The Literati Page 3
CHRISTOPHER:
I didn’t say that; but surely we must treat everyone the same.
We don’t want to get ourselves caught up in some power game.
PHILOMENA:
No, she has to go, I said! I want her out of the place!
CHRISTOPHER:
Oh, well, yes, okay, if you think you have a strong case.
PHILOMENA:
I will in no way tolerate having my decisions contradicted.
CHRISTOPHER:
Alright!
PHILOMENA:
As a reasonable husband, where two sides are conflicted,
You should ally yourself with me, and assume my rage as yours.
CHRISTOPHER:
And I do. Yes, my wife is right and she obviously has good cause
To run you out of the house, you miscreant; go on, get out of here.
MARTINA:
But what the hell have I done?
CHRISTOPHER:
[Aside to her] I have absolutely no idea.
PHILOMENA:
As you can see, her attitude shows not the slightest remorse.
CHRISTOPHER:
We note your anger, dear heart, but are anxious to establish its source;
Has she broken a mirror, maybe, or some priceless porcelain, perhaps?
PHILOMENA:
Do you seriously imagine I’d send her packing for such a minor lapse?
If one wastes one’s wrath on trivial matters, one has nothing in reserve.
CHRISTOPHER:
What can I say? So it’s serious, then?
PHILOMENA:
Without doubt! What a nerve!
Do I strike you as an unreasonable woman, who goes off willy-nilly?
CHRISTOPHER:
Did her negligence leave us exposed to theft?
PHILOMENA:
Chris, don’t be silly.
CHRISTOPHER:
So we didn’t lose a precious vase or maybe a silver platter?
PHILOMENA:
It was nothing of the kind, and you well know that wouldn’t matter.
CHRISTOPHER:
Oh my God! Don’t tell me! She took money and failed to reimburse?
PHILOMENA:
It was far worse than that!
CHRISTOPHER:
Worse than that?
PHILOMENA:
Far worse!
CHRISTOPHER:
Well, what the bloody hell did she do? Go to bed with the vicar?
PHILOMENA:
She has, with unequalled insolence, done something even sicker;
Despite some thirty lessons in how to speak correctly,
She has grossly insulted my ears by addressing me directly
With so brutal an abuse of words as to butcher our beautiful language;
Her ignorance of the Macquarie Dictionary causes terrible anguish.
CHRISTOPHER:
Oh, that.
PHILOMENA:
Yes, that! And still, despite my robust remonstrations,
Explaining the science of language with specific demonstrations,
I am flummoxed and flabbergasted by the appalling things she’ll say
As she trashes the laws of grammar, which even kings must obey.
CHRISTOPHER:
I thought she’d committed murder.
PHILOMENA:
She has! To our native tongue!
What? You find it forgivable?
CHRISTOPHER:
It’s what she heard when she was young.
PHILOMENA:
I knew you’d try to excuse her!
CHRISTOPHER:
Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.
PHILOMENA:
It really is pathetic—which is why I’ve made a theme of it—
That every grammatical construction she manages to destroy,
As if she deliberately chooses, with whatever means she can deploy,
To tear down the rules of speech in which she’s been carefully instructed.
MARTINA:
Um, yeah, like, whatever. Sorry. It seems like I totally fucked it.
I feel a bit, like, vunerable, when I get stuck in this kind of sitch.
I should of spoken better, but find proper talk a bit of a bitch,
I ain’t got the balls for niceties, like I’m not one wiff mental strenth,
But to do a roolly good day’s work, I’ll go to pretty much any lenth.
PHILOMENA:
‘Um, yeah, like, whatever.’ Exactly which language is that in?
And ‘vunerable’ has an L, it’s from ‘vulnus’, a wound, in Latin.
God knows what is meant by ‘sitch’, and you should have spoken better.
And ‘StrenGth’ and ‘LenGth’ have a G, the seventh alphabetical letter!
MARTINA:
Yeah, right, but what youse are spewin’ is all very well and good,
But since talkin’ like you doesn’t get nowhere, not sure why I should.
PHILOMENA:
The impudent little wretch sees correctness as some odious duty,
Instead of using it as something founded on reason and poetic beauty.
MARTINA:
Don’t think I’m not, like, grateful or nuthin’ for the rooles you hand me,
But um the reason I don’t change nuthin’ is that people understand me.
PHILOMENA:
What style she has! ‘I don’t change nuthin’’!
AMANDA:
And it’s a double negative too.
‘Don’t’ with ‘nothing’ is what we call redundant—just like you.
MARTINA:
Oh my God! Like, give me a break; I’m not a scholar, okay!
People who are brung up like me always talk this way.
PHILOMENA:
The woman’s a walking earache;
AMANDA:
Such solecism!
PHILOMENA:
Expression is dead!
AMANDA:
I wish you were all subtext, Martina, leaving everything unsaid.
You haven’t a clue about singular or plural, or any sense of grammar.
