David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :
'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)
(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.
There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
- Matsuo Basho
translation R H Blyth
If it flows
it's a flower
- poeTAR
translation FIAPCE
Theatre of the *Anthos of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
*florilegium : from Renaissance Latin flōrilēgium,
calque of Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία
(anthología, “flower-gathering”)
(compare English anthology),
so called because flowers were used as symbols
of the finer sensibility of literature. (Wikipedia)
