Sadness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘My lady,’ said Messer Torello, ‘I am convinced that you will do all in your power to keep such a promise; but you are young and beautiful, you come from a famous family, and as everyone knows, you are a woman of exceptional gifts. Hence I have no doubt that if I am reported as missing, many a fine gentleman will be seeking your hand from your brothers and kinsfolk, who will subject you to so much pressure, that whether you like it or not you will be forced to comply with their wishes. And that is why I do not ask you to wait any longer than the period I have stated.’ ‘I shall do my utmost to keep my promise,’ said the lady. ‘And even if I am forced to act differently, at least I shall follow these instructions of yours to the letter. But I pray to God that neither you nor I will be brought to any such extremity.’ Having uttered these words, the lady burst into tears and embraced Messer Torello. Then, taking a ring from her finger, she presented it to him saying: ‘If I should happen to die before we meet again, remember me when you look upon this ring.’ Messer Torello accepted the ring, and having mounted his horse, he bade farewell to everyone and proceeded on his way. On arriving with his followers at Genoa, he boarded a galley, and after a prosperous voyage he landed at Acre,5 where he joined the main body of the Christian host. But almost overnight the army was afflicted by a great and deadly fever, in the course of which, whether through good judgement or good fortune, Saladin captured nearly all the Christians who managed to survive, divided them up, and imprisoned them in various cities of his realm. Among those captured was Messer Torello, who was marched away to prison in Alexandria, where, since no one was aware of his importance and he was afraid to disclose his identity, he was compelled to apply himself to the training of hawks, a science which he had mastered to perfection. And when his prowess came to the notice of Saladin, he had him removed from captivity and appointed him his falconer.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But once again Anna began to protest. ‘What’s the good of it all for a girl?’ she argued. ‘Did you love me any less because I couldn’t do mathematics? Do you love me less now because I count on my fingers?’ He kissed her. ‘That’s different, you’re you,’ he said, smiling, but a look that she knew well had come into his eyes, a cold, resolute expression, which meant that all persuasion was likely to be unavailing. Presently they went upstairs to the nursery, and Sir Philip shaded the candle with his hand, while they stood together gazing down at Stephen—the child was heavily asleep. ‘Look, Philip,’ whispered Anna, pitiful and shaken, ‘look, Philip—she’s got two big tears on her cheek!’ He nodded, slipping his arm around Anna: ‘Come away, he muttered, ‘we may wake her.’ CHAPTER 61M rs. Bingham departed unmourned and unmourning, and in her stead reigned Mademoiselle Duphot, a youthful French governess with a long, pleasant face that reminded Stephen of a horse. This equine resemblance was fortunate in one way—Stephen took to Mademoiselle Duphot at once—but it did not make for respectful obedience. On the contrary, Stephen felt very familiar, kindly familiar and quite at her ease; she petted Mademoiselle Duphot. Mademoiselle Duphot was lonely and homesick, and it must be admitted that she liked being petted. Stephen would rush off to get her a cushion, or a footstool or her glass of milk at eleven. ‘Comme elle est gentille, cette drôle de petite fille, elle a si bon cœur,’ would think Mademoiselle Duphot, and somehow geography would not seem to matter quite so much, or arithmetic either—in vain did Mademoiselle try to be strict, her pupil could always beguile her. Mademoiselle Duphot knew nothing about horses, in spite of the fact that she looked so much like one, and Stephen would complacently entertain her with long conversations anent splints and spavins, cow hocks and colic, all mixed up together in a kind of wild veterinary jumble. Had Williams been listening, he might well have rubbed his chin, but Williams was not there to listen. As for Mademoiselle Duphot, she was genuinely impressed: ‘Mais quel type, quel type!’ she was always exclaiming. ‘Vous êtes déjà une vraie petite Amazone, Stévenne.’ ‘N’est-ce pas?’ agreed Stephen, who was picking up French. The child showed a real ability for French, and this delighted her teacher; at the end of six months she could gabble quite freely, making quick little gestures and shrugging her shoulders. She liked talking French, it rather amused her, nor was she averse to mastering the grammar; what she could not endure were the long, foolish dictées from the edifying Bibliothèque Rose. Weak in all other respects with Stephen, Mademoiselle Duphot clung to these dictées; the Bibliothèque Rose became her last trench of authority, and she held it.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The knights understood the hardship of the condition implied in these two well nigh impossible requirements, but, seeing that they might not by their words avail to move him from his purpose, they returned to the lady and reported to her his reply; whereat she was sore afflicted and determined, after long consideration, to seek to learn if and where the two things aforesaid might be compassed, to the intent that she might, in consequence, have her husband again. Accordingly, having bethought herself what she should do, she assembled certain of the best and chiefest men of the county and with plaintive speech very orderly recounted to them that which she had already done for love of the count and showed them what had ensued thereof, adding that it was not her intent that, through her sojourn there, the count should abide in perpetual exile; nay, rather she purposed to spend the rest of her life in pilgrimages and works of mercy and charity for her soul's health; wherefore she prayed them take the ward and governance of the county and notify the count that she had left him free and vacant possession and had departed the country, intending nevermore to return to Roussillon. Many were the tears shed by the good folk, whilst she spoke, and many the prayers addressed to her that it would please her change counsel and abide there; but they availed nought. Then, commending them to God, she set out upon her way, without telling any whither she was bound, well furnished with monies and jewels of price and accompanied by a cousin of hers and a chamberwoman, all in pilgrims' habits, and stayed not till she came to Florence, where, chancing upon a little inn, kept by a decent widow woman, she there took up her abode and lived quietly, after the fashion of a poor pilgrim, impatient to hear news of her lord. It befell, then, that on the morrow of her arrival she saw Bertrand pass before her lodging, a-horseback with his company, and albeit she knew him full well, natheless she asked the good woman of the inn who he was. The hostess answered, 'That is a stranger gentleman, who calleth himself Count Bertrand, a pleasant man and a courteous and much loved in this city; and he is the most enamoured man in the world of a she-neighbour of ours, who is a gentlewoman, but poor. Sooth to say, she is a very virtuous damsel and abideth, being yet unmarried for poverty, with her mother, a very good and discreet lady, but for whom, maybe, she had already done the count's pleasure.' The countess took good note of what she heard and having more closely enquired into every particular and apprehended all aright, determined in herself how she should do.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  3 The Comedía delle ninfe fiorentine is a prose narrative interspersed with a number of poems, and in the last of these the author complains about ‘the dark, silent, melancholy house’ which harbours him against his will. What saddens him most of all, he continues, is ‘the coarse and horrible sight of a miserly old man, cold and churlish’ – perhaps a reference to his widowed father, but more probably a metaphor for the prospect of senility in a general sense. If a reference to his father was what he really intended, he was being unkind. Boccaccio senior could hardly have been as wizened and lifeless as he was painted if, some two years later, he was to pass to a second marriage with Bice de’ Bostichi, who was to present him with a son, Iacopo. Apart from the Comedía delie ninfe florentine and the Fiammetta (1343–4), already briefly referred to above, the years immediately following the author’s return to Florence also saw the completion of the Amorosa visione (1342), a complicated allegorical poem consisting of fifty cantos of terza rima in which the influence of the Commedia looms even larger than in any of his earlier compositions. There is also a lengthy pastoral poem, the Ninfale fiesolano , of which the dating (and indeed the authorship) have been subject to some dispute. Assuming that he was indeed the author, the maturity of its style and the directness of its narrative-line would lend support to Branca’s tentative placing of its composition in the years 1344–6. Although the poem is relatively free of the overt ‘autobiographical’ material of most of his earlier writings, the delicate presentation in one of its episodes of the affection of grandparents for their illegitimate grandson may well owe a part of its immediacy to his direct personal experience, during those years, of the sentiments it so charmingly depicts. Mario and Giulio, the first two of five children he fathered, all illegitimate, were already approaching adolescence, whilst the third, Violante, for whom he displays deep fatherly affection in one of his later Latin eclogues, was born either in Florence or Ravenna in the mid 1340s. More significantly, perhaps, the house where he lived with his elderly father and second stepmother was gladdened by the birth of their child, lacopo, in or around 1344. Positivist critics used to make a connection between the love-child of Mensola, the heroine of the Ninfale , with the circumstances of Boccaccio’s own illegitimate birth in 1313. It has even been suggested that the story is a literary re-working of a scandalous love-affair, imperfectly documented, between the author and a Benedictine nun from the convent of San Martino a Mensola, where a farm belonging to his father was located. Speculative tales of the sort doubtless arose in part from the dearth of reliable documentary evidence about Boccaccio in the years immediately preceding the advent of the Black Death in Florence in 1348.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And as though to bear out the truth of her words, Roger now came to The Grange much less often; and when he did come he was quietly friendly, not at all lover-like if Stephen was present, so that gradually her need to believe had begun to allay her worst fears. Yet she knew with the true instinct of the lover, that Angela was secretly unhappy. She might try to appear light-hearted and flippant, but her smiles and her jests could not deceive Stephen. ‘You’re miserable. What is it?’ And Angela would answer: ‘Ralph’s been vile to me again—’ But she would not add that Ralph was daily becoming more suspicious and more intolerant of Roger Antrim, so that now her deadly fear of her husband was always at war with her passion. Sometimes it seemed to the girl that Angela used her as a whip wherewith to lash Ralph. She would lead Stephen on to show signs of affection which would never have been permitted in the past. Ralph’s little red eyes would look deeply resentful, and getting up he would slouch from the room. They would hear the front door being closed, and would know that he had gone for a walk with Tony. Yet when they were alone and in comparative safety, there would be something crude, almost cruel in their kisses; a restless, dissatisfied, hungry thing—their lips would seem bent on scourging their bodies. Neither would find deliverance nor ease from the ache that was in them, for each would be kissing with a well-nigh intolerable sense of loss, with a passionate knowledge of separation. After a little they would sit with bent heads, not speaking because of what might not be spoken; not daring to look each other in the eyes nor to touch each other, lest they should cry out against this preposterous lovemaking. Completely confounded, Stephen racked her brains for anything that might give them both a respite. She suggested that Angela should see her fence with a celebrated London fencing master whom she had bribed to come down to Morton. She tried to arouse an interest in the car, the splendid new car that had cost so much money. She tried to find out if Angela had an ungratified wish that money could fulfil. ‘Only tell me what I can do,’ she pleaded, but apparently there was nothing. Angela came several times to Morton and dutifully attended the fencing lessons. But they did not go well, for Stephen would glimpse her staring abstractedly out of the window; then the sly, agile foil with its blunt tipped nose, would slip in under Stephen’s guard and shame her.