By way of taking a break from the more-or-less serious business of Obama's State of the Union over at the DM, here's the State of my Duck Pond (full-disclosure: a reasonable facsimile) on several occasions this January and February--and more on the way, evidently. The latter month could never be called the "cruellest" (see recent posts)--especially not in the Carolinas, where I have always fondly matched the nigh-arrival of Spring with my third son's birthday of Feb. 19th. Most years it works. The Dogwoods usually get the the signal at about that time to get a-bloomin' and flood the the lower woodland canopy with their own version of snowiness.
Not this year. But then, the only thing predictable about Global Warming is its UNpredictable effect on traditional weather patterns. On average though, it has surely been responsible for our extraordinarily warm winters on a pretty regular basis for decades now. I can recall extended periods of teen-ish temperatures and below in the late 60's and early 70's--in SOUTH Carolina. In contrast, over the last half-dozen years or so here in NORTH Carolina, our central heating was in full operation on average only about a half-dozen times during the winter months. I've kept track.
Or you can always take a hot bath. That's originally what Kalendis Februarius was all about. Maybe not the "cruellest," but it is for sure the curiousest among the named months, historically. (And the only one virtually unpronounceable as spelled, at normal speech-speed.) Well, the Romans were fair obsessed with cleanliness--something quite new in the development of Western Civilization. Public baths, and all that. Their friendly-neighborhood Barbarian Invaders were forever baffled by it, and the later Christian authorities--once the Empire was de-paganized--were offended by it. One of the first things done in post-Constantine Rome was to outlaw public bath-houses. (Second: amphitheater performances--which is exactly what happened to Shakespeare et alia and the London Stage when the Puritans took over in Cromwellian England centuries later. Too much fun for mortal men and women.) Because it smacked of pagan ritual, too much bath-time (like even once-a-week, and of course never in public) was condemned in the Christian world well into modern times, incidentally.
But the early Romans loved it, and ended up naming a whole month after their favorite pastime. As you recall from earlier posts, until the reign of Numa there were 60 or so days between the end of December and first of March--also the first of the year for the "Romulans"--which were so "unspeakable" that they simply had no name, month-wise. The Numaian regime for whatever reasons revised the solar calendar (which would be tweaked-only-slightly into it's present form by Julius Caesar and later Pope Gregory), by giving the venerable god Janus the first 31 days, thereafter also designated the first month of the year. Twenty-eight days left over. Oops ... unlucky. For some lost-to-history reason, even numbers caused mild discomfort for the Romans, and thus should be avoided whenever possible. Not possible here, because the remaining months, now including January, all had a good-luck numbers of either 29 or 31, and you couldn't very well stick a deity with an unlucky number of days.
(I know--you with calculator in hand--that still leaves seven, if you're going for a total of 365. Well, to oversimplify a bit, these seven were always held in reserve as intercalary days for special celebrations which may present themselves over the course of a given year. The festival-loving Romans invariably used them up.)
Anyway ... What to name these 28 days, a potential month's-worth, which already has not only the weather but the numbers going against it?
--It's getting late. Let's go down to the bath-house and think about it. Naked men and women rub-a-dub-dubbing together always gives me ideas.
--Wait a minute! That reminds me. We've got a huge festival that comes up during that period.
--But we can't name that "month" after a god. The numbering and all.
--No, no--it's the Februatio, the day of ritual purification, when simply everybody goes a-bath-housing.
--You mean the holiday we got from the Etruscans?
--Yeah, our word februare, "to cleanse, purify," comes from them, originally.
--We do a lot of spring-cleaning then too.
--And it rains a lot. Water, water everywhere.
--Well then, why don't we just expand the idea to cover the entire month? We'll fix Februatio at Ides (Feb. 15th), right in the middle, and sanctify the whole unlucky megilla.
--Excellent! But, remember, I thought of it first.
--Okay, but I brought up the bath-house ...
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