[lit-ideas] Re: "Patience on a Monument"
- From: Michael Chase <goya@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:31:29 +0200
Le 15 sept. 04, =E0 19:47, David Ritchie a =E9crit :
> on 9/14/04 7:31 PM, Robert Paul at Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx=20
> revealed
> that Mutton College has decided to diversify its academic portfolio=20
> into
> pork belly futures.
>
> While the Bacon stuff was fascinating in the way that watching a=20
> lumbering
> bus slide on ice is fascinating, I think it brings us no nearer to
> understanding what Shakespeare's audience understood by "Sitting like
> Patience on a Monument."
>
> I have done a little research, and now propose the following answer.
M.C. Interesting, but perhaps a little too *recherch=E9*. I think R.=20
Morel was right all along=A0: the image comes from the iconographical=20
tradition of people like Cesare Ripa. At=20
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bytype/prints/brueghel/00031.html, you=20=
will find a nice image of Patientia sitting on a momument (she is in=20
fact chained to it), dressed in simple, long flowing gown and holding a=20=
cross as she looks beatifically heavenwards. It was painted by Brueghel=20=
in 1557.
Patience was one of the Seven Virtues in the tradition =
descending from=20
the Psychomachia of Prudentius (410 AD), known as the remedial or=20
contrarian model. See, for instance, "Superbia, Patientia und andere=20
Tugenden", in Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie,"Tugenden und=20
Laster", 1.
Michael Chase
(goya@xxxxxxxxxxx)
CNRS UPR 76
7, rue Guy Moquet
Villejuif 94801
France
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