[_He takes up the Helmet
which LEAGERIE had laid down upon the table when he went to break out
the bottom of the window.
which LEAGERIE had laid down upon the table when he went to break out
the bottom of the window.
Yeats
We were merry.
It was late, close on to midnight, when a
strange-looking man with red hair and a great sword in his hand came in
through that door. He asked for ale and we gave it to him, for we were
tired of drinking with one another. He became merry, and for every joke
we made he made a better, and presently we all three got up and danced,
and then we sang, and then he said he would show us a new game. He said
he would stoop down and that one of us was to cut off his head, and
afterwards one of us, or whoever had a mind for the game, was to stoop
down and have his head whipped off. 'You take off my head,' said he,
'and then I take off his head, and that will be a bargain and a debt
between us. A head for a head, that is the game,' said he. We laughed
at him and told him he was drunk, for how could he whip off a head when
his own had been whipped off? Then he began abusing us and calling
us names, so I ran at him and cut his head off, and the head went on
laughing where it lay, and presently he caught it up in his hands and
ran out and plunged into the sea.
CUCHULAIN [_laughs_].
I have imagined as good, when I had as much ale, and believed it too.
LEAGERIE [_at table_].
I tell you, Cuchulain, you never did. You never imagined a story like
this.
CONAL.
Why must you be always putting yourself up against Leagerie and myself?
and what is more, it was no imagination at all. We said to ourselves
that all came out of the flagon, and we laughed, and we said we will
tell nobody about it. We made an oath to tell nobody. But twelve months
after when we were sitting by this table, the flagon between us--
LEAGERIE.
But full up to the brim--
CONAL.
The thought of that story had put us from our drinking--
LEAGERIE.
We were telling it over to one another--
CONAL.
Suddenly that man came in with his head on his shoulders again, and the
big sword in his hand. He asked for payment of his debt, and because
neither I nor Leagerie would let him cut off our heads he began abusing
us and making little of us, and saying that we were a disgrace, and
that all Ireland was disgraced because of us. We had not a word to say.
LEAGERIE.
If you had been here you would have been as silent as we were.
CONAL.
At last he said he would come again in twelve months and give us one
more chance to keep our word and pay our debt. After that he went down
into the sea again. Will he tell the whole world of the disgrace that
has come upon us, do you think?
CUCHULAIN.
Whether he does or does not, we will stand there in the door with our
swords out and drive him down to the sea again.
CONAL.
What is the use of fighting with a man whose head laughs when it has
been cut off?
LEAGERIE.
We might run away, but he would follow us everywhere.
CONAL.
He is coming; the sea is beginning to splash and rumble as it did
before he came the last time.
CUCHULAIN.
Let us shut the door and put our backs against it.
LEAGERIE.
It is too late. Look, there he is at the door. He is standing on the
threshold.
[_A MAN dressed in red, with a great sword and red
ragged hair, and having a Golden Helmet on his head, is
standing on the threshold. _
CUCHULAIN.
Go back into the sea, old red head! If you will take off heads,
take off the head of the sea turtle of Muirthemne, or of the pig
of Connaught that has a moon in his belly, or of that old juggler
Manannan, son of the sea, or of the red man of the Boyne, or of the
King of the Cats, for they are of your own sort, and it may be they
understand your ways. Go, I say, for when a man's head is off it does
not grow again. What are you standing there for? Go down, I say. If I
cannot harm you with the sword I will put you down into the sea with my
hands. Do you laugh at me, old red head? Go down before I lay my hands
upon you.
RED MAN.
So you also believe I was in earnest when I asked for a man's head?
It was but a drinker's joke, an old juggling feat, to pass the time.
I am the best of all drinkers and tipsy companions, the kindest there
is among the Shape-changers of the world. Look, I have brought this
Golden Helmet as a gift. It is for you or for Leagerie or for Conal,
for the best man, and the bravest fighting-man amongst you, and you
yourselves shall choose the man. Leagerie is brave, and Conal is brave.
They risk their lives in battle, but they were not brave enough for my
jokes and my juggling. [_He lays the Golden Helmet on the ground. _]
Have I been too grim a joker? Well, I am forgiven now, for there is the
Helmet, and let the strongest take it.
[_He goes out. _
CONAL [_taking Helmet_].
It is my right. I am a year older than Leagerie, and I have fought in
more battles.
LEAGERIE [_strutting about stage, sings_].
Leagerie of the Battles
Has put to the sword
The cat-headed men
And carried away
Their hidden gold.
[_He snatches Helmet at the last word. _
CONAL.
Give it back to me, I say. What was the treasure but withered leaves
when you got to your own door?
CUCHULAIN.
[_Taking the Helmet from LEAGERIE. _]
Give it to me, I say.
CONAL.
You are too young, Cuchulain. What deeds have you to be set beside our
deeds?
CUCHULAIN.
I have not taken it for myself. It will belong to us all equally. [_He
goes to table and begins filling Helmet with ale. _] We will pass it
round and drink out of it turn about and no one will be able to claim
that it belongs to him more than another. I drink to your wife, Conal,
and to your wife, Leagerie, and I drink to Emer my own wife. [_Shouting
and blowing of horns in the distance. _] What is that noise?
CONAL.
It is the horseboys and the huntboys and the scullions quarrelling.
I know the sound, for I have heard it often of late. It is a good
thing that you are home, Cuchulain, for it is your own horseboy and
chariot-driver, Laeg, that is the worst of all, and now you will keep
him quiet. They take down the great hunting-horns when they cannot
drown one another's voices by shouting. There--there--do you hear them
now? [_Shouting so as to be heard above the noise. _] I drink to your
good health, Cuchulain, and to your young wife, though it were well if
she did not quarrel with my wife.
_Many men, among whom is LAEG, chariot-driver of
CUCHULAIN, come in with great horns of many fantastic
shapes. _
LAEG.
I am Cuchulain's chariot-driver, and I say that my master is the best.
ANOTHER.
He is not, but Leagerie is.
ANOTHER.
No, but Conal is.
LAEG.
Make them listen to me, Cuchulain.
ANOTHER.
No, but listen to me.
LAEG.
When I said Cuchulain should have the Helmet, they blew the horns.
ANOTHER.
Conal has it. The best man has it.
CUCHULAIN.
Silence, all of you. What is all this uproar, Laeg, and who began it?
[_The _Scullions_ and the _Horseboys_ point at LAEG and
cry, '_He began it_. ' They keep up an all but continual
murmur through what follows. _
LAEG.
A man with a red beard came where we were sitting, and as he passed me
he cried out that they were taking a golden helmet or some such thing
from you and denying you the championship of Ireland. I stood up on
that and I cried out that you were the best of the men of Ireland. But
the others cried for Leagerie or Conal, and because I have a big voice
they got down the horns to drown my voice, and as neither I nor they
would keep silent we have come here to settle it. I demand that the
Helmet be taken from Conal and be given to you.
[_The _Horseboys_ and the _Scullions_ shout, '_No, no;
give it to Leagerie_,' '_The best man has it_,' etc. _
CUCHULAIN.
It has not been given to Conal or to anyone. I have made it into a
drinking-cup that it may belong to all. I drank and then Conal drank.
Give it to Leagerie, Conal, that he may drink. That will make them see
that it belongs to all of us.
A SCULLION OR HORSEBOY.
Cuchulain is right.
ANOTHER.
