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meanwrightAfter about more six run-throughs, some bad illustrations, and the pornographic retelling of a book in the Bible, I'll send you the results later - hopefully in, like, 2024.
[[ Page 1 ]]
Beautiful Daphne, I regret ..... [[Try to rhyme these groups ]]
The little confidence ........... [[Eight syllables is best. ]]
I whispered to you last spring
During the amusement of speaking
In the leisure and indolence
While under your attentions
And inspired by your charms,
Or the Graces or the ...
Borrowed me as their residence.
How can I show indifference
When Heaven forged you to inflame (us all)
By making you so agreeable;
Because I have had this experience,
There are even certain moments
When the thousands you entrance
In your speech and with your song
You are the most desired
Of all the beauties of out time.
[[ Page 2 ]]
Why is it that with your gifts,
That are so rare in one so beautiful,
Do you want to acquaint yourself with me?
Why do you get so irritated
When I tell you the truth?
In short, miss, I do hear you constantly teasing me for writing this miserable story, which is unworthy of you and so unworthy of me. You want to read it, despite the fact the I have written into it a character that is based on you. You are afraid it will be so flattering that it won't resemble you at all. But aren't all painters embarrassed by their products? The praises of the canvas disorient you in your humility, and so your beauty must be hidden behind a story so that you can gaze at it; else you will dislike it, even though you can see no fault in it.
[[ Adding too much. ]] Queen Elizabeth (whose grand admiral in Ireland was your great grandfather, a traitor to your mother) was a marvelous princess for her sagacity, for her skill, for her magnificence, and for the greatness of her soul. This was all beautiful. But she was as envious as a dog, jealous and cruel, and that ruined everything.
[[ Page 3 ]]
I do not hear, when speaking of her, [[ 8 syllables, again ]]
Talk of the rawness of Elizabeth,
Who had that strange beauty
That martyrs faithful men;
Because, between us, on these shores
She was never cruel,
And in history there is some doubt
If Her Modest Majesty
Rebelled against God's sacrament1 [[ "rebellious hymen" ]]
Because of simple chastity
Or she found marriage inconvenient.
A strange and novel specimen:
The fact that she was a virgin
Made the Queen a strange maiden.
No matter what, her renown, both from doing good and doing evil, carried even into the depths of the heart of the Germanies, from which a certain personage rushed off to her court. He is called Faust; perhaps you remember him from "The Flight of Faust." When it is convenient for the rhyme, I may call him "Faustus" when the fancy takes me to write in verse. This Faust was a grand magician by profession, and wanted to find out for himself if this Elizabeth of whom we spoke so much was as marvelous and beautiful in her good qualities as she was diabolic and terrible in her evil qualities. And he would be a competent judge: whatever comes to pass high up in the abode of the stars [[ Page 4 ]] and the planets is known to him, and Satan obeys his whims. He is full of fun little secrets, and a million tricks, which neither help nor harm: like, for example, when to catch a Duchess, he ran through the fields after her coach, or when he moved an archbishop to spend his days cooking worms for his maidservant and his nights serenading her. He was the first to England and proceeded teach how, on certain days of the year, with rosemary, dandelions, woodcock bones, and curiosities of that sort, he could enter the dreams of young maidens and show them the one they will no longer ...2. When the Queen heard of the kindnesses he performed, she wanted to meet him, and when she did she became almost mad with his knowledge and manners. She thought she had the same spirit of the world as he, and she was not wrong; she thought she was the most beautiful woman in her kingdom, and she was not right.
One day she was extraordinarily well dressed for an audience with ambassadors, and after the ceremony she retired to her study, calling for the good doctor. While she waited, [[ Page 5 ]] she admired herself in the two or three grand mirrors there, and was quite pleased with what she saw:
She looked like the morning,3
As the sun is just dawning;
A shine from her radiant skin;
The scents of lilies and jasmine,
Admixed with the roses of spring:
A woman with gold in her hand
Is the world's most beautiful thing.
