hoor
“Though I be hoor, I fare as dooth a tree
That blosmeth er that fruyt ywoxen bee;
And blosmy tree nys neither drye ne deed.
I feele me nowhere hoor but on myn heed;”
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, c. 1400.
hoary
“I may seem hoary, but I’m like a tree
That blossoms white before the fruit can be;
Blossoming trees are neither dry nor dead
And I am only hoary on my head.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, translated by Neville Coghill, 1952.
Phebus
“Bright was the day, and blew the firmament;
Phebus hath of gold his stremes doun ysent,
To gladen every flour with his warmnesse.
He was that tyme in Geminis, as I gesse,”
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, c. 1400.
Phoebus
“Bright was the day and blue the firmament,
Down fell the golden flood that Phoebus sent
To gladden every flower with his beams;
He was in Gemini at the time, it seems,”
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, translated by Neville Coghill, 1952.
Cecilie the white
“And right so as thise philosophres write
That hevene is swift and round and eek brennynge,
Right so was faire Cecilie the white
Ful swift and bisy evere in good werkynge,
And round and hool in good perseverynge,
And brennynge evere in charite ful brighte.
Now have I yow declared what she highte.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, c. 1400.
Cecilia the White
“And just as these philosophers will write
To prove that heaven is swift and round and burning,
Just so was fair Cecilia the White,
As swift and ceaseless, turning and returning
To works of mercy, and round in her discerning
Of charity, and so I read her name.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, translated by Neville Coghill, 1952.
The Philosopher’s Stone
“Two mysterious processes—the rubefaction and albefaction of waters, i.e. reddening and whitening or clarifying a liquid . . . are referred to in medieval textbooks of alchemy. . . .
It was part of the theory that when the ingredients began to turn yellow they were on the verge of becoming the Philosopher’s Stone, by which all could be turned to gold. The Philosopher’s Stone was held to be heavy, sweet-smelling, constant and pink, and to exist in powder form as well. . . .”
—Neville Coghill, endnotes from his translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, 1952.
the color of constancy in love
“Blue for Chaucer’s age was the color of constancy in love and green of lightness in love. This is echoed in ‘Greenlseeves is my delight’ and elsewhere.”
—Neville Coghill, endnote from his translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, 1952.
just a week ago
My brothers Jim and Bruce, and the famous Jay Joyner, at Atlantic Beach just a week ago.
Zen To Go
I love quote books, probably because of ADD, the Attention Deficit Disorder which affects so many of my generation. I was born in, or I should say “was brought to you by” 1958, for this was my first sentence fragment. I like to thumb through magazines, and books, from the back to the front and my eye tends to only stop on bite-size chunks. So quote books are, for me, just the thing for leisurely intellectual entertainment.
The first quote book that completely arrested my attention (the cover design by Paula Scher features a tasty looking yin-yang pretzel) was Zen To Go, edited by Jon Winokur. This little book managed to influence my thinking and my teaching profoundly and probably for all time. I began to collect quote books, such as another great Winokur collection, The Portable Curmudgeon, and dozens of ‘gift books’ from the Peter Pauper Press that I found in thrift stores, and classics like the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.