‘Why is it,’ Queen Edain said, ‘If I do but climb the stair To the tower overhead, When the winds are calling there, Or the gannets calling out, In waste places of the sky, There’s so much to think about, That I cry, that I cry?’ SECOND MUSICIAN. But her goodman answered her: ‘Love would be a thing of naught Had not all his limbs a stir Born out of immoderate thought; Were he anything by half, Were his measure running dry. Lovers, if they may not laugh, Have to cry, have to cry.’ [_DEIRDRE, NAISI, and FERGUS have been seen for a moment through the windows, but now they have entered. NAISI lays down shield and spear and helmet, as if weary. He goes to the door opposite to the door he entered by. He looks out on to the road that leads to CONCHUBAR’S house. If he is anxious, he would not have FERGUS or DEIRDRE notice it. Presently he comes from the door, and goes to the table where the chessboard is._ THE THREE MUSICIANS [_together_]. But is Edain worth a song Now the hunt begins anew? Praise the beautiful and strong; Praise the redness of the yew; Praise the blossoming apple-stem. But our silence had been wise. What is all our praise to them, That have one another’s eyes? FERGUS. You are welcome, lady. DEIRDRE. Conchubar has not come. Were the peace honest, he’d have come himself To prove it so. FERGUS. Being no more in love, He stays in his own house, arranging where The curlew and the plover go, and where The speckled heath-cock in a golden dish. DEIRDRE. But there’s no messenger. FERGUS. He’ll come himself When all’s in readiness and night closed in; But till that hour, these birds out of the waste Shall put his heart and mind into the music. There’s many a day that I have almost wept To think that one so delicately made Might never know the sweet and natural life Of women born to that magnificence, Quiet and music, courtesy and peace. DEIRDRE. I have found life obscure and violent, And think it ever so; but none the less I thank you for your kindness, and thank these That put it into music. FERGUS. Your house has been The hole of the badger or the den of the fox; But all that’s finished, and your days will pass From this day out where life is smooth on the tongue, Because the grapes were trodden long ago. NAISI. If I was childish, and had faith in omens, I’d rather not have lit on that old chessboard At my home-coming. FERGUS. There’s a tale about it— It has been lying there these many years— Some wild old sorrowful tale. NAISI. It is the board Where Lugaidh Redstripe and that wife of his, Who had a seamew’s body half the year, Played at the chess upon the night they died. FERGUS.