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Tag Archives: Compline

Visio Monachi de Eynsham c 1196 CE (revised) or The Vision of Edmund, the monk of Eynsham.

23 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by Candia in Architecture, Community, History, Literature, Poetry, Religion, Writing

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Abbot, Adam of Eynsham, Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, Benedictine Rule, Bishop of Salisbury, Blessed Souls, chain of being, Charismatic Renewal, Compline, corporal punishment, Easter, Edmund of Eynsham, election, Geoffrey of Eynsham, Good Friday, hallucinatory drug, Holy week, Joscelin, Lent, Matins, nepotism, Osney, Oxfordshire, Paradise, Purgatory, quinsy, Rapture, Saladin, sanctification, Sanctus, St Lawrence, St Nicholas, Sub-Abbot, vanitas

Vision of Edmund of Eynsham

 

https://i0.wp.com/amoureuxdulangage.m.a.f.unblog.fr/files/2014/08/eynsham-abbey.jpg

 

 

Adam – now there’s a fine symbolic name

for a Sub-Abbot, but it is not he

of whom we wish to write.  No, the fame

belongs entirely to his brother: Edmund.  He

is the one whose ‘deathbed’ revelation

showed him Paradise and Purgatory.

Taken by the hand of St Nicholas,

he saw the penalties of Vanitas.

 

 

We are in twelfth century Oxfordshire,

but the application is for us too,

though believers in Rapture are fewer.

Nowadays it would be put down to ‘flu,

a fever, or hallucinatory drug.

Out-of-body experiences – who

would credit them with the spiritual?

Movements like Charismatic Renewal?

 

 

Imbibing only some tepid water,

for fifteen months, Edmund lay, very weak;

his quinsy made him hotter and hotter.

As Easter approached, he commenced to speak

and, with the help of a supporting stick,

he wanted to celebrate Holy Week

in the monastery chapel.  Brothers

claimed he remained longer than the others.

 

 

From midnight until noon on the next day,

he confessed all his sins and lamented.

The following night, he began to pray

and lay on the ground, as if demented.

Adam had cold water splashed over him.

He thought Edmund had simply invented

this behaviour to gain some attention –

thus he wanted to defuse the tension.

 

 

How Edmund arrived there, without some aid,

was a point to be considered (but post-

Good Friday.)  Yes, though fresh blood was displayed

on the cross, the monks felt the Holy Ghost

was not behind Edmund’s troubling conduct.

Maybe he wanted discipline, to boast,

boost spiritual pride.  He’d asked for penance,

but was too weak for simple observance.

 

 

Through Good Friday evening, the next day,

water dribbled from his lips, till sunset.

They thought he was returning to the clay,

for he made no response and didn’t fret

when pricked.  They blew a horn in his ear,

but he did not stir – at least, not yet –

till Compline, when his eyes opened.  He sighed

and ‘Sancta Maria‘ many times cried.

 

 

He had begged for corporal punishment

and he kept on sobbing into his hands,

while compelling everyone to repent.

One of his more unusual demands

was to have a silver cross brought to him.

No one to this day really understands

why he was agitated; in this state:

raving like some kind of inebriate.

 

 

On Saturday evening, he ate some bread.

Miraculously, he went, unaided,

to Matins, where he bowed his tonsured head

and the cross and relics venerated.

The Prior and Sub-Prior heard him confess,

till no omission had been evaded

and he received the Sacrament as well,

to the ring of the credence Sanctus bell.

 

 

He then shared his dream, which began in Lent:

how a man had stood beside him, who said

that the prayers of a Godstow postulant

should join with his and be intermingled.

Then, roused to consciousness, he kissed the cross,

penitent for time he had spent in bed.

Entering the chapel of St Lawrence

and All Martyrs, he bowed in obesiance.

 

 

He begged Adam for further punishment

and bathed his eyes in blood and swallowed it.

He was birched further and did not give vent

to spleen; nor did he ask for a remit.

Adam denied the Benedictine Rule

condoned this practice.  He felt its ambit

was for daylight hours, but, apparently,

St Nicholas had amended the decree.

 

 

Edmund saw souls flogged and bound together,

but they still had a hope of salvation.

You could have knocked him down with a feather

when he saw, in the throes of purgation,

(previous Abbot) Geoffrey of Eynsham,

negligent in his organisation,

though he’d been in charge for forty four years,

now past nepotism induced his tears.

 

 

The Bishop of Salisbury – Joscelin –

committed sexual immorality

and, as for the dire dealings of Baldwin,

he had tinkered with criminality:

unwise Archbishop of Canterbury.

(Most preferred Saladin’s mentality.)

Much given to Chapter disputation,

Baldwin funded Crusades through taxation.

 

 

In the next place to which Edmund was led,

he smelled a vile pond and climbed a steep hill:

souls were burned on one side and they perished

with cold conversely.  A rotating grill

principle moved them from one location

to the other, like ants from an anthill.

To see a goldsmith from Osney- a drunk-

being purged here did not surprise the monk.

 

 

The third realm was a place of snakes, devils –

reserved for the homosexual.

A lawyer was suffering for evils

and monks too were punished by gradual

degrees.  Unchaste churchmen who had blasphemed

(so nothing much there far from the usual)

by dispensing holy things with foul hand,

epitomising the wrongs in England.

 

Those who had been successful in the world

endured more than those of a low degree.

