How Can I Keep From Singing?

Two posts ago I paraphrased the first two lines of The Iliad. Well, I paraphrased Wikipedia’s translation of the first two lines. Translation can be a tricky thing. As we found out earlier this week, mistranslation can send a Secretary of State into a bit of a fit. I like Wikipedia’s version, which is a mashup of two famous translations: Richard Lattimore’s 1951 version (long a favourite of academics), and Robert Fagles’ 1990 updating (now the gold standard of the English Iliad). Lattimore’s first line begins with “Sing, goddess, the anger […],” which is the construction I used. It has an incantational flare that I like. Fagles begins more brutally with “Rage — Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,” which is more striking—it really punches you in the nose. It’s also more faithful to the original Greek. Homer’s first word is μῆνιν (menis: rage). “Sing” (ἄειδε [aeide]) is actually the second word. Fagles version strikes me as more modern, even if it is closer to what Homer wanted. Does that mean we are more like eighth century BCE folk than we were in the 1950s?

From the Greek verb “aiedo” (to sing) we get the work “ode,” which is a familiar and specific poetic form. So, I thought it might be cheery to take a look at some poems that aren’t odes, but talk about the joy of singing. I can’t sing for the life of me, but I’m blessed to have many friends that can, and so this post is for them.

The only kind of singing I can do is the kind Walt Whitman was talking about in his famous poem, “I Hear America Singing.” Here the common man doesn’t actually “sing.” They make music with their labour. We often use musical words to describe the noise of machinery. We talk about the “hum” of this or that. But here Whitman raises the language to an ecstatic level. The very act of work becomes a symphony as players throughout the nation lend their hands make its performance. I love Whitman for his unapologetic romanticization of the working class. I’m sure everyday work like this in the 1860s wasn’t so jolly, but this poem has a great “whistle while you work” ethic, even if you’re not whistling.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1885 collection, A Children’s Garden of Verses, contains some beautiful and charming nuggets. Whenever I pick it up I get excited about boring my kids to sleep with it (I occasionally have fantasies that they’ll love having me read poetry to them before bed, but, well, let’s be real). In the simply titled “Singing,” Stevenson elides the difference between birdsong, work songs, children’s songs, and busking. The multicultural angle caps of this feel-good take on music and the everyday.

Of speckled eggs the birdie sings
And nests among the trees;
The sailor sings of ropes and things
In ships upon the seas.

The children sing in far Japan,
The children sing in Spain;
The organ with the organ man
Is singing in the rain.

Our last poem is one of my all-time favourites (there are eight trillion reasons this poem is sheer genius, but I’ll restrain myself!) It, again, is not just about singing a song. In e.e. cummings’ “i love you much,” singing is the joyous sound that accompanies the arrival of someone you love. It makes me think of The Mirror Has Two Faces, which I’ve seen more times that I’d care to admit. As you may remember, hearing Puccini in your head when you’re in love plays a prominent role in that movie.

But what really kills me about this poem is the second-last stanza. Here singing still refers to that feeling you get when you see someone you love, but cummings casts a wider net, encouraging the world to get listening. It makes me think about what the beauty singing brings to the world, and about my cool friends that make that happen in my life.

i love you much(most beautiful darling)

more than anyone on the earth and i
like you better than everything in the sky

-sunlight and singing welcome your coming

although winter may be everywhere
with such a silence and such a darkness
noone can quite begin to guess

(except my life)the true time of year-

and if what calls itself a world should have
the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such
sunlight as will leap higher than high
through gayer than gayest someone's heart at your each nearness)everyone certainly would(my

most beautiful darling)believe in nothing but love

So whether you hum, whistle, or sing, make sure you take some time to make the world a little more beautiful with your “ode” today. And avoid, if at all possible, going into a “menis.”