Entente pentelopicale
Here are three pentelopes produced as a result of recent exchanges between your author and a French friend and contributor to this site ('GH'). I've included a fairly simple translation of each French verse.
Sans teeth, sans everything
Ce qui me reste dans la mémoire?
Les fous-rires de ma grand-mère,
Mon petit cochon-tirelire,
Queqlues vieux contes du folklore,
Débris vivants d'une aventure.
GH 2019
[What remains in my memory?
My grandmother's giggles,
My little piggy bank,
A few fairy tales...
Living remains of an adventure]
Intimations of immortality from early childhood
Me promenant tout seul dans l'allée des ha ! ha !
cette grande invention par Le Nôtre créée,
J'avançais là pensif encore tout ébahi
De tout ce que la vie recèle de cahots
Depuis les jours heureux au sortir du bahut.
GH 2019
"Le bahut" (= the dining-room furniture suite) is the affectionate nickname of the secondary school one belongs to.
[Walking on my own along a ha-ha,
That wonderful creation of Le Nôtre,
I moved forwards thoughtfully and in amazement
At all the surprises life presents
From the happy days of infancy to the end of school days]
Here is a small offering to console all those masters and pupils we have known over the years, with their slightly differing tales of woe...
Bringing up the rires
or'Must try harder'
Come in and won't you please sit down, Gérard?
Your French report, by my esteem'd confrère,
Reveals from 'First' you now 'bring up the rear'.
Your conjugations cause a fine furore:
The latest gaffe was writing crûrent for crurent!
PB 2019
Lispelope for GH
Dear G,I greatly enjoyed the pith and elegance of your AberPentelope - so much so that I immediately set to work with a will. Unfortunately a lisp seems to have obtwuded itself into the letters. I cwave your forbeawance. We Bwits mean well...
The twain fair flew, look you, along the wails*Possible allusion to Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Old Land of My Fathers). Here is a link recalling a visit by an intrepid band of Gauls to the intimidating national folk Temple where the Cymric anthem may be heard.
With steely wheels a-dancing mountain weels;
Past Offa's Dyke, next Eistedfoddy twials,
Then finally the mining, whining, twolls,
Land of whose fathers* fair Bwitannia wules!
In the back of my mind was Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall which I re-read last year. He's pretty caustic on the Welsh... but if you can stand the politically-very-incorrect, I think you'd find this tale of a young teacher's experiences in a small, private Welsh school extremely diverting. Here is an excerpt:
“The Welsh character is an interesting study," said Dr. Fagan. "I have often considered writing a little monograph on the subject, but I was afraid it might make me unpopular in the village. The ignorant speak of them as Celts, which is of course wholly erroneous. They are of pure Iberian stock-- the aboriginal inhabitants of Europe who survive only in Portugal and the Basque district. Celts readily intermarry with their neighbours and absorb them. From the earliest times the Welsh have been looked upon as an unclean people. It is thus that they have preserved their racial integrity. Their sons and daughters rarely mate with human-kind except their own blood relations. In Wales there was no need for legislation to prevent the conquering people intermarrying with the conquered. In Ireland that was necessary, for there intermarriage was a political matter. In Wales it was moral. I hope, by the way, you have no Welsh blood?”
"None whatever," said Paul.
“I was sure you had not, but one cannot be too careful. I once spoke of this subject to the sixth form and learned later that one of them had a Welsh grandmother. I am afraid it hurt his feelings terribly, poor little chap. She came from Pembrokeshire, too, which is of course quite a different matter. I often think," he continued, "that we can trace almost all the disasters of English history to the influence of Wales. Think of Edward of Carnarvon, the first Prince of Wales, a perverse life, Pennyfeather, and an unseemly death,* then the Tudors and the dissolution of the Church, then Lloyd George, the temperance movement, Nonconformity and lust stalking hand in hand through the country, wasting and ravaging. But perhaps you think I exaggerate? I have a certain rhetorical tendency, I admit.”
"No, no," said Paul.
“The Welsh," said the Doctor, "are the only nation in the world that has produced no graphic or plastic art, no architecture, no drama. They just sing," he said with disgust, "sing and blow down wind instruments of plated silver....”
--Dr. Fagan, a schoolmaster in Decline and Fall (1928), by Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
*I recall that one tour leader with an Arts et Vie group was quite familiar with the tragic and lamentable history of Edward II and his painful 'end', sparing no details of sa mort atroce et ignominieuse. I just checked and you did indeed yourself include a reference to it in 'La Grande-Bretagne' at p110.
Lepanto
GK Chesterton (1911)White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.)
