Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Between Languages, Howard Cooper 'Ur-language' Oksana Maksymchuk 'Multifarious Beast' Zinovy Zinik 'My Mother Tongue, My Fatherland' Philip Terry 'Lost Languages' Victoria Moul 'Bad Latin, Barbarous Inglishe'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 78, Volume 17 Number 4, March - April 1991.

Balancing Acts: a small drama in three scenes Donald Davie

    SEAMUS
    SHELAGH
    EAMONN
    DONOVAN

Scene One

SEAMUS: Traditore, traduttore - spare us!
    Of course the harsh Italian makes good
      sense
    Though nothing but an easy rigmarole.
    Translator/traitor, yes; but how if we
    Reversed the proposition? Treachery
    Would come to seem a civilised
      occupation,
    Facilitating traffic over frontiers,
    Bringing what's dark to light (by selling
      secrets).
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image