Polyglossia 1
A Note from the Editor Las pendientes rojas / Rachel O’Connell Marlene / Max Heuvels LHR → IED / Sarah Adegbite Baek Seok: Nostalgia in Translation / Ensol Baek Home and the Great Land Afar / Shijie Wang Shrieking for Familiar Turf / Emily Fielding Bed as Home / Margaux Sampson Battiferra’s Ode to Rome / Camilla Allibone View of Toledo / Gabriel Humphreys My Lost Youth / Jiahao Wang an ode to Kenneth T. Phigs / Louise Knight the lost year / Sasha Chown an unanswered call (t.c.) / Doa Acikgun Voyage d’un inconnu / Arundhati Saraswatula Growing, leaving, knowing / Iona Fleming Soul, I hear you calling: A Spiritual Homecoming to Yiddish during the Covid-19 Pandemic / Hannah Bowen Encountering Nostalgia / Jiahao Wang Home is where the Heart is / Rene Russell 44-4642-4338-4136-3732-3530-31292825-272422-2320-2118-1916-1712-15118-106-74-5 Homecoming, Longing contents
Polyglossia
A fromnotethe Editor Homecoming, Longing
Dear Nostalgiareaders,just isn’t what it used to be.
There is some truth to this, it would seem: when the term ‘nostalgia’ was first coined by Johannes Hofer in the late seventeenth century, it was used to describe the adverse symptoms experienced by Swiss mercenaries, who longed to return to their Alpine homeland. This nostalgia (from the Greek nostos ‘homecoming’+ algos ‘pain, longing’) rendered the German Heimweh (‘home woe’), which in turn finds its equivalent in the English ‘homesickness’. Some physicians suggested that the high incidence rate of nostalgia amongst Swiss mercenaries owed to the changes in atmospheric pressure these soldiers experienced as they descended to fight on the plains of Europe. Others put it down to the incessant clanging of cowbells in the Alps, which damaged the eardrum and brain. In any case, this perception of nostalgia as aafflictionneurological-anda primarily Swiss one to boot - persisted throughout the Early Modern period.
Things changed following a number of mass migrations throughout the nineteenth century, when it became clear that anyone removed from their place of origin for an extended period of time might be prone to the symptoms that Hofer had described. By the early twentieth century, nostalgia had thus become more increasingly associated with experiences of melancholy and depression - thought more of as a mental condition than as a neurological disease in want of a cure. If this seems somewhat hard to reconcile with our contemporary notion of the term, it owes in part to the fact
On a final note, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to the magazine this year - your original and thought-provoking interpretations of the theme have made this edition a pleasure both to edit and to read. I’d also like to thank my hard-working and brilliant editorial team - Iona Fleming, Miranda Stephenson, Sasha Chown, Isabel Martin and Margaux Emmanuel - for all the time and effort you put into making this edition And,possible.last but not least, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this year’s Polyglossia. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.
Polyglossia that nostalgia was long conflated with the experience of homesickness. Only in the early-twentieth century did nostalgia develop a sort of conceptual independence: it was American sociologist Fred Davis who showed that whilst homesickness is - as its name would suggest - an affliction of sorts, we tend to associate nostalgia with a feeling of warmth, sentimentality, and a yearning for ‘the good old days’. That is to say, we now think of nostalgia as something to be enjoyed, as opposed to something to be endured.It is hardly surprising, then, that the literary and visual arts tend so frequently toward the practice of nostalgic remembering. Take Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30, for instance, in which the speaker learns to take solace in the act of reminiscence: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, But[...] if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end. ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ was, by no means coincidentally, the title given to Marcel Proust’s A la recherche de temps perdu when it was first translated into English. That text perhaps contains Western literature’s most famous exercise in personal nostalgia; in which the taste and smell of a tea-dipped madeleine triggers a cascade of happy childhood memories. The sweetness of the reminiscence is, at the same time, tempered by nostalgia’s failure to reapprehend the ‘lost time’ it pursues. In this respect, nostalgia succeeds in reaffirming the pastness of things gone by, all the while endowing them with a fleeting presence.Nostalgia is, then, an undoubtedly complex, bittersweet experience. And the parameters of what it entails are shifting, just as they always have. Nostalgia is now as much a social phenomenon as it is a personal one, and its spatial and temporal implications are becoming increasingly hard to define. Might we, for instance, feel nostalgic about the future? About places we have never been? In an age such as ours, where lived experience and memory are becoming increasingly collective, these questions are no doubt worthy of our consideration.Thetheme for this year’s edition of Polyglossia, “Homecoming, Longing”, retraces nostalgia back to its roots, in the hope of transplanting them to our twentyfirst century context. The final product is an investigation into the modern experience of nostalgia: an emotion which, I hope you’ll see, remains essential to the navigation of our individual and collective lives.
Louise Knight 5
Homecoming, Longing
RACHEL O’CONNELL Las pendientes rojas
The red earrings It is morning and I am choosing my earrings for the day. There are innumerable options, but I choose the red ones. Each one is formed of a small red cable, curved into an oval, and joined with a red bead. Inside each oval hangs another bead, a blue, yellow, orange bead. I put them on and think of my grandfather. I think of the visits of my childhood to my grandparent’s house, of the hours spent with my sisters and brother playing with the old, yellowing Lego in the upstairs bedroom, or inspecting my grandfather’s collection of Disney videotapes, impeccably organised in the cupboard with the glass door on the land ing. The thrill when he allowed us to choose a film from the cupboard to watch in the lounge. I think of Merlin the tabby cat who we would pester during the film, begging him to pay us attention, and of my grandparents’ special re clining armchairs, which nobody was allowed to sit in except them. I think of and remember the day when I woke up and came out of my room to dis cover my entire family silent, heavy, still, not yet having left the house, even though it was Sunday and normally the house was full of bustle and movement in preparation to go to church at that time of the morning. I remem ber I was confused. I remember the tears of my mother and the hugs of my older brother. I remember the sticky sensation of not having got dressed all day and the fact that my boy friend came and cried with me even though he had never met my grandfather. I remember that we watched a Disney film that evening. I remember the days after the funeral; I remember my grandmother, stoic, efficient, infallibly practical, and her frenzy to organise and throw awaymy grandfather’s things, how Es por la mañana y estoy escogiendo mis pendi entes del día. Hay innumerables opciones, pero escojo las rojas. Son fabricadas cada uno de un pequeñito cable rojo, curvado en forma de óvalo, y juntado con una cuenta roja. Dentro de este óvalo, se ha colgado otra cuenta, de color azul, amarillo, naranja. Me las pongo y pienso en mi abuelo. Pienso en las estancias de mi infancia en casa de mi abuelo y mi abuela, en las horas pasadas con mis hermanas y mi hermano jugando con el viejo Lego amarillo en la cuarta de arriba, o examinando la colección de videocasetes de Dis ney de mi abuelo, ordenados impecablemente en el armario con la puerta de vidrio del descansillo. La excitación cuando él nos permitía escoger una película del armario para ver en la sala. Pienso en el gato atigrado Merlín que fastidiábamos durante la película, pidiéndole que nos prestara atención, y en los sillones reclinables especiales de mi abue los, en los que nadie tenía el derecho de sentarse salvo ellos.Pienso en y me acuerdo del día cuando me desperté y salí de mi cuarta para encontrar a mi familia entera silenciosa, pesada, quieta, todavía en casa, aunque fue domingo y normalmente la casa estaba llena de bullicio y movimiento en preparación para ir a la iglesia de aquella hora de la mañana. Me acuerdo de que estaba confundida. Me acuerdo de las lágrimas de mi mamá y de los abrazos de mi hermano mayor. Me acuerdo de la sensación el pegajosa de no haberme vestido todo día y del hecho de que mi novio vino y lloró conmigo aunque nunca había conocido a mi abuelo. Me acuerdo de que vimos una película Disney aquella tarde. Me acuerdo de los días después del funeral, de mi abuela estoica, eficiente, infaliblemente práctica, y de su frenesí para organizar y tirar
