Complete Works of J M Synge Page 4

  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.]

  The Well of the Saints

  A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS

  The Well of the Saints, Synge’s third drama, was a full three-act play, which was first performed at the Abbey Theatre by the Irish National Theatre Society in February 1905. The drama’s setting is specified as “some lonely mountainous district in the east of Ireland one or more centuries ago.” It concerns Martin and Mary Doul, two blind beggars that have been led by the lies of the townsfolk to believe that they are beautiful, when in fact they are old and ugly. A saint cures them of their blindness with water from a holy well and at first sight they are disgusted by each other’s appearance
. Martin goes to work for Timmy the smith and tries to seduce Timmy’s betrothed, Molly, but she viciously rejects him and Timmy sends him away. Martin and Mary both lose their sight again and when the saint returns to wed Timmy and Molly, Martin refuses his offer to cure their blindness again. The saint takes offence and the townsfolk banish the couple, who head south in search of kinder neighbours.

  A controversial work upon its first release, The Well of the Saints caused nationalist disapproval and the renowned critic Joseph Holloway claimed that it combined “lyric and dirt”.

  The cottage where Synge lodged on Inis Meáin, now turned into the Teach Synge museum

  CONTENTS

  PERSONS

  ACT I

  ACT II

  ACT III

  The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, which Yeats co-founded in 1904 and where several of Yeats’ and Synge’s plays were first performed

  PERSONS

  MARTIN DOUL, WEATHER-BEATEN, blind beggar

  MARY DOUL, his Wife, weather-beaten, ugly woman, blind also, nearly fifty

  TIMMY, a middle-aged, almost elderly, but vigorous smith

  MOLLY BYRNE, fine-looking girl with fair hair

  BRIDE, another handsome girl

  MAT SIMON

  THE SAINT, a wandering Friar

  OTHER GIRLS AND MEN

  SCENE Some lonely mountainous district in the east of Ireland one or more centuries ago.

  THE WELL OF THE SAINTS was first produced in the Abbey Theatre in February, 1905, by the Irish National Theatre Society, under the direction of W. G. Fay, and with the following cast.

  Martin DoulW. G. FAY

  Mary DoulEMMA VERNON

  TimmyGEORGE ROBERTS

  Molly ByrneSARA ALLGOOD

  BrideMAIRE NIC SHIUBHLAIGH

  Mat SimonP. MAC SHIUBHLAIGH

  The SaintF. J. FAY

  OTHER GIRLS AND MEN

  ACT I

  [ROADSIDE WITH BIG stones, etc., on the right; low loose wall at back with gap near centre; at left, ruined doorway of church with bushes beside it. Martin Doul and Mary Doul grope in on left and pass over to stones on right, where they sit.]

  MARY DOUL. What place are we now, Martin Doul?

  MARTIN DOUL. Passing the gap.

  MARY DOUL — [raising her head.] — The length of that! Well, the sun’s getting warm this day if it’s late autumn itself.

  MARTIN DOUL — [putting out his hands in sun.] — What way wouldn’t it be warm and it getting high up in the south? You were that length plaiting your yellow hair you have the morning lost on us, and the people are after passing to the fair of Clash.

  MARY DOUL. It isn’t going to the fair, the time they do be driving their cattle and they with a litter of pigs maybe squealing in their carts, they’d give us a thing at all. (She sits down.) It’s well you know that, but you must be talking.

  MARTIN DOUL — [sitting down beside her and beginning to shred rushes she gives him.] — If I didn’t talk I’d be destroyed in a short while listening to the clack you do be making, for you’ve a queer cracked voice, the Lord have mercy on you, if it’s fine to look on you are itself.

  MARY DOUL. Who wouldn’t have a cracked voice sitting out all the year in the rain falling? It’s a bad life for the voice, Martin Doul, though I’ve heard tell there isn’t anything like the wet south wind does be blowing upon us for keeping a white beautiful skin — the like of my skin — on your neck and on your brows, and there isn’t anything at all like a fine skin for putting splendour on a woman.

  MARTIN DOUL — [teasingly, but with good humour.] — I do be thinking odd times we don’t know rightly what way you have your splendour, or asking myself, maybe, if you have it at all, for the time I was a young lad, and had fine sight, it was the ones with sweet voices were the best in face.

  MARY DOUL. Let you not be making the like of that talk when you’ve heard Timmy the smith, and Mat Simon, and Patch Ruadh, and a power besides saying fine things of my face, and you know rightly it was “the beautiful dark woman” they did call me in Ballinatone.

  MARTIN DOUL — [as before.] — If it was itself I heard Molly Byrne saying at the fall of night it was little more than a fright you were.

  MARY DOUL — [sharply.] — She was jealous, God forgive her, because Timmy the smith was after praising my hair.

  MARTIN DOUL — [with mock irony.] — Jealous!

  MARY DOUL. Ay, jealous, Martin Doul; and if she wasn’t itself, the young and silly do be always making game of them that’s dark, and they’d think it a fine thing if they had us deceived, the way we wouldn’t know we were so fine-looking at all.

  [She puts her hand to her face with a complacent gesture.]

  MARTIN DOUL — [a little plaintively.] — I do be thinking in the long nights it’d be a grand thing if we could see ourselves for one hour, or a minute itself, the way we’d know surely we were the finest man and the finest woman of the seven counties of the east (bitterly) and then the seeing rabble below might be destroying their souls telling bad lies, and we’d never heed a thing they’d say.

  MARY DOUL. If you weren’t a big fool you wouldn’t heed them this hour, Martin Doul, for they’re a bad lot those that have their sight, and they do have great joy, the time they do be seeing a grand thing, to let on they don’t see it at all, and to be telling fool’s lies, the like of what Molly Byrne was telling to yourself.

  MARTIN DOUL. If it’s lies she does be telling she’s a sweet, beautiful voice you’d never tire to be hearing, if it was only the pig she’d be calling, or crying out in the long grass, maybe after her hens. (Speaking pensively.) It should be a fine, soft, rounded woman, I’m thinking, would have a voice the like of that.

  MARY DOUL — [sharply again, scandalized.] — Let you not be minding if it’s flat or rounded she is; for she’s a flighty, foolish woman, you’ll hear when you’re off a long way, and she making a great noise and laughing at the well.

  MARTIN DOUL. Isn’t laughing a nice thing the time a woman’s young?

  MARY DOUL — [bitterly.] — A nice thing is it? A nice thing to hear a woman making a loud braying laugh the like of that? Ah, she’s a great one for drawing the men, and you’ll hear Timmy himself, the time he does be sitting in his forge, getting mighty fussy if she’ll come walking from Grianan, the way you’ll hear his breath going, and he wringing his hands.

  MARTIN DOUL — [slightly piqued.] — I’ve heard him say a power of times it’s nothing at all she is when you see her at the side of you, and yet I never heard any man’s breath getting uneasy the time he’d be looking on yourself.

  MARY DOUL. I’m not the like of the girls do be running round on the roads, swinging their legs, and they with their necks out looking on the men.... Ah, there’s a power of villainy walking the world, Martin Doul, among them that do be gadding around with their gaping eyes, and their sweet words, and they with no sense in them at all.

  MARTIN DOUL — [sadly.] — It’s the truth, maybe, and yet I’m told it’s a grand thing to see a young girl walking the road.

  MARY DOUL. You’d be as bad as the rest of them if you had your sight, and I did well, surely, not to marry a seeing man it’s scores would have had me and welcome — for the seeing is a queer lot, and you’d never know the thing they’d do. [A moment’s pause.]

  MARTIN DOUL — [listening.] — There’s some one coming on the road.

  MARY DOUL. Let you put the pith away out of their sight, or they’ll be picking it out with the spying eyes they have, and saying it’s rich we are, and not sparing us a thing at all.

  [They bundle away the rushes. Timmy the smith comes in on left.]

  MARTIN DOUL — [with a begging voice.] — Leave a bit of silver for blind Martin, your honour. Leave a bit of silver, or a penny copper itself, and we’ll be praying the Lord to bless you and you going the way.

  TIMMY — [stopping before them.] — And you letting on a while back you knew my step! [He sits down.]

  MARTIN — [with his natural voice.] — I kn
ow it when Molly Byrne’s walking in front, or when she’s two perches, maybe, lagging behind; but it’s few times I’ve heard you walking up the like of that, as if you’d met a thing wasn’t right and you coming on the road.

  TIMMY — [hot and breathless, wiping his face.] — You’ve good ears, God bless you, if you’re a liar itself; for I’m after walking up in great haste from hearing wonders in the fair.

  MARTIN DOUL — [rather contemptuously.] — You’re always hearing queer wonderful things, and the lot of them nothing at all; but I’m thinking, this time, it’s a strange thing surely you’d be walking up before the turn of day, and not waiting below to look on them lepping, or dancing, or playing shows on the green of Clash.

  TIMMY — [huffed.] — I was coming to tell you it’s in this place there’d be a bigger wonder done in a short while (Martin Doul stops working) than was ever done on the green of Clash, or the width of Leinster itself; but you’re thinking, maybe, you’re too cute a little fellow to be minding me at all.

  MARTIN DOUL — [amused, but incredulous.] — There’ll be wonders in this place, is it?

  TIMMY. Here at the crossing of the roads.

  MARTIN DOUL. I never heard tell of anything to happen in this place since the night they killed the old fellow going home with his gold, the Lord have mercy on him, and threw down his corpse into the bog. Let them not be doing the like of that this night, for it’s ourselves have a right to the crossing roads, and we don’t want any of your bad tricks, or your wonders either, for it’s wonder enough we are ourselves.

  TIMMY. If I’d a mind I’d be telling you of a real wonder this day, and the way you’ll be having a great joy, maybe, you’re not thinking on at all.

  MARTIN DOUL — [interested.] — Are they putting up a still behind in the rocks? It’d be a grand thing if I’d sup handy the way I wouldn’t be destroying myself groping up across the bogs in the rain falling.

  TIMMY — [still moodily.] — It’s not a still they’re bringing, or the like of it either.