Watchman, What is Left of the Night?

Here's another song by Francesco Guccini with translation from the Italian (interleaved) supplied by my brother-in-law Jonathan Benison:

Shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell
Watchman, what is left of the night?
Watchman, why you don't answer my questions?
Watchman, why am I lost in a silent, red, stony desert?
Watchman, why the darkness is only broken by the lightening of my rage?
Watchman, why you don't let me in?
Don't you know that I can only hear weak echoes from the past?
Watchman, do you really know when the day will break?
Watchman, is your answer too big for my heart?
[based on Isaiah 21:11-12]

La notte è quieta senza rumore, c'è solo il suono che fa il silenzio
e l' aria calda porta il sapore di stelle e assenzio,
le dita sfiorano le pietre calme calde d' un sole, memoria o mito,
il buio ha preso con se le palme, sembra che il giorno non sia esistito...

The night is quiet without a noise, there is only the sound of silence
and the warm air brings the taste of stars and wormwood,
the fingers skim over the calm stones warmed by a sun, memory or myth,
the darkness took with it the palms, looks like the day has never existed...

Io, la vedetta, l'illuminato, guardiano eterno di non so cosa
cerco, innocente o perchè ho peccato, la luna ombrosa
e aspetto immobile che si spanda l'onda di tuono che seguirà
al lampo secco di una domanda, la voce d'uomo che chiederà:
Shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell ...

I, the watchman, the enlightened, eternal warden of something I do not know,
I seek, innocent or because I sinned, the shady moon
and I wait immobile for the thunder wave to spread in the wake
of a lightning sharp question, the voice of a man who will ask:

Shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell...

Watchman, what is left of the night?

Sono da secoli o da un momento fermo in un vuoto in cui tutto tace,
non so più dire da quanto sento angoscia o pace,
coi sensi tesi fuori dal tempo, fuori dal mondo sto ad aspettare
che in un sussurro di voci o vento qualcuno venga per domandare...

I have been standing for centuries or for just a moment in an emptiness where everything is still,
I cannot say since when I feel anguish or peace,
with my senses on edge, out of time, out of the world, I keep waiting in case
within a whisper of voices or of the wind, somebody will come to ask...

(Shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell ...)
e li avverto, radi come le dita, ma sento voci, sento un brusìo
e sento d' essere l' infinita eco di Dio
e dopo, innumeri come sabbia, ansiosa e anonima oscurità,
ma voce sola di fede o rabbia, notturno grido che chiederà:

and I am aware of them, sparse like fingers, but I hear voices, I hear a buzz
and I feel I am the infinite echo of God
and afterwards, uncountable like grains of sand, anxious and anonymous darkness,
but only a voice of faith or rage, a cry in the night asking:

Shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell
shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell
shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell...

Watchman, what is left of the night?

La notte, udite, sta per finire, ma il giorno ancora non è arrivato,
sembra che il tempo nel suo fluire resti inchiodato...
Ma io veglio sempre, perciò insistete, voi lo potete, ridomandate,
tornate ancora se lo volete, non vi stancate...

Listen, the night is about to finish, but the day is still not here,
it’s as if time flowed no more but had become stuck ...
But I’m always on the lookout, so you must insist, you can do it, ask again,
come back again if you want, do not tire of it ...

Cadranno i secoli, gli dei e le dee, cadranno torri, cadranno regni
e resteranno di uomini e di idee, polvere e segni,
ma ora capisco il mio non capire, che una risposta non ci sarà,
che la risposta sull'avvenire è in una voce che chiederà:

Centuries will fall, the gods and the goddesses, towers will fall down, kingdoms will fall
and the remains of men and ideas will be dust and signs,
but now I understand my non understanding, that there will be no answer,
that the answer to the future is in a voice that will ask:

Shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell
shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell
shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell
shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell
shomèr ma mi-llailah, shomèr ma mi-lell, shomèr ma mi-llailah, ma mi-lell...

Watchman, what is left of the night?
Francesco Guccini

With thanks to Marco Zuliani in California for the translation (modified here)
http://marcozuliani.blogspot.com/2008/07/shomr-ma-mi-llailah-shomr-ma-mi-lell.html

From the album “GUCCINI” (1983)

The Alfred Waterhouse Experience

Deep reds and blacks at Easneye create a moody atmosphere.

For the second time in as many weeks and for quite unconnected reasons I had the privilege to visit an architectural marvel that is now a concentration of devotion and piety. This time it was Easneye Mansion which currently houses All Nations Christian College, deep in a rolling Hertfordshire woodland. Designed circa 1870 by Alfred Waterhouse for the Buxton family, Easneye mansion indulges Waterhouse’s flare for  Gothic-Romanesque overstatement that we also find at his famous design, the Natural History Museum.

Like the subject of my last post (The Pleasaunce) Easneye was the residence of a devout and philanthropic family. In fact one of the Buxtons was in the Clapham sect. The Buxtons, it seems, had family and/or friendship links with the Batterseas at the Pleasuance (and also connections with the Gurneys and Elizabeth Fry in Norfolk) . These links are not really a surprise given that both families were into a philanthropy that grew out of a common faith. However, in time their properties passed into the management of other Christian users.

For obvious cultural reasons Gothic-Romanesque, particularly the kind of melodramatic and theatrical depiction of it we see at the Natural History Museum and Easneye, has become associated with death; the horror film makers and the computer games designers love such architecture for its mood generating properties. However, in spite of these associations the current occupants of Easneye have a faith that lifts the mildly depressed ambiance; perhaps few other communities could carry this trick off in such a somber looking pile; and so they should; Christianity is about the defeat of death and fear.

My visit was, in fact, the first time I had ever sampled the milieu of a missionary college. I was only there for half a day, but from what little I saw I was generally impressed by an ethos focused on maintaining high intellectual standards; missionary preparation doesn't mean just being fitted for khakis.

Further pictures and comments on Easneye can be seen on my Facebook album here

The Edwin Lutyens Experience

Aerial view of the Pleasaunce

I arrived at “The Pleasaunce” in Overstrand (Norfolk) in the dark of a January evening. After making my way to my room and consulting some floor plans I was struck by the rambling complexity of the building. My first thought was that it must have undergone a considerable number of extensions and changes. I could see no vestige of a medieval hall pattern and my first impression was that it was entirely Victorian or Edwardian. I doubted that a sane architect would build such an informal collection of volumes, surfaces, angles, nooks, and crannies from scratch – in fact its sheer ramification would make it difficult to conceive and implement in one grand slam project. I concluded therefore that it must be an accretion of improvisations.

But then I read the historical blurb in my room. It was a Lutyens. Perhaps then, the late Victorian/Edwardian taste for buildings with an appearance of historical development might explain it. If so it was a remarkable feat; such a pile would require considerable planning in order to reconcile the elements of a seemingly random jumble of spaces. But my mind was to change again. On this web document giving a short history of The Pleasaunce we read:

Deprived of the opportunity to start afresh on the site, Lutyens adopted the solution of disguising the existing villas in a plethora of different architectural elements, forming one of his most odd and perverse designs. As Gavin Stamp put it, the house is “full of clever tricks and eccentricities and touches of Art Nouveau but, as an overall composition [it is] a disaster”.

So it turned to out to be an accretion of improvisations after all. Stamp calls it an “overall disaster”; it’s certainly uncoordinated and Lutyens may have used the excuse to augment to indulge in a series of unconnected architectural essays and experiments making it up as he went along. It is a fact that contriving an appearance of history, given true history’s quirky twists and turns, is very difficult to carry off with authenticity; inventing history is like trying to think of random numbers at one sitting – humans can seldom produce something with an authentic historical ring. Not surprisingly then The Pleasaunce is not a one sitting design. Perhaps the difficulty of creating intricate designs in one shot has something to do with the mathematical fact that only a very few complex patterns can be reached by small short-time algorithms. It is an irony that there are huge continents of apparent random complexity out there that in actual fact are far more demanding of computational resources than are symmetry and order.

It may be that a playful incongruity is precisely what Lutyens had in mind as he designed the Pleasaunce. If so the joke is on us and he is laughing from the grave; he’s achieved what human beings find difficult to achieve; that is to disconnect from their associations and generate something new, something random even. In the absence of any obvious grand-slam plan organising the overall layout of the Pleasaunce the angel appears to be in the detail; namely, high quality of workmanship and materials is paramount as per the arts and crafts tradition of this building.

As I have remarked before in a blog post about Sizewell hall, it is perhaps rather appropriate that a building celebrating arts and crafts should now be a retreat for the Christian community. The arts and crafts movement was a reaction to rapid industrialization; this reaction included a return to the appreciation of hand crafted and natural looking materials. Likewise the Christian community have also reacted to the dehumanising aspects of a machine society by seeking out the human face of Christianity; in particular its irrational and feeling side. In fact they have been knocked for six and destabilized by an encroaching modernity; they often have great difficulty in coming to terms with and making sense of the kind of culture industrialized society throws up.

The architecture of the Pleasuance is also very apposite to the Christian community for another reason. If The Pleasaunce is an eclectic disaster the same could be said of an overall perspective of Christianity. Of course, Christian sectarians attempt to disconnect themselves from the eclectic church by connecting with some purist sect that attempts to “restore” a version of christianity founded on the fancied natural bedrock of the faith, eschewing and purging all other influences. But in effect sectarians simply create another incongruous carbuncular annex atop the rambling development that Christianity has always been. Sectarians simply can’t come to terms with chaotic eclecticism of their faith. In fact during my stay at The Pleasaunce I heard a story that one party of guests (fundagelicals, by the sound of it) left their holiday early because they couldn’t tolerate the presence of another Christian group; stuff like that is all too typical of my overall experience of Christendom I'm afraid to say. What a bunch of pillocks I’ve thrown my lot in with! But I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s an overall disaster; you’ve got to see the funny and ironic side of Christianity to enjoy it and come to terms with it.

Christian Restorationists  periodically drop their worship-warehouse rebuilds on traditional church and tell us they have been dropped from heaven.