1 20 46 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b4fc76c68c6d164a23d36c81d23ba68f.pdf e0af96c16f760b12f984990196924c19 PDF Text Text �4 / . CONTENTS THE METHOD OF APOLWNIUS John Ritner 1 SONG Pierre Gagnier 4 A HERO'S TALE RETOLD Eve Gartner 5 PROBLEMS WITH KANT, PROBLEMS WITH FAITH Richard Miller 23 EGG, BEAT HER John Keith 26 HO ENI AUTOS EN HEAUTO Joe DeGrazia THE MIRROR HELD UP TO NATURE George Iannacone SPRINGTIME Gretchen Berg PLAYING WITH IMAGES Susan Maguire 44 FOR FRANCES SCHOLARSHIP H. Stephen Morse 46 NEGATION, WILLING AND THE PLACES OF THE SOUL William O'Grady 47 MAKING MUCH ADO ABOUT "NOTHING" Jim Bailey 56 •i -----. ~.~.~~.~~ _________...__ . 81 �1 ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. The Method of Apollonius John Ritner STAFF Kathleen Bergren Ann Burlein Barbara Cooper Christian Holland Susan Maguire Martin Marklin Richard Miller Alexandra Mullen Joe Sachs Merle Sokolik ~ ~ ON THE COVER: Many thanks to Gisela and Laurence Berns for their kind permission to reproduce this print. In an examination of the first book of Apollonius' Conics, two relationships are of particular importance: that between the cone and planes, and that between description and definition or naming.· The particulars of the structure of the work are further clarified by considering the relationship between the three conic sections. Only when the work is considered in the light of all three of these relationships together is it possible to obtain a clear understanding of the structure and intention of Apollonius' work. Apollonius starts by defining in his first three definitions a conic surface, a cone, and a right cone; he then proceeds to define in the last five definitions diameters and axes taken in a single plane. The cone and planes seem set in opposition from the ver:y beginning, but by proposition three he brings cone and plane together by cutting the cone with planes; and he continues this process through proposition fourteen. Ih propositions eight and nine, he constructs the three conic sections without defining or naming them, and this points to the second relationship: that between describing and naming. Before Apollonius names each section, ' it is important that we be able to find one diameter (proposition eight) for each, know that an ellipse is not a circle . (proposition nine), and know that a hyperbola and a parabola can be increased . indefinitely (proposition ten). Thus we have a certain description without naming or defining. Then in the defining propositions eleven through thirteen, Apollonius describes how each section is constructed from the cone, and then he defines each section in terms of a parameter. Only then does he give each section a name, for the names are not descriptive of the curves themselves (they are not called "elongated circles" or "curved angles" or any such thing), but rather the names are determined by whether square figures on the ordinates are equal to, greater than, or less than the rectangles made up of parts of the diameter and this mysterious parameter. In short, the parameter ~y be said to be the true definer of the sections, for "it never changes for a given section and a given diameter, while the parts of the diameter and the· ordinates do indeed change in size. By using a parameter to define sections which have been cut from the cone in different ways, each section is so defined that we may remove it from the cone. We start wit}). several lines which are in the cone but outside of the planes of the sections, and with these lines we determine one single line, the parameter, which may be included in the plane of the sections. Thus, given the parameter these ~onic sections may be thought of and analyzed as plane sections, something far easier to do than considering them in the cone. Accordingly, after proposition fourteen defines opposite sections of a hyperbola and guarantees their similarity, Apollonius dispenses with the cone and deals exclusively with the derived sections, until he reconstructs the cone in proposition fifty-two. In proposition fifteen, he constructs another diameter, in fact a conjugate diameter, and this is even proven in the proposition. But he does not name his new diameter. It seems 1 �1 I diameter as "the straight line drawn from the center parallel to an ordinate, being a mean proportional to the sides of the figure and bisected by the center." In regard to the opposite sections which are examined in proposition sixteen, this definition makes even less sense, and the contrivance about mean proportionals seems pulled out of the air; but a little thought about proposition fifteen, which employs the same contrivance to construct the second parameter, reveals the aptness of this contrivance. Quite independently of this contrivance, we can prove that· this new diameter ED is a mean proportional to the sides of the figure AB, AN i made up of the old diameter and old parameter. To prove this we need only prove that rectangle AN, AB equals the square on ED, and this follows from the facts that rectangle AN, AB equals 4 times the area AP; area AP equals the square on CD; and 4 times the square on CD equals the square on ED. Thus the position of these two propositions is no mistake, and neither is their frustrating seeming incompletness. Fifteen is left without a second named diameter until Apollonius can prove that all the lines going through the center are diameters; and the picture in sixteen remains incomplete until he can conclude Book I by constructing the conjugate sections in propostion sixty. These two propositions also point out the close relationship between the hyperbola and ellipse, for the same mean proportional contrivance is used for both, and both have conjugate diameters, even though this at first makes sense only for the ellipse. The propositions from seventeen to forty-five deal with the sections out of the cone and at first glance seem to have little relevance or importance. We soon find out that their function is to explore the characteristics of the sections and especially of their tangents and unnamed new diameters. We also constantly see the hyperbola and ellipse being taken together in the same proof, while the parabola is usually taken alone. Often Apollonius: will prove something for the parabola and f that the half of the proof was dealing most importantly with certain properties or descriptions, namely, of the relationship between the old figure (eidos), made up of the old diameter and parameter, and the new figure, made up of the new diameter and parameter. Yet the second part of this proof, the bisection of GW, begs that ED be called a diameter, just as FG was called a diameter in the porism to proposition seven. We shrug and pass on to sixteen, in which he constructs a conjugate diameter for opposite sections of a hyperbola and even names it: what is important here is a definition and not an exploration of certain properties. But what does it mean for this line XD, which does not even touch either of the opposite sections, to be called a new diameter? The definition exists, but a full account is lacking, begging for a proposition sixty to complete the picture. It is significant that at this point Apollonius introduces three new definitions. The first two rather routinely deal with the naming of the center of the hyperbola, ellipse, and opposite sections, but the third one is interesting. It defines the second G . . Pn0Pos1T10x l n N 2 ,I .; ·I . then the equivalent for hyperbola and ellipse. This he does in propositions forty-six and forty-seven, when the propositions assume new interest with the general proof for construction of diameters. Using what he has proved about tangents and other properties of the sections, he proves that any line drawn through a parabola parallel to the first diameter is itself a diameter, and any line drawn through the center of an ellipse or hyperbola is a diameter. But he still refuses to call them diameters. Only in forty-nine after he contrives a parameter, does he call this new diameter a diameter, for only then does he have the complete picture of a removed section. From the beginning, he constructed a parameter before he removed the section from the cone, and even defined the sections in terms of the parameter. So it is only logical to require a parameter for this new diameter before naming it a diameter, despite the fact that a parameter is nowhere required in the original definition of a diameter. Further, the parameter is the link back to the cone. Proposition fifty-two constructs a parabola with a given diameter, vertex, and parameter, and no proposition after eleven is used, but the ordinates must be at right angles to the dia~eter. Proposition fifty-three is the general construction proof, given any angle between the ordinates and the diameter, and it depends upon that proposition forty-nine which determined the parameter. The parameter also assumes importance as the finite line whi~h helps determine the axial triangle around which the cone is constructed, from which cone the parabola is constructed . Propositions fifty-four to fifty-eight construct hyperbolas and ellipses, following the same order of parabola-hyperbola-ellipse which was established in the beginning; fifty-nine constructs opposite sections; and finally, sixty constructs the never-before-seen conjugate sections; and most of the'se propositions depend on the paramete~ . proofs. Indeed, only the constructions of the sections with ordinates perpendicular to the diameter are-not dependent upon the; parameter proofs, in fact depend upon no proof after the defining proofs eleven through thirteen, for only the original diameter determined by the axial triangle is used. It is characteristic of Apollonius' method to wait to do any constructions until he is not limited to a special case, and to save these interesting constructions, including the conjugate sections, until the end of Book I. In general, the necessity of starting with a cone to construct plane figures produces a mathematics more complex than Euclidean geometry. To deal with these conic sections outside of a cone and in one plane, it is necessary to have a parameter which is determined by the cone, but which can also be put in the same plane as the conic sections. Thus the parameter is the key for the first important relationship in conic sections: that between the cone and the plane. And the parameter is so important that Apollonius defines the sections in terms of it, and he derives their names from figures drawn on the parameter, rather than assigning names more descriptive of the shape of the curves, such as elongated circle. Once the parameter has enabled him to remove the eections from the cone, Apollonius deals with many of the properties of the sections, but he does not name new diameters until he has found their parameter~. In. this way he maintains safe ground, either dealing with a figure still in a cone, ·or talking about diameters only when he has their defining parameters. In this way, the parameter is the link in the second important relationship: that between description and definition or naming. Apollonius may describe properties of the conic sections in the earliest proofs and describe properties of new diameters in the middle proofs, but he can define and name the sections and new diameters only once he has their parameters. And just as in the 3 �beginning the parameter was the link from· the cone to the plane, so its importance is emphasized once more at the end of Book I, when it proves to be the link from the plane back to the cone. In this way the cycle from cone to plane to cone is completed; and given the role and importance of the parameter, the method of Apollonius in Book I seems logical and 'even inevitable. A Hero's Tale Retold Eve Gartner Song Pierre Gagnier By bell, by bell, by change, By roll and rise of form, From form to flow -- the rock, The threshing cliff (this bone Of mountain interposed) -Threshes the stars. The souls Are threshed from their husks, By water, rock and wind. 1982 4 r I ' body brutally torn and scattered throughout the labyrinth, she offered hiin a gift of love, a clew of thread. But it was more than thread: it was his life and he took the gift in the spirit of love. He must not forsake it for it would lead him out of the labyrinth and he would. be freer when he left than when he entered. So Theseus, whose only hope of freedom was the thread, entered into the labyrinth as into a prison. As he passed through the walls he recalled his past conquests, and relived them each one by one. He walked through the corridors, unwinding Ariadne's gift, knowing that many lives, including his own, depended on his ability to re-trace his steps through those halls.' As he entered the center of the labyrinth he was imprisoned with the minotaur. His blood did not run coid. He was not afraid. He knew that either it must die or he would. Theseus grabbed the minotaur by the hair and this monster--half-man, half-beast--clawed at his face and chest. They wrestled. The minotaur quickly obtained the advantage, but Theseus struggled to get himself on top and finally stabbed the minotaur between the eyes. The hero got up and fled the labyrinth, tracing the thread he trusted would take him to freedom. But as Theseus bravely followed the gift of love, he realized he did not know if the monster. had truly been slain or was merely wounded. Had he been freed of it forever or only given a reprieve? Androgeus, man of the earth, came away victorious from all his contests at the festival. He was the son of the King and he was the best, until the envious Aegeus s~nt. the Marathonian bull to challenge th.is youth of Crete. His muscles were taut, his mind alert as he prepared to wrestle the beast. But the bull did not know the rules, did not care and charged young Androgeus while he stood thinking his brave thoughts. He had no warning; he merely died. Deeds like Aegeus' do not go unpunished and to avenge his son, Minos ordered that seven young men and seven young women be sent each year from Athens to Crete to be fed to the minotaur. Every year as the boat set off for Crete, the chosen youths of Athens knew they would not return and as they set sail they looked back in horror at the city that had ordained their deaths. The third year of this atrocity came, and Theseus, worthy son of Aegeus and hero like no other, volunteered to join the condemned fourteen and try his hand at slaughtering the minotaur. Theseus had no choice. His life was the slaying of monsters, the freeingof men. The boat left Athens with black sails under the condition that if Theseus ,lived and was victorious it would return with white ones. Minos anxiously desired to see the young Athenians who would nourish his monstrosity. So the fourteen youths and maidens and Theseus their hero lined up before him. His daughter Ariadne stood by his side and as she watched Theseus--his shoulder, his thighs--she blushed with love. Unable to stand the thought of this beautiful soul· perishing, of this young * * * * * This story has no author. 5 I pass it on �to you as it was passed to me. I do not know the truth of all I say for I was not there, but though the details may have changed through time, the spirit of the hero Theseus remains. The life of his spirit depends on this tale, on its telling. When we stop recounting his story, Theseus will die. in small ways over time in order to express better the daring, the heroism, the grief. The story-teller, unlike the witness, is not present at the occurrence and thus is not responsible for·accuracy-for the small details, for the literal sequence of things. His absence is a gift of license: he must only be faithful to the spirit of the deeds. Phaedo is Socrates' witness; Plato, the maker of his myth. As Phaedo recounts tqe list of those present at Socrates' death, we learn that Plato was ill. He, like a maker of myths, is not a witness to what becomes his story. In this dialogue it is Socrates and not Plato who has authority. We look to Socrates to inspire in us our opinions and beliefs. This is his dialogue. As Plato himself says in his second letter: "For this reason I myself have never yet written anything on these subjects, and no treatise by Plato exists or will exist, but those which now bear his name belong to ' a Socrates become beautiful and new." (314 c 2) Plato's absence gives Socrates dominion over his own story. Cebes asks Socrates why he, who has never written poetry before, began composing verses in prison. Socrates tells him of a dream he has had frequently in which he is told to "engage in the Muses' art (mousiken) and practice it." (60 e 7) Philosophy, it had always seemed, was the greatest of the Muses' arts and so he had nothing to fear. As his death neared, however, he considered that his dream had meant making "what is ordinarily called music." (61 a 9) So not wanting to displease the gods, he began writing verse. Thus he wrote a hymn to Apollo, whose festival had postponed his death, and then considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet, must compose myths and not speeches, since I was not a maker of myths, I took the myths of Aesop, which I had at hand and knew, and turned into verse the first I came upon. (61 b 4) I Socrates, the new Theseus, spent his last day with fourteen friends. The followers gathered at daybreak at the court where the trial took place and then walked together to the prison where Socrates was held. They were not in the habit of meeting so early, but the impending death of their beloved teacher and friend demanded special attention, and the earliness of their arrival ensured that they could spend an entire day with Socrates. The fullness of their final day calls to mind Aristotle's observation in the Poetics that "Tragedy endeavours to keep as far as possible within a single circuit of the sun, or something near that." (1449 b 13) Is Plato suggesting that Socrates' death is a tragedy? Let us see. The story begins with Echecrates questioning Phaedo. His first words ring out "Autos, £ Phaidon," and Phaedo echoes back "Autos, 2_, Echekrates." Phaedo speaks in the manner in which one who had seen the death of Androgeus would describe that slaying. He is a witness to an event and not a teller of stories. He saw the death of Socrates, he was there: The "Autos" resounds letting us know that Phaedo himself will present the account "as accurately as he can." (58 d 12) Androgeus died and the minotaur was fed on Athenian youths until Theseus slayed it. These are the facts of Theseus' heroism, but how do they become the myth of Theseus? An event occurs, a lifetime passes, but it is not a story. A man relates an incident to a friend and still there is no story. A story condenses the event to bring out its power, changes it 6 The. taking of a story and making it into another story is at once a creating and a not-creating. How do Socrates' versions of Aesop's myths differ from Aesop's versions? And Plato's telling of Socrates' story: what does he add that Phaedo's account leaves out? In some ways Socrates' description of his verse-writing is reminiscent of Plato's myth-making. Each takes what already is and re-shapes it to meet his need. If Socrates' re-telling of Aesop's stories was the composition of music, is Plato composing music when he tells us the tale of Socrates? The dialogue contains neither chords nor octaves--it is not in verse--but there is a true music in its form. Plato makes Socrates start off slowly, for Socrates must not shock his followers with new ideas, but instead plays for them the same arguments they've heard before. He has an ear for timing and feels the urgency to say certain things before he dies but must wait for the proper moment so that they have the right effect. Socrates has individual modes of addressing each man and expects different things from each of them in return. From his fourteen friends he will not tolerate tears, but from the servant of the Eleven he accepts tears graciously and even remarks on the nobility of his weeping. And from the fourteen individually also, there will be different objections and different responses, and Socrates will treat each uniquely. As the dialogue builds up to its final resolution, we are carried by its music. assert that philosophers practice dying all their lives and thus welcome death when their time comes. Cebes cannot understand how a man as wise as Socrates could "leave us and the gods, who are, as you yourself agree, good rulers." ( 63 a 11) Socrates quickly admits that he must defend himself "as if we were in a law court. " ( 63 b 3) This reminder of his recent trial pains but also comforts Simmias and Cebes · who expect to hear a speech similar to what they've already heard in court. They want · to be re-assured that their teacher is the same in dying as he was in life. They want to be certain that the man whose life they've tried to model theirs after does not regret the things he's said and done. Socrates says he will try to b'e more convincing this time than last time; but when he changes his view from that of the Apology, that death is either "a virtual nothingness" or "a change and mi.gration of the soul from this to another place," (40 c 7) to his statement in the Phaedo that' "I would assert as positively as anything about such matters that I am going to gods who are good masters," ( 63 c 1) Simmias and Cebes do not appear to have heard the . "as anything" which rings so clearly in: our ears. Before Socrates has a chance to defend his view, the first dissonance sounds as Cri to warns Socrates not to talk so much because talk warms the body which retards the effects of the poison and thus prolongs life. It is an absurd warning, but Socrates cannot ignore the image it presents of the cold body quickly succumbing to the spreading poison, nor can we forget that this is more than an apologia. The dialogue is not a defense, but a teaching. Socrates' arguments are not meant to justify what he has done, but to show young men how to think and ask questions about the things that matter to them. As Socrates begins his reasoning, he refers to his followers as "tois dikastais," (63 d 8) as justices, the.name he rightly gives to his just supporters in the Apology. (40 a 3) By using it again here, he lets Simmias and Cebes know that As Theseus entered the labyrinth, He began to unravel the thread. He walked slowly, remembering all the deeds of his days, for though he knew what awaited him, he did not know how he would conquer it. * * * * * Socrates' first dialectical step is to 7 �4 what he is about to tell them, he says because they are his true friends and champions. As they are friends, he will talk to them about what is on his mind; but since they are not aged men, how much will they understand of what he now faces? Old men do not talk to young men about death, they talk to them about life. They do not confide in them their fears or hopes for th'emselves in another world, but rather talk about what they have done rightly or wrongly in this world. They counsel and give advice and reflect on what they've learned. _ Let me propose that Socrates uses the assumption that philosophers desire death as an occasion to say something about life, and not as an argument to defend his choice to die. Let us see what way the arguments in this dialogue address the questions of young men who are on the eve of living in the world without a teacher for the first time. The core of Socrates' lengthy argument defending the notion that philosophers desire death comes from the idea that'the body and the senses--hearing, seeing, feeling, desiring, fearing--obscure thought, and therefore realities, by deceiving the soul. Thus the soul of the philosopher, loving truth, hates the body and does all it can to avoid it and its illusions. Since Socrates defined death as the separation of the soul from the body (64 c 4) , it is this state of death that the philosopher strives toward. Socrates begins to test Simmias on ·the truth of what he's said. He asks Simmias if "we say" (phamen) there is such a thing as absolute justice, and Simmias responds "we say" (phamen) there is. ( 65 d 4) Clearly Socrates is calling into play Simmias' familiarity with one of his favorite ideas--the forms. This is the time to talk about ideas they've shared, not the time to raise new hypotheses. Socrates must help Simmias recall what they have spoken of together, to remember the best things they have done together. He wants Simmias and Cebes to remember these arguments because they are the currency of their friendship.__ These conversations have brought them -together, but once Socrates is gone, Simmias and Cebes will need to begin new arguments on their own. They will try to follow the intellectual path of Socrates, starting off with safe but simple accounts which evolve into more ingenious arguments. Simmias and Cebes will need - a starting place for their philosophic inquiries. Perhaps the arguments of which Socrates seems intent on reminding them can serve this purpose. Once Simmias agrees that they say there are such things as true justice, beauty and goodness, Socrates asks him if he has ever reached any of them with his bodily senses. His answer, of course, is no.· Socrates goes on to elaborate the attributes of the man who could know such things. Several times in his - account he retreats from certainty, saying such things as: "the man who approaches each thing, so far as possible, with the reason alone," (65 e 8) and "who removes himself, so far as possible, from eyes and ears" (66 a 5) and concludes with "Is not this the man, Simmias, if anyone, to attain to the knowledge of reality?" (66 a 8) Simmias, apparently not hearing the uncertain "if anyone," chimes in "That is as true as true can be, Socrates" (Huperphuos hos alethe legeis). (66 a 10) Though Socrates' manner is calm, his hesitancy to assert anything definitely carries over to his own future. He admits that when he gets to where he is going he will, "if anywhere," (67 b 9) find that for which he has been striving. Though Simmias and Cebes are not yet ready to hear these doubts from their teacher, he cannot deceive them with false confidence. Socrates knows about their doubts and thus the argument he tells them is similar to what they're accustomed to hearing from him. In Book Five of the Republic, for instance, he says: Well, now. This is separate them out. side I put those of were just speaking, 8 how I On one whom you the lovers esting that in a dialogue in which Socrates maintains that the body gets in the way of learning, he makes our bodily experience the instrument of learning. If he were truly trying to exalt the unencumbered intellect, why wouldn't he have made an argument l,ike the one - he makes to Glaucon? of sights, the lovers of-arts, and the practical men; on the other, those whom the argument concerns, whom alone one could rightly call philosophe~s ..