I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. |
Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on t he PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones. |
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As noted before, it is the custom here in Insulae Draconis for each couple competing in coronet tourney to be heralded in with 'boasts' or some form of introduction. I was tapped by two couples this time and was happy to serve. Lord Esbiorn and Lady Catlin asked me again, and I opted for a sonnet. I used the Elizabethan style sonnet of three quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme, and a concluding couplet. (The form is well documented in many places, so I shan't provide a footnote.) The arms of Insulae Draconis are blazoned: Per fess sable and azure, a demi-sun in splendor issuant from the line of division within a laurel wreath, in chief a crescent Or. So you have something which resembles a sun on the horizon. I wanted to use the image of a setting sun as a metaphor for the end of the reign, but couldn't quite squeeze in the idea of the new day to come without giving my principals short shrift. This means the metaphor isn't as clear as I would have liked, still tant pis.
The sun sets now upon a happy land
Comes Esbiorn the bold to hold this ground,
Comes Catlin no less strong in her desire
They claim a throne this lady and her lord,
Also competing were Lady Agnes des Illes and her consort Lord Aodh O Siadhail. They caught me at a time shortly after a sestina had been read at a feast, so sestinas were near the front of my mind. The sestina is not a form with which I have worked very much - or possibly at all. So, as a first pass I did a bit of looking on the web. As with sonnets, there are apparently different types and variations on those types. An overview may be found here. Or you could try wikipedia, of course. In brief, a sestina has six stanzas of six lines each. The end words of each line of each stanza are the same and rotate through in a fixed order. There is a three-line envoi which must use all six of the end words, two per line, one of which must end the line. The main purpose of the sestina seems to be to allow the poet to show off. (I could be wrong about that.) Choosing the end words is critical, since they are going to repeat in each stanza. Words which can be used as multiple parts of speech can help to keep things lively, as can words with multiple meanings. "Will," one of my end words, can be used as a noun or a verb, and has multiple nuanced meanings. "Light," another, has similar wide-ranging uses. Agnes and Aodh mentioned a few things they would like mentioned in the boast, and with thirty-nine lines to play with, I was able to work most of them in. I chose iambic pentameter for my individual lines mostly because I like it and am comfortable working with it. It also is a good line to be read aloud, as this sestina was intended to be. I have left in the line markings to more clearly illustrate the pattern.
a) All present hearken now to these my words -
f) First comes the one who gives her foes no rest,
c) Her inspiration here attends Your will,
e) His courtesy knows neither day nor night.
d) As flowers turn their faces toward the light
b) Our Queen saw worth in Agnes of the Isles
be) The Isles will have an heir before the night
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Luddite'sLog, 26 November 2017 © 2017 Jeff Berry |
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