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  SIXTH STORY Madonna Beritola, having lost her two sons, is found on an island with two roebucks and taken to Lunigiana, where one of her sons, having entered the service of her lord and master, makes love to the daughter of the house and is thrown into prison. After the Sicilian rebellion against King Charles, the son is recognized by his mother, he marries his master’s daughter, he is reunited with his brother, and they are all restored to positions of great honour. The whole company, ladies and young men alike, rocked with laughter over Fiammetta’s account of Andreuccio’s misfortunes, and then Emilia, on seeing that the story was finished and receiving a signal from the queen, began as follows: The erratic course pursued by Fortune frequently leads to pain and irritation. But since our mental faculties, which are easily lulled to sleep by her blandishments, are aroused as often as a subject is openly discussed, I consider that nobody, whether he be happy or miserable, should ever object to hearing an account of her eccentricities, in that the first man will be placed on his guard and the second will receive some consolation. Accordingly, I propose to tell you a story, no less true than touching, on this same topic upon which such splendid things have already been said. And whilst my tale has a happy ending, the suffering contained therein was so intense and protracted, that I can scarcely believe it was ever entirely assuaged by the happiness that ensued. You are to know, dear ladies, that Manfred, 1 who was crowned King of Sicily after the death of the Emperor Frederick II, held few of his courtiers in higher esteem man a gentleman of Naples called Arrighetto Capece, who had a beautiful and noble wife, also Neapolitan, called Madonna Beritola Caracciolo. 2 Arrighetto was in fact governing the island, when news reached him that King Charles I had defeated and killed Manfred at Benevento, and that the whole kingdom had gone over to the conqueror. Knowing that the Sicilians could never be trusted for long, and not wishing to become a subject of his master’s enemy, he prepared to flee. But his plans were discovered by the Sicilians, who promptly took him prisoner and delivered him over to King Charles along with many other friends and servants of King Manfred. And shortly afterwards, the island itself was surrendered. In the face of all this upheaval, not knowing what had become of Arrighetto, frightened by what had happened and fearing a possible attempt on her own honour, Madonna Beritola abandoned everything she possessed, and though pregnant and reduced to poverty, she fled by ship to Lipari with her son, Giusfredi, who was about eight years old. There she gave birth to a second son, whom she called The Outcast, and having hired a nurse, she embarked with all three on a tiny ship bound for Naples, with the intention of rejoining her family.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now that I am old, my heart bleeds when I look back and consider the opportunities I allowed to go to waste. Mind you, I didn’t waste all of them – I wouldn’t want you to think I was a half-wit – but all the same I didn’t do as much as I should have done. And God knows what agony it is to see myself reduced now to this sorry state, and realize that if I wanted to light a fire, I couldn’t find anyone to lend me a poker. ‘With men it is different: they are born with a thousand other talents apart from this, and older men do a far better job than younger ones as a rule; but women exist for no other purpose 4 than to do this and to bear children, which is why they are cherished and admired. If you doubt my words, there’s one thing that ought to convince you, and that is that a woman’s always ready for a man, but not vice-versa. What’s more, one woman could exhaust many men, whereas many men can’t exhaust one woman. And since this is the purpose for which we are born, I repeat that you are very well advised to pay your husband in his own coin, so that when you’re an old woman your heart will have no cause for complaint against your flesh. ‘You must help yourself to whatever you can grab in this world, especially if you’re a woman. It’s far more important for women than for men to make the most of their opportunities, because when we’re old, as you can see for yourself, neither our husbands nor any other man can bear the sight of us, and they bundle us off into the kitchen to tell stories to the cat, and count the pots and pans. And what’s worse, they make up rhymes about us, such as “When she’s twenty give her plenty. When she’s a gammer, give her the hammer,” and a lot of other sayings in the same strain. ‘But I won’t detain you any longer with my chit-chat. You’ve told me what you have in mind, and I can assure you right away that you couldn’t have spoken to anyone in the world who was better able to help. There’s no man so refined as to deter me from telling him what’s required of him, nor is there any so raw and uncouth as to prevent me from softening him up and bending him to my will. So just point out the one you would like, and leave the rest to me.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  FIRST DAY Here begins the First Day of the Decameron, wherein first of all the author explains the circumstances in which certain persons, who presently make their appearance, were induced to meet for the purpose of conversing together, after which, under the rule of Pampinea, each of them speaks on the subject they find most congenial . Whenever, fairest ladies, I pause to consider how compassionate you all are by nature, I invariably become aware that the present work will seem to you to possess an irksome and ponderous opening. For it carries at its head the painful memory of the deadly havoc wrought by the recent plague, which brought so much heartache and misery to those who witnessed, or had experience of it. But I do not want you to be deterred, for this reason, from reading any further, on the assumption that you are to be subjected, as you read, to an endless torrent of tears and sobbing. You will be affected no differently by this grim beginning than walkers confronted by a steep and rugged hill, beyond which there lies a beautiful and delectable plain. The degree of pleasure they derive from the latter will correspond directly to the difficulty of the climb and the descent. And just as the end of mirth is heaviness, 1 so sorrows are dispersed by the advent of joy. This brief unpleasantness (I call it brief, inasmuch as it is contained within few words) is quickly followed by the sweetness and the pleasure which I have already promised you, and which, unless you were told in advance, you would not perhaps be expecting to find after such a beginning as this. Believe me, if I could decently have taken you whither I desire by some other route, rather than along a path so difficult as this, I would gladly have done so. But since it is impossible without this memoir to show the origin of the events you will read about later, I really have no alternative but to address myself to its composition. I say, then, that the sum of thirteen hundred and forty-eight years had elapsed since the fruitful Incarnation of the Son of God, when the noble city of Florence, which for its great beauty excels all others in Italy, was visited by the deadly pestilence. 