Thomas Moore et al - "The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore"

F. Hopkinson Smith - "The Underdog"

Martin Anderson Nexo - "Pelle the Conqueror, Complete"

Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson - "Three Dramas"

A  /  B  /  C  /  D  /  E  /   F  /  G  /  H  /  I  /  J  /   K  /  L  /  M  /  N  /  O   P  /  R  /  S  /  T  /  U  /  V  /  W  /  X  /  Y  /  Z

Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

M >> Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson >> Mosaics of Grecian History




"O thou! whose glory fills the ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless powers! protect my son!
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,
Against his country's foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when triumphant from successful toils,
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim,
And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame;'
While pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy."

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,
Restored the pleasing burden to her arms;
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe he laid,
Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd.
The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with the smile a tender tear.
The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd,
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued:

"Andromache, my soul's far better part,
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart?
No hostile hand can antedate my doom,
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb.
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth;
And such the hard condition of our birth,
No force can then resist, no flight can save--
All sink alike, the fearful and the brave.
No more--but hasten to thy tasks at home,
There guide the spindle and direct the loom:
Me, glory summons to the martial scene--
The field of combat is the sphere of men;
Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim,
The first in danger, as the first in fame."

Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes
His towery helmet black with shading plumes.
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh,
Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye,
That stream'd at every look; then, moving slow,
Sought her own palace and indulged her woe.
There, while her tears deplored the godlike man,
Through all her train the soft infection ran:
The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed,
And mourn the living Hector as the dead.
--B. VI. POPE'S. Trans.


HECTOR'S EXPLOITS, AND DEATH OF PATRO'CLUS.

Hector hastened to the field, and there his exploits aroused the
enthusiasm and courage of his countrymen; who drove back the
Grecian hosts. Disheartened, the Greeks sent Ulysses and Ajax
to Achilles to plead with that warrior for his return with his
forces to the Grecian camp. But Achilles obstinately refused to
take part in the conflict, which was continued with varying
success, until the Trojans succeeded in breaking through the
Grecian wall, and attempted to fire the Greek ships, which were
saved by the valor of Ajax. In compliance with the request of
the aged Nestor, however, of whom the poet YOUNG tells us that--

When Nestor spoke, none asked if he prevailed;
That god of sweet persuasion never failed--

Achilles now placed his own armor on Patroclus, and, giving him
also his shield, sent him to the aid of the Greeks. The Trojans,
supposing Patroclus to be the famous Achilles, became panic-stricken,
and were pursued with great slaughter to the walls of Troy.

Apollo now goes to the aid of the Trojans, smites Patroclus,
whose armor is strewn on the plain, and then the hero is killed
by Hector, who proudly places the plume of Achilles on his own
helmet.

His spear in shivers falls; his ample shield
Drops from his arm; his baldric strews the field;
The corslet his astonished breast forsakes;
Loose is each joint; each nerve with horror shakes;
Stupid he stares, and all assistless stands:
Such is the force of more than mortal hands.

Achilles' plume is stained with dust and gore:
That plume which never stooped to earth before,
Long used, untouched, in fighting fields to shine,
And shade the temples of the mad divine.
Jove dooms it now on Hector's helm to nod;
Not long--for fate pursues him, and the god.
--B. XVI.

Then ensued a most terrific conflict for the body of the slain
warrior, in which Ajax, Glaucus, Hector, AEneas, and Menelaus
participated, the latter finally succeeding in bearing it off
to the ships. The grief of Achilles over the body of his friend,
and at the loss of his wonderful armor, is represented as being
intense; and so great a blow to the Greeks was the loss of the
armor considered, that Vulcan formed for Achilles a new one, and
also a new shield. Homer's description of the latter piece of
marvelous workmanship--which is often referred to as a truthful
picture of the times, and especially of the advanced condition
of some of the arts and sciences in the Heroic, or post-Heroic,
age--is too long for insertion here entire; but we proceed to
give sufficient extracts from it to show at least the magnificent
conception of the poet.

How Vulcan Formed the Shield of Achilles.

He first a vast and massive buckler made;
There all the wonders of his work displayed,
With silver belt adorned, and triply wound,
Orb within orb, the border beaming round.
Five plates composed the shield; these Vulcan's art
Charged with his skilful mind each varied part.

There earth, there heaven appeared; there ocean flowed;
There the orbed moon and sun unwearied glowed;
There every star that gems the brow of night--
Ple'iads and Hy'ads, and O-ri'on's might;
The Bear, that, watchful in his ceaseless roll
Around the star whose light illumes the pole,
Still eyes Orion, nor e'er stoops to lave
His beams unconscious of the ocean wave.

There, by the god's creative power revealed,
Two stately cities filled with life the shield.
Here nuptials--solemn rites--and throngs of gay
Assembled guests; forth issuing filled the way.
Bright blazed the torches as they swept along
Through streets that rung with hymeneal song;
And while gay youths, swift circling round and round,
Danced to the pipe and harp's harmonious sound,
The women thronged, and wondering as they viewed,
Stood in each portal and the pomp pursued.

Next on the shield a forum met the view;
Two men, contending, there a concourse drew:
A citizen was slain; keen rose the strife--
'Twas compensation claim'd for loss of life.
This swore, the mulct for blood was strictly paid:
This, that the fine long due was yet delayed.
Both claim'd th' award and bade the laws decide;
And partial numbers, ranged on either side,
With eager clamors for decision call,
Till the feared heralds seat and silence all.
There the hoar elders, in their sacred place,
On seats of polished stone the circle grace;
Rise with a herald's sceptre, weigh the cause,
And speak in turn the sentence of the laws;
While, in the midst, for him to bear away
Who rightliest spoke, two golden talents lay.

The other city on the shield displayed
Two hosts that girt it, in bright mail arrayed;
Diverse their counsel: these to burn decide,
And those to seize, and all its wealth divide.
The town their summons scorned, resistance dared,
And secretly for ambush arms prepared.
Wife, grandsire, child, one soul alike in all,
Stand on the battlements and guard the wall.
Mars, Pallas, led their host: gold either god,
A golden radiance from their armor flowed.

Next, described as displayed on the shield, is a picture of spies
at a distance, an ambuscade, and a battle; the scene then changes
to ploughing and sowing, and the incidents connected with the
gathering of a bountiful harvest; then are introduced a vineyard,
the gathering of the grapes, and a merrymaking by the youths at
the close of the day; then we have a wild outlying scene of
herdsmen with their cattle, the latter attacked by two famished
lions, and the tumult that followed. The description closes as
follows:

Now the god's changeful artifice displayed
Fair flocks at pasture in a lovely glade;
And folds and sheltering stalls peeped up between,
And shepherd-huts diversified the scene.

Now on the shield a choir appear'd to move,
Whose flying feet the tuneful labyrinth wove;
Youths and fair girls there, hand in hand, advanced,
Timed to the song their steps, and gayly danced.
Round every maid light robes of linen flowed;
Round every youth a glossy tunic glowed;
Those wreathed with flowers, while from their partners hung
Swords that, all gold, from belts of silver swung.

Train'd by nice art each flexile limb to wind,
Their twinkling feet the measured maze entwined,
Fleet as the wheel whose use the potter tries,
When, twirl'd beneath his hand, its axle flies.
Now all at once their graceful ranks combine,
Each rang'd against the other, line with line.

The crowd flock'd round, and, wondering as they view'd,
Thro' every change the varying dance pursued;
The while two tumblers, as they led the song,
Turned in the midst and rolled themselves along.
Then, last, the god the force of Ocean bound,
And poured its waves the buckler's orb around.
--B. XVIII. SOTHEBY'S Trans.


Achilles Engages in the Fight.

