by J. M. Synge
All in a prison bound....
(He sees CHRISTY. Goes and shakes him drunkenly by the hand, while PEGEEN and SHAWN talk on the left.)
MICHAEL (to CHRISTY). The blessing of God and the holy angels on your head, young fellow. I hear tell you’re after winning all in the sports below; and wasn’t it a shame I didn’t bear you along with me to Kate Cassidy’s wake, a fine, stout lad, the like of you, for you’d never see the match of it for flows of drink, the way when we sunk her bones at noonday in her narrow grave, there were five men, aye, and six men, stretched out retching speechless on the holy stones.
CHRISTY (uneasily, watching PEGEEN). Is that the truth?
MICHAEL. 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?
CHRISTY (gruffly). It’s well enough he’s lying, for the likes of him.
MICHAEL (slapping him on the back). Well, aren’t you a hardened slayer? It’ll be a poor thing for the household man where you go sniffing for a female wife; and (pointing to SHAWN) look beyond at that shy and decent Christian I have chosen for my daughter’s hand, and I after getting the gilded dispensation this day for to wed them now.
CHRISTY. And you’ll be wedding them this day, is it?
MICHAEL (drawing himself up). Aye. Are you thinking, if I’m drunk itself, I’d leave my daughter living single with a little frisky rascal is the like of you?
PEGEEN (breaking away from SHAWN). Is it the truth the dispensation’s come?
MICHAEL (triumphantly). Father Reilly’s after reading it in gallous Latin, and “It’s come in the nick of time,” says he; “so I’ll wed them in a hurry, dreading that young gaffer who’d capsize the stars.”
PEGEEN (fiercely). He’s missed his nick of time, for it’s that lad, Christy Mahon, that I’m wedding now.
MICHAEL (loudly with horror). You’d be making him a son to me, and he wet and crusted with his father’s blood?
PEGEEN. Aye. Wouldn’t it be a bitter thing for a girl to go marrying the like of Shaneen, and he a middling kind of a scarecrow, with no savagery or fine words in him at all?
MICHAEL (gasping and sinking on a chair). Oh, aren’t you a heathen daughter to go shaking the fat of my heart, and I swamped and drownded with the weight of drink? Would you have them turning on me the way that I’d be roaring to the dawn of day with the wind upon my heart? Have you not a word to aid me, Shaneen? Are you not jealous at all?
SHAWN (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?
SHAWN. It’s a queer story you’d go picking a dirty tramp up from the highways of the world.
PEGEEN (playfully). And you think you’re a likely beau to go straying along with, the shiny Sundays of the opening year, when it’s sooner on a bullock’s liver you’d put a poor girl thinking than on the lily or the rose?
SHAWN. And have you no mind of my weight of passion, and the holy dispensation, and the drift of heifers I am giving, and the golden ring?
PEGEEN. 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 jewelries of Pharaoh’s ma. That’d be your match, Shaneen. So God save you now! (She retreats behind CHRISTY.)
SHAWN. Won’t you hear me telling you . . . ?
CHRISTY (with ferocity). Take yourself from this, young fellow, or I’ll maybe add a murder to my deeds to-day.
MICHAEL (springing up with a shriek). Murder is it? Is it mad yous are? Would you go making murder in this place, and it piled with poteen for our drink to-night? Go on to the foreshore if it’s fighting you want, where the rising tide will wash all traces from the memory of man. (Pushing SHAWN towards CHRISTY.)
SHAWN (shaking himself free, and getting behind MICHAEL). I’ll not fight him, Michael James. I’d liefer live a bachelor, simmering in passions to the end of time, than face a lepping savage the like of him has descended from the Lord knows where. Strike him yourself, Michael James, or you’ll lose my drift of heifers and my blue bull from Sneem.
MICHAEL. Is it me fight him, when it’s father-slaying he’s bred to now? (Pushing SHAWN) Go on you fool and fight him now.
SHAWN (coming forward a little). Will I strike him with my hand?
MICHAEL. Take the loy is on your western side.
SHAWN. I’d be afeard of the gallows if I struck him with that.
CHRISTY (taking up the loy). Then I’ll make you face the gallows or quit off from this.
(SHAWN flies out of the door.)
CHRISTY. Well, fine weather be after him, (going to MICHAEL, coaxingly) and I’m thinking you wouldn’t wish to have that quaking blackguard in your house at all. Let you give us your blessing and hear her swear her faith to me, for I’m mounted on the springtide of the stars of luck, the way it’ll be good for any to have me in the house.
PEGEEN (at the other side of MICHAEL). Bless us now, for I swear to God I’ll wed him, and I’ll not renege.
MICHAEL (standing up in the centre, holding on to both of them). It’s the will of God, I’m thinking, that all should win an easy or a cruel end, and it’s the will of God that all should rear up lengthy families for the nurture of the earth. 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. (He joins their hands.) A daring fellow is the jewel of the world, and a man did split his father’s middle with a single clout, should have the bravery of ten, so may God and Mary and St. Patrick bless you, and increase you from this mortal day.
