Proud Again

Yesterday (Sunday) was the one year anniversary of this blog. Today, then, is the first day of a new year. Isn't it appropriate that the first book I'll finish on my new reading list is President Obama's Dreams from My Father. He has already drawn a tear or two as I read on the plane. If I pause between the lines at any time to remember the current status of the author, I get all choked up all over again.

The G20 and NATO summits were at their height with President Obama in attendance while I was in Europe. Despite the economic problems, Europe is bursting with optimism. Europe adores this man and while I try to exercise moderation, I, too, am as giddy as a Beatles-fan when I hear our President speak of tolerance of differing worldviews and respect for all people.

During the Bush years, one could feel the scorn of our European hosts while traveling, but now I'm proud to be American when I travel among our allies, a word into which President Obama has breathed new spirit.

Egil's Saga

Here’s an example of the dusty analysis, 54 pages, I choked my way through in preface to reading Egil’s Saga.*

These stories are familiar….

…their understanding of the consequences of foolishness and folly, especially in its relationship to character, is uniquely plain, unvarnished and direct.

Thus Icelandic sagas and tales seem far removed from modern literary subjectivity, and yet, the gossip and the comments of other characters supply a practical and readily understandable psychological context. Characters speak up. They say what they want and what their intentions are. Other characters disagree with them and judge them. The saga writer sometimes remarks upon public opinion concerning these events. The result is that the sagas are psychologically complex and yet economical in their analysis.

…turn the page to begin the saga. YeeOW!

Egil Skallagrimsson strides to the shore of the tumultuous Northern Atlantic, cuts the ropes mooring his brother’s ship and extorts his release into humanity’s fray, through which he hacks his way like a god.

"Economical in analysis"? Nay! Extravagant, it’s that. “Plain”? No. There’s nothing “familiar” about this story. In the familiar world, no one intentionally pukes out his guts into the eyes, ears and mouth of his host. Neither does one begin his reign of terror with murder at age seven or ransom his own head with a poem to a king or insist on standing in place of a weaker man in a duel. Far from being familiar, Egil’s Saga is extraordinary, both in history and in the nature of a man.

Nearly napping by the time I finished the introduction (yaa-awn) and began the saga, I was definitely not napping once the story began. With Egil Skallagrimsson, I laughed:

(On earning his life in exchange for a poem)

Ugly as my head may be,
The cliff my helmet rests upon,
I am not loathe
To accept it from the king.
Where is the man who ever
Received a finer gift
From a noble-minded
Son of a great ruler?

(On his own old age)

My head bobs like a bridled horse
It plunges baldly into woe.
My middle leg both droops and drips
While both my ears are dry.

I thrilled:

(on taking revenge) Bern-Onund ran up to the shrubs. He was wearing a helmet, carried a shield in one hand and a spear in the other, and was girded with a sword. But it was Egil, not a bear, that was hiding in the shrubs, and when he saw Berg-Onund he drew his sword. There was a strap on the hilt which pulled over his hand to let the sword hang there. Taking his spear, he rushed towards Berg-Onund. When Berg-Onund saw this he quickened his pace and put the shield in front of him, and before they clashed they threw their spears at each other. Egil darted his shield out to block the spear, at such an angle that the spear glanced off and stuck into the ground. His own spear struck the middle of Onund’s shield and sank in so deep that it stuck there, making it heavy for Onund to hold. Then Egil quickly grabbed the hilt of his sword. Onund began to draw his sword, but had only pulled it half-way out of its sheath by the time Egil ran him through with his sword. Onund recoiled at the blow, but Egil drew his sword back swiftly and struck at Onund, almost chopping his head off. Then Egil took his spear out of the shield.

Hadd and Frodi ran over to Berg-Onund when they saw he had been felled. Egil turned to face them. He lunged at Frodi with his spear, piercing his shield and plunging it so deep into his chest that the point came out through his back. He fell over backwards dead on the spot. Then Egil took his sword and set on Hadd, and they exchanged a few blows before Hadd was killed.

I cringed:

(at seven years old, upon losing a game to an older boy) Thord handed Egil an axe he had been holding, a common type of weapon in those days. They walked over to where the boys were playing their game. Grim had caught the ball and was running with the other boys chasing him. Egil ran up to Grim and drove the axe into his head, right through to the brain.

I lauded:

(surprising his son in supporting him at the Althing) From the assembly, a band of men was seen riding alongside the river Gljufura, their shields glinting. They rode into the assembly led by a large man wearing a black cloak and gilded helmet and carrying a shield decorated with gold by his side. In his hand he held a barbed spear with its socket embossed with gold, and he was girded with a sword. Egil Skallagrimsson had arrived with eighty men, all armed for battle.

I marveled:

(on working a curse) He took a hazel pole in his hand and went to the edge of a rock facing inland. Then he took a horse’s head and put it on the end of the pole.

Afterwards he made an invocation, saying, “here I set up this scorn-pole and turn its scorn upon King Eirik and Queen Gunnhild”—then turned the horse’s head to face land—“and I turn its scorn upon the nature spirits that inhabit this land, sending them all astray so that none of them will find its resting-place by chance or design until they have driven King Eirik and Gunnhild from this land.”

Then he thrust the pole into a cleft in the rock and left it to stand there. He turned the head towards the land and carved the whole invocation in runes on the pole.

By the end, I cried:

(on the death of his son)

Myself I know
That in my son
Grew the makings
Of a worthy man,
Had that shield-tree
Reached manhood,
Then earned the claim
Of war’s arms.

Always he prized
His father’s words
Highest of all, though
The world said otherwise.
He shored me up,
Defended me,
Lent my strength
The most support.

Even in old age, Egil doesn’t give a quarter, thwarting those who thwart him, exerting extraordinary strength, flaunting superior intelligence and spewing cussedness (strangely both generous and honorable) right to his death.

I wonder if the commentator read the same story I did. Far from being “economical in analysis,” the saga is wealthy in detail and almost exaggerated in the analysis of Egil. Coming away from it, I know Egil, from motive to deed. I better understand his world and time, his gods and his folk. I can hardly wait to read the remainder of the tales.

.

*The Sagas of the Icelanders©2000 with Preface by Jane Smiley and Introduction by Robert Kellogg. In this collection from Penguin Classics, Bernard Scudder is the translator of Egil's Saga.

Siegfried faces Liudegast

After much disappointment over the Saga of the Volsungs, post pending, I'm giddy again as I read The Nibelungenlied (trans. Hatto). I'm a sucker for a well-written fight and there are few better than that one in The Nibelungenlied between Siegfried and King Liudegast. A taste:

Towards him the noble intruder galloped in fine style, and now lord Liudegast had marked him down, so that the two of them set their spurs to their chargers' flanks and vehemently levelled their spears at each other's shield, with the result that the King was soon in jeopardy. In the train of these thrusts. these princes' mounts bore them past each other at such a pace that they might have been wafted by the wind; whereupon, wheeling with splendid horsemanship, this fierce pair tried their fortunes with their swords. Then lord Siegfried struck blows that filled the plain with their sound and sent fiery sparks flying from his enemy's helmet as though from huge torches. Each met his match in the other, since lord Liudegast struck many cruel blows in answer, and the strength of each was brought mightily to bear on the other's shield.

Heart-pounding. Here's the same scene in rhymed verse (online trans. Needler). Both versions are fantastic. Thrilling, irrespective of the translation, when the original is of such quality!

Who he was I'll tell you / that rode his men before,—
A shield of gold all shining / upon his arm he bore—
In sooth it was King Luedegast / who there the van did guard.
Straightway the noble Siegfried / full eagerly against him spurred.

Now singled out for combat / him, too, had Luedegast.
Then full upon each other / they spurred their chargers fast,
As on their shields they lowered / their lances firm and tight,
Whereat the lordly monarch / soon found himself in sorry plight.

After the shock their chargers / bore the knights so fast
Onward past each other / as flew they on the blast.
Then turned they deftly backward / obedient to the rein,
As with their swords contested / the grim and doughty fighters twain.

When Siegfried struck in anger / far off was heard the blow,
And flew from off the helmet, / as if 'twere all aglow,
The fiery sparks all crackling / beneath his hand around.
Each warrior in the other / a foeman worth his mettle found.

Full many a stroke with vigor / dealt eke King Luedegast,
And on each other's buckler / the blows fell thick and fast.
Then thirty men discovered / their master's sorry plight:
But ere they came to help him / had doughty Siegfried won the fight.

Banned Books Week

Grateful Bear reminds us that this is Banned Books Week. For lists of "Frequently Challenged Books," check the American Library Association's website.

Here's from their site for the top 10 "challenged" books for 2007. I don't read from current genres much, so I've missed all these except the oldie, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain. I notice sexual content is a common complaint, seven of the 10. Violence only made the list once!

How did Americans get into this mindset that violence is preferable to sex? More importantly, how do we get out of it?

1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism

6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language

7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Kennings for Mead

To my visitor who was looking for a kenning for mead, here is a catalog of kennings online. Notice that mead isn't on the list, but that doesn't mean there isn't one or more. The search piqued my interest, and I will pay particular attention for them now as I read.

As I flipped through casually, I did find in Loki's Quarrel from The Poetic Eddas this phrase in stanza 4, "mixed their mead with malice." Interesting, but not a kenning. When Sigurn joins Helgi, Second Poem of Helgi Hundingsbani, in his death mound, they share a "precious liquid," which could be mead. When I first read it, I morbidly thought the liquid was blood (after all she's sleeping with a dead man), but the commentary suggested Sigurn brought mead or ale with her.

It's an important topic because the presence of mead is indicative of symbel (sumbel), definitive if it's mentioned with other elements of the custom. In this respect, it's just as important to watch for the mention of bragarfull, name both of the draught and the ceremony. I've seen the bragarfull defined as a mix of ale and mead, but also just as mead.

Addendum: An additional site for more Eddic-type kennings is here.

The Poetic Eddas: First Impression

I finished reading both translations of the Poetic Eddas, but I am by no means finished with them. They are friggin' fascinating.

I went into them expecting warrior elite tales along the line of Beowulf and Y Gododdin, but they are nothing like that. Well, they are like that...I mean...much flashing of swords and spilling of blood, hearts on platters and honor and revenge and so forth, but the Eddas are all about...duhn duhn duhn...women. Women are prime movers and shapers of events. Females, whether goddess, valkyrie or mortal, share the role of prophecy and the knowledge of runes. Women act as advisors, the sages. Even Odin, their equal in this respect, says, "Advise me now, Frigg, I intend to journey...."* It's a seeress who reveals the nature of the beginning and the end of the world to Odin. In all these tales, women control wealth, lands, and men.

There is a difference between the role of goddesses and mortal women. Goddesses are powerful and wise, but the divine tales are primarily of the actions of gods, Thor and Odin and Loki. Gods often act on their own motives, independent of the will of a goddess. In the mortal tales, on the other hand, men do much of the slaying but they do it for and/or because of women—although women are not above killing. Women are sometimes in love, loving, ambitious, angry, vengeful, prophetic, sorcerous, betrayed, traitorous, wise, etc. These human qualities, embodied in women, provide the impetus of the storylines.

Notably, it's women who suffer. Although women possess power, they are also victims. In the Lay of Volund, for example, one of the strangest of the Eddas I thought (a mix of magic, semi-divine beings, craft and mortal regret), Bodvild is raped by Volund (Weland the Smith). "He overcame her with beer, because he was more experienced." She laments the event and the child with which he leaves her, "I did not know how to strive against him, I was not able to strive against him!"

In another tragedy as gut wrenching and sorrowful as anything Shakespeare ever wrote, Brynhild, too, suffers. This time, from betrayal. She arranges the death of the lover whom she was denied, Sigurd, in revenge against him. Brynhild's reaction is as tragic as the circumstance. She wakes in the night, Sigurd's death heavy on her mind.

...
little could they understand the behaviour of women,
now that, weeping, she began to speak of
that which, laughing, she'd asked the men for.

In the end, Brynhild takes her own life upon a sword.

Gudrun (Guthrun), especially, suffers within the Sigurd stories, yet she is also vengeful and, at one point, fights as a shield-maiden. At another, she kills her two sons in revenge against her second husband. All her children are eventually killed before her death. Her laments are excruciating.

Three fires have I known, three hearths have I known
to three husbands' houses I was brought.
Sigurd alone for me was better than all others,
whom my brothers did to death.

The men come off as brave, yet somewhat simple-minded; Atli (Attila), for example, in the Greenlandic Poem of Atli;

The prince's credulity was enough for him to believe this,
her treachery was clear if he had looked out for it.

The Lay of Fafnir, the simplest of the Eddas to my mind is, also, without a direct feminine presence. A tale of manly arms and battle with a dragon, it is most like Beowulf. The following stanza, spoken by Sigurth, is not unlike something Beowulf might speak.

My courage whetted me, my hands assisted me
and my sharp sword;
few are brave when they become old,
if they are cowardly in childhood.

Unlike Beowulf, though, it doesn't end without reference to a greater cycle of stories, all which prominently figure women. In fact, the gold which Sigurth wins from the dragon, Fafnir, whom he kills, becomes, in a way, the basis of all subsequent strife. Near the end, the nuthatches** tell Sigurth, "I know a girl, the fairest by far, endowed with gold, yet you could win her," and thus begin the saga.

These are my brief, general impressions at first reading, but there are a lot of stories, composed in different centuries, in different languages, collected from a wide region, transmitted by various means, poem, prose, song, written and oral. So far, all I really know is that on opening the box, I've discovered "resounding gold and glowing red treasure," and I have gold-lust for the "fire of the serpent's bed." With the Edda's words, stories, history and culture, I'm in love.

*translations by Carolyne Larrington
**While I write, I hear nuthatches outside my window. I wonder what they're saying.

Kennings

In my post, Summer Goes On...a Little While , I mentioned that a sword is sometimes called a leek in the Poetic Eddas. Never was there a more reserved statement!

Leek is just one of the many referents to a sword in the Eddas. In fact, there's an entire convention of word usage found in Norse literature of which the leek/sword metaphor is only a simple example. For those not up on their Norse lit, this device is called a kenning, and it provides fascinating, sometimes confusing, reading. Fortunately, great translators do much of the hard work for me, and I'm left with mostly the fascination as I read in modern English. Here's an example from the Poetic Edda, The First Poem of Helgi Hundingsbani, stanza 7 as translated by Carolyn Larrington. I'm reading two translations simultaneously, so below that is Henry Adams Bellows' version of the same stanza.

To the men it seemed that he was a prince,
they said to one another that a good year had come;
the noble lord himself came from the tumult of battle
to bring a shining leek to the young nobleman.

The warrior throng a ruler thought him,
Good times, they said, mankind should see;
The king himself from battle-press came,
To give the prince a leek full proud.

Kennings, though, are often much more complex than a simple substitution such as leek for sword. After reading a while, it gets easier to recognize and then to appreciate kennings. I can only imagine what it must have been like to listen to the complicated, prose example (below) given in the Wiki article and understand it without the research I require to do the same.

Ulls of war-leek! We carried the seed of Fyrisvellir on the mountains of hawks during all of Hakon's life; now the enemy of the people has hidden the flour of Frodi's hapless slaves in the flesh of the mother of the enemy of the giantess.

The mental process of decryption must have been an integral part of the tale's effect. I'm fortunate to have gotten to the point that friend of the wolves means to me a warrior who slays many (thereby leaving much carrion for the wolves). As my familiarity with kennings and the mythology and the customs of these people grows, I am curious to return to earlier reading, especially Y Gododdin, in which I anticipate new worlds to open, both in meaning and in effect.

I'm also beginning to appreciate this literature (read in a deceptive form in high school) as the general expression of a larger culture. Kennings are at their most complex, their height, in Norse and Icelandic literature, but only a peek into the Northern European literatures and pre-Christian culture. I'm getting a feel for the immigrations of Germanic people to the north and west. I also see how once the Celts had migrated to Ireland, Wales and northward to western Scotland, there was a great deal of traffic between the Celts and the Norse. There are loan words from English and Irish in the Poetic Eddas, for example. If only we had literature of the Picts, we'd likely see the same pre-Christian exchanges with northern and eastern Scotland. The Orkneys and Shetland, Isle of Man, the Western Isles, of course, were occupied by Scandinavians, and their footprints are all over that region.

The kennings, by painting images, by engaging me in the riddle, by invoking my knowledge of myths and customs, have the power of putting me in the seat of the native listener nearby the great fire at the middle of the mead-hall. Often, as a consequence of all this, I have, as I'm reading, an irresistible urge come over me, that is, to drink a lager!

For a last taste of this engaging literature, here are six stanzas (from Larrington) near the end of Second Poem of Helgi Hundingsbani, Poetic Eddas. This scene in which the valkyrie Sigrun sleeps with her dead lover must be one of the most poignant in literature. Briefly, Sigrun has returned to the burial mound of Helgi, and she says to him:

First I want to kiss the lifeless king,
before you throw off your bloody mail-coat;
your hair, Helgi, is thick with hoar-frost,
the prince is all soaked in slaughter-dew,
Hogni's son-in-law has clammy hands.
How, lord, can I find a remedy for this?

You alone, Sigrun, from Sefafell,
cause Helgi to be soaked in sorrow-dew;
you weep, gold-adorned lady, bitter tears,
sun-bright southern girl, before you go to sleep;
each falls bloody on the breast of the prince,
cold as dew, burning hot, thick with grief.

We ought to drink this precious liquid,
though we have lost our love and our lands;
no man should sing a lament for me,
though on my breast wounds can be seen;
now the lady is enclosed in the mound,
a human woman with us, the departed.

Sigrun made up a bed in the mound.

Here I've made you, Helgi, a bed all ready;
descendant of the Ylfings, now free from care
in your arms, lord, I'll sleep,
as I would with the prince, when he was living.

I say that nothing could be less expected,
neither early nor late at Sefafell,
that you should sleep in the arms of a dead man,
white lady, in the tomb, Hogni's daughter,
and you alive, and royally born.

It is time for me to ride along the blood-red roads,
to set the pale horse to tread the path in the sky;
I must cross the bridge in the sky-vault,
before Salgofnir awakens the victorious people.

The Death of Beowulf

*deep sigh* Well, I finished Beowulf again, read the translation my uncle so generously sent me--thank you again--Seamus Heaney's words, richly illustrated with photographs of the very swords and helmets and byrnies and gold torques so vividly portrayed in the epic. No matter how many times I read this story, I'll always be left feeling as though I've been stabbed by the dagger of Grendel's mother right in the chest. Beowulf, generous king, brave hero, a man who lived life boldly and well, who won fame for his name, his death is noble and poignant, and his storyteller is masterful at wrenching our hearts. Here are a few selections in Heaney's version to illustrate.


[Beowulf's last words, spoken to young Wiglaf, the only one of his retinue to stand with him against the dragon that killed Beowulf.]

"You are the last of us, the only one left
of the Waegmundings. Fate swept us away,
sent my whole brave high-born clan
to their final doom. Now I must follow them."


[A portion of the messenger's report of Beowulf's death]

"...................His royal pyre
will melt no small amount of gold:
heaped there in a hoard, it was bought at heavy cost,
and that pile of rings he paid for at the end
with his own life will go up with the flame,
be furled in fire: treasure no follower
will wear in his memory, nor lovely woman
link and attach as a torque around her neck--
but often, repeatedly, in the path of exile
they shall walk bereft, bowed under woe,
now that their leader's laugh is silenced,
high spirits quenched."


[Beowulf's funeral]

The Geat people built a pyre for Beowulf,
stacked and decked it until it stood four-square,
hung with helmets, heavy war-shields
and shining armour, just as he had ordered.
Then his warriors laid him in the middle of it,
mourning a lord far-famed and beloved.
On a height they kindled the hugest of all
funeral fires; fumes of woodsmoke
billowed darkly up, the blaze roared
and drowned out their weeping, wind died down
and flames wrought havoc in the hot bone-house,
burning it to the core. They were disconsolate
and wailed aloud for their lord's decease.
A Geat woman too sang out in grief;
with hair bound up, she unburdened herself
of her worst fears, a wild litany
of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,
enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles,
slavery and abasement. Heaven swallowed the smoke.


[The last lament of Beowulf's people.]

So the Geat people, his hearth companions,
sorrowed for the lord who had been laid low.
They said that of all the kings upon the earth
he was the man most gracious and fair-minded,
kindest to his people and keenest to win fame.

"They all let go after a while"

Wall Arch in Arches National Park, Utah collapsed "sometime late Monday or early Tuesday." Paul Henderson, the park's chief of interpretation, said "They all let go after a while."

Long ago I started to learn about this idea in a book titled Wiki of Walpi (©1954). I checked, and it's unavailable from Amazon.com, but you can find copies of it from antique book dealers, like the one I linked. I still have my copy (pictured) from when I read it as a little girl. Its pages are fragile from age, but I started taking care of it rather early in life, so there's no major damage; all the pages are there, including the breathtaking illustrations. I don't know what attracted me to this book when I was little. I remember reading it when its words and long sentences were still challenging. I must have been six or so. It doesn't have snappy Dr. Seuss rhythms. It has a lot of words on each page, and many pages without pictures. In all, today's child wouldn't look twice at it, but I remember loving it and identifying with young Davo. It was my first experience with these marvelous expressions, "she shook her head East and West" and "he shook his head North and South." I distinctly remember not understanding the meaning of that at all, then puzzling it out when I was older.

