A funny old fellow met up with last night,
Hell’s ugly, though hard to say why
In vital statistics, because I’d obtrude
On the way I remember my mother’s beau laid
(And yet he looked different – for he was there too,
Why, they knew, or were said to know, one another,
Though I felt it was only ad hoc bores’ rapport).
I felt it as some device for succession,
Mummy palely quiet, I took on the brunt
Of the new man’s smooth wooing; quite as if the thing
Was half-settled but waited my writ.
Not that it was smooth, no, but not inurbane,
As he talked of the country, the pictures and me,
And I answered in loud anecdotes of my father,
Addressed to the rest of the past sold up table.
Was he the conception, the ruddy disquisitant,
Of some unmet man, say, a dear heart’s employer,
Snuffling the trails of his own mink brood?
We boarded a train, without that taking centre,
He showed a new side there, as if the pretence
Required other agents; far without his depth, then
He greeted the lately known passing too late.
Some time after, I thought of the unlettered squire,
As I thought him over, or the cidrous uncle
Of that splendid shilling. I rubbed him away.
Thursday 16 December 2010
Friday 29 October 2010
For Linda Norgrove
They intended to take you to a distinct place
(from the spring of the well by the boundary mark),
Now it teaches that farness can never come near
Or infinity compass affinity’s hold.
You came back to your father’s plain balladic name
And they followed you there, crofters of sharper hills,
Bringing handfuls of honour’s dried, unclearanced earth.
Difference, not variance, had been on your mind.
But the things that did not change, too, held you in thrall,
Long before anything, or one else; longer after.
(from the spring of the well by the boundary mark),
Now it teaches that farness can never come near
Or infinity compass affinity’s hold.
You came back to your father’s plain balladic name
And they followed you there, crofters of sharper hills,
Bringing handfuls of honour’s dried, unclearanced earth.
Difference, not variance, had been on your mind.
But the things that did not change, too, held you in thrall,
Long before anything, or one else; longer after.
Wednesday 13 October 2010
Contact
What stray regret, or accidental mood
Could have been interrupted, with their night?
How is it we can stay sure, doing wrong,
Why and when it will happen; for how long
Were they left then that charily cold light?
Moved to resist the electronic gong
I turned it over and again, my song,
Particularity condensed to crude;
Touching the cell of ether with small right
Feels just on the consoling side of lewd.
Could have been interrupted, with their night?
How is it we can stay sure, doing wrong,
Why and when it will happen; for how long
Were they left then that charily cold light?
Moved to resist the electronic gong
I turned it over and again, my song,
Particularity condensed to crude;
Touching the cell of ether with small right
Feels just on the consoling side of lewd.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
Flora MacDonald to Dr. Johnson, 1773
Nay, Doctor, it was not for the prompting of the swords or for the jostling of the bayonets that I took it to mind to do it; nor for the men, whether auld or bare bairns, who lay cooling their veins on the heather. Neither was there in me or mine hope of petticoats or favours when we took the young man through.
You have paid me many compliments, Doctor, as to call me a woman of soft features, of gentle manners, of, God save you, an elegant presence; but such as these must wither be they not housed in a kind soul.
I was no heedless overblown girl-child when I met Prince Charles; I was a grown woman a cast above twenty and some among my kin had said that I would cost them no dower but was likely to spare them no feeding in my age. It was a strange e’en then, when they came chieftain, prince, and all from Dunvegan a-pleading to my skirts.
I looked over the young gentleman and I thought what some had said of him; that he was Italian and no blood of ours by birth, of the Romish persuasion, that he had left our friends and our cousins to suffer in a cold pass. I heard alike the beseeching of Kingsburgh, that the slight laddie was all we had of hope.
I thought of the gold promised on warrants, and the chill eyes of the country ministers, and as I held out my hand to Charlie’s kiss I thought then, yon boy will look more handsome in ain of my auld frocks than upon the gibbets of Butcher Cumberland.
You have paid me many compliments, Doctor, as to call me a woman of soft features, of gentle manners, of, God save you, an elegant presence; but such as these must wither be they not housed in a kind soul.
I was no heedless overblown girl-child when I met Prince Charles; I was a grown woman a cast above twenty and some among my kin had said that I would cost them no dower but was likely to spare them no feeding in my age. It was a strange e’en then, when they came chieftain, prince, and all from Dunvegan a-pleading to my skirts.
I looked over the young gentleman and I thought what some had said of him; that he was Italian and no blood of ours by birth, of the Romish persuasion, that he had left our friends and our cousins to suffer in a cold pass. I heard alike the beseeching of Kingsburgh, that the slight laddie was all we had of hope.
I thought of the gold promised on warrants, and the chill eyes of the country ministers, and as I held out my hand to Charlie’s kiss I thought then, yon boy will look more handsome in ain of my auld frocks than upon the gibbets of Butcher Cumberland.
Monday 13 September 2010
'The Children of Lir'
It teetered there, snagged by its strap,
Jacob's rucksack, and in it, all we could remember,
Was on the rocks, weren't it now. Therein the golden
Defile of yellow pallades; oh, there where
They lived and they could last, the ragged staves
Each at the two others, striped bannering limbs -
All this, as I say, to the sea for a kiss;
It was time to get going,
I thought; disembark,
I walked down as comely a way as the stripcourse,
Island, to islet, in through the lagoon,
Thinking about pinkness was laid in that passing
Hard flowers and movingly fouled up pink stamps.
And I took it across both the head and my shoulder,
Knew the new felt lightness of the underwhelmed.
So I stepped to the boat, but back into the water.
Because such are times when instances can't matter
The rucksack, it can haver up that early part
But I must have dropped it; at worst in the wetness.
What alters, when I had forgotten it floats?
I had become busied
In cold anxious hands
If not malign vicious
If waiting then sure
A brocade of more or less memorable faces
To people the spaces
On Celticdom's floor.
Leaning to the one seeming most certain kind,
Perhaps as defined
Or expressible more
Smiling on yellow lanks, and sighs, I signed.
The sack lacking its rifice, the vow was no law
To the will of a child.
When they went aside all
As if asking her seal
Why not change my mind?
When the word is the mould of a thing so much smaller
Than I am, than they were, white where they could breathe
And she too engaged to the prince of the fishes
Well, talk about telling thin things from mere fingers.
Jacob's rucksack, and in it, all we could remember,
Was on the rocks, weren't it now. Therein the golden
Defile of yellow pallades; oh, there where
They lived and they could last, the ragged staves
Each at the two others, striped bannering limbs -
All this, as I say, to the sea for a kiss;
It was time to get going,
I thought; disembark,
I walked down as comely a way as the stripcourse,
Island, to islet, in through the lagoon,
Thinking about pinkness was laid in that passing
Hard flowers and movingly fouled up pink stamps.
And I took it across both the head and my shoulder,
Knew the new felt lightness of the underwhelmed.
So I stepped to the boat, but back into the water.
Because such are times when instances can't matter
The rucksack, it can haver up that early part
But I must have dropped it; at worst in the wetness.
What alters, when I had forgotten it floats?
I had become busied
In cold anxious hands
If not malign vicious
If waiting then sure
A brocade of more or less memorable faces
To people the spaces
On Celticdom's floor.
Leaning to the one seeming most certain kind,
Perhaps as defined
Or expressible more
Smiling on yellow lanks, and sighs, I signed.
The sack lacking its rifice, the vow was no law
To the will of a child.
When they went aside all
As if asking her seal
Why not change my mind?
When the word is the mould of a thing so much smaller
Than I am, than they were, white where they could breathe
And she too engaged to the prince of the fishes
Well, talk about telling thin things from mere fingers.
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Captain Arcadia episode 2 part 1
Episode 2 – ‘Courting Controversy’
1576
Dublin Castle
Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, is on his deathbed…
(A tower room overlooking the sea. Essex lies not in a splendid four-poster bed, but upon a large straw pallet. He is covered by a rich, deep red samite drapery, so some luxury is maintained. Beside him waits an anxious manservant.)
ESSEX: Gilbert…
(The manservant cranes nearer.)
I want you to fetch the children…and a witness…you understand?...someone who can write, now, hurry…
(The manservant nods and tears off.)
(Brief cut to Penelope Devereux and Philip Sidney in another tower’s window seat. She is weeping. His hand is on her shoulder.)
(Cut to the manservant, Gilbert, stopping a middle-aged, stern, plainly dressed man in a castle corridor. A closer glance reveals him to be wearing several rich gold rings.)
MANSERVANT: Beggin’ yer pardon, yer honour, his Lordship desires yer presence. It is very close now…I believe he will have to make a decision about the young lady and Master Sidney…
WALSINGHAM: Will he now. Well, I’ll be along directly.
(Gilbert hurries off to fetch the young couple. Sir Francis Walsingham looks after him leaving, then leans against the wall, looking down at his hands, remembering something.)
VOICEOVER of LORD BURGHLEY: Walsingham. You will stop young Sidney marrying the Devereux girl. Whatever it takes.
VOICEOVER of WALSINGHAM: Understood, my lord…
(Back to the Earl’s bed-room. Sidney and Stella stand at the foot of the bed, a pace apart. Walsingham enters cautiously from a door at the right of the bed.)
ESSEX: Ah. Good. Walsingham. A…reliable clerk…
(Walsingham looks quietly sour.)
I have discussed this matter hitherto, Sidney, with the honoured Lord Deputy, your father…between us, well…
(Sidney seems to be mouthing something in anticipation.)
…there were some initial confusion about the dowry…
(Sidney is clenching his fists.)
…about remainder to my Earldom…
(Stella too looks frustrated.)
…your prospects, Master Sidney, and so on…you will understand if I proceeded with…
(Apparently unconsciously, Sidney slams down his foot. Essex sees the movement, frowns, brindles, then starts laughing hoarsely. The laugh breaks into coughing and both young people climb onto the pallet in consternation. Essex has not yet said enough to constitute consent…if he were to die now…
…Essex stretches out his hand and takes Sidney’s, joining it to Stella’s. Then he suddenly drops his grip and collapses back.)
STELLA: He cannot be…
WALSINGHAM: He is dead, most certainly. I know the expression well.
SIDNEY: Sir Francis…no word was spoken specifically, no statement was taken…but surely the intention was clear? You saw the action; he joined our hands; is that not enough?
(They watch his impassive face.)
WALSINGHAM: Oh…well…I should say…
…more than enough.
(The tension breaks and the lovers embrace. Walsingham regards them with a detached smile.)
Master Sidney, Lady Penelope, I shall be delighted to be the first to transmit news of your betrothal to the court.
1576
Dublin Castle
Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, is on his deathbed…
(A tower room overlooking the sea. Essex lies not in a splendid four-poster bed, but upon a large straw pallet. He is covered by a rich, deep red samite drapery, so some luxury is maintained. Beside him waits an anxious manservant.)
ESSEX: Gilbert…
(The manservant cranes nearer.)
I want you to fetch the children…and a witness…you understand?...someone who can write, now, hurry…
(The manservant nods and tears off.)
(Brief cut to Penelope Devereux and Philip Sidney in another tower’s window seat. She is weeping. His hand is on her shoulder.)
(Cut to the manservant, Gilbert, stopping a middle-aged, stern, plainly dressed man in a castle corridor. A closer glance reveals him to be wearing several rich gold rings.)
MANSERVANT: Beggin’ yer pardon, yer honour, his Lordship desires yer presence. It is very close now…I believe he will have to make a decision about the young lady and Master Sidney…
WALSINGHAM: Will he now. Well, I’ll be along directly.
(Gilbert hurries off to fetch the young couple. Sir Francis Walsingham looks after him leaving, then leans against the wall, looking down at his hands, remembering something.)
VOICEOVER of LORD BURGHLEY: Walsingham. You will stop young Sidney marrying the Devereux girl. Whatever it takes.
VOICEOVER of WALSINGHAM: Understood, my lord…
(Back to the Earl’s bed-room. Sidney and Stella stand at the foot of the bed, a pace apart. Walsingham enters cautiously from a door at the right of the bed.)
ESSEX: Ah. Good. Walsingham. A…reliable clerk…
(Walsingham looks quietly sour.)
I have discussed this matter hitherto, Sidney, with the honoured Lord Deputy, your father…between us, well…
(Sidney seems to be mouthing something in anticipation.)
…there were some initial confusion about the dowry…
(Sidney is clenching his fists.)
…about remainder to my Earldom…
(Stella too looks frustrated.)
…your prospects, Master Sidney, and so on…you will understand if I proceeded with…
(Apparently unconsciously, Sidney slams down his foot. Essex sees the movement, frowns, brindles, then starts laughing hoarsely. The laugh breaks into coughing and both young people climb onto the pallet in consternation. Essex has not yet said enough to constitute consent…if he were to die now…
…Essex stretches out his hand and takes Sidney’s, joining it to Stella’s. Then he suddenly drops his grip and collapses back.)
STELLA: He cannot be…
WALSINGHAM: He is dead, most certainly. I know the expression well.
SIDNEY: Sir Francis…no word was spoken specifically, no statement was taken…but surely the intention was clear? You saw the action; he joined our hands; is that not enough?
(They watch his impassive face.)
WALSINGHAM: Oh…well…I should say…
…more than enough.
(The tension breaks and the lovers embrace. Walsingham regards them with a detached smile.)
Master Sidney, Lady Penelope, I shall be delighted to be the first to transmit news of your betrothal to the court.
Monday 16 August 2010
for ease of reading: all episode 1 of 'Captain Arcadia'
CAPTAIN ARCADIA
Episode 1 – ‘Gap Year’
Mainz, 1572
(A shot of the cathedral. A bell tolling. A view of the city progressing from grand to seedy. A Low Tavern. Laughter and oaths in German. A red robe splashed with mud. Shot up to the shrewd face of a Roman Catholic prelate, in middle age. He is counting some gold coins as he crosses the threshold. A man in brown shouts.)
DRINKER: Lash up your purses, lads! Herr Kardinal is here…
CARDINAL: (smiling charmingly) I’m not playing tonight Hermann. I have a duty to attend to.
DRINKER: Duty? And this duty’s name…is it Gertrude?
(Shot of a repelled looking bar wench taking a step back, uproarious laughter.)
CARDINAL: Not tonight. Tell me, is the Englishman still here?
DRINKER: Herr Norton? Not likely, your Eminence. You were foolish to be so generous about that account!
SECOND DRINKER: The heretic bastard will be in Cologne by now.
CARDINAL: Cologne? I think that unlikely. Hey, Herr Albrecht, give my boys a drink. Cologne? No, I’m a spiritual gentleman, Liutpold, and my judgement is that by now…
(A hitherto silent man in a green tunic slams a knife in the table.)
MURDEROUS GOON: He’ll be in Hell, Herr Kardinal!
(Shot of a very, very exhausted man, at a roadside, pausing for breath. A flung stone smacks him in the back of the neck and he falls. Three men in green tunics surround him, pinning him to the ground. One pulls a knife.)
KILLER 1: Mistah Norton. No one defaults on Herr Kardinal, do you understand?
KILLER 2: Not without inconvenience, ja?
(Sound of hooves. The three functionaries cluster together suspiciously.)
KILLER 2: Looks like a real gentleman.
(The third killer, with the knife, laughs. We cut to the approaching rider, a young man on a white horse. Should be absolutely archetypal)
SIDNEY: Afternoon, sirs. My mount is tiring; are any of you carrying water?
(Caught in the midst of dubiety, the killers are silent and awkward.)
Come on. My German may be imperfect, but…
(The second killer pulls a pistol and shoots the white horse dead. Sidney sees the action, alights in time, elegantly, smashes the third killer out cold, takes the knife, and stabs the second killer dead through the back of the neck to the gorge. The first man runs for it. The horse aside, the killers have failed to kill anyone.)
NORTON: (gasping) Master Philip!
SIDNEY: What have we here? Lord Jesus, aren’t you the footman mother had dismissed from Penshurst for gambling? What the devil are you doing here?
NORTON: Still gambling, Master Philip.
Rotterdam, some months later
(A bustling and mercantile thoroughfare, through which an old man in a long, black, fur-lined gown and a faintly disdainful looking, fashionably dressed young nobleman are winding their way.)
ERASMUS: Is my fair city less than to your liking, Mr Greville?
GREVILLE: The clouds upon my thoughts are glum enough already without being augmented by the…stench of moneychangers.
ERASMUS: You are a young man of uncompromising disposition, I see. What is that worries you so? The grave state of decrepitude in which modern learning self-evidently finds herself?
GREVILLE: My troubles are of a personal nature, Erasmus.
ERASMUS: Aha! A love affair.
GREVILLE: No, no. If you must know, it’s about my friend Philip Sidney…
ERASMUS: Ah yes, I remember him, a most accomplished and promising young gentleman. A scholar of Oxford, Christ Church, I believe? Is his mother not one of the Count of Leicester’s sisters?
GREVILLE: The point is, for months he’s been missing, no sign of him anywhere, and I received disturbing word from…well, from an unreliable source, but…
(Loud commotion and shouts of “Thief, thief!” A nearby stall is in utter commotion. A pale young man dressed in black, wearing a flashy opal ring, is trying to extricate himself from a particularly angry knot of people with a red faced burgher at its centre.)
MARLOWE: I hold a commission from, from, the con- con- sistory court at Rh-Rh-Rheims, I am a, a theological scholar, a scholar and a…
BURGHER: A red-handed thief! That’s my best opal, you degenerate, on order to the Duchess of Brabant, went missing four days back…
GREVILLE: What an extraordinary chance. That’s him, Erasmus, the man who said he might have bad news about Philip.
ERASMUS: Allow me to sort out this unfortunate situation. My good man, (he lays a restraining hand on the angry burgher’s shoulder) you have perhaps heard of my repute. I am Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam…
(The burgher punches Erasmus in the face and the sage falls over. Marlowe has gripped hold of Greville.)
MARLOWE: Ey, the old man’ll be just fine. Scram now, and we’ll talk about your friend. I know a nice safe ‘stablishment. Come on.
(They bolt away down an alley.)
(The camera follows them bolting down many side streets. At some point they rush past a shabbily dressed man in a wide-brimmed hat. He raises his head to look at them; it is Norton. He watches them pass, then sets off back the way he had come. Cut to an Unsavoury Boarding House, Marlowe and Greville entering.)
MARLOWE: (to landlady) Good day, Frau Geritzoon. I’ve brought a friend.
LANDLADY: He looks a better class than your usual run of dodgy Jesuits and thievin’ rentboys, Kit.
MARLOWE: I’m sure he appreciates the compliment, Frau Geritzoon. Now if I were you I’d get right down to the jewellers on Wilhelmstrasse.
