot women of the hovels of the hills. It



all means nothing at all, and, howling for his milky mum,



for her cawl and buttermilk and cowbreath and welshcakes



and the fat birth-smelling bed and moonlit kitchen of her



arms, he'll never forget as he paddles blind home through



the weeping end of the world. Then his tormentors tussle



and run to the Cockle Street sweet-shop, their pennies



sticky as honey, to buy from Miss Myfanwy Price, who is



cocky and neat as a puff-bosomed robin and her small round



buttocks tight as ticks, gobstoppers big as wens that



rainbow as you suck, brandyballs, winegums, hundreds and



thousands, liquorice sweet as sick, nougat to tug and



ribbon out like another red rubbery tongue, gum to glue



in girls' curls, crimson coughdrops to spit blood,



ice-cream cornets, dandelion-and-burdock, raspberry and



cherryade, pop goes the weasel and the wind.







        SECOND VOICE







Gossamer Beynon high-heels out of school The sun hums down



through the cotton flowers of her dress into the bell of



her heart and buzzes in the honey there and couches and



kisses, lazy-loving and boozed, in her red-berried breast.



Eyes run from the trees and windows of the street,



steaming 'Gossamer,' and strip her to the nipples and the



bees. She blazes naked past the Sailors Arms, the only



woman on the Dai-Adamed earth. Sinbad Sailors places on



her thighs still dewdamp from the first mangrowing



cockcrow garden his reverent goat-bearded hands.







        GOSSAMER BEYNON







I don't care if he is common,







        SECOND VOICE







she whispers to her salad-day deep self,







        GOSSAMER BEYNON







I want to gobble him up. I don't care if he does drop his



aitches,







        SECOND VOICE







she tells the stripped and mother-of-the-world big-beamed



and Eve-hipped spring of her self,







        GOSSAMER BEYNON







so long as he's all cucumber and hooves.







        SECOND VOICE







Sinbad Sailors watches her go by, demure and proud and



schoolmarm in her crisp flower dress and sun-defying hat,



with never a look or lilt or wriggle, the butcher's



unmelting icemaiden daughter veiled for ever from the



hungry hug of his eyes.







        SINBAD SAILORS







Oh, Gossamer Beynon, why are you so proud?







        SECOND VOICE







he grieves to his guinness,







        SINBAD SAILORS







Oh, beautiful beautiful Gossamer B, I wish I wish that you



were for me. I wish you were not so educated.







        SECOND VOICE







She feels his goatbeard tickle her in the middle of the



world like a tuft of wiry fire, and she turns in a terror



of delight away from his whips and whiskery conflagration,



and sits down in the kitchen to a plate heaped high with



chips and the kidneys of lambs.







        FIRST VOICE







In the blind-drawn dark dining-room of School House, dusty



and echoing as a dining-room in a vault, Mr and Mrs Pugh



are silent over cold grey cottage pie. Mr Pugh reads, as



he forks the shroud meat in, from Lives of the Great



Poisoners. He has bound a plain brown-paper cover round



the book. Slyly, between slow mouthfuls, he sidespies up



at Mrs Pugh, poisons her with his eye, then goes on



reading. He underlines certain passages and smiles in



secret.







        MRS PUGH







Persons with manners do not read at table,







        FIRST VOICE







says Mrs Pugh. She swallows a digestive tablet as big as a



horse-pill, washing it down with clouded peasoup water.







                                                     [Pause







        MRS PUGH







Some persons were brought up in pigsties.







        MR PUGH







Pigs don't read at table, dear.







        FIRST VOICE







Bitterly she flicks dust from the broken cruet. It settles



on the pie in a thin gnat-rain.







        MR PUGH







Pigs can't read, my dear.







        MRS PUGH







I know one who can.







        FIRST VOICE







Alone in the hissing laboratory of his wishes, Mr Pugh



minces among bad vats and jeroboams, tiptoes through



spinneys of murdering herbs, agony dancing in his



crucibles, and mixes especially for Mrs Pugh a venomous



porridge unknown to toxicologists which will scald and



viper through her until her ears fall off like figs, her



toes grow big and black as balloons, and steam comes



screaming out of her navel.







        MR PUGH







You know best, dear,







        FIRST VOICE







says Mr Pugh, and quick as a flash he ducks her in rat



soup.







        MRS PUGH







What's that book by your trough, Mr Pugh?







        MR PUGH







It's a theological work, my dear. Lives of the Great



Saints.







        FIRST VOICE







Mrs Pugh smiles. An icicle forms in the cold air of the



dining-vault.







        MRS PUGH







I saw you talking to a saint this morning. Saint Polly



Garter. She was martyred again last night. Mrs Organ



Morgan saw her with Mr Waldo.







        MRS ORGAN MORGAN







And when they saw me they pretended they were looking for



nests,







        SECOND VOICE







said Mrs Organ Morgan to her husband, with her mouth full



of fish as a pelican's.







        MRS ORGAN MORGAN







But you don't go nesting in long combinations, I said to



myself, like Mr Waldo was wearing, and your dress nearly



over your head like Polly Garter's. Oh, they didn't fool me.







        SECOND VOICE







One big bird gulp, and the flounder's gone. She licks her



lips and goes stabbing again.







        MRS ORGAN MORGAN







And when you think of all those babies she's got, then all



I can say is she'd better give up bird nesting that's all



I can say, it isn't the right kind of hobby at all for a



woman that can't say No even to midgets. Remember Bob



Spit? He wasn't any bigger than a baby and he gave her



two. But they're two nice boys, I will say that, Fred Spit



and Arthur. Sometimes I like Fred best and sometimes I



like Arthur. Who do you like best, Organ?







        ORGAN MORGAN







Oh, Bach without any doubt. Bach every time for me.







        MRS ORGAN MORGAN







Organ Morgan, you haven't been listening to a word I said.



It's organ organ all the time with you.







        FIRST VOICE







And she bursts into tears, and, in the middle of her salty



howling, nimbly spears a small flatfish and pelicans it



whole.







        ORGAN MORGAN







And then Palestrina,







        SECOND VOICE







says Organ Morgan.







        FIRST VOICE







Lord Cut-Glass, in his kitchen full of time, squats down



alone to a dogdish, marked Fido, of peppery fish-scraps



and listens to the voices of his sixty-six clocks, one for



each year of his loony age, and watches, with love, their



black-and-white moony loudlipped faces tocking the earth



away: slow clocks, quick clocks, pendulumed heart-knocks,



china, alarm, grandfather, cuckoo; clocks shaped like



Noah's whirring Ark, clocks that bicker in marble ships,



clocks in the wombs of glass women, hourglass chimers,



tu-wit-tu-woo clocks, clocks that pluck tunes, Vesuvius



clocks all black bells and lava, Niagara clocks that



cataract their ticks, old time-weeping clocks with ebony



beards, clocks with no hands for ever drumming out time



without ever knowing what time it is. His sixty-six



singers are all set at different hours. Lord Cut-Glass



lives in a house and a life at siege. Any minute or dark



day now, the unknown enemy will loot and savage downhill,



but they will not catch him napping. Sixty-six different



times in his fish-slimy kitchen ping, strike, tick, chime,



and tock.







        SECOND VOICE







The lust and lilt and lather and emerald breeze and



crackle of the bird-praise and body of Spring with its



breasts full of rivering May-milk, means, to that lordly



fish-head nibbler, nothing but another nearness to the



tribes and navies of the Last Black Day who'll sear and



pillage down Armageddon Hill to his double-locked



rusty-shuttered tick-tock dust-scrabbled shack at the



bottom of the town that has fallen head over bells in love.







        POLLY GARTER







And I'll never have such loving again,







        SECOND VOICE







pretty Polly hums and longs.







        POLLY GARTER (Sings)







Now when farmers' boys on the first fair day



Come down from the hills to drink and be gay,



Before the sun sinks I'll lie there in their arms



For they're good bad boys from the lonely farms,







But I always think as we tumble into bed



Of little Willy Wee who is dead, dead, dead...







                                                 [A silence







        FIRST VOICE







The sunny slow lulling afternoon yawns and moons through



the dozy town. The sea lolls, laps and idles in, with



fishes sleeping in its lap. The meadows still as Sunday,



the shut-eye tasselled bulls, the goat-anddaisy dingles,



nap happy and lazy. The dumb duck-ponds snooze. Clouds sag



and pillow on Llaregyb Hill. Pigs grunt in a wet



wallow-bath, and smile as they snort and dream. They dream



of the acorned swill of the world, the rooting for



pig-fruit, the bagpipe dugs of the mother sow, the squeal



and snuffle of yesses of the women pigs in rut. They



mud-bask and snout in the pig-loving sun; their tails



curl; they rollick and slobber and snore to deep, smug,



after-swill sleep. Donkeys angelically drowse on Donkey



Down.







        MRS PUGH







Persons with manners,







        SECOND VOICE







snaps Mrs cold Pugh,







        MRS PUGH







do not nod at table.







        FIRST VOICE







Mr Pugh cringes awake. He puts on a soft-soaping smile: it



is sad and grey under his nicotine-eggyellow weeping



walrus Victorian moustache worn thick and long in memory



of Doctor Crippen.







        MRS PUGH







You should wait until you retire to your sty,







        SECOND VOICE







says Mrs Pugh, sweet as a razor. His fawning measly



quarter-smile freezes. Sly and silent, he foxes into his



chemist's den and there, in a hiss and prussic circle



of cauldrons and phials brimful with pox and the Black



Death, cooks up a fricassee of deadly nightshade,



nicotine, hot frog, cyanide and bat-spit for his needling



stalactite hag and bednag of a pokerbacked nutcracker



wife.







        MR PUGH







I beg your pardon, my dear,







        SECOND VOICE







he murmurs with a wheedle.







        FIRST VOICE







Captain Cat, at his window thrown wide to the sun and the



clippered seas he sailed long ago when his eyes were blue



and bright, slumbers and voyages; ear-ringed and rolling,



I Love You Rosie Probert tattooed on his belly, he brawls



with broken bottles in the fug and babel of the dark dock



bars, roves with a herd of short and good time cows in



every naughty port and twines and souses with the drowned



and blowzy-breasted dead. He weeps as he sleeps and sails.







        SECOND VOICE







One voice of all he remembers most dearly as his dream



buckets down. Lazy early Rosie with the flaxen thatch,



whom he shared with Tom-Fred the donkeyman and many



another seaman, clearly and near to him speaks from the



bedroom of her dust. In that gulf and haven, fleets by the



dozen have anchored for the little heaven of the night;



but she speaks to Captain napping Cat alone. Mrs Probert...







        ROSIE PROBERT







from Duck Lane, Jack. Quack twice and ask for Rosie







        SECOND VOICE







...is the one love of his sea-life that was sardined with



women.







        ROSIE PROBERT (Softly)







What seas did you see,



Tom Cat, Tom Cat,



In your sailoring days



Long long ago?



What sea beasts were



In the wavery green



When you were my master?







        CAPTAIN CAT







I'll tell you the truth.



Seas barking like



seals, Blue seas and green,



Seas covered with eels



And mermen and whales.







        ROSIE PROBERT







What seas did you sail



Old whaler when



On the blubbery waves



Between Frisco and Wales



You were my bosun?







        CAPTAIN CAT







As true as I'm here



Dear you Tom Cat's tart



You landlubber Rosie



You cosy love



My easy as easy



My true sweetheart,



Seas green as a bean



Seas gliding with swans



In the seal-barking moon.







        ROSIE PROBERT







What seas were rocking



My little deck hand



My favourite husband



In your seaboots and hunger



My duck my whaler



My honey my daddy



My pretty sugar sailor.



With my name on your belly



When you were a boy



Long long ago?







        CAPTAIN CAT







I'll tell you no lies.



The only sea I saw



Was the seesaw sea



With you riding on it.



Lie down, lie easy.



Let me shipwreck in your thighs.







        ROSIE PROBERT,







Knock twice, Jack,



At the door of my grave



And ask for Rosie.







        CAPTAIN CAT







Rosie Probert.







        ROSIE PROBERT







Remember her.



She is forgetting.



The earth which filled her mouth



Is vanishing from her.



Remember me.



I have forgotten you.



I am going into the darkness of the darkness for ever.



I have forgotten that I was ever born.







        CHILD







Look,







        FIRST VOICE







says a child to her mother as they pass by the window of



Schooner House,







        CHILD







Captain Cat is crying







        FIRST VOICE







Captain Cat is crying







        CAPTAIN CAT







Come back, come back,







        FIRST VOICE







up the silences and echoes of the passages of the eternal



night.







        CHILD







He's crying all over his nose,







        FIRST VOICE







says the child. Mother and child move on down the street.







        CHILD







He's got a nose like strawberries,







        FIRST VOICE







the child says; and then she forgets him too. She sees in



the still middle of the bluebagged bay Nogood Boyo fishing



from the Zanzibar.







        CHILD







Nogood Boyo gave me three pennies yesterday but I wouldn't,







        FIRST VOICE







the child tells her mother.







        SECOND VOICE







Boyo catches a whalebone corset. It is all he has caught



all day.







        NOGOOD BOYO







Bloody funny fish!







        SECOND VOICE







Mrs Dai Bread Two gypsies up his mind's slow eye, dressed



only in a bangle.







        NOGOOD BOYO







She's wearing her nightgown. (Pleadingly) Would you like



this nice wet corset, Mrs Dai Bread Two?







        MRS DAI BREAD TWO







No, I won't!







NOGOOD BOYO







And a bite of my little apple?







        SECOND VOICE







he offers with no hope.







        FIRST VOICE







She shakes her brass nightgown, and he chases her out of



his mind; and when he comes gusting back, there in the



bloodshot centre of his eye a geisha girl grins and bows



in a kimono of ricepaper.







        NOGOOD BOYO







I want to be good Boyo, but nobody'll let me,







        FIRST VOICE







he sighs as she writhes politely. The land fades, the sea



flocks silently away; and through the warm white cloud



where he lies, silky, tingling, uneasy Eastern music



undoes him in a Japanese minute.







        SECOND VOICE







The afternoon buzzes like lazy bees round the flowers



round Mae Rose Cottage. Nearly asleep in the field of



nannygoats who hum and gently butt the sun, she blows love



on a puffball.







        MAE ROSE COTTAGE (Lazily)







He loves me



He loves me not



He loves me



He loves me not



He loves me!--the dirty old fool.







        SECOND VOICE







Lazy she lies alone in clover and sweet-grass, seventeen



and never been sweet in the grass ho ho.







        FIRST VOICE







The Reverend Eli Jenkins inky in his cool front parlour or



poem-room tells only the truth in his Lifework--the



Population, Main Industry, Shipping, History, Topography,



Flora and Fauna of the town he worships in--the White Book



of Llaregyb. Portraits of famous bards and preachers, all



fur and wool from the squint to the kneecaps, hang over



him heavy as sheep, next to faint lady watercolours of



pale green Milk Wood like a lettuce salad dying. His



mother, propped against a pot in a palm, with her



wedding-ring waist and bust like a black-clothed



dining-table suffers in her stays.







        REV. ELI JENKINS







Oh angels be careful there with your knives and forks,







        FIRST VOICE







he prays. There is no known likeness of his father Esau,



who, undogcollared because of his little weakness, was



scythed to the bone one harvest by mistake when sleeping



with his weakness in the corn. He lost all ambition and



died, with one leg.







