This is a temporary photo taken on my phone, to be replaced by a hypothetically better one from my camera this weekend. There's a wonderfully evocative gate – if a gate can be such a thing – in Bristol that opens on to stone steps winding up the hillside slopes of Cliftonwood to the summit of Clifton Village. Made of iron, the archway's now so rusty it looks like it might shiver and crumble if you dared to touch it. Amid leaves and curls runs a motto beginning 'Tomorrow's tangle' and continuing with I know not what, thanks to the loss of various letters. Google has helped me fill in the gaps: 'Tomorrow's tangle to ye windes resign' – wise words, oh yes – comes from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. His version of the Persian verses were published in the 19th century. I wonder who made this arch in Bristol and what inspired them to choose this line of poetry as an adornment?
5 comments:
Thank you for this! My wife and I were wondering what the reference was for this archway when we say it yesterday. Many thanks!
A pleasure! I found it quite a tantalising mystery, that gate.
Thanks for info though I have failed to find quote in my edition of Rubaiyat - there seem to be a number of versions.Saw gatearch today - as tatty as ever and have asked Clifton and Hotwells Society whether anything else can be done to restore.
I've often walked past this intriguing sign too and wondered what the last word might be! Thank you for the complete phrase. I'd love to know the story behind who had it made up. Or doesn't actually look that old - maybe from the 1980's.
I would love to know the story too. I might do some more sleuthing…
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