Dante's Inferno, Canto V, Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The infernal hurricane that never rests/Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;

Illustration by Gustave Doré

Thus I descended out of the first circle
Down to the second, that less space begirds,
And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.
There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;
Examines the transgressions at the entrance;
Judges, and sends according as he girds him.
I say, that when the spirit evil-born
Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;
And this discriminator of transgressions
Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;
Girds himself with his tail as many times
As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.
Always before him many of them stand;
They go by turns each one unto the judgment;
They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.
"O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry
Comest," said Minos to me, when he saw me,
Leaving the practice of so great an office,
"Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;
Let not the portal's amplitude deceive thee."
And unto him my Guide: "Why criest thou too?
Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;
It is so willed there where is power to do
That which is willed; and ask no further question."
And now begin the dolesome notes to grow
Audible unto me; now am I come
There where much lamentation strikes upon me.
I came into a place mute of all light,
Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,
If by opposing winds 't is combated.
The infernal hurricane that never rests
Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.
When they arrive before the precipice,
There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,
There they blaspheme the puissance divine.
I understood that unto such a torment
The carnal malefactors were condemned,
Who reason subjugate to appetite.
And as the wings of starlings bear them on
In the cold season in large band and full,
So doth that blast the spirits maledict;
It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;
No hope doth comfort them for evermore,
Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.
And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,
Making in air a long line of themselves,
So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,
Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.
Whereupon said I: "Master, who are those
People, whom the black air so castigates?"
"The first of those, of whom intelligence
Thou fain wouldst have," then said he unto me,
"The empress was of many languages.
To sensual vices she was so abandoned,
That lustful she made licit in her law,
To remove the blame to which she had been led.
She is Semiramis, of whom we read
That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;
She held the land which now the Sultan rules.
The next is she who killed herself for love,
And broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus;
Then Cleopatra the voluptuous."
Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless
Seasons revolved; and saw the great Achilles,
Who at the last hour combated with Love.
Paris I saw, Tristan; and more than a thousand
Shades did he name and point out with his finger,
Whom Love had separated from our life.
After that I had listened to my Teacher,
Naming the dames of eld and cavaliers,
Pity prevailed, and I was nigh bewildered.
And I began: "O Poet, willingly
Speak would I to those two, who go together,
And seem upon the wind to be so light."
And, he to me: "Thou'lt mark, when they shall be
Nearer to us; and then do thou implore them
By love which leadeth them, and they will come."
Soon as the wind in our direction sways them,
My voice uplift I: "O ye weary souls!
Come speak to us, if no one interdicts it."
As turtle-doves, called onward by desire,
With open and steady wings to the sweet nest
Fly through the air by their volition borne,
So came they from the band where Dido is,
Approaching us athwart the air malign,
So strong was the affectionate appeal.
"O living creature gracious and benignant,
Who visiting goest through the purple air
Us, who have stained the world incarnadine,
If were the King of the Universe our friend,
We would pray unto him to give thee peace,
Since thou hast pity on our woe perverse.
Of what it pleases thee to hear and speak,
That will we hear, and we will speak to you,
While silent is the wind, as it is now.
Sitteth the city, wherein I was born,
Upon the sea-shore where the Po descends
To rest in peace with all his retinue.
Love, that on gentle heart doth swiftly seize,
Seized this man for the person beautiful
That was ta'en from me, and still the mode offends me.
Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,
Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,
That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;
Love has conducted us unto one death;
Caina waiteth him who quenched our life!"
These words were borne along from them to us.
As soon as I had heard those souls tormented,
I bowed my face, and so long held it down
Until the Poet said to me: "What thinkest?"
When I made answer, I began: "Alas!
How many pleasant thoughts, how much desire,
Conducted these unto the dolorous pass!"
Then unto them I turned me, and I spake,
And I began: "Thine agonies, Francesca,
Sad and compassionate to weeping make me.
But tell me, at the time of those sweet sighs,
By what and in what manner Love conceded,
That you should know your dubious desires?"
And she to me: "There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.
But, if to recognise the earliest root
Of love in us thou hast so great desire,
I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.
One day we reading were for our delight
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
Alone we were and without any fear.
Full many a time our eyes together drew
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
But one point only was it that o'ercame us.
When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
Being by such a noble lover kissed,
This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,
Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
That day no farther did we read therein."
And all the while one spirit uttered this,
The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
I swooned away as if I had been dying,
And fell, even as a dead body falls.



