The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats
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the king pardon her,
And call her to his table and his bed.
NAISI.
So, then, it’s treachery.
FERGUS.
I’ll not believe it.
NAISI.
Tell Conchubar to meet me in some place
Where none can come between us but our swords.
MESSENGER.
I have done my message; I am Conchubar’s man;
I take no message from a traitor’s lips.
[He goes.
NAISI.
No, but you must; and I will have you swear
To carry it unbroken.
[He follows MESSENGER out.
FERGUS.
He has been suborned.
I know King Conchubar’s mind as it were my own;
I’ll learn the truth from him.
[He is about to follow NAISI, but DEIRDRE stops him.
DEIRDRE.
No, no, old man,
You thought the best, and the worst came of it;
We listened to the counsel of the wise,
And so turned fools. But ride and bring your friends.
Go, and go quickly. Conchubar has not seen me;
It may be that his passion is asleep,
And that we may escape.
FERGUS.
But I’ll go first,
And follow up that Libyan heel, and send
Such words to Conchubar, that he may know
At how great peril he lays hands upon you.
[NAISI enters.]
NAISI.
The Libyan, knowing that a servant’s life
Is safe from hands like mine, but turned and mocked.
FERGUS.
I’ll call my friends, and call the reaping-hooks,
And carry you in safety to the ships.
My name has still some power. I will protect,
Or, if that is impossible, revenge.
[Goes out by other door.
NAISI.
[Who is calm, like a man who has passed beyond life.]
The crib has fallen and the birds are in it;
There is not one of the great oaks about us
But shades a hundred men.
DEIDRE.
Let’s out and die,
Or break away, if the chance favour us.
NAISI.
They would but drag you from me, stained with blood.
Their barbarous weapons would but mar that beauty,
And I would have you die as a queen should—
In a death chamber. You are in my charge.
We will wait here, and when they come upon us,
I’ll hold them from the doors, and when that’s over,
Give you a cleanly death with this grey edge.
DEIDRE.
I will stay here; but you go out and fight.
Our way of life has brought no friends to us,
And if we do not buy them leaving it,
We shall be ever friendless.
NAISI.
What do they say?
That Lugaidh Redstripe and that wife of his
Sat at this chessboard, waiting for their end.
They knew that there was nothing that could save them,
And so played chess as they had any night
For years, and waited for the stroke of sword.
I never heard a death so out of reach
Of common hearts, a high and comely end:
What need have I, that gave up all for love,
To die like an old king out of a fable,
Fighting and passionate? What need is there
For all that ostentation at my setting?
I have loved truly and betrayed no man.
I need no lightning at the end, no beating
In a vain fury at the cage’s door.
[To MUSICIANS.]
Had you been here when that man and his queen
Played at so high a game, could you have found
An ancient poem for the praise of it?
It should have set out plainly that those two,
Because no man and woman have loved better,
Might sit on there contentedly, and weigh
The joy comes after. I have heard the seamew
Sat there, with all the colour in her cheeks,
As though she’d say: ‘There’s nothing happening
But that a king and queen are playing chess.’
DEIDRE.
He’s in the right, though I have not been born
Of the cold, haughty waves. My veins are hot.
But though I have loved better than that queen,
I’ll have as quiet fingers on the board.
Oh, singing women, set it down in a book
That love is all we need, even though it is
But the last drops we gather up like this;
And though the drops are all we have known of life,
For we have been most friendless—praise us for it
And praise the double sunset, for naught’s lacking,
But a good end to the long, cloudy day.
NAISI.
Light torches there and drive the shadows out,
For day’s red end comes up.
[A MUSICIAN lights a torch in the fire and then crosses before the chess-players, and slowly lights the torches in the sconces. The light is almost gone from the wood, but there is a clear evening light in the sky, increasing the sense of solitude and loneliness.
DEIRDRE.
Make no sad music.
What is it but a king and queen at chess?
They need a music that can mix itself
Into imagination, but not break
The steady thinking that the hard game needs.
[During