Lachrimae Challenge

Darkmaas replaced some of his speakers today. It was a good thing, but balancing the sub-woofer proved problematic. In an effort to reach a harmonious compromise, he was forced to listen to a wide selection of his collection. It was thirsty work. At the end of the second bottle of merlot, Dowland’s “Lachrimae” hit the the player. Perhaps it was the wine or maybe the time of year, but one of those moments of revelation happened.

I was struck by an odd thought. If one were to analyze the various threads in this particular board, the "Blues" figures large. Large as well are references to the Bard (or Sh’re as Perdita is wont to type).

{May I digress? It is natural among experts and the “cogniscenti” to adopt abbreviations to speed conversation. However, it pains me to see such a short form as Sh’re. The mind searches for meaning and up pops “Shire” and visions of Hobbits playing “Hamlet” ... not a pretty sight!}

Anyway. I was struck by the question:

“If Shakespeare had the blues, who would he have turned to for musical solace?”

Those of you who think Keith Richards is prehistoric will have to take my word for it, but Shakespeare would have turned to John Dowlands. Now there is little that Dowlands and Robert Johnson have in common, but in each case, their music elicits a sense of melancholy, of doubt and dismay.

Enough blather.

The topic of this thread is...

Shakespeare’s Blues.

We’re talking tears of sorrow - melancholia as an Elizabethan affectation. Iambic pentameter might be nice, but what I would like to see is nothing less than a poetic fusion of American blues and Elizabethan melacholia.

Sound tough enough?

I’m sure that Angeline and Perdita will lead the way. (Lucerna pedibus meis). Cordelia seems to have an Elizabethan sensibility. Tristess’ name alone qualifies her for this challenge.

(This is not the place for haiku, but a limerick might be appropriate, if suitably sad.)

One last thought. This is Literotica. Is there an erotic melancholic sub-genre? I’m holding my ... er ... breath in anticipation.

Sadly,

darkmaas.

Damn, I saw the title and thought it was going to have some tips on how to avoid my eyes from getting so dry, using contacts and staying in front of a computer all day... Using those synthetic lachrimae can be quite a challenge...

The topic of this thread is...

Shakespeare’s Blues.

We’re talking tears of sorrow - melancholia as an Elizabethan affectation. Iambic pentameter might be nice, but what I would like to see is nothing less than a poetic fusion of American blues and Elizabethan melacholia.

Sound tough enough?

I’m sure that Angeline and Perdita will lead the way. (Lucerna pedibus meis). Cordelia seems to have an Elizabethan sensibility. Tristess’ name alone qualifies her for this challenge.

Click to expand...

darkmaas, my beloved friend, I'll just add this to my *list*.

And Cordelia knows so much Shakespeare, it's scary.

See what happens when you start fooling around with your subwoofer?

Here's just a tidbit. I'll try more after I see something from Blue Angeline. I need an example.

Verona Harlot Blues

My love is gone like a cheap red wine
Lady hath left me on Verona Drive
Oh Lawd, she's a cheap read wine
Poured away from me in that Verona dive

Here's just a tidbit. I'll try more after I see something from Blue Angeline. I need an example.

Verona Harlot Blues

My love is gone like a cheap red wine
Lady hath left me on Verona Drive
Oh Lawd, she's a cheap read wine
Poured away from me in that Verona dive

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LOL! Looks about right to me. I'll try to figure out and post later because I stayed up wayyyyy too late, writing a story for the Halloween contest (and it probably won't even get approved in time, but the writing gnomes overtook me, and I became obsessessed with finishing it).

So I'm a try to get some iambic blues on later. But Eve, you know who MUST do this? (heehee) Oh, JUDO honey baby? Looka here. We got your challenge here baby.

And where's denis hale, blues boy supremo? denis, you're blues incarnate. You'd be great at this. Try! or I'll out you as literary, lol

And Lauren! She knows her...well, she knows everything, the bitch.

Yes, Judo. That name popped into my mind when I saw this challenge.
I think I'll check out some other challenges. I'm just not feeling blue enough, unless I get lucky and someone does me wrong in the next few minutes.

Sorry Lauren. No faux larmes here.


Angeline wrote:

I'll just add this to my *list*.

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I think you are confused. Liszt was a Romantic composer. More likely to be a poetry buddy with Yeats or better yet Browning.


Eve! I'm trying to stay away from Verona dives lol. The wine stains everything it touches.


Grogily,

darkmaas.

Synthetic Lachrimae Blues

I wanna get iambic,
and spread some goodly words,
spice it up with thees and thous,
but is this not absurd?

Wail like I'm in Bard time?
Aye baby, there's the rub.
I'll be lucky just to rhyme it--
thanks for the challenge,
darkmaas bub.

I got the lowdown synthetic lachrimae blues,
feelin so pathetic--dmaas ain't I paid enough dues?

So let's look at Verona,
and those bad-ass Montaques,
or poor dead Desdemona,
or Polonius' bad news.

They make you feel like cryin,
want to sleep, perchance to dream
cause everywhere there's dyin.
Lawd, it's enough to make me scream.

How about old Caesar,
C'mon, lend a girl an ear!
Ok, he wouldn't take advice.
(Didn't listen to his wife, m'dear.)

And baby how he suffered,
stabbed outside the Senate door--
from his underlings not buffered,
but the fault lay in him, nothing more!

You know he had some bluely authentic lachrimae blues,
it was stoopid not to listen, but man he paid ultimo dues!

And even in the comedies,
you're made an ass in all due course.
Try actin up in a history?
You'll die callin for your horse!

Eh tu, darkmaas? Not for this girl!
I'm gonna keep today's sad blues
Give my man Prez another whirl,
Gonna tame some modern shrews.

No more lowdown synthetic lachrimae blues,
gon stay reet, sweet copacetic, maybe
write some more woowoos.

Thank-you Angeline

If ever there was a stanza that summed up my life as a Baardic Aficionado, it's:

And even in the comedies,
you're made an ass in all due course.
Try actin up in a history?
You'll die callin for your horse!

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Actually it probably sums up my life, period. If I'm grinning, is that the blues? It certainly isn't Dowlands.

Absurdly,

darkmaas.

Actually it probably sums up my life, period. If I'm grinning, is that the blues? It certainly isn't Dowlands.

Absurdly,

darkmaas.

Click to expand...

Any bluesman will tell you that singin the blues is the way to lose them, so grinning is a good thing here. But I might have gone for a quote more meaningful; certainly less garbled.


His life was gentle; and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
~ Julius Caesar, Act V, Scene V


Affectionately,
A.

Re: Synthetic Lachrimae Blues

Angeline said:

I got the lowdown synthetic lachrimae blues,
feelin so pathetic--dmaas ain't I paid enough dues?

Click to expand...

You read my mind. I could almost cry, but my eyes are stinging.

darkmaas said:

We’re talking tears of sorrow - melancholia as an Elizabethan affectation. Iambic pentameter might be nice, but what I would like to see is nothing less than a poetic fusion of American blues and Elizabethan melacholia.

Sound tough enough?

Click to expand...

Sounds like twenty leauges above my head. I can gave you the blues, all right. But for the sake of mine and everyone else's well being I stay miles away from the bard, or anything even closely Elizabetanian.

Or what the hell, here is an attempt, without any real idea of what an Iambic pentameter is. It's probably not this:

Nightfall
So the winter came early
the sun set in silence
on too few a season

The birds of your springtime
and bards of your summer
fled south with their treason

For a spring and a summer
a morning and noon
you were sent here to play

But upon autumn's eve
of the years that you had
you were stolen away

I weep beads of your blood
so that I don't have time
to weep tears of my own

In this darkness and ice
I will too fade away
aghast, afraid, alone


Sad enuff?

Icingsugar said:

Sounds like twenty leauges above my head.

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Sounds like needless modesty to me. Thanks for the poem.

darkmaas

Hello darkmaas.

I can't believe you remember me, let alone that I love Shakrespeare (I will spell him out for you; the abbr. was made up up by beloved brother and it is w/a tender intimacy that I use it).

Merely to show my gratitude for your remembrance I will return to this thread with some form of poetical bluesy Elizabethan word structure thingy.

best to you, Perdita

To be recited with suitable breast-beating and clothes-rending.....



Weep! Weep, thou billowing clouds,
Come, disguise my tears.
Oh rushing torrents, bear this pain away
To the raging deep, that it be swallow’ed there.
Carry with you all the dross,
The flotsam and jetsam of this fractured heart.
Wrap my grief in shrouds of fog that soften the foulest shock.

