may day in oxford; at the crack of dawn the magdalen college chapel choir serenades the crack of the first summer's dawn from the top of the great tower with strains from the 17th century - the hymnus eucharistus. they start singing right after the clock chimes, deeply, after six o'clock. down below tumult reigns; drunken student revellers who decide to usher in the month of may with a whole night's worth of festivities (largely drinking).
and both are venerable traditions - the former having been recorded since the 17th century, possibly dating to before that date. having lapsed in the 18th century, it was resurrected somewhere midway through the 19th - and though imaginativeness is not normally a trait we associate with the victorians - may day has been liberally reconstructed, right down to the hymn sung by the choir. the latter, of course, probably dates back to time immemorial, when someone decided that fermented barley made a good drink after all. (it might have lapsed during roman times, though, when britain was warm enough to grow vines and the romans brought in their civilised wine drinking habits.) "those damned magdalen men," as a townsman complained somewhere in the 16th century.
these are both rituals.
***
still, we live in a secularised age. what do customs mean anyway? we indulge in them, empty now of significance, for good fun or because of more than just a tinge of nostalgia. godlessness and hedonism are the emblems of the times. reverence has no significance and neither does revelry. we have lost sight of the distinction between the sacred and the profane. festivals and ceremonies are now empty shells; we see just the riotous colours and the laughing crowds but we do not feel their essence. we do not realise that laughter is mere mockery. we mock the death of tradition.
we light incense but see smoke, not spirit; the sweeping of graves is a mechanical movement; we would like soup dumplings in other times of the year besides the winter solstice, because they are sweet. similarly may day is just one big party. no one knows what the damn choir is singing. it is no longer the reminders of a rural pagan fertility ritual to welcome the months of plenty; we do not witness the complex allegory of the titanic struggle between christianity and the old religions of northern europe. no; it is a tourist event to be gawked at and photographed. we mock the death of custom; we do not mourn it.
it might have been better for the victorians to have left it to pass away quietly.
and one thought remains niggling at the back of my head. what would my grandmother think? i am her flesh and blood, but much more the child of the Enlightenment. with boundless rationalism and optimism the past will lapse with me. it is the death of ritual and the last man. we do not need to build robots to be a society of automatons. we are a world without magic, and empty of all meaning.
what would my grandmother think?
***
another thought: if i disappeared for a week, would people notice?
and both are venerable traditions - the former having been recorded since the 17th century, possibly dating to before that date. having lapsed in the 18th century, it was resurrected somewhere midway through the 19th - and though imaginativeness is not normally a trait we associate with the victorians - may day has been liberally reconstructed, right down to the hymn sung by the choir. the latter, of course, probably dates back to time immemorial, when someone decided that fermented barley made a good drink after all. (it might have lapsed during roman times, though, when britain was warm enough to grow vines and the romans brought in their civilised wine drinking habits.) "those damned magdalen men," as a townsman complained somewhere in the 16th century.
these are both rituals.
***
still, we live in a secularised age. what do customs mean anyway? we indulge in them, empty now of significance, for good fun or because of more than just a tinge of nostalgia. godlessness and hedonism are the emblems of the times. reverence has no significance and neither does revelry. we have lost sight of the distinction between the sacred and the profane. festivals and ceremonies are now empty shells; we see just the riotous colours and the laughing crowds but we do not feel their essence. we do not realise that laughter is mere mockery. we mock the death of tradition.
we light incense but see smoke, not spirit; the sweeping of graves is a mechanical movement; we would like soup dumplings in other times of the year besides the winter solstice, because they are sweet. similarly may day is just one big party. no one knows what the damn choir is singing. it is no longer the reminders of a rural pagan fertility ritual to welcome the months of plenty; we do not witness the complex allegory of the titanic struggle between christianity and the old religions of northern europe. no; it is a tourist event to be gawked at and photographed. we mock the death of custom; we do not mourn it.
it might have been better for the victorians to have left it to pass away quietly.
and one thought remains niggling at the back of my head. what would my grandmother think? i am her flesh and blood, but much more the child of the Enlightenment. with boundless rationalism and optimism the past will lapse with me. it is the death of ritual and the last man. we do not need to build robots to be a society of automatons. we are a world without magic, and empty of all meaning.
what would my grandmother think?
***
another thought: if i disappeared for a week, would people notice?
posted by zhongkai at 6:42 AM
2 Comments:
well, it's not so much that we never considered the significance of summer, or the whole christianity thing. standing there in the freezing cold listening to possibly canned music wafting croakily down, there is little else to consider -but- the coming of summer and whether christianity has won after all considering the religious mix of the people standing at the feet of the tower. i think your objection might stem from how such contemplations are simply not enough, how we do so much else to distract ourselves, because we just don't fancy these moments of reverence very much anymore.
like, i eat the tang yuan, because i imagine it's midwinter somewhere in china and it makes someone feel warm and fuzzy, but i do not stare the little globules in my bowl floating in ginger-rock-sugar water and think "gee misters, you sure know how to keep a gal warm!" for a solemn minute. i'm not even sure what really i'm supposed to be thinking, because it never occurred to my parents to be that contemplative either.
but in a sense isn't that tradition? carrying on the behaviour even when the meaning begins to be forgotten, or outmoded, or replaced? how many times have people asked you why the chinese wear red during weddings and have you replied "it's the lucky colour" without knowing who decided that, or why red dye was particularly treasured.
that said, i think i'm just sour i neither drank and got happy tipsy nor had any sleep that night, so the boys were a double letdown.
duh we will notice!
And the very fact that the tradition survives, and that you are writing about it, letting ignorant pple like me muse about the significance of it all...kinda makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it? =D
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