Torquato the badger-poet

In a previous blogpost I had a closer look at some adaptations of William Shakespeare in Italian comic book stories from the Disney universe. Since the beginning of the Italian production of comics about Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse in the 1950s, a wide range of works from world literature have been adapted into stories from the world of Duckburg, in Italian Paperopoli. A range of these adaptations have been collected in a book series issued by Corriere della Sera which is called I classici della letteratura, the classics of literature, presenting these adaptations with information both about the stories themselves and their authors. I am very fond of these adaptations since I grew up with them in Norwegian translations, and they will feature in many blogposts to come. This time I will look briefly at one very charming aspect of an adaptation of Torquato Tasso's (1544-95) epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata, the deliverance of Jerusalem, which was completed in 1575.

Front page of vol.14 in the second edition of I Classici della Letteratura

In 1565 Torquato Tasso settled in Ferrara and became attached to the house of d'Este, and during his time there he wrote a number of plays and poems in addition to his magnum opus. Gerusalemme Liberata is an epic chivalric poem, and in composition Tasso borrowed from that blend of classical epic and chivalric romance which had been made famous by Ludovico Ariosto in the early part of the century. The narrative of the poem is set during the First Crusade and recounts the capture of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre led by Godfrey de Bouillon in 1099, but also heavily interspersed with digressions, love stories and fantastical episodes.

Gerusalemme Liberata has had a great impact on Western culture. For instance, Edmund Spenser was very much inspired by Tasso's poem in the writing his own epic, The Faerie Queene, which he began composing in 1590.  Also John Milton relied on Tasso's imagery for parts of Paradise Lost, and a wide range of operas, songs and paintings have sought to elaborate or focus on elements from Tasso's epic, and in the twentieth century the poem was adapted into a Disney comic.

Opening page of Paperopoli Liberata

The comic book adaptation, Paperopoli Liberata or Duckburg Delivered, was written by Guido Martina and drawn by Giovan Battista Carpi. It was first published in the Italian Topolino magazine (Mickey Mouse) in vols. 598 and 599, respectively issued on 14th and 21st of May, 1967. The epic, medievalesque tone of the adaptation is set already on the opening page where we see a painting of Donald and Scrooge fighting Beagle Boys in stereotypical Saracen armour (note the pointed helmets) and armed with revolvers and machine guns, highlighting the blend of old and new, and perhaps preparing the reader for the fact that the adaptation is set in modern-time Duckburg.

The first lines of the comic book story are adaptations from the opening of Gerusalemme Liberata. In the new rendition the text begins like this (translations from Italian are my own):

Canto l'armi Furiose e il capitano / Chamato Paperino

"I sing of furious arms and the captain / who is called Donald Duck"


While Tasso's poem opens in this way:

Canto l'arme pietose e 'l capitano
che 'l gran sepolcro liberò di Cristo

"I sing of pious arms and the captain
who liberated the great Sepulchre of Christ"


Guido Martina has retained the tone of the epic and necessarily secularised the content, but although the Paperino story is set in a fictional part of America rather than in late-eleventh-century Jerusalem, some elements are still retained and employed in a game of intertextuality. One example of this can be seen below, as a sign tells us that this is the camp of Donald Duck and his nephew, bringing to mind - as is pointed out in the introduction to this volume - the camp of the crusaders in Tasso's epic.

(Note, for instance, that Martina applies "Furiose" with a capital f instead of Tasso's "pietose". This is of course to remove the religious dimension of the poem, but it might also be a nod to Tasso's debt to Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and perhaps also to Martina's own possible debt to Luciano Bottaro who had composed his adaptation of Ariosto's poem, Paperin Furioso, the year before.)

The story begins with the breaking of the camp and the departure for Paperopoli, and this sequence contains one of the most charming tools of intertextuality I can think of. As the nephews are taking down the tent, they notice that their new friend, a little badger, is saddened by their imminent leaving. The nephews then suggest that he come with them back to Paperopoli, and this makes the badger happy. But how is this intertextuality? Well, simply because this badger is a representation of Torquato Tasso himself, as his surname means "badger" in Italian. This is made crystal clear on the following page, where the little badger turns to the reader and says:

"It is not that I lack speech, it is that I, Torquato the badger, speak in the language of the badgers!"

