:Amor:VincitOmnia
The ,Archbishop Alessandro Gottardi,
,
ina recent pastoral letter,
'hasabsolved of their guilt and declared innocent
the Jews of the city of Trent,
tortured to death in 7475
for the 'ritual murder' of the Blessed Little Simon of Trent.
The New York Times, October 28, 1965
Ther was in Engelond, many yeres ago,
A prioress of Stratford aUe Bowe
Ycleped madame Eglentyne;
Nowher "in al the world was to be sene
Hir like; beau tee , had she, beyond compdrC;
Oon coulde searche, but not oon marre
Upon hir lovelinesse was ther to be ~cnc;
She was, if ever was, a lady shene,
The peple of al the ciree loved hir tul welle,
For ofte to hem wolde she telle
Stories swete, pious, and divine;
When up she cam, and gan to bigine,
Silence was ther and reverence,
For al men listned close to hir )enterlll',
Een children stoped in hire play,
It happened ones on a day,
She told a tale of Litel Hugh,
Who stolen was by hellish J ewe
And mordred by hem, too;
"Ne was no thing that he coulde do
To save his life," sayd she.
"J esu bless us, Benedicit~!"
<IF or J ewes are an, yvele pac ke
De~erving no thing but the racke
To be,ytortured till they be deed;
Eries no man miht in Cristen bed
Be safe-for Jewes want oure blood!"
"They are a peple wood!" she cried,
"That doon every yvile dede
On earth! Hit truly is, hit always was,
They are the pepte of Sathana~.!"
Ful soone, the crowd, ones still below,
Hierre ymurmerynge bigan; firste low, '
Than higher, higher, gan it rise;
"We sholde a plan devise!"
Called,oon; then another,
And another called, "Brother,
We must together band
And rid,our owen land
Of Jewes, elles we be deedI"
''They cursen the Holy Maid!"
CrieeJoon."Ahd makenecheyere
Theblobdy ".rounds of Jesu, derre,
To bleed again! " "That's so!"
liLLIT-'it makes sense
If you think America is the only country~ith 'seemingly<i
problems, then you've never been to IsraeL,.2erhaps you hav~b·e"(en::,:chapi~rb!itel~f(;.;a:
around the country in an air-conditioned bus, but did anyone ~.~O\\('.:.NUU ",UI~:":":"::;:,':I
slums of Jer~salem and Tel Aviv? Have you tasted the algae-inf~~t~d W;,iter1:fri:,ri'l,,\:i
Lake Kinnerfet? And when was the last time a J ewthrew a stone ";".,:,,';';:',,', .. ,,:";';"0:. ",,':.':.
because you ~were violating theSabbath?
: .. '
"
"My fader seen it!" "I knowe, too!"
. "With mine. owen ey~s!"
"These be no lies!"
<lWesayen True!"
"Deeth to the Jewe! Deeth to the Jewe!"
"Reyenge Saint Hugh!" they gan to erie,
And fast, ~nto the Jewerye,
They gan to rush, oon after oon,
With clubbes and with stones,
Revenging Jesu's groones
'. And Litel Hugh's.
The people of compassion who reach out so readily and so com~)etlehl:I~:,tQ .'J<\I'II'N;ii,":;····':'., ,;:',
all those in distr~ss-from th ird generation illegitimates in-'Harle m, 1:9",,>
Biafra and Pakistan-has a peculiar myopia when it comes to'helping,itsowb~:~';,/:: '
,
c
'
:()
"',.""",',,1';
welfareli~i~;,' _"\lfl):::'!
The miraculous ability of Jews to keep their own off the
AmericJ, to pull themselves out of the Ghettos, to create their. own
heginning to show some very problematic gaps.
That day they did well pay the J ewe~;
Mordred hem, ful many, too;
You will no lenger seen no J ewe gon
Abopt that towne no more,
I,':',:: ',,'.""'.
(1()Oll',
Ne will they never again do hdrnlC tu CII"ten lhlld
And mock~, in manneres wilde,
Lord Jesu and the Holy Mdid,"
Our gentillady, madame E.glcntYIll', hdth
stat~.:_i~"'I.,!ill(;:)!i!/;:;~,:'i;:
The young people on the Hebrew University campus ,in Jerusalemh~ve"'" ",1\:.;),::.<;';\,
created a maga,fine to help fill some of the ,gaps. LlLLlT is thenam.e oftn e .'·
maga/ine we h~)Je created. If you think LlLLlT is a crusadingmagazine~YOl!'~e'"
right. If you th i~k LI LLiT is just another radical campus rag, you'l'ec!,eadwr,~ng.
The problems must be solved and silence hasn't solved them. LlLLlTis atrbu"I~;"·:""";';.'::".i,:.ii'!:\I:;"::":i"::
"hooter for those of you who still believe that Israel will be heavenon earth if
only everyone buys enough b o n d s . '
I
"Th~y aren away, dO,wn on helle",
'
'l'\
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Authors Note:
; "Amor Vincit Omnia" is an attempt to reply to anti-Semitism in terms or
it~,o.wn language, which I take to be properly medieval, The point of departure
:loi';rjypoem is Chaucer's "The Prioress's Tale," a poem that itself may not have
'heenresponsible for creating new acts of anti-Semitic violence, but which
ceit:aJnlycontains the prototype of one of the classic anti-Semitic myths--the
,'_:-rityalmurder of an innocent Chri~tian child at the,hand of the Jews.
'The tit/eof my poem, "Amor Vincit Omnia" (Love Conquers All) is the
, 'inscTiptfonon the locket worn by Chaucer's Prioress.
A word about the language of the poem: it is pretty close to Chaucerian
fngllsh, (Middle English) and, although at first a bit strange, not really obscure.
%~)d means "crazy and yclep'ed means "named. "
II
-A.R.
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