If you looked through her farthingale,
You would view up from her shoes
The whole of the royal leg.
As she waited in the corner,
Lounging gracefully in her chair,
What crass gentleman could suggest
Intent to expose her own breasts/font>
As she arched Her Majesty's hips;
While on her white fingertips,
Rubies and diamonds without sin
Glittered at their virginal ease.
It was it this state that the enchanter, Faust, found her. He was the most skilled of sorcerer at courting, and already knowing the weakness England's ruler had for he imaginary beauty, he saw this as a strong opportunity to strike up an affair of the heart. He chose the role of the forbidden Esther. Taking three steps back, falling as as though from a bout of weakness, [[ Page 6 ]] he induced the queen to ask if he was ill.
He said, "No, thank God! it was the Glory of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I) that has crushed me."
She knew the old and new testaments by heart, and found their application ingenious. But, she didn't have her scepter with her so that he could kiss its head as a sign of grace. She made due by pushing a ruby ring to the tip of her finger, on which he acquitted himself admirably. "Think you we are passable, for a queen?" She said as she ironed (whetted?) her lips with the tip her tongue, as if thinking about it. At that, he gave himself to the Devil (though the gift was not new). But when he gave himself to the Devil, he had no equal, neither of a sovereign nor of a slave, nor in the present nor the past. "Faust, my friend, if the beautiful women were present, would you flatter them as mauch?"
"Would your Majesty like to see them?" he said, "she need only speak and the will soon appear."
The queen did not let our man off. Either she just wanted to test the magical scientist's skill with such a marvelous effect, or because she wanted to satisfy a curiosity had harbored for a very long time."
For the rest, miss, [[ Page 7 ]] don't imagine the account I am about to give you is a story on my own invention. The events are drawn from the memories of two of the finest minds of the time: the Queen's special favorite, the Knight Sir Sydney, laid out this adventure when recounting the particular facts of his own life, and your own great uncle, the Duke of Ormand, who recited this passage from of history.
She says that our magician begged the Queen to be good enough to pass into a small gallery near her apartments while he went to fetch his book, his wand, and his grand black robe. It wouldn't take long for him to return with his ...(crew?)... and his talismans. There was a door at each end of the gallery, one through which a person would enter and another by which they would leave. The Queen only admitted two people, not more, to see the spectacle I am about to describe. One of whom as the Earl of Essex, adn the other the aforementioned Sydney, author of these reminiscences.
The Queen was placed in the center of the gallery, with her two favorites flanking her armchair to her left and her right. Around whom, next to their mistress [how to parse this? goes to the previous or the next part?] The enchanter traced mysterious circles following all [[ Page 8 ]] sorts of manners and ceremonies. He drew another opposite, where he placed himself, leaving a space in the middle for the passage of the actors. This done, he begged the Queen not to say a word while the procession was on the stage, and most of all not to try to do any of the things she would see. This last precaution was quite useless: the good lady feared neither god nor devil. After this word of advice, he asked her which of the dead beauties she wished to observe first? She told him to go in temporal order, that he should start with the beautiful Helen. Whereupon then necromancer's expression change slightly, and he said, "Hold on tight!"
When Sir Sidney describes this in his narrative, he confesses that a the point of this magical operation, his heart skipped a beat, and that he observed the face of the brave Earl of Essex, which had pallor of death. The Queen, however, did not display even the slightest emotion when she saw:
He began with with an oremus,
and continued with more mummery
of his ..?.. confraternity,
known from old hackneyed myths
of spirits and sorcery,
The Reverend Doctor Faustus [[ Page 9 ]]
.....Seeing the gallery shake
.....And our two heroes fret
.....Said, shouting like a fury:
.....Appear, Daughter of Leda!
