Canto Three: The French stuff.. and yew trees

[James Kyllo]

Canto 3 starts with a couple of multilingual puns

line 501

L'if - The yew tree in French.

"lifeless tree"   Every part of the yew save The red aril surrounding the
seed is poisonous.  And yet, Europe's oldest tree is The Fortingall Yew Tree
in Glen Lyon, Perthshire, Scotland,  estimated as being between 3,000 and
5,000 years old.  Christian scholars have associated it with Christ as 'the
tree of the cross' or with the theme of resurrection. However, the evidence
is now overwhelming that the Yew was the archetype of "The Tree of Life" to
people all over Europe eons before Christ was born. Before churches were
built, the Yew itself was 'the Church', the sacred tree or grove,  a gateway
to the Otherworld, where the Ancestors are. The idea of the Yew as a gateway
is reinforced by the fact that all older Yews form hollow trunks, which can
be seen as an entrance to the Otherworld. One of the many extra ordinary
qualities of the Yew is its ability to rejuvenate itself and there are many
reports of old haggard and injured yews which decennia later suddenly decide
to resurrect themselves and begin sprouting again and put on new growth


much of this edited from http://www.the-tree.org.uk/  more there


line 502

Last words attributed to Rabelais:

"Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-etre; tirez le rideau, la farce est
jouee"
I'm going looking for the great perhaps.  Draw the curtain, the farce is
over.

line 618  - Le grand néant  (the big nothing)

from Victor Hugo's "A celle qui est restée en France "

"Cherche au moins la poussière immense, si tu veux
Mêler de la poussière à tes sombres cheveux,
Et regarde, en dehors de ton propre martyre,
Le grand néant, si c'est le néant qui t'attire!
Sois tout à ces soleils où tu remonteras!
Laisse là ton vil coin de terre. Tends les bras,
O proscrit de l'azur, vers les astres patries!"

or as Babelfish would have it:

"Seek at least immense dust, if you want
To mingle with dust with your dark hair,
 And looks at, apart from your own martyrdom,
Great nothing, if it is nothing which attracts you!
Would be all with these suns where you will go up!
 There leave your cheap ground corner. Tighten the arms,
O proscribed of the azure, towards the stars fatherlands! "

Azure!  and further to that big nothing, another metaphysical poet, John
Wilmot, Earl of Rochester wrote "Upon Nothing"

the first lines of which are:

"Nothing!, thou Elder Brother ev'n to Shade,
Thou hadst a being ere the World was made, "


best

James