come you'll have more joy having the senses
of an old woman and you with your little
grandsons shrieking round you, than I'd have
this night putting on the red mouth and the


49

white arms you have, to go walking lonesome
byways with a gamey king.
DEIRDRE. It's little joy of a young
woman, or an old woman, I'll have from this
day, surely. But what use is in our talking
when there's Naisi on the foreshore, and
Fergus with him?
LAVARCHAM -- despairingly. -- I'm late
so with my warnings, for Fergus'd talk the
moon over to take a new path in the sky.
(With reproach.) You'll not stop him this
day, and isn't it a strange story you were a
plague and torment, since you were that
height, to those did hang their lifetimes on
your voice. (Overcome with trouble; gather-
ing her cloak about her.) Don't think bad of
my crying. I'm not the like of many and I'd
see a score of naked corpses and not heed
them at all, but I'm destroyed seeing yourself
in your hour of joy when the end is coming
surely.
[Owen comes in quickly, rather ragged,