{"id":26833,"date":"2012-01-27T19:09:58","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T23:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2012\/01\/pelicanus\/"},"modified":"2012-01-27T19:09:58","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T23:09:58","slug":"pelicanus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2012\/01\/pelicanus\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelicanus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pelican<\/a><\/p>\n

PELICANUS is the word for a certain breed of bird<\/span><\/p>\n

    Who truly is a crane;<\/span><\/p>\n

    Egypt is his domain.<\/span><\/p>\n

    There are two kinds there-of;<\/span><\/p>\n

    Near to the Nile they live;<\/span><\/p>\n

    One of them dwells in the flood, the fishes are his food;<\/span><\/p>\n

    The other lives in the isles on lizards, crocodiles,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Serpents and stinking creatures, and beasts of evil nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Greek his title was Onocrotalos, which is longum rostrum,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Said in the Latin tongue instead,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Or long break in our own.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of this bird it is known that when he comes to his young,<\/span><\/p>\n

    They being grown and strong,<\/span><\/p>\n

    And does them kindly things,<\/span><\/p>\n

    And covers them with his wings.<\/span><\/p>\n

The little birds begin fiercely to peck at him;<\/span><\/p>\n

    They tear at him and try to blind their father’s eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

    He falls upon them then and stays them with great pain,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Then goes away for a spell, leaving them where they fell.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the third day he returns, and thereupon he mourns,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Feeling so strong a woe to see the small birds so<\/span><\/p>\n

    That he strikes his breast with his beak until the blood shall leak.<\/span><\/p>\n

And when the coursing blood spatters his lifeless brood,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Such virtue does it have<\/span><\/p>\n

    That once again they live.<\/span><\/p>\n

Know that this pelican signifies Mary’s Son:<\/span><\/p>\n

    The little birds are men restored to life again by that dear blood<\/span><\/p>\n

    Shed for us by our God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now learn one morning more, revealed by holy lore:<\/span><\/p>\n

    Know why the small birds try to peck thie father’s eye,<\/span><\/p>\n

    Who turns on them in wrath and puts them all to death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Men who deny the light would blind God’s blazing sight,<\/span><\/p>\n

    But on such people all His punishment will fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

    This is the meaning I find:<\/span><\/p>\n

    Now bear it well in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

              — from an Anglo-Norman Bestiary of 1120 by Philippe de Thaun;<\/span><\/p>\n

                this version from “Things of this World” by Richard Wilbur<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PELICANUS is the word for a certain breed of bird     Who truly is a crane;     Egypt is his domain.     There are two kinds there-of;     Near to the Nile they live;     One of them dwells in the flood, the fishes are his food;     The … Continue reading Pelicanus<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1778,1881],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}