Michael Field has made a noble rendering of this old Irish story which, its subject dating from the first century, suggests a cause no less remote than that for the ancient feud between Ulster and the rest of Ireland. The story is well known: the birth of Deirdre and the prophecies of doom to Ulster through her; the defiance of the doom by Conchobar the king, and the fostering of Deirdre to be his wife; the carrying off of Deirdre on the eve of her wedding by Naisi and their flight to Alba; the invitation to Naisi and his brothers to return under Conchobar’s promise of forgiveness; and the treacherous assassination of them upon their arrival. There are many variants of the legend; and our poet has chosen the oldest of them all, that preserved in the Book of Leinster, for the chief events of her drama. She was compelled to alter the story at one point, for it would hardly have been convenient to represent the Sons of Usnach slain, all three at one stroke, by the magic sword. But in varying the manner of their death she was enabled to adopt another form of the legend, in which Naisi and his two brothers were overcome by a Druid’s enchantment, and, believing themselves to be drowning, dropped their weapons and were immediately overpowered by Conchobar’s men. There was, however, a difficulty here too; for whereas three heads lopped off at one blow was a little too dynamic even for the purposes of drama, an unseen spell of wizardry was altogether too static; and the poet therefore contrived a scene in which Naisi’s comrades are actually drowned, and he, left alone to protect Deirdre, is slain by Eogan.
Another modification, with less warrant from the documents, perhaps, but of even greater interest, is that which introduces into this primitive world the first gleam of Christianity. The fact might suggest that the Deirdre play was written after the poets’ conversion, did one not know that they were at work on the theme some time before. But it is extremely probable that the passage in which the wise woman Lebarcham tries to turn Conchobar from brooding on vengeance by the tale of a new god who refused to avenge himself on his enemies was inserted after the first draft of the play was made. It is written in prose, and, placed at the beginning of Act III, hardly affects the subsequent action. From that point of view it might be considered superfluous; but Michael, though not Henry, was capable of so much over-zeal. She was, however, also capable of justifying her act artistically. The interpolation is at least not an anachronism. It is possible, there in Ireland, that even so early had penetrated “the story of how a god met his death ... young, radiant ... bearing summer in his hands.” But it might have been a menace to the unity of the drama: it might have destroyed the satisfying wholeness which, in whatever form one finds it, the pagan story possesses. Michael Field avoided that calamity. She threw her glimmer of Christian light across the scene in such a way that it reveals more strongly by contrast the dark elements of which the story is composed. By it one instinctively measures the barbarity of the age out of which the story came, and realizes its antiquity. The poet does not allow it to influence action, for that would weaken the tragedy; but she uses the occasion to humanize and make credible that which, in the Conchobar of the records, seems almost monstrous. In those ancient tales Conchobar plans his vengeance on Naisi and his brothers with a coldness that is diabolic and a precision almost mechanical. He provides for his own safety, too, with comical caution, carefully sounding one after another of his knights until he finds one who does not immediately threaten to kill him for suggesting such a dastardly deed as the murder of the Sons of Usnach. Yet, as our poet has re-created Conchobar, he is a human soul driven this way and that in a running fight with passion; pitiable in his hopeless love for Deirdre, comprehensible in his wrath against Naisi, sinister and terrifying in his revenge. And underneath the overt drama lies a profounder irony; for while he is plotting in his heart the enormous treachery, Lebarcham tells of the young god who was betrayed by his friends, and he says:
Hush, woman, for my heart is broken. Would I had been there, I who can deal division between hosts. I would have set the Bound One free. If I could avenge him!
The play is written in five acts and a prologue; but is not divided into scenes. Its form is for the most part blank verse—;the iambic pentameter of Michael Field which is so often neither iambic nor a pentameter. Her verse is, indeed, a very variable line, changing its unit as frequently as will consist with a regular form; and as flexible, sinewy, and nervous as will consist with dignity, grace, and splendid colour. Prose passages occur in Acts III and V; and a form of lyrical rhapsody is used to express the Druid prophecies and Deirdre’s lament. The use of lyrics in her drama was not new to Michael Field, who from the beginning could always relieve the strain of intense emotion by a graceful song. But in this case she is following, with her accustomed fidelity, lines laid down in older renderings of the legend.
The most notable feature of this play is its ending. No author of the more important modern versions of this theme has dared to take his conclusion from the oldest one of all. Usually he has preferred the variant which tells of Deirdre, broken-hearted at Naisi’s murder, falling dead into his grave. This is, of course, in some respects a more ‘poetic’ passing: it lends itself to romantic treatment, and its tragedy is more immediate and final. Moreover, from the dramaturgic point of view the action is easier to handle and more certain of its effect. Michael Field was not, however, attracted by mere facility. Truth drew her with a stronger lure, and to her the more ancient story would make a claim deeper than loyalty. For she would see Deirdre’s survival not only as a more probable thing, but as something more profoundly tragic; and the manner of her death, when it came, as more clearly of a piece with the old saga and essentially of Deirdre’s wilful and resolute character.
Deirdre is no Helen, though her legend has features so similar. The mere outline of her which the old story gives indicates a creature who will compel destiny rather than suffer it; and our poet has but completed, imaginatively, what the original suggests—;a girl whose instinct of chastity drives her away from marriage without love; whose ardour and courage claim her proper mate; whose fidelity keeps her unalterably true; and whose head is at least as sound as her heart is tender. For although she is a rather tearful creature, she is also very astute; and Naisi need not have died quite so young if he had only listened to her warning and condescended to take her advice. Deirdre is, in short, of her race and of her time as surely as Lucrezia Borgia is a daughter of Pope Alexander VI and a child of the Italian Renaissance. Michael Field’s range in the creation of women characters is very wide, and the verisimilitude with which she presents natures so alien from herself as the courtesan and the voluptuary might be astonishing if one thought of her simply as a Victorian lady, and not as a great creative artist. Nevertheless, in the re-creation of Deirdre one feels that she must have taken an especial joy, as witness the opening passage of Act I, where Lebarcham and Medv the nurse are discussing their fosterling. It is the morning of her sixteenth birthday, and King Conchobar is coming to the little secluded house where Deirdre has been brought up to claim her as his bride:
Medv. But look at her!
Lebarcham. Ay, Medv, it is not for our eyes to look.
The beauty!
Medv. She is dreaming.
Lebarcham. She sees true;
Therefore she is no poet. Gentle Medv,
My sister with the mother-eyes that rest
But when they rest on her, she is not ours,
Nor fate’s, nor any man’s; for she will choose,
Close prisoner as she is, her destiny,
Choose for herself the havoc she will make,
The tears that she will draw from other eyes,
The tears that will burn through her, the delights
That she will ravish from the world. She knows
So definitely all she wants: such souls
Attain. She is not dreaming; look at her!