J. M. Synge

“ CHRISTY.
laughing piteously.—The like of a king, is it? And I after toiling, moiling, digging, dodging from the dawn till dusk with never a sight of joy or sport saving only when I’d be abroad in the dark night poaching rabbits on hills, for I was a divil to poach, God forgive me, (very naïvely) and I near got six months for going with a dung fork and stabbing a fish.
PEGEEN.
And it’s that you’d call sport, is it, to be abroad in the darkness with yourself alone? ”

“ PEGEEN.
It’s queer joys they have, and who knows the thing they’d do, if it’d make the green stones cry itself to think of you swaying and swiggling at the butt of a rope, and you with a fine, stout neck, God bless you! the way you’d be a half an hour, in great anguish, getting your death.
CHRISTY.
getting his boots and putting them on.—If there’s that terror of them, it’d be best, maybe, I went on wandering like Esau or Cain and Abel on the sides of Neifin or the Erris plain. ”

“ WIDOW QUIN.
to Mahon, with a peculiar look.—Was your son that hit you a lad of one year and a score maybe, a great hand at racing and lepping and licking the world?
MAHON.
turning on her with a roar of rage.—Didn’t you hear me say he was the fool of men, the way from this out he’ll know the orphan’s lot with old and young making game of him and they swearing, raging, kicking at him like a mangy cur. [A great burst of cheering outside, someway off.] ”

“ And to think I’m long years hearing women talking that talk, to all bloody fools, and this the first time I’ve heard the like of your voice talking sweetly for my own delight.
PEGEEN.
And to think it’s me is talking sweetly, Christy Mahon, and I the fright of seven townlands for my biting tongue. Well, the heart’s a wonder; and, I’m thinking, there won’t be our like in Mayo, for gallant lovers, from this hour, to-day. (Drunken singing is heard outside.) There’s my father coming from the wake, and when he’s had his sleep we’ll tell him, for he’s peaceful then. [They separate.] ”

“ WIDOW QUIN.
shaking him, vehemently.—That’s not your son. That’s a man is going to make a marriage with the daughter of this house, a place with fine trade, with a license, and with poteen too.
MAHON.
amazed.—That man marrying a decent and a moneyed girl! Is it mad yous are? Is it in a crazy-house for females that I’m landed now?
WIDOW QUIN.
It’s mad yourself is with the blow upon your head. That lad is the wonder of the Western World. ”

“ In writing THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, as in my other plays, I have used one or two words only that I have not heard among the country people of Ireland, or spoken in my own nursery before I could read the newspapers. A certain number of the phrases I employ I have heard also from herds and fishermen along the coast from Kerry to Mayo, or from beggar-women and ballad-singers nearer Dublin; and I am glad to acknowledge how much I owe to the folk imagination of these fine people. ”

“ Take him on from this, for I think bad the world should see me raging for a Munster liar, and the fool of men.
MAHON.
Rise up now to retribution, and come on with me.
CROWD.
jeeringly.—There’s the playboy! There’s the lad thought he’d rule the roost in Mayo. Slate him now, mister.
CHRISTY.
getting up in shy terror.—What is it drives you to torment me here, when I’d asked the thunders of the might of God to blast me if I ever did hurt to any saving only that one single blow. ”

“ It was with a hilted knife maybe? I’m told, in the big world it’s bloody knives they use.
CHRISTY.
loudly, scandalized.—Do you take me for a slaughter-boy?
PEGEEN.
You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from the license, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt of a string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers swearing it had life?
CHRISTY.
I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of it on the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and never let a grunt or groan from him at all. ”

“ PEGEEN.
If you weren’t destroyed travelling, you’d have as much talk and streeleen, I’m thinking, as Owen Roe O’Sullivan or the poets of the Dingle Bay, and I’ve heard all times it’s the poets are your like, fine fiery fellows with great rages when their temper’s roused. ”

“ What’s a single man, I ask you, eating a bit in one house and drinking a sup in another, and he with no place of his own, like an old braying jackass strayed upon the rocks? (To Christy.) It’s many would be in dread to bring your like into their house for to end them, maybe, with a sudden end; but I’m a decent man of Ireland, and I liefer face the grave untimely and I seeing a score of grandsons growing up little gallant swearers by the name of God, than go peopling my bedside with puny weeds the like of what you’d breed, I’m thinking, out of Shaneen Keogh. ”

