“Wretched in truth,” the Chief murmured. “Love makes us poor We have not eyes enough to see all that is to be seen, nor hands enough to seize the tenth of all we want. When I look in her eyes I am tormented because I am not looking at her lips, and when I see her lips my soul cries out, ‘Look at her eyes, look at her eyes.’”
“That is how it happens,” said Goll rememberingly.
“That way and no other,” Caelte agreed.
And the champions looked backwards in time on these lips and those, and knew their Chief would go.
When Fionn came in sight of the great keep his blood and his feet quickened, and now and again he waved a spear in the air.
“She does not see me yet,” he thought mournfully.
“She cannot see me yet,” he amended, reproaching himself.
But his mind was troubled, for he thought also, or he felt without thinking, that had the positions been changed he would have seen her at twice the distance.
“She thinks I have been unable to get away from the battle, or that I was forced to remain for the feast.”
And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been changed he would have known that nothing could retain the one that was absent.