Riders to the Sea, by J. M. Synge

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Riders to the Sea

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

by J. M. Synge

Contents

INTRODUCTION

It must have best carnival toys under 30 dollarsbeen on Synge’s second visit to the Aran Islands that he hadthe experience out of which was wrought what many believe to be his greatestplay. The scene of “Riders to the Sea” is laid in a cottage onInishmaan, the middle and most interesting island of the Aran group. WhileSynge was on Inishmaan, the story came to him of a man whose body had beenwashed up on the far away coast of Donegal, and who, by reason of certainpeculiarities of dress, was suspected to be from the island. In due course, hewas recognised as a native of Inishmaan, in exactly the manner described in theplay, and perhaps one of the most poignantly vivid passages in Synge’sbook on “The Aran Islands” relates the incident of his burial.

The other element in the story which Synge introduces into the play is equallytrue. Many tales of “second sight” are to be heard among Celticraces. In fact, they are so common as to arouse little or no wonder in theminds of the people. It is just such a tale, which there seems no valid reasonfor doubting, that Synge heard, and that gave the title, “Riders to theSea”, to his play.

It is the dramatist’s high distinction that he has simply taken thematerials 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 noblepity, has no equal among its contemporaries. Great tragedy, it is frequentlyclaimed with some show of justice, has perforce departed with the advance ofmodern life and its complicated tangle of interests and creature comforts. Ahighly 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 bythe artist, but which, as it would seem, are rapidly departing from us. It isonly 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 accordinglythither that the dramatist, who would deal with spiritual life disengaged fromthe environment of an intellectual maze, must go for that experience which willbeget in him inspiration for his art. The Aran Islands from which Synge gainedhis inspiration are rapidly losing that sense of isolation and self-dependence,which has hitherto been their rare distinction, and which furnished themotivation for Synge’s masterpiece. Whether or not Synge finds asuccessor, it is none the less true that in English dramatic literature“Riders to the Sea” has an historic value which it would bedifficult to over-estimate in its accomplishment and its possibilities. Awriter in The Manchester Guardian shortly after Synge’s death phrased itrightly when he wrote that it is “the tragic masterpiece of our languagein our time; wherever it has been played in Europe from Galway to Prague, ithas made the word tragedy mean something more profoundly stirring and cleansingto the spirit than it did.”

The secret of the play’s power is its capacity for standing afar off, andmingling, if we may say so, sympathy with relentlessness. There is a wonderfulbeauty of speech in the words of every character, wherein the latent power ofsuggestion is almost unlimited. “In the big world the old people do beleaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this place it isthe young men do be leaving things behind for them that do be old.” Inthe quavering rhythm of these words, there is poignantly present that qualityof strangeness and remoteness in beauty which, as we are coming to realise, isthe touchstone of Celtic literary art. However, the very asceticism of the playhas begotten a corresponding power which lifts Synge’s work far out ofthe current of the Irish literary revival, and sets it high in a timelessatmosphere of universal action.

Its characters live and die. It is their virtue in life to be lonely, and nonebut the lonely man in tragedy may be great. He dies, and then it is the virtuein life of the women mothers and wives and sisters to be great in theirloneliness, 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 theAlmighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and adeep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man at all can be livingfor ever, and we must be satisfied.” The pity and the terror of it allhave brought a great peace, the peace that passeth understanding, and it isbecause the play holds this timeless peace after the storm which has bowed downevery character, that “Riders to the Sea” may rightly take itsplace 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 LavelleBARTLEY (her son)..........  W. G. FayCATHLEEN (her daughter)....  Sarah AllgoodNORA (a younger daughter)..  Emma VernonMEN AND WOMEN

SCENE.

An Island off the West of Ireland.
    (Cottage kitchen, with nets, oil-skins, spinning wheel, some new boardsstanding by the wall, etc. Cathleen, a girl of about twenty, finishes kneadingcake, and puts it down in the pot-oven by the fire; then wipes her hands, andbegins to spin at the wheel. Nora, a young girl, puts her head in at thedoor.)

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 plainstocking were got off a drowned man in Donegal.

[Cathleen stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out tolisten.]

NORA.
We’re to find out if it’s Michael’s they are, some timeherself will be down looking by the sea.

CATHLEEN.
How would they be Michael’s, Nora. How would he go the length of that wayto the far north?

NORA.
The young priest says he’s known the like of it. “If it’sMichael’s they are,” says he, “you can tell herselfhe’s got a clean burial by the grace of God, and if they’re nothis, let no one say a word about them, for she’ll be getting herdeath,” 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 goingthis day with the horses to the Galway fair?

NORA.
“I won’t stop him,” says he, “but let you not beafraid. Herself does be saying prayers half through the night, and the AlmightyGod won’t leave her destitute,” says he, “with no sonliving.”

CATHLEEN.
Is the sea bad by the white rocks, Nora?

NORA.
Middling bad, God help us. There’s a great roaring in the west, andit’s worse it’ll be getting when the tide’s turned to thewind.

