Brand new verse discovered to the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh

A serendipitous deal between a history museum and a smuggler has provided new insight into one of the most famous stories ever told: “The Epic of Gilgamesh.”

The new finding, a clay tablet, reveals a previously unknown “chapter” of the epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. This new section brings both noise and color to a forest for the gods that was thought to be a quiet place in the work of literature. The newfound verse also reveals details about the inner conflict the poem’s heroes endured.

Read the story here

‘The Romaunt of the Rose’ by Jessie M. King (1875 – 1949)

Source

Catullus 16

Catullus 16 is a poem written by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus that was deemed so obscene it was not published in its entirety in English until the latter part of the 20th century. 

The poem is addressed to two men, Furius - another 1st century poet who had an affair with Catullus’ lover - and Aurelius - a consul of the same period. The two men appear in other of Catullus’ poems where he regularly uses abusive language towards them. Catullus was apparently offended by accusations from Furius and Aurelius that his poetry was ‘delicate’, and he himself effeminate. In fact, Catullus’ gentle attitude left him particularly vulnerable to the cruel environment of Roman high society. Catullus 16, therefore, is an attack on these criticisms and a demonstration of the Roman ideology regarding masculinity.

Click ‘Read More’ below to read the full English translation. It’s NSFW, obviously. In fact, the first line has been described as “one of the filthiest lines ever written in Latin - or any other language for that matter", so procede with caution…

Read More

The professional mourner Ofimija Houtari with a relative of hers comforting her. Karelia, 1933. Source: The National Board of Antiquities, Helsinki.

Family ties remained intact after death. The dead were also seen as influencing the lives of their descendants in a number of ways. In other words, family-centredness and the cult of death were intimately connected.

The tradition of laments was strong in eastern Finland, in the orthodox areas of Karelia. Souls made their way to the kingdom of death with the help of a woman. Unless a woman sang a lament, they could not join other family members who had died but had to wander near their earthly homes as restless and dangerous creatures.

The laments unite life and death. The women often gaze in opposite directions: towards the family’s children (the future) and the those who have departed (the past). Their weeping is painful and agonised. They pray to the Creator and the dead for help in bearing the burden of their lives and raising the next generation to assume the responsibilities of adulthood.

How shall I bring up my little cranberries  And take care of my young protégés?  With sombre thoughts I start to raise them,  I shall bathe them in my abundant tears  And immerse them in the rivers of my eyes.

The tradition was a concrete manifestation of a woman’s spiritual affinity with her own family even after marriage had separated them. Eventually she would follow her parents to “the holy whiteness” or “the magnificent Creator of the kingdom of death”. As a skilled mourner, she could establish contact with departed relatives by attending official commemorative rites, visiting graves or simply by being alone.

The lament represented a powerful message both for the dead and for living family members. It allowed a woman to appeal to her listeners and convey emotions so powerful that ordinary speech, not even ballads, sufficed.

Taken from the article Sorrow and Bitterness by Nordic women’s literature. Read full article here. 

Sappho

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”

— Legendary poet and master of horror Edgar Allan Poe, who would have been 204 years old today. Enjoy this print of Poe from NYPL’s Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. Happy birthday, Poe!

Before Rosa Parks- There Was Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

1846 – She began her amazing career as a writer by publishing her first book of poetry, Forest Leaves, at the age of 21.

1858 – She refused to give up her seat or ride in the “colored” section of a segregated trolley car in Philadelphia (100 years before Rosa Parks) and wrote one her most famous poems, “Bury Me In  A Free Land,” when she got very sick while on a lecturing tour. Her short story “The Two Offers” became the first short story to be published by an African American.

1859 – A dedicated abolitionist, Harper was one of the few public figures who did not abandon John Brown after his failed effort at Harpers Ferry, instead writing to him and staying with his wife, Mary, at the home of Lucretia Mott (Philadelphia’s leading Quaker Abolitionist) for the two weeks preceding his hanging.

1865 – In the immediate post-Civil War years, Harper returned to the lecture circuit, focusing her attentions on education for the formerly enslaved, on the Equal Rights Movement and on the Temperance Movement.

Despite all of her remarkable accomplishments, Frances E.W. Harper’s name cannot be found in most history books. 

 http://www.moonstoneartscenter.org/category/francesharper/

Bataille de Roncevaux en 778. Mort de Roland Grandes Chroniques de France, enluminées par Jean Fouquet, Tours, vers 1455-1460 Paris, BnF, département des Manuscrits, Français 6465, fol. 113 (Cinquième Livre de Charlemagne). Bataille de Roncevaux en 778 (en arrière-plan à gauche) : Au retour de l’expédition d’Espagne, l’arrière-garde de l’armée de Charlemagne, conduite par Roland, est attaquée par les sarrasins dans la vallée de Roncevaux. Mort de Roland : Le neveu de Charlemagne, Roland, comte de la Marche de Bretagne, gît sur l’herbe. Auprès de lui, son frère Baudouin se lamente avant de prendre l’olifant et l’épée Durandal de Roland pour les porter à l’empereur.

@credits

The Song of Roland (French: La Chanson de Roland) is a heroic poem based on the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778, during the reign of Charlemagne. It is the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It exists in various manuscript versions which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries. The oldest of these is the Oxford manuscript which contains a text of some 4004 lines (the number varies slightly in different modern editions) and is usually dated to the middle of the twelfth century (between 1140 and 1170). The epic poem is the first and most outstanding example of the chanson de geste, a literary form that flourished between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries and celebrated the legendary deeds of a hero.

The Battle of Roncevaux Pass was a battle in 778 in which Roland, prefect of the Breton March and commander of the rear guard of Charlemagne’s army, was defeated by the Basques. It was fought at Roncevaux Pass, a high mountain pass in the Pyrenees on the border between France and Spain.

Over the years, the battle was romanticized by oral tradition into a major conflict between Christians and Muslims, when in fact both sides in the battle were Christian.

Marie de France

@credits

Marie de France (“Mary of France”) was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an undisclosed court, but was almost certainly at least known about at the royal court of King Henry II of England. Virtually nothing is known of her life; both her given name and its geographical specification come from her manuscripts, though one contemporary reference to her work and popularity remains.

Marie de France wrote a form of Anglo-Norman French, and was evidently proficient in Latin and English as well. She is the author of the Lais of Marie de France. She translated Aesop’s Fables from Middle English into Anglo-Norman French and wrote Espurgatoire seint Partiz, Legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick, based upon a Latin text. Recently she has been (tentatively) identified as the author of a saint’s life, The Life of Saint Audrey. Her Lais in particular were and still are widely read, and influenced the subsequent development of the romance genre.

Robert Browning spent seven years composing Sordello, a 40,000-word narrative poem about strife between Guelphs and Ghibellines in 13th-century Italy. It was not received well.

Tennyson said, “There were only two lines in it that I understood, and they were both lies: ‘Who will may hear Sordello’s story told’ and ‘Who would has heard Sordello’s story told.’”

Thomas Carlyle wrote, “My wife has read through ‘Sordello’ without being able to make out whether ‘Sordello’ was a man, or a city, or a book.”

An Ancient Egyptian Love Charm

Hail to you, Re-Horakhty, father of the gods! 

Hail to you, Seven Hathors, who are adorned in bands of red linen!

Hail to you, gods, lords of heaven and earth!

Come, <make> so-and-so born of so-and-so come after me like a cow after fodder; like a servant after her children; like a herdsman (after) his herd. 

If they do not cause her to come after me, I will set <fire to> Busiris and burn up <Osiris>. 

O.Deir el Medina 1057 

New Kingdom

Ramesside Period

Love charms are usually only found during the Ptolemaic period and this is the only example which survives from Pharaonic Egypt. The Seven Hathors which the person invokes here are also associated with childbirth. They determined the fate of the child and were often called upon to protect it. 

The threats to the gods here, although they seem pretty blasphemous to our modern ears, are perfectly normal threats for the Ancient Egyptians in their magical and ritual texts. 

The phrases “so-and-so” would be replaced with the desired recipients name and their parents name.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (engravings by Gustave Doré).

(Full poem)

Technicians of the Sacred, edited by Jerome Rothenberg