Jeff Bernstein

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin SCROOBY. Shall we pause a moment and go backwards? Earlier in the day the governor looked through the prison bars, and he spoke to her. OLYBRYUS. How you compose your beauty even here in this unwholesome place enflames my heart! Only fools neglect the arts that first lured one to look. I've never seen such a face, never such a woman. Your raven-black ringlets hanging around your face look combed. My dear, where did you find a comb in here? If only you would study to improve your charm, you'd be free of this horrid place, free to impress and fix a husband's love, and bless a married life; for you are sweet, and very swift in heating my desire. SCROOBY. Dearie! MARGARET. You, warm? You're cold, old man! Cold bones! You repulse me, your nauseating lust passing for juice in your detested veins! Is all told? SCROOBY. But her beauty made him try one final time. "Young lady," he began— OLYBRYUS. —have pity on your beauty, and worship our gods, and for god's sake keep yourself quiet, and you'll be free. If you don't— MARGARET. I'll never! I will bend the knee to no man on earth. I worship him who makes the earth tremble. OLYBRYUS. I say if you don't bend to me I shall make your body all spoilèd and torn. MARGARET. Cryst died for me; I'll die gladly for Cryst. SCROOBY. Well, as Walter Neff put it, "That tears it." OLYBRYUS. Have you ever been beaten by iron rods? MARGARET. Dearie me! You have a love of contention for things not necessary to be done. OLYBRYUS. The iron torments you down to your bones, and draws blood from your body as a stream pours out of a well. MARGARET. Your talent really lies in such enterprises? It seems wrong to get right what is so wrong, governor. Go now and leave me! Any cruelty to my flesh will give me no persuasion. OLYBRYUS. This is the outcome of your pomp and belief? Your Saint Mary isn't worth a penny to anyone not so mad or so blind. MARGARET. You're an ambitious wretch putting value in pain and suffering. You can't be content with the honour and riches of the world likely because you're so needful of them! OLYBRYUS. Shameless bitch! MARGARET. You loathsome, filthy monster! I cannot tolerate you and never will. Enjoy your power over me, go on, but you will never get my heart. Go on, you led me here to the door to this cell, where you have tolerated great offense to God, keeping me stopped up in bondage, yet would have weaseled a way to marriage? The two-faced soul of man is horrific. Go away from me and please don't come back. OLYBRYUS. Dearie, I will leave on one condition : before I come back you must be long gone. MARGARET. Do your vilest, devil. Make me shake. SCROOBY. And as he walked away the governor covered his face with his robe. OLYBRYUS. If only this stubborn girl would lose her misbelieving! She is so fair; and all the blood she'll lose! If she only agreed with me, she'd live! SCROOBY. I've seen this before; it's hard to believe. tbc [ Forms Photograph Philip Kuruvita Australia 2006 ]

Early literary sighting of the PINKY SWEAR? PLOWMAN. Lo, here is my finger; now trust me well. (453) John Heywood, Gentleness and Nobility (c1525)

PTA wtf?!

[ The Urban Jungle Photograph Martin Fry United Kingdom 2022 /Ichthyosaur fossil / The Conversation Photograph Naomi White United States 2012 ]

Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man (1496)

C O M M E R C I A L B R E A K Dear Abby : Should I cherish Fortune when it favors me, knowing that it must soon abandon me, plunging me into sorrow? If you consider with an attentive eye what Fortune is in itself, its caprices and its inconstancy, you will be convinced that in possessing it, you embraced only a smoke, and that in losing it, you were deprived of nothing solid. I flatter myself that I can remind you of this without difficulty. ¶ We must not stop only at what passes before our eyes. Prudence measures events, and sees in the revolutions it observes that we must neither fear the distance of Fortune nor desire its favors. ¶ Do not make useless efforts to stop a wheel that turns with insurmountable impetuosity. from "Suite de la consolation de la Philosophie, traduite de Boëce", in Le Conservateur, ou collection de morceaux rares, & d'ouvrages anciens & modernes (Paris : Chez Michael Lambert, 1760), 30–4 / [ City Lights : Tunnel Photograph Hulki Okan Tabak Turkey 2019 ]

