{"id":9792,"date":"2010-01-13T14:33:55","date_gmt":"2010-01-13T19:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9792"},"modified":"2015-06-22T08:45:17","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T12:45:17","slug":"strike-me-if-i-shriek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9792","title":{"rendered":"Maud Gonne: \u201cStrike Me If I Shriek.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0393034453&#038;asins=0393034453&#038;linkId=FJCYKLUDWLI6P4OA&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nA letter from Maud Gonne to WB Yeats, in December 1908.  Yeats had come to visit Gonne where she was living in Paris.  After years and years of friendship (not to mention what they called their &#8220;spiritual marriage&#8221;), it is believed that the two finally consummated their long unrequited affair on this particular visit.  Yeats had not yet married at this point, but the later Mrs. Yeats (a formidable woman in her own right) believes as well that this was an important visit for the two old friends, and that something sexual had finally occurred. Gonne had already had two children out of wedlock with a French revolutionary (one child died when he was only one years old), and then had married (disastrously) to another revolutionary, an Irish one this time, James MacBride.  The marriage didn&#8217;t even last a year, although a child did come out of it (Sean &#8211; or Seghan, as it was spelled).  Seghan ended up joining the IRA as a young man in the wake of the Easter Rising and living a life on the run.  No surprise.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless:  Through the tempest of Gonne&#8217;s personal life (and she always found the personal life to be annoying &#8211; it needed to come second to her life as an activist and politician), Yeats had remained loyal, although he did have a couple of affairs (mainly to let off the sexual tension he felt by loving the distant Gonne for so long).  They are quite open about all of this in their letters to one another.  Gonne cautioned him against marriage (she wasn&#8217;t really &#8220;for&#8221; it in general), but she also cautioned him to not keep too large a space for her in his heart.  She seemed to realize the sadness she caused him, and yet their bond was too strong to walk away from it altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever happened in December 1908, no one will ever really know, but here is the letter Gonne wrote to Yeats after he left.  Having read all of her correspondence, (to him and to others) this letter stands out in tone and raw emotion.  She often spent six hours a day on her voluminous correspondence, so her letters are quick, dashed off, to the point, and sometimes full of non sequitirs, like most letters between intimates.  She lived primarily in France yet remained active in Ireland on all kinds of committees (committees she herself had formed) &#8211; so her correspondence was massive, and she employed no secretary.<\/p>\n<p>Gonne usually addressed Yeats as &#8220;My dear Willie&#8221;, and sometimes (echoing Abigail Adams) &#8220;My dearest friend&#8221;.  But here, in this letter, she starts with &#8220;Dearest&#8221;, a greeting that cuts me to the core for various reasons, so familiar is it, so unbelievably missed.<\/p>\n<p>This letter hurts me to read.  I think she has a point.  I am grateful (in many ways) that she did <em>not <\/em>return his love &#8211; because the very unfulfilled nature of his love for her helped create some of his best work.  She is everywhere in his poetry. Would that high-flung transcendent love have survived in the everyday domestic world?  Or would it have been ruined?  Was it not distance itself that created such a burning need?  I can never know, and it is not for me to know &#8230; but her influence on him is paramount. The references to her cannot be counted.  Yeats married quite late &#8211; I believe he was almost 50.  