Complete Poems and Plays (9 page)

Quam quae contingit maribus’, dixisse, ‘voluptas.’

Illa negat; placuit quae sit sententia docti

Quaerere Tiresiae; Venus huic erat utraque nota.

Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva

Corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu

Deque viro factus, mirabile, femina septem

Egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem

Vidit et ‘est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae’,

Dixit ‘ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,

Nunc quoque vos feriam!’ percussis anguibus isdem

Forma prior rediit genetivaque venit imago.

Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa

Dicta Iovis firmat; gravius Saturnia iusto

Nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique

Iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte,

At pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam

Facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto

Scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.

221. This may not appear as exact as Sappho’s lines, but I had in mind the ‘longshore’ or ‘dory’ fisherman, who returns at nightfall.

253. V. Goldsmith, the song in
The
Vicar
of
Wakefield.

257. V.
The
Tempest,
as above.

264. The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest among Wren’s interiors. See
The
Proposed
Demolition
of
Nineteen
City
Churches:
(P. S. King & Son, Ltd.).

266. The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here. From line 292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn. V.
Götterdämmerung,
III, i: the Rhine-daughters.

279. V. Froude,
Elizabeth,
Vol. I, ch. iv, letter of De Quadra to Philip of Spain:

‘In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. (The Queen) was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the poop, when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert at last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why they should not be married if the queen pleased.’

293. Cf.
Purgatorio,
V. 133:

‘Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;

‘Siena mi fé, disfecemi Maremma.’

307. V. St. Augustine’s
Confessions:
‘to Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears.’

308. The complete text of the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (which
corresponds
in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken, will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren’s
Buddhism
in
Translation
(Harvard Oriental Series). Mr. Warren was one of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident.

309. From St. Augustine’s
Confessions
again. The collocation of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism, as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident.

In the first part of Part V three themes are employed: the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston’s book) and the present decay of eastern Europe.

357. This is
Turdus
aonalaschkae
pallasii,
the hermit-thrush which I have heard in Quebec Province. Chapman says (
Handbook
of
Birds
of
Eastern
North
America
)
‘it is most at home in secluded woodland and thickety retreats…. Its notes are not remarkable for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and exquisite modulation they are unequalled.’ Its ‘water-dripping song’ is justly celebrated.

360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton’s): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was
one
more
member
than could actually be counted.

366–76. Cf. Hermann Hesse,
Blick
ins
Chaos:
‘Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas auf dem Wege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligen Wahn am Abgrund entlang und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang. Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heilige und Seher hört sie mit Tränen.’

401. ‘Datta, dayadhvam, damyata’ (Give, sympathise, control). The fable of the meaning of the Thunder is found in the
Brihadaranyaka
—
Upanishad,
5, 1. A translation is found in Deussen’s
Sechzig
Upanishads
des
Veda,
p. 489.

407. Cf. Webster,
The
White
Devil,
V, vi:

‘… they’ll remarry

Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider

Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.’

411. Cf.
Inferno,
XXXIII, 46:

‘ed io senti chiavar l’uscio di sotto

all’ orribile torre.’

Also F. H. Bradley,
Appearance
and
Reality,
p. 306. ‘My external sensations are no less private to my self than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it…. In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.’

424. V. Weston:
From
Ritual
to
Romance;
chapter on the Fisher King.

427. V.
Purgatorio,
XXVI, 148.

‘“Ara vos prec per aquella valor

“que vos guida al som de l’escalina,

“sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor.”

Poi s’ascose nel foco che li affina.’

428. V.
Pervigilium
Veneris.
Cf. Philomela in Parts II and III.

429. V. Gerard de Nerval, Sonnet
El
Desdichado.

431. V. Kyd’s
Spanish
Tragedy.

433. Shantih. Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad. ‘The Peace which passeth understanding’ is our equivalent to this word.