Lepanto: annotations
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,'Soldan' = 'sultan', ruler; from Aramaic shultana 'power'; earlier English word was soldan, soudan (c. 1300), used indiscriminately of Muslim rulers and sovereigns; from Old French souldan, soudan; from Medieval Latin sultanus
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
'the Soldan of Byzantium': Selim II (b 1524, 1566-1574), son of Suleiman the Magnificent.
Selim the Sot. Public Domain
His nickname was Selim the Sot (drunkard).
'Byzantium': an ancient Greek colony in early antiquity that later became Constantinople, and later Istanbul. 513 BC: Persian Empire; 408 BC: Athens conquers; 196 AD: Rome conquers; 330 AD: re-founded as an imperial residence by Constantine I (his 'New Rome'/Nova Roma), becoming Constantinople after his death as a newly baptised Christian in 337 AD; 1453: captured by Ottoman Turks and renamed Istanbul (officially changed only in 1930). This name derives from 'eis-ten-polin' (Greek: "to-the-city")Because of his obsession with wine, he is said to have ordered the conquest of Cyprus in 1571 in order to seize its famous vineyards for his own use. This was one of the triggers for the Battle of Lepanto which saw the virtual annihilation of the Turkish battle fleet.
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
the Adriatic: The origins of the name Adriatic are linked to the Etruscan settlement of Adria,
which probably derives its name from the Illyrian adur meaning water or sea. In classical antiquity, the sea was known as Mare Adriaticum, spanning from the Gulf of Venice to the Strait of Otranto.
 |
| The Lion of Venice. Wikimedia Commons |
The cold queen of England: Elizabeth I (born 1533, reigned from1558 - 1603). Her admirers still refer to her as 'Good Queen Bess. The bastard offspring of Henry VIII's adulterous union with Ann Boleyn, her persistence in rejecting the Church and faith of her ancestors and of the majority of her subjects, in favour of the looting operation and power-grab known as the 'reformation', produced a response in 1570, from the Chief Shepherd of that same Church, Saint Pius V:
2. Prohibiting with a strong hand the use of the true religion, which after its earlier overthrow by Henry VIII (a deserter therefrom) Mary, the lawful queen of famous memory, had with the help of this See restored, she has followed and embraced the errors of the heretics. She has removed the royal Council, composed of the nobility of England, and has filled it with obscure men, being heretics; oppressed the followers of the Catholic faith; instituted false preachers and ministers of impiety; abolished the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, fasts, choice of meats, celibacy, and Catholic ceremonies; and has ordered that books of manifestly heretical content be propounded to the whole realm and that impious rites and institutions after the rule of Calvin, entertained and observed by herself, be also observed by her subjects. She has dared to eject bishops, rectors of churches and other Catholic priests from their churches and benefices, to bestow these and other things ecclesiastical upon heretics, and to determine spiritual causes; has forbidden the prelates, clergy and people to acknowledge the Church of Rome or obey its precepts and canonical sanctions; has forced most of them to come to terms with her wicked laws, to abjure the authority and obedience of the pope of Rome, and to accept her, on oath, as their only lady in matters temporal and spiritual; has imposed penalties and punishments on those who would not agree to this and has exacted then of those who persevered in the unity of the faith and the aforesaid obedience; has thrown the Catholic prelates and parsons into prison where many, worn out by long languishing and sorrow, have miserably ended their lives. All these matter and manifest and notorious among all the nations; they are so well proven by the weighty witness of many men that there remains no place for excuse, defense or evasion.
3. We, seeing impieties and crimes multiplied one upon another the persecution of the faithful and afflictions of religion daily growing more severe under the guidance and by the activity of the said Elizabeth -and recognizing that her mind is so fixed and set that she has not only despised the pious prayers and admonitions with which Catholic princes have tried to cure and convert her but has not even permitted the nuncios sent to her in this matter by this See to cross into England, are compelled by necessity to take up against her the weapons of justice, though we cannot forbear to regret that we should be forced to turn, upon one whose ancestors have so well deserved of the Christian community. Therefore, resting upon the authority of Him whose pleasure it was to place us (though unequal to such a burden) upon this supreme justice-seat, we do out of the fullness of our apostolic power declare the foresaid Elizabeth to be a heretic and favourer of heretics, and her adherents in the matters aforesaid to have incurred the sentence of excommunication and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ.
4. And moreover (we declare) her to be deprived of her pretended title to the aforesaid crown and of all lordship, dignity and privilege whatsoever.