2 Some say that it descended upon the human race through the influence of the heavenly bodies, others that it was a punishment signifying God’s righteous anger at our iniquitous way of life. But whatever its cause, it had originated some years earlier in the East, where it had claimed countless lives before it unhappily spread westward, growing in strength as it swept relentlessly on from one place to the next. In the face of its onrush, all the wisdom and ingenuity of man were unavailing.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Religious instruction was also given through the series of pictures known as the Dance of Death, and through the miracle plays.1262 In the Dance of Death, a perpetual memento mori, death was represented in the figure of a skeleton appearing to persons in every avocation of life and of every class. None were too holy or too powerful to evade his intrusion and none too humble to be beyond his notice. Death wears now a serious, now a comic aspect, now politely leads his victim, now walks arm in arm with him, now drags him or beats him. An hour-glass is usually found somewhere in the pictures, grimly reminding the onlooker that the time of life is certain to run out. These pictures were painted on bridges, houses, church windows and convent walls. Among the oldest specimens are those in Minden,1383, at Paris in the churchyard of the Franciscans,1425, Dijon,1436, Basel,1441, Croyden, the Tower of London, Salisbury Cathedral,1460, Lübeck,1463.1263 In the fifteenth century, the religious drama was in its bloom in Germany and England.1264 The acting was now turned over to laymen and the public squares and streets were preferred for the performances. The people looked on from the houses as well as from the streets. In 1412, while the play of St. Dorothea was being acted in the market-place at Bautzen, the roof of one of the houses fell and 33 persons were killed. The introduction of buffoonery and farce had become a recognized feature and lightened the impression without impairing the religious usefulness of the plays. The devil was made a subject of perpetual jest and fun. The people found in them an element of instruction which, perhaps, the priest did not impart. The scenes enacted reached from the Creation and the fall of Lucifer to the Last Judgment and from Abel’s death and Isaac’s sacrifice to the crucifixion and resurrection. Set forth by living actors, the miracle plays and moralities were to the Middle Ages what the Pilgrim’s Progress was to Puritans. They were performed from Rome to London, at the marriage and visits of princes and for the delectation of the people. We find them presented before Sigismund and prelates during the solemn discussions of the Council of Constance, as when the play of the Nativity and the Slaughter of the Innocents was acted at the Bishop of Salisbury’s lodgings,1417, and at St. Peter’s, as when the play of Susannah and the Elders was performed in honor of Leonora, daughter of Ferrante of Naples,1473. At a popular dramatization of the parable of the 10 Virgins in Eisenach,1324, the margrave, Friedrich, was so moved by the pleas of the 5 foolish maidens and the failure to secure the aid of Mary and the saints, that he cried out, "What is the Christian religion worth, if sinners cannot obtain mercy through the intercession of Mary?" The story went, that he became melancholy and died soon afterwards.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But since there had been a war in the countryside 2 a short time previously and everything had been burnt to the ground, there was no shelter to be seen anywhere, and so he set off for Castel Guiglielmo, walking at a brisk pace on account of the cold. He had no idea whether his servant had fled to the fortress or to some other town, but he thought that, once inside the walls, God would surely send him some sort of relief. He still had over a mile to go when night came on with a vengeance, and when he finally arrived it was so late that the gates were locked, the drawbridges were up, and he was unable to gain admittance. Feeling depressed and miserable, he looked round with tears in his eyes to see whether there was a place where he would at least find some protection from the snow, and he happened to catch sight of a house that jutted out appreciably from the top of the castle walls, so he decided to go and take refuge beneath it till daybreak. When he reached the spot, he discovered there was a postern underneath the overhang, and although the door was locked, at its base he heaped a quantity of straw which was lying nearby, and settled down upon it. He was thoroughly fed up, and complained at regular intervals to Saint Julian, saying that this was no way to treat one of his faithful devotees. Saint Julian had not lost sight of him, however, and before very long he was to see that Rinaldo was comfortably settled. In the castle there was a widow, lovelier of body than any other woman in the world, with whom the Marquis Azzo was madly in love. He had set her up there as his mistress, and she was living in the very house beneath which Rinaldo had taken refuge. As it happened, the Marquis had arrived at the castle on that very day with the intention of spending the night with her, and had made secret arrangements to have a sumptuous supper prepared, and to take a bath in the lady’s house beforehand. Everything was ready, and she was only waiting for the Marquis to turn up, when a servant happened to arrive at the gate, bringing the Marquis a message requiring him to leave immediately. So he sent word to the lady that he would not be coming, then hastily mounted his horse and rode away. The lady, feeling rather disconsolate and not knowing what to do with herself, decided she would have the bath which had been prepared for the Marquis, after which she would sup and go to bed. And so into the bath she went.