Polyglossia 7 las cosas de mi abuelo, de como comenzó a llorar en cuanto alguien le hablaba. Me acuerdo de como se quebraba su voz y como nunca antes le había visto llorar. Me acuerdo de que mi padre le ayudaba, llamándonos todos al taller de su padre para escoger una casa o un tren minúsculo de su maqueta de ferrocarril preciada para recordarlo. La manera de llorar la muerte de mi padre y su madre, mi abuela, es organizar. Me acuerdo de que estábamos sentado en el suelo de la sala de mi abuela, sobre la alfombra de color borgoña, delante de la televisión silenciosa, y entraron mi abuela y mi padre con cajas y cajas de trozos proviniendo del cobertizo de mi abuelo. Mi hermana menor, mi madre y yo pasamos una hora organizando los pequeños engranajes, cadenas y cables para ver si había algo que valía la pena guardar. Lo guardamos todo. Me acuerdo del proceso de empaquetar, de ir al correo, de esperar. Me acuerdo de mi júbilo cuando mi amiga me envió unas fotos de lo que había creado con sus manos y los engranajes de mi abuelo. Me envió unas pendientes rojas, con los cables rojos de mi abuelo, y yo las agarré en las manos. Me acuerdo de la regularidad con que me las ponía durante ese año de pandemia, cuando no podíamos ver a mi abuela ni llorar con ella. El peso de ellas en mis orejas me consolaba. Me acuerdo de que los llevaba puesto el aniversario de la muerte de mi abuelo, el 26 de enero, y, unos meses más tarde, al momento del entierro. Esta mañana, me pongo las pendientes rojas y me acuerdo de todo eso. Salgo de mi cuar ta y me dirijo a la cocina para desayunar con mi hermana. Tomo una banana del frutero y sonrío. Mi abuelo amaba las bananas. she would break down into tears the moment somebody spoke to her. I remember how her voice broke and how I had never seen her cry before. I remember that my father helped her, calling us into his father’s workshop to choose a miniscule house or train from his precious model railway to remember its owner by. The way my father and his mother, my grandmother, I remember we were sat on the floor of my grandmother’s lounge, on the burgundy-coloured carpet, in front of the silent television, and my grandmother and my father came in with boxes and boxes of bits and bobs from my grandfather’s shed. My younger sister, my mother and I spent an hour organising the little cogs, chains, and cables to see if there was anything worth keeping. I remember the process of packing, of going to the post office, of waiting. I remember my joy when my friend sent me photos of what she had created with her hands and my grandfather’s oddments. She sent me a pair of red earrings, with my grandfather’s red cables, and I held them in my hands. I remember how often I would put them on during that year of pandemic, when we could not see my grandmother nor weep with her. The weight of them in my ears comforted me. I remember I wore them on the anniversary of my grandfather’s death, the 26th of January, and, a few months later, at his interment. This morning, I put on the red earrings and I remember all of this. I leave my room and go to the kitchen toeat breakfast with my sister. I take a banana from the fruit bowl and I smile. My grandfather loved bananas. illustration by Rosy Pearson
We’re left upon. Where are the songs of spring? Wer denn? War Keats. What language do we speak? It’s us—think not of them—our summer fling “ist tot.” It’s dead, Marlene, “war nur ne Woche —a week, Susanne, and not a fling. Think back To summer, back to spring; use language used By man, again. “Je ne veux pas.” “Ich auch nicht.” Fie! Demain, Susanne. Remember, back From summer now, recall the stubble-plains “softdying days” “its dead” —Marlene! Please, Look back now, calm, in contemplation. I see the stubblefield—ist Frühling? Yes, Marlene. Tja, “it sings the Spring; its bloomed —that’s nice, “Spring sings” —that’s better, Susanne “my heart, its Spring is faded” —he!? War Keats. Ich auch nicht. Stopp. Now listen up, recall “the stubble-plains” “are dead und stingy.” No, that goes not? No, it doesn’t. Illustrate Excitement, feelings, passions, “rosy hued —the willows twine —the country, wild and green, is cleft! —the brook resplend —I hate! —the brook…” —that’s good, Marlene. ”Twas Keats.” —Not Keats. (Doch war’s.)
MAX HEUVELS
Now summer, oder? Now remember plains And incidents, “were dead?” and situate Them. Common life, in nature, recollect “The fallow plains —resplendent —inundate Me. Reaping, far from gold soirées, he reaps —the grain is life, is blooming, liquid gold Is streaming. There! Adonis! —Adonis! Tell me more! Tell me more! And how he strains; The sun splendacious glitters on his scythe.” Not too much myth, still more emotion “There! O, stubble-fields! Are dead! I love! Take care! Marlene Homecoming, Longing
And better yet to speak what others speak But who? Well, Keats. “But Keats we’ve done to death.” The stubble-plains—the stubble fields are green —dried up and dead. The river sallows gold With rosy hue—borne aloft on sinking airs —or still and dead. I love soft-dying day! For me, the song is parched—now boils, and now —with treble soft, the gossamers twitter; The sky is golden. The swallows glitter softly. While barred clouds touch the stubble’s breath —and molten gold! The stubble-plains are left. Ah yes, we’ve done him quite to death. And yet, We still look back: the days we hardly saw. And spring was wet and rank. The grass was wet. The willows hung; the riverside was hoar. And summer, thereafter, was also rank And the fields!—the fields were very muddy In autumn, skies seemed molten—a sunset. In autumn, plains flooded. The riverbank Is frozen. And the plains are evergreen, Like spectres—if spectres…evergreen, Like glitter. And the stubble plains are wet. “It’s dead” she said. “Bist tot,” Marlene. Unsre Erzieherin wär stolz, Marlene. Damals war Keats—wir lasen Tolstoy— wir sprachen, irgendwie, Marlene. Demain, Marlene.
Polyglossia 9
ABSTRACT ARTWORK INSPIRED BY MARLENE BY KATHI DOERK Homecoming, Longing
I balance myself on the wing of your speech, waiting with crucifix arms for the all-clear.
If there’s only one thing you should know about this country, my Uber driver warns, it’s that the roads are big, but their minds are small. His body contorts to face me, and the three-lane motorway echoes like a rattle in my skull.
The uncertainty of air tastes like salt, a constant running nose, my bodymind’s extremities begin escaping themselves. This ink and this pen will not – for all their wonder –conjure up your face, or give me a view of the doll-like land we lie above.
I hear a baby cry, or perhaps a muffled viola. Either way, I here. This is irrelevant. When the lights turn from green to red, I know there is no time for release.
Polyglossia SARAH ADEGBITE LHR → IED
11
These letters pass by: —I was born in this world to live in poverty and solitude, high and melancholy life, And living in this world My heart overfills with something hot, something quiet, with love, with grief And this time, seeming consolation, solidarity, In glances, in punches, these letters pass by: —At Heaven's Creation, all that he loved and cherished most, he made to live in poverty and solitude, In high and melancholy life, always in overflowing love and overflowing grief Like the crescent moon and the buttercup and the crow tit and the donkey And like Francis Jamme and Tao Yuanming and Rainer Maria Rilke.
Baek Seok (백석), born Baek Gi-Haeng (백기행), (1912-1996) was a Korean poet who wrote about love, life in the imposed colonial modernity of Imperial Japan-occupied Gyeongseong (today Seoul), and nostalgia for his rural home. Known as the 'poet of the poets,' Baek is best known for his moving lyrics and colourful portraits of Korean rural village scenes, written using various archaisms and the Pyeongan and Hamgyung regional dialects.
Also there: the person I love My love, my beautiful In a small and quiet house, some place far south, by a river, Sitting with her husband having cod soup for supper Already with a child too, sitting together for supper But again, before I know it–On this white wall Looking at my lonesome face
ENSOL BAEK
There is a white wall (1941) This evening on the white wall in this narrow room Something lonely comes and goes Upon this white wall A dim fifteen-candle lamp throws off a tired light A begrimed all-tattered cotton shirt rests its dark shadow And my lonesome thoughts wander about: how I would like a mug of sweet warm rice wine. But what is this–On this white wall Is my poor and aged mother My poor and aged mother, In this blue and frosty weather, soaks her hands in icy water washing radishes and cabbages.
Baek Seok: Nostalgia in Translation Longing
Homecoming,
흰 바람벽이 있어 (1941) 오늘 저녁 이좁다란 방의 흰 바람벽에 어쩐지 쓸쓸한 것만이 오고 간다 이 흰 희미한바람벽에십오촉전등이 지치운 불빛을 내어던지고 때글은 다 낡은 무명샤쯔가 어두운 그림자를 쉬이고 그리고 또 달디단 따끈한 감주나 한잔 먹고 싶다고 생각하는 내 가지가지 외로운 생각이 그런데헤매인다.이것은 또 어언 일인가 이 흰 바람벽에 내 가난한 늙은 어머니가 있다 내 가난한 늙은 어머니가 이렇게 시퍼러둥둥하니 추운 날인데 차디찬 물에 손은 담그고 무이며 배추를 씻고 있다 또 내 사랑하는 사람이 있다 내 사랑하는 어여쁜 사람이 어늬 먼 앞대 조용한 개포가의 나즈막한 집에서 그의 지아비와 마조 앉어 대구국을 끓여 놓고 저녁을 먹는다 벌써 어린것도 생겨서 옆에 끼고 저녁을 먹는다 그런데 또 이즈막하야 어늬 사이엔가 이 흰 바람벽엔 내 쓸쓸한 얼굴을 쳐다보며 이러한 글자들이 지나간다 — 나는 이 세상에서 가난하고 외롭고 높고 쓸쓸하니 살어가도록 태어났다 그리고 이 세상을 살어가는데 내 가슴은 너무도 많이 뜨거운 것으로 호젓한 것으로 사랑으로 슬픔으로 가득 찬다 그리고 이번에는 나를 위로하는 듯이 나를 울력하는 듯이 눈질을 하며 주먹질을 하며 이런 글자들이 지나간다 — 하늘이 이 세상을 내일 적에 그가 가장 귀해하고 사랑하는 것들은 모두 가난하고 외롭고 높고 쓸쓸하니 그리고 언제나 넘치는 사랑과 슬픔 속에 살도록 만드신 것이다 초생달과 바구지꽃과 짝새와 당나귀가 그러하듯이 그리고 또 프랑시쓰 잼과 도연명과 라이넬 마리아 릴케가 그러하듯이 13 Polyglossia
고향(故鄕) (1938)
HOMETOWN (1938) I fell ill while in the northern regions1 So one morning I went to see a doctor. The doctor—with Tathāgata face and Guan Yu’s beard— Looks like some ancient immortal being. With his long-pinky-nail hand he takes my pulse in long quietude Then suddenly he asks, where is your hometown? Jungju, Pyeongan, I answer. The hometown of Mr.––––, he says. So you know Mr.––––, I ask. Then the doctor smiles a little, brushes his beard, and says, He is a very close friend. He is my father, I say. Then he smiles And without saying another word takes my arm again All in that warm and tender touch Are my hometown, my father, and my father’s friend.
