John Ball. (c. 1338 – 15 July 1381) 'A Dream of John Ball' written by William Morris

2019年7月30日

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182 William Morris and the Kelmscott Press 2017-08-03 【漢清講堂】

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W8xjOI5-Fg&t=22s

The William Morris Society

2019年7月30日

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On World Friendship Day to quote from 'A Dream of John Ball' written by William Morris in 1888 ...

John Ball (priest)

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John Ball
Medieval drawing of John Ball giving hope to Wat Tyler's rebels
Born	c. 1338 Colchester, Kingdom of England
Died	15 July 1381 (aged 42/43) St Albans
Nationality	English
Occupation	Priest
Known for	Peasants' Revolt

John Ball (c. 1338^[1] – 15 July 1381) was an English priest who took a prominent part in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.^[2] Although he is often associated with John Wycliffe and the Lollard movement, Ball was actively preaching 'articles contrary to the faith of the church' at least a decade before Wycliffe started attracting attention.^[3]

Contents

• 1Biography
• 2John Ball in popular culture
• 3See also
• 4Notes
• 5Citations
• 6References
• 7External links

John Ball's line, "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?" serves as the epigraph to Zadie Smith's 2012 novel NW, which follows characters who grew up on a council estate in northwest London.

In Act V Scene 1 of Hamlet, Shakespeare has the Gravedigger (First Clown) discuss the line "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?" with a bit of a reversed sense: in Adam's time there were none but gentlemen.

First Clown: ... Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession.

Second Clown: Was he a gentleman?

First Clown: He was the first that ever bore arms.

Second Clown: Why, he had none.

First Clown: What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The
Scripture says 'Adam digged:' could he dig without arms?

Illustration from title page to William Morris's A Dream of John Ball (1888)

David Grocott
The William Morris Appreciation Society





David Grocott

Six hundred and 39 years ago today a Colchester man awoke to await sentence having been convicted for his part in leading a rebellion against the perceived misrule of England.

His name was John Ball.

As part of the prosecution evidence against him a pamphlet was read aloud to the court that used Ball's pseudonym of John Schep - John the Sheppard.

'Johon Schep, som tyme Seynte Marie prest of York, and now of Colchestre,

greteth wel Johan Nameles, and Johan the Mullere, and Johon Cartere, and

biddeth hem that thei bee war of gyle in borugh, and stondeth togidre in Godes

name, and biddeth Peres Ploughman go to his werk, and chastise wel Hobbe the

Robbere, and taketh with yow Johan Trewman and alle hiis felawes, and no mo,

and loke schappe you to on heved, and no mo.'

'Johan the Mullere hath ygrounde smal, smal, smal;

The Kynges sone of hevene schal paye for al.

Be war or ye be wo;

Knoweth your freend fro your foo.

Haveth ynow, and seith "Hoo!"

And do wel and bettre, and fleth synne,

And seketh pees, and hold you therinne.'

Ball had survived the Black Death and had seen the economic repression of the following years.

He questioned assumed authority and envisaged a world of radical egalitarianism.

He is the first named person in the history of western thought to have envisaged such a future and from him emanates a golden thread of thinking that runs through Lilburne, Winstanley, Chartists, Engles, Marx, Ulyanov, Hardie and into the modern era of egalitarianism.

Ball - the fountainhead of global socialism - was from Colchester.

His home town cultivated his ideas, strong as a shire horse, of emancipated serfdom. Once sired, his concept, trained and broken in the East Anglian fields following the retreating tide of pestilence, could not be bridled. Ball watched it gain strength. Emboldened on the rich beer of Lollard rhetoric he smoothed its sides and tended to its needs, he slipped the lock from its stable and and let it bolt.

'When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?'

Ball's idea is still running.

On 13th July 1381 Ball and his ideas were on trial.

Both were found guilty of treason and two days later - on July 15th - Ball was hung, drawn and quartered in front of St Albans Cathedral. His body parts were sent to four corners of the realm.

The 14-year-old king Richard II who had smoothed the tempers of the revolutionaries of the Peasants' Revolt weeks before with his fugacious smile watched the execution with glee.

He commented: "You wretches - detestable on land and sea: you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues: rustics you were, and rustics you are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity. However, we will spare your lives if you remain faithful and loyal. Choose now which course you want to follow."

