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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Riders to the Sea, by J. M. Synge
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Riders to the Sea
+
+Author: J. M. Synge
+
+Release Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #994]
+Last Updated: November 19, 2019
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIDERS TO THE SEA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judith Boss
+
+cover
+
+
+
+
+Riders to the Sea
+
+A PLAY IN ONE ACT
+
+by J. M. Synge
+
+Contents
+
+ INTRODUCTION
+ RIDERS TO THE SEA
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+It must have been on Synge’s second visit to the Aran Islands that he
+had the experience out of which was wrought what many believe to be his
+greatest play. The scene of “Riders to the Sea” is laid in a cottage on
+Inishmaan, the middle and most interesting island of the Aran group.
+While Synge was on Inishmaan, the story came to him of a man whose body
+had been washed up on the far away coast of Donegal, and who, by reason
+of certain peculiarities of dress, was suspected to be from the island.
+In due course, he was recognised as a native of Inishmaan, in exactly
+the manner described in the play, and perhaps one of the most
+poignantly vivid passages in Synge’s book on “The Aran Islands” relates
+the incident of his burial.
+
+The other element in the story which Synge introduces into the play is
+equally true. Many tales of “second sight” are to be heard among Celtic
+races. In fact, they are so common as to arouse little or no wonder in
+the minds of the people. It is just such a tale, which there seems no
+valid reason for doubting, that Synge heard, and that gave the title,
+“Riders to the Sea”, to his play.
+
+It is the dramatist’s high distinction that he has simply taken the
+materials which lay ready to his hand, and by the power of sympathy
+woven them, with little modification, into a tragedy which, for
+dramatic irony and noble pity, has no equal among its contemporaries.
+Great tragedy, it is frequently claimed with some show of justice, has
+perforce departed with the advance of modern life and its complicated
+tangle of interests and creature comforts. A highly developed
+civilisation, with its attendant specialisation of culture, tends ever
+to lose sight of those elemental forces, those primal emotions, naked
+to wind and sky, which are the stuff from which great drama is wrought
+by the artist, but which, as it would seem, are rapidly departing from
+us. It is only in the far places, where solitary communion may be had
+with the elements, that this dynamic life is still to be found
+continuously, and it is accordingly thither that the dramatist, who
+would deal with spiritual life disengaged from the environment of an
+intellectual maze, must go for that experience which will beget in him
+inspiration for his art. The Aran Islands from which Synge gained his
+inspiration are rapidly losing that sense of isolation and
+self-dependence, which has hitherto been their rare distinction, and
+which furnished the motivation for Synge’s masterpiece. Whether or not
+Synge finds a successor, it is none the less true that in English
+dramatic literature “Riders to the Sea” has an historic value which it
+would be difficult to over-estimate in its accomplishment and its
+possibilities. A writer in The Manchester Guardian shortly after
+Synge’s death phrased it rightly when he wrote that it is “the tragic
+masterpiece of our language in our time; wherever it has been played in
+Europe from Galway to Prague, it has made the word tragedy mean
+something more profoundly stirring and cleansing to the spirit than it
+did.”
+
+The secret of the play’s power is its capacity for standing afar off,
+and mingling, if we may say so, sympathy with relentlessness. There is
+a wonderful beauty of speech in the words of every character, wherein
+the latent power of suggestion is almost unlimited. “In the big world
+the old people do be leaving things after them for their sons and
+children, but in this place it is the young men do be leaving things
+behind for them that do be old.” In the quavering rhythm of these
+words, there is poignantly present that quality of strangeness and
+remoteness in beauty which, as we are coming to realise, is the
+touchstone of Celtic literary art. However, the very asceticism of the
+play has begotten a corresponding power which lifts Synge’s work far
+out of the current of the Irish literary revival, and sets it high in a
+timeless atmosphere of universal action.
+
+Its characters live and die. It is their virtue in life to be lonely,
+and none but the lonely man in tragedy may be great. He dies, and then
+it is the virtue in life of the women mothers and wives and sisters to
+be great in their loneliness, great as Maurya, the stricken mother, is
+great in her final word.
