Original subtitles

'To begin at the beginning.'

'It is spring, moonless night in a small town,

starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent,

and the hunched courters' and rabbits' wood limping invisible,

down to the sloe black,

slow, black

crow black, fishingboat-bobbing sea.'

'The houses are blind as moles,

though moles see fine tonight 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 widow's 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 glow-worms down the aisles

of the organplaying wood.'

'The boys are dreaming wicked,

or of the bucking ranches of the night and the jolly, rogered 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-before-dawn, 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 the streets.'

'The processional, salt slow, musical wind

in Coronation Street and Cockle Row.'

'It is the grass growing on Llareggub 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 Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour.'

'In Ocky Milkman's lofts, like a mouse with gloves.'

'It is tonight, trotting silent with seaweed on its hooves

along the cockled cobbles.'

'Past curtain 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.'

BABY CRYING

'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, dicky bird-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.'

CREAKING SHIP TIMBERS

SAILORS' MUFFLED VOICES

'Captain Cat, the retired, blind seacaptain,

asleep in his bunk in the seashelled,

ship-in-bottled, shipshape, best cabin of Schooner House,

dreams of...'

SEA SHANTY

'Never such seas as any that swamped the decks of his SS 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 longdrowned nuzzle up to him.'

'Remember me, Captain?'

You're...

Dancing Williams.

'I lost my step in Nantucket.'

'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.'

'Rosie Probert,

33 Duck Lane.'

'Come on up boys,

I'm dead.'

'Hold me, Captain.'

'I'm Jonah Jarvis, come to a bad end.'

'Very enjoyable.'

'Alfred Pomeroy Jones, sealawyer.'

'Born in Mumbles, sung like a linnet,

crowned you with a flagon, tattooed with mermaids,

thirst like a dredger, died of blisters.'

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

Aye, aye, Curly.

Tell my missus no I never...

I never done what she said, I never.

Yes, they did.

And who brings coconuts and shawls and parrots to my Gwen now?

How's it above?

Is there rum and lavabread?

Bosoms and robins?

Concertinas?

Ebenezer's bell?

Fighting and onions?

And sparrows and daisies?

Tiddlers in a jamjar?

Buttermilk and whippets?

Rock-a-bye baby?

Washing on the line?

Old girls in the snug?

How's the tenors in Dowlais?

Who milks the cows in Maesgwyn?

When she smiles is there dimples?

What's the smell of parsley?

MUSIC: Welsh Folk Song.

Ahh...

My dead dears.

'From where you are you can hear in Cockle Row

in the spring moonless night,

Miss Price, dressmaker and sweetshop-keeper dream of:

her lover, tall as the town clock tower,

Samson-syrup-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.'

'Myfanwy Price!'

'Mr Mog 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.'

'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.'

'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 under your vest

when the shop is closed.'

'Myfanwy. Myfanwy.'

'Before the mice gnaw at your bottom drawer, will you say...'

Yes, Mog.

Yes, Mog.

Yes, yes, yes.

'And all the bells of the tills of the town shall ring for our wedding.'

'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.'

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

Ach y fi!

'Evans the Death, the undertaker, runs out into the field

where his mother is making Welshcakes 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 Mr Waldo, rabbitcatcher, barber, herbalist, catdoctor, quack, dreams of...'

This little piggy went to market.

This little piggy stayed home.

This little piggy had roast beef.

This little piggy had none.

And this little piggy went, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee,

all the way home to Waldo's mum.

Waldo!

Yes, Mama?

- Waldo! - Yes, Mama?

Yes, mother, love.

'Oh, Waldo.'

Hush now.

Hush.

I'm widower Waldo now.

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

- Black as a chimbley - Ringing doorbells.

- Breaking windows. - Making mudpies.

- Stealing currants. - Chalking words.

- Saw him in the bushes. - Playing moochins.

Send him to bed without any supper.

Give him sennapods and lock him in the dark.

Off to the reformatory.

Off to the reformatory.

BOTH: (SCREAM)

Learn him with a slipper on his BTM.

