London

Conrad wrote about London in the Heart of Darkness: "And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth."  Yes, and not always so long ago; I recall a homeless person in London a few years back shouting to an early morning sky at near the top of his voice, "London!  You've ruined me!"

Conrad's story is related by Marlow as he sits on the ship, Nellie, resting at anchor on the Thames. Marlow speaks of it as the Romans' entrance to the island as they pushed the Pax Roman further into the darker reaches of their world, and he leaves ambiguity about time and the river:

"I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago -- the other day ...."

Was he thinking of it the other day, or was it that the Romans arrived there -- given the history of all things, their arrival being comparatively recent -- just "the other day?"  Both, probably.  In the long history of things, "We live in the flicker" Conrad says, and yet the Thames seems impervious to time, despite the changes on its banks.

T. S. Eliot spoke of the river as a "brown god."  But I can't see it as anything but an ancient king, living still and bearing daily the weight of English history upon its back.  It takes an immense liquid breath, the tide moving upstream, expanding its sides, and then -- slow hours later -- in the immense stillness of the tide's pause on some "still point of the turning world," it flows downstream again, Old Man Thames exhaling until the ribs of its banks and stony shoals are exposed.  And another day, then, has flowed in and out as humans lived out their flicker on its back or on its banks.

It is a fine thing to be on the Thames -- not least on one of the moored ships that serve as a pub. You sit with a pint in the sun and watch the boat traffic and the people and look up and down the river, hearing the sounds of the city, the water coursing by, and feeling the ship rise and fall gently on the current and the waves of passing boats.  And, like Conrad, you think of the river's history -- history from before the city was here.

One fine story about the Thames is that which regards Handel, who first conducted his "Water Music" upon the river for George I.  A number of versions exist about this performance on 17 July 1717, and the stories all agree about the musicians' barge pulling along side the royal barge and the music being played.  But my favorite version relates that Handel -- who had fallen out with George by taking his duties the king too lightly -- wrote the Water Music to appease the king.  After the entire work was performed, Handel asked if the king enjoyed it.  Yes, George indicated.  "Play it again."  Handel: "All of it?"  George: "All."  And so he did, the story goes, not twice but, on request, three times.

It's not so much a comment on how well George liked the work, but a reminder to Handel of his place as the king's servant.... 

I would like to sit upon the old king's back again, to rise with the swell or fall with the ebb.

And so...a little Water Music [Link].  (What remains a favorite bit of music that I first heard when 16 is the section from 2:04-3:00.  Get a Handel on it!)