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diff --git a/8557.txt b/8557.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25c49a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/8557.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1475 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Synge And The Ireland Of His Time, by +William Butler Yeats + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Synge And The Ireland Of His Time + +Author: William Butler Yeats + +Posting Date: March 24, 2014 [EBook #8557] +Release Date: July, 2005 +First Posted: July 23, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYNGE AND THE IRELAND OF HIS TIME *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Charles Franks, Juliet +Sutherland, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. +HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + + +SYNGE AND THE IRELAND OF HIS TIME + +BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS + +WITH A NOTE CONCERNING A WALK THROUGH CONNEMARA WITH HIM BY JACK BUTLER +YEATS + + + + + + + +CHURCHTOWN DUNDRUM MCMXI + + + +PREFACE + + +At times during Synge's last illness, Lady Gregory and I would speak of +his work and always find some pleasure in the thought that unlike +ourselves, who had made our experiments in public, he would leave to +the world nothing to be wished away--nothing that was not beautiful or +powerful in itself, or necessary as an expression of his life and +thought. When he died we were in much anxiety, for a letter written +before his last illness, and printed in the selection of his poems +published at the Cuala Press, had shown that he was anxious about the +fate of his manuscripts and scattered writings. On the evening of the +night he died he had asked that I might come to him the next day; and +my diary of the days following his death shows how great was our +anxiety. Presently however, all seemed to have come right, for the +Executors sent me the following letter that had been found among his +papers, and promised to carry out his wishes. + + +'May 4th, 1908 + +'Dear Yeats, + +'This is only to go to you if anything should go wrong with me under +the operation or after it. I am a little bothered about my 'papers.' I +have a certain amount of verse that I think would be worth preserving, +possibly also the 1st and 3rd acts of 'Deirdre,' and then I have a lot +of Kerry and Wicklow articles that would go together into a book. The +other early stuff I wrote I have kept as a sort of curiosity, but I am +anxious that it should not get into print. I wonder could you get +someone--say ... who is now in Dublin to go through them for you and do +whatever you and Lady Gregory think desirable. It is rather a hard +thing to ask you but I do not want my good things destroyed or my bad +things printed rashly--especially a morbid thing about a mad fiddler in +Paris which I hate. Do what you can--Good luck. + +'J.M. Synge' + + + + +In the summer of 1909, the Executors sent me a large bundle of papers, +cuttings from newspapers and magazines, manuscript and typewritten +prose and verse, put together and annotated by Synge himself before his +last illness. I spent a portion of each day for weeks reading and +re-reading early dramatic writing, poems, essays, and so forth, and +with the exception of ninety pages which have been published without my +consent, made consulting Lady Gregory from time to time the Selection +of his work published by Messrs. Maunsel. It is because of these ninety +pages, that neither Lady Gregory's name nor mine appears in any of the +books, and that the Introduction which I now publish, was withdrawn by +me after it had been advertised by the publishers. Before the +publication of the books the Executors discovered a scrap of paper with +a sentence by J.M. Synge saying that Selections might be taken from his +Essays on the Congested Districts. I do not know if this was written +before his letter to me, which made no mention of them, or contained +his final directions. The matter is unimportant, for the publishers +decided to ignore my offer to select as well as my original decision to +reject, and for this act of theirs they have given me no reasons except +reasons of convenience, which neither Lady Gregory nor I could accept. + +W.B. Yeats. + + + * * * * * + + + + +J.M. SYNGE AND THE IRELAND OF HIS TIME + +On Saturday, January 26th, 1907, I was lecturing in Aberdeen, and when +my lecture was over I was given a telegram which said, 'Play great +success.' It had been sent from Dublin after the second Act of 'The +Playboy of the Western World,' then being performed for the first time. +After one in the morning, my host brought to my bedroom this second +telegram, 'Audience broke up in disorder at the word shift.' I knew no +more until I got the Dublin papers on my way from Belfast to Dublin on +Tuesday morning. On the Monday night no word of the play had been +heard. About forty young men had sat on the front seats of the pit, and +stamped and shouted and blown trumpets from the rise to the fall of the +curtain. On the Tuesday night also the forty young men were there. They +wished to silence what they considered a slander upon Ireland's +womanhood. Irish women would never sleep under the same roof with a +young man without a chaperon, nor admire a murderer, nor use a word +like 'shift;' nor could anyone recognise the country men and women of +Davis and Kickham in these poetical, violent, grotesque persons, who +used the name of God so freely, and spoke of all things that hit their +fancy. + +A patriotic journalism which had seen in Synge's capricious imagination +the enemy of all it would have young men believe, had for years +prepared for this hour, by that which is at once the greatest and most +ignoble power of journalism, the art of repeating a name again and +again with some ridiculous or evil association. The preparation had +begun after the first performance of 'The Shadow of the Glen,' Synge's +first play, with an assertion made in ignorance but repeated in +dishonesty, that he had taken his fable and his characters, not from +his own mind nor that profound knowledge of cot and curragh he was +admitted to possess, but 'from a writer of the Roman decadence.' Some +spontaneous dislike had been but natural, for genius like his can but +slowly, amid what it has of harsh and strange, set forth the nobility +of its beauty, and the depth of its compassion; but the frenzy that +would have silenced his master-work was, like most violent things +artificial, the defence of virtue by those that have but little, which +is the pomp and gallantry of journalism and its right to govern the +world. + +As I stood there watching, knowing well that I saw the dissolution of a +school of patriotism that held sway over my youth, Synge came and stood +beside me, and said, 'A young doctor has just told me that he can +hardly keep himself from jumping on to a seat, and pointing out in that +howling mob those whom he is treating for venereal disease.' + + + + +II + + +Thomas Davis, whose life had the moral simplicity which can give to +actions the lasting influence that style alone can give to words, had +understood that a country which has no national institutions must show +its young men images for the affections, although they be but diagrams +of what it should be or may be. He and his school imagined the Soldier, +the Orator, the Patriot, the Poet, the Chieftain, and above all the +Peasant; and these, as celebrated in essay and songs and stories, +possessed so many virtues that no matter how England, who as Mitchell +said 'had the ear of the world,' might slander us, Ireland, even though +she could not come at the world's other ear, might