More Like a Regular Diary Entry Than Most

We had lunch at Ikea in Aston-under-lyne. Aliz loves the meatballs and I'm happy enough to eat the fish and chips. There was lamb en croute on the menu too, but they'd temporarily sold out. It's good to be let off kitchen duties once in a while. We'd gone to Ikea mainly to buy scented candles. We get through a lot of those.

In the afternoon the guys who are going to be re-paving the back yard came and had a look at it. They'll be starting work early next week.

Alexandria

Alexandria is also a city of trhe mind. An idea. I couldn't describe the buildings or take you on a tour of the streets, but I can tell you what it feels like. There's a library there, you know. They've got copies of every book ever. 

All of Aristophanes, all of Stesichorus, all of Sappho- shelf upon shelf upon shelf- only you can't actually get close enough to read them...

It's not exactly clear what happened.  The records are fragmentary- contradictory. There was a fire. Riots. Things like that. The early Christians- some of them- may have been to blame. Archbishop Cyril for instance.

Bettany Hughes was in the existing city of Alexandria last night. It looks like Cairo. I've been to Cairo and didn't care for it. Parts of the old city exist underground. Tombs. We went into a tomb where Egyptian and Greek culture are all mixed up and Anubis is shown wearing the breastplate and short skirt of a Roman soldier. Hughes talked a lot about Hypatia.

Hypatia is important to me too. I borrowed her name for a character who used to live in my head and act like the big sister I never had. She turns up in several of my poems.

Hughes' documentary was illustrated with some rather wonderful film clips recreating the ancient city. It turns out they come from a 2009 film called Agora-  directed by Pedro Amenabar- and starring Rachel Weisz as Hypatia. Michel Lonsdale is it too, playing her old dad, the director of the Musaeum. How nice to know he's still alive. The film has been shown in Spain, but not anywhere else very much. There have been moves to get it banned in Italy for being mean about Archbishop Cyril and his gang.

Of course I want to see it.

I'll find it hard, though- emotionally wrenching  What happened to Hypatia was horrible. I was tensing up as Bettany Hughes came to the point where she had to narrate that bit. Watching it on screen will not be pleasant. I hope they cut away.

On a happier note, they've built a new library in modern Alexandria to rival the first. They have a super-computer there that regularly, every couple of days, records and stores the entirety of the world-wide web. Isn't that fabulous? 

Et in Alexandria ego.

Hypatia

The earliest of my Hypatia poems....

                                    HYPATIA

 

                                    Last night I dreamed of the old woman scholar

                                    With the wide, humorous mouth and fearless eyes.

                                    She wears her hair like a young girl to the shoulder,

                                    Gunmetal grey, tied with a velvet band.

                                    I wanted you to meet her, dear.  I said,

                                    "This is my lover; this is my old friend.

                                    I hope we three will be together always."

 

                                    And afterwards, privately, to Hypatia

                                    I said, "This is the third time we have met.

                                    The first was when I saw you at the crossroads,

                                    Hurrying past by night.  Your back was turned

                                    And I was so enamoured of illusion

                                    I thought my life might be just such a dream

                                    And that I'd find a lover in the image

                                    I had of you, pre-Raphaelite and fey.

                                    You know I paid for that- with eighteen years

                                    Complete misapprehension.  You kept clear

                                    Until I trashed the dream.  But then you came

                                    To strengthen me, just at the point of crisis,

                                    Still in the girlish shape I'd wished for you,

                                    But older, more composed, the long hair cropped

                                    And with a husband- whom I never saw-

                                    Preparing me for the truth.  Now that it's out

                                    You are at last yourself, the clever woman

                                    Who is amused by everything.  I meet

                                    The husband you kept hidden; his shot nerves

                                    Are quietened by your cynical commonsense.

                                    And you're amused at me and I'm not jealous.

                                    How could I be?  I know you are myself-

                                    You and your husband- aspects of myself-

                                    And what you mean is clear.  I shall be faithful

                                    To what I am and to the honest woman

                                    Who lies beside me nightly- we'll grow old

                                    Under the Pennine wall- and likewise faithful

                                    To your remorseless scholarship, dear Hypatia."

One Thing Leading To Another

The poem "Hypatia" references these two earlier poems.

The first is the earliest poem I've kept. It was written when I was 19 or 20. The second was written in 1986, just before my first marriage came apart.

                                    BETWEEN THE PILLARS

 

                                    I walk between the pillars;

                                    The shadeless winter light

                                    Fades- and faint stars shiver in

                                    An artificial night.

 

                                    Perspectives are reversed here.

                                    The far-off comes near-to.

                                    I find lost friends on every path

                                    And at the crossroads- you.

 

                                   TWO DREAMS                     

 

                                    The long straight hair, the black coat to her ankles,

                                    And Kali's silver image on a chain

                                    Laid flat against her narrow breast- I loved her,

                                    But never thought I'd dream of her again.

 

                                    Then just the other night she sent a letter;

                                    She had a husband now, she'd cut her hair.

                                    We met as friends.  We all sat down to dinner.

                                    It seemed immensely safe to have her there.

 

                                    And in the other dream there was a monster,

                                    At least a mile in length.  It filled the lake.

                                    People walked past it unperturbed.  It lay there

                                    Like a big tanker, moveless but awake.