Laurel

Laurel (pronounced lawruhl or lor-uhl)

(1) A small European evergreen tree, Laurus nobilis, of the laurel family, having dark, glossy green leaves (Known also as the bay tree or sweet bay).

(2) Any tree of the genus Laurus.

(3) In general use, any of various similar trees or shrubs, as the mountain laurel or the great rhododendron.

(4) The foliage of the laurel as an emblem of victory or distinction.

(5) A branch or wreath of laurel foliage.

(6) In the plural (laurels or victory laurels), an award conferred (literally or figuratively) as an honor for achievement in some field or activity.

(7) An English gold coin minted in 1619, so called because the king's head was crowned with laurel.

(8) In many color charts, a green of a darker hue.

(9) To adorn or enwreathe with laurel.

(10) To honor with marks of distinction.

1250–1300: A dissimilated variant of the Middle English laurer (laurel), from the Anglo-Norman, from the twelfth century Old French laurier & lorier (bay tree; laurel tree), the construct being lor (bay) + -ier, from the Medieval Latin laurārius, from the Latin laurus (laurel tree), thought related to the Greek daphne (laurel), probably from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language.  The French suffix -ier was from the Middle French -ier & -er, from the Old French, from the Latin -ārium, the accusative of -ārius.  It was used to form the names of trees, ships, jobs etc.  The second -r- in the Middle English laurer changed to -l- by process of dissimilation.  Laurel is a noun, a proper noun & verb and laureled (also laurelled) & laureling (also laurelling) are verbs; the noun plural is laurels.

Lindsay Lohan fridge magnet by Alexanton.

The use to describe an emblem of victory or of distinction (hence the phrase “to rest on one’s laurels” (the original form was “repose upon”)) which dates from 1831.  The phrase is now mostly used in the cautionary sense “don’t rest on your laurels”, a warning not to rely on a reputation gained through past successes but instead continue to strive and improve.  The companion phrase “look to your laurels” is an idiomatic expression known in Antiquity meaning one need to be vigilant and attentive to your accomplishments, skills or position because there will be those eager to surpass or outshine you.  Like “don’t rest on your laurels”, it stresses the importance of maintaining one’s competitive edge.

Sirens and the Night (1865) by William Edward Frost (1810-1877).

Although most associated with women, Laurel is a unisex given name and the feminine variants include Laura, Lauren, Lori, and Lorraine.  It was related also to the German Lorelie.  In several tales from Germanic mythology in which the maiden Lorelei (luring rock), who lives upon a rock in Rhine River, lures fishermen to their deaths by singing songs of such beauty they can’t resist, a variation of the story of Odysseus and the Sirens.  In Greek mythology, Sirens were deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly charms to lure sailors to their death.  Attracted by their enchanting music and voices, they’d sail their ships too close to the rocky coast of the Siren’s island and be shipwrecked.  Not untypically for the tales from antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Roman said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae (all places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs).  It was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but having no wish to be shipwrecked, he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf.  Odysseus then ordered them to tie him to the mast.  Sailing past, when he heard their lovely voices, he ordered his men to release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the Sirens were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and died.

#metoo: Apolo persiguiendo a Dafne (Apollo chasing Daphne (circa 1637)), oil on canvas by Theodoor van Thulden (1606–1669) after Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The feminine proper name Daphne was from the Greek daphne (laurel, bay tree) and in mythology was the name of a nymph.  Etymologists conclude the word is related to the Latin laurus (laurel) although the mechanism has been lost in time.  In Greek mythology, Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, was a nymph with whom the God Apollo fell in love; he was provoked by Cupid, having disputed with him the power of his darts which Apollo, the recent conqueror of the Python, belittled.  When he pursued her to the banks of the Peneus, she was saved from being ravished by the god who transformed her into a Laurel tree, the origin of Apollo being so often depicted crowned with laurel leaves.  None of the writers from Antiquity seem ever to have pondered whether the nymph, had she been offered the choice between being ravished by a Greek god or being eternally arboreous, might have preferred to permit a slice to be cut from the loaf.  Still, being a sentimental chap, Apollo adopted the laurel as his favorite tree so there’s that.  The site of temples and a stadium, the Grove of Daphne was a pleasure resort of renowned natural beauty, dedicated to Apollo and located near Antioch.

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) in a “laurel leaves” hat designed by Hubert de Givenchy (1927–2018), photograph by Howell Conant (1916–1999), Switzerland, February 1962.

As an adjective, laureate (crowned with laurels as a mark of distinction) dates from the late fourteenth century and the earliest reference was to poets of particular distinction, from the Latin laureatus (crowned with laurel), from laurea (laurel crown; emblematic of victory or distinction in poetry), from the feminine laureus (of laurel).  The first known use of Laureat poete is in Geoffrey Chaucer’s (circa 1344-1400) Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) in reference to Scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), and it was used in Middle English of Greek fabulist Aesop (circa 620–564 BC) and, by the early fifteenth century of Chaucer himself.  In English the inverted form “poet laureate” was in imitation of Latin word order and although used informally since the early 1400s, the evidence suggests the first to be appointed by the state was probably (and perhaps posthumously) Benjamin Jonson (circa 1572–circa 1637) (1638) in 1638 although the first from whom the letters patent remain extant was John Dryden (1631–1700).  In the UK, the position of Poet Laureate is an honorary office in the gift of the monarch but these days, appointed on the advice of the prime minister.  Because many prime-ministers know nothing of poetry, they take advice on the matter.  There was a time when the Poet Laureate was an exalted character but these days there’s less interest and the best remembered is probably still Ted Hughes (1930–1998; Poet Laureate 1984-2008) and then less for his verse than the calls by feminists to boycott his works because he had Sylvia Path’s (1932-1963) “blood on his quill”. The noun came into existence in the 1520s, either an evolution from the adjective or through a mistaken reading of poet laureate and laureateship has been in use since 1732.  Laureate is most frequently used of Nobel prize winners, a use that began in 1947.

Boycott

Boycott (pronounced boi-kot)

(1) To combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with, as a means of intimidation or coercion; the refusal to purchase the products of an individual, corporation, or nation as a way to apply social and political pressure for change.

(2) To abstain from buying or using.

1880: (in the sense described): Named after Charles Boycott, an estate manager in Ireland, against whom nonviolent coercive tactics were used in 1880.  The surname, recorded as Boycott and Boykett, is both English and Irish, although the origins are the same.  It appears originally to have been locational from Boycott, either in Berkshire or Shropshire, derived from “Boia's cot” (Boia a pre-seventh century Old English term of personal endearment for a boy or young man).  Boycott is a proper noun, boycott is a noun & verb, boycotting is a noun & verb, boycotter, boycottism & boycottage are nouns, boycotted is a verb; the noun plural is boycotts.

Origin

Captain Charles Boycott (1832–97) was an English land agent for an absentee landlord in County Mayo, Ireland.  In 1880, after a year of bad harvests, the landlord offered his tenants what he considered a generous 10% reduction in their rents.  The tenants however thought this parsimonious and demanded a 25% reduction which was rejected and Captain Boycott was dispatched to evict the revolting tenants.  About the same time, the period which came to be known as the Irish “land war”, Irish nationalist politician Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), a member of the Irish Land League, had proposed dealing with landlords and land agents through a peaceful form of social ostracism rather than resorting to violence, suggesting the local community should simply ignore the land agents and conduct no business with them.

Former England cricket captain Geoffrey Boycott (b 1940), Headingley, Leeds, 1977, playing a rare defensive shot.

As news of Boycott’s evictions spread, he found himself isolated within the local community and, despite the immediate economic consequences, his workers stopped working in his fields, stables and house, local businessmen no longer traded with him and the postman refused to deliver his mail.  Because of these actions, Boycott faced financial peril because nobody would harvest the crops, forcing him to bring in fifty workers and an escort of almost a thousand armed police and soldiers to guard them, the cost of these measures exceeding the value of the harvest.  Following the harvest, the boycott on Boycott was sustained and the new use of the word spread quickly, the New York Tribune applying the term in 1880, The Spectator the following year.  It has entered other languages, being used sometimes in French, German, Spanish, Italian and even Japanese (ボイコット (Boikotto)).

