James Stephens

“ It is savagery in the blood, and pain in the bone, and greed and despair in the mind. It is to be thirsty in the night and unslaked in the day. It is to carry memory like a thorn in the heart. It is to drip one’s blood as one walks. Leave men to the things they know, and do you meddle with your own female businesses.”
“Those children,” said Lavarcham stubbornly, “are a woman’s business, and his own subjects are matter for a king.”
“They are our kinsmen indeed,” said Conachúr thoughtfully, “and their troubles shall be looked into. We shall speak of this again after the banquet.” ”

“ Every person who observed the king would look on him with something else in the regard. Many reserves would be down, many barriers broken; for all people look differently on the king when he is in love, and they try to bathe in his fortunate regard.
The men would glance at him shyly and subtly: each look a reminder and a well-wishing. While he stood among them he and they would laugh without any word being said, and they would be more familiar with him than they would otherwise dare. But if one dared to clap his shoulder, Conachúr would clap that comrade’s shoulder again. ”

“ Then the creator is manifest in his creation, and all in us. We are it and all: we are the soul of the world, and our own soul: we are the victors, for we are beyond fear: we are the masters, for we are beyond desire.
How should fear or lust reach to the tops we spurn! The sour-faced beggar shaking his oaken bowl may have our purse and a clasp of the hand to boot. Yon shaking anatomy that hovers and limps shall have our own health if none other is at hand, for all now is soft and easy, and at one bend of a brow the Land of Heart’s Desire may be in being.
So Conachúr went, dreaming ”

“ She had her own machinery for brewing and baking. What had she not got? Her dresses alone would pack a house and burst out through the roof and tumble down the glass of her Sunny Chamber like an untimely sunset for colour, and like a billow of the sea for exuberance.
She did not intend that as much as one thread of her threads should remain behind her in Emain Macha.
“No other queen shall waggle her toes in my draperies, nor enjoy what is proper for my enjoyment alone,” thought Maeve. ”

“ I shall never complain again in this life if you will come with me to Scotland. Let us go away. You and I, and our darlings, Ainnle and Ardan. He is so young to be killed, our brother Ardan. He is but twenty-one years old, and he is gay and loving and fearless. We will be together again; we four: alone and happy. Listen! we will hunt and feast and defend ourselves and fear nothing. You shall win a kingdom there: in sweet Alba of the heathery uplands; but let us fly from Conachúr. You do not know him. Only I and Lavarcham know that terrible king. He is thoughtful. ”

“ At times, as one forces a restive horse much farther than it desires to go, he would impel into the brief tail-end of her sentence a philosophic and peaceful interjection which acted on her as the spur on the horse, so that he would drive her beyond the very bounds of utterance, and she would at last, from sheer tongue-weariness, topple from the peaks of speech into a silence so profound that nothing, it seemed, could ever draw her thence again; and then Conachúr would talk to her soothingly, reasonably, unforgivably, and it was Maeve would run. ”

“ Conachúr advanced on him so savagely and with such a writhe of feature that the man fell back.
“Dog!” said Conachúr. “If they escape I shall take your head.”
“They are surrounded,” the captain stammered; “they cannot escape.”
“They can escape,” Conachúr roared. “You know they can escape. Your men are cowards and idiots, and what are you? Oh, am I not a thwarted man! Am I not a forsaken king! Where is Cathfa? Where is the druid?” he cried.
“Majesty,” the captain implored, “do not curse us. The great magician is coming.” ”

“ But for Deirdre a night went by which to the end of her days she would not care to remember.
She had seen the king at last: that being, all memory and dream, half monster and half baby, whom she remembered from Lavarcham’s endless tale. She had seen the grave brow, the graver eyes, the bushy, reddish-yellow hair looped back to the slope of his poll, and the yellow beard cleft at the centre and foaming in two points to the breast. She could not have thought that a man might be so huge, so steady, so masterful. ”

“ Nevertheless, so illogical is the mind of man, and so uncompromising is the sense of property, that men could be found who would interrupt with a spear the careless pleasure of a prince; and there were some, blacksmiths mostly and cobblers, who would take a cudgel to the king’s majesty itself and beat it out of a warm bed.
So, when Lavarcham thought that she might conduct her ward between the lax arms of her sovereign, she but harboured an idea which every male person in the realm who had a wife, a sister, or a daughter, hoped for with fervour. ”

“ She was his to-morrow. She was his all and his last chance. She was his future, vivifying all that had grown stale, and unfolding horizons where an uttermost end had seemed. For at times an ending comes on every man, and thereafter there is nothing to strive for, there being nothing left to hope for; energy winces from the thought of any task, and the future but prolongs a present that is insipid and wearisome.
The departure of Maeve had been such an ending for Conachúr. Life had halted there [Pg 134] for him, or had moved in a round of sameness which chafed and tormented his whirling mind. ”

