Hue and Cry at the end of 2018

GH, my French fellow-penteloper, has sent me Christmas greetings, including the following:

Slangelope (in French) :

Un jour qu’il n’allait pas au taf (1)
Il enfila ses pattes d’eph’ (2)
Passa la brosse sur ses tifs (3)
Mit un veston de belle étoffe
Prêt pour l’après-midi au turf (4).

Notes
(1) Slang for : work
(2) pattes d’epa’ (= pattes d’éléphant) : flares
(3) slang for : hair
(4) pronounced turf = horse races.

The prankster

A born-prankster of pranks a fan
He once went a-strolling across the fen
A branch emerging not unlike a finn (sic)
Made him catch the scene on his ‘phone
On the net when posted imagine the fun !

*******************************************

Here is part of my reply:

Dear [GH],

I now have some breathing space after a busy-ish weekend being host to some of my wife's family. We were ten around the festive board yesterday and I'm pleased to say they all seemed to appreciate my main course which was built around ample portions of haggis (thankfully in season).

I've now put the poems and prose of Robert Southwell to bed, at least for the time being. This means I have been able to dip my toes once again into the pentelopic pools of Parnassus:

Hue and Cry

Increasingly, poor people seem to pander
To all the rainbow hues of sex (and gender);
One careless pronoun's like a spark in tinder
Provoking outraged cries that make us ponder
And puzzle how we fell for such a blunder.

Thank you for your own lines; I always enjoy reading them aloud and musing on the meaning. Very late in life, I've started to make the acquaintance of the unum, the verum, the bonum and the pulchrum in music. I fancy they may be applied just as easily to unsung verse.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

Here is a Christmas Card to family, friends and readers everywhere:

No room to spare in Bethlehem

Quem in civitate Bethlehem
laetando genuisti:
neque dolorem aliquem
gignendo pertulisti. Ave Maria.

In Bethlehem Whom, a Holy Seed,
     Thou didst bring forth with gladness;
In that thy wondrous labour freed
     From human pangs and sadness. Hail Mary.

The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

Quem regis David genere
mox natum adorasti;
ac vagientem ubere
virgineo lactasti. Ave Maria.


Scion of Royal David's line,
     New-born thou didst adore Him;
Whose nurturing breast with love benign
     A wailing Infant bore Him. Hail Mary.







Quem pannis fasciis
constrictum reclinasti;
et suis obsequiis
te totam mancipasti. Ave Maria.


Whom in the manger thou didst lay,
     With swathing bands enfolding,
And Him to cherish, day by day,
     No pains or care withholding. Hail Mary.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

Quem magno cum tripudio
angeli laudaverunt;
pacemque cum gaudio
in terris cecinerunt. Ave Maria.

Whom brightest Angels at His birth,
     With laud and carol hailing,
Praised God; announcing Peace on earth,
     Good will and love unfailing. Hail Mary.

The adoration of the Shepherds

Quem pastorem omnium
pastores cognoverunt;
dum in praesepe Dominum
iacente invenerunt. Ave Maria.

Whom wondering shepherds as of all
     The Shepherd Prince declaring,
Yet found, a stable mean and small
     With ass and oxen sharing. Hail Mary.

If you like these words and pictures, please visit our sister website:

Rosarium Aureum.

Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears (by Robert Southwell)

For lovers of Elizabethan English in poetry or prose, for historians and for lovers of the Christian Faith before the Protestant revolution, please visit our sister blog, Mary's English Dowry, which has recently completed the annotation in full of Robert Southwell's poem (792 lines): 'Saint Peter's Complaynt'. 

Noli me tangere...JJ Tissot. Brooklyn Museum.

That blog has just started to explore some of Southwell's better known prose works, beginning with 'Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears', widely regarded as his best-known and most influential prose work.

Mary Magdalen’s Funeral Tears was the second of Southwell’s prose works to appear in print, following on from An Epistle of Comfort (1587) . It was published in late 1591 with an author’s preface to the reader, and dedicated to Dorothy Arundel  ('Mistress A.D.'), possibly the daughter of Sir John Arundel of Lanherne (1500-1557). The work is sometimes traced to Origen's homily on Mary Magdalen’s encounter with Christ on Easter morning.  Mary Magdalen’s Funeral Tears is in the form of a meditation on this encounter. It is written as a dialogue between Mary, the angels in the empty tomb, Christ, and the narrator.

Cosmology versus Faith

I have added a section entitled Cosmology versus Faith (see tab above) where I aim to explore the ideas of a most remarkable man whose work I first discovered this year through the writings, interviews and films of Rick Delano and Robert Sungenis.

Wolfgang Smith

Professor Wolfgang Smith graduated from Cornell University at the age of eighteen with majors in physics, philosophy and mathematics.  He received an MS from Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana ) in theoretical physics and was subsequently employed working on aerodynamics at Bell Aircraft Corporation, where he distinguished himself by laying the theoretical foundation for the solution of re-entry problem for satellites. After receiving a PhD in mathematics from Columbia University, he held faculty positions at MIT, UCLA, and Oregon State University. Professor Smith retired from academic life in 1992 to devote himself full-time to his particular interests.

Photo 1995. Public domain, courtesy of Angelico Press via Wikimedia Commons.

