6. In Which the Ancient History I LearnIs Not My Own
Eavan Boland
In the following 1993 poem, Irish poet Eavan Boland examines national history and identity.
The linen map
hung from the wall.
The linen was shiny
and cracked in places.
The cracks were darkened by grime.5
It was fastened to the classroom wall with
a wooden batten on
a triangle of knotted cotton.
The colours
were faded out10
so the red of Empire—
the stain of absolute possession—
the mark once made from Kashmir
to the oast-barns1 of the Kent
coast south of us was15
underwater coral.
Ireland was far away
and farther away
every year.
I was nearly an English child.20
I could list the English kings.
I could name the famous battles.
I was learning to recognize
God’s grace in history.
And the waters25
of the Irish Sea,
their shallow weave
and cross-grained blue green
had drained away
to the pale gaze30
of a doll’s china eyes—
a stare without recognition or memory.
We have no oracles,
no rocks or olive trees,
no sacred path to the temple35
and no priestesses.
The teacher’s voice had a London accent.
This was London. 1952.
It was Ancient History Class.
She put the tip40
of the wooden
pointer on the map.
She tapped over ridges and dried-
out rivers and cities buried in
the sea and seascapes which45
had once been land.
And stopped.
Remember this, children.
The Roman Empire was
the greatest Empire50
ever known—
until our time of course—
while the Delphic Oracle
was reckoned to be
the exact centre55
of the earth.
Suddenly
I wanted
to stand in front of it.
I wanted to trace over60
and over the weave of my own country.
To read out names
I was close to forgetting.
Wicklow. Kilruddery. Dublin.
To ask65
where exactly
was my old house?
Its brass One and Seven.
Its flight of granite steps.
Its lilac tree whose scent70
stayed under your fingernails
for days.
For days—
she was saying—even months,
the ancients traveled75
to the Oracle.
They brought sheep and killed them.
They brought questions about tillage and war.
They rarely left with more
than an ambiguous answer.80