There is no sap in him,
Nothing but empty veins. I thought as much.
He has refused me the first thing I have asked—
Me, me, his wife. I understand him now;
I know the sort of life I’ll have with him;
But he must drag me to his house by force.
If he refuse [she laughs], he shall be mocked of all.
They’ll say to one another, ‘Look at him
That is so jealous that he lured a man
From over sea, and murdered him, and yet
He trembled at the thought of a dead face!’
[She has her hand upon curtain.
CONCHUBAR.
How do I know that you have not some knife,
And go to die upon his body?
DEIDRE.
Have me searched,
If you would make so little of your queen.
It may be that I have a knife hid here
Under my dress. Bid one of these dark slaves
To search me for it.
[Pause.
CONCHUBAR.
Go to your farewells, queen.
DEIDRE.
Now strike the wire, and sing to it awhile,
Knowing that all is happy, and that you know
Within what bride-bed I shall lie this night,
And by what man, and lie close up to him,
For the bed’s narrow, and there outsleep the cockcrow. [She goes behind the curtain.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
They are gone, they are gone. The proud may lie by the proud.
SECOND MUSICIAN.
Though we were bidden to sing, cry nothing loud.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
They are gone, they are gone.
SECOND MUSICIAN.
Whispering were enough.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Into the secret wilderness of their love.
SECOND MUSICIAN.
A high, grey cairn. What more is to be said?
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Eagles have gone into their cloudy bed.
[Shouting outside. FERGUS enters. Many men with scythes and sickles and torches gather about the doors. The house is lit with the glare of their torches.
FERGUS.
Where’s Naisi, son of Usna, and his queen?
I and a thousand reaping-hooks and scythes
Demand him of you.
CONCHUBAR.
You have come too late.
I have accomplished all. Deirdre is mine;
She is my queen, and no man now can rob me.
I had to climb the topmost bough and pull
This apple among the winds. Open the curtain,
That Fergus learn my triumph from her lips.
[The curtain is drawn back. The MUSICIANS begin to keen with low voices.
No, no; I’ll not believe it. She is not dead—
She cannot have escaped a second time!
FERGUS.
King, she is dead; but lay no hand upon her.
What’s this but empty cage and tangled wire,
Now the bird’s gone? but I’ll not have you touch it.
CONCHUBAR.
You are all traitors, all against me—all.
And she has deceived me for a second time.
And every common man may keep his wife,
But not the King.
[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.
THE SHADOWY WATERS
To Lady Gregory
I walked among the seven woods of Coole,
Shan-walla, where a willow-bordered pond
Gathers the wild duck from the winter dawn;
Shady Kyle-dortha; sunnier Kyle-na-gno,
Where many hundred squirrels are as happy
As though they had been hidden by green boughs,
Where old age cannot find them; Pairc-na-lea,
Where hazel and ash and privet blind the paths;
Dim Pairc-na-carraig, where the wild bees fling
Their sudden fragrances on the green air;
Dim Pairc-na-tarav, where
