#for once not a manuscript

[cuties-in-codices]

partial and total lunar eclipses

woodcuts in Petrus Apianus' "Astronomicum Caesareum", a printed astronomical book, Bavaria, 1540

source: Kassel, Universitätsbibliothek, 2° Ms. astron. 16, fol. 67r, 68r and 69r.

[victusinveritas]

Psalters: Not even once.

[casismybestfriend]

suptober 4-5-6: nimbus, portrait, full spread

[whiskeyswifty]

Without getting too much into it, the most heartbreaking line in the manuscript to me is “She knew what the agony had been for” because all the time she didn’t even realize what had happened to her. She’d clearly denied it, dismissed it, insisted that no it wasn’t like that, she was an adult! She was capable of making her own choices! Maybe she didn’t want to taint happy memories. He was just a shitty boyfriend and they broke down and broke up like all couples do. She knew what it looked like but no no, she was fine in that regard. He never… no she wasn’t a victim like that. And yet…. She couldn’t move past it, couldn’t lay it to rest. Wondering why she agonized over it, felt sick over it, went over it again and again, haunted by it unlike other breakups. It took all those years and making the short film and seeing 20 year old Sadie Sink in that room with adults and fighting with an adult man to realize oh…. She’s a child. They were right. That is what happened to me. I was a child. And the deluge of pain that comes with finally confronting that. The song drops off after that, the pain unspeakable, and skips to the present, where after exorcising that demon finally, “all that’s left is the manuscript.” And she can finally close the book on that story in her life and not have it define her anymore. But that line really just hits home how long she had been carrying the burden of that unspoken and unresolved truth, buried under denial, slowly festering and poisoning her for some 10 years. God damn.

[shredsandpatches]

tfw you're really down with a post until it starts insisting that both a) job-related malaise and frustration and b) scribal labor in monastic contexts are and were specific to young adults and not just a general condition of a) having a job, even one you mostly like and b) being a medieval monk, not a profession that had a corporate ladder

[new-york-no-shoes]

I hoped against hope that Taylor would give me an all too well for my adult self on this record and she really said “bestie I’ll do you one better” and slipped me The Manuscript. I’ve honestly never wanted to unhear something more in my life. Turns out I was not prepared.

[velvetjune]

that moment when saga fights against the darkness in her mind place and opens the door to leave and it starts to pan out—showing nothing but stars just like the Night Springs intro before she appears in the dark place’s new york. Traversing the void in between worlds just like her dad. cinema!!

[thesteriuswife]

Erinys :~) she can put her wings away when she doesn't need them

[sinni-ok-sessi]

huh this thesis is not bad actually

[recurring-polynya]

In light of that post I reblogged yesterday where it turns out that 40,000 words is considered a novel?

To be fair, there are so many worse things you could do whilst in the throes of the most well-justified mental break that anyone on any plane of existence has ever had but also--

Girl, what?

[cuties-in-codices]

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God"

illustrated parable in "der spiegel des lidens cristi" (illuminated bible), alsace, mid-15th century

source: Colmar, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms. 306 (Cat. no. 213), fol. 32v

[patron-minette]

The altered names and descriptors of Patron-Minette’s rogues from 1847 to the formal publication of Les Misérables:

[Source, Le Manuscrit des Misérables by Guy Robert and René Journet]

The extract at the end of this passage reads [amateur translation]: “All these changes, brought about by the introduction of the Patron-Minette quartet into the novel, and the belated identification of Le Cabuc with Claquesous, were made late in 1861.”

It is so interesting to me that the dedicated chapter introducing Patron-Minette’s four ringleaders came about at a much later point in Hugo’s drafting of the novel, and it is fascinating to see the restyled names (and added/cut characters) evolve over time.

I’ve been struggling to decipher the earliest names of Patron-Minette’s criminals in Hugo’s handwritten manuscript for quite some time now (particularly during the section focussed at La Force), and I’m overjoyed to have finally found a source that can provide further information about the original titles for these characters!

[victusinveritas]

[Rutland Psalter, British Museum]

[medieval-elephants]

Smile! You are in a bestiary! This particular bestiary-- possibly made in Lincoln-- has been influencing authors and artists for about 800 years. It was the subject of a facsimile by M.R. James (yes, that M.R. James the ghost story writer, who was a librarian in his day job). It was then translated by T. H. White (yes, that T. H. White, the author of The Once and Future King which inspired both Walt Disney and the creators of the musical Camelot).

The text on the elephant covers a lot of elephant myths and legends (and some historical kernels). It starts by announcing that elephants do not like to copulate, then covers their name,

"People say that it is called an Elephant by the Greeks on account of its size: you see, a mountain is called "eliphio" in Greek. In the Indies, however, it is known by the name "barus" because of its voice-- whence both the voice is called baritone and the tusks are called "ivor" [ebur in Latin]." ~T.H. White (trans. and ed.), The Book of Beasts: Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century (Parallel Press: Madison, Wisconsin, 1954; reprinted 2002), p. 25.

The text then goes on to discuss elephants' size, use in Indian and Persian armies, memory, fear of mice, gestation time, and support for each other. The text also notes that they never "quarrel with their wives" not commit adultery, while explaining Christian allegories about snakes as Satan and elephants as representing Christians, Adam and Eve, the Old Testament, 12 Apostles, Jesus, and the Good Samaritan. With such a repository of elephant lore, no wonder this book has inspired authors through the centuries.

Date: start of the 13th century (c. 1220?) Origin: England (Lincoln[shire]?) Now Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.4.26, f. 7r

[wuntrum]

wanting to tell stories but being so caught up in deciding a format and how i wanna tell it that i just. dont.

[strawbubbysugar]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WEEK >o<

TEEHEE YIPEEE!!!