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As humorous is my contritione as my prophane love, and as soone forgott

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From John Donne’s Divine Poems (no. 3 in the Holy Sonnets from the Westmoreland MS):

Oh, to vex me, contraryes meete in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begott
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vowes, and in devotione.
As humorous is my contritione
As my prophane love, and as soone forgott:
As ridlingly distemperd, cold and hott,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yeserday; and to day
In prayers, and flattering speaches I court God:
To morrow I quake with true feare of his rod.
So my devout fitts come and go away
Like a fantastique Ague: save that here
Those are my best dayes, when I shake with feare.

The editor of my edition – Helen Gardner for the 1952 Oxford English Texts volume- had nothing to say on this in her commentary.

All the wise world is little else, in nature, but parasites, or sub-parasites

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Ben Jonson’s Volpone (3.1). Mosca the parasite’s apotheosis of parasites.

I fear, I shall begin to grow in love
With my dear self, and my most prosperous parts,
They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel
A whimsy in my blood: I know not how,
Success hath made me wanton. I could skip
Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake,
I am so limber. O! your parasite
Is a most precious thing, dropt from above,
Not bred ‘mongst clods and clot-poles, here on earth.
I muse, the mystery was not made a science,
It is so liberally professed! almost
All the wise world is little else, in nature,
But parasites, or sub-parasites. And yet,
I mean not those that have your bare town-art,
To know who’s fit to feed ’em; have no house,
No family, no care, and therefore mould
Tales for men’s ears, to bait that sense; or get
Kitchen-invention, and some stale receipts
To please the belly, and the groin; nor those,
With their court-dog-tricks, that can fawn and fleer,
Make their revenue out of legs and faces,
Echo my-Lord, and lick away a moth:
But your fine, elegant rascal, that can rise,
And stoop (almost together) like an arrow;
Shoot through the air, as nimbly as a star;
Turn short as doth a swallow; and be here,
And there, and here, and yonder, all at once;
Present to any humour, all occasion;
And change a visor swifter than a thought!
This is the creature had the art born with him;
Toils not to learn it, but doth practise it
Out of most excellent nature: and such sparks
Are the true parasites, others but their zanies.

The OED gives zany/zanies as “A comic performer attending on a clown, acrobat, or mountebank, who imitates his master’s acts in a ludicrously awkward way; a clown’s or mountebank’s assistant, a merry-andrew, jack-pudding; sometimes used vaguely for a professional jester or buffoon in general.”

From shore they well may glimpse the bottom, but not once out upon the open sea

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

A passage of Dante’s (Paradiso XIX 40-66) I was reminded of while reading of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, partially for the ocean metaphor and partially for the intellectual humility (whether taken in a religious sense or otherwise). Here are Charles Singleton’s prose – because it is clearest – and Robert Hollander’s verse versions (online here). The Italian is at bottom.

Then it began, “He that turned His compass round the limit of the world, and within it marked out so much both hidden and revealed, could not so imprint His power on all the universe that His word should not remain in infinite excess; and this is certified by that first proud one [Lucifer], who was the highest of all creatures and who, through not awaiting light, fell unripe; from which it is plain that every lesser nature is too scant a vessel for that Good which has no limit and measures Itself by Itself. Thus your vision, which must needs be one of the rays of the Mind with which all things are replete, cannot of its own nature be of such power that it should not perceive its origin to be far beyond all that is apparent to it. Therefore the sight that is granted to your world penetrates within the Eternal Justice as the eye into the sea; which, though from the shore it can see the bottom, in the open sea it sees it not, and none the less it is there, but the depth conceals it. There is no light unless it comes from that serene which is never clouded, else is it darkness, either shadow of the flesh or its poison.

Then it began: ‘He who with His compass
drew the boundaries of the world and then, within them,
created distinctions, both hidden and quite clear,
‘did not imprint His power so deep
throughout the universe that His Word
would not with infinite excess surpass His making.
‘In proof of this, the first and prideful being,
who was created highest of all creatures,
by not waiting for the light, plummeted unripe.
‘And thus it is clear that every lesser nature
is too small a vessel for that goodness
which has no limit, which is measured by itself alone.
‘Thus your vision, which must be
but a single ray of many in the mind
of Him of whom all things are full,
‘by its nature must not have such power
that it should not perceive its source
as lying far beyond all it can see.
‘Thus, the vision granted to your world
may make its way into eternal justice
as deep as eyes may penetrate the sea.
‘From shore they well may glimpse the bottom,
but not once out upon the open sea,
and yet it is there, hidden in the depths.
‘No light is never overcast unless it comes
from that clear sky which always shines. All others
darken in the shadow or the bane of flesh.

and the Italian:

Poi cominciò: “Colui che volse il sesto
a lo stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso
distinse tanto occulto e manifesto,

non poté suo valor sì fare impresso
in tutto l’universo, che ‘l suo verbo
non rimanesse in infinito eccesso.

E ciò fa certo che ‘l primo superbo,
che fu la somma d’ogne creatura,
per non aspettar lume, cadde acerbo;

e quinci appar ch’ogne minor natura
è corto recettacolo a quel bene
che non ha fine e sé con sé misura.

