Invited by my long-time acquintance at YCU, I was at his house near Hakkeijima Sea Paradise. Went there with my friend and had pleasant time together for more over 4 hours!
蚤の市で買ったという武者人形。どのような場面なのか、わからなかった！
帰宅途中の八景島大橋から見た富士。八景島駅前のしろくま君は、実物の方が100倍かわいいと思う。
検索で出てくると困るので日本の字で書く。イギリスの大学でいちばん心に残った友の消息が気になっていたけど、やっと16年ぶりぐらいで直接やり取りができた。彼女はロンドン（北部）生まれのお嬢さまで、勉強だけでなくいろんことを相談した。私のつたない英語でも良く聞いてくれて、時には慰め、怒り、励ましてくれた。優しい人だった。寒い冬の日、一緒に教室まで歩いた日を懐かしく思い出す。いい日々だった。
ロンドン北部のお嬢さまだったことは、ヘレンが上品な英語を話したこと、一緒にクラシック音楽のサークルに参加したこと（これは、( ほぼ )上流階級しかしない。私は、練習の時、指導者が早口で指示する専門用語が理解できず、すぐ諦めた）、いつも服装がドレッシーで、スリランカに行ったときはシルクのスカートを穿いていたこと、Humanitarian spiritをもっていたこと。すべてが素敵だった。でも、彼女は運動が苦手で、軍隊式訓練の時は恐怖で顔が引きつって、年がいっている私に助けを求めた（！）。いい思い出ばかり、思い出される・・・・。今は二人の子供の母親、ロンドンできちんとした仕事をしてるのだろう。
ヘレンに返信するときに名前のスペルを間違えてしまった。次の機会には正しいスペルで！！
Twitterはおもしろい、楽しい。数日前、音楽家のT君ともTwitterが役に立つし楽しいということで意見が合った。Ian Bostridge さんとのやり取りができるなど、Twitterならでは、のことだ。その中でも好きなのが”Literary InterestさんのTweet, 今回はジョン・キーツの秋の作品。
ODE TO AUTUMN / JOHN KEATS
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’erbrimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, –
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Geoff WardFollow Sep 16 · 7 min read
| Keats (1795–1821) had come to Winchester in the late summer from the Isle of Wight where he had gone to work on poems and his verse play Otho. He was attracted by the city’s medieval ambience — and the need for a reference library. |
| Walks to the countryside, ‘an hour before dinner’, from his lodging house near Winchester Cathedral (the building where he stayed is long gone), became his evening custom. |
| ‘How beautiful the season is now — How fine the air,’ he wrote. ‘A temperate sharpness about it … I never lik’d stubble fields so much as now … Somehow a stubble plain looks warm — in the same way that some pictures look warm — this struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it.’ |
| ‘To Autumn’, drafted that evening, was included, after some revisions, in Keats’s 1820 collection entitled Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems. It was the last in a series of six great odes that Keats produced during 1819 and, indeed, the last major poem he wrote in his short life, effectively ending his career. |
| Marking the writing of ‘To Autumn’ focuses our attention on the odes, in this their anniversary year, and I discuss them in a follow-up essay (‘Celebrating the bicentenary of the great odes…’) for they assured Keats of his place in the pantheon of English poetry. |
英語で聞いてそのまま鑑賞できるようなレベルになりたい。目標だ。
Twitterで好きなアカウントのひとつが”Literature Interest” たぶん英国の人（会社）のサイト。時々しかツイートはないけど珠玉のツイートがある。そのうちのひとつが季節の詩。
August 28, 2019 3:00 pm
This is the latest in our monthly posts celebrating some of the best poems about each of the months of the year. This time, of course, it’s September’s turn: that point where summer may still linger on, but autumn is beginning to rear its head. The harvest is being gathered, and that ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ is upon us, in John Keats’s immortal words. Here’s our pick of the best poems about the month of September.
William Wordsworth, ‘September, 1819’. ‘Departing summer hath assumed / An aspect tenderly illumed, / The gentlest look of spring; / That calls from yonder leafy shade / Unfaded, yet prepared to fade, / A timely carolling.’ So begins this Romantic meditation on the arrival of autumn, in which Wordsworth detects an echo of spring in the mellowing nature of everything.
| September, 1819 | |
| Departing summer hath assumed An aspect tenderly illumed, The gentlest look of spring; That calls from yonder leafy shade Unfaded, yet prepared to fade, A timely carolling. No faint and hesitating trill, Such tribute as to winter chill The lonely redbreast pays! Clear, loud, and lively is the din, From social warblers gathering in Their harvest of sweet lays. Nor doth the example fail to cheer Me, conscious that my leaf is sere, And yellow on the bough:— Fall, rosy garlands, from my head! Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed Around a younger brow! Yet will I temperately rejoice; Wide is the range, and free the choice Of undiscordant themes; Which, haply, kindred souls may prize Not less than vernal ecstasies, And passion’s feverish dreams. For deathless powers to verse belong, And they like Demi-gods are strong On whom the Muses smile; But some their function have disclaimed, Best pleased with what is aptliest framed To enervate and defile. Not such the initiatory strains Committed to the silent plains In Britain’s earliest dawn: Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale, While all-too-daringly the veil Of nature was withdrawn! Nor such the spirit-stirring note When the live chords Alcæus smote, Inflamed by sense of wrong; Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire Of fierce vindictive song. And not unhallowed was the page By wingèd Love inscribed, to assuage The pangs of vain pursuit; Love listening while the Lesbian Maid With finest touch of passion swayed Her own Æolian lute. O ye, who patiently explore The wreck of Herculanean lore, What rapture! could ye seize Some Theban fragment, or unroll One precious, tender-hearted scroll Of pure Simonides. That were, indeed, a genuine birth Of poesy; a bursting forth Of genius from the dust: What Horace gloried to behold, What Maro loved, shall we enfold? Can haughty Time be just! |
Helen Hunt Jackson, ‘September’. Jackson (1830-85) was an exact contemporary of Emily Dickinson – she was born the same year and died just one year before her more famous fellow American poet – but she’s far less well-known. As well as being a poet, Jackson was also a novelist as well as an activist who campaigned on behalf of Native Americans. Her Calendar of Sonnetsoffered a sonnet for every month of the year, accompanied by related illustrations. In ‘September’, however, Jackson writes not a sonnet but a poem of quatrains, in which she muses upon ‘the secret / Which makes September fair.’
| SEPTEMBER by: Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) | |
| HE golden-rod is yellow; The corn is turning brown; The trees in apple orchards With fruit are bending down. The gentian’s bluest fringes Are curling in the sun; In dusty pods the milkweed Its hidden silk has spun. The sedges flaunt their harvest, In every meadow nook; And asters by the brook-side Make asters in the brook. From dewy lanes at morning The grapes’ sweet odors rise; At noon the roads all flutter With yellow butterflies. By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer’s best of weather, And autumn’s best of cheer. But none of all this beauty Which floods the earth and air Is unto me the secret Which makes September fair. ‘T is a thing which I remember; To name it thrills me yet: One day of one September I never can forget. Read more at http://www.poetry-archive.com/j/september.html#GTU9uyYvlYJgXKc8.99 |
W. B. Yeats, ‘September 1913’. A slightly different meditation on September, this, from arguably Ireland’s most famous poet, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939). Meditating on the situation in Ireland in September 1913, Yeats laments a lost past for his home country, concluding that ‘Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, / It’s with O’Leary in the grave.’
| September 1913 | |
| What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone; For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Yet they were of a different kind, The names that stilled your childish play, They have gone about the world like wind, But little time had they to pray For whom the hangman’s rope was spun, And what, God help us, could they save? Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Was it for this the wild geese spread The grey wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Yet could we turn the years again, And call those exiles as they were In all their loneliness and pain, You’d cry, ‘Some woman’s yellow hair Has maddened every mother’s son’: They weighed so lightly what they gave. But let them be, they’re dead and gone, They’re with O’Leary in the grave. |
Lucy Maud Montgomery, ‘September’. Montgomery (1874-1942) is best-known for her classic novel for children, Anne of Green Gables, set in Montgomery’s own country of Canada (on Prince Edward Island). But Montgomery was also a poet, and in this short poem about September she pays tribute to the ‘late delight / Atoning in its splendor for the flight / Of summer blooms and joys – / This is September.’
