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Two Poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Posted in History, Poetry with tags , , , , , , , on April 3, 2024 by telescoper

Another character who appears in Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall is Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) who was a diplomat and member of the Court of Henry VIII, as well as being a fine poet. I thought I would post two of his famous poems.

The first is a sonnet, written some time in the 1530s, is ostensibly a (loose) translation of Petrarch’s Una Candida Cerva and thus one of the first examples of a Petrarchan Sonnet written in English. That makes it interesting in its own right, but many people think that it is actually about Anne Boleyn. The use of hunting as a metaphor for courtly love was widespread and, despite being married, Wyatt seems to have had his eye on Anne Boleyn. As far as is known, however, they didn’t have a sexual relationship. Wyatt wisely backed off when he realized he was competing with Henry VIII (thinly disguised as “Caesar”) in the penultimate line; Noli me tangere means “do not touch me” in Latin.

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Wyatt was in fact confined to the Tower of London in 1536 on suspicion of having committed adultery with Anne Boleyn; adultery with the King’s wife was considered treason, a capital offence. While in the Tower, where he witnessed executions, possibly including that of Anne Boleyn herself and others accused of treason with her, he wrote this other famous poem

Who list his wealth and ease retain,
Himself let him unknown contain.
Press not too fast in at that gate
Where the return stands by disdain,
For sure, circa Regna tonat.

The high mountains are blasted oft
When the low valley is mild and soft.
Fortune with Health stands at debate.
The fall is grievous from aloft.
And sure, circa Regna tonat.

These bloody days have broken my heart.
My lust, my youth did them depart,
And blind desire of estate.
Who hastes to climb seeks to revert.
Of truth, circa Regna tonat.

The bell tower showed me such sight
That in my head sticks day and night.
There did I learn out of a grate,
For all favour, glory, or might,
That yet circa Regna tonat.

By proof, I say, there did I learn:
Wit helpeth not defence too yerne,
Of innocency to plead or prate.
Bear low, therefore, give God the stern,
For sure, circa Regna tonat.

The repeated Latin phrase circa Regna tonat is usually translated “Thunder rolls around the Throne”, a reference to the dangerous temperament of the King.

Wyatt was not executed in 1536, but released after the intervention of none other than Thomas Cromwell. It seems he had a habit of sailing rather close to the wind, and was in and out of trouble with the King, being charged again with treason in 1541 and again released. He died, apparently of natural causes, in 1541, at the age of 39.

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Thomas Cromwell and his Prayer-Book

Posted in Art, History with tags , , , , , , on April 1, 2024 by telescoper
(1532-1533, Oil on Panel, 78.1 cm × 64.1 cm) by Hans Holbein the Younger – The Frick Collection, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=207764

The famous portrait of Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein the Younger shown above is in fact a copy; the original is lost. There is another copy in the National Portrait Gallery in London, but it’s not as good. The original was painted around 1533, during the period covered by the novel Wolf Hall (which I reviewed yesterday) and is mentioned in the book. Holbein is known for having sometimes painted excessively flattering portraits – most notably of Anne of Cleves – but he doesn’t seem to have done that here. Cromwell is portrayed as dour, stern-faced and more than a little scary. He probably wanted people to fear him, so wouldn’t have minded this.

As well as the nature of the likeness, the composition is interesting. The subject seems to be squashed into the frame, and hemmed in by the table that juts out towards the viewer. He is also looking out towards the viewer’s left, though not simply staring into space; his eyes are definitely focussed on something. I’m not sure what all this is intended to convey, except that the table carries an ornate prayer-book (the Book of Hours) as if to say “look, here’s a symbol of how devout this man is”.

Interesting, just last year scholars published research that argues that the copy of the Hardouyn Hours which can be found in the Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, is precisely the book depicted on the table. If so, it’s a rare and perhaps unique example of an artefact seen in a Tudor painting that survives to this day.

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Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Posted in History, Literature, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , on March 31, 2024 by telescoper

Still trying to use the spare time during my sabbatical to catch up on long-neglected reading, this Easter weekend – helped by the rainy weather – I finished Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, the first of her novels that I’ve read. This “historical novel” won the Booker Prize in 2009 and I understand was made into a play and a TV series, neither of which I have seen.

The novel is set in Tudor England in the reign of Henry VIII and revolves around Thomas Cromwell, who rose from lowly beginnings in Putney to be one of the powerful men in the country. Cromwell gets a surprisingly sympathetic treatment, at odds with most of the historical record which treats him largely as a cruel and unscrupulous character, undoubtedly clever but given to threats and torture if appeals to reason failed. From a 21st century perspective, it’s hard to find redeeming features in Cromwell. Or anyone else in this story, to be honest.