+
+“Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the
+Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards,
+and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man at all
+can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.” The pity and the
+terror of it all have brought a great peace, the peace that passeth
+understanding, and it is because the play holds this timeless peace
+after the storm which has bowed down every character, that “Riders to
+the Sea” may rightly take its place as the greatest modern tragedy in
+the English tongue.
+
+EDWARD J. O’BRIEN.
+
+February 23, 1911.
+
+
+
+
+RIDERS TO THE SEA
+
+ A PLAY IN ONE ACT
+
+
+First performed at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, February 25th, 1904.
+
+PERSONS
+
+MAURYA (_an old woman_)......  Honor Lavelle BARTLEY (_her
+son_)..........  W. G. Fay CATHLEEN (_her daughter_)....  Sarah Allgood
+NORA (_a younger daughter_)..  Emma Vernon MEN AND WOMEN
+
+SCENE.
+
+An Island off the West of Ireland.
+    (Cottage kitchen, with nets, oil-skins, spinning wheel, some new
+    boards standing by the wall, etc. Cathleen, a girl of about twenty,
+    finishes kneading cake, and puts it down in the pot-oven by the
+    fire; then wipes her hands, and begins to spin at the wheel. Nora,
+    a young girl, puts her head in at the door.)
+
+
+NORA.
+_In a low voice._—Where is she?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+She’s lying down, God help her, and may be sleeping, if she’s able.
+
+[_Nora comes in softly, and takes a bundle from under her shawl._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Spinning the wheel rapidly._—What is it you have?
+
+NORA.
+The young priest is after bringing them. It’s a shirt and a plain
+stocking were got off a drowned man in Donegal.
+
+[_Cathleen stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out to
+listen._]
+
+NORA.
+We’re to find out if it’s Michael’s they are, some time herself will be
+down looking by the sea.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+How would they be Michael’s, Nora. How would he go the length of that
+way to the far north?
+
+NORA.
+The young priest says he’s known the like of it. “If it’s Michael’s
+they are,” says he, “you can tell herself he’s got a clean burial by
+the grace of God, and if they’re not his, let no one say a word about
+them, for she’ll be getting her death,” says he, “with crying and
+lamenting.”
+
+[_The door which Nora half closed is blown open by a gust of wind._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Looking out anxiously._—Did you ask him would he stop Bartley going
+this day with the horses to the Galway fair?
+
+NORA.
+“I won’t stop him,” says he, “but let you not be afraid. Herself does
+be saying prayers half through the night, and the Almighty God won’t
+leave her destitute,” says he, “with no son living.”
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Is the sea bad by the white rocks, Nora?
+
+NORA.
+Middling bad, God help us. There’s a great roaring in the west, and
+it’s worse it’ll be getting when the tide’s turned to the wind.
+
+[_She goes over to the table with the bundle._]
+
+Shall I open it now?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Maybe she’d wake up on us, and come in before we’d done.
+
+[_Coming to the table._]
+
+It’s a long time we’ll be, and the two of us crying.
+
+NORA.
+_Goes to the inner door and listens._—She’s moving about on the bed.
+She’ll be coming in a minute.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Give me the ladder, and I’ll put them up in the turf-loft, the way she
+won’t know of them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she’ll be
+going down to see would he be floating from the east.
+
+[_They put the ladder against the gable of the chimney; Cathleen goes
+up a few steps and hides the bundle in the turf-loft. Maurya comes from
+the inner room._]
+
+MAURYA.
+_Looking up at Cathleen and speaking querulously._—Isn’t it turf enough
+you have for this day and evening?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+There’s a cake baking at the fire for a short space. [_Throwing down
+the turf_] and Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes to
+Connemara.
+
+[_Nora picks up the turf and puts it round the pot-oven._]
+
+MAURYA.
+_Sitting down on a stool at the fire._—He won’t go this day with the
+wind rising from the south and west. He won’t go this day, for the
+young priest will stop him surely.
+
+NORA.
+He’ll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety
+and Colum Shawn saying he would go.
+
+MAURYA.
+Where is he itself?
+
+NORA.
