And I must be obedient in all things; Give up my will to yours; go where you please; Come when you call; sit at the council-board Among the unshapely bodies of old men. I whose mere name has kept this country safe, I that in early days have driven out Maeve of Cruachan and the northern pirates, The hundred kings of Sorcha, and the kings Out of the Garden in the East of the World. Must I, that held you on the throne when all Had pulled you from it, swear obedience As if I were some cattle-raising king? Are my shins speckled with the heat of the fire, Or have my hands no skill but to make figures Upon the ashes with a stick? Am I So slack and idle that I need a whip Before I serve you? CONCHUBAR. No, no whip, Cuchulain, But every day my children come and say: ‘This man is growing harder to endure. How can we be at safety with this man That nobody can buy or bid or bind? We shall be at his mercy when you are gone; He burns the earth as if he were a fire, And time can never touch him.’ CUCHULAIN. And so the tale Grows finer yet; and I am to obey Whatever child you set upon the throne, As if it were yourself! CONCHUBAR. Most certainly. I am High King, my son shall be High King; And you for all the wildness of your blood, And though your father came out of the sun, Are but a little king and weigh but light In anything that touches government, If put into the balance with my children. CUCHULAIN. It’s well that we should speak our minds out plainly, For when we die we shall be spoken of In many countries. We in our young days Have seen the heavens like a burning cloud Brooding upon the world, and being more Than men can be now that cloud’s lifted up, We should be the more truthful. Conchubar, I do not like your children—they have no pith, No marrow in their bones, and will lie soft Where you and I lie hard. CONCHUBAR. You rail at them Because you have no children of your own. CUCHULAIN. I think myself most lucky that I leave No pallid ghost or mockery of a man To drift and mutter in the corridors, Where I have laughed and sung. CONCHUBAR. That is not true, For all your boasting of the truth between us; For, there is no man having house and lands, That have been in the one family And called by the one name for centuries, But is made miserable if he know They are to pass into a stranger’s keeping, As yours will pass. CUCHULAIN. The most of men feel that, But you and I leave names upon the harp. CONCHUBAR.