The Anathemata
Angle-land (continued)
From the foraa
to the forests.
Out from gens Romulumb
into the Weal-kin1
dinas-man gone aethwlad2
civesc gone wold-men
. . . from Lindumd to London
bridges broken down.e
David Jones notes
1 Cf. Wealcyn used by the Teutonic invaders of any group of kindred within those lands which had been part of Roman Britain. Pronounce, wa-ahl.
2 dinas, city, din-ass, accent on first syllable.
aethwlad, outlaw, aeth-oolahd, ae as ah +eh, accent on first syllable.
additional notes
b DJ apparently intended ‘Romulûm’ as a contraction for the correct ‘Romulorum’ (genitive plural, ‘people of Romulus’ with ‘of Romulus’ taken as an adjective formed from Romulus), but the circumflex never appeared in print. (Hague p.141).
d Lindum = Lincoln; ‘wold’ thus refers to the Lincolnshire Wolds, the countryside round Lincoln.
e Cf. the song London Bridge is broken down; for the history of London Bridge, see Wikipedia.
see also
semantic structures
glossary
a fora: plural of forum, the market place at the centre of a Roman city (pronounced with a short o as in forests).
c cives: citizens (pronounce key-ways).
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