+He went down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week,
+and I’m thinking it won’t be long till he’s here now, for the tide’s
+turning at the green head, and the hooker’ tacking from the east.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+I hear some one passing the big stones.
+
+NORA.
+_Looking out._—He’s coming now, and he’s in a hurry.
+
+BARTLEY.
+_Comes in and looks round the room. Speaking sadly and quietly._—Where
+is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Coming down._—Give it to him, Nora; it’s on a nail by the white
+boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was
+eating it.
+
+NORA.
+_Giving him a rope._—Is that it, Bartley?
+
+MAURYA.
+You’d do right to leave that rope, Bartley, hanging by the boards
+[_Bartley takes the rope_]. It will be wanting in this place, I’m
+telling you, if Michael is washed up to-morrow morning, or the next
+morning, or any morning in the week, for it’s a deep grave we’ll make
+him by the grace of God.
+
+BARTLEY.
+_Beginning to work with the rope._—I’ve no halter the way I can ride
+down on the mare, and I must go now quickly. This is the one boat going
+for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will be a good fair for horses
+I heard them saying below.
+
+MAURYA.
+It’s a hard thing they’ll be saying below if the body is washed up and
+there’s no man in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price
+for the finest white boards you’d find in Connemara.
+
+[_She looks round at the boards._]
+
+BARTLEY.
+How would it be washed up, and we after looking each day for nine days,
+and a strong wind blowing a while back from the west and south?
+
+MAURYA.
+If it wasn’t found itself, that wind is raising the sea, and there was
+a star up against the moon, and it rising in the night. If it was a
+hundred horses, or a thousand horses you had itself, what is the price
+of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?
+
+BARTLEY.
+_Working at the halter, to Cathleen._—Let you go down each day, and see
+the sheep aren’t jumping in on the rye, and if the jobber comes you can
+sell the pig with the black feet if there is a good price going.
+
+MAURYA.
+How would the like of her get a good price for a pig?
+
+BARTLEY.
+_To Cathleen._—If the west wind holds with the last bit of the moon let
+you and Nora get up weed enough for another cock for the kelp. It’s
+hard set we’ll be from this day with no one in it but one man to work.
+
+MAURYA.
+It’s hard set we’ll be surely the day you’re drownd’d with the rest.
+What way will I live and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking
+for the grave?
+
+[_Bartley lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a
+newer one of the same flannel._]
+
+BARTLEY.
+_To Nora._—Is she coming to the pier?
+
+NORA.
+_Looking out._—She’s passing the green head and letting fall her sails.
+
+BARTLEY.
+_Getting his purse and tobacco._—I’ll have half an hour to go down, and
+you’ll see me coming again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in
+four days if the wind is bad.
+
+MAURYA.
+_Turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her head._—Isn’t
+it a hard and cruel man won’t hear a word from an old woman, and she
+holding him from the sea?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+It’s the life of a young man to be going on the sea, and who would
+listen to an old woman with one thing and she saying it over?
+
+BARTLEY.
+_Taking the halter._—I must go now quickly. I’ll ride down on the red
+mare, and the gray pony’ll run behind me. . . The blessing of God on
+you.
+
+[_He goes out._]
+
+MAURYA.
+_Crying out as he is in the door._—He’s gone now, God spare us, and
+we’ll not see him again. He’s gone now, and when the black night is
+falling I’ll have no son left me in the world.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Why wouldn’t you give him your blessing and he looking round in the
+door? Isn’t it sorrow enough is on every one in this house without your
+sending him out with an unlucky word behind him, and a hard word in his
+ear?
+
+[_Maurya takes up the tongs and begins raking the fire aimlessly
+without looking round._]
+
+NORA.
+_Turning towards her._—You’re taking away the turf from the cake.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Crying out._—The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we’re after forgetting
+his bit of bread.
+
+[_She comes over to the fire._]
+
+NORA.
+And it’s destroyed he’ll be going till dark night, and he after eating
+nothing since the sun went up.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Turning the cake out of the oven._—It’s destroyed he’ll be, surely.
+There’s no sense left on any person in a house where an old woman will
+be talking for ever.