LANDLADY: What you nattering about? I don’t need bawbies at my age.
MARLOWE: Mm, well, I think you’ll find yer man Desiderius in a bit of a fix.
LANDLADY: What? Dezzy’s got ‘imself in trouble again? Well, Kit Marlowe, I’m moving but if I find you’re at the bottom of this one… (She bustles out.)
GREVILLE: (astonished) ‘Dezzy’? Frau Geritzoon? That woman...Erasmus…
MARLOWE: Has been secretly married for decades, yeah. Now, Master Greville, just where were we?
GREVILLE: You’re the one who should be answering questions, you depraved little fop. You leant over to me back in the tavern, muttered “Sidney” and put your thumbs down. Are you saying it’s all up with Philip, and what is your information, exactly?
MARLOWE: (off hand) Jus’ this.
(He moves to a corner of the room with a battered travelling chest in it and kicks the unlocked trunk open, Greville craning after him.)
Don’ stand there lordling, light a taper.
GREVILLE: Show some damned respect.
MARLOWE: Do as I say.
(GREVILLE, white and sweaty with anger and trepidation, does indeed light a taper as Marlowe picks up a large object from the box. It comes under the light – a mud-splattered, once elegant saddle, with a coat of arms on it.)
GREVILLE: Christ save me! The Penshurst arms, Sidney’s blazon!
MARLOWE: Picked off the corpse of a horse fortnight back. Acquired it for a pound. Wouldn’t mind some remuner…
GREVILLE: Like hell it was a pound, you slimy bastard.
(He is very angry and pins Marlowe in a grip against the wall, letting the taper go fall. We see an unknown boot come down on it.)
OFFSTAGE HUSKILY FEMALE VOICE: Steady, boys. You could start a fire like that.
(Flash to the newcomer. Dressed in young man’s garments with a wide-brimmed riding hat exactly like the one Norton was wearing earlier is a tall, light haired young woman with dark dark eyes and the evident lineaments of incredibly fabulous breasts. Penelope Deveureux – Stella – has arrived.)
(We cut to a ship leaving the docks of Rotterdam, and the camera follows a candle-light at one window in the bridge. Within this cabin, small but comfortably appointed, Norton, dressed only in a long dirty white shirt, slumps on a stool. Sidney stands looking out to sea, his back to his servant.)
NORTON: I still can’t believe she let me be took advantage of like that.
(Sidney smiles mirthlessly but offers no comment.)
NORTON: I mean, master Philip, I’ve seen my fair share, I can handle myself, you know I can, I mean to say, how old must this little leddy have been?
(Sidney turns, holding a silver bracelet towards the lone candle.)
SIDNEY: It is a strange kind of lady robber who steals only rags but leaves valuable trinkets in her wake, Norton.
NORTON: Oh, she dropped it whilst she was changing, accident that was, sure as winking. I know these women, master Philip, in debt, need to get away, so they do anything to get into men’s clothes. She’s be livid she dropped the bauble while she were at it. A harlot’s trick.
(Sidney draws a dagger and places it at Norton’s throat, while with his other hand he dangles the bracelet before the servant’s face.)
SIDNEY: That girl was not a harlot, fool. Don’t you know this ensign?
NORTON: Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but it’s been long enough since I were in England, and even when my stay were regular like, I didn’t spent it in overmuch study o’ books o’ heraldry.
(Sidney switches the dagger around and raps Norton with the hilt.)
SIDNEY: Essex, idiot, Essex! This woman was wearing a silver bracelet enscribed with the arms of Devereux.
NORTON: So she were the Earl of Essex’s fancy-girl, then?
SIDNEY: Once again, Norton, I am reminded that you serve me because of chance rather than merit. This is obviously a piece of baptismal jewellery, a christening-ring. (He sighs.) Describe her again.
NORTON: Didn’t see much of her, she came at me from behind and when she left she was kind of covered up in the best o’ my wardrobe. (Pause) But yeah, she seemed kinda pretty good-looking, far as a man could see, lots of yellow hair, nice duckies…
(Sidney places the blade at Norton’s throat again.)
SIDNEY: Eyes?
NORTON: (squawking out in panic) Black!
(pause)
Or as close to it as a man could…
(Sidney ignores Norton’s trailing sentence, looks out over the sea and bawls a name.)
SIDNEY: STEEEELLLLLLLLLLLAAAAA!
(Back in Frau Geritzoon’s lodging house. Stella is now in a white dress of simple but costly material, drinking warm sack from a wooden tumbler at a table, and weaving a needle through a piece of yarn; Greville and Marlowe sit at its other ends, eying her suspiciously.)
GREVILLE: What cause should we have, I ask again, to believe a word of your story, mistress? Certainly your English is decent, but the same can hardly be said of your habit…or...by your own account…your conduct.
MARLOWE: An Earl’s daughter of England dressing up tranny-like after robbing a manservant? Have things got that more exciting at home since I left Cambridge?
STELLA: I care nothing for your account, sirrah. I address myself solely to Master Greville. Now, Fulke dear, is this not growing ridiculous?
GREVILLE: (spluttering) What…
STELLA: We have seen each other as bare children, in the gardens of Hampton-Court. Am I then so changed?
GREVILLE: If what you say is true…immeasurably, yes. This is scandalous behaviour, madam. Quite outrage…
MARLOWE: Lemme see the letter again. (He snatches for a bit of parchment over which all three have apparently been pooring.)
‘My well-beloved W., Tell Burghley I died outside Mainz.’
Well, forgive me for spelling out the obvious, but your friend Sidney does not want to be found. Faking and broadcasting one’s own death is, well, an extreme measure…
GREVILLE: (rising) Marlowe, if you do not fall silent and remember your station there will be nothing faked about your death. (He draws his dagger.)
MARLOWE: Time for me to start flashing things about too, right? (He leaps up and produces not a weapon but a tightly furled slip of paper, which he hands coldly.)
GREVILLE: A letter of service and warrantage from Sir Francis Walsingham…
MARLOWE: Yeah, yeah, I’m a spy, an informer, an eye of the bloody government, okay. Don’t judge me Master Greville; they offer very reasonable travel expenses and the Cambridge degree is complementary…anyway. Something tells me your bloke wants the likes of me to think he’s dead. Until Penny here turned up, that little ploy had succeeded…
(Stella leaps up and pricks Marlowe in the neck with her needle. He collapses.)
STELLA: If Philip wants to travel unobserved by the Queen’s council, I intend to help him to do so.
GREVILLE: Did you kill him?
STELLA: I hadn’t the heart; just a sleeping-philtre. Tie him up tight and we’ll take him with us.
GREVILLE: Where are we going, my lady?
STELLA: After Philip, of course.
Venice, the Doge’s Palace.
(Through the state windows we see the figure of the Cardinal from earlier, gazing beadily out over the canal. Behind him are several Venetian counsellors in black robes, and a couple of men gorgeously dressed in fashionable costumes of the English court.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: Eduardo, lord Windsor. Sir Ricardo Shelley. You are aware why you have been summoned, no?
SHELLEY: Of course there is the matter of the outstanding sum, Signor Contarini; and we promise…
CARDINAL: You promise! You promise! You English do nothing but promise. (He laughs, then returns to surveying the window.)
SECOND COUNSELLOR: My…lord…Windsor…sir…all we ask is a reasonable attitude. You know what to do when your…shall I say, your friend, arrives?
WINDSOR: All is in readiness, Signor Foscaro.
FIRST COUNSELLOR: Are you sure Master Sidney trusts you?
WINDSOR: Absolutely. We were at Oxford together.
SECOND COUNSELLOR: Well then, my lord Cardinale, we need not worry. (Turning to a third counsellor) Angelo! Tell the people at your palace to make a bed…prepared, for the young English gentleman…
(Cut to Sidney and Norton, in a gondola, progressing down the Grand Canal.)
NORTON: The greatest city in the world!
SIDNEY: I think not. The most beautiful, maybe.
NORTON: Where are we going, Master Philip? What are we doing.
SIDNEY: Waiting.
(A gun sounds.)
SIDNEY: (to the gondolier) Now take us to the Arsenale.
(Cut to Windsor and Shelley, surrounded by suspicious looking Venetian guards, waiting near the arsenal.)
SHELLEY: Is that him?
WINDSOR: I think so. He’s looking pretty shabby.
SHELLEY: Let’s go.
(We see the four men, Norton hanging back, converging, now on foot, towards the centre of a bridge.)
SIDNEY: Edward! It’s been some time.
WINDSOR: Welcome to Venice, Philip.
SHELLEY: Master Sidney. I am glad to meet you. I trust here you will find the calm you seek.
(A traghetto, a flat-bottomed boat that ferries passengers horizontally across canals, is followed, letting off three masked figures, two men dressed as harlequins, and a blonde, heavily powdered, masked woman…familiar looking…)
GREVILLE: How long must we keep this stupid game in play?
MARLOWE: Ah, Fulke, dontcha appreciate my hand with the costumes?
STELLA: Quiet, Marlowe. Remember the deal – if you cross us, you get the canal.
GREVILLE: Look! It’s them!
(We pan out. The three pursuers are less than a hundred yards behind their oblivious quarry.)
With…
STELLA: Is something troubling you, Master Greville?
GREVILLE: You could say that. Lord Windsor and Sir Richard Shelley! Philip is consorting with the most notorious Catholic exiles in the English nobility! What can he be up to?
MARLOWE: Just you stay quiet, lording, and we might yet find out.
(Cut to the dining room of Palazzo Foscari. A Counsellor, Angelo Foscaro, the English exiles and Sidney are sitting at ease upon several divans.)
COUNSELLOR: Well, you boys must have a lot to talk about from England; I shall bid you good evening. (He stands, smiling, and withdraws.)
WINDSOR: At last. I thought the old bore would never shut up about his panettone. So, Philip, when did you last receive word from your father?
SIDNEY: Over…three months ago. Nor was it news of the kind to bring me any happiness.
SHELLEY: Really, Master Sidney? But we hear that the country is quiet at last, with no small thanks to your father’s policy.
SIDNEY: It is not his policy that causes trouble; the Desmonds have been peaceful, the wild Irish are calm…but…
SHELLEY: The English lords in the pale?
(A silence falls.)
They still will not pay their taxes to the Lord Deputy, your father?
SIDNEY: They refuse him a penny, Sir Richard, and he cannot long pay his soldiers out of his own pocket. We Sidneys have never relied overmuch on riches.
WINDSOR: And never been too rich either, eh? I know the feeling. If you knew the tune of my obligations… (He starts laughing in a slightly forced manner.)
SHELLEY: Cut to the chase, my lord Windsor; lay our proposition before Master Sidney.
WINDSOR: Philip…
…how would you like to see your father wear a golden crown?
(Pause. Close up on Sidney’s face.)
SIDNEY: Go on…
(Cut to the corridor at the Palazzo Foscari’s entrance. Two servants are in reach of the door when it is rapped on heavily.)
SERVANT 1: Alright, alright! Relax! Who are you making such a racket?
MARLOWE: (offstage) Harlequins, harlequins for Councillor Foscaro! We claim the right of the Carnivale! If your master is a nobleman and not a miser, you will let us in…
SERVANT 1: Very well, calm down. (To his fellow servant) Fetch Giustiniano and the other guards, in case there’s any larceny. We don’t want funny business in front of the English visitors.
SERVANT 2: Understood. (He exits.)
(Servant 1 opens the door and is immediately knocked unconscious by a blackjack. Brief cut to Marlowe’s triumphant, grinning Harlequin painted face.)
(Back to the English gentlemen in the dining-room.)
SIDNEY: So, if I understand you – you want me to advance your expenses, and then…
SHELLEY: Then the Sidneys will be Kings of Ireland.
WINDSOR: The money will be invested in a galley of expert adventurers, lying at anchor now in Venice. We will carry soldiers and munitions, and communicate with the honoured Deputy, your father, immediately upon landing. The wild Irish are ready to muster, and the mean-spirited English lords shall pay…
SIDNEY: With death?
WINDSOR: I don’t see why not.
SHELLEY: Most certainly.
SIDNEY: (narrowing his eyes, looking at them sidelong) Who will be first to the scaffold…my friends?
(The other two start laughing.)
SHELLEY: Well, that’s easy.
WINDSOR: The principal rogue must go down, of course.
SHELLEY: That heretic scoundrel…
WINDSOR AND SHELLEY: The Earl of Essex!
(Sidney nods with apparent lack of concern. There is a wild female shriek behind the curtains, which startles all three men, and a crash as a woman sags to the floor. First to recover his presence of mind in the confusion, Sidney draws his sword and seizes the back of Shelley’s neck, holding the blade to his throat.)
SIDNEY: Sir Richard Shelley, you are an honourless, spendthrift, forsworn, degenerate traitor, and I will see you dead before I allow you to defame Penelope’s father!
(Windsor snarls and draws, aiming for Sidney’s undefended side. There is another stirring in the curtains and Greville, still attired as a Harlequin, puts a dagger through Windsor’s leg.)
GREVILLE: Not so fast, my lord.
(Windsor collapses. The recumbent female form, the powdered and masked Penelope, rises up from her faint, lifting her vizard…)
STELLA: Master Sidney. You are a far better man than I took you for. I truly thought you would let them arrange my father’s murder.
SIDNEY: (coldly) Then, Lady Penelope, you understand…nothing…of me.
(In his intense concentration upon her he has neglected to keep a secure hold on Shelley, who draws a dagger with a free hand and spins it towards Sidney’s back. Marlowe now emerges, making use of his slight, short frame to whack a fist into Shelley’s groin. Shelley falls back groaning atrociously.)
MARLOWE: Old Deptford trick. Were you wanting to see the Carnival, Master Sidney, or shall we be going, this time?
SIDNEY: I don’t know you from Satan, little man. What are you, some kind of poet?
MARLOWE: Takes one to know one.
(Cut to the central dungeon in the Doge’s Prison. Norton is chained to a stone chair. Watching him are two ranks of robed, hatted Counsellors, led by their Doge, Alvise Mocenigo. Among the Counsellors are Shelley and, leaning on a crutch and bandaged, Windsor.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: This man was detained after Master Sidney’s flight with these…harlequins. Under…examination…
(Close view of Norton, who is sweating and weeping, looking weak, drawn.)
…he revealed his name as Norton.
(Among the Counsellors a flash of red in the darkness leads us to the Cardinal, who raises an eyebrow.)
SHELLEY: That is young Sidney’s manservant.
WINDSOR: Yes. A fellow of no account. You might as well let him go free, if you cannot catch the others.
SECOND COUNSELLOR: I think not, my lord Windsor. Signor cardinale, explain the situation.
(The Cardinal stands.)
CARDINAL: I understand Venice intends to maintain its good relations with the Holy See?
(There is some murmuring, but an emphatic nod from the Doge.)
CARDINAL: Then give me the servant. He is in my debt by the value of two thousand ducats.
(Brief discussion among the Counsellors.)
DOGE: Of course. Here in Venice, we take debts very seriously.
(Close up on Shelley and Windsor. They look at each other uncomfortably. Hands are laid on their shoulders.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: (shouting) The twenty thousand ducats! Where are they?
WINDSOR: Signor Contarini…
SHELLEY: They are, invested in…
DOGE: They are invested in my prisons, and I shall send you there to collect their dividends.
(Laughter as the English Catholics are chained and led off, and Norton, still fettered, marched off with the Cardinal and his guards.)
End of episode
Episode 1 – ‘Gap Year’
Mainz, 1572
(A shot of the cathedral. A bell tolling. A view of the city progressing from grand to seedy. A Low Tavern. Laughter and oaths in German. A red robe splashed with mud. Shot up to the shrewd face of a Roman Catholic prelate, in middle age. He is counting some gold coins as he crosses the threshold. A man in brown shouts.)
DRINKER: Lash up your purses, lads! Herr Kardinal is here…
CARDINAL: (smiling charmingly) I’m not playing tonight Hermann. I have a duty to attend to.
DRINKER: Duty? And this duty’s name…is it Gertrude?
(Shot of a repelled looking bar wench taking a step back, uproarious laughter.)
CARDINAL: Not tonight. Tell me, is the Englishman still here?
DRINKER: Herr Norton? Not likely, your Eminence. You were foolish to be so generous about that account!
SECOND DRINKER: The heretic bastard will be in Cologne by now.
CARDINAL: Cologne? I think that unlikely. Hey, Herr Albrecht, give my boys a drink. Cologne? No, I’m a spiritual gentleman, Liutpold, and my judgement is that by now…
(A hitherto silent man in a green tunic slams a knife in the table.)
MURDEROUS GOON: He’ll be in Hell, Herr Kardinal!
(Shot of a very, very exhausted man, at a roadside, pausing for breath. A flung stone smacks him in the back of the neck and he falls. Three men in green tunics surround him, pinning him to the ground. One pulls a knife.)
KILLER 1: Mistah Norton. No one defaults on Herr Kardinal, do you understand?
KILLER 2: Not without inconvenience, ja?
(Sound of hooves. The three functionaries cluster together suspiciously.)
KILLER 2: Looks like a real gentleman.
(The third killer, with the knife, laughs. We cut to the approaching rider, a young man on a white horse. Should be absolutely archetypal)
SIDNEY: Afternoon, sirs. My mount is tiring; are any of you carrying water?
(Caught in the midst of dubiety, the killers are silent and awkward.)
Come on. My German may be imperfect, but…
(The second killer pulls a pistol and shoots the white horse dead. Sidney sees the action, alights in time, elegantly, smashes the third killer out cold, takes the knife, and stabs the second killer dead through the back of the neck to the gorge. The first man runs for it. The horse aside, the killers have failed to kill anyone.)
NORTON: (gasping) Master Philip!
SIDNEY: What have we here? Lord Jesus, aren’t you the footman mother had dismissed from Penshurst for gambling? What the devil are you doing here?
NORTON: Still gambling, Master Philip.
Rotterdam, some months later
(A bustling and mercantile thoroughfare, through which an old man in a long, black, fur-lined gown and a faintly disdainful looking, fashionably dressed young nobleman are winding their way.)
ERASMUS: Is my fair city less than to your liking, Mr Greville?
GREVILLE: The clouds upon my thoughts are glum enough already without being augmented by the…stench of moneychangers.
ERASMUS: You are a young man of uncompromising disposition, I see. What is that worries you so? The grave state of decrepitude in which modern learning self-evidently finds herself?
GREVILLE: My troubles are of a personal nature, Erasmus.
ERASMUS: Aha! A love affair.
