Well-trodden ground

 

The Christmas lull in new posts hasn't been entirely down to Christmas revels. I've been rewriting and adding to a number of older posts, especially these:

William Shakespeare (kind of): 1 Henry VI

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2019/01/william-shakespeare-kind-of-1-henry-vi.html

Sir Walter Scott's novels, a brief guide

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2014/07/sir-walter-scotts-novels-brief-guide.html

Scott's Ivanhoe:

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2012/03/ivanhoe-librivox.html

Scott's Anne of Geierstein:

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2020/11/sir-walter-scott-anne-of-geierstein-1829.html

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In the course of working on these posts I've of course been reading, and with great delight: the Henry VI plays and Scott's Waverley. 

But this is all well-trodden ground for me, and I've also been yearning for less familiar things. So I've been dipping gradually deeper into Peter Philpott's latest poetry book, Telling the Beads (2020), and since I don't seem to have anything else to share, this seems like a good place to note down one of Peter's structuring sources, the pagan month-names recorded by Bede in his De temporum ratione 15, with their approximate modern equivalents. 

(The Anglo-Saxon names below have seemingly been creatively reverse-engineered from Bede's latinized forms; I'm not sure who should take the credit for that.)

Æftera Gēola      (After-Yule)    = January

Sol-mōnaþ          (Mud-Month, cake month (?))  = February

Hrēþ-mōnaþ        (Month of the goddess  Hrēþ (Rheda in Bede's text). Nothing else is known of her.)   = March

Ēostur-mōnaþ      (Month of the goddess Eostre. Survives in the modern word "Easter") = April

Þrimilce-mōnaþ   (Month of three milkings (per day, as Bede explains)) = May

Ærra Līþa             (Before-Lithe (=midsummer)) =June

Þrilīþa                   (Three-Lithe . . . intercalary days at midsummer?)

Æftera Līþa          (After-Lithe) = July

Weod-mōnaþ        (Weed-month) = August

Hālig-mōnaþ         (Holy month) = September

Winterfylleth         (Winter full (i.e. full moon) -- the first full moon of winter, Bede explains) =October

Blōt-mōnaþ          (Month of blood-sacrifice) =November

Ærra Gēola           (Before-Yule) = December

More intercalary days at Yule? 

Elsewhere Bede mentions Mōdraniht (Night of the Mothers) as a (sacrificial?) feast on the day we call Christmas Eve.

These twelve months seem to have been lunar, hence about 29.5 days each, hence totalling just 354 days, which could account for intercalary days (?) at midsummer and yule. 

Further information:

https://wyrtig.com/EarlyGardens/British/LaborsOfTheMonths/AngloSaxonMonthNames.htm

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One of other key inputs to Telling the Beads, Peter tells us, is Bertolt Brecht's poetry collection Die Hauspostille (1927; it has been given the English titles Manual of Piety and Devotions for the Home). Here's the beginning of one of the best-known poems (and the final one in the collection), "Vom armen B.B.":

Of poor B.B.     

I, Bertolt Brecht, came from the black forests.

My mother bore me into the city

while I was in her womb. And till my dying day

the chill of the woods will lie there inside me.

In the asphalt city I’m at home. From the beginning

supplied with every last sacrament:

with newspapers – and tobacco – and with brandy.

To the end, suspicious, lazy, content.

I’m amicable with the people I meet. I don

a bowler hat in just the way they do.

I say: they’re animals with a quite peculiar smell.

And I say: so what – I am too.

Translation by Martyn Crucefix. The full text is here: https://martyncrucefix.com/2015/08/25/a-new-translation-of-brechts-of-poor-b-b/

Peter says he's most familiar with Brecht's poems in translations by Amos Weisz. 

Here's Amos Weisz's "poor b.b.": http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/awe25.html

Here's an extract from "The Ballad of the Pirates" (Ballade von den Seeräubern). 

Across a violet horizon

Caught in the ice by pale moonlight

On pitch-black nights when mist is rising

And half the ship is lost from sight

They lurk like wolves between the hatches

And murder for the fun of it

And sing to keep warm in their watches

Like children drumming as they shit.

Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!

Enormous wind, the sails blow free!

Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh

Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

They take their hairy bellies with them

To stuff with food on foreign ships

Then stretch them out in sweet oblivion

Athwart the foreign women's hips.

In gentle winds, in blue unbounded

Like noble beasts they graze and play

And often seven bulls have mounted

Some foreign girl they've made their prey.

Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!

Enormous wind, the sails blow free!

Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh

Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

Extract from the full translation (not sure who did it) that I found on Amanda Kendal's blog:

https://thevoluptuousmanifesto.blogspot.com/2016/10/ballade-von-den-seeraubern-ballad-of.html

Here's a bit of "Legend of the Dead Soldier" (Legende vom toten Soldaten):

They filled him up with a fiery schnapps

To spark his sluggish heart

And shoved two nurses into his arms

And a half-naked tart.

He’s stinking so strongly of decay

That a priest limbs on before

Swinging a censer on his way

That he may stink no more.

In front the band with oompah-pah

Intones a rousing march.

The soldier does like the manual says

And flicks his legs from his arse.

Their arms about him, keeping pace

Two kind first-aid men go

Or else he might fall in the shit on his face

And that would never do.

(Translation by John Willett. The full text is here: https://www.socialistproject.org/war-and-imperialism/legend-of-the-dead-soldier/ .)

*

But it occurs to me that though I've dipped into two of the major sources of Telling the Beads I haven't quoted any Peter Philpott's own text, so here (since it's the appropriate time of year) is the "month" part of After-Yule:

(7) After Yule

Let's start by making a good old mess

fill up our mouths with sweetness still

the sun has told us she will return

start in this world please not some other

humble & contaminated is how we live

the urge is to keep alive not pure

greyness a good vast screen -- pro

ject upon whatever strikes -- oh

fudge it & make it, this is poesis

you don't find the blessed things

you make them up from the same

old words trailing their rot behind

drifts of dead leaves still slobbering

fraying into indescribable dust

savour it & worship it -- new life

will spring whatever we do (most

ly -- and that may be everything)

whatever end we aim ourselves at

"Another economy flux: the evidence richer growing emerges, omnivorous little all."

more never imagined

freed finally informs

ruined world constraint

sometimes re-emergent pronouns

new constraints

ridiculous subjects

                                -- maybe

                                                -- guess

                               

                                                   no reason postponed

                                                   no purpose choosing

                                                   not imagined things

                                                   freed finally beauties

                                                   yes

Peter describes the format in his introduction:  "Each month begins with a text composed of a poem (in a simple strophic form to be used for that month), and then an oracular sentence and a further short poem in an open field form. These latter two programmatically employ vocabulary taken from Wound Scar Memories" [an earlier collection].  

How can you confuse their miserable cunning with reason?

Galileo has discovered Jupiter's four moons, an observation that constitutes a death-blow to the Ptolemaic system.  Galileo thinks that, now he has proof, his theories will be accepted and he'll be safe from persecution. His friend Sagredo is astonished by this naivety.

[SAGREDO]... You thought [the Ptolemaic system] untrue, like Copernicus; but you taught it.
GALILEO Because I could prove nothing.
SAGREDO incredulously: And you believe that makes a difference?
GALILEO: All the difference in the world! Look here, Sagredo. I believe in mankind, and that means I believe in its commonsense. Without that belief I should not have the strength to get up from my bed in the morning.
SAGREDO: Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense. Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition, and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face.
GALILEO: That is untrue -- and a slander. I cannot understand how you, believing such a thing, can yet love science. Only the dead are no longer moved by reason.
SAGREDO: How can you confuse their miserable cunning with reason?
GALILEO: I am not speaking of their cunning. I know they call a donkey a horse when they want to sell, and a horse a donkey when they want to buy. That is their cunning. The old woman who, on the eve of a journey, gives her mule an extra bundle of hay with her horny hand; the mariner who, when laying in stores, thinks of storms and calms ahead; the child who pulls on his cap when it is proved to him that it may rain -- they are my hope -- they all listen to reason. Yes, I believe in the gentle power of reason, of commonsense, over men. They cannot resist it in the long run. No man can watch for long and see how I -- he lets fall a stone from his hand to the floor -- drop a stone, and then say: 'It does not fall'. No man is capable of that. The temptation offered by such a proof is too great. Most succumb to it, and in the long run -- all. Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race.

....

[A minute later, after the entry of his housekeeper, Signora Sarti...]

GALILEO: Signora Sarti, perhaps you can help me then. -- Look, a question has arisen about which we cannot agree, probably because we have read too many books. It is a question about the Heavens, a question concerning the stars. It is: would you say the larger revolves round the smaller, or the smaller round the larger?
SIGNORA SARTI suspiciously: One never knows where one is with you, Signor Galilei. Is that a serious question, or are you trying to make fun of me again?
GALILEO: A serious question.
SIGNORA SARTI: Then you can have a quick answer. Do I set the dinner before you or do you set it before me?
GALILEO: You set it before me. Yesterday it was burnt.
SIGNORA SARTI: And why was it burnt? Because I had to bring you your shoes in the middle of cooking. Didn't I bring you your shoes?
GALILEO: I expect so.
SIGNORA SARTI: You see, you are the one who has studied and can pay.
GALILEO: I see. I see. That's simple. -- Thank you, Signora Sarti.

Exit Signora Sarti, amused.

GALILEO: And such people cannot understand the truth? They hunger for it!

...

[A few minutes later]

SAGREDO: Don't go to Florence, Galileo.
GALILEO: Why not?
SAGREDO: Because the monks are in control there.
GALILEO: At the Florentine court there are scholars of repute.
SAGREDO: Lackeys.
GALILEO: I will seize them by their necks and drag them in front of the telescope. Even monks are human, Sagredo. They succumb to the temptation of proof. Copernicus, don't forget, demanded that they believe his figures; but I only demand that they believe their eyes ...

(from The Life of Galileo, Scene Three)


The ensuing Scene Four appears to confirm Sagredo's views; the Florentine "lackeys" (a philosopher and mathematician) find all sorts of ingenious ways to avoid looking through the telescope and to discredit what it purports to show.

But there's much more to the debate than that.

Concerning mankind, Galileo's three examples of precautionary planning (the old woman, the mariner, the child) demonstrate that ordinary people are perfectly capable of reasoning, and that within the round of their own daily lives they employ reason unhesitatingly.

Signora Sarti's reasoning powers, likewise, are not in doubt; in fact she can surprise the astronomer by a peculiar penetration that, within her own sphere, sees clearer than he does.

But is Galileo right to make the sweeping assertion that mankind hungers for truth? He means beneath the current of daily life, so it's an unfalsifiable claim. Nevertheless, it seems pertinent to ask, the truth about what? Signora Sarti is evidently very interested in the truth about people's behaviour: monks, students, Victoria's suitors. She is evidently not interested in astronomical researches, and can't see the point of rousing her sleeping son Andrea to peer through a telescope. Astronomy is relevant for those who have studied, and are pursuing a different way of getting by; not for those who serve. (Horoscopes are a different matter.) Galileo is well aware of her views. He's almost apologetic, in his playful way, in putting to her a question about the heavens. And we see elsewhere that he's positively unwilling to spend time sharing his researches with rich students who don't really care about science. We also see him crushing his own daughter's vague stirrings of interest in the telescope: he has already pre-judged Victoria as "not intelligent", as someone who cares only for courts, balls and marriage.

So people have reasoning in their toolkit, but are selective about its use. Like looking. Each of us would very gladly see certain sights, and each of us would like to learn the truth about certain topics. We dread losing our sight, and we dread losing our ability to think. Nevertheless, most of the time we don't take pleasure in the act of looking per se; and it could only be an academic who opines: "Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race".

This selective aspect has many implications. It means that choosing how to apply your reason becomes subject to your own needs: it is not so often a free choice as a choice dictated by circumstance. Most people are trying to scrape a bare living: but both rich and poor, all-powerful and almost powerless, have motives for the tactical deployment of reason. Reason becomes a tool in the struggle to better oneself. Reason is for use, and that may include trying to manipulate other people's reasoning powers: not necessarily to stop them reasoning, but to allow their reasoning to arrive at the wrong conclusion, as the cunning donkey-sellers and horse-buyers do. Most people will not waste reason where there's no benefit to them. On the contrary, there may be benefits in doggedly asserting that two and two makes five (as Galileo puts it). And when we account for our actions, we can use reason for that too, to supply rationalizations that may convince others and may convince ourselves, though they are not necessarily the real reasons why we so acted.

Galileo speaks of the "temptation of proof", and the phrase is arresting; precisely because it is not one of our most obvious temptations, the ones that affect us every day. These other temptations are the more decisive, but it may be that this one at last gets a hearing, and that could justify Galileo's faith that truths become established "in the long run".

Brecht said that the hero of his drama was, not Galileo, but the People. Sagredo and Galileo, though they use the word "mankind", are also thinking about the People. Who is this? For it isn't just the totality of human individuals. It is spoken of as a "they" by the two scientists, not as a "we". Apparently it means the mass of people who are not "us"... The intelligentsia. Demagogues and editors speak of the People too; but by speaking in this public way, they show themselves to be no members of this much-addressed body. The People is all those who don't speak publically. And who, consequently, are spoken about as an animal species.

*

This was the other book I picked out of that "donations only" tray. My first Brecht play, and I suppose it's easy to see why I went for it (though this didn't occur to me at the time)... I just have a thing about history plays.

Regular readers will know that I've spent an awful lot of time delightedly immersed in Shakespeare's histories.

[E.g.

Edward III
1 Henry VI
2 Henry VI
3 Henry VI
Richard III
King John

]

But in the last couple of years I've also begun to dip cautiously into some more recent plays, for instance Kingsley's The Saint's Tragedy and Strindberg's Master Olof.  And thus, by this not too obvious route, I've finally arrived at 20th-century drama.

[Coincidentally or not, the three plays have quite a lot in common. An authoritarian church is a major player in all three. Two of them feature a cardinal inquisitor (ST, LG). Two of them feature heroes who eventually renege on liberal causes (MO, LG).]

I think a certain part of the appeal of the history play, for me, is that it has a solid impersonal core that tends to restrain the author's fancy -- or ego. To put it another way, you don't have to be a Kingsley fan to enjoy The Saint's Tragedy. (And the Life of Galileo has sometimes been described as the Brecht play for those who don't particularly like Brecht.)

A partial exception that springs to mind is Marlowe... I've never really taken to Edward II : it doesn't persuade as history because there's too much of Marlowe's personality in it. Yet for the young Brecht, adapting Edward II was crucial in developing his idea of an epic theatre that didn't have to run along Shakespearean lines. So maybe I should give it another go.

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The Life of Galileo (Leben des Galilei) has three versions. The first, the "Danish" version written in 1938 in the shadow of Nazi irrationalism, was uncomplicatedly supportive of reason and science, The second, the shorter "American" version, Brecht's own English translation (with input from Charles Laughton) in 1944-1947, was affected by the atom bomb (not to mention Nazi scientists) and took a darker view of science's free research; the morality of science becomes a prominent theme. The final "Berlin" version (1953-1956), in German once again, restores much of the "Danish" material and adds yet more to Galileo's contradictions. (This Methuen book contains Desmond I. Vesey's 1960 translation of the "Berlin" version.)