Pedants' Paradise

[french frank]

Is that the Edward FitzGerald translation? I remembered it rather differently, but I suppose I'll have go downstairs and read the whole poem to find out what I was remembering.

Well I have a small volume which contains the 75 quatrains of the 1st edition (1859) and the 110 quatrains of the 2nd edition (1868). Qu11 of the 1st edition and Qu12 of the second are very slightly different, to wit:

Qu11 (1859)

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

Qu12 (1868)

Here with a little Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!


Perhaps the most poetic line in the 2nd edition (1868) is the final line of Qu20, evoking the solitary Ringdove there:

'And "Coo, coo, coo," she cried; and "Coo, coo, coo." '

Quite remarkable.

[Mal]

There is another quatrain XII by FitzGerald from 1889

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

As Heron-Allen is rather stilted, is there a valid alternative to FitzGerald?

Whinfield:

In the sweet spring a grassy bank I sought
And thither wine and a fair Houri brought;
And, though the people called me graceless dog,
Gave not to Paradise another thought!

He is a graceless dog!

John Leslie Garner:

Yes, Loved One, when the Laughing Spring is blowing,
With Thee beside me and the Cup o’erflowing,
I pass the day upon this Waving Meadow,
And dream the while, no thought on Heaven bestowing.

One is beginning to see that FitzGerald did not have much competition...

Justin Huntly McCarthy (1859–1936) (Member of Parliament for Newry):

In Spring time I love to sit in the meadow with a paramour
perfect as a Houri and goodly jar of wine, and though
I may be blamed for this, yet hold me lower
than a dog if ever I dream of Paradise.

Stealing a dog and a Houri from a fellow "poet"; typical MP.

Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah (1967)

A gourd of red wine and a sheaf of poems —
A bare subsistence, half a loaf, not more —
Supplied us two alone in the free desert:
What Sultan could we envy on his throne?

Scholars suggest they stole from Heron-Allen, and the sense is very similar. But I think this is fairly good, although not as good as FitzGerald - "gourd", "sheaf" - trying too hard to be poetic/foreign maybe.

A modern version claiming to be "as literal an English version of the Persian originals as readability and intelligibility permit", 1979 by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs.:

I need a jug of wine and a book of poetry,
Half a loaf for a bite to eat,
Then you and I, seated in a deserted spot,
Will have more wealth than a Sultan's realm.

Very modern and clunky ("a bite to eat"?) No thanks.

So looks like FitzGerald remains top of the sand dune.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam

[kernelbogey]

Mal, thank you for your interest in my quoting from FitzGerald. I felt rather pleased with my memory, not having read the work for over 60 years, the quatrain having impressed a teenager dealing with existential angst. Pity I hurriedly mis-transcribed it, missing the thou/enow rhymes *. In truth it was a bit of pedantic banter with French Frank.

But

I suggest FitzGerald should never be quoted here, he is anathema to pedants

there is pedantry, and there is censorship.
BW, kb

Edit: *and the iambic pentameters, of course

[french frank]

There is another quatrain XII by FitzGerald from 1889

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Thank you! That is the version I remember (first two lines) and have often quoted (along with The Moving Finger …). Your earlier comment about FitzGerald (thank you again ) - that he is anathema to pedants and should never be quoted here - was somewhat hasty, in my view. As a poet (as well as a translator) he was seeking to present a poem not merely a translation, as some have been content to do. Not that I would wish to suggest that 'mere translations' serve no important function: they do, of course. But I feel FitzGerald's poem is successful …

As for the word "enow" = enough, consultation of the OED provides three 19th-c. poetic examples (though the OED states that the usage is 'archaic' or 'dialectal' rather than 'poetic'). Indeed the latest example, that of William Morris, does suggest that he was harking back, as he tended to, to the Middle Ages.

