Fragment IV: The Invasion of Uladh

Silence amid the wide, confederate camp:
No clang of sword or shield; no warrior’s tread
Striding to Meave with battle-gage down flung
For him who kept the Ford. But when six days
Were past, and none had seen that threatening helm,
There went abroad a rumour, ‘he is dead:’
Then sped to her six champions claiming fight:
Whom from her presence spurning, Meave advanced
With all her host o’er Uladh’s frontier line
By Daré’s castle and the ill-omened gate
Whereon high-seated Daré’s Fool had hurled
Against her scorn and gibe. As Meave drew near
Forth rolled the bellowing of Cuailgné’s Donn,
Cause of that war. King Daré’s sons had fled;
But in the gate-way stood their old, grey sire,
Alone, and slew the first that entrance made:
The rest dashed in upon him, and he died.
Six days, and in Cuchullain’s cell no change—
The bud grew large; the earlier violet died;
He neither spake nor moved. His wounds were deep:
Deeper his grief; and stronger thence their power
Though dead, that clan accursed of Cailitin,
With ghostly spells darkening the warrior’s heart:
As lie the dead, he lay.
One eve, what time
The setting sun levell’d through holly brakes
Unnumbered dagger-points of jewel’d light
And ’neath the oak-stem burned a golden spot,
Leagh, standing near his couch, reproached him thus;
‘In time of old the greatness of thy spirit
Had ever strength to salve thy corporal griefs:
But now through coward heart thou makest no fight,
Dying as old men die.’ Cuchullain heard;
But answered nought.
Next day, while near them buzzed
At noon the gilded insect swarm, he spake;
‘While lived Ferdīa wounds to thee were jest;
Thy grief it is that drags thee to the pit;
Grief; and for what? Of treasons worse is none
Than sorrow when thy country’s foe is dead!
Not man is he, the man who dies of grief.’
He spake: Cuchullain fixed a vacant eye
On that sad, wrathful face.
Then hastened Leagh
To where those giant coursers, side by side,
Stood tethered mid green grass and meadow-sweet
Within a lawn; and led them to a stream,
And bade them drink; and later led them home;
And placed their corn before them, and they ate:
Next spake he; ‘Horses ye; and yet ye know
To eat at need, while men self-sentenced starve!’
Thus of that man whom most he loved on earth
He made complaint. Liath, the lake’s white son,
Tossed high his head in anger. By his side
Sangland, his dusky comrade, sadly ate,
Moistening with tears her barley.
Late that eve
Cuchullain beckoned Leagh; ‘To Conor speed:
Speak thus; “Put on thine arms and save thy land
Since now the Hound that kept thy gate is dead:—
Make no delay!”’ At midnight Leagh went forth
Though loth to leave his master to the care
Of cowherd rude, or swineherd. Tenderer aid
Ere long consoled him. Beauteous as the dawn
Next morn two shepherd boys seeking a lamb
Came on the sick man in his forest nook;
Long time they gazed on him compassionate;
With voice benign and tendance angel-like
Onward into his confidence they crept;
His lips with milk, the purest, they refreshed;
They placed the dewy wood flowers in his hand;
They sang him ballads old, not battle-songs,
Too loud such songs they deemed, but Fairy lore,
Or tale of lovers fleeing tyrant’s rage:
Among the last unwittingly they sang
‘Cuchullain’s Wooing;’ how the youth had found
Eimer, the loveliest lady of the land
Within her bowery pleasaunce, girt with maids
Harping, or broidering fair in scarf deep-dyed
Blossom or insect: how he sued; and how
She answered; ‘Woo my sister: woo not me!’
How, glorying in her loveliness, her sire
Had sworn no chief should ever call her wife
Who won her not by valour; how that youth
Had scaled his rock and slain his guards and forth
Led her by hand, a downward-looking bride,
Majestic, unconsenting, undismayed,
But likewise unreluctant. As they sang
Above that suffering face there passed a smile;
And where that smile had lain there crept a tear;
And in few minutes more asleep he sank
Who had not slept nine days.
Swiftly meanwhile
On marched the host confederate: bootless speed;
Since ever one day’s progress by the next
Was cancelled; tortuous mind made tortuous course
Now bent awry to capture spoil, anon
To avenge some private wrong. Fergus the while
Inly with fury raged; for still his thought
Was ‘Eman—Vengeance.’ Meave, to calm his wrath,
Albeit debate she scorned, a council called
And made demand, ‘To Eman speed we, Kings,
With central wound striking at Uladh’s heart,
Or wind, as now, at random through the realm,
With havoc huge, and plunder?’
Rose a chief
Aulnau, the son of Magach, one whose pride
Was not in war-deeds but in crafty brain,
And thus made answer. ‘March to Eman! Queen!
