Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

Every time I travel down Cavan town’s Farnham Street, and I look at the site once occup0ied by the Farnham Hall, Villon’s refrain from his “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” comes into my mind: “Mais oú sont les neiges d’antan?” (that’s your actual French that is, as Kenneth Williams said). “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” The Farnham Hall was knocked down unceremoniously in an act of barbaric vandalism one October Saturday morning. (It must be said though that the man who did it, while having the social graces of a skunk was an angel of transparency when compared to his two-faced successor.) On the altar of its destruction has risen a building displaying the architectural élan of a six-year-old playing with Lego bricks. But let us return to Villon.

He spent quite a lot of the life known to us in prison. He was very gifted intellectually, and I feel a certain affinity with him, as I often feel imprisoned. He stole money from the Chapel of the College de Navarre, which had probably been gained dishonourably anyway. Then he was sentenced to death. It was while on death row that he wrote his “Ballad of the hanged men”. One manuscript copy of the poem is illustrated by a drawing of a scaffold with three men swinging from it, two at least of whom wear something suspiciously like a smile. But Villon’s death sentence was commuted to banishment from Paris. This was in January 1463. After that he vanishes from history. He may have fallen an anonymous victim of the tavern brawls he delighted in. Maybe he changed his name (he had done it before), or maybe he led a long and fulfilling life in some French provincial backwater, his wants amply catered for by a succession of wenches.

The Ballad of the Hanged Men

 Human brothers, who live after us,
Do not harden your hearts against us,
For if you pity us poor sinners,  
God will be more merciful to you.
As for our flesh, which we fed too well:
It is long since wasted and rotten,
And our bones become ash and powder;
Let nobody laugh at our bad luck.
But pray that all will be forgiven!

If we call you brother, do not have;
Disdain for us, though we be murdered
Lawfully, since you know all about
How not all men have common sense
Intercede for us who are no more-
With the Son of the Virgin Mary,,
That his grace for us should no0 dry up,
But preserving us from Hell’s lightning.
We are no more, let no soul harry us;
But pray that all will be forgiven!

The wet rain has washed us with its mist,
The hot sun has dried and blackened us;
Magpies and crows have gouged out our eyes
And have torn our beards and our eyebrows.
Never, at no time, are we seated;
Now here, now there, as the wind changes
Ceaselessly, at its pleasure, we move;
We are pecked full of holes like a thimble.
Thus do not be of our fellowship.
But pray that all will be forgiven!

ENVOI

May Prince Jesus who is lord over us all,
Prevent Hell exerting lordship over us:
Let us not have any dealings with it.
Men, nobody is laughing where we are,
Let us pray that all will be forgiven!

(translation by Ciaran Parker)

The late Thirteenth century was a marvellous time in Italy. It was like the dawn of a new era in human history. The medieval world was giving way to something far finer and more outward looking, which came to be known as The Renaissance. Already new forms of painting under such masters as Cimabue were being developed. The dead hand of plainchant was giving way to polyphony in music. Speak of this era and one immediately thinks of Dante, but there was another poet, a few years’ Dante’s senior, who deserves to be better known.

 Cecho Angiolieri was born in Siena around 1260. (My friend Gerry jokes that he has one big thing in common with Jude Law – they’ve both been in Siena …) Cecho moved to Rome where he son became famous, if not infamous for his skills as a versifier and a satirist. He liked the finer things in life, like wine and women, but seldom had money to pay for either, and what littler he did make he soon squandered away at the gaming tables. Surprisingly Cecho lived to the ripe old age (for his day) of fifty-two.

 Cecho is famous for a fresh and unencumbered style. Not for him the anally retentive prissiness of Dante and the dolce stil nuovo dominated by its adoration of love and female perfection. While Dante swooned after his Beatrice, Petrarca his Laura, and Boccaccio his Fiammetta, Cecho lusted after his Becchina, but whereas these poetical muses were “high class totty”, either married or destined to marry noblemen and w bankers, Becchina was a full-blooded, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees woman, the daughter of a cobbler and leather worker. Incidentally he is reputed to have once called dearest Dante a bollocks, or the Florentine equivalent.

