place where we scratch about and wait to die? Clay scrabbled
out of the dungy earth, mixed with water, with sand,
with flint, with ashes of bones; kneaded, caressed and
moulded by patient hands; fired in the kiln and put to work
to ease our lot, to add comfort and a little style to our
necessity to eat, to drink, to wash, to excrete; or set up
simply to be admired, like music, for our dignity and
pleasure; and like our own flesh, doomed at last to be shat394
tered and discarded, rubbish trampled back into the ground
whence it came. What else thus bodies forth the nature of
life and manifests, from the finite, the infinite? I have work
to do. Somehow, my grief and loss are to enrich the world.
THE POEMS
page 25 The Agamemnon opens with a speech by the Watchman
at Mycenae, who has for the past ten years had
the task of looking out by night for the beacon-fire
which will announce the return of Agamemnon from the
siege of Troy.
**@�ou? fifv alrto rwvS' aTraAAay^v TTOVWV"
means 'I have often sought release from this task'.
page 106 'Ich grolle nicht, und wenn das Herz auch bricht.'
(Heine.)
I do not murmur, even if my heart is breaking.
page 107 'Wie des Mondes Abbild zittert.' (Heine.)
How the moon's reflection trembles
In the sea's heaving waves,
While the moon itself moves
Calmly and surely through the vault of heaven!
Thus you move, beloved,
Calmly and surely, and only
Your image trembles in my heart.
Since my own heart is storm-tossed.
page 112 Alan calls Kathe 'Grossmachtige Prinzessin' - 'Mighty
princess' - the opening words of Zerbinetta's aria to
Ariadne in Richard Strauss's opera Ariadne auf Naxos.
She replies with two lines from the same aria, 'Sie uns
selber eingestehen, ist es nicht schmerzlich siiss?' 'To
confess the truth to ourselves, is it not bitter-sweet?'
page 142 'Kennst du das Land,' etc. From Goethe's Wilhelm
Meisters Lehrjahre.
Knowest thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom?
The golden oranges glow in the dark foliage,
A soft wind hovers from the blue sky,
396
I
The myrtle is still and the laurel stands tall Dost
thou know it well? Thither, thither
I would go, 0 my beloved, with thee!
page 217 "Wenn ich in deine Augen seh'.' (Heine.)
When I look into your eyes,
All my grief and sorrow vanish;
And when I kiss your lips,
I am entirely healed and made whole again.
When I lean against your breast
There conies over me a joy like that of heaven.
(The last two lines of the lyric, which Alan does not
reach, run
dock wenn du sprichst: 'Ich liebe dich!'
So muss ich weinen bitterlich.
But when you say 'I love you!'
I can only weep bitterly.)
page 240 'Ritterlich befreit'...' etc.
Kathe quotes two lines from Goethe's lyric 'Der Neue
Amadis' ('The New Amadis').
Then, in knightly fashion,
I rescued the Fish Princess.
Alan replies, from the same poem,
And her kiss was ambrosia,
Glowing like wine.
(continued from front flap)
As with all Richard Ad^ms's novels, the story, at
once ecstatic and deeply lightening, possesses
several layers of meaning- From what world has
Kathe come? From our farfiiliar Wofld, or from some
distant realm of pagan myth ? Did it aU really happen,
or was it yet another of Alan's Psychic nightmares the
most evil and destructive of ^? -j^e Qirl jn a
Swing is a novel of great power> vhich will move and
grip its readers in a way wh�Uy unexpected from this
gifted and versatile writer.
Richard Adams was born if BerksLire in 1920, and
studied history at Bradfield and at Worcester
College, Oxford. He served in the Second World
War and in 1948 joined the Civil Service. In the
mid-1960s he completed his first novel, Watership
Down, the story of which he originally told to his
children to while away a long car journey. Watership
Down was awarded both the Carnegie medal and the
Quardian award for children'5 fiction for 1972.
In 1974 he retired from the Civil Service to devote
himself to writing and in that year published his
second novel, Shardik. His third novel, The Plague
Dogs, followed in 1977. Richard Adorns lives in the
Isle of Man with his wife Elizabeth, Wno is an expert
on English ceramic history, and his two daughters,
Juliet and Rosamond. His <?nthusiasms are English
literature, music, chess, be^r and snove-ha'penny,
bird-song, folk-song and country
Jacket illustration by Reginald George. Haggar, R.I.
Richard Adams
Also from Allen Lane
SHARDIK
'This invention is striking enough to confirm him
as one of the most talented writers to emerge
in this country for years'
The Times
'A marvellous novel of epic dimension'
Newsweek
THE PLAGl'E DOGS
'If one book by Adams is to survive,
I hope and trust that it will be this'
Naomi Lewis, Observer
'Mr Adams has a Blakean prophetic vein
which never rings falsely'
Daily Telegraph
The Girl in a Swing Page 46
