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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Tag Archives: Bathsheba

Sin of Presumption

10 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Candia in Arts, Bible, Education, History, Humour, Literature, Nostalgia, Poetry, Relationships, Religion, Romance, Suttonford, Writing

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Alice in Wonderland, Bathsheba, Boldwood, builders' tea, David Cameron, hagiography, Lucozade, martyrology, misogyny, Neutral Tones, Proust, Prufrock, sin of commission, sin of presumption, Sods' Law, St Brigid, St Patrick, Thomas Hardy

Thomashardy restored.jpg

Fortunately Snod had a double free period before Lower Five and so

he slumped into his favourite lumpy chintz armchair and waited till

he could be sure that the rest of the staff were in Lesson One.

Virginia came in sheepishly, carrying a tray with some builders’ tea

and a plate with two Bourbon biscuits.  He was allowed two since it

was not every day that one became affianced.

He didn’t look up at first.  He felt that she had committed a sin of

presumption, or at least commission, but he wasn’t going to split

theological hairs at this point.  Taking  a sledgehammer to break

a walnut came into his mind too, but he felt that was a violent

metaphor.  Still, he probably would never have succumbed to a

more gentle persuasive technique.

Yes, he had heard of St Brigid and her relationship with St Patrick.

He simply didn’t want Virginia to activate any of the ideas that the

female saint of yore had favoured, such as giving away all her

counterpart’s worldly goods and so on.  Virginia would probably never

understand the vital importance of his oiled cricket bat, or piles

of Wisdens.  He wasn’t swayed by aspirations to a ranking in the

hagiography through denial in any shape or form, and, if he was

to wed, then it might be more appropriate to consider an entry

in a martyrology.

He looked at the cup of tea.  There was no such thing as a free drink.

He felt like Alice, in Wonderland– a novel concept.  The eponymous

heroine had been confronted with a phial which was labelled: Drink Me.

If he accepted the bone china mug and its contents, did it imply an

acceptance of the proposal?  Was he about to drain hemlock?

He risked a sip.  Aaah!  Just the way he liked it: slightly stewed.

He swirled it round his mouth in a Proustian reverie.  It wasn’t too

disagreeable, after all- the whole idea and not just the cuppa.  It

took him back to reminiscenses of past times of security, as when

Matron had brought him just such a beverage when he was in San with

measles.  She had warmed his jammies on the radiator and had

given him Lucozade.  He remembered looking at the confines of

his life through the orange cellophane, which he picked off the bottle,

and feeling that life was still an adventure, if only for Boys’ Own

readers.

Virginia tiptoed out, knowing that he needed a little space.

He gazed at the poster of Thomas Hardy alongside the English

Department noticeboard.  That wretched man had caused him a

lot of trouble over the years.  (see the original misdirected Valentine

which had ended up between the underlay and the carpet of a boarding

house-mistress’ apartment, many moons previously.)

And now he had to ask himself a typically Hardyean question:

Was he, like Boldwood, being set up by a teasing woman?  Virginia

did have some Bathsheban tendencies.  He tried to resist thinking of

her in a state of deshabillement for the moment, as it distracted him

from the thrust of his current thought processes.

Then Hardy came to the rescue.

How so? you ask, Dear Reader.

Boldwood gave him the idea.

Gus took his hymnbook from the side table and threw it into the air.

Virginia came into the room again, having given him what she

considered was sufficient time- to hang himself, some would have

added.  She carried some correspondence as justification.

What are you doing with that book? she reprimanded.  You’ll break its

spine!

Snod inwardly whispered, Open-to wed; Shut-to…

Sods’ Law: it fell open.  Or was it Snod’s Law?

Virginia picked it up and placed it in his pigeonhole.

Then she came over and took his plate and mug, spat on her

hanky  and wiped an indeterminate stain from his tie.

So, that’s settled then, she pronounced.

And he knew that it jolly well was. But a quote from Neutral

Tones,  one of Hardy’s finest, suddenly sprang to mind:

The smile on [his]mouth was the deadest thing

alive enough to have strength to die…

No, although he felt chidden of God, it couldn’t be as bad as all

that, surely?

Could it? Happy misogyny, here we come, he mused.

He had measured out his life, unlike Prufrock, in oxymorons,

rather than coffee spoons.

 

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Aelfryth at Longparish

04 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Candia in Family, History, mythology, Nature, Poetry, Romance, Writing

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Actaeon, Aelfryth, Aethelred the Unready, Aethelwold, Aethylflaed, Artemis, Bathsheba, Cranbourne Chase, Dead Man's Plack, Harewood Forest, hubris, King David, King Edgar, Longparish, Narcissus, Nathan the prophet, nemesis, penitentiary, targe, The Goddess of Light, The Wild Hunt, Uriah, Wherwell, wolfhound

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Dead_Man%27s_Plack_-_Hudson.jpg/220px-Dead_Man%27s_Plack_-_Hudson.jpg

(Monument to Aethelwold at Longparish, Hants, UK)

I never saw myself as a ewe lamb-

a description more apt to Aethelflaed,

or ‘White Duck‘ as she was precisely known.

Not for me metaphor’s limitations.

I was once bound to the king’s betrayer.

A lie had thrown his Master off the scent.

It was reported that I was quite drab.

But the concupiscent wolfhound tracked me down.

Royal eyes didn’t have wool pulled over them.

I’d braided my hair by the burnished gleam

of my husband’s targe. I blinked at the king

and felt Edgar undress me with his gaze;

appraise me as a type of Bathsheba.

And when the king rode down from Cranbourne Chase,

Aethelwold met him in Harewood Forest,

to be stalked as ruthlessly as any prey,

his screams masked by the baying of the pack.

I’d willed that he should turn into a stag.

And maybe now he rides with The Wild Hunt.

It’s said their hooves don’t even touch the ground.

Aethelwold was the phantom in our bed.

I bore Prince Aethelred then Edgar strayed.

He nevermore trusted his advisors,

nor pious priests who would pointedly preach

about Uriah, Nathan and David.

Prophets really know how to rub it in.

Sometimes I watch a deer drink from a pond.

I hear its groan and see it torn by hounds.

Is it the hubristic Actaeon and

am I Artemis? Or, like Narcissus,

who loved his own reflection, will I look

into this stream and see my nemesis?

I cannot be The Goddess of Light for

she would not beat her son with a candle.

But I’ve produced a right royal milksop

who flinches before a taper and whines

for the company of his step-brother.

If I felt constrained at Wherwell years ago,

when I was wedded to my first husband,

I can tell you it was nothing like this:

an Abbess in a penitentiary.

I wish that I could morph into a hind

and flit through the forest with Aethelwold,

as fleet of foot as Artemis herself,

but leaving no trace to those who follow.

If only I’d seen the wood for the trees.

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My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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