“What do you think it’s like? Being old I mean.” My younger
self muses with feigned thoughtfulness. Everything about this girl is forced
and affected. I spent most of those summers pretending to be the next big
thing. Even relaxing on this beach her shoulders are still pushed back and
she’s arching her spine in that particular way.
“Lots of greying nose hair and a big bristly moustache I
imagine. And that’s just for you.” The lazy teasing drawl of her companion untwists
the pretentious chit and she throws a discarded shoe at him. Laughter, precious
and real, bubbles between them.
Back then of course we had no true conception of time. Young
and careless we thought that real life was something that only happened to
other people. Being old seems to me now not a matter of increasing years but of
multiplying regrets. If I had known what was to come, would I have acted
differently? With hindsight it is easy to see how much time we wasted in banality,
but we imagined that we had all the time in the world to say everything.
Perhaps in the intervening years we would have grown apart.
The overlapping circles of our lives stretching to breaking point. But the
suddenness of our separation meant that you have remained by my side as the
person you were then. A perpetual youth, a constant friend. Only I have changed
and now there is nobody left to share it with.
“You beast!”Her
shrill cry echoes as cold water slaps suddenly against her legs. Picking
herself up she runs after his chuckling figure. Their silhouettes merge and
break as they cavort across the shoreline together. As the salty breeze tugs at
the greying strands of my hair I turn away, allowing our younger selves to return
to a happier past.
Sunday, 31 March 2013
Sunday, 24 March 2013
A Boy Called Adam
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This exquisite Eve is in fact part of an original fourteenth-century pavement. She can be found with a slightly faded Adam and serpent in front of the altar in Prior Crauden’s Chapel in Ely. It is a truly mind-boggling pavement if you dare to sneak-a-peak under the carpet!
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Lusty Lepers
There can’t be too
many days in a year that you find yourself sitting in the British Library,
eating a posh sandwich and speaking a little too loudly about lusty lepers. All
in the name of art history of course...
King Mark is persuaded to give his adulterous wife Isolde to a group of lepers as a more fitting punishment than burning. - Bréoul’s Tristram, c.1175, lines 1192-1216.
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| Mark kisses Tristram. A two-coloured tile from Chertsey Abbey. |
You see that I have a hundred companions here;
Give us Isolde to be our common property.
No lady ever had a worse fate:
Sir, our lust is so strong!
No lady in the world could tolerate
A single day of relations with us!
Our ragged clothes stick to our bodies;
With you she was
accustomed to luxury,
To beautiful furs and pleasures;
She was used to fine wines
And great halls of dark marble.
If you give her to us lepers,
When she sees our squalid hovels
And shares our dishes
And has to sleep with us,
And when, instead of your fine food, sir,
She has only the scraps and crumbs
That are given to us at
the gates –
By the Lord in heaven,
When she sees our “court”
And all its discomforts,
She will rather be dead than alive.
Then that viper Isolde will know
That she has sinned,
And she will wish she had been burned to death.
King Mark is persuaded to give his adulterous wife Isolde to a group of lepers as a more fitting punishment than burning. - Bréoul’s Tristram, c.1175, lines 1192-1216.
Sunday, 10 March 2013
The Legend Of The Gates...
During a time that was
not quite the past, and in a land somewhere between fantasy and fairytale, a
legend unfolds...
The gates were always closed. Their elegant looping foliated scrolls were bound tightly by silver chains. The gates formed an impenetrable barrier and nobody dared to cross the threshold without permission. There were stories as to what awaited on the other side and as the centuries passed the stories became myths, and the myths became a legend, but still the gates remained steadfastly closed.
Until that day.
Where she was going and from whence she had came was of no consequence except that it directed her straight into the path of the gates. If asked why she had decided to walk that way instead of one of the hundred other paths open to her she would not have been able to give a sensible answer. The choice had not been a conscious one and it was almost as if fate had intervened with her feet to lead her towards mischief.
She knew, as every child before her knew, the legend of the gates. Imagine her surprise, therefore, when she found them unbound. The silver chains dangled decoratively, curling like sleeping serpents on the ground. The gates were tilted inwards creating an opening through which her body would fit perfectly. Fate had summoned her and she answered the call. Boldly she ventured over the threshold.
She found herself in a garden. It had perhaps once been beautiful but time and neglect had created an ugly and vicious looking paradise. Overgrown hedges were uneven and jagged, with stark and knurled branches clawing and clasping at one another. There was not a hint of the tender new green growth that prospered outside the gates. Instead it was as if the garden had been suspended in perpetual winter. A miasma of decay seemed to linger over every possibility of life.
These perceptions were not made all at once in an overwhelming rush. The garden revealed itself to her gradually. An intense fog coiled around the hedges and trees. As it drifted it disguised first this and then that with its opacity, before finally uncovering that and then this. The further into the garden she moved the thinner the fog became, until it was nothing but an emaciated vapour. In its place she found herself ever more dwarfed by the shadow of a great castle.
The turreted mountain of stones was blackened with age old dirt. It was fully encircled by the maze created by the unkempt garden and yet the avenue from the open gates led directly to the front door. She laid the palm of her hand flat against this door as if she expected the knotted wood to speak to her. She applied no force to gain admittance, rather her fingers curled defensively as uncertainty afflicted her.
