An Old Tune by Gerard de Nerval

Gérard de Nerval is most famous as the poet who (it is said) took his pet lobster for walks through Paris on a lead made of a blue ribbon.

Hilarious, or what?

Well, as with so many jokes, it depends on how you tell it, and de Nerval may have been tying to make a serious point about the respect and empathy we should feel for all life.

Sadly, de Nerval seems never to have understood that it's quite difficult to be serious about a lobster.

'Why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog?' he asked. '...they know the secrets of the sea, they don't bark, and they don't gnaw upon one's monadic privacy like dogs do. And Goethe had an aversion to dogs, and he wasn't mad.'

More sadly still, poor de Nerval was what a former time would have called mad. He killed himself at the age of forty six while very ill. During his life he introduced France to some important German poetry, wrote travel books, and gave us some poetry of his own.

Here's one of his poems, An Old Tune

There is an air for which I would disown
Mozart's, Rossini's, Weber's melodies, -
A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,
And keeps its secret charm for me alone.

When'er I hear that music vague and old,
Two hundred years are mist that rolls away;
The thirteenth Louis reigns, and I behold
A green land golden in the dying day.

An old red castle, strong with stony towers,
The windows gay with many coloured glass;
Wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers,
The bathe the castle basement as they pass.

In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,
A lady looks forth from her window high;
It may be that I knew and found her fair,
In some forgotten life, long time gone by.

Word To Use Today: lobster. The Old English was lobbestre, from loppe, spider. (Yes, Tolkien fans, like Shelob.)