_--I found the story of the Countess Cathleen
in what professed to be a collection of Irish folklore in an Irish
newspaper some years ago.
in what professed to be a collection of Irish folklore in an Irish
newspaper some years ago.
Yeats
In any case, I
must leave my myths and symbols to explain themselves as the years go
by and one poem lights up another, and the stories that friends, and
one friend in particular, have gathered for me, or that I have gathered
myself in many cottages, find their way into the light. I would, if I
could, add to that great and complicated inheritance of images which
written literature has substituted for the greater and more complex
inheritance of spoken tradition, to that majestic heraldry of the poets
some new heraldic images gathered from the lips of the common people.
Christianity and the old nature faith have lain down side by side in
the cottages, and I would proclaim that peace as loudly as I can among
the kingdoms of poetry, where there is no peace that is not joyous,
no battle that does not give life instead of death; I may even try to
persuade others, in more sober prose, that there can be no language
more worthy of poetry and of the meditation of the soul than that which
has been made, or can be made, out of a subtlety of desire, an emotion
of sacrifice, a delight in order, that are perhaps Christian, and myths
and images that mirror the energies of woods and streams, and of their
wild creatures. Has any part of that majestic heraldry of the poets
had a very different fountain? Is it not the ritual of the marriage of
heaven and earth?
These details may seem to many unnecessary; but after all one writes
poetry for a few careful readers and for a few friends, who will not
consider such details very unnecessary. When Cimabue had the cry it
was, it seems, worth thinking of those that run; but to-day, when they
can write as well as read, one can sit with one's companions under the
hedgerow contentedly. If one writes well and has the patience, somebody
will come from among the runners and read what one has written quickly,
and go away quickly, and write out as much as he can remember in the
language of the highway.
W. B. YEATS.
_January, 1901. _
FOOTNOTE:
[A] I have left them out of this edition as Lady Gregory's _Cuchulain
of Muirthemne_ and _Gods and Fighting Men_ have made them unnecessary.
When I began to write, the names of the Irish heroes were almost
unknown even in Ireland.
NOTES
_The Countess Cathleen.
_--I found the story of the Countess Cathleen
in what professed to be a collection of Irish folklore in an Irish
newspaper some years ago. I wrote to the compiler, asking about its
source, but got no answer, but have since heard that it was translated
from _Les Matinees de Timothe Trimm_ a good many years ago, and has
been drifting about the Irish press ever since. Leo Lespes gives it
as an Irish story, and though the editor of _Folklore_ has kindly
advertised for information, the only Christian variant I know of is
a Donegal tale, given by Mr. Larminie in his _West Irish Folk Tales
and Romances_, of a woman who goes to hell for ten years to save her
husband and stays there another ten, having been granted permission
to carry away as many souls as could cling to her skirt. Leo Lespes
may have added a few details, but I have no doubt of the essential
antiquity of what seems to me the most impressive form of one of the
supreme parables of the world. The parable came to the Greeks in the
sacrifice of Alcestis, but her sacrifice was less overwhelming, less
apparently irremediable. Leo Lespes tells the story as follows:--
'Ce que je vais vous dire est un recit du careme Irlandais. Le boiteux,
l'aveugle, le paralytique des rues de Dublin ou de Limerick, vous le
diraient mieux que moi, cher lecteur, si vous alliez le leur demander,
un sixpence d'argent a la main. --Il n'est pas une jeune fille catholique
a laquelle on ne l'ait appris, pendant les jours de preparation a la
communion sainte, pas un berger des bords de la Blackwater qui ne le
puisse redire a la veillee.
'Il y a bien longtemps qu'il apparut tout-a-coup dans la vieille
Irlande deux marchands inconnus dont personne n'avait oui parler, et
qui parlaient neanmoins avec la plus grande perfection la langue du
pays. Leurs cheveux etaient noirs et ferres avec de l'or et leurs robes
d'une grande magnificence.
Tous deux semblaient avoir le meme age: ils paraissaient etre des
hommes de cinquante ans, car leur barbe grisonnait un peu.
Or, a cette epoque, comme aujourd'hui, l'Irlande etait pauvre, car le
soleil avait ete rare, et des recoltes presque nulles. Les indigents ne
savaient a quel saint se vouer, et la misere devenait de plus en plus
terrible.
Dans l'hotellerie ou descendirent les marchands fastueux on chercha
a penetrer leurs desseins: mais ce fut en vain, ils demeurerent
silencieux et discrets.
