1,000 Words, Pt. 2

Every Thought...

Week 36: Jonleby the Scrivener

I translate without knowing the language, restate without following the transcript, transcribe without corrections, write without understanding. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.


09/02:

  TWL, Lines 312-321: Translating the Water Section 

  312 Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
  313 Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
  314 And the profit and loss.
  315      A current under sea
  316 Picked his bones in whispers.  As he rose and fell
  317 He passed the stages of his age and youth
  318 Entering the whirlpool.
  319                                           Gentile or Jew
  320 O you who turn the wheel and look windward,
  321 Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

312. THE PHOENICIAN, it seems, has been dead since his opening appearance (see line 47); and from the start he was also given an enigmatic identity. See note 39, and see lines 47-52, when Madame Sosostris successively introduced the already drowned and pearly-eyed Phoenician Sailor and the one-eyed merchant.  Eliot later suggested, at note 219, that the merchant would melt into the sailor.  Eliot also associated the Phoenician with the hyacinth girl (see note 125) and with the originally pearly eyed Prince Ferdinand (see note 218, referring  to Shakespeare, The Tempest (note 0.1) 1.2.376-402)).  See also note 12 for the Phoenician origins of Queen Dido. Phoenicia literally means “land of purple” in Greek, so named for its purple dye trade.  See note 380.

314. FORGETTING: A sailor who has drowned is like a merchant who is undone by the mechanics of profit and loss; he has not  only lost the mastery of his environment, he has succumbed to it.

318. THE WHIRLPOOL: The dead body, rising and falling with the waves, begins to decompose, or “melt,” into the pool of the undercurrents.  Compare the cauldrons of St. Augustine and MacBeth (notes 307 and 308).  The stages of age and youth are behind him now, as are the identities of gender and religion.

GENTILE OR JEW: The speaker now turns ambivalently to the Gentile or Jew, i.e., one without distinction whether one is in the faith or out of it; compare line 365 (“I do not know whether a man or a woman”). See also Romans 3: 9-10 (note 0.5):

  “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.”

320. TURNING THE WHEEL: The whirlpool imagery of line 318 continues.  Recall the Wheel card drawn by Madame Sosostris (line 51), but now “you,” the reader, are said to be turning it and looking windward as you go; see note 311.5.

321. PHLEBAS alludes to Plato’s Philebas, one who held pleasure over intellect, in contrast to Socrates, who put knowledge first.  See Plato, Philebus (360 BCE), tr. Harold N. Fowler (1925), 48e:

  “Socrates: ‘And there are still more who think they are taller and handsomer than they are...’”

DANS LE RESTAURANT: The entire water section loosely restates the third stanza of Dans le Restaurant (1920), a poem Eliot had originally written in French. Here is my translation, prompted by Eliot’s partial restatement and adding my own take of the “Dans” variations:

 “Phlebas the Phoenician, fifteen days dead,
  Forgot the cry of gulls and the swell of Cornwall
  And the profits and losses and the cargo of tin:
  A current under sea took him far away,
  Past the stages of his former life.
  You have to consider, it was a painful exit;
  All the same, he was a man who once was
  handsome and tall.”


09/03:
  
  5. Weblog

  (...better than your cell phone’s“can you hear me now?”...)

  suddenly walking ruins shoes, driving turns weary chore, it’s
  all souls / machines can do keeping rubber feet / wheels moving
  simply getting home, housed, parked, finding anywhere dry,
  accepting anything, settling, seeking temporary cover like
  poor tired refugees, huddled under square box umbrellas
  with fogged windows, streaked panes: our world’s eyes,
  distorted from unwanted tears, saltlessly wondering why


09/04:
  
  6. Quicknote
 
  (...taking the time, waiting for lighting...)
 
  yet, everpresent, effervescent reason shows itself now, hinted
  within renegade rays of subtlest sunlight revealing rain-
  water’s constant beauty: sparkling, living, even as it falls:
  you will see green grass again, these angels say, speaking,
  singing hard working droplets they: we’ll roll those heavy
  clouds away, restore your great forgiven sky, clean slated,
  blue, more breathable, renewed.  holy, fresh, clear water!


09/05:
  
  7. Clipboard

  (..., adjusting the speed and exposure...) 

  cleansing, cleaning, washing, rinsing.  (repeating,
  remembering how mother / other, taught, still teaches me)
  necessary, yes, she says this was, shall always be,
  evermore her favorite time, season, place:  praying amen,
  hearing “heavenagain,” feeling particulate waves,
  letting herself become immobilized, moved, emotional,
  willingly becoming elementary, simplified, soothed.


09/06:
  
  8. Facepost
 
  (...and then looking for reason you discover the art...)

  reflection...premise...perception...truth, fundamentally faith
  alone explains God’s nature; thus, man’s (woman’s, child’s)
  ritual immersion, each gender, age, every creed’s splash
  therapy, aqua conscience, awakening, rejuvenation; believe:
  reincarnation, return, rebirth, baptism; sprinkling; accept:
  drowning, spiritual surrender inwards, outwards, upwards:
  replacement...promise...permission...life, sacramentally.


09/07:
  
  9. Scratchpad

  (...of a thousand five hundred words.)
  
  indent.  empty space.  leftover poetry, endless stories,
  Yahweh (simple self pronoun, present tense being)
  variations.  free association.  blank verse.  filler.  everything
  matters, articles, prepositions, objects, conjunctions,
  interjections, river bed metaphors, parched desert similes...
  consciousness streams, trickles, floods, sates, holds. final
  judgment awaits. stillwater, someday. we’re halfway there.


09/08:
  
  Moleskin 4.8: Shortening The Distance

  Our original dad was still in our lives, but from a distance now that was usually shortened to phone calls and letters and a few weeks of vacation time. But suddenly, one Christmas break, I was deemed old enough to get on a Greyhound for the first of a series of year-end visits. It was a sixteen hour night run from Chicago to Minneapolis to Detroit Lakes. The bus culture was more than my siblings could endure, at least not in my care, but for a kid turning thirteen and fourteen it was an adventure my mother and stepfather were willing to allow. On the other end my real dad never questioned their wisdom and was simply happy to see me. And I enjoyed those bus rides, talking for hours with whomever I was seated beside, learning how to sleep sitting up, eating more vending machine food than was good for me, taking curious note of the people who seemed to live in and around bus terminals, but best of all, going to see my dad.