The Kalevipoeg, written by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald on the basis of Estonian folk legends, is the national epic of Estonia; the story of Salme is a minor episode in it. Salme and Linda are maidens born from eggs who are wooed by a number of suitors. Salme, turning down the moon and sun, marries the star; Linda marries the giant Kalev, and the epic is primarily about her children. 'Harria' is the Latin name for what is today known as Harjumaa, lying on the northern coast of Estonia.
Salme's Song
I will not love the night-lord,
nor marry the harried moon.
His work is always pressing,
his rising oft too soon.
I will not love the sun-king;
his fire I cherish not;
he blights the land with fury
and passions waxing hot.
The star I take as lover;
he shines with gentle light;
his eyes are kind and loving
and steady in the night.
Thus starry youth and Salme
shall wed in joy sublime
and waltz on Harria's shoreland
until the end of time.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Friday, February 15, 2019
You Know Who Writes; and I Who 'Tis that Reads
A Letter to Daphnis April: 2d 1685
by Anne Finch
This to the Crown, and blessing of my life,
The much lov'd husband, of a happy wife.
To him, whose constant passion found the art
To win a stubborn, and ungratefull heart;
And to the World, by tend'rest proof discovers
They err, who say that husbands can't be lovers.
With such return of passion, as is due,
Daphnis I love, Daphnis my thoughts persue,
Daphnis, my hopes, my joys, are bounded all in you:
Ev'n I, for Daphnis, and my promise sake,
What I in women censure, undertake.
But this from love, not vanity, proceeds;
You know who writes; and I who 'tis that reads.
Judge not my passion, by my want of skill,
Many love well, though they express itt ill;
And I your censure cou'd with pleasure bear,
Wou'd you but soon return, and speak itt here.
I've mentioned before that husbands are shortchanged in poetry, outside of appearing as cuckolds, and in good poetry even more so, the major exception being Christine de Pisan's Ballade XXVI from the Autres Ballades. But I like this one as well; and has a clean air about it, relying more on sincerity than poetic footwork, without being lax in the latter.
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, was all of her life in a difficult positon of one kind or another, with her marriage to Heneage Finch (the 'Daphnis' in the early poem above is a publication-substitute for his name in the original) being at times the only thing that seems to have gotten her through. She and he were royalists in a time when loyalty to the king was not always an advantage. When James II was deposed and Heneage Finch refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to William and Mary, he lost his court position and income, and they spent a number of years continually harassed and only surviving with the help of old friends who were better positioned than they. They finally managed to find some peace sheltered by Heneage's nephew, Charles Finch, Earl of Winchilsea, and both Heneage and Charles encouraged Anne to pursue her literary activities; one volume of her poetry was published in her lifetime. When Charles died without an heir, Heneage Finch became the new Earl, and Anne the Countess of Winchilsea. It brought an end to their peace; Charles, while not a fool, had had credit extensive enough that his death plunged Heneage and Anne into legal battles that lasted years. In addition, the new title, brought them back into the notice of the court, and they were several times afraid for their lives due to tensions over the Jacobite rebellions. Anne, who had had severe bouts of depression for years, became ill for the last several years of her life and died in 1720. Then Anne Finch, poetess, was forgotten until a man named William Wordsworth happened to pick up her sole volume and read it; he praised it publicly and this led to renewed interest and the slow, scholarly uncovering of poems in manuscript.
Poem Retrospective XV
Wovoka, also known as Jack Wilson because he was raised by the Wilson family after having been orphaned, became a respected spiritual leader among the Paiute Indians. During the solar eclipse of January 1,1889, he is said to have had a vision about Jesus Christ returning to resurrect the Paiute dead and restore the land to Native Americans. Wovoka, who was a pacifist, thought that this would happen on its own through moral reform and the regular performance of a Circle Dance, but as the news of the vision spread, it changed, as such things do. A couple of Lakota mixed the vision with a belief that shirts properly prepared by the Circle Dance, which they tended to call a Spirit Dance or Ghost Dance, could by spiritual power stop bullets; tensions between the U.S. government and the Sioux had been boiling over again, and the U.S. government was engaging in an active campaign to pacify the Sioux. That the U.S. government had had prior experience of religious movements among the Sioux being preludes to all-out war, did not help matters, so they attempted to arrest on rather flimsy grounds the great Sioux spiritual leader, Sitting Bull, which of course, led to fighting. During this hostile period, the 7th Cavalry happened to run into the Miniconjou Lakota Sioux, who were in the process of moving to the Indian Agency, and, intending to disarm them, escorted them to Wounded Knee Creek. There they began the process of disarmament. What happened next is unknown -- there are quite a few different stories -- but shooting broke out, with the Lakota entirely at a disadvantage. It's thought that more than half the warriors were shot before they even had time to fire any shots at all. What's more, the cavalry had Hotchkiss guns, early machine guns, and turned them on the Sioux camp, killing women and children. It took time for the officers to regain control of their men, and by that time, most of men, women, and children were dead, without only about 50 survivors out of about 350. The Ghost Dance movement continued, clandestinely, for some time afterward, but as a movement largely dwindled out from fear of U.S. retaliation for it. The Ghost Dance is still performed in a number of variations, though.
Ghost Dance
On Milky Way in holy skies
now walk the souls that lived and died;
it bears them to the earth below,
the starlit mountains crowned with snow.
Now Christ has sent the winds of peace!
He bade the war and violence cease;
he brings to morning living rain
and brings the bison to the plain.
He bears the dead to earth below,
from evening stars to mountain snow.
But feel the darkness in the land!
Such venom in the heart of man!
How will the serpent treat the dove
who bears abroad these songs of love?
The prophet dances, agents lie,
in battlefields the people die
with bullets in their hearts and hands,
their blood poured out to wet the lands:
from mountains crowned with shining snow
their spirits flee this earth below.
A prophet once was crucified
and on the tree he bled and died
as jeers beneath the bloody cross
were mocking him for pain and loss.
He was the Christ; the Roman lance
had pierced him for his spirit dance.
There was a people, proud and tall,
with sun-like mien and worthy all;
for dancing in the winter snow
to bring the spirits here below
they fell beneath the flaming guns,
both score by score and one by one.
What thing may live may also die.
What heart may laugh may also cry.
But those who die may also rise
beneath the starlight in the skies
and hunt and dance and play the games
to which their fathers gave the names.
Thus Christ upon a path of light
will come again some starlit night
to bring the dead to earth below
for spirit dances in the snow.
Ghost Dance
On Milky Way in holy skies
now walk the souls that lived and died;
it bears them to the earth below,
the starlit mountains crowned with snow.
Now Christ has sent the winds of peace!
He bade the war and violence cease;
he brings to morning living rain
and brings the bison to the plain.
He bears the dead to earth below,
from evening stars to mountain snow.
But feel the darkness in the land!
Such venom in the heart of man!
How will the serpent treat the dove
who bears abroad these songs of love?
The prophet dances, agents lie,
in battlefields the people die
with bullets in their hearts and hands,
their blood poured out to wet the lands:
from mountains crowned with shining snow
their spirits flee this earth below.
A prophet once was crucified
and on the tree he bled and died
as jeers beneath the bloody cross
were mocking him for pain and loss.
He was the Christ; the Roman lance
had pierced him for his spirit dance.
There was a people, proud and tall,
with sun-like mien and worthy all;
for dancing in the winter snow
to bring the spirits here below
they fell beneath the flaming guns,
both score by score and one by one.
What thing may live may also die.
What heart may laugh may also cry.
But those who die may also rise
beneath the starlight in the skies
and hunt and dance and play the games
to which their fathers gave the names.
Thus Christ upon a path of light
will come again some starlit night
to bring the dead to earth below
for spirit dances in the snow.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Poem Retrospective XIV
A Tiger Pouncing
The light is a tiger pouncing,
a panther pawing, a lion roaring;
like waterfalls in their pouring,
its color thunders, unrelenting.
Rippling in the shadows
like a rumor in the city,
it leaps like glory's coming
in the rainbows of the flood.
The light on the wall is flowing,
shadow-playing, darkness-mousing,
leaping and lightly purring
as it panthers in my room.
The light is a tiger pouncing,
a panther pawing, a lion roaring;
like waterfalls in their pouring,
its color thunders, unrelenting.
Rippling in the shadows
like a rumor in the city,
it leaps like glory's coming
in the rainbows of the flood.
The light on the wall is flowing,
shadow-playing, darkness-mousing,
leaping and lightly purring
as it panthers in my room.
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Philosophical Fiction
I was thinking today about what I would put on a list of 'Ten Books of Fiction that All Philosophy Majors Should Read', probably because I am currently reading Charles Williams's The Place of the Lion. Here's the list I came up with, at least on a short amount of thought. I confined myself to highly readable works of potentially wide appeal that directly reference or clearly allude to obvious philosophical matters; and obviously, I have to have read it or re-read it recently enough to vouch personally for its meeting these criteria -- a reason why, for instance, an obvious candidate like Camus's The Stranger is not on the list, since I haven't read it since undergrad.
1. John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces. Structured by Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, the comic novel follows Ignatius J. Reilly, a quixotic lover of medieval philosophy -- at least a version of it that he has developed in his head -- who finds himself out of sorts with the modern world, or, as he would say, who finds the modern world out of sorts with theology and geometry.