Cuchulain is right, and I am tired blowing on the big horn.
LAEG.
Cuchulain, you drank first.
ANOTHER.
He gives it to Leagerie now, but he has taken the honour of it for
himself. Did you hear him say he drank the first? He claimed to be the
best by drinking first.
ANOTHER.
Did Cuchulain drink the first?
LAEG [_triumphantly_].
You drank the first, Cuchulain.
CONAL.
Did you claim to be better than us by drinking first?
[_LEAGERIE and CONAL draw their swords. _
CUCHULAIN.
Is it that old dried herring, that old red juggler who has made us
quarrel for his own comfort? [_The _Horseboys_ and the _Scullions_
murmur excitedly. _] He gave the Helmet to set us by the ears, and
because we would not quarrel over it, he goes to Laeg and tells him
that I am wronged. Who knows where he is now, or who he is stirring up
to make mischief between us? Go back to your work and do not stir from
it whatever noise comes to you or whatever shape shows itself.
A SCULLION.
Cuchulain is right. I am tired blowing on the big horn.
CUCHULAIN.
Go in silence.
[_The _Scullions_ and _Horseboys_ turn towards
the door, but stand still on hearing the voice of
LEAGERIE'S WIFE outside the door. _
LEAGERIE'S WIFE.
My man is the best. I will go in the first. I will go in the first.
EMER.
My man is the best, and I will go in first.
CONAL'S WIFE.
No, for my man is the best, and it is I that should go first.
[_LEAGERIE'S WIFE and CONAL'S WIFE struggle in the
doorway. _
_LEAGERIE'S WIFE sings. _
My man is the best.
What other has fought
The cat-headed men
That mew in the sea
And carried away
Their long-hidden gold?
They struck with their claws
And bit with their teeth,
But Leagerie my husband
Put all to the sword.
CONAL'S WIFE.
[_Putting her hand over the other's mouth and getting
in front of her. _]
My husband has fought
With strong men in armour.
Had he a quarrel
With cats, it is certain
He'd war with none
But the stout and heavy
With good claws on them.
What glory in warring
With hollow shadows
That helplessly mew?
EMER.
[_Thrusting herself between them and forcing both of
them back with her hands. _]
I am Emer, wife of Cuchulain, and no one shall go in front of me, or
sing in front of me, or praise any that I have not a mind to hear
praised.
[_CUCHULAIN puts his spear across the door. _
CUCHULAIN.
All of our three wives shall come in together, and by three doors equal
in height and in breadth and in honour. Break down the bottoms of the
windows.
[_While CONAL and LEAGERIE are breaking down the
bottoms of the windows each of their wives goes to the
window where her husband is. _
_While the windows are being broken down EMER sings. _
My man is the best.
And Conal's wife
And the wife of Leagerie
Know that they lie
When they praise their own
Out of envy of me.
My man is the best,
First for his own sake,
Being the bravest
And handsomest man
And the most beloved
By the women of Ireland
That envy me,
And then for his wife's sake
Because I'm the youngest
And handsomest queen.
[_When the windows have been made into doors, CUCHULAIN
takes his spear from the door where EMER is, and all
three come in at the same moment. _
EMER.
I am come to praise you and to put courage into you, Cuchulain, as a
wife should, that they may not take the championship of the men of
Ireland from you.
LEAGERIE'S WIFE.
You lie, Emer, for it is Cuchulain and Conal who are taking the
championship from my husband.
CONAL'S WIFE.
Cuchulain has taken it.
CUCHULAIN.
Townland against townland, barony against barony, kingdom against
kingdom, province against province, and if there be but two door-posts
to a door the one fighting against the other.
[_He takes up the Helmet
which LEAGERIE had laid down upon the table when he went to break out
the bottom of the window. _] This Helmet will bring no more wars into
Ireland. [_He throws it into the sea. _]
LEAGERIE'S WIFE.
You have done that to rob my husband.
CONAL'S WIFE.
You could not keep it for yourself, and so you threw it away that
nobody else might have it.
CONAL.
You should not have done that, Cuchulain.
LEAGERIE.
You have done us a great wrong.
EMER.
Who is for Cuchulain?
CUCHULAIN.
Let no one stir.
EMER.
Who is for Cuchulain, I say?
[_She draws her dagger from her belt and sings the same
words as before, flourishing it about. While she has
been singing, CONAL'S WIFE and LEAGERIE'S WIFE have
drawn their daggers and run at her to kill her, but
CUCHULAIN has forced them back. CONAL and LEAGERIE have
drawn their swords to strike CUCHULAIN. _
CONAL'S WIFE.
[_While EMER is still singing. _]
Silence her voice, silence her voice, blow the horns, make a noise!
[_The _Scullions_ and _Horseboys_ blow their horns or
fight among themselves. There is a deafening noise and
a confused fight. Suddenly three black hands holding
extinguishers come through the window and extinguish
the torches. It is now pitch dark but for a very faint
light outside the house which merely shows that there
are moving forms, but not who or what they are, and in
the darkness one can hear low terrified voices. _
FIRST VOICE.
Did you see them putting out the torches?
ANOTHER VOICE.
They came up out of the sea, three black men.
ANOTHER VOICE.
They have heads of cats upon them.
ANOTHER VOICE.
They came up mewing out of the sea.
ANOTHER VOICE.
How dark it is! one of them has put his hand over the moon.
[_A light gradually comes into the windows as if
shining from the sea. The RED MAN is seen standing in
the midst of the house. _
RED MAN.
I demand the debt that is owing. I demand that some man shall stoop
down that I may cut his head off as my head was cut off. If my debt is
not paid, no peace shall come to Ireland, and Ireland shall lie weak
before her enemies. But if my debt is paid there shall be peace.
CUCHULAIN.
The quarrels of Ireland shall end. What is one man's life? I will pay
the debt with my own head. [_EMER wails. _] Do not cry out, Emer, for
if I were not myself, if I were not Cuchulain, one of those that God
has made reckless, the women of Ireland had not loved me, and you had
not held your head so high. [_He stoops, bending his head. Three _Black
Men_ come to the door. Two hold torches, and one stooping between them
holds up the Golden Helmet. The RED MAN gives one of the _Black Men_
his sword and takes the Helmet. _] What do you wait for, old man? Come,
raise up your sword!
RED MAN.
I will not harm you, Cuchulain. I am the guardian of this land, and
age after age I come up out of the sea to try the men of Ireland. I
give you the championship because you are without fear, and you shall
win many battles with laughing lips and endure wounding and betrayal
without bitterness of heart; and when men gaze upon you, their hearts
shall grow greater and their minds clear; until the day come when I
darken your mind, that there may be an end to the story, and a song on
the harp-string.
THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT
_The Irish dramatic movement began in May, 1899, with the performance
of certain plays by English actors who were brought to Dublin for the
purpose; and in the spring of the following year and in the autumn of
the year after that, performances of like plays were given by like
actors at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. In the third year I started
SAMHAIN to defend the work, and on re-reading it and reading it for
the first time throughout, have found it best to reprint my part of
it unchanged. A number has been published about once a year till very
lately, and the whole series of notes are a history of a movement which
is important because of the principles it is rooted in whatever be its
fruits, and these principles are better told of in words that rose
out of the need, than were I to explain all again and with order and
ceremony now that the old enmities and friendships are ruffled by new
ones that have other things to be done and said. _
_March, 1908. _
SAMHAIN: 1901
When Lady Gregory, Mr. Edward Martyn, and myself planned the Irish
Literary Theatre, we decided that it should be carried on in the form
we had projected for three years. We thought that three years would
show whether the country desired to take up the project, and make it a
part of the national life, and that we, at any rate, could return to
our proper work, in which we did not include theatrical management,
at the end of that time. A little later, Mr. George Moore[A] joined
us; and, looking back now upon our work, I doubt if it could have been
done at all without his knowledge of the stage; and certainly if the
performances of this present year bring our adventure to a successful
close, a chief part of the credit will be his. Many, however, have
helped us in various degrees, for in Ireland just now one has only to
discover an idea that seems of service to the country for friends and
helpers to start up on every hand. While we needed guarantors we had
them in plenty, and though Mr. Edward Martyn's public spirit made it
unnecessary to call upon them, we thank them none the less.
Whether the Irish Literary Theatre has a successor made on its own
model or not, we can claim that a dramatic movement which will not
die has been started. When we began our work, we tried in vain to
get a play in Gaelic. We could not even get a condensed version of
the dialogue of Oisin and Patrick. We wrote to Gaelic enthusiasts in
vain, for their imagination had not yet turned towards the stage, and
now there are excellent Gaelic plays by Dr. Douglas Hyde, by Father
O'Leary, by Father Dineen, and by Mr. MacGinlay; and the Gaelic League
has had a competition for a one-act play in Gaelic, with what results I
do not know. There have been successful performances of plays in Gaelic
at Dublin and at Macroom, and at Letterkenny, and I think at other
places; and Mr. Fay has got together an excellent little company which
plays both in Gaelic and English. I may say, for I am perhaps writing
an epitaph, and epitaphs should be written in a genial spirit, that
we have turned a great deal of Irish imagination towards the stage.
We could not have done this if our movement had not opened a way of
expression for an impulse that was in the people themselves. The truth
is that the Irish people are at that precise stage of their history
when imagination, shaped by many stirring events, desires dramatic
expression. One has only to listen to a recitation of Raftery's
_Argument with Death_ at some country Feis to understand this. When
Death makes a good point, or Raftery a good point, the audience applaud
delightedly, and applaud, not as a London audience would, some verbal
dexterity, some piece of smartness, but the movements of a simple and
fundamental comedy. One sees it too in the reciters themselves, whose
acting is at times all but perfect in its vivid simplicity. I heard a
little Claddagh girl tell a folk-story at Galway Feis with a restraint
and a delightful energy that could hardly have been bettered by the
most careful training.
The organization of this movement is of immediate importance. Some of
our friends propose that somebody begin at once to get a small stock
company together, and that he invite, let us say, Mr. Benson, to find
us certain well-trained actors, Irish if possible, but well trained of
a certainty, who will train our actors, and take the more difficult
parts at the beginning. These friends contend that it is necessary to
import our experts at the beginning, for our company must be able to
compete with travelling English companies, but that a few years will be
enough to make many competent Irish actors. The Corporation of Dublin
should be asked, they say, to give a small annual sum of money, such
as they give to the Academy of Music; and the Corporations of Cork
and Limerick and Waterford, and other provincial towns, to give small
endowments in the shape of a hall and attendants and lighting for a
week or two out of every year; and the Technical Board to give a small
annual sum of money to a school of acting which would teach fencing and
declamation, and gesture and the like. The stock company would perform
in Dublin perhaps three weeks in spring, and three weeks in autumn,
and go on tour the rest of the time through Ireland, and through the
English towns where there is a large Irish population. It would perform
plays in Irish and English, and also, it is proposed, the masterpieces
of the world, making a point of performing Spanish and Scandinavian,
and French, and perhaps Greek masterpieces rather more than
Shakespeare, for Shakespeare one sees, not well done indeed, but not
unendurably ill done in the Theatre of Commerce. It would do its best
to give Ireland a hardy and shapely national character by opening the
doors to the four winds of the world, instead of leaving the door that
is towards the east wind open alone. Certainly, the national character,
which is so essentially different from the English that Spanish and
French influences may well be most healthy, is at present like one of
those miserable thorn bushes by the sea that are all twisted to one
side by some prevailing wind.
It is contended that there is no reason why the company should not be
as successful as similar companies in Germany and Scandinavia, and
that it would be even of commercial advantage to Dublin by making it
a pleasanter place to live in, besides doing incalculable good to the
whole intellect of the country. One, at any rate, of those who press
the project on us has much practical knowledge of the stage and of
theatrical management, and knows what is possible and what is not
possible.
Others among our friends, and among these are some who have had more
than their share of the hard work which has built up the intellectual
movement in Ireland, argue that a theatre of this kind would require
too much money to be free, that it could not touch on politics, the
most vital passion and vital interest of the country, as they say,
and that the attitude of continual compromise between conviction and
interest, which it would necessitate, would become demoralising to
everybody concerned, especially at moments of political excitement.
They tell us that the war between an Irish Ireland and an English
Ireland is about to become much fiercer, to divide families and friends
it may be, and that the organisations that will lead in the war must
be able to say everything the people are thinking. They would have
Irishmen give their plays to a company like Mr. Fay's, when they are
within its power, and if not, to Mr. Benson or to any other travelling
company which will play them in Ireland without committees, where
everybody compromises a little. In this way, they contend, we would
soon build up an Irish theatre from the ground, escaping to some extent
the conventions of the ordinary theatre, and English voices which
give a foreign air to one's words. And though we might have to wait
some years, we would get even the masterpieces of the world in good
time. Let us, they think, be poor enough to whistle at the thief who
would take away some of our thoughts, and after Mr. Fay has taken his
company, as he plans, through the villages and the country towns, he
will get the little endowment that is necessary, or if he does not some
other will.
I do not know what Lady Gregory or Mr. Moore think of these projects.
I am not going to say what I think. I have spent much of my time and
more of my thought these last ten years on Irish organisation, and now
that the Irish Literary Theatre has completed the plan I had in my head
ten years ago, I want to go down again to primary ideas. I want to put
old stories into verse, and if I put them into dramatic verse it will
matter less to me henceforward who plays them than what they play, and
how they play. I hope to get our heroic age into verse, and to solve
some problems of the speaking of verse to musical notes.
There is only one question which is raised by the two projects I
have described on which I will give an opinion. It is of the first
importance that those among us who want to write for the stage study
the dramatic masterpieces of the world. If they can get them on the
stage so much the better, but study them they must if Irish drama is to
mean anything to Irish intellect. At the present moment, Shakespeare
being the only great dramatist known to Irish writers has made them
cast their work too much on the English model. Miss Milligan's _Red
Hugh_, which was successfully acted in Dublin the other day, had no
business to be in two scenes; and Father O'Leary's _Tadg Saor_, despite
its most vivid and picturesque, though far too rambling dialogue,
shows in its half dozen changes of scene the influence of the same
English convention which arose when there was no scene painting, and
is often a difficulty where there is, and is always an absurdity in
a farce of thirty minutes, breaking up the emotion and sending one's
thoughts here and there. Mr. MacGinlay's _Elis agus an bhean deirce_
has not this defect, and though I had not Irish enough to follow it
when I saw it played, and excellently played, by Mr. Fay's company, I
could see from the continual laughter of the audience that it held them
with an unbroken emotion. The best Gaelic play after Dr. Hyde's is, I
think, Father Dineen's _Creideamh agus gorta_, and though it changes
the scene a little oftener than is desirable under modern conditions,
it does not remind me of an English model. It reminds me of Calderon
by its treatment of a religious subject, and by something in Father
Dineen's sympathy with the people that is like his. But I think if
Father Dineen had studied that great Catholic dramatist he would not
have failed, as he has done once or twice, to remember some necessary
detail of a situation. In the first scene he makes a servant ask his
fellow-servants about things he must have known as well as they; and he
loses a dramatic moment in his third scene by forgetting that Seagan
Gorm has a pocket-full of money which he would certainly, being the man
he was, have offered to the woman he was urging into temptation. The
play towards the end changes from prose to verse, and the reverence and
simplicity of the verse makes one think of a mediaeval miracle play.