- Give us a kiss, Matti Richards. - Give us a penny then.

No, I only got a halfpenny.

- I only got a ha'penny. - Lips is a penny.

Will you take this woman, Matti Richards...

Dulcie Prothero

Effie Bevan.

Lily the Gluepot

Mrs Flusher.

To be your awful wedded wife?

No.

No!

'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 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.'

Mr Ogmore? Mr Pritchard?

It is time to inhale your balsam.

Oh, Mrs Ogmore.

Oh, Mrs Pritchard.

Soon it will be time to get up.

Tell me your tasks, in order.

I must put my pyjamas in the drawer marked pyjamas.

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

I must wear my flannel band to ward off sciatica.

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

I must blow my nose -

In the garden, if you please.

In a piece of tissue paper which I afterwards burn.

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

And I must boil the drinking water because of germs.

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

And have a charcoal biscuit which is good for me.

I may smoke one pipe of asthma mixture -

In the woodshed if you please.

And dust the parlour and spray the canary.

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

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

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

'In Butcher Beynon's,

Gossamer Beynon, daughter, schoolteacher, dreaming deep.'

'Sinbad Sailors, dreaming in the Sailors' Arms,

pulls the pumps, those secret name is...'

Gossamer...

Gossamer...

Gossamer...

Gossamer...

Gossamer...

'PC Attila Rees, lumps out of bed, dead to the dark,

and deep in the backyard lock-up of his sleep.'

'You'll be sorry for that in the morning.'

'Time passes.'

'Listen.'

'Time passes.'

'An owl flies home past Bethesda to a chapel in an oak,

and the dawn inches up.'

'Stand on this hill.'

'This is Llareggub Hill.'

'Old as the hills, high, cool, and green,

and from this small circle of stones,

made by the druids who had come to visit Milk Wood.'

'You can see all the town below you sleeping in the first of the dawn.'

TANNOY: ''Less than 500 souls inhabit the three quaint streets

and the few narrow bylanes, and the 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,

but 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 keep more abreast of the times.''

''The River Dewi is said to abound in trout,

but is much poached.''

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

is of no architectural interest.''

'The principality of the sky lightens now over our green hill,

into spring morning, larked, and crowed, and belling.'

CHURCH BELLS

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 birds than I to sing

their praise this... beauteous morning.

By mountains where King Arthur dreams,

by Penmaen Mawr defiant,

Llareggub Hill,

a molehill seems,

a pygmy to a giant.

Claerwen, Cleddau, Dulas, 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.

Morning service is over.

Thank you God bach for listening.

Who else would?

'Oh...

There's a lady.'

Lily?

'And there isn't.'

(MEOWS)

Oh, there's a face.

Where get that hair from?

Got it from old Tom Cat.

Give it back then, love.

Oh, there's a perm!

Where 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 bit of make-up.

Needs a veil.

Oh, there's glamour.

Where did 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 you heart then?

Cross my heart.

The Prince of Wales.

Lily?

Lily!

Yes, Mum?

Where's my tea, girl?

Where do you think?

Coming up, Mum.

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...

nice tea, dear.

Too much sugar.

You haven't tasted it yet, dear.

Too much milk, then.

Has Mr Jenkins said his poetry?

Yes, dear.

It's time to get up. Give me my glasses.

No, not my reading glasses.

I want to look out.

I want to see.

(UNDER BREATH) Oh, the baggage!

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

What for, dear?

For having babies.

Perhaps she's only going down to the dock to see if the sea is still there.

I am eighty-five years,

three months, and a day,

and this is the garden of Eden.

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

There's strangers, up to no good.

Perhaps they're just visitors, dear.

If they're just visitors, how wouldn't I know them?

ORGAN MUSIC

Me, Dai Bread, hurrying to the bakery.

Pushing in my shirt-tails, buttoning my waistcoat.

Ping! There goes a button. Why can't they sew them?

No time for breakfast.

Nothing for breakfast.

There's wives for you.

