Auctoresse speketh funnyliche, defyneth manye termes

Y-wis, it semeth me that Margery Attewode doth damage to myn opinioun of hire werkes of the ymaginacyoun, whenever that she doth speke, tweete, blogge, etc. Natheles, hire interviewynge by the greete Galfridus Chaucer -- in his native tongue, hire comaunde of the whiche me liketh, althogh Stickleres mighten saye it wanteth somdeel -- meriteth ful wel yower attencioun, an ye have it nat yet y-seene.

GC: Oftymes my freendes do mocke me for the studye of oolde bookes, for that Ich am alwey poringe over Macrobius or the tales of Ovide or sum swich thynge. What thinke ye of oold bookes? What good have they yn this tikel worlde, the which chaungeth into newe and shinye thinges with each passinge daye?

MA: The oold storyes are the keyes to Dreame-land. Scratch a newe and shinye thing, and ye will fynde an oold and shinye thing lurking beneath.

GC: Ye maye wisshe to telle the rederes of thys blog of the magical beastes of the far lande of Canade. Ich have reade of swich thinges in the Travels of John Mandeville. Are the legendes trewelye to be believed?

MA: Yes, Mayster Chaucer, the tales ye heare are trewe (thogh I feare nat to be found in Mandeville). To wit, the Beaver, much hunted for his scent, which biteth off its owne Stones and casteth them behind yt to distract its pursuers — and in such maner often do ower owne Politicians behave. Yet other straunge beastes abound: the Ice-wormes, that heate themselves up to drill holes; and the Wendigos, that flyen hungrily and with sharp teeth and claws over the snowe with feet a-flayme, and devoure men, which some do name as Tax Collectors. And many more straunge and curious creatures abounde.

Mistris Attewoode expoundeth wel and uptodatelyche the menynge of certayne oolde termes:

GC: Nowe Ich am goynge to seye a fewe wordes, and yf it plese ye, ye maye responde wyth the firste thynge that cometh yn to yower hede whanne ye heare the worde that Ich saye. (Thogh thys did nat go too welle wyth Ms. Launcecrona in an earlier interviewe, peraventure yower grete wisdam and gentilesse shal make for bettir resultes.)

GC:The Black Deeth?

MA: 1) Inspiracioun for The VIIth Seal. 2) And for Boccaccio. As Alice Munro hath seyde, no mattir how awful a thynge may be, “It’s all material.” 3) That which raised wages for (the remayninge) labourers. Hey, there’s always a bryghte syde! 4)Goinge to the dentist in the 1940s. 5) And, as luck wolde have it, the Great Mortalytye -- as it was trewly spoken of in yower tyme -- is one of my litel hobbyes. See Payeback, Chapter V.

GC: Chivalrie?

MA: Code of honour seldom followed, except in literature, and by parfit gentil Knyghtes; OR rescuing chained-up maidens, with soft-porne illustracciouns; OR sayinge thank you when someone openeth the door for you.

GC: Alchemie?

MA: 1) My recipe for Calla Lilies, a swetemete of great delicacye. 2) What geekes did in late mediaeval tymes.

Sir Gawain, possums, hippopotamuses

1. Last night I came up with a new poem project; it's going to be in the Gawain and the Grene Knight form -- which I've always been a fan of -- and will involve possums, the breakup of Gondwanaland, and the Great American Interchange. (A look at the first stanza of Gawain -- the Mod E translation follows the text -- will suggest how these things fit together.) Currently the poem is meant to be a setpiece in the "novel" I'm supposedly writing with Marina Weiss; this bit is titled, for now, "A divagation, concerning possums" (yes there's a dreadful pun in there); but it might not belong in the novel in the end. If the novel ever gets written. And if the poem ever gets written.

1'. The next few weeks are going to be horribly busy; I have to give a seminar at UVA in a week, and finish up two papers by the APS meeting in Dallas in late March. Blogging will (hopefully) be sporadic. Unfortunately I tend to be a self-starting worker; times when I'm getting work done are also times when I just really want to blog and tweet and write and do other stuff, and fallow spells tend to be fallow on all fronts. But we'll see how this goes.

1''. On the topic of Gawain, Michael Berube (via Geoffrey Chaucer hath a blog) has posted my favorite passage in the poem. My favorite lines are not the same as his, though.

2. Perhaps relatedly, I was plagued last night by dreams -- "dreams" is perhaps the wrong word -- involving hippopotamuses, their classification, etc.; I seemed to think I'd made some deep connection between the taxonomy and the etymology... Anyway I cleared it all up on Wikipedia just now, I was getting hippos mixed up with rhinoceroses, the point is that rhinoceroses and horses are both odd-toed ungulates (unlike, say, antelope) whereas hippos are even-toed ungulates.

2'. Naturally this post wouldn't be complete without drawing out the "muses" in hippopotamuses, and linking to the three obvious poems: Lewis Carroll's "Mad Gardener's Song," T.S. Eliot's "Hippopotamus" and the neat little four-liner by Hilaire Belloc.