Torquato the badger is then put in the car and as he departs he looks forward to whatever will transpire next, saying "what a wonderful adventure! I will tell this to my children, and to my children's children". Torquato Tasso is thus in a way reincarnated as Torquato the badger, and he will become the badger-poet who renders in proper verse the story which is about to unfold in Paperopoli.

The Ducks behold Paperopoli, as the crusaders beheld Jerusalem

For similar blogposts, see:


On adaptations of Shakespeare

On an episode from Orlando Furioso

On a painting on a knight errant

Elegy for Edmund Spenser

Saint Bartholomew and the devil - the legend of Bartholomew in the Old English Martyrology

Today is the feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle, who is famous for his grisly method of execution, namely being flayed alive. For this reason his attribute is a flaying knife, and his saintly patronage extends to tanners and other craftsmen in skin and hide. For the feast of Bartholomew I will here give the legend as it was rendered in the Old English Martyrology, translated and edited by Christine Rauer. Here the date is given as August 25, but that is either a mistake made by the scribe or evidence of a different practice in tenth-century England.

Bartholomew with his knife

MS Harley 2449, prayers for saints' vigils with calendar, Netherlands, c.1276-c.1296

Courtesy of British Library

On the twenty-fifth day of the month is the feast of the apostle St Bartholomew; he was Christ's missionary in the country of India, which is the outermost of all regions, on whose one side lies the dark land, on whose other side lies the world ocean [or 'Oceanus'], that is Garsecg. In this country he cast out idols which they had previously worshipped there. And an angel of God came to them there and revealed to the people what their god was, whom they had worshipped previously. He showed them an enormous Egyptian whose face was blacker than soot, and his beard and hair reached down to his feet, and his eyes were like hot irons, and spakrs came from his mouth, and a foul stench came out of his nostrils, and he had wings like a Thorny broom, and his hands were tied together with fiery chains, and he cried out with a terrible and loathsome voice and fled away and never appeared again anywhere. that was the devil, whom the people had earlier worshipped for themselves as a god, and they alled him Astaroth. Then the king of that people received baptism and his queen too, and all the people who belonged to his kingdom. Then the pagan bishops went and complained about that to the king's Brother; he was in another kingdom, and he was older than he was. He therefore ordered Bartholomew, the servant of Christ, to be flayed alive. Then the believing king came with many people and took his body and transported it away with great splendour, and put it in a fantastically large church. And the king became insane, who wanted him killed, and all the pagan bishops became insane and died, who had reported him.
- From The Old English Martyrology, edited and translated by Christine Rauer, D. S. Brewer 2013

The flaying of Bartholomew

Valenciennes - BM - ms. 0838, f.104, Martyrology, Notre-Dame des Prés de Douai, 13th century

Courtesy of enluminures.cultures.fr

The story of Bartholomew is an exciting and intersting story for many reasons, but perhaps especially its solid portion of exoticism and gore. From an academic point of view, this tale provides another set of details that are worth commenting. To me, for instance, it is interesting to note the geographical setting which places India as the outermost realm, and as a neighbour to the dark land, which is possibly meant to be Ethiopia which was confused with India all they way up to the sixteenth century. Bartholomew is placed in India already by Eusebius and in the Roman martyrology, although the latter gives Armenia as his place of of martyrdom.

Another significant thing here is the appearance and description of the devil. That the devil is said to be worshipped by the Indians as Astoreth harkens back to an old Christian tradition which claims that the old pagan gods were in reality fallen angels who had taken up residence on earth as gods, a treatment which is beautifully summarised in John Milton's Paradise Lost. Although it is an angel of God rather than Bartholomew in person who casts out the devil, he is associated with conquering the devil. This is something we find in the tradition around Saint Guthlac of Croyland, who came to his wild fens and established his hermitage on the feast of Bartholomew and henceforth dedicated himself to Bartholomew's patronage. Guthlac's vita was written by Felix already in the eight century, but the story was expanded by a local tradition at Croyland in the twelfth century which had Guthlac chastise demons with a scourge given to him by Saint Bartholomew.

