Library of Congress lectures; Pamela Travers, part three

But this is a very Me idea of the name that is not to be known. When I was staying out in Arizona and in New Mexico for two summers with the Indians I was given an Indian maid and I was warm that would be great. Good luck both for me and for the tribe with the bad luck both for me and for the tribe that gave it. If I ever disclose this name and I never have. I don't want to have or give that up. So. It seemed to me I have to this feeling this atavistic feeling anybody taking my name. Well perhaps in there in seizing it. Taking it before I give it I always have a tremor about names and I'm very delicate about taking another person's name a Christian name before the moment is right. You probably have very much the same feelings as comes from a very very old ancient idea and I relate it but I feel

you don't have to relate it with me to a very very early time. The very earliest times of Greece when the myths were forming when. They prayed to the Unknown God the God that had no name. There is the very famous story of the altar to the moon god Rumpelstiltskin I think comes from there. But in all this I don't want to make assertions or impose I only tell you how I work and how my mind connects this with that perhaps wrongly but perhaps not. I remember and you will remember your own poet Walt Whitman saying in the beach at night on a child on the beach at night. I give you the first suggestion. The problem in one direction in direction is wonderful. Turn your back on it and you find it.

And Smith Swift said things invisible. Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. But the last connection I will make is one I found. Not very long ago when I was again in that union and I came upon an old book of many stories translated from the myths by different writers. And I read how in Nias I would not very much up in Roman mythology and in yours comes under that. The nearest comes to campaign year which is the present at present Naples seeking some means of getting in contact with the ghost of his father and kind of whom he has learned once to see him. And he comes first of all

to the Temple of Apollo to ask him to inspire the symbol the command symbol whose cave is nearby. And to help him get into the underworld and nearby that is the great forest in which lies the desperate and terrible lake of Ernest's over which no bird flies and just around the corner from that is the crack between great rocks that lead down into the underworld. And. Into the realms of tumult and soon having been to Apollo he goes to the symbol in the symbol tells him that he needs to break out from one tree in the forest. A golden bronze age. Which will not give it to him nor do his sword. If it is not for him but which will break off easily if he is the man. With that he will be able to dis descend into the underworld. And with that he does. He goes

down and pines and cries he's holding before him as the whole of Fraser's book is about the Golden Bough is about this little brown holding before him. This amulet. And then I thought I had a fairy story that tells exactly that and it's in Grimm and it's called the shoes that would dance to pieces where the twelve princesses go down underground every night and at last. And one night a soldier follows them. And as a sign that he's been there and indication to the princes princesses. He breaks off a little golden branch and comes back with it. But. When I read the story I thought it was not for nothing. The days for things the Temple of Apollo became of the symbol the lake of Ernest and Pluto were close together this is how it happens not only in myth but in life. The good and the bad are

very very near each other. And I thought. I remembered that in years had said to the symbol he had begged her to speak her article and not write it as she usually did on leaves it would be blown away from the wind with the wind. And that struck a bell with me because I started only remembered a story where this happened. The wind is blowing very hard and it blows the leaves into the hands of one of two children into it into their hands two leaves one into each child's head and on it it turns out there is a message written called Come tonight. Now the story I'm talking about is called Hello and it's in Mary Poppins in the park. And that come

tonight. Is what the signal did with her and I thought I didn't think it was a burned by Rupert Brooke not a very good poem and one of the verses says there is wisdom in women of more than they have now and thoughts go blowing through them. Why. And there I had wiser thoughts than my own. When I read that. Well to that party the children are invited and of course Mary Poppins Yes I did. And if any of you have read the book. And for those who have and it's a party where all the free they go to the party while their owners stater the only person who has her shadow with it Mary Pat and. I thought that this is a night of ghosts and

shadows it's very strange and a kind of connection for me that this night happens to be Helen. It used to be and now we go again back to the myth. It used to be in the ancient days the festival of the dead and it was not until that old thing gonna post the something or other. Firth I think decided that it was the oldest Saturnalia was too much of a good thing and in the seventh century he decided that he would modify things and make it solemn and do away with all pagan ideas around it and turn it into the commemoration of the saints and martyrs. But thinking about saying some martyrs tonight Taiwan. I think to me that the old myth in a way has come around again. And that this is a night of nights a most mysterious night. Who knows when they

go out of here their shadow will be with them. Look and see. And mysterious and strange because in this ancient festival. It was. It was held in order to prevent people grieving from the dead Yes that was true. People put on masks and disguise themselves. And that disguising turned at last in our world into mourning into black for mourning but it really was for quite another purpose. The wake which is held in Ireland always at the at a death is part of this Saturnalia. The idea that men must turn very quickly to life while grieving for the dead. And also it's a propitious moment a kind of crack. In these great ritual moments where the unknown moment can become. And to me the fairy

tales are broad tonight. Cinderella and the Frog Prince Angel dream it's a knocking at the door shaking money boxes putting out grubby hands for candy. It's a pagan festival come again all this I'm twisting it round perhaps to make my only connect. But I think of it as such. Tricks or treats angel or devil yes or no. Perhaps trick then treat angels and devils Yes much more interesting. And to me it's kind of night thinking of my mates and my family were such a crack again might be and where again it might be possible. As the Greek poet orators said. To believe in what he declared rather when he said

loose use of the cities. Yes flus use of the city's full of Zeus the heart full of Zeus all the way. Maybe it didn't mean only that because it was true then it could be true always. This city full of shining grinning pumpkin faces. There to help out on Chesapeake Bay perhaps. We men if we could only can eat. What do you think. Anyone. Will know Travers author of Mary Poppins and other stories has been heard speaking on the

