’Twas guile that crushed them:  they would save my life
And died therefor; themselves three billows strong: 
Ere Usna’s children fell in cruel strife,
Would I had died, and earth had held me long!

To Red-Branch Hall we made our mournful way;
Deceitful Fergus led; our lives he stole;
A soft sweet speech indeed he’d learned to say,
For me, for them was ruin near that goal.

All Ulster’s pleasures now are nothing worth
I shun them all, each chief, each ancient friend;
Alone I sit, as left behind on earth,
And soon my lonely life in death shall end.

I am Deirdre, the joyless,
For short time alive,
Though to end life be evil,
’Tis worse to survive.

And, after she had made this lament, Deirdre seated herself in the tomb, and she gave three kisses to Naisi before that he was laid in his grave; and with heaviness and grief Cuchulain went on to Dun Delga.  And Cathbad the Druid laid a curse upon Emain Macha to take vengeance for that great evil, and he said that, since that treachery had been done, neither king Conor nor any other of his race should hold that burg.

And as for Fergus, the son of Rossa the Red, he came to Emain Macha on the morrow after the sons of Usnach had been slain.  And, when he found that they had been slain, and that his pledge had been dishonoured, he himself, and Cormac the Partner of Exile, king Conor’s own son, also Dubhtach, the Beetle of Ulster, and the armies they had with them, gave battle to the household of Conor; and they slew Maine the son of Conor, and three hundred of Conor’s people besides.  And Emain Macha was destroyed, and burned by them, and Conor’s women were slain, and they collected their adherents on every side; the number of their host was three thousand warriors.  And they went away to the land of Connaught, even to Ailill the Great, who was the king of Connaught at that time, and to Maev of Croghan, and with them they found a welcome and support.  Moreover Fergus and Cormac the Partner of Exile and their warriors, after that they had come to the land of Connaught, never let pass one single night wherein reavers went not forth from them to harry and burn the land of Ulster, so that the district which men to-day call the land of Cualgne was subdued by them; and from that in the after-time came between the two kingdoms much of trouble and theft; and in this fashion they spent seven years, or, as some say, ten years; nor was there any truce between them, no, not for one single hour.

And while those deeds were doing, Deirdre abode by Conor in his household for a whole year after the sons of Usnach had been slain.  And, though it might have seemed but a small thing for her to raise her head, or to let laughter flow over her lips, yet she never did these things during all that time.  And when Conor saw that neither sport nor kindness could hold her; and that neither jesting nor pleasing honour could raise her spirits, he sent word to Eogan