나는 북관에 앓어 누어서 어느 아침 의원을 뵈이었다 의원은 여래같은 상을 하고 관공의 수염을 들이워 먼 옛적 어늬 나라 신선 같은데 새끼손톱 길게 돋은 손을 내어 묵묵하니 한참 맥을 집드니 문득 물어 고향이 어데냐 한다 평안도 정주라는 곧이라 한즉 그렇면 아무개 씨 고향이란다 그렇면 아무개 씰 아느냐 한즉 의원은 빙긋이 웃슴을 띄고 막역지간이라며 수염을 쓸는다 나는 아버지로 섬기는 이라 한즉 의원은 또 다시 넌즛이 웃고 말없이 팔을 잡어 맥을 보는데 손길은 다스하고 부드러워 고향도 아버지도 아버지의 친구도 다 있었다 1 Present-day Hamgyeongnam- and Hamgyeongbuk-do. Homecoming, Longing
The roe deer fawn, spotted with white and shedding-rolling lanugo, Looks like the countryman.
함주시초 2 장진 땅이 지붕넘어 넘석하는 거리다 자구나무 같은 것도 있다 기장감주에 기장차떡이 흔한데다 이 거리에 산골사람이 노루새끼를 다리고 왔다 산골사람은 막베 등거리 막베 잠방등에를 입고 노루새끼를 닮었다 노루새끼 등을 쓸며 터 앞에 당콩순을 다 먹었다 하고 서른닷냥 값을 부른다 노루새끼는 다문다문 흰 점이 백이고 배안의 털을 너슬너슬 벗고 산골사람을 닮었다 산골사람의 손을 핥으며 약자에 쓴다는 흥정소리를 듣는 듯이 새까만 눈에 하이얀 것이 가랑가랑하다 15 Polyglossia
노루 (1937) -
Jangjin soil is just about in reach beyond these roofs And there’s something like the pink silk tree too Millet wine and sweet millet rice cake are all about On this street where some countryman has brought out a baby roe deer. The countryman dressed in coarse hemp Looks like the fawn. Brushing the back of the roe deer fawn He says it ate all the yard’s bean sprouts And calls its price at thirty-five nyang.
Licking the countryman’s hand As if it understood itself being sold as medicinal The jet black eyes fill up with white tears.
Roe Deer (1937) - from Poems from the Hamheung area
SHIJIE
Homecoming, Longing
The historical forms of this character have been reproduced below for comparison. I tried my best to imitate a Chinese traditional style of painting, called ‘Hsieh yi’ (写意, freehand brush work).
The style I have adopted here is notably different from that of most of my artwork. The clothing of the character is directly inspired by my hometown in Hebei, China, where the Monsoon Climate of Medium Latitudes calls for this style of clothing. In this work, I intend to represent my enduring connection to the great land afar.”
“These pieces were based on the Chinese character ‘家’(/tɕia⁵⁵, ).
This set of paintings was made during a my very emotional period of my life here at Cambridge, longing to start a new life whilst experiencing acute feelings of nostalgia. To incorporate this emotion into these artworks, I chose to imitate a specific Chinese style called Ink wash (水墨, shuǐmò).
Oracle
Home and
Historical forms of the character 家 Shang Western Zhou Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han) Liushutong (compiled in Ming) bone script Bronze inscriptions Small seal script Transcribed ancient scripts WANG the LandGreatAfar
I tried my best to imitate a Chinese traditional style of painting, called ‘Hsieh yi’ (写意, freehand brush work). 17
Homecoming, Longing EMILY FIELDING Shrieking for FamiliarTurf GEORGIAN WOMAN EXHUMED IN HIGH SPEED 2 REMOVAL SCHEME “Exhume, Exhume” *They dig me up* “We have to dig you up and rebury you elsewhere by law” WhatUaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhlaw? *They snatch my wedding plate* I shriek through the tarpaulin for about An hour and then suck it back up in the Van from Euston to Brookwood. Myself and This other bloke get sealed in plastic hush Together with air-con piped into our Crumbling faces and jaw bones stiffened inTo perpetual grins; *Left femur snaps in transit* Our clattered bits Get stuffed back into soil we don’t relate With (mineral types differ) but my bloke Says it’s “nothing worth shrieking over” when We’ve been six feet under for centuries And yet again for centuries and counting. illustration by Annie Lane
19 Polyglossia
It is those who understand, those who make us feel at ease, this is what home is. Love is what home is. And love is not affected by seas or kilometres but enforced in thought and affection. Home is love loveand is home. Home is those you love. And this home is constant. Thank you to those who love me and allow me to love them. Thank you for being my home.
LookingStanding.Present.over the cliff edge into the sea of sleep, a sea spotted with a million species of dreams. If this bed could talk, if it could speak the secrets of the unconscious mind, night after night we return to our bed. But what if I don’t have just one bed? What happens then? Is home lost? Do I not have that one place, my own place, my home? This may seem the case. Two beds in France, one at my parents’ house, one at univer Howsity. can my home be divided between all these places? Am I divided too? But of course, this is not so! A life is one life. A singular life. We may move around, rest our heads on different pillows. Pillows with different moulds, a mattress less soft, Aspringy.bedmay feel like a home but the pillow that comforts a dreamy mind may differ. Differ in size, So,country.smell,texture,itisthe people we love, those who surround us, those who hear the blunders of our conscious mind,
Homecoming, Longing who embrace us with their warm body. A specificallybody moulded to the curves of another.
MARGAUX SAMPSON Bed as Home
illustratration by the author We return every night to its warm embrace, a soft duvet enveloped in a stripey blue cover. A specificallypillow: moulded to the curves of a dream-filled head. Warm pockets of comfort. This is where we forget the day.
21
1 Before Kirkham, their was very limited scholarship available on Battiferra, her work disappearing from the public stage and even from catalogues documenting female literary activity for the centuries that followed. Startlingly, Bronzino’s portrait too, for some centuries, failed to immortalise its sitter’s identity and Battiferra was the unknown Petrarchan lady for many hundreds of years. The present piece proposes a rediscovery of Battiferra’s lost poetic voice through her early, introspective verse on leaving her home in the “sacre alte ruine” (sacred high ruins) of Rome to live in the “cieco orrore” (blind wilderness) of Florence. The contrast in her treatment of the 1 Victoria Kirkham. Laura Battiferra and Her Literary Circle: An Anthology: A Bilingual Edition. University of Chicago Press, 2006, p. 47.
Battiferra’s OdeRometo Homecoming, Longing
One of the more unusual poetic voices of Cinquecento Italy, Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati harnessed Petrarch’s literary model to write verse that participated in the politics, philosophy, and public occasions of her day. A prolific writer, at the peak of her career Battiferra is seen to engage with the political and intellectual elite of High Renaissance Florence, expressly exhibited in her anthology of 187 poems published in 1560, the Primo libro delle opere toscane. Propelling her into the limelight, the work was even commemorated in her portrait by celebrated mannerist painter Agnolo Bronzino. Battiferra is caught, in this image, between the traditional modes of representing men and women in Cinquecento portraiture. Bronzino captures Battiferra’s feminine grace, with her long neck and elegant white hands, yet simultaneously his portrait conveys her masculine authority in her profile pose and aquiline nose. In her duality, Battiferra proves a fascinating figure to a modern audience, and is described by the most dedicated scholar of her work, Prof. Victoria Kirkham, to be “as much mythical icon as historical woman.”
A Renaissance poetessa’s lament: Battiferra’s ode to Rome
CAMILLA ALLIBONE
illustration by Simone Molinari
23 city of the Tiber to that of the Arno exposes the young poet’s grief in her separation from Rome and her longing to remain there, although, as fate would have it, it is in Florence that she finds her fame and fortune. The sonnet is Battiferra’s forte, and I hope my translation preserves her characteristic dramatism and beauty. I have opted for a more liberal interpretation of the Italian original, seeking to replicate the rhyme scheme and phonic elements of the poem. By accompanying Battiferra’s verse with Simone’s illustration, we have sought to animate this over 450-year-old verse, transporting its unique interlocutor and acute emotion to a new audience and bringing her home to her own, rightful place in history.