Desire to avenge the death of Patroclus proves more powerful
in the breast of Achilles than anger against Agamemnon, and,
clad in his new armor, he is with difficulty restrained from
rushing alone into the fight while his comrades are resting.
Turning and addressing his horses, he reproaches them with the
death of Patroclus. One of them is represented as being
Miraculously endowed with voice, and, replying to Achilles,
prophesies his death in the near future; but, with unabated rage,
the intrepid chief replies:

"So let it be!
Portents and prodigies are lost on me.
I know my fate: to die, to see no more
My much-loved parents and my native shore.
Enough--when Heaven ordains I sink in night.
Now perish Troy!" he said, and rushed to fight.

Jupiter now assembles the gods in council, and permits them to
assist either party. The poet vividly describes the terrors of
the combat and the tumult that arose when "the powers descending
swelled the fight." Achilles first encounters AEne'as, who is
preserved by Neptune; he then meets Hector, whom he is on the
point of killing, when Apollo rescues him and carries him away
in a cloud. The Trojans, defeated with terrible slaughter, are
driven into the river Scamander, where Achilles receives the aid
of Neptune and Pallas.


This Death of Hector.

Vulcan having dried up the Scamander in aid of the Trojans, all
those who survive, save Hector, seek refuge in Troy. This hero
alone remains without the walls to oppose Achilles. At the
latter's advance, however, Hector's resolution and courage fail
him, and he flees, pursued by Achilles three times around the
city; At length he turns upon his pursuer, determined to meet
his fate; and the account of the meeting and contest with Achilles,
as translated by BRYANT, is as follows:

He spake, and drew the keen-edged sword that hung,
Massive and finely tempered, at his side,
And sprang--as when an eagle high in heaven
Through the thick cloud darts downward to the plain,
To clutch some tender lamb or timid hare.
So Hector, brandishing that keen-edged sword,
Sprang forward, while Achilles opposite
Leaped toward him, all on fire with savage hate,
And holding his bright buckler, nobly wrought,
Before him. As in the still hours of night
Hesper goes forth among the host of stars,
The fairest light of heaven, so brightly shone,
Brandished in the right hand of Pe'leus' son,
The spear's keen blade, as, confident to slay
The noble Hector, o'er his glorious form
His quick eye ran, exploring where to plant
The surest wound. The glittering mail of brass
Won from the slain Patroclus guarded well
Each part, save only where the collar-bones
Divide the shoulder from the neck, and there
Appeared the throat, the spot where life is most
In peril. Through that part the noble son
Of Peleus drave his spear; it went quite through
The tender neck, and yet the brazen blade
Cleft not the windpipe, and the power to speak
Remained.

And then the crested Hector faintly said:
"I pray thee, by thy life, and by thy knees,
And by thy parents, suffer not the dogs
To tear me at the galleys of the Greeks.
Accept abundant store of brass and gold,
Which gladly will my father and the queen,
My mother, give in ransom. Send to them
My body, that the warriors and the dames
Of Troy may light for me the funeral pile."

The swift Achilles answered, with a frown:
"Nay, by my knees entreat me not, thou cur,
Nor by my parents. I could even wish
My fury prompted me to cut thy flesh
In fragments and devour it, such the wrong
That I have had from thee. There will be none
To drive away the dogs about thy head,
Not though thy Trojan friends should bring to me
Tenfold and twentyfold the offered gifts,
And promise others--not though Priam, sprung
From Dar'danus, should send thy weight in gold.
Thy mother shall not lay thee on thy bier,
To sorrow over thee whom she brought forth;
But dogs and birds of prey shall mangle thee."

And then the crested Hector, dying, said:
"I know thee, and too clearly I foresaw
I should not move thee, for thou hast a heart
Of iron. Yet reflect that for my sake
The anger of the gods may fall on thee
When Paris and Apollo strike thee down,
Strong as thou art, before the Scae'an gates."

Thus Hector spake, and straightway o'er him closed
The light of death; the soul forsook his limbs,
And flew to Hades, grieving for its fate,
So soon divorced from youth and youthful might.

The great achievement of Achilles was followed by funeral games
in honor of Patroclus, and by the institution of various other
festivities. At their close Jupiter sends The'tis to Achilles to
influence him to restore the dead body of Hector to his family,
and sends Iris to Priam to encourage him to go in person to treat
for it. Priam thereupon sets out upon his journey, and, having
arrived at the camp of Achilles, thus appeals to his compassion:

Priam Begging for the Body of Hector.

