Learing at the owl and pussy cat

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
    Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
    By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
    Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
    They danced by the light of the moon,
          The moon,
          The moon,
 They danced by the light of the moon.

-- "The Owl and the Pussy Cat".  Full poem »here. 

In celebration of Lear's 200th anniversary, Michael Rosen (BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth) and Roger McGough (one of the Mersey poets - the one I specifically wanted to see) paid tribute to him by having a nonsensically great time at the British Library today. Poetry is ultimately a performance art, and Rosen and McGough were virtuosos at getting the audience to laugh, chant along and fill in the blanks.

Out of the strong came forth sweetness

»via the Londonist

At Samson's wedding, he posed a riddle to his thirty Philistine groomsmen:

Out of the eater came forth meat,
Out of the strong came forth sweetness.

I hope he told them that they were supposed to guess a scene, for I could make neither head nor tail of the riddle at first.

The answer is the scene depicted on the tin of Lyle's Golden Syrup.  Fascinating.    (The rest of the story between Samson and the Philistines is however rather violent and testosterone-filled I am afraid.)



Note: I have seen and prefer a more rhyming phrasing: "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong something sweet". However, the above is what appears in Abram Lyle's bible and the King James' bible.

Ronsard

A Cassandre

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avoit déclose
Sa robe de pourpre au Soleil,
A point perdu cette vesprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée,
Et son teint au vôtre pareil.

Las ! voyez comme en peu d'espace,
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las ! las ses beautés laissé choir !
Ô vraiment marâtre Nature,
Puis qu'une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir !

Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne,
Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse :
Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.


Ode To Cassandra

Mignonne, come let us see if the rose
Which this morning opened
Her robe of crimson to the sun,
Has not already lost, at evening,
The folds of her crimson robe,
And her complexion, so like your own.

Alas, see how in such short a time,
Mignonne, she has, from above, 
Alas, Alas, let her beauty fall!
O Nature, truly cruel,
That such a flower should endure
Only from morning till evening.

Now, if you would believe me, mignonne,
While your young age is in flower
In its verdant freshness,
Pluck, pluck your youth,
Since, as with this flower, old age
Shall tarnish your beauty.

- Pierre de Ronsard, 1524-1585

Witness the sterility of translation:

Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse :
Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.

Pluck, pluck your youth,
Since, as with this flower, old age
Shall tarnish your beauty.

Pluck?! 

There are translators who attempt to inject some poetry, but it loses the meaning and musicality of cueillez, cueillez completely:

Be merry ere your beauty flit,
For length of days will tarnish it
Like roses that were loveliest.

I don't think liberties of this extent should be allowed, particularly since the last line really does not work .


This one is better but still no cueillez and the insertion of doom seems contrived:

Do take advantage of your youthful bloom:
As it did to this flower, the doom
Of age will blight your beauty.

If I had my way, I would make it mandatory for all translated poems to be published side-by-side with the original.

Deep cold water

With the »British penchant for swimming in cold water, cold requires underscoring.

To be read aloud with a very English accent

Recalling the past Saturday where I laughed so much, I recalled another laughter-filled weekend last month when Ms K and I went to see Wilde's Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville.  The dialogues are just exquisite.  This is one of them.

(To be read aloud with a very English accent.)

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Bowing.] Every one is dying to know the brilliant Mrs. Cheveley. Our attachés at Vienna write to us about nothing else.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Thank you, Sir Robert. An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship. It starts in the right manner. And I find that I know Lady Chiltern already.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Really?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Yes. She has just reminded me that we were at school together. I remember it perfectly now. She always got the good conduct prize. I have a distinct recollection of Lady Chiltern always getting the good conduct prize!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Smiling.] And what prizes did you get, Mrs. Cheveley?

MRS. CHEVELEY. My prizes came a little later on in life. I don't think any of them were for good conduct. I forget!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I am sure they were for something charming!

MRS. CHEVELEY. I don't know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it! Certainly, more women grow old nowadays through the faithfulness of their admirers than through anything else! At least that is the only way I can account for the terribly haggard look of most of your pretty women in London!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What an appalling philosophy that sounds! To attempt to classify you, Mrs. Cheveley, would be an impertinence.  But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Oh, I'm neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You prefer to be natural?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What would those modern psychological novelists, of whom we hear so much, say to such a theory as that?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Ah! the strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women . . . merely adored.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You think science cannot grapple with the problem of women?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. And women represent the irrational.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Well-dressed women do.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [With a polite bow.] I fear I could hardly agree with you there. But do sit down. And now tell me, what makes you leave your brilliant Vienna for our gloomy London - or perhaps the question is indiscreet?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Well, at any rate, may I know if it is politics or pleasure?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Politics are my only pleasure. You see nowadays it is not fashionable to flirt till one is forty, or to be romantic till one is forty-five, so we poor women who are under thirty, or say we are, have nothing open to us but politics or philanthropy. And philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures. I prefer politics. I think they are more . . . becoming!

