The Return of Fun

Fun has come back, but frankly I’m not sure I’m ready for it.

For many months I have barely been into London except to participate in peaceful protests about climate change.

However, at the weekend, Carenza took me to a play at the Sam Wannamaker Theatre – the candlelit theatre next to the Globe.

What caused us to chance our health in this way?

The strapline – ‘Forget about Covid – Let’s have some Ovid.’

Years ago, I had taught Ovid to Carenza – my first Latin pupil - and now here was the chance to watch an imaginative retelling of some of his Metamorphoses – tales of shape-changing.

We hadn’t attended the Wannamaker before and its crowded benches are euphemistically described as ‘intimate’.  All the adults were wearing a mask, but even so…

However, when the play started, with its four talented actors changing roles faster than you could remove a hat, we were entranced.  For ninety minutes, we forgot all about Covid.

 

Afterwards, in buoyant mood, we strolled along the South Bank to Vaulty Towers where we had a table booked for dinner.  Old theatre sets made the interior of this pub fun, and it served only vegan barfood.  No wonder it was popular.  No wonder it was crowded….

Once again, I had to wrestle with my Covid fears.  Luckily my ‘Fun’ side won

 – and a good thing too as it has been leading rather a quiet life lately.

ITALY TRIP - Hoopoe

The natural world is the key to interpreting the metaphors and similes of the past.   

The images through which our ancestors understood the world were often from nature.

Around the Tuscan house we are renting, wildlife is plentiful. 

A highlight has been the hoopoe, a fabulous peach-coloured bird with full Pride crest.  From childhood they have fascinated me.  My bird book tantalised by saying they were a rare visitor to the UK. But I never saw one.

Then, on the first day of our Tuscan holiday, as Nigel, Pascoe and I entered the drive, there was one on the lawn.  It would hop to a new spot and use its long, curved beak to probe for insects.  Industriously and systematically, it did so over and again.

Good looking AND hard working.  What’s not to like?

However, the following story about a hoopoe is recorded by Ovid in Metamorphoses. King Tereus of Thrace rapes Philomela, the sister of his wife Procne.  He then cuts out her tongue so she cannot accuse him. But Procne finds out, and in revenge kills Itys (her son with Tereus), and serves him up to his father for dinner.  When Tereus recognises his son’s head on a platter, he attempts to kill Philomena and Procne.   

But the gods take pity and transform Philomela into a nightingale, Procne into a swallow and Tereus into a hoopoe – perhaps because the bird’s crest looks like a crown.

Although I am a Latin teacher, this is one time when I prefer the Persian story to the Roman.  In Persia, apparently, hoopoes were seen as a symbol of virtue and as a leader of the birds.

Now that’s the hoopoe I recognise.