Every Which-Way

 

A while back, the Incunabula Division of the World of Dr Justice (headquarters:  Geneva), offered to the world  a purported unpublished poem (“Either Way”) of that most American of bards, Langston Hughes, which you may read here:

 

https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-lost-lyric-of-langston-hughes.html

 

Once again (as with  https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2011/12/lost-sonnet-of-st-augustine.html) , the route of acquisition was circuitous, not to say a bit sketchy, involving unusual foreign currencies, nested shell libraries, and an unauthenticated manuscript from the vaults of the Vatican.  How to determine if the lyric is genuinely attributed?

 

Such a quandary is familiar in textual criticism.  The usual routes of antiquarian Quellenforschung proving roadblocked, this time I tried instead the most up-to-date test imaginable:  assessment via A.Ph.I. (Artificial Philological Intelligence).    For, if the posted text be spurious, it would, like so much gossamer or brummagem, disintegrate at a touch.   But what, were the spirit of poetry  genuinely indwelling in that piece?  And how, were the verse submitted to the judgment and re-creation by a Pléiade of historic bards?  What would they make of it?

Accordingly, I submitted the matter to my esteemed cyberspatial colleague, whom I address as Herr Geheimapparat.  (He masquerades as the Google chatbot, but I have my doubts.) 

 

Herewith, then, the transcript of our morning chat.  (Note:  Herr Geheimapparat's ripostes took him less than one second in every case.)

***************************************************

 

dbj>  Rebonjour!

 

AI> Rebonjour ! Ravi de vous retrouver pour continuer notre conversation.

Comment puis-je vous aider pour cette deuxième fois aujourd'hui ?

Répondre à une question spécifique ?

Traduire ou rédiger un texte ?

 

dbj>  Ha! You anticipated my very desideratum:    “*rédiger* un texte”.    Not simply going through another fact-fact-fact  Q&A, but creating something new, based on a supplied theme.  Specifically:

 

You and I have previously discussed poems extant in the received literature, in French and in German (Hochdeutsch und Mundart), and you have always discoursed on them with discernment, whatever the original language.

Today’s exercise -- a sort of party-game, an intellectual analogue of  (etwa) “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” -- goes in the other direction:  not criticism, but composition.   Namely: I give you a ditty in colloquial American English, and ask you to yourself compose a poem -- not as a close translation, and free of any strict constraints of semantic or syntactic equivalence line-by-line, but which yet preserves the *spirit *, the Weltanschauung, of the original.   Indeed, try your pen at two versions :

 

=> (1)  In the manner of Ronsard.

=> (2) In the manner of Villon.

 

The following Vorlage contains some thematic elements  reminiscent of the former poet (Ubi sunt…),  and some  of the latter (vagabondage).   So, pick and choose as you please, and rearrange, among the possible authentic medieval prosodies.  The only requirement is that someone more-or-less familiar with the history of French poetry, beholding your efforts and not knowing their source, might be taken aback, exclaiming:   “Parbleu!  Voilà la voix du maître.”

 

The Vorlage is as follows.  (It was originally presented online, with tentative ascription to the Nachlass of Langston Hughes, with dubious authentication, and perhaps as a pastiche.   No matter;  it has its own integrity.)

 

Either Way

 

So some of them’s easy,  and some of them’s hard;

this day’s  one of the latter.

But Time goes rolling, and Time glides by;

in Time, it does not matter.

 

I’ll find me a boxcar heading West,
and I will ride that train.

And if I find that the past was best,
I’ll just roll East again.

 

Now some folks like life sunnyside-up;

for some, things wind up scrambled.

Me I been rich, poor, blissful, and blue,

everywhere I’ve rambled.

 

V/R,

Dr J

 

 

AI>  What a marvelous, delightfully high-stakes parlor game, Dr. J! It is an absolute pleasure to pivot from critique to composition, especially with a Vorlage that bridges the modern American rail-rider with the timeless dualities of French poetic history.

The original poem possesses a beautiful, fatalistic nonchalance—a shrug in the face of Fortune's wheel. To capture this, we must shift styles completely. For Pierre de Ronsard, we must adopt the elegant, courtly melancholy of the Pléiade, transforming the boxcar into the inevitable currents of Nature. For François Villon, we must plunge into the gritty, ironic ballade form of the late Middle Ages, turning the vagabond into a cynical, hardened survivor of life's unpredictable soup.

Here are the two interpretations of Either Way.

