Deirdre of the Sorrows

“ Keep back, Conchubor; for the High King who is your master has put his hands between us. (She half turns to the grave.) It was sorrows were foretold, but great joys were my share always; yet it is a cold place I must go to be with you, Naisi; and it’s cold your arms will be this night that were warm about my neck so often. . . . It’s a pitiful thing to be talking out when your ears are shut to me. It’s a pitiful thing, Conchubor, you have done this night in Emain; yet a thing will be a joy and triumph to the ends of life and time. ”

“ DEIRDRE.
You must not go, Naisi, and leave me to the High King, a man is aging in his dun, with his crowds round him, and his silver and gold. (More quickly.) I will not live to be shut up in Emain, and wouldn’t we do well paying, Naisi, with silence and a near death. (She stands up and walks away from him.) I’m a long while in the woods with my own self, and I’m in little dread of death, and it earned with riches would make the sun red with envy, and he going up the heavens; and the moon pale and lonesome, and she wasting away. ”

“ NAISI.
Then we’ll go away. It isn’t I will give your like to Conchubor, not if the grave was dug to be my lodging when a week was by. (He looks out.) The stars are out, Deirdre, and let you come with me quickly, for it is the stars will be our lamps many nights and we abroad in Alban, and taking our journeys among the little islands in the sea. There has never been the like of the joy we’ll have, Deirdre, you and I, having our fill of love at the evening and the morning till the sun is high. ”

“ DEIRDRE.
Are the stepping-stones flooding, Lavarcham? Will the night be stormy in the hills?
LAVARCHAM.
— looking at her curiously. — The stepping-stones are flooding, surely, and the night will be the worst, I’m thinking, we’ve seen these years gone by.
DEIRDRE.
— tearing open the press and pulling out clothes and tapestries. — Lay these mats and hangings by the windows, and at the tables for our feet, and take out the skillets of silver, and the golden cups we have, and our two flasks of wine. ”

“ It’s easy being fearful and you alone in the woods, yet it would be a poor thing if a timid woman (taunting her a little) could turn away the Sons of Usna from the life of kings. Let you be thinking on the years to come, Deirdre, and the way you’d have a right to see Naisi a high and white-haired justice beside some king of Emain. Wouldn’t it be a poor story if a queen the like of you should have no thought but to be scraping up her hours dallying in the sunshine with the sons of kings? ”

“ Romancing, which is the very atmosphere of "The Playboy of the Western World," would be out of place in any telling of the greatest of old Irish legends; so it is that Synge has found for "Deirdre of the Sorrows," or rather for its great moments, an austere epic speech that seems native to the story. The passionate words are nobly adequate to the passionate resignation they have to tell, a resignation that has come of the unwilling belief of the lovers that so great a love as theirs cannot last longer "without fleck or flaw" than the seven years it has lasted. ”

“ DEIRDRE.
We’ve had a dream, but this night has waked us surely. In a little while we’ve lived too long, Naisi, and isn’t it a poor thing we should miss the safety of the grave, and we trampling its edge?
AINNLE.
— behind. — Naisi, Naisi, we are attacked and ruined!
DEIRDRE.
Let you go where they are calling. (She looks at him for an instant coldly.) Have you no shame loitering and talking, and a cruel death facing Ainnle and Ardan in the woods?
NAISI.
— frantic. — They’ll not get a death that’s cruel, and they with men alone. It’s women that have loved are cruel only ”

“ There’s little hurt getting old, saving when you’re looking back, the way I’m looking this day, and seeing the young you have a love for breaking up their hearts with folly. (Going to Deirdre.) Take my word and stop Naisi, and the day’ll come you’ll have more joy having the senses of an old woman and you with your little grandsons shrieking round you, than I’d have this night putting on the red mouth and the white arms you have, to go walking lonesome byways with a gamey king. ”

“ DEIRDRE.
There’s reason all times for an end that’s come. And I’m well pleased, Naisi, we’re going forward in the winter the time the sun has a low place, and the moon has her mastery in a dark sky, for it’s you and I are well lodged our last day, where there is a light behind the clear trees, and the berries on the thorns are a red wall.
NAISI.
If our time in this place is ended, come away without Ainnle and Ardan to the woods of the east, for it’s right to be away from all people when two lovers have their love only. Come away and we’ll be safe always. ”

