Poetic License

========================================================================

Mani Shankar Aiyar is reported to have said that all the Shakespeare he knew he learned from Jeeves. 

Wodehouse books have a lot of Keats too. For the past couple of weeks I have been re-reading my Wodehouse Collection after sixty good years as a sort of Mood Elevator from Sid Mukherjee's Cancer Biography Book, "Emperor of All Maladies"... an eminently readable tome...but not exactly funny ;-)

I recall reading the lovely phrase 'wild surmise' in one of my Wodehouse books first; and I chanced to find it in The Inimitable Jeeves the other day:

"Claude and Eustace looked at each other, like those chappies in the poem, with a wild surmise"


I often vigorously flip pages in my books to search and find a particular phrase or idiom that I want to use, quote, or enjoy. Naturally in novels like PGW's which don't have an Index, the task would be like the needle and the haystack. But the job is considerably simplified since I happen to precisely remember which side of the book...left or right, and which half...top or bottom, I saw the thing occur. For instance, when I was talking to Aniket about the reference to JCB in Sommerfeld's Optics, I recalled it occurred in one of the left hand footnotes in the first edition of the book I read at the Central Library half a century ago. I never asked my friends but this must be a fairly common trait in readers.


Coming back to the 'wild surmise', it occurs in the sonnet, "On First looking Into Chapman's Homer" by Keats. Wiki tells me the striking story behind this poem:

'...Chapman's vigorous and earthy paraphrase (1616) was put before Keats by Charles Cowden Clarke, a friend from his days as a pupil at a boarding school in Enfield Town.^[1] They sat up together till daylight to read it: "Keats shouting with delight as some passage of especial energy struck his imagination." At ten o'clock the next morning, Mr. Clarke found the sonnet on his breakfast-table.'

I can't resist quoting the poem...a thing I rarely do:

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

 

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
 Round many western islands have I been
 Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
 That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
 Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
 Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
 When a new planet swims into his ken;
 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
 He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
 Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Those last four lines in short refer to the emotions of one who first saw the huge Pacific Ocean that he so longed to see and toiled so much for his first glimpse. 

I always associated Cortez with the Pacific Ocean. Like King Canute with his disobedient beach waves. But apparently it was not Cortez but a chap called Balboa that "star'd at the Pacific with eagle eyes". 

Here is Wiki on Keats' charming poetic license:

'...In point of historical fact, it was Vasco Núñez de Balboa's expedition which were the first Europeans to see the Pacific, but Keats chose to focus on Hernán Cortés; "Darien" refers to the Darién province of Panama. Keats had been reading William Robertson's History of America and apparently conflated two scenes there described: Balboa's finding of the Pacific and Cortés's first view of the Valley of Mexico. 

The Balboa passage: "At length the Indians assured them, that from the top of the next mountain they should discover the ocean which was the object of their wishes. When, with infinite toil, they had climbed up the greater part of the steep ascent, Balboa commanded his men to halt, and advanced alone to the summit, that he might be the first who should enjoy a spectacle which he had so long desired. As soon as he beheld the South Sea stretching in endless prospect below him, he fell on his knees, and lifting up his hands to Heaven, returned thanks to God, who had conducted him to a discovery so beneficial to his country, and so honourable to himself. His followers, observing his transports of joy, rushed forward to join in his wonder, exultation, and gratitude" (Vol. III).

John Keats simply remembered the image, rather than the actual historical facts. Charles Clarke noticed the error immediately, but Keats chose to leave it in, presumably because historical accuracy would have necessitated an unwanted extra syllable in the line...'

'An unwanted extra syllable' in his name cost Balboa his Pacific Discovery and the "wild surmise" of his men in the eyes of lay readers like me...

SIGH!!!

========================================================================