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin SCROOBY. The young Margaret was in a bad way. No matter how she sat or stood or lay, her prison surroundings forbade repose. She struggled to think, and say her prayers. MARGARET. Why speak out like that? I destroyed myself. SCROOBY. Empty your mind if you can, for you'll never see anything again. MARGARET. Mother nature! The sun on my body, the grass, the ears of the rabbits who heard out my prayers, all you wild powers, be with me now! SCROOBY. Back and forth she paces the dirty floor, measuring time with the thoughts in her head. MARGARET. I haven't any idea of the hour; in darkness it's harder to take this cell. SCROOBY. Continuing that way leads to panic. Now see! Heavy tears falling down her face. Is she feeling sorry for just herself, or for everyone? Keep it together! MARGARET. Dearie! I almost lost my balance there! SCROOBY. What's that? MARGARET. I feel a trembling coming up from my feet. It's passing through my body. SCROOBY. You hear that noise? MARGARET. Like footsteps stamping earth? SCROOBY. You hear it? MARGARET. They are coming to kill me. SCROOBY. You don't want to think like that at this hour. MARGARET. Is it wrong of me to feel terrified? How will it feel to have my head cut off? SCROOBY. God, this girl is so hard to listen to. MARGARET. I am so scared that I can hardly breathe. My chest feels full. I'm trembling. Is there no one living who can relieve my terror? SCROOBY. Are you strong enough for health? MARGARET. Pain is close. SCROOBY. Do you feel that? MARGARET. A stamping underfoot, like the footsteps of something gigantic continuing, raking the clouds aside— SCROOBY. The floor's shaking! Quick! Grab onto the bars of the window, keep yourself from falling! What is it? MARGARET. Look at the stars; they're so close— freedom is as near as my clothes on me— but the one step is too colossal to make. What will I look like after I am dead? How humiliating, to lie in parts! SCROOBY. Why not take in another breath of air? MARGARET. Breathe, Margaret; the smallest gifts are huge here. SCROOBY. But the window was obscured suddenly. Suddenly the room went dark. Through the bars she saw something strange. A flash of bright white, like lights on water, like night stars floating in a yellow water which looked bloodshot, with a pupil wider than a fireplace. Then came a tremendous shaking and roar and the threatening wobbling of the walls; and we saw an eye outside the window blink. It was the eye of a beast peering in, having contorted its head down to look. tbc [ A dragon from the island of Martinique Drawing Guela Tsouladze 1992 ]