A final point I want to comment on here is the appearance of the devil, described as a black Egyptian. The portrayal of the devil as a black man as an old tradition in Christian hagiography, and can be found already as early - and perhaps earlier - as Athanasius' Life of Antony, written in the fourth century. Here Antony struggles with his fight against a demon, and after a heavy bout of prayer, the demon finally gives in and materialises for Saint Antony:

he appeared, as was fitting, in a form that revealed his true nature: an ugly black boy prostrated himself at Antony's feet, weeping loudly and saying in a human voice, 'Many have I led astray, many have I deceived, but now I have been defeated by your efforts as I was by other holy people.' When Antony asked him who it was who was saying this, he replied, 'I am the friend of fornication. I have used many different kinds of shameful weapon to attrack young people and that is why I am called the spirit of fornication (...)'.
- Life of Antony, translated by Carolinne White, Penguin Classics, 1998

The flayed Bartholomew

Valenciennes - BM - ms. 0838, f.104, Martyrology, Notre-Dame des Prés de Douai, 13th century

Courtesy of enluminures.cultures.fr

For similar blogposts, see these:

Antony and Guthlac compared

Guthlac using liturgy as a weapon against demons

The bearded women of the far East



Bibliography

Farmer, David, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, 2004

Rauer, Christine, The Old English Martyrology, D. S. Brewer, 2013

White, Carolinne, Early Christian Lives, Penguin Classics, 1998

Norwegian history as it never happened - or, A Lesson in Norwegian Particularism

I'm a medievalist, and I'm often reminded of why the study of history is important. To me it's about challenging grand narratives and comprehending human diversity, to unlock the vast complexity of human experience and to remind both myself and those around me that the past is not easily grasped and that we see history through a glass darkly. Historians are not here to bring comfort to those content with a simplistic view of times past and the historical progress. Historians are not here to sustain grand narratives, but to challenge them, to complicate them and, to the needful extent, to falsify them. That this is important is to me quite evident and I don't question this importance - nor do I need to, because I'm very often reminded why such constant revisionism is necessary.

To illustrate this necessity of historical studies in the manner of medieval didacticism, I want to present a very recent exemplum of historical misunderstanding. This took place on a Facebook page dedicated to my home place, a small village in the Western Norwegian fjords. There was an on-going discussion about the history of one of the place names, and during this discussion some very strange remarks about Norwegian history came to light, uttered by one of my fellow townspeople (henceforth called Mister G). His comprehension of the Middle Ages in Norway was wildly erroneous, and serves as a good example of the kind of historical misunderstanding that one can find when history is marked by a certain grand narrative. 

Olav Haraldsson's death at Stiklestad by Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831-92)

This is one of the most important events in the old Norwegian grand narrative

From Wikimedia

The purpose of this blogpost is to present the way in which Mister G misunderstood Norwegian history, and to illustrate how much it is possible to be wrong about a historical period. In order to do so, I will first give a brief overview of twelfth-century Norway with a focus on the key points of the discussion I had with Mister G. Then I will present his version of Norway in the Middle Ages. The discussion took place on a Norwegian public forum, but I don't wish to mention names or to quote at great length, especially because the man in question will probably not be aware of this blogpost and can therefore not answer. The few quotes I translate, will only serve to emphasise a point of importance. 

Olav Tryggvasson is made king of Norway by Peter Nicolai Arbo

Olav Tryggvasson is another iconic figure in the old Norwegian grand narrative

From Wikimedia

Overview of twelfth-century Norway

By the beginning of the twelfth century, Norway was a unified kingdom under its own kings. Ecclesiastically it was a part of the archbishopric of Lund together with Sweden and Denmark, which had been fairly recently separated from the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen. This was the case until 1152/53 when the the churches of Norway and Sweden were loosened from the archbishopric of Lund and organised under their own archbishops, respectively situated in Nidaros (modern-day Trondheim) and Uppsala.

