A book by Palinurus, pen-name of the critic Cyril Connolly. A meditation on literature, on talent and on wasted talent, on depression, and on many other topics. It was published in 1944.

It covers about a year of the writer's life and his changing moods. There are three parts to it, Ecce Gubernator, Te Palinure Petens, and La Clé des Chants; with an epilogue entitled "Who was Palinurus?". -- Actually Palinurus was the pilot in the Aeneid, who was swept overboard and whose manes (ghost) dwelt unquiet in the Underworld until his body was found and reburied. But Connolly weaves this story elaborately into his personal mythology.

He quotes extensively, especially from the writers whose genius he admired most: Pascal, De Quincy, Sainte-Beuve, Chamfort, Flaubert. The opening sentence sets the tone: "The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence."

Then he names a few masterpieces: the Odes and Epistles of Horace, the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, the Testament of Villon, the Essays of Montaigne, the Fables of La Fontaine, the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère, the Poems of Pope and Leopardi, the Illuminations of Rimbaud, and Byron's Don Juan. He discusses what these share, and what the compilation of the list says about him. Many of them are reflective, contemplative, or melancholic, with a sense of our nearness to the Abyss.

He moves on to Love and Anxiety: "The object of Loving is a release from Love. We achieve this through a series of unfortunate love affairs or, without a death-rattle, through one that is happy."

Palinurus is bitter, he is bored, he frets about his wasted life. His previous incarnations were: a melon, a lobster, a lemur, a bottle of wine, Aristippus. He lived in Augustan Rome, in Restoration and Augustan London and Paris, and in the times and circles of Walpole, Stendhal, Flaubert.

From one paragraph to the next he skips to the personality of Jesus, to chemical stimulations to creativity, to nostalgia brought on by fruit and exotic pets, the teachings of Buddha and Chuang Tzu, and the difficulties and pain of relationships with women.

It is impossible to re-create much of the feel of a book that is itself made up of quotes, of snippets, of musings, of flickering and changing thoughts, of tears and renunciation and laziness: but this is a superb book, one that any budding writer, any lover of fine old literature, any depressive, any hedonist, anyone struggling with a tormented soul, should appreciate.

Child ballad 78, composed in England circa 1400

Alternate titles: Cold Blows the Wind, William and Marjorieand Charles Graeme (a Scottish variation)

Cold blows the wind to my true love,
And gently drops the rain.
I've never had but one true love,
And in green-wood he lies slain.

I'll do as much for my true love,
As any young girl may,
I'll sit and mourn all on his grave,
For twelve months and a day.

And when twelve months and a day was passed,
The ghost did rise and speak,
"why sittest thou all on my grave
And will not let me sleep?"

"Go fetch me water from the desert,
And blood from out the stone,
Go fetch me milk from a fair maid's breast
That young man never has known."

"My breast is cold as clay,
My breath is earthly strong,
And if you kiss my cold clay lips,
You days they won't be long."

"How oft on yonder grave, sweetheart,
Where we were want to walk,
The fairest flower that e'er I saw
Has withered to a stalk."

"when will we meet again, sweetheart,
When will we meet again?"
"when the autumn leaves that fall from the trees
Are green and spring up again."


This is a classic riddle song, in the same tradition as Scarborough Fair.

Some scholars say that the lyrics refer to the idea that a betrothal outlasted even death. The betrothed had to perform heroic tasks to be released from the commitment. This makes the quests the ghost sets (fetching water from the desert, blood from a stone, etc) the equivalents of the tasks set to heroes in fairy tales.

A close reading of the words doesn't support this interpretation. Rather, it's a vivid description of the belief that excessive grief disturbed the rest of the dead. The ghost's quests are not difficult, but impossible. They are poetic metaphors for what cannot be, gentler ways of saying that things will never be the same again. The bereaved must move on.

The ballad is deeply ingrained in the folk tradition. There are several alternative versions, including some where the woman is the ghost and her husband to be the one mourning to excess. In addition, verses from The Unquiet Grave appear in a number of other songs of the same era, hinting at a longer, lost version.

The most well-known recording of this song is by Joan Baez, released in 1964. Leonard Lehrman used it as the basis for his Variations for Piano on "Cold Blows the Wind" in 1966. Faith & The Muse also recorded a version of it in 1994.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.