I was absolutely determined not to talk about death in this post, and I have failed in the most spectacular fashion imaginable. This poem is about nothing but death. Also I've just realised this writing has taken the formatting of the poetry above and I can now empathise with Dante's descent into the underworld.

Formatting catastrophe averted. I have a copy of The Divine Comedy by a company called Arcturus Publishing, and it is absolutely splendiferous (I always use that word as if it is not a real word and experience a faint pang of disappointment whenever I realise it is). It includes the translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which is one of the best translations I can seem to find. Most are prose translations and I don't think this is the point of epic poetry. But suffice to say, Longfellow's translation is gasp-inducingly masterful. 'Master, who are those/People, whom the black air so castigates?' I love stuff like this. This is the ultimate in wonderful, caliginous decadence. Though I understand that most people would probably look at me askance and slowly move towards the cutlery drawer if I admitted such a fact.

Also my edition includes all the illustrations by Gustave Doré, who was an incredible artist who also illustrated things like Paradise Lost and The Raven. The scale of this poem is really reinforced by the magnificence of the attendant art. 

And now I come to the ignominious admission that, despite all this, I still haven't finished reading this bloody thing. It's the sort of thing that takes quite some industry, though this is not to say that it does not give commensurate rewards. I simply haven't found the time to read canto after canto. When I read stanzas such as:


And as the wings of starlings bear them on
In the cold season in large band and full,
So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

I find it very difficult to not re-read endlessly. This necessarily makes the whole endeavour quite time-consuming. There's something very hypnotic about iambic pentameter met by supreme skill in language. I'm going to read The Divine Comedy over the summer if it kills me. Which would be ironic.

On Death by Percy Bysshe Shelley

There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. -- Ecclesiastes.

The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way,
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,

Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.

The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,

Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.

Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?

Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?

Shelley is perhaps the most unconventional, experimental poet I enjoy reading. He often toys with rhythm and meter, not disregarding it exactly but not holding to it punctiliously either. I don't normally enjoy this in poets but the quality of the writing more than redeems it. 

I'm not sure what to say about this poem in particular. There is so much to digest that it would probably take me 3000 words to analyse it properly. First I suppose I could say that it perfectly captures the incomprehensibility of death. It is not something we have been afforded the mental equipment to empathise with. Nor, often, do we have the fortitude to accept death. We are 'unencompassed with nerves of steel'. This is exacerbated by the fact that we have no higher authority to whom we might refer on the matter - those who have experienced death are necessarily unavailable for congress. This is, naturally, where religion spotted a niche in the market. Post-death vaticinations seem to be their USP.

Poetry is usually about love or death. Both incomprehensible, both pointless to challenge or assay; these facts make the endeavour quite enjoyable. It's also interesting that both were experienced prematurely and disproportionately by the Romantic poets (of course one's own death is not bettered by repetition, but the Romantics seemed rather unfortunate with regards to early bereavement).

Quite enough inane gibbering from me. Termination of blog post imminent - avaunt!

Alone by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.


This poem is one of my favourite of Poe's. It to me summarises the possible invocations of poetry - it can be used for solace, lament, reasoning, befuddlement, assessing the past, assessing the future, and looking at one's own position in the world. It is the ultimate in solipsism. To Poe this poem must have been the purgation of, or at least the confinement of, something which haunted him. It also shows the power of language - when I read poetry like this I can't help but think that, although I know all the words used, I could never produce something of such expression and beauty. It is the power of language to somehow produce something greater than the sum of its parts that fascinates me. This is part of the basis of poetry - anyone could conceivably string some words together, it is their effortless selection and deployment that singles out the great.

As for the 'demon in my view', I must say I think this is death, though there may be reasons to doubt this. Poe seems to question everything around him, to draw the entire physical plane before him. This is typical of someone who does not understand how they fit into the world (as an aside, anyone who does understand how they fit into the world does not understand how they fit into the world). He summons images of permanence - rocks, mountains, the sun, and shows how they 'rolled' around him. Stage 4 existential crisis if it ever existed. The self-loathing and plaintive tone makes this such a Poe poem, and also such a Romantic poem. I could imagine something very similar being written by any other Romantic poet.

Poe actually wrote that 'out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been,' and this sentiment imbues the poem.

And before I depart, I love the movement from iambic tetrameter to trochaic tetrameter after 'The mystery which binds me still:', which somehow seems meaningful. Certainly it emphasises division and the feeling of loneliness.

