Under Milk Wood Read online

  FIRST WOMAN

  Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard

  SECOND WOMAN

  ;a 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

  SECOND 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.

  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. Llareggub this snip of a morning is wildfruit and warm, the streets, fields, sands and waters springing in the young sun.

  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.

  Spring stirs Gossamer Beynon schoolmistress like a spoon.

  GOSSAMER BEYNON [Tearfully]

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

  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.

  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?

  Mary Ann Sailors says very softly to herself as she looks out at Llareggub Hill from the bedroom where she was born

  MARY ANN SAILORS [Loudly]

  It is Spring in Llareggub 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]

  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, Llareggub. 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 Tom the Sailors to pick his teeth. If this goes on I shall be in the poorhouse. 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!!!

  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,

  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 ruck or ripple as though it blew great guns and serpents and typhooned the town.

  FISHERMAN

  Too rough for fishing to-day.

  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]

  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 [Keeping 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.

  [Pause]

  The music of the spheres is heard distinctly over Milk Wood. It is ‘The Rustle of Spring.’

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

  Vegetables make love above the tenors

  And d
ogs bark blue in the face.

  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 fingerbowls, a primrose grows.

  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!

  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 is the man for me.

  REV. ELI JENKINS

  Praise the Lord! We are a musical nation.

  And the Reverend Jenkins hurries on through the town to visit the sick with jelly and poems.

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

  MR WALDO

  There goes the Reverend,

  says Mr ‘Waldo at the smoked herring brown window of the unwashed Sailors Arms,

  with his brolly and his odes. Fill ‘em up, Sinbad, I’m on the treacle to-day.

  The silent fishermen flush down their pints.

  SINBAD

  Oh, Mr Waldo,

  sighs Sinbad Sailors,

  I dote on that Gossamer Beynon.

  Love, sings the Spring. The bedspring grass bounces under birds' bums and lambs.

  And Gossamer Beynon, schoolteacher, spoonstirred and quivering, teaches her slubberdegullion class

  CHILDREN'S VOICES

  It was a luvver and his lars

  With a a and a o and a a nonino…

  GOSSAMER BEYNON

  Naow, naow, naow, your eccents, children!

  It was a lover and his less

  With a hey and a hao and a hey nonino …

  SINBAD

  Oh, Mr Waldo,

  says Sinbad Sailors,

  she's a lady all over

  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 …

  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.

  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 Llareggub Hill

  Or give me a penny.

  What’s your name?

  SECOND BOY

  Johnnie Cristo.

  GIRL

  Kiss me on Llareggub Hill Johnnie Cristo

  Or give me a penny mister.

  SECOND BOY

  Gwennie Gwennie

  I kiss you on Llareggub 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.