The Lamentation of Fand When She Is About to Leave Cuchulain
From the "Sickbed of Cuchulain."
I.
t is I who must go on this journey,
Ou great necessity were best for me;
Though another should have an equal fame
Happier for me could I remain.
Happier it were for me to be here,
Subject to thee without reproach,
Than to go,—though strange it may seem to thee,—
To the royal seat of Aed Abrat.
The man is thine, O Emer,
He has broken from me, O noble wife,
No less, the thing that my hand cannot reach,
I am fated to desire it.
Many men were seeking me
Both in shelters and in secret places;
My tryst was never made with them,
Because I myself was high-minded.
Joyless she who gives love to one
Who does not heed her love;
It were better for her to be destroyed
If she be not loved as she loves.
With fifty women hast thou come hither,
Noble Emer, of the yellow locks,
To overthrow Fand, it were not well
To kill her in her misery.
Three times fifty have I there,
—Beautiful, marriageable women,—
Together with me in the fort:
They will not abandon me.