“ The departure of Maeve meant also the departure of mac Roth, and to be free from that jovial, crafty eye was so great a relief that Lavarcham could have wept in thankfulness; for to be a spy is a simple thing, an occupation like any other, but to be spied upon when one is a spy is a monstrous inversion of what is proper, and might easily give one palpitations of the heart.
Mac Roth had her frightened, and could have cowed her any time he wished. In her own craft he was her master, for, after all, she was only a household spy, but he was a—spy. ”

“ He has outlived all the chances of desire.
“He will love you only, and each day he will love you more. What fear there is will be on his side; he will be afraid of men; and there your heed must be endless, for you must not hurt the king even by a second’s thoughtlessness. His equal is not in Eirè [Pg 130] for majesty and wisdom. He is a great king, a great man, a royal hero. O my lamb! all that is of good luck and of noble fate has come to you, and you should thank the king for ever on your knees, and thank your poor Lavarcham who planned this happiness.” ”

“ And as her heart had leaped so his leaped also, and they stood in an internal tumult, so loud, so intimate and violent, that the uproar and rush of a storm was quietude in the comparison.
They could not speak. There were no words left in the world. There were only eyes that plunged into and fled from each other, and a mighty hand that had gripped her arm and would never release it again. A hand that pushed her backwards and backwards, away from the friendly logs that crackled and flamed; away from the quiet forms that might have rescued her but that lay as though slumbering in stone. ”

“ A gentleman would know of all the music that was worthy of being played, for a musical person formed part of every household. He would remember the songs that had outlived time and could discuss their excellences; and the only art which he need regard as occult would be poetry itself; for, while all other arts come by memory and experiment, poetry, which is not an art, comes solely by grace.
“Lavarcham,” said Conachúr, “have you heard any talk of the banquet?”
“Indeed, master, I have heard nothing else.” ”

“ In these grave ways we may approach perfection, indicating distantly that which cannot be unveiled in speech; or we may tell of the abasement which comes on the heart when beauty is seen; the sadness which is sharper than every other sadness; the despair that overshadows us when the abashed will concedes that though it would overbear everything it cannot master this, and that here we renounce all claim; for beauty is beyond the beast, and like all else of quality it can only be apprehended by its equal and enjoyed where it gives itself. ”

“ The world was singing for Conachúr, and he was song. For to the clairvoyance of love all that is unseen takes on sweet shape, and all that we see we are shapen to. A new world emerges softly from the old: not imperceptibly and unreckoned, but by such divine gradations as we may note and rejoice in. ”

“ The chief cause of trouble in a country is the herald, for he is always wrong, and even when he is right in fact he is wrong in tact. Do not take any other woman’s counsel in those matters; do not even seek it—the one wish of all women is to advance their husbands, and themselves by consequence, and they will ruin the world if they are let.
“Do not forget that, after the king, the first man in the land is Fergus the son of Roy. Be quick in respect to him, but be slow to sit by him or to talk with him, for Conachúr loves him on the surface, but he hates him in the bone. ”

“ If he dares to thwart me—the king gloomed, and went into a bitter rage of meditation.
A great voice boomed on him.
“Good my soul, Conachúr!”
“It is Fergus,” cried the king joyfully, and strode to meet his visitor.
“Come, my pulse and best. Sit you and I shall stand. Nay, sit,” he chided gently. “Indeed, if things were right you should sit always, and this man,” tapping his own breast, “should bend a lover’s knee before you. You bear no ill-will, sweetheart, for that trick of long ago?” ”

“ At last,” he explained to Deirdre, “there wouldn’t be any head at all, no face at all, only a mat of hair as long as a woman’s, and it in knots, and a shiny grin among the knots.”
“You are all wrong,” said Ainnle. “A dead man’s hair grows lank and long like a drink of water.”
“Pooh!” said Ardan. “You remember everything! You are the great man of the world! The wind knots them and twists them and wobbles them all in and out like a doormat.”
“Yonder is Conachúr’s house, the Royal Branch,” said Naoise.
“We will give a good thundering knock at the door and make them jump,” said Ainnle gleefully. ”

“ Conachúr mac Nessa was preparing a feast.
Household banquets were common matters at his court, but this was to be a State banquet, and every person who could be thought of as noble or notable was invited to the Red Branch.
As well as an aristocracy of birth there was in every Irish court an élite of excellence. Those who were foremost in learning, the arts, or the crafts, had the privilege of visiting the king equally with those whose merit rose from their fathers’ graves or their skill at arms. ”

