For the first time since going away to college, I'm home for Easter. It's lovely here -- cool but bright, and even though the trees haven't begun to bud yet as they have in Iowa, it feels just like Spring. <3 It's really great to be at home, because my family is here and my cats are here.

I went to the Good Friday service at my family's church last night, and it was really beautiful. We sang over and over: "Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom," which I think is really one of the most beautiful stories/phrases in the Easter story. Even if I'm not particularly devout, it's touching, and it really made me think. There's a new pastor at this little old church since the last time I was here, and he's a very thoughtful preacher. He focused on these very simple words of Jesus on the cross: "I thirst."

So, in a thoughtful and reflective mood, I present to you today's medieval poem. This one is a Holy Week poem in Middle English and is likely very old, though the dating of it is uncertain; its first appearance is in a manuscript of the early 13th century, but I think it's probably at least a century older than that. It relies on wordplay and punning on certain key words: sonne/sone (sun/son) and rode (face/cross), and it's really just a very simple and lovely early English poem to Mary at the foot of the cross.

Nou goth sonne under wod
Anonymous; of uncertain date, but no later than 1200

Nou goth sonne under wod;
Me reweth, Marie, thi faire rode.
Nou goth sonne under tre;
Me reweth, Marie, thi sone and thee.

Now the sun goes under wood;
I pity, Mary, thy fair face (and/or cross).
Now the sun goes under tree;
I pity, Mary, thy son and thee.

I have no awesome picture today, since I'm not on my own computer; sorry for the lack. In place of that, I offer a link: Middle English Marian Lyrics, the book, online. Yaaay TEAMS. <3

Just a quick note before I run off to work: the Iowa Supreme Court is announcing its decision on the marriage equality issue today. Please cross your fingers that the great state of Iowa will be the next to declare "separate and not equal" marriage unconstitutional.

EDIT: As of this morning, Iowa's discriminatory marriage laws have been ruled unconstitutional.

I have nothing really to say here except for great joy and celebration, and: "As Iowa goes, so goes the nation." We will have just laws one day. I'm sure of this.

I love my adopted state. ♥

Here's a pretty poem for today -- a song in praise of Mary, a very popular subject in the Middle Ages. This one is fairly fascinating because of the way it portrays Christ as simultaneously Mary's son and her lover. Interesting, interesting.

( As dew in Aprylle / That fallyt on the flour )

Also, have a picture of Madonna and Child, from a psalter made in Normandy around 1180. I love how medieval illustrations show the baby Jesus as like a little miniature adult. It's so surreal, and yet so awesome. <3

( He cam al so stylle )

So it's April again, and you know what that means! Yes! National Jazz Awareness Month!

...April fools? Yeah, I know, that was pretty weak. Actually, it is Jazz Awareness Month, so you should be aware of jazz for the next few days, but more importantly, it's National Poetry Month! Which means, of course, that callirhoe will, on my honor, present a bit of verse each day for the next thirty days. I actually managed to do this last year, and it was good times for all, I think.

This go 'round, in honor of my thesis on medieval German poetry and my graduation next month with, among other things, a Medieval Studies certificate, I am going to give my poetry selections a medieval tilt. (Ha, tilt. Get it? Like tilting? Oh, I kill myself sometimes.) Thirty medieval lyrics coming right up! I'm also hoping to include an image from one of my many, many favorite beautifully illuminated manuscripts with each day's poem. Because, really, why not?

( Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry: Avril )

If you know my literary loves, you prooobably can guess what my first poetry selection will be. I believe this may also have been my first choice from last year, too, but I could be wrong. If you need a hint, here, have a hint. (Oh, that man. ♥)

( And smale foweles maken melodye )

( And in modern translation, too! )

Hurrah, April. ♥

My thesis is eating my life, but it's due in a week and a half, so everything should be better then. Right? (Please, world, have mercy.)

In lieu of anything significant to blog about, please accept a recipe for something that has actually probably kept me reasonably sane during this whole process. Microwave chocolate cake. I know, I know, you've tried it and it's terrible, right? Believe me, I feel the pain, but THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT! I swear.

