The Republic of Heaven

Song of Aesahaettr

Discuss the second book of the trilogy

Song of Aesahaettr

Postby Melancholy Man » Fri Nov 26, 2004 7:41 pm

The witches' chant in Aesahaettr, when tending Will's wound, set me thinking:

Blood! Obey me! Turn around,
be a lake and not a river.
When you reach the open air,
stop! And build a clotted wall,
build it firm to hold the flood back.
Blood, your sky is the skull-dome,
your sun is the open eye,
your wind the breath inside the lungs,
blood, your world is bounded. Stay there!


Is this PP's own composition? I don't think it's particularly skillful, but reading it out loud I felt attempts at unrhymed trochaic tetrameter. If that doesn't mean owt, compare it to this:

Should you ask me,
whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains?


SONG OF HIAWATHA, William Wadsworth Longfellow.

Or this:

IN primeval times, a maiden,
Beauteous Daughter of the Ether,
Passed for ages her existence
In the great expanse of heaven,
O'er the prairies yet enfolded.
Wearisome the maiden growing,
Her existence sad and hopeless,
Thus alone to live for ages
In the infinite expanses
Of the air above the sea-foam,
In the far outstretching spaces,
In a solitude of ether,
She descended to the ocean,
Waves her coach, and waves her pillow


BIRTH OF WAINAMOINEN; KALEVALA. Trans. John Martin Crawford.

Or even this, for Rosie:

Nella mente il desiderio
mi si sveglia, e nel cervello
l'intenzione di cantare,
di parole pronunziare,
co' miei versi celebrare
la mia patria, la mia gente:
mi si struggon nella bocca,
mi si fondon le parole:
mi si affollan sulla lingua,
si sminuzzano fra i denti
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Postby Danny Barefoot » Fri Nov 26, 2004 11:16 pm

The rhythm fits for the subject, although the only thing in common between these pieces is they all seem to be songs about things.
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Postby Melancholy Man » Fri Nov 26, 2004 11:58 pm

Longfellow was heavily influenced by works such as the Lönnrot's Kalevala, and much of PP's mythology was rooted in the Finnic culture.
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Postby Peter » Fri Dec 03, 2004 3:20 pm

He killed the noble Mudjokivis.
Of the skin he made him mittens,
Made them with the fur side inside,
Made them with the skin side outside.
He, to get the warm side inside,
Put the inside skin side outside;
He, to get the cold side outside,
Put the warm side fur side inside.
That's why he put the fur side inside,
Why he put the skin side outside,
Why he turned them inside outside.



and


From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the second book of Euclid.
This he perched upon a tripod,
And the family in order
Sat before him for their pictures.
Mystic, awful, was the process.
First, a piece of glass he coated
With Collodion, and plunged it
In a bath of Lunar Caustic
Carefully dissolved in water.
There he left it certain minutes.
Secondly, my Hiawatha
Made with cunning hand a mixture
Of the acid Pyro-gallic,
And of Glacial Acetic,
And of Alcohol and water:
This developed all the picture.
Finally, he fixed each picture,
With a saturate solution
Of a certain salt of Soda--
Chemists call it Hyposulphite.
(Very difficult the name is
For a metre like the present
But periphrasis has done it.)
All the family in order,
Sat before him for their pictures.
Each in turn, as he was taken,
Volunteered his own suggestions,
His invaluable suggestions.
First, the Governor, the Father:
He suggested velvet curtains
Looped about a massy pillar;
And the corner of a table,
Of a rosewood dining-table.
He would hold a scroll of something,
Hold it firmly in his left-hand;
He would keep his right-hand buried
(Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;
He would contemplate the distance
With a look of pensive meaning,
As of ducks that die in tempests.
Grand, heroic was the notion:
Yet the picture failed entirely;
Failed, because he moved a little,
moved because he couldn't help it.
Next his better half took courage;
She would have her picture taken.
She came dressed beyond description,
Dressed in jewels and in satin,
Far too gorgeous for an empress.
Gracefully she sat down sideways,
With a simper scarcely human,
Holding in her hand a nosegay
Rather larger than a cabbage.
All the while that she was taking,
Still the lady chattered, chattered,
Like a monkey in the forest.
"Am I sitting still?" she asked him.
"Is my face enough in profile?
Shall I hold the nosegay higher?
Will it come into the picture?"
And the picture failed completely.
Next the son, the Stunning-Cantab
He suggested curves of beauty,
Curves pervading all his figure,
Which the eye might follow onward,
Till they centered in the breast-pin,
Cenntered in the golden breast-pin.
He had learned it all from Ruskin,
(Author of "The Stones of Venice",
"Seven Lamps of Architecture",
"Modern Painters" and some others);
And perhaps he had not fully
Understood his author's meaning;
But, whatever was the reason,
All was fruitless, as the picture
Ended in an utter failure.
Next to him the eldest daughter:
She suggested very little;
Only asked if he would take her
With her look of "passive beauty".
Her idea of passive beauty
Was a squinting of the left-eye,
Was a drooping of the right-eye,
Was a smile that went up sideways
To the corner of the nostrils.
Hiawatha, when she asked him,
Took no notice of the question,
Looked as if he hadn't heard it;
But, when pointedly appealed to,
Smiled in his peculiar manner,
Coughed, and said it "didn't matter,"
Bit his lip, and changed the subject.
Nor in this was he mistaken,
As the picture failed completely.
So in turn, the other sisters.
Last the youngest son was taken:
Very rough and thick his hair was,
Very round and red his face was,
Very dusty was his jacket,
Very fidgetty his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, "Daddy's Darling,"
Called him Jacky, "Scrubby Schoolboy."
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Might be thought to have succeeded--
To have partially succeeded.
Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together,
("grouped" is not the right expression,)
And, as happy chance would have it,
Did at last obtain a picture
Where the faces all succeeded:
Each came out a perfect likeness.
Then they joined and all abused it,
Unrestrainedly abused it,
As "the worst and ugliest picture
They could possibly have dreamed of.
Giving one such strange expressions!
Sulkiness, conceit, and meanness!
Really any one would take us
(Anyone that did not know us)
For the most unpleasant people!"
(Hiawatha seemed to think so,
Seemed to think it not unlikely.)
All together rang their voices,
Angry, loud, discordant voices,
As of dogs that howl in concert,
As of cats that wail in chorus.
But my Hiawatha's patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With the calm deliberation,
The intense deliberation
Which photographers aspire to:
But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry
Vowing that he would not stand it.
Hurriedly he packed his boxes;
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes;
Hurriedly he took his ticket;
Hurriedly the train received him;
Thus departed Hiawatha.
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Postby Danny Barefoot » Fri Dec 03, 2004 8:30 pm

*Tempest of standing applause*

All from your own head? Excellent stuff, and funny.
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Postby Peter » Fri Dec 03, 2004 8:32 pm

Danny Barefoot wrote:*Tempest of standing applause*

All from your own head? Excellent stuff, and funny.


Not mine. I don't know who wrote the first one, but the second is by Lewis Carroll.
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Postby Enitharmon » Fri Dec 03, 2004 8:36 pm

Ceres Wunderkind wrote:I don't know who wrote the first one


George Strong. Whaddya mean, you don't have a copy of Verse and Worse? Or E O Parrott's Imitations of Immortality?
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Postby Peter » Fri Dec 03, 2004 11:16 pm

Enitharmon wrote:
Ceres Wunderkind wrote:I don't know who wrote the first one


George Strong. Whaddya mean, you don't have a copy of Verse and Worse? Or E O Parrott's Imitations of Immortality?


Oh yes, George. Patience's little boy.

(V&W went in the house-clearance)
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Postby Melancholy Man » Sat Dec 04, 2004 7:13 am

'On the shores of Kitchachumi, Hiawatha socked it to me' pales into insignificance.
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Postby lostinthought451 » Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:06 pm

Melancholy Man wrote:'On the shores of Kitchachumi, Hiawatha socked it to me' pales into insignificance.


ah, I *know* where that's from! :P
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Postby Melancholy Man » Thu Dec 09, 2004 12:23 pm

lostinthought451 wrote:
Melancholy Man wrote:'On the shores of Kitchachumi, Hiawatha socked it to me' pales into insignificance.


ah, I *know* where that's from! :P


Well, finish the bleeding sent...
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Re: Song of Aesahaettr

Postby occlith » Tue Dec 14, 2004 8:26 am

Melancholy Man wrote:The witches' chant in Aesahaettr...Is this PP's own composition

Will's bleeding fingers and the witches chant both echo the Kalevala.
In the Finnish epic the hero Väinämöinen gets a deep wound in his knee when his axe slips. He is unable to stop the flow of blood because he can not remember the spell, but he finds an old man who stops the bleeding with magic incantations.

