CONCHUBOR.
— almost sneeringly. — You’d wish to be dressing in your duns and grey, 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.