The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

TO MY FRIEND SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON THIS POEM IS DEDICATED, IN TOKEN OF GRATITUDE FOR ‘CONGAL,’ ‘CONARY,’ AND MANY POEMS BESIDE, THAT ILLUSTRATE ARIGHT THE LEGENDS OF ANCIENT IRELAND.

205

PROLOGUE.

Senchan, the king of bards, when centuries six
Had flowered and faded since the Birth Divine,
Summoned in synod all the island bards,
Demanding: ‘Is there who can yet recite
That first of Erin's songs, “The Tain”?’ Not one
Could sing it, save in fragments. Then arose
Marbhan, and spake: ‘Send prayer to Erin's Saints
That, bowed o'er Fergus’ grave, they lift their hands
For Erin at her need.’ Five Saints obeyed
And o'er that venerable spot three days
Fasting made prayer while knelt the bards around.
Then on the third day as the sun uprose
Behold! a purple mist engirt that grave;
And from it, fair as rainbow backed by cloud,
Shone out a kingly Phantom robed in green,
With red-brown locks, close clustered, drenched in dew,
And golden crown, and golden-hilted sword;—
His hand was on it. They who saw that Shape
Well knew him, Fergus Roy, the Exile-King.
Gracious as in the old days, that king rehearsed

206

The Tale so long desired, though many an age,
And that grey empire of departed Souls,
Had quelled at last the strong ones of that strain,
Record half jest, half earnest. Marbhan spoke
Once more: ‘Lest Erin lose again this Tale
Through fraud of demons or all-wasting time,
Amid you Saints elect some scribe, their best,
And pray that scribe to write it.’ Straight, with help
It may be, of the bards, Saint Kiaran wrote
The Heroic Song on parchment fine, the skin
Of one he loved, his ‘little heifer grey’
That gave the book its name. Six centuries passed;
Then in Saint Kiaran's House at Clonmacnoise
That book was found, and on it: ‘Reader, here
Are histories old with later fables blent,
Fancies full fair with idle Pagan vaunts:
Now therefore, since old things have in them worth
And teach by what they hold and what they lack,
Whoso shall read this book, and know to choose
'Twixt Good and Ill, my blessing on him rest!’

207

BOOK I. THE CAUSE OF THE GREAT WAR.

ARGUMENT.

Meave, Queen of Connacht, and Ailill her husband, waking one morning fall into a disputation, each claiming to be the worthier of the two, and the wealthier. Their lords decide that the king and queen are great and happy alike in all things save one only, namely, that Ailill possesses the far-famed white Bull, Fionbannah. Meave hearing that Conor Conchobar, King of Uladh, boasts a black Bull mightier yet, is fain to purchase it, but cannot prevail so far. She therefore declares war against Uladh. There meets her Faythleen the Witch, who prophesies calamity, but promises that in aid of Meave she will breathe over the realm of Uladh a spirit of Imbecility. This she does; yet Cuchullain, unaided, afflicts the whole army of Meave by exploits which to him are but sports. Fergus, the exiled King of Uladh, narrates to Meave the high deeds of Cuchullain wrought in his childhood.

In Cruachan, old Connacht's palace pile,
Dwelt Meave the queen, haughtiest of woman's kind,
A warrioress untamed that made her will
The measure of the world. The all-conquering years
Conquered not her: the strength of endless prime
Lived in her royal tread and breast and eye
A life immortal. Queenly was her brow;

208

Fulgent her eye; her countenance beauteous, save
When wrath o'erflamed its beauty. With her dwelt
Ailill her husband, trivial man and quaint,
And early old. He had not chosen her:
She chose a consort who should rule her not,
And tossed him to her throne. In youth her lord
Was Conor Conchobar, great Uladh's king:
She had not found him docile to her will,
And to her sire returned. The August morn
Had trailed already on the stony floor
Its fiery beam when, laughing, Ailill woke:
He woke, awakened by a sound that shook
The forest dews to earth, Fionbannah's roar,
That snow-white Bull, the wonder of the age,
Who, born amid the lowlands of the queen,
Yet, grown to strength, o'er-leaped her bound and roamed
Thenceforth the leaner pastures of the king,
For this cause, that his spirit scorned to live
In female vassalage.

That tale recalling
King Ailill laughed: his laughter roused the queen:
She woke in wrath: to assuage her Ailill spake:
‘Happy and blest that dame whose lord is sage!
Thy fortunes, wife of mine, began that day
I called thee spouse!’ To him the queen, ‘My sire
Was Erin's Ard-Righ! He had daughters six:
I, Meave, of these was fairest and most famed!
This Cruachan was mine before we met;
And all the Island's princes sued my hand.
I spurned their offers! I required three things—
A warrior proved, since great at arms am I;
A liberal hand, since lavish I of gifts;

209

A man not jealous, since, in love as war,
There where I willed I ever cast mine eyes.
These merits three were yours: I beckoned to you:
Dowered you with ingots thicker than your wrist;
Made you a king, or kingling. What of that?
I might have chosen a better! Yea, I count
My greatness more than yours!’

With treble shrill
Ailill replied, ‘What words are these, my queen?
My father was a king; my brothers kings!
My hoards are higher heaped than yours; my meads
More deep, more rich!’

Then loudly stormed the queen:—
In rushed her lords, and stood, a senate grave,
Circling the couch: and while, each answering each,
Ailill and Meave set forth in order due
The treasures either boasted, kine, or sheep,
Rich cornfield, jewelled robe, or gem-wrought car,
Careful they weighed the lists in equal scale
And 'twixt them found in value difference none.
Doubtful they stood. Anon rolled forth once more
Fionbannah's roar; and, clapping loud his hands,
King Ailill shouted, ‘Mine, not thine, that Bull!
Through him my treasure passes thine, my queen!
My worth exceeds thy worth!’ At once forth stepped
Mac Roth, old Connacht's herald, with this word:
‘Great queen, the King of Uladh boasts a Bull
Lordlier than ours, a broader bulk, and black,
Black as the raven's wing! In Daré's charge
That marvel bides, the Donn Cualgné named
Because his lowings shake Cualgné's shore,
The southern bound of Uladh. Privilege
He hath that neither witch nor demon tempt

210

That precinct where he harbours.’ Meave exclaimed:
‘Fly hence, Mac Roth! Take with thee golden store,
Rich garments, chariots gemmed: bid Daré choose;
But bring me back that Bull!’

Three days had passed:
Then by the tower of Daré stood Mac Roth
And blew his horn; and Daré's sons with speed
Flung the gate wide. The herald entered in
And spake his message. Proudly Daré mused,
‘Great Meave my friendship sues;’ and made a feast,
And, when the wine had warmed him, spake: ‘Mac Roth!
Cualgné's Donn is Conor's Bull, not mine:
Yet, though the king should hurl me outcast forth,
To Meave that Bull shall go and bide a year.
Tell her the Donn is manlike in his mind,
And not like Bulls. Long summer eves he stands,
Or paces stately up the mead and down,
Eyeing the racing youths, or glad at heart
Listening the music.’ Thus he pledged his faith.
But Daré's sons at midnight, each to each,
Whispered, ‘The king will chase us from the realm!
He hates Queen Meave, and well he loves the Donn;’
And stood next morn beside their sire, and spake:
‘Mac Roth is gone a hunting: ere he went
He sware that you had yielded him the Donn
Fearing his sword. ’Then Daré's heart was changed,
And loud he sware by all his swearing gods:
‘Cualgné's Donn shall ne'er consort with Meave,
Nor with her kine:’ and on his gate he set
The castle's Fool waiting Mac Roth's return,
And charged him with this greeting: ‘Back to Meave!
Thy queen she is, not Uladh's! Bid her know

211

Our Donn and we revere Fionbannah's choice,
Her Bull, that leaped her gate and swam her flood,
Spurning the female rule!’

Then turned Mac Roth
His car; and sideway shook one hand irate;
And lashed the steeds, and reached great Cruachan,
And told his tale; and straight on them that heard
Like lightning fell the battle rage. The queen
Sent forth her heralds, east, and west, and south,
Summoning her great allies. Erin, that day
Save Uladh only, stood conjoined with Meave,
Great kings, and warriors named from chiefs of old
Sons of Milesius; for King Conor's craft
And that proud onset of the Red-Branch Knights
Year after year had galled their hearts. 'Twas come!
The day of vengeance! In their might they rose
From Eyrus' vales to utmost Cahirnane,
From Oileen Arda on to Borda Lu,
And where the loud wave breaks on Beara's isle;
And by the hallowed banks of Darvra's lake
Where, changed to swans, the Children Four of Lir,
Dowerless on earth, their home the homeless waves,
Darkling yet gladdening gloomier hearts with light,
And sad yet solaced through one conquering hope,
By song had vanquished sorrow. From the West
Came Inachall, and Adarc. Eiderkool
Marched, ever shrilling songs and shaking spears:
And, mightier far, with never slumbering hearts
And eyes that stared through long desire of home,
Uladh's three thousand exiles, driven far forth
When Conor Conchobar, trampling his pledge,
Slaughtered the sons of Usnach. At their head
Rode Fergus, Uladh's King ere traitor yet
Had filched its royal crown; and by his side,

212

Faithful in exile, Cormac Conlinglas,
King Conor's bravest son. That host the queen
To Ai led, where Ai's four great plains
Shine in the rising and the setting sun,
Gold-green, with all their flag-flowers, meres, and streams:
There planted she her camp; thence ever rang
Neighing of horse, and tempest song of bard,
And graver voice of prophet and of seer
Who ceased not, day or night, for fifteen days
From warnings to the people, ‘Be ye one;’—
Yet one the people were not.

Meave the while,
Resting upon those great and growing hosts
Her widening eyes, rejoiced within, and clutched
The sceptre-staff with closer grasp, and heaved
Higher her solid, broad, imperial breast,
Amorous of battle nigh at hand. Yet oft,
Listening those bickerings in her camp she frowned:
For still the chieftains strove; and one, a king
Briarind, had tongue so sharp, where'er he moved
A guard was round him ranged lest spleen of his
Should set the monarchs ravening each on each.
‘The hand of Fergus,’ mused she, ‘that alone
Might solder yonder mass. Men note in him
His front, his voice, his stature, and his step,
The one time King of Uladh. Held he rule—
He shall not for my will endures it not!
He props my war because, long years our guest,
His honour needs not less; he marches with us
Athirst for vengeance and his native land,
Yet scoffs our cause, and sent, spurning surprise,
To Uladh challenge loud.’ Again she mused,
‘A man love-worthy if he loved again!—

213

At best 'twould be to him a moment's sport!
The battle and the stag-hunt, these alone,
He counts a prince's pastimes!’ Sudden from heaven
Eclipse there fell on Ai's spacious plains,
And shadow black; these noting, Meave revolved
That dread ‘Red Branch’ in act and counsel one,
Order world-famed of Uladh's chivalry,
And, brooding thus, with inner eye she saw
No longer men but skeletons of men
Innumerable in intertangled mass
Burthening the fields. Then panic-struck, she cried:
‘On to Moytura where the prophet dwells;’
And straight her charioteer the horses smote
And northward turned their heads: and lo, what time
The noontide sun with keenest splendour blazed,
Right opposite upon the chariot's beam
There sat a wondrous woman phantom-faced,
Singing and weaving. Shapely was that head
Bent o'er her web, while back the sun-like hair
Streamed on the wind. One hand upreared a sword:
Seven chains fell from it. Sea-blue were her eyes,
And berry-red her scornful lip; her cheek
White as the snow-drift of a single night;
Her voice like harp-strings when the harper's hand
Half drowns their pathos. Close as bark to tree
The azure robe clung to that virgin form
Sinewy and long, and reached the shining feet.

Then spake the queen: ‘What see'st thou in that web?’
And she, ‘I see a kingdom's destinies;
And they are like a countenance dashed with blood;
Faythleen am I, the Witch.’ To her the queen:
‘I bid thee say what see'st thou in my host,

214

Faythleen, the Witch!’ And Faythleen answered slow:
‘The hue of blood: sunset on sunset charged.’
Then fixed that Wild One on the North her eyes,
And Meave made answer, ‘In those eyes I see
The fates they see; great Uladh's realm full-armed,
And all that Red Branch Order as one man.’
Faythleen replied, ‘One man alone I see;
One man, yet mightier than a realm in arms!
That Watch-Hound watching still by Uladh's gate
Is mightier thrice than Uladh: on his brow
Spring-tide sits throned; yet ruin loads his hand.
If e'er Cuchullain rides in Uladh's van
Flee to thy hills and isles!’ Meave bit her lip;
But wildly sang the Witch: ‘Faythleen am I,
Thy People's patron 'mid the Powers unseen:
Beware that youth invisible for speed,
Who hears that whisper none beside can hear,
Sees what none other sees; before whose eye
The wild beast cowers, subdued! Beware that youth
Slender as maid, whose stature in the fight
Rises gigantic. Gamesome he and mild;
To women reverent and the hoary hair;
Nor alms he stints nor incense to the Gods;
But when from heaven the anger on him breaks
Pity he knows for none. No pact with him!
Return with speed and march to-morrow morn:
The clan of Cailitin shall yield thee aid,
That magic clan which fights with poisoned darts.
To Uladh I, above her realm to spread
Mantle of darkness, and a mind that errs,
And powerlessness, and shame.’

Due north she sped,
Far fleeting, wind up-borne, 'twixt hill and cloud,

215

To Uladh's cliffs, and thence with prone descent
Sank to the myriad-murmuring sea wine-dark,
And whispered to the Genii of the deep,
Her sisters:—then from ocean's breast there rose
A mist, no larger than a dead man's shroud,
That, slowly widening, spread o'er Uladh's realm
Mantle of darkness, and an erring mind,
And powerlessness, and shame.

The queen returned,
And reached her host what time the sunset glare
With omnipresent splendour girt it round,
Concourse immortalised. Thereon she gazed
High standing in her chariot, spear in hand:
Her, too, that army saw, and raised the shout.
But Fergus, as she passed him, spake: ‘Not yet
Know'st thou my Uladh, nor the Red Branch Knights;
And one man is there mightier thrice than they.’

Meantime within Murthemné's land its lord
Cuchullain, musing like a listening hound,
For many a rumour filled that time the air,
Sat in remote Dûn Dalgan all alone,
Chief city of his realm. On Uladh's verge
Southward that lesser realm dependent lay
Girt by a racing river. Silent long
He watched: at last he heard a sound like wind
In woods remote; and earthward bowed his head;
And said, ‘That sound is distant thirty leagues,
And huge that host;’ then bade prepare his car,
And southward sped, counsel to hold as wont
With Faythleen nigh to Tara.

216

Eve grew dim
When lo! a chariot from the woods emerged
In swift pursuit: an old man urged the steeds,
A grey old man that chattered evermore
With blinking eyes that ceased not from amaze
Now to himself, now to his charioteer.
That sight displeased Cuchullain: ne'ertheless
He stayed his course; and Saltain soon drew nigh,
Clamouring, ‘O son—and when was son like thee—
Forsake not thou thy father! In old time,
Then when some God had laid on me his hand,
Dectara, my wife, immured me in my house,
Year after year, and weighed the lessening dole:
But thou, to manhood grown, though even to her
Reverent, didst pluck her from that place usurped,
Lifting thy poor old father.’ At that word
Cuchullain left his car, and kissed his sire,
And soothed his wandering wits with meat and wine;
And spake dissembling, ‘Lo, these mantles warm!
For thee it was I stored them! Night is near;
Lie down and rest.’ Thus speaking, with both hands
He spread them deftly forth, and Saltain slept:
Then, tethering first the horses of his sire,
Lastly his own, upon the chill, wet grass
He likewise lay, and slept not.