This year events - my goodness - have been against us but today, on John Ball Day, please can I ask one thing. Please think a mo on Ball and the fact that 639 years on we fight the same fight. We carry each day an ember that was lit by a man of our town.

Hopefully - pandemics aside - we can do him justice next year for the 640th anniversary of his martyrdom.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

The Song of Wandering Aengus

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

***

The Song of Wandering Aengus. Words by W.B.Yeats. Spoken by Michael Gambon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_VPtGfsw0

***

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"The Song of Wandering Aengus" is a poem by Irish poet W. B. Yeats. It was first printed in 1897 in British magazine The Sketch under the title "A Mad Song."^[1] It was then published under its standard name in Yeats' 1899 anthology The Wind Among the Reeds.^[1] It is especially remembered for its two final lines: "The silver apples of the moon,/ The golden apples of the sun."

The poem is told from the point of view of an old man who, at some point in his past, had a fantastical experience in which a silver trout fish he had caught and laid on the floor turned into a "glimmering girl" who called him by his name, then vanished; he became infatuated with her, and remains devoted to finding her again.^[1]

In an 1899 letter to fellow poet Dora Sigerson, Yeats called "The Song of Wandering Aengus" "the kind of poem I like best myself—a ballad that gradually lifts ... from circumstantial to purely lyrical writing."^[2]

Contents

• 1Meaning and inspiration
• 2Cultural references
• 3Musical adaptations
• 4References

Meaning and inspiration[edit]

Yeats later said that "the poem was suggested to me by a Greek folk song; but the folk belief of Greece is very like that of Ireland, and I certainly thought, when I wrote it, of Ireland, and of the spirits that are in Ireland."^[3] At least one scholar has pointed to the Greek folk song "The Fruit of the Apple Tree" as the likely source of Yeats' inspiration.^[3] That song was included in a volume of Greek poetry translated by Lucy Garnett, which Yeats had written a review of in 1896.^[3]

It has been claimed that the poem's story is based on the Irish god Aengus, and specifically the story of the "Dream of Aengus", which had first appeared in the 8th century, in which Aengus falls in love with a woman whom he sees only in his dreams.^[4]

The poem has also been compared to the aisling genre of Irish poetry, in which a magical woman appears who represents the country of Ireland.^[2]

Old Age Sticks

Old Age Sticks
e.e. cummings


Old age sticks up keep off signs
& youth yanks them down
Old age cries no tress
& pass
Youth laughs
Sing old age scolds forbidden stop
Mustn’t don’t &
Youth goes right on growing old.

Paul Claudel 詩一首

Google翻譯：

If you knew how much love

I follow your steps

... with how much love

I dry your tears

... with how much love

I take you by the hand so that you don't fall

....

... with how much love I look at your gaze

which is sometimes so sad

and he can't see the light.

...

If you only knew how much I suffer from the bitterness of life with you

I would like to caress you with meat hands ...

but I whisper it to those around you ...

I would like to tell you the truest words of love,

but I suggest it to anyone who gives you a word.

I would like to see you gather all the love

that you sow

to feel satisfied with your life

but like everything ...

time will let the fruit grow

that you yourself were born.

Rejoice because through your hands

I give love to those who are lucky enough to meet you.

                  Paul Claudel

                 French poet.

             (1868 - 1955) France

Painting - Sandro Botticelli (details)

Дафина Йотова
RENAISSANCE ART AND ARCHITECTURE




Grazia Arigò

昨天下午6:25 ·

Se tu sapessi con quanto amore
seguo i tuoi passi
... con quanto amore
asciugo le tue lacrime
... con quanto amore
ti prendo per mano affinché tu non cada
....
... con quanto amore guardo il tuo sguardo
che a volte è così triste
e non ce la fa a vedere la luce.
...
Se solo sapessi quanto soffro insieme a te dell’amaro della vita
Vorrei accarezzarti con mani di carne…
ma lo sussurro a chi ti sta accanto…
vorrei dirti le parole più vere dell’amore,
ma lo suggerisco a chi ti regala una parola.
Vorrei vederti raccogliere tutto l’amore
che semini
per sentirti soddisfatto della tua vita
ma come ogni cosa…
il tempo lascerà crescere il frutto
che tu stesso hai fatto nascere.
Gioisci perché attraverso le tue mani
io regalo l’amore a chi ha la fortuna di incontrarti.

Paul Claudel
Poeta Francese.
(1868 - 1955) Francia
Dipinto - Sandro Botticelli (dettagli)