W. B. Yeats

“ CONCHUBAR.
Most certainly.
I am High King, my son shall be High King;
And you for all the wildness of your blood,
And though your father came out of the sun,
Are but a little king and weigh but light
In anything that touches government,
If put into the balance with my children.
CUCHULAIN.
[88] It’s well that we should speak our minds out plainly,
For when we die we shall be spoken of
In many countries. We in our young days
Have seen the heavens like a burning cloud
Brooding upon the world, and being more
Than men can be now that cloud’s lifted up,
We should be the more truthful. ”

“ Because their brains are ever upon fire.
DEIDRE.
Is then the king that sends no messenger,
And leaves an empty house before a guest,
So clear in all he does that no dim word
Can light us to a doubt?
FERGUS.
However dim,
[150] Speak it, for I have known King Conchubar
Better than my own heart, and I can quench
Whatever words have made you doubt him.
NAISI.
No,
I cannot weigh the gossip of the roads
With a king’s word, and were the end but death,
I may not doubt him.
DEIDRE.
Naisi, I must speak.
FERGUS.
Let us begone, this house is no fit place,
Being full of doubt—Deirdre is right. ”

“ They are to pass into a stranger’s keeping,
As yours will pass. [89]
CUCHULAIN.
The most of men feel that,
But you and I leave names upon the harp.
CONCHUBAR.
You play with arguments as lawyers do,
And put no heart in them. I know your thoughts,
For we have slept under the one cloak and drunk
From the one wine cup. I know you to the bone.
I have heard you cry, aye in your very sleep,
‘I have no son,’ and with such bitterness
That I have gone upon my knees and prayed
That it might be amended.
CUCHULAIN.
For you thought
That I should be as biddable as others
Had I their reason for it ”

“ The High King there would make a mock of me
Because I did not take a wife among them.
Why do you hang your head? It’s a good life:
The head grows prouder in the light of the dawn,
And friendship thickens in the murmuring dark
Where the spare hazels meet the wool-white foam.
But I can see there’s no more need for words
And that you’ll be my friend from this day out. [104]
CONCHUBAR.
He has come hither not in his own name
But in Queen Aoife’s, and has challenged us
In challenging the foremost man of us all.
CUCHULAIN.
Well, well, what matter?
CONCHUBAR.
You think it does not matter ”

“ CONCHUBAR.
You lay commands on me?
CUCHULAIN.
[Seizing CONCHUBAR.]
You shall not stir, High King. I’ll hold you there.
CONCHUBAR.
Witchcraft has maddened you.
THE KINGS [shouting] .
Yes, witchcraft! witchcraft!
FIRST OLD KING.
Some witch has worked upon your mind, Cuchulain.
The head of that young man seemed like a woman’s
You’d had a fancy for. Then of a sudden
You laid your hands on the High King himself!
CUCHULAIN.
And laid my hands on the High King himself? [110]
CONCHUBAR.
Some witch is floating in the air above us.
CUCHULAIN.
Yes, witchcraft, witchcraft! Witches of the air! ”

“ CONCHUBAR motions; NAISI, unseen by DEIRDRE, is taken behind the curtain.
Until I woke the passion that’s in all,
And how could he resist? I had my beauty.
You may have need of him, a brave, strong man,
Who is not foolish at the council board,
Nor does he quarrel by the candle-light
And give hard blows to dogs. A cup of wine
Moves him to mirth, not madness. ”

“ NAISI.
Light torches there and drive the shadows out,
For day’s red end comes up.
[A MUSICIAN lights a torch in the fire and then crosses before the chess-players, and slowly lights the torches in the sconces. The light is almost gone from the wood, but there is a clear evening light in the sky, increasing the sense of solitude and loneliness. [160]
DEIRDRE.
Make no sad music.
What is it but a king and queen at chess?
They need a music that can mix itself
Into imagination, but not break
The steady thinking that the hard game needs. ”

“ NAISI.
The flagon’s dry,
[143] Full of old cobwebs, and the bread is mouldy,
Left by some traveller gone upon his way
These many weeks.
DEIDRE.
No one to welcome us,
And a bare house upon the journey’s end.
Is that the welcome that a king spreads out
For those that he would honour?
NAISI.
Hush! no more.
You are King Conchubar’s guest, being in his house.
You speak as women do that sit alone,
Marking the ashes with a stick till they
Are in a dreamy terror. Being a queen,
You should have too calm thought to start at shadows. ”