“ PEGEEN.
putting letter in envelope.—It’s above at the cross-roads he is, meeting Philly Cullen; and a couple more are going along with him to Kate Cassidy’s wake.
SHAWN.
looking at her blankly.—And he’s going that length in the dark night?
PEGEEN.
impatiently.—He is surely, and leaving me lonesome on the scruff of the hill. (She gets up and puts envelope on dresser, then winds the clock.) Isn’t it long the nights are now, Shawn Keogh, to be leaving a poor girl with her own self counting the hours to the dawn of day? ”

“ PEGEEN.
I’m hard set to know what way a coaxing fellow the like of yourself should be lonesome either.
CHRISTY.
Coaxing?
PEGEEN.
Would you have me think a man never talked with the girls would have the words you’ve spoken to-day? It’s only letting on you are to be lonesome, the way you’d get around me now. ”

“ Did you never hear tell of the skulls they have in the city of Dublin, ranged out like blue jugs in a cabin of Connaught?
PHILLY.
And you believe that?
JIMMY.
pugnaciously.—Didn’t a lad see them and he after coming from harvesting in the Liverpool boat? “They have them there,” says he, “making a show of the great people there was one time walking the world. White skulls and black skulls and yellow skulls, and some with full teeth, and some haven’t only but one.” ”

“ It is then, and aren’t you a louty schemer to go burying your poor father unbeknownst when you’d a right to throw him on the crupper of a Kerry mule and drive him westwards, like holy Joseph in the days gone by, the way we could have given him a decent burial, and not have him rotting beyond, and not a Christian drinking a smart drop to the glory of his soul? ”

“ PEGEEN.
she puts sack on settle and beats it up.—I never killed my father. I’d be afeard to do that, except I was the like of yourself with blind rages tearing me within, for I’m thinking you should have had great tussling when the end was come.
CHRISTY.
expanding with delight at the first confidential talk he has ever had with a woman.—We had not then. It was a hard woman was come over the hill, and if he was always a crusty kind when he’d a hard woman setting him on, not the divil himself or his four fathers could put up with him at all. ”

“ All art is a collaboration; and there is little doubt that in the happy ages of literature, striking and beautiful phrases were as ready to the story-teller’s or the playwright’s hand, as the rich cloaks and dresses of his time. ”

“ If you didn’t commit murder or a bad, nasty thing, or false coining, or robbery, or butchery, or the like of them, there isn’t anything that would be worth your troubling for to run from now. You did nothing at all.
CHRISTY.
his feelings hurt.—That’s an unkindly thing to be saying to a poor orphaned traveller, has a prison behind him, and hanging before, and hell’s gap gaping below.
PEGEEN.
with a sign to the men to be quiet.—You’re only saying it. You did nothing at all. A soft lad the like of you wouldn’t slit the windpipe of a screeching sow. ”

“ And what is it you’ll say to me, and I after doing it this time in the face of all?
PEGEEN.
I’ll say, a strange man is a marvel, with his mighty talk; but what’s a squabble in your back-yard, and the blow of a loy, have taught me that there’s a great gap between a gallous story and a dirty deed. (To men.) Take him on from this, or the lot of us will be likely put on trial for his deed to-day. ”

“ SHANEEN.
In great misery.—I’d be afeard to be jealous of a man did slay his da.
PEGEEN.
Well, it’d be a poor thing to go marrying your like. I’m seeing there’s a world of peril for an orphan girl, and isn’t it a great blessing I didn’t wed you, before himself came walking from the west or south? ”

“ WIDOW QUIN.
Aye. Would you give me the red cow you have and the mountainy ram, and the right of way across your rye path, and a load of dung at Michaelmas, and turbary upon the western hill?
SHAWN.
radiant with hope.—I would surely, and I’d give you the wedding-ring I have, and the loan of a new suit, the way you’d have him decent on the wedding-day. I’d give you two kids for your dinner, and a gallon of poteen, and I’d call the piper on the long car to your wedding from Crossmolina or from Ballina. I’d give you.... ”

“ On the stage one must have reality, and one must have joy; and that is why the intellectual modern drama has failed, and people have grown sick of the false joy of the musical comedy, that has been given them in place of the rich joy found only in what is superb and wild in reality. In a good play every speech should be as fully flavoured as a nut or apple, and such speeches cannot be written by anyone who works among people who have shut their lips on poetry. In Ireland, for a few years more, we have a popular imagination that is fiery and magnificent, and tender ”

