Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

doesn’t know. And here comes the theme of the apple:
“They that claimed it then were three:
(
O Troy Town!
)
For thy sake two hearts did he
Make forlorn of the heart’s desire.
Do for him as he did for thee!
(
O Troy’s down,
Tall Troy’s on fire!
)
    “
Los que pretendieron esta copa eran tres
. . . ” [“They that claimed it then were three . . . ”] They are rivals, and only one will remain in the end. “
¿Por qué hay derecho de que dos corazones sean despojados del anhelo del amor?
” [“For thy sake two hearts did he / Make forlorn of the heart’s desire.”]
“Mine are apples grown to the south,
(
O Troy Town!
)
Grown to taste in the days of drouth,
Taste and waste to the heart’s desire:
Mine are apples meet for his mouth.”
(
O Troy’s down,
Tall Troy’s on fire!
)
    “
Las mías son manzanas que crecen hacia el sur, / para gustar en los días de la sequía. / Las mías son manzanas dignas de su boca.
”
Venus looked on Helen’s gift,
(
O Troy Town!
)
Looked and smiled with subtle drift,
Saw the work of her heart’s desire:—
“There thou kneel’st for Love to lift!”
(
O Troy’s down,
Tall Troy’s on fire!
)
Venus looked in Helen’s face,
(
O Troy Town!
)
Knew far off an hour and place,
And fire lit from the heart’s desire;
Laughed and said, “Thy gift hath grace!”
(
O Troy’s down,
Tall Troy’s on fire!
)
Cupid looked on Helen’s breast,
(
O Troy Town!
)
Saw the heart within its nest,
Saw the flame of the heart’s desire,—
Marked his arrow’s burning crest.
(
O Troy’s down,
Tall Troy’s on fire!
)
Cupid took another dart,
(
O Troy Town!
)
Fledged it for another heart,
Winged the shaft with the heart’s desire,
Drew the string and said, “Depart!”
(
O Troy’s down,
Tall Troy’s on fire!
)
Paris turned upon his bed,
(
O Troy Town!
)
Turned upon his bed and said,
Dead at heart with the heart’s desire—
“Oh to clasp her golden head!”
(
O Troy’s down,
Tall Troy’s on fire!
)
    In these lines, Helen is passionate, begging for love. Paris is asleep, but at the end it says: “
Oh, ¡quién pudiera abrazar su cabeza de oro!”
And then at the very end, the final refrain: “
O Troy’s down, / Tall Troy’s on fire!
”
    In the next class we will talk about William Morris.

CLASS 22

    THE LIFE OF WILLIAM MORRIS. THE THREE SUBJECTS WORTHY OF POETRY. KING ARTHUR AND THE MYTH OF THE RETURN OF THE HERO. MORRIS'S INTERESTS. MORRIS AND CHAUCER. "THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE."

    WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1966
    Today we will talk about a colleague of Rossetti’s who was also involved in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This is the poet William Morris. His dates are 1834 to 1896. He was good friends with Rossetti,Burne-Jones, Swinburne, Hunt, and other members of the group. Morris was essentially different from Rossetti. Their only similarity is that both were great poets. But Rossetti, as we have seen, was a neurotic man who led a tragic life; he was one to whom tragic events happened. It is enough to remember the suicide of his wife, his solitude at the end, his reclusion, and more to the point, his own suicide. It is also said that Rossetti never went to Italy—he insisted on being English—and that when speaking—never in writing—he commonly used cockney, London slang. Nevertheless, he felt confined in England, though in Italy, he would undoubtedly have felt exiled from London, a city he greatly loved.
    On the other hand, Morris’s life is that of an almost incredibly active man, a man interested in many things. Not in the way of a man like Goethe, for example, but rather, in a practical, active, even commercial way. If William Morris had not exercised the art of poetry, he would still be remembered for his many and energetic activities in other fields.
    “Morris” is a Welsh last name. This fact seems unimportant, but we will soon see that there is something paradoxical in this, for William Morris ended up writing in an almost purely Saxon English—within what was possible in the nineteenth century—and he introduced—or tried to introduce—Norse voices into the literary English of his era.
    Morris belonged to what we would now call a middle-class family. He was born on the outskirts of London, he studied architecture and drawing, and then dedicated himself to painting. But Morris’s mind was too curious to stop for long on only one activity. He studied in Oxford, where he was a contributor to
Oxford’s Magazine
, publishing poems and stories. 1