As the above paragraph shows, Wolfgang Smith is a scholar and researcher in the fields of mathematics and physics, but he also writes on theology, metaphysics, and religion . His qualifications  in theological, philosophic and scientific disciplines are unique and lend his writings and interviews considerable authority among students and scholars in these fields.

My point of departure is his book entitled:

The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology: Contemporary Science in Light of Tradition

(2004 Library of Congress Control Number: 2003109192, ISBN: 0-9629984-7-8)

'Cosmology': Modern Latin cosmologia, < Greek type *κοσμολογία, < κόσμος world + -λογια discourse. Compare French cosmologie.

In philosophy: That branch of metaphysics which deals with the idea of the world as a totality of all phenomena in space and time.
In natural science: The science or theory of the universe as an ordered whole, and of the general laws which govern it. Also, a particular account or system of the universe and its laws.

'Cosmogony': Greek κοσμογονία creation of the world, < κόσμος world + -γονια a begetting (compare κοσμογόνος adjective, world-creating).

Review Panel

Here are the participants in this post's review of the foreword to 'The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology: Contemporary Science in Light of Tradition':


JB: Jean Borella
C: Callidior [see Genesis 3, 1]
BB: Blog author

Foreword

BB: The foreword to Professor Smith's groundbreaking work on cosmology (ancient, traditional and modern) was written by Professor Jean Borella who was born in Nancy, France, in 1930.   He is a distinguished academic who in 1962 became a professor in Nancy where he taught philosophy and French until 1977. He later taught at the University of 'Paris X: Nanterre'* before retiring in 1995.
*Now known as 'l'Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense or Nanterre', this is one of the most prestigious French universities, mainly in the areas of law, humanities, political science, social and natural sciences and economics. It is one of the thirteen successor universities of the University of Paris.

BB: Perhaps you could take us through your foreword, Professor...

JB: Gladly. I start by pointing to an anomaly, namely  that there are in the world today religions with followers still standing by their beliefs.This is despite the fact that religious belief is regarded as definitely belonging nowadays to a bygone age. A believer's situation, whatever his religion, is certainly not an easy one. This is especially true for Christianity, because for three centuries it has been directly confronted by the negations of modernity.

BB: What are these 'negations of modernity'? Can you give us some examples?

JB: The blows dealt by the modern world against a people's religious soul are in the first place concerned with immediate and everyday existence.The extraordinary material success of scientific and technological progress is, for many, proof sufficient to refute the world of religion. This is because religion speaks of an invisible world, while contemporary civilization renders the visible, sensory world more and more present, the invisible more and more absent.

C: (interrupting) That is a trifle harsh, professor. Surely mankind is entitled to celebrate the freedom coming from scientific progress. Millions now enjoy the benefits of desktop computers, smart phones, i-pads, laptops, social networks, reality TV shows, contact-less debit and credit cards, not forgetting the vast array of medications and vaccines, including revolutions in surgery such as gender reassignment and selective abortion. The list goes on, as you know. Surely you would not want to take all this away from the ordinary people and return to the... er... Dark Ages, before the Enlightenment?

BB: I promise that in due time we shall discuss those very points. For the moment, please allow Professor Borella to continue.

JB: Thank you. The omnipresence of a world ever more 'worldly', focusing on the material and the sensory, is only the effect, in the practical order, of a more decisive cause that is theoretical in nature, namely the revolution of Galilean science.

C: (With a shudder) 'Galilean'?

BB: Don't worry. This is a reference not to Galilee but to Galileo, who tried to replace the traditional cosmology with the  revolutionary, heliocentric Copernican principle. This proved to be truly earthshaking, in more than one sense (laughter). When men and women were told that their globe orbited the sun and span like a top on its own axis, they grew increasingly giddy as they contemplated the vertiginous possibilities of a brave, new, dizzy world order. When they made their act of faith that the earth moves, it seems the earth moved for them.

C: Thanks for the illumination... but please leave the jokes to me. In cosmology, as in other spheres, I personally have always favoured a revolutionary model. Just picture poor man, trapped on a boring, motionless earth, fixed rigidly at the centre of the universe. In his pride, man thought everything revolved around him. In his delusion, he thought he was a uniquely special creation. Galileo changed all this with his scientific approach. But he was only the first of many. Isaac Newton, himself a dazzling luminary in the firmament, was later able to prove mathematically (with his laws of motion) everything that Galileo had claimed about he earth's motion. Later still, the great Darwin would make monkeys out of those who looked to Genesis for the origins of species, including man. His Evolution revolution was based on science rather than grim fairy-tales. Marx, too, would apply a scientific approach to socio-politico-economic questions in his revolutionary Das Kapital. Then Freud would remove the cure of souls from Christian charlatans obsessed with sin; he would place soul-analysis (psychoanalysis) on a truly scientific, guilt-free footing. His disciples spread the good news of the sexual revolution of the sixties. The science is now settled. Ask any school children. So, please: spare us your 'negations of modernity' and your conveniently 'invisible' but risible hocus pocus religion.

BB: I'm afraid, Callidior, that your revolutionary fervour is shooting the discussion off on a centrifugal tangent. We shall come to these issues in good time. Can we please move forward with the foreword?

JB: Yes, of course. The revolution of Galileo had as a consequence for the Christian believer the subversion of the reality implied by his faith.What remains then is the option either to renounce his faith, or else - an almost desperate solution- to renounce entirely the cosmology that it entails. On the whole, Christian thought has committed itself to this second way: to keep the faith and abandon all the cosmological representations by which that faith has been expressed. This is a desperate solution.

