Texts from Lamentations were the readings at Matins for the last three days of Holy Week, popularly known as Tenebrae.  The candles were meant to be successively extinguished during the service ending with all in darkness.  (Matins was not a morning office - it was celebrated during the night, or in parishes the evening before.)  The Hebrew letters were part of the text used.

There was a liturgical call for setting Lamenations, therefore, although presumably Tallis was setting them when they could not be used liturgically.

Tenebrae was not included in the very well meaning revisions to the services by the Roman Church in the 1970s.

Perhaps there might be a new thread to discuss the musical aspects of the different settings of this tex?

I would be very interested to hear what musicans have to say.

I like the maths poem! I heard the programme about the solving of that maths puzzle. It was so interestin, wasn't it.

In Aphroditens uppig schoener Fuelle
Doch wie der Goetterbote leicht bewegbar,
So lehnst du da, von Liebeshauch erregbar,
Des Goetterwesens reiche Doppelhuelle.
In dir sind Mann und Weib doch unzerlegbar.

-Elisar von Kupffer on the Hermaphrodite at Villa Albani
Aus Edens Pforten -- Aus Edens Reich

Apologies, it's very obscure, but needed to record it somehow and didn't have a pencil to hand.

Time for some more English heroic couplets.  Indeed the Reverend George Crabbe was the last poet to use this convention as his regular means of expression.  It is from his poem Peter Grimes and indeed the most anthologised passage from the poem, but with no equivalent in Britten's opera.  Nasty old Grimes is ostracised by the rest of the village, and goes off into the fens.

This is relevant to the romantic/classical debate.  Crabbe shows a detailed awareness of the natural world, but far from nature representing a fuller, more emotionally satisfying world than superficial society, it expresses Grimes' alienation.

When tides were neap, and, in the sultry day,
Through the tall bounding mudbanks made their way,
Which on each side rose swelling, and below
The dark warm flood ran silently and slow;
There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide,
There hang his head, and view the lazy tide
In its hot slimy channel slowly glide;
Where the small eels that left the deeper way
For the warm shore, within the shallows play;
Where gaping mussels, left upon the mud,
Slope their slow passage to the fallen flood;
Here dull and hopeless he'd lie down and trace
How sidelong crabs had scrawled their crooked race;
Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry
Of fishing gull or clanging goldeneye;
What time the sea birds to the marsh would come,
And the loud bittern, from the bulrush home,
Gave from the salt-ditch side the bellowing boom.
He nursed the feelings these dull scenes produce,
And loved to stop beside the opening sluice,
Where the small stream, confined in narrow bound,
Ran with a dull, unvaried, saddening sound;
Where all presented to the eye or ear
Oppressed the soul with misery, grief, and fear.

On Wednesday I went to Dillington House (Ilminster) for a day's study of 'The Four Quartets' of T S Eliot. The tutor was a man named Leslie Hoose (a Dr I think) who seems to have spent a lifetime studying philosophy and poetry, also magic. There were 22 there and it appeared that all had studied poetry and/or TFQ, so I was the class dunce!! I first heard about the Quartets when I was at Teacher Training College and the tutor said that although these poems were definitely not for children, there were certain parts which would appeal to younger children. This is probably why they appealed to me too. Anyway, he said that by the end of the day we would probably still not understand the poems as no-one ever really has, but the discussion was interesting and hearing them read (at intervals during the day) was enjoyable. He talked of the pattern of the poems resembling musical quartets.

Having attended this course, I feel that I can now safely say that I've spent enough time on T S Eliot and can forget all about him for the rest of my life! Seriously though, it was a very interesting day and I'm very glad I went.

I had a car take me there, but a friend who lives in Ilminster picked me up at 4:15 and drove me to Crewkerne station and I came home by train.

Well, apart from continuing to read this thread, I wouldn't mind taking a tentative step into Philosophy! I must find out what is available locally.  In September there is an Open Day at Dillington which I shall go to, especially as I have booked lunch! I have also booked a weekend, again in September, called 'Kindred Spirits' which seems to be a sort of taster, with a bit of each of Literature, Poetry, Music, and various Arts and Crafts.

That's very sad, "George".  Who wrote it?

The name I use is not the first name on my NHS papers, so I can see myself coming round from a heart attack being solicitously addressed by a name hardly anyone except my mother now uses.

Yes, Wendy Cope is good, isn't she?

We have quite enough books chez Basilio as it is, so I will just wait for Garnett to post her entire oeuvre here.

I was with a group trying to find readings for a carol service, which if it was left to me would be exclusively from scripture - I want to include the Song of Songs some day.  But my colleagues want some secular sourced pieces, so I play along with them to exercise my veto if too tacky.

Any rate I was shown a book of Wendy Cope.  I laughed out loud.  Nothing for the carol service, though.