February 10, 2003
Damascene
I often play a word game in which one tries to make up as many words as one can in two minutes from a random selection of ten letters. In general, the more words one assembles, and the longer they are, the better the score. On one occasion, some time ago, I was very pleased with myself for coming up with a nine-letter word: damascene, although it bothered me at the time that, whilst I’d recalled the word from somewhere in my mind, I didn't know what it meant.
I looked it up, & found that it derives from Damascus, the ancient Levantine city - apparently the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. Although many have been on the road that leads to Damascus (figuratively speaking), it is likely that few who might read this will have actually spent time in the Syrian capital. Damascene is to Damascus as Roman is to Rome, or Parisian to Paris.
Damascene, or damaskeen, is also a style of decorative iron- or steel-work, famed for its hardness, suppleness and texture, wherein the metal is imbued with a peculiar marking, as that in watered silk, or is inlaid, or incrusted with silver, or gold, by means of etching, engraving or carving. Dryden refers to Mingled metal damasked o'er with gold. A synonymous term is damask, which drifts in to us accompanied by a complex harmony of other connotations. Damask may be silk, elaborately woven with a floral design; it may be linen so woven that a pattern is produced by the different directions of the thread, without contrast of colour; and it may be wool or worsted stuff similarly made, for furniture covering and hangings.
Then there is the Damask rose, a fragrant bloom, or its deep pink colour, praised by poets. A type of small oval plum of a blue color, once known as a Damask plum, is, lastly, now known to us as a damson. So there is the sharp flavour of fruit, the heady fragrance of a rose and the rich glow of its colour. There is the glint reflected from the exquisite decoration on antique swords. And there are the sounds and smells of a Biblical city more imagined now, than seen.
It sounds like a tale, or a novel: well, it's that too, Damascene: a hypertext by Serbian fantasist Milorad Pavić.
