Karen Blixen - Isak Dinesen home

• Scene: Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford) washing Karen Blixen's (Meryl Streep's) hair on safari:
 

From THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

(Note: Denys Finch Hatton loved this poem. The lines "He prayeth well, who loveth well /Both man and bird and beast" appear on commemorative brass plaques, once placed by Denys Finch Hatton's brother Toby on the obelisk at Denys's tomb in the Ngong Hills, and still found in Ewerby Church, Lincolnshire, England. In the flyleaf of the copy of the poem owned by Karen Blixen, Denys drew a picture of a rhinoceros. This drawing is reproduced in Isak Dinesen's Letters from Africa, page 140.)
 

"...--Laughed loud and long, and all the while /His eyes went to and fro. /Ha, ha, quoth he, full plain I see /The Devil knows how to row.

Farewell, farewell, but this I tell /To thee, thou Wedding Guest: /He prayeth well, who loveth well /Both man and bird and beast."
 

• Scene: At Denys's grave:
 

From A SHROPSHIRE LAD: XIX TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG by A. E. Housman (1859-1936).
 

"The time you won your town the race /We chaired you through the market-place; /Man and boy stood cheering by, /And home we brought you shoulder-high...

Smart lad, to slip betimes away /From fields where glory does not stay /And early though the laurel grows /It withers quicker than the rose...

Now you will not swell the rout /Of lads that wore their honours out, /Runners whom renown outran /And the name died before the man...

And round that early-laurelled head /Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, /And find unwithered on its curls /The garland briefer than a girl's."

(Note: A play, "The Invention of Love" by Tom Stoppard, examines the life of A. E. Housman. The play opened in London in 1998 and in Philadelphia in February, 2000.)

The (fictional)script written for the movie gives Meryl Streep the further comments:

"Now take back the soul of Denys George Finch Hatton, whom You have shared with us. He brought us joy...we loved him well.

He was not ours.

He was not mine."
 

• Scene: Karen leaving the farm for good:
 

From OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen (1885-1962), chapter titled "Kamante and Lulu," page 83:
 

"If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"

• "Rose-lipped maidens"
 
The line "Rose-lipped maidens" appears when Meryl Streep is offered a drink in the Muthaiga Club near the end of the movie, and also before the seduction scene on safari. The following poem was set to music by Samuel Barber (1910-1931).

A. E. Housman (1859-1936).  A Shropshire Lad. 1896.

                     LIV. With rue my heart is laden

                        WITH rue my heart is laden
                          For golden friends I had,
                        For many a rose-lipt maiden
                          And many a lightfoot lad.

                        By brooks too broad for leaping
                          The lightfoot boys are laid;
                        The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
                          In fields where roses fade.


Enjoy Out of Africa's True Story by Linda Donelson.

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Comments or questions: Write to  Coulsong (instead of Athena) at karenblixen.com.

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Supported misspellings: karen blixon, karin, isaac, isak dineson, isak denison, dinison, dinisen, denesen, coolsong, donaldson