The Anathemata
The Lady of the Pool (continued)
the finer the scantlings
the harder to con!
Was him that shipped
the bull narwhal off Thor’s own haven in Faëry1 an’ palm-off the single ivory for genu-ine Helyon unicorn2 on the conjuror-doctors as laces their draughts of Cam with noggins of sibylline Deva.a
As take
dilute essence of the best Ionic anaximanders and shake in some well merlin’d extract of vergil.b
As him that does the hor’scopes
and tinctures various his potions of innocent water for the vomits and creaturely swellings of them of the curiac, up stream. A very John-on-Patmos for uncoveringsd and all rombuses, vaticinations an’ anagrams; as see the apotheosis of imperium in a cloud of his own bottled smoke, under the form of a woman clothed with the sea, head-armoured like a Trojan-Greek and in her fist the tree of a fish-spear.3
But, he were had
on that sea-tusker.
David Jones notes
1 The port of Thorshavn in the Faroe Islands; and cf. the idea that the Welsh Otherworld (annwfyn) is to be associated with those islands.
2 John of Hess, a medieval itinerary-writer, in reporting that unicorns were to be found east of the Red Sea where Moses made the bitter waters sweet, names that place ‘the fields of Helyon’.
3 The pre-application here of some of the activities associated later with the mathematician John Dee (Foundation Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, physician and astrologer to Elizabeth and credited with employing adverse magic to secure the death of her predecessor) is on account of his being, par excellence, typic of persons with Merlinesque pretensions, such as the nineteenth century Dr Price, of Llantrisant. Dee has also been credited with originating the use of the term ‘British Empire’. He was a Londoner, but, one presumes, not without consanguinity with the countrymen of the Tudors.
additional notes
DJ note 2: according to John of Hess, the unicorn sweetened the waters by dipping his horn into it, that the other animals might drink healthily and safely. When he visited the Holy Land in 1389, he not only saw a unicorn in the fields of Helyon, but was also fortunate enough to witness the water-cleansing performance in actual operation.
The biblical reference is Exodus 15:22-25: ‘So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet’. (‘Marah’ means ‘bitterness’.)
a sybilline Deva: see page 67 for Deva and page 69 for Dee.
b Anaximander (born 610 BCE) was one of the early Greek philosophers; Virgil wrote in hexameters. Merlin and Virgil were both regarded as magicians.
c the curia, up stream: the court, at Westminster.
d John-on-Patmos: St John wrote the biblical book of Revelation or Apocalypse (Greek for ‘uncovering’ i.e. a revealing of knowledge) on the Greek island of Patmos.
DJ note 3: It was also Dee who first pictured Britannia in the form described in the text.
Chartist, archdruid, surgeon, exiled political activist, social reformer, revolutionary, philanthropist and pioneer of cremation in modern day Britain, Dr William Price was one of the most dynamic, flamboyant and eccentric figures in Welsh history.
comments