When the temperatures reach into the 90s or triple digits, a number of us get our steps in the morning, even before dawn. The other early risers and I smile at each other in the still blue air, but do not stop to chat. We have a word for such morning larks: matutinal.
Only scientists, crossword solvers, and metaphysical poets use it. “Auroral” and “dilucular” are two more unused words that mean “pertaining to dawn.” We can recognize dawn in a glance, but not in the words themselves.
A friend who visited Ireland in July brought rain jackets she never needed. What astonished her was the sky: one photograph shows her squinting through sunshine at a distant castle, overwhelmed by the irrepressible green.
Sometimes I forget that the social medium Bluesky, but every summer dawn reminds me that blue sky exists. The bed in my daughter’s room faces the dawn first, overlooking the sun-touched tops of the tallest pines above the park next to our house.
A red-tailed hawk in that park announces dawn about thirty minutes early with a fierce, falling shriek. Hollywood often dubs red-tailed hawk calls over eagles, whose dawn voices are comparatively thin and chattering.
I learned recently that birds sing before sunrise because cool, dense air carries sound well, and because dawn offers less wind and less human noise. Dawn is an efficient time for attracting mates and defending territory.
Birdsong and Homer’s surviving poems are both territorial announcements, each asking who belongs here.” Paris attracted Helen, and the thousand ships followed. Priam and Hector could not defend Troy, a truth Priam nearly admits in his dawn visit to Achilles.
Homer describes dawn as ῥοδοδάκτυλος (rhododaktylos), historically translated by Alexander Pope and others as “rosy-fingered.” Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey tells us that “Soon Dawn appeared and touched the sky with roses.” In mountainous parts of Greece and Turkey, including many Greek islands, dawn can gather small clouds.
For Homer, roses belong not in a garden but in the sky.
One of the first plays my wife Kate and I ever saw together was Tennessee Williams’ A Glass Menagerie. Its nickname for Laura Wingfield, “Blue Roses,” became part of our own vocabulary.
Later I sent her actual glass blue roses, a keepsake from our semester of playgoing together in London. Set on the ledge of a window in her Yellow Springs dorm room, it seemed to catch the dawn briefly before scattering it into prisms of rainbow.
From our London apartment on England’s Lane, NW3, I can’t remember seeing much blue sky, much less dawn. A favorite London picture of Kate depicts her sitting on the windowsill of our third-floor walkup, looking down on the market below. I can still see the insistent curls of her auburn hair.
Taking the dog to the back yard yesterday, I called up to Kate to see if she’d like to converse from our bedroom. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare writes that “The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night.”
When I was younger, only an alarm clock could wake me before dawn, such as was necessary with one of my first jobs, delivering the Sunday morning edition of The Washington Star to subscribers in my Glover Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C.. Now, I wake up before the sun on most mornings. Both my son Jukie’s room and our front door face east, so after sneaking into his room to close his curtains (he likes to review his books by streetlamps in the middle of the night), I stand outside our front door and welcome the day.
Sometimes I think of those famous lines from Book X of Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”:
Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!–Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
If there is bliss in waking at dawn, it lives in the welcome chill of this moment before the day speaks or requires anything of us. Watching the sunrise, steeped in birdsong, we delight in having answered the call.
I will be sitting at a VIP table for the pub quiz dinner tonight, one that will include two or more of my children and their supporters. I look forward to seeing you and your VIPs at the pub quiz. Join us on the patio if you can get a reservation or arrive early enough. As for the quiz, expect 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on liminal spaces.
In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: adjectives, animation, antennae, appearances, artificial intelligence, astronauts, astronomers, awns, baby boomers, ballots, ballots, bestsellers, biopics, blockbusters, boardwalks, borders, botanists, breathing, budgets, cardinals, casting, catalysts, championships, chemists, chirping, coalitions, collaborations, collisions, comic books, congressmembers, consoles, constellations, contracts, county seats, dancers, darkness, demons, devils, directors, ecosystems, emperors, endurance, farmhouses, fastballs, ferries, franchises, free agents, futurists, garments, Grammys, grasses, grasses, Greeks, harmonies, harbors, insults, islands, journalists, libraries, meadows, metabolism, missions, molecules, mountains, musicals, paws, percentages, philosophers, pitchforks, plants, portraits, porch lights, predictions, promotions, prospectors, rackets, rainforests, road trips, runways, runners, salaries, seizures, smugglers, sociology, songwriters, spending, stagecoaches, storefronts, souvenirs, superheroes, technologists, telescopes, tourists, trends, veterinarians, warriors, wineries, current events, and Shakespeare.
For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.
Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.
We are now past 140 Patreon members, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Heghnar, Cathy, Kevin, Christine, Caroline, Bobby, Prescott, James, Damian, Meebles, and Bill and Diane! Thanks also to The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Thanks also to my paid subscribers on Substack.
Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Elaine, Michael, Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion, especially this week
Best,
Dr. Andy
Three questions from last week:
- Current Events – Names in the News. Josh Kerr (born October 8, 1997) is a runner from Scotland who recently broke the world record for the fastest mile ever run by a human. Within ten seconds, how fast was his mile?
- Sports. The Calgary Wranglers play in the American Hockey League (AHL), sharing the Scotiabank Saddledome with what other hockey team?
- Shakespeare. Having succeeded Queen Elizabeth I to the English throne in 1603, who was the King of England when William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616?
P.S. Please join us at Poetry Night on August 6 at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis. We are featuring a reading by Sam Jensen and Tamer Mostafa.