XXIX November est dies gratias agendi Minervae, matronae deae nostrae in Civitate Sande, ubi Sandus populus supplicationem, quae traditione Americana et Canadense nobis traditur atque Chalkeia festo die Atheniensi, facimus. Hic dies festus non nobis celebratus est in proximis annis, ut pauca diei memoria sollemnis habeatur, sed in MMXIX nos rursus festum volumus additum in fastis publicis olim in anno ubi Civitas Sande nova esset. Nullum gallopavonem hic habemus et habuimus, neque narrabo deinde cur nullam cenam nobis habitam, sed hoc anno, ut cenam novam in memoria novae Civitatis edamus, seitan assum ego descripsi cibo coquendo pro magno ferculo. Non solum mi illos pedes tragoedicos seitan assum recognoscit, quos Sophocles ob festum quo noster Dies Athenae nomen cepit scripsit, qui corbes cereales in pompa tenentes die Chalkeiae descripserunt, sed etiam totum paucum quid nos de festo vere haud comperto in litteris Graecis scimus, quid autem significo exordium τοῦ πέπλου texendi qui Athenae Panathenaia tradatur. Quae stola deae loco alicuius frucis artis poni possit, ex voto Atheniensium in hora eorum ludorum panhellenicorum complebatur.
Medio mense nuntium scripsi in quo triplicem spem Diei Athenae restituendi enarravit. Prima erat seitan assi coquendi, secunda votorum artificialium publicorum, tertia Brumalibus novis addendis horaeve nivali festivae mutandae de ultimo die Novembri in kalendas Februarias. Hodie ingredior festi publici restituendi causa secunda cum spe.
Votum Sôgmônis
Ego Athenae fructum artis Quinquatribus proximis voveo, qui fructus aliquid pictum, textum, fictum, fervefactum, sive scriptum arte in pede sive prosa eloquentia narratum, non solum drama in theatro actum sed etiam carmen cantico in sinu audientium latine scriptum atque cantum, gastronomiae maxima cum cura coctum (exempli gratia macarons), utinam ne quid simplex sine arte proposita cura faciam, sit, ut tu, mater nostra, accipias quid quando te in mente meditor tibi faciam et mi et Sande benevolens sis, si Sandum auxeris, si ego artem artis gratia laetitiaeque didicero atque bene oblatum tuum porrectum egero atque fecero.
The 29th of November is a day of giving thanks to Minerva, our matron goddess in the State of Sandus, when we the Sandum people perform a thanksgiving which has been handed down to us as a tradition from Americans and Canadians and also from the Athenian festival of the Chalkeia. This festival has not been celebrated in recent years resulting in little memory of this solemn day, but in 2019 we want this holiday back since it has been added to the public calendar long ago in a year when the State of Sandus was new. Here, we have no turkey, nor have had one, nor will I tell moreover why we have had no dinner, but this year I have described a seitan roast as a main course so that we may eat our new meal in the memory of that new State. Not only does this seitan roast recall for me those tragic lines which Sophocles wrote because of that holiday from which our “Athena’s Day” took its name, those lines which described people carrying baskets full of grain in a procession on the Chalkeia holiday, but that roast also recalls to me this small thing entirely that we know about this hardly learned-about festival in Greek literature—which, I mean, the beginning of weaving the peplos which was given to Athena on the Panathenaia. This dress of the goddess, which can be placed in any other fruit of art’s place, was completed time and time again according to the Athenians’ vow in the season of those panhellenic games.
In the middle of the month, I wrote an article in which I recounted my threefold hope of recreating Athena’s Day. The first was for cooking a seitan roast, the second of the people’s art-making vows, and the third was adding a Winter holiday season (i.e., extending the Brumalia) or changing it from the last day of November to the first day of February. Today, I set out with that purpose of restoring this public holiday with that second hope.
the Sôgmô’s Vow
I vow an artful fruit to Athena in time for the next Quinquatria, which fruit may be anything drawn or painted, woven or sewn, sculpted or moulded, cast with molten metal, either written with art in metre or narrated with eloquent prose, not only a drama acted in a theatre but also a song sung with song in the bosom of an audience and written in Latin, anything of haute cuisine cooked or baked or boiled with the greatest care (for example, macarons), would that I not make anything simple without purposeful art and care, so that you, our mother, may receive whatever I make when I hold you in mind and so that you may be benevolent to me and to Sandus, if you have increased her, and if I will have learned an art for the sake of art and joy and if I will have performed and made your offered offering well.
sandus.org 