details from Charles Vth by Titian, Antonio Navagero by Giovanni Moroni & Guidubaldo della Rovere by Agnolo Bronzino
Prithee, Sirrah ?
The poster announced “Shakespeare Season !” Well, why not ?, I thought. For no particular reason, I’d seen precisely naught. I know it sounds high treason, But I guess this time I’m caught.
Yet all reviews and interviews I heard Said much the same – They read the play, yes, ev’ry word, Before they even came, To better understand. But that’s absurd ! Just what’s their game…?
What about the spoilers, hey ? Will Macbeth be number one ? But the plot matter less, they say, Than ‘getting’ a Tudor pun ! This all feels like homework anyway, And not much fun !
You clearly can’t be arsed to try And make the story clear, And surely don’t want oiks as I To gaze upon your Lear. I think I’m gonna pass you by For something less austere.
Just what is it with trilbies and churches ? Men must remove theirs, but women’s stay put. Indeed, why does Paul say that women must cover ? Is God so upset by each bare-headed mother ? Men, shed your turbans ! Your masking besmirches ! At least He allows still a shoe on each foot ! (Though women are free from such moaning and wails To sport wedding bonnets and funeral veils.)
Just what is it with stetsons and churches ? We might as well dress-down in sackcloth and soots Than decked-out in finery, mumbling our prayers, While tutting at any bloke hiding his hairs. Men, lose your skull-caps ! Such hattery lurches To thinking you’re working upon your kibbutz – For men who wear hats are not resters, but grafters – So the Lord wants your locks flowing free to the rafters.
Just what is it with bowlers and churches ? Men’s heads are open, but women’s are shut. How much of an insult is headgear undoffed ? Does God rage in Heaven at brims left aloft ? Men, ditch your toupees ! Our scriptural researches Show bald-pate Elisha is nobody’s butt ! Or do we use ‘etiquette’ as a hypocrisy ? That doesn’t sound like good manners to me !
I hope the hatted women in church also keep silent throughout, just as 1st Cor 14:34 says to.
I knew a girl called Angela Engels With wanted to know the fundamentals – Who wanted to know how angels flew When they were far too large, she knew, To stay aloft the way they do. But then…well eagles, they’re big too, And owls are even bigger, sure – At least the biggest ones are bigger – And albatrosses, once mature – And condors are bosses, they have to figure, With wings much wider than she was tall, And yet…they hardly seem to flap them at all. But hang on…there’s always swans, And swans kept pumping through the air And turkeys, though they hardly fly, But yes they can, from here to there. And bustards too can reach the sky, they say, (Though it takes them quite the run up To get up up and away.)
So Angela looked up size and span and stat, And found they weren’t that fat – Those amigos averaged less that a dozen kilos And she knew flat how she weighed more than that. So unless the angels, like insects, were pin-head small, They’d surely barely rise and plenty fall. But there was also mention Of an ancient, mythic vulture, barely known – Now that got her attention ! Though they had only found one bone, And had to guess the rest and how they’d grown. And just the same for Quetzalcoatlus – Surely that was just as hatless, Based on fossils and guesstimates, Not measures and weights, And was perched uneasy on its throne. And anyway, those both were dead – So heck, for all their trying They couldn’t be that great at flying, she said.
So maybe angels, though their wings are feathered, (And they cannot be untethered From the hug of gravity), So maybe they employ another method in reality – P’raps their wings are really a screen Protecting their backs from a rocket machine That blasts them up to Heaven instead !, Like Newton said – and yes, alright, it’s then implied That then their flight is just a glide back down. (They’d also need a flameproof gown, And goggles wouldn’t go amiss, But she could really take to this !) Although…well, was it heavy on the carbon, Swimming like a tarpon through the air ? Would angels better abstain and take the train, To show they care ? Angela hoped they’d be aware, and do without it, Or at least to think about it, heed her words And maybe leave the flying to the birds.
You came to escape a war, And chose our shore as somewhere tame Where quiet days don’t end in flame – But now they are fighting no more, And you must up and return to your nation – Not an order, just an observation. I needn’t ask what for, And I note this not with pleasure, but alack – For now your ravished country needs you back.