GREVILLE: No, no. If you must know, it’s about my friend Philip Sidney…
ERASMUS: Ah yes, I remember him, a most accomplished and promising young gentleman. A scholar of Oxford, Christ Church, I believe? Is his mother not one of the Count of Leicester’s sisters?
GREVILLE: The point is, for months he’s been missing, no sign of him anywhere, and I received disturbing word from…well, from an unreliable source, but…
(Loud commotion and shouts of “Thief, thief!” A nearby stall is in utter commotion. A pale young man dressed in black, wearing a flashy opal ring, is trying to extricate himself from a particularly angry knot of people with a red faced burgher at its centre.)
MARLOWE: I hold a commission from, from, the con- con- sistory court at Rh-Rh-Rheims, I am a, a theological scholar, a scholar and a…
BURGHER: A red-handed thief! That’s my best opal, you degenerate, on order to the Duchess of Brabant, went missing four days back…
GREVILLE: What an extraordinary chance. That’s him, Erasmus, the man who said he might have bad news about Philip.
ERASMUS: Allow me to sort out this unfortunate situation. My good man, (he lays a restraining hand on the angry burgher’s shoulder) you have perhaps heard of my repute. I am Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam…
(The burgher punches Erasmus in the face and the sage falls over. Marlowe has gripped hold of Greville.)
MARLOWE: Ey, the old man’ll be just fine. Scram now, and we’ll talk about your friend. I know a nice safe ‘stablishment. Come on.
(They bolt away down an alley.)
(The camera follows them bolting down many side streets. At some point they rush past a shabbily dressed man in a wide-brimmed hat. He raises his head to look at them; it is Norton. He watches them pass, then sets off back the way he had come. Cut to an Unsavoury Boarding House, Marlowe and Greville entering.)
MARLOWE: (to landlady) Good day, Frau Geritzoon. I’ve brought a friend.
LANDLADY: He looks a better class than your usual run of dodgy Jesuits and thievin’ rentboys, Kit.
MARLOWE: I’m sure he appreciates the compliment, Frau Geritzoon. Now if I were you I’d get right down to the jewellers on Wilhelmstrasse.
LANDLADY: What you nattering about? I don’t need bawbies at my age.
MARLOWE: Mm, well, I think you’ll find yer man Desiderius in a bit of a fix.
LANDLADY: What? Dezzy’s got ‘imself in trouble again? Well, Kit Marlowe, I’m moving but if I find you’re at the bottom of this one… (She bustles out.)
GREVILLE: (astonished) ‘Dezzy’? Frau Geritzoon? That woman...Erasmus…
MARLOWE: Has been secretly married for decades, yeah. Now, Master Greville, just where were we?
GREVILLE: You’re the one who should be answering questions, you depraved little fop. You leant over to me back in the tavern, muttered “Sidney” and put your thumbs down. Are you saying it’s all up with Philip, and what is your information, exactly?
MARLOWE: (off hand) Jus’ this.
(He moves to a corner of the room with a battered travelling chest in it and kicks the unlocked trunk open, Greville craning after him.)
Don’ stand there lordling, light a taper.
GREVILLE: Show some damned respect.
MARLOWE: Do as I say.
(GREVILLE, white and sweaty with anger and trepidation, does indeed light a taper as Marlowe picks up a large object from the box. It comes under the light – a mud-splattered, once elegant saddle, with a coat of arms on it.)
GREVILLE: Christ save me! The Penshurst arms, Sidney’s blazon!
MARLOWE: Picked off the corpse of a horse fortnight back. Acquired it for a pound. Wouldn’t mind some remuner…
GREVILLE: Like hell it was a pound, you slimy bastard.
(He is very angry and pins Marlowe in a grip against the wall, letting the taper go fall. We see an unknown boot come down on it.)
OFFSTAGE HUSKILY FEMALE VOICE: Steady, boys. You could start a fire like that.
(Flash to the newcomer. Dressed in young man’s garments with a wide-brimmed riding hat exactly like the one Norton was wearing earlier is a tall, light haired young woman with dark dark eyes and the evident lineaments of incredibly fabulous breasts. Penelope Deveureux – Stella – has arrived.)
(We cut to a ship leaving the docks of Rotterdam, and the camera follows a candle-light at one window in the bridge. Within this cabin, small but comfortably appointed, Norton, dressed only in a long dirty white shirt, slumps on a stool. Sidney stands looking out to sea, his back to his servant.)
NORTON: I still can’t believe she let me be took advantage of like that.
(Sidney smiles mirthlessly but offers no comment.)
NORTON: I mean, master Philip, I’ve seen my fair share, I can handle myself, you know I can, I mean to say, how old must this little leddy have been?
(Sidney turns, holding a silver bracelet towards the lone candle.)
SIDNEY: It is a strange kind of lady robber who steals only rags but leaves valuable trinkets in her wake, Norton.
NORTON: Oh, she dropped it whilst she was changing, accident that was, sure as winking. I know these women, master Philip, in debt, need to get away, so they do anything to get into men’s clothes. She’s be livid she dropped the bauble while she were at it. A harlot’s trick.
(Sidney draws a dagger and places it at Norton’s throat, while with his other hand he dangles the bracelet before the servant’s face.)
SIDNEY: That girl was not a harlot, fool. Don’t you know this ensign?
NORTON: Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but it’s been long enough since I were in England, and even when my stay were regular like, I didn’t spent it in overmuch study o’ books o’ heraldry.
(Sidney switches the dagger around and raps Norton with the hilt.)
SIDNEY: Essex, idiot, Essex! This woman was wearing a silver bracelet enscribed with the arms of Devereux.
NORTON: So she were the Earl of Essex’s fancy-girl, then?
SIDNEY: Once again, Norton, I am reminded that you serve me because of chance rather than merit. This is obviously a piece of baptismal jewellery, a christening-ring. (He sighs.) Describe her again.
NORTON: Didn’t see much of her, she came at me from behind and when she left she was kind of covered up in the best o’ my wardrobe. (Pause) But yeah, she seemed kinda pretty good-looking, far as a man could see, lots of yellow hair, nice duckies…
(Sidney places the blade at Norton’s throat again.)
SIDNEY: Eyes?
NORTON: (squawking out in panic) Black!
(pause)
Or as close to it as a man could…
(Sidney ignores Norton’s trailing sentence, looks out over the sea and bawls a name.)
SIDNEY: STEEEELLLLLLLLLLLAAAAA!
(Back in Frau Geritzoon’s lodging house. Stella is now in a white dress of simple but costly material, drinking warm sack from a wooden tumbler at a table, and weaving a needle through a piece of yarn; Greville and Marlowe sit at its other ends, eying her suspiciously.)
GREVILLE: What cause should we have, I ask again, to believe a word of your story, mistress? Certainly your English is decent, but the same can hardly be said of your habit…or...by your own account…your conduct.
MARLOWE: An Earl’s daughter of England dressing up tranny-like after robbing a manservant? Have things got that more exciting at home since I left Cambridge?
STELLA: I care nothing for your account, sirrah. I address myself solely to Master Greville. Now, Fulke dear, is this not growing ridiculous?
GREVILLE: (spluttering) What…
STELLA: We have seen each other as bare children, in the gardens of Hampton-Court. Am I then so changed?
GREVILLE: If what you say is true…immeasurably, yes. This is scandalous behaviour, madam. Quite outrage…
MARLOWE: Lemme see the letter again. (He snatches for a bit of parchment over which all three have apparently been pooring.)
‘My well-beloved W., Tell Burghley I died outside Mainz.’
Well, forgive me for spelling out the obvious, but your friend Sidney does not want to be found. Faking and broadcasting one’s own death is, well, an extreme measure…
GREVILLE: (rising) Marlowe, if you do not fall silent and remember your station there will be nothing faked about your death. (He draws his dagger.)
MARLOWE: Time for me to start flashing things about too, right? (He leaps up and produces not a weapon but a tightly furled slip of paper, which he hands coldly.)
GREVILLE: A letter of service and warrantage from Sir Francis Walsingham…
MARLOWE: Yeah, yeah, I’m a spy, an informer, an eye of the bloody government, okay. Don’t judge me Master Greville; they offer very reasonable travel expenses and the Cambridge degree is complementary…anyway. Something tells me your bloke wants the likes of me to think he’s dead. Until Penny here turned up, that little ploy had succeeded…
(Stella leaps up and pricks Marlowe in the neck with her needle. He collapses.)
STELLA: If Philip wants to travel unobserved by the Queen’s council, I intend to help him to do so.
GREVILLE: Did you kill him?
STELLA: I hadn’t the heart; just a sleeping-philtre. Tie him up tight and we’ll take him with us.
GREVILLE: Where are we going, my lady?
STELLA: After Philip, of course.
Venice, the Doge’s Palace.
(Through the state windows we see the figure of the Cardinal from earlier, gazing beadily out over the canal. Behind him are several Venetian counsellors in black robes, and a couple of men gorgeously dressed in fashionable costumes of the English court.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: Eduardo, lord Windsor. Sir Ricardo Shelley. You are aware why you have been summoned, no?
SHELLEY: Of course there is the matter of the outstanding sum, Signor Contarini; and we promise…
CARDINAL: You promise! You promise! You English do nothing but promise. (He laughs, then returns to surveying the window.)
SECOND COUNSELLOR: My…lord…Windsor…sir…all we ask is a reasonable attitude. You know what to do when your…shall I say, your friend, arrives?
WINDSOR: All is in readiness, Signor Foscaro.
FIRST COUNSELLOR: Are you sure Master Sidney trusts you?
WINDSOR: Absolutely. We were at Oxford together.
SECOND COUNSELLOR: Well then, my lord Cardinale, we need not worry. (Turning to a third counsellor) Angelo! Tell the people at your palace to make a bed…prepared, for the young English gentleman…
(Cut to Sidney and Norton, in a gondola, progressing down the Grand Canal.)
NORTON: The greatest city in the world!
SIDNEY: I think not. The most beautiful, maybe.
NORTON: Where are we going, Master Philip? What are we doing.
SIDNEY: Waiting.
(A gun sounds.)
SIDNEY: (to the gondolier) Now take us to the Arsenale.
(Cut to Windsor and Shelley, surrounded by suspicious looking Venetian guards, waiting near the arsenal.)
SHELLEY: Is that him?
WINDSOR: I think so. He’s looking pretty shabby.
SHELLEY: Let’s go.
(We see the four men, Norton hanging back, converging, now on foot, towards the centre of a bridge.)
SIDNEY: Edward! It’s been some time.
WINDSOR: Welcome to Venice, Philip.
SHELLEY: Master Sidney. I am glad to meet you. I trust here you will find the calm you seek.
(A traghetto, a flat-bottomed boat that ferries passengers horizontally across canals, is followed, letting off three masked figures, two men dressed as harlequins, and a blonde, heavily powdered, masked woman…familiar looking…)
GREVILLE: How long must we keep this stupid game in play?
MARLOWE: Ah, Fulke, dontcha appreciate my hand with the costumes?
STELLA: Quiet, Marlowe. Remember the deal – if you cross us, you get the canal.
GREVILLE: Look! It’s them!
(We pan out. The three pursuers are less than a hundred yards behind their oblivious quarry.)
With…
STELLA: Is something troubling you, Master Greville?
GREVILLE: You could say that. Lord Windsor and Sir Richard Shelley! Philip is consorting with the most notorious Catholic exiles in the English nobility! What can he be up to?
MARLOWE: Just you stay quiet, lording, and we might yet find out.
(Cut to the dining room of Palazzo Foscari. A Counsellor, Angelo Foscaro, the English exiles and Sidney are sitting at ease upon several divans.)
COUNSELLOR: Well, you boys must have a lot to talk about from England; I shall bid you good evening. (He stands, smiling, and withdraws.)
WINDSOR: At last. I thought the old bore would never shut up about his panettone. So, Philip, when did you last receive word from your father?
SIDNEY: Over…three months ago. Nor was it news of the kind to bring me any happiness.
SHELLEY: Really, Master Sidney? But we hear that the country is quiet at last, with no small thanks to your father’s policy.
SIDNEY: It is not his policy that causes trouble; the Desmonds have been peaceful, the wild Irish are calm…but…
SHELLEY: The English lords in the pale?
(A silence falls.)
They still will not pay their taxes to the Lord Deputy, your father?
SIDNEY: They refuse him a penny, Sir Richard, and he cannot long pay his soldiers out of his own pocket. We Sidneys have never relied overmuch on riches.
WINDSOR: And never been too rich either, eh? I know the feeling. If you knew the tune of my obligations… (He starts laughing in a slightly forced manner.)
SHELLEY: Cut to the chase, my lord Windsor; lay our proposition before Master Sidney.
WINDSOR: Philip…
…how would you like to see your father wear a golden crown?
(Pause. Close up on Sidney’s face.)
SIDNEY: Go on…
(Cut to the corridor at the Palazzo Foscari’s entrance. Two servants are in reach of the door when it is rapped on heavily.)
SERVANT 1: Alright, alright! Relax! Who are you making such a racket?
MARLOWE: (offstage) Harlequins, harlequins for Councillor Foscaro! We claim the right of the Carnivale! If your master is a nobleman and not a miser, you will let us in…
SERVANT 1: Very well, calm down. (To his fellow servant) Fetch Giustiniano and the other guards, in case there’s any larceny. We don’t want funny business in front of the English visitors.
SERVANT 2: Understood. (He exits.)
(Servant 1 opens the door and is immediately knocked unconscious by a blackjack. Brief cut to Marlowe’s triumphant, grinning Harlequin painted face.)
(Back to the English gentlemen in the dining-room.)
SIDNEY: So, if I understand you – you want me to advance your expenses, and then…
SHELLEY: Then the Sidneys will be Kings of Ireland.
WINDSOR: The money will be invested in a galley of expert adventurers, lying at anchor now in Venice. We will carry soldiers and munitions, and communicate with the honoured Deputy, your father, immediately upon landing. The wild Irish are ready to muster, and the mean-spirited English lords shall pay…
SIDNEY: With death?
WINDSOR: I don’t see why not.
SHELLEY: Most certainly.
SIDNEY: (narrowing his eyes, looking at them sidelong) Who will be first to the scaffold…my friends?
(The other two start laughing.)
SHELLEY: Well, that’s easy.
WINDSOR: The principal rogue must go down, of course.
SHELLEY: That heretic scoundrel…
WINDSOR AND SHELLEY: The Earl of Essex!
(Sidney nods with apparent lack of concern. There is a wild female shriek behind the curtains, which startles all three men, and a crash as a woman sags to the floor. First to recover his presence of mind in the confusion, Sidney draws his sword and seizes the back of Shelley’s neck, holding the blade to his throat.)
SIDNEY: Sir Richard Shelley, you are an honourless, spendthrift, forsworn, degenerate traitor, and I will see you dead before I allow you to defame Penelope’s father!
(Windsor snarls and draws, aiming for Sidney’s undefended side. There is another stirring in the curtains and Greville, still attired as a Harlequin, puts a dagger through Windsor’s leg.)
GREVILLE: Not so fast, my lord.
(Windsor collapses. The recumbent female form, the powdered and masked Penelope, rises up from her faint, lifting her vizard…)
STELLA: Master Sidney. You are a far better man than I took you for. I truly thought you would let them arrange my father’s murder.
SIDNEY: (coldly) Then, Lady Penelope, you understand…nothing…of me.
(In his intense concentration upon her he has neglected to keep a secure hold on Shelley, who draws a dagger with a free hand and spins it towards Sidney’s back. Marlowe now emerges, making use of his slight, short frame to whack a fist into Shelley’s groin. Shelley falls back groaning atrociously.)
MARLOWE: Old Deptford trick. Were you wanting to see the Carnival, Master Sidney, or shall we be going, this time?
SIDNEY: I don’t know you from Satan, little man. What are you, some kind of poet?
MARLOWE: Takes one to know one.
(Cut to the central dungeon in the Doge’s Prison. Norton is chained to a stone chair. Watching him are two ranks of robed, hatted Counsellors, led by their Doge, Alvise Mocenigo. Among the Counsellors are Shelley and, leaning on a crutch and bandaged, Windsor.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: This man was detained after Master Sidney’s flight with these…harlequins. Under…examination…
(Close view of Norton, who is sweating and weeping, looking weak, drawn.)
…he revealed his name as Norton.
(Among the Counsellors a flash of red in the darkness leads us to the Cardinal, who raises an eyebrow.)
SHELLEY: That is young Sidney’s manservant.
WINDSOR: Yes. A fellow of no account. You might as well let him go free, if you cannot catch the others.
SECOND COUNSELLOR: I think not, my lord Windsor. Signor cardinale, explain the situation.
(The Cardinal stands.)
CARDINAL: I understand Venice intends to maintain its good relations with the Holy See?
(There is some murmuring, but an emphatic nod from the Doge.)
CARDINAL: Then give me the servant. He is in my debt by the value of two thousand ducats.
(Brief discussion among the Counsellors.)
DOGE: Of course. Here in Venice, we take debts very seriously.
(Close up on Shelley and Windsor. They look at each other uncomfortably. Hands are laid on their shoulders.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: (shouting) The twenty thousand ducats! Where are they?
WINDSOR: Signor Contarini…
SHELLEY: They are, invested in…
DOGE: They are invested in my prisons, and I shall send you there to collect their dividends.
(Laughter as the English Catholics are chained and led off, and Norton, still fettered, marched off with the Cardinal and his guards.)
End of episode
Captain Arcadia, last part of episode 1
(Cut to the dining room of Palazzo Foscari. A Counsellor, Angelo Foscaro, the English exiles and Sidney are sitting at ease upon several divans.)
COUNSELLOR: Well, you boys must have a lot to talk about from England; I shall bid you good evening. (He stands, smiling, and withdraws.)
WINDSOR: At last. I thought the old bore would never shut up about his panettone. So, Philip, when did you last receive word from your father?
SIDNEY: Over…three months ago. Nor was it news of the kind to bring me any happiness.
SHELLEY: Really, Master Sidney? But we hear that the country is quiet at last, with no small thanks to your father’s policy.
SIDNEY: It is not his policy that causes trouble; the Desmonds have been peaceful, the wild Irish are calm…but…
SHELLEY: The English lords in the pale?
(A silence falls.)
They still will not pay their taxes to the Lord Deputy, your father?
SIDNEY: They refuse him a penny, Sir Richard, and he cannot long pay his soldiers out of his own pocket. We Sidneys have never relied overmuch on riches.
WINDSOR: And never been too rich either, eh? I know the feeling. If you knew the tune of my obligations… (He starts laughing in a slightly forced manner.)
SHELLEY: Cut to the chase, my lord Windsor; lay our proposition before Master Sidney.