BB: Why?

JB: Because if we disregard these cosmological representations, what remains of all the other representations in the Christian's faith? Scripture informs us that the Apostles saw Christ's Ascension from the earth and disappearance behind a cloud, while Galilean science objects that space is infinite, that it has neither high nor low, and that this ascension, even supposing it to be possible — which they say it is not - is meaningless. Bultmann and the majority of Protestant and Catholic exegetes and theologians have resorted to an immense process of demythologization of Christian scriptures. To demythologize is to understand that this cosmological presentation is, in reality, only a symbolic language, in other words, a fiction.

BB: But why do you conclude that this 'solution' is so desperate?

C: (interjecting) I can answer that! If the Christian rejects the cosmological presentation of the Ascension that we are told  was witnessed by the Apostles, for example, must he not also reject the 'Faith' attached to it? The price the Christian pays for accepting that the cosmological texts in Scripture are mere symbols (ie fairy tales or 'pie in the sky') is that all the other mysteries of his faith suffer the same fate. What price now Adam and Eve, 'original sin', the very need for a Messiah, the
Incarnation, the miracles, the Resurrection?

JB: Callidior is, broadly speaking, correct in so far as many Christians, consciously or otherwise, have made precisely this rejection. His gloating is however a little premature. In the present crisis, in which Christian thought is split between maintaining the 'traditional' in its entirety and confining it to purely moral problems, Wolfgang Smith’s book discloses a liberating perspective which,in the name of science itself, restores to faith its entire truth. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of such a work.

BB: Can you give us a brief idea of this 'liberating perspective'?

JB: Unknown to the public, the Galilean model is obsolete. The advent of the theory of relativity and of quantum physics entails the abandonment of the Galilean model of the universe, a definitive abandonment. Our idea of the cosmos must be completely transformed both in its spatio-temporal structure (relativity) as well as in regard to the constitution of matter (quantum theory). Today, it is nineteenth century materialism that has become a superstition.

BB: Are we to take it that what is being taught throughout the educational system and repeated in the media is... out of date?

JB: Quite. Philosophers, theologians, and exegetes are,however, far from realizing this. The 'scientific' vision of the world that Bultmann opposes to the mythological vision of faith is that of a science largely obsolete even at the time when, in 1941, he expounded his program of demythologization. Basically, Wolfgang Smith shows us in his work,with simplicity and sometimes with much humour, that Bultmann has chosen the wrong object: it is not religion but the customary interpretation of science that needs to be demythologized. Only the doctrine of the philosophia
perennis is able to accomplish this, and thereby to disclose the full truth of science itself. On the most essential points, on the most burning questions concerned with biblical cosmology, heliocentrism, the nature of space and matter, the concept of a true causality, etc., Wolfgang Smith shows how the conclusions of contemporary science cease to be incompatible with the affirmations of traditional cosmology.

BB: This is quite remarkable.

JB: Yes, truly remarkable, as is his courage, for he has dared to confront the dominant ideology of modern culture, which is not without risk, to say the least. This ideology has turned science (a certain kind of science!)into the official mythology of our times.

BB: It seems the premises of the modernists are in one sense out of date...  but in another not sufficiently out of date. Unfortunately, we are now out of time so, on behalf of all our readers, may I thank the members of our panel, Professor Borella and Callidior, for their contributions.Wolfgang Smith himself will be featuring in our next discussion when we shall have a closer look at some of the ideas in his book.

C: (Aside) I can see my team will have to make one hell of an effort to deal with this pestilential Professor's attack on modernity and progress...

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1974)

Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. From the 1970's onwards, he has remained a hero for me and millions of others.

I first read his work when I was up at Cambridge in 1973-6. I devoured One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward and The Gulag Archipelago. Later, I listened to his Harvard Commencement Address (1978) and read The Mortal Danger: Misconceptions about Soviet Russia and the Threat to America. (1980).

More recently, I discovered and read Deux siècles ensemble (2003) which had not been translated into English, for some reason.






Verhoeff, Bert / Anefo [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Solzhenitsyn’s mother was widowed before he was born, and the Bolsheviks confiscated her family’s land. When World War II broke out, Solzhenitsyn left university in Rostov to serve as an officer in the Russian military. He was arrested in 1945 for comments made in a private letter to a friend, critical of Stalin. He was sentenced to eight years in the Soviet camp system and was eventually released into perpetual exile in Kazakhstan. By 1962, Solzhenitsyn was able to return to Russia but he did not dare to publish work he had been writing. Following an apparent thaw under Khrushchev, Solzhenitsyn took the risk of sending – anonymously – a short story about one day in a camp prisoner’s life to a literary journal. It was Khrushchev himself who finally gave permission for the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Solzhenitsyn had to work in secret on his next text which was eventually smuggled out of the country and published in France. From there it was quickly translated into many languages, and the whole world learned the truth about the enormity of Soviet crimes in The Gulag Archipelago.

During his time in the archipelago, Solzhenitsyn rejected the Marxist, atheistic materialism of his youth and embraced the Christian faith. He rejected the Marxist claims that some groups and classes of human beings are good and others bad and saw clearly that the dividing line between good and evil lies in each human heart. He was to observe that the movement away from the evils of atheistic materialism (by those who had experienced it) was taking place at the very same time that the 'free' West was moving closer and closer to embracing its tyranny. This was some time before the emergence in the West of relativist, subjectivist and identitarian ideology.

Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure near Moscow on 3 August 2008 aged 89. His funeral service was held at Donskoy Monastery, Moscow, where he was buried in a spot he had chosen. Requiescat In Pace,

The Immaculate Conception

A happy and blessed feast day of the Immaculate Conception to all my family, friends and readers!

Being the anniversary of a certain date, it is for me also an occasion of profound sadness; but I place all this sadness into Mary's hands, in the fervent hope that she will intercede with her Divine Son on our behalf.

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived. [Prov 8:22-24]
R. Thanks be to God.

Dóminus possédit me in inítio viárum suárum, ántequam quidquam fáceret a princípio. Ab ætérno ordináta sum, et ex antíquis ántequam terra fíeret. Nondum erant abýssi, et ego iam concépta eram.
R. Deo grátias.

The first verse of the following hymn is said genuflecting.

Ave, star of ocean,
Child divine who barest,
Mother, ever-Virgin,
Heaven's portal fairest.

Taking that sweet Ave
Erst by Gabriel spoken,
Eva's name reversing,
Be of peace the token.

Break the sinners' fetters,
Light to blind restoring,
All our ills dispelling,
Every boon imploring.

Show thyself a mother
In thy supplication;
He will hear who chose thee
At his incarnation.

Maid all maids excelling,
Passing meek and lowly,
Win for sinners pardon,
Make us chaste and holy.

As we onward journey
Aid our weak endeavour,
Till we gaze on Jesus
And rejoice forever.

Father, Son, and Spirit,
Three in One confessing,
Give we equal glory
Equal praise and blessing.
Amen.

Ave maris stella,
Dei Mater alma,
Atque semper Virgo,
Felix cæli porta.

Sumens illud Ave
Gabriélis ore,
Funda nos in pace,
Mutans Hevæ nomen.

Solve vincla reis,
Profer lumen cæcis,
Mala nostra pelle,
Bona cuncta posce.

Monstra te esse matrem,
Sumat per te preces,
Qui pro nobis natus,
Tulit esse tuus.

Virgo singuláris,
Inter omnes mitis,
Nos culpis solútos
Mites fac et castos.

Vitam præsta puram,
Iter para tutum,
Ut vidéntes Iesum,
Semper collætémur.

Sit laus Deo Patri,
Summo Christo decus,
Spirítui Sancto,
Tribus honor unus.
Amen.

V. This day is the Holy Virgin Mary conceived without sin.
R. The Virgin's foot hath bruised the serpent's head.

V. Immaculáta Conceptio est hódie sanctæ Maríæ Vírginis.
R. Quæ serpéntis caput virgíneo pede contrívit.

   

St Andrew's Day 2018: In Memoriam

On the anniversary of my dear mother's death on Wednesday 30 November 1977, I am reposting the following to commemorate a remarkable woman: Christina (née MacDonald of Clanranald, 10 February 1909)

I was living in Cambridge during this sad time. For no particular reason that I can recall, I felt an urge to make the train journey across country to pay a visit to my mother. I prepared the following poem en route, not knowing that my mother would depart this world only a matter of days after my arrival. She was sitting near the fireside when I saw her, nursing a hot water bottle. I explained that I had a poem to read to her and I could see that she was listening intently. When I had finished, she said: 'Well, how lovely!' She then retired to her bedroom and never left her bed again before her death a few days later.

Kirsty bheag is the Scots Gaelic for 'little Kirsty'. She was called 'little' to distinguish her from her mother, who was also called Kirsty. I completed the pen and ink drawing of the boat (21cm x 21cm) several years later and named it 'Kirsty' in honour of my mother. RIP.

Alone sate she

Kirsty. PB c1984

Alone sate she in soft and muted shade,
A fairy child of woodland ferns and flowers,
A slender sylph from Spring's most sacred glade,
A smiling sprite of silent, scented bowers.

Her careless hair was gold as sun-gold corn,
In breeze-blessed streams and tresses lightly flowing;
Her eyes were the smiling blue of a sky-blue morn,
Her cheeks with cheerest roses ever-glowing.



Withal a shape so supple, slim and svelte
As like a willow-sapling's lithely grace;
A light and happy spirit therein dwelt,
Whose dancing smiles did play upon her face.

Upon her lap an open book she lay,
Whose lines she scanned with fond and eager gaze;
Then 'loud the alien words she 'gan to say,
In heart to grave for all her mortal days.

Alone sate she, this darling Highland child,
In woods, in fields, by many a mountain stream;
But now in time long-lived to old age mild,
Of these her girlhood joys she doth but dream.

Envoi

Learn friends, this fairest She, she is no other
Than my own dear, *beloved mother.*
 © PB 1977

**An alternative ending uses 'Eternal Mother'.

Kirsty Bheag

I was living in Cambridge during this sad time. For no particular reason that I can recall, I felt an urge to make the train journey across country to pay a visit to my mother. I prepared the following poem en route, not knowing that my mother would depart this world only a matter of days after my arrival. She was sitting near the fireside when I saw her, nursing a hot water bottle. I explained that I had a poem to read to her and I could see that she was listening intently. When I had finished, she said: 'Well, how lovely!' She then retired to her bedroom and never left her bed again before her death a few days later.

