Fic: Un Oiseau Rebelle

[speak_me_fair]

Title: Un Oiseau Rebelle
Play/Poem/Movie: Richard II
Rating: PG-13(ish)
Summary: May day in Oxford. Richard and Robbie. Academic!AU
Warnings: AU. Also slash.
Notes: Love to gileonnen for creating this AU, and to angevin2, who is working like a worky thing and has been so patient in waiting for this!

Comments

[angevin2]

I AM STILL DED FROM SQUEE, YOU KNOW.

[speak_me_fair]

*is laughing like the anti-histamined and stoned maniac she is*

ILU.

[angevin2]

ILU TOO. AND I DID NOT WANT THIS BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL FIC YOU WROTE ME TO GO PUBLICLY UNCOMMENTED-ON.

[speak_me_fair]

*just hugs*

I NOW HAVE A JONES FOR BAD CURRY, AWFUL CHAMPAGNE, AND MAGDALEN BRIDGE (upon which we can no longer stand but HEY)

[gehayi]

What do the French and Latin quotes mean?

[lareinenoire]

The French bits are the lyrics to the 'Habanera from Bizet's Carmen (lyrics and translation here).

The Latin bits are a Resurrection hymn that, if I'm remembering properly, is one of the traditional songs the Magdalen choir boys sing on the roof of the bell tower, though I fail at Oxford and never actually managed to hear them in person...

[speak_me_fair]

LOL I should read my comments before I go through the effort of typing out translations....

But yes *G*

[speak_me_fair]

The Latin bits mean (in order and in rhymed translation:)

O Thee, O God the Father--Thee,
All worship, praise, and glory be!
Thy hand bestows our daily bread,
And that wherewith our souls are fed.

2) When Thou upon Thy Cross wast laid,
To God a willing offering made,
The hope of life first dawned below--
Our joy, our only Saviour, Thou!

3 (and last) O three in one, who didst devise
Such pathway back to Paradise;
This mystery of Love be sung
In every age by every tongue!

The Carmen excerpts translate as: The bird you thought you had caught
beat its wings and flew away ...
love stays away, you wait and wait;
when least expected, there it is!
All around you, swift, swift,
it comes, goes, then it returns ...
you think you hold it fast, it flees
you think you're free, it holds you fast.

(these are the basic translations as they would fit the rhythm in English, not the literal, but I hope they are sufficient!)

[speak_me_fair]

Wow *blushes*

You will kill me with all this flattery.....

- but I am just SO DELIGHTED you enjoyed it!

[speak_me_fair]

I am just delighted that I wrote something which vaguely tallies with your experience!

(My first May morning was also the first day that I was allowed to vote. It was a practically religious 24 hours - in the sense of fasting, fuzzy-headedness, unreality....)

:-)

[lareinenoire]

This? Is pure magic. The imagery and the tactile sense of everything (the torn dresses, the light on the water, dear God, Robbie's ghost haunting and taunting Richard) is just engulfing and so gorgeously written.

You make me especially angry with myself that I never managed to make it to May morning celebrations (at least in part because I never lived in the centre of town and would have had to stay out all night, and as an ancient DPhil student, that was apparently too much for me) because they are so amazingly wonderful here.

[speak_me_fair]

*hugs you tight*

May Morning was one of the few things that I never alllowed myself to miss (in part of course because I had choral scholar friends who Would Not Allow It) - and now I am so glad of it, because anything I have managed to scrape up and onto the page is as close to a commentary of the experience as I can get....

Thank you so much for this :-)

[lareinenoire]

I kept meaning to go, but the fact that I couldn't just get up really early and hear the choir and enjoy the May Morning bit of it because Magdalen Bridge was always closed. And, last year, when I had fully intended to go, I was stuck in DC because of the Awful Visa Situation.

[speak_me_fair]

The bridge being closed is possibly one of the worst examples of do-gooding bureaucracy EVER.

*growls*

Also :-( to last year.

[illariy]

I do not know these characters and have never been to Oxford but your descriptions of the atmosphere are so vivid and lovely that I felt transported. Thank you very much for sharing this. :-)

[speak_me_fair]

Oh heavens, thank you very much!!