ubi Calypso non dea amantissima est, immo ut Musa colitur

Derek Walcott received an honorary degree (D. Litt.) from Oxford this year. Here's the citation:

Mr Derek Walcott, OBE, FRSL

Poet and Playwright

Felicem eum esse qui ut olim Vlixes navigationem bene perfecerit dicit poeta Francogallus. Homerus Vlixem primum ostendit Ogygiam incolentem, insulam in Oceano remotissimo positam; nam deam Calypso, amore captam, captum eum ibi retinere narrat. Ecce poeta arte et lyrica et epica sollertissimus, qui ut Catullus multa per aequora vectus est et ut Vlixes multorum hominum urbes vidit mentemque cognovit. Civis Britannicus in loco a Britannia remoto natus est; patria est insula Sanctae Luciae, pars Indiae illius Occidentalis ubi Calypso non dea amantissima est, immo ut Musa colitur. Apud Homerum Vlixes post reditum Ithacae remanere, apud poetam Britannicum etiam in senectute peregrinari voluit: 'Praemia sunt et adhuc senibus decus.' Hic quem laudo iam senex nihil prisci vigoris amisit. Nam in libello nuper edito, cui titulus Vir Prodigus, se ut etiamnunc viatorem repraesentat. Novum Eboracum Londinium Lutetiam Mediolanum iter facit; ad Alpes Italiam Americam Australem pervenit. Attamen quamvis crepusculum illud Vergilianum admiretur (verbis ipsius utor), Europae antiquam gloriam onus factam esse existimat. Dum tabulas statuas molem aedium sacrarum spectat, dulcem domum reminiscitur; nam ut Vlixes apud Homerum nihil dulcius quam solum suum videre potest, et ut Cicero reditum in montis patrios et ad incunabula sua perpetuo desiderat.

Carmini eius celeberrimo Homerus inscribitur, qui titulus ad Graeciam ut fuit et ut nunc est spectare plane videtur. Magna scriptrix quaedam fabularum commenticiarum dixit poetas epicos et tragicos de fortunis regum atque heroum scripsisse, se gaudia ac dolores hominum mediocrium depingere maluisse; putavit enim, ut videtur, fabulas commenticias a carminibus epicis plurimum discrepare. At hic epos de hominibus obscuris fecit, obscuros epica dignitate vestivit. In versibus eius casus Achillis Hectoris Philoctetis narrantur; sunt tamen plebei, non principes. Itaque quod Vergilius de semet dixit de eo dicendum: 'In tenui labor, at tenuis non gloria.'

Praesento Homerum reducem et Vlixem, Theodoricum Alton Walcott, apud Vniversitatem Bostoniensem professorem, praemio Nobeliano nobilitatum, ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris.

Admission by the Chancellor

Vates egregie, qui cum amorem patriae cecinisti tum multas gentes multa saecula totum orbem terrarum versibus pulcherrimis complexus es, ego auctoritate mea et totius Vniversitatis admitto te ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris honoris causa.

Paraphrase

'Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage,' says Joachim du Bellay. When Homer introduces Ulysses to us, he is living on Ogygia, an island lying in farthest Ocean; for, as the poet tells, the goddess Calypso, herself love's captive, holds him captive in this place. Here is a master of both lyric and epic verse, who like Catullus has been 'borne o'er many seas' and like Ulysses has seen the cities of many men and known their mind. He was born a British subject in a place far indeed from Britain: his home is the island of St Lucia in the West Indies—where Calypso is a muse, not a goddess in love. Homer's Ulysses wanted to stay in Ithaca once he had got back there, but Tennyson's Ulysses yearned to explore even in old age: 'Old age hath yet his honour and his toil.' In his seventies our honorand has lost none of his old force. In his recent volume, The Prodigal, he represents himself still as a rover. He travels to New York, London, Paris, Milan; his journeys take him to the Alps, to Italy, to South America. But while he admires the 'Virgilian twilight', to borrow his own phrase, he feels that Europe's glorious past has become a burden. As he views paintings, sculptures and great cathedrals, he finds himself thinking affectionately of his Heimat; for like Homer's Ulysses he thinks that he can see no sweeter sight than his own land, and like Cicero he longs constantly to return to 'my native hills, the cradle of my being'.

He has called his most famous work Omeros, a title which surely evokes Greece both ancient and modern. The great novelist George Eliot said that whereas tragedians and epic poets had written about kings and heroes, she had chosen to depict the joys and sorrows of ordinary folk; she supposed, it seems, that the novel and the epic poem were utterly different art forms. Our honorand, however, has made an epic out of humble people, and clad these humble people in an epic nobility. His verses tell of Achille, Hector and Philoctete; but these are common people, not lords of the earth. When Virgil wrote about bees, he said that his theme was slight, but not slight the glory; and we may say the same of this poet.

I present the Homer and the Ulysses of our time, Derek Alton Walcott, Professor at Boston University, Nobel laureate, for admission to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

Admission by the Chancellor

Great poet, who while expressing your love for your homeland have at the same time brought many times and nations, indeed the whole world, within the compass of your magnificent verse, I on my own authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.