Here I am, sacred high ruins, leaving you after all, indeed my very self - O, cruel fate! O alas, what state will my heavy sorrow befall? 4 O you, holy and wandering souls, to whom so grand a gift Heaven gave, in that you are up there, eternal citizens, herein your blessed worth extolled, 8 see to it, if a humble prayer is heard on high, that while far away on the Arno, in blind wilderness, my mortal part shall be buried alive, 11 my name - the better part of me that now rests with you, severed from every ill - shall survive among your lofty treasures on the Tiber. 14 Ecco ch’io da voi, sacre alte ruine, anzi da me medesma - ahi, crudel fato! pur mi diparto. Or lassa, in quale stato il mio grave dolor trovarà fine? 4 O, voi anime sante e pellegrine, a cui sì largo don dal ciel fu dato, che ‘n pregio del valor vostro beato siate or lasuso eterne cittadine, 8 fate, s’umil preghiera è in cielo udita, mentre lontan su l’Arno in cieco orrore, starà vivo sepolto il mio mortale, 11 che ‘I mio nome sul Tebro, il mio migliore, ch’or con voi resta, scevro d’ogni male, fra’ vostri alti tesor rimanga in vita. 14
Homecoming, Longing shiftingterracottaroofsshiftingbeetlesendlesslyoveroneanotherslowingstopping forming a tableau a gentle tattoo of cobbled streets on the back of a honey-coloureddomesmoothedofrock. waves crash over a smooth forehead hewn from crystalline marble or soapstone maybe curving gently to a dead-straight nose matching its contour precisely the profile bump of his brow delineating merely the space between two unpopulated plains. no bead of sweat to soothe my aching hot wet burningheartinmy breast. illustration by Rosy Pearson GABRIEL HUMPHREYS View of Toledo
My Lost Youth By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
25 Polyglossia TRANSLATED BY JIAHAO WANG My Lost Youth 逝去的青春 亨利•沃兹沃斯•朗费罗 翻译王佳浩 我时常想起那个海边的小镇 我时常思绪万千 小镇的街道蜿蜒曲折 我的青春又回来了 拉普兰之歌让我梦萦魂绕 它唱道 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 我看见树影的斑驳 我捕捉海域的光辉 那些岛屿像是极乐仙境 充斥在我孩子气的梦里 那首老歌让我烦扰 它低声私语 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 我记得乌黑的码头和泊口 海上恣意奔腾的潮汐 唇上长着胡子的西班牙水手 船只的美丽与神秘 还有大海的魔力 那声音依然任性地唱着 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, And catch, in sudden gleams, The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, And islands that were the Hesperides Of all my boyish dreams. And the burden of that old song, It murmurs and whispers still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
continued overleaf
I remember the black wharves and the slips, And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea. And the voice of that wayward song Is singing and saying still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I remember the black wharves and the slips, And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea. And the voice of that wayward song Is singing and saying still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
Homecoming, Longing 我记得乌黑的码头和泊口 海上恣意奔腾的潮汐 唇上长着胡子的西班牙水手 船只的美丽与神秘 还有大海的魔力 那声音依然任性地唱着 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 我记得海岸边修建的堡垒 山头屹立的碉楼 朝阳下咆哮的大炮 锣鼓喧天日夜不休 军号吹奏激昂锐利 而那首老歌的旋律 依然跳动在我的心头 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 我记得那次远处的海战 炮声在滚滚海浪上轰鸣 牺牲的舰长，在墓中安躺 俯看着寂静的海湾 那是他们的战死沙场 那悲恸的歌声 震颤我的心脏 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 我看见微风里摇曳的树林 和那熟悉的婆娑树影 旧日的友情，懵懂的爱恋 在我内心安静地回响 仿若幽静街区的鸽鸣 那甜美老歌的诗句 依旧在颤动低吟 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 青春的思念是漫长的思念
I remember the sea-fight far away, How it thundered o’er the tide! And the dead captains, as they lay In their graves, o’erlooking the tranquil bay, Where they in battle died. And the sound of that mournful song Goes through me with a thrill: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I remember the bulwarks by the shore, And the fort upon the hill; The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar, The drum-beat repeated o’er and o’er, And the bugle wild and shrill. And the music of that old song Throbs in my memory still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I can see the breezy dome of groves, The shadows of Deering’s Woods; And the friendships old and the early loves Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves In quiet neighbourhoods. And the verse of that sweet old song, It flutters and murmurs still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek, And a mist before the eye. And the words of that fatal song Come over me like a chill: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
27 我记得那些许亮光和暗影 闪过我稚嫩的内心 内心潜藏的歌声和寂静 有几分是预言，还有几分 是狂热而又虚幻的渴望 听，那起伏不定的歌声 一直唱着，永不平静 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 有一些情景我无法倾诉 有一些梦想永不泯灭 有一些思绪 让坚强的心变脆弱 让脸色苍白 让双眼蒙上薄雾 那句不祥的歌词 让我发颤 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 当我重返亲爱的小镇 眼前的景象如此陌生 但故乡的空气依旧纯净甘美 熟识的街道洒满了树影 树影摇曳 哼唱着美妙的歌 但也低声叹息 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念 故乡的森林清新而秀美 怀着近乎痛苦的欢喜 我的心在那游历 在重温的纷繁旧梦里 我又找到逝去的青春 树林还在吟唱 那奇异又迷人的歌声 少年的意志是风的意志 青春的思念是漫长的思念
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart Across the school-boy’s brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song Sings on, and is never still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
And Deering’s Woods are fresh and fair, And with joy that is almost pain My heart goes back to wander there, And among the dreams of the days that were, I find my lost youth again. And the strange and beautiful song, The groves are repeating it still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” Polyglossia
Strange to me now are the forms I meet When I visit the dear old town; But the native air is pure and sweet, And the trees that overshadow each well-known street, As they balance up and down, Are singing the beautiful song, Are sighing and whispering still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
Homecoming, Longing
i’m not quite sure where this is going, iyetthink i may have found the necessary bearing. as it happens, my father has an alter ego who goes by the name of kenneth t. phigsan unblottable doppelgänger, that latter man, whose presence proves as cryptic as the crosswords he compiles whilst pottering away in the orangery. (on a somewhat unrelated note, this is why, i think, the fig has always seemed to me the most puzzling of the fruits.) it is, nonetheless, this elusive cruciverbalist who clues me in on the vicissitudes of mutual affectionone of our sundays, the eleven across: greek character sent back the german nail, we hear. got it? (10) u-n-d-e-r-s-t-double o-d.