On The Death of a Young Lady by Byron

I am feeling perhaps more indolent than convention necessitates today, and so I'm going to take the route of least resistance and do some copy and pasting. This is a Byron poem that is notable for its context - it was written by Byron at 14(!). I'm fond of it but Byron really wasn't, writing in its first publication that:

'The author claims the indulgence of the reader more for this piece than, perhaps, any other in the collection; but as it was written at an earlier period than the rest (being composed at age 14), and his first essay, he preferred submitting it to the indulgence of his friends in its present state, to making either addition or alteration.' He would later go on to write in his notebooks that this poem is 'an Elegy. A very dull one.' I think he was overly harsh on his 14-year-old self, after all he has already grasped iambic pentameter, rhyme schemes, and much else besides. Though it was characteristic of Byron to scourge himself. I think in this case it was probably exacerbated by comparison against his idol, Alexander Pope, and Pope's achievements by his early teens. Pope famously wrote his Ode on Solitude at the age of 12, nearly unheard of in poetry. In classical music it is almost accepted as a truism that the early prodigies will become the leading figures in the future, but poets tend to begin a lot later.

This poem was written following the death of his cousin Margaret Parker*, whom Byron describes in his notebooks as 'one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings'. He again emphasises the deficiencies of the poem, further highlighted through contrast against his cousin, writing 'I do not recollect scarcely any thing equal to the transparent beauty of my cousin, or to the sweetness of her during the short period of our intimacy. She looked as if she had been made out of a rainbow – all beauty and peace.'

Byron recounts his reaction to the death of his cousin, writing 'My passion had its usual effects upon me: I could not sleep, could not eat; I could not rest; and although I had reason to know that she loved me, it was the torture of my life to think of the time which must elapse before we could meet again – being usually about twelve hours of separation! But I was a fool then, and am not much wiser now.'

Here is the poem, as you asked:

[1]

     Hush'd are the winds, and still the evening gloom,

       Not e'en a zephyr wanders through the grove,

     Whilst I return to view my Margaret's tomb,

       And scatter flowers on the dust I love.

[2]

     Within this narrow cell reclines her clay,

       That clay where once such animation beam'd;

     The King of Terrors seized her as his prey,

       Not worth, nor beauty, have her life redeem'd.

[3]

     Oh! could that King of Terrors pity feel,

       Or Heaven reverse the dread decrees of fate!

     Not here the mourner would his grief reveal,

       Not here the muse her virtues would relate.

[4]

     But wherefore weep? her matchless spirit soars

       Beyond where splendid shines the orb of day;

     And weeping angels lead her to those bowers

       Where endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay.

[5]

     And shall presumptuous mortals heaven arraign,

       And, madly, godlike Providence accuse?

     Ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain,

       I'll ne'er submission to my god refuse.

[6]

     Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear,

       Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face;

     Still they call forth my warm affection's tear,

       Still in my heart retain their wonted place.

*interestingly, Byron also wrote a poem on her brother's death, which I think I will write a blog post about in the future (as certainly I cannot do so in the past).

The Apprentice 2013 - First Episode

Now look at this bunch of smarmy wankers. This almost satirical assemblage of insufferable 'entrepreneurs', as they do like to call themselves, heralds the beginning of a new series of The Apprentice, which is a source of great engorgement to me. The producers of this evil show have rightly assessed that putting a collection of annoying, simpering tossers into a confined situation for weeks on end is great television.

So let's see what frothing bellends we've been given this year. These quotes were all taken from the first few minutes of the first episode, and this supports the point I make above. The producers are focusing on trying to agitate the audience as much as possible. They want us to talk about the show and, evidently, they have succeeded in at least one case.

Buffoon 1 states with some certainty that: 'I'm a great of my generation, I'm an innovator and leader in business. I take inspiration from Napoleon, I am here to conquer.' Well I did need a few minutes to recover from the onslaught of self-aggrandisement in this initial salvo of hubris alone. Though some people say Napoleon had the shits at Waterloo, so that should make for good viewing.

Someone else says, 'I'm half machine,' (one of the panellists of You're Fired asked, 'Which half?') and, 'I can process things at a speed which is out of this world.' Well you might perhaps be better suited to the world of abstract mathematics than flogging cat litter and toilet roll then.

'Oh... piss off.'

We then have, 'Some people might come to this process with a game plan. I just feel my effortless superiority will take me all the way.' I can't really comment on this, it explains itself with more ease than is healthy.

