Thoughts about April on April 1, 2020

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
--Lines 1-18 of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)


Oh, to be in England now that April ’s there
And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows
And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That ’s the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could re-capture
The first fine careless rapture!
And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower,
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
--Home Thoughts from Abroad by Robert Browning (1812-1889)


Life is not a highway strewn with flowers,
Still it holds a goodly share of bliss,
When the sun gives way to April showers,
Here's a thought that we should never miss:

Though April showers
May come your way,
They bring the flowers
That bloom in May;
And if it's raining,
Have no regrets;
Because, it isn't raining rain, you know,
It's raining violets.
And when you see clouds
Upon the hill,
You soon will see crowds
Of daffodils;
So keep on looking for the bluebird,
And listening for his song,
Whenever April showers come along.
--"April Showers", a 1921 song by Louis Silvers (music) and B. G. De Sylva (lyrics), made popular by singer Al Jolson


Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour,
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
--Lines 1-14 of Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400)


Speaking of "whan that they were seeke", the statistics as of 17:20 GMT today, April 20, 2020, from the World Health Organization (WHO) about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic are:

No. of cases worldwide: 911,570
No. of deaths: 45,536
No. recovered: 190,921
No. of active cases: 675,113
--in mild condition (95%): 640,257
--in serious or critical condition (5%): 34,856
No. of closed cases: 236,457
--No. recovered/discharged (81%): 190,921
--No. of deaths (19%): 45,536

It is my intention to post updated figures from WHO on May 1st, June 1st, etc. so that we can keep our heads about us as the days go by. The current numbers do not seem to match what Doctors Fauci and Birx are telling the American public, that the death rate is 10 times that of the flu (which is 0.1%) or 1% -- I have been keeping track every afternoon for about a week and the death figures worldwide compared to confirmed cases worldwide seem to be running steadily at around 5%. I'm not trying to alarm anybody, I just believe that truth is better than, if not fiction, wishful thinking.

Can’t you understand plain English?

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

It is English, you know. Fourteenth-century English. It’s the first eighteen lines of the Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Here’s a translation of these eighteen lines into modern English, made in 1949 by Theodore Morrison. It’s found in The Portable Chaucer (Viking Press, 1949, p. 61):

As soon as April pierces to the root
The drought of March, and bathes each bud and shoot
Through every vein of sap with gentle showers
From whose engendering liquor spring the flowers;
When zephrs have breathed softly all about
Inspiring every wood and field to sprout,
And in the zodiac the youthful sun
His journey halfway through the Ram has run;
When little birds are busy with their song
Who sleep with open eyes the whole night long
Life stirs their hearts and tingles in them so,
On pilgrimages people long to go
And palmers to set out for distant strands
And foreign shrines renowned in many lands.
And specially in England people ride
To Canterbury from every countyside
To visit there the blessed martyred saint
Who gave them strength when they were sick and faint.

Both versions, by the way, are written in iambic pentameter. You know, tah-DUM tah-DUM tah-DUM tah-DUM tah-DUM. To make true pentameter rhythm, you have to say Canterb’ry. Or Caunterb’ry. Veddy English, ay wot?

You can blame this post on Ruth Hull Chatlien, who mentioned in a post of hers on Saturday that she will never forget the first four lines of the Canterbury Tales in Middle English and that she used to know 18 lines of it, which she was required to memorize for a class in college. I thought it only fair to inflict it on the rest of you.

Here is the piéce de resistance, (or as the French would say, the pee-ESS-da rih-zis-TAWHNSS): an audio version of the eighteen lines in Middle English, complete with a rather bizarre phonetic rendering of what you are hearing. (My own phonetic renderings, of course, are not the least bit bizarre.)

Plus here’s a little something extra (a lagniappe, as it were) for making it all the way through this post: the Canterbury cathedral (photo copyright Sacred Destinations, 2007).