Up until this time we know very little of the literary production in Norway. Sagas of Norwegian kings were being written in Iceland, although these are now lost to us. These works were written in Old Norse, then commonly referred to as the Danish tongue, with the Latin alphabet brought to Scandinavia by missionaries at some uncertain time. Runes were also used for shorter messages, and these were common all over the Norse world, including parts of England where Norse influence was strong.

The first Norwegian literature has been conjecturally dated to the early 1150s, and the first work is believed to be a Latin hagiographical account of Olaf Haraldsson, the saint-king who died at Stiklestad and who was the patron saint of Norway. Shortly after, probably in the 1160s, the first Norwegian Latin chronicle was written, Historia Norwegie, and towards the end of the century we also find books in Old Norse written in Norway. One of these is a history of Norwegian kings called Ágrip or Extracts by modern scholars, which is likely composed c.1190. Another one - often referred to as our oldest book - is the Old Norwegian Homily Book, written c.1200, containing a number of homilies, most of which appear to be translations of Latin texts. Although these texts were written in the vernacular, there were only small differences - so-called Norwegianisms - that made them distinguishable from texts produced in Iceland or Denmark, for instance.

Much of Norway's history in the twelfth century was marked by civil strife as various pretenders to the royal throne fought each other. Towards the end of the century, Sverre Sigurdsson reigned the kingdom after the defeat of King Magnus Erlingsson in Nidaros. King Magnus had been supported by Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson (governed from 1161 to 1188), and because of this there were periods of conflicts between Sverre and the ecclesiastical powers. This resulted in Eystein's exile in England (1180-83) and the exile of his successor Eirik in Lund (1190-1202). For this policy, Sverre was excommunicated by the pope.

This very brief survey covers the main points about which Mister G harboured a severe misunderstanding. His own version of events follows suit.

King Sverre crossing the Voss mountains

Peter Nicolai Arbo

From Wikimedia

Norwegian history as it never happened

The underlying concern that sustained Mister G's version of Norwegian medieval history, was Norway's exceptional place in the history of Scandinavia. His first historical claim in the debate was that Norway had its own written language around 1120, "200 years before Sweden and Denmark". He went on to say that all people of knowledge - presumably about the written word - and all the writings disappeared during the Black Death.

This is, as we can see from the survey above, spectacularly wrong, and I challenged him on these points, pointing out that Norway shared a written language with the rest of Scandinavia, and that we had a Latin literature. I did not, however, press him on the particularism evident in his remark that Norway was two centuries ahead of our neighbouring countries.

His reply to my comment on the written language, was a slight but very minute modification of his claim. He said that "it was beyond doubt" that Norway had its own written language c.1150, and he added that this "was many years before Sweden and Denmark". The support for this claim was that under the reign of Sverre Norway parted ways with the Catholic church and its Latin mass. Instead, we "went over to" the English church which unlike the Catholic one held mass in the vernacular. He went on to say that this was a process that had been going on since 1066 when King Olav Kyrre made an agreement with William the Conqueror not to attack England. The impossibility of this agreement can be seen in the fact that Olav Kyrre became king in 1069. However, this impossible agreement resulted over hundred years later - if I understand his timeline correctly - that Norway joined the English church. He furthermore said that this was something Sweden and Denmark did not like to hear about after having ruled over Norway in various periods, and the underlying claim seems to be that Sweden and Denmark are envious of Norway's ecclesiastical liberation from Rome at a time when they themselves were still Catholic.

So, in short: In the 1100s, Norway got its own written language, and this took place two hundred years before Sweden and Denmark. By the end of the century, Norway split with the Catholic church and went to the English instead, as a result of a process that had been going on since 1066, following an agreement between William the Conqueror and a king who would not be king for three years. This particular position was something of which both Sweden and Denmark are very envious.

