Hello, everybody, and once again welcome to the Apple
Basket!
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| I just love lilacs ... |
I do hope you have had a lovely week filled with
crafty goodness and satisfying challenges. This week, we have a well-known
legend, a bit of cosy knitting, and some book stuff.
The
Apple of the Week:
I have been listening to the ChopBard podcast, ‘the
cure for boring Shakespeare’, this time the Hamlet episodes. As ever, Ehren
Ziegler does a great job of explaining, commenting, clarifying, de-mystifying,
and in general making the text of the play that much more approachable. Not
that I personally suffer from Shakespeare-phobia: having never been pushed into
reading any of it at school, I am not traumatised by homework and paper-writing
in this context. (The reason why I didn’t read Shakespeare in school is that when
I went to high school / gymnasium, I
did Latin & Greek, and in those days that meant no English – or German, for
that matter – after the first year. Just the classical languages, and French.
Bit of a waste, really – but I digress.)
But, if you are at all interested in Shakespeare, I highly
recommend this podcast; you can find it on iTunes.
Anyway, Hamlet: I listened to the episodes, read the
text, and made Victor watch the Royal Shakespeare Company film version, a.k.a.
the David Tennant & Patrick Stewart version, with me.
After all this, I got out Saxo to re-read his take on
the story. This is the first history of Denmark, written by Saxo Grammaticus (‘the
learned’) who may have lived 1150-1220; the book was written in Latin and
titled Gesta Danorum, The Deeds of the Danes. His story of
Amled bears many resemblances to Shakespeare’s play; and I decided to render it
into English for your pleasure, with a few comments here & there.
My text is not
a scholarly translation: it is based on the scholarly translation into Danish
by Peter Zeeberg, published in 2000 (so, a translation of a translation without
referral to the original text: this is almost as shameful as marrying your
husband’s brother). I will be assuming throughout that you know Shakespeare’s Hamlet and/or have a copy of his text at
hand; if you have never read or seen the play, stop reading right now, and go
do that. I’ll wait.
... Ready? Great, let’s to it.
The whole text of the chapter about Amled and his
uncle runs to somewhere between 5000 and 6000 words; so I will chop it up into
several parts to not make one huge post. Also, I’ve cut out a couple of
paragraphs in the beginning; for this purpose, we do not need the whole of
Amled’s father’s speech to the Norwegian king before their duel.
SAXO: The Deeds
of the Danes (Gesta Danorum)
Book 3, chapter 6
1 At
that time, [king] Rørik appointed Ørvendel and Fenge, whose father Gervendel
had been earl of the Jutes, as his successors in Jutland. But when Ørvendel had
ruled for three years and during that time with brilliant success had embarked into
piracy, king Koller of Norway wanted to show that he could equal him in fame
and great deeds, and he found that it would look good if he could defeat him in
battle and thus cast a shadow over his shining reputation as a pirate. He then
searched the seas far and wide to find his fleet, and found it at last. There
was an island in the middle of the ocean, and here the pirates put in with
their ships, each on either side. The beauty of the beaches lured the chieftains
ashore, and the outer charm of the place made them want to look inside to the
inner freshness of the spring glade, stroll through meadows and thickets and wander
about in the secretive deep of the forest. At some point along their way,
Koller and Ørvendel suddenly faced each other alone without any other witnesses.
2-3 Ørvendel
and Koller agree on a duel to avoid unnecessary bloodshed; Ørvendel kills
Koller and gives him a lavish funeral, out of respect. He then sets after
Koller’s sister, Sæla, an accomplished pirate and warrior, and kills her, too.
4 Now
he spent three years at war with many great deeds, and during those years he
set aside the grandest trophies and a choice part of his bounty for Rørik to
gain a better friendship with him. This turned into a close relationship which
enabled him to marry the king’s daughter Gerud, and by her he had a son, Amled.
5 All
this prosperity made Fenge so envious that he decided to backstab him. Not even
from those closest to him can a good man know himself to be secure. As soon as
he found an opportunity to murder his brother, he satisfied his murderous urges
with a bloody hand. And to the fratricide he added incest, for he also took
over his dead brother’s wife. Having allowed himself one misdeed, a man rushes
headlong into the next: the one bears in it the seed of the other. And he was so
brazen as to lay a cunning veil over his gruesome act and think up an excuse
for his crime that made it look like a good deed, and masked the murder as a
sacred duty. For he said that Gerud, who in truth was so mild and good of heart
that she had never done the slightest harm to any person, had been the victim
of a violent hatred on her husband’s part. It was to save her that he had
killed his brother, for he believed it unworthy that such a uniquely gentle
woman who harboured no evil, should suffer rude behaviour from her husband. And
he succeeded in convincing everybody of this. For at court, where sometimes
jesters are favoured and slanderers honoured, there a lie is readily believed.