The boycott can be an effective tactic which can be applied in diplomacy, commerce or politics, the boycotting of elections a widely used tactic.   

Historically and by convention, a boycott is an action by an individual or a community whereas such programmes pursued by states tend to be known as embargos or sanctions.  An interesting hybrid, designed to encourage individuals, institutions and states, is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led pressure group, formed in 2005, with a stated objective to force Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank, full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the right Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.

Eschew

Eschew (pronounced es-choo)

To abstain or keep away from; to refuse to use or participate in; stand aloof from; shun; avoid.

1300–1350: From the Middle English eschewen from the Old French eschiver & eschever (shun, eschew, avoid, dispense with (which in the third-person present was eschiu), from the Frankish skiuhan (to dread, shun, avoid), from the Proto-Germanic skeukhwaz (source also of the Old High German sciuhen (to avoid, escape) and the German scheuen (to fear, shun, shrink from), from scheu (shy, timid).  In German the evolution produced the Old High German sciuhen & skiuhan (to frighten away) and the German scheuchen (shoo, shoo away, drive away).  The Italian schivare (to avoid, shun, protect from) from schivo (shy, bashful) are both related loan words from the Germanic.  Eschew, eschewed & eschewing are verbs and eschewal & eschewance are nouns; the most common noun plural is eschewals.

Orson Wells (1915-1985) as Sir John Falstaff, Chimes of Midnight (1965).

The convention of use has evolved to suggest the verb eschew should not be applied to the avoidance or shunning of a person or specific physical object but only to the ideas, concepts, or other intangibles and William Shakespeare (1564–1616), in Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor (1602), though the concept a binary: “What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd”.  Avoid is the most often used synonym, similar but not quite in the same sense are “circumvent”, “boycott” and “forgo”.  Eschew is a verb, the nouns are eschewment, eschewal & eschewer.

Lindsay Lohan eschewing some underwear and the fastening of a couple of buttons, Los Angeles, 2010.

The surviving dialectical variation is the Scots umbechew (umschew & umchew now extinct), the construct being umbe- +‎ eschew.  As a transitive, it meant “to avoid; shun” and as an intransitive “to get away; escape”.  The prefix umbe- is from the Middle English um-, umbe- & embe-, from Old English ymb- & ymbe- (around), from the Proto-Germanic umbi- (around, about, by, near), from the primitive Indo-European hzmbhi (round about, around).  It was cognate with the Dutch om- (around), the German um- (around), the Latin amb- (around, about), the Latin ambi- (both), the Ancient Greek ἀμφί (amphí) (around, about), the Sanskrit अभि (abhi) (against, about).  The prefix (meaning around; about) is no longer productive, obsolete outside mostly Scots dialects.

Swansong

Swansong (pronounced swon-sawng)

(1) The last act or manifestation of someone or something; farewell appearance.

(2) According to legend, the first and last song a dying swan was said to sing.

1831: A compound word, swan + song and a calque from the original German Schwanenlied (that construct being Schwan + Lied).  Swan dated from before 900 and was from the Middle English & Old English swan, from the Proto-Germanic swanaz (swan, literally “the singing bird”), from the primitive Indo-European swonhz- & swenhz- (to sing, make sound”).  It was cognate with the West Frisian swan, the Low German Swaan, the Dutch zwaan, the German Schwan, the Norwegian svane and the Swedish svan.  It was related also to the Old English ġeswin (melody, song) & swinsian (to make melody), the Latin sonus (sound), the Old Norse svanr, the Middle Low German swōn and the Russian звон (zvon) (ringing) & звук (zvuk) (sound).  Song was from the Middle English & Old English song & sang (noise, song, singing, chanting; poetry; a poem to be sung or recited, psalm, lay), from the Proto-Germanic sangwaz (singing, song), from the primitive Indo-European songwh-o- (singing, song) from sengwh- (to sing). It was cognate with the Scots sang & song (singing, song), the Saterland Frisian Song, the West Frisian sang, the Dutch zang, the Low German sang, the German Sang (singing, song), the Swedish sång (song), the Norwegian Bokmål sang, the Norwegian Nynorsk (song), the Icelandic söngur and the Ancient Greek ὀμφή (omphḗ) (voice, oracle).  It was related to the Gothic saggws and the Old High German sang.  Swansong (used also a swan song & swan-song) is a noun; the noun plural is swansongs.

The English swansong (which has always existed also as swan song and swan-song) was a calque of the German Schwanenlied (Schwan (swan) + Lied (song)) (also as Schwanengesang), the term alluding to the old belief that swans normally are mute but burst into beautiful song moments before they die.  Although the idea is much older, swansong appeared first in English translation in 1831 but did not pass into common use until after 1890 which is perhaps surprising giver Chaucer mentions the singing of swans as early as the late fourteenth century.  To date, Lindsay Lohan's last single release was Back to Me (2020), released on the Casablanca label.  She has hinted it may be included on a yet to be released third album but this far, musically, it's her swansong.

The romantic roadster's swansong

Ferrari's Dino 246 F1 on the Monza banking, Italian Grand Prix, September 1960.

The swansong for the front-engined open wheel racing cars which had since the early twentieth century dominated top-flight motorsport came in the 1960s.  In 1959, both the driver’s and constructor’s championships were claimed using rear-engined machines and as the new decade began, it was obvious to all in the once unpredictable behaviour of the layout had been mastered (at least on race tracks in the hands of expert drivers) and the opening eight rounds of the season did nothing to change that view, rear-engined cars winning the lot.  Ferrari, still running the front-engined Dino 246 F1, were not happy and that meant most of Italy was similarly grumpy something which induced the organizers of the Italian Grand Prix to stage their event under conditions designed to suit the Scuderia’s last remain advantage: straight-line speed.  Accordingly, it was announced the event would be held using the combined road and oval course at the Monza Autodrome, making what was already the championship’s highest speed circuit faster still.  With both titles already decided, the leading teams opted to boycott the event, attracted by neither the prospect of their delicate machines being subjected to the notorious roughness of the concrete banking nor the prospect of a high-speed accident following mechanical damage.  As planned, Scuderia Ferrari enjoyed a 1-2-3 result, delighting the Italian crowd.  It was the last World Championship grand prix won by a front-engined car.

The rebodied 246 F1, Lady Wigram Trophy weekend, RNZAF (Royal New Zealand Air Force) Wigram Air Base, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1964.

The winning Dino 246 F1 therefore became a machine of some historical significance but even though Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) may have suspected the success would not again be repeated, he was not sentimental about yesterday’s car, happy usually to sell anything obsolete to gain funds so he might build something with which to win tomorrow.  The Monza winner was thus sold to a private racer in New Zealand who, with a similar pragmatism, removed the 2.5 litre V6 in favour of the greater power and torque offered by a 3 litre V12 Testa Rossa engine in sports car trim.  In that form, he campaigned the hybrid Ferrari for two quite successful years but found no buyers when he tried to sell it, most agreeing with Il Commendatore that, big engine and all, it was just another, uncompetitive relic with the engine in the wrong place.  Thinking laterally, the owner took a very modern approach, having a coachbuilder fabricate in sixteen gauge aluminium a body strikingly similar to the factory’s own 250 GTOs, creating a very fast road car and one of the few on the road with the underpinnings of the machine which won an Italian Grand Prix.  The rules were rather more relaxed in those days.  In that form it was run until 1967 when it was sold, along with its original body, to an English collector who restored it to it with its V6 engine to the configuration in which it ran at Monza in 1960.  It’s still seen as an entry in historic events on the European calendar.

Ran just before crashed, nicely patinaed, one headlamp believed matching numbers and in original condition: 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial, as sold (left & centre) and in period (right).

To Enzo Ferrari for whom old race cars were usually just assets to be sold, it would in 1960 have amused him had anyone suggested decades later, people would pay millions of dollars for old, battered Ferraris, some of which never came close to winning anything.  Improbable as it would have sounded, he might have conceded such things could one day happen if the vehicles had four wheels and were drivable but the state of the 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial which in August 2023 sold at auction for US$1.875 million would have been beyond comprehension.  The second Mondial built and one of 13 examples with Pininfarina spider coachwork, it was one of the rare “customer” race cars which used two litre, four cylinder engines and was campaigned extensively in Italy and the US where, sometime between 1963-1965 (the stories vary) it crashed and was incinerated, apparently while fitted with a Chevrolet V8, the swap a common practice at the time.

Some assembly required.

The provenance is solid if not illustrious.  It was raced by a one-time Scuderia Ferrari team driver and its many appearances includes starts in the Mille Miglia, Targa Florio, and Imola Grand Prix.  Although the original engine is long gone, the sale included a comparable 3.0-liter Tipo 119 Lampredi four while the transmission is original and thus “matching numbers”.  Belying the Italian corporations' (usually undeserved) reputation for chaotic record keeping, the supplied documentation was an impressive wad, including the precious factory build sheets and homologation papers.  In the hands of experts, such a thing can be restored although without the original engine, it hard to predict if it will realise the same value as the US$4.15 million a similar Mondial (Chassis number 0448 MD and all "matching numbers") in restored condition achieved in 2019.

The Offenhauser-powered Watson Special, winner of the 1964 Indianapolis 500.

In the US, the swansong of the front-engined roadsters at the Indianapolis 500 came a little later, the last victory coming in 1964.  As in so many things however, the end came quickly and the next year a solitary roadster completed the full race distance, finishing a creditable fifth.  The last roadster to appear in the event in 1968 qualified on the second to last row of the grid and completed only nine lap of the 200 laps, retiring with a collapsed piston.  That run was at the time little noted but it’s now remembered as the swansong of the front-engined roadsters in top flight racing. 

Richard Strauss, Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949), was the last great German composer in the Romantic tradition and Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) was his swansong, the last set of work he wrote.  Inspired by the poetry of Nobel Laureate Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788-1857), all four are pieces of exquisite beauty but Strauss didn’t live to hear them performed, the premiere delivered posthumously in London in 1950, sung by Kirsten Flagstad (1895–1962), accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954).

Many notable sopranos have sung the songs but the definitive performance remains the 1965 recording by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915-2006) with the Radio-Symphonieorchester Berlin under György Széll (1897–1970).  (CD: EMI Classics Cat: 0724356696020[9]).

Four Last Songs Since their collaboration, the need again to record the songs vanished; it's simply not possible to improve on  Schwarzkoph's achievement in 1965.  Re-mastered versions from the original master-tapes have been released and they're of interest to audiophiles but add nothing to the atmospherics so well captured in the Berlin sessions. 

Spring (Hermann Hesse)

Wandering in darkness under your high
vaulting branches, I have dreamed so long
of your green leaves and breezy blue sky,
the vibrant fragrances–and the bird song!
 
Now, as you open your robe of winter night,
your brilliance staggers every sense.
The world sparkles in the light
of a Miracle, your recurring presence.
 
I feel the healing touch
of softer days, warm and tender.
My limbs tremble–happily, too much–
as I stand inside your splendor.

September (Hermann Hesse)

The garden mourns.
The flowers fill with cold rain.
Summer shivers
in the chill of its dying domain.
 
Yet summer smiles, enraptured
by the garden’s dreamy aphasia
as gold, drop by drop, falls
from the tall acacia.
 
With a final glance at the roses–
too weak to care, it longs for peace–
then, with darkness wherever it gazes,
summer slips into sleep.

When I Go to Sleep (Hermann Hesse)

Now that day has exhausted me
I give myself over, a tired child,
to the night and to my old friends, the stars–
my watchful guardians, quiet and mild.
 
Hands–let everything go.
Head–stop thinking.
I am content to follow
where my senses are sinking.
 
Into the darkness, I swim out free:
Soul, released from all your defenses,
enter the magic, sidereal circle
where the gathering of souls commences.

 At Sunset (Joseph Karl Benedikt Freiherr von Eichendorff)

We have passed through sorrow and joy,
walking hand in hand.
Now we need not seek the way:
we have settled in a peaceful land.
 
The dark comes early to our valley,
and the night mist rises.
Two dreamy larks sally
forth–our souls’ disguises.
 
We let their soaring flight delight
us, then, overcome by sleep
at close of day, we must alight
before we fly too far, or dive too deep.
 
The great peace here is wide and still
and rich with glowing sunsets:
If this is death, having had our fill
of getting lost, we find beauty, –No regrets.