by Helen Dewitt
So I wrote παθιμ
and he looked for a very long time & at last I said Pat him.
And I wrote παθερ
and he said Pat HER.
And I wrote μεεθιμ & he said Meet him and I wrote μεεθερ & he said Meet HER & I said Terrific.
βλαχεαρτεδ Blackhearted? βλοχεαδ Blockhead. βλαχαιρεδ Blackhaired.
λφερ Help her. λφιμ Help him. ριψ Rips! λιψ Lips! νιψ Nips! πιψ Pips!
And I said Brilliant.
Then he picked up the book and looked at it and he said he couldn’t read any of it.
I said patiently That’s because it’s a different language so all the words are different. If you could read the words it would be English in different letters.
I said:
Look, I’ll get out some pages I’ve done on this book and you can work on that.
He said:
OK.
So I went to find the four pages I had managed to finish. Four years earlier I had started work on a sort of Teach Yourself Iliad, with text vocabulary at bottom of page translation on facing page. I had finished four pages which had been stuck in the back of the Homeric dictionary for the past four years & I had still not progressed beyond Iliad 1.68. This was depressing but at least it meant I had some pages for him to work on with vocabulary at the bottom of the page.
I said This is just to get you started reading the words, yes? I’ll give you some words and you can use one of my Schwan Stabilo highlighters that I use for my Arabic. Which colour would you like to use?
And he said Green.
So I gave him a Schwan Stabilo 33 & I picked some words that turned up a lot, but because I remembered Roemer and the something in the something with the something I tried to make sure they were not all prepositions & articles & connectives.
Then I realised that I had forgotten to go over the long vowels & diphthongs.
I did not want to go over the long vowels & diphthongs. I don’t want to go over them now. But I knew of course that if I did not L would be interrupting & pestering me to explain them within the hour, and if I do not explain them again I know what will happen: the poet Keats will haunt my dreams. Bearing in one hand Chapman’s Homer in the other the Oxford Classical Text, he will gaze at me fixedly with an expression of inexpressible sorrow before opening the Chapman with a piteous sigh. A Connery lookalike pacing through the mists will look up in silent indignation and stalk off without a word. Well—long e has its own letter, η, like the e of bed stretched out; long o has its own letter ω, like the o of hot stretched out; παι rhymes with pie, παυ pow δει day βοι boy μου moo—I explained this in a manner which I leave to the imagination & returned to the words.
How would you say this? πολλς. Pollas? Terrific. That means many.
And this? ψυχς Psukhas. YES. That’s something like souls or spirits.
And what about these? ρων θεν νδρν. Heeroooon theoon androon. Right. They mean, of heroes, of gods, of men. Now all I want you to do is go through as much as you can and colour in all the places where you see those words. We’ll worry about the grammar later. OK?
And he said OK.
So I handed over the pages and said There you go.
We have come all the way around to Blackfriars. L is up to the pentekaipentekontapus under the admiring & indulgent eyes of people who get on and are able to get off again after a few stops.
He looked at the pages and he looked at me.
I said It isn’t as hard as it looks. Look carefully and show me one of your words.
& he looked at the page and he found πολλς. in line 3 & I said That’s right, so colour that green & look for the rest, OK?
& he said OK.
OKTOkaipentekontapus ENNEAkaipentekontapus HEXEKONTApus
[Well anyway]
I turned again to Iliad 6 and in two minutes Baby Driver was back. He said he was going to colour in the names of people because he could read them & he was not finding very many words to colour. I said that was a very good idea & he went away & I turned my attention to Hector & Andromache & he was back again. He said θεος looked like θεν and could he count it because he was not finding many words to colour.
I was not looking forward to simplifying and explaining even the simplest points of grammar to a 4-year-old & I can’t say I am looking forward to going through it all again now but I said I would so I
HEKkaiHEXeKONtapus HEPtakaiHEXeKONtapus OKTOkaiHEXeKONtapus
will.
I am finding it rather hard to concentrate however so may salve conscience by just touching on highlights like Sound of Music cutting from Doe A Deer to seven-part harmony or heptaphony as some people (naming no names) would probably call it.
I said Yes you can and I said Do you remember what θεν meant and he said Of gods, I said Right, well θεος means to gods or by gods & do you remember what ρων and νδρν meant & he said Of heroes and of men & I said But there’s no separate word meaning ‘of’, is there, it’s all in the word so there must be a bit of the word that means ‘of’ & what do you think that would be & I don’t know about you but I am about ready for The hills are alive (A-a-a-ah).
heptakaihebdomekontapus
[Ah. Forget it]
Another day on the Circle Line, house too cold to stay in. An icy rain sweeps the city, underground it is warm and dry.