“ Does Cuchulain know that he is coming to kill him?
BLIND MAN.
How would he know that with his head in the clouds? He doesn’t care for common fighting. Why would he put himself out, and nobody in it but that young man? Now, if it were a white fawn that might turn into a queen before morning—
FOOL.
Come to the fowl. I wish it was as big as a pig; a fowl with goose grease and pig’s crackling.
BLIND MAN.
No hurry, no hurry. I know whose son it is. I wouldn’t tell anybody else, but I will tell you,—a secret is better to you than your dinner. You like being told secrets. ”

“ CUCHULAIN.
No wonder in that, no wonder at all in that.
I never have known love but as a kiss
In the mid-battle, and a difficult truce
Of oil and water, candles and dark night,
Hillside and hollow, the hot-footed sun,
And the cold, sliding, slippery-footed moon—
A brief forgiveness between opposites
That have been hatreds for three times the age
Of this long-’stablished ground.
CONCHUBAR.
Listen to me.
[93] Aoife makes war on us, and every day
Our enemies grow greater and beat the walls
More bitterly, and you within the walls
Are every day more turbulent ”

“ BLIND MAN.
He is outside the door.
CUCHULAIN.
Outside the door?
BLIND MAN.
Between the door and the sea.
CUCHULAIN.
Conchubar, Conchubar! the sword into your heart! [122]
[He rushes out. Pause. FOOL creeps up to the big door and looks after him.
FOOL.
He is going up to King Conchubar. They are all about the young man. No, no, he is standing still. There is a great wave going to break, and he is looking at it. Ah! now he is running down to the sea, but he is holding up his sword as if he were going into a fight. [Pause.] ”

“ CUCHULAIN.
No, no—there’s nothing out of common here;
The winds are innocent.—That arm-ring, boy.
A KING.
If I’ve your leave I’ll take this challenge up.
ANOTHER KING.
No, give it me, High King, for this wild Aoife
Has carried off my slaves.
ANOTHER KING.
No, give it me,
For she has harried me in house and herd.
ANOTHER KING.
I claim this fight.
OTHER KINGS [together] .
And I! And I! And I! [107]
CUCHULAIN.
Back! back! Put up your swords! Put up your swords!
There’s none alive that shall accept a challenge
I have refused. Laegaire, put up your sword! ”

“ Come to my house now, Deirdre,
For he that called himself your husband’s dead.
DEIDRE.
O, do not touch me. Let me go to him.
[Pause.
King Conchubar is right. My husband’s dead.
A single woman is of no account,
Lacking array of servants, linen cupboards,
The bacon hanging—and King Conchubar’s house
[172] All ready, too—I’ll to King Conchubar’s house.
It is but wisdom to do willingly
What has to be.
CONCHUBAR.
But why are you so calm?
I thought that you would curse me and cry out,
And fall upon the ground and tear your hair.
DEIRDRE [laughing] .
You know too much of women to think so ”

“ CUCHULAIN throws himself between.
CUCHULAIN.
Put up your swords.
He is but one. Aoife is far away. [100]
YOUNG MAN.
I have come alone into the midst of you
To weigh this sword against Cuchulain’s sword.
CONCHUBAR.
And are you noble? for if of common seed,
You cannot weigh your sword against his sword
But in mixed battle.
YOUNG MAN.
I am under bonds
To tell my name to no man; but it’s noble.
CONCHUBAR.
But I would know your name and not your bonds.
You cannot speak in the Assembly House,
If you are not noble.
FIRST OLD KING.
Answer the High King! ”

“ But that old vehement, bewildering kiss.
[CONCHUBAR comes to the door.]
MUSICIAN.
Children, beware!
NAISI [laughing] .
He has taken up my challenge;
Whether I am a ghost or living man
When day has broken, I’ll forget the rest,
And say that there is kingly stuff in him.
[Turns to fetch spear and shield, and then sees that CONCHUBAR has gone. [162]
DEIRDRE.
He came to spy upon us, not to fight.
NAISI.
A prudent hunter, therefore, but no king.
He’d find if what has fallen in the pit
Were worth the hunting, but has come too near,
And I turn hunter. You’re not man, but beast. ”