Et pendant qu'ils demeurerent dans l'hotellerie, ils ne cesserent de
compter et de recompter des sacs de pieces d'or, dont la vive clarte
s'apercevait a travers les vitres du logis.
must leave my myths and symbols to explain themselves as the years go
by and one poem lights up another, and the stories that friends, and
one friend in particular, have gathered for me, or that I have gathered
myself in many cottages, find their way into the light. I would, if I
could, add to that great and complicated inheritance of images which
written literature has substituted for the greater and more complex
inheritance of spoken tradition, to that majestic heraldry of the poets
some new heraldic images gathered from the lips of the common people.
Christianity and the old nature faith have lain down side by side in
the cottages, and I would proclaim that peace as loudly as I can among
the kingdoms of poetry, where there is no peace that is not joyous,
no battle that does not give life instead of death; I may even try to
persuade others, in more sober prose, that there can be no language
more worthy of poetry and of the meditation of the soul than that which
has been made, or can be made, out of a subtlety of desire, an emotion
of sacrifice, a delight in order, that are perhaps Christian, and myths
and images that mirror the energies of woods and streams, and of their
wild creatures. Has any part of that majestic heraldry of the poets
had a very different fountain? Is it not the ritual of the marriage of
heaven and earth?
These details may seem to many unnecessary; but after all one writes
poetry for a few careful readers and for a few friends, who will not
consider such details very unnecessary. When Cimabue had the cry it
was, it seems, worth thinking of those that run; but to-day, when they
can write as well as read, one can sit with one's companions under the
hedgerow contentedly. If one writes well and has the patience, somebody
will come from among the runners and read what one has written quickly,
and go away quickly, and write out as much as he can remember in the
language of the highway.
W. B. YEATS.
_January, 1901. _
FOOTNOTE:
[A] I have left them out of this edition as Lady Gregory's _Cuchulain
of Muirthemne_ and _Gods and Fighting Men_ have made them unnecessary.
When I began to write, the names of the Irish heroes were almost
unknown even in Ireland.
NOTES
_The Countess Cathleen.
_--I found the story of the Countess Cathleen
in what professed to be a collection of Irish folklore in an Irish
newspaper some years ago. I wrote to the compiler, asking about its
source, but got no answer, but have since heard that it was translated
from _Les Matinees de Timothe Trimm_ a good many years ago, and has
been drifting about the Irish press ever since. Leo Lespes gives it
as an Irish story, and though the editor of _Folklore_ has kindly
advertised for information, the only Christian variant I know of is
a Donegal tale, given by Mr. Larminie in his _West Irish Folk Tales
and Romances_, of a woman who goes to hell for ten years to save her
husband and stays there another ten, having been granted permission
to carry away as many souls as could cling to her skirt. Leo Lespes
may have added a few details, but I have no doubt of the essential
antiquity of what seems to me the most impressive form of one of the
supreme parables of the world. The parable came to the Greeks in the
sacrifice of Alcestis, but her sacrifice was less overwhelming, less
apparently irremediable. Leo Lespes tells the story as follows:--
'Ce que je vais vous dire est un recit du careme Irlandais. Le boiteux,
l'aveugle, le paralytique des rues de Dublin ou de Limerick, vous le
diraient mieux que moi, cher lecteur, si vous alliez le leur demander,
un sixpence d'argent a la main. --Il n'est pas une jeune fille catholique
a laquelle on ne l'ait appris, pendant les jours de preparation a la
communion sainte, pas un berger des bords de la Blackwater qui ne le
puisse redire a la veillee.
'Il y a bien longtemps qu'il apparut tout-a-coup dans la vieille
Irlande deux marchands inconnus dont personne n'avait oui parler, et
qui parlaient neanmoins avec la plus grande perfection la langue du
pays. Leurs cheveux etaient noirs et ferres avec de l'or et leurs robes
d'une grande magnificence.
Tous deux semblaient avoir le meme age: ils paraissaient etre des
hommes de cinquante ans, car leur barbe grisonnait un peu.
Or, a cette epoque, comme aujourd'hui, l'Irlande etait pauvre, car le
soleil avait ete rare, et des recoltes presque nulles. Les indigents ne
savaient a quel saint se vouer, et la misere devenait de plus en plus
terrible.
Dans l'hotellerie ou descendirent les marchands fastueux on chercha
a penetrer leurs desseins: mais ce fut en vain, ils demeurerent
silencieux et discrets.
Et pendant qu'ils demeurerent dans l'hotellerie, ils ne cesserent de
compter et de recompter des sacs de pieces d'or, dont la vive clarte
s'apercevait a travers les vitres du logis.
