Читать книгу Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery - Borrow George - Страница 6

“Wild Wales” seems to have disappointed Borrovians because it ignores the Welsh gypsies, the most superior branch of all the Romany race, except, perhaps, the gypsy musicians of Hungary. And certainly it is curious to speculate as to why he ignores them in that fashion. Readers of “The Romany Rye” wonder why, after his adventure with Mrs. Herne and her granddaughter, and his rescue by the Welshman, Peter Williams, on reaching the Welsh border, Borrow kept his mouth closed. Several reasons have occurred to me, one of which is that his knowledge of Welsh Romany was of the shakiest kind. Another reason might have been that in “The Romany Rye,” as much of his story as could be told in two volumes being told, he abruptly broke off as he had broken off at the end of the third volume of “Lavengro.” Or did the same reason that caused him to write, in “Wild Wales,” an autobiographic narrative without any of the fantasies and romantic ornamentation which did so much to win popularity for his previous books, govern him when he decided to ignore the gypsies – the presence of his wife and stepdaughter? There is a very wide class, including indeed the whole of British Philistia, that cherishes a positive racial aversion to the Romany – an aversion as strong as the Russian aversion to the Jew.

Anyhow, it was very eccentric to write a book upon Wales and to ignore so picturesque a feature of the subject as the Welsh gypsies. For, beyond doubt, the finest specimens of the Romany race are – or were in Borrow’s time – to be found in Wales. And here I cannot help saying parenthetically, that as Borrow gave us no word about the Welsh Romanies and their language, the work of Mr. Sampson, the greatest master of the Welsh Romany that ever lived, is especially precious. So great is the work of that admirable scholar upon the subject that he told me when I last saw him that he was actually translating Omar Khayyam into Welsh Romany! Although the Welsh gypsies have a much greater knowledge of Welsh Romany than English gypsies have of English Romany, and are more intelligent, I am a little sceptical, as I told him, as to the Welsh Romanies taking that deep interest in the immortal quatrains which, it seems, atheists and Christians agree in doing among the gorgios.