The Golden Cockerel

Discoursing once more on Russian music, this time focusing on Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel  (previously Swan Lake and The Firebird) and Russian classical music in general.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) the composer of The Golden Cockerel (1907) was one of the 'Mighty Five', also known as 'The Mighty Handful' (Russian: Могучая кучка, Moguchaya kuchka) a group of amateur composers who aspired to create a music which was distinctly Russian. Utilizing folk-song and emphasising the 'asiatic' and oriental aspects of Russia's vast Empire, along with developing a highly original orchestral style and coloration, the 'Mighty Five' endeavoured to create music equal and antithetical to the Western Viennese tradition of music-making. However, in reality the 'Mighty Five' were only four of any significance, for music critic Cesar Cui never wrote any music which was Russian in either style or melody.

Although only amateurs, the four remaining composers of the 'Mighty Five' together created characteristic Russian music in subject-matter, melody, rhythm and orchestral colour. One fanciful way to contrast the styles and artistic temperament of these four Russian composers is to loosely juxtapose them to another group of equally ground-breaking composers, the British 'Fab Four' of 1960's pop music, the Beatles.

The highly-original genius of 'rebel' group member Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) was the composer of the epic national opera Boris Godunov with its sharp observations upon the relationship between church and State in Russia, and the hallucinatory nightmare tone-poem Night on a Bare Mountain. Mussorgsky also had a hedonistic streak of self-destructive bravado in him, resulting in his premature death from alcoholism aged just 42.  He's not unlike a kind of 'John Lennon' figure in his revolutionary ideals and love of the people to the Russian Nationalist composers.

Like Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was also self-taught. Over decades of industrious study he created his own unique sound and orchestral palette, which, combined with his ability to integrate folk-song from Russia's many regions into his music, resulted in his appointment as a professor at the prestigious Russian Conservatoire and becoming a leading figure of Russian music, particularly after Tchaikovsky's death in 1893. As a mainstream composer, especially in the popularity of his operas, many of which were regularly performed from the 1890's onwards, and long outliving Mussorgsky and Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov roughly equates as the 'Paul' of the Russian 'Fab Four'.

The quieter, often overlooked, but no less talented, if not the most productive member of the Russian 'Fab Four', was the chemistry professor, Alexander Borodin (1833-1887). Borodin's tone-poem In the Steppes of Central Asia aurally depicts the geographical vastness of Russia's Imperial Empire, while his opera Prince Igor with its famous Polovtsian Dances, harks back to the splendour of Russia's early history. Borodin may be considered as the 'George' of the Russian Fab Four.

The group's mentor Balakirev, himself an original composer as his oriental tone-poems Islamey and Tamara demonstrate, performed the role of impresario not unlike Brian Epstein in his influence upon the group's image and ambitions. Cesar Cui (1835-1918 )  fulfills the role of  'Ringo' in this analogy.

Although he wrote over 15 operas, Rimsky-Korsakov is nowadays only known by many today for the miniaturist tone-poem, The Flight of the Bumble-Bee, however, a closer familiarity with his music reveals that during  a white-heat of creativity, he composed three great orchestral masterpieces - the suite Capriccio Espagnol, a dazzling pastiche of Spanish melodies, the gorgeous in 'Neo-oriental' orchestral colour, Scheherazade, an orchestral showcase and one of the most frequently recorded works in the classical music repertoire, and the stirring Russian Festival Easter Overture based upon the Slavic liturgy of the Orthodox Church. Miraculously, all three of these works for large-scale orchestra date from the single year span of 1887-1888.

Because Rimsky-Korsakov out-lived the tragically short lives of Mussorgsky and Borodin, he often took it upon himself to edit and complete his compatriot composers' unfinished works. It was not until an original manuscript of Mussorgsky's  tone-poem Night on a bare Mountain was discovered in the 1970's that the full extent of Rimsky-Korsakov's academic styled 'tidying-up' became known. Such are the differences between Mussorgsky's original, rough and vigorous aural depiction of a Witches Sabbath, to those of Rimsky-Korsakov's much better-known 'tidied' version, that the Dutch musicologist Francis Maes declared -

'Rimsky-Korsakov considered the work impossible in the form which Mussorgsky had written it. Rimsky-Korsakov's own version, therefore, cannot be fitted into the category of redactions and orchestrations; it is. rather, a radical composition, loosely based on the same thematic material but wholly different in structure, orchestral colouring, and expression, so much so, in fact, that Mussorgsky can no longer be considered its author.' [1]

Rimsky-Korsakov was paradoxically both a progressive and a conservative composer. His early style was based upon his mentor Balakirev, as well as Hector Berlioz, and Franz Liszt while in his latter development he was heavily influenced by Wagner and Debussy. Considered as directly influencing two generations of Russian composers, in particular Stravinsky, as well as non-Russian composers, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas and Ottorino Respighi, among others.

In his opera The Golden Cockerel Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov returned to a political theme. Transforming a poem by Pushkin, which in turn was based upon a tale by the American author Washington Irving, Rimsky-Korsakov's fairy-tale opera is in fact a thinly-disguised political statement which is highly critical of Russia's devastating military defeat in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, its also a scathing attack upon Russian Imperialism and even ridicules on a personal level, the last of the Romanov's Tsar Nicholas II. Rimsky-Korsakov never lived to hear his opera performed. The stress caused from its being banned most probably exasperated his medical condition of angina.

Musically, Le Coq d'Or ( as it's frequently known  from its first production in Paris 1914) features some of Rimsky's most developed and radical tonal language. The combination of full orchestra, chorus and soloists including a colorata soprano, results in a musical palette awash with oriental-coloured scales and melodies, often to gorgeous effect and exemplary of Rimsky-Korsakov's so-called Neo-Oriental style, which he first conjured in his Antar symphony, and famously in his large-scale, Arabian-themed orchestral suite, Scheherazade (1888).

In the prologue to the first of three acts of Le Coq d'Or, an astrologer appears announcing a disclaimer- although the following fairy-tale happened far away, a long time ago, such tales can be instructive, he informs the audience. Whether with this disclaimer Rimsky-Korsakov hoped to outwit the Imperial Censors isn't known. A few years earlier his support for students during the 1905 revolution, had resulted in a temporary suspension of his professorship from the conservatoire and a ban on the performance of his works. However the very name of the fairy-tale's Tsar Dodon is a deliberate word-play upon the name of the extinct dodo bird and throughout the opera Rimsky-Korsakov ridicules Tsar Nicholas II personally through the character of Tsar Dodon.  

