After the Feasting

After the feasting an outburst of weeping was raised up, much noise in the morning. For bodies had slept when the feast was done; dreams had come and they had not woken.
The sky's candle had been lit, as if in honour. Its flame glowing stronger and brighter as the lamentations grew in number and in strength. Sob and string – a harp - sounded together over those laid fast in their beds. Even a dirge must be performed as ritual demands.
So many women overcome. So many men felled.
And so much mess in the mead-hall.
A hall of rest, now, and perhaps known as such forever more, for last night the benches had been cleared away and the floor covered with beds and bolsters; and littered, too, with the weaponry of war. Guests and warriors, action-ready.
Yet unprepared for what was to come. And for the speed in which this foe came. It stole in, this hideous creature, a man-giant, and snatched up men; picking them up at random and consuming them, or pitched them against stone walls. Some he carried off, bloodied, to his lair, which it is said he shared with another: a partner or a mother.
What a banquet he had!
Whilst those spared, in distant chambers, and in a deep sleep, dreamt, unaware of the carnage unfolding below.
The alarm raised at the break of day, a melancholy cuckoo cry, which in these parts is not the harbinger of spring but of sorrow. The white-haired King, old in winters, heard it first. And knew the worst, long-dreaded, had occurred.
The dirge set up - the string drowned out by sobs - and the candle flamed.
The King, arrayed in robes, raised a shield to call for silence, for the loud laments to cease and made speech:
'We must avenge this loss. Those that have survived must stand against this foe. Boys must pick up their kinsmen's arms. And bring me the giant's head, for only decapitation will prove his death.'
The boys, roused to battle, cried their support, 'to arms, to arms.'
The women trembled, first their men, now their sons. Would there be no end? The guests, sadly departed, had been reluctant to attend. This was their King's folly.
The King turned to his man-servants, those remaining, and addressed them: 'Prepare the war-horses! Build a pyre, the biggest of funeral fires! We'll mourn our losses; perhaps roast this giant on it. Death and battle must this day be joined together.'
The servants scurried away like mice to do their King's bidding.
To the women: 'As you were,' said the King in stiff voice. The harp was struck and a wail once again went up.
The boys, still in the hall, picked up from the floor shields, spears and swords; took off and put on coats of mail and helmets. Soon, war-ready. And eager for the fight.
Some went mounted, some went on foot, but all followed the black trail the giant's victims had left, hoisted as they were over his massive shoulders, up steep screes, along scant tracks, and fearing this might also be the way to their destruction.
Where it led was to a den beside a pool; bones scattered before its entrance. The giant nowhere to be seen...yet there was a stirring from within. With the sound, not sight, of fire. The young fellows drew their weapons and entered, found their finest warrior still alive, resting beside a glowing light. He had, in his weakened state, fought back, with hands, with knife, until the giant, merely scratched from this sport, had tired; had gone somewhere to wreak some other havoc. And would no doubt return when hunger overcame him.
The boys dragged their leader, this battle-bloodied fighter, out. They had not half his strength, nor his war-rage. Saplings, they would be no match for their grisly rival. The survivor, in wearied words, convinced them to turn homewards, to face their King's wrath instead of the giant's. Alas, more blood!

Picture credit: Beowulf wrestles with Grendel, 1933, Lynd Ward (source: WikiArt).

An exercise inspired by Beowulf and old English verse, written December 2020.

All Good Things

Wealth, Pleasure, Health and Virtue competed at the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games of ancient times, which is why the narrator (the present included) does not say in which fields they participated; all you need to know is that each came first.
The prize was an apple; a single apple. Which it is presumed was golden, though there is no proof of this, nor any evidence to say that it was not. It could have been from the tree for the fruit might have been scarce in those parts.
Golden or edible, it was an apple and they all had claim to it.
Wealth wanted to possess it whole, for 'with me all goods are bought.' Pleasure thought it should be possessed by Wealth and herself in turns, since 'wealth is sought only to have me.' Health wanted to divide it equally, to cut it in half and half again, although she asserted that without her there is no pleasure and that wealth is useless; however she was prepared to be just. And Virtue, in this version, made no claim. At this point in the proceedings she said nothing.
There being no consensus, the others were content to argue on. Wealth would never, he said, consent to share or cut up the prize. Neither Pleasure or Health would award it to Wealth, and Pleasure was insulted by Health's assertions, which Wealth didn't care for either but had not the patience to contest. Pleasure, too, didn't think the prize should be cut up into equal parts, for although they had all won their events they were not equal and never would be. Health had made her case very plain, and now stated it again in plainer terms, 'You are right, Pleasure,' she said, 'the apple belongs to me, for, like me, it is health-giving. You don't need wealth to buy it and pleasure comes from partaking of it.'
('Ask Adam, ask Eve', interjected one narrator of this fable, 'they may not concord'; but as he is only here in spirit alone I will continue.)
Pleasure now too, having listened to these changed terms, decided the apple should be all hers, for what was health and what was wealth without her. Each were meaningless on their own.
Virtue had still said nothing. In truth, Wealth, Pleasure and Health had forgotten she was there and, though yet to make a claim, had an equal claim.
She piped up now, astonishing the other three with the clarity of her speech: ' I am superior to you all, because with gold, pleasure and health one can become very wretched if one misbehaves.'
She was right of course and each knew it, but the truth of her words was not enough. Wealth, Pleasure and Health could not deny themselves the apple. (They were not as magnanimous as the original (and beautifully short) fable reported.) Their claims, they felt, though less good, were still valid and worth debating further.
A philosopher, by the name of Crantor, had at this moment stopped to congratulate them on their singular wins. Their dilemma explained to him he was appealed to to act as judge. At first he demurred, he was having a day off he said from moral philosophizing, and besides he had no wish to be another Paris, though none of the contenders for the prize, it should be noted, had offered him anything.

Wealth had been on the verge of doing so, but had decided philosophers needed very little. Pleasure didn't think philosophers sought her at all, for their own sake; they only desired to think freely. Health was confident a bribe was not required and Virtue gave no thought to it.
Crantor having decided to settle their dispute on condition they abide by his judgement, make him no offers and in the aftermath start no wars, had each state their case to him again for thinking the apple belonged to them, and then arranged these good things in the following order (being a philosopher of some renown he did not have to give his reasons): Virtue, Health, Pleasure and Riches.
His ordering of them has been argued for and against ever since by his fellows and by those who consider themselves amateurs. However, that day, as on this, Virtue, goodness itself, was awarded the apple.

Picture credit: This is not an Apple, 1964, Rene Magritte

Fable by Crantor, A Greek moral philosopher of the fourth century B.C., as related by Voltaire in his Philosophical Dictionary and altered and expanded upon.

Written October 2020.

Cooking with Trump

The film had started. The opening titles had rolled and the opening scenes had been missed. Having walked in late, the first shot was of a kitchen. A country kitchen, where things are hung: things to chop, things to stir, things to boil or fry in, which had a large wooden station in front of the range. A bit like Downton Abbey's but smaller and more modern. There was no Daisy or Mrs Patmore, just a man who looked like Trump, from behind and in front, in a suit and myself who was it appeared his assistant. There was little or no conversation, but a following round from here to there, selecting and collecting pots and pans from the different country-style kitchens, one of several, it turned out, in the same building. Trump, the scene translated, wanted to cook for Melania, though the what hadn't been decided upon or the ingredients gathered.
I fell out of sleep as the alarm went off. 7am, 5^th of October 2020.
Trump had been hospitalised for two days. Last night I had watched his drive-by, wondering why the 11 o'clock headlines had been given over to all things American lately, not that I have a problem with that country or following the ins and outs as reported by correspondents of the presidential election, but neither do I think it is the greatest in the world. Every country has its merits and its failures, and its problems, which each leader either contributes to or solves.
However its attitudes did interest me, although I couldn't be sure that what was reported was accurate. Foreign correspondents are not, I would say, entirely unbiased or neutral in their reporting. I think you can tell which way their judgement falls, and the edit, too, if not live, can present a view that might be popular in Britain but false in America and vice versa. What we see might be what we want to believe or the view the media would like us to.
Prior to cooking with Trump I had heard some of his supporters voice their opinions of his personal handling of the virus, they thought he had demonstrated caution of it and maintained social distance. Here in Britain we hadn't seen that, only the opposite. Trump, most of us thought, was reckless, but then we might have said the same of Boris Johnson and then the next day accused of him of being too cautious.
That both, Trump and Johnson, had been brought down by the virus was a positive, it made them human. That, at least, was the opinion, though I'm not convinced it swayed any decisions they made in the hereafter. If anything it seemed to further confuse their decision-making powers, or the processes to convey them. So the people of America and Britain with their befuddled leaders in the days that followed battled on. One striving to be great and the other to take back control, while their peoples weren't pulling together but further apart. The virus proving to be just as divisive as any policy with too many clauses, where to understand the rules and the loopholes you have to delve deeper or employ an investigative journalist.
Trump clearly thought he was Superman, as did some of his fans. (I'm not sure which super hero Boris thought he was.) One interviewed on radio even thought the virus had been introduced into America to bring Trump down, though by whom the speaker couldn't or wouldn't identify. (China was on the interviewer's lips but was brushed off, “I'm just a small-town boy”.) Others, however, were more sensible: Trump hadn't taken the virus seriously at all, or set the example; they were surprised it had taken the virus so long.
The talk is of a war. We are at war with an invisible enemy. We are going to beat this thing. And when at war, or in the midst of a presidential campaign, strength needs to be shown and the troops' morale needs to be boosted, or alternatively sympathy elicited. If everyone's confused, too, as to the state of the country and what is truth and what is fiction, nobody can be blamed, not even those claiming to run it.
Above all, what struck me more than before Trump's Covid downfall was the ageist attitudes towards him and his opponent, Joe Biden. Some voters had already written both off as 'too old' and 'unlikely to see out the term'. I personally don't see age as a problem, but then I've always respected my elders, regardless of what they might think or whether I agree with them.
Cooking with Trump was therefore not an unwelcome dream.