• The lovers of hearing and the lovers of sights, on the one hand, surely delight in fair sounds and colors and shapes and all that craft makes from such things, but their thought is unable to see and delight in the nature of the fair itself. (476 a 9 - b 6) * * * * * As Theseus rounded a turn in the corridor, he caught sight in the distance of the minotaur'& tail. He shuddered slightly at what lay before him. This account of the body's interference in the pursuit of true knowledge resembles the one given in the Phaed,Q •. and this resemblance must comfort Simmiai:i" ·and Cebes · who do not want to believe that death might change what they've always thought to be true. The argument in the Republic, though, has a different appeal from that of the Phaedo. In the Republic Socrates tells Glaucon that the root of the dichotomy between body and soul lies in the twoness of opposites and therefore the ' oneness of each member of the pair. The deception comes because each is one but shows itself as many through its conjunction with actions and bodies. The true philosopher, he says, is the one who sees the thing in itself apart from its union with the physical world. (475 e 476 c) The argument invites Glaucon to consider what makes something unified and what makes a unified thing appear diverse. Socrates' argument is an appeal to Glaucon' s reason, to his ability to understand and see through the apparent deception that bodies cause. In the Phaedo, on the other hand, Socrates appeals to the bodies of Simmias and Cebes for confirmation of what he has told them. His argument depends on their having bodies so that they may recognize the power their bodies have over them. When Socrates says, "For the body keeps us constantly busy by reason of its need of sustenance," (66 b 9) it is not our reason, but the immediate experience of our appetites whi:ch assents. I_t is inter:~ Cebes agrees with most of what Socrates said, but matters concerning the soul, le observes, are subject to much disbeli~. Men fear that the soul is not immortal, that when a man dies his soul also _perishes. In Cebes' apprehension. Socrates catches his first glimpse of the minotaur which awaits him, of the true monster to be conquered which is the fear of death. Cebes calls for two distinct responses--arqument and proof--to allay his fears of the soul's dispersal. He does not merely want assurance that the soul exists apart from the body, but also that it will continue to have both power and intelligence_ (~ esti ,.!! he psych@ apothanontos ~ anthr~u kai tina dunamin echei kai phron~sin). (70 b 4) This is a strange request, for in what world do dunamis and phron~sis flourish? These are the attributes of the soul functioning on this earth. They are the striving toward and the practical knowledge of a soul acting in an imperfect world rather than a· world of entelecheia and nous. Cebes sets ""\iP the two distinct questions which will concern them for the rest of the dialogue--whether the soul is immortal and whether death is something to be feared. As we will see the two are wholly connected. Before Socrates begins to argue for the immortality of the soul, 9 �he reminds Simmias and Cebes (do they need reminding?) that these ideas and questions are of the utmost concern to him. He warns us not to get too caught up in the arguments and forget the circumstances under which they take place. He lets us know that these arguments are not a game, but the questions they ask raise the most serious problems any of them could face. If we are still supposing, though, that Socrates is trying to teach these young men something pertinent to their own lives, why does he begin to discuss the immortality of the soul? What effects will the soul's immortality have· on the way Simmias and Cebes act in this world? Socrates attempts to show the immortality of the soul by convincing Cebes that opposites come from opposites, and therefore what is living comes from what is dead. This conclusion must show, Socrates claims, that our souls existed in another world. The argument has Pythagorean origins, and so Simmias and Cebes, two Pythagoreans, are probably familiar with its premise, while Plato familiarizes us with this argument at the beginning of the dialogue when Socrates is released from his fetters. Rubbing his newly-freed leg, Socrates observes that pleasure and pain do not come at the same time, but one inevitably follows after the other. Socrates' speculation contrasts sharply with Phaedo' s observation to Echecrates immediately before, that "a very strange feeling came over me, an unaccustomed mixture of pleasure and of pain together, when I thought that Socrates was presently to die." (59 a 6) Socrates likens his notion to a two-headed beast which sets the stage for Cebes to ask about his verse-writing, as well as introducing us to the idea of many-headedness which appears again later in the dialogue. As Socrates begins his proof that opposites come from opposites, Phaedo does not mention that at that moment he is experiencing the contrary feeling of opposites mixing within him. He does not tell his friend that the thought of his death fills him with both pleasure and pain simultaneously. Phaedo is persuaded by Socrates to agree with something that a moment's reflection would tell him isn't true. The discussion, which begins with the example of nobility and disgrace and other absolute opposite entities, quickly changes to a discussion of relative opposite qualities. The emphasis turns to processes Qf generation and becoming rather than being, although Socrates makes no attempt to examine the middle increments of generation which occur before the opposites emerge. When at the conclusion of this argument Cebes quickly adds that the theory ·of recollection is further proof for the pre-existence of the soul, it is clear that the opposites from opposites argument was not convincing. Further proof is needed. But Socrates is in a battle and the individual blows do not matter. All that counts is that the campaign as a whole be victorious. As with the previous argument, we are introduced to some of the reasoning of the recollection account earlier in the dialogue when Simmias and Socrates discuss the existence of the forms. In this context, though, Simmias does not recall the recollection hypothesis and thus himself needs to recollect. Cebes helps him. The hypothesis first appears in the Meno where it is used to show that the soul has already learned everything before it enters the body. The theory is thus an answer to Meno's query, "How will you look for something when you don't in the least know what it is?... [Even] if you come right up against it, how will you know that what you have found is the thing you didn't know?" (80 d 4) Socrates answers that you will recognize it because the soul once possessed all knowledge, and so when you see the truth, you will recognize it because the memory of it exists within your soul. In the Phaedo, in response to a wholly different question, Cebes presents the theory of recollection as Socrates did in the Meno, but now Socrates is not 10 I • satisfied with the explanation and must elaborate upon it. His first elaboration takes the theory out of the realm of the forms and brings it into our world with the example: "Well, you know that a lover when he sees a lyre or a cloak or anything else which his beloved is wont to use, perceives the lyre and in his mind receives an image of the boy to whom the lyre belongs, do you not?" (73 d 5) Socrates does eventually bring the idea of abstract qualities into the discussioni but whereas in the ~ our understanding of the abstract entity enabled us to recognize the physical thing, in the Phaedo, we obtain our knowledge of the abstract form from our knowledge of the physical. "Did we not, by seeing equal pieces of wood or stones or other things, derive from them a knowledge of abstract equality?" (74 b 7) We know that the forms must exist in our souls when we come to the realization that things in this world fall short of what they might be. Socrates asks, "Do not equal stones and pieces of wood, though they remain the same, sometimes appear to us equal in one respect and unequal in another?" And when Simmias agrees and then also agrees that absolute equals do not ever seem unequal, Socrates concludes, "Then those equals are not the same as equality in the abstract." (74 c 3) The world is imperfect and our recognition of that tells us that we are aware of perfection. It is through our senses that we perceive that "all sensible objects strive after absolute equality and fall short of it," (75 b 1) and thusit is our senses which tell us that the forms live within us. The argument concludes by saying that we are born with a , certain knowledge which we acquired before our birth, thus showing that our souls must have existed in another ·world, the world · of the forms. The recollection account in the Phaedo differs greatly from the account in the Meno. It appeals to the experience of Simmias and Cebes with tangible things like cloaks and lyres and not with their recognition of mathematical truths. The· argument is at once a reminiscence of past times and past discussions, a reassurance that Socrates still believes the things he once held to be true and .an occasion for us to wonder why this recollection, in contrast to the recollection of the Meno, is inspired by sensible objects. ~ Socrates asks Sinmias. if all men can give an account of these' things and Simmias sorrowfully admits that though he wishes it were true, "I fear that tomorrow, at this time, there wi11 be no longer any man living who is able to do so properly." (76 b 10) This fear, thouqb perhaps selfish, is based on the realization we all have when faced with the death of a dear friend, the realization that they have something no one else has. At this moment, Sinmias is only thinking of himself, only thinking that he is losing the man who taught him to see the truest things. As Socrates continues to conclude the recollection argument, he is a dying man recalling with his close•t fiends the things that· were best in his life. * * * * * As Theseus entered the center of the labyrinth, the minotaur's eyes beckoned in challenge. Simmias and Cebes each become convinced that our souls existed before we were born, but they still have the fear of dispersal, the fear that the soul is a breath which will fade with a man's last words. Socrates teases them about their childish fears, and Cebes the child dares him to persuade them "not to fear death as if it were a hobgoblin." (77 e 5) Still lightly Socrates tells them to sing charms every day to charm away their fears. We are immediately reminded that this dialogue is Socrate•' song, and Cebes, too, recognizes Socrates as his charmer of fears. "Where shall we find a good singer of such charms, since you are leaving us?" Cebes asks. (78 a 1) Socrates replies in earnest this time, telling them to search 0 11 �, everywhere for such a charmer. He knows that the fear of death is not a childish fear. He knows it is the fear of death which gives power to tyrants, the threat of death which keeps men from acting justly. Socrates must do all he can before he dies to allay their fear of death. He must show them that the danger of death need never determine their actions. In order to assuage their fears, Socrates asks them what things naturally suffer dispersion, and then, he adds, we must see if the soul is that sort of thing. They decide on two types of being: the first--non-composite, unchangeable, invisible1 the second--composite, changeable and visible. The forms fall under the first heading, but things like cloaks are always changing and thus fall into the second category. After some discussion they draw the tentative conclusion that "[the] soul is more like the invisible than the body is, and the body more like the visible." (79 c 1) Cebes, under Socrates' tutelage, determines that the soul has a kinship with the forms and the di vine and thus will be "entirely indissoluble, or nearly so." (80 b 11) This emerges from its context, but in many ways it is utterly different from Socratic thinking. In the Sophist the Eleatic stranger tells Thaetetus that: uncertain in a dialogue where most of the questions raised are about immortality of the soul, yet the forms are assumed from the beginning to be everlasting and timeless. We fear for our souls but have faith in the eternality of the forms. If there were a true kinship between souls and forms, would Simmias and Cebes have anything to fear? Perhaps another way to understand this argument can be found in a pun. Socrates makes Cebes agree that the soul is invisible (aeides) and pure and divine and thus enters the · realm of the pure and everlasting, which is Hades (Haides). Puns can be deceptive because frequently the maker of the pun has a true and meaningful idea when he begins to speak it. The pun seductively enters his mind, and though it is not exactly what he meant to say, before he knows it, it has rolled off his tongue. The speaker gets caught up in the sound of his own words, (in the coincidental (aeides/Haides) and loses the original intention. I do not mean to suggest that Plato sacrificed his meaning for the seductive effects of language, but perhaps the thought process of the maker of puns can be a model by which to understand what Socrates does. Maybe Socrates does not really believe that souls are like forms, but rather that they approach being like forms. (In the opposites from opposites argument the emphasis was on processes of becoming, but there he talks of purity rather than purification. Ought it be different?) This would make sense in the context of its being an essentially Pythagorean argument, for the Pythagoreans believed that man progressively purifies himself in a process that is never completed in life. Perhaps Plato blurred the distinction between purification and purity, between souls and forms, leaving out the middle ground of approach. In a certain way, the process by which souls come closer to being like forms is a non-active activity. Souls approach forms by contemplation which is an activity of stilling, a momentary unchangeability during which we come closest to being If knowing is to be acting on something, it follows that what is known must be acted upon by it, and so, on this showing, reality when it is being known by the act of knowledge must, in so far as it is known, be changed owing to being so acted upon--~11d that, we say, cannot happen to the changeless. (248 d 11-e 4) Here it seems that what is changeless cannot be known, for knowing is a change. Can it be that the forms are changeless and thus not knowable? Even the premise that there is a kinship between souls and forms seems 12 divine. In this way, the motion that Socrates may have chosen not to mention is a non-motion, the approach, a stopping to think. It is interesting, though, that Socrates omits contemplation. Why does he do this? Socrates presents a predominantly Pythagorean argument to two Pythagoreans, but leaves out the process of becoming which is characteristic of that school. Must not he be inviting them to scrutinize, inviting them to search for what he has left out? That type of scrutiny is for later, though, for the time when Socrates will no longer be there. In his absence, he leaves them this argument which does not quite work, as something on which they should spend more time. For now, though, the true battle with fear of death must continue. Let me pause for a moment to look back. The first three arguments in defense of the soul's immortality do not convince me. I assume, though, that Plato did not intend for his readers to be convinced. Socrates' arguments are, like Ariadne's thread, gifts of love. They are gifts to men who will be struggling with something alone and who need confidence that they are heading in the right direction. Simmias and Cebes will soon be facing the trial of living a good life without the guidance of their teacher. These arguments are Socrates' gifts to them so that they may follow this type of reasoning and it will lead them rightly. They are gifts which Simmias and Cebes can keep with them always as reminders of Socrates, for the arguments themselves are reminiscences into the past. When Socrates finished talking there was a long silence and Phaedo tells Echecrates that his teacher was "apparently absorbed in what had been said." (84 c 1) We know nothing of his thoughts but that they were of the utmost seriousness, for he tells Simmias and Cebes, who were conversing between themselves, that they may raise any questions they have about these matters, but "if you are considering anything else, I have nothing to say." (84 c 7) Simmias acknowledges that both he and Cebes have questions to ask, but they were afraid to trouble Socrates with them for fear of displeasing him in his present misfortune. When he says that, Socrates laughs (egelasen) -as both Simmias (64 a 12) and Cebes (62 a 11) had each done once before, when neither of them was in.the mood to do so. Socrates' laughter is the opening measure of his song of death, his gentle music in imitation of the calling of the swans. "I, too, am a swan, " his laughter says, "and my laughter heralds my death as the swans sing in their prophetic joy." Socrates' laughter evolves into words,, and the words are in meter so that he does not lose the song-like nature of his story. He sings to Simmias and Cebes about Apollo's birds, the swans, who like their master are endowed with gifts of prophecy which enable them to see fnto the blessings of the other world. They sing for joy and not for sorrow, and their song welcomes death. Socrates' song is his joy too, not only for what it portends, but for what it is. He revels not only in the story his song tells, but in the telling itself. Does Theseus only look forward to having slain the minotaur, or is there also joy in the actual slaying of the beast? Socrates' song is sung not only· in anticipation of what awaits him, but in the knowledge that the ·song itself is a creation of a better future. Unlike argument which is meant to persuade, Socrates' swan song is meant to seduce Simmias and Cebes into believing that their teacher has seen into the future and knows that death is not to be feared. His song guarantees them of his happiness, for it is the music of laughter. It is not reasoned, but emotional. Socrates charms their fears by lulling them away with tales of animals who are wise and sing in their wisdom. This charming away of the fear of death promises to make Simmias and Cebes lead better lives, for it is the fear of death which threatens to destroy the Socratic tradition of acting rightly for its own sake rather than having one's actions determined by the rewards and 13 �, -punishments which will come from them. In this way the song which proclaims a joyful future plays an important role in the implementing of that future. In Cebes' request that the immortality of the soul be proven, he seems 'to be talking about the soul' s immortality on earth, an immortality of ideas and traditions, an immortality of a way of life. The conquering of the fear of death is part of the struggle to ensure the immortality of the Socratic soul on this earth. Thus this song of laughter is the instrument of Socrates' warfare. Simmias is eager to begin, eager to share his question. But first he confides that he thinks it either very difficult or impossible to decide upon these things during life. One must either learn the truth, he says, or take the best doctrine he can find,and,"Embarking upon it as upon a raft, sail upon it through life in the midst of dangers, unless he can sail upon some stronger vessel, some d\vine revelation, and make his voyage more safely and securely." (85 d 1) Nothing, I think, could be closer to what Socrates feels. Simmias claims that the soul is a harmony which is invisible and incorporeal and divine. The lyre and its strings are bodies and therefore mortal, but what happens when the strings are broken or too tightly strung? The soul, the harmony, must perish. The remains of the body last a long time and then finally decay, but the soul--a mixture and harmony of the elements which compose our bodies--is· the first to vanish. Socrates suggests that Cebes raise his objection before anyone tries to answer Simmias. Cebes still worries that the soul will disperse when the body dies. His fear, he says, can best be expressed by the figure of a cloak, as Simmias' was by a lyre. (See 73 d 4) Which lasts longer, he asks, a man or a cloak? A man weaves and wears out many cloaks in his life, but he dies before the last one perishes. This, however, does not mean that the cloak is stronger than the man, but merely that the man has worn out many cloaks and died with the last one still * * * * * intact. So it is with the soul and the body. The soul lasts a long time and wears out many bodies and is constantly weaving anew that which wears out, but when the soul finally has woven its last and perishes, it is still wearing its last body. The body then quickly decays, · but it has outlived the soul. We cannot know which body will be the last that the soul weaves, but like the weaver who finally weaves his last cloak, the soul eventually weaves its last body and dies. Why does Socrates ask that these two objections--the objections of the lyre and the cloak--be asked together and then refuted together? In Cebes' short account of the soul as a weaver of cloaks, he uses forms of the verb apoluo ten times. It is this word which represents his greatest fear. We cannot forget that it is the festival of Apollo (ApollC5) which gives Socrates the reprieve, Apollo to whom Socrates writes his hymn, and Apollo Socrates claims to serve. Can it be mere coincidence that the symbols of Apollo are the lyre and the bow? Apollo is the god of archery, music and prophecy. It is said of his arrows in the Iliad: At the outset of their struggle, the beast appeared to be winning. When Socrates had finished listening to Simmias and Cebes, he sat surrounded by fourteen stunned men. Even Echecrates just listening to Phaedo recount the incident says, "Now I must begin over again and find another argument to convince me that when a man dies his soul does not perish with him." (88 d 6) They all needed to begin again, to re-think things through, to see if Socrates could confront the fear of dispersal, the final threat. Now you lie in the palace, handsome and fresh with dew, in the likeness of one whom he of the silver bow, Apollo, has attacked and killed with his gentle arrows. (Book 24 - 757) His arrows, though gentle, symbolize his distance. He is, as one of his epithets calls him, "far-shooting Apollo." If there is a connection between the lyre and the cloak and the lyre and the bow, the difference they point to is the opposition between the remoteness of the Apollonian bow and the closeness and protection of the Socratic cloak. The lyre, though, is something Socrates and Apollo share. The music Socrates plays is divine, his prophecies divinely inspired. Part of him is close and present and of the earth, but part of him is with the gods. 14 his feet. He had not just one enemy but two, and even Heracles could not handle that alone. He killed the crab and called his charioteer Iolaus to come help him. It was no longer a matter of pride. All he could think of was that the beast must be killed. Iolaus immediately set fire to a neighboring forest, and with flaming brands he seared the necks of the Hydra as its heads were lopped off, ensuring that no more could grow in their stead. Heracles' task was almost complete. Eight of the nine heads lay at his feet, but the ninth, the immortal head, stared confidently at the hero in challenge. Heracles tried in vain to perform the impossible but finally came to realize his limitations. That head would live forever. - Resignedly, Heracles buried the breathing head under a rock. He would die without seeing it killed. •, Heracles, son of Zeus, wore the armor of the gods when he undertook his labors. He carried Hermes' sword and Apollo's bow, and as he stood in battle, the golden breastplate he bore belonged to Vulcan. Word of Heracles' heroism had spread throughout the land and so he was called on to slay the nine-headed Hydra which dwelled in the marsh of Lerna. The beast would emerge from its abode and wreak havoc on the land, killing cattle and ravaging the country. Defeating it was no easy task: not only was it immense, but one of its nine heads was immortal. Heracles mounted his chariot driven by Iolaus, son of Iphiclus, and they rode to the marsh where the Hydra was said to live. When they arrived, Heracles stepped down from the chariot and went in quest of the many-headed beast. As he approached the springs of Amymone, the hole in which the creature lived loomed before him. He did not move any closer, but shot fiery darts at the hole until the Hydra emerged. It was more gruesome than he could have imagined, and as he grabbed onto one of its arms, it twisted itself about the hero's legs. Heracles beat its heads with his club but to no avail, for when one was crushed, two sprang up in its place. As he stood hopelessly clubbing the heads of the monster, a huge crab began to bite at * * * * * Heracles' strength lies in his ability to seek help, in his capacity to abandon pride for the sake of worthwhile accomplishment. If Heracles had not called on Iolaus, the beast which threatened would have devoured him. The triumph belongs to Heracles, but without Iolaus it would have be.en nothing at all. II Socrates' method of attack differs from that of Heracles. Though he might have divine gifts, they are not armor. He consoled Simmias and Cebes by listening to their fears pleasantly, gently and respectfully and soothed their doubts about his future by acting toward them as he always had. Whereas - his friends met earlier than usual at the courthouse that day, Socrates' habits did not change. He stroked Phaedo's head and played with his 15 �--,-- important than maintaining his pride. hair. Could any of the fourteen men assembled there truly believe that this seventy year old man facing death within hours, listening quietly to friends and playing with the hair of a beautiful young man, was eager to leave this life? As he strokes Phaedo' s hair, Socrates asks him if he will cut it off tomorrow in mourning. When Phaedo nods Socrates gently corrects him saying "You will cut it off today, and I will cut mine, if our argument dies and we cannot bring it to life again." (89 b 8) What would they be mourning? What is an argument such that it has a life? The life of this argument is the life of Socrates' soul, that of intellectual pursuit and virtuous action. · If the argument dies with Socrates, if moral 'virtue vanishes in the face of tyranny, in the face of those who have tried to quell it in him, then Socrates' soul will die. The immortality of Socrates' soul is the immortality of the way he has lived his life and questioned other people about the way they have lived theirs. The fear of death threatens all this. The immortality for which Socrates argues is the immortality of the dunamis and phronesis of the soul--the striving toward and the moral rightness. Argument immortalizes Socrates' soul, for it is in argument that men will continue to ask what virtue and knowledge are, while those who stop questioning will fall prey to the demands of tyrants. The fears and arguments of the Phaedo concern themselves with this world, for the greatest danger that could befall Socrates' soul is being forgotten on this earth. The continuation of the argument is the immortality of his soul. If the fear of mortality ends the argument, then that fear must be conquered. Socrates asks · Phaedo to lead the battle, saying he will help him as Iolaus did Heracles. Phaedo retreats from that responsibility preferring to play Iolaus to Socrates' Heracles. It is all the same, Socrates assures him, knowing that there is no time for discussions of heroism. It does not matter anymore who does what, only that it get done. As Heracles first had to kill the crab which threatened to prevent him from facing the true danger, so must Socrates destroy misology, the hatred of argument, before addressing the real beast, the fear of the soul's dispersal, which is the final reason to fear death. Misology, like the crab at Heracles' ankles, impedes facing true dangers head-on. Confrontations with the most serious questions cannot take place outside the forum of argument, and thus misology is a threat to all serious philosophic inquiry. If Simmias and Cebes come to hate argument, they will have no means by which to address their fears of the soul's mortality. But, if Simmias and Cebes can be convinced never to abandon argument, Socrates can be more certain that his way of life will not perish. Misologyr Socrates says, resembles misanthropy. We come to hate both arguments and men when we think they are perfectly good and true but later find out otherwise. Arguments, like men, are very rarely all true or all false, but we must never revile argument totally, believing it to hold no truth whatsoever. Individual arguments are like single blows struck in a battle: neither is of much importance in itself--each matters only in the cumulative effect. So must we not look for proof in a single argument, but in the discussion as a whole. We ought never to think argument unsound, but should rather realize our own lack of preparation for understanding it. Socrates tells Simmias and Cebes to strive * * * * * Not even Heracles could take on both the Hydra and the crab, and so he called for Iolaus to come to his aid, knowing that winning the battle was more existence elsewhere prior to entering the body. Though he addresses only Simmias' objection, he asks the opinions of both Simmias and Cebes in regard to the recollection account. The bringing of that theory into this argument must have more significance than the refutation of Simmias' idea that the soul is a harmony. He is, I think, testing their affinity for one argument, making them choose between two things which individually seem right. He challenges their ability to revise old thoughts in the light of new ideas. Simmias and Cebes are united in their conviction that it is the best argument given so far, and Simmias goes on to add that he would be surprised if he ever felt differently about it. Socrates plays on Simmias' admission and immediately points out that the harmony account conflicts directly with the recollection argument~ because, in order for the soul to be a harmony, the body would have to exist before the soul so that it could come together in such a way as to create the harmonized soul. When Simmias sees this conflict, he unquestioningly gives up his theory without considering that it might be right and the recollection account wrong. Why does he give up so easily? Why is he afraid to surrender a theory that had once seemed certain but now conflicts with a new idea? Socrates will not let him abandon his account yet and submits another argument against it, hoping that Simmias will attempt to defend his thesis. Socrates objects that the soul can never be more or less of a soul, but there can be different degrees of harmonization, and thus Simmias' analogy collapses. Simm.ias again agrees with Socrates that his account fails, but his acquiescent response is not what Socrates wanted, and so he tries once more to provoke Simmias into argument. Socrates' third refutation of the harmony account is based on the idea that the soul presides over the body and thus cannot be controlled by the corporeal in the way that harmony is determined by the lyre. He chooses an example in support of the dominion of the soul from the ·for this understanding "for the sake of all your future life, and I because of my impending death." (91 a) As he prepares to £ace their objections he warns them: "But you, if you do as I ask, will give little thought to Socrates and much more to the truth." (91 c) He wants them to stop pitying him and themselves and pay close attention to what is being said. They will need these truths for the rest of their lives, and he will not be there to remind them. They have gradually been weaned from hearing only about the past and now must face something new, something they can keep with them to help· carry on the Socratic way of life. As Socrates restates the doubts of Simmias and Cebes, I am struck again "by the question: Why are these doubts expressed and refuted together? When the objections lie side by side we easily see the lyre and the cloak in opposition to the lyre and the bow, but is this comparison with Apollo all that Plato intends by this uncharacteristic structure? Perhaps a clue can be found in Socrates' own words when he suggests that Cebes gives his objection before Simmias' objection is addressed. Socrates says: "Then when we have heard them, we can either agree with them, if they seem to strike the proper note (~ ti dokosi prosaidein), or, if they do not, we can proceed to argue in defense of our reasoning." (86 e 4) The unusual ordering displays a sense of music, a desire to hear the properly struck note--the note to which Socrates must respond by saying what he wants to before he dies. He listens to these objections and searches for that impetus, for he does not want merely to speak unconnected thoughts. He wants his ideas to flow from Simmias' and Cebes' fears as the proper response in a piece of counterpoint. With. both of their objections in front of him, he will have a clearer idea of where he must take them so that they may yield the fruits he hopes they contain. Socrates asks both Simmias and Cebes how they feel about the recollection argument as a proof for the soul's 16 17 -- �dialogues, quoted out of context,. but rather its context adds poignantly to our understanding of what Socrates faces. Our knowledge of Odysseus amplifies what we know about Socrates; for Socrates, at that moment, is Odysseus. He is a man who has traveled and told the tales of his travels. He has encoun.tered men and gods and learned from both. He stands at the gates of the union he has sought for many years, but as the moment of surrender nears, both Socrates and Odysseus feel apprehension. Plato lets us know that he will no longer play games by the seriousness with which he quotes Homer. Irony needs time and there is no more time. Socrates' song, mirrored in Odysseus' agony in the fore-court, draws to its portentous climax in the awareness Socrates shares with Odysseus that the effect of much of what he says will depend on how he utilizes the little time he has left. twentieth book of the Odyssey. As Penelope lay alone in her bed weeping for her husband, Odysseus bedded down in the fore-court of his house unknown to all but Telemachos and Eurykleia. He heard the voices and laughter of the women who had shamelessly slept with the suitors and wanted to kill them all then, not to let them pass another night with the men who were devouring his property. And he thought about the suitors themselves-could he conquer so many? In this yearning to act and his uncertainty in how to act, He smote his breast, and thus he chid his heart: Endure it, heart, thou didst bear worse than this. (Book 20 - 17) Socrates gives this as an example of the soul overcoming the desires of the heart. The soul is a ruler and far more divine than a harmony; in this way the reference to Homer concludes their discussion. At that moment in the Odyssey from which Plato quotes, Odysseus faces much of what Socrates does in the Phaedo. As Socrates has sought death, so has Odysseus longed for Penelope. Each of them, though, has perhaps taken a longer route than necessary to get there out of love for what the world has brought them. For each, one task must be performed before he achieves his goal: setting his city in order. (This cannot be done entirely, but each can make a proper beginning.) Both Odysseus and Socrates realize that their efforts will be more successful if they wait for the right time. Odysseus understands that the slaying of the suitors will be more powerful and shocking if he waits a little longer, as Socrates knows that Simmias and Cebes will be affected more by his words if he waits until they are prepared to hear them. Each must make his heart endure this restraint. The citing of Homer fits in perfectly with Socrates' story. There is no irony. It is not, as is so common in the * * * * * Only one head remained, the immortal head. In this mood of approaching the end of a long odyssey, Socrates begins to address Cebes' objection, calling his friends together to "charge the foe in Homeric fashion." (95 b 9) Let us not forget that the most important step in Odysseus' battle against the suitors was revealing himself as who he was. All else followed simply from that. Before we look at Socrates' response to Cebes' objection, let us think about what it means to say that the soul is a weaver of cloaks. Cebes describes it this way: For if the body is constantly changing and being destroyed while the man still lives, and the soul is always weaving anew that which wears out, then when the soul perishes it must 18 necessarily have on its last garment, and this only will survive it, and when the soul has perished, then the body will at once show its natural weakness and will quickly disappear in decay. (87 d 10) A cloak is not unique to one person but can be shared by several. Many may wear and be protected by the same cloak, as a group of men may share in and agree with the same argument. Socrates arms himself with argument as Heracles does with Vulcan' s golden breastplate, for it is with his cloak of argument that he defends himself against the tyrants and sophists. Socrates' arguments are the weavings of his soul which he wears like a cloak. When he dies, his last cloak will outlive him, and it will be the inheritance he leaves. Simmias and Cebes and the other followers will wear it and make it theirs. They will adopt his arguments, his way of life, but· that cloak will not last forever, and when it starts to tear, they will need to know how to weave one anew. They cannot continue to live off what Socrates created. If the tradition is to be kept alive, it must have new growth, new life. Each soul must learn to weave its own cloak. Before Socrates begins his refutation of Cebes' fear that the soul will ultimately perish, he finds himself in thought. He begins by saying that he will tell them "my own experience" (96 a 2) with investigating the cause of generation and decay. His story is an uncovering, a stripping down. He reaches back. to his first intellectual pursuits and tells of a young man filled with questions about heaven and earth and bodies and why they come to be. This is what he has been· waiting to tell them. He has been waiting to give them a model of how to begin a philosophic inquiry, starting naively and working without a teacher. Socrates wants to ensure that when he leaves them they will not be without the means to continue the lives they've started. As Socrates' story unfolds we learn that his confusion with the questions of physical realities became so great that he abandoned his quest. He then began to search for the cause of the way things are and looked for someone who could teach him that the cause is rational--which Socrates interprets as meaning that things are this way because it is best for them to be this way. He thought Anaxagoras could teach him such things and explain what is the best for all things and good for the whole. He eagerly listened for someone to confirm what he hoped was the truth. He found Anaxagoras' books and read them voraciously, for he wanted to know the truth as quickly as possible• But Anaxagoras called air and ether and water the causes, not mind. Socrates wanted someone to teach the cause and not "the thing without which the cause could not be." (99 b 4) Deciding that no one could teach him such a thing, and still young and in search of the truth, he set out on his second voyage (deuteros plous) to find it for himself. Socrates' series of voyages echoes Simmias' description that man must either find the truth or set sail (diapleusai) through life upon the best doctrine he can find. (85 c, d) Socrates, unable to find the truth about the real cause of generation and decay, embarked on a safe but simple voyage. His second sailing consisted of looking for causes through conceptions and not through the senses. He determined that things are great because of greatness, and small because of smallness. No one can overthrow such an answer. It is indisputable. Socrates speaks to these young men who will soon be alone and without a teacher, looking for answers and not knowing where to look, as he once was. His words are a gift to them--a gift of assurance. He started as they are now and came to see the things he does because he pursued what tried to elude him. He clung to argument but always searched for a better way, a deuteros plous. As Socrates reveals himself, he tells Simmias and Cebes that they too can do what he has done. His words say, "You are right to have hope." 19 �Throughout most of the dialogue, Simmias and Cebes are the only men who respond to Socrates. After hearing, though, that great things are caused by greatness, one of the others--"! just don't remember who it was" (103 a 3) --objected vehemently that this was in direct contradiction with the argument that opposites come from opposites. Socrates praises this unknown man, and in doing so, praises all the unknown men for their attentiveness and interest and for their readiness to speak, even after long hours of silence. This unnamed man is every man who sat by Socrates' side on the day of his death. The safe but simple account is a good starting place, but one ought not be satisfied there. Socrates has a more ingenious account, an account that might satisfy Cebes' objections. The new account does not say that the cause of what is hot is heat, but rather fire. Instead of looking toward conceptions for causes, he looks toward the earth. In this way, snow causes cold and fever illness. But snow does not admit of heat; it must either withdraw from heat or perish. Socrates then asks Cebes to answer his questions, not "in their own words, but do as I do." (105 b 7) He must · go beyond the safe but stupid answer and look fLr the more ingenious cause. It is the soul and not life, he answers, which causes the body in which it is to be alive. And the soul, causing life, does not admit of death ... but here the account breaks down. When Socrates establishes this way of answering he says that things like snow do not admit their opposites and thus either withdraw o~ perish when the opposites approach. In his account of the soul, however, he concludes that the soul does not admit of death and so is immortal, that is, it withdraws at the approach of death. He does not consider the possibility of its perishing. The same sort of omission is made early in the dialogue when Socrates says, "For, if pure knowledge is impossible while the body is with us, one of two things must follow, either it cannot be acquired at all or only when we are dead." (66 e 4) In the ensuing discussion, though, no mention is made of the possibility that pure knowledge is unattainable, as here there is no talk about the soul's perishing at the approach of death. * * * * * Heracles, realizing his defeat, placed the breathing head under a rock. Others might come and attempt what he was unable to do.· The arguments are left open-ended. They are there for us to ponder, for us to think about how they might be concluded. They remind Simmias and Cebes that the work is unfinished, that they must try to go beyond what Socrates has said. Simmias and Cebes must recognize that argument, like purification, is an on-going process, never completed in this life. In the last sentence of the dialogue there is a hint that Socrates' followers realize that. Phaedo says, "Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, who was, as we may say (hos hemeis phamen an) , of all those of his time whom we have-known, the best and wisest and most righteous man." (118 a 16) The "as we may say" and "whom we have known" seem to show the understanding that their experience has been limited and individual. They do not make sweeping statements about his unmatchable greatness; they simply say that in his time he was the greatest man they had known. This leaves room for Socrates to be surpassed, or at least challenged. And Socrates, I think, wants to be challenged. He wants men to try to do more and know more and question more than he has. By leaving his arguments unfinished or inconclusive, he invites Simmias and Cebes to take up his challenge. In his conclusion, Socrates says, "All I think would agree that god and the principle of life, and anything else that is immortal, can never perish." (106 d 5) 20 But can the theory of the forms ever perish? Can moral virtue disappear from men's actions? Will the ability to oppose tyrants always exist? The greatest fear expressed by Simmias and Cebes is the fear of dispersal, the fear that the soul will dissolve "like a breath." ( 70 a 7) They fear that the soul is a breath, a breath that utters words, a breath saturated with meaning; and thus the re-utterance of the same words saves the meaning, breathes the same breath. The fear of dispersal is the fear that these words will never again come together in this way, with this meaning, and that the Socratic vision will scatter in the political winds. The fear of dispersal is the fear that the cloak, the symbol of the manifestations of Socrates' soul in this world, will fall apart and not be sewn together. The fear of dispersal is the fear that these men, the inheritors of the tradition, will never again come together as brethren, as men who share. the same breath. They came together as followers of Socrates, men who shared the same questions and goals. Socrates brought them together, but who will keep them together. once he is gone? The fear of dispersal is • the fear that what has been good in this life will dissolve with the death of Socrates. The greatest fear expressed by Socrates is not what the future will bring for his soul in Hades, but what will happen to the Socratic ideas on earth. His greatest wor,ry is that the threat of death will keep men from proper action, wil 1 put power in the hands of tyrants. He must show his followers that death does not punish right action but rewards it. He must show them that the peril of death ought never to determine their actions. Simrnias and Cebes and the other heirs will decide the immortality of Socrates' legacy on ·this earth, and so it is they who must be persuaded not to fear death. Even if the arguments in this dialogue do not convince us that the soul is immortal, if we remain uncertain that good deeds will be rewarded in the after-life,· we at least know that no man has ever faced death as serenely, as nobly and as generously as Socrates. He does not cling to life but surrenders it before sunset. If at the beginning we thought that the daybreak meeting foretold an Aristotelian tragedy, a drama that encompasses a full day, we are now assured that the tragedy which might have come to pass did not. As Socrates prepares to drink the poison, he calmly asks if he may pour a libation to a deity from the cup that will bring his death. And this brave man who must die on the charge of impiety is forbidden by the state which thus accused him to pay one last tribute to the gods. He prays, nevertheless, for a fortunate departure and drinks the hemlock. His friends cannot control themselves and weep, not for him, but for themselves, and Phaedo, in his distress, wraps his face in his cloak. We cannot know the destiny of the soul of Socrates, but by following the threads of the myths, Plato invites us to speculate on Socrates' fate. In the first myth, Theseus, by slaying the minotaur, saved himself as well a• the fourteen youths. If the analogy between the two stories holds, then this dialogue which frees Socrates' friends from their fear of death must also save Socrates. How else but in preserving his tradition does conquering the fear of death save Socrates? Theseus left Athens bearing black sails and, having promised his father that if he were victorious, he would return with white sails. When he returned, though, he forgot to change the sails, and so was thought to have been slain by the minotaur. Thus Theseus, believed by all to be dead, returned home in victory. And Socrates? Immediately before Socrates speaks his last words, he uncovers his face which had been covered. In the Phaedrus Socrates covers his head when he speaks words that are not his own (237 a 4) and then uncovers it when he regains his true identity (243 b 6). In the Phaedo Socrates' face is covered while the attendant who gave him the poison 21 �pinches his feet and legs to test for numbness. The attendant tells Socrates' friends that their teacher is growing cold and rigid, yet the man who is becoming numb has his face covered, is not the real Socrates. The true Socrates is the man who replies to Crito's question about how to bury him by saying, "However you please, if you can catch me and I do not get away from you." ( 115 c 4) The true Socrates is the man whose final words are1 "Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius. Pay it and do not neglect it." (118 a 8) The true Socrates is not growing numb but is grateful for having been healed. Crito asks Socrates what they can do to serve him, and Socrates tells him: Horner, Iliad, trans. by R. Lattimore, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951) Problems With Kant, Problems With Faith Richard Miller Odyssey, trans. by R. Lattimore, (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965) Kirk, G.S., The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957) Klein, Jacob, A Commentary on Plato's Meno, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965) What I always say, Crito, nothing new. If you take care of yourselves you will serve me and mine and yourselves ... if you neglect yourselves and are not willing to live following step by step, as it were, in the path marked out by our present and past discussions, you will accomplish nothing. Otto, W.F., The Homeric Gods, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1954) Plato, Apology, trans. by H. N. Fowler, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914) Epistles, trans. by Rev. R.G. Bury, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929) (115 b 3) And what will Socrates have accomplished? Theseus could not have slain the minotaur without Ariadne's thread, as Heracles could not have destroyed the Hydra without Iolaus' aid. Can the Socratic tradition continue if Phaedo does not tell his account to Echecrates? The spirits of Theseus and Heracles die when we stop . telling their stories. What will ensure the immortality of the spirit of Socrates? Meno, trans. by W.K.C. Guthrie in Plato: The Collected Dialogues-edited by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961) Plato, Phaedo, trans. by H.N. Fowler, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914) BIBLIOGRAPHY Phaedrus, trans. by H.N. Fowler, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914) Anthon, C., Classical Dictionary, (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1854) Republic, trans. by A. Bloom, (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1968) Aristotle, De Poetica, trans. by I. Bywater in The Basic Works of Aristotle edited by R. McKean, (New York: Random House, 1941) Sophist, trans. by F.M. Cornford in Plato: The Collected Dialogues 22 Kant's Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals is "nothing rnorethan the search for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality (392) ." This search ends with the categorical imperative, which presents the reader with a rule for moral behavior and an obligation to follow this rule. Before it is possible to embrace the categorical imperative as the solution to man's moral confusion, it is necessary to understand the course of Kant's journey. Is he justified in his final assertion that "the practical use of reason with respect to freedom leads to an absolute necessity, but to the necessity only of laws of actions of a rational being as such (463)"? That is, does the concept of a free will, properly understood, inevitably lead to the supreme principle of morality? I will attempt to answer this question by focusing on Kant's argument in the final section of the Foundation. The first step in Kant's argument to estab.lish the necessity of the concept of free will is seeing the will as a cause in rational beings. The will may be described as free because "it can be effective independently of foreign causes determining it (446)." That is only to say that the will is not deterrnin'ed by the laws of natural necessity, such as gravity. For example, whereas natural necessity governs the fall of the rock from my hand, it does not govern my decision to allow the rock to fall. This decision was prompted by my will; it was caused by my will. Once the will is seen as a cause, Kant's argument continues, it must be seen as governed by some law. This follows because the concept of cause includes laws which establish an effect. This is clear if we return to our example with the rock. In order for something to fall (effect) , it must be dropped (cause); this relationship of cause to effect is governed by a universal law (gravity). Thus, to recognize the free will as a cause implies that it is "a causality according to immutable laws, but of a peculiar kind (446) ." Therefore, the will must be governed by a law. But if this law were imposed from outside the will, it would be indistinguishable from natural necessity. And, as we have seen, the will is understood to be a cause outside the realm of natural necessity. It follows then that the will must be governed by an internally imposed law. But Kant has previously shown that a will which governs itself, which is at once legislator and legislated, will act in accordance with the principle of universalizing maxims. From this we may conclude that "a free will and a will under moral laws are identical (447) ." Thus, once the will is seen as a cause, one is apparently necessarily led to the categorical imperative, i.e. the compulsion to universalize personal moral maxims. But, isn't there a problem in Kant's reasoning here? By treating the will as an appearance, by reasoning about the will as if the categories applied to it, Kant seems to have broken a rule in his own system. Kant states about man that: As regards whatever there may be in him of pure activity (whatever comes into consciousness, not through affection of the senses, but immediately) he must count himself as 23 �belonging to the intellectual world, of which, however he knows nothing further (451) • as being free. It only means that, to be so viewed, it must be looked at in a special way. Thus, Kant can only answer the question by saying that the actions of rational beings presuppose a free will. That is, a rational being regards his will as free, merely because it is his will. If a rational being did not Consider itself as being outside the laws of natural necessity, then all of its actions, i.e. all of its thoughts leading to actions, would be determined by some exterior power. Clearly, man, as rational being, does not view his thoughts as being determined by some law akin to gravity. Thus, all rational beings presuppose a free will. This is not to say that the will is free, but only that it is considered as such. We designate the will as free because we cannot think of it in any other way. So far so good, but how does the imputation of the free will as cause lead to "inunutable laws"? To answer this question, we must turn to the second section. Kant states that: Whatever comes into consciousness through the senses is an appearance of a thing. The rock falls: this effect is part of the world of sense and is governed by the law of natural necessity, the law of the world of appearances. On the other hand, reasoning comes into consciousness spontaneously, without any prompting of the senses. Man cannot speak accurately about this world, for it is the world behind the appearances, the land of the mysterious thing-in-itself. This statement about man's nature appears to disrupt Kant' s previous argument because of the relationship between reason and the will. If the will is part of the intelligible world, then man cannot speak about it and certainly cannot reason about it as if it were an appearance. Kant states that "since reason is required in order to derive actions from laws, the will is nothing but practical reason (412)." It follows from this that the will resides with reason in the intelligible world, the world of which man "knows nothing." The will is an aspect of reason; it is not an appearance. Thus, carrying the empirical implications of the word "cause" into the intelligible world, thereby allowing for the subjection of the will to an "inunutable law," seems to contradict Kant's previous statements about the intelligible world. Is this the case? Has Kant actually become overwhelmed by the very same inclinations that he set about controlling in the Critique? Upon reflection, it is clear that Kant has made no such error. He is saying that if the will may be seen as free, then morality follows. The problem with saying this lies exactly with the objection raised above; how can the will be seen as free when it is not in the sensible world and therefore cannot be described as having any properties? Clearly, in the strictest sense, it cannot. However, this does not mean that the will is not viewed Man and, in general every rational being, exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will (428). Man always serves as the end for his own actions. Remove the man and the desire for the ice cream is removed; however remove the desire and the man remains. The ice cream is a means for satisfying the man. Man treats all objects in this way, as a means for accomplishing his own ends. On the other hand, rational beings are designated "persons" because their nature indicates that they are ends in themselves, i.e., things which may not be used merely as means (428) . Thus man qua rational being recognizes all other men qua rational beings as ends not means. This leads to an imperative which 24 governs man' s actions toward man, are effected by the will: same order as gravity, yet it is one that you choose to submit yourself to. Once you have so chosen, the law takes on the force of natural necessity in the intelligible world; namely, you have no more choice of doing what is commanded by the categorical imperative than a rock has of falling;. Again, what makes a man choose to do this? Kant says flat out that "an explanation of how and why the universality of the maxim as law (and hence morality) interests us is completely impossible for us men (461)." In short, Kant cannot explicitly state an incentive for acting this way as opposed to any other. To do so would place an incentive in the will's path which, as Kant says in the beginni'ng of the treatise, debases any action. That is, the will is considered good when it acts without regard to the consequences of the action; the man who does the right thing without expecting a reward or in spite of the punishment that will follow is most highly praised. Nonetheless, ~t hazards a suggestion for complying to this moral system: which Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another always as an end, and never as a means only (429). From this point, the step to the categorical imperative is relatively easy. As we have seen, the imperative stated above falls out of considering man only as a rational being. Man, however, has, if you will, a dual nature: rational and empirical. The imperative becomes categorical when applied to the world of sense. That is, in the intelligible world, all my actions would naturally accord with the imperative; there is no reason for my actions to be otherwise, since man considered as rational acts in accordance with his reason. However, man lives in the world of sense, thus the imperative can only express how things should or ought to happen, not necessarily how they will happen. In the world of sense, natural necessity governs how things will happen. Nonetheless, the imperative is still applicable because it rules over a different domain than the law of_ natural necessity. I cannot will the rock not to fall once I have released it. I can will myself not to drop the rock on my neighbor's head. Thus, the law of the intelligible world does not conflict with the law of natural necessity. Thus, the imperative must still be in effect when man is considered in the empiric~! world, for it does not conflict with the activities of the empirical world. This is Kant's argument. He recognizes the problems with it. Namely, what on earth would compel someone to follow the categorical imperative? What, in effect, makes it binding? Granting the questionable step from the intelligible world to the sensible world, which allows for the governing of the will, as cause, by a law, one comes up with a peculiar law indeed. It is supposed to be a law of the Through the glorious ideal of a universal realm of endsin-themselves (rational beings) a lively interest in the moral law can be awakened in us. To that realm we can belong as members only when we carefully conduct ourselves according to maxims of freedom as if they were laws of nature (462-463). c Obviously, this reason merely explains why the people who do ascribe to this code of conduct do ascribe to it; it is not a compelling argument for those outside the "faith," who have no interest in acting to attain such a kingdom. In light of the fact that there can be no stated incentive for adopting the categorical imperative, one may well wonder at the advantage of adopting Kant's moral system over any other. In trying to deal sensibly with the problems of metaphysics, it seems that Kant has ended 25 �where religion begins: unfathomable -faith. Just as one is never able to state clearly why one has faith in a certain religion, the same problem afflicts Kant's system. One believes because one has chosen to do so. This is the mystery that Kant can never address, as he is well aware; he can only outline what one believes in, not why. Thus, while one may make sense of Kant' s argument, one need not be led to embrace its doctrine. Egg, Beat Her John Keith The irrelevant hen - men will die in a glove Loving like ducks from the earth above. Shooting Mr. Larry O. what self defeat, In a glad bag •.. you know, a ministry. Why! Why! What Why What Love's candied apples devoid of a hut. Black toothbrush seemingly lost, My gash hung up, upside down on a cross. 