Armour for the soul

[pallas_athena]

It's been a beautiful day in London-- sunny and warm. As I write, there's the thinnest sliver of a new moon setting in the west, with Venus above. Even with the London light pollution, I can make out the outline of the old moon glowing redly: a phenomenon rather poetically known as Earthshine.

And now clouds have hidden all. I was supposed to be rehearsing today, but I have a cold and had to stay home and be silent. An opportunity for a recital this weekend came up, but I had to decline, since no voice means no ability to prepare. All this is good news for readers of gawain_project, however.

Today's two stanzas were goddamned hard -- lots of technical terms for various pieces of armour, and since I know some of my readers are armour geeks, I had to get it right. Luckily the poet seems to have known what he/she was talking about, even if everything is overlaid with impossible amounts of gold, gems and silk (this is a medieval romance, after all.)
Amusingly, I discovered what I think are a couple of errors in the "scholarly" editions I'm referring to. Clearly, more English academics should hang out with armour geeks.

I don't know about you, but I sure could use two minutes' worth of inspiration.

Comments

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, I discovered what I think are a couple of errors in the "scholarly" editions I'm referring to.

Interesting. I hope you are going to tell us more.

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

Well, it's mostly in the technical stuff about armour. The biggest one is that, in the bit about Gawain's helm, both editions I've got translate "aventail" as "visor," when it actually means "the bit made of chainmail that hangs down and protects your neck." Which makes a lot more sense, since in the poem the aventail has a finely embroidered cloth covering it, and if it meant "visor" Gawain wouldn't be able to see where he was going.

There's got to be enough material for a PhD thesis on descriptions of armour and weapons in medieval fiction...

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Tolkien and Gordon's edition (revised Norman Davis) glosses 'auentayle' as 'mail neck-guard on helmet', which is about right, from what you are saying.

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Knew old JRR wouldn't let us down. Maybe I should be referring to that edition instead of my beat-up old Everyman.

[larissa-00.livejournal.com]

I have the Everyman, but they aren't good on clothes: in Pearl they have the daughter wearing a wimple, but also have her hair hanging down loosely. Not with a wimple, and even a gorget needs pinned up hair to pin the gorget cloth into . . . although it's possible that the error's the poet's and he's just got the usual bloke level of knowledge of 'girly stuff' :->

[gothichaven.livejournal.com]

well i'll go to the foot of our stairs as my mother used to say..he and I were only commenting on earthshine ( now we know thats what its called) and I tried googling it and you have all the answers dear Liza..where would we be without your wisdom xx

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

Hi Gabby! Hope you're well. Thank you for the kind words.

It's also called "the old moon in the new moon's arms" which is even more poetic, I think.

[larissa-00.livejournal.com]

I'd heard 'the old moon in the new moon's arms' but not earthshine.

[chimera-s.livejournal.com]

Hope you're feeling better soon (have been enjoying the gawain_project).

[chimera-s.livejournal.com]

or even the gawain_project when I can type it properly.

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you like it.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I didn't know it was called earthshine, either. Ain't the internet educational?

Hope you recover from the cold soon. It seems to be going about.

ETA: Having looked at the page, I was amused at how surprised he was by it, but then I realised as he talked about it being best visible in the northern Spring, that he is evidently a lot further south and thus probably doesn't see it as much.

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

Yeah-- the slightly-less-new moon's Earthshining away tonight, too. So pretty!

Hope your cold doesn't hang about, either.