Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Chastening

is a strange English word.
It must originally have meant making chaste
(perhaps by castration, or by high consumption
of parts of the Chaste Tree that once grew in every monastery garden -
I have one in my little orchard, now sold along with the house)
as christening meant to make Christian.

Chastrer in French means to unman, to emasculate, castrate,
a chastening experience one way or another.

Vitex agnus-castus


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