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    On Baile's Strand
    On Baile's Strand
    On Baile's Strand
    Ebook34 pages28 minutes

    On Baile's Strand

    By W B Yeats

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    About this ebook

    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an instrumental figure in the "Irish Literary Revival" of the 20th Century that redefined Irish writing. It can be difficult to characterize Yeats. He was a complicated man whose work reflected the internal struggle he felt between art and life. In 1899 Yeats helped found the Irish National Theatre Society, which later became the famous Abbey Theatre of Dublin. "On Baile's Strand" was first performed here in 1904, as part of one of the inaugural productions. The short play is the earliest of five that Yeats wrote about the legendary Irish hero Cuchulain, a tale that dates from the ninth or tenth century. Cuchulain is being threatened by the Scottish warrior queen Aoife, who has sent her son to kill the hero. Cuchulain has sworn allegiance to King Conchubar, who orders the soldier to fight the Scottish foe. This short but deeply moving drama ends tragically, making it one of the saddest works in Irish literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2011
    ISBN9781420942255
    On Baile's Strand
    Author

    W B Yeats

    William Butler Yeats was born in 1865 in County Dublin. With his much-loved early poems such as 'The Stolen Child', and 'He Remembers Forgotten Beauty', he defined the Celtic Twilight mood of the late-Victorian period and led the Irish Literary Renaissance. Yet his style evolved constantly, and he is acknowledged as a major figure in literary modernism and twentieth-century European letters. T. S. Eliot described him as 'one of those few whose history is the history of their own time, who are part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them'. W. B. Yeats died in 1939.

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      Book preview

      On Baile's Strand - W B Yeats

      ON BAILE'S STRAND

      1904

      BY W. B. YEATS

      A Digireads.com Book

      Digireads.com Publishing

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4160-9

      Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4225-5

      This edition copyright © 2011

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      To

      William Fay

      because of the beautiful fantasy of his

      playing in the character of the Fool

      CONTENTS

      PERSONS IN THE PLAY

      ON BAILE'S STRAND

      PERSONS IN THE PLAY

      A Fool  Conchubar, High King of Ulad

      A Blind Man A Young Man, son of Cuchulain

      Cuchulain, King of Muirthemne  Kings and Singing Women

      ON BAILE'S STRAND

      A great hall at Dundealgan, not 'Cuchulain's great ancient house' but an assembly house nearer to the sea. A big door at the back, and through the door misty light as of sea-mist. There are many chairs and one long bench. One of these chairs, which is towards the front of the stage, is bigger than the others. Somewhere at the back there is a table with flagons of ale upon it and drinking-horns. There is a small door at one side of the hall. A Fool and Blind Man, both ragged, and their features made grotesque and extravagant by masks, come in through the door at the back. The Blind Man leans upon a staff.

      FOOL. What a clever man you are though you are blind! There's nobody with two eyes in his head that is as clever as you are. Who but you could have thought that the henwife sleeps every day a little at noon? I would never be able to steal anything if you didn't tell me where to look for it. And what a good cook you are! You take the fowl out of my hands after I have stolen it and plucked it, and you put it into the big pot at the fire there, and I can go out and run races with the witches at the edge of the waves and get an appetite, and when I've got it, there's the hen waiting inside for me, done to the turn.

      BLIND MAN [who is feeling about with his stick]. Done to the turn.

      FOOL [putting his arm round Blind Man's neck]. Come now, I'll have a leg and you'll have a leg, and we'll draw lots for the wish-bone. I'll be praising you, I'll be praising you while we're eating it, for your good

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