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St Paul In the context of the Roman Catholic Church, and Christianity more broadly, we are living in troubled times, whether it is to do with the truth about the nature and purpose of marriage, the role of women in the church, or as to whether priests (from a Roman Catholic point of view) should or should not be married. And as if that, together with dwindling congregations, were not trouble enough, we have the unresolved scandals in respect of pedophile priests. But there are more subtle tensions also, in the shape of topics that are not necessarily to the forefront in public consciousness. Pope Francis has expressed concern about career bishops, men who have come to see themselves as administrators, rather than as men appointed to care (in a pastoral sense) for priests, as well as the faithful. And the bishops are complaining about the over-arching hand of the Vatican when it comes to dealing with clergy, who, in one respect or another, are seen as dissident. So, in this context, they are calling for more autonomy and the opportunity to address these complex issues themselves, turning to the Vatican only as a last resort. And some priests are complaining about their bishops, and some of the faithful are asking to have a say when it comes to appointing their bishop. So it is against this background that I offer you this thought provoking excerpt from the apostle Paul's letter to Timothy, which I have taken from the Office of Readings for today: __________
"You can depend on this; whoever wants to be a bishop aspires to a noble task. A bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, of even temper, self-controlled, modest and hospitable. He should be a good teacher. He must not be addicted to drink. He ought not to be contentious but, rather, gentle, a man of peace. Nor can he be someone who loves money. He must be a good manager of his own household, keeping his children under control without sacrificing his dignity; for if a man does not know how to manage his own house, how can he take care of the Church of God? He should not be a new convert, lest he become conceited and thus incur the punishment once meted out to the devil. He must also be well thought of by those outside the church, to ensure that he does not fall into disgrace and the Devil's trap.
In the same way, deacons must be serious, straightforward, and truthful. They must not overindulge in drink or give in to greed. They must hold fast to the divinely revealed faith with a clear conscience. They should be put on probation first; then, if there is nothing against them, they may serve as deacons. The women, similarly, should be serious, not slanderous gossips. They should be temperate and entirely trustworthy. Deacons may be married but once and must be good managers of their children and their households. Those who serve well as deacons gain a worthy place for themselves and much assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.
Although I hope to visit you soon, I am writing you about these matters so that if I should be delayed you will know what kind of conduct befits a a member of God's household, the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of truth. Wonderful, indeed, is the mystery of our faith, as we say in professing it:
"He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated in the Spirit;
Seen by the angels;
preached among the Gentiles,
Believed in throughout the world,
taken up into glory."
Recently while writing to a friend in China, whose pet name is that of a bird, and symbolic of a desire to be free, I had occasion to recall a book that I read some years ago. It was, 1421 The Year China Discovered The World, by Gavin Menzies. A retired submariner, he charts in meticulous detail the voyages of discovery by the Chinese, and especially the journeys of the "treasure fleets", and of how these great adventures came to an abrupt end under Emperor Zhu Di. As a consequence, China became an insular nation and went into centuries of decline. An extraordinary historical turn of events, when we consider, (as Menzies concludes), that the Chinese discovered America before Columbus. Well, here are the paragraphs that I shared with my friend. In the first, under the heading "The Emperor's Grand Plan", Menzies sets the stage, or if you prefer, places these voyages in their proper historical context, while the subsequent paragraphs appear under the heading "A Thunderbolt Strikes". Taken together, and in a broader context, I hope you would agree that they are worthy of A Spiritual Reading. The italics are mine, and intended to indicate when Gavin Menzies breaks from his own narrative to quote from sources __________
The Emperor's Grand Plan
"On the 2 February 1421, China dwarfed every nation on earth. On that Chinese New Year's day, kings and envoys from the length and breadth of Asia, Arabia, Africa and the Indian Ocean, assembled amid the splendours of Beijing to pay homage to the Emperor Zhu Di, the Son of Heaven. A fleet of leviathan ships, navigating the oceans with pinpoint accuracy, had brought the rulers and their envoys to pay tribute to the emperor and bear witness to the imagination of his majestic and mysterious walled capital, the Forbidden City. No fewer than twenty-eight heads of state were present, but the Holy Roman Emperor, the Emperor of Byzantium, the Doge of Venice and the Kings of England, France, Spain and Portugal were not among them. They had not been invited, for such backward states, lacking trade goods or any worthwhile scientific knowledge, ranked low, on the Chinese emperor's scale of priorities.
A Thunderbolt Strikes
"On the night of 9 May 1421, two months after Zheng He's armada had set sail, a violent storm broke out over the Forbidden City.
"On this night by chance a conflagration started . . .lightning struck the top of the palace that had been newly constructed by the Emperor. The fire that started in the building enveloped it in such a manner that it seemed as if 100,000 torches provided with oil and wicks had been lit up therein . . .so much so that the whole city was set ablaze with the light of that conflagration and the fire spreading . . .It burnt down the Ladies' Apartments behind the Hall of Audience . . .about 250 quarters were consumed to ashes, burning a large number of men and women. It continued burning like that until it was day and in spite of all efforts, the fire could not be brought under control until it was afternoon prayer time." (1)
Balls of fire appeared to travel down the Imperial Way itself, along the very axis of the Forbidden City, destroying the Hall of Great Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony -the magnificent palace where Zhu Di had received leaders of the world three months earlier. The emperor's throne was burned to cinders. "In his anguish he repaired to the temple and prayed with great importunity, saying, "The God of Heaven is angry with me, and therefore, has burnt my palace; although I have done no evil act.. I have neither offended my father, nor mother, nor have I acted tyrannically." (2)
The shock killed the emperor's favourite concubine. Zhu Di was so distraught that he was unable to make proper arrangements for her burial in the imperial mausoleum.
"He fell ill owing to his anguish and on account of this it could not be ascertained as to in what manner the dead personage was buried. . . .The private horses of the deceased lady were let loose to graze freely . . .on the mountain where the sepulchre was situated. They had also posted about that sepulchre a number of maidens and eunuchs . . .leaving for them provisions to last five years so that after that period when their food got exhausted, they might likewise die there. (3)
Chinese emperors believed that they ruled with the mandate of heaven. The manner in which the lightning struck and the severity of the fire that followed could hardly have been more ominous for Zhu Di. An event of this terrible nature could only signal the Gods' demand for a change of emperor. Zhu Di temporarily handed power to his son, Zhu Gaozhi. The illness of the emperor having increased, his son used to come and sit in the audience hall." (4) Struggling to comprehend the nature of the calamity that had befallen him, the emperor then issued an edict to his people:
"My heart is full of trepidation, I do not know how to handle it. It seems that there has been some laxness in the rituals of honouring heaven and serving the spirits. Perhaps there has been some transgression of the ancestral law or some perversion of government affairs. Perhaps mean men hold rank while good men flee and hide themselves, and the good and evil are not distinguished. Perhaps punishments and jailings have been excessive and unjustly applied to the innocent, and the straight and the crooked not discriminated . . .Is this what brought about [the fire] ? Harshness to the people below and above, going against heaven. I cannot find the reason in my confusion . . .If our actions have in fact been improper, you should lay these out one by one, hiding nothing, so that we may try to reform ourselves and regain the favour of heaven. (5)
"This edict unleashed a predictable storm of criticism from the mandarins. Most of it was targeted at Zhu Di's grandiose plans and projects, especially the Forbidden City that the gods had destroyed. Vast areas had been denuded of trees to build the enormous halls, tens of thousands of artisans had laboured for years on the fabulous rooms, huge sums had been invested in marble and jade, the Grand Canal had been rebuilt using a million teaspoons to ferry grain, and the treasury drained to such an extent that peasants had even been reduced to eating grass. And all this toil, suffering and sacrifice had led only to a carpet of ashes and cinders. The fires also coincided with a terrible epidemic of some unknown disease that had been raging in the south for two years. More than 174,000 people had died in the province of Fujian alone and their bodies lay rotting in the fields, for there was no-one to bury them. The epidemic seemed yet another sign of the gods' anger.
