at the flowering of the cabbage: an essay on the limits of painting and poetry

horsemouth is up by a copy of laocoon: an essay on the limits of painting and poetry by the german philosopher lessing (5p shy of two squid judd books) - he was just surprised to find it in his bag just now, it was a blackout book one he’d bought without remembering.

laocoon (as far as horsemouth remembers) was the trojan priest who pointed out that if the greeks had vanished and left a giant wooden horse then probably the best thing to do was to burn it rather than drag it within the walls of troy - the gods then sent a giant serpent rising up from the earth to destroy him and his sons. there’s a statue of it - and lessing’s discussion of it forms the basis of much of the aesthetics of horror.

cassandra (who had the gift of prophecy and with whom horsemouth feels some affinity) probably said it was a bad idea also (but was probably not believed, having been cursed by a god to this effect).
‘fair enough’, thought the trojans and dragged it within.

he has begun reading, the introduction at least, leskov’s lady macbeth of mtsensk, five years before his death leskov writes an autobiography a note about myself.

at the flowering of the cabbage 

outside horsemouth's house the cabbage plants are flowering (because he’s left them in so long they have, in that country term, gone to seed).

horsemouth dreamt he was with friends - then he lost two of them, then he lost the third, then he made it back and found the first two of them in the pub, then he woke up (dear freudians - you would need names to make sense of this).

praise song for the herring horsemouth has picked up this title from somewhere (probably the sabine baring-gould, he lived for a time in east angular) - it’s a good’un.