Where are you going Mrs Dai Bread One?

Just off to borrow a loaf, Mrs Two. Won't be long.

Tell your fortune in the tea-leaves, Lord Cut-Glass?

Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Must rush, Mrs Dai Bread.

Two. Mrs Dai Bread Two.

Not Mrs One. She's another.

Tick-tock two.

There is no leg

that belongs to the foot

that belongs to this shoe.

Morning, Mrs Sarah.

Can you spare me a loaf, love. Dai Bread forget the bread.

Oh, of course you can have a loaf, Mrs Dai Bread.

Go and get a loaf, love.

There's a lovely morning.

How's your boils this morning?

Going down nicely.

Good morning.

Here you are, Hetty.

Ah, Mr Criminal. I'll put you behind bars.

A nice flannel shirt for you.

For you madam, a best shroud.

For you, a flowery blouse.

I love Miss Myfawny Price.

Thrupence off for the rust, but that's outside the tin.

Nothing grows in our garden, only washing.

Oh, and babies.

And where are their fathers, Meg, my love?

Over the hills and far away...

Oh, you're looking up at me now.

Oh, I know what you're thinking.

Oh, you poor little milky creature.

You're thinking, you're no better than you should be, Polly Garter,

and that's good enough for me.

Oh, isn't life a terrible thing? Thank God.

'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.'

FLY BUZZING

Shoo, you old son. You'll spoil the polish.

Praise the Lord who made porridge.

Ground glass.

Stand up straight, can't you?

'Sly and silent,

he foxes into his chemist 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 frogs, cyanide, and bat-spit.'

Poor Mrs Waldo.

What she puts up with.

Should never have married.

If she didn't have to, same as his mother.

There's a husband for you.

- Bad as his father. - And you know where he ended.

- Up in the asylum... - Crying for his ma...

- Every Saturday. - He hasn't got a leg.

- And carrying on... - With that Mrs Beattie Morris...

- Up in the quarry. - Seen her baby.

- It's got his nose. - Makes your heart bleed.

- What he'll do for drink! - He sold the pianola...

- And her sewing machine. - Falling in the gutter.

- Taking to the lampposts. - Using language.

- Singing in the W. - Poor Mrs Waldo.

'Lord Cut-Glass in his kitchen full of time,

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 forever drumming out time,

without ever knowing what time it is.'

'His sixty-six singers all set at different hours.

Lord Cut-Glass lives in a house and a life at seige.'

'Any minute or dark day now the unknown enemy

will loot and savage downhill, but they will not catch him napping.'

CHIMING

'Sixty-six different times in his fish-slimy kitchen,

ping strike, tick, chime, and tock.'

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

You see that smudge on the wall by the picture of Auntie Blossom?

That's where you threw the sago.

You only missed me by an inch.

I always miss Auntie Blossom too.

Remember last night? In you reeled, 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.

Was I wounded?

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

''Does anybody want to fight?''

Oh, you old baboon.

Here, give me a kiss.

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

I always sing 'Bread of Heaven'.

Oh!

Oh!

BOTH: (LAUGH)

Oh, and then you did a little dance on the table.

I did?

Drop dead.

And then what did I do?

And then you cried like a baby, and said you were a poor drunk orphan,

with nowhere to go but the grave.

And... what did I do next, my dear?

Then you danced on the table all over again,

and said you were King Solomon Owen, and I was your Mrs Sheba.

And then?

And then I got you into bed,

and you snored all night like a brewery.

'From Beynon's Butchers in Coronation Street,

the smell of fried liver sidles out with onions on its breath.'

She likes the liver, Ben.

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

- Oh! Do you hear that, Lily? - Yes, Mum.

We're eating pusscat.

Yes, Mum.

Oh, you cat-butcher!

- It was doctored mind. - Oh! What's that got to do with it?

Yesterday we had mole.

Oh! Lily. Lily.

Monday, otter.

- Tuesday, mice. - Oh!

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

Don't you dare say that about Mr Beynon.

Everybody knows it, Mum.

