No More Learning

Silence your music, though I thank you for it;
But the wind's blown upon my hair, and I
Must set the jewels on my neck and head
For one that's coming.

NAISI.

Your colour has all gone
As 'twere with fear, and there's no cause for that.

DEIRDRE.

These women have the raddle that they use
To make them brave and confident, although
Dread, toil or cold may chill the blood o' their cheeks.
You'll help me, women. It is my husband's will
I show my trust in one that may be here
Before the mind can call the colour up.
My husband took these rubies from a king
Of Surracha that was so murderous
He seemed all glittering dragon. Now wearing them
Myself wars on myself, for I myself--
That do my husband's will, yet fear to do it--
Grow dragonish to myself.

[_The _Women_ have gathered about her. NAISI has
stood looking at her, but FERGUS leads him to the
chess-table. _

FERGUS.

We'll play at chess
Till the king come. It is but natural
That she should fear him, for her house has been
The hole of the badger and the den of the fox.

NAISI.
If I were childish and had faith in omens
I'd rather not have lit on that old chessboard
At my homecoming.

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.

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.