Valentine’s Day Oracle – The Shining Ones
Priestess of Delphi,
by John Collier
Phædriades – the shining ones – a pair of cliffs enclosing the sacred site of Delphi, centre of the Hellenic world, and place of Apollo’s temple where the Pythia delivered her oracles in vapour-induced frenzy.
In this digital age, she no longer need proclaim from the temple, clutching laurel leaves and holy water from the Kassotis spring, nor is she restricted to prophesying in the warmer months, but is available internationally, 24/7, at:
Traditionally oracles were vague and duplicitous in meaning, ensuring whatever the outcome, the Pythia was right. But today, amid the noise, her message of Love is beautifully clear:
Let there be, for a time, no driving aim;
No mission, no goal, no fury’d intent.
Notice the hours—how they lengthen and breathe:
Like dust in the sunset, thy soul is content.
Mad Bear Books 
as chaucer put it so finely:
For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
happy cheesemakin’, lovers!
Digestive cheese and fruit there sure will be;
But that which most doth take my Muse and me,
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,
Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine…
(Spelling had improved somewhat by the time of Jonson)
All those who quality do prize
Must study color, taste and size
And keep their dishes clean and sweet,
And all things round their factories neat,
For dairymen insist that these
Are all important points in cheese.
Grant has here a famous work
Devoted to the cause of pork.
For dairymen find that it doth pay
To fatten pigs upon the whey,
For there is money raising grease
As well as in the making cheese.
“Hints To Cheese Makers (Addressed to Jonathan Wingle, Esq.)”
by James McIntyre, the Chaucer of cheese (http://www.swiftandbored.com/mcintyre/index.html)
… if the preceding Dinner has been a light one, a little bit of
Cheese after it may not do much harm, but its character for encouraging
concoction is undeserved,–there is not a more absurd Vulgar Error, than
the often quoted proverb, that
“Cheese is a surly Elf,
Digesting all things, but itself.”
(from w. kitchiner’s “peptic precepts”, 1822)
The “Chaucer of Cheese” is v v good, but the link no longer leads us to the Bard of Brie, Brocciat et Blue!