The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Lea:

I kind of feel that this thread really needs this link. As a matter of course.

"They're trapped. Trapped in the soft viselike grip of robot lips."

Sara Douglass' Crucible trilogy has a lot of horrible, horrible gems, but the one that burned itself into my brain is this one:

"No doubt 'dear Robbie' taught Richard to do a great many things with his manly poker other than to piss with it."

Oh, and "Soon the entire court -- nay, the entire country! -- would be dancing to his depraved tune!"

Context makes it clear that the depraved tune is "It's Raining Men."

Sarah K wrote:

Henry Four made Richard Two
From throne to bent-knee fall
But Richard cried, "My lord, you're mine,
An' I am yours, an' all."

...WELL PLAYED.

(now I wonder if you're someone I know from lj.)

I scored 26, and it said that was good enough for the Hall of Fame. Go me. (Good Lord, I need a life.)

Oh, those are wonderful. I think my favorite is Elizabeth I.

I may also have to hand out the Shelley one in class -- we're doing Frankenstein this week.

Call this a third subgroup: "people listening with a period ear."

Indeed! The ballad participates in the medieval tradition of depicting Joseph as akin to the mal marié of fabliau, the old man with a young wife he doesn't quite trust -- a tradition derived, ultimately, from the passage in Matthew that Lee refers to (which was, in fact, the gospel reading in church this past Sunday) -- as the text James linked to indicates, being a fine example thereof. Chaucer also plays with the association a bit in the Miller's Tale; he has the miller introduce his tale thus:

For I wol telle a legende and a lyf
Bothe of a carpenter and of his wyf

and then the randy young clerk in the tale, we're told, likes to sing Angelus ad virginem, the famous medieval song of the Annunciation.

I like to come in and give random Medieval Lit 101 lectures. ;)

What had been called 25 December was now called 6 January. Old Christmas is still a magical day

Oh, so is this why Jesus in the Cherry Tree Carol says "On the sixth day of January my birthday shall be"? Because I always wondered about that -- it was like "wait a minute, why is this song Eastern Orthodox if it's English?"

Also, I am excessively grædig, I fear! I shall have to try my hand at working out a few more in compensation (though my OE is if anything worse than my Latin)...

And -- man, I am probably annoying the hell out of everybody here -- 1.1 is "Nyy V Jnag Sbe Puevfgznf Vf Zl Gjb Sebag Grrgu"

Oh, and I think 1.3 is "Gur Svefg Abry."

Oh, this is fun!

I had two semesters of Old English, so this wasn't too difficult, except that in some cases I know what the words mean but am not sure of the songs!

Anyway, without looking too much, and in rot13:

1.2. B Pbzr Nyy Lr Snvgushy
1.4. Qb Lbh Urne Jung V Urne?
1.5. Sebfgl gur Fabjzna
1.6. B Ubyl Avtug
1.8. Jr Guerr Xvatf
1.9. Jura Furcureqf Jngpurq Gurve Sybpxf Ol Avtug
1.10. Gur Ubyyl naq gur Vil

2.1 V Fnj Guerr Fuvcf
2.2 V Fnj Zbzzl Xvffvat Fnagn Pynhf
2.3 Gur Gjryir Qnlf bs Puevfgznf
2.4. Qrpx gur Unyyf
2.5. Qvat Qbat Zreevyl Ba Uvtu
2.6. Njnl Va N Znatre
2.7. Wbl Gb gur Jbeyq
2.8. Unex gur Urenyq Natryf Fvat
2.9. Juvgr Puevfgznf
2.10. Natryf Jr Unir Urneq Ba Uvtu

There's also Tomacco, which had its origins in a mediocre late episode of The Simpsons...

*headdesk*

I have no idea how I did that. You go away for one hour and come back to find you look like a dope in front of all the clever Making Light posters...

Okay, that picture is going on the syllabus for the SF course I'm teaching next semester. Okay, that picture is going on the syllabus for the SF course I'm teaching next semester.

I was all set to post about how whatever cookbook title you'd found, it couldn't be worse than Cooking With Pooh.

And there it was!

Bother.

Also, the 300/1776 mashup was fantastic.

Serge @ 56: And if you watch the first Elizabeth movie that Cate Blanchett was in, you'll see Christopher Eccleston as Norfolk, and Daniel Craig as a monk/hitman. The Doctor and James Bond.

And Galadriel!

Lis Riba beat me to the punch about Bard Slash, but there's a bit more Shakesfic at Shaksper Random. Which is not all about fic, but is generally awesome.

E.M.W. Tillyard's The Elizabethan World Picture -- at least, when cited uncritically as an illustration of how the Elizabethans thought. Actually, you can add his Shakespeare's History Plays to that list too as a fine and shining example of Getting It Wrong; there is a fair deal of distance between the dominant-ideology-driven ideal (which Tillyard describes fairly effectively) and the way people actually thought.

Also, I am reasonably fond of most of Stephen Greenblatt's criticism, though I disagree with a considerable amount of it, but I would be put off by any work that cites Will in the World.

This part was my favorite:

What I find rather interesting is that Allen must believe, in some dim fashion, that people will actually buy this, and more than buy this, agree with it, which is to say that Allen believes that the average Floridan would think to himself or herself, "why, yes, when confronted with a park full of black men, a white man turning himself into some sort of ATM/suction device combo is an entirely rational response."

Wow.

Everyone really is going to Kzoo but me.

I got it, author and exact verse both.

Weirdly, this afternoon I was just thinking about the musical setting I wrote of the original text...

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