The Battle of Stamford Bridge by Peter Nicolai Arbo

Three years before Olav Kyrre became king of Norway

From Wikimedia

There is very much at play here. The most glaring issue is perhaps the repeated insistence on Norwegian particularism, that our history is so widely different - and even centuries ahead - to the histories of Denmark and Sweden. This is an idea that burgeons from a deep-rooted current of historical interpretation in Norway, and it comes from the fact that for centuries - ever since 1397 - Norway has been ruled by kings from Sweden or Denmark. This lack of historical independence put its mark on Norwegian historiography in the 19th century. This was a century during most of which we were governed by the Swedish king after having been handed over from Denmark in 1814 following the outcome of the Napoleonic wars. Norway's secondary role in the politics of the kingdom led some historians to seek comfort in the past, and the perhaps most spectacular result of this was the claim by Ernst Sars that Sweden and Denmark had been populated from Norway in prehistoric times. Mister G draws from this ideological current in his insistence on Norway's exceptional role in the twelfth century, and although the political milieu that gave force to this current in the 1800s now is gone, Mister G is swayed by the very same little-brother-complex that haunted some of Norway's historians in the 19th century.

There is also another current feeding the ideas of Mister G, namely the Protestant distaste of anything that smacks of Papism. After Norway's reformation in 1536/37, Norwegian Lutherans eventually adopted the historical interpretation moulded and sustained by Protestant anti-papist propaganda. This interpretation of history was very strong and ubiquitous in Protestant countries, and perhaps most accessibly found in the great English epics of Edmund Spenser and John Milton. This current remained strong through centuries, and in the first draft of the Norwegian constitution in 1814, Jesuits were, along with the Jews, denied access to the kingdom. These restrictions were revoked later, and from the 1860s and onwards Catholic missionary work no longer needed to be clandestine, resulting in the first modern Catholic churches to be built at the turn of the 19th century. Nonetheless, despite the gradual acceptance of Catholics, the historical understanding on which Mister G relies has marked Catholicism as something negative. This is why Mister G is so adamant in his insistence on Norway not being Catholic after the twelfth century, and which is why he claims Sweden and Denmark appears to be ashamed of their prolonged Catholic past. 

Håkon the Good and the farmers at the yuletide offerings at Mære

Peter Nicolai Arbo

From Wikimedia

The Cost of Historical Blindness

In the grand scheme of things, Mister G's excessively erroneous interpretation of Norwegian history is fairly innocuous. His belief in Norwegian particularism is unlikely to cause harm to anyone, and it has not found a violent incarnation in him. However, the belief itself is thoroughly disturbing and potentially damaging if it is adopted by younger people, or people who exert some kind of influence in political or social matters. I don't for a second believe that it will have nationwide ramifications on a grand scale, the Norwegian public consciousness is too tolerant for that to happen. But it might instil in some people a sense of entitlement, a sense of pride that can lead them on to a path towards increased nationalism and make them dismiss the needs of those from other countries. In a globalised world where millions of people are in dire need of help, and where Western countries have a moral duty to receive refugees, it is necessary to counter ideas of particularism and to fight chauvinism that might prevent people from obtaining a life in safety on the grounds that they don't belong to a country's particular, exceptional historical journey towards the fulfillment of its destiny. The kind of historical misunderstanding embraced by Mister G, is the same kind of historical interpretation that creates a gap between one country and the rest of the world, and in a time of perverse consumerism and increased selfishness throughout the west, we can't morally afford that kind of particularism. No country is alone in the world, and a historical understanding that leads people to think this is the case, is a historical understanding that must be challenged, countered and falsified.

