Friday 8 November 2019

Anderson, Flecker And Chesterton

Rogue Sword, CHAPTER II.

"'He maintains a headquarters on Cyprus... the merchants there center in Famagusta...'" (p. 44)

"'...they were called simply Gaiours or Franks.'" (p. 51)

And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,

And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and


I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
-copied from here.

Poul Anderson's references to Famagusta and "Giaours" evoke poems by James Elroy Flecker and GK Chesterton.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Alas, I've not read any of the works of Flecker except the bits you quoted in this blog. And I love Chesterton's poem about Don John of Austria and that noble but "lean and foolish knight". It reminds me of what Anderson said about the madness and the nobility alike of Iberia in ROGUE SWORD.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
And the bits of Flecker quoted by Anderson and Stirling (and Gaiman).
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I should have remembered those writers as well!

Ad astra! Sean