December 28th 2015

We’ve all heard of “The Riddle of the Sphinx”, but who can repeat it? I can, because I have been reading Sophocles. The riddle of the sphinx goes as follows;

Oedipus and the
 Sphinx

"Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?" (She strangled and devoured anyone who could not answer.) Oedipus solved the riddle by answering: Man—who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age. By some accounts there was a following riddle: "There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first. Who are the two sisters?" The answer is "day and night".

The Sphinx had taken control of Thebes and the only means by which her power could be undone was if someone could solve the riddle. When Oedipus prevailed he was made king. That was the start of his trouble!

Oedipus fell foul of the gods even before he was born.

Apollo was a serious member of the god clan and among his many powers was the power of prophesy and he decreed, even before Oedipus was begot, that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus had no knowledge of this event to come, but Laius, his father, and Jocasta, his mother were aware of the prophesy of Apollo and decided that the only way to avoid this unthinkable outcome was to have Oedipus slain. This task was entrusted to a shepherd who took Oedipus up on a mountain side and pinned his feet with an iron staple. The servant shepherd could not bring himself to kill the infant and instead entrusted him to the care of another shepherd who lived far away in Corinth, who in turn gave the child to Polybus the King of Corinth who was childless.

One of Apollo’s ministers conveyed the prophesy to Oedipus, who was now Prince of Corinth, and presuming Polybus to be his father resolved to flee thereby avoiding the fulfilling of the prophesy. His wanderings, by circuitous routes, brought him back to Thebes. After having solved the ‘riddle of the sphinx’ and restoring the city of Thebes to peace and tranquility, Oedipus was crowned king. On his route back to Thebes, Oedipus was attacked by an assassin on the road and killed his assailant, not knowing his attacker was Laius, his father. Thus the first part of the prophesy was fulfilled. When news of the King’s death reached Thebes, the Queen, Jocasta, was suddenly cast into widowhood. She took the obvious option of marrying the newly crowned king, Oedipus. Thus the prophesy of Apollo was fulfilled.

Oedipus and Jocasta, his mother, begot two sons and two daughters so in fact Jocasta was both mother and grandmother to her own children. Lucky there was no investigation by social services. After a period of seeming prosperity the gods decided to revisit the scene and bring matters to a head. The net result of this was the blinding by his own hand of Oedipus and guided by his daughter Antigone he set off on his adventures again to try and find salvation.

This entire episode might sound a bit off the wall but the Theban Plays of Sophocles were written 2,500 years ago and are still in print and enacted all over the world. Betcha Jilly Cooper won’t last that long!

Classical Greek tragedies might not sound like interesting reading material but the following passage from ‘Oedipus at Colonus’ belies that opinion:

Here in our white Colonus, stranger guest,

Of all earth’s lands the loveliest,
Fine horses breed, and leaf-enfolded vales
Are thronged with sweetly-singing nightingales,
Screened in deep arbours, ivy, dark as wine,
And tangled bowers of berry-clustered vine;
To whose dark avenues and windless courts
The Grape-god with his nursing-nymphs resorts.

Here, chosen crown of goddesses, the fair

Narcissus blooms, bathing his lustrous hair
In dews of morning; golden crocus gleams
Along Cephisus’ slow meandering streams,
Whose fountains never fail; day after day
His limpid waters wander on their way
To fill with ripeness of abundant birth
The swelling bosom of our buxom earth.

Here Aphrodite rides with golden reins;

The Muses here consort; and on these plains,
A glory greater than the Dorian land
Of Pelops owns, or Asiatic strand,
Our sweet grey foster-nurse, the olive, grows
Self-born, immortal, unafraid of foes;
Young knaves and old her ageless strength defies
Whom Zeus and Pallas guard with sleepless eyes.

And last, our Mother-city’s chiefest pride

I yet must praise, all other gifts beside,
Poseidon’s gift, which makes her still to be
Mistress of horses, mistress of the sea.
Here in these lanes wild horses first obeyed
The bit and bridle; here the smooth oar-blade
In slim and handy shape first learned to leap
And chase the fifty sea-maids through the deep.

Paul Durcan, Paul Muldoon, Louis MacNeice, John Montague (RIP),Vona Groarke and all you loose-verse shapers; eat your hearts out!

 

December 27th 2015

Prodigal has his back shed full to the gills of the finest timber, acquired at a very competitive cost price. They say you can always have enough firewood but you can never have too much. As caretaker to Newcastle Forest I have access to 800 acres of trees but my recent history with my boss has been less than harmonious so I had to get a little devious. Not like me but anything is better than perishing at the hob or even worse paying for winter warmth.

