by W. B. Yeats
Et Ketty n’avait plus une obole, car elle avait abandonn`e son ch`ateaux aux malheureux.
Elle passa douze heures dans les larmes et le deuil, arrachant ses cheveux couleur de soleil et meurtrissant son sein couleur du lis: puis elle se leva r`esolue, anim`ee par un vif sentiment de d`esespoir.
Elle se rendit chez les marchands d’`ames.
— Que voulez-vous? dirent ils.
— Vous achetez des `ames?
— Oui, un peu malgr`e vous, n’est ce pas, sainte aux yeux de sapbir?
— Aujourd’hui je viens vous proposer un march`e, reprit elle.
— Lequel?
— J’ai une `ame `a vendre; mais elle est ch`ere.
— Qu’importe si elle est pr`ecieuse? L’`ame, comme le diamant, s’appr`ecie `a sa blancheur.
— C’est la mienne, dit Ketty.
Les deux envoy`es de Satan tressaillirent, Leurs griffes s’allong`erent sous leurs gants de cuir; leurs yeux gris `etincel`erent: — l’`ame, pure, immacul`ee, virginale de Ketty c’`etait une acquisition inappr`eciable.
— Gentille dame, combien voulez-vouz?
— Cent cinquante mille `ecus d’or.
— C’est fait, dirent les marchands: et ils tendirent `a Ketty un parchemin cachet`e de noir, qu’elle signa en frissonnant.
La somme lui fut compt`ee.
Des qu’elle fut rentr`ee, elle dit au majordome:
— Tenez, distribuez ceci. Avec la somme que je vous donne les pauvres attendront la huitaine n`ecessaire et pas une de leurs `ames ne sera livr`ee au d`emon.
Puis elle s’enferma et recommanda qu’on ne vint pas la d`eranger.
Trois jours se pass`erent; elle n’appela pas; elle ne sortit pas.
Quand on ouvrit sa porte, on la trouva raide et froide: elle `etait morte de douleur.
Mais la vente de cette `ame si adorable dans sa charit`e fut d`eclar`ee nulle par le Seigneur: car elle avait sauv`e ses concitoyens de la morte `eternelle.
Apr`es la huitaine, des vaisseaux nombreux amen`erent l’Irlande affam`ee d’immenses provisions de grains.
La famine n’`etait plus possible. Quant aux marchands, ils disparurent de leur h`otellerie, sans qu’on s`ut jamais ce qu’ils `etaient devenus.
Toutefois, les p`echeurs de la Blackwater pr`etendent qu’ils sont enchain`es dans une prison souterraine par ordre de Lucifer jusqu’au moment o`u ils pourront livrer l’`ame de Ketty qui leur a `echapp`e. je vous dis la l`egende telle que je la sais.
-Mais les pauvres l’ont racont`e d’`age en `age et les enfants de Cork et de Dublin chantent encore la ballade dont voici les derniers couplets:-
Pour sauver les pauvres qu’elle aime Ketty donna Son esprit, sa croyance m`eme Satan paya Cette `ame au d`evoument sublime, En `ecus d’or, Disons pour racheter son crime, Confiteor.
Mais l’ange qui se fit coupable Par charit`e
Au s`ejour d’amour ineffable Est remont`e. Satan vaincu n’eut pas de prise
Sur ce coeur d’or; Chantons sous la nef de l’`eglise, Confiteor.
N’est ce pas que ce r`ecit, n`e de l’imagination des po`etes catholiques de la verte Erin, est une V`eritable r`ecit de car`eme?
The Countess Cathleen was acted in Dublin in 1899, with Mr. Marcus St. John and Mr. Trevor Lowe as the First and Second Demon, Mr. Valentine Grace as Shemus Rua, Master Charles Sefton as Teig, Madame San Carola as Mary, Miss Florence Farr as Aleel, Miss Anna Mather as Oona, Mr. Charles Holmes as the Herdsman, Mr. Jack Wilcox as the Gardener, Mr. Walford as a Peasant, Miss Dorothy Paget as a Spirit, Miss M. Kelly as a Peasant Woman, Mr. T. E. Wilkinson as a Servant, and Miss May Whitty as The Countess Kathleen. They had to face a very vehement opposition stirred up by a politician and a newspaper, the one accusing me in a pamphlet, the other in long articles day after day, of blasphemy because of the language of the demons or of Shemus Rua, and because I made a woman sell her soul and yet escape damnation, and of a lack of patriotism because I made Irish men and women, who, it seems, never did such a thing, sell theirs. The politician or the newspaper persuaded some forty Catholic students to sign a protest against the play, and a Cardinal, who avowed that he had not read it, to make another, and both politician and newspaper made such obvious appeals to the audience to break the peace, that a score or so of police were sent to the theatre to see that they did not. I had, however, no reason to regret the result, for the stalls, containing almost all that was distinguished in Dublin, and a gallery of artisans alike insisted on the freedom of literature.
After the performance in 1899 I added the love scene between Aleel and the Countess, and in this new form the play was revived in New York by Miss Wycherley as well as being played a good deal in England and America by amateurs. Now at last I have made a complete revision to make it suitable for performance at the Abbey Theatre. The first two scenes are almost wholly new, and throughout the play I have added or left out such passages as a stage experience of some years showed me encumbered the action; the play in its first form having been written before I knew anything of the theatre. I have left the old end, however, in the version printed in the body of this book, because the change for dramatic purposes has been made for no better reason than that audiences — even at the Abbey Theatre — are almost ignorant of Irish mythology or because a shallow stage made the elaborate vision of armed angels upon a mountain-side impossible. The new end is particularly suited to the Abbey stage, where the stage platform can be brought out in front of the prosceniurn and have a flight of steps at one side up which the Angel comes, crossing towards the back of the stage at the opposite side. The principal lighting is from two arc lights in the balcony which throw their lights into the faces of the players, making footlights unnecessary. The room at Shemus Rua’s house is suggested by a great grey curtain-a colour which becomes full of rich tints under the stream of light from the arcs. The two or more arches in the third scene permit the use of a gauze. The short front scene before the last is just long enough when played with incidental music to allow the scene set behind it to be changed. The play when played without interval in this way lasts a little over an hour.
The play was performed at the Abbey Theatre for the first time on December 14, 1911, Miss Maire O’Neill taking the part of the Countess, and the last scene from the going out of the Merchants was as follows:-
(MERCHANTS rush out. ALEEL crawls into the middle of the room; the twilight has fallen and gradually darkens as the scene goes on.)
ALEEL. They’re rising up-they’re rising through the earth, Fat Asmodel and giddy Belial, And all the fiends. Now they leap in the air. But why does Hell’s gate creak so? Round and round, Hither and hither, to and fro they’re running.
He moves about as though the air was full of spirits. OONA enters.)
Crouch down, old heron, out of the blind storm.
OONA. Where is the Countess Cathleen? All this day Her eyes were full of tears, and when for a moment Her hand was laid upon my hand, it trembled. And now I do not know where she is gone.
ALEEL. Cathleen has chosen other friends than us, And they are rising through the hollow world. Demons are out, old heron.
OONA. God guard her soul.
ALEEL. She’s bartered it away this very hour, As though we two were never in the world.
(He kneels beside her, but does not seem to hear her words. The PEASANTS return. They carry the COUNTESS CATHLEEN and lay her upon the ground before OONA and ALEEL. She lies there as if dead.)
OONA. O, that so many pitchers of rough clay Should prosper and the porcelain break in two!
(She kisses the hands Of CATHLEEN.)
A PEASANT. We were under the tree where the path turns When she grew pale as death and fainted away.
CATHLEEN. O! hold me, and hold me tightly, for the storm is dragging me away.
(OONA takes her in her arms. A WOMAN begins to wail.)
PEASANTS. Hush!
PEASANTS Hush!
PEASANT WOMEN. Hush!
OTHER PEASANT WOMEN. Hush!
CATHLEEN. (half rising) Lay all the bags of money in a heap, And when I am gone, old Oona, share them out To every man and woman: judge, and give According to their needs.
A PEASANT WOMAN. And will she give Enough to keep my children through the dearth?
ANOTHER PEASANT WOMAN. O, Queen of Heaven, and all you blessed saints, Let us and ours be lost, so she be shriven.
CATHLEEN. Bend down your faces, Oona and Aleel; I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes Upon the nest under the eave, before She wander the loud waters. Do not weep Too great a while, for there is many a candle On the High Altar though one fall. Aleel, Who sang about the dancers of the woods, That know not the hard burden of the world, Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell And farewell, Oona, you who played with me And bore me in your arms about the house When I was but a child-and therefore happy, Therefore happy even like those that dance. The storm is in my hair and I must go.
(She dies.)
OONA. Bring me the looking-glass.
(A WOMAN brings it to her out of inner room. OONA holds glass over the lips of CATHLEEN. All is Silent for a moment, then she speaks in a half-scream.)
O, she is dead!
A PEASANT. She was the great white lily of the world.
A PEASANT. She was more beautiful than the pale stars.
AN OLD PEASANT WOMAN. The little plant I loved is broken in two.
(ALEEL takes looking-glass from OONA and flings it upon floor, so that it is broken in many pieces.)
ALEEL. I shatter you in fragments, for the face That brimmed you up with beauty is no more; And die, dull heart, for you that were a mirror Are but a ball of passionate dust again! And level earth and plumy sea, rise up! And haughty sky, fall down!
A PEASANT WOMAN. Pull him upon his knees, His curses will pluck lightning on our heads.
ALEEL. Angels and devils clash in the middle air, And brazen swords clang upon brazen helms. Look, look, a spear has gone through Belial’s eye!