WINDSOR: Philip…
…how would you like to see your father wear a golden crown?
(Pause. Close up on Sidney’s face.)
SIDNEY: Go on…
(Cut to the corridor at the Palazzo Foscari’s entrance. Two servants are in reach of the door when it is rapped on heavily.)
SERVANT 1: Alright, alright! Relax! Who are you making such a racket?
MARLOWE: (offstage) Harlequins, harlequins for Councillor Foscaro! We claim the right of the Carnivale! If your master is a nobleman and not a miser, you will let us in…
SERVANT 1: Very well, calm down. (To his fellow servant) Fetch Giustiniano and the other guards, in case there’s any larceny. We don’t want funny business in front of the English visitors.
SERVANT 2: Understood. (He exits.)
(Servant 1 opens the door and is immediately knocked unconscious by a blackjack. Brief cut to Marlowe’s triumphant, grinning Harlequin painted face.)
(Back to the English gentlemen in the dining-room.)
SIDNEY: So, if I understand you – you want me to advance your expenses, and then…
SHELLEY: Then the Sidneys will be Kings of Ireland.
WINDSOR: The money will be invested in a galley of expert adventurers, lying at anchor now in Venice. We will carry soldiers and munitions, and communicate with the honoured Deputy, your father, immediately upon landing. The wild Irish are ready to muster, and the mean-spirited English lords shall pay…
SIDNEY: With death?
WINDSOR: I don’t see why not.
SHELLEY: Most certainly.
SIDNEY: (narrowing his eyes, looking at them sidelong) Who will be first to the scaffold…my friends?
(The other two start laughing.)
SHELLEY: Well, that’s easy.
WINDSOR: The principal rogue must go down, of course.
SHELLEY: That heretic scoundrel…
WINDSOR AND SHELLEY: The Earl of Essex!
(Sidney nods with apparent lack of concern. There is a wild female shriek behind the curtains, which startles all three men, and a crash as a woman sags to the floor. First to recover his presence of mind in the confusion, Sidney draws his sword and seizes the back of Shelley’s neck, holding the blade to his throat.)
SIDNEY: Sir Richard Shelley, you are an honourless, spendthrift, forsworn, degenerate traitor, and I will see you dead before I allow you to defame Penelope’s father!
(Windsor snarls and draws, aiming for Sidney’s undefended side. There is another stirring in the curtains and Greville, still attired as a Harlequin, puts a dagger through his leg.)
GREVILLE: Not so fast, my lord.
(Windsor collapses. The recumbent female form, the powdered and masked Penelope, rises up from her faint, lifting her vizard…)
STELLA: Master Sidney. You are a far better man than I took you for. I truly thought you would let them arrange my father’s murder.
SIDNEY: (coldly) Then, Lady Penelope, you understand…nothing…of me.
(In his intense concentration upon her he has neglected to keep a secure hold on Shelley, who draws a dagger with a free hand and spins it towards Sidney’s back. Marlowe now emerges, making use of his slight, short frame to whack a fist into Shelley’s groin. Shelley falls back groaning atrociously.)
MARLOWE: Old Deptford trick. Were you wanting to see the Carnival, Master Sidney, or shall we be going, this time?
SIDNEY: I don’t know you from Satan, little man. What are you, some kind of poet?
MARLOWE: Takes one to know one.
(Cut to the central dungeon in the Doge’s Prison. Norton is chained to a stone chair. Watching him are two ranks of robed, hatted Counsellors, led by their Doge, Alvise Mocenigo. Among the Counsellors are Shelley and, leaning on a crutch and bandaged, Windsor.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: This man was detained after Master Sidney’s flight with these…harlequins. Under…examination…
(Close view of Norton, who is sweating and weeping, looking weak, drawn.)
…he revealed his name as Norton.
(Among the Counsellors a flash of red in the darkness leads us to the Cardinal, who raises an eyebrow.)
SHELLEY: That is young Sidney’s manservant.
WINDSOR: Yes. A fellow of no account. You might as well let him go free, if you cannot catch the others.
SECOND COUNSELLOR: I think not, my lord Windsor. Signor cardinale, explain the situation.
(The Cardinal stands.)
CARDINAL: I understand Venice intends to maintain its good relations with the Holy See?
(There is some murmuring, but an emphatic nod from the Doge.)
CARDINAL: Then give me the servant. He is in my debt by the value of two thousand ducats.
(Brief discussion among the Counsellors.)
DOGE: Of course. Here in Venice, we take debts very seriously.
(Close up on Shelley and Windsor. They look at each other uncomfortably. Hands are laid on their shoulders.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: (shouting) The twenty thousand ducats! Where are they?
WINDSOR: Signor Contarini…
SHELLEY: They are, invested in…
DOGE: They are invested in my prisons, and I shall send you there to collect their dividends.
(Laughter as the English Catholics are chained and led off, and Norton, still fettered, marched off with the Cardinal and his guards.)
End of episode
COUNSELLOR: Well, you boys must have a lot to talk about from England; I shall bid you good evening. (He stands, smiling, and withdraws.)
WINDSOR: At last. I thought the old bore would never shut up about his panettone. So, Philip, when did you last receive word from your father?
SIDNEY: Over…three months ago. Nor was it news of the kind to bring me any happiness.
SHELLEY: Really, Master Sidney? But we hear that the country is quiet at last, with no small thanks to your father’s policy.
SIDNEY: It is not his policy that causes trouble; the Desmonds have been peaceful, the wild Irish are calm…but…
SHELLEY: The English lords in the pale?
(A silence falls.)
They still will not pay their taxes to the Lord Deputy, your father?
SIDNEY: They refuse him a penny, Sir Richard, and he cannot long pay his soldiers out of his own pocket. We Sidneys have never relied overmuch on riches.
WINDSOR: And never been too rich either, eh? I know the feeling. If you knew the tune of my obligations… (He starts laughing in a slightly forced manner.)
SHELLEY: Cut to the chase, my lord Windsor; lay our proposition before Master Sidney.
WINDSOR: Philip…
…how would you like to see your father wear a golden crown?
(Pause. Close up on Sidney’s face.)
SIDNEY: Go on…
(Cut to the corridor at the Palazzo Foscari’s entrance. Two servants are in reach of the door when it is rapped on heavily.)
SERVANT 1: Alright, alright! Relax! Who are you making such a racket?
MARLOWE: (offstage) Harlequins, harlequins for Councillor Foscaro! We claim the right of the Carnivale! If your master is a nobleman and not a miser, you will let us in…
SERVANT 1: Very well, calm down. (To his fellow servant) Fetch Giustiniano and the other guards, in case there’s any larceny. We don’t want funny business in front of the English visitors.
SERVANT 2: Understood. (He exits.)
(Servant 1 opens the door and is immediately knocked unconscious by a blackjack. Brief cut to Marlowe’s triumphant, grinning Harlequin painted face.)
(Back to the English gentlemen in the dining-room.)
SIDNEY: So, if I understand you – you want me to advance your expenses, and then…
SHELLEY: Then the Sidneys will be Kings of Ireland.
WINDSOR: The money will be invested in a galley of expert adventurers, lying at anchor now in Venice. We will carry soldiers and munitions, and communicate with the honoured Deputy, your father, immediately upon landing. The wild Irish are ready to muster, and the mean-spirited English lords shall pay…
SIDNEY: With death?
WINDSOR: I don’t see why not.
SHELLEY: Most certainly.
SIDNEY: (narrowing his eyes, looking at them sidelong) Who will be first to the scaffold…my friends?
(The other two start laughing.)
SHELLEY: Well, that’s easy.
WINDSOR: The principal rogue must go down, of course.
SHELLEY: That heretic scoundrel…
WINDSOR AND SHELLEY: The Earl of Essex!
(Sidney nods with apparent lack of concern. There is a wild female shriek behind the curtains, which startles all three men, and a crash as a woman sags to the floor. First to recover his presence of mind in the confusion, Sidney draws his sword and seizes the back of Shelley’s neck, holding the blade to his throat.)
SIDNEY: Sir Richard Shelley, you are an honourless, spendthrift, forsworn, degenerate traitor, and I will see you dead before I allow you to defame Penelope’s father!
(Windsor snarls and draws, aiming for Sidney’s undefended side. There is another stirring in the curtains and Greville, still attired as a Harlequin, puts a dagger through his leg.)
GREVILLE: Not so fast, my lord.
(Windsor collapses. The recumbent female form, the powdered and masked Penelope, rises up from her faint, lifting her vizard…)
STELLA: Master Sidney. You are a far better man than I took you for. I truly thought you would let them arrange my father’s murder.
SIDNEY: (coldly) Then, Lady Penelope, you understand…nothing…of me.
(In his intense concentration upon her he has neglected to keep a secure hold on Shelley, who draws a dagger with a free hand and spins it towards Sidney’s back. Marlowe now emerges, making use of his slight, short frame to whack a fist into Shelley’s groin. Shelley falls back groaning atrociously.)
MARLOWE: Old Deptford trick. Were you wanting to see the Carnival, Master Sidney, or shall we be going, this time?
SIDNEY: I don’t know you from Satan, little man. What are you, some kind of poet?
MARLOWE: Takes one to know one.
(Cut to the central dungeon in the Doge’s Prison. Norton is chained to a stone chair. Watching him are two ranks of robed, hatted Counsellors, led by their Doge, Alvise Mocenigo. Among the Counsellors are Shelley and, leaning on a crutch and bandaged, Windsor.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: This man was detained after Master Sidney’s flight with these…harlequins. Under…examination…
(Close view of Norton, who is sweating and weeping, looking weak, drawn.)
…he revealed his name as Norton.
(Among the Counsellors a flash of red in the darkness leads us to the Cardinal, who raises an eyebrow.)
SHELLEY: That is young Sidney’s manservant.
WINDSOR: Yes. A fellow of no account. You might as well let him go free, if you cannot catch the others.
SECOND COUNSELLOR: I think not, my lord Windsor. Signor cardinale, explain the situation.
(The Cardinal stands.)
CARDINAL: I understand Venice intends to maintain its good relations with the Holy See?
(There is some murmuring, but an emphatic nod from the Doge.)
CARDINAL: Then give me the servant. He is in my debt by the value of two thousand ducats.
(Brief discussion among the Counsellors.)
DOGE: Of course. Here in Venice, we take debts very seriously.
(Close up on Shelley and Windsor. They look at each other uncomfortably. Hands are laid on their shoulders.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: (shouting) The twenty thousand ducats! Where are they?
WINDSOR: Signor Contarini…
SHELLEY: They are, invested in…
DOGE: They are invested in my prisons, and I shall send you there to collect their dividends.
(Laughter as the English Catholics are chained and led off, and Norton, still fettered, marched off with the Cardinal and his guards.)
End of episode
Friday 30 July 2010
Occitan song
Tell me how I find myself here, pale Fiammetta!
shaded in the draping, still solicitous for you,
after all, the leaves about your crown are only in a fetter
overseeing narrow birch and further vulnerable rue;
- so tell me how the gardener became a fire-setter?
and how the barkless branches take the brew;
Fiametta! when you've told me I will stand your ever-debtor,
even if I cannot help but think such upkeep is my due -
When the opening buds are burning but the petals will not die,
And we pass beds that are composted by whooping in their sleep,
You must show me, Fiammetta, where the brambles have to vie
for the chance to flourish gently and to confidently creep
around that bough that irrigates from savour back to sigh -
I'd slum in the silver garden shed beyond the bonfire heap.
shaded in the draping, still solicitous for you,
after all, the leaves about your crown are only in a fetter
overseeing narrow birch and further vulnerable rue;
- so tell me how the gardener became a fire-setter?
and how the barkless branches take the brew;
Fiametta! when you've told me I will stand your ever-debtor,
even if I cannot help but think such upkeep is my due -
When the opening buds are burning but the petals will not die,
And we pass beds that are composted by whooping in their sleep,
You must show me, Fiammetta, where the brambles have to vie
for the chance to flourish gently and to confidently creep
around that bough that irrigates from savour back to sigh -
I'd slum in the silver garden shed beyond the bonfire heap.
Saturday 24 July 2010
To Charles Hepburn Johnston
You knew that odd satiety
about the troublingly arranged
times between sad dubiety,
and smiled thinly, when things changed;
You had better ways to leisure
that were stitched with light to measure.
I have listened for your pace,
walking past our common place,
slowly come to a conclusion
about you and him and it,
chomping at my fraying bit,
that grace isn't in seclusion
(necessarily at least),
And that enough, if sparing, is far better than a feast.
about the troublingly arranged
times between sad dubiety,
and smiled thinly, when things changed;
You had better ways to leisure
that were stitched with light to measure.
I have listened for your pace,
walking past our common place,
slowly come to a conclusion
about you and him and it,
chomping at my fraying bit,
that grace isn't in seclusion
(necessarily at least),
And that enough, if sparing, is far better than a feast.
Thursday 22 July 2010
Companion Pieces
The Faerie Queene, Bk III, canto iii, stanza 50
as an Onegin sonnet
'The end is not,' old Merlin stuttered
(and the old fraud seemed quite unnerved),
If he saw ghosts, yet none he uttered,
But groaned and veered about and swerved,
As if to say 'Tudor succession
- in confidential confession -
Has flitted through the stable door;
It's Stuarts now, then Civil War.'
Well, Britomartya then, and Nursey
Recoiled back, as well they might
At such a startling sort of sight,
But Merlin, straightening out his Jersey
Adjusted to his former mien
As if unmoved by any scene.
Eugene Onegin, chapter 2, stanza 23
as a Spenserian stanza
Full neat as morning fitly doth she rise,
Lending my numbers (her lips warmly chaste)
The cleanness of her wheaten sapphire eyes,
The shining tressed bound, till Helga's waist
E'en braue Dan Petrarch would but haue defac'd:
As we in Virgil, or in Jeffrey read,
A goodliness, wherewith I once embrac'd,
Yet now must find it still most taedious grown,
So of the elder sister sing alone.
as an Onegin sonnet
'The end is not,' old Merlin stuttered
(and the old fraud seemed quite unnerved),
If he saw ghosts, yet none he uttered,
But groaned and veered about and swerved,
As if to say 'Tudor succession
- in confidential confession -
Has flitted through the stable door;
It's Stuarts now, then Civil War.'
Well, Britomartya then, and Nursey
Recoiled back, as well they might
At such a startling sort of sight,
But Merlin, straightening out his Jersey
Adjusted to his former mien
As if unmoved by any scene.
Eugene Onegin, chapter 2, stanza 23
as a Spenserian stanza
Full neat as morning fitly doth she rise,
Lending my numbers (her lips warmly chaste)
The cleanness of her wheaten sapphire eyes,
The shining tressed bound, till Helga's waist
E'en braue Dan Petrarch would but haue defac'd:
As we in Virgil, or in Jeffrey read,
A goodliness, wherewith I once embrac'd,
Yet now must find it still most taedious grown,
So of the elder sister sing alone.
Thursday 3 June 2010
out of date thoughts on the Whigs
It took the final election result of 2010 before I truly understood the early eighteenth century.
On the morning which marked the consummation of the New Politics, a noted, hirsute Liberal Democrat activist approached me over breakfast and shook me by the hand. This being Balliol JCR, I was the best he could do by way of symbolic Toryism; an underwhelming, motheaten tiger in a zoo more noted for its herbivore collection.
‘Welcome to government,’ I said, feeling uncomfortably far from satire.
‘The Coalition’ suffers from problems of definition more, I think, than from those of will. That bald ‘Coalition’ won’t do alone; it sounds dystopian, the government in a book by Cormac McCarthy or Magnus Mills, encompassing shades of the unsuccessful Mitchell and Webb sketch about the post-apocalyptic ‘Emergency’.
The first internet suggestion was the vapid ‘Change Coalition’, but the New Politics are after all supposed to be ‘historic’; other nerds put forward ‘The Churchill Coalition’ (because he was in both parties. Strewth). My instinct – after considering the social ramifications of ‘The Operagoing Coalition’ – was to go back rather further.
In 1710 the governing Whig Junto suffered a serious backlash for many reasons. Queen Anne had been convinced by her latest lesbian favourite, Lady Masham, that they were imperilling the Church, and the government had also unwisely tried to have the popular High Church preacher Sacheverell executed for sedition. That October a massive Tory majority was returned to the House of Commons for the first time since the 1688 revolution. It was under the control of two men.
Robert Harley, the new Lord High Treasurer, was an ex-Whig of Puritan descent. Henry St John, the Secretary of State, was a high-born, womanising Tory. They were by all accounts best friends, and they had a pretty handy set of spin doctors back at CCHQ too – Pope, Swift and so on.
They inherited a nation exhausted by the long, bloody and expensive War of the Spanish Succession, and to the fury of the patriotic Whigs but with the approval of Queen and country they put a stop it.
Their problem was that they ended up fatally divided over Europe – to wit, St John wanted the Catholic Stuarts to return and Harley didn’t. St John was about to win this argument by impeaching the Treasurer when, in 1714, the Queen died, King George came over and the whole government found itself in exile, the Tower, or at best obscurity, “men half ambitious, all unknown”.
I would accept that the resemblances between the Harley Ministry and our own present administration are superficial, though I would certainly welcome any sympathy for the Jacobite cause from Mr. Cameron, and would very much like to be employed to write poems, a la Pope & Swift, in his favour. But this pudding does nonetheless contain, after all, the proof.
When the pact was announced Signor Marco Meola’s facebook status read:
¾ Conservatives + ¼ Lib Dems = New Labour!?
I think he was nearly on the money but a few hundred years out, and I accordingly propose that we refer to our new government as the Whig Party.
Two clauses in the coalition agreement have upset a very large number of people. The core Tory membership is in ferment over Cameron’s promise to offer a referendum on AV; pragmatically, because it lowers the Conservative Party’s chance of governing alone; idealistically, because “to any true Tory the idea of the constitution being negotiable and mutable is itself a kind of sacrilege”.
We aren’t at the moment hearing so much about a more radical change that has been decided without a referendum – fixed-term, five year parliaments. This irritates people in two political directions – natural 17th century Tories who believe in a “strong crown”, a powerful executive; and Radicals who see it as diminishing the decision making power of the electorate. The 55% opposition requirement to topple a government is a similar kind of safeguard. In Melanie Phillips’s words, it “locks the parties in a fatal embrace”. It is a clause designed, in fact, to protect a junto or elite.
A weakened executive and a stronger oligarchy has been born, classic hall-marks of Whiggery. There have been complaints of “two white millionaires walking into Downing Street and announcing the New Politics”, that remind me of nothing so much as Pope’s and Swift’s complaints against their super-rich Whig rulers – “see, what huge heaps of littleness abound”.
