Our need to understand is so great that we find it impossible to regard Becketts plays other than in terms of metaphor and black humour. The great wonder is how Becketts plays, with their absolute linguistic precision, could be translated at all. Miraculously it seems the translations are not merely satisfactory; it is as if this were the only possible language for the plays. The simplicity has obviously something to do with it: short sentences, simple ideas. But such simplicity has been very dearly bought and painfully wrought. We are reminded of the adage: to know that one does not know is...