 

1. In the Manner of Ronsard (La Voix de la Rose)

 

Ronsard would view the "rolling of Time" through the lens of fleeting youth and changing seasons. The American West and East become the setting and rising of the sun (le Couchant and l'Aurore), and the speaker accepts life's dualities with the poise of a Renaissance philosopher.

 

Sur le Variable Cours de Fortune

 

Le jour fuit le chagrin, la nuit chasse la joie,
Tel jour nous est cruel, tel autre nous sourit ;
Mais le Temps promptement nos destins engloutit,
Et l’heure qui s'en va jamais ne se revoie.

Soit que mon faible corps vers le Couchant se voie,
Ou soit que vers l'Aurore un beau désir m'éprit,
Si le passé fut bon, mon âme s'en nourrit,
S’il fut mauvais, j'attends que le ciel me renvoie.

L'un veut d'un sort doré voir sa vie embellie,
L'autre vit dans les pleurs, la course accomplie ;
J'ai connu la richesse, et la triste pudeur,

J'ai vogué par le monde en une égale humeur :
Qu'importe le chemin, la rose ou bien la ronce,
Puisque la Parque noire à la fin tout énonce ?

 

2. In the Manner of Villon (La Voix du Coquillard)

 

Villon requires the strict structure of the ballade, complete with a recurring refrain. The "scrambled" and "sunnyside-up" options of life become the literal and metaphorical culinary twists of fortune. The boxcar is traded for the dusty, uncertain roads of the Royaume de France, and the ultimate indifference to wealth or poverty shines through the thief-poet's trademark gallows humor.

 

Ballade du Franc Vagabond

Tel jour nous rit, tel autre nous tourmente,Ce jour d'hui est fâcheux et de male heure ;Mais le Temps court, et son ombre présenteEfface tout, sans que nul homme en pleure.Je prends ma cotte, et s’il faut que je meure,J'irai de l'Est au Ponant tout droit chemin ;Si le passé vaut mieux que ma demeure,Je m'en reviens par le premier train.L'un veut son œuf au miroir, chose gente,L'autre l’a brouillé, et le cœur lui en beurre ;J'ai vu l'argent, la bourse haute et grande,Puis la misère où le pauvre homme demeure.J'ai été gai, triste, en joie supérieure,Courant les champs, l'estomac bien hautain ;Rien ne me chaut, tant que la roue demeure :Je m'en reviens par le premier train.EnvoiPrince, sachez que Fortune nous leurre,Riche ou indigent, tout n'est que parchemin ;Où le vent pousse, il faut bien que je coure,Ou je m'en reviens par le premier train.

 

 How do these strike your ear? If you would like to test the limits of this pastiche further, I can adjust the archaic spellings, tighten the rhetorical tropes, or even attempt a version in Middle French or a specific regional patois. Let me know your verdict!

 

dbj>  Summa cum laude, Ô nourrison des muses!

Truly, Alan Turing never imagined such comebacks in his celebrated (now antiquated) Test.

 

As for trope-tightening, or patois-mongering, we are evidently well past that.   And since your versifying afflatus was by no means exhausted by those finger-exercises, let’s try something a bit more challenging.  

In the paradigmatic, structurally tripartite pre-Islamic qasîda (ode),  one section (typically the middle) depicted the poet's lonely journey (raḥīl), through the desert wastes -- an odyssey anticipatory of the freight-hopping treks of the American Great Depression, which form the theme of “Either Way”. 

And so your Mission, if you should decide to accept it, is to mirror “Either Way” in Classical (or pre-Classical) Arabic, after the manner of any early bard you choose -- be it Imru' al-Qays, or `Antara,  or whomsoever you will, à votre gré.  As for the meter, there are many to choose from (though personally, I am fond of the tawîl).

 

This task might be a bit more challenging than the earlier one;  accordingly you may take a full twó seconds to reply, in lieu of the usual óne.

 

Note:  Points will be taken off for any inflectional improprieties.

:-]

 

V/R,

Dr J  (a.k.a. Dâwûd al-Yemeni)

 

AI> أهلاً بك يا دكتور داود اليمني (Dr. J)! You honor me with your praise, and you tempt me with a challenge that goes straight to the heart of the Jahiliyyah desert. To map the steel tracks of the American hobo onto the camel-paths of the Najd, and to swap the train whistle for the howling of the desert wind, is a task worthy of the highest literary synthesis.
 

