Six Poems from the Maori, Roger Oppenheim and Allen Curnow 4 Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani, John Caselberg IO Oakleigh, Basil Dowling 33 the Return, ]Ames K
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lit ' && A New Zealand Qgarter!Jr VOLUME ELEVEN 1957 Reprinted with the permission of The Caxton Press JOHNSON REPRINT CORPORATION JOHNSON REPRINT COMPANY LTD. 111 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 Berkeley Square House, London, W. 1 LANDFALL is published with the aid of a grant from the New Zealand Literary Fund. b9/ 4-9"- First reprinting, 1968, Johnson Reprint Corporation Printed in the United States of America Landfall A New Zealand Quarterly edited by Charles Brasch and published by The Caxton Press CONTENTS Notes 3 Six Poems from the Maori, Roger Oppenheim and Allen Curnow 4 Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani, John Caselberg IO Oakleigh, Basil Dowling 33 The Return, ]ames K. Baxter 34 Play the Fife Lowly, Maurice Shadbolt 35 Way, Lily H. Trowern 54 Distilled Water, M. K. ]oseph 55 Letter to a Chinese Poet, Ruth Dallas 56 Cook's Journals, Denis Glover 6o Commentaries : SUEZ AND NEW ZEALAND'S FOREIGN POLICY, E. A. 0/ssen 67 OPERATIC OCCASIONS, f. M. Thomson, Frederick Page 70 THE CHINESE CLASSICAL THEATRE, Bruce Mason 72 Reviews: I, FOR ONE ••.., A. W. Stockwell 75 IMMANUEL's LAND, R. A. Copland 77 A BOOK OF AUSTRALIAN VERSE, M. K. foseph 80 scHOLAR ERRANT, H. N. Parton 85 NEW ZEALAND NOW, D. H. Monro 86 ANCIENT VOYAGERS IN THE PACIFIC, Roger Duff 88 Correspondence, Paul Day, Maurice Shadbolt 91 Photographs by Hester Carsten VOLUME ELEVEN NUMBER ONE MARCH I9S7 Notes SINCE there was a notable dearth of stories among the manuscripts sent to Landfall last year, it looked as if writers were saving up their work for the Prose Award. In fact, there were fewer than twenty-five entries for the Award, nearly all of them fiction. It is useless to speculate on the reasons for this small field (less than half the size of that for the Poetry Award in 1953), for they must be many. But one reason, without doubt, is the sheer difficulty of breaking new ground to write imaginatively about life in this country. We have no well-established pictures of ourselves as a people and of the kind of life we lead or would like to lead, because there have been so few writers yet to construct any; the country and the people have very largely still to be created, in terms of literature. An indication of this difficulty is to be found in the oblique approach that some of our best writers have had to adopt in order to focus and discipline their chosen field, their section of the rich, raw, formless life that lay so close to them and was so hard to recreate imaginativeiy. Such various writers as D' Arcy Cresswell, Frank Sargeson, Maurice Duggan, faced similar problems and adopted the same kind of tactics to deal with them, in their earlier close limitation of subject matter and careful elaboration of a highly personal style. But just because it is difficult for the writer of fiction to make a beginning, he is forced to think hard before- hand and decide carefully exactly what he has to say and how he should say it, which may lead to sounder, stronger, fuller writing than if it were easy to begin. The novelists James Courage and Dan Davin, in choosing fields so well defined by their interest and experience that they were able to work there with a good deal of freedom, were greatly helped by exile, which allowed them to approach their material more directly. Indeed all these writers at some stage have looked at New Zealand from outside, as if through the wrong end of a telescope, where they were well placed to make comparisons and to seize what for them is distinctive about the country and its life. It is remarkable by contrast that most of the poets, older and younger, reached maturity as writers without going overseas. Poetry sets its own limitations and offers its own focus. The judges in the Prose Award have made awards to John Caselberg and Maurice Shadbolt for the stories which appear in this issue. 3 Six Poems from the Maori new English versions by Roger Oppenheim and Allen Curnow1 1. RITUAL CHANT OF FIRE AND WATER IT was dipped, it was drawn, the water, the water by the man called Maui, by the hero who hoodwinked men and gods greatly, by the man Maui linked by his lineage with the gods : he dipped for his drink the waters of the world, he dared, and it was done : he levelled the sandhills. The fire spirit flew into the stones and the trees caught it in their clasp : Toitapu and Manatu were born, they began searching for that spirit for men to make use of: let the hands tremble gently for the fire appears! Burn, fire, burn! fetch forth the monster, Matuku the man-eater! He comes, he is captured, he is tied in the trap, he is guarded now! All this happened long ago in the islands of Whiti and Tonga. 1 These versions from the Maori, with the accompanying notes, are part of a volume edited by me which is to be published later in the year. The know- ledge of Maori requisite for the first English drafts was entirely Mr Oppen· heim's. The versions .in their final form are the product of close collabor- ation, in which I had the last say in matters of form and prosody, and Mr Oppenheim on questions of fidelity to the sense of the originals. A.C. 4 2. AN ANCIENT FLUTE SONG 0 shining-cuckoo, cuckoo with a long tail, calling down to me your news of the spring, come close ! The wind slams and pierces Joosed from Maunganui where Ripiro lies under Let rituals be forgotten. Let rituals be forgotten. Rain on, 0 rain tangled over the broad earth, loom of the last darkness. Come, cormorant at Te Taheke, fly out of the wind-sleep inward, make your nest here in the quiet skies of the mind. 3· CHANT BEFORE BATTLE Let fog fill the skies let the cloud cover them, the wind howls high up to the world away down, listen! the wind howls from far away down! Shuddering the spear is charging, is flying, the twin-bladed shark, and the footsteps hurtling 0 furious the footsteps blood-wet the footsteps bound for the world's brink! He goes, god of battles, the stars in his stride and the moon in his stride- run, run from the death-blow! 5 4· REPLY TO A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL Don't hand me over with a word, Toihau, don't give me to Te Keepa! Isn't it enough that people are talking as far as the quicksands of Karewa ? I am a stranded canoe broken in the big surf, I am getting old, love play is past for me, it will not be long before I dig my grave. That is my path as it was yours, Paoa, my ancestral path across Te Whakaurunga, unbroken view of the burning island Whaari, the demon's flames. Here on the mainland, Hinehore's lover- She can forget her jealousy! She shall have her husband, I embrace him only for a while. The lips are made to taste with but the body is firmly held. 5· TIPARE 0 NIU a mother mourns her son I will drench with my tears the tracks that you travelled going up by Tipare o Niu : If only the south wind could carry me coldly to the island of Kaiawa too far, too far for me to go! Through shadows, through showers of tears poured out in pain all the long night I have seen the borderland, I have not seen even dimly where the dead rest by the trees, beside the water. 6 6. LAMENT FOR TE HUHU Lightning splits the sky above the burial hill : what can this mean but death? My brother's shadow is gone, my friend's, forgotten so soon, the weapon plucked from your hand. 0 priests what was the night he died? Tangaroamua, the waning moon. You have crossed Raukawa hill slipped woman-wise towards the setting sun, the seas of the west go weeping under. Whareana was the way you went where the hills run south unbroken. Push open the doors of the sky, go up to the first heaven, go up to the second: once there, if it is asked, Who are you? say, it is the ornament of the world who calmed all battles. It is tiresome to me, the talk of other men, other peoples : the tribes are widowed, the world trembles. We are the posts that stand upright lonely where you left us, our tide at its lowest, only these tears to moisten your skin. The white mists hang heavy about famous Heke's head- disperse them, let them die ! lest the evil that is best forgotten murmur in the memory. 7 SIX POEMS FROM THE MAORI : THE KINDS AND THE SOURCES Much of the English in the best previous versions from the Maori can only appear pedantic or florid to a modern reader. It would be vanity to offer these few new ones (in their limiting con- text) in any spirit of rivalry with Maori scholars like Richard Taylor, Ngata, S. Percy Smith, Hare Hongi (H. M. Stowell) and their successors. But such translation as we have from them has been made primarily for readers possessing some background knowledge of Maori life and tradition-or in volumes or periodicals where that background has been provided. Besides this, the trans- lators have mostly been handicapped by their notions of a suitably 'poetical' English idiom.