price and he is free.

EMER

Do the Sidhe bargain?

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

When they set free a captive
They take in ransom a less valued thing.
The fisher when some knowledgeable man
Restores to him his wife, or son, or daughter,
Knows he must lose a boat or net, or it may be
The cow that gives his children milk; and some
Have offered their own lives. I do not ask
Your life, or any valuable thing;
You spoke but now of the mere chance that some day
You'd sit together by the hearth again;
Renounce that chance, that miserable hour,
And he shall live again.

EMER

I do not question
But you have brought ill luck on all he loves
And now, because I am thrown beyond your power
Unless your words are lies, you come to bargain.

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

You loved your power when but newly married
And I love mine although I am old and withered;
You have but to put yourself into that power
And he shall live again.

EMER

No, never, never.

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

You dare not be accursed yet he has dared.

EMER

I have but two joyous thoughts, two things I prize,
A hope, a memory, and now you claim that hope.

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

He'll never sit beside you at the hearth
Or make old bones, but die of wounds and toil
On some far shore or mountain, a strange woman
Beside his mattress.

EMER

You ask for my one hope
That you may bring your curse on all about him.

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

You've watched his loves and you have not been jealous
Knowing that he would tire, but do those tire
That love the Sidhe?

EMER

What dancer of the Sidhe
What creature of the reeling moon has pursued him?

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

I have but to touch your eyes and give them sight;
But stand at my left side.

(He touches her eyes with his left hand, the right being withered)

EMER

My husband there.

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

But out of reach--I have dissolved the dark
That hid him from your eyes but not that other
That's hidden you from his.

EMER

Husband, husband!

FIGURE of CUCHULAIN

Be silent, he is but a phantom now
And he can neither touch, nor hear, nor see;
The longing and the cries have drawn him hither.
He heard no sound, heard no articulate sound;
T