Lloyd George, Roman Britain, and Wales in WW1

Lloyd George, The New Caractacus 

The Old Caractacus

A workshop on World War I allowed me, with lots of help from Welsh-speaking friends,* to talk about one of Elgar’s most jingoistic extravaganzas, his 1898 oratorio Caractacus. Caractacus, or Caradog, was the male equivalent of Boadicea, a British king who led the Welsh tribe of Silures against the Romans. The historian Tacitus reports that he was betrayed by another Brit, captured, and delivered a rousing oration in the Roman forum. So the Emperor Claudius let him off. Caradog retired to a sunlit villa on the Tiber.

"Independence" "Calling the Bravest Man"

But what is the connection with WW1? Partly because of the popularity of Elgar’s work amongst amateur choral societies, from 1904 on there was a craze for Caradog plays, with druidic choruses, in schools such as Abergele County High in north Wales. I have just discovered an extraordinary set of photographs of this school's Welsh-language production. Such theatricals fostered patriotism and martial valour in the young of Cymru.

When the Germans occupied Belgium in 1914, the Welsh were invited to defend the independence of a ‘gallant little country’, as the propaganda put it, just like their own.  Coal mining, which took place in south Wales, was designated an essential industry, but in Welsh-speaking Wales, where the slate quarries had closed, there were thousands of unemployed youths all too easily persuaded to discover their inner Caradog and die at Gallipoli or Ypres.

Abergele County High School's performance (1904)

Welsh youths' identification with Caradog's defiance was made wholly irresistible by the popularity of David Lloyd George, the eloquent Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had passed the radical 1910 ‘People’s Budget’.  In 1911 he stage-managed the theatrical ‘investiture’ of the then Prince of Wales at Caernarvon Castle, stressing the Welsh origins, through the Tudors, of the crowns of Britain and the Indian Empire. This new Caractacus talked the British Empire into the war and in 1916 became the first Welsh-speaking, non-university-educated Briton to become Prime Minister.  If you contemplate the number of Welshmen who lost their lives 1914-1918, it is difficult not to weep after reading this little Caradog-themed song, used during the recruitment campaign in Lloyd George's homeland:

There were gallant little Welshmen long ago,

Such as Caesar and his stalwart warriors found:

They could then with steady courage meet the foe,

And for home and freedom boldly stand their ground.

Brave Caractacus for Britain fought his best,

And Boadicea, too, the British warrior Queen;

Their spirit lives, though they are long at rest,

Our love of freedom living ever green.

They have proved their ancient valour is not dead,

A foremost where the fiercest fight prevails,

For liberty their dearest blood is shed,

For no Cowards have been found yet made in Wales

CHORUS.

'Tis defence and not defiance,

'Tis for freedom not for fame,

'Tis on right we place reliance,

Crying better death than shame.

When our Country calls us forward,

When the enemy assails,

There are loyal hearts to answer,
In gallant little Wales! 

Welsh National War Memorial, Cathays Park, Cardiff

*Lloyd Llewellyn Jones, Chris Pelling, Mai Musie, Suzanne Roberts' husband, Margaret Buckingham Jones: Diolch yn fawr!

Ship Art Ancient and Royal Naval

It's dark by teatime and yesterday brought the first toe-crystallisingly cold  day. Time for a fantasy about cruising the turquoise waters of the winedark sea, the prow of my ship cleaving the white-topped waves. But what ship's figurehead should I choose? The Phoenicians liked horses’ heads, while the ancient Greeks imagined their prows as big-eyed boars charging through the undergrowth. But British sailors administering the empire round the seven seas named their ships after classical gods and heroes. Their ships' utmost prows featured carved simulacra representing the figure whose spirit was felt to animate the vessel. These were the images of classical figures most familiar to regular seamen and dockers.  There is an enchanting collection in Portsmouth Royal Navy Museum.

HMS Nutty Orestes

Cool HMS Apollo

Meet the figurehead from HMS Orestes, launched in 1824. Orestes suffered from madness, which may explain why this ship was notorious for the riotous behaviour of its dissatisfied seamen. The guardian deity of HMS Apollo (1805), on the other hand, luminously led his ship to success in both the 'Opium Wars' with China and the Crimean War.

