David

Spring Departure Boards

Chaucer’s General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales has a famous beginning; it states the season:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour

[When April with its sweet-smelling showers
Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
By which power the flower is created]

It hits all the tropes of spring: growth, fecundity, moisture. It explains that this is the season of pilgrimage:

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From the ages of eight to twelve I was a chorister at Durham Cathedral. One of the most memorable annual services we participated in as choristers was the Three Hours on Good Friday. As the name suggests, it was a three hour long service from 12 noon to 2pm. For a nine year old three hours feels like an incredibly long time. Long enough to get bored. Long enough to ponder the nature of the crucifixion.

It was strange. The solemnity. The performed sadness. I knew that in two days time there would be the celebration of Easter Sunday. So why bother being sad? The linearity of time is important. In the words of the original Roman Missal: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” The tenses matter there: the church situates itself between the resurrection and the second coming. There is future and there was past. And death, we were told, had been overcome by life. Why mourn the risen?