[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 onthe 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 shewon’t know of them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she’ll begoing down to see would he be floating from the east.

[They put the ladder against the gable of the chimney; Cathleen goes up afew steps and hides the bundle in the turf-loft. Maurya comes from the innerroom.]

MAURYA.
Looking up at Cathleen and speaking querulously.—Isn’t itturf enough you have for this day and evening?

CATHLEEN.
There’s a cake baking at the fire for a short space. [Throwing downthe turf] and Bartley will want it when the tide turns if he goes toConnemara.

[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 daywith the wind rising from the south and west. He won’t go this day, forthe young priest will stop him surely.

NORA.
He’ll not stop him, mother, and I heard Eamon Simon and Stephen Pheetyand 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, andI’m thinking it won’t be long till he’s here now, for thetide’s turning at the green head, and the hooker’ tacking from theeast.

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 andquietly.—Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought inConnemara?

CATHLEEN.
Coming down.—Give it to him, Nora; it’s on a nail by thewhite boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet waseating 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’mtelling you, if Michael is washed up to-morrow morning, or the next morning, orany morning in the week, for it’s a deep grave we’ll make him bythe grace of God.

BARTLEY.
Beginning to work with the rope.—I’ve no halter the way Ican ride down on the mare, and I must go now quickly. This is the one boatgoing for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will be a good fair for horses Iheard them saying below.

MAURYA.
It’s a hard thing they’ll be saying below if the body is washed upand there’s no man in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a bigprice 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 astrong 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 astar up against the moon, and it rising in the night. If it was a hundredhorses, or a thousand horses you had itself, what is the price of a thousandhorses against a son where there is one son only?

BARTLEY.
Working at the halter, to Cathleen.—Let you go down each day, andsee the sheep aren’t jumping in on the rye, and if the jobber comes youcan 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 moonlet you and Nora get up weed enough for another cock for the kelp. It’shard 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’dwith the rest. What way will I live and the girls with me, and I an old womanlooking for the grave?

[Bartley lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a newerone of the same flannel.]

BARTLEY.
To Nora.—Is she coming to the pier?

NORA.
Looking out.—She’s passing the green head and letting fallher sails.

BARTLEY.
Getting his purse and tobacco.—I’ll have half an hour to godown, and you’ll see me coming again in two days, or in three days, ormaybe in four days if the wind is bad.

MAURYA.
Turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over herhead.—Isn’t it a hard and cruel man won’t hear a wordfrom 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 listento an old woman with one thing and she saying it over?

BARTLEY.
Taking the halter.—I must go now quickly. I’ll ride down onthe red mare, and the gray pony’ll run behind me. . . The blessing of Godon you.

[He goes out.]

MAURYA.
Crying out as he is in the door.—He’s gone now, God spareus, and we’ll not see him again. He’s gone now, and when the blacknight 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 sendinghim 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 withoutlooking round.]

NORA.
Turning towards her.—You’re taking away the turf from thecake.

CATHLEEN.
Crying out.—The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we’re afterforgetting his bit of bread.

[She comes over to the fire.]

NORA.
And it’s destroyed he’ll be going till dark night, and he aftereating nothing since the sun went up.

CATHLEEN.
Turning the cake out of the oven.—It’s destroyed he’llbe, surely. There’s no sense left on any person in a house where an oldwoman will be talking for ever.

[Maurya sways herself on her stool.]

CATHLEEN.
Cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth; toMaurya.—Let you go down now to the spring well and give him this andhe passing. You’ll see him then and the dark word will be broken, and youcan 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 maybeshe’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 dobe leaving things after them for their sons and children, but in this place itis 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, Godhelp 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 theLord knows when she’ll be out of it again.

NORA.
Getting the bundle from the loft.—The young priest said he’dbe passing to-morrow, and we might go down and speak to him below if it’sMichael’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, “andthey rowing round with poteen before the cocks crowed, and the oar of one ofthem caught the body, and they passing the black cliffs of the north.”

CATHLEEN.
Trying to open the bundle.—Give me a knife, Nora, thestring’s perished with the salt water, and there’s a black knot onit you wouldn’t loosen in a week.

NORA.
Giving her a knife.—I’ve heard tell it was a long way toDonegal.

CATHLEEN.
Cutting the string.—It is surely. There was a man in here a whileago—the man sold us that knife—and he said if you set off walkingfrom 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 atthem eagerly.]

CATHLEEN.
In a low voice.—The Lord spare us, Nora! isn’t it a queerhard 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 theother [she looks through some clothes hanging in the corner.] It’snot with them, Cathleen, and where will it be?

CATHLEEN.
I’m thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt washeavy with the salt in it [pointing to the corner]. There’s a bitof 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 greatrolls of it in the shops of Galway, and isn’t it many another man mayhave a shirt of it as well as Michael himself?

NORA.
Who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, cryingout.—It’s Michael, Cathleen, it’s Michael; God spare hissoul, and what will herself say when she hears this story, and Bartley on thesea?

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 scorestitches, and I dropped four of them.

CATHLEEN.
Counts the stitches.—It’s that number is in it [cryingout.] Ah, Nora, isn’t it a bitter thing to think of him floating thatway to the far north, and no one to keen him but the black hags that do beflying on the sea?

NORA.
Swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on theclothes.—And isn’t it a pitiful thing when there is nothingleft of a man who was a great rower and fisher, but a bit of an old shirt and aplain stocking?

CATHLEEN.
After an instant.—Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a littlesound 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 easiershe’ll be after giving her blessing to Bartley, and we won’t let onwe’ve heard anything the time he’s on the sea.

NORA.
Helping Cathleen to close the bundle.—We’ll put them here inthe corner.

[They put them into a hole in the chimney corner. Cathleen goes back to thespinning-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. Mauryacomes in very slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes over to her stoolat 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 ofbread?

[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 betterthing to raise your voice and tell what you seen, than to be making lamentationfor 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 ridingthe 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 whitetossed 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 anyperson has seen, since the day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the child inhis 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 ponybehind him [she puts up her hands, as if to hide something from hereyes.] 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 youseen, for his body is after being found in the far north, and he’s got aclean burial by the grace of God.

MAURYA.
A little defiantly.—I’m after seeing him this day, and heriding 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. Hewent by quickly; and “the blessing of God on you,” says he, and Icould say nothing. I looked up then, and I crying, at the gray pony, and therewas 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 herdestitute with no son living?

MAURYA.
In a low voice, but clearly.—It’s little the like of himknows of the sea. . . . Bartley will be lost now, and let you call in Eamon andmake me a good coffin out of the white boards, for I won’t live afterthem. I’ve had a husband, and a husband’s father, and six sons inthis house—six fine men, though it was a hard birth I had with every oneof them and they coming to the world—and some of them were found and someof them were not found, but they’re gone now the lot of them. . . Therewere Stephen, and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after in theBay of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the oneplank, and in by that door.

[She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something throughthe door that is half open behind them.]

NORA.
In a whisper.—Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise inthe north-east?

CATHLEEN.
In a whisper.—There’s some one after crying out by theseashore.

MAURYA.
Continues without hearing anything.—There was Sheamus and hisfather, and his own father again, were lost in a dark night, and not a stick orsign was seen of them when the sun went up. There was Patch after was drownedout of a curagh that turned over. I was sitting here with Bartley, and he ababy, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women, and three women, and fourwomen coming in, and they crossing themselves, and not saying a word. I lookedout then, and there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in thehalf 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 openssoftly and old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the threshold,and kneeling down in front of the stage with red petticoats over theirheads.]

MAURYA.
Half in a dream, to Cathleen.—Is it Patch, or Michael, or what isit at all?

CATHLEEN.
Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is found there howcould he be here in this place?

MAURYA.
There does be a power of young men floating round in the sea, and what waywould they know if it was Michael they had, or another man like him, for when aman is nine days in the sea, and the wind blowing, it’s hard set his ownmother would be to say what man was it.

CATHLEEN.
It’s Michael, God spare him, for they’re after sending us a bit ofhis 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 outof 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 thebody of Bartley, laid on a plank, with a bit of a sail over it, and lay it onthe 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 agreat surf on the white rocks.

[Maurya has gone over and knelt down at the head of the table. The women arekeening softly and swaying themselves with a slow movement. Cathleen and Norakneel 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 aroundher.—They’re all gone now, and there isn’t anything morethe sea can do to me.... I’ll have no call now to be up crying andpraying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is inthe 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 downand getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won’t carewhat 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 theHoly Water over him.—It isn’t that I haven’t prayed foryou, Bartley, to the Almighty God. It isn’t that I haven’t saidprayers in the dark night till you wouldn’t know what I’ld besaying; but it’s a great rest I’ll have now, and it’s timesurely. It’s a great rest I’ll have now, and great sleeping in thelong nights after Samhain, if it’s only a bit of wet flour we do have toeat, and maybe a fish that would be stinking.

[She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under herbreath.]

CATHLEEN.
To an old man.—Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin whenthe sun rises. We have fine white boards herself bought, God help her, thinkingMichael would be found, and I have a new cake you can eat while you’ll beworking.

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 thecoffins 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 ofMichael’s clothes beside the body, sprinkling them with the last of theHoly Water.]

NORA.
In a whisper to Cathleen.—She’s quiet now and easy; but theday Michael was drowned you could hear her crying out from this to the springwell. It’s fonder she was of Michael, and would any one have thoughtthat?

CATHLEEN.
Slowly and clearly.—An old woman will be soon tired with anythingshe 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 togetheron Bartley’s feet.—They’re all together this time, andthe end is come. May the Almighty God have mercy on Bartley’s soul, andon Michael’s soul, and on the souls of Sheamus and Patch, and Stephen andShawn [bending her head]; and may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and onthe soul of every one is left living in the world.

[She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women, thensinks away.]

MAURYA.
Continuing.—Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by thegrace of the Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the whiteboards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man at allcan be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.

[She kneels down again and the curtain falls slowly.]

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