Mr Beynon never tells a lie.

- Do you, Ben? - No, Bess.

And now I'm going out after the corgis. Woof! Woof!

- With my little cleaver. - Oh, Lily!

Nogood's risking it today.

There's bound to be a gale.

I don't care if it is blowing a gale.

This boyo's up to no good.

I don't know who's up there,

and I don't care.

THUNDER

Is it opening time, then?

It's half past eleven.

It's been half past eleven here for fifty years.

It's always opening time at the Sailors' Arms.

Buy me a pint?

Buy me one!

Here's to me.

Sinbad Sailors.

CLUCKING

Oh! Watch where you're going!

That pram of yours should be tested!

I'd call a policeman!

Not you!

I want my pipe, and he wants his bottle.

BELL RINGING

Get a move on!

- Hurry up, Matthew! - Get on to school.

- Get a move on. - Come on, get on to school.

Late for school.

There's education.

Best trotters and mince.

What's that?

Owl meat.

Dogs' eyes...

Manchop.

SHOUTING

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.

BELL RINGS

Stop it!

Stop it! Stop it!

SCREAM

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

Never trust a boy who barks.

Billy Swansea! How dare you -

Right again, it's Billy.

Better put a book down your trousers.

Now get inside, the lot of you!

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?

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.

Good morning, Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard.

Good morning, postman.

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?

No.

Oh, you wouldn't know he's 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.

And come home at all hours covered in feathers.

I don't want persons in my nice clean rooms breathing all over the chairs.

Cross my heart, he won't breathe.

And putting their feet on my carpets, and sneezing on my china,

and sleeping in my sheets.

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

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

and on goes Willy Nilly to clatter the cobbles.

That's Mrs Rose Cottage. What's today?

What's today?

Today she gets the letter from her sister in Gorslas.

Today you get the letter from your sister in Gorslas.

How's the twins' teeth?

How's the twins' teeth?

(SILENTLY) Terrible.

Nothing for you today, love.

Twins teeth, terrible.

That's the Emporium.

Morning, Mr Edwards. Very small news.

Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard won't have birds in the house,

and Mr Pugh has bought a book now on how to do in Mrs Pugh.

Have you got a letter from her?

Miss Price loves you with all her heart.

Smelling of lavender today,

and 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,

a pound of humbugs, half a box of jellybabies,

and six coloured photos of Llareggub.

Yours forever, and twenty-one X's.

Ahh, Willy Nilly, she's a ruby.

Here's my letter. Put it into her hands now.

He's stopping at School House?

Now children, I think it's time you learnt the four times table.

Good morning, Mrs Pugh.

Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard won't have a gentleman in from Builth Wells

because he'll sleep in her sheets,

and Mrs Rose Cottage's sister-in-Gorslas's twins,

got to have them out -

Give me the parcel.

It's for Mr Pugh, Mrs Pugh.

Never you mind what's inside it.

A book called...

'Lives of the Great Poisoners'.

Mr Waldo, hurrying to the Sailors' Arms.

Pint of stout with an egg in it.

There's a letter for him.

It's another paternity suit, Mr Waldo.

Quick, Sinbad. Pint of stout.

And no egg in it.

Whose are those then?

What they looking for?

Chuck it back in the water.

All the women are out this morning...

In the sun... But then, it's Spring.

Who's that talking by the pump?

Somebody talking flatfish. Why do 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.

What did you have for breakfast this morning? Pig snout?

Mrs Butcher Beynon, and her pet black cat.

It follows her everywhere, meow 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 Cottages'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.

Ocky Milkman on his rounds.

I will say this, his milk's as fresh as the dew.

Half dew it is.

Organ Morgan's at it early.

You can tell it's Spring.

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.

- She's having a baby. - She's having us on.

- Giving herself an airing. - There should be a law.

Seen Mrs Beynon's new mauve jumper?

It's an old grey one - dyed.

Who's died?

Nobody's dying.

Oh, it's a lovely day.

Oh, the cost of soap...

Hello, Polly.

