_King_: I will do that! _(Stands up.)_ I swear by the oath my people swear by, the seven things common to us all; by sun and moon; sea and dew; wind and water; the hours of the day and night, I will give you in marriage and in wedlock to the first man that will come into the house!

_Princess: (Shrinking as from a blow.)_ It is the Queen has done this.

_Queen_: I will give you out the reason, and see will you put blame on me or praise!

_Nurse_: Oh, let you stop and not draw it down upon her!

_Queen_: It is right for me to tell it; it is true telling! You not to be married and wed by this day twelvemonth, there will be a terrible thing happen you ...

_Nurse_: Be quiet! Don't you see Fintan himself looking in the window!

_King_: Fintan! What is it bring you here on this day?

_Fintan: (A very old man in strange clothes at window.)_ What brings me is to put my curse upon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that are gone and vanished out of this, without bringing me my request, that was a bit of rendered lard that would limber the swivel of my spy-gla.s.s, that is clogged with the dripping of the cave.

_Nurse_: And you have no bad news?

_Queen_: Nothing to say on the head of the Princess, this being, as it is, her birthday?

_Fintan_: What birthday? This is not a birthday that signifies. It is the next will be the birthday concerned with the great story that is foretold.

_Queen_: It is right for her to know it.

_King_: It is not! It is not!

_Princess_: Whatever the story is, let me know it, and not be treated as a child that is without courage or sense.

_Fintan_: It's long till I'll come out from my cleft again, and getting no peace or quiet on the ridge of the earth. It is laid down by the stars that cannot lie, that on this day twelvemonth, you yourself will be ate and devoured by a scaly Green Dragon from the North!

END OF ACT I.

ACT II

ACT II

_Scene: The Same. Princess and Nurse_.

_Nurse_: Cheer up now, my honey bird, and don't be fretting.

_Princess_: It is not easy to quit fretting, and the terrible story you are after telling me of all that is before and all that is behind me.

_Nurse_: They had no right at all to go make you aware of it. The Queen has too much talk.

An unlucky stepmother she is to you!

_Princess_: It is well for me she is here. It is well I am told the truth, where the whole of you were treating me like a child without sense, so giddy I was and contrary, and petted and humoured by the whole of you. What memory would there be left of me and my little life gone by, but of a headstrong, unruly child with no thought but for myself.

_Nurse_: No, but the best in the world, you are; there is no one seeing you pa.s.s by but would love you.

_Princess_: That is not so. I was wild and taking my own way, mocking and humbugging.

_Nurse_: I never will give in that there is no way to save you from that Dragon that is foretold to be your destruction. I would give the four divisions of the world, and Ireland along with them, if I could see you pelting your ball in at the window the same as an hour ago!

_Princess_: Maybe you will, so long as it will hurt n.o.body.

_Nurse_: Ah, sure it's no wonder there to be the tracks of tears upon your face, and that great terror before you.

_Princess_: I will wipe them away! I will not give in to danger or to dragons! No one will see a dark face on me. I am a king's daughter of Ireland, I did not come out of a herd's hut like Deirdre that went sighing and lamenting till she was put to death, the world being sick and tired of her complaints, and her finger at her eye dripping tears!

_Nurse_: That's right, now. You had always great courage.

_Princess_: There is like a change within me.

You never will hear a cross word from me again.

I would wish to be pleasant and peaceable until such time ...

_(Puts handkerchief to eyes and goes.)_

_Dall Glic: (Coming in.)_ The King is greatly put out with all he went through, and the way the pa.s.sion rose in him a while ago.

_Nurse_: That he may be twenty times worse before he is better! Showing such fury towards the innocent child the way he did!

_Dall Glic_: The Queen has brought him to the gra.s.s plot for to give him his exercise, walking his seven steps east and west.

_Nurse_: Hasn't she great power over him to make him to that much?

_Dall Glic_: I tell you I am in dread of her myself.

Some plan she has for making my two eyes equal.

I vexed her someway, and she got queer and humpy, and put a lip on herself, and said she would take me in hand. I declare I never will have a minute's ease thinking of it.

_Nurse_: The King should have done his seven steps, for I hear her coming.

_(Dall Glic goes to recess of window.)_

_Queen: (Coming in.)_ Did you, Nurse, ever at any time turn and dress a dinner?

_Nurse: (Very stiff.)_ Indeed I never did. Any house I ever was in there was a good kitchen and well attended, the Lord be praised!

_Queen_: Ah, but just to be kind and to oblige the King.

_Nurse_: Troth, the same King will wait long till he'll see any dish I will ready for him! I am not one that was reared between the flags and the oven in the corner of the one room! To be a nurse to King's children is my trade, and not to go stirring mashes, for hens or for humans!

_Queen_: I heard a crafty woman lay down one time there was no way to hold a man, only by food and flattery.