The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats
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song.]
Love is an immoderate thing
And can never be content,
Till it dip an ageing wing,
Where some laughing element
Leaps and Time’s old lanthorn dims.
What’s the merit in love-play,
In the tumult of the limbs
That dies out before ’tis day,
Heart on heart, or mouth on mouth,
All that mingling of our breath,
When love-longing is but drouth
For the things come after death?
[During the last verses DEIRDRE rises from the board and kneels at NAISI’S feet.]
DEIRDRE.
I cannot go on playing like that woman
That had but the cold blood of the sea in her veins.
NAISI.
It is your move. Take up your man again.
DEIDRE.
Do you remember that first night in the woods
We lay all night on leaves, and looking up,
When the first grey of the dawn awoke the birds,
Saw leaves above us. You thought that I still slept,
And bending down to kiss me on the eyes,
Found they were open. Bend and kiss me now,
For it may be the last before our death.
And when that’s over, we’ll be different;
Imperishable things, a cloud or a fire.
And I know nothing but this body, nothing
But that old vehement, bewildering kiss.
[CONCHUBAR comes to the door.]
MUSICIAN.
Children, beware!
NAISI [laughing].
He has taken up my challenge;
Whether I am a ghost or living man
When day has broken, I’ll forget the rest,
And say that there is kingly stuff in him.
[Turns to fetch spear and shield, and then sees that CONCHUBAR has gone.
DEIRDRE.
He came to spy upon us, not to fight.
NAISI.
A prudent hunter, therefore, but no king.
He’d find if what has fallen in the pit
Were worth the hunting, but has come too near,
And I turn hunter. You’re not man, but beast.
Go scurry in the bushes, now, beast, beast,
For now it’s topsy-turvy, I upon you.
[He rushes out after CONCHUBAR.
DEIRDRE.
You have a knife there thrust into your girdle.
I’d have you give it me.
MUSICIAN.
No, but I dare not.
DEIDRE.
No, but you must.
MUSICIAN.
If harm should come to you,
They’d know I gave it.
DEIRDRE [snatching knife].
There is no mark on this
To make it different from any other
Out of a common forge.
[Goes to the door and looks out.
MUSICIAN.
You have taken it,
I did not give it you; but there are times
When such a thing is all the friend one has.
DEIDRE.
The leaves hide all, and there’s no way to find
What path to follow. Why is there no sound?
[She goes from door to window.
MUSICIAN.
Where would you go?
DEIDRE.
To strike a blow for Naisi,
If Conchubar call the Libyans to his aid.
But why is there no clash? They have met by this!
MUSICIAN.
Listen. I am called far-seeing. If Conchubar win,
You have a woman’s wile that can do much,
Even with men in pride of victory.
He is in love and old. What were one knife
Among a hundred?
DEIRDRE [going towards them].
Women, if I die,
If Naisi die this night, how will you praise?
What words seek out? for that will stand to you;
For being but dead we shall have many friends.
All through your wanderings, the doors of kings
Shall be thrown wider open, the poor man’s hearth
Heaped with new turf, because you are wearing this [Gives MUSICIAN a bracelet.
To show that you have Deirdre’s story right.
MUSICIAN.
Have you not been paid servants in love’s house
To sweep the ashes out and keep the doors?
And though you have suffered all for mere love’s sake
You’d live your lives again.
DEIDRE.
Even this last hour.
[CONCHUBAR enters with dark-faced men.]
CONCHUBAR.
One woman and two men; that is a quarrel
That knows no mending. Bring the man she chose
Because of his beauty and the strength of his youth.
[The dark-faced men drag in NAISI entangled in a net.
NAISI.
I have been taken like a bird or a fish.
CONCHUBAR.
He cried ‘Beast, beast!’ and in a blind-beast rage
He ran at me and fell into the nets,
But we were careful for your sake, and took him
With all the comeliness that woke desire
Unbroken in him. I being old and lenient—
I would not hurt a hair upon his head.
DEIDRE.
What do you say? Have you forgiven him?
NAISI.
He is but mocking us. What’s left to say
Now