Anne Lake: In like a lion

Thursday, March 1, 2012

In like a lion

Lee Radziwill, lionizing

A new month turnover today...and an unpredictable, often cruel month March can sometimes be here in the northeast. The unusually mild winter is giving way to a mild, damp gateway to spring. But beware--our worst snow storms have occurred during these same four weeks.

The old saw "March comes in like a lion but goes out like a lamb" intrigues me. The phrase has its origins with the constellations Leo the Lion, and Aries the ram or lamb. It has to do with the relative positions of these constellations in the sky at the beginning and end of the month. English playwright John Fletcher wrote in 1624, "I would chuse March, for I would come in like a Lion...But you'd go out like a Lamb when you went to hanging." In 1670, English writer John Ray observed that "March...comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb." On our side of the pond, the phrase "March came in like a lion" appears in the Ames Almanack in 1740, and none other than John Adams wrote in 1788 that "The month comes in like a lion, and according to the farmer's proverb it must go out like a lamb."

Herewith, some lions here that I adore, no matter what part of March they appear.

A prone pair in bronze, slumbering languidly on a bookshelf...