Aquitaine (French pronunciation: [a.ki.tɛn], English /ˌækwɪˈteɪn/; Occitan: Aquitània; Basque: Akitania), archaic Guyenne/Guienne (Occitan: Guiana), is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It is composed of the 5 departments of Dordogne, Lot et Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes and Gironde. In the Middle Ages Aquitaine was a kingdom and a duchy, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably.
There are traces of human settlement by prehistoric peoples, especially in the Périgord, but the earliest attested inhabitants in the south-west were the Aquitani, who were not proper Celtic people, but more akin to the Iberians (see Gallia Aquitania). Although a number of different languages and dialects were in use in the area during ancient times, it is most likely that the prevailing language of Aquitaine during the late pre-historic to Roman period was an early form of the Basque language. This has been demonstrated by various Aquitanian names and words that were recorded by the Romans, and which are currently easily readable as Basque. Whether this Aquitanian language (Proto-Basque) was a remnant of a Vasconic language group that once extended much farther, or whether it was generally limited to the Aquitaine/Basque region is not currently known. One reason the language of Aquitaine is important is because Basque is the last surviving non-Indo-European language in western Europe and it has had some effect on the languages around it, including Spanish and, to a lesser extent, French.
Eleanor of Aquitaine (French: Aliénor d’Aquitaine; Éléonore de Guyenne) (1122 or 1124 – 1 April 1204) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages. As well as being Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France (1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189). She was the patroness of such literary figures as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn.
Eleanor succeeded her father as Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitiers at the age of fifteen, becoming the most eligible bride in Europe. Three months after her accession, she married Louis VII, son of her guardian, King Louis The Fat. As Queen of France, she participated in the unsuccessful Second Crusade. Soon after the Crusade, Eleanor sought an annulment of her marriage but was rejected by Pope Eugene III. However, after the birth of Alix, another daughter, Louis agreed to an annulment. The marriage was annulled on 11 March 1152, on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. Their daughters were declared legitimate and custody was awarded to Louis, while Eleanor's lands were restored to her.
Julia Fordham (born 10 August 1962) is a British singer-songwriter. Her professional career started in the early 1980s, under the name "Jules Fordham", as a backing singer for Mari Wilson and Kim Wilde, before signing a recording contract of her own later that decade. Fordham is now based in California.
In 1988, Fordham released her first album on Circa Records. Simply titled Julia Fordham, it reached #20 in the UK and eventually earned a Gold disc. It contained the Top 40 single "Happy Ever After" (which peaked at #27 in August 1988) The album also charted in the U.S., reaching #118 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Fordham released her second album, Porcelain, in 1989. The album charted higher than her debut (#13) but sold less, and was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry. It was, however, Fordham's only album to crack the U.S. Top 100, reaching #74.
In late 1991, Fordham released her third album, Swept. The album only reached #33 in the UK, but contained the Top 40 hit "(Love Moves In) Mysterious Ways", which peaked at #19 in early 1992 and was also featured in the 1991 film The Butcher's Wife.
Defaced you stand
A single nobody in a mindless crowd
Surrounded by a system
Where corruption triumphs
Here every suspended solid
Rests on top of our affliction
Grieving silence
A lament to our own death!
Shut down your eyes and ears
Protect them from the truth
Avoid reality to suit your pitiful life
An alliance of deception
A conformist masterplan!
Grieving silence
A lament to our own death!
Ignorance pawn
You care for nothing, but your self
Just for what prosperity demands
But you can smash their greed for power
Theories of superior existence
An ancient relic of human vanity
A trigger for abnormal social behaviour
Faith is a mind disease
An instrument of torture
Forcing man to suppress his own instincts
The nature of Cain
Was the final design
For the creation of man
Lurking in the most secret paths
Of the human subconscious
The Dogma of Cain
Faith in God killed the trust to man
As Cain did to his own brother
The best seller of cheap hope
In a sick bargain of life denial
The nature of Cain
Was the final design
For the creation of man
Lurking in the most secret paths
Of the human subconscious
The Dogma of Cain
And there...
Within the silent vertigo of Babel's fall
Arose the fear for the uncertainty of demise
And upon it were built
Churches and temples
The nature of Cain
Was the final design
For the creation of man
Lurking in the most secret paths
Of the human subconscious
Noir and moments of change
Shadows swim in the lakes of chaos
As I redeem the hopes in my grasping hand
I feel my glacial prison quiver!
Questions? Swarming through my mind
These words descent from desolate realms
Seeking ways to reach my devastation
Forlorn I have foreseen the dark
Shall dwell in the fortress of past
Whispering n your ears
Holding the back of your neck
Judging their infinite lies
Tempting your self for the end
In my moments of faith
My aura kneels to embrace me
I subtracted life with my grasping hand
As I perceive my prison... Shatter!
Forlorn I have foreseen the dark
Shall dwell in the fortress of past
Forlorn I have foreseen the dark
Whispers in the dark
A window with no view
The Lies they told you were true
Their love gave birth to a spark
In fathomless depths
There where logic dissolves
into the obscurity
of instinct-driven behaviour
One challenges oneself
to defy
From non-canonical patterns
Randomly picked from endless streams
Massive figures are formed to recreate
Facts that already exist
or not...
In fathomless depths
One's dreams are manufactured
One shall silently surrender to them
For dreams are the most
Kafkaesque manifestation
An essence drawn beneath the surface
Coiled into human form a Human Serpent
Craved it's form for human flesh
But still inside a rigid reptile
Until we die
Force fed we swallow
A vicious way of living
Born from the seed of deception
Came this unexpected guest,
A human serpentine
Initiation to an eerie convention
The feelings unfaithful
And unable to feel the change
Until we die
Force fed we swallow
A vicious way of living
No escape from materialistic frontiers
Now everything gets a whole new meaning
Hunted but still straw
Initiation and grinding infestation!
Encounters between those who stand for faith
As everything shatters,
Blood gives a warm flow
Terror but nothing to fear
The thirst finally won the test
No hope to stand against
Until we die
Force fed we swallow
A vicious way of living
Venomous serpentine and evil
Struggling upon the Threshold that leads from sanity to nightmare
Not knowing that your altered perception blackens the Freedom
Of your Terrible Mind
Of the very existence
You're fighting to deny
Haunted by murderous demons and guided by your own fears
You seek haven between the shadows of your true enemy
Of your only enemy
The one that lies
The images are all the same
A moving spiral that devours
All consciousness and truth
An altered state of mind
Experiment on mass hypnosis
Your own inescapable inertia!
Go on and spit your lies
Seduce / Provoke / Defile
Every precious truth...
A rosebud in your dangerous hands
Under a storm of information
Minds succumb to gradual possession
To be used and then reformed
A passive service for the "righteous"
A place for the void to rest
A means for the incapable... to rule!
Go on and spit your lies
Seduce / Provoke / Defile
Every precious truth...
A rosebud in your dangerous hands
Entertainment through torture
The infliction of psychosomatic pain
Deifying every suspended solid
A basis for corruption to spread
A method to discard all guilt
What a marvelous beauty that is
That of an incomprehensible abyss
As astonishing as the sun,
Yet so hideous in it's vagueness
What an agony to exist
Balancing between matter and nihil
As simple as the feel of the wind
Yet vast like a cosmic ocean
How the subconscious is able to provide
A layer that severs perception from nothing
An amalgam of incoherent entities
That form the essence of life
Dwelling on the brink of void
In the shade of the eyelid
A scarlet shape crawls
Inside the eyes a projection
An organic machine
Slowly molding reality
The pendulum demands
To cherish the relentless pace of time
Amidst eleven dimensions
Matter collapses to the glint of a moment
The failure of the abyss
It's inability to judge
Beyond the terms of it's likeness
Bound to it's very being
An eagle untethered in it's cage
Pondering upon the human potential
The social reflection of the abyss
Condemned to be biased against it's own existence
Still meant to transcend it's natural limits
In the shade of the eyelid
A scarlet shape crawls
Inside the eyes a projection
An organic machine