go her way +unabashed. But ideas and images which have to be understood and loved +by large numbers of people, must appeal to no rich personal experience, +no patience of study, no delicacy of sense; and if at rare moments some +'Memory of the Dead' can take its strength from one; at all other +moments manner and matter will be rhetorical, conventional, +sentimental; and language, because it is carried beyond life +perpetually, will be as wasted as the thought, with unmeaning +pedantries and silences, and a dread of all that has salt and savour. +After a while, in a land that has given itself to agitation over-much, +abstract thoughts are raised up between men's minds and Nature, who +never does the same thing twice, or makes one man like another, till +minds, whose patriotism is perhaps great enough to carry them to the +scaffold, cry down natural impulse with the morbid persistence of minds +unsettled by some fixed idea. They are preoccupied with the nation's +future, with heroes, poets, soldiers, painters, armies, fleets, but +only as these things are understood by a child in a national school, +while a secret feeling that what is so unreal needs continual defence +makes them bitter and restless. They are like some state which has only +paper money, and seeks by punishments to make it buy whatever gold can +buy. They no longer love, for only life is loved, and at last, a +generation is like an hysterical woman who will make unmeasured +accusations and believe impossible things, because of some logical +deduction from a solitary thought which has turned a portion of her +mind to stone. + + + + +III + + +Even if what one defends be true, an attitude of defence, a continual +apology, whatever the cause, makes the mind barren because it kills +intellectual innocence; that delight in what is unforeseen, and in the +mere spectacle of the world, the mere drifting hither and thither that +must come before all true thought and emotion. A zealous Irishman, +especially if he lives much out of Ireland, spends his time in a +never-ending argument about Oliver Cromwell, the Danes, the penal laws, +the rebellion of 1798, the famine, the Irish peasant, and ends by +substituting a traditional casuistry for a country; and if he be a +Catholic, yet another casuistry that has professors, schoolmasters, +letter-writing priests, and the authors of manuals to make the meshes +fine, comes between him and English literature, substituting arguments +and hesitations for the excitement at the first reading of the great +poets which should be a sort of violent imaginative puberty. His +hesitations and arguments may have been right, the Catholic philosophy +may be more profound than Milton's morality, or Shelley's vehement +vision; but none the less do we lose life by losing that recklessness +Castiglione thought necessary even in good manners, and offend our Lady +Truth, who would never, had she desired an anxious courtship, have +digged a well to be her parlour. + +I admired though we were always quarrelling on some matter, J.F. +Taylor, the orator, who died just before the first controversy over +these plays. It often seemed to me that when he spoke Ireland herself +had spoken, one got that sense of surprise that comes when a man has +said what is unforeseen because it is far from the common thought, and +yet obvious because when it has been spoken, the gate of the mind seems +suddenly to roll back and reveal forgotten sights and let loose lost +passions. I have never heard him speak except in some Irish literary or +political society, but there at any rate, as in conversation, I found a +man whose life was a ceaseless reverie over the religious and political +history of Ireland. He saw himself pleading for his country before an +invisible jury, perhaps of the great dead, against traitors at home and +enemies abroad, and a sort of frenzy in his voice and the moral +elevation of his thoughts gave him for the moment style and music. One +asked oneself again and again, 'Why is not this man an artist, a man of +genius, a creator of some kind?' The other day under the influence of +memory, I read through his one book, a life of Owen Roe O'Neill, and +found there no sentence detachable from its context because of wisdom +or beauty. Everything was argued from a premise; and wisdom, and style, +whether in life or letters come from the presence of what is +self-evident, from that which requires but statement, from what Blake +called 'naked beauty displayed.' The sense of what was unforeseen and +obvious, the rolling backward of the gates had gone with the living +voice, with the nobility of will that made one understand what he saw +and felt in what was now but argument and logic. I found myself in the +presence of a mind like some noisy and powerful machine, of thought +that was no part of wisdom but the apologetic of a moment, a woven +thing, no intricacy of leaf and twig, of words with no more of salt and +of savour than those of a Jesuit professor of literature, or of any +other who does not know that there is no lasting writing which does not +define the quality, or carry the substance of some pleasure. How can +one, if one's mind be full of abstractions and images created not for +their own sake but for the sake of party, even if there were still the +need, find words that delight the ear, make pictures to the mind's eye, +discover thoughts that tighten the muscles, or quiver and tingle in the +flesh, and stand like St. Michael with the trumpet that calls the body +to resurrection? + + + + +IV + + +Young Ireland had taught a study of our history with the glory of +Ireland for event, and this for lack, when less than Taylor studied, of +comparison with that of other countries wrecked the historical +instinct. An old man with an academic appointment, who was a leader in +the attack upon Synge, sees in the 11th century romance of Deirdre a +re-telling of the first five act tragedy outside the classic languages, +and this tragedy from his description of it was certainly written on +the Elizabethan model; while an allusion to a copper boat, a marvel of +magic like Cinderella's slipper, persuades him that the ancient Irish +had forestalled the modern dockyards in the making of metal ships. The +man who doubted, let us say, our fabulous ancient kings running up to +Adam, or found but mythology in some old tale, was as hated as if he +had doubted the authority of Scripture. Above all no man was so +ignorant, that he had not by rote familiar arguments and statistics to +drive away amid familiar applause, all those had they but found strange +truth in the world or in their mind, whose knowledge has passed out of +memory and become an instinct of hand or eye. There was no literature, +for literature is a child of experience always, of knowledge never; and +the nation itself, instead of being a dumb struggling thought seeking a +mouth to utter it or hand to show it, a teeming delight that would +re-create the world, had become, at best, a subject of knowledge. + + + + +V + + +Taylor always spoke with confidence though he was no determined man, +being easily flattered or jostled from his way; and this, putting as it +were his fiery heart into his mouth made him formidable. And I have +noticed that all those who speak the thoughts of many, speak +confidently, while those who speak their own thoughts are hesitating +and timid, as though they spoke out of a mind and body grown sensitive +to the edge of bewilderment among many impressions. They speak to us +that we may give them certainty, by seeing what they have seen; and so +it is, that enlargement of experience does not come from those +oratorical thinkers, or from those decisive rhythms that move