Laeg! who oft the fairy hill[FN#31]
Searchest, slack I find thee still;
Lovely Dechtire’s son shouldst thou
By thy zeal have healed ere now.

Ulster, though for bounties famed,
Foster-sire and friends are shamed: 
None hath deemed Cuchulain worth
One full journey through the earth.

Yet, if sleep on Fergus fell,
Such that magic arts dispel,
Dechtire’s son had restless rode
Till a Druid raised that load.

Aye, had Conall come from wars,
Weak with wounds and recent scars;
All the world our Hound would scour
Till he found a healing power.

Were it Laegaire[FN#32] war had pressed,
Erin’s meads would know no rest,
Till, made whole from wounds, he won
Mach’s grandchild, Conna’s son.

Had thus crafty Celthar slept,
Long, like him, by sickness kept;
Through the elf-mounds, night and day,
Would our Hound, to heal him, stray.

Furbaid, girt by heroes strong,
Were it he had lain thus long;
Ah! our Hound would rescue bear
Though through solid earth he fare.

[FN#31] The metre of these verses is that of the Irish.

[FN#32] Pronounced Leary.

All the elves of Troom[FN#33] seem dead;
All their mighty deeds have fled;
For their Hound, who hounds surpassed,
Elves have bound in slumber fast.

Ah! on me thy sickness swerves,
Hound of Smith who Conor serves! 
Sore my heart, my flesh must be: 
May thy cure be wrought by me.

Ah! ’tis blood my heart that stains,
Sick for him who rode the plains: 
Though his land be decked for feast,
He to seek its plain hath ceased.

He in Emain still delays;
’Tis those Shapes the bar that raise: 
Weak my voice is, dead its tone,
He in evil form is shown.

Month-long, year-long watch I keep;
Seasons pass, I know not sleep: 
Men’s sweet speech strikes not mine ear;
Naught, Riangabra’s[FN#34] son, I hear.

[FN#33] Spelt Truim.

[FN#34] Pronounced Reen-gabra.

And, after that she had sung that song, Emer went forward to Emain that she might seek for Cuchulain; and she seated herself in the chamber where Cuchulain was, and thus she addressed him:  “Shame upon thee!” she said, “to lie thus prostrate for a woman’s love! well may this long sickbed of thine cause thee to ail!” And it was in this fashion that she addressed him, and she chanted this lay: 

Stand up, O thou hero of Ulster! 
Wake from sleep! rise up, joyful and sound! 
Look on Conor the king! on my beauty,
Will that loose not those slumbers profound?

See the Ulstermen’s clear shining shoulders! 
Hear their trumpets that call to the fight! 
See their war-cars that sweep through the valleys,
As in hero-chess, leaping each knight.

See their chiefs, and the strength that adorns them,
Their tall maidens, so stately with grace;
The swift kings, springing on to the battle,
The great queens of the Ulstermen’s race!