Picture credit: Trump, Jon McNaughton (source: WikiArt).

Written October 2020.

Id Est

The morning sun somewhere played on an open window; there was a flash every time a bird flew past. A wink from the camera's eye, which in turn caught one of mine as I breakfasted with Horace.
For the last few mornings I'd been breakfasting and lunching with Francis Bacon so this was a change, some might say welcome but I quite enjoyed Bacon's essays. His brother Anthony intends to pay me a visit soon in the company of Daphne du Maurier. Yes, a most unusual pairing, but I've been told they are worth entertaining. Before them, however, comes Woolf, her singular person i.e. without Leonard, on a repeat visit, bringing her essay voice and not the fictional. I imagine she'll be amusing but rather teacherly i.e. at times stern. (I like, if you haven't already guessed, the i.e.)
But for the next week, at least, I'll be dining with, and out, on Horace, for I speak on what I'm reading to other bookish persons whether they are of like mind or not. I write, too, on what I'm struck by, for the people I speak to usually aren't. I see a significance perhaps where there isn't any or perhaps where they can't. Learning is not infectious, only the spirit of it is i.e. my immersion does not make people race out to read what I'm extolling about, but it might encourage them to read (if they don't already) the printed word.
I can be so awash with someone else's voice and style I begin to imitate them, not unknowingly but unwillingly and yet this compulsion to do so cannot be fought, it must be allowed to play itself out, just as the sun plays.
Bacon grabbed my pen (and Woolf always does), but Horace as of yet shows no signs of the same. He hasn't arrested me, not entirely, but I think the problem is my reading of him and not him i.e. it's me. How should a Roman poet like Horace be read? Perhaps not in one go as I've been doing, as if his works contained in two volumes were novels, but, you see, I've never been a dipper-in or a reader of more than one book at a time. I turn page after page in order i.e. as the page numbering dictates I should; whereas with Horace and his like i.e. the writers of satires, epistles, odes and epodes, and even short stories and essays, the better approach is, I think, to dip or to read one piece a day and no more. But the compulsion to read on always wins out, which perhaps means I grasp only the essence and not the substance i.e. I read and fast forget.
No; for those of us with a systematic mind the reading habits of a lifetime cannot be so easily dismissed, and nor can one's relationship with time, for I'm forever slipping backwards then only moving forwards by slow degrees. I'm not sure I will ever again reach the contemporary literary scene i.e. a novel set in present day. I seem to prefer writers that speak to me from the grave, who may not have in their own time been praised, or perhaps were and are still reaping criticism and approval in equal and unequal measure. (Horace argued with me on this very point one misty morning. And he's not the only dead but unforgotten satirist that took the opposite view i.e. readers should look to the new.)
I cannot help it; I have no interest in the recent, only in what has gone before. Where Horace on occasion catches the glitter of a lovely word, I see whole pages filled with them, in a tongue that is not alien (though occasionally translated) but aged. Why should modern writers, because they are new, have all the glory? 'Why should the old?' Horace replied, forgetful that he was now in that very position i.e. still consulted and enjoyed far beyond his closed box.
However I take his point: there is indeed room for both, the old and the new; neither should be resented or revered. People should be able to read what they like, each to their taste i.e. without judgement or recrimination.
As for myself, I crave a different wit and a different wisdom, and a different take on the complexities of life altogether, which only certain poets and writers – the made-modern, the revised, the re-printed, the translated and the antiquated - can administer to i.e. if they are unable to the failing is mine and not theirs.

