Eugène Marais

Marais accused Maeterlinck of having used his concept of the "organic unity" of the termitary in his book.[8] Marais had published his ideas on the termitary in the South African Afrikaans-language press, both in Die Burger in January 1923 and in Huisgenoot, which featured a series of articles on termites under the title "Die Siel van die Mier" (The Soul of the (White) Ant) from 1925 to 1926. Maeterlinck's book, with almost identical content,^[7] was published in 1926. It is alleged that Maeterlinck had come across Eugene Marais's series of articles, and that it would have been easy for Maeterlinck to translate from Afrikaans to French, since Maeterlinck knew Dutch and had already made several translations from Dutch into French before.^[9]: 53 It was common at the time for worthy articles published in Afrikaans to be reproduced in Flemish and Dutch magazines and journals.

Marais sent a letter to Dr. Winifred de Kock in London about Maeterlinck, in which he wrote that

The famous author had paid me the left-handed compliment of cribbing the most important part of my work... He clearly desired his readers to infer that he had arrived at certain of my theories (the result of ten years of hard labour in the veld) by his own unaided reason, although he admits that he never saw a termite in his life. You must understand that it was not merely plagiarism of the spirit of a thing, so to speak. He has copied page after page verbally.^{[4]: 398 [9]: 53}

Supported by a coterie of

Professor VE d'Assonville wrote about Maeterlinck as "the Nobel Prize winner who had never seen a termite in his whole life and had never put a foot on the soil of Africa, least of all in the Waterberg.".[9]^: 53

There is evidence ^[5] that Marais's time and research in the Waterberg brought him great peace and joy and provided him with artistic inspiration. In the poem Waar Tebes in die stil woestyn, he writes (as translated into English by J. W. Marchant) 'There would I know peace once more, where Tebes in the quiet desert lifts it mighty rockwork on high ...'. (Tebus is one of the principal peaks of the area). That said, Marais was a long-term morphine addict and suffered from melancholy, insomnia, depression and feelings of isolation.

Also while living in the

One of Marais's last poems, Diep Rivier ("Deep River"), is an ode to the drug morphine and was written ten years before its author's death by his own hand.^[11]

Death

On March 29, 1936, having been forsaken by his friends and family and deprived of morphine for several days, Marais borrowed a shotgun on the pretext of killing a snake and shot himself in the chest. The wound was not fatal, and Marais therefore put the gun barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Marais took his own life on the farm Pelindaba, which belonged to his friend Gustav Preller. For those who are familiar with the dark moods of certain of Marais's poems, there is a black irony there; in Zulu language, Pelindaba means 'the end of the business' – although the more common interpretation is 'Place of great gatherings'.

Robert Ardrey, an admirer of Eugène Marais's, attributed Marais's suicide to the theft of his intellectual property by Maeterlinck.^[12] Ardrey said in his introduction to The Soul of the Ape, published in 1969, that 'As a scientist he was unique, supreme in his time, yet a worker in a science unborn.' He also refers to Marais's work at length in his book African Genesis.

Eugéne Marais and his wife Aletta lie buried in the Heroes' Acre, Pretoria.

Legacy

Marais's work as a naturalist, although by no means trivial (he was one of the first scientists to practise

Marais was also fascinated by the folklore, cultures, and traditions of the Bantu peoples of the rural Transvaal; this is often seen in poems such as "Die Dans van die Reën" (The Dance of the Rain).

Since his death by his own hand, Eugène Marais has been cited as the prototype of the many

Many highly important figures in Afrikaans literature during the Apartheid felt similarly, according to André Brink, "torn between attachment to their language, situation, and people on the one hand and their desire to bring about innovations, which are rejected or misunderstood. The writers find themselves too far ahead of their people and may become isolated, aliens in their own land – the fate of Eugène Marais."^[15]

Poetry translations

The following translation of Marais's "Winternag" is by J. W. Marchant:

"Winter's Night"

O the small wind is frigid and spare
and bright in the dim light and bare
as wide as God's merciful boon
the veld lies in starlight and gloom
and on the high lands
spread through burnt bands
the grass-seed, astir, is like beckoning hands.

O East-wind gives mournful measure to song
Like the lilt of a lovelorn lass who's been wronged
In every grass fold
bright dewdrop takes hold
and promptly pales to frost in the cold!

While the above translation is generally faithful, and is a fine poem in English, it does not quite capture the terse directness of the Afrikaans language, which makes Afrikaans poetry so bittersweet and evocative, striking straight to the heart and soul. Below follows a translation by Farrell Hope, which may closer reflect the original Afrikaans idiom. Note the above version by J. W. Marchant, as well as the third version below by At de Lange, both translate the Afrikaans word in the poem skade (damage) as if it was skadu (shade). This is a common error in translating the poem and misses the point Marais was making: that the British forces had destroyed the Boer farms.

"Winternight"

O the small wind is frigid and spare
and bright in the dim light and bare
as wide as God's merciful boon
the veld lies in starlight and gloom
and on the high lands
spread through burnt bands
the grass-seed, astir, is like beckoning hands.

O East-wind gives mournful measure to song
Like the lilt of a lovelorn lass who's been wronged
In every grass fold
bright dewdrop takes hold
and promptly pales to frost in the cold!

An English translation by At de Lange preserves the musicality of the poem quite well:^[16]

"Winter's Night"

O cold is the slight wind,
and keen.
Bare and bright in dim light
is seen,
as vast as the graces of God,
the veld's starlit and fire-scarred sod.
To the high edge of the lands,
spread through the scorched sands,
new seed-grass is stirring
like beckoning hands.

O mournful the tune
of the East-wind refrain,
like the song of a girl
who loved but in vain.
One drop of dew glistens
on each grass-blade's fold
and fast does it pale
to frost in the cold!

Die Wonderwerker

This 2012 movie directed by Katinka Heyns explores Marais's convalescence from malaria on a farm in the Waterberg.^[17]

Cultural References

• Eugene Marais is fictionalised in Brian Catling's Vorrh trilogy in the last of the series, The Cloven.^[18]
• The Soul of the Ape is visible on the floor of the hotel room of the protagonist in the 1975 film The Passenger by Michelangelo Antonioni.
• The Soul of the Ape and The Soul of the Ant are both referenced in the book The Soul of Viktor Tronko by David Quammen, published 1987

The Marais name

The progenitors of the Marais name in the region were Charles and Claude Marais, from the Paris region of France.^[7] The Marais name has retained its original French spelling and pronunciation^[19] in South Africa.

See also

• Afrikaans folklore
• Eugène Marais Prize

Bibliography

• The Soul of the White Ant, 1937, first published as Die Siel van die Mier in 1925, in Afrikaans
• The Soul of the Ape, 1919, published posthumously in 1969.

Notes

1. ISBN 2841000869
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2. ^ Opperman, D.J. Undated but probably 1962. Senior verseboek. Nasionale Boekhandel Bpk, Kaapstad. Negende druk, 185pp
3. ^ Schirmer, P. 1980. The concise illustrated South African encyclopaedia. Central News Agency, Johannesburg. First edition, about 212pp.
4. ^ Rousseau, Leon 1982, The Dark Stream—The Story of Eugène Marais. Jonathan Ball Publishers, JeppesTown.
5. ^ Hogan, C.Michael, Mark L. Cooke and Helen Murray, The Waterberg Biosphere, Lumina Technologies Inc, 22 May 2006. [8]
6. ^ Marais, Eugène, Soul of the Ape, Human and Rousseau (1937)
7. ^ Ardrey, Robert The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations, 1966
8. ^ Van Niekerk, H. L. Eugène Marais: Nuwe Feite en Nuwe Inligting 2010 (Eugène Marais: New Facts and New Insights)