WA2K Radio is now on the air

and now, listeners, it's time for a pilgrimage poem:

When the sweet showers of April have pierced
The drought of March, and pierced it to the root,
And every vein is bathed in that moisture
Whose quickening force will engender the flower;
And when the west wind too with its sweet breath
Has given life in every wood and field
To tender shoots, and when the stripling sun
Has run his half-course in Aries, the Ram,
And when small birds are making melodies,
That sleep all the night long with open eyes
(Nature so prompts them and encourages);
The people long to go on pilgrimages,

And I am off to make my pilgrimage to the CPA, so that I can prevent the IRS from piercing me.

Hey Letty, I only knew that in the original! We studied it at school.

Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury

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;
5 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 halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(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;
15 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.

Bifil that in that seson, on a day,

20 In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
25 Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,


Brillyante stuffe! Middle English, don'cha love it?

Well, good news from Uncle Sam, McTag. I recall the Chaucer version, but I can't spell it.

Fantastic day here in my little section of Florida.

Here's a great song for our listeners:

High on a windy hill
I feel my heart stand still
All I can hear is you calling my name
Into a misty blue
I go in search of you
There in the shadows calling your name
Why are you just beyond me
When will I see your face
Why do you just elude me
And leave me this lonely space
Oh, into eternity your love will beckon me
I can't forget your voice that calls my name

Into eternity your love will beckon me
I can't forget your voice that calls my name..

P.S. I missed your middle English version, McTag. Yes indeed, I love it. Hard to believe that Shakespeare begins the modern English period, isn't it?

Is there many versions of THE CANTERBURY TALES?

Mine looks like this:

The Prologue

WHEN in April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root,and all
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
As brings about the engendering of the flower,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And the small fowl are making melody
That sleep away the night with open eye
(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
Then, people long to go on pilgrimages
And palmers long to seek the stranger strands
Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,
And specially, from every shire's end
Of England, down to Canterbury they wend.
To seek the holy blissful martyr,* quick
To give his help to them when they were sick.
It happened in that season that one day
In Southwark, at The Tabard, as I lay

Francis, that is stunningly beautiful. I didn't realize there could be so many translations of Chaucer. I'll need to check that out.

Hmmmm. Wonder where our researcher, Raggedy is?

Hey Francis! How ya doin?

McTag's version is the version, written in Middle English. Any other version is a translation form that into Modern English. (I took a Chaucer course once and we had to learn how to pronounce Middle English. Very stange.)

Hi George! (All day in french TV, but recording reported.)

er, George. I thought that I had observed that.

Forgive us, listeners. In our eagerness to cover a subject, we often get rambunctious. (colloquialism here in the South)

Oops. <Memo to self. First read, then post.>

It happens, George, when the station has been on the air for a long spell.

I found this on the web, folks.

http://hosting.uaa.alaska.edu/afdtk/ect_genprol.htm

Rather long, but it has good references. After a bit, I am going to search out my old English Lit college anthology.

I may have told yall this before, but here it comes again. Back in 1963, when I was a senior in high school, we studied the Canterbury Tales, in the mid-english that McTag used. The teacher was Miss H. She was old, quite old, and very very Jewish (which I mention only because this was in the South where we didn't have a lot of diversity in the teaching staff). She taught only one advanced level class and if you were interested in
"English" you would have to demonstrate a desire a year or two earlier by taking several other demanding courses.
God, was she good on Chaucer. I remember one of the tales (the Miller's?) where there was some clever reference to (how can I put this) farting. We enjoyed the wordplay there. And then Miss H read us a few lines (from the Teacher's tale?) and gave us a bit of a lecture on her life in that career; ending with the line "...gladly would she learn and gladly would she teach." (Or something like that; it was 40 years ago). We were all in tears at the end . God, was she an inspiring teacher.

Ah, John of Virginia. What a delightful memory, and a real tribute to your teacher. As I recall, Chaucer had quite a few ribald tales among his entourage. So many things have been deleted from the originals, even Shakespeare, that it gives our students a short sighted view of the way things were.

Good morning, WA2K radio fans. This morning we are operating with a skeleton crew, so I will simply report that I am most concerned with the absence of our researcher, Raggedyaggie.

Please let us know, listeners, if you have heard from her.

It is fascinating to me that we have been able to explore Chaucer and his pilgrims. (never hear that word that I don't think of John Wayne) while on another forum the exploration of Shakespeare and the possibility that he may have translated the King James version of the Christian Bible, has helped us to understand our rich heritage regardless of the country from which we come.

Raggedy is ok...hoorah...hoorah...hoorah:

The Listeners

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest's ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Walter De La Mare.

The phantoms are gone, and once more we hear song. <smile>

Thank you for your concern, sweet Letty. It's virus (bug) time in PA, and I didn't want to be left out.

Hope to get those Birthdays back on track tomorrow.

ah, Raggedy. I was certain that the FCC had pulled our license. The static was simply maddening.

Tomorrow then, youngun

missed posting for a bit

work work work

here's a song to sum up



Take this job and shove it,
I ain't workin' here no more.
My woman done left,
An' took all the reasons I was workin' for.
You better not to try to stand in my way,
As I'm a walkin' out the door.
Take this job and shove it,
I ain't workin' here no more.

I've been workin' in this fact'ry,
For nigh on fifteen years.
All this time, I watched my woman,
Drownin' in a pool of tears.
An I've seen a lot of my good folk die,
Had a lot of bills to pay.
I'd give the shirt right off of my back,
If I had the guts to say.

Take this job and shove it,
I ain't workin' here no more.
My woman done left,
An' took all the reasons I was workin' for.
You better not to try to stand in my way,
As I'm a walkin' out the door.
Take this job and shove it,
I ain't workin' here no more.

Well, that foreman, he's a regular dog,
The line boss is a fool.
Got a brand new flat-top haircut;
Lord, he thinks he's cool.
One of these days, I'm gonna blow my top,
And sucker, he's gonna pay
Lord, I can't wait to see their faces,
When I get the nerve to say:

Take this job and shove it,
I ain't workin' here no more.
My woman done left,
An' took all the reasons I was workin' for.
You better not to try to stand in my way,
As I'm a walkin' out the door.
Take this job and shove it,
I ain't workin' here no more.

Take this job and shove it.

well, i'm still going to work, but that was mildly cathartic

Letty, the Listeners was rewritten and set to music by Pink Floyd:


Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There?

Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there?

Good morning WA2K!

dj, welcome back and a shove it song is perfect for Friday.

edgar, I didn't know that Pink Floyd had set that poem to music. I really like Walter de la Mare.

Things are looking bright here in my little corner of Florida.