Swan and Swann

The Herb Garden at Sissinghurst

Swans are not something I have spent much time thinking about, but they keep popping up on this trip. I am reading Swann's Way; the first story of Marcel Proust's immense novel, In Search of Lost Time. I am reading the Moncrieff/Kilmartin edition, a few pages at a time, savouring Proust's incomparable prose. Here is his description of the evocative nature of taste and smell:

"But when from a long distance past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection".

Isn't it perfect? And true? When I go on a long holiday, I buy a different perfume and every time I smell the scent of that perfume the memories of the holiday rush back. Miss Dior will always remind me of Chamonix, Midnight Poison of Greece and Turkey (and one of the worst hangovers I have ever had after a night on Turkish raki. Never again.), Allure, of a night of wicked abandon in a bolthole. This holiday I am wearing Guerlain Le Petite Robe Noire. Other scents that will remind me of Sissinghurst are freshly mown grass and thyme. There are two thyme carpets outside the Herb Garden, which is redolent with different varieties.

You can see corners of the thyme carpets at the bottom of the photo

I meant to write about swans, somehow I have rambled off and ended up in a herb garden. Anyway, we saw Swan Lake at The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden last week. Having previously listened to Tchaikovsky with much eye-rolling, I was moved to tears by the beauty of the music and dancing in the ballet. It was also much fun sitting in the Balconies Restaurant beforehand, people-watching. There were a number of women wearing dresses that threatened to malfunction while they staggered around on tremendously high heels. It was cruel and yet strangely pleasing to watch with breathless anticipation as they lurched and wobbled their way through the crowd. 

Swans greeted our arrival at Lake Geneva in Collonge-Belle Rive, in Lucerne and at Hever Castle and I have already referred to the Leda and the Swan sculpture in the gardens at Hever. 

Swans are revered in Europe, I suppose because of their beauty, and only the monarch may eat swan meat as she owns most of the swans. I know this thanks to the late Peter Cook, who was very fond of swans, bees and tadpoles. Who can forget the Pete and Dud sketch that included this exchange:

`Have you ever wanted to eat a swan?' `Now that you mention it. . . No.'

`My heart goes out to those people who crave the flesh of the swan. You see, that is not one of our inalienable rights. Only the Queen and her direct relatives are allowed to cram huge wodges of roast swan down their gobs ....'

This is our last day in Sissinghurst and I am very, very sad to be leaving but very, very grateful we were able to stay here. 

The White Garden from the Tower. Priest House is on the far left.

 

The White Garden

A country walk 

Nigel and Ben Nicolson built this in honour of their father, Harold. Nigel wrote there in summer. 

Thank you Vita and Harold

I re-read Yeats Leda and the Swan this afternoon and was surprised how raw it is. I felt as though I was standing close to the beating wings and staggering girl. The picture it conjures is much more primeval than this representation I saw yesterday at Hever Castle in Kent:

Leda looks slightly bored rather than terrified or repulsed, don't you think? I am starting to wonder about myself. I have only been blogging for a couple of weeks and this is the second picture of bestiality I have posted. Well, technically it isn't because Pan was a god and so was the swan (Zeus), although why Zeus didn't just front up as himself I don't know. According the Wikipedia, Leda later gave birth to Helen and Polydeuces. She also had two children to her human husband. The entry goes on to state, "In the W.B. Yeats version, it is subtly suggested that Clytemnestra...has somehow been traumatised by what the swan has done to her mother". Funny about that. I wonder what the ancient Greek is for "EEEIIIIOUUUWWW!!!!"?  Probably "EEEIIIIOUUUWWW!!!!"

Hever Castle has a beautiful Italian garden containing  (I just realised I have no idea of the names of most architectural elements in gardens) a sandstone loggia and terraces and little garden rooms planted in different ways.

Hever Castle, Kent 

You can't see the grapes very well in the photo, you need to zoom in if you are interested.

The castle itself was the Boleyns' home, until they fell from favour and were executed or died naturally, when Henry VIII gave the house to Anne of Cleves (she of the evil smells) as part of her divorce settlement. Anne of Cleves lived there for 17 years. The Waldorf-Astors later bought the house. 

We are now staying in Priest House, Sissinghurst Castle. Most of the Tudor Castle was destroyed during the Castle's time as a prison for French prisoners of war in one of the interminable wars the English had with the French. Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson bought the castle in the 1930s and created the most beautiful garden. Vita was a prolific author, lover of Virginia Woolf and subject of the wonderful Portrait of a Marriage, by Nigel Nicolson. Harold was a diplomat, author and garden designer. Theirs was an enviable partnership.  

Priest House, looking on to the white garden  and a bit of husband

I am sitting in the very room where Vita passed away. A chicken is roasting in the oven, friends are downstairs chatting happily in the golden light of a mid-summer evening and I am so, so thankful to Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson for creating this idyll.