Agitated HMS Eurydice

Imperturbable Minerva

Poor HMS Eurydice’s figurehead looks rather disturbed—unlucky in her ancient myth, meeting death before her time, her ship did indeed come to a sticky end, foundering in 1878.  Yet the gun-boat HMS Minerva survived wisely for decades and was used in Portsmouth harbour for operations even after her retirement at a grand old age.

Warrior figurehead of HMS Colossus

But be astounded by the 3-metre-high colossal warrior from HMS Colossus, wrecked off the Scilly Isles near Cornwall in 1798. The Colossus figure was discovered by an enterprising diver named Carmen Stevens in 2001. The Colossus ship's lost cargo included part of the amazing collection of ancient Greek and Etruscan vases collected by Sir William Hamilton. Some of them are still lurking on the Cornish sea-bed. Their images could change ancient theatre history. I am really annoyed that my dodgy retina means I’m forbidden to scuba dive for ever more. 

Vase with Hephaestus on ass recovered from wreck of HMS Colossus

Homeric Shaggy Dog Story

No Competition

With quite impeccable timing I am at a Homer conference in Slovenia on the day England is playing Slovenia at Wembley in the Euro 2016 qualifier. My own paper clashes with the kickoff. I have begged the conference convenor to shift things round so we can watch the match, but he is a serious intellectual who disapproves of ‘organised sport’ and says no. Slovenia being a tiny country (population: 2 Million), the conference is a sufficiently significant happening to feature on local TV. But I don’t think many Slovenian viewers will be  choosing Homer today.

'Did you remember to buy any dog food?'

Ironically the conference is all about European cooperation: it is a celebration of the translations of the Odyssey  into every official language of the European Union. The paper I shall be delivering as Wayne Rooney goes into action is about a medieval Irish version of the Odyssey called the Merugud (‘Wandering’) of Ulysses McLaertes. Seriously. It is morally an improvement on Homer’s  poem, since there are no suitors involved, not much sex and little bloodshed. 

Being an Irish version, Ulysses spends some time in a pub; since the Irish are obsessed with their hounds, the role of his dog is upgraded.There are no daft recognitions through scars or bedroom furniture: Penelope simply brings in the dog to see whether she (and it is a she) recognises her long-lost master. Delightfully, when the dog ‘heard the sound of Ulysses’ voice, she gave a pull at the chain, so that she sent the four men on their back through the house behind her, and she sprang to the breast of Ulysses and licked his face and his countenance.’ Bless.

The Irish Odysseus's dog version 1

The Irish Odysseus's dog version 2

One reason why this Irish text matters (or so I am arguing) is beecause it is the one that gave James Joyce the idea for his 1922 Ulysses, the foundational novel of both the Irish Republic and of Modernist fiction.  But it also matters because  the dog, who (unlike Homer's) gets to stay alive, is described in a detail missing from the Greek: '"Two shining white sides has she, and a light purple back and a jet-black belly, and a greenish tail," said Ulysses'. To illustrate my talk I am providing two provisional reconstructions copyright and courtesy of S. and G. Poynder respectively.

Children's Adventures in Greek Mythology

The dad who invented children's lit

Literature for children was invented simultaneously with the romantic conception of childhood, in 1805. A very particular child was involved, Mary Godwin (later to pen Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus), born in 1797 to Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. When her mother died, she became the centre of her father’s emotional world, even after he married yet another Mary, Mary Jane Clairmont, with whom he set up the M.J. Godwin Juvenile Library imprint.

His daughter Mary Wollstonecraft/Godwin/Shelley

The Godwins' combined household contained no fewer than five children. They turned the task of keeping them entertained into a business. In 1805, when little Mary was 8, Godwin produced his exquisitely illustrated version of Aesop, Fables, Ancient and Modern under the pseudonym of Edward Baldwin. It transformed the terms of the debate on what  children should read by introducing the desideratum that it should stimulate their imaginative capacities:

The first real book for children?

Godwin wrote, “If we would benefit a child we must become in part a child ourselves. We must prattle to him...we must introduce quick unexpected turns which... have the effect of wit to children. Above all, we must make our narrations pictures, and render the objects we discourse about, visible to the fancy of the learner… I have fancied myself taking the child upon my knee, and have expressed them in such language as I should have been likely to employ when I wished to amuse the child and make what I was talking of take hold upon his attention.”

