The long Story

Long Story by Thomas Gray (1716-1771) In Britain’s Isle, no matter where, An ancient pile of buildings stands: The Huntingdons and Hattons there Employ’d the power of Fairy hands To raise the ceiling’s fretted height, Each pannel in achievements cloathing, Rich windows that exclude the light, And passages, that lead to nothing. Full oft within the spacious walls, When he had fifty winters o’er him, My grave Lord-Keeper1 led the Brawls; The Seal, and Maces, danc’d before him. His bushy beard, and shoe-strings green, His high-crown’d hat, and satin-doublet, Mov’d the stout heart of England’s Queen, Tho’ Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it. What, in the very first beginning! Shame of the versifying tribe! Your Hist’ry whither are you spinning? Can you do nothing but describe? A House there is, (and that’s enough) From whence one fatal morning issues A brace of Warriors, not in buff, But rustling in their silks and tissues. The first came cap-a-pee from France Her conqu’ring destiny fulfilling, Whom meaner beauties eye askance, And vainly ape her art of killing. The other sss kind heaven Had armed with spirit, wit, and satire: But COBHAM had the polish given And tip’d her arrows with good-nature. To celebrate her eyes, her air - Coarse panegyricks would but teaze her. Melissa is her Nom de Guerre. Alas, who would not wish to please her! With bonnet blue and capucine, And aprons long they hid their armour, And veil’d their weapons bright and keen In pity to the country-farmer. Fame, in the shape of Mr. Purt, (By this time all the parish know it) Had told, that thereabouts there lurk’d A wicked Imp they call a Poet, Who prowl’d the country far and near, Bewitch’d the children of the peasants, Dried up the cows, and lam’d the deer, And suck’d the eggs and kill’d the pheasants. My Lady heard their joint petition, Swore by her coronet and ermine, She’d issue out her high commission To rid the manour of such vermin. The Heroines undertook the task, Thro’ lanes unknown, o’er stiles they ventur’d, Rap’d at the door nor stay’d to ask, But bounce into the parlour enter’d. The trembling family they daunt, They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle, Rummage his Mother, pinch his Aunt, And up stairs in a whirlwind rattle. Each hole and cupboard they explore, Each creek and cranny of his chamber, Run hurry-skurry round the floor, And o’er the bed and tester clamber, Into the Drawers and China pry, Papers and books, a huge Imbroglio! Under a tea-cup he might lie, Or creased, like dogs-ears, in a folio. On the first marching of the troops The Muses, hopeless of his pardon, Convey’d him underneath their hoops To a small closet in the garden. So Rumour says. (Who will, believe.) But that they left the door a-jarr, Where, safe and laughing in his sleeve, He heard the distant din of war. Short was his joy. He little knew The power of Magick was no fable. Out of the window, whisk, they flew, But left a spell upon the table. The words too eager to unriddle, The poet felt a strange disorder: Transparent birdlime form’d the middle, And chains invisible the border. So cunning was the Apparatus, The powerful pothooks did so move him, That, will he, nill he, to the Great-house He went, as if the Devil drove him. Yet on his way (no sign of grace, For folks in fear are apt to pray) To Phoebus he prefer’d his case, And begged his aid that dreadful day. The Godhead would have back’d his quarrel, But, with a blush on recollection, Own’d that his quiver and his laurel ’Gainst four such eyes were no protection. The Court was sate, the Culprit there, Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping The Lady Janes and Joans repair, And from the gallery stand peeping: Such as in silence of the night Come (sweep) along some winding entry (Styack2 has often seen the sight) Or at the chappel-door stand sentry; In peaked hoods and mantles tarnish’d, Sour visages, enough to scare ye, High dames of honour once, that garnish’d The drawing-room of fierce Queen Mary. The Peeress comes. The Audience stare, And doff their hats with due submission: She curtsies, as she takes her chair, To all the people of condition. The bard with many an artful fib, Had in imagination fenc’d him, Disproved the arguments of Squib,3 And all that Groom4 could urge against him. But soon his rhetorick forsook him, When he the solemn hall had seen; A sudden fit of ague shook him, He stood as mute as poor Macleane.5 Yet something he was heard to mutter, ‘‘How in the park beneath an old-tree (Without design to hurt the butter, Or any malice to the poultry,) ‘‘He once or twice had pen’d a sonnet; Yet hop’d that he might save his bacon: Numbers would give their oaths upon it, He ne’er was for a conj’rer taken.’’ The ghostly Prudes with hagged face Already had condemn’d the sinner. My Lady rose, and with a grace - She smiled, and bid him come to dinner. ‘‘Jesu-Maria! Madam Bridget, Why, what can the Viscountess mean?’’ (Cried the square Hoods in woeful fidget) ‘‘The times are altered quite and clean! ‘‘Decorum’s turned to mere civility; Her air and all her manners show it. Commend me to her affability! Speak to a Commoner and Poet!’’ [Here 500 Stanzas are lost.] And so God save our noble King, And guard us from long-winded Lubbers, That to eternity would sing, And keep my Lady from her Rubbers. Gray’s own notes: 1. Hatton, prefer’d by Queen Elizabeth for his graceful Person and fine Dancing. 2. The House-Keeper. 3. Groom of the Chambers. 4. The Steward. 5. A famous Highwayman hang’d the week before. (The Works of Thomas Gray in Prose and Verse, edited by Edmund Gosse, 4 vols. London, Macmillan and Co., 1912. Vol 1, p 81.) * * * How long should a poem be? Gray himself never wrote, or at least never completed, any really large-scale poem, and was conscious of being a writer of short, intense lyrics. In this he was modern: the epics of the classical world, the mediaeval verse romances, the stories of Chaucer, the rambling popular ballads, and the huge narratives of the Renaissance are types of poetry not written any more, but they are what poetry used to be, and in Gray’s Long Story, which is of course really a very short story, all of these forms are duly acknowledged. So there is an epic touch, when the Muses spirit the poet away from his Amazonian assault like those guardian deities in Homer who remove their favourite heroes from the battlefield. The protests against the poem, which cause the poet to change tack, What, in the very first beginning! Shame of the versifying tribe! - are like the protests of the Canterbury Pilgrims against Chaucer, which cause him to abandon completely his Tale of Sir Thopas. The two Amazons, setting out on their quest in full armour, are mediaeval knights errant, but also remind us of Tasso’s Clorinda. (Gray translated a passage of the Gerusalemme Liberata into English heroic couplets.) The stanza form of four lines with alternate rhymes reminds us of an anonymous ballad. The very last stanza, with its health to the King, And so God save our noble King, And guard us from long-winded Lubbers, That to eternity would sing, And keep my Lady from her Rubbers. is a deliberate echo of the ending of Chevy Chase, God save our king, and bless this land With plenty, joy, and peace, And grant henceforth that foul debate Twixt noble men may cease. The ancient pile, from which the events of the poem issue, is itself the symbol of an over-long story. A panel in achievements clothing is an architectural feature, painted or plastered with stories of its owners’ histories. The excess of stained glass in the rich windows keep the light out rather than letting it through, as if the stories they tell confuse rather than enlighten the viewer. The passages, leading to nothing, are passages in a book that lead the reader nowhere as well as the warren of corridors in a huge old house. A too long description of this house is therefore the too long telling of the story that any house can tell. The Long Story is both a short poem, that might have been longer, but, in view of the statement that 500 stanzas are lost, a long poem, that mercifully has been made shorter. Throughout, there is the hint that the story was not worth the telling, and that even if told, will soon bore. The idea of poetic length is important because the poem is about the poet being pursued for his poetic celebrity, a celebrity that was, as Gray well knew, based on a small number of small poems. * Gray’s editor, Gosse, in his life of Gray (1882), explains the real story that lies behind the Long Story. Lady Cobham, of the Manor House, Stoke Poges, had been informed by a Rev Robert Purt that a neighbour of hers was Mr Thomas Gray, the well-known poet. So in 1751 Lady Cobham sent her niece, Miss Harriet Speed, and a certain Lady Schaub, to Gray’s house to effect an introduction. Gray was not at home and they left a note. He returned their call, which led to a friendship with Lady Cobham that lasted until her death, and with her niece that lasted at least until she married. Gosse provides us with enough