''Mosada'' is a short verse play in three scenes written by

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

and published in

1886 Events January–March * January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885. * January 5– 9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella ''Strange ...

.Yeats (2003). The only characters are Mosada, a " moorish girl," her friend the hunchback child Cola, a Christian

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

and a few nameless inquisitors. The play is set in a fictional kingdom. In the first scene, Mosada laments her separation from her Christian lover Gomez. Using magic she attempts to conjure up a vision of him, but is interrupted when inquisitors arrive to arrest her. In the second scene, the inquisitors deliberate over her fate with the old monk, who is not told the identity of the girl. They decide she must be executed. In the third and final scene, Mosada, alone and in prison, commits suicide by sucking a drop of poison from her ring. The monk arrives to announce her fate and is shocked to discover his prisoner is Mosada: he reveals that he himself is her lover Gomez. In its original publication, the play was followed by a lyric that was later renamed "

The Song of the Happy Shepherd "The Song of the Happy Shepherd" is a poem by William Butler Yeats. It was first published under this title in his first book, ''The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems'', but in fact the same poem had appeared twice before: as an epilogue to Yeat ...

References

Sources

* Yeats, William Butler. 2003. ''Mosada''. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing. .
''Mosada''
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. {{W. B. Yeats 1886 plays Plays by W. B. Yeats