subject. Only Connect there's like you're one of an occasional series distributed by national educational radio was recorded at the Library of Congress under the auspices of the Gertrude Clark with all poetry and literature font. This is the national educational radio network. The show sound. Normally heard only on the high holy

days of Judaism. The chauffeur was sounded on a day in June 1967 heralding that the Jews could once again pray at the Wailing Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. My name is Beth and I'd like to share with you part of a trip that I made this last summer to the Wailing Wall as we enter the Old City on our way to the Wailing Wall. These are the sounds I heard and recorded. Among them the sounds of vendors selling cold drinks and attracting their customers by the tinkling sound of cast a net like instruments held in their hands. In the old city of Jerusalem forming part of the western boundary of the area is juries most hallowed religious and historic site

the Wailing Wall. The place has been identified by tradition by historical references and by archaeological evidence as the remaining western section of the ancient wall that encompassed the site of the Second Temple during the time of the second Jewish Commonwealth. Consecrated in 516 B.C. enlarged and rebuilt in 20 B.C. The temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. the Western Wall the Wailing Wall was the last remnant of its ancient grandeur. Of the 28 layers of huge blocks of stone that once surrounded the temple only nine or above ground topped by four lesser rows from the second century A.D. and by several more layers added in later times through centuries Jewish pilgrims and settlers from all over the world held mournful vigil before the sacred vestige of their ancient temple. It was this site that caused European travelers centuries ago to coin such terms as the Wailing Wall. Here are some of the reactions of

visitors to the Wailing Wall. In the summer of 1967. We. Left. About the last time and I saw it was about 40. I remember well. And. In fact we had almost forgotten such a thing like the old tree. Just. A thought as ever which people. Did not do the fighting. We almost couldn't believe.

That the up and down time. Again. And wondered aloud really how today morning. Preachers. Come here at seven o'clock. Proved. To be not just wailing but they're enjoying it. Because it made. The rumors spread that the conquest of the old city had been completed. There were a few loose men and myself I'm also a newsman and so we come up we try to get in and. We we wandered in past the Mandelbaum Gate in point of fact

and once we were there and once we were past the first armored car which had some policemen around it and started for the old city itself the soldiers were very helpful in directing us they understood the motivation. We skirted the mosque to begin with because we all had the same thought we wanted to get to the Wailing Wall. I did. I don't remember so emotional a reaction to anything and it caught me entirely unexpectedly. You get to the wailing wall you come down some steps narrow stone steps and you're in a narrow courtyard in a very narrow courtyard and to your right there is the wall and pack in this narrow courtyard where I should estimate about 200 Israeli soldiers many of them praying against the wall. And these were all heavily armed they had

been fighting they you know I saw one soldier standing in a corner his face averted and crying. And he spoke English I asked him why are you crying. Are you religious. And. Suddenly he looked at me as though he didn't understand. He understood the question but as though he didn't understand the meaning and indeed I realized quickly that the question had no meaning because I'm not religious and I was crying. And I. I have a son Jonathan who is in Berkeley California and I found myself without thought. Having no religious background at all no traditional background whatever writing down his name and putting it in the wall. You know as I'm sure my parents dreamed of doing and I'm sure their great grandparents dreamed of doing and so on back into history it was.

I still have not gotten over it it is a mess. But I'm going to yes I volunteer to be Irish. I want to know Alan. I am simply in so much that I'm not tryin to touch on one side like Clinton touched all of that. Thank you for answering. This is an event that I think and we witnessed not only once in a lifetime only but probably once in the whole of human history only. I have had a day to day that I think many many of my ancestors would have given parts of their lives for in order to really live. I've been to the Wailing Wall to the tomb of Rachel and to to the cave of mapping and I just have no words to describe the tremendous terror of this

experience. I was there last year to make paintings and writing for the Army and for myself but I couldn't stop myself to convert all the folk to get out of the picked out and a general happiness. I am just as small as the modern people believing in God in a silent way. But it's not just the religious the big national day I think in the history not just the religious happening but the big historical I was used to come here as a student I was in Jerusalem and I made my first steps actually in the Old City sketching and drawing the old walls. I was happy to come back again as a grown up after. I think all the city is so rich in forms and the old

stones all together. Just more than a piece of stone is full of dreams. Well we were planning a trip to Chile and I got to chiro Selim. I found my family of 25 or 30 people. We were very close. We'll lived in a small town and all that and I am the only one to on the one that has to go each channels I coach

mike night at but I only asked to well for one thing who could hurt me if doubt and and the persecution of people. When this day he went to what was opened from now and forever. I wish that everybody would show up. He could be joy and could have the opportunity and this to get the feeling that I really can't say yet in words but to get the feeling that I have had that day. This was something that maybe my command of the language has to work that it is a feeling an

expression that one has to be part of the crowd that people are praying and my own thoughts my wishes and how I got there from the Auschwitz I know all these places and I have been through and I have been privileged to see this special air you shall learn to answer you and let God help. The voices you heard were those of a news dealer a reporter an Irish nurse to British

rabbi an artist and a tourist from New York. The song you're hearing is untitled Jerusalem of gold and written by not only. Her beak the words of a chorus of Jerusalem the Golden brass. And of light. To all your praises. I'm a violin beat. Preceding look at the Wailing Wall was produced a radio at

the University of Wisconsin by Ralph Johnson. Speaking with the national educational radio network.