PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21022, 10 May 1930, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

The Parnell electorate has returned to it* old love. Its new love, after enjoying an eighteen months’ monopoly of affection, is already searching its heart, and is rummaging in its beauty “ cabinet ” in search of lotions, cosmetics, and other such aids to restore its fading charms. Such reversals of affection are not uncommon in personal , affairs, and usually indicate a triangular situation. In our unrepresentative triangular electoral system it is much more common; for Mars is not'a whit more decisive in his judgments than fickle Eros. Shakespeare speaks of •' grim-visaged Mars who smoothes his wrinkled front.” But the ancients knew him better. To them he was not so awe-inspiring. They present him as a pitiable figure wandering about between two battle-lines anceps ” —doubtful, hesitating, uncertain. And since “ anceps ” really means double-headed, we see the straits in which ’he usually found himself when called upon to make qp his mind. To put him in the"position of umpire in the gamble of a three-cornered i fight would ’make the old fellow lose both hia heads. He lost them eighteen months ago, and regained them last Wednesday —say the victors. All this is to say that Parnell will have to use resolute endeavour if it desireh to acquire a reputation for political stability. But it has a fellowsinner in West Fulham, which likewise in last 1 Wednesday’s by-election returned to its old love. In both cases Love’s Labour is not lost. Amantium irae sunt redintegratio amoris. The quarrels of lovers means the renewal of love. The historical talking picture of “ Disraeli,” at present running successfully in Dunedin, contains more talking than history. This we should expect from previous film experience. Yet it serves a good purpose in reviving interest in' a great national 'figure. The young are making a new acquaintance, the old are re-living youthful memories. For Disraeli was going strong as recently as 1880. Even grave and reverend seniors, who visit the pictures about as often as they visit the broadsiding track, are recapturing old sensations. The most romantic of past English statesmen has already become a legendary being, surrounded with a mass of clustering traditions, picturesque contradictions, and engaging complexities. The third generation Italian Jew became England’s greatest imperialist, as loyal to his | adopted country as a Swiss guardsman. The brooding youth distinguished mainly for his affectations wrote’ satirical novels | about dukes before he had met any; like Byron he went to bed a nameless boy of 20 and woke up to find himself i famous. The lawyer’s clerk, who stood for Parliament unsuccessfully as an '■ advanced Badical, under the aegis of J Daniel O’Connor, finished his career as , the leader of the High'' Tory Party in i the most aristocratic of ages, and as ! Dictator of Europe, The statesman who chuckled in private over the Faery Queen flattered her blatantly in public; and won her regard by treating her as a woman, while Gladstone lost it by treating her as a queen. England owes much to the man whose prophetic visidn made her half-owner of the Suez Canal, and whose leading principle was a dominat- 1 ing determination to become great, and ] a conviction that life was a “carrifere I ouverte aux talents.” With everyhonour at his command, he remained as Mr Disraeli seven years after his wife, in recognition of hia own services, was made a viscountess in her own right And then, in 1875, he conferred on Queen Victoria the .title of Empress of India and on himself Earl of Beaconsfield. An alien patriot in good sooth, j What subject is more fascinating than that of the " alien patriot ” ? The story extends over millenniums. Joseph the Canaanite in the Egypt of the Pharaohs cornered wheat for his adopted country. William the Norman set England on his modern road. An alien Simon tie Montfort figured prominently in the founding in Plantagenet England of the Mother of Parliaments. A Dutch alien, William of Orange, restored hope to a Stuart-ridden England. And the four Georges? The third, at least, was a patriot. In French, history the alien patriot appears in every generation, it was a Gascon Henry the Fourth who bought Paris at the cost of a Mass. An Italian Mazarin gave French monarchs the power of the Ccesars. Napoleon was a Corsican alien. The accents of Irish and Scottish aliens were to be heard in every court and camp of Europe. And even among, the Hindoos of the Carnatic and the Mestizos of- Chili there have been such un-Hindoo and un-Spanish names as Lally, and O’Higgins. After all, the term alien is a matter of mere chronology. The Pilgrim Fathers went to America as aliens; later aliens-—merely because they were ' late comers—are quarantined in Ellis Island.' The Jolm Wickliffe and the Philip Laing brought | alien patriots to Maori-owned Otago, i The Normans were aliens. The AngloSaxons were aliens before them, called aliens by alien Britons who happened to have got in sooner. The Anglo-Saxons, : too, in their racial arrogance, gave to i the older inhabitants of Wales the name of Welsh—Anglo-Saxon for alien. English and Scottish settlers in Ireland are now called aliens. If we reckon bv cosmic- standards of time, the Irish themselves arrived as aliens only a few days before. In fact, the only claim ot any nation to its land is the very unsubstantial one of a slight and negligible priority of occupancy. Says a cutting sent me by a correspondent for comment: — Dr Bridges’ claim for respect' rests not on his poetry alone.' A life-long student of language and the founder of the Society for Pure English, he has _written_ some incisive and penetrating critical essays. His concern at the divorce between the written and spoken word has been expressed m temperate .prose. ... If Great Britain does not have another Poet Laureate, there is at least the satisi faction of knowing that the last of I them was by no means the least unworthy. By no means the least unworthy! The least unworthy were Spenser, Ben j Jonson, Wordsworth, Tennyson. The least worthy were Daniel, Shadwell, Rowe, Whitehead, Pye, Above or below which of these categories does the writer place Bridges? Accumulated negatives j are a trial to the flesh. The clarifying, perspective-finding medium of Time has not dealt kindly with many of Bridges’ predecessors. Many are now forgotten. Shadwell is remembered, but only because Dryden, in discussing his contemporaries, wrote:—• The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates Into sense. “ Deviates into sense ” is good. The ghost of Dryden must have walked when Shadwell succeeded him. Dr Bridges is too close to us to be justly judged. | In time as well as in space, we must ; stand back to get a better view. Colley j Cibber, a poet laureate, was accounted i the greatest writer of hia day, while ! Shakespeare took generations to make | his way, “ Much better done in 1 Dryden ” is a marginal note by an j ambassadorial Englishman of Queen | Anne’s day in a, copy of Shakespeare’s , “ Othello.” Upon Bridges’ poetry we may provisionally adeept the following judgment by the editor of the “Augustan Book of Poetry **: — Dr Bridges can show a larger body ■ of first-rate lyrical work, flawless in inspiration and in technique, than any other living poet. But of Bridges’ other activities, in which he did not stick to hia last, there is a different tale to be told. Perhaps next ' week

Dear Civis,—l have no desire to ‘ turn your ever-interesting, ever-enter-taining column into a '‘lost and found ” department; but your recent references to Capping songs suggest the inquiry whether you or any of your readers can put finger on “ Otago Fair.” So far as I remember it was sung at one of the very early Capping concerts, and was revived some six or seven years ago. not long after the close of the Great War The song was written to the air. Die Wacht am Rhein,” and the first four lines, so far as I recall them, ■ went thus;— . Otago fair, tn shower or shine I bless the tate that made me thine; Thy hills and dales I still shall love All other hills and dales above. There were three verses, Dunedincoming in in the second, and “ Our Varsity”‘in the third. I should be grateful to you or any of your readers who could and would furnish me with the - song complete. Ex-student. I pass the request on. i Dear Civis, —I was greatly interested in your views on pronunciation in your Notes of April ,15, and would tike a tittle enlightenment on our socalled Maori word “ Otago.” , Is it a derivation of “ Otakou,” and what is the correct method of pronouncing Otakou? With the accent- on the middle syllable, or on the first as in Otapiri. Otaraia, etc.? Also, ns the Maori alphabet contains no ”1,” how do 'we come by, Waihola, Waicola, and Colac Bay? Should not these names be Waihora, Waikora, and Koraki Bay—all Maori names end with a vowel? ' Pie .Melon. My correspondent continues with a condemnation of the New Zealand pronunciation of Maori names, and an appeal to the Education Department to take steps in the matter. With this all will agree. Maori vowel sounds furnish as good a training in pronunciation as Italian. Blessings be on the head of, the Scotsman who first reduced Maori' to the English alphabet. He had learnt his Latin in Scotland, where the correct Continental pronunciation has long been in vogue. He spelt his Maori as he spelt his Latin. An Englishman did the work for Australia—an Englishman who pronounced his Latin a I’anglaiee, as they used to do in English Public Schools—and possibly still do. For this reason we have Purakanui, and not, as it would be in Australia, Pooracanooee, Is there not in Australia a barbarous Woolamporoo? To answer ” Pie Melon s ” queries seriatim; Otakou is pronounced as spelt. The last syllable is not “ cow,” but “ ko-u.” Maori accents its syllables evenly, with a slight extra stress on the first syllable. The unforgivable sin is to use the English thumping accent on any particular syllable. “Otago” is usually explained as a pakeha modification of “ Otakou.” It was to Otakou Harbour that Mr Tuckett came in 1844 in his exploring expedition in the “ Deborah.” It became. “ Otago ” in Scotland in the official deeds of ttust of ['the Lay Association (1845), and in subsequent British Parliamentary Acts. ; Had sonlehody blundered? But the i interchange of “k” and “g” is a dialectical phenomenon in Maori. We have kowha! and gowhai. Maori, further, contains no “1.” Waihola must be Waihora/ with its “ great water." Colac Bay may reasonably be Koraki Bay Maori final vowels are “ breathings ” rather than vowels—something strange to the European, who willingly drops them as in Wokatipn. All these alpha- } bet substitutions are common phenomena’ in languages. The Englishman fiummoxed by the Zulu “click” spells the, Zulu chief’s name “ Cetewayo Tetewayo ” would be a closer approximation. The name of the successful undocr of the Forty Thieves is not “ Ali Baba all. “ Ali ” should have an initial consonant, got “by trying ,to say the lowest note you can, and then to go at I least two notes lower! ” It is mmej thing an Englishman cannot spell. And (some Russian .“rs” and Czech •' rs ” are equally .beyond him. The name of, Anton Dvorak should not be allowed into a British community with an “ r ” no one can pronounce, and no one can spell. We do not take kindly to nightmares from outside. We have our own. Cras.