Ruham Alif and Leporello Swanson are at the Old Chapel Arts
Centre studying Winkworth’s boustrophedonic text. Beyond its essential symmetry, it is difficult
to decipher, so they await the arrival of Samuel Quinine with his semitic
multibabel dictionary. When he appears, he is accompanied by his young
grandson, Kolya, who is clutching his brightly coloured digital neurometer (to
which he has added a music player). This
distracts Leporello (who still wants to persuade the child genius to lend it to
him for his research). As Leporello gently prises the equipment from the chubby
fingers, Kolya glances at the ancient text and in his clear high voices translates
the ancient Safaitic into a modern English equivalent of Ruba'i
rhymed quatrains.
No comments:
Post a Comment