        REV. ELI JENKINS







Poor Dad,







        SECOND VOICE







grieves the Reverend Eli,







        REV. ELI JENKINS







to die of drink and agriculture.







SECOND VOICE







Farmer Watkins in Salt Lake Farm hates his cattle on the



hill as he ho's them in to milking.







        UTAH WATKINS (In a fury)







Damn you, you damned dairies!







        SECOND VOICE







A cow kisses him.







        UTAH WATKINS







Bite her to death!







        SECOND VOICE







he shouts to his deaf dog who smiles and licks his hands.







UTAH WATKINS







Gore him, sit on him, Daisy!







        SECOND VOICE







he bawls to the cow who barbed him with her tongue, and



she moos gentle words as he raves and dances among his



summerbreathed slaves walking delicately to the farm. The



coming of the end of the Spring day is already reflected



in the lakes of their great eyes. Bessie Bighead greets



them by the names she gave them when they were maidens.







        BESSIE BIGHEAD







Peg, Meg, Buttercup, Moll,



Fan from the Castle,



Theodosia and Daisy.







        SECOND VOICE







They bow their heads.







        FIRST VOICE







Look up Bessie Bighead in the White Book of Llaregyb and



you will find the few haggard rags and the one poor



glittering thread of her history laid out in pages there



with as much love and care as the lock of hair of a first



lost love. Conceived in Milk Wood, born in a barn, wrapped



in paper, left on a doorstep, bigheaded and bass-voiced



she grew in the dark until long-dead Gomer Owen kissed her



when she wasn't looking because he was dared. Now in the



light she'll work, sing, milk, say the cows' sweet names



and sleep until the night sucks out her soul and spits it



into the sky. In her life-long low light, holily Bessie



milks the fond lake-eyed cows as dusk showers slowly down



over byre, sea and town.







Utah Watkins curses through the farmyard on a carthorse.







        UTAH WATKINS







Gallop, you bleeding cripple!







        FIRST VOICE







and the huge horse neighs softly as though he had given it



a lump of sugar.







Now the town is disk. Each cobble, donkey, goose and



gooseberry street is a thoroughfare of dusk; and dusk and



ceremonial dust, and- night's first darkening snow, and



the sleep of birds, drift under and through the live dusk



of this place of love. Llaregyb is the capital of dusk.







Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard, at the first drop of the



dusk-shower, seals all her sea-view doors, draws the



germ-free blinds, sits, erect as a dry dream on a



high-backed hygienic chair and wills herself to cold,



quick sleep. At once, at twice, Mr Ogmore and Mr



Pritchard, who all dead day long have been gossiping like



ghosts in the woodshed, planning the loveless destruction



of their glass widow, reluctantly sigh and sidle into her



clean house.







        MR PRITCHARD







You first, Mr Ogmore.







        MR OGMORE







After you, Mr Pritchard.







        MR PRITCHARD







No, no, Mr Ogmore. You widowed her first.







        FIRST VOICE







And in through the keyhole, with tears where their eyes



once were, they ooze and grumble.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







Husbands,







        FIRST VOICE







she says in her sleep. There is acid love in her voice for



one of the two shambling phantoms. Mr Ogmore hopes that it



is not for him. So does Mr Pritchard.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







I love you both.







        MR OGMORE (With terror)







Oh, Mrs Ogmore.







        MR PRITCHARD (With horror)







Oh, Mrs Pritchard.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD







Soon it will be time to go to bed. Tell me your tasks in



order.







        MR OGMORE AND MR PRITCHARD







We must take our pyjamas from the drawer marked pyjamas.







        MRS OGMORE-PRITCHARD (Coldly)







And then you must take them off.







        SECOND VOICE







Down in the dusking town, Mae Rose Cottage, still lying in



clover, listens to the nannygoats chew, draws circles of



lipstick round her nipples.







        MAE ROSE COTTAGE







I'm fast. I'm a bad lot. God will strike me dead. I'm



seventeen. I'll go to hell,







        SECOND VOICE







she tells the goats.







        MAE ROSE COTTAGE







You just wait. I'll sin till I blow up!







        SECOND VOICE







She lies deep, waiting for the worst to happen; the goats



champ and sneer.







        FIRST VOICE







And at the doorway of Bethesda House, the Reverend Jenkins



recites to Llaregyb Hill his sunset poem.







        REV. ELI JENKINS







Every morning when I wake,



Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,



O please to keep Thy lovely eye



On all poor creatures born to die







And every evening at sun-down



I ask a blessing on the town,



For whether we last the night or no



I'm sure is always touch-and-go.







We are not wholly bad or good



Who live our lives under Milk Wood,



And Thou, I know, wilt be the first



To see our best side, not our worst.







O let us see another day!



Bless us all this night, I pray,



And to the sun we all will bow



And say, good-bye--but just for now!







        FIRST VOICE







Jack Black prepares once more to meet his Satan in the



Wood. He grinds his night-teeth, closes his eyes, climbs



into his religious trousers, their flies sewn up with



cobbler's thread, and pads out, torched and bibled,



grimly, joyfully, into the already sinning dusk.







        JACK BLACK







Off to Gomorrah!







        SECOND VOICE







And Lily Smalls is up to Nogood Boyo in the wash-house.







        FIRST VOICE







And Cherry Owen, sober as Sunday as he is every day of the



week, goes off happy as Saturday to get drunk as a deacon



as he does every night.







        CHERRY OWEN







I always say she's got two husbands,







        FIRST VOICE







says Cherry Owen,







        CHERRY OWEN







one drunk and one sober.







        FIRST VOICE







And Mrs Cherry simply says







        MRS CHERRY OWEN







And aren't I a lucky woman? Because I love them both.







        SINBAD







Evening, Cherry.







        CHERRY OWEN







Evening, Sinbad.







        SINBAD







What'll you have?







        CHERRY OWEN







Too much.







        SINBAD







The Sailors Arms is always open...







        FIRST VOICE







Sinbad suffers to himself, heartbroken,







        SINBAD







...oh, Gossamer, open yours!







        FIRST VOICE







Dusk is drowned for ever until to-morrow, It is all at



once night now, The windy town is a hill of windows, and



from the larrupped waves the lights of the lamps in the



windows call back the day and the dead that have run away



to sea. All over the calling dark, babies and old men are



bribed and lullabied to sleep.







        FIRST WOMAN'S VOICE







Hushabye, baby, the sandman is coming...







        SECOND WOMAN'S VOICE (Singing)







Rockabye, grandpa, in the tree top,



When the wind blows the cradle will rock,



When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,



Down will come grandpa, whiskers and all.







        FIRST VOICE







Or their daughters cover up the old unwinking men like



parrots, and in their little dark in the lit and bustling



young kitchen corners, all night long they watch,



beady-eyed, the long night through in case death catches



them asleep.







        SECOND VOICE







Unmarried girls, alone in their privately bridal bedrooms,



powder and curl for the Dance of the World.







                                      [Accordion music: dim







They make, in front of their looking-glasses, haughty or



come-hithering faces for the young men in the street



outside, at the lamplit leaning corners, who wait in the



all-at-once wind to wolve and whistle.







                 [Accordion music louder, then fading under







        FIRST VOICE







The drinkers in the Sailors Arms drink to the failure of



the dance.







        A DRINKER







Down with the waltzing and the skipping.







        CHERRY OWEN







Dancing isn't natural,







        FIRST VOICE







righteously says Cherry Owen who has just downed seventeen



pints of flat, warm, thin, Welsh, bitter beer.







        SECOND VOICE







A farmer's lantern glimmers, a spark on Llaregyb hillside.







