ABSTRACT
At the close of the play the heroine, Deirdre, has just made her final exit, on her way to commit suicide by the body of her murdered lover Naoise. She leaves on stage king Conchubar, who executed Naoise in jealousy, and hopes now to marry Deirdre: he believes that she is going simply to say farewell to her dead lover. After the two musicians sing their dirge, the truth of the matter comes to light with the entrance of king Fergus and his men who, along with Conchubar, discover Deirdre's body; and with this, the play ends. The dirge appeared next in the first publication of Deirdre in Aug. 1907, and was then included by WBY as the third in a series of ‘The Musicians’ Songs from Deirdre’ in PSS; it was not again printed by WBY as a poem, although the lines remained in their place in all subsequent printings of the play.
