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.)