My last post included a rather gruesome bit of poetry by Rudyard Kipling where he describes the Afghani women coming to kill the wounded British soldiers in the first Afghan war. It’s sexist, or anti-sexist, if you like. Since it reverses a stereotype of the non-violent, female home-body. Then again the Afghanis had wiped out an entire British army, killing virtually everyone including civilians.
What follows is The Betrothed, one of Kipling’s first published poems, appearing in “the civil and military gazette”, Lahor, India (near Afghanistan), November, 1888. Kipling was an assistant editor). It has a more traditional view of women, or of British women who do not go out murdering, but who do wish to control/ stop a British man’s cigar smoking. In a sense, such stoppage is murder. The inspiration was a breach of ‘Promise of Marriage’ case in Glasgow, August 1888, where a young woman, Maggie Watson, sued her fiancee because he continued to smoke cigars after she insisted he stop. Kipling explores the psychology of the choice between smoking and marriage. I think Freud would approve.
The Betrothed.
OPEN the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout, For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.
We quarrelled about Havanas—we fought o’er a good cheroot, And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a space; In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie’s face.
Maggie is pretty to look at—Maggie’s a loving lass, But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.
There’s peace in a Larranaga, there’s calm in a Henry Clay; But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away—
Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown— But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town!
Maggie, my wife at fifty—grey and dour and old— With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!
And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar—
The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket— With never a new one to light tho’ it’s charred and black to the socket!
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a while. Here is a mild Manila—there is a wifely smile.
Which is the better portion—bondage bought with a ring, Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?
Counsellors cunning and silent—comforters true and tried, And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?
Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,
This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return, With only a Suttee’s passion—to do their duty and burn.
This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.
The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.
I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal, So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
I will scent ’em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides, And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.
For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between. The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o’ Teen.
And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear, But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;
And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.
And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove, But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o’-the-Wisp of Love.
Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire? Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider anew— Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba—I hold to my first-sworn vows. If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse!
Robert E. Buxbaum, September 17, 2021. Kipling has a great sense of words, and an attractive sense of the subjects, great and small. For years he was the voice of his generation in Britain, but by the end of his life, his views were unacceptable. sexist. On the other hand, he remained staunchly anti-Nazi, anti eugenics, and anti Soviet. By comparison, George Bernard Shaw was a vocal fan of Stalin, of Hitler, and of the eugenic removal of Jews and other undesirables. Shaw’s words remain fashionable, while Kipling’s do not. Such is the nature of fame.
He did have a masterful way with words.