March 29, 2018

"In his fifteenth satire, Juvenal had scoffed at Egyptians for allegedly worshipping onions..."

"... 'What a holy race (o sanctas gentes) to have such divinities springing up in their gardens.'* Sir Walter Raleigh, in an anti-Catholic mood, compared such worship of food to the sacrament of Holy Communion, where Christians munch on their god. John Donne, George Herbert, and Robert Herrick all followed Raleigh’s lead, joking, as Herbert wrote, of anyone 'who makes a root his god.' Thus, [the scholar Tom] Tashiro notes, 'the lowly onion was touched with divinity and thereby entered into the works of a few great poets.' When Rome seemed less of a threat, onions seemed less ripe for poetry. 'Only with the passing of time,' Tashiro concludes, 'in the nineteenth century, on the Continent, would the onion again receive the attention of great writers—of the Scandinavians and of the Russians—for whom it became a symbol of the self and would have moral virtues.' Tashiro is presumably alluding to Grushenka’s parable in The Brothers Karamazov: a guardian angel gives a wicked woman in hell one last chance at salvation. Did she ever do one good deed? Yes, she once gave an onion to a beggar. The angel appeals to God who says, fine, take that onion and yank her out of the lake of fire with it. Other sinners hold onto her feet, hoping for a free ride, but she kicks them off. 'I’m the one who’s getting pulled out, not you,' she says. 'It’s my onion.' At that very moment, the onion breaks. For some reason, I think of this parable whenever I drive by the Colt Armory, on Interstate 91 in Hartford, with its incongruous onion dome, bright blue and studded with gold stars.** It’s my Second Amendment, I imagine someone saying."

From "Renoir’s Onions" by Christopher Benfey (in The New York Review of Onions).

Here are Renoir's Onions, in case you're wondering how Benfey got from Egypt to The Brothers Karamazov to the Second Amendment:



These are crazy times, but a man once took that much time to paint 6 onions, and now we have Trump... and no hell.

________________

* Juvenal wrote, "Who knows not... what monsters demented Egypt worships? One district adores the crocodile, another venerates the Ibis that gorges itself with snakes. In the place where magic chords are sounded by the truncated Memnon, and ancient hundred-gated Thebes lies in ruins, men worship the glittering golden image of the long-tailed ape. In one part cats are worshipped, in another a river fish, in another whole townships venerate a dog; none adore Diana, but it is an impious outrage to crunch leeks and onions with the teeth. What a holy race to have such divinities springing up in their gardens! No animal that grows wool may appear upon the dinner-table; it is forbidden there to slay the young of the goat; but it is lawful to feed on the flesh of man!"

** Here's an image of that dome (cc Onasill ~ Bill Badzo):

Hardford Connecticut ~ United States Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, Inc. ~  Colt Armory Complex

19 comments:

Churchy LaFemme: said...

It yam an onion!

Unknown said...

There's a movement dedicated to the idea that "Renoir sucks at painting."

https://www.instagram.com/renoir_sucks_at_painting/?hl=en

n.n said...

The onion is a metaphor for the twilight amendment. Think of the children who release their first and last tear in darkness.

n.n said...

Don't cry. Dry your eye. Hold the onion peeled in the twilight of privacy and life.

YoungHegelian said...

Sir Walter Raleigh, in an anti-Catholic mood, compared such worship of food to the sacrament of Holy Communion, where Christians munch on their god.

Don't take that "anti-Catholic" mood to be an "anti-Christian" mood. Raleigh was from a "very Protestant" family, which means he was a part of the wave of Calvinism that was very strong in the Church of England at the time. The denial of the Real Presence was a big of thing for the Calvinists, like it had been for John Wycliffe & the Lollards that came after Wycliffe.

As the Calvinists lost power in the CofE (starting at least under King James), & the CofE went into its "Via Media" phase, it also defaulted back to the Real Presence, although fuzzier than either the Catholic transubstantiation or the Lutheran consubstantiation.

eddie willers said...

Don't cry. Dry your eye. Hold the onion peeled in the twilight of privacy and life.

It's only teenage wasteland.

gadfly said...

Hell Has No Beer - That's Why We Drink It Here

OUTER DARKNESS, HELL—Becoming disoriented by the sight of a shrieking, many-headed snake emerging in agony from a nearby lava pit, Pope Francis reportedly found himself in the depths of Hell Friday after taking a wrong turn in the nigh-endless catacombs beneath the Vatican. “Ah, crap, not again,” said the Pope, cursing his phone’s lack of service and wondering if he should have turned left at the Holy See’s acre-wide pile of Nazi gold. “It always takes me forever to find my way back, even if I can find a demon willing to give me non-allegorical directions. I guess since I’m already down here I’ll check out this Lake of Fire that [former Pope] Benedict says is a must-see, but still, what a way to spend a weekend.” The Pontiff admitted, however, that his infernal excursion was better than the time he got lost in the Vatican’s parking garage, wound up in purgatory, and spent all day listening to the crying of unbaptized babies.

Ralph L said...

Interesting that Thebes was in ruins that early.

tcrosse said...

Another story from The Onion.

Mister Brickhouse said...

I'll have some Ranch dressing with that word salad, and hold the onions.

rcocean said...

Onion all, onion all,
The sweet and the tall,

Onion all those Sergeants and WO1's,
Onion all those Corporals and their blinkin'/bleedin' sons,
Cos' we're saying goodbye to 'em all.
And back to their Billets they crawl,
You'll get no promotion this side of the ocean,
So cheer up my lads bless onion'em all

Bilwick said...

That picture of the dome makes me think, "Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!"

YoungHegelian said...

And who can forget this onion-related acme of Western Civ.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I've driven past the onion dome in Hartford more than a few times, never knew what it was.

Grant said...

Two thousand years on and Juvenal has barely aged at all.

traditionalguy said...

Everybody loves the French for inventing oignon soup. That appetizer plus a desert is all you need.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Juvenal humor.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Thanks for springing that completely OT jab at the Second Amendment on us. Not sufficiently beat to death in social media, presumably.

mikee said...

Regarding the Colt plant, one might be more interested in the famously prancing pony with spear, rather than the onion shape of the dome.

"The Colt company emblem is a modification of the Colt family coat of arms dating back to medieval England. In ancient heraldry a horse is a symbol of loyalty and service to a monarch. A broken spear or lance symbolizes a fallen knight. The famous Rampant Colt Pony is taken from the coat of arms, and pictures a horse defending it's fallen knight by breaking a lance in half, one half over it's legs and the other in it's mouth. This is an ancient symbol of loyalty."