[Regnans in excelsis. Given in St Peter's, Rome, on the 25th of February 1570]The shadow of the Valois: Charles IX (1550 – 1574), who was King of France from 1560
until his death from tuberculosis. He ascended the throne upon the death of his brother Francis II, who had married Mary Queen of Scots in 1558 and reigned from 1559-1560. Charles was of the Royal House of Valois (1328-1589).
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| The Golden Horn. Click to enlarge. |
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.
 |
| Don Juan |
Christian commander and hero at the Battle of Lepanto. Illegitimate (hence 'crownless') son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and his mistress, Barbara Blomberg. Reared in Spain, his half-brother was King Philip II of Spain.
1566: invested with Order of Golden Fleece by Philip; 1568: made Captain-General of Spanish naval forces; 1571: made commander of Christian fleet at Lepanto, aged only 24. He died of typhus and was buried in the Escorial monastery.
Jooris van der Straeten [Public domain]
tuckets: In Act II, Scene i of Shakespeare's King Lear, a tucket sounds to alert the Earl of Gloucester of the arrival of the Duke of Cornwall. The word tucket is thought to derive from the obsolete English verb tuk, meaning 'to beat a drum' or 'to sound a trumpet.'
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]
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,Giaours: an offensive term in the Ottoman Empire for non-Muslims or more particularly Christians.
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.
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 ("Ant." 8:2, § 5) 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'
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| Philip II and Richard I given keys to Acra |
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 neasr the river Ebro.
Alcalar: in the Algarve region of southern Portugal.
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 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.
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 |
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 |
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 |
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.
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 |
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.
There was an old priest of Dun Laoghaire
From the toast of Scots Gaelic in my last email to a verse with some Erse, the erstwhile language of Erin's Isle.
I discovered it earlier today. It was penned by the Reverend Professor Canon Dr Eric Mascall, a distinguished theologian (and mathematician) who was educated at Latymer Upper School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. Although ordained in the Church of England in 1933, Mascall was in no doubt that he was a Latin Catholic. He himself said a private Tridentine Mass and was a Thomist.
There was an old priest of Dun Laoghaire,
Who stood on his head for the Kaoghaire.
When people asked why,
He explained it all by
The latest liturgical thaoghaire.
Please ignore the following explanations if you're familiar with his wordplay:
Laoghaire is pronounced 'Leary'
Kaoghaire = Kyrie (first word of the Greek prayer in the traditional Latin Mass: Kyrie eleison... Lord have mercy)
thaoghaire = theory
Many thanks to the venerable and learned author of Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment.
Blablacar
A new pentelope from the prolific pen of GH in France...Blablacar is a fabulous system of car-sharing which is conquering France because of the rail strike. People hesitate at first to use it, then discover that it’s a means to meet other people totally outside their own circles and are converted. It’s viral. I’m a zealot myself. The name comes from the fact that you are bound to chat once inside the car.
You know a kir, invented by Chanoine Kir, then Mayor of Dijon.
Un milouf is mild slang for a military. The one in the poem needs to join his unit after a leave.
The curé in the last line is coming back to his presbytery.
Here goes :
Blablacar
Suite au manque de trains, à nous donc Blablacar !
Bien sûr on n’irait pas au bout du monde, au Caire…
Mais, ma foi, à Dijon pour siroter un kir
Ou bien si le milouf doit rejoindre son corps
Voire pour le curé retourner à sa cure…
Cheers !
GH 2018
[Translation: As a result of the shortage of trains, we're car-sharing; obviously, we don't go to the ends of the earth, to Cairo; but, my word, to Dijon to sip a kir, or if the serviceman needs to return to barracks; or the parish priest to his presbytery]
A Whitsun wedding (with due apologies to Philip Larkin)
A Windsor wedding at Whitsun for Harry and MeghanRoyal magic at work we all saw once again
While the world was watching princely idyll begin
Ghosts of the past chased by the wind were gone
There was joy in the hearts, and, yes ma’am !, lots of fun.
GH 2018
Dear GH: The position of poet laureate will fall vacant, I believe, next year. I can only urge you to continue your bid which will assuredly be supported and promoted by your friends here at Court... Your latest number is apparently in one of HM's Red Boxes already.
The entente pentelopicale continues to bear fruit...
Idylls of the King
Camelot’s life was far from lax :
The knights were supposed to abstain from sex
To bed at ten, wake up at six...But Launcelot eyed Guinny's plum smocks
And they went together to feed the ducks.
GH 2018
Food for thought
Hot vindaloo and cold chapatti
(I fear this may sound pretty petty)
Convinced me (though it’s such a pity)
I’m not exactly all that potty
A-masticating spicy putty.
