Brideshead Revisited

by Evelyn Waugh

Et in Arcadia Ego

The man in the middle, kneeling, is tracing the tomb’s inscription. The shepherd to the right gazes quizzically at the erect figure of the woman, who, as the embodiment of reason, contemplates the lot of one who once knew Arcadian bliss but has gone the way of all flesh. Et in Arcadia Ego is the voice of the entombed speaking: ‘Even in Arcadia, there I am’. The 17th-century French neoclassicist Nicolas Poussin made the phrase famous with this painting, though the myth of a memento mori is rooted in a passage from Virgil’s Eclogues, which was itself indebted to the third-century bc bucolic poet Theocritus. More recently, Evelyn Waugh used it for the title of the first book of Brideshead Revisited, and it inspired Ben Okri’s 2002 novel, In Arcadia.

scagliola

scagliola /ˌskalˈyōlə/ I. noun imitation marble or other stone, made of plaster mixed with glue and dyes, which is then painted or polished. – origin mid 18th cent.: from Italian scagliuola, diminutive of scaglia ‘a scale.’

subfusc

subfusc /ˌsəbˈfəsk/ I. adjective ‹literary› dull; gloomy • the light was subfusc and aqueous. II. noun (Brit.) the formal clothing worn for examinations and formal occasions at some universities. – origin early 18th cent.: from Latin subfuscus, from sub- ‘somewhat’ + fuscus ‘dark brown.’

Pindar’s Orphism.

Orphism (add hardly ever Orphicism; Antiquated Greek: ??????) is the name agreed en route for a adjust of devout beliefs after that practices [1] originating appear in the Antediluvian Greek after that the Hellenistic globe, [2] at the same time as able-bodied at the same time as as a result of the Thracians, [3] connected amid fiction ascribed headed for the fabled bard Orpheus, who descended addicted to Hades after that returned. Orphics and revered Persephone (who every twelve month descended addicted to Hades in favour of a period after that after that returned) after that Dionysus or else Bacchus (who and descended addicted to Hades afterwards returned). Orpheus was sa >[4] Verse containing clearly Orphic beliefs has been traced ago en route for the 6th century BC [5] or else by slight 5th century BC, afterwards graffiti of the 5th century BC actually refers headed for “Orphics”. [6]