In the Introduction and Bridal Procession to the orchestral suite of  Le coq d'Or Rimsky-Korsakov employs the startling compositional device of a rapid change of key and mood; the opening alarm-call of the cockerel, announced by trumpet is swiftly followed by a brooding theme upon cellos, to depict the lugubrious mood of King Dodon in his palace. The Introduction quotes all the major themes and motifs of the opera, much of which is in Rimsky-Korsakov's highly-evocative 'neo-oriental' style, it also includes musical passages conjuring a dreamy fairy-tale world along with some exciting syncopated rhythms.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's support for students during the 1905 Russian revolution resulted in his being suspended from his teaching position at the Conservatoire and a ban on the performance of his works. How exactly he hoped to outwit the Imperial Censor's scrutiny is unclear, the very name of the fairy-tale's central character, Tsar Dodon, is a deliberate word-play which strongly hints of the Tsar's likeness to the extinct dodo bird; and in fact throughout the opera Rimsky-Korsakov ridicules Tsar Nicholas II personally through the character of Tsar Dodon.

In the first act of the opera, King Dodon in his Palace, the grotesque and blundering Tsar Dodon, irritable, brooding and bored since youth, is presented by the astrologer with the gift of a golden cockerel which crows whenever a threat of danger to Dodon's kingdom occurs -

Cock-a-doodle-do
Watch out ! 
Be on guard !

However, Tsar Dodon prefers it when the golden cockerel crows the advice -    Go ahead and rule from your bed !

In essence, Rimsky-Korsakov portrays a Tsar who is suffering from the Russian psychological trait of Oblomovitis.

In Ivan Goncharov's hugely popular novel Oblomov (1859) the young nobleman Oblomov rarely leaves his room or bed and only moves from his bed to a chair in the first 50 pages of the novel. Incapable of making important decisions or of undertaking any significant action, the novel satirizes Russian nobility, whose social and economic function became increasingly questioned in mid-nineteenth century Russia. Allusion to Oblomov became well-known throughout Russia, as late as the 1920's, during the early years of the Soviet Republic, Vladimir Lenin declared, -  "the old Oblomov is still around, and we will need to wash, clean, rub and scrub him, before he can be of any real use."

The entrance of Queen Shemakha which is sung by a colorata soprano in the fairy-tale opera, includes extensive and intricate octatonic scales which are as experimental and radical as those of Claude Debussy (1862-1918).

Queen Shemakha introduces an explicitly erotic element to the opera when teasingly she declares to King Dodon -

Thou art to be pitied knowing
The Queen only in her garments.
I am not so bad without them.
When I go to sleep, I look a long time in the mirror,
I throw off all my garments...
I look and see if anywhere
There is a mole or any blemish on my body..
Over my marble thighs

On my breasts fall drops of liquid fire
And I have breasts indeed !
They vie with the glory of the southern roses
Magnificent and firm - and they are
As white, light, and translucent as a dream.....

Tsar Dodon's  response to Queen Shemakha's erotic invitation is to announce he has a stomach-ache. His downfall occurs when, after his ill-matched marriage to Queen Shemakha, the golden cockerel pecks him to death, perhaps an allusion by Rimsky-Korsakov to the rumour that Tsar Nicholas himself was henpecked by his wife, and that it was the Tsarina who ruled the roost of the Imperial Household. Its also worth remembering that the very symbol of the Romanov, that of the double-headed Imperial eagle, the true subject of Rimsky-Korsakov's 'fairy-tale'  bears an avian similarity to the cockerel.

Its little wonder that the opera The Golden Cockerel was immediately banned from theatrical performance by the Imperial Censors. Rimsky-Korsakov's harshest words were reserved for Tsar Nicholas II personally, the operatic chorus singing these words-

He is a tsar in rank and appearance
but a slave in body and soul.
In behaviour and attitude he is a real ape.
His head is devoid of true emotion
his spirit is terribly lethargic.
Among the beauties with their shining eyes
he looks like a ghost.

Ominously, as if alluding to the methods by which autocratic governments remain in power, Tsarina Shemakha warns - Whoever we don't like is done for.

while the chorus, representing the common people, anxiously ask of their future - What will we do without a Tsar ?

When an essentially conservative member of Russian society such as Rimsky-Korsakov feels it necessary to use music as a vehicle to denounce political and social wrongs of his age, the warning signals of a society about to radically transform itself may be imminent. The catalyst for such a transformation occurred shortly after Rimsky's death, through the great loss of life experienced by the Russian people during the first World War, which triggered the 1917 revolution, the abolishment of Imperial Romanov rule and the establishment of the Soviet Republic (1917-1989).

The impresario Sergei Diaghilev’s 1914 Parisian production in ballet form of The Golden Cockerel, (known as Le Coq d'Or from its French production)  in which the singers performed offstage, while mimers and dancers portrayed the characters onstage, became the model for Rimsky-Korsakov's one-time pupil, Igor Stravinsky’s own stage works. A close study of the score of Stravinsky's innovative puppet-drama Petroushka (1910-11) reveals that its radical harmonies derive ultimately from the experimental octatonicism of his teacher, Rimsky's opera. Such was the high regard in which  The Golden Cockerel was held that, when in December 1917, the composer Sergei Rachmaninov hastily left Russia for Helsinki with his wife and two daughters on an open sledge, among his few possessions he carried with him were a few notebooks with sketches of his own compositions including his unfinished opera Monna Vanna and two orchestral scores, one of which was The Golden Cockerel.

Sadly, Rimsky-Korsakov never lived to hear his opera The Golden Cockerel performed. The stress caused from its being banned by the Censors probably worsened his medical condition of angina and he died before its first performance. However his introduction of overt political statement in music paved the way for a younger generation of composers to either integrate or denounce political ideology in their music. The musicologist Marina Frolova-Walker proposed his opera The Golden Cockerel to be the forerunner of the anti-psychologistic and absurdist ideas which  culminate in 20th century 'anti-operas' such as Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges (1921) and Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose (1930) and that it laid, "the foundation for modernist opera in Russia and beyond." [2] . Rimsky's name today is now celebrated as one of Russia's greatest composers, with the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire honouring him in its name.

Andrei Bely's Symbolist novel Petersburg (1913) also reflects the fevered atmosphere of the dying years of the Romanov dynasty. Set in the 'window on the west' city of Petersburg, and greatly admired by James Joyce for its fragmentary narrative, Bely's novel features a psychological cat-and-mouse game between a high ranking bureaucratic official and his decadent 'asiatic' would-be anarchist son. Sometimes hilarious, at other times sinister,  the backdrop of an often crepuscular city, whose citizens, not unlike the Dubliners  of Joyce's Ulysses (1922) become a central character of the novel. Bely's Petersburg  not only depicts the social tension of  Russia before the 1905 Revolution, but is a landmark work of 20th century literature.