On, at dawn
They drave; but Faythleen, witch perverse of will
That oft through spleenful change her purpose slew,
Had broken tryst; and northward they returned.
That day Cuchullain clomb a tree-girt rock
And kenned beyond the forest's roof a host
Innumerable, the standards of Queen Meave,
And Fergus, and the great confederate kings.
The warrior eyed them long with bitter smile;

217

He spake few words: ‘At fifty thousand men
I count them.’ To his father then he turned:
‘Haste to Emania! Bid the Red Branch Knights
Attend me in Murthemné. I till then
Hang on the invaders' flank, a fiery scourge.’

Saltain made answer: ‘Be it! northward I:
But Dectara, thy mother and my wife,
I will not see till thou art by my side;
For dreadful are her eyes as death or fate;
And many deem her mad.’

He spake, and drave
Northward; nor ceased from chatterings all day long,
Since, like a Poplar, vocal was the man
Not less than visible. Meantime his son
Took counsel in his heart, and made resolve
To skirt in homeward course that eastern sea,
The wood primeval 'twixt him and the foe,
Still sallying night and day through alley and glade
And taming thus their pride.

Three days went by:
Then stood Cuchullain where great wood-ways met;
And lo! betwixt four yews a warrior's grave,
The pillar-stone above it! O'er that stone
In mirthful mood he twined an osier wreath,
Cyphering thereon his name in Ogham signs:
For thus he said: ‘On no man unawares
Fall I, but warned.’ The hostile host approached,
And, halting stood in wonder at that wreath;
Yet none could spell the Ogham. Last drew nigh
Fergus, and read it: on him fell that hour
Memories full dear, and loud he sang and long;
He sang a warrior's praise: yet named him not;
He sang: ‘From name of man to name of beast

218

A warrior changed: then mightiest grew of men!’
And, as he sang, the cheek of Meave grew red.

Next morn Neara's sons outsped the rest
Car-borne with brandished spears, and, ere the dew
Was lifted, came to where Cuchullain sat
Beneath an oak, sporting with black-birds twain
That followed him for aye. Toward the youths
He waved his hand: ‘Away, for ye are young!’
In answer forth they flung their spears: he caught them,
And snapt them on his knee; next, swift as fire,
Sprang on the twain, and slew them with his sword,
One blow:—anon he loosed their horses' bits,
And they, with madness winged, rejoined the host,
Bearing those headless bulks. Forth looked the queen;
Beheld; and, trembling, cried, ‘It might have been
Orloff, my son!’

That eve, at banquet ranged
The warriors questioned Fergus: ‘Who is best
Among the Uladh chiefs?’ Ere answer came
King Conor's son self-exiled, Conlinglas,
Upleaping cried, ‘Cuchullain is his name!
Cuchullain! From his childhood man was he!
On Eman Macha ever was his thought,
Its walls, its bulwarks, and its Red Branch Knights,
The wonder of the world.’ Then told the prince
How, when his mother mocked his zeal, that child
Fared forth alone, with wooden sword and shield,
And fife, and silver ball; and how he hurled
His little spears before him as he ran,
And caught them ere they fell: and how, arrived,
He spurned great Eman's gates, and scaled its wall,

219

And lighted in the pleasaunce of the king,
His mother's brother, Conor Conchobar;
And how the noble youths of all that land
There trained in warlike arts, had on him dashed
With insult and with blows: and how the child
This way and that had hurled them, while the king
Who sat that hour with Fergus, playing chess,
Gazed from his turret wondering.

Next he told
How to that child, Setanta first, there fell
Cuchullain's nobler name. ‘To Eman near
There dwelt an armourer, Cullain was his name,
That earliest rose, and latest with his forge
Reddened the night: mail-clad in might of his
The Red Branch Knights forth rode: the bard, the chief
Claimed him for friend. One day, when Conor's self
Partook his feast, the armourer held discourse:
“The Gods have made my house a house of fame;
The craftsmen grin and grudge because I prosper;
The forest bandits hunger for my goods,
Yea, and would eat mine anvil if they might—
Trow ye what saves me, Sirs? A Hound is mine,
Each eve I loose him; lion-like is he;
The blood of many a rogue is on his mouth;
The bravest, if they hear him bay far off,
Flee like a deer!” Setanta's shout rang loud
That moment at the gate, and, with it blent,
The baying of that hound! “The boy is dead,”
King Conor cried in horror. Forth they rushed—
There stood he, bright and calm, his rigid hands
Clasping the dead hound's throat! They wept for joy:
The armourer wept for grief. “My friend is dead!

220

My friend that kept my house and me at peace:
My friend that loved his lord!” Setanta heard
Then first that cry forth issuing from the heart
Of him whose labour wins his children's bread,
That cry he honours yet. Red-cheeked he spake:
“Cullain! unwittingly I did thee wrong!
I make amends. I, child of kings, henceforth
Abide, thy watch-hound, warder of thy house.”
Thenceforth the “Hound of Cullain” was his name,
And Cullain's house well warded.’

Stern of brow
The queen arose: ‘Enough of fables, lords!
Drink to the victory! Ere yon moon is dead
We knock at gates of Eman.’ High she held
The crimson goblet. Instant, felt ere heard,
Vibration strange troubled the moonlit air;
A long-drawn hiss o'er-ran it: then a cry,
Death-cry of warrior wounded to the death.
They rose: they gazed around: Cuchullain stood
High on a rock. The swift one said in heart,
‘I will not slay her; yet her pride shall die!’
Again that hiss: instant the golden crown
Fell from her head! In wrath she glared around;—
Once more that hiss long-drawn, and in her hand
The goblet, shivered, stood! She cast it down;
She cried, ‘Since first I sat, a queen new-crowned,
Never such ignominy, or spleen of scorn
Hath mocked my greatness!’ Fiercely rushed the chiefs
Against the aggressor. Through the high-roofed woods
They saw him distant like a falling star
Kindling the air with speed. Ere long, close by

221

He stood with sling high holden. At its sound
Ever some great one died!

The morrow morn
Cuchullain reached a lawn: tall autumn grass
Whitened within it; but the Beech trees round
Were russet brown, the thorn-brakes berry-flushed:
Passing, he raised his spear and launched it forth
Earthward: there stood it buried in the soil
Half-way, and quivering. Loud Cuchullain laughed,
And cried, ‘It quivers like the tail of swine
Gladdened by acorn feast!’ then drew he rein
And with one sword-stroke felled a youngling Birch
And bound it to that spear, and on its bark
Silvery and smooth, graved with his lance's point
In Ogham characters the words, ‘Beware!
Unless thou know'st what hand this Ogham traced
Twine yonder berries 'mid thy young bride's locks,
But spare to tempt that hand!’ An hour passed by
And Meave had reached the spot. Chief following chief
Drew near in turn; yet none could drag from earth
That spear deep-buried. Fergus laughed: ‘Let be,
Connacians! Task is here for Uladh's hand!’
Then, standing in his car, he clutched the spear
And tugged it thrice. The third time 'neath his feet
Down crashed the strong-built chariot to the ground.
He laughed! The queen in anger cried, ‘March on!’
The host advanced, disordered. Foremost drave
Orloff, Meave's son. That morning he had wed
A maid, the loveliest in his mother's court,
And yearned to prove his valour in her eyes.
Sudden he came to where Cuchullain stood
Pasturing his steeds with grass and flower forth held
In wooing, dallying hand. Cuchullain said,

222

‘The queen's son this! I will not harm the youth,’
And waved him to depart. That stripling turned,
Yet, turning, hurled his javelin. As it flew
Cuchullain caught it; poised it; hurled it home:
It pierced that youth from back to breast; he fell
Dead on the chariot's floor. The steeds rushed on
Wind-swift; and reached the camp. There sat the queen
Throned in her car, listening the host's applause:
In swoon she fell, and lay as lie the dead.

Next morn again the invaders marched, nor knew
What foe was he who, mocking, thinned their ranks,
Trampled their pride; who, lacking spear and car,
Viewless by day, by night a fleeting fire,
Dragged down their mightiest, in the death cry shrill
Drowning the revel. Fergus knew the man,
Fergus alone; nor yet divulged his name,
Oft muttering, ‘These be men who fight for Bulls—
I war to shake a Perjurer from his throne,
And count no brave man foe.’ Again at feast
Ailill made question of the Red Branch Knights;
Fergus replied, ‘Cuchullain is their best:
I taught him arms! Hear of his Knighting Day!

‘Northward of Eman lies a pleasaunce green:
The Arch-Druid, Cathbad, gazer on the stars,
While there the youths contended, beckoned one
And whispered, “Happy shall that stripling prove
Knighted this day! Glorious his life, though brief!”
That hour Cuchullain stood beyond the wall
South of the city, yet he heard that whisper!
He heard, and cried, “Enough one day of life
If great my deeds, and helpful!” Swift of foot
He sped to Conor. “I demand, great king,
Knighthood this day, and knighthood at thy hand.”

223

But Conor laughed: “Not fifteen years are thine!
Withhold thyself yet three.” That self-same hour
Old Cathbad entered, and his Druid clan,
And spake: “King Conor! by my bed last night
Great Macha stood, the worship of our race,
Our strength in realms unseen. ‘Arise,’ she said;
‘To Conor speed: to him report my will:
That youth knighted this day is mine Elect!
I, Macha, send him forth!’

‘“She spake and passed:
Trembled the place like cliffs o'er ocean caves:
Like thunder underground I heard her wheels
In echoes slowly dying.”

‘Fixed and firm
King Conor stood. Sternly he made reply:
“Queen Macha had her day and ruled: far down
Doubtless this hour she rules, or rules aloft:
I rule in Eman and this Uladh realm:
I will not knight a stripling!” Prophet-like
Up-towered old Cathbad, and his sons black-stoled.
This way and that they rolled prophetic bolts
Three hours, and brake with warnings from the stars
And mandates from the synod of the Gods,
The king's resolve. At last he cried, “So be it!
Since Gods, like men, grow witless, be it so!
The worse for Eman, and great Macha's land—
Stand forth, my sister's son!” He spake and bound
The Geisa, and the edicts, and the vows
Of that dread Red Branch Order on the boy,
And gave him sword and lance.

‘An eye star-keen
That boy upon them fixed, and, each on each,
Smote them. They snapt in twain. Laughing, he cried,

224

“Good art thou, Uncle mine; but these are base:
I need a warrior's weapons!” Conor signed;
Then brought his knaves ten swords, and lances ten:
Cuchullain eyed them each and snapt them all,
The concourse marvelling. “Varlets,” cried the king,
“Bring forth my arms of battle!” These in turn
Cuchullain proved: they brake not. Up they dragged
A battle-car. Cuchullain leaped therein:
With feet far set he spurned its brazen floor
That roared and sank in fragments. Chariots twelve
Successive thus he vanquished. “Uncle mine,
Good art thou,” cried the youth; “but these are base!”
King Conor signed, “My car of battle!” Leagh
The charioteer forth brought it with the steeds:
Cuchullain proved that war-car and it stood.
Careless he spake: “So, well! The car will serve!
Abide ye my return.”

‘He shook the reins:
He called the horses by their names well-known:
He dashed through Eman's gateway as a storm:
Far off a darksome wood and darksome tower
Frowned over Mallok's wave: therein abode
Three bandit chieftains, foes to man: well pleased
Those bandits eyed the on-rushing car, and youth,
Exulting in their prey. That youth, arrived,
Summoned those three to judgment: forth they thronged,
They and their clan: he slew them with his sling,
The three: and severed with his sword their heads,
And fixed them on the chariot's front. His mood
Changed then to mirthful: fleeter than the wind
Six stags went by him, stateliest of the herd;
Afoot he chased them, caught them, bound them fast

225

Behind the chariot rail. Birds saw he next,
White as a foam-wreath of their native sea,
Spotting the glebe new turned. A net lay near:
He caged them; next he tied them to his car
Wide-winged, and wailing loud. To Eman's towers
Returned he last with laughter: at its gate
The king, the chiefs, grey Druids, maids red-cloaked,
Agape to see him; on his chariot's front
The grim heads of those bandits; in its rear
Those stags wide-horned; and, high o'erhead the birds!’

The laughter ceased; then spake King Conor's son;
‘Recount the wonder of those fairy steeds
That drag Cuchullain's war-car!’ Fergus then,
Despite Queen Meave, who plaited still her robe
With angry hectic hand, the tale began.

‘Cuchullain paced the herbage thin that clothes
Slieve Fuad's summit. On that airy height
A wan lake glittered, whitening in the blast;
Pale plains were round it. From beneath that lake
Emerged a horse foam-white! Cuchullain saw,
And straightway round that creature's neck high-held
Locked his lithe arms, and lightly leaped upon him.
That courser baffled clothed his strength with speed:
From cliff to cliff he sped; cleared at a bound
Inlet, and rocky rift: nor stayed his course,
Men say, till he had circled Erin's Isle:
Panting then lay he, on his conqueror's knee
Resting his head; thenceforth that conqueror's friend,
His “Liath Macha.” Gentle-souled is she,
“Sangland,” the wild one's comrade. As the night
Sank on those huge red-berried woods of Yew
Lough Darvra's girdle, from the ebon wave
She issued, darker still. Softly she paced,

226

As though with woman's foot, the grassy marge
In violets diapered, and laid her head
Upon Cuchullain's shoulder. In his wars
Emulous those mated marvels drag his car:
In peace he yokes them never.’

Fergus rose:
‘Night wanes,’ he said, ‘and tasks await my hand:’
Passing the throne he whispered thus the queen,
‘The Hound of Uladh is your visitant
Both day and night.’ The cheek of Meave grew pale.

Now Connaught.

Now Ulster.

Chief King.

Now Dundalk.

Armagh.

Cu in Irish means “hound.”

BOOK II. THE DEEDS OF CUCHULLAIN.

ARGUMENT.

Fergus is sent to Cuchullain with gifts, and requires him to forsake King Conor. This he will not do, yet consents to forbear Meave's host till she has reached the border of Uladh, the queen engaging that the warfare shall then be restricted to a combat between himself and a single champion sent against him day by day. Each day Meave's champion is slain. Cailitin, lord of the Magic Clan, counsels Meave to send against Cuchullain his best-loved friend Ferdïa; yet she sends, instead, Lok Mac Favesh. When he, too, falls, Cailitin and his twenty-seven sons, all magicians, fling themselves upon Cuchullain to slay him. Cuchullain slays them. The Mor Reega, the War-Goddess of the Gael, prophesies to him that there yet awaits him the greatest of his trials. After ninety days of combat Cuchullain's father brings him tidings that all Uladh lies bound under a spell of Imbecility.

Thus ever day by day, and night by night,
Through strength of him that 'mid the royal host
Passed, and re-passed like thought, the bravest fell;
For ne'er against the inglorious or the small

227

Cuchullain raised his hand. Then Ailill spake:
‘Let Fergus seek that champion in the woods,
Gift-laden, and withdraw him from his king:’
But Fergus answered, ‘Sue and be refused!
That great one loves his country. Heard ye never
How when King Conor's sin, that forfeit pledge
Plighted with Usnach's sons, had left the Accursèd
Crownless, and Eman's bulwarks in the dust,
Her elders on Cuchullain worked, what time
He came my work of vengeance to complete?
They said, “Cuchullain loves his land o'er all!
The man besides, though terrible to foes,
Is tender to the weak. Through Eman's streets
Send ye proclaim, ‘Will any holy Maid
To save the city take her station sole
On yonder bridge, at parting of the ways,
That city's Emblem-Victim, robed in black
Down from her girdle to the naked feet;
Above that girdle this alone—the chains
Of Eman's gate, circling that virgin throat
And down at each side streaming? It may be
That dread one will relent, pitying in her
Great Uladh's self despoiled of robe and crown,
Her raiment bonds and shame.’” Of Eman's maids
But one, the best and purest, gave consent:
Alone she stood at parting of the ways:
While near and nearer yet that war-car drew
Wide-eyed she stood, death-pale: it stopped: she spake:
“Eman, thy Mother, stands a widow now,
Despoiled of crown, her raiment bonds and shame;
And many a famished babe that wrought no ill
Lies 'mid her ruins wailing.” To the left
The warrior turned his steeds. The land was saved.’