“ Feel the fat of that breast, Mister.
CHRISTY.
It’s bursting, surely. [He feels it with the back of his hand, in which he holds the presents.]
SARA.
Will you pinch it? Is your right hand too sacred for to use at all? (She slips round behind him.) It’s a glass he has. Well, I never seen to this day a man with a looking-glass held to his back. Them that kills their fathers is a vain lot surely. (Girls giggle.)
CHRISTY.
smiling innocently and piling presents on glass.—I’m very thankful to you all to-day....
WIDOW QUIN.
coming in quickly, at door.—Sara Tansey, Susan Brady, Honor Blake! ”

“ I’m thinking you’re too fine for the like of me, Shawn Keogh of Killakeen, and let you go off till you’d find a radiant lady with droves of bullocks on the plains of Meath, and herself bedizened in the diamond jewelleries of Pharaoh’s ma. That’d be your match, Shaneen. So God save you now! ”

“ WIDOW QUIN.
coming over.—It’s true for him, and you’d best quit off and not have that poor girl setting her mind on you, for there’s Shaneen thinks she wouldn’t suit you though all is saying that she’ll wed you now. [Christy beams with delight.]
SHAWN.
in terrified earnest.—She wouldn’t suit you, and she with the divil’s own temper the way you’d be strangling one another in a score of days. (He makes the movement of strangling with his hands.) It’s the like of me only that she’s fit for, a quiet simple fellow wouldn’t raise a hand upon her if she scratched itself. ”

“ CHRISTY.
looking round in desperation.—And I must go back into my torment is it, or run off like a vagabond straying through the unions with the dusts of August making mudstains in the gullet of my throat, or the winds of March blowing on me till I’d take an oath I felt them making whistles of my ribs within?
SARA.
Ask Pegeen to aid you. Her like does often change. ”

“ The divil a work, or if he did itself, you’d see him raising up a haystack like the stalk of a rush, or driving our last cow till he broke her leg at the hip, and when he wasn’t at that he’d be fooling over little birds he had—finches and felts—or making mugs at his own self in the bit of glass we had hung on the wall. ”

“ Let me stretch out on the settle, Pegeen Mike; and himself can lie by the hearth.
PEGEEN.
short and fiercely.—Faith, I won’t. Quit off or I will send you now.
WIDOW QUIN.
gathering her shawl up.—Well, it’s a terror to be aged a score. (To Christy.) God bless you now, young fellow, and let you be wary, or there’s right torment will await you here if you go romancing with her like, and she waiting only, as they bade me say, on a sheepskin parchment to be wed with Shawn Keogh of Killakeen. ”

“ MAHON.
slightly emotional from his drink.—I’m poorly only, for it’s a hard story the way I’m left to-day, when it was I did tend him from his hour of birth, and he a dunce never reached his second book, the way he’d come from school, many’s the day, with his legs lamed under him, and he blackened with his beatings like a tinker’s ass. It’s a hard story, I’m saying, the way some do have their next and nighest raising up a hand of murder on them, and some is lonesome getting their death with lamentation in the dead of night. ”

“ We’re a queer lot these times to go troubling the Holy Father on his sacred seat.
SHAWN.
scandalized.—If we are, we’re as good this place as another, maybe, and as good these times as we were for ever.
PEGEEN.
with scorn.—As good, is it? Where now will you meet the like of Daneen Sullivan knocked the eye from a peeler, or Marcus Quin, God rest him, got six months for maiming ewes, and he a great warrant to tell stories of holy Ireland till he’d have the old women shedding down tears about their feet. Where will you find the like of them, I’m saying? ”

“ WIDOW QUIN.
taking men to the right stealthily.—Do you know what? That man’s raving from his wound to-day, for I met him a while since telling a rambling tale of a tinker had him destroyed. Then he heard of Christy’s deed, and he up and says it was his son had cracked his skull. O isn’t madness a fright, for he’ll go killing someone yet, and he thinking it’s the man has struck him so? ”

“ This matter, I think, is of importance, for in countries where the imagination of the people, and the language they use, is rich and living, it is possible for a writer to be rich and copious in his words, and at the same time to give the reality, which is the root of all poetry, in a comprehensive and natural form. In the modern literature of towns, however, richness is found only in sonnets, or prose poems, or in one or two elaborate books that are far away from the profound and common interests of life. ”