That Catholic Round World - flat earth as counter-medievalism

JESPER BAILIFF: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, let us talk of something else. That is some disturbed nonsense, it can make you Catholic in the head
- Ludvig Holberg, Erasmus Montanus (Act 3, Scene 2) (my translation)

Ludvig Holberg, c.1747 by Johan Roselius
Courtesy of this website

One of the most pernicious myths about the Middle Ages remains the idea that medieval people held the earth to be flat. This myth was perhaps most famously propagated in a 19th-century novel about Columbus, where the belief in a flat earth was deployed as a foil to enhance Columbus' intrepid greatness as an explorer and trailblazer. The belief in the medieval belief in a flat earth has stuck resiliently to the collective consciousness, and even today it lingers more strongly than medievalists would like to think.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of the flat earth myth. In a previous blogpost I offered a possible source for the idea that this was a medieval conviction, but the trajectory is difficult to map. However, in this blogpost, I want to present a very curious case from the 18th century, in which the idea that the earth is flat is presented as a firmly Protestant idea, and in which the idea of a round earth is frowningly labelled Catholic (and as such practically medieval), and also Atheist. (The tendency to conflate Atheism and Catholicism in Protestant countries reaches back to the 16th century.) The case in question is fictional, as it comes from the comedy Erasmus Montanus, written by the Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg in 1722-23. However, despite the fictionality of the story, the way the roundness of the earth is treated is a funny and unusual affair, and one that I as a medievalist find very pleasing. The translations of the quotes from Danish are all mine.

Scene from Erasmus Montanus
Wilhelm Marstrand (1810-73)
Courtesy of this website

The plot of the comedy is the homecoming of Rasmus Berg who has been studying in Copenhagen and there taken the Latinised name Erasmus Montanus. Upon his return, he starts exercising his prowess as a debater and both proves and disproves that his mother is a stone. It all goes wrong when he claims that the earth is round, because his fellow villagers can all see that the earth is "as flat as a pancake", and to claim otherwise is "disturbed nonsense" which "can make one Catholic in the head" (act 3, scene 2). It is further remarked that to believe in a round earth "is nothing else than turn all religion on the head and lead people away from faith. A heathen can not preach worse" (act 3, scene 4). By defending his words and beliefs for the glory of philosophy, Erasmus Montanus antagonises his father-in-law-to-be and various other persons of note. When Erasmus tries to prove the roundness of the earth by various scientific observations, he is met with scorn bred from common sense, and the bailiff comments that Erasmus "is quite close to become an Atheist" (act 3, scene 5). The debate enrages his father-in-law-to-be so much that he ends the bethrotal between his daughter and Erasmus on the grounds that his family has always been good Christian people. In the end Erasmus is tricked into enrolment in the army by a local lieutenant, and to escape from this predicament he rescinds his opinions and professes loudly and desperately that the earth "is as flat as a pancake".

Erasmus Montanus disputing with a local parson
Wilhelm Marstrand, 1843
Courtesy of this website

In 1722 when Holberg wrote Erasmus Montanus, Denmark had been Protestant for almost two centuries. It is therefore difficult to tell whether Catholicism was still seen as something of the old order, something of the very distant past, or something whose presence in Denmark was seen as newfangled and novel. Traditionally in Protestant countries around this period, Catholicism is seen as a vestige of an old world, an ancient superstition, an echo from a dark age. This view is made very clear, for instance, in John Milton's Paradise Lost, where the fallen Adam witnesses the future history of mankind up to the point of salvation and the second coming. We can't tell whether this was also how Holberg's fictional farmers, bailiffs and lieutenants would have seen things, and therefore we don't know whether the round earth is considered an ancient superstition, or a newfangled invention of the universities. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see a feature so widely regarded as belonging to the Catholic Middle Ages as the flat earth presented as a Protestant tenet, and as such counter-medieval (although of course Holberg himself does not suggest this). It is a useful reference for people who still believe that men and women in the Middle Ages held the world to be flat as a pancake.

