In reading Yeats’s works rooted in the ancient Irish tradition it will be helpful to understand celtic myth. Among extraordinary women from the ancient celtic tradition I studied three Irish women in W. B. Yeats's works: Queen Maeve in The Old Age in Queen Maeve, Deirdre in Deirdre, and Emer in The Only Jealousy of Emer. Moyra Caldecott’s Women in Celtic Myth provides much knowledge about Irish women characters. For the Irish stories the writer consulted Jeffrey Gantz’s Early Irish Myths and Sagas, Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne and Gods and Fighting Men, and T. W. Roleston’s Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race. Maeve is the most written about among the Irish heroines: she is beautiful, forceful, strong, proud, devious, clever, lusty, and bloodthirsty. Daughter of Eochaid, the High King, she married a relatively minor king, Ailell, son of Ross Ruadh, king of Leinster. Their castle was on the plain of Magh Ai in the province of Connacht. Although Ailell was no weakling, he was, without a doubt, secondary to Maeve in many ways. She had property of her own: cattle, treasure and land that couldn’t match what he had. In fact the whole bloodbath of war to steal the Brown Bull of Cuailnge was brought about because there was one possession Ailell had that outshone her own: Ailell had a better bull. Maeve is the Queen most quoted as showing the privileged position of celtic women in the Iron Age. They were equal in every respect to men, and in some cases they were superior. They owned property; they could, as kings did, “divide gifts” and “give counsel”; they could ride chariots, fight battles, and dispose of lives. And with all this power and freedom went the recognition that women’s sexual needs were as legitimate as men’s. In The Old Age of Queen Maeve Yeats rehandling a given myth depends upon a combined knowledge of the myth that he learned and Yeats’s personal vision, sometimes even his personal affairs. Yeats’s love Maud Gonne is compared to Queen Maeve. A god of love, youth and poetry, Aengus who is crossed in love reminds us of the poet himself. In celtic myth there is a story of the love between Deirdre and Naoise: love with a lot of risks and sacrifices. This love is contrasted with the possessive and destructive lust of Conchubar. Then there is a theme of honor and dishonor. And finally there is beauty. Much is made of the extraordinary beauty of Deirdre, and it is a male reaction to her beauty that brings about “the sorrows.” In Deirdre Yeats selected certain elements which seem to be characteristic of the tale and dramatic in themselves, and introduced three wandering musicians, who are not in the myth. Deirdre was the Irish Helen, and Naisi her Paris, and Concobar her Menelaus. Yeats’s thematic structure provides the clearest link between the Irish myth and heroic romance. He wrote it in praise of the heroic woman, of “wild will”, and of passionate love and the powerful and joyous shattering of common codes and lives. Emer is the admirable wife of a great hero Cuchulain. She is beautiful, healthy, strong, intelligent, and vigorous. Her love for Cuchulain is the best of human love. In The Only Jealousy of Emer Yeats elevates Emer to the same tragic stature as Deirdre, the heroine of his Deirdre. Told by Bricriu that she must renounce her love for Cuchulain as the price for his return to life, Emer decides at the last moment to accept this bitter choice and return Cuchulain, ironically, to the arms of his mistress. These celtic women’s beauty may be representative not only of physical beauty but also the high aspirations of the soul. They are not virgins but mothers or wives. The heroic women show us that love makes humans mature. In these Plays Yeats turned to romantic dreaming, the tradition of nobility in the ancient celtic myths.

• 서혜숙(건국대) | Hye Sook Suh