There can't surely be any connection between Sir Thomas Browne and Norwich with early 20th century Russian history and music, can there ? Well, there's these two tenuous connections - Firstly, in 1922 the English author Virginia Woolf wrote an introduction to a selection of Sir Thomas Browne's writings for the prestigious Golden Cockerel publishing house. Secondly, Browne's Norwich associate, Arthur Dee (1579-1651) was the eldest son of  John Dee (1527-1609) who secured for him the post of court physician to Tsar Mikhail I.  After enduring 14 Moscow winters, sometime in the early 1630's, Arthur Dee left Moscow to retire at Norwich. He abandoned his alchemical writings to the care of the Imperial Library. Centuries later,  the charismatic, shaman-like figure of Rasputin gained access to the Imperial Library through his influence at the court of the last Romanov Tsar, Nicholas II. Rasputin is alleged to have stolen Arthur Dee's alchemical writings. They were later subsequently returned to the Imperial library.

I once imagined the possibility that a fairy-tale about a prophesying bird's introduction into a Royal household, which a whole Kingdom fatalistically begins to rely upon, may have symbolically alluded to what was a commonly-held concern of the time - the unhealthy influence of Rasputin upon Tsar Nicholas II and his family in matters of Russian politics. But no, the dates don't quite match up!

Although Milica of Montenegro and her sister Anastasia, both of whom were interested in Persian mysticism, spiritualism and occultism, are credited as introducing Rasputin to Tsar Nicholas I and his wife Alexandra in November 1905, Rasputin did not gain any real influence upon the Russian Royal family until 1908, long after Rimsky-Korsakov had completed The Golden Cockerel.

CDs

* Scheherazade - Berlin Philharmonic-Karajan 1967

* The Snow Maiden - Sadko -Mlada - Le coq d'or Suite

   Seattle Symphony - Gerard Schwarz - Naxos 2011

* Capriccio Espagnol- Russian Easter Overture etc.

   Seattle Symphony - Gerard Schwarz -Naxos 2011

* Borodin Symphonies 1 - 3 Gerard Schwarz -Naxos 2011

 * Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel) 

    Night on a Bare Mountain -original and Rimsky's version

    Ukrainian  National Symphony Orchestra  Naxos 2003

    

Books

[1] Maes, Francis; Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans (translators) (2002) [1996].  A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 

[2] Frolova-Walker, Marina (2005). "11. Russian opera; The first stirrings of modernism". In Mervyn Cooke. The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera. London: Cambridge University Press.

* Natasha's Dance : A Cultural History of Russia.
   Orlando Figes Penguin 2003

  

*  From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 

    1870-1925  from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. 

    Royal Academy of Arts 2008

DVD  

The Golden Cockerel 

soloists Albert Schagidullin  and Olga Tritonova

with the Chorus of the Mariinsky theatre, Orchestre de Paris 

conducted by Kent Nagano  directed by Thomas Grimm 2003.

Pictures

Top - Ivan Bilibin: Court Astrologer and King Dodon

Video of Natalie Goncharov's art

Ivan Bilibin: King Dodon and the Queen of Shemakha

Below - Rimsky-Korsakov by Igor Repin

By a remarkable coincidence The Golden Cockerel  is currently being staged in a new production at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. 

The World premiere of The Golden Cockerel was on 24 September 1909, at the Sergei Zimin Private Russian Opera, Moscow. It was  premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre on 14 February 1919  and the premiere of its latest production was on 25 December 2014, at Mariinsky-II, St Petersburg. Next performance, Sunday 1st February 2015.  Here's a trailer of the production.

The Firebird

First performed in Paris in 1910 by the Ballet Russe company, The Firebird is as Russian as a Faberge egg or a Matryoshka doll. 

The theatrical director of the Ballet Russe, the aristocrat and impresario Sergei Diaghilev, exploited a craze for all things oriental during the French era of the Belle Epoch. Diaghilev’s vision was to introduce Russian music and art to western audiences, and to produce new works in a distinctly 20th century style, in which costume and decor, dance and music all combine into one harmonious whole (Gesamtkunstwerk - total artwork). In order to achieve this total effect Diaghilev recruited talents such as the choreographer Michel Fokine, the designer Léon Bakst and the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky to his Ballet Russe company. After hearing Igor Stravinsky’s orchestral work Fireworks in 1909 he took the bold step of commissioning the then unknown composer to write a ballet score based upon a combination of Russian fairy tales. 

With its mysterious opening bars of  double-basses conjuring up a magical fairytale world, and its extensive usage of chromatic scales borrowed from his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov, The Firebird is the only example in Stravinsky’s entire oeuvre of the colourful, neo-oriental school of Rimsky-Korsakov, one of  the 'mighty five' Russian Nationalist composers.  Following a brooding introduction, the music of the ballet follows in strict line by line to the action of the plot. Some of the most dazzling moments in the score describe the tussle, struggle and eventual peace between hero and Firebird. A lush, romantic apparition of the twelve princesses ensues, before the Infernal Dance in which Stravinsky provokes his audience's attention to sit up and pay attention to his genius. There follows a Lullaby with a jazz lilt to it. The ballet concludes with an apotheosis in which a stirring brass finale for a wedding occurs. Several versions of the orchestral score exist. In addition to the full 50 minute ballet score Stravinsky re-wrote a concise, concert-hall orchestral suite of  The Firebird  in 1911 and 1919 and once again in 1945. 

Loosely-based upon several plots and characters from Russian folk tales the curtain rises on the enchanted garden where the magician Kostchei holds a dozen princesses captive. The princesses and a tree of golden apples are protected by a high fence. The firebird enters, intent on stealing one of the golden apples, but she is seized by Ivan Tsarevich, who has been following her. Their struggle, and her eventual subduing, is expressed as a pas de deux, and Ivan refuses to release her until she gives him one of her feathers. Armed with this talisman he is assured of her help should he ever need it. In the gathering dark one of the princesses, the beautiful Tsarevna, tells Ivan of her plight. They dance, and part at dawn. Ivan, however, fails to heed her warning not to follow her, and enters Kostchei's castle. A crowd of grotesque creatures rush out,, followed by Kostchei himself. the grotesques grovel before Kostchei, who approaches Ivan, intending to turn him into stone. Remembering the feather, Ivan waves it in Kostchei's face. The firebird appears, and forces the grotesques to dance until they are exhausted. She then reveals to Ivan that Kostchei's soul is contained in a great egg. Ivan takes the egg and dashes it to the ground. The magician dies, and Ivan marries the Tsarevna. [1]

The complex nature of evil and the difficulties which the hero must face in order to defeat evil are expressed well in the original Russian fairytale about the magician Kostchei. The soul of Kostchei is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on an island  in the ocean. As long as his soul is safe, he cannot die. If the chest is dug up and opened, the hare will run away; if it is killed, the duck will emerge and try to fly off. Anyone possessing the egg has Kostchei in their power. He begins to weaken, becomes sick, and immediately loses the use of his magic. If the egg is tossed about, he likewise is flung around against his will. Only if the egg or needle is broken, will Kostchei die.