.....And with prompt obedience,
.....Dare to enter our presence
As you were, when atop Mount Ida
Venus granted you to the great Paris,
.....As a favor for his preference
.....For which you were the reward
.....For adjudicating the conflict.
After this invocation, the beautiful Helen did not keep them waiting. She appeared at the end of the gallery, though no one could remember how she made her entrance. She was dressed in Greek style, and, according to the memoirs of our author, her raiment was no different than the costumes of our operatic goddesses. Her hair was adorned with a quantity of feather, floating on her head, and surmounted by a beautiful aigrette. Curls of black hair descended behind her, down to her waist. ( Attendant girls (?)) agreeably beat her knees as she walked, and the tail trailed in Lacedaemonian fashion, was made from at least four ells of fine, Corinthian brocade. This figure stopped in front of the company, and having turned to stand face-to-face with the Queen so [[ Page 10 ]]she could better observe, she took her leave with a certain smile between soft and haggard, and left through the other door.
As soon as she disappeared, the Queen said, "Who is that? The beautiful Helen? I don't care about beauty!" She went on: "But I would like to die if I changed faces with her, even if that were possible."
"I said it well to Your Majesty," responded the enchanter. "And this is exactly how she looked at her greatest beauty."
"I did find that she had very pretty eyes," said the Earl of Essex.
"Yes," agreed Sir Philip (Sidney). "They are very. Nobly split, black and brilliant. But after all, what is it that her looks say about her? Not a word."
At that the Queen's face turned red as a rooster, and she demanded, "Speaking of Helen's face, how did you find her porcelain complexion?"
"Porcelain!" scoffed the count. "Earthenware, at best."
"Perhaps," she continued, "they were the fashion at the time. But who would swear that feet turned in like hers were permitted in any century."
"I didn't absolutely hate her attire," continued the Queen. "And I might consider making it fashionable. It could replace those impertinent corsets [[ Page 11 ]] that women know how to wear on some occasions, but one doesn't know how to make women wear them properly on so many others."
"For the clothes, pass," said the Earl of Essex. "My faith, we saw little more than her figure."
Jumping at the remark, Sir Philip Sidney exclaimed:
.....O Paris! Can your fatal love
Have made you stalk your prey to distant Ilion
Whose poverty we have just seen the original?
If this exploit brought you some joy,
.....Her presence did such harm,
.....That a great demonic horse
.....Brought down ancient Troy.
Having completed this benign criticism of Helen's face and her alleged faults, the Queen wanted to see the beautiful and unfortunate Mariamne (Herod's 2nd wife), of whom history makes such a fine mention. The enchanter did not have to be told twice. He had no more scruple against evoking a princess who accepted the true God, any more than he had against calling forth the great pagan beauty. Then, having turned four times to East, three times to the South, two times to the West, and only once to the North, in an honest voice he said in Hebrew, "Mariamne, Daughter [[ Page 12 ]] of Hyrcan, show yourself! If you please, come dressed as you would during the Feast of Tabernacles."
And as soon as he finished, the wife of Herod appeared, and gravely advanced to the center of the gallery, stopping where the first [[ not an apparation]] had. As for her dress and dress [[ different words, habits and ajustement, same translation what do they mean? are the easily differentiable in English? ]], they seemed to cast about the whole of her person an air of nobility and dignity that rendered her respectable. She was almost dressed as we represent the Great Sacrificer of the Jews, except that she did not wear a beard. Instead, the high priestess wore a crescent-shaped tiara with a veil of gauze, which trailed back across her head, attached to her belt, and dragged behind her.
After standing there for a long time, she continued on her way but without doing the slightest honor to the proud Elisabeth.
"Is it possible," asked the queen after the woman could no longer be seen, "that the celebrated Marianne was made like that? What! She's such a tall idol, pale and lean and serious. How can she have been taken as a marvel for so many centuries?"
"Well," said the Count of Essex. "Were I to have been in Herod's place, I would never have gotten entangled with a savage cat like that, except to refuse her caresses."
