#WingedWordsWindsday: 03/30/2022 -- The Nine Muses, Plus One

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 22: March 30, 2022

 

 

Celebrating Women’s History Month

Episode #5: The Nine Muses, Plus One

 

Excerpt from The Age of Fable (Chapter 1) by Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867)

                The Muses were the daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne (Memory). They presided over song, and prompted the memory. They were nine in number, to each of whom was assigned the presidence over some particular department of literature, art, or science. Calliope was the muse of epic poetry, Clio of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of choral dance and song, Erato of love poetry, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of astronomy, Thalia of comedy.

 

Apollo and the Muses on Mount Helicon (1680) by Claude Lorrain. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Orphic Hymn #75: “To the Muses”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

Daughters of Jove, dire-sounding and divine,

Renowned Pierian, sweetly speaking Nine;

To those whose breasts your sacred furies fire

Much-formed, the objects of supreme desire:

Sources of blameless virtue to mankind,

Who form to excellence the youthful mind;

Who nurse the soul, and give her to descry

The paths of right with Reason's steady eye.

Commanding queens who lead to sacred light

The intellect refined from Error's night;

And to mankind each holy rite disclose,

For mystic knowledge from your nature flows.

Clio, and Erato, who charms the sight,

With thee Euterpe ministering delight:

Thalia flourishing, Polyhymnia famed,

Melpomene from skill in music named:

Terpischore, Urania heavenly bright,

With thee who gavest me to behold the light.

Come, venerable, various, powers divine,

With favoring aspect on your mystics shine;

Bring glorious, ardent, lovely, famed desire,

And warm my bosom with your sacred fire.

 

Proclus (410-485 CE): “Hymn to the Muses”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

A sacred light I sing, which leads on high

Jove's nine famed daughters, ruler of the sky,

Whose splendors beaming o'er this sea of life,

On souls hard struggling with its storms of strife,

Through mystic rites perfective and refined,

(From books which stimulate the sluggish mind)

From Earth's dire evils leads them to that shore,

Where grief and labor can infest no more;

And well instructs them how, with ardent wing,

From Lethe's deep, wide-spreading flood to spring,

And how once more their kindred stars to gain,

And ancient seats in truth's immortal plain,

From whence they wandering fell, through mad desire

Of matter's regions and allotments dire.

In me this rage repress, illustrious Nine!

And fill my mental eye with light divine.

Oh may the doctrines of the wise inspire

My soul with sacred Bacchanalian fire,

Lest men, with filthy piety replete,

From paths of beauteous light divert my feet.

Conduct my erring soul to sacred light,

From wandering generation's stormy night:

Wise through your volumes hence, the task be mine,

To sing in praise of eloquence divine,

Whose soothing power can charm the troubled soul,

And throbbing anguish and despair control.

Hear, splendid goddesses, of bounteous mind,

To whom the helm of wisdom is assigned,

And who the soul with all-attractive flame

Lead to the blest immortals whence she came,

From night profound enabling her to rise,

Forsake dull Earth, and gain her native skies,

And with unclouded splendor fill the mind,

By rites ineffable of hymns refined.

Hear, mighty saviors! and with holy light,

While reading works divine illume my sight,

And dissipate these mists, that I may learn

Immortal gods from mortals to discern;

Lest, plunged in drowsy Lethe's black abyss,

Some baneful daemon keep my soul from bliss;

And lest deep merged in Hyle's stormy mire,

Her powers reluctant suffer tortures dire,

And some chill Fury with her freezing chain,

In lingering lethargy my life detain.

All-radiant governors of wisdom's light,

To me now hastening from the realms of night,

And ardent panting for the coast of day,

Through sacred rites benignant point the way,

And mystic knowledge of my view disclose,

 

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672): “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America”

                The first published poet in British North America was Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), a learned resident of Massachusetts whose poetry earned her the nickname of “The Tenth Muse.” Her poems cover a wide range of subjects, such as everyday life in Colonial New England, history, biography, and science. Here is an example of her scientific poetry, a didactic piece on the four elements of ancient Greek science – earth, water, air, and fire.

 

A depiction of Anne Bradstreet from 1898 by Edmund H. Garrett. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“The Four Elements”

By Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

The Fire, Air, Earth and water did contest

Which was the strongest, noblest and the best,

Who was of greatest use and might'est force;

In placide Terms they thought now to discourse,

That in due order each her turn should speak;

But enmity this amity did break

All would be chief, and all scorn'd to be under

Whence issu'd winds & rains, lightning & thunder

The quaking earth did groan, the Sky lookt black

The Fire, the forced Air, in sunder crack;

The sea did threat the heav'ns, the heavn's the earth,

All looked like a Chaos or new birth:

Fire broyled Earth, & scorched Earth it choaked

Both by their darings, water so provoked

That roaring in it came, and with its source

Soon made the Combatants abate their force

The rumbling hissing, puffing was so great

The worlds confusion, it did seem to threat

Till gentle Air, Contention so abated

That betwixt hot and cold, she arbitrated

The others difference, being less did cease

All storms now laid, and they in perfect peace

That Fire should first begin, the rest consent,

The noblest and most active Element.

 

 

 

Welcome Springtime with Poetry!

Hello everyone –

The peoples of the ancient world looked forward to the arrival of springtime just as much as we do in our technomagical age. The spring equinox took place on Sunday, March 20^th, and there are already signs that spring is here.

 

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 86 Orphic Hymns is archived @ http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hoo/index.htm.

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

 

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

Latin Text from Hildegard of Bingen’s Symphonia, Translated by Yours Truly

        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.

 

This illumination from Hildegard’s book Scivias (Know the Pathways) is a “map” of the Universe as she understood it. Notice the “greenness” that encircles the spherical Earth in the center and the viriditas sprouting forth from the stars. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

“Welcome to the Sun”

Anonymous – Collected in Scotland (19th Century)

Editor’s Note: In the Germanic, Keltik, 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.

 

Until next time –

 

Rob 😊

 

#WingedWordsWindsday: 03/23/2022 -- Urania and Her Daughters

 WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 21: March 23, 2022

 

 

Celebrating Women’s History Month

Episode #4: Urania and Her Daughters

 

Editor’s Note

                In Classical Greece and Rome, it was believed that the nine Muses were the divinities who inspired people who had devoted their lives to the pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences. Urania, the Muse of astronomy, is the “star” of this week’s feature, and her “daughters” are women who have celebrated the wonders of the night sky in poetry. Keep looking up!

 

From Paradise Lost: Book 7, Lines 1-20

By John Milton (1608-1674)

Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name

If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine

Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,

Above the flight of Pegasean wing!

The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou

Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top

Of old Olympus dwellest; but, heavenly-born,

Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,

Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,

Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play

In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased

With thy celestial song. Up led by thee

Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,

An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,

Thy tempering: with like safety guided down

Return me to my native element:

Lest from this flying steed unreined, (as once

Bellerophon, though from a lower clime,)

Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,

Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.

 

The Muse Urania inspires the Greek poet Aratus to write the Phaenomena, his classic poem on astronomy. (Image Credit: Public Domain)

 

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

By Jane Taylor (1783-1824)

 

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are,

Up above the world so high,

Like a diamond in the sky.

 

When the blazing Sun is set,

And the grass with dew is wet,

Then you show your little light,

Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

 

Then the traveler in the dark

Thanks you for your tiny spark,

He could not see where to go

If you did not twinkle so.

 

In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often through my curtains peep,

For you never shut your eye

Till the Sun is in the sky.

 

As your bright and tiny spark

Lights the traveler in the dark,

Though I know not what you are,

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

 

“Stars”

By Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

 

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun

Restored our Earth to joy,

Have you departed, every one,

And left a desert sky?

 

All through the night, your glorious eyes

Were gazing down in mine,

And, with a full heart’s thankful sighs,

I blessed that watch divine.

 

I was at peace, and drank your beams

As they were life to me;

And reveled in my changeful dreams,

Like petrel on the sea.

 

Thought followed thought, star followed star,

Through boundless regions, on;

While one sweet influence, near and far,

Thrilled through, and proved us one!

 

Why did the morning dawn to break

So great, so pure, a spell;

And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,

Where your cool radiance fell?

 

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,

His fierce beams struck my brow;

The soul of nature sprang, elate,

But mine sank sad and low!

 

My lids closed down, yet through their veil

I saw him, blazing, still,

And steep in gold the misty dale,

And flash upon the hill.

 

I turned me to the pillow, then,

To call back night, and see

Your worlds of solemn light, again,

Throb with my heart, and me!

 

It would not do—the pillow glowed,

And glowed both roof and floor;

And birds sang loudly in the wood,

And fresh winds shook the door;

 

The curtains waved, the wakened flies

Were murmuring round my room,

Imprisoned there, till I should rise,

And give them leave to roam.

 

Oh, stars, and dreams, and gentle night;

Oh, night and stars, return!

And hide me from the hostile light

That does not warm, but burn;

 

That drains the blood of suffering men;

Drinks tears, instead of dew;

Let me sleep through his blinding reign,

And only wake with you!

 

“What Do the Stars Do?

By Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

 

What do the stars do

Up in the sky,

Higher than the wind can blow,

Or the clouds can fly?

Each star in its own glory

Circles, circles still;

As it was lit to shine and set,

And do its Maker’s will.

 

“Stars”

By Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall (1883-1922)

 

Now in the West the slender Moon lies low,

And now Orion glimmers through the trees,

Clearing the Earth with even pace and slow,

And now the stately-moving Pleiades,

In that soft infinite darkness overhead

Hang jewel-wise upon a silver thread.

 

And all the lonelier stars that have their place,

Calm lamps within the distant southern sky,

And planet-dust upon the edge of space,

Look down upon the fretful world, and I

Look up to outer vastness unafraid

And see the stars which sang when Earth was made.

 

“Stars”

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

 

Alone in the night

On a dark hill

With pines around me

Spicy and still,

 

And a heaven full of stars

Over my head,

White and topaz

And misty red;

 

Myriads with beating

Hearts of fire

That aeons

Cannot vex or tire;

 

Up the dome of heaven

Like a great hill,

I watch them marching

Stately and still,

 

And I know that I

Am honored to be

Witness

Of so much majesty.

 

“Arcturus”

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

 

Arcturus brings the spring back

As surely now as when

He rose on eastern islands

For Grecian girls and men;

 

The twilight is as clear a blue,

The star as shaken and as bright,

And the same thought he gave to them

He gives to me to-night.

 

Arcturus is the fourth-brightest star in the night sky as seen from Earth, prominent on spring evenings in the Northern Hemisphere. (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain)