Paean

Paean (pronounced pee-uhn)

(1) A hymn of invocation or thanksgiving, sun in Ancient Greece to Apollo or some other deity.

(2) By extension, a song of praise, joy or triumph, especially if sung loudly and joyously).

(3) By extension, an expression of reverential or enthusiastic praise.

1535–1545: From the Latin paean, (religious or festive hymn; hymn of deliverance, hymn to a help-giving god), from the Ancient Greek (παιάν (also παιήων or παιών)) (paiān) (hymn to Apollo), from his title Paiā́n (or Paiōn) (denoting the physician to the gods), from the phrase Ἰὼ Παιᾱ́ν (Iṑ Paiā́n) (“O Paean!, Thanks to Paean!).  As well as the name (from Homer) by which the divine physician was known, paiān was later an epithet of Apollo and thus of interest is the literal translation "one who touches" (in the sense of “curing by a touch of the hand”), perhaps from a word in the hymn like paio (to touch, strike).  English picked it up as paean (as did Middle French) which was adopted in many languages but variations include the French péan (although the Middle French paean peacefully co-exists), the Italian peana and the Portuguese peã & péan.

The Greek παιάν was from παιάϝων (paiáwōn) (one who heals illnesses with magic) but the origin is contested.  Some etymologists link it with παῖϝα & παϝία (blow), related to παίω (beat), from the primitive Indo-European pēu-, pyu- & pū- (to hit; to cut)- or παύω (paúō) (withhold; to bring to an end; to abate, to stop), from the primitive Indo-European pehw- (few, little; smallness).  Paiān remains however mysterious and may be from the Archaic Greek or indeed be pre-Greek.  Paean (present participle paeaning & past participle paeaned) & paeanism are nouns, paeanic is an adjective, paeanically seems to have been used as an adverb and paeanize is a verb (apparently first used by philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) in the early seventeenth century).  The noun plural is paeans and the alternative spelling (in occasional US use) is pean (pæan the traditional form).  A paean may variously be referred to variously as a hymn, acclamation, anthem, ode, praise, psalm, song, laud or laudation and, outside the technical use in texts from Antiquity, the choice is probably dictated by context and desired literary effect.

A fresco of Apollo playing the kithara, from a building in the Forum of Rome (Augustan period), Museum of the Forum Romanum, Rome.

As the lyrical phrase “O Paean!” hints, in Antiquity, a Paean was a song of joyful triumph.  Most surviving texts suggest the paean was written usually in the ancient Greek Dorian mode and was accompanied by the kithara, the instrument of Apollo, god of music.  The military, when paeans were sung on the battlefield, augmented the kithara by the aulos and kithara.

Confusion still sometimes surrounds the understanding of the Greek Dorian Mode because it was long confused with the modern use of “Dorian” mode.  Like many of the tangled constructions and interpretations from Greek & Latin which endure to this day, the fault lies mostly with medieval ecclesiastical scholars.  Some of the names of musical modes in use today, (Mixolydian; Dorian), are direct borrowings in spelling but not meaning, the scribes of the Church misunderstanding the mechanics of Greek texts.  In Athens and beyond, intervals were counted from top to bottom whereas the practice during the Middle Ages was (sometimes) to work from bottom to top, hence the jumble.  The error was recognized by the seventeenth century but such had been the proliferation of the new conventions of use that the misinterpretations were allowed to remain, labelled “Church Modes” to distinguish them from the ancients.

The problems began with the translation of a treatise on music (De institutione musica (The Structure of Music (circa 507)) by Boethius (Saint Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius; circa 478-524, a Roman and historian and philosopher) which was neglected until unearthed by scholars during the ninth century who found it so compelling it was soon the most widely translated and disseminated medieval work on the subject.  The influence of Boethius was immense, his De consolatione philosophiae (On the Consolation of Philosophy (523)) one of the classic works through which the classical age was understood during the centuries which followed although modern historians do caution the medieval (and later) reverence of antiquity did lead to some idealized and romantic visions of the lost world taking hold.

