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} They come from a variety of places:
}
} January, February, March: Named for three sisters of Roman mythology,
} Jan, Februaria, and Marsha. All of them had hair of gold, like their
} mother -- the youngest one (Februaria) in curls. During the reign of
} Marcus Aurelius, Februaria's name was changed to Cindia, to avoid the
} enormous civil wars that used to erupt between people who pronounced
} the first r and people who didn't.
}
} April: This name, oddly enough, was not used by the Romans, but comes
} from the work of Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer's masterwork, _The
} Canterbury Tales_, starts
}
} Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
} The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
} And bathed every veyne in swich licour . . .
}
} Scholars of the nineteenth century assumed that "Aprill" was Chaucer's
} name for the month following March, and adopted it as more elegant
} than the old Roman name, "Vernalideuteromartia". In fact, recent
} scholarship has discovered that the name actually refers to a well-
} known figure of Chaucer's day, Llewelyn ap Rill, a Welshman who used
} to celebrate the coming of spring by pouring a hogshead of wine over
} his head.
}
} May and June: Named after two Roman goddesses, Maia and Juno. Juno was
} married to Jupiter, so her month was considered felicitous for
} weddings. Maia posed naked for a painting by Goya; her month was
} considered an excellent one not to be married in.
}
} July and August: Named after Julius and Augustus Caesar, respectively.
} (The months of Tibery, Caligull, Claudy, and Nerr never quite caught
} on.)
}
} September, October, November, and December: So named because they were
} months number 7 (_septem_), 8 (_octo_), 9 (_novem_), and 10 (_decem_),
} respectively, in the old Roman calendar. This often causes confusion,
} since they are the 9th through 12th months of our calendar; however,
} the Romans used to number the months as follows:
}
} January -- 1
} February -- 2
} March -- 5
} April -- 6
} May -- 4
} June -- 3 1/2
} July -- 5 (again)
} August -- pi
} September -- 7
} October -- 8
} November -- 9
} December -- 10
}
} This was changed to our modern system by Marcus Aurelius, who declared
} the old system to be _stultissimus verbis_ ("too stupid for words").
}
} You owe the Oracle a _Xena: Warrior Princess_ calendar (for research
} purposes).
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