26 Ho Eni Autos En Heauto Joe DeGrazia There follows an attempt at supplementing Plato's assertion in ·Timaeus (35a-40d) that the motions of mind can be fruitfully compared to the motions of those gods who reveal themselves to us, as they will, in the planets. Both can be seen as moving one way but must be understood as a forced unity of contrary motions. This contrariness makes appearance contradict reality, as Plato asserts at 39a,· except in the period of the whole, measured by a perfect number, when the two motions come around to each other (39). Once upon a time, a casual observer at sunset (an acolyte assisting day's end rituals to Apollo) glanced up as he was lugging all those lustral bowls, and was struck by the new moon in its twilight splendor. Thereafter, he began to watch her each dusk at odd moments: crescent Artemis was at first close by her brother as he finished his daily course; but each day Apollo pulled away a bit from the· moon--call it Artemis' chariot, which set later and later while slowly waxing round. It was as if Artemis were steadily falling behind the far-darter (flagging as her horns blunted) , on some east-west hippodrome course. After what was to come to be called a "moon's" time, honoring the chaste huntress and midwife, our attendant· saw Apollo lap his sister's waning team. What is more, this watching Artemis grow and shrink was eventually to show our lackadaisical youth the whole sta~ry sky. From day to month, as he idly looked up, after sprinkling barley at altarside. twilight, this catechumen began also to notice two very special stars. At one time or another, or perhaps even together, they revealed themselves to him dropping behind the sun as the moon had, though not so quickly, yet along the same broad lane in the sun-wards southern sky. That would be luscious Aphrodite, then, next brightest after Artemis, and next most •conspicuously mutable; she came to trail Leta's son by about an eighth of a lap and then kept pace. And the other star would be mercurial winking Hermes, Zeus' deceitful messenger, slacking off the sun's pace at most only a few lengths. Our apprentice proceeded to watch, no longer bored, but in sheer amazement, as both of those gods got their second wind, then went and caught up to the sun again. Artemis would never keep pace try as she may , he knew, but · he re we re Aphrodite and Hermes actually giving Apollo a run for his money. Our hero's name was Mimas. After he began intently following these wheeling gods into the dusk, he happened also to be detailed to daybreak duty, for some liturgical exigency or- other. As a consequence, he had not much sooner seen the chariots of Hermes and Aphrodite overhaul Apollo from behind (after lagging for a while at nightfall), than he was astonished to spot them again, coming off the turn into the dawn sky, yes, outsprinting the sun's fiery steeds, and gaining on them daily--though, then again, only by just so much and for so long, after which Apollo rather slowly pulled· into the lead again. Time and again this would happen. It was a three-way dead-heat Mimas was following--wi th chaste Artemis sadly ·mismatched, steadily losing ground, and lapped by each of the leaders every thirty c 27 �Sundays, the highest deity's decade-ish Dial, and the generation-long Saturnalia. Odds were taken on exactly how long it· would take for all the gods to return to the same position they had held at any one given time; but to whose progeny could one entrust the ancestral kitty for such a mullimillenial sweepstakes? The priests of Apollo regarded the whole business as profoundly blasphemous. But Mimas was now wealthy enough to style himself a visionary. What a world it was, too, that he envisioned--where all divine entities incline the s·ame way! He had not yet been admitted to the inner-sanctum mysteries, of course; so he renounced 'his vows and meandered off to the city, intending to use his knowledge of the divinities to make book in the bigtime. This heavenly horse-racing through the night sky was something he knew he could lay safe odds on: it was a race that always would end up just as it started, you just played the percentages in between. One night at that race track Mimas chanced to fall in with golden-thighed Pythagoras, who was looking to stake or bankroll his own way to beat the house. Cagily, they began comparing notes, always out for a better tip. or so courses, bringing up the rear. Still, each of the "moons" could be used to determine a leg of the race. Between her waning horns would be the finish line. Mimas took his fellow acolytes to the cleaners, betting on the monthly lucifer. His apprenticeship and initiation seemed to take ages and ages till ordination. The skies had distracted him, however, from the sole worship of golden Apollo into the gilded edges of gambling. During what seemed eons of altar-side sacrificial meniality ("slaying and flaying" as he called it) then holding spits and wreathing wine into the feasting night's nobility, Mimas began to recognize more gods as they played at their off-Olympus track. He realized that some of them were actually faster then the sun, and not just in spurts either; over time, in fact they would lap Apollo running away. The distant bowman seemed not all that swift, then, in the long run; not as precipitous as red-g'laring Ares, who would overtake the sun once every twenty odd times that Apollo sped past Artemis; not as fleet as golden Zeus, who would pass the sun god once almost every twelve of those so-called virginal "months"; nm: as quick as cool-glowing Kronos (edging even zeusl) who would lap Apollo yet more often than that even. Then came the wonder·of wonders! The very backdrop of stars, which our aging novitiate had heretofore counted as fellow spectators at this grand chariot race, those same stars, always keeping pace with one another racing as a single body through myriad lanes of heaven, yet tilting their course to the god's hippodrome, those very stars were absolutely the fastest of all! Mimas soon began to use them to mark off legs of the race. Thus, each time all the stars passed Artemis would thereafter be called a month; they would then proceed to lap Apollo in what we would come to call the Annual Ring, Ares in about two of those, Zeus in twelve or so, and Kronos in some twenty-nine. Or we could give each separate lapping its own race's name: The. Arena, say, which took about a month of ' !. P. . .d~:·t·. ·-t.. ~ . '. '· M. P. M. P. M. P. M. P. M. 28 "There's no way the gods move all the same way! That's absurd! Each has two different motions in opposite directions." "What? you mean they go forward and backward at the same time?" "The gods can do anything they want, can't they? "But that's not even imaginable!" "Think of it this way. The stars move from east to west daily, right? The planets want to move from west to east, however; but they find it difficult to make any headway, shouldering like seagulls into a strong headwind." "That's elegant. But my way is P. M. P. so much simpler." "Nobody ever said the gods were simple, friend--though at times even I have found that notion alluring. But look at it this way. Take your view of things: You say Ares, Zeus, and Kronos all lap the sun regularly, OK? But have you ever noticed anything peculiar about their behavior?" "Well, they all seem to run the same kind of race. I mean, tactically. Whenever each one has rounded the turn into a position less than half a course away from lapping Apollo (you know, just about when you see each rising as the sun sets?) each will sprint a bit first, and then let his horses blow for a while, before easing into the stretch of this leg of the race and catching up with Apollo again." "That's not bad for a guess. At least you noticed one anomaly. What you mean, though, is that they are then stationary and regressing at opposition." "Stationary my eye! And how can you say the gods regress?" "You have to get that flighty race-track image out of your head. That's just poetic license. Your true scientist only uses such talk to make book with. The truth is quite the opposite. What you call. the fastest god is really the slowest. You've got it backwards." "It works just fine by me. You name the leg, I'll pick the winner. And also it's what I see happen." "That's a mere hayseed knack you've got worked up for yourself. But what you haven't got is the vaguest notion of divine essence. Gods wouldn't M. P. M. P. M. P. M. P. M. P. M. P. 29 be caught dead easing up on their reins to breathe their steeds. Who ever heard of divine horses wind-broke with heaves?" "Why do they slow down and afterwards speed up again, then?" "They don't--that's the point. It is just plain unthinkable that they should • "Didn't I 'think' of it?" "You can't have been, strictly-speaking, thinking when you came up with that notion. You seemed to understand that divine motion was regular--as far as concerns what you called 'lapping' at least. But you didn't delve deeply enough, much less rigorously at all. Divine motion must be intelligible, thoroughly." "Hey, wait just a minute! Didn't you just say the gods can do anything they want?" "Would the gods want to be deviants? truants? Would the gods want to be untrue to themselves even just for aft instant?" "Zeus took a shine to Ganymede, didn't he? And he's been bulls, eagles, swans, money -all sorts of things- when he's on the make. That sounds like 'being untrue' in some sense, no? to Hera anyway." "That's hokum, it's old hat, corn, a thing of the past. That's ikonizing the gods into the shapes of their appearances." "That's the way they reveal themselves!" "No! The truth is quite otherwise. Just the opposite of what you believe you think." "Now I only 'believe' I think!" "It's not knowledge you're dealing with, so it's not �thinking you're doing about it. That kind of stuff is all for the birds. You can't even begin to explain how regular lappings can have irregular stretch~s." M. "So what? At least I don't boss the gods around." P. "All you do is ascribe a rag tag irregularity to them. And it makes all the difference in the world. You're just conjecturing from the way things strike you, believing whatever makes sense, mere opinionated sensation. You can't even know what you're talking about, when you act like that. What you think about must, absolutely must, revolve around itself as your mind does. Divine motion must be uniformly circular and even, like thought. And knowledge is dimensionless revolution." M. "Yeah? Well don't bet on it: my mind wanders, and so do my gods. A fig for your circular. thinking." · At those words , Pythagoras sighed and turned away. Our prodigal acolyte was bursting with so much zeal, however, that he turned himself in no time flat into a denizen of the air, the mocking bird, and promptly fluttered off. Pythagoras chose to ignore what may_ have been construed to be an omen: after all, his were the ways of science. It was merely poetic justice, he thought, that such a transformation should take place: such is the lot· of those who take things at face value. There is nothing auspicious in their flightiness. Thus it is , however, that time out of mind Mimas has come to haunt what would come to be known as the Academy. From that night o~ he could always be heard perched among the light-mottled sycamores regularly enchanting the stars with litanies ornithological, his trove of bird call lore. There must be a moral here somewhere. One might argue that· Mimas'. opinions were true, but the figures he backed them with were not mathematical--call them statistical, perhaps, rather than geometric figures. The figure of heaven's racetrack remains moot. What we can "know" of it shows that Mimas did "indeed" put the cart before the horse, though--for if the gods are racing, as we "know" it, it's in the other direction, and all positions are reversed. Artemis, the last, will be first, moving eastwards against the onrushing µniverse, progressing about an outstreched arm's hand span a day. Hermes and Aphrodite , jockeying for second place, manage to move a handspan or so against the framing stars, in the time it takes Artemis to lap them. Ares is twice that slow, Zeus some twelve times slower, and aged Kronos the first becomes last, almost three times as slow as Zeus. Sic transit gloria coeli, and with it the notions of mind. But maybe the change did them good. You figure it out. 30 The Mirror Held Up to Nature: A Study of Imitation in Don Quixote George Iannacone Gaul can do battle with giants and wicked enchanters, although no such are now found in the world. The men of the past can appear stronger and more courageous than ourselves, for they are extraordinary as the world they inhabit. The ingenious gentleman of La Mancha, _however, did not live in the distant past, ·nor in some far away land. He is forever a contemporary of his readers, inhabiting the same ordinary wo-rld: ·· To •· Fruly understand the contemporary sense in·which Don Quixote is written, we might bear in mind an analogy between the world of chivalfY and our own romanticized "wild west". Quixote would then be analogous to an imitator of gun-slinging heroes in, perhaps, modern day Kansas, mistaking fast food hamburger stands for bawdy saloons. Unlike the books of chivalry, Don Quixote's book is not written according to the poetical system of things. All which happens in this book is possible in our world as well. As the story opens, its hero is a nameless old gentleman who has spent much of his life reading fantastical books. During these years the distinction between the poetical world of knight errantry and his own rather uneventful existence became blurred until he slipped into a world of dreams in which he too slew giants and matched wits with malicious dwarves. The old man gave himself the name, Don Quixote de la Mancha, and assumed the identity of · a noble knight. The real world of experience was transformed into the world of his poetic imaginings as Don Quixote began to live his fiction. The suggestion of a cowboy riding past hamburger stands brings to mind a comic picture. Such was the p~cture "Poets have formed what they call the poetical system of things which, though it be believed neither by themselves nor their readers, may be esteemed a sufficient foundation for any fiction." Hume: Treatise on Human Nature The poetical system of things, according to Hume, is one in which we understand by 'Venus' or 'Mercury not a living entity, whom we find in the world of our experience, but a fictional being, whose existence is granted in a realm to which we do not belong. This other realm takes its name from the Greek, poiesis, the act of making, which Aristotle describes in his Poetics as a process of imitation, mimnesis. Poetical imitation describes not what has happened but what may happen. A poet's characters must remain consistent, and his plot must unfold according to the laws of probability and necessity. Historical imitation, in contrast, relates events as they actually transpired. In a history, the criterion of truth is experience, a criterion from which poetry, by its very name, has been freed. A poet may include gods or monsters in his play beca~se his art requires us only to pretend belief. He int reduces this pretended belief, as Hume says, be separating the poetical system of things, in which his story lies, from the world of our experience. To achieve the separation of the poetical and historical worlds, poets often remove their stories in time or place from their audience. The tales of knights-errant are set in the distant past, so that the deeds of their heroes may appear possible. Thus, Don Amadis of 31 �,. '! .I presented to the first readers of Don Quixote. The book begins as pute comedy and Quixote is its clown. This comedy originates in the disconnection between the hero and his world. Don Quixote believes the poetical system of things to be literally true, but his contemporary setting makes that belief appear ridiculous. Quixote's madness consists in his attempt to imitate the heroes of chivalry. During his first and second sallies he demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the rules of knight errantry. These rules can be sUlllllled up in five general formulas: 1. A knight errant must have a lady love to whose name he dedicates the honors he wins in battle. This rule is _t~e most important, for "A kni1:11!t ·without a lady ~ove is like a body ·without a soul." Quixote _~ust remake the world of his own · experience for his actions to be real since he is his own hero and the world is his Stage. His story is presented to us by a narrator who shows that Quixote's transformation of the world is only internal; Spain remains untransformed despite him. Were Quixote his own chronicler, however, we would see Spain through his own poetic eyes. Rocinante would be a noble steed, La Mancha a rich land of gold and pageantry. Instead it is a dusty plain and on it rides a comic fool who dreams a better world. Quixote's comic appearance results from the fact that he does not relate his 1 own adventures. Thus, the comedy o:t: Don 1Quixote rests on_ a problem of authorship. -~e___ ~s portrayed as a bumbling old fool who thinks himself a noble knight. But "The cleverest character in a comedy is the clown," as Don Quixote says, "since he who mqkes hi,self out to be a simpleton cannot be one." Quixote knows that in the eyes of others he must appear comic, but his actions have a nobility which transcends this apparent comedy. This nobility he demonstrates in his penance in the Sierra Morena. Don Quixote undertakes his penance to win renown and to prove himself "the most complet§ and absolute knight errant in the world." He plans to imitate the penance of Don Amadis of Gaul, the greatest knight in chivalry. Quixote compares himself to a painter who studies the best originals to achieve perfection in his art. Sancho points out, however, that this knight had reasons to suffer, whereas Quixqte has none. In Quixote's reply to this objection can be seen the true nobility of his calling and a knightliness which transcends that of his model: "That," said Don Quixote," is the point of the thing, that is the beautiful part of it. What thanks does a knight errant deserve for going mad when he has good cause? The thing is to go out of my head without any occasion for it, thus letting my lady see,i! I do this for 1 opportunities that may and do make of us famous knigJits as well as better Christians." - 5. The adventures of a worthy knight errant are written up in books to serve as an example of virtue. 4. A knight can be assured of final success, in which he wins his lady's hand and perhaps a kingdom: "As a reward for his valor and the might of his arm, the poor fellow could already see himself crowned Emperor5 of Trebizond at the very least ••.. " He then bestows the governorship of an island on his squire, in return for his services. These formulas for knight errantry are empirical laws, derived from the only source of such knowledge, the histories of knights errant. For this reason, the fifth rule, with which this paper is chiefly concerned, is as important for a true knight errant as any of the others. When Don Quixote pronounces himself a knight errant, his actions and his world conform to these rules. Ordinary things become poetically transformed into the stuff of Don Quixote's worlg. A skinny old nag becomes Rocinante, the horse before all other horses. Everything met with by Don Quixote, he names anew, except his squire, who is content to be Sancho Panza until the day he dies. The power of naming is a poet's power, not a knight's. So too is the power to turn ordinary circumstances into knightly adventures. When Quixote remakes the world, he is acting as a poet and thus is the author of his own tale. The hero decides each of his adventures as they take place, thus actually making his own story. Quixote's imitation of knight errantry differs from that of a conventional poet in that he is the hero of his own story, a unique and original imitato.r. A writer can make the actions of his hero appear realistic by setting him in a world where they are pos~ible. 2. In a knight errant' s world live monsters, enchanters, bandits, and renegade knights. The enchanters are capable of casting spells over whole lands and aid or oppose knights as they will. In this world a knight errant can expect to find numerous adventures in which to prove himself and win renown. 3. A knight errant "would right every manner of wrong, placing himself in sifuations of the greatest peril." In addition to the qualities of courage and justice, a knight embodies all the Christian virtues: " In confronting giants, it is the sin of pride which we slay, even as we combat envy with generosity and goodness of heart; anger with equanimity and a calin bearing; gluttony and overfondness for sleep, by eating little when we do eat, and by keeping long vigils; lust and lewdness with the loyality to those whom we have made the mistress of our affections; and sloth by going everywhere in the world in search of 32 l her in t~ dry, what I would do in the wet." This is a true gem of Quixotic wisdom. Don Quixote's penance involves a greater suffering than that of any knight found in a book. Quixote's suffering for his lady is compounded with his suffering for an occasion to demonstrate his love. For his lady, Quixote endures not only a conventional penance but the comedy occasioned by his lack of an apparent cause for his actions. All Quixote's actions now appear in a new light. They are not justified by any cause that can be found in his circumstances. Quixote acts as he does · because such is the way of knight ·errantry. He who does a great act simply for the nobility of its purpose is a .greater knight than the-Dne---Who is allowed · that act by circumstance. Circumstance allows Quixote few opportunities to demonstrate his bravery; indeed, circumstances are his greatest adversary. His courage in the face of such an enemy, however, is dauntless. Don Amadis of Gaul must be brave in the face of attacking lions, but Don Quixote de la Mancha must contend with lions who refuse to come out of their cage. This is Quixotic courage, the courage of a man who retains his dignity despite the mockery made of him by the world. ' From his penance onward, : Quixote's face acquires a gravity and nobility it did not have before. His lordly mien shines above the comic spectacle of the captive brought home in a cage. We see that it is the world that has misunderstood Quixote, not Quixote the world. Henceforth, when we laugh at his comic exploits, we realize that this comedy itself is testament to Don Quixote's noble suffering and courage. As I hope I have shown, Quixotic suffering and courage are greater than those of any of his models. Quixote fights his battles with his own circumstances. He reasons that these circumstances are the work of some evil enchanter who renders the world ordinary. Since he believes in this enchanter, the 33 �capture of Quixote is not his defeat, for it leaves his faith in his own powers of poetic imitation intact. Held prisoner in his own village, Don Quixote hears the news that his exploits have been recorded and published. This news does not surprise him, for the deeds of a great knight errant are essentially imitable (rule 5). All worthy knights are written up in histories, for, by definition, their actions are spudaiai: "If it were true that such a history - existed, being about a knight errant, then it must be eloquent and lofty in tone, a splendid and distinguished piece of work a~i veracious in its details." In reality, Book I of Quixote's history has been anything but lofty in tone. For the most part the knight has been port rayed as quite ridiculous. In his own eyes, however, his adventures are very serious and he is to be admired for his quixotic courage. Although he is not surprised that he is imitable in writing, Quixote wonders how his histories have been so rapidly reported and compiled. The simultaneity of Quixote's life and his book introduces a fictional problem: If author and hero inhabit the same world, how is it that they never meet? Quixote offers the only plausible solution: the book is the work of an enchanter. If this is so, then Quixote indeed inhabits the poetical realm of knight errantry, since the second rule has been proven true. Therefore, the giants Quixote did battle with really were giants and were made into windmills by enchantment. The author has portrayed these giants as if they truly were windmills. He has thus deceived us into believing that the world is ordinary and that Quixote is a fool for thinking otherwise. Therefore, he is the same evil enchanter who renders Quixote's world ordinary: the knight's mortal enemy. Quixote is especially anxious, because his enchanter is a Moor, Cid Hamete Benengali "and from the Moors y~y could never hope for any word of truth." The purpose of his calling, according to Quixote, is "to serve as a pattern and example to future ages wherein knights errant may see what steps they should follow if they would climb to t£2 honorable summit and pinnacle of arms." Only for a Moor would Quixote's Christian calling of knight errantry be a subject for ridicule. This is the reason for Cervantes' choice of Benengali as an intermediate author for Don Quixote. Cervantes himself is an author Quixote has read (see Book I, Ch. VI) and therefore cannot be an enemy to the knight. His book, Galatea may well have contribute~ to Quixote's ideas of proper imitation. In proper imitation, according to Quixote, the author remains true to the characters of those portrayed. He should omit details which tend to discredit the hero, as did Virgil in his Aeneid, for, as Quixote tell us, "Aeneas was not so pioy~ as Virgil would have us believe." Cervantes shows us that he agrees with Quixote's ideas in his introduction to Ch. v, Book II. He considers the chapter apocryphal because it introduces Sancho speaking in ·a style untrue to his rustic character. Benengali, on the other hand, entreats the readers at the beginning of Ch. VIII: "Blessed be Allah the mighty .•. and declares that he utters these blessing on finding that he has got Don Quixote and Sancho back into the field and that the readers of his delightful history may reckon that from this point the exploits and humor of the knight and his squire begin. He begs them to forget.the past knight errantries of the Ingenious Gentleman, and fix their eyes on those which are to come and are now beginning on the road to Tobosa, just as the ot£~rs began on the plain of Montiel." He considers Quixote's discussion of proper imitation of little interest to the readers. The first seven chapters of this story are of great importance, however, for as we have seen, Quixote would reject 34 his cfiaracter is extraordinary~ he is the greatest knight errant in all the world. Further, since the author is an enchanter, the world Quixote lives in is a made world, a product of poetic art. If Quixote could defeat this Moorish enchanter, his true knightly character would shine forth. To defeat Benengali, Quixote needs ' the aid of a friendly enchanter, one who agrees with his theory of imitation. The problem of authorship,· which binds the book in comic satire, can be solved only by recourse to a higher author. Even this author, however, must 1 be left behind as Quixote descends into • :the cave of Montesinos. Quixote descends alone into this cave and ._~i~ ._ !s the sole account of what took . place there. This adventure is -of- Quixote's own authorship and so befits the noble knight. It is Quixote's own imitation of the wandering hero who descends into Hell to receive a vision of his great task. Unlike Aeneas who may be considered the model hero of this type, Quixote ascends from the underworld only to have his great vision disbelieved. Benengali considers this adventure apocryphal because it exceeds all reasonable bounds. He agrees with Sancho, however, that the knight would not lie about such things and leaves the truth of the matter to the judgement of the readers. This adventure is the great secret of Don Quixote. His own squire does not believe it took place: "For it's my opinion, begging your warship's pardon, that it was all fraud and ficti?15', or at least that you dreamt it." In his descent into the cave, Quixote leaves behind the world of our experience and goes where our eyes cannot follow. The adventure he relates is one with those of romantic chivalry, a world found only in books. All found there are poetic personages who have been imprisoned in this underworld by evil enchanters. They have been waiting for Don Quixote to come and dispel the charm which hides them from the light of the world. This great his written imitation as the spurious work of an un-Christian enemy. Quixote's discussion of imitation introduces another aspect of the fictional problem mentioned earlier. Until now, we as readers have assumed that the Quixote we see in print is the only one there is. Now, we realize that there are, in fact, two Quixotes. The first is the noble knight errant authored by Quixote himself. The second is the comic fool who mistakes inns for castles and street tarts for damsels in distress. This problem is unique to Don Quixote because Quixote is himself an imitator. He has decided who Quixote is and what his actions should be ' by the five rules of knight errantry. He has set down guidelines for his portrayal in accordance with his theories on imitation. Benengali ignores these ~µ,idelines, providing details which discredit the. hero and make him out to be a fool. This is the same problem of authorship mentioned - earlier, now in greater detail. Quixote is not only the author of his adventures,but the critic of his chronicle as well. This problem of authorship will become important in the later part of the book, when Don Quixote encounters his readers, the Duke and Duchess. He is misunderstood by these readers because he has been misrepresented to them. The news of his history has been reported to Quixote by Sanson Carrasco. Sanson defends Benengali's portrayal against Quixote's charge that it is a false imitation. To remain true to a hero's fine character, he says, is poetic imitation, but Quixote's story, is a history and an historian must remain faithful to literal truth. An historian, according to Sanson, must add or omit nothing to what has taken place, on any pretext whatsoever. This distinction between poetry and history is in complete agreement with that of Aristotle, referred to at the beginning of this essay. Since Quixote inhabits the contemporary world, there is nothing extraordinary about his circumstances. Thus his book is a history. Quixote believes, however, that. one 35 �adventure is marked for Quixote alone. His task is to raise the poetical world up to the plane of experience. This task is the resurrection of chivalry, the aim of Quixote's noble undertaking. The underworld in which these : personages are imprisoned is the realm invented by the writers of romantic books. It is like the island in Shakespeare's The Tempest in which the enchanter Prospero holds spirits imprisoned by his art. Like Prospero, and Shakespeare himself, the writers of knight errantry are artists. Imitation is their craft but it is Don Quixote's life. His task is to free poetical characters from the prison in which they have been bound by art. To do this, Quixote must change imitation from the -exclusive province. of art into the domain of honest, simple men. He must defeat art on _its own territory and make the world poetical. The second of these two objectives is realized in Don Quixote's battle with a mock image of himself: Sanson Carrasco. j Sanson Carrasco is introduced into the story as a Bachelor of ~~s. He is described as a "rare comedian" . and a man "of a malicious disposition (who) would delight in nothing more than making 1 6port for himself, by ridiculing others." His admiration for Quixote is pure artifice; Sanson plays the part of a loving admirer of Quixote's chivalry and laughs at the success of this deception. He is delighted by the spectacle of a foolish old man who thinks he can become a knight errant simply by acting the part. Duplicity is the word which best describes Sanson's imitation of admiration; he has a double soul. Quixote, in contrast, is a simple man. Sanson will never consider this simplicity noble because the ingenuous old man cannot distinguish artifice from honest action. The greatest artificer is the Devil himself, who can assume any shape he wishes. In league with this evil power is the puppet master, Don Pedro. Although his presence in this story is brief, Don Pedro is important as an example of the villainy of art. He is the pattern from which Sanson and the Duke and Duchess are pressed. Don Pedro is the same Ginesillo de Paparilla, the former galley slave, who stole Sancho's ass in the Sierra Morena. This attempt was so artfully done that it escaped even the attention of the author. Don Pedro is a master of disguises and has no peer in knavery and deception. Appearances are the stock of his trade and his skill lies in deceiving simple souls such as Don Quixote and Sancho. He is not an enchanter, but merely a trickster, capable of playing many roles, like the joker in a deck of cards. One role of Don Pedro is that of a puppet master, in which he parades images before our eyes. This. is his natural role, for the purpose - of his art is to manipulate men like puppets on a string. To Don Quixote and -Sancho he presents a story of romantic chivalry: that of Don Gayferos' rescue of his wife from the Moors.