The
Caunterbury Tales : Prologue
Here
bygynneth the Book
of the tales of Caunterbury
1:
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
2:
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
3:
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
4:
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5:
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
6:
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7:
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8:
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
9:
And smale foweles maken melodye,
10:
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
11:
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
12:
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
13:
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
14:
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15:
And specially from every shires ende
16:
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
17:
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
Archbishop Thomas
Becket
Murdered at this
Site in 1170.
This, the last day
of April, is a tribute to both
Thomas Becket and
Geoffrey Chaucer
***
You have a deep love for history, literature and human character, boy.
- Post. - Amorella
1353 hours. Had my bath and am dressed ready to
meet the outside world. Sitting on the front pouch listening to the St. Susanna
Catholic kids on the playground across from nearby Muddy Creek. Carol is over
talking to Donna L. next door and I am enjoying the blue sky, shade from the
full sun and all the green mixed with a sprinkling of colorful flowers and
flowering trees. It is a wonderful time of the year. The furnace is off and the
windows up. It is a cat's joy to smell the outside and look for assorted
bunnies, squirrels, birds and the buzzing of bumblebees and wasps. Tomorrow the
lawn needs re-mowed. Time to get the deck furniture out of the basement. I even
have my sandals on. Such is Spring in southwest Ohio.
You are waiting to go to lunch. You want to
better complete Dead 17. The grass is growing faster than you expected and you
have to finish edging the front of the yard at the street. This is where you
are at present. - Amorella
Mid-afternoon.
You had a late lunch at Five Guys Burgers and Fries and ate at one of the
outside table overlooking the traffic on Tylersville. Presently you are sitting
at the north lot at Pine Hill Lakes. Carol brought an unread book but is
reading a new Better Homes and Garden. Let's go to Dead 17 and clean it up. -
Amorella
You
just received a note from Jim Powers, you were asking your friend and former
Indian Hill colleague about ancient Greek greetings. This is his reply:
** **
Stock greeting among
classical Attic Greeks (5th c. BCE and thereafter) was "xaire"
(chi-alpha-iota-rho-eta) which can be translated as "rejoice!" And
the vocative ends masculine names with an eta. Not sure about vocative feminine
ending. If he's able to be familiar (probably not) he could clasp forearms with
them. Otherwise, (more likely) an inclination of the upper body from the waist
(not a deeply as the Japanese bow) would certainly be a cordial sign of
respect. Now, I'm reminded of the remarkable scene of Odysseus' trip to the
Underworld. I don't recall any depictions of how the blessed are met with and
exchange with live guests in Elysium.
Soldier on!
--
Jim
** **
1633 hours. Jim is certainly helpful here. This draft is better, Amorella. I am surprised at the conclusion.
Who would have thought Merlyn, a Celt, would have the better of the two Greeks?
Merlyn is the centermost. What else would
you expect? - Amorella
I am still in awe of Plutarch and Pythia.
You have the imagination to create such a
statement. I do not. Add and post when plausible. Later, dude. - Amorella
***
The Dead 17 ©2013, rho, completed
The
observer changes what is observed, thought Merlyn as sat facing south toward
the meadow of ragged robin and white foxglove from the stage ruins in his
sanctuary. He groused, "I am watched and even read." How does this
entanglement in spirit change me?
I
can only read my own mind through it as a measuring device. I measure the human
heart through my own first, and I measure my soul through my intuition of the
conditional aspects of what others and myself consider the soul to be. These
are as rays of light filtered through a deepened, dark-bottomed water-like
consciousness, which rises or sinks as an alter ego, a presence of my own
making forever without a mirrored reflection.
This
presence is also an observer but separate and unlike myself -- a parallel and
unequal self -- a natural doppelganger of spirit, this is the non-shadowed
presence. This is a sensory experience, a human experience, be the spirit
encased in living matter or no. Nothing is observed; however, the lingering
awareness of 'a separate being' in heartansoulanmind exists nevertheless.
Merlyn
fell into a memory of Plutarch, whom he met at the Academy of Athens when
Plutarch was in a parallel and entangled memory. Plutarch was stand with his
friend Senecio and their discussion was on how long consciousness would last
after death.
"Excuse
me," uttered Merlyn, "Did I overhear that one of you is Plutarch of
Chaeronea, the once senior priest at Delphi?"
"I
am," commented the Greek on the right. "And you are?"
"Merlyn,
a man interested in the arts, living some six hundred years after yourself and
your friend, Senecio, I presume."
"Yes,
I am," responded Senecio somewhat interested, "And you are which
Merlyn?"
"Merlyn,
a Scottish bard of the seventh century."
"I
know of you Merlyn," noted Plutarch. "You are interested in
Pythia."
"And,
yourself," divulged Merlyn. "I see we are engaged through channeled
memories."
"Astute
of you."
"I
would like to meet Pythia."
Plutarch
smiled confidently, "What is unclear, Merlyn?"
Merlyn
spoke distinctly and clearly, "Pythia in a tranced mind."
In
a manner echoing Merlyn's, Plutarch asserted, "We two have a similar
interest at heart."
"Dead,
does she still make pronouncements?"
"An
oracle needs not Delphi or any other place. Besides, what is more sacred than
Elysium?"
Merlyn
observed Senecio smiling then nodding politely before fading like worn colors
in a rainbow and an old thought wandered into sight, 'perhaps Avalon is more
sacred than Elysium'.
"Senecio
and I will talk later, Merlyn."
Merlyn
turned to his left to see an attending fair and vibrant female physique
personify from air. I am reminded of the sword thrust only this graceful fresh
hand grasps the blade and pull rather than push from the hilt.
"Xaire,
Pythia, how kind of you to join us," commented the now world-weary
Plutarch in the land of the ancient Greek Dead.
She
appears Celtic rather than Greek, thought Merlyn. Coal black hair falling near,
parsing her wide-open green eyes slanting his direction as thin theatre
curtains. 'What a wonderfully well looking woman you were in life' flew into
his mind as he bowed slightly and said, "I am Merlyn, a sage of Caledonia,
old Scotland."
"I know your name."
"This
is during the First Rebellion," responded Merlyn. I am not yet born to physically
die and move on."
She
noted, "Yet here you are, and we three talk together as though we three
are livingandead at once."
"We
speak through our heartsanminds," recited Merlyn confidently, "not
our souls as you think."
"The
soul is first," disciplined Plutarch, "our souls gathered for this
meeting."
"Souls
do not display purpose," revealed Merlyn unapologetically. He asked,
"I cannot foresee the future and am looking for a clue as to how the
Second Rebellion will help or hinder the future Living?"
While
seemingly speaking from her soul, Pythia remarked, "I see your many eyes,
Merlyn."
Merlyn's
hand rose gently and he touched her left cheek without caution saying, "I
have only the two eyes I had in life."
Plutarch
grumbled, "You cannot be alive and dead both at once. This is a dangerous
illusion Merlyn. This meeting is in a fact, unconstructible."
Pythia
gathered her face into Plutarch and reasoned, "I know what Merlyn wishes
and you may speak my response to him."
"The
lumpiness under a bushy tops hold the dusty desert to the ground, Merlyn,"
said Plutarch in feminine voice, "While the small wind-made dry furrowing
arteries blast free from below the bushy tops."
"A
riddle for the Living, not for me," declared Merlyn with a grin.
Coiling
within mind Pythia whispered to the inner heart of her oldest of friends
Plutarch, "This man walks with eyes in the soles of his feet, and I swear
that upon the touch of his finger on my cheek I felt a tear."
805 words
***
