Deirdre of the Sorrows

by J. M. Synge

DEIRDRE.
— beginning to fold up her silks and jewels. — Three weeks of your days might be long, surely, yet seven years are a short space for the like of Naisi and myself.

OWEN.
— derisively. — If they’re a short space there aren’t many the like of you. Wasn’t there a queen in Tara had to walk out every morning till she’d meet a stranger and see the flame of courtship leaping up within his eye? Tell me now, (leaning towards her) are you well pleased that length with the same man snorting next you at the dawn of day?

DEIRDRE.
— very quietly. — Am I well pleased seven years seeing the same sun throwing light across the branches at the dawn of day? It’s a heartbreak to the wise that it’s for a short space we have the same things only. (With contempt.) Yet the earth itself is a silly place, maybe, when a man’s a fool and talker.

OWEN.
— sharply. — Well, go, take your choice. Stay here and rot with Naisi or go to Conchubor in Emain. Conchubor’s a wrinkled fool with a swelling belly on him, and eyes falling downward from his shining crown; Naisi should be stale and weary. Yet there are many roads, Deirdre, and I tell you I’d liefer be bleaching in a bog-hole than living on without a touch of kindness from your eyes and voice. It’s a poor thing to be so lonesome you’d squeeze kisses on a cur dog’s nose.

DEIRDRE.
Are there no women like yourself could be your friends in Emain?

OWEN.
— vehemently. — There are none like you, Deirdre. It’s for that I’m asking are you going back this night with Fergus?

DEIRDRE.
I will go where Naisi chooses.

OWEN.
— with a burst of rage. — It’s Naisi, Naisi, is it? Then, I tell you, you’ll have great sport one day seeing Naisi getting a harshness in his two sheep’s eyes and he looking on yourself. Would you credit it, my father used to be in the broom and heather kissing Lavarcham, with a little bird chirping out above their heads, and now she’d scare a raven from a carcase on a hill. (With a sad cry that brings dignity into his voice.) Queens get old, Deirdre, with their white and long arms going from them, and their backs hooping. I tell you it’s a poor thing to see a queen’s nose reaching down to scrape her chin.

DEIRDRE.
— looking out, a little uneasy. — Naisi and Fergus are coming on the path.

OWEN.
I’ll go so, for if I had you seven years I’d be jealous of the midges and the dust is in the air. (Muffles himself in his cloak; with a sort of warning in his voice.) I’ll give you a riddle, Deirdre: Why isn’t my father as ugly and old as Conchubor? You’ve no answer? . . . . It’s because Naisi killed him. (With curious expression.) Think of that and you awake at night, hearing Naisi snoring, or the night you hear strange stories of the things I’m doing in Alban or in Ulster either.