228

Then spake the kings confederate: ‘Hard albeit
That task, to draw Cuchullain from his charge,
Seek him, and proffer terms!’ Fergus next morn
Made way through those sea-skirting woods, and cried
Three times, ‘Setanta’; and Cuchullain heard
And knew that voice, and, beaming, issued forth,
And clasped his ancient master round the neck,
And led him to his sylvan cell. Therein
Long time they held discourse of ancient days
Heaven-fair through mist of years. The youthful host
Set forth their rural feast, whate'er the woods
And they that in them dwelt, swine-herds, and hinds,
Yielded, their best: nor lacked it minstrel strain,
Bird-song by autumn chilled, that brake through boughs
Lit by unwarming sunshine. Banquet o'er,
Fergus disclosed the terms of Meave, and gifts
By her and Ailill sent. Cuchullain rose
And curtly answered, ‘Never will I break
My vow; nor wrong the land; nor sell my king:’
Fergus too royal was to hear surprised,
Or grieved, his friend's resolve, nor touched again
Upon that pact unworthy. Happier themes
Succeeded, mirthful some. Of these the last
Made sport of Ailill. Fergus spake: ‘One night
I sped to Meave's pavilion swift of foot;
War-tidings wait not. Ailill from afar
Furtively followed, stung by jealous spleen.
The queen had passed into the inner tent;
I sought her there. In the outer Ailill marked
My sword, that morning thither sent, a loan,
For Meave had vowed to out-brave its hilt with gems
Blazoning her zone. His wrath was changed to joy!
He snatched it up; he cried, “Hail, forfeit mine!

229

Hail Eric just!

The fine exacted for various offences by the Brehon law.

” and laughed his childish laugh.
Since then he neither frowns on me nor smiles:
He will not let me rule his foolish kings;
Yet, deeming still my sword a charm 'gainst fate,
Wears it. An apter one I keep for him:
One day 'twill raise a laugh!’ In graver mood
At parting Fergus spake: ‘I grant that pact
Proposed by Meave is worthier her than thee.
If meeter terms thou knowest conceal them not.’
To whom Cuchullain: ‘Fergus, terms there be
Other and meeter. I divulge them not:
Divine them he that seeks them!’ On the morn
Fergus declared his tidings to the chiefs
In synod met. A recreant churl arose,
And thus gave counsel: ‘Lure Cuchullain here
On pretext fair; and slay him at the feast.’
Against that recreant Fergus hurled his spear,
And slew him, and continued, ‘Hundreds six,
Our best, have perished, and our march is slow:
Now, warriors, hear my counsel, and my terms:
Cuchullain scorns your gifts—of such no more!
'Twixt southern Erin and my Uladh's realm,
Runs Neeth: across that river lies a ford;
Speak to Cuchullain: “By that ford stand thou,
Guarding thy land. Against thee, day by day,
Be ours to send one champion—one alone:—
While lasts that strife forbear the host beside!”’

Then roared the kings a long and loud applause,
Since wise appeared that counsel: faith they pledged
And sureties in the hearing of the Gods:
Likewise Cuchullain, when his friend returned,
Made answer: ‘Well you guessed! a month or more
My strength will hold: meantime our Uladh arms.’
To seal that pact he sought the hostile camp,

230

And shared the banquet. Wondering, all men gazed;
And maidens, lifted on the warriors' shields,
Gladdened, so bright that youthful face. At morn
Meave, when the chief departed, kissed his cheek:
‘Pity,’ she said, ‘that such a one should die!’
The one sole time that Meave compassion felt.

That eve Cuchullain drank the wave of Neeth,
And wading reached Murthemné's soil, his charge,
And knelt, and kissed it. As the sun declined
He clomb a rocky height, and northward gazed,
And cried, ‘Ye Red Branch warriors, haste! I keep
The ford; but who shall guard it when I die?’

Next morning by that stream the fight began,
Two champions face to face: and, every morn,
Rang out, renewed, that combat; every eve
Again went up from that confederate host
The shout of rage. Daily their bravest died,
Thirty in thirty days. Feerbraoth fell,
And Natherandal, though the Druid horde
Above his javelins, carved at set of moon
From the ever-sacred holly stem, had breathed
Vain consecration, and with futile salve
Anointed them: confuted soon they sailed
In ignominy adown that seaward tide
With him that hurled them. Eterconnel next,
Dalot, and Kyre;—yet he who laid them low
Was beardless at the lip. While thus they strove
A second month went by.

Such things beholding
The queen was moved; and in her grew one day
Craving for Cruachan. But on her ear
Rolled forth that hour the lowings of that Bull
Cualgné's Donn: for he from Daré's house
Had heard, though far, the clamours of the host,

231

And answered rage with rage. Then Meave resolved,
‘Though all my host should perish to a man
This foot shall tread no more my native plains
Save with that Bull in charge!’

To her by night
Came Cailitin, who ever walked by night
Shunning mankind, and Fergus most of all,
Cailitin, father of the Magic Clan,
And thus addressed her: ‘Place in me thy trust:
I hate Cuchullain, for he scorns my spells
Resting his hope on Virtue. In thy camp
Ferdïa bides, a Firbolg feared of all.
Win him to meet Cuchullain. They in youth
Were friends: to slay that friend will lay a hand
Icy as death upon Cuchullain's heart.
Ferdīa dies—thus much mine art foreshews—
Then I, since magic spells have puissance most
Not on the body sick but spirit depressed,
Fall on him with my seven and twenty sons,
Magicians all. One are we: thence with one
May fight, thy pledge unflawed. A drop of blood
Shed by our swords, though small as beetle's eye,
Costs him his life.’ Fiercely the queen replied,
‘A Firbolg! Never!’ Cailitin resumed,
‘Then send for Lok Mac Favesh!’

With the morn
Mac Favesh sought her tent. Direful his mien;
Massive his stride; his body brawny and huge;
For, though of Gaelic race, the stock of Ir,
With him was mingled giant blood of old,
Wild blood of Nemedh's brood that hurled sea rocks
'Gainst the Fomorian. Oft the advancing tide
Drowned both, in battle knit. Before the queen
Boastful the sea-king laid his club, and spake:

232

‘Queen, though to combat with a beardless boy
Affronts my name, my lineage, and my strength,
His petulance shall vex thine eye no more!
Uladh is thine to-morrow!’ At the dawn
By hundreds girt, the great ones of his clan,
Down drave he to the ford, and onward strode
Trampling the last year's branches strewn hard by
That snapped beneath him. Hides of oxen seven
Sustained the brazen bosses of his shield;
And forth he stretched a hand that might have grasped
A tiger's throat and choked him. O'er his helm
Hovered an imaged demon raven-black.
Cuchullain met him; hours endured the strife,
That mountained strength triumphant now, anon
Cuchullain's might divine. Then first that might
Was fully tasked. Upon the bank that day
Stood up a Portent seen by none save him,
A Shape not human. Terribly it fixed
On him alone its never-wandering eye;
The dread Mor Reega, she that from the skies
O'er-rules the battle-fields, and sways at will
This way or that the sable tides of death.
He gazed; and, though incapable of fear,
Awe, such as heroes feel, possessed his heart:
Wild beatings shook his brain; his corporal mould
Throbbed as a branch against some river swift;
And backward turned his hair like berried trails
Of thorn that streak the hedge. Three several times
He saw her, yet fought on. With beckoning hand
At last that Portent summoned from the main
A huge sea-snake: round him it twined its knots:
Then on Cuchullain fell the rage from heaven:
A sword-blow, and that vast sea-worm lay dead!
A sword uplifted, and Mac Favesh fell

233

Prone on the shuddering flood. In death he cried,
‘Lay me with forehead turned to Uladh's realm;—
They shall not say that fugitive I died.’
Cuchullain wrought his will: then, bleeding fast,
Stood upright, leaning on his spear aslant;
A warrior battle-wearied.

From the bank
Meantime, the dark magician, Cailitin,
He and his sons, with wide and greedy eyes,
That still, like one man's eyes, together moved,
Had watched that fight, counting each drop that fell
Down from Cuchullain's wounds. When faint he stood
At once their cry rang out like one man's cry;
Like one their seven and twenty javelins flew:
As swift, Cuchullain caught them on his shield:
An instant more, and all that horde accursed
Was dealing with him. From the trampled ford
Went up a mist of spray that veiled that strife,
Though pierced by demon cries, and flash beside
Of demon swords. O'er it at last up-towered
On-borne, such power to blend have Spirits impure,
A single Form—as when o'er seas storm-laid
The watery column reels, and draws from heaven
The cloud, and drowns the ship—a single Form,
And Head, and Hand, clutching Cuchullain's crest:
Even then he sank not. O'er that mist of spray
Glittered his sword. There fell a silence strange:
That spell which made the many one, dissolved;
Slowly that mist dispersed; and on the sands
That false Enchanter lay with all his sons
Black, bleeding bulks of death.

Amid them stood
Cuchullain; near him, seen by him alone,
That dread Mor Reega, now benign. She spake:

234

‘I hated thee, because thy trust was less
In me than Virtue's aid. I hate no more.
Be strong! a trial waits thee worse than this—
No man is friend of mine till trial-proved.’

Yet sad at heart that eve Cuchullain clomb
His wonted rock, and faint with loss of blood,
And mused: ‘My strength must lessen day by day;’
And northward gazed, thus murmuring; ‘All too late
To save the land those Red Branch Knights will come
When I am dead—
My war-car, and my war-steeds are far off,
And I am here alone.’ That night through grief
He slept not; for the Magic Clan had power,
Though dead, to lean above him as a cloud
Darkening his spirit, and to grief and shame
Changing bright days gone by.

While thus he sat
He saw, not distant, on the forest floor,
In moonbeams clad, though moon was near him none,
A pure and princely presence. Lithe his form
In youthful prime: chain armour round him clung
Bright as if woven of diamonds. Glad his eye;
Dulcet his voice as strain from Elfin glen
Far heard o'er waters. Thus that warrior spake:
‘My child, an ancestor of thine am I,
Great Ethland's son, in sacred battle slain,
Fencing my people from an alien foe.
Among the Sidils

The Fairy Hills.

now, and fairy haunts
Moon-lit, and under depths of lucent lakes,
Gladness I have who in my day had woe,
And youth perpetual though I died in age.
Thou need'st repose: for sixty days thine eyes
Have closed reluctant. Sleep a three days' sleep
Whilst I thy semblance bearing meet thy foes.’

235

Thus spake the youth, then sang Lethean song
Wedded with softer song from waters near,
And, straight, Cuchullain slept. Three days gone by,
Again that vision came. ‘Arise,’ he said:
The warrior rose; and lo! his wounds were healed:
Down sped he to the river.

Waiting there
Stood up Iarion, champion of the queen,
There stood, nor thence returned. Eochar next
Perished, then Tubar, Chylair, Alp, and Ord,
In all full ninety warriors. Ninety days
Had fled successive since that strife began,
When, on the ninetieth eve, at set of sun,
His strength entire, and victory eagle-winged
Fanning his ardent cheek, Cuchullain scaled
Once more that specular rock. Within his heart
Spirit illusive, that with purpose veiled
Oft tries the loftiest most, this presage sang:
‘Southward, not distant, thou shalt see them march
At last, that Red Branch Order, in their van
Thy Conal Carnach!’ Other spectacle
Met him, a chariot small with horses small,
And, o'er the axle bent, a small old man
Urging them feebly on. It was his sire!
T'wards him Cuchullain rushed: the old man wept,
For gladness wept, and afterwards for woe,
Kissing the wounds unnumbered of his son:
Reverent, Cuchullain led him to his cell;
Reverent, he placed before him wine and meat;
Nor questioned yet. The old man satisfied,
Garrulity returned, though less than once,
Now quelled by patriot passion. Thus he spake:—
‘Setanta! son of mine! I bring ill news:
Uladh is mad; the Red Branch House is mad:

236

Mad as thy mother; all the world are mad,
And I that was a mad man twenty years
Am now of Uladh's sons most nigh to sane.
Attend my tidings! Through the realm I sped:
A mist hung o'er it heavy, and on her sons
Imbecile spirit, and a heartless mind,
And base soul-sickness. Evermore I cried,
“Arise! the stranger's foot is on your soil:
They come to stall their horses in your halls;
To slay your sons; enslave your spotless maids:
Alone my son withstands them!” Shrewd of eye
Men answered, “Merchant; see thy wares be sound!
No lack-wits we!” Old seers I saw that decked
Time-honoured foreheads with a jester's crown:
I saw an ollamb trample under foot
His sacred Oghams; next I saw him grave
His own blear image on the tide-washed sands,
Boasting, “The unnumbered ages here shall stoop
Honouring true Wisdom's image.” Shepherds set
The wolf to guard their fold. The wittol bade
The losel lead his wife to feast and dance:
Young warriors looked on maids with woman's eyes.
I drave to Daré's Dûn: his loud-voiced sons
Adored the Donn Cualgné as their sire,
And called their sire a calf. To Iliach's tower
I sped: he answered, “What! the foe! they come!
Climb we yon apple trees, and garner store!
Wayfarers need much victual!” Onward next
To Sencha's castle: on the roof he knelt,
Self-styled the kingdom's chief astrologer,
Waiting the unrisen stars. To Olchar's Dûn
I journeyed: wrapped in rags the strong man lay
Thin from long fast; with eyelids well-nigh closed:
Not less beneath them lay a gleaming streak:

237

“Awake me not,” he said: “a dormouse I!
Till peace returns I simulate to sleep.”
I sought the brothers Nemeth: one his eyes
Bent on the smoke-wreath from his chimney's top,
One on the foam-streak wavering down the stream;
While each a finger raised, and said, “Tread light!
All earth is grass o'er glass!” I sought the mart:
Men babbled: “Bid the Druids find the king!”
I sought the Druids' College: in a hall
Rush-strewn to smother sound, they held debate
On Firbolg and Dedannan contracts pledged
Ere landed first the Gael. The Red Branch House
Was changed to hospital; and knights full-armed
Nodded o'er lepers' beds. I sought the king:
From hall deserted on to hall I roamed:
I found him in his armoury walled around
With mail of warriors dead. There stood, or lay,
The chiefs by Uladh worshipped. Nearest, crouched
Great Conal Carnach patting of his sword
Like nurse that lulls an infant. On his throne
Sat Conchobar in miniver and gold:
His eyes were on his grandsire's shield that breathed
At times a sigh athwart the steel-lit gloom:
Around his lips an idiot's smile was curled:
“What will be will be,” spake the king at last:
“All things go well.”’

Thus Saltain told his tale:
One thing he told not—how, a moment's space,
The passion of an old man's scorn had wrought
Deliverance strange for that astonished throng,
High miracle of nature. He, the man
Despised since youth, the laughter of the crowd,
Himself restored to youth by change like death,
Had rolled his voice abroad, a mighty voice;

238

They heard it: from their trance they burst: they stood
Radiant once more with mind! They stood till died
The noble anger's latest echo. Then
The mist storm-riven put forth once more its hand
And downward dragged its prey.

