Antiquity, thou wondrous charm

I wish I'd read this over the summer, when I was here in Oxford over the vacation - but better late than never!


Charles Lamb, 'Oxford in the Vacation'

...I am plain Elia - no Selden, nor Archbishop Usher - though at present in the thick of their books, here in the heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley.

I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To such a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or other of the Universities. Their vacation, too, at this time of the year, falls in so pat with ours. Here I can take my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I please. I seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or a curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle I can be content to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor.

The walks at these times are so much one's own, - the tall trees of Christ's, the groves of Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at the butteries, and scullieries, redolent of antique hospitality; the immense caves of kitchens, kitchen fireplaces, cordial recesses; ovens whose first pies were baked four centuries ago; and spits which have cooked for Chaucer! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a Manciple.

Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art everything! When, thou wert, thou wert not antiquity - then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!

What were thy dark ages? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as now, and man got him to his work in the morning? Why is it we can never hear mention of them without an accompanying feeling, as though a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our ancestors wandered to and fro groping! Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves --

What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.

Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS. Those variae lectiones, so tempting to the more erudite palates, do but disturb and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean raker. The credit of the three witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I leave these curiosities to Porson, and to G.D.* - whom, by the way, I found busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is grown almost into a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of the old shelves. I longed to new-coat him in russia, and assign him his place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula.

D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning... D. is delightful anywhere, but he is at the best in such places as these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, at Scarborough, or Harrowgate. The Cam and the Isis are to him 'better than all the waters of Damascus.' On the Muses' hill he is happy, and good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains; and when he goes about with you to show you the halls and colleges, you think you have with you the Interpreter at the House Beautiful.


*His friend George Dyer.

Turn but a stone

OK, let's see if I can explain this thought coherently; I'm fluey and word-deprived.

My poem-obsession of this week - the one that's taken up residence in my brain and started chattering away in the empty spaces between proper thoughts - is Francis Thompson's 'The Kingdom of God'. Especially this bit:

The angels keep their ancient places;–
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;– and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry;– clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!


Good advice - at least, it's working for me. I haven't seen any angels, but... well, something close. Anyway, today is the feast of St Simon and St Jude, two apostles about whom real information is hard to come by. Everyone knows St Jude, patron saint of hopeless causes (what is it about that which so attracts the imagination?), but St Simon is even more obscure than his obscure companion. The Catholic Encyclopedia entry on him notes what little information there is.

One of the less credible legends about him claims he was martyred at Caistor, in Lincolnshire. By 'less credible' I mean 'absurd'. I'm sure this is a real legend because the internet says so, but I can't find a citation which explains where it might have been recorded; however, it sounds medieval, so I'm going with that. This is what an online history of Caistor says:

"Simon Zelotes was one of the original twelve disciples of Christ. His first visit to Britain was reportedly in the year 44 A.D. during the Claudian War. Evidently his stay was short at this time and he returned to the continent.

In 60 A.D. Simon was recruited by Joseph of Arimathea in Gaul at the beginning of the Boudicean War. Simon arrived in Britain during the first year of the Boudicean War (60 A.D.) when the whole island was convulsed in a deep, burning anger against the Romans.

It is recorded that Simon was unusually bold and fearless, as his name implies. In spite of the turmoil seething through Britain during the Boudicean War, Simon openly defied the Edict of Paulinus, and the brutal Catus Decianus, to destroy anything and anyone Christian.

Simon decided to conduct his work in the eastern part of the Island. This section of Britain was the most sparsely inhabited by the native Britons and consequently more heavily populated by the Romans. He was far beyond the strong protective shield of the Silurian arms in the south and the powerful northern Yorkshire Celts. In this dangerous territory Simon Zelotes was definitely on his own...The evangelizing mission of Simon was short-lived. He was finally arrested under the orders of Catus Decianus. As usual his trial was a mockery. He was condemned to death and was crucified by the Romans at Caistor, Lincolnshire, and buried there on 10 May, 61 A.D."

This is nonsense, of course, but in the light of Francis Thompson and medieval imagination, which I've written about before (and it's complete coincidence that that post also mentions Caistor, perhaps the only two occasions in my life I've given any thought to the place): anyway, in that light, I have to praise a religious mind which can conceive of apostles martyred, not in Edessa, but the Fens.

Goddes champion, and as a good child hende

Some snippets of Langland on charity, a kind of meditation on 1 Corinthians 13. The dreamer is questioning Anima, a personification of the rational faculty of the soul. There's a lot more to it than this, but these are my favourite bits of the dialogue.

The whole thing can be found here.

"What is charite?' quod I tho. "A childissh thyng,' he seide -
"Nisi efficiamini sicut parvuli, non intrabitis in regnum celorum -

Withouten fauntelte or folie a fre liberal wille."

"Where sholde men fynde swich a frend with so fre an herte?...

Clerkes kenne me that Crist is in alle places,

Ac I seigh hym nevere soothly but as myself in a mirour:

Hic in enigmate, tunc facie ad faciem.
And so I trowe trewely, by that men telleth of charite,

It is noght chaumpions fight, ne chaffare, as I trowe.'

"Charite,' quod he, "ne chaffareth noght, ne chalangeth, ne craveth;

As proud of a peny as of a pound of golde,

And is as glad of a gowne of a gray russet

As of a tunycle of Tarse of of trie scarlet.

He is glad with alle glade and good til alle wikkede,

And leneth and loveth alle that Oure Lord made.

Corseth he no creature, ne he kan bere no wrathe,

Ne no likynge hath to lye ne laughe men to scorne.
Al that men seyn, he leet it sooth, and in solace taketh,

And alle manere meschiefs in myldenesse he suffreth.
Coveiteth he noon erthely good but heveneriche blisse.'

"Hath he any rentes or richesse, or any riche frendes?'

"Of rentes ne of richesse rekketh he nevere,

For a frend that fyndeth hym, failed hym nevere at nede:

Fiat voluntas tua fynt hym everemoore,

And if he soupeth, eteth but a sop of Spera in Deo.

He kan portreye wel the Paternoster and peynte it with Aves,

And outherwhile he is woned to wenden on pilgrymages
Ther poore men and prisons liggeth, hir pardon to have;

Though he bere hem no breed, he bereth hem swetter liflode,

Loveth hem as Oure Lord biddeth and loketh how thei fare.

...

For Charite is Goddes champion, and as a good child hende,

And the murieste of mouth at mete where he sitteth.

The love that lith in his herte maketh hym light of speche,

And is compaignable and confortatif, as Crist bit hymselve:

Nolite fieri sicut ypocrite tristes &c.

For I have seyen hym in silk and som tyme in russet,

Bothe in grey, and in grys, and in gilt harneis -

And as gladliche he it gaf to gomes that it neded.

"Edmund and Edward, either were kynges

And seintes yset - stille charite hem folwede.

...

Ac I ne lakke no lif, but, Lord, amende us alle.

And gyve us grace, goode God, charite to folwe!

For whoso myghte meete with hym, swiche maneres hym eileth -

Neither he blameth ne banneth, bosteth ne preiseth,

Lakketh, ne loseth, ne loketh up sterne,

Craveth, ne coveiteth, ne crieth after moore:

In pace in idipsum dormiam &c.

The mooste liflode that he lyveth by is love in Goddes passion;

Neither he biddeth, ne beggeth, ne borweth to yelde;

Misdooth he no man, ne with his mouth greveth."

Northerners and Normans

This is from the chronicle of the twelfth-century monk Orderic Vitalis, who was born in England but lived in Normandy and provides one of the best sources for early post-Conquest history. Describing the situation in the north of England after the Conquest, when rebellion against William was at its height, he says:

"Many men lived in tents, disdaining to sleep in houses lest they should become soft; so that the Normans called them 'wild men'" (silvatici).

Hmmm. Meanwhile, in Normandy:

"At this time certain Norman women, consumed by fierce lust, sent message after message to their husbands urging them to return [from England] at once, and adding that unless they did so with all speed they would take other husbands for themselves. For they dared not join their men themselves, being unaccustomed to the sea-crossing and afraid of seeking them out in England... [The men] returned to Normandy to oblige their wanton wives; but neither they nor their heirs were ever able to recover the fiefs which they had held and chosen to abandon."

Autumn Leaves

On autumn and the changing of the year, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ll.516-533):

After þe sesoun of somer wyth þe soft wyndez

Quen Zeferus syflez hymself on sedez and erbez,

Wela wynne is þe wort þat waxes þeroute,

When þe donkande dewe dropez of þe leuez,

To bide a blysful blusch of þe bryȝt sunne.

Bot þen hyȝes heruest, and hardenes hym sone,

Warnez hym for þe wynter to wax ful rype;

He dryues wyth droȝt þe dust for to ryse,

Fro þe face of þe folde to flyȝe ful hyȝe;

Wroþe wynde of þe welkyn wrastelez with þe sunne,

Þe leuez lancen fro þe lynde and lyȝten on þe grounde,

And al grayes þe gres þat grene watz ere;

Þenne al rypez and rotez þat ros vpon fyrst,

And þus ȝirnez þe ȝere in ȝisterdayez mony,

And wynter wyndez aȝayn, as þe worlde askez,
no fage,
Til Meghelmas mone
Watz cumen wyth wynter wage.


Gawain is difficult to translate without losing the poetry, but here's my attempt:

After the season of summer, with its soft winds,
When Zephyrus breathes on seeds and herbs,
- A great good is the plant that grows thus –
When the drenching dew drops from the leaves
To await the bright blush of the burning sun;
But then hies harvest, and quickly hardens it,
And warns it to wax ripe against the winter’s coming;
He drives in drought and rises the dust
Flying up high from the face of the earth;
Wrathful winds from the sky wrestle with the sun
The leaves leap from the linden and alight on the ground,
And all the grass goes grey that was green before;
Then all ripens and rots that formerly rose up;
And thus runs the year in yesterdays many,
And winter wakes again, as the world directs,
in truth,
Until the Michaelmas moon was come
With the first pledge of winter.

According to the OED, the 'Michaelmas moon' is another name for the harvest moon, the first full moon after Michaelmas Day.

Oh and...

... one last bonus fact about St Edward the Confessor, since today is his actual feast. The translation of his relics (of which today in the anniversary) in 1163 in Westminster Abbey was presided over by none other than Archbishop Thomas Becket, in the days before he was Canterbury's own St Thomas. And Ailred of Rievaulx, in the days before he was St Ailred, wrote a vita of St Edward for the occasion.

A cloud of witnesses, indeed.

Always Autumn

"God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons, and day, and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons: but God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies; in paradise, the fruits were ripe, the first minute, and in heaven it is always Autumne, his mercies are ever in their maturity."

John, I know you were speaking metaphorically, but if turns out to be always autumn in heaven I think I would be OK with that.