Quote du Jour: from "Epilogue" by Mark Tredinnick

    There will come
         a morning             
 I don’t wake and think first of you. 
                             But that day can wait.


See the entire poem here at Terrain.org. 

A poem for a Lost Love

When We Two Parted
by George Gordon Byron
When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. The dew of the morning Sunk chill on my brow-- It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame; I hear thy name spoken, And share in its shame. They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o'er me-- Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well-- Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. In secret we met-- In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee?-- With silence and tears.

--shamelessly stolen borrowed from www.poets.org
(check out all their Valentine's Day poems at: Love Poems

Celtic Maiden Warrior in Concert at Stonehenge in Heritage Key

  

Heard about a concert going on today in Heritage Key's beautiful Stonehenge Sim (thanks to Twitter friends @rivenhomewood & @xlent1). 

 The singer (/guitarist/drummer/awesome musician) was Celtic Maiden Warrior, and she played some marvelous old favorites as well as more modern songs by my favs Stan Rogers and Loreena McKennitt (one based on the beautiful Alfred Noyes' poem "The Highwayman"!). 

 To get to Heritage Key I had to recreate my Second Life Avatar on the OpenSim grid. This has been interesting to say the least. I am not yet ready to desert SL, but it's nice to know I now

exist in many places, SL, ReactionGrid, OpenSim.  New places to explore too!  If you ever find yourself in Heritage Key, look me up, we'll go shopping! (If I can find any shopping--or money! *grins* )

Famous Courtesans: La Dame aux Camélias

"Marie Duplessis (January 15, 1824 - February 3, 1847) was a French courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent and wealthy men. She was the inspiration for Marguerite Gautier, the main character of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the younger, one of Duplessis' lovers. Much of what is known about her has been derived from the literary persona and contemporary legends."

"Marie Duplessis was born Rose Alphonsine Plessis in 1824 at Nonant-le-Pin, Normandy, France. Her father became her de facto pimp when she was about 12 years old. At the age of 15, she moved to Paris where she found work in a dress shop."

"Duplessis was evidently an extremely attractive young woman, with a petite figure and an enchanting smile. By the time she was 16, she had become aware that prominent men were willing to give her money in exchange for her company in both private and social settings. She became a courtesan and learned to read, write, and to stay abreast of world events so as to be able to converse on these topics with her clients and at social functions. She also added the faux noble "Du" to her name."

"Duplessis was both a popular courtesan and the hostess of a salon, where politicians, writers, and artists gathered for stimulating conversation and socializing. She rode in the Bois de Boulogne and attended opera performances. She also had her portrait painted by Édouard Viénot."

"Duplessis was the mistress of Alexandre Dumas, between September 1844 and August 1845. Afterwards, she is believed to have become the mistress of composer Franz Liszt, who reportedly wished to live with her. Throughout her short life, her reputation as a discreet, intelligent, and witty lover was well known. She remained in the good graces of many of her benefactors even after her relationships with them had ended."

"Marie Duplessis died of tuberculosis at the age of 23 on February 5, 1847. Two of her former lovers, Swedish Count Von Stakelberg and French count Édouard de Perregaux, whom she had briefly married, were by her side. Within a few weeks of her death, her belongings were auctioned off to pay her debts. Still, her funeral in Montmartre cemetery was said to have been lavish, and attended by hundreds of people."

"Dumas' romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias appeared within a year. In the book, Dumas became 'Armand Duval' and Duplessis 'Marguerite Gautier'. "

"Adapted for the stage, La Dame aux Camélias premiered at the Theatre de Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. An instant success, Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about to put the story to music. His work became the 1853 opera La Traviata with the female protagonist 'Marguerite Gautier' renamed 'Violetta Valéry'."

"In the English-speaking world, La Dame aux Camélias became known as Camille and sixteen versions have been performed at Broadway theatres alone."

information from Wikipedia

Quote du jour: On Being Loved

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves." --Victor Hugo

Poetry on a Daily Basis

Found this poem on Poetry Daily. Something about the imagery, and the metaphors evoked, just touches me. I remember too clearly the feel of "salt-sewn eyes." You probably do, too.

You can find the original poem in the Georgia Review.

Quote du jour: David Ray

Love dies if you can't get to see her
or if you see her too much,
also from the gossip of vile men.
Or from no cause at all.

--from Not Far From the River by David Ray

Quote du Jour: George Sand

“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”--George Sand

"George Sand" is the pen name of Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, a 19th century feminist French author of over 30 novels and 8 plays. Sand is best known for her unothodox ways. She flaunted the conventions for women of her day by dressing in men's clothing, smoking in public, and embarking on many notorious love affairs, the most notable of which was with the composer Frederick Chopin, while she was living separate from her husband. One of her lovers, the poet Alfred de Musset called her: "The most womanly woman."

Quote of the Day: K. J. Parker

"Love is a confidence trick, that's all. Nature's way of suckering a mammal with a brain and a long vulnerable gestation period into reproducing. Humans can think so ordinary animal-grade maternal instinct wouldn't be enough to make human women go through all that, not if they stopped and thought about what's involved. So you have love. It's a substitute for rational thought; look at it that way, it's the complete antithesis of what being human is all about. Humans can make choices, it's what makes them unique. Love takes all your choices away, and there you suddenly are. Worse still love inevitably leads to the worst pain of all, when you lose the people you love."

--Death talking to Miel Ducas, from K.J. Parker's Evil for Evil

Sci-fi author K. J. Parker's steampunk engineer trilogy, Devices and Desires, Evil for Evil, and The Escapement is a fabulous study in human nature... and shoes, and hunting, and weapons of mass destruction, and war. I could go on, but really, you should just go read them.

A Quote for the Men I Love. . .

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee the more I have, for both are infinite." --William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

Famous Courtesans of History: Lalage of Rome

Homer mentioned her in an ode, saying:

"That smile so sweet, that voice so sweet,
Shall still enchant me."

Kipling dedicated an entire poem to her power over men:

It’s twenty-five marches to Narbo,

It’s forty-five more up the Rhone,

And the end may be death in the heather

Or life on an Emperor’s throne.

But whether the Eagles obey us,

Or we go to the Ravens—alone,

I’d sooner be Lalage’s lover

Than sit on an Emperor’s throne!

But who was she? Legend has it that Lalage was a courtesan of ancient Rome, a woman of beauty, wit, charm, and power in a patriarchal society. But if truth be told, no one really knows if there was a woman such as Kipling's Lalage. We do know that the ancient Greeks had a class of courtesans called hetairae, women who were not just prostitutes or ordinary paid sex workers, but rather educated and highly intellectual, and invariably foreign, women. We also know that the hetaira of Greece and Syria eventually became the meretrices of Rome. What were these women and why were they better than ordinary prostitutes?

In his Dialogues of the Courtesans, Lucian (second century AD) relates an exchange between two friends about a successful courtesan: "In the first place, she dresses attractively and looks neat; she's gay with all the men, without being so ready to cackle as you are, but smiles in a sweet bewitching way; later on, she's very clever when they're together, never cheats a visitor or an escort, and never throws herself at the men. If ever she takes a fee for going out to dinner, she doesn't drink too much--that's ridiculous, and men hate women who do--she doesn't gorge herself--that's ill-bred, my dear--but picks up the food with her finger-tips, eating quietly and not stuffing both cheeks full, and, when she drinks, she doesn't gulp, but sips slowly from time to time. . . . Also, she doesn't talk too much or make fun of any of the company, and has eyes only for her customer. These are the things that make her popular with the men. Again, when it's time for bed, she'll never do anything coarse or slovenly, but her only aim is to attract the man and make him love her; these are the things they all praise in her."

Rome made a fine art of licensed prostitution all the way up through the Renaissance. Influenced by the hetairea brought back to the city from wars, class divisions arose among the various women engaged in prostitution. According to Marcellus, "This is the difference between a meretrix [courtesan] and a prostibula [ a common streetwalker]: a meretrix is of a more honorable station and calling; for meretrices are so named a merendo (from earning wages) because they plied their calling only by night; prostibulu because they stand before the stabulum (stall) for gain both by day and night."

The courtesans of ancient Rome were real and many. Roman men turned to their slave women for basic sexual gratification, to wives to provide them with children, but it was to the courtesans, the foreign hetairea to whom they turned for comfort, companionship and, indeed, for romance. These women may have held more power through their patrons than even the matrons of Rome. And whether or not one of them named Lalage was a vision in the heart of the ordinary Roman soldier as Kipling's beautiful poem claims, there is no doubt that her trade was a thriving one with over 40 different terms for the registration of prostitution in Rome alone.

The name Lalage literally means to talk, and likely--if there was a real Lalage--it was for her mind and her conversation she was beloved, not just for her body. That, gentlemen, is all the difference between a courtesan and a prostitute.

Quote of the Day: D. H. Lawrence

"Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration." --
D.H.Lawrence

Quote of the Day: Oscar Wilde

"Men always want to be a woman's first love, women like to be a man's last romance." --Oscar Wilde

Quote for the New Year: Douglas Adams

"The Encyclopedia Galactica, in its chapter on Love states that it is far too complicated to define. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of love: Avoid, if at all possible." --Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Song for Wednesday: "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls

And I'd give up forever to touch you
'Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
'Cause sooner or later its over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am. . . .

Quote du Jour: Spider Robinson

God gave women asses because sometimes they have to walk away from us--Spider Robinson, author of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series.

This was quoted to me by a friend who attributes it to Spider Robinson, one of my fav science fiction authors and an all-around insightful dude. And it sounds like Spider, too, so until I hear different I'm giving him the credit.

Quote of the Day: Edmond de Goncourt

"Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists . . . . When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence." Edmond de Goncourt (1822-96)

Quote of the week: Anais Nin

"Everything is created by the image you carry within you." --Anais Nin

Song for this week: "You Lift Me Up" by Josh Groban

An unusual pairing: Josh Groban's beautiful voice singing a song with lyrics that speak to me; add to that a Japanese anime version of Romeo and Juliet. And yet, on so many levels, it works for me. The Romeo of my dreams, on a mountain top. Who could ask for more?

Quote of the Week: Shakespeare

"Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun."

            -- from Romeo & Juliet