[Mahfouz] mentions Western culture as a later strand in his formation: “Then I drank the nectar of your rich and fascinating culture. From the inspiration of all this—as well as my own anxieties—words bedewed from me.”
—Naguib Mahfouz, quoted in David Damrosch’s “Around the World in 80 Books”
“Bedewed” is one of the loveliest words I’ve ever come across. It’s so rare that spellcheck doesn’t even know what to do with it. What’s even more impressive is that bedewed is a gorgeous verb here, but it would make an excellent adjective. For example, “I walked along a path flanked with bedewed lilies of the valley.”
The word almost begs to be put in a sentence such as, “My path to her door was bedewed with lilies of the valley” (or more actively, “Lilies of the valley bedewed my path to her door”).
Last week: Czesław Miłosz’s shimmering weave.
Next week: Gilgamesh opens with a bang.
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