COMPETITION

Bucolics

Jaspistos

I. N Competition No. 1473 you were invited to write a poetic dialogue between two disgruntled rustics or country- dwellers.

First, thank you, the three who wrote and the one who telephoned, for answering my query about Austin Dobson's Latin title for his triolet 'I intended an Ode,/And It turn'd to a Sonnet'. If I hadn't been unlucky enough to have the new rather than the old Oxford Dictionary of Quota- tions I could have simply looked it up. It's Horace, Ars Poetica, 21-2: 'Amphora coepitllnstitui: currente rota cur urceus exit?' (It was a wine-jar that was intended: why, as the potter's wheel runs round, does it come out a pitcher?) Bucolics were a success. The idea came to me as a result of reading MacNeice's splendid Eclogues (Tor Christmas' and `By a Five-barred Gate'), in the second of which Death, Jaspistos-like, announces:

Look, I will set you a prize like any of your favourites, Like any Tityrus or tired Damon.

Though written nearly 55 years ago, his picture of a bad countryside still strikes home:

Men who put beer into a belly that is dead, Women in the forties with terrier and setter who whistle and swank Over down and plough and Roman road and daisied bank . .

The lucky Damons printed below are awarded £18 each. Honourable mentions for Paul Griffin, Rodney Burke, Mary Holtby, M. R. Macintyre, Pascoe Polglaze, Nicho- las Murray and Jean Hayes. The bonus bottle of Mumm's Cordon Bleu Cham- pagne, the gift of Mr Gaston Berlemont, goes to Keith Norman.

Behold upon the sylvan scene two swains: Each tends his flock; each bitterly complains.

Daphnis: The things we have to do to earn our keep!

We're stooges for a lot of bleating sheep! Strephon: So early too! I'm feeling far from well.

Would someone shoot that warbling Philomel? D: I'll let you see my rustic look. Just wait. See! Straw in mouth and leaning on a gate. S: The cheeks are good — like apples overripe. To set them off? Yes! How about a pipe? D: Oh, no! A pipe would be quite out of place. I'm giving them my prelapsarian face. S: Ye gods! The weather's cold! The money's bad!

We did far better from that butter ad.

D: Turn on the linnets! Let me hear those doves!

Stand by for action! Are you ready, loves?

(Keith Norman)

Colin Clout: 'Ere, Kevin, 'ave 'ee 'eard the latest, then?

'Tis goodbye to the blummin' batt'ry 'en! They 'ippies what live up at Barton Grange Do tell oi that there's zummat called Free Range.

Kevin Clout: Wassat when it's at 'ome, then?

CC: Oi be slow On th' uptake, so oi'm buggered if oi know Perzactly, but oi 'low there's zummat in it. KC: What's wrong with farmin' these days?

Every minnit There's zum new-(angled notion put about.

`Hs blummin` daft, or moi name bain't Key Clout!

CC: Oi think — though it seems bloody queer to me — This Free Range lark means chickens runnin' free.

KC: Now don't talk daft! 'Owever would we foind

The blasted eggs?

CC: Oi didn't pay much moind. But they do say there's quoit a toidy profit

In chicken-shit-smeared eggs.

KC (guffaws): In what? Come off it!

(Peter Norman)

C: Jill! In green wellies! Are they Freddie's, dear? Yah, Caro. He's so into country gear!

C: Justin is ton. But they commute to town; We're stuck here all the time — it gets me down! J: I know. Too grim! Our stove's been playing

up; And Freddie's bought a wild Alsatian pup But I'm the one who'll have to walk the dog.

C: There's no domestic help; no time to jog; Melissa's missing out on ballet class.

J: And Common Entrance — how will Toby pass?

And now they're going to build a motorway Nearby, or else an airport, so they say.

C: A dump for nuclear waste is what I hear. Property values falling — that's my fear; Then we'd be sunk; we'd never ever move . . . I: I see smoke rising . . Omigod! The stove!

(Bridget Loney) A: G'mornin', Sam. Oi see ee've started 'oein'. They looks loik peas. What other be 'ee growin'?

B: Oi've gave beef suckler premiums a go: Ewe clawback payment trade were awful slow.

A: Well, oi've got lupin subsidies in ground, Last summer's rape were ruined by green pound.

B: worse to come, if what oi 'ear be roight. Danged MCA's be goin' to cause a blight.

A: On top o' that oi 'ardly loiks to mention That bottom's fell roight out o' intervention.

B: An' ere's a thing oi never thought to fear Old Daisy's over quota for the year.

A: Ah well, 'ee can't expect a cow to see Our sense of co-responsibility.

B: Still, makes a change when us do get together.

Drat me, us used to talk about the weather.

(Noel Petty)