It was the Utah arches story that made me remember the book and pull it from my shelf of most treasured, fantastical, beloved books. In the book, Davo is a pale-skinned boy, "bahana," among dark-skinned people, Navajo. Therefore, when he was born, his mother shook "her head East and West." He suffers because he can't play under the hot, Arizona sun (at Walpi) like the other children. He learns to live in the cooler times of the day, "the shadows," when the sun can't burn his skin. On a trip with his father, he meets a medicine man who offers him a salve for his skin that allows him to play in the sun. At first the old man won't tell him where to find the leaves he uses to make the medicine, but changes his mind so that the knowledge won't die with him.

"Where is this place?" Davo asked.
"There where the earth is a rainbow of color. There where the sky is a bridge of stone."
"Where the earth is a rainbow of color...and where the sky is a bridge of stone," Davo repeated the words in such a way that he would remember them for all time.

When Davo runs out of the medicine, he returns to the village for more, but the man has died. Davo refuses, though, to live again in shadows and resolves to find the magic leaves himself in the place the old man told him about. While traveling with his father's flocks of sheep, he eventually does.

He looked up to the sky. There a sight made his heart leap. High above him a bridge of stone arched toward the sky! Across the arch the setting sun splashed crimson, gold and purple!

"The leaves! I found them under an arch of stone streaked with sunset colors," Davo cried breathlessly. "Father, it was like a rainbow bridge."

The story ends with Davo as a hero, because not only do the magic leaves make a good salve for his skin, he mixes them in a tea to cure a sickness that threatens the Navajo. After Davo saves the pueblo, "all of the people were shaking their heads North and South."

Of course, the collapse of Wall Arch might have suggested this book to me, but it was Paul Henderson's words, "They all let go after a while," that really made me think of Wiki of Walpi, especially the old medicine man, who died. Yes, people actually died in children's books way back when, not often, but it happened. Like I said, I read this book when I was just a tot, and I imagine it was one of my first images of death. I'm glad, too. There isn't any hullabaloo about death. Davo only discovers the old man is gone because "where Masi's hogan had stood, there was nothing but a mound of earth--a mound of earth with a few timbers on top." The people tell Davo, "He has gone to mix his magic medicine in the Land Beyond the Sunset."

If someone could arrange that my death is observed that way, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Dylan's Letters

O, my. I just received my copy of Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters. I read the front, inside jacket, and I'm setting it aside...now...before it goes too far. Either it's the force of Dylan's genius or my flimsy constitution, but I'm not sturdy enough to read these letters, maybe when I'm older. On the other hand, I find myself not one whit less manic than thirty years ago. Emotions at which I scoffed as trivial, I now labor under as profound. I may weep and laugh myself, progressively, into death.

"She was watching CSI, burst into tears," Mr. Rivergarth will explain to the coroner, "then she was gone. I suspected something was wrong when she laughed at the rolling head, but it wasn't all that unusual; I once found her swooning with love over a tomato. She was especially gleeful over semicolons."

"Remember me?" Dylan Thomas wrote to a friend in Indiana. "Round, red, robustly raddled, a bulging Apple among poets. Hard as nails made of cream cheese, gap-toothed, balding, noisome, a great collector of dust and a magnet for moths, mad for beer, frightened of priests, women, Chicago, writers, distance, time, children, geese, death, in love, frightened of love."

No, I'll set this aside for a few days and see how it goes. Definitely not ready to be intimate with Dylan. Definitely not.

Writing as I

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives..."

-Thoreau, On Walden Pond

"cut the rose"

I'm really getting worried about the rose now. Fair Welcoming has been imprisoned in the tower with guards set around, and our hero has once kissed the rose, but he can't get near again without Fair Welcoming. In despair, he's turned for advice to Friend, and I'm not sure I like Friend's advice at all! I'm almost afraid to read on.

From Romance of the Rose (Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, trans. Charles Dahlberg), lines 7669-7694. My italics below.

And if you can come to the point where you might keep them [the guards] apart, so that the place may be so convenient that you need not fear that anyone will come up unexpectedly, and if Fair Welcoming, who is now imprisoned for your sake, may escape, then, when he has turned on you the fair appearance that he can--and he knows very well how to receive handsome people--then you should cut the rose, even though you see Resistance himself, who receives you only to abuse you, or even though Shame and Fear grumble at your deed. They only pretend to get angry, and they defend themselves lazily, since in their very defense they give themselves up conquered, as it will then seem to you. Although you see Fear and Shame blush, and Resistance become agitated, or all three lament and groan, count the whole thing as not worth a husk. When place and time and season occur, cut the rose by force and show that you are a man, for, as long as someone knows how to exercise it, nothing could please them [?] so much as such force.

Mary of Nijmeghen

Anna Bijns' (attributed) play, Mary of Nijmeghen (trans. Eric Colledge), read it over a week ago and am still dwelling on it. I'm wholly sympathetic with the devil, and what a fine time we would have had if I'd been lucky enough to be in Emma's shoes. O, Emma, Emma, what a life you could have led, if only...

