which is the root
of all poetry, in a comprehensive and natural form. In the modern
literature of towns, however, richness is found only in sonnets, or
prose poems, or in one or two elaborate books that are far away from the
profound and common interests of life. One has, on one side, Mallarme
and Huysmans producing this literature; and on the other, Ibsen and Zola
dealing with the reality of life in joyless and pallid words. On the
stage one must have reality, and one must have joy; and that is why the
intellectual modern drama has failed, and people have grown sick of the
false joy of the musical comedy, that has been given them in place of
the rich joy found only in what is superb and wild in reality. In a good
play every speech should be as fully flavoured as a nut or apple, and
such speeches cannot be written by anyone who works among people who
have shut their lips on poetry. In Ireland, for a few years more, we
have a popular imagination that is fiery and magnificent, and tender; so
that those of us who wish to write start with a chance that is not given
to writers in places where the springtime of the local life has been
forgotten, and the harvest is a memory only, and the straw has been
turned into bricks. J. M. S. January 21st, 1907.

PERSONS

CHRISTOPHER MAHON.
OLD MAHON, his father, a squatter.
MICHAEL JAMES FLAHERTY (called MICHAEL JAMES), a publican.
MARGARET FLAHERTY (called PEGEEN MIKE), his daughter.
WIDOW QUIN, a woman of about thirty.
SHAWN KEOUGH, her cousin, a young farmer.
PHILLY CULLEN AND JIMMY FARRELL, small farmers.
SARA TANSEY, SUSAN BRADY, AND HONOR BLAKE, village girls.
A BELLMAN.
SOME PEASANTS.

The action takes place near a village, on a wild coast of Mayo. The
first Act passes on an evening of autumn, the other two Acts on the
following day.

THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD

ACT I.

SCENE: [Country public-house or shebeen, very rough and untidy. There
is a sort of counter on the right with shelves, holding many bottles and
jugs, just seen above it. Empty barrels stand near the counter. At back,
a little to left of counter, there is a door into the open air, then,
more to the left, there is a settle with shelves above it, with more
jugs, and a table beneath a window. At the left there is a large open
fire-place, with turf fire, and a small door into inner room. Pegeen, a
wild looking but fine girl, of abou