The steadfastness of Erasmus Montanus
Wilhelm Marstrand, before 1869
Courtesy of this website

Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity

A second Christmas gift to all my readers: John Milton's Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. This epic rendition of the Christmas gospel is a celebration of the triumph of Christianity over the pagan gods, and a poetic remodelling of one of the most treasured and most important stories of the world. The text is taken from bartleby.com.
I THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,
Of wedded maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
II That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside, and, here with us to be,
Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
III Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the Sun’s team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
IV See how from far upon the Eastern road
The star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!
Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
The Hymn I     It was the winter wild,
While the heaven-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature, in awe to him,
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.
II     Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
III     But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:
She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere,
His ready Harbinger,
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
IV     No war, or battail’s sound,
Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high uphung;
The hookèd chariot stood,
Unstained with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;
And Kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
V     But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began.
The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kissed,
Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
VI     The stars, with deep amaze,
Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence,
And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,
Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
VII     And, though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,
The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
And hid his head of shame,
As his inferior flame
The new-enlightened world no more should need:
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright Throne or burning axletree could bear.
VIII     The Shepherds on the lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn,
Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they than
That the mighty Pan
Was kindly come to live with them below:
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
IX     When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet
As never was by mortal finger strook,
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringèd noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
X     Nature, that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round
Of Cynthia’s seat the airy Region thrilling,
Now was almost won
To think her part was done,
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.
XI     At last surrounds their sight
A globe of circular light,
That with long beams the shamefaced Night arrayed;
The helmèd Cherubim
And sworded Seraphim
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,
Harping in loud and solemn quire,
With unexpressive notes, to Heaven’s newborn Heir.
XII     Such music (as ’tis said)
Before was never made,
But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,
While the Creator great
His constellations set,
And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.
XIII     Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort of the angelic symphony.
XIV     For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold;
And speckled Vanity
Will sicken soon and die,
And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;
And Hell itself will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions of the peering day.
XV     Yes, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;
And Mercy set between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.
XVI     But wisest Fate says No,
This must not yet be so;
The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss,
So both himself and us to glorify:
Yet first, to those chained in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,
XVII     With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,
While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:
The aged Earth, aghast
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre shake,
When, at the world’s last sessiön,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
XVIII     And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
The Old Dragon under ground,
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,
And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
XIX     The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
Will hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,
Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.
XX     The lonely mountains o’er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
Edgèd with poplar pale,
From haunted spring, and dale
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
XXI     In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;
In urns, and altars round,
A drear and dying sound
Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.
XXII     Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-battered god of Palestine;
And moonèd Ashtaroth,
Heaven’s Queen and Mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine:
The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.
XXIII     And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dread
His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals’ ring
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
XXIV     Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,
Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest;
Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;
In vain, with timbreled anthems dark,
The sable-stolèd Sorcerers bear his worshiped ark.
XXV     He feels from Juda’s land
The dreaded Infant’s hand;
The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside
Longer dare abide,
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew.
XXVI     So, when the Sun in bed,
Curtained with cloudy red,
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to the infernal jail,
Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave,
And the yellow-skirted Fays
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
XXVII     But see! the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest,
Time is our tedious song should here have ending:
Heaven’s youngest-teemèd star
Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable. Merry Christmas to all!

City of Books, part I - York National Bookfair

 Stand still, fear not, I'll show you but this book.
- The Honourable Historie of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Robert Greene

Goe little booke: thy selfe present,
As child whose parent in vnkent
- The Shepheardes Calender, Edmund Spenser

Like all the men of the Library, in my younger days I traveled; I have journeyed in quest of a book, pehaps the catalog of catalogs.
- The Library of Babel, Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Andrew Hurley)


There are many reasons to be amazed and enthralled by the City of York, and as a self-confessed and committed bibliophile I found its well-cultivated preoccupation with books one of its most charming features. Throughout the city and its adjacent territory there are numerous venues where one may borrow, buy or browse through books, either with the purpose of acquiring reading material or for the sheer pleasure of being surrounded by volumes upon volumes of books. Accordingly I spent quite a lot of time exploring these various venues during my days in York, both in the search for studying material and leisure reading, and at the end of my time there I became very thankful that it is relatively cheap to ship printed paper from Britain to Norway by mail.

Since books constitute such an important aspect of York's cultural and historical personality I have compiled material for a two-partite blogpost, chronicling my experiences with books and their acquisition so that others may be directed towards the venues in question. First off is a report from my visit at York National Bookfair this September.

