Preface (1921) to John M. Synge, Shingu Gikyoku Zenshu (‘Collected Plays of Synge’), tr. Mineko Matsumura (1923)

Abstract

So I am to write ‘a few words of preface’ to introduce the plays of John Synge,¹ who had in his mind so much of all that is most ancient in my country, to your countrymen, whose ancient poetry has come to mean so much to me† now that Mr Waley† and others have published their translations.² When I read the plays and essays of John Synge I go back at moments to our Middle Ages† and even further back, but as I go back, though I find much beauty at the journey’s end, I am all the time among poor unlucky people, who live in thatched cottages among stony fields by the side of a bleak ocean, or on the slopes of bare wind-swept† mountains. In your Noh plays† or in that diary of one of your court ladies† of the eleventh century that I was reading yesterday,³ I find beliefs and attitudes† of mind not very different but I find them among happy cultivated people. Once or twice when I have read some Japanese poem or play I have wished that Synge were living. How like it is, † in its story† or emotional quality, to something he has recorded in his book on the Aran Islands† or in his Well of the Saints or in his Riders to the Sea, †⁴ or that Lady Gregory or I have found in Galway or in Sligo. The story of your Nishikigi for instance exists among us but as a mere anecdote, † which no poet has changed into great poetry.⁵