large +numbers of men, but from writers that seem by contrast as feminine as +the soul when it explores in Blake's picture the recesses of the grave, +carrying its faint lamp trembling and astonished; or as the Muses who +are never pictured as one-breasted amazons, but as women needing +protection. Indeed, all art which appeals to individual man and awaits +the confirmation of his senses and his reveries, seems when arrayed +against the moral zeal, the confident logic, the ordered proof of +journalism, a trifling, impertinent, vexatious thing, a tumbler who has +unrolled his carpet in the way of a marching army. + + + + +VI + + +I attack things that are as dear to many as some holy image carried +hither and thither by some broken clan, and can but say that I have +felt in my body the affections I disturb, and believed that if I could +raise them into contemplation I would make possible a literature, that +finding its subject-matter all ready in men's minds would be, not as +ours is, an interest for scholars, but the possession of a people. I +have founded societies with this aim, and was indeed founding one in +Paris when I first met with J.M. Synge, and I have known what it is to +be changed by that I would have changed, till I became argumentative +and unmannerly, hating men even in daily life for their opinions. And +though I was never convinced that the anatomies of last year's leaves +are a living forest, or thought a continual apologetic could do other +than make the soul a vapour and the body a stone; or believed that +literature can be made by anything but by what is still blind and dumb +within ourselves, I have had to learn how hard in one who lives where +forms of expression and habits of thought have been born, not for the +pleasure of begetting but for the public good, is that purification +from insincerity, vanity, malignity, arrogance, which is the discovery +of style. But it became possible to live when I had learnt all I had +not learnt in shaping words, in defending Synge against his enemies, +and knew that rich energies, fine, turbulent or gracious thoughts, +whether in life or letters, are but love-children. + + + + +VII + + +Synge seemed by nature unfitted to think a political thought, and with +the exception of one sentence, spoken when I first met him in Paris, +that implied some sort of nationalist conviction, I cannot remember +that he spoke of politics or showed any interest in men in the mass, or +in any subject that is studied through abstractions and statistics. +Often for months together he and I and Lady Gregory would see no one +outside the Abbey Theatre, and that life, lived as it were in a ship at +sea, suited him, for unlike those whose habit of mind fits them to +judge of men in the mass, he was wise in judging individual men, and as +wise in dealing with them as the faint energies of ill-health would +permit; but of their political thoughts he long understood nothing. One +night when we were still producing plays in a little hall, certain +members of the Company told him that a play on the Rebellion of '98 +would be a great success. After a fortnight he brought them a scenario +which read like a chapter out of Rabelais. Two women, a Protestant and +a Catholic, take refuge in a cave, and there quarrel about religion, +abusing the Pope or Queen Elizabeth and Henry VIII, but in low voices, +for the one fears to be ravished by the soldiers, the other by the +rebels. At last one woman goes out because she would sooner any fate +than such wicked company. Yet, I doubt if he would have written at all +if he did not write of Ireland, and for it, and I know that he thought +creative art could only come from such preoccupation. Once, when in +later years, anxious about the educational effect of our movement, I +proposed adding to the Abbey Company a second Company to play +international drama, Synge, who had not hitherto opposed me, thought +the matter so important that he did so in a formal letter. + +I had spoken of a German municipal theatre as my model, and he said +that the municipal theatres all over Europe gave fine performances of +old classics but did not create (he disliked modern drama for its +sterility of speech, and perhaps ignored it) and that we would create +nothing if we did not give all our thoughts to Ireland. Yet in Ireland +he loved only what was wild in its people, and in 'the grey and wintry +sides of many glens.' All the rest, all that one reasoned over, fought +for, read of in leading articles, all that came from education, all +that came down from Young Ireland--though for this he had not lacked a +little sympathy--first wakened in him perhaps that irony which runs +through all he wrote, but once awakened, he made it turn its face upon +the whole of life. The women quarrelling in the cave would not have +amused him, if something in his nature had not looked out on most +disputes, even those wherein he himself took sides, with a mischievous +wisdom. He told me once that when he lived in some peasant's house, he +tried to make those about him forget that he was there, and it is +certain that he was silent in any crowded room. It is possible that low +vitality helped him to be observant and contemplative, and made him +dislike, even in solitude, those thoughts which unite us to others, +much as we all dislike, when fatigue or illness has sharpened the +nerves, hoardings covered with advertisements, the fronts of big +theatres, big London hotels, and all architecture which has been made +to impress the crowd. What blindness did for Homer, lameness for +Hephaestus, asceticism for any saint you will, bad health did for him +by making him ask no more of life than that it should keep him living, +and above all perhaps by concentrating his imagination upon one +thought, health itself. I think that all noble things are the result of +warfare; great nations and classes, of warfare in the visible world, +great poetry and philosophy, of invisible warfare, the division of a +mind within itself, a victory, the sacrifice of a man to himself. I am +certain that my friend's noble art, so full of passion and heroic +beauty, is the victory of a man who in poverty and sickness created +from the delight of expression, and in the contemplation that is born +of the minute and delicate arrangement of images, happiness, and health +of mind. Some early poems have a morbid melancholy, and he himself +spoke of early work he had destroyed as morbid, for as yet the +craftmanship was not fine enough to bring the artist's joy which is of +one substance with that of sanctity. In one poem he waits at some +street corner for a friend, a woman perhaps, and while he waits and +gradually understands that nobody is coming, sees two funerals and +shivers at the future; and in another written on his 25th birthday, he +wonders if the 25 years to come shall be as evil as those gone by. +Later on, he can see himself as but a part of the spectacle of the +world and mix into all he sees that flavour of extravagance, or of +humour, or of philosophy, that makes one understand that he +contemplates even his own death as if it were another's, and finds in +his own destiny but as it were a projection through a burning glass of +that general to men. There is in the creative joy an acceptance of what +life brings, because we have understood the beauty of what it brings, +or a hatred of death for what it takes away, which arouses within us, +through some sympathy perhaps with all other men, an energy so noble, +so powerful, that we laugh aloud and mock, in the terror or the +sweetness of our exaltation, at death and oblivion. + +In no modern writer that has written of Irish life before him, except +it may be Miss Edgeworth in 'Castle Rackrent,' was there anything to +change a man's thought about the world or stir his moral nature, for +they but play with pictures, persons, and events, that whether well or +ill observed are but an amusement for the mind where it escapes from +meditation, a child's show that makes the fables of his art as +significant by contrast as some procession painted on an Egyptian wall; +for in these fables, an intelligence, on which the tragedy of the world +had been thrust in so few years, that Life had no time to brew her +sleepy drug, has spoken of the moods that are the expression of its +wisdom. All minds that have a wisdom come of tragic reality seem morbid +to those that are accustomed to writers who have not faced reality at +all; just as the saints, with that Obscure Night of the Soul, which +fell so certainly that they numbered it among spiritual states, one +among other ascending steps, seem morbid to the rationalist and the +old-fashioned Protestant controversialist. The thought of journalists, +like that of the Irish novelists, is neither healthy nor unhealthy, for +it has not risen to that state where either is possible, nor should we +call it happy; for who would have sought happiness, if happiness were +not the supreme attainment of man, in heroic toils, in the cell of the +ascetic, or imagined it above the cheerful newspapers, above the clouds? + + + + +VIII + + +Not that Synge brought out of the struggle with himself any definite +philosophy, for philosophy in the common meaning of the word is created +out of an anxiety for sympathy or obedience, and he was that rare, that +distinguished, that most noble thing, which of all things still of the +world is nearest to being sufficient to itself, the pure artist. Sir +Philip Sidney complains of those who could hear 'sweet tunes' (by which +he understands could look upon his lady) and not be stirred to +'ravishing delight.' + + 'Or if they do delight therein, yet are so closed with wit, + As with sententious lips to set a title vain on it; + Oh let them hear these sacred tunes, and learn in Wonder's schools + To be, in things past bonds of wit, fools if they be not fools!' + +Ireland for three generations has been like those churlish logicians. +Everything is argued over, everything has to take its trial before the +dull sense and the hasty judgment, and the character of the nation has +so changed that it hardly keeps but among country people, or where some +family tradition is still stubborn, those lineaments that made Borrow +cry out as he came from among the Irish monks, his friends and +entertainers for all his Spanish Bible scattering, 'Oh, Ireland, mother +of the bravest soldiers and of the most beautiful women!' It was as I +believe, to seek that old Ireland which took its mould from the +duellists and scholars of the 18th century and from generations older +still, that Synge returned again and again to Aran, to Kerry, and to +the wild Blaskets. + + + + +IX + + +'When I got up this morning' he writes, after he had been a long time +in Innismaan, 'I found that the people had gone to Mass and latched the +kitchen door from the outside, so that I could not open it to give +myself light. + +'I sat for nearly an hour beside the fire with a curious feeling that I +should be quite alone in this little cottage. I am so used to sitting +here with the people that I have never felt the room before as a place +where any man might live and work by himself. After a while as I +waited, with just light enough from the chimney to let me see the +rafters and the greyness of the walls, I became indescribably mournful, +for I felt that this little corner on the face of the world, and the +people who live in it, have a peace and dignity from which we are shut +for ever.' This life, which he describes elsewhere as the most +primitive left in Europe, satisfied some necessity of his nature. +Before I met him in Paris he had wandered over much of Europe, +listening to stories in the Black Forest, making friends with servants +and with poor people, and this from an aesthetic interest, for he had +gathered no statistics, had no money to give, and cared nothing for the +wrongs of the poor, being content to pay for the pleasure of eye and +ear with a tune upon the fiddle. He did not love them the better +because they were poor and miserable, and it was only when he found +Innismaan and the Blaskets, where there is neither riches nor poverty, +neither what he calls 'the nullity of the rich' nor 'the squalor of the +poor' that his writing lost its old morbid brooding, that he found his +genius and his peace. Here were men and women who under the weight of +their necessity lived, as the artist lives, in the presence of death +and childhood, and the great affections and the orgiastic moment when +life outleaps its limits, and who, as it is always with those who have +refused or escaped the trivial and the temporary, had dignity and good +manners where manners mattered. Here above all was silence from all our +great orator took delight in, from formidable men, from moral +indignation, from the 'sciolist' who 'is never sad,' from all in modern +life that would destroy the arts; and here, to take a thought from +another playwright of our school, he could love Time as only women and +great artists do and need never sell it. + + + + +X + + +As I read 'The Aran Islands' right through for the first time since he +showed it me in manuscript, I come to understand how much knowledge of +the real life of Ireland went to the creation of a world which is yet +as fantastic as the Spain of Cervantes. Here is the story of 'The +Playboy,' of 'The Shadow of the Glen;' here is the 'ghost on horseback' +and the finding of the young man's body of 'Riders to the Sea,' +numberless ways of speech and vehement pictures that had seemed to owe +nothing to observation, and all to some overflowing of himself, or to +some mere necessity of dramatic construction. I had thought the violent +quarrels of 'The Well of the Saints' came from his love of bitter +condiments, but here is a couple that quarrel all day long amid +neighbours who gather as for a play. I had defended the burning of +Christy Mahon's leg on the ground that an artist need but make his +characters self-consistent, and yet, that too was observation, for +'although these people are kindly towards each other and their +children, they have no sympathy for the suffering of animals, and +little sympathy for pain when the person who feels it is not in +danger.' I had thought it was in the wantonness of fancy Martin Dhoul +accused the smith of plucking his living ducks, but a few lines further +on, in this book where moral indignation is unknown, I read, 'Sometimes +when I go into a cottage, I find all the women of the place down on +their knees plucking the feathers from live ducks and geese.' + +He loves all that has edge, all that is salt in the mouth, all that is +rough to the hand, all that heightens the emotions by contest, all that +stings into life the sense of tragedy; and in this book, unlike the +plays where nearness to his audience moves him to mischief, he shows it +without thought of other taste than his. It is so constant, it is all +set out so simply, so naturally, that it suggests a correspondence +between a lasting mood of the soul and this life that shares the +harshness of rocks and wind. The food of the spiritual-minded is sweet, +an Indian scripture says, but passionate minds love bitter food. Yet he +is no indifferent observer, but is certainly kind and sympathetic to +all about him. When an old and ailing man, dreading the coming winter, +cries at his leaving, not thinking to see him again; and he notices +that the old man's mitten has a hole in it where the palm is accustomed +to the stick, one knows that it is with eyes full of interested +affection as befits a simple man and not in the curiosity of study. +When he had left the Blaskets for the last time, he travelled with a +lame pensioner who had drifted there, why heaven knows, and one morning +having missed him from the inn where they were staying, he believed he +had gone back to the island and searched everywhere and questioned +everybody, till he understood of a sudden that he was jealous as though +the island were a woman. + +The book seems dull if you read much at a time, as the later Kerry +essays do not, but nothing that he has written recalls so completely to +my senses the man as he was in daily life; and as I read, there are +moments when every line of his face, every inflection of his voice, +grows so clear in memory that I cannot realize that he is dead. He was +no nearer when we walked and talked than now while I read these +unarranged, unspeculating pages, wherein the only life he loved with +his whole heart reflects itself as in the still water of a pool. +Thought comes to him slowly, and only after long seemingly unmeditative +watching, and when it comes, (and he had the same character in matters +of business) it is spoken without hesitation and never changed. His +conversation was not an experimental thing, an instrument of research, +and this made him silent; while his essays recall events, on which one +feels that he pronounces no judgment even in the depth of his own mind, +because the labour of Life itself had not yet brought the philosophic +generalization, which was almost as much his object as the emotional +generalization of beauty. A mind that generalizes rapidly, continually +prevents the experience that would have made it feel and see deeply, +just as a man whose character is too complete in youth seldom grows +into any energy of moral beauty. Synge had indeed no obvious ideals, as +these are understood by young men, and even as I think disliked them, +for he once complained to me that our modern poetry was but the poetry +'of the lyrical boy,' and this lack makes his art have a strange +wildness and coldness, as of a man born in some far-off spacious land +and time. + + + + +XI + + +There are artists like Byron, like Goethe, like Shelley, who have +impressive personalities, active wills and all their faculties at the +service of the will; but he belonged to those who like Wordsworth, like +Coleridge, like Goldsmith, like Keats, have little personality, so far +as the casual eye can see, little personal will, but fiery and brooding +imagination. I cannot imagine him anxious to impress, or convince in +any company, or saying more than was sufficient to keep the talk +circling. Such men have the advantage that all they write is a part of +knowledge, but they are powerless before events and have often but one +visible strength, the strength to reject from life and thought all that +would mar their work, or deafen them in the doing of it; and only this +so long as it is a passive act. If Synge had married young or taken +some profession, I doubt if he would have written books or been greatly +interested in a movement like ours; but he refused various +opportunities of making money in what must have been an almost +unconscious preparation. He had no life outside his imagination, little +interest in anything that was not its chosen subject. He hardly seemed +aware of the existence of other writers. I never knew if he cared for +work of mine, and do not remember that I had from him even a +conventional compliment, and yet he had the most perfect modesty and +simplicity in daily intercourse, self-assertion was impossible to him. +On the other hand, he was useless amidst sudden events. He was much +shaken by the Playboy riot; on the first night confused and excited, +knowing not what to do, and ill before many days, but it made no +difference in his work. He neither exaggerated out of defiance nor +softened out of timidity. He wrote on as if nothing had happened, +altering 'The Tinker's Wedding' to a more unpopular form, but writing a +beautiful serene 'Deirdre,' with, for the first time since his 'Riders +to the Sea,' no touch of sarcasm or defiance. Misfortune shook his +physical nature while it left his intellect and his moral nature +untroubled. The external self, the mask, the persona was a shadow, +character was all. + + + + +XII + + +He was a drifting silent man full of hidden passion, and loved wild +islands, because there, set out in the light of day, he saw what lay +hidden in himself. There is passage after passage in which he dwells +upon some moment of excitement. He describes the shipping of pigs at +Kilronan on the North Island for the English market: 'when the steamer +was getting near, the whole drove was moved down upon the slip and the +curraghs were carried out close to the sea. Then each beast was caught +in its turn and thrown on its side, while its legs were hitched +together in a single knot, with a tag of rope remaining, by which it +could be carried. + +Probably the pain inflicted was not great, yet the animals shut their +eyes and shrieked with almost human intonations, till the suggestion of +the noise became so intense that the men and women who were merely +looking on grew wild with excitement, and the pigs waiting their turn +foamed at the mouth and tore each other with their teeth. + +After a while there was a pause. The whole slip was covered with amass +of sobbing animals, with here and there a terrified woman crouching +among the bodies and patting some special favourite, to keep it quiet +while the curraghs were being launched. Then the screaming began again +while the pigs were carried out and laid in their places, with a +waistcoat tied round their feet to keep them from damaging the canvas. +They seemed to know where they were going, and looked up at me over the +gunnel with an ignoble desperation that made me shudder to think that I +had eaten this whimpering flesh. When the last curragh went out, I was +left on the slip with a band of women and children, and one old boar +who sat looking out over the sea. + +The women were over-excited, and when I tried to talk to them they +crowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because I am not +married. A dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that I could not +understand all they were saying, yet I was able to make out that they +were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to give me the +full volume of their contempt. Some little boys who were listening +threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the sea-weed, and +the young girls grew red and embarrassed and stared down in the surf.' +The book is full of such scenes. Now it is a crowd going by train to +the Parnell celebration, now it is a woman cursing her son who made +himself a spy for the police, now it is an old woman keening at a +funeral. Kindred to his delight in the harsh grey stones, in the +hardship of the life there, in the wind and in the mist, there is +always delight in every moment of excitement, whether it is but the +hysterical excitement of the women over the pigs, or some primary +passion. Once indeed, the hidden passion instead of finding expression +by its choice among the passions of others, shows itself in the most +direct way of all, that of dream. 'Last night,' he writes, at +Innismaan, 'after walking in a dream among buildings with strangely +intense light on them, I heard a faint rhythm of music beginning far +away on some stringed instrument. + +It came closer to me, gradually increasing in quickness and volume with +an irresistibly definite progression. When it was quite near the sound +began to move in my nerves and blood, to urge me to dance with them. + +I knew that if I yielded I would be carried away into some moment of +terrible agony, so I struggled to remain quiet, holding my knees +together with my hands. + +The music increased continually, sounding like the strings of harps +tuned to a forgotten scale, and having a resonance as searching as the +strings of the 'cello. + +Then the luring excitement became more powerful than my will, and my +limbs moved in spite of me. + +In a moment I was swept away in a whirlwind of notes. My breath and my +thoughts and every impulse of my body became a form of the dance, till +I could not distinguish between the instrument or the rhythm and my own +person or consciousness. For a while it seemed an excitement that was +filled with joy; then it grew into an ecstasy where all existence was +lost in the vortex of movement. I could not think that there had been a +life beyond the whirling of the dance. + +Then with a shock, the ecstasy turned to agony and rage. I struggled to +free myself but seemed only to increase the passion of the steps I +moved to. When I shrieked I could only echo the notes of the rhythm. At +last, with a movement of uncontrollable frenzy I broke back to +consciousness and awoke. + +I dragged myself trembling to the window of the cottage and looked out. +The moon was glittering across the bay and there was no sound anywhere +on the island.' + + + + +XIII + + +In all drama which would give direct expression to reverie, to the +speech of the soul with itself, there is some device that checks the +rapidity of dialogue. When Oedipus speaks out of the most vehement +passions, he is conscious of the presence of the chorus, men before +whom he must keep up appearances 'children latest born of Cadmus' line' +who do not share his passion. Nobody is hurried or breathless. We +listen to reports and discuss them, taking part as it were in a council +of state. Nothing happens before our eyes. The dignity of Greek drama, +and in a lesser degree of that of Corneille and Racine depends, as +contrasted with the troubled life of Shakespearean drama, on an almost +even speed of dialogue, and on a so continuous exclusion of the +animation of common life, that thought remains lofty and language rich. +Shakespeare, upon whose stage everything may happen, even the blinding +of Gloster, and who has no formal check except what is implied in the +slow, elaborate structure of blank verse, obtains time for reverie by +an often encumbering Euphuism, and by such a loosening of his plot as +will give his characters the leisure to look at life from without. +Maeterlinck, to name the first modern of the old way who comes to +mind--reaches the same end, by choosing instead of human beings persons +who are as faint as a breath upon a looking-glass, symbols who can +speak a language slow and heavy with dreams because their own life is +but a dream. Modern drama, on the other hand, which accepts the +tightness of the classic plot, while expressing life directly, has been +driven to make indirect its expression of the mind, which it leaves to +be inferred from some common-place sentence or gesture as we infer it +in ordinary life; and this is, I believe, the cause of the perpetual +disappointment of the hope imagined this hundred years that France or +Spain or Germany or Scandinavia will at last produce the master we +await. + +The divisions in the arts are almost all in the first instance +technical, and the great schools of drama have been divided from one +another by the form or the metal of their mirror, by the check chosen +for the rapidity of dialogue. Synge found the check that suited his +temperament in an elaboration of the dialects of Kerry and Aran. The +cadence is long and meditative, as befits the thought of men who are +much alone, and who when they meet in one another's houses--as their +way is at the day's end--listen patiently, each man speaking in turn +and for some little time, and taking pleasure in the vaguer meaning of +the words and in their sound. Their thought, when not merely practical, +is as full of traditional wisdom and extravagant pictures as that of +some Aeschylean chorus, and no matter what the topic is, it is as +though the present were held at arms length. It is the reverse of +rhetoric, for the speaker serves his own delight, though doubtless he +would tell you that like Raftery's whiskey-drinking it was but for the +company's sake. A medicinal manner of speech too, for it could not even +express, so little abstract it is and so rammed with life, those worn +generalizations of national propaganda. 'I'll be telling you the finest +story you'd hear any place from Dundalk to Ballinacree with great +queens in it, making themselves matches from the start to the end, and +they with shiny silks on them ... I've a grand story of the great +queens of Ireland, with white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey, +and fine arms would hit you a slap.... What good am I this night, God +help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it's few would +listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the +time her hour was come, or a little child wouldn't be sleeping with the +hunger on a cold night.' That has the flavour of Homer, of the Bible, +of Villon, while Cervantes would have thought it sweet in the mouth +though not his food. This use of Irish dialect for noble purpose by +Synge, and by Lady Gregory, who had it already in her Cuchulain of +Muirthemne, and by Dr. Hyde in those first translations he has not +equalled since, has done much for National dignity. When I was a boy I +was often troubled and sorrowful because Scottish dialect was capable +of noble use, but the Irish of obvious roystering humour only; and this +error fixed on my imagination by so many novelists and rhymers made me +listen badly. Synge wrote down words and phrases wherever he went, and +with that knowledge of Irish which made all our country idioms easy to +his hand, found it so rich a thing, that he had begun translating into +it fragments of the great literatures of the world, and had planned a +complete version of the Imitation of Christ. It gave him imaginative +richness and yet left to him the sting and tang of reality. How vivid +in his translation from Villon are those 'eyes with a big gay look out +of them would bring folly from a great scholar.' More vivid surely than +anything in Swinburne's version, and how noble those words which are +yet simple country speech, in which his Petrarch mourns that death came +upon Laura just as time was making chastity easy, and the day come when +'lovers may sit together and say out all things arc in their hearts,' +and 'my sweet enemy was making a start, little by little, to give over +her great wariness, the way she was wringing a sweet thing out of my +sharp sorrow.' + + + + +XIV + + +Once when I had been saying that though it seemed to me that a +conventional descriptive passage encumbered the action at the moment of +crisis. I liked 'The Shadow of the Glen' better than 'Riders to the +Sea' that is, for all the nobility of its end, its mood of Greek +tragedy, too passive in suffering; and had quoted from Matthew Arnold's +introduction to 'Empedocles on Etna,' Synge answered, 'It is a curious +thing that "The Riders to the Sea" succeeds with an English but not +with an Irish audience, and "The Shadow of the Glen" which is not liked +by an English audience is always liked in Ireland, though it is +disliked there in theory.' Since then 'The Riders to the Sea' has grown +into great popularity in Dublin, partly because with the