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And so the king sent for the steward, and ordered him to see that things were set out for them next morning in that very place, and that beds were carried there in case anyone should want to sleep or lie down in the middle part of the day. Then he called for lights to be brought, together with wine and sweetmeats, and when they had taken a little refreshment, he ordered everyone to join in the dancing. At his request, Panfilo began the first dance, whereupon the king turned to Elissa and in pleasing tones he said: ‘Fair lady, just as you honoured me today with the crown, so I wish to honour you this evening with the privilege of singing to us. Sing to us therefore, and let your song be about the one you prefer to all the rest.’ Elissa, with a smile, readily consented and began to sing in dulcet tones as follows: ‘Love, if I ever from thy claws break free I think no other hook will tangle me. ‘I entered in thy war, a fair young maid, Believing it was perfect peace benign, And all my arms upon the ground I laid, Thinking to find thy honour like to mine. But thou, disloyal tyrant, Leapt’st out at me instead In armour fiercely girded With talons cruel outspread. ‘And now, all bound around with chains of thine, To him who for my very death was born Thou gav’st me prisoner; and now I pine Within his grasp, and in distraction mourn. His lordship is so cruel That all my tears and cries Go unregarded, while, alas, I waste away with sighs. ‘The wind has swept away my every prayer; E’en now, when my cruel torment grows so high, None listens to them, none will give them ear; My life is hateful, yet how may I die? Since I lie in thy bondage Have pity, Lord, on me, Do for me what I cannot And set my spirit free. ‘But if thou canst not grant me this, alas, Cut all those bonds of hope that bind me fast. I pray thee, Lord, at least to grant me this, For if thou dost, my faith is that at last I may regain that beauty That once I had by right And, sorrow banished, deck me With flowers of red and white.’4 When Elissa, fetching a most pathetic sigh, had brought her song to a close, albeit everyone puzzled over the words no one was able to say who it was that had caused her to sing such a song. The king, however, who was in good mettle, sent for Tindaro and ordered him to bring out his cornemuse,5 to the strains of which he caused several reels to be danced. But when a goodly portion of the night was spent, he told them, one and all, to retire to bed. Here ends the Sixth Day of the Decameron

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  108 Lecture 15: Religious Debates and preserved Text o The Rab Shakeh reminded the common people that these actions by their king forced them to worship only in Jerusalem. • This line of argument suggests a real division among the Judeans concerning the centralization of worship in the Jerusalem temple. o Clearly, some Judeans saw their local shrines or high places as legitimate places of worship, where they could offer sacrifices to the Israelite god. o It also seems likely that many Judeans saw no conflict between worshipping the Israelite god and worshipping Ba’al, Asherah, and the astral deities associated with the sun, moon, and stars. o It is possible, therefore, to imagine that some segments of the Judean population supported Manasseh’s rebuilding of the high places and rededication of altars to Ba’al and Asherah. Given that Judah had been held in desperate economic straights and in fear for its survival by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, it seems likely that the Judeans turned to whichever gods they thought might protect them. It also seems natural that in a time of crisis, there would be multiple factions that disagreed with one another about the proper form of worship. The Reform of Josiah (r. 640–609 B.C.E.) • After Manasseh’s death and a very brief reign of Amon, Josiah ascended the throne in Judah as a boy king; he succeeded in ruling Judah for 31 years. The Deuteronomists remember Josiah as one who “did right in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Kings 22:2). • The biblical record of Josiah’s reign is found in 2 Kings 22–23. o There, we read that Josiah had financed the repair of the temple in Jerusalem. While the repair was underway, Hilkiah, the high priest of the temple, reported, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord” (2 Kings 22:8). o The king’s secretary, Shaphan, reads the book to Josiah, and as soon as Josiah hears the words, he realizes that he and the 109 inhabitants of Judah have not been living according to the laws in this book. o The king then seeks out the advice of a prophetess named Huldah. She predicts that great evil will come upon the land because the people have not obeyed the words of the book and have instead worshipped other gods. o After hearing the words of Huldah, Josiah gathered all the people at the Jerusalem temple to read aloud from the book. He then made a covenant with his god in front of all the people, promising to “follow the Lord ... [and] to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.” Josiah’s use of the “book of the law” is one of our first examples of a book functioning as authoritative scripture. © Paul Barlow/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  the sectaries reasserted themselves, and Raymund regained most of his territory. But the pope was relentless, and again the sentence of excommunication was launched against the house of Toulouse. In 1226, Louis VIII. took the cross, supported by the French parliament as well as by the Church. Thus the final chapter in the crusades was begun, a war of the king of France for the possession of Toulouse. Louis died a few months later. Arnold of Citeaux, for nearly twenty years their energetic and iron- hearted promoter, had preceded him to the grave. Louis IX. took up the plans of his royal predecessor, and in 1229 the hostilities were brought to a close by Raymund’s accepting the conditions proposed by the papal legate. Raymund renounced two-thirds of his paternal lands in favor of France. The other third was to go at his death to his daughter who subsequently married Louis IX.’s brother, and, in case there was no issue to the marriage, it was to pass to the French crown, and so it did at the death of Jeanne, the last heir of the house of Toulouse. Thus the domain of France was extended to the Pyrenees. Further measures of repression were directed against the remnants of the Albigensian heresy, for Raymund VII. had promised to cleanse the land of it. The machinery of the Inquisition was put into full action as it was perfected by the great inquisitorial council of Toulouse, 1229. The University of Toulouse received