Never speak improperly of women, for we and our fathers were all born of women.
A wife should honour and obey her husband, and serve him.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(I was going to post just the first one but then I thought that’s a little onesided and added the second one too.)
Little book, commend me to all learners, and to the experienced, whom I pray to correct its faults.
“It is strange, that in so old a world of the same continuing system always repeating the same lesson, any one should be ignorant that the dissolute vices are the destroyers of personal health, comfort, character, and permanent influence.”
The temptation to value manners above morals, and pleasantness above honesty, is one that all of us have to guard against.
Reading and Writing might be taught, but Arithmetic not; the boys would be getting to know too much about wages, and that would be troublesome.
Still, the bad spelling and grammar of most of the letters up to that period, and the general ignorance of our upper classes were, says Professor Brewer, the reason why the whole government of the country was in the hands of ecclesiastics.
— Frederick James Furnivall: Early English Meals and Manners
So wait, Ye Olde English being mostly incomprehensible gibberish is because the people writing it were basically functionally illiterate, ha ha?
Also~ This is why literacy is important. For example, slave owners really didn’t want their slaves to learn how to read. Catching them with any sort of letters was punishable with whipping. So there’s probably a correlation between illiteracy and being ruled by others. But as always, people can make their own conclusions.
Though, it’s important to note that there’s also an important distinction between knowing how to read and understanding what you read. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be an increasingly lost art.
As I’m on holiday and I have lots of free time, I’ve started reading Poetic Edda again. There was a bit of a break when I was too tired to do much of anything.
Anyhow, according to the translator’s notes of Poetic Edda:
Surf-swine: the whales.
Now, I might be the only one who finds this funny but in Japan there’s a wild boar which is also known as yama kujira. This literally translates as “mountain whale”.
I just thought that was the funniest coincidence.
But I also made a joke about the Japanese word 好き in a fan fiction which I’m pretty sure no one noticed. So, you know.
And now I probably need to go to sleep because my head is killing me.
For the fellow’s chin-forest | frozen was.
Chin-forest. Ha ha, that’s the cutest word for beard I’ve ever heard. I need to start using it.
(“Stormy Waves”): possibly the Milky Way.
If it’s a sky reference, wouldn’t the aurorae make more sense?
Ægir: a giant who is also the god of the sea.
Mountain-dweller: the giant (Ægir).
The Arnamagnæan Codex has “Ægir” instead of “Egil,” but, aside from the fact that Thor had just left Ægir’s house, the sea-god can hardly have been spoken of as a goat-herd.
But it’s totally normal to speak of the sea-god as a mountain-dweller?
“The old cop is ailing,” said Kuurna sympathetically. “The old cop is having a nervous breakdown and the young cop is merely stupid.”
❤
Abusus non tollit usum.
Abuse is no argument against use.
A bad thing is dear at any price.
A bad beginning has a bad, or makes a worse, ending.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(Ha ha, this is what I’ve been saying for years. Just less eloquently.)
The eldest had married a gentleman, extremely handsome indeed, but so fond of his own person, that he was full of nothing but his own dear self, and neglected his wife. The second had married a man of wit, but he only made use of it to plague and torment every body, and his wife most of all.
∞
. . . it is neither wit nor a fine person in a husband, that makes a woman happy; but virtue, sweetness of temper, and complaisance . . .
∞
Pride, anger, gluttony, and idleness, are sometimes conquered, but the conversion of a malicious and envious mind is a kind of miracle.
∞
. . . their happiness, as it was founded on virtue, was complete.
Gerth spake:
Barri there is, | which we both know well,
A forest fair and still . . .
[40. Barri: “The Leafy.”]
A forest named The Leafy. Oh my god that is the cutest and dumbest thing ever.
Of scarcely he knows | who sits in the house
What kind is the man who comes;
None so good is found | that faults he has not,
Nor so wicked that nought he is worth.
Exchange of words | with a witless ape
Thou must not ever make.
Care eats the heart | if thou canst not speak
To another all thy thought.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(Or as Yoshida Kenkō put it in the 13th-century Japan: “If you constantly have to beware of disagreeing with someone, in the end it feels as if you are quite alone.”)
If a friend thou hast | whom thou fully wilt trust,
Then fare to find him oft;
For brambles grow | and waving grass
On the rarely trodden road.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(You know, I was recently re-reading Suuri Hupsu by Ryokan Taigu, and it was amazing how in the past people would write to each other and visit each other across miles. In the contemporary world of instant messaging, you’re lucky if you’ll hear from someone in six months if that. Which is why I’ve always thought that maintaining friendships isn’t about distance or time or the lack of it, it’s about want.
Also, I’ve noticed that it’s nearly impossible to maintain friendships with someone who doesn’t share any of your values or sense of decorum.)
Hiraeth 