Richard the Third

[greenilex]

Noble words to the Howells, but not a single feminine pronoun- anyone else notice that? Fed up with being "included in the generic".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Noble words to the Howells, but not a single feminine pronoun- anyone else notice that? Fed up with being "included in the generic".

Blimey! Richard III wasn't Anna Magdalena as well, was she?

[Nick Armstrong]

Noble words to the Howells, but not a single feminine pronoun- anyone else notice that? Fed up with being "included in the generic".

I did, and thought that on this occasion, it happened to help make the poem (I think a translation of a Latin elegy) quite appropriate for Richard (and indeed JFK, cf. the history of the piece).

[french frank]

Noble words to the Howells, but not a single feminine pronoun- anyone else notice that? Fed up with being "included in the generic".

Interestingly, this is a translation of a poem by Prudentius - translated into English by Helen Waddell ...

[ardcarp]

I think a big pat on the back ought to go to Chris Johns, the DoM at Leicester. He took up the post there relatively recently and has done a pioneering job with the choir. To sing Take Him Earth live on the box (not an easy piece) was an achievement. Time was when Leicester used to broadcast regularly on CE, but the choir has not aspired to that sort of thing since the days of Peter White.

[Nick Armstrong]

I think a big pat on the back ought to go to Chris Johns, the DoM at Leicester. He took up the post there relatively recently and has done a pioneering job with the choir. To sing Take Him Earth live on the box (not an easy piece) was an achievement.

[greenilex]

I guess Helen Waddell knew exactly what she wanted us to take from the poem. She was a great scholar poet.

[ardcarp]

..and best known, I suppose, for Peter Abelard. I was gripped by it as a teenager.

[P. G. Tipps]

Noble words to the Howells, but not a single feminine pronoun- anyone else notice that?.

Nope, not me ...

[french frank]

..and best known, I suppose, for Peter Abelard. I was gripped by it as a teenager.

And The Wandering Scholars - recommended to me when I was at school and ...

I was just looking for my copy of Medieval Latin Lyrics, to check the Prudentius, but, as with the British Library, books just get misplaced around here and are never seen again.

[BBMmk2]

I think a big pat on the back ought to go to Chris Johns, the DoM at Leicester. He took up the post there relatively recently and has done a pioneering job with the choir. To sing Take Him Earth live on the box (not an easy piece) was an achievement. Time was when Leicester used to broadcast regularly on CE, but the choir has not aspired to that sort of thing since the days of Peter White.

Yes, I quite agree there. Well done to him! :)

[jean]

nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum,
gremioque hunc concipe molli:
hominis tibi membra sequestro,
generosa et fragmina credo.
animae fuit haec domus olim
factoris 1 ab ore creatae;
fervens habitavit in istis
Sapientia principe Christo.
tu depositum tege corpus;
non inmemor ille requiret
sua munera fictor et auctor
propriique aenigmata vultus.
veniant modo tempora iusta,
cum spem Deus inpleat omnem,
reddas patefacta necesse est
qualem tibi trado figuram.
non, si cariosa vetustas
dissolvent ossa favillis,
fueritque cinisculus arens
minimi mensura pugilli,
nec, si vaga flamina et aurae
vacuum per inane volantes
tulerint cum pulvere nervos,
hominem periisse licebit...

patet ecce fidelibus ampli
via lucida iam paradisi,
licet et nemus illud adire,
homini quod ademerat anguis.
illic, precor, optime ductor,
famulam tibi praecipe mentem
genitali in sede sacrari,
quam liquerat exul et errans.

But I haven't had time to look at it properly.

Which reminds me...

[Padraig]

[url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0554%3Apoem%3D10]
Which reminds me...

..er

[french frank]

apart from the fact that the two Princes were illegitimate

That's been bothering me for some time ... Richard and his followers claimed the boys were 'illegitimate' on the grounds that the (then deceased) king, their father, had secretly contracted to marry another woman, Lady Eleanor Butler (also then deceased) before he married Elizabeth Woodville, mother of the princes. Therefore the marriage to Elizabeth was 'invalid' and the boys were 'illegitimate'.

But no firm evidence was produced of the secret 'precontract', nor had the lady or her family ever come forward to attempt to stop the marriage to Elizabeth. Richard also originally claimed that the princes' father, the king, had been 'illegitimate' himself: if true, of course, Richard would not have been the immediate heir, but his elder brother, George Clarence (but he was also conveniently deceased - 'Have some Madeira, m'dear').

Given that when Richard put the princes 'for safe keeping' in the Tower, as Lord Protector he showed very little interest in the fate of his protégé, the young king, before claiming the throne for himself. And rather a lot of the boy's noble supporters had already been executed without trial on Richard's orders.

I think this is why historians tend to feel Richard was 'a man of his time' - and indeed heavily implicated in the deaths of all those who stood between him and his 'legitimate' claim to the throne.

[Anna]

I don't know frenchie, I'm not a historian but I think Richard Stillington, (Bishop of Bath & Wells) gave evidence that there had been a contract, not a ceremony, but that he had 'lain with the lady' and then documentation was later destroyed? I'm sure someone here will have more knowledge but it really depends on which side you believe!

I'm a bit worried about the broadcast tonight on C4 of the reinterment as the details say "Highlights of the service alongside a live broadcast of intimate ceremony with the King's descendents and extinguishing of the beacon" So I fear that for those of us tuning in for the music it'll be bleeding chunks! Best to record the whole live transmission (I think the service is due to start at 11.30) although I dare say there'll be inane chatter from David Starkey and other guests during the music.

Turns out Benedict Cumberbatch, who is reading new poem from Carol Ann Duffy is Richard III's third cousin 16 times removed - another famous relative for BBM?

Here's a link to PDF of service in anyone wants to singalong. http://kingrichardinleicester.com/wp...re-service.pdf