papal sanction, and one of its chief objects was announced to be "to bring the Catholic faith in those regions into a flourishing state."1114 In 1244, the stronghold of Montségur was taken, the last refuge of the Albigenses. Two hundred of the Perfect were burned. The papal policy had met with complete but blighting success and, after the thirteenth century, heresy in Southern France was almost like a noiseless underground stream. Languedoc at the opening of the wars had been one of the most prosperous and cultured parts of Europe. At their close its villages and vineyards were in ruins, its industries shattered, its population impoverished and decimated. The country that had given promise of leading Europe in a renaissance of intellectual culture fell behind her neighbors in the race of progress. Protestant generations, that have been since sitting in judgment upon the barbarous measures, conceived and pushed by the papacy, have wondered whether another movement, stirred by the power of the Gospel, will not yet arise in the old domain that responded to the religious dissent and received the warm blood of the Albigenses, the Waldenses, and of Peter de Bruys and his followers. The Stedinger. While the wars against the Albigenses were going on, another people, the Stedinger, living in the vicinity of Bremen and Oldenburg, were also being reduced by a papal crusade. They represented the spirit of national independence rather than doctrinal dissent and had shown an unwillingness to pay tithes to the archbishop of Bremen.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  She never went out except for work or to do errands he had specifically approved. He watched and marked her every step, her every word. In those times there were no domestic abuse shelters. If either my mother or I had been brave enough to report him, the authorities would have accepted his word over ours because he was an employed white man. We would have been forced back with no protection, and he would have been given tacit permission to keep us in line. [image "6706.jpg" file=Image00008.jpg] [image "6709.jpg" file=Image00009.jpg] [image "6711.jpg" file=Image00010.jpg] I never heard my mother sing much anymore. Her singing used to fill the house. We would turn up the radio and dance to rock-and-roll together. Our house now was quiet with our labor to keep it in order. My sister and I had the bulk of the duties, because we were female. I was in charge of cleaning, doing laundry, including the ironing for the family, washing dishes, and child care. Our brothers emptied the trash and mowed the lawn. I tried making a case for rotating duties. I didn’t feel it was a fair distribution. There was no negotiating. Our mother worked hard and long hours in restaurants, either cooking or waitressing or both. Our stepfather contributed only his share of the mortgage. Our mother paid for everything else. She bought all groceries, food, and clothes. Our father could not be found for child support. The last and only time I saw my mother sing publicly was shortly after she and my stepfather got together. Leon McAuliffe and His Cimarron Boys were gigging at a huge community picnic near the border of Arkansas and Oklahoma, not far from where my mother grew up. McAuliffe was known for his steel guitar solos, especially for playing with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. That McAuliffe had agreed to let my mother sit in for one of her original songs was a big deal. This had been her life. The bandleader Ernie Fields had even arranged one of her songs for his orchestra. There was tension in the car as my stepfather drove us the two hours to the event. My mother sat up front with him, the four of us children crowded in the back. She was nervous. She hadn’t sung with a band for a few years. She was dressed for her musical coming-out party in satin, frills, and perfume. My stepfather was already jealous and ready to go at someone because his wife, who was younger than he was, looked so pretty. She didn’t look like a jailed, beleaguered mother of four children. I was wary, because I knew our stepfather would make her pay. My grandfather—my mother’s father—met us there. I sat next to him as I balanced my box of greasy fried chicken on my lap. I was nervous for my mother. I embodied her every emotional knot and fear. I wanted this opportunity to be good for her.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Although human beings have been experiencing trauma for thousands of years, it is only in the last ten years that it has begun to receive widespread professional and public attention. Trauma is now a household word, with true confessions from stars appearing in weekly supermarket tabloids. In that context, trauma has been associated primarily with sexual abuse. In spite of growing professional interest, and the sensationalism and saturation of the media, we see little evidence of trauma being healed. Statistics show that as many as one in three women and one in five men have been sexually abused as children. Even with the increased recognition of sexual abuse, there remains little understanding about the conditions necessary for its healing. For example, many traumatized individuals identify and cluster together as victims. While this can be a useful first step to healing, it can interfere with recovery if continued indefinitely. Sexual abuse is one of many forms of trauma. No matter what the source may be, we are much more likely to heal from the effects of trauma by creating a positive framework. The image of the mature tree, full of character and beauty, will serve us better than denying the experience or identifying ourselves as victims and survivors. The roots of trauma lie in our instinctual physiologies. As a result, it is through our bodies, as well as our minds, that we discover the key to its healing. Each of us must find those roots, realizing that we have a choic e - perhaps one of the greatest in our lives. The healing of trauma is a natural process that can be accessed through an inner awareness of the body. It does not require years of psychological therapy, or that memories be repeatedly dredged up and expunged from the unconscious. We will see that the endless search for and retrieval of so-called “traumatic memories” can often interfere with the organisms innate wisdom to heal. My observations of scores of traumatized people has led me to conclude that post-traumatic symptoms are, fundamentally, incomplete physiological responses suspended in fear. Reactions to life-threatening situations remain symptomatic until they are completed. Post-traumatic stress is one example. These symptoms will not go away until the responses are discharged and completed. Energy held in immobility can be transformed, as we have seen in the cases of Bob Barklay and Nancy (see Chapter Two). Both of these people succeeded in a biological mobilization and discharge of survival energy that allowed them to return to full vitality. A bird that crashes into a window, mistaking it for open sky, will appear stunned or even dead.