“time, time,”
said old king tut
“is something i
ain’t got anything but.”
--archie the
cockroach
I have been reading a book about the Black Death; someone
must, or such books will cease being written and the memory of the disaster
will fade and fray, until there is only the thought of a grey or yellow death,
or perhaps a pale peach death, with stripes, suitable for summer wear. In it,
the author mentions a road in Italy where, on certain afternoons, Time can be seen thinking about
itself. The image is arresting, and seems to confirm what I have often thought
about Time. Not truly an abstraction, we have shaped it and made it a sort of
greater cousin of ours, and it shows human tendencies, including a propensity
for boredom and self-absorption.
Consider what generations of observation have taught us.
Time is often loath to move; it hangs heavy on the hands. It scorns courtesy;
along with the tide, it waits for no man. Ralph Hodgson called it an old gypsy,
which seems right enough. Gypsies know time well enough not to be over-awed by
it and its pretensions to rule. The bells in a W.H. Auden poem whirr and chime
in warning: “Oh, let not Time deceive you! You cannot conquer Time!”
It has even been known to fly, though no one says whether
it flies to or away from something. Perhaps there is a hint in the Latin:
Tempus Fugits, wherein Time doesn’t fly but flees, a fugitive (though from what
would Time flee? And does it carry us along in simple mercy, so we don’t see
the face of what comes after it?) Leigh Hunt called it a thief. John Ford, who
wore a melancholy hat, spoke of a man who shook hands with Time. Indeed, Time
was very present in great Elizabeth’s day; Walter Raleigh spoke of her as a lady who had been
surprised by Time (I doubt she shook Time’s hand, but perhaps she gave it her
hand to kiss).
Shakespeare has little patience with Time, offering in
his sonnets to defeat it by the sheer power of his language. Thus, as the Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations affirms, he calls it sluttish (Sonnet 17), thievish (Sonnet 77), and
possessed of a fell hand (Sonnet 64). It is a cormorant (Love’s Labor Lost),
injurious (Troilus and Cressida) and not only envious but prone to calumny
(Sonnet 171). It is dangerous to waste it, for it may turn and waste in return
(Richard II). Still, Shakespeare’s Time has it’s less fearsome side. It has a
wallet (Troilus and Cressida) and a whirligig (Twelfth Night). It sets clocks
(King John) and, though out of joint
(Hamlet), is like a fashionable host (Sonnet 165).
The poets who have sighted Time have given us enough
information about its possessions that we could write its will. (Surely it has
not long to live? We know that it is twice as old as Petra, that rose-red
city half as old as Time). It has horses, a winged chariot, a cave, a wheel, a river, a trumpet, rags, corridors,
whips, a fool, a eunuch, a tooth (and that a sharp one). No wonder Keats saw it
aching; the Reverend Richard Jago described Time as having a leaden foot.
Among the Victorians, Tennyson knew Time for a maniac
scattering dust, but Disraeli thought him a good physician, and Gladstone said “Time is on
our side.” The important question is, is it the maniac or the physician who is allied
with us?
Time is golden, bald and has a noiseless foot. He is a
kind friend, a liar, and (oddly enough) a sandpile. He is a peddler, deals in
dust. He will come and take my love.
Though he is said to be money, Shakespeare said he is broke, and he is
sometimes threadbare. A detailed index assures me that there is Time to be a
saint, to be born, to be happy, to be old, to begin anew, to dance, to die, to
hear bird music, to laugh, to mourn, to remember, to weep. There is time to
serve and sin, to stand and to stare, to stop a revolution, to wallop and to
stigmatize.
Time must have an end.
