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Bibliographical Notes SONGS TO MYRTILLA
THE DATES OF THE BARODA EDITIONS
Two editions of Sri Aurobindo's first book, Songs to Myrtilla and Other Poems, were printed by the Lakshmi Vilas press of Baroda. No copy of the first edition is available for inspection. It is possible that no copy survives. At least two copies marked "Second Edition" do survive, however, and from them the existence of a first edition may be inferred. The second edition does not give the date of publication. It will be the purpose of the first part of this article to determine with as much accuracy as possible the dates of the first and second editions of the book. The only known contemporary mentions of one or another of the Baroda editions of Songs to Myrtilla come in letters of Manmohan Ghose to Rabindranath Tagore, reproduced as Documents 3 and 4. The most important reference comes in the letter dated "Oct. 24th 1894" (Document 4). In the penultimate paragraph Manmohan writes: "Aurobinda is anxious to know what you think of his book of verses". That the book referred to is Songs to Myrtilla is made certain by Man-mohan's qualified praise for "those pieces on Parnell", which could only be "Hic Jacet" and "Charles Stewart Parnell". This reference would seem to prove that Sri Aurobindo's book had been published before 24 October 1894. It is certain, however, that the date of the letter is incorrect. It was written in India — the superscript address is "c/o Rajnarayan Bose / Baidyanath / Deoghar" — but Manmohan did not even arrive in India before 25 October 1894.1 While it is possible that either the month or the day is the incorrect element of the date, it is probable that the error concerns the year. Many references in the letter suggest strongly that it was written in 1898. Since the letter is important not only for helping to date an edition of Sri Aurobindo's first published book, but also for helping to establish the chronology of other events, it is necessary to pinpoint its correct date, or at least to give reasons for accepting one date rather than another. Before proceeding it will be helpful to note that three statements in Man-mohan's letter cast sufficient doubt on the year 1894 to make the date highly questionable, even if it was not true that the writer was on board the steamship Patroclus on 24 October 1894. First, Manmohan writes in the first paragraph of reading Rabindranath's poetry and Bankim's novels, but in 1894 Manmohan did not know enough Bengali to read such books. In a letter written to his friend Binyon after his return he lamented having to learn the language over again from scratch.2 (It is possible that Manmohan was referring to English translations of the two Bengali writers' works, but it does not appear that such translations existed in the 1890s.) Secondly, Manmohan speaks in the penultimate paragraph of Sri Aurobindo writing Bengali poetry, specifically "an epic ... on the subject of Usha and Aniruddha". The "epic" in question was without doubt Ushaharan Kabya. the
1 Letter M. Ghose to L. Binyon. q. Laurence Binyon. "Introductory Memoir", in Songs of Love and Death. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1968. p. 7. 2 Ibid. manuscript of which survives. It is extremely unlikely however that Sri Aurobindo worked on this poem in 1894. His knowledge of Bengali at that time was a great deal better than his older brother's, but it was not sufficient to permit him to write poetry, much less to undertake an epic. In January 1894 Sri Aurobindo had written to his grandfather that the "smattering" of Bengali he had learned in England was not adequate for him to understand fully a letter from his teenaged sister.3 The extant MSS of Ushaharan Kabya are not dated, but on the basis of physical evidence they may be assigned with confidence to the period 1898-1900.4 The third statement not in accord with a date of 1894 occurs in the first paragraph. Manmohan says he is on his "holidays"; but one cannot speak of going on holiday if one is not employed. Manmohan did not obtain his first posting (at Patna) until some time after his return from England. If Manmohan's letter was not written on 24 October 1894, when was it written? I believe Manmohan wrote it a week after another letter to Rabindranath, which is dated "Oct. 17th 1898" (Document 3). In this letter Manmohan asks Rabindranath whether he will be in "Shillada"5 during Manmohan's puja vacation, which would last from 18 October to 17 November. He also informs Rabindranath that he is going to Deoghar. where he will meet his brother Aurobinda. (Other documents confirm that Sri Aurobindo was at Deoghar at this time.) By the way, Manmohan mentions that Aurobinda "has just published a book of poems at Baroda". If these references are paired with references in the misdated letter — Manmohan's being on holiday, his intention of going to "Shillidah" (here, significantly, spelled closer to the correct spelling), and Aurobindo's "book of verses"6 — it becomes apparent that the misdated letter was written in reply to Tagore's answer to the letter of 17 October.7 It has always been assumed that the book by Sri Aurobindo referred to in the letter dated "Oct. 24th 1894" was the first edition of Songs to Myrtilla. It followed that the "book of poems" referred to in the letter of 17 October 1898 was the narrative poem Urvasie, the first, undated, edition of which was published at Baroda. If my dating is accepted, both letters must refer to an edition of Songs to Myrtilla, probably the first. Internal evidence supports this supposition. Manmo-h.in\ statement in the letter of 17 October that "Aurobindo has just published a book of poems" would be more appropriately said of a new book than of a reprint of an existing volume. It would also be more appropriately said of a collection of poems like Songs to Myrtilla than of an extended narrative poem like Urvasie.