Upon his feet
When ceased his father's voice, Cuchullain sprang:
That rage divine which gave him strength divine
Had fallen on him from heaven. He raised his hands
And roared against the synod of the Gods
That suffer shames below. Beyond the stream
That host confederate heard and armed in haste,
And slept that night in armour. Far away
Compassion touched the strong hearts of the Gods,
The strongest most—Mor Reega's. Ere that cry
Had left its last vibration on the air
High up the Battle-Goddess, adamant-mailed,
Was drifting over Uladh. Eman's towers
Flashed back her helmet's beam. With lifted spear
She smote the brazen centre of her shield
Three times; and thunder, triple-bolted, rolled
Three times from sea to sea. The spell was snapped:
Humanity returned to man! The first
Who woke was Leagh, Cuchullain's charioteer:
Forth from the opprobrious mist he passed like ship
That cleaves the limit of some low marsh-fog
And sweeps into main ocean. Forth he rushed,
Forth to Cuchullain's chariot-house, and dragged
Abroad that war-car feared of all—men say
The axle burnt beneath his hand—and yoked
White Liath Macha, and his comrade black,
And dashed adown the vacant, echoing streets,

239

And passed the gateway towers: the warders slept:
Beyond them, propped against the city wall,
A cripple crunched his mouldering crust. Still on
He rushed, the reins forth shaking and the scourge,
Clamouring and crying, ‘Haste, Cuchullain's steeds!
On Liath Macha! Sable Sangland on!
Your master needs you! Ay! ye know it now!
The blood-red nostril smells the fight far off!
On to Murthemné, and Cualgné's hills,
And Neeth's remembered ford!’ Unseen he drave;
So slowly, clinging still to brake and rock
And oft re-settling, vanished from the land
The insane mist. That hurricane of wheels
Not less was heard by men who nothing saw:
On stony plain, in hamlet and in vale:—
They muttered, as in sleep, ‘Deliverance comes.’

240

BOOK III. THE COMBAT AT THE FORD.

ARGUMENT.

Meave sends her herald to Ferdīa the Firbolg, requiring him to engage with Cuchullain in single combat. Ferdīa refuses to fight against his friend; yet, later, he attends a royal banquet given in his honour; and there, being drawn aside through the witcheries of the Princess Finobar, he consents to the fight. The charioteer of Ferdīa sees Cuchullain advancing in his warcar to the Ford, and, rapt by a prophetic spirit, sings his triumph. For two days the ancient friends contend against each other with remorse: but on the third day the battle-rage bursts fully forth: and on the fourth, Cuchullain, himself pierced through with wounds, slays Ferdīa by the Gae-Bulg. He lays his friend upon the bank, and, standing beside him, sings his dirge.

Meantime the queen, ere dawned that ninetieth morn,
Mused, ill at ease: ‘Daily my people die,
And many a stormy brow on me is bent:—
What if they turn on me like starving hounds
That rend their huntsman?’ In her ear once more
Sounded the word of Cailitin: ‘The man
To fight Cuchullain is the man he loves:
His death were death to both.’ Then came the kings
Confederate, saying, ‘Send Ferdīa forth!
Ferdīa is the mightiest of our host:
Ferdīa is Cuchullain's chief of friends:
Westward of Alba in the Isle of Skye
Scatha, that rock-browed northern warrioress,
In amplest lore of battles trained them both:

241

Except the Gae-Bulg, every feat of arms
Is known to each alike.’

The queen gave way:
She sent her herald to the man she scorned
With offers huge, tract vaster than his own,
Not barren like his mountains billow-beat,
But laughing in the lap of Ai's plains;
A war-car deftly carved and ribbed with brass;
And, for his clansmen, raiment of all dyes,
Twelve suits. A stalwart man yet fair as strong
The Firbolg towered, dark-eyed, dark-haired, palefaced,
Unlike the Gael. Melodious was his voice
But deeper than a lion's. Ceaseless thought
On immemorial wrongs—he brooded still
O'er glories of Moytura and Tailltenn,
Their great assemblies and their solemn games,
And kingly graves—had stamped upon his brow
Perpetual shade; and ever, on the march
If high on crags there stood some Gaelic tomb
Wind-worn a thousand years, he passed it by
With face averse, muttering, ‘New men! New men!
We note not such!’ The herald's task discharged,
He answered thus, not turning: ‘Tell your queen
That I, a Firbolg, serve, but not for hire,
A cause not mine. Cuchullain is my friend:
Better I died than he!’

O'er-awed though wroth
The queen despatched in statelier embassage
Three warriors, and three ollambs, and three bards:
With reverence they addressed him. ‘Chief and Prince!
True prince, though scion of a house deject,
The queen, who judges all men by their deeds,

242

This day hath in thine honour made a feast
And sues to it thy presence. Kings alone
Partake that banquet; Ailill first, and she
Of princesses the fairest, Finobar!’
Scornful the Firbolg answered, ‘Finobar!
She whose bright face hath frosted with death's white
Full four score faces of war-breathing men
Sent to that Ford successive! Let it be!
Tell them I join their feast: tell them beside
Their bribe shall prove base gold!’

In mantle blue
Clasped by a silver torque, and silver belt
Enringed with silver rings innumerable,
That evening from his tent Ferdīa strode
With large attendance. Ailill and the queen
Received him on their threshold. At the board
Princes alone had place. High up, o'er each
Glittered upon the wall his blazoned shield.
King Ailill placed Ferdīa on his right;
Beyond him sat the Princess. In her ear
Her mother whispered as she neared that seat:
She answered with her eyes.

Well-stricken harp
Gladdened that festive throng; and Ailill told,
The rage of hunger lessening by degrees,
Full many a tale of the heroic past,
When, youthful yet, he ranged 'mid friends and foes
Such men as breathed no longer. Servitors
Brimmed oft the goblets: and Ferdīa's brow,
As song to song succeeded, tale to tale,
Remitted its first sternness. Finobar
Unconsciously had dropp'd her jewelled hand
Not far from his: her large and dusky eyes,

243

Shyly at first from his withdrawn, at last
Full frankly met them: on her lips the smile
Increased, though waveringly, then waned, not died,
And in it sadness mingled as she spake:
‘But late yon harper told us of a dream—
My earliest of remembered dreams was sad;
I saw some princess of your earlier stock
Whose lover late had perished, slain in fight
By ours, methought then recent. At her feet—
Why there I scarcely know—I made lament:
“All thou hast lost for thy sake I renounce:
For me, like thee, no bridal rites forever!
Dead on thy marriage garland lies mine own;
For lo! the stain accursed is on our sword:
Thy race came first: this Island should be theirs!”’
Ferdīa listened; and the icy pride
Thawed in his bosom. With a sudden change
The jubilant music into martial soared,
Wild battle-chaunt. Upon the warrior's hand
Still nigh to hers, there lay a scar. With eye
Reverently dewed the princess gazed thereon:
‘Yes, of your war-deeds I have heard so long,
It seems as though since childhood—Whence that wound?
What battle left it there? What sister bound it?
I would that sister were my sister too,
Partaker of my heart, my hope, my life:
I have no youthful friend!’ She paused: again
But now with paler cheek, and hurried, spake:
‘Beware my mother! She would send you forth
Her knight to meet Cuchullain! Shun that man!
Cuchullain spares not: four score warriors dead
Avouch it. Chief of Gaels he is! Ah me!
The last great battle 'twixt the old race and new

244

Would find the same sad ending as the first.’
The Firbolg frowned: she faltered, ‘Am I false,
False to my race’—and tears were in her voice—
‘False to my race, who cannot wish such ending?’
She paused; again she questioned of his wars:
He told her of his sire's. Like one who thinks
Not speaks, she murmured low, ‘A soothsayer
Thus warned my mother—I was then a child—
“Bring not that maid to war-fields! She shall die
Grieving for some dead warrior.”’

Speaking thus,
Though false the princess lied not.

Changed once more
The martial songs to amorous and of mirth,
And once again the torches' golden flame
Laughed on the cup new-brimmed. Again she spake
That lovesome one, ‘I love not songs of love!
Better the war-song! Best, methinks, of all
That lullaby half war and sorrow half
Breathed by some bride while o'er her wounded lord
Softly descends the sleep:—so softly sank
Cold dews of evening on this flower still wet.’
She took it from her breast, and held it near:
He smelt it; kissed it; kept it. With a smile
She added, ‘For your sister? Have you one?
If so, 'tis likely she resembles me:
They chide me oft: “No Gaelic face is thine,
Dark-eyed, dark-browed, a rebel since its birth!”’
She ceased; again she spake: ‘Even now, methinks,
That lullaby I spake of I can hear!
Is it for thee, my friend, or Cuchullain?’
That hand, of flower amerced, drew nearer yet
To his. That smile had passed. Tearful she turned
On him those luminaries of love and death,

245

Her eyes, like stars in midnight waters glassed;
Turned them, but spake no longer. Through his brain
Shivered their shrouded lustre; through his blood:
The sanguine currents from the warrior's heart
Long sad, to female sympathies unused,
Drank up at once that splendour, and the tears
That splendour's strange eclipse.

And yet, that hour,
Seen in some lonelier region of his soul
Another presence, O how different, stood!
Again, that hour, he saw those guileless eyes,
Blue as the seas they gazed on; saw once more
That hair like winter sunshine, brow snow-white,
That unvoluptuous form and virginal,
That love-unwakened breast with love for all,
Those hands that knew not what their touch conferred,
Those blithesome, wave-washed, scarce divided feet:—
The huge cliff smiled upon her; seemed to say,
‘Ah little nursling mine! Ah tender child
Of winds and rocks untender!’

Had he loved?
Sadness is celibate and eremite:
His converse long had been with injuries past,
In Scatha's isle with frowning crags and clouds—
Ay, but with one beside, a friend, his nearest,
Who loved the daughter of that warrioress
And won Ferdīa's help in love. Ferdīa
Had never spoken love; nor thought, ‘I love:’
And yet, that hour, was false.

A hundred harps
Rang out together, and the feast was o'er:

246

Murmured the rose-red lips; but what they said
He heard not. Mournfully at last withdrew
That hand so near to his—he had not touched it—
Those eyes, like eyes fated thenceforth to bear
One image on till death. She joined her mother.

The queen, as he departed, took his hand:
Alone they stood: she spake: ‘That noble scorn
Which spurned a bribe, approves a Firbolg's worth:
'Twas Ailill sent that herald: 'twas not I.
I know you now, and proffer royal terms
Confirmed by guarantee of all our kings:
Accept this combat; and the princess wed!
Ferdīa! I have made that offer thrice
To three dead warriors with the king's consent,
Never, till now, with hers!’

He pledged his word:
The battle day was fixed; the morrow morn:
She took that glittering torque whose splendours clasped
Her mantle red; with it his mantle bound:
Then with attendance to his tent he passed.

Meantime, that night within his forest lair
In dreams Cuchullain lay, and saw in dreams,
Not recent fights, but ocean and that isle
Where with Ferdīa he had dwelt in youth,
With Scatha—and another—loved, yet left.
He mused: ‘The dearest of my friends survives:
These wars will pass; Ferdīa then and I
Thenceforth are one for aye!’ That self-same hour
The Firbolg slowly woke from troubled sleep
Murmuring as one in trance, ‘Against my friend!
Against my only friend!’ His clansmen watched
With gloomy brows his arming. One sole man
They feared—that man Cuchullain. Morn the while

247

Was dawning, though she raised nor glowing cheek
Nor ardent eyes, with silver wand not gold
Striking the unkindling portals of the East;
And, ere the sun had ris'n, Ferdīa bathed
Three times his forehead in the frosty stream;
And bade his charioteer attend; and drave
Begirt by stateliest equipage of war
Down to the river's brim. In regal pomp
The host confederate followed, keen to watch
With Meave, and Ailill, and with Finobar,
All passions of a fight unmatched till then
On war-fields of the immemorial world;
While clustered here and there, on rock or mound,
Minstrel and food-purveyor, groom and leech
With healing herbs, and charms.

The sun arose
And smote the forest roof dew-saturate
As onward dashed through woodlands to the Ford
Cuchullain's war-car. Nearer soon it rolled
Crushing the rocks. Above those wondrous steeds
That Great One glittered through low mist of morn,
Splendour gloom-veiled. Ferdīa's charioteer
Half heard, half saw him. Spirit-rapt, yet awed,
Perforce thus sang he standing near the marge:

‘I hear the on-rushing of the Car! I see
There throned that warrior not of mortal mould
Swathed in the morning. Dreadful are his wheels;
Dreadful as breaker arched, when on its crest
Stands Fear, and Fate upon the rock-strewn shore:
But not sea-rocks they crush, those brazen wheels,
But realms, and peoples, and the necks of men.

‘I see the War-Car! Terrible it comes,
Four-peaked; and o'er those peaks a shadowy pall
Pavilioning dim crypt and caves of death:

248

I see it by the gleam of spears high held,
The glare of circling Spirits. Lo! the same
I saw far northward drifting, months gone by,
Ere yet that madness quelled the northern land.’

Then cried Ferdīa, stationed where huge trees
Shut out unwelcome vision: ‘For a bribe
Thou seest these portents, singing of my death!’

Once more, in agony prophetic, he—
‘The man within that car is Uladh's Hound!
What hound? No stag-hound of the storm-swept hills:
No watch-hound watching by a merchant's store:
The hound he is that tracks the steps of doom;
The hound of realms o'er-run, and hosts that fly;
The hound that laps the blood!’

Again he sang:
‘The Hound of Uladh is a hound with wings;
A hound man-headed! Yea, and o'er that head
Victory and empire, like two eagles paired,
Sail onward, tempest-pinioned. Endless morn
Before him fleeting over seas and lands,
With shaft retorted lights his chariot-beam.
That chariot stays not, turns not: on it comes
Like torrent shooting from a tall cliff's brow,
Level long time; then downward borne!’

‘A bribe!’
Once more Ferdīa cried; ‘A bribe! a lie!
Traitor! for Ailill's gold and gold of Meave,
Thou sing'st thy master's death-song!’

By the stream
Cuchullain stood: nor yet he knew his foe:
That foe who slowly to the Ford advanced
Full panoplied, and in his hand a spear.
Long gazed they each on each. Cuchullain spake:

249

‘Welcome howe'er thou com'st, Ferdīa! Once
In Scatha's Isle far otherwise thou camest
Morn after morn with tidings fresh of war,
Plaything and pastime of our brother brands.
This day thou com'st invader of my land
Murthemné, bulwark broad of Uladh's realm;
Thou com'st to burn my cities, spoil my flocks—
A change there is, Ferdīa!’ Stern of brow
The Firbolg answered: ‘Friends we were; not peers:
The younger thou. 'Twas thine to yoke my steeds;
Arm me for fight. A stripling hopes this day
With brandished spear to make a mountain flee!
Son of the Gael! long centuries since, thy race
Trampled my race: their vengeance hour is near:
I bid thee to depart!’ To him his friend:
‘Ferdīa, in the old days on Scatha's Isle
Thou wert my tribe, my house, my stock, my race!
Questioned I then on battle-plain, or when
On frosty nights we crouched beneath one rug,
Ancestral claims, traditions of the clan?—
A change there is, Ferdīa!’

Thus with words
Or mild, or stern, in hope to save not slay,
Those friends contended. Sternest was the man
Whose conscience most aggrieved him.

‘To this Ford
Thou cam'st the first, old comrade! choice of arms
Is therefore thine by right!’ Cuchullain spake:
Ferdīa chose the javelin. Arrow-swift,
While still the charioteers brought back the shaft,
The missiles flew. Keen-eyed as ocean-bird
That, high in sunshine poised, glimpses his prey
Beneath the wave, and downward swooping slays him,
Each watched the other's movements, if an arm

250

Lifted too high, or buckler dropped too low
Left bare a rivet. Long that fight endured:
Three times exhausted sank their hands: three times
They sat on rocks for respite, each the other
Eying askance, not silent: ‘Lo the man
Who shields an ox-like or a swine-like race
That strikes no blow itself!’ or thus: ‘Ah pledge
Of amity eterne in old time sworn!
Ferdīa, vow thy vow henceforth to maids!
The man-race nothing heeds thee!’