The subject has been so much a part of Irish life that it was bound
to be used by an Irish dramatist, though certainly I shall always
prefer plays which attack a more eternal devil than the proselytiser.
He has been defeated, and the arts are at their best when they are
busy with battles that can never be won. It is possible, however, that
we may have to deal with passing issues until we have re-created the
imaginative tradition of Ireland, and filled the popular imagination
again with saints and heroes. These short plays (though they would
be better if their writers knew the masters of their craft) are very
dramatic as they are, but there is no chance of our writers of Gaelic,
or our writers of English, doing good plays of any length if they do
not study the masters. If Irish dramatists had studied the romantic
plays of Ibsen, the one great master the modern stage has produced,
they would not have sent the Irish Literary Theatre imitations of
Boucicault, who had no relation to literature, and Father O'Leary would
have put his gift for dialogue, a gift certainly greater than, let us
say, Mr. Jones' or Mr. Grundy's, to better use than the writing of
that long rambling dramatisation of the _Tain bo Cuailgne_, in which
I hear in the midst of the exuberant Gaelic dialogue the worn-out
conventions of English poetic drama. The moment we leave even a little
the folk-tradition of the peasant, as we must in drama, if we do not
know the best that has been said and written in the world, we do not
even know ourselves. It is no great labour to know the best dramatic
literature, for there is very little of it. We Irish must know it all,
for we have, I think, far greater need of the severe discipline of
French and Scandinavian drama than of Shakespeare's luxuriance.
If the _Diarmuid and Grania_ and the _Casadh an t-Sugain_ are not well
constructed, it is not because Mr. Moore and Dr. Hyde and myself do not
understand the importance of construction, and Mr. Martyn has shown by
the triumphant construction of _The Heather Field_ how much thought he
has given to the matter; but for the most part our Irish plays read
as if they were made without a plan, without a 'scenario,' as it is
called. European drama began so, but the European drama had centuries
for its growth, while our art must grow to perfection in a generation
or two if it is not to be smothered before it is well above the earth
by what is merely commercial in the art of England.
Let us learn construction from the masters, and dialogue from
ourselves. A relation of mine has just written me a letter, in which
he says: 'It is natural to an Irishman to write plays, he has an
inborn love of dialogue and sound about him, of a dialogue as lively,
gallant, and passionate as in the times of great Eliza. In these
days an Englishman's dialogue is that of an amateur, that is to say,
it is never spontaneous. I mean in _real life_. Compare it with an
Irishman's, above all a poor Irishman's, reckless abandonment and
naturalness, or compare it with the only fragment that has come down
to us of Shakespeare's own conversation. ' (He is remembering a passage
in, I think, Ben Jonson's _Underwoods_. ) 'Petty commerce and puritanism
have brought to the front the wrong type of Englishman; the lively,
joyous, yet tenacious man has transferred himself to Ireland. We have
him and we will keep him unless the combined nonsense of . . . and . . .
and . . . succeed in suffocating him. '
In Dublin the other day I saw a poster advertising a play by a Miss
. . . under the patronage of certain titled people. I had little hope of
finding any reality in it, but I sat out two acts. Its dialogue was
above the average, though the characters were the old rattle-traps of
the stage, the wild Irish girl, and the Irish servant, and the bowing
Frenchman, and the situations had all been squeezed dry generations
ago. One saw everywhere the shadowy mind of a woman of the Irish
upper classes as they have become to-day, but under it all there was
a kind of life, though it was but the life of a string and a wire. I
do not know who Miss . . . is, but I know that she is young, for I saw
her portrait in a weekly paper, and I think that she is clever enough
to make her work of some importance. If she goes on doing bad work
she will make money, perhaps a great deal of money, but she will do a
little harm to her country. If, on the other hand, she gets into an
original relation with life, she will, perhaps, make no money, and she
will certainly have her class against her.
The Irish upper classes put everything into a money measure. When
anyone among them begins to write or paint they ask him 'How much money
have you made? ' 'Will it pay? ' Or they say, 'If you do this or that you
will make more money. ' The poor Irish clerk or shopboy,[B] who writes
verses or articles in his brief leisure, writes for the glory of God
and of his country; and because his motive is high, there is not one
vulgar thought in the countless little ballad books that have been
written from Callinan's day to this. They are often clumsily written
for they are in English, and if you have not read a great deal, it is
difficult to write well in a language which has been long separated,
from the 'folk-speech'; but they have not a thought a proud and simple
man would not have written. The writers were poor men, but they left
that money measure to the Irish upper classes. All Irish writers have
to choose whether they will write as the upper classes have done,
not to express but to exploit this country; or join the intellectual
movement which has raised the cry that was heard in Russia in the
seventies, the cry 'to the people. '
Moses was little good to his people until he had killed an Egyptian;
and for the most part a writer or public man of the upper classes is
useless to this country till he has done something that separates him
from his class. We wish to grow peaceful crops, but we must dig our
furrows with the sword.
Our plays this year will be produced by Mr. Benson at the Gaiety
Theatre on October the 21st, and on some of the succeeding days. They
are Dr. Douglas Hyde's _Casadh an t-Sugain_, which is founded on a well
known Irish story of a wandering poet; and _Diarmuid and Grania_, a
play in three acts and in prose by Mr. George Moore and myself, which
is founded on the most famous of all Irish stories, the story of the
lovers whose beds were the cromlechs. The first act of _Diarmuid and
Grania_ is in the great banqueting hall of Tara, and the second and
third on the slopes of Ben Bulben in Sligo. We do not think there is
anything in either play to offend anybody, but we make no promises. We
thought our plays inoffensive last year and the year before, but we
were accused the one year of sedition, and the other of heresy.
I have called this little collection of writings _Samhain_, the old
name for the beginning of winter, because our plays this year are in
October, and because our Theatre is coming to an end in its present
shape.
1902
The Irish Literary Theatre wound up its three years of experiment last
October with _Diarmuid and Grania_, which was played by Mr. Benson's
Company, Mr. Benson himself playing Diarmuid with poetry and fervour,
and _Casadh an t-Sugain_, played by Dr. Hyde and some members of the
Gaelic League. _Diarmuid and Grania_ drew large audiences, but its
version of the legend was a good deal blamed by critics, who knew only
the modern text of the story. There are two versions, and the play
was fully justified by Irish and Scottish folk-lore, and by certain
early Irish texts, which do not see Grania through very friendly
eyes. Any critic who is interested in so dead a controversy can look
at the folk-tales quoted by Campbell in, I think, _West Highland
Superstitions_, and at the fragment translated by Kuno Meyer, at page
458 of Vol. I. of _Zeitschrift fur Keltische Philologie_.
strange-looking man with red hair and a great sword in his hand came in
through that door. He asked for ale and we gave it to him, for we were
tired of drinking with one another. He became merry, and for every joke
we made he made a better, and presently we all three got up and danced,
and then we sang, and then he said he would show us a new game. He said
he would stoop down and that one of us was to cut off his head, and
afterwards one of us, or whoever had a mind for the game, was to stoop
down and have his head whipped off. 'You take off my head,' said he,
'and then I take off his head, and that will be a bargain and a debt
between us. A head for a head, that is the game,' said he. We laughed
at him and told him he was drunk, for how could he whip off a head when
his own had been whipped off? Then he began abusing us and calling
us names, so I ran at him and cut his head off, and the head went on
laughing where it lay, and presently he caught it up in his hands and
ran out and plunged into the sea.
CUCHULAIN [_laughs_].
I have imagined as good, when I had as much ale, and believed it too.
LEAGERIE [_at table_].
I tell you, Cuchulain, you never did. You never imagined a story like
this.
CONAL.
Why must you be always putting yourself up against Leagerie and myself?
and what is more, it was no imagination at all. We said to ourselves
that all came out of the flagon, and we laughed, and we said we will
tell nobody about it. We made an oath to tell nobody. But twelve months
after when we were sitting by this table, the flagon between us--
LEAGERIE.
But full up to the brim--
CONAL.
The thought of that story had put us from our drinking--
LEAGERIE.
We were telling it over to one another--
CONAL.
Suddenly that man came in with his head on his shoulders again, and the
big sword in his hand. He asked for payment of his debt, and because
neither I nor Leagerie would let him cut off our heads he began abusing
us and making little of us, and saying that we were a disgrace, and
that all Ireland was disgraced because of us. We had not a word to say.
LEAGERIE.
If you had been here you would have been as silent as we were.
CONAL.
At last he said he would come again in twelve months and give us one
more chance to keep our word and pay our debt. After that he went down
into the sea again. Will he tell the whole world of the disgrace that
has come upon us, do you think?
CUCHULAIN.
Whether he does or does not, we will stand there in the door with our
swords out and drive him down to the sea again.
CONAL.
What is the use of fighting with a man whose head laughs when it has
been cut off?
LEAGERIE.
We might run away, but he would follow us everywhere.
CONAL.
He is coming; the sea is beginning to splash and rumble as it did
before he came the last time.
CUCHULAIN.
Let us shut the door and put our backs against it.
LEAGERIE.
It is too late. Look, there he is at the door. He is standing on the
threshold.
[_A MAN dressed in red, with a great sword and red
ragged hair, and having a Golden Helmet on his head, is
standing on the threshold. _
CUCHULAIN.
Go back into the sea, old red head! If you will take off heads,
take off the head of the sea turtle of Muirthemne, or of the pig
of Connaught that has a moon in his belly, or of that old juggler
Manannan, son of the sea, or of the red man of the Boyne, or of the
King of the Cats, for they are of your own sort, and it may be they
understand your ways. Go, I say, for when a man's head is off it does
not grow again. What are you standing there for? Go down, I say. If I
cannot harm you with the sword I will put you down into the sea with my
hands. Do you laugh at me, old red head? Go down before I lay my hands
upon you.
RED MAN.
So you also believe I was in earnest when I asked for a man's head?
It was but a drinker's joke, an old juggling feat, to pass the time.
I am the best of all drinkers and tipsy companions, the kindest there
is among the Shape-changers of the world. Look, I have brought this
Golden Helmet as a gift. It is for you or for Leagerie or for Conal,
for the best man, and the bravest fighting-man amongst you, and you
yourselves shall choose the man. Leagerie is brave, and Conal is brave.
They risk their lives in battle, but they were not brave enough for my
jokes and my juggling. [_He lays the Golden Helmet on the ground. _]
Have I been too grim a joker? Well, I am forgiven now, for there is the
Helmet, and let the strongest take it.
[_He goes out. _
CONAL [_taking Helmet_].
It is my right. I am a year older than Leagerie, and I have fought in
more battles.
LEAGERIE [_strutting about stage, sings_].
Leagerie of the Battles
Has put to the sword
The cat-headed men
And carried away
Their hidden gold.
[_He snatches Helmet at the last word. _
CONAL.
Give it back to me, I say. What was the treasure but withered leaves
when you got to your own door?
CUCHULAIN.
[_Taking the Helmet from LEAGERIE. _]
Give it to me, I say.
CONAL.
You are too young, Cuchulain. What deeds have you to be set beside our
deeds?
CUCHULAIN.
I have not taken it for myself. It will belong to us all equally. [_He
goes to table and begins filling Helmet with ale. _] We will pass it
round and drink out of it turn about and no one will be able to claim
that it belongs to him more than another. I drink to your wife, Conal,
and to your wife, Leagerie, and I drink to Emer my own wife. [_Shouting
and blowing of horns in the distance. _] What is that noise?
CONAL.
It is the horseboys and the huntboys and the scullions quarrelling.
I know the sound, for I have heard it often of late. It is a good
thing that you are home, Cuchulain, for it is your own horseboy and
chariot-driver, Laeg, that is the worst of all, and now you will keep
him quiet. They take down the great hunting-horns when they cannot
drown one another's voices by shouting. There--there--do you hear them
now? [_Shouting so as to be heard above the noise. _] I drink to your
good health, Cuchulain, and to your young wife, though it were well if
she did not quarrel with my wife.
_Many men, among whom is LAEG, chariot-driver of
CUCHULAIN, come in with great horns of many fantastic
shapes. _
LAEG.
I am Cuchulain's chariot-driver, and I say that my master is the best.
ANOTHER.
He is not, but Leagerie is.
ANOTHER.
No, but Conal is.
LAEG.
Make them listen to me, Cuchulain.
ANOTHER.
No, but listen to me.
LAEG.
When I said Cuchulain should have the Helmet, they blew the horns.
ANOTHER.
Conal has it. The best man has it.
CUCHULAIN.
Silence, all of you. What is all this uproar, Laeg, and who began it?
[_The _Scullions_ and the _Horseboys_ point at LAEG and
cry, '_He began it_. ' They keep up an all but continual
murmur through what follows. _
LAEG.
A man with a red beard came where we were sitting, and as he passed me
he cried out that they were taking a golden helmet or some such thing
from you and denying you the championship of Ireland. I stood up on
that and I cried out that you were the best of the men of Ireland. But
the others cried for Leagerie or Conal, and because I have a big voice
they got down the horns to drown my voice, and as neither I nor they
would keep silent we have come here to settle it. I demand that the
Helmet be taken from Conal and be given to you.
[_The _Horseboys_ and the _Scullions_ shout, '_No, no;
give it to Leagerie_,' '_The best man has it_,' etc. _
CUCHULAIN.
It has not been given to Conal or to anyone. I have made it into a
drinking-cup that it may belong to all. I drank and then Conal drank.
Give it to Leagerie, Conal, that he may drink. That will make them see
that it belongs to all of us.
A SCULLION OR HORSEBOY.
Cuchulain is right.
ANOTHER.
Cuchulain is right, and I am tired blowing on the big horn.
LAEG.
Cuchulain, you drank first.
ANOTHER.