LOUISE KNIGHT an ode to Kenneth T. Phigs
Polyglossia 29 SASHA CHOWN the lost year oftentimes i think about the year that i whenlost others talk of cathedrals rising of museumsmemorieshidinggliding i never-wornremember boots unopened passport an empty box to keep all the photographs that never were gathering dust i watched that snowy world turn through my disconnected window each six-petalled star drifting to mark another day now out of reach i am grateful for what i have yet whatmournicould have had something i can never have back the lost year photograph by Sasha Chown
Homecoming, Longing
Why do I still put you first above the other? Why do I still call you mother when I have been an inattentive, disappointment of a daughter? What right do I have when I know nothing of you, when I have made no attempt to find out? Do you hate me when I love you as one loves an unborn child, blindly and regardless? What of your tongue? IHot.Red.butcher and serve it to your children with a grimace. Pity me, please, if only for a minute. When your mother’s tongue doesn’t quite fit when you can’t pull it over your own like a pair of tights because it’s too loose, slipping off constantly or too tight, a gangrene-inducing embrace or punctured with holes, forcing your own to emerge in the oddest places and in the oddest shapes. an unanswered(t.c.)call
DOA ACIKGUN
Polyglossia 31 But I ache. I burn. I have open wounds inside me andthroatmydownacross my heart nipped at by the blades of bile I’ve forced myself to swallow every time I think of you. Oh, crooked land of the exiled poet will you be missing from me even in death? One day, I shall make my own discarded will and sign it with your glorious colour. But until then, I’ll observe you from withinafaryour borders. I am learning. I want to learn. I am beginning to understand. illustration by Annie Lane
Voyage d’un inconnu
Par une nuit d’orage sous la lumière crue des lampadaires, il s’arrêta devant le parvis de la petite église anodine. Les vitraux n’avaient toujours pas perdu leur beauté malgré l’éclairage jaunâtre qui entourait le bâtiment dont l’origine remontait à ces temps anciens de fixité où les seuls changements qu’on remarquait étaient dans le ton du chant des moineaux qui s’élevait et tombait avec les saisons. Un coup de vent soudain manqua de le faire tomber mais s’étant gelé devant l’église qu’il fixait du regard, il se tint debout prenant appui sur l’image stabilisatrice du monument; celle qu’il pouvait voir clairement avec les yeux et celle qui était restée gravée dans sa mémoire depuis de nombreuses années. Il se mit à pleuvoir. Le feu dans les cheminées des maisons aux alentours ne brûlait pas et la pluie cinglait les vitraux de l’église. Les manches de la chemise râpée et démesurée que portait l’homme et son pantalon mouillé qui traînait par terre claquaient au vent. Il avait l’habitude d’acheter ses vêtements dans la friperie miteuse située à côté de sa maison dans la Rue de la Barre à l’est de Cluny, la ville qu’il avait quittée pour voyager jusqu’à Paris, non pas parce qu’il lui manquait de l’argent pour les acheter neufs mais plutôt à cause de l’histoire unique qui était tissée dans chaque fil qui constituait chaque habit. Il ne s’intéressait pas à des vêtements en soie ou en velours, ces tissus vides et dénudés de sens. Cela lui faisait plaisir de porter des vêtements qui racontaient une histoire, il avait ainsi l’impression de ne jamais être tout seul. Le clocheton sonna minuit, ce qui le secoua de sa transe et lui fit parcourir du regard les alentours pour s’assurer que personne n’était là pour le réprimander d’avoir traîné. Non, il était seul. Après avoir fait quelques pas vers la porte en chêne, béante sans doute à cause du vent, il regarda dans le vestibule de l’église pavé de carreaux fragmentés et lentement leva la tête vers l’escalier en colimaçon qu’il pouvait distinguer au fond de la nef. Il traversa le vestibule pour mieux voir la structure vertigineuse de l’escalier qui était raide et sinueux. Il réfléchit à l’impossibilité de gravir ces marches dans le noir absolu où on n’avait pas allumé les flambeaux. Tandis qu’il admirait l’architecture de la nef en pensant à toutes ces âmes innocentes venues à Paris pour la première fois sur les bons plans d’un guide de voyage, ignorant ce petit trésor caché, il remarqua tout à coup qu’il ne pouvait plus entendre la pluie. En se tournant, il vit la porte qui était maintenant fermée. Mais comment cela s’était-il produit ? S’il avait été le vent, elle aurait fait un énorme fracas en se rabattant. Pourtant il n’avait rien entendu. Son cœur se mit à battre plus fort, tant et si bien que chaque coup fut assourdissant. Pour la première fois depuis son arrivée à Paris, il avait conscience de son mal sournois qui l’affaiblissait de minute en minute ; curieusement, sa venue dans ce petit quartier de la vieille église où il avait autrefois connu une telle tranquillité lui avait semblé être son remède miracle. Mais il n’en était plus certain. Trop stupéfait pour bouger et peu capable de surmonter la douleur sourde qui l’accablait, il resta immobile les yeux fixés à présent sur la silhouette qui se tenait debout en bas de l’escalier. Habillée d’une cape longue et claire qui couvrait ses pieds, elle ressemblait à un moine ; le col de l’habit montait jusqu’au menton et ses cheveux noirs qui cachaient SARASWATULA
ARUNDHATI
Homecoming, Longing
Polyglossia son visage faisaient ressortir sa peau blanche, pâle comme la mort. Mais il n’en était plus certain. Trop stupéfait pour bouger et peu capable de surmonter la douleur sourde qui l’accablait, il resta immobile les yeux fixés à présent sur la silhouette qui se tenait debout en bas de l’escalier. Habillée d’une cape longue et claire qui couvrait ses pieds, elle ressemblait à un moine ; le col de l’habit montait jusqu’au menton et ses cheveux noirs qui cachaient son visage faisaient ressortir sa peau blanche, pâle comme la mort. Pourtant la silhouette ne fit aucun geste, elle ne semblait pas respirer, voire être humaine et elle demeura immobile. L’homme crut rêver. Il ne savait pas quoi faire. Il voulait s’enfuir, mais il fut paralysé par la peur. Il parvint finalement à faire un pas en arrière. À cet instant, alors qu’un million de pensées et angoisses et éventualités différentes tourbillonnaient dans la tête de l’homme, la silhouette cadavérique tressauta et son cou eut un mouvement convulsif comme si elle était prête à lui sauter dessus. L’homme en frissonnant d’horreur regretta d’être revenu dans cette maudite église. Il eut à peine le temps de s’enfuir de l’église et du terrible fantôme- parce que, certes, la créature devait être un fantôme. Il était impossible qu’une telle figure tourmentée, que de tels creux de néant qu’on n’oserait appeler des yeux, qu’une telle allure qui inspirait une terreur magnifique, appartenaient à une créature humaine.
Une fièvre effroyable l’accabla et sa tête essaya en vain de contrôler l’effroi irrationnel qui remplissait son cœur. Il lança un regard derrière lui pour s’assurer que son hallucination ne l’avait pas poursuivi et voyant l’entrée fermée, il poussa un grand soupir et laissa tomber sa tête entre ses mains. « Ah ! Est-ce que je deviens fou ? ». Après avoir quitté d’un pas lourd la ruelle illuminée par un clair de lune qui avait maintenant remplacé l’obscurité du rideau de la pluie battante, il s’achemina vers aucune destination particulière mais toujours en gardant la Seine sur sa droite. En marchant il reprit haleine. L’horreur de cette église cauchemardesque s’atrophiait à chaque pas jusqu’à ce que la vision fût à une distance suffisante pour retrouver le calme dans l’âme. Après tout, ce n’est que le temps et la distance qui sont capables de nous arracher de nos illusions. Il se livra à une mélancolie absolue, un sentiment étrange et plutôt pitoyable, étant donné les circonstances. Cette rencontre effroyable avec un être qui selon toute vraisemblance n’était que la création d’un esprit rongé par la maladie, la vieillesse et l’expérience avait curieusement fait naître en lui une profonde tristesse. Au lieu de s’interroger sur l’origine de cette créature sublime, il méditait sur l’effet qu’elle avait eu sur sa sensibilité. Il s’interrogeait sur la transformation de la tranquillité d’un quartier de jadis, d’un Paris de jadis en peur et en hallucination et attribua cette transformation affreuse au temps. Il s’était considéré une fois chanceux de pouvoir parcourir le monde et être témoin des changements qu’accompagnent un peuple, une culture, une langue qu’on suppose avec entrain enrichissent un pays avec l’avancée implacable du temps. Mais comment le temps érode le bonheur. Comment l’imagination est obligée de prendre la place de la mémoire. Mais comment, pensa-t-il, est-il également vrai que la nostalgie est le déni d’un présent douloureux. Et il n’allait absolument pas vivre dans le déni. Il lança sur les eaux troubles de la Seine un regard de résignation et un sourire de sobriété. Il traversa le pont et alla de l’autre côté. 33
It began to rain. The chimneys of the surrounding houses were not smoking, and the rain pattered against the church windows. The sleeves of his ill-fitting, frayed shirt and his soaked trousers dragging on the floor flapped in the wind. He was used to buying his clothes from the moth-ridden second-hand shop by his house on Rue de la Barre to the east of Cluny, the village he had left behind to come to Paris. This habit was due not to want of money but rather to the abundance of tales that were woven into the threads of each garment. Fineries of silk and velvet, empty fabrics stripped bare of intrigue did not interest him. It contented him to be accompanied by those garbs that told a story - that way he would never be alone. The toll of the midnight bell shook him from his trance and diverted his gaze to his surroundings to check there was no one there to tell him off for loitering. No one. As he made towards the gaping oak door, he glanced into the vestibule paved with fragmented tiles and slowly raised his head to distinguish the spiral staircase in the far depths of the nave. He crossed the vestibule to get a better look at the vertiginous structure of the staircase, steep and winding, wondering if it would be possible to climb those steps in the pitch black without a lit torch in sight. As he stood admiring the architecture of the nave, thinking about all those poor souls come to Paris on the recommendations of some generic guidebook, unaware of this little hidden treasure, he suddenly realised he could no longer hear the rain. He turned around and saw the door was now closed. How could that be? If it had been the wind, and he would have heard if it were, the door would have slammed shut with a loud bang. But he hadn’t heard anything. His heart beat hard with deafening thumps. For the first time since arriving in the city, he was conscious of the gnawing pain that weakened him by the minute. Curiously, his arrival in this small district of the old church where he had once known such serenity seemed to have been his miracle cure. But he wasn’t so sure anymore. Too stupefied to move and helpless against the dull pain that ate away at him, he froze with his eyes now fixed upon the figure stood at the foot of the staircase. Dressed in a long pale cloak that covered his feet, the figure stood like a monk. The collar reached his chin and his black hair that hid his face stood in stark contrast to the white skin that peeked through, pale like death. But it made no movement, no signs of breathing or indeed of being human, and remained there, motionless. The man thought he was dreaming. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to take to his heels and flee but fear immobilised him. Eventually, he took a step back. At that moment, as a million different thoughts and dreads and eventualities were whizzing around his head, the corpse-like silhouette jolted and his neck convulsed as if ready pounce. Quaking with horror, the man regretted having come to this damned church. He managed to make a narrow getaway from the church and from that terrible ghost- after all, that is all it must have been. He managed to make a narrow getaway from the church and from that terrible
Homecoming, Longing Journey of a Stranger As the storm raged on, he stopped before the forecourt of the small unassuming church, under the harsh light of the streetlamps. The stain glass windows were not rendered any less beautiful by the yellowish tinge that bathed the building whose foundations were to be found in those long-gone days of constancy, when change was to be found only in the seasonal rise and fall of the blackbird’s song.
