‘A tale is but half told when only one person tells it.’
THE SAGA OF GRETTIR
Under the almost crepuscular lighting
in the British Library’s Gallery
endowed by Sir John Ritblat (London
property developer, Tory donor,
philanthropist) among the treasures displayed –
including ‘Beowulf’, the Magna Carta,
Gutenberg’s Bible, Da Vinci’s notebook,
Handel’s ‘Messiah’, the Beatles’ lyrics –
are three pairs of Jane Austen’s spectacles
and a first edition of ‘Paradise Lost’.
Close to Bloomsbury’s traffic-congested heart,
about half a mile from the Library,
is Woburn Walk, a short, pedestrianised,
cobbled, late Georgian shopping street,
designed with first and second floor lodgings –
named after Woburn Abbey, the country seat
of the first landlord, the Duke of Bedford.
The poet, William Butler Yeats, has been
blue-plaqued at what is now Number 5.
Number 16 is a small, well established,
family run, Bangladeshi restaurant
with British staples – like papadoms,
prawn vindaloo, chicken tikka masala.
Tonight the two tables by the window
have been pushed together. The seven diners
are Icelanders – enjoying the curries,
and speaking the language of the forty five
sagas, like the one about the outlaw
poet. I wonder what Willie Yeats
and his pals, Tom Eliot and Ezra Pound –
and Milton and Austen for that matter –
would have made of all or any of this,
not least a mongrel bard like me.
By David Selzer