CHRISTY AND PEGEEN. Amen, O Lord!
(Hubbub outside.)
(OLD MAHON rushes in, followed by all the crowd, and WIDOW QUIN. He makes a rush at CHRISTY, knocks him down, and begins to beat him.)
PEGEEN (dragging back his arm). Stop that, will you? Who are you at all?
MAHON. His father, God forgive me!
PEGEEN (drawing back). Is it rose from the dead?
MAHON. Do you think I look so easy quenched with the tap of a loy? (Beats CHRISTY again.)
PEGEEN (glaring at CHRISTY). And it’s lies you told, letting on you had him slitted, and you nothing at all.
CHRISTY (catching MAHON‘s stick). He’s not my father. He’s a raving maniac would scare the world. (Pointing to WIDOW QUIN) Herself knows it is true.
CROWD. You’re fooling Pegeen! The Widow Quin seen him this day, and you likely knew! You’re a liar!
CHRISTY (dumbfounded). It’s himself was a liar, lying stretched out with an open head on him, letting on he was dead.
MAHON. Weren’t you off racing the hills before I got my breath with the start I had seeing you turn on me at all?
PEGEEN. And to think of the coaxing glory we had given him, and he after doing nothing but hitting a soft blow and chasing northward in a sweat of fear. Quit off from this.
CHRISTY (piteously). You’ve seen my doings this day, and let you save me from the old man; for why would you be in such a scorch of haste to spur me to destruction now?
PEGEEN. It’s there your treachery is spurring me, till I’m hard set
to think you’re the one I’m after lacing in my heart-strings half-an-hour gone by. (To MAHON) 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.
MAHON (loudly). If you didn‘t, you’re a poor good-for-nothing, and isn’t it by the like of you the sins of the whole world are committed?
CHRISTY (raising his hands). In the name of the Almighty God....
MAHON. Leave troubling the Lord God. Would you have him sending down droughts, and fevers, and the old hen and the cholera morbus?
CHRISTY (to WIDOW QUIN). Will you come between us and protect me now?
WIDOW QUIN. I’ve tried a lot, God help me, and my share is done.
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.
CHRISTY. I will not then, for there’s torment in the splendour of her like, and she a girl any moon of midnight would take pride to meet, facing southwards on the heaths of Keel. But what did I want crawling forward to scorch my understanding at her flaming brow?
PEGEEN (to MAHON, vehemently, fearing she will break into tears). Take him on from this or I’ll set the young lads to destroy him here.
MAHON (going to him, shaking his stick). Come on now if you wouldn’t have the company to see you skelped.
PEGEEN (half laughing, through her tears). That’s it, now the world will see him pandied, and he an ugly liar was playing off the hero, and the fright of men.
CHRISTY (to MAHON, very sharply). Leave me go!
CROWD. That’s it. Now, Christy. If them two set fighting, it will lick the world.
MAHON (making a grab at CHRISTY). Come here to me.
CHRISTY (more threateningly). Leave me go, I’m saying.
MAHON. I will maybe, when your legs is limping, and your back is blue.
CROWD. Keep it up, the two of you. I’ll back the old one. Now the playboy.
CHRISTY (in low and intense voice). Shut your yelling, for if you’re after making a mighty man of me this day by the power of a lie, you’re setting me now to think if it’s a poor thing to be lonesome, it’s worse maybe to go mixing with the fools of earth.
(MAHON makes a movement towards him.)
CHRISTY (almost shouting). Keep off ... lest I do show a blow unto the lot of you would set the guardian angels winking in the clouds above. (He swings round with a sudden rapid movement and picks up a loy.)
CROWD (half frightened, half amused). He’s going mad! Mind yourselves! Run from the idiot!
CHRISTY. If I am an idiot, I’m after hearing my voice this day saying words would raise the topknot on a poet in a merchant’s town. I’ve won your racing, your lepping, and ...
MAHON. Shut your gullet and come on with me.
CHRISTY. I’m going, but I’ll stretch you first.
(He runs at old MAHON with the loy, chases him out of the door, followed by crowd and WIDOW QUIN. There is a great noise outside, then a yell, and dead silence for a moment. CHRISTY comes in, half dazed, and goes to fire.)
WIDOW QUIN (coming in, hurriedly, and going to him). They’re turning again you. Come on, or you’ll be hanged, indeed.
CHRISTY. I’m thinking, from this out, Pegeen’ll be giving me praises the same as in the hours gone by.
WIDOW QUIN (impatiently). Come by the back-door. I’d think bad to have you stifled on the gallows tree.
CHRISTY (indignantly). I will not, then. What good’d be my life-time, if I left Pegeen?
WIDOW QUIN. Come on, and you’ll be no worse than you were last night; and you with a double murder this time to be telling to the girls.
CHRISTY. I’ll not leave Pegeen Mike.
WIDOW QUIN (impatiently). Isn’t there the match of her in every parish public, from Binghamstown unto the plain of Meath? Come on, I tell you, and I’ll find you finer sweethearts at each waning moon.
