Ovid- Baucis and Philemon

A great debt is owed to John Winstanley, our Latin teacher at school, not only for providing the version of this poem that got us all through O level but also for somehow passing on an enthusiasm that made me want to make my own version of it 30 years later.

It's not actually as easy as it might look to make a whole new poem out of the Latin and so my first intention to produce a Baucis and Philemon of my own became really just another interpretation of Ovid, sticking closely to the original.

Ovid's lines are in Metamorphoses, Book VIII, lines 624-724.

Baucis and Philemon

After Ovid

We are nearby standing water where once
Was dry, inhabited land but is home
Now to wading birds and the water fowl
That nest and thrive there. Jupiter came here
In human form with Mercury, his son.
They asked for lodgings at a thousand homes
And a thousand doors were closed against them.
But one house took them in, a humble one
I must admit, tiny and thatched with straw
And reeds but the kindly old woman there, Baucis,
And her equally elderly husband, Philemon,
Took them in, who when young had been married
In that cottage and grew old together,
So uncomplaining of their poverty
That they made light of it and were content.
Whether you call for masters or servants
There, it makes no difference. There is only
The two of them and they both give orders
And follow them. And so, when the Gods came,
Stooping to enter under the low beam
Of the doorway, the old man brought out chairs
While busy Baucis added rough-textured
Covers and they were asked to rest their legs.
She stirred the lukewarm ashes in the hearth,
Resurrected the day before’s embers,
Feeding them with leaves and dried bark and lit
The fire again with her old woman’s breath.
And she brought down stored brushwood from the roof
-dry twigs that she broke into small pieces
to put under the small bronze cooking pot
and prepared the leafy vegetables
that her husband picked from their lush garden.
A darkened back of pig-meat was lifted
Down from a roof beam with a two-pronged fork
and slices of it were cooked to tenderness
in boiling water. Meanwhile the time passed
in friendly conversation, the old folk
bringing a bowl of warm water to bathe
and soothe their guests’ dirty and aching feet.
And there was a wooden couch in the house
On which they spread a rustic covering
That was only brought out on special days.
The Gods sat down. Their table sloped one way,
Though, because one of its legs was shorter
Than the other two so it was shored up
With a tile and then made fresh with green mint.
They spread across it two-coloured olives,
Preserved cherries, salad with radishes,
A lump of fresh, sweet butter and some eggs
That were not over-cooked. All these were served
On earthenware dishes and, after these,
They set down matching engraved cups, cups
Made of beech wood whose insides had been polished
With golden wax. After a short delay
Hot meat was brought over from the fire-place
And, furthermore, before long there was wine.
When this was done with and taken away
There came another course, of nuts and dates,
Purple plums and grapes in wicker baskets
With a fresh honeycomb at the centre.
And this was all offered generously,
Without a thought of the cost to themselves,
And during this, they noticed that the cups
Of wine, which had been so often emptied,
Replenished themselves of their own accord.
Astonished at such strangeness, they trembled
And held their hands up to the heavens. Both
Baucis and timid Philemon offered
Prayers and asked for pardon for their banquet
And their inadequate preparations.
They only had one goose and that guarded
Their tiny house but they were preparing
To slaughter it to feed their guests, the Gods.
But the goose was too quick for them and tired
Them out in the chase who moved so slowly.
It evaded them for a long time then
Seemed to go to the Gods for protection
And the Gods forbade that the goose be killed.
We are Gods, they said, and this selfish town
Is going to suffer as it deserves to
But you two will be spared that misfortune.
You must leave your home and follow our steps
Up that steep mountain together. And they
Obeyed, struggling on their way with sticks
To support them. They were an arrow shot
From the top when they turned to see below
Them their village submerged in swamp water
And while they wondered at the spectacle,
And wept for those who had been their neighbours,
They saw that only their cottage remained
Which had been small though for the two of them,
But had now been turned into a temple.
Columns had replaced the gable supports
And the roof appeared to be made of gold.
The floor was laid with marble and the doors
Were engraved. And Jupiter said softly,
Say, O righteous old man, and woman fit
To have such a righteous husband, what wish
You would like granted. And Philemon
Spoke with his wife briefly before saying
What decision they had agreed upon,
We ask to be priests and keep your temple
And, because we have lived so happily,
That we may depart this life together
So that I never have to see the grave
Of my wife, nor she my burial place.
And their wish was granted. They looked after
The Gods’ temple for the rest of their lives
Until, weakened by their advanced old age,
While they were standing by the temple steps
Telling the fortunes of the place, Baucis
Observed old Philemon come into leaf
And Philemon saw Baucis do the same
And as the tree-top formed over each face
They both said, Farewell, Dear at the same time
And their mouths were covered over by bark.
And to this day, the Phrygians who live
There still point out the tree trunks side by side
Made from their two bodies. Some trustworthy
Old men told me this story (and there’s no
Reason why they would have made it all up).
I saw tributes hanging from the branches
For myself and, adding some of my own,
Said, Those who love the Gods are looked after.
Those who honour them are honoured themselves.

Quand j'etais poete

In a way, one might think, or could say, that there is more glamour in failed glamour than in glamour itself. Since glamour must fade or fail eventually, why not get in there right from the start.

The consummately wonderful Gerard Depardieu expressed such an idea so well in the film Quand J'etais Chanteur that I could do no more than echo all the feelings expressed in it in a poem of my own.

And so, here it is, Quand J'etais Poete.

Quand J’étais Poète

I have aches and pains
now. I forget my lines.
Repeated refrains,
how very unrefined.
Sometimes a dissembler,
writing a sonnet,
but I still remember
Quand j’étais poète.

The readings in bookshops,
verse in magazines,
not quite Top of the Pops,
the poetry scene.
No author’s intention,
mix joy with regret,
hoping for attention
Quand j’étais poète.

Few items of fan-mail
over all those years,
the devil in the detail
more than it appears.
I tried to be formal,
sestina or sestet,
it didn’t seem abnormal
Quand j’étais poète.

Sometimes, nevertheless,
the polite applause,
very minor success
and small-time awards
but I wouldn’t trade it,
I was no laureate,
I never really made it
Quand j’étais poète.

Tycho Dying

Having written four poems on the life of C17th Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, in the 1990's, and seen them dismissed in a review by Martin Stannard as 'biography by numbers', I later discovered that I had missed an important detail of the life. Tycho had a silver prosthetic nose having lost the one he was born with in a duel.

So I added a fifth poem, Tycho's Nose, in the next booklet.

Now I find that his death was quite remarkable, too, although one does have a choice of two stories. New research is suggesting that he was poisoned by mercury and even that the plot of Hamlet borrowed the story for the murder of Claudius. But the original version said that Tycho died of horrible complications after a banquet at which he was too polite to excuse himself from the table to go to the toilet.

This is the version I've used for a sixth Tycho poem, which here is fresh in its first draft and possibly in need of further work.

....

Tycho Dying

Ne frustra vixesse videar

Though he need not have observed etiquette
as closely as he had observed the stars,
he sat too long with plates of rare fowl meat
and sides of boar washed down with Rhenish wine.
A light white had accompanied hors d’oeuvres,
the one with the next course was just as sweet,
his manners too refined and delicate
to excuse himself briefly, or decline,

And make his way dignified from the room
to find relief in private. Each carafe
that followed the last tasted of heaven,
was too good to decline and politesse
insisted that he drink. He couldn’t laugh,
for he knew that such movement would threaten
the damburst he was trying hard to stem.
He disguised astronomical distress.

And when he hurried at last from the feast
to find the closet of his lavish host,
he found the ache and tension deep within
too much. His final days of dizziness and pain
were feverish and sickly as he lost
touch with consciousness at times, muttering
famous last words over again, at least,
that May I not seem to have lived in vain.

Derek Mahon Life on Earth

Derek Mahon, Life on Earth (The Gallery Press)

Poets from Northern Ireland dominated poetry in Britain in the late twentieth century to such an extent that they have almost obscured each other’s reputations. The vast popularity and achievement of Seamus Heaney has made Michael Longley and Derek Mahon seem more minor figures than they otherwise might have but that shouldn’t be allowed to undermine their status.
Mahon was always a darker and harder-edged poet than Heaney but both have been concerned with echoes from the past. Both return regularly to Ancient Greek and Roman poets to re-work passages and in the same way that Heaney revisited his early subterranean themes in District and Circle, Mahon is often to be found looking back too. Having famously described a Disused Shed, the Delft of Pietr de Hooch and even the primeval sub-conscious of the Dawn Chorus, Mahon’s later work is pre-occupied with time.
His characteristic discomfiture that was once a political dissatisfaction is more often now that of an older man in a newer world. His lines are considered, slow-moving and packed with an erudition that one supposes this world finds little time for. In Savannah Dock, he asks,

May life be gentle in your scented air
and the art flourish that you nourish there
in peace and quiet, far from the marketplace.

Such idylls contrast with the situation of the impressive opening poem here, Ariadne on Naxos, adapted from Ovid’s Heroides in which the abandoned Ariadne contemplates her compromised existence at the mercy of barren nature and predatory animals.
But Mahon’s title is taken from a set of poems with wider, environmental concerns, celebrating Gaia and asking, of the Sun,

We can never die

while you are roaring there
in serial rebirth
far from our atmosphere.
Remember life on Earth!

He is perhaps more equable in this volume than he has ever been, his measured rhythms more comfortable here than some of his younger, more rebarbative poetry. At his best he is masterly and these poems are less discursive than the more rambling meditations of The Yellow Book. Having been born into a golden generation is not always such a blessing but it was in no small part due to Derek Mahon’s contribution that the Irish poets of his time were so highly regarded as a group.

Thom Gunn - A Village Edmund

This is further material salvaged from the old website.




A Village Edmund

Gunn removed this poem from the second edition of Fighting Terms and it is thus now quite hard to find. But find it I eventually did, in the Poetry Library, a photocopy of the Fantasy Press booklet it first appeared in, kept in a box in the librarian’s office.

One can find reasons why Gunn might have decided to leave it out. It is a bit heavy handed in its celebration of the ‘tough’, a theme that recurs throughout the early poems. It is stylistically flawed, perhaps no more so than the awkward inversion of line 11. The fox and chickens metaphor is a bit dubious. Some lines might be thought a bit prosaic, etc, etc. So it’s not a great success but is of interest nonetheless.

There are aspects of it to like, like line 4 and the last lines. It works on its own immature terms. Perhaps the apparent idolatry of brutishness is undermined by the ‘village’ status of the Edmund who is only a bully in his own backyard.

I reproduce it here in case anybody else spent as much time looking for it as I did. Perhaps Google will find it for Gunn’s readers now.


A Village Edmund

‘Rough and Lecherous’ – King Lear

Swaggering up the high street, thumb in his belt
Young Edmund was let loose upon the town.
A fox not eating the chickens that he killed,
A bastard creature they’d overlooked to drown.
And nobody ever knew what he felt.

Terribly he resented a chance word,
Yet a few tough boys risked hanging on his.
Spry on their feet and ready to run from the place
They worked in his shadow any project he pleased,
And cleared the mangled chickens from off the yard.

‘Look at him,’ said at the window crowding girls:
He stood at the corner randy and rowdy and rough,
Or elbowed others out of the way in the street.
He bided his time, if they wanted him enough
They knew where to come for a fox that tears and spoils.

One girl he fancied as much as she fancied him.
‘For a moment,’ she thought, ‘our bodies can bestride
A heaven whose memory will support my life.’
He took her to the deserted countryside,
And she lay down and obeyed his every whim.

When it was over he pulled his trousers on.
‘Demon lovers must go,’ he coldly said
And walked away from the rocks to the lighted town.
‘Why should heaven,’ she asked, ‘be for the dead?’
And she stared at the pale intolerable moon.

The Rejected Poet

Every writer has to become accustomed to rejection and in the quirkier world of poetry where taste and preconceived ideas are even more individual than ever, the poet is likely to experience a significant amount of rejection. If a cyclist isn’t a proper bike rider until they’ve fallen off at least once then a poet isn’t a real poet until a few magazines or publishers have declined to use their work. I remember one smallpress poet from the 70’s writing about how he could wallpaper a room with his rejection slips.
That having been said, it did still comes as a surprise to check the website of South magazine and find that I’m not in their next issue having sent them the poem below. I’ve become so lazy in recent years that my only submissions to magazines has become a set of three poems sent to South each Autumn for the next Spring’s edition and they’ve usually selected one of them. On one memorable occasion, they did decide against using The Cathedrals of Liverpool but I subsequently entered the same poem in the old Ottakar’s competition and my faith in it was rewarded when it was adjudged best among the poems entered in the Portsmouth branch. So it is not a matter of whether a poem is objectively any good or not but it will depend on who picks it up and reads it and, in cases like these, first impressions must count for a lot.
South is an unusual poetry magazine, proud of its rotating editorial panel on which a different set of people select the poems for each issue and they do so without knowing the name of the authors. This unique selection process is no doubt very democratic and fair but it can mean that South lacks an editorial identity. For some reason, they nominate a list of ‘reserves’ as if an appearance in South is like being picked for a squad of sports players and poems might be prone to hamstring injuries or doing their metatarsals. However, it is a well-produced magazine and usually contains a handful of accomplished poems among those that don’t quite excite the poetry muscle, which is as much as can be said for the majority of poetry magazines, whether of the highest brow or the lowliest publications for the outpourings of amateurs.
So, it’s not so upsetting that the latest panel of South selectors didn’t like Later. I’m sorry that they didn’t like it but I’m not sorry for giving them the chance of using it. It was the fourth attempt I’d made at using this wonderful opening line over several months, so you can see that I don’t just send out any old thing for publication. I do have stringent quality controls in place but the one and only arbiter in the final decision about my poems is me.
I think there are now maybe six poems towards the next little booklet, the latest having been published in December 2006 and the requisite number being usually about fourteen. So, dear readers, don’t expect a new title until at least 2011. In the meantime, here’s Later, and South’s loss is this website’s gain.

Later

It’s later than you think. This is the past.
These will be famous days one day,
so vivid and spectacular,
the sort of days that monuments
are built in memory of.
Are built because we can’t possess
but, needy to preserve, attempt
to echo what the value is
when touch and time and glances
slip between us in a waterfall of sympathy.

I may not be the first to think
how this breeze that caresses me
brushes your cheek further downwind
or spend the evening hopelessly
amending words inadequate
to conjure you from far away
and spend the night awash with tears
knowing that I must lose you.