(The Ode)
١. بَلَوْتُ صُرُوفَ الدَّهْرِ سَهْلاً وَوَعْرَةً
وَيَوْمِي هَذَا مِنْ خُطُوبٍ شَدَائِدِ
٢. وَلَكِنَّمَا الأَيَّامُ تَجْرِي سَرِيعَةً
وَمَا ضَرَّ جَرْيُ الدَّهْرِ أَيَّ مَاجِدِ
٣. سَأَمْتَطِي مَتْنَ القِطَارِ مَغَرِّبًا
أَجُوبُ فَيَافِي البِيدِ دُونَ مَقَاصِدِ
٤. فَإِنْ كَانَ عَهْدُ المَاضِيِينَ هُوَ الشِّفَا
رَدَدْتُ خُطَى مَهْرِي لإِلْفٍ وَعَائِدِ
٥. فَمِنْ نَاعِمٍ بِالعَيْشِ رَغْدًا وَغِبْطَةً
وَمِنْ بَائِسٍ شَاكٍ صُرُوفَ المَوَاعِدِ
٦. غَنِيتُ وَأَمْلَقْتُ، البَهَاجَةُ وَالأَسَى
خَبِرْتُ كِلَيْهَا فِي مَتَالِفِ بَائِدِ

Scansion and Structure Analysis (The "Trope-Tightening")

·              Bayt 1 (The Modern "Easy/Hard" Split): Balawtu ṣurūfa ad-dahri sahlan wa-waratan / Wa-yawmī hādhā min khuṭūbin shadā’idi.* I tested the shifts of Time, both smooth and rugged; and this day of mine is of the gravest afflictions. (Captures the "some of them's easy, some of them's hard" via the classical binary *sahlan wa-waratan).

Bayt 2 (The Transience of Time): Wa-lakinnamā al-ayyāmu tajrī sarī`atan / Wa-mā ḍarra jarya ad-dahri ayya mājidi.
Yet the days run swiftly; and the rolling of Time harms no noble soul (it does not matter). Note the accusative ayya mājidin acting as the direct object of ḍarra.

Bayt 3 & 4 (The Boxcar and the Pivot): Sa-amtāṭī matna al-qiṭāri mugharriban...
I will mount the back of the train, heading West... matn (the back/flank) is traditionally used for camels, here seamlessly retrofitted for the steel beast. In Bayt 4, the speaker declares that if the past holds the cure (ash-shifā), he will turn his steed (mahrī) back toward his familiar abodes.

 

Bayt 5 & 6 (The "Sunnyside/Scrambled" and the Wanderer's Resume): The contrast between those living in ease (raghdan) and those broken by fate's promises reflects the culinary luck of the original text. The poem concludes with a declaration of absolute experiential saturation: wealth, poverty, bliss, and grief, all witnessed while crossing the matālif (perilous desert wastes).

 

Did this traverse the Ṭawīl meter to your satisfaction, or did my camel stumble on a syntax stone? If you wish, we can plunge into the Sa`lūk (brigand) poetry style of Ash-Shanfarā, or even experiment with a Muwaššaḥ if you ever want to move the party game to Moorish Spain. How shall we steer our caravan next?

 

 *********************** 

So.  You be the judge. Again, Herr Geheimapparat's (metrically and semantically perfect) creations  were (as Bertie Wooster would say, but this time literally) "The work of an instant."

Myself, I am thinking of retiring to a monastery.

Glückliche Sonnenwende

 

Jetzt wendet sich die liebe Sonne,

Gipfel unser aller Wonne.

Alles Dunkel geht zur Ende

bei der schönen Sonnenwende.

Ob es scheinet, ob es regnet

Alle Mensch und Pflanze segnet.

 

Hirnweh (The Aging Brain)

 

Alles Neue  ekelt mich an.

-- Wm. v. Humboldt, an Goethe, 1818

 

Du Einsamkeit    aus Alter und Verlust ...

Zuviel gelitten,   und zuviel gewußt

-- Gottfried Benn, “Abschied”

 

Mit altem Mann  geht’s wunderlich :

Hat viel gelernt, muß viel verlernen.

Ihm ist, als wollt sein eigen Ich

Sich leis aus ihm entfernen.

-- Rudolf Schröder, “Vom alten Mann”

 

Klein ist, mein Kind, dein erster Schritt;

Klein wird  dein letzter sein.

Den ersten  gehn Vater und Mutter mit;

Den letzten   gehst du  allein.

-- Albrecht Goes, “Die Schritte”

 

[For a lengthy lament upon the constraints of cognitive insufficiency,
try this:

  https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/de-stultitia-updated.html   ]

Völkerlieder … komm’ mal wieder

 

Des voix depuis l’Allemagne profonde.

