The red branch crests: Déirdre, Mève, Cuchulain

Front matter

UBRARY OF CONGRESS

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Scene 1

Felim's house in Emania. A hall with tables on either side, and at the rear a wide door closed hy curtains. King Conor mac Nessa and his nohles of the Red Branch, with their druids, ollavs, and musicians, are seated at feast. Cathba, head Druid of Erin, sits apart in the background turning over his magic book. Shields are hung around the walls. Torches burn in the sconces.

CONOR: Born the hour is, blest and best,

For the happy, happiest;

King and Knights and poets met

Blaze one jewelled carcanet;

Laughs my heart and leaps in joy.

Fate submits to my employ;

War spoils won, my warfare ends;

Feast I now as friend with friends.

Who shall voice the vivid word,

New and nude and never heard,

That shall touch our top of bliss?

Cathba, Druid, thine it is. CATHBA: Not to-night, O Conor, I

Strike the harp of ecstasy.

As I turn these magic sheaves

Dying tones my ear receives,

Failing gusts and falling leaves;

Greatness rushing to its doom.

Beauty rifled for its bloom.

War's red swath and death's black tomb,

Such the pictures, King, that rise

From this book before my eyes.

IVIake and mark our mirth more true.

Felim, thou art host and guest;

Sing the joy that thrills each breast.

FELIM: Peace, and peace with all its sheaves From the spear of war receives Wreaths as rich as autumn eves — Garden of Erin Ulster stands, Fenced about by Red Branch bands; On its frontiers glitter bright Arms of many a novice knight; And within and all around Human flowers adorn the ground: Manhood's splendor, woman's grace Bloom best in our ruddy race. Emerald green our deep grassed slopes Stoop where blue ridged ocean opes Roofed by blue or golden copes: Thick set orchards gleam and shine; Like white mantling clouds, the kine: Boars' tusks in the forest gleam; Leaps the salmon in the stream; And the red deer and the dun On the woodlands crouch or run. Abundance of the earth and sea Ministers to make mortals free. Midst of all Emania lifts — As a sunset piles its drifts — Walls of many colored dyes. Look! The Red Branch House doth rise Many windowed, mighty doored. Where the spoils of war are stored, Wine and viands, forage, grain. And in it live the hostage train. Look! the Speckled House uprears. Where the Red Branch bows and spears. Dinted shields and chariots rest To renew their battle zest;

Goblets crystal, silver, gold; Chains and breastplates manifold; Helmets plumed with eagle feather — They are heaped or hung together. Look! the Royal Branch abode Opes its doors to every road: Heart of all the realm, it sends Its firelight to earth's farthest ends; For the King, for Conor, there Blue-eyed, ruddy, debonair, Waits to v\/elcome all who come As unto a promised home.

CONOR: Wide the praised ear gapes. But fit Ye my laud should intermit Where unsung such heroes sit. Who Cuchulain splendor chants? Cathba, thou —

CATHBA: The mood still wants.

Dread the day when daring charms Wedded he his virgin arms.

CONOR: Boding raven, hence thy cry! Charm.s and omens we defy.

FERGUS: From the bard to me belonging

Let the wings of words come thronging, Carrying Cuchulain's fame. Neide, sing the boy of flame!

NEIDE: Welcome Is the wonder born —

Welcome to words, to strings, to horn —

The boding book, the mystic page.

Stirs as it tells his parentage.

What time the pallid moon did blanch

The mansion of the Royal Branch

Conor's sister wandered forth.

Plighted by some awful troth.

Strange warriors strode the moonlight wan

The Tuatha de Danaan.

Back she came, and drooping lay

On her bed for many a day,

Till from her womb Cuchulain came From his birth a thing of flame; Thro' his youth the legend tells Of swift succeeding miracles. Alba sought he Scathach's home To learn the arts to overcome; But ere his pupilage was begun The prize from ail her train he won. O'er the Bridge of Cliffs he darts Kept and swept by wizard arts; Scathach's daughter saw his face And claimed him for her bed's embrace; A goddess loved him — downward bore Him below the sea's dark floor, To the glistening understrand, To the last and loveliest land; Place of lordly hero games; Place of praise-awarding dames, Place of pleasure without sin. There, what other warriors win Only thro' extremest ways. Only at their end of days, Was his boyhood's heritage. Shall I tell the battle rage, Forays, single fights and raids. Embassies and ambuscades? Needless now the strings to tire! Hail, Cuchulain, form of fire, Ulster's champion, earth's desire. CUCHULAIN: Bard, Feircetne, Fergus sing Giant son of Ulster's King!

FEIRCETNE: Giant of gold shadowed brow, Royal once and loyal now —

As Feircetne begins a commotion is heard without. The doors at the side of the hall are -flung oven and Lavarcam enters, attended by other ladies, and bearing in her arms a newborn infant. The King and nobles stand up in confusion.

LAVARCAM: Greeting to Ulster's King and Knights! FELIIVI: What bearest thou? LAVARCAM: Thy daughter!

