After much ado, I have finally managed to make at least a little headway, not just with my course (the law degree), but, more importantly: work. That commission. No not the 12th century Armenian liturgical work by Narses of Kla the Fourth (the Gracious), but the mid sixteenth century legal document from Elizabethan England. It is rather interesting, but work heavy, intense. To be honest I'm not even sure I can be bothered with it all, but I have given my word that I will translate it, and so that I will jolly well do. Period. It's a pain, but no pain: no gain.
There is more to it than the strange laws, impositions and exchanges they had here 500 or so years ago. Here, in ancient Albion, old England, that green and pleasant land, filled with dappled trees and well ploughed fields, closely cropped hedgerows and a people happier than any other nation on God's fair Earth. A demi-paradise, a second Eden. Imagine, if you will, the most opulent city in all of northern England when Elizabeth the First sat atop the throne. Cast your mind back. There, by an arched stone window flanked with rich tapesty stands an Arabian princess, weeping at the loss of her Precious husband, lately passed over to the other side, in Hades or Elysium.
That's where I'm at, essentially. I have scribal abbreviation reference charts (which look like something out of Lord of the Rings, straight up) plastered all over my previously ornate French wine-crates (which, before yesterday had attractive patterns and writing on them). I must have these essential reference charts in order to recognise letters on the fly, that is, alongside the 483 page long Elements of Scribal Abbreviation in medieval Latin palaeography by Adriano Cappelli, printed and bound, at my fingertips. Yet still this is not enough. I've had to drag everything from my first edition of Historical Interpretation by Bagley (thank you Cambridge) to Reading Medieval Latin by Keith Sidwell (Cambridge University Press), and any number of other books. The whole thing is really rather a lot of trouble.
One thing I have learnt, is this scribe's particular handwriting. It's like getting to know a person and a style, but 500 years later, which is exactly what it is.
Work, at that... place (Hades) does not even bear thinking about. Bligh is still off on shore-leave (again searching for breadfruit) with the oompa-loompa. Needless to say things are as usual: animal noises being made, base bawdy 'jokes' suitable for a cheap cider-shed or drunken barn dance being cracked, and strings of expletives that would make Jane Austen rise above these people and put them in their place, in calm, well-reasoned, polite and considerate terms. Yet that is only something I wish to say in my mind, for I stay silent (for the most part) and work. It is the Infernal Region, Tartarus, Orcus.
My book publishing thang is coming along. Well, it's not. I'm going over the same plan I have done for the past twelve months, and always come out with the same results. Aside wasting a whole lot of time, the upshot is that little things are added or removed each time, refining the plan. I never used to believe in plans. Then I grew up (id est attended university). Planning's important. Even so, I should move things forward. It should be good, might be alright.
Then we have the law degree. This is... quite heavy (its reading list). I'll manage it, and am managing it, just about, but for now, my commission takes priority. It's business. Study can wait (and still gets done, because whenever I'm fed up of translating this very difficult text, I always turn to study Dicey or the set book: Public Law Oxford University Press (2022: Stanton and Presscot [not Two Jags]).
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