Kipling Traffics and Discoveries

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5080-1776-9
Verlag: Dead Dodo Presents Rudyard Kipling
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 371 Seiten

Reihe: Rudyard Kipling Collection

Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Rudyard Kipling, 'Traffics and Discoveries.'
 
From 'The Captive': The guard-boat lay across the mouth of the bathing-pool, her crew idly spanking the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated militia-man, rifle in hand, sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the stern. Between the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, honey-colored rocks on the beach the green water was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war bathing. Behind their orderly tin camp and the electric-light poles rose those stone-dotted spurs that throw heat on Simonstown. Beneath them the little Barracouta nodded to the big Gibraltar, and the old Penelope, that in ten years has been bachelors' club, natural history museum, kindergarten, and prison, rooted and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in from the deep sea. Said the sentry, assured of the visitor's good faith, 'Talk to 'em? You can, to any that speak English. You'll find a lot that do.'
Also includes the stories 'The Bonds of Discipline,' 'A Sahibs' War,' ''Their Lawful Occasions,'' 'The Comprehension of Private Copper,' 'Steam Tactics,' ''Wireless,'' 'The Army of a Dream,' ''They,'' 'Mrs. Bathurst,' and 'Below the Mill Dam,' and the poems 'From the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed,'' Poseidon's Law,' 'The Runners,' 'The Wet Litany,' 'The King's Task,' 'The Necessitarian,' 'Kaspar's Song in Varda,' 'Song of the Old Guard,' 'The Return of the Children,' 'From Lyden's 'Irenius, '' and ''Our Fathers Also.''
 
Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including 'The Man Who Would Be King' (1888). His poems include 'Mandalay' (1890), 'Gunga Din' (1890), 'The Gods of the Copybook Headings' (1919), 'The White Man's Burden' (1899), and 'If-' (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting 'a versatile and luminous narrative gift'.
 
Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: 'Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known.' In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he declined.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kipling, Rudyard

Leseproben

THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
~ POSEIDON’S LAW When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, “Mariner,” said he, “Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine, That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine. “Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault, But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test—the immediate gulfs condemn— Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them. “Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria’s white-lipped wrath; Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts; Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts. “Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts, A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts— The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand, The soul that cannot tell a lie—except upon the land!” In dromond and in catafract—wet, wakeful, windward-eyed— He kept Poseidon’s Law intact (his ship and freight beside), But, once discharged the dromond’s hold, the bireme beached once more, Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore. ~ The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high, And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply: The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall, But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all! From Punt returned, from Phormio’s Fleet, from Javan and Gadire, He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire, And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice, Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce! ~ THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance, armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British Navy—the whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present day, of the British sailorman. In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur, though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on that amateur’s hard-won information. There exists—unlike some other publication, it is not bound in lead boards—a work by one “M. de C.,” based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known Acolyte type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the average Dumas novel. I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue—it is the disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable of writing one page of lyric prose—to the eloquent, the joyful, the impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at the mercy of his agent. “M. de C.,” I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her boats what time H.M.S. Archimandrite lay off Funchal. “M. de C.” was, always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the rank of “supernumerary captain’s servant"—a “post which,” I give his words, “I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would have been my destruction.” From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like to those “M. de C.” had “envisaged"—if I translate him correctly. It became clear to me that “M. de C.” was either a pyramidal liar, or… I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the Archimandrite; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a third-class ticket to Plymouth. I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman- gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of theArchimandrite. “The Bedlamite, d’you mean—’er last commission, when they all went crazy?” “Shouldn’t wonder,” I replied. “Fetch me a sample and I’ll see.” “You’ll excuse me, o’ course, but—what d’you want ‘im for?“ “I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk—if you like. I want to make him drunk here.” “Spoke very ‘andsome. I’ll do what I can.” He went out towards the water that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he was a person of influence beyond Admirals. In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of Mr. Wessels. “‘E only wants to make you drunk at ‘is expense. Dessay ‘e’ll stand you all a drink. Come up an’ look at ‘im. ‘E don’t bite.” A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers. “‘E’s the only one I could get. Transferred to the Postulant six months back. I found ‘im quite accidental.” Mr. Wessels beamed. “I’m in charge o’ the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin’ on the beach en masse. They won’t be home till mornin’,” said the square man with the remarkable eyes. “Are you an Archimandrite?“ I demanded. “That’s me. I was, as you might say.” “Hold on. I’m a Archimandrite.“ A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to climb on the table. “Was you lookin’ for a Bedlamite? I’ve—I’ve been invalided, an’ what with that, an’ visitin’ my family ‘ome at Lewes, per’aps I’ve come late. ‘Ave I?” “You’ve ‘ad all that’s good for you,” said Tom Wessels, as the Red Marine sat cross-legged on the floor. “There are those ‘oo haven’t ‘ad a thing yet!” cried a voice by the door. “I will take this Archimandrite“ I said, “and this Marine. Will you please give the boat’s crew a drink now, and another in half an hour if— if Mr.——” “Pyecroft,” said the square man. “Emanuel Pyecroft, second-class petty- officer.” “—Mr. Pyecroft doesn’t object?” “He don’t. Clear out. Goldin’, you picket the hill by yourself, throwin’ out a skirmishin’-line in ample time to let me know when Number One’s comin’ down from his vittles.” The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red Marine zealously leading the way. “And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?” I said. “Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an’ sugar an’ per’aps a lemon.” “Mine’s beer,” said the Marine. “It always was.” “Look ‘ere, Glass. You take an’ go to sleep. The picket’ll be comin’ for you in a little time, an’ per’aps you’ll ‘ave slep’ it off by then. What’s your ship, now?” said Mr. Wessels. “The Ship o’ State—most important?” said the Red Marine magnificently, and shut his eyes. “That’s right,” said Mr. Pyecroft. “He’s safest where he is. An’ now— here’s santy to us all!—what d’you want o’ me?” “I want to read you something.” “Tracts, again!” said the Marine, never opening his eyes. “Well. I’m game…. A little more ‘ead to it, miss, please.” “He thinks ‘e’s drinkin’—lucky beggar!” said Mr. Pyecroft. “I’m agreeable to be read to. ‘Twon’t alter my convictions. I may as well tell you beforehand I’m a Plymouth Brother.” He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist’s chair, and I began at the third page of “M. de...