You who know the song of Dierdre of Naoise, fairest of the sons of Uisneach, and the charms of each glen she sings of in Alba you will know the quality I mean.... "Beloved, the water o'er pure sand, Oh, that I might not part from the East, But that I go with my Beloved."
Och! if she knew to-night, Naoise to be under a covering of clay, it is she would cry her fill, and it is I would cry along with her!
They followed me swimming, Ainnle and Ardan, that never said a lie; they turned me back again, two that would give battle to a hundred. Naoise gave me his true word, he swore three times with his arms as witness, he would never put vexation on me again, until he would go from me to the armies of the dead.
One day, when the nobles of Alban were drinking with the sons of Usnach, Naoise gave a kiss secretly to the daughter of the lord of Duntreon. He sent her a frightened deer, wild, and a fawn at its foot; and he went to visit her coming home from the troops of Inverness. When myself heard that, my head filled full of jealousy; I put my boat on the waves, it was the same to me to live or to die.
I was never one day alone to the day of the making of this grave, though it is often that myself and yourselves were in loneliness. My sight is gone from me with looking at the grave of Naoise; it is short till my life will leave me, and those who would have keened me do not live.
The High King of Ulster, my first betrothed, I forsook for love of Naoise; short my life will be after him; I will make keening at their burial. That I would live after Naoise let no one think on the earth; I will not go on living after Ainnle and after Ardan.