Sunday, May 30, 2021

everlasting oil

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds,
When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness and swill'd insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet O where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then when the grey-hooded Even
Like a sad votarist in palmer’s weed
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus’ wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts. ’Tis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me: else O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
That Nature hung in Heav'n, and fill'd their lamps
With everlasting oil, to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear,
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory
Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, t'whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian if need were
To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err, there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot hallo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I’ll venture, for my new-enliven'd spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.

(John Milton's Comus, lines 170-229)


*

Lost in the woods. Simplicity: myth, fairy tale, something close to us, something serious. All Milton's poetry has this same radical directness: as if he's struck a line through all the other poetic agendas of his time, and starts from somewhere else. He was the most learned poet, yet the poem's engagement with the reader is characterized by simplicity. 

*

Milton's Comus is perhaps the only masque that most of us casual poetry fans know. By placing it at the end of his Poems of 1645, with the title A Mask Presented At Ludlow Castle, 1634. &c., Milton offered it to the reader as a poem, but a poem with a framing context,  an implication of the poem being something else than just a poem. 

But whereas most later developments of this fertile idea propose a fictional context (e.g. Wordsworth's "Written with a Slate Pencil, on a Stone, on the Side of the Mountain of Black Comb". . .) , this one was true. Comus really had been a masque, performed as stated, at Ludlow Castle in Shrophire, then the luxuriously furnished seat of the Council in the Marches of Wales. (After the civil war it was allowed to fall in to decay.)

Not all the lines that we read today were delivered on that memorable Michaelmas night (29 September, 1634). Milton made some later additions. There were also performance cuts, which can be seen by comparing the Trinity MS (representing Milton's draft) with the Bridgewater MS (apparently a prompt copy from the performance). 

The speech I've quoted, for instance, was quite drastically reduced (as shown by the italics). The Lady in the Ludlow performance -- that is, the real Lady -- was the fifteen-year-old Alice Egerton. Masquers always played themselves. But Alice didn't speak the lines about the "gray-hooded Even" (188-190), and after "Had stole them from me" (195) her script jumped briskly to "I cannot hallo" (226), preparing for the delivery of her song.

John Egerton (eleven) and Thomas Egerton (nine) also played themselves: the Elder and Second Brother respectively. Their lines were a little slimmed down, too. Doubtless this was all organized by the children's tutor Henry Lawes, who himself played the Attendant Spirit. 

These three children of the Earl of Bridgewater were experienced masquers. Alice and John had been two of the Influences in Inigo Jones' spectacular production of Tempe Restored (Aurelian Townshend, Shrove-Tuesday 1632); their elder sister Catherine had taken part too. [John appears in the list of masquers under the title of Lord Ellesmere.]

John and Thomas had been in Thomas Carew's Coelum Brittannicum (18 February 1634) among the "troop of young Lords and Noble-mens sonnes, bearing Torches of Virgin-wax, these were apparelled after the old Brittish fashion in white Coats, embroydered with silver, girt, and full gathered, cut square coller'd, and round caps on their heads, with a white feather wreathen about them". 

Surely all three children had also taken part in Arcades (4 May 1634), the country-house masque in honour of their grandmother Alice, the Countess of Derby, for which Milton, at Lawes' request, had supplied some verse.  (The Countess of Derby had been a masquer herself. She had taken part in Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens back in 1609.)

*

Yet Comus feels different from all other masques of the time. Masques accompany an earthly celebration in which court or guests or family and friends pay tribute to someone. (In this case, the Earl of Bridgewater, the children's father, taking up the post of Lord Lieutenant of Wales.) Such drama as exists in other masques is usually a matter of e.g. manufactured ructions among the classical gods in response to the outstanding achievement being honoured today. For instance, in Coelum Britannicum the conceit is that Jove and Juno have mended their ways in emulation of the virtues of Charles and Henrietta, and now intend to rename the heavenly constellations to take out references to Jove's wild amours. The classical gods, played by professional actors, did most of the speaking. The modest role of the masquers/guests was to play themselves, largely as dancers or performers of simple ritual gestures. 

 Already, in Arcades, Milton sees the potential in focussing on the guests' journey rather than the burlesque flurries of Olympus. Even in Arcades, the result is a sobriety and reverence that allows a deeper engagement with the drama.

In Comus Milton takes the idea further. His three Egerton family masquers are still playing themselves, but they now have major speaking parts and are involved in dramatic scenes with each other and with others. I don't know of any other masque that even slightly resembles Comus in the amount of dramatic speech and action allotted to the real people in the masque. 

Women masquers had taken silent parts in the earliest of Jonson's masques -- Anne of Denmark was an enthusiastic participant. But had there ever been any meaningful precedent to what the audience witnessed at Ludlow on 29 September 1634:  a woman (Alice),  supposedly playing herself but undeniably acting a fictional adventure in face-to-face confrontation with a fictional character (Comus, thought to have been performed by a professional actor) : performing a speaking (and singing) role on a large scale before a large audience?  *

The idea of the masquers journeying to the celebration has grown into an adventure on the way, an adventure in the wild country that lies between safe dwellings. 

                                             But their way
Lies through the perplex'd paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger. 