Ever since the success of its first performance in 1910 with the ballerina Tamara Karsavina dancing in the physically demanding role of the Firebird, Stravinsky’s ballet has been a perennial favourite with audiences around the world. Such was its success that it initiated a twenty year collaboration between Diaghilev and Stravinsky. Two more ballets, equally brilliant, swiftly followed; the puppet drama Petrushka (1911) and the seismic anticipation of the World War, set in pagan Russia, The Rite of Spring (1913) a revolutionary work in 20th century music.

Like Tchaikovsky’s innovative ballet Swan Lake (1877 revised 1895) Stravinsky’s ballet also has an avian theme. However, in many ways it is also a mirror opposite of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in which the hero Siegfried resists an arranged marriage in favour of a passionate union with an enchanted swan. Both ballets feature the metaphor of young women imprisoned by an enchanter but are allowed a measure of freedom at night. There’s an erotic element in much ballet, not least in both Swan Lake and The Firebird. Wherever the erotic is encountered, in art as in life, there is invariably also a strong psychological element. 

In essence the enduring appeal of The Firebird lies almost as much in its archetypal nature as a magical fairytale as its music and dance. The Swiss psychologist C.G.Jung noted that fairytales -  'tell us how to proceed if we want to overcome the power of darkness: we must turn his own weapons against him, which naturally cannot be done if the magical underworld of the hunter remains unconscious'. [2] 

Jung argued that- 'If we wanted to explain the fairytale personalistically, the attempt would founder on the fact that archetypes are not whimsical inventions but autonomous elements of the unconscious psyche which were there before any invention was thought of. They represent the unalterable structure of a psychic world whose "reality" is attested by the determining effects it has on the conscious mind'. [3] 

In Jung’s view - 'Fairytales seem to be the myths of childhood and they therefore contain among other things the mythology which children weave for themselves concerning sexual processes. The poetry of fairytale, whose magic is felt even by the adult, rests not least upon the fact that some of the old theories are still alive in our unconscious. We experience a strange and mysterious feeling whenever a fragment of our remotest youth stirs into life again, not actually reaching consciousness, but merely shedding a reflection of its emotional intensity on the conscious mind'.  [4] 

'As in alchemy, the fairytale describes the unconscious processes that compensate the conscious, Christian situation. ..the fairytale makes it clear that it is possible for a man to attain totality, to become whole, only with the spirit of darkness, indeed that the latter is actually a causa instrumentalis of redemption and individuation'. [5] 

'Myths and fairytales give expression to unconscious processes, and their retelling causes these processes to come alive again and be recollected, thereby re-establishing the connection between conscious and unconscious'.  [6] 

Finally, Jung believed that - 'It is extremely important to tell children fairytales and legends, and to inculcate religious ideas into grown-ups, because these things are instrumental symbols with whose help unconscious contents can be canalized into consciousness, interpreted and integrated'. [7] 
                                                        
                                           ******

Stravinsky's Firebird is one of several works of classical music including Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Sibelius' Swan of Tuonela, Brahms Piano concerto no. 2, Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Shostakovich's 5th symphony, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Cesar Franck’s Symphony in D minor, which I ‘discovered’ when a teenager through 12" vinyl discs during the 1970's. 





'A mass of riotous colour and swirling bodies, the Infernal Dance (Youtube clip above) which brings the entire company into Firebird could feel, occasionally like being caught up in the spin cycle of a washing machine. Garments everywhere, whirling fabric, blurred colours...' [8]

Notes

[1] The Faber Pocket Guide to Ballet - Deborah Bull and Luke Jennings - Faber 2004
[2] CW 9 i: 453 'The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales' (1945/48)
[3] CW 9 i: 451 Ibid.
[4] CW 17: 43
[5] CW 9 i: 453 'The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales (1945/48)
[6] CW 9 ii: 280
[7] CW 9 ii: 259
[8] The Faber Pocket Guide to Ballet - Deborah Bull and Luke Jennings - Faber 2004

Books

The World of Diaghilev- Charles Spencer - Philip Dyer 1974
Stravinsky -Roman Vlad - OUP 1960

The essential book covering 19th and 20th century Russian culture -Natasha's Dance - Orlando Figes - Penguin 2002

Videos

Return of the Firebird - Ballet Russe Recreation - Decca 2002
The Royal Ballet - Margot Fonteyn 1960
Royal Ballet - Leanne Benjamin/ Jonathan Cope - BBC 2010


Royal Danish Ballet Company - Glen Tetley - Virgin 1982

Glen Tetley's choreography adds a new dimension to a perennial favourite.

Putrefactio

C.G. Jung identified the 17th century as the era of alchemy's last and greatest flowering.  And indeed, many noble flowers from the garden of alchemy including lavishly illustrated art-works, ornate in their imagery, accompanied by extraordinary dense texts which elaborate upon 'Celestial Agriculture', germinated and bloomed during the 17th century. 

It was also during the 17th century that the slow, but decisive, fissure and schism between Science and Faith opened up; the new man-made truths in astronomy, anatomy and physics unearthed by the enquirers and advocates of the 'New Learning', embryonic scientists no less, eventually challenged and competed for dominance in intellectual supremacy over the God-given Cosmology and the eternal  truths of Christianity.

The 17th century, often described as the last great age of religious Faith and private devotion, was an era of specific interest to C.G. Jung. According to the Swiss physician in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, his many years study of alchemy were inaugurated by a dream in which he visited a large Ducal Palace situated somewhere in Northern Italy. While exploring the palace's vast chambers, he heard in his dream, its heavy doors slamming shut. Jung interpreted his portentous dream as signifying he was now 'trapped' in the 17th century, his confinement signified he believed, a long study of alchemical literature originating from the baroque century, until somehow set free.  

C.G.Jung recognised that the single profession which engaged in the art of alchemy were physicians. These alchemist-physicians, invariably of a Protestant background, many of German or English background were often cautiously sympathetic to the new 'chemical' medicine of Paracelsus. They used distinctly apt symbols closely related to their profession, notably from anatomy, optics and astronomy to discourse upon their sometimes unorthodox, and even near-heretical, spiritually-orientated studies. 

