Yerma

Full Text and Introduction (NHB Drama Classics)

Federico García Lorca

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781780016702
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding.

Yerma tells the tale of an impassioned childless woman living with her husband in rural Spain. Tortured by her incessant longing to conceive a child, she is driven by madness to commit a heinous crime.

This edition, translated and introduced by Jo Clifford, also contains a chronology and suggestions for further reading.

ACT TWO

Scene One

A rushing stream in which the village women do their washing. The WASHERWOMEN are on various levels. They sing with the curtain still closed.

WASHERWOMEN.

Cold is the water

Washing this hour

Warm is your laughter

Like jasmine flower.

WASHERWOMAN 1. I don’t like to gossip . . .

WASHERWOMAN 3. But everyone’s doing it.

WASHERWOMAN 4. And there’s no harm in it.

WASHERWOMAN 5. No smoke without fire.

WASHERWOMAN 4. No fire without smoke.

They laugh.

WASHERWOMAN 5. So people say.

WASHERWOMAN 1. But no one really knows.

WASHERWOMAN 4. One thing for sure is that the husband has brought in his two sisters to live with them.

WASHERWOMAN 5. The old maids?

WASHERWOMAN 4. Them. The ones who look after the church and now have to look after his wife. I wouldn’t want them in my house.

WASHERWOMAN 1. Why not?

WASHERWOMAN 4. They’re so creepy. They’re like those slimy plants with the big green leaves that you see growing on a freshly dug grave. They’re greasy with candle wax. I think they must cook with the oil from the lamps in church.

WASHERWOMAN 3. And they’re in her house already?

WASHERWOMAN 4. Since yesterday. And the husband’s out working on his land.

WASHERWOMAN 1. Can someone tell me what’s supposed to have happened?

WASHERWOMAN 5. Remember how cold it was the night before last? Well, she spent the whole night out in it. Sitting on her own doorstep. She spent the night before last sitting out on the doorstep in spite of the cold.

WASHERWOMAN 1. But why?

WASHERWOMAN 4. Because she can’t stand being inside her own house.

WASHERWOMAN 5. She’s just a withered old bitch that’ll never have kids. They’re all the same. She should stay out of sight and mind her own business. But instead they go walking naked on their rooftops or sit out all night on their doorsteps.

WASHERWOMAN 1. What right have you to say things like that? It’s not her fault she doesn’t have children.

WASHERWOMAN 4. People have children who really want them. There’s just some that are too weak, too delicate, too soft and too posh to be able to bear having a stretch mark.

They laugh.

WASHERWOMAN 3. So they put on red lipstick and black eye-shadow and their best low-cut dress and go off looking for another man who is not their husband.

WASHERWOMAN 5. And that’s the way it is.

WASHERWOMAN 1. But have any of you actually seen her with another man?

WASHERWOMAN 4. Well, we haven’t. But people have.

WASHERWOMAN 1. Strange how it’s always someone else!

WASHERWOMAN 5. It’s twice she’s been seen with a man. That’s what they say.

WASHERWOMAN 2. And what were they doing?

WASHERWOMAN 4. Talking.

WASHERWOMAN 1. Talking is not a crime.

WASHERWOMAN 5. But they were also looking. And looking is something else. My mother used to tell me. A woman looking at a bunch of flowers is one thing. A woman looking at a man’s thighs is quite another. And she looks at him.

WASHERWOMAN 1. But who?

WASHERWOMAN 4. Someone. Don’t you know? Think about it. Do you want me to spell it out? (Laughter.) And even when she’s not looking at him, because she’s on her own, and he’s not in front of her, he’s still pictured in her eyes.

WASHERWOMAN 1. You’re a liar!

A moment of fierce conflict.

WASHERWOMAN 5. What about the husband?

WASHERWOMAN 3. It’s like he was deaf and blind. Paralysed. Like a lizard in the noonday sun.

They laugh.

WASHERWOMAN 1. If only they had children. All this would sort itself out.

WASHERWOMAN 2. All this would sort itself out if some people knew their place.

WASHERWOMAN 4. It gets worse and worse in that house. Hour by hour. It’s like being in hell. Her and her two sisters-in-law never say a word to each other. They spend all day whitewashing the walls, polishing the coppers, cleaning all the glasses and waxing the floors. And the more the house gleams on the outside, the muckier it is on the inside.

WASHERWOMAN 1. It’s his fault. It’s his. When a husband can’t father a child he needs to take care of his wife.

WASHERWOMAN 4. No. It’s her fault. She’s got a tongue like a razor.

WASHERWOMAN 1. What’s got into you to make you say such horrible things?

WASHERWOMAN 4. And what’s got into you to make you think you can tell me what to do?

WASHERWOMAN 5. Quiet!

Laughter.

WASHERWOMAN 1. If I had a darning needle I’d sew up the mouths of malicious tongues.

WASHERWOMAN 5. Shut up!

WASHERWOMAN 4. And I’d cover the breasts of hypocrites.

WASHERWOMAN 5. Be quiet! Can’t you see who’s coming? It’s the aunts!

Mutterings. YERMA’s two SISTERS-IN-LAW enter. They are dressed in mourning. They begin to wash in the midst of the silence. We hear goat bells.

WASHERWOMAN 1. Have the shepherds gone?

WASHERWOMAN 3. Yes. The flocks are all leaving now.

WASHERWOMAN 4 (breathing in). I love the smell of sheep.

WASHERWOMAN 3. Do you?

WASHERWOMAN 4. And why not? It smells of such familiar things. Just as I like the smell of the red mud brought down by the river in winter.

WASHERWOMAN 3. You’re crazy.

WASHERWOMAN 5 (looking out). They’ve joined all the flocks together.

WASHERWOMAN 4. As if to flood everywhere with wool. They trample over everything. If the young wheat had eyes, it would tremble to see them coming.

WASHERWOMAN 3. And how they run! What a crowd!

WASHERWOMAN 1. Out they all go. None are left behind.

WASHERWOMAN 4. Wait . . . I’m not sur...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Lorca: Key Dates
• Dedication
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information