3 "A Letter of Sri Aurobindo to his Grandfather". Archives and Research 2 (1978):88. 4 Sri Aurobindo. MS.SA.NB G12, etc. 5 Shilaidah, place in eastern Bengal (in the former, undivided Nadia District) from which Rabindranath managed his family's extensive estates in Rajshahi District. 6 It is significant that the letter of 17 October mentions Aurobindo's book of poems in passing, speaking of them as something not yet known to Rabindranath. In the letter of 24 October the book is referred to as something not only known to Rabindranath, but in his possession. Presumably either Manmohan or Aurobindo had sent a copy to Rabindranath between the seventeenth and the twenty-fourth. 7 Virtually complete certainty may be arrived at by reading all five of Manmohan's surviving letters to Rabindranath together. References in the letter of 17 October 1898 and that of Monday 14 November [1898 — year not given but established unequivocally by perpetual calendar — see Document 5) indicate clearly that the misdated letter belongs between them. Bibliographical data also support my dating. The second edition of Songs to Myrtilla contains a poem ("To Ireland") dated 1896, and so must be assigned to that or a later year. A handwritten manuscript of Songs to Myrtilla contains the same poem.8 In all likelihood this manuscript was the copy from which the typed press copy of the first edition was produced. If the manuscript was written after the first edition and before the second, one would have to assume that Sri Aurobindo made a handwritten copy of an already printed book to use for revision. It is extremely unlikely that he did so. It is the practice of virtually all authors, including Sri Aurobindo in later life, to produce revised editions by writing additions and marking corrections in a printed copy of a previous edition. If one accepts that the manuscript predates the first edition, it inevitably follows that the first edition came out after 1896. Bibliographical data also help to date the two "imitations" from Chandidasa published in Songs to Myrtilla: "Radha's Complaint in Absence" and "Radha's Appeal". It is very probable that the copy of Chandidasa's works donated by Sri Aurobindo to a Baroda institution in 1906 or 1907, and subsequently given to the Sri Aurobindo Library, is the one he used to make these free renderings. The texts of a number of poems in this copy, including the two that were translated, were ticked in pencil, almost certainly by Sri Aurobindo. (The ticking is the same as that in other books that he used to make translations.) Sri Aurobindo's copy of the book belongs to the second edition, which was published after 26 Magh 1303 (7 February 1897). If it is true that this was the copy he used for his translations, both the translations and the book in which they first appeared must be placed after February 1897, unless indeed the "imitations" were first printed in the second edition. This seem exceedingly unlikely, however. The second edition has all the appearance of being a verbatim reprint of the first. Moreover one of the translations is found in the post-1896 manuscript mentioned in the preceding paragraph. If the first edition of Songs to Myrtilla is looked at in isolation from other publications. 1898 must be considered the most likely year of its issue. A date as late as that, however, creates problems when one tries to determine the dates of the second edition of Songs to Myrtilla and the first edition of Urvasie. It may be mentioned that, since the two known copies of these two publications were found sewn together, it is probable that they were issued jointly. But when were they issued? Certainly after 1896 (the date of "To Ireland"), but possibly not long after The first edition of Urvasie was followed by a second edition, and both probably were published before or not long after July 1899. when Love and Death was completed. A new edition of Songs to Myrtilla was brought out by The Arya Publishing House, Calcutta, in April 1923. The following Publisher's Note preceded the text: These early poems of Aurobindo Ghose, all except five written between his eighteenth and twentieth years(1890-92), were printed for private circulation at Baroda in 1895 and arc now first given to the general public. The date 1895 presumably was provided by Sri Aurobindo. but it would be a mistake to assign too much value to a piece of information supplied from memory
8 MS.SA.NB G2, 54-64 even. twenty-five years after the event. It is not likely that Sri Aurobindo considered it certain, or indeed that he considered the matter of dating to have much importance. As we have seen, there is no good documentary or bibliographical support for a date as early as 1895. In 1942 all of Sri Aurobindo's published poetical works, including Songs to Myrtilla, Urvasie, and Love and Death, were reprinted in Collected Poems and Plays. This book contains a pioneering bibliography, which is, however, both incomplete and inaccurate. It mentions only two editions of Songs to Myrtilla. one of which is the Calcutta edition of 1923. (It is odd that only one of the editions printed at Baroda is mentioned, since the copy examined by the compiler of the bibliography was almost certainly the copy marked "Second Edition" that was and is still kept in Sri Aurobindo's room.) The 1942 bibliography dates the "first edition" thus: "n.d. [no date] (1895)". The year, taken no doubt from the 1923 Publisher's Note, is certainly not correct, since the book referred to contains a poem dated 1896. The 1942 bibliography dates the first and second editions of Urvasie as follows "n.d. (Circa 1896)", and "n.d. (c. 1897)". The period between the years is more important than the years themselves. Sri Aurobindo (who presumably supplied the information) was apparently not sure of the exact dates of publication, but He does seem to have recalled that the books came out in intervals of about a year. His placement of all three publications before 1899, the year of the composition of Love and Death, which is listed immediately afterwards in the bibliography, may be taken as an indication that he felt that the earlier books were published before the later poem was written. (It may be mentioned, however, that a few years before the bibliography was compiled, Sri Aurobindo had virtually forgotten about the existence of Urvasie.)9 If one felt obliged to adhere to the dates of publication given in the bibliography of 1942. one could suppose a first edition of Songs to Myrtilla published in 1895. explain away the manuscript of the book containing the date 1896. and consider the second edition to belong to any later year. But all things considered, it seems best to accept 1898 as the date of the first edition of Songs to Myrtilla, to assume a date of a year or so later both for the second edition and the first edition of Urvasie, and to give a slightly later date to the second (Bombay) edition of Urvasie.
THE ENGLISH AND INDIAN POEMS IN SONGS TO MYRTILLA
The Publisher's Note of the 1923 edition of Songs to Myrtilla says that "all except five" of the poems in the book "were written between his [Sri Aurobindo's] eighteenth and twentieth years (1890-92)". Sri Aurobindo enlarged on this in the 1940s, when he corrected a statement in the manuscript of a biography of himself that he went through before it was published. The biographer wrote: "In 1895 were published, for circulation among friends only, his poems, five of which were written in England and the rest at Baroda". Sri Aurobindo wrote correcting this: "It is the other way round; all the poems in the book were written in England except five later ones which were written after his return to India".10 Which were
9 Information from K. D. Sethna. December 1987. 10 Sri Aurobindo. On Himself, p. 12. the five that were written after Sri Aurobindo returned to India in February 1893? The two elegies on Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, "Saraswati with the Lotus" and "Bankim Chandra Chatterjee" evidently were written after April 1894, when Bankim died. "To Ireland", which is dated 1896, was apparently written that year. "To the Cuckoo", originally subtitled "A Spring Morning in India", in all likelihood also was written in this country. "Madhusudan Dutt" contains no certain dating clues, but Sri Aurobindo does not seem to have read Madhusudan before his return to India, and certainly could not have understood him fully before then. These poems total up to five. Left out are "Radha's Complaint in Absence" and "Radha's Appeal", both of which, as we have seen, were probably written after 1897. Both were, however, "imitated from the Bengali of Chundidas", and so may be considered translations rather than original poems.
SRI AUROBINDO ON A BOOK OF HIS EARLY VERSE
In the letter-draft published elsewhere in this issue, Sri Aurobindo wrote that he would send his correspondent his "volume of poems" since his correspondent "desired to read it", adding: I doubt whether you will find much that is worth your perusal except two or three of the shorter poems, they were written long ago[,] some as many as 20 or 25 years, and are rather gropings after verse and style than a self-expression[.] The letter-draft is not dated. At present all that can be said is that it might have been written any time between 1915 and 1925. This rough dating, taken together with the phrase that places the writing of some poems in the "volume" twenty or twenty-five years before the time of writing of the letter, would tend to indicate that the "volume" was Ahana and Other Poems. This book was published in 1915, but most of the poems in it were written in Baroda between 1895 and 1906. But one phrase in the letter makes it seem unlikely that the "volume" referred to is Ahana and Other Poems. Would Sri Aurobindo have considered as worthy of his correspondent's perusal only "two or three of the shorter poems" of a book that contains "Ahana" and "The Rishi"? His statement would seem more appropriately said of Songs to Myrtilla. If the letter-draft was written after 1923, it is possible that the "volume" was the Calcutta edition of Songs to Myrtilla. Even if the letter was written before then, it could be supposed that the "volume" was the joint edition of Songs to Myrtilla and Urvasie published in Baroda around the turn of the century, but still offered for sale at least as late as 1909. P.H. |