An Answer, No an Echo

Liora an the Starn-Weaver, frae the glint o a Welsh makar

Whan I first read aboot Liora's warld — thon braw warld wi nae hunger, nae trauchle o wark, "wi no ae unneedfu note" — I didna feel unco. I kent it fine. For we in Wales hae lived neist-door tae this warld for a thoosand years, an hae argued wi it, no in philosophie, but in poetry. This tale cam frae German, wis re-woven in Welsh, an crossin thon doorstane, it cam, aiblins athoot kennin it, hame.

Tak tent o ae word in the middle o the description o the Mercat o Licht. Tae pent the warld afore Liora rave it sindry, the translator waled a phrase that only a Welshman can richt unnerstaun: ilka stall, it wis said, "wis like a completed Cynghanedd (traditional Welsh strict meter an harmony)". That is the key tae the haill story. For tae us, Cynghanedd isna juist a bonnie metaphor. It is oor auldest wey o speirin the exact same question that burns in Liora's hert: whit is the difference atween a harmony that is alive an a harmony that is deid?

The Completed Harmony

Strict meter poetry is ane o the maist disciplined airtistic systems man has ever wrocht. Consonants maun answer ilk ither across the line conformin tae rules aulder nor mony o oor castles. Frae the haun o a maister like Dafydd ap Gwilym, this restriction turns intae flicht. But onybody wha has ever sat in a poetry competition kens there are twa kinds o harmony. There is the harmony that is richt — ilka consonant in its place, no ae mistak, "flawless order, like cauld steel" — but whilk is deid. An there is the harmony that is alive, whaur the rule has ceased tae be a chain an has become a wing.

That is exactly the warld o the Starn-Weaver. It is perfectly richt. Ilka threid is in its place; there isna ae mistak; the cloods mak "identical smiles". An yet it is deid — or, tae be preceese, it hasna yet begun tae live. Whit is missin is the ae thing nae architect can gie: Hiraeth (a deep, nostalgic yearnin). Whan Liora gaithers her Stanes o Speirin, she isna creatin stramash. She is daein whit ilka true makar does — refusin tae settle for deid precision, an demandin that the line comes alive.

An there is a hidden sign that the translator unnerstauns this perfectly. Becaise he didna juist settle for translatin the story intae prose. In the middle o the beuk, he steppit intae the strict meters hissel an wrocht a poem. Whan Liora's arrival is telt o, we hear it in poetry:

Then a lassie cam intae the ring wi her poke,
An her hivy stanes in a warld sae hale.

The lassie carryin questions arrives, therefore, no in a sentence, but in metric harmony. The beuk couldna hae said ony clearer that it unnerstauns it noo belangs tae oor tradeetion.

The Restin Place (The Caesura)

This is the hert o it, an the truth that I trow nae Welsh reader will ever forget. In oor harmony, accord doesna mean uniformity. It isna an echo. Indeed, a line whaur the seicont half repeats the first would be an absolute failure — the flaw we caa "repetition". Whit we demand is an answer: that the seicont half o the line taks the consonantal banes o the first an answers them wi a new flesh o vowels. It is a correspondence atween twa different things, no a union o twa identical things.

An for that answer tae be possible, there maun be a break. The line is divided by a pause we caa Gorffwysfa — a word that literally means restin place. Athoot that gap, ae half canna turn tae the ither tae answer it. That is the secret the Starn-Weaver missed: he wrocht a weave athoot a restin place. An unbroken, bonnie, bund line that could never turn back on itsel. A bizz, no a sang.

An this is why — an read this slawly — the tear in the lift isna a disaster. The tear is the restin place that finally cam tae a warld that never had ane. Tak tent that the exact word the translator waled for the moment o silence afore the answer is didolnod calon — the caesura o the hert, the grammatical mark that spleets ae clause frae anither. This isna a story aboot shatterin a perfect warld. It is a story aboot giein a perfect warld the ae thing that wis missin: the pause that allous for an answer. It isna the crack that gies life. The decision tae reweave across the crack — the answer in the seicont half o the line — that is the life.

The Harp an the Voice

If this is still ower abstract, listen tae music. We hae an airt in Wales caad Cerdd Dant (singin wi a harp). It is dune like this: the harpist plays an auld, set melody — a melody that canna be changed, a melody that wis inherited. Then the voice comes in, entirely alane, tae sing anither melody against it. The voice maun never hit the same notes as the harp at the same time; an yet it maun reach the end wi the harp, as ane. That is the craft: tae be free, an yet tae belang.

Whan Liora sat at the feet o the Whisperin Tree, she wis taucht wi words that nae Welshman could read athoot smilin: "it gies the notes, but ye wile the melody". That isna an alien philosophy tae us. It is a literal description o harp singin. The harp is the Starn-Weaver, giein the set melody; Liora is the singer, receivin the notes an wailin her ain melody against them. Puir Zamir trows that only ae melody is possible — the gien ane. He doesna yet ken that it is possible tae sing against the harp athoot destroyin it.

