The Bather

 By Glen L. Bledsoe 

This illustration depicts the legend of the moment before Dooth, the leader of the Funnelbeaker peoples, first gazes upon Mar-Thol (who is about to disrobe to bath in the Nile) and becomes besotted with her beauty. They marry only later to be cursed with immortality with the memories of each other's face erased by Arka-Arkitutti, the Witch-Queen of the Sea Peoples. For eternity they criss-cross the planet searching for one another with aching hearts.

Somebody needs to write an opera around this.

The Bather

This illustration depicts the legend of the moment before Dooth, the leader of the Funnelbeaker peoples, first gazes upon Mar-Thol (who is about to disrobe to bath in the Nile) and becomes besotted with her beauty. They marry only later to be cursed with immortality with their memories of each other's appearance erased by Arka-Arkitutti, the Witch-Queen of the Sea Peoples. For eternity they criss-cross the planet searching for one another with aching hearts.

Somebody needs to write an opera about this.

somewhere i have never travelled

 By Martin Sercombe. Poem by e.e. cummings

 

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands


 

The Curse

 

By Glen L. Bledsoe

The story of how a group of Funnelbeaker tribespeople from the area which today is the Netherlands were driven south by a megadrought 1400 years BC must wait for another day. How Dooth their leader joined forces with Egypt to defeat the Sea Peoples must also be delayed as well as the history of the establishment of the brief but powerful Egypto-Dutch Empire.

Today the tale you will learn is how Arka-Arkitutti, Witch-Queen of the Sea Peoples cursed Dooth when her ships were sunken, and her army made slaves. How she blessed and cursed Dooth as she was about to die.

As Arka-Arkitutti stood bound to the stake she said, "Dooth, you are a mighty warrior and leader of your people. You have defeated me in spite of all my magics and charms. You and the Egyptian Pharaoh will build a mighty but short-lived empire. You and your wife Mar-Thol will live forever as is your reward. Your punishment: you will be separated, perpetually seeking one another across the world and across time. Dooth, while your heart continues to burn with love, you will be unable to remember your wife's face as she will be unable to remember yours. You may cross paths a thousand thousand times looking for each other and not recognize each other's features."

And so across time Dooth, now known as Father Duvall, searches without hope for his wife. He knows not to waste his immortality. He performs good deeds wherever and whenever he is.