“ Naoise replied. “He is as safe for five minutes as if he were in bed.”
“Your combat, Naoise!” she breathed.
“It will be the easiest of them all. There will be a rough companion with me. Run all to the other door,” he cried. “Iollann! Deirdre! Ardan! Your slings! The bolts, Buinne! Pull, my soul!”
Far out in the moonlight Ainnle was coursing like a deer. The moon flashed on his blade and on his shield. Men ran from him, and men ran to head him off, and into the middle of these he went diving like a fish. A band from the right came rushing for the open door. ”

“ Her mind, too, was overflowing with that same sense of urgency, as though something clamoured to be done immediately and at a pace faster than limbs could manage. What was it she wanted? She did not know, but she knew definitely that she wanted it with a whole uncontrollable mental greed that made of her a person she did not recognize and could not battle with. ”

“ As the travellers proceeded they were morose and thoughtful, and even Ardan’s high spirits flagged. But as they looked on a native sky, and on the fields and hedgerows of an Irish countryside, something of their disquietude was eased and a lightening of the heart became apparent in each of them.
“Dear girl,” said Naoise, and he placed an arm about her shoulders. “We are in Ireland,” he said. ”

“ Cúchulinn himself.
When we endeavour to tell of these things words cannot stand the trial. It may be done by music, or by allusion, as the poets have always done, saying that this girl is like the moon, or like the Sky-Woman of the Dawn, when they would indicate a beauty beyond what we know; and that she is like a rose when they would tell of a gentle and proud sweetness; that her wrist is crisp and delicate like the delicate foam that mantles on a sunny tide ”

“ He knew that he might safely leave the publishing of that event to Lavarcham, and that ere nightfall every house in a radius of twenty miles would be talking of the king’s marriage.
Down every road that ran from Emain Macha messengers would be going in swift chariots to tell the tale and to bid those who were worthy to the wedding feast. Not stopping for more than a few minutes at any place; changing horses at the guest-houses, and dashing off again; some deep into Connacht in the west, others eastwards into Leinster, and more again speeding the long centre of Ireland to the two Munsters. ”

“ They were young, but they had killed; and they rocked with glee as they told by what marvellous strategy they had got in the lucky blow, and how the champion had gone down never to rise again, and they had trotted home squealing and squawking with joy, with a head surveying the world from the top of a spear, and it grinning down on them as joyously as they chattered up at it. ”

“ Not time nor thought could blunt the edge of his bodily or mental energy, so vast was it, and misfortune beat as unavailingly against him as the wind did against oaken Emania.
To be energetic and self-sufficing is to be happy; but while one desire remains in the heart happiness may not come there. ”

“ For to desire is to be incomplete: it is the badge of dependence, the signal of unhappiness, and to be freed from that is to be freed from every fetter that can possibly be forged. Man becomes god when he finds his satisfactions within himself, but his dreams then are other than those that harried Conachúr as a pack of hounds harry a fox. ”

“ She stayed listening to those voices, young as her own, and as sweet; rattling like the waters that tumble and ride in the river; chattering like a nestful of young birds in spring; soaring up and falling down with an infinite eagerness and joy; until it seemed that a lark’s song and the flight of a swallow had come together and fused into one streaming of sound. ”

“ But Nessa was not entirely absorbed in love. She was still thinking of her son. During that year she arranged a marriage for Conachúr with Clothru, the daughter of the High King of Ireland, and she spent a vast treasure in working among the nobles and important people of Ulster, so that they became of her son’s party as against the party of her husband.
Indeed, her young husband had no party, for he was the least suspicious man living in the world, and, except in matters of honour or war, he would make no plans and take no trouble. ”

“ There are other ways by which a mutual perception can be so deflected that the same thing is not similarly viewed, and so Lavarcham’s appreciation of Maeve’s conduct would differ from Conachúr’s, as his would be unlike Cathfa’s or Bricriu’s or Fergus mac Roy’s, and as these would be obscure to one another. The element of self-interest in each would act as a prism, and each would understand as much of the tale as he desired to understand, but no more, and would forgive or condemn on these arrested findings. ”

“ But I have a few pieces somewhere—Did you pass Conall Cearnach as you came in?”
“I did; he smiled a frozen smile at me, and clapped my shoulder with a fist of lead.”
“We were arguing about honour. If a person was placed under your protection and was then killed, what would you do, Cúcuceen?”
“I would kill the other person,” said Cúchulinn.
“If it was the king, my pet?”
“I would kill the king.”
Conachúr sat round at him in a rage.
“Would you kill me?” he demanded.
“I would,” Cúchulinn returned as fiercely. “I would kill any one who destroyed a person under my protection.” ”