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Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Category Archives: the Bible

A Strange Experience …

23 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Illuminated Manuscripts, Sharing, the Bible

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Four Bibles, ME, Sappho, sharing

A 1st-century fresco painting from Pompeii, Italy, depicting the poet Sappho holding a stylus. Photograph: Mimmo Jodice/Corbis (The Guardian)

Most of yesterday’s post was written online. It was quite the adventure. It was published before I had finished writing it. I had a copy in Word, but it was not complete. Moreover, I am not the only person writing my posts. Parts of my posts can be and have been removed by someone else.  

Yesterday’s post lacks a formal conclusion, but it is fine as it is. Missing from the post is the name of a Danish scholar and a link to his publication: a booklet.

This morning I added links. One needs a link to Blanche de Castile and Louis IX.

We know that four Bibles moralisées were realized in France in the 13th century and that they constitute paradox literature. You may have noticed the feet of our depiction of Gods. They are nicely depicted if the side of a foot is drawn, but not if the front of the feet is depicted. Dimensionality had not been fully explored when our Bibles were illuminated and it remains somewhat problematical.

On a more personal but interesting note, I would like to tell you that I have recovered from myalgic encephalomyelitis after 44 difficult years. The problem started when I caught a virus in 1976, but ME was not diagnosed until 1991, after I underwent a SPECT scan at Mount Sinaï hospital in Toronto. I was told that my brain was damaged and that I could no longer lead a normal life. I chose to remain intellectually active as a university teacher.

ME disappeared quietly during the last eighteen months to two years. I cannot tell how it went away, but I can tell when my life started to change. It did after a strange three-month flu and voice extinction that triggered advanced emphysema. I had never smoked, not even one cigarette, and I am feeling quite well.  

I apologize for rebuilding my post online. It took a long time because older versions would eliminate changes. Life can be strange.

Loreena McKennit sings Greensleeves by Henri VIII
Sappho (1877) by Charles Mengin (1853–1933). One tradition claims that Sappho committed suicide by jumping off the Leucadian cliff. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
23 February 2021
WordPress

michelinewalker.com

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Noah’s Ark: the Unicorn Song

06 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Bestiaries, the Bible

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Christ, Noah's Ark, Shel Silverstein, the Irish Rovers, The Lady and the Unicorn, the Unicorn, the Unicorn as Symbol, the Unicorn Song

Edward_Hicks,_American_-_Noah's_Ark_-_Google_Art_Project

Noah’s Ark (1846), a painting by the American folk painter Edward Hicks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I knew there was a song about the Unicorn missing the boat, Noah’s Ark. I had not retrieved the song, but our WordPress colleague Gallivanta sent me the link. The Unicorn is an important legendary and zoomorphic, creature. Zoomorphic animals combine the features of many animals, including humans. (See Legendary animals, Wikipedia.)

The Bible, the Book of Genesis in particular, is an etiological text, or the pourquoi story of children’s literature, the preeminent example being Rudyard Kipling‘s (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) Just So Stories, in which he describes the origins of a certain animal’s characteristic. How the Camel got its Hump is an example of Rudyard Kipling‘s Just So Stories, published in 1902. Kipling’s book is not restricted to the origin of animal features.

The Dove and the Unicorn resemble one another. For instance, both the dove and the Unicorn are white, and, in Christianity, the Unicorn can only be tamed by a maiden, representing the Virgin Mary, and it stands for the Incarnation.[1] As for the white dove, it represents the Holy Spirit and is also a messenger. In this respect, we must examine doves more closely. Messengers are frequent in the Abrahamic religions, Islam especially. However, the Unicorn is transcultural and the product of man’s imagination.

The medieval bestiary is abundant and it includes several legendary animals many of which are allegorical. The Middle Ages, which ended after Constantinople fell to the Ottomans (1453),[2] was the Golden Age of Bestiaries. Bestiaries are home to several allegorical animals that may be real animals, or fantastical. The Unicorn is featured in the Bible. (See Daniel 8:5, NIV.)

1024px-Stom,_Matthias_-_Christ_Crowned_with_Thorns_-_c._1633-1639

Jesus Christ in his Passion as the Lord of Patience or Lord of Contemplation as offered with the crown of thorns, the scepter reed and mocked by Roman soldiers. Oil on canvas by Matthias Stom.

As we have seen, the Unicorn is featured in the six tapestries known as Dame à la licorne and housed in the Cluny museum, in Paris.

I thank Gallivanta for forwarding the link to the Unicorn song. It was composed by Shel Silverstein, in 1968, and made popular by the Irish Rovers.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • A Tapestry: The Lady & the Unicorn (16 February 2012)
  • The Lady and the Unicorn: the Six Senses (16 February 2012)
  • The Phœnix: on the Importance of Sympols & Myths (1 February 2012)

Sources and Resources

  • Unicorn, Wikipedia
  • The Unicorn Song, Wikipedia
  • Bestiary.ca (Animals in the Middle Ages)
  • The Just so Stories are Gutenberg project’s [EBook #2781]


Love to everyone
♥
____________________

[1] Boria Sax, The Mythical Zoo: An Encyclopedia of Animals in World Myth, Legend, and Literature (Santa Barbara, US; Denver, US; Oxford, UK: ABC-CLIO, 2001).
[2] See The Fall of Constantinople, Wikipedia

The Unicorn Song by Shel Silverstein, 1968

Of the Unicorn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
5 July 2018
WordPress

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