#ermengarda

[issyscribbles]

Where are you looking?

[issyscribbles]

A little wrestling between friends never hurt anyone.

[issyscribbles]

Tragedy never meant to be.

[storicismo]

Carlo Magno: le tante donne e i tanti figli http://www.diggita.it/v.php?id=1627560

[deborahdonato]

La parola non proferita. Manzoni e l'amore

La parola non proferita. Manzoni e l’amore

“Amor tremendo è il mio.

Tu nol conosci ancora; oh! tutto ancora

Non tel mostrai; tu eri mio: secura

Nel mio gaudio io tacea; né tutta mai

Questo labbro pudico osato avria

Dirti l’ebbrezza del mio cor segreto.

– Scacciala, per pietà! Vedi; io la temo,

Come una serpe: il guardo suo m’uccide.

– Sola e debol son io: non sei tu il mio

Unico amico? Se fui tua, se alcuna

Di me dolcezza avesti… oh! non…

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[nereiids]

 ♕ // Ermengarda (Pavia, 754-776)

daughter of Desiderius, king of the Lombards, and his queen, Ansa; wife of Charlemagne from 770 to 771. Her true name unknown, she is either called Desiderata or Berterada by historians. Ermengarda is the name Alessandro Manzoni gave her in the Adelchi (1822). 

[oakapples]

Kirkwall, Orkney. Work on the Romanesque cathedral of St Magnus was initiated by St Rögnvald Kali Kolsson, a Norwegian Earl of Orkney, in 1137. Rögnvald would later sail to the Holy Land on pilgrimage, and during this voyage he is known to have stopped in Narbonne, an Occitan city state in the sphere of influence of the County of Toulouse. There he met the young Viscountess Ermengarda, by whose beauty he was moved to compose the following beautiful Skaldic verse:

.

Víst 'r at frá berr flestum, 

Fróða meldrs, at góðu 

velskúfaðra vífa 

vöxtr þinn, Bil hin svinna; 

skorð lætr hár á herðar 

haukvallar sér falla 

(átgjörnum rauðk erni 

ilka) gult sem silki. 

.

For certain, wise girl,

Your flowing hair

Is the loveliest among women

Well tasselled with sea-kings' corn.

The prop of a hawk's perch

Permits her hair to fall to her shoulders-

I reddened the claws of a ravenous hawk-

Golden, like silk.

.

This vigorous, poetic vision of masculine and feminine elements was the first of a series of pieces written by Rögnvald for Ermengarda. He returned to Orkney in late 1155. Three years later he was killed in battle, and buried at St Magnus. Miracles were alleged to have occurred at his tomb, and he was canonised in 1192 by Pope Celestine III. The Orkney Isles were to become politically a part of Scotland in 1468.