(Comus, ll. 36-39)


The story plays into deeply-held social anxieties about letting the children of gentlefolk, especially the girls, stray out into a world where they could be waylaid by ruffians. Yet it's apparent that this wood represents much more than the fear of wild Welshmen or Hertfordshire hinds. It also represents the World, that place of temptation for all Christians, a spiritual arena from which it isn't possible to shield children indefinitely. 

When the tempter Comus steps forth, he is a kind of classical figure (son of Circe) but he isn't a burlesque or a decorative flourish. He's a confrontation that none of us can escape. It has the seriousness of a fairy tale. 



Title page of the first publication of Comus (1637)


[Image source: Wikipedia .]

The motto comes from Virgil's Eclogues (II, 58-59):

Eheu quid volui misero mihi! floribus austrum Perditus ("Alas! what harm did I wish upon my wretched self by allowing the south wind to blow upon my flowers?").   

John Milton's name didn't appear, and the motto seems to express mixed feelings about going public.


*

Rosemary Karmelich Mundhenk, "Dark Scandal and the Sun-Clad Power of Chastity: The Historical Milieu of Milton's Comus" (Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Vol 15 No 1 (Winter, 1975)):

Informative on the historical context, the Castlehaven scandal (the terrible sexual mistreatment of the Countess's elder sister by her husband, executed in 1631), the performance cuts and later revisions. Many scholars, however, think that the Castlehaven scandal isn't something Milton would want to allude to in the slightest degree. I think so too, but, the dark threat of Comus will, for many readers, seem to resonate with their imagination of the deranged Earl of Castlehaven and his servants. A poem's meaning can never be controlled by its author, and still less by other readers. 

*

Below, two pages from a very useful site put together by Helen L. Hull, Meg F. Pearson, and Erin A. Sadlack. The site also contains the four early texts of Comus (Trinity, Bridgewater, 1637, 1645). 

A Performance History of Comus: (HPS Perf Hist)
An Egerton Family History:

*

A scene from Lucy Bailey's Comus, with Emma Curtis as The Lady/Alice Egerton

[Image source: https://europeanstages.org/2017/05/05/john-miltons-comus-a-masque-presented-at-ludlow-castle-shakespeares-globe-london/ . Image supplied by Shakespeare's Globe, London.]

Informative article by Neil Forsyth, on the occasion of Lucy Bailey's Globe production of Comus in 2016:

https://europeanstages.org/2017/05/05/john-miltons-comus-a-masque-presented-at-ludlow-castle-shakespeares-globe-london/

(It's mostly taken from his John Milton: A Biography (2008), a book that I've managed to download, though I'm not sure how legally or safely.)

One thing I hadn't read elsewhere: "The Egerton children, Alice in particular, had in the times right before the performance of the masque, complained of demonic possession, and had been treated with protective amulets and St. John’s wort."

(This information comes from Barbara Breasted's "Another Bewitching of Lady Alice Egerton, the Lady of Comus", Notes and Queries 17 (1970), pp. 411-412 -- but I haven't seen this.)

The biography adds "by the well-known physician John Napier". Not well known to me. Is this a mistake for Richard Napier, the astrological specialist?

The Egerton family certainly consulted with Richard Napier. Here's Boyd Brogan's presentation of the Richard Napier/Egerton cases: https://casebooks.lib.cam.ac.uk/using-the-casebooks/meet-the-patients/the-egertons 

The Egerton casebooks are mainly about Magdalen and Alice (to some degree Penelope),  but I cannot track down anything like the details mentioned by Barbara Breasted. It's true that on 15 October 1632 (letter of Robert Napier) the Countess was wondering if Alice's fits might be due to bewitchment by the disaffected husband of their gentlewoman Mrs Quicke. In response Richard Napier cast an astrological figure but his conclusions are not recorded.

*

Milton's child masquers were perhaps the three youngest children of John Egerton, First Earl of Bridgewater (1579 - 4 December 1649) and his wife Frances née Stanley (m. 1602, d. 11 March 1636). I say "perhaps" because information online is confused and contradictory. The DNB (2004) says there were 15 children (entry for Frances Stanley) or 11 children (entry for John Egerton). I have seen mention of 14 names, and I've managed to gather some information about 12 of them.  


1. Frances (m.  February 1621 to Sir John Hobart. The eldest daughter, according to the DNB entry on Frances Stanley.  d. 27 November 1664)
2. Arabella (m. 1623 to the politician Oliver St John, d. c. 1669)
3. Elizabeth b. c. 1604 (m. David Cecil, Earl of Exeter, d. 1688)
4. Mary (b. c. 1606, m. Richard Herbert, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, d. 1659)
5. Penelope (b. 17 August 1610; appeared as a masquer in Jonson's Chloridia (Shrove Tuesday 1631), the last of his collaborations with Inigo Jones; married Robert Napier, nephew of the astrologer).
6. Catherine (Katherine) (b. 1611, m. the merchant William Courten, d. c. 25 March 1651)
7. Magdalen (b. 7 August 1615, m. Sir Gervase Cutler, d. 1664)
8. James died in childhood (b. 21 Sep 1616, d. c Dec 1620)
9. Charles died in childhood (b. c. 1617, d. c Apr 1623)
10. Alice (b. 13 June 1619. After her mother's death (1636), took care of her semi-invalid father until his own death in 1649. Married Richard Vaughan, Earl of Carbery in 1652, d. circa July 1689)
11. John, Viscount Brackley (b. 30 May 1623, d. 26 October 1686) -- heir to the earldom, his two elder brothers being already dead by the time of his birth.
12. Thomas (b. 1625, d. 1648)