One last breath of air : Milton and Samson Agonistes John Milton addresses the Muse a number of times in Paradise Lost. He invokes her aid at the poem's outset, hoping she will sing through him (as Yeats envisioned a wind (sidhe) blowing through him—what Scrooby calls the STARGATE). If, as Milton hoped, the Muse joined her powers with his own faculties in the creation of the considerable vision of Paradise Lost, then their dream-team would generate an instant "classic" of world art. And indeed the poem turned out to be so. Now let's cut to the opening lines of Milton's final work, Samson Agonistes (1671), which, unlike Paradise Lost, does not seem to open in a major key : A little onward lend thy guiding hand To these dark steps, a little further on; For yonder bank hath choice of Sun or shade, There I am wont to sit, when any chance Relieves me from my task of servile toil, Daily in the common Prison else enjoin'd me, Where I a Prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw The air imprison'd also, close and damp, Unwholsom draught: but here I feel amends, The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet, With day-spring born; here leave me to respire. From the start the phrases, one after another, are rich with heavy meanings—Scroob could have a field day with the multiplication of heavy significations. The overall vibe, meanwhile, is powerful melancholy, grading suddenly into blessed (momentary) comfort. This is a considerable opening, a heavy transmission from (let it be remembered) an epic poet. This opening recalls the dolorous pathos of Oedipus at Colonus—Σοφοκλῆς, for God's sake. However, in the following post, Scroob mentions one subject only for present commentary : the Muse. Ah, the Muse. Here it is a visitation so delicate that Milton acknowledges the Situation only in symbolic terms, as if to not burst the fragile bubble of her charmed appearance with direct speech. ¶ In Paradise Lost Milton addresses the Muse directly and straight out and more than once and unapologetically. But here he does not do that, and for a reason. ¶ For one thing debilitating time has passed and Milton is a different person. ¶ For another thing, (technically speaking) Samson Agonistes is not epic poem but theatrical tragedy, therefore its structure is built of different requirements (eg, the author cannot directly address the Muse in Samson without destroying its nature as play). Scrooby has enumerated these two initial reasons simply to "get them out of the way". The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing. Ah, the Muse, associated here with flowing air, with healthful air, with the freedom of air and the inspiration it gives with each fresh breath. At the outset of Paradise Lost, the Muse is associated with flowing water (Siloa's Brook, בריכת השילוח). Later in Paradise Lost, the Creative Spirit is also associated with breath—the flowing breath of the voice of Urania, astronomical goddess older than Helicon's Muses.¶ Writing Samson in the long deep shadow of Paradise Lost, Milton is reclaiming the old magic of immortal breath coming to inspire him. The reclaiming of a triumphant past (The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing) generates a wistful vibe, which recalls : Interestingly, however, I did run into Annie again. With day-spring born. By the end of the opening (eleven lines) of Samson, the immortal Muse has given the ageing Milton the breath of life, so to speak, and the spark has caught; so now Milton, like the character Samson, is rousing his strength for one last major achievement. here leave me to respire. Ah, breath as the metaphor of writing. The spark is now a controlled fire in his spirit. Milton is now at cruising altitude, and the poem is proceeding. In the first eleven lines of Samson Agonistes we experience a beautiful engineering feat of Milton πολύμητις : an invocation to the Muse, which is respectful, hopeful, nostalgic, &co., and all the time dreamlike. Scroob thinks of a dream-vision seen undulating under the shallow surface of clear water. Or think, please, of Nino Rota slowing down a merry melody into the haunting theme of The Godfather : transformation from ebullient to twilightish; both are thereby encoded therein. By the end of this deft DREAM-INVOCATION in Samson, Milton has exclaimed, with Paul Newman's star-power authority, I'm back!"

πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς Ulysse l'astucieux

C O M M E R C I A L B R E A K De la force d'aucuns hommes / On the strength of some men The strength of men was great in times past, and more so in some men than in others. We read of one who held a cart so tightly with one hand that three horses could not move it forward. Hercules carried his large club; a chap named Salvius mounted a ladder with two hundred pounds of weight attached to his feet (as mentioned in Pliny 7.19); and we can only marvel at the strength still present in some people today. Among them is a man in our forest, named William Culdefer, who one day encountered a large wolf, very horrible to look at. William kicked at the wolf with such force that his foot went right through its body. By this means the wolf-beast died, in whose belly was found a whole sheep that it had torn to pieces, devoured, and swallowed two days earlier, very like a Jaws the shark. [ samur eye rem Mixed Media, Digital on Paper 2023 / misterio visual 9 Mixed Media, Oil on Cardboard 2019 / ps-eye-cho Mixed Media, Digital on Paper 2023 / Ojolo Mirón Mexico ]

