Spring Equinox 2020

Hello everyone –



Editor’s Note: Quotemail will continue to be distributed every other Friday, in order to bring some encouragement and edutainment to my subscribers. Please stay safe and healthy, follow all directions given by the public health authorities, and (as my grandmother would often remind me) wash your hands! J





The peoples of the ancient world looked forward to the arrival of springtime just as much as we do in our technomagical age. The Vernal Equinox, which marks the official beginning of springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, arrived @ 10:50 PM (CDT) yesterday! :) Here are some poems (with commentary) to help you celebrate the changing of the seasons.





Celebrating Springtime with Orphic Poetry

By Rob Chappell (Reprinted from Cursus Honorum’s March 2007 Issue)

                The annual cycle of the seasons and its effects on our natural surroundings are recurring themes throughout world literature. The Orphic poets – a guild of ancient Greek philosopher-bards named after their legendary founder, Orpheus – celebrated the changing of the seasons, the wonders of the natural world, and their lofty ideals in poetic chants, several dozen of which were preserved in written form after centuries of oral transmission. In the poetic forms of their prescientific age (ca. 1000-500 BCE), the Orphic poets chose to personify the forces of Nature, the celestial orbs, and abstract ideals in order to explain how and why the natural world and the human social order function in the ways that they do.

                Here is an example of Orphic poetry to welcome in the springtime – a poem to the seasons (here personified as the daughters of Zeus/Jupiter):



Orphic Hymn #42: “To the Seasons”

(Translated by Thomas Taylor, 1792)

Daughters of Jove and Themis, Seasons bright,

Justice, and blessed peace, and lawful right,

Vernal and grassy, vivid, holy powers,

Whose balmy breath exhales in lovely flowers;

All-colored Seasons, rich increase your care,

Circling forever, flourishing and fair:

Invested with a veil of shining dew,

A flowery veil delightful to the view:

Attending Proserpine, when back from night,

The Fates and Graces lead her up to light;

When in a band harmonious they advance,

And joyful round her form the solemn dance:

With Ceres triumphing, and Jove divine,

Propitious come, and on our incense shine;

Give Earth a blameless store of fruits to bear,

And make a novel mystic’s life your care.



“Orpheus” by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Orpheus with his lute made trees

And the mountain tops that freeze

Bow themselves when he did sing:

To his music plants and flowers

Ever sprung; as Sun and showers

There had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play,

Even the billows of the sea,

Hung their heads and then lay by.

In sweet music is such art,

Killing care and grief of heart

Fall asleep, or hearing, die.



Further Reading on the Orphic Tradition

•       The extant collection of Orphic Hymns is archived @ http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hoo/index.htm.

•       The Middle English poem Sir Orfeo – a Keltified retelling of the Greek legend of Orpheus – is available (with annotations) @ http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/orfeo.htm.

•       The Derveni Papyrus (composed in Greek during the 4th century BCE and discovered in 1962) contains an Orphic poem and an esoteric commentary based on Orphic philosophy (see http://www.crystalinks.com/derveni_papyrus.html).





“O Nobilissima Viriditas” (“O Very Noble Greenness”)

Latin Text from Hildegard of Bingen’s Symphonia, Translated by Rob Chappell

                Editor’s Note: Magistra Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a natural philosopher, pharmacologist, musician, and artist who disseminated her teachings about viriditas (the vivifying “greenness” in Nature) through her extensive Latin writings, which included scientific texts, medical treatises, and polyphonic musical compositions. In “O Nobilissima Viriditas,” Hildegard identifies the source of viriditas as something “rooted in the Sun” – that is, in the life-giving energies radiating from our parent star that make life possible on Earth. In modern scientific terms, we would say that solar radiation is the catalyst for photosynthesis in green plants, which form the base of the food chain.



O nobilissima Viriditas, quae radicas in Sole,

Et quae in candida serenitate luces in rota,

Quam nulla terrena excellentia comprehendis!

Tu circumdata es amplexibus divinorum mysteriorum.

Tu rubes ut Aurora et ardes ut Solis flamma.



O very noble greenness, you are rooted in the Sun,

And you shine in bright serenity in a circle

That no terrestrial excellence comprehends!

You are enclosed by the embrace of divine mysteries.

You blush like the Dawn and burn like a flame of the Sun.





“Welcome to the Sun”

Anonymous – Collected in Scotland (19th Century)

                Editor’s Note: In the Germanic, Keltik, Baltic, and Slavic languages – as well as in Japanese – the Sun is feminine and the Moon is masculine.



Welcome to you, Sun of the seasons’ turning,

In your circuit of the high heavens;

Strong are your steps on the unfurled heights,

Glad Mother are you to the constellations.



You sink down into the ocean of want,

Without defeat, without scathe;

You rise up on the peaceful wave

Like a Queen in her maidenhood's flower.





Happy Vernal Equinox! J



Rob