"The mandarin Minister of Revenue, Xia Yuanji, who had managed to find the funds for the Forbidden City, and for Zheng He's great armada, bravely stepped forward to accept personal responsibility for the catastrophe, but to no avail. Frantic efforts were made to pacify the people. Twenty-six high-ranking mandarin court officials were sent on "calming and soothing" missions (6) and, in an attempt to save his throne, Zhu Di issued a series of ill-conceived decrees. A halt was placed on future voyages of the treasure fleets and foreign travel was prohibited." __________ 1421 The Year China Discovered The World by Gavin Menzies Bantam Press (2002) ISBN 2593 050789
St. Bridget of Sweden Now, I think, is as good a time as any to admit to a prejudice, to the truth that I have an instinctive distaste for anything, that in the representation of a saint smacks of Hollywood. Just recently, I was offended by just such an image of St. Teresa of Avila, as she appears on the front cover of a recent edition of the "Interior Castle." I was so aggravated by it, that my instinct was to paste it out; but I thought better of it, and not from fear of eternal damnation. And most disturbing of all, for me, are effeminate images of Christ. The hallmark of a saint, for me, is that they look lived in: men and women who, (to use a colloquialism), have been, "knocked about a bit": whose features bear the unmistakable signs of hardship: of endless good works and concern for souls. Well recently I came across just such a person; St. Bridget, not the Irish Bridget, but Bridget of Sweden, who, widowed, brought up her own large family, before going on to found a religious order, and leave for posterity, a rich vein of spiritual writings. She died in 1373, at the age of 70. What follows, (an excerpt from her writings), is taken from the Office of Readings for July 23; and apart from its obvious spiritual worth, the passage is striking for its focus and energy: __________ A Prayer to Christ our Saviour Blessed are you, my Lord Jesus Christ. You foretold your death and at the Last Supper you marvellously consecrated bread which became your precious body. And then you gave it to your apostles out of love as a memorial of your most holy passion. By washing their feet with your holy hands, you gave them a supreme example of your deep humility.
Honour be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ. Fearing your passion and death, you poured forth blood from your innocent body like sweat, and still you accomplished our redemption as you desired and gave us the clearest proof of your love for all men.
Blessed may you be, my Lord Jesus Christ. After you had been lead to Caiaphas, you, the judge of all men, harshly allowed yourself to be handed over to the judgement of Pilate.
Glory be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ, for the mockery you endured when you stood clothed in purple and wearing a crown of sharp thorns. With utmost endurance you allowed vicious men to spit upon your glorious face, blindfold you and beat your cheek and neck with cruellest blows.
Praise be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ. For with the greatest patience you allowed yourself like an innocent lamb to be bound to a pillar and mercilessly scourged, and then to be brought covered with blood, before the judgement seat of Pilate to be gazed upon by all.
Honour be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ. For after your glorious body was covered with blood, you were condemned to death on the cross, you endured the pain of carrying the cross on your sacred shoulders, and you were lead with curses to the place where you were to suffer. Then, stripped of your garments, you allowed yourself to be nailed to the wood of the cross.
Everlasting honour be to you, Lord Jesus Christ. You allowed your most holy mother to suffer so much, even though she had never sinned nor ever even consented to the smallest sin. Humbly you looked down upon her with your gentle loving eyes, and to comfort her you entrusted her to the faithful care of your disciple.
Eternal blessing be yours, my Lord Jesus Christ, because in your last agony you held out to all sinners the hope of pardon, when in your mercy you promised the glory of paradise to the penitent thief.
Eternal praise be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ, for the time you endured on the cross the greatest torments and sufferings for us sinners. The sharp pain of your wounds fiercely penetrated even to your blessed soul and cruelly pierced your most sacred heart till finally you sent forth your spirit in peace, bowed your head, and humbly commended yourself into the hands of God your Father, and your whole body remained cold in death.
Blessed may you be, my Lord Jesus Christ. You redeemed our souls with your precious blood and most holy death, and in your mercy you led them from exile back to eternal life.
Blessed may you be, my Lord Jesus Christ. For our salvation you allowed your side and heart to be pierced with a lance; and from that side water and your precious blood flowed out abundantly for our redemption.
Glory be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ. You allowed your blessed body to be taken down from the cross by your friends and laid in the arms of your sorrowing mother, and you let her wrap your body in a shroud and bury it in a tomb to be guarded by soldiers.
Unending honour be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ. On the third day you rose from the dead and appeared to those you had chosen. And after forty days you ascended into heaven before the eyes of many witnesses, and there in heaven you gathered together in glory those you love, whom you had freed from.
Rejoicing and eternal praise be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ, who sent the Holy Spirit into the hearts of your disciples and increased the boundless love of God in their spirits.
Blessed are you and praiseworthy and glorious for ever, my Lord Jesus. You sit upon you throne in your kingdom of heaven, in the glory of your divinity, living in the most holy body you took from a virgin's flesh. So will you appear on that last day to judge the souls of all the living and the dead; you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) For as long as I can remember I have been moved by the life of Thomas More: Chancellor of England, who, in the end, and because of his refusal to acknowledge King Henry VIII as Head of the Church in England (The Act of Supremacy), or to support him in his wish to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon (in defiance of the Pope), was finally imprisoned in the Tower of London and later beheaded on July 6th 1535. His story came to public prominence in the play, "Man For All Season" by Robert Bolt, and later was made into a film of the same name. For me his story has always seemed timeless, a point borne out by the fact that in 2000, Pope John Paul II declared him "the heavenly patron of Statesmen and politicians" (Wikipedia). And though More was a fierce opponent of the Protestant Reformation, (in the context of the age that we live in), it is interesting to note that since 1980, he is celebrated in the Church of England as a Reformation martyr. Today the Church celebrates the feasts of both John Fisher and Thomas More, both of whom were executed in the same year. The letter below, written to his daughter Margaret, (Meg), from prison, is taken from the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office), and while it is obviously an expression of his faith, it is clearly intended to give support and strength to his family, who were suffering on his account. __________
Although I know well, Margaret, that because of my past wickedness I deserve to be abandoned by God, I cannot but trust in his merciful goodness. His great love strengthened me until now and made me content to loose goods, land, and life as well, rather than to swear against my conscience. God's grace has given the King a gracious frame of mind toward me, so that as yet he has taken from me nothing but liberty. In doing this His Majesty has done me such great good with respect to spiritual profit that I trust among all the great benefits he has heaped so abundantly upon me I count my imprisonment the very greatest. I cannot, therefore, mistrust the grace of God. Either he shall keep the king in that gracious frame of mind to continue to do me no harm, or else, if it is his pleasure that for my other sins I suffer in this case as I shall not deserve, then his grace shall give me the strength to bear it patiently, and perhaps even gladly.
By the merits of his bitter passion joined to mine and far surpassing in merit for me all that I can suffer myself, his bounteous goodness shall release me from the pains of purgatory and shall increase my reward in heaven besides.
I will not mistrust him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear. I shall remember how Saint Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Christ and pray to him for help. And then I shall trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy sea hold me up from drowning.
And if he permits me to play Saint Peter further and to fall to the ground and swear and forswear, may God our Lord in his tender mercy keep me from this, and let me loose if it so happen, and never win thereby! Still, if this should happen, afterward I trust that in his goodness he will look on me with pity as he did upon Saint Peter, and make me stand up again and confess the truth of my conscience afresh and endure here the shame and harm of my own fault.
And finally, Margaret, I know this well: that without my fault he will not let me be lost. I shall, therefore, with good hope, commit myself wholly to him. And if he permits me to perish for my faults, then I shall serve as praise for his justice. But in good faith, Met, I trust that his tender pity shall keep my poor soul safe and make me commend his mercy.
And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.
__________
Man For All Seasons
A play of Sir Thomas More
by Robert Bolt (1960)
ISBN 0 435 22100 0
The Life Of Thomas More
by Peter Ackroyd
Chatto & Windus, London (1998)
ISBN 1 85619711 5
It is cold and wet outside, and this is not strictly a blog; and by this endeavor, I am not trying to lure you to my website under false pretenses. It's simply that I want to right a wrong, so to speak, although that is almost certainly a far too dramatic way of putting it.
When I first published my book of poems under the title, "Who Would be a Girl When You Can be a Boy?" in 2011, I was surprised to find that it was offered for sale on Amazon.co.uk; surprised, because besides being the author, I was also the publisher and distributor, and I hadn't asked Amazon to sell it. On making inquiries, I was told by Nielsen, (who provide the ISBN numbers in the UK, and with whom the book is registered), that it is standard practice for all retailers to be notified of a books existence. So I sat back and waited, and sure enough, it wasn't long before Amazon wrote and told me that they were interested and would soon be placing an order. And I, trembling at the though of celebrity, sat back and waited. Well, when the great day dawned, Amazon wanted 1, (one) copy, which I was to send to their warehouse; and here's the bit that made me cry. They wanted to keep, for themselves, 60 per cent of the cover price. Well it didn't take me long to work out, that in adding in the cost of posting and packaging, I would have to provide the book to Amazon at a loss. So I wrote and explained my predicament, and they wrote back and told me that that was how they do business. And I wrote back (with some difficulty on account of their over automated processes), and asked them to remove the book from their website, which they did.
Well, some time later, I wrote again to Amazon.co.uk, pointing out that despite the fact that I had asked them to remove the book from their website, it was still showing on Amazon.com with a misleading statement to the effect that the book was out of print. Not unreasonably, Amazon wrote back, pointing out that they had no control over Amazon.com, and that if I wanted the book removed from their website, I would have to write directly to them; and very kindly they provided the relevant address. So I wrote to Amazon.com and the letter went like this:
Dear Sir. I have just received an email from Amazon.co.uk, who have told me to write to you, etc. etc:
And Amazon.com wrote back:
Dear Mr McCloskey As you have just received an email from Amazon.co.uk you need to write to Amazon.co.uk
at which point, and deciding that I had better things to do with my time, I gave up.
Well this morning, and perhaps because it is cold and wet, and I am getting off to a slower start than usual, I have discovered that my book is advertised on Amazon in Canada, with the same misleading information. And likewise on Google books. And you can even find it here, at books.com, and at deastore.com, who are asking £1.48 more than the cover price.
So here's the deal.
Though the book has gone global, and I have sold quite a few, I still have copies left; and as they would be much happier out in the fresh air rather than sitting on a shelf here in the study, there is still time, if you are thinking of your Christmas shopping. Or better still. If you are seeking to raise money for a charitable cause, and would like a few to raffle, let me know at cormace.mccloskey@yahoo.com, and provided you don't live on Mars I will send them postage free. And don't forget to tell me something about the charity that you have in mind.
And here's something to cheer you up; click on the link
In the Roman Catholic liturgy, the feast of The Annunciation is usually celebrated on 25th March, but as this year it fell during the season of Lent, it was transferred to today. The reading below is taken from that portion of The Liturgy of the Hours, (The Divine Office), known as the Office of Readings. It is from the writings of Saint Leo the Great, pope, (440-461), and I have decided to share it with you as it is the most lucid exposition that I have come across of the mystery of the Incarnation. _______________
Lowliness is assured by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that is incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.
He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man, whole in his own nature, whole in ours. By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning, and took to himself in order to restore it.
For in the Saviour there was no trace of what the deceiver introduced and man, being misled, allowed to enter. It does not follow that because he submitted to sharing in our human weakness he therefore shared in our sins.
He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he choose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.
Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world. He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father's glory. He is here in a new condition, by a new birth.
He was born in a new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he choose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he choose to be subject to the laws of death.
He who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the preeminence of God coexist in mutual relationship.
As God does not change by his condescension, so man is not swallowed up by being exalted. Each nature exercises its own activity, in communion with the other. The Word does what is proper to the Word, the flesh fulfills what is proper to the flesh.
Our nature is resplendent with miracles, the other falls victim to injuries. As the Word does not lose equality with the Father's glory, so the flesh does not leave behind the nature of our race.
One and the same person-this must be said over and over again-is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man. He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. _______________ Cormac
It is dull and grey outside, for it is that time of year, and the news, whether is is to do with politics, economics, or religious faith, seems to be just as bleak. But there is good news also, in that those of us who don't have the responsibility of looking after more weighty things, have been getting on with life: sitting around in suburbia discussing poetry; and this time, the theme was, "Fame".
Well, having missed the last meeting, and hearing just a few days ago that the theme was Fame, my first thoughts were philosophical: to do with the nature and origin of things: what is fame? where does it come from? and more importantly, is it a necessary condition of what it is to be human? So if you like, I was looking for a poet-philosopher. But short on time and fearing that I might be on a hiding-to-nothing, my brain took a more practical turn. Queen Victoria (in all her blackness), came instantly to mind, as did poetry from the First and Second World Wars, as did Beowulf and Pan Tadeusz (both epic or long narrative poems), after which, I had the best of all ideas. In an attempt to do justice to my colleagues, and myself, I would focus on two books of poetry, on Scanning The Century (the 20th century that is), edited by Peter Forbes, and on Czeslaw Milosez, whose tomb I stumbled across in Poland. Well knowing where Czeslaw lives, I went there, and came back to my desk with two of his neighbours, Paul Eluard, and Charles Baudelaire. Paul Eluhard was a Christmas present from Leo in 2006, and I could see at a glance that I hadn't read him, for there were no telltale signs: no ticks in the Contents pages, and no signature, dated, at the end And what is interesting about Flowers of The Forest, is, that when it first appeared, in 1857, it was prosecuted for outrage to public decency, with Baudelaire, ordered by the court to suppress a half dozen of the poems. Well, here's a poem by Baudelaire that in this quick scan of his work, (for I had read all of his poetry in the past), I liked, but didn't bring to the meeting:
Remorse After Death
When, sullen beauty, you will sleep and have
As resting place, a fine black marble tomb,
When for a boudoir in your manor-home
You have a hollow pit, a sodden cave,
When stone, now heavy on your fearful breast
And loins once supple in their tempered fire,
Will stop your heart from beating, and desire,
And keep your straying feet from wantonness,
The Tomb, who knows what yearning is about
(The Tomb grasps what the poet has to say)
Will question you these nights you cannot rest,
"Vain courtesan, how could you live that way
And not have known what all the dead cry out?"
-And like remorse, the worm will gnaw your flesh.
__________
Now it must be said that when we decide on a theme; (next month it is "heavenly bodies"), the task is not prescriptive, something that is reflected in today's choice of poems. But let us begin at the beginning, with this: The Glories of our Blood and State, by the sixteenth century poet, James Shirley. He was a contemporary of another of this mornings poets, John Milton, and there is a sense in which they travelled in opposite directions. Shirley was a Church of England clergyman, who became a Roman Catholic, a schoolteacher, and a prolific writer of plays, while Milton, whose father, John, came from a devout Catholic family, became a protestant, as a consequence of which, his son, the poet John, in turn became a clergyman in the Church of England; and a civil servant in the Commonwealth of England, under Oliver Cromwell. And he is of course famed for his epic poem, Paradise Lost.
Shirley's poem is powerful, for it is direct, and to the point, and leaves no room for manoeuvre. And though it was written at a turbulent time: when the concept of "the Divine Right of Kings" was called spectacularly into question, in bloody civil wars, and the execution, by beheading, of King Charles 1, it is worth mentioning that unlike the Republican Milton, Shirley was a Monarchist. But in saying this I must also acknowledge, that the sentiments expressed in this poem, are universal:
The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings.
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still.
Early or late,
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon death's purple altar now,
See where the victim-victor bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.
__________
Now for whatever reason, and accepting that Milton is a "major" as distinct from a "minor" poet, his poetry has never had much appeal for me, so I am going to pass over Lycidas, or rather, that portion of it, 15 out of 200 lines, that someone brought along today, and move on instead to one of my fellow countrymen,Oliver Goldsmith; and his well known poem, The Deserted Village. An idealized view of village life, this poem ii not without humour, and its rhyming couplets so skillfully constructed, that they could almost pass unnoticed. And its ending, crisp and coming as it does a century after John Shirley, conveys the same idea: the transient nature of Fame.
Beside yon struggling fence
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write and cypher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge.
In arguing too, the person owned his skill,
For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around,
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot.
__________
Now of necessity I have to be selective, so, as mentioned previously, I am passing over the poetry of Milton, of Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes, and Ruyn E Rice, and concentrating instead on two poems, Napoleon, by Elizabeth Jennings, and, St. Peter's Denial, by Charles Baudelaire. But as I knew nothing of Elizabeth Jennings before today, I have been doing a little research: extracting bits and pieces from, Lives of the Poets, by Michael Schmidt; So here is something of what I found, in as coherent a fashion as brevity will allow:
"She was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1926. She had a troubled childhood and attempted suicide more than once. Unlike Plath, [Sylvia Plath] Jennings does not allegorize the causes for her mental disturbance Poetry is not exorcism but sacrament, a sharing. However extreme her illness, poetry is a way back from the edge, not over it; at her most disturbed she witnesses other people. Without recourse to stylistic ironies, she gains a perspective on herself. The seasons, landscapes, artifacts and people surrounded her....
