Matthew Francis wrote:
>This is a very enjoyable thread. I particularly like the contrasts between
>Andy's poem and Candice's, short lines v. prose, inspiration v. doubt,
>lyricism v. narrative etc.
I'm enjoying it, too, Matthew, and spent a happy hour perusing _The
Golden Legend_ last night for the first time in ages. Looked up Jerome
in hopes of identifying the woman he wrote the Rule for (the story Mark
regaled us with yesterday) and didn't find her, but Jacobus de Voragine
did indicate that there were speculations about Jerome's sexuality even
during his lifetime, most of them to do with the question of whether he
was/not a virgin. Jacobus says, tactfully, "His legend says that he
remained a virgin throughout his life, although he himself writes as
follows to Pammachius: 'I hold virginity as high as Heaven, albeit I
do not possess it.'"
There's an amusing Jerome anecdote of another sort in the _Legenda_,
too: during an episode of fever so critical that Jerome wasn't expected
to live, he had a vision of being called before "the judgment seat of
God and asked of what condition he was." When Jerome declared himself a
Christian in his fever dream, God responded wrathfully: "Thou liest!
Thou art no Christian, but a Ciceronian!"
Apologies to you, Matthew, for confusing your St. Catherine with the
Siennese, about whom Erminia kindly back-channeled me. But maybe you'd
post that background, front-channel, for others who may not know their
_Dialogo_ from their Alexandrian-disputatious princess-martyrs--?
And thanks, Matthew, for leaving my prose-poem tacked on here, as it
gave me a chance to correct a typo and restore a word I'd left out (so
this version should replace yesterday's).
The First Hermit
Carefully, I packed my little bag of nothing and strode forward
with a glad staff. Repairing to the wilderness, I even invented
a new name for myself: _hermit_. But what a bad dream I had that
first night in the desert. Dreaming of another, one who needed no
new name for his prior Paul, I saw him kneeling in the wilderness
long before my birth, and I thirsted hopefully (it's just a fasting
mirage!) but bootlessly in my requisite sandals. For I knew enough
to know how it works: dream at home and take it or leave it, dream
in the desert and vision is the Rule.
So off with me the next morning to find this so-called Paul, my
staff nor I too glad, I came upon a centaur drinking at a waterfall.
"Take a right at noon," the man-half advised. Upon following his
directions to the Letter, I soon met up with a date-bearer hoofing
along whose face disturbed me. So did something to do with his
hooves that made me lose my usual appetite for dates. "Are you a
goat or a man?" I inquired (very politely). "Are you a hermit or
a boor?" he retorted, adding a strictly unwarranted injunction on
table manners: "Use the middle fork this evening." But on reaching
a crossroads at suppertime, I wondered if I had misunderstood him
(and if he'd eaten those dates by now).
Then, lo verily, a crow swooped down at moon-up, dropping a loaf
at my feet. "From Paul," I thought I heard it caw as it flew out of
sight and what sounded like something about "merry," something about--
christ, no, it couldn't have been _that_! It's just what the desert
is so famous for, arguing in circles, begging for questions--it's the
Mendicant Way of daybreak, discovery, he's gone stiff already!
And that is how I found him, kneeling in prayer or death, same
difference to Paul, still sparkling with sweat outside his cave.
Two lions were busy digging a grave nearby. "Make yourself useful,"
one suggested. "Make yourself at home," the other added, "Anthony."
Candice Ward
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