The Pot of Broth

By W B Yeats

Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. Yeats felt an internal struggle with the contradictions he saw between his nature and life, and spent much of his life seeking out a philosophical system to resolve this conflict. He came to prominence during a tumultuous period in Irish history, and he struggled with the idea of an independent Irish identity. In 1899 Yeats helped found the Irish National Theatre Society, which later became the famous Abbey Theatre of Dublin. He and Lady Augusta Gregory, another of the theatre's founders, collaborated on a few short plays during those first experimental years at the theatre. One such play, "The Pot of Broth", is a "peasant" farce that tells the story of a gullible peasant woman, convinced by a tramp that dropping a magic stone into hot water will make a wonderful soup.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781420942323

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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THE POT OF BROTH

W. B. YEATS

A Digireads.com Book

Digireads.com Publishing

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4170-8

Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4232-3

This edition copyright © 2011

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CONTENTS

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

THE POT OF BROTH

PERSONS IN THE PLAY

John Coneely, and elderly man

Sibby Coneely, a young or middle-aged woman

A Tramp

THE POT OF BROTH

[A cottage kitchen. Fire on the hearth; table with cabbage, onions, a plate of meal, etc. Half-open door. A Tramp enters, looks about.]

TRAMP. What sort are the people of this house, I wonder? Was it a good place for me to come to look for my dinner, I wonder? What's in that big pot? [Lifts cover.] Nothing at all! What's in the little pot? [Lifts cover.] Nothing at all! What's in that bottle, I wonder? [Takes it up excitedly and tastes.] Milk! milk in a bottle! I wonder they wouldn't afford a tin can to milk the cow into! Not much chance for a poor man to make a living here. What's in that chest? [Kneels and tries to