The Rising of the Moon
Lady Gregory (Isabella Augusta Persee) was born in County
Galway, Ireland. One of the moving spirits behind the
establishment of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, she was a
playwright of great technical skill. At the instance of her friend
and sponsor, William Butler Yeats, who encouragod her to study
the old history and folklore of Ireland, Lady Gregory has
specially mastered the one-act form. Of her thirty one-act plays,
Spreading the News, and The Rising of the Moon are the best
known.
The Rising of the Moon reveals both great charm and skill of dramatic imagination
and a closely observed Irish character. The play's charm mainly rests on the sustaining
passions of Irish nationalism. The title, which is taken from the ballad on Shawn
O'Farrell, is a symbol of the Irish uprising against the British. Lady Gregory's careful
study of the Irish character, her skilful delineation of the individual characters and
her perfect handling of the situation, are responsible for this one-act play's great
charm and popularity.
The Rising of the Moon
Scene : Side of a quay in a seaport town. Some posts and chains. A
large barrel. Enter three policemen. Moonlight.
(Sergeant, who is older than the others, crosses the stage to right
and looks down steps. The others put down a pastepot and unroll
a bundle of placards.)
Policeman B : I think this would be a good place to put up a notice. (He points
to barrel.)
Policeman X : Better ask him. (Calls to Sergeant) Will this be a good place for
a placard?
(No answer.)
quay : a plat-form lying alongside, or projecting into water for loading and
unloading of ships
Sergeant : Police officer ranking below an inspector
Placard : a sign for public display, either posted on the wall or carried during a
demonstration
Policeman B : Will we put up a notice here on the barrel? (No answer.)
Sergeant : There’s a flight of steps here that leads to the water. This is a
place that should be minded well. If he got down here, his friends
might have a boat to meet him; they might send it in here from
outside.
Policeman B : Would the barrel be a good place to put a notice up?
Sergeant : It might; you can put it there.
(They paste the notice up.)
Sergeant : (Reading it.) Dark hair—dark eyes, smooth face, height five feet
five—there’s not much to take hold of in that—It’s a pity I had
no chance of seeing him before he broke out of gaol. They say
he’s a wonder, that it’s he makes all the plans for the whole
organization. There isn’t another man in Ireland would have
broken gaol the way he did. He must have some friends among
the gaolers.
Policeman B : A hundred pounds is little enough for the Government to offer
for him. You may be sure any man in the force that takes him
will get promotion.
Sergeant : I’ll mind this place myself. I wouldn’t wonder at all if he came
this way. He might come slipping along there (points to side of
quay), and his friends might be waiting for him there (points
down steps), and once he got away it’s little chance we’d have
of finding him; it’s maybe under a load of kelp he’d be in a
fishing boat, and not one to help a married man that wants it
to the reward.
Policeman X : And if we get him itself, nothing but abuse on our heads for it
from the people, and maybe from our own relations.
Sergeant : Well, we have to do our duty in the force. Haven’t we the whole
country depending on us to keep law and order? It’s those that
are down would be up and those that are up would be down, if
it wasn’t for us. Well, hurry on, you have plenty of other places
to placard yet, and come back here then to me. You can take
the lantern. Don’t be too long now. It’s very lonesome here with
nothing but the moon.
gaol : Jail, jailers
kelp : A large brown seaweed that typically has long, tough stalk
lonesome : Lonely, without any company
Policeman B : It’s a pity we can’t stop with you. The Government should have
brought more police into the town, with him in gaol, and at
assize time too. Well, good luck to your watch.
(They go out.)
Sergeant : (Walks up and down once or twice and looks at placard.) A
hundred pounds and promotion sure. There must be a great deal
of spending in a hundred pounds. It’s a pity some honest man
not to be the better of that.
(A ragged man appears at left and tries to slip past. Sergeant
suddenly turns.)
Sergeant : Where are you going?
Man : I’m a poor ballad-singer, your honour. I thought to sell some of
these (holds out bundle of ballads) to the sailors. (He goes on.)