There may also have been:

13? Anne.  Mentioned in thepeerage.com, referencing the DNB (but evidently not the 2004 entries I've seen); I can't find any other information about her.
14? Cecilia.  Mentioned in thepeerage.com, referencing the DNB (but evidently not the 2004 entries I've seen); I can't find any other information about her.
15?  Another daughter, if the figures given in the 2004 DNB entry for Frances Stanley are correct (15 children: 11 daughters and four sons).

Main sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Egerton,_1st_Earl_of_Bridgewater  (which says there were only eight children) 
DNB entry for Frances Stanley (2004):
DNB entry for John Egerton, first Earl of Bridgewater (2004):

*

*  Women taking part in Masques

Anne of Denmark commissioned and danced in a number of masques from 1604-09. E.g. Samuel Daniel's The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (1604), Ben Jonson's Masque of Blackness (1605), etc. 

Another masque with women speakers:

Cupid's Banishment: A Maske Presented to Her Maiesty by Younge Gentlewomen of the Ladies Hall, in Deptford, Greenwich the 4th of May 1617  (Robert White)

See Clare McManus, Silenced voices / speaking bodies: female performance and cultural agency in the court of Anne of Denmark (1603-19), PhD thesis (University of Warwick), 1997.


On the two women speakers (Circe and Harmony) in Tempe Restored:

Melinda J. Gough, "'Not as Myself': The Queen's Voice in Tempe Restored", Modern Philology Vol 101 (2003):















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Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Beaked Hawk's-beard (Crepis vesicaria)

 

Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.

Beaked Hawk's-beard (Crepis vesicaria, Sp: Achicoria). The young leaves and shoots are eaten, boiled, in Crete. A thoroughly Mediterranean plant that was recorded in Kent in 1713 and has since become very common in the southern half of the British Isles, but much less so in Northern England and Northern Ireland, and apparently Scotland is not an option. (Crepis vesicaria doesn't occur in Sweden either.)

In mid-May it produces breathtaking swathes of golden yellow, rivalling the peak dandelion blooming of late April or the ragwort frenzy of late summer. 

As it favours urban waste and roadsides, it's a characteristic sight of our modern May, though not the Mays of Chaucer or Shakespeare or Milton. But it's one that's rarely noticed specifically and still more rarely mentioned. 

I suppose most passers-by see plants like this as falling into the elastic category of dandelion-like and trouble no further. A name like "Beaked Hawk's-beard" is never going to take off in popular culture, no matter how common the plant is. 

*

Those English generic names Hawkweed, Hawkbit and Hawk's-beard come out of the learned tradition. 

The first of them is basically a direct translation of the classical word Hieracium, from the Greek Ierakion (Ierax = hawk). In Pliny and Galen it appears to mean an eye-salve, but Dioscorides used it to refer to a couple of plants that certainly sound like members of the Asteraceae.

The names Hawkbit and Hawk's-beard were extensions to designate genera that resembled (but were not the same) as Hawkweeds. That's all I know: the OED is disappointingly uninformative. (And in case you were wondering, no, hawks don't have beards . . .) 

Dioscorides' De Materia Medica (50 -70 CE), in the online translation by Tess Anne Osbaldeston (2000)


3-72. IERAKION MEGA 

SUGGESTED: Hieracium maius, Sonchites [Fuchs], Sonchus arvensis [Linnaeus] — Corn Sowthistle [other usage] Hieracium sylvaticum, Hieracium murorum — Wood Hawkweed, Wall Hawkweed 

The great hieracium produces a rough stalk — somewhat red, prickly, hollow. It has thinly-jagged leaves at distances, similar in circumference to sonchus [2-159]; and yellowish flowers in somewhat long little heads. It is cooling, indifferent, and gently astringent. As a result it is good applied on a burning stomach, and for inflammation. The juice is sipped to soothe pangs of hunger in the stomach. The herb (with the root) is applied to help one bitten by a scorpion. It is also called sonchiten; the Romans call itlampuca, and the Africans, sithileas.

3-73. IERAKION MIKRON 

[SUGGESTED: Hieraceum minus [Fuchs], Crepis tectorum [Linnaeus] — Hawksbeard [Mabberley] [other usage] Hieracium pilosella — Mouse-ear Hawkweed]

The little hieracium also has jagged leaves at distances. It sends out tender little green stalks on which are yellow flowers in a circle. It has the same uses as that previously spoken of [3-72]. Some call this sonchiten, others, entimon agrion, the Romans, intubus agrestis, and the Africans, sithilesade. 


Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.


In afternoon the flowers half close up. 


Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.


If you want to weed them out of your garden, these plants can often be pulled up with the whole tap-root intact when the soil is reasonably moist. 


Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.