CONOR: Lights!

Let us see this dawn that springs

Over our flushed revellings. FELIM: Adia!

LAVARCAM: Swift life's swelling tide

Floated this infant from her side;

Now she slumbers, slumbers deep. CONOR: Fortune has thee in his keep,

Felim, and upon us all

Opal hues of splendor fail.

How! with conquest crowned, at feast

Cups a-circle, words released.

Soaring high with warriors' praise,

At very brightest of life's blaze.

Comes this cuddling, baby thing,

Emblem of Fortune's favoring.

Melancholy Druid, thou,

Cathba, what of omens now?

CATHBA: More and more, and yet more drear

Wail the dsath winds in my ear.

I am firm as at the first;

Thy best seems to me the worst;

All the river of thy woe

From this infant fount shall flow. CONOR: Croaking vulture, feel my ire —

He starts to strike CatMa, 'but the nobles

interfere.

CONALL: Halt, O King!

FERGUS: Retire, retire,

Conor!

CUCHULAIN: Sacred is the yevy.

Sacred the inspired few.

Masters of law, of thought, of word.

Who the mysterious Ones have heard,

Who the mysterious sights have seen, Who usher all that will be in. Tho' their prophecies be black, Tho' their venomed words attack, The vital fluid of man's frame; Round them floats a wall of flame. Awe and Fear their shields afford Guarding them 'gainst blow or sword. CONOR: Well I am a swordless man, Or this Druid who bodes ban Should this moment be made twain Soul and body, blood and brain! But enough! My pulse is still; Live the fool for further ill; But I charge and I command That he make us understand, With persuasion double proof. Not by hints that hang aloof. Whispers from his magic book, Shrug and whine and gruesome look, But by signs borne in the air. Portents we can see and share, How this infant maiden's fate Touches us. interrogate All the known oracles of fate And tell us, Druid, how for us This baby's life is ominous.

CONALL: That's but fair. He must make good His boding words, half understood.

CATHBA: Ask me not, nobles, or O king. The explication of this thing. That which is given to words is willed; That which is spoke is half fulfilled; Leave Fate unfettered, leave it free. Or but an ominous cloud in me.

CONOR: Hear ye. Knights! IVIy patience fails. Druid, list! Ere morning pales All the torched lights above That weave man's future as they move, 10

Put forth the powers of thy art And the doom to us impart; Else, maugre all thy mastership, My grooms thy very self shall whip, Or to a tree thy body nail And let the vultures find the tale.

CATHBA: So be it! Now I give the law. Back to obedience and old awe: Down in your seats and let each hand Darken a dream intruding brand!

The King and Knights resume their seats and extinguish the torches, leaving the room in darkness save for a smouldering brazier in the middle of the hall. Cathha goes to the rear and throws open the curtains, disclosing a night brilliant loith an Aurora Borealis. He goes out on the platform beyond, and his voice floats in at intervals.

The moon is hunted from the sky; The tangled stars show fitfully; That prosperous and prescient race Rides not in its pomp of place; But to the very zenith rears A pallid mass of charging spears, An armature of ghostly fire. Hurled thro' the heavens in awful ire; And curtains close their forms from sight Who wield those weapons of the night; Curtains changing, varying, glowing. With thousand colors interflowing: Hark, a hissing, crackling noise! The veil is rent in its middle poise; The abyssmal black of night is there. And a face looks from that lair, White beyond all that flaring light. With hair and crowning circlet white, With eyes that coldly open wide, With curved lips of haughty pride.

The curtains roll and close again; Shoots up in air the rising rain. Now fade the Northern Lights and yield The vivid stars their velvet field.

A pause.

Earth born portent now I see. Look, yon blossoming hawthorn tree, May's earliest betrothed bride. Decked in green and silver pride, Alters. Fiery, sinuous lines Deck it v/ith unknown designs. To a torch the white thing turns, Like a beifire bright it burns Red upon the spectral air. Blood red pulsing, throbbing there, Self-illumined 'mid night's pall: And its leaves of crimson fall On the lit sward underneath. Like petals from a rose's wreath: So it glows and wastes away In its beautiful decay: Autumn's one emblazoning. Pushed into the ranks of spring.

A pause.

Hark! On the air a rush of wings. All the perched and nested things Wake, and hither hurl in flight: A snow-white dove flies down the night, And wheels and dives, pursued and chased Up, down, thro' all the middle waste. By hawks from every quarter round. 'Tis struck! It flutters to the ground. Forgot! For all its equipage Clashes in air in battle rage. Wings, talons, beaks, wage floating war, A whirling mass that wheels afar. Leaving behind a falling track, A meteor pathway traced in black.

Cathba leaves the platform and re-enters the hall.

I must say the thing decreed!

Portents and omens are agreed.

Blaze torches, kingly homage show,

Welcome the embassy of woe!

