The Fox and the Grapes

Michael Gilleland has a post on Aesop's parable of the fox and the grapes. One of my favorite versions of it is Christopher Smart's eighteenth-century poetic translation (Fable II of Book IV) of Phaedrus's collection of fables:

An hungry Fox with fierce attack
Sprang on a Vine, but tumbled back,
Nor could attain the point in view,
So near the sky the bunches grew.
As he went off, 'They're scurvy stuff,
(Says he) and not half ripe enough--
And I've more rev'rence for my tripes,
Than to torment them with the gripes.'
For those this tale is very pat,
Who lessen what they can't come at.

By the Waters of Babylon We Lay Down and Wept

Today is the 554th anniversary of the Fall of the Byzantine Empire. To be more precise, on this day in 1453, the defenses of Constantinople collapsed before the Turkish army under Mehmed II. Strictly speaking, a remnant of the old empire, the Empire of Trebizond, which had formed in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, still remained to carry on the succession of the Roman Empire, as well as a few fragments elsewhere; but they had less than a decade to survive.

As eyewitness Nicolo Barbaro put it, "On the twenty-ninth of May, the last day of the siege, our Lord God decided, to the sorrow of the Greeks, that He was willing for the city to fall on this day into the hands of Mahomet Bey the Turk son of Murat."

The Feast of St. Constantine XI Palaeologus the Ethnomartyr, last of the Byzantine Emperors, is celebrated on this day in some parts of the world.

Kizenko on ROC Reunion

Nadia Kizenko has a good piece (ht: Ralph Luker) on the recent reunion between Moscow and ROCOR, a critical one that asks the right questions. A problem with the article, I think, is that it overlooks how much Moscow actually did have to concede in order to make the reunification go through. Some of these concessions -- like the canonization of Tsar Nicholas II and numerous martyrs and confessors under the Soviet regime -- seem small on the outside but in the context of Russian Orthodox life are actually rather significant; likewise, ROCOR remains autonomous. Further, as Daniel Larison points out, Putin is at best jumping on to a process that began long before he became involved.

Given that so much emphasis is put on Moscow's appeasement the Communists, it would probably have been worthwhile to point out that ROCOR's history of collaboration is not exactly pristine, either, since (as the Patriarchate has not been slow to point out) ROCOR has to deal with the fact that segments of it went so far in their fight against the Communists as to collaborate with the Nazis. Both sides have much soul-searching to do; and one can reasonably hope that reunification will force them to do more of it.

It is also too early to say that there is a "tide of defection from the disappointed faithful" in ROCOR. There is certainly a good deal of minority protest; at present it looks relatively minor. Perhaps it will spread, although I doubt it will do so to any great extent. We will see.

But Kizenko is exactly right that Putin's role in it all is worrisome; I find his speech on the occasion -- all about the split being a result of political life in Russia itself, and thus the reunification serving "our common goals" -- somewhat ominous, and think that Kizenko's interpretation of Putin's actions ("Mr. Putin is thus the first modern Russian leader to incorporate all aspects of Russia's "usable past" in claiming his legitimacy") to ring too true when considered in light of the comments Putin has actually made on the subject. The reunification does not end the need for vigilance on the part of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. It does, however, begin the need not to be alarmist.

I'm a bit puzzled by Kizenko's claim that "according to the terms of the agreement, Moscow regains control over bishops' appointments and the right to open or close all parishes"; since according to the Act of Canonical Communion, ROCOR's Council of Bishops retains the right to elect its own bishops and to make decisions on the establishment or liquidation of its dioceses. What Moscow gains is simply the right to confirm the election and to be included in the decisions. These are certainly not trivial extensions of Moscow's power, but they seem to fall short of Kizenko's claim.

UPDATE: Nicholas Ohotin responds to Kizenko.

Whewell in the Darwin Correspondence

The Darwin Correspondence Project is online and fully functioning, with a useful search function. Whewell, of course, figures in the correspondence quite a bit, although usually in an incidental way. This, however, is from Whewell's letter to Darwin thanking him for a copy of the first edition of the Origin of Species:

I have to thank you for a copy of your book on the `Origin of Species'. You will easily believe that it has interested me very much, and probably you will not be surprized to be told that I cannot, yet at least, become a convert to your doctrines. But there is so much of thought and of fact in what you have written that it is not to be contradicted without careful selection of the ground and manner of the dissent, which I have not now time for. I must therefore content myself with thanking you for your kindness.

I was amused to see Darwin's reaction to this in a letter to Lyell a couple of days later:

Possibly you might like to see enclosed note from Whewell, merely as showing that he is not horrified with us.—

A Jewish Parable

Once upon a time there was a king who had a son. This young prince at an early age went mad and came to believe that he was a rooster. All day long he would sit under the table, naked, clucking and crowing and pecking at food placed on the floor. If you tried to talk to him, he would say nothing but "I'm a rooster!" The king was somewhat distraught over this, as I'm sure you would also be. He sent out messengers trying to find someone who could cure the prince.

One day a venerable old rabbi came to the palace, claiming that he could cure the prince, on one condition: that the king would not interfere with the treatment for six months. Desperate, the king agreed.

To the king's distress, the venerable old rabbi undressed, sat under the table, and began to cluck, crow, and peck. Before he had had a prince under the table thinking he was a rooster; and now there was an old rabbi clucking and crowing under the table as well. But he had promised that he would not interfere for six months, and, being a man of his word, he did not interfere.

For quite some time the rabbi did nothing but sit naked under the table with the prince, clucking and crowing and pecking at food. But one day, the rabbi called for a pair of pants. Still clucking and crowing, he began to put them on.

"Wait," said the prince suddenly, "you can't wear pants. You're a rooster!"

"Well," the rabbi replied, "I want to know who says a rooster can't wear pants. They're nice and warm, and very comfortable. Why should men have all the good things? Surely it makes as much sense for a rooster to wear pants as it does for a man to wear them?"

The prince thought about this and agreed, so the rabbi called for pants and the prince put them on.

The next day the rabbi called for a clean shirt. When he put it on, the prince again said, "You're a rooster; you can't wear shirts!"

To which the rabbi replied, "If a shirt fits, why can't a rooster wear it? After all, it's a useful thing to wear, and no rooster is any less a rooster for wearing a shirt. Should we shiver on cold nights just because we are roosters?"

This convinced the prince, and he, too, put on a shirt.

Bit by bit the rabbi added items of clothing, then branched out to behaviors like sitting at the table, reading books, and calling himself a man rather than a rooster. By the end of the six months, the prince was completely cured.

Monday in Whitsun Week

Since all that is not heav'n must fade,
Light be the hand of Ruin laid
Upon the home I love:
With lulling spell let soft Decay
Steal on, and spare the giant sway,
The crash of tower and grove.

Far opening down some woodland deep
In their own quite glade should sleep
The relics dear to thought,
And wild-flower wreaths from side to side
Their waving tracery hang, to hide
What ruthless Time has wrought.

Such are the visions green and sweet
That o'er the wistful fancy fleet
In Asia's sea-like plain,
Where slowly, round his isles of sand,
Euphrates through the lonely land
Winds toward the pearly main.

Slumber is there, but not of rest;
There his forlorn and weary nest
The famish'd hawk has found,
The wild dog howls at fall of night,
The serpent's rustling coils affright
The traveller on his round.

What shapeless form, half lost on high,
Half seen against the evening sky,
Seems like a ghost to glide,
And watch, from Babel's crumbling heap,
Where in her shadow, fast asleep,
Lies fall'n imperial Pride?

With half-clos'd eye a lion there
Lies basking in his nootide lair,
Or prowls in twilight gloom.
The golden city's king he seems,
Such as in old prophetic dreams
Sprang from rough ocean's womb.

But where are now his eagle wings,
That shelter'd erst a thousand kings,
Hiding the glorious sky
From half the nations, till they own
No holier name, no mightier throne?
That vision is gone by.

Quench'd is the golden statue's ray,
The breath of heaven has blown away
What toiling earth had pil'd,
Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,
As breezes strew on ocean's sand
The fabrics of a child.

Divided thence through every age
Thy rebels, Lord, their warfare wage,
And hoarse and jarring all
Mount up their heaven assailing cries
To thy bright watchmen in the skies
From Babel's scatter'd wall.

Thrice only since, with blended might
The nations on that haughty height
Have met to scale the heaven.
Thrice only might a Seraph's look
A moment's shade of sadness brook--
Such power to guilt was given.

Now the fierce Bear and Leopard keen
Are perish'd as they ne'er had been,
Oblivion is their home:
Ambition's boldest dream and last
Must melt before the clarion blast
That sounds the dirge of Rome.

Heroes and Kings, obey the charm,
Withdraw the proud high-reaching arm,
There is an oath on high,
That ne'er on brow of mortal birth
Shall blend again the crowns of earth,
Nor in according cry

Her many voices mingling own
One tyrant Lord, one idol throne:
But to His triumph soon
He shall descend, who rules above,
And the pure language of His love
All tongues of men shall tune.

Nor let Ambition heartless mourn;
When Babel's very ruins burn,
Her high desires may breath;--
O'ercome thyself, and thou may'st share
With Christ his Father's throne, and wear
The world's imperial wreath.

From Keble's The Christian Year

Whitsuntide

Since yesterday was Whit-Sunday or Pentecost, we have entered Whitsuntide.

When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside;
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin
To honour Whitsuntide.