Deirdre of the Sorrows

by J. M. Synge

[He goes out, and in a moment Naisi and Fergus come in on the other side.

NAISI.
— gaily. — Fergus has brought messages of peace from Conchubor.

DEIRDRE.
— greeting Fergus. — He is welcome. Let you rest, Fergus, you should be hot and thirsty after mounting the rocks.

FERGUS.
It’s a sunny nook you’ve found in Alban; yet any man would be well pleased mounting higher rocks to fetch yourself and Naisi back to Emain.

DEIRDRE.
— with keenness. — They’ve answered? They would go?

FERGUS.
— benignly. — They have not, but when I was a young man we’d have given a lifetime to be in Ireland a score of weeks; and to this day the old men have nothing so heavy as knowing it’s in a short while they’ll lose the high skies are over Ireland, and the lonesome mornings with birds crying on the bogs. Let you come this day, for there’s no place but Ireland where the Gael can have peace always.

NAISI.
— gruffly. — It’s true, surely. Yet we’re better this place while Conchubor’s in Emain Macha.

FERGUS.
— giving him parchments. — There are your sureties and Conchubor’s seal. (To Deirdre.) I am your surety with Conchubor. You’ll not be young always, and it’s time you were making yourselves ready for the years will come, building up a homely dun beside the seas of Ireland, and getting in your children from the princes’ wives. It’s little joy wandering till age is on you and your youth is gone away, so you’d best come this night, for you’d have great pleasure putting out your foot and saying, “I am in Ireland, surely.”

DEIRDRE.
It isn’t pleasure I’d have while Conchubor is king in Emain.

FERGUS.
— almost annoyed. — Would you doubt the seals of Conall Cearneach and the kings of Meath? (He gets parchments from his cloak and gives them to Naisi. More gently.) It’s easy being fearful and you alone in the woods, yet it would be a poor thing if a timid woman (taunting her a little) could turn away the Sons of Usna from the life of kings. Let you be thinking on the years to come, Deirdre, and the way you’d have a right to see Naisi a high and white-haired justice beside some king of Emain. Wouldn’t it be a poor story if a queen the like of you should have no thought but to be scraping up her hours dallying in the sunshine with the sons of kings?