"Yet I find in her," said Sir Phillip (Sidney), a certain langour in her appearance, giving her an [[ Page 13 ]] air of greatness, and I see something noble and natural in her movements."
"Phaugh!" answered the other. "Her air of grandeur is impertinent! Her graceful manner that you admire is full of presumption, and I find her insolent all the way down to her waist!"
The Queen, having approved all this, principally condemned the princess for the continual resistance she had made to her most tender attentions. That she had said in vain that it was because he had slaughtered her entire family, that was not a reason for him to refuse the rights of marriage when he demanded them twenty times a day. She concluded that for this rebellion alone, King Herod did will to chop off her head.
Doctor Faust, being the kind of man who must always appear more knowledgeable, assured her that this was not the reason Herod had his wife killed. This view, all historians of the subject scorn. It was instead that a certain Salome, sister to the king and accursed of God, had reported to her brother that being a sacrifice near the [[ Page 14 ]] queen (lariene, not reine) she had heard with her own ears that she prayed to the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to deliver her from her cuckold husband. And although the company did not believe this new twist to the story, it was found worthy in its novelty.
A moment later, the Queen ordered that Cleopatra be summoned to her with the same inflection that she would use to call for one of her chambermaids.
The learned Faust didn't miss a beat,
And to avoid being a boring guest,
He sent off before their eyes,
A little demonette from her post,
To transport her to this spot.
Would you like to learn the way in which this courier was dispatched? Here it is. He only took that big, stuffed hat that he had, and with three strokes of his wand, he transformed the imp into a white haquenee, the prettiest in the world. He then stuck the bulbous end of his wand,4 into her behind and blew4 into the other. With a happy neigh of approval, the haquenee disappeared in a flash4, returning in seven minutes ridden by the illustrious Cleopatra who dismounted at the end of the gallery. The Queen saw that this apparition would compensate her for her lack of satisfaction [[ page 15 ]] with the much-vaunted charms of the other two. Let's see what happened.
The Queen of Egypt had made great preparations for the audience, having been told by her moount the purpose of her trip and what little regard her hosts had shown to the beautiful Helen and the unfortunate Mariamne. As soon as she appeared, the gallery was suffused with the scents of the most precious perfumes of (happy?) Arabia. She ...[got into everything?]... as much because she had been dead for a long time as to leave a pleasant memory in case the company would mock her face after she left. She was bare up to her throat, and a string (belt) of rubies and large diamonds lifted her skirt so that it exposed her left leg high above the knee. What little of her body that was not uncovered was clearly seen through raiment composed of a transparent gauze. She stood before this gallant and light company in the middle of the gallery, just as the two others had done before her.
As soon as her back was turned, eyes did not fail to pass upon her person and upon her frippery. The Queen screamed like one possessed. The vapors from the ointment on the mummy's wrappings smelled like paper burning under nose [[ Page 16 ]] had caused it. She found her less bearable than either Herod's wife or Leda's daughter. She scoffed at the fact that she was dressed as Diana to show off the ugliest figure in the world, and she said that Cleopatra would be better off appearing in a stuffed dress rather than this tiny, invisible summer shift that exposed the treasures that were meant to be eternally hidden from view.
"Indeed," said the Earl of Essex. "There is a body, pleasantly built, that could dress as lightly as she does. It is true that she has a something of a spark and that her skin is very light for an Egyptian. But these are the prerogatives of all redheads, and she is known to be the arch-ginger of her times."
Sir Philip, who, in addition to the faults felt that she had too big a belly and too big a behind, exclaimed:
.....Faust, by this vision
.....How many things to cut down
.....In a laughing fiction
That history makes us, confuses us,
.....Of the famous Cleopatra!
.....Ah! In the battle of Actium
.....Anthony, for her cowardice,
.....You should rather fight
.....Or be held at four
.....Than to follow this ape.
