The Cutting of an Agate

The Cutting of an Agate is by William Butler Yeats, author of Ideas of Good and Evil, etc. The preface mentions the company of Irish players who have now their stage at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and says that for some ten years now the writer has written little verse and no prose that did not arise out of some need of those players or some thought suggested by their work. The text says Cuchulain fights man after man during the quest of the Brown Bull, and that not one of those fights is like another.

The text describes the dreamy Fergus, who betrays the sons of Usnach for a feast without ceasing to be noble, and Conal, who is fierce and friendly and trustworthy. The text says that a new class, which had begun to rise into power under the shadow of Parnell, would change the nature of the Irish movement, and that this could not be foreseen. The text names Smart in his mad cell and Keats, who sang of a beauty so wholly preoccupied with itself.