+
+[_Maurya sways herself on her stool._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth; to
+Maurya._—Let you go down now to the spring well and give him this and
+he passing. You’ll see him then and the dark word will be broken, and
+you can say “God speed you,” the way he’ll be easy in his mind.
+
+MAURYA.
+_Taking the bread._—Will I be in it as soon as himself?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+If you go now quickly.
+
+MAURYA.
+_Standing up unsteadily._—It’s hard set I am to walk.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Looking at her anxiously._—Give her the stick, Nora, or maybe she’ll
+slip on the big stones.
+
+NORA.
+What stick?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+The stick Michael brought from Connemara.
+
+MAURYA.
+_Taking a stick Nora gives her._—In the big world the old people do be
+leaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this
+place it is the young men do be leaving things behind for them that do
+be old.
+
+[_She goes out slowly. Nora goes over to the ladder._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Wait, Nora, maybe she’d turn back quickly. She’s that sorry, God help
+her, you wouldn’t know the thing she’d do.
+
+NORA.
+Is she gone round by the bush?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Looking out._—She’s gone now. Throw it down quickly, for the Lord
+knows when she’ll be out of it again.
+
+NORA.
+_Getting the bundle from the loft._—The young priest said he’d be
+passing to-morrow, and we might go down and speak to him below if it’s
+Michael’s they are surely.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Taking the bundle._—Did he say what way they were found?
+
+NORA.
+_Coming down._—“There were two men,” says he, “and they rowing round
+with poteen before the cocks crowed, and the oar of one of them caught
+the body, and they passing the black cliffs of the north.”
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Trying to open the bundle._—Give me a knife, Nora, the string’s
+perished with the salt water, and there’s a black knot on it you
+wouldn’t loosen in a week.
+
+NORA.
+_Giving her a knife._—I’ve heard tell it was a long way to Donegal.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Cutting the string._—It is surely. There was a man in here a while
+ago—the man sold us that knife—and he said if you set off walking from
+the rocks beyond, it would be seven days you’d be in Donegal.
+
+NORA.
+And what time would a man take, and he floating?
+
+[_Cathleen opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They
+look at them eagerly._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_In a low voice._—The Lord spare us, Nora! isn’t it a queer hard thing
+to say if it’s his they are surely?
+
+NORA.
+I’ll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel on
+the other [_she looks through some clothes hanging in the corner._]
+It’s not with them, Cathleen, and where will it be?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+I’m thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt
+was heavy with the salt in it [_pointing to the corner_]. There’s a bit
+of a sleeve was of the same stuff. Give me that and it will do.
+
+[_Nora brings it to her and they compare the flannel._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+It’s the same stuff, Nora; but if it is itself aren’t there great rolls
+of it in the shops of Galway, and isn’t it many another man may have a
+shirt of it as well as Michael himself?
+
+NORA.
+_Who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, crying
+out._—It’s Michael, Cathleen, it’s Michael; God spare his soul, and
+what will herself say when she hears this story, and Bartley on the
+sea?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Taking the stocking._—It’s a plain stocking.
+
+NORA.
+It’s the second one of the third pair I knitted, and I put up three
+score stitches, and I dropped four of them.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Counts the stitches._—It’s that number is in it [_crying out._] Ah,
+Nora, isn’t it a bitter thing to think of him floating that way to the
+far north, and no one to keen him but the black hags that do be flying
+on the sea?
+
+NORA.
+_Swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on the clothes._—And
+isn’t it a pitiful thing when there is nothing left of a man who was a
+great rower and fisher, but a bit of an old shirt and a plain stocking?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_After an instant._—Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little
+sound on the path.
+
+NORA.
+_Looking out._—She is, Cathleen. She’s coming up to the door.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Put these things away before she’ll come in. Maybe it’s easier she’ll
+be after giving her blessing to Bartley, and we won’t let on we’ve
+heard anything the time he’s on the sea.
+
+NORA.
+_Helping Cathleen to close the bundle._—We’ll put them here in the
+corner.
+
+[_They put them into a hole in the chimney corner. Cathleen goes back
+to the spinning-wheel._]
+
+NORA.
