Okay, now I'm crying. I didn't think i would. I didn't think I'd mourn a website. But here I am, trying to type as everything blurs up because of the tears in my eyes. Thank you, Hillary - you're incredible, and it's just so damn cool that you like something that I like. Thank you, The Toast - Nicole, Mallory, Nicole, et al. I've never seen anything on this site that I didn't at least like, and most of it I've loved. Thank you, Toasties - what a wonderful community. We've never met, but I love you all. Have to stop now, too much crying!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing this and for sharing it. "I never expect to be cured from my depression" is a statement I can wholeheartedly agree with - I will always struggle with it because it is part of who I am. Thank you for talking about your experience. I really do believe it can only help to share mental health strategies; it lets us know we're not alone and it gives us chances to connect with and learn from each other.
I guess to understand this it helps to understand French history and culture and the immense influence of Jean de la Fontaine's Fables. I'm trying to come up with an American corollary but I just can't. Maybe if there were Sesame Street songs that taught practical lessons for children but also had significant, sophisticated messages for adults as well? Or that were written for adults in the first place? Ugh, why is allegory so hard to explain?!
I think I *am* going to miss Two Monks most of all... They're trying their hardest. They ask each other questions. They wonder about things, like what do horses eat, and how tall are women, or what a dog's face looks like, or how many people fit in a castle. They do the best they can. They still get it mostly wrong. Pretty much, they're me.
You're lucky to have read a prose translation! Those carry the meaning so much better than the ones that tried to stick to the original rhyme scheme - French octets just don't come out right in English. Though I am by no means an expert, I've studied Marie de France in both French AND English Lit, so I can at least offer a decently-backed-up opinion. I'm always glad to run into someone else who is delighted by Marie de France's works - I just love her.
"Quit pestering the cows God made (with reading comprehension questions!)."
Okay, now I think maybe all hymns should come with reading comprehension questions. Also, as a former children's choir member, I am totally jealous that these kids got copies of their lyrics. We had to memorize our hymns. I remember feeling very resentful that the adult choir got to have hymnals while the children's choir was made to memorize every song! We did have our miniature choir robes and stoles, so we looked really good, but still I felt like the grown-ups should be the ones having to memorize everything - after all, they had (presumably) been singing in church much longer than we had...
The Old French Marie de France writes in is pretty much collapsed Latin, so if you know any Latin at all you could give it a try. All the English translations of her rhymed octets that I've seen have been just a little too cutesy for me...
Yup. My Middle English accent turned out kind of Irish, which is funny b/c my ancestry is mostly Scots-Irish but that's several generations back.
Exactly! It helps that I'm fluent in modern French. Also, I was a bookish, word-obsessed child who wondered why there were words like inject, project, reject, dejected, conjecture, etc. but not 'ject' itself, and scoured dictionaries learning about Greek and Latin roots... and Old French is, as my favorite English Lit professor says, "basically just collapsed Latin."
Oh, good. Granted, I'm much better at Old French than I am at Middle English, but reading Chaucer the words seem to make sense - I just remind myself to sound it out.
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