COND YOUNG KING.

He has slept on the bare ground of Fuad's Hill
This week past, waiting for the bulls and the deer.

CUCHULLAIN.

Well, why should I be weary?

FIRST YOUNG KING.

It is certain
His father was the god who wheels the sun,
And not king Sualtam.

THIRD YOUNG KING.

(To a young King who is beside him.) He came in the dawn,
And folded Dectara in a sudden fire.

FOURTH YOUNG KING.

And yet the mother's half might well grow weary,
And it new come from labours over sea.

THIRD YOUNG KING.

He has been on islands walled about with silver,
And fought with giants.

(They gather about the ale vat and begin to drink.)

CUCHULLAIN.

Who was it that went out?

THIRD YOUNG KING.

As we came in?

CUCHULLAIN.

Yes.

THIRD YOUNG KING.

Barach and blind Fintain.

CUCHULLAIN.

They always flock together; the blind man
Has need of the fool's eyesight and strong body,
While the poor fool has need of the other's wit,
And night and day is up to his ears in mischief
That the blind man imagines. There's no hen-yard
But clucks and cackles when he passes by
As if he'd been a fox. If I'd that ball
That's in your hair and the big stone again,
I'd keep them tossing, though the one is heavy
And the other light in the hand. A trick I learnt
When I was learning arms in Aoife's country.

FIRST YOUNG KING.

What kind of woman was that Aoife?

CUCHULLAIN.

Comely.

FIRST YOUNG KING.

But I have heard that she was never married,
And yet that's natural, for I have never known
A fighting woman, but made her favours cheap,
Or mocked at love till she grew sandy dry.

CUCHULLAIN.

What manner of woman do you like the best?
A gentle or a fierce.

FIRST YOUNG KING.

A gentle surely.

CUCHULLAIN.

I think that a fierce woman's better, a woman
That breaks away when you have thought her won,
For I'd be fed and hungry at one time.
I think that all deep passion is but a kiss
In the mid battle, and a difficult peace
'Twixt oil and water, candles and dark night,
Hill-side and hollow, the hot-footed sun,
And the cold sliding slippery-footed moon,
A brief forgiveness between opposites
That have been hatreds for three times the age
Of hi