A sudden gust of wind would have knocked him over if his feet weren’t firmly grounded before the church with his eyes fixed squarely upon it. He stayed standing, using the stabilising image of the monument as his cane. Both the sight of it and the memory of it that had remained etched into his mind from years before lent him the support he needed.
The dark curtain of rain had fallen and was now replaced with a refulgent moonlight. Without direction but with the intention of keeping the Seine on his right, he left the alley way with heavy steps. He walked. He caught his breath. The extraordinary horror of that nightmarish church atrophied with each step until it was far enough away for a newfound tranquillity to settle in him- only time and distance allowed him to escape his illusions. He dripped with a strange and pitiable melancholy. This frightful episode with a figure that was in all probability the mere creation of a mind eroded by illness, old age and experience had curiously incited in him an intense sadness. If his mind wandered to the other possible explanations for the origin of such a sublime beast, it was his sensibility that was more profoundly touched as he thought about how the former tranquillity of a former Paris was now transformed into fear and hallucination. And nothing else but time was to blame for this terrible transformation. He had once considered himself lucky to be able to travel the world and witness how a people, a culture, a language, a nation changed with the steady march of time, changes that were enthusiastically believed to be improvements. But happiness seemed to have been lost in the process. Imagination was forced to take the place of memory. But how true it was too, he thought to himself, that nostalgia was only the denial of a painful present. And he was hardly going to live in denial. He looked out across the muddy waters of the Seine with resignation and a sober smile, crossing the bridge to the other side. translated by the author
Polyglossia 35 ghost - after all, that is all it must have been. It was hardly possible that such a tormented face, that such carved out hollows one dared to call eyes, that such a terror-inducing disposition belonged to a human being. He was overcome by a terrible fever and his head tried to quell the irrational fear that plagued his heart, to no avail. He checked behind him to make sure his hallucination had not followed him and upon seeing the narthex closed, he heaved a great sigh as his throbbing head fell into his “Amhands.Igoing mad?”
Here is the grief of knowing. It is a different kind of sadness, one that cannot exist without joy. It is a bittersweet sorrow pulling on your heart when you remember that the people you have met, the people you have loved, the people with whom you have created a world, will no longer occupy the same spaces in your life in a matter of months. Some of them will still be there, right where you left them, when you leave – and some of them will not, scattered like rain across the oceans. And so in the briefest of moments you step back from the glee and the familiar voice whispers this is not forever and then the world gets louder again and you make a promise to yourself that you will take it all in. That you will remember this joy, let the light of it fill you up inside and turn the city a shade of happiness that envelops you whole and reminds you that this is what life is. You do not know if you will remember it all, and part of you knows you will forget. But perhaps that is the inevitable regret of growing up; trying desperately to grasp it all in your hands, a bottomless deluge that is constantly moving, rippling away from you and it is all you can do to savour every moment, every surge, before the tide rolls away from you forever. Therein lies the grief of knowing. No matter how much you try, there is a bitterness to it, a whispered wish to try it all again, to do it better this time, to take it all in, to recognise – really recognise – that it will not last forever. So in the quiet you find yourself missing the cafes that will never be quite the same again, the tiny city you made your home and the new life you have created miles away. Therein lies the grief of living. illustration by Morgan Liu Homecoming, Longing
IONA FLEMING
Here is the grief of growing. It is complicated and twisted and it creeps through you when you least expect it, when you look back and see the time slipping away behind you. It is like water, droplets of lives falling away even though you try to grab them, try to pull them back before they flow into the river and disappear around the bend, carrying with them the laughs and the cries in the crashing of the blue. And suddenly it is the end and you remember the person you were and the person you are now and you ask would they recognise each other - but there are some days when you feel just as small; when you wonder if you have really grown at all. It is then that you wonder if you really took in those months, or if you merely let them pass through your fingers without fighting it; gliding through time like the route on your way to work; a life you have made your everyday that wraps itself around you so you do not feel the time passing and yet one day, you realise you and the whole world have moved forward. Here is the grief of leaving. It is an ongoing leaving, a reminder that tugs at you and pulls you from yourself, from the person you have become, and you find yourself watching your life like a play before you whilst the wind whispers that somewhere else, the world is continuing without you even though it does not exist where you can see it. Somewhere else, lives are playing out and you know you will not be there to see the milestones, the laughs and the cries. The memories that, like water, will create a whole river whose beauty you will never witness. And you have accepted this; they are all around you, smiles holding whole lives in your photos, but as you sit in your room you are no less alone. Therein lies the grief of leaving.
Growing,knowingleaving,
HANNAH BOWEN Soul, I hearcalling:you די צײט, װאָס איך האָב פֿאַרבראַכט אין גן-עדן, איז געװען די שענסטע צײט פֿון מײַן לעבן. נאָך בײם הײנטיקן טאָג טוט מיר אַ קלעם בײם האַרצן און עס שטעלן זיך מיר טרערן אין די אױגן, װען איך דערמאָן זיך אין דער דאָזיקער גליקלעכער צײט. So begins Itzik Manger’s satirical novel „Di Vunderlekhe Lebensbashraybung fun Shemuel Abe Abervo, oder, Dos Bukh Fun Gan-Eydn“, which we read as part of the online Yiddish Part II course at LMU. I knew I wanted to pick up a new language on my year abroad, and there were multiple candidates. I considered Swahili, but missed the registration deadline, and briefly mooted the possibility of learning Persian, but baulked at the writing system. But when I saw that there was an intensive beginners’ Yiddish course over the Semesterferien, my decision was made. Yiddish made perfect sense as a next step for a student of German and Russian, and in many ways seemed to be the missing link in my study of European culture: from Isaac Babel to Franz Kafka, we had studied numerous Jewish authors, and Yiddish leaves its mark in some way in practically all of their texts. Additionally, although not from a Jewish cultural background myself, I had long been interested in Judaism and Jewish cultures, and had always delighted in Yiddish words and their etymologies, from “glitch” and its route into mainstream English via NASA, to maven, mensch, and mishpokhe (not to mention “schmuck” and its numerous variations).Moreover, I always found that Yiddish provides a rich emotional vocabulary. The normalisation of kvetching came as a breath of fresh air to me, as someone who always tried to play off my struggles with my studies and mental health by putting on a brave face, true to that particular politely British “stiff upper lip” repressed mentality. As someone of Welsh heritage, I’ve also tried my hand at learning that language, and the first installment of one old video series (Now You’re Talking: Welsh) informed me that “most people are far too polite to say how they really feel” in response to being asked how they are. In Yiddish, refreshingly, this is less so the case. One of the first short dialogues we translated in the class was between two young women, one of whom asks the other “Vos makhstu?”, to which the other responds exasperatedly “Freg nisht! Ikh bin zeyer mid un ikh hob a sakh arbet“. This amused me greatly, as this is practically every other conversation at Cambridge, British stiff upper lip be damned.
Homecoming, Longing A
One somewhat lesser-known Yiddish emotional expression, “shpilkes”, is one I relate to a great deal having recently been rather belatedly diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 23. Literally meaning “needles”, it denotes a specific kind of restless, nervous energy, a sensation of pins and needles or “ants in your pants” as it were, that I experience perpetually. The word was popularised by Mike Myers in his cult classic SNL “Coffee Talk” sketches, in which he plays Linda Richman, an affectionate caricature of a certain type of New York Jewish lady- big haired, flamboyant, and a die-hard Streisand fan. In her debut episode, she explains to her listeners that the former host has a nasty case of “shpilkes in his genekhtagazoink” (I’m still not sure where in the human body this is, but it sure sounds painful), but is “recovering nicely in Boca Raton, Florida”. Linda often becomes verklempt, the warning signs appearing in her voice and her waving her hands theatrically in front of her face, before taking a moment to collect herself and then reassuring her audience “it passed!”. SPIRITUAL HOMECOMING TO YIDDISH DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Learning Yiddish during a global pandemic also has an undeniable political aspect, since Jews have been blamed by antisemites for plagues since time immemorial, despite their selfless contributions to medical science. Even outside of this particularly poignant context, learning Yiddish is undoubtedly an inherently political act - to choose to learn a language that was nearly wiped off the face of the earth entirely, is, inevitably, a very fraught task to undertake, especially as an outsider to the culture the language originates from.