Evening fell
And stayed perforce that combat. Slowly drew
The warriors near; and as they noted, each,
The other bleeding, friendship unextinct
In all its strength returned: round either's neck
The other wound his arms and kissed him thrice:
That night their coursers in the self-same field
Grazed, side by side: that night their charioteers
With rushes gathered from the self-same stream
Made smooth their masters' beds, then sat themselves
By the same fire. Cuchullain sent the half
Of every healing herb that lulled his wounds
To staunch Ferdīa's; while to him in turn
Ferdīa sent whate'er of meats or drinks
Held strengthening power or cordial, to allay
Distempered nerve or nimble spirit infuse,
In equal portions shared.

The second morn
They met at sunrise:—‘Thine the choice of arms;’
The Firbolg spake; the Gael made answer, ‘Spears!’
Then leaped the champions on their battle-cars
And launched them into battle. Dire their shock
In fiery orbits wheeling now; anon
Wheel locked in wheel. Profounder wounds by far

251

That day than on the first the warriors gored,
Since closer was the fight. With laughing lip
Not less that eve Cuchullain sang the stave
That chides in war ‘Fomorian obstinacy’:
Again at eve drew near they, slower now
For pain, and interwove fraternal arms:
Again their coursers in the self-same field
Grazed side by side, and from the self-same stream
Again their charioteers the rushes culled:
Again they shared alike both meats and drinks,
Again those herbs allaying o'er their wounds
With incantations laid.

Forlorn and sad
Peered the third morning o'er the vaporous woods,
The wan grey river with its floating weed,
And bubble unirradiate. From the marge
Cuchullain sadly marked the advancing foe:—
‘Alas, my brother! beamless is thine eye;
The radiance lives no longer on thy hair;
And slow thy step.’ The doomed one answered calm,
‘Cuchullain, slow of foot, but strong of hand
Fate drags his victim to the spot decreed:
The choice to-day is mine: I choose the sword.’

So spake the Firbolg; and they closed in fight:
And straightway from his heart to arm and hand
Rushed up the strength of all that buried race
By him so loved! Once more it swelled his breast:
Re-clothed in majesty each massive limb,
And flashed in darksome light of hair and eye
Resplendent as of old. Surpassing deeds
They wrought, while circled meteor-like their swords,
Or fell like heaven's own bolt on shield or helm.
Long hours they strove till morning's purer gleam
Vanished in noon. Sharper that day their speech;

252

For, in the intenser present, years gone by
Hung but like pallid, thin, horizon clouds
O'er memory's loneliest limit. Evening sank
Upon the dripping groves and shuddering flood
With rainy wailings. Not as heretofore
Their parting. Haughtily their mail they tossed
Each to his followers. In the self-same field
That night their coursers grazed not; neither sat
Their charioteers beside the self-same fire:
Nor sent they, each to other, healing herbs.

Ere morn the Firbolg drank the strength of dreams
Picturing his race's wrong; and trumpet blasts
Went o'er him blown from fields of ancient wars:
And thus he mused, half-wakened: ‘Not for Meave;
Not for the popular suffrage; not for her
That maid who fain had held me from the snare,
Fight I that fight whose end shall crown this day:
O race beloved, this day your vengeance dawns
Red in the East! The mightiest of the Gaels
Goes down before me! What if both should die:
So best! Thus too the Firbolg is avenged!’
So mused he. Stately from his couch he rose,
And armed himself, sedate. Upon his breast
He laid, in iron sheathed, a huge, flat stone,
For thus he said, ‘Though many a feat of arms
Is mine, from Scatha learned, or else self-taught,
The Gae-Bulg is Cuchullain's!’ On his head
He fixed his helm, and on his arm his shield
Sable as night, with fifty bosses bound,
All brass; the midmost like a noontide sun.

Cuchullain eyed him as he neared the Ford,
And spake to Leagh: ‘This day, if thou shouldst mark
This hand or slack or sluggish, hurl, as wont,

253

Sharp storm of arrowy railing from thy lips
That so the battle-anger from on high
May flame on me.’ The choice of arms was his:
He chose ‘the Ford-Feat.’ On the Firbolg's brow
A shadow fell:—‘All weapons there,’ he mused,
‘Have place alike: if on him falls the rage
He will not spare the Gae-Bulg!’

Well they knew,
Both warriors, that the fortunes of that day
Must end the conflict; that for one, or both,
The sun that hour ascending shone his last:
Therefore all strength of onset till that hour
By either loosed or hoarded, craft of fight
Reined in one moment but to spring the next
Forward in might more terrible, compared
With that last battle was a trivial thing;
Whilst every weapon, javelin, spear, or sword,
Lawful alike that day, scattered abroad
Huge flakes of dinted mail; from every wound
Bounded the life-blood of a heart athirst
For victory or for death. The vernal day
Panted with summer ardours, while aloft
Noon-tide, a fire-tressed Fury, waved her torch
Kindling the lit grove and its youngling green
From the azure-blazing zenith. Waxed the heat:—
So waxed the warriors' frenzy. Hours went by:
That day they sought not rest on rock or mound,
Held no discourse. Slowly the sun declined;
And as wayfarers tired, when twilight falls,
Advance with strength renewed, so they, refreshed,
Surpassed their deeds at morning. With a bound
Cuchullain, from the bank high springing, lit
Full on the broad boss of Ferdīa's shield,
His dagger-point down turned. With spasm of arm

254

Instant the Firbolg from its sable rim
Cast him astonished. Upward from the Ford
Again Cuchullain reached that shield: again
With spasm of knee Ferdīa flung him far,
While Leagh in scorn reviled him: ‘As the flood
Shoots on the tempest's blast its puny foam;
The oak-tree casts its dead leaf on the wave;
The mill-wheel showers its spray; the shameless woman
Hurls on the mere that babe which was her shame,
So hurls Ferdīa forth that fairy-child
Whom men misdeemed for warrior!’

Then from heaven
Came down upon Cuchullain like the night
The madness-wrath. The Foes confronted met:
Shivered their spears from point to haft: their swords
Flashed lightnings round them. Fate-compelled, their feet
Drew near, then reached, that stream which backward fled
Leaving its channel dry. While raged that fight
Cuchullain's stature rose, huge bulk, immense,
Ascending still: as high Ferdīa towered
Like Fomor old or Nemed from the sea,
Those shields, their covering late from foot to helm,
Shrinking, so seemed it, till above them beamed
Shoulders and heads. So close that fight, their crests
That waved defiance mingled in 'mid air;
While all along the circles of their shields
And all adown their swords, ran, mad with rage,
Viewless for speed the demons of dark moors
And war-sprites of the valleys, Bocanachs
And Banacahs, whose scream, so keen its edge,
Might shear the centuried forest as the scythe

255

Shears meadow grass. To these in dread response
Thundered far off from sea-caves billow-beat
And halls rock-vaulted 'neath the eternal hills,
That race Tuatha, giant once, long since
To pigmy changed, that forge from molten ores
For aye their clanging weapons, shield or spear,
On stony anvils, waiting the day decreed
Of vengeance on the Gael. That tumult scared
The horses of the host of Meave, that brake
From war-car or the tethering rope, and spread
Ruin around. Camp-followers first, then chiefs
Innumerable were dragged along, or lay
'Neath broken axle, dead. The end was nigh:
Cuchullain's shield splintered upon his arm
Served him no more; and through his fenceless side
Ferdīa drave the sword. Then first the Gael
Hurled forth this taunt: ‘The Firbolg, bribed by Meave,
Has sold his ancient friend!’ Ferdīa next,
‘No Firbolg he, that man in Scatha's Isle,
Who won a maid, then left her!’ Backward stepped
Cuchullain paces three: he reached the bank;
He uttered low, ‘The Gae-Bulg!’ Instant Leagh
Within his hand had lodged it. Bending low,
Low as that stream—the war-game's crowning feat—
He launched it on Ferdīa's breast. The shield,
The iron plate beneath, the stone within it,
Like shallow ice-film 'neath a courser's hoof
Burst. All was o'er. To earth the warrior sank:
Dying, he spake: ‘Not thine this deed, O friend:
'Twas Meave who winged that bolt into my heart!’

Then ran Cuchullain to that great one dead
And raised him in his arms and laid him down
Beside the Ford, but on its northern bank,

256

Not in that realm by Ailill swayed and Meave:
Long time he looked the dead man in the face;
Then by him fell in swoon. ‘Cuchullain, rise!
The men of Erin be upon thee! Rise!’
Thus Leagh. He answered, waking, ‘Let them come!
To me what profit if I live or die?
The man I loved is dead!’

But by the dead
Cuchullain stood; and thus he made lament:
‘Ferdīa! On their head the curse descend
Who sent thee to thy death! We meet no more;
Never while sun, and moon, and earth endure.

‘Ferdīa! Far away in Scatha's Isle
A great troth bound us and a vow life-long
Never to raise war-weapons, each on each:—
'Twas Finobar that snared thee! She shall die.

‘Ferdīa! dearer to my heart wert thou
Than all beside if all were joined in one:
Dear was thy clouded face and darksome eye;
Thy deep, sad voice; thy words so wise and few;
Dear was thy silence: dear thy slow, grave ways,
Not boastful like the Gael's.’

Silent he stood
While Leagh in reverence from the dead man's breast
Loosened his mail. There shone the torque of Meave:
There where the queen had fixed it yet it lay.
Cuchullain clutched it. ‘Ha! that torque I spurned!
Dark gem ill-lifted from the seas of Death!
Swart planet bickering from the heavens of Fate!
With what a baleful beam thou look'st on me!
'Twas thou, 'twas thou, not I, that slew'st this man’—
He dashed it on the rock, and with his heel
Crushed it to fragments.

Then, as one from trance

257

Waking, once more he spake: ‘O me—O me,
That I should see that face so great and pale!
To-day face-whitening death is on that face;
And in my hand my sword;—'tis crimson yet.
That day when he and I triumphed in fight
By Formait's lake o'er Scatha's pirate foes
The woman fetched a beaker forth of wine,
And made us drink it both; and made us vow
Friendship eterne. O friend, my hand this day
Tendered a bloody beaker to thy lip.’

Again he sang: ‘Queen Meave to Uladh's bound
Came down; and dark the deed that grew thereof;
Came down with all the hosting of her kings;
And dark the deed that grew thereof. We two
Abode with Scatha in her northern isle,
Her pupils twinned. The sea-girt warrioress
That honoured few men honoured us alike:
We ate together of the self-same dish:
We couched together 'neath the self-same shield:
Now living man I stand, and he lies dead!’

He raised again his head: once more he sang:
‘Each battle was a game, a jest, a sport
Till came, fore-doomed, Ferdīa to the Ford,
I loved the warrior though I pierced his heart.
Each battle was a game, a jest, a sport
Till stood, self-doomed, Ferdīa by the Ford—
Huge lion of the forestry of war;
Fair, central pillar of the House of Fame;
But yesterday he towered above the world:
This day he lies along the earth, a shade.’

258

BOOK IV. THE INVASION OF ULADH.

ARGUMENT.

Cuchullain lies long in the forest nigh to death from his wounds, and yet more through grief for Ferdīa. Meave crosses the Ford into Uladh, and captures the Donn Cualgné. His fate. The confederate kings fall out among themselves; Meave summons a war council: whereupon there bursts forth a contention between them and the Exile-Band. She makes the circuit of all Uladh, yet enacts nothing memorable. Lastly she marches against Eman, but slowly, being encumbered by her spoil. Uladh rouses itself out of its trance of Imbecility. The death of Ketherne. Finobar is fain to draw Rochad to the cause of her mother, but fails. Her fate. Meave, falling into despondency, re-crosses the frontier.

Silence amid the wide, confederate camp:
No clang of sword or shield; no warrior's tread
Striding to Meave with battle-gage down flung
For him who kept the Ford. But when six days
Were past, and none had seen that threatening helm,
There went abroad a rumour, ‘He is dead:’
Then sped to her six champions claiming fight:
Whom from her presence spurning, Meave advanced
With all her host o'er Uladh's frontier line
By Daré's castle and the ill-omened gate
Whereon high-seated Daré's Fool had hurled
Against her, scorn and gibe. As Meave drew near
Forth rolled the bellowing of Cualgné's Donn,
Cause of that war. King Daré's sons had fled;
But in the gate-way stood their old, grey sire,
Alone, and slew the first that passed its bar:

259

The rest dashed in upon him, and he died.

That night within her deep heart mused the queen:
‘'Tis done! I tread at last great Uladh's realm;
But, day by day, Faythleen's Imbecile Mist
That slew its manhood, drifts. What if those kings
Confederate fail me, or some ruinous chance
Leaves half my army on the war-field dead?
Connacht would frown against me: Ailill, too,
Would blink yet more his jesting eyes, and boast
Fionbannah, and extol his worth o'er mine!
He shall not! Let us send, ere Fortune change,
My boast, my spoil, Cualgné's matchless Donn,
To Cruachan! That done, befall what may,
My worship there stands whole!’ Next day, ere dawn,
Southward she sent the Donn. Suspecting fraud,
He on his keepers turning slew a score,
Yet peaceful paced at last betwixt their ranks,
At each side fifty spears. Five days past by,
Forth rolled the roar of Ailill's Bull snow-white,
Fionbannah. Bursting through his guard, the Donn
Rushed t'ward the sound. Upon the midway plain
The rivals met. All day that battle raged
While wood to wood thunder on thunder hurled,
And all the bulls of Erin sent reply.
Shepherds, through wood-skirts peering, saw the end,
The Donn at sunset rushing t'ward the north,
And, heaped upon his back—their horns entwined—
Fionbannah dead! All night the conqueror rushed
O'er hill and plain and prone morass. When dawn
Looked coldly forth through mist along the meads
Far off he kenned a rock: that rock he deemed
A second Bull: collecting all his might
Thereon he hurled his giant bulk, and died.

260

Yet no man dared to breathe this news to Meave;
Not Ailill's self. Exulting, she marched on.

Six days, and in Cuchullain's cell no change—
The bud grew large; the earlier violet died;
He neither spake nor moved. His wounds were deep;
Deeper his grief; for that cause ampler power
They gained, that clan accursed of Cailitin,
With ghostly spells darkening the warrior's heart:
As lie the dead, he lay.

One eve, what time
The setting sun levelled through holly brakes
Unnumbered dagger-points of jewelled light
And 'neath the oak-stem burned a golden spot,
Leagh, standing near his couch, reproached him thus:
‘In time of old the greatness of thy spirit
Had ever strength to salve thy corporal griefs:
But now through coward heart thou makest no fight,
Dying as old men die!’ Cuchullain heard;
But answered nought.

Next day, while near them buzzed
At noon the gilded insect swarm with sound
That stung the fever in his nerves, he spake:
‘While lived Ferdīa wounds to thee were jest;
Thy grief it is that drags thee to the pit;
Grief; and for what? Of treasons worse is none
Than sorrow when thy country's foe is dead!
Not man is he, the man who dies of grief.’
He spake: Cuchullain fixed a vacant eye
On that sad, wrathful face.

Then hastened Leagh
To where those giant coursers, side by side,
Stood tethered 'mid green grass and meadow-sweet
Within a lawn; and led them to a stream,

261

And bade them drink; and later led them home;
And placed their corn before them, and they ate:
Next spake he, ‘Horses ye; and yet ye know
To eat at need, while men self-sentenced starve!’
Thus of that man whom most he loved on earth
He made complaint. Liath, the lake's white son,
Tossed high his head in anger. By his side
Sangland, his dusky comrade, sadly ate,
Moistening with tears her barley.

