Thanks, all. I get the picture, and it's what I was thinking, but it
could be clearer!
Rob
On 10 September 2015 at 13:15, Ron Andrico <[1]praelu...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
The text seems to play upon the correspondence of macrocosm /
microcosm, a topic much discussed in Elizabethan times. You could
wade
through the rather involved but useful descriptions happily digested
in
Tillyard's The Elizabethan World Picture and draw your own
conclusions.
Of course, Elizabethan philosophy was a mashup of Classical ideas,
Old
Testament gloom and doom, New Testament redemption, and an intricate
dance around contemporary political current events.
I think the text rather echoes Montaigne:
"Who have persuaded [man] that this admirable moving of heavens
vaults,
that the eternal light of these lampes so fiercely rowling over his
head, that the horror-moving and continuall motion of this infinite
vaste ocean were established, and continue so many ages for his
commoditie and service? Is it possible to imagine so ridiculous as
this
miserable and wretched creature, which is not so much as master of
himselfe, exposed and subject to offences of all things, and yet
dareth
call himself Master and Emperor."
- Montaigne, Essais, Livre II, Chapitre XII: Apologie de Raimond de
Sebonde
But I find the dual meaning of "point" in the poetry an interesting
conceit; both a location and, as in music, a theme "wrested this way
and that" in counterpoint. In the poet's context, the "world"
seems to
be the equivalent of the universe.
RA
> Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 10:28:31 +0100
> To: [2]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
> From: [3]robmackil...@gmail.com
> Subject: [LUTE] What If A Day lyrics
>
> Does anyone have any idea what the following excerpt from What If
A
Day Or A Month Or A Year means? It has left me scratching my head...
>
> "Earthes but a point to the world, and a man
> Is but a point to the worlds compared centure:
> Shall then a point of a point be so vaine
> As to triumph in a seely points adventure?"
>
> Rob
>
> [4]www.robmackillop.net
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> [5]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
--
References
1. mailto:praelu...@hotmail.com
2. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
3. mailto:robmackil...@gmail.com
4. http://www.robmackillop.net/
5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
