If you liked it, then you should have put a posy ring on it!

This week’s blog is about an amazing artefact that I had to put on the museum's database. It’s a gold Posy ring! I’ll explain more in a second but first, just look how pretty it is! 

Posy rings are gold bands with an inscription on the inside. Our posy ring’s inscription says “A friends gift”… well actually ‘friends’ has been spelt ‘frends’ and there’s a little tear in the band over the ‘f’ of ‘gift’ so (if we’re going to be literal!) it says “A frends gif”.  

Close-up of the inside inscription

Our ring was found in a field in Keynsham, by a metal decectorist! I wonder why it was there? We can only speculate! It just shows you what treasures you can find in the most random places. The size of the ring isn't represented well in the photo on. It's actually very tiny! I doubt even my little finger could accommodate it! Possibly it was meant for a child!

‘Posy’ comes from the old French word ‘poséy', meaning a form of poetry. Our little ring isn't poetic, but some posy rings were just a simple statement. One of my favourite, more poetic, posy rings (that I came across on the British Museum website) has the inscription “many are the stars I see but in my eye no star like thee” how lovely is that?! Link here.

Posy rings weren't just for betrothals and love tokens but also exchanged in friendship and sometimes given out in remembrance of a death. Unfortunately, our ring's inscription means that it was probably a gift of friendship, which undoes all of the romantic back stories that another collections team member and I were making up. Oh well!

Not the Disney-style back story I'd hoped for!

The peak of their popularity was from the 15^th-17^th century. Our ring has been dated to the 1600s! It’s amazing that I’m holding something so familiar, as a gold ring, in my hand that’s around 400 years old!!

Emma

The Ruin

We are often asked - What happened to the site after the fall of Rome? Unfortunately there isn't the archaeological evidence to answer this question as most of it has been dug away as part of previous historic excavations, however there are some clues.....

This poem is called ‘The Ruin’ an eighth century poem probably written by a monk at the adjacent monastery, inspired by the deserted, crumbling remains of the Roman temple and baths. The poem is incomplete and the site is unnamed, but the references to hot water and many structural elements revealed by archaeology leave little doubt that the poet was in Bath.

Watercolour of the Great Bath

‘The Ruin’

Wondrous is this masonry, shattered by the fates.
The fortifications have given way,
the buildings raised by giants are crumbling.
The roofs have collapsed; the towers are in ruins….
there is rime on the mortar.
The walls are rent and broken away
and have fallen undermined by age.
The owners and builders are perished and gone
and have been held fast in the Earth’s embrace,
the ruthless clutch of the grave,
while a hundred generations of mankind have passed away..
Red of hue and hoary with lichen
this wall has outlasted kingdom after kingdom,
standing unmoved by storms.
The lofty arch has fallen…
resolute in spirit he marvellously clamped the foundations
of the walls with ties
there were splendid palaces and many halls with water
flowing through them
a wealth of gables towered aloft…
And so these courts lie desolate
and the framework of the dome with its red arches shed its tiles….
where of old many a warrior,
joyous hearted and radiant with gold,
shone resplendent in the harness of battle,
proud and flushed with wine.
He gazed upon the treasure, the silver, the precious stones,
upon wealth, riches and pearls,
upon this splendid citadel of a broad domain.
There stood courts of stone,
and a stream gushed forth in rippling floods of hot water.
The wall enfolded within its bright bosom
the whole place which contained the hot flood of the baths……

The Theme of Love

Mosaic depicting Cupid astride a Dolphin - Fishbourne

Just now, I was preparing to start with heavy fighting
and violent war, with a measure to fit the matter.
Good enough for lesser verse – laughed Cupid
so they say, and stole a foot away.
‘Cruel boy, who gave you power over this song?
Poets are the Muses’, we’re not in your crowd.

What if Venus snatched golden Minerva’s weapons,
while golden Minerva fanned the flaming fires?
Who’d approve of Ceres ruling the wooded hills,
with the Virgin’s quiver to cultivate the fields?
Who’d grant long-haired Phoebus a sharp spear,
while Mars played the Aonian lyre?

You’ve a mighty kingdom, boy, and too much power,
ambitious one, why aspire to fresh works?
Or is everything yours? Are Helicon’s metres yours?
Is even Phoebus’s lyre now barely his at all?
I’ve risen to it well, in the first line, on a clean page,
the next one’s weakened my strength:
and I’ve no theme fitting for lighter verses,
no boy or elegant long-haired girl.’

I was singing, while he quickly selected an arrow
from his open quiver, to engineer my ruin,
and vigorously bent the sinuous bow against his knee.
and said, ‘Poet take this effort for your song!’
Woe is me! That boy has true shafts.
I burn, and Love rules my vacant heart.
My work rises in six beats, sinks in five:
farewell hard fighting with your measure!
Muse, garland your golden brow with Venus’s myrtle
culled from the shore, and sing on with eleven feet!

Translated from Ovid - Amores, Book I, Elegy I.