Il simbolo dello specchio compare anche in The Countess Cathleen, un dramma in versi pubblicato nel 1892 e rappresentato nel 1899. L’opera si ispira ad una storia folcloristica irlandese. In un periodo di carestia, i demoni arrivano in Irlanda inviati da Satana per comprare le anime degli abitanti. La pura Cathleen aiuta in ogni modo gli abitanti e i demoni cercano di ostacolarla. Alla fine la donna sacrifica la sua anima per salvare i poveri. I diavoli inizialmente appaiono come uccelli nel bosco, con corna e viso umano:
TEIG. Two nights ago, at Carrick-orus churchyard, A herdsman met a man who had no mouth, Nor eyes, nor ears; his face a wall of flesh; He saw him plainly by the light of the moon. […]
TEIG. In the bush beyond,
There are two birds--if you can call them birds-- I could not see them rightly for the leaves. But they've the shape and colour of horned owls And I'm half certain they've a human face.179
Poi iniziano ad interagire con i personaggi ma appaiono come semplici mercanti intenzionati a comprare le anime dei pover’uomini:
You've but to cry aloud at every cross-road, At every house door, that we buy men's souls, And give so good a price that all may live In mirth and comfort till the famine's done, Because we are Christian men.180
Dopo il sacrificio della contessa entra in scena lo specchio: 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.
179 W.B.Yeats, The Countess Cathleen in Works, cit, p.2258. 180 Ibidem, p.2271.
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(A WOMAN brings it to her out of the inner room. OONA holds it over the lips Of CATHLEEN. All is silent for a moment. And then she speaks in a half scream) : O, she is dead! 181
Molto probabilmente lo specchio viene richiesto allo scopo di assicurarsi della morte della contessa perché questo strumento funge da tramite e collegamento con l’anima stessa. Appoggiando lo specchio alla bocca di Cathleen si verifica se la sua anima è stata presa dai demoni. Secondo Bloom, l’opera non è molto interessante di per sé, nonostante le varie revisioni subite: “ Nine or ten revisions did not make The Countess Cathleen an interesting play or dramatic poem.” 182 Ma, continua, Bloom:
there is a remarkable and revelatory moment in the play’s first version worth close regard, for it prophesies Yeats’s highly individual strength as a lyrical dramatis. In scene II the Countess is introduced; she is in her castle, with her forster-mother Oona, who seeks to rouse the Countess from the sadness of brooding on famine by singing the lyric, Who Goes with Fergus? As Yeats made the poem for Maud, so in the play it was made for the Countess by the poet Kevin, who vainly seeks to hold her back from sacrifice. 183
Il sacrificio della contessa preoccupava un po’ Yeats: “[he] was worried about the effects of hatred and fanatism upon his beloved, he did not show it in this play, as no one is less given to such excesses than the shadowy Countess, who unfortunately resembles Chris rather than more than she does Maud Gonne.” 184 Ciò che qui interessa, però, è la funzione simbolica dello specchio, ancora una volta strumento che mette in relazione vita e morte, anima e corpo, mondo degli uomini e mondo demoniaco. Yeats ha anche composto una poesia su questa leggenda, intitolata The Countess Cathleen in Paradise (1892):
All the heavy days are over; Leave the body's coloured pride Underneath the grass and clover, With the feet laid side by side. Bathed in flaming founts of duty She'll not ask a haughty dress; Carry all that mournful beauty To the scented oaken press. Did the kiss of Mother Mary Put that music in her face? Yet she goes with footstep wary, Full of earth's old timid grace. 'Mong the feet of angels seven
181 Ibidem, p.2313.
182 H. Bloom (ed.), op.cit. p.119. 183 Ibidem.
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What a dancer glimmering!
All the heavens bow down to Heaven,
Flame to flame and wing to wing. (TR, pp.63-64)
La poesia è scritta in pentametri giambici e lo schema rimatico è ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH. Anche questa poesia è dedicata a Maud Gonne e si ispira a Cathleen Ni Houlihan, simbolo nazionalistico irlandese. Nel componimento Yeats si sofferma sulla morte della contessa, descritta mentre danza in Paradiso con gli angeli e tutto l’universo. La donna, dopo essersi liberata del proprio corpo, è più leggera e celebra il suo sacrificio in nome dell’universo. Secondo Daniel Albright, la trascendenza della contessa suggerisce un’altra incarnazione della rosa: “the Rose is an over- symbol flexible and commodious enough to embrace Christian as well as pagan symbols. Indeed an angel compares Cathleen to ‘the red rose by the seat of God’”. 185
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