#O'Neddy

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Re: the story about Charlemagne and the ring, I grew up with that story! It's a German folk tale, with no clear origins besides handwavey "oral traditions". I never thought to look it up before, but Wiki says it's called the "Fastradasage" & that (like so many of our folk tales) it ended up in a bunch of German folklore collections in the 19th century, but I can't imagine those are the oldest written accounts. It also says Petrarch mentions the story in like the 1330s? Either way, it's def in the canon of fairytale-esque German folk tales :')

Thank you so much !! I was about to get totally lost in the Search Tabs, I would not at all have known the origin point to look for! This is so cool!

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Philothée O'Neddy, Fire and Flame (Feu et Flamme), 1833

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Past!me has good taste in highlight-worthy quotes:

"Mais sa propriété la plus incontestable est celle, quand on a l’imprudence de s’y baigner, de guérir de la vie." [But [the river's] most incontestable property was, for those foolish enough to bathe in it, to cure them of life.]

It's from Borel, because of course it is.

[aflamethatneverdies]

It is to you above all, companions, that I give this book! It was made among you, you may claim authorship. It is to you, Jehan Duseigneur, the sculptor, beautiful and good of heart, secure and courageous work, nevertheless ingenuous as a girl. Courage! your place would be beautiful: France for the frst time would have a French statuary.—To you, Napoléon Thom, the painter, air, frankness, soldierly handshake. Courage! you are in an atmosphere of genius. —To you, good Gérard: when then, the customs officers of literature, will they let arrive to the public committee the works, so well received from their small committees. To you, Vigneron, who have my deep friendship, you, who prove to the coward that which can be done by perseverance; if you have carried the mortarboard, Jamerai Duval has been the drover. — To you, Joseph Bouchardy, the engraver, heart of saltpetre! — To you, Théophile Gautier. — To you, Alphonse Brot! — To you, Augustus Mac-keat! — To you, Vabre! to you, Léon! to you, O'Neddy, etc.; to you all! who I love.

from the Preface to Rhapsodies by Petrus Borel (1832), translated by Olchar Lindsann

(Because 3 AM in the morning is a good enough time as any, to have emotions about French Romantics and how adorable their friendship was.)

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adfsghklhf O’Neddy :

People of imagination who are reading me, reawaken all the poetic memories of readings that you have made in the blue library. Recall all that you have seen there of passes of arms, tourneys, jousts and carousels, and have the kindness to imagine that all the merits scattered in those different acts of fin warfare are assembled and concentrated in the one that is unfolding at the feet of my heroine.  That kindness of your part will spare both of us a task: me the the labor of a description, and you the the tedium of reading it, or at least the simple tedium of skipping over a few lines.  (Philothee O’Neddy, The Enchanted Ring, trans. Brian Stableford

 (Stableford notes that the bibliothèque bleue  was the name given to a series of pamphlets with blue paper covers, in publication from the 17th to early 19th century; among other stories, it had digests of medieval romances, and translated the poetic ones into prose, popularizing them.) 

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omg omg omg omg 

New O’Neddy translation!! by Brian Stableford, who did the Actually Good translation of Champavert!  @amelancholycharm @kingedmundsroyalmurder !!

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a million good wishes to conference organizers who put the papers online for free *___* 

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A final set of letters,or at least extracts from letters, from 1837, from Petrus to O’Neddy, out of  Parron’s Petrus Borel. 

As always, translation and errors mine, original under the cut, help and suggestions welcome!  I have a LOT of questions on this set, especially  >_<

to Sir Theophilus. This is a little copy that your beloved lordship* will want to put back in its place. This chap. XVII will be tonight’s addition to the globe ;** what can you do, eh?*** I need this milestone, this pivot, this link, for the march of my epic May 2, 1837, Bas-Baizil.

.....

The Same, of Tours, December 14, 1837. Tours is a beautiful and pleasant city, lying between the Cher and the Loire, of very regular manners; where the English abound; where prunes**** are unknown; where there are no very big factories;***** where in the rue Royale, there is a very pretty wigmaker named Roméo, who calls himself Romeo, I should say,****** the prankster! ... I am working excellently on the last pages of my book which will appear immediately my return ...

* I can’t  tell if this is tonally him calling O’Neddy “your lordship” , as part of the ongoing “Sir” joke; it seems like maybe a riff on the Medievalism that O’Neddy loved?

** I am REALLY unsure about this translation of “ Ce chap. XVII sera bien ce qu'il y aura de plus ce soire sur le globe” , but that’s my best guess? help? ETA:  modifications made with help from @niguedouille , thank you!

*I think the mood/intention here is more like “eh, what can you do” --this is the chapter he’s complaining about rewriting over and over in the other letter. 

**** I can’t figure out why a lack of prunes is notable?? I feel I’m missing something. 

***** I think  “no big factories” is the right way to go on this translation, but it could also be “where one doesn’t work/make a lot” ? but that doesn’t fit with the end of the letter... 

******I feel like there’s a Story in the wigmaker, here; regardless, Petrus “all my friends use fandom names” Borel must have felt he’d met a kindred spirit there XD 

Also, IDK why he’s in Tours; maybe visiting some of his Infinite Family?  

à Sir Theophilus.  Ceci est un peu de copie que ta seigneurie bien aimée voudra bien remettre en son lieu. Ce chap. XVII sera bien ce qu'il y aura de plus ce soire sur le globe; que veux-tu? j'ai besoin de ce jalon, de ce pivot, de ce chaînon, pour la marche de mon épopée  Ce 2 mai 1837, du Bas-Baizil.  Au même, de Tours, 14 décembre 1837.  Tours est une belle et agréable ville, couchée entre le Cher et la Loire, de mœurs très régulières ; où les Anglais abondent ; où les pruneaux sont inconnus ; où l'on ne fabrique pas de gros ; où dans la rue Royale, il y a un très joli perruquier qui se nomme Roméo, qui se fait nommer Roméo, devrais-je dire, le polisson !... Je travaille assez exemplairement aux dernières pages de mon livre qui paraîtra aussitôt mon retour...

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Letter from Petrus to O’Neddy, dated Tuesday, November 29, 1836 Translation and errors mine, original French under the cut!

No, my dear, no, these excellences did not send me anything to Baizil*. I have not seen to this hour the tip of the nose of the smallest authorization. I will confess to you that I no longer count on anything like it. I had said to myself: "These gentlemen, these highnesses from the height of their perch and their virtue, will have repulsed, far, very far from my request, not wishing to be a part of the fabrication of such a monstrous immorality as Madame Putiphar; because on the label, that's how they had to presume the contents of the vial.

"You do me the honor to ask me for news of Madame Putiphar; I am working on it relentlessly, especially since a fortnight; but for that, it does not go very fast; I hardly advance. My friend, it's hard to do, even a bad book! Is the task too strong? Is it the worker who is too weak? I do not know ! but I feel myself bent and sometimes faint with work. Oh! how many times these days I envied the fate of those who know how to make books without hell; who, every term, kick off a romance like a postilion kicks off his boots.

As for your friend, while working as a laborer, he still sees himself for a month of suffering. It is sitting in a chimney, in the middle of a hut of mud and thatch, between two pools, or rather two slushpiles**, that your friend, with heavy shoes on his feet and on his back, a jacket of sackcloth, writes you these lines and kisses you,

Au Baizil, Lycanthropolis

*- this is a reference to the payments for the book he’s supposed to be receiving from his publishers, and isn’t:P  

** “margouillis”  is a word I can’t find an exact reference for--the best I can find is sort of “a source for making slush and ice” (thanks , Linguee!) , which seems to fit with the season and general griping about the environmental circumstances?  Any other suggestions would be welcome! (ETA: changed , thanks to @niguedouille for the info!) 

No

« Non, mon cher, non, ces excellences ne m'ont rien expédié au Baizil. Je n'ai pas vu jusqu'à cette heure seulement le bout du nez de la plus petite autorisation. Je t'avouerai que je ne comptais plus sur rien de semblable. Je m'étais dit : Ces Messieurs, ces hautesses du haut de leur perchoir et de leur vertu, auront repoussé, loin, bien loin ma demande, ne voulant pas conniver à la fabrication d'une aussi monstrueuse immoralité que Madame Putiphar ; car, sur l'étiquette, c'est ainsi qu'ils ont dû présumer du contenu de la fiole.

« Tu me fais l'honneur de me demander des nouvelles de Madame Putiphar; j'y travaille sans relâche, surtout depuis une quinzaine de jours ; mais pour cela, ça ne va pas très vite ; je n'avance guère. mon ami, que c'est donc difficile à faire, même un mauvais livre ! Est-ce la tâche qui est trop forte? est-ce l'ouvrier qui est trop faible? je ne sais ! mais je me sens ployer et quelquefois défaillir sous la besogne. Oh! que de fois ces jours-ci j'ai envié le sort de ceux qui savent faire des livres sans enfer; qui, chaque terme, se déchaussent d'un roman comme un postillon se déchausse de ses bottes. Quant à ton ami, tout en travaillant comme un labou- reur, il se voit encore pour un mois de souffrances « C'est assis dans une cheminée, au milieu d'une hutte de boue et de chaume, entre deux mares ou plutôt deux margouillis, que ton ami, avec des sabots colossaux aux pieds et sur le dos une souquenille de toile à voiles, t'écrit ces lignes et t'embrasse,

« Au Baizil, Lycanthropolis, ce mardi 29 novembre 1836. »

(source: Alphonse Parron, “Petrus Borel, Alexandre Dumas”)

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This is my fave picture of O’Neddy I’ve ever come across, but this is the only size I’ve ever seen it at, and I can’t even tell who drew it!  If anyone has a better idea of where it’s from, let me know?  

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Oh  Oh heck 

looking around for info on Romantics, as I do from time to time, I found one of O’Neddy’s poems from Feu et Flamme , Nécropolis ; I’m not going to past over the whole thing bc it’s long, but this bit: 

Sous la tombe muette oh ! comme on dort tranquille ! Sans changer de posture, on peut, dans cet asile, Des replis du linceul débarrassant sa main, L’unir aux doigts poudreux du squelette voisin.

seemed Relevant to LM studies. bc loosely translated , it reads as: 

“Under the silent tomb, oh! how tranquil one sleeps in this asylum! Without changing position, one can, folds of the shroud falling from the hand, Unite it with the powdery fingers of the neighboring skeleton!”

- which of course syncs nicely with this little bit in LM: 

 “ Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same grave, hand in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, gently caressing a finger,—that would suffice for my eternity! “ ( A Heart Under a Stone, aka Marius leaves Cosette a love letter) 

I’m definitely not accusing Hugo of “stealing” the idea, or even copying it-- Love in The Tomb was such a common idea for the Gothic Romantic crowd, that would be silly-- it’s just neat to see such a close image in a much-earlier Romantic poem from one of Hugo’s friends.  (the entire poem, and a much better translation, can be found here!)  ..OK, I gotta include the epigram O’Neddy starts the poem with, because it’s from Petrus Borel:

Sur la terre on est mal : sous la terre on est bien.

the Dramaaaaaaa 

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It has been observed that the ideal of amour is far more inaccessible to the brushes of human expression than the ideal of dolor; and that impotence is no less the share of geniuses of the first order than secondary minds. Dante and Milton, so sublime with force and color  when they paint the terrors and the tortures of the Inferno, show themselves to be feeble and dull when they try to paint the splendors and delights of paradise. (O’Neddy, The Enchanted Ring)

“...look we all tapped out of the Paradiso verses, right? it wasn’t just me?”

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Oh, it is with my forehead in the dust that I protest my reverence, my respect and my veneration for (marriage)! On approaching its region I am subject to the sacred terror to which people were subject in antiquity as they approached the vicinity of the lair of Trophonius! ...Marriage! but every thinker, every reasoner, ought to adhere to it! Marriage, God’s truth, is the vertebral column of the social body.  It is more than a holy thing, it is a necessary thing, and it has an importance equal to the law of recruitment to military discipline, to the magistracy, to the gendarmerie, to the National Guard. -- Philothée O’Neddy, The Enchanted Ring, a Romance of Chivalry (1841)

 ..I was not expecting this story to subvert its entire form halfway through? at least not so blatantly?? I really thought we were just gonna surf along on undercurrents of Commentary but no, “I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards” is really just the banner for the whole crew huh 

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Right so there’s this book, Vie de Boheme: A Patch of Romantic Paris and I knew the first time I read it waaaaay back when that it was a little Off but WOW  okay so it’s clearly riffing off of O’ Neddy’s letter to Asselineau:

(Borel) was the most republican, too, of them all, the typical Bousingot of the bourgeoisPress, though fanatical republicanism was not, as Philothée O'Neddy afterwards protested in a letter to Charles Asselineau, their representative opinion. Gérard had no political opinions at all, Gautier was obstinately Jeune-France, and the others only dreamt of a social Utopia in which aestheticism should replace religion, or of some humanitarian millennium after the manner of Saint-Simon and Fourier. 

Never mind for the moment that that’s very wrong about Nerval at the least  (Gautier was always very ready to claim being a Romantic above and beyond anything else, so letting that slide)-- that is the exact opposite  of the point O’ Neddy’s actually making in that letter. 

Those who think that we lived in a certain detachment from the popular cause are entirely mistaken. We were, for the most part, republicans. We were familiar with more than one Café Musain. The good Petrus was montagnard, the young O'Neddy, for his part, was girondin. (Here you will not accuse him of outrage.) When Philothée wrote that it was good to avoid the republican fanaticism, he did not mean by that republicanism but conspiracies, riots, attacks, violences. We dreamed of the rule of Art, it is true. It seemed to us that one day Religion must, in its condition of exteriority, be replaced by Aesthetic. But we always wanted other things. The preface of Fire and Flame announces wishes for social revolution.

And while 

 We had among us adherents of Saint-Simonism and Fourierism.

Those weren’t just Someday After the Socialist Rapture groups, but okay fine; at any rate, O’Neddy’s very very  clear:

Do not say, I beg you, Sir, that Petrus Borel was the only one who was sincere. Others were as well. O'Neddy requests for them and for himself.

O’Neddy: Hey stop saying Petrus was our only republican, on account of it’s not true and you’re wrong if you say that  

Orlo Williams: How about I do ~~anyway~~