For some time, Synge's career was uncertain. He went to Germany half intending to become a professional musician. There he studied the theory of music, perfecting himself meanwhile in Gaelic and Hebrew, winning prizes in both of these languages. Yeats found him in France in 1898 and advised him to go to the Aran Islands, to live there as if he were one of the people. "Express a life," said Yeats, "that has never found expression." Synge went. He became part of the life of Aran, living upon salt fish and eggs, talking Irish for the most part but listening also to that beautiful English which, to quote Yeats again, "has grown up in Irish-speaking districts and takes its vocabulary from the time of Malory and of the translators of the Bible, but its idiom and vivid metaphor from Irish." The result of this close contact was five of the greatest poetic prose dramas not only of his own generation, but of several generations preceding it. (See Preface.) In _Riders to the Sea_ (1903), _The Well of the Saints_ (1905), and _The Playboy of the Western World_ (1907) we have a richness of imagery, a new language startling in its vigor, a wildness and passion that contrast strangely with the suave mysticism and delicate spirituality of his associates in the Irish Theatre. Synge's _Poems and Translations_ (1910), a volume which was not issued until after his death, contains not only his few hard and earthy verses, but also Synge's theory of poetry. The translations, which have been rendered in a highly intensified prose, are as racy as anything in his plays; his versions of Villon and Petrarch are remarkable for their adherence to the original and still radiate the poet's own personality. Synge died, just as he was beginning to attain fame, at a private hospital in Dublin March 24, 1909. BEG-INNISH Bring Kateen-beug and Maurya Jude To dance in Beg-Innish,[13] And when the lads (they're in Dunquin) Have sold their crabs and fish, Wave fawny shawls and call them in, And call the little girls who spin, And seven weavers from Dunquin, To dance in Beg-Innish. I'll play you jigs, and Maurice Kean, Where nets are laid to dry, I've silken strings would draw a dance From girls are lame or shy; Four strings I've brought from Spain and France To make your long men skip and prance, Till stars look out to see the dance Where nets are laid to dry. We'll have no priest or peeler in To dance in Beg-Innish; But we'll have drink from M'riarty Jim Rowed round while gannets fish, A keg with porter to the brim, That every lad may have his whim, Till we up sails with M'riarty Jim And sail from Beg-Innish. A TRANSLATION FROM PETRARCH (_He is Jealous of the Heavens and the Earth_) What a grudge I am bearing the earth that has its arms about her, and is holding that face away from me, where I was finding peace from great sadness.