Crepis vesicaria. Frome, 25 May 2021.




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Friday, May 14, 2021

In Cilicia

 

Silver obol from Tarsus, 4th century BCE, showing an eagle with wings spread


Found on my phone -- a badly photographed coin from Tarsus in Cilicia (SE Turkey). It should really be pronounced "Kilikia" (I think). The coin comes from when Tarsus was part of the Persian empire. The god on one side of the coin was Baaltars, the tutelary deity of the city. (The Semitic word "Ba'al" is really a god's title rather than a god's name -- like "The Lord". Hence there were several gods around called Baal, and sometimes their cults merged. But I think this particular one related solely to Tarsus.)

Around 333 BCE Tarsus became part of Alexander the Great's conquests, and thereafter it was a Hellenic city, becoming steadily more significant (it was on the river Cydnus, where sea vessels could intersect with land routes to Syria and elsewhere). 

Then Cilicia was taken over by the Romans, originally because they were fed up with the pirates who operated from the mountainous western part of the region.  When Pompey completed the job in 64 BCE, Tarsus was made the capital of the new Roman province of Cilicia. (Previously the region's chief city had been nearby Adana, as is now the case again.) 

It was at Tarsus that Cleopatra first met Mark Antony. 


DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up
his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.
AGRIPPA
There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised
well for her.
DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS
I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue--
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

(Antony and Cleopatra 2.2)


Later, this was where St Paul was born -- he was "Saul of Tarsus", though he was educated in Jerusalem (Acts 9:11, 22:3), and that's where he first enters the New Testament story, as an enthusiastic persecutor of Christians. Like most cities at most times Tarsus was multi-faith, and Saul's family were Pharisaic Jews. The date of his birth is guesswork (generally placed between 5 BCE and 5 CE). Paul himself never refers  to his Tarsus connection, but it may explain why he held Roman citizenship. 

After his conversion to Christianity, when the authorities were trying to kill him, the apostles decided to pack him off to his hometown (Acts 9:30). That was in order to save his life, but perhaps it was also because Christians in Jerusalem "were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple" (Acts 9:26). 

Paul remained at Tarsus until Barnabas sought him out and they went together to Antioch (Acts 11:25-26). What Paul did during this time at Tarsus is unknown. You can speculate that the new Paul, an outspoken Christian fugitive, might not have been particularly welcome. Some have wondered if Paul referred to a rupture with his family when he later wrote of "the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8). Though, according to Romans 16:7, he was not the first convert within his family.

Anyway, Paul's letters are the only vaguely Cilician literature on my shelves. Here's a fairly random passage:

It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.

I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.

And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)

How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.

For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.

And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.

Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.

For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong.

Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.

And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.

But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.


(The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, 12:1-16, King James Version)

The drift of the argument is difficult to follow in these old translations: I'm hearing the vivid voice of a man who's annoyed about something and is being vehement and sarcastic, but it isn't obvious how it all hangs together. 

The New Living Translation makes better sense out of it, and it's still very lively: 

. . .  This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord. I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell. 

That experience is worth boasting about, but I’m not going to do it. I will boast only about my weaknesses. If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

You have made me act like a fool. You ought to be writing commendations for me, for I am not at all inferior to these “super apostles,” even though I am nothing at all. When I was with you, I certainly gave you proof that I am an apostle. For I patiently did many signs and wonders and miracles among you. The only thing I failed to do, which I do in the other churches, was to become a financial burden to you. Please forgive me for this wrong!

Now I am coming to you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you. I don’t want what you have—I want you. After all, children don’t provide for their parents. Rather, parents provide for their children. I will gladly spend myself and all I have for you, even though it seems that the more I love you, the less you love me.

Some of you admit I was not a burden to you. But others still think I was sneaky and took advantage of you by trickery.    . . . 

(2 Corinthians 12:1-16, New Living Translation) 

*

Here's another Cilician author, the poet Aratus of Soli (c. 315 BCE - before 240 BCE). ("Soli" is modern Mersin, on the coast near Tarsus.) His poem Phaenomena was concerned with astronomy and weather signs. (Though some think the weather part should be considered as a separate poem called Diosemeia.)


[933] But when from East and South the lightnings flash, and again from the West and anon from the North, verily then the sailor on the sea fears to be caught at once by the waves beneath and the rain from heaven. For such lightnings herald rain. Often before the coming rain fleece-like clouds appear or a double rainbow girds the wide sky or some star is ringed with a darkening halo.

[942] Often the birds of lake or sea insatiably dive and plunge in the water, or around the mere for long the swallows dart, smiting with their breasts the rippling water, or more hapless tribes, a boon to watersnakes, the fathers of the tadpoles croak from the lake itself, or from the lonely tree-frog drones his matin lay, or by jutting bank the chattering crow stalks on the dry land before the coming storm, or it may be dips from head to shoulder in the river, or even dives completely, or hoarsely cawing ruffles it beside the water.

[954] And ere now before rain from the sky, the oxen gazing heavenward have been seen to sniff the air, and the ants from their hollow nests bring up in haste all their eggs, and in swarms the centipedes are seen to climb the walls, and wandering forth crawl those worms that men call dark earth’s intestines (earthworms). Tame fowl with father Chanticleer will preen their plumes and cluck aloud with voices like noise of water dripping upon water.

