freecounterpoint: An old English custom

Monday, December 21, 2009

An old English custom

8 comments:

Anonymous said...: "Giving evidence in a Leeds police court in 1913, a woman claimed that she had been sold to one of her husband's workmates for £1 (equivalent to about £70 as of 2009),[3] "

--- reference [3] is a conversion rate for inflation

There should have been a 'media representation'
section in this wiki page with a link to Auden:

' Old wives for sale, old wives for sale !
Stale wives, prim wives, silly and grim wives !
Old wives for sale ! '

A. Leverkuhn; 12/21/2009 11:14 AM
Tecumseh said...: Is this by any chance from Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress?; 12/21/2009 11:55 AM
Mr roT said...: Lev, nice anschluß there. I propose another:

Although the custom had no basis in law and frequently resulted in prosecution, particularly from the mid-19th century onwards, it persisted in some form until the early 20th century.

It is clear that we have found the cause of global warming.; 12/21/2009 12:12 PM
Mr roT said...: Tecs, yes it's in the Rake. Lev and I are fans.; 12/21/2009 12:13 PM
Tecumseh said...: Hey, I better see it, too. Where is it showing?

Now, what does this have to do with global warming, or lack thereof? Sounds more like a question of local warming.; 12/21/2009 1:11 PM
Mr roT said...: Weird production, but smoe serious singin' from Dawn Upshaw.

The hilarious parts of the opera I haven't found on youtube.; 12/21/2009 1:29 PM
Anonymous said...: On the topic of Stravinsky --- I found the following
german translation of Jean Cocteau's account of the concert hall riot that errupted during the opening bassoon solo of 'Le Sacre du Printemps'.

Most of the english versions on the web skip-out on translating the juicy term 'Hurenweiber'. I especially like 'hochroten' and 'Fopperei'. Maybe Herr Rot will get a chance to invoke these during some wild Viennese crisis involving lots of other delicious and syncopated compound words ;)

yours,
A. Leverkuhn

--------------------

Mit schiefgerutschtem Diadem in ihrer Loge stehend, schwang die alte Comtesse de Pourtalès ihren Fächer und schrie mit hochrotem Gesicht: 'Zum ersten Mal seit sechzig Jahren wagt man es, sich über mich lustig zu machen!' Die gute Dame meinte es aufrichtig; sie glaubte an eine Fopperei. Einer derjenigen, die mit ihrem wohlgemeinten 'Eifer' zu weit gingen, war der Komponist Florent Schmitt,der die gehobene Pariser Gesellschaft lautstark als 'Hurenweiber aus dem sechzehnten Bezirk' beschimpfte.; 12/21/2009 4:37 PM
Mr roT said...: This is beautiful. I will ask my gorgeous German teacher to go through it all with me.

Funny that Cocteau would be describing a cock-up, eh?; 12/21/2009 6:48 PM

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