The historical events of the period covered by the book are dominated by Henry’s attempts to have his marriage of 24 years to Catherine of Aragon annulled so he could marry Anne Boleyn, along the way having himself declared the Supreme Governor of the Church in England, causing a split with Rome. Henry does marry Anne, and she bears him a daughter, destined to become Elizabeth I, though her second pregnancy ends in a miscarriage. The book ends in 1535 just after the execution of Thomas More, beheaded for refusing to swear the Oath of Supremacy.

(More was portrayed sympathetically in the play and film A Man For All Seasons though he was much disposed to persecution of alleged heretics, many of whom he caused to be burned at the stake for such terrible crimes as distributing copies of the Bible printed in English. Significant chunks of the penultimate chapter are lifted from the script of A Man For All Seasons but given a very different spin.)

Henry VIII is also portrayed in a somewhat flattering light; Anne Boleyn rather less so. Mary Tudor, Henry’s eldest daughter by Catherine of Aragon, cuts an unsurprisingly forlorn and intransigent. There are also significant appearances from other figures familiar from schoolboy history: Hugh Latimer, Cardinal Wolsey, and Thomas Cranmer; as well as those whose story is not often told, such as Mary Boleyn (Anne’s older sister). I have a feeling that Hilary Mantel was being deliberately courting controversy with her heterodox approach to characterization. She probably succeeded, as many professional historians are on record as hating Wolf Hall as much of it is of questionable accuracy and some is outright fiction.

Incidentally, one of the most negative reactions to this book that I’ve seen is from Eamon Duffy who is on record as detesting the historical figure of Thomas Cromwell and was “mystified by his makeover in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall from a thuggish ruthless commoner to a thoughtful sensitive figure”. I mention this particularly because Eamon Duffy, an ecclesiastical historian, was my tutor when I was an undergraduate at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

On the other hand, Wolf Hall not meant to be a work of scholarly history: it is a novel and I think you have to judge it by the standards of whether it succeeds as a work of fiction. I would say that it does. Although rather long-winded in places – it’s about 640 pages long – it is vividly written and does bring this period to life with colour and energy, and a great deal of humour, while not shying away from the brutality of the time; the execution scenes are unflinchingly gruesome. The book may not be accurate in terms of actual history, but it certainly creates a credible alternative vision of the time.

It’s interesting that the title of this book is Wolf Hall when that particular place – the seat of the Seymour family – hardly figures in the book. However, one character does make a few appearances, Jane Seymour, who just a year after the ending of this book would become the third wife of Henry VIII. It also happened that Thomas Cromwell’s son, Gregory, married Jane’s sister, Elizabeth. I suppose I will have to read the next book in the trilogy, Bring Up The Bodies, to hear Mantel’s version of those events…

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Cavete Quod Idibus Martiis

Posted in Film, History with tags , , on March 15, 2024 by telescoper

I almost forgot that today is the Ides of March , but I’ve remembered now and it’s not too late a priceless bit of cultural history relevant to such this fateful day. This is from the First Folio Edition of Carry On Cleo, and stars the sublime Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar delivering one of the funniest lines in the whole Carry On series. The joke may be nearly as old as me, but it’s still a cracker…

And if one old joke isn’t enough for you, here is a Caesar Salad:

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Euclid Update

Posted in Euclid, History, The Universe and Stuff on February 13, 2024 by telescoper

It’s a lovely sunny Saint Ash Valentine’s Wednesday Day in Australia though I’m not sure what day it is at the 2nd Lagrange Point of the Earth-Sun system. Nevertheless, as I mentioned last week, Euclid’s Wide Survey starts today; here is the official announcement of this from ESA. To mark this momentous event here is another nice video update showing the preparations that have been going on ahead of the arrival of the deluge of real data:

Among other things, you will see an appearance by Henry Joy McCracken whose namesake led the United Irishmen in the Rebellion of 1798.

