Woke this morning to the chiding of the sun. One always knows that it shall
be a bad—or, at the very least, trying—day when distant instances
of extreme combustion seem to have gained the power of speech.
Moving on, however, to other things. Why is it that, as I read some few of
Aemilia Lanyer’s (thought by some to be Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’ — my copy had been annotated by a student with feminist leanings, who had not yet learnt to avoid the ballpoint pen when marking up books) poems in the bath this morning, I had the sudden desire to read Horace? Me nec femina nec puer iam nec spes animi credula mutui nec certare iuvat mero nec vincire novis tempora floribus…