Late that eve
Cuchullain beckoned Leagh: ‘To Conor speed:
Speak thus: “Put on thine arms and save thy land
Since now the Hound that kept thy gate is dead:—
Make no delay!”’ At midnight Leagh went forth
Though loth to leave his master to the care
Of cowherd rude, or swineherd. Tenderer aid
Ere long consoled him. Beauteous as the dawn
Next morn two shepherd boys seeking a lamb
Came on the sick man in his forest nook;
Long time they gazed on him compassionately:
With voice benign and tendance angel-like
Onward into his confidence they crept;
His lips with milk, the purest, they refreshed;
They placed the dewy wood-flowers in his hand;
They sang him ballads old, not battle-songs,
Too loud such songs they deemed, but Fairy lore,
Or tale of lovers fleeing tyrant's rage:
Among the last unwittingly they sang
‘Cuchullain's Wooing;’ how the youth had found
Eimer, the loveliest lady of the land
Within her bowery pleasaunce, girt with maids
Harping, or broidering fair in scarf deep-dyed
Blossom or bird: how long he sued; and how
She answered, ‘Woo my sister: woo not me!’

262

How, glorying in her loveliness, her sire
Had sworn no chief should ever call her wife
Who won her not by valour; how that youth
Had scaled his rock and slain his guards and forth
Through all the blazing ruins of that keep,
Led her by hand, a downward-looking bride,
Majestic, unconsenting, undismayed,
But likewise unreluctant. As they sang
Above that suffering face there passed a smile;
And where that smile had lain there crept a tear;
And in few minutes more asleep he sank
Who had not slept nine days.

Swiftly meanwhile
The host of Meave marched onward: bootless speed;
Since ever one day's progress by the next
Was cancelled; tortuous mind made tortuous course
Now bent awry to capture spoil, anon
To avenge some private wrong. Fergus the while
Inly with fury raged; for still his thought
Was ‘Eman—Vengeance.’ Meave, to calm his wrath,
Albeit she scorned debate, a council called
And made demand, ‘To Eman speed we, Kings,
With central wound striking at Uladh's heart,
Or wind, as now, at random through the realm,
With havoc huge, and plunder?’

Rose a chief
Aulnan, the son of Magach, one whose pride
Was not in war-deeds but in crafty brain,
And spake, keen-voiced, keen-eyed. ‘To Eman! Queen!
Not difficult the emprise; but whose the gain?
Suppose it burnt, what then? We have but sown
The sanguine seed of endless wars to come.
The Uladh chiefs live scattered. Eman's fall

263

Touches not them. Their strength ere long revived
Southward in search of vengeance they will rush.
Slay them yet weakling! Slay them ere they wake!
Slay them in mountain hold and forest lair
In vale and glen: slay each apart, half-armed;
Easy the task!’ Arose the Exiled King:
‘“Easy the task!”’ he cried; ‘that Daré learned!
Unarmed—alone—I saw the old man fall!
“Easy the task!”’ Then brake upon him Alp
That ruled in far Iorras, clamouring thus:
‘Fergus, we love our queen; but love not thee!
Hostile to ours thy race. Thou seek'st, we know it,
King Conor's fall, not Uladh's. Hear me, Queen!
The siege of Eman means a three months' siege:
Be wary lest, ere yet that time is past
King Conor with his exiles makes a pact,
And they who now but rate thee drink thy blood:
Be wary likewise lest in half that time
Thy host melt from thee like a wreath of snow!
The Gael is restless; lives on chance and change;
The clan grows home-sick: victory in its grasp,
It pines for babe unkissed, or field unreaped:
My counsel then is Aulnan's. Like a flood
Wind devious through the land and strip it bare:
Till then let Eman be.’

Debate ere long,
For chiefs there were who loved the nobler war,
Passed on to raging storm. Old friendships died;
And from the dust of ages injuries old
Leaped up like warriors armed. In Fergus wrath
Gave way to scorn: with haughty port he spake,
A man majestical yet mirthful too.

‘Great Lords and Kings—since Kings ye claim to be—

264

King-vassals, world renowned for mutual hate,
Alone of men I censure not your strifes,
Knowing their cause. The very air you breathe,
The founts whereof you drink, the soil you tread,
Are all impregnate with a sacred rage;
And false alike to usage, country, blood,
Were he among you who, for three hours' space,
Discerned 'twixt friend and foeman. Lords and Kings,
Attend a legend from your annals old,
A laughing picture of man's life this day.
In Erin's earlier age there reigned two kings:
Each had a swineherd who, through magic power,
Could clothe himself with shape of aught that lives
In heaven, or earth, or sea. Friendship forever
They pledged; then strove ten years, with hosts allied
So huge that none remained to till the land.
At last the vanquished swineherd changed to crane:
A crane, the victor chased him. Twenty years
High up they fought; to each side Erin's birds
Flocking in clans, the factions of the heavens.
Those twenty years run out, the vanquished crane
Dropped on a stream and straight to salmon changed;
Instant his foe, to salmon turned at will,
From stream to sea pursued him. Far and wide
All scaly shapes that buffet Erin's waves
From sprat and minnow up to shark and whale
Beat up in finny squadrons. Forty years
With deepening rage they fought, till round the isle
Main ocean boiled, and from her ships black-ribbed
Melted the tar, and fire-mist girt the deep.
Next changed those salmons twain to dragon-flies:
But while they sat in hate on neighbouring pools
A dun cow and a red cow drank them up

265

Unwittingly. Two bull-calves these brought forth,
That, grown, with battle thunders dinned the realm
For eighty years! How say ye, Lords? From these
Sprang not the Bulls that shake this day our land,
Fionbannah, and the Donn? For these we fight,
And in their honour hold, on festal days,
As now our roaring synods!’

Fiercely and long
The unwise council strove; and Meave, who feared
Far more the petulance of her lesser kings
Than that great exile's loftier wrath, resumed
Next morn her march erratic. On she passed,
The Dal Araidhé forests on her right,
Northward to Moira's plain and Clannaboy,
And through the Glynns of Ardes eastward glimpsed
Alba's blue hills. Dalríad fastnesses
She burned with fire, and seized full many a herd
On banks of Bann; then westward turned, and kenned
The grass-green sparkle of remote Lough Foyle,
And where the winding river-sea divides
Fanad from Inishowen's cliffs forlorn.
Aileach she passed, more late the seat of kings;
And, southward next, that lake whose lonely isle
Descends, through caves, to Spirit-worlds unknown,
Northern Lough Derg by penitents revered.
Thus Meave in circle marched round Uladh's realm,
And heard the murmur of its three great seas,
Yet nothing wrought of perdurable fame.
Conor, meantime, round Eman ranged his hosts
There flocking night and day. ‘I bide my time,’
He said, ‘till Uladh's wound is wholly healed;—
Fergus I deem the sage of battle-fields,
Though fool in all beside.’

But sloth and fear

266

In manly hearts at worst rare visitants,
Leave them betimes, like vermin caught by chance
That quit ere long the clean. O'er Uladh's breadth
Daily some chief, or fragment of a clan
Long chilled by rumour of Cuchullain slain,
Despite King Conor's hest assailed the queen
Marching, though late, on Eman. First of these
Was Ketherne. Hewing oaks on Fuad's crest
He marked her host, and rushed, a naked man
From waist to head, his axe within his hand,
In fury on it. Late that eve his kernes
Forth from the battle tore him bleeding fast
From fifty wounds. That night physicians five
Stood bending o'er his bed: the eldest spake;
‘Ketherne, thou son of Fintan, thou must die!’
Then Ketherne raised himself and with one blow
Smote him upon his forehead that he died.
In turn the second,—‘Ketherne, thou must die:’
And Ketherne slew him. Feebler-toned the third
Whispered, ‘The man must die;’ and died himself;
Likewise the fourth. Old Ithal was the fifth,
A son of Alba. He with stealthy foot
Stepping o'er corpses of his brethren slain,
Made keen-eyed inquest of the wounds; then spake:
‘Of these the least is dangerous: fatal none:
Two cures for such there be, diverse in kind;
Ketherne, thou son of Fintan, make thy choice!
The first is slow but certain: where thou liest
Full three months thou must lie; then rise restored:
The second is immediate: strength divine
It pours like light into a warrior's veins;
Then dies its virtue, and the warrior dies!’
Ketherne laughed loud: ‘My choice is quickly made:
Three months bed-ridden, or one vengeance day

267

Joyous and glorious! Leech! I rather choose
With mine own hand to avenge eretime my death
Than trust that task to others!’ At his word
Ithal prepared a wonder-working bath
Strewn with strange herbs, and bathed therein the man,
Then bade him drink of some elixir bright
Drawn from the sun. As one refreshed by sleep
He rose: he clomb his war-car; sought the foe:
He slew threescore, their best. At last the strength
Ceased from his arm; once more the wounds late closed
Opened; and back the warrior sank, and died.

Such hindrances, and every day had such,
Likewise huge herds and cumber of her spoil
Slackened the march of Meave. Full many a chief
Perished in bootless fight; full many an eye
Turned on her, malcontent. But trial worse
Had found her through her daughter, Finobar.
Without an hour's misgiving or remorse,
In beauty's pride not less than patriot zeal—
Wilier she was than Meave, and haughtier far—
Champion on champion she had sent to doom
Beside that fatal Ford. Ferdía most
Had tasked the sorceress, for in him alone
Vanity kept no place. She watched the fight
No pallor on her fruit-like cheek, no cloud
Dimming her eyes. Without a sigh she kenned
From far the Firbolg, last of all his race,
Dead on the soil once theirs. Even then she knew not
The inevitable shaft had pierced whate'er
Of woman heart was hers. The strong man's death
Lifted that veil his victory ne'er had raised:

268

Standing 'mid others she beheld him dead:
Thenceforth that deep-toned voice, that mournful front,
Those stern yet stately ways, so great and plain,
Haunted her memory. Oft with sudden spasm
She strove to shake that viper from her breast
Which sucked its life-blood. ‘I, the Princess, love!
And love a Firbolg!’ She had never loved:
Self-love, sole regent of the unloving heart,
Till then had barred it 'gainst all tenderer loves:
In vain the island chiefs had wooed and sued:
She spurned them each and all.

Of these the last
Was Rochad, and the proudest, in the North
A vassal prince of Conor's, oft his foe:
The passion she had kindled she had scorned:
Rochad had vowed revenge.

In wonder Meave
Noted the weary lids, the vanishing bloom,
The abrupt accost, though haught yet unassured;
The movements to mechanic changed, the mind
Still strong, yet widowed of its flexile strength:
These things she saw; their cause she ne'er divined:
Love for the living Meave could understand:
For her the dead was dead. To Finobar
The one thing yet remaining was her pride:
Questioned, her answer ever was the same,
‘Onward, to Eman!’

Nearer it each day
They drew. One evening through the sunset mist
A camp, high seated on a bosky hill,
Stood out, fire-fringed: it stood aloof as one
That halts 'twixt war and peace. Ere long they learned

269

Rochad had chos'n that site, with Uladh's King
Friendly but half, thence slow to prop his cause.
Then spake the queen; ‘The hand of yonder chief
Sustains our battle's balance. If his host,
Now dubious, joins the bands that vex our flank
No choice remains but this, a homeward course
Or, if a march to Eman, then the loss
Of half our hard-earned spoil and hate henceforth
Of all our vassal kings.’ Finobar's eyes
Flashed as of old—that was their latest flash—
She answered thus: ‘Leave thou the rest to me!
He loved me, Rochad, once: ere sets yon moon
I bring you tamed the lion of yon hills,
Ay, in a silken leash!’

Rochad far off
Beheld her coming; marked it with a smile;
Welcomed her gaily; led her to the feast;
Thence to his tent wherein was none beside.
There put she forth whatever subtlest art
In seeming-simple innocence disguised
Imagines of persuasive, whatsoe'er
Delicatest craft of female witcheries
Potent for man's destruction can concert,
To bend that warrior's will. The winter beam
Thaws not the polar ice: o'er Rochad's soul
So passed the syren's pleadings. Pleased not less
To stand implored, he dallied with her suit
Destined, and this he knew, to end in shame.
She, self-deceived, inly made vow: ‘This tent
I leave not, save victorious.’

Hours went by:
She noted not their flight. Once more with skill
Plastic as wind in woods, a measured strength
Varying as minstrel's hand that grazes now,

270

Now sweeps the tenderer or the deeper strings,
To all the passions of the heart of man
Glory, Ambition, Love, Revenge, she tuned
The poisonous challenge of that passionate strain;
While half the richness theirs aforetime throbbed
Again in those sad accents, half their light—
For oft from out the present shines a past
Long dead—returned to eyes that, seen of none,
Had wept away their splendours. Calm he sat,
Sternly quiescent. On her it stared at last,
The fatal truth. She saw her power was gone;
And all that posthumous life late hers sank back
In embers lost and ashes. On the West
Rested her gaze. A cloud of raven black,
Its veil for half that night, had drifted by;
Her mother's camp shone out, a pallid gleam;
O'er it the moon descended. Finobar
That hour recalled her boast, ‘Ere sets yon moon
I bring you tamed the lion of yon hills,
Ay in a silken leash!’

The Orient soon
Whitened with early dawn. Forlorn it lay
On hill and heath and plain and distant mere,
Forlorner on the haggard face—for oft
A face, still fair, in anguish antedates
Its future—of that woman as she knelt,
She knelt at last, low on that threshold low.
Then came the hour of Rochad's great revenge:
Then first he answered plainly: ‘Finobar!
One day I knew you not: I know you now:
Your spells are null when once their trick is learned:
Likewise your face has lost its earlier charm.
Back to your mother! Tell her, ere sets yon sun
I join the king my master; from his gate

271

Repel with scorn the invader.’ Forth he passed
Without farewell. A clarion broke ere long
Her trance: adown the slope she saw his host
Winding t'ward Eman.

From a burning couch
She rose next eve; and, strong with fever's strength,
Paced swiftly by that sunset-crimsoned stream
Which girt the camp of Meave. Anon she marked
In all who met her, change inexplicable,
Strange eyes, strange faces, strange embarrassed ways:
Sadly compassionate that change in some:
In others questioning glance and meaning smile
Hinted at things that through her flaming heart
Passed like a sword of ice. Whisperings not less
There were, but these she heard not: ‘What! all night!
From eve to morn with Rochad in his tent!—
The men she fed on hopes—on hopes alone—
Died at the Ford! Well! pride must have its fall!
Rochad is joined with Conor!’ Slanders worse
Some chiefs whom most her haughtiness had galled
Ventured, vain-glorious:—‘They were not surprised
Too well they knew her.’ Late one eve the truth
Sprang like a tigress on her. In his tent
She heard her father with her mother speak:
‘She yet may wear the crown: her maiden fame
Is lost for ever!’

Three hours ere her death
That sentenced one spake to her mother thus:
‘Noise it among the host that grief for those
Her countrymen—the Gael—who, near the Ford—
Ere yet that Firbolg shared the common fate,
Fell by Cuchullain, snapped her thread of life:

272

Bear on your march my body:—raise the cairn
On the first hill that sees Emania's towers.’