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin OLYBRYUS. Dear girl, the words I speak affect the heart. If we both hear, then great joy may follow for us; my intuition conceives of it. What is your name? MARGARET. My name is Margaret. OLYBRYUS. Young woman, I am a gentleman born. My ancestors are lords, knights, leaders in war, governors of eminent authority. I am and have been one of the chivalry. In every time of war I have been captain and leader of a thousand men and more. I keep a great house continually; I have lands and dominions and people. What wealth is prosperity in a name! I have no need of anything of you, but I want to marry you. MARGARET. Dearie me! OLYBRYUS. These are your words? Tell me your lineage. MARGARET. The god of the Christians. OLYBRYUS. So fair a girl and so noble should have her god crucified? MARGARET. And how do you know Cryst was crucified? OLYBRYUS. By the books of Crysten men. MARGARET. What a shame to read the pain of Cryst and the glory, and believe one thing and deny another! How wrong you are, governor! What folly! The living God is the one noble thing. OLYBRYUS. Your faith will put you in captivity. MARGARET. My faith outdoes all fashions. OLYBRYUS. We shall see. We are ashamed the great bird which fluttered by night should prove to us, in day, a bat. Margaret, take my hand. I am no merchant to make a quarrel with so suddenly about business and strange commodities, disturbing our good communication. I promise I am an honest gentleman; I am no man of war. Apologise, young woman, and all shall be well with us. MARGARET. You are a crude, lewd rascal and villain, full of beseeming and gibberish. Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin. Why don't you just go far away from me? OLYBRYUS. Your god deserts you. MARGARET. We're not at the end. OLYBRYUS. I will beat you. You will not survive me. MARGARET. It's a pity so proper a woman must watch the vile acts of a sinner. OLYBRYUS. Margaret, you will do more than watch them. MARGARET. They who make the law must suffer for it. OLYBRYUS. You'll be burned alive, then trimmed of your head. MARGARET. Do you think that will stop me from preaching? OLYBRYUS. Yes. And will prove to everyone watching that you're not nearly so strong as you think. MARGARET. But you've yet to prevail. You will not. OLYBRYUS. So your god will come to stop all your pain? Or will he be the cause of all your pain? Girl, he is not here. You are all alone; and you attempt with me a conflict without hope of conquest. MARGARET. No? It's me you can't beat. OLYBRYUS. I do not know if I should more commend your courage than censure your audacity, for they are both indelicately grand. MARGARET. If you're waiting for me to beg, go on. I will never be brought down to begging. OLYBRYUS. It's a damnable error that you make. You must follow me. MARGARET. Your direction is doom. OLYBRYUS. I will live after you. MARGARET. And so will I. OLYBRYUS. It shall be just as you want it to be. You preach with all liberty to persuade the people to follow your religion. No longer will you have this liberty. MARGARET. A sinner branding me a heretic! OLYBRYUS. Margaret, I am taking your life. Now, to make a point you should say something. MARGARET. You would turn debate into persecution because you can't bear the shame of defeat. OLYBRYUS. But you can bear a punishment for him? MARGARET. One lives until it's thought better to die. SCROOBY. And then Margaret said, and she affirmed, Cryst was crucified for our redemption, and now lives with the saved forever in bliss. Then the governor, very angry, took her— OLYBRYUS. Take this time-wasting blasphemer away! SCROOBY. —and put her in prison without any hope. tbc [ Dinocephalosaurus orientalis ]

Extremely rare publication : available in only seven libraries worldwide, according to WorldCat.

A three-e continuum préee : to take captive, carry off. Aucassin & Nicolete (Eragny Press, 1903), p49 / see also Aucassin & Nicolete (Librarie Honore Champion, 1963), 35 / Aucassin & Nicolete (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1887), 74 / Aucassin & Nicolete (Chez P. Jannet, Libraire, 1856), 301.

C O M M E R C I A L B R E A K D'une ondée de crapaux / A shower of toads Master Regné told us that one day, coming from Outrebosc to Mortemer, it had not stopped raining, and he was wet through right to the flesh. And (after the rain) wanting to shake his hat, which was flat at the top and where the rain had remained without running off, he found to his astonishment eleven little toads swimming in the water on top of it. Then when he was queried where these toads had come from, he replied that they had fallen from the nests with the rain. And he said that at that very hour a heavy shower had fallen in their yard, and that those in their household had found some toads as fat as father and mother floating in the pot where the flesh was boiling, which had fallen through the chimney. They agreed to throw away the soup and the flesh, but they served us the bread and milk.

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin MARGARET. Ah, what disagreeable merriment! Dearie me; all your words were disrupted. No, I said enough for all of my friends, I'm sure, for I feel comfortable now at heart. I spoke of salvation, and am glad. But all the trees around me are silent, and the air. Nothing to say? Anyone? Well, this silence is no reproach to me. My friends have ears as little as their paws, so they need time to understand my words. But now I must return to my sheepfold; it's noon and my little lambs are hungry. OLYBRYUS. What's this? Who is this beautiful young thing? I've lived many years in many places but I've never seen such fairness before. Already love begins to scorch my heart. So fresh; no older than fifteen, I think, a fitting age for the wife of the new governor of the district. I will take her as my wife. But what if she's married? Then I will have her as my concubine. SCROOBY. The charming man rode on, but didn't fail to remember the fresh face and figure of Margaret. Two servants came to her on behalf of Olybryus—that was the name of the new governor of the district. Margaret asked, as she would, "Have I a choice to attend?" They replied "no", so she went in wonder of what the Law asked of her. Was the governor religious? If not, she hoped to show him the strength of God's love. tbc [ monster dragon eating a frog Photograph Emme Pons Spain 2014 ]