"Think, O Achilles, semblance of the gods,
On thine own father, full of days like me,
And trembling on the gloomy verge of life.
Some neighbor chief, it may be, even now
Oppresses him, and there is none at hand,
No friend, to succor him in his distress.
Yet, doubtless, hearing that Achilles lives,
He still rejoices, hoping day by day
That one day he shall see the face again
Of his own son, from distant Troy returned.
But me no comfort cheers, whose bravest sons,
So late the flowers of Ilium, are all slain.

"When, Greece came hither I had fifty sons;
But fiery Mars hath thinned them. One I had--
One, more than all my sons, the strength of Troy,
Whom, standing for his country, thou hast slain--
Hector. His body to redeem I come
Into Achaia's fleet, bringing, myself,
Ransom inestimable to thy tent.
Rev'rence the gods, Achilles! recollect
Thy father; for his sake compassion show
To me, more pitiable still, who draw
Home to my lips (humiliation yet
Unseen on earth) his hand who slew my son!"
--COWPER'S Trans.

Achilles, moved with compassion, granted the request of the
grief-stricken father, and sent him home with the body of his
son. First to the corse the weeping Androm'ache flew, and thus
spoke:

Lamentation of Andromache.

"And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries)
Snatched in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!
Thou to the dismal realms forever gone!
And I abandoned, desolate, alone!
An only son, once comfort of our pains,
Sad product now of hapless love, remains!
Never to manly age that son shall rise,
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes;
For Ilion now (her great defender slain)
Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.

"Who now protects her wives with guardian care?
Who saves her infants from the rage of war?
Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er
(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore:
Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shalt go,
The sad companion of thy mother's woe;
Or else some Greek whose father pressed the plain,
Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,
In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy,
And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy."
[Footnote: Such was the fate of Astyanax, Hector's
son, when Troy was taken:

"Here, from the tower by stem Ulysses thrown,
Andromache bewailed her infant son."
--MERRICK'S Tryphiodo'rus.]

The death of Hector was also lamented by Helen, and her
lamentation is thus spoken of by COLERIDGE: "I have always
thought the following speech, in which Helen laments Hector, and
hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as
almost the sweetest passage in the poem. It is another striking
instance of that refinement of feeling and softness of tone which
so generally distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the rest."

Helen's Lamentation.

"Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had joined
The mildest manners with the bravest mind,
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore;
(Oh, had I perished ere that form divine
Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!)
Yet was it ne'er my fate from thee to find
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind:
When others cursed the authoress of their woe,
Thy pity checked my sorrows in their flow:
If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,
Or scornful sister, with her sweeping train,
Thy gentle accents softened all my pain.
For thee I mourn; and mourn myself in thee,
The wretched source of all this misery.
The fate I caused forever I bemoan;
Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone!
Through Troy's wide streets abandoned shall I roam!
In Troy deserted, as abhorred at home!"
--POPE'S Trans.


THE FATE OF TROY.

Homer's Iliad ends with the burial of Hector, and gives no
account of the result of the war and the fate of the chief actors
in the conflict. But in VIRGIL'S AEne'id, which gives an account
of the escape of AEne'as, from the flames of Troy, and of his
wanderings until he reaches the shores of Italy, the way in which
Troy is taken, soon after the death of Hector, is told by AEneas
to Dido, the Queen of Carthage. By the advice of Ulysses a huge
wooden horse was constructed in the Greek camp, in which he and
other Grecian warriors concealed themselves, while the remainder
burned their tents and sailed away to the island of Ten'edos,
behind which they secreted their vessels. AEneas begins his account
as follows:

"By destiny compelled, and in despair,
The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,
And by Minerva's aid a fabric reared
Which like a steed of monstrous height appeared.
The sides were planked with pine: they feigned it made
For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide;
With inward arms the dire machine they load,
And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.