Both Plato & Aristotle fancied themselves as musicologists and thought the ancient Greek Dorian the most "manly" of all the musical modes, suggesting it could move soldiers to heroic acts in battle.  The famous Battle of Thermopylae, a paean composed for a solo lyre, was inspired by the tale of two-thousand-odd Spartans, Thespians & Thebans, a rear-guard which for two days defied a whole Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.  Professional musicians today note that to convey the martial spirit which should be summoned in performance, it’s vital to understand the ancient Greek Dorian mode so it’s played with the vigor Plato & Aristotle described when writing of the technique.

The USS Pueblo, moored on the Taedong River in Pyongyang, part of the DPRK’s Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum.

The USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a lightly-armed, US Navy scientific research vessel which in January 1968 was attacked and captured by the DPRK (North Korean) military which alleged she was engaged in espionage activities while in their territorial waters.  One US sailor was killed during the attack, the surviving 82 seized and not released for almost a year, a period described variously as the Pueblo “affair”, “incident" or “crisis".  The Pueblo is still held in the DPRK as a war-prize (although the legal status of that is dubious) and the US Navy has never struck the vessel from the active list, Washington’s position that it was seized illegally and should be returned.

Bowing North Koreans make their grateful paeans before the statue of Kim Il-sung (1912-1994, Great Leader of the DPRK 1948-1994).

The word paean came in handy as a diplomatic device.  As part of the deal securing the sailors’ release, the captain issued a statement "confess(ing) to his and the crew's transgression."  Before he recorded the brief speech, the text was checked by the DPRK government and they were presumably pleased at the capitalist lackeys saying: "We paean the DPRK.  We paean the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung.  We paean the DPRK flag" but missed an essential nuance, the captain pronouncing "paean" as "pee on".  Nor did seizing the hardly imposing Pueblo achieve the Great Leader’s strategic objective, the US increasing its diplomatic and military support for the ROC (South Korea).

Exquisite

Exquisite (pronounced ek-skwi-zit or ik-skwiz-it)

(1) Of special beauty or charm, or rare and appealing excellence and often associated with objects or great delicacy; of rare excellence of production or execution, as works of art or workmanship; beautiful, delicate, discriminating, perfect.

(2) Extraordinarily fine or admirable; consummate.

(3) Intense; acute, or keen, as pleasure or pain; keenly or delicately sensitive or responsive; exceeding; extreme; in a bad or a good sense (eg as exquisite pleasure or exquisite pain).

(4) Recherché; far-fetched; abstruse (a now rare early meaning which to some extent survives in surrealist’s exercise “exquisite corpse”).

(5) Of particular refinement or elegance, as taste, manners, etc or persons.

(6) A man excessively concerned about clothes, grooming etc; a dandy or coxcomb.

(7) Ingeniously devised or thought out (obsolete).

(8) Carefully adjusted; precise; accurate; exact (now less common except as an adverb.

(9) Of delicate perception or close and accurate discrimination; not easy to satisfy; exact; fastidious (related to the sense of “exquisite judgment, taste, or discernment”.

1400–1450: From the Late Middle English exquisite (carefully selected), from the Latin exquīsītus (excellent; meticulous, chosen with care (and literally “carefully sought out”)), perfect passive participle of exquīrō (to seek out), originally the past participle of exquīrere (to ask about, examine) the construct being ex- + -quīrere, a combining form of quaerere (to seek). The construct of exquīrō was ex- +‎ quaerō (seek).  The ex- prefix was applied to words in Middle English borrowed from the Middle French and was derived from the Latin ex- (out of, from) and was from the primitive Indo-European eǵ- & eǵs-.  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex-, out of, from) from the Transalpine Gaulish ex- (out), the Old Irish ess- (out), the Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ) (out), the Russian из (iz) (from, out of).  Exquisite is a noun & adjective, exquisiteness & exquisitiveness are nouns and exquisitively & exquisitely are adverbs; the noun plural is exquisites.