CHRISTY. It’s Pegeen I’m seeking only, and what’d I care if you brought me a drift of chosen females,
standing in their shifts itself, maybe, from this place to the Eastern World?
SARA (runs in, pulling off one of her petticoats). They’re going to hang him. (Holding out petticoat and shawl) Fit these upon him, and let him run off to the east.
WIDOW QUIN. He’s raving now; but we’ll fit them on him, and I’ll take him, in the ferry, to the Achill boat.
CHRISTY (struggling feebly). Leave me go, will you? when I’m thinking of my luck to-day, for she will wed me surely, and I a proven hero in the end of all.
(They try to fasten petticoat round him.)
WIDOW QUIN. Take his left hand, and we’ll pull him now. Come on, young fellow.
CHRISTY (suddenly starting up). You’ll be taking me from her? You’re jealous, is it, of her wedding me? Go on from this. (He snatches up a stool, and threatens them with it.)
WIDOW QUIN (going). It’s in the mad-house they should put him, not in jail, at all. We’ll go by the back-door, to call the doctor, and we’ll save him so.
(She goes out, with SARA, through inner room. Men crowd in the doorway. CHRISTY sits down again by the fire.)
MICHAEL (in a terrified whisper). Is the old lad killed surely?
PHILLY. I’m after feeling the last gasps quitting his heart.
(They peer in at CHRISTY.)
MICHAEL (with a rope). Look at the way he is. Twist a hangman’s knot on it, and slip it over his head, while he’s not minding at all.
PHILLY. Let you take it, Shaneen. You’re the sober est of all that’s here.
SHAWN. Is it me to go near him, and he the wick edest and worst with me? Let you take it, Pegeen Mike.
PEGEEN. Come on, so.
(She goes forward with the others, and they drop the double hitch over his head.)
CHRISTY. What ails you?
SHAWN (triumphantly, as they pull the rope tight on his arms). Come on to the peelers, till they stretch you now.
CHRISTY. Me!
MICHAEL. If we took pity on you, the Lord God would, maybe, bring us ruin from the law to-day, so you’d best come easy, for hanging is an easy and a speedy end.
CHRISTY. I’ll not stir. (To PEGEEN) 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.
CHRISTY (with horror in his voice). And it’s yourself will send me off, to have a horny-fingered hangman hitching his bloody slip-knots at the butt of my ear.
MEN (pulling rope). Come on, will you?
(He is pulled down on the floor.)
CHRISTY (twisting his legs round the table). Cut the rope, Pegeen, and I’ll quit the lot of you, and live from this out, like the madmen of Keel, eating muck and green weeds, on the faces of the cliffs.
PEGEEN. And leave us to hang, is it, for a saucy liar, the like of you? (To MEN) Take him on, out from this.
SHAWN. Pull a twist on his neck, and squeeze him so.
PHILLY. Twist yourself. Sure he cannot hurt you, if you keep your distance from his teeth alone.
SHAWN. I’m afeard of him. (To PEGEEN) Lift a lighted sod, will you, and scorch his leg.
PEGEEN (blowing the fire, with a bellows). Leave go now, young fellow, or I’ll scorch your shins.
CHRISTY. You’re blowing for to torture me. (His voice rising and growing stronger.) That’s your kind, is it? Then let the lot of you be wary, for, if I’ve to face the gallows, I’ll have a gay march down, I tell you, and shed the blood of some of you before I die.
SHAWN (in terror). Keep a good hold, Philly. Be wary, for the love of God. For I’m thinking he would liefest wreak his pains on me.
CHRISTY (almost gaily). If I do lay my hands on you, it’s the way you’ll be at the fall of night, hanging as a scarecrow for the fowls of hell. Ah, you’ll have a gallous jaunt I’m saying, coaching out through Limbo with my father’s ghost.
SHAWN (to PEGEEN). Make haste, will you? Oh, isn’t he a holy terror, and isn’t it true for Father Reilly, that all drink’s a curse that has the lot of you so shaky and uncertain now?
CHRISTY. If I can wring a neck among you, I’ll have a royal judgment looking on the trembling jury in the courts of law. And won’t there be crying out in Mayo the day I’m stretched upon the rope with ladies in their silks and satins snivelling in their lacy kerchiefs, and they rhyming songs and ballads on the terror of my fate? (He squirms round on the floor and bites SHAWN‘s leg.)
SHAWN (shrieking). My leg’s bit on me. He’s the like of a mad dog, I’m thinking, the way that I will surely die.
CHRISTY (delighted with himself). You will then, the way you can shake out hell’s flags of welcome for my coming in two weeks or three, for I’m thinking Satan hasn’t many have killed their da in Kerry, and in Mayo too.
(OLD MAHON comes in behind on all fours and looks on unnoticed.)
MEN (to PEGEEN). Bring the sod, will you?
PEGEEN (coming over). God help him so. (Burns his leg.)