Saturday, March 28, 2020

eden, eve, adam, etc ... having just finished reading milton's paradise lost on-line ... a proper epic, full of marvellous images and language, wonderfully imagined, even if it is a bit far-fetched ...

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/text.shtml

dartmouth's john milton reading room is the place to go

francis hayman worked on his edition of paradise lost for four years ...

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/171798/pdf

another article ...

https://oakland.edu/Assets/Oakland/oujournal/files-and-documents/24_the_image_of_satan.pdf

... to be continued ... as & when the unexpected pictures occur ...

Monday, March 23, 2020

Today's ear-worm ... MISALLIANCE by Flanders and Swann

Misalliance Lyrics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYr0eNtpDHs

The fragrant honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun,
And many other creepers do the same.
But some climb anti-clockwise, the bindweed does, for one,
Or Convolvulus, to give her proper name.
Rooted on either side a door, one of each species grew,
And raced towards the window-ledge above.
Each corkscrewed to the lintel in the only way it knew,
Where they stopped, touched tendrils, smiled, and fell in love.

Said the right-handed honeysuckle to the left-handed bindweed,
"Oh, let us get married, if our parents don't mind, we'd
Be loving and inseparable, inextricably entwined, we'd
Live happily ever after" said the honeysuckle to the bindweed.

To the honeysuckle's parents it came as a shock.
"The bindweeds," they cried, "are inferior stock!
They're uncultivated, of breeding bereft,
We twine to the right and they twine to the left."

Said the anti-clockwise bindweed to the clockwise honeysuckle,
"We'd better start saving, many a mickle macks a muckle,
Then run away for a honeymoon and hope that our luck'll
Take a turn for the better" said the bindweed to the honeysuckle.

A bee who was passing remarked to them then,
"I've said it before and I'll say it again,
Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be,
They'll never receive any blessing from me".
"Poor little sucker, how will it learn,
When it is climbing, which way to turn?
Right, left, what a disgrace,
Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face!"

Said the right-hand-thread honeysuckle to the left-hand-thread bindweed,
"It seems they're against us, all fate has combined.
Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Colombine,
Thou art lost and gone forever, we shall never intertwine".

Together, they found them, the very next day,
They had pulled up their roots and just shrivelled away.
Deprived of that freedom for which we must fight,
To veer to the left or to veer to the right!

Sunday, March 22, 2020

paradise lost ... illustrations by william blake, but not his first attempt ... this set commissioned by his friend thomas butts in 1808 ... nine are held in boston ... one in the huntington library ... another is in the V&A ... if i can find decent images of all then i'll try to put them in blake's order at a later date ... perhaps when i've finished reading milton's original

Christ accepting the Office of Redeemer (Book 3, l. 227). Satan floats below God and his angels, with a spear in his hand.

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/william-blakes-illustrations-for-paradise-lost-1808#