A friend is studying Greek while reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Iliad alongside George Chapman’s version of Homer from the seventeenth century. Like me, she’s a reader not a scholar, and like generations of students and common readers who came before us I first encountered Chapman (1559-1634) thanks to Keats and his sonnet. I probably wouldn’t have read Chapman otherwise.
I know my
friend has read Flann O’Brien (aka
Brian Ó Nualláin, aka Brian O’Nolan, aka Myles na gCopaleen, aka
Brother Barnabus), so perhaps it simply slipped her mind to acknowledge his
contributions to the Keats-Chapman corpus. This was a favorite of our late
mutual friend, County Tipperary-born Michael Carroll:
“Keats was
once presented with an Irish terrier, which he humorously named Byrne. One day
the beast strayed from the house and failed to return at night. Everybody was
distressed, save Keats himself. He reached reflectively for his violin, a
fairly passable timber of the Stradivarius feciture [a word not found in the OED], and was soon at work with chin and
jaw.
“Chapman,
looking in for an after-supper pipe, was astonished at the poet’s composure,
and did not hesitate to say so. Keats smiled (in a way that was rather lovely).
“‘And why
should I not fiddle,’ he asked, ‘while Byrne roams.’”
One, of
course, is never enough when it comes to K&C. Here’s another draught of
Keatsiana:
“Keats and
Chapman once called to see a titled friend and after the host had hospitably
produced a bottle of whiskey, the two visitors were called into consultation
regarding the son of the house, who had been exhibiting a disquieting redness
of face and boisterousness of manner at the age of twelve. The father was
worried, suspecting some dread disease. The youngster was produced but the two
visitors, glass in hand, declined to make any diagnosis. When leaving the big
house, Chapman rubbed his hands briskly and remarked on the cold.
“‘I think it
must be freezing and I’m glad of that drink,’ he said. ‘By the way, did you
think what I thought about that youngster?’
“‘There’s a
nip in the heir,’ Keats said.”
And a last
one (I promise):
“Keats once
bought a small pub in London and one day he was visited by Dr Watson, confrère of
the famous Baker Street sleuth. Watson came late in the evening accompanied by
a friend and the pair of them took to hard drinking in the back snug. When closing
time came, Keats shouted out the usual slogans of urgent valediction such as ‘Time
now please!’, ‘Time gents!’, ‘The Licence gents!’ ‘Fresh air now gents!’ and ‘Come
on now all together!’ But Dr. Watson and his friend took no notice. Eventually
Keats put his head into the snug and roared ‘Come on now gents, have yez no
Holmes to go to!’
“The two
topers then left in that lofty vehicle, high dudgeon.”
[See The Best of Myles, Walker and Company,
1968.]
2 comments:
There is a review of Wilson's translation of "The Iliad" in the October 6th edition of the Times Literary Supplement. The reviewer (Nick Lowe) is not pleased with it.
Very droll, Sir! By the way, can you remember in which of Flann O’Brien's books there is an insult competition? I looked through the books a year or so ago but couldn't find it. Two men trade insults to the appreciation of a pub audience, the winner, a hirsute man, defeats his less follicularly-endowed opponent with: "You've a fine head of skin!"
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