Spring Fever

In case you haven't been able to tell, I am in favor of opening the treasure chest of civilization and taking out and admiring the gold circlets, silver studs, and precious beads cached therein. Even at the risk of turning up a cliché (or two).

Our entire heritage hangs in the balance. Will the digital information age lock away knowledge that we can then unlock at any time, if only we know what to look for? Or will it make green our past, so that new and wonderful things can leaf and blossom from it as they have since its beginning? I don't know.

Consider this most beautiful description of love in the spring.

Song of Solomon, Chapter 2

10 My beloved spoke, and said unto me: 'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

11 For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtle[dove] is heard in our land;

13 The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines in blossom give forth their fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Note that I have emended turtle to turtledove in chapter 2, verse 12. I happen to know that, even though I unfortunately do not read ancient Hebrew,  the word for turtle should read turtledove. How do I know this? I cannot remember and have not been able to find out, in a rather summary search of the King James Bible (1611), the Revised Standard Version (1901), the English Standard Version (1971), the Living Bible (also 1971), and the Oxford Annotated Bible (1973), from which I learned so much about textual criticism.

I already know that my next post will (or maybe, given my changeable nature, I should say may) be headed "Spring Training." Which, for the record, I thought of before I knew that Major-League baseball announcer Ernie Harwell (1918-2010) opened the first Detroit Tigers Grapefruit-League game of the season by reciting the Song of Solomon, 2:12. He always said "turtle."