[[ Page 17 ]]
"'Ape,' if you will, sir," said the doctor. "Is this not the same ape that raped the man who put her in irons? The man who would make himself the master of the world? And is this not the same ape that turned the head of this other Nero you speak of?
"But, madam," he said to the Queen, "since these famous foreigners are not to your taste, let us look no further than outside your estates. England, which has always found itself producing the most perfect of beauties as we see from Your Majesty. We could provide, perhaps, an object more worthy for our attention int he appearance of the beautiful and unfortunate Rosamonde. Your grandeur, which does everything, apparently does not ignore its history."
"I had some help," she said. "But as the worries of state have almost erased her from my memory, I will not be aware of a retelling by a quick repetition of her adventures."
"It hasn't been more than three days," said Sir Phillip, "since I read this part of Henry II, your most illustrious predecessor. The great kind had the softest heart in the world, but was nothing less than scrupulous about his inconstancy. It had been some years since another had held it. Jeanne Shoar, who was [[ Page 18 ]] beautiful, but not beautiful enough to capture (fix) a lightness like hers if the devil had not interfered. For at the time, everyone in the world was certain that it was spells and pure magic that she had made herself loved and she preserved her conquest. Our good Faustus can tell us what he thinks, since he is versed in these innocent little topics."
"Call them little, if you like, but this is how the enchantments of Lady Jeanne were broken. If they were broken of her own will. While on a hunt one day in a vast forest, the king found himself lost. He whirled one way, he twirled the other way, and found himself at the end of a stream whose water was beautiful and clear. He followed its course for some time, and as it widened, it lead to a place out of the the stream seized a kind of basin, bordered by fresh and green grass and shaded by tall, dark trees. He found women's clothes atop the roots of the trees, with some emotion. And he advances three or four steps [[ Page 19 ]] to see the women to whom these clothes belong. He remained mobile for some time, and seemed bewitched. He did not notice the other women, not even when she came out of the water (in a dizzy?) to run to her clothes.
"Her companion was just as afraid, but hadn't been quite as surprised, thought it better not to imitate her. She was embarrassed. But when she saw how that the king was no less embarrassed, she felt reassured and told him everything that had happened. Looking about his person, she could tell he was a knight, and begged him to grant her a boon: that was the grand manner of the time. So this king that had already given her his person, his freedom, his heart, and his soul, swore to her that he would not ask of her anything that she would have the honor to demand of him, even unto half his kingdom.
"Hearing these words, the beauty shuddered and began to stand up to show her respect with a curtsy. But despite this inspiration and her duty, she stopped herself, [[ Page 20 ]] seeing that someone with as much grace as the king would have the kindness to withdraw so that she could get out of the water and retrieve her clothes unobserved. He obeys her like a child. Although he was usually quite adventurous in these situations, the poor prince was already furiously in love -- and all it takes for the man of the world to act like the most timid of virgins is to stand near the object of his heart. And so he withdrew, but with no intention of keeping his word.
"As soon as he was obscured by some bushes, he swatted his horse which galloped off into the woods. His Majesty dropped to his belly and dragged himself through the dirt back where he came from, and when he got there, he pushed away a few branches that blocked his view and peered out into the fountain. The beautiful stranger came out of the pond, incautious from the horse's galloping, unable to conceive that such a gallant knight, who was after all the king, would resort to trickery just to get peep. Only God knows how much prince, who had fallen madly in love with the girl upon not seeing her, so to speak, except for her nose, found his passions inflamed when he contemplated the rest.
"But the story goes on. Had he completed what he had started while crouched there all fours [[ Page 21 ]] would have required a penance of three days without food or drink, but the twin objects he found so pleasant were hidden almost at once, and he didn't have the time. The nymph dressed herself quickly, and so her new adorer took a little detour and presented himself before her. His first act was to throw himself at her feet and declare that it was his right to know who she was.
