Deirdre of the Sorrows | Page 3

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.
CONCHUBOR -- sees his mistake, and after a moment takes a
flattering tone, looking at her work. -- Whatever you wish, there's no
queen but would be well pleased to have your skill at choosing colours
and making pictures on the cloth. (Looking closely.) What is it you're
figuring?
DEIRDRE -- deliberately. -- Three young men and they chasing in the
green gap of a wood.
CONCHUBOR -- now almost pleading. -- It's soon you'll have dogs
with silver chains to be chasing in the woods of Emain, for I have white
hounds rearing up for you, and grey horses, that I've chosen from the
finest in Ulster and Britain and Gaul.
DEIRDRE -- unmoved as before. -- I've heard tell, in Ulster and Britain
and Gaul, Naisi and his brothers have no match and they chasing in the
woods.
CONCHUBOR -- very gravely. -- Isn't it a strange thing you'd be
talking of Naisi and his brothers, or figuring them either, when you
know the things that are foretold about themselves and you? Yet you've
little knowledge, and I'd do wrong taking it bad when it'll be my share
from this out to keep you the way you'll have little call to trouble for
knowledge, or its want either.
DEIRDRE. Yourself should be wise, surely.
CONCHUBOR. The like of me has a store of knowledge that's a
weight and terror. It's for that we do choose out the like of yourself that
are young and glad only. . . . I'm thinking you are gay and lively each
day in the year?

DEIRDRE. I don't know if that's true, Conchubor. There are lonesome
days and bad nights in this place like another.
CONCHUBOR. You should have as few sad days, I'm thinking, as I
have glad and good ones.
DEIRDRE. What is it has you that way ever coming this place, when
you'd hear the old woman saying a good child's as happy as a king?
CONCHUBOR. How would I be happy seeing age coming on me each
year, when the dry leaves are blowing back and forward at the gate of
Emain? 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. What we all need is a place is safe and splendid, and it's that
you'll get in Emain in two days or three.
DEIRDRE -- aghast. -- Two days!
CONCHUBOR. I have the rooms ready, and in a little while you'll be
brought down there, to be my queen and queen of the five parts of
Ireland.
DEIRDRE -- standing up frightened and pleading. -- I'd liefer stay this
place, Conchubor. . . . Leave me this place, where I'm well used to the
tracks and pathways and the people of the glens. . . . It's for this life I'm
born, surely.
CONCHUBOR. You'll be happier and greater with myself in Emain. It
is I will be your comrade, and will stand between you and the great
troubles are foretold.

DEIRDRE. I will not be your queen in Emain when it's my pleasure to
be having my freedom on the edges of the hills.
CONCHUBOR. It's my wish to have you quickly; I'm sick and weary
thinking of the day you'll be brought down to me, and seeing you
walking into my big, empty halls. I've made all sure to have you, and
yet all said there's a fear in the back of my mind I'd miss you and have
great troubles in the end. It's for that, Deirdre, I'm praying that you'll
come quickly; and you may take the word of a man has no lies, you'll
not find, with any other, the like of what I'm bringing you in wildness
and confusion in my own mind.
DEIRDRE. I cannot go,