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RIDERS TO THE SEA
RIDERS TO THE SEA 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
RIDERS TO THE SEA
A PLAY IN ONE ACT
First performed at the Molesworth Hall Dublin February 25th
1904.
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.]
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