Reading:
Euterpe in Moravia "You stand behind every note, you, living, forceful, loving. The fragrance of your body, the glow of your kisses – no, really of mine. Those notes of mine kiss all of you. They call for you passionately..." Leoš Jánaček I listen to a string quartet, the ‘Intimate Letters’ of Jánaček: Haunting wisps of violin uncurl in sadness, to vanish as in morning Mist; gentle viola song, lullaby for son who could never be; Rhythms for rustic peasant dancers, pleasures they could never share; That falling phrase that ends in silence, longed-for kiss on a lover’s neck, Who can plumb the depth of suffering in that gulf between love Denied its issue and the magic of this keening melody? And what frustrated passion hides behind those savage chords? For all those seven hundred letters, no one’s understood the words. But who was this woman, Euterpe of last-century Moravia, The One whose very being inspired love To blaze unbounded in old age and cause such pain? We’ve no need of memoirs to call-up her pulchritude. Kamilla’s face was caught on early camera. Despite her wan expression of inward, Kafka angst, She all the while enjoyed a happy motherhood. He, misunderstood, wrote out his misery in solitude. Estranged from an equally unhappy wife - An earlier adventure, cause of marital strife - Made worse by the loss of a beloved daughter And the sheer impossibility of fruitful outcome, Given that this Ideal incarnate was some Four decades younger than her would-be swain: Her very unattainability fired such inspiration As bounteous consummation could not better. What is it then that artists down the generations Have sought in youthful bodies? What romantic joys In hopeless and humiliating love affairs Did they strive to capture at such cost? Lost creative selves reborn with new-found rapture? Or did they merely camouflage their lustful last hurrahs As hymns to half-remembered adolescent girls or boys? In my case, years have put a stop to daydreams Though I’ve found no need to say, ‘Alas’. For no fictive beauty can surpass The one I see each day. Fortunate are they Who live their lives with that first loveliness unchanged. For them no need for foolish gestures or for endless longing: Heaven, Hell and Purgatory folded into one clandestine yearning. No need lament those fantasies that they could never have However eloquent with blocked desire might be their legacy. But think of what great music we’d have lost If all creative minds had picked their Muses wisely!
Peter Lloyd Jones 