The trombone (or, rather, Canary-Island sack) as supreme Muse

COme Bacchus, God of Poetry, by right; | Lend me thine influence, whilst now I write. | Thy Sackbut can into my breast inspire | More active heat, than can Apollo's Lire. | He's an Vsurper; and his pow'r a crack, | If we his Helicon compare with Sack. | Lock up that Nectar but a year or two, | And see what all his Hippocrene can do. | That Trough of Pegasus! a pretious grace | To vaunt thus of an Hackney's wat'ring-place!

     Thomas Shipman, "The Canary Islands" (1666), stanza 1 (of 7).  In Carolina, or, Loyal poems (London:  Printed for Samuel Heyrick, at Grayes-Inn-Gate in Holborn, and William Crook, at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar, 1683), 115.  Viewed in Early English Books Online.  From the OED:

• Crack:  an empty boast.
• Helicon:  "a mountain in Bœotia, sacred to the Muses, in which rose the fountains of Aganippe and Hippocrene; by 16th and 17th century writers often confused with these. Hence used allusively in reference to poetic inspiration."  Also:  "An ancient acoustical instrument consisting of strings stretched over a resonance-box and capable of being adjusted to different lengths" (cf. "lire").  (And, ironically, from about 1875, "A large brass wind-instrument of a spiral form", roughly a sousaphone.)
• Sack:  "a class of white wines formerly imported from Spain and the Canaries."
• Hippocrene:  "Poetic or literary inspiration; [or] a source of this.  The Hippocrene spring . . . was sacred to the Muses, and its waters were said to imbue the drinker with poetic inspiration."
• Pegasus:  "Greek Mythology.  The winged horse . .. which is said to have created the fountain Hippocrene, sacred to the Muses, with a stroke of its hoof; (hence) often represented as the favourite steed of the Muses, bearing poets on their flights of poetic inspiration."

     Forget Apollo's lyre.  Imbibe sackbutian fire.

"Grant us, with Michael, still, O Lord | Against the prince of pride to fight"

Ghirlandaio (15th cent.)

"As often as anything very mighty is to be done, we see that Michael is sent, that by that very thing, and by his name [('Who-is-like-unto-God?')], we may remember that none is able to do as God doeth. Hence that old enemy whose pride hath puffed him up to be fain to be like unto God, even he who said, I will ascend unto heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will be like the Most High [(Is 14:13-14)], this old enemy, when at the end of the world he is about to perish in the last death, having no strength but his own, is shown unto us a-fighting with Michael the Archangel [(Rev 12:7)]".

     St. Gregory I, Homily 34.9 on the Gospels, trans. Divine Office.  CCSL 141, p. 307 =PL 76, col. 1251A.  The headline is from the 17th-century (?) hymn "Te splendor et virtus Patris":

Contra ducem superbiæ | Sequamur hunc nos principem 

Against the duke of pride | May we follow this prince

Trans. Hurst (Gregory the Great:  forty gospel homilies, Cistercian studies series 123 (Kalamazoo, MI:  Cistercian Publications, 1990), 287):

     As often as something requiring wonderful courage is to be done, Michael is said to be sent.  We are to understand from the very action and name [('Who is like God')] that no one can do what is possible to God.  The ancient enemy, who in his pride desired to be like God, said, I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of heaven I will set my throne on high; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.  At the end of the world, when he is left to his own strength, he is to be destroyed by a most dreadful punishment when he does battle with the archangel Michael.  So John tells us that war broke out with Michael the archangel, so that the one who proudly elevated himself to likeness to God may learn, after he has been destroyed by Michael, that no one can rise to likeness to God by pride.

Cebes on the cloak, coat, or garment that survives the man

"that weaver had woven and worn out many such cloaks [(ἱμάτια)],  He perished after many of them, but before the last."

     Plato, Phaedo 87c, trans. G. M. A. Grube.  "the cloak [(ἱμάτιον)] the old [weaver] had woven himself and was wearing was still sound and had not perished" at his death (87bc).  Plato has Cebes directs this against the argument that "Since you see that when the man dies, the weaker part continues to exist, do you not think that the more lasting part must be preserved during that time?" (87a), but it's a striking observation regardless of the use to which it is here put.

Bibliotheca Christi

"by constant reading and long-continued meditation he had made his breast a library of Christ."

"lectione quoque adsidua et meditatione diuturna pectus suum bibliothecam fecerat Christi."

