CHAT: Holy dread

Benct Philip Jonsson scripsit:

> >> There was a little discussion of the name on
> >> elfling@yahoogroups.com.  Search for the term
> >> 'holy dread' since 'Aestan' occurs in my sig.
[snip]

> >For you on honey-dew have fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise?
>
> I don't get that reference.
The last four lines of Coleridge's poem _Kubla Khan_:

                Weave a circle round him thrice,
                And close your eyes with holy dread,
                For he on honey-dew hath fed,
                And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Full text and Coleridge's own headnote at
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem524.html .

This is the principal association that "holy dread" would arouse in
any anglophone with a bit (or more than a bit) of literary education.
I feel sure that your interlocutor on Elfling was alluding to "Kubla Khan".

There's a whole book by John Livingston Lowes called _The Road to Xanadu_
about the sources for the allusions in this 54-line poem.  The title of
Tom Shippey's book _The Road to Middle-Earth_ alludes to this work.
At one point (maybe still) I had it memorized.

See also this .sig:

--
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies!    John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,     http://www.reutershealth.com
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,              http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)