Train to Sussex

 07:27. It moves off while I'm still settling my guitar in the overhead rack. Gosh we're not fucking about, I think, the bad language merely my excitement. This time, I managed to pick up a Costa Express on the way to the station. It was dark when I left home, but now the light's growing.

I've already checked the paper (Portugal v Uruguay, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Twa Corbies) and wish I hadn't. It isn't the topics, it's the medium, that feels like a corruption.

Next, the daily Duolingo stint, while the train moves mistily through Wiltshire fields. 

Nu så är det jul igen, jultomten myser,

Julegran och klappar han skickar så snäll.

In i minsta koja nu julljuset lyser,

Alla äro glada på julaftons kväll.

Now it's Christmas again, Santa smiles,

Christmas spruce and presents he sends so kindly.

In the smallest hut now the Christmas candle shines,

All are glad for Christmas Eve.

I've brought my copy of Sjung Svenska Folk! so that I can sing this song with my mum, to Alice Tegnér's charming melody. 

It begins as a Christmas song, but it doesn't know when to stop, and ends up being both funny and sad. 

Kära jul, välkommen, välkommen till jorden!

Nu den långa hösten är slut för i år.

Med dig kommer snön och lyser upp Norden,

Sen så få vi påska och så blir det vår.

Dear Christmas, welcome, welcome to the earth!

Now the long autumn is over for this year.

With you the snow comes and lights up the North,

Then it's Easter and then comes spring.

Och så kommer sommarn, då grönt är i skogen, 

Smultronen de rodna, och åkern blir gul.

Men i höst, då skörden är inkörd på logen,

Då vi önska åter: Ack, vore det jul!

And then comes summer when it's green in the forest,

The wild strawberries redden and the fields become yellow.

But in autumn, when the harvest is brought into the barn,

Then we wish again, Ah, if only it were Christmas!

Also in my backpack is the Bulverhythe Variations by Elaine Edwards, a recent purchase that I'm bringing to show my sister (who lives in Bulverhythe). There's a performative aspect to these family visits. I'm wearing clothes that they've given me, so that they can "see them on". It's a bit silly, but it isn't wrong. Because of our European trip I haven't seen them since the beginning of September. And I'm coming to tell them that I'm starting a job next week. 

It's 09:05, the train has reached Basingstoke, and I'm reading a chatty verse epistle by Rubén Darío. He's reached Majorca, and has just described George Sand as "la vampiresa", though he can't remember if she was here with Musset or Chopin. (I suddenly remember that Chopin and Sand are the subject of Donald McLeod's programmes this week, and wonder if I might listen to them on BBC Sounds, but I certainly won't.) 

Sand has it seems always attracted this kind of abuse. I recently read an article about the book she wrote about Majorca, a very bad one apparently. I only know her Indiana, a brilliant novel. 

The verse epistle (Epístola a la Señora de Leopoldo Lugones) was published 7 January 1907, perhaps all written in Majorca in late 1906, as proposed by Vicente Sanz García here: https://buscarubendario.blogspot.com/2019/07/epistola-la-senora-de-lugones.html ; he calls it "el menos modernista de sus poemas".

In Ch LXI of La vida de Rubén Darío: Escrita por él mismo (1913), he wrote more diplomatically of "la inspirada y cálida hembra de letras y su nocturno y tísico amante" (the inspired and warm female of letters and her nocturnal and consumptive lover). 

As it happened, Darío would himself reside at Valdemossa in 1915, not long before his death.

Darío writes about everything and everyone, and is rather irresistible. At least half his references are beyond me. In Darío (unlike his contemporary, Galdós) English-speaking culture has an insignificant place, but he switchbacks through the Romance languages with relish. His Spanish is sprinkled with French and Catalan. (He is writing to Madame Lugones.)

Madame Lugones, j'ai commencé ces vers,

en écoutant la voix d'un carillon d'Anvers...

Así empecé, en francés, pensando en Rodenbach, 

cuando hice hacia el Brasil una fuga... ¡de Bach!

En Río de Janeiro iba yo a proseguir 

poniendo en cada verso el oro y el zafir 

y la esmeralda de esos pájaros-moscas 

que melifican entre las áureas siestas foscas 

que temen los que temen el cruel vómito negro.

Ya no existe allá fiebre amarilla. ¡Me alegro!

Et pour cause. Yo pan-americanicé 

con un vago temor y con muy poco fe, 

en la tierra de los diamantes y la dicha 

tropical. Me encantó ver la vera machicha, 

mas encontré también un gran núcleo cordial

de almas llenas de amor, de ensueño, de ideal.

Y si había un calor atroz, también había 

todas las consecuencias y ventajas del día, 

en panorama igual al de los cuadros y hasta 

igual al mejor de lo fantasía. Basta. 

Mi ditirambo brasileño es ditirambo 

que aprobaría tu marido. Arcades ambo.

Madame Lugones, I began these lines

while hearing the sound of bells in Anvers.. 

Thus I began, in French, thinking of Rodenbach,

When I made unto Brazil a fugue... by Bach!

In Rio de Janeiro I was going to carry on

putting in each line the gold and sapphire

and emerald of those bird-flies

that sip honey all through the golden murky afternoons

feared by those who fear the black vomit.

There is no longer yellow fever there. Happy me!

Et pour cause. I pan-Americanized

with a vague fear and with very little faith,

in the land of diamonds and tropical

bliss. I loved seeing the true maxixe,

but I also found a great warm nucleus

of souls filled with love, dreams and ideals.

And if the heat was excruciating there were also

all the consequences and advantages of the day,

in a panorama matching those of paintings and even

matchng the best of fantasy. Enough.

My Brazilian dithyramb is a dithyramb

your husband would approve. Arcades ambo. 

"Anvers" is the Belgian city that we call Antwerp.

Georges Rodenbach, Belgian symbolist novelist. Churchbells are a major motif in his books.

"pájaros-moscas": hummingbirds.

One of the symptoms of a severe attack of yellow fever is blood in the vomit, hence the Spanish name "vómito negro". The slave trade brought the yellow fever virus from Africa to  the Americas.

I suppose the gold hazy afternoons are feared because they bring mosquitoes, carriers of yellow fever.

"pan-americanicé": referring to the strategy of promoting pan-American cooperation, pursued by the USA (James G Blaine). Darío was appointed secretary of the Nicaraguan delegation at the Pan-American conference in Rio de Janeiro (Jul-Aug 1906), as described in Ch LXI of La vida de Rubén Darío: Escrita por él mismo (1913). 

Maxixe (machiche in Spanish): sometimes called the Brazilian tango, a dance invented in Rio de Janeiro in 1868; it later (like tango) became an international dance craze.

Dithyramb: wildly enthusiastic song, originally to Dionysus. (Maybe glancing at the author's liking for alcohol?)

Arcades ambo. From Virgil's seventh eclogue: "Arcadians both"; Darío uses the tag in the usual way, to signify two people with shared tastes.  [Duncan F. Kennedy points out that the idea of Arcadia as the pastoral locus par excellence arose during the Renaissance, not in classical times. He thinks Virgil's unusual emphasis on Arcadia in the Eclogues had something to do with his friend Gallus, and perhaps symbolized the poetic ideals they shared. See "Arcades ambo: Virgil, Gallus and Arcadia", Hermathena No. 143, In honor of D. E. W. Wormell (Winter 1987), pp. 47-59:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23040873 .]

*

I crossed the col in London again, and wondered what the church with the striking spire was. (St John's Waterloo). On the platform at Waterloo East I played them Alice Tegnér's melody.

I'm south of Tunbridge Wells now, and phone reception is becoming intermittent, so this rambling broadcast is now coming to an end without a conclusion, as I always sensed it would.... Bye for now!

Triton

 En la isla en que detiene su esquife el argonauta

del inmortal Ensueño, donde la eterna pauta

de las eternas liras se escucha: -- Isla de Oro

en que el tritón erige su caracol sonoro

y la sirena blanca va a ver el sol --, un día

se oye un tropel vibrante de fuerza y de harmonia.

Son los Centauros . . .

On the island where docks the skiff of the argonaut,

he of the immortal illusion, where the eternal guiding

of the eternal lyres is heard, -- the Isle of Gold,

on which the Triton raises his sonorous sea-shell,

and the white siren comes out to see the sun --, one day

is heard a thundering troop of force and of harmony.

It is the centaurs . . .

           QUIRON

Callada las bocinas a los tritones gratas,

calladas las strenas de labios escarlatas,

los carrillos de Eolo desinflados, digamos

junto al laurel ilustre de florecidos ramos

la gloria inmarcesible de las Musas hermosas

y el triunfo del terrible misterio de las cosas. . . .

           CHIRON

Stilled the pleasant horns of the tritons,

stilled the strains of the scarlet lips,

the cheeks of Aeolus deflated, let us speak

as one of the illustrious laurel of flowering branches,

the unfading glory of the beautiful Muses

and the triumph of the terrible mystery of things . . .

(from "Coloquio de los centauros" by Rubén Dario, Nicaraguan poet, 1867 - 1916)

[My text had a misprint: juto for junto. I toyed with the possible meaning "Jute" (Germanic colonist of Kent), and the possible meaning "Xuthus" (mythological brother of a different Aeolus), before finally doing the sensible thing and comparing online texts.]

Here's the original 1896 publication, with illustrations!

https://es.wikisource.org/wiki/P%C3%A1gina:Prosas_profanas_(1896).djvu/93

*

In the days which are now called the good days, although in reality they were very bad ones for a good many people, the greatest discovery of a great century was made, namely, that one could live more cheaply and better on other people's money than on the results of one's own efforts. Many, a great many, people had taken advantage of the discovery, and as no patent law protected it, it was not surprising that Levi should be anxious to profit by it, too, more particularly as he had no money himself and no inclination to work for a family which was not his own. He, therefore, put on his best suit one day and called on his uncle Smith.

"Oh, indeed! You have an idea," said Smith, "Let's hear it! It's a good thing to have ideas!"

"I have been thinking of floating a joint stock company."

"Very good. Aaron will be treasurer, Simon secretary, Isaac cashier, and the other boys book-keepers; it's a good idea! Go on! What sort of a company is it going to be?"

"I'm thinking of a marine insurance society."

"Indeed! So far so good; everybody has to insure his property when he goes on a voyage. But your idea?"

"This is my idea."

"I don't think much of it. We have the big society 'Neptune.' It's a good society. Yours would have to be better if you intend to compete with it. What would be the novelty in your society?"

"Oh! I understand! I should reduce the premiums and all the patrons of the 'Neptune' would come to me."

"That's better! Very well, then, the prospectus which I would print would begin in this way: 'As the crying need of reducing the marine insurance premiums has long been felt, and it is only owing to the want of competition that it has not yet been done, we, the undersigned, beg to invite the public to take up shares in the new society.... What name?"

"Triton."

"Triton? What sort of a chap was he?"

"He was a sea-god."

"All right, Triton. It will make a good poster! You can order it from Ranch in Berlin, and we will reproduce it in my almanac 'Our Country.' Now for the undersigned. First, of course, my name. We must have big, well-sounding names. Give me the official almanac."

Smith turned over the leaves for some time.

"A marine insurance company must have a naval officer of high rank. Let me see! An admiral."

(From August Strindberg (1849 - 1912),  The Red Room, Chapter XII, translation by Ellie Schleussner.)

It's a great chapter, a crash course in setting up a fraudulent company (Dickens readers will recall the Anglo-Bengalee), expressed with the snappy satirical joyousness that The Red Room abounds in. But I'm afraid Strindberg's choice of first names for Levi and his relatives was quite intentional. He was anti-Semitic, most of the time. (Eric Bentley characterizes Strindberg's anti-Semitism as "opportunistic and petty" -- more like Chopin's than Wagner's; but that's not mollifying.)