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RIDERS TO THE SEA
A monologue from the
play by John
Millington Synge
download the complete text of Riders to the Sea
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Shadow of the Glen; Riders to the Sea. John Millington
Synge. London: Elkin Mathews, 1905. |
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MAURYA: I've seen the fearfullest thing any person
has seen, since the day Bride Dara seen the dead man with the
child in his arms. I seen Michael himself. 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. It's little the like of Bartley know of
the sea . . . he will be lost now. 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 was 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. 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. 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.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY J.M. SYNGE |