"She attended st Anne's College, Oxford, and became a librarian in the city. Her early distinction made her a focal figure for younger poets. They gathered about her and called themselves Elizabethans.....
"By 1961, after she had written her first celebrated collections of poems - A Way of Looking, A sense of the World and Song for a Birth or Death - she published her most substantial critical work. Of Every Changing Shape, a series of related essays, she writes: "I am concerned of three things - the making of poems, the nature of mystical experience, and the relationship between them." She was thirty-five, working as an editor at a publishing house in London, on the threshold of a religious and psychological crisis which was to last her for twenty years. She wrote this book "at the pitch of poetry", with entire concentration."
And lastly:
"She compares making poems to the practice of prayer: it reconciles the individual with what is outside it, self is lost in a larger stability. "Each brings an island in his heart to square/With what he finds, and all is something strange//And most expected." Prayer and poetry also risk the terrifying world of shadows. In her poem on Rembrandt's late self-portraits, in which she implicates herself, she declares, "To paint's to breathe/And all the darknesses are dated.""
Now accepting that this is a highly selective set of quotes from a much longer appraisal of her and her work, the important thing to remember is, that not only had I not come across this poem before, but I hadn't heard of Elizabeth Jennings either. She died in 2001:
Napoleon
Many who spoke with him a little found
Him most indulgent to the common voice
And sensitive to quirks of character.
I wonder, then, was this sent underground,
This gift for understanding, when he choose
All the impersonal power of emperor?
So much the legend haunts us. His last days
Slide easily into the sentiment
We like to hide our great men in. But was
The truth elsewhere, his talk with valet and
Children a screen while his real thinking went
Still to the thought of Europe in his hand?
There is no answer. Emperors elude
Our logic and survive within the small
Moment when they seemed ordinary. All
Our thoughts of greatness disappear when we
Can catch the emperor quite off his guard
And think he lived such hours continually.
__________
Now as this poem was read out, the image of Hitler leapt out at me, and making this known in the discussion that followed, we found ourselves sharing our thoughts about Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. For some, the response to the poem was, well we know that people can function on more than one level at the same time, that is, get on with the immediate task in hand, while working towards an unstated longer term objective. And another response, drawing on the human qualities that were attributed to Napoleon, was, that we remember these, because they are the things in Famous people that we can relate to. But for me, the implications of Jennings observation about concealment, was sinister, which was what prompted the memory of Hitler. Hitler could be charming, and he knew how to delegate; giving considerable freedom to his underlings; but he also knew how to manipulate public opinion, and the law toward a long term goal that he never lost sight of, and that never became apparent to the mass of German public opinion, until it was too late. His goal of absolute power, in which would be crushed, all the positive elements in society that he had used and manipulated (including the law),to get there. And when I mentioned that I could find no redeeming features in Stalin, it was suggested that many people in Russia loved Stalin and believed that if he had known what was going on in the countryside he would have stopped it. This point of view was offered with sincerity, to which I replied that this was part of the lie; (that, in some respects Stalin was just like us), and reinforced the point by explaining how shocked I was, (thinking that I knew something about China), to discover the extent of his involvement in the affairs of China. Without pity, and aided by Mao (who understood that he needed the backing of Stalin, if he himself was to come to power), he pursued his objective, using the Chinese as pawns, and with Mao as his agent, subjected the rural Chinese especially, to appalling suffering, as a means of establishing himself, and a newly industrialized Russia, as an unassailable force in a Marxist dominated world. And in respect of Stalin, I must mention also, that it was said, in this discussion, that when his daughter, Svetlana, came to the West, she described him as a loving father; at which, I kept silent about her troubled life, and the suicide of her mother, Stalin's second wife.
