"The Ballad of East and West" is a poem by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in 1889, and has been much collected and anthologised since.
Video The Ballad of East and West
The poem
Kamal, a tribal chieftain in the North-West Frontier (then on the boundary of the British Raj, nowadays in Pakistan), steals the British Colonel's mare, his pride. The Colonel's son, who commands a troop of the Guides, asks if any of them knows where Kamal might be. One does, and tells him, and warns him of the dangers of entering Kamal's territory guarded by tribesmen concealed among the rocks and scrub. The Colonel's son sets off on a dun horse in pursuit. He catches up with Kamal at the edge of his territory, fires his pistol at him, and misses. Kamal challenges him to show whether he can ride. They gallop until dawn; after 20 miles, the dun falls. Kamal turns, and knocks the pistol out of the son's hand. Kamal says that it was only by his permission that the son had ridden unharmed through his territory. The son replies that his death would be avenged manyfold, and says that if Kamal returns the mare, he will fight his own way back. Kamal, impressed, raises the son to his feet. The son offers the mare to Kamal as a gift. Kamal rejects it, and says that he will return it equipped with his own fine horse furniture. The son offers his second pistol to Kamal, saying that he had taken the first from an enemy but can take this one from a friend. Kamal says that as the Colonel has sent his son to him, so he will send his only son in return. Calling the youth, he commands him to follow the soldier and to enter the White Queen's (i.e. Queen Victoria's) service. He predicts that the youth will be promoted to ressaldar when he, Kamal, is hanged in Peshawur. The Colonel's son and Kamal swear blood brotherhood. The two young men ride back to the British fort; where the Colonel's son announces that his companion is no longer a border thief, but is now a man of the Guides.
Maps The Ballad of East and West
Critical analysis
Its first line is often quoted, sometimes to ascribe racism to Kipling, particularly in regard to the British Empire. Those who quote it thus often completely miss the third and fourth lines. The full refrain, with which the poem opens and closes, includes a contradiction of the opening line.
This may be read as saying that 'it is indisputable that geographic points of the compass will never meet in this life, but that when two strong men [or equals] meet, the accidents of birth, whether of nationality, race, or family, do not matter at all--the mutual respect such individuals have, each for the character, prowess, and integrity of the other, are their only criteria for judging and accepting one another. Any differences in ethnicity between such individuals are never even considered.The poem is written in the style of a border ballad. It is printed as rhyming heptameters, two of which are equivalent to a ballad stanza; some texts print these in quatrains (groups of four lines). The vocabulary, stock phrases and rhythms are reminiscent of the old ballads, and the culture described is not unlike that of the Border Reivers: the first line of the actual story, for example, is "Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side" to mean that a raid is in progress to cause trouble in the Border (here the North West Frontier, and originally the English/Scottish Border); the second line contains 'lifted', a Scots term for 'stolen', and the fourth 'calkin' (a technical term of horseshoes, here used to describe a trick of horse-mounted brigands, reversing the horseshoes to leave misleading tracks); and the second quatrain (line 9) has the stock phrase, also found in Sir Patrick Spens (s:Sir Patrick Spens), "Then up and spoke the [Colonel's son] that led a [troop of the Guides]", with a most traditional driving rhythm. Such echoes are to be heard throughout the poem: there is a couplet that is repeated with slight variations several times:
-
-
- There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between
- And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- (ll 19-20; cf. 35-6 and 43-44)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
T. S. Eliot included the poem in his 1941 collection A Choice of Kipling's Verse.
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
0 Comments