7a
11B
7a
7b
11B
11B The clothes in the hall shimmer in candle light
7a The Royals with great aplomb
7b Address the East with delight
11B Matthias & Feilinn have one in their sight
7a Our Úrsula De Torres
11B Whose presence is brought afore Us today
7a One who’s slew of passions says
7b She’ll blithely work all the day
11B Wielding needles with the same zeal as swordplay
7a Consequently, We present
11B Her Award of Arms on this day of grandeur
7a On this fifty eighth advent
7b Of Our Society's tour
11B At Twelfth Night and Buckland Cross Baronial Investiture
Rick: “And what are you exactly?”
Evelyn: “I am a BLOG”
~The 1999 cinematic masterpiece: The Mummy.
Flash forward to this scroll. I have obtained access to the The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. To my incredible delight I found:
LIRA . A Sp. stanza form of four, five, six, or, rarely, more than six Italianate *hendecasyllables [11 syllables] and *heptasyllables, [7 syllables] the term denoting loosely any short-strophe
* canción in Italianate verse. The name was first applied to the form aBabB (capitals denote hendecasyllabic lines)...
And… come to be known as estrofa de Fray Luis de León, lira de Fray Luis de León, and quintilla de Luis de León for being popularized through Fray Luis de León’s works…
Which essentially confirms that my interpretation was CORRECT!!!!!
This was incredibly satisfying from a research standpoint.
I also learned the name for the form: Lira or Lira de Fray Luis de León.
Before writing the scroll I looked up one of Fray Luis’ odes. The Ode below was written to his friend. I copied a couple stanzas and used them as a reference to how the poetry was written and the translated words.
The air becomes calm
and dresses in beauty and unused light,
Salinas, when it rings
extreme music,
by your wise hand governed.
And as is known,
in luck and thoughts it improves;
gold does not know,
that the vile crowd adores,
beauty expires, deceptive.
VERSE ONE
7a The air of court becomes calm
11B The clothes in the hall shimmer in candle light
“The air becomes calm
and dresses in beauty and unused light,”
You can see how the first two lines of the ode inspired the first lines of the scroll. It was so evocative of court and fit into the scroll with just a bit of tweaking.
7a The Royals with great aplomb
7b Address the East with delight
As with many of the complicated rhymes the first two lines choose the rhymes and the rest follow.
11B Matthias & Feilinn have one in their sight
This also concludes the first verse’s subject about the Royals. And covers their names, and their rank.
VERSE TWO
7a Our Úrsula De Torres
When working with smaller syllable counts it becomes a joy to manage to fit the recipient’s name into them with ease. The addition of “Our” as the first word really continued the point of view of TRM as they are the ones who are speaking the words being read out to the assembled court.
11B Whose presence is brought afore Us today
The second sentence of the verse is the transition between TRM talking and then the following description of what the recipient has accomplished.
7a One who’s slew of passions says
The recipient’s write up had a lovely amount of accolades to work with.This is the introductory sentence to listing said traits.
7b She’ll blithely work all the day
If I had a nickel for every time this came up in a recipient's recommendations, I’d have a whole lotta nickels! It is a delightfully common description for people in the East Kingdom. We all do what we can.
11B Wielding needles with the same zeal as swordplay
The recipient sews garb and is a fencer. I love the chance to do a little bit of verbal fencing on a scroll.
VERSE THREE
7a Consequently, We present
As a consequence of the recipient’s accomplishments listed above, we see the context shift back to TRM with this sentence and go into the naming of the award.
11B Her Award of Arms on this day of grandeur
Full circle, in the last verse referencing the first verse and the type of event that 12th Night is.
7a On this fifty eighth advent
7b Of Our Society's tour
The naming of the AS year. This and the following are sometimes left off being read out loud for a variety of reasons. For the sake of this poetry I hope they are not. They are worked into the syllable count and rhyme of the Lira de Fray Luis de León.
11B At Twelfth Night and Buckland Cross Baronial Investiture
Unlike the first verse, for this one I wrote the fifth line first. Opting to rhyme words with investiture and working backwards. For this process I go to rhymezone.com. Investiture itself has only one true rhyme listed. To create more rhymes I break the word down to “ture” and find a word that sounds like that; sure. This opens up many new rhymes. Hey may not be 100% accurate, but for the sake of the scroll, they’ll work perfectly.
The recipient has their name and device in the process of being approved. Unfortunately, not in time to be included on the scroll. They can be added after they have been accepted though.
All in all this was a very satisfying scroll to work on. Sometimes when I try a new verse form and I can’t find a nice wiki entry that says, “It's called X, with X syllables and X rhyme scheme” I get worried as to the accuracy of what I am doing. I have failed spectacularly in the past. However, from those failures, I have learned much and continue to improve my skills with every award document I work on.
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