| September | |
| Lo! a ripe sheaf of many golden days Gleaned by the year in autumn’s harvest ways, With here and there, blood-tinted as an ember, Some crimson poppy of a late delight Atoning in its splendor for the flight Of summer blooms and joys This is September. |
Sara Teasdale, ‘September Midnight’. Listening to the chirruping and clicking insects at midnight on a warm late summer’s night – for this is an ‘Indian Summer’, and the warm summer weather has lasted into early autumn – Teasdale (1884-1933) hopes to remember the ‘voices’ of the little insects as summer fades: ‘Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer, / Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, / Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects, / Ceaseless, insistent.’
| September Midnight | |
| Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer, Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects, Ceaseless, insistent. The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples, The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence Under a moon waning and worn, broken, Tired with summer. Let me remember you, voices of little insects, Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters, Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us, Snow-hushed and heavy. Over my soul murmur your mute benediction, While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest, As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to, Lest they forget them. | |
| Sara Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri to a wealthy family. As a young woman she traveled to Chicago and grew acquainted with Harriet Monroe and the literary circle around Poetry. Teasdale wrote seven books of poetry in her lifetime and received public admiration for her well-crafted lyrical poetry which centered on a woman’s changing perspectives on beauty, love, and death. |
Geoffrey Hill, ‘September Song’. Another different take on September: beginning with the birth and death dates of a child who, we are told, was ‘deported’ in September 1942, ‘September Song’ addresses one of the most difficult subjects for a poet to write about: the Holocaust. As we read on, we realise that ‘deported’ is a military euphemism, and the child was in fact killed in 1942, aged just ten years old, presumably in one of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps. The reference to September ‘fatten[ing] on vines’ draws upon the natural imagery of early autumn to reflect on the horrors and atrocities of the Second World War.
| September Song | |
| Undesirable you may have been, untouchable you were not. Not forgotten or passed over at the proper time. As estimated, you died. Things marched, sufficient, to that end. Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented terror, so many routine cries. (I have made an elegy for myself it is true) September fattens on vines. Roses flake from the wall. The smoke of harmless fires drifts to my eyes. This is plenty. This is more than enough. | Known as one of the greatest poets of his generation writing in English, and one of the most important poets of the 20th century, Geoffrey Hill lived a life dedicated to poetry and scholarship, morality and faith. He was born in 1932 in Worcestershire, England to a working-class family. He attended Oxford University, where his work was first published by the U.S. poet Donald Hall. These poems later collected in For the Unfallen: Poems 1952-1958 marked an astonishing debut. |
私の好きな国歌は、ブラジル、ドイツ、英国。それにこの頃加わったのがポーランド国家、スイスの国歌も素敵。韓国の国家も良い！
| Top Pageへ | |
2003年にイギリスに行き、テレビ好き日本人としては、つい見てしまう。見てしまったら気にならないわけがない。Jon Snowさん。派手なネクタイ、鋭いインタビュー、長身、低い声、美しい発音。その後も、ニュースやTwitterで見ている。
 | 2019.7 変わったベストを着ている なぁと思ったら、これまで身に着けたネクタイを使用してベストを作ったとか！ |
| 2019.8.21 軽やかな動画に登場。 ノッティングヒル・フェスティバ ルのプロモーションビデオ。 Boris Johnsonの英国に未来はあるか？この人はどんな表現をしていくのだろうか？ | |
NHCarnival@NHCarnivalLDNFollowOfficial Organisers of Notting Hill Carnival
