Abelard: David's Lament for Jonathan

A friend notes that Peter Abelard (1079-1142) composed a Lament (Planctus) of David for Jonathan. A snippet:

...You now, my Jonathan, 
I mourn above all,
among all delights
there will always be tears.

 Woe, why am I
followed by evil counsel, 
and could give you 
no protection in battle?

 If I had fallen by your side
I would have died happy
for there is nothing greater
than what love will do.

 and living after you
would mean continual dying
since half a soul
is not enough to live.
...

So I have won
an unhappy victory:
what emptiness, 
what short-lived joy
have I had from it.

...

I silence my lyre:
if only I could silence too
my mourning and weeping.
My hands hurt from playing,
my voice is hoarse from crying
and my breathing faint.

       --Peter Abelard (1079-1142)

A more complete version here.

Interesting as a predecessor to the recruiting of Biblical, pagan and historical figures in the Divine Comedy - Dante certainly would have read Abelard. Also, a kind of Christian parallel to Ovid's Heroides, which offer imagined scenes and speeches of mythical women.

Also notable: David's remorse for relying on "the worst counsel."

Pistacia terebinthus

A close relative of the Pistacia palaestina (below), which grows in Israel.

Pistacia palaestina is distinguished from P. terebinthus "by its egg-shaped leaflets, which are drawn into a long point, with somewhat hairy margins, and by more spreading and branching flower clusters."^[1]

Ahitophel in Inferno 28

Ahitophel, Absalom and David are alluded to in the memorable scene in Inferno 28 where Dante and Virgil encounter Bertrand de Born among the sowers of discord:

But I remained to look upon the crowd;

And saw a thing which I should be afraid,

Without some further proof, even to recount,

If it were not that conscience reassures me,

That good companion which emboldens man

Beneath the hauberk of its feeling pure.

I truly saw, and still I seem to see it,

A trunk without a head walk in like manner

As walked the others of the mournful herd.

And by the hair it held the head dissevered,

Hung from the hand in fashion of a lantern,

And that upon us gazed and said: "O me!"

It of itself made to itself a lamp,

And they were two in one, and one in two;

How that can be, He knows who so ordains it.

When it was come close to the bridge's foot,

It lifted high its arm with all the head,

To bring more closely unto us its words,

Which were: "Behold now the sore penalty,

Thou, who dost breathing go the dead beholding;

Behold if any be as great as this.

And so that thou may carry news of me,

Know that Bertram de Born am I, the same

Who gave to the Young King the evil comfort.

I made the father and the son rebellious;

Achitophel not more with Absalom

And David did with his accursed goadings.

Because I parted persons so united,

Parted do I now bear my brain, alas!

From its beginning, which is in this trunk.

Thus is observed in me the counterpoise*."

*("contrapasso" - the appropriate form of punishment for the crime.)

Gustave Dore