Included among the treasures of seventeenth century alchemical art are a series of illustrations rich in symbolism entitled Philosophia reformata (1622) by the German author Johann Daniel Mylius (c.1535-1642) who wrote on medicine and alchemy. Emblem 9 in Mylius's sequence of 28 illustrations is entitled Putrefactio (above). It is described thus - 'On the top of a flaming black globe stands a skeleton holding a black crow in its right hand. On each side of him there is a winged angel, both of which point to the black globe. In the heavens above, the Sun and the Moon are visible. In the lower foreground can be seen a regenerating tree stump'.

The skeleton and the skull are frequently encountered in Christian and alchemical art symbolism. They retain a vestige of their numinous content as reminders of mortality and Death.   

A belief in angels was once a vital entity of spiritual belief. Many people, educated and illiterate, throughout 17th century Europe fervently believed in both angel and witchcraft. Angel's roles include that of musician and  psychopomp, most often they are depicted as celestial messengers. 

The Rotundum is a symbol frequently encountered in alchemical imagery, as are the crowded perches and aviaries associated with bird symbolism in alchemy; a feathered assembly of swans, ostriches, doves, eagles, vultures and pelicans flock the pages of alchemical art. The blackbird, crow and raven are each associated with the Nigredeo stage as is the operation of Putrefactio, along with the variant stages of Mortificato and Calcinato.

Whether Thomas Browne as a young medical student studying abroad circa 1627-1630 ever perused the books of the German alchemist-physician J.D. Mylius isn't known, nor is there any recorded evidence of J.D. Mylius's books being listed in the 1711 Sales Auction catalogue of Browne's library. However, several decades after completing his three years medical study on mainland Europe, Browne made what is credited as his single scientific discovery. Its a discovery utterly characteristic of his era, when human life was often precarious and short for many from the ravages of Civil War, plague and disease and utterly compatible to the dark Nigredo contemplations of Urn-Burial.

Browne augments his solemn funerary threnody adding to the heaped pyre of images and symbols, a short, but detailed description of his medico-scientific discovery. His observation on the effects of Putreficato and the formation of the waxy substance which coagulates upon body fat, known as adipocere, can be found in chapter 3 of Urn-Burial, a work which has been described as 'reeking of the Grave'.

  

In a Hydropicall body ten years buried in a Church-yard, we met with a fat concretion, where the nitre of the Earth, and the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had coagulated large lumps of fat, into the consistence of the hardest castile-soap: wherof part remaineth with us.

More than one scientific observation can be found in Urn-Burial along with several archaeological hypotheses, there is even a far-sighted prediction of future forensic science  in the proposal that - 'Physiognomy outlives our lives, and ends not in our graves.'

Upon more than one occasion the Norwich-based early scientist concludes his observations with the remark, 'whereof part remaineth with us'! 

Robin

Enjoying the late return of Summer for several cloudless days now, with the temperature touching 27 degrees Celsius, I spotted a Robin in my garden. They really are exceptionally tame birds. For a full 20 minutes he hopped back and forth from fence to ground in search of food, occasionally singing, curious at my watching him. The secret to observing nature's wonders is quite simply stillness and silence, two commodities increasingly in short supply in the world today. 

Lobster

'Lobsters in great number about Sheringham and Cromer from whence all the country is supplied.'

 Sir Thomas Browne was a  significant  natural historian so it's not too surprising that The Project Gutenberg EBook has recently  reproduced his  'Notes and Letters on the Natural History of Norfolk'.

 First published in 1902 by Jarrolds of London, Browne's 'Notes and Letters upon the Natural History of Norfolk more especially on the birds and fishes', is a valuable document  inasmuch as it provides evidence not only of Browne's  keen-sighted observations  and  his willingness to assist  the ornithologist Christopher Merritt, but also to the abundance and decline throughout the intervening centuries of particular species in Norfolk. However, those expecting to read highly-stylized 'vast undulations of sound' as exemplified in  the poetic Discourses of 1658 will be sorely disappointed, for it is Browne at his most scientific  note-book prose encountered in his natural history notes.

The county of Norfolk is described by Browne as having a 'great number of rivers, rivulets & plashes of water', elsewhere in his notes he writes of its 'broad waters' which may well be from where the term 'Norfolk Broads' originates. I've written before upon Browne as an ornithologist here's the link.

Thomas Southwell in the 1902  introduction to Browne's notes, 'emphasises the originality which pervades all  Browne's observations, a characteristic so conspicuously absent in the work of most of his predecessors'.

Southwell also laments-

'It may be truly said of Sir Thomas Browne that a prophet hath no honour in his own country; the writings of this remarkable man are little known in the city of his adoption, and a recent movement to erect a monument to his memory has hitherto met with feeble support'.

Although a statue of Browne was in fact erected in his honour upon the tercentenary of his birth  in 1905 by the citizens of Norwich,  it remains true a full century later that, 'the writings of this remarkable man are little known in the city of his adoption'.

Irradiation of Peacock feathers

Near the end of the sixth book of Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica there's a good portrait of  the worthy 17th century Norwich physician engaged upon his essentially Baconian  quest.

At the  conclusion of a chapter entitled A further digression upon blackness there is evidence of the refinement of Browne's senses and  his appreciation of beauty. In  chapter 12 of book  6 Browne alludes to one of his numerous chymical experiments. Several paragraphs are devoted to the use and effects of  various acids and vitriol, the causes of blackness in nature and speculation upon  its causes and origins in human skin. 

The study of optics was also of particular interest to Browne and optical imagery  frequently occurs in  his writings. One strongly suspects his use of the word irradiation, ' to shine brightly' (the near synonymous iridescence is later in origin, 18th century from iris, rainbow) to describe the well-known optical effect when viewing a peacock's feather, is one of Browne's many medical-scientific neologisms. These include the words medical, pathology, hallucination, electricity and ambidextrous, as the complete Oxford English dictionary testifies.

In a tone of near mystical apprehension and barely suppressed joy, Browne concludes his scientific investigations upon blackness, waxing lyrical upon  the beauty of colour thus-.

And this is also apparent in Chymical preparations. So Cinaber becomes red by the acide exhalation of sulphur, which otherwise presents a pure and niveous white. So spirits of Salt upon a blew paper make an orient red. So Tartar or vitriol upon an infusion of violets affords a delightfull crimson. Thus it is wonderful what variety of colours the spirits of Saltpeter, and especially, if they be kept in a glass while they pierce the sides thereof; I say, what Orient greens they will project: from the like spirits in the earth the plants thereof perhaps acquire their verdure. And from such salary irradiations may those wondrous varieties arise, which are observable in Animals, as Mallards heads, and Peacocks feathers, receiving intention or alteration according as they are presented unto the light. Thus Saltpeter, Ammoniack and Mineral Spirits emit delectable and various colours; and common Aqua fortis will in some green and narrow mouthed glasses, about the verges thereof, send forth a deep and Gentianella blew. 

