A box of Rochs

Last week I became interested in my ancestors. For some reason, my mother wrote to tell me about her father's mother's father, ie. my great-great-grandfather, Arthur Rochs, who wrote a dissertation on mediaeval German romance at Halle, 1882—you can buy a copy of this work, Über den Veilchenroman und die Wanderung der Euriautsage, here, for a mere 110 kronor. His name summons great and legendary creatures: the bear, the aurochs, the roc (G. Roch)—so I cannot help but imagine him as a monumental figure. When my grandfather died, his son (my uncle) gave Rochs' papers to the San Antonio public library, where the family had settled. These papers apparently did not include the dissertation, but they did include a handwritten German journal, and intriguingly, a 'broadside handbill 1882 (in Latin)'. The papers are still there, cased, as smart as a box of Rochs.

I don't have many memories of my grandfather, primarily because I grew up across the Atlantic from him, secondarily because he didn't like me very much. Because my mother had me late, he was already pretty old when I was born. Still, he gave me lots of stuff: from his stint as a UN ambassador he plied me as a child with hundreds of bizarre coins from around the world, and ceremonial weaponry from West Africa, Nepal, Malaysia—after he died I received his signet ring, in black enamel and gold, which was mugged from me in a dark alley in Bristol with a knife by a heroinated lunatic, and an ivory box of ivory miniature dominos, which I can't find, and a saucy nutcracker:


My uncle entertains hopes of discovering the Halle thesis among his papers. Either way, some day I'd like to get a look at the manuscript poems in Rochs' journal, and translate them.

Update: my uncle has discovered volumes II-IV of Rochs' poetic notebooks, apparently not sent to San Antonio after all. He adds an anecdote: 'Someone in our family. . . has a framed photograph of him, taken about the time when an artist who saw him sitting in a café and asked to use him as a model for a religious painting due to his echte Peterskopf (a real irony for Dr Rochs, an atheist, who probably never considered his resemblance to St. Peter).' The photo has not yet been unearthed.

Update #2: I have begun translating some verses from these notebooks. Some introductory material is here, and individual poems can be found with Gedichte under the 'Poems and Translations' heading to the right of this page.