{"id":3515,"date":"2011-02-08T06:30:56","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T17:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=3515"},"modified":"2011-02-09T10:13:40","modified_gmt":"2011-02-08T21:13:40","slug":"tuesday-poem-tarantella-by-hilaire-belloc-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/02\/08\/tuesday-poem-tarantella-by-hilaire-belloc-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “Tarantella” by Hilaire Belloc"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tarantella<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Do you remember an Inn,
\nMiranda?
\nDo you remember an Inn?
\nAnd the tedding and the spreading
\nOf the straw for a bedding,
\nAnd the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
\nAnd the wine that tasted of tar?
\nAnd the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
\n(Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
\nDo you remember an Inn, Miranda,
\nDo you remember an Inn?
\nAnd the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
\nWho hadn’t got a penny,
\nAnd who weren’t paying any,
\nAnd the hammer at the doors and the din?
\nAnd the hip! hop! hap!
\nOf the clap
\nOf the hands to the swirl and the twirl
\nOf the girl gone chancing,
\nGlancing,
\nDancing,
\nBacking and advancing,
\nSnapping of the clapper to the spin
\nOut and in \u2014
\nAnd the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!
\nDo you remember an Inn,
\nMiranda?
\nDo you remember an Inn?<\/p>\n

Never more;
\nMiranda,
\nNever more.
\nOnly the high peaks hoar;
\nAnd Aragon a torrent at the door.
\nNo sound
\nIn the walls of the halls where falls
\nThe tread
\nOf the feet of the dead to the ground,
\nNo sound:
\nBut the boom
\nOf the far waterfall like doom.<\/p>\n

Hilaire Belloc<\/a>, 1870-1953<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

I was first introduced to this poem at High School by a teacher who not only loved it, but read it aloud with great energy and enthusiasm—and I believe that it is a poem that repays being read aloud, to see the way in which the effect of the rhyme and rhythm, and the use of onomatopoeia, work together to\u00a0 imitate the sense and sound of the dance and the whole frenetic energy of the evening in the inn. The repetiton of words and phrases also reinforces the energy and the way action, whether of the dance or the young muleteers cheering and jeering, tends to repeat in that kind of scene.<\/p>\n

Although this was not a poem that we ‘learned by heart’, key phrases have always stayed with me from that one reading:<\/p>\n

“And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
\nWho hadn’t got a penny,
\nAnd who weren’t paying any …”<\/em><\/p>\n

What Year 9 student wouldn’t love that concept?<\/p>\n

And the more elegaic lines such as:<\/p>\n

“And Aragon a torrent at the door”<\/em>—what a powerful image (she shouts, joyfully!); possibly the reason that it has stayed with me for so many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tarantella Do you remember an Inn, Miranda? Do you remember an Inn? And the tedding and the spreading Of the straw for a bedding, And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees, And the wine that tasted of tar? And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers (Under the vine of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3515"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3550,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions\/3550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}