• Where it Began

Emma's aunt, when the girl is alone and in need of shelter: You have been busy sitting somewhere in a corner drinking your fill. Niece, there are Tom and Dick and Harry who all know how to walk you country girls down into the cornfields, and when you play games in the evenings, Betty will always find a Jack to treat her. Yes, niece, you know all about it, for where you live there are plenty of lively lads.

Emma, wounded by her aunt's attack: Why do you talk like this, Aunt?

Emma's aunt, merciless: Ah, you two-faced thing! Even if we must not say the truth, you have danced many a measure for which the piper was not paid in money. You may play this game for a long time yet: we are all virgins till our bellies swell.

Emma, quite rightly, because she's innocent of her aunt's accusations: It wounds me to the heart that you should say such shameful things which I do not deserve.

Emma's aunt, who will not let up, although her language for modern readers is great fun!: I have talked to people who will swear that they have seen you doing things with your own uncle so shameless that it would be disgraceful for me to repeat them. You are bringing our whole family into disgrace. You will become a byword, you wretched creature, and I cannot bear to look at you.

Emma's aunt goes on with more colorfully, worded vitriolic, and our author explains the aunt's outrage as she had a bad day. Finally Emma is driven away to sit outside of town in "great sorrow," where she calls for help, equally from God or the devil, "Come now to me and help me to lament, God or the devil, it is all the same to me," and "I would as gladly entrust myself to the devil as to God, for I sit here half mad."

From our first meeting with the devil we see he's a clever guy and likable! With sweet words, he soothes our Emma, "Pretty child...I shall avenge you, as any decent fellow would." "Pretty child, do not fear any harm or sorry. I shall do you no injury nor trouble you." With promises, he wins her over,

The Devil: If you would give your love to me, I would teach you the arts as no one else could: the seven liberal arts, rhetoric, music, logic, grammar, geometry, arithmetic and alchemy, all of which are most important arts. There is no woman upon earth so proficient in them as I shall make you.

Emma accuses him: You are the devil out of hell.

But the Devil knows the promise that stirs a young girl's heart: Whoever I am, I shall always be good to you.

What's more, he is, and we know he will be! If, at this point in the play, you're not in love with the devil, then his cleverness will surely win you over later. When he meets Emma, her name is Mary, but naturally the devil cannot tolerate this name! He urges her to take another, though Mary is reluctant. Finally, he convinces her to give up all but the letter "M" and so she becomes Emma to the Devil. They travel to Antwerp, as the Devil promised her they would, where they enter the "The Tree for a pint of Rumney," apparently to Emma's delight, because after the Devil describes what they'll find within, "all the spendthrifts who waste their lives, all the daughters of joy and the whores who gamble with their lives," Emma's response is, "That is the life I love to see; nothing pleases me more."

For seven years, they live the high life, Emma singing her songs of rhetoric to their drinking companions and the Devil plying his clever trade. Among his accomplishments, his devilry, is this jewel,

The Devil: ...And now I am beginning to teach people how to find hidden treasure; and only yesterday it cost one of them his life. I told him where there was a treasure hidden and growing mouldy, in a stable, underneath a beam on which the whole weight of the stable was resting. I told him that he would have to dig deep into the ground, and he would find pound upon pound of the hidden treasure. At once he started to dig there, but as soon as he had dug so far that he undermined the beam and the posts supporting it, the beam fell to the ground and crushed this poor idiot under it!

Who doesn't admire a clever fellow...and conscientious, too, for when Emma takes a fancy to visit her family (and we can't understand why after her aunt's tirade, nor why she'd leave the good life), he sends Emma to pay the bill before they leave, "Do that, my darling, pay everything they ask, down to the last halfpenny."

In Nijmeghen, the Devil and Emma come upon a "pageant on wheels," but the Devil is worried the message of the play will lure Emma away from their good life. He says, "It is all a lot of nonsense. Do you really want to listen to such drivel? We had far better go look for a roast and some wine."

Now here is the point where I'm wholly on the side of the Devil, and where I, unlike our fatuous Emma, would have quite gaily walked away from the moral-play and gone with the Devil for roast and wine! Knowing the outcome of the play, I'm even more of the mind to skip away with the Devil right here and now.

Here's how it goes on. "Emma, listening to the play, began to reflect with sorrowful heart upon her sinful life..." How is the Devil, who has wined and dined and loved and fulfilled every promise to Emma, supposed to react when Emma betrays him for God? Like any jilted lover would, of course!

The Devil: Help...my eyes grow fiery with rage! This girl is getting a bellyful of repentance. Let us go off to some pleasant part of the town and drink a pot of wine.

Notice he's still trying to save their relationship, poor demon, but Emma, ungrateful girl that she is now revealed to be--probably a family trait--refuses and says, "Leave me alone, and get away from me, you evil, cruel devil!" It's really only after Emma's heartless betrayal that the Devil becomes angry, but it's obviously a painful and regrettable condition for our lover.

The Devil: Lucifer's liver and lungs and spleen, help me! Now may I well curse and shoot flames from my eyes and howl, for all my plans are going astray.

He flies Emma up into the air above the town and drops her, where she plummets to the street and is seen by her uncle. Now, this uncle was, indirectly, the cause of her woes at the beginning, because he was the one who sent her off to Nijmeghen in the first place to "buy there the things which they needed," and told her to solicit the aunt for a place to sleep if she were in town too late.

Once the uncle determined that the fallen woman is actually his niece, he bemoans his suffering in looking for her the past seven years. Notice his belated realization of his niece's fall from grace, dramatic and not much to his credit, because the Devil has to fly her over the rooftops and practically drop her on the uncle's head to get him to notice.

There's no confusion here, either, with the prodigal son story. No fattened calves are killed once the Devil's been sent packing and Emma firmly back in her uncle's control. Rather, her return to the straight and narrow consists of a series of visits to priests who "however learned, however experienced, however holy or devout, once he had understood the case, dared [not] in any way be so bold as to absolve her or impose on her any penance for her sins, which were so dreadful and so unnatural..." Apparently, consorting with the Devil is too heinous a crime, even for penance.

They finally end up in front of the pope in one of the best lines of the play, over which I chuckle with glee. The pope asks, "But how could you have commerce with the devil when you knew who he was?" And Emma replies, "Father, it was the good times..." *cackle! cackle! cackle!*

The end is sad and regrettable, and I mourn for the good, old days with the Devil. She receives her penance,

The Pope: ...Look there, at those three iron rings. The biggest of them you must lock round her neck, and the other two, without further delay, fasten tight and firm round her arms; and she must wear the rings until they wear through or fall off of their own accord.

With her uncle's aid, Emma becomes a nun in a convent of converted sinners, and "he took his leave of her and travelled to his own territory, where he lived for another twenty-four years." The author seems to think that the uncle's subsequent, yearly visits to Emma are a sign of devotion--Pfft. I couldn't help but remember the Devil's attentive and amorous devotion in contrast.

The play doesn't say how long she lived "...so holy a life and performed such great penances that the merciful Christ forgave her all her sins, sending His angel to her...who took off her rings," but she only lives two years after being freed. I'm a little sickened by her profuse thanks to God for removing the rings, considering that He (via the pope) put the rings on her in the first place.

The moral of the story (admittedly my version) is beware the wiles of the Devil and good times because God will put iron rings around your neck and arms if you happen to stray from your lover.

Uhgh, Rushdie

Uhgh. It's not often I can't gut out a book, no matter how poor, to the end, but I've been defeated by Salman Rushdie's Enchantress of Florence. I keep telling myself I can do it, but it's been days since I picked it up, and it's glaring at me like some evil beast of trivial literature. I am halfway through, but that doesn't lay any obligation on me, correct? Am I right? I mean I don't HAVE to finish every book. Today, I free myself of guilt, and I declare that I'm NOT GOING TO READ IT!

Funny, though, that Guignebert, whom I'm reading at the same time, formidable and dense, hasn't gotten me down. I'm nearly done, and as the timeline approaches the Enlightenment, with which I am naturally more familiar, it's becoming more, not less, enjoyable.

So scat Rushdie! I've got two books to choose from for my second reading--I always read two at once, because I leave one book upstairs and one down--The Romance of the Rose and The History of Scotland, both of which I'm itching to get my hands on. I expect The Art of Courtly Love to come in the mail today or tomorrow. I might wait to choose once I've sifted through that.

Ah, it's wonderful to be free again!

Lucilio Vanini

I'm so frustrated! I can't read Lucilio Vanini's works because they're in Italian and haven't been translated! How can that be in this age? Someone translate for me!

The Odyssey for Fun

Aagh, I've been reading so much literature about Christianity that it's starting to weigh me down--Guignebert is not for the faint of heart. Although the mystics are refreshing, it's no substitute for getting away from it altogether. For fun, I picked up The Odyssey (trans. Fagles), which I read through with a study group about twelve years ago. Take my advice--don't read it the first time like that--boring. I since had the good sense to read it on my own, as it should be read once, as a rollickin' adventure story! The whole epic is one exciting scene after another, plots and hunts and monsters, daring escapes! There's even a loyal dog.

Here's an example of what I mean in this scene shortly after Odysseus lands at the island home of Circe, a scene that might as easily have been written by Jack London or Jim Corbett as by Homer.

I was well on my way down, nearing our ship
when a god took pity on me, wandering all alone;
he sent me a big stag with high branching antlers,
right across my path--the sun's heat forced him down
from his forest range to drink at a river's banks--
just bounding out of the timber when I hit him
square in the backbone, halfway down the spine
and my bronze spear went punching clean through--
he dropped in the dust, groaning, gasping out his breath.
Treading on him, I wrenched my bronze spear from the wound,
left it there on the ground, and snapping off some twigs
and creepers, twisted a rope about a fathom long,
I braided it tight, hand over hand, then lashed
the four hocks of that magnificent beast.
Loaded round my neck I lugged him toward the ship,
trudging, propped on my spear--no way to sling him
over a shoulder, steadying him with one free arm--
the kill was so immense!

After the successful hunt, what do you think Odysseus' men do when they see the stag? Pfft. No, they don't sacrifice it to the gods.

My hardy urging brought them round at once.
Heads came up from cloaks and there by the barren sea
they gazed at the stag, their eyes wide--my noble trophy.
but once they'd looked their fill and warmed their hearts,
they washed their hands and prepared a splendid meal.
Now all day long till the sun went down we sat
and feasted on sides of meat and seasoned wine.
Then when the sun had set and night came on
we lay down and slept at the water's shelving edge.

Men after my own heart!

Essential Substances

I just finished reading Richard Rudgley's book, Essential Substances: A Cultural History of Intoxicants in Society. The book is a light read. Rudgley surveys time and place, describing the intoxicant use of different societies, including interesting details (fun facts) about the complexes of tools and rituals which accompany drugs. Although Essential Substances isn't as rigorous as his Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, it demonstrates, as Lost Civilizations does, his ability to see through stone walls of bias, hypocrisy and stereotypes. Rudgley, in Essential Substances, extends his exposure of dogmatic, anthropological research by reminding us that drugs, while condemned in American society, are nearly ubiquitous in time and place, and we can't understand our ancestors and neighbors unless we understand their intoxicant use, which differs dramatically from the modern, American experience.

Mr. Rudgley, write me another. Send me an email, because I have a topic for you.

Mechthild's Passion

I finished the Bequine section in my book and have moved south to Italy and in time to read a selection of equally remarkable texts by equally remarkable women, but Mechthild is so captivating that I am drawn back to refresh my soul!

In the Flowing Light of the Godhead, there appears a dialog between the Soul and the Senses. Her method of leading her reader through her reasoning is powerful, and I will--did in a short story--copy her, not in the form of the dialog, but in the structure she uses to move the argument of her position. Ha! I make her sound cold and analytical! She's not. It's only the writer in me who deconstructs. The reader in me remains roused and hot. Perhaps hotter because I appreciate her skill as well as the art.

Mechthild's passion is stripped, so to speak, and lies exposed at the end. The reader, who's had the pleasure of indulging in the dialog up to her thesis, will recognize that every word shudders with meaning. She doesn't waste a single breath and each one is an intense gasp.

Soul:
Lord, now am I a naked soul
And Thou a God most Glorious!
Our two-fold intercourse is Love Eternal
Which can never die.
Now comes a blessed stillness
Welcome to both. He gives Himself to her
And she to Him.
What shall now befall her, the soul knows:
Therefore am I comforted.
Where two lovers come secretly together
They must often part, without parting.

Prince Bertram the Bad

I love children's books and own way too many. They are currently taking up most of the closet space below the stairs, but a few of the most cherished sit in my studio where I can fawn over them. One of these is Prince Bertram the Bad by Arnold Lobel. Its copyright is 1963 and my older sister's name and an old address and phone number are written on the inside cover, so I assume it was hers first. The back cover was lost at some point, but I repaired it with a stiff piece of cardboard, which was 'decorated' and signed by the child who 'loved' the book after I did. The book, however, remains in my hands, and I treaure it.

Most people are familiar with Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, also copyright 1963, but fewer have heard of Prince Bertram, although the stories and illustrations share many similarities. Both these authors are also the illustrators, and the styles are remarkably similar, right down to their muted color palettes. Both books are about naughty, little boys who experience a magical transformation and return to their families reformed and happy. In Max's case, he dreams that he sails to an island of scary creatures. In Bertram's case, a witch turns him into a dragon.

Sendak's story is really an illustrated poem, and his language is rhythmic, simple and forceful. I can attest, from vast experience, that it is a delight to read out loud. Lines like this never sound dull to the ear, and the tongue rolls over them with pleasure no matter how many times one recites it in a night or that month or that year, "And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws...." Pure joy.

Lobel's story reads more like a fireside tale with clever details and wonderful adventures. Bertram's naughty antics are really very cute. For example, "The royal cook would not speak to Prince Bertram. He had thrown four spiders into the chicken noodle soup." After being turned into a dragon, he's miserable in the castle so Bertram runs away, and the result is reminiscent of Max's encounter with wild beasts, "There was a big forest near the castle, where many lions and porcupines and other beasts lived. The animals growled and roared at him, and they ate all of his gingersnaps."

Sendak's book, Where the Wild Things Are, enjoys current popularity, and you can find it in bookstores, but I've never seen Lobel's book ,which is equally delightful, in a Barnes & Noble. I have a couple ideas why the difference in popularity, but I'm only guessing. Truly, Lobel's story has greater depth; Prince Bertram does a good deed, which redeems him, but Max just gets lonely and wakes up. Also, Lobel's illustrations have more variety and are as clever as hell. Prince Bertram as a dragon is adorable. Anyway, if you have young children and don't own Where the Wild Things Are, you're a schmuck, but if you want to really be cool, you'll buy Prince Bertram the Bad and read that out loud, as well. Your kids will remember and love you forever.

[I started this blog, thinking I was going to toss up a Winnie the Pooh quote today--Pooh is one of my dearest characters--and look where I ended up!]

More Mystic Literature

Espousing a philosophy that a Sufi or Taoist would find familiar, Mechthild again from The Flowing Light of the Godhead:

The bride is intoxicated by the sight of His glorious countenance. In her greatest strength she is overcome; in her blindness, she sees most clearly; in her greatest clearness, she is both dead and alive. The richer she becomes, the poorer she is...The more she storms, the more loving God is to her. The higher she soars, the more brightly she shines from the reflection of the Godhead, the nearer she comes to Him. The more she labours, the more sweetly she rests. The more she understands, the less she speaks. The louder she calls, the greater wonders she works with His power and her might. The more God loves her, the more glorious the course of love, the nearer the resting-place, the closer the embrace. The closer the embrace, the sweeter the kiss. The more lovingly they gaze at each other, the more difficult it is to part. The more He gives her, the more she spends, the more she has. The more humbly she takes leave, the sooner she returns. The more the fire burns, the more her light increases. The more love consumes her, the brighter she shines. The vaster God's praise, the vaster her desire for Him.

(note: I changed Menzies punctuation in two places.)