Carmina Burana, by Several Poets

Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff

Carmina Burana (“Songs of Burana”) is a collection of medieval poetry. It’s the largest and most varied surviving anthology of medieval Latin poetry. The poems belong to the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. They were written mostly in Latin, although some ones are in German because the manuscript was found in Bavaria, in a Benedictine monastery, Benedickbeuern, “Benedictoburanum” in Latin. The poems are about love, sex, gaming and drinking in taverns, and they are bawdy, anticlerical, satirical and irreverent.

They were written mostly by goliards, that is, clergy students that had abandoned the seminar and went travelling around Europe reciting their poems. The word “goliard” seems to come from Goliath, and so meant something bad, or the devil. Some sources say that they were Abelard students. Abelard was a philosopher, poet and theologian, famous for his romantic affair with the nun Heloïse. They had a child, although they supposed to be celibates, and the result of this conflict was that Abelard was castrated by her uncle. A good definition of “goliard” is “a drop-out and spoiled priest gone wild.”

So the goliards were a kind of entertaining travellers, and, contrasting with the troubadours, (who, by the way, wrote in a vernacular language), they praised the physical love.
These were the centuries when the first universities were being built, when reading silently for oneself and without moving the lips (an accomplishment of Saint Jerome which impressed his fourth century admirers) was a growing skill. Latin was an international language, and students used to travel not only to earn their living or to enjoy the life, but in search of teachers and their theories.
However, the Carmina Burana collection wasn’t found until 1803 and published in 1847.
It consists of songs of morals and mockery, love songs, songs of drinking and gaming and two spiritual theatre pieces.
Carl Orff created a musical composition based on some of these poems.
Only a few authors are known:
Hugh of Orléans (1093-1160). He spent his life roaming France. His nickname was Primas because they say he was a master of poetry.
Peter of Blois (1135-1212). He was the secretary of Henry II of England. He taught English in Paris and was Archdeacon of Bath.
Walter de Châtillon (1135-1204). He worked for Henry II and was secretary of the Archbishop of Rheims. He also worked as a teacher in Châtillon.
And a poet called the Archpoet, patronized as Poet Laureate by Rainard of Dassel (♰1165), Chancellor of Frederick I, aka Barbarossa. They say he was the coughing ghost because the word “cough” appears in some of his poems, and we don’t know anything else of him.
Abelard (1079-1142) wrote some poems in his youth, but we don’t know if some of the Carmina Burana poems are his.

Two poems translated from Latin into English by David Parlett

O Fortuna 

O how Fortune, 

inopportune, 

apes the moon's inconstancy: 

waxing, waning, 

losing, gaining, 

life treats us detestably: 

first oppressing 

then caressing 

shifts us like pawns in her play: 

destitution, 

restitution, 

mixes and melts them away. 

Fate, as vicious 

as capricious, 

whirling your merry-go-round: 

evil doings, 

worthless wooings, 

crumble away to the ground: 

darkly stealing, 

unrevealing, 

working against me you go: 

for your measure 

of foul pleasure 

I bare my back to your blow. 

Noble actions, 

true transactions, 

no longer fall to my lot: 

powers to make me 

then to break me 

all play their part in your plot: 

now seize your time — 

waste no more time, 

pluck these poor strings and let go: 

since the strongest 

fall the longest 

let the world share in my woe.

In taberna quando sumus 

In the tavern when we're drinking, 

though the ground be cold and stinking, 

down we go and join the action 

with the dice and gaming faction. 

What goes on inside the salon 

where it's strictly cash per gallon 

if you'd like to know, sir, well you 

shut your mouth and I shall tell you.

Some are drinking, some are playing, 

some their vulgar side displaying: 

most of those who like to gamble 

wind up naked in the scramble; 

some emerge attired in new things, 

some in bits and bobs and shoestrings: 

no one thinks he'll kick the bucket 

dicing for a beery ducat.

 

First to those who pay for wallowing, 

then we layabouts toast the following: 

next we drink to all held captive, 

thirdly drink to those still active, 

fourthly drink to the Christian-hearted, 

fifthly drink to the dear departed, 

sixthly to our free-and-easy sisters, 

seventhly to all out-of-work enlisters.

Eighthly drink to friars deconverted, 

ninthly, monks from monast'ries diverted, 

tenthly, sailors of the oceans, 

eleventhly, louts who cause commotions, 

twelfthly, those who wear the penitential, 

thirteenth, and whose journey is essential — 

to this fat pope, to that thin king — 

who the hell cares why they're drinking!

