Prologus

I've been thinking about doing a blog for some time, and my friend Corr convinced me tonight that it was time. So here goes. I feel like adding some sort of disclaimer here, à la the Renaissance writers who would pen a "To the Gentle Reader" to beg for forgiveness in advance for the supposed unworthiness of their output. But, perhaps I'll just quote Gottfried of Strassburg instead who, in the prologue to his "Tristan" wrote:

“I have undertaken a labor, a labor out of love for the world, and to comfort noble hearts: those that I hold dear, and the world to which my heart goes out. Not the common world do I mean, of those who (as I have heard) cannot bear grief and desire but to bathe in bliss. (May God then let them dwell in bliss!) Their world and manner of life my tale does not regard: its life and mine lie apart. Another world do I hold in mind, which bears together in one heart its bitter sweetness and its dear grief, its heart's delight and its pain of longing, dear life and sorrowful death, dear death and sorrowful life. In this world let me have my world, to be damned with it, or to be saved.” —GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG

So thus, gentle reader, I remain,
Ani