＜2003年の記事＞
 写真はもちろんジョン・スノーです。（ニュース番組から |
| チャンネル４アンカーマン JON SNOW 2004年07月01日(木) 6時11分 日本に帰ったあと「また、あの英国のテレビ番組が見たい」と思うことになる番組のひとつになることでしょう。午後７時からの「Channel 4 News」。初めはちょっと聞き取りにくかった彼の英語も、今はすっかり慣れました。ネクタイの派手さがすごい、歯切れがいい、突込みが鋭い、ちょっと斜交いの視線もかっこいい。イギリスのテレビ番組は全体としてかなりひどい。つくりが安っぽい、中身がない、馬鹿騒ぎばかり。映画も古くて「名画」は本当にたまにしかない。もっとも、本当にいい番組は有料の「サテライトチャンネルで」ということのようです。でもジョン・スノーのニュースは◎その分とてもすばらしいのがBBCラジオ。日本の話題も多く取り上げられています。英国人はきっと、「自分たちのことをアメリカと比べてもサイズとパワーが違いすぎて・・・。その点日本は大きさもちょうどいいし、文化的基盤も違うから闇雲の競争にはならないし。それにきっと日本人は英国が好きだし・・・。」と思っているような気がします。 |
from The Guardian 15, July
Four Democratic women targeted by Trump accuse him of following an ‘agenda of white nationalists’ at a press conference Lauren Gambino,Ed Pilkington @laurenegambinoMon 15 Jul 2019 23.47 BST
Four Democratic congresswomen of color targeted by Donald Trump’s racist attacks have accused the US president of following an “agenda of white nationalists” and asked that Americans “do not take the bait” of his divisive rhetoric. The women – Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts – called Trump’s remarks a “blatantly racist” attack on elected leaders, and an attempt to distract from the corrupt and inhuman practices of his administration.‘You can leave’: Trump unrepentant over racist attack on congresswomen
Of the four, all are non-white and all except Ilhan Omar of Minnesota were born US citizens. Omar came to the US aged 12 as a refugee and took up American citizenship five years later. All are progressives within the Democratic party, and advocate for left-leaning policies. “This is the agenda of white nationalists, whether it is happening in chat rooms, or it is happening on national TV, and now it is reached the White House garden,” said Omar, who called this a “pivotal moment in our country “ with the “eyes of history” watching.
In his Twitter storm, Trump called on the four – who he did not name directly but clearly invoked – to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”.
トランプのTwitterの中味は書くのも嫌だが。So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements! …. ……8:27 PM – 14 Jul 2019
Our Country is Free, Beautiful and Very Successful. If you hate our Country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave! 8:17 PM – 16 Jul 2019
“It is time for us to stop allowing this president to make a mockery of our Constitution,” she (Ilhan Omar) said. “It is time to impeach this president.” Ocasio-Cortez, who was born in the Bronx and is of Puerto Rican descent, said she was “not surprised” by Trump’s comments. “This president … does not know how to defend his policies and so what he does is attack us personally,” Ocasio-Cortez said. The president’s use of the “go back home” racist trope led to an immediate and explosive response, with condemnation erupting across the US and around the world. World leaders also made a rare foray into domestic US politics. “Sadly, this is not the first nor will it be the last time we hear disgusting, bigoted language from the president,” Tlaib said. “We know this is who he is.”
The out-going British prime minister Theresa May let it be known through a spokesman that she found Trump’s language with regard to the four congresswomen “completely unacceptable”. “Where are you when something this serious, this bigoted, this un-American happens?”In her remarks, Ocasio-Cortez recalled the first time she visited Washington with her father as a little girl. Sitting on the edge of the Reflecting Pool that stretched along the National Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, her father told her: “All of this belongs to you.”
“I want to tell children across this country … that no matter what the president says, this country belongs to you,” she said. “Today, that notion – that very notion – was challenged.”
Mayさんは、安易な妥協をせず強い姿勢を貫いたが、時に世の趨勢を見誤り、交渉力も空回り。協力者も少なくなり退陣となった。後世は彼女を「Brexitに失敗した女性首相」とするのか。英国議会での真摯な議論とMay首相の「ガンバリ」にはそれなりに敬意を持って見ていたが、もっと前に国民（庶民）の気持ちを理解し、EUに残る仕組みを作ることはできなかったのか、残念な気もする。