And Fenge was not afraid to use his murderer’s hands in sinful embraces and
commit a double sacrilege with a single misdeed.
6 When
Amled saw this, he was afraid to awake his uncle’s suspicion should he behave
too sensibly, so instead he began to act dumb: he pretended that his mind had
suffered grievous harm, and in this cunning way he managed to not only hide his
good sense, but also to save his life. Day after day he lay, languid and lazy,
by his mother’s filthy hearth and rolled about in the most horrible dirt and
waste on the floor. His dirty, smeared face was an image of madness and
ridiculous stupidity. Everything he said seemed insane, everything he did showed
profound torpor. In short: you would not call him a man, but a farcical
miscreant sprung from a mad fate. Often, he sat by the fireplace, rooting
around in the embers with his hands while he fashioned wooden hooks and
hardened them in the fire. At the end, he gave them a kind of barbs so that
they would better hold on. When asked what he was doing, he answered that he
was making pointy weapons to revenge his father. That reply caused quite a lot
of mirth, for nobody cared about his laughable, useless occupation – although that
one did indeed later on help him to fulfil his plans.
7 But
this artful work caused some of the more quick-witted of those who saw it, to
harbour a first suspicion that he was more sly at that. For his diligence at
this humble work did indeed point at a hidden talent for crafting, and nobody
could really believe that a man who worked so elegantly with his hands could
lack for faculties. To this was added that he had made a habit of gathering
these sticks with their scorched points in a pile that he guarded with the
utmost care. So, there were those who maintained that nothing was amiss as to
his mind, and imagined that he concealed his good sense behind an assumed
simplicity and hid his deeper intentions and plans underneath this cunning
smokescreen. The safest way to discover him would be to set a stunningly
beautiful woman upon him in some remote place and let her seduce him. For man
has from nature such violent erotic urges that no cunning tricks can keep them
hidden. And in this case, too, the need would be too great for him to hold it
back by any wily means, so if his dullness was assumed, he would immediately
when the opportunity presented itself, follow his desires. So they got hold of
some men who would take him far into the woods and present him with such a
temptation.
8 Among
these men was, by coincidence, a foster brother to Amled, who had not forgotten
how they had been brought up together. For him, the memory of their shared
childhood weighed heavier than the order he was here given, so when he now came
out as one of the chosen escorts for Amled, he did it rather hoping to warn him
than intending to entrap him. For he had no shadow of a doubt that if Amled
betrayed the merest hint of reason – and particularly if he openly slept with a
girl – he would be done for. Amled himself was very well aware of this, too, so
when he was told to mount a horse, he purposefully placed himself with his back
to the horse’s head and facing the tail. And the reins he laid around the tail
as if he intended to steer the horse at that end when it ran off. With this
kind of artful invention he managed to evade his uncle’s wiles and disturb his
devious schemes. It was quite a risible sight, the horse galloping along with
no reins and the rider steering it by the tail.
9 Along
the way, Amled met a wolf in a thicket, and when his companions claimed it to
have been a young horse, he let fall a remark that there weren’t too many of
those in the employ of Fenge – a subtle but witty criticism of how his uncle
spent his fortune. When the others exclaimed that this was rather a sensible
reply, he declared that he has spoken thus on purpose so that it couldn’t be
said of him that he lied. He wanted people to think of him that he would never
lie, and so he mingled his slyness with truth in such a way that he kept to the
truth when speaking, without the true things he said revealing how clearly he
thought.
10 Later,
when they were walking along the beach, his companions came across the rudder
from a stranded ship, and when they told him it was a giant knife they had
found, he answered: ‘Yes, that one can cut a huge ham!’ – By which of course he
meant the immeasurable sea to which the immense rudder fitted well. Something
similar happened when they passed some dunes: here, they tried to convince him
that the sand was flour, to which he replied that it was ground when the storms
whipped up the sea. The others praised his answers, and he himself assured them
that it was very cleverly spoken.
