reater, or that a bad ear cannot
make it nothing."

Mr. Yeats has written broad comedy like Synge's _Shadow of the
Glen_ and Lady Gregory's _Irish Comedies_; his _Pot of Broth_ is
a most clever retelling of an old, comical tale. But it is by his
mystical and poetical plays that he would be judged as playwright
and poet--particularly _Deirdre_, which should be compared with
Synge's _Deirdre of the Sorrows_; _The Unicorn of the Stars_,
written in collaboration with Lady Gregory; _Cathleen Ni
Hoolihan_, a dramatization of the spirit of Ireland; _The King's
Threshold_, a high glorification of the poet's art, with a fable,
based on an ancient Celtic rite, of the hunger strike; and _The
Land of Heart's Desire_, most beautifully perfect of all.

_Gordon Bottomley_: THE RIDING TO LITHEND

"_The Riding to Lithend_ is an Icelandic play taken out of the
noblest of the Sagas," wrote Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie in his
review of the published drama in 1909. "[It] is a fight, one of
the greatest fights in legend.... The subject is stirring, and
Mr. Bottomley takes it into a very high region of poetry, giving
it a purport beyond that of the original teller of the tale....
[The play] is not a representation of life; it is a symbol of
life. In it life is entirely fermented into rhythm, by which we
mean not only rhythm of words, but rhythm of outline also; the
beauty and impressiveness of the play do not depend only on the
subject, the diction, and the metre, but on the fact that it has
distinct and most evident form, in the musician's sense of the
word. It is one of those plays that reach the artist's ideal
condition of music, in fact."

This is high praise; but who, after studying the play, will doubt
that it is deserved? The powerfully moving events of the story
indeed lead up to the climax in a forthright and exciting manner.
The terror of the house-women and the thrall, the fearful love of
Gunnar's mother Rannveig, and the caution of Kolskegg his
brother, who "sailed long ago and far away from us" in obedience
to the doom or sentence of the Thing--all these bring out sharply
the quite reckless daring of Gunnar himself, who braves the
decree. A mysterious and epic touch is added by the three ancient
hags-evidently of these minor Norns who watch over individual
destinies and announce the irrevocable doom of the gods. It was
Hallgerd who broke their thread, representing, of course,
Gunnar's span of life.

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