Telemachus Proteus Sirens Scylla and Charybdis

C O M M E R C I A L B R E A K D'un chien qui fut eschaudé / The dog who was burned When the bullet is fired, what will the offended beast do? In the well-known Vallée d'Andelle, between Perruel and Vascon, there is a small Abbey of the Premontré order called l'Isle-Dieu, in which one day the cook of the monks, while scouring his pots, threw (by chance) a spoonful of broth on an old dog who was warming himself by the fire. When the dog felt the heat of the brouet, he yelped so horribly that it was pain to hear it; and he ran off with such a choler that a devil unchained could not have gone faster. He fled so furiously without heed of his steps he gave his head against a walnut tree, so hard and with such impetuosity that he brought down more than fifty-nine bushels of walnuts. ¶ The dog went dumb for a day for the blow he gave himself, and as for brouet, his whole ass peeled off like a monkey. ¶ The reader may note that the walnut tree stands near the brewery even to this day.

Schnittke, Symphony No. 2

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin MARGARET. Therewith the Creator of all spoke out. "Adam!" he said. And there was one who heard, indeed, it was Adam, who said, "Sire?" And God said, "Adam, it was I who made you. I made you with the earth, and with the light." "I see it," answered Adam. "It's all good." SCROOBY. It was all good for our Margaret, too, our storyteller. The trees heard her tale, also the stones under her feet; the air around her took in her voice; and rabbits hopped out of the branches to sit with birds who had come down to listen to Margaret tell of her mysteries and miracles; and all the animals who heard the girl, who had come to congregate around her, and whoever was there that was fragile, they all listened gladly to Margaret, for what she said to them was beautiful; and each little thing responded, "It's all good", while the day illuminated the girl. Theotinus, a learned man, wrote this legend. Now he brought the Devil to blacken the scene. His shadow fell, the animals scattered, and Margaret stood alone with evil. DIABOLUS. How's it going, Margaret? MARGARET. Begone, devil! DIABOLUS. Everything going well? MARGARET. Everything is. DIABOLUS. Things could be better. MARGARET. I've no idea how. DIABOLUS. Nothing pleasant comes to you? MARGARET. Maybe not. DIABOLUS. I know how. MARGARET. Why does it matter to me? DIABOLUS. Why shouldn't it? MARGARET. You are not important. DIABOLUS. I will be, though. MARGARET I have no idea when. I want nothing from you. DIABOLUS. Not even my silence? MARGARET. I do not care what you think or not think. DIABOLUS. You are a fool. Remember I said that. [ DIABOLUS exits ] tbc [ Dragon of Magic Photograph Sergio Luiz Cerezer Benetti Brazil 2024 ]

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin [ Dragon Skin Photograph Cody Roberts United States 2023 ]

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin This tale tells us there was a woman of city Antioch named Margaret, who would not be tempted by the devil, no matter the pains, or the temptations; and a dragon came to swallow her whole. How was it her mouth was larger than his? So Margaret overcame the devil by victory; and, in time, comforted many people with her holy doctrine, converting many to the faith of Cryst; though she herself met with premature death; however, you shall hear her words went on. tbc [ Dragon River No. 6 Photograph Ignas Maldus Lithuanua 2019 ]

Till the fall of the curtain : treasures from the National Fairground Archive Sheffield : The University of Sheffield, 2014.

Book of the Passion of Saint Margaret the Virgin [ place of publication not identified ] : [ publisher not identified ] , [ 1200 to 1350 ].

I beg you, sweet lady, show my love life. Glorious one, show mercy. I beg you, sweet lady; it is the way that I say; my honest heart loves you. Sweet lady, I beg you, show my love life. Lescurel, Ballades, 24. Douce dame, je vous pri, Faites de moi vostre ami. Belle, aies de moi merci. Douce dame, je vous pri Qu'il soit ainsi com je di. De cuer amoureus joli, Douce dame, je vous pri, Faites de moi vostre ami.