ERASMUS EYEBALL STUDIES: THE BIBLICAL BEGAT
Was Adam begetting before the Fall?
On this the Scriptures are not clear at all.
Yet after the serpent had got its way,
They say he was busy every day.
He fixed on Eve a permanent passion
And peopled the earth in carnal fashion.
*
In time begetters grew so out of hand
That a flood was decreed to drown the land.
Big Noah caulked planks in the drenching dark
And ruled out sex when he floated the ark.
The beasts which he led in two by two
Were told to cool it till the voyage was through.
*
The ur-figure, Abraham, wearing a smile,
Was up to the mark for a very long while.
The centenerian tiptoed lightly
To nonagenerian Sarah nightly.
This golden oldie had plenty of fun
Begetting Isaac, his favourite son.
*
Historical books like Chronicles tell
Of the kings who begat in Israel.
When the dying David lost all his heat,
A maiden was sent to him tout de suite:
And Sheba's queen gives a lift to the story
Of Solomon in 'all his glory'.
*
From Genesis down to the Maccabees,
The going was good and life was a breeze.
Shem, Ham and Japheth, Magog and Javan,
John (also called Gaddi) and Avaran:
Each followed the guideline that God had set-
'Take you a wife, and begin to beget.'
*
A change in the rules for every nation
Is shown in the Book of Revelation.
When the clocks each give a strangled chime
To announce the end of ordinary time,
A brand new order will see to it that
The game of begetting becomes old hat.
Was Adam begetting before the Fall?
On this the Scriptures are not clear at all.
Yet after the serpent had got its way,
They say he was busy every day.
He fixed on Eve a permanent passion
And peopled the earth in carnal fashion.
*
In time begetters grew so out of hand
That a flood was decreed to drown the land.
Big Noah caulked planks in the drenching dark
And ruled out sex when he floated the ark.
The beasts which he led in two by two
Were told to cool it till the voyage was through.
*
The ur-figure, Abraham, wearing a smile,
Was up to the mark for a very long while.
The centenerian tiptoed lightly
To nonagenerian Sarah nightly.
This golden oldie had plenty of fun
Begetting Isaac, his favourite son.
*
Historical books like Chronicles tell
Of the kings who begat in Israel.
When the dying David lost all his heat,
A maiden was sent to him tout de suite:
And Sheba's queen gives a lift to the story
Of Solomon in 'all his glory'.
*
From Genesis down to the Maccabees,
The going was good and life was a breeze.
Shem, Ham and Japheth, Magog and Javan,
John (also called Gaddi) and Avaran:
Each followed the guideline that God had set-
'Take you a wife, and begin to beget.'
*
A change in the rules for every nation
Is shown in the Book of Revelation.
When the clocks each give a strangled chime
To announce the end of ordinary time,
A brand new order will see to it that
The game of begetting becomes old hat.
posted by Geoffrey Haresnape at 6:11 AM
1 Comments:
Dear Dr. Haresnape,
I apologize for using the comment sections of your blog to send you an academic invitation, but I could not locate your email.
I’m a researcher of Portuguese & English Literature, who happened to be inventorying the literary estate of Hubert Jennings, attending to an invitation from the Jennings' family.
As you probably know, Hubert Jennings was a South African schoolmaster who was asked, in retirement, to write a history of the Durban High School, which came out in 1986. While researching for this book, he discovered that the great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa had been at DHS, becoming besotted with Pessoa, learning Portuguese on a Gulbenkian fellowship, and becoming an early scholar of the poet.
Jennings's papers, recently unearthed, have caused a considerable stir of interest in the world of Pessoa studies, and a special edition of a Pessoa journal is now in preparation. It will have many scholarly articles and document pieces inspired by the fresh material.
Therefore, the editors would love to have a written contribution by you, since you were the editor of Contrast, and Jennings wrote for the journal a couple of times, and was as well a poet included in, for example, South African Poetry: a New Anthology, London: Collins, 1948.
Please let me know if you would be interested in writing a tribute piece to Hubert's work.
We have copies of Hubert's articles published in Contrast #27 & #47; if you would be interested, I could send their facsimiled versions via email.
With gratitude for your time and consideration,
- Carlos Pittella-Leite
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