Humanities desk
< May 11	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	May 13 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 12[edit]

A Masefield poem[edit]

Nevil Shute starts his 1948 novel No Highway with three stanzas by John Masefield:

Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find

No Highway more, no track, all being blind,

The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.

Though you have conquered Earth and charted Sea

And planned the courses of all Stars that be,

Adventure on, more wonders are in Thee,

Adventure on, for from the littlest clue

Has come whatever worth man ever knew;

The next to lighten all men may be you . . .

The acknowledgments say they are from The Wanderer. It's not The Wanderer, and it's not A Wanderer's Song, so what is it? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 00:51, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well isn't it odd? I've been looking for this poem for years, the last time took me down a byway in the course of which Antiquary identified the poem Masefield credited as being one of the first to move him. Before posting above I had another bash at Google, no luck. After posting I tried again and turned up this - from a few months after my last search, a presentation identifying the poem as being from the book more usually listed as The Wanderer of Liverpool. DuncanHill (talk) 01:05, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The stanzas come from a longer piece entitled "The Ending", pages 78-87 of the book. DuncanHill (talk) 01:47, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Surprised I haven't come across this before. It's rather good. Alansplodge (talk) 22:17, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's very Masefield and if anything even more so Shute (the underlying sentiment anyway). It's not in Masefield's Collected Poems which came out in, I think, 1923, seven years before. I don't think it was ever in a book of verse. There are other poems in The Wanderer of Liverpool too. DuncanHill (talk) 22:25, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Litbel insignia?[edit]

Anyone has found online the coat of arms (or similar) of the Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic? I've seen sources saying it was written in 5 languages, but can't find any image of it. --Soman (talk) 16:13, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Soman, I believe it could be at Emblem of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. I'm not 100% sure as this is my first time volunteering at the Refdesk. aeschyIus (talk) 00:35, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ping @Лобачев Владимир? --Soman (talk) 01:02, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have only seen this coat of arms with one language. In 1927-1937, the coat of arms of Belarus was with ribbons in four languages: Belarusian, Russian, Polish, Yiddish. --Лобачев Владимир (talk) 02:49, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to this article (in Russian), the Litbel constitution was never approved, so that the status of the coat of arms as designed remained that of a draft. Nevertheless, the article states, the official coat of arms of the BSSR was – according to "the scientific literature" – the spitting image of its unofficial predecessor, the only difference being that the slogan ("Workers of all countries, unite!"), originally only in Belarusian, was additionally presented in Lithuanian, Polish, Hebrew (sic) and Russian. The author further writes that he has an imprint of the seal of Litbel's Extraordinary Commission for Combatting Counter-Revolution and Profiteering, showing the "lost seal", but with a grammatically incorrect slogan. (The article does not further identify the error, but I think the image shown here is that imprint, with a slogan I cannot make out, but apparently three words instead of the four of Пралетарыі ўсіх краін яднайцеся.) --Lambiam 11:38, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In this context I think еврейский язык refers to Yiddish rather than the Hebrew language. --Amble (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, definitely. --Soman (talk) 23:15, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]