Increasingly, learning Yiddish took on a spiritual importance to me as well. Watching Unorthodox with my friends on Netflix party and learning more about Judaism and the Jewish cultural context of Yiddish, I started remembering and mulling over strange instances of synchronicity over the past few months. I had been studying and living in two very historically loaded places, respectively LMU, the university where Die Weisse Rose was based and where the Scholl siblings distributed their leafletsbefore being arrested by the Gestapo and eventually executed by guillotine; and the Olympic Village, where 11 Israeli male athletes were massacred in 1972. On the very evening they were held hostageby the terrorists, they had been treated to a special performance of Fiddler On The Roof, the famous musical based on the cycle of stories Tevye The Dairyman by Yiddish language author Sholem Aleichem.Wantingto
B: ikh kuk Tiger King on, s’iz a fernzehzendung vegn meshuggnene mentshn, vos hobn alle a sakh tigers.
learn more about the background of the Palestine/Israel conflict, a tragic history that I have long been preoccupied with due to my interest in human rights, I ordered a copy of Dan Ephron’s Killing A King, The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel to my flat in the OlyDorf. I was rather unsettled to learn that Rabin’s assassin had enthusiastically read Karl May’s books as a child, 1 as I had recently decided to write my year abroad project dissertation on Orientalism and the presentation of native Americans in Karl May’s fiction, and was not expecting his name to come up in this book of all places. On my 21 st birthday in Munich, mere weeks before I was forced to return home due to the pandemic, I went to the Englischer Garten before meeting my friend for a meal. On my own in that huge city park, I was struck, watching the people walking their dogs, throwing frisbees, and playing with their children, by Polyglossia 39
Another word in Yiddish inflected English that I find speaks to my personal emotional landscape is “plotz”- to suddenly collapse from strong emotion (literally from “platsn”, to burst). As someone who has problems with syncope, I am wont to plotz - in particular, I vividly remember passing out towards the end of one of my Russian history lectures in first year. The last thing I heard was something about Stalin forcibly collectivising the peasants, before the static fizzing in my brain built to a crescendo and my head was on my arms on my desk, and the next thing I knew my deskmate was nudging me awake and escorting me to the college nurse. Learning Yiddish during the COVID-19 pandemic provided me, someone with longstanding and intense anxiety problems, structure and comfort. When one of us was ill, a flurry of “refuah shlema tsu dir!”s would fill the Skype chat, and each lesson ended with a reassuring chorus of “ciao! Zay gezunt!”s. Even talking about the most banal things took on a certain charm, such as writing a dialogue between two students about life post lockdown.A: ikh benk nokh kretshmers!
ADHD brings with it sudden waves of emotion, so this is something that I see mirrored in myself as well. In one very sweet and deservedly famous taping of the show, Linda is joined by her friend Liz Rosenberg (played by Madonna). At the climax of the episode, their beloved Barbra pays them a surprise (and entirely unrehearsed) visit, prompting ecstatic cries from the women, and affirming themagic of live television. From a Freudian perspective, it intrigues me that the German cognate to verklempt, “verklemmt”, means its opposite, namely repressed. This etymological quirk seems to confirm Freud’s theory of the return of the repressed- a wellspring of emotion cannot be pushed down forever. Playing on similar imagery is the word “kvell”, which literally, according to its etymological root, refers to welling up or overflowing, which I find particularly lovely as it most often refers to taking pride in others’ achievements. After we had all passed the end of course exam, our teacher told us she was kvelling for us.
anepiphany- an overwhelming sense of the preciousness and fragility of life on earth. Sophie Scholl was 21 years old when she was executed, a thought that occurred to me vaguely as I walked to meet my friend for pizza. There is a famous concept in Judaism called “tikkun olam”, which translates roughly to “repairing the world”. My whole life, without even realising it, had been governed by this principle. On a very literal level as well, the climate crisis demands we protect our natural environment. In November 2019, I joined the Fridays For Future Klimastreik march in Munich. The atmosphere was electrifying, and while I had the misfortune, as someone very sensitive to noise, of being directly behind the loudspeaker at one point, on the plus side I discovered some great German political rap. Around two months earlier, however, I attended a rather more sombre demonstration. On Yom Kippur, there was a horrific attempted attack on a synagogue in Halle. Having failed to break the door to the temple, the gunman shot two passers-by, one of whom, a twenty-year-old man, was simply buying a kebab; the sardonic antifascist stickers proclaiming “Nazis essen heimlich Falafel” took on a slightly bitter note for me after learning this. A human chain was organised around the main synagogue in Munich in solidarity with those worshipping inside. We linked arms around the shul and sang two Hebrew songs, one of which (“Shalom, chaverim”) I had sung, albeit in English, at secondary school. The second, a pacifist song (“Hevenu Shalom Aleichem”) (literally “we come to greet you in peace”), was new to me. At the demonstration, after we had sung the songs, the short middle-aged lady next to me asked me if I was Jewish. Slightly taken aback, I replied “eigentlich nicht - aber ich dachte es war sehr wichtig, hier heute dazuzukommen“. She nodded and smiled, and went on her way. Some weeks later, a friend who was studying in a different part of Germany paid me and my aforementioned friend a visit in Munich, and we were struggling to decide where to spend our day together. I suggested the Jewish Museum, which I had not yet been to, and wanted to visit. This worked rather well for our visiting friend as well, as she was working on a dissertation about Kafka and his interest in Yiddish theatre. We looked round the permanent exhibition, but also the temporary art exhibition, Sag Schibbolet!/Say Shibboleth!, a thought-provoking exploration of linguistic violence and divisions, covering numerous different conflicts and time periods. This exhibition left a great impression on me, in particular one chilling work concerning facial recognition technology and its applications in spotting “gay faces”. I recently bought a zine by Russian artist Yevgeny Fiks, entitled simply “Soviet Moscow’s Yiddish-Gay Dictionary”. This work explores Fiks’ identity as a gay Russian Jewish man, living and working in the United States, and his connection to both the Jewish and gay communities. Fiks explains that this particular intersection of identities is not straightforward or easy, as the Jewish community can be deeply homophobic, and likewise, the LGBTQ+ community viciously antisemitic. This dilemma is similar to that expressed in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, a work which affected me deeply as a teenager, and Satrapi’s articulation of a feeling of being “out of place”, awkwardly existing in between identities. I took the title of this essay from Erasure’s “A Little Respect”. As someone who occupies several marginalised identities myself, as a young, disabled, bisexual woman, it strikes me that “a little respect” in the face of systemic erasure is the very least we can demand. While studying abroad, I leaned heavily into studying social anthropology, a discipline founded by a German Jewish man, namely Franz Boas. One of Boas’s pupils was the African American author Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God, one of the novels I read while on my year abroad. Hurston once said that “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”, a quote that is all the more tragically pertinent following the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 sparked by George Floyd’s murder. As well as Persepolis, it would be remiss of me not to mention another acclaimed graphic novel in an essay about Yiddish: Maus, by Art Spiegelman, which I read when I was 13 or 14. One particularly upsetting part of the text is the moment when Vladek and his friend Mandelbaum are discussing amongst themselves, in Yiddish, in order to forestall eavesdropping, whether to accept an offer from smugglers to help them escape occupied Poland. They accept, but the offer was a trick, and the Mandelbaums and Spiegelmans are sent to Auschwitz. While I learn Yiddish, I am acutely aware that knowledge is power, and that with such linguistic power comes grave responsibility.Certainimages from my time learning languages came flooding back to me with new resonances once I started learning Yiddish- from dreamlike images from Chagall and Soutine’s paintings, to the Homecoming, Longing
a Polyglossia 41 golden peacock clock which I saw being wound in the Hermitage in St Petersburg (di gildene pave is a a symbol of poetic inspiration in Yiddish literary culture). Browsing In Geveb, an online Yiddish journal, I came across a text by El Lissitzky in Yiddish, about a famously beautiful illustrated wooden shul in Mogilev, coincidentally the birthplace of one of my favourite cheesy Russian language pop singers, Boris Moiseev. Old quotes from my religious studies lessons at school also resurfaced in my memory. I’ve moved from being a staunch atheist at 13, to an agnostic (though I still always prayed), to an agnostic theist and practising Buddhist looking to convert to reform Judaism (the overlaps and tensions between Buddhism and Judaism could take up a whole essay of their own). Rabbi Nachman of Breslov popularised a concept known as hitbodedut, which involves confiding in God as you would a friend. After hearing about this, I recalled the lyrics of Tennessee by Arrested Development: Lord it’s obvious we got a relationship Talkin’ to each other every night and day Although you’re superior over me We talk to each other in a friendship way Appropriately given its subject matter, of slavery, lynchings, and finding a home after bereavement and historical trauma, this was the song I played on my mp3 player as a 15-year-old on the bus on the way back from Sachsenhausen on a school history trip to Berlin. I have no idea what will happen next in Manger’s Bukh fun Gan-Eydn, but am excited to continue reading it now I’m taking another break from university, and by continuing to learn Yiddish I hope to help rediscover a piece of a lost linguistic paradise, both for myself, and the rest of the world as a (Onwhole.afinal
note - I would like to specially thank Dr Evita Wiecki for teaching me Yiddish. Her memory is truly a blessing.) A playlist to accompany this piece, compiled by the author, can be found at: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1i1ls4cIaNa2BOBI4GqxxP?si=7ced6a3b777b4df7
Homecoming, Longing
I took this photograph as dusk fell over New York City after a long and engaging conversation with Ann. Having had an eventful immigrant life, a tortuous career journey, and a heart-breaking love story, she had finally decided to return, as she told me, to her original homeland - the homeland of her soul. Her eyes lit up when she talked about her own childhood memories in Jamaica, sporadically slipping into Jamaican Patois.
This photograph was taken in April 2019 whilst I was on a student exchange year in America.