As a wounded creature goes to earth,
So shall I.
Forsaking friend and comfort, I lick my wounds alone.
Pain aids the healing of the fractures.
T’will be the sweeter when it ends
As end it must.

Hello darkmaas.

I can't believe you remember me, let alone that I love Shakrespeare (I will spell him out for you; the abbr. was made up up by beloved brother and it is w/a tender intimacy that I use it).

Merely to show my gratitude for your remembrance I will return to this thread with some form of poetical bluesy Elizabethan word structure thingy.

best to you, Perdita

Click to expand...

Well, I'm sure you'll do a better job than I did! I do love Shakespeare, but I wrote that silliness I posted very quickly--about ten minutes or so, lol.

I'm thinking of starting a sonnet challenge thread though as a more serious (though no less heartfelt) form of tribute. (And Ice, sonnets are actually very easy to write, if you want to try--though I love your non-iambic post )

Weep! Weep, thou billowing clouds,
Come, disguise my tears.
Oh rushing torrents, bear this pain away
To the raging deep, that it be swallow’ed there.
Carry with you all the dross,
The flotsam and jetsam of this fractured heart.
Wrap my grief in shrouds of fog that soften the foulest shock.

As a wounded creature goes to earth,
So shall I.
Forsaking friend and comfort, I lick my wounds alone.
Pain aids the healing of the fractures.
T’will be the sweeter when it ends
As end it must.

Click to expand...

Damn! You're good, woman!

Angeline said:

Damn! You're good, woman!

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That's such a compliment, thank you!


[blushes furiously]

A Sonnet in Blue.

archived elsewhere

Cheesy Baardic Reference Sonnet (with two "aa's" for darkmaas)

You'd rub me Yorick, alas if you could.
But you've no solid flesh, you're just a skull
shuffled off this mortal coil for good.
You are but a prop for some prince to mull

Unbound to a nutshell, I'm here alone
in the snow, on the heath, poor girl's a' cold.
No blinded Gloucester, nowhere near a crone,
remaining, complaining a tale twice told.

But sound and fury are all I have left
as tomorrow creeps in its deadly pace.
Who calls so loud? Dost thou see I'm bereft
here in the winter of discontent's face?

Would one pound of flesh obviate these clues,
puckishly ending my iambic blues?

My cup runneth over!

Perdita said:

I can't believe you remember me, let alone that I love Shakrespeare...

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I never forget a face, and truth be told i confess to the occasional lurk at AH where you are omnipresent. Thanks in advance for the "word structure thingy".


Tristess: I regret to inform that the very notion of "...clothes rending..." failed to engender feelings of sadness in this reader. The poem however was a treat. Thank you and I'll double Ange's "Damn! You're good, woman!".


If that was not enough, champagne comes up with a gem that demonstrates a well-bred grasp of the bard. Sadly, I must hang my head with eastern shame. There's obviously more than well oiled boots and spurs in Alberta.


And last but certainly not least ... wow... a sonnet ... I so wanted a sad sonnet ... but I dared not hope. Thanks Angeline.


Failing with the lachrimonious look, in spite of biting my tongue,

darkmaas

Re: My cup runneth over!

archived elsewhere

I gotta try this....

Okay, I don't get here but a few times a week. And this is one of the challenges that intrigues me.

I love the Bard, but I fear I may be too Asian to do the blues much justice. Let me see what I can do, though...


Cordelia

Re: My cup runneth over!

darkmaas said:

Tristess: I regret to inform that the very notion of "...clothes rending..." failed to engender feelings of sadness in this reader. The poem however was a treat. Thank you and I'll double Ange's "Damn! You're good, woman!".

darkmaas

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Ah, Sire.

My rending of these sorry threads is but a gesture for effect.

The certain rending of which you speak is performed to a sultry lute accompanied by swaying hips and - perchance - smouldring looks in your direction.

(Thank you for your kind comment.)

I hate frigging sonnets.....


Smoke and music circle through the night.
Whiskey freely flows and sets the tone.
I’ve had enough to get me feeling tight
While sitting at my table all alone.

A Melancholy measure fills the air.
I listen to that lonesome moaning song.
My thoughts are full of sadness and despair,
It seems that everything has gone all wrong.

That Tenor sax puts out a lonely moan,
It wavers through the room with one long note,
A sound so blue it makes me want to groan.
A lump of sadness clutches at my throat.

Her scent is one that I can never miss.
My blues are gone with her first loving kiss.

Muttering Foolishly