austraLasia #2348

Sundials midst the snow!

ROME: 3rd February 2009 -- Should you visit Chieri's former seminary, where the young Bosco once read: afflictis lentae, celeres gaudentibus horae', you would be disappointed today.  It is no longer there. The gap has been filled in with crumbling, cleaner bricks and they say the sundial, better known as a 'meridiana geografica astronomica universale', is under repair! In Italy that may mean a century. Recall what Bosco said to his friend Garigliano at the time? "Here's our programme! Let's be happy and time will fly!"
    Could not help but muse on what the Congregation might be today had the young Bosco found a different sundial with different words:
    EX ORIENTE LUX: the first missionary expedition would have been to China.
    DA MIHI SOLEM, DABO TIBI HORAM: he did find something like it - and got Tibidabo as well (Barcelona)!
    NULLA DIES SINE LINEA: Don Bosco the Blogger?
    NON NUMERO HORAS NISI SERENAS: he'd have studied in Venice, not Chieri. Mission to Seamen?
    SILENS LOQUOR: we'd all be monks....
    ORA ET LABORA: Benedictine monks....
    SINE SOLE SILEO: in Siberia or some other dark, dank place.
                                                                                     But thank God he didn't find this one:
    
    O God! methinks it were a happy life,
      To be no better than a homely swain;
        To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
          To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
            Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
              How many make the hour full complete;
              How many hours bring about the day;
              How many days will finish up the year;
              How many years a mortal man may live.
                 When this is known, then to divide the times:
                    So many hours must I tend my flock;
                      So many hours must I take my rest;
                        So many hours must I contemplate;
                           So many hours must I sport myself;
                              So many days my ewes have been with young;
                                 So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean;
                                    So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
                                       So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
                                          Passed over to the end they were created,
                                             Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.  (William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part III, Act 2 scene 5)
We'd all be bonkers! Or British!
(This is just to cheer up readers in the UK and elsewhere in Europe who are snowed under. Meanwhile 'downunder' they don't want to hear about sundials or sun anything!).

And for your information, you can now check out the sundial as it was in Chieri, and is now and ever shall be in Becchi. Just go 'sundial' under 'subjects' in SDL in the 'Don Bosco scritti..' collection.  And another set of items you might be interested in - Don Bosco's various signatures. Go 'signatures' under 'subjects' in the same.
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Title: australasia 2348
Subject and key words: SDB General, whimsy!
Date (year): 2009
ID: 2000-2099|2348