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        Pete Atkin >> Words >> Lines to Time
        
(Message started by: Ian Chippett on Today at 19:36)

Title: Lines to Time
Post by Ian Chippett on Today at 19:36

A small nit to pick but shouldn't "immortal lines to Time" be "eternal lines to Time?" Always assuming, of course, that Clive was thinking of this line (from one of Shakespeare's sonnets) when he wrote YCETBR.

Ian C

"To be or not to be: that is the question." W.S.
"To be is better than not to be: that is the answer." Anon.

Title: Re: Lines to Time
Post by naomi on Today at 20:05

"2B or not to 2B?" - members of bus queue in South London, as vehicle approaches (c.1980) ...

N ;)

Title: Re: Lines to Time
Post by naomi on Today at 22:21

Apologies for my error in the above posting: the bus-queue quotation, as heard in South London some 27 years ago, should of course read -

"2B or not 2B"

N

Title: Re: Lines to Time
Post by BogusTrumper on 12.11.07 at 14:22

"Ah, the natives must be restless - the buses are travelling in convoys"

heard whilst waiting for a 37 bus in South London some 37 years ago.

:D

Title: Re: Lines to Time
Post by Kevin Cryan on 13.11.07 at 12:26

on 11/11/07 at 19:36:32, Ian Chippett wrote :

"one of Shakespeare's sonnets*"

"YCETBR"**"

*"Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrim’d:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wandr’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breath or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare

**"You Can't Expect to be Remembered (http://www.peteatkin.com/a11c.htm)

The bards of old were bold about their claims upon posterity
Petrarch, Shakespeare and Ronsard were never slow to guarantee
Their loved ones' immortality
They never said Farewell, they said So long --
So long lives this and this gives life to thee
They didn't doubt the power of a rhyme
Or the durability of scribbled pages
And so they wrote immortal lines to Time
That gave their love affairs to all the ages

Ian,

There are, I think , sound reasons for believing that every word in this lyric is as carefully, if not more carefully, considered and weighed as any Clive has ever written, and, furthermore, I'm convinced there is a good case to be made for concluding that it's not a mistake – nor the result of a lapse of memory – that made Clive choose to write "immortal lines" rather than "eternal lines".

One example is probably sufficient to show just how carefully Clive weighs each word . Take, for example, “lines to time”. The phrase sings, but what does it mean? It could mean that lines are for, or to, future time, or posterity, or it could mean that they are written to time, a musical rhythmic template. Actually, I suggest Clive very clearly sees the very ambiguity of meaning makes the lyric all that much richer and more resonant.

If it is the case that Clive gives every word careful consideration, then the use of "immortal" rather than "eternal" is , as I've said already said, no accident. The repetition of immortal in saying that "immortal lines" were what guaranteed the "loved one's immortality" makes the point much more forcibly and succinctly than if he's quoted Shakespeare's "eternal lines" and said that they guaranteed the "loved one's immortality". (Shakespeare uses the same effect when says "thy eternal Summer shall not fade .... When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.") It's also possible to suggest that Clive is probably all too aware that there is the danger that "eternal lines" could be misinterpreted, since "eternal" itself is nowadays sometimes used pejoratively to mean “ annoyingly ceaseless”, as in an “eternal racket". Indeed, now that I think of it, he'd be more than justified in avoiding "eternal" for this last reason alone.

Kevin Cryan

Title: Re: Lines to Time
Post by Pete Atkin on 13.11.07 at 13:03

I think Kevin has nailed it - as he so often does. The word 'lines' in the Shakespeare is (probably deliberately) ambiguous; in the lyric it isn't - the word 'wrote' pins it down - and, as Kevin points out, for this specific kind of line to be 'eternal' is not at all the same thing as for it to be 'immortal'. All in all, a neat example of 'difficilior potius'. (Hem hem.) Probably.