candid information about Gray for it to be possible to construct some interesting theories about his sexuality, but of course as a Victorian writer he never makes any such deductions himself. Rather he tries to throw us off the scent. (For example, Gray’s ‘effeminacy’, noted by a number of his contemporaries, Gosse tells us we have to understand to mean ‘fastidiousness’.) Suffice it say that women, as portrayed in the poem, are very threatening indeed. In the third stanza, Lord Keeper Hatton, an earlier owner of the manor, is a parody of the poet himself. An aging man in a ludicrous costume, he is made to dance for a queen whom the Spanish Armada could not frighten. (A brawl was an ancient dance.) He is part gigolo, part fool. The warlike Queen Elizabeth is followed by the warlike brace of warriors, who go in pursuit of the poet. They are not in buff. This may mean they are not in military leathers, or may mean they are not n***d. If the former, their hidden armour is the metal they wear under their clothes. If the latter, their physical charms. Both need to be hidden from the farmer, who might be frightened by one, embarrassed by the other. Number one (Lady Schaub) comes, like the word cap-a-pee (cap-à-pied), from France. She is head to foot in armour, like Hamlet’s father’s ghost. Number two (Harriet Speed) is somewhat less ferocious of aspect. Even so her good nature is used as the metal heads of her arrows, or perhaps the poison with which the tips of the arrows are smeared. Issuing like St George to kill the dragon, we find a poet more like Robin Goodfellow than a monster ravaging the countryside. So at least he had been represented by Mr Purt, and by Fame - together they make up a joint petition - to My Lady (Lady Cobham), although the news was already stale, (By this time all the parish know it) According to Gosse, Mr Purt was most offended by his treatment in the poem. But we now witness the transformation of the two knights-errant into overwhelming society ladies, They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle, Rummage his Mother, pinch his Aunt, - then into a pair of romping girls out of control in the poet’s bedroom, Run hurry-skurry round the floor, And o’er the bed and tester clamber, and finally into witches, Out of the window, whisk, they flew, But left a spell upon the table. The poet, meanwhile, cowers in an outhouse. * Drawn to the Manor by the women’s magic, the poet finds himself on trial. Queen Mary displaces Queen Elizabeth, and we move 200 years back from Gray’s 18th century to the atmosphere of a treason trial or heresy trial of the b****y Tudor period. More exactly, it is a witchcraft trial with sexes reversed. The poet, stumbling through his defence, stands before a tribunal of The Lady and her high dames of honour, while the lesser Janes and Joans crowd out the public gallery. But instead of a burning, the poet is offered a dinner invitation, much to horror of the other ladies present, who, with antique oaths, bemoan civility replacing that due decorum which preserves the distinctions of rank. * * * Back to the index The fat man had his arm around Adejo's uncle's neck like they were old friends, every now and then pulling him closer when there was some particular part of the song he felt he needed to share more intimately, singing into his uncle's ear and making him smile in a way that looked painful. Whoever the fat man was – and Adejo couldn't imagine his uncle ever being friends with a white person – he seemed to be the only one who knew the words of the song (that Adejo thought might be Irish, but then he hadn't heard Irish before, at least he didn't think so), blasting out the lyrics with a viciousness that made him look like he wished he had something to kick while he was singing. Adejo still wasn't quite sure how his uncle had got caught up with the two wedding guests in the first place. He had never been to a wedding before and had been excited until his uncle made it clear that they weren't really going to the wedding. 'We're just going to the kitchen, to pick up the bags. We won't even see the wedding. I'm sorry Adejo. You'll hear it though. I can promise you that.' For a while it seemed that they wouldn't even hear the wedding, let alone see it, because when his uncle parked the van and went to the steel door that led to the kitchen it wouldn't open, no matter how many times his uncle tried pressing different numbers into the pad on the wall. In the end they had to go through the front doors of the hotel (clearly an option of last resort evidenced by his uncle's mutterings beneath his breath), although Adejo felt as if he was entering a palace. The floor was tiled with shiny stone, with four pillars (pillars, inside!) that stretched up before disappearing into a high ceiling. 'Come on Adejo, keep up! And please don't touch anything.' The rumble of music and voices got louder the further they walked down the corridor, and when his uncle opened the doors at the end a sound hit Adejo the way the cold had slapped him that first time he got off the plane at the airport. The sound was outrageous, and Adejo immediately covered his ears to try and block out the blur of music and voices, before ducking as flashing coloured lights cut through the gloom as if a flying saucer was about to crash land on top of him. He kept close to his uncle as they weaved between huge round tables draped with white cloth. They were like giant versions of the mints Adejo's uncle had in the van, only they were speckled with stains both dark and pale. A middle-aged woman watched him with one diseased looking eye as he passed, as a younger man kissed her hard while sharing her chair. An old man stirred a thin, plastic stick around his tall glass while examining something at the bottom of it. He passed another table, where a girl his own age sat alone looking at something on either a huge phone or a tiny TV she held in her hands, the images from the screen painting her face an ever-changing palette of muted colours. Adejo tried to sneak a peek, but his uncle grabbed his arm and dragged him on before he had the chance. The kitchen was as bright as the big room was dark, a blaze of quivering florescent lights and shiny metal surfaces. A thin man with the dishevelled appearance of an artist wore a food splattered apron as he wiped the surfaces with a cloth, creating smeary waves that adorned everything he touched. Adejo's uncle asked the thin man something, and he pointed them deeper into the kitchen. The air felt sticky, like it had been bundled up, fried in oil, and then released back into the atmosphere. They hadn't gone far when Adejo's uncle reached a huddle of black bags at the back of the room. He lifted one and thrust it unceremoniously in Adejo's direction. It was bulging and heavy, and it almost dragged Adejo down to the floor, but he managed to wrestle it back up with sufficient manly qualities that he hoped would impress his uncle on what was his first night at work. Adejo was keen to prove his worth. He didn't want these first impressions to be clouded by sympathy. With Adejo wrestling one black bag his uncle effortlessly carried the other three, before two men on the dance floor (the fat man and his emaciated sidekick), blocked his path, the skinny one snatching a bag from his uncle's grip that he was now swinging around like he and the bag were old lovers. Adejo slunk into the seat that the kissing couple had vacated. Numerous drinks had been abandoned on the table, and with no obvious claims of ownership in the vicinity Adejo was tempted to take a furtive sip from the glass nearest to him. He suddenly felt overwhelmed by thirst, whether from the suffocating heat in the room or the sickly kitchen smells now lodged in his throat. But just then Adejo was distracted by the sight of his uncle managing to break free of the commotion, and after a mildly aggressive game of tug-of-war with the bag dancer, his uncle persuaded him to relinquish his dancing partner. Adejo couldn't hear what was being said, but suddenly the bag dancer was shouting while trying not to fall over, and the fat man – who only a second ago had been hugging Adejo's uncle – was now jabbing a finger at him, his face all rashy and sweaty. But at least his uncle had the bag back, and was now moving away from the dance floor, a quick glance at Adejo confirming his own suspicions that now was probably a good time for him to move too. There was a risk that the same shiny floors they were now navigating in the opposite direction would scupper Adejo's delicate balancing act, his hands carefully cradling the hidden glass pressed against his skin beneath his jumper. He tried to keep pace with his uncle who marched in front of him, dragging the black bags around one of the pillars before the glass doors miraculously separated upon some unseen command. It was only now, in the clear air outside, that the fug of filth fermenting inside the bags hit Adejo. And only now that Adejo realised that he didn't have his bag; that he had left it back on the floor by the table. 'Where is it?' his uncle said, reading his nephew's mind as if turning the pages of a children's book. 'The bag I gave you?' 'I ... eh ... I'm sorry Uncle Kayin, I ... I think I left it where I was sitting.' Adejo had never heard his uncle curse. What made it worse was that he cursed in Hausa. And what made it worse again was that he struck his fist off the back of the van. Adejo thought his uncle might swear again, and follow up by striking him instead of the hard metallic surface of the vehicle, an act Adjeo thought would be appropriate to the sense of guilt he was feeling. He'd only known his Uncle Kayin two weeks, but sensed that a man who turned the radio up full blast to sing-a-long to a song he liked ('A great way to learn English Adejo!' he had shouted on the drive down) wasn't usually prone to acts of violence, let alone repeated acts. At least Adejo hoped not. After all, this was 'The Great Example' Adejo's mother had spoken of with such adoration. Yet now the legend seemed diminished in the flesh, reality rendering his uncle fallible no matter how glorious the reputation preceding him. The status of being known as 'The Great Example' had even overshadowed his first name, Uncle Kayin. In fact, it was only when Adejo learned that he was to follow in his uncle's footsteps that he heard the real name of his mother's brother, the living proof that the journey could not only be endured, but that it could end in glory. ‘What’s wrong with your stomach?' his uncle asked, the keys to the van jangling nervously in his hand. 'It's okay,' Adejo said, ‘It just hurts a bit.’ convinced that the sweat-slicked glass might slip from its hiding place at any moment and shatter at their feet. 'Suck on a mint,' Uncle Kayin said, plopping the keys into Adejo's free palm. 'I think there's one left.' Adejo nodded. He hoped his uncle might tell him it was 'okay' or offer him a 'no harm done', but he said nothing, before turning and trudging back towards the hotel, a weary figure swallowed by the darkness before reemerging in the ballooning light of the entrance. With his uncle gone Adejo sat sucking the last mint in the passenger seat of the van as instructed (it was the least he could do), debating where he could get rid of the glass that he could see now had the filter of a smoked cigarette floating in it. He'd drunk worse – much worse – but now his curiosity about the golden liquid buoying the butt no longer held any appeal, and any thirst he'd used to justify taking the glass in the first place was being eased by the mint, a thirst that he had no right to indulge in the first place. Adejo was disgusted with himself that he'd disappointed his uncle, and surely blown any chance he ever had of accompanying him on another job. His uncle had even bestowed a level of responsibility on him that he was surely expected to uphold, a pact of trust that Adejo had betrayed in an instant by leaving the bag behind. The beer swirled round and round in the glass, Adejo increasing the pace until the surface level of the liquid repeatedly broke over the butt, drowning it again and again. Each time it tried to fight its way back up Adejo realised just how helpless their plight must have been that night, their solitary boat alone in the dark while nature or God or fate or bad luck toyed with their lives, dragging them under, then letting them rise again, dragging them under, then letting them rise again, with the roof of each new wave collapsing on their heads until the roar of the water had silenced the screams of the dying. When the boat went over, tilting on one side as the welter of human bodies moved as one to see the distant coastline twinkling like a line in the constellations, the glee of sighting land in the murky gleam of dawn was crushed by the crank of metal lifting and a great swoosh of water rushing away from the hull. For a moment Adejo was in the sky, as if looking out from a tall building over the ocean, but then he was falling as quickly as he had risen, tossed with hundreds of others in the collective splay of arms and legs as their once condensed bodies were suddenly being dispersed in a spray of screams. The crest of a wave had risen up to meet Adejo as he struck it, landing on his back atop the watery peak. The ocean opened up for him as it did for others all around him, perfectly sized perforations for the bodies that peppered the surface. Beneath the water line Adejo saw a woman with a shawl around her neck and her single exposed breast glowing in the gloom like a beacon. Others thrashed their limbs