Desdichaedo?

Hi, everyone! Welcome back to Life on the {Scrap}beach!

I have been asked what my YouTube user id means. It comes {loosely} from the Sir Walter Scott novel Ivanhoe, and it is the name {sort of} that the hero uses when he enters a tournament anonymously. According to Sir Walter Scott, it means "disinherited" and it is what my dad used to call me when I came home late, etc. Scott was mistaken in his translation of "desdichado" as "disinherited" as it actually means "desolate/distraught" but we are fans of the book and the book's meaning is "disinherited".

The actual spelling from the book is "desdichado" {Spanish} and not "desdichaedo" which is my user id. I mispelled it originally, and didn't notice my mistake for quite some time. Once I realized I had added an extra "e" I decided not to change it since it is hard enough for people to remember it as it is ~ I didn't want to confuse everyone all over again.

So, basically, desdichaedo means disinherited.

Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe inspired the French poet Gérard de Nerval {also a Scott fan} to write a sonnet entitled "El Desdichado" in 1853. So I will leave you with the poem.

El Deschidado

I am the man of gloom ~ widowed ~ unconsoled
The prince of Aquitaine, his tower in ruin:
My sole star is dead ~ and my constellated lute
Bears the Black Sun of Melancholia.

In the night of the tomb, you, my consolation,
Give me back Posillipo and the Italian sea,
The flower that so eased my heart's desolation,
And the trellis that twines the rose into the vine.

Am I Eros or Phoebus? Lusignan or Biron?
My brow is still red with the kiss of the queen;
I have dreamt in the grotto where the siren swims. . .

And, twice victorious, I have crossed Acheron:
My Orphic lyre in turn modulating the strains
Of the sighs of the saint and the cries of the fey.

Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrpbook it.