WHEN THAT APRIL…

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales begins in the month of April:

Chaucer on the pilgrimage.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour…

Okay, 14th century English is a little tricky so here’s my translation.

When April with his showers sweet,

The drought of March has pierced to the root,

And bathed every vein in such liquid,

By which is given birth, the flower;

When the west wind with his sweet breath,

Breathes through every grove and heath,

The tender crops, and the young sun,

Has gone halfway through Aries’ sign,

And small birds make melodies,

That sleep all night with open eye,

(So nips nature in their hearts,)

Then folk long to go on pilgrimage,

And palmers seek out strange strands,

To distant shrines in sundry lands,

And especially from every shire’s end

Of England, to Canterbury they wend,

The holy blissful martyr to seek,

That helped them when they were sick.

The Canon’s Yeoman, one of the pilgrims.

April was a good time to set out on one’s travels, it’s a month of hope and anticipation. Spring is here at last (or it is in the northern hemisphere) and the days are getting longer. The signs of warmer days appear: catkins, crocuses, daffodils and buds unfurling on tree twigs. Young creatures are born, frogspawn appears and mirrors the clouds, young lambs frolic and birds rehearse their songs of spring.

And, if Easter happens to come in April, some people celebrate the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ while the rest of us scoff easter eggs and hot-cross buns.

And me? I’d like to have jaunted along with Chaucer and his friends, listening to tales from the fourteenth century.

Chaucer is not the only literary figure associated with April. Hans Christian Anderson was born on the 2^nd and the International Children’s Book Day is held then in memory of him. Apparently, he was not as much fun as he was portrayed by Danny Kaye. He came to visit Dickens for two weeks but he stayed for five. Dickens and his family were glad to see the back of him.

April 20 is the United Nations’ Chinese Language Day, chosen to pay tribute to Cangjie, a mythical figure who is presumed to have invented Chinese characters about 5,000 years ago.

April 23 is the UN’s English Language Day, to celebrate William Shakespeare who was probably born on this date and certainly died on it 52 years later. Not the best birthday celebration for the bard – unless of course, he wanted neat book ends to mark out his life.

The whole month is National Poetry Writing Month where participants write a poem a day. Give it a go, folks and many countries celebrate a national libraries week and we certainly need to boost libraries. Where would many of us be without them? I think I learnt as much from my visits there as from going to school.

And finally, April starts with April Fool’s Day. Like most people, I’ve been the instigator and dupe of many such hoaxes – which always seem much funnier at the time than when recollected after the event.

Two of the more famous ones were in 1957 when the BBC’s very serious documentary programme had an item about Swiss farmers harvesting spaghetti from trees after the dreaded spaghetti weevil had been eradicated.

The second was on April 1^st 1976 when British astronomer Patrick Moore announced that at 9:47 that morning the planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter. The combined gravitational force of the two planets would exert a stronger tidal pull, temporarily counteracting the Earth's own gravity and making people weigh less. Moore added that listeners could experience the phenomenon by jumping in the air at that time and experience themselves float above the ground. Many people contacted the BBC later that morning to confirm that they had floated. One man even tried to sue the BBC because he claimed he had bumped his head on the ceiling. But maybe he was just making his own April Fools’ prank.

And finally, I thought I’d end with another poetic piece, the first stanza of Robert Browning’s

Home Thoughts from Abroad

Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!