in various failed combinations in the hope they might trick their bodies into the virgin act of swimming, yet one boy kicked to the surface with an ease that suggested he had been born in the depths, while all around him others started to sink helplessly, their tightly sealed mouths now giving way to gurgling screams, a flush of bubbles the last thing Adejo ever saw of them before a hand grabbed him. The air met his lungs on the surface, assaulting them with fresh life while the man who had lifted him there was already diving again. Adejo never saw him rise; losing sight of the spot where he had descended; the constant churn of waves erasing it as soon as it had been created. Adejo clung on at the point the man had dragged him to: a section of the hull of the capsized boat. To his right others clung on with equally precarious grips, a herd of bodies fighting for traction, some winning, some losing. The waters nearest to Adejo were empty. Distant screams still cut through the air, but he could see no one. There was the unmistakable cry of a child calling for its mother (Adejo unsure if it was a boy or a girl), but then that stopped too. The wind fell silent again and there was no sound bar the pitch of the ocean, but soon even it grew calm, as if exhausted by what had just unfolded. And then an aftermath of weeping rose; far worse and more painful to listen to. Adejo felt the hull slip, and he slipped with it. He just about managed to hold on, but was now deeper in the water. That's when the collective panic got a second airing, the shrieks rising again as those who had made it this far realised that the boat was moments from submitting to the whims of gravity, and to cling on to the hull for much longer would be to risk being dragged to the bottom of the ocean. But while the terrible final fate of the boat seemed inevitable, Adejo was determined that his own wouldn't be so clear-cut. He would find something else to help him float. And if not, he would surely die. He slipped free of the hull and prayed his lungs wouldn't betray him, and that neither would his God—at least not twice on the same night. And he dived. He dived under the upturned boat, the underwater cavern that was the deck now arching over his head as he swam up through the swirl of debris and drifting bodies. He tried not to look at faces, or to get struck by limbs. He knew anything that could float would have risen to the surface; to the air trap that had been created at the summit of the waves. On he swam, grateful for being a child that had grown up by the sea, and to his mother who had never been prone to the fears the water held for so many others. And despite it all, still grateful that she had risked everything to send him, her only child, to be the next 'Great Example'. He wouldn't let her down. The tendrils of four dangling legs announced the presence of the air trap Adejo had been praying for, and his head burst through the surface membrane and his lungs heaved and gasped for all it had been denied. An old Arab man and a girl turned to face him. 'It's sinking! It's sinking!' Adejo cried, but his words made no sense to them, and neither did his frantic downward pointing. The girl clung to a blue cooler box, shivering in the air trap's chilly microclimate. Her grandfather held on to a section of the hawser, his arms wrapped around it as if he was battling with a mythical sea snake he had managed to subdue. It was just the three of them. And then it was the girl's turn to point, but not downwards like Adejo, but behind him, to the prize she knew he was surely seeking; a splintered chunk of wood from the top of a door—a float. It had been cleanly broken, snapped into a near-perfect plank and surely small enough to wrestle back through the water before carrying Adejo to the real surface, to where the air wasn't limited and time wasn't running out so fast. Tigger Warning: Suicide, Violence, Swearing "It's like flying." She said as I peered down at the two dead bodies laying on the ground below me. I was one of the four who decided to jump instead. The unlucky four who didn't escape. "Well?" Well what? You're asking me to jump off a f*****g building. "Together?" I ask "No, you go first." What does that mean? Is she really going to chicken out? She was the one who so readily agreed to the idea. "What?" "You go first." "No." "Why?" "What do you mean why?" I can feel the anger inside of me I can't do this! "you go first!" the fat man has his hands around adejo's uncle's neck like they were old friends. Every now..