As you noted, the similarity of the Longfellow poem to the Kalevala is probably not an accident. Critics of the time (1855) also commented on it.
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Postby Angel to follow » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:45 pm

He really looks deeply into things doesn't our phillip?
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Postby Wharfedale » Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:35 am

It does bear some similarities to quite a few ancient(and not so ancient) poems and songs, this may be my memory going wrong, but isn't Beowulf written in the same way?
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind
Or where the gorgeous East with the richest hand
Showers on her kins barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminece
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Postby Laura » Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:59 am

this may be my memory going wrong, but isn't Beowulf written in the same way?


No, not precisely. Beowulf is written in the style common in Anglo-Saxon poetry, simply put, the lines usually have some sort of pause, sometimes marked by punctuation, in the middle and alliteration on either side. I can't explain it very well, but...

Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the darkness
Nursed a hard grievnance. It harrowed him
to hear the din of the loud banquet
every day in the hall, the harp being struck
and the clear song of a skilled poet
telling with mastery of man's beginings,
how the Almighty had made the earth
a gleaming plain girdled with waters;
in His splendor He set the sun and the moon
to be earth's lamplight, lanterns for men,
and filled the broad lap of the world
with branches and leaves; and quickened life
in every other thing that moved.


Nothing really like PPs verse. (*sigh* I love Beowulf)
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Postby Wharfedale » Sat Feb 05, 2005 4:29 pm

it's been a while since I last read it, I shoud have got my copy out and looked at it...but i'm to lazy.
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind
Or where the gorgeous East with the richest hand
Showers on her kins barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminece
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Postby Jamie » Sat Feb 05, 2005 7:18 pm

Is that "Beowulf" poem / song using that technique... Enjambement? is it? :? I need to brush up on my english definitions.
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Postby Wharfedale » Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:39 am

Jamie wrote:Is that "Beowulf" poem / song using that technique... Enjambement? is it? :? I need to brush up on my english definitions.

It is Enjambement.
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind
Or where the gorgeous East with the richest hand
Showers on her kins barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminece
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Postby Yelbakk » Tue Sep 27, 2005 7:57 pm

For me, the song of Aesth... Asthaea... of the Knife always had a Blakean feel to it.

Look at a few lines of Blake's Book of Urizen:

Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
Self-closed, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form'd this abominable void
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? - Some said
'It is Urizen', But unknown, abstracted
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.


In Pullman and in Blake you have plenty of enjambent, you have a narrative and dialogue. The rhythmic devices, if not consistent, seem to be applied consciously. Pullman's reference to the head as "skull-dome", too, reminds me of Blake, who often described bodies as globes, spheres, worlds, or vortexes (unless the plural of vortex is vortices...).

What with Pullman calling Blake as one of his most important influences, this passage has always appeared to me to be little nod to Blake.

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Postby brynjarbjorn » Mon Oct 10, 2005 10:22 am

When I first read that word: Aesahaettr I felt like I could immediatelly translate its English meaning as: Aesa danger, the meaning being: Dangerous to Aesir or Dangers to Aesir.

One of the things that made me suspect it to come from Norse Mythology, is the 'tr' ending in it. That is how 'ur' endings used to be written, cause if you say 'haettr' the 'u' sound is automatic. The book of Norse Mythologies, Snorra-Edda, is originally written in old Norse (Icelandic), so the word might come from there....
I believe we all know who the Æsir were, the Norse gods. Now the knive could have been named Dangers to Æsirs because it was powerfull enough to cut through worlds!

If I put Æsahættr to modern icelandic writing, it goes: Æsahættur, which means Dangers to Æsir.

It might just as well be that I'm making nonesense, but that's what I felt when I was pondering the word.
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