At the end of a book I came across a mention of E.V. Rieu. He was born in London and was the son of Charles Pierre Henri Reiu an Orientalist. E.V. Rieu was a scholar much like his father, and was associated with Oxford.
During the blitz in London he was translated the Odyssey, which started a Penguin Book series on the classics. The book was published in 1946 and according to his son, “[h]is vision was to make available to the ordinary reader, in good modern English, the great classics of every language.”[3]
I can’t help think of him sitting at his desk working on his translation. The air cool outside. He has moved it from the window, to prevent glass from blowing inward. He is making a translation while buzz bombs rained down on london. It is said that he made the translation, while reading it out loud to his wife and children. I can imagine them sitting behind the couch turned towards the wall.
I imagine it like this. He scribbles a few lines, reads the results to his family. There is a sound in the sky, omnious and strange as it echoes through the sky.
It had a tearing, rasping sound…describe as a “two-stroke” motorcycle engine. You could hear it fly over London, and most would listen for the engine to cut off for that is when the bomb will fall. Imagine it like an early version of a cruise missile, or like a flying motorcycle filled with explosives that finds its way over your town, runs out of gas and plummets to the earth to reek havoc and death. I imagine that people would count off the seconds before the explosion.
“1…2…3…4…5…6…BOOM!”
He writes a few more lines: “Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy…”
“That is very nice,” whispers his wife.
The sound of the buzz bomb comes in through the window. She looks up from her sewing and looks to the window, the girls look to the window as well.
“1…2…3…4…5…6…BOOM!”
Sirens and fire engine bells ring in the distance. Tommorrow you may read of a shopping center going up in flames.
E.V. Rieu speaks again. He wants his family to look back to him, to leave the war outside the window and listen to his words: “…Now all the rest… were at home, safe from both war and sea, but Odysseus alone, filled with longing for his return and for his wife…”
He feels her hand reach out and touch his.
In your last few entry s have struck me, but I am filled with a hesitant feeling not knowing you well, I know to keep my distance in what I say, and so will do may best to talk around what I would say directly if I knew you. For in one of your entries you spoke of what I have hear from friends who have left the service and is adjusting to the world with out the order the military gives to life (here I know I know I am on the most shaky ground),, the use of the scribe is also telling and you find a touch stone in the image for I feel you know how loaded that image is in some many levels. I can only know dimly your life and past. But if the images that are part of your site and some of the episodes reveille that you are one of the brotherhood of the green, and old solders no matter what always have time and no matter what time for for them. I may not have eloquent words but I have the luxury to listen and until I fade I will look forward to read not just those thoughts of the your thoughts on the classic world and how they intertwine with your own.
I am more story teller than historian, but I think everything is story telling.
Don’t get me wrong, what I do at ARR respects the facts above all. If there was a modern stone god dedicated to “facts and truth” I would have it, and display it next to the scribe.
I value your listening, and appreciate the career you dedicated your life to. I wish I went that route.