Pieces of quivering flesh into the air. 
When evening came, their very steeds were tired,
Their charioteers depressed, and they themselves
Worn out—­even they the champions bold and brave. 
“Let us from this, Ferdiah, now desist,”
Cuchullin said; “for see, our charioteers
Droop, and our very horses flag and fail,
And when fatigued they yield, so well may we.” 
And further thus he spoke, persuading rest:—­

Cuchullin.

Not with the obstinate rage and spite
With which Fomorian pirates fight
Let us, since now has fallen the night,
      Continue thus our feud;
In brief abeyance it may rest,
Now that a calm comes o’er each breast:—­
When with new light the world is blest,
      Be it again renewed.”

“Let us desist, indeed,” Ferdiah said,
“If the fit time hath come.”—­And so they ceased. 
From them they threw their arms into the hands
Of their two charioteers.  Each of them came
Forward to meet the other.  Each his hands
Put round the other’s neck, and thus embraced,
Gave to him three fond kisses on the cheek. 
Their horses fed in the same field that night;
Their charioteers were warmed by the same fire. 
Their charioteers beneath their bodies spread
Green rushes, and beneath their heads the down
Of wounded men’s soft pillows.  Then the skilled
Professors of the art of healing came
To tend them and to cure them through the night. 
But they for all their skill could do no more,
So numerous and so dangerous were the wounds,
The cuts, and clefts, and scars so large and deep,
But to apply to them the potent charms
Of witchcraft, incantations, and barb spells,
As sorcerers use, to stanch the blood and stay
The life that else would through the wounds escape:—­
Of every charm of witchcraft, every spell,
Of every incantation that was used
To heal Cuchullin’s wounds, a full fair half
Over the Ford was westward sent to heal
Ferdiah’s hurts:  of every sort of food,
And sweet, intoxicating, pleasant drink
The men of Erin to Ferdiah sent,
He a fair moiety across the Ford
Sent northward to Cuchullin where he lay,
Because his own purveyors far surpassed
In number those the Ulster chief retained. 
For all the federate hosts of Erin were
Purveyors to Ferdiah, with the hope
That he would beat Cuchullin from the Ford. 
The Bregians only were Cuchullin’s friends—­
His sole purveyors—­and their wont it was
To come to him, and talk with him at night.

They rested there that night.  Next morn they rose,
And to the Ford of battle forward came. 
That day a great, ill-favoured, lowering cloud
Upon Ferdiah’s face Cuchullin saw. 
“Badly,” said he, “dost thou appear this day,
Ferdiah, for thy hair has duskier grown
This day, and a dull stupour dims thine eyes,
And thine own face and form, and what thou wert
In outward seeming have deserted thee.” 
“’Tis not through fear of thee that I am so,”
Ferdiah said, “for Erin doth not hold
This day a champion I could not subdue.” 
And thus betwixt the twain this speech arose,
And thus Cuchullin mourned and he replied: