The Last Samurai

λπ.

He thought about it for a while & at last he said Help?

I said Good. And this? π

And he said Hop.

τ. Hot! íτ. Hit! τ. It? τ. Hat! τ At! τε Hate! τε Ate!

And I said Brilliant!

And he said This is easy!

And the Alien made a rattling sound in its throat. Coupez la difficulté en quatre, it said, with a ghastly grin.

Mr. Ma said You know my methods.

I thought: Just five more minutes. I can stand five minutes.

I said That’s good, because the next bit is a little harder. There are four letters that stand for sounds that we write with two letters. There’s θ which is th, but it’s not the th of the or thin, it’s more like what you say if you say SPIT HARD. And there’s φ which is ph as in SLAP HARD. And there’s χ which is kh as in WALK HOME. And there’s ψ, which is ps, as in NAPS. Do you want to try or do you want to stop for now? And he said he would try.

So I wrote παθιμ

and he looked for a very long time & at last I said Pat him.

And I wrote παθερ

and he said Pat HER.

And I wrote μεεθιμ & he said Meet him and I wrote μεεθερ & he said Meet HER & I said Terrific.

βλαχεαρτεδ Blackhearted? βλοχεαδ Blockhead. βλαχαιρεδ Blackhaired.

λφερ Help her. λφιμ Help him. ριψ Rips! λιψ Lips! νιψ Nips! πιψ Pips!

And I said Brilliant.

Then he picked up the book and looked at it and he said he couldn’t read any of it.

I said patiently That’s because it’s a different language so all the words are different. If you could read the words it would be English in different letters.

I said:

Look, I’ll get out some pages I’ve done on this book and you can work on that.

He said:

OK.

So I went to find the four pages I had managed to finish. Four years earlier I had started work on a sort of Teach Yourself Iliad, with text vocabulary at bottom of page translation on facing page. I had finished four pages which had been stuck in the back of the Homeric dictionary for the past four years & I had still not progressed beyond Iliad 1.68. This was depressing but at least it meant I had some pages for him to work on with vocabulary at the bottom of the page.

I said This is just to get you started reading the words, yes? I’ll give you some words and you can use one of my Schwan Stabilo highlighters that I use for my Arabic. Which colour would you like to use?

And he said Green.

So I gave him a Schwan Stabilo 33 & I picked some words that turned up a lot, but because I remembered Roemer and the something in the something with the something I tried to make sure they were not all prepositions & articles & connectives.

Then I realised that I had forgotten to go over the long vowels & diphthongs.

I did not want to go over the long vowels & diphthongs. I don’t want to go over them now. But I knew of course that if I did not L would be interrupting & pestering me to explain them within the hour, and if I do not explain them again I know what will happen: the poet Keats will haunt my dreams. Bearing in one hand Chapman’s Homer in the other the Oxford Classical Text, he will gaze at me fixedly with an expression of inexpressible sorrow before opening the Chapman with a piteous sigh. A Connery lookalike pacing through the mists will look up in silent indignation and stalk off without a word. Well—long e has its own letter, η, like the e of bed stretched out; long o has its own letter ω, like the o of hot stretched out; παι rhymes with pie, παυ pow δει day βοι boy μου moo—I explained this in a manner which I leave to the imagination & returned to the words.

How would you say this? πολλς. Pollas? Terrific. That means many.

And this? ψυχς Psukhas. YES. That’s something like souls or spirits.

And what about these? ρων θεν νδρν. Heeroooon theoon androon. Right. They mean, of heroes, of gods, of men. Now all I want you to do is go through as much as you can and colour in all the places where you see those words. We’ll worry about the grammar later. OK?

And he said OK.

So I handed over the pages and said There you go.

We have come all the way around to Blackfriars. L is up to the pentekaipentekontapus under the admiring & indulgent eyes of people who get on and are able to get off again after a few stops.

He looked at the pages and he looked at me.

I said It isn’t as hard as it looks. Look carefully and show me one of your words.

& he looked at the page and he found πολλς. in line 3 & I said That’s right, so colour that green & look for the rest, OK?

& he said OK.

OKTOkaipentekontapus ENNEAkaipentekontapus HEXEKONTApus

[Well anyway]

I turned again to Iliad 6 and in two minutes Baby Driver was back. He said he was going to colour in the names of people because he could read them & he was not finding very many words to colour. I said that was a very good idea & he went away & I turned my attention to Hector & Andromache & he was back again. He said θεος looked like θεν and could he count it because he was not finding many words to colour.

I was not looking forward to simplifying and explaining even the simplest points of grammar to a 4-year-old & I can’t say I am looking forward to going through it all again now but I said I would so I

HEKkaiHEXeKONtapus HEPtakaiHEXeKONtapus OKTOkaiHEXeKONtapus

will.

I am finding it rather hard to concentrate however so may salve conscience by just touching on highlights like Sound of Music cutting from Doe A Deer to seven-part harmony or heptaphony as some people (naming no names) would probably call it.

I said Yes you can and I said Do you remember what θεν meant and he said Of gods, I said Right, well θεος means to gods or by gods & do you remember what ρων and νδρν meant & he said Of heroes and of men & I said But there’s no separate word meaning ‘of’, is there, it’s all in the word so there must be a bit of the word that means ‘of’ & what do you think that would be & I don’t know about you but I am about ready for The hills are alive (A-a-a-ah).

heptakaihebdomekontapus

[Ah. Forget it]

Another day on the Circle Line, house too cold to stay in. An icy rain sweeps the city, underground it is warm and dry.

LIVERPOOL STREET ALDGATE TOWER HILL MONUMENT

Far too young

CANNON STREET MANSION HOUSE BLACKFRIARS

Etymology so helpful

TEMPLE EMBANKMENT WESTMINSTER and around and around

At St. James’s Park a woman gets on and sees the tiny head bent over a book, pudgy fingers dragging a blue Schwan Stabilo highlighter across the page. Twinkling eyes share the joke, she longs for adult bonding. He looks up & gives her an enchanting smile, all chubby cheeks and sparkling black eyes & tiny milk teeth. He says: I’ve almost finished Book 15!