MARTINA:
That ain’t true! I always look after my grandpa and gramma!
PHILOMENA:
God Almighty.
MARTINA:
Me and Gramma—
PHILOMENA:
‘Grandma and I—’
MARTINA:
—Are mates, but.
PHILOMENA:
She begins with ‘me’ and ends with ‘but’!
MARTINA:
Yeah, but—
PHILOMENA:
Keep your mouth shut.
AMANDA:
The woman is so appalling, she confuses the very word ‘grammar’!
Every time she opens her mouth, it’s like some relentless hammer.
PHILOMENA:
I have told you a hundred times where that word comes from!
MARTINA:
Like I care if it comes from Mars or the backside of Christendom.
AMANDA:
What a peasant! Grammar teaches you to tell a verb from a noun,
The nominative, the subjunctive—
MARTINA:
Who are they? Are they new in town?
PHILOMENA:
Oh, agony!
AMANDA:
They are parts of speech and all of them have to agree.
MARTINA:
Who gives a stuff if they don’t get on? Not everyone agrees with me.
PHILOMENA:
[To AMANDA] Put an end to this hideous discussion!
[To CHRISTOPHER] And for Godsake send her away!
CHRISTOPHER:
As you wish. Martina, my dear, I am really sorry to say
That we’d better not upset her further; be a dear lady and off you pop.
PHILOMENA:
Why do you speak to her gently? You sound like an absolute sop!
You treat her like marshmallow, when what she deserves is
a wallop!
You are such a wuss! Are you afraid you might offend this trollop?
CHRISTOPHER:
Not at all; she is in no doubt about your decision to shaft her;
[Loudly] Go on, off you go! [Gently] Don’t worry, I’ll see you’re looked after.
SCENE EIGHT
PHILOMENA, CHRISTOPHER, AMANDA.
CHRISTOPHER:
Well, there you are, she’s gone; so I hope you’re satisfied,
But I don’t approve at all of how the poor woman was tried
Like a criminal; she was good at the things for which we hired her;
And now, for some trivial transgression, you’ve gone and fired her.
PHILOMENA:
Do you expect me to retain that woman in my service, forever
Subjecting my poor ears to cruel torture whenever
She speaks, flouting every law of oral communication
With such barbaric dollops of gross bastardisation
And mutilated phrases that only a cretin would utter,
Strung together with gunge, like something dragged from the gutter?
CHRISTOPHER:
Sorry, I’ve forgotten the question.
AMANDA:
Look, she was truly appalling,
And ripping the dictionary to pieces is very deeply galling.
Even her smallest offences, like repetition and tautology,
Are the most egregious insult to one versed in philology.
CHRISTOPHER:
So she doesn’t know the dictionary; she’s not a bloody linguist;
Does it matter? It’s the kitchen where her talents are distinguished.
I have to say I’d much prefer that she choose the right herbs,
Even if, while doing so, she mightn’t use the right verbs;
I’d rather she repeat a hundred times some inappropriate phrase
Than burn the roast, congeal the soup or screw the bouillabaisse.
When I’m having a bowl of soup, accompanied by a little tipple
I’m not there thinking how I’d kill for a perfect participle.
I mean, Molière and Shakespeare, sure, they put language on the map,
But stick them in a kitchen, and they might be absolute crap.
PHILOMENA:
This is an outrage. From the moment your tirade began,
I was discombobulated by the effrontery that you call yourself a man,
Yet you lower yourself unceasingly to the pits of material filth
Rather than raise your sights towards your intellectual health.
You dare to mention your stomach, and worse, you would even stoop
To compare Molière with mutton, and Shakespeare with soup!
Our body is but a mortal rag, which our soul leaves far behind.
CHRISTOPHER:
But as this rag is actually me, the rag must be wined and dined.
AMANDA:
The body and the mind, dear father, are united in one being,
But if you accept what learnèd people have no difficulty seeing,
Then the mind, rather than the body, has clear superiority
And to nourish it with the sap of science is our first priority.
CHRISTOPHER:
Bollocks. Whatever you’re feeding your mind, I’m in no rush to try it,
As it seems to me your mental menu is a sadly inadequate diet.
You don’t care how badly you treat people, if you’re unfair or rude,
Because you haven’t the faintest interest in human solicitude.
[Re Martina] That poor woman—
PHILOMENA:
Oh, solicitude! No-one uses that word anymore;
It reeks of straight-laced and old-fashioned;
AMANDA:
I’ve never heard it before.
CHRISTOPHER:
You want to know what I think? I’m sorry, but I have to come clean!
So it’s off with this mask of civility; I’m going to vent my spleen:
[To AMANDA] People out there think you’re mad! And in my heart I can only agree.
AMANDA:
Oh, here we go. What now?
CHRISTOPHER:
Just shut up and listen to me!
The slightest error in words will send you into a spin,
But you’ll tolerate far worse in actions, without the least chagrin.
That pile of luminous poetry and that mountain of books you’ve got
Have taught you no humanity, so you might as well burn the lot!
What’s the point of a titanic dictionary, pronouncing on all things oral,
If you get to page one thousand and forty, with no idea of what’s moral?
And all those volumes on science! I mean, do you really need them?
The difference between you and scientists is that they actually read them.
You said you read a history by Plutarch, for something to do in bad weather,
Yet when I used it to press my ties, its pages were still joined together.
And I wish you’d remove that telescope, which is especially problematic,
As it frightens the hell out of the neighbours, and takes up most of the attic.
When your own patch of earth is in tatters, what the hell is the purpose
Of ignoring it completely while you examine the lunar surface?
Everything in your personal life is completely upside down,
While you parade this bookish pomposity all over the bloody town.
AMANDA:
So you’d prefer me surrounded by children, out at the clothesline, pegging—
CHRISTOPHER:
No, but to consume yourself so that everything else goes begging—
AMANDA:
You sound just like men of yesterday, your forefathers and such,
Who thought if a woman knew anything, she already knew too much.
Confine her to domestic economy, keeping house, training underlings;
The only philosophy called for was a needle and thread and such things;
Her idea of science was to tell a shirt from a pair of pants;
And she was raised to see her wedding day as the pinnacle of romance.
The house was to be her universe and her only learnèd conversation
Was about the deadly tedious ritual of wifely domestication.
CHRISTOPHER:
That is not the point! And nor is it my point of view;
Knowledge is an aspiration that every one ought to pursue,
Not telling your sister that getting married is some kind of deadly curse,
While you pretend to be mistress of every subject in the universe;
If you really knew anything, you’d be at the university teaching it,
Instead of prancing all over the place and so piously preaching it.
AMANDA:
But I’ve heard you say there are too many women deciding to be writers;
CHRISTOPHER:
What I said was, women or men, there are too many of the blighters!
They seem to pop up everywhere, as if we somehow breed them;
With so many people writing, it’s a wonder there’s anyone to read them.
And there are people who cannot write, re-writing writers who could,
And giving us appalling versions of works that used to be good.
And there are some ingenious non-writers, of whom I’m sure you’ve heard,
Who can adapt a foreign writer, in whose language they don’t know a word.
PHILOMENA:
They don’t all have to be writers, but I insist they know how to write;
Which is why I only want staff who are equipped with reason and light.
CHRISTOPHER:
‘Reason’, my dear Philly, seems to have taken over the entire house:
Most people have a rat in their pantry; we have an over-educated mouse.
I really have no idea what this obsession with reason is about,
Given that all t
his reasoning has driven reason out!
PHILOMENA:
The staff like to be learnèd, as they know it pleases me.
CHRISTOPHER:
I asked for a drink yesterday; it was delivered with poetry.
PHILOMENA:
You have an attitude to learnèd people, which underscores all you say.
CHRISTOPHER:
I have an attitude to pretension as I suffer it night and day!
Knowledge is a gift, not a weapon or a key to some ivory tower;
One should share it like wisdom, not strut it like arrogant power;
One should use knowledge for employment; or enjoy it for its own sake;
When knowledge is used for snobbery, then knowledge, my dears, is fake!
One should bear it with humility, not wear it like a crown!
You don’t use knowledge to build people up, you use it to put people down!
Like Martina, a kitchen maid, who—
PHILOMENA:
Whom—
CHRISTOPHER:
—You’ve chucked out on the street
Because in your kingdom of language, the poor woman can’t compete!
So she’s a little bit illiterate; every creature has its louse,
But in her own way Martina brought some wisdom to the house.
PHILOMENA:
All my attempts to guide you on the riddling road to illumination
Have obviously failed completely to elicit appreciation.
CHRISTOPHER:
Oh I see, I merely have opinions, whereas you appreciate?
Then how come you welcome such charlatans into our house of late?
AMANDA:
Charlatans? What charlatans?
CHRISTOPHER:
Tristan Tosser, just for starters.
PHILOMENA:
You envy his style.
CHRISTOPHER:
Rubbish! I’d have his guts for garters.
You’ve been eardrummed and brainwashed by his unutterable twaddle
And just because he knows Latin, you hold him up as some model.
After he speaks, one has no idea exactly what he just said,
And yet you’d inflict him on our daughter, insisting they be wed.
Don’t think they’d ever be happy like some Joan and Darby,
Because trust me: the man’s one sausage sanger short of a barbie.
PHILOMENA:
How gross, oh God, how tasteless, both in language and in soul!
AMANDA:
How such vulgar little atoms could make up a composite whole!
And how could a mind formed of such common corpuscles
Share the same blood as me, the same genes, limbs and muscles?
I would much rather be dead than be a member of your race!
I will depart from you at once in a desperate attempt to save face.
PHILOMENA:
And Juliet will become Madame Tosser if it’s the last thing I do.