in the bushes, now, beast, beast,
For now it’s topsy-turvy, I upon you.
[He rushes out after CONCHUBAR.
DEIRDRE.
You have a knife there thrust into your girdle.
I’d have you give it me.
MUSICIAN.
No, but I dare not.
DEIDRE.
No, but you must.
MUSICIAN.
If harm should come to you,
They’d know I gave it.
DEIRDRE [snatching knife].
There is no mark on this
To make it different from any other
Out of a common forge.
[Goes to the door and looks out.
MUSICIAN.
You have taken it,
I did not give it you; but there are times
When such a thing is all the friend one has.
DEIDRE.
The leaves hide all, and there’s no way to find
What path to follow. Why is there no sound?
[She goes from door to window.
MUSICIAN.
Where would you go?
DEIDRE.
To strike a blow for Naisi,
If Conchubar call the Libyans to his aid.
But why is there no clash? They have met by this!
MUSICIAN.
Listen. I am called far-seeing. If Conchubar win,
You have a woman’s wile that can do much,
Even with men in pride of victory.
He is in love and old. What were one knife
Among a hundred?
DEIRDRE [going towards them].
Women, if I die,
If Naisi die this night, how will you praise?
What words seek out? for that will stand to you;
For being but dead we shall have many friends.
All through your wanderings, the doors of kings
Shall be thrown wider open, the poor man’s hearth
Heaped with new turf, because you are wearing this [Gives MUSICIAN a bracelet.
To show that you have Deirdre’s story right.
MUSICIAN.
Have you not been paid servants in love’s house
To sweep the ashes out and keep the doors?
And though you have suffered all for mere love’s sake
You’d live your lives again.
DEIDRE.
Even this last hour.
[CONCHUBAR enters with dark-faced men.]
CONCHUBAR.
One woman and two men; that is a quarrel
That knows no mending. Bring the man she chose
Because of his beauty and the strength of his youth.
[The dark-faced men drag in NAISI entangled in a net.
NAISI.
I have been taken like a bird or a fish.
CONCHUBAR.
He cried ‘Beast, beast!’ and in a blind-beast rage
He ran at me and fell into the nets,
But we were careful for your sake, and took him
With all the comeliness that woke desire
Unbroken in him. I being old and lenient—
I would not hurt a hair upon his head.
DEIDRE.
What do you say? Have you forgiven him?
NAISI.
He is but mocking us. What’s left to say
Now that the seven years’ hunt is at an end?
DEIDRE.
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.
Although her marriage-day had all but come,
You carried her away; but I’ll show mercy.
Because you had the insolent strength of youth
You carried her away; but I’ve had time
To think it out through all these seven years.
I will show mercy.
NAISI.
You have many words.
CONCHUBAR.
I
