Key Stage 3 - Under Milk Wood

The opening paragraphs of Under Milk Wood to be used with Lessons 2, 3 & 4

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(Silence)

To begin at the beginning:

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobble streets silent and the hunched, courters' and rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, 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 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 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, rodgered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the field, 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 in the street, the processional salt slow musical wind in Coronation Street and Cockle Row, it is grass growing on Llareggub Hill, dewfall, starfall, the sleep of birds in Milk Wood.

* Dan y Wenallt / Under Milk Wood
The definitive edition - edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud

An extract from Under Milk Wood to be used with Lessons 5 & 6

Characters: Lily Smalls, Mrs Beynon, First Voice, Mr Pugh, Mrs Pugh, Second Voice, Mary Ann Sailors, Dai Bread, Mrs Dai Bread One, Mrs Dai Bread Two, Lord Cut-Glass, Nogood Boyo, Miss Price, Polly Garter.

LILY:

(looking in the mirror)
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
1ST VOICE

And very softly, her lips almost touching her reflection, she breathes the name and clouds the shaving glass.
MRS BEYNON:

(loudly from the bedroom) Lily!
LILY:

(loudly)  Yes, mum
MRS BEYNON:

Where’s my tea, girl?
LILY:

(Quietly) 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 your vases.
I’ve put cheese in the mousehole.
Here’s your...
...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
2ND VOICE:

Lily Smalls the treasure down on her red knees washing the front step.
MRS PUGH:

She’s tucked her dress into her bloomers – oh, the baggage!
2ND 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.
2ND VOICE:

...and lumbering down towards the strand to see that the sea is still there.
1ST VOICE:

Mary Ann Sailors, opening her bedroom window above the taproom and calling out to the heavens
MARY ANN:

I’m eighty-five years, three months and a day!
MRS PUGH:

I will say this for her, she never makes a mistake.
1ST 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 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 daub 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?

* Dan y Wenallt / Under Milk Wood
The definitive edition - edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud

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