To be certain that he would dare give his desires free
rein, they on purpose left him in a deserted spot, where then he met the girl –
it seemed that she appeared by coincidence, but in reality she was sent by his
uncle. He would indeed have ravished her then, had not his foster brother with
a silent sign indicated to him that it was a trap. For when he considered how
he could send a secret warning and restrain the young man’s risky desires, he
found a straw on the ground and stuck it into the behind of a horsefly coming
by. He then sent it off in the direction where he knew Amled to be – by which
he did the oblivious young man a great favour. And the sign was received with
an acumen equal to the one with which it was sent. For when Amled saw the
horsefly and on closer inspection spotted the straw that it bore in the rear,
he realised that this was a silent warning of treason. The suspicion that he
was headed into a trap frightened him, and to be able to pursue his intentions
without any risk, he took the girl up in his arms and carried her far off into
a trackless marsh. When he had had intercourse with her, he entreated her not
to tell anybody about it. She promised this as eagerly as he asked it of her. The
girl, namely, felt a deep affection for Amled since days gone by, for they had
been childhood friends and had as children had the same minders.
11 They
then escorted him back home, and when they started making jokes with him and
asked if he had slept with the girl, he admitted to have ravished her. They
asked next where he had done it and what he had had to lie on, and to that he
replied that he had lain on the hoof of a horse, the crest of a cock and the
roof of a house. When he was going out to be tested, he had brought bits of
each of these things to avoid having to lie. Those words caused great mirth
among those surrounding him – despite that his witticism had not removed him
one bit from the truth. The girl, too, was questioned about the matter, but she
claimed that he had done nothing of the sort, and they believed that answer,
especially because none of the companions had seen what happened.
At this time, the man who had placed the marker on the
horsefly wanted to show Amled that he was the one whom he had to thank for the
ruse that had saved his life, and so he said that he had recently done him a
great service. And the reply of the young man was not stupid at all: to
reassure his helper that he appreciated the effort, he said that he had seen something
flying by at great speed with a straw and with chaff behind. This reply made
the others roar with laughter, while Amled felt smug because it was so clever.
...
So. We have the basic premises: the two brothers, the
duel against the Norwegian king, the one brother having the good fortune and
the girl.
The names of the characters are, of course, different
from the ones Shakespeare uses – apart from Amled/Hamlet. While the names of Gertrude
and Osric – and let’s not forget poor Yorick – are Nordic/ Germanic, and
Rosenkrans & Gyldenstjerne are Danish (even though they have been slightly
Germanised), names like Claudius, Laertes, Polonius, Horatio, &c are
obviously taken from the Greco-Roman tradition. This is not surprising, when it
comes to Shakespeare.
Never mind about that, the story itself is very
recognisable.
We may note, in §5, that Saxo does absolutely not condone
the marriage of Fenge and Gerud; according to ecclesiastical law since the 7th
century, the blood-relatives of a deceased spouse were prohibited just as if
they were your own (from the Catholic Encyclopedia, newadvent.org). And Rørik
is supposed to have ruled precisely in the 7th century; so we may here
be seeing a conflict between old laws and new laws, Fenge adhering to the old rules
under which it was normal and legal to marry your dead brother’s widow.
§6: Amled’s madness, presenting itself much as one
would expect: a lack of personal hygiene, odd behaviour and seemingly random
speech that conceals the truth.
§7: And how often is the failure to restrain sexual
desire taken as proof of sanity and a rational mind?
I have no idea how to explain the sign devised by our
proto-Horatio in §1o; I mean, seriously, a horsefly with a piece of straw up
its arse?? Good thing it worked, though.
§11: So, Amled tricked the would-be trickers, and got
the girl. At least, this proto-Ophelia gets out of the deal unscathed (and not,
apparently, worried about keeping her virginity). There seems to be a
fundamental flaw in this plan to prove Amled’s sanity, as evidenced by its
failure: if he was supposed to be alone with the girl, how could they ever know
what happened? These people are obviously not as clever spies as Polonius and
Claudius – of course, the surroundings make it somewhat difficult, but again,
they were the ones to lead him into the forest. And the girl happily lies for
Amled (no pun intended); maybe they were relying on her to tell the truth. More
fools them, in that case.
So far, so good. Next week, there will be more
deviousnesses, while both sides try to outmanoeuvre the other.
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| Cat being cute in tall grass |
The
Knitting
I haven’t got all that much knitting talk this week –
I have been knitting quite a lot, but most of it has been on a shawl design in
progress. Last week, I mentioned planning to make a Bitterroot Shawl for my
mother and ordering the yarn for it; well, while waiting for this yarn, it
occurred to me that designing a shawl would be more fun than knitting from a
pattern. So, I got out some of my Arwetta Classic in another colour, off-white,
and started swatching, trying out, checking to see if what I imagined actually came
to look like I wanted it to – you know, the whole initial knitting, frogging,
and re-knitting process. And when the wine red yarn finally arrived on Thursday,
I dove into that. If all goes well, there will be a pattern out at some point.