     St. Jerome, of Nepotian, Letter 60.10, trans. Fremantle, Lewis, & Martley (NPNF, ser. 2, vol. 2).  Latin from CSEL 54, p. 561, ll. 18-19.

"Ye who long pain and sorrow bear, | praise God and on Him cast your care!"

Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
praise God and on Him cast your care!

     William Henry Draper, "All creatures of our God and king" (1899/1919), stanza free.  Free translation of the "Canticle of the Sun" ("canticum solis" or "laudes creaturarum"), by St. Francis of Assisi.  St. Francis of Assisi:  writings and early biographies:  English omnibus of the sources for the life of St. Francis, ed. Marion A. Habig, trans. Raphael Brown, Benen Fahy, Placid Hermann, Paul Oligny, Nesta de Robeck, Leo Sherley-Price (Quincy, IL:  Franciscan Press, Quincy University, 1991), vol. 1, p. 131 (127-131):

All praise be yours, my Lord, through those who grant pardon
     For love of you; through those who endure
     Sickness and trial.
Happy those who endure in peace,
     By you, Most High, they will be crowned.

Francis of Assisi:  early documents, vol. 1, The saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, OFM Cap, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, OFM Conv, and William J. Short, OFM (New York:  New City Press, 1999), 114 (113-114):

Praised by you, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,
     and bear infirmity and tribulation.
     Blessed are those who endure in peace
          for by You, Most High, shall they be crowned.

Critical edition of the original:  Die Opuscula des hl. Franziskus von Assisi, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 13, ed. Kajetan Esser; 2nd ed. Engelbert Grau (Grottaferrata:  1989), 129, which I haven't yet checked, but which is supposed to read:

Laudato si, mi signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo tuo amore, et sostengo infirmitate et tribulatione.  Beati quelli ke ‘l sosterrano in pace, ka da te, altissimo, sirano incoronati.

Brian Maloney, Francis of Assisi and his 'Canticle of Brother Sun' reassessed, The new Middle Ages (New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), xxi-xxii:

Laudato si', mi' Signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo Tuo amore | e sostengo infirmitate et tribulazione. | Beati quelli ke 'l sosterrano in pace, | ka da Te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati. 

Some fragments of Irenaeus lifted from Polanco on von Balthasar

"man, falling away from God altogether, should cease to exist. For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man [is the vision of] God."

"in toto deficiens a Deo homo, cessaret esse.  Gloria enim Dei vivens homo:  vita autem hominis visio Dei."

     Irenaeus, Adv. haer. IV.xx.7, trans. Roberts & Rambaut, ANF 1, modification mine.  Latin ed. Harvey (1857), vol. 2, p. 219.



"The flesh is designed as receptive and capable of containing the power of God, and since the beginning has hosted God's art."

Εὑρεθήσεται δὲ καὶ δεκτικὴ ἅμα καὶ χωρητικὴ ἡ σὰρξ τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ δυνάμεως· εἰ γὰρ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀπεδέξατο τὴν τέχνην τοῦ θεοῦ. . . .

"Invenietur autem perceptrix et capax caro virtutis Dei, quae ab initio percepit artem Dei".

     Irenaeus, Adv. haer. V.iii.2, trans. Balthasar, trans. Polanco, p. 123.  Greek & Latin ed. Harvey (1857), vol. 2, p. 326.  Roberts & Rambaut:  "And that flesh shall also be found fit for and capable of receiving the power of God, which at the beginning received the skilful touches of God".



"The real man is the soul in the body and grace in both . . . and, in the same way, neither is the eschatologically saved man a completed soul, freed from the body, but exclusively in flesh resurrected."

     von Balthasar on Irenaeus, Herrlichkeit II/1, 64, trans. Polanco, p. 123.

Cf. Anthony Esolen, In the beginning was the Word:  an annotated reading of the Prologue of John (Brooklyn, NY:  Angelico Press, 2021), 30:  "Superbia diaboli est moriens homo, . . . the devil's pride is a man dying inside."

Ps 31:22

I had said in my alarm,

     'I am driven far from thy sight.'

But [in fact (אָכֵ֗ן)] thou didst hear my supplications,

     when I cried to thee for help.

     Ps 31:22 RSV.  In the Septuagint and Vulgate "But in fact" (אָכֵ֗ן) becomes "Therefore" (ergone, Divine Office:  ideo; διὰ τοῦτο):

Therefore thou has heard the voice of my prayer (Douay-Rheims).... 

Therefore you listened to the voice of my petition (NETS)....