1814 R. Southey Tale of Paraguay i. 19 A few firm stakes..Circling a narrow space, yet large enow.
1850 E. B. Browning Rom. Ganges xxiii None are frail enow For mortal joys to borrow!
1870 W. Morris Earthly Paradise: Pt. IV 235 Bright enow With gold and gems.

Of the 19th-c. prose examples we have:

1804 L. Murray Eng. Gram. (ed. 9) iii. 166 Enow was formerly used as the plural of enough: but it is now obsolete.
1819 Scott Ivanhoe III. ii. 36 Take with you enow of men.
1828 H. Steuart Planter's Guide 253 Accidents enow will happen, without aggravating them by carelessness.
1868 G. MacDonald Eng. Antiphon 210 Without yet having generated thoughts enow concerning the subject itself.

The first writer was American, the other three Scottish. Murray's quotation refers to a specific plural usage which does not apply to the FitzGerald quatrain. The other three may be influenced by dialectal usage which the OED mentions; in the case of Scott, both dialectal and archaic no doubt apply.

In the case of FitzGerald's quatrain, his intention was no doubt poetic (cf Southey and Browning) and archaic (Omar Khayyam lived in the 11th-12th centuries).

[Pulcinella]

Why do authors try to be too clever and not get their facts right /checked or corrected?

Admittedly I'm reading a free thriller on my Kindle, so it's possibly self-published and not had anyone else look at it, but I have just come across this:

The customized ringtone on his cell played Stravinsky's dark [sic] Concerto No. 1, which invariably meant one thing.

Well, you can guess the one thing it meant to me.

Unnecessary (and incorrect) pretentiousness.

I wonder if some 'clever' Amazon software has 'translated' Ebony to dark, too.
Is ebony verboten these days?

[Mal]

Thank you! That is the version I remember (first two lines) and have often quoted (along with The Moving Finger …). Your earlier comment about FitzGerald (thank you again ) - that he is anathema to pedants and should never be quoted here - was somewhat hasty, in my view.

It was somewhat tongue in cheek, I should have used an appropriate emoticon. I'm glad to see a tongue-in-cheek emoticon actually exists and is available here: :p. (Is emoticon or emoji the preferred usage these days?) The emoticon inspired some musing about the origin of the phrase. I assumed it meant the tongue, within the mouth, is to be inserted into a cheek. But the appearance of the emoticon indicates that the tongue is "used in cheek" by allowing it to protrude from the mouth - some emoticons actually show the tongue issuing from the centre of the mouth, i.e., nowhere near the cheek. Now I'm wondering about hyphenation of the phrase "tongue in cheek". Googling, I find:

It can be used as an adjective this way:

"What I said was only tongue in cheek."

or...

"That was just a tongue-in-cheek comment."

Use the hyphens (-) if you use the phrase before the noun that is described. Do not use them if the phrase is after the noun it describes.

I feel FitzGerald's poem is successful …

It might be successful as a poem but it is not successful as pedantry. By definition, this requires "excessive concern with minor details and rules". Actually FitzGerald shows little concern with *major* details, and I think we should take it that little concern with any detail, major or minor, shows a lack of pedantry.

As for the word "enow" = enough,...

Perhaps the most famous use of this word is at the beginning of the Sr Crispin's Day speech by Henry V in Henry V by William Shakespeare:

"If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men the greater share of honour."

But it is common practice to modernise archaic terms, and this usually appears:

"If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour."

Note, this is so even though both Henry V and William Shakespeare were alive at times and places when the term was not archaic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech

consultation of the OED provides three 19th-c. poetic examples (though the OED states that the usage is 'archaic' or 'dialectal' rather than 'poetic')...

Proves my case, as does L. Murray Eng. Gram. (ed. 9) iii. 166, who indicates it was obsolete in 1804. Scott is excused, Ivanhoe was set in medieval England and Ivanhoe might, indeed, have said "Take with you enow of men." But FitzGerald was translating an Arabic work and should be translating into modern English. To use archaic English to indicate medieval Arabic is just perverse.