There was a slight hitch when I tipped a cup of coffee
over the off-white yarn I was working with ... I soaked and rinsed the yarn,
still in the balls (they are not ball-shaped, the Arwettas, quite oblong, but
still) and left them to dry in the windowsill, hoping that the sun would take
care of the remaining discolouration. It hasn’t so far; I may knit the thing up
anyway and wash it thoroughly – and then dye it, if it still refuses to be
white. We’ll see.
In the meantime, between the soaked yarn and the
arrival of the new, I got around to finishing the second cafetière cosy; so now
my coffee pots have matching overcoats.
The print copies of WeWMDfK? came out this week – I had held off reading the essays
because I prefer reading on a page to reading on a screen (there is some irony in
that, somewhere); so now, I’ve read and enjoyed them all. And, of course, faved
and queued (even more) patterns on Ravelry.
The
Books
Well, naturally, I’ve been mostly in Hamlet mode this week; but there is
always time for more books :o)
The final chapter of Jane Eyre was on CraftLit this week; so now, that is all done. It
is a bit melancholy to close a book that you have enjoyed reading – or, as in this
case, listened to; it is like saying goodbye to friends.
One of the many brilliant things about books, though, is
that they are not gone when they are done: you devour a book and thus keep it
with you forever. Like the New Guinean cannibals who used to eat their
ancestors to keep them in the family – not that reading books will give you
spongiform encephalitis, of course.
Even though they can infect your brain, in a way, with
new ideas and thoughts that take hold and alter your mind. But that’s really
the point, isn’t it – the mind-altering factor is a huge part of the reason for
reading books in the first place.
And it’s a lot safer than having a secret branch of
the CIA try out spiked LSD on you to awaken psychic powers, leading to mental
domination, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis. That is what goes on in Firestarter by Stephen King; a lot can
happen in the modern-day America according to King, of course, with his blending
of realism and the supernatural.
There is a poll going on Goodreads in the MCT
(Mystery, Crime, Thrillers) group on whether you prefer your plots to be
believable, partly believable, or completely unbelievable; I was unable to
choose an answer to this, partly because of books like Firestarter. In my quotidian frame of mind, I do not think that a
little girl can start a fire with her mind – but within the framework set up by
the book, it does seem believable; and what is more important, the actions
& reactions of the characters in the book are completely realistic.
My take on this may be influenced by my extensive
reading of myths and legends, historical texts, fantasy, sci-fi &c: the
willing suspension of disbelief comes easily to me, and I accept the parameters
of the world I am dealing with at the moment, be it the ‘real’ world in a
different age or a completely fictional world. Within those parameters I do want
coherence and reason, creating what J.R.R. Tolkien called secondary belief: the acceptance of the world presented in this
particular story. Only when this fails, he said, does the reader need to play
along, to willingly – and consciously – suspend his/her disbelief.
Reading old sci-fi can be quite an exercise in this
playing along: I listened to Upon the
Dull Earth (and other stories) by Philip K. Dick, in which, for one thing,
robots are a feature of the 22nd century. No surprise there; the
funny thing is how humanoid these robots are: a car is driven by a robot
driver, a humanoid device moving and speaking like a person – in another story,
a robot doctor is recognisable as a robot only by his tinny voice. This seems
very far from the incorporeal and omnipresent Jarvis of Tony Stark, very
old-fashioned. On the opposite end of the spectrum of viability are the space travels: in
the story with the robot doctor, a man travels to and from Proxima Centauri where
he works, a distance of 4-point-something light years, in three weeks of travel
time.
The stories are interesting, both as museum pieces, in
a sense, and for their rather bleak ponderings on the human condition.
That’s about it for this week; my running (well,
run-walking, you know what I mean) started off well, until I caught a cold on
Thursday. I had a slight scratchiness in my throat that I put down to hay fever,
so I went out anyway – and then later in the day, I was slammed. Sore throat, runny nose, headache, slight fever: the whole shebang. So, no running
on Friday or today; I hope to be ready to resume my schedule on Tuesday. This
will mean a repetition of week 1 in the plan, but so be it.
Bye for now, then – I hope you have a fabulous week;
stay happy, stay healthy, and keep those needles moving!
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