On Archaisms
 

On Archaisms

Yes, I will use the language of the past
And mummified cliché
Alway! Alway!
Until the last Alas! has been Alassed!

Prithee, Aaron, tell me, why this mock?
From such a gentle fellow, 'tis a shock.

Well done, Aaron N. "Prithee" is great. I think this thread will be a good place for me and other members to purge our pent-up archaisms.

I think this poem just beat itself up for its own lunch money.

Well, duh, Quincy. That was the point.

To modern speech I like to say
hip hip hip hip hip hooray,
but to language that's archaic
I feel I am compelled to say ick.

The English you find in the plays
Of Shakespeare was not like today's.
...Doth did what does does
...But none knew that doth was
Apparently only a phase.

Whoa, Roger, those are very good. You are putting me to shame.

Convinced I was 'wherefore' meant 'where':
that Juliet searched high and low
and cast her words upon the air
in hopes they'd reach her Romeo.

'Foolish knave! Wherefore means Why!'
How vexing. For upon that day
I knew I'd have to actually try
to understand the whole damn play.

I love reveling in archaisms and olde style poesie. My long sequence - over 3,000 lines so far, is a hodge-podge of various English poetical styles, from Pre-Chaucer up to Berryman & Ginsberg. I have basically mixed them all together in a bag, given it a good shake, and viola! - Something probably only I will want to read. :D But that's not exactly true. Our Spherian friend Bill Carpenter likes the work a lot and has given me strong encouragement to continue with it.

Anyway, this thread gives me a chance to post this one:


A Conversation Between Robert Browning & Wallace Stevens

xxxA fancy restaurant, circa 1925.


B: Huzzah! My friend, what thinkst thou of my poem
Sordello?

S:xxxxxxxxxxYou mean that Sordello whom
Pound mentioned in his canto?

B:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThat's the same.
Zooks, what's the hubbub there? Those waiters swivel
and swerve like dancers in Le Sacre du
Printemps. Hast seen it, Wallace? As a spirit
that lurk'd unseen, my keen unsubtanced eye
partook at—Paris, was it, or Verona?— Grr,
the memory fuddles e'en in afterlife!

S: Stravinsky's? Yes, but let's talk of Sordello.
I read the book, but like Lord Alfred, saw
but two lines that seemed lucid, and the rest
mere huff and hum, a hullabaloo of words
put on the page to make poor widows wince
and scholars' fingers rush to dusty tomes
in search of fact and date.

B:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxMere huff and hum
thou sayst? A hullabaloo of words!
Grr, Stevens, I had thought thee better read
than wincing widows. 'Zounds! that racket! Where's
my wine? But of Sordello, of my book
that critics found unworthy; my poor book
that left bluestockings and great men befuddled!
Well, Lizzy understood the thing, and more,
but what is that? The world is none the wiser
albeit a touch less patriarchal.

S:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Hah!
Sweet Robert, have you found the time to look
at my Comedian as the Letter C?
Of all the scribblers come to Kingdom Come
I fancy you would find it to your taste.

B: What? Did you speak? Hoorah! The wine at last!
But hold, good sir, what's this? I said your best
chianti, in the bottle! Take the glass
and bring a bottle; but make sure, thou knave,
the cork is stuck! If not, I'll have thy hide!
Lo! there he scampers. I'd not have his hide,
poor scamp, for I have yet a heart in me.

S: Forget it, Bob. Now where's that menu? Ah!

B: Zooks! Look!

S:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThese prices! Ho! Harrumph. Harrumph.

Where's the "like" thingy?

Good one!

Mark and William, thank you for contributing your archaisms to the stock.

Mark, you should send that poem out to a light verse venue.

William, I am impressed with the way you characterize the two speakers. They come off as distinct caricatures.

Each age can mock its predecessors and there is no more straw-like a target than a previous era's diction. How smug is it to mock what is no longer around to speak for itself?
Language is a deep, rich resource, and 'literary/poetic' language especially so - and it is possible to see all of its layers and practices as a well on which to draw - selectively, imaginatively and without constriction by a priori dogma. That may be done clumsily or with flair but what seems, to me, most suspect of all is to take any one criterion - be it age, its novel opposite, location or currently dominant construction and usage - as a simplistic benchmark for mockery. It may, of course, so be - "but it ain't necessarily so." Thus my rather awkward response to this thread might run as follows....


In Dylan Thomas’ drunken days,
Neologisms ardent
Revealed the poet’s inmost ways -
Such coinage no harm meant.

Now words, unless they’re done to death
Or dulled by daily arg’ment,
Are thought by poets not worth breath,
So sense is banned enlargement.

And if their use is arse about,
Inverted in their placement,
Most critics will affrighted shout
Their logic shorn amazement.

Then if elision sidle in
To claim a deft emplacement,
The scribbling tribe with sneering grin
Will mock such strange displacement.

And as for verse with end line rhymes,
With clear conclusions lambent,
The hooting throng will claim, that times
Like these, require enjambment.

Yet should an ancient clamber free
From tomes of past encasement,
The day’s conventions soon will see
It thrust back in the basement.

So cast away archaic airs
From downloads play not parchment.
Let this time’s poets swear to heirs
That they in turn no harm meant!

Thank you, Nigel, that poem certainly is at home on this thread. I don't think I understand what you feel you are protesting. The purpose of this thread, as I see it, is to have fun with archaisms.

