NEWS FROM SPAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1936, Page 26

NEWS FROM SPAIN

MAGIC IN NAMES

MUSIC AND COLOUR

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

(Written for the "Evening Post" by A.M.) There is nothing like war to teach geography. As a dear old lady said to a New Zealander who lectured a good deal during the war: "Oh, Mr. X, I do learn such a lot from your lectures. You know, I used to think Gibraltar was on the North Sea, but now I find it's on the east coast of Africa." The civil war in Spain has taught many of us the position of quite a number of Spanish towns. I, for one, am ready to confess that before • the fighting began I couldn't have told you where Irun and Malaga were. As for the Balearic Isles, some of us learnt at school that Hannibal's slingers came from there, and isn't there an even earlier school memory of Old Ironsides at anchor Jay i In the harbour of Mahon How does the rest of it go? The islands once—or perhaps more than once—belonged to England, part of that Empire she gave up from time to time. One imagines that the Admiralty wishes it had them now. SPANISH NAMES. The news from Spain has other reac- • tioris, and one of these is a reminder of the peculiar •■ beauty of Spanish" names. Guadarrama, Valencia, Tala-' vera, Aragon, Castile, Asturias, Sierra Nevada, Seville, Toledo, Alicante, Almeria, Poritevedra, Granada, Cordoba, Andalusia—these and others remind one of "the slow old tunes of SpainV . that came to John Masefield's mind when he^ wrote-of beauty. There is something about many Spanish names that suggests colour, sunehine, slumbrous heat, and stately music. Browning does not tell us what the word 'was that the lady spoke in "Garden Fancies," but we know how it affected the lover:: . • '■"■.' ■ ''■.'■ This flower'she stopped at,-finger on lip, '~ Stooped.over, In doubt, as settling its claim; .Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, , Its soft meandering Spanish name. \Yhat-a name! Was it love or praise? ■Speech half-asleep or song ; half-awake ? .'< I must learn Spanish one of these days, i ■.If only for that slow sweet name's sake. J Many an Englishman must have felt like that about' Spanish names—place ■names, surnames, Christian names. You may imagine the relish with which O. Henry constructed his Spanish names in "Cabbages and Kings." The levanting President bore the name; of Ramon Angel de las Cruzes y Mira;flores, and another gentleman was called Don Senor el Coronel Encarnacion Rios. RIO GRANDE. Of course, I refer to these words as they sound in English. In Spanish Don Quixote is Don Kihote —or something like that. And perhaps Spaniards are surprised at the effect on us of what are to them common words. "Rio Grande del Norte," I once heard a man say, dwelling with aesthetic pleasure on the words, "and it only means Great River of the North." Consider "Rio Grande" —what a mixture of liquid and sonorous, beauty is here! We can repeat it over and over again for the mere joy in the sound. Incidentally this accounted partly for the popularity of "Lasca"—"way down on the Rio Grande!" How the: reciter loved getting this off his chest!

If there is a more beautiful placename in the world than Estremadura, I would like to hear it. Ever since I was a boy the names Aragon and Castile have affected me like poetry. They suggest the colour of ancient chivalry and the-clash of swords. And there, are Spanish names which to their arresting sound add historical associations of great import to us British. Talavera has been much in our news. This was the scene of one of Wellington's first victories in the peninsula, and it was there .that the Spanish army let him down so that he never trusted it again. The battle honours of many British regiments resound with Spanish names. Go into the Church of St. .Mary in New Plymouth and look at ! the hatchments of regiments that ifbught in our Maori wars.. .. "Roleia, ■(Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria.">"Vimiera, Corunna.Busaco, Fuehtes D'Onbro, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz,, Salamanca, "Vittoria." Fuentes D'Onoro—what a •name! These lists 'of'honours sound: ■ like a roll of drums. . ; ,! APPEAL TO POETS. ■ !'■ i The music in names appeals to poets, ; and most men and women have sorrie--1 thing of the poet in them. Many; years iago a small boy in Australia was over- ; come by the beauty of the title-Marquis ; ojf Lome. He, was Gilbert Murray, who was to translate Euripides into English Verse. Perhaps on his visit to Italy ■ Milton marked down the name Vallom•brosa for future use; at, -any'rate it appeared in one of the.'-.bestrkndwn : lines in Lost." But'-that" long poem is studded with fine-sounding names. On page after page there is a catalogue of t them;, and Milton, it is significant, to note" was a lover of music' It" was not' merely for 'their associations that he introduced so many place names:—

Begirt with British and Armorlc knights And all who since, baptised or infldel. Jousted.in Asproinont or Montalban, Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebizond, Or whom Biserta sent from -Afric shore, ■• When' Charlemain iwltlr all his peerage fell By FvOntarabla. ; V .', ■.■■••

Scott employs the music of Fontarabia (a town in the Pyrenees) in the end of "Marmion": — Oh, for a blast of:that.dread horn. On Fontarabian echoes borne, That to King Charles did 'cotrie,- ---' When Rowland brave, arid Olivier, And every paladin and peer,. > - > On Houcesvallas died! , '■ A name from the other end of the Mediterranean that has occurred .in our news lately contains the slow music of Spain—a port of Cyprus. I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep Beyond the village which men. still call- Tyre, With leaden age o'er cargoed, dipping deep For Famagusta and the hidden sun That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire. Famagusta—Famagusta —Famagusta; yes, it sounds well. DELIGHT IN WORDS. Sound, of course, cannot always be divorced from association. But if you think I attach too much importance to the sound of names, hear what an eminent English critic says. Professor Garrod, late professor of poetry in the University of Oxford, is speaking of poetry as delight. The degree of our capacity to be delighted by mere words differs a good deal, no doubt, from man to man. For myself, I. am sometimes halt-ashamed »t the sensuous—and almost animal—delight which I take In words, the words of poets. And I suppose that it is but a shadow of that delight which the poet himself has. Perhaps we are never quite honest about any of our pleasures. If we were, 1 wonder how many of our best ecstasies would not be- placed in hours, whole hours, spent crooning words to ourselves—just words, seeking no deeper nor more spiritual contentment. Sometimes I do not so much as ask w«rri» iam content with mere vowels, and could fancy a man might as easily die a victim to the seduction of words as a victim to drink and drugs. When I read Homer, the potent vowels utterly o'erciw my spirit, and I could fancy they would do so even if I did not know Greek. ENGLISH. LOVELINESS. Many Spanish names seem to be steeped in rich sunlight; they have the

colour and warmth of golden wines of Spain. Every country, I suppose, has its own'beauty of names. In England their loveliness has often something of the freshness of spring, or the mellowness of a good apple.' Consider Apsley Guise, Buckland Monachorum (where Drake's drum hangs), Castle Eden, Chalfont St.; Giles, ■ Compton lain, Midsummer Norton, Nuneham Courtenay. This was the winning entry in a competition for the- ten most satisfying English place names. It did hot include Evenlode and Wihdrush, Saffron Walden and Compton Paunceforte —four most beautiful names of characteristic English sound; Lyme Regis or Anthony-in-Roseland; or the group immortalised by Mr. Hailaire Belloc in "The Path to Rome": "Change here for Ashton-under-the-Wood, More-ton-on-the-Marsh, Bourton-on-the-Water, and Stow-in-the-Wold."

Finally, it is not inconceivable that if a New Zealander is not moved to tears by the beauty of some of his ol.vn names —Wainui-o-mata, Waianianiwa, Taumarunui—a stranger might be.