Thursday 20 December 2018

A Buyer’s Market

Le chapeau de paille/Rubens
Loving A Buyer’s Market - second volume in A Dance to The Music of Time/Anthony Powell.
Two interesting references.
Le Chapeau de Paille and this poem - his helmet shall be a hive for bees....
George Peele. 1558?–97
  
102. A Farewell to Arms
(To Queen Elizabeth)
  
HIS golden locks Time hath to silver turn'd; 
  O Time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing! 
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurn'd, 
  But spurn'd in vain; youth waneth by increasing: 
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;         5
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green. 
 
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees; 
  And, lovers' sonnets turn'd to holy psalms, 
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, 
  And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms:  10
But though from court to cottage he depart, 
His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart. 
 
And when he saddest sits in homely cell, 
  He'll teach his swains this carol for a song,— 
'Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well,  15
  Curst be the souls that think her any wrong.' 
Goddess, allow this agèd man his right 
To be your beadsman now that was your knight. 

Reading and watching

  • Foot by Foot to Santiago de Compostela/Judy Foot
  • The Testament of Mary with Fiona Shaw at the Barbican
  • The Testament of Mary/Colm Toibin
  • Schwanengesang/Schubert - Tony Spence
  • Journals/Robert Falcon Scott
  • Fugitive Pieces/Ann Michaels
  • Unless/Carol Shields
  • Faust/Royal Opera House
  • The Art of Travel/Alain de Botton
  • Mad Men Series 6
  • A Week at The Airport/Alain de Botton
  • The Railway Man/Eric Lomax
  • Bright Lights, Big City/Jay McInerney
  • Stones of Venice/John Ruskin
  • The Sea, the Sea/Iris Murdoch
  • Childe Harold/Lord Byron
  • All The Pretty Horses/Cormac McCarthy
  • Extreme Rambling/Mark Thomas
  • Story of my Life/Jay McInerney
  • Venice Observed/Mary McCarthy