Regions of Paradise were then unfurled

to Nicholas, Edmund: a panoply

of Blessed Souls, who approached a huge gate

set in a wall of crystal – so shiny

that, blinded, he scarcely saw the entrance

of those receiving their inheritance.

 

Edmund then saw Jesus Christ on a throne,

but, at this point, his guide made him return

and yet he sensed that there were those who’d flown

to higher realms and who with joy would burn.

They exuded Light Inaccessible,

but he was not yet ready to discern

the joys of one who finished his course –

his sanctification was yet perforce.

 

This vision showed him a chain of being,

linking angels and the perfected souls,

descending from God, who is all-seeing,

to those who’ve just embraced heavenly goals.

Necessary purging of perception

allots individuals specific roles.

Adam wrote this down for our perfection:

Verify your calling and election.

 

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Pig-hoo-o-o-oey!

08 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Candia in Education, Family, Film, Humour, Literature, Nature, Social Comment, Suttonford, television, Writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Berkshire pig, Blandings, chitterling, choir stall, Common Entrance, Compline, Earl of Emsworth, Evensong, faggots, Farmers' Markets, Happy Hour, husbandry, Master Butcher, Middle White pig, misericords, non-sequitur, P G Wodehouse, pig-hoo-o-o-oey!, Pigling Bland, pizzle, pork scratchings, The Emperor, Thomas Hardy, Timothy Spall, Vietnamese Pot-Bellied pig

Champion Berkshire boar

Great-Aunt Augusta was thrilled: she placed the photograph of her namesake

in its silver frame on her bedside table, beside her bottle of Dewlap Gin for the

Discerning Grandmother.

She had always meant to write to the company to protest that elderly maiden

aunts also appreciated the tipple, but she was too pre-occupied in imbibing its

mellow liquefaction to bother with the correctness of its appellation.

She didn’t mind at all that Murgatroyd had named his new porker after her.

Like the ninth Earl of Emsworth, Lord Clarence, Syylk had just taken charge of

a wonderful Berkshire sow, or it had taken charge of him.  Owing to some

marked physiognomical resemblances and similar traits of flightiness, he had

awarded his summer guest the accolade and honour of having her Christian

name bestowed on the worthy animal.  And, having no natural offspring of her

own, she anticipated the birth of piglets with as much eagerness as she looked

forward to Happy Hour at Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry.

Augustus Snodbury, her adopted nephew, was less impressed.  In fact, he

considered it an impertinence.  He expressed as much to Virginia, the School

Secretary and his daughter in the new canteen-style, Hugo Frondly-

Whittingsty’s informal eatery.

Virginia had persuaded father and daughter to come out on a Friday evening

as the interminable term was leaching their zest for life.

Drusilla was tucking into some parsnip shavings and multi-coloured beets;

Gus was demolishing some moist roast gammon.

Dad!  You’ll never guess what?!

Gus continued to trough and grunted like a pig in clover, or Timothy Spall

in a Margate boarding house.

He knew she would tell him anyway.

Timothy Spall Cannes 2014.jpg

You know Murgatroyd’s sow…?

Augusta? replied Virginia, though no one had addressed her.

Gus threw her a warning look- the one he utilised for The

Lower School and which had caused some chitterlings as they

were called to blub, or wet their shorts.

Virginia was made of sterner stuff.  She was interested in all

varieties of husbandry.

Yes, answered Dru.  Except that the vet came round yesterday

and re-sexed it.  So, you know what I’m going to say…?!

Don’t! spluttered Gus, choking on a morsel of rind.  He was

outraged at the thought of the name being transferred into its

masculine form.

It won’t be having piglings bland, or even piglets Blandings,

continued Dru.  It has a pizzle.  Wonderful Thomas Hardy word

that!  Anyway, they’re calling him The Emperor instead, with a nod

to P G Wodehouse, or Beethoven.  Great-Aunt will be disappointed,

but a few gins should dull her disappointment.

It should have been a Middle White if they were referring to the

latest tv series, Virginia added.  Then, as a non-sequitur, she

said meditatively,  Pigs can be very intelligent, you know.  A neighbour

of mine once had a Vietnamese Pot-Bellied variety and we used to keep

our veggie peelings in a swill bin for it.

She tried to avert her gaze from Gus’ midriff.

They’re probably brighter than some of the young porkers I have in

my Common Entrance group, scowled Gus.  I’d rather have one than

a silly toy dog.  He brightened up.

What are you thinking about, Father?  Dru could tell he was about to

share some porcine anecdote.

Oh, just The Very Rev. Wykeham Beaufort.  He was the School Chaplain

when I was a chitterling myself.  He used to walk through The Cathedral Close

to Evensong with his pet pig on a string.  It used to enjoy a pint of Hogsback

with him after Compline.  Fully House-of-God trained, it was.  Used to lie

continently in the choir stalls, under the misericords, but The Dean

excommunicated it and forbade it entry after one Advent, when it made

itself comfortable in the crib’s straw.  You can see its portrait on its

master’s headstone.

But why is Murgatroyd raising a pig? Virginia asked.

He is building a smoke-house and has consulted with a Master Butcher.

He’s going to produce quality meat products, once his breeding programme

gets under way.

Sausages? Gus perked up considerably.

Yes.  He and Mum intend to take a stall at some Farmers’ Markets.

He’s not so dense after all, approved her father.  Well, who would have

thought it?  Pigs might fly yet!

And he shovelled a forkful of pork scratchings into his capacious mouth.

Next to faggots, sausages were his favourites.

He must take a trip north very soon.

 

 

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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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