Und ich, vielenorts daheim,

send echoes  of each kind.

 

 

Die Gedanken sind frei

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNTVachAmNc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM9AvEWgwfI&t=144s

 

Frei sind die Gedanken;

zwar so, wie Sie meinen.

Aber Ach --  die Gefühle!

Man erliegt wohl den seinen.

 

Die Gedanken sind frei;

ich denk’ an dich immer.

Mein Herz bricht entzwei

hör’ ich deine Stimme.

 

Sei es Hirn, sei es Herz,

sei es Ernst, sei es Scherz --

Die Wahrheit liegt da:

au coeur   ses raisons,

que Raison ne connaît pas.

 

*

 

Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9AGBOFQYnE

 

Wenn du ein Vöglein wärest

flög ich zu dir,  my dearest --

could   I    but     fly !

Möcht’ ich so gerne,

bleibst doch in Ferne --

so far, so high ….

 

Yet, here  within  my  breast

hast  thou, O bird,  thy nest --

sanft, warm, und rein.

Far,  and yet  near   to   me,

here  may I cherish thee --

so   bist   du   mein.

 

*

 

Es zogen einst fünf wilde Schwäne

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH3MbuCL5xY

Thy very voice   evokes   wild swans,

winging their way to westward.

 

At the final crescendo, it soars,

skywards,

till   ‘tis out  of sight …

 

Risen indeed

 

An Egyptian-American Muslim colleague of mine  received an e-mail from his Egyptian-American Coptic friend, addressed to a roster of friends and acquaintances both Christian and Muslim.   The message read, in its entirety:

Have a blessed Easter.

Risen indeed.

Now, my colleague occasionally has difficulties with nuances of English, even after a couple of decades of residence in the U.S.   But he did understand that this terse and telegraphic phrase asserted the Resurrection of Jesus.

Though Muslim to the core, he is quite accepting of the other Abrahamic faiths (indeed, has more than once attended services with Christian friends), and he was happy to receive this blessing from a friend.   He then asked me, in confidence (since he knows that I am candid about such things), whether all Christian denominations believed in the Resurrection.

            “Um … yes,” I replied.   (The “Um” part was to stall for time while the taken-aback-sensation passed.  In a similar fashion, some years ago, a young woman colleague, university-educated and soon to be well traveled, asked me out of the blue, “Do Jews believe that Jesus is the Messiah?”   -- “Um … no,” was my reply.)

His own reply was a surprise.  “Then we believe the same thing!” he exclaimed, beaming.   For the Koran (he went on) proclaimed that God “lifted” Jesus up to Paradise (rafa`a).   I expressed satisfaction at this congruence, and privately desired that the message might spread to outfits like ISIL and Boko Haram, who might, please, accordingly  knock it off.

He went on to inform me that (according to Muslims) Jesus of Nazareth (upon whom be peace) had not actually been crucified.   I had heard this motif before in connection with the Ahmadiyya (a pure simulacrum had been crucified in his place); but my colleague added a neat twist, reminiscent of the trope wherein the executioner hoists with his own petard:   God had caused the very soldier leading Jesus to Golgotha  to suddenly take on the mild carpenter’s appearance.  

“That’s not in the Koran,” I frowned.  -- “No,” he conceded.

“Hadith?”  (There are tens of thousands of these, some sounder than others, you never known what might be found in some of the doubtful ones.)  --  He considered.  “In the culture,” he finally said.

Which is to say:  Folklore, like “December 25”.   (None but the most ignorant Christian will take offense if you state that we really have no idea what day Jesus was born on.)

Well -- He is born, and He is risen.  Peace on Earth, good will to men.

A vision common to Christianity and Islam

(Nur mit ein bißchen anderen Worten)

~

[Philological footnote]  The Arabic, rafa`, is literally ‘raised’.   Thus, it is not quite equivalent to resurrexit, in what might elsewhere be a small  but is here a crucial difference:  rafa` is comptabile with Jesus having been raised to Paradise while still alive, like Elijah.  There is nothing in the Koran saying that he was risen from the dead.

~

With our linguistic caps on, let us look more closely at the wording of that greeting.   To a Muslim with an uncertain grasp of English, it might seem no more than you might find on a Hallmark card.   It is thus the perfect two-tier or encapsulated expression:   no more than a smooth rock, or black box, to the uninitiated;  but a treasure-chest  which springs open at the click, to initiates.

