Translations, Brian Friel

• The action takes place in a hedge-school in the townland of Baile Beag/Ballybeg, an Irish-speaking community in County Donegal.
• Act 1
• MANUS is in his late twenties/early thirties; the master's older son. ... His clothes are shabby; and when he moves we see that he is lame.
• SARAH'S speech is so bad that all her life she has been considered locally to be dumb and she has accepted this: when she wishes to communicate, she grunts and makes unintelligible nasal sounds.
• JIMMY JACK CASSIE--known as the Infant Prodigy--sits by himself, contentedly reading Homer in Greek and smiling to himself. He is a bachelor in his sixties, lives alone, and comes to these evening classes partly for the company and partly for the intellectual stimulation.
• MANUS. We're doing very well. And we're going to try it once more--just once more. Now--relax and breathe in... deep... and out... in... and out...
• SARAH. My name is Sarah.
• MANUS. Marvellous! Bloody marvellous!
• JIMMY. 'And about him she cast the great skin of a filthy hind, stripped of the hair, and into his hand she thrust a staff and a wallet.' Ha-ha-ha! Athene did that to Ulysses! Made him into a tramp! Isn't she the tight one?
• JIMMY. I was just thinking to myself last night: if you had the choosing between Athene and Artemis and Helen of Troy--all three of them Zeus's girls--imagine three powerful-looking daughters like that all in the one parish of Athens!--now, if you had the picking between them, which would you take?
• MANUS. Say the word: flow-ers. Come on--flow-ers.
• [MANUS stands awkwardly, having been caught kissing SARAH and with the flowers almost formally at his chest.]
• MANUS. And she got so engrossed in that she forgot who she was dictating to: 'The aul drunken schoolmaster and that lame son of his are still footering about in the hedge-school, wasting people's good time and money.
• [... DOALITY enters doing his imitation of the master.]
• DOALITY. Three questions. Question A--Am I drunk. Question B--Am I sober? [Into MARIE'S face.]--Responde--responde!
• BRIDGET. Question C, Master--When were you last sober?
• DOALITY. ... Anyway, every time they'd stick one of those poles into the ground and move across to bog, I'd creep up and shift it twenty or thirty paces to the other side.
• DOALITY. They take the bloody machine apart! [And immediately he speaks in gibberish--an imitation of two very agitated and confused sappers in rapid conversation.]
• DOALITY. Who's the father?
• BRIDGET. That's the point, you donkey you!
• BRIDGET. So there's a lot of uneasy bucks about Baile Beag this day.
• DOALITY. Would you listen to that fella! Too lazy be Jasus to wish himself and he's lecturing me on agriculture!
• MAIRE. Map of America. [Pause.] The passage money came last Friday.
• MAIRE. There's ten below me to be raised and no man in the house. What do you suggest?
• MARIE. Did you apply for that job in the new national school?
• MARIE. When it opens, this is finished: nobody's going to pay to go to a hedge-school.
• MANUS. My father has applied for it.
• MANUS. I couldn't--I can't go in against him.
• HUGH. ... Apologies for my late arrival: we were celebrating the baptism of Nellie Ruadh's baby.
• BRIDGET [innocently]. What name did she put on it, Master?
• HUGH. Indeed--we had a few libations to mark the occasion. Altogether very pleasant. The derivation of the word 'baptize'?--where are my Greek scholars? Doalty?
• BRIDGET [prompt]. Sixty-three.
• MAIRE. We should all be learning to speak English. That's what my mother says. That's what I say. That's what Dan O'Connell said last month in Ennis. He said the sooner we all learn to speak English the better.
• HUGH. Indeed--Item B--Item B--yes--On my way to the christening this morning I chanced to meet Mr George Alexander, Justice of the Peace. We discussed the new national school. Mr. Alexander invited me to take charge of it when it opens. I thanked him and explained that I could do that only if I were free to run it as I have this hedge-school for the past thirty-five years--filling our friend Euripides calls the 'aplestos pithos'--James?
• OWEN. Could anybody tell me is this where Hugh Mor O'Donnell holds his hedge-school?
• [OWEN enters. As he crosses the room he touches and has a word for each person.]
• OWEN. And how's the old man himself?
• OWEN. Fair? For God's sake you have never looked better! Come here to me. [He embraces HUGH warmly and genuinely.] Great to see you, Father. Great to be back.
• OWEN. All the better. [To HUGH.] And you and I are going to get footless drunk. That's arranged.
• OWEN. ... I can't believe it. I come back after six years and everything's just as it was! Nothing's changed! Not a thing!
• MAIRE. We've heard stories that you own ten big shops in Dublin--is it true?
• OWEN. Wonderful. I'll tell you why. Two friends of mine are waiting outside the door. They'd like to meet you and I'd like you to meet them. May I bring them in?
• OWEN. That's a new face. Who are you?
• SARAH. My name is Sarah.
• OWEN. I'm on their pay-roll.
• MAIRE. You talk to me about getting married--with neither a roof over your head nor a sod of ground under your foot. I suggest you go for the new school; but no--'My father's in for that.' Well now he's got it and now this is finished and now you've nothing.
• OWEN. It might be better if you assume they understand you--
• OWEN. A new map is being made of the whole country.
• LANCEY. And also so that the entire basis of land valuation can be reassessed for purposes of more equitable taxes.
• OWEN. This new map will take the place of the estate agent's map so that from now on you will know exactly what is yours in law.
• YOLLAND. I think your countryside is--is--is--is very beautiful. I've fallen in love with it already. I hope we're not too--too crude an intrusion on your lives. And I know that I am going to be happy, very happy, here.
• HUGH. And we, gentlemen, we in turn are happy to offer you our friendship, our hospitality, and every assistance that you may require. Gentlemen--welcome!
• MANUS. What sort of translation was that, Owen?
• MANUS. You mean changed into English?
• MANUS. And they call you Roland! They both call you Roland!
• Act 2
• OWEN. Bun na hAbhann.
• YOLLAND. Let's see... Banowen.
• YOLLAND [indifferently]. Good, Roland, Burnfoot's good.
• OWEN. George, my name isn't...
• OWEN. Can't you speak English before your man?
• MANUS. I understand the Lancey's perfectly but people like you puzzle me.
• OWEN. He said we should hide the bottle before Father gets his hands on it.
• YOLLAND. Why doesn't he marry?
• OWEN. Can't afford to, I suppose.
• YOLLAND. I was passing a little girl yesterday and she spat at me.
• YOLLAND. He wants them for questioning.
• OWEN. Thanks. Now, every Dubh we've come across we've changed to Duff. So if we're to be consistent, I suppose Druim Dubh has to become Dromduff.
• YOLLAND. The house where Maire lives.
• OWEN. Why don't you drop in?
• YOLLAND. Do you think I could live here?
• YOLLAND. I was washing outside my tent this morning and he was passing with a scythe across his shoulder and he came up to me and pointed to the long grass and then cut a pathway around my tent and from the tent down to the road--so that my feet won't get wet with the dew. Wasn't that kind of him? And I have no words to thank him... I suppose you're right. I suppose I couldn't live here... Just before Doalty came up to me this morning, I was thinking that at the moment I might have been in Bombay instead of Ballybeg. You see, my father was at his wits end with me and finally got me a job with the East India Company--some kind of clerkship. This was ten, eleven months ago. So I set off for London. Unfortunately I--I--I missed the boat. Literally. And since I couldn't face Father and hadn't enough money to hang about until the next sailing, I joined the army. And they stuck me with the Engineers and posted me to Dublin. And Dublin sent me here. And while I was washing this morning and looking across the Tra Bhan, I was thinking how very, very lucky I am to be here and not in Bombay.
• YOLLAND. I mean--I feel so cut off from the people here. And I was trying to explain a few minutes ago how remarkable a community this is. To meet people like yourself and Jimmy Jack who actually converse in Greek and Latin.
• OWEN. 'An expeditio with three purposes': the children laugh at him: he always promises three points and never gets beyond A and B.
• OWEN. And he drinks too much. Is it astute not to be able to adjust for survival? Enduring around truths immemorially posited--hah!
• YOLLAND. I'm not sure. But I'm concerned about my part in it. It's an eviction of sorts.
• YOLLAND. Something is being eroded.
• OWEN. ... So the question I put to you, Lieutenant, is this: what do we do with a name like that? Do we scrap Tobair Vree altogether and call it--what?--The Cross? Crossroads? Or do we keep piety with a man long dead, long forgotten, his name 'eroded' beyond recognition, whose trivial little story nobody in the parish remembers?
• YOLLAND. Tobair Vree.
• YOLLAND. That's what you want, too, Roland.
• OWEN [explodes]. George! For God's sake! My name is not Roland!
• YOLLAND. It was never Roland?
• YOLLAND. O my God!
• MANUS. What's the celebration?
• OWEN. A christening!
• MANUS. I've got good news! Where's Father?
• MANUS. I've been offered a job.
• MANUS. For the benefit of the colonist?
• OWEN. He's a decent man.
• OWEN. Please. [MANUS shrugs.] He's been offered a job.
• MANUS. I've just had a meeting with two men from Inis Meadhon. They want me to go there and start a hedge-school.
• MANUS. A salary of £42 a year!
• MANUS. I've got to tell Maire.
• MAIRE. You've got to tell Maire what?
• MAIRE. There's your milk. I need the can back.
• MAIRE. Tell him then.
• OWEN. Maire says there may be a dance tomorrow night.
• MANUS. I'll walk you up to your house. Is your mother home? I want to talk to her.
• Act 2, Scene II
• YOLLAND and MAIRE are now down front, still holding hands and excited by their sudden and impetuous escape from the dance.
• MAIRE. O my God, that leap across the ditch nearly killed me.
• YOLLAND. I could scarcely keep up with you.
• YOLLAND. Yes, I know you're Maire. Of course I know you're Maire. I mean I've been watching you night and day for the past--
• [She holds out her hands to YOLLAND. He takes them. Each now speaks almost to himself/herself.]
• YOLLAND. I wish to God you could understand me.
• MAIRE. I want to live with you--anywhere--anywhere at all--always--always.
• SARAH. Manus... Manus!
• [SARAH runs off. Music to crescendo.]
• Act 3
• MANUS. Those Inis Meadhon men will be back to see why I haven't turned up. Tell them--tell them I'll write to them as soon as I can. Tell them I still want the job but it might be three or four months before I'm free to go.
• OWEN. You're being damned stupid, Manus.
• MANUS. I had a stone in my hand when I went out looking for him--I was going to fell him. The lame scholar turned violent.
• OWEN. I'm warning you: run away now and you're bound to be--
• MANUS. ... It's all right--it's all right--you did no harm--you did no harm at all. [He stoops over her and kiss the top of her head--as if in absolution. Then briskly to the door and off.]
• SARAH [quietly]. I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Manus...
• MAIRE. ... [To OWEN.] Something very bad's happened to him, Owen. I know. He wouldn't go away without telling me. Where is he, Owen? You're his friend--where is he?
• DOALTY. They'll be after him like bloody beagles. Bloody, bloody fool, limping along the coast. They'll overtake him before night for Christ's sake.
• LANCEY. Lieutenant Yolland is missing. We are searching for him. If we don't find him, or if we receive no information as to where he is to be found, I will pursue the following course of action.
• LANCEY. Commencing twenty-four hours from now we will shoot all livestock in Ballybeg.
• LANCEY. If that doesn't bear results, commencing forty-eight hours from now we will embark on a series of evictions and leveling every abode in the following selected areas--
• LANCEY. I want to talk to your brother--is he here?
• DOALTY. Tell him his whole camp's on fire.
• OWEN. Here. Drink this. Then go on away home. There may be trouble. Do you hear me, Jimmy? There may be trouble.
• HUGH. We must learn where we live.
• OWEN. And C, Father--one single, unalterable 'fact': if Yolland is not found, we are all going to be evicted. Lancey has issued the order.
• OWEN. You should change out of those wet clothes. I've got to go. I've got to go see Doalty Dan Doalty.
• MAIRE. I'm back again. I set out for somewhere but I couldn't remember where. So I came back here.
• MAIRE. When he comes back, this is where he'll come to. He told me this is where he was happiest.
• JIMMY. Do you know the Greek word endogamein? It means to marry within a tribe. And the word exogamein means to marry outside the tribe. And you don't cross those borders casually--both sides get very angry. Now, the problem is this: Is Athene sufficiently mortal or am I sufficiently godlike for the marriage to be acceptable to her people and to my people? You think about that.