Arrant knaves

Etymology

Alteration of errant, due to use in phrase “arrant thieves” and “arrant knaves”.^[1] Originally meaning wandering bandits (errant), the term came to be an intensifier due to its use as a epitaph.

Hamlet, scene i

• Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us.

Celo Suite no1 JSBach

prelude

arts rehearsing together

Vladimir Vysotsky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zGf4hlzgYg

Along the gap, right by the cliff, where the edge is very narrow
With the whip I lash my horses, striking harder, force applying...
There's no air for me to breathe,- I drink the wind, the mist I
swallow
I can feel with tragic passion that I am dying, that I am dying!

Slow it down, horses, calm your eagerness!
Do not listen to the old tight thong!
But the horses that I've got are fastidious - 
Had no time to fully live or sing the song...

I'll allow them to drink, and this verse I will sing
Just a little bit longer I will stay on the brink...

Like a flake, a brutal twister will then sweep me off the palm
In the morning, by the sledge, on the snow I'll heave and welter
Slow your gallop, oh my horses,- make it peaceful and calm
And extend, somewhat, my journey to the last and final shelter

Slow it down, horses, calm your eagerness!
Do not listen to the old tight thong!
But the horses that I've got are fastidious - 
Had no time to fully live or sing the song...

I'll allow them to drink, and this verse I will sing
Just a little bit longer I will stay on the brink...

We came in time - there's no lateness to God's palace - 
Why are angels singing there with their loud, angry voices?
And perhaps it is the bell, which is weeping thus with malice,
When I'm screaming "Slow it down!" to the wild, unruly
horses?

Slow it down, horses, calm your eagerness!
I'm begging you, do not charge so strong!
But the horses that I've got are fastidious - 
Had no time to live,- let me finish this song!

I'll allow them to drink, and this verse I will sing
And just for a moment, I will stay on the brink...

Nature Boy

Nat King Cole

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy
And sad of eye
But very wise
Was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"

(instrumental interlude)

"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Song Form

Written as a pop ballad, "Nature Boy" follows an "A,B" format, with both sections being melodically and harmonically similar until the final 4-bar phrase of each. The primary melodic theme is a pickup note on the 5 of the minor i chord, then three notes descending on a minor triad above the pickup note. An ascending line over the diminished ii chord returns to the initial minor triad.
The harmonic structure makes frequent use of the standard ii-V-i progression in the key of D minor. The second 4-bar section featured a chromatic descending line based on the lowering of the tonic (Dm, Dmmaj7, Dm7, Dm6). The same descending line then continues through Gm6, Dm, then finally ending with a whole-step down to the G in the chord Em7(b5).


*"Nature Boy" was a primary theme of the score for the 1948 motion picture The Boy with Green Hair. The original version of the song was used for it.

Κ.Π. Καβάφης -Τα επικίνδυνα

«Δυναμωμένος με θεωρία και μελέτη,
εγώ τα πάθη μου δεν θα φοβούμαι σα δειλός.
Το σώμα μου στες ηδονές θα δώσω,
στες απολαύσεις τες ονειρεμένες,
στες τολμηρότερες ερωτικές επιθυμίες,
στες λάγνες του αίματός μου ορμές, χωρίς
κανέναν φόβο, γιατί όταν θέλω —
και θάχω θέλησι, δυναμωμένος
ως θάμαι με θεωρία και μελέτη —
στες κρίσιμες στιγμές θα ξαναβρίσκω
το πνεύμα μου, σαν πριν, ασκητικό.»΄


K.P. Cavafy -Dangerous things

"Fortified by theory and study,
I shall not fear my passions like a coward.
I shall give my body to sensual delights,
to enjoyments dreamt-of,
to the most daring amorous desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear, for whenever I want --
and I shall have the will, fortified
as I shall be by theory and study --
at moments of crisis I shall find again
my spirit, as before, ascetic."

Venus in Furs

VENUS IN FURS - MEMENTO MORI

The Velvet Underground- Venus in Furs



The framing story concerns a man who dreams of speaking to Venus about love while she wears furs. The unnamed narrator tells his dreams to a friend, Severin, who tells him how to break him of his fascination with cruel women by reading a manuscript, Memoirs of a Suprasensual Man.
This manuscript tells of a man, Severin von Kusiemski, so infatuated with a woman, Wanda von Dunajew, that he requests to be treated as her slave, and encourages her to treat him in progressively more degrading ways. At first Wanda does not understand or relate to the request, but after humouring Severin a bit she finds the advantages of the method to be interesting and enthusiastically embraces the idea; though at the same time, she disdains Severin for allowing her to do so.
Severin describes his feelings during these experiences as suprasensuality. Severin and Wanda travel to Florence. Along the way, Severin takes the generic Russian servant's name of "Gregor" and the role of Wanda's servant. In Florence, Wanda treats him brutally as a servant, and recruits a trio of African women to dominate him.
The relationship arrives at a crisis point when Wanda herself meets a man to whom she would like to submit, a Byronic hero known as Alexis Papadopolis. At the end of the book, Severin, humiliated by Wanda's new lover, loses the desire to submit. He says of Wanda:
"That woman, as nature has created her, and man at present is educating her, is man's enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he and is his equal in education and work."

Peter Greenaway's Darwin