He gives it to Leagerie now, but he has taken the honour of it for
himself. Did you hear him say he drank the first? He claimed to be the
best by drinking first.
ANOTHER.
Did Cuchulain drink the first?
LAEG [_triumphantly_].
You drank the first, Cuchulain.
CONAL.
Did you claim to be better than us by drinking first?
[_LEAGERIE and CONAL draw their swords. _
CUCHULAIN.
Is it that old dried herring, that old red juggler who has made us
quarrel for his own comfort? [_The _Horseboys_ and the _Scullions_
murmur excitedly. _] He gave the Helmet to set us by the ears, and
because we would not quarrel over it, he goes to Laeg and tells him
that I am wronged. Who knows where he is now, or who he is stirring up
to make mischief between us? Go back to your work and do not stir from
it whatever noise comes to you or whatever shape shows itself.
A SCULLION.
Cuchulain is right. I am tired blowing on the big horn.
CUCHULAIN.
Go in silence.
[_The _Scullions_ and _Horseboys_ turn towards
the door, but stand still on hearing the voice of
LEAGERIE'S WIFE outside the door. _
LEAGERIE'S WIFE.
My man is the best. I will go in the first. I will go in the first.
EMER.
My man is the best, and I will go in first.
CONAL'S WIFE.
No, for my man is the best, and it is I that should go first.
[_LEAGERIE'S WIFE and CONAL'S WIFE struggle in the
doorway. _
_LEAGERIE'S WIFE sings. _
My man is the best.
What other has fought
The cat-headed men
That mew in the sea
And carried away
Their long-hidden gold?
They struck with their claws
And bit with their teeth,
But Leagerie my husband
Put all to the sword.
CONAL'S WIFE.
[_Putting her hand over the other's mouth and getting
in front of her. _]
My husband has fought
With strong men in armour.
Had he a quarrel
With cats, it is certain
He'd war with none
But the stout and heavy
With good claws on them.
What glory in warring
With hollow shadows
That helplessly mew?
EMER.
[_Thrusting herself between them and forcing both of
them back with her hands. _]
I am Emer, wife of Cuchulain, and no one shall go in front of me, or
sing in front of me, or praise any that I have not a mind to hear
praised.
[_CUCHULAIN puts his spear across the door. _
CUCHULAIN.
All of our three wives shall come in together, and by three doors equal
in height and in breadth and in honour. Break down the bottoms of the
windows.
[_While CONAL and LEAGERIE are breaking down the
bottoms of the windows each of their wives goes to the
window where her husband is. _
_While the windows are being broken down EMER sings. _
My man is the best.
And Conal's wife
And the wife of Leagerie
Know that they lie
When they praise their own
Out of envy of me.
My man is the best,
First for his own sake,
Being the bravest
And handsomest man
And the most beloved
By the women of Ireland
That envy me,
And then for his wife's sake
Because I'm the youngest
And handsomest queen.
[_When the windows have been made into doors, CUCHULAIN
takes his spear from the door where EMER is, and all
three come in at the same moment. _
EMER.
I am come to praise you and to put courage into you, Cuchulain, as a
wife should, that they may not take the championship of the men of
Ireland from you.
LEAGERIE'S WIFE.
You lie, Emer, for it is Cuchulain and Conal who are taking the
championship from my husband.
CONAL'S WIFE.
Cuchulain has taken it.
CUCHULAIN.
Townland against townland, barony against barony, kingdom against
kingdom, province against province, and if there be but two door-posts
to a door the one fighting against the other.
[_He takes up the Helmet
which LEAGERIE had laid down upon the table when he went to break out
the bottom of the window. _] This Helmet will bring no more wars into
Ireland. [_He throws it into the sea. _]
LEAGERIE'S WIFE.
You have done that to rob my husband.
CONAL'S WIFE.
You could not keep it for yourself, and so you threw it away that
nobody else might have it.
CONAL.
You should not have done that, Cuchulain.
LEAGERIE.
You have done us a great wrong.
EMER.
Who is for Cuchulain?
CUCHULAIN.
Let no one stir.
EMER.
Who is for Cuchulain, I say?
[_She draws her dagger from her belt and sings the same
words as before, flourishing it about. While she has
been singing, CONAL'S WIFE and LEAGERIE'S WIFE have
drawn their daggers and run at her to kill her, but
CUCHULAIN has forced them back. CONAL and LEAGERIE have
drawn their swords to strike CUCHULAIN. _
CONAL'S WIFE.
[_While EMER is still singing. _]
Silence her voice, silence her voice, blow the horns, make a noise!
[_The _Scullions_ and _Horseboys_ blow their horns or
fight among themselves. There is a deafening noise and
a confused fight. Suddenly three black hands holding
extinguishers come through the window and extinguish
the torches. It is now pitch dark but for a very faint
light outside the house which merely shows that there
are moving forms, but not who or what they are, and in
the darkness one can hear low terrified voices. _
FIRST VOICE.
Did you see them putting out the torches?
ANOTHER VOICE.
They came up out of the sea, three black men.
ANOTHER VOICE.
They have heads of cats upon them.
ANOTHER VOICE.
They came up mewing out of the sea.
ANOTHER VOICE.
How dark it is! one of them has put his hand over the moon.
[_A light gradually comes into the windows as if
shining from the sea. The RED MAN is seen standing in
the midst of the house. _
RED MAN.
I demand the debt that is owing. I demand that some man shall stoop
down that I may cut his head off as my head was cut off. If my debt is
not paid, no peace shall come to Ireland, and Ireland shall lie weak
before her enemies. But if my debt is paid there shall be peace.
CUCHULAIN.
The quarrels of Ireland shall end. What is one man's life? I will pay
the debt with my own head. [_EMER wails. _] Do not cry out, Emer, for
if I were not myself, if I were not Cuchulain, one of those that God
has made reckless, the women of Ireland had not loved me, and you had
not held your head so high. [_He stoops, bending his head. Three _Black
Men_ come to the door. Two hold torches, and one stooping between them
holds up the Golden Helmet. The RED MAN gives one of the _Black Men_
his sword and takes the Helmet. _] What do you wait for, old man? Come,
raise up your sword!
RED MAN.
I will not harm you, Cuchulain. I am the guardian of this land, and
age after age I come up out of the sea to try the men of Ireland. I
give you the championship because you are without fear, and you shall
win many battles with laughing lips and endure wounding and betrayal
without bitterness of heart; and when men gaze upon you, their hearts
shall grow greater and their minds clear; until the day come when I
darken your mind, that there may be an end to the story, and a song on
the harp-string.
THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT
_The Irish dramatic movement began in May, 1899, with the performance
of certain plays by English actors who were brought to Dublin for the
purpose; and in the spring of the following year and in the autumn of
the year after that, performances of like plays were given by like
actors at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. In the third year I started
SAMHAIN to defend the work, and on re-reading it and reading it for
the first time throughout, have found it best to reprint my part of
it unchanged. A number has been published about once a year till very
lately, and the whole series of notes are a history of a movement which
is important because of the principles it is rooted in whatever be its
fruits, and these principles are better told of in words that rose
out of the need, than were I to explain all again and with order and
ceremony now that the old enmities and friendships are ruffled by new
ones that have other things to be done and said. _
_March, 1908. _
SAMHAIN: 1901
When Lady Gregory, Mr. Edward Martyn, and myself planned the Irish
Literary Theatre, we decided that it should be carried on in the form
we had projected for three years. We thought that three years would
show whether the country desired to take up the project, and make it a
part of the national life, and that we, at any rate, could return to
our proper work, in which we did not include theatrical management,
at the end of that time. A little later, Mr. George Moore[A] joined
us; and, looking back now upon our work, I doubt if it could have been
done at all without his knowledge of the stage; and certainly if the
performances of this present year bring our adventure to a successful
close, a chief part of the credit will be his. Many, however, have
helped us in various degrees, for in Ireland just now one has only to
discover an idea that seems of service to the country for friends and
helpers to start up on every hand. While we needed guarantors we had
them in plenty, and though Mr. Edward Martyn's public spirit made it
unnecessary to call upon them, we thank them none the less.