                        [Accordion music fades into silence







        VOICE FIRST







Llaregyb Hill, writes the Reverend Jenkins in his poem-room,







        REV. ELI JENKINS







Llaregyb Hill, that mystic tumulus, the memorial of



peoples that dwelt in the region of Llaregyb before the



Celts left the Land of Summer and where the old wizards



made themselves a wife out of flowers.







        SECOND VOICE







Mr Waldo, in his corner of the Sailors Arms, sings:







        MR WALDO







In Pembroke City when I was young



I lived by the Castle Keep



Sixpence a week was my wages



For working for the chimbley-sweep.



Six cold pennies he



gave me Not a farthing more or less



And all the fare I could afford



Was parsnip gin and watercress.



I did not need a knife and fork



Or a bib up to my chin



To dine on a dish of watercress



And a jug of parsnip gin.



Did you ever hear a growing boy



To live so cruel cheap



On grub that has no flesh and bones



And liquor that makes you weep?



Sweep sweep chimbley sweep,



I wept through Pembroke City



Poor and barefoot in the snow



Till a kind young woman took pity.



Poor little chimbley sweep she said



Black as the ace of spades



O nobody's swept my chimbley



Since my husband went his ways



Come and sweep my chimbley



Come and sweep my chimbley



She sighed to me with a blush



Come and sweep my chimbley



Come and sweep my chimbley



Bring along your chimbley brush!







        FIRST VOICE







Blind Captain Cat climbs into his bunk. Like a cat, he



sees in the dark. Through the voyages of his tears he



sails to see the dead.







        CAPTAIN CAT







Dancing Williams!







        FIRST DROWNED







Still dancing.







        CAPTAIN CAT







Jonah Jarvis







        THIRD DROWNED







Still.







        FIRST DROWNED







Curly Bevan's skull.







        ROSIE PROBERT







Rosie, with God. She has forgotten dying.







        FIRST VOICE







The dead come out in their Sunday best.







        SECOND VOICE







Listen to the night breaking.







        FIRST VOICE







Organ Morgan goes to chapel to play the organ. He sees



Bach lying on a tombstone.







        ORGAN MORGAN







Johann Sebastian!







        CHERRY OWEN (Drunkenly)







Who?







        ORGAN MORGAN







Johann Sebastian mighty Bach. Oh, Bach Bach







        CHERRY OWEN







To hell with you,







        FIRST VOICE







says Cherry Owen who is resting on the tombstone on his



way home.







Mr Mog Edwards and Miss Myfanwy Price happily apart from



one another at the top and the sea end of the town write



their everynight letters of love and desire. In the warm



White Book of Llaregyb you will find the little maps of



the islands of their contentment.







        MYFANWY PRICE







Oh, my Mog, I am yours for ever.







        FIRST VOICE







And she looks around with pleasure at her own neat



neverdull room which Mr Mog Edwards will never enter.







        MOG EDWARDS







Come to my arms, Myfanwy.







        FIRST VOICE







And he hugs his lovely money to his own heart.







And Mr Waldo drunk in the dusky wood hugs his lovely Polly



Garter under the eyes and rattling tongues of the



neighbours and the birds, and he does not care. He smacks



his live red lips.







But it is not his name that Polly Garter whispers as she



lies under the oak and loves him back. Six feet deep that



name sings in the cold earth.







POLLY GARTER (Sings)







But I always think as we tumble into bed



Of little Willy Wee who is dead, dead, dead.







        FIRST VOICE







The thin night darkens. A breeze from the creased water



sighs the streets close under Milk waking Wood. The Wood,



whose every tree-foot's cloven in the black glad sight of



the hunters of lovers, that is a God-built garden to Mary



Ann Sailors who knows there is Heaven on earth and the



chosen people of His kind fire in Llaregyb's land, that is



the fairday farmhands' wantoning ignorant chapel of



bridesbeds, and, to the Reverend Eli Jenkins, a greenleaved



sermon on the innocence of men, the suddenly wind-shaken



wood springs awake for the second dark time this one



Spring day.

THE END

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