Guinevere and Other Musings by Barbara Ardinger, PhD

Guinevere

          In Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, King Arthur’s court is faux-medieval and high Victorian at the same time.  Any work of Victoria’s poet laureate couldn’t be anything else, but what do we know about a historical King Arthur?  Was there a real Guinevere?  It is possible that she is a Welsh triple goddess, for variants on the Arthurian legend say he married three women, all named Guinevere.  The ancient tradition says that the king must “marry” the land.  If he is happy and well, so are the land and the people; if he is wounded, so are they.  This is vividly shown in John Boorman’s cheesy but fascinating film, Excalibur.

          Early in Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot, Guinevere sings “The Merry Month of May” and invites several knights to ride with her.  Then she meets Lancelot.  What do people always remember about Guinevere?  She betrays Arthur, whom she loves, by sleeping with Lancelot.  This is a common element of ancient lore.  Like other Celtic goddesses (Maeve and Blodewedd), Guinevere can make a king through sacred marriage and unmake him by choosing a new hero.

          In May, betrayal lies in the future.  Guinevere is the May Queen.  We can’t help but fall in love with her.  We witness her life and all of her moods—occasionally divine, altogether human, sometimes regal, sometimes prissily religious—when we read the Arthurian novels of Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mary Stewart, T.H. White, and others.

          Reader, we’ve read dozens of books about Arthur and his court.  Was he a sixth-century Romano-Celtic chieftain?  In 1191, monks discovered the bones of Arthur and Guinevere in a ruined abbey on Glastonbury Tor.  They took them to King Henry II, but they have long since disappeared.  Were the bones genuine?  Was the Arthurian court pagan or Christian or both?  Does it matter?

Tending Our Gardens

          Is there a pagan among us who does not have a garden?  My garden consists of plants in pots, some lined up on crates and tables outside my windows along the building’s common patio, some hanging in wrought-iron holders up the stairs to the second story.  It gets chilly enough here that some of my plants die back in the winter, but most survive all year.  Because the front of the building faces west, in the summer I have to move plants into shade and water them frequently.  Because it’s a potted garden, I need to be tending it every day so the plants don’t die.

Reader, how do you tend your garden?  If you live where it gets cold, what kind of gardening do you do in the winter?  Do you get out the seed catalogs and plant books and study them and make lists?  When do you begin your spring dreaming and planting?  Are you fortunate enough to have a yard and a real garden? I’ve heard that women prefer flowers, whereas men generally grow edibles.

We also plant metaphorical gardens.  Maybe they should be called karmic gardens.  The word “broadcast” comes from the way farmers once sowed seed. They’d take a handful out of the bag over their shoulder and fling it out across the ground to fall where it might or be carried away by the wind.  Let’s think about the seeds we’re broadcasting.  Some of our seeds fall close to home, but many fly across the Net and the Web and end up who knows where.  That makes for very big gardens, and some unexpected blooms.  You know what they say—what goes around comes back around.  As you sow, so shall you reap.

The Language of Flowers

Here’s flowers for you:

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,

The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun,

And with him rises weeping: these are flowers

Of middle summer….

—William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

          Shakespeare’s plays are full of flowers, not only as props but also as metaphors.  Perdita, the king’s lost daughter, speaks the sad words given above. Another flowery Shakespearean girl is Ophelia.  When Hamlet’s feigned insanity drives her mad, she famously wanders across the stage muttering, “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance … and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.”

          The language of flowers reached its greatest popularity during the Victorian Era (1837–1901), when social conventions prevented people from saying aloud what they were thinking or feeling.  While Victoria was on the throne, piano legs were modestly covered (even in the U.S.), people had “limbs,” and sentiment replaced practical sense.  So lovers, especially, found subtler ways to speak.  If a suitor handed a girl a bouquet right side up, that meant he had positive thoughts about her; upside down, he had negative thoughts, and if he gave her a wilted bouquet…. Every variety of rose or lily had its own meaning, and so did potted plants (the begonia signifies “a fanciful nature”), herbs (parsley is “useful knowledge”), and spices (cinnamon means “my fortune is yours”).

          Reader, learn the language of flowers.  Instead of sending a billet-doux to your honey, send a tussie-mussie, which is a small bouquet wrapped in a lace doily. Say you know a sage or a crone having a birthday and he already has too many neckties or she already has too many kitchen gadgets.  Aniseed means restoration of youth.  Eucalyptus means protection.  Ivy means fidelity and friendship.  The cattleya orchid signifies mature charm.  Get the idea?  Your friends will be delighted by the flowery language.