This is the wordle offered at Big Tent Poetry as this week's prompt. I did not look at the prompt until Thursday night. I love to give impromptu responses. This wordle felt like epithets to me. I will leave it to you to decide WTF is going on here, how I might have got in this predicament. To see the other participants in this week's challenge go to Poetry Under The Big Tent: No Ordinary 3-Ring Circus
Court jester’s or Fools have their origins way back in time and records show that at the time of the Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644) that they occupied an important place within the court. In the UK they played an influential role in society and there is much evidence of this particularly during the mediaeval period.
Contrary to popular belief many Jesters were accomplished musicians, were articulate and well read, they also had acrobatic skills and were clever in sleight of hand tricks.
Very often their performances had political overtones, so it was not uncommon for them to lose their lives.
The last of the court jesters was Dicky Pearce he was the Earl of Suffolk’s fool, born in 1665 he eventually entered the service of the Berkeley family at Berkeley castle.
In 1728 during a performance he overbalanced from the minstrel gallery and fell to his death. The question has been raised -did he fall or was he pushed he had apparently made fun of one of Lord Berkeley’s guests who had taken offence, the truth will never be known.
Lord Berkeley had such high regard for him that he had him buried at Church of St.Mary in Berkeley village.
His tomb can be seen there, it carries the epitaph -HERE LIES THE EARL OF SUFFOLKS FOOL
MEN CALLED HIM DICKY PEARCE
HIS FOLLY SERVED TO MAKE FOLKS LAUGH
WHEN WIT AND MIRTH WERE SCARCE
POOR DICK ALAS! IS DEAD AND GONE
WHAT SIGNIFIES TO CRY!
DICKYS ENOUGH ARE STILL BEHIND
TO LAUGH AT BY-AND-BY
Also the tomb's stone carries the inscription
MY LORD THAT’S GONE HIMSELF MADE MUCH OF HIM
The above taken entire from this page found on Google. You gotta love Google.
Oddly, a similar entanglement happened to me yesterday. You just can't get good companions on the onion circuit anymore. What's a jester to do? Court or no court, the pomp must go on.
The Threat
"Squeeze me hoarse," I shout,
"You disloyal craven cur!
I shall topple you,
put your performance
on the ropes, immerse your swift
engine in the bath,
the acid I have
prepared with a slight perfume,
eau de dank basement
I shall call this sauce.
And if you give me an inch,
then I'll just vanish!"
Quite interesting...and I like the notion of perfumed acid...
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy your detailing of history as a backdrop for the poem itself, a teacher in action. I have always been intrigued by the jester, the fool. He is the first card in the Tarot and heralds all new beginnings, which means he must vanish from where he was and start again fresh. Love it Christoper, and hope your Holidays bring at least some of what you desire,
ReplyDeleteElizabeth
This must have been very satisfying to write. It's the kind of poem that needs to be declaimed while marching about a stage in full costume and with raised fist. Most enjoyable! I hope I remember your words when in need of a good diatribe!
ReplyDelete"What's a jester to do? Court or no court, the pomp must go on."
ReplyDeleteHa! I love this. Resigned, yet strong. Merry Christmas Christopher.
Elizabeth, I am a fan of tarot and could have gone that way too. Then my background would have been more esoteric. I wrote the poem first and then went looking for a suitable picture, found the page it was on and the page was so good that I couldn't let it lie, had to bring it forward. That's the fun of blogging with high speed. I had other practices when I was in dial up mode.
ReplyDeleteThanks for calling me a teacher.
Viv, you are quite right. At one point I did precisely that to see if I had placed one sour note, and I had! So declaiming was part of the process. It is one of my pet attitudes that poetry is an oral art. I hesitate to do too much with word art. Even EE Cummings with his strange ways, the poems worked really well aloud.
ReplyDeleteAs oral art, my poem, by the way, is not great, but that is a choice I made. I could cater to the wordle and usse all 12 words or not.
Annie, I am an unfrocked fool. Merry Christmas back to you. Oh, not to put too fine a point on things but there is a wonderful bit to the rhyme in Dicky's epitaph. They used the word scarce in the last line of the first quatrain as a PRECISE rhyme with Pearce, Dicky's last name.
ReplyDeleteWe would rhyme it with pierce or fierce and more often spell the name that way too. If you say it the old way you will have one of the distinct sounds of the north of England into Scotland.
Christopher I love the poem and the historical write up. Happy holidays to you.
ReplyDeletePamela
Well done! I really like your style. Happy holidays!
ReplyDeleteAn enjoyable "performance" piece. I must remind myself to write dramatic poems like you Christopher.
ReplyDeletei really liked wonderful lead up on jesters and assumptions and loyalties; it made the poem all the more twisty and intriguing.... great spin off the prompt.
ReplyDeletehope you are thriving in this most complicated of seasons....
flaubert, LK, Irene, thanks for visiting and your comments.
ReplyDeleteHarlequin, my friend, I was quite fortunate to have Google select that picture for display. It was the right picture and even better, the picture was attached to the exactly right post material. I see where I didn't catch all there typos though. I caught some of them. I am well enough. Thanks for asking. Me too, you, hoping all is well with you. I am alone for most of this holiday and with friends for some of it, all of it quite peaceful and as simple as possible.
Enjoyed the biography & the poem. Well done. Quite entertaining. The foolwould be well pleased.
ReplyDelete'Eau de dank basement' gets full marks:) You ought to start the Dicky Pearce fan club.Thanks for the laugh...thoroughly enjoyed this one!
ReplyDeleteIt is true. I wish to be an entertainer. My slant on things is to take on the garb of The Fool. You understand, just like with Dicky, the sharpness of wit is part of the deal. Those fools were not Three Stooges. In those days the aristocracy took their learning as a class thing as much as a tool and it was important to display their wit. Fools had to be really really clever to walk the line between risky entertainment and dangerous overstepping. It wasn't always their fault either. The duke could have a really bad day and if the Fool didn't know that, he could be across the line where there was no line the day before.
ReplyDeleteSo the court jester had to have really good information as well as a sharp wit.