The nobles croivd around the brazier and relight the torches. Then they group together in the centre of the hall. Cathba strides forward and takes the child from Lavarcam's arms.

Name from me this babe must have. Call her Deirdre to her grave. CONOR: Deirdre — fear— what name is this?

CATHBA: She it is shall break your bliss,"

She shall shake your Red Branch nest;

Shatter shield and scatter crest:

Thro' her turmoil, treason comes;

Thro' her the battle bursts and foams;

Thro' her shall brothers be arrayed

Bleeding each from friendly blade;

Thro' her Ulster's clans shall meet

Crushing ruin, dire defeat:

Emania's mansions thro' her shall

Blaze and leap and crash and fall. CONALL: Never! What one's infant life

Be preserved to stir such strife;

Nurse and nurture must we need

Here's the best that earth has known

Man to fullest stature grown;

War and love and song are made

More burnished by each other's aid;

Must this end in Ulster's rout,

And Emania blotted out?

Nobles, in your looks 1 read

Answer to such fate decreed!

She must die.

FERGUS: Must die!

CUCHULAIN: Must die!

LAVARCAM: Help, O help! I cannot fly!

Dark looks lower around me here;

Dark words fill my soul with fear.

Fellm, thou art father, thou

No dread murder will allow!

Thou art master In this house,

Husband of a loving spouse,

Wilt let the hearth of thy home place

Take stains the years will not erase? FELIM: Either way the future's black,

I can do naught to hold it back.

LAVARCAM: Conor, King — by child blood shed Shall thy shield be tarnished? Ulster's sons the future fear: Death's far whistle In their ear, Chills their veins and craven makes War dyed lords whom blood not slakes: Thou, the gods' great officer, May not with such passions stir. Justice, Mercy, Honor, can Trust in thee who art a man. See, I kneel to thee and lift Up this all unconscious gift. The tiny creature to the hand That can anew its life command: — No crime unnatural saves the land.

FERGUS: Dread the deed, but dire the need;

Woman's cries thou must not heed. CONALL: Tho' alone within this room,

I would halt the day of gloom,

Ulster's and Emania's doom. CUCHULAIN: Conor, think! Not only we.

This court, magnificent and free.

But all the hope of our fair land

Dies, if she die not. Here I stand.

He ranges himself with Fergus and Conall. CONOR: Silence all! My sobered thought Leaves the fight 'gainst Fate unfought:

Be the omens unerased;

Be the priest that brought them praised;

Nothing man can do prevents

The purpose of the elements.

It is just and it is fit:

To soothsaying I submit:

But i not consent to do

Baseness Fate were baffled thro'.

What! Shall men and warriors slay

This frail inch of soul-fired clay,

Stop this scarcely half drawn breath,

Usher helplessness to death?

Not for hero fame that might

Fill the earth as stars the night!

If we cannot Fate avoid;

If we rush down to the void;

Well! And let each Knight and brother

Deal out death to one another,

Deal it to himself at last,

But not to this stranger, cast

Shipwrecked on our mortal strand.

At the mercy of our hand.

By the moon and by the sun

This I swear! Debate is done.

While I live this child shall live:

And, O men of Erin, mark,

Should one soul among you dark

Muffle out its life's dim spark

He shall die if I survive.

CUCHULAIN: Right! Thy words all golden ring.

Thou hast spoken like a King. CONALL: I submit. Thy judgment stands,

Maugre life and hope and lands.

OMNES: Hail, O King! Be crowned anew! What thou biddest us, we will do.

CONOR: Take the child, Lavarcam, take And rear her gently for my sake. Under my guard this bud shall grow Until its blossoming time shall show.

Then, if I, too, remain on earth,

With her will I make marriage mirth.

IVly one consort and my bride

Shall be the Fear I have defied.

Danger wooed to our embrace

Oft turns to us a different face.

I will build a tower for her

Blind to men that round it stir;

Frowning inexpugnable

On a world forgotten well;

But within a nest of ease,

Warmth and splendor, softness, ease;

Opening all its windowed eyes

On a gardened paradise.

That shall fenced be so high

The birds shall hardly overfly:

Here, mid waters, woods and flowers,

'Mid orchard slopes and vine dressed bowers,

Shall she grow to maidenhood.

Knowing naught but what is good;

Sheltered from our human storm.

Seeing not a human form

Save her nurse and tutor old,

And her destined husband's mould.

This, Lavarcam, take in charge

Till I can plan it more at large.

LAVARCAM: Lordly King, thy will shall be As a chart of Fate to me. May she grow to rose and white And pay you with deserved delight.

CONOR: Stay! The maiden I betroth With my ring as with my oath.

LAVARCAM: A ribbon round her neck shall keep The ring thro' all her childhood's sleep, Till on her finger it can gleam And you shall wake her from her dream.

CUCHULAIN: Poets, strike your harps, and sound Trumpets while the cups go round!

Nobles, stand about in ring, Pledge the consort of the King! OMNES: To the King and to his bride Honor, joy, be multiplied.