Sergeant : Stop! Didn’t I tell you to stop? You can’t go on there.
Man : Oh, very well. It’s a hard thing to be poor. All the world’s against
the poor!
Sergeant : Who are you?
Man : You’d be as wise as myself if I told you, but I don’t mind. I’m
one Jimmy Walsh, a ballad-singer.
Sergeant : Jimmy Walsh? I don’t know that name.
Man : Ah, sure, they know it well enough in Ennis. Were you ever in
Ennis, Sergeant?
Sergeant : What brought you here?
Man : Sure, it’s to the assizes I came, thinking I might make a few
shillings here or there. It’s in the one train with the judges I
came.
Sergeant : Well, if you came so far, you may as well go farther, for you’ll
walk out of this.
Man : I will, I will; I’ll just go on where I was going. (Goes towards
steps.)
Sergeant : Come back from those steps; no one has leave to pass down
them to-night.
assize : The court which sat at intervals in each country of England and
wales to dadminister the civil and criminal law.
Find out the reason of the man for staying at the place.
The stranger stays with the Sergeant. Find a way ...... by him to allow him
Man : I’ll just sit on the top of the steps till I see will some sailor buy
a ballad off me that would give me my supper. They do be late
going back to the ship. It’s often I saw them in Cork carried
down the quay in a hand-cart.
Sergeant : Move on, I tell you. I won’t have any one lingering about the
quay to-night.
Man : Well, I’ll go. It’s the poor have the hard life! Maybe yourself
might like one, Sergeant. Here’s a good sheet now. (Turns one
over.) “Content and a pipe”—that’s not much. “The Peeler and
the goat”—you wouldn’t like that. “Johnny Hart”—that’s a lovely
song.
Sergeant : Move on.
Man : Ah, wait till you hear it. (Sings:)
There was a rich farmer’s daughter lived near the town of Ross;
She courted a Highland soldier, his name was Johnny Hart;
Says the mother to her daughter, “I’ll go distracted mad
If you marry that Highland soldier dressed up in Highland plaid.”
Sergeant : Stop that noise.
(Man wraps up his ballads and shuffles towards the steps)
Sergeant : Where are you going?
Man : Sure you told me to be going, and I am going.
Sergeant : Don’t be a fool. I didn’t tell you to go that way; I told you to
go back to the town.
Man : Back to the town, is it?
Sergeant : (Taking him by the shoulder and shoving him before him.) Here,
I’ll show you the way. Be off with you. What are you stopping
for?
Man : (Who has been keeping his eye on the notice, points to it.) I
think I know what you’re waiting for, Sergeant.
Sergeant : What’s that to you?
Man : And I know well the man you’re waiting for—I know him well—
I’ll be going. (He shuffles on.)
Write about the persuasive approach of the man?
shuffles : move/walk a by dragging one’s feet.
Sergeant : You know him? Come back here. What sort is he?
Man : Come back is it, Sergeant? Do you want to have me killed?
Sergeant : Why do you say that?
Man : Never mind. I’m going. I wouldn’t be in your shoes if the reward
was ten times as much. (Goes on off stage to left). Not if it
was ten times as much.
Sergeant : (Rushing after him.) Come back here, come back. (Drags him
back.) What sort is he? Where did you see him?
Man : I saw him in my own place, in the County Clare. I tell you you
wouldn’t like to be looking at him. You’d be afraid to be in the
one place with him. There isn’t a weapon he doesn’t know the
use of, and as to strength, his muscles are as hard as that board
(slaps barrel).
Sergeant : Is he as bad as that?
Man : He is then.
Sergeant : Do you tell me so?
Man : There was a poor man in our place, a Sergeant from
Ballyvaughan.—It was with a lump of stone he did it.
Sergeant : I never heard of that.
Man : And you wouldn’t, Sergeant. It’s not everything that happens gets
into the papers. And there was a policeman in plain clothes,
too.... It is in Limerick he was.... It was after the time of the
attack on the police barrack at Kilmallock.... Moonlight ... just
like this ... waterside.... Nothing was known for certain.
Sergeant : Do you say so? It’s a terrible county to belong to.
Man : That’s so, indeed! You might be standing there, looking out that
way, thinking you saw him coming up this side of the quay
(points), and he might be coming up this other side (points), and
he’d be on you before you knew where you were.
Sergeant : It’s a whole troop of police they ought to put here to stop a
man like that.
Man : But if you’d like me to stop with you, I could be looking down
this side. I could be sitting up here on this barrel.
barrack : police accomonodation
Sergeant : And you know him well, too?
Man : I’d know him a mile off, Sergeant.
Sergeant : But you wouldn’t want to share the reward?
Man : Is it a poor man like me, that has to be going the roads and
singing in fairs, to have the name on him that he took a reward?
But you don’t want me. I’ll be safer in the town.
Sergeant : Well, you can stop.
Man : (Getting up on barrel.) All right, Sergeant. I wonder, now, you’re
not tired out, Sergeant, walking up and down the way you are.
Sergeant : If I’m tired I’m used to it.
Man : You might have hard work before you to-night yet. Take it easy
while you can. There’s plenty of room up here on the barrel,
and you see farther when you’re higher up.
Sergeant : Maybe so. (Gets up beside him on barrel, facing right. They sit
back to back, looking different ways.) You made me feel a bit
queer with the way you talked.
Man : Give me a match, Sergeant (he gives it and man lights pipe);
take a draw yourself? It’ll quiet you. Wait now till I give you
a light, but you needn’t turn round. Don’t take your eye off the
quay for the life of you.
Sergeant : Never fear, I won’t. (Lights pipe. They both smoke.) Indeed it’s
a hard thing to be in the force, out at night and no thanks for
it, for all the danger we’re in. And it’s little we get but abuse
from the people, and no choice but to obey our orders, and never
asked when a man is sent into danger, if you are a married man
with a family.
Man : (Sings)—
As through the hills I walked to view the hills and shamrock
plain,
I stood awhile where nature smiles to view the rocks and streams,
On a matron fair I fixed my eyes beneath a fertile vale, As she
sang her song it was on the wrong of poor old Granuaile.
Sergeant : Stop that; that’s no song to be singing in these times.
Man : Ah, Sergeant, I was only singing to keep my heart up. It sinks
when I think of him. To think of us two sitting here, and he
creeping up the quay, maybe, to get to us.
Sergeant : Are you keeping a good lookout?
Man : I am; and for no reward too. Amn’t I the foolish man? But when
I saw a man in trouble, I never could help trying to get him
out of it. What’s that? Did something hit me?
(Rubs his heart.)
Sergeant : (Patting him on the shoulder.) You will get your reward in heaven.
Man : I know that, I know that, Sergeant, but life is precious.
Sergeant : Well, you can sing if it gives you more courage.
Man : (Sings)—
Her head was bare, her hands and feet with iron bands were
bound,
Her pensive strain and plaintive wail mingles with the evening
gale,
And the song she sang with mournful air, I am old Granuaile.
Her lips so sweet that monarchs kissed....
Sergeant : That’s not it.... “Her gown she wore was stained with gore.” ...
That’s it—you missed that.
Man : You’re right, Sergeant, so it is; I missed it. (Repeats line.) But
to think of a man like you knowing a song like that.
Sergeant : There’s many a thing a man might know and might not have
any wish for.
Man : Now, I daresay, Sergeant, in your youth, you used to be sitting
up on a wall, the way you are sitting up on this barrel now,
and the other lads beside you, and you singing “Granuaile”?...
Sergeant : I did then.
Man : And the “Shan Bhean Bhocht”?...
Sergeant : I did then.
Man : And the “Green on the Cape?”
Sergeant : That was one of them.
