He has chosen death:Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom, An old and foolish custom, that if a man Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve Upon another's threshold till he die, The Common People, for all time to come, Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold, Even though it be the King's.from The King's Threshold The King's Threshold was first performed in 1903 and published in 1904. The Cornell Yeats edition of this play about a bard's hunger strike includes the preliminary notes and first prose drafts dictated by Yeats to his patron and collaborator, Lady Gregory, in March and April 1903. As well as providing an outline of the play, these preliminary notes identify contemporary persons upon whom some of the characters were based. Other features of this edition of The King's Threshold include Yeats's first verse drafts, heavily revised and corrected typescripts, and notes for the changes made in 19041906. A major revision added a tragic ending to the version published in 1922, and this ending has remained in place ever since. Declan Kiely gives accounts of several productions and revivals of the play and explores the relationship between theatrical production and textual revision.
Author Bio:Declan Kiely is an independent scholar and doctoral candidate at The Institute of English Studies, University of London.
