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From: shipman@nmtvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Learning to love again--a comment from Evangeline Walton
Message-ID: <851@nmtvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 09:31:50 EST
Article-I.D.: nmtvax.851
Posted: Mon Nov  4 09:31:50 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Nov-85 02:56:11 EST
Distribution: na
Organization: Zoological Data Processing
Lines: 28
Sex: male
Age: 36
Weight: 19 stone
Marital-Status: single, but little patience for playing games
Religion: Taoist-Pantheist-Presbyterian
Hobbies: birds, astronomy
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Summary: 82% header lines, 10% signature, 8% pithy philosophy

In article <1079@trwrdc.UUCP> frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith) writes:

>What I missed is that one unique irreplaceable relationship...which
>may never be repeated in its intensity and may never be repeated at all.

This is from Evangeline Walton's modern retelling of the Mabinogion, 
a cycle of ancient Welsh legends.  The speaker, Rhiannon of the Birds
(the same one Stevie Nicks wrote a song about), is trying to explain
to her new husband, Manawyddan, how she could love again after her
earth-shaking relationship with Pwyll.  (emphasis mine)

*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
| For long I feared time, Lord, I who knew that it must take away my |
| lover's strength and my beauty.  But after Pwyll died I learned to |
| bless it because now it had done its worst and could only bring me |
| nearer to him.  But when I had blessed it my vision changed, and I |
| saw that, great as was my love and Pwyll's, I must not make a      |
| prison of its memory, a walled place, shutting others out.  For    |
| every walled place is truly a small place, cramping the body and   |
| the spirit.  AND EVERY MAN AND WOMAN IS WORTHY OF LOVE, AND EACH   |
| CALLS FORTH A LOVE THAT CAN BE GIVEN ONLY TO HIMSELF OR HERSELF,   |
| NEVER TO ANOTHER.  And I remembered you, and knew that I loved     |
| you, and that by loving you I need not cease to love Pwyll.  It is |
| hard to make it clear, that lesson.                                |
|                   "The Song of Rhiannon", Evangeline Walton, p. 82 |
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
-- 
John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/ucbvax!unmvax!nmtvax!shipman