Not difficult the emprise; but whose the gain?
Eman to burn, what were it but to sow
The sanguine seed of endless wars to come?
The Uladh chiefs live scattered. Eman’s fall
Touches not them. Their strength ere long revived
Southward in search of vengeance they will rush:
Slay them yet weakling! Slay them ere they wake!
Slay them in mountain hold and forest lair
In vale and glen: slay each apart, half-armed;
Easy the task!’ Arose the Exiled King:
‘“Easy the task!”’ he cried; ‘that Daré learned!
Unarmed—alone—I saw the old man fall!
“Easy the task!”’ Then brake upon him Alp
That ruled in far Iorras, speaking thus;
‘Fergus, we love our queen; but love not thee!
Hostile to ours thy race: King Conor’s fall
Thou seek’st; not Uladh’s. Hear me, Queen of Men!
The siege of Eman means a three months’ siege:
Be wary lest, ere yet that time is past
King Conor with his exiles makes a pact,
And they who now but rate thee drink thy blood:
Be wary likewise lest in half that time
Thy host melt from thee like a wreath of snow!
The Gael is restless; lives on chance and change;
The clan grows home-sick: victory in its grasp,
Pines for the babe unkissed, or field unreaped:
My counsel then is Aulnau’s. Like a flood
Wind devious through the land and strip it bare:
Till then let Eman be.’
Debate ere long,
For chiefs there were who loved the nobler war,
Passed on to raging storm. Old friendships died;
And from the dust of ages injuries old
Leaped up like warriors armed. In Fergus wrath
Gave way to scorn: with haughty port he spake,
A man majestical yet mirthful too.
‘Great Lords and Kings—since Kings ye claim to be—
King-vassals, world-renowned for mutual hate,
Alone of men I censure not your strifes,
Knowing their cause. The very air you breathe,
The founts whereof you drink, the soil you tread,
Are all impregnate with a sacred rage;
And false alike to usage, country, blood,
Were he among you who, for three hours’ space,
Discerned ’twixt friend and foeman. Lords and Kings,
Attend a legend from your annals old,
A laughing picture of man’s life this day.
In Erin’s earlier age there reigned two kings:
Each had a swineherd who, through magic power,
Assumed what form he would of shapes that live
In heaven, or earth, or sea. Friendship eterne
They pledged; then strove ten years, with hosts allied
So huge that none remained to till the land.
At last the vanquished westward creaked, a crane:
A crane, the victor chased him. Twenty years
High up they fought; to each side Erin’s birds
Flocking in clans, the factions of the heavens.
Those twenty years run out, the vanquished crane
Dropp’d on a stream and straight to salmon changed;
Instant his foe, to salmon turned not less,
From stream to sea pursued him. Far and wide
All scaly shapes that buffet Erin’s waves
From sprat and minnow up to shark and whale
Beat up in finny squadrons. Forty years
With deepening rage they fought, till round the isle
Main ocean boiled, and from her ships black-ribbed
Melted the tar, and mist was over all.
Next changed those salmons twain to dragon-flies:
But while they sat in hate on neighbouring pools
A dun cow and a red cow drank them up
Unwittingly. From them two bull-calves sprang
That, grown, with battle thunders dinned the realm
For eighty years! How say ye, Lords? From these
Come not the Bulls that shake this day our land,
Fionbannah, and the Donn? For them we fight,
And in their honour hold, on peaceful days,
Like them our roaring synods!’
Fiercely and long
The unwise council strove; and Meave, who feared
Far more the petulance of her lesser kings
Than that great exile’s loftier wrath, resumed
Next morn her march erratic. On she passed,
The Dal Araidhé forests on her right,
Northward to Moira’s plain and Clannaboy;
And through the Glynns of Ardes glimpsed remote
Alba’s blue hills. Dalríad fastnesses
She burned with fire, and seized full many a herd
On banks of Bann; then westward turned, and kenned
The grass-green glitter soon of far Lough Foyle,
And where the winding river-sea divides
Fanad from Inishowen’s cliffs forlorn.
Aileach she passed, more late the seat of kings;
And, southward next, that lake whose lonely isle
Descends, through caves, to Spirit-worlds unknown.
Thus Meave a circle traced round Uladh’s realm,
And heard the murmur of its three great seas,
Yet nothing wrought of perdurable fame.
Conor, meantime, round Eman ranged his hosts
There flocking night and day. ‘I march not hence’
He said, ‘till Uladh’s wound is wholly healed;—
Fergus I deem the sage of battle-fields,
Though fool in all beside.’
