threats to
the King? And put insults upon myself? Now
she is daring and defying you! Let you put an end
to it!

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-glass, 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 pass 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
nobody.

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 passion 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
grass 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.

Nurse: Sure any mother of children walking the
road could tell you that much.

Queen: I went maybe too far urging him not
to lessen so much food the way he did. I only
thought to befriend him. But now he is someway
upset and nothing will rightly smooth him but to
be thinking upon his next meal; and what it will
be I don't know, unless the berries of the bush.

Dall Glic: (Leaning out of the window.) Here!
Hi! Come this way!

Queen: Who are you calling to?

Dall Glic: It is someone with the appearance
of a cook.

Queen: Are you saying it is a cook? That
now will put the King in great humour!

(Manus appears at the window.)

Nurse: (Looking at him.) I wouldn't hardly
think he'd suit. He has a sort of innocent look.
I wouldn't say him to be a country lad. I don't
know is he fitted to go readying meals for a royal
family, and the King so wrathful if they do not
please him as he is. And as to the Princess Nu!
There to be the size of a hayseed of fat overhead
on her broth, she'd fall in a dead faint.

Manus: I'll go on so.

Queen: No, no. Bring him in till I'll take a
look at him!

Manus: (Coming inside.) I am a lad in search
of a master.

Manus: (Inside.) I am a lad in search of a
master.

Queen: And I myself that am wanting a cook.

Manus: I got word of that and I going the road.

Queen: You would seem to be but a young lad.

Manus: I am not very far in age to-day.