"Surprise, respect, emotion, blush: she took it in all once. This charming stranger would have, without a doubt, disoriented and bewitch any other. But his did nothing but cheat and lie. Well, that mighty king..."
"Sir Philip," said the Queen, "make it brief."
"A you wish, Ma'am," he replied. "They then heard the sounds of a great many horse announcing the arrival of the King's retinue. They had been searching the woods the past half hour after finding his horse, which they returned to him, leading it by the bridle.
He mounted it after learning that this new divinity was named Rosemonde, daughter of a baron whose castle sat just fifty paces out of the forest.
"He returned sleepy, and cold to his mistress, Jeanne. She noticed it right away. His caresses came at longer and longer intervals, he went hunting more and more often, and he returned colder and colder each time. At that she became suspicious, and in these suspicions [[ Page 22 ]] she set her many spies in the field.
One of whom informed her that the king had been seen on his knees before a young lady, beautiful as an angel, the day he was lost in the woods, and every hunting expedition since had been with the intention of an amorous rendezvous.
"At this discovery, the Lady Jeanne, who, with respect to Your Majesty, was the most wicked crone in the universe, spewed fire and flame as she scolded the king. She would have thrown her servant (..lackey...where?...no destination given...odd phrase...). A deviltry ascended in her mind, which she obliged, with threats and shouts, to consent, like the big dolt that he was, to kidnap the poor Rosemonde, and to confine her in an old castle in the middle of the desert,5 which is called Rosemonde's prison to this day. It was in this prison that, after a few years, the detestable Shoar6 strangled her rival while the King was away in France."
"Here!" said the Queen. "Such a deplorable end!"
"Indeed! But what was worse," said the Enchanter. "Was that she was taken away, and she died, without the king's passion, adding another end to the an adventure that had such a tender beginning." The good Elisabeth, after [[ Page 23 ]] a certain nod and a small smile of incredulity, showed her impatience to view the object of our much abridged story. "There is," said Faust, "an secret instinct in your eagerness, since, following the traditions and some memories of the old times, Rosemond had much of your bearing, and indeed had a passing resemblance to Your Majesty." Even though you are ugly, if you believe.
"Let Us see," said the Queen. "But as she appears, Sir Philip, We command you to observe her to the last detail, so that should We find it worth Our while, you can relate an exact description of her at Our leisure."
The order given, and many small conjurations made, the beauty appeared as if the journey through the centuries was a jaunt of but thirty leagues from London. She appeared after a while at the gallery door, her air and her face extremely (rained?). As she advances, her attractions coalesce to shine with the brilliance of a new star. If she knew that knew the extent to which she was being examined, it didn't show. But the approval of the company manifested itself in the airs of pleasure they emitted, and they could witness each others' admiration as they stared at her. They found themselves approving of the taste of Henry II in choosing her, and [[ Page 24 ]] detested the somberness with which he saw her immolated. The doctor had given her no more clothing than that she would wear when stepping out of the bath. She had only a plain cornette on her head, a tafetta dressing gown, and a short, linen petticoat, embroidered with silk.
It was with this extreme negligence that she dimmed the brightness of the day, according to our spectators. She stopped before them much longer than her predecessors, turning towards the knight two or three times, with agreeable glances. They said that each of these glances pushed his heart so deep into into his stomach that he looked quite silly in his discomfort. But at last, she had to take her leave of the company, and as soon as she left:
"My God!" cried the Queen. "Such a pretty creature! I have never seen anything in my life that pleased me so! Such size! Such nobility of air with no sign of affectation!
What brilliance without artifice! And people tell me that I resemble her! What do you say, Duke? Does she?"
He became quite thoughtful, and said nothing aloud. Instead, he thought to himself: Would to God, Babet! My Queen and mistress, [[ Page 25 ]] I would give you the best horse in my stable, if only it were so ugly that it resembled you. "Do you look like her? Why, Your Majesty would only have to take a turn around the gallery in a flowing robe and in a petticoat embroidered with silk." And if our sorcerer himself is not mistaken, then I am just as unscrupulous a rascal.
During all this insipidity, and other tortures of this nature, the poet Sidney, pencil in hand, sketched a portrait of the beautiful Rosemond. As soon as he had given it the finishing hand, he was ordered to read it, and this is how he commenced:
......Come, my verses, let us obey,
......Since my queen commands us;
......And our finest pencils,
......Trace the air and the person
Of an object whose brilliance radiates like a thousand lights,
And who the God of Verses deserves her song.
......Far from a flattering impostor,
......For whom lies of false brilliance
......We use to embellish her portrait,
......When her beauty is indigent.
......And for the end of my adventure,
......With a hand both faithful and sure,
Let's paint the original with neither blush nor incence: [[ Page 26 ]]
......It arises from the ornaments,
......From her amiable smiles,
......He jumps, tracing the beauty
......Of the divine Rosemond,
......In the worlds' most beautiful portrait,
......Using only the pigments of truth.
Here spoke an honest man, and a man who, for a writer of verse and romance, may have a
residual conscience. And this is how he proceeded to detail her charms:
Of a grave and attractive assemblage,
......Accompanied a thousand embellishments,
......Inseparable from the beautiful years,
......From the happy youth shares:
......Everything pleased her handsome face;
......From Flore the nascent treasures
......They appeared there on display,
......But pure, natural, innocent,
......And as we see them in the spring,
When Zephyr dries them, after a quick storm.
......Her mouth crowns the work:
......She was made for her teeth,
......Happy among all the living,
......Who would not enjoy the advantage,
......After a thousand thousand torments,
......To be able to sing her praises!
......Her eyes weren't the biggest,
......But the language they spoke, [[ Page 27 ]]
......with their lively and seductive features!
When trapped by her indifferent glances,
They opened a passage to the bottom of their hearts.
......Nothing was so beautiful as her nose,
......Which was that of the celestial Hebe,
......And he two feet were turned in.
......As for the rest
Of her attractions, which are better guessed than naked,
We aren't in need of another manifesto.
......Her size had all the charms
......That we feel, but cannot express,
......Its nobility was supreme.
In her entire face, in even her steps,
There was a certain air worthy of a diadem.
......But it was these tunes that we love,
......And that we love to our deaths;
In short, when examined from top to bottom,
......It was you, Beautiful Daphne,
......That we painted on this canvas.
At least, I would swear that his description would fit you, as well. Except for that delightful poking at the throat, that cannot be forgotten. Certainly, if we were to take the liberty to make a duplicate of you, it would not be an article that we would amend. A certain form, a certain luster, a certain situation whose nature has shaped the little things we see in you, would offer many agreeable ideas to put into prose or verse, without any need to render them as more touching. [[ Page 28 ]] Truthfully, I'm not longer very happy with what he says of her mouth. It is as if he is too afraid to touch it. It is true to say that she was made with a set of the most beautiful teeth in the world. It is something, but it is not enough. If he had known of yours, he would have depicted them in verse as gracious as your fresh and vermilion lips. He would have said that when you smile, the places certain amenities around them that if forgets, or at least does not bother, to put place around the lips of others.
Back to the galery.
The company discussed the choice of which apparition should follow Rosamond. The enchanter felt that it was not necessary to look beyond England for beauties of repute, suggsting that the famous Countess of Salisbury - who inspired the institution of the Order of the Garter - like a certain beautiful Flemming was the reason for the Golden Fleece.
The doctor defended himself with spell and sermon, saying that such magic was not practicable [[ Page 29 ]] in the order of conjurations. The repetition of phantoms irritates the subjugated powers of the first enchantments. But no matter how much he said that he knew only so many ways to summon her, the Queen's fiery tone was enough to make him feel obliged to try. He assured her that, should Rosemond saw fit to return, she would not come back from where she first entered or from where she left. And for each attempt, he feared he did not know what it was.