But sloth and fear
In manly hearts at worst rare visitants,
Leave them betimes, like vermin caught by chance
That quit ere long the clean. O’er Uladh’s breadth
Daily some chief, or fragment of a clan
Long chilled by rumour of Cuchullain slain,
Despite King Conor’s hest assailed the queen
Marching, though late, on Eman. First of these
Was Ketherne. Hewing oaks on Fuad’s crest
He marked her host, and rushed, a naked man
From waist to head, his axe within his hand,
In fury on it. Late that eve his kernes
Forth from the battle tore him bleeding fast
From fifty wounds. That night physicians five
Were bending o’er his bed: the eldest spake;
‘Ketherne, thou son of Fintan, thou must die!’
Then Ketherne raised himself and with one blow
Smote him upon his forehead that he died.
In turn the second,—‘Ketherne, thou must die:’
And Ketherne slew him. Feebler-toned the third
Whispered, ‘The man must die;’ and died himself;
Likewise the fourth. Old Ithal was the fifth,
A son of Alba. He with stealthy foot
Stepping o’er corpses of his brethren slain,
Made keen-eyed inquest of the wounds; then spake:
‘Of these the least is dangerous: fatal none:
Two cures for such there be, diverse in kind;
Ketherne, thou son of Fintan, make thy choice!
The first is slow but certain: where thou liest
Full three months thou must lie; then rise restored:
The second is immediate: strength divine
It pours like light into a warrior’s veins;
Then dies its virtue, and the warrior dies!’
Ketherne laughed loud: ‘My choice is quickly made—
Three months bed-ridden, or one vengeance day
Joyous and glorious! Leech! I rather choose
With mine own hand to avenge eretime my death
Than trust that task to others!’ At his word
Ithal prepared a wonder-working bath
Strewn with strange herbs, and bathed therein the man,
Then bade him drink of some elixir bright
Drawn from the sun. As one refreshed by sleep
He rose: he clomb his war-car; sought the foe;
Threescore he slew, their best. At last the strength
Ceased from his arm; and opened once again
His wounds late closed; and back he sank, and died.
Such hindrances, and every day had such,
Likewise huge herds and cumber of her spoil
Slackened the march of Meave. Full many a chief
Perished in bootless fight; full many an eye
Turned on her, malcontent. But trial worse
Had found her through her daughter, Finobar.
Without an hour’s misgiving or remorse
In beauty’s pride not less than patriot zeal—
Wilier she was than Meave, and haughtier far—
Champion on champion she had sent to doom
Beside that fatal Ford. Ferdīa most
Had tasked the sorceress, for in him alone
Vanity kept no place. She watched the fight
No pallor on her fruit-like cheek, no cloud
Dimming her star-like eyes. Without a sigh
She saw the Firbolg, last of all his race,
Fall on the soil once theirs. Even then she knew not
The inevitable shaft had pierced whate’er
Of woman heart was hers. The strong man’s death
Lifted that veil his victory ne’er had raised:
Standing mid others she beheld him dead:
Thenceforth that deep-toned voice, that mournful front,
Those stern yet stately ways, so great and plain,
Haunted her memory. Oft with sudden spasm
She strove to shake that viper from her breast
Which sucked its life-blood. ‘I, the Princess, love!
And love a Firbolg!’ She had never loved:
Self-love, sole regent of the unloving heart,
Had barred it ’gainst all other tenderer loves:
In vain the island chiefs had wooed and sued:
She spurned them each and all.
Of these the last
Was Rochad, and the proudest, in the North
A vassal prince of Conor’s, oft his foe:
The passion she had kindled she had scorned:
Rochad had vowed revenge.
In wonder Meave
Noted the weary lids, the vanishing bloom,
The abrupt accost, though haught yet unassured;
The movements to mechanic changed, the mind
Still strong, yet widowed of its flexile strength;
These things she saw; their cause she ne’er divined:
Love for the living Meave could understand:
For her the dead was dead. To Finobar
The one thing yet remaining was her pride:
Questioned, her answer ever was the same,
‘Onward, to Eman!’
Nearer it each day
They drew. One evening through the sunset mist
A camp, high-seated on a bosky hill,
Shone out, fire-fringed: aloof it stood as one
That halts ’twixt war and peace. Ere long they learned
Rochad that site had chos’n, with Uladh’s King
Friendly but half, thence slow to prop his cause.
Then spake the queen; ‘The hand of yonder chief
Sustains our battle’s balance. If his host,
Now dubious, joins the bands that vex our flank
No choice remains but this, a homeward course
Or, if a march to Eman, then the loss
Of half our hard-earned spoil and hate thenceforth
Of all our vassal kings.’ Forth flashed the eyes
Of Finobar—it was their latest flash—
She answered thus; ‘The sequel leave to me!
He loved me, Rochad, once: ere sets yon moon
I bring you tamed the lion of yon hills,
Aye, in a silken leash!’
