King:  Is it that I am to eat my meal standing, the same as a crane in a shallow, or moving from tuft to thistle like you’d see a jennet on the high road?

Queen:  Well, at the least, let you drink down a share of this tansy juice.  I was telling you it would be answerable to your health.

King:  You are doing entirely too much for me.

Queen:  Sure I am here to be comfortable to you.  This house before I came into it was but a ship without a rudder!  Here now, take the spoon in your hand.

Dall Glic:  Leave it there, Queen, and I’ll engage he’ll swallow it down bye-and-bye.

Queen:  Is it that you are meddling, Dall Glic?  It is time some person took you in hand.  I wonder now could that dark eye of yours be cured?

Dall Glic:  It is given in that it can not, by doctors and by druids.

Queen:  That is a pity now, it gives you a sort of a one-sided look.  It might not be so hard a thing to put out the sight of the other.

Dall Glic:  I’d sooner leave them the way they are.

Queen:  I’ll put a knot on my handkerchief till such time as I can give my mind to it....  Now, my dear (to King), make no more delay.  It is right to drink it down after your meal.  The stomach to be bare empty, the medicine might prey upon the body till it would be wore away and consumed.

King:  Time enough.  Let it settle now for a minute.

Queen:  Here, now, I’ll hold your nose the way you will not get the taste of it.

(She holds spoon to his mouth.  A ball flies in at window; he starts and medicine is spilled.)

Princess:  (Coming in with Nurse.) Is it true what they are telling me?

Queen:  Do you see that you near hit the King with your ball, and, what is worse again, you have his medicine spilled from the spoon.

Princess:  (Patting him.) Poor old King.

Queen:  Have you your lessons learned?

Princess:  (Throwing books in the air.) Neither line nor letter of them!  Poem book!  Brehon Laws!  I have done with books!  I am seventeen years old to-day!

Queen: There is no one would think it and you so flighty as you are.

Princess:  (To King.) Is it true that the cook is gone away?

King:  (Aghast.) What’s that you’re saying?

Queen: Don’t be annoying the King’s mind with such things.  He should be hidden from every trouble and care.

Princess: Was it you sent him away?

Queen: Not at all.  If he went it was through foolishness and pride.

Princess: It is said in the house that you annoyed him.

Queen: I never annoyed any person in my life, unless it might be for their own good.  But it fails some to recognise their best friend.  Just teaching him I was to pickle onion thinnings as it was done at the King of Alban’s Court.