Who's there?

Me, love.

That's Polly Garter.

Hello, Polly, my love.

Can you hear the dumb, goose-hiss of the wives,

as they huddle and peck, or flounce and 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 Mother's Union Social Dance.

You're one mother won't wriggle her rolypoly bum,

or pat her fat little buttery feet

in that wedding-ringed holy tonight.

COCK CROWING

Too late... Cock.

Too late.

The town's half over with its morning.

The morning's busy as bees.

Norma Jane.

Norma Jane.

There's the clip-clop of horses

on the sun-honeyed cobbles of the humming streets

hammering of horse-shoes,

gobble, quack, and cackle.

Tom-tit twitter from the bird ounced bars,

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 schools,

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.

- Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard... - La-di-da!

- Got a man in Builth Wells - No!

And he's got a little telescope to look at birds.

Willy Nilly said.

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

He used to watch them undressing through the keyhole.

And shout tally-ho!

Mr Ogmore was a proper gentleman.

Even though he hanged his collie.

Seen Mrs Butcher Beynon?

She said Butcher Beynon put dogs in the mincer.

Oh, he's pulling her leg.

Don't you dare tell her that, there's a dear.

She'll think he's trying to pull it off!

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

Look at Nogood Boyo now.

Too lazy to wipe his snout.

Goes fishing every day, and all he ever brought back was Mrs Samuels.

Been in the water a week.

And Ocky Milkman's wife that nobody's ever seen.

Oh, he keeps her in the cupboard with the empties.

And think of Dai Bread with two wives.

One for the daytime. One for the night.

Hello, ladies.

Men are brutes on the quiet.

How's Organ Morgan, Mrs Morgan?

You look dead beat.

It's organ, organ, all the time with him.

Up every night till midnight, playing the organ.

Oh, I'm a martyr to music.

Organ.

Morgan. Morgan. Morgan. Morgan.

I'll never be refined if I twitch.

It is Spring in Llareggub,

in the sun in my old age,

and this is the Chosen Land.

From the Emporium Llareggub. Sole prop. Mr Mog Edwards.

'The lovely Myfanwy Price, my bride in heaven.'

'I dreamt last night you were all dripping wet,

and you sat on my lap as the Reverend Jenkins went down the street.'

'''I see you've got a mermaid in your lap.'' he said,

and he lifted his hat.'

'Oh, he's proper Christian.'

'Not like Cherry Owen, who said, ''You should have thrown her back.'''

'Business is very poorly.'

'Polly Garter bought two garters with roses,

but she never got stockings, so what's the use, I say?'

'Mr Waldo tried to sell me a woman's nighty, outsize.'

'He said he found it, and we know where.'

'If this goes on I shall be in the workhouse.'

'My heart is in your bosom, and yours 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.'

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

I've got to go to the Elsie Cummings.

'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 in Milk Wood.'

'Llareggub, this snip of a morning is wild fruit and warm.'

'The streets, fields, sands, and waters, springing in the young sun.'

'Donkeys angelically drowse on Donkey Down.'

'Norma Jane.'

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 in the cold sea-streets,

but with blue, lazy eyes, the fishermen gaze

at that milk-maid whispering water with no ruck or ripple

as though it blew great guns and serpents,

and typhooned the town.

Too rough for fishing today.

Thank God.

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

Parlez-vous, jig jig, madam?

# Gwennie call the boys

# They make such a noise

# Boys, boys, boys

# Come along to me

# Boys, boys, boys

# Kiss Gwennie where she says

# Or give her a penny

# Go on, Gwennie

# Kiss me on Llareggub Hill

# Or give me a penny

# What's your name?

# Johnnie Cristo

# Kiss me on Llareggub Hill

# Johnnie Cristo

# Or give me a penny, mister

# Gwennie, Gwennie

# I'll kiss you on Llareggub Hill

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

# Boys, boys, boys

# Kiss Gwennie where she says

# Or give her a penny

# Go on Gwennie

# Kiss me in Milk Wood

# Or give me a penny

# What's your name?

# Dicky

# Kiss me in Milk Wood, Dicky

# Or give me a penny, quickly

# Gwennie, Gwennie

# I can't kiss you in Milk Wood

# Gwennie, ask him why

# Why?

# Cos my mother said I mustn't

# Cowardy, cowardy custard!

# Give Gwennie a penny

# Give me a penny

# I haven't got any

# Put him in the river, up to his liver

# Quick! Quick! Dirty Dick!

# Beat him on the bum with a rhubarb stick #

Ow!

SHOUTING

What do you want then? What do you want?

Now, now, now! What do you want?

'Cross my palm with silver, Mrs One...'

Out of our housekeeping money.

- Ahh! - What do you see, lovie?

I see a feather bed with three pillows on it,

and a text above the bed.

I can't see what it says, there's great clouds blowing.

Now they've blown away. 'God is Love' the text says.

That's our bed!

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 thin pink lips.

- That's Dai. That's Dai Bread. - Shhh!

The feather bed'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.

Oh, go on. Go on.

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 arms around one of the women.

Which one? Which one?

I can't see anymore, there's great clouds blowing again.

Ach, the mean old clouds!

# I loved a man whose name was Tom

# He was as strong as a bear and two yards long

Eisteddfodau

# I loved a man whose name was Dick

# He was as 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 Willie Wee...

# And he's six feet... deep

# For Tom, Dick and Harry were three fine men

# And I'll never have such loving again

# But little Willie Wee who took me on his knee

# Little Willie 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

# But most I think when I'm by their side

# Of little Willie Wee...

# Who drowned and died #

# Oh, Tom, Dick and Harry were three fine men

# And I'll never have such loving again

# But little Willie Wee who took me on his knee

# Little Willie Weazel was the man for me #

Praise the Lord.

We are a musical nation.

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

- Good morning, Reverend. - Bora Da.

Well, there goes the Reverend,

with his brolly and his odes

Fill 'em up, Sinbad.

I'm on the treacle today.

Oh, Mr Waldo.

I dote on that Gossamer Beynon.

WELSH SONG TO FRERE JACQUES TUNE

She's a lady all over.

No lady that I know is.

No, no, no, children. Your accents.

It was a lover...

and his lass,

with a hey, and a ho...

and a hey-nonny-no.

And if only Grandma would die and leave me the pub.

Cross my heart, I'd go down on my knees, Mr Waldo,

and I'd say...

Miss Gossamer, I'd say.

# When birds do sing

# Hey ding-a ding-a ding

# Hey ding-a ding-a ding

# Hey ding-a ding-a ding

# Sweet lovers love the Spring

# Tom, Dick and Harry were three fine men

# And I'll never have such... again

# Tom, Dick and Harry were three fine men

# And I'll never have such... again #

I don't care if he is common.

I want to gobble him all up.

I don't care if he does drop his H's,

so long as he's all cucumber and hooves.

Oh, Gossamer Beynon, why are you so proud?

Oh, beautiful, beautiful, Gossamer B,

I wish, I wish, that you were for me.

I wish that you were not so educated.

Gossamer.

Gossamer.

# 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

# ''Oh, 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 #

SCREAM

Persons with manners do not read at table, Pugh.

Some persons were brought up in pigsties.

Pigs don't read at table, my dear.

Pigs can't read, my dear.

I know one who can.

'Alone in the hissing laboratory of his wishes,

Mr Pugh minces among bad vats and jeroboams,

tiptoes through spinneys of murdering herbs,

agony dancing 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.'

GUNSHOT

Persons with manners do not, not, at table.

You should wait until you retire to your sty.

I beg your pardon, dear.

You know best, my dear.

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

Oh, it's a theological work, my dear. 'Lives of the Great Saints'.

I saw a saint this morning - Saint Polly Garter.

She was martyred again last night.

Mrs Organ Morgan saw her with Mr Waldo.

And when they saw me they pretended they were looking for nests.