“ And send a messenger to the harp-players.
We’ll find a level place among the woods,
And dance awhile.
A YOUNG KING.
Cuchulain, take the oath.
There is none here that would not have you take it.
CUCHULAIN.
You’d have me take it? Are you of one mind?
THE KINGS.
All, all, all, all!
A YOUNG KING.
Do what the High King bids you.
CONCHUBAR.
There is not one but dreads this turbulence
Now that they’re settled men. [95]
CUCHULAIN.
Are you so changed,
Or have I grown more dangerous of late?
But that’s not it. I understand it all.
It’s you that have changed. ”

“ He likes nothing so well as a feather.
FOOL.
He left me nothing but the bones and feathers. Nothing but the feathers, though I had stolen it.
CUCHULAIN.
Give me that horn! Quarrels here, too! [Drinks.] What is there between you two that is worth a quarrel? Out with it! [116]
BLIND MAN.
Where would he be but for me? I must be always thinking—thinking to get food for the two of us, and when we’ve got it, if the moon is at the full or the tide on the turn, he’ll leave the rabbit in the snare till it is full of maggots, or let the trout slip back through his hands into the stream. ”

“ NAISI.
He is but mocking us. What’s left to say
Now that the seven years’ hunt is at an end?
DEIDRE.
[166] He never doubted you until I made him,
And therefore all the blame for what he says
Should fall on me.
CONCHUBAR.
But his young blood is hot,
And if we’re of one mind, he shall go free,
And I ask nothing for it, or, if something,
Nothing I could not take. There is no king
In the wide world that, being so greatly wronged,
Could copy me, and give all vengeance up. ”

“ O, I will tell Conchubar and Cuchulain and all the kings about you!
BLIND MAN.
What would have happened to you but for me, and you without your wits? If I did not take care of you, what would you do for food and warmth?
FOOL.
You take care of me! You stay safe, and send me into every kind of danger. You sent me down the cliff for gulls’ eggs while you warmed your blind eyes in the sun; and then you ate all that were good for food. You left me the eggs that were neither egg nor bird. [BLIND MAN tries to rise; FOOL makes him lie down again.] ”

“ As if I were some cattle-raising king?
Are my shins speckled with the heat of the fire,
Or have my hands no skill but to make figures
Upon the ashes with a stick? Am I
So slack and idle that I need a whip
Before I serve you? [87]
CONCHUBAR.
No, no whip, Cuchulain,
But every day my children come and say:
‘This man is growing harder to endure.
How can we be at safety with this man
That nobody can buy or bid or bind?
We shall be at his mercy when you are gone;
He burns the earth as if he were a fire,
And time can never touch him.’
CUCHULAIN.
And so the tale
Grows finer yet ”

“ For Naisi, son of Usna. [173]
CONCHUBAR.
It is not fitting.
You are not now a wanderer, but a queen,
And there are plenty that can do these things.
DEIRDRE.
[Motioning CONCHUBAR away.]
No, no. Not yet. I cannot be your queen
Till the past’s finished, and its debts are paid.
When a man dies and there are debts unpaid,
He wanders by the debtor’s bed and cries,
There’s so much owing. ”

“ Loud shouting outside: ‘Death to Conchubar!’ ‘Where is Naisi?’ etc. The dark-skinned men gather round CONCHUBAR and draw their swords; but he motions them away.
I have no need of weapons,
There’s not a traitor that dare stop my way.
Howl, if you will; but I, being king, did right
In choosing her most fitting to be queen,
And letting no boy lover take the sway. ”

“ SEANCHAN holds up his hand as if a bird perched upon it. He pretends to stroke the bird.
A little God,
With comfortable feathers, and bright eyes.
FIRST GIRL.
There will be no more dancing in our time,
For nobody will play the harp or the fiddle. ”

“ There’s nothing in the world that’s worth a fear.
[She passes FORGAEL and stands for a moment looking into his face.]
I have good reason for that thought.
[She runs suddenly on to the raised part of the poop.]
And now
I can put fear away as a queen should.
[She mounts on the bulwark and turns towards FORGAEL.]
Fool, fool! Although you have looked into my face
You did not see my purpose. I shall have gone
Before a hand can touch me.
Forgael [folding his arms] . My hands are still;
The ever-living hold us. Do what you will,
You cannot leap out of the golden net. ”

“ BLIND MAN.
Somebody is trembling, Fool! The bench is shaking. Why are you trembling? Is Cuchulain going to hurt us? It was not I who told you, Cuchulain.
FOOL.
It is Cuchulain who is trembling. It is Cuchulain who is shaking the bench.
BLIND MAN.
It is his own son he has slain.
CUCHULAIN.
’Twas they that did it, the pale, windy people. ”