So spake she; and the queen obeyed her hest:
She flung that rumour forth; and all who heard,
Heart-stricken now, believed it. But on Meave
A piercing sadness fell; and by her bed
Orloff her buried son stood up and spake:
‘Home to thy native realm, and Cruachan!
Not less a battle waits thee great and dread
'Twixt Gairig and Ilgairig.’ One day's march
The queen marched eastward; then upon a hill,
The first whose summit looked on Eman's towers,
Interred the all-beauteous one with Pagan dirge,
And o'er her piled the cairn. Southward, next morn
She turned, and crossed the Ford. Fulfilled was thus
Cuchullain's word breathed o'er Ferdīa dead;
‘Finobar snared thee: Finobar shall die.’

But many a century later Uladh's sons
Rose up and said, ‘Great scorn it is and wrong,
Yon stranger's grave should gaze on Eman's towers;’
Then bore they forth those relics once so fair
With funeral rites revered and Pagan dirge,
And laid them by the loud-resounding sea,
And o'er them raised a cairn: and, age on age,
As sighed the sea-wind past it shepherds said,
‘It whispers soft that sad word, Finobar!’

273

BOOK V. QUEEN MEAVE'S RETREAT.

ARGUMENT.

Queen Meave, having reached the sacred plain of Uta, sacrilegiously encamps thereon. A Druid denounces the late war as unrighteous, while Fergus contemns it as ineffectual; and immediately afterwards the War Goddess, Mor Reega, manifests herself to the host. Next evening, while division of the spoil is being made, Meave discerns the advance of King Conor; and Ailill transfers the supreme command to Fergus. The battle is gloriously won by him. That night Meave is warned by signs and omens; and Cuchullain, weak from his wounds, arrives suddenly and beyond hope, in the Ulidian camp. From midnight to near sunset the next day he lies in a trance, during which Fair Spirits minister to him; and there is shown to him a vision of some mystic greatness reserved for Erin, yet of an order which he cannot understand. Just as the second battle is all but lost Cuchullain wakes; and Meave is driven in utter overthrow across the Shannon.

At last the war had whirled its giddy round;
And Meave, well nigh returned, the Shenan near
Beside Ath-Luain

Now Athlone.

streaming in its might,
Decreed to make division of her spoil
Ere yet she crossed it. In the West the sun
Was sinking; in the East the moon uprose;
While camped her host on Uta's sacred plain
Betwixt the double glories. Far away
Glittered immeasurable the pastures green
Illumed with million flowers. Nor spade, nor plough
Till then that virgin precinct had profaned,
Nor sound, save Shenan's murmur, stirred therein.

274

There stood the Tomb Heroic. Beams and showers
Alone might pierce that soil sabbatical;
Such reverence held the spot. Now all was changed;
Ill choice; if chance, ill-omened. Neighing steeds
Dinned the still air; while here at times was heard
Whistling of him that fixed his tent, and there
Wood-cleaving axe or feaster's laugh mistimed.
Higher and higher rose the moon full-orbed,
Mirrored in pool and stream. At intervals
Half lost in bard-song near or shout remote,
The slender wailing of some captive maid
Rang out and died.

The royal tent was set
High on a grassy platform. Meave that night
The first time since the death of Finobar
Was cheerful of aspéct; and, banquet o'er,
Rising, her warriors thus addressed with vaunt
Beseeming not a queen. ‘A year,’ she said,
‘Is passed since northward to the war we marched:’
Then forth she loosed the sheets and spread the sails
And bounded on the waves of proud discourse
Recounting all her triumphs; first, her wrong;
Lastly, the cause of war, Cualgné's Donn
Chief captive 'mid her captives! Here her voice
Rang loudest, and her eyes their fiercest beamed.
Rapturous response succeeded; one alone,
A Druid old, dissentient. Thus he spake
Not rising, to that throng of courtiers crowned:
‘Ill doctrine have ye praised this evening, kings,
Unwise, to Erin's sons a pit and snare,
Extolling war not based on righteous cause
Nor righteous ends ensuing. Kings and Queen,
The end of war is retribution just
For deeds unjust; ill cure for greater ill:

275

Wars there must be; and woman-mouthed were he
Who railed against them:—ay, but demon-mouthed
The man that boasts of war-dishonouring wars
Opprobrious, spiteful, predatory, base.
Sirs, how began this feud? It rose from jest!
And what its close? A sacred site profaned,
Inviolate till this day!’ The warriors frowned;
Yet all men feared the Druid beard and rod:
They stood in silence.

Fergus rose and spake:
‘Sirs, I have heard a war this day extolled,
A war this day denounced. Men say that I
Was born on battle-field: on battle-fields
Certes I lived my life. What thing war is
I ought to know. Yet, sirs, these wearied eyes
Rolled many a day around from East to West
Still seeking war, and found it not; they saw
Six hundred men successive by the hand
Of one man slain, Cuchullain; saw the torch
Hurl the red smoke-cloud o'er a thousand homes:
They saw a war-dance circle Uladh's coasts;
They saw the ravished flock, and ravished herd,
The captive throng lance-goaded on its way,
Swine-herd and shepherd, hoary head, and maid
Beaming and basking in the healthful glow
Of youthful beauty. Sirs, they saw more late,
But saw from distance, Eman's walls high-towered:
This, this they saw not; warriors, warrior-ruled,
Marching against them! Mountebanks of war
They saw; not warriors!’

Plainly Fergus spake;
Not otherwise than plainly could he speak,
A man to truth predestined; from his birth
By courage sealed to Truth. The legend saith

276

That down before him on his natal morn
All Erin's fays and sprites from river or rill
Laid tributes due: but, mightier far than they,
A wingèd goddess ran from sea to sea,
The island's breadth, to hail him! As she sped,
The path before her, prone till then and low,
Rising ran out, a craggy ridge sublime,
The same that for a hundred miles this day
Divides the realm! That highway lofty and straight
Foreshowed that ne'er in tortuous paths or base
That babe should shape his way.

Fierce from their seats
The kings and chieftains sprang. A hundred swords
Leaped from their sheaths, and from a hundred mouths
One sentence, ‘Treason—death!’ By twos and threes
A score of stragglers from the exiles' band
Closed up behind him. Cormac Conlinglas
Beside him stood, sword drawn.

Again he spake;
‘Queen, till that day of shame was battle none,
Nor on that day; nor since! But on that day
Beside your daughter's cairn—more royal far
Though fortunate less was she than you—we spake:
I said, “You think without one blow to pass
Eman that cast me forth;—without one blow
To cross your Shenan, reach your Cruachan,
There make your terms secure, the spoil retained,
The exiles sent to judgment! Note you, Queen,
Those horsement three, a mile on yonder road?
My heralds they! The hour your flight begins
They speed to Eman.”

‘You retreated. They
Rode on to Conor. To that chief of foes

277

I wrote: “Advance! The queen retreats: make speed!
She shall not 'scape your battle. Know besides
That battle of earth's battles till this hour
Shall prove the bloodiest. In it, sword to sword
We two shall meet: one die.”

‘To Conor thus
I wrote that hour—Conor, the usurping king.
Three times I might have hurled him from his throne,
But spared, not seeking rule.’

In measureless scorn
Then turned he to the kings, with threatening smile;
‘What mean those clamours and those swords half drawn
Which draw ye dare not? Petty, titular kings!
The shadow of that royalty once mine
Dwarfs you to pigmies by comparison!
I heard a cry of “Treason!” Let them lift
Their hands who raised it! Kinglings mutinous,
Princes seditious, ye the traiters are,
And on the nod of him whom ye traduce,
Your pageant crowns sit trembling! Ere three days
Uladh is on you! I shall stand that hour
Your King Elect; not Ailill's choice, but yours;
The Battle-King; for well ye know that I,
None else, have skill to range the battle-field,
And roll the thunders forth of genuine war.
Till that hour, silence, kings!’

Silence they kept,
Long silence. Then far off, as though from depths
By thought untraversable of cloudless skies,
Such sound was heard as reaches ships at sea
When, launched on airy voyage though still remote,
Nation of ocean-crossing birds begins

278

To obscure the serene heaven. That sound drew near:
From every tent the revellers rushed. Then lo!
That portent seen alone in fateful times,
The dread Mor Reega! Terrible as Fate
The Goddess of the battles high o'er head
Sailed on full-panoplied, in hue as when
On Alpine snows, their sunset glories gone,
Night's winding-sheet descends. Upon her casque
And spear beyond it pointing glared the moon,
And on a face like hers that froze of old
The gazers into stone. As slow she sailed
On that huge army coldness fell of death:
Yea, some there died. Next morning, from that spot
Northward to Eman lay a branded track:
Straight as a lance still stretched it, league on league;
A bar of winter black through harvest fields,
A bridge of ice spanning the rippling waves;
A pledge those gazers dreamed not.

In those days
Foreboding soon, like sorrow, passed away:
Ailill next morning counselled: ‘Ere the night
Cross we the Shenan. If the Red Branch comes
Fight we on Ai's plain!’ But Meave replied:
‘Not so; I fly not! One day here we rest:
Our kings await their spoil.’

From morn to eve
That spoil's partition lasted; first, huge herds:
Flocks snowy-white through water-weeds and grass
Followed, hound-driven. War-horses few were there,
But many from the plough: with these, in crowds
Poor hinds, and swine-herds, maidens skilled in works
That knew to spin the flax or mix the dye
Or card the wool. Next followed wild-eyed boys
Bound each to each. No tear they shed, but scowled

279

Defiance on their lords and sang fierce songs
Of Uladh and her vengeance. King and chief
Scanned each his prize with careless-seeming eye;
Yet oft their followers strove, while onward paced
The royal arbiters with wands high held,
Ruling the wrangling crew.

The royal throne
Meantime stood high upon a mound, a throng
Of warriors round it. Many a mirthful chance
Provoked their laughter: loudest laughed the queen:
But when she spake she waited not reply.
Without a bound to east and west and south
The prospect spread. Her eye was on the north:—
Nor distant stood two hills: she asked their names:
Her great eyes darkened when the answer came
Of Gairig and Ilgairig. These the names
By Orloff named that night.

Betwixt these twain
Shone out, distincter as the sun declined,
Long northern ranges. Fergus marked her eye
That moved not from them, smiled and made demand:
‘What find'st thou in our mountain ridges, Queen,
That merits gaze so fixed?’ Then she: ‘I note
Girdling their slopes a mist feathery and soft,
As though of snow-flakes wov'n: above it, peaks
Shoot up like isles cloud-hid. Within that mist
I see strange lights that flit like shooting stars,
Cross and re-cross, quick-bickering.’ With a smile
That deepened, Fergus questioned once again:
‘Make large thine eyes and tell me all thou seest!’
Then Meave: ‘Through all that mist is movement strange,
The agitation of some wondrous life,
And t'wards us on it rolleth.’ Fergus next:

280

‘Thine eyes see well! If others saw like thee
Their tongues would clang less loudly. Hear'st thou nought?’
The queen made answer, ‘Many a sea I hear
That breaks on many a shore.’

Then Fergus cried:
‘Thou seest my Uladh coming, and the way
And fashion of the advent of her war!
For know, great Queen, even now the Red Branch Knights
Car-borne descend yon slopes! That mist thou saw'st
What was it but the tempest of their march,
The dust flung upwards and the sweat exhaled
And visible breath of warrior and of horse
That breathes the northwind and the sunny glare?
What else the snow-flakes which thou saw'st but foam
Dashed from the horses' bits? Thy bickering stars,
What else but flaming cars and fiery helms
This way and that way passing? What thy peaks
Crowning that mist, but Uladh's hills remote
That send her children to avenge her wrong?
And what that thunder sound of many seas
But anthems of their coming? Well for thee
If o'er them sail not—yea she sought them late—
That dread Mor Reega!’

Reddened as he spake
Meave's cheek late pale; yet careless she replied:
‘I see her not, therefore believe her not,
And breathe securely since that gleam far off
Is human, not demoniac nor divine,
For never feared I yet the arm of man:
Cuchullain dead, I hold the rest at nought.’
Thus Meave: but all the kings and chiefs arose
Clamouring to her and Ailill: ‘Lo, 'tis come!

281

All Uladh, and a battle such as ne'er
Shook the foundations of this kingly isle!
Now therefore bid him rule thy host, the man
That knows to rule!’ Meave silent stood long time
'Twixt passions twain. Ailill to Fergus turned
And spake: ‘Be thou henceforth our Battle-King:’
Thus spake he; then, releasing from his belt
The sword usurped of Fergus, added thus:
‘Receive once more thy sword! in mirth erewhile
I made it mine: the virtue in that blade
Hath kept me till this hour.’ Fergus replied:
‘I take mine own: but one month past, this sword
Had cut the cancer forth from Uladh's breast,
And made thy throne a praise on earth for aye!
I take mine own, on thee a sword bestowing
That best becomes thee. Waiting long this hour
For thee I kept it.’ Proudly Ailill clasped
Its glittering hilt: Fergus drew back the sheath;
And lo, a wooden sword, for babes a toy!
The concourse laughed; the loudest Meave: though wroth
Ailill a little whiffling laugh essayed
With sidelong face.

Then Fergus planted deep
His sword within the soil, and knelt before it,
And sware: ‘O thou my Sovereignty, my Sword,
In many a battle, yet in none unjust,
So many a year my glory and my mate!
Mine art thou, mine once more! In all this host
Who shall henceforth reproach me?’

To his task
The strong one sped, and change was over all:
Again the voice of discipline was heard:
None drank in booths; none rushed abroad; with sloth

282

Fierceness had vanished. Followers of the camp
Alone were left in charge of flocks and herds:
The clansmen to their duties were restored,
The clans in order ranged. He delved a trench
Barring from Uta's plain the advancing foe,
And flung wide bridges o'er it, that his host
Permission given, and not till then, might strike
Forth pouring torrent-like, at Uladh's heart:
Pits dug he next bristling with stakes sod-hid.
He gave command like one that, born to power,
With courteous might scarce conscious puts it forth:
He spake the word: all heard him: all obeyed,
Magnanimous to feel when majesty
Authentic stood before them. Duty done
Engendered strenuous joy, and strength, and hope:
Thus through the mass the spirit of one man
Triumphed, and ruling, raised it: on each face
His corporal semblance lived—light-hearted might,
Deliberate resolve.

The moonlight hours
Shone brightly on their labours. Six had sped
Ere Fergus sought the royal tent where sat
Revellers right ill at ease. As in he passed,
The concourse, Meave herself and Ailill, rose,
And did him regal honours. Of his toils
Nought spake he; but their hearts who saw him swelled,
And many marvelled why they late were sad:
Again the laugh; again the tale; the song—
Then came a change. A gradual sound was heard,
Yet what and whence they knew not. It increased;
It swelled ere long, voluminous; grating next;
Then dreadful like the splitting of a world

283

Whose strong foundations crumble. Forth they passed;
Through hurrying clouds the moon rushed madly on,
Now dim, now fiercely glaring. From the north
The forest beasts, wildered by terror, dashed
Wild through the camp while panic fell on all.
The sole man unastonished, Fergus spake:
‘Sirs, late ye learn our warfare! As the spring,
When the first spray catches the amorous red,
Sends forth her song-bird, herald and harbinger,
So Uladh sends before her onward steps
Her shrill-voiced vanguard: men of might are they,
Hewers of war-ways for her battle cars
That cleave the centuried forests. First ye heard
Their axes only; last, the falling trees:—
Kinglings, ye look like men ill-pleased! What then?
Not all delight in music. Sirs, good-night!
When breaks the dawn be stirring.’

In the camp
Few slept that night. Vanished the moon in cloud:
Then shone the watch-fires on the northern hills
Like stars.

Next morn the Uladh host down swarmed
Betwixt those neighbouring hills and round their base
Far spread as flood that, widening on its way,
Changes the heights to islands. Countless wrongs
And shame at all that long inglorious trance,
Roused wrath to madness; from them far they flung
Encumbering arms, and, bare from scalp to waist,
Worked on with plunging battle-axe. Three hours
That trench withstood them. Kelkar ruled their left,
Their right great Conal Carnach, while the king
Marshalled their centre. There the strongest bridge,
Tower-guarded, longest held their host at bay;

284

Longer had held it, save that from his place
Fergus, the hour foreseen arrived, gave word,
‘Fling wide the gates!’ In rushed they; but to meet
A foe unwasted yet. The Red Branch Knights
Surpassed their old renown. In fresher strength
The host confederate met them. Meave herself
With downward mace three champions slew that day,
Him last, that felon son of faithful sire,
Buini, the Ruthless Red, who, breaking pledge,
Betrayed the sons of Usnach for a bribe:
His father's prophecy the Accursed fulfilled
Slain by a woman's hand. Fergus, at last
Forth launched upon his native element,
Raced o'er the battle billows like a bark
When tempests stretch its canvas. Chief on chief
Went down before that sword that still, men sware,
With sweep that widened like a rainbow's arch
Ran from his hand and harvests reaped of death.
O'er-spent, not scared, that Northern host gave way
Sudden from east to west. They broke and fled.

Alone unvanquished Conor Conchobar,
Their king, maintained his place. He rallied thrice
The fugitives; thrice hurled them on the foe;
Thrice stabbed them flying. Last upon the bridge
He stood and sole. There met him face to face
The sole of foes his equal. Dreadful gaze
Long fixed they, each on other; Fergus spake:
‘Is this indeed that king who filched that realm
Not his, then shamed it by a bloodier fraud;
Who brake his pledge; who murdered Usnach's sons;
Who drave from Uladh, Uladh's rightful king;—
And comes he at my hand to meet his doom?
Just Gods, I thank you!’ With a haughtier mien,
Yet kingly less, King Conchobar replied:

285

‘Thou know'st me; and 'tis well! That king am I
Who, less than thou by lineage, but in mind
Loftier, attained that crown thou could'st not keep;
That king, who, breaking through a jesting pact
As eagles through a mist, by doom deserved
Requited rebels proved. That king am I
Who, when with traitors thou hadst made true pact,
Forth hurled thee naked to the wild wolf's lair:
That was the worst I wished thee: worse by far
If aught of kingly once was thine, thou found'st—
Beneath a hostile roof the beggar's dole
Gorged on a golden platter, and the hand
Protectress, of a woman!’

Long that fight
Watched by two hosts in speechless stupor held,
Direful and long! Equal in might those twain,
Equal in craft of war. The kinglier soul
Conferred alone the victory. Fergus raised
The unvanquishable sword so late restored:
It fell in thunder: with it fell the king,
Fell to his knees, a bleeding mass, and blind:
Again that sword was raised: a moment more
Had ended all: then leaped to Fergus' feet,
His knees enclasping, Cormac Conlinglas,
King Conor's son. He spake these words alone:
‘My father!—Spare him!’ Fergus ne'er had scorned
A look like his that hour. He turned; he spake:
‘Take hence that reptile:—holy is this plain!
A true king here was buried!’ Conor's kernes
Lifted him to his war-car. Slowly it moved;
For Death was in the wheels thereof; and Death
Stood at its door.

That night in Uladh's camp
Was silence strange and dread. By dying men

286

Sat men sore wounded. Scornful of their foe
And burning for revenge, the North had spurned
Science of war, their boast, and left, death-strewn,
Full half their host. Between their tents and Meave's
All that long night the buriers of the dead
Groped their sad way with red, earth-grazing torch,
Turning the white face up in search of friend,
Brother, or son. But in the tent of Meave
Triumph ruled all: a hundred spake at once
Each man his deeds recounting. Far apart
Sat Fergus; on his brow alone was shade:
Righteous that vengeance; but his country's blood
Gladdened not him. Of those that marked him, some
Had reverence for his sadness: lesser souls
That long had hated, loathed the man that hour.
Sudden the din surceased. Far other sound
Quelled it: from Uladh's sorrowing camp it swelled,
A jubilant cry soaring from earth to heaven!
Then flashed the eyes of Fergus, and he cried:
‘Cuchullain lives! That sound is Uladh's shout
What time the host he enters!’ With a brow
Gloomy as night the queen replied: ‘'Tis false!
We know that in that forest, months gone by
Cuchullain perished!’ Silent stood they long,
Listening. At last rang out far different note
As piteous as the first was full of joy,
A funeral keen world-wide. Then cried the queen:
‘Cuchullain lived! Cuchullain lives no more!
Wounded and weak he came to aid his own:
Too great such effort for a wasted frame:
That was Cuchullain's death-dirge!’ Fierce she stood:
Glorying she spake, and with attendance passed

287

Forth from the hall of banquet to her tent:
But as she passed she heard at either side,
She and her ladies with her, trembling heard,
Swift as dead leaves by tempest borne o'er rocks,
The rushing of a panic-stricken host
Invisible, though now the dawn was grey,
A host t'ward Shenan flying! High o'er head
A dulcet strain, unutterably sad,
When ceased that phantom rush of fugitive feet,
Drifted far northward. Then the queen was 'ware
These were her country's gods that left her host.
The legend adds that in her tent that hour
Faythleen, the witch, she saw, who sat and wove
A mystic web and sang a mystic song,
Seen but by her:—and, later, o'er her bed
Men say that Orloff bent, her buried son,
And spake: ‘This day the battle shall be fought
Of Gairig and Ilgairig.’

He meanwhile,
The lord of all the battles, where was he,
Cuchullain? Many a weary day and week
Within his loved Murthemné's woods he lay,
Sore-wounded man nigh death. Those shepherd youths
Tended him still, or sang beside his bed;
And ofttimes o'er his face the tears of Leagh
In passionate gust descended. But the might
Unholy of the clan of Cailitin
That nightly hung above him like a cloud
Began to wither when that mist accursed
Which bound with Imbecility the land
Drifted from Uladh's borders. On the breast
Pellucid, likewise, of Murthemné's streams
Benignant spirits scattered flowers and herbs

288

With healing virtue dowered. He, morn and eve
In those clear currents laid, renewed his youth;
And, pure as infant's, came again that flesh
Where festered late his wounds. At last, revived,
He passed, car-borne to Eman, north. The fields
Devastated, and wail from foodless glens
Filled him as on he sped with wrathful strength:
Next, tidings came of Conor's southward march:
Exultingly he followed. On that night
Of overthrow he reached the royal camp:
Far off they kenned his car, and raised that shout
Heard never save for him. When near he drew
Way-worn, and wearied, and around him gazed,
And saw that sight, and thought, ‘Too late; too late!’
His cheek down sank upon the breast of Leagh,
And all men deemed him dead. Then rose that wail
To Meave auspicious sound.

There are who deem
Cuchullain's tent that night was near the Well
Where, purer far, more late the royal maids
Fedelm and Ethna met that saint who gave
To God the isle of Fate. Then too that Well
Blessing diffused, they say; for from its brink
A runnel o'er the pebbles ran with sound
So sweetly tuned that on the warrior sank
Deep seal of peace divine. The war-shouts near
To him thus harboured seemed but ocean's sighs
Round islands ever calm. Next came, on winds
Fresher than earth's, divinities more high,
He thought, than those that late from elfin meres
Amid Murthemné's woods had dewed his face:
And loftier songs were sung; and balmier flowers
In holier fountains bathed were softlier pressed

289

On bosom and brow; while shone before his eyes
Visions more fair than lordliest battle-field,
Though what they meant he knew not nor divined—
High-towerèd temples cruciform that rose
Far-seen o'er city and wood; and from their gates,
Vestal procession issuing white, that wound
Through precincts low where only dwelt the poor,
The halt, the lame, the blind; and song he heard
With spiritual pathos changing sense to soul,
‘The end of all is peace.’ In silence slid
The constellations down the western sky;
And endless seemed the going of that night,
And measureless that joy.

At break of day
Came Conal Carnach and the Red Branch Knights
To see that sleeper's face. Thereon the dawn
Laughed, with glad beam: and lo! where long had lain
Pallor of death, now burned a healthful red:
Not less they dared not touch him; since with him
Geisa it was if any broke his rest.
They left him, and the battle-storm rang out.
Warned by defeat Uladh had raised ere morn,
Fronting her camp, three bulwarks: at the first
And distant most, three hours the conflict raged.
It fell at last. When rose the conquerors' shout
Leagh to Cuchullain crept, and touched him not,
Yet knelt and whispered, ‘Heard you not that sound?’
And thus Cuchullain answered still in trance;
‘I heard the runnels in Murthemné's woods
Snow-swoll'n in spring.’ Then Leagh stood up and mused,
‘The hue of health is on his face, and yet

290

Because he will not wake the land is shamed.’
Next round the second bulwark raged the war
Hour after hour: heroic deeds were done:
Heroic deaths were died: at last it fell:
Again and nearer rose the conquerors' shout:
Again with bolder foot and forehead flushed
Leagh to Cuchullain moved and touched him not,
But, bending, murmured, ‘Heard you not that sound?’
And he, without awaking, answered thus:
‘I heard the birds in Eimer's pleasaunce sing
Honouring our marriage morn.’ Then Leagh went forth
Groaning, and smote his hands, and wept aloud:
‘Because he will not wake the host must die!’
Around the loftiest bulwark and the last
Once more for hours the battle raged: it fell!
And louder thrice that shout went up. The gaze
Of Leagh was on him fixed: he heard it not:
Slowly it died; and as it died the wail
Came feebly forth from Uladh's host. A wail
Since those old days of Cullain and his hound
To him was thrilling more than battle shout:
A change went o'er his face: a moment more
And in his tent he stood, midway! Then lo!
A marvel! for the wounded man that slept
All day with bandages enswathed, up-towered
Full-armed for fight a champion spear in hand,
Work of some god! Swift from his tent he strode:—
Without the hand of man there stood his car
And those immortal steeds pawing the air
Like shapes with pinions clad. A moment more
And forward to Ilgairig's slope they dashed:

291

‘Let but the armies see him,’ inly mused
Leagh, ‘and the work is done!’

Onward they sped;
But not unnoted by that demon brood
That hate the works of justice. From below
Writhing in torment of their rage they heaved
The grassy surface upward into waves
Now swelling, now descending. Strong albeit
The immortal steeds staggered. Cuchullain cried:
‘What! children of the tempest-wakened lakes
Saw ye till now no billows? Yours they are!
To others fatal, they but fawn on you!
Exult ye in your native element,
And waft your lord to vengeance!’ They obeyed:
They reached Ilgairig's summit.

On he sped
Mantled with sunset. Terrible he shone!
Both armies saw him—knew him! Onward yet;
While from his golden arms and golden car
Lightnings went forth incessant. In his van
Victory and Fear their pinions spread. He reached
Ilgairig's southern verge: he reined his steeds:
High in his car he stood; with level hand
Screening his eyes he scanned that battle-field
His future course decreeing.

On and on
Adown that slope he flashed and o'er that plain
Like zigzag sunshaft o'er the autumnal world;
And ever where he came the host of Meave
Gave way before him. On and ever on!
And now the nearest of those bulwarks three
He reached, and o'er its ruins swept, back driving
The conquerors late, now conquered. On and on!
And ever through that foe thick-packed he clave

292

A lane of doom and death. Ere long they reached
The second rampart. There it was he slew
The great ones of Clan Libna, and the clans
Guaré and Murdoc. Fiery faces thronged
The air around him, and the voice of Gods
Made smooth his way triumphant.

On and on—
Nor ceased he ever hurling left and right
Destruction from his sling; nor slackened sleet
Of javelins winged with fate. That brazen urn
With death-stones heaped exhausted not its store,
Replenished ever as by hand unseen
Work of some God! That brazen cirque, not less
Where stood his javelins ranged was never void;
Work of some God! The on-rolling wheels devoured
Those serried ranks; the war-steeds trod them down:
Reached was that rampart furthest of the three;
There in her war-car sat the queen; in front
The Maineys Seven were ranged: his sword forth flashed:
Four perished of the seven. Then faced the queen
Westward, and fled amazed.

He marked her flight:
Eastward he turned. As on he carved his course
Not now a lane alone of doom and death
But ever widening valleys ruin-strewn
Bore witness of his transit, for behind
Closed ever up Cuchullain's household clans,
Murthemné's, and Cualgné's. Perished there
The Ossorians, and the Olnemacian chiefs,
And many a champion famed from Slaney's bank
To Lee and Laune, from Caiseal's crested rock

Now Cashel.

To Beara's strand. Who died not, fled and left
Yet ampler 'twixt the bristling flanks of war

293

That vacant space; and as the dolphin oft
Raptured by gladness of clear summer seas
While flames the noon on purple billows, swims
All round and round some ship, Cuchullain thus
Circled on foot at times that car wind-swift
Mocking its slowness; then with airy bound
Once more within it beamed. His boyhood's mirth
Returned upon him. On the chariot's floor
He marked those brazen balls, the sport that time
Of men way-faring, snatched them up, tossed high,
While yet careering round the blood-stained field,
Then caught them as they fell, a glittering ring
That girt that glittering head. Not less his eye
Watchful pursued the flying foe; his hand
Brought down to earth the fleetest.

From the crests
Of those twinned hills down rushed the total strength
At last of Uladh. Universal flight
Shook the vast field. The bravest men and best
Caught by its current on were dragged like trees
The sport of winter flood. Chieftain and king
Sought, each, his home. Meave, with a remnant small
Reached Shenan's bridgeless tide; and there had fallen
Stretching to towered Ath-Luain helpless hands,
Save that Cuchullain, 'mid the narrower way
With outstretched arms and stature as of Gods
Abashed that host pursuing: ‘Stand ye back!
One day I shared her feast: she shall not die!’
He spake, and set by Shenan's wave his shield.
Next morn the Ulidians where that shield had stood
In silence stern planted three pillar-stones,
White daughters of the tempest-beaten hills,

294

In Ogham graved, ‘Vanquished by Uladh's sons
Here fled the invader, Meave.’

Fergus alone
The Exile-King, and they the Exile Band
Fled not that day. Though few and bleeding fast
Fearless upon a cloudy crag they stood,
Phalanx prepared to die, prepared not less
Dearly to sell their lives, while past them streamed
That panic-stricken throng. The host pursuing
Looked up, yet swerved not from their course. Once more
Returning from the vengeance they looked up;
Then passed in silence by.

That eve, men say,
While slowly paced Cuchullain t'ward the camp
Bosomed 'twixt Gairig's and Ilgairig's hills,
Lamenting strains of Goddesses were heard,—
For whatsoe'er was female loved the man,
If earthly female, with a human love,
If heavenly, with a love compassionate—
Lamenting strains that, ere his youth had passed
That starry head must lie by Fate's decree
Amid the dust of death. Cuchullain turned;
Softly he answered: ‘Goddesses benign!
Why weep ye? I was Uladh's Mastiff-Hound:
The mastiff lives not long. What better lot
For him than this;—the bandits chased, to die
Beside his master's gate?’

So ends the Tain:
Primeval battle-chaunt of Erin's race:
Northward thus marched from Cruachan the Kings,
Then back. The Foray of Queen Meave thus far.

The Shannon.

Athlone.

University of Virginia Library

THE FORAY OF QUEEN MEAVE;

OR, ‘THE TAIN BO CUALGNÉ.’

PROLOGUE.

BOOK I. THE CAUSE OF THE GREAT WAR.

ARGUMENT.

BOOK II. THE DEEDS OF CUCHULLAIN.

ARGUMENT.

BOOK III. THE COMBAT AT THE FORD.

ARGUMENT.

BOOK IV. THE INVASION OF ULADH.

ARGUMENT.

BOOK V. QUEEN MEAVE'S RETREAT.

ARGUMENT.