In a Time of Violence by Eavan Boland

Author:Eavan Boland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

IN WHICH THE ANCIENT HISTORY I LEARN IS NOT MY OWN

The linen map

hung from the wall.

The linen was shiny

and cracked in places.

The cracks were darkened by grime.

It was fastened to the classroom wall with

a wooden batten on

a triangle of knotted cotton.

The colours

were faded out

so the red of Empire—

the stain of absolute possession—

the mark once made from Kashmir

to the oast-barns of the Kent

coast south of us was

underwater coral.

Ireland was far away

and farther away

every year.

I was nearly an English child.

I could list the English kings.

I could name the famous battles.

I was learning to recognize

God’s grace in history.

And the waters

of the Irish sea,

their shallow weave

and cross-grained blue green

had drained away

to the pale gaze

of a doll’s china eyes—

a stare without recognition or memory.

We have no oracles,

no rocks or olive trees,

no sacred path to the temple

and no priestesses.

The teacher’s voice had a London accent.

This was London. 1952.

It was Ancient History Class.

She put the tip

of the wooden

pointer on the map.

She tapped over ridges and dried-

out rivers and cities buried in

the sea and seascapes which

had once been land.

And stopped.

Remember this, children.

The Roman Empire was

the greatest Empire

ever known—

until our time of course—

while the Delphic Oracle

was reckoned to be

the exact centre

of the earth.

Suddenly

I wanted

to stand in front of it.

I wanted to trace over

and over the weave of my own country.

To read out names

I was close to forgetting.

Wicklow. Kilruddery. Dublin.

To ask

where exactly

was my old house?

Its brass One and Seven.

Its flight of granite steps.

Its lilac tree whose scent

stayed under your fingernails

for days.

For days—

she was saying—even months,

the ancients traveled

to the Oracle.

They brought sheep and killed them.

They brought questions about tillage and war.

They rarely left with more

than an ambiguous answer.

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