tactical +instinct of an Irish mob, the demonstrators against 'The Playboy' both +in the press and in the theatre, where it began the evening, selected +it for applause. It is now what Shelley's 'Cloud' was for many years, a +comfort to those who do not like to deny altogether the genius they +cannot understand. Yet I am certain that, in the long run, his +grotesque plays with their lyric beauty, their violent laughter, 'The +Playboy of the Western World' most of all, will be loved for holding so +much of the mind of Ireland. Synge has written of 'The Playboy' 'anyone +who has lived in real intimacy with the Irish peasantry will know that +the wildest sayings in this play are tame indeed compared with the +fancies one may hear at any little hillside cottage of Geesala, or +Carraroe, or Dingle Bay.' It is the strangest, the most beautiful +expression in drama of that Irish fantasy, which overflowing through +all Irish Literature that has come out of Ireland itself (compare the +fantastic Irish account of the Battle of Clontarf with the sober Norse +account) is the unbroken character of Irish genius. In modern days this +genius has delighted in mischievous extravagance, like that of the +Gaelic poet's curse upon his children, 'There are three things that I +hate, the devil that is waiting for my soul, the worms that are waiting +for my body, my children, who are waiting for my wealth and care +neither for my body nor my soul: Oh, Christ hang all in the same +noose!' I think those words were spoken with a delight in their +vehemence that took out of anger half the bitterness with all the +gloom. An old man on the Aran Islands told me the very tale on which +'The Playboy' is founded, beginning with the words, 'If any gentleman +has done a crime we'll hide him. There was a gentleman that killed his +father, & I had him in my own house six months till he got away to +America.' Despite the solemnity of his slow speech his eyes shone as +the eyes must have shone in that Trinity College branch of the Gaelic +League, which began every meeting with prayers for the death of an old +Fellow of College who disliked their movement, or as they certainly do +when patriots are telling how short a time the prayers took to the +killing of him. I have seen a crowd, when certain Dublin papers had +wrought themselves into an imaginary loyalty, so possessed by what +seemed the very genius of satiric fantasy, that one all but looked to +find some feathered heel among the cobble stones. Part of the delight +of crowd or individual is always that somebody will be angry, somebody +take the sport for gloomy earnest. We are mocking at his solemnity, let +us therefore so hide our malice that he may be more solemn still, and +the laugh run higher yet. Why should we speak his language and so wake +him from a dream of all those emotions which men feel because they +should, and not because they must? Our minds, being sufficient to +themselves, do not wish for victory but are content to elaborate our +extravagance, if fortune aid, into wit or lyric beauty, and as for the +rest 'There are nights when a king like Conchobar would spit upon his +arm-ring and queens will stick out their tongues at the rising moon.' +This habit of the mind has made Oscar Wilde and Mr. Bernard Shaw the +most celebrated makers of comedy to our time, and if it has sounded +plainer still in the conversation of the one, and in some few speeches +of the other, that is but because they have not been able to turn out +of their plays an alien trick of zeal picked up in struggling youth. +Yet, in Synge's plays also, fantasy gives the form and not the thought, +for the core is always as in all great art, an over-powering vision of +certain virtues, and our capacity for sharing in that vision is the +measure of our delight. Great art chills us at first by its coldness or +its strangeness, by what seems capricious, and yet it is from these +qualities it has authority, as though it had fed on locust and wild +honey. The imaginative writer shows us the world as a painter does his +picture, reversed in a looking-glass that we may see it, not as it +seems to eyes habit has made dull, but as we were Adam and this the +first morning; and when the new image becomes as little strange as the +old we shall stay with him, because he has, beside the strangeness, not +strange to him, that made us share his vision, sincerity that makes us +share his feeling. + +To speak of one's emotions without fear or moral ambition, to come out +from under the shadow of other men's minds, to forget their needs, to +be utterly oneself, that is all the Muses care for. Villon, pander, +thief, and man-slayer, is as immortal in their eyes, and illustrates in +the cry of his ruin as great a truth as Dante in abstract ecstasy, and +touches our compassion more. All art is the disengaging of a soul from +place and history, its suspension in a beautiful or terrible light, to +await the Judgement, and yet, because all its days were a Last Day, +judged already. It may show the crimes of Italy as Dante did, or Greek +mythology like Keats, or Kerry and Galway villages, and so vividly that +ever after I shall look at all with like eyes, and yet I know that Cino +da Pistoia thought Dante unjust, that Keats knew no Greek, that those +country men and women are neither so lovable nor so lawless as 'mine +author sung it me;' that I have added to my being, not my knowledge. + + + + +XV + + +I wrote the most of these thoughts in my diary on the coast of +Normandy, and as I finished came upon Mont Saint Michel, and thereupon +doubted for a day the foundation of my school. Here I saw the places of +assembly, those cloisters on the rock's summit, the church, the great +halls where monks, or knights, or men at arms sat at meals, beautiful +from ornament or proportion. I remembered ordinances of the Popes +forbidding drinking-cups with stems of gold to these monks who had but +a bare dormitory to sleep in. Even when imagining, the individual had +taken more from his fellows and his fathers than he gave; one man +finishing what another had begun; and all that majestic fantasy, +seeming more of Egypt than of Christendom, spoke nothing to the +solitary soul, but seemed to announce whether past or yet to come an +heroic temper of social men, a bondage of adventure and of wisdom. Then +I thought more patiently and I saw that what had made these but as one +and given them for a thousand years the miracles of their shrine and +temporal rule by land and sea, was not a condescension to knave or +dolt, an impoverishment of the common thought to make it serviceable +and easy, but a dead language and a communion in whatever, even to the +greatest saint, is of incredible difficulty. Only by the substantiation +of the soul I thought, whether in literature or in sanctity, can we +come upon those agreements, those separations from all else that fasten +men together lastingly; for while a popular and picturesque Burns and +Scott can but create a province, and our Irish cries and grammars serve +some passing need, Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe and all who travel +in their road with however poor a stride, define races and create +everlasting loyalties. Synge, like all of the great kin, sought for the +race, not through the eyes or in history, or even in the future, but +where those monks found God, in the depths of the mind, and in all art +like his, although it does not command--indeed because it does not--may +lie the roots of far-branching events. Only that which does not teach, +which does not cry out, which does not persuade, which does not +condescend, which does not explain is irresistible. It is made by men +who expressed themselves to the full, and it works through the best +minds; whereas the external and picturesque and declamatory writers, +that they may create kilts and bagpipes and newspapers and guide-books, +leave the best minds empty, and in Ireland and Scotland England runs +into the hole. It has no array of arguments and maxims, because the +great and the simple (and the Muses have never known which of the two +most pleases them) need their deliberate thought for the day's work, +and yet will do it worse if they have not grown into or found about +them, most perhaps in the minds of women, the nobleness of emotion, +associated with the scenery and events of their country, by those great +poets, who have dreamed it in solitude, and who to this day in Europe +are creating indestructible spiritual races, like those religion has +created in the East. + +W. B. Yeats. + +September 14th. 1910. + + + * * * * * + + +WITH SYNGE IN CONNEMARA + + +I had often spent a day walking with John Synge, but a year or two ago +I travelled for a month alone through the west of Ireland with him. He +was the best companion for a roadway any one could have, always ready +and always the same; a bold walker, up hill and down dale, in the hot +sun and the pelting rain. I remember a deluge on the Erris Peninsula, +where we lay among the sand hills and at his suggestion heaped sand +upon ourselves to try and keep dry. + +When we started on our journey, as the train steamed out of Dublin, +Synge said: 'Now the elder of us two should be in command on this +trip.' So we compared notes and I found that he was two months older +than myself. So he was boss and whenever it was a question whether we +should take the road to the west or the road to the south, it was Synge +who finally decided. + +Synge was fond of little children and animals. I remember how glad he +was to stop and lean on a wall in Gorumna and watch a woman in afield +shearing a sheep. It was an old sheep and must have often been sheared +before by the same hand, for the woman hardly held it; she just knelt +beside it and snipped away. I remember the sheep raised its lean old +head to look at the stranger, and the woman just put her hand on its +cheek and gently pressed its head down on the grass again. + +Synge was delighted with the narrow paths made of sods of grass +alongside the newly-metalled roads, because he thought they had been +put there to make soft going for the bare feet of little children. +Children knew, I think, that he wished them well. In Bellmullet on +Saint John's eve, when we stood in the market square watching the +fire-play, flaming sods of turf soaked in paraffine, hurled to the sky +and caught and skied again, and burning snakes of hay-rope, I remember +a little girl in the crowd, in an ecstasy of pleasure and dread, +clutched Synge by the hand and stood close in his shadow until the +fiery games were done. + +His knowledge of Gaelic was a great assistance to him in talking to the +people. I remember him holding a great conversation in Irish and +English with an innkeeper's wife in a Mayo inn. She had lived in +America in Lincoln's day. She told us what living cost in America then, +and of her life there; her little old husband sitting by and putting in +an odd word. By the way, the husband was a wonderful gentle-mannered +man, for we had luncheon in his house of biscuits and porter, and +rested there an hour, waiting for a heavy shower to blow away; and when +we said good-bye and our feet were actually on the road, Synge said, +'Did we pay for what we had?' So I called back to the innkeeper, 'Did +we pay you?' and he said quietly, 'Not yet sir.' + +Synge was always delighted to hear and remember any good phrase. I +remember his delight at the words of a local politician who told us how +he became a Nationalist. 'I was,' he said plucking a book from the +mantlepiece (I remember the book--it was 'Paul and Virginia') and +clasping it to his breast--'I was but a little child with my little +book going to school, and by the house there I saw the agent. He took +the unfortunate tenant and thrun him in the road, and I saw the man's +wife come out crying and the agent's wife thrun her in the channel, and +when I saw that, though I was but a child, I swore I'd be a +Nationalist. I swore by heaven, and I swore by hell and all the rivers +that run through them.' + +Synge must have read a great deal at one time, but he was not a man you +would see often with a book in his hand; he would sooner talk, or +rather listen to talk--almost anyone's talk. + +Synge was always ready to go anywhere with one, and when there to enjoy +what came. He went with me to see an ordinary melodrama at the Queen's +Theatre, Dublin, and he delighted to see how the members of the company +could by the vehemence of their movements and the resources of their +voices hold your attention on a play where everything was commonplace. +He enjoyed seeing the contrite villain of the piece come up from the +bottom of the gulch, hurled there by the adventuress, and flash his +sweating blood-stained face up against the footlights; and, though he +told us he had but a few short moments to live, roar his contrition +with the voice of a bull. + +Synge had travelled a great deal in Italy in tracks he beat out for +himself, and in Germany and in France, but he only occasionally spoke +to me about these places. I think the Irish peasant had all his heart. +He loved them in the east as well as he loved them in the west, but the +western men on the Aran Islands and in the Blaskets fitted in with his +humour more than any; the wild things they did and said were a joy to +him. + +Synge was by spirit well equipped for the roads. Though his health was +often bad, he had beating under his ribs a brave heart that carried him +over rough tracks. He gathered about him very little gear, and cared +nothing for comfort except perhaps that of a good turf fire. He was, +though young in years, 'an old dog for a hard road and not a young pup +for a tow-path.' + +He loved mad scenes. He told me how once at the fair of Tralee he saw +an old tinker-woman taken by the police, and she was struggling with +them in the centre of the fair; when suddenly, as if her garments were +held together with one cord, she hurled every shred of clothing from +her, ran down the street and screamed, 'let this be the barrack yard,' +which was perfectly understood by the crowd as suggesting that the +police strip and beat their prisoners when they get them shut in, in +the barrack yard. The young men laughed, but the old men hurried after +the naked fleeting figure trying to throw her clothes on her as she ran. + +But all wild sights appealed to Synge, he did not care whether they +were typical of anything else or had any symbolical meaning at all. If +he had lived in the days of piracy he would have been the fiddler in a +pirate-schooner, him they called 'the music--' 'The music' looked on at +every thing with dancing eyes but drew no sword, and when the schooner +was taken and the pirates hung at Cape Corso Castle or The Island of +Saint Christopher's, 'the music' was spared because he _was_ 'the +music.' + +Jack B. Yeats + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Synge And The Ireland Of His Time, by +William Butler Yeats + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYNGE AND THE IRELAND OF HIS TIME *** + +***** This file should be named 8557.txt or 8557.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/5/8557/ + +Produced by David Starner, Charles Franks, Juliet +Sutherland, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. +HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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