Drinking tinker, drinking tailor, 

drinking soldier, drinking sailor, 

drinking rich man, drinking poor man, 

drinking beggarman, thief and lawman, 

drinking servant, drinking master, 

drinking mistress, drinking pastor, 

drinking doctor, drinking layman, 

drinking drunkard, drinking drayman: 

Drinking rude man, drinking proper, 

drinking tiddler, drinking whopper, 

drinking scholar, drinking gypsy, 

drinking drunk or maudlin tipsy, 

drinking father, drinking mother, 

drinking sister, drinking brother, 

drinking husbands, wives and lovers

and a hundred thousand others — 

Half a million pounds would never 

pay for all we drink together: 

for we drink beyond all measure, 

purely for the sake of pleasure: 

thus you see us, poor and shoddy, 

criticized by everybody —  

God grant that they be confounded 

when at last the trump is sounded!

Half a Loaf, by Graham Swift

Half a Loaf, by Glòria Torner

The story has four parts:

PART I. PRESENTATION

The first words we read, “half a loaf”, are the repetition of the title and also the synthesis of all the story.

The narrator is remembering the last lovely night he spent with his girlfriend, called Tanya, and he is imagining how she is returning home alone, as many times, after making love with him. He is thinking that everybody is looking how beautiful his lover is while she is walking along the street and descending to the Tube. He is waiting for the next time he will reach out and touch Tanya.

After that, he describes how important has been for him in his life the religious influence of his strict father, who was a churchman, and also the drastic opinions of her mother wishing him happiness, although she used to say: “all good things must end”.  

PART II. ERIC, THE OSTEOPATH

Now, we know that the narrator, called Eric, is a widower osteopath who has lost his wife, Anthea, three years ago. He describes how sad he felt when his wife died, until he fell into a deep depression. At that time, he only thought about ending his life and thus being with his dead wife.

PART III. TANYA, THE PATIENT

While he was suffering this mental breakdown, he met a new patient, Tanya, a young woman, twenty-six years old. He quickly cured her of a lower back problem and began a love affair with her. Following the story, Eric asked her to have dinner with him and they began a relationship spending since then a night together every week. He sought solace in the company of Tanya, all the while imagining and reconnecting with his dead wife, who encourages him saying “go on”. He can’t disconnect himself from his past.

But Eric has a presentiment: he thinks this love affair will end soon.

Part IV.  NATHAN, THE BOYFRIEND

Following the story, two months later, we clearly notice that Tanya has a regular boyfriend, Nathan. Eric, who isn’t jealous, shares her with her boyfriend. Now, he tries to understand if it’s possible to share his lover with Nathan and not to lose her, although he believes that there will come a time when this love affair will be quite impossible, a real obstacle, like “a stone”. The last words of the story imply that there will not be another night together.

SOME REMARKS

This story is quite different from the others we have read because it’s the first story we read only about love with sensual and sexual feelings.

The story doesn’t follow any linear order from the beginning to the end because Eric, the narrator, wants to mix his memories, thoughts and desires together, until reaching a possible, perhaps uncertain, end.

After reading this sad and conformist story, I finish my work with three questions:

Must he accept less than he wanted? Do you think he wants to share his lover? Or he prefers to finish his affair?

QUESTIONS

-What is the meaning of the title? Is there a pun with the word “loaf”?

-“All good things come to an end”. According to your opinion, is this saying true for everything?

-Talk about the narrator: family, job…

-Why do you think the narrator tells us about his father being a churchman?

-“Certain female patients didn’t exactly go to see him for their back problems”: do you think it’s true?

-Describe his love for Tanya.

-Tanya’s decision to bed with him, could be a paraphilia? (Perhaps she was attracted by crying men)

-What you invite someone, what is it best: to go where you like, or to go where you think the other person will like?

-Is there only a kind of love (sexual, not friendship or family love)? How many kinds of love are there? Does love change along the centuries? For example: jealousy. A true love, does it have to be jealous?

Does Tanya love him, or she feels pity? What do you know about the novel Beware of pity, by Stefan Zweig?

-What can you say about Zeppo’s?

-What do you think about Tanya’s morality (she has a boyfriend and gets laid with the narrator)? Have you seen the French film À l’abordage?

-“The young are a mystery, a different species”. What sense is this true in?

-Men “might eventually resort to prostitutes”. Is this a cliché for men? And what about women?

-How do you think their relationship will end?

-What is the stone at the end of the story?

 

VOCABULARY

bay window, ammunition, dwell, unaware, swamp, nonchalantly, on tap, get-out card, balm, rehearsing, arouse, breakdown, sheer, vouched, NHS, blubbering, spectacle, unclad, delude, fee, aegis, doomed, allowance, stray, unprompted, period, crust, bereft, lack, egging me on