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And I'd like to
read you finally,

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a poem called "Marrakech."

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We traveled to Marrakech a
few years ago, in Morocco

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and had a marvelous time there.

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I fell in love with
the whole country.

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And we went down there, stayed
in a fantastic hotel where

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Churchill had written his
memoirs of World War II

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after the war.

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We went to the
marketplace, where

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the red earth is everywhere.

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And there's a great building,
about 300 feet high and 50 feet

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square called the Koutoubia.

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And in this marketplace,
towards sundown,

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every day for the
last 600 years,

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missing only very
few in centuries,

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there are all kinds of things
going on at the market.

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You will see an old man looking
like Homer with a big beard,

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sitting cross-legged
on a carpet.

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Telling the tales of his country
to the illiterate people.

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You'll see a man with the bells
all over him selling water.

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You will see snake
charmers, and you

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will see all kinds of
strange and wonderful people.

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Well, but the thing that
really got us all in our party,

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was a dance we saw.

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And there were about 12 men on--

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who would come out on
a platform like this.

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Actually it's on the flat earth.

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They would be from about
30 years down to 18.

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There was one boy of about 12.

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They were dressed only
in one white garment.

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They were barefooted, and they
came from the Atlas mountains

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beyond Marrakech.

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And they were taught this
dance by their fathers,

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and their fathers had
taught them before way

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back for centuries.

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And this dance was
absolutely amazing.

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They were so
nimble, and each one

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would come out forward and
do a sort of a nimble dance

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or like a dervish.

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And they had double
metal castanets,

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each held in one hand.

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A metal castanet that
they did like this.

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And it went around,
and made a racket.

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And there were two
men on the ground,

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who had taut goatskin drums.

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And they'd beat them
with thin crooked sticks,

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and they made such a racket
that you could feel the rhythm

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in the bones of your chest.

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And this was the most
fantastic dance I ever saw.

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It really just-- and
you couldn't help

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but be moved by it.

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And the point of
the Moroccans, is

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that they work themselves
up into such a frenzy

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that they pass out.

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And so this, I never thought
of it when we saw it,

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but I thought about it for
a year or two afterwards.

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And now I've come
to the conclusion,

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and I feel probably me being
a professor for one minute,

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that really this is an
analogy with Aristotle's ideas

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of tragedy.

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You know that Aristotle said
that tragedy in literature

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cleanses the spirit, because it
purifies the emotions of fear

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and terror in us.

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And when you see
King Lear, or you

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see Sophocles plays Oedipus
or something like that,

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you see Macbeth.

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You see any great tragedy,
the Western peoples at least

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are supposed to be cleansed and
purified and purged, because

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of this essence of tragedy.

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And it seems to me that
this was an analogy here.

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That this was a kind
of a national way

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of their progression
and cleansing,

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by the violence and the
terrific nature of this dance.

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So I'd like to close with this.

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And then if you'd like,
I have an encore in mind.

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I just want to work you
up to that, because I

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want to read you an encore.

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The little one about the
squirrel crossing the road,

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you probably know it already.

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So this is Marrakech.

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And if I hold up the book, you
see what kind of a poem it is.

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It's really an attempt
at description.

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It is in long lines, about
a page and a half long.

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And just trying to describe
the dance that I have

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told you about.

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Now I know that you have
marvelous dances out here,

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and I hope to see some.

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Last year, Mrs. Clark took
us to see the Yaqui Indians,

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and I hope to see
them again this year.

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It absolutely fascinated
me, the pre-Easter

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ceremonies of your
Indians right here.

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And I hope I can learn
some more about that,

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but this is a Moroccan
dance I'm writing about.

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"Marrakech."

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The dance begins with the sun
descending beyond the Koutoubia

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in Marrakech, so ancient
and so fable present.

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The old tell fables,
as the Moroccans

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listen in eyed attention
in the marketplace

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of vitality and veiled women.

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But the dancers,
oh, the dancers,

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priests of devotion from
the high Atlas mountains.

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Perhaps 12, a boy of 10,
shining men under 30.

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Their feet bare and hard
on the bare hard earth,

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begin to dance to two
taut goatskin drums,

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beaten with hard cooked
sticks thin in the diameter.

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The one fiercely
antiphonal to the other.

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Together beating compelling
rhythm to action.

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Action in the flow of the
loose ancient garments

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of the men, as they
strike in both hands

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double metal castanets, in
the dry high air of late day.

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One would come forth,
loosening his devotion.

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Gyrating and flashing
in compelling immediacy,

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total in ecstasy, overwhelming
the senses and fall back.

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And another would
step forth lightly,

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definitely began his
interpretive energy.

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Total devotion to sound, rhythm,
style of the dance and fall

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back.

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And his fellow come out before,
to outdo the predecessor.

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Turn and leap, and
gyrate in ocher ambiance.

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And the drums
insistence, proclaiming

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efficient animal action.

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The passion of
primitive man exultant,

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and each came forward.

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Each leap taller, flash
lower, turn subtler,

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rose higher, prolonging
intensity of animal strategy.

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A rapture of magnitude
pervaded the air.

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Sound and sense reached to
magical ability, one drummer

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on his knees.

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The drum head vertical,
beat out the passion

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of ancient centuries.

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Appeared the thronging
nature of tribal power,

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and the laughing gods
fell to the earth spent.

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And the high heart
bent down with them

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to the earth, and the
heart was raised up

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to the Atlas mountains in
the super abundant delirious

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air of sun down.

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And the laughing gods
fell to the earth spent,

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and the heart bent down
with them to the earth.

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Cleansed in the nature
of rhythm and right,

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the dance was a thing
in itself triumphant.

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Music and dance, the
perfection of the free.

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And before one could
think of the meaning,

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the driven passion of
the drums begins again.

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Oh, ancient Africa.

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Oh, tribal ecstasy.

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A dance of 600 years on the
same spot, they come out again

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instantaneous and eternal.

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And leap and turn
passionately, leap and fall.

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And all are made whole
again, under the red sky.

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And all is made whole
in the heart and time."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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