Astrology for The New Age
Welcome to April. When I was a mere sprout of a lad wandering about the deciduous forests of New England, April was considered the cruelest month, and – No wait. Start again. T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month, and when still a sprout of a lad, I’d never heard of that dude. All I knew was that when April, with its sweet showers, bathed every living plant in sweet liquor – No wait. That comes from Chaucer, who’d never visited New England and who, from a contemporary point of view, talked funny. For example, here are his most often quoted lines: Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,/The droghte of March had perced to the roote,/And bathed every veyne in swich licour/Of which vertu egendred is the flour.
Go figure. Anyway, as a sprout of a lad, I’d never heard of him either. I mean, what self-respecting American Sprout reads Eliot or Chaucer before he gets at least to high school, and probably to college? But (and note the transition!) welcome to April anyway!
You’re probably thinking that I’m about to write an April Fool’s column, but you could be wrong. I did want to tell you, though, that I’ve done a bit of research on this, which became part of the local dialect and over the centuries spread from there.