About 150 poems by Cecho including the sonnet “S’ I’ fosse foco” (If I were fire) which I have appended in a rather free translation which probably seems like Jack Kerouac meets Stewy from Family Guy.

 If I were fire I’d burn the world,
If I were wind I’d blow it away.
If I were water I’d drown it,
If I were God I’d send it to the depths/
If I were Pope, I’d have a great time
As I’d do everyone in Christendom.
If I were emperor – do you know what I’d do?
I’d cut off the heads of everyone around me

If I were Death I’d go to my father’s,
If I were life I’d flee from him.
I’d do the same with my mother.
If I were Cecho, which I am and have been.
I’d take the girls who are young and gay,
And give the old and ugly away. 

 Apart from those members of Captain Cook’s crew who were unambiguously Irish, there were also many with strong links to Ireland. One of them was Lieutenant (later Captain) James King. Although he was a native of Clitheroe in Lancashire, his father, who was a curate in Lancashire, was subsequently named Dean of the diocese of Raphoe in Donegal.

 King had served with Cook as assistant astronomer and second lieutenant during the latter’s fateful third voyage. On Captain Cook’s death he was named first lieutenant on board HMS Resolution under the ailing Captain Charles Clerke and accompanied him northwards towards the Kamchatka peninsular. When the voyage landed at Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy he travelled to meet the commanding officer on the peninsular, the Baltic German Major Behm who resided at Bol’sheretsk on the Okhotsk Sea. Both ships were then furnished with adequate provisions, and both the Resolution and her sister ship HMS Discovery left Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy in June, just after they had witnessed an eruption of the nearby volcano Avachinskiy. This showered the ships with an inch-thick covering of volcanic ash. He sailed towards the Bering straits in a vain attempt at finding a north-western passage leading to Baffin Island and Hudson’s Bay, but they were frustrated in their travels by thick pack ice, which forced the ships back to Petropavlovsk. It was while lying off the harbour that Captain Clerke died and King became the commander of the Discovery.

 King continued Captain Cook’s journal of the voyage. He has left behind some amazing and interesting descriptions of life on the Kamchatka peninsular at the time. The area had been opened up to Russian settlers in the preceding decades. Many of these were fur trappers, as well as Cossacks who pursued an unspoken policy of genocide against the native Itelmens or Kamchadals, similar to what would happen on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in the next century. Their numbers had been further thinned by a serious outbreak of smallpox in the 1760s.King describes a surprising level of co-existence between native and settler. The natives were governed by officially appointed toions or magistrates, many of them the result of intermarriage between the Russians and Kamchadal. They had tax collecting powers, as well as what amounted to complete criminal and civil jurisdiction over the Kamchadal living in their area. The only person above them was the provincial commander. Major Behm’s departure to return to European Russia to another appointment coincided with the expedition’s leaving, and King noted genuine sorrow on the part of the Kamchadal to see him going. King described their dress and domestic arrangements, as well as the particularly close relationship they enjoyed with the bear. Their dance was characterised as a series of movements of ursine imitation – sounds just like Strictly – while the Kamchadal observed the habits of bears closely, using berries and plants that the animal used for dealing with cuts and abrasions.

 Nowadays there aren’t many Kamchadal left. Most had given up their language in favour of Russian, and because there were so few of them they didn’t qualify for any of the largesse of Stalin’s Nationalities’ Policy, such as their own National Area.

The death has taken place in Anchorage, Alaska of Marie Jones 89, the last surviving speaker of the indigenous Eyak language. With her has died a living vernacular which had evolved and survived for maybe thousands of years.

During her often difficult life Marie was aware of the position she held as a linguistic repository. She helped produce a dictionary of the language along with University of Alaska linguists, and she worked tirelessly as a champion of indigenous culture.

I often wonder what will happen when the last native speaker of Irish dies. Will it be noted? Of course there will still be those who claim to speak the bastardized ersatz of “official” civil service Irish.

I often feel that the last speaker of common sense has long ago passed from life’s stage.