So the Whig Junto, shadowed by a chaotic ‘radical’ opposition, is after more than two hundred years the beast that has lurched into being once more. I would not be surprised if it remained so for some time. The Whigs made Blair and Brown’s determination to retain power look amateurish. I’m fully expecting a wholly coagulated Whig juggernaut to sweep its grandiloquent consensus over even the next election.
What then of the Tories? Well, evidently those Conservatives who accuse Cameron of “abandoning Toryism” are quite right; he is a Whig Prime Minister, which does leave them in an awkward position.
After King George’s accession the Whigs were even more deeply embedded in power than they had been in Anne’s reign; Toryism was in fact a prescribed creed, practically tantamount to treason and for fifty years and more identified with the seditious Jacobite cause. The following choices faced the beleaguered Tories:
a) They could apostacise to the Whigs, as most did. This way lay mainstream power and patronage, vide Mr. Cameron. I am myself most attracted by this position. It will be so pleasant being, as I told that Lib Dem, in government; and many of my best friends, whether they know it or not, are in fact Whigs.
b) They could whisper against the government in secret and plot (in the event fairly ineffective) vengeance. Henry St John after an unhappy spell in exile returned to England and, forbidden his seat in the House of Lords, led the Tories from his secluded country villa into a sly media campaign to discredit the new Prime Minister Walpole. I’m not sure about the precise political parallels, but shall we intimate Mandelson and the Blairites here?
c) They could take the most gallant and romantic path and offer their swords to the Jacobite Pretender, James VIII and III, who resided at St-Germain in France. Here there seems to me a more precise modern equivalent. In Oxford itself, most Jacobite of cities, Ronnie Collinson, of the Union and, sometime, of Balliol is supposed to be circulating secret and treasonous propaganda against the Whig Coalition. He also at one point suggested that he was on the point of emigrating to New Zealand. He need not fly so far.
For there is still one “court-in-exile”, one legitimist claimant to the Tory cause; a man clearly uncomfortable with, defiant of, Lib Dem Whiggery; a man, whisper it, with an esoteric claim to the Throne of Britain itself. Bonnie Prince Boris resides in London. You say 1715, I say 2015…
On the morning which marked the consummation of the New Politics, a noted, hirsute Liberal Democrat activist approached me over breakfast and shook me by the hand. This being Balliol JCR, I was the best he could do by way of symbolic Toryism; an underwhelming, motheaten tiger in a zoo more noted for its herbivore collection.
‘Welcome to government,’ I said, feeling uncomfortably far from satire.
‘The Coalition’ suffers from problems of definition more, I think, than from those of will. That bald ‘Coalition’ won’t do alone; it sounds dystopian, the government in a book by Cormac McCarthy or Magnus Mills, encompassing shades of the unsuccessful Mitchell and Webb sketch about the post-apocalyptic ‘Emergency’.
The first internet suggestion was the vapid ‘Change Coalition’, but the New Politics are after all supposed to be ‘historic’; other nerds put forward ‘The Churchill Coalition’ (because he was in both parties. Strewth). My instinct – after considering the social ramifications of ‘The Operagoing Coalition’ – was to go back rather further.
In 1710 the governing Whig Junto suffered a serious backlash for many reasons. Queen Anne had been convinced by her latest lesbian favourite, Lady Masham, that they were imperilling the Church, and the government had also unwisely tried to have the popular High Church preacher Sacheverell executed for sedition. That October a massive Tory majority was returned to the House of Commons for the first time since the 1688 revolution. It was under the control of two men.
Robert Harley, the new Lord High Treasurer, was an ex-Whig of Puritan descent. Henry St John, the Secretary of State, was a high-born, womanising Tory. They were by all accounts best friends, and they had a pretty handy set of spin doctors back at CCHQ too – Pope, Swift and so on.
They inherited a nation exhausted by the long, bloody and expensive War of the Spanish Succession, and to the fury of the patriotic Whigs but with the approval of Queen and country they put a stop it.
Their problem was that they ended up fatally divided over Europe – to wit, St John wanted the Catholic Stuarts to return and Harley didn’t. St John was about to win this argument by impeaching the Treasurer when, in 1714, the Queen died, King George came over and the whole government found itself in exile, the Tower, or at best obscurity, “men half ambitious, all unknown”.
I would accept that the resemblances between the Harley Ministry and our own present administration are superficial, though I would certainly welcome any sympathy for the Jacobite cause from Mr. Cameron, and would very much like to be employed to write poems, a la Pope & Swift, in his favour. But this pudding does nonetheless contain, after all, the proof.
When the pact was announced Signor Marco Meola’s facebook status read:
¾ Conservatives + ¼ Lib Dems = New Labour!?
I think he was nearly on the money but a few hundred years out, and I accordingly propose that we refer to our new government as the Whig Party.
Two clauses in the coalition agreement have upset a very large number of people. The core Tory membership is in ferment over Cameron’s promise to offer a referendum on AV; pragmatically, because it lowers the Conservative Party’s chance of governing alone; idealistically, because “to any true Tory the idea of the constitution being negotiable and mutable is itself a kind of sacrilege”.
We aren’t at the moment hearing so much about a more radical change that has been decided without a referendum – fixed-term, five year parliaments. This irritates people in two political directions – natural 17th century Tories who believe in a “strong crown”, a powerful executive; and Radicals who see it as diminishing the decision making power of the electorate. The 55% opposition requirement to topple a government is a similar kind of safeguard. In Melanie Phillips’s words, it “locks the parties in a fatal embrace”. It is a clause designed, in fact, to protect a junto or elite.
A weakened executive and a stronger oligarchy has been born, classic hall-marks of Whiggery. There have been complaints of “two white millionaires walking into Downing Street and announcing the New Politics”, that remind me of nothing so much as Pope’s and Swift’s complaints against their super-rich Whig rulers – “see, what huge heaps of littleness abound”.
So the Whig Junto, shadowed by a chaotic ‘radical’ opposition, is after more than two hundred years the beast that has lurched into being once more. I would not be surprised if it remained so for some time. The Whigs made Blair and Brown’s determination to retain power look amateurish. I’m fully expecting a wholly coagulated Whig juggernaut to sweep its grandiloquent consensus over even the next election.
What then of the Tories? Well, evidently those Conservatives who accuse Cameron of “abandoning Toryism” are quite right; he is a Whig Prime Minister, which does leave them in an awkward position.
After King George’s accession the Whigs were even more deeply embedded in power than they had been in Anne’s reign; Toryism was in fact a prescribed creed, practically tantamount to treason and for fifty years and more identified with the seditious Jacobite cause. The following choices faced the beleaguered Tories:
a) They could apostacise to the Whigs, as most did. This way lay mainstream power and patronage, vide Mr. Cameron. I am myself most attracted by this position. It will be so pleasant being, as I told that Lib Dem, in government; and many of my best friends, whether they know it or not, are in fact Whigs.
b) They could whisper against the government in secret and plot (in the event fairly ineffective) vengeance. Henry St John after an unhappy spell in exile returned to England and, forbidden his seat in the House of Lords, led the Tories from his secluded country villa into a sly media campaign to discredit the new Prime Minister Walpole. I’m not sure about the precise political parallels, but shall we intimate Mandelson and the Blairites here?
c) They could take the most gallant and romantic path and offer their swords to the Jacobite Pretender, James VIII and III, who resided at St-Germain in France. Here there seems to me a more precise modern equivalent. In Oxford itself, most Jacobite of cities, Ronnie Collinson, of the Union and, sometime, of Balliol is supposed to be circulating secret and treasonous propaganda against the Whig Coalition. He also at one point suggested that he was on the point of emigrating to New Zealand. He need not fly so far.
For there is still one “court-in-exile”, one legitimist claimant to the Tory cause; a man clearly uncomfortable with, defiant of, Lib Dem Whiggery; a man, whisper it, with an esoteric claim to the Throne of Britain itself. Bonnie Prince Boris resides in London. You say 1715, I say 2015…
Another Arcadia chunk
Venice, the Doge’s Palace.
(Through the state windows we see the figure of the Cardinal from earlier, gazing beadily out over the canal. Behind him are several Venetian counsellors in black robes, and a couple of men gorgeously dressed in fashionable costumes of the English court.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: Eduardo, lord Windsor. Sir Ricardo Shelley. You are aware why you have been summoned, no?
SHELLEY: Of course there is the matter of the outstanding sum, Signor Contarini; and we promise…
CARDINAL: You promise! You promise! You English do nothing but promise. (He laughs, then returns to surveying the window.)
SECOND COUNSELLOR: My…lord…Windsor…sir…all we ask is a reasonable attitude. You know what to do when your…shall I say, your friend, arrives?
WINDSOR: All is in readiness, Signor Foscaro.
FIRST COUNSELLOR: Are you sure Master Sidney trusts you?
WINDSOR: Absolutely. We were at Oxford together.
SECOND COUNSELLOR: Well then, my lord Cardinale, we need not worry. (Turning to a third counsellor) Angelo! Tell the people at your palace to make a bed…prepared, for the young English gentleman…
(Cut to Sidney and Norton, in a gondola, progressing down the Grand Canal.)
NORTON: The greatest city in the world!
SIDNEY: I think not. The most beautiful, maybe.
NORTON: Where are we going, Master Philip? What are we doing.
SIDNEY: Waiting.
(A gun sounds.)
SIDNEY: (to the gondolier) Now take us to the Arsenale.
(Cut to Oxford and Shelley, surrounded by suspicious looking Venetian guards, waiting near the arsenal.)
SHELLEY: Is that him?
OXFORD: I think so. He’s looking pretty shabby.
SHELLEY: Let’s go.
(We see the four men, Norton hanging back, converging, now on foot, towards the centre of a bridge.)
SIDNEY: Edward! It’s been some time.
WINDSOR: Welcome to Venice, Philip.
SHELLEY: Master Sidney. I am glad to meet you. I trust here you will find the calm you seek.
(A traghetto, a flat-bottomed boat that ferries passengers horizontally across canals, is followed, letting off three masked figures, two men dressed as harlequins, and a blonde, heavily powdered woman…familiar looking…)
GREVILLE: How long must we keep this stupid game in play?
MARLOWE: Ah, Fulke, dontcha appreciate my hand with the costumes?
STELLA: Quiet, Marlowe. Remember the deal – if you cross us, you get the canal.
GREVILLE: Look! It’s them!
(We pan out. The three pursuers are less than a hundred yards behind their oblivious quarry.)
With…
STELLA: Is something troubling you, Master Greville?
GREVILLE: You could say that. Lord Windsor and Sir Richard Shelley! Philip is consorting with the most notorious Catholic exiles in the English nobility! What can he be up to?
MARLOWE: Just you stay quiet, lording, and we might yet find out.
(Through the state windows we see the figure of the Cardinal from earlier, gazing beadily out over the canal. Behind him are several Venetian counsellors in black robes, and a couple of men gorgeously dressed in fashionable costumes of the English court.)
FIRST COUNSELLOR: Eduardo, lord Windsor. Sir Ricardo Shelley. You are aware why you have been summoned, no?
SHELLEY: Of course there is the matter of the outstanding sum, Signor Contarini; and we promise…
CARDINAL: You promise! You promise! You English do nothing but promise. (He laughs, then returns to surveying the window.)
SECOND COUNSELLOR: My…lord…Windsor…sir…all we ask is a reasonable attitude. You know what to do when your…shall I say, your friend, arrives?
WINDSOR: All is in readiness, Signor Foscaro.
FIRST COUNSELLOR: Are you sure Master Sidney trusts you?
WINDSOR: Absolutely. We were at Oxford together.
SECOND COUNSELLOR: Well then, my lord Cardinale, we need not worry. (Turning to a third counsellor) Angelo! Tell the people at your palace to make a bed…prepared, for the young English gentleman…
(Cut to Sidney and Norton, in a gondola, progressing down the Grand Canal.)
NORTON: The greatest city in the world!
SIDNEY: I think not. The most beautiful, maybe.
NORTON: Where are we going, Master Philip? What are we doing.
SIDNEY: Waiting.
(A gun sounds.)
SIDNEY: (to the gondolier) Now take us to the Arsenale.
(Cut to Oxford and Shelley, surrounded by suspicious looking Venetian guards, waiting near the arsenal.)
SHELLEY: Is that him?
OXFORD: I think so. He’s looking pretty shabby.
SHELLEY: Let’s go.
(We see the four men, Norton hanging back, converging, now on foot, towards the centre of a bridge.)
SIDNEY: Edward! It’s been some time.
WINDSOR: Welcome to Venice, Philip.
SHELLEY: Master Sidney. I am glad to meet you. I trust here you will find the calm you seek.
(A traghetto, a flat-bottomed boat that ferries passengers horizontally across canals, is followed, letting off three masked figures, two men dressed as harlequins, and a blonde, heavily powdered woman…familiar looking…)
GREVILLE: How long must we keep this stupid game in play?
MARLOWE: Ah, Fulke, dontcha appreciate my hand with the costumes?
STELLA: Quiet, Marlowe. Remember the deal – if you cross us, you get the canal.
GREVILLE: Look! It’s them!
(We pan out. The three pursuers are less than a hundred yards behind their oblivious quarry.)
With…
STELLA: Is something troubling you, Master Greville?
GREVILLE: You could say that. Lord Windsor and Sir Richard Shelley! Philip is consorting with the most notorious Catholic exiles in the English nobility! What can he be up to?
MARLOWE: Just you stay quiet, lording, and we might yet find out.
Tuesday 1 June 2010
Captain Arcadia Ep 1 Part 3
(We cut to a ship leaving the docks of Rotterdam, and the camera follows a candle-light at one window in the bridge. Within this cabin, small but comfortably appointed, Norton, dressed only in a long dirty white shirt, slumps on a stool. Sidney stands looking out to sea, his back to his servant.)
NORTON: I still can’t believe she let me be took advantage of like that.
(Sidney smiles mirthlessly but offers no comment.)
NORTON: I mean, master Philip, I’ve seen my fair share, I can handle myself, you know I can, I mean to say, how old must this little leddy have been?
(Sidney turns, holding a silver bracelet towards the lone candle.)
SIDNEY: It is a strange kind of lady robber who steals only rags but leaves valuable trinkets in her wake, Norton.
NORTON: Oh, she dropped it whilst she was changing, accident that was, sure as winking. I know these women, master Philip, in debt, need to get away, so they do anything to get into men’s clothes. She’s be livid she dropped the bauble while she were at it. A harlot’s trick.
(Sidney draws a dagger and places it at Norton’s throat, while with his other hand he dangles the bracelet before the servant’s face.)
SIDNEY: That girl was not a harlot, fool. Don’t you know this ensign?
NORTON: Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but it’s been long enough since I were in England, and even when my stay were regular like, I didn’t spent it in overmuch study o’ books o’ heraldry.
(Sidney switches the dagger around and raps Norton with the hilt.)
SIDNEY: Essex, idiot, Essex! This woman was wearing a silver bracelet enscribed with the arms of Devereux.
NORTON: So she were the Earl of Essex’s fancy-girl, then?
SIDNEY: Once again, Norton, I am reminded that you serve me because of chance rather than merit. This is obviously a piece of baptismal jewellery, a christening-ring. (He sighs.) Describe her again.
NORTON: Didn’t see much of her, she came at me from behind and when she left she was kind of covered up in the best o’ my wardrobe. (Pause) But yeah, she seemed kinda pretty good-looking, far as a man could see, lots of yellow hair, nice duckies…
(Sidney places the blade at Norton’s throat again.)
SIDNEY: Eyes?
NORTON: (squawking out in panic) Black!
(pause)
Or as close to it as a man could…
(Sidney ignores Norton’s trailing sentence, looks out over the sea and bawls a name.)
SIDNEY: STEEEELLLLLLLLLLLAAAAA!
(Back in Frau Geritzoon’s lodging house. Stella is now in a white dress of simple but costly material, drinking warm sack from a wooden tumbler at a table, and weaving a needle through a piece of yarn; Greville and Marlowe sit at its other ends, eying her suspiciously.)
GREVILLE: What cause should we have, I ask again, to believe a word of your story, mistress? Certainly your English is decent, but the same can hardly be said of your habit…or...by your own account…your conduct.
MARLOWE: An Earl’s daughter of England dressing up tranny-like after robbing a manservant? Have things got that more exciting at home since I left Cambridge?
STELLA: I care nothing for your account, sirrah. I address myself solely to Master Greville. Now, Fulke dear, is this not growing ridiculous?
GREVILLE: (spluttering) What…
STELLA: We have seen each other as bare children, in the gardens of Hampton-Court. Am I then so changed?
GREVILLE: If what you say is true…immeasurably, yes. This is scandalous behaviour, madam. Quite outrage…
MARLOWE: Lemme see the letter again. (He snatches for a bit of parchment over which all three have apparently been pouring.)
‘My well-beloved W., Tell Burghley I died outside Mainz.’
Well, forgive me for spelling out the obvious, but your friend Sidney does not want to be found. Faking and broadcasting one’s own death is, well, an extreme measure…
GREVILLE: (rising) Marlowe, if you do not fall silent and remember your station there will be nothing faked about your death. (He draws his dagger.)
MARLOWE: Time for me to start flashing things about too, right? (He leaps up and produces not a weapon but a tightly furled slip of paper, which he hands coldly.)
GREVILLE: A letter of service and warrantage from Sir Francis Walsingham…
MARLOWE: Yeah, yeah, I’m a spy, an informer, an eye of the bloody government, okay. Don’t judge me Master Greville; they offer very reasonable travel expenses and the Cambridge degree is complementary…anyway. Something tells me your bloke wants the likes of me to think he’s dead. Until Penny here turned up, that little ploy had succeeded…
(Stella leaps up and pricks Marlowe in the neck with her needle. He collapses.)
STELLA: If Philip wants to travel unobserved by the Queen’s council, I intend to help him do so.
GREVILLE: Did you kill him?
STELLA: I hadn’t the heart; just a sleeping-philtre. Tie him up tight and we’ll take him with us.
GREVILLE: Where are we going, my lady?
STELLA: After Philip, of course.
NORTON: I still can’t believe she let me be took advantage of like that.
(Sidney smiles mirthlessly but offers no comment.)
NORTON: I mean, master Philip, I’ve seen my fair share, I can handle myself, you know I can, I mean to say, how old must this little leddy have been?
(Sidney turns, holding a silver bracelet towards the lone candle.)
SIDNEY: It is a strange kind of lady robber who steals only rags but leaves valuable trinkets in her wake, Norton.
NORTON: Oh, she dropped it whilst she was changing, accident that was, sure as winking. I know these women, master Philip, in debt, need to get away, so they do anything to get into men’s clothes. She’s be livid she dropped the bauble while she were at it. A harlot’s trick.
(Sidney draws a dagger and places it at Norton’s throat, while with his other hand he dangles the bracelet before the servant’s face.)
SIDNEY: That girl was not a harlot, fool. Don’t you know this ensign?
NORTON: Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but it’s been long enough since I were in England, and even when my stay were regular like, I didn’t spent it in overmuch study o’ books o’ heraldry.
(Sidney switches the dagger around and raps Norton with the hilt.)
SIDNEY: Essex, idiot, Essex! This woman was wearing a silver bracelet enscribed with the arms of Devereux.
NORTON: So she were the Earl of Essex’s fancy-girl, then?
SIDNEY: Once again, Norton, I am reminded that you serve me because of chance rather than merit. This is obviously a piece of baptismal jewellery, a christening-ring. (He sighs.) Describe her again.
NORTON: Didn’t see much of her, she came at me from behind and when she left she was kind of covered up in the best o’ my wardrobe. (Pause) But yeah, she seemed kinda pretty good-looking, far as a man could see, lots of yellow hair, nice duckies…
(Sidney places the blade at Norton’s throat again.)
SIDNEY: Eyes?
NORTON: (squawking out in panic) Black!
(pause)
Or as close to it as a man could…
(Sidney ignores Norton’s trailing sentence, looks out over the sea and bawls a name.)
SIDNEY: STEEEELLLLLLLLLLLAAAAA!
(Back in Frau Geritzoon’s lodging house. Stella is now in a white dress of simple but costly material, drinking warm sack from a wooden tumbler at a table, and weaving a needle through a piece of yarn; Greville and Marlowe sit at its other ends, eying her suspiciously.)
GREVILLE: What cause should we have, I ask again, to believe a word of your story, mistress? Certainly your English is decent, but the same can hardly be said of your habit…or...by your own account…your conduct.
MARLOWE: An Earl’s daughter of England dressing up tranny-like after robbing a manservant? Have things got that more exciting at home since I left Cambridge?
STELLA: I care nothing for your account, sirrah. I address myself solely to Master Greville. Now, Fulke dear, is this not growing ridiculous?
GREVILLE: (spluttering) What…
STELLA: We have seen each other as bare children, in the gardens of Hampton-Court. Am I then so changed?
GREVILLE: If what you say is true…immeasurably, yes. This is scandalous behaviour, madam. Quite outrage…
MARLOWE: Lemme see the letter again. (He snatches for a bit of parchment over which all three have apparently been pouring.)
‘My well-beloved W., Tell Burghley I died outside Mainz.’
Well, forgive me for spelling out the obvious, but your friend Sidney does not want to be found. Faking and broadcasting one’s own death is, well, an extreme measure…
GREVILLE: (rising) Marlowe, if you do not fall silent and remember your station there will be nothing faked about your death. (He draws his dagger.)
MARLOWE: Time for me to start flashing things about too, right? (He leaps up and produces not a weapon but a tightly furled slip of paper, which he hands coldly.)
GREVILLE: A letter of service and warrantage from Sir Francis Walsingham…
MARLOWE: Yeah, yeah, I’m a spy, an informer, an eye of the bloody government, okay. Don’t judge me Master Greville; they offer very reasonable travel expenses and the Cambridge degree is complementary…anyway. Something tells me your bloke wants the likes of me to think he’s dead. Until Penny here turned up, that little ploy had succeeded…
(Stella leaps up and pricks Marlowe in the neck with her needle. He collapses.)
STELLA: If Philip wants to travel unobserved by the Queen’s council, I intend to help him do so.
GREVILLE: Did you kill him?
STELLA: I hadn’t the heart; just a sleeping-philtre. Tie him up tight and we’ll take him with us.
GREVILLE: Where are we going, my lady?
STELLA: After Philip, of course.
Sunday 9 May 2010
Sacral Scott
It drew close to the end of night,
With red shades cast at Calvary,
The air kissed every cheek its bite,
The hour love was no more to see.
They mingled closer, all but one
With red shades cast at Calvary,
An aging woman to age come,
The hour love was no more to see.
They bundled what had been their sign
With red shades cast at Calvary
Let need and fear double design
The hour love is no more to see.
A friend was rich and gave his all
With red shades cast at Calvary
They crossed a riven woven wall
The hour love was no more to see.
Then no one dared to think of hell
With red shades cast at Calvary
Passing beyond the want to tell
The hour with love no more to see.
They wondered at the kind of part
When red shades come to Calvary
They took a passing sort of cart
And thought of love no more to see.
When some, and one within that line
Of red shades cast on Calvary
Fell thinking on the very time
Love had been felt and quick to see.
When some of them with barren hands
Drew redly about Calvary
Their thoughts freed themselves from demands
And such love fell about surely.
With red shades cast at Calvary,
The air kissed every cheek its bite,
The hour love was no more to see.
They mingled closer, all but one
With red shades cast at Calvary,
An aging woman to age come,
The hour love was no more to see.
They bundled what had been their sign
With red shades cast at Calvary
Let need and fear double design
The hour love is no more to see.
A friend was rich and gave his all
With red shades cast at Calvary
They crossed a riven woven wall
The hour love was no more to see.
Then no one dared to think of hell
With red shades cast at Calvary
Passing beyond the want to tell
The hour with love no more to see.
They wondered at the kind of part
When red shades come to Calvary
They took a passing sort of cart
And thought of love no more to see.
When some, and one within that line
Of red shades cast on Calvary
Fell thinking on the very time
Love had been felt and quick to see.
When some of them with barren hands
Drew redly about Calvary
Their thoughts freed themselves from demands
And such love fell about surely.
Wednesday 5 May 2010
For St Cross
An old anticlerical ensign is swaying
On Holy Cross scaffold – Don John he is back
And I watched him, walking, to deliver my poem,
My captain and king, in my treacherous way.
I thought, “You old bastard, how have you come slinking
Now driven from Bailleul-en-Vimeu, from England
Somewhere in the north, brooding Castle at Barnard,
From penning one lion and licking another,
Away from Galloway, the thistle, the rose –
Rubbished at Annan and scrubbed by Ben Jowett
To preach out the Greeks and love don’t you just know it
I’ll throw it
Kow-tow it
The towers of Jowett
Beat out of the academe, sold down the river
For top-tier nothings, you spent your last penny
On a quiet grave orchard more worthy than any?
God damn you, Lord John, and King John of Toom Tabard
And whatever of your bounty hanged in my scabbard
I cast it aside for the Mulvanine blackguard
To play prophylactics. If son of mine bear
A thread of the blood makes him Balliol’s heir
God burn out his breath
Or the devil at best.
And the heavens bless Rebecca Marsh and the rest."
On Holy Cross scaffold – Don John he is back
And I watched him, walking, to deliver my poem,
My captain and king, in my treacherous way.
I thought, “You old bastard, how have you come slinking
Now driven from Bailleul-en-Vimeu, from England
Somewhere in the north, brooding Castle at Barnard,
From penning one lion and licking another,
Away from Galloway, the thistle, the rose –
Rubbished at Annan and scrubbed by Ben Jowett
To preach out the Greeks and love don’t you just know it
I’ll throw it
Kow-tow it
The towers of Jowett
Beat out of the academe, sold down the river
For top-tier nothings, you spent your last penny
On a quiet grave orchard more worthy than any?
God damn you, Lord John, and King John of Toom Tabard
And whatever of your bounty hanged in my scabbard
I cast it aside for the Mulvanine blackguard
To play prophylactics. If son of mine bear
A thread of the blood makes him Balliol’s heir
God burn out his breath
Or the devil at best.
And the heavens bless Rebecca Marsh and the rest."
Independent
Then could they ever count you quite like that?
I’ve looked at paved out pansies on the lawns,
All college coloured, like locked ranks of pawns,
And known you, in absentia, dodged the stat -
Think of the place five years ago. They sat
After their mornings chasing other yawns,
A different line of broken legs and Seans
From us and ours, more needed where we’re at.
Back then the banks were cropped about in red,
We would’ve turned up if we had been there.
And now we are, we can’t much care to play -
Well, bear well as you can, this day in May
Before the fortnight’s less than up; repair
The things you have to learn or else to shed.
Inside another head
More things are visible than were before,
The background scene will lift on what I saw
Outside the arching door.
Spoil away; you’re marked down to be chaste
Our ballot needs a salting and a baste.
I’ve looked at paved out pansies on the lawns,
All college coloured, like locked ranks of pawns,
And known you, in absentia, dodged the stat -
Think of the place five years ago. They sat
After their mornings chasing other yawns,
A different line of broken legs and Seans
From us and ours, more needed where we’re at.
Back then the banks were cropped about in red,
We would’ve turned up if we had been there.
And now we are, we can’t much care to play -
Well, bear well as you can, this day in May
Before the fortnight’s less than up; repair
The things you have to learn or else to shed.
Inside another head
More things are visible than were before,
The background scene will lift on what I saw
Outside the arching door.
Spoil away; you’re marked down to be chaste
Our ballot needs a salting and a baste.
Thursday 29 April 2010
To Persia
You are lying where her head lay,
As, on other mornings, mine.
You could nearly be mistaken:
Hair rather than sheeny, shaken
For a moment: has she been aged
Did she live her life laid down
And snore her sweet pigment away,
Leave your, peculiar, mottled line?
No, you and Boydy, long unstaged
Inherit softly, where the crown
Has left a waiting in the limes
And pomegranates. She would say –
I got to know them – I’d reply
Stay careful with that blanket’s sigh
As, on other mornings, mine.
You could nearly be mistaken:
Hair rather than sheeny, shaken
For a moment: has she been aged
Did she live her life laid down
And snore her sweet pigment away,
Leave your, peculiar, mottled line?
No, you and Boydy, long unstaged
Inherit softly, where the crown
Has left a waiting in the limes
And pomegranates. She would say –
I got to know them – I’d reply
Stay careful with that blanket’s sigh
Wednesday 14 April 2010
Ramses
Some time ago I met a man
Who lived by choice without his hair
And told me why it was not strange
In his palace, loitering.
But I could see this was no time
To give delusion attention,
For things were – just as simple – strange;
So why would such a man,
A king of beauty, gleam around
The spoiling power of the blue
And wear a thing like a soft mat
For lager, on his glint?
“Some time ago I was a man
Who chose to take off all my hair
A woman took it cupped and strung
And hung it up for price.”
It was dull, it was more solid –
Daily shaven, under, twice…
Who lived by choice without his hair
And told me why it was not strange
In his palace, loitering.
But I could see this was no time
To give delusion attention,
For things were – just as simple – strange;
So why would such a man,
A king of beauty, gleam around
The spoiling power of the blue
And wear a thing like a soft mat
For lager, on his glint?
“Some time ago I was a man
Who chose to take off all my hair
A woman took it cupped and strung
And hung it up for price.”
It was dull, it was more solid –
Daily shaven, under, twice…
Sunday 4 April 2010
Dryden Agonistes part II
“Who are we having then?” asked James’s daughter,
Asperity hawking all round her tone,
No mellowed from forgetting.
“Marlborough.”
“Not for that!”
…Darnby was looking very tired, so
Halifax – with the olden weather eye
For what was going on – stepped into place,
“You are inclining to the poetic,
Your Majesty?”
“I’m speaking the King’s –
My own, come to that, by Parliament –
The Queen’s own English.”
“And the King’s”, snapped William, stopping feigning,
“And Mr. Dryden’s, too” – that shut them up –
“Some say.”
“His contribution is scarcely in doubt,”
Halifax trimmed.
“Ve must develop it. I haf some taste.”
He liked to make them quite as quiet as
The paladin who founded Orangedom.
“You too, my darlink? You are staring zo? Vell
You must know I read and read a lot
And I haf tastes and I vont that man who
Allifax said before.”
“Rochester, sire, has been sometime dead…”
“Don’t patronise a Prinz King utero! I know all zat.
You zed ‘im: Shadwell.”
“No!”
Too much startlement’s hell for good address.
“I like him.” “But I never said him.” “Well.”
Halifax picks over his tact’s Fontenoy,
Spoils the bodies of prevarications,
Thinks of Prince William, his dykes, cochlea, cannon,
He knows now what went wrong,
“No, no, sire, ‘had well’…’
“Vell Shadwell I like.”
William of Orange, who has read Vegetius,
Machiavelli, and not Mac Flecknoe,
He thinks to summation: “Shadwell is humorous.”
Asperity hawking all round her tone,
No mellowed from forgetting.
“Marlborough.”
“Not for that!”
…Darnby was looking very tired, so
Halifax – with the olden weather eye
For what was going on – stepped into place,
“You are inclining to the poetic,
Your Majesty?”
“I’m speaking the King’s –
My own, come to that, by Parliament –
The Queen’s own English.”
“And the King’s”, snapped William, stopping feigning,
“And Mr. Dryden’s, too” – that shut them up –
“Some say.”
“His contribution is scarcely in doubt,”
Halifax trimmed.
“Ve must develop it. I haf some taste.”
He liked to make them quite as quiet as
The paladin who founded Orangedom.
“You too, my darlink? You are staring zo? Vell
You must know I read and read a lot
And I haf tastes and I vont that man who
Allifax said before.”
“Rochester, sire, has been sometime dead…”
“Don’t patronise a Prinz King utero! I know all zat.
You zed ‘im: Shadwell.”
“No!”
Too much startlement’s hell for good address.
“I like him.” “But I never said him.” “Well.”
Halifax picks over his tact’s Fontenoy,
Spoils the bodies of prevarications,
Thinks of Prince William, his dykes, cochlea, cannon,
He knows now what went wrong,
“No, no, sire, ‘had well’…’
“Vell Shadwell I like.”
William of Orange, who has read Vegetius,
Machiavelli, and not Mac Flecknoe,
He thinks to summation: “Shadwell is humorous.”
Dryden Agonistes part I
He touched Mary's hand,
The wise Marquess of Halifax, thinking about
The theory of trimming, practice, how to tack -
The versified tackle an old friend can weave,
'There are some things of course that you won't want to change,'
Oh you, proud angered John and your fallow-field garland,
Will I yet laught gladly to th'epical Dutch?
'Your Majesties.' But she seemed slightly less clear.
'Things, Marquess?' 'Lady, I think about England
In my idle hours, so I like it calm.
Well, don't you, madam? Sure,
I'm no Rochester...'
'Nice Laurence Hyde?'
sniped Anne from her side.
'Oh, would that you were - '
'The other Rochester,
madam.'
'The ghastly mad boy, "Comus"
in his breast - '
'With a pretty dead Earling - '
'He only called once,
And I think that he had, well, some kind of
disease.'
'It is not of Rochester that I would
fain speak.' ('Then why did you say so?')
'The Laureacy.'
'Oh I see; well it's no, I'm afraid. That man tires me.'
'Dry Dryden, darling,' Anne said, and they laughed.
But Orange did not, for the sake of a scowling -
'I haf hat to dismiss my own Kaffalick food guarts.
I vant no papist poett, zo gett himm outt now.'
The wise Marquess of Halifax, thinking about
The theory of trimming, practice, how to tack -
The versified tackle an old friend can weave,
'There are some things of course that you won't want to change,'
Oh you, proud angered John and your fallow-field garland,
Will I yet laught gladly to th'epical Dutch?
'Your Majesties.' But she seemed slightly less clear.
'Things, Marquess?' 'Lady, I think about England
In my idle hours, so I like it calm.
Well, don't you, madam? Sure,
I'm no Rochester...'
'Nice Laurence Hyde?'
sniped Anne from her side.
'Oh, would that you were - '
'The other Rochester,
madam.'
'The ghastly mad boy, "Comus"
in his breast - '
'With a pretty dead Earling - '
'He only called once,
And I think that he had, well, some kind of
disease.'
'It is not of Rochester that I would
fain speak.' ('Then why did you say so?')
'The Laureacy.'
'Oh I see; well it's no, I'm afraid. That man tires me.'
'Dry Dryden, darling,' Anne said, and they laughed.
But Orange did not, for the sake of a scowling -
'I haf hat to dismiss my own Kaffalick food guarts.
I vant no papist poett, zo gett himm outt now.'
Tuesday 23 March 2010
ISIS LOST, after Milton, written a year ago
'I married Isis on the fifth day of May' - Dylan
Of wed-bound husband's barren ridden hue,
Of mine, indeed, treat I. Thus fell it out:
As Greekish fables hail Pomona's pace,
Or Phoebus gentle season rolling forth,
In MAYUS tide - conjoined in such hour,
Whenasmuch Cynthia's cart had so careered
That of her bearings o'er breeze's swathe,
And royall Sojourns in marinick churnes,
Had tantafugued her radiant Master's tread
His tenfold Raye to swirle in fivefold full,
Grew I to Memphian maid, or Orphicke queene,
To Osiris and Horus demurest...
Of wed-bound husband's barren ridden hue,
Of mine, indeed, treat I. Thus fell it out:
As Greekish fables hail Pomona's pace,
Or Phoebus gentle season rolling forth,
In MAYUS tide - conjoined in such hour,
Whenasmuch Cynthia's cart had so careered
That of her bearings o'er breeze's swathe,
And royall Sojourns in marinick churnes,
Had tantafugued her radiant Master's tread
His tenfold Raye to swirle in fivefold full,
Grew I to Memphian maid, or Orphicke queene,
To Osiris and Horus demurest...
Wednesday 17 March 2010
From 'Finalist Madrigals'
You walked into the library
Like you were walking into a cell
Laptop strategically dipped below a tome
Manufactured I think by Dell
You put your phone on silent
As you heard yourself breath hoarse
And all the boys dreamed that you’d be on facebook
You’d be on facebook (chat)
You're so lame
You probably haven’t noticed this song is a ripoff
You're so lame
I bet you’ve got JSTOR crisply bookmarked
Don't you? Don't you?
etc
Like you were walking into a cell
Laptop strategically dipped below a tome
Manufactured I think by Dell
You put your phone on silent
As you heard yourself breath hoarse
And all the boys dreamed that you’d be on facebook
You’d be on facebook (chat)
You're so lame
You probably haven’t noticed this song is a ripoff
You're so lame
I bet you’ve got JSTOR crisply bookmarked
Don't you? Don't you?
etc
Saturday 13 March 2010
Paene insularum
I suppose there was a marsh once,
There, where I heard of Sirmio –
But winter asked for warmer work,
So I might have skipped on, to the Lesbia pages.
Do you remember the island of Ely,
The sort of place where they always make stands?
If our island was ever an island, like that one,
It’s gone underground.
Did you even go down to the river much, back then?
I think that you know about sensitive skin,
And that midges breath differently when in soft water,
Still bite as we blush, though.
I feel strongest in places I’ve almost forgotten,
You like sediment.
There, where I heard of Sirmio –
But winter asked for warmer work,
So I might have skipped on, to the Lesbia pages.
Do you remember the island of Ely,
The sort of place where they always make stands?
If our island was ever an island, like that one,
It’s gone underground.
Did you even go down to the river much, back then?
I think that you know about sensitive skin,
And that midges breath differently when in soft water,
Still bite as we blush, though.
I feel strongest in places I’ve almost forgotten,
You like sediment.
Friday 12 March 2010
Mad Tract
Mammon, Saviour of Athens
“It’s something like the priesthood now,” my then tutor said a while ago, adjusting her cassock. She had heard rumours that I wanted to become an academic, and consequently wanted to enact a chat, and, I assume, a sanity check. For myself, I’ve always heard rumours that I wanted to become an academic, and rarely paid them overmuch attention.
“I mean,” she continued, “do you know what you want to do, what it is? It requires a sort of cold, full-on dedication now, of course. The gentleman-scholar doesn’t exist anymore.”
The chick had, naturally, got to the node of the matter. I’m aware that the gentleman-scholar doesn’t exist, that we’ve gone from Sliggers (see prior article) to sloggers, but I am young and foolish and, in my moments of reconciling myself to the Worship of Athena, I do like to think I could help to reverse that process.
In this article I will try and articulate how, by musing on what the academy was, what it is, and what it might become, in two more or less frightening versions of the future: in one of which I am a distinguished professor and probably the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, while in the other I have settled for becoming a strolling player, or something, and have not implemented my Plan to Save the Eggheads.
So we begin with what Athens was: et in Arcadia Minoo: the past world my tutor, correctly, intuited I am liable to sentimentalise. William Empson is lounging in bed with a couple of lady-boys and a Sheffield lecturer. CS Lewis is recovering from a hard evensong with the help of hot toddy. It is a golden morning, and a few golden minds are writing about the Golden Age of English Literature: “an age synonymous with the glory of two words, Aristocracy, and England” (thanks, CS). What distinguishes such a milieu? There are very few people there; some are extremely clever, and some are just the Earl of Colfax’s favourite nephew (see Trinity, ITV, out now on DVD). Very few of them are girls, partly because debutantes still exist (so that’s my ex-tutor catered for, I suppose). What is going for this age, other than the dress sense? It is this: the operation of a very powerful internal shame ethic. When one writes, one must write well what can be read well. Criticism is a kind of literature, not a sort of riot police force maintained by the taxpayer to curb literature’s excesses.
Only by our own era, of course, criticism – like every other arena of academic study – has become exactly that – a poor creature, bloated then straitjacketed by taxes, funded, and restricted, at every level. It is a historical period that is about to suffer, with the desolation of the higher education budget, intense withdrawal systems, but it has already done its damage. Scholars, no less than their gaily debt-gathering pupils, float about on mysterious money about which they know little and care nothing – on the academic level, unlike the undergraduate one, this ethereal benevolence does not come back to claim them in the form of debt. The fact is that very generous cumulative public funding makes the question of demand irrelevant to the publication of academic works. When academics could be trusted to enforce the laws of taste instead, the gap in necessary discriminatory control was filled.
When literary merit – which I would define, in the sphere of criticism, as a style obedient to the diktats of beauty and of clarity – became unfashionable, a curious situation was produced. The taxpayer was now supporting at the country’s universities a class of teachers to produce and publish work which could not conceivably interest him or her; jargonical, marginal, aggressively priced and pompously expressed.
It will be objected perhaps that I speak of the “literary” and the “critical” and yet apply my apparent disillusionment to all disciplines, including the sciences. I believe that the point self-evidently stands; it’s just that the cancer of elitist inexplicability, only in progress in the arts, subsumed the sciences rather longer ago. Science is fascinating and powerful, but there is a reason it is not the queen of dinner party discourse – the scientific community, well within recorded memory, decided, patchily then eventually conventionally, that an attractive writing style was, in their portfolio, a dispensable skill; so, to give energy to higher priorities, they dispensed with it. Rebels exist – Richard Dawkins’s maddest diatribes should and will still be read by a general public, because he is an excellent writer – but theirs is not the usual way.
In the context of the sciences this development is regrettable, as their skills become underappreciated and ever less competently taught at school level, laymen becoming, and staying, repelled by science very early on. But in the context of the arts, the abandonment of communication and elegance is more than this, it is – in a variety of thought where utilitarian value should not be of paramount importance – completely debilitating. Arts academics in the absence of taste become distinguished on the grounds of industry and originality. Industry means they put a lot of stuff on paper or maybe the internet, originality means they invert fashions and privilege the obscure over the good. A computer programme could fulfil all these functions; at times the last Vice-Chancellor of Oxford was, I recall, on the point of suggesting that it should do.
Here is my planned healing process; it comes in a simple step and later a more drastic one. First, it is not very hard to write interestingly and clearly, although when one is angry one tends to get a bit more interesting and a lot less clear; I apologise for the operation of that process within this article. Anyway, the scientists jettisoned, the humanities are jettisoning, the belles lettres because they developed a perception that style distracted energy from more important things. It doesn’t. Lucidity actually makes work easier to write as well as to read. Freud, Jung, Einstein and Rutherford were lucid. In the quasi-artistic worlds of political science and philosophy, Macchiavelli or Bertrand Russell have many lessons to teach to the aesthete. The tribe of academics at work on non-books for non-audiences, or as they would put it “monographs for supervisors”, are thereby leading harder and unhappier lives as a result of their doctrinaire idleness about style.
However, the regrafting of taste on a voluntary basis is unfortunately likely to be quite a slow process. I suggest that we, as a nation, encourage its secure advancement by, in the meantime, privatising all universities presses, thereby requiring every academic to seek some sort of commercial publisher. The internet would still exist as an output for the most doggedly vital, and yet commercially unattractive, research; the most recalcitrant biologists could cure malaria quietly on a nice blog somewhere; but they could abusing bookshelves while they were about it: unless of course they felt like expressing themselves in a way that would truly edify the public, incidentally repaying the debt they owed that public for their own education and careers.
The effects of this course of action would be alarming, especially in such an unruffled milieu as our beloved Oxford, but I believe ultimately beneficial. Supervisors and senior tutors would have to recommence rating and promoting their colleagues on quality in a general rather than a specialised sense. The university and the strange lands outwith it would begin to reflect each other a little more.
For the strange thing is that the legendary breed of jovial ivory tower dwellers, Lewises, Empsons, Trevor-Ropers, Bayleys, were actually more realistic, fleshly beings than the anaemic spectres who occupy their posts today. In the names of modernity, contemporaneity, originality and research rigour, academics today have firmly turned the ivory key; and if they do not have recourse to the Dinshaw Doctrine (they won’t, by the way), they may be turning it for the last time. In the post-Credit Crunch Crumpet landscape, the pillowing public money proved evanescent, the student debt powerfully unattractive to the young, and the intellectually enthusiastic sane enough to go anywhere but academia, I don’t see how the academy can retain any kind of primacy in education and interpretation. I don’t know whether the new priesthood will be teachers or TV personalities, but they won’t be hons, dons and smoking MA Oxons.
At a recent meeting of the Stubbs Society Sir Keith Thomas recently lamented the likely future downfall of academic history before popular biography. Well, Keithy, I say they get as they deserves.
“It’s something like the priesthood now,” my then tutor said a while ago, adjusting her cassock. She had heard rumours that I wanted to become an academic, and consequently wanted to enact a chat, and, I assume, a sanity check. For myself, I’ve always heard rumours that I wanted to become an academic, and rarely paid them overmuch attention.
“I mean,” she continued, “do you know what you want to do, what it is? It requires a sort of cold, full-on dedication now, of course. The gentleman-scholar doesn’t exist anymore.”
The chick had, naturally, got to the node of the matter. I’m aware that the gentleman-scholar doesn’t exist, that we’ve gone from Sliggers (see prior article) to sloggers, but I am young and foolish and, in my moments of reconciling myself to the Worship of Athena, I do like to think I could help to reverse that process.
In this article I will try and articulate how, by musing on what the academy was, what it is, and what it might become, in two more or less frightening versions of the future: in one of which I am a distinguished professor and probably the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, while in the other I have settled for becoming a strolling player, or something, and have not implemented my Plan to Save the Eggheads.
So we begin with what Athens was: et in Arcadia Minoo: the past world my tutor, correctly, intuited I am liable to sentimentalise. William Empson is lounging in bed with a couple of lady-boys and a Sheffield lecturer. CS Lewis is recovering from a hard evensong with the help of hot toddy. It is a golden morning, and a few golden minds are writing about the Golden Age of English Literature: “an age synonymous with the glory of two words, Aristocracy, and England” (thanks, CS). What distinguishes such a milieu? There are very few people there; some are extremely clever, and some are just the Earl of Colfax’s favourite nephew (see Trinity, ITV, out now on DVD). Very few of them are girls, partly because debutantes still exist (so that’s my ex-tutor catered for, I suppose). What is going for this age, other than the dress sense? It is this: the operation of a very powerful internal shame ethic. When one writes, one must write well what can be read well. Criticism is a kind of literature, not a sort of riot police force maintained by the taxpayer to curb literature’s excesses.
Only by our own era, of course, criticism – like every other arena of academic study – has become exactly that – a poor creature, bloated then straitjacketed by taxes, funded, and restricted, at every level. It is a historical period that is about to suffer, with the desolation of the higher education budget, intense withdrawal systems, but it has already done its damage. Scholars, no less than their gaily debt-gathering pupils, float about on mysterious money about which they know little and care nothing – on the academic level, unlike the undergraduate one, this ethereal benevolence does not come back to claim them in the form of debt. The fact is that very generous cumulative public funding makes the question of demand irrelevant to the publication of academic works. When academics could be trusted to enforce the laws of taste instead, the gap in necessary discriminatory control was filled.
When literary merit – which I would define, in the sphere of criticism, as a style obedient to the diktats of beauty and of clarity – became unfashionable, a curious situation was produced. The taxpayer was now supporting at the country’s universities a class of teachers to produce and publish work which could not conceivably interest him or her; jargonical, marginal, aggressively priced and pompously expressed.
It will be objected perhaps that I speak of the “literary” and the “critical” and yet apply my apparent disillusionment to all disciplines, including the sciences. I believe that the point self-evidently stands; it’s just that the cancer of elitist inexplicability, only in progress in the arts, subsumed the sciences rather longer ago. Science is fascinating and powerful, but there is a reason it is not the queen of dinner party discourse – the scientific community, well within recorded memory, decided, patchily then eventually conventionally, that an attractive writing style was, in their portfolio, a dispensable skill; so, to give energy to higher priorities, they dispensed with it. Rebels exist – Richard Dawkins’s maddest diatribes should and will still be read by a general public, because he is an excellent writer – but theirs is not the usual way.
In the context of the sciences this development is regrettable, as their skills become underappreciated and ever less competently taught at school level, laymen becoming, and staying, repelled by science very early on. But in the context of the arts, the abandonment of communication and elegance is more than this, it is – in a variety of thought where utilitarian value should not be of paramount importance – completely debilitating. Arts academics in the absence of taste become distinguished on the grounds of industry and originality. Industry means they put a lot of stuff on paper or maybe the internet, originality means they invert fashions and privilege the obscure over the good. A computer programme could fulfil all these functions; at times the last Vice-Chancellor of Oxford was, I recall, on the point of suggesting that it should do.
Here is my planned healing process; it comes in a simple step and later a more drastic one. First, it is not very hard to write interestingly and clearly, although when one is angry one tends to get a bit more interesting and a lot less clear; I apologise for the operation of that process within this article. Anyway, the scientists jettisoned, the humanities are jettisoning, the belles lettres because they developed a perception that style distracted energy from more important things. It doesn’t. Lucidity actually makes work easier to write as well as to read. Freud, Jung, Einstein and Rutherford were lucid. In the quasi-artistic worlds of political science and philosophy, Macchiavelli or Bertrand Russell have many lessons to teach to the aesthete. The tribe of academics at work on non-books for non-audiences, or as they would put it “monographs for supervisors”, are thereby leading harder and unhappier lives as a result of their doctrinaire idleness about style.
However, the regrafting of taste on a voluntary basis is unfortunately likely to be quite a slow process. I suggest that we, as a nation, encourage its secure advancement by, in the meantime, privatising all universities presses, thereby requiring every academic to seek some sort of commercial publisher. The internet would still exist as an output for the most doggedly vital, and yet commercially unattractive, research; the most recalcitrant biologists could cure malaria quietly on a nice blog somewhere; but they could abusing bookshelves while they were about it: unless of course they felt like expressing themselves in a way that would truly edify the public, incidentally repaying the debt they owed that public for their own education and careers.
The effects of this course of action would be alarming, especially in such an unruffled milieu as our beloved Oxford, but I believe ultimately beneficial. Supervisors and senior tutors would have to recommence rating and promoting their colleagues on quality in a general rather than a specialised sense. The university and the strange lands outwith it would begin to reflect each other a little more.
For the strange thing is that the legendary breed of jovial ivory tower dwellers, Lewises, Empsons, Trevor-Ropers, Bayleys, were actually more realistic, fleshly beings than the anaemic spectres who occupy their posts today. In the names of modernity, contemporaneity, originality and research rigour, academics today have firmly turned the ivory key; and if they do not have recourse to the Dinshaw Doctrine (they won’t, by the way), they may be turning it for the last time. In the post-Credit Crunch Crumpet landscape, the pillowing public money proved evanescent, the student debt powerfully unattractive to the young, and the intellectually enthusiastic sane enough to go anywhere but academia, I don’t see how the academy can retain any kind of primacy in education and interpretation. I don’t know whether the new priesthood will be teachers or TV personalities, but they won’t be hons, dons and smoking MA Oxons.
At a recent meeting of the Stubbs Society Sir Keith Thomas recently lamented the likely future downfall of academic history before popular biography. Well, Keithy, I say they get as they deserves.
Very old snatch of historical novel, 'Ctesiphon'
China. Imagine it. An obese idea that we have caught in ridiculous fragments, silken drapery in hideous colours, stock stories of a timid jaundiced people without number. A commonplace in Roman poetry. Flatterers have conquered China a thousand times in inexorable odes to please their patrons; satirists have sent unlikely lovers there; historians say nothing, because nothing can be said with integrity of a place so hulking and inconvenient and shapeless and powerful. The Emperor of China is the most powerful of men, to whom gods send tremulous emissaries; there, an enterprising bishop; at the other side, a talkative mystic. Gods learn lessons in majesty from that man. But men can learn nothing of him or from him; oceans of silk and steel, a dais higher than the Jacob’s Ladder of the Jews, hide him from our sight.
I am riding a brownish mule, one among many. The mules are our Emperors at present, even though one of the riders is an emperor himself. We are dazed men (we made the women stay behind). We no longer have a city, we scarcely have a path, but we are going to China, towards it anyway.
None of us know very much about the Chinamen. But of this we are sure: they do not adore one God. And we Persians, we Zoroastrians, have had quite enough of the No God But God, though we are said to have invented Him. The Jewish people whom we delivered from Babylon long, long ago have written ghastly legends of monarchs with monotonous names and persistent woes. More melancholy than Israel ever knew came to us in a shorter space than the life of a fine horse.
I want gods like those dancing Greek creatures, gods of a shining, animal court filled with light and temper. But the more morose, the more without pity, the bloodier God is, the more I know that there is only one of Him and He cannot stomach even lieutenants, even angels.
I am riding a brownish mule, one among many. The mules are our Emperors at present, even though one of the riders is an emperor himself. We are dazed men (we made the women stay behind). We no longer have a city, we scarcely have a path, but we are going to China, towards it anyway.
None of us know very much about the Chinamen. But of this we are sure: they do not adore one God. And we Persians, we Zoroastrians, have had quite enough of the No God But God, though we are said to have invented Him. The Jewish people whom we delivered from Babylon long, long ago have written ghastly legends of monarchs with monotonous names and persistent woes. More melancholy than Israel ever knew came to us in a shorter space than the life of a fine horse.
I want gods like those dancing Greek creatures, gods of a shining, animal court filled with light and temper. But the more morose, the more without pity, the bloodier God is, the more I know that there is only one of Him and He cannot stomach even lieutenants, even angels.
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Captain Arcadia Ep 1 Part 2
Rotterdam, some months later
(A bustling and mercantile thoroughfare, through which an old man in a long, black, fur-lined gown and a faintly disdainful looking, fashionably dressed young nobleman are winding their way.)
ERASMUS: Is my fair city less than to your liking, Mr Greville?
GREVILLE: The clouds upon my thoughts are glum enough already without being augmented by the…stench of moneychangers.
ERASMUS: You are a young man of uncompromising disposition, I see. What is that worries you so? The grave state of decrepitude in which modern learning self-evidently finds herself?
GREVILLE: My troubles are of a personal nature, Erasmus.
ERASMUS: Aha! A love affair.
GREVILLE: No, no. If you must know, it’s about my friend Philip Sidney…
ERASMUS: Ah yes, I remember him, a most accomplished and promising young gentleman. A scholar of Oxford, Christ Church, I believe? Is his mother not one of the Count of Leicester’s sisters?
GREVILLE: The point is, for months he’s been missing, no sign of him anywhere, and I received disturbing word from…well, from an unreliable source, but…
(Loud commotion and shouts of “Thief, thief!” A nearby stall is in utter commotion. A pale young man dressed in black, wearing a flashy opal ring, is trying to extricate himself from a particularly angry knot of people with a red faced burgher at its centre.)
MARLOWE: I hold a commission from, from, the con- con- sistory court at Rh-Rh-Rheims, I am a, a theological scholar, a scholar and a…
BURGHER: A red-handed thief! That’s my best opal, you degenerate, on order to the Duchess of Brabant, went missing four days back…
GREVILLE: What an extraordinary chance. That’s him, Erasmus, the man who said he might have bad news about Philip.
ERASMUS: Allow me to sort out this unfortunate situation. My good man, (he lays a restraining hand on the angry burgher’s shoulder) you have perhaps heard of my repute. I am Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam…
(The burgher punches Erasmus in the face and the sage falls over. Marlowe has gripped hold of Greville.)
MARLOWE: Ey, the old man’ll be just fine. Scram now, and we’ll talk about your friend. I know a nice safe ‘stablishment. Come on.