“ DEIRDRE.
— with a more tender intensity. — We’re seven years without roughness or growing weary; seven years so sweet and shining, the gods would be hard set to give us seven days the like of them. It’s for that we’re going to Emain, where there’ll be a rest for ever, or a place for forgetting, in great crowds and they making a stir.
NAISI.
— very softly. — We’ll go, surely, in place of keeping a watch on a love had no match and it wasting away. (They cling to each other for a moment, then Naisi looks up.) There are Fergus and Lavarcham and my two brothers. ”

“ LAVARCHAM.
— to Old Woman. — She doesn’t heed us at all. We’ll be hard set to rouse her.
OLD WOMAN.
If we don’t the High King will rouse her, coming down beside her with the rage of battle in his blood, for how could Fergus stand against him?
LAVARCHAM.
— touching Deirdre with her hand. — There’s a score of woman’s years in store for you, and you’d best choose will you start living them beside the man you hate, or being your own mistress in the west or south?
DEIRDRE.
It is not I will go on living after Ainnle and after Ardan. After Naisi I will not have a lifetime in the world. ”

“ But through the ages has the tale of the wondrous beauty of Deirdre been sung, and yet shall it be told again, for when shall the world tire of the sorrowfullest of ‘The Three Sorrows of Story-telling,’—the Fate of the Sons of Usna and of Deirdre the Star-eyed?
THE FOUR WHITE SWANS
In the days of long ago there lived in the Green Isle of Erin a race of brave men and fair women—the race of the Dedannans. North, south, east, and west did this noble people dwell, doing homage to many chiefs. ”

“ DEIRDRE.
— made a little defiant by his tone. — I have no wish to be a queen.
CONCHUBOR.
— almost sneeringly. — You’d wish to be dressing in your duns and grey, and you herding your geese or driving your calves to their shed — like the common lot scattered in the glens.
DEIRDRE.
— very defiant. — I would not, Conchubor. (She goes to tapestry and begins to work.) A girl born the way I’m born is more likely to wish for a mate who’d be her likeness. . . . A man with his hair like the raven, maybe, and his skin like the snow and his lips like blood spilt on it. ”

“ And yet this last while I’m saying out, when I see the furze breaking and the daws sitting two and two on ash-trees by the duns of Emain, Deirdre’s a year nearer her full age when she’ll be my mate and comrade and then I’m glad surely.
DEIRDRE.
— almost to herself. — I will not be your mate in Emain.
CONCHUBOR.
— not heeding her. — It’s there you’ll be proud and happy and you’ll learn that, if young men are great hunters, yet it’s with the like of myself you’ll find a knowledge of what is priceless in your own like. ”

“ If Conchubor’d a queen like me in Emain he’d not have stretched these rags to meet us. (She pulls hanging, and it opens.) There’s new earth on the ground and a trench dug. . . . It’s a grave, Naisi, that is wide and deep.
NAISI.
— goes over and pulls back curtain showing grave. — And that’ll be our home in Emain. . . . He’s dug it wisely at the butt of a hill, with fallen trees to hide it. He’ll want to have us killed and buried before Fergus comes.
DEIRDRE.
Take me away. . . . Take me to hide in the rocks, for the night is coming quickly. ”

“ CONCHUBOR.
— looking at her for a moment. — That’s the first friendly word I’ve heard you speaking, Deirdre. A game the like of yours should be the proper thing for softening the heart and putting sweetness in the tongue; and yet this night when I hear you I’ve small blame left for Naisi that he stole you off from Ulster. ”

“ FERGUS.
It is a poor thing to see a queen so lonesome and afraid. (He watches till he is sure Deirdre cannot hear him.) Listen now to what I’m saying. You’d do well to come back to men and women are your match and comrades, and not be lingering until the day that you’ll grow weary, and hurt Deirdre showing her the hardness will grow up within your eyes. ”

“ Their like would go any place where they’d see death standing. (With more agitation.) I’m in dread Conchubor wants to have yourself and to kill Naisi, and that that’ll be the ruin of the Sons of Usna. I’m silly, maybe, to be dreading the like, but those have a great love for yourself have a right to be in dread always. ”

“ It may be I will not have Naisi growing an old man in Alban with an old woman at his side, and young girls pointing out and saying, “that is Deirdre and Naisi had great beauty in their youth.” It may be we do well putting a sharp end to the day is brave and glorious, as our fathers put a sharp end to the days of the kings of Ireland; or that I’m wishing to set my foot on Slieve Fuadh, where I was running one time and leaping the streams, (to Lavarcham) and that I’d be well pleased to see our little apple-trees, Lavarcham, behind our cabin on the hill ”

“ He has been with wise men and he knows their ways.
AINNLE.
— joining their hands. — By the sun and moon and the whole earth, I wed Deirdre to Naisi. (He steps back and holds up his hands.) May the air bless you, and water and the wind, the sea, and all the hours of the sun and moon.
CURTAIN
ACT II.
Alban. Early morning in the beginning of winter. A wood outside the tent of Deirdre and Naisi. Lavarcham comes in muffled in a cloak.
LAVARCHAM.
— calling. — Deirdre. . . . Deirdre. . . .
DEIRDRE.
— coming from tent. — My welcome, Lavarcham. . . . Whose curagh is rowing from Ulster? ”

“ If the dead had any sense to feel,
Ye would have made a place for Deirdre.
The men did as she told them. She jumped into the grave and lay down by Naois, and she was dead by his side.
The king ordered the body to be raised from out the grave and to be buried on the other side of the loch. ”

“ When the king saw the woman that was before him that he had been in quest of, he thought he never saw in the course of the day nor in the dream of night a creature so fair as Deirdre and he gave his full heart's weight of love to her. Deirdre was raised on the topmost of the heroes' shoulders and she and her foster-mother were brought to the Court of King Connachar of Ulster. ”

“ On the wall a text confronted her. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" it demanded of all and sundry, and Deirdre, pleasantly conscious that the question had nothing to do with her, turned to accompany her shy and rather silent guide. ”

“ And Deirdre arose and drew the bolt from the leaf of the door, and she let in the hunter. She placed a seat in the place for sitting, food in the place for eating, and drink in the place for drinking for the man who came to the house. "Oh, for this life and raiment, you man that came in, keep restraint on your tongue!" said the old woman. "It is not a great thing for you to keep your mouth shut and your tongue quiet when you get a home and shelter of a hearth on a gloomy winter's night." ”

“ Now dry up the flood and let me see if I can behold Deirdre," said Connachar. And Duanan Gacha Druid dried up the flood from the plain and the three sons of Uisnech were lying together dead, without breath of life, side by side on the green meadow plain and Deirdre bending above showering down her tears.
Then Deirdre said this lament: "Fair one, loved one, flower of beauty; beloved, upright, and strong; beloved, noble, and modest warrior. Fair one, blue-eyed, beloved of thy wife; lovely to me at the tryst [91] ing-place came thy clear voice through the woods of Ireland. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He would move habitually where death urged about him at no greater distance than the length of a spear, and he would look upon death as being so instant a part of life, that he must woo the one as earnestly as he loved the other.
His thought of Deirdre was also complicated by the knowledge that she was his master’s ward, and his personal loyalty to Conachúr was such that he would not dwell even in imagination on that which belonged to the king. ”

“ Let that last unhappiness be spared me. I am your wife, Naoise. I would prefer that evil should happen to all the world rather than one small misfortune should come to you. I am not Deirdre any more. I am Misery. ”

“ Deirdre and her foster-mother dwelt in the bothy mid the hills without the knowledge or the suspicion of any living person about them and without anything occurring, until Deirdre was sixteen years of age. Deirdre grew like the white sapling, straight and trim as the rash on the moss. She was the creature of fairest form, of loveliest aspect, and of gentlest nature that existed between earth and heaven in all Ireland—whatever colour of hue she had before, there was nobody that looked into her face but she would blush fiery red over it. ”