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A Century of Rhapsody in Blue

Posted in History, Jazz, Music with tags , , , on February 12, 2024 by telescoper

It is February 12th 2024, one hundred years to the day since the first performance of George Gershwin’s composition Rhapsody in Blue at the Aeolian Hall in New York by Paul Whiteman and his Palais Royal Orchestra with the composer himself on piano. This piece is has been a concert favourite for decades, but is usually heard in an arrangement for piano and full symphony orchestra which dates from 1942. The orchestration for that version was provided by Ferdi Grofe who had scored the original for Whiteman’s much smaller band back in 1924. Gershwin originally wrote the piece for two pianos, but didn’t know much about orchestration and had handed that task over to Grofe which the latter completed just a few days before the performance on February 12th 1924. It was not until the rehearsal with Whiteman’s band, however, that the famous opening took its now familiar shape.

The clarinet player with Paul Whiteman’s band in 1924 was a chap called Ross Gorman. It was his job to play the first few bars of Rhapsody in Blue, which had been scored for solo clarinet, consisting of a trill and then a long rising scale or arpeggio of more than two octaves. When they did the first play through Gorman didn’t play it as written but instead followed the trill with part of the scale followed by a long smeared glissando. Gorman often used smears to mimic laughing or sobbing noises, so this was a kind of trademark of his and came very naturally to him (though it is quite difficult to play a long glissando like this, especially slowly). There’s no question that it was “jazzed up” with humorous intent, but Grofe and Gershwin loved Gorman’s way of playing it, and that’s how it has been played ever since.

Rhapsody in Blue was a hit with the audience at its first performance, and has remained so with audiences around the world ever since. Sales of sheet music were good too! Critical reception was somewhat different, but those who disliked it were mostly judging it in comparison with classical music forms (e.g. a piano concerto) that it wasn’t attempting to be. I think it’s a piece to be enjoyed for its exuberance and atmosphere rather than thematic development or other more refined criteria.

There isn’t a recording of the original performance of 1924, but there is one of the same arrangement played by Paul Whiteman’s band in 1927 – complete with Ross Gorman on clarinet and George Gershwin again on piano. The difference is that it was played a bit faster for this recording than it was in concert so that it would fit on two sides of a 12″ record. Although I do think some modern performances of Rhapsody in Blue are too slow, this sounds to me rather rushed in places. The sound quality isn’t great either. Nevertheless, it’s an important piece of music history and it did sell over a million copies, so it would be remiss of me not to share it today!

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University of Sydney, Physics, and Astronomy…

Posted in Biographical, History with tags , , , , on February 7, 2024 by telescoper

Here’s a gallery of random pictures I took on the way to the Physics Department at the University of Sydney this morning.

The academic year at the University of Sydney is about to start, with the new intake of students beginning to arrive next week and the first lectures taking place the week after that. The rows of tents are for the various student societies which will be hoping to recruit new members. The University was founded in 1850 and the architectural style of the older buildings on campus is what you might call Victorian Gothic Revival. There are also buildings dating from the 1920s, such as the Faculty of Medicine (1922) and the Physics Building (1924); the latter seems much bigger on the inside than the outside, and also has a new building next to it devoted to nanoscience.

Entrance to Campus
Preparing for Fresher’s Fair
Gothic Revival
Built in 1922
Way in to Physics
Long Corridor
A refracting telescope
Grubb Telescope Company 1893

I’ve posted before about the famous optical instrument manufacturer, the Grubb Telescope Company, founded in Dublin by Thomas Grubb and later renamed Grubb Parsons after its relocation to Newcastle upon Tyne. I’ve posted about other connections too, including the presence in the Physics Department in Barcelona of a refracting telescope made by Grubb. Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw yet another Grubb Telescope near the entrance to the Physics building of the University of Sydney, this one made in 1893. This is further evidence – as if it were needed – that, in its time, the Grubb Telescope Company really was the world leader in optical instrumentation.

P.S. The later manifestation of the Grubb Telescope Company – Grubb Parsons – also has Australian connections, including making the primary mirror for the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) and building the UK Schmidt situated next to the AAT at Siding Spring Observatory (about 500 km from Sydney).

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The Reinvention of Science

Posted in History, Literature, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on January 28, 2024 by telescoper

I’ve known about the existence of this new book for quite a long time – the first two of the authors are former collaborators of mine and I’m still in fairly regular touch with them – but I only received a copy a few weeks ago. Had I been less busy when it was in proof stage I might have been in a position to add to the many generous comments on the back cover from such luminaries as Martin Rees, Jim Peebles, Alan Heavens and, my hosts in Barcelona, Licia Verde and Raúl Jiménez. Anyway, now that I’ve read it I’m happy to endorse their enthusiastic comments and to give the book a plug on this blog.

