First published Samhain (October 1902), a periodical named after the Celtic festival for the start of winter on 31 October; first performed by the Irish National Dramatic Company, St. Teresa’s Hall, Dublin, 2 April 1902. Cathleen ni Houlihan (“Cathleen the daughter of Houlihan”) is a personification of Ireland.
Killala, in 1798: on 22 August 1798, a force of about 1,000 French soldiers landed at Killala in County Mayo in an unsuccessful attempt to aid in the 1798 Rebellion against the English.
hurling: an Irish game resembling field hockey. Winny of the Cross-Roads: a character who also appears in Yeats’s story “Red Hanrahan.” Ballina: a town in County Mayo. Enniscrone: a seaside village in County Sligo. four ... fields: the four provinces of Ireland—Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connacht. Kilglass: a village near Killala. Donough: derived from a Gaelic folk song, translated as “Fair-haired Donough” by the Irish writer Lady Gregory (1852–1932) in the Monthly Review (October 1902). red man of the O’Donnells: Red Hugh O’Donnell (1571–1602), chief of the O’Donnells, fought against the English and died, probably by poison, while seeking aid from Spain. man of the O’Sullivans: Dónall O’Sullivan Beare (1560–1618), chief of the O’Sullivans of Beare, County Cork, fought against the English, eventually fleeing to Spain in 1603. Brian: Brian Ború (“Brian of the Tributes”), king of Ireland, killed by the Danes at the Battle of Clontarf. Poor Old Woman: the Shan van vocht, a personification of Ireland. keening: a wailing lamentation for the dead. white-scarfed riders: a white scarf tied across the breast was often worn by young men in rural Ireland at funerals, particularly of young men and of those who died tragically. got the touch: became enchanted.
First published In the Seven Woods (1903); first performed Irish National Theatre Society, Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 27 December 1904. Baile’s Strand is in County Louth, near Dundalk (Dundealgan).
Fay: William G. Fay (1872–1942), Irish actor and producer.
In the Ulster, or Red Branch, cycle of Irish mythology, Conchubar is king of Ulster, Cuchulain the most important warrior. While training as a youth with Queen Scáthach in Scotland, Cuchulain becomes involved in a war between her and her sister, Aoife; he defeats Aoife and leaves her pregnant with Connlaí. Cuchulain’s fort was at Dundealgan.
Boann: “she of the white cattle,” a water goddess. Fand: “Pearl of Beauty,” the wife of Manannán mac Lir, god of the sea. Banachas and Bonachas: Bananachs and Bocanachs, female and male goblins. Fomor: the Fomorians, demons or evil gods in Irish mythology.
23: Maeve (Medb), queen of Connacht and wife of Ailill; Cruachan, in County Roscommon, was their capital; the northern pirates are the Norsemen. 24: Sorcha, part of the Gaelic Otherworld. 25: untraced. 44: Fiachra. 85–87: Cuchulain’s father was the sun god, Lugh Lámhfada, his mother the mortal Dechtire. 97: Tír fo Thuinn, “Land under the Wave,” one of the names for the Celtic Otherworld. 193: shape-changing is common in Irish mythology. 218: a mythical beast with the shape of a horse and a long horn on its forehead, usually a symbol of holiness or chastity. 367: Laoghaire Buadach (“Leary the Triumphant”), a warrior. 381: the four provinces of Ireland—Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connacht. 413: presumably identical with the Shape-Changers.
crubeen: pig’s foot. When you . . . eagle-cock: described by Yeats as a “folk verse” and printed in the Anonymous section of his A Book of Irish Verse (1895). Uathach: daughter of Queen Scáthach and mistress of Cuchulain. Alba: Scotland.
11: Dubhthach Doéltenga (“Dubhthach the Backbiter”), a Red Branch warrior who deserted Conchubar and joined the forces of Maeve.