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  I drew the outline of the Christmas tree. It had to be large, because it needed to hold all the ornaments and lights. Before Daddy had left that morning, he had pulled down the box of Christmas lights and decorations from the hall closet. While the dough was cooling in the icebox so we could make shapes, our mother unwrapped the cotton batting protecting the delicate ornaments. There were shiny, mirrored balls, spirals of icicles, and ropes of tinsel to be wound around the tree. A few prized ornaments were of Wise Men, soldiers, and angels, and my brother and I had to be extra-careful with them. They broke easily. “We decorate to welcome the baby Jesus,” our mother instructed us. “He reminds us to love each other.” Last year at church I was Mary and stood as far away as I could from Joseph, a boy in Sunday school who picked his nose and cried for his mother. The baby Jesus had eyes that rolled back in his head. I refused to pick up the doll and cradle him in adoration. The other kids sang “Away in a Manger” as the parents smiled. What was a manger, anyway? The church people gave us white paper bags of oranges and ribbon Christmas candies. That was my favorite part. My mother awakened me from the floor of the closet where I had fallen asleep. I was dreaming I was with my father in his boat at the lake. We couldn’t move through the water because the lake was frozen. I was getting cold. “It’s snowing, baby,” my mother whispered to me as she carried me to the window. My little brother was asleep, curled up on his cot. He looked like one of the delicate angel ornaments. Baby was sucking her hand as she dreamed and appeared to float in her bassinet. There was still no tree, no father. I felt bad about everything. “I’m sorry, Mama.” “Shush,” she cooed as she wiped the window free of frost. “Look at all the snow.” We looked out together into the shining world. There was magic in the whirling pictures the snow made. In the distance I imagined my father dragging home a tree taller than the house. He called out to my mother and me to open the door as he hefted the trunk to his shoulder to bring it back home in time for Christmas. I was four years old when I woke up with muscle stiffness, headache, and nausea—all the symptoms of polio. The o’ s of the word polio rolled through my mouth like a game of catch. The word sent hushed fear through the voices of my parents as they moved about me, attempting to alleviate my symptoms. My body was a hurting thing. Though I tried, I could not leave my body by will. I heard my mother on the phone with the doctor, her fear tensing the mother-cord between us.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Never was a prince born to a richer inheritance, or entered upon public life with graver responsibilities, than Charles V. Spanish, Burgundian, and German blood mingled in his veins, and the good and bad qualities of his ramified ancestry entered into his constitution. He was born with his eventful century (Feb. 24, 1500), at Ghent in Flanders, and educated under the tuition of the Lord of Chièvres, and Hadrian of Utrecht, a theological professor of strict Dominican orthodoxy and severe piety, who by his influence became the successor of Leo X. in the papal chair. His father, Philip I., was the only son of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy (daughter of Charles the Bold), and cuts a small figure among the sovereigns of Spain as "Philip the Handsome" (Filipe el Hermoso),—a frivolous, indolent, and useless prince. His mother was Joanna, called, "Crazy Jane" (Juana la Loca), second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and famous for her tragic fate, her insanity, long imprisonment, and morbid devotion to the corpse of her faithless husband, for whom, during his life, she had alternately shown passionate love and furious jealousy. She became, after the death of her mother (Nov. 26, 1504), the nominal queen of Spain, and dragged out a dreary existence of seventy-six years (she died April 11, 1555).305 Charles inherited the shrewdness of Ferdinand, the piety of Isabella, and the melancholy temper of his mother which plunged her into insanity, and induced him to exchange the imperial throne for a monastic cell. The same temper reappeared in the gloomy bigotry of his son Philip II., who lived the life of a despot and a monk in his cloister-palace of the Escorial. The persecuting Queen Mary of England, a granddaughter of Isabella, and wife of Philip of Spain, had likewise a melancholy and desponding disposition. From his ancestry Charles fell heir to an empire within whose boundaries the sun never set. At the death of his father (Sept. 25, 1506), he became, by right of succession, the sovereign of Burgundy and the Netherlands; at the death of Ferdinand (Jan. 23, 1516), he inherited the crown of Spain with her Italian dependencies (Naples, Sicily, Sardinia), and her newly acquired American possessions (to which were afterwards added the conquests of Mexico and Peru); at the death of Maximilian, he succeeded to the hereditary provinces of the house of Habsburg, and soon afterwards to the empire of Germany. In 1530 he was also crowned king of Lombardy, and emperor of the Romans, by the Pope.