The Anathemata

The Lady of the Pool (continued)

At ad Vincula1 

wrong side the blooded moat

at fair-triforium’d John2 

in the darks of the White Turris

(that’s where they keep the chopper bright, captain

and no candle

to light you to bed).3 

At every rounded apse-end

where the flamens plead his death who is Best and Greatest4 

on the mind-days5 

when we mark with the white stone.a 

In each blithe aedesb 

as gables a bell-rope.6 

At the crutched-signed brothers, where the Three Mothers

—in their wide laps the orchard-spoil, sit,

crofted under.7 

At the One Uncreate and Singular Three, East Gate, where the three created fays do playc 

under

David Jones notes

1 St Peter ad Vincula, within the outer baily of the Tower.

2 The chapel of St John in the White Tower.

3 Cf. how in a Commonwealth document, the Tower axe, then required at Whitehall, is referred to as the ‘bright axe’.

4 Cf. the pagan dedications Iovi Optima Maximo, which can with even more significance be applied to the God addressed by Launcelot as, ‘Fayre (swete) Fadir Jesu Cryste’. Malory, XVII, 15. ‘swete’ not in Winchester MS, but in Caxton. And also the London tradition mentioned by Jocelin of Furness (twelfth century) of pagan flamines becoming Christian episcopi.

5 The day of anniversary on which a memento was made in the Mass, for some benefactor or any person deceased. E.g. Stow’s Survey, 1598, ‘Robert Chichely grocer, mayor 1422, appointed that on his mind day a competent dinner should be ordained for two thousand four hundred poor men’.

6 Cf. Dunbar, In Honour of the City of London, ‘Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis’.

7 Cf. the carved stone fragment of the three seated female figures holding fruit and flowers, known to represent the Deae Matres, whose cult was popular in Britain as in Gaul and Germany, found under the site of the church of the Crutched Friars in Hart Street, Aldgate.

additional notes

DJ note 1: vincula: plural of Latin vinculum, prison or punishment.

DJ note 3: see page 128 for Oranges and Lemons.

DJ note 4: flamens: anglicised plural of Latin flamen, priest (by this time usually of a pagan deity); episcopi: plural of Latin episcopus, (Christian) bishop.

DJ Note 7: Deae Matres: plural of Latin Dea Mater, Mother-Goddess.

a The Romans used a white stone or piece of chalk to mark their lucky days with on the calendar. Those that were unlucky they marked with black charcoal.

c see DJ note 1 to next page.

comments

see also

semantic structures

glossary

b aedes: temple (Latin).