One can summarize The Reinvention of Science as a journey through the history of science from ancient times to modern, signposted by mistakes, fallacies and dogma that have hindered rather than facilitated progress. These are, in other words, not so much milestones as stumbling blocks. Examples include the luminiferous aether and phlogiston to name but two. These and many other case studies are used to illustrate, for example, how supposedly rational scientists sometimes hold very irrational beliefs and act accordingly on them. The book presents a view of the evolution of science in spite of the suppression of heterodox ideas and the desire of establishment thinkers to maintain the status quo.

The volume covers a vast territory, not limited to astrophysics and cosmology (in which fields the authors specialize). It is a very well-written and enjoyable read that is strong on accuracy as well as being accessible and pedagogical. I congratulate the authors on a really excellent book.

P.S. I am of course sufficiently vain that I looked in the index before reading the book to see if I got a mention and was delighted to see my name listed not once but twice. The first time is in connection with the coverage of the BICEP2 controversy on this very blog, e.g. here. I am pleased because I did feel I was sticking my head above the parapet at the time, but was subsequently vindicated. The second mention is to do with this article which the authors describe as “beautiful”. And I didn’t even pay them! I’m truly flattered.

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The Body in the Bellaghy Bog

Posted in History, Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , on January 27, 2024 by telescoper

There was an interesting news item last week concerning the discovery of human remains in a peat bog in Bellaghy, County Derry. Radio-carbon dating has established that these remains are about 2,000 years old, so this was a person who lived in the Iron Age; a post-mortem has revealed it to be a teenage boy of around 15 years old. No cause of death has yet been established, but it is generally thought that these bog bodies were people who were executed as a punishment, or perhaps sacrificed for some ritual purpose.

These are neither the oldest nor the best-preserved such remains to be found in Ireland; the oldest belong to Cashel Man, who died, about 4,000 years ago, in the early Bronze Age. Nevertheless, the anaerobic conditions of the bog have slowed decomposition so much that not only bones, but some skin, hair and even parts of internal organs survive. This find is therefore important, not least because it should be possible to obtain detailed information about the DNA of this individual. Understanding of Ireland’s prehistoric past has been upended in recent years by DNA discoveries. What will Bellaghy Boy tell us? And how many more bog bodies are waiting to be found?

Another fascinating aspect of this story is that the location of the remains is very close to the house where the poet Seamus Heaney lived. Heaney wrote a number of poems about bog bodies and it’s ironic that there was one waiting to be found so close to his home.

Anyway, this gives me an excuse to post a vaguely relevant poem by Heaney called Bogland which, appropriately for the title of this blog, comes from a collection called Door into the Dark.

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Mathematical Mystics at Maynooth

Posted in History, mathematics, Maynooth with tags , , , on January 25, 2024 by telescoper

I’m indebted to my colleague David Malone for sending me this small excerpt from an old issue of the Kalendarium of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, dating back to the 1960s, which deals with the appointments of new members of staff

Halfway down you will see a reference to Mathematical Mystics!

This is obviously a mistake. It should of course be Mathematical Psychics Physics. I also think the name of the Mathematical Mystics lecturer should be Tigran Tchrakian. I think these are both transcription errors from somebody’s very bad handwriting! The current Department of Theoretical Physics at Maynooth was formerly known by the title Mathematical Physics.

There are some other points of interest. in Experimental Physics you will find mention of a young Susan Lawlor who is now better known as Susan McKenna-Lawlor, a very eminent astrophysicist who specialized in space instrumentation, now in her eighties.

I’m also amused by the existence of a lecturer in Elocution…

The historical background of St Patrick’s College is that it was primarily a Catholic theological institution (founded in 1795) although it taught secular courses and was a recognized college of the National University of Ireland from 1910. It was only in the mid-1960s that it was opened to lay students, which expanded the numbers considerably. In 1997 that the secular part separated and formed NUI Maynooth (now known by the marketing people as Maynooth University). The remaining theological institution is known as St Patrick’s Pontifical University (or St Patrick’s College or just Maynooth College).

A major role for St Patrick’s College was the training of priests and I suppose it was important that priests should be well spoken, hence the lectures on elocution…

Near the top in connection with Sociology you can see the title An tAth which is the Irish language way of writing the abbreviation “Fr” for “Father”, indicating a priest; “father” is athair and the an is a definite article. Note the lower case t in front of Ath which is an example of prothesis.

Finally, right at the top of the page you can see the name Donal Linehan, which will be familiar to Irish rugby fans but I don’t know if there’s a family connection between the former Ireland intentional who is now a TV commentator and the lecturer in Roman and Civil Law.

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