FRIEL: TRANSLATIONS, ACT 3 / 25 11
he ever sat still was the night before Waterloo when they were waiting for
Wellington to make up his mind to attack.2 OWEN What age is he? YOLLAND Born in 1789?the very day the Bastille fell.3 I've often thought
maybe that gave his whole life its character. Do you think it could? He inherited a new world the day he was born?the Year One. Ancient time was at an end. Th e world had cast off its old skin. There were no longer any frontiers to man's potential. Possibilities were endless and exciting. He still believes that. Th e Apocalypse is just about to happen . . . I'm afraid I'm a great disappointment to him. I've neither his energy, nor his coherence, nor his belief. Do I believe in fate? Th e day I arrived in Ballybeg,?no, Baile Beag?the moment you brought me in here, I had a curious sensation. It's difficult to describe. It was a momentary sense of discovery; no?not quite a sense of discovery?a sense of recognition, of confirmation of something I half knew instinctively as if I had stepped . . .
OWEN Back into ancient time?
YOLLAND No, no. It wasn't an awareness of direction being changed but of experience being of a totally different order. I had moved into a consciousness that wasn't striving nor agitated, but at its ease and with its own conviction and assurance. And when I heard Jimmy Jack and your father swopping stories about Apollo and Cuchulain and Paris and Ferdia4?as if they lived down the road?it was then that I thought?I knew?perhaps I could live here . . . [Now embarrassed.] Where's the pot-een?
OWEN Poteen.
YOLLAND Poteen?poteen?poteen. Even if I did speak Irish I'd always be an outsider here, wouldn't I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won't it? Th e private will always be . . . hermetic,5 won't it?
OWEN You can learn to decode us. [HUGH emerges from upstairs and descends. He is dressed for the road. Today he is physically and mentally jaunty and alert?almost selfconsciously jaunty and alert. Indeed, as the scene progresses, one has the sense that he is deliberately parodying himself.
The moment HUGH gets to the bottom of the steps YOLLAND leaps respectfully to his feet.]
HUGH [As he descends.] Quantumvis cursum longum fessumque moratur Sol, sacro tandem carmine vesper adest.
I dabble in verse, Lieutenant, after the style of Ovid.6
[To OWEN.] A drop of that to fortify me. YOLLAND You'll have to translate it for me. HUGH Let's see?
No matter how long the sun may linger on his long and weary journey At length evening comes with its sacred song.
2. Dublin-born Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), brother, Cuchulainn, the greatest hero of the duke of Wellington, vanquished the French medieval Ulster Cycle, an extensive series of stories emperor Napoleon's army on June 18, 1815, in focused on the warriors of King Conchobar's court Waterloo, Belgium. in Northern Ireland. 'Apollo': Greek god of arts, 3. The French Revolution began on July 14, 1 789, music, and prophecy, who helped the Trojan with the storming of the Bastille (a jail in Paris). prince Paris kill the greatest Greek hero, Achilles, The French monarchy was later overthrown and in the Trojan War. replaced by the First Republic. 5. Secret, hidden. 4. Mythical Irish warrior, slain by his foster 6. Roman poet (43 B.C.E.-I7? C.E.).
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25 10 / NATION AND LANGUAGE
YOLLAND Very nice, sir. HUGH English succeeds in making it sound . . . plebeian.7 OWEN Where are you off to, Father? HUGH An expedition with three purposes. Purpose A: to acquire a testimonial
from our parish priest?[To YOLLAND.] a worthy man but barely literate; and since he'll ask me to write it myself, how in all modesty can I do myself justice?
[To OWEN.] Where did this [Drink.[ come from? OWEN Anna na mBreag's. HUGH [To YOLLAND.] In that case address yourself to it with circumspection.
[And HUGH instantly tosses the drink hack in one gidp and grimaces.] Aaaaaaagh! [Holds out his glass for a refill.]
Anna na mBreag means Anna of the Lies. And Purpose B: to talk to the builders of the new school about the kind of living accommodation I will require there. I have lived too long like a journeyman9 tailor.
YOLLAND Some years ago we lived fairly close to a poet?well, about three
miles away. HUGH His name? YOLLAND Wordsworth?William Wordsworth.1 HUGH Did he speak of me to you? YOLLAND Actually I never talked to him. I just saw him out walking?in the
distance.
HUGH Wordsworth? . . . no. I'm afraid we're not familiar with your literature, Lieutenant. We feel closer to the warm Mediterranean.2 We tend to overlook your island.
YOLLAND I'm learning to speak Irish, sir. HUGH Good. YOLLAND Roland's teaching me. HUGH Splendid. 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. And your place-names?what was the one we came across this morning?? Termon, from Terminus, the god of boundaries.3 It?it?it's really astonishing.
HUGH We like to think we endure around truths immemorially posited. YOLLAND And your Gaelic literature?you're a poet yourself? HUGH Only in Latin, I'm afraid. YOLLAND I understand it's enormously rich and ornate. HUGH Indeed, Lieutenant. A rich language. A rich literature. You'll find, sir,
that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives. I suppose you could call us a spiritual people.
OWEN [Not unkindly; more out of embarrassment before YOLLAND.] Will you stop that nonsense, Father.
