Letters from Quotidia 2025 Weekend Supplement 1 Furor Poeticus

Welcome to Letters from Quotidia 2025, Weekend supplement 1- Furor Poeticus. Quotidia exists as a safe place for ordinary people who sometimes get a glimpse of the extraordinary. From time to time, as the original Letters roll out over the coming months, there will be occasions when the urge to scratch the creative itch becomes unbearable.

So where does it come from? This urge to create something new that itches until scratched, wherein a spark ignites a flame that may grow into a conflagration, or which is more likely, merely results in reddened, irritated skin as flaking epithelial cells drift slowly to the floor to accumulate as one of the more harmless components of household dust.

I surmise it all began as humanity emerged from the African savannah and started to spread across the globe where some type of protoshamanism arose from the human condition as we struggled to make meaning of this new world we found ourselves in.  I tap into the core of this when I play my bodhran and freestyle on the whistle as I lubricate my throat and soul with a good red wine, toasting Dionysus (or Bacchus as the mood takes me).

The ancient Greeks give us the word enthusiasm which relates to the nine muses who inspire the various arts and sciences. Then we find the Hebraic tradition which yields prophets, such as Amos or Ezekiel, speaking as God’s instruments. Later, the Christians explain it as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Of course, more secular modern thinkers regard the whole notion as just an electrochemical phenomenon taking place solely within the human brain. Jonathan Swift, renowned Irish wit and satirist, predating these sceptics by a century or two, saw fancy as an antirational, mad quality, where “once a man’s fancy gets astride his reason, common sense is kick’t out of doors.”  

Well, common sense hasn’t been much in evidence over my lifetime, but this won’t stop me attempting to explicate the song Furor Poeticus. First, follow me into the valley of dry bones where Ezekiel takes up the narrative.

The hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out… and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones…there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? …Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord…Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:…And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live…

And this is what we do, those of us who are afflicted with the need to create. Like Doctor Frankenstein, we attempt to breathe life into what our imagination has insisted on laying in front of us on a table somewhere in the dark dungeon of our psyche! The not-so-good doctor wanted to be like God and create a new life. Are we so much different, seeking to bring into existence something that has not been before?

Poet Dylan Thomas, with his Celtic visionary gift and a prodigious talent that consumed him from within had some idea of this impulse when he wrote In my craft or sullen art/Exercised in the still night/When only the moon rages/And the lovers lie abed/With all their griefs in their arms,/I labour by singing light/Not for ambition or bread/Or the strut and trade of charms/On the ivory stages/But for the common wages/Of their most secret heart./Not for the proud man apart/From the raging moon I write/On these spindrift pages/Nor for the towering dead/With their nightingales and psalms/But for the lovers, their arms/Round the griefs of the ages,/Who pay no praise or wages/Nor heed my craft or art.//  

Ancient Greeks (c. 5^th Century BC) regarded artists as becoming possessed by a furor poeticus or poetic madness where they are not in control of the content that issues from them. The prophet Amos, writing three centuries prior to this, expresses a similar idea: The lion hath roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken! Who can but prophesy? I cite these examples from antiquity to excuse my lack of control over the song you are about to hear. Do you know the old Yiddish saying Mann tracht, un-Gott Lacht (Man plans and God laughs)?

I had a plan, neatly laid out, where I would refer in my lyrics to myths drawn from a wide range of European sources which would astound my listeners with the depth and subtlety of my erudition. Almost immediately, however, the wheels came off this stratagem.

Instead, I found myself writing about a picaresque hero whose hallucinogenic adventures take him from a fairytale forest to Caliban’s island, then to a travelling caravan which leads to crusading with a knight, transmogrifying into seeking treasure in the Americas and upon return to London becoming an actor in Shakespeare’s company leading to banishment in the arctic North then to travels with tinkers where he acquires a wife and six children only to lose them to marauders from the far South concluding with final immurement in a hermit’s cell where his whole world collapses around him as a result of a huge storm.

And I promise no drop of wine or other intoxicating substance entered my body or brain during this omni-shambles of a composition. So what excuse are you going to come up with this time? I hear my listeners ask. Since I can’t blame it on booze or its equivalents, furor poeticus is, I suggest, the only remaining explanation-Listen! [insert song]

Once upon a time I was a fresh young lad,

Looking for adventure in the forest dark

Stopped by a running stream to quench my thirst

Grabbed a bunch of mushrooms I was hungry too

Oh the sky started spinning round

I fell into a chasm opened in the ground

The stars above shone as coloured spheres

Jangling music sounded in my ears

I woke up on a sandy beach with lapping waves

Caliban was dancing there with motley friends

They gave me some brandy from a stoneware jug

Told me I would have to entertain them now

So I sang them a sweet song my mother taught

They pelted me with rotten fruit- told me to stop

So I wandered off to see what else there was to find

Joined a passing caravan to a distant land

Time’s a rushing stream, whether waking or in dreams

It carries you to that sea where all things are revealed

Found myself in service with a noble knight

Followed him to battle for our regal king

Captured by our foes we were held for years

Ransomed back to where we started for our pains

Next I joined a sailing ship to search for gold

In a far distant land where jaguars roared

There I caught a fever that laid me low

Stowed away upon a ship to my home port

Where I joined a troupe of strolling players neat

We entertained the crowd with dramas by the score

They clapped and cried for more and we obliged of course

How I love the sound of applause in my ears

Then we were shut down by a fierce decree

Not everyone likes music or laughter- it appears

So I packed my bags to a far northern land

Where the days are cold the nights are colder still

Time’s a rushing stream, whether waking or in dreams

It carries you to that sea where all things are revealed

Sooner or later you must make the choice

Which side you play on in the game of life

Whether on the edges or the thick of it

Sooner or later you must take your pick

[4 bar instrumental interlude]

I wandered with the tinkers mending pots and pans

Meeting friends and trading horses at summer fairs

Met a blue-eyed woman with raven hair

Threw in out lot together then and there

Six kids later equal boys and girls

We struggled through some hard times to be sure

Raiders from the south carried them away

I searched for them for years to no avail

Now I find myself inside a hermit’s cell

Scratching out a living with my ink and quill

Sound of distant thunder means a coming storm

Lightning flashes round me as I write this song

And as I write- an almighty crash

The chimney collapses in soot and ash

My papers scattered to the howling wind

And this means I must begin again

Time’s a rushing stream, whether waking or in dreams

It carries you to that sea where all things are revealed

Credits: All written text, song lyrics andmusic (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.

Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.