Rochad far off
Beheld her coming; marked it with a smile;
Welcomed her gaily; led her to the feast;
Thence to his tent wherein was none beside.
There put she forth whatever subtlest art
In seeming-simple innocence disguised
Imagines of persuasive, whatsoe’er
Delicatest craft of female witcheries
Potent for man’s destruction can devise,
To bend that warrior’s will. The winter beam
Thaws not the polar ice: o’er Rochad’s soul
So passed the syren’s pleadings. Pleased not less
To stand implored, he dallied with her suit
Destined, and this he knew, to end in shame.
She, self-deceived, inly made vow; ‘This tent
I leave not, save victorious.’
Hours went by:
She noted not their flight. Once more with skill
Plastic as wind in woods, a measured strength
Varying as minstrel’s hand that grazes now
Now sweeps the tenderer or the deeper strings,
To all the passions of the heart of man
Glory, Ambition, Love, Revenge, she tuned
The modulations of her passionate strain;
While half the richness theirs aforetime throbbed
Again in those sad accents, half their light—
For oft from out the present shines a past
Long dead—returned to eyes that, seen of none,
Had wept away their splendours. Calm he sat,
Sternly quiescent. Sudden on her broke
The fatal truth. She saw her power was gone;
And all that posthumous life late hers sank back
In embers lost and ashes. On the West
Rested her gaze. A cloud of raven black,
Its veil for half that night, had drifted by,
And o’er that distant gleam, her mother’s camp,
Slowly the moon descended. Finobar
That hour recalled her boast; ‘Ere sets yon moon
I bring you tamed the lion of yon hills,
Aye, in a silken leash!’
The Orient soon
Whitened with early dawn. Forlorn it lay
On hill and heath and plain and distant mere,
Forlorner on the haggard face—for oft
A face, still fair, in anguish antedates
Its future—of that woman as she knelt,
She knelt at last, low on that threshold low.
Then came the hour of Rochad’s great revenge:
Then first he answered plainly; ‘Finobar!
One day I knew you not: I know you now:
Your spells are null when once their trick is learned:
Likewise your face has lost its earlier charm.
Back to your mother! Say, ere sets yon sun
I join the king my master, from his gate
Repel with scorn the invader.’ Forth he passed
Without farewell. A clarion broke ere long
Her trance: adown the slope she saw his host
Winding t’ward Eman.
From a burning couch
She rose next eve; and, strong with fever’s strength,
Paced swiftly by that sunset-crimsoned stream
Which cut the camp in twain. Anon she marked
In all who met her, change inexplicable,
Strange eyes, strange faces, strange embarrassed ways:
Sadly compassionate that change in some:
In others questioning glance and meaning smile
Hinted at things that through her flaming heart
Passed like a sword of ice. Whisperings not less
There were, but these she heard not; ‘What! All night!
From eve to morn with Rochad in his tent!—
The men she fed on hopes she sent to death
Beside the Ford. Well! pride must have its fall!
Rochad is joined with Conor!’ Slanders worse
Some chiefs whom most her haughtiness had galled
Ventured, vain-glorious. Late one eve the truth
Sprang like a tigress on her. In his tent
She heard her father with her mother speak;
‘She yet may wear the crown: her maiden fame
Is lost forever!’
Three hours ere her death
Thus to her mother spake that sentenced one;
‘Noise it among the host that grief for those
Her countrymen—the Gael—who, near the Ford—
Ere yet that Firbolg shared the common fate,
Fell by Cuchullain, snapped her thread of life.
Bear on your march my body:—raise the cairn
On the first hill that kens Emania’s towers.’
So spake she; and the queen obeyed her hest:
She flung that rumour forth; and all who heard,
Heart-stricken now, believed it. But on Meave
A piercing sadness fell; and by her bed
Orloff her buried son stood up, and spake;
‘Home to thy native realm, and Cruachan!
Not less a battle waits thee great and dread
’Twixt Gairig and Ilgairig.’ One day’s march
Eastward still marched she; then upon a hill,
The first whose summit looked on Eman’s towers,
Interred the all-beauteous one with Pagan dirge,
And o’er her piled the cairn. Southward, next morn
She turned, and crossed the Ford. Fulfilled was thus
Cuchullain’s word, breathed o’er Ferdīa dead,
‘Finobar snared thee. Finobar shall die.’
But many a century later Uladh’s sons
Rose up and said; ‘Great scorn it is and wrong
Yon stranger’s grave should gaze on Eman’s towers:’
Then bore they forth those relics once so fair
With funeral rites revered and Pagan dirge,
And laid them by the loud-resounding sea,
And o’er them raised a cairn: and, age on age,
As sighed the sea-wind past it shepherds said
‘It whispers soft that sad word, Finobar!’