§1 (p. 318) Maimonides refs Ibn Wahsiya's On the Nabataean Agriculture, which apparently features the fable of a millenia-long dispute between an althea and mandragora, among the assorted talismanic or otherwise magical properties of various plants, as well as a small reference library of sympatheticmagic practices from Babylonian times. In other words, alaka-ZAM, mofo. Unfortunately, it appears that it has not been properly Englishified to date (excepting this partial translation w/ a skyscraping price-tag). Found this unfamiliar but nifty-looking website w/ some more information. I'll put this one in my ancient husbandry/falconry practices research backlog.
§2 Another fun paronym: baleno/balena = lightning/whale.
Also, I move to replace the word "balloon" in the English language w/ the infinitely more delightful palloncino.
§3 1024. Here's a go at Spode on Phoe'cian Bern. Puts total at 80 lines (Donne's The Rising Sunne (30) + Ode on a Grecian Urn (50) since ... whenever I started. A few weeks ago, if memory serves.)
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time
sylvan historian who canst thus express
a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme
what leaf-fringed legends haunt about thy shape
of deities or mortals or of both
in tempe or the dales of arcady
what men or gods are these what maidens loth
what mad pursuit what struggle to escape
what pipe and timbrels what wild ecstasy
heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
are sweeter, therefore, ye soft pipes play on
not to the sensual ear, but more endearin
pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone
fair youth beneath the trees thou canst never leave
thy song nor ever can those trees be bare
bold lover never never canst thou kiss
though winning near the goal, yet do not grieve
she cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss
forever wilt thou love and she be fair
a happy happy boughs that cannot shed
your leaves nor ever bid the spring adieu
and happy melodist unwearied
for ever piping songs for ever new
more happy love more happy happy love
for ever warm and still to be enjoyed
for ever panting and forever young
all breathing human passions far above
that leave a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd
a burning foreheard and a parching tongue
who are these coming to the sacrifice
to what green altar, o mysterious priest,
leadst thou that heifer lowing at the skies
and with all her silken flanks in garlands drest
what little town by river or sea-shore
or mountain-built with peaceful citadel
is emptied of its folk this pious morn
and, little town, thy streets forevermore
will silent be, and not a soul to tell
why thou art desolate, can e'er return
o attic shape! fair attitude. with brede
of marble men and maidens overwrought
with forest branches and the trodden weed
thou silent form dost tease out thought
as doth eternity cold pastoral
when old age shall this generation waste
thou shalt remain in midst of other woe
than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st
beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know
on earth --- and all ye need to know. [Q.E.D.]