LIVERPOOL STREET ALDGATE TOWER HILL MONUMENT
Far too young
CANNON STREET MANSION HOUSE BLACKFRIARS
Etymology so helpful
TEMPLE EMBANKMENT WESTMINSTER and around and around
At St. James’s Park a woman gets on and sees the tiny head bent over a book, pudgy fingers dragging a blue Schwan Stabilo highlighter across the page. Twinkling eyes share the joke, she longs for adult bonding. He looks up & gives her an enchanting smile, all chubby cheeks and sparkling black eyes & tiny milk teeth. He says: I’ve almost finished Book 15!
She says: I SEE you have! You must have been working very hard.
Another Shirley Temple special for the nice lady. L: I only started it yesterday!
Isn’t He Adorable: Did you REALLY?
Adorable: Today I read this and this and this and this and yesterday I did this and this and this and this and this and this! [tiny fingers flip back through pages covered with fluorescent pink and orange and blue and green]
Isn’t: Isn’t that wonderful!
Wonderful: I’ve read the Iliad and De Amicitia and three stories in Kalilah wa Dimnah & one Arabian Night and Moses & the Bullrushes and Joseph and his Manycoloured Coat and now I have to read the Odyssey and Metamorphoses 1–8 and the whole Kalilah wa Dimnah and 30 Arabian Nights and I Samuel and the Book of Jonah and learn the cantellation, and do 10 chapters in Algebra Made Easy.
Slightly Taken Aback: Why do you have to do that?
All Innocence: Sibylla says I have to.
Appalled: Isn’t he rather young etymology so helpful of course for spelling inflected language so helpful of course for grammar not taught in schools but classics after all part & parcel of old divisive educational system wouldn’t he really be better off playing football I think you are making a terrible mistake.
Standard reply.
SLOANE SQUARE SOUTH KENSINGTON
Four hours have gone by. We have taken the Circle Line around four times. We have been to the toilet twice; L has hopped the length of the platform at Mansion House on one foot and back on the other foot; we have left the train each time at Tower Hill to make faces at the video camera & watch ourselves making faces in the banks of TVs. Or rather—you see yourself in one TV. In the others you do not appear—they show sometimes an empty platform, sometimes a platform with a few people, sometimes a platform with a train pulling around a bend. I think these are images from cameras further down the platform, but they look like glimpses into possible worlds, worlds where the sun rises and the trains run without you. There are pushchairs to be pushed
but not by you, bad memories to be dodged but not by you.
2
99, 98, 97, 96
12 December, 1992
My name is Ludo. I am 5 years and 267 days old. It is 99 days to my sixth birthday. Sibylla gave me this book today to write in because she said I should practise writing because my handwriting is atrocious, and they will not let me write on a computer all the time at school. I said I didn’t know what to write and Sibylla said I could write about things I liked so that in later years I would be able to see what I liked as a child. Also I could write about interesting things that happened so that in later years I would be able to remember things that had happened.
One thing that I like a lot is polynomials but I do not like the word binomial because it is wrong. I have decided never to use it. I always use the right word for a polynomial whatever anybody else does. My favourite Greek word is γαγγλíον and that is all the things I like today
13 December, 1992
It is 98 days to my birthday. One interesting thing that happened today was that I took Kalilah wa Dimnah on the Circle Line too and somebody asked if my father was an Arab. Sibylla said whatever gave you that idea. The person said isn’t that Arabic. Sibylla said Yes. Then she said but my father wasn’t an Arab. I was going to ask her what he was but then I decided not to.
I think that Greek and Arabic and Hebrew are my favourite languages because they have a dual. Greek has better moods and tenses but Arabic and Hebrew have better duals because they have a feminine dual and a masculine dual but Greek just has the one. I asked Sibylla if there was a language with a trial number and she said not that she was aware but she didn’t know all the languages in the world. I wish there was a language with a dual trial quadral quincal sextal septal octal nonal and decal, if there was that would be my favourite language.
It is boring on the Circle Line but I am up to Odyssey 15.305. 9 books to go.
14 December, 1992
97 days to my birthday.
One interesting thing that happened today is that we took the Tube one way and then we took it the other way and a lady got into an argument with Sibylla. Sibylla said let’s take the example of two men about to be burned at the stake, A dies at time t of heart failure while B burns to death at time t + n, I think we can all agree that B’s life would be better if it were n minutes shorter. The lady said she thought it was rather different and Sibylla said she thought it was exactly the same and the lady said there was no need to shout. Sibylla said she wasn’t shouting she just thought it was barbaric to force people to die at time t + n and she said barbaric so loud that everyone in the train looked around!
Barbaric comes from the Greek word βρβαρος which means a non-Greek but in English it means something completely different.
15 December, 1992
96 days to my birthday.
Today I was reading the Odyssey on the Tube and a man got on and said it was good that I was starting so young. He said he started Hebrew when he was three and I said I knew Hebrew and he said what have you read in Hebrew. I said I had read Moses in the bullrushes and he taught me this song:
Pharaoh had a daughter with a very winning smile
She found the baby Moses while swimming in the Nile
She took him home to Pharaoh, said I found him on the shore
Pharaoh winked at her and said I’ve heard that one before.