[962] Ere now, too, the generations of crows and tribes of jackdaws have been a sign of rain to come from Zeus, when they appear in flocks and screech like hawks. Crows, too, imitate with their note the heavy splash of clashing rain, or after twice croaking deeply they raise a loud whirring with frequent flapping of their wings, and ducks of the homestead and jackdaws which haunt the roof seek cover under the eaves and clap their wings, or seaward flies the heron with shrill screams.

[973] Slight not aught of these things when on thy guard for rain, and heed the warning, if beyond their wont the midges sting and are fain for blood, or if on a misty night snuff gather on the nozzle of the lamp, or if in winter’s season the flame of the lamp now rise steadily and anon sparks fly fast from it, like light bubbles, or if on the light itself there dart quivering rays, or if in height of summer the island birds are borne in crowding companies. Be not heedless of the pot or tripod on the fire, if many sparks encircle it, nor heedless when in the ashes of blazing coal there gleam spots like millet seed, but scan those too when seeking signs of rain.    . . .

(1921 Loeb translation of Phaenomena by A.W. and G.R. Mair. The complete text is here. )

According to the Oxford Reference page on Aratus  "Phaenomena achieved immediate fame and lasting popularity beyond the circle of learned poets: it became the most widely read poem, after the Iliad and Odyssey, in the ancient world, and was one of the very few Greek poems translated into Arabic. Latin translations were made by Cicero, and Germanicus. It was read more for its literary charm than its astronomical content, but some commentaries criticized the many grave astronomical errors which it contains." (taken from the Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World). 

*

The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe seems to have originated in Cilicia; in this ur-version of the Ovidian tale, Pyramus was changed into the river now called the Ceyhan, while Thisbe became a nearby spring. 

*

Tarsus has retained its name and is still a thriving small city (hence most of ancient Tarsus has never been excavated). It's a part of the larger Adana-Mersin metropolitan area, a populous part of modern Turkey with around 3 million inhabitants. 

After Roman times Cilicia changed hands many times, sometimes Byzantine, sometimes Abassid, sometimes Armenian, sometimes Ottoman. Armenians were a strong presence in the region up until the Adana massacre of 1909 and the genocide of 1915. Most remaining Armenians fled in the 1920s, when the brief post-war French administration came to an end. 

*

Ümit Yaşar Oğuzcan (1926 - 1984) was born in Tarsus and was a prolific poet as well as an accountant and banker.

There's quite a few of his poems here: http://siir.sitesi.web.tr/umit-yasar-oguzcan/ (in Turkish). I haven't been able to track down any English translations, so here's what Google Translate makes of four of them:


Get rid of me (Benden Kurtulmak)

I can't give up as long as I say no to you
I'm running after you to the pale cold
Your lips where I ate three meals
I'm drinking time from your eyes

Is it night and I'm glad
Your shadow falls on the walls
Your neck is getting longer and longer on me
Your neck is beautiful or more beautiful

I grab and strip your shadow
Your beauty is emerging
Those lines, those triangles, those circles
Those things you hide from me

All one by one becomes obvious
Away from you while you sleep
We share the same pillow every night
I'm in a bed, you're in a bed

Did you see you are hurt again
Kissing, making love, getting tired
At least say yes and get rid of
From being mine every night like this


One Day (Birgün)


If you wake up suddenly somewhere in the night
If your eyes dive into the long darkness
If you hear a warmth in your cold hands
And if the clocks steal the belated times
Know that I think of you

If a steamer approaches, get on the dock, open up
Cover the darkness in the deep blue seas
And listen to my heart, look how it beats
Where all the longings are dark
Know that I am waiting for you

Open your curtains at dawn one morning, look
If the seagulls are happily sitting on your balcony
Immerse yourself in a deep untapped pleasure
Let the most hopeful songs pour from your lips
Know I want you

You wake up suddenly one night from the nights
If in the distance a sorrowful strange bird sang
If a gazelle is crying all alone in the mountains
And one day a yellow flower grows on my grave
Know that I love you


Great Loneliness (Büyük Yalnızlık)

Despair knocked on the doors first
Poverty after
All the familiar faces erased from the mirrors
Suddenly the world was empty
We were left all alone

The thesis has run out, the bread of hope
The dream of the waters is over
We turned our eyes into a deep darkness
You great loneliness
You didn't leave us alone


Too Late (Çok Geç)

You can't say I'm fooled by your insistence, it's too late.
You can't just say I believed it, it's too late!
Where is the ember? Look, the ashes have cooled down ...
You can't say I burned like fire, it's too late!

*


Salih Bolat was born in Adana in 1956. He is a poet, critic, essayist and academic. 


KRİSTAL

ışığından yaptın beni
yaz çalılıklarındaki
güneş gibi.

senin çığlığını atıyorum.

havalanan kuşlara şaşarım
nasıl karıştırmazlar kanatlarını
gecenin ceketini tutuştururken
bir kav, soyunup giden.

senin şimşeğini öpüyorum.

bir gök seni kendine çağırıyor
hangi tanrının bizim için tasarladığı
aşkın yoğunluğuyla aynı kışta
karın çekip gitmesine rağmen.

senin karanlığına giriyorum.


