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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/994-0.txt b/994-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80c83ff --- /dev/null +++ b/994-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1158 @@ + +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIDERS TO THE SEA *** + +***** This file should be named 994-0.txt or 994-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/9/994/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Synge</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; +line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 200%;} +h2 {font-size: 150%;} +h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%; margin-top: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 0%; + margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0em;} + +.p1 {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right;} + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<pre> + +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 + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="fig" style="width:60%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" /><br /><br /> +</div> + +<h1>Riders to the Sea</h1> + +<h2>A PLAY IN ONE ACT</h2> + +<h2>by J. M. Synge</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Contents</h3> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">INTRODUCTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">RIDERS TO THE SEA</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2> + +<p class="p1"> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p1"> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p1"> +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.” +</p> + +<p class="p1"> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p1"> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p1"> +“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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +EDWARD J. O’BRIEN. +</p> + +<p> +February 23, 1911. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>RIDERS TO THE SEA</h2> + +<p class="center"> A PLAY IN ONE ACT +</p> + +<h5>First performed at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, February 25th, 1904.</h5> + +<h3>PERSONS</h3> + +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +MAURYA (<i>an old woman</i>)...... Honor Lavelle +BARTLEY (<i>her son</i>).......... W. G. Fay +CATHLEEN (<i>her daughter</i>).... Sarah Allgood +NORA (<i>a younger daughter</i>).. Emma Vernon +MEN AND WOMEN +</pre> + +<h3>SCENE.</h3> + +<p> +An Island off the West of Ireland.<br/> + (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.)<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>In a low voice.</i>—Where is she? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +She’s lying down, God help her, and may be sleeping, if she’s able. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Nora comes in softly, and takes a bundle from under her shawl.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Spinning the wheel rapidly.</i>—What is it you have? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +The young priest is after bringing them. It’s a shirt and a plain +stocking were got off a drowned man in Donegal. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Cathleen stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out to +listen.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +We’re to find out if it’s Michael’s they are, some time +herself will be down looking by the sea. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +How would they be Michael’s, Nora. How would he go the length of that way +to the far north? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +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.” +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>The door which Nora half closed is blown open by a gust of wind.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Looking out anxiously.</i>—Did you ask him would he stop Bartley going +this day with the horses to the Galway fair? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +Is the sea bad by the white rocks, Nora? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes over to the table with the bundle.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +Shall I open it now? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +Maybe she’d wake up on us, and come in before we’d done. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Coming to the table.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +It’s a long time we’ll be, and the two of us crying. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Goes to the inner door and listens.</i>—She’s moving about on +the bed. She’ll be coming in a minute. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Looking up at Cathleen and speaking querulously.</i>—Isn’t it +turf enough you have for this day and evening? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +There’s a cake baking at the fire for a short space. [<i>Throwing down +the turf</i>] and Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes to +Connemara. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Nora picks up the turf and puts it round the pot-oven.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Sitting down on a stool at the fire.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +He’ll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheety +and Colum Shawn saying he would go. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +Where is he itself? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +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. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +I hear some one passing the big stones. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Looking out.</i>—He’s coming now, and he’s in a hurry. +</p> + +<p> +BARTLEY.<br/> +<i>Comes in and looks round the room. Speaking sadly and +quietly.</i>—Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in +Connemara? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Coming down.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Giving him a rope.</i>—Is that it, Bartley? +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +You’d do right to leave that rope, Bartley, hanging by the boards +[<i>Bartley takes the rope</i>]. 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. +</p> + +<p> +BARTLEY.<br/> +<i>Beginning to work with the rope.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She looks round at the boards.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +BARTLEY.<br/> +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? +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +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? +</p> + +<p> +BARTLEY.<br/> +<i>Working at the halter, to Cathleen.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +How would the like of her get a good price for a pig? +</p> + +<p> +BARTLEY.<br/> +<i>To Cathleen.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +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? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Bartley lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a newer +one of the same flannel.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +BARTLEY.<br/> +<i>To Nora.</i>—Is she coming to the pier? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Looking out.</i>—She’s passing the green head and letting fall +her sails. +</p> + +<p> +BARTLEY.<br/> +<i>Getting his purse and tobacco.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her +head.</i>—Isn’t it a hard and cruel man won’t hear a word +from an old woman, and she holding him from the sea? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +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? +</p> + +<p> +BARTLEY.<br/> +<i>Taking the halter.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>He goes out.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Crying out as he is in the door.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +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? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Maurya takes up the tongs and begins raking the fire aimlessly without +looking round.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Turning towards her.</i>—You’re taking away the turf from the +cake. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Crying out.</i>—The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we’re after +forgetting his bit of bread. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She comes over to the fire.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +And it’s destroyed he’ll be going till dark night, and he after +eating nothing since the sun went up. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Turning the cake out of the oven.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Maurya sways herself on her stool.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth; to +Maurya.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Taking the bread.</i>—Will I be in it as soon as himself? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +If you go now quickly. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Standing up unsteadily.</i>—It’s hard set I am to walk. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Looking at her anxiously.</i>—Give her the stick, Nora, or maybe +she’ll slip on the big stones. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +What stick? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +The stick Michael brought from Connemara. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Taking a stick Nora gives her.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She goes out slowly. Nora goes over to the ladder.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +Wait, Nora, maybe she’d turn back quickly. She’s that sorry, God +help her, you wouldn’t know the thing she’d do. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +Is she gone round by the bush? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Looking out.</i>—She’s gone now. Throw it down quickly, for the +Lord knows when she’ll be out of it again. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Getting the bundle from the loft.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Taking the bundle.</i>—Did he say what way they were found? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Coming down.</i>—“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.” +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Trying to open the bundle.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Giving her a knife.</i>—I’ve heard tell it was a long way to +Donegal. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Cutting the string.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +And what time would a man take, and he floating? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Cathleen opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They look at +them eagerly.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>In a low voice.</i>—The Lord spare us, Nora! isn’t it a queer +hard thing to say if it’s his they are surely? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +I’ll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel on the +other [<i>she looks through some clothes hanging in the corner.</i>] It’s +not with them, Cathleen, and where will it be? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +I’m thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt was +heavy with the salt in it [<i>pointing to the corner</i>]. There’s a bit +of a sleeve was of the same stuff. Give me that and it will do. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Nora brings it to her and they compare the flannel.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +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? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, crying +out.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Taking the stocking.</i>—It’s a plain stocking. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +It’s the second one of the third pair I knitted, and I put up three score +stitches, and I dropped four of them. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Counts the stitches.</i>—It’s that number is in it [<i>crying +out.</i>] 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? +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on the +clothes.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>After an instant.</i>—Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little +sound on the path. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Looking out.</i>—She is, Cathleen. She’s coming up to the door. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +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. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>Helping Cathleen to close the bundle.</i>—We’ll put them here in +the corner. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They put them into a hole in the chimney corner. Cathleen goes back to the +spinning-wheel.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +Will she see it was crying I was? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +Keep your back to the door the way the light’ll not be on you. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>After spinning for a moment.</i>—You didn’t give him his bit of +bread? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Maurya begins to keen softly, without turning round.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +Did you see him riding down? +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Maurya goes on keening.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>A little impatiently.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>With a weak voice.</i>—My heart’s broken from this day. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>As before.</i>—Did you see Bartley? +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +I seen the fearfulest thing. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Leaves her wheel and looks out.</i>—God forgive you; he’s riding +the mare now over the green head, and the gray pony behind him. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows her white +tossed hair. With a frightened voice.</i>—The gray pony behind him. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Coming to the fire.</i>—What is it ails you, at all? +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Speaking very slowly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN AND NORA.<br/> +Uah. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +Tell us what it is you seen. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +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 [<i>she puts up her hands, as if to hide something from her +eyes.</i>] The Son of God spare us, Nora! +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +What is it you seen. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +I seen Michael himself. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Speaking softly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>A little defiantly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Begins to keen.</i>—It’s destroyed we are from this day. +It’s destroyed, surely. +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +Didn’t the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn’t leave her +destitute with no son living? +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>In a low voice, but clearly.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something through +the door that is half open behind them.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>In a whisper.</i>—Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in +the north-east? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>In a whisper.</i>—There’s some one after crying out by the +seashore. +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Continues without hearing anything.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Half in a dream, to Cathleen.</i>—Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is +it at all? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is found there how +could he be here in this place? +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +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. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +It’s Michael, God spare him, for they’re after sending us a bit of +his clothes from the far north. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +They’re carrying a thing among them and there’s water dripping out +of it and leaving a track by the big stones. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>In a whisper to the women who have come in.</i>—Is it Bartley it is? +</p> + +<p> +ONE OF THE WOMEN.<br/> +It is surely, God rest his soul. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>To the women, as they are doing so.</i>—What way was he drowned? +</p> + +<p> +ONE OF THE WOMEN.<br/> +The gray pony knocked him into the sea, and he was washed out where there is a +great surf on the white rocks. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people around +her.</i>—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. [<i>To Nora</i>]. +Give me the Holy Water, Nora, there’s a small sup still on the dresser. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>Nora gives it to her.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Drops Michael’s clothes across Bartley’s feet, and sprinkles the +Holy Water over him.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under her +breath.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>To an old man.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +THE OLD MAN.<br/> +<i>Looking at the boards.</i>—Are there nails with them? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +There are not, Colum; we didn’t think of the nails. +</p> + +<p> +ANOTHER MAN.<br/> +It’s a great wonder she wouldn’t think of the nails, and all the +coffins she’s seen made already. +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +It’s getting old she is, and broken. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>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</i>.] +</p> + +<p> +NORA.<br/> +<i>In a whisper to Cathleen.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +CATHLEEN.<br/> +<i>Slowly and clearly.</i>—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? +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Puts the empty cup mouth downwards on the table, and lays her hands together +on Bartley’s feet.</i>—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 [<i>bending her head</i>]; and may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and on +the soul of every one is left living in the world. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women, then +sinks away.</i>] +</p> + +<p> +MAURYA.<br/> +<i>Continuing.</i>—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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +[<i>She kneels down again and the curtain falls slowly.</i>] +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Riders to the Sea, by J. M. 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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] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIDERS TO THE SEA *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + +RIDERS TO THE SEA + +A PLAY IN ONE ACT + +By J. M. Synge + + + + +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIDERS TO THE SEA *** + +***** This file should be named 994.txt or 994.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/9/994/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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