Corinna went a-maying

Bad English major, bad!

Bad lefty-friend-of-the-downtrodden-working-man, bad!

It was May Day, a big day in Merry Olde England and a pretty big one now almost everywhere but here. 

And I, I plunged into my busy day and did not recall it. 

I have bethought meself oft this day of Herrick's exhortation to the virgin Corinna to hie herself thither and go a-maying.  Here's the big windup:

And, as a vapour or a drop of rain
Once lost, can ne'er be found again,
       So when or you or I are made
       A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
       All love, all liking, all delight
       Lies drowned with us in endless night.
Then while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.

Talk about putting pressure on a girl.  Still, it's more artful than "you would if you really loved me."

Molly went a-maying with Tom, Mr. Square and only Thwackum knows who else -- I think "a-maying" may have been a euphemism...Molly liked drinking wine, specifically Tom's, "a gentleman's woin"...always liked that wench



Well, not always a euphemism

How art can lie.  Note how a lusty wench like Molly Seagrim became transformed into a pallid eternal virgin.  This is the post-Hays Code stuff.  Cue the Max Steiner sound track.  But let's take a gander at Andrew Marvell's position paper on making hay whilst ye sun shineth:

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.

[blah blah -- building his suasion]

       Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Now that's hot.  Da fogo.

Happy May Day, fellow pagan wine-soaks!

This baby has got back

(Did I say that right?)

Comments

[Fredric Koeppel]

so, are you, like, ok, dude?

[Terry Hughes]

I know, Ken thought I was tripping too. I was sober, alas.

Not my finest hour, but what the hell. I had to exorcise the demon of "corinna's gone a-maying" which had been on an endless loop in my head. Ergo, I was loopy, I guess you could say.