· All goes well with the performance until that moment when the Moors close in ·on the fleeing lovers. Don Quixote can no. longer control his fear for the knight; he stands up, draws his sword, and hacks the pasteboard Moors to bi ts. For Don Quixote, the puppets became the people they were meant to represent. Quixote ls the first human being ever to cross the inviolable line between the audience and the stage. He identifies so strongly with Don Gayferos that his dramatic fear is no longer pleasure, but pain. Don Quixote is deceived by this artist into taking pasteboard figures for real people. So too will he be deceived by the Duke and Duchess. Quixote may lose himself in a drama of knight errantry but he knows the value of the stage. In a discourse with Sancho, he speaks of the actors and writers of the stage holding mirrors before our eyes. "Nothing is able to give us a more just idea of nature, and what than we are or ought to 17 be, comedians and comedies." The 36 • 1_, rare comedian Sanson Carrasco believes that the ridiculous picture painted of Quixote in Book I of the knight's history gives us a just idea of Quixote's true nature. He- disguises himself as a knight errant, and stages a meeting with Don Quixote. Sanson's imitation _of knight errantry is by art, for he believes neither Quixote nor himself to be a knight. The motive for his disguise is to give Quixote a true knightly adventure, one in which he must fail. Since Quixote is actually a bµmbling old fool, the bachelor can be assured of the battle's outcome. No one will be hurt and this madman will be proved a counterfeit knight. This artificial encounter is a trial by combat for Quixote, for Sanson challenges his very identity as a knight errant. As the sun rises on their contest, Quixote beholds the Knight of the Wood wearing, for his armor, ,a coat of mirrors. The man who holds this mirror up to nature refuses to show his face or to reveal his name. He is no-man, the incarnate power of artful imitation. His claim is that of the artist: we imitate only by hiding our true identity. Quixote believes, however, that by imitation we become what we truly are. He believes that poetry is a transformation, not deception. The power of poetry to transform a man is at stake in this battle. The battle with Sanson Carrasco would never have taken place were it not for Benengali's history. Quixote's picture of a knight errant has been reproduced in print and comes to challenge him as a flesh and blood knight. Held up to Quixote is a distorted mirror, intended to reflect back the image of a comic fool. Standing before him is an imitation twice removed, reflected by both Benengali and Sanson. The conception of Quixote's book as a history, which both men share, is occasioned by their opinion that our world is not extraordinary. The world Quixote has constructed is, therefore, a fiction. A defeat of this mock knight would demonstrate a correspondence between Quixote' s poetical fiction and the world of his own experience. It would render the real world poetical. This artificial adventure becomes real as Quixote triumphs over the mock knight. Although the duel itself is real, since Quixote does battle with and defeats . a real man, the expected does not happen. The manner in which the knight vanquishes, ~is opponent is so strange and unlikely, 1t could only happen to Quixote. In a word, it is characteristically quixotic. With a thrust of his lance, Quixote has broken the spell which bound his adventures in ordinary circumstances. At last his book has become true to the character of its hero. Quixote has succeeded in making the world poetical. Quixote's success in this battle supports his view that his book is the work of a poet, not an historian. The poet is Cervantes, true author of Don Quixote. He has quietly supported Quixote's views on proper imitation and now intervenes in the chronicle on the part of his hero. He is the friendly enchanter of greater power than Benengali for that writer is his own invention. Quixote's victory is a miracle of the author's own making.. It is the most subtle Deus ex Machina ever performed on the stage. With a stroke of his sword, Don Quixote cut poetical imitation Jree from its moorings in the past and allowed it to sail the uncharted waters of his own present time. He has demonstrated that our own circumstances can truly conform to our poetical vision of ourselves. He has defeated art on its own territory, forcing Sanson Carrasco to take this knight errantr:'l seriously, if he is to defeat Quixote. Take it seriously he does; Sanson now wishes not to deceive Quixote but to truly defeat him. He plots another scheme, not as a joke, but in deadly earnest, .to defeat Quixote in a true battle. This battle, and its consequences will be the subject of the last section of this essay. Don Quixote's defeat of Sanson Carrasco makes him a successful knight errant in the world, as well as in his own imaginings. His aim to defend the poor 37 �and oppressed may now be realized. Quixote, however, is no ordinary knight,· but an imitator, who looks to poetry as the schema for his actions. In an advent~re which follows, the role of this imitative hero can be seen. To thi~ adventure I now turn, to derive the lesson of Don Quixote. In Book I of Quixote's story, he is told two tales of romantic intrigue. Within his own tales these are fictions, such as "The Story of One Too Curious for His Own Good" . In the second Book, however, Quixote and Sancho are invited not to hear such a tale, but to be present within one. This is the story of Poor Basil. The student recounting the story thus far, compares it to that of Pyramus and Thisbe, which Don Quixote has just heard recounted in a sonnet. He judged this sonnet to be the work of an absolute poet, meaning that it ends as it should, with the two lovers joined at last. The story of Basil and his love, Quiteria, is prevented from ending as it should by the rich Camancho who would have Quiteria for his own bride. At Comancho's wedding, a play is performed which reflects the story's action. The contest between weal th and love in the play ends as it should, with the forces of Cupid winning the day. Basil's story is in need of a champion of romance and poetry for the proper completion of its action. When Quixote sees the play, he recognizes that Basil's champion is his role to play. By holding a mirror up to Quixote, the writer of this play inspired the knight to noble action. Such, also, is the purpose of Don Quixote itself, for it is the work of an absolute poet. In it we find a character, Don Quixote, who has the courage and noble purpose to imitate the actions of the stage in life itself. We, the readers, can see in Don Quixote a role worthy of imitation in our own lives. This imitation of Quixote becomes explicit when he meets his own readers within the course of the book itself. As the sun is setting on the day of. their adventure with the enchanted bark, Don Quixote and Sancho emerge from a wood, cross a meadow, and are received into the\ company of their readers. The publishing of his history during Quixote's own life made such a crossing possible. When he sallied forth a third time, it became inevitable that the world of Quixote's actions and that of · his readers would finally intersect. The wood from which Quixote emerges signifies an obscurity between these two; it is a wood between worlds. On one side of this wood Quixote is seen as a man; on the other he is known only as a character from a book. I have described Quixote's crossing from the audience to the stage when he cut apart the cardboard-Moors. Now he crosses that line again, this time from the other side. This crossing is an intersection of worlds on two levels. The first is the one just described. For the Duke and Duchess, a character from a work of imitation has stepped into their midst. Having been delighted but not instructed by Don Quixote, they yearn for more Quixotic adventures. The Duke and Duchess do not wish to have these adventures themselves, however, since they consider them comic and those who laugh loudest at others wish least to be laughed at themselves. On this side of the wood, Don Quixote is known only as the fool of nature. The cause of this misunderstanding of the knight is his misrepresentation by Benengali. It was Benengali' s art which first made Don Quixote appear comic. When the knight appears before the Duke and Duchess, they do not seek the reasons for his madness nor attempto to understand his undertaking. Like Sanson Carrasco, · they only pretend to believe Quixote' s knight errantry. In their wicked minds the Duke and Duchess devise artful imitations of Quixote's own poetic imagination. They dupe him into thinking that he has at last found the world of knight errantry. The second crossing referred to earlier i.s this belief of Quixote's that he has entered the realm of chivalry. In fact, he has entered the prison of art. The contrivances of the Duke and Duchess bind Quixote with chains he cannot see. 38 . •I His hosts usurp his tale with adventures of their own design. Their ill contrived and overdone designs have all the imperfections of the storier 8 of chivalry. In the words of the canon, venting h,.is spleen on such works: own tale, in its simple poetry, has transcended the works he is imitating. When Don Quixote thinks he has finally become a true knight, he has, in fact, become the fool of art. Deception is not the lesson of Don Quixote but it is the only one the artful soul can learn. Don Quixote• s true tea~hing is learned only by his simple squire, Sancho Panza. Sancho is as free from craft as his master and his is the ·. only true imitation of Don Quixote. Sancho Panza is given the chance to author his own story in the adventure of the 'flying horse' . This adventure was devised to dupe Don Quixote and Sancho into thinking that they flew through the sky· Actually, they sat as blindfolded fools in the Duke's courtyard. When asked to recount his adventures, Sancho has a wonderful fable to tell: "Their style is uncouth, their exploits incredible, their love immodest, their civility impertinent, their battles tedious, their languages absurd, their voyages preposterous, and in short, they are altogether void of solid • • ingenuity. I ' 19 This is the world of chivalry which Don Quixote has taken for pure, unalloyed gold. Now it is seen for what it is: the artificial product of a poor imagination that substitutes spectacle for true ingenuity of plot. Spectacle is the chief element of the adventures contrived by the Duke and Duchess. According to Aristotle, it is the element in imitation least connected to poetry. Spectacle is more properly the ~ork of stage hands. The Duke and Duchess introduce this element, absent in Don Quixote's own authorship, and thus destroy the purity of his tale. Don Quixote's true genius lies in his use of ordinary objects and situations in his story, for a genius sees what others have not seen. He is the 'Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha' who cannot rely on sp~ctacle for he has no stage hands. Don Quixote is a knight not because he looks the part but because his purpose is noble his actions courageous, and his soui humble. Purity of hear:t is the ess~nce of Don Quixote's knight errantry. Th ability to see a barber's basin as : magical helmet is the beauty of his p~et ry. Quixote' s purity is stained by h~s association with the Duke and Duchess, .his poetry maligned by the success of th . . .. eir. dec~ption. Don Quixote may be ingenious in his own imitation of knight errantry, but his simple soul cannot see the contrivances of art for what they tr_uly are. Neither can he see that his "Senora, as we were flying through the region of fire, or so my ma~ter told me •... and so very, very quietly,. and without anyone seeing me, I lifted the handkerchief ever so little, close to my nose, and looked down at the earth. It seemed as if the whole earth was no bigger than a grain of mustard, and the people walking about on it were a little larger than hazelnuts .... Then as we went through the reg~B where the seven little she-goats were and seeing that as a lad I'd been ~ goatherd in my country, the minute I laid eyes on them I felt like getting down and playing with them a bit, and if I hadn't done so, I think I would have bu rs t. And so, what do I do? Without saying anthing to my master, or anbody else, I slip off Clavileno as quietly as you please, and for three quarters of an hour I have a good time with these goats which are like gilly flowers, and all the time Clavil~~o doesn't stir from the spot." Al though the Duke and Duchess laugh 39 �,r heartily at their joke, Sancho's adventure also gives Don Quixote reason to smile. QUixote does not believe this tale; he knows as well as the Duke and Duchess that Sancho never dismounted from the horse. Sancho's defense of his story is that they hav.e been travelling by enchantment, a reply to the ordinary typical of Don Quixote. The knight smiles because his squire has learned the method of his madness. Quixote can now admit the secret of his adventure in the cave of Montesinos to his squire turned disciple. In an aside to Sancho, he says: "Sancho, if you want us to believe what you saw in heaven, then you must believe me when I tell you what I saw in the cave 2 ~f Montesinos. I need say no more." What the knight need not say is that he invented his adventures in the cave as surely as Sancho invented his tale of the little sheep in the sky. Both admit that nothing happened in these adventures, but they will continue telling their stories and believing them as well. In other words, Don QUixote's madness is an act of the will. He deliberately chooses madness because a madman alone can see an extraordinary world. This choice is wonderfully Quixotic. What thanks does a madman deserve for going mad? He has just cause for his actions. To be sane and yet act mad is to act without just cause. This is true madness: QUixotic madness. Don QUixote's imitation is more truly mad than the fact of madness, just as quixotic knight errantry is more truly knightly than that of Don Amadis of Gaul. The -value of Quixote's madness lies in the fact that his book lies open before us. Sitting at home, he would have passed his last days without an adventure to his name. Now, both he and Sancho "had something to ta~~ about forever had [they] lived so long." Through his madnes.s, Don QUixote has had the chance to instruct his readers in courage, humility, and the virtue of finding inspiration in poetry. The inspiration we derive from Don Quixote is an imitation of the hero'.s own role. An imitation of Don Quixote is one of imitation itself. To be like Quixote, we must look to poetry for the best originals. We can only believe the world of poetry to be imitable if we believe our own world to be poetical. We first found reasons for this belief when Don Quixote defeated Sanson Carrasco. The poetical nature of our own world truly shines forth when Sancho is transformed from a simple squire into a governor as wise as Sol.omen. Sancho Panza could never have become the great governor he was had he not, in his imagination, first reached up and touched the stars. To become what we ought to be, we must first become poetic madmen, in imitation of Don Quixote, as Sancho has done. Don Quixote is thus a mirror held up to our own nature; in his eyes we can see a vision of what we can become. Poetry exists to intruct, as well as delight the readers, says the canon in Ch. XLVIII, Book I. This is the true lesson of Don Quixote. I am sure there is a reader of Don Quixote who would consider, as would Hume, that this lesson is just nonsense. To this reader, I extend my sympathy. He must spend his time vainly trying to prove the existence of the world of our experience and denying the imagination its wings. What thanks does a man deserve for trying to prove that the world of our experience exists? No, the thing is to attempt to prove the existence of the world beyond all possible experience. Such would be a true Quixotic enterprise in philosophy. Much earlier in this essay, I made the claim that Don Quixote is the work of an absolute poet. All imitation of the Quixotic enterprise rests on this claim for without it the proportion [readers: Quixote::QUixote:the stage] is destroyed. When Don QUixote called the sonnet of Pyramus and Thisbe the work of an absolute poet, he meant that the ending was proper to the story. For Don Quixote to inspire 40 I • J.l us to action, it must have a proper ending as well. Don Quixote does not end with the knight's final success. He does not win a kingdom, nor his lady's hand. Unlike most tales of chivalry or those of the wandering hero~s, Odysseus and Aeneas, Don Quixote ends with the knight's defeat. "-In his last adventures, Don Quixote finds an artist, Don Antonio, who loves him and is . willing to build a world of deception in which to house the knight forever. In this edifice of art, Don Quixote is to be protected from the knowledge that he is not capable of true knightly adventures. Don Antonio builds a temple to Quixote; all who enter must vow not to disturb the knight's madness. This temple is brought crash~ng down upon Quixo2~' s head by his nemesis, Sanson Carrasco. Sanson Carrasco appears before Don Quixote not as the knight of the mirrors, but as a real knight. As an artist, he was shorn of his power to defeat the cknight by deception. The mirrors he wore in the previous battle were crescents. Now, his shield is emblazoned with a full moon, symbolizing that his power has reached its full height. The time has come for Sanson Carrasco to defeat Don Quixote. The moon on Sanson's shield is also a symbol of resurrection and rebirth. To defeat Don Quixote, Sanson Carrasco had to return as a knight. His imitation of Quixote has only one purpose: the knight's defeat. When the original knight falls from his horse, this irni ta tor also ceases to be a knight, since his calling has been fulfilled. As a reincarnation of Quixote's knight errantry, Sanson Carrasco symbolizes the spurious sequel to Book I, published by "an Aragonese, who styles· himself a native of Tordesillas. 1125 When Don Quixote is defeated, the imposter in the spurious sequel ceases to be Don Quixote. How can he still have adventures when the real Don Quixote has ceased to be a knight? His defeat as a knight is Don Quixo~e's own death. Don Q\iixote made his story his life and in creating his plot must accept that it has an end. It is impossible for Don Quixote to become another character because his defeat as a knight is also his defeat as a poet. Does this defeat mean that Quixote's lesson is false? Can we imitate a hero who has failed? To find the answer to this question we must again look to the example of Sancho Panza. Only Sancho Panza would be fool enough to believe Quixote's promise of a governorship. Just before they meet the Duke and Duchess, Sancho threatens to abandon this stupid calling of knight errantry. All he sees are defeats, all he receives are blanketings and bruises. He sees no way in the world that Don Quixote's vision can succeed. The knight upbraids him: "Turn, then, the reins, or better, the halter of your ass, and go back to your home, for you are not going one step further with me ••• Oh man who has more of the beast in him than of the human! ••.. So you are leaving me just when I had firmly resolved to make you governor of the best island in the world? ..•• honey is not for the ass's mouth. An ass you are and an ass you will be to your dying day, for I think that day will come before you will ever realize 26 that you are a stupid beast." These words move Sancho to tears, and he answers: "Master, I will grant you that all I lack is a tail and I would be an ass .... Forgive me, your Grace; have mercy on my foolishness. Remember that I know little and if I talk too much, that is due to weakness, rather than to malice. But he who sins and mends 26 his way commends himself to God." Commend yourself to God and to your 41 �master, Sancho, and you will truly be transformed. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed indeed is poor San~ho who does not see yet still believes. The defeat of Don Quixote hides his vision from our sight. To truly imitate him, however, our belief must be an act of the will, like Quixote's own. A true believer in Don Quixote's poetry is a madman and a fool in the eyes of the world. What thanks does a man deserve, I may ask, for running mad when he has just cause? Don Quixote asks us to run mad without a cause, without any reasonable hoe for success. His defeat destroys such hope and thus compels us to a truly Quixotic imitation of Don Quixote. For this reason, defeat is the proper end for the book. It completes the lesson of Don Quixote by turning our eyes from worldly success to the beauty of Don Quixote's undertaking. The true value of Don Quixote's madness is that it allows him to see a more beautiful world. Only when we look past his defeat to "the glory that, in ages to come, shall be eternal in the ethereal and celestial regions" have we understood Don Quixote's true calling. Only then will the lessons of this great and wondrous knight be ours to learn. 3. Book I, Ch. I; Putnam 4. Book II, Ch. VIII; Putnam 5. Book I, Ch. I; Putnam 6. ROCIN-hack, ANTE-before. This may also signify that he was but an ordinary hack before Quixote transformed him. Springtime Gretchen Berg for Julie On the road where picket spears the air, · limit points beyond, in a bank past the church 7. Book II, Ch. III; Putnam 8. Book I, Ch. XXIII; Putnam 9. Book I, Ch. XXV; Putnam where once I placed, thighs deep in snow, a rose for the Virgin, now tree roots grapple sky; liquid slips the tabled rock to swerve, elusive tress of wondrous weft. 10. Book II, Ch. Ill; Putnam 11. Book II, Ch. III; Putnam 12. Book I, Ch. XLVII; Cohen I remember other rivers, broad as seas, harsh gritty beaches over which the gulls t 1 l t ' silent, 13. Book II, Ch. III; Putnam cliff's edge where hemlock stalks like fern; 14. Book II, Ch. VIII; Cohen dark trees make water bright, or bright make dark. 15. Book II, Ch. XXV; Cohen On the hill a smoky echo lines the road 16. Book II, CH. XII; Ozell granite, marble, coal---what is not gathered, 18. I have used three different translations for this paper to vary the style of the quotations. The Putnam and Cohen translations are more literal, but the Ozell much more fun to read. striped and flat where rain flowed; mica 17. FOOTNOTES Book II, Ch. III; Ozell In English, there is a pun on the canon's title, since he is literally reciting a canon for proper imitation. carved and woven, in this timely stream? Above it bushes bead with bloom, later with berry, hoop in festival; the lilac crooks These are the Pleiades. from branch, receding vistas beckon 21. I am indebted to Mr. McGrath for this thought. Book I, Ch. XLVII; Ozell 20. 1. 19. Book II, Ch. XVI; Putnam through arcs of green, wreathing victor's garland in unconscious air. 2. Book I, Ch. I; Putnam 22. Book II, Ch. XVI; Putnam Every wave of fullness casts a web of imitation, yellow leaf sustained by shadowed blue. Hair and a ribbon float on my shoulder; it is cold and I go home. 42 43 �Playing With _Images SUsan Magwre of the image is the unnaturalness. It is unnatural for any mother to tend to a child of a different species, thou?h studies tell us it has been done. It is monstrous for a human to su~kle an animal--this is horrible particularly because man is held to be superior to the lower animals, not at all on the same level. This unnaturalness is the root of the third striking aspect of these images--the topsy-turviness of each. In The Bacchae passage there is a two-fold topsy-turviness, a sense of odd-juxtapositions. First, the mess~ng~r is relating a tale we didn t expect--instead of the wanton, lusting females he tells us of a pastoral scene, women of all ages asleep among fallen oak leaves. we feel the earthy calm as he describes one, "half sinking on a bed of deep pine greenery." Then, as we start to ease into the sweet-smelling sof~ness, ~e describes these same women girting their skirts with quick, hissing snakes, and suckling wild animals at their breast; we are aghast, and are shaken. out ?f the softness. The magic of the image is that horrible proceeds to 11 seem the even sweet--the women "smile in love ! he · describes them as "young mothers with a mother's breast"--we start to lapse back into the softness. It seems not so bad, actually, this peaceful suckling, till he reminds us of the "babes at home forgotten!" we are again jangled and left not just with the horrible image, but now the horror stains ourselves; we too felt the spell. In simple terms The Bacchae is a play Should Pentheus about faith and nature. Dionysus really a believe in Dionysus? Is God? Is Cadmus wrong to dress _u~ in skins The Bacchae: Messenger's speech (690-700) [Describing the Theban women under Dionysus' spell] And one a young fawn held, and one a wild wolf cub, and fed them with white milk, and smiled in love, young mothers with a mother's breast and babes at home forgotten! Antony and Cleopatra: scene (V i i 308) (to applies to her breast) Cleopatra's death an asp which she Cleo:with thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool, Be angry, and despatch. O, couldst thou speak, That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass, Unpolicied! o Eastern Star! Char: Cleo:Peace, Peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep? These images stand out as horrible scenes. They are horrible for several reasons. First, each image inv~lv~s the reader (or viewer).. The descriptio~ . of the human body, particularly so sensitive a part of the body as the breast, causes one to feel the image personally, especially (or perhaps only?) a woman~ f~r whom the breast is a symbol of what it is to be woman--biologically, emotional~y (sensually), socially ("role" of woman in society). In each case the most striking aspect 44 .J and dance like a young man, honoring the God? Is it unbecoming to his age and· dignity; is it unnatural for him to relax. the bounds of his person, to step outside of what's expected of him as king? The image related above contains many, of the same elements. We do not see what the messenger tells us, yet we believe him. It is unnatural for the women to suckle wild animals--it seems horrible, yet is is peaceful and beautiful at the same time. Finally, we too have succumed to the enchantment which moves the whole play. Topsy-turviness is at work also in the Antony and Cleopatra passage. Cleopatra's words to the asp are moving, harsh words. They are spoken strongly--her directive, "be angry, and· despatch" resembles a leader's orders--to his men. Power underlies this speech--the asp's power to kill, and lack of power to speak; Caesar's power, which is the cause of Cleopatra's action; and her own power, now eclipsed by Caesar. We see Cleopatra as a royal queen, a leader. What follows seems oddly-juxtaposed. Cleopatra urges "peace!" She presents herself as a mother caring for her babe--such a different role for Cleopatra!, a role which heretofore was unimaginable. Although previously she has spoken of her children, no image has been presented as soft and maternal, as thoroughly womanly as this. One is struck by the difference between her two speeches, one so forceful, the other so soft. The image does not stop there, however. Here again is the horrible , unnaturalness of a woman nursing a lover creature--particularly striking as in this case it's a serpent. (This brings to mind, of course, the Genesis story of woman "causing" the fall of man.) The topsy-turviness is carried even one step further--in this case the "baby" causes the nurse to sleep, making a horrible image chilling as well. This metaphor stands out as important in the context of the whole play because of the light it sheds on Cleopatra. Earlier I said this is the image which most presents Cleopatra as "thoroughly womanly". I hesitate, and re-examine that suggestion, yet it still seems true. Earlier in the play we see Cleopatra as a beauty, a lover, an enchantress, a flirt, an emotional one who makes mistakes and changes her mind, but in all of these instances she seems not most woman, but most queen. The scene where she .is most a woman is, to be sure, not at all natural to woman. One never sees Cleopatra as thoroughly woman in a natural sense. The ·worm of Nilus kills the human; the country of the Nile, the power and lack of power kills the queen. Perhaps ~ Cleopatra can be woman? "Husband, I c·ome : Now to that name, courage prove my title!" (V ii 286) my 45 �Negation, Willing and the Places of the Soul "William O'Grady For Frances H. Stephen Morse How many men Have tried to walk Your cobbled heart, And in a quiet rain Have slipped and Washed away Amid a thousand tiny Rivers of Regret. This lecture has three parts. In the first part I shall sketch Hegel's presentation of the primacy of the subject in modern metaphysics and of negativity as the meaning of subjectivity. In the second part I shall sketch Heidegger's attempt to expose willing as the core of thinking not only in the thought of Nietzsche but already in that of Descartes and even in that of Plato. In the third part I shall try to bring out some suggestions contained in Plato's Timaeus, not indeed about the subject or the self, but about what human soul might be. I hope that the coherence of the three parts will emerge in the course of the lecture. I. Scholarship H. Stephen Morse Quiet settles in the room. The light Above the dark old desk illuminates A page of Greek, and brings light to a bright Bronze panoply of men at war. The.Ga~es Before the field stand open, and within, A father and a wife are fixed with.dread~ While far away, three grinning la~ies spin Each footfall into their great, timeless web. A ringless finger on an aged ha~d Marks place. No flicker of a lip or eye Disturbs the face --like wind upon the grass-Of he who reads. For on that wall he stands, As Homer's tale fills up both Earth and Sky Like rich red wine within a crystal glass. 46 tree and human thinking about the tree have already grown together by the time any of us appears on the scene. Moreover, this concrescence, this having grown together, belongs to the being of the tree as well as to the being of human thinking--this is one of Hegel's great thoughts, which he learned from Aristotle. Thus in reading a book about trees I am facing the tree and human thinking about the tree as having grown together; I am thinking about the tree concretely, as is not possible for me as I stand in a field facing the tree in what now appears as its nakedness. Hegel took his experience of reading books very seriously. In that experience he felt himself to be most deeply in touch with the world in the fullness of its being. The books he took most seriously--this brings us to the second preliminary consideration--were those of Aristotle. In two matters of utmost importance he simply follows Aristotle. At the end of his Encylopedia, presenting the all-encompassing circular education, Hegel says that Aristotle alone named God truly: noesis noeseos, thinking of thinking. That means for Hegel: thinking is the most active activity, the most energetic energy, both as world-building (thinking produces In the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel writes: "According to my view, which must justify itself by the presentation of the system, everything depends on this, that we comprehend and express the true not only as substance but just as much as subject." We must try to understand this statement, which is central in Hegel's thinking. But two preliminary considerations may help us orient ourselves toward that thinking. First, one of the most important words in the language of Hegel's thinking is "concrete." By it he means almost the opposite of what we might suppose. We are in the habit of saying, for example that to experience a tree concretely we must walk into the middle of a field and stand face to face with the tree; if we read a book about trees, we are encountering the tree only abstractly. For Hegel the situation is reversed: to read a book about a tree is to experience the tree as concretely as may be. The reason for the reversal is this. To experience a tree concretely is to experience it in its concrescence, its having grown together with the other things on which it depends and with which it deeply belongs: air, water, soil, sunshine, but also human thinking. The 47 �the Roman world, thinking produces the Aeneid) and as self-contained: thinking is of all activities the one in which sheer aliveness is most concentrated. Second, Hegel.never wavers in following Aristotle's view that in the most important motions the end is effectively present in the beginning, as the oak tree is at work in the acorn. Hegel however disagrees with Aristotle in two points that are almost as decisive. He thinks Aristotle is wrong in supposing that the part of the soul that thinks is separate from the part that loves, hates and remembers. From Hegel's point of view Aristotelian nous--the capacity to receive the intelligible--is merely inhuman rather than authentically di vine. Hegel has learned from the Christian doctrine of the incarnation and passion of God Himself that the relation of human and divine can be truly understood only under the symbol of the crucifixion: thus we read on the final page of the Phenomenology that absolute knowing is accomplished through the "recollection and Golgotha of Absolute Spirit." Second, and connected with this, Hegel thinks the tragic poets were right as against Aristotle: the truth about the divine is revealed in the fate of human beings within human communities rather than in the coming to be and passing away of things without special reference to human communities. Let us return to Hegel's assertion that what is crucial is to understand the true not only as substance but just as much as subject. It is a commonplace to say that since Descartes the subject, the "I think," has been the beginning for metaphysics and that in Kant's "Copernican Revolution" human subjectivity wins its decisive victory. But the Cartesian and Kantian positions, though important for Hegel, are not sufficient. For in them the so-called subject, which has indeed been accorded primacy, is still being understood fundamentally as a substance~ Descartes speaks of a "thinking substance" and Kant of a "transcendental I," which is always one and the same, which was never young, which does not tremble in the face of I i j death. Against these insufficiently radical attempts to establish the primacy of the subject, Hegel insists that subjectivity is a movement, the movement of self~positing, of throwing itself under (sub-jacere) a world of things so as to become what it is, rather than a constant standing under or lying under (substance, hupokeimenon.) To secure the being of the subject against being construed on the model of substance, Hegel speaks of subjectivity as negativity. Being as a whole is revealed in and through the being that can think and . say "no" and, moreover, can carry th is "no" out in practice. In Hegel's discussion the work of negativity is unfolded in three stages. First, the process of lifting off "chair" from "this chair here" (which process since Aristotle--and on the basis of a misunderstanding of him-- has been called "abstraction," that is aphairesis, that is "lifting off") is understood by Hegel in a dramatic and violent way. To lift off "chair" from "this chair here" is to destroy "this hereness," to do away with "immediate existence," the being here or there of particular beings as they are given to us. It is, by the power of our thinking, to overcome mere giveness. Second, the very discursiveness of human thinking, the motion of thought from part to part, is understood by Hegel as exhibiting what he calls "the tremendous power of the negative." That we think and speak at all means, according to Hegel, not only that we transform "this chair here" into "chair" but also that we separate "chair" from all other things in the world, in general, in our thinking and speaking we separate parts from the concrete wholes to which they belong and which alone are actual. In Hegel' s language, the discursiveness of human understanding introduces "the unactual" but this introduction of the unactual is the very action which makes change possible by making room for change: change can only mean re- arrangement of parts; t o say II no II to the whole does not generate progress but rather annihilation in the form of suicide 48 or of merely theoretical nihilism. Finally, the power of human thinking to destroy immediate existence in the form of the "this-hereness" in which things are given to us, and to tear particular things out of the contexts in which we encounter them, is seen in its full prodigiousness only when we follow Hegel in supposing that the self is passionately disposed to say no to what it primarily faces -- that it is radically restless and dissatisfied -- and this because at bottom it is passionately disposed to say no to itself: it is in every respect "unhappy consciousness," the telling name given by Hegel to the hero of his greatest book. The difference, according to Hegel in the~ntroduction" to the Phenomenology, between natural things and human existence is that "consciousness destroys every form of limited satisfaction for itself" so that serious education for human beings is a "way of despair," that is, as the German word Verzweiflung suggests, a way of being torn in two as a violent conversation takes place within each of us between "natural conciousness" and "real knowledge. " Or, as we may say, the ultimate meaning of Hegel's claim that the subject belongs within the true just as deeply as do the beings which the subject faces, and that the core of subjectivity is negativity, is that thinking is willing and that willing properly issues, not in praise and love -- "I love you: I will that you be" as the Franciscan thinker Duns Scotus has it -- but rather in revolution. Here, However, Hegel's thinking takes a somewhat unexpected turn. For, in his understanding, revolution is for the sake of the fullness of being. What , I have called the fullness of being, Hegel designates as "living substance" in contrast to substance thought of as constituted by the beings in the world · opposed to subject. From the point of view of "living substance," Hegel says: "What seems to happen outside it, as an activity directed against it, is its own doing; and thus the substance shows that it is essentially subject. When it has shown this completely, the spirit has made its existence equal to its essence" and, we may 49 add, history has come to i:ts proper end. Or, as Hegel said earlier, in and through the discursiveness of human thinking, understood as "the tremendous power of the negative," "the concrete separates itself and makes itself unactual," so that it can move itself. There is no more fundamental thought. in Hegel than that the oak tree is effectively present in the acorn. In this final point, of course, Hegel is by no means a representative modern thinker. For our purposes let us return to the assertion that the deepest posture of human beings toward the world in which they primarily find themselves is negative, that thinking is willing and that willing issues not in affirmation or praise, but in destruction. Heidegger can help us with this. II. I shall draw primarily on a long essay called "Nietzsche's Word ' God is dead'" in which Heidegger in a set of wide-ranging reflections interprets section 125 of Nietzsche's Gay Science. In that section, entitled "The Madman," a madman carrying a lantern in the bright morning hours runs into the market place to announce that God is dead and, just as astounding, that we are his murderers, you and I. It is this second assertion which Heidegger is especially concerned to understand. As his interpretation develops, the murdering of God is understood as the murdering of the meaningfulness of all that is. In other words, guided by Nietzsche but going beyond his analysis, Heidegger tries to understand nihilism, "that uncanniest of guests that stands at our door." According to Nietzsche, nihilism means that "the highest values hitherto are devaluing themselves," so that what is required is a "revaluation of all values," as the subtitle of Nietzsche's unfinished masterwork, The Will to Power, has it. But Heidegger isled to ';Qnder about the very language of "value" which abounds· in Nietzsche's writings: valuing, devaluing, creating new values. Perhaps nihilism means not that the highest values devalue �,---! i themselves but rather that what is, what offers itself to us by appearing to ·us, should be evaluated at all, should be driven into some sort of order by reference to one extrinsic standard or other. The central attempt of Heidegger's essay is to explore whether nihilism can be understood in this second sense and, if so, where its origins are to be found. We cannot follow Heidegger's discussion in all its richness and complexity. Its decisive steps are: first, to show the dependence of Nietzsche's understanding of value on his understanding of will, and second, to point to the presence of a willful element in thinking as understood by Descartes and even by Plato. As he writes sweepingly in another place: "Thinking, understood in the traditional way, is a kind of willing." According to Heidegger, the most important thought in the final phase of Nietzsche's philosophizing is "will to pewer." Will to power is said by Nietzsche to be "the innermost essence of Being." But the phrase "will to power" is likely to mislead us, as Heidegger points out, since according to Nietzsche's understanding willing as such generates power: the will to humility is just as powerful, just as powergenerating, as the will to domination over others. Therefore he proposes that we understand will to power as will to will; that is, the "innermost essence of Being" is to be understood as the will willing itself, the willing of willing. Heidegger goes on to claim that "Modern metaphysics, as the metaphysics of subjectness, thinks the Being of what is in the sense of will." He understands Nietzsche's great thought as the culmination of modern metaphysics, completing the elevation of willing to unchallenged supremacy within the relation of human being to being as a whole, so that in our time "the earth itself can show itself only as the object of assault, an assault that, in human willing, establishes itself as total objectification." Heidegger identifies the grounding principle of Nietzsche's metaphysics, the metaphysics of ,)the will to power, and notices that it is a v~J-_\le-:9rinctple: . ~'Art is worth more than truth. " He wonders about evaluative thinking altogether, and this leads him back to a consideration of Descartes, Plato and the pre-Socratic thinkers. I shall present a sketch of the sketch he gives. In Descartes' thought, that which constantly underlies everything that is, (the hypokeimenon in Aristotle's language) is the cogito, the "I think" of the fundamental proposition "I think, therefore I am." But the Cartesian cogito means co-agito; to cogitate means to co-agitate; "I think" means "I drive together into· the unity of a system." Cartesian thinking, according to Heidegger, is fundamentally willful, doing violence to beings rather than letting them be what they are. Nothing is more characteristic of Heidegger's own late writings than the passionate insistence on the will-not-to-will, which is meant to prepare the way for the tranquillity of "letting-be," that is, of thinking that lets things be what they are. Heidegger perceives the same element of willfulness, which refuses to let beings be what they are, in the thought of Plato, though in a less blatant form. For there the eide, the non-appearing beings of thought-;- are ultimately understood as measures, in relation to which everyth.ing that offers itself to us by appearing to us must inevitably fail to measure up, and hence is said to be only in a certain measure. The positing of the-idea of the Good is murderous of Being, that is, destroys the meaning- fulness of what appears. Meaningfulness is now conferred only by the willfully established frame within which what appears is allowed to appear. Heidegger writes in another place: "From the standpoint of space, the difference is this: appearing in the first and authentic sense of bringing-itself-tostand in togetherness involves space, which it first conquers; as it stands there, it creates space for itself; it produces space and everything pertaining to it; it is not something copied. Appearing in the second sense (i.e. , Platonically 50 essence of this willing." understood) emerges from an already finished space; it is situated in the rigid measures of this space, and we see it by looking toward it. The vision makes the thing. Now the vision becomes decisive, instead of the thing itself. Appearing in the first sense opens up space. Appearing in the (Platonic) sense merely circumscribes and measures the space that has already been opened. Thus in order to encounter a kind of thinking that does not represent to itself what it thinks about but rather allows it .!£. be present in its own way, that places nothing before itself (Kant's characteristic word vorstellen, usually translated "represent" means literally "to place before") but rather heeds what comes before it, we must turn to the pre-Socratic thinkers. And this Heidegger has done repeatedly, with the greatest seriousness and with the greatest and most imaginative sympathy. But even in Heracleitus and Parmenides, Heidegger concludes·, "Being is not thought as Being." In these thinkers there is indeed no distortion through willfulness, but there is a kind of obliviousness of the mystery of Being. What is lacking even in Heracleitus and Parmenides is insight into the tragic character of the thinker's relation to Being, the insight that Being must be thought historically with a vision to its withholding itself from man, withdrawing from man variously in various epochs, thereby engendering a variety of tragedies of thought. Heidegger, who seems never to have given thought to tragedies of action such as Sophocles and Shakespeare present, regards the history of metaphysiqs not skeptically or negatively but tragically, as a sequence of shatterings against fatefully appointed limits of which the configuration changes from epoch to epoch, but never the immensity. Thus his final word on the "willfulness" that characterizes the traditional understanding of thinking is this: "The false opinion easily arises that the human will is the origin of the will to will. In fact, on the contrary, man is being willed by the will to will without even experiencing the III. we began by considering a little the meaning of Hegel's claim that to comprehend the true we must begin with subjectivity of the subject and above all must understand subjec~ivity as negativity. With the help of Heidegger's reflections on the role of willing within metaphysical speculation since Descartes, we tried to see Hegel's view.not merely as one of several important alternatives but rather as a radicalization and unsurpassably acute expression of a t!=!ndency that has been powerful for centuries. We have also been stirred--I at least have been stirred--by two further claims of Heidegger: first, that the traditional understanding of thinking, according to which thinking is a kind of willing, is so murderously destructive of meaningfulnes~ in our experience of the world that the only hope for us is to attempt to renounce willing, to will not to will, and then wait to see if we can learn to let things be as they are; second,· that this tradition in which thinking is at bottom a kind of willing originates with Plato. Although these matters are difficult to judge, I believe Heidegger may be right in his first claim. I doubt that his second claim is true. But I think it might be worthwhile for us now to pay some attention to Plato's way of speaking about the human soul. With this in view, I propose that we look at the Timaeus. There are several reasons for this choice. One is that while.· we are reading and talking about the Timaeus, it is almost impossible for us to forget that playfulness has a proper place in discussions of the most important matters. ·I fear that our consideration of Hegel and Heidegger may have induced us to forget this. The Timaeus seems to me to be, in the guise of presentation of the genesis of the visible and touchable world, above all an invitation to think about the human soul in· certain ways. This hypothesis is at least plausible: after all, the "feast of words" 51 �offered to Socrates as recompense for his own gift of tpe day before --something like the conversation recounted in the Republic--is meant to delight Socrates; and Socrates seems to take delight most of all in words about the human soul. I shall consider certain statements about the soul contained in Timaeus' mythical account of how soul was fashioned ·and apportioned, as well as what seems to be implied .about the soul in Timaeus' account of "the receptacle." But first we must notice a remarkable feature of this dialogue altogether, namely its undercutting of oppositions that seem. familiar and well-established in other dialogues. Two examples seem especially important. The most famous phrase from the Timaeus is eikos muthos, likely story. But 27 lines after the first occurrence of this phrase, the very same set of words is referred to as eikos logos. The difference between muthos and logos, so emphatically insisted upon in other dialogues, seems far from clear-cut in the Timaeus. We shall have to try to understand why this is. not possible to place intellect directly into body. Rather, it was necessary to place intellect in soul and soul in body. Soul appears first within this account as a bonding thing, necessary for the. holding together of intellect and body. Even more: Timaeus' account seems to imply that only mortal soul can serve this function. For soon we encounter this powerful . conjunction: "in order that the.re might be mortal th~ngs and the whole might be truly a whole." The wholeness, the oneness of the world is an acute problem in the Timaeus as it is not in the great central images of the Republic. The divided ~ine, though it has sections, has no gaps;· it is one continuous line. Similarly the path leading out of the cave into the sunlight is one path. But in the Timaeus we are presented emphatically with the image of a demiurge who looks up there to see the changeless originals in the image of which he fashions the material down here. We imagine him, as we imagine any craftsman, looking repeatedly back and forth between the model and the copy which i$ gradually taking shape. As his gaze moves between model and copy, it encounters vacancy. Are there two widely separated worlds, one unchanging and invisible, the .other changing and visible, or are they somehow one? They are somehow one, Timaeus' account implies; only because there are mortals, beings who live but do not live forever, ·who, themselves perishable, long for the imperishable, so that their very longing holds the two worlds together, bonds them into one world. We shall return to this theme. Various remarkable things are said by Timaeus about the fashioning and distribution of soul. Let us consider three which seem at first sight very strange and even outrageous: the world is an animal, the courses of the planets are made of soul, and the soul itself is made of music. I think that these propositions appear outrageous only on the basis of essentially Hegelian premisses, namely that human beings have in the beginning a radically negative relation to the world, that there is no primary experience of Again, the opposition at the he?rt of the ~, the opposition between memory-understood as merely idiosyncratic and closely associated with Meno' s incapacity to learn--and recollection as the soul's· descent into itself beyond memory, seems in the Timaeus to be somehow undercut as we hear of Cri tias' attempt to reach back at once into himself and beyond himself in order to recover an account he heard when young from his old grandfather who heard it from his father who heard it from Solon who heard it from an Egyptian priest who relied upon written records extending back 8000 years that is, to within a thousand years of the time of the event to be recovered. Let us turn now to the introduction of soul within Timaeus' account of the framing of the world in which we find ourselves. The non-envious demiurge, we are told, discovered upon consideration that among visible things none lacking intellect is more beautiful than wi:iat has intellect, comparing wholes with wholes. But it was 52 feeling at home in the world, but rather one experiences the urgent need to make oneself at home, by violent deeds of mind and hand, in a world that is primarily alien. For, apart from these premisses, what is more natural than to regard the world around us as composed above all of what is alive and what sustains life, so that the cosmos would most like to be called to ~, the living being? And can it really be that what is alive is alien to us? Descartes could suppose that dogs and horses, unlike human beings, are mere machines. But no one, I think, who has looked into the eyes of an injured dog he was trying to help, could take this supposition seriously: in such a gaze soul knows that it is indeed encountering soul. Again, the soul does not seem to find the motion of the heavenly lights alien: we wish upon stars, wonder at times at their special brilliance, which we delight in pointing out to each other; and investigating their complex regularities involves deep satisfaction. So little do we find the motion of those lights alien that it makes sense, to me at least, to say that their courses are made of soul. I have always imagined that such men as Ptolemy, Copernicus, Brahe and Kepler must have had deeply healthy souls and that Ptolemy was speaking from authentic experience when he said that the benefit of his astro- nomical studies was to train the imagination how "not to forget in whatever things. we happen upon the consideration of their beautiful and well-ordered disposition." I think that there are elements of our experience which Hegel explains bett~~ than anyone else; but I do not think that subjectivity understood as negativity and Abraham understood as the archetypal unhappy consciousness which refuses to be at home in the world are models that illuminate our experience of living under the starry skies and alongside all manner of living things. Finally, if Timaeus' account makes any sense at all, that is, if soul is what holds together intellect and body, and thereby holds together that which is 53 unchangeable and that which is forever changing, then it makes sense to say that if soul is made of anything, it is made of music. For in music we face the mystery of the inseparable unity of number ratio (logos) , than which nothing pleases intellect more, and sensibility of such depth that it seems that without music we could .hardly know who we are as. feeling beings existing in time. In the beginning of Timaeus' account of the demiurge's introduction of intellect-in-soul into body, we hear not that the motions of the visible world had been disorderly in general., but rather that they had been "out of tune" (plemmelos). That the soul is made of music seems to imply that our relation to logoi, accounts of all kinds, is inseparable from such things as Critias' memory of his grandfather's eagerness in telling and his own delight in hearing the account ··of Athens of old, the telling itself having taken place during a religious festival in honor of Dionysus in which children born duririg the year were admitted into the companionship of the city. The question is whether there is anything in our experience more trustworthy than such tales, tales inseparable from the circumstances of the telling of them. I think the dialogue suggests that there may be nothing more trustworthy. We remember how the Timaeus begins: "One, two, three--but where is the fourth?" It is hard not to think, among other things, of the fourth--that is the uppermost--section of the divided line. But if the fourth section is missing, the section in which the soul exhibits its power of making its way "without images by the forms (eide) themselves through themselves," then the remaining three powers of the soul must somehow comprehend the living whole which in the Timaeus the soul faces. But that means that pistis, trust, has become the in-between power, the power of the soul that sustains the movement from consideration of image to consideration of original and back again. The most beautiful example I know of the high dignity of the action of trusting �1 , ' . i ! within what seems a purely theoretical consideration occurs near the end of the Sophist. The stranger asks Theatetus whether he like almost everyone else supposes that the world around us was thrown up by chance, or whether he supposes that some sort of provident care was involved. Theatetus, who is about 18 years old, says that he thinks about that question all. the time -- what a wonderful young. man! I cannot help interjecting -but that, probably because he is young, he at one time holds the one view, at another time the other. · But now, Theatetus continues, as I look upon your face and know that you· think there has been provident care involved, I think that too. The stranger replies that he suspects that, being the young man he is, Theatetus will always somehow incline to that view. There is no hint of apology or embarrassment in this exchange. I think that the main purpose of the Timaeus is to speak of soul in such a way that we can see why there should be no apology or embarrassment. In the following Tima~us' account of the fashioning and distribution of soul, we have perhaps learned something about the place -- or better, the places -- of soul in the world that surrounds us. Could it make sense also to speak of the places within the soul, of shallower or deeper places within the soul from which our words variously come, of places in our hearts into which we receive certain persons and certain things? I think that Timaeus' discussion of the "receptacle" (hypodoche) is an attempt to address this question. That discussion is after all an attempt to speak of_ a "within which," a "place," having "depth," prior to the existence of body, namely at a (mythically conceived) time prior to the introduction of regular plane surfaces arranged in three ·dimensions. At this time we encounter nothing of body except certain "powers" and "traces" (dunameis and ichn~) . Thus the being of the receptacle is said by Timaeus to be reachable only with difficulty by a kind of "bastard reasoning" with the help of "nonsensing" ·(the word i I I l anaisth~sia used strangely). I do not know exactly what these strange phrases mean, but it seems clear that Timaeus does not wish his speaking about the receptacle to · be understood as merely metaphorical, that is, as involving the mere transfer to another domain of words belonging primarily and most properly to the domain of body. Again, there are moments during Timaeus' account when it is difficult not to understand the receptacle as "intellectual soul" pure and simple. This is especially true if one has read the third book of Aristotle'e treatise on the soul. That which is to receive all incoming forms without deforming them must itself be perfectly formless -- this language is used by Timaeus of the receptacle and by Aristotle of the soul's power of knowing. The use by both of the uncommon word para-phainein, to appear alongside, makes the coincidence all the more striking. Finally, Timaeus passes almost insensibly from speaking of the receptacle as chora,place or room, which receives all bodies (somata), to speaking of it as the genes of place -- roughly, the class of place which receives not things but classes of things. It looks very much as if an attempt, perhaps bound not to succeed entirely, is being made to speak of a way of being that underlies the being of body and the being of soul. We must try to see how far we can discern the results of this attempt. First, however, we must backtrack and notice two things about the introduction of the receptacle into Timaeus' account. The first is rather obvious. The first part of Timaeus' account had dealt chiefly with the things fashioned through intellect, through nous. Now the role of necessity must be taken into account, since the visible whole has come into being through the persuasion of necessity by intellect, so that "for the most part" the things coming into being might be led toward what is best. Necessity, anank~, is said to have the form of the "errant cause," and as Timaeus' thinking and ours descends into its realm, the realm of mere "powers" and 54 "traces," we must invoke, not merely the gods in general as at the beginning of the first account, but--the words are said solemnly, I think--God the Savior (thees soter). It is in connection with the ~ontation of the possibility of chaos that the receptacle is introduced as a third thing in addition to the model and its copy. But there is also a second point to be noticed about Timaeus' second beginning. We now distinguish in our thinking among that which comes to be, that within which it comes to be, and the source from which what comes to be is born, springs forth. "Is born, springs forth" is my translation of phuetai. The verb phuein, from which is formed the noun phusis, usually translated "nature," means "to beget" or "to send forth shoots." In the passive it means "to be born" and "to grow. " With the use of this word we are emphatically in the realm of what is alive as, we now realize, was not quite the case in the first account. For then the two words repeatedly used to characterize the activity of the demiurge were plattein, to fashion by molding (the source of our word "plastic"), and sunhist~mi, to bring to stand together. We were at bottom still in the realm of statue-making. And surely we do not forget that the whole "feast of words" to be presented to Socrates was animated by Socrates' dissatisfaction with mere statues -- he had wanted to see something alive. The dialogue seems to suggest that if we are to see something truly alive, the form of the errant cause must somehow be taken into account and God the Savior invoked. 