One man says, 'I'm business perfection personified,' with - somehow - a straight face. I'm certain these people must initially say to the cameras: 'Well I'm just glad to have got this far, everyone is lovely and the production team have been so welcoming,' at which point a producer screams into a megaphone, 'MORE AGGRESSION! PRETEND NICK JUST SLAPPED YOU.' No human can possibly be so narcissistic, so base, so tragically endowed with megalomania that its appeasement leads paradoxically to hostility to everything else.

Oh and next we have (I'm beginning to weary now): 'I'm prepared to fight to the death to become Lord Sugar's business partner' - well, the tasks are probably the usual mundanities, but we can hope this promise might be called upon... Anyway, a fight to the death is surely the most extreme scenario one might put one's name down for; what she is really saying is, 'I'm prepared to fight to the death - or undertake any less severe task - to become Lord Sugar's business partner.' Well these less severe tasks might include shoving chillies up her bottom, or hurling Cumberland sausages at the local bishop mid-recitation.  A more honest statement would have been, 'I'm prepared to sell toilet rolls and bottles of water, an act of clear submission both to the stupidity of television and to my own avarice, in order to become Lord Sugar's business partner.'

Additionally, in what I believe is a direct quote from Alexander Pope: 'I have the energy of a Duracell bunny, the sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit, and a brain like Einstein.' OK... next quote.

'I will do anything to win. Cheating, manipulating, I will do it.' Is this not what is wrong with humanity? There is something deeply repugnant about this constant need to beat others. At the very least it demonstrates great insecurity. Perhaps some sort of remedial aid for this chap.

Now we come on to the team names. These are decided by the most boring, loathsome people and are therefore the most boring, loathsome names. The suggestions for each team were:

Women
Alchemy - why on earth would someone choose to call their company Alchemy?! It is possibly the most scam-oriented pseudo-science she could have chosen to mention. Other team names suggested were 'Ponzi Scheme Solutions' and 'Timeshare Operations'. The team eventually settled on Evolve, something they all certainly have ample room to do.

Men
Endeavour - I love the brilliance of this name. I can imagine frustrated customers ringing to complain, being met only with a chuckle and a hastened 'Well, we did endeavour. If you wanted the goods by Monday, you should have gone with Certitude.'

Aside from any pragmatic analysis of these silly names, aren't Evolve and Endeavour vomit-inducing enough, just as words which one might hope to ascribe to one's aspirations? Perhaps not as bad as the frankly inhumane name Synergy, though, which seems to be suggested by some mental vegetable in every series.

Anyway, all I can conclude from this episode of the show is that we are fortunate to have this thing called 'business' because it is a receptacle into which self-centred imbeciles such as these candidates can be hurled. Here they can avoid normal humans as much as possible.

Here are some pictures of the grand event, complete where I can be bothered with captions:

Quite a complex team goal

These muppets spent £230 on water

This scene must have some roots in an episode of Only Fools and Horses 

Nick registers his disapprobation like a punctured scrotal sac 

The most spurned high-five in history

Just me?

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens - A Review

Christopher Hitchens, to those of you who have not heard of him, wrote this book in the year or so preceding his death in 2011; he was a fantastic writer, primarily on political topics until the release of his book God is Not Great in 2007, which earned him worldwide renown as one of the most eloquent and loquacious proponents of atheism. One of 'the Four Horsemen of New Atheism', he was a persistent thorn in the side of organised religion. He actually preferred to refer to himself as an 'anti-theist', saying that not only does he believe there is no god or gods, but that he is glad that this is so. This is because, as he wonderfully phrased it, he did not relish the thought of a 'cosmic North Korea' from which there was no escape, even in death. Which leads me to the book review itself.

This book, Mortality, is a very short affair, at only 106 pages. This does not, however, detract from its potency, which is remarkable. If anything, the book's brevity heightens our awareness to the subject matter, which is of course death. Hitchens was diagnosed with metastasised oesophageal cancer in 2010, at the age of 61. He somehow even describes such an experience with some elegance, writing: 'I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death. But nothing prepared me for the early morning in June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corpse'. Undoubtedly it is effortless phrasing like this which allows Hitchens to make the topic more palatable. 

There are, as one might expect from such a book, moments of anguish and dejection, most vividly manifested in the great study he makes of the voice as a core part of his character, and indeed anyone's. He writes: 'Most despond–inducing and alarming of all, so far, was the moment when my voice suddenly rose to a childish (or perhaps piglet–like) piping squeak... I used to be able to stop a New York cab at thirty paces. I could also, without the help of a microphone, reach the back row and gallery of a crowded debating hall. And it may be nothing to boast about, but people tell me that if their radio or television was on, even in the next room, they could always pick out my tones and know that I was “on” too.'

He then writes that 'Deprivation of the ability to speak is more like an attack of impotence, or the amputation of part of the personality. To a great degree, in public and private, I “was” my voice'. To even attempt to understand how this must have assailed his will to live allows the reader to at least share in the feeling of impotence he expresses. His illness deprived him, even if temporarily, of the most advanced ability in his possession. Stephen Fry even went as far to describe him as 'the greatest orator since Demosthenes'. The brilliantly named 'Hitchslap' has become almost an internet meme, used to describe a moment in which Hitchens used his talent in speaking to reveal an argument as false, ill-considered or hateful. But this voice was not just used for entertainment but also as a means of provision for his family, and this adds yet more to attempt to empathise with.

However, whilst there is genuine lament in parts of the book, and he says of his ordeal that it was a 'year of living dyingly', it is unexpectedly an encouraging book. He maintained an ardour for life - a ferocity in its pursuance - even in his moribund, etiolated state; the book is strewn with literary and philosophical references, and it is in equal parts admirable and encouraging that this is so. Admiration is a reaction which needs little explanation, but encouragement is derived from the idea Hitchens had that nothing was above knowledge and its fervid, unapologetic collection. 

What I love about Hitchens is that he invests every topic he writes about with his inimitable wit and skill as a raconteur. He always said that he wanted his writing to appear as if it were written directly to the reader, as if they were engaging in a dialogue. This is observable even in this book, which one might reasonably expect to be more introspective and brooding. Indeed, it is all this, but he still retains his approachability, as it were. 

Most saddening was the abrupt end to the book - there is a moment of surprise, emptiness and real loss when one moves from Chapter 7, filled as usual with a veritable panoply of literary miscellanea and intellectual energy, to Chapter 8 which is prefaced with the stern statement: 'Publisher’s note: These fragmentary jottings were left unfinished at the time of the author’s death'. These fragments come as a sort of conclusion, a recognition of Hitchens' dissolution which was expected but wholly unwelcome. The fragments themselves are great, filled with childlike epiphanies and imagination, unexpected references and his characteristic wit. But it is that Hitchens didn't have enough time to give true body to these fragments that is most crushing. One wonders what works he may have gone on to produce if he had lived a little longer.

This abrupt end does not, I feel, detract from the work itself however. Indeed, it adds to the sense of loss. The book easily qualifies as one of the best books I have read in a very long time. It is profound, counterintuitively alluring and laced with lurid discussion of both the divine and the quotidian. 

The foreword to the book is a great contemplation by Hitchens' wife, who says that, through his lasting works, 'Christopher has the last word'. This is perhaps the greatest wish he would have had. 




Mortality http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mortality-Christopher-Hitchens/dp/1848879210/

Blog on, mate

I apologise for the faintly gruesome title. I also apologise in advance for the far more gruesome stream of seemingly random words which is about to pass your eyes like some sort of Perspex hearse filled with decomposing, filled bin bags.

I've made a blog. I'm also in the mood for self-evident statements. I'm not really sure what to say actually. I'm inclined to believe this is a very unfavourable augury for the future success of this blog. Certainly running out of ideas before the first post is not what I was hoping for. Second or third post maybe.

I've called it, after at least forty seconds of vaguely strenuous book-grabbing, 'Redeemed from Worms'. This is from a magnificent Byron poem (I feel the 'magnificent' may be superfluous in this sentence) called Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed From a Skull. I think a mere human can only imagine the vastness of a forehead which can comfortably house six verses of poetry. I wasn't going to quote the poem in full, but now I will do precisely that. Call the citation police if you want.


Start not -nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaffed like thee;
I died: let earth my bones resign:
Fill up -thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape
Than nurse the earthworm's slimy brood,
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of gods than reptile's food.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst; another race,
When thou and thine like me are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not -since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce?
Redeemed from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs to be of use.


The story behind this poem is that Byron's gardener had found a skull in Byron's garden, as one does. Goodness knows why, but Byron decided to have this turned into a drinking vessel. He writes, in a letter which I'm certain I've read in full but can only find in part on Wikipedia, 'There had been found by the gardener, in digging, a skull that had probably belonged to some jolly monk or friar of the Abbey, about the time it was demonasteried. Observing it to be of giant size, and in a perfect state of preservation, a strange fancy seized me of having it set and mounted as a drinking cup. I accordingly sent it to town, and it returned with a very high polish and of a mottled colour like tortoiseshell'. So it seems I was right about the 'giant size' of this fortuitously endowed bonce.

I'm rather a big fan of simple rhyme schemes, and this poem profits hugely from such a structure. Byron had a habit of using rhyme schemes that would frankly have driven me insane if I had to write in them, such as Don Juan's complex but not altogether incomprehensible abababcc. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, however, uses a far more convoluted ababbcbcc. I think I would be liable to engage in heated debates with hairdryers if subjected to such a writing pattern. Or indeed any number of household appliances; perhaps a stern disagreement with the toasted sandwich maker; a chagrined altercation with the dumpling steamer. I could go on (but mercifully won't). I can only speculate that the unfortunate lack of dumpling steamers in Byron's era is what led him to making cups out of skulls. 

I feel justified in saying that after reading 'Fill up -thou canst not injure me;/The worm hath fouler lips than thine,' I can sympathise with the female hot flush. This is why I love poetry - one can create perfect beauty in a line and then almost disregard it in a pit of nonchalance by moving on to the next verse. 

Iambic tetrameter (duh-dun,duh-dun,duh-dun,duh-dun) is an often-overlooked metrical pattern which is very easy to begin with but very difficult to master. It is hugely challenging to compress poetic thoughts into 8- or 9-syllable lines. Pentameter and hexameter are more difficult to begin with but pentameter is used in probably 90% of structured poems, so you have a lot of reference material. The only poet I can think of who used tetrameter a huge amount is Andrew Marvell. Perhaps Jonathan Swift too.

I've rambled quite successfully about that poem but the point about the line redeemed from worms is that it represents the plucking of something from the past and restoring it into worth. Poetry is unbelievably neglected nowadays (unsurprisingly really - there is a veritable dearth of talent). Whenever I think of the state of poetry today, I think of Arthur Miller's phrase 'a paucity of heroes' - it seems perfectly apt. This was not a major phrase of his, but its beauty did linger in my head. Anyway, this blog is in part for the drawing of attention to poetry. There are too many worms and too much wasting clay for poetry to flourish unaided. 

This blog is not just for poetry, though. If my almost terminal indolence allows it, I will try to write slightly informal, or at least short, essays on subjects which occur to me. This keeps happening to me and I siphon off one paragraph before being sucked into the black hole of the kitchen, doomed to eat peanut butter on toast for the foreseeable future. 

I think I did have a brief outline for this first blog post but I've completely misplaced it. Isn't 'misplace' an odd word? It makes the rather large assumption that each thing has a proper place in the universe, from which it must not stray. If this were the case then I would certainly be in the pub this very second.

This will not be a lifestyle blog. For one thing, the word 'lifestyle' is almost emetic to me. I have no plan when I get up in the morning and this is no source of lamentation on my part (though I'm sure the same cannot be said of my poor, suffering parents). The idea of an artificial construct of a life, some dry husk which one must fill, is in my mind absolute anathema. There are two possible outcomes to such a situation. One, that you meet or exceed your own expectations and experience brief euphoria followed by impossible despair at the ease with which your hopes and aspirations were mown down like reeds. The thought 'Well what now?' is an unbidden inevitability. The other outcome is of course that you fail to meet your expectations and feel even worse. The other reason I will not have a lifestyle blog is that it would certainly bore you into extinction. I will give you a brief taste of such a life, almost as an vaccination against its future relaying. Today I slept at 11am, woke up at 8pm, ate a Snickers bar, and slept from 10pm to 1am. This is the sort of irresistible gossip one might come to expect from my life. So no, I will blog about the interesting things in this world. If anything interesting happens to me, of course I will include it, but that is not the primary purpose of this blog.

I feel I should end here, indeed my laptop is beginning to freeze as if in protest to the idiocy with which I've approached this post. The fantastic thing about making a blog is that if you're terrible at writing anything remotely interesting, and would therefore have some cause to be embarrassed (the ability to be boring is a curse far worse than lycanthropy), then your blog simply will not be read. In other words, success is the only scenario in which your blog will get any attention. So it's a great way of being able to write in a rather equanimous way whilst also having some sense of seriousness.

I will certainly think of something I've forgotten as soon as I publish this, but such is the dynamic lifestyle of pressing plastic keys on a keyboard. Hope I haven't bored you to death. Or even to incapacity.