Bran Tub # 17: Moonlight is my Silver, Sunlight is my Gold ...

Moonlight is my Silver, Sunlight is my Gold …

Music was my first love

And it will be my last.

Music of the future

And music of the past.

c/o words by John Miles 

The card, from where the title of post comes from, depicts this immortal tiger … reminding me of William Blake’s poem … but also bringing to mind John Miles' beautiful song from 1976 ...

Blake's original copy see link

Tyger Tyger, burning bright …

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Nebra Sky Disc - the Pleiades
represented as the circle of stars

Then I remembered the Pleiades … their rising heralded the start of the Ancient Greek sailing season using celestial navigation … which cultures around the world have known since antiquity.

Onto the Cyclades … the island group in the Aegean Sea - with uninhabited Delos considered the birthplace of Apollo – the God of Sun and Light …  

See antipodes for Crates
Mallus

My wandering thoughts went on to Antipodes … any spot on earth diametrically opposite to it … each point is as far away from its opposite as possible. 

We are used to referring to Australia and New Zealand as our Antipodes – not quite true, but for the chit chat of life, near enough …

Trondholm Sun Chariot

Well Bran Tub # 17 has let me wander around … each word or image leading to the next … it seems my world always leads me onwards, reaching out beyond the silvery moon into the great unknown of life beyond the glowing sun …

With these thoughts and images I leave you … it is a wonderful world.

Links to poems and images: for more information and credits ... 

John Miles - musician, songwriter - who wrote "Music" ... the first verse appears here ... 

Tyger Tyger referencing Blake’s original painting of The Tyger c 1795 held by the British Museum …

Pleiades ... including the Nebra Sky Disc (c 1600 BC)  

Cyclades ...  

Antipodes ... 

The Terrestial Sphere of Crates Mallus (c 150 BC) ... showing the region of the antipodes in the southern half of the western hemisphere ... and see Antipodes ...

Trondholm sun chariot ... a Nordic Bronze Age artifact, c 1400 BC

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Rosewater Dish … or Venus Rosewater Trophy at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships …

Wimbledon has almost come and gone … we’re still in the Mixed Doubles (with Heather Watson, and Jamie Murray – who will compete against each other in the final on Sunday) … sadly Andy Murray is injured, and Johanna Konta just couldn’t cope with Venus’ fast playing ability … but she will learn …

Wimbledon Singles
Championship trophies

… however there have been some extraordinary matches and Johanna Konta, whose parents live in Eastbourne, definitely is touching greatness …

… she is determined, practices hard, learns quickly, positive in all things, prepared to give of her time – but passionate about winning and succeeding … sounds like us?!

Enough of that … how about more Rosewater, after the last post? … Wimbledon connections – tennis and food … sounds good to me!  

It is except I looked and found some other interesting information … so this will be the first of three short posts – where Rosewater, food and history feature.

Virginia Wade having won
in 1977

The Venus Rosewater Dish (will probably be Venus’s this year … but the Spaniard Garbine Muguruza may have something to say about that …) has been presented to the Ladies’ Singles Champion since 1886 – when the ladies were first allowed to compete.

Oh well ... predictions are meant to go wrong aren't they? - I didn't see the match and amazingly Garbine Muguruza won ... so we have a new star in the tennis firmament.

Why - Rosewater dish – it was a ceremonial platter used after eating to catch warm or cold Rosewater poured from ewers over the hands to wash them … a daily ceremony amongst royalty and the nobility until the advent of soap and water.  They were made of pewter prior to the 1500s, then increasingly of silver, or in exceptional cases gold …

Silver salvers from the 1730s

A salver (Latin salva, save from risk) was originally used by food tasters, who tested food for poison … the Rosewater dish was considered a salver by extension.

It is something of a misnomer … as none of the mythological figures on the dish is Venus; nor is the theme of decoration related to tennis, but to Classical Mythological. 

Close up showing 'relief' workmanship

The general size of these salvers made them perfect canvases upon which to emblazon coats of arms, figures from antiquity, classical scenes and so on.

Here the central boss depicts the figure of Venus (not Sophrosyne - the personification of temperance and moderation - as the concept of the dish caught on in the 1800s when various copies were made: the original is in the Louvre).

The dish shows Venus seated on a chest with lamp in her right hand and jug in her left, with various attributes such as a sickle, fork and caduceus around her.

The Seven Liberal Arts: imagefrom the
Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad of
Landsberg (12th C)

The four reserves on the boss of the dish each contain a classical god with their elements.  The reserves around the rim show Minerva presiding over the seven liberal arts: astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, music, rhetoric, dialectic and grammar, each with relevant attribute.

The rim of the salver has an ovolo moulding.  The remainder of the surface is decorated with gilt renaissance strapwork and foliate motifs in relief against a rigid silver ground.

The curious history  of the trophy known as the Venus Rosewater Dish, a dish that does not have Venus on it, nor holds rosewater, but such is the nature of replication, reproduction and appropriation in art, that the Wimbledon original remains at the Club, the champion takes home a reduced reproduction of the trophy, that is itself a copy.

Watching Wimbledon in Canary Wharf -
the new business district to the east
of the City

The trophy looks stunning doesn’t it … and I’d love to have a look at it with someone who can take me through the classical mythology story woven into this gilded, sterling silver salver.

I might have to rethink watching Wimbledon in the coming years ... and take a trip to watch this way.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories