'That Lofty Vehicle, High Dudgeon'

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.]