Browne miscellanea

In addition to the major works of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82), namely Religio Medici, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, the 1658 two-in-one Discourses, 'Urn-Burial' and 'The Garden of Cyrus' and the posthumously published 'Christian Morals', there are a number of minor and miscellaneous writings by Browne.

Foremost amongst his minor writings are the 12 miscellaneous tracts. Topics as diverse as botany in the Bible, the Saxon language, ancient earthworks, a Nostradamus-like prophecy on the world's future as well as an inventory of lost and imaginary books, pictures and objects, constitute the bulk of the 12 miscellaneous tracts available on-line.

The collected miscellaneous writings of Sir Thomas Browne are a detailed portrait of the learned physician and his many hobbies and interests; they also give a unique insight into life in 17th century Norwich and Norfolk. Browne's notes on the Natural History of Norfolk in particular remains a valuable and fascinating record. Reprinted as a separate volume in 1905, it was considered worthy of study by the renowned Naturalist Ted Ellis. Browne's descriptions of rural Norfolk in the 17th century read as a much wilder habitat, densely populated with all manner of bird-life. His occasional usage of the phrase 'Broad waters', from where the very term 'Norfolk Broads' originates is of particular note.

Browne describes Norfolk bird-life and his witnessing of bird behaviour against a predator thus-

Teale, Querquedula, wherein scarce any place more abounding. The condition of the country & the very many decoys, especially between Norwich and the sea, making this place very much to abound in wilde fowle..........Divers sorts of Eagles come over & are seen in the winter, & especially such as pray upon fowle in broad waters & marshes.......Fulicae cottae, cootes, in very great flocks upon the broad waters. Upon the appearance of a Kite or buzzard I have seen them unite from all parts of the shoare in strange numbers, when if the Kite stoopes neare them they will fling up and spread such a flash of water up with their wings that they will endanger the Kite, & so keepe him of agayne & agayne in open opposition;

Falconry terms are not only alluded to in Religio Medici (Part 1 :10)  as well as  a short tract on Falconry among the miscellaneous tracts (tract 5), the question as to how much Browne was a keen bird-fancier and a participant in the gentleman's sport of hawking is made clearer through a perusal of the miscellaneous writings.

Some fenne Eagles shott in the wing, I have known kept a year or 2 after & fed with guts, fish herrings, or any offell; very tame and inoffensive. An Aquila Gesneri, or of the great sort, was given me in this countrie which I kept 2 years feeding it only with cats, puppes, and rats, without any water all that time. I offered it a gentleman to make a flight at the Bustard, butt it succeeded not. It was presented at last to the College of Physitians at London, where it perished in the common fire.

Far from a puritan in his tastes, Browne was  perhaps an epicure in his dining habits. In an age of few pleasures its amusing to read in his Notes on the cookery of the Ancients

I wish we knew more clearly the aids of the ancients, their sauces, flavours, digestives, tasties, slices, cold meats, and all kinds of pickles. Yet I do not in dining know whether they would have surpassed salted sturgeons’ eggs, anchovy sauce, or our royal pickles.

Browne's gourmet tendencies are confirmed in this commonplace notebook entry -

Take a Legge of mutton, roast it gently & slash it that the gravie may come out & so agayne till it will runne: then take the gravie & lett it seperate the fat by cooling, then put thereto a quarter of a nuttmegge, a small sprigge of Rosmarie, & a little Thmye: set it upon a gentle fire and add unto it 2 spoonfulls of claret & a little salt. You may if you please beat up the yelke of an egge therewith & take x or xii spoonfulls. 2 neat pickles may bee contrived, the one of oysters stewed in their owne liquor with Thyme, Lemon pill... olive, onyon, mace, pepper; adding Rhenish wine, elder vinegar, 3 or 4 pickle cowcumbers. Another with equall parts of the liquor of oysters & the liquor that runs from herings newly salted, with the former Ingredients, adding upon occasion, dissolving anchovie therein, or pickling therin a few smelts, or Garlick, especially the seeds thereof. High esteem was made of Garum by the ancients, & was used in sawces, puddings, &c. If simply made with Aromatic mixture, as is delivered, it cannot butt have an ungrateful smell, however a haut goust & appetisant tange, for it was the liquore or the resolution of the gutts of fishes, salt and insolated. This way may bee tried by us yeerly, & is still continued in Turkey. And may bee made out of the entralls of mackarel, the liquor that runs from the herings, wh. may dissolve Anchovies other Apnia's, & with mixture of oysters & Limpetts & testaceous fishes,....whereof every one makes his one pickle varieth the taste of sea water. The neatest way is to have pickles always readie, wherein wee may make additions at pleasure, or use them simply in sawces. The ancients loaded their pickles with cummin seed & the like, distasteful unto our senses.

Meticulous attention to detailed description in Browne's cookery notes is equally evident in his 'elaboratory' operations. Indeed some alchemists even likened the art of alchemy to cookery. Not only is alchemy discussed in Religio Medici, but many esoteric authors are listed as once in his library. There's also the fact that the 1658 Discourses are constructed upon esoteric schemata, employing highly-original symbolism of considerable psychological depth; as well as his recording of many experiments in his 'elaboratory' such as -

Take 2 ounces of purified sylver and with twice or thrice as much of the best aqua fortis dissolve it in a boltshead. Then poure your solution into a glassse body covered with his Alembick, and so upon sand drawe of about half the humidity of the Aq. fortis. Let your vessells coole, and you will find you have obtained a substance somewhat like salt, which putt into as good a crucible as you can gett, lett your fire bee gentle at the beginning least your matter boyle over; and so encrease it by degrees till it commeth to bubble, and looke like an oyle at the bottome of your cruicible. Then you may pour it out into such a pot as is used for Regulus antimonii or any other as you shall thinck more convienient. This is the sylver caustick.

Although he heartily recommended William Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood to his disciple Henry Power, and is credited in the OED for introducing words such as 'medical' 'pathology' and 'hallucination' into the English language, Browne also entertained some ideas on medicine which are nowadays considered bizarre by modern sensibilities. His medical credentials, like his scientific credentials are Janus-like and float between the rational, modern world and the older, esoteric tradition of correspondences. His medical recommendation for gout, a common consequence for members of the English gentry who lived a leisurely life with a rich diet.

If you have a mind to proceed farther, you may trie amulets & transplantation: may trie the magnified amulet in Muffetus of spiders leggs worne in a peece of deeres skinne, or tortoyses or froggs leggs cutt of alive and wrapt up in the skinne of a kid: may give pultisses taken from the affected part of a dogge & lett a whelp lay in the bed with you. And may also consider the Sigill of Paracelsus.

A great deal of original eye-witness material upon the social life of Norwich can be found in Browne's miscellaneous writings, especially in his letters and note-books. Always interested in the human aspect, in particular the unusual element, a short note exists on a 'binge-drinking' session in seventeenth century Norwich. With the preciseness of a reporter and without any moralizing on the matter, doctor Browne writes with evident interest -

Rob. Hutchinson at the Wheatsheaf in St. Peters in Norwich dranck a gallon of Brandie burnt & sweetend in the month of June 1675 in the space of 14 howers. Hee drank it hot, fell into a fever & complained of an extra-ordinarie burning in his stomack, butt recovered in 7 dayes, with a great loathing for Brandie after. He is aged 56. Another man who drank with him dranck also a gallon of burnt brandie for his share & road home into the countrie after it, and seemed not to suffer any more then a burning heat in his stomack for some days. Hee dranck a good quantitie of beere after hee made an end of his gallon of brandie.

And finally, just occasionally, whenever the demands of his profession abated, his duties as head of a large household eased and upon completion of religious worship and prayer, Browne somehow found time to jot down the odd philosophical aphorism, some of which were later used into his literary works. These little-known aphorisms are an assortment of curious psychological self-portraits, occasional prophetic remarks, witty aesthetic judgments and tiny gems of wisdom. Such examples include-

* I attained my purpose and came to reach this port by a bare wind, much labour, great paynes and little assistance.

* I cannot fancy unto myself a more acceptable representation or state of things then if I could see all my best friends, and worthy acquaintance of fourtie yearres last past, upon the stage of the world at one time.

* Hee that found out the line of the middle motion of the planets holds an higher mansion in my thoughts then hee that discovered the Indies, and Ptolomie that sawe no farther then the feet of the Centaur, then hee that hath beheld the snake of the southern pole.

* The rationall discoverie of things transcends their simple detections whose inventions are often casuall & secondaries unto intention. Many things are casually or frequently superadded unto the best authors & the lines of many made to contain that advantageous sense which they never intended.

* In a peece of myne published long ago the learned Annotator/commentator hath paralleled many passages with other of Mountaignes essays, whereas to deale clearly, when I penned that peece I had never read 3 leaves of that Author & scarce more ever since.

* If the substantial subject be well forged out, we need not examine the sparks, which irregularly fly from it.

Canoeing on the River Bure

Upper reaches of the River Bure

Yesterday I had a pleasurable afternoon canoeing with my mate Nigel upon the upper reaches of the River Bure, approximately ten miles north of Norwich. A real stress-busting day, thanks Nigel.

I thought I had finished with posts on birds until we disturbed a heron lurking by the river-bank. It flew past us flapping its giant wings like some antediluvian terradactyl!

Vulture

The last in a short series on the symbolism of birds, in particular, in comparative religion and alchemy.

Because it devours corpses, the vulture has often been given a bad press; however, in ancient Egypt it was identified with the goddess Isis and represented the cycle of death and rebirth. In the Grecian-Roman tradition it was seen as a bird of augury, and like the swan and raven, it was considered sacred to the god Apollo because it provided omens.

In his contemplation of religious rites for the dead, Sir Thomas Browne noted in his Discourse, Urn-Burial  (1658) -

And the Persees now in India, which expose their bodies unto Vultures, and endure not so much as feretra or Biers of Wood.........

Browne was a keen scholar of comparative religion. His mention of the prophet Zoroaster and the Persee's, migratory adherents of the Zoroastrian religion, is in fact the earliest recorded in English literature.

The vulture is encountered once more in Browne's writings, this time in his surreal catalogue of books, pictures and objects entitled Museum Clausum,

A noble Quandros or Stone taken out of a Vulture's Head.

The 'noble stone' visualized by Browne may well originate from Biblical symbolism in the form of the wisdom of the book of Job. Written in the form of poetry, the book of Job is one of the oldest and profoundest spiritual texts to deal with the problem of Man's suffering. It was well-known to pious alchemists. The Bible, however much Christian Fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge it, in their denial of the discoveries of comparative religion, (see Ostrich), contains both astrological and alchemical symbolism, including imagery of refinement and dross; whilst the 'testing' of human souls is likened to the testing of metals. Chapter 28 of Job contains an inventory of various precious metals and stones, including silver, gold, topaz, their material value to contrasted to spiritual wisdom. The Book of Job also includes the line -

There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen. (v.7 KJV)

However, the puzzle of what is exactly a 'noble stone' or Quandros, is best solved by consulting the Martin Ruland's Dictionary of Alchemy, (both father and son were named Martin Ruland). The Rulands were theologically inclined Paracelsian physicians who served in the Court of Emperor Rudolph II of Prague. In their Dictionary of Alchemy (1612), a book which Browne owned, (Sales Catalogue page 22 no.119) a Quandros is defined as-

a Stone or Jewel which is found in the brain and head of the Vulture, and is said to be of a bright white colour. It fills the breasts with milk, and is said to be a safeguard against dangerous accidents.

 Ruland's dictionary definition of a 'noble Stone' is in all probability the source of Browne's Quandros. Such an object would be an extremely useful talisman!

Ostrich

More avian facts and speculation in relation to Sir Thomas Browne and avian symbolism; here's the Ostrich, the largest of all birds and flightless.

I've occasionally wondered just how Browne actually managed to acquire an ostrich. Here's how I deductively speculate he might have.......Edward Browne, his eldest son, who lived in London, had access to the Royal Court of Charles II. Sometime during the 1670's the King of Morocco's ambassador gave as a gift of good-will, no less than six ostriches to Charles II; shortly after the novelty of viewing these rare birds abated for the Royal Court of Saint James Palace, Edward made so bold as to request sending one to his father. Remembering that King Charles had been acquainted with the Browne's senior and junior, since his visit to Norwich in September 1671, engaging in extended conversation with both father and son, it's not improbable that King Charles II could have indulged the dutiful son and zoologically inclined father. Unless of course there were other paths by which Browne could have acquired an ostrich . Do tell! With more than a dash of tolerant astonishment, Browne writes of the ostrich-

When it first came into my garden, it soon ate up all the gilliflowers, tulip-leaves, and fed greedily upon what was green, as lettuce, endive, sorrell; it would feed on oats, barley, peas, beans; swallow onions; eat sheep's lights and livers. When it took down a large onion, it stuck awhile in the gullet, and did not descend directly, but wound backward behind the neck; whereby I might perceive that the gullet turned much; but this is not peculiar to the ostrich; but the same hath been observed in the stork, when it swallows down frogs and pretty big bits. It made a strange noise; had a very odd note, especially in the morning, and perhaps, when hungry.... If wearing of feather-fans should come up again, it might much increase the trade of plumage from Barbary.