My personal policy in my real poetry is to use them very, very rarely and only for a specific purpose.

Aaron, methinks this is much fun, tho’ ’tis not easy to be done.
To my bed chamber I must go; the midnight oil is burnt, and Lo!
I need to slumber for a while, but I will try to make thee smile
betwixt the present time, and when, I next employ my quill again! ;)

Jayne

Ah, "Lo"--I love it.

Here's an archaic lullaby for you:

1 FAIRY.—You spotted snakes, with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong:
Come not near our fairy queen.

CHORUS. Philomel, with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good-night, with lullaby.

2 FAIRY.—Weaving spiders, come not here,
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm, nor snail, do no offence.

CHORUS. Philomel, with melody, etc.

1 FAIRY.—Hence away; now all is well:
One, aloof, stand sentinel.

Of serpent vouring serpent, dragon comes—
So Nature prospers through unthrifty sums.

vouring! Sweet.

Use me, okay. But don’t abuse me with “You’re mine”
Excuse me, that’s like a poem with "thee" and "thine."

O thou who scornest what has gone before
By making sport of speech from days of yore,
Whence comes to thee, thou knave, thy right to write
During this little dawn twixt night and night?
What words of thine, then, think'st thou, will outstay
Thine own short tenure on this ball of clay?

Mock not my words!
As I've said oft,
To bygone speech
Mine cap is doffed.

Methinks but ill
Of the slang adventury
That mars our tongue
In the 21st Century.

Roger, thanks for "oft"--it's as good as "alway." "Adventury" is pretty impressive, too.

Alas, how oft a well-wrought intervention
Crafted with care and honest in intention
Thrown proudly down like furious plaintiff's gage
Is f*cked when some c*nt starts another page...

Pardon, good sirs, the language here espoused -
I fear my inner Wilmot was aroused.
.

Ann, I confess I do not know Lord John Wilmot's corpus as well as I should. I have done some research. Here's a stanza from "Signior Dildo:"

The Countess o'th'Cockpit (who knows not her name?
She's famous in story for a killing dame),
When all her old lovers forsake her, I trow,
She'll then be contented with Signior Dildo.

Alas, all my endeavours seem in vain
I did but seek to make the matter plain.
I wrought a little ditty for thy pleasure
Stuff'd full of wicked wit and merry measure.
I weep to see thee cruelly ignore this,
It being orphaned on the page before this.

Aaron, your Metrical wish "I'd rather read a song/poem about herpes"
is my command.


A spell for the removal of...

Avaunt thee, Herpes, thou persistent sore
That clingst, unbidden, like a needy whore.
Thou mak'st a midden of mine upper lip
Giving, the while, a goodly bit of gyp.
Thou festerest, impediment to bliss,
Stabbing me worst whene'er I purse to kiss.
Begone, thou evil cherry, shrink and go
To feast upon the facehole of my foe!
.

I'm not the Aaron you mean, but still, bravo.

(Your poem that got bottom-of-the-paged is pretty good, too. But the Herpes poem is my favorite of the thread thus far.)

Why, thank you, other-Aaron! What a joy
To be thus praised by a well-mannered boy.
But honesty demands you should be told -
Archaic verse comes easy to the old.

Indeed, for as the old trope sayeth,
Elder and child are akin.
The old, whose hairs make flee and grayeth,
Is aged, of an other age,
And finds the new speak too new-fangled
To pierce her wrinkled, leather skin.
Meanwhile, alas, the child is strangled
By words already put to page,
And, imitating long-dead Bards,
The Sphere with oldish tripe bombards.

I fear that poem may lose me the epithet "well-mannered", though.

Lovely boy, be not afraid
Thou may'st keep thine accolade.
Thy gentle gibes do not begin
To penetrate my leather skin
For, in the way of ancient biddies,
I'm far too busy strangling kiddies...

Ah, I'm in heaven--this thread has taken a turn toward herpes and child-strangling.

Ann, "facehole" is divine. Do you know the American idiom for kissing--"sucking face"?

Ann, I'm just glad that you wrote "kiddies" instead of "kitties."

We are getting some good stuff on this thread.

Aaron N.: "the child is strangled/by words already put to page"

Ann: "evil cherry"

Woohoo.

Then owls and bats,
Cowls and twats,
Monks and nuns in cloister’s moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry.

Browning, from Pippa Passes


The Poet Who Mistook His Hat for a Twat

Some balding nuns, their duties shirkin’,
Learned about the perfect merkin
When reading rhymes with wording quaint
(But no allusions to a saint)
That made them restless on their cots:
The poet traded hats for twats.

Ralph, you have pushed this thread to a whole new level. Thank you. It is unfortunate that, in a recent discussion of Pippa Passes on the Metrical Board, those lines were not quoted.

Thanks for your poem.

For "hats", read "bats". For "twats", read

https://bizarrevictoria.wordpress.co...06/nuns-twats/

So - nice take, Ralph.

.

I've always had the sneaking feeling that 'Pippa passes' is a spoonerism for 'Papa pisses'.

Ann, thanks for the link. This is pretty old, but I can't believe I typed "hats" for "bats"--overwhelmed, I guess, by the twats/hats thing!

Jayne?.....

Yikes! So sorry, Ann (senior synaptic failure).