Sarah Gibbard Cook
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact

Meaning, Eggs, and Water

4/17/2017

4 Comments

 
Not being of Polish descent or living in a heavily Polish-American community, I never heard of Dyngus Day until recently. Boys throw water on girls in this Easter Monday custom, said to commemorate the baptism of the first King of Poland in the year 966. By some accounts girls used to give boys colored eggs to get them to stop.

Eggs feature in many spring holiday traditions—not just coloring, rolling, and hiding them but dancing around them while trying not to break any. Festivities at a royal wedding on Easter Monday 1498 included egg dancing, also attested in later paintings and poems. Early Christians called the egg a symbol of resurrection and rebirth.

Ideas of resurrection and baptism aren’t inherent in eggs or water, nor is the older fertility symbolism that’s easy to see in these traditions. The meanings of objects lie not in the objects but in us. To get to anything about Easter eggs that didn’t start in human minds, you have to go back to the hens who started laying again in springtime after an eggless winter.

​We humans make meaning all the time. Meaning and symbols are integral to how we think, speak, and write. It’s my belief individuals and cultures don’t find meaning, we create it. One meaning may be more creative or satisfying than another but it’s not more true or false. That’s not to say life is meaningless, a cause for despair. It’s rather to say life is as rich in meaning as we choose to make it.
4 Comments
Lisa Imhoff
4/17/2017 08:55:57 am

A friend of ours posted this on his Facebook page last week. He's been diagnosed at age 58 with terminal prostate cancer, but he's doing very well right now. His words are way better than anything I could put together.

"Here’s a thought I had just now, while following the cat around on his morning inspection of the grounds:
"The fact that we love this world in spite of all its horrors and tragedies, and we love our lives in spite of our pains and sorrows, is not a testament to the wonderful-ness of life here on earth. It’s a testament to our great capacity for love, and our endless ability to hope."

Reply
Sarah link
4/17/2017 03:05:00 pm

Beautifully said, and so very true. Very relevant to this post. I am sorry about your friend.

Reply
George Gibbard
4/19/2017 12:51:31 am

On the way to Matthew's wedding I read in the Hungarian airline magazine that young men sprinkled water on young women at Easter. So Googling "szabad-e meglocsolni" ('may I water you?) and asking Google to translate, I found the following delightful pseudo-English verses:
I'm a little kid,
I want to Easter sprinkling ritual.
There eggs or not,
It will be good for the forint.
(the forint is the Hungarian currency, from "Florin")

Pretty please his father,
But even more beautiful mother:
Enter for your daughter,
Let me pour her hair!
Let It Grow appreciated,
As the colt's tail,
One is even greater:
As the length of the Danube.
Free e-watered?

and more:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=hu&u=http://www.husvetilocsoloversek.hu/index.php%3Fpg1%3Daranyos&prev=search

Reply
Sarah link
4/19/2017 11:18:13 am

George, this is a riot! The poem, and the goofiness of the translation, and the fun of figuring out from the pseudo-English what the original might have meant. I anticipate many good laughs going through the poems in translation at the sprinkling website. Thanks!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    RSS Feed


      ​get updates

    Sign up
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact