From The Elizabethan Songbook (Breath & Air)

December 20, 2016Simon Pettet

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 [ The Fool’s costume (the jester’s costume) – cap ‘n bells]

Student: Yeats wrote a poem called “The Cap and Bells”

AG: Well (W.B.) Yeats did.. (that’s more) Irish..This is Cap and Bells too. I just (give you) that – but I wanted to get back into the breath into the open space. So it’s sort of insubstantial breath finally, So we can go back to Samuel Daniel. where we were,  on page one-hundred-and-ninety, can sort of get back into…

Peter Orlovsky: Which page?

Student: One-ninety

AG: Oh yes, before.. yes, one-ninety. Before we get there, … Read More

Meditation and Poetics – 14 (Thomas Greaves)

December 2, 2014admin
AG: (However,) I wanted to read a couple (of poems))  I want to stay with the breath for a moment.  Back to the breath.
Thomas Greaves – 1604.  You can find this in an Elizabethan Songbook edited by Noah Greenburg, Doubleday, 1955:
“What is beauty but a breath?  Fancy’s …” 
Is somebody making noise here? –  Okay –
 “What is beauty …” – I’ll start again.
“ What is beauty but a breath?/Fancies twin at birth & death./  The color of a damask rose/ That fadeth when the north wind blowes/ ‘tis such that though all sorts do … Read More