1972 Lancia Fulvia 1600 HF Series II.  

Everything about the Lancia Fulvia (1965-1976) appeared exquisitely delicate but the little machine was tough and was for half-a-decade a dominant force in international rallying.  A Lancia legend is that when the hood was opened on one of the first to reach the US, a mechanic, brought up on a diet of hefty V8s, upon seeing the tiny, 1.2 litre (75 cubic inch) narrow-angle V4 is said to have remarked: “Don’t ask me, take it to a jeweler.”

The etymology of the Latin quaerō (seek) is mysterious.  It may be from the Proto-Italic kwaizeō, from the primitive Indo-European kweh (to acquire) so cognates may include the Ancient Greek πέπαμαι (pépamai) (to get, acquire), the Old Prussian quoi (I/you want) & quāits (desire), the Lithuanian kviẽsti (to invite) and possibly the Albanian kam (I have).  Some have suggested the source being the primitive Indo-European kwoys & kweys (to see) but there has been little support for this.  The authoritative Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben (Lexicon of the Indo-European Verbs (LIV)), the standard etymological dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European languages, suggests it’s a derivation of hzeys (to seek, ask), via the form koaiseo.  "Exquisite corpse" is a calque of the French cadavre exquis (literally “exquisite cadaver”).  Dating from 1925, it was coined by French surrealists to describe a method of loosely structured constructivism on the model of the parlour game consequences; fragments of text (or images) are created by different people according to pre-set rules, then joined together to create a complete text.  The name comes from the first instance in 1925: Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau (The exquisite corpse will drink new wine).  Exquisite corpse is noted as a precursor to both post-modernism and deconstructionist techniques.

Although not infrequently it appears in the same sentence as the word “unique”, exquisite can be more nuanced, the comparative “more exquisite, the superlative most exquisite” and there has certainly been a change in the pattern of use.  In English, it originally was applied to any thing (good or bad, art or torture, diseases or good health), brought to a highly wrought condition, tending among the more puritanical to disapprobation.  The common modern meaning (of consummate and delightful excellence) dates from the late 1570s while the noun (a dandy, a foppish man) seems first to have been used in 1819.  One interesting variant which didn’t survive was exquisitous (not natural, but procured by art), appearing in dictionaries in the early eighteenth centuries but not since.  The pronunciation of exquisite has undergone a rapid change from ek-skwi-zit to ik-skwiz-it, the stress shifting to the second syllable.  The newer pronunciation attracted the inevitable criticism but is now the most common form on both sides of the Atlantic and use seems not differentiated by class. 

The exquisite wimp: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach

Exquisite is used almost exclusively as an adjective, applied typically to objects or performances but it’s also a noun, albeit one always rare.  As a noun it was used to describe men who inhabited that grey area of being well dressed, well coiffured, well mannered and somewhat effeminate without being obviously homosexual; it was a way of hinting at something without descending to the explicit.  PG Wodehouse (1881-1975) applied it thus in Sam the Sudden (1925) and historians Ann (1938-2021) & John Tusa (b 1936) in The Nuremberg Trial (1983) found no better noun to apply to former Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach, noting (as did his many enemies in the party) his feminine tastes in furnishings and propensity to pen poor poetry.  The companion word to describe a similar chap without of necessity the same hint of effeminacy is “aesthete”.  In The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (1992), Brigadier General Telford Taylor (1908–1998; lead US counsel at the Nuremberg Trial) wrote of him that: “at thirty-nine, was the youngest and, except perhaps for Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) and Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953; Nazi propagandist), the weakest of the defendants.  If wimps had then been spoken of, Schirach would have been so styled.”

Nazi poetry circle on the terrace at the Berghof on the Obersalzberg.

Left to right: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), Martin Bormann (1900–1945), Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), and Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945)), Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany, 1936.  Of much, the other three were guilty as sin and would (at the last possible moment) commit suicide but von Schirach would survive to die in his bed at 67.  There seems no record to confirm if that bed was in a “a snow white bedroom with delicate lace curtains” as the rougher types in the Nazi Party had once derided him for having.

