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The old proverb – ale and history

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

A trail that leads nowhere but is not without interest. From The Man of Mode or, Sir Fopling Flutter (1.1.270ish) by George Etherege.

DORIMANT …. [to the SHOEMAKER:] How now, you drunken sot?
SHOEMAKER: ’Zbud, you have no reason to talk; I have not had a bottle of sack of yours in my belly this fortnight.
MEDLEY: The orange-woman says your neighbours take notice what a heathen you are, and design to inform the bishop and have you burned for an atheist.
SHOEMAKER: Damn her, dunghill! If her husband does not remove her, she stinks so the parish intend to indict him for a nuisance.
MEDLEY: I advise you like a friend, reform your life; you have brought the envy of the world upon you by living above yourself. Whoring and swearing are vices too genteel for a shoemaker.
SHOEMAKER: ’Zbud, I think you men of quality will grow as unreasonable as the women; you would engross the sins o the nation; poor folks can no sooner be wicked, but they’re railed at by their betters.
DORIMANT: Sirrah, I’ll have you stand i’ the pillory for this libel.
SHOEMAKER: Some of you deserve it, I’m sure; there are so many of ’em, that our journeymen nowadays, instead of harmless ballads, sing nothing but your damned lampoons.
DORIMANT: Our lampoons, you rogue?
SHOEMAKER: Nay, good master, why should not you write your own commentaries as well as Cæsar?
MEDLEY: The rascal’s read, I perceive.
SHOEMAKER: You know the old proverb—ale and history.

John Barnard, the play’s most recent editor, gives the fullest gloss to the phrase:

ale and history: ‘Truth is in ale as in history’ (M. P. Tilley, A Dictionary of Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1950), T578). But G. L. Apperson, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1929), p. 4, regards the evidence as too slight for the sentence to be regarded as a proverb. However, the phrase was current in the seventeenth century, occurring in Bishop Corbett’s Iter Boreale (Poems of Richard Corbett, ed. J. A. W. Bennett and H. R. Trevor-Roper (1955), p. 43), while Fielding quotes an unidentified couplet in Tom Jones, I V.i.—‘While history with her comrade ale, /Soothes the sad series of her serious tale’—and also refers to Butler’s couplet, ‘Thou that with Ale, or viler Liquors, /Didst inspire Withers, Pryn and Vickars’ (Hudibras (1663–78), Part I, Canto i, 645–6).

Tilley’s entry reads

T578 TRUTH is in ale as in history
1618-21 R. CORBET in Shak. Cent. Praise, p. 128: Mine host was full of ale and history. 1654 GAYTON Pleas. Notes Don Quix. IV v, p. 195: That truth be in his Ale, as History. 1676 ETHEREGE Man Mode I i 283: You know the old Proverb, Ale and History.
Cf. A102: Fair cheve good ale, it makes many folks speak as they think.

The cross-referenced entry is

A102 Fair cheve good ALE, it makes many folks speak as they think.
1678 Ray, p.93: *Fiar chieve is used in the same sence here as … Good speed, Good success have it .. In vino veritas. 1710 PALMER, p. 18
[with cross-references to the above proverb and ‘In wine there is truth’]

Apperson – who was presumably Tilley’s main source – begins his entry, “I have not been able to identify the proverb to which the following quotations refer” and then cites the same passages as above.

The only more recent comment is in an Oxford Etymologist post by Anatoly Liberman (where I first learned the phrase a couple of years back). He also mentions it in less detail is his Take My Word for It: A Dictionary of English Idioms.

At approximately the same time (before 1635), the phrase ale and history turned up. It became proverbial (though today hardly anyone has heard it). The implication seemed to be that drinking ale is inseparable from telling a good story. Perhaps so. The inventor of the phrase remains undiscovered. It is not even clear whether we are dealing with an idiom. In any case, the OED does not list it.

Here also are the other uses Apperson and Tilley identify. Richard Corbet‘s Iter Boreale (need to ctrl+f):

And now when wee had swett ’twixt sunn and sunn,
And eight miles long to thirty broad had spun;
Wee learne the just proportion from hence
Of the diameter and circumference.
That night yet made amends; our meat and sheetes
Were farr above the promise of those streetes;
Those howses, that were tilde with straw and mosse,
Profest but weake repaire for that dayes losse
Of patience: yet this outside lets us know,
The worthyest things make not the bravest show:
The shott was easy; and what concernes us more,
The way was so; mine host doth ride before.
Mine host was full of ale and history;
And on the morrow when hee brought us nigh
Where the two Roses joyn’d, you would suppose,
Chaucer nere made the Romant of the Rose.
Heare him. See yee yon wood? There Richard lay,
With his whole army: Looke the other way,
And loe where Richmond in a bed of gorsse
Encampt himselfe ore night, and all his force:
Upon this hill they mett. Why, he could tell
The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell:

And Edmund Gayton‘s Pleasant Notes Upon Don Quixot., a sort of uncorseted commentary on the novel.

Mine Host right use of these Romances got,
Reading such books merrily o’r the pot
Unto his guests; and every Gyant slaine,
And Lady rescued, (Tapster) brought up twaine,
Not Gyants, but fresh pots; then those dispatch
In healths unto the Ladies Princely match,
And to the Knight her valiant Paramour;
Why, here’s no danger now but of the score:
But mine Hosts credit upon that doth lie,
That truth be in his Ale, as History.
Fresh Tales, fresh Taps; and thus they frolique through
The Arts of Thracian Cirongilio,
And Tope away Hercanian Fleximart;
(A sober Knight, and us’d not to that Art)
So Don Diego Garcia of Par-edes,
Hath Pitcher-praise, and double health his meed-is.
So when our Don at his long home is anchor’d,
His memory in a Manchegan Tankard:
By the old Wives will be kept up, that’s all,
Counted the merriest, tosseth up the same.
(John Falstaffs Windsor Dames memoriall)
A Goddard or an Anniversary spice-Bowle,
(Drank off by th’ Gossips, e’r you can have thrice told)
And a God rest his soule. Our Don is laid,
Truce with the world; Mils be no more afraid,
And Sheep graze quietly, Coarses goe free,
The Don is laid, men may have leave to dye,
And to be buried; Carriers keep the rodes,
No more doe you your selves rifle your loades,
And lay it on Knight-Errants and their Squires.
Sancho’s a man of no such base desires,
An Earle in losses, and hath noble thoughts;
But when the Curate prov’d those books were nought
But lies and Fabulous delights, and Errantry
A Figment! Sancho put finger in th’ eye.

I can’t sell myself one way or another on the phrase as genuine proverb. All the passages do seem to assume its status – in that they refer to and leverage an expected familiarity with the idea rather explain it. But that glancing use makes it difficult to deduce a consistent meaning. Alongside Liberman’s conclusion – ‘the implication seemed to be that drinking ale is inseparable from telling a good story’ – you could just as easily posit a northernized in vino veritas or – and I take this as distinct from Liberman’s idea – that one picks up a lot of out of the way information in conversations that spring up as you kill time drinking. If I have to pick, I like the last. Just a few weeks back a rainy day bar visit gave me details about conservation problems at Madinat al-Zahra that I’d otherwise never have learned.

Pitiful, isn’t it!

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Burton Watson’s translation of The Complete Works of Zhuangzi (pg 286):

When Zhuangzi was about to die, his disciples expressed a desire to give him a sumptuous burial. Zhuangzi said, “I will have heaven and earth for my coffin and coffin shell, the sun and moon for my pair of jade disks, the stars and constellations for my pearls and beads, and the ten thousand things for my parting gifts. The furnishings for my funeral are already prepared—what is there to add?”

“But we’re afraid the crows and kites will eat you, Master!” said his disciples.

Zhuangzi said, “Above ground, I’ll be eaten by crows and kites; below ground, I’ll be eaten by mole crickets and ants. Wouldn’t it be rather bigoted to deprive one group in order to supply the other?

“If you use unfairness to achieve fairness, your fairness will be unfair. If you use a lack of proof to establish proofs, your proofs will be proofless. The bright-eyed man is no more than the servant of things, but the man of spirit knows how to find real proofs. The bright-eyed is no match for the man of spirit—from long ago this has been the case. Yet the fool trusts to what he can see and immerses himself in the human. All his accomplishments are beside the point—pitiful, isn’t it!”

The metaphysics of leisure time

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Bernard Suits’ The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. For lack of confidence in my ability to sum up this more than odd Socratic meta-dialogue I’ll borrow a review blurb from David Braybrooke now slapped on the cover of a recent reprinting:

Like Erasmus’s Praise of Folly and Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew, Suits’s The Grasshopper sparkles with wit and fun; and outranks those wonderful works in clear, firm philosophical conclusions. Defying certain discouragements, Suits constructs an illuminating definition of games, which he defends in lively dialogues, amusing parables, and cascades of subtle analytical distinctions. That is achievement enough to make a new classic in the history of philosophy. Suits offers more: an application of his definition in a discussion of how much we may have to rely on games—deliberately using relatively inefficient means to reach freely stipulated goals—if life is to continue to have meaning. We may be able to regain thereby the meaning lost as advances in technology enable us to escape one by one the tasks that necessity used to impose on humankind.

Below is a lengthy – 5 pages – extract from the conclusion of the work. New editions include additional materials from the author and there’s also a recent sequel – The Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure and the Good Life in the Third Millennium – that I’ve pulled but not yet begun.

Skepticus: I shall be happy to do so. When you were advancing the view that science, or any kind of intellectual inquiry, was an instrumental activity and thus could have no place in the moral ideal of man, I had some misgivings, and now I believe I know why. You know, Grasshopper, as well as I do, that people who are seriously engaged in the pursuit of knowledge value that pursuit at least as much as they do the knowledge which is its goal. Indeed, it is a commonplace that once a scientist or philosopher after great effort solves a major problem he is very let down, and far from rejoicing in the possession of his solution or discovery, he cannot wait to be engaged once more in the quest. Success is something to shoot at, not to live with. And of course, now that I think of it, this is true not only of intellectual inquiry, but it certainly can be true of any instrumental activity whatever, and frequently is. We might call this state of affairs the Alexandrian condition of man, after Alexander the Great. When there are no more worlds to conquer we are filled not with satisfaction but with despair.

Grasshopper: How do you think we could have made such an elementary mistake, Skepticus?

S: I think we failed to take note of the fact that an activity which is, from one point of view, instrumentally valuable can, from another point of view, be intrinsically valuable. Thus, we would agree that carpentry is an instrumental activity; that is, instrumental to the existence of houses. But to a person who enjoys building for its own sake, that otherwise instrumental activity has intrinsic value as well. And the same could be true of anyone who really enjoys his work, whatever that work might be. It seems to follow from this that we may now re-instate most of the activities we thought we were obliged to banish from Utopia. The ideal, therefore, does not consist wholly in game playing.

G: I believe you are correct, Skepticus, in pointing out that otherwise instrumental activities can be valued as ends in themselves. But I am not convinced that it follows from that fact that game playing is not the only possible Utopian occupation. Let me see if I can persuade you of this. Let us continue to think of the moral ideal of man as an actual Utopian community, then, but where, instead of supposing that allso to speak – objectively instrumental activities have been banishedphysical and intellectual labour, and the like – what has been banished is simply all activity which is not valued intrinsically, thus leaving it open to any Utopian to enjoy the exertions of productive endeavour. Thus, just as some Utopians will be able to pluck yachts and diamonds off Utopian trees, others will be able to pluck off opportunities to fix the kitchen sink, to solve economic problems, to push forward the frontiers of scientific knowledge, and so on, with respect to anything a Utopian might find intrinsically valuable.

S: Yes, Grasshopper. That seems a much more satisfactory picture of Utopia and of the ideal of existence.

G: Splendid. Now, to continue. It is clear, I should think, that the opportunity to work – or whatever other instrumental activity it might be which is desired – should not be left to chance in Utopia. If, at any given period of time, everyone in Utopia wanted to work at something, then such work should be available for them all. And if nobody wanted to work, then it would not follow (as it surely would in our present non-Utopian existence) that society would collapse. And similarly, of course, with intellectual inquiry. That is to say, with respect to any objectively instrumental activity whatever, it would have to be the case that such activity could be undertaken, but it would also have to be the case that no such activity need be undertaken. For another way of saying that the Utopians only do those things which they value intrinsically is to say that they always do things because they want to, and never because they must.

S: Yes, that seems correct.

G: Very well. Now let us consider two cases that would inevitably arise in Utopia.

Case One: John Striver has spent his first decade in Utopia doing all the things that newcomers to Utopia usually do. He has travelled round the world several times, loafed a good deal in the sun, and so on, and now, having become bored, he wants some activity to be engaged in. He therefore makes a request (to the Computer in Charge or to God or whatever) saying that he wants to work at something, and he selects carpentry. Now, there is no demand for houses which John’s carpentry will serve, because all the houses of whatever possible kind are already instantly available to the citizens of Utopia. What kind of house, then, should he build? Surely it would be the kind whose construction would give him the greatest satisfaction, and we may suggest that such satisfaction would require that building the house would provide enough of a challenge to make the task interesting while not being so difficult that John would utterly botch the job. Now, what I would like to put to you, Skepticus, is that this activity is essentially no different from playing golf or any other game. Just as there is no need, aside from the game of golf, to get little balls into holes in the ground, so in Utopia there is no need, aside from the activity of carpentry, for the house which is the product of that carpentry. And just as a golfer could get balls into holes much more efficiently by dropping them in with his hand, so John could obtain a house simply by pressing a telepathic button. But it is clear that John is no more interested in simply having a house than the golfer is in having ball-filled holes. It is the bringing about of these results which is important to John and to the golfer rather than the results themselves. Both, that is to say, are involved in a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles; both, that is to say, are playing games. This solution, it is interesting to note, was also open to Alexander the Great. Since he had run out of worlds to conquer by impetuously conquering the only world there was, he could have given it all back and started over again, just as one divides up the chess pieces equally after each game in order to be able to play another game. Had Alexander done that, his action would no doubt have been regarded by his contemporaries as somewhat frivolous, but from the Utopian point of view his failure to take such an obvious step would indicate that Alexander did not really place all that high a value on the activity of conquering worlds.

Case Two: The early experience of William Seeker in Utopia is very similar to that of John Striver. William, too, after a time, wishes to be able to achieve something. But whereas John’s abilities and interests had led him to choose a manual art, William is led to choose the pursuit of scientific truth. Now again, how much scientific inquiry there is to undertake at any given time cannot be left to chance, since the interests in doing scientific research might far exceed the amount of research that could logically be undertaken at any given time. It is even conceivable that there would come a time when all scientific investigation had come to an end; a time, that is, when everything knowable was in fact known. Since, therefore, there could be no guarantee that there would always be an objective opportunity to do scientific research, it follows that it would be undesirable to have Utopian scientists stop doing research on a problem simply because the problem had already been solved. For what is important in Utopia is not the objective state of scientific knowledge, but the attitude of the Utopian scientist, which may be described in the following way. If the solution of the problem he is working on were readily retrievable from the memory banks of the computers, the Utopian scientist would not retrieve the solution. This is just like the devotee of crossword puzzles who knows that the answers to the puzzle will be published next day. Still, he tries to solve the puzzle today, even though there is no urgency whatever in having the solution today rather than tomorrow. And just as the dedicated puzzle solver will say, ‘Don’t tell me the answer; let me work it out for myself,’ William Seeker will have the same attitude towards his scientific investigations. Even if other means for coming to know the answer are readily available, he voluntarily rejects these means so that he will have something to do. But this is again, I submit, to play a game.

S: What you seem to be saying is that a Utopian could engage in all of the achieving activities that normally occupy people in the nonUtopian world, but that the quality, so to speak, of such endeavours would be quite different.

G: Yes. The difference in quality, as you put it, can be seen in the contrast in attitude of a lumberjack when he is, on the one hand, plying his trade of cutting down trees for the sawmill and, on the other hand, when he is cutting down trees in competition with other lumberjacks at the annual woodcutter’s picnic. Thus, all the things we now regard as trades, indeed all instances of organized endeavour whatever, would, if they continued to exist in Utopia, be sports. So that in addition to hockey, baseball, golf, tennis, and so on, there would also be the sports of business administration, jurisprudence, philosophy, production management, motor mechanics, ad, for all practical purposes, infinitum.

S: So that the moral ideal of man does, after all, consist in game playing.

G: I think not, Skepticus. For now that the Utopians have something to do, both admiration and sharing are again possible, and so love and friendship as well. And with the re-introduction of the emotions associated with striving – the joy of victory, you know, and the bitterness of defeat – emotional content is provided for art. And perhaps morality will also be present, possibly in the form of what we now call sportsmanship. So, while game playing need not be the sole occupation of Utopia, it is the essence, the ‘without which not’ of Utopia. What I envisage is a culture quite different from our own in terms of its basis. Whereas our own culture is based on various kinds of scarcity – economic, moral, scientific, erotic – the culture of Utopia will be based on plenitude. The notable institutions of Utopia, accordingly, will not be economic, moral, scientific, and erotic instruments – as they are today – but institutions which foster sport and other games. But sports and games unthought of today; sports and games that will require for their exploitation – that is, for their mastery and enjoyment – as much energy as is expended today in serving the institutions of scarcity. It behoves us, therefore, to begin the immense work of devising these wonderful games now, for if we solve all of our problems of scarcity very soon, we may very well find ourselves with nothing to do when Utopia arrives.

S: You mean we should begin to store up games- very much like food for winter – against the possibility of an endless and endlessly boring summer. You seem to be a kind of ant after all, Grasshopper, though, I must admit, a distinctly odd kind of ant.

G: No, Skepticus, I am truly the Grasshopper; that is, an adumbration of the ideal of existence, just as the games we play in our non-Utopian lives are intimations of things to come. For even now it is games which give us something to do when there is nothing to do. We thus call games ‘pastimes,’ and regard them as trifling fillers of the interstices in our lives. But they are much more important than that. They are clues to the future. And their serious cultivation now is perhaps our only salvation. That, if you like, is the metaphysics of leisure time.

S: Still, Grasshopper, I find that I have a serious reservation about the Utopia you have constructed. It sounds a grand sort of life for those who are very keen on games, but not everyone is keen on games. People like to be building houses, or running large corporations, or doing scientific research to some purpose, you know, not just for the hell of it.

G: The point is well taken, Skepticus. You are saying that Bobby Fischer and Phil Esposito and Howard Cosell might be very happy in paradise, but that John Striver and William Seeker are likely to find quite futile their make-believe carpentry and their make-believe science.

S: Precisely. (Pause) Well, Grasshopper, what answer do you have to make to this objection? (There is a nother pause) Grasshopper, are you dying again?

G: No, Skepticus.

S: What is it, then? You look quite pale.

G: Skepticus, I have just had a vision.

S: Good lord!

G: Shall I tell you about it?

S: (Skepticus glances furtively at his wrist watch) Yes. Well. Certainly, Grasshopper, please proceed.

G: The vision was evidently triggered by your suggestion that not everyone likes to play games, and it was a vision of the downfall of Utopia, a vision of paradise lost. I saw time passing in Utopia, and I saw the Strivers and the Seekers coming to the conclusion that if their lives were merely games, then those lives were scarcely worth living. Thus motivated, they began to delude themselves into believing that man-made houses were more valuable than computer-produced houses, and that long-solved scientific problems needed resolving. They then began to persuade others of the truth of these opinions and even went so far as to represent the computers as the enemies of mankind. Finally they enacted legislation proscribing their use. Then more time passed, and it seemed to everyone that the carpentry game and the science game were not games at all, but vitally necessary tasks which had to be performed in order for mankind to survive. Thus, although all of the apparently productive activities of man were games, they were not believed to be games. Games were once again relegated to the role of mere pastimes useful for bridging the gaps in our serious endeavours. And if it had been possible to convince these people that they were in fact playing games, they would have felt that their whole lives had been as nothing – a mere stage play or empty dream.

S: Yes, Grasshopper, they would believe themselves to be nothing at all, and one can imagine them. out of chagrin and mortification. simply vanishing on the spot. as though they had never been.

G: Quite so. Skeptic us. As you are quick to see. my vision has solved the final mystery of my dream. The message of the dream now seems perfectly clear. The dream was saying to me. ‘Come now. Grasshopper. you know very well that most people will not want to spend their lives playing games. Life for most people will not be worth living if they cannot believe that they are doing something useful. whether it is providing for their families or formulating a theory of relativity.’

S: Yes. it seems a perfectly straightforward case of an anxiety dream. You were acting out in a disguised way certain hidden fears you had about your thesis concerning the ideal of existence.

G: No doubt. But tell me, Skeptic us. were my repressed fears about the fate of mankind. or were they about the cogency of my thesis? Clearly they could not have been about both. For if my fears about the fate of mankind are justified. then I need not fear that my thesis is faulty. since it is that thesis which justifies those fears. And if my thesis is faulty. then I need not fear for mankind. since that fear stems from the cogency of my thesis.

S: Then tell me which you feared. Grasshopper. You alone are in a position to know.

G: I wish there were time. Skepticus. but again I feel the chill of death. Goodbye.

S: Not goodbye. Grasshopper. au revoir.

By the hovering light of a moon that clouds and unclouds at Jupiter’s whim

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Seamus Heaney’s translation of Aeneid Book VI (lines 258-294) followed by a brief commentary from Rachel Falconer’s recent volume dedicated to Heaney’s decades-long engagement with Virgil – Seamus Heaney, Virgil and the Good of Poetry

“procul o, procul este, profani,”
conclamat vates, “totoque absistite luco;
tuque invade viam vaginaque eripe ferrum:
nunc animis opus, Aenea, nunc pectore firmo.”
tantum effata furens antro se immisit aperto;
ille ducem haud timidis vadentem passibus aequat.
Di, quibus imperium est animarum, umbraeque silentes
et Chaos et Phlegethon, loca nocte tacentia late,
sit mihi fas audita loqui; sit numine vestro
pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas.
Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram
perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna,
quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra
Iuppiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.
vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus Orci
Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae,
pallentesque habitant Morbi tristisque Senectus
et Metus et malesuada Fames ac turpis Egestas,
terribiles visu formae, Letumque Labosque:
tum consanguineus Leti Sopor et mala mentis
Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine Bellum
ferreique Eumenidum thalami et Discordia demens,
vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis.
In medio ramos annosaque bracchia pandit
ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem Somnia vulgo
vana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus haerent.
multaque praeterea variarum monstra ferarum,
Centauri in foribus stabulant Scyllaeque biformes
et centumgeminus Briareus ac belua Lernae,
horrendum stridens, flammisque armata Chimaera,
Gorgones Harpyiaeque et forma tricorporis umbrae.
corripit hic subita trepidus formidine ferrum
Aeneas, strictamque aciem venientibus offert;
et, ni docta comes tenuis sine corpore vitas
admoneat volitare cava sub imagine formae,
inruat et frustra ferro diverberet umbras.

Depart from the grove. But not you, Aeneas:
Take you the sword from your scabbard, go ahead
On the road. Now will spirit be tested,
Now, now your courage must hold.” So saying, rapt
And unstoppable, she hurled herself into the mouth
Of the wide-open cave, and he, without fear,
Kept in step as she guided him forward.
Gods who rule over souls! Shades who subsist
In the silence! Chaos and Phlegethon, O you hushed
Nocturnal expanses, let assent be forthcoming
As I tell what’s been given to tell, let assent be divine
As I unveil things profoundly beyond us,
Mysteries and truths buried under the earth.
On they went then in darkness, through the lonely
Shadowing night, a nowhere of deserted dwellings,
Dim phantasmal reaches where Pluto is king—
Like following a forest path by the hovering light
Of a moon that clouds and unclouds at Jupiter’s whim,
While the colours of the world pall in the gloom.
In front of the house of the dead,
Between its dread jambs, is a courtyard where pain
And self-wounding thoughts have ensconced themselves.
Here too are pallid diseases, the sorrows of age,
Hunger that drives men to crime, agonies of the mind,
Poverty that demeans—all of these haunting nightmares
Have their beds in the niches. Death too, and sleep,
The brother of death, and terror, and guilty pleasures
That memory battens on. Also close by that doorway:
The iron cells of the Furies, death-dealing War
And fanatical Violence, her viper-tresses astream
In a bloodstained tangle of ribbons. Right in the middle
Stands an elm, copious, darkly aflutter, old branches
Spread wide like arms, and here, it is said,
False dreams come to roost, clinging together
On the undersides of the leaves. At the gates,
Monstrosities brood in their pens, bewildering beasts
Of every form and description: two-natured Centaurs
And Scyllas, hundred-headed Briareus, the beast of Lerna,
Loathsome and hissing, and fire-fanged Chimaera;
Gorgons and Harpies too, and the looming menace
Of triple-framed Geryon. Faced with this rout,
Aeneas is thrown into panic, pulls out his sword,
Swings it round in defence, and had not his guide
In her wisdom forewarned him
That these were lives without substance, phantoms,
Apparitional forms, he would have charged
And tried to draw blood from shadows.

And the analysis, excerpts beginning on pg 247 in the Katabasis as Poetic Redress section

We have seen in Heaney’s previous translations and reworkings of Virgil that Aeneas’ mythic descent into the underworld and return is associated with the introspective journey into the otherworld of art, in search of redress (comprehension, perspective, resistance) to real-world suffering, whether from violent political conflict or personal loss. In the 2016 volume, although the shape of the katabatic journey, its threshold-crossings, encounters with the dead, trajectory and telos, are all laid down by Virgil, nevertheless Heaney’s translation continues this labor of seeking redress to historical adversity through the medium of poetry. These longstanding preoccupations of Heaney’s are evident not only in the orchestration of the tone and rhythm of the translation, but also in the weight he gives to particular, threshold moments, the careful phrasing of certain familiar motifs, and the elaboration of Virgil’s vision of a country at peace. The good of poetry that emerges from this dialogue with Virgil is ultimately its capacity to offer inner resilience, hope, and the memory or vision of a more just and peaceful society
…
Aeneas’ journey through the underworld begins in shadowy darkness and ends in warmth and sunlight, a trajectory that corresponds precisely to Heaney’s notion of poetic redress. Thus, he takes great care over the translation of two passages that mark the beginning and end of that Orphic ‘haulage’ from darkness to light. The first describes Aeneas setting forth into the realms of Dis (Hades), and the latter describes his arrival in the valley of Elysium. Virgil’s description of the hero’s setting forth is justly famous, with its rich alliterations, word order inversions and mysterious beginning with the imperfect verb ‘ibant’ (‘they were going’):
…
Heaney responds very expressively to Virgil’s evocation of underworld melancholy. His translation emphasises the psychological dimensions of Aeneas’ quest, while also giving a specifically Irish dimension to this universal realm of shadows. The infernal stretch of time implied in Virgil’s ‘ibant’ is conveyed here through word order inversion: ‘On they went then’, where ‘then’ carries the sense of causation as well as temporality (‘therefore’, as well as ‘at that time’). The line-end pause after ‘lonely’ encourages us to attach the adjective to the wayfaring Aeneas, as well as the ‘Shadowing night’ it modifies. Heaney’s idiomatic phrase, ‘a nowhere of deserted dwellings’, conjures the material reality of a Northern Irish town, post-military conflict. At the same time, both ‘a nowhere’ and ‘deserted dwellings’ are phrases that
posit, and cancel out, a sense of place. ‘Phantasmal reaches’ recall the ‘phantasmal comrades’ of Joyce’s Portrait, while draining away the presence of even companionable ghosts at the start of Aeneas’ lonely journey. Heaney begins the simile with uncertain syntax, so that it is at first unclear who is ‘following a forest path’. By the time we realise this must refer to Aeneas and the Sibyl, we have experienced their sense of disorientation on the dim-lit path. Virgil’s ‘atra’ is a blackness associated with funerals, for which Heaney’s ‘pall in the gloom’ is a perfectly apt translation. In Virgil’s lines 271–2, ‘Iuppiter’ and ‘nox’ are the subjects of the phrase, and they impose darkness on the sky and world. In Heaney’s corresponding lines 361–2, the subjects are the moon and ‘the colours of the world’. Both are overshadowed by ‘Jupiter’s whim’, but since they are active agents, they retain the capacity to restore the world to its full radiance. In other words, Heaney redistributes the balance of power between darkness and light, giving an equal weight to each in the line: ‘moon’
against ‘Jupiter’s whim’, and ‘colours’ against ‘gloom’. The possibility of the moon unclouding, and overthrowing Jupiter’s whim, exists only in the simile, since Aeneas at the start of his journey is in Pluto’s realm (his translation of the less familiar name, ‘Dis’), where the darkness and negation appear absolute.

