Morn

‘Morn’ is the occasion for one of those interesting mini-essays with which the OED is so well supplied. The OE is ‘morgen’; the ON ‘myrginn’:

The affinities outside Teut. are doubtful. Some refer the word to the pre-Teut. root *merk- to be dark; but the absence of consonant-ablaut, as well as the inappropriateness of the sense, seems to render this view less probable than the alternative hypothesis that the root is *mergh-, represented by the Lith. mirgu, to twinkle, margas parti-coloured. [OED 9:1086]

Also relevant is the entry on ‘Morrow’, a word (now archaic) that comes via the ME ‘morwe’ or ‘moru’, both shortened forms of morwen, ‘the morn’.

Morning as the time of darkness (in the sense that it is when darkness dwindles, 'darkloss') doesn't seem so far fetched to me; but like the anonymous OED etymologist, I'm rather struck as the morning as twinkletime, howsoever twee that makes me.

Entic

Tolkien's ‘Ents’ literalise a deeper, older riddle than Shakespeare’s. He has in mind Mark 8:23-4:

He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"
And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.

Commentary upon this passage tends to stress its mimetic potential: the blind man’s sight does not return immediately, but by a process of indistinct strengthening and gradual improvement (the next verse is ‘Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.’) ‘I see men; for I see [them] as trees walking"-that is, he could distinguish them from trees only by their motion; a minute mark of truth in the narrative, as Alford observes, describing how human objects had appeared to him during that gradual failing of sight which had ended in blindness.’ [Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary] Presumably there’s also a typological reading here too: for Christ is the tree of life (the dead wood of his cross, and his own dead body, become vivid and in motion once again, to spread across the world).

Macbeth

Holinshed: Macbeth "had learned of certaine wizzards in whose words he put great confidence (for that the prophesie had happened so right which the three fairies or weird-sisters had declared unto him) how that he ought to take heed of Makduffe, who in time to come should seeke to destroie him. And surelie hereupon had he put Makduffe to death but that a certaine witch whom hee had in great trust had told him that he should never be slaine with man borne of anie woman, nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the castle of Dunsinane.'

It makes a difference, I think, that the prophesies come one after the other, rather than all at once (as in the play); not least because the whole point of prophesy is to interrupt the one-things-after-another logic of consecutive time. Hmm.

Mermaid man

One mermaid with the thrashing tail;
One sailor tying up his sail;
Love overcomes all ways and means
Except when water intervenes;
The sea-salt's fine astringent tang
Prevents the love of fish and man.

Nineteenth-century fiction and the Law

Discussing nineteenth-century fiction with a very bright PhD student of mine (she's working on law and the Victorian novel: the representation of lawyers, advocates, detectives and so on) we were struck by one difference between the British and French novel. There's a real emphasis in French fiction of the period upon stories about miscarriages of justice (Les Miserables, Comte de Monte Cristo, the people imprisoned for opposing Napoleon III in Zola's Rougon Macquart novels and so no -- leading up to the Dreyfuss affair and its massive impact on French lit at the end of the century). By contrast, in the English novel I can think of nothing like this; on the contrary, from mainstream Domestic fictions through Sensation fictions and even into Penny Dreadfuls and the like, there is a solidity in belief that justice and the law do eventually and inevitably coincide. Is it too sweeping a generalisation to suggest that the French (broadly) mistrusted the legal superstructure, as part of their larger distrust of state authority -- the Revolution, and all that -- where the English readership yearned to be reassured that the law, the executive branches of social justice and state authority itself were (despite the occasional hiccoughs, or wobbles) in the last analysis trustworthy and good?

Car Alarm

Seagullish car-alarm. Fiesta flashing all its lights on, off, on, off, like it's having an epileptic seizure. Theft, or the threat of theft, is the greatest outrage in the universe.

Moon! Moon! Moon!

Crescent moon on its back, like a hammock.