PB 2018
Dental Appointment
Fresh from the vasty fields of France, I have just received a potential prizewinning entry for the 2018 pentelope awards.Today was the date, the die was cast.
Strong on his feet to match the test,
He rang the bell and clenched his fist.
To hell the price new teeth would cost
The truth was: when we muft, we muft.
GH 2018
A French poet presents a pentelope
A French poet, going under the nom de plume of Anne Honnimusse, has contacted me via a mutual acquaintance in order to present to our readers the following finely crafted pentelope.
Quand Mélenchon entre en débat
Toutes les bouches restent bées;
On est scotché par le débit
Et par les abois du cabot
Qui déblatère, honte bue.
Anne Honnimusse 2018
When Mélenchon starts arguing,
All the mouths come a-gaping;
One is struck (literally stuck, as if with scotch tape) by the effluence
And by the barkings of the cur
Who yaps away shamelessly (literally, having drunk all his shame).
To convey my appreciation, and that of the readers of this blog, I drew a deep draught from my alma mater and replied with:
Hinc lucem et pocula sacra
Pocula sacra laudate
Omnes pueri gaudete
Verbum domini plaudite
Verumtamen scitote:
Bibendum non est dilute!
PB 2018
Ma petite âme, mais qu'est-ce qu'il y a?
Ma petite âme, mais qu'est-ce qu'il y a?
«Hélas! J'essaie de prier
Pour tous ceux dont le sort ici
Prévoit un destin idiot
Qui ne vaut pas un demi-sou»
PB 7 May 2018
The previous post on 'Dilly's Pentelopes' sowed a teasing question in my mind: could the fivefold, 'aeiou' rhyming scheme work in French? The verse above confirms, 'Of course`! I was, admittedly, having a lot of difficulty with the last line until... er ... the penny dropped, or rather the demi-sou, to coin a phrase. Why is the pentelope 'psychiatrique'? Well, psyche means âme or soul, and iatros means médecin or doctor.
Free translation:
Oh what's the matter, little soul?
'Full sadly I petition
For prisoners in their foolish hole
Who risk their soul's perdition.'
More literally: My little soul, what's the matter? 'Alas! I'm trying to pray for all those whose fate here (on earth) will lead to a foolish outcome that's not worth a farthing.'
Dilly's Pentelopes
I first discovered Dilly and his 'pentelopes' while reading The Knox Brothers by Penelope Fitzgerald (first published by Macmillan in 1977). Alfred Dillwyn ('Dilly') Knox was one of the four brothers featured in her biography of her father and three uncles. He was a classics scholar at King's College Cambridge and later a cryptographer in the First and Second World Wars. Amongst his wide range of interests were word-puzzles, poetry and... the 'pentelope'.
The rules for writing a pentelope are simple to understand but devilishly difficult to translate into practice. There must be five lines; each line must end with a word of the same kind but with a different vowel in the last syllable. The vowels, moreover, must be in alphabetical order: ie, a e i o u (or their phonetic equivalent). The word 'pentelope' may be based on three Greek roots meaning 'five', 'end' and 'voiced'.
Here is an example from Dilly's own pen:
Just look at my fatherHere is another, written as an epitaph on the very morning of AE Housman's death in 1936.
And mother together!
I fancy that neither
Would very much bother
If rid of the other.
Sad though the news, how sadThe third example represents the feverish, flurrying fruit of my own effort:
Of thee, the poet, dead!
But still thy poems abide -
There Death, the unsparing god
Himself dare not intrude.
He'd really be blind as a batAll submissions from readers will be carefully considered for publication. This is not a f a c e t i o u s offer!
Who was ready to aid and abet
Those who laud each liturgical split
So assisting thereby Satan's plot
To poison the Church at her root.
Suburban Perturbia
orGoing off the rails
It's early on Monday they start to arrive
At Carshalton Beeches in Fa(i)rest Zone Five;
Then Wallington, Waddon and on to West Croydon,
It's easy to see why a few are annoyed on
Account of the people, all squashing and squeezing,
With standing room only, all coughing and sneezing.
The general rule for this bleary-eyed crowd
Is to gaze at an i-phone (no talking's allowed);
For this is the race of the daily commuters,
All destined to labour in front of computers;
Consigned to submit to a trial by rail,
With constant delays and the s p e e d of a s n a i l.
Mid sleeping and waking, they yawn at the blurbs
Of stations that service these southern suburbs;
At last they limp past little Battersea Park
And imagine the sound of a meow or a bark;
Is a dog's life in London so very much worse
Than the barking commuter's, in doggerel verse?
Envoi
With terminal madness, collective euphoria,
They charge through the barriers at London Victoria.
© PB 26 April 2017
In Memoriam
 |
| May 1st Celebrations Over Whitacre 1914 |
Old George
And Young George
And Young George's Son;
Young George
Will be a George
When Old George is done.
But Young George
Will ne'er be George,
Tho' Old George's Son;
Young George
Will ne'er be George
Since Young George is done.
So when Old George
Is no more George,
When Old George is done;
Youngest George
Will then be George,
Young George's son.
© PB 26 April 1977
Note: The first verse was a bit of family doggerel I learned from my father when I was a boy in the Warwickshire countryside. As befits his name, he was a farmer. When his eldest son died in 1977, I added the second two verses to form a triptych in honour of the three generations. The photograph shows Nether and Over Whitacre villagers getting ready for their celebrations on May Day 1914. 'Old George' is the little boy in a straw hat shown by the arrow. He was nine years old and in charge of the pony and float.
Later that same year, my mother lost her favourite brother and then passed on herself at the end of November. 1977 was accordingly a tragic year.
This Weeping Year
This weeping year,This year of ache and pain;
This heart-sore year,
This year with sorrow stain'd.
O woeful year,
Unweary of thy ever-wearing woes;
Black-visaged year,
Unyielding midst thy yield of deadly throes.
The Fates, they three,
This fated year of three,
Death-fated three
And dealt three fatally.
© PB 1977
My mother was to suffer enormously from cancer before she died on the 30th November. As someone born in the Scottish Highlands, it was altogether fitting that she should have passed on the Feast of St Andrew. I wrote 'Curse' mindful of the echoing metre used by the witches in the Scottish play.
Curse
Burn in Brimni's blazing bane,Die in cruel and crazing pain!
Slowly burning, slowly maiming,
Never easing, never resting,
Bitter raw with deadly fest'ring;
Vicious jaws within thee gnawing,
Biting, ripping, tearing, savage,
These thy entrails hotly ravage.
Burn in Brimni's blazing bane,
Die in cruel and crazing pain!
© PB 1977
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.
Kirsty Bheag
 |
| Kirsty. PB |
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
Ave Maria
Hail to thee, Mary, so pure and so sweet,
With our hearts full of love, we kneel at thy feet;
The Lord God He chose thee from all of our race
And His love filled thy soul with heavenly grace.
Gabriel announced: 'The Lord is with thee';
Such tidings of joy, O Star of the Sea!
Among all women, 'tis thou who art blessed,
And among all God's creatures, humblest yet best.
In thy virginal womb, O maiden so chaste,
The Saviour of men, Almighty God placed:
JESUS Our Lord, Christ JESUS our King,
O Mary please help us His praises to sing!
Great Mother of God, our heavenly Queen
Who reignest on high in glory serene:
'Pray for us sinners', your children we cry,
'Now - but especially when we come to die.'
Amen.
© PB May1985
A Green and Gangling Youth
A Song
A green and gangling youth was IWhen first my heart was stolen;
A creature slim, with wild bright eye,
My lust's young bud had swollen.
With furnace-sighs, I whiled each hour,
The saddest ballads singing,
And plucked the petals of Love's Flower,
My lips with kiss-bells ringing.
O happy times of tingling chimes
With a ringling rhyme in Spring time!
A sear and withered shrivel now,
In Life's autumnal season;
I scarcely can remember how
My mind so lost its reason.
So piously, I sit and pray,
Soul-saving hymns a-singing;
I visit Church 'most every day,
Whene'er the bells are ringing.
O holy times of harping chimes
With a dwindling rhyme in Autumn time!
© PB c1987
Turning, twisting
Turning, twisting, curling, sliding,
Coiling, looping, stooping, gliding;
Burnished scales of steely shimmering,
Cold and smooth with golden glimmering.
Hard and steady is the gaze,
Bright his eyes with mesmer glaze;
Swift and silently he steals,
Quick the death he coolly deals.
More subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made
© PB c1982
 |
| Toucan by AHB 2018 |
The Toucan
For K
O a wonderful bird is the TOUCAN
And often I've wondered WHOUCAN
Describe its great beak
So smooth and so sleek
That gobbles food faster than YOUCAN!
© PB c1988
A Rhyming Riddle for Little Ones
 |
| Piglet by AHB 2018 |
Short and stout,
Here's her tail
And here's her snout;
There's her little eye
Twinkling at me;
What do you think that she could be?
© PB c1988
Tawdry, tasteless and terse
There was a young rhymer whose verse
Was tawdry, tasteless and terse;
In composing a song
He bit on his tongue;
Now his verse is a little bit worse.
© PB c1980