Picture credit: Horace, the Roman Poet (Source: The Guardian). 

Written September 2020.

Two Scholars

Two scholars shared a house. One spread her papers over a single table, the other over a floor. One confined herself to a lower room, the other took over the entire upper floor. Notwithstanding this lack of or need for space, both however were content in their studies, though not always with the progression of them.
I can see them now: one with her arms buried deep in boxes pulling out piles of papers, journals and the like, with here and there a soft or throaty laugh at something she's unearthed; the other his nose inches from a book, brow furrowed, and his pen, in his writing hand, poised over a sheet of paper. (I would venture to say he might on occasion nibble at his pen, but somehow he doesn't seem the type.)
But what are each working on you inquire? One is on the trail of history, a trail which leads somewhere, then nowhere, then somewhere else with its beginnings and dead ends and no ends; the other is on the trail of something obscure, nobody (not even the other scholar in the house) knows what, it could be literary or philosophical, or neither of those. Some opine it's concerned with French, the French and the translation of, for spies say telephone calls are made (at odd hours of the day) where phrases in colloquial French are queried, but what these spies don't seem to know is whether the answers given are helpful, or how the quest (if this is the quest) is coming on. What is evident is that it's secret, and can therefore only be conducted from the top of the building.
What can be said with some certainty, I think, is that one dapples in dates and documents, and the other with texts of a scholarly and classic bent. (Each would, I think, take offence at the word 'dapple'.)
I should say I suppose something on their backgrounds, but what I know is all a little disjointed and hazy. It would be safer to say one seems to have led a rather bohemian lifestyle and the other was for some years a teacher of English. Neither could be said to be conventional or conservative, and both have interests that could seem surprising. What however does not come as a surprise is that both, in and outside their chosen fields, are extremely knowledgeable. (Some might say Enlightened.)
This arrangement, then, between them, was amicable (they were married, Reader). Both had their own space in which to work, though both would have liked more. Each, separately and together, had given some thought to how this could be achieved, but the garage already held the overspill of books and music and films, and there was no garden as such to extend into or construct something new in. Inside, there were no extraneous walls to knock down and the cupboards, the few there were, were full to overflowing. Every house, too, whether its inhabitants are donnish or not, needs its kitchen and designated space for other utilities, just as a cat, feral or domestic, needs its perching and hiding spots. (Their black cat, it's worth noting, was very particular with these regards, though of laps too he was fond at most inconvenient moments.)
So the problem, it seemed, could not be solved or shared to any satisfaction. And anyhow, give a scholar a space and he or she will find a way to work in it or if large enough fill it. Each has their own method of working. And problem solving of this nature consumes too much time and too much thought, leaving less for critical (of the sleuthing kind) or philosophical thinking. A resident cat, black, tabby, tortoiseshell or marmalade, in all instances can help to lighten this load as well as relieve the boredom of a scholarly life. (Fact: many a scholar has had a cat, for when a cat invites you to play, you play; or capture what they've brought in to play with.)
Life is not all books and papers, as any scholar, including these two, will tell you, for life has this annoying habit of interrupting study, serious or contemplative. One might be hunched over writing rapidly or the other looking through a magnifier at something absorbing when the cat wants feeding or the bed needs changing or the dishwasher emptying etc. The golden rule to mitigate such household disturbances is to: only yell at set times.

Picture credit: A Scholar Seated at a Table with Books, 1634, Rembrandt (source: WikiArt).

Written September 2020.