But you don't go nesting in long combinations like Mr Waldo had on,

and a dress sailing over your head like Polly Garter's.

They didn't fool me.

I think of all those babies she's got, and all I can say is

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

It's the wrong hobby for a woman who can't say no, even to midgets.

Do you remember Tom Spit?

He wasn't any bigger than a baby and he gave her two.

Two nice boys, I'll say that - Fred Spit and Arthur.

Sometimes I like Fred best and sometimes Arthur.

Who do you like best, Organ?

Oh... er... Bach, without any doubt.

Bach every time for me.

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

It's organ, organ all the time!

And then... er... Palestrina.

Pigs grunt in a wet wallow-bath, and smile as they snort and dream.

They dream of the acorned swill of the world,

Of 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,

in deep, smug, after-swill sleep.

LOUD TICKING

# 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 Willie Wee...

# Who is dead...

# Dead...

# Dead #

'The sea lulls, laps, and idles in,

with fishes sleeping in its lap.'

'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.'

Where's your dignity? Lie down.

GLASS SMASHING

'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 the herd of short and good time cows in every naughty port,

and twines and souses with the drowned and blousy-breasted dead.'

Tom Cat.

Tom Cat.

'One voice of all he remembers most dearly as his dream buckets down.'

'Lazy, early Rosie.'

'In that gulf and haven, fleets by the dozen have anchored

for the little heaven of the night.'

'Quack twice,

and ask for Rosie, Jack.'

Bloody good value.

Hey, Tom, lend us a dollar.

'But she speaks to Captain napping Cat alone.'

'Rosie Probert is the one love of his sea life that was sardined with women.'

'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?'

I'll tell you the truth.

Seas barking like seals.

Blue seas and green.

Seas covered with eels,

and mermen, and whales.

'What seas did you sail, old whaler, when on the blubbery waves

between Frisco and Wales,

you were my bosun.'

'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.'

'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.'

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.

'Knock twice Jack,

at the door of my grave,

and ask for Rosie.'

'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 forever.'

'I have forgotten that I was ever born.'

Come back!

Come back!

Come back!

Come back!

Look, Captain Cat's crying.

He's crying all over his nose.

He's got a nose like strawberries.

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

Hello, Gwennie. I'll give you six pennies.

GIGGLING

He loves me, he loves me not.

He loves me, he loves me not.

Bloody funny fish.

Would you like this nice, wet corset, Mrs Dai Bread Two?

Would you like this?

No. I won't.

And a bite of my little apple?

You're up to no good, Boyo.

I want to be a good boyo, but nobody will let me.

He loves me.

The dirty old fool.

# Seventeen and never been sweet in the grass, ho-ho. #

'High above in Salt Lake Farm, Mr Utah Watkins naps,

and counts the wife-faced sheep.'

'Thirty-four... thirty-five... thirty-six...

thirty-eight... thirty-nine...'

'Knit one. Slip one. Knit two together. Pass the slipstitch over.'

Knit one. Slip one. Knit two together. Pass the slipstitch over.

Poor Dad.

To die of drink and agriculture.

SCREAMING

The meadows still as Sunday.

The shut-eye, tasselled bulls.

The goat and daisy dingles, nap-happy and lazy.

The dumb, duck pond snooze.

Clouds sag and pillow on Llareggub Hill.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! You damned dairies.

Peg, Meg,

Buttercup, and Moll,

Fan from the castle.

Theodosia and Daisy.

I'll have you for chops, mince pies, brawn soup.

COWS LOWING

Where will I get my bloody milk from then?

'Bessie Bighead, conceived in Milk Wood, born in a barn, wrapped in paper,

left on a doorstep, big-headed and bass-voiced,

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

when she wasn't looking, because he was dared.'

'Alone till I die.'

'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, love-light, holily, Bessie milks the fond,

lake-eyed cows as dusk showers slowly down over byre,

sea,

and town.'

Lie down, I said.

Gore him! Sit on him, Daisy!

COW LOWING

Gallop, you bleeding cripple! Gallop!

