The Complete Works. William Butler Yeats
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good a sword, or so well loved
Among the common people. You may need him,
And what king knows when the hour of need may come?
You dream that you have men enough. You laugh.
Yes; you are laughing to yourself. You say,
‘I am Conchubar—I have no need of him.’
You will cry out for him some day and say,
‘If Naisi were but living’——[She misses NAISI.] Where is he?
Where have you sent him? Where is the son of Usna?
Where is he, O, where is he?
[She staggers over to the MUSICIANS. The EXECUTIONER has come out with sword on which there is blood; CONCHUBAR points to it. The MUSICIANS give a wail.
CONCHUBAR.
The traitor who has carried off my wife
No longer lives. Come to my house now, Deirdre,
For he that called himself your husband’s dead.
DEIDRE.
O, do not touch me. Let me go to him.
[Pause.
King Conchubar is right. My husband’s dead.
A single woman is of no account,
Lacking array of servants, linen cupboards,
The bacon hanging—and King Conchubar’s house
All ready, too—I’ll to King Conchubar’s house.
It is but wisdom to do willingly
What has to be.
CONCHUBAR.
But why are you so calm?
I thought that you would curse me and cry out,
And fall upon the ground and tear your hair.
DEIRDRE [laughing].
You know too much of women to think so;
Though, if I were less worthy of desire,
I would pretend as much; but, being myself,
It is enough that you were master here.
Although we are so delicately made,
There’s something brutal in us, and we are won
By those who can shed blood. It was some woman
That taught you how to woo: but do not touch me,
For I’ll go with you and do all your will
When I have done whatever’s customary.
We lay the dead out, folding up the hands,
Closing the eyes, and stretching out the feet,
And push a pillow underneath the head,
Till all’s in order; and all this I’ll do
For Naisi, son of Usna.
CONCHUBAR.
It is not fitting.
You are not now a wanderer, but a queen,
And there are plenty that can do these things.
DEIRDRE.
[Motioning CONCHUBAR away.]
No, no. Not yet. I cannot be your queen
Till the past’s finished, and its debts are paid.
When a man dies and there are debts unpaid,
He wanders by the debtor’s bed and cries,
There’s so much owing.
CONCHUBAR.
You are deceiving me.
You long to look upon his face again.
Why should I give you now to a dead man
That took you from a living?
[He makes a step towards her.
DEIRDRE.
In good time.
You’ll stir me to more passion than he could,
And yet, if you are wise, you’ll grant me this:
That I go look upon him that was once
So strong and comely and held his head so high
That women envied me. For I will see him
All blood-bedabbled and his beauty gone.
It’s better, when you’re beside me in your strength,
That the mind’s eye should call up the soiled body,
And not the shape I loved. Look at him, women.
He heard me pleading to be given up,
Although my lover was still living, and yet
He doubts my purpose. I will have you tell him
How changeable all women are. How soon
Even the best of lovers is forgot,
When his day’s finished.
CONCHUBAR.
No; but I will trust
The strength you have spoken of, and not your purpose.
DEIRDRE [almost with a caress].
I’ll have this gift—the first that I have asked.
He has refused. There is no sap in him,
Nothing but empty veins. I thought as much.
He has refused me the first thing I have asked—
Me, me, his wife. I understand him now;
I know the sort of life I’ll have with him;
But he must drag me to his house by force.
If he refuse [she laughs], he shall be mocked of all.
They’ll say to one another, ‘Look at him
That is so jealous that he lured a man
From over sea, and murdered him, and yet
He trembled at the thought of a dead face!’
[She has her hand upon curtain.
CONCHUBAR.
How do I know that you have not some knife,
And go to die upon his body?
DEIDRE.
Have me searched,
If you would make so little of your queen.
It may be that I have a knife hid here
Under my dress. Bid one of these dark slaves
To search me for it.
[Pause.
CONCHUBAR.
Go to your farewells, queen.
DEIDRE.
Now strike the wire, and sing to it awhile,
Knowing that all is happy, and that you know
Within what bride-bed I shall lie this night,
And by what man, and lie close up to him,
For the bed’s narrow, and there outsleep the cockcrow. [She goes behind