Yesterday the heavens opened and tried to drown parts of England, the roads were flooded and sent up great sprays of water as we went to the funeral service.
But people turned up from the village, though it is a long and difficult drive to the place, with tales of a sink hole en route. It was a good and simple non-religious service. But the family were happy to see so many people from the village and it would have made Paul happy as well.
So what comes to mind today, is the fact that Paul loved the Anglo-Saxon history and especially the poetry of that time. It is complex, but you can see its method below. I suppose you would call it a declamatory style. Spoken obviously in the gloomy, smoky atmosphere of the great mead halls, (pubs to you and me? ;) It captures the sad fate of humanity, and yet Saxon law has been the basis of our more modern laws. And as we see Johnson today defeated by eleven law lords, we can be grateful for laws that allow us justice and a step back from dictatorship.
Always thought to be written about Bath, the Anglo-Saxon poem 'The Ruin' captures an essence of what it must have been like to walk amongst the ruined buildings and streets of Bath, the great head of the Roman God Minerva severed from her body by angry Romano-British people in a century or so before. The poem was published in The Book of Exeter in the 10th Century, but had probably been written a couple of centuries before.
Curious is this stonework! The Fates destroyed it;
The torn buildings falter; moulder the works of giants.
The roofs are tipped down, the turrets turn over,
The barred gate is broken, white lies on mortar
The frost, and open stands the arching, cumber of lumber
Eaten under with age. Earth has the Lord-Builders.
Wikipeda gives a full version with translation and the Saxon language is what we would have both used for passwords!
I find that in many ways funerals of very dearly loved ones are easier to bear in the sort of weather we had yesterday than they are on gloriously summer days which to me at any rate have a painful element to them - perhaps this is something which one gets as one ages. Thinking of you. x
ReplyDeleteFabulous.
ReplyDeleteArilx
Dear Thelma, despite the terrible weather, I am glad to hear that many people were able to make it to Paul’s funeral and give you comfort.
ReplyDeleteYou must have been so pleased that despite the conditions, so many people, especially from your village, made the effort to attend Paul's funeral.
ReplyDeleteWho can say how this huge destructing House-of-Political-Cards will fall? It seems increasing madness day by day.
Perhaps best to return to the past and ponder on what went before.
Even the heavens were crying when you waved farewell to Paul though strangely he will be with you forever from now on.
ReplyDelete