Now, the town is dusk.

Each cobble, donkey, goose, on 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.

Llareggub is the capital of dusk.

Husbands.

You first, Mr Ogmore.

After you, Mr Pritchard.

No, no. You first, Mr Ogmore.

After you, Mr Pritchard.

No, no, Mr Ogmore.

You widowed her first.

I love you both.

- Oh, Mrs Ogmore. - Oh, Mrs Pritchard.

Soon it will be time to go to bed.

Tell me your tasks in order.

We must take our pyjamas from the drawer marked pyjamas.

And then you must take them off.

GOATS BLEATING

I'm fast.

I'm a bad lot.

God will strike me dead.

I'm seventeen.

I'll go to hell.

Just you wait.

I'll sin till I blow up.

GOAT BLEATING

Oh, you go home.

Every morning when I wake,

Dear Lord, a little prayer I make.

Oh, 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 would be the first,

To see our best side,

not our worst.

There is Satan in Milk Wood!

SCREAMING

Off to Gomorrah! Off to the Gomarrah!

I always say you've got two husbands.

One drunk, and one sober.

Aren't I a lucky woman, because I love them both.

Boys.

Evening, Cherry.

Evening, Sinbad.

What'll you have?

Too much.

Sailors' Arms is always open.

Oh, Gossamer...

Open yours!

'Dusk is drowned forever until tomorrow.'

'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 crawling dark,

babies and old men are bribed and lullabied to sleep.'

# Rock-a-bye 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 #

Sleep you.

I won't.

It'll be morning soon.

Suppose I'm not here to see it?

Who are you seeing?

You'll be getting more babies.

ORGAN MUSIC

Down with the waltzing and the skipping.

Dancing isn't natural.

Oh... come and get me,

Mr Anybody.

(BURPS)

Milk Wood on the hill.

The memorial of peoples that dwelt in the region of Llareggub.

Before the Celts left the Land of Summer,

and where the old wizards made themselves a wife out of flowers.

ACCORDIAN: In Pembroke City

# In...

# Pembroke City when I was young

# I lived by the Castle Keep

# Sixpence a week was my wages

# For working for the chimney 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

# I'd dine on a dish of watercress

# And a jug of parsnip gin

# Did you ever hear of a growing boy

# To live so cruel and cheap

# On grub that has no flesh and bone

# And liquor that makes you weep

# Sweep, sweep, chimney sweep

# I wept through Pembroke City

# Poor and barefoot in the snow

# Till a kind young woman took pity

# ''Poor little chimney sweep,'' she said, ''Black as the ace of spades.''

# Nobody's swept my chimney

# Since my husband went his way

ALL: # Come and sweep my chimney

ALL: # Come and sweep my chimney

# She sighed to me with a blush

ALL: # Come and sweep my chimney

ALL: # Come and sweep my chimney

# Bring along your chimney brush #

CHEERING AND LAUGHTER

Dancing Williams?

'Still dancing.'

'Rosie, with God.'

'She has forgotten dying.'

'Listen to the night breaking.'

'The dead come out in their Sunday best.'

Johann Sebastian.

- Who? - Johann Sebastian.

Mighty Bach.

Oh, Bach, fach.

To hell with you.

Oh, my Mog.

I am yours forever.

'Come to my arms, Myfanwy.'

# But I always think...

# As we tumble into bed

# Of little Willie Wee...

# Who is dead... dead...

# Dead #

'Now, behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers,

in the streets rocked asleep by the sea,

sea that...'

SQUEALING

WHINNYING

SCREAMING

SHOUTING AND WHOOPING

SEAGULLS CRYING

'The thin night darkens.'

'The 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 the Sailors, who knows there is Heaven on earth

and the chosen people of His kind fire in Llareggub's land

that is the fairday farmhands' wantoning ignorant chapel of bridebeds,

and, to the Reverend Eli Jenkins, a greenleaved sermon

on the innocence of men.'

'The suddenly, wind-shaken woods springs awake

for the second dark time, this one spring day.'