First published Deirdre (1907); first performed by the National Theatre Society, Molesworth Hall, Dublin, 24 November 1906. The story of Deirdre is part of the Ulster, or Red Branch, cycle of Irish mythology: Naoise, accompanied by his brothers Ainnle and Ardan, elopes to Scotland with Deirdre, whom Conchubar, king of Ulster, had selected to become his queen; eventually lured back to Ireland, the three brothers are killed by Conchubar’s forces.
Mrs. Patrick Campbell: English actress (1865–1940), first played Deirdre in a revival at the Abbey Theatre, 9–14 November 1908; she also performed it in London and elsewhere in England in 1908–09. Robert Gregory: (1881–1918), the son of the Irish writer Lady Gregory (1852–1932), designed the set for the 1908 Dublin production.
6: Conchubar’s palace at Armagh, in Ulster. 13: Lavarcam. 34 s.d.: Fergus mac Roigh (“son of Roy”), previous king of Ulster, was tricked by his wife, Ness, into giving up the throne in favor of Conchubar, her son by another man. 119: Lugaid Redstripe is a warrior in the Fenian cycle, 121: Edain was the second wife of Midhir, a king of the Sidhe; his jealous first wife transformed her into a fly; eventually she is reunited with Midhir. 154: rouge. 161: possibly Sorcha, the Gaelic other world. 175: commenting on some lines about the death of the Earl of Leicester (1532?–88) by the English poet Edmund Spenser (1552?–99) included in Poems of Spenser (1906), Yeats noted that “at the end of a long beautiful passage he laments that unworthy men should be in the dead Earl’s place, and compares them to the fox—an unclean feeder—hiding in the lair ‘the badger swept.’” 269–70: “Istian” and “Fanes” are unidentified. 409: the “Dark-faced Messenger.” 414: the reaping hooks of the local farmers. 418: a wicker snare for birds. 612: Leòdhas is the Gaelic name for the Isle of Lewis, off Scotland.
First published Harper’s Bazaar, March 1917; first performed in Lady Cunard’s drawing room in London, 2 April 1916.
A Young Man: Cuchulain, the central hero of the Ulster, or Red Branch, cycle of Irish mythology. Dulac: Edmund Dulac (1882–1953), French-born English artist and illustrator.
66: the Sidhe are the fairies, understood as the descendants of the immortal gods of Ireland, the Tuatha Dé Danann, Woman of the Sidhe: identified in Yeats’s play The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919) as Fand (“Pearl of Beauty”), wife of Manannán mac Lir, god of the sea. 239 s.d.: while training in arms in Scotland with Queen Scáthach, Cuchulain becomes involved in a war between her and her sister, Aoife; he defeats Aoife and leaves her pregnant with Connlaí, whom he will later unknowingly kill.
First published The Words upon the Window Pane: A Play in One Act, with Notes Upon the Play and Its Subject (1934); first performed 17 November 1930 by the National Theatre Society at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Part of the play concerns the relationship between the Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) and Esther Johnson (1687–1728), “Stella,” whom he had tutored in the late 1690s and to whom he wrote the letters (1710–13) in the Journal to Stella; and Esther Vanhomrigh (1690–1723), “Vanessa,” whom he met in December 1707 and who fell in love with him.
The play was written at Coole Park, the estate in County Galway of the Irish writer Lady Gregory (1852–1932).
Dr. Trench: perhaps an allusion to Wilbraham F. Trench (1873–1939), Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin. Corbets of Ballymoney: Yeats had Corbet relatives such as his great-uncle, Robert Corbet (?–1872); Bally money is a town in County Antrim. Cambridge: Cambridge University, in England. Myers: Frederic William Henry Myers (1843–1901), English psychical researcher, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (1903). Conan Doyle: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), English physician and writer, creator of Sherlock Holmes; either A New Revelation (1918) or History of Spiritualism (1926). Lord Dunraven: Wyndham Thomas Wyndham-Quin (1841–1926), Irish steeplechaser and yachtsman. David Home: Daniel Dunglas Home (1833–86), Scottish spiritualist and medium. Mrs. Piper: Leonora E. Piper (1859–1950), American medium, Blake: William Blake (1757–1827), English poet and engraver; in his Reminiscences (1852), the English journalsit Henry Crabb Robinson (1775–1867) recalls Blake saying “I have never known a very bad man who had not something very good about him.” Swedenborg: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), Swedish scientist and philosopher. Harold’s Cross: a suburb of Dublin, a site of greyhound racing. Grattan: Henry Grattan (1746–1820), Irish political leader. Curran: John Philpot Curran (1750–1817), Irish lawyer and nationalist, a poem: “Stella to Dr. Swift on his birth-day November 30, 1721.” Donne: John Donne (1572–1631), English poet. Crashaw: Richard Crashaw (1613?–49), English poet. Bolingbroke. . . Ormonde: Henry St. John Boling-broke (1678–1751), English statesman; Robert Harley (1661–1724), English statesman; James Butler, duke of Ormonde (1665–1746), Irish statesman and soldier. Brutus and Cato: Marcus Junius Brutus (85–42 B.C.) and probably Cato the Younger, Marcus Porcius Cato (95–46 B.C.) Roman senators. Rousseau: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–98), French philosopher and writer. French Revolution: 1789–99, overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and established the First Republic. Gulliver: Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Saeva indignatio: “savage indignation.” Latin: “Ubi saeva Indignatio Ulterius Cor lacerare nequi.” Belfast: principal city in Northern Ireland. Moody: Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–99), American evangelist. Sankey: Ira David Sankey (1840–1908), American evangelist. Folkestone: a town in southeastern England. Odyssey: epic poem by the Greek poet Homer (ca. eighth century B.C.). Purgatory: a state after death in which souls are purified from venial sins or undergo the punishment necessary for salvation, requiescat in pace: “Rest in Peace.” Job ... quotation: “Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up” (Job 4:15). a hymn: by John Keble (1792–1866), English poet and clergyman. Lord Treasurer: Robert Harley. Plutarch: Greek biographer and essayist (46?–120). questioned her: Stella, began to teach me: 1708. five years ago: Vanessa moved to Ireland in autumn 1714. Arbuthnot: John Arbuthnot (1667–1735), English physician. Dryden: John Dryden (1631–1700), English writer; “great wits are sure to madness / Near allied,” Absalom and Achitophel (1681). Chrysostom: St. John Chrysostom (“Golden-mouthed”) (349–407), passage untraced. pound note . . . ten shillings: a pound was twenty shillings, all the explanations: as Yeats explained in his introduction to the play, these included a “physical defect,” syphilis, and “dread of madness”; he concluded that “there is no satisfactory solution.” Perish ... born: “Let the day perish wherein I was born” (Job 3:3).
First published The Adelphi, June 1927; first produced by the National Theatre Society, Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 30 July 1934.
Junzo Sato: a Japanese admirer who had presented Yeats with a ceremonial sword in March 1920.
In Christian tradition, the tomb of Christ is discovered empty on the third day after his crucifixion. He thereafter appears to several, of his disciples.
Peacock Theatre: a smaller section of the Abbey Theatre, used for experimental plays.
I saw ... a play: 1–8: this stanza recounts the death and, implicitly, the resurrection of Dionysus, god of wine and fertility in Greek mythology. Of the various accounts of his birth, Yeats draws on the one in which Dionysus is born of the god Zeus and a mortal woman. The jealousy of Hera, the wife of Zeus, leads to Dionysus being torn to pieces and devoured by the Titans; his heart is saved by Athena, the goddess of wisdom (the “staring virgin”), who carries it to Zeus. Zeus swallows the heart, leading to the rebirth of Dionysus by the mortal Semele. The nine Muses are the patrons of the arts in Greek mythology. Magnus Annus (“Great Year”), a Platonic Year, usually understood as 36,000 years, the time needed for the constellations to return to their original positions. Yeats noted that the astronomer Ptolemy (100?–170?) argued that a new Platonic Year commenced around the time of Christ.
Another Troy . . . called: 9–16: this stanza recounts the birth of Christ through reference to the Fourth Eclogue (40 B.C.) of the Roman poet Virgil (70–19 B.C.). At the end of the Golden Age, Astrea, daughter of Zeus and Themis and goddess of justice, withdraws from the earth and is transformed into the constellation Virgo. In a passage which Yeats quotes in A Vision (1925), Virgil prophesies the return of Astrea and the start of a new Golden Age. Beginning with the Council of Nicea (325), the Fourth Eclogue was interpreted as foretelling the birth of Christ, Astrea being equated with the Virgin Mary, and the star Spica (Alpha Virginis), the most prominent star in the constellation Virgo, with the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the Magi to the birthplace of Christ. Yeats also notes in A Vision that “the vernal equinox at the birth of Christ” falls between the signs Pisces and Aries in the zodiac and that the “sun’s transition from Pisces to Aries had for generations been associated with the ceremonial death and resurrection of Dionysus.” Thus the stanza implicitly parallels Virgin Mary/Christ not only with Virgo/Spica but also with Athena/Dionysus. In the Fourth Eclogue Virgil also prophesies another Trojan War and another journey by Jason and the Argonauts on the ship Argo in search of the Golden Fleece.
16: in Select Passages Illustrating Neo-Platonism (1923), E. R. Dodds notes that the Greek sophist Eunapius (ca. 347–ca. 420) quotes Antoninus (d. ca. 390) as describing the advance of Christianity as “a fabulous and formless darkness mastering the loveliness of the world.”
Rabbi: Hebrew “my master,” honorary title of the Jewish masters of the Law. Alexandria: the capital of ancient Egypt, which came under Roman rule in 30 B.C. the Eleven: the Twelve Apostles, the first disciples of Christ, except Judas, who betrayed him to the Jewish authorities, last time: The Last Supper, the final gathering of Christ and the Apostles, traditionally thought to have occurred on Holy Thursday, the day before the crucifixion, he denied it: Peter denied Christ three times. Messiah: “The Anointed One,” the deliverer of mankind. Calvary: a hill outside Jerusalem, the site of the crucifixion. goddess came to Achilles: the goddess is Athena; Achilles is one of the greatest Greek warriors of the Trojan War. The incident is told by the Greek poet Homer (ca. eighth century B.C.) in the Iliad. Lucretius: (98–55 B.C.), Roman poet, On the Nature of Things. Galilean women: Galilee, the region in Israel associated with the life of Christ; the Virgin Mary, mother of Christ, and Mary the mother of James. a man all shining: “And all at once there was a violent earthquake, for the angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled away the stone and sat on it. His face was like lightning, his robe as white as snow.... ‘I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said he would’” (Matthew 28:3–6). Heraclitus: Greek philosopher (540?–475 B.C.); Fragment 67: “Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the other’s death and dying the other’s life.”.
4–5: Yeats associates the rise of astrology in Babylon, an ancient city in Mesopotamia, with the development of exact science and a corresponding reduction in man’s status in relation to the universe. 7–8: the classical world epitomized by the Greek philosopher Plato (ca. 428–ca. 347 B.C.) and the Doric style of architecture, the oldest style of Greek architecture (seventh century B.C.).
First published posthumously in Last Poems and Two Plays (1939); first produced 10 August 1938 by the National Theatre Society, Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
In Catholic tradition, purgatory is a temporal state on the way to salvation in which souls after death either are purified from venial sins or undergo the temporal punishment that, after the guilt of mortal sin has been remitted, still remains to be endured by the sinner. In Book III of A Vision (1937), “The Soul in Judgment,” Yeats describes at length the progress of the soul from death to rebirth. In one of the stages, called the Dreaming Back, the soul “is compelled to live over and over again the events that had most moved it; there can be nothing new, but the old events stand forth in a light which is dim or bright according to the intensity of the passion that accompanied them.” In an interview in the Irish Independent (13 August 1938), Yeats explained that “My plot is my meaning. I think the dead suffer remorse and re-create their lives just as I have described.... In my play, a spirit suffers because of its share in the destruction of an honoured house; that destruction is taking place all over Ireland today. Sometimes it is the result of poverty, but more often because a new individualistic generation has lost interest in the ancient sanctities.”
1: a divided door, so that the top can be left open for light and air. 49: in County Kildare, the center of Irish horse racing and breeding. 63: on 12 July 1690, William III (1650–1702), the Protestant king of England (1689–1702), defeated the forces of James II (1633–1701), the former Catholic king of England (1685–88), in a battle fought on the banks of the Boyne River. William’s forces were victorious again the following year at the Battle of Aughrim, a village in County Galway, leading to the Treaty of Limerick (1691). 93: held annually 9–11 August at Killorglin, County Kerry. 153: Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (160?–220?), Christian theologian, argued in De Anima that pleasure and remorse exist in the soul after death. 182: “Eden Bower” (1870), by the English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82): “Yea, where the bride-sleep fell upon Adam (Alas the hour!).”
First published posthumously in Last Poems and Two Plays (1939); first produced 2 December 1945 by the Lyric Theatre Company, Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
Cuchulain is the central hero in the Ulster, or Red Branch, cycle of Irish mythology. While training as a youth with Queen Scáthach in Scotland, Cuchulain becomes involved in a war between her and her sister, Aoife; he defeats Aoife and leaves her pregnant with Connlaí, whom he unknowingly kills in the action depicted in On Baile’s Strand (1903). Eithne Inguba is a mistress of Cuchulain, sent to him by his wife, Emer, to distract him from entering a battle with Maeve, queen of Connacht, in which legend says he will be killed; Yeats’s play The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919) depicts the relationship among Cuchulain, Emer, and Eithne Inguba. The Mórrígú (Mórrígán) is the Irish goddess of war, who often takes the shape of a raven or crow; having attempted to seduce Cuchulain, she fights him and is wounded, thus becoming his mortal enemy.
series of plays: On Baile’s Strand (1903); The Green Helmet (1908); At the Hawk’s Well (1917); The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919). Talma: François-Joseph Talma (1763–1826), French actor. Virgil: Roman poet (70–19 B.C.). Homer: Greek poet (ca. eighth century B.C.). Milton: John Milton (1608–74), English writer, Comus, first performed 29 September 1634 at Ludlow Castle. sciolist: a superficial pretender to knowledge. Degas: Hilaire-Germaine-Edgar Degas (1834–1917), French artist; the ballet was one of his favorite subjects. Ramses the Great: Ramses II, Pharaoh of Egypt (1279–1212 B.C.).
5: the seat of the kings of Ulster, near Navan in County Armagh. 6: in County Louth. 21: Conall Cearnach, “Conall of the Victories,” foster brother to Cuchulain as well as a blood cousin. 86: as the source of opium, poppies are connected with dreams or forgetfulness. 112: one of Cuchulain’s two great horses; mortally wounded by Erc, king of Leinster, it was able to kill eighty warriors before its death. 132: the king of Ulster who in On Baile’s Strand forbids the nascent friendship between Cuchulain and the unknown young warrior. 188: Maeve was known for having a succession of lovers. 198: the sons of Usna are Naoise, Ardan, and Ainnle, figures in the Deirdre legend. 214: the General Post Office on O’Connell Street in Dublin, the headquarters of the 1916 Easter Rebellion. 215: Padraic Henry Pearse (1879–1916), Irish poet and nationalist, and James Connolly (1870–1916), Irish trade union leader and nationalist, two of the leaders of the Easter Rebellion. 224–25: The Death of Cuchulain (ca. 1911–12), by the Irish sculptor Oliver Sheppard (1865–1941), was placed in the General Post Office as a memorial to the Easter Rebellion.