I sang it three times and he said splendid and he said it was never too soon to start on your religious education. He asked Sibylla if my father was teaching me or if I was studying at school or with a rabbi and Sibylla said she was teaching me herself. He said it was a shame all Jewish mothers did not take religious education so seriously. Sibylla said she was really only teaching me the language and he said of course, of course. I was hoping he would ask if my father was Jewish but he didn’t. When he got off the train I asked Sibylla and she said she didn’t know, it didn’t come up in the conversation, but she didn’t think so.
16 December, 1992
95 days to my birthday.
One thing that is funny is that even though I have been reading the Odyssey on the Tube for a long time nobody ever asked if my father was Greek. Today I read Babar but nobody asked if he was French.
Speaking of French a funny thing happened today on the Tube. A lady got into an argument with Sibylla who said let’s take the example of two men who are about to be ritually disembowelled. A dies at time t of heart failure and B dies at time t + n from having someone plunge a stone knife into his chest and rip the beating heart out with his bare hands, I think we would agree that B’s life was not improved by the additional n minutes in which the stone knife was plunged into his and the lady said pas devant les enfants. I said parlez-vous français? The lady looked very surprised. Sibylla said would you be more comfortable if we continued the discussion in Bengali? The lady said pardon? Sibylla said or perhaps some other language he does not know? She said her Russian, Hungarian, Finnish, Basque and Icelandic were not up to much but she thought she could manage something in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Swedish, Danish or Bengali. I was surprised because I didn’t know Sibylla knew any of those languages. I don’t think the lady did. I asked when I could learn those other languages and Sibylla said after I have learned Japanese. I asked if my father was French and Sibylla said no.
17 December, 1992
We took the Tube again today. It was boring. I read Odyssey 17 part of the time and the rest of the time White Fang. On the way home I asked Sibylla if my father was Russian, Hungarian, Finnish, Basque, Icelandic, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Swedish, Danish or Bengali. She said No.
94 days to my birthday.
3
We Never Get Off at Embankment to Go to McDonald’s
and around and around and around and a
L is up to Odyssey 17. This is so bad for him. Hundreds of people saying wonderful marvellous far too young what a genius. It seems to me that it is does not take miraculous intelligence to master the simple fact that ’Oδυσσες is Odysseus, if you go on to master 5,000 similar simple facts you have only shown that you are a miracle of obstinacy.
Anyway I have been watching Seven Samurai once a week with L to counteract the deplorable influence of the Circle Line. But today something terrible happened.
A woman sitting across from me saw the Reader of Handwritten Japanese sitting unopened in my lap and said Are you studying Japanese & I said Sort of.
Nine green bottles hanging on the wall
I said I was mainly learning the language so I could understand Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and also (if it ever came out on video) Mizoguchi’s Five Women Around Utamaro which I had watched five days in a row when it showed at the Phoenix, and that I was also interested in a text called Tsurezuregusa by a 14th-century Buddhist priest.
NINE GREEN BOTTLES HANGING ON THE WALL
She said Oh and she said she had seen Seven Samurai though not the other one and what a marvellous film
I said Yes
and she said It’s a little on the long side but what a marvellous film, of course it’s basically so simple isn’t it I suppose that’s the source of its appeal, sort of like the Three Musketeers, an elite band—
and I said WHAT?
and she said Sorry?
ELITE BAND! I said staring aghast
and she said there was no need to shout.
And if ONE GREEN BOTTLE should accidentally fall
There’ll be EIGHT GREEN BOTTLES hanging on the wall
I began to imagine L seeing all kinds of things in the film which would not be incompatible with throwing a person from a plane on orders from a third party
EIGHT GREEN BOTTLES HANGING ON THE WALL
I said politely but firmly I think if you see the film again you will find that the samurai are not, in fact, an elite band. Lesser directors have of course succumbed to the glamour of the eliteness of a band, with predictable results; not Kurosawa.
She said there
was no need to take that tone
EIGHT GREEN BOTTLES HANGING ON THE WALL
& I said politely Essentially the film is about the importance of rational thought. We should draw our conclusions from the evidence available rather than from hearsay and try not to be influenced by our preconceptions. We should strive to see what we can see for ourselves rather than what we would like to see.
She said What?
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall
I said Also, we should remember that appearances can be deceptive. We may not have all the relevant evidence. Just because somebody is smiling doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be better off dead.
She said I really don’t think
SEVEN GREEN BOTTLES, HANGING ON THE WALL
I said Let’s say A sees his wife, B, burned alive at time t. A survives. Later we see A singing in a local ritual. C, observing the ritual, thinks A has come out ahead. We infer that C is not in full possession of the facts & has been influenced by his own preconceptions since
She said It all seems rather clinical