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. I can remember now: a tale of treachery, A broken promise and a journey’s end. But it were best forgot. [_DEIRDRE has been standing with the women about her. They have been helping her to put on her jewels and to put the pigment on her cheeks and arrange her hair. She has gradually grown attentive to what FERGUS is saying._ NAISI. If the tale’s true,— When it was plain that they had been betrayed, They moved the men and waited for the end As it were bedtime, and had so quiet minds They hardly winked their eyes when the sword flashed. FERGUS. She never could have played so, being a woman, If she had not the cold sea’s blood in her. DEIRDRE. I have heard the ever-living warn mankind By changing clouds and casual accidents Or what seem so. NAISI. Stood th’ ever-living there, Old Lir and Aengus from his glassy tower, And that hill-haunting Bodb to warn us hence,— Our honour is so knitted up with staying, King Conchubar’s word and Fergus’ word being pledged, I’d brave them out and stay. DEIRDRE. No welcomer, And a bare house upon the journey’s end! Is that the way a king that means no wrong Honours a guest? FERGUS. He is but making ready A welcome in his house, arranging where The moorhen and the mallard go, and where The speckled heath-cock in a golden dish. DEIRDRE. Has he no messenger— [Etc., etc.] The play then goes on unchanged, except that on page 151, instead of the short speech of Deirdre, beginning ‘Safety and peace,’ one should read ‘Safety and peace! I had them when a child, but from that hour I have found life obscure and violent, And think that I shall find it so for ever.’ APPENDIX III. THE LEGENDARY AND MYTHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF THE PLAYS.