A writer's diary

On Latin, Merlin, Marlowe and Ivy Compton-Burnett

I am writing another children’s book, which means, of course, that I am not really writing at all. Instead, I have fallen prey to one of the novelist’s worst tendencies, worse, perhaps, than procrastination, alcoholism, or block. I blame E M Forster, and his pat motto, “only connect.” I am in a magical state: I am seeing the world as if it is all connected, and if only I could understand the master connections, the entirety of my novel would fall into place.

Consumed by the fire of research, I follow trails here and there; perversely, with more ardour the less they have to do with the subject of my children’s novel, feeling that somehow, everything fits together into a giant, satisfying puzzle. It is as if Casaubon had been given free reign on the internet, and I don’t even have a Dorothea to write everything down. Looking into the etymology of the name of the wizard Merlin (there are reasons for this to do with my new book), I found myself wondering how Latin might have been taught in the mediaeval period. How would Arturus Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus construe his verbs?

Three days later, I am armed with an immensely detailed knowledge of how both Latin and Greek were imparted in schools in England from the mediaeval period onwards, and I have truffled out the fascinating fact that William Lily (the author of Lily’s Grammar, which was the standard school text in England for four centuries, until it was replaced by the redoubtable Kennedy’s, still in use today: so successful was Lily’s Grammar, that its original printer was able to leave substantial property to his widow) went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; on his way back, he stopped off to learn ancient Greek in Rhodes, from people who had fled Constantinople.

This kind of connection sends fiery bolts up and down my synapses. It isn’t too much to say that it left me feeling breathless. It is already almost too much for me to bear to have both my father’s Latin grammar book on my shelf, and my wife’s grandmother’s school copy of Cicero’s letters: the words and methods they learned hardly different from the way that I learned, or that my son is learning now. The thought that the Kennedy that I, and they, learned our Latin from, was based on Lily, who had conversations with actual refugees who fled the actual fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, is absolutely dizzying in its implications. There are the glittering lances, there is the purple chamber. We are but a hop and a skip from the Byzantine Emperors, the general Belisarius, and the Eagle Standards of the Roman armies themselves. Who said Latin was dead?

William Lily, of course, was the grandfather of the playwright John Lyly, whose Euphues both coins a phrase (euphuism) and remains resolutely unread, even by graduates; and from there it’s a straight shot into the distracting pleasures of Shakespeare, Marlowe and all the rest of that dazzling coterie of Bankside playwrights. What’s so lovely about delving into the teaching of Latin is the realisation that even the best of them got it wrong. Christopher Marlowe (who, incidentally, sometimes spelled his name Merlin), in his translation of Ovid, makes an absolute howler, if you’ll excuse the pun. The Latin is ’Plena venit canis de grege praeda lupis’.

He gives ‘From dog-kept flocks come preys to wolves most grateful’. Where he got the “most grateful” from I have no idea; still worse is his translation of “canis”, as a form of the noun meaning “dog”. It is in fact from ‘canus’, meaning ‘hoary’, and is ablative plural, going with ‘lupis’. I well can imagine a schoolmaster clipping him round the ear. It’s more properly construed as follows: the subject is ‘praeda’, and agreeing with it is ‘plena’ - ‘A full prize’. The verb is ‘venit’, so ‘a full prize comes’, and then we fill in the rest - ‘de grege’, ‘from the flock’, and ‘canis lupis’, ‘to the hoary wolves.’ Did Merlin the wizard castigate Arthur the king, before walking him through the Latin in this kind of way? I rather expect that he did.

Marlowe, of course, was the son of a shoemaker, and Shakespeare the son of a glover; both were upwardly mobile. As was the novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett, the daughter of a doctor, who was herself a Classicist (she studied at Royal Holloway, where, a century later, I taught - you see how hard it is to stop?), and whose mother inserted the hyphen between the otherwise undistinguished Compton and Burnett. It was, apparently, pronounced Cumpton Burnit, which accounts for a lot.

I attended a talk about her novels, given by Richard Davenport-Hines; in the audience was the classicist Robin Lane Fox, who told me that he’d known Ivy as a young boy, and had gone to her house for tea. The scones, he rememembered, were very stale. I’ve become a convert to her books: malicious, gripping and acerbic, you have to pay very close attention in case you miss an infanticide or an elopement. The one I’m reading at the moment, More Women than Men, published in 1933, has both a lesbian couple and a very overt gay couple. Immensely influenced by Greek tragedy, as Lane Fox pointed out, particularly by the stichomythia, or quick-fire single lines of dialogue, they yet remain resolutely modern. It’s about time she had a revival. I would try to start one myself, only now I want to discover what modern writers helped shape her inimitable style. Just give me a couple of months, and I’m sure I’ll have it.

There is a character in a Simon Raven novel - I’m not going to look him up, because, well, you know - who decides that he wants to know everything about everyone. He sets up agents in all sorts of places, and has them writing letters to him concerning people's movements and interests. In the end, he goes mad with it all. Sometimes I wonder if all novelists are like that: the need to consume information, and to process it, can feel overwhelming. We see a real life story, and we start thinking: but why did that happen? What was the cause? What would have happened if it had gone differently? And before you know it, you’re reading about the dissipation of the Holy Roman Empire.

I’m sure that Merlin comes into it somewhere. He did, after all, live for ever. Lucky chap.

IN OTHER NEWS

I recently reviewed Ben Markovits’ new novel, The Rest of Our Lives, for The Times Literary Supplement.

And remember I was reading the new Edward St Aubyn? My review came out on Saturday in the Telegraph. It’s here: I’m afraid it was very disappointing.