The only one whom I would honour - not for birth or rank, but for intellect, virtue and merit. For what I consider pretz, valor e cortesia (and a damn good sense of humour, too).

( Read more... )

For my Emperor:
( Hymns to Helios Apollo… )

I am off down to the new billet for a few days from Monday (job interview, and my Classics teacher's funeral), but on Monday itself, as always, I shall be holding in my heart the fact it is the anniversary of my Emperor's death. Amusingly, in the Whovian universe, it's also the date of the Crack in the Universe (which I used in my fanfic Emperor & ( Read more... )

From Vidal's Julian:With Julian, the light went, and now nothing remains but to let the darkness come, and hope for a new sun and another day, born of time’s mystery and man’s love of light.
I fear I won't live to see the light return: I'm already over 50. I have no loyalty to any of the governments currently in these poxy islands. I remain loyal to ( Read more... )

“The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold” (L. Cohen, The Future)

2016 has not been a year I wish to repeat:

• An old evil is at large again: black of shirt, black of heart; blood has been spilled.
• I have been robbed against my will and consent of the only part of my citizenship that matched who I am culturally, intellectually and ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

...writing in the New Statesman that he'd changed his mind about Christianity ( A few thoughts on the relationship between religion, mythology and fanfiction... )

The tower on the left in the 15C painting is the north tower of Notre Dame de Paris.

( If you know the Victor Hugo novel... (click to read on) )

Interesting tip on lapis lazuli ( Read more... )

Given the amount of late-Roman type names preserved in the Arthurian mythos, I do wonder if Uther Pendragon might simply have been Eutherios, from a family of standard-bearers (draconarii)?

I am amused to note that my Emperor was crowned in Paris with a draconarius's torque as a makeshift crown. Rather nice painting of his coronation on this ( Read more... )