An we see this answer reach its firmness at the end o the beuk. Whan Liora returns years later, she sees the lassie wha aince held a burd ower tichtly weavin again wi a sicker haun. Whaur the scar wis, the story says, there is noo "nae langer a scar, but a barely veesible featur in her personal pattern". That is the voice reachin the cadence wi the harp. The difference wisna erased; it wis resolved in a richer harmony. An answer, no an echo.

The Black Chair

Noo tae the thing that astoondit me the maist, an whilk pruves, I trow, that the scriever o this story isna a stranger tae us ava. Whan Zamir's hert is broken, whan meanin fades frae his warld, he gies voice tae his despair. An thir are the words pit in his mou:

Wae's me tae live in sic a black age,
An meanin ebbin on a faur horizon...

Ilka Welshman will recognise this rhythm instantly. It is oor nation's maist famous poem, "War", by the Welsh makar Hedd Wyn: "Wae's me tae live in sic a bleak age, / An God ebbin on a faur horizon." Only ae word wis changed: insteid o God's retreat, it is meanin's retreat. An that is perfect, becaise that is exactly Zamir's crisis — no the loss o God, but the loss o certainty that the pattern has ony meanin ava.

But listen tae why invokin Hedd Wyn here strikes sae deep. In 1917, Hedd Wyn won the chair o the National Eisteddfod (the poetry festival). But he had awready been kilt in battle weeks prior. Whan his name wis caad, naebody stude up. The empty chair wis draped wi a black claith, an ever syne it has been caad the Black Chair. Wales learnt a thing that day that has never been forgotten: that the chair can be won by the absent, an that the sang can be completed by silence.

That is exactly whit the beuk teaches aboot the mature Zamir. His melodies, it is said, become the purest o aw — an whit that means is that they are sae clear "that in their mids ane could hear the silence aroond a single, unsung note". The note that isna sung is the empty chair o ilka great sang. Whit is missin is whit gies the haill its meanin.

An that is why Liora's quiet institution — the "Sanctuary o Waitin for Knawledge" — feels sae familiar. It is a ring whaur fowk haud space for a question that canna yet be answered; whaur a haun rests flat on the yird tae anchor the silence. That is the ring o makars. An the motto abune it — "He wha speirs, saws" — whilk imitates the form o oor auld proverbs, says that the question isna a wappen o destruction, but a seed. We mind that the makar Waldo Williams, whan speired whit knawledge wis, answered: "Tae hae ae ruit / Unner the branches." An that is exactly whit the Whisperin Tree is, "connectit tae the yird through unco ruits an tae the lift through unco branches" — the ruit unner the branches, whaur the question an its answer become ane.

A Word tae the Stranger

If ye hae cam tae this essay in anither language, let me offer ye whit Wales can bring tae yer readin o Liora. In mony mindsets, harmony is considered greement — meltin aabody intae a single voice, erasin the difference. Oor tradeetion demands itherwise. For us, harmony is twa things keepin their difference an yet answerin ilk ither across a gap creatit on purpose. The voice that never hits the harp's note, yet meets it in the end. The consonant that answers the consonant athoot repeatin the vowel.

If ye accept that, it will change twa sangs in the beuk. First, dinna mistak Hiraeth (yearnin) for sadness. Yearnin isna grief; it is a pu — the pu o the lowse threid, the thing no yet woven, caain on ye tae spin it. Yearnin is Liora's saul mindin that she hasna yet been gien her ain sang. An seicont, dinna see freedom an belangin as enemies. In the Welsh weave, the lowse threid is exactly whit maks the deid weave come alive. Liora doesna abandon the pattern. She saves it.

The Threid Left Ahint

I will end, as a makar should, wi a confession an an offerin. There is an endin in the beuk whaur we hear the Architects theirsels — thaim wha calculated "the logic o pain an the mathematics o yearnin" — confess somethin terrible: "The architect can plan the tear, but only the tear can feel itsel." They biggit the hoose, they say, but they dinna bide in it. That is the ultimate difference atween the ane wha calculates a sang an the ane wha sings it. An that is why, I trow, the scriever — a computer scientist watchin machines learn tae spin — gied the beuk tae a lassie, an no tae an architect.

Let me therefore lay a threid o my ain afore the chair. In oor metrics, a word within the line answers the stressed soond o the last word — ae half caas, an the ither answers. An this is my line for Liora, she whase name means "my licht":

Frae creation comes the licht.

I will lea it there humbly, juist as the mither left a pod an a dried flouer atween the stanes — "no as a wairnin, no as a prohibition," but as a sign. Mey a better makar than I wey it; for the chair, like ony true chair, waits tae be won by someane wha hasna yet arrived. That is hoo oor airt works, an that is hoo Liora's warld works: leavin a gap for the ane wha will find theirsels.

Flee, Liora. The notes hae been gien. Yer melody is the sang.

An essay by a makar frae Wales, in honour o Liora an the Starn-Weaver.