Like the oyster, that catch’d a bird, that thrust his head into his mouth when he gap’d

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

Three sketches from Samuel Butler’s Characters. His Theophrastan portraits are in truth all so much of a type that any three are likely as good a reflection of the whole as any others – my choices are down to personal taste. The work is available online here (in a less than convenient scan) but my text is from the far better (and richly footnoted) 1970 edition edited by Charles W. Daves.

A Dunce

Is so slow of apprehension, that every thing escapes and gives him the slip. He is very thick of understanding, and apprehends nothing that is not often and loud repeated over and over again, and then commonly he mistakes something too. His dull blunt wit is like a hammer, that will rather break things in pieces, then pierce into them; and all knowledge to him is like some late philosophersa definition of body-impenetrable but discerpible.! He has lost the use of his understanding, and is taken with a lameness in his brain, that he is not able to stir himself, but as he is help’d by those that are about him. He is commonly compos’d of two different tempers, strong inclinations and as feeble abilities, both which pulling contrary ways he stands stock still, unless, as all things are up hill to him, every strain he makes, his weight being more than his strength can master, does but set him backwards. He loves learning, but it does not love him; for it always lies crude and undigested upon his stomach, and he is much the worse for it. His judgment is lighter than his fancy, which renders him like a goose; for his feet are better than his wings, and he swims much better than he flyes. With much drudgery and long time he gets something by rote, which he always carrys about him, and produces like a watch, when he is askd what a clock it is. If he hit upon any thing that is not amiss, ’tis by chance, like the oyster, that catch’d a bird, that thrust his head into his mouth when he gap’d. The thickness of his scull renders it very able to keep out any thing. All his study and industry does but render his understanding duller and stiffer, as hard labour does mens hands. As soon as his capacity is full, which is long because slow in arriving to, he stops there, and whatsoever he meets with after runs over and spills.

The Inconstant

Has a vagabond Soul, without any settled Place of Abode, like the wandering Jew. His Head is unfixed, out of Order, and utterly unserviceable upon any Occasion. He is very apt to be taken with any Thing, but nothing can hold him; for he presently breaks loose, and gives it the Slip. His Head is troubled with a Palsy, which renders it perpetually wavering and incapable of Rest. His Head is like an hour-Glass, that Part that is uppermost always runs out until it is turned, and then runs out again. His Opinions are too violent to last; for, like other Things of the same Kind in Nature, they quickly spend themselves, and fall to nothing. All his Opinions are like Wefts and Strays, that are apt to straggle from their Owner, and belong to the Lord of the Manour, where they are taken up. His Soul has no retentive Faculty, but suffers every Thing to run from him, as fast as he receives it. His whole Life is like a preposterous Ague, in which he has his hot Fit always before his cold one, and is never in a constant Temper. His Principles and Resolves are but a Kind of Moveables, which he will not endure to be fastened to any Freehold, but left loose to be conveyed away at Pleasure, as Occasion shall please to dispose of him. His Soul dwells, like a Tartar, in a Hoord, without any settled Habitation, but is always removing and dislodging from Place to Place. He changes his Head oftner than a Deer, and when his Imaginations art stiff and at their full Growth, he casts them off to breed new ones, only to cast off again the next Season. All his Purposes are built on Air, the Chamelions Diet, and have the same Operation to make him change Colour with every Object he comes near. He pulls off his Judgment, as commonly as his Hat, to evene one he meets with. His Word and his Deed are all one; for when he has given his Word he has done, and never goes further. His Judgment being unsound has the same Operation upon him, that a Disease has upon a sick Man, that makes him find some Ease in turning from Side to Side, and still the last is the most uneasy.

A Fantastic

Is one that wears his Feather on the Inside of his Head. His Brain is like Quicksilver, apt to receive any Impression, but retain none. His Mind is made of changeable Stuff, that alters Colour with every Motion towards the Light. He is a Cormorant, that has but one Gut, devours every Thing greedily, but it runs through him immediately. He does not know so much as what he would be, and yet would be every Thing he knows. He is like a Paper-Lanthorn, that turns with the Smoak of a Candle. He wears his Cloaths, as the antient Laws of the Land have provided, according to his Quality, that he may be known what he is by them; and it is as easy to decipher him by his Habit as a Pudding. He is rigg’d with Ribbon, and his Garniture is his Tackle; all the rest of him is Hull. He is sure to be the earliest in the Fashion, and lays out for it like the first Pease and Cherries. He is as proud of leading a Fashion, as others are of a Faction, and glories as much to be in the Head of a Mode, as a Soldier does to be in the Head of an Army. He is admirably skilful in the Mathematics of Cloaths; and can tell, at the first View, whether they have the right Symmetry. He alters his Gates with the Times, and has not a Motion of his Body, that (like a Dottrel)? he does not borrow from somebody else. He exercises his Limbs, like the Pike and Musket, and all his Postures are practised- Take him all together, and he is nothing but a Translation, Word for Word, out of French, an Image cast in Plaister of Paris, and a Puppet sent over for others to dress themselves by. He speaks French, as Pedants do Latin, to shew his Breeding; and most naturally, where he is least understood. All his non-Naturals, on which his Health and Diseases depend, are stile novo. French is his Holiday-Language, that he wears for his Pleasure and Ornament, and uses English only for his Business and necessary Occasions. He is like a Scotchman, though he is born a Subject of his own Nation, he carries a French faction within him. He is never quiet, but sits as the Wind is said to do, when it is most in Motion. His Head is as full of Maggots as a Pastoral Poet’s Flock. He was begotten, like one of Pliny’s Portuguese Horses, by the Wind-The Truth is he ought not to have been reared; for being calved in the Increase of the Moon, his Head is troubled with a–

Too independent to be bound by pretense

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Red Pine’s translation of the poetry of Tao Yuanming, Choosing To Be Simple. I’ve had this title since its release last October but held it with patience as an end of academic year treat as Red Pine’s choices never disappoint.

The intro to this poem reads: “Written in the eleventh month of 405 [CE] near Shangjingli. Yuan-ming was forty-one. According to Confucius, a man should be free of doubts at forty (Lunyu 2.4). Yuanming moved to Pengze at the beginning of autumn to assume the post of magistrate – a post he quit eighty days later. The poem begins with the boat trip home —wonderfully depicted by the Song artist Li Gonglin in Returning Home. During the Jin, Pengze was located on the east shore of Poyang Lake. Yuanming’s home was across the Pengze Channel, fifty kilometers to the west.”

We were poor and couldn’t support ourselves by farming. With our house filled with children, and the rice bins empty of reserves, we didn’t have the means to go on. Friends and relatives had been urging me to serve as an official, and I finally considered such an unlikely path. It sometimes happened that I had things to do in the area, and the local notables thought me a considerate person. Knowing I was poor, an uncle found me a job in a small town. Conditions there were unsettled at the time, and I was worried about serving so far away—Pengze was a hundred li. But since the salary from government fields was sufficient to supply me with wine, I accepted. However, it didn’t take long before I thought about going home. Why? Because my nature is simply too independent to be bound by pretense. Despite the pain from hunger and cold, that from disobeying myself was even worse. Whenever I have engaged in worldly affairs, it has involved working for my mouth and stomach. Reflecting on my lifelong principles, I felt depressed and ashamed. Still, I hoped at the end of the year I could pack my clothes and leave at night. Then it happened that my sister, who had married into the Cheng family, died in Wuchang, Hence, I gave up my position voluntarily and hurried there. Between autumn and winter, I spent over eighty days in office. Since things worked out as I had hoped, I have entitled this piece “Returning Home” and dated the preface “the eleventh month of the year 405.”

I’m returning home
the garden would be all weeds if I didn’t
since enslaving my heart to my body
how depressed and miserable I have been
I realized I couldn’t restore the past
but I could make up for it in the future
I hadn’t gone too far astray
I was wrong yesterday but right today
my boat rocked in the lightest of winds
a gust blew open my robe
I asked a traveler about the way ahead
annoyed the dawn was so dim.
Seeing my roofline
I was so happy I ran
our houseboy was there to greet me
my children were waiting at the door
the paths around the yard were overgrown
but the pines and chrysanthemums were still there
I led my children into the house
a pitcher of wine was waiting.
I lifted it up and poured
looking out the south window I felt relieved
glad to see the fruit trees outside
it was so easy to be content with so little
I walked around the garden all day entranced
the gate was there but closed as usual
with the help of a cane I found my favorite spots
looking up I gazed into the distance
at mindless clouds rising from the peaks
at weary birds knowing to fly home
as the light began to fade
I touched a lone pine and stood there.
I’ve returned home
I’ve cut my ties and ended my missions
the world and I never got along
why keep traveling and searching
when I’m happy with the heartfelt talk of friends
and my care-dispelling books and zither
the neighbors say spring is nearly here
work in the west fields will start soon
instead of calling for a covered cart
I’ll be rowing my little boat
following secluded waterways
hiking in the higher hills
trees are budding and beginning to bloom
springs are bubbling and starting to flow
I admire how creatures adjust to the seasons
but I feel my life is coming to an end.
It’s over
so I won’t be staying in this world much longer
why not let my heart go if it wants
why am I worried where I’ll end up.
What I hope for isn’t wealth or fame
nor the realm of the gods
but to go somewhere on a sunny day alone
or put aside my cane and plow
or climb the east hills and drone
or write a poem by a stream
ride my transformation to my final home
enjoy the will of Heaven free of doubts.

I’ve gone into business for myself

~ Walter Shandy ~ 5 Comments

From Great Fool: Zen Master Ryòkan: Poems, Letters, and Other Writings

I want to ask you: in this whole world
What is the most profound
most wonderful thing?
Sit erect and meditate right to the end
As you meditate, you’ll find a clue
And everything will naturally become clear
Keep your concentration
don’t miss your chance
After a while, your mind will be pure
your wisdom ripe
Then you won’t have to fool yourself any more
I remember how it was when I was young
The terrible hardship just staying alive
In search of clothing and food
I tramped hopelessly from shabby town to town
Till on the road I found a man of wisdom
Who explained things to me through and through
Then I saw that all along
the precious jewel was in my robe
That jewel is with me here, right now
Having found it, I’ve gone into business for myself
Traveling all over with my wares, exactly as I please

The jewel references a frequently cited parable from the Lotus Sutra. But the words matter less than the inner content so instead of giving the passage I’ll give Ryûichi Abé’s comments on this poem from his introductory essay to Great Fool, A Poetics of Mendicancy: Nondualist Philosophy and Ryòkan’s Figurative Strategies

Ryòkan in this poem recounts his life in light of the celebrated parable from the Lotus Sûtra. Chapter 8 of the sûtra relates an episode in which there once was a young man who decided to make his living in a distant country. Before his departure, he visited a friend’s house. They drank together in bidding farewell; intoxicated, the young man fell asleep. His friend then sewed an invaluable jewel inside his robe as insurance for his journey. Later, in a faraway land, the young man experienced difficulties and became impoverished, spending each day in search of food and clothing. Then his friend came to see him. Reminding the young man of the treasure he had always had in his robe, he saved him from his needless struggle. In the same manner, the sûtra explains, Shâkyamuni Buddha’s disciples in their previous countless transmigratory lives encountered many buddhas of the past who had similarly instructed them in the teaching of the Lotus, the teaching that claims to make it possible for all beings to attain buddhahood. However, because the disciples’ comprehension was not conclusive enough, just like the young man who fell asleep intoxicated, they did not realize that the jewel, the Dharma as revealed by the Lotus, had already been placed in their minds. Like the young man’s friend who rescued him from his hardship, Shâkyamuni Buddha teaches his disciples the Lotus, not for the first time, but to point them to the treasure they always possessed but failed to notice. Ryòkan’s poem above evokes images of his days of wandering in pilgrimage. The “man of wisdom” may be the buddha Ryòkan encountered in his reading of the sûtra. Or, it is possible to understand the “terrible hardship” as Ryòkan’s reference to his training at Entsûji, Ryòkan having realized on reading the Eiheiroku that at the monastery he had been “wasting time” without realizing where his goal was. If so, the “man of wisdom” who gave Ryòkan a chance to escape from his hardship may be Dògen, author of the Eiheiroku, or Kokusen, who led Ryòkan to study Dògen

Dogen is more familiar in the west as author of the Shobogenzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) but his Eiheiroku (Extensive Record) – his later teachings – are also available in full thanks to a surprisingly recent (2010) translation. They can be more personally revealing than the Shobogenzo which might contribute to explaining Ryokan’s preference.

