gs me is to put my curse
upon the whole tribe of kitchen boys that are gone
and vanished out of this, without bringing me my
request, that was a bit of rendered lard that would
limber the swivel of my spy-glass, that is clogged
with the dripping of the cave.

_Nurse_: And you have no bad news?

_Queen_: Nothing to say on the head of the
Princess, this being, as it is, her birthday?

_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 gi