Kirsty bheag is the Scots Gaelic for 'little Kirsty'. She was called 'little' to distinguish her from her mother, who was also called Kirsty. I completed the pen and ink drawing of the boat (21cm x 21cm) several years later and named it 'Kirsty' in honour of my mother. RIP.

Alone sate she

Kirsty. PB c1984

Alone sate she in soft and muted shade,
A fairy child of woodland ferns and flowers,
A slender sylph from Spring's most sacred glade,
A smiling sprite of silent, scented bowers.

Her careless hair was gold as sun-gold corn,
In breeze-blessed streams and tresses lightly flowing;
Her eyes were the smiling blue of a sky-blue morn,
Her cheeks with cheerest roses ever-glowing.

Withal a shape so supple, slim and svelte
As like a willow-sapling's lithely grace;
A light and happy spirit therein dwelt,
Whose dancing smiles did play upon her face.

Upon her lap an open book she lay,
Whose lines she scanned with fond and eager gaze;
Then 'loud the alien words she 'gan to say,
In heart to grave for all her mortal days.

Alone sate she, this darling Highland child,
In woods, in fields, by many a mountain stream;
But now in time long-lived to old age mild,
Of these her girlhood joys she doth but dream.

Envoi

Learn friends, this fairest She, she is no other
Than my own dear, *beloved mother.*
 © PB 1977

**An alternative ending uses 'Eternal Mother'.

© PB 1977

Saint Peters Complaynte

I have posted another poem here under Family first posted on my other site, Mary's English Dowry.

Peter's Tears. After El Greco.

Peter's denial of Christ through fear would have a particular relevance and poignancy in sixteenth century England when a tyrannical regime, determined to eradicate Catholicism, was determined to use fear as a weapon against Catholics remaining faithful to their baptismal vows. His repentance speaks powerfully to any of us who have fallen into sins of betrayal. 

The poem is in Elizabethan English and I have retained the copy MS idiosyncrasies in spelling, punctuation and syntax, mitigated by fairly detailed end notes.The 12 stanzas are a shorter and earlier version of a later 132 stanza version, first printed in 1595.

Both deede and dome to have deserved blame

I am posting here a poem (with annotations) which forms part of a study of Robert Southwell on a sister blog, Mary's English Dowry. I will include it under the Family tab on this site because of the particular relevance it has.

Davids Peccavi

In eaves sole sparowe sitts not more alone
Nor mourning Pelican in desert wilde
Then sely I that solitary mone
From highest hopes to hardest happ exild
Sometime o blissfull tyme was vertues meede [5]
Ayme to my thoughtes guide to my word and deede.

But feares now are my pheares grief my delight
My teares my drinke my famisht thoughtes my bredd
Day full of Dumpes nurce of unrest the nighte
My garmentes gives a bloody feild my bedd [10]
My sleape is rather death then deathes allye
Yet kild eith murdring pangues I cannot dye

This is the change of my ill changed choise
Ruth for my rest, for comforts cares I finde
To pleasinge tunes succeedes a playninge voyce [15]
The doleful Eccho of my waylinge minde
Which taught to know the worth of Vertues joyes
Doth hate it self for lovinge phancies toyes.

If wiles of witt had overwrought my will,
Or sutle traynes misledd my steppes awrye [20]
My foyle had founde excuse in want of skill,
Ill deede I might though not ill dome denye.
But witt and will muste nowe confesse with shame,
Both deede and dome to have deserved blame

I phancy deem'd fitt guide to leade my waie [25]
And as I deem'd I did pursue her track
Witt lost his ayme and will was phancie's pray
The rebell wonne the ruler went to wracke.
But now sith phancye did with follye end,
Witt bought with losse will taught by witt will mend. [30]

Notes

[Title] Davids Peccavi: 'peccavi' means 'I have sinned'. David, second king of Israel, fell into the sins of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Urias, her husband. His contrition was so sincere that God pardoned him. His example and his words as handed down in several psalms have served as a model and inspiration for all penitents.

[ll1-2] sole sparowe/Pelican: Sparrows are invariably found in busy little flocks, interacting with each other. A lone sparrow would accordingly be very miserable in his solitude, deprived of the presence of his fellows. Similarly, a pelican is a water bird and would be miserable in the waterless desert, mourning the absence of his river or pond. There is also here a reference here to a prayer for one in affliction: the fifth penitential psalm.

[7] I am become like to a pelican of the wilderness: I am like a night raven in the house. [8] I have watched, and am become as a sparrow all alone on the housetop. [Psalm 101]

[l3] sely: Deserving of pity or sympathy; pitiable, miserable, ‘poor’; helpless, defenceless. 1551   R. Robinson tr. T. More Vtopia sig. Rviii   But thies seilie poore wretches be presently tormented with barreyne & vnfrutefull labour.

[l3] mone: intransitive. To lament, grieve, moan, mourn.

[l4] happ: The chance or fortune that falls to a person; (one's) luck, lot; (also) an instance of this. Frequently modified by good (also bad, evil, etc.). 1591   Troublesome Raigne Iohn i. sig. D3v   'No redresse to salue our awkward haps.'