The first recipe I found for it was okay, but the ingredients could have been better used in brownies or something -- the taste was a little odd, not chocolatey enough, and the texture was quite rubbery -- too much egg for one little cake! But then I was pointed towards a recipe that omitted the egg and used milk and oil for binding purposes and baking soda for rising purposes, and oh, that was so much better. Still a little less chocolatey than I wanted, though, and I thought the ingredient proportions were off, and I wanted to try it with some brown sugar for moistness and deliciousness, so I modified the recipe a bit. My results (ooey-gooey, chock full of chocolate, and oh so easy) are below.

( This recipe is dangerous. You have been warned. )

I've been thinking for a long time of cutting off all my hair. By this I mean all of it, literally. I'm scared to do it, sort of, because I've had looong hair for a very long time now - I don't think my hair has been shorter than my shoulders since junior high: at least seven years ago. Right now, my hair reaches halfway down my back, almost to my elbows.

But last night I had a very vivid dream in which I took a pair of scissors and cut off my hair. It felt so nice. In the dream I was smiling and smiling, and oh, it really made me happy. Even thinking about the dream makes me feel good, right now. I was cutting and cutting, and I could run my fingers over my head and feel the fuzzy cut ends, and I loved it. I just had the feeling of utter contentment, like this was what I needed to do to be happy.

So here, have a poll. I really want to know what you all think - about dreams and about hair.

Poll #1345889 Haircut time?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

Should I cut my hair super short?

Is it ever a good idea to do something because of a dream?

Have you ever done something (or not done something) because of a dream?

How long is your hair?

Thank yeeew. <3

This is more for my own personal interest than anything else - the Lord's Prayer is one of the texts which we have in many versions, in many languages. The earliest extant version in a Germanic language is in the Codex Argenteus or Silver Bible, which is an absolutely gorgeous 6th-century copy of Bishop Ulfilas's 4th-century translation of the Bible into Gothic. It's fascinating to me how you can see the progression from that version to what we see today, and where the various bits were added or changed. For example, the last line of today's English version ("For thine is the kingdom...") first appears in both English and German during the Renaissance period. I have a hunch that this is Martin Luther's doing, but perhaps the oral tradition of the prayer had changed before him? Honestly, I know very little about this subject, but it really intrigues me.

In any case, I digress. If you're interested, click below. :-)

( Comparing the Lord's Prayer in some Germanic languages through the centuries )

I have here some riddles to tickle your brains. ;-)

I've recently been translating a whole bunch. My current project, to be turned in on Monday for my translation workshop, is several Old English riddles from the Exeter Book (which, interesting fact, is one of only four major sources of the entire corpus of extant OE poetry). This one is probably my favorite. I love how the language lends itself to a very poetic translation - the focus here is not on the riddle as a riddle, but the riddle as a poem, a description in gorgeous figurative language.

There’s a wind that bears little creatures
over the mountain slopes – glittering things,
dusky and dark-coated. Exuberant with song,
they travel in troops, shrieking aloud
as they pass over woody cliffs or, sometimes,
into the houses of men. Listen – they name themselves.

The interesting thing about the riddles of the Exeter Book is that no solutions are given. Scholars have been occupied since at least the middle of the nineteenth century with proposing solutions, and while scholars have come to a consensus about many of the riddles, there are also many which we're still scratching our heads over. The one above does have an accepted solution, though others have been proposed (see below for the different answers). The next one, though, is definitely a riddle-qua-riddle, and has only one possible solution, and it's funny. Sort of. If you have an Anglo-Saxon sense of humor.

A man sat down to drink wine with his two wives,
and his two sons, and his two daughters,
the sweet sisters, and their two sons,
fair first-born boys; the father of each
young prince was also present,
and two pairs of uncles and nephews. In all,
there were five men and women sitting within.

The trick with this one is the word "wives" in the first line: the Old English word wif can mean either "wife" or "woman", so you have to think about it that way. I didn't get this one right away - it's sort of mind-bending.

Once you've thought it over, ( come below the cut for the answers! )

I have some more Middle High German riddles to work on, so if y'all are interested, I could put those up as well. They're very different - more along the lines of the song-riddles of the Early Modern English tradition, with a question and response format.

