_The Unicorn from the Stars_ was first played at the Abbey Theatre on November 23rd, 1907, with the following cast:—Father John, Ernest Vaughan; Thomas Hearne, a coachbuilder, Arthur Sinclair; Andrew Hearne, brother of Thomas, J. A. O’Rourke; Martin Hearne, nephew of Thomas, F. J. Fay; Johnny Bacach, a beggar, W. G. Fay; Paudeen, J. M. Kerrigan; Biddy Lally, Maire O’Neill; Nanny, Brigit O’Dempsey. W. B. YEATS. _March, 1908._ FOOTNOTE: [B] Mr. Synge has outdone me with his _Play Boy of the Western World_, which towards the end of the week had more than three times the number in the pit alone. Counting the police inside and outside the theatre, there were, according to some evening papers, five hundred.—_March, 1908._ THE MUSIC FOR USE IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THESE PLAYS. All the music that is printed here, with the exception of Mr. Arthur Darley’s, is of that kind which I have described in _Samhain_ and in _Ideas of Good and Evil_. Some of it is old Irish music made when all songs were but heightened speech, and some of it composed by modern musicians is none the less to be associated with words that must never lose the intonation of passionate speech. No vowel must ever be prolonged unnaturally, no word of mine must ever change into a mere musical note, no singer of my words must ever cease to be a man and become an instrument. The degree of approach to ordinary singing depends on the context, for one desires a greater or lesser amount of contrast between the lyrics and the dialogue according to situation and emotion and the qualities of players. The words of Cathleen ni Houlihan about the ‘white-scarfed riders’ must be little more than regulated declamation; the little song of Leagerie when he seizes the ‘Golden Helmet’ should in its opening words be indistinguishable from the dialogue itself. Upon the other hand, Cathleen’s verses by the fire, and those of the pupils in the _Hour-Glass_, and those of the beggars in the _Unicorn_, are sung as the country people understand song. Modern singing would spoil them for dramatic purposes by taking the keenness and the salt out of the words. The songs in _Deirdre_, in Miss Farr’s and in Miss Allgood’s setting, need fine speakers of verse more than good singers; and in these, and still more in the song of the Three Women in _Baile’s Strand_, the singers must remember the natural speed of words. If the lyric in _Baile’s Strand_ is sung slowly it is like church-singing, but if sung quickly and with the right expression it becomes an incantation so old that nobody can quite understand it. That it may give this sense of something half-forgotten, it must be sung with a certain lack of minute feeling for the meaning of the words, which, however, must always remain words. The songs in _Deirdre_, especially the last dirge, which is supposed to be the creation of the moment, must, upon the