Whether the Irish Literary Theatre has a successor made on its own
model or not, we can claim that a dramatic movement which will not
die has been started. When we began our work, we tried in vain to
get a play in Gaelic. We could not even get a condensed version of
the dialogue of Oisin and Patrick. We wrote to Gaelic enthusiasts in
vain, for their imagination had not yet turned towards the stage, and
now there are excellent Gaelic plays by Dr. Douglas Hyde, by Father
O'Leary, by Father Dineen, and by Mr. MacGinlay; and the Gaelic League
has had a competition for a one-act play in Gaelic, with what results I
do not know. There have been successful performances of plays in Gaelic
at Dublin and at Macroom, and at Letterkenny, and I think at other
places; and Mr. Fay has got together an excellent little company which
plays both in Gaelic and English. I may say, for I am perhaps writing
an epitaph, and epitaphs should be written in a genial spirit, that
we have turned a great deal of Irish imagination towards the stage.
We could not have done this if our movement had not opened a way of
expression for an impulse that was in the people themselves. The truth
is that the Irish people are at that precise stage of their history
when imagination, shaped by many stirring events, desires dramatic
expression. One has only to listen to a recitation of Raftery's
_Argument with Death_ at some country Feis to understand this. When
Death makes a good point, or Raftery a good point, the audience applaud
delightedly, and applaud, not as a London audience would, some verbal
dexterity, some piece of smartness, but the movements of a simple and
fundamental comedy. One sees it too in the reciters themselves, whose
acting is at times all but perfect in its vivid simplicity. I heard a
little Claddagh girl tell a folk-story at Galway Feis with a restraint
and a delightful energy that could hardly have been bettered by the
most careful training.
The organization of this movement is of immediate importance. Some of
our friends propose that somebody begin at once to get a small stock
company together, and that he invite, let us say, Mr. Benson, to find
us certain well-trained actors, Irish if possible, but well trained of
a certainty, who will train our actors, and take the more difficult
parts at the beginning. These friends contend that it is necessary to
import our experts at the beginning, for our company must be able to
compete with travelling English companies, but that a few years will be
enough to make many competent Irish actors. The Corporation of Dublin
should be asked, they say, to give a small annual sum of money, such
as they give to the Academy of Music; and the Corporations of Cork
and Limerick and Waterford, and other provincial towns, to give small
endowments in the shape of a hall and attendants and lighting for a
week or two out of every year; and the Technical Board to give a small
annual sum of money to a school of acting which would teach fencing and
declamation, and gesture and the like. The stock company would perform
in Dublin perhaps three weeks in spring, and three weeks in autumn,
and go on tour the rest of the time through Ireland, and through the
English towns where there is a large Irish population. It would perform
plays in Irish and English, and also, it is proposed, the masterpieces
of the world, making a point of performing Spanish and Scandinavian,
and French, and perhaps Greek masterpieces rather more than
Shakespeare, for Shakespeare one sees, not well done indeed, but not
unendurably ill done in the Theatre of Commerce. It would do its best
to give Ireland a hardy and shapely national character by opening the
doors to the four winds of the world, instead of leaving the door that
is towards the east wind open alone. Certainly, the national character,
which is so essentially different from the English that Spanish and
French influences may well be most healthy, is at present like one of
those miserable thorn bushes by the sea that are all twisted to one
side by some prevailing wind.
It is contended that there is no reason why the company should not be
as successful as similar companies in Germany and Scandinavia, and
that it would be even of commercial advantage to Dublin by making it
a pleasanter place to live in, besides doing incalculable good to the
whole intellect of the country. One, at any rate, of those who press
the project on us has much practical knowledge of the stage and of
theatrical management, and knows what is possible and what is not
possible.
Others among our friends, and among these are some who have had more
than their share of the hard work which has built up the intellectual
movement in Ireland, argue that a theatre of this kind would require
too much money to be free, that it could not touch on politics, the
most vital passion and vital interest of the country, as they say,
and that the attitude of continual compromise between conviction and
interest, which it would necessitate, would become demoralising to
everybody concerned, especially at moments of political excitement.
They tell us that the war between an Irish Ireland and an English
Ireland is about to become much fiercer, to divide families and friends
it may be, and that the organisations that will lead in the war must
be able to say everything the people are thinking. They would have
Irishmen give their plays to a company like Mr. Fay's, when they are
within its power, and if not, to Mr. Benson or to any other travelling
company which will play them in Ireland without committees, where
everybody compromises a little. In this way, they contend, we would
soon build up an Irish theatre from the ground, escaping to some extent
the conventions of the ordinary theatre, and English voices which
give a foreign air to one's words. And though we might have to wait
some years, we would get even the masterpieces of the world in good
time. Let us, they think, be poor enough to whistle at the thief who
would take away some of our thoughts, and after Mr. Fay has taken his
company, as he plans, through the villages and the country towns, he
will get the little endowment that is necessary, or if he does not some
other will.
I do not know what Lady Gregory or Mr. Moore think of these projects.
I am not going to say what I think. I have spent much of my time and
more of my thought these last ten years on Irish organisation, and now
that the Irish Literary Theatre has completed the plan I had in my head
ten years ago, I want to go down again to primary ideas. I want to put
old stories into verse, and if I put them into dramatic verse it will
matter less to me henceforward who plays them than what they play, and
how they play. I hope to get our heroic age into verse, and to solve
some problems of the speaking of verse to musical notes.
There is only one question which is raised by the two projects I
have described on which I will give an opinion. It is of the first
importance that those among us who want to write for the stage study
the dramatic masterpieces of the world. If they can get them on the
stage so much the better, but study them they must if Irish drama is to
mean anything to Irish intellect. At the present moment, Shakespeare
being the only great dramatist known to Irish writers has made them
cast their work too much on the English model. Miss Milligan's _Red
Hugh_, which was successfully acted in Dublin the other day, had no
business to be in two scenes; and Father O'Leary's _Tadg Saor_, despite
its most vivid and picturesque, though far too rambling dialogue,
shows in its half dozen changes of scene the influence of the same
English convention which arose when there was no scene painting, and
is often a difficulty where there is, and is always an absurdity in
a farce of thirty minutes, breaking up the emotion and sending one's
thoughts here and there. Mr. MacGinlay's _Elis agus an bhean deirce_
has not this defect, and though I had not Irish enough to follow it
when I saw it played, and excellently played, by Mr. Fay's company, I
could see from the continual laughter of the audience that it held them
with an unbroken emotion. The best Gaelic play after Dr. Hyde's is, I
think, Father Dineen's _Creideamh agus gorta_, and though it changes
the scene a little oftener than is desirable under modern conditions,
it does not remind me of an English model. It reminds me of Calderon
by its treatment of a religious subject, and by something in Father
Dineen's sympathy with the people that is like his. But I think if
Father Dineen had studied that great Catholic dramatist he would not
have failed, as he has done once or twice, to remember some necessary
detail of a situation. In the first scene he makes a servant ask his
fellow-servants about things he must have known as well as they; and he
loses a dramatic moment in his third scene by forgetting that Seagan
Gorm has a pocket-full of money which he would certainly, being the man
he was, have offered to the woman he was urging into temptation. The
play towards the end changes from prose to verse, and the reverence and
simplicity of the verse makes one think of a mediaeval miracle play.