But our two gentlemen were quite learned in the art of apparitions, so the doctor's words did not instill the anticipated emotion, despite the fact that he had commenced.
Never had a conjuration given him so much trouble. Having mumbled for some time, after grasping grimaces and ... contortions, neither of which were beautiful (nor, to be truthful, honest), he put his book on the ground in the middle of the gallery and hopped three times around it. Whereupon, he leaned like a scortched tree against the wall, with his head down and his feet up. But, nothing seemed to appear. So, he had to make use of the last and most powerful of his spells. He had to jump three time backwards around the book, the pinky of his right hand stuck in his left ear hole, and with each jump he slapped his buttocks and shouted "Rosemond!" at the top of his lungs, three times. At the last of these magical spanks, a fiery wind impetuously opened a window, and crisscrossed everywhere, and swirling together, returned the charming Rosemond to Earth at the center of the gallery as if she had just descended from a Berlin carriage.
When the doctor saw this, he soaked himself in sweat, and he quickly escaped. But the Queen found her incomparably more delightful than the first incarnation. Left, for the moment, without a guide to lull her usual prudence by a enchantment of eagerness, she left Faust's circle as thoughtlessly as the lady with the yellow piece (?), advancing with open arms and saying, "Ah, my dear Rosemond."
As soon as she spoke, a violent clap of thunder shook the gallery, and a thick, black vapor filled the gallery. Several tiny nascent lightning bolts snaked left and right around the spectators, and seized them by the ears.
As the darkness dissipated little-by-little, the magician Faust floats, sitting four feet in the air and foaming like a boar. His cap is in one hand, his wand is in the other, and his magical almanac sits in his lap.
Nobody, in this adventure, was left without fear.
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Notes
1
"Whose hymen rebelled against God?"
"Who was the god of the rebellious hymen?"
Neither God nor Hymen is capitalized, so it probably neither refers directly to the Christian God nor the god of marriage, Hymen. Unless the word hymen means marriage in analogy to the god.
Just means marriage.
2 Another one I can't get. Partially due to smudging, I'm not sure of the word.
3 Most direct translation:
As the sun is just dawning;
Nothing was seen more than her (complexion?);
With scents of lilies and jasmine,
Admixed with the roses of spring:
A woman with gold in her hand
Will have such a radiant complexions.
Short was her farthingale,
And she showed up from her shoes
Almost her entire leg.
As she waited in the corner,
Lounging gracefully in her chair,
No one would think it deliberate
That she should expose her breast
All the while, on her white hands
Rubies and diamonds without sin
Glittered at their ease.
4 Baguette, souffle, eclair. Are these purposeful food puns?
5 This "prison" was a hunting lodge with three and a half square miles of parkland in Oxfordshire (apparently the first enclosed park in England) called "Woodstock Palace," the same palace where Elisabeth I was kept imprisoned. Henry II kept Rosamond there as his "secret" mistress from (possibly) when he met her in 1166 to 1173, when he imprisoned his wife (10 years his senior) and brought Rosamond to London as full-time mistress. While Rosamond was living there, Henry built the lodge up from the lodge built by Henry I to a palace. It was destroyed in the English Civil War. [Wikipedia, pointed to from "royal favorites"7 blog.]
6 I can find no Jeanne Shoar that was a mistress of Henry II. Usually, it is his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine that comes into the conspiracy theories about Rosamond's death. Closest I can find, so far, is Edward IV's mistress Jane Shore. That's only about 250-300 years off, I think.
7 An entire blog dedicated to finding references to the indiscretions of Europe's royalty over an undisclosed time period, but at least from most of the second millennium, except maybe the 20th century. Everything is on this internet.
Hopefully you don't become famous, because after you get we all get our internet implants, some hacker, possibly a fan, will pluck all your fantasies out of your head and publish them on their blog.
