Monday, June 02, 2025

Bug day





It started the previous evening, outside the café, warm, still and humid. As soon as we sat down, things started to get on our wrists and into our hair and onto the rims of our takeaway cups. They were greenfly, floating in hundreds through the tarmac space. One would land on my finger and stay still, apparently doing nothing. Then after a minute or two it would fly off again. 

The next morning Laura's garden had the flying greenfly too. It's a very bee- and insect-friendly garden; totally organic, an intuitive mixture of native plants and bee-friendly garden varieties. This year a huge variety of bees and hoverflies are browsing through it constantly, as if determined to make up for 2024 (a cloudy, cold, depressing year in the UK). A lot of flowers are ahead of schedule; I've seen Common Ragwort and Bindweed flowering -- in May, for heaven's sake...

I noticed this small butterfly in the garden too.

Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria). Frome, 30 May 2025.

It's a Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria), more commonly a butterfly of woodland edges. It's settled briefly on a Lungwort (Pulmonaria) leaf; the other leaves you can see are Common Dog-violet, Iberis, Sedum and Broad-leaved Willowherb. 

Later we walked down to the dump with some recycling but we had to wait outside while they crunched down the contents of the skips and cleaned up the premises with a leaf blower. While hanging around we noticed a bramble with ladybirds at every stage of development. 

Larva of Harlequin (Harmonia axyridis). Frome, 30 May 2025.

This is the larva of the Harlequin or Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis), a large ladybird introduced in 2004 from E. Asia in order to control greenfly, and now very common. (Who would have guessed: the greenfly are as common as ever, but the Harlequins are displacing other ladybird species.)

Larva of Seven-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) alongside pupa of Harlequin (Harmonia axyridis). Frome, 30 May 2025.

Larva of the native Seven-spot Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) alongside a pupa of the Harlequin (Harmonia axyridis).


One of the many forms of the adult Harlequin (Harmonia axyridis). Frome, 10 June 2025.


After recycling we went back to the garden and opened the rarely-opened shed to retrieve a gas bottle that's been in there for years. Thus we uncovered Bert, a very big spider.

Giant House-Spider (Eratigena species). Frome, 31 May 2025.

Bert is in fact a female, I think. She's a Giant House Spider; for the purposes of this very non-expert post I'll go for Eratigena duellica but there are other similar species.


Giant House-Spider (Eratigena species). Frome, 31 May 2025.


Giant House-Spider (Eratigena species). Frome, 31 May 2025.





Back in the garden the following day, intoxicated by the success of my cheap phone snaps... All spring I had failed to take a photo of the entrancing bee-flies (Bombylia species): I saw them every day but they are just too mobile, hovering for a second or two before zipping off to a distant flower. It's a heaven for them here, with Pulmonaria, Green Alkanet, primroses and cowslips among their favourites. 

Today I did better with a somewhat similar creature, a Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) that was visiting the Red Valerian, one of its favourite species. Compared to the bee-fly it's less flighty, more willing to spend time browsing round the same plant. In my photos the wings are just a blur, of course. 

Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) on Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber). Frome, 31 May 2025.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) on Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber). Frome, 31 May 2025.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) on Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber). Frome, 31 May 2025.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) on Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber). Frome, 31 May 2025.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) on Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber). Frome, 31 May 2025.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) on Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber). Frome, 31 May 2025.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) on Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber). Frome, 31 May 2025.





Thursday, May 29, 2025

Caesar's Civil War


The battle of Ilerda, from BL Royal MS 17 F ii, f. 211

[Image source: https://picryl.com/media/battle-of-ilerda-from-bl-royal-17-f-ii-f-211-2178d4 . It's a 1479 manuscript of La grande histoire Cesar made for Edward IV in Bruges. For a lively account of the MS, see Scot McKendrick's paper: https://www.academia.edu/98034065/La_Grande_histoire_Cesar_and_the_Manuscripts_of_Edward_IV . To simplify greatly, this is an illustrated copy of the French text more commonly known as Les faits des Romains (though in fact the biography of Julius Caesar was the only part ever to be completed), compiled back in 1213-14 from material drawn from Lucan, Suetonius, Sallust and Caesar himself. Not Caesar's civil war commentaries, though (Commentarii de Bello Civili); they were effectively lost until published in 1469 in Rome.]



After all these Penguin Classics volumes of Horace and Livy and Virgil and Cicero and Ovid, I wouldn't mind reading some Roman literature written by women, I thought. 

Some hope. I wasn't expecting there to be very much, but I was taken aback to find that, basically, there's nothing at all. A few lines from personal letters, some skits on Memnon's leg, quotations from the revered Cornelia that are probably fabricated... anyway, you can find the details on Wikipedia.  

Disappointing, after Sappho; but then 95% of Sappho's own work is lost, even though she was famous. (Generally, when it comes to ancient literature, nearly everything is lost.)

Anyway, I was so dispirited that it put me off reading a male Roman putting words into the mouth of Dido or Medea, so instead I went to the other extreme and read Caesar's commentaries on the Civil War, a book in which women are hardly mentioned at all. 

Let's go to inner Catalonia in the spring of 49 BCE. (According to the Roman calendar it was June, but the calendar had drifted badly, so it was really more like April; three years later Caesar would fix that.)

I found that panic was spreading along almost the whole line -- a state of affairs which I had never expected and to which I was quite unused. Shouting out to the men to stand firm, I brought up the Ninth Legion in support. The enemy had shown a kind of insolent daring in their pursuit, and I put a stop to this. I forced them to turn back and retreat to Lerida, where they formed up outside the walls. But the men of the Ninth, who were full of enthusiasm and determined to make up for the setback we had received, pressed their pursuit rashly and too far. They advanced right up to the hill on which Lerida stands and here found themselves in a difficult position. They tried to withdraw, but it was now the turn of the enemy, who charged down on our men from higher ground. There were steep rocky gorges on each side of them and the space between was only enough for three cohorts to be drawn up in line. Thus it was impossible to give them support on their flanks or to use cavalry to help them when they were in trouble. From the town, however, the ground sloped down gently for  about five hundred yards. Our men, whose enthusiasm had unwisely carried them so far, stood facing this slope, fighting in a most unfavorable position. They had no room to maneuver, and because they had halted at the very foot of the high ground, every weapon directed at them found its mark. Nevertheless they stood their ground, fighting magnificently in spite of heavy casualties. Meanwhile the enemy's strength was increasing; from their camp new cohorts were constantly being sent through the town into the fighting line so that fresh troops could relieve those who were tired. I was obliged to do the same thing and sent up other cohorts to take the places of my own exhausted men.


In battle things could so easily go amiss. The fighting continued for five hours before Caesar's troops could withdraw, having nothing to show for their efforts but proof of valour. And then nature intervened:

The enemy now built strong defense works around the hillock for which the fighting had taken place, and manned them with a garrison. We also suffered an unforeseen misfortune within two days from the time of the battle. There was a tremendous storm which brought with it more rainfall than had ever been known in these parts. At the same time, the snows were washed down from the mountains, so that the river overflowed its banks and in one day both of the bridges that Fabius had built were swept away. The result was that we were placed in a very difficult position.

As has already been explained, our camp was between the two rivers Segre and Cinca, which were about thirty miles apart. Neither of these rivers could be crossed, and so we were forced to remain in this confined space. The states which were on friendly terms with us were unable to send us grain; some of our own people, who had gone out for quite a distance to bring in supplies, were cut off by the floods and could not get back; and the large convoys of provisions coming from Italy and Gaul could not reach the camp. It was also the worst possible time of the year. There was no grain left in the winter stocks, and the new harvest was not quite ripe. ...

(from Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Civili, I.6, translated by Rex Warner (1960).)

*

In online discussions the topic of truth is apt to come up. Take him with a pinch of salt, readers advise. History is written by the victors, they intone. It was propaganda for the Roman public.

But I don't think Caesar's commentaries are a special case. Surely we take every autobiographical narrative with at least two generous pinches of salt: one, because people never understand themselves; two, because they want to show themselves in a particular light. 

As for the victors meme, well, the dead tell no tales, it's true. But not all survivors are victors. Much history is written by bystanders. Losing causes, too, are kept alive for generations by transmission of history, true or false. The vast majority of people leave no account of anything. The conditions that have left us, for instance, with no witness by Roman women.... you can't boil that down to an idea about victors and losers.

And as for propaganda, it was childishly rudimentary in Caesar's time. The great age of propaganda is our own age. To really control the narrative, we first needed mass media, we needed theories of government and commercial advantage, we needed to invent the faceless legal entities of nations, institutions, companies and foundations, we needed advanced technologies of marketing and advertising and information processing, and above all we needed to cultivate social habituation to an absence of integrity, until it wasn't even seen....

*

We can speculate endlessly about what suppressions or misrepresentations there might be, but the striking thing in Caesar's account of his campaigns is its honesty. Part of that is, indeed, about being the eventual victor. Once you've won at Lerida or Pharsalia you can be frank about difficulties and changes of plan along the way; the frankness confirms your strength.

But the more important reason is Caesar's belief that honesty with oneself is essential to good generalship. So in Caesar's accounts of his campaigns, the gods are entirely absent. The enemy is just the enemy; moral judgments are a weapon of negotiation, not something to be credited in the field. Emotion is an element to be reckoned with; the power of emotion, both for good and ill, fascinates Caesar, but it mustn't sway a general's decisions. Inevitable ignorance is another element: sometimes you can't understand what your opponent is up to, and you just have to work with that. Local conditions are another; when they change, a good plan may have to be given up. Chance is another, and it can go against you, but ill fortune shouldn't affect your confidence; it was still a good plan, even if the execution went all to pot. Nor should good fortune lead to over-confidence, but clearly be seen for what it was; an unmerited slice of luck. Caesar does just that, when a lucky change of wind direction allows his fleet to escape almost certain destruction. Pompey, by contrast, grows dangerously over-confident when Caesar's troops get confused about the topography at Dyrrachium, rush down a blind alley and panic themselves into a defeat that Pompey's forces really had very little to do with. The commentaries are a manual for clear thinking, and a pretty good textbook for generals and football coaches alike; I think Caesar enjoyed that educational aspect as much as any. 

*

1. Well, my first recommendation is, read Rex Warner's translation (War Commentaries of Caesar, 1960). Most of the translations online are terribly dreary, but this one is dramatically different. You can read it on the Internet Archive: 

https://archive.org/details/warcommentarieso00caes/mode/1up

Warner turns the third-person narrative into the first person; you'll be bothered by that for a page or two, and then forget about it. He drops Caesar's use of the historic present, and all the close-packed compressions of Latin. He uses modern place-names, so you don't have to constantly remind yourself that Massilia is Marseilles and Ilerda is Lerida*, or that the Sicoris is the Segre and the Hiberus is the Ebro. It must be kind of weird if you're an etymologist but for the rest of us, suddenly, these are places that exist in our own world. The ninth hour becomes "about two thirty p.m." and the third watch becomes "about midnight". Warner freely adds words like "simply" or "personally" in the places where an English-speaker of 1960 would naturally use them. In short, it's radically a translation: the accent is on conveying what Caesar meant rather than the way he said it. 

*Although that's actually a bit ironic, because in the post-Franco era the Spanish name Lérida has come to be viewed unfavourably, and most people use the Catalan name Lleida.

2. But sometimes you'll want to check just how far Warner has diverged or expanded. And then it's useful to see the Latin text alongside the fairly literal translation by A. G. Peskett (Loeb, 1914):

https://archive.org/details/civilwarswitheng00caesuoft/page/n10/mode/1up

3. Anthony Trollope is an entertaining reading-companion. You can read his book-by-book account of Caesar's commentaries here; it isn't a translation but a series of chatty summaries, forceful opinions and acute reflections. (Trollope the novelist shares Caesar's fascination with how people think and how they make decisions -- or fail to make them.)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55926/55926-h/55926-h.htm#CHAPTER_IX







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Friday, May 16, 2025

Ragged Robin

 

Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi). Swindon, 15 May 2025.


Ragged-Robin (Silene flos-cuculi), a plant of wet meadows. (In this case, the meadow on Shaw Ridge in West Swindon.)

Why are the petals of this successful and widespread plant ragged? We don't know.

Why are the petals of all our other common plants not ragged? We don't know. 

The only vague idea I can think of is that flowers are aimed at an audience (e.g. of pollinators) and this tends to cement any kind of species distinctness; in rather the same way that the songs of different bird species are distinct.

Influenced by modern conventions for vernacular naming of plants, some botanists spell it Ragged-Robin. That would make sense if there were lots of different kinds: the *Gibraltar Ragged-Robin, for instance. But there aren't; there are 900 species in Silene, but only one of them is Ragged Robin.

Some people then go the next step and remember that the second part of a hyphenated plant-name is usually not capitalized, so they write it as Ragged-robin.  (Even though "Robin" is obviously meant to be a proper name!)

It is still often called Lychnis flos-cuculi. But it seems that the genus Lychnis (familiar from all my old flower books) has now disappeared, amalgamated into Silene. It included Ragged Robin, Sticky Catchfly, Alpine Catchfly and a few others. Lychnis species had 5 styles/5 capsule teeth, whereas Silene species had 3/6 or 5/10.

The Swedish name Gökblomster means Cuckoo Flower, and it has similar names throughout Europe (kuckucks-lichtnelke, fleur de coucou, flor de cuclillo...); hence Linnaeus gave it the specific name flos-cuculi. But in Britain the vernacular name Cuckoo Flower is applied to a different plant, Cardamine pratensis (which flowers several weeks earlier and, as it seems to me, more in sync with hearing the first cuckoo).




Ragged Robin (Silene flos-cuculi). Swindon, 15 May 2025.



Tuesday, May 06, 2025

There stands a house



 

There stands a house under the mountain of the world,
a road runs down, the mountain covers it
and no man knows the way. It is a house
that binds bad men with ropes
and clamps them into a narrow space.
It is a house the separates the wicked
and the good; this is a house from out of which
no one escapes, but just men need not fear before its judge,
for in this river of spent souls the good
shall never die although the wicked perish.
This is my house, on its foundations stand
the mountains of the sunrise, but who shall see
into the pit? It is a house that separates
the wicked and the just; it is a house
that smothers in clay the souls that come to it.
It is the house of the setting sun,
the pallid god in livid splendour; the sill 
is a monster with jaws that gape
and the jambs of the doors are a sharp knife
to slash down wicked men. The two rims
of the river of hell are the rapier thrust
of terror, a raging lion guards it
and who can face his fury? Here also lie
the rainbow gardens of the Lady.

("The Sumerian Underworld" in Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia, translated and introduced by N K Sandars, Penguin Classics, 1971.)

*





N[ancy] K[atharine] Sandars (1915 - 2015) was an independent scholar and archaeologist. This was her companion volume to The Epic of Gilgamesh, which introduced a wide readership to Mesopotamian literature. She didn't actually know Sumerian or Akkadian; in these popular books she turned other scholars' translations into something readable. In Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia this poem appeared among longer and better-known texts like The Babylonian Creation and Inanna's Journey to Hell. Her source for this one was the German translation of Erich Ebeling in Orientalia 18 (1949) No 3, pp. 285-87, titled "Eine Beschreibung der Unterwelt in sumerischer Sprache". 

The poem (if poem is the right word) is a fragment: we are missing at least the first three lines and the last eight lines. Perhaps more, if it was not complete on this single tablet, which is thought to date from the peak production period 1400-1100 BCE.

*

I was curious to know more. The referenced article by Ebeling is on JStor (https://www.jstor.org/stable/43078986) but is not available for online reading, so I could only see the first page, containing his headnote and the first part of his transcription.

St. Langdon hat in den Publications of the Babylonian Section, University of Pennsylvania, Vol XII, 1, unter Nr. 40, pl. XLV, .einen sumerischen Text veröffentlicht, von dem anscheinend nur die eine Seite beschrieben oder erhalten ist. Auch die vorhandene ist, wie Langdon S. 41 sagt, damaged at top and bottom, weather-worn. Trotzdem verdienen die noch übrig gebliebenen Zeilen Beachtung ; denn sie lassen erkennen, dass der Text eine Beschreibung der Unterwelt enthält. Bei näherem Hinsehen ergibt sich, dass der Langdonsche Text mit dem von Lutz UP I 2, Nr. 104 (=TuL. S. 22f.) dargebotenen stilistisch und sachlich sehr nahe verwand ist. Wie dieser ist er ein "Selbstlobgedicht" der Unterweltsgottheid (des Unterweltsflusses) (vgl. Z. 8) und gehört vielleicht zu einer und derselben Serie. Es ist mir nicht bekannt, dass die Tafel Langdons irgendwo behandelt worden ist. Es sei mir daher gestattet, sie in Ubersetzung hier vorzulegen. Das Sumerische darauf ist teils phonetisch (syllabisch), teils in Wortzeichen geschrieben, bietet daher dem Verständnis manche Schwierigkeiten. 

[Translation of headnote: St[ephen] Langdon has published a Sumerian text in Publications of the Babylonian Section, University of Pennsylvania, Vol XII, 1 [1917] under No. 40, pl. XLV,  of which apparently only one side has been written or preserved. Even the existing one is, as Langdon says on page 41, "damaged at top and bottom" and "weather-worn". Nevertheless, the surviving lines deserve attention; for they reveal that the text contains a description of the underworld. A closer look reveals that Langdon's text is very closely related, both stylistically and factually, to that presented by Lutz UP I 2, Nr. 104 (=TuL. S. 22f.). Like the latter, it is a "self-praise poem" of the underworld deity (the underworld river) (cf. l. 8) and perhaps belongs to one and the same series. I am not aware that Langdon's tablet has been studied anywhere. Therefore, please allow me to present it here in translation. The Sumerian on it is written partly phonetically (syllabically), partly in word characters, and therefore presents some difficulties for understanding.]

Umschrift: 1-3 Zusammenhang nicht erkennbar
[Transcription: 1-3 Context not discernible]

(4) èš(?) sag-zi-ga  kur-ba-ila(la) a-rá-bi lú [n]u-zu
(5) é giš-eš-ad erím-gen šu-dim4-ma(!) š[à] si-gál-la [gub-bu
(6) é sa-ku-ši-te-en-bi lil-sa6(?) [
(7) é zi-gen erím-gen igi-gál hul šu-bi nu-é [
(8) é-íd-lú-šub-gú si-sá nu-úš-e erím-gen gul(!)
(9) é-mu gab-bi(!)-še10 kur (d)utu-è(!)šà-bi lú-nu-zu
(10) é zi-gen erím-gen bar-im-ag . . . . . .
(11) é uš-ki gar-ra-bi IM ŠU [
(12) é-bi ú-šu dingir-sig7-ga su-zi [i]la [


Langdon's 1917 PBS volume was subtitled Sumerian Grammatical Texts and I suppose he included this tablet because he thought it had a mainly pedagogical function, though he described it (not very accurately) as a Thammuz Liturgy. 

You can see a confusing digitisation of this volume here (not the plates of course), but approach with caution because I'm not sure sure what kind of site it is: 




What Sandars' rendering rather disguises is that every line begins with the same word é, which I think means "house".

Our poem seems to contradict the Wikipedia entry for Ancient Mesopotamian underworld when it says "In the Sumerian underworld, it was initially believed that there was no final judgement of the deceased and the dead were neither punished nor rewarded for their deeds in life" .... in truth Mesopotamia must have contained the usual diversity of belief and change of belief over time (thousands of years in this case), so any sketch is bound to be a bit unhistorical.

The Lady in the striking last line has been supposed to be Inanna (Ishtar)... but who knows? It could also be Ereshkigal or indeed Geshtinanna or someone else entirely.






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Wednesday, April 30, 2025

The interview in Borrowdale








The dog growls.

"If only you would just walk on," the woman says. "Because this dog is mad. Every dog Madam Mbuya has had has been like that, ever since the war. And Mbuya Riley up there is just like the dog here, if not even madder. So now, be walking!"

Snakes, the ones your grandmother used to tell you about when you were small and asked her the things you could not ask your mother, the snakes that hold your womb inside you open their jaws at the mention of war. The contents of your abdomen slide toward the ground, as though the snakes let everything loose when their mouths opened. Your womb dissolves to water. You stand there and your strength is finished. 

A hole opens in a mesh of ivy vines that strangle the building at the top of the drive. The woman who is talking to you takes a step forward. She grips the fence rails tightly. Anxiety seeps out of her, as strong as an ancestor's spirit.

Widow Riley, the woman you have come to meet, approaches. Her back is humped. Both skin and bone are fragile, brittle and translucent as shells. She totters over the uneven brick paving.

The dog gives a yelp and bounds to meet its mistress.

"Now what will I say to the madam?" the woman before you whispers. She speaks intimately now, as though to a friend. 

"See! She's already thinking you're a relative. One of mine. We're not allowed, not at all, not even when we've gone off. And now is the worst time because my off isn't until this weekend."

"An interview. For accommodation," you whisper back. "Somewhere to live." You are so desperate your voice climbs high into the back of your throat. 

"She'll cry," Mbuya Riley's help hisses. "She'll say I'm bringing my relatives here to kill her. When her daughter comes they talk like that. It's been like that since the war. That is the one thing they agree on."

"There is a cottage," you say. "The matron said she fixed something. It is not expensive."

"Are you hearing what I am saying?" Mbuya Riley's help goes on. "It's impossible when she cries. I have to feed her or else she shuts her mouth and won't take the food. Just like a baby! You go now."

The dog yelps up at the top of the drive. The frail white woman sinks to the ground. Her head, with its halo of soft white hair, rests on the paving like a giant dandelion. She stretches her arms out toward you and the woman in uniform. 

"There!" complains the maid. "Now I'm going to have to be bending over and carrying her, even when my own back is breaking."

She hurries up the path, throwing accusations back at you over her shoulder. 

"Go away from this number 9. Because if you don't, I'll open the gate and if you manage to shake this one off it won't help because I'll unlock the big one."

The woman bends down to her mistress. The little terrier whimpers, licks the widow's arm.


(From Tsitsi Dagarembga's This Mournable Body (2018), end of Ch 1.)


So Tambudzai's visit to the affluent suburb of Borrowdale in NE Harare is a fiasco. 

She tells young Gertrude and Isabel that she has an aunt who lives there. It's a measure of Tambudzai's terrible mental state that she actually obtains some gratification from this pathetic pretence.

She's being pressured to move out of the women's hostel because she's too old (38, approximately). Mrs May, the matron, has organized this interview with Mrs Riley's daughter. "Remember to mention me to Mabel Riley," she says. "I haven't seen her properly since she left school .... Mabs Riley was a wonderful head-girl. I was just a little junior but she was absolutely lovely." Alas, pink Mrs May's fond memories bear no resemblance to the terrified frail ghost of today. 

This Mournable Body deploys the shapes of comedy to deeply un-comic effect. It's as if Tambudzai, if she weren't at such a low ebb, would really be wickedly funny ... but it would require a much warmer heart than hers has turned. Instead Tambudzai feels threatened by everyone so despises everyone, feels judged so judges. 

The day turns out even worse for Gertrude, who's been shopping the sales at Sam Levy's. At the combi rank in Market Square, far too glamorously undressy, she's taunted, jostled, thrown down, her skirt ripped off..... and then she spots her elder hostel-mate conspicuously not rushing to her assistance, in fact with a stone in her raised hand.... Tambudzai's life is slipping out of control faster than she herself can understand. 

"Is that what you do," you say, stopping outside your room.

You don't bother to put a question mark into your voice. Why should you put a question mark anywhere? So many things have happened today and no one has asked you anything. Besides, what you know is this: you did not want to do what you did at the market. You did not want all that to happen, nor did anyone else. No one wanted it. It is just something that took place like that, like a moment of madness. 

(Ch 3)

What happened to the bright university-trained girl who, not so long ago, was smoothly turning out tourist brochure fibs about the villagers of Zimbabwe scrubbing cowpat floors till they shone?

*

"I can give you a bigger dose," the nurse says when she comes to give you your injection. "To make the effect stronger. And work faster."

Observing the flow of tears that began at lunchtime, she leans in closer and continues, "I want to ask you some questions. I need your help. I am doing my degree. There is a dissertation. I must have an interesting subject. You know, talking to me is good for you. We are the same, you and I! We are not like these European doctors. You know, so you mustn't worry about anything, my sister, Tambu. You can just answer what I am asking."

She inquires in a low, furtive voice, whether you are satisfied with your partner, how often you have sexual relations with him, and whether you feel that this part of your life has any bearing on your situation. As she puts these questions to you, she stares as though you are a book in which she has marked the most important chapter.

"Do you mind if I write the answers down?" she asks, more at ease now that the interview has begun.

You do not have the strength to do anything but gaze at this student nurse, the front of your linen robe wet with tears. At first her expression is expectant. It transforms to a disappointed glare. Eventually she slips her pen and small notebook into her uniform pocket as she walks away, leaving you once again feeling ashamed for reasons you cannot fathom.

(Ch 9)

Tambudzai is alienated from sisterhood throughout the novel. It makes her eye all the more merciless when someone like the student nurse plays the sisterhood card, transparently for her own ends. Here's institutional care in its full mythical aspect: a drug factory characterized by stupidity, insensitivity, blind pursuit of numbers and real indifference to individuals (Tambudzai has no "partner", by the way.) 

Meanwhile Tambudzai in the asylum receives no help or understanding. Couldn't we see this scene completely differently, as one of many clumsily well-meaning attempts to push ajar the door that Tambudzai herself has bolted on the inside?








*

This Mournable Body (2018) completes a trilogy of novels featuring Tambudzai as protagonist. It's set in Zimbabwe in the late 1990s to early 2000s.

The earlier novels are 

Nervous Conditions (1988) set in the 1960s (when Zimbabwe was still Rhodesia)
The Book of Not (2006) set in the 1970s during the war of independence. 


There's plenty out there about Tsitsi Dangarembga and her books. Some of it is behind paywalls, but here's a few pieces I managed to read and found illuminating:

Helon Habila on The Book of Not in the Guardian (4 November 2006):

Interview with Sacha Pfeiffer for NPR (22 September, 2022):

Interview with Alex Russell in the Financial Times (18 August 2023):

Blake Morrison's introduction to This Mournable Body (and its predecessors) in the LRB (7 May 2020): 


Sam Levy's Village, shopping mall off Borrowdale Road, Harare.


[Image source: https://www.tripadvisor.se/Attraction_Review-g293760-d7296987-Reviews-Sam_Levy_s_Village-Harare_Harare_Province.html .]

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Thursday, April 24, 2025

Tre trallande jäntor / Three carolling maidens

Tre trallande jäntor, painting by Åke Skoghäll.


[Image source: https://www.fyndgren.se/begagnat/vykort/vykort-ake-skoghall-tre-trallande-jantor . The only thing I could find out about Åke Skoghäll is that he taught art at Hagaskolen in Kumla (south of Örebro), approximately in the 1980s.]





Tre trallande jäntor 

Där gingo tre jäntor i solen
på vägen vid Lindane Le,
de svängde, de svepte med kjolen,
de trallade, alla de tre.

Och gingo i takt som soldater
och sedan så valsade de,
och "Udden är så later"
de trallade, alla de tre.

Men när som de kommo till kröken
av vägen vid Lindane Le,
de ropade alla: "Hör göken!"
sen skvätte och tystnade de.

Och tego så tyst som de döda
och rodnade, alla de tre.
Men varföre blevo de röda
och varföre tystnade de?

Jo!

Det stod tre studenter vid grinden,
och därför så tystnade de
och blevo så röda om kinden,
de trallande jäntorna tre.

Det stod tre studenter vid kröken
och flinade, alla de tre,
och härmde och skreko: "Hör göken!"
och alla så trallade de.


Poem by Gustaf Fröding (1860 - 1911), published in Nya dikter (1894) . 


Three carolling maidens

There walked three girls in the sunshine
On the way to Lindane Le,
They swung, they swept their skirts,
And they carolled all three.

Stiffly they marched like soldiers
Then waltzing about went they,
And "Udden is so lazy"
Thus they carolled all three.

But when they got to the turning
Of the road to Lindane Le
They all cried "Hear the cuckoo!"
Then suddenly quietened they.

And they stood still as the dead
And they blushed, all three.
But why did they turn so red
And why so quiet fell they?

Aha!

Three students stood at the gate
And hence so quiet fell they
And their cheeks became so red,
The carolling maidens three.

Three students stood at the turning
And they were grinning, all three,
And mockingly cried "Hear the cuckoo!"
And so they carolled all they.


The poem is supposed to have been based on a real event, as reported by Siri Fröding-Torgny in her 1953 book Min kusin Gustaf Fröding. She herself was one of the three girls, along with her cousins Ulla and Fina Warodell. They were on their way from Mangskog rectory to the local shop. The three students were Gustaf and Rudolf Warodell and Gustaf Fröding. 

Fröding, who grew up in Karlstad and Kristinehamn, was a regular visitor to rural Mangskog (north of Arvika, in inner Värmland). Some sources say he lived there for about a year in 1880-1881, when he was twenty. (https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tre_trallande_j%C3%A4ntor .) 

Gustaf Fröding is one of those writers who is basically only available to Swedish speakers. I didn't put a lot of effort into my English version, because, what's the point? How can you ever do justice to even such a commonplace line as "de trallade, alla de tre," where every syllable rhymes?

But if you want to read more Fröding in English, then I expect Charles Wharton Stork's 1916 selection is the place to go: 



Trallande. Singing happily e.g while walking along, typically with a few remembered words and lots of tra-la-la-ing.

Lindane Le. It isn't the "Linden Lea" of William Barnes (and Vaughan Williams' beautiful setting), though Charles Wharton Stork couldn't resist the happy coincidence. 

I think it's said to be an actual spot in Mangskog, perhaps where a fence-opening (SAOB led sb 3, see illustration!) leads to a lime-tree avenue (lindallé). But descriptions are a bit vague: if you happen to visit Mangskog yourself, post a photo online!  


"Udden är så later" . The quote comes from a semi-nonsensical game in a ring or children's chant. See the discussion in the comments here: https://tidenstecken.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/hagenbecks/ . It seems to mean "Udden is so lazy" (SAOB lat adj. 1). "Udden" might mean "the point", e.g a projecting piece of land, or the point of a knife, but here it seems to be someone's name, though I have not heard of any such name. 

skvätte. Dialect word. It means they got scared, had a fright. Discussed here: https://www.flashback.org/t752147p2 .


*



The catchy music everyone knows is by Felix Körling (1864 - 1937) who added the "Tralalalalala" choruses. 

The version in Sjung Svenska Folk! omits stanza 5. On the other hand, pop renderings by the Delta Rhythm Boys (1951) Sven Ingvars (1971) and the Hebbe Sisters (2022) omit stanza 2. 

Here's the version by Sven Ingvars:




Körling's tune became very popular and in 1909 it was heard by the Turkish educator Selim Sırrı Tarcan while studying physical education in Sweden. With new words by Ali Ulvi Elöve it became "Gençlik Marşı" (The March of the Youth), a patriotic song of the Atatürk era, as in the clip below:




Jean Sibelius also wrote music for Tre trallande jäntor in 1915 but it's lost; maybe he didn't think much of it. 





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Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Alexander the Great

Alexander now turned his mind to the expedition to Egypt. Most of what is called Palestinian Syria had already come over to him, but there was resistance from a eunuch called Batis who governed the city of Gaza. He had brought in a force of Arab mercenaries and for some time had been stockpiling enough food to withstand a long siege.

Gaza stands a little over two miles from the sea. The approach to it is over deep sand, and the sea fronting it offers nothing but shallows. Gaza was a large city, built on a high mound with a strong surrounding wall, and it was the last centre of population at the edge of the desert on the route from Phoenicia to Egypt.

When Alexander came up to the city, he made camp that first day on the side where he judged the wall most vulnerable,  and ordered the construction of siege-engines. His engineers gave it as their opinion that the height of the base mound made a mechanical assault on the wall impracticable. Alexander took the view that this very impracticality made it all the more important to capture the place: success against the odds would have huge deterrent impact on his enemies, and his reputation would suffer if reports of failure reached the Greeks and Darius. So he decided to build a mound all round the city, piling it to a height which would enable the engines to be brought up level with the wall. Construction was concentrated at the south wall of the city, where there seemed the best prospect of a successful assault. When they judged that the mound had reached the appropriate height, the Macedonians positioned siege-engines on it and brought them to bear against the wall of Gaza.

As this began, Alexander made sacrifice. He had put on a garland and was just about to perform the ritual dedication of the first victim when a carrion bird flew over the altar holding a stone in its talons and dropped the stone on Alexander's head. He asked Aristander the seer what this omen signified. Aristander answered: 'Sir, you will take the city: but today you must look out for yourself.'

Thus warned, for a while Alexander kept back by the engines, out of range. But then there was a sally in force by the Arabs in the city, who were attempting to set light to the engines and, with constant fire from their superior position, while the Macedonians had to fight back from below, began driving them down the artificial mound. At this point Alexander either deliberately ignored the seer or forgot his warning in the heat of the emergency: at any rate he brought up the foot guards and went to the support of his men where they were under the greatest pressure. He did succeed in preventing the ignominy of a forced retreat down the mound, but was hit by a catapult-shot which went straight through his shield and breastplate into his shoulder. The realization that Aristander had been right about the wound encouraged him to think that, by the same token, he would go on to take the city. 

In fact Alexander's wound did not heal easily. But meanwhile the siege-engines used in the capture of Tyre arrived by sea (he had sent for them). He now ordered the construction of a ramp all the way round the city, four hundred yards deep and two hundred and fifty feet high. When the engines had been reassembled and brought up the ramp into action they demolished a large section of wall; at various other points tunnels were dug and the subsoil removed without detection, and this excavation caused subsidence and the collapse of the wall in several places; and the Macedonians kept up an overwhelming barrage of missiles over a wide front, driving back the defenders on the towers. Through all this, despite losing large numbers killed or wounded, the forces in the city held out against three successive attacks. But in the fourth assault Alexander brought up the Macedonian phalanx to ring the city on all sides, and broke down long stretches of the wall, some collapsed by undermining and others battered to pieces by his siege-engines: the result was to open a relatively easy route of attack by means of ladders placed over the rubble. So the ladders were brought up to the wall, and there was intense rivalry for first claim to its capture among the Macedonians who prided themselves on their courage. The first to scale the wall was Neoptolemus, one of the Companions and a member of the Aeacid family: following his lead brigade after brigade climbed up with their officers. Once some of the Macedonians had got inside the wall they split into groups and forced open every gate they came to, so giving access to the whole army. As for the Gazaeans, even though their city was now overrun by the enemy, they closed ranks and fought on: and they all died where they were, each man fighting at his post. Alexander sold their children and women into slavery, and repopulated the city from the surrounding area: it then served as a garrison town in his prosecution of the war.

(Arrian's Anabasis, II.25.4-27.7, translated by Martin Hammond.)

*

For the cities that Alexander's armies visited, the choice was simple: they could submit or resist. Submission was rewarded; resistance was punished. 

Shakespeare's Henry V spelled it out for the citizens of Harfleur:

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, 
And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand, shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants.
What is it then to me if impious war,
Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats
Enlinked to waste and desolation?
What is ’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon th’ enragèd soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the Leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command,
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Desire the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters,
Your fathers taken by the silver beards
And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? Will you yield and this avoid
Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?

(Henry V, Act III Scene 3)

Henry V is much preoccupied with "Alexander the pig" (as Fluellen calls him). In 1599 Shakespeare was deep in his Plutarch, where the parallel life to Julius Caesar's was Alexander's, and most of the ethical horrors of Alexander's career are exposed and debated here in fifteenth-century Normandy. Shakespeare's Henry, ruthless and fresh-faced and clumsy and winning, has a way of shifting responsibility for the consequences onto the shoulders of other people that, I suppose, every soldier needs. 

On the other hand Julius Caesar didn't use the excuse of being unable to control his army when he put the town of Gomphi into the hands of the soldiery (The Civil War, III.8). It was a calculated decision: Caesar wanted the other Thessalian towns to understand the consequences of resistance. 

*

Arrian's account of the siege of Gaza is the more terrible for its understatement. Unlike Curtius he doesn't tell us how many Gazans were massacred (10,000), and he doesn't even mention the story of the barbarous execution of Batis. 

Arrian's admiration for Alexander was not blind, but his emphasis was on compiling a sober history, drawn from eyewitness accounts. This much happened at least, we can say. 

Gaza had been preceded by Tyre, and even before leaving Greece Alexander had razed Thebes to the ground. There were many other atrocities to come; so many, that in Sogdiana and the country of the Mallians the sacked cities don't always have names. If a city's defenders had the temerity to keep the Macedonians waiting, or to wound their leader, the retribution was (as Dryden puts it) "the last extremities of war".  

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Tuesday, March 18, 2025

The pearl of Orisa





I

The sun has disappeared behind the peaks of Jabwi, and the shadow of this mountain envelops with a veil of crape the pearl of Orisa's cities, the gentle Kattak, who sleeps at its feet among the forests of cinnamon and sycamore, like a dove resting on a nest of flowers. 

II

The day that is dying and the night that is being born contend for a moment, while the blueish mist of twilight spreads its diaphanous wings over the valleys, robbing colour and form from objects that seem to waver, disturbed by the breath of a spirit. 

III

The confused murmurs of the city, which disperse trembling; the melancholy sighs of the night, swelling from echo to echo repeated by the birds; the thousand mysterious sounds that, like a hymn to the divinity, creation offers at the birth and death of the star that gives it life, unite with the murmur of the Jawkior, whose waves are kissed by the evening breeze, producing a song, sweet, vague, and lost like the final notes of an improvisation by a temple dancer. 

.....


I

Ha desaparecido el sol tras las cimas del Jabwi, y la sombra de esta montaña envuelve con un velo de crespón a la perla de las ciudades de Orisa, a la gentil Kattak, que duerme a sus pies, entre los bosques de canela y sicómoros, semejante a una paloma que descansa sobre un nido de flores.

II

El día que muere y la noche que nace luchan un momento, mientras la azulada niebla del crepúsculo tiende sus alas diáfanas sobre los valles, robando el color y las formas a los objetos, que parecen vacilar agitados por el soplo de un espíritu.

III

Los confusos rumores de la ciudad, que se evaporan temblando; los melancólicos suspiros de la noche, que se dilatan de eco en eco repetidos por las aves; los mil ruidos misteriosos, que como un himno a la divinidad levanta la creación, al nacer y al morir el astro que la vivifica, se unen al murmullo del Jawkior, cuyas ondas besa la brisa de la tarde, produciendo un canto dulce, vago y perdido como las últimas notas de la improvisación de una bayadera.

.....


These are the opening paragraphs from Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's "The Chieftain of the Red Hands" ("El caudillo de las manos rojas"), published in 1857. 

The startling, perfumed style of Bécquer's Indian tale is said to have had great influence on modernismo.

This rapt scene of twilight beyond the city walls will be shattered by violence. Pulo is attacked by his elder brother and kills him, thus acquiring both his brother's kingdom and Siannah, the woman he loves, but he will be racked by guilt. The story concerns his stupendous labours to win redemption; twice almost achieving it, but each time let down by his own warm nature. We see that this everyman's passionate commitment to doing things the right way is all of a piece with the over-eagerness that defeats him. 


*

The young, sickly Bécquer had no acquaintance with India; this legend was dreamt out of deep reading in orientalist texts in French and German. 

The city that Bécquer called Kattak is now known internationally as Cuttack (Odia: Kataka). The state that he called Orisa is now transliterated as Odisha. 

Cuttack is in fact on the river Mahanadi, at the head of its delta; Bécquer invented the river Jawkior. He also invented the mountain Jabwi; there are some low hills around Cuttack but no peaks. 

What he didn't invent was the city's reputation for beauty. It is a historic city (e.g. the 10th-century Barabati fort). It is given the traditional honorific "Kataka Nagara Dhabala Tagara", which means "Cuttack, White City of Tagara". Tagara is the common and beautiful shrub Pinwheel Jasmine (Tabernaemontana divaricata).


Tagara (Tabernaemontana divaricata).

[Image source: https://www.landscapingcapecoral.net/flower-pinwheeljasmine.html .]


Tagara (Tabernaemontana divaricata).

[Image source: Wikipedia. ]


Link Road, Cuttack

[Image source: Wikipedia . Photo by Subhashish Panigrahi.]



Durga Puja Pandal in Cuttack

Barabati Fort, Cuttack

[Image source: Wikipedia . Photo by Daniel Limma.]


*

Bécquer's Leyendas in Spanish: 

https://www.vicentellop.com/TEXTOS/becquer-leyendas/leyendasbecquer.htm

Leyendas was put together after Bécquer's death and both its contents and sequence vary from one edition to another. At its core are 17 stories, but others are often added. 

Given the fame of Leyendas in the Spanish-speaking world I was astonished that I couldn't track down an English translation of "El caudillo de las manos rojas".

Most of the stories were translated by Cornelia Frances Bates and her daughter Katharine Lee Bates as Romantic Legends of Spain (1909), but they left out the two Indian stories:

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50044/pg50044-images.html

I think I had better steer Google Translate through a few more paragraphs...


IV

Night conquers; the sky is crowned with stars, and the towers of Kattak, to rival it, wear diadems of torches. Who is this chieftain who appears at the foot of its walls, at the same time that the moon rises among light clouds beyond the mountains, at whose feet the Ganges runs like an immense blue serpent with silver scales?

V

It is he. What other warrior, of those who fly like an arrow to combat and to death at the standard of Shiva, meteor of glory, with his hair adorned with the red tail-feather of the bird of the Indian gods, the gold tortoise pendant, the agate-handled dagger hanging from his yellow cashmere shawl: who but Pulo-Dheli, Rajah of Dakka, lightning-bolt of battles and brother of Tippot-Dheli, magnificent king of Orisa, lord of lords, shadow of God and son of the luminous stars?

VI

It is he: no other knows thus to lend his eyes either the melancholy glow of the morning star, or the sinister gleam of a tiger's pupil: imparting to his dark features the splendor of a serene night, or the terrible aspect of a storm on the lofty peaks of Davalaguiri. It is he; but what is he waiting for?

VII

Do you hear the leaves sigh beneath the light foot of a maiden? Do you see the ends of her diaphanous shawl and the hems of her white gown floating among the shadows? Do you perceive the fragrance that precedes her like the messenger of a genie? Wait, and you will behold her in the first ray of the solitary traveler of the night; wait, and you will meet Siannah, the betrothed of the mighty Tippot-Dheli, the lover of his brother, the maiden whom the poets of his nation compare to the smile of Bermach, which shone upon the world when it came from his hands; a heavenly smile, the first dawn of the orbs.

VIII

Pulo hears the sound of her footsteps; his face lights up like a peak touched by the first ray of the sun, and he comes out to meet her. His heart, which has not throbbed in the fire of the fight, nor in the presence of the tiger, beats violently under the hand that reaches out for him, fearing that the happiness it can no longer contain will overflow. "Pulo!" "Siannah!" they exclaim upon seeing each other, and they fall into each other's arms. Meanwhile, the Jawkior, splashing the wings of the zephyr with its waves, flees to die in the Ganges, and the Ganges to the Bay of Bengal, and the Gulf to the Ocean. Everything flees: with the waters, the hours; with the hours, happiness; with happiness, life. Everything flees to merge in the head of Shiva, whose brain is chaos, whose eyes are destruction, and whose essence is nothingness.

IX

The morning star already announces the day; the moon fades like a dissipating illusion, and dreams, those children of darkness, flee with her in fantastic groups. The two lovers still remain under the green fan of a palm tree, silent witness to their love and their vows, when a dull noise rises behind them.

Pulo turns his head, utters a shrill, light cry like that of a jackal, and springs back ten paces in a single leap, simultaneously flashing the blade of his sharp Damascus dagger.

X

What has struck terror into the soul of the brave chieftain? Are the two eyes shining in the darkness those of the striped tiger or the terrible serpent? No. Pulo fears neither the king of the forests nor the king of reptiles; those flame-breathing pupils belong to a man, and that man is his brother.

His brother, whose only love he has stolen; his brother, who has banished him from Orisa; and who, finally, has vowed his death if he ever returns to Kattak, placing his hand on the altar of his God.

XI

Siannah sees him too, feels her blood freeze in her veins, and she stands transfixed, as if Death's hand had grasped her by the hair. The two rivals gaze for a moment at each other from head to toe; they contend with their stares, and then, uttering a hoarse, savage cry, they rush at each other like two leopards vying for prey... Let us draw a veil over the crimes of our ancestors; let us draw a veil over the scenes of mourning and horror caused by the passions of those who are already in the bosom of the Great Spirit.

XII

The sun rises in the East; you would say, seeing it, that the genius of light, the conqueror of shadows, heady with pride and majesty, is launching himself in triumph on his diamond chariot, leaving behind him, like the wake of a ship, the gold dust his steeds raise on the pavement of the heavens. The waters, the forests, the birds, space, and the worlds have but one voice, and this voice intones the hymn of the day. Who does not feel their heart leap with joy at the echoes of this solemn canticle?

XIII

Only one mortal; see him there. His wide eyes are fixed with a stupefied gaze on the blood staining his hands. In vain, emerging from his immobility and seized by a terrible frenzy, he runs to wash them. He runs to the banks of the Jawkior; beneath the crystalline waves, the stains disappear; but no sooner does he withdraw his hands than the blood, steaming and red, stains them again. And he returns to the waves, and the stain reappears, until at last he exclaims in a tone of terrible despair: "Siannah! Siannah! The curse of heaven has fallen upon our heads."

Do you know that wretch, at whose feet lies a corpse and whose knees a woman embraces? He is Pulo-Dheli, king of Orisa, magnificent lord of lords, shadow of God and son of the luminous stars, through the death of his brother and predecessor...


[End of Chapter 1]


*

Ganges: Bécquer seems to locate Cuttack much closer to the Ganges and the Himalayas than it really is (in fact, it is over 400 miles to the south). 

Davalaguiri: i.e. Daulaghiri in Nepal, the world's seventh highest mountain. 

Bermach: apparently the creator-god Brahma. (But Bécquer names him "Brahma" in his other Indian tale, "La Creación".)


*

Introducing Bécquer's Leyendas:

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2014/09/gustavo-adolfo-becquer-leyendas.html .


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