Airey Neave (1916–1979) was the British military lawyer who served the indictments on the defendants at Nuremberg and in On Trial at Nuremberg (1978) he recalled the experience, cell by cell.  His first impression of von Schirach was that his appearance was “…bi-sexual and soft with thé dansant eyes [thé dansant was a dance held while afternoon tea was served and in idiomatic use “thé dansant eyes” suggested the coquettish fluttering of the lashes a flirtatious young lady might deploy]”, adding “He looked a man who might be dangerous to small boys.  At a second glance, I imagined him beneath the palms at Cannes in co-respondent shoes.”  In this context, Neave used “co-respondent” in the sense of the man cited in divorce proceedings as the one who slept with the adulterous wife and a “co-respondent shoes (or car, suit, tie etc)” were distinguished by flashiness rather than quality.

Von Schirach went on trial before the IMT (International Military Tribunal) in the first Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), an event the author Rebecca West (1892–1983) attended in her capacity as a journalist and among her impressions she wrote of him, admitting she was at first “startled” because “…he was like a woman in a way not common among men who look like women.  It was as if a neat and mousy governess sat there, not pretty but with never a hair out of place, and always to be trusted never to intrude when there were visitors: as it might be Jane Eyre.”  Although indicted also under Count 1 (conspiracy to commit crimes against peace), for his role as head (1931-1940) of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), von Schirach was convicted only under Count 4 (crimes against humanity) for his part in deporting Viennese Jews to the death camps while Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Vienna.  Cunningly, and not without ostentation, he admitted some guilt for his role in “corrupting German youth” although by that he meant the political indoctrination to which he subjected them, rather than conduct many in the Nazi party liked to hint he enjoyed with the boys under his command; however defined, it’s certain he corrupted more youth than Socrates (circa 470–399 BC).  Applying common law principles, the IMT found his actions as head of the Hitlerjugend didn’t reach the threshold of “conspiracy” and thus acquitted him on Count 1, his 20 year sentence handed down for his conduct in Vienna.  The preparation for the trial had been rushed and had subsequently discovered evidence against him been presented at the trial, doubtlessly and deservedly he’d have been hanged.  Had that sentence been imposed, whether like Göring he’d have followed Socrates and taken hemlock will never be known.

Exquisite: A style guide

Lindsay Lohan in a Gucci Porcelain Garden Print Silk Gown with an all-over Dutch toile in blue and white, high ruffled collar and bib, flared sleeves, pussy bow and a blue and red patent leather belt around a high waist, Savoy Hotel, London, June 2017.

The gown was said to have a recommended retail price (RRP) of Stg£4,040 (US$7300).  The occasion was the launch of the charitable organization One Family, dedicated to combating child trafficking.  While there was a fussiness about the detailing, the quality of the construction was obvious and successfully to use, at this scale, a pattern of this intricacy is not easy and demands a skilled eye.  On the move, it swished around nicely and although the whims of critics can be hard to predict, on the night, most seemed to like this and it was a perhaps welcome relief from the expanses of skin of the "naked dress" movement, then beginning to dominate red carpets.

Designers find inspiration where it's found: Four dinner plates from Wedgewood's Enoch "Countryside Blue" collection, circa 1967.

Within the one critique, the word exquisite can appear, used as a neutral descriptor (an expression of extent), a paean to beauty and even an ironic dismissal.  A gown for example can be “exquisitely detailed” but that doesn’t of necessity imply elegance although that would be the case of something said to be an “exquisite design”.  That said, most were drawn to the Lindsay Lohan's Gucci gown in some way, the references to Jane Austen (1775–1817) many (although historians of fashion might note Gucci’s creation as something evocative more of recent films made of Ms Austen's novels than anything representative of what was worn in her era) and the fabric’s patterning & restraint in the use of color produced a dreamily romantic look.