Ci-gît l'enfant, ci-gît le père,
Ci-gît la soeur, ci-gît le frère,
Ci-gît la femme et le mari,
Et ne sont que deux corps ici.
Here lies the child, here lies the father,
Here lies the sister, here lies the brother,
Here lie the wife and the husband,
And there are but two bodies here.
(The Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre)
"[The above is a] late medieval epigraph inscribed in the exact middle of the collegial church of Ecouis, in the cross aisle...
The tradition is that a son of Madame d'Ecouis had by his mother, without knowing her or being recognized by her, a daughter named Cecilia, whom he afterward married in Lorraine, she then being in the service of the Duchess of Bar. Thus Cecilia was at one and the same time her husband's daughter, sister, and wife. They were interred together in the same grave at Ecouis in 1512."
(FROM DORMITION TO NATION OR The Sinful Soul of England, Children of the Earth: Literature, Politics, and Nationhood, Marc Shell)
Saturday, April 26, 2008
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