The Three Beggars

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1914from Responsibilities68 lines

“Though to my feathers in the wet,I have stood here from break of day,I have not found a thing to eatFor only rubbish comes my way.Am I to live on lebeen-lone?”Muttered the old crane of Gort.“For all my pains on lebeen-lone.”

King Guari walked amid his courtThe palace-yard and river-sideAnd there to three old beggars said:“You that have wandered far and wideCan ravel out what’s in my head.Do men who least desire get most,Or get the most who most desire?”A beggar said: “They get the mostWhom man or devil cannot tire,And what could make their muscles tautUnless desire had made them so.”But Guari laughed with secret thought,“If that be true as it seems true,One of you three is a rich man,For he shall have a thousand poundsWho is first asleep, if but he canSleep before the third noon sounds.”And thereon merry as a bird,With his old thoughts King Guari wentFrom river-side and palace-yardAnd left them to their argument.“And if I win,” one beggar said,“Though I am old I shall persuadeA pretty girl to share my bed”;The second: “I shall learn a trade”;The third: “I’ll hurry to the courseAmong the other gentlemen,And lay it all upon a horse”;The second: “I have thought again:A farmer has more dignity.”One to another sighed and cried:The exorbitant dreams of beggary,That idleness had borne to pride,Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;And when the second twilight broughtThe frenzy of the beggars’ moonNone closed his blood-shot eyes but soughtTo keep his fellows from their sleep;All shouted till their anger grewAnd they were whirling in a heap.

They mauled and bit the whole night through;They mauled and bit till the day shone;They mauled and bit through all that dayAnd till another night had gone,Or if they made a moment’s stayThey sat upon their heels to rail,And when old Guari came and stoodBefore the three to end this tale,They were commingling lice and blood.“Time’s up,” he cried, and all the threeWith blood-shot eyes upon him stared.“Time’s up,” he cried, and all the threeFell down upon the dust and snored.

“Maybe I shall be lucky yet,Now they are silent,” said the crane.“Though to my feathers in the wetI’ve stood as I were made of stoneAnd seen the rubbish run about,It’s certain there are trout somewhereAnd maybe I shall take a troutIf but I do not seem to care.”

Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.

In brief

Summary

A king's wager drives three beggars mad with desire, while a crane waits.

An old crane at Gort complains that nothing but rubbish comes his way. Then King Guari asks three beggars whether those who least desire get most, or those who most desire. To test it, he offers a thousand pounds to whichever of them falls asleep first. Dreaming of what they will do with the money, the beggars keep each other awake, then fight for two nights and a day until they are "commingling lice and blood". When the king calls time, they collapse and snore. The crane has the last word: he will catch a trout "If but I do not seem to care." The comic fable answers the king's question: wanting too much defeats itself.

Lines to remember

Do men who least desire get most,

They were commingling lice and blood.

If but I do not seem to care.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 7The hungry crane
The poem opens with an old crane standing in the wet since daybreak, grumbling that "only rubbish comes my way". His complaint, "Am I to live on lebeen-lone?", is the first voice of wanting in a poem all about wanting.
Lines 8 to 18The king's question
King Guari asks the beggars to "ravel out" a puzzle: do those who "least desire get most"? One beggar answers that the winners are those whom "man or devil cannot tire", because desire tightens the muscles. It sounds like wisdom, but the story will test it.
Lines 19 to 28The wager
Guari laughs "with secret thought" and sets his trap: a thousand pounds to the first to sleep "before the third noon sounds". Then he walks off "merry as a bird", leaving them to it. The prize is a prize for not wanting anything, and he knows they cannot manage that.
Lines 29 to 37Dreams of winning
Each beggar lays out his plans: a pretty girl, a trade, a bet on a horse. The second changes his mind at once, deciding "A farmer has more dignity." The quick shifts are comic, and every new wish drives sleep further off.
Lines 38 to 47The frenzy grows
"The exorbitant dreams of beggary" sing "through their teeth from noon to noon". By the second night none will close his "blood-shot eyes"; each tries to keep the others awake, until shouting becomes anger and they are "whirling in a heap".
Lines 48 to 56The fight
The triple "They mauled and bit" beats out a fight that lasts a whole night, a day and another night. When Guari returns they are "commingling lice and blood", a grotesque, funny picture of where desire has led them.
Lines 57 to 60Time's up
The king cries "Time's up" twice. The first time they only stare; the second time all three fall "upon the dust and snored". Sleep comes the moment there is nothing left to win.
Lines 61 to 68The crane's lesson
The crane returns, now the poem is quiet. Standing "as I were made of stone", he is sure there are trout somewhere and he will catch one "If but I do not seem to care". The bird has learned what the beggars could not.

Themes

Desire

King Guari's question, "Do men who least desire get most", is the poem's real subject. The beggar's answer, that desire makes muscles "taut", is disproved by the story: their wanting keeps them awake and loses them the money. The crane, who waits "as I were made of stone", shows the opposite way, patience without visible longing.

Folly and dreams

The beggars' plans are funny because they are so ordinary and so changeable: a girl, a trade, a horse, a farm. Yeats calls them "The exorbitant dreams of beggary, / That idleness had borne to pride". Their fantasies are not evil, only foolish, and they turn to violence once each man sees the others as rivals.

Folk tale and fable

The poem is told like an old Irish tale, with a king, a wager, a set term of three noons and an animal who draws the moral. Repetitions ("They mauled and bit", "Time's up") give it the sound of oral storytelling. The crane's frame, opening and closing the poem, turns a comic anecdote into a fable.

Context

"The Three Beggars" was collected in Responsibilities (Cuala Press, 1914). It opens a run of poems in that book about beggars and hermits, followed by "The Three Hermits", "Beggar to Beggar cried", "Running to Paradise" and "The Hour before Dawn". These rough, comic figures give Yeats a new, plainer voice after the dreamy verse of his early books.

Guari is King Guaire of Connacht, a figure from early Irish story remembered for his generosity, whose seat was near Gort in south Galway. Gort is the town close to Lady Gregory's house at Coole, where Yeats spent many summers.

Form

Sixty-eight lines of rough tetrameter in four verse paragraphs, mostly rhyming alternately, with many half-rhymes ("wet" and "eat", "bird" and "yard"). The crane's speeches frame the story, and his opening line returns near the end. The bouncing four-beat line suits a ballad-like tale, and the repeated phrases give it the feel of something told aloud.