MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD N1COLSON
IHAVE hitherto been unable to decide what attitude an English gentleman should adopt in the handling of foreign languages. I agree that he is not one if he derives con- scious pleasure from speaking these languages in the presence of his own compatriots. I agree that to introduce foreign words and phrases when speaking English is seldom delicate and frequently not nice. I agree that a man of taste and education should not use knowledge for self-display and should not derive from the ignorance of others feelings of either merriment or disapproval. I am thus surprised at myself when I notice that recognisable annoyance stirs within me when I hear a B.B.C. announcer talking of " Monaco " or " Gaeeta." Why on earth should I mind if the British Broadcasting Corporation, in their manly B. H. way, assume that all place-names in the Italian language invariably place the accent on the penultimate syllable ? I should myself introduce similar solecisms were I discoursing on the geography of Java or Thibet. Con- versely, I experience irritation when I hear the modern scholar pronouncing Latin in a foreign way: Does he really suppose that this affected manner of talking will enable him to cap quotations from Aulus Gellius with his fellow scholars of Bologna, Gottingen or Lille ? At Wellington, when I was a lad, we used to pronounce Latin in our natural native way. We would say " Nudus in ignota Palinure jacebis arena " in exactly the -same tone of voice as we would say " No. 17 'bus will take you straight to Fenchurch Street." It is true that on reaching the Upper Sixth we were taught by Dr. Pollock to say " Noodus in ignotar Palinoore yakaebis araenar," as if we were saying " Fitti nel limo dicon: Tristi fummo." But we never enjoyed this affectation; and I have in after years observed that if, when in conversation with foreign scholars, I adopt the Pollock accent, I am not understood. "Soont lachrimaee raeroom" I will remark brightly; the only response I receive is one of embar- rassed bewilderment.
I ani assured by schoolmasters that the modern pronunci- ation is at least closer to the original than our old Edwardian mode. I am prepared to believe that the Roman private soldier did not say "cave canem," as we ought to say it, but that he said something like " cauwe caanem." But who wants to talk Latin with a legionary's accent, and in any case how on earth did they pronounce " to Marcellus errs " ? We have no idea at all. I therefore persist in thinking that it was a pity to abandon our old sturdy British way. It is even worse when it comes to Greek. The erasmic pronunciation, I am perfectly prepared to admit, bears no relation whatsoever to the accent of Socrates or to the very odd way in which the words of the ancients are today quoted in even the cleanest Romaic. But why abandon the sensible Etonian tone adopted by Canning or Gladstone in favour of mincing artifices worthy only of i nitidi mercanti alessandrini ? I was invited last week to a performance of the Antigone given in the open-air theatre at Bradfield College. I was afraid that the boys would adopt some fanciful pronunciation, such as would ruin every echo of the iambics and the anapaests. I was afraid that, in place of that dear old English word "deinoteros," they would say something foreign such as " deenoteross," with the stress falling sharply on the last syllable. But not at all. Mr. Cecil Bellamy, the gifted producer of the play, had stuck to the old Fenchurch Street manner. He had even induced Mr. Akers, who took the part of the Guard, to speak as a London Guardsman with a strong cockney accent, indicating thereby that he was a mem- ber of the Theban proletariate. " Owk oyd," he said, exactly as an English private soldier would have said " Oy 'av'nt the least oidea." I found this most fitting and agreeable.
It was surely most imaginative of Dr. Gray, a former head- master of Bradfield, to have purchased a disused chalk-pit in the vicinity of the college and to have turned it into a miniature Greek theatre on the model of that at Epidaurus. A less ardent hellenist might have feared that our English climate was not adapted to outdoor performances after sun-. set, and that the bare arms and legs so congenial to the fierce heat of the Cadmeion would expose our English adolescents to chills and colds. The audience were provided with soft cushions to protect them against the arduous stone seats, and were allowed to bring with them coats and blankets such as are worn at the Braemar gathering. The chalk-pit moreover is steep and sharp, being protected from the cold wind of an English June by a fringe of little trees, harbouring blackbirds and even turtle-doves, whose comments as they settle down to sleep enrich the performance on the stage below. At intervals, as when Antigone is so disagreeable to her idiot sister, or when Haemon. with his fair head hanging like that of a murdered albatross, is carried as a corpse on the strong arms of the guard, an aeroplane or two will drone across the darkening sky, reminding us that the tragedy we are witness- ing is a thing of the past. Slowly, as the play reaches its climax, the night settles down over Berkshire and amber arc- lights illumine the figures on the stage. At the last moment, when Creon staggered, a broken man, towards the portals of his palace, a bird, or bat, or moth, flew close across the arc- lights and flung a shuddering shadow of wings. That moment was deinos indeed.
* • • I am by temperament averse from amateur theatricals, since they fill me with anxiety. The amateur performer can generally manage, either well or ill, the actual piece allotted to him; what he cannot manage are .the moments when he is unemployed or when, in dumb-show, he has by gestures to manifest despair or hope. There was nothing amateur about the Bradfield performance. Even the awkward moment when Eurydice as a crumpled corpse is pushed out on the machine had been so carefully contrived that there was no sense of the ungainly or the ludicrous; she slid out and back as smoothly as the drawer in a steel filing cabinet. Although I much admired Mr. Coldstream's acting at Antigone, as well as Mr. Woodhouse as Creon and Mr. Ackroyd as Haemon, I was even more impressed by Mr. Bellamy's masterly training of the chorus. I have always felt that the Theban elders of the Antigone manifest such cowardice of character and such idiocy of opinion that Sophocles must have had some ironical intent in combining in his chorus so much magnificent poetry with so many sententious platitudes. The slow movements, the splendid grouping, the only slightly stylised gestures that Mr. Bellamy, Mr. Stibbe and Mr. Burton had inculcated robbed the Bradfield chorus of all absurdity. They became the solemn, perplexed, anxious representatives of an ordinary com- munity, faced by conflicting emotions which they were unable to integrate. What did it matter if their white beards and locks were not wholly consonant with their boyish arms and legs ? They were completely convincing, and their leader, Mr. J. P. Hewett, declaimed the lovely words to the twilight so that all could hear, so that those who had brought their Loeb with them could even understand. " Eros anikate machan," he said to us, raising his wand on high; the turtle-doves agreed sleepily and the night came down.
The cathartic effect that we derived was due to the perfect beauty of the whole setting and performance. It was in truth a memorable experience to watch these English boys moving with grace and dignity and enacting a drama which had terrified the Athenians two thousand four hundred years ago. As a boy Sophocles was chosen fgr his beauty to dance in front of the procession in honour of the victory of Salamis. Will Mr. Ackroyd in later years recall how in a June twilight he was carried high upon the arms of his comrades, with his fair head hanging downwards in the fading light ?
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