Man : And maybe the man you are watching for to-night used to be
sitting on the wall, when he was young, and singing those same
songs.... It’s a queer world....
Sergeant : Whisht!... I think I see something coming.... It’s only a dog.
Man : And isn’t it a queer world?... Maybe it’s one of the boys you
used to be singing with that time you will be arresting to-day
or tomorrow, and sending into the dock....
Sergeant : That’s true indeed.
Man : And maybe one night, after you had been singing, if the other
boys had told you some plan they had, some plan to free the
country, you might have joined with them ... and maybe it is
you might be in trouble now.
Sergeant : Well, who knows but I might? I had a great spirit in those days.
Man : It’s a queer world, Sergeant, and it’s little any mother knows
when she sees her child creeping on the floor what might happen
to it before it has gone through its life, or who will be who in
the end.
Sergeant : That’s a queer thought now, and a true thought. Wait now till
I think it out.... If it wasn’t for the sense I have, and for my
wife and family, and for me joining the force the time I did, it
might be myself now would be after breaking gaol and hiding
in the dark, and it might be him that’s hiding in the dark and
that got out of gaol would be sitting up where I am on this
barrel.... And it might be myself would be creeping up trying to
make my escape from himself, and it might be himself would
be keeping the law, and myself would be breaking it, and myself
would be trying maybe to put a bullet in his head, or to take
up a lump of a stone the way you said he did ... no, that myself
did.... Oh! (Gasps. After a pause.) What’s that? (Grasps man’s
arm.)
Man : (Jumps off barrel and listens, looking out over water.) It’s nothing,
Sergeant.
Sergeant : I thought it might be a boat. I had a notion there might be
friends of his coming about the quays with a boat.
Man : Sergeant, I am thinking it was with the people you were, and
not with the law you were, when you were a young man.
Sergeant : Well, if I was foolish then, that time’s gone.
Man : Maybe, Sergeant, it comes into your head sometimes, in spite of
your belt and your tunic, that it might have been as well for
you to have followed Granuaile.
Sergeant : It’s no business of yours what I think.
Man : Maybe, Sergeant, you’ll be on the side of the country yet.
Sergeant : (Gets off barrel.) Don’t talk to me like that. I have my duties
and I know them. (Looks round.) That was a boat; I hear the
oars.
(Goes to the steps and looks down.)
Man : (Sings)—
O, then, tell me, Shawn O’Farrell,
Where the gathering is to be.
In the old spot by the river
Right well known to you and me!
Sergeant : Stop that! Stop that, I tell you!
Man : (Sings louder)—
One word more, for signal token,
Whistle up the marching tune,
With your pike upon your shoulder,
At the Rising of the Moon.
Sergeant : If you don’t stop that, I’ll arrest you.
(A whistle from below answers, repeating the air.)
Sergeant : That’s a signal. (Stands between him and steps.) You must not
pass this way.... Step farther back.... Who are you? You are no
ballad-singer.
quay : a stone or metal platform of harbour.
tunic : a loose garment.
pike : an infantry weapon with a pointed steel or iron head on a
long wooden shaft.
Man : You needn’t ask who I am; that placard will tell you. (Points to
placard.)
Sergeant : You are the man I am looking for.
Man : (Takes off hat and wig. Sergeant seizes them.) I am. There’s a
hundred pounds on my head. There is a friend of mine below
in a boat. He knows a safe place to bring me to.
Sergeant : (Looking still at hat and wig.) It’s a pity! It’s a pity. You deceived
me. You deceived me well.
Man : I am a friend of Granuaile. There is a hundred pounds on my
head.
Sergeant : It’s a pity, it’s a pity!
Man : Will you let me pass, or must I make you let me?
Sergeant : I am in the force. I will not let you pass.
Man : I thought to do it with my tongue. (Puts hand in breast.) What
is that?
(Voice of Policeman X outside:) Here, this is where we left him.
Sergeant : It’s my comrades coming.