Co-written with sister

Godwin’s next children’s books were The Pantheon; or, Ancient History of the Gods of Greece and Rome (1806) and History of Rome: From the building of the city to the ruin of the Republic (1809). More importantly, he commissioned from Charles Lamb a retelling of Shakespeare and the extraordinarily influential Adventures of Ulysses (1808), through which, along with a thousand imitations, generations of children, including James Joyce, have been entranced by Homer.

Norbury Rabbits & Badgers, Experts on the Greeks & Romans!

Lamb co-wrote it with his sister, whose name was—wait for it—Mary. She had stabbed their mother to death and was only allowed out of the lunatic asylum because her (alcoholic) brother had promised to oversee her. Despite (or perhaps because of) their emotional states, they really caught the magic and pathos of the Odyssey. On Tuesday I was completely uplifted by re-experiencing the effect Greek legends can have on seven and eight-year-olds at Stanford School in Norbury, on the invitation of their incredible teacher Fiona McGrath.  Thanks, Badger and Rabbit classes! You made my week!

PS: The version of Greek myths and of the Odyssey our own children loved most were the bittersweet strip cartoons by Marcia Williams. 

Childbirth, Rhubarb and Ancient Papyri

It's not your drama, Robbie!

I have never been a fan of singer Robbie Williams. But I will never forgive his self-publicising performance this week while his poor wife struggled to push out their child. He sang the execrable ‘Candy’, which reduces women to ‘mad mare’ status,[i] while she writhed and screamed, psychologically alone.

No mention of rhubarb!

Previously, the worst ‘insensitive husband of parturient woman’ story I had ever heard was this. One day in 1959, Walter Burkert (aka the world expert on ancient religion) told Hugh Lloyd-Jones (about-to-be Regius Prof. of Greek at Oxford) and Reinhold Merkelbach (Prof. at Erlangen) that he couldn’t attend their textual-critical summit on an (absolutely hilarious) newly discovered papyrus text of the ancient Greek comedian Menander about a grumpy misanthrope.  Burkert’s reason was that he was about to become a father, and vaguely felt he should remain at home near his wife. Lloyd-Jones later recalled, in print:  "‘All right,’ said Merkelbach, ‘then we meet in your house!’, and we did meet there and finished the play, poor Frau Burkert sustaining us with an agreeable dish of rhubarb.”

A Wife's True Duty

Did Frau Burkert actually give birth while they deciphered the papyrus under her roof and then COOK RHUBARB FOR THEM? I like to think that she later took revenge by throwing rhubarb, baby and indeed Papyrus Bodmer IV (i.e. the fourth chunk of ancient paper purchased by a man called Martin Bodmer, which resembles this other Bodmer bit of Menander)  at her learned husband.

No rhubarb on this page

As a much-needed antidote to Robbie Williams, and Professor Burkert's rhubarb pie, this week I chaired an inspirational debate at the Oxford Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, a research outfit I co-founded in 1996. The event opposed Professor Peter Parsons (who knows more about texts preserved on ancient papyri than anyone, ever, in history), and  the omniscient Professor Richard Hunter from Cambridge. The topic was an amusing farce discovered on a papyrus in a rubbish dump in the Greek city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. It involves sex, violence and cooking. It was performed perhaps in the fifth century AD, when Christian sensibilities are incorrectly supposed to have had theatre banned centuries before. 

Progress has been made since 1959. I don’t know how they feel about rhubarb, but Profs. Parsons and Hunter are nice to women and also incredibly funny. Prof. Parsons illustrated his talk with classic ‘biff!’ 'pow!' cartoon violence, while Prof. Hunter discussed Australian-rules show wrestlers. Both are true gentlemen who would never, ever try to upstage a poor woman in labour. Robbie W. take note!

---

[i] I was there to witness

Candice's in her business

She wants the boys to notice

Her rainbows, and her ponies

She was educated but could not count to ten

Now she got lots of different horses

By lots of different men

Working-Class & other Tragic Heroes Again

"I can fall from Higher Estate than you!"

What a week for 'heroes' and ‘heroism’! Sophocles couldn’t have surpassed the plot enacting the tragic death of Reeva Steenkampf, caused by just being in the ambit of an extraordinarily high-achieving man with a temper and a firearm. And was I the only one to feel uncomfortable at the extended applause in the Canadian parliament marking the untimely deaths of two young men?

