by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: December 05, 2008   Last Updated: March 27, 2010

There are wonders of the English that's still 'Greek to me'. But less I confuse myself and turn this into an international incident, I had better stick to strictly English subjects. Otherwise astute British writers will accuse me of being verbally lost. Without hesitation I believe that most of the works of Shakespeare fall into the delights and wonders of the English Language, as do the works of Chaucer, as well as the history of the English History as written by Bede some time around 600 AD. Without these documents much of what truly happened in Ancient England would be lost to us today.

Admittedly I would not know of these were it not for the superb translations that allowed for the lesser of us to understand the archaic words of Chaucer, as an example. Scholars of literature applauded him then for his finesse, his use of words and the way underlying message of how English used to be written.  They reacted much in the same way that competent writers do today who tell of one thing, for instance, but hiding within the alphabets and the grammatical starts and pauses, stops and directives, are shrugs, grimaces and grievances.

Oops, I have done it again. I have gotten lost and am now trying to find myself back into England after a brief border skirmish. A modern day Latinized Robin Hood rescued me threw me into a boat and is now demanding I stay there until I could bring him proof that Saint Bede, the English Saint, had written his wonderful epic without any error. His last words informed me that only then would Rome welcome me. I can't promise that but I take my delights of the written word and I know a challenge when I see one.

Who was The Venerable Bede? He was born in Northumbria, England in six hundred and seventy two. Every year he is honored as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church on May, the twentieth-fifth. His best known work is the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.) This little old ancient relic of both Rome and England was a monk at a monastery and was an entrepreneurial delight if I be permitted to clothe him in modern garb. His writing field was far reaching.

In his writing he helped himself to the writings "of Puny the Younger, Vergil, Lucretius, Ovid, Horace. He read Greek although did not agree with all that he read of the Classics and he knew only a little of Hebrew. But mostly and here is where delight comes into play, he was a skillful storyteller. And also, here is where today's

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