Dunque vostra veduta, che convene
essere alcun de’ raggi de la mente
di che tutte le cose son ripiene,

non pò da sua natura esser possente
tanto, che suo principio non discerna
molto di là da quel che l’è parvente.

Però ne la giustizia sempiterna
la vista che riceve il vostro mondo,
com’ occhio per lo mare, entro s’interna;

che, ben che da la proda veggia il fondo,
in pelago nol vede; e nondimeno
èli, ma cela lui l’esser profondo.

Lume non è, se non vien dal sereno
che non si turba mai; anzi è tenèbra
od ombra de la carne o suo veleno.

We have no need of other worlds.  We need mirrors.  We don’t know what to do with other worlds.

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris (ch. 6):

“It’s almost as if you’re purposely refusing to understand,” he groaned.  “I’ve been talking about Solaris the whole time, solely about Solaris.  If the truth is hard to swallow, it’s not my fault.  Anyhow, after what you’ve already been through, you ought to be able to hear me out!  We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death.  Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves.  And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham.  We don’t want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.  For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin.  We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don’t want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange.  We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact.  This is another lie.  We are only seeking Man.  We have no need of other worlds.  We need mirrors.  We don’t know what to do with other worlds.  A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can’t accept it for what it is.  We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past.  At the same time, there is something inside us which we don’t like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don’t leave Earth in a state of primal innocence.  We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us – that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence – then we don’t like it any more.”

Walk slowly through the door of mirth

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

In the original – Gakktu hægt um gleðinnar dyr. An Icelandic proverb found on the back of an amazing new Icelandic gin that still hasn’t made its way out of the country, Eyland Spirits’ Ólaffson Gin (named for an 18th century explorer and writer, Eggert Ólafsson). The bottle itself explains as ‘these cautionary words hark back to the old days when opportunities to socialise and let off steam were few and, literally, far between. Farm dances could get raucous.’ But that sounds more like a warning against violence than explanations I find elsewhere which point to use of low doorway height in traditional turf homes as a means of keeping in the heat. The idea then becomes the clearer one of ‘mind your head on the way in/out of the party.’ Here is an illustrative picture of some houses near Selfoss:

Deep in his heart, the poet is always surprised at where his poem has gone

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From John Williams’ Augustus, a (fictional) letter from Maecenas to Livy that sidetracks slightly from the historical narrative of Octavius’ to suggest a comparison between the working out of historical events and the working out of a poem. It’s worth remembering here that Williams – now best remembered for his novels – was also a poet, a creative writing professor, and the editor of a grand anthology on early modern English poetry (English Renaissance Poetry: A Collection of Shorter Poems from Skelton to Jonson)

Some years ago my friend Horace described to me the way he made a poem. We had had some wine and were talking seriously, and I believe that his description then was a more accurate one than that contained more recently in the so-called Letter to the Pisos – a poem upon the art of poetry of which, I must confess, I am not particularly fond. He said: “I decide to make a poem when I am compelled by some strong feeling to do so – but I wait until the feeling hardens into a resolve; then I conceive and end, as simple as I can make it, toward which that feeling might progress, though often I cannot see how it will do so. And the. I compose my poem, using whatever means are at my command. I borrow from others if I ha e to – no matter. I invent if I have to – no matter. I use the la girafe that I know, and I work within its limits. But the point is this: the end that I discover at last is not that end that I conceived at first. For every solution entails new choices, and every choice made loses new people lend to which solutions must be found, and so on and on. Deep in his heart, the poet is always surprised at where his poem has gone.”

As men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Shakespeare’s Pericles (2.1)

Third Fisherman
…Master, I
marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
First Fisherman
Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the
little ones: I can compare our rich misers to
nothing so fitly as to a whale; a’ plays and
tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at
last devours them all at a mouthful: such whales
have I heard on o’ the land, who never leave gaping
till they’ve swallowed the whole parish, church,
steeple, bells, and all.
PERICLES
[Aside] A pretty moral.
Third Fisherman
But, master, if I had been the sexton, I would have
been that day in the belfry.
Second Fisherman
Why, man?
Third Fisherman
Because he should have swallowed me too: and when I
had been in his belly, I would have kept such a
jangling of the bells, that he should never have
left, till he cast bells, steeple, church, and
parish up again.

The new Arden includes a lengthy footnote on the history of the proverb in 28-29 (‘as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.’) but I’m more interested for the moment in connecting Melville’s reuse of the theme – only reapplied to sharks as better – because more blindly vicious – stand-ins for man. Here is Fleece’s sermon to the sharks (ch. 64).

Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand dropping his light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that was said.

“Fellow-critters: I’se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin’ ob de lip! Massa Stubb say dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you must stop dat dam racket!”

“Cook,” here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap on the shoulder,—“Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn’t swear that way when you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert sinners, cook!”

“Who dat? Den preach to him yourself,” sullenly turning to go.

“No, cook; go on, go on.”

“Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:”—

“Right!” exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, “coax ’em to it; try that,” and Fleece continued.

“Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness—’top dat dam slappin’ ob de tail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep up such a dam slappin’ and bitin’ dare?”

“Cook,” cried Stubb, collaring him, “I won’t have that swearing. Talk to ’em gentlemanly.”

Once more the sermon proceeded.

“Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don’t blame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can’t be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred’ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don’t be tearin’ de blubber out your neighbour’s mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o’ you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can’t get into de scrouge to help demselves.”

“Well done, old Fleece!” cried Stubb, “that’s Christianity; go on.”

“No use goin’ on; de dam willains will keep a scougin’ and slappin’ each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don’t hear one word; no use a-preachin’ to such dam g’uttons as you call ’em, till dare bellies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get ’em full, dey wont hear you den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and can’t hear not’ing at all, no more, for eber and eber.”

“Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction, Fleece, and I’ll away to my supper.”

Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his shrill voice, and cried—

“Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill your dam’ bellies ’till dey bust—and den die.”

[Stubb abuses and bullies Fleece at some length about his cooking skill]

“Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. D’ye hear? away you sail, then.—Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go.—Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast—don’t forget.”

“Wish, by gor! whale eat him, ’stead of him eat whale. I’m bressed if he ain’t more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,” muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.

[Parenthetically – I’ve found in teaching that the mocking presentation of Fleece’s dialect is understandably tough to look past. I think it helps to set it alongside Melville’s style in, for example, describing Queequeg as ‘George Washington cannibalistically developed.’ He seeds shock within cultural convention – so here giving Fleece a stereotyped dialect but having him then express the best understanding of human nature of anyone in the novel. So too his parting remark, approved by the narrator, that is an open condemnation of the entire system he lives under.]

Artificial honesty, and weak as water when temptation comes

~ Walter Shandy ~ Leave a comment

From Mark Twain’s The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. This one was written late in Twain’s life – 1899 when he was nearing 65 – and is possibly a satire against his home country’s pretensions.

“Oh, I know it, I know it—it’s been one everlasting training and training and training in honesty—honesty shielded, from the very cradle, against every possible temptation, and so it’s artificial honesty, and weak as water when temptation comes, as we have seen this night. God knows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified and indestructible honesty until now—and now, under the very first big and real temptation, I—Edward, it is my belief that this town’s honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours. It is a mean town, a hard, stingy town, and hasn’t a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and so conceited about; and so help me, I do believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards.

Ares, the moneychanger of bodies

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From Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (432-444). The first translation is Alan Sommerstein’s from the new Loeb Aeschylus, the second is Eduard Fraenkel’s from his full edition of the play (the Greek is Sommerstein’s). I’m always partial to Fraenkel since I’ve spent a lot of time with his commentary but his choice to render in prose usually costs him popularity. At bottom are some flavor bits of his commentary for this section – since his edition is long out of print and now unfairly priced.

There is much, at any rate, that strikes deep into the soul:
one knows the men one sent off,
but instead of human beings
urns and ashes arrive back
at each man’s home.
Ares, the moneychanger of bodies,
holding his scales in the battle of spears,
sends back from Ilium to their dear ones
heavy dust that has been through the fire,
to be sadly wept over,
filling easily-stowed urns
with ash given in exchange for men.

There is much, at any rate, that touches the very heart: those whom they sent they know, but instead of the men urns and ashes come back to each one’s home.

The gold-changer Ares, changer of bodies, and holder of his scales in the battle of the spear, sends from Ilion to the kinsmen what has felt the fire, heavy gold-dust bitterly bewailed, freighting the easily-stowed urns with ashes in exchange for men.

πολλὰ γοῦν θιγγάνει πρὸς ἧπαρ·
οὓς μὲν γάρ <τις> ἔπεμψεν
οἶδεν, ἀντὶ δὲ φωτῶν
τεύχη καὶ σποδὸς εἰς ἑκάσ-
του δόμους ἀφικνεῖται.
ὁ χρυσαμοιβὸς δ᾿ Ἄρης σωμάτων
καὶ ταλαντοῦχος ἐν μάχᾳ δορὸς
πυρωθὲν ἐξ Ἰλίου
φίλοισι πέμπει βαρὺ
ψῆγμα δυσδάκρυτον, ἀν-
τήνορος σποδοῦ γεμί-
ζων λέβητας εὐθέτους.

435 τεύχη [ instead of the men urns and ashes come back] : it is tempting to take this as meaning the armour, especially as this Homeric use of the word occurs not only in Sophocles and Euripides, but in Aeschylus, too …

437ff. … It is characteristic of Aeschylus that in order to heighten the effect of terrible happenings he does not borrow his imagery from the realm of the unreal and the fantastic, as many romantic poets do, but from the familiar processes of everyday life or the peaceful incidents in nature: while he depicts with minute exactness little details innocent enough in themselves (e.g. in this passage ταλαντοῦχος, ψῆγμα, γεμίζων λέβητας), he gives them at the same time a metaphorical relation to terrible powers, and it is just this contrast that intensifies the horror.

441 βαρὺ ψῆγμα : nothing, I am afraid, can be done to help those fanatics of logic who would remove or at least suspect this magnificent oxymoron …