South African athletes or Canadian security guards: who is really the hero, tragic or otherwise? Nearly a year ago I used this blog to crowd-source suggestions for a tragic hero who, unlike Aristotle’s definition of the proper tragic hero in his Poetics, was not ‘the sort of man who has great fame and prosperity, such as Oedipus and Thyestes and the distinguished men who come from that kind of family line’.

The suggestions that rolled in made my winter. Thanks, everyone! My DVD player introduced me to Greek tragic heroes transferred to Bolivian villages and Senecan psychopaths in East End pubs. But my life was changed by Shane Meadows’ utterly devastating movie This is England (2008). I say with all confidence that Sophocles would have been proud of this one.

Directed by Herzog

In the end I discovered that the first truly working-class tragedy in the world dramatic repertoire was Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck of 1837. Franz Woyzeck is a soldier of the lowest rank, oppressed almost beyond endurance by his Captain. Woyzeck achieves some kind of affirmation of his human autonomy only by savagely murdering Marie, the unfaithful mother of his little son. She has betrayed Woyzeck with a soldier of Officer rank. Büchner shows how the tragic suffering of Woyzeck and Marie, and their small child, left orphaned at the conclusion, is inseparable from their poverty and low social status.

The real-life Woyzeck, theatrically executed

Büchner based his play, loosely, on the real-life tragedy of Johann Christian Woyzeck, a poor Leipzig wigmaker. In 1821 he murdered the widow with whom he had been living. He was convicted and publicly executed. Some of Büchner’s scenes are Sophoclean; others are informed by Shakespeare’s archetypal tragedy of sexual jealousy in Othello. If anyone wants a copy of the article I managed to write with everyone’s help, then there is a 'pre-print' online or for an offprint email me with a postal address @kcl.ac.uk. It is otherwise hidden behind an expensive pay wall which Oedipus (as wealthy Tyrant of Thebes) could have paid his way through, but J.C. Woyzeck, Wigmaker of Leipzig, certainly could not.

Abducting Girls and Manuscripts

Both Hades and Persephone have enormous HANDS

So the stunning mosaic unearthed in the Macedonian tomb at Amphipolis shows Hermes escorting a chariot driven by Hades, who is abducting Persephone to the Underworld. This myth depresses me. However empowering the response of Persephone’s mother Demeter, who held the universe to ransom until she forced Hades and his brother Zeus to allow her yearly access to her daughter, this is fundamentally just another male-organised rape + forced marriage narrative. Persephone got the minor compensation of being made Underworld Queen, with a role in the judgement of the dead and the power to send ghosts on missions. But she never did get much say in her own destiny.

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The story of Persephone (Roman Proserpina) helped the ancients to think about death. It was not a physical resurrection story like that at the heart of Christianity. But the Mysteries of Persephone and Demeter offered initiates hope of a blissful afterlife. Persephone may look understandably panicky on the mosaic, but the family of the deceased who commissioned it will have taken comfort from the image. They knew that she did become adjusted to her new ‘life’, retained ties with her mother, and could even visit the upper world from time to time.

Leighton's Pastel Persephone

Persephone's story was eerily reflected in the sensational adventures undergone by the oldest Greek version we can read, the exquisite Homeric Hymn to Demeter. No copy survived to the Renaissance. Or so it was thought until 1777, when the world was stunned by a discovery as exciting as that of the Amphipolis tomb. An ambitious German scholar of Greek named Christian Friedrich Matthaei, teaching in a Moscow school, mysteriously came into possession of some manuscripts. One, which he called the Codex Mosquensis ('Moscow Book', now in Leiden), contained the long-lost Hymn.

Matthaei’s ‘finds’ made his name and career. The Hymn was soon published in several languages, including English. It made the story one of the most popular themes in 19th-century literature and art including Frederic Leighton's famous 'Return of Persephone' (1891).

Holy Synod, Moscow: "Give us Back our Codex"?

But Matthaei’s story surely deserves a Name of the Rose­-style detective novel/movie. He may simply have stolen the codex from the library of the Holy Synod; he claimed, however, that it had been found neglected on the floor of a stable 'where, for many years, it had lain concealed among the chickens and pigs.' This would be appropriate enough in the case of agricultural goddesses to whom piglets were sacrificed, but it stretches credulity to breaking point. I would enjoy the controversy if the Holy Synod asked for it back one day.