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  15 • Verses 1–3a of Lamentations 1 give us a vision of a destroyed city and its inhabitants. Jerusalem has become a widow, a princess reduced to a vassal. • In verse 7 of this chapter, we see again a reference to remembering: “Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering, all the precious things that were hers in the days of old.” Exile as the Context for Scriptural Formation • Why did a military conquest and deportation cause the Judeans to record and preserve their history in writing and pass it down from generation to generation? • First and foremost, the Bible tells a story, one that’s organized into a simple chronology. o The story starts “in the beginning” with the creation of the world; it moves forward in time to the appearance of Israel as a family under the patriarch Jacob, who is renamed Israel. Then, we have the emergence of Israel as a nation of twelve tribes united, who conquer the Promised Land of Canaan. We move forward in time to the establishment of Israel as a kingdom, its conquest and deportation, and finally, the resettlement of the land. o This same history, however, could be told paying special attention to the contexts within which individual stories were written, compiled, edited, and retold. In this case, the exilic experience becomes a filter for which national stories are preserved and how they are presented. The crisis of exile posed questions. And the Judeans worked through those questions in part by recording their history, the history of who they had been when they were in their land. • Psalm 137’s question, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” is really a way of asking: How can we pass on or preserve a sense of identity in our children while we are in a foreign land? The context of exile posed questions, and it is possible to 16 Lecture 2: By the Rivers of Babylon—Exile view the Bible as an effort to formulate answers to some of these exilic questions. • If we examine the Bible in this way, the neat, linear timeline is replaced by a messier kind of diagram. But this messier version is likely much better for understanding what life was like in ancient Israel. o In the center of the diagram is the exilic period, beginning in 597 and lasting until around 538, when some Judean exiles began returning to their homeland. o In this period, Judeans began to reach back into their past to make sense of their present situation. Our diagram shows arrows going backward in time, representing an effort to retrieve and preserve history in order to retell it for children born in exile. “Timeline” of Biblical Text Development The Crisis of Exile 597–538 B.C.E. Ezekiel Second Isaiah (40–55) Book of Proverbs Historical and Prophetic Books Moses and the Law of Exod.–Deut. Patriarchal Narratives Gen. 12–50 Patriarchal Narratives Gen. 12–50 Book of Job Ecclesiastes

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  à Kempis and the Brothers of the Common Life, 2 vols., London, 1882. Also Authorship of the de imitat, Chr., London, 1877, 2d ed., 1884. —F. R. Cruise: Th. à Kempis, with Notes of a visit to the scenes in which his life was spent, with some account of the examination of his relics, London, 1887.—L. A. Wheatley: Story of the Imitat. of Chr., London, 1891.—Dom Vincent Scully: Life of the Venerable Th. à Kempis, London, 1901.—J. E. G. de Montmorency: Th. à Kempis, His Age and Book, London, 1906—*C. Bigg in Wayside Sketches in Eccle. Hist., London, 1906, pp. 134–154.—D. B. Butler, Thos. à Kempis, a Rel. Study, London, 1908.—Art. Thos. à Kempis in London Quarterly Review, April, 1908, pp. 254–263. First printed ed. of the Latin text of the Imitat. of Christ, Augsburg, 1472. Bound up with Jerome’s de viris illust. and writings of Augustine and Th. Aquinas.—Of the many edd. in Engl. the first was by W. Atkynson, and Margaret, mother of Henry VII., London, 1502, reprinted London, 1828, new ed. by J. K. Ingram, London, 1893.—The Imitat. of Chr., being the autograph MS. of Th. à Kempis de Imitat. Chr. reproduced in facsimile from the orig. in the royal libr. at Brussels. With Introd. by C. Ruelens, London, 1879.—The Imitat. of Chr. Now for the first time set forth in Rhythm and Sentences. With Pref. by Canon Liddon, London, 1889.—Facsimile Reproduction of the 1st ed. of 1471, with Hist. Introd. by C. Knox-Little, London, 1894.—The Imitat. of Chr., trans. by Canon W. Benham, with 12 photogravures after celebrated paintings, London, 1905.—An ed. issued 1881 contains a Pref. by Dean Farrar. —R. P. A. de Backer: Essai bibliograph. sur le livre de imitat. Chr., Liège, 1864.—For further Lit. on the Imitat. of Chr., see the Note at the end of § 35. § 28. The New Mysticism. In joy of inward peace, or sense Of sorrow over sin, He is his own best evidence His witness is within. —Whittier, Our Master. At the time when the scholastic method was falling into disrepute and the scandals of the Avignon court and the papal schism were shaking men’s faith in the foundations of the Church, a stream of pure pietism was watering the regions along the Rhine, from Basel to Cologne, and from Cologne to the North Sea. North of the Alps, voices issuing from convents and from the ranks of the laity called attention to the value of the inner religious life and God’s immediate communications to the soul. To this religious movement has recently been given the name, the Dominican mysticism, on account of the large number of its representatives who belonged to the Dominican order. The older name, German mysticism, which is to be preferred, points to the locality where it manifested itself, and to the language which the mystics for the most part used in their writings.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  54 Lecture 7: Three w eddings and a funeral Shechem has sexually claimed Dinah, he negotiates for marriage. As appalling as this story strikes us now, the law concerning rape at this time was that the rapist was obligated to marry the woman he violated and pay her father 50 shekels (Deut. 22:28–29). • Another form of marriage by abduction occurs as an act of war. In Deuteronomy 21:10–14, Israelite men who go to war are told that they may take the enemy’s women as their captives. The law stipulates that if the man is later displeased with this wife, he cannot sell her for money or treat her as a slave, but he may release her. Lives of Women in Ancient Israel • These three types of weddings attested in the Bible point to several conclusions about the lives of women in ancient Israel. • For a wife to have some degree of power in her husband’s household, she must have entered that household through a proper set of family negotiations. A woman’s brothers were especially important in securing her place of prestige in her husband’s household. • To be fully secure in her husband’s household, a wife also had to produce an heir. If she could not, she could arrange for a secondary wife through which her husband could obtain an heir. • Foreign slave women and captive women were more vulnerable because they had no families to secure their rights. • A wife’s status in the household of her husband affected the status of her sons. The law designed to protect the son of the “hated wife” speaks to a reality in which the sons of hated wives were often disinherited. The Funeral of Abraham • In Genesis 25:7, we learn that Abraham died at the age of 175 years. Isaac and Ishmael, Abraham’s two sons from Sarah and Hagar, bury him in a cave with his primary wife, Sarah. The listing of Isaac before Ishmael here is significant.