I always go back to a line from Purgatorio whose effect, I think, was much elevated through a stroke of inspiration from the translator Robin Kirkpatrick. Speaking to a group of souls, Dante asks if any of them are Italian, and one of them responds:
Italian (Purgatorio 13.94-6) | English (tr. Kirkpatrick) |
'O frate mio, ciascuna è cittadina d’una vera città, ma tuo vuo’ dire che vivesse in Italia peregrina.' | 'We are, dear brother, now all citizens of one true place. But you must mean: "who winged his pilgrim life through Italy" ' |
Longfellow's very straightforward, and faithful, translation of the last line gives us: 'who lived in Italy a pilgrim,' which is a nice enough turn of phrase. But as Kirkpatrick observes, in his notes for a different canto, peregrina can mean either " 'pilgrim,' 'stranger' (or 'wanderer') and 'falcon' " (Kirkpatrick (2007, p368)). Each shade of meaning is very relevant in the above passage, and they are all, of course, interlinked. I have found some etymologies of 'peregrine falcon' which suggest that the name is because of its migratory nature, and others that say it is because of the black hood which resembles that worn by pilgrims. In any case, it is wonderful that Kirkpatrick chooses to bring out the avian connotations of peregrina in his translation; it is very poetic to imagine souls as falcons darting through life. It reminds one of Bede's comparison of life to a 'sparrow [..] flying in at one door, and immediately out at another [;] whilst he. is within, [he] is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged.' (Jane (1903, p84)).
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Came across a lovely line from George Herbert this week, from The Temple:
'We say amisse,
This or that is:
Thy word is all, if we could spell.'
And this, not unrelated, verse from Shakespeare's The Phoenix and the Turtle, with an equally breathtaking last line:
'So they lov'd as love in twaine,
Had the essence but in one,
Two distincts, Division none,
Number there in love was slaine.'
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Went to Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire, and it was nothing short of spectacular.
A stunning blend of Romanesque and Decorated Gothic architecture (as you can see in the slideshow below), tucked away in England's second-smallest city on a former island in the Fens. It is most famous for the colourful octagonal tower (visible, albeit in the shadows, in the 3rd photo in the slideshow; I completely forgot to climb the tower to have a look from up close). The tower is a veritable symbol of resilience; it was built in the wake of a disaster in which the original Norman tower collapsed in 1322.
I also want to highlight the magnificent nave ceiling (1st photo in the slideshow), which narrates Jesus's family tree.
Another marvel of church architecture I came across recently- but this one not in person, sadly: the rose window of Amiens Cathedral, as seen from up close in a documentary whose makers gained rare access. I mean- there aren't really adequate words for the sight.
I was listening to a 1988 BBC Choral Evensong from St Alban's Cathedral, and happened upon Whettam's breathtakingly magical Nunc Dimittis from his Coventry Service (which starts with a fiery Magnificat which is also worth hearing).
The broadcast also included Shepard's setting of an extract from Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur- the beautiful last words of Arthur to Sir Bevidere. This is Tennyson at his simple, lyrical best; he understood restraint and balance very well.
Sir Bevidere has carried his dying king to the lake:
'Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them [...]'
Aboard which are three queens singing an eerie lament.
Having placed Arthur on the barge, the faithful knight laments that he now has nowhere to go, and there ensues the speech whose first half Shepard sets to music. He is particularly good with the soaring word-painting on 'let thy voice/Rise like a fountain.' Though I understand why (he wished to avoid the particularities of the story), I am sad that that Shepard did not include the haunting end where the knight watches the barge drift away. I like how the speech swells from bare-bones beauty and abstract ideas to increasingly rich and complex concrete imagery.
'And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge:
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seëst—if indeed I go—
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.'
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Yesterday YouTube randomly recommended "Tournemire: Complete Organ Music," and I clicked expecting something like Buxtehude. If I had been sitting on a chair I would have fallen off within the first minute. As modern as it is there was something which perfectly captured a dark medieval cathedral feel.
I was reading Stephen Carter's Waiting for the Wind, an anthology of late medieval Japanese poetry, when I came across this wonderful word, awaresa. In the poem by Kydgōku Tamekane in which it appears, it is translated simply as 'sadness,' but Carter explains in a note that it is deeper:
'A term referring to the sadness that adheres in things perceived by those with a sensibility attuned to the perishability of human experience.' (Carter (1994, p104))
From what I know of haiku, I suspect the sadness complements an appreciation of transient beauty. Carter's use of the word 'sensibility' certainly suggests as much.
Carter's note, appended as it was to an autumn poem, reminded me of a great phrase from RS Thomas, in the last line of this extract from Postcript:
'Among the forests
Of metal the one human
Sound was the lament of
The poets for deciduous language.'
Can't imagine a better way to round off the post than with two cheery songs from Italy. Firstly, a sunny Neapolitan song- "Simmo 'e Napule Paisá." The music is enough to make you smile, but it's nice to follow the lyrics, too, which speak of contentment, living in the moment, letting bygones be bygones:
I'm currently working on a philosophy dissertation on music and the meaning of life, but to be honest Michael Spyres and Rossini sum it up perfectly between them in this glorious five minutes.