(A winged ANGEL, carrying a torch and a sword, enters from the R. with eyes fixed upon some distant thing. The ANGEL is about to pass out to the L. when ALEEL speaks. The ANGEL Stops a moment and turns.)
Look no more on the half-closed gates of Hell, But speak to me whose mind is smitten of God, That it may be no more with mortal things: And tell of her who lies there.
(The ANGEL turns again and is about to go, but is seized by ALEEL.)
Till you speak You shall not drift into eternity. ANGEL. The light beats down; the gates of pearl are wide. And she is passing to the floor of peace, And Mary of the seven times wounded heart Has kissed her lips, and the long blessed hair Has fallen on her face; the Light of Lights Looks always on the motive, not the deed, The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.
(ALEEL releases the ANGEL and kneels.)
OONA. Tell them who walk upon the floor of peace.
That I would die and go to her I love, The years like great black oxen tread the world, And God the herdsman goads them on behind, And I am broken by their passing feet.
THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE
Yeats’ second play was first performed in the spring of 1894, at the Avenue Theatre in London, where it ran for six weeks, marking the first professional performance of one of his plays.
It concerns themes of age and thwarted aspirations, with the narrative portraying a faery child encountering the newlyweds Shawn and Maire Bruin at their home, shared with Maurteen Bruin and Bridget Bruin, Shawn’s parents. The child, who at first is thought to be of gentle birth, denounces God and shocks Father Hart with her blasphemous thoughts. Shawn implores the previously languid Maire to remain in the real world, but she dies in his arms, surrendering herself to the laughter and eternal, youthful dance of the otherworld, and to the seductive draw of immortality and mindless joy.
Avenue Theatre, London, c.1895
O Rose, thou art sick.
William Blake.
TO
FLORENCE FARR
PERSONS IN THE PLAY
Maurteen Bruin
Bridget Bruin
Shawn Bruin
Mary Bruin
Father Hart
A Faery Child
The Scene is laid in the Barony of Kilmacowen, in the County of Sligo, and at a remote time.
The Land of Heart’s Desire
Scene. — A room with a hearth on the floor in the middle of a deep alcove to the Right. There are benches in the alcove and a table; and a crucifix on the wall. The alcove is full of a glow of light from the fire. There is an open door facing the audience to the Left, and to the left of this a bench. Through the door one can see the forest. It is night, but the moon or a late sunset glimmers through the trees and carries the eye far off into a vague, mysterious world. MAURTEEN BRUIN, SHAWN BRUIN, and BRIDGET BRUIN sit in the alcove at the table or about the fire. They are dressed in the costume of some remote time, and near them sits an old priest, FATHER HART. He may be dressed as a friar. There is food and drink upon the table. MARY BRUIN stands by the door reading a book. If she looks up she can see through the door into the wood.
BRIDGET
Because I bid her clean the pots for supper
She took that old book down out of the thatch;
She has been doubled over it ever since.
We should be deafened by her groans and moans
Had she to work as some do, Father Hart;
Get up at dawn like me and mend and scour
Or ride abroad in the boisterous night like you,
The pyx and blessed bread under your arm.
SHAWN
Mother, you are too cross.
BRIDGET
You’ve married her,
And fear to vex her and so take her part.
MAURTEEN (to FATHER HART)
It is but right that youth should side with youth;
She quarrels with my wife a bit at times,
And is too deep just now in the old book!
But do not blame her greatly; she will grow
As quiet as a puff-ball in a tree
When but the moons of marriage dawn and die
For half a score of times.
FATHER HART
Their hearts are wild,
As be the hearts of birds, till children come.
BRIDGET
She would not mind the kettle, milk the cow,
Or even lay the knives and spread the cloth.
SHAWN
Mother, if only — —
MAURTEEN
Shawn, this is half empty;
Go, bring up the best bottle that we have.
FATHER HART
I never saw her read a book before,
What can it be?
MAURTEEN (to SHAWN)
What are you waiting for?
You must not shake it when you draw the cork;
It’s precious wine, so take your time about it.
(To Priest.) (SHAWN goes.)
There was a Spaniard wrecked at Ocris Head,
When I was young, and I have still some bottles.
He cannot bear to hear her blamed; the book
Has lain up in the thatch these fifty years;
My father told me my grandfather wrote it,
And killed a heifer for the binding of it —
But supper’s spread, and we can talk and eat
It was little good he got out of the book,
Because it filled his house with rambling fiddlers,
And rambling ballad-makers and the like.
The griddle-bread is there in front of you.
Colleen, what is the wonder in that book,
That you must leave the bread to cool? Had I
Or had my father read or written books
There were no stocking stuffed with yellow guineas
To come when I am dead to Shawn and you.
FATHER HART
You should not fill your head with foolish dreams.
What are you reading?
MARY
How
a Princess Edane,
A daughter of a King of Ireland, heard
A voice singing on a May Eve like this,
And followed half awake and half asleep,
Until she came into the Land of Faery,
Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.
And she is still there, busied with a dance