He had a horror of growing old (he even proposed to Gonne&#8217;s daughter Iseult &#8211; when she was 18, 19 years old! &#8211; Incredible!) &#8211; and was also quite sad at being along so late in life, when he should have been having grandkids already.<\/p>\n<p>But it took him that long to crush down the longing for another, and to accept the situation.  He was &#8220;old and gray and full of sleep&#8221; by that time.  That struggle took a lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>She also was quite open with him about the fact that she had a &#8220;horror of physical love&#8221; (meaning: sex) &#8211; and only believed it was necessary for procreation.  She knew that he needed &#8220;physical love&#8221;, and so wanted him, desperately, to &#8220;let her go&#8221;, to torment himself no longer for a woman who could never satisfy him.  She was not a prude in any way (obviously).  But sex was horrifying to her.  She could not bear it, and didn&#8217;t want it in her life at all.  She knew that this would be a problem for Yeats, although perhaps he insisted that it all would be all right once they got started with it.  Or perhaps he said it didn&#8217;t matter to HIM either, and she was wise enough to disbelieve him.  Sadly, only her letters remain (or most of them), because of a police raid that destroyed her apartment and most of her papers.  Only a couple of his letters to her still exist.  So we just have her side.  But make no mistake: this is a true <i>dialogue<\/i>.  One that spans decades of life.  Until Yeats passed away in 1939.<\/p>\n<p>They were dear dear friends.  These letters are amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Back to the letter.  It is December 1908.  Yeats has just left Paris.  It is quite likely they finally slept together during this particular visit.  When she speaks of &#8220;going to him&#8221;, she is referring to going to him in her mind.  They communicated, long-distance, through shared visions and dreams, and made &#8220;dates&#8221; to meet up on the astral plane and then compare notes on what they both saw.  Much of their letters has to do with this sort of new-age communication (this was what they meant when they said &#8220;spiritual marriage&#8221;).  They experimented with it for years.<\/p>\n<p>Maud wrote to him:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n13 Rue de Passy<br \/>\nParis<br \/>\nFriday [December 1908]<\/p>\n<p>Dearest<\/p>\n<p>It was hard leaving you yesterday but I knew it would be just as hard today if I had waited.  Life is so good when we are together &#038; we are together so little &#8211; !<\/p>\n<p>Did you know it I went to you last night? about 12 or 2 o&#8217;clock I don&#8217;t exactly know the time.  I think you knew.  It was as it was when you made me see with the golden light on Wednesday.  I shall go to you again often but not quite in that way, I shall try to make strong &#038; well for your work for dear one you must work or I shall begin tormenting myself thinking perhaps I help to make you idle &#038; then I would soon feel we ought not to meet at all, &#038; that would be O so dreary! &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>You asked me yesterday if I am not a little sad that things are as they are between us &#8211; I am sorry &#038; I am glad.  It is hard being away from each other so much there are moments when I am dreadfully lonely &#038; long to be with you, &#8211; one of these moments is on me now &#8211; but beloved I am glad &#038; proud beyond measure of your love, &#038; that it is strong enough &#038; high enough to accept the spiritual love &#038; union I offer &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>I have prayed so hard to have all earthly desire taken from my love for you &#038; dearest, loving you as I do, I have prayed &#038; I am praying still that the bodily desire for me may be taken from you too.  I know how hard &#038; rare a thing it is for a man to hold spiritual love when the bodily desire is gone &#038; I have not made these prayers without a terrible struggle a struggle that shook my life though I do not speak much of it &#038; generally manage to laugh.