the earthly Paradise
“The garden of Eden . . . had an earthly existence which often appeared on maps, located far to the east, where it was believed cut off from the rest of the world by a great mountain or ocean barrier or fiery wall. In the earthly Paradise grow every kind of tree and flowers of surpassing colors and a thousand scents which never fade and have healing qualities. Birds’ songs harmonize with the rustling of forest leaves and the rippling of streams flowing over jeweled rocks or over sands brighter than silver. A palace with columns of crystal and jasper sheds marvelous light. . . . The mountain peak on which it is situated is so high it touches the sphere of the moon—but here the scientific mind intervened: that would be impossible, pronounced the 14th century author of Polychronicon, because it would cause an eclipse.”
—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.
black flags
“When the plague entered northern France in July 1348, . . . [e]ither in mourning or warning, black flags were flown from church towers of the worst-stricken villages of Normandy.”
—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.
like black smoke
“The physical suffering of the disease and its aspect of evil mystery were expressed in a strange Welsh lament which saw ‘death coming into our midst like black smoke. . . . Woe is me of the shilling in the armpit!’ It is seething, terrible . . . a head that gives pain and causes a loud cry . . . a painful angry knob. . . . Great is its seething like a burning cinder . . . a grievous thing of ashy color. Its eruption is ugly like the ‘seeds of black peas, broken fragments of brittle sea-coal . . . the early ornaments of black death, cinders of the peelings of the cockle weed, a mixed multitude, a black plague like halfpence, like berries. . . .’”
—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.
The Oriflamme
“The Oriflamme [was the] forked-tongue scarlet banner of the Kings of France. . . . Legend derived the banner from Charlemagne, who was said to have carried it to the Holy Land in response to an angel’s prophecy that a knight armed with a golden lance from whose tip flames of “great marvel” burned would deliver the land from the Saracens. [It was embroidered with [the] golden flames that gave it its name. . . .”
—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.
a tooth the size of an armchair
“Shop signs were gargantuan, the better to overwhelm customers. . . . A tooth-puller was represented by a tooth the size of an armchair, a glover by a glove with each finger big enough to hold a baby.”
—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.
gilded.
[Glazed with] a paste of powdered egg yolk, saffron, and flour sometimes mixed with real gold leaf.
—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.
robed in the pure sky blue
“Like most affluent lords, [the Duc de Berry] had a good library of classics and contemporary works; he commissioned translations from the Latin, bought romances from booksellers in Paris, and bound his books in precious bindings, some in red velvet with gold clasps. He commissioned from renowned illuminators at least twenty Books of Hours, among them two exquisite masterpieces, the Grandes Heures and Tr’s Riches Heures. His pleasure was to see illustrated his favorite scenes and portraits, including his own. Delicate multiple-towered cities and castles, rural occupations, knights and ladies in garden, hunt, and banquet hall, clad in garments of surpassing elegance, ornamented the prayerbooks. The Duke himself usually appears robed in the pure sky blue, whose pigment was so precious that two pots of it were listed in an inventory of Berry’s “treasures.””
—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.
a combination of Prince Charming and Einstein
“I don’t think I’d ever seen such a frump. The white wraparound uniform she wore, probably supplied by the restaurant, was about six sizes too large for her, and she appeared to be trying to fight her way out of it when she moved. Her hair was done up in what I can only describe as a wad. She wore a pair of tiny dime-store glasses which squeezed her eyes to the size of beans. Her severe little face was shiny, utterly free of so much as a little powder. Worst of all was her body, or perhaps her posture. . . .
I’ve said I was a not-so-much myself. Compared to her I was a combination of Prince Charming and Einstein. . . .”
—Jim Thompson, from Sunrise at Midnight; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.
the intrinsically cheap
“[I]t seemed unlikely that any metal but gold would have received so much careful workmanship.
It just wasn’t done, . . . Diamonds were not mounted in tin. Expert craftsmen did not spend their valuable time on the intrinsically cheap.”
—Jim Thompson, from The Cellini Chalice, 1956; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.
diamonds in a dime-store brooch
“Dawn, and the little flocks of silver-enameled tanks on every hill and the fifty-five thousand barrel tanks in the valley made you think of diamonds in a dime-store brooch—so much wealth in such an outlandish place.
The purple ribbons of oil splashed down every hill and turned brown and gold in the sun. Up the valley the lights on the drilling rig winked out.”
—Jim Thompson, from Character at Iraan, 1930; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.