(They bolt away down an alley.)
(The camera follows them bolting down many side streets. At some point they rush past a shabbily dressed man in a wide-brimmed hat. He raises his head to look at them; it is Norton. He watches them pass, then sets off back the way he had come. Cut to an Unsavoury Boarding House, Marlowe and Greville entering.)
MARLOWE: (to landlady) Good day, Frau Geritzoon. I’ve brought a friend.
LANDLADY: He looks a better class than your usual run of dodgy Jesuits and thievin’ rentboys, Kit.
MARLOWE: I’m sure he appreciates the compliment, Frau Geritzoon. Now if I were you I’d get right down to the jewellers on Wilhelmstrasse.
LANDLADY: What you nattering about? I don’t need bawbies at my age.
MARLOWE: Mm, well, I think you’ll find yer man Desiderius in a bit of a fix.
LANDLADY: What? Dezzy’s got ‘imself in trouble again? Well, Kit Marlowe, I’m moving but if I find you’re at the bottom of this one… (She bustles out.)
GREVILLE: (astonished) ‘Dezzy’? Frau Geritzoon? That woman...Erasmus…
MARLOWE: Has been secretly married for decades, yeah. Now, Master Greville, just where were we?
GREVILLE: You’re the one who should be answering questions, you depraved little fop. You leant over to me back in the tavern, muttered “Sidney” and put your thumbs down. Are you saying it’s all up with Philip, and what is your information, exactly?
MARLOWE: (off hand) Jus’ this.
(He moves to a corner of the room with a battered travelling chest in it and kicks the unlocked trunk open, Greville craning after him.)
Don’ stand there lordling, light a taper.
GREVILLE: Show some damned respect.
MARLOWE: Do as I say.
(GREVILLE, white and sweaty with anger and trepidation, does indeed light a taper as Marlowe picks up a large object from the box. It comes under the light – a mud-splattered, once elegant saddle, with a coat of arms on it.)
GREVILLE: Christ save me! The Penshurst arms, Sidney’s blazon!
MARLOWE: Picked up the corpse of a horse fortnight back. Picked it up for a pound. Wouldn’t mind some remuner…
GREVILLE: Like hell it was a pound, you slimy bastard.
(He is very angry and pins Marlowe in a grip against the wall, letting the taper go fall. We see an unknown boot come down on it.)
OFFSTAGE HUSKILY FEMALE VOICE: Steady, boys. You could start a fire like that.
(Flash to the newcomer. Dressed in young man’s garments with a wide-brimmed riding hat exactly like the one Norton was wearing earlier is a tall, pale, light haired young woman with dark dark eyes and the evident lineaments of incredibly fabulous breasts. Penelope Deveureux – Stella – has arrived.)
(A bustling and mercantile thoroughfare, through which an old man in a long, black, fur-lined gown and a faintly disdainful looking, fashionably dressed young nobleman are winding their way.)
ERASMUS: Is my fair city less than to your liking, Mr Greville?
GREVILLE: The clouds upon my thoughts are glum enough already without being augmented by the…stench of moneychangers.
ERASMUS: You are a young man of uncompromising disposition, I see. What is that worries you so? The grave state of decrepitude in which modern learning self-evidently finds herself?
GREVILLE: My troubles are of a personal nature, Erasmus.
ERASMUS: Aha! A love affair.
GREVILLE: No, no. If you must know, it’s about my friend Philip Sidney…
ERASMUS: Ah yes, I remember him, a most accomplished and promising young gentleman. A scholar of Oxford, Christ Church, I believe? Is his mother not one of the Count of Leicester’s sisters?
GREVILLE: The point is, for months he’s been missing, no sign of him anywhere, and I received disturbing word from…well, from an unreliable source, but…
(Loud commotion and shouts of “Thief, thief!” A nearby stall is in utter commotion. A pale young man dressed in black, wearing a flashy opal ring, is trying to extricate himself from a particularly angry knot of people with a red faced burgher at its centre.)
MARLOWE: I hold a commission from, from, the con- con- sistory court at Rh-Rh-Rheims, I am a, a theological scholar, a scholar and a…
BURGHER: A red-handed thief! That’s my best opal, you degenerate, on order to the Duchess of Brabant, went missing four days back…
GREVILLE: What an extraordinary chance. That’s him, Erasmus, the man who said he might have bad news about Philip.
ERASMUS: Allow me to sort out this unfortunate situation. My good man, (he lays a restraining hand on the angry burgher’s shoulder) you have perhaps heard of my repute. I am Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam…
(The burgher punches Erasmus in the face and the sage falls over. Marlowe has gripped hold of Greville.)
MARLOWE: Ey, the old man’ll be just fine. Scram now, and we’ll talk about your friend. I know a nice safe ‘stablishment. Come on.
(They bolt away down an alley.)
(The camera follows them bolting down many side streets. At some point they rush past a shabbily dressed man in a wide-brimmed hat. He raises his head to look at them; it is Norton. He watches them pass, then sets off back the way he had come. Cut to an Unsavoury Boarding House, Marlowe and Greville entering.)
MARLOWE: (to landlady) Good day, Frau Geritzoon. I’ve brought a friend.
LANDLADY: He looks a better class than your usual run of dodgy Jesuits and thievin’ rentboys, Kit.
MARLOWE: I’m sure he appreciates the compliment, Frau Geritzoon. Now if I were you I’d get right down to the jewellers on Wilhelmstrasse.
LANDLADY: What you nattering about? I don’t need bawbies at my age.
MARLOWE: Mm, well, I think you’ll find yer man Desiderius in a bit of a fix.
LANDLADY: What? Dezzy’s got ‘imself in trouble again? Well, Kit Marlowe, I’m moving but if I find you’re at the bottom of this one… (She bustles out.)
GREVILLE: (astonished) ‘Dezzy’? Frau Geritzoon? That woman...Erasmus…
MARLOWE: Has been secretly married for decades, yeah. Now, Master Greville, just where were we?
GREVILLE: You’re the one who should be answering questions, you depraved little fop. You leant over to me back in the tavern, muttered “Sidney” and put your thumbs down. Are you saying it’s all up with Philip, and what is your information, exactly?
MARLOWE: (off hand) Jus’ this.
(He moves to a corner of the room with a battered travelling chest in it and kicks the unlocked trunk open, Greville craning after him.)
Don’ stand there lordling, light a taper.
GREVILLE: Show some damned respect.
MARLOWE: Do as I say.
(GREVILLE, white and sweaty with anger and trepidation, does indeed light a taper as Marlowe picks up a large object from the box. It comes under the light – a mud-splattered, once elegant saddle, with a coat of arms on it.)
GREVILLE: Christ save me! The Penshurst arms, Sidney’s blazon!
MARLOWE: Picked up the corpse of a horse fortnight back. Picked it up for a pound. Wouldn’t mind some remuner…
GREVILLE: Like hell it was a pound, you slimy bastard.
(He is very angry and pins Marlowe in a grip against the wall, letting the taper go fall. We see an unknown boot come down on it.)
OFFSTAGE HUSKILY FEMALE VOICE: Steady, boys. You could start a fire like that.
(Flash to the newcomer. Dressed in young man’s garments with a wide-brimmed riding hat exactly like the one Norton was wearing earlier is a tall, pale, light haired young woman with dark dark eyes and the evident lineaments of incredibly fabulous breasts. Penelope Deveureux – Stella – has arrived.)
I diversify to TV drama
CAPTAIN ARCADIA
Episode 1 – ‘Gap Year’
Mainz, 1572
(A shot of the cathedral. A bell tolling. A view of the city progressing from grand to seedy. A Low Tavern. Laughter and oaths in German. A red robe splashed with mud. Shot up to the shrewd face of a Roman Catholic prelate, in middle age. He is counting some gold coins as he crosses the threshold. A man in brown shouts.)
DRINKER: Lash up your purses, lads! Herr Kardinal is here…
CARDINAL: (smiling charmingly) I’m not playing tonight Hermann. I have a duty to attend to.
DRINKER: Duty? And this duty’s name…is it Gertrude?
(Shot of a repelled looking bar wench taking a step back, uproarious laughter.)
CARDINAL: Not tonight. Tell me, is the Englishman still here?
DRINKER: Herr Norton? Not likely, your Eminence. You were foolish to be so generous about that account!
SECOND DRINKER: The heretic bastard will be in Cologne by now.
CARDINAL: Cologne? I think that unlikely. Hey, Herr Albrecht, give my boys a drink. Cologne? No, I’m a spiritual gentleman, Liutpold, and my judgement is that by now…
(A hitherto silent man in a green tunic slams a knife in the table.)
MURDEROUS GOON: He’ll be in Hell, Herr Kardinal!
(Shot of a very, very exhausted man, at a roadside, pausing for breath. A flung stone smacks him in the back of the neck and he falls. Three men in green tunics surround him, pinning him to the ground. One pulls a knife.)
KILLER 1: Mistah Norton. No one defaults on Herr Kardinal, do you understand?
KILLER 2: Not without inconvenience, ja?
(Sound of hooves. The three functionaries cluster together suspiciously.)
KILLER 2: Looks like a real gentleman.
(The third killer, with the knife, laughs. We cut to the approaching rider, a young man on a white horse. Should be absolutely archetypal)
SIDNEY: Afternoon, sirs. My mount is tiring; are any of you carrying water?
(Caught in the midst of dubiety, the killers are silent and awkward.)
Come on. My German may be imperfect, but…
(The second killer pulls a pistol and shoots the white horse dead. Sidney sees the action, alights in time, elegantly, smashes the third killer out cold, takes the knife, and stabs the second killer dead through the back of the neck to the gorge. The first man runs for it. The horse aside, the killers have failed to kill anyone.)
NORTON: (gasping) Master Philip!
SIDNEY: What have we here? Lord Jesus, aren’t you the footman mother had dismissed from Penshurst for gambling? What the devil are you doing here?
NORTON: Still gambling, Master Philip.
To be continued
Episode 1 – ‘Gap Year’
Mainz, 1572
(A shot of the cathedral. A bell tolling. A view of the city progressing from grand to seedy. A Low Tavern. Laughter and oaths in German. A red robe splashed with mud. Shot up to the shrewd face of a Roman Catholic prelate, in middle age. He is counting some gold coins as he crosses the threshold. A man in brown shouts.)
DRINKER: Lash up your purses, lads! Herr Kardinal is here…
CARDINAL: (smiling charmingly) I’m not playing tonight Hermann. I have a duty to attend to.
DRINKER: Duty? And this duty’s name…is it Gertrude?
(Shot of a repelled looking bar wench taking a step back, uproarious laughter.)
CARDINAL: Not tonight. Tell me, is the Englishman still here?
DRINKER: Herr Norton? Not likely, your Eminence. You were foolish to be so generous about that account!
SECOND DRINKER: The heretic bastard will be in Cologne by now.
CARDINAL: Cologne? I think that unlikely. Hey, Herr Albrecht, give my boys a drink. Cologne? No, I’m a spiritual gentleman, Liutpold, and my judgement is that by now…
(A hitherto silent man in a green tunic slams a knife in the table.)
MURDEROUS GOON: He’ll be in Hell, Herr Kardinal!
(Shot of a very, very exhausted man, at a roadside, pausing for breath. A flung stone smacks him in the back of the neck and he falls. Three men in green tunics surround him, pinning him to the ground. One pulls a knife.)
KILLER 1: Mistah Norton. No one defaults on Herr Kardinal, do you understand?
KILLER 2: Not without inconvenience, ja?
(Sound of hooves. The three functionaries cluster together suspiciously.)
KILLER 2: Looks like a real gentleman.
(The third killer, with the knife, laughs. We cut to the approaching rider, a young man on a white horse. Should be absolutely archetypal)
SIDNEY: Afternoon, sirs. My mount is tiring; are any of you carrying water?
(Caught in the midst of dubiety, the killers are silent and awkward.)
Come on. My German may be imperfect, but…
(The second killer pulls a pistol and shoots the white horse dead. Sidney sees the action, alights in time, elegantly, smashes the third killer out cold, takes the knife, and stabs the second killer dead through the back of the neck to the gorge. The first man runs for it. The horse aside, the killers have failed to kill anyone.)
NORTON: (gasping) Master Philip!
SIDNEY: What have we here? Lord Jesus, aren’t you the footman mother had dismissed from Penshurst for gambling? What the devil are you doing here?
NORTON: Still gambling, Master Philip.
To be continued
Sunday 28 February 2010
Apology for Prophecy (Majority Ode)
(to my loving parents; Claudia Fitzherbert; Toby Buxton; Xavier Yvo Buxton-Fitzherbert; and Allegra Fitzherbert; those of the blood or non-blood who put in an appearance or sent elephantine envoys
The roaming halves have reserved themselves for supplementary birthdays and subordinate odes)
When Tipu rises twenty-one
The elephants will fleshly be
From ‘jet’ to pearl they’ll be transposed
Wash-wallowing the Arabian Sea
And they will carry a loud set
Of kings and queens and minstrelsies
And discord richly trailed will drape
About, till peace reclaim the trees
In Madhya Pradesh. There will ride
‘Grim Dante’, with his settled stare;
Let on that howdah lie a man
Who gardened, ere engrained, his glare
His siesta ne’er unavowed,
Let him sprawl in some queendoms’ sight,
When Tipu rises twenty-one
Love shall step forth in plural rite
And God knows who’ll have married who,
Or where the complex things will knot,
Whether Sister and Hood will strive
With Bolognese pinko rot
But CS Lewis long ago
Pointed out practicalities
Relating to old Edmund’s art –
‘Behold the start of Britomart!
For she is English and bourgeoise
She wonders who could fit the bill
With maximum of pomp and fuss…’
One doesn’t quite know now indeed
How it may be – but the lights yet
Will flicker, Tipu twenty-one,
Microhard, Apple serpentined,
The globe in Toby’s verdant debt.
The roaming halves have reserved themselves for supplementary birthdays and subordinate odes)
When Tipu rises twenty-one
The elephants will fleshly be
From ‘jet’ to pearl they’ll be transposed
Wash-wallowing the Arabian Sea
And they will carry a loud set
Of kings and queens and minstrelsies
And discord richly trailed will drape
About, till peace reclaim the trees
In Madhya Pradesh. There will ride
‘Grim Dante’, with his settled stare;
Let on that howdah lie a man
Who gardened, ere engrained, his glare
His siesta ne’er unavowed,
Let him sprawl in some queendoms’ sight,
When Tipu rises twenty-one
Love shall step forth in plural rite
And God knows who’ll have married who,
Or where the complex things will knot,
Whether Sister and Hood will strive
With Bolognese pinko rot
But CS Lewis long ago
Pointed out practicalities
Relating to old Edmund’s art –
‘Behold the start of Britomart!
For she is English and bourgeoise
She wonders who could fit the bill
With maximum of pomp and fuss…’
One doesn’t quite know now indeed
How it may be – but the lights yet
Will flicker, Tipu twenty-one,
Microhard, Apple serpentined,
The globe in Toby’s verdant debt.
Sunday 14 February 2010
Catullus Chooses
That one is stunning for us all;
I’d like to stand stunned, first, myself
- a witness vouching in that hour
For pallor like that, gait, height, all.
I’ll codify each separate carried
Point about these vital matters,
I’ll reference them properly –
But not for me. There is a difference
That raiments around tenderness,
That renders one languescent staring
Only wearing, one a chain.
When I am standing and she isn’t
Sure I sense justification
Both times; but this first and other
One is not my cause for stunning.
And that’s because she is all salted,
Looks like frost and thaws down drifts,
There is no border and no country
In her state that knows the worn,
Or cannot fight it, or is wan –
I couldn’t witness you then darling
In the stunning gaze parade
For I’ve been stunned and brenned and bonded
To the astral sleeping staid.
I’d like to stand stunned, first, myself
- a witness vouching in that hour
For pallor like that, gait, height, all.
I’ll codify each separate carried
Point about these vital matters,
I’ll reference them properly –
But not for me. There is a difference
That raiments around tenderness,
That renders one languescent staring
Only wearing, one a chain.
When I am standing and she isn’t
Sure I sense justification
Both times; but this first and other
One is not my cause for stunning.
And that’s because she is all salted,
Looks like frost and thaws down drifts,
There is no border and no country
In her state that knows the worn,
Or cannot fight it, or is wan –
I couldn’t witness you then darling
In the stunning gaze parade
For I’ve been stunned and brenned and bonded
To the astral sleeping staid.
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Nod to the Smiths
There were times when I could
Have murdered her
But the fact is she died
At eleven
Which wasn't amongst them
Have murdered her
But the fact is she died
At eleven
Which wasn't amongst them
Tuesday 5 January 2010
De Angelorum
It is just sentiment that crawls
About my head, around my bed,
Roughly proceeds, ends up scraping
The barking farm dogs far way
Chaps till the lips it's harping on
Are less lipsticked than, battered, mine;
Drinks till the 'eau de robinet'
Ten atoms to one, settles wine
And sentiment before novels
Meant much to think about; and still
It sounds like love let in on mind
Bred to angelic oversweep
I buy angels so long before
I let God in the basket-case
And even if they won't be there,
They're needed for, they thrill, the chase:
The old chant is a confused thing,
The mothers' loving heresy
The gives four dead, if wise, men wings
What then would Luke, the doctor, think?
Did he attain a case-study
With relevance to the doctrine
(Aquinas' sapling) of the pure
Untouchable, or Plato's sap?
What about fathers' heresies?
There's one about the grail, sure,
Which makes us see the golden throng,
The red, last, the transparent one -
Then she is one, my sentiment,
A neutral virtue fledged to pause,
Her sometime silver shimmer steel,
Under the overshadows' force.
About my head, around my bed,
Roughly proceeds, ends up scraping
The barking farm dogs far way
Chaps till the lips it's harping on
Are less lipsticked than, battered, mine;
Drinks till the 'eau de robinet'
Ten atoms to one, settles wine
And sentiment before novels
Meant much to think about; and still
It sounds like love let in on mind
Bred to angelic oversweep
I buy angels so long before
I let God in the basket-case
And even if they won't be there,
They're needed for, they thrill, the chase:
The old chant is a confused thing,
The mothers' loving heresy
The gives four dead, if wise, men wings
What then would Luke, the doctor, think?
Did he attain a case-study
With relevance to the doctrine
(Aquinas' sapling) of the pure
Untouchable, or Plato's sap?
What about fathers' heresies?
There's one about the grail, sure,
Which makes us see the golden throng,
The red, last, the transparent one -
Then she is one, my sentiment,
A neutral virtue fledged to pause,
Her sometime silver shimmer steel,
Under the overshadows' force.
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