My boss is one Pat Brady, a curious man. He has a slight, gaunt appearance which reminds me of a human sized elf. But then again he is a native of Elphin in County Roscommon whose history is populated equally by clergymen, saints and fairies including Queen Maebh who was a very loose woman having a clatter of husbands and several sires on the side. Maebh had seven sons and gave them all the same name, Maine. The word still exists in the area but with a different spelling.

Pat is one of the head honchos in Coillte, the State Forestry Enterprise. Very clever on the ground, his loyalty is divided equally between his own interests and those of the company. Those who know him a lot better than I do, tell me that his friendship is always conditional on reading from his manual and he doesn’t appear to have a large fan club. Then again, neither have I. If Mr Brady has a weak spot it’s perhaps his reluctance to develop correspondence on any issue and this explains his longevity with the company and his gradual elevation to a senior position. If you write it down subsequent denial can be tricky.

In a previous encounter Pat and yours truly crossed swords over a deposit of timber which was left on site after drainage works by the Office of Public Works. I always had some latitude on the issue of what could be classified as non-commercial timber. That latitude amounted to gathering up this stuff to prevent an unsuspecting girl guide from tripping over it and cutting her shin. Pat thought I was doing too well from this windfall and convinced a third party to purchase this little logjam.

After this episode relations cooled a bit and have been on a semi cordial but suspicious footing ever since. Until now. The nice men from the Board of Works left another cache of timber on the far side of the Inny River which I have been minding for some time now. Ash and sycamore and plenty of it. How to collar same without getting Pats hackles up. The way to do it is to put a proposition to the man in which he can see some advantage for himself. The philosophy is always the same; appeal to either his vanity or his greed. In his case the latter is the stronger. I suggested in a monthly report that the afore mentioned timber was now ready for removal as it had seasoned sufficiently and the access roads, which are mainly dirt track, had dried out sufficiently to recover the timber without unnecessary damage to the roadways. I indicated, of course that I would accommodate his plans for the timber in whatever way I could. Bingo. He called me back and suggested that there was plenty of timber there for both of us. I avowed my unending gratitude at this benevolent gesture.

Pat, as indicated, collected his timber and left enough for me to keep those unkind winter breezes at bay. I shall be forever grateful!

 

 

 

December 26th 2015

Today is a day for just pissin’ about and we looked at the history of the development of certain Irish words and phrases sent to us by link recently and as I am seriously interested in the background of the more genteel elements of the Queens diction I decided to reproduce it in full:

 

In the middle ages urine was used  to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery....if you had to do this to survive you were;

"Piss Poor".

 

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they were the lowest of the low and;
"Didn’t have a pot to piss in".

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled tolerable by June. However they had to devise some mechanism of masking the smell. The solution is still carried on to this day. The bride carried a;

“Bouquet of flowers”.

 

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of first wash, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying;

"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!"

 

Houses had thick thatched straw roofs, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying;

"It's raining cats and dogs."

 

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's when they developed;

“Canopy beds”.

 

Almost every floor was packed dirt. Only the wealthy could afford some other type of covering. Hence the saying,

"Dirt poor."

The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence a;

“Thresh hold”.

 

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big skillet pot that always hung over the fire.  They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat.  Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could;

"Bring home the bacon." and “chew the fat”.

 

The wealthy had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing death by;

“Lead poisoning”.

 

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the;

“Upper crust”.

 

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. Deadly combination! Someone walking along the road could take passed-out topers for dead and ready them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a day or two and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of;

“Holding a wake”.


 

December 25th 2015

Christmas morning! Happy Christmas to me and all good men as well. Sentimental I am not unless semi-nostalgic remembrances amount to something soft. The big difference that the intervening years have brought are the interim departure of brother Mike and Ned and Nan, the parents. A few words about a long-ago Christmas when we were together as a family. All of fifty-five years ago. Prodigal ought to be grateful for all the bonus years since.

 

Christmas Morning 1960

 

Pig fry, brylcreem and Mass,
Communion for mother,
Talk of absent friends,
Cows, calves and fodder.
Mary Keegan home again,
Photos of her London house,
Father said she couldn’t buy
Leggins for a mouse.
Father Peter hinting at a
Drop in Christmas dues,
The one man in the parish
With a pair of leather shoes.
Red berries and a hint of snow,
Red robin on the vestry wall,
Goodwill and cheer for everyman,
I wonder if they care at all.
Still, we’ll enjoy the golden goose
The roasted spuds and all of that,
Pull the paper cracker
And wear its silly paper hat.
Two oranges in a woolly sock
Tin-whistle made by Clarke,
Plum pudding with its holly peak
Bing Crosby ‘live’ from Central Park.
Santa Claus and innocence
Melted with the grainy snow,
Bitter farewell, after sweet hello.
Stephen’s Day special once,
Now just another dawn
Noting nights passing,
Christmas is gone.