<\/p>\n<p>That struggle is over &#038; I have found peace.  I think today I could let you marry another without losing it &#8211; for I know the spiritual union between us will outlive this life, even if we never see each other in this world again.<\/p>\n<p>Write to me soon.<br \/>\nYours<\/p>\n<p>Maud<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yeats, when he was in his 60s, nearing the end, wrote the following poem.  Many scholars believe it makes reference to this visit in Paris in 1908, especially the evocative raw line &#8220;Strike me if I shriek&#8221;.  Whatever it means, it is fierce and intimate.<\/p>\n<p><b>A Man Young and Old<\/b><br \/>\nby William Butler Yeats<\/p>\n<p>I<br \/>\nFirst Love<\/p>\n<p>THOUGH nurtured like the sailing moon<br \/>\nIn beauty&#8217;s murderous brood,<br \/>\nShe walked awhile and blushed awhile<br \/>\nAnd on my pathway stood<br \/>\nUntil I thought her body bore<br \/>\nA heart of flesh and blood.<br \/>\nBut since I laid a hand thereon<br \/>\nAnd found a heart of stone<br \/>\nI have attempted many things<br \/>\nAnd not a thing is done,<br \/>\nFor every hand is lunatic<br \/>\nThat travels on the moon.<br \/>\nShe smiled and that transfigured me<br \/>\nAnd left me but a lout,<br \/>\nMaundering here, and maundering there,<br \/>\nEmptier of thought<br \/>\nThan the heavenly circuit of its stars<br \/>\nWhen the moon sails out.<\/p>\n<p>II<br \/>\nHuman Dignity<br \/>\nLike the moon her kindness is,<br \/>\nIf kindness I may call<br \/>\nWhat has no comprehension in&#8217;t,<br \/>\nBut is the same for all<br \/>\nAs though my sorrow were a scene<br \/>\nUpon a painted wall.<br \/>\nSo like a bit of stone I lie<br \/>\nUnder a broken tree.<br \/>\nI could recover if I shrieked<br \/>\nMy heart&#8217;s agony<br \/>\nTo passing bird, but I am dumb<br \/>\nFrom human dignity.<\/p>\n<p>III<br \/>\nThe Mermaid<br \/>\nA mermaid found a swimming lad,<br \/>\nPicked him for her own,<br \/>\nPressed her body to his body,<br \/>\nLaughed; and plunging down<br \/>\nForgot in cruel happiness<br \/>\nThat even lovers drown.<\/p>\n<p>IV<br \/>\nThe Death of the Hare<br \/>\nI have pointed out the yelling pack,<br \/>\nThe hare leap to the wood,<br \/>\nAnd when I pass a compliment<br \/>\nRejoice as lover should<br \/>\nAt the drooping of an eye,<br \/>\nAt the mantling of the blood.<br \/>\nThen&#8217; suddenly my heart is wrung<br \/>\nBy her distracted air<br \/>\nAnd I remember wildness lost<br \/>\nAnd after, swept from there,<br \/>\nAm set down standing in the wood<br \/>\nAt the death of the hare.<\/p>\n<p>V<br \/>\nThe Empty Cup<br \/>\nA crazy man that found a cup,<br \/>\nWhen all but dead of thirst,<br \/>\nHardly dared to wet his mouth<br \/>\nImagining, moon-accursed,<br \/>\nThat another mouthful<br \/>\nAnd his beating heart would burst.<br \/>\nOctober last I found it too<br \/>\nBut found it dry as bone,<br \/>\nAnd for that reason am I crazed<br \/>\nAnd my sleep is gone.<\/p>\n<p>VI<br \/>\nHis Memories<br \/>\nWe should be hidden from their eyes,<br \/>\nBeing but holy shows<br \/>\nAnd bodies broken like a thorn<br \/>\nWhereon the bleak north blows,<br \/>\nTo think of buried Hector<br \/>\nAnd that none living knows.<br \/>\nThe women take so little stock<br \/>\nIn what I do or say<br \/>\nThey&#8217;d sooner leave their cosseting<br \/>\nTo hear a jackass bray;<br \/>\nMy arms are like the twisted thorn<br \/>\nAnd yet there beauty lay;<br \/>\nThe first of all the tribe lay there<br \/>\nAnd did such pleasure take &#8212;<br \/>\nShe who had brought great Hector down<br \/>\nAnd put all Troy to wreck &#8212;<br \/>\nThat she cried into this ear,<br \/>\n&#8216;Strike me if I shriek.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>VII<br \/>\nThe Friends of his Youth<br \/>\nLaughter not time destroyed my voice<br \/>\nAnd put that crack in it,<br \/>\nAnd when the moon&#8217;s pot-bellied<br \/>\nI get a laughing fit,<br \/>\nFor that old Madge comes down the lane,<br \/>\nA stone upon her breast,<br \/>\nAnd a cloak wrapped about the stone,<br \/>\nAnd she can get no rest<br \/>\nWith singing hush and hush-a-bye;<br \/>\nShe that has been wild<br \/>\nAnd barren as a breaking wave<br \/>\nThinks that the stone&#8217;s a child.