Information Panspermia

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Stephen Webb’s If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life. Aside from wildlife documentaries, thought experiment science is the only kind that interests me, and the Fermi Paradox is by a good margin my favorite area here. In addition to Webb’s book I’d also recommend Milan Cirkovic’s The Great Silence: Science and Philosophy of Fermi’s Paradox and Duncan Forgan’s Solving Fermi’s Paradox. There’s also a very good Youtube channel that routinely offers proposals of a more speculative sort. The host, John Michael Godier, also maintains an equally good interview podcast called Event Horizon that frequently touches on the Fermi Paradox in conversation with a range of mostly physicists.

Solution 23 Information Panspermia

The Armenian mathematical physicist Vahe Gurzadyan has posited an interesting hypothesis:(Footnote 1) we might inhabit a Galaxy “full of traveling life streams”—strings of bits beamed throughout space. The argument goes as follows.

We know that strings of characters can contain information. Consider two strings, each containing a trillion characters. The first string starts “101010 …” and continues in that way until the trillionth character is reached; the second string starts “x9Y$m& …” and carries on in a seemingly randomly pattern. The Kolmogorov complexity (Footnote 2) of strings such as these is defined as the minimum length in bits of a binary-coded program that describes the string. The Kolmogorov complexity of the first string is small because one requires only a short program to describe it: in words, the program could be something along the lines of “Print alternating sequence of 1s and 0s, starting with 1 and ending after the trillionth digit”. The Kolmogorov complexity of the second string is large because there’s no obvious way of compressing the information it contains; any program describing the string would likely be as long as the string itself. Gurzadyan argued that the Kolmogorov complexity of the human genome—indeed, of the totality of terrestrial life—is relatively low. There’s a vast amount of genetic information contained in the millions of species on Earth, but the program that describes that information might be much smaller.

Suppose we wanted to communicate all the genomic information contained in terrestrial life. Communication takes energy: the more bits we have to transmit, the greater the energy requirements. If we wanted to send a file containing all of Earth’s genetic data then the cost in energy would be prohibitive; if instead we sent a program that could recover that information then the energy cost would be small. This is the same argument that says transmitting a trillion digits is much more costly than transmitting the string “Print a trillion alternating 1s and 0s”. Gurzadyan showed that with an Arecibo-like antenna it would be possible to transmit the genomes of terrestrial organisms throughout the Milky Way galaxy.

Gurzadyan, then, imagines a type of what might be called “information panspermia”. He describes the possibility of a Galaxy in which ETCs establish a network of self-replicating Bracewell–von Neumann probes and life is propagated not by sending the genomes themselves but by sending the programs that can recover the genomic information. In other words the probes, which could be many light years away from their home planet, would receive coded strings and from those strings reconstitute the full panoply of that planet’s life. Even now, life might be raining down on us. But it would be a strangely desiccated form of life: not living creatures, but rather ghostly strings of information that have the potential to become living.

Gurzadyan says this idea can eventually approach a solution to Fermi’s paradox. However, I’m not entirely sure how this is so. The hypothesis certainly has implications for SETI: perhaps we should be analyzing radiation for evidence of bit strings? However, if ETCs are indeed spreading their form of life via a Galaxy-wide network of Bracewell–von Neumann probes then why, as we’ve already argued, aren’t they already here? They’ve had plenty of time to reach us but, unless you believe that terrestrial life is the result of the unpacking of a transmitted bit string, we see no signs of them. To my mind, Gurzadyan’s hypothesis, rather than being a solution to the Fermi paradox, is a particular example of how directed panspermia might be made to work. (What perhaps could resolve the paradox is if ETCs either won’t or can’t make self-replicating probes. In that case, might they send out life streams anyway, like dandelion “clocks” in the wind, hoping that occasionally someone somewhere will catch one and reconstitute the life they contain?)

And the footnotes since they add good references, should anyone have the interest.

  1. For details of the argument that the universe might be full of low-complexity bit strings, see Gurzadyan (2005 – Kolmogorov complexity, string information, panspermia and the Fermi paradox. Observatory 125:352–355).See Scheffer (1993 – Machine intelligence, the cost of interstellar travel and Fermi’s paradox. Q J R Astro Soc 35:157–175) for an earlier and thorough defense of the notion that “information transfer” is a much cheaper option for interstellar travel than physical travel. Scheffer resolves the Fermi paradox by arguing that the first civilization to colonize its galaxy will have done all the hard work; for any emerging society it will be overwhelmingly attractive to join the existing civilization rather than try to physically colonize the galaxy. There will be a single,unified civilization. If that first civilization in our Galaxy didn’t bother to contact Earth, for whatever reason, then subsequent societies won’t have bothered either.
  2. The idea that a measure of the complexity of a system can be the length of an algorithm that produces that system is due to Andreii Nikolaevich Kolmogorov (1903–1987), who was one of the outstanding mathematicians of the twentieth century. For an appreciation of just some of Kolmogorov’s output, see for example Parthasarathy (1988 – Obituary: Andreii Nikolaevich Kolmogorov. J Appl Prob 25:445–450)

Why are you carrying on like this?

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Great Fool: Zen Master Ryokan translated by Ryûichi Abé and Peter Haskel. I find Ryokan’s genuine fondness and respect for children and their games the most touching of his many touching qualities.

Early spring
The landscape is tinged with the first
fresh hints of green
Now I take my wooden begging bowl
And wander carefree through town
The moment the children see me
They scamper off gleefully to bring their friends
They’re waiting for me at the temple gate
Tugging from all sides so I can barely walk
I leave my bowl on a white rock
Hang my pilgrim’s bag on a pine tree branch
First we duel with blades of grass
Then we play ball
While I bounce the ball, they sing the song
Then I sing the song and they bounce the ball
Caught up in the excitement of the game
We forget completely about the time
Passersby turn and question me:
“Why are you carrying on like this?”
I just shake my head without answering
Even if I were able to say something
how could I explain?
Do you really want to know the meaning of it all?
This is it! This is it!

And the same in a different translation – One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan translated by John Stevens

First days of spring—blue sky, bright sun.
Everything is gradually becoming fresh and green.
Carrying my bowl, I walk slowly to the village.
The children, surprised to see me,
Joyfully crowd about, bringing
My begging trip to an end at the temple gate.
I place my bowl on top of a white rock and
Hang my sack from the branch of a tree.
Here we play with the wild grasses and throw a ball.
For a time, I play catch while the children sing;
Then it is my turn.
Playing like this, here and there, I have forgotten the time.
Passers-by point and laugh at me, asking,
“What is the reason for such foolishness?”
No answer I give, only a deep bow;
Even if I replied, they would not understand.
Look around! There is nothing besides this.

This poem isn’t in the other two collections I checked (Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan by Kazuaki Tanahashi and The Zen Poems of Ryokan by Nobuyuki Yuasa.

