FRIEL: TRANSLATIONS, ACT 1 / 248 5
[DOALTY shrugs and turns away.]
Did you ask them? DOALTY Haven't seen them. Not about these days. [DOALTY begins whistling through his teeth. Suddenly the atmosphere is silent and alert.]
MANUS Aren't they at home? DOALTY No. MANUS Wher e are they then? DOALTY HOW would I know? BRIDGET Our Seamus says two of the soldiers' horses were found last night
at the foot of the cliffs at Machaire Buide and . . .
[She stops suddenly and begins writing with chalk on her slate.]
D'you hear the whistles of this aul slate? Sure nobody could write on an aul
slippery thing like that. MANUS Wha t headline did my father set you? BRIDGET 'It's easier to stamp out learning than to recall it.' JIMMY Book Three, the Agricola of Tacitus.3 BRIDGET God but you're a dose.4 MANUS Can you do it? BRIDGET There. Is it bad? Will he ate me? MANUS It's very good. Keep your elbow in closer to your side. Doalty? DOALTY I'm at the seven-times table. I'm perfect, skipper.
[MANUS moves to SARAH.] MANUS Do you understand those sums? [SARAH nods: Yes. MANUS leans down to her ear.]
MANUS My name is Sarah. [MANUS goes to MAIRE. While he is talking to her the others swop hooks, talk quietly, etc.]
MANUS Can I help you? What are you at? MAIRE Ma p of America. [Pause.] The passage money came last Friday. MANUS Yo u never told me that. MAIRE Because I haven't seen you since, have I? MANUS You don't want to go. You said that yourself. MAIRE There's ten below me to be raised and no ma n in the house. Wha t do
you suggest? MANUS Do you want to go? MAIRE Did you apply for that job in the new national school? MANUS NO. MAIRE YOU said you would. MANUS I said I might. MAIRE Whe n it opens, this is finished: nobody's going to pay to go to a hedge-
school.
MANUS I know that and I . . . [He breaks off because he sees SARAH, obviously listening, at his shoulder. She moves away again.] I was thinking that maybe I could . . .
MAIRE It's .5 6 a year you're throwing away. MANUS I can't apply for it.
3. Roman historian (ca. 56?ca. 120 C.E.), author law, including an account of his career in Britain. of De Vita Julii Agricolae (The Life of Julius Agric-4. I.e., a dose of medicine, or an unpleasant expeola), or the Agricola, a biography of his father-in-rience.
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248 6 / NATION AND LANGUAGE
MAIRE You promised me you would. MANUS My father has applied for it.
MAIRE He has not!
MANUS Day before yesterday. MAIRE For God's sake, sure you know he'd never? MANUS I couldn't?I can't go in against him.
[MAIRE looks at him for a second. Then.]
MAIRE Suit yourself. [To BRIDGET.] I saw your Seamus heading off to the Port fair early this morning.
BRIDGET And wait till you hear this?I forgot to tell you this. He said that as soon as he crossed over the gap at Cnoc na Mona?just beyond where the soldiers are making the maps?the sweet smell was everywhere.
DOALTY YOU never told me that. BRIDGET It went out of my head. DOALTY He saw the crops in Port? BRIDGET Some. MANUS HOW did the tops look? BRIDGET Fine?I think. DOALTY In flower? BRIDGET I don't know. I think so. He didn't say. MANUS Just the sweet smell?that's all? BRIDGET They say that's the way it snakes in, don't they? First the smell; and
then one morning the stalks are all black and limp. DOALTY Are you stupid? It's the rotting stalks makes the sweet smell for God's sake. That's what the smell is?rotting stalks.
MAIRE Sweet smell! Sweet smell! Every year at this time somebody comes back with stories of the sweet smell. Sweet God, did the potatoes ever fail in Baile Beag? Well, did they ever?ever? Never! There was never blight here. Never. Never. But we're always sniffing about for it, aren't we?? looking for disaster. The rents are going to go up again?the harvest's going to be lost?the herring have gone away for ever-?there's going to be evictions. Honest to God, some of you people aren't happy unless you're miserable and you'll not be right content until you're dead!
DOALTY Bloody right, Maire. And sure St. Colmcille prophesied there'd never be blight here. He said:
The spuds will bloom in Baile Beag Till rabbits grow an extra lug.'
And sure that'll never be. So we're alright.
Seven threes are twenty-one; seven fours are twenty-eight; seven fives are forty-nine? Hi, Jimmy, do you fancy my chances as boss of the new national school?
JIMMY What's that??what's that? DOALTY Agh, g'way back home to Greece, son. MAIRE You ought to apply, Doalty. DOALTY D'you think so? Cripes, maybe I will. Hah! BRIDGET Did you know that you start at the age of six and you have to stick
5. Ear. St. Comcille (521?597), also known as St. Scotland. Cf. Friel's play about his life, The Enemy Columba, was born in Donegal and established Within (1962). monasteries and churches throughout Ireland and
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