<br \/>\nAnd Peter that had great affairs<br \/>\nAnd was a pushing man<br \/>\nShrieks, &#8216;I am King of the Peacocks,&#8217;<br \/>\nAnd perches on a stone;<br \/>\nAnd then I laugh till tears run down<br \/>\nAnd the heart thumps at my side,<br \/>\nRemembering that her shriek was love<br \/>\nAnd that he shrieks from pride.<\/p>\n<p>VIII<br \/>\nSummer and Spring<br \/>\nWe sat under an old thorn-tree<br \/>\nAnd talked away the night,<br \/>\nTold all that had been said or done<br \/>\nSince first we saw the light,<br \/>\nAnd when we talked of growing up<br \/>\nKnew that we&#8217;d halved a soul<br \/>\nAnd fell the one in t&#8217;other&#8217;s arms<br \/>\nThat we might make it whole;<br \/>\nThen peter had a murdering look,<br \/>\nFor it seemed that he and she<br \/>\nHad spoken of their childish days<br \/>\nUnder that very tree.<br \/>\nO what a bursting out there was,<br \/>\nAnd what a blossoming,<br \/>\nWhen we had all the summer-time<br \/>\nAnd she had all the spring!<\/p>\n<p>IX<br \/>\nThe Secrets of the Old<br \/>\nI have old women&#8217;s sectets now<br \/>\nThat had those of the young;<br \/>\nMadge tells me what I dared not think<br \/>\nWhen my blood was strong,<br \/>\nAnd what had drowned a lover once<br \/>\nSounds like an old song.<br \/>\nThough Margery is stricken dumb<br \/>\nIf thrown in Madge&#8217;s way,<br \/>\nWe three make up a solitude;<br \/>\nFor none alive to-day<br \/>\nCan know the stories that we know<br \/>\nOr say the things we say:<br \/>\nHow such a man pleased women most<br \/>\nOf all that are gone,<br \/>\nHow such a pair loved many years<br \/>\nAnd such a pair but one,<br \/>\nStories of the bed of straw<br \/>\nOr the bed of down.<\/p>\n<p>X<br \/>\nHis Wildness<br \/>\nO bid me mount and sail up there<br \/>\nAmid the cloudy wrack,<br \/>\nFor peg and Meg and Paris&#8217; love<br \/>\nThat had so straight a back,<br \/>\nAre gone away, and some that stay<br \/>\nHave changed their silk for sack.<br \/>\nWere I but there and none to hear<br \/>\nI&#8217;d have a peacock cry,<br \/>\nFor that is natural to a man<br \/>\nThat lives in memory,<br \/>\nBeing all alone I&#8217;d nurse a stone<br \/>\nAnd sing it lullaby.<\/p>\n<p>XI<br \/>\nFrom &#8216;Oedipus at Colonus&#8217;<br \/>\nEndure what life God gives and ask no longer span;<br \/>\nCease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;<br \/>\nDelight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.<br \/>\nEven from that delight memory treasures so,<br \/>\nDeath, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow,<br \/>\nAs that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children know.<br \/>\nIn the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng,<br \/>\nThe bride is catried to the bridegroom&#8217;s chamber<br \/>\nthrough torchlight and tumultuous song;<br \/>\nI celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.<br \/>\nNever to have lived is best, ancient writers say;<br \/>\nNever to have drawn the breath of life, never to have<br \/>\nlooked into the eye of day;<br \/>\nThe second best&#8217;s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0393034453&#038;asins=0393034453&#038;linkId=FJCYKLUDWLI6P4OA&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A letter from Maud Gonne to WB Yeats, in December 1908. Yeats had come to visit Gonne where she was living in Paris. After years and years of friendship (not to mention what they called their &#8220;spiritual marriage&#8221;), it is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9792\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[35,223,224],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9792"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104218,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9792\/revisions\/104218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}