[vinteuil]

... But FitzGerald was translating an Arabic work and should be translating into modern English. To use archaic English to indicate medieval Arabic is just perverse.

... slightly more than pedantic - the work [ that is, the رباعیات of عمر خیّام ] is in Persian not Arabic.











.

[french frank]

To use archaic English to indicate medieval [Persian] is just perverse.

As we know, traduttore, traditore; and I'm at a loss to know how the pedant who translates can do other than betray both his pedantry and the text. But the poet, a lesser mortal, may do as he thinks fit, in my estimation.

[ardcarp]

Can anyone adjudicate on 'vicious circle' versus 'vicious cycle' ? I assumed the former was the correct usage, but almost everyone seems to use the latter.

[Bryn]

Can anyone adjudicate on 'vicious circle' versus 'vicious cycle' ? I assumed the former was the correct usage, but almost everyone seems to use the latter.

Not anyone I know, or would want to.

[Pabmusic]

Can anyone adjudicate on 'vicious circle' versus 'vicious cycle' ? I assumed the former was the correct usage, but almost everyone seems to use the latter.

It seems the 'circle' form is older, going back to the 17th century. It's a term from logic - a circular argument that's 'vicious' (a false conclusion based on valid premises). With such a technical meaning, it's not surprising it became an idiom, and that then people started saying 'cycle', because it seems to make more sense (at least if you don't think too hard). A little bit like 'damp squid' instead of 'damp squib'.

[oddoneout]

It seems the 'circle' form is older, going back to the 17th century. It's a term from logic - a circular argument that's 'vicious' (a false conclusion based on valid premises). With such a technical meaning, it's not surprising it became an idiom, and that then people started saying 'cycle', because it seems to make more sense (at least if you don't think too hard). A little bit like 'damp squid' instead of 'damp squib'.

I thought too hard and my brain's all of a spin now...
This rather amused me. https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/vi...-circle-cycle/
At least circle and cycle have something in common, whereas 'squid' for 'squib' doesn't make a lot of sense in my view - even when dry a squid isn't known for its explosive properties, but I suppose as the 'as much use as' part of the phrase seems to be frequently omitted these days the relevance is lost.

[Pabmusic]

... whereas 'squid' for 'squib' doesn't make a lot of sense in my view ...

All I'm saying is that when a word or phrase becomes 'fossilised' to some extent - that is, the original meaning is now hazy - we tend to substitute other words which appear to be understandable. If you are not of a certain age, so that you never bought a squib (or, more seriously, were never involved in quarrying) then 'damp squid' appears to make more sense.

In a similar fashion, we came up with 'cockroach' and 'rosemary' for cucaracha and ros marina, neither of which is a translation of the Portuguese or Latin (otherwise rosemary would be 'sea dew').

[ardcarp]

Pabs, I shall go to bed chuckling about damp squids...and shall probably dream about them. Thanks for the notion.

Incidentally, if anyone thinks of squibs as being tiny fireworks, then he/she doesn't come from Bridgwater:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPBvwVXzM5o

[oddoneout]

All I'm saying is that when a word or phrase becomes 'fossilised' to some extent - that is, the original meaning is now hazy - we tend to substitute other words which appear to be understandable. If you are not of a certain age, so that you never bought a squib (or, more seriously, were never involved in quarrying) then 'damp squid' appears to make more sense.

In a similar fashion, we came up with 'cockroach' and 'rosemary' for cucaracha and ros marina, neither of which is a translation of the Portuguese or Latin (otherwise rosemary would be 'sea dew').

These days predictive text is adding to the existing stock of misheard misunderstandings(or ignorance coupled with lack of interest or curiosity). Two recent ones I came across in the local paper were 'irradiated' for 'eradicated' and 'exasperate' for 'exacerbate'. The latter was a journalist some months ago and it seems to have been adopted into the paper's lexicon, as it has subsequently appeared on several occasions.