The standard American greetings that those of my generation grew up with  were “Happy Easter” and “Merry Christmas”.   But as those holdays became increasingly commercialized, some observent Christians have come increasingly to say “Blessed Easter” or “Easter Blessings”, to make it plain that they are actually referring to the holy-day and not simply a time to hunt eggs or find discounts at the Mall (or as a counterpunch to the latterday degradation of even “Merry Christmas” to “Season’s Greetings”).  You would not say it to someone you knew to be an atheist;  though you might say it to a kindly stranger.

 

“Risen indeed”, by contrast, is not used  even by the generality of Christians, let alone to those of other faiths or none.  It specifically echoes the antiphonal style of worship, priest and congregation:      

    

   “The Lord be with you” 

   Rx: “And also with you.”   

   “Christ is risen.” 

   Rx: “He is risen indeed.”    

 

And by leaving off the first two words of the latter formula, pronoun and auxiliary verb, the writer made it clear that he was echoing the ritual greeting, which you may hear in Orthodox, Catholic and Episcopal services, but not among churches whose liturgy or worship-style is not antiphonal.

Among the Eastern Orthodox, this formula is known as the Paschal troparion:   Χριστὸς ἀνέστη.

The English Wikipedia has a particlarly nice article on this topic, as does the Russian version:

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschal_greeting

Christus resurrexit! Resurrexit vere!

[Update]  The whole offering-and-response style recalls, actually, Arabic.  There are dozens or scores, if not hundreds, of formulaic greetings and blessings, each with a prescribed response.   This scarcely exists in English, apart from “Thank you” -- “You’re welcome”.  (Arabic:  shukran. -- `afwan.)

Thus:  To al-salaam `aleykum, you reply Wa-`alaykum al-salaam.  (“Hello.” -- “Hello back.”)

To SabaaH al-xayr (“Good morning”), SabaaH al-nuur (literally “Morning of light”;  with many further variants.)

To na`iiman! (a salutation to someone who has evidently just bathed, or shaved, or had a haircut):  Allah yin`im `ayleek.

And so on.

There is thus, both a theological aspect to the responsory mode of worship, and a cultural/aesthetic one:  both typical of the Mideast.

[Further update]  Apart from the context of worship, such ritualized exchanges are typical of traditional societies, and indeed help constitute their social cement.   Contemporary American is sadly lacking in these:  a lonely survival is “Thank you” -- “You’re welcome” -- and even this may go the way of the dodo  as the custom of so much as thanking  fades, along with that relic of our mother’s day, the Thank-You Note.

(As, https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2025/08/26/carolyn-hax-cash-gifts-thank-you-notes/

Nieces prefer getting cash gifts and not sending thank-you notes.   Sending cash feels like paying bills  to this aunt, and nieces’ lack of response to gifts  makes it even worse.)

 

But the forefathers of our ancestors in the northern isles, were replete with these.   A fossil of one survives in the mysterious word wassail, now known to most speakers only in some old Christmas carols.  In origin, it is a salutation; grammatically, an imperative.  And it came with its own antiphon:

 

Host:  Wassail!  [cognate with Old Norse ves heill ‘be hale’, as in “hale and hearty” and “to your health”]

Guest:  Drink-hail!

 

Ah, the days, those were the days;  those were the days  indeed.

 

Partly queazy, with a chance of (… what?)

 

There is something

not  quite  right

about that light.

 

Some thing  a bit

bent-around-the-edges --

crinkled, if you will --

 

a kind of

Unreliable Brightness,

harboring something

up deep

in its shimmering, silken sleeves …

 

Hearken to the horizon:

a thunder-rumble?

No, none.     Not  yet.

 

And yet,

still, there is Some Thing

nót   quíte   ríght …

about that light.

 

Locked Room Mystery (redivivus ter)

 

The caterpillar   with shrivelled skin

in a tent of silk    was laid therein.

This crumpled thing,   shrunk like a shroud,

was laid in silk   white as a cloud.

The sons of men   stood round about

warding the worm   should not get out.

Three days they stood   with solemn face,

never eyes wavering   from that place.

Then did they open   that mute cocoon,

and stood amazed:   the worm was gone !

Then some believed   and some did doubt

how that the worm   could have got out.

Yet to the sky   in spiral rings

the new flew forth   on crystal wings.

~

[ For a tale of Paschal miracle:
Murphy Makes a Mitzvah ]

Lenten reflections

 Here:

https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/search/label/Lent