in Dublin, March 24, 1909, belongs to that group of "inheritors of
unfulfilled renown" who died before the prime of life was reached. He
left six plays, notable the _Riders to the Sea_ and _Deirdre of the
Sorrows_, that are among the greatest in our language. He was delicate
from the beginning, and after some education in private schools in
Dublin and Bray, left school when about fourteen and studied with a
tutor. In 1892 he took his B.A. degree from Trinity College, Dublin,
whose rolls contain a number of names famous in English literature.
While at college, he studied music at the Royal Irish Academy of
Music, where he won a scholarship. His first impulse was to make music
his career, and he spent portions of the next four years in Germany,
France, and Italy studying music and traveling. In May, 1898, he first
went to the Aran Islands, later to be the scene of _Riders to the
Sea_. Thereafter in Paris in 1899 he met Yeats, who advised him to go
back to the Aran Islands to renew his contact with the simple folk
there. For the next three years he divided his time between Paris and
Ireland. It was in 1904 that his play, _Riders to the Sea_,[42] was
first produced. He was at Dublin that same year for the opening of the
Abbey Theatre, of which he was one of the advisers. Whenever the Irish
Players visited England, he traveled with them. In 1909 came the
operation that ended his life.
[Footnote 42: For a list of Synge's other plays, see E. A.
Boyd, _The Contemporary Drama of Ireland_, Boston, 1917.]
Synge's book, _The Aran Islands_, which is a record of his various
visits to these three islands lying about thirty miles off the coast
of County Galway, is full of material that throws light on the setting
and characterization of _Riders to the Sea_. The central incident in
this play was suggested to Synge while he was sojourning on Inishmaan,
the middle island of the Aran group, by a tale that he heard of a man
whose body had been washed up on a distant coast, and who had been
identified as belonging to the Islands, because of his characteristic
garments. When on Inishmaan, Synge himself lived in just such a
cottage as that which is the background for the tragedy of Maurya's
sons. He wrote of this cottage, "The kitchen itself, where I will
spend most of my time, is full of beauty and distinction. The red
dresses of the women who cluster round the fire on their stools give a
glow of almost Eastern richness, and the walls have been toned by the
surf-smoke to a soft brown that blends with the gray earth-color of
the floor. Many sorts of fishing-tackle, and the nets and oilskins of
the men, are hung up on the walls or among the open rafters." And the
following passage from his _Aran Islands_ is an eloquent description
of the atmosphere there: "A week of smoking fog has passed over and
given me a strange sense of exile and desolation. I walk round the
island nearly every day, yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of
wet rock, a strip of surf, and then a tumult of waves.
"The slaty limestone has grown black with the water that is dripping
on it, and wherever I turn there is the same gray obsession twining
and wreathing itself among the narrow fields, and the same wail from
the wind that shrieks and whistles in the loose rubble of the walls."
Mr. Masefield, in his recollections of Synge, reports also the
following conversation between himself and the Irish playwright: Synge
saying, "They [the islanders] asked me to fiddle to them so that they
might dance," and Mr. Masefield asking, "Do you play, then?" and Synge
answering, "I fiddle a little. I try to learn something different for
them every time. The last time I learned to do conjuring tricks.
They'd get tired of me if I didn't bring something new. I'm thinking
of learning the penny whistle before I go again."
A later visitor[43] to the Aran Islands, Miss B. N. Hedderman, a
district nurse, gives further evidences of the simplicity of those
people from whom the characters of _Riders to the Sea_ were drawn. She
tells of a man who owned a house with two comfortable rooms in it, one
of which he leveled ruthlessly because he had dreamed that it hindered
the passage of the "good people." The illustrations in her little book
showing cottage interiors and peasant costumes will be found useful by
groups who are planning to produce _Riders to the Sea_. But the best
guide to the costumes and social life of the West of Ireland is J. B.
Yeats.[44]
[Footnote 43: B. N. Hedderman, _Glimpses of My Life in Aran_,
Bristol, 1917.]
[Footnote 44: J. B. Yeats, _Life in the West of Ireland_,
Dublin and London, 1912. The color prints and line drawings
in this book are very beautiful. Cf. also J. M. Synge, _The
Aran Islands_. With drawings by Jack B. Yeats, Dublin and
London, 1907.]
The _Drama Calendar_ of December 13, 1920, offers the following
suggestion for a musical setting for the play: "The attention of
Little Theatre directors is called to a musical prelude to Synge's
_Riders to the Sea_, arranged by Henry F. Gilbert from the Symphonic
Prologue, which was played at the Worcester Musical Festival this
fall. This original arrangement of the material is intended to build
the mood which the play sustains, and is simply orchestrated for seven
instruments. Every Little Theatre should be able to gather such an
orchestra. Here is an opportunity to give continuity to a program of
one-acts; music answers a question which is one of the hardest the
director has to solve: how a mood which is to be created and sustained
in the brief space of twenty minutes shall not be too fleeting."
RIDERS TO THE SEA
_A PLAY IN ONE ACT_
_First performed at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, February 25, 1904._
CHARACTERS
MAURYA, _an old woman._
BARTLEY, _her son._
CATHLEEN, _her daughter._
NORA, _a younger daughter._
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's tacking from the
east.
CATHLEEN. I hear someone passing the big stones.
NORA [_looking out_]. He's coming now, and he 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 everyone 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 forever. [_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 someone 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 in 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._]