From afar, somewhere in the middle row, I experienced that pristine, almost forgotten feeling of noticing that new girl in the front row when I might have been in a grade 8 class back in the early days of the Ed Sullivan Show. Both Rebecca and I were dazzled by Sara-Jeanne Hosie’s performance. Last June I had an inkling of this sentiment when my granddaughter Rebecca and I saw a production of A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage. It is a kind of joke in the family but they have no idea on how serious I could be about it! I must now add the name of Sara-Jeanne Hosie to that list. I have been married for 43 years but every once in a while I make this statement, “I would leave my Rosemary on the spot for Charlotte Rampling or Molly Parker.” Our plants have been sensitive to manners and this batch in my scan are of plants that in spite of a wet and cold late fall are saying goodbye to us in a most polite fashion. To this day despedirse a la francesa (to leave without saying goodbye) is an expression we use in Spanish speaking countries to describe rude people while at the same time (those of us who know) twist the noses of the French to remind them of their defeat! On the other hand you never want to remind the Spaniards how all the gold of Peru and Mexico went down the drain, and the Spanish empire, too, in their long and eventual defeat in Flanders in the 17th century.
My guess is that it was King Joseph who left in a hurry. The Spaniards prefer to think that the French left in a hurry without saying goodbye. He sent the King of Spain packing (Napoleon’s brother Joseph), who few would know went to live in exile and in splendor in New Jersey! This took time and many of the battles were bloody. During the Peninsular War, when Wellington finally landed with his troops in Portugal and moved into Spain, he, little by little, pushed the French out of Spain. He might come back for Easter or for Christmas.Ĭhristmas is over and he does not return, He will never return.Īnd of course we children were completely captivated by that funny line of nonsense:Īll the above is but an overture and justification for placing a scan of some of the plants in our late December garden. One of the lines is appropriate to our coming season:
Mambrú went to war and we do not know when he will return. It was particularly popular with little girls who sang it during games of hopscotch.Ī rough translation of the song begins with the line From Versailles it eventually reached Spain via the Bourbons but the name Marlborough deteriorated to the easier to pronounce Mambrú. One of the Dauphin’s maids used to sing it. The song was popular during Louis XVI’s reign. According to Chateaubriand it is of Arabic origin and it came to France during the crusades.
The song's melody appears to be even older. Even though the French had lost they thought that the great English general, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough had died in the battle. It seems it was composed after the battle of Malplaquet (1709) in which the English defeated the French. The above song, one I sang often as a boy in Argentina and in Mexico, is related to the connections between the former Spanish colonies in the New World and the 18th century War of Spanish Succession.
0 kommentar(er)
