Mosada

Mosada is a short verse play in three scenes written by William Butler Yeats and published in 1886.

[1] The only characters are Mosada, a "moorish girl," her friend the hunchback child Cola, a Christian monk and a few nameless inquisitors.

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."