Man : You won’t betray me ... the friend of Granuaile. (Slips behind
barrel.)
(Voice of Policeman B:) That was the last of the placards.
Policeman X : (As they come in.) If he makes his escape it won’t be unknown
he’ll make it.
(Sergeant puts hat and wig behind his back.)
Policeman B : Did any one come this way?
Sergeant : (After a pause.) No one.
Policeman B : No one at all?
Sergeant : No one at all.
Policeman B : We had no orders to go back to the station; we can stop along
with you.
Sergeant : I don’t want you. There is nothing for you to do here.
.Policeman B : You bade us to come back here and keep watch with you.
Sergeant : I’d sooner be alone. Would any man come this way and you
making all that talk? It is better the place to be quiet.
Policeman B : Well, we’ll leave you the lantern anyhow. (Hands it to him.)
Sergeant : I don’t want it. Bring it with you.
Policeman B : You might want it. There are clouds coming up and you have
the darkness of the night before you yet. I’ll leave it over here
on the barrel. (Goes to barrel.)
Sergeant : Bring it with you I tell you. No more talk.
Policeman B : Well, I thought it might be a comfort to you. I often think when
I have it in[Pg 91] my hand and can be flashing it about into
every dark corner (doing so) that it’s the same as being beside
the fire at home, and the bits of bogwood blazing up now and
again.
(Flashes it about, now on the barrel, now on Sergeant.)
Sergeant : (Furious.) Be off the two of you, yourselves and your lantern!
(They go out. Man comes from behind barrel. He and Sergeant
stand looking at one anothre.)
Sergeant : What are you waiting for?
Man : For my hat, of course, and my wig. You wouldn’t wish me to
get my death of cold?
(Sergeant gives them.)
Man : (Going towards steps.) Well, good-night, comrade, and thank you.
You did me a good turn to-night, and I’m obliged to you. Maybe
I’ll be able to do as much for you when the small rise up and
the big fall down ... when we all change places at the Rising
(waves his hand and disappears) of the Moon.
Sergeant : (Turning his back to audience and reading placard.) A hundred
pounds reward! A hundred pounds! (Turns towards audience.) I
wonder, now, am I as great a fool as I think I am?
(Curtain)
BRAINSTORMING
(A1) There are some dialogues which are short, but quite effective. They
give us enjoyment and add beauty to the main story. Find some
more from the text.
effective
dialogues
You’d be as wise
as myself
Back to the town is it?
It’s a pity we
can’t stop you
(A2) Theme
(i) Comment on the given statement after reading the given dialogue-
a. And if we get him itself, nothing but abuse on our heads for it from the
people, and maybe from our own relations-
you may begin like this
We do not think about society at large
b. It’s a pity some honest man not to be better of that
c. I wouldn’t be in your shoes if he reward me ten times as much. People
generally fall victim to incentives. Some people stick to values. They
d. But when I saw a man in trouble, I could never help trying to set him
out of it.
Its human to help others. Here the statement tells us that
(ii) The priorities of the Sergeant are shifted. Complete the given table by
using the given clues.
priorities of the Sergeant priorities at the end of the play
in the begining patriotism
law and duty
(iii) Find sentences from the play related to the given points.
a. Loyalty in Irish Nationalism:
(1) May be Sergeant you’ll be on the side of the country yet.
(2)
(3)
(4)
b. Tension between different loyalties
(1) It’s little we get but abuse from the people, and no choice but to obey
our orders.
(2)
(3)
(4)
(A5) The description of the character is given below. Identify the character
from the play. Find some sentences which support your choice.
(a) He is a brave but irresponsible person.
Ans- The character is the Sergeant.
He is brave - I don’t want it. Bring it with you, He is irresponsible
Sergeant (after a pause) - no one.
(b) He is a major character. He dominates in the story.
(1)
(2)
(c) He is smart as well as barve.
(1)
(2)
(d) He is the centre of the play.
(1)
(2)
(e) He is obedient and simple.
(1)
(2)
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