



Produced by Marjorie Fulton








THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN

By W. B. Yeats


1912


             First Edition............................  1892
             Second Edition (in "Poems" by W. B. Yeats) 1895
             Third Edition          ,,      ,,        1899
             Fourth Edition         ,,      ,,        1901
             Fifth Edition          ,,      ,,        1904
             Sixth Edition          ,,      ,,        1908
             Seventh Edition (revised)................  1912

             (All rights reserved.)


             To MAUD GONNE





             "The sorrowful are dumb for thee"
             Lament of Morion Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke



             SHEMUS RUA, A Peasant
             MARY, His Wife
             TEIG, His Son
             ALEEL, A Poet
             THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
             OONA, Her Foster Mother
             Two Demons disguised as Merchants
             Peasants, Servants, Angelical Beings, Spirits


             The Scene is laid in Ireland and in old times.




SCENE 1


SCENE--A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air,
through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these
trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered
sky.  The walls are of one colour. The scene should have the
effect of missal Painting. MARY, a woman of forty years or so,
is grinding a quern.

MARY. What can have made the grey hen flutter so?

(TEIG, a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays