peacefully drowsing in our chairs agreed that they were charming, and thought-provoking, although the intensity of their imagery perhaps failed to translate into English.
She ended with what she said was Bashō’s most famous haiku. First, the original Japanese:
Furuike ya
Kawazu tobikomu
Mizu no oto .
Then, a crude translation of the words alone:
Old pond—
Frog leaps in:
Water noise!
She then re-shaped it to carry the classical haiku 5/7/5 arrangement into English:
Dark, mossy old pond—
Lively frog leaps from the bank:
The sound of water .
When she bowed and sat down, the room gave a stir. I was not the only one to consider the doorway with longing—until I saw Miss Sato’s choice of expert for English literature: Lady Darley.
She was wearing white—a frock that on me would guarantee instant collision with a child and a chocolate bar. It was of a conservative cut, with loose, elbow-length sleeves, a reasonable neck-line, and a waist at the upper hip, rather than the exaggerated drooping torso that only the thinnest girls could get away with. There were more expensive dresses in the room, but none that looked it.
The countess gazed down at her notes until the shuffling stopped. “Thank you. When I was asked to speak about the glories of English literature, my first impulse was to decline the honour, in favour of someone more qualified. However, I have been thinking of late about a cousin, who was like a brother. He was killed on the Somme, eight years ago. I …” Lady Darley paused, her eyes going back to the notes until the inevitable stir of sympathy died down. “I have been remembering Edward, and how much literature meant to him. So with your permission, I should like to make a few remarks on two writers who sustained him in the trenches. I apologise that both are poets, strictly speaking, rather than one writing pure prose, but I would contend that a playwright produces prose of a sort.
“One cannot talk about English literature without mentioning William Shakespeare, and he is indeed one of my choices. The other is Matthew Arnold, a poet who captures, not a Romantic vision of England, but one in which intellect wrestles with doubt and faith.”
She spoke for a quarter of an hour, and although she kept her eyes on the pages before her for much of the time, when she looked up, it was mostly towards the side of the room where our Japanese passengers sat. I was not sure if this was good manners, or for fear that the sympathetic eyes of the English would loosen her composure.
She was no scholar, but nonetheless spoke quite competently on the freedom and dedication to the intellect in Arnold’s “Scholar Gipsy,” glancing at Miss Sato as she made note of the similarity between Arnold’s poem and the ever-wandering Bashō.
For her prose work she chose Henry V , probably because the shipboard reading-aloud group was working through that play. Here, her impromptu attempt to link her talk with Miss Sato’s was less than successful since, unlike Murasaki’s Tales of the Genji , the Henry marriage theme is little more than a tune played to the drums of war. Fortunately, she abandoned the analysis and returned to the idea of her cousin, a junior officer (and yes, how many of those had died on the Front!) who shaped his picture of being a leader of men around that one glorious prologue to action, where Henry’s fearful army is buoyed by his presence:
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him …
That every wretch, pining and pale before ,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks;
A largess universal, like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to every one ,
Thawing cold fear …
A little touch of Harry in the night .
She described a letter in which cousin Edward spoke of his keen desire to give his men even a pale imitation of Henry’s comforting touch. Then a second letter, this one from the regimental sergeant after Edward’s death, to say how good the young officer
She ended with what she said was Bashō’s most famous haiku. First, the original Japanese:
Furuike ya
Kawazu tobikomu
Mizu no oto .
Then, a crude translation of the words alone:
Old pond—
Frog leaps in:
Water noise!
She then re-shaped it to carry the classical haiku 5/7/5 arrangement into English:
Dark, mossy old pond—
Lively frog leaps from the bank:
The sound of water .
When she bowed and sat down, the room gave a stir. I was not the only one to consider the doorway with longing—until I saw Miss Sato’s choice of expert for English literature: Lady Darley.
She was wearing white—a frock that on me would guarantee instant collision with a child and a chocolate bar. It was of a conservative cut, with loose, elbow-length sleeves, a reasonable neck-line, and a waist at the upper hip, rather than the exaggerated drooping torso that only the thinnest girls could get away with. There were more expensive dresses in the room, but none that looked it.
The countess gazed down at her notes until the shuffling stopped. “Thank you. When I was asked to speak about the glories of English literature, my first impulse was to decline the honour, in favour of someone more qualified. However, I have been thinking of late about a cousin, who was like a brother. He was killed on the Somme, eight years ago. I …” Lady Darley paused, her eyes going back to the notes until the inevitable stir of sympathy died down. “I have been remembering Edward, and how much literature meant to him. So with your permission, I should like to make a few remarks on two writers who sustained him in the trenches. I apologise that both are poets, strictly speaking, rather than one writing pure prose, but I would contend that a playwright produces prose of a sort.
“One cannot talk about English literature without mentioning William Shakespeare, and he is indeed one of my choices. The other is Matthew Arnold, a poet who captures, not a Romantic vision of England, but one in which intellect wrestles with doubt and faith.”
She spoke for a quarter of an hour, and although she kept her eyes on the pages before her for much of the time, when she looked up, it was mostly towards the side of the room where our Japanese passengers sat. I was not sure if this was good manners, or for fear that the sympathetic eyes of the English would loosen her composure.
She was no scholar, but nonetheless spoke quite competently on the freedom and dedication to the intellect in Arnold’s “Scholar Gipsy,” glancing at Miss Sato as she made note of the similarity between Arnold’s poem and the ever-wandering Bashō.
For her prose work she chose Henry V , probably because the shipboard reading-aloud group was working through that play. Here, her impromptu attempt to link her talk with Miss Sato’s was less than successful since, unlike Murasaki’s Tales of the Genji , the Henry marriage theme is little more than a tune played to the drums of war. Fortunately, she abandoned the analysis and returned to the idea of her cousin, a junior officer (and yes, how many of those had died on the Front!) who shaped his picture of being a leader of men around that one glorious prologue to action, where Henry’s fearful army is buoyed by his presence:
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him …
That every wretch, pining and pale before ,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks;
A largess universal, like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to every one ,
Thawing cold fear …
A little touch of Harry in the night .
She described a letter in which cousin Edward spoke of his keen desire to give his men even a pale imitation of Henry’s comforting touch. Then a second letter, this one from the regimental sergeant after Edward’s death, to say how good the young officer
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