First thing: ( Which Star Trek character am I? )

Second thing: A few days ago I made a batch of Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies and discovered that while the cookies are very good, the cookie dough, especially after a night of refrigeration, is an absolute heaven of creamy, cool, smooth, chocolatey chocolate-chippy amazingness. It makes me want to make another batch of it just for the dough. But that would be bad of me, maybe, so I won't.

Third thing: School rocks my socks off so hard. <333

I'm just blogging to note for posterity that I am a witness to the amazing, amazing sight of George W. Bush and Barack Obama getting in a car together and driving away. And then they both got out again, and they were both still alive. How amazing is that?

I have to go to my first class of the semester in about fifteen minutes, so I'll miss part of the actual inauguration, but I don't mind so much, because wow.

Such a fantastic day this is. <3

Sooo I am home with my fantastic family in Minnesota, where it is, at this moment, and I am not joking about this, nineteen degrees below zero. Negative nineteen. The temperature has not risen above zero in like three days. I will not even get into the windchill factor. Tomorrow morning it's expected to be twenty-five degrees below zero.

I am so cold. Help.

Other than that, I love winter! It's fun being home with my baby brother, who's still adorable and my baby even if he's six inches taller than I am. And I just got a new laptop and have been playing around with it and having lots of fun. Also, I'm knitting a Fair Isle sweater; it's fairly terrifying, but I'm pulling through. Yay for semester breaks.

On Saturday it's back to Iowa for the beginning of my very last semester of my undergraduate degree! I'm so thrilled. It's going to be awesome to get out of college and have my degree and, I don't know, maybe actually do something with my life. And my final classes are so awesome. Thus: Medieval Civilization; the undergraduate translation workshop; a course on the shift from manuscript to print culture; annnd a calligraphy class on the history of Western letterforms (which I am sincerely hoping includes Fraktur, which would be amazing and sweet and I could do SO MUCH with that yessss). Sounds like fun, yes? Yes. I thought so.

It is so beautiful and snowy out right now! I love December. <3

Also, I have a draft of my senior thesis due in approximately twenty-one hours. Eep.

Not that I am drinking, of course (heavens no!). This is a poem about religious tolerance and tolerance in general, and being friends, and being happy, and also about drinking. And since I missed yesterday (I humbly beg your pardon; I was writing a paper and it just slipped away from me, but maybe it counts because I was writing a paper on an epic poem! y/n?), there are two poems for the price of one today!

Come, Send Round the Wine
Thomas Moore

Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages and reasoning fools;
This moment's a flower too fair and too brief
To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools.
Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue,
But, while they are fill'd from the same bright bowl,
The fool who would quarrel for difference of hue,
Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul.

Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
If he kneel not before the same altar with me?
From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly,
To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss?
No, perish the hearts, and the laws that would try
Truth, valour, or love, by a standard like this!

Aww, Tommy Moore. <3 He was really a cool guy. He was Irish and Catholic and a Romantic poet and very good friends with Byron, and he was well thought of in his time, though nowadays he's sort of dismissed by a lot of critics and scholars and other people who get to judge those things. But Byron thought Moore was pretty much the bomb, and he wrote all these poems to him in letters. Below the cut (see, I am nice), have a poem Byron wrote to Moore. It's also about drinking! But more about friendship, really. It's sweet. "My Boat Is On the Shore" is contained in a letter Byron wrote to Moore on 10 July 1817, when Byron was staying in Venice.

( Cheers, Tom Moore! )

Also, wow, today was the last day of April. Crazy how fast that goes, isn't it? Eek.

Well, my big Shakespeare paper was due today, so at least that's crossed off my list.

Now for a Roman Lit paper and a rough draft of my Medieval Lit paper. Ack. This week, no, I do not like it.

Here, have some Tennyson. I am well aware that Tennyson wrote all those huuuge and lovely poems (In Memoriam, oh my soul!), but for your sake and mine, have a little bitty one instead.