2. Charles Williams, The Place of the Lion. Two students of philosophy find their world crashing in when representations of Platonic Ideas break out of their own realm and into ours.
3. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Most of Austen's work could count, but this one has some of her most explicit interactions with picturesque theory and Romantic philosophy.
4. Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea. A former adventurer estranged from the world undergoes an existential crisis experienced as a form of nausea.
5. Ayn Rand, Anthem. I always get push-back on Rand from academics, particularly from people trying to convince themselves that she is a horrible novelist, rather than a merely idiosyncratic one, on the apparent belief that it follows from her political views; but every philosophy major should in fact read this work in order to see what the Allegory of the Cave looks like when turned upside down.
6. China Mieville, Embassytown. Mieville's broadly leftist reworking of the Myth of Theuth through the lens of colonial exploitation ends up touching on a very wide variety of philosophical topics.
7. Neal Stephenson, Anathem. Someone once described the central plot point of this exploration of the nature of inquiry and thought as "weaponized Platonic metaphysics".
8. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose. A mystery story turning entirely on semiotics, this work touches on an astonishing array of topics from medieval, and occasionally modern, philosophy.
9. Edwin Abbott Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. More than merely a mathematical lark, Abbott's little book addresses questions of epistemology.
10. William Golding, Lord of the Flies. Layers of interlocking allegory explore the philosophical foundations of society.
What would you put on the list?
1. John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces. Structured by Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, the comic novel follows Ignatius J. Reilly, a quixotic lover of medieval philosophy -- at least a version of it that he has developed in his head -- who finds himself out of sorts with the modern world, or, as he would say, who finds the modern world out of sorts with theology and geometry.
2. Charles Williams, The Place of the Lion. Two students of philosophy find their world crashing in when representations of Platonic Ideas break out of their own realm and into ours.
3. Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Most of Austen's work could count, but this one has some of her most explicit interactions with picturesque theory and Romantic philosophy.
4. Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea. A former adventurer estranged from the world undergoes an existential crisis experienced as a form of nausea.
5. Ayn Rand, Anthem. I always get push-back on Rand from academics, particularly from people trying to convince themselves that she is a horrible novelist, rather than a merely idiosyncratic one, on the apparent belief that it follows from her political views; but every philosophy major should in fact read this work in order to see what the Allegory of the Cave looks like when turned upside down.
6. China Mieville, Embassytown. Mieville's broadly leftist reworking of the Myth of Theuth through the lens of colonial exploitation ends up touching on a very wide variety of philosophical topics.
7. Neal Stephenson, Anathem. Someone once described the central plot point of this exploration of the nature of inquiry and thought as "weaponized Platonic metaphysics".
8. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose. A mystery story turning entirely on semiotics, this work touches on an astonishing array of topics from medieval, and occasionally modern, philosophy.
9. Edwin Abbott Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. More than merely a mathematical lark, Abbott's little book addresses questions of epistemology.
10. William Golding, Lord of the Flies. Layers of interlocking allegory explore the philosophical foundations of society.
What would you put on the list?
Poem Retrospective XIII
Another walking-at-night poem.
Night Walk
In silent starlight rivers flow,
their waves of moonshine rippling light,
and I am where I do not know
on empty lane in quiet night,
and I am walking, robed with glow,
on pebbled way of gray and white.
The moon above, in dancing mist,
is bright with light no shade can mar
as, bowing down, its beams have kissed
a road that glints like crystal spar;
it lures, and I could not resist
to walk where moonlit visions are.
The stars like song refract a fire.
Their iridescent showers fall
on rivers silver like a wire
and snow the caps of mountains tall;
and as I walk, I never tire,
but stride refreshed by heaven's call.
On night-lit ways my feet have passed;
in shadows I have voyaged far,
on farther lands my fortune cast
with no companion but a star,
and all has led to this at last:
to walk wherever visions are.
Night Walk
In silent starlight rivers flow,
their waves of moonshine rippling light,
and I am where I do not know
on empty lane in quiet night,
and I am walking, robed with glow,
on pebbled way of gray and white.
The moon above, in dancing mist,
is bright with light no shade can mar
as, bowing down, its beams have kissed
a road that glints like crystal spar;
it lures, and I could not resist
to walk where moonlit visions are.
The stars like song refract a fire.
Their iridescent showers fall
on rivers silver like a wire
and snow the caps of mountains tall;
and as I walk, I never tire,
but stride refreshed by heaven's call.
On night-lit ways my feet have passed;
in shadows I have voyaged far,
on farther lands my fortune cast
with no companion but a star,
and all has led to this at last:
to walk wherever visions are.
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