US rap star Fifty Cent may have had an ancestor in St Martin: Fifty Percent?
Fourth century Martin,
later bishop of Tours,
reputedly gave half of his cloak
to a near-naked beggar at Amiens.
Which half I wonder?
On awakening, he discovered
it had been restored to wholeness.
Beggar back to chilly I presume.
Martin's reconstructed cloak
lived on as an alleged relic.
At least one Frankish king,
come the Middle Ages,
carried it into battle with him;
oaths were sworn on it.
By all that's cloaksome
and wind-whipped,
I swear ... to uphold
the spritual thrust of
Martin 's semi-gesture.
|