Flower in the Crannied Wall
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

To a Daughter Leaving Home
Linda Pastan

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

On a far, far more positive note than my last entry: E.E. Cummings! I love the man; I love the pure joy of sound in his poetry. This poem, "anyone lived in a pretty how town", is one of my very very favorites of his poems. I think it's just gorgeous and amazing, the way the sounds flow and dance with one another. Please read this one aloud, even if (or especially if!) there are other people around. It's too gorgeous when spoken to let it remain on the page. :-)

anyone lived in a pretty how town
E.E. Cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

Yesterday there was a poem by Vittoria Colonna. Today there is a poem about Vittoria Colonna. Because, well, I think she's cool. :-)

To Vittoria Colonna
Michelangelo Buonarroti (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

When the prime mover of many sighs
Heaven took through death from out her earthly place,
Nature, that never made so fair a face,
Remained ashamed, and tears were in all eyes.
O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries!
O hopes fallacious! O thou spirit of grace,
Where art thou now? Earth holds in its embrace
Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the skies.
Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay
The rumor of thy virtuous renown,
That Lethe's waters could not wash away!
A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken thee down,
Speak of thee, not to thee could Heaven convey,
Except through death, a refuge and a crown.

Vittoria Colonna: a sixteenth-century Italian poet. She was friends with Michaelangelo! This is a translation of one of her sonnets, and I think it's lovely.

Quel bel ginepro, cui d'intorno cinge
Vittoria Colonna

See that lovely juniper, pressed so hard,
angry winds swirl round her, but she'll not let
her leaves fall or scatter; clenched, branches held
high, she gathers strength; her refuge within.

This, my friend, is a picture of my soul
standing firm against all; if life's ravaged,
weakened me, my fear's contained, and I win
by enduring a pain which makes it hurt

to breathe. Mine was a noble dream, sheltered
in his splendor and love, my pride would be
restored; I would encounter life's bitter

battles. Nature taught this tree to resist:
in me you see what reason can perform
how from the worst evil good can grow.

And of course, whenever juniper is mentioned, one cannot help but think of The Juniper Tree.

And also the book Wise Child by Monica Furlong, which I loved when I was young. The teacher's name was Juniper. Does anyone else remember that one? I read it sooo many times. My copy was all falling to pieces, last time I saw it. Oh, but it was a good book.

My awesome Shakespeare professor informed us today that, it being the Hon. Wm. Shakespeare's 444th birthday (give or take a day or two), she was going to bake us all a cake, except that it is Passover and therefore there is No Cake Allowed. We still sang Happy Birthday Dear Shakespeare, though. And then we discussed A Thousand Acres, which is a marvelous, marvelous book, if you haven't read it, that's a modern retelling of the King Lear story. How nice and cheerful, right?

In honor of the Bard's big day, have a song that ties in with the Oscar Wilde poem from yesterday. It's amazing how many poems are written on this same theme. This song is sung by the clown Feste in Twelfth Night.

Oh Mistress Mine
William Shakespeare*

Oh mistress mine! where are you roaming?
Oh! stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

*Note: It's not a proven fact that Shakespeare wrote the song, or any of the songs in his plays. It's possible that they're the work of someone else and Shakespeare just appropriated them for his plays. Still, it's customary to attribute the songs to Shakespeare, just because he's the one who used them and in whose manuscripts they survive. Isn't that interesting to know?

Because it's Earth Day, have an earth-y poem. This is one of my favorites by Oscar Wilde. It has essentially the same theme as Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" or Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," except Wilde spins this idea of loving while one still can into the circular nature of, well, nature. (Yes, I am eloquent this morning.) I've chosen a section of this poem, "Panthea," with Earth Day sort of themes. You should really read the whole poem, though, because it's lovely. <3

From Panthea (full poem here)
Oscar Wilde

We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

With beat of systole and of diastole
One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill.

From lower cells of waking life we pass
To full perfection; thus the world grows old:
We who are godlike now were once a mass
Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold,
Unsentient or of joy or misery,
And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept sea.

This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn
Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil,
Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn
To water-lilies; the brown fields men till
Will be more fruitful for our love to-night,
Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death’s despite.

The boy’s first kiss, the hyacinth’s first bell,
The man’s last passion, and the last red spear
That from the lily leaps, the asphodel
Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear
Of too much beauty, and the timid shame
Of the young bride-groom at his lover’s eyes,—these with the same

One sacrament are consecrate, the earth
Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good.

In other news, I'm in the process of registering for classes -- eek! I'll make another post about that later, because I love to spam my flist. :-)