[l5] meede: meed - In early use: something given in return for labour or service; wages, hire; recompense, reward, deserts; a gift. Later: a reward or prize given for excellence or achievement; a person's deserved share of (praise, honour, etc.). Now literary and arch. 1590   Spenser Faerie Queene i. ii. sig. B8   A Rosy girlond was the victors meede.

[ll5-6]: There was formerly a time (oh happy time!) when the aim of my thoughts and the guide of words and actions was to obtain the prize of virtue.

[l7] pheares: fere - A companion, comrade, mate, partner; whether male or female;

[l9] Dumpes: A fit of melancholy or depression; now only in plural: Heaviness of mind, dejection, low spirits. A mournful or plaintive melody or song;

[l9] nurce: nurse - That which nourishes or fosters some quality, condition, etc. Also: a place that nurtures or produces people of a specified type. Now literary and rare. 1526   W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. CCiiii   Obedience..is the helthe of faithfull soules, the nourse of all vertue.

[l10] gives: gyves - A shackle, esp. for the leg; a fetter. 1600   E. Fairfax tr. Tasso Godfrey of Bulloigne v. xlii. 83   Hands..Not to be tide in giues and twisted cords.

[l11] allye:  A relative, a relation; a kinsman or kinswoman. Now chiefly hist.1597   Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet iii. i. 109   This Gentleman the Princes neere Alie.

[l13] change:  There are several senses available, eg: 1) The action of substituting one thing for another. 2) Death, considered as a substitution of one state of existence for another. Obsolete.1611   Bible (King James) Job xiv. 14   All the dayes of my appointed time will I waite, till my change come. 3) The balance that is returned to the buyer when something is paid for with an amount greater than its price. The misery described in the second stanza is the result of replacing 'vertues joyes' (l15) with his sinful desires. This change has led to the death of his former peace of mind. Finally, in exchanging (paying) virtue's prize to obtain his lust's desire, he receives by way of change the misery he describes.

[l14] Ruth: Matter for sorrow or regret; occasion of sorrow or regret. Obsolete.Mischief; calamity; ruin. Obsolete.Sorrow, grief, distress; lamentation. Obsolete. 1591   Spenser tr. Petrarch Visions ii, in Complaints sig. Z2   O how great ruth and sorrowfull assay, Doth vex my spirite with perplexitie.

[l15] playninge: That plains; plaintive, mourning, lamenting; (formerly also) †expressing a grievance, uttering a complaint (obsolete).

[l16] waylinge: wailing, expressing lamentation.

[l19] witt: The faculty of thinking and reasoning in general; mental capacity, understanding, intellect, reason. arch. 1600 Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream iv. i. 203   I haue had a dreame, past the wit of man, to say; what dreame it was.

[l20] sutle: Of behaviour, words, an action, etc.: characterized by slyness or treachery; intended to deceive, delude, or entrap someone.

[l20] traynes:  train - Treachery, guile, deceit, trickery; prevarication. An act or scheme designed to deceive or entrap, a trick, stratagem, artifice, wile. Also: a lie, a false story.  A trap or snare for catching wild animals. Also in figurative contexts. Now rare (arch. and poet. in later use). 1590   Spenser Faerie Queene i. vi. sig. F5   Thou cursed Miscreaunt, That hast with knightlesse guile and trecherous train Faire knighthood fowly shamed. 

[l21] foyle: A repulse, defeat in an onset or enterprise; A disgrace, stigma.

[l22] dome: Personal or private judgement, opinion.The faculty of judging; judgement, discrimination, discernment. Obsolete.

[l25] phancy: Delusive imagination; hallucination; an illusion of the senses. Caprice, changeful mood; an instance of this, a caprice, a whim. Amorous inclination, love. Obs. 1600   Shakespeare Merchant of Venice iii. ii. 63   Tell me where is fancie bred.  ‘Something that pleases or entertains’ (Johnson).
Word order: 'I judged (my) fancy a fit guide to lead my way.'

[l26] her: 'phancy' or the object of his fancy (for David, Bathsheba).

[l27] pray: prey

[l28] wracke:  Damage, disaster, or injury to a person, state, etc., by reason of force, outrage, or violence; devastation, destruction.

[l29] sith: since

[l30]: One possible paraphrase is: I have paid dearly for greater understanding ('wit') through my loss (allowing sin victory); my will has been instructed by this understanding; (and so) my will and my wit will mend.
According to traditional teaching, the three powers of the soul are: memory, understanding ('wit') and will.

Hermann the Cripple and Christopher Nolan

I had never heard of Hermann until coming across a reference to him in a a talk by Father Patrick Henry Reardon (a priest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America).

Hermann (1013-1054) was a chronicler, mathematician, and poet. The son of of a Count, he was a cripple from birth (hence 'Contractus'). He had a cleft palate, cerebral palsy and was powerless to move without assistance. It was only by the greatest effort that he was able to read and write, having only three working fingers on one hand. He was educated on the Monastic Island of Reichenau in Lake Constance (south-west Germany).

He took the monastic vows in 1043, and seems to have spent the rest of his life there. Despite his handicaps and losing his sight towards the end of his life, he was to excel in theology, mathematics, astronomy, music, Latin, Greek, and Arabic. He is the author of the earliest of the medieval universal chronicles. Hermann also wrote mathematico-astronomical works and  he constructed astronomical and musical instruments. He also composed religious hymns and is credited with the authorship of the Alma Redemptoris Mater and the Salve Regina.

His story reminds me of someone I discovered in the early 1980s, Christopher Nolan (1965-2005). Nolan was born with cerebral palsy, and could only move his head and eyes. Due to the severity of the palsy, he used a wheelchair. He was placed on medication that relaxed him so he could use a pointer attached to his head to type. Nolan used a special computer and keyboard; in order to help him type, his mother held his head in her cupped hands while Christopher painstakingly picked out each word, letter by letter, with a pointer attached to his forehead. At the age of fifteen, he published his collection of poems titled Dam-Burst of Dreams. He wrote an account of his childhood, Under the Eye of the Clock, published by St. Martin's Press, which won him the UK's Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 1987 at the age of 21.

Robert Southwell

Robert Southwell was a highly accomplished poet. There is very strong evidence that he knew Shakespeare and that the latter was significantly influenced by his work.

He was also a Catholic priest who suffered martyrdom at Tyburn in 1595 aged only 33 years.

For more information and a presentation of his poems with notes, please see Mary's English Dowry and explore my new tab 'St Robert Southwell'.

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 7. End

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

Don Quijote and Sancho Panza

Miguel de Cervantes: 1547 – April 23 1616;  perhaps most famous as the author of Don Quijote. 
By1570, Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a regiment of the Spanish Navy Marines. In September 1571, Cervantes sailed on board the Marquesa, part of the galley fleet of the
Holy League defeated the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto. Though taken down with fever, he disobeyed an order to stay below and took part in the fighting. He received three gunshot wounds, one of which crippled his left hand.

From 1572 to 1575, he continued his soldier's life. In 1575, he was captured by Ottoman pirates. 
After five years as a slave in Algiers, and four unsuccessful escape attempts,
he was ransomed by his parents and the Trinitarians.



 Gustave Doré [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

a lean and foolish knight: Don Quijote. This world famous work was first published in 1605 and 1615.

For further reading, see Lepanto by Dale Ahlquist;

Dale Ahlquist, has gathered together insightful commentaries and explanatory notes. Here is the story behind the modern conflict between Christianity and Islam, between Protestant and Catholic Europe, and the origin of the Feast of the Holy Rosary. A fascinating blend of literature, history, religion and romance.

and

Philip II, by William Thomas Walsh (first published 1938).

Superb and insightful panorama of the 16th century. Covers the birth of Protestantism and the secret efforts to undermine Catholic unity, the Huguenot wars in France, the Sack of Rome, Great Siege, Battle of Lepanto, Spanish Armada, Council of Trent, etc.; and, Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, St. Pius V, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Ignatius of Loyola,

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 6

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

Titian [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

King Philip: Philip II (1527–1598), King of Spain (1556–98), King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, and through marriage King of England and Ireland (during his marriage to Queen Mary I from 1554–58). He was also lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. The son of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, his empire included territories on every continent then known to Europeans, including  the Philippines.

Left: .Titian's painting (1573 - 1575) commemorates the defeat of the Turkish armada at Lepanto on October 7, and the birth of the infante Fernando, heir to the throne, on December 5th. Philip gives thanks to the Lord for these blessings. Towards the top, an angel offers a palm leaf and a ribbon with the inscription MAIORA TIBI (Greater triumphs await you) to the newborn child in his father’s arms. The Battle of Lepanto appears in the background, and a bound Turk is depicted alongside the spoils of victory to the left.

crystal phial/death is in the phial: possibly a reference to the theory that Don John of Austria's death in 1578 at a surprisingly early age was the result of poisoning. It is argued that Philip was jealous of the fame of his young half-brother.
Don John of Austria/Has loosed the cannonade: Don John had given orders that no guns were to be fired in the approach to the Turkish fleet. He finally gave an order to a fire a long range shot from his flagship the Real in the direction of Ali Pasha's flagship, almost like a challenge to a duel.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Pius V 1566. Walters Art Gallery CC0 1.0 Universal

The Pope:  Pope Saint Pius V (1504 – 1572), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1566 to 1572. His pontificate was dedicated to applying the reforms of the Council of Trent, called in response to the devastating heresy spreading in Northern Europe. The Catechism of the Council was completed and he consolidated the Roman Breviary and Missal.

His six year pontificate saw him faced with war from within the Church from the Protestant
heretics war from outside, the Turkish armies who were advancing by land ans sea from the East.
He encouraged the newly formed Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. He excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, and supported Catholics who were oppressed and intimidated by Protestant princes, especially in Germany.


He worked without ceasing  to unite the Christian rulers against the Turks. Before the decisive battle of Lepanto, the Pope asked for all the sailors and soldiers to pray the Rosary, confess their sins and receive Holy Communion. Meanwhile, he called on all the faithful of the Church to recite the Rosary and ordered a 40 hour devotion in Rome. The Christian fleet, vastly outnumbered by the Turks, inflicted a miraculous defeat on the Turkish navy, demolishing the entire fleet. In memory of the triumph, he declared the day the Feast of Our Lady of Victories, later renamed the Feast  of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, because of her intercession in answering the mass recitation of the Rosary and obtaining the victory. 

Pope Pius V died seven months later on May 1, 1572, of a painful disease, uttering 'O Lord, increase my sufferings and my patience!' He was buried in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, was beatified by Clement X in 1672 and canonized by Clement XI in 1712.

The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year: the tabernacle in Catholic churches where Jesus Christ, under the appearance of the sacred host of unleavened bread, is reaaly and truly present in His body, blood, soul and divinity.


He sees as in a mirror: his biographers recount that during a meeting in Rome, Pius rose and went over to an open window and, looking eastwards, saw a vision of the triumph of the Christian fleet. The news of the victory took nearly two weeks to reach Rome.

Star and crescent moon

The crescent of his cruel ships:  the order of battle for the Turkish ships was normally a crescent. The crescent and star are ancient symbols in the Middle East, linked to the worship of demonic Sin/Nanna. They were officially incorporated by the Ottomans as a state symbol.





Cross and Castle: the coat of arms of Aragon and Castile on the Spanish ships.

Christian captives sick and sunless: The Turkish infidels used captured Christians as slaves to row their galleys. Over 12,000 such slaves were freed during the defeat of the Turks at Lepanto.

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 5

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
      Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

Mont St Michel   CC BY-SA 4.0

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north: Saint Michael's Mount is an island monastery in Normandy, located about one kilometer (0.6 miles) off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. The first monastic establishment dates from the 8th century. The archangel Michael appeared in 708 to the bishop of Avranches and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet.




St Michael's Mount is also small tidal island in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England.The earliest buildings, on the summit, date to the 12th century. Historically, St Michael's Mount was a Cornish counterpart of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France. It was given to the Benedictine religious order of Mont Saint-Michel by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century.

Saint Michael is traditionally invoke by Christians to defend them in the day of battle, to be their safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil, whom he is to cast down into Hell together with all wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

Christian killeth Christian/Christian dreadeth Christ/Christian hateth Mary
The sixteenth century saw a series of attacks upon the Church that Christ founded: the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. In addition to the attacks by the infidel Muslims from without, there were attacks by apostates and heretics from within. The latter are in 'official' history usually grouped under the misleading term 'Reformation'. The fruits of these internal attacks were a series of bloody wars and a distortion of true doctrine that had been handed down and believed through all Christendom for over 1500 years.

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 4

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

Giaours: an offensive term in the Ottoman Empire for non-Muslims or more particularly Christians.

seal of Solomon: In Jewish and Arab tradition, Solomon is said to have possessed a seal ring by means of which he controlled the demons. The legend of a magic ring by means of which the possessor could command demons was current in the first century, as is shown by Josephus' statement  that one Eleazar exorcised demons in the presence of Vespasian by means of a ring, using incantations composed by Solomon. The Arabs gave the name of 'Solomon's seal' to the six-pointed star engraved on the bottom of their drinking-cups. In Western legends, however, it is the pentacle that represents the seal. This figure was supposed to have the power of commanding demons.

Kismet: from Arabic qisma, 'fate, destiny'

Philip II and Richard I given keys to Acra

Richard: One of the leaders of the Third Crusade (1189–1192), an attempt by European Christian leaders to protect Christian pilgrims' access to the the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, in 1187. This Crusade was largely successful in capturing the important cities of Acre and Jaffa, and reversing Saladin's conquests.





Courtesy BN de Paris via Wikimedia Commons

Raymond:Raymond IV, sometimes called Raymond of Saint-Gilles or Raymond I of Tripoli, one of the leaders of the First Crusade (1096–99).
Godfrey: One of the leaders of the First Crusade. Godfrey became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He refused the title of King, preferring the title of Advocate (protector or defender) of the Holy Sepulchre.
Iberia: the Iberian peninsula; originally a reference to the people who lived near the river Ebro.
Alcalar: in the Algarve region of southern Portugal.
 

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 4

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

Mahound: 1) a pejorative term for Mohammad; 2) a demon; 3) a self-seeking impostor; 4) it is said that during a congregation of Meccans, Mohammad was unable to convince them to stop worshipping their current idols (totalling over 360). In the end a compromise was adopted and it was decided that all the other Gods were false except Lat, Uzza and Manat. Mohammad later claimed this idea was given to him by Satan and he retracted the  verses from the Koran. This is covered in Salman Rushdie's book 'The Satanic verses'.

Azrael: The much feared ‘spirit of death’ in both Islamic and Hebrew lore, Azrael's name means 'whom God helps.'

Ariel:  'Lion of God', a demonic spirit; Ariel is said to have worked closely with King Solomon in conducting spiritual manifestations.

Ammon: The demon Ammon, who is usually shown with the horns of a ram, was initially venerated by Libyan desert tribes. He may have been related to the Semitic Ba'al Hammon (worshipped among the Phoenicians and Carthaginians). Its worship subsequently spread all over Egypt, a part of the northern coast of Africa, and many parts of Greece. The Ammonites worshipped Moloch.

Solomon: 10th century king of Israel who fell into idolatry in the second half of his life.

[23] And king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches, and wisdom. [24] And all the earth desired to see Solomon's face, to hear his wisdom, which God had given in his heart. [3 Kings X]

[3] And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines: and the women turned away his heart. [4] And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. [5] But Solomon worshipped Astarthe the goddess of the Sidonians, and Moloch the idol of the Ammonites. ...  [7] Then Solomon built a temple for Chamos the idol of Moab, on the hill that is over against Jerusalem, and for Moloch the idol of the children of Ammon. [8] And he did in this manner for all his wives that were strangers, who burnt incense, and offered sacrifice to their gods. [9] And the Lord was angry with Solomon [3 Kings XI]