Now you might wonder how we could have had a discussion at this level in response to a poem; but it wasn't difficult. For a start, it has taken me longer to write the above paragraph as an accurate reflection of what was said, than for the discussion itself to take place; and also, all of us appreciated that we were not meeting as a group of social or political historians, that the focus was on poetry, and so, as to accommodate everyone, we had to move on
As for Jennings poem, it is interesting in that it poses questions, without providing answers, but there are some key pointers along the way, that suggest deep meaning: in respect of Napoleon's human qualities, the word "underground", and the word "choose" in respect of the "impersonal power of emperor." The suggestion is, that his quest for absolute power was deliberate, and at the expense of his humanity, rather than that he had fame thrust upon him. And what about the inference in the second stanza, that it is easier to believe the myth, than to confront the lie, an idea that is carried into the final stanza.
This last poem St. Peter's Denial,was my contribution to the meeting. In effect, it is in three parts. While the first two stanzas rage against God, to the point of blasphemy, accusing him of having an insatiable appetite for suffering; the next five stanzas are a sympathetic treatment of the person of Christ, (though it would seem not of God the Father), (stanza 3). And what is especially interesting in these stanzas, is the contrast in the language that is used when describing Christ's executioners, and Christ himself. "Scum" is not the language of faith, but it is key in this clash of sentiments, as is "Chagrin" A word that might have been prompted in the mind of the poet, by Christ's words from the cross: "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me". From the point of view of the voice in the poem, these are the only credible sentiments, a view seemingly carried over to the third sections, or final stanza. Here the voice picks up the powerful Gospel image of the sword, (Which Peter actually used in defence of Christ at the time of his arrest), and paraphrasing Christ's words, he wields it defiantly in the face of the Godhead; for it seems that he is neither capable of a Christlike response, nor convinced by Christianity. As he puts it, "the dream and the deed do not accord". But, as I suggested to the group, in the context of the rest of the poem, the final line seems weak: it lacks conviction. Is that, I asked, because it represents less than the truth, as the voice in the poem knows that after the threefold denial of Christ, Peter, full of remorse, "went out and wept bitterly". In effect, he had come to terms with his conflict of emotion, an attitude or disposition that is at variance with the premise of the poem.
And as I acknowledged, I had spent some time arguing with myself about the ending, which prompted a scholar among us, (who seemed uncertain about it also), to say that he would need to see what word was used in the original French, that in my Oxford World's Classics edition, has been translated as "justified."
Now believing that everyone, with or without faith, would accept that Christ was, and is, famous, I explained that my reason for bringing the poem, was, that it makes the point, that while the idea of "Fame" in any given situation, might require a response, Fame, of itself, is not enough, that for it to mean something, you have to be able to identify with the substance of what it is, that makes for Fame.
St. Peter's Denial
What, then, had God to say of cursing heresies,
Which rise up like a flood at precious angel's feet?
A self-indulgent tyrant, stuffed with wine and meat,
He sleeps to soothing sounds of monstrous blasphemies.
The sobs of martyred saints and groans of tortured men
No doubt provide the Lord with rapturous symphonies.
And yet the heavenly hosts are scarcely even pleased
In spite of all the blood men dedicate to them.
- Jesus, do you recall the grove of olive trees
Where on your knees, in your simplicity, you prayed
To him who sat and heard the noise the nailing made
In your live flesh, as villains did their awful deed,
When you saw, spitting on your pure divinity,
Scum from the kitchens, outcasts, guardsmen in disgrace,
And felt the crown of thorns around your gentle face
Piercing your temples, home of our Humanity,
When like a target, you were raised above the crowd,
When the appalling wrench of broken body's weight
Stretched out your spreading arms, and as your blood and sweat
Streamed down your body, and across your pallid brow,
Did you remember all the days of brilliant calm
You went forth to fulfill the promise made by God,
And on a gentle ass triumphantly you trod
The streets all strewn with blooms and branches of the palms,
When with your heart so full of hope and far from fear,
You lashed with all your might that money-changing lot,
And were at last the master? O, and then did not
Chagrin strike through your side more keenly than the spear?
-Believe it, as for me, I'll go out satisfied
From this world where the dream and deed do not accord;
Would I might wield the sword, and perish by the sword!
Peter rejected Jesus . . . he was justified!