55 Let us return to the receptacle itself. How are we to understand its receiving function? It is said to be a place (topos) to provide room (chora). These are rather indefinite and neutral words. But the receptacle is also said to provide hedra for all things that have birth. Hedra can be understood neutrally as "place," but its richest as well as its quite .frequent meaning is "shrine" or "temple." The place provided by the receptacle seems to be a very special ~::me. Above all, "receptacle" does not seem to be an adequate translation for hypodoche, a noun formed from the verb hypodechomai. The primary meaning of this verb is "to welcome." It is the word that is used, for example, in book 14 of the Odyssey when the disguised Odysseus is said to delight in his heart because the swineherd Eumaeus "knew how to give welcome." Could this strangest of dialogues be suggesting that our world is the sort of "within which" that gives welcome to what is born into it; and that there are, as well, souls in the world which are able to give still more intimate welcome to what springs forth? We do after all say such things as: "she has a place in her heart for him." The muthos or logos presented by Timaeus seems to me to come closer than anything else in the Platonic dialogues to suggesting that the place we have in our hearts for persons and things is the very best place to be, better even than the hyperouranios topos, the super-heavenly place, spoken of in the Phaedras as the abode of the changeless originals which truly are. One wonders what the listening Socrates thinks about this suggestion. �. 1 . ' I ! l Making Much Ado About "Nothing" Jim Bailey 'l'he play Much Ado About Nothing (pronounced "noting")* is all about noting or nothing. The word nothing has three common uses in the play. Primarily, it refers to the noting of appearances which happens whenever people interact and is responsible for reputation and etiquette. In short, since we interact as we see one another, "noting" is responsible for what we call society. Secondly, the word noting is used to refer to the playing of notes. The interaction of notes in a symphony or dancers in a dance is used to symbolize the way we interact. Finally, the play discusses whether fashion and etiquette are nothing or merely show. If so, Shakespeare makes a great deal ~ut ~f this "nothing". Much Ado About Nothing is all about the masks, rules of etiquette and formalities that often happen when people come together. Society provides a framework whereby conflicts can be resolved (i.e. whereby lndividuals can triumph or yield as they ~ill or must) in which each party can maintain his integrity. At the very beginning of the play, Leonato, who must give welcome to the prince Don Pedro, gains esteem and favor rather than lo~e face by giving much more than he is required to. Politeness enables him to maintain his esteem in his own eyes and those of others by giving of his own free will and thus avoiding the appearance of necessity. Similarly, masks enable the characters to be truthful without threatening one another's integrity and self-esteem. In this way, Bea.trice is * Onions, C.T. A Shakespeare Glossary. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1978 . . able to tell Benedick what she thinks of his jesting and his being everyman' s man without having him reject her criticism, even though her criticism does hurt him. Behind a mask she can tell him what she · never could tell him face to face. Similarly, Benedick's and Beatrice's acquaintances stage conversations within the play to be overheard by Benedick and. Beatrice respect!vely, to cbnvince them to love one another. The staged conversations enable the conversants to speak openly and whoever is noting the conversation to take to heart what is said without losing face. As Hero says when on stage before Beatrice: "As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable. But who dare tell her so? If I should speak she would mock me into air." (Act III, scene i, lines 73-75) Masks and stages are for the benefit of the one noting and they enable him to see what he would not see without them. The characters of the play use such appearances to smooth over and resolve real conflicts harmoniously. Moreover, the characters in Much Ado About Nothing value masks because they care about how others note and esteem them. People value reputation and they often act in consideration of it. Perhaps because of this, out of town blind dates are the most exciting since they are not concerned with reputation but will be true to their desires. Being in another town, like being unknown or behind a mask, allows a person to act as he would not ordinarily act for fear of disapproval. But among neighbors most men seek to be known or noted as they would like to be. The honest person wears true apparel. He appears as he is. So Hero says, "Seemed I ever otherwise to you?"'1V,i,53) to mean 56 was I ever otherwise? However, just as most men strive to present their best side to the world and to hide that side of themselves of which they are ashamed, so the villain only utters the truth about himself in secret, while he presents falsity and deception to the world. Don John's lack of concern for reputation (i.e. how he is seen) reflects his lack of self-esteem or care to be worthy of the esteem of others. The villain only uses appearances to deceive and to hide his true nature. Nonetheless, men who deceive by appearances, if carefully noted, will be seen to be deformed or not quite true. In this way the Devil is named "Deformed". Deformed is the one who "borrows money in God's name, the which he hath used so long and neve·r paid that now men grow hard·. hearted and will lend nothing for God's sake." (V,i,310-314) Those who use appearances and etiquette in order to deceive, destroy harmony, and cause men not to trust one another. Just as Don John leads Claudio to falsely imagine what he cannot see clearly, all villains use words and masks to cause men to imagine things to be otherwise than they are. But because deception depends upon the deceived one's vision being obscured it can always be revealed. Because all deceptions deform the truth they_ can neither bear close scrutiny nor long acquaintance. Deceptions must be maintained, but the truth establishes itself. Hence, by carefully noting Hero, whom he has known for years, the Friar knows that she is innocent when she denies the deceived Claudio's accusations. , The task of the court (as represented by Dogberry and Verges) is to reveal villainy by means of such careful noting. Dogberry and Verges always say exactly the opposite of what they mean, but their meaning and intent are nonetheless unmistakable. Dogberry, flouting appearances by speaking words of nonsense, forces men to observe his true appearance, attitude and intent. Villains, on the other hand, distract the eye from inward rottenness with gaudy outward show. Shakespeare also uses "noting" in a musical sense to refer to people's banter and flattery of one another. Because Benedick's wit notes or plays on everything he sees, Claudio says of him: "his jesting spirit is now crept into a lutestring and now governed by stops." (III,ii, 56-57) A true wit can give pleasure and can flatter with notes as do minstrels. Thus, when Benedick loses his mirth he is like a minstrel without his lyre. So Don Pedro says of him, "What a pretty thing a man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit." (V,i, 98-99) Men flatter to pleasure others and to be in turn well noted by · them.A "man of note" is one who is well noted, or rather one who is well thought of and whose praises are sung. Shakespeare continues this metaphor to describe characters who are disconcerted or sick as being out of tune. Certainly when someone is out of tune he is not well noted. The theme of the play is strikingly revealed through the interaction of Benedick and Beatrice. They both think of themselves as self sufficient and each continually strives to maintain his own personal integrity. Neither of them will admit to himself or to others his want of the other. Only when each is convinced of the other's love does he declare his love, and then he declares it as being for the sake of the other. We all have had the experience of gaining confidence to show our affection for someone because that person has made some initial show of affection. In the case of Benedick and Beatrice there appear to be two reasons that they hesitate to show their admiration of one another. First, each is afraid of being shunned by the other as undesirable and thus losing esteem in both his own and the other's eyes. Secondly, they don't want to endanger their high ideas of themselves by admitting affection for someone who 1s less than perfect. Benedick and Beatrice perform a delicate dance in which they slowly unmask their love for one another. First they have a battle of wits, being afraid to 57 �I I I . i (with good intention) . Benedick says that he only for pity and Beatrice says only take Benedick to save iv, 90-96) admit affection openly, in order for each to protect his fragile self esteem and pride. Then, because each hears that the other is madly in love with him, each admits his love as being for the sake of the other, each feeling triumphant and confident in his own integrity. Both Benedick and Beatrice feel as if they can give their love magnanimously in response to the other's need whereas pride prevents them from first admitting their own love. Nonetheless, others have to praise Benedick to Beatrice and vice versa so that each of them can requite the other's love without losing self esteem. Benedick even seeks to gain face by not pridefully rejecting Beatrice. Benedick and Beatrice see themselves as others see them, or rather they esteem themselves as they are esteemed by the world. To the end, even after the deceptive staging of the others is revealed, · takes Beatrice that she will his life. (V, Shakespeare sums up his comments on noting and what it entails in a brief interchange between Borachio and Conrade: Borachio: ... thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to man. Conrade: Yes, it is apparel. Borachio: I mean the fashion. Conrade: Yes, the fashion is the fashion. (III, iii, 117-122) Perhaps this says best of all why Shakespeare made much ado about nothing. 58 �l I St. John's College Annapolis, MD 21404 i l I I .i 1 I � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bergren, Kathleen Burlein, Ann Cooper, Barbara Holland, Christian Maguire, Susan Marklin, Martin Miller, Richard Mullen, Alexander Sokolik Merle Sachs, Joe, 1946- Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Fall 1982 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Fall 1982. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Fall 1982 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fb54f048ec0b34207b429b5734167b8a.pdf 46ea272814e33cf4d9f839f983d57bca PDF Text Text �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. n... voO £v{ p y£~a Cover: GYROSCOPE by Robert Vickrey, tempera on masonite. Photo courtesy of New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana. Gift in memory of Samuel Weis. 'w~ ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, The contents of this issue have been chosen and produced by the Energeia staff from student work which the Annapolis and Santa Fe Prize Committees selected. Annapolis Prize Committee Printed by the St. John's College Press St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 1072b ) William Mullen Jon Lenkowski Winfree Smith Edward Sparrow Curtis W ilson Santa Fe Prize Committee - Chairperson - Sharon Garvey Robert Bart Nancy Buchenauer Michael Dink Peter Pesic Staff Editor - Ann Burlein Maura Brady Kathy Buckler Michael Crawford Gabrielle Fink Christine Gowdy-Jaehnig Faculty Advisor - Maria Kowalczyk Mark 'Streeter Jason Walsh Steve Werlin Jonathan Tuck Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is distributed among the students, faculty, alumni and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis and Santa je. Published three times a year , the Fall issue contains a sampling of the .student work from the previous school year which the prize committees of both campuses have selected for public recognition. For the Winter and Sp ring issues, the Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community - essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and . the like . Note: A brief description of the author accompanies all work not by current St. John's students. Please include some such statement along with your subnission. Thank you. �-- CONTENTS PRECEPTORIAL PAPER, GRADUATE INSTITUTE (SANTA FE) "DO YOU LOVE ME?" Kristi Ragan ANNUAL SENIOR ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) REMEMBERING JERUSALEM Christian Holland ANNUAL SENIOR ESSAY (SANTA FE) PURPOSIVENESS IN KANT'S CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT Alistair Morrison ANNUAL SOPHOMORE ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) MEMORY AND PERSONAL IDENTITY IN SHAKESPEARE'S TEMPEST 1 13 59 Arny McManus 71 Bruce Johnson 81 SOLUTION TO Tiffi JUNIOR SENIOR MATH PROBLEM (ANNAPOLIS) Martin Marklin 88 TRANSLATION OF A FRENCH TEXT (ANNAPOLIS) Nancy Mease 91 *ANNUAL SOPHOMORE ESSAY (SANTA FE) FOR MY SOUL IS FILLED WITH TROUBLES *'I}Us essay has been edited. Complete copies can be found in the library. �"Do You Love Me?" Kristi Ragan Many of us see a contradiction in any attempt to seriously examine the dynamics of love as commitment. While we publicly insist upon love's importance, we privately bemoan the fragility and lassitude which characterize it as unable to withstand the rigors of a serious philosophical critique . We take pains to remind ourselves of love's stature as mere emotion and though we might make concessions for its elevated position in our lives, love nevertheless carries that blemish which distinguishes all emotions: lack of rationality . We see this charge in remarks like "Love is blind" , and "I will never understand a woman" - or if your prefer Mortimer's version: "O I am ignorance itself in this" (H.4,P. l,III,i.210). In the back of their minds, many young and not so young girls believe the t eachings from Hollywood which claim that if it is love, bells will ring and fireworks will fill the sky. Equally misguided is the advice given by family and friends to simply not worry, because "when the time comes, you'll just know . " Such answers make us comfortable with the idea that our feelings are not an area in which we can employ reason to gain understanding. Yet if knowledge and understanding are necessary for living, then by accepting this view of love and the o t h er emotions we place a huge portion of life beyond our control. But since we tire of pulling petals from daisies and twisting stems from apples, we eventually come to undertake a less superficial search in order to understand what is behind love. "How in the world could he possibly love me?" Yet oftentimes our search ends prematurely. We sense that too earnest a searc~must surely bring with it love's demise. To have continued seeking would have led us to the difficult position of having to accept our own worth and its accompanying responsibilities. When we deign to reflect on love at all we often do so with an overdose of sentimentality or with a crudely pragmatic view of economics, appearances and sexual performance. Yet I remain convinced that thoughtful reflection upon what love is and why a person loves is not only possible but.necessary . Throughout Shakespeare's historical plays we rarely see men with their wives. Di d t h e auth or mean t o s uggest by t he i nfrequency with which men discuss t hings with women that marriage and commitment hold little importance for the larger human community? I think not. For when Shakespeare does allow us to view the life of a married couple, he chooses his occas.ion and characters with care. In Henry the Fourth, Part One Shakespeare reserves the illumination of the commitment of love for his most honorable and heroic of characters, Hotspur and his lady, Kate . We have already met and been won over by Hotspur before the third scene of Act II, in which we first see husband and wife together. Though Hotspur has sided against the king in the upcoming battle , we have been moved to concern for him by his total dedication to honor, his disregard for pain and danger, as well as the certainty of his commitment t o things ove r and above life itself. It is with such a man that Shakespeare has chosen to lay bare the dynamics of love as commitment. Kristi Ragan Tanzania . (M.A. at Santa Fe , '84) is currently serving in the Peace Corps in 1 �In Henry the Sixth, Part Two Shakespeare speaks again of commitment, this time through the wise and noble Gloucester and Eleanor, his misdirected wife. That Shakespeare arranged the discussions between husband and wife to take place between two of his most magnificent characters suggests the importance of their words. r hope that what Shakespeare felt significant enough to merit such prominent spokesmen will become clear through a close examination of these scenes. The private life of a man and woman should never be a time for excluding or becoming indifferent to the larger human community of which they form a part. They cannot set the private wholly apart from the public. They must allow the public admission to the private-and not only negatively, as the necessary foil whereby two people unite in a posture of "us against the world." When the private admits the public only in this negative way the private can become little more than a time for scheming and plotting strategies by which the two might hope to get the better of the world. I think it is important to bear in mind this brief reminder of what private life is ~ot as we examine Hotspur in Act II, scene III of Henry the Fourth, Part One, since this scene occurs exclusively between Hotspur and his wife, except for a servant's interruption. The scene opens with Hotspur all alone, reading a letter whose contents forbode his defeat in the upcoming battle with King Henry. The author's refusal to fight incenses Hotspur and he tries to defend their plot as "a good plot as ever was laid" . But Hotspur's defense becomes overly boisterous and repetitious: " . . . our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends" (II,iii,16). Such repetition belies Hotspur's trust ib the plot and in his friends. Hotspur's reservations run deep and cause him even greater worry because of the possible betrayal of their plan to the king. He broods incessantly and longs for the chance to be underway, past the point of decision, past weighing and reweighing the variables. Hotspur cries that he will set forward that very night and in the next instant Lady Hotspur enters. Her entrance is perfectly timed to coincide with the end of Hotspur's soliloquy. Is this chance, or was Lady Hotspur watching over him as she has these last two weeks, though banished from his bed? Hotspur's uneasiness continues and he wastes no time in blurting out to K~te that he must leave. No doubt he wants to spare her the details of the campaign as well as the anxiety that accompanies such details. Yet when Lady Hotspur begins to speak she makes no reference to his imminent departure. Instead, she begins to ask a series of questions which are not really questions at all. Their purpose is to show her husband that she already shares with him the burden of his worrying despite his intention to spare her. Not only do her questions spare Hotspur the pain of having to explain his intended actions to her , but they reinforce our impression that Hotspur's anxiety is strange and unusual. Lady Hotspur's pressing concern indicates that his doubts about the campaign spring from something more than the nervousness usual before battle. Lady Hotspur has been banished from her husband's bed for two weeks, yet she shows by her questions that "I by thee have watched" (II,iii,44). She has observed him sitting alone, noticed when he refused to eat, and remained with him throughout the night as he cried out in his dreams. She has always stood close by him-so close she could watch his uneven breathing and the sweat which formed upon his troubled brow. By revealing her watchful caring she reminds him that she stands neither indifferent to nor apart from the suffering of his world. She has not used their time apart to distance herself from her husband or to pity herself for this exclusion from his world. True commitment does not allow you to stand apart from someone you love, nor to judge them across a distance. You must always stand within the relationship of yourself to that other and it is into that intimate sharing that you step when you silently watch over them. Love is a sharing, a desire to be together and to make Such sharing turns Lady Hotspur' s attention outward, .another's welfare your own. 2 away from her own suffering over the very real possibility of her husband's death in the upcoming battle. Her love for Hotspur provides her with the proper external object toward which she may be turned and out of which she may form a constant relationship to the world around her. Lady Hotspur ends her first speech by asking her husband his reason for leaving. She correctly places the question in the context of their relationship: "And I must know it, else he loves me not" (II,iii,61). Hotspur tries to distract her from the question by interrupting with commands to the servant. Kate however, is a very patient woman. She waited two weeks just to speak with her husband; another interruption does not upset her, and she simply resumes with her question upon the servant's exit. Harry continues to distract Kate with playful teasing. This forces her to answer her own question. She knows that part of the reason Harry is going to fight is the responsibility to her brother that their marriage has placed upon him . "I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir about his title and hath sent for you to line his enterprise" (II ,iii, 78). Kate doesn't bring this up in order to try to dissuade her husband from going. She respects Hotspur's decision and her respectful acceptance shows us that we needn't always see commitment as disruptive of purposeful act ion in the larger human community . Kate, by mentioning her brother, shows Hotspur that she recognizes and appreciates the sacrifice he is making for her and her family. The Tempest depicts a similar situation, in which Miranda's response recognizes and appreciates the sacrifice of Ferdinand's dignity through his demeaning labor of hauling logs . "My sweet mistress weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness had never like executor" (III,i,12). The rec ognition of true sacrifice by another on your behalf causes within you a desire to join it. Just as Miranda is moved to beg Ferdinand to stop and le t her take over his odious task, so Kate has kept sleepless watch through Harry's sleepless nights. I have tried to show that serious and important things are at issue in the dialogue between Kate and Hotspur . However , such lines as "Out you mad-headed ape" and "Come, come you paraquito" seem to throw in question this interpretation of their exchange (II,iii,74 & 82). We should be careful not to judge this playful banter as nothing more than nervous laughter designed either to avoid what's really at stake or as their peculiar means to avoid uncomfortable good-byes. Instead, we must make an attempt to see such lighthearted jesting as the means by which these two provide the necessary, constructive tension through which they are able to call attention to each other without violating the intimate and private. The question "Do you love me?" is being forever asked and answered by such lively ribbing. Their laughter is reaffirming rather than insensitive; it highlights the importance of each to the other. In addition, it allows each to call attention to themselves as an individual which the other does not totally subsume. Such teasing can only be shared between two people for whom life still holds a vital freshness. Such jesting becomes even more important when two people stand in the larger public community. Standing among so many others, people in love must reaffirm publicly that they do not take each other for granted. Unfortunately , they accomplish this all too often by making the boudoir ("a place for pouting") public. Shakespeare illustrates the imprudence of such an attempt when Glendower's daughter, before a large group, speaks of such embarrassing things that Mortimer will not rep ly except to say, " . . and, but for shame, in such a parley should I answer thee" (III,i,200). Hotspur, on the other hand, realizes that it is the fault of women to tend toward pouting and ungoverned emotionalism (III ,i,2-38). His teasing allows Kate the chance to be different . He encourages her to believe that a good mouth-filling oath which places one's honor on the line becomes a lady more than the singing of Welsh ditties (III, i, 251). Hot spur realizes that a quick tongue is a more feeling disputation than a lot of sulking and teary-eyed kissing (III,i,202). 3 �Yet since both are inappropriate for their final good-by, Hotspur makes no mention of his departure in public except to say to Kate, in a very low-keyed voice, "come in when ye will" (III,i,259). He rightly sees that the place for such a parting is private, with neither pomp nor sentimental staging. Shakespeare himself recognizes the inappropriateness of presenting their final good-by before an audience. We trust Hotspur and his wife alone know what needs to be said. To complete the examination of their first scene together we must return to Kate .and Harry and their bantering. Their teasing continues until Harry says "Love? I love thee not" (II,iii,86). Is Harry here just responding to Kate's statement some thirty lines before when she said, "Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, and I must know it, else he loves me not"? (II,iii,60). Or does he intend this teasing good-by to serve as a reaffirmation? Harry wants to make sure their love does not go unsaid, so much so that he playfully steers their conversation to the question of love. Although Harry calls for his horse, the next two questions which he puts in rapid sequence to Kate suggest an unwillingness to leave until she has asked the question "Do you love me?" - the question Hotspur so wants a chance to answer. Kate, with an understanding of what needs to be asked, asks and asks again "Do you not love me?" (II,iii,92). We are immediately reminded both of Miranda's persistence in asking Ferdinand the very same question as he hauls logs, and of her reluctance to let him squirm out of answering her in any way other than with the commitment of marriage (III,i,80-90). What significance does asking this question hold both for the one asked as well as for the one asking? In Lady Hotspur' s watchfulness she has seen her husband under extreme external pressures. Only in dreams of war do his doubts regarding the battle rise to the very surface. He doesn't consciously consider his reservations or his anger. We have all allowed ourselves at some time to be determined by the external demands which others or the situation itself places upon us. At such times, when we seem unable to be reached, it becomes the responsibility of those who love us most to open up and re-establish before us the private sphere in which our commitment is most illuminated. Lady Hotspur and Miranda do just that by their question "Do you love me?" Without commitment, we can only react to external pressure. But by re-establishing commitment, we can overcome that temptation. We are then freed for conscious activity. External pressures need no longer determine us, for we can see them as necessary obstacles to be overcome in the pursuit of goals grounded in commitment. An example of this restructuring also occurs in The Tempest. Ferdinand comes to see his odious task as an opportunity to express both his love for Miranda and his willingness to sacrifice himself for her. In the same way , Kate's question requires an action rather than a reaction from Hotspur. What he had previously sought to spare Kate he now actively strives to share with her through his request that she follow him to battle. Recognizing that the fullest action within a commitment is sharing, Harry says to Kate, "Whither I go, thither shall you go too" (II,iii,109). At that moment he stands before her as free and self-determining. Hotspur is no longer pushed by externals alone; having been reminded of his connnitment, he becomes once again able to choose. Her question has helped both of them recognize the importance of his going and of her going with him. It takes great courage for Lady Hotspur to ask her husband "Do you love me?" because this question calls for th an action from each of them. She must examine closely her love for Hotspur and the place that love may hold in the public world. Such difficult self-examination requires an even more basic courage-the courage we all need to sustain the believe that we can understand the feelings of another and that we do not live a life completely isolated from everyone else in the world. Questions such as these call forth from us the courage necessary for believing the world has meaning. 4 We have yet to answer the question, why a question. The use of such a part of speech is essential to the dynamics of commitment. For only a question can illuminate something which is before both the one asking and the one answering. Illumination differs from direct giving. It does not aim to place an object or idea directly into another's hand or to provide an answer in a statement. Rather, it aims to provide a shared direction in which you alone can decide to move. The question provides the direction and acceptance commits you to a course of action. It clears out a space in which you may stand to answer yes or no, an answering through which you begin to change your world. This role, which only a question can fulfill, makes evident once again the dynamic nature of commitment as something which stands open to reflection and has a necessary structure. · The playful insistence with which Kate follows her question reinforces this notion of a necessary structuring within commitment: "Well do not then; for since you love me not, I will not love myself" (II,iii,93). The admiration of something outside ourselves which provides the structural foundation upon which we build a commitment must of necessity be matched with a corresponding assurance within ourselves. Should Hotspur withdraw his love he knows that he withdraws the source of Kate's confidence. Reading Kate's retort again shows why love is so bound up with admiration. "Since you love me not, I will not l.ove myself" should now be read as "If you are not going to love me, be assured no one, not even I, will be able to step in and fill your place in the same way as you do." When you are loved you realize that something is offered to you which is offered to no other person in the world in the same way. Love, when bestowed, calls attention to our special place as the beloved. Harry mounts his horse and once upon it is able to swear how deeply he loves Kate.. The good-by is a painful one for him. If Kate were to force him into questioning his actions further, he might easily be detained or fail to go altogether-as the songs of Glendower's daughter lull Mortimer to sleep ( III,i,211). Harry asks that she simply accept his decision and she does. Then Hotspur, with no manipulation on Kate's part, suddenly says the one thing most present in both their minds: "Whither I go, thither shall you go too" (II,iii,109). For two people who have lived together and suffered together i t is important that their life and, i f possible, .their death be shared. Ovid writes of Jupiter coming to earth disguised as a beggar. Only a poor elderly couple with little enough for themselves are willing to take him in and feed him. In gratitude Jupiter offers them the fulfillment of one wish. They ask to die together. Having shared life through their love they wish to share death the same way. Separation, not death, saddens them most. And so one day, barely before the old man has time to thank his wife for loving him all these years, they grow bark and Jupiter keeps his promise by changing them into the oak and the linden. They went on loving right up until the very end and that ability to care made them most alive and their life complete. Hotspur and Kate do not differ from the elderly couple because they, too, need to be sustained through their love. Sharing that which sustains one is the true necessity under which commitment places you. Such sharing does not rest upon uniformity of action, bu t rather upon having the same goal guide all activities. They do not need to be in the same place at the same time doing the same thing. Their sharing comes in how they see the world around them and their place within it. The end toward which they move unites them. Sharing is the means by which two people create their world, a building which takes place from the inside out, with a concern for how the world ought to be as its starting point and not how the world is. The sharing of love makes possible a belief in the transformation of the world and the people in it. This belief is hardly different from the "Esperance" of the Percy battle cry. This hope leads one not to deny the world, but to act in such a way that the world is given back to you anew. Without a belief that the world can be 5 �-transformed you must remain apart from it. To interact with the world requires a relationship with it, out of which true acceptance is possible. A shared commitment and desire for what's best can bring about such hope. Commitment brings with it the recognition and pursuit of what is highest and so provides the proper soil in which to nurture proper pride, personal dignity and honor. Such further growing shows that commitment can never make you blind or indifferent to the larger human community. Instead, it will move you to concern for the moral and ethical questions which you must consider whenever you act within the world in an effort to transform it. Through the dialogue of Hotspur and his lady Kate, Shakespeare has shown us some important ingredients for a sound marriage. Through Gloucester and Eleanor in Henry the Sixth, Part Two, he continues the theme, this time revealing what a marriage must avoid. Eleanor begins scene two of Act I in the same questioning manner that Kate employed. A closer look at the questions, however, will reveal their difference. Neither vigilant watching nor true concern for her husband's worried state produce Eleanor's qu~stions. Nor do they demand any action in the form of an answer. They try instead to replace the interests of her husband, which she considers of no value; with her own ambitions. Eleanor views the ambitions of men as naive whenever they fail to give prime importance to the favors and honors of the world. Her questions contain no wondering about the world, but rather express a desire to look away from the sullen earth and the people of it (I, ii, 5). Her wish to "never more abase our sight so low as to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground" reveals her ambition as a weapon she wields to gain superiority rather than dignity. Eleanor is not unlike the vast numbers of people who go through life concerned only with accumulating status, wealth or some other external standard of measurement. Such people are the true usurpers of the common and public world. Eleanor dedicates herself solely to the task of making Gloucester become someone he does not wish to be. To accomplish this she must dominate her husband, make him a slave to her ambition. Such usurpation denies a place to sharing. Eleanor's only commitment is to fully apply her energies to her own genius. As a result, the criterion by which she guides her actions becomes pleasure. Gloucester is not unaware of this: "Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command above the reach or compass of thy thought?" (I,ii,45). Eleanor seeks to attain that public eminence and status reserved only for the King and Queen, confident she can fill both positions by herself. Thus she sees actions only as the means to further her ambition. For whenever the criterion for action lies outside the act, the act itself must be seen as a means. Eleanor's criterion lies outside her actions since it fies only in the public reaction to them. But when you look away from the structure of the act and its underlying principles you easily become prey to ambition, ambition in the low sense of desire for status only . No longer do you possess any limits for your action. Whatever it takes to attain the end you accept. Eleanor herself tells Gloucester that if grovelling on his face will win him the crown he must by all means grovel (I,ii,9). ' Gloucester sees that his wife's reasoning "is not based on principles" and he tries to show her such principles are necessary for guiding right action. "O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy Lord, banish the· canker of ambitious thoughts. And may that thought, when I imagine ill against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry, be my last breathing in this mortal world. (I,ii,17) Obedience and duty to the king guide \all Glucester's actions. He has realized that right action according to a principle obligates a man to act in this way, even at the risk of death. For Gloucester, individual man does not stand on the highest r ung of' the l adder; his actions are important, but only because they allow him to participate 6 in something higher and outside himself. Gloucester understands that only this participation constitutes excellence, not the elevation of an individual to a position of social superiority. Although the latter path seems all too frequently chosen as the means to excellence, it can nevertheless lead one to nowhere but greed . Greed is the very place in which Eleanor stands. Here she stands alone, above the reach or compass of her own thought, since she can never know when she has had enough. Greed's inability to harbor satisfaction forces you, as taker and usuper, to stand always in opposition to the world; this position isolates. And if you adhere to it to long enough, it can place you forever outside the reach and help of others, outside hope, outside love, outside commitment. You allow and encourage yourself to be totally defined through nothing but yourself. Simply stated, the sum of you and your world is nothing more than the singular "I". Eleanor has never allow her husband to define or determine her. She has never accepted Gloucester's interests as her own, has never looked at the world through eyes other than her own and has never accepted herself as a part of something outside herself. She refuses to become the "we" that Gloucester holds out to her. For Eleanor there is no common expression or uniting of strengths between her and Gloucester . "Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold. What, is' t too short? I'll lengthen it with mine." (I,ii,11) By ascribing to Gloucester a crown which he expressly rejects, she makes him appear to fall short of his proper goal and therefore need her assistance in order to extend his reach. Such a view does not suggest any journeying forth t ogether or sharing of a common base. In fact, an extension can be added in such a way that it completely undoes the original intention because it sets off in a new direction all its own. Such extension implies no commitment, no sharing, no "we". The ac t ion of their hands extending together is only a means toward the end of glorious gold. It has no true value for Eleanor and will be unable to move her in any way toward either Gloucester or a life of thoughtful right action. Eleanor's hand might just as well be an extension of lead pipe for all the sharing it does. Ferdinand and Miranda in The Tempest provide a helpful contrast to Eleanor's vision of herself as an extension. Miranda prays to Ferdinand: "If you'll sit down, I' 11 bear your logs the while. Pray give me that. I' 11 carry it to the pile" (III,i,28). She prays to make the task of the one she loves her own. She extends quite a different off er from that which endeavors to take up only when ·the loved one falls short so that both will be made better through the completion of the task. . This passage suggests a role for Eleanor which differs greatly from that of Lady Hotspur. Eleanor's reply "Follow I must" to Gloucester's invitation to ride with him (I ,ii, 6 ) exp re ss e s a sentiment worlds apart from Kate's reply "It must of fo r ce" to Hotspur's similar invitation (II,iii,110). For Eleanor there is no necessity to provide the important boundaries for freedom and personal self-determination. Freedom for her consists in the lack of all restraint. She wishes to smooth her way upon headless necks (I,ii,65) . Her reference to necessity is sarcastic and she no more welcomes it than she does her public penance. Necessity and principles for guiding right action share similar places among all she holds most worthless. Rather, the attainment of pleasure and position in an important-that is, vainglorious-cause is more in keeping with Eleanor's opinion of herself. Eleanor echoes this position in her advice to Hume: "Make merry, man, with thy confederates in this weighty cause. " (I,ii,85) Eleanor would like nothing better than to close her eyes, utter the magic words and presto! have before her the crown for her very own. Magic contains the only glimmer of hope in her life . It provides her with a knowledge of the future that becomes her cornerstone for action. The present moment serves only as a means toward an end which magic guarantees. She wishes "this world's eternity" (II, iv, 90) and uses magic to carry her toward it. This banishment of necessity leaves Eleanor 7 �unable to call forth true courage and determination from within he.rself. She can act boldly only when witches and conjurers assure the outcome. Magic enables her to believe in herself and in her own capabilities in a way which has no connection with who she really is, or what she actually is capable of accomplishing. Magic blocks any opportunity in which she might see herself with all her insufficiencies. Such dependence upon magic reinforces the dangerous . tendency within Eleanor to decide and act without the reflection and thoughtful examination which should accompany decisions and actions. Without such an inward looking and self-critical stance, Eleanor need not be confronted by her own insufficiencies and impotencies. Love and the commitment which must accompany it can off er the path to such a necessary seeing within. Miranda comes to such a seeing when Ferdinand's love moves her to thankfully weep before him: "I am a fool to weep at what I am glad of At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer what I desire to give, and much less take what I shall die to want" (III,i,88 & 93). Love. is like nothing else; it lays bare our unworthiness and at the same time moves us to see that not only do we have something important to give, but we are a person worthy of being given to as well. Does not Gloucester try to remind Eleanor of this by his continued devotion and constant declarations of love? Whenever Gloucester entreats Eleanor to change, he is careful to make her understand that he makes such a request for the sake of their love and not outside of it. "O Nell, sweet Nell, i f thou dost love thy lord, Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts." (I, ii, 17) This is not an extravagant request on Gloucester's part. He correctly sees that commitment involves accepting another's guidance in one's growth. This acceptance requires the giving and receiving of knowledge about right conduct. Even today, though both men and women take pains to insure the opposite, a commitment in marriage necessarily involves the molding of one person's character by another. What possible sense does a marriage make in which all the energies of both members go into preserving their own autonomies? Their concerns gradually become turned t oward t~e maintenance of such things a s sepa r a te bedrooms, separate ambitions, separate checkbooks and separate names. In such cases marriage provides little more than the necessary negative fixture against which the partners may define and measure themselves. This puts marriage in a position simila r to the one parents and church served for most of us during our rebellious adolescence. What does Gloucester off er to Nell that is so different from this? What place does he hold before her when he asks, "Art thou not the second woman in the realm, and the Protector's wife, beloved of him?" (I,ii,43). This question is the same as Lady Hot spur's and Miranda's "Do you love me?" because it offers an illumination of commitment . He lays out a proper direction in which commitment may steer their lives. Gloucester does this both by reminding Eleanor of her place in the world as an object worthy of his love, and by reminding her that as the wife of an honest Protector, she already shares "the top of honor" (I,ii,49) and should be satisfied with such a place. In his question Gloucester attempts to provide a proper focus by urging Eleanor to remember his position as Protector. He does so not simply to remind . her of the status such a title carries, but also to make an important statement regarding the crucial place that the role of protection plays within a commitment of love. Gloucester rightly tries to direct Nell's attention to the honor and significance of a person who is able to provide support and nurture for a ruler. Nell is "ill-nurtured" (I, 11, 42) because she cannot provide such nurture for another. She shows her refusal to recognize need in others by her disdain for the position of protector. Though worry deeply marks her husband's demeanor, she remains indifferent to his suffering. Gloucester seeks support and comfort from Nell. He is trying to steer her away from preoccupation with her own ambitions and back to himself and her responsibility to care for him. Thus he states suddenly and with no apparent reason, 8 "My troublous dreams this night.doth make me sad" (I,ii,22). But Nell has interest in Gloucester 's dream only as an occasion for the telling of her own dream of the diadem. Eleanor can provide no comfort for Gloucester. He is forced himself to ask the significance of bis dream, a scene directly at odds with Lady Hotspur's urgent inquiry into the troubled dreams of her husband. Perhaps wise counsel from Eleanor about the future could have helped things go differently for Gloucester. But Eleanor continues in her refusal to share, to give and receive support, until the very end. Time after time she proves herself unable to accept Gloucester's advice or obey his commands. When she declares how she would act if she were a man, she rails not so much against a woman's place as she does against second place (I,ii,63). Gloucester's supporting and obedient role to the king shows that sex does not restrict the role of protector, second place. Eleanor has as much trouble accepting Gloucester playing the good wife to Henry, as she does accepting herself as like support to Gloucester. Only one role stands open for Eleanor, that of the lord and ruler who can act freely because he recognizes obligations to no one. She fails to see the strength or courage which the care and nurture of another human being require. Self- sufficiency is the sole resting place for strength in her opinion. By refusing the position of protector she has refused to provide any outside, supportive force through which her husband might reflect upon his relationship to her and the world. Eleanor has declined to extend to Gloucester an off er of friendship through which he may know that there is another who see the world as he does. Through her own ambitions, Eleanor has excluded herself completely from the world of her husband. She has fortified herself against ever having to unders t and him, believe him, and believe in him. Eleanor stubbornly persists in excluding and isolating herself . She continues to stand alone as the single uncommitted "I" throughout the ordeal of her public penance and banishment. Even in the face of such tenacious self - absorption Gloucester never completely abandons his wife . He refuses to pass judgement upon her in public when she is not present , saying , "And for my wife , I know not how it stands . " (II,i,186) At her tr ial he adds no personal condemnation to that of the law: "Eleanor, the law, thou seest, hath judged thee. I cannot justify whom the law condemns." (II,iii,15) Once again Gloucester turns to his responsibilities as Protector to provide the guiding principle by which to govern his actions. A protector's main concern must always be to obey the law and so he urges Eleanor . He believes that as long as he remains loyal, true and innocent he remains beyond the reach of his enemies. When Eleanor pushes him to interfere on her behalf he urges her to understand the danger she would place him in, and counsels her to display the patience of a Lady Hotspur. Yet Eleanor cannot tolerate Gloucester's stance , which she sees as timid and weak . While her punishment is bad , it would not be so bad if Gloucest e r would only use it as an occasion to reaffirm by violence or dispensation her special status as "Duke Humphrey's wife and he a prince and ruler of the land . " (II,iv,42) In the long speech which begins around line 27 in scene iv of Act II, Eleanor finally recognizes that she and Gloucester live in different worlds. Faced wi t h the fact that she will never know her husband, she counsels him with the defeatist attitude of sarcasm "to stir at nothing until the axe of death hang over thee" and "to fear not thou until thy foot be snared nor never seek prevention of thy fo e s . " III , i v, 49& 56) Such bit ter i r ony r eveals the comple te lack of hop e i n Eleanor's life . Because her dignity depends entirely upon the opinions of others, Eleanor stands alone and is easily crushed . We are not surprised that a woman with a spirit completely dependent on public postur e has no capacity for enduring the humiliation of open penance . Eleanor can welcome her banishment and death, but never can she abide her shame before the giddy multitude t hat only yester day followed h e r chariot wheels as she rode in triumph through the s t reets . (II,iv,21) She has declined the love of her 9 �husband and in doing so has declined the necessary private sphere which could sustain· her through her ordeal. ·She does not understand why Gloucester must increase her punishment by coming to stand in the street alongside her (II, iv, 19). To Eleanor such an action proclaims only ignorance. She cannot understand her husband's willingness to risk public humiliation so that he can be with her. She would be 'perfectly happy if Gloucester agreed to love her from a distance. She asks only that he close himself up within his private room and nurture hatred toward her enemies (II, iv, 24). Eleanor does not see how such hating might well banish all love from Gloucester's heart. She does not properly value her marriage to Gloucester - exile, with its. imminent separation, does not disturb her. Historically, men have often perferred death to banishment, expatriation or disinheritance. This suggests the tremendous importance which personal relationships play in life. "Man liveth not by Self alone but in his brother's face". When you forfeit your relationship to the people who share your world you in effect forfeit your world, a loss greater by far than your life. Gloucester is unwilling to let go or distance himself from Eleanor. Though she walks bare-footed through the streets, to Gloucester she is still "~ punishe·d duchess" (II, iv, 7-emphasis my own) . He tries his hardest to let Nell know that in the commitment of marriage you are never cut-off, alone and exiled. Marriage is a covenant which binds two souls together. In that enjoining lies an affirmation which makes possible the fullest of lives. Gloucester can find no proper words t o end his life with Nell, for none exist. Tears are all he has to offer. They are all anyone has to off er when caught between the eternity of commitment and the finality of separation. Eleanor remains, embracing her shame - the only thing still with her. Since she has lost her ambition and with it her world, she puts her remaining energy into hanging onto her grief. · She creates a 'negative world' , a world that inverts all that has gone before. She clings now to shame as she did once to pride. Thus she does not need to establish a new place for herself, since both emotions center totally upon herself. Thinking of herself as nothing but reproach ( II,iv,96), she continues to live in total self-absorption, since both shame aii.d pride arise from judgements of a person's worth. The dynamics and focus of these two emotions do not differ from one another, except in so far as shame changes pride's approval into disapprova l . When Eleanor claims to be nothing more than reproach she does so without any trace of repentance. She has, in fact, changed little from the Eleanor we knew before. She remains unable to l ove or be comforted as beloved. She cries after Gloucester, "All comfort go with thee! " ( I I ,iv,87). She refuses both to forgive though the sheriff has asked outright for her pardon (II,iv,102), and to be forgiven by herself or others - "My shame will not shifted with my sheet" (II, iv, 107). She carries her shame upon her richest robes without an ounce of humility (II,iv,10 7). She stands in need of nothing outside herself which might serve as the starting point for such humbleness. She can extend no offer of gratitude to the sheriff for the gentle execution of his office, since she lacks an understanding of the duties and responsibilities which accompany any position. She continues to believe mistakenly that the individual is all and can determine himself totally. Since she lacks vision of s omething larger than the individual, she does not see how a person can be anything more than those things at which he succeeds or fails. Men are neither easily undone nor moved to vanity when they realize that their worth does not hang upon external deeds alone. Shakespeare forces us to accept the fact that Eleanor has not been redeemed t hr ough her shame. Gloucester, no doubt, had the possibility of such a change in mind when he placed Eleanor under the law and counselled the tolerant abiding of her public penance. He had hoped that the loss of her privileged status would turn her i n t he proper direction. His good-by to Eleanor is made more painful because he 10 knows that she has not been transformed. She has not accepted the possibility that the loss of her "Eden of gratified desire" could bring with it "covenants of redemption and the off er of a higher, more significant life" (L. Trilling). And so, perhaps, it is ' fitting that Eleanor, unable to but command, commands Sir John Stanley in her final lines, "Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison" (II,iv,110). This prison does not differ very much from the one of her own making in which she has always been and always will be confined. Such hopeless words do not mean that our examination of the dynamics of commitment has nowhere else to go. This examination of the importance of the question "Do you love me?" has left us with yet another important question: What can a person who cares do when he faces another who has through self - will alone placed himself beyond the reach of commitment? Gloucester entreats Sir John Stanley, "I pray you use her well" (II, iv, 82). He does not pray for change, but for acceptance: Gloucester accepts Eleanor as another human being who, no matter what, is entitled to be used well. Prospero displays this same recognition in his treatment of Caliban. Caliban's attempt to rape his daughter forces him to accept the fact that Caliban is beyond his help . Yet Prosperso continues to use Caliban well by providing him with the important life- sustaining tasks of carrying water and fetch~ng firewood. For Gloucester and Prospero such good use allows them to respond to those outside their help with something other than pity . Gloucester's refusal to condemn himself along with Eleanor reveals another important response to our second question. Commitment encompasses suffering, but it does not require one member to take on the guilt of the other. Gloucester refuses to share the guilt for Eleanor's punishment which Eleanor herself charges him with ; no r does he allow the members of King Henry's court to saddle him with the guilt of his wife's crime . Even the Queen implies that he may be to blame: "Gloucester , see here the tincture of thy nest, and look thyself be faultless, thou we rt best" (II, i, 182) . He responds by appealing to his love for king and country, and the commitment both car r y . "Madam , for myself to heaven I do appeal, how I have loved my king and commonweal." (II, i, 184) Gloucester def ends his innocence not by claiming to be perfect, but by claiming to be right intentioned. Just as he uses his love of country t o defend himself from this charge, so his love of Eleanor binds him to shar e her shame. When faced with the fact that Eleanor remains beyond his reach, Gloucester not only refuses to condemn himself but, equally important, he refuses to condemn Eleanor any further than the law requires . She is guilty, to be sure, but the acceptance of necessity in man's life entails the acceptance of ·error in man . Man was not meant to be come dependent on perfection as the only world suitable for him . To wish for such things above everything else leaves you forever isolated and disappointed . You will never be capable of seeing the importance of actions which attempt to make the world , not faultless, but only better . Gloucester's answer to the Queen shows that a man's personal dignity cannot hinge on living a life free f r om error . We all make mistakes ; ver y little of life goes on wi t hout them, but we should r emember that one act does not define a person . Lt is this which Eleanor forgets along with hono r and virtue (II,i , 188) . The accep t ance of man's imperfection is a necessary foundation fo r commitment, ye t such an acceptance does not carry with it a condoning of wrongdoing . Gloucester ' s commitment to Eleanor never rested on the perfection of the beloved . Serious commitments can withstand many errors , disagreements and abuses. Such things do not irr econcilably defile commitment , but rather form part and parcel of it . The wondrous nature of love is that we can love another even in his or h er impe r fections . Because Eleano r stands beyond Gloucester 's reach , his love is impo t ent . He can only hope that the natural cycle of t hings may heal her . Recognizing our limited 11 �It knowledge of the future, Gloucester's final counsel to Eleanor and to us is to stand firm against despair over what is to come. Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud, And after summer evermore succeeds Barren winter with his wrathful nipping cold; So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet. (II,iv,1) Longing for eternal perfection in this life ignores the necessity of the mixture of cares and joys which life brings. Winter must always follow summer, as clouds must sooner or later mar the perfect sky. Cares and joys form a part of life. Commitment's task lies not in eliminating or predicting them, but in accepting them. But we, as mortal men, have no summer to follow our barren winter. It is only with the possibility of a renewed commitment that for us the world may laugh again (II,iv,82). Remembering Jerusalem Christian Holland Fyodor Mikhailovi tch Dostoevsky, at Omsk in the Siberian wilderness, devoted four long years of his young life to hard labor and meditation upon the gospels and epistles of the early saints. Imprisoned with thieves and murderