This Living Hand

Posted on June 3, 2018 by Richard Bowker

When we think of Rome, the first thing that comes to mind, of course, is the English poet John Keats, who died there in 1821 of tuberculosis at the age of 25. Here is his grave in the Protestant cemetery in Rome, with the epitaph he wrote for himself:

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Odd that the gravestone doesn’t even mention his name. On a wall next to the grave we see this:

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Next to Keats’s grave is that of his friend Joseph Severn, who accompanied him to Rome, since Keats was too sick to travel by himself:

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There are worse things to be remembered for, I suppose, than being the friend of John Keats.

A couple hundred yards away from Keats are interred the ashes of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who died in a boating accident in Italy at the age of 29:

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The quotation is from The Tempest.

Here is a painting of Shelley’s funeral pyre:

Many of the details of the painting are apparently made up. For one thing, Shelley’s body was in bad shape by the time he washed up on shore. (The only way they recognized him was his clothing and the copy of Keats’s poems in his back pocket.)

Keats died in a tiny apartment at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome. This is now the site of the Keats-Shelley Memorial House, which contains letters, books, and other memorabilia of English poets. Via Wikipedia, here’s what happened to the contents of the House during World War 2:

During World War II, the Keats–Shelley House went “underground”, especially after 1943, in order to preserve its invaluable contents from falling into the hands of, and most likely being deliberately destroyed by, Nazi Germany. External markings relating to the museum were removed from the building. Although the library’s 10,000 volumes were not removed, two boxes of artifacts were sent to the Abbey of Monte Cassino in December 1942 for safekeeping. In October 1943, the abbey’s archivist placed the two unlabelled boxes of Keats–Shelley memorabilia with his personal possessions so that they could be removed during the abbey’s evacuation and not fall into the hands of the Germans. The items were reclaimed by the museum’s curator and returned to the Keats–Shelley House, where the boxes were reopened in June 1944 upon the arrival of the Allied forces in Rome.

I didn’t have time to visit the Keats-Shelley House, but here’s what it looked like at 23:00 on a Roman night:

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And this gives me a chance to reprint this final fragment by Keats, written as he confronted the certainty of his coming death.

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–

I hold it towards you.

I find these eight short lines utterly terrifying.

Shakespeare Sunday

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Richard Bowker

It’s Shakespeare’s birthday, probably, and also his death-day. Every day is a good day to quote Shakespeare, though. Here is Sonnet 73:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

Posted on April 15, 2017 by Richard Bowker

A day late, but any day is a good day for a poem by John Donne.

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,

The intelligence that moves, devotion is,

And as the other Spheares, by being growne

Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,

And being by others hurried every day,

Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:

Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit

For their first mover, and are whirld by it.

Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West

This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.

There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,

And by that setting endlesse day beget;

But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,

Sinne had eternally benighted all.

Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see

That spectacle of too much weight for mee.

Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;

What a death were it then to see God dye?

It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,

It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.

Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,

And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?

Could I behold that endlesse height which is

Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,

Humbled below us? or that blood which is

The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,

Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne

By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?

If on these things I durst not looke, durst I

Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,

Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus

Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?

Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,

They’are present yet unto my memory,

For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee,

O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;

I turne my backe to thee, but to receive

Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.

O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,

Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,

Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,

That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face.

“For I am every dead thing…”

Posted on December 21, 2016 by Richard Bowker

Somehow every year I get around to reprinting this poem by John Donne about Saint Lucy’s Day, the Winter Solstice. Will our sun renew? Sure doesn’t feel like it. But let’s not give up hope.

‘Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,
Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world’s whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed’s feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar’d with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin’d me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love’s limbec, am the grave
Of all that’s nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown’d the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night’s festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year’s, and the day’s deep midnight is.

Renowned be thy grave

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Richard Bowker

As today’s Google Doodle will let you know, this is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The Times today has a clever faux-obituary.

Here is a funeral song he wrote a few years before his death.

Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o’ th’ great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor th’ all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear no slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan.
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee,
Nor no witchcraft charm thee.
Ghost unlaid forbear thee;
Nothing ill come near thee.
Quiet consummation have,
And renowned be thy grave.

As is often the case in Shakespeare’s late romances, the beautiful young woman to whom this song is sung is not in fact dead. (In real life she wasn’t even a woman, but that’s neither here nor there.) Shakespeare, of course, isn’t really dead either. Let’s raise a tankard to him today!

Easter 1916

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Richard Bowker

The Easter Rising took place a hundred years ago. It was an idiotic, doomed adventure that caused hundreds of deaths and maybe led, years later, to Irish independence:

Almost 500 people were killed in the Easter Rising. About 54% were civilians, 30% were British military and police, and 16% were Irish rebels. More than 2,600 were wounded. Most of the civilians were killed as a result of the British using artillery and heavy machine guns, or mistaking civilians for rebels. The shelling and the fires it caused left parts of inner city Dublin in ruins.

And, of course, it led to a great poem. If you’re a terrorist (or, maybe, a freedom fighter), you should hope that you have William Butler Yeats around to make you immortal, to turn your dreams into myth. Here’s the final stanza of “Easter 1916”:

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death.
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead.
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse —
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Here’s the proclamation of an Irish republic, signed by some of those whom excess of love bewildered:

Both the year’s and the day’s deep midnight

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Richard Bowker

The shortest day of the year of the year used to be December 13, Saint Lucy’s Day. Now it’s December 21; Here in the Boston area we get a little over nine hours of sunlight.

Here is John Donne’s great Nocturnal upon Saint Lucy’s Day:

‘Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,

Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;

         The sun is spent, and now his flasks

         Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

                The world’s whole sap is sunk;

The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,

Whither, as to the bed’s feet, life is shrunk,

Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,

Compar’d with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be

At the next world, that is, at the next spring;

         For I am every dead thing,

         In whom Love wrought new alchemy.

                For his art did express

A quintessence even from nothingness,

From dull privations, and lean emptiness;

He ruin’d me, and I am re-begot

Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,

Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;

         I, by Love’s limbec, am the grave

         Of all that’s nothing. Oft a flood

                Have we two wept, and so

Drown’d the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

To be two chaoses, when we did show

Care to aught else; and often absences

Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)

Of the first nothing the elixir grown;

         Were I a man, that I were one

         I needs must know; I should prefer,

                If I were any beast,

Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,

And love; all, all some properties invest;

If I an ordinary nothing were,

As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.

You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun

         At this time to the Goat is run

         To fetch new lust, and give it you,

                Enjoy your summer all;

Since she enjoys her long night’s festival,

Let me prepare towards her, and let me call

This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this

Both the year’s, and the day’s deep midnight is.

Happy birthday, William Blake!

Posted on November 28, 2015 by Richard Bowker

Born this day in 1757.

Here is his poem “Infant Joy”:

“I have no name:
I am but two days old.”
What shall I call thee?
“I happy am,
Joy is my name.”
Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet Joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!

Where did Homer get his MFA?

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Richard Bowker

Homer and I go way back — all the way to the summer before my senior year in high school, when one evening a week I would drive to Dorchester and translate the Odyssey while dripping sweat onto the ancient text.

I’ve lost all my knowledge of ancient Greek in the intervening years, but I feel the need to reacquaint myself with Homer every once in a while. Most recently, I listened to an audio version of the Iliad narrated by Dan Stevens. Listening to this ancient epic while fighting traffic on Interstate 93 isn’t perhaps the ideal way of encountering Homer, but it’s the best I can do nowadays. A few brief comments:

Dan Stevens is pretty good! He obviously made the right career decision by quitting Downton Abbey for the lucrative business of narrating epic poems.
It’s amazing how modern some of the narrative structure is — for example, Homer needs a scene that shows Hector’s wife Andromache mourning his death. But the sceone won’t work unless he has a previous scene establishing their love. And that’s exactly what he has–a set up, and then a while later, the payoff.
On the other hand, he must have been absent the day his MFA program went over the rules for naming characters. The Iliad, of course, features two major characters with the same name: Ajax. So Homer has to put his Homeric epithets into overdrive to ensure that we know which one he’s talking about. (Someone mentioned to me that some people point to this as evidence that these were real people–even back then, no one would be stupid enough to give two made-up characters the same name.) Also, of course, multiple characters have more than one name. Thanks a lot! Generally, although not always, the alternative name is just a patronymic; even so, this doesn’t help us follow the action. Similarly, Homer doesn’t bother to call the Greeks “Greeks”; instead they are Argives or Achaeans or Danaans. (And Troy is randomly referred to as Ilion.) That is also really helpful.
The gods are hugely present in the Iliad, and are generally speaking much more entertaining than our current crop of deities. The Zeus/Hera squabbling never gets old. Here is a photo of grey-eyed Athena from the Museum of Fine Arts:

On the other hand, I have never been happy with how much the gods motivate the action. It’s never the case the one side does well because somebody has a good plan; or, if he does have a plan, it’s because a god put him in mind of it. This is the sort of thing that Julian Jaynes points to in everyone’s favorite book, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, as evidence that back in those days people weren’t conscious in the way we are today; instead, they heard voices in their minds that they interpreted as being the gods.
Finally, after all these years, I still prefer the Odyssey to the Iliad. I ultimately find the incessant battle scenes repetitive and a bit exhausting. Along with the rest of the Argives and Achaeans and Danaans, I just want Achilles to get over himself and come back and win the damn war.

Longfellow’s tomb

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Richard Bowker

Life (and death) brought me back to Mount Auburn Cemetery the other day, so I can now include a personal photo of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s tomb, in place of the one I included in this post:

(A sprinkler is at work in front of the tomb.)

As a special bonus, here is the more modest gravestone of the nineteenth-century American historian Francis Parkman, buried right down the street from Longfellow: