Page:Irish plays and playwrights (IA irishplaysplaywr00weygrich).pdf/183

Rh to the High King who brought about his death, with a suddenness inexplicable. Lady Gregory makes that sudden turn plausible, for two reasons. One is that for seven years of wandering all over Ireland, Diarmuid by his own will and because of loyalty to Finn, had kept Grania a maid, making her his wife only after he found her being carried off by the King of Foreign. The other reason is that as Diarmuid lies dying, wounded to death by that King of Foreign whom he has killed, his thoughts are all of his long-delayed disloyalty to Finn, and not at all of Grania. Thus, she justifies herself, speaking to Finn:—

Grania. He had no love for me at any time. It is easy to know it now. I knew it all the while, but I would not give in to believe it. His desire was all the time with you yourself and Almhuin. He let on to be taken up with me, and it was but letting on. Why would I fret after him that so soon forgot his wife, and left her in a wretched way?

Finn. You are not judging him right. You are distracted with the weight of your loss.

Grania. Does any man at all speak lies at the very brink of death, or hold any secret in his heart? It was at that time he had done with deceit, and he showed where his thought was, and had no word at all for me that had left the whole world for his sake, and that went wearing out my youth, pushing here and there as far as the course of the stars of Heaven. And my thousand curses upon death not to have taken him at daybreak, and I believing his words! It is then I would have waked him well and would have cried my seven generations after him! And I have lost all on this side of the world, losing that trust and faith I had, and finding him to think of me no more than of a flock of stars would cast their shadow on his path. And I to die with this scald upon my heart; it is hard thistles would spring up out of my grave.