She was unable to deny, however, that the gates had been open. This after all was tantamount to an invitation. As such she pushed against the solid oak and fell forward when the door swung suddenly and unresistingly open. The door was not imbued with magical properties, and the pair of polished boots was the visible sign that someone and not something had allowed her entry.
“Who the blazes are you?” The disembodied voice was a deep animal snarl that sounded foreign to her ears. After coming through the gates she had been isolated by preternatural silence and the abrupt question battered her senses like thunder. “Whoever you are, go away.” The voice snapping with irritation was accompanied by the grating of hinges as the door began to close. Fate, however, had not led her so far simply to abandon her at the doorway.
“The gates were open.” Her blurted words ceased the movement of the door.
“The gates are always closed.” The scornful reply was immediate, but the door began to cautiously open once more. The interior of the castle was entirely dark allowing her no means by which to distinguish the keeper of the door from the shadows. The shadows, however, were clearly able to see the gates. “Hmph.” The vocal grunt acknowledged with little grace or contrition that she had indeed been stating the truth. “Well I suppose you better come in then.”
Thus invited she stepped through to the other side.
The gates were always closed. Their elegant looping foliated scrolls were bound tightly by silver chains. The gates formed an impenetrable barrier and nobody dared to cross the threshold without permission. There were stories as to what awaited on the other side and as the centuries passed the stories became myths, and the myths became a legend, but still the gates remained steadfastly closed.
Until that day.
Where she was going and from whence she had came was of no consequence except that it directed her straight into the path of the gates. If asked why she had decided to walk that way instead of one of the hundred other paths open to her she would not have been able to give a sensible answer. The choice had not been a conscious one and it was almost as if fate had intervened with her feet to lead her towards mischief.
She knew, as every child before her knew, the legend of the gates. Imagine her surprise, therefore, when she found them unbound. The silver chains dangled decoratively, curling like sleeping serpents on the ground. The gates were tilted inwards creating an opening through which her body would fit perfectly. Fate had summoned her and she answered the call. Boldly she ventured over the threshold.
She found herself in a garden. It had perhaps once been beautiful but time and neglect had created an ugly and vicious looking paradise. Overgrown hedges were uneven and jagged, with stark and knurled branches clawing and clasping at one another. There was not a hint of the tender new green growth that prospered outside the gates. Instead it was as if the garden had been suspended in perpetual winter. A miasma of decay seemed to linger over every possibility of life.
These perceptions were not made all at once in an overwhelming rush. The garden revealed itself to her gradually. An intense fog coiled around the hedges and trees. As it drifted it disguised first this and then that with its opacity, before finally uncovering that and then this. The further into the garden she moved the thinner the fog became, until it was nothing but an emaciated vapour. In its place she found herself ever more dwarfed by the shadow of a great castle.
The turreted mountain of stones was blackened with age old dirt. It was fully encircled by the maze created by the unkempt garden and yet the avenue from the open gates led directly to the front door. She laid the palm of her hand flat against this door as if she expected the knotted wood to speak to her. She applied no force to gain admittance, rather her fingers curled defensively as uncertainty afflicted her.
She was unable to deny, however, that the gates had been open. This after all was tantamount to an invitation. As such she pushed against the solid oak and fell forward when the door swung suddenly and unresistingly open. The door was not imbued with magical properties, and the pair of polished boots was the visible sign that someone and not something had allowed her entry.
“Who the blazes are you?” The disembodied voice was a deep animal snarl that sounded foreign to her ears. After coming through the gates she had been isolated by preternatural silence and the abrupt question battered her senses like thunder. “Whoever you are, go away.” The voice snapping with irritation was accompanied by the grating of hinges as the door began to close. Fate, however, had not led her so far simply to abandon her at the doorway.
“The gates were open.” Her blurted words ceased the movement of the door.
“The gates are always closed.” The scornful reply was immediate, but the door began to cautiously open once more. The interior of the castle was entirely dark allowing her no means by which to distinguish the keeper of the door from the shadows. The shadows, however, were clearly able to see the gates. “Hmph.” The vocal grunt acknowledged with little grace or contrition that she had indeed been stating the truth. “Well I suppose you better come in then.”
Thus invited she stepped through to the other side.
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Fishy Tales
Having spent a fair amount of time staring at medieval
floors I can tell you that there are a great many animals to be found there.
Leopards, deer, griffins and all manner of other creatures were depicted upon floor
tiles. The most curious of them all, however, is the fish lurking amongst the
lions and foxes at Westminster.
Whilst the appearance of such a friendly piscine face is undoubtedly peculiar, the explanations that have been offered to rationalise its presence are even more so. Little has been said so far that is at all convincing, and so the riddle of the Westminster fish continues to frustrate and fascinate the bemused art historian.
Whilst the appearance of such a friendly piscine face is undoubtedly peculiar, the explanations that have been offered to rationalise its presence are even more so. Little has been said so far that is at all convincing, and so the riddle of the Westminster fish continues to frustrate and fascinate the bemused art historian.