"In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle
(While Fortune did on Priam's empire smile)
Renowned for wealth; but since, a faithless bay,
Where ships exposed to wind and weather lay.
There was their fleet concealed. We thought for Greece
Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.
The Trojans, cooped within their walls so long,
Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,
Like swarming bees, and with delight survey
The camp deserted where the Grecians lay.
The quarters of the sev'ral chiefs they showed--
Here Phoenix, here Achilles, made abode;
Here joined the battles; there the navy rode.

"Part on the pile their wond'ring eyes employ--
The pile by Pallas raised to ruin Troy.
Thymoe'tes first ('tis doubtful whether hired,
Or so the Trojan destiny required)
Moved that the ramparts might be broken down
To lodge the monster fabric in the town.
But Ca'pys, and the rest of sounder mind,
The fatal present to the flames designed,
Or to the wat'ry deep; at least to bore
The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.

"The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,
With noise say nothing, and in parts divide.
La-oc'o-on, followed by a num'rous crowd,
Ran from the fort, and cried, from far, aloud:
'O wretched countrymen! what fury reigns?
What more than madness has possessed your brains?
Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone?
And are Ulysses' arts no better known?
This hollow fabric either must enclose,
Within its blind recess, our hidden foes;
Or 'tis an engine raised above the town
T' o'erlook the walls, and then to batter down.
Somewhat is sure designed by fraud or force--
Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.'

"Thus having said, against the steed he threw
His forceful spear, which, hissing as it flew,
Pierced through the yielding planks of jointed wood,
And trembling in the hollow belly stood.
The sides, transpierced, return a rattling sound,
And groans of Greeks enclosed came issuing through the wound;
And, had not Heaven the fall of Troy designed,
Or had not men been fated to be blind,
Enough was said and done t' inspire a better mind.
Then had our lances pierced the treacherous wood,
And Ilion's towers and Priam's empire stood."

Deceived by the treachery of Sinon, a captive Greek, who represents
that the wooden horse was built and dedicated to Minerva to secure
the aid that the goddess had hitherto refused the Greeks, and
that, if it were admitted within the walls of Troy, the Grecian
hopes would be forever lost, the infatuated Trojans break down
a portion of the city's wall, and, drawing in the horse, give
themselves up to festivity and rejoicing. AEneas continues the
story as follows:

"With such deceits he gained their easy hearts,
Too prone to credit his perfidious arts.
What Di'omed, nor Thetis' greater son,
A thousand ships, nor ten years' siege, had done--
False tears and fawning words the city won.

* * * * *

"A spacious breach is made; the town lies bare;
Some hoisting levers, some the wheels prepare,
And fasten to the horse's feet; the rest
With cables haul along th' unwieldy beast:
Each on his fellow for assistance calls.
At length the fatal fabric mounts the walls,
Big with destruction. Boys with chaplets crowned,
And choirs of virgins, sing and dance around.
Thus raised aloft, and then descending down,
It enters o'er our heads, and threats the town.
O sacred city, built by hands divine!
O valiant heroes of the Trojan line!
Four times he struck; as oft the clashing sound
Of arms was heard, and inward groans rebound.
Yet, mad with zeal, and blinded with our fate,
We haul along the horse in solemn state,
Then place the dire portent within the tower.
Cassandra cried and cursed th' unhappy hour,
Foretold our fate; but, by the gods' decree,
All heard, and none believed the prophecy.
With branches we the fane adorn, and waste
In jollity the day ordained to be the last."
--The AEneid. Book II.--DRYDEN.

In the dead of night Sinon unlocked the horse, the Greeks rushed
out, opened the gates of the city, and raised torches as a signal
to those at Tenedos, who returned, and Troy was soon captured and
given over to fire and the sword. Then followed the rejoicings of
the victors, and the weeping and wailing of the Trojan women about
to be carried away captive into distant lands, according to the
usages of war.

The stately walls of Troy had sunken,
Her towers and temples strewed the soil;
The sons of Hellas, victory-drunken,
Richly laden with the spoil,
Are on their lofty barks reclined
Along the Hellespontine strand;
A gleesome freight the favoring wind
Shall bear to Greece's glorious land;
And gleesome chant the choral strain,
As toward the household altars now
Each bark inclines the painted prow--
For Home shall smile again!

And there the Trojan women, weeping,
Sit ranged in many a length'ning row;
Their heedless locks, dishevelled, sweeping
Adown the wan cheeks worn with woe.
No festive sounds that peal along,
Their mournful dirge can overwhelm;
Through hymns of joy one sorrowing song,
Commingled, wails the ruined realm.
"Farewell, beloved shores!" it said:
"From home afar behold us torn,
By foreign lords as captives borne--
Ah, happy are the dead!"
--SCHILLER.

For ten long years the Greeks at Argos had watched nightly for
the beacon fires, lighted from point to point, that should announce
the doom of Troy. When, in the Agamemnon of AESCHYLUS, Clytemnes'tra
declares that Troy has fallen, and the chorus, half incredulous,
demands what messenger had brought the intelligence, she replies:

"A gleam--a gleam--from Ida's height
By the fire-god sent, it came;
From watch to watch it leaped, that light;
As a rider rode the flame!
It shot through the startled sky,
And the torch of that blazing glory
Old Lemnos caught on high
On its holy promontory,
And sent it on, the jocund sign,
To Athos, mount of Jove divine.
Wildly the while it rose from the isle,
So that the might of the journeying light
Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine!
Farther and faster speeds it on,
Till the watch that keep Macis'tus steep
See it burst like a blazing sun!
Doth Macistus sleep
On his tower-clad steep?
No! rapid and red doth the wildfire sweep:
It flashes afar on the wayward stream
Of the wild Euri'pus, the rushing beam!
It rouses the light on Messa'pion's height,
And they feed its breath with the withered heath.
But it may not stay!
And away--away--
It bounds in its fresh'ning might.

If you think books have dumbed down …
Alison Flood: Today we can take our laptops on the road, but could we use them to produce On The Road?

Kerouac's On the Road manuscript travels to the Midlands

John Crace swallows a very thirsty volume

Documentary to lay bare 'Narnia Code'

He wrote it in just three weeks, furiously and loudly tap-tap-tapping away on his typewriter on 12ft long reels of paper so that he did not have to stop, just writing writing writing fuelled only, he said, by coffee…

It became one of the most important American novels of the last century and yesterday the original manuscript - a scroll taped together with eight reels of paper - of Jack Kerouac's On The Road was unfurled in the UK for the first time.
Fifty years after the novel which more or less defined the Beat generation, was published in Britain, the Barber Institute in Birmingham is showing what is now one of the most valuable literary manuscripts in existence as part of its exhibition Jack Kerouac: Back On the Road.

The exhibition's curator Professor Dick Ellis said there had been a lot of competition to get the scroll which is itself spending a lot of time on the move, having toured a string of US cities and hitting the road to Rome once this show is over. "We're very excited indeed," he said. "This is an iconic manuscript. It is a record of the huge effort Kerouac put into composing it. It was 20 days of typing 6,500 words a day, flat out, in spontaneous composition. He wanted to record things with the most possible accuracy using the spontaneous technique. His typewriter became a compositional instrument.

"Truman Capote once accused Kerouac of typing rather than writing, I would say he was learning the ability of using the typewriter like a jazz instrument, like a saxophone. He also had an incredible memory. And he had great speed at typing, he became a lightning typist. He came to be able to use a typewriter in a way that has not been seen before or since. Kerouac said he wrote fast because the road was fast."

About 22 of the scroll's 120ft will be on display in a specially built cabinet and while visitors will have to slightly tilt their heads, Ellis believes they will get a much deeper knowledge of what Kerouac was all about. It comes to Birmingham courtesy of Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, who bought it for $2.4m (£1.6m) in 2001 before agreeing to a tour. Of course, in the published novel, there are paragraph breaks but in the scroll, there are none. Kerouac did not have the time. The exhibition runs until January 28.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds