|
|
Riders to the Sea by J. M. Synge |
|
|
Act I 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 Where is she? CATHLEEN [Nora comes in softly, and takes a bundle from under her shawl.] CATHLEEN What is it you have? NORA [Cathleen stops her wheel with a sudden movement, and leans out to listen.] NORA CATHLEEN NORA [The door which Nora half closed is blown open by a gust of wind.] CATHLEEN Did you ask him would he stop Bartley going this day with the horses to the Galway fair? NORA CATHLEEN NORA [She goes over to the table with the bundle.] Shall I open it now? CATHLEEN [Coming to the table.] It's a long time we'll be, and the two of us crying. NORA She's moving about on the bed. She'll be coming in a minute. CATHLEEN [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 Isn't it turf enough you have for this day and evening? CATHLEEN [Nora picks up the turf and puts it round the pot-oven.] MAURYA 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 MAURYA NORA CATHLEEN NORA He's coming now, and he in a hurry. BARTLEY Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara? CATHLEEN 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 Is that it, Bartley? MAURYA BARTLEY 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 [She looks round at the boards.] BARTLEY MAURYA BARTLEY 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 BARTLEY 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 [Bartley lays down the halter, takes off his old coat, and puts on a newer one of the same flannel.] BARTLEY Is she coming to the pier? NORA BARTLEY 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 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 BARTLEY 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 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 [Maurya takes up the tongs and begins raking the fire aimlessly without looking round.] NORA You're taking away the turf from the cake. CATHLEEN The Son of God forgive us, Nora, we're after forgetting his bit of bread. [She comes over to the fire.] NORA CATHLEEN 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 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 Will I be in it as soon as himself? CATHLEEN MAURYA It's hard set I am to walk. CATHLEEN Give her the stick, Nora, or maybe she'll slip on the big stones. NORA CATHLEEN MAURYA 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 NORA CATHLEEN She's gone now. Throw it down quickly, for the Lord knows when she'll be out of it again. NORA 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 Did he say what way they were found? NORA "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 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 I've heard tell it was a long way to Donegal. CATHLEEN 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 [Cathleen opens the bundle and takes out a bit of a stocking. They look at them eagerly.] CATHLEEN The Lord spare us, Nora! isn't it a queer hard thing to say if it's his they are surely? NORA CATHLEEN [Nora brings it to her and they compare the flannel.] CATHLEEN NORA 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 It's a plain stocking. NORA CATHLEEN 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 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 Tell me is herself coming, Nora? I hear a little sound on the path. NORA She is, Cathleen. She's coming up to the door. CATHLEEN NORA 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 CATHLEEN [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 You didn't give him his bit of bread? [Maurya begins to keen softly, without turning round.] CATHLEEN [Maurya goes on keening.] CATHLEEN 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 My heart's broken from this day. CATHLEEN Did you see Bartley? MAURYA CATHLEEN God forgive you; he's riding the mare now over the green head, and the gray pony behind him. MAURYA The gray pony behind him. CATHLEEN What is it ails you, at all? MAURYA 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 [They crouch down in front of the old woman at the fire.] NORA MAURYA CATHLEEN MAURYA CATHLEEN 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 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 It's destroyed we are from this day. It's destroyed, surely. NORA MAURYA 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 Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in the north-east? CATHLEEN There's some one after crying out by the seashore. MAURYA 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 Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is it at all? CATHLEEN MAURYA CATHLEEN [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 CATHLEEN Is it Bartley it is? ONE OF THE WOMEN [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 What way was he drowned? ONE OF THE WOMEN [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 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 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 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 Are there nails with them? CATHLEEN ANOTHER MAN CATHLEEN [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 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 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 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 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.] |
|
