Conversation starters in English
“That’s an unusual name for that animal, MDCXL” said someone recently.
I was floored; he thought those letters spelled the name of a fantasy creature, a griffin of sorts!
Those are letters of the Roman Alphabet representing a year date. This is a publisher’s logo of old inserted on the front title page of a book, showing the founding year of that publisher. ——1640.
Pretty soon the pages of our calendar will reveal the new year —– MMXIX —— in just 19 more days.
“Where are the snows of yesteryear?”
Original … “ Mais où sont les neiges d’anten? ” … François Villon
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou find’st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
John Donne – 1633
This above is the modern English version
As written by john Donne — GOE, and catche a falling starre
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll – Originally named “A Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry”
in Mischmasch – 1855
Later all lines included in Through the Looking-Glass
and What Alice Found There – 1871
