The Playboy of the Western World, J.M. Synge

• Act 1
• SHAWN [with awkward humor]. If it is, when we're wedded in a short while you'll have no call to complain, for I've little will to be walking off to wakes or weddings in the darkness of night.
  PAGEEN [with rather scornful good humour]. You're making might certain, Shaheen, that I'll wed you now.
  little Shawn, scared of the dark
• MICHAEL. If you're afraid, let Shawn Keogh stop along with you. It's the will of God, I'm thinking, himself should be seeing to you now.
  SHAWN [in horrified confusion]. I would and welcome, Michael James, but I'm afeard of Father Reilly; and what at all the Holy Father and the Cardinals of Rome be saying if they heard I did the like of that.
  not just scared of the dark, also the church
• SHAWN. The queer dying fellow's beyond looking over the ditch. He's come up, I'm thinking, stealing your hens. [Looks over his shoulder.] God help me, he's following me now [he runs into room], and if he's heard what I said, he'll be having my life, and I going home lonesome in the darkness of the night.
  Christy enters with the usual "God save all here!"
• PAGEEN [in mock rage]. Not speaking the truth, is it? Would you have me knock the head of you with the butt of the broom?
  CRISTY [twisting round on her with a sharp cry of horror]. Don't strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.
  Christy's fugitive status explained
• SHAWN [to PIGEEN]. Are you wanting me to stop along with you and keep you from harm?
  PAGEEN [gruffly]. Didn't you say you were fearing Father Reilly?
  Shawn unsuccessfully trying to block the night's upcoming events
• 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.
  Pageen shews away the final attempt to intervene before the night.
• Act 2
• p83, girls come looking for Christy,
  SUSAN. I'm thinking Shawn Keogh was making game of us and there's no such man in it at all.
  HONOR [pointing to straw and quilt]. Look at that. He's been sleeping there in the night. Well, it'll be a hard case if he's gone off now, the way we'll never set our eyes on a man killed his father, and we after rising early and destroying ourselves running fast on the hill.
• p84, eggs, butter, and cake, from the girls to Christy, after confirming he did kill his father
  SARA [taking eggs she has brought]. Then my thousand welcomes to you, and I've run with a brace of duck eggs for your food to-day. Pageen's duck is no use, but these are the real rich sort. Hold out your hand and you'll see it's no lie I'm telling you.
• p85, Widow Quin appears, and we get the story of how Christy murdered his father,
  CHRISTY [beginning to be pleased]. It's a long story; you'd be destroyed listening.
  WIDOW QUIN. Don't be letting on to be shy, a fine, gamey, treacherous lad the like of you. Was it in your house beyond you cracked his skull?
• p85, Christy's father wanted him to wed an old widow,
  WIDOW QUIN. And what kind was she?
  CHRISTY [with horror]. A walking terror from beyond the hills, and she two score and five years, and two hundredweights and five pounds in the weighing scales, with a limping leg on her, and a blinded eye, and she a noted woman of misbehavior with the old and young.
• p86, Pagan returns, and shews the other women away,
  SARA. I've forgotten my purse.
  PAGEEN. Then you best be getting it and not fooling us here. [To the WIDOW QUIN, with more elaborate scorn.] And what is it that you're wanting, Widow Quin?
• p88, Pageen, on a pedestal to Christy,
  CHRISTY [with infinite admiration]. How would a lovely handsome woman the like of you be lonesome when all men should be thronging around to hear the sweetness of your voice, and the little infant children should be pestering your steps, I'm thinking, and you walking the roads.
• p89, Shawn arrives, and diverts Pageen to beg to Christy,
  SHAWN [to PAGEEN]. I was passing below, and I seen your mountain sheep eating cabbages in Jimmy's field. Run up or they'll be bursting surely.
• p90, Shawn attempts to bribe Christy to leave,
  SHAWN [trembling with anxiety]. I'll give it to you and my new hat [pulling it out of hamper]; and my breeches with the double seat [pulling it off]; and my new coat is woven from the blackest shearings for the three miles around [giving him the coat]; I'll give you the whole of them, and my blessing, and the blessings of Father Reilly itself, maybe, if you'll quit from this and leave us in the peace we had till last night at the fall of dark.
• p91, while Christy tries on the clothes, Widow Quin now offers her services, for an equally steep price,
  WIDOW QUIN. A ewe's a small thing, but what would you give me if I did wed him and did save you so?
• p92, enter Christy's not-so-dead father
  WIDOW QUIN [in great amusement]. God save you, my poor man.
  MAHON [gruffly]. Did you see a young lad passing this way in the early morning or the fall of night?
• p95, after getting Mahon to leave, and Christy still professing his love of Pageen, seeks the same deal she had from Shawn,
  WIDOW QUIN [looks at him for a moment]. If I aid you, will you swear to give me a right of way I want, and a mountainy ram, and a load of dung at Michaelmas, the time that you'll be master here?
  CHRISTY. I will, by the elements and stars of night.
  WIDOW QUIN. Then we'll not say a word of the old fellow, the way Pageen won't know your story till the end of time.
• Act 3
• p97, Mahon returns... and Christy and Widow Quin's are all for naught,
  WIDOW QUIN [coming to MAHON quickly]. You here, is it? You didn't go far at all?
  MAHON. I seen the coasting steamer passing, and I got a drought upon me and a cramping leg, so I said, "The divil go along with him," and turned again. [Looking under her shawl.] And let you give me a supeen, for I'm destroyed travelling since Tuesday was a week.
• p99, Mahon catches a glimpse of Christy at the distant races, but Widow Quin insists he's the Playboy of the Western World,
  MAHON [puzzled]. That lad, is it? If you said it was a fool he was, I'd have laid a mighty oath he was the likeness of my wandering son [uneasily, putting his hand to his head]. Faith, I'm thinking I'll go walking to view the race.
  WIDOW QUIN [stopping him, sharply]. You will not. You'd best take the road to Belmullet, and not be dilly-dallying in this place where there isn't a spot for you to sleep.
• p100, Mahon's suspicions confirmed,
  MAHON [with hesitation]. What's that? They 're raising him up. They're coming this way. [With a roar of rage and astonishment.] It's Christy! by the stars of God! I'd know his way of spitting and he astride the moon.
  [He jumps down and makes for the door, but WIDOW QUIN catches him and pulls him back.]
  WIDOW QUIN. Stay quiet, will you. That's not your son. [To JIMMY.] Stop him, or you'll get a month for the abetting of manslaughter and be fined as well.
• p102, victorious Christy wants a different prize,
  PAGEEN [radiantly, wiping his face with her shawl]. Well, you're the lad, and you'll have great times from this time out when you could win that wealth of prizes, and you sweating in the heat of noon!
  CHRISTY [looking at her with delight]. I'll have great times if I win the crowning prize I'm seeking now, and that's the promise that you'll wed me in a fortnight, when our banns is called.
• p103 Pageen agrees,
  CHRISTY [putting his arm around her]. If I wasn't a good Christian, it's on my naked knees I'd be saying my prayers and paters to every jack-straw you have roofing your head, and every stony pebble is paving the laneway to your door.
  PAGEEN [radiantly]. If that's the truth, I'll be burning candles from this out to the miracles of God that has brought you from the south to-day, and I, with my gowns bought ready, the way that I can wed you, and not wait at all.
• p105, enter Shawn and Pageen's father, who claim Shawn and Pageen will wed today,
  PAGEEN [fiercely]. He's missed his nick of time, for it's that lad, Christy Mahon, that I'm wedding now.
  MICHAEL [with loud horror]. You'd be making him a son to me, and he wet and crusted with his father's blood?
• p106, Pageen's father blesses their betrothal after Shawn runs away instead of fighting Christy,
  PAGEEN [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 should rear up lengthy families for the nurture of 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 Shaheen 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.
• p106, enter immediately Mahon, who rushes Christy, knocks him down, and beats him, Pageen tries to restrain Mahon,
  PAGEEN [dragging back his arm]. Stop that, will you. Who are you at all?
  MAHON. His father, God forgive me!
  PAGEEN [drawing back his arm]. Is it rose from the dead?
  MAHON. Do you think I look so easy quenched with the tap of a loy. [Beats CHRISTY again.]
• p107, Pageen, and the crowd, turn on Christy, before Christy admits the truth,
  PAGEEN [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 true.
  CROWD. You're fooling Pageen! 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.
• p107, Pageen gives Christy her answer,
  PAGEEN. 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.
• p108, the crowd spurs on a fight between Christy and his father,
  CHRISTY [almost shouting]. Keep off ... lest I do show you 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.]
• p108, after striking his father dead, again, Christy enters and seeks Pageen, while the crowd seeks justice,
  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, Pageen'll be giving me praises the same as in 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 Pageen?
• p109, Widow Quin still trying, and failing, to talk sense to Christy,
  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.
• p110, Pageen is ready to hang Christy with the rest of the crowd,
  PAGEEN. 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.
• p111, enter Mahon, comically alive,
  CHRISTY [scrambling on his knees face to face with OLD MAHON]. Are you coming to be killed for a third time, or what ails you now?
• p111, Mahon frees Christy, now a monster worse than before,
  MAHON [grimly, loosening CHRISTY]. It's little I care if you put a bag on her back, and went picking cockles till the hour of death; but my son and myself will be going our own way, and we'll have great times from this out telling stories of the villainy of Mayo, and the fools is here. [To CHRISTY, who is freed.] Come on now.
  CHRISTY. Go with you, is it? I will then, like a gallant captain with his heathen slave. Go on now and I'll see you from this day stewing my oatmeal and washing my spuds, for I'm the master of all fights now. [Pushing MAHON.] Go on, I'm saying.
• p112, Pageen, not having any of Shawn's business, to end the comedy,
  SHAWN [going up to her]. It's a miracle Father Reilly can wed us in the end of all, and we'll have none to trouble us when his vicious bite is healed.
  PAGEEN [hitting him a box on the ear]. Quit my sight. [Putting her shawl over her head and breaking out into wild lamentations.] Oh, my grief, I've lost him surely. I've lost the only Playboy of the Western World.