That deed of the hero fair.
He went on that errand sad,
And measured the boar again;
But he trod on a poisonous bristle,
And he felt in his heel a pain.
The hero fell on the field—
MacDoon that had no deceit;
He lay there beside the boar:—
Now, there is the tale complete.
At this part of the relation another version adds that Diarmad, in asking several times for a drink at the hand of Finn, rehearsed how he served him “eastward and westward.” But the king replied that the ill he had done him in one hour outweighed all the good exploits he could tell. “Thou shalt yet get no drink from my shell.” Diarmad then addresses a melancholy farewell to Ben-Gulbin, the hill of his love, and to courtship. He keenly feels his sorrowful plight as his life-blood is ebbing away; and true to his character his last thoughts are, as he dies, of “the maids of the Féinn.” Finn then relents, and pronounces a regretful eulogy over the dead body of Diarmad. In the Dean’s version it is the bard himself that pronounces the praise of the dead, in verses which describe his person and character:—