Year after year, our language is changing And drifting yet further from Shakespeare’s day, Making it harder to known of his meaning, Making obscure as we’re slipping away. Writings updated retain all their meaning, But lose all their diction and word-play and flow – So when only scholars can read still this poem, Then do not translate it, but just let me go.
The Anglo-Saxons had their own names – Had no need for our Kate or James – Some, like Swithin and Thunor, perhaps, Are only found on churches and maps – Yet some, like Edward and Hilda, survive, Though Oswald and Cuthbert are barely alive – And Mildred and Wilfred are old-fashioned now, Yet rather less Saxon than Dickens, somehow. The same with Ethel and Edith – I swear They sound quite common, for all that they’re rare, While some like Dunstan, Wymond, and Wystan, Are as old-money posh as Aubrey and Tristan. And fun-fact, Ruth was a noun for compassion, Yet strangely never was used in this fashion – Yet Edruth and Ruthbert could’ve been (no joke), Though Gailjoy to them meant a wind and a yoke… Stanley and Beverley back then were place names, While Hengist and Offa are leave-just-a-trace names, And Osborn and Osmund are now only surnames, While Hrothgar sees Roger become the preferred name. So Alfred and Albert are still doing fine, But Harold and Winston are on the decline – And Edmund and Edgar are straight out of yore, While Winifred and Edwin are winners no more.
Note that the theoretical Ruthbert would probably be pronounced in modern English to rhyme with Cuthbert and not with truth-bert.
I know we love it as a symbol – Hubris, cheap materials and failure, While locals soak up tourist-dollars Selling canting paraphernalia. The crowds all prop it up in photos Loving that its old and broke – While laughing at the locals, Who are all in on the joke.
And now the authorities Have had to underpin the base, While taking care to keep the tilt That underpins their public face. I guess we do not get to choose What piques our int’rest, makes us smile – But here’s a tower-ful of piquant int’rest By the mile !
Is it me, or is there sneering hidden In the joy, A sense of smug superiority At this quaint toy. I doubt we even realise, really, But I think it lurks, At these stupid foreign ancients Who could only bodge the works.
I think I am alone in wishing That they’d take it down and start again. I just want my cathedrals To inspire me, not amuse me, in the main. But here is a belfry Far too weak for bells and gravity’s demands – It’s just a shell, a cynic’s dream Who’s only wonder is how still it stands.
Ah, listen to me, what misery ! Just moaning off my sunstroke. Can’t I shrug and let them be, And maybe even get the joke ? I guess we do not get to choose What gets remembered, anyway – But this one’s sure to loom in mind And hold us in its sway.
“Tell me, Roman, why this plan To execute this convict man ? Of all the ways to make him dead, Why hold up high with arms outspread ? Seeing him now crucified Just makes a martyr, gives him pride, It lets the martyr die with pride, So hero-like, so dignified.”
“But you are wrong. Now look again: The loincloth with its urine stain, The drooling lips, the bloodshot eyes, The excrement that cakes his thighs. To hang for days in agony – Now look again and show to me, Just look up there and show to me, The slightest shred of dignity.”
“Ah yes, I see, the lolling head, And yet…who cares once he is dead ? And history may not recall His wails and jerking fits at all. Despite what we right here may find, The crowd are of a diff’rent mind – And what they see within their mind Is all that you will leave behind.”
“Perhaps you’re right, and time will tell – But who can say he’s dying well ? And in three days, he lingers on For no-one, once the crowd has gone. Any execution can Create a martyr from a man – Yet here, we see he’s just a man And that is why this Roman plan.”
Bringing Juvenilia Week to a close with a typically iconoclastic poke at religion with some Real Science. Originally just the first two verses, it lacked the necessary back-and-forth to be the dialogue it wanted to be, so the latter two are new, though just as naff as a homage to the original.
Now, the perfect poem to follow with tomorrow would be this one, but it has already been posted.
Rhyming Couplets 