The entire scene against the background of a bustling New York was dim, but the light above Ann seemed so bright when she turned faced towards me, about to leave the shop and “go home”. EncountersNostalgiawith
The woman in the photograph is Ann, a warm and open woman who had migrated from Jamaica many years prior. She was a complete stranger to me at first, but we had become close friends by the end of our encounter.
JIAHAO WANG
Home is where the Heart is RENE RUSSELL
As somebody who has moved between countries, Home has become quite a complicated concept. I was born in Hong Kong in 2001 to a British father and a Chinese mother and, until the age of nine, attended an international primary school in the former British colony. Somewhat strangely, Hong Kong never felt entirely like home to me. While I was somewhat bilingual and could speak both English and Cantonese, English was undeniably my stronger language. When placed in situations where I would have to speak Cantonese, things went one of three ways: either I panicked because the level was too difficult (I specifically remember a taster karate session which ended in tears); I shocked people into admiration because I, a half-gwaimui (ghost/Caucasian girl) was speaking conversational Cantonese; or, much to the annoyance of my parents, I was specifically targeted by strangers in the street who wanted to practise their English. Either way, a combination of being mixed and not speaking the best Cantonese led to a degree of isolation which for a nineyear-old was insurmountable. This feeling of otherness was perpetuated by the whole international school experience which placed a great deal of importance on Home. For many of the children, this was not solely composed of Hong Kong. Some of my closest friends throughout the years were from Malaysia, or Venezuela, or Australia, and each of us were taught to be proud of where we had come from. In my case, this led to a comical flip-flopping between cultures; one week I would be colouring in a Union Jack, and the next I would be bringing in a Chinese scroll as a ‘cultural artefact’. However, in this context where Home was so important, of course it was much more interesting for me to place more emphasis on my British ‘home’ than on Hong Kong, where we all lived. I definitely felt a very strong association with Britain, despite having only visited a couple of times. My classmates told me that I had a British accent, and at home, as well as celebrating Christmas and Easter, we also celebrated Pancake Day and Bonfire Night. When my family decided to move to the UK in 2010, I was excited. We had been twice on holiday, once at Christmas when I had seen my first snow, and once during the summertime. For the twelve-hour flight I had brought my favourite book, Aeron Clement’s The Cold Moons, a whimsical book about talking badgers. In fact, my entire image of the UK was very much filtered through a childhood spent reading British children’s classics such as Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series, or C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. It would be fair to say that my image of the UK was a fair few decades out of date. All of this led to quite the rude awakening when we arrived. I joined a local primary school where I was told that I had been ‘Made in China’, that I had an American accent rather than a British one, and then received questions about kung fu on the streets of Hong Kong (this is not a thing, by the way). The whole situation was overwhelming and was serious enough to prompt a class discussion on racism. The reality of living in Britain and not just visiting the country on holiday was also quite jarring. This being my first-time moving country, I was completely unprepared for the culture shock which was to come, including aspects such as food (no more Hong-Kong-specific comfort food I’m afraid), the sheer scale of British supermarkets, and the dark and frosty mornings. Every facet of life was completely and irrevocably different, even down to the dry, fresh air which almost made me miss the cloying humidity of Southeast Asia. Even things which I had considered part of my British heritage (like our family celebration of Bonfire Night) were very different to what I had expected and standing outside in November was much too cold for my liking. It seemed that Britain was not the Home I had thought it was. Surely then, this meant that I had been wrong, and that Hong Kong was my real home. I did not return to Hong Kong for a couple of years, and during this time I felt extremely homesick, a homesickness which has only started to wane in the last few years. I tortured myself with maps and pictures of Hong Kong and grew frustrated when my younger siblings could not remember it like I did. When we did finally go back to visit, the
43 Polyglossia
I was recently shocked when I realised that I had been in Seville longer than I had physically been in Cambridge due to a combination of short terms and the pandemic. I have met people from all around the world this year and, on one of my last nights in Seville, was talking to two international friends of mine (one Italian and one American) about what Home really is. While we all felt ‘homeless’ to a degree after moving between countries and revisiting what we had once considered Home, we all agreed that this gave us greater flexibility to make a conscious decision about where we actually wanted to call Home.
Homecoming, Longing whole experience was bizarre. Our main goal was to sort out admin, which meant renewing Hong Kong ID cards and getting vaccines (moving countries as a child mid-vaccination schedule gets to be incredibly complicated). We did visit a few of the places that we used to know, like the route to school, or the building with our old flat. But everything felt different. Or rather too much the same, while we had become too different ourselves. At one point we had boarded the MTR (metro system) and I had seen an old teacher of mine. When I said hello to her, she evidently had no idea who I was and said, ‘See you on Monday’. It was literally as though I had never left, even though I had been gone for two years and was about to start secondary school. While the trip was an opportunity to do all the things I had been yearning to do while homesick in England, there was a bittersweetness to it. It was not as if I had just slotted back into my previous life in Hong Kong; I was two years older, we were staying in a hotel, and everything was temporary. There was a sense of urgency: yes, I could have my favourite childhood foods again, but only for the next week or so and then it was back to the UK. Physically being back in Hong Kong also reminded me of my poor Cantonese, which had only gotten worse living in the UK. When we went out to buy our favourite Hong Kong street foods, I genuinely could not remember what they were called or how to order them, making me completely reliant on my mother. After returning to Hong Kong, it became apparent that yet again, my idea of Home was completely misplaced. We returned to Hong Kong a couple more times over the years, but every time we visited, either we or Hong Kong had changed too much. Visiting the old places was actually starting to get old, but the alternative of being tourists in a city which we used to call Home was just bizarre. After moving to the UK and starting French in secondary school, I became obsessed with languages, picking up Spanish the following year as well as Latin at an after-school club. I had tried to maintain the Mandarin which I had been learning all the way through primary school in Hong Kong, but due to a combination of too long a hiatus, teachers leaving unexpectedly, and the frustration of having to keep relearning the language from scratch, I decided to focus on other languages. My biggest regret so far has been not properly learning Cantonese, but this has felt near impossible. Cantonese, like Mandarin, is a tonal language but instead of four tones, it has somewhere in the range of six to nine. Written Cantonese is completely different to its spoken form, and it is even hard to learn through listening to music because the songs use vocabulary from written Cantonese, which I would never use in normal speech. It is also extremely difficult to find Cantonese speakers, especially since my mother now lives in Hong Kong and there is a sevento-eight-hour time difference. I have considered going back to Hong Kong to live at some point in the future as I am sure that a year or so there actively seeking immersion would drastically improve my Cantonese. However, I have lived away from Hong Kong for a long time, and my concept of it as Home has been somewhat shattered, not to mention that it is a very expensive place to live. Instead, I have poured everything into my European languages, and am now studying Spanish and Latin as part of a Modern and Medieval Languages degree. In 2021, I moved countries yet again, packing my bags to go and live in Seville in the south of ThisSpain.time round, I was prepared for the culture shock and even kept a list of things I noticed in my bullet journal. This included everything from the shape of the pillows to jamón being literally everywhere. One of the biggest surprises, and one which I feel like I had fully acclimatised to by the end of the year, was the realisation that siesta was an actual, real phenomenon in the south of Spain (and with good reason… temperatures rose to 45°C mid-June). However, these cultural differences were not traumatic, but interesting. Unlike English and Cantonese, Spanish is a language which I have been actively studying and so I had an academic interest in actually experiencing the culture. Physically being in Spain was not so jarring to my sense of self as moving to the UK and revisiting Hong Kong had been. In fact, I felt that my experiences with homesickness and culture shock in the past had prepared me well for the year abroad experience, as I felt virtually nothing about being away from Home. While other friends returned to the UK for Christmas or Easter, I either stayed in Seville to watch the religious parades and catch up with friends, or I explored the south of the Iberian Peninsula, taking a coach to Portugal or a ferry to Ceuta. My lack of interest in any Home this year has made me re-evaluate what Home really means. I know from my own experience that it is neither Hong Kong nor the UK, and perhaps it never really was either of those places. In fact, despite only being in Spain for a year, I feel that Seville is as much my home as anywhere.
Polyglossia 45 For me, the year abroad has been an extremely positive experience. Being by myself in a different country has allowed me to grow in confidence and independence (if I can do banking in Spanish, I can definitely do it in English). Meeting so many new people allowed me to learn a lot about the world and others’ lived experiences. At the same time, being physically away from family and friends gave me the space I needed to learn more about myself. I like to think that I really made the most of every opportunity I had in Spain, both culturally and through the study placement which I undertook. The fact that I have learned so much this year, both academically and emotionally, has made me want to have this kind of experience again, but in different countries with different languages. Although the realisation that I do not exactly have somewhere that I can honestly call Home was a sobering one, it also means that I do not feel tethered to any one place, and I could genuinely live anywhere without feeling any homesickness. Returning to the UK has confirmed this for me. While there were things which I had missed (like tea), the experience of re-entering the country was more one of mild surprise. I had forgotten how fresh the air was, or what blackberries looked like. I am still undecided on whether I have no Home or whether I have three. Either way, each of these places has shaped me and I am not the same person for having lived in them. While this change makes returning Home a near impossibility, what I know now is that Home can be wherever and whatever you make it.