Twists and turns in the air, till he no longer hangs on the tree like fruit

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

A passage from Tom Shippey’s translation of The Fortunes of Men from his Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English (I also give the full poem at bottom since there aren’t many versions readily available online).

One, in the woods, will fall from a high tree; he has no wings, but flies nevertheless, twists and turns in the air, till he no longer hangs on the tree like fruit. Then he falls to the ground, crashes down to the roots with despair in his heart; his soul is snatched away, his life leaves him.

In his introduction Shippey describes the poet here as “sportive as he shows us a human being gripped by gravity, killing himself in a fall. For a moment there is the sense of freedom, even wish-fulfilment, as the man is in free fall, in flight, turns in the air (‘bið on flihte seþeah, laceð on lyfte’). Then the universe reasserts itself, as he lands on the tree-root. In this as in several other of the tableaux there is an element of indignity, as people, instead of dying bravely or gallantly, die in disgrace or through clumsiness, or do not die at all but survive to know their own pain and weakness.”

Shippey falls to the traditional interpretive line that the poem centers on man’s helplessness (“The whole poem invites the paraphrase: ‘These are the fortunes of men. There is nothing to be done about them.”), but there is a recent suggestion by Leonard Neidorf in The Structure and Theme of The Fortunes of Men that – borrowing the abstract – “This article challenges the notion that the catalogues comprising The Fortunes of Men are structured around the theme of man’s helplessness. It argues, contrary to the claims of the poem’s didactic commentary, that the catalogues are actually organized around the theme of control and mastery: the catalogue of misfortunes focuses on what happens when humans fail to control themselves and their environments, whereas the catalogue of positive fortunes focuses on what happens when humans control their impulses and achieve mastery over the raw materials of their environment. The discrepancy between the catalogues and the commentary is explained with the hypothesis that the catalogues might derive from a traditional wisdom poem that circulated orally prior to the composition of The Fortunes of Men.” That last bit is especially interesting for someone coming from a Homeric background so I give his summary conclusion as well:

…. Incoherence in an Old English poem such as Fortunes might reflect tension not between paganism and Christianity, but between tradition and innovation, that is, between the traditional context in which a poem’s material was developed and the innovative purpose to which a later poet might put it. Because the catalogue core of Fortunes is organized largely around the theme of control and mastery, it is probable that it was originally used to stress the importance of discipline and moderation, two virtues that are commonly extolled in sapiential literature. Why an Old English poet should decide to appropriate a traditional catalogue of this sort and use it to make the point that mortals are powerless and God is in charge is something of a mystery. It is possible that in a culture where poets constantly repurposed traditional material, there was greater toleration for the kinds of incoherence that might result, and the poet saw nothing wrong with the incongruity between the catalogue core and the didactic commentary. Alternatively, it is possible that the resultant incongruity was precisely the effect that the poet sought to create. By taking a traditional catalogue and imposing an antithetical moral upon it, the poet of Fortunes creates a paradoxical work that conveys the mysteriousness of life. In this reading, the incongruity remains a real and essential part of the poem, but it would result not from haste or carelessness, but from a deliberate attempt to compose a poem that would instill a sense of profound wonder in its audience. Future literary critics concerned with Fortunes will have to decide which of these two scenarios accords better with their understanding of the poem.


And now the poem itself:

The Fortunes of Men

It happens very often, through God’s power, that a man and woman have children, bringing them into the world through birth and clothing them in fleshly form,’ coaxing and cherishing, until with the passing of many years the time comes that the young limbs, the members they gave life to, have grown to maturity. In this way the father and mother carry their children and lead them, give them things and provide for them. Only God knows what winters will bring them as they grow It happens to some unlucky men that the end of their lives comes unhappily in youth. One of them the wolf, the grey heath-prowler, will eat; then his mother will mourn his death. Such things are not under human control.

Hunger will destroy one, a storm will drive another to death; the spear will kill one off, battle beat down the next. Another will have to live his life without light, groping about with his hands; or, too weak to walk, ill from aches in the joints, will grumble about the pain, complain in depression about his fate. One, in the woods, will fall from a high tree; he has no wings, but flies nevertheless, twists and turns in the air, till he no longer hangs on the tree like fruit. Then he falls to the ground, crashes down to the roots with despair in his heart; his soul is snatched away, his life leaves him.

Another man will be forced to travel far-off ways on foot, carrying his food, will have to tread the dangerous earth of foreigners along wet tracks; he has few people alive to look after him, is disliked in all places because of his misfortunes, a friendless man. Another will have to ride the broad gallows, at his death he hangs until his body, the casket of blood and bones that locks up his soul, has rotted to pieces.

Then the raven takes the eyes from his head, the black-feathered creature pecks at the dead man; nor can he defend himself from that outrage with his hands, beat off the hated attacker from the air. His spirit has gone, without hope of life he hangs insensible and pallid on the tree; surrounded by a deadly miasma he endures his destiny. His name is cursed.

Flames will torment another in a fire, the dangerous blaze consumes the doomed

man. There he parts with life quickly, the cruel coals burn red. The woman weeps, who sees the flames enveloping her son. The edge of the sword drives out life from another on the mead-bench, from the angry ale-swiller, the man full of wine. He has been too free with his words. Another turns into a man excited by mead and the beer the servant brings. Then he knows no moderation, cannot set a limit to his mouth by will-power, 5 but will have to lose his life most wretchedly, endure the pain of losing his lord, 6 be stripped of any happiness. And men say he killed him-self, openly put the blame on what the alcoholic drank.

Another, through the power of God, will in his youth obliterate all his harsh ex-perience, and then be fortunate in old age, living happy days and enjoying prosper-ity, riches and the mead-cup in the home of his family, as much as any man may be able to keep on having these.

In this way the mighty Lord shares things out in different ways to everyone across the world’s expanse. He allocates, he decrees, he maintains the nature of things: riches to one, hardship to another; to one pleasure in youth, to another fame in battle, mastery of the game of war; one is good at throwing or shooting, gains glory and splendour, another has skill at games, knows the tricks of the chequer-board. Some become wise scholars. For some marvellous gifts are prepared by the goldsmith. Often the powerful king’s servant hardens metal and puts fine decoration on it, for which the king gives him broad lands as a reward. He accepts it happily.

Another, in a crowd, will please warriors, entertain them as they sit with their beer on benches; there is great pleasure there for the men as they drink. Another will sit at his lord’s feet with a harp, and be given money; he always plucks the harp-strings with bravura, lets the leaping plectrum cry out, the nail ring in harmony. & He shows great verve.

Another will tame the wild, proud bird, the hawk in his hands, until the taloned-swallow becomes obedient. He puts varvels on it, feeds the strong-winged bird while

it is tied, weakens the swift creature by giving it small morsels, until the gerfalcon is humbled by its dress and by what its provider does, is taught to return to the hands of the warrior.

In this wonderful way the Lord of hosts and Saviour created and allocated skills of men throughout the world, sent everyone on earth of human race his own nature.

So let everyone thank him now for everything that he has decreed for men through his mercy