Megalithic Poems

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gjrk G
gjrk Aug 4, 2008 10:09:53
Replying to Littlestone

Thanks LS,

The reference is from the book of Daniel, when Belshazzar’s feast is interrupted by a hand writing four words on the wall (expression: ‘the writing is on the wall‘). After exhausting ‘the exorcists, Chaldaeans, and diviners’, Daniel is sent for to make an interpretation:
“And these are the words of the writing which was inscribed: Mene mene tekel u-pharsin. Here is the interpretation: mene: God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; tekel: you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; u-pharsin: and your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
Literally - numbered, numbered, weighed, divided.

The ‘brazen serpent’ is from Numbers 21:
“Moses therefore pleaded with the Lord for the people; and the Lord told Moses to make a serpent of bronze and erect it as a standard, so that anyone who had been bitten could look at it and recover.”

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=ng59

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=ng6350


Thanks again, by the way, for your London tips. I would have walked right past that casket if I hadn't been looking for it and it was quite incredible.

L Littlestone
Littlestone Aug 4, 2008 10:58:23
Replying to gjrk

Thanks g, that's fascinating.

Glad you got to see the Franks Casket. A photo of one side of the casket was used for the cover of the Penguin Classics' edition of The Earliest English Poems, translated by Michael Alexander (and dedicated to Ezra Pound).* Mention that not only because of the photo on the cover but also because the first poem in the book is The Ruin; some believe that the poem is describing Stonehenge, though I think it's now generally accepted that it's describing the Roman baths at Bath. The mention of 'tiles' and the, "...wide streams welled hot from source..." is a bit of a giveaway.

Never fails to amaze me though that some one thousand years ago an Anglo-Saxon poet stood in the ruins at Bath and put his feelings into a poem, a fragment of which we still have. Other poets and minstrels (or were they one and the same) must have sung about the remaining wonders of pre-Roman Britain - the stone circles and tumuli that were still all around them. Such a pity we have no early poems about them. One can but hope though - perhaps in a dusty corner somewhere there is more waiting to be found...

* ISBN 0-14-044594-3