»Full screenplay

Another lingering poem

We did not choose vs we chose not to.

《马说》

世有伯乐然后有千里马。千里马常有，而伯乐不常有；故虽有名马，只辱于奴隶人之手，骈死于槽枥之间，不以千里称也。

马之千里者，一食或尽粟一石。食马者，不知其能千里而食也；是马也，虽有千里之能，食不饱，力不足，才美不外见，且欲与常马等，不可得，安求其能千里也！

策之不以其道，食之不能尽其材，鸣之而不能通其意，执策而临之曰：“天下无马。”呜呼！其真无马邪？其真不知马也！ 

A deadly observation

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.

- Match Point (2005)

A.E.I.O.U. by Walter Smerling

For another layer of meaning to A.E.I.O.U., see »here.  (No prizes for guessing where this installation was found.)

Just so we're absolutely clear, city folks...

WE are the ducklings (from Lake Windemere).

Not sure what goslings look like. We don't go near them as they have an annoying habit of pecking at butts.

Bonjour! Je suis un jeune cygne

cyg·net (sĭg'nĭt)
n. A young swan.
Middle English cignet , from Anglo-Norman, diminutive of Old French cygne , swan , from Latin cygnus , from Greek kuknos.

Air is now cleared for the previous post!  I'd have failed both of those questions had they asked me in science class.

Which animal am I the young of?

Bonus question: What am I called?

Clever tube ads

Suffolk Festival of Music, Dance and Speech -
"Come to your senses."

Sperm bank seeking donors (apparently demand always outstrips supply) -
"This is the real banking crisis."

This is after all the city where you see book ads on tube station billboards.

Yoshimaninov

I laughed. That's a name fit for an aficionado.

It seems like he's a Japanese concert pianist who also »hosts a impressive collection of classical music videos on youtube.

Not Queen's English

US Internal Revenue Code (1986), §954(c)(6).

I checked: thru is not picked up by Microsoft spell-check.

Of course there will be great presidents again

via »New York Times

And so in the end, after scoring clients and conquering the world, this is what we become.

Here is another »endearing letter.  I wish I could see it in its original handwriting and stationery.

And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils

Scented daffodils on a bluesy day.

I just found out that daffodils is simply the common name for narcissus.

A beautiful night at the opera

That's how Mr D describes his daughters.

Brilliantly translated names

I first noticed it last May in a Hong Kong newspaper article on their top judges. Reading the (Chinese) text gave me the impression that all of the judges were local, so I was surprised to see non-Chinese faces in the photos on the facing page. Delving into the captions, I realized that it was because the foreign judges have all been given very authentic Chinese names. Superb translators they have in Hong Kong, I thought to myself.

Today. I was poring over a judgment of Lord Hoffmann when I clicked on »a wiki link of him and chanced upon his wonderfully translated Chinese name: 贺辅明. (Lord Hoffmann is one of the non-permanent judges in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.) It prompted me to look up the Chinese names of the other non-Chinese judges in Hong Kong.

These are some of my other favourites (I'll let the Lords appear first out of deference):

• Sir Anthony MASON - 梅师贤爵士
• Lord MILLETT - 苗礼治勋爵
• Lord SCOTT - 施广智勋爵
• Justice MACKINTOSH - 麦健涛法官  (Very nice, especially in Cantonese.)
• Justice ROGERS - 罗杰志法官
• Justice STONE - 石仲廉法官   
• Justice STOCK - 司徒敬法官 (Probably my top pick.  Absolutely brilliant incorporation of a double-word surname.  The Cantonese also sounds exactly like 'Stock'.)
• Mr Justice BOKHARY - 包致金法官 (This is not particularly eye-catching, but wait.)
• Mrs Justice BOKHARY - 包钟倩薇法官 (They incorporated her husband's Chinese surname in front of her maiden name - the way we do!)
• Mr CASEWELL - 祁士伟先生 
• Mr DUFTON David John - 杜大卫先生  (Note to self: Make use of both the first and the last names.)

I have often been asked to translate names of my non-Chinese friends on the spot and I have always been reluctant to do it for good reasons.  This reinforces my belief: a Chinese name should sound Chinese and have a proper meaning.

A shrimp paste and salted vegetable life

To describe a hard life, you liken it in my country to the lowest of everyday food, i.e. belachan (Malay for shrimp paste) and 咸菜 (Chinese for salted vegetables).

Hence, nasib belachan and 咸菜命 (typically pronounced as 'giam chai mya' in the Hokkien dialect as salted vegetables is common to Hokkien dishes.)

Both are delicious by the way. Ooo, I am just six weeks away from them!

Credit to the very funny Ms A for sharing her phrase.