Naisi. You’ll see them above chasing otters by the stream.

Fergus (bitterly). It isn’t much I was mistaken, thinking you were hunters only.

He goes, Naisi turns towards tent, and sees Deirdre crouching down with her cloak round her face. Deirdre comes out.

Naisi. You’ve heard my words to Fergus? (She does not answer. A pause. He puts his arm round her.) Leave troubling, and we’ll go this night to Glen da Ruadh, where the salmon will be running with the tide.

Crosses and sits down.

Deirdre (in a very low voice). With the tide in a little while we will be journeying again, or it is our own blood maybe will be running away. (She turns and clings to him.) The dawn and evening are a little while, the winter and the summer pass quickly, and what way would you and I, Naisi, have joy for ever?

Naisi. We’ll have the joy is highest till our age is come, for it isn’t Fergus’s talk of great deeds could take us back to Emain.

Deirdre. It isn’t to great deeds you’re going but to near troubles, and the shortening of your days the time that they are bright and sunny; and isn’t it a poor thing that I, Deirdre, could not hold you away?

Naisi. I’ve said we’d stay in Alban always.

Deirdre. There’s no place to stay always.… It’s a long time we’ve had, pressing the lips together, going up and down, resting in our arms, Naisi, waking with the smell of June in the tops of the grasses, and listening to the birds in the branches that are highest.… It’s a long time we’ve had, but the end has come, surely.

Naisi. Would you have us go to Emain, though if any ask the reason we do not know it, and we journeying as the thrushes come from the north, or young birds fly out on a dark sea?

Deirdre. There’s reason all times for an end that’s come. And I’m well pleased, Naisi, we’re going forward in the winter the time the sun has a low place, and the moon has her mastery in a dark sky, for it’s you and I are well lodged our last day, where there is a light behind the clear trees, and the berries on the thorns are a red wall.

Naisi. If our time in this place is ended, come away without Ainnle and Ardan to the woods of the east, for it’s right to be away from all people when two lovers have their love only. Come away and we’ll be safe always.

Deirdre (broken-hearted). There’s no safe place, Naisi, on the ridge of the world.… And it’s in the quiet woods I’ve seen them digging our grave, throwing out the clay on leaves are bright and withered.

Naisi (still more eagerly). Come away, Deirdre, and it’s little we’ll think of safety or the grave beyond it, and we resting in a little corner between the daytime and the long night.

Deirdre (clearly and gravely). It’s this hour we’re between the daytime and a night where there is sleep for ever, and isn’t it a better thing to be following on to a near death, than to be bending the head down, and dragging with the feet, and seeing one day a blight showing upon love where it is sweet and tender?

Naisi (his voice broken with distraction). If a near death is coming what will be my trouble losing the earth and the stars over it, and you, Deirdre, are their flame and bright crown? Come away into the safety of the woods