+Will she see it was crying I was?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Keep your back to the door the way the light’ll not be on you.
+
+[_Nora sits down at the chimney corner, with her back to the door.
+Maurya comes in very slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes
+over to her stool at the other side of the fire. The cloth with the
+bread is still in her hand. The girls look at each other, and Nora
+points to the bundle of bread._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_After spinning for a moment._—You didn’t give him his bit of bread?
+
+[_Maurya begins to keen softly, without turning round._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Did you see him riding down?
+
+[_Maurya goes on keening._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_A little impatiently._—God forgive you; isn’t it a better thing to
+raise your voice and tell what you seen, than to be making lamentation
+for a thing that’s done? Did you see Bartley, I’m saying to you?
+
+MAURYA.
+_With a weak voice._—My heart’s broken from this day.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_As before._—Did you see Bartley?
+
+MAURYA.
+I seen the fearfulest thing.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Leaves her wheel and looks out._—God forgive you; he’s riding the mare
+now over the green head, and the gray pony behind him.
+
+MAURYA.
+_Starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows her white
+tossed hair. With a frightened voice._—The gray pony behind him.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Coming to the fire._—What is it ails you, at all?
+
+MAURYA.
+_Speaking very slowly._—I’ve seen the fearfulest thing any person has
+seen, since the day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child in his
+arms.
+
+CATHLEEN AND NORA.
+Uah.
+
+[_They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire._]
+
+NORA.
+Tell us what it is you seen.
+
+MAURYA.
+I went down to the spring well, and I stood there saying a prayer to
+myself. Then Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the
+gray pony behind him [_she puts up her hands, as if to hide something
+from her eyes._] The Son of God spare us, Nora!
+
+CATHLEEN.
+What is it you seen.
+
+MAURYA.
+I seen Michael himself.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Speaking softly._—You did not, mother; it wasn’t Michael you seen, for
+his body is after being found in the far north, and he’s got a clean
+burial by the grace of God.
+
+MAURYA.
+_A little defiantly._—I’m after seeing him this day, and he riding and
+galloping. Bartley came first on the red mare; and I tried to say “God
+speed you,” but something choked the words in my throat. He went by
+quickly; and “the blessing of God on you,” says he, and I could say
+nothing. I looked up then, and I crying, at the gray pony, and there
+was Michael upon it—with fine clothes on him, and new shoes on his
+feet.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Begins to keen._—It’s destroyed we are from this day. It’s destroyed,
+surely.
+
+NORA.
+Didn’t the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn’t leave her
+destitute with no son living?
+
+MAURYA.
+_In a low voice, but clearly._—It’s little the like of him knows of the
+sea. . . . Bartley will be lost now, and let you call in Eamon and make
+me a good coffin out of the white boards, for I won’t live after them.
+I’ve had a husband, and a husband’s father, and six sons in this
+house—six fine men, though it was a hard birth I had with every one of
+them and they coming to the world—and some of them were found and some
+of them were not found, but they’re gone now the lot of them. . . There
+were Stephen, and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after
+in the Bay of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of
+them on the one plank, and in by that door.
+
+[_She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something
+through the door that is half open behind them._]
+
+NORA.
+_In a whisper._—Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in
+the north-east?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_In a whisper._—There’s some one after crying out by the seashore.
+
+MAURYA.
+_Continues without hearing anything._—There was Sheamus and his father,
+and his own father again, were lost in a dark night, and not a stick or
+sign was seen of them when the sun went up. There was Patch after was
+drowned out of a curagh that turned over. I was sitting here with
+Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women,
+and three women, and four women coming in, and they crossing
+themselves, and not saying a word. I looked out then, and there were
+men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half of a red
+sail, and water dripping out of it—it was a dry day, Nora—and leaving a
+track to the door.
+
+[_She pauses again with her hand stretched out towards the door. It
+opens softly and old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the
+threshold, and kneeling down in front of the stage with red petticoats
+over their heads._]
+
+MAURYA.
+_Half in a dream, to Cathleen._—Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is it
+at all?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is found
+there how could he be here in this place?
