What Is Love?
From the "Wooing of Etain."
O
love much-enduring through a year is my love,
It is grief close-hidden,[92]
It is stretching of strength beyond its bounds,
It is (fills?) the four quarters of the world;
It is the highest height of heaven;
It is breaking of the neck,
It is battle with a spectre,
It is drowning with water,
It is a race against heaven,
It is champion-feats beneath the sea,
It is wooing the echo;
So is my love, and my passion, and my devotion to her to whom I gave them.
FOOTNOTES:
[92] Lit. "beneath the skin."