@jlliagre I try to think of en train de working like when in English you're "right in the middle" of doing something or other. "I can't talk to you right now, I'm right in the middle of making diner and I can't let things burn."
Where here "right" has that odd intensifier meaning it can sometimes take on as a sort of adverbial modifier.
So the French en train de isn't a general substitute for progressive verb forms in other languages. It has a more focused meaning.
> This interest during medieval times also found expression in events such as feasts of misrule, riotous parties in which workers were temporarily treated like kings and lords like commoners.
This is why the players in Monty Python and the Holy Grail are savaged by a killer rabbit.
> These events didn’t seek to seriously challenge the social hierarchy, but instead acted as a kind of escapism for both the people in power and the powerless. The visual idea of rabbits slaying those who normally hounded them can therefore be seen as a metaphor for this role reversal; a form of anarchism in miniature.
> The idea of the world turned upside down appealed to artists because it offered them a chance to safely rebel, at least on a small scale, against the severe inequalities of the feudal systems of their age.
I wonder how much of that accounts for the odd customs of Saturnalia.
Not that Rome was feudal. But certainly it was dominated by differences in the classes, with little movement between those.
I bet Putin misses Russia having its serfs.
> These events were certainly Carnival-like in their theatrical display of mockery and mayhem but not necessarily celebrated immediately before Lent. Many were observed around December or January. Among these festivities were the Feast of Fools (rooted in the Roman Saturnalia), the Feast of the Ass, the customs of the Boy Bishop, the Lord of Misrule or the Abbot of Unreason and, to an extent, Charivari.
So yes, those were indeed Saturnalia reïcarnate, if ever it truly left.
> This was not a matter of rebellion or revolution by the oppressed masses (as some moderns/post-moderns who have a poor opinion of the European Middle Ages might want to instantly conclude) – why, those in power would willingly and happily abdicate their seats. The tragic part is that many of these festivities eventually died out because they would lead to violence, wild drunkenness and sexual licence.
Isn't throwing a party always at risk of wild drunkenness?
> These festivals are fascinating, because their human meaning was at once powerfully felt in them–people threw themselves into these feasts with gusto–and yet also enigmatic. The enigma is particularly strong for us moderns, in that the festivals were not putting forward an alternative to the established order, in anything like the sense we understand in modern politics, that is, presenting an antithetical order of things which might displace the prevailing dispensation.
> The mockery was enframed by an understanding that betters, superiors, virtue, ecclesial charisma, etc. ought to rule; the humour was in that sense not ultimately serious…As she [Natalie Davis] points out, this mockery was exercised very much in support of the ruling moral values.
Well, that's a bit of a shame.
Mocking the ruling moral values somehow supported them?
Oh, by showing how silly inverting them was, maybe.
I have no opinion on the morality of what rabbits do on their own time, just so long as they do their timeless duty of fleeing the lord's hounds on the hunt.
> For example, a boyar named Ivan Buturlin was forever known as "the Polish King" because he played the enemy in a mock battle at Preobrazhenskoye, while Fyodor Romodanovsky was first known as "King of Pressburg" and then as "Prince-Caesar".
@CowperKettle It does sound like the merrymaking got out of hand there.
> In January 1695, just three years after the election of Nikita Zotov as "Prince-Pope", Peter refused to partake in a traditional Russian Orthodox ceremony of having holy water sprinkled over his head during the Epiphany Ceremony.[8] Instead, Peter and the Synod celebrated their own version of the Russian folk custom of sviatki, with partying, drinking, and even eroticism.
> Floret silva nobilis
floribus et foliis.
ubi est antiquus meus amicus?
hinc equitavit.
eia, quis me amabit?
Looking around for an old friend is a familiar theme.
> Sedia-m'eu na ermida de Sam Simion
E cercarom-mi as ondas, que grandes son;
Eu atendendo o meu amigo,
Eu atendendo o meu amigo!
Although the Latin antedates the Galician there.
> Oh - oh, totus floreo,
iam amore virginali
totus ardeo,
novus, novus amor est,
quo pereo.
Tempore brumali
vir patiens,
animo vernali
lasciviens.
Oh - oh, totus floreo,
iam amore virginali
totus ardeo,
novus, novus amor est,
quo pereo.
Perish the thought, all you frolicking bunnies!
Yes, it's bad Latin. But they were drunk.
Anyone frolicking in the Ukrainian forests during the paschal season is apt to get their butts frozen off. Or shot off.
Oh, the Russian Svyatki is nativity season not lenten season. Colder by far.
So much more Saturnalia than anything primaveral let alone with "animo vernali".
Peter's practices still sound lasciviens to me.
If you can't decide whether the year ends-and-renews at the solstice or at the equinox, might as well throw grand parties for both.
I have friends who named their new puppy Ostara because they got her during Eastermonth.
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…