CRYSTAL

you hewed me from your light
like sun
over scrubs of summer.

I holler your scream.

flying birds always amaze me
are they not baffled by their wings
as the bare tinder sets
the night’s coat ablaze.

I kiss your lightning streaks.

a sky beckons you to its side
with the depths of a love some god
fashioned for us that same winter
and in spite of the retreating snow

I enter your darkness.


(Poem Source . No translator is specified.)


*

Christine Stewart-Nuñez, now South Dakota's poet laureate, did a two-year teaching stint at the Tarsus American College. Here's one of her poems:


Breakfast for Supper

At IHOP, after the skinny brunette
with a band-aid covering her hickey
comes to whisk away burnt toast,
Mom mentions Theresa, face
brightening. She had a dream
about her—80s flip hair, smooth
complexion. I’ve been living
in Tulsa for eighteen years,
Theresa said. I understand.
Even as I watched men lower
her casket, I fantasized the witness
protection program had resettled her.

How funny we look, mother
and daughter laughing over
scrambled eggs, tears dripping
onto bacon, hands hugging
coffee mugs. For a moment Mom felt
Theresa there. Such faith. Freshen
your cup? the waitress asks me, poised
to pour. Cloudy in the cold coffee,
my reflection. I offer the mug.

(Poem source .)


(IHOP: pancake/breakfast diner chain; many locations open 24/7.)  


And here's one of her autobiographical pieces, about hiking in NE Turkey just after the teaching stint in Tarsus:


*

Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 40 CE - c. 90 CE) was a Roman army physician who was born at Anazarbos and probably studied medicine at Tarsus. His five-volume compilation of medicines De Materia Medica was soon translated into Latin and Arabic and became the primary source of practical herbal knowledge throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. 

You can read it all here, in the English translation of Tess Anne Osbaldeston (2000): 

Here's a flavour. This extract comes from Book I (Aromatics), and it's talking about pitch from pine trees: organic pitch, as opposed to the mineral pitch (bitumen, naphtha) that Dioscorides also discusses. Other medicinable substances in this first book include of course spices and oils and fruits (the olive keeps recurring in different forms), but also papyrus, mangroves, dry rot, galls and fungal growths, and the scum scraped off the walls of baths and wrestling schools. 


1-94. PISSA UGRA

SUGGESTED: Pinus mughus, Pinus nigra, Pinus maritima,
Pinus pinea, Pinus rigida, Peuce — Pitch Pine

Pix liquida (also called conum) is gathered from the
fattest wood of the pitch and pine trees. They reckon
the best is glittering, smooth and clean. A wine cupful
(taken with honey in a linctus [syrup]) is good in
antidotes for poisoning, pulmonary consumption
[wasting disease], purulent abnormal growths, coughs,
asthma, and fluids that are difficult to cough up from the
chest. It is good rubbed on with rosaceum [1-53] for
inflammation of the tonsils and uvula, as well as for
angina [spasmodic pains] and purulent [pus-filled] ears.
For snakebite it is applied with salt (ground fine). Mixed
with the same amount of wax it draws off pitted nails,
and dissolves tubercles [growths] on the vulva and
hardness on the perineum. Boiled with barley meal and
the urine of a boy it breaks up tumours [possibly goitre].
Rubbed on with sulphur, pine bark or bran it stops
snakebite ulcers. Mixed with manna of thus [1-81] and
waxy ointments and rubbed on it heals twisting ulcers,
and is good for split feet and a split perineum, and with
honey it fills up ulcers and cleans them. With raisins of
the sun and honey it covers carbuncles [infected boils]
[malignant skin tumours] and rotten ulcers with scars. It
is also effective mixed with antiseptic plasters.

1-95. PISSELAION

SUGGESTED: Pinus mughus, Pinus nigra, Pinus maritima,
Pinus pinea, Pinus rigida, Peuce — Pitch Pine

Picinum is made from the watery matter of pitch which
swims on top (like whey on milk that has been
separated). This is taken away while boiling the pitch by
laying clean wool over it which is made moist by the
steam ascending up. It is squeezed out into a jar and this
is done for as long as the pitch is boiling. It is available for
the same purposes as liquid pitch. Applied as a poultice
with barley meal it restores hair fallen out from alopecia
[baldness]. Liquid pitch also cures the same, and rubbed
on them it cures boils and scabs on cattle.

1-96. LIGNUOS UGRAS PISSES

SUGGESTED: Pinus mughus, Pinus nigra, Pinus maritima,
Pinus pinea, Pinus rigida, Peuce — Pitch Pine

Soot is made from moist pitch. Light a new lamp, put a
portion of pitch into it and cover the lamp with a new
ceramic jar made like a clibinus (above round and narrow
and with a mouth below like ovens have) and let the
lamp burn. When the first liquid pitch is used up put in
more until you have made enough soot, and then use it. It
is sharp and astringent and is used in medicines to make
the eyelids pleasing, for rubbing, and when hair must be
restored to eyelids that are filled with excessive watery
fluids. It is good for weak, weeping, ulcerated eyes.

1-97. PISSA XERA

SUGGESTED: Pinus mughus, Pinus nigra, Pinus maritima,
Pinus pinea, Pinus rigida, Peuce — Pitch Pine

Dry pitch is made from decocted liquid pitch. It is also
called palimpissa (that is, pitch boiled again). Some
of this (called boscas) is sticky like birdlime, and another
sort is dry. The good dry pitch is pure, fat, smells good,
and is golden underneath and resinous — such as the
Lycian and Brutian which share the two natures of pitch
and resin. It is warming and softening, removing pus,
dispersing tubercula [nodules] and pannus [opaque
thickening of cornea with veins], and filling up ulcers. It
is effective mixed with wound medicines. 

*


Other side of silver obol from Tarsus (4th century BCE), showing the tutelary deity Baaltars


*

Coincidentally, today's Guardian reports on a depressing Greenpeace investigation. While we've been unable to travel to the ancient world our rubbish has been flowing there. 

When you put waste plastic into a recycling bin in the UK, less than half is recycled here, most is shipped overseas. In 2020, 17.5% ended up in Cilicia (the Adana region). It's a popular destination for the waste from other European nations too. But once the waste gets there, not much is recycled (Turkey's own plastic recycling rate is only 12%). Most of the plastic is dumped or burnt or left to spill into the sea. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/17/uk-plastics-sent-for-recycling-in-turkey-dumped-and-burned-greenpeace-finds










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Sunday, May 09, 2021

slim, grey masts of fishing boats dry on the flats






Summers and summers have come, and gone with the flight of the swallow;
Sunshine and thunder have been, storm, and winter, and frost;   . . .
. . . Here, from my vantage-ground, I can see the scattering houses,
Stained with time, set warm in orchards, meadows, and wheat,
Dotting the broad bright slopes outspread to southward and eastward,
Wind-swept all day long, blown by the south-east wind.

Skirting the sunbright uplands stretches a riband of meadow,
Shorn of the labouring grass, bulwarked well from the sea,
Fenced on its seaward border with long clay dykes from the turbid
Surge and flow of the tides vexing the Westmoreland shores.
Yonder, toward the left, lie broad the Westmoreland marshes, --
Miles on miles they extend, level, and grassy, and dim,
Clear from the long red sweep of flats to the sky in the distance,
Save for the outlying heights, green-rampired Cumberland Point;
Miles on miles outrolled, and the river-channels divide them, --
Miles on miles of green, barred by the hurtling gusts.

Miles on miles beyond the tawny bay is Minudie.
There are the low blue hills; villages gleam at their feet.
Nearer a white sail shines across the water, and nearer
Still are the slim, grey masts of fishing boats dry on the flats.
Ah, how well I remember those wide red flats, above tide-mark
Pale with scurf of the salt, seamed and baked in the sun!
Well I remember the piles of blocks and ropes, and the net-reels
Wound with the beaded nets, dripping and dark from the sea!
Now at this season the nets are unwound; they hang from the rafters
Over the fresh-stowed hay in upland barns, and the wind
Blows all day through the chinks, with the streaks of sunlight, and sways them
Softly at will; or they lie heaped in the gloom of a loft.

Now at this season the reels are empty and idle; I see them
Over the lines of the dykes, over the gossiping grass.
Now at this season they swing in the long strong wind, thro' the lonesome
Golden afternoon, shunned by the foraging gulls.  . . .



(About half of "The Tantramar Revisited" by Charles G.D. Roberts, a poem in his second collection In Divers Tones (1886))

The Tantramar River runs past Sackville, New Brunswick and into Chignecto Bay, a sub-basin of the Bay of Fundy. It's surrounded by the Tantramar Marshes. 

Many of the Roberts poems I've been enjoying recently are set in this landscape. His elaborate centennial ode to Shelley, Ave! (1892),  begins and ends on the Tantramar (see especially the first eight stanzas). 

There are 37 sonnets of "common outdoor life" in Songs of the Common Day, and Ave! (1893), seven of which had previously appeared in In Divers Tones (1886). Here's a few of them:

The Sower (1886)

The Herring Weir

Back to the green deeps of the outer bay
The red and amber currents glide and cringe,
Diminishing behind a luminous fringe
Of cream-white surf and wandering wraiths of spray.
Stealthily, in the old reluctant way,
The red flats are uncovered, mile on mile,
To glitter in the sun a golden while.
Far down the flats, a phantom sharply grey.

The herring weir emerges, quick with spoil.
Slowly the tide forsakes it. Then draws near,
Descending from the farm-house on the height,
A cart, with gaping tubs. The oxen toil
Sombrely o'er the level to the weir,
And drag a long black trail across the light.


It was close upon high tide, and the creek that wound in through the diked marshes was rapidly filling to the brim with the swirling, cold, yellow-gray waters of Minas. The sun, but half risen, yet lingered on the wooded crest of the Gaspereau hills; while above hung a dappled sky of pink and pale amber and dove-color. A yellow light streamed sharply down across the frost-whitened meadows, the smouldering ruins of Grand Pré village, and out upon the glittering expanse of Minas Basin. The beams tinged brightly the cordage and half-furled sails of two ships that rode at anchor in the Basin, near the shore. With a pitilessly revealing whiteness the rays descended on the mournful encampment at the creek's mouth, where a throng of Acadian peasants were getting ready to embark for exile.

                        "Late grew the year, and stormy was the sea."

Already had five ships sailed away with their sorrowful freight, disappearing around the towering front of Blomidon, from the straining eyes of friends and kinsfolk left behind. Another ship would sail out with the next ebb, and all was sad confusion and unwilling haste till the embarkation should be accomplished. The ship's boats were loaded down with rude household stuff, and boxes full of homespun linens and woollens.

Children were crying with the cold, and a few women were weeping silently; but the partings which had succeeded each other at intervals throughout the last few weeks had dulled the edge of anguish, and most of the Acadians wore an air of heavy resignation. The New England soldiers on guard gave what help they could, but sullenly; for they were weary of the misery that they had so long been forced to watch.

The people were huddled on a little patch of marsh within a curve of the dike. Beyond the dike there spread a stretch of reddish brown salt-flats, covered with water only at the highest spring-tides, and now meagrely sprinkled with sharp-edged blades and tufts of the gray salt-grasses. The flats were soft between the bunches of the grass, and a broad track was trampled into mire by the passing down of many feet from the dike's edge to the boats.

(Beginning of "The Eye of Gluskâp", a story in the first of Roberts' story collections, Earth's Enigmas (1896). The Minas Basin is the other sub-basin of the Bay of Fundy, separated from Chignecto Bay by Cape Chignecto. 




David Jackel: "Roberts' 'Tantramar Revisited': Another View" in Canadian Poetry Vol 5 (Fall/Winter 1979): 

Sergiy Yakovenko: "The Tantramar, Revisited yet Again: Charles G.D. Roberts' Agon with the Wordsworths" in Studies in Canadian Literature Vol 42 No 1 (2017):

















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Saturday, May 08, 2021

Blossoming East Sussex

 

Cardamine pratensis. Battle, 7 May 2021.


I'm just back from a quick visit to East Sussex and, of course, I snapped a few flowers along the way. We start on a walk in Barne's Wood, near Battle, with one of the most familiar of spring sights.

Lady's Smock or Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis, Sw: Ängsbräsma). Throughout British Isles and all across Europe. And it almost reaches the top of Sweden, though the ones with coloured petals (ssp. pratensis) are mainly seen in the south. 

Like all other Brassicaceae species Lady's Smock is edible, but the leaves aren't very big and it seems rather a shame to harvest such a pretty plant when there are so many other choices. 

According to internet sources Lady's Smock is regarded as sacred to the fairies and hence as bad luck if you bring it into the home. As usual with these folkloristic claims, it's difficult to get a sense of context: how many people held this belief, and where and when. But I do think a group of Lady's Smock has the right sort of otherworldly feel: slender, dancing, self-sustaining, mysteriously circumscribed. This last, I suppose, is because it prefers distinctly wet spots. 

For whatever reason, it struck me as more frequent and noticeable in East Sussex than back here in Frome (where, however, it's still entirely commonplace). 



Leaf of Cardamine pratensis. Battle, 7 May 2021.

Flowers and developing fruits of Cardamine pratensis. Battle, 7 May 2021.

Prunus 'Shogetsu'. Battle, 7 May 2021.


Unusually, I found East Sussex lagging a week or so behind my hometown in Somerset (the recent weeks of continental high pressure were much colder down there). Accordingly, I was able to take a picture of the late-flowering cherry 'Shogetsu' at its best -- our own cherry-blossom season is fading now. 

Vaccinium corymbosum. Battle, 6 May 2021.


Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) in bloom. My mum grows them in tubs on the patio. It's a nice choice; the small bushes have pretty blossom and attractive leaves that change colour through the seasons. And they produce enough of the delicious berries to improve quite a few September desserts. They're native to eastern North America. 

Vaccinium corymbosum. Battle, 6 May 2021.


Erythronium 'Pagoda'

This plant was a complete surprise, suddenly springing up in a part of the garden that had never been worked on, some months after my dad pruned back the shrub border. It's a variety of Erythronium called 'Pagoda' that has become popular with gardeners as a great choice for bringing some vibrant colour to shady spots. It's probably of hybrid origin, but one parent must certainly be Erythronium tuolumnense (Tuolumne Fawn Lily). This Californian species, unlike most of the others, produces several flowers on the same scape. 

The mostly-New-World genus Erythronium is called Dog's-tooth Violet by British gardeners. "Dog's-tooth" refers to the shape of the bulbs. "Violet" may seem inappropriate, but it arose because the sole European species, Erythronium dens-canis, has purplish-pink flowers and a passing resemblance to a violet. (It's this European species, too, that suggested the scientific name Erythronium, derived from Ancient Greek "eruthros" (red).) 



Also in my mum and dad's garden: a rather magnificent tree-heather ...


... some fiery tulips...


... and also this one, a lot less fiery but no less arresting. It might be Tulipa 'Spring Green' or Tulipa 'Deirdre', based on a very superficial search. Anyway it's definitely in Division 8 (Viridiflora). (Tulip varieties are classified in fifteen divisions.) 


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