The subject has been so much a part of Irish life that it was bound
to be used by an Irish dramatist, though certainly I shall always
prefer plays which attack a more eternal devil than the proselytiser.
He has been defeated, and the arts are at their best when they are
busy with battles that can never be won. It is possible, however, that
we may have to deal with passing issues until we have re-created the
imaginative tradition of Ireland, and filled the popular imagination
again with saints and heroes. These short plays (though they would
be better if their writers knew the masters of their craft) are very
dramatic as they are, but there is no chance of our writers of Gaelic,
or our writers of English, doing good plays of any length if they do
not study the masters. If Irish dramatists had studied the romantic
plays of Ibsen, the one great master the modern stage has produced,
they would not have sent the Irish Literary Theatre imitations of
Boucicault, who had no relation to literature, and Father O'Leary would
have put his gift for dialogue, a gift certainly greater than, let us
say, Mr. Jones' or Mr. Grundy's, to better use than the writing of
that long rambling dramatisation of the _Tain bo Cuailgne_, in which
I hear in the midst of the exuberant Gaelic dialogue the worn-out
conventions of English poetic drama. The moment we leave even a little
the folk-tradition of the peasant, as we must in drama, if we do not
know the best that has been said and written in the world, we do not
even know ourselves. It is no great labour to know the best dramatic
literature, for there is very little of it. We Irish must know it all,
for we have, I think, far greater need of the severe discipline of
French and Scandinavian drama than of Shakespeare's luxuriance.
If the _Diarmuid and Grania_ and the _Casadh an t-Sugain_ are not well
constructed, it is not because Mr. Moore and Dr. Hyde and myself do not
understand the importance of construction, and Mr. Martyn has shown by
the triumphant construction of _The Heather Field_ how much thought he
has given to the matter; but for the most part our Irish plays read
as if they were made without a plan, without a 'scenario,' as it is
called. European drama began so, but the European drama had centuries
for its growth, while our art must grow to perfection in a generation
or two if it is not to be smothered before it is well above the earth
by what is merely commercial in the art of England.
Let us learn construction from the masters, and dialogue from
ourselves. A relation of mine has just written me a letter, in which
he says: 'It is natural to an Irishman to write plays, he has an
inborn love of dialogue and sound about him, of a dialogue as lively,
gallant, and passionate as in the times of great Eliza. In these
days an Englishman's dialogue is that of an amateur, that is to say,
it is never spontaneous. I mean in _real life_. Compare it with an
Irishman's, above all a poor Irishman's, reckless abandonment and
naturalness, or compare it with the only fragment that has come down
to us of Shakespeare's own conversation. ' (He is remembering a passage
in, I think, Ben Jonson's _Underwoods_. ) 'Petty commerce and puritanism
have brought to the front the wrong type of Englishman; the lively,
joyous, yet tenacious man has transferred himself to Ireland. We have
him and we will keep him unless the combined nonsense of . . . and . . .
and . . . succeed in suffocating him. '
In Dublin the other day I saw a poster advertising a play by a Miss
. . . under the patronage of certain titled people. I had little hope of
finding any reality in it, but I sat out two acts. Its dialogue was
above the average, though the characters were the old rattle-traps of
the stage, the wild Irish girl, and the Irish servant, and the bowing
Frenchman, and the situations had all been squeezed dry generations
ago. One saw everywhere the shadowy mind of a woman of the Irish
upper classes as they have become to-day, but under it all there was
a kind of life, though it was but the life of a string and a wire. I
do not know who Miss . . . is, but I know that she is young, for I saw
her portrait in a weekly paper, and I think that she is clever enough
to make her work of some importance. If she goes on doing bad work
she will make money, perhaps a great deal of money, but she will do a
little harm to her country. If, on the other hand, she gets into an
original relation with life, she will, perhaps, make no money, and she
will certainly have her class against her.
The Irish upper classes put everything into a money measure. When
anyone among them begins to write or paint they ask him 'How much money
have you made? ' 'Will it pay? ' Or they say, 'If you do this or that you
will make more money. ' The poor Irish clerk or shopboy,[B] who writes
verses or articles in his brief leisure, writes for the glory of God
and of his country; and because his motive is high, there is not one
vulgar thought in the countless little ballad books that have been
written from Callinan's day to this. They are often clumsily written
for they are in English, and if you have not read a great deal, it is
difficult to write well in a language which has been long separated,
from the 'folk-speech'; but they have not a thought a proud and simple
man would not have written. The writers were poor men, but they left
that money measure to the Irish upper classes. All Irish writers have
to choose whether they will write as the upper classes have done,
not to express but to exploit this country; or join the intellectual
movement which has raised the cry that was heard in Russia in the
seventies, the cry 'to the people. '
Moses was little good to his people until he had killed an Egyptian;
and for the most part a writer or public man of the upper classes is
useless to this country till he has done something that separates him
from his class. We wish to grow peaceful crops, but we must dig our
furrows with the sword.
Our plays this year will be produced by Mr. Benson at the Gaiety
Theatre on October the 21st, and on some of the succeeding days. They
are Dr. Douglas Hyde's _Casadh an t-Sugain_, which is founded on a well
known Irish story of a wandering poet; and _Diarmuid and Grania_, a
play in three acts and in prose by Mr. George Moore and myself, which
is founded on the most famous of all Irish stories, the story of the
lovers whose beds were the cromlechs. The first act of _Diarmuid and
Grania_ is in the great banqueting hall of Tara, and the second and
third on the slopes of Ben Bulben in Sligo. We do not think there is
anything in either play to offend anybody, but we make no promises. We
thought our plays inoffensive last year and the year before, but we
were accused the one year of sedition, and the other of heresy.
I have called this little collection of writings _Samhain_, the old
name for the beginning of winter, because our plays this year are in
October, and because our Theatre is coming to an end in its present
shape.
1902
The Irish Literary Theatre wound up its three years of experiment last
October with _Diarmuid and Grania_, which was played by Mr. Benson's
Company, Mr. Benson himself playing Diarmuid with poetry and fervour,
and _Casadh an t-Sugain_, played by Dr. Hyde and some members of the
Gaelic League. _Diarmuid and Grania_ drew large audiences, but its
version of the legend was a good deal blamed by critics, who knew only
the modern text of the story. There are two versions, and the play
was fully justified by Irish and Scottish folk-lore, and by certain
early Irish texts, which do not see Grania through very friendly
eyes. Any critic who is interested in so dead a controversy can look
at the folk-tales quoted by Campbell in, I think, _West Highland
Superstitions_, and at the fragment translated by Kuno Meyer, at page
458 of Vol. I. of _Zeitschrift fur Keltische Philologie_.