+
+MAURYA.
+There does be a power of young men floating round in the sea, and what
+way would they know if it was Michael they had, or another man like
+him, for when a man is nine days in the sea, and the wind blowing, it’s
+hard set his own mother would be to say what man was it.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+It’s Michael, God spare him, for they’re after sending us a bit of his
+clothes from the far north.
+
+[_She reaches out and hands Maurya the clothes that belonged to
+Michael. Maurya stands up slowly, and takes them into her hands. Nora
+looks out._]
+
+NORA.
+They’re carrying a thing among them and there’s water dripping out of
+it and leaving a track by the big stones.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_In a whisper to the women who have come in._—Is it Bartley it is?
+
+ONE OF THE WOMEN.
+It is surely, God rest his soul.
+
+[_Two younger women come in and pull out the table. Then men carry in
+the body of Bartley, laid on a plank, with a bit of a sail over it, and
+lay it on the table._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_To the women, as they are doing so._—What way was he drowned?
+
+ONE OF THE WOMEN.
+The gray pony knocked him into the sea, and he was washed out where
+there is a great surf on the white rocks.
+
+[_Maurya has gone over and knelt down at the head of the table. The
+women are keening softly and swaying themselves with a slow movement.
+Cathleen and Nora kneel at the other end of the table. The men kneel
+near the door._]
+
+MAURYA.
+_Raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people around
+her._—They’re all gone now, and there isn’t anything more the sea can
+do to me.... I’ll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the
+wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east,
+and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises,
+and they hitting one on the other. I’ll have no call now to be going
+down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I
+won’t care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening.
+[_To Nora_]. Give me the Holy Water, Nora, there’s a small sup still on
+the dresser.
+
+[_Nora gives it to her._]
+
+MAURYA.
+_Drops Michael’s clothes across Bartley’s feet, and sprinkles the Holy
+Water over him._—It isn’t that I haven’t prayed for you, Bartley, to
+the Almighty God. It isn’t that I haven’t said prayers in the dark
+night till you wouldn’t know what I’ld be saying; but it’s a great rest
+I’ll have now, and it’s time surely. It’s a great rest I’ll have now,
+and great sleeping in the long nights after Samhain, if it’s only a bit
+of wet flour we do have to eat, and maybe a fish that would be
+stinking.
+
+[_She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under her
+breath._]
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_To an old man._—Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the
+sun rises. We have fine white boards herself bought, God help her,
+thinking Michael would be found, and I have a new cake you can eat
+while you’ll be working.
+
+THE OLD MAN.
+_Looking at the boards._—Are there nails with them?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+There are not, Colum; we didn’t think of the nails.
+
+ANOTHER MAN.
+It’s a great wonder she wouldn’t think of the nails, and all the
+coffins she’s seen made already.
+
+CATHLEEN.
+It’s getting old she is, and broken.
+
+[_Maurya stands up again very slowly and spreads out the pieces of
+Michael’s clothes beside the body, sprinkling them with the last of the
+Holy Water_.]
+
+NORA.
+_In a whisper to Cathleen._—She’s quiet now and easy; but the day
+Michael was drowned you could hear her crying out from this to the
+spring well. It’s fonder she was of Michael, and would any one have
+thought that?
+
+CATHLEEN.
+_Slowly and clearly._—An old woman will be soon tired with anything she
+will do, and isn’t it nine days herself is after crying and keening,
+and making great sorrow in the house?
+
+MAURYA.
+_Puts the empty cup mouth downwards on the table, and lays her hands
+together on Bartley’s feet._—They’re all together this time, and the
+end is come. May the Almighty God have mercy on Bartley’s soul, and on
+Michael’s soul, and on the souls of Sheamus and Patch, and Stephen and
+Shawn [_bending her head_]; and may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and
+on the soul of every one is left living in the world.
+
+[_She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women,
+then sinks away._]
+
+MAURYA.
+_Continuing._—Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace
+of the Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white
+boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No
+man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.
+
+[_She kneels down again and the curtain falls slowly._]
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Riders to the Sea, by J. M. Synge
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