“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.” – J. M. Synge

Book Excerpt

MAURYA.
I seen Michael himself.
CATHLEEN.
Speaking softly.—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.
A little defiantly.—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.

Riders to the Sea

By – J. M. Synge

• PUBLISHED: 1904
• PAGES: 26