Foreign News: And So to Hope Again

Another notable literary event took place at Oxford, last week. When Princess Elizabeth visited the university to receive an honorary doctorate of civil law, the “OUDS” (pronounced OWDS—the Oxford University Dramatic Society) produced a masque in her honor. Oxford had not entertained a royal visitor with this traditional Renaissance theatrical since 1636, when Charles I and his Queen Henrietta Maria paid a call*. In sunlit, flower-decked Radcliffe Quadrangle at University College, Elizabeth was ensconced beneath a blue-&-gold canopy while from a swan-shaped chariot (drawn by redheaded twins) Venus and Neptune delivered their welcoming speeches. Beneath the glassy eyes of movie and television cameras, a fully armored St. George charged in, precariously perched on a white horse that at first stubbornly refused to face the guest of honor. The cast also included 94 white pigeons which made their entrance on cue, except for six that were found later in the dean’s bathroom.

Notable among the allegorical figures was “Gloom,” garbed in long black veil and sweeping Gay Nineties feathers, who delivered dire predictions (“Slump and boom, slump and boom, is the rhythm of your doom”). There was also “Black Market” in a Piccadilly zoot suit; he offered his wares “out o’ patriotism so as ter keep the owld country goin’,” Central character was “Fear” (entwined from head to toe by a prop serpent), who declaimed: “Of all lands, my favorite and pet is England, blitzed and starving and in debt . . .”

But the Masque of Hope lived up to its title. In the end the serpent “Fear” and its attendant demons “Gloom” and “Want” were subdued like so many capitalist spivs.

* Last week’s masque cost £550 ($2,200). The 17th Century affair cost £2,666—and in those days pounds were sterling.