 With courtesy of the York National Bookfair homepage

York National Bookfair is an annual exhibition wherein booksellers from all over Britain may participate. Nowadays it is held by the racecourse at Knavesmire just outside the city walls, formerly the place of public hangings. Visitors may take a free shuttle bus from the Railway Station and free tickets can be picked up at various booksellers in York. The venue itself comprises several floors, all packed with books, and it is a bibliophile's dream. I went there one morning in company of three friends and we spent two hours rummaging around the first floor, exploring, searching, looking, observing and - at least in my case - switching between blind admiration of the many wonderful items displayed and sadness over not being able to buy the things I saw due to monetary and practical issues. 

 The book fair is held, as the above picture shows, in a spacious, multi-storeyed building and to carefully scrutinise the stalls in their entireties would require far more time than I had. I was consequently confined to walk about and see which stalls displayed books most suiting to my tastes, leaving the rest to be perhaps noticed but not perused. Naturally it took quite a while to perfect this technique and I spent quite a lot of time perusing books that were of tertiary interest to me before I buckled up and became more selective.

Aside from the books and the variety of other printed materials exhibited there was also a very friendly atmosphere and for the most part the booksellers were happy to exchange a few words about their books, even though it was probably evident to them I was not a potential customer. At one point, after I had inquired about a volume of polemical tracts by Milton, the aged and bespectacled bookseller demanded in a jovial manner why I didn't buy them. Since the tracts in question were gathered in a volume from 1651 and as such were beyond my financial reach I explained I was a student, an excuse he found rather feeble, but which - I added - was my only one. He conceded the point and, when I had assured him I would return once I was well enough off, he remarked that people like me was what made these exhibitions worthwhile, or at least something along those lines.

A wonderful selection including household books like The Family Dictionary, Young Woman's Guide and The Lady's Assistant, and the two tracts by Milton mentioned above.

Bibles, like miracles, come in all shapes and sizes.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden
- Paradise Lost, John Milton

One of the most delightful aspects of the bookfair is the immense variety of books, both in terms of subject and age. The stalls included items ranging from the modern paperbacks and as far back as the incunables. In terms of subject, too, the scope was pleasantly broad, encompassing early modern herbals, topographies, local histories, childrens' books, meditations, poetry and so on, a scope illustrated by this minor array of titles:

De Civitate Dei, Augustine (Basel, 1479)

A Natural History of Uncommon Birds [Gleanings of Natural History], George Edwards (1743-44)

Shropshire Folk-lore, Charlotte Burne (ed.) (1883)

The Works of Joseph Hall, Doctor in Divinity and Dean of Worcester (1625)

The Orchid-Grower's Manual, Williams (1893, 7th edition)

The Fairy-land of Science, Arabella Buckley (London, 1909)

In other words there was quite a span. To visually enhance the point made by these titles I will  include a selection of pictures, presented with no particular eye on systematic distribution in order to better illustrate the rather chaotic exercise it was to navigate the various vendor stalls of the fair.

Langhorne's Plutarch

 

Spenser's poetical works

An interesting juxtaposition: John Foxe's Book of Martyrs and Notes on Artillery.

By this art you may contemplate the variations of the 23 letters

- The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton (the above volume is a 6th edition from 1652)

French 15th century manuscript leaves and an English caryatid book carving from the 17th century.

I have a soft spot for alchemical illustrations

 Herbal by Dioscorides, the first illustrated edition, 1543

Scrofula, a disease made famous by King Edward the Confessor, who, according to his hagiographers, included touching for scrofula in his thaumaturgical repertoire.

 Algernon Swinburne's poetical works

After the first self-allotted two hours of discovery we regrouped, but since I was staying but a short while in York I decided to direct my attention back to the city. Subsequently I took leave of the party and went for a walk on the city walls. I left Knavesmire one book and many impressions richer, and if I ever become rich I will make the York Bookfair an annual feature of my calendar. After all, I did make a promise, albeit a rather vague one.

 My spoil from the excursion...

...and the bag it came in