Welsh Journals

HUW MENAI'S ADJUDICATION Dear Sir,­I wonder if you would allow me, one of the 40 poets, before whom Huw Menai dangled a £ 10 note and then, with even greater daring, put it back in his pocket," to express through your valued journal, his opinion on the matter, to adjudicate, so to speak, on the ad- judication. Well, having named the £ 10 note, shall we deal with that first? This prize certainly should have been awarded, and under the circumstances) it is no credit to the Eisteddfod, the donor, or the adjudicator, that this was not done. It should be borne in mind that this prize was offered for unpublished verses evidently as an en- couragement to poets who had not to date been appreciated. It was not intended for Miltons, Scotts, Shakespeares, no nor even for Huw Menais, but for the humble aspirant. Moreover, the verses quoted in the adjudication are of a very high standard, quite good enough to be awarded the prize, They alone condemn the adjudicator, who has himself been guilty of publishing many verses inferior in every sense to these. To come to the adjudication, however, it is more verbose than vibrant, more bounce than brilliance, and more apologetic than apposite. He does not appear to see the poems, only the frame on which they are hung. He looks at the scaffolding and cannot see the building, or, shall I better put it by saying that he stands too close to the building and sees only the bricks, failing to see the poetic beauty of the whole structure He finds a flaw in a brick, and straightway con- demns the house. Dare I venture upon an allusion to my own efforts, or would that be considered infra dig? I have tried to get a full copy of the adjudica- tion as promised in the official programme, for 6d. I first sent 6d to the adjudicator, which he returned in a friendly letter containing some ex- tracts from his notes on my verses, and intimat- ing that I could get the full adjudication from the Eisteddfod secretary. I acted on this sugges- tion and received another very friendly letter stat- ing that the adjudication would probably appear in the Welsh Outlook. This time the 6d was not returned but my entry was. My next step, of course, was to invest still another 6d in your valued journal, but even there I find no adjudication on my entry. I was not deemed even worthy of a line, yet let me say here and now, call it egotism, call it what you may, but I know for a truth that some of the sonnets I sent in will be singing in the hearts of men, though Huw Menai says they cannot be sung, when all that he has ever written will be lost in oblivion. Permit me to criticise Huw Menai in a single line. His verses are all beautiful tracery, but there is nothing in them to lift, to elevate a man. One reads them, forgets them, and one is left standing just where he was. No better and no worse. He says I specialise, but am not a specialist (sic). He gives me a definition of a sonnet, but 1 can find a better in a 6d dictionary. He com- mends my austerity of diction, but says not a word about the spirit of the work. As I have al- ready said, he is standing too close to the bricks and cannot see the house. No wonder he has brought a storm of protest on his head. My contribution consisted of 80 odd sonnets from about 200 that I have written. These have all been written since I passed the biblically al- lotted span of life. I have lived too long to be thin skinned, and hope nothing herein will give offence. For my- self I am not offended, merely bien amuse, but when I receive I like to give, even if it be not half pence but kicks. In conclusion, I really think that if a practical joker had sent in a selection of Shakespeare's son- nets they would have been turned down as not up to Eiteddfod standard.-Faithfully yours, FRED. S. HENDERSON. DENDERA Sir,-I hope Mr. Prosser will not think me captious if I return to this subject; but the technicalities of ancient cults are so confusing that it is important to correct misconceptions. It is not a "surmisal" of mine "that the word Aphrodite is a mere translation of the word Hathor," nor was the identification a new thing. From the beginning of the Greek occu- pation of Egypt Hathor was called by the Greeks Aphrodite, so much so that the Greek name of the capital of any name whose presiding deity was Hathor, was Aphroditopolis. There is no reason whatever to suppose that Tiberius ever gave the matter a thought; indeed, it may per- haps be doubted whether he knew of the dedi- cation of this particular temple at all. The pre- fect no doubt had general instructions to see to it that the Egyptian cults were properly provided for. Mr. Prosser misunderstands me when he says that I hesitate to attribute the mutilation to the Christians. A priori I think it likely, but not knowing the temple or the character of the sculptures, and since Mr. Prosser in his original article suggested Arab activity as at least a possibility, I preferred to leave the question open.