know myself, and him, and your wild thought
Fed on extravagant poetry, and lit
By such a dazzle of old fabulous tales
That common things are lost, and all that’s strange
Is true because ’twere pity if it were not.
[Going to the door again.
Quick! quick! your instruments! they are coming now.
I hear the hoofs a-clatter. Begin that song;
But what is it to be? I’d have them hear
A music foaming up out of the house
Like wine out of a cup. Come now, a verse
Of some old time not worth remembering,
And all the lovelier because a bubble.
Begin, begin, of some old king and queen,
Of Lugaidh Redstripe or another; no, not him,
He and his lady perished wretchedly.
FIRST MUSICIAN [singing].
‘Why is it,’ Queen Edain said,
‘If I do but climb the stair. …’
FERGUS.
Ah! that is better. … They are alighted now.
Shake all your cockscombs, children; these are lovers.
[FERGUS goes out.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
‘Why is it,’ Queen Edain said,
‘If I do but climb the stair
To the tower overhead,
When the winds are calling there,
Or the gannets calling out,
In waste places of the sky,
There’s so much to think about,
That I cry, that I cry?’
SECOND MUSICIAN.
But her goodman answered her:
‘Love would be a thing of naught
Had not all his limbs a stir
Born out of immoderate thought;
Were he anything by half,
Were his measure running dry.
Lovers, if they may not laugh,
Have to cry, have to cry.’
[DEIRDRE, NAISI, and FERGUS have been seen for a moment through the windows, but now they have entered. NAISI lays down shield and spear and helmet, as if weary. He goes to the door opposite to the door he entered by. He looks out on to the road that leads to CONCHUBAR’S house. If he is anxious, he would not have FERGUS or DEIRDRE notice it. Presently he comes from the door, and goes to the table where the chessboard is.
THE THREE MUSICIANS [together].
But is Edain worth a song
Now the hunt begins anew?
Praise the beautiful and strong;
Praise the redness of the yew;
Praise the blossoming apple-stem.
But our silence had been wise.
What is all our praise to them,
That have one another’s eyes?
FERGUS.
You are welcome, lady.
DEIDRE.
Conchubar has not come.
Were the peace honest, he’d have come himself
To prove it so.
FERGUS.
Being no more in love,
He stays in his own house, arranging where
The curlew and the plover go, and where
The speckled heath-cock in a golden dish.
DEIDRE.
But there’s no messenger.
FERGUS.
He’ll come himself
When all’s in readiness and night closed in;
But till that hour, these birds out of the waste
Shall put his heart and mind into the music.
There’s many a day that I have almost wept
To think that one so delicately made
Might never know the sweet and natural life
Of women born to that magnificence,
Quiet and music, courtesy and peace.
DEIDRE.
I have found life obscure and violent,
And think it ever so; but none the less
I thank you for your kindness, and thank these
That put it into music.
FERGUS.
Your house has been
The hole of the badger or the den of the fox;
But all that’s finished, and your days will pass
From this day out where life is smooth on the tongue,
Because the grapes were trodden long ago.
NAISI.
If I was childish, and had faith in omens,
I’d rather not have lit on that old chessboard
At my home-coming.
FERGUS.
There’s
