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| First Written | 1925 |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Origin | UK |
| Publisher | Mythopoeic Press |
| ISBN-10 | 1887726063 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1887726061 |
| My Copy | cheap paperback |
| First Read | November 06, 2013 |
Masques of Amen House
This is a weird and very funny little collection of 3 plays that Williams wrote to be performed where he worked, the Oxford University Press. They're about publishing; in the first a manuscript becomes a book, in the second the book is sold, and in the third the book is lost, rediscovered, and reprinted after its copyright expires.
Noted on November 10, 2013
PHILLIDA
Wayfarer, come; but yet forbear
Unless thy heart be true and clear.
Foul falls thy road - bethink thee still! -
Without submission and good-will.
THE MANUSCRIPT
I was my father's sole delight,
His dulcis filia, lass of might
He sent me forth - and here I am -
That the high gods may bless or damn.
PHILLIDA (making the sign of the magical pentagram)
Art though purged as by fire and by water made clean?
MANUSCRIPT: I mean what I say and I say what I mean.
PHILLIDA: Nine years has thy father revised thee with pain?
MANUSCRIPT: Twice nine on his desk I have patiently lain.
PHILLIDA: Of what dost thou treat, then, and what is thy name?
MANUSCRIPT: To fill up a certain lacuna my aim.
I am called A Short Treatise on Syrian Nouns
As used in the Northern and Sub-Northern Towns
In Five-Hundred B.C., with two maps and three charts:
By Walter Lackpenny, poor Master of Arts.
Quoted on November 10, 2013