It would appear from the above quotation that ostrich-feathers have been a fluttering element of ladies fashion for many generations now; while among the many creatures discussed in Browne's encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica a chapter is devoted to the ostrich which debates upon the common misapprehension, 'That the ostrich digesteth iron'. (Bk 3: Ch.22)

Browne's study of bird-life in Norfolk was extensive enough to assist with notes, descriptions and illustrations of various birds to John Ray (1627-1705) and Francis Willoughby (1635-72) for the first definitive work upon British birds entitled Ornithologia (first published in London 1678). A copy of it is listed as once in Browne's library. (1711 Catalogue p.18 no.33)

Evidence that Browne was familiar with the gentleman's sport of Falconry exists in the form of a short surviving tract on hawks and falconry (Tract V). In Religio Medici he uses imagery associated with falconry terms:

thus I teach my haggard and unreclaimed reason to stoop unto the lure of faith ( R.M. 1:10)

It's also in Religio Medici that an extraordinary example of cosmic avian symbolism occurs - a likening of the act of incubation to the Creation:

This is that gentle heat that brooded on the waters, and in six days hatched the world; (R.M.I:32)

Thoughts on birds and perhaps upon alchemy also, preoccupied Browne's mind late in his life, when compiling Museum Clausum, an inventory of imaginary or lost, books, pictures and objects which includes the curio-

A large Ostrich's Egg, whereon is neatly and fully wrought that famous battle of Alcazar, in which three Kings lost their lives.

The battle in which three Kings lost their lives refers to the historical battle of Alcazar, Northern Morocco, in 1578 when Portugal and a large Ottoman Army fought against the Moroccans.

But it's also possible to interpret this image as an allusion to the operations of an alchemist working in his 'elaboratory', for the apparatus capable of acid-dissolving in it 'stomach' was nick-named, 'the ostrich' by alchemists. Although only the egg of an ostrich is named here, the egg itself was also a common symbol in alchemy, representing death and re-birth. Far less tenuous is the fact that the three substances believed to be the foundation of all life by alchemists, namely Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, were alluded to in alchemical tracts as none other than three Kings.

The alchemist in his 'elaboratory' witnessed the 'death' and 'rebirth' of substances. The substance of mercury or 'quicksilver' as it was sometimes known, 'quick' signifying its 'living' qualities as a liquid metal, in particular, fascinated alchemists.

Doubts that Browne was only peripherally involved in laboratory alchemy evaporate in his confession in Religio Medici-

I have often beheld as a miracle, that artificial resurrection and revivification of Mercury, how being mortified into thousand shapes it assumes again its own, and returns into its numerical self. (R.M. Part 1:48)

But perhaps the real alchemy here is none other than Browne's selection and conjoining of an unusual artifact to an historical event; for both object and event share the provenance of North Africa. Browne displays a witty and refined aesthetic sensibility in his conjuring of a neat and fully wrought delineation of a battle upon an egg! He is after all, the aesthete who openly confessed-

I can look a whole day upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an Horse. (R.M.Part 2:9)

An example of American Masonic Folk Art, a finely incised Ostrich Egg commemorating George Washington. (1852)

Pelican

Today, while browsing through Sir Thomas Browne's miscellaneous writings, trying to find his assessment upon Peruvian cinchona bark, new to 17th century medicine and hailed as a 'miracle' cure of malaria, I came upon a short amusing paragraph worth reproducing as regards Browne's ornithological inclinations.

Among his numerous interests Browne was a keen bird-fancier. It's recorded that at one time he kept as a pet an owl, a bittern, an eagle and even an ostrich. A short tract upon Falconry survives, and he's also credited with coining the word 'incubation' into the English language. One wonders just how he found time to attend to any of his patients with his many hobbies!

I'm planning to add a page upon the many neologisms Browne coined into the English language soon. Anyway, here's the paragraph from a tract on the Birds of Norfolk which made me chuckle, nearly as much as seeing a photo of an octopus embracing a bottle of Ouzo. And no, a pelican did not fly over my garden today either! In his short tract on the birds of Norfolk, Browne writes-

An onocrotalus, or pelican, shot upon Horsey Fen, May 22, 1663, which stuffed and cleansed, I yet retain. It was three yards and a half between the extremities of the wings; the chowle and beak answering the usual description; the rest of the body white; a fowl which none could remember upon this coast. About the same time I heard of the king's pelican's was lost at St. James; perhaps this might be the same.

Far less funny is the plight this summer of thousands of American pelicans in the Gulf of Mexico, due to the oil disaster. Just innocent bystanders in the collision between human greed and nature. Over 612 Brown pelicans killed as a result of the spillage as of July 2010.

The Pelican was the name for a common piece of alchemical apparatus. Its function was 'the digestion of substances by long steeping in hot fluid to extract the essence'. The apparatus worked by reflux distillation - the substance under treatment was boiled and the vapour condensed in a glass head, it then flowed back again, causing a process of circulation.

Alchemical and Christian iconography often used the emblem of the Pelican as a symbol of Christ for it's self-sacrificing qualities. Browne was of course familiar with this emblem, opening the fifth book of his encyclopaedia, Pseudodoxia Epidemica with a discussion upon it, as ever attributing the antiquity of its symbolic roots to his beloved ancient Egypt, writing,

And first in every place we meet with the picture of the Pelican, opening her breast with her bill, and feeding her young ones with the blood distilling from her. Thus is it set forth not only in common Signs, but in the Crest and Scutcheon of many Noble families; hath been asserted by many holy Writers, and was an Hieroglyphic of piety and pity among the Egyptians; on which consideration, they spared them at their tables.

Green Woodpecker

The green woodpecker is a relatively rare bird, at least in urban settings. One rested on a branch in the garden this morning, before zipping off.

Kingfisher

At last some decent weather for boating. Went out to Thorpe, Norwich, and when  turning off the river Yare, rowing down the Tas river  I saw the zippy flight of a kingfisher, twice!

I just love getting onto the water by whatever craft available, to slow down to the river's pace, hear that plopping of oar in water; there's nothing, just nothing, like messing about in boats, Ratty! We even had a "Wind in the Willows" "Pan" moment", hearing the sound of a flute from a shady bank!

The photo of a Kingfisher (not taken by me) reminds one how much the combination of patience, luck, skill and good equipment are needed to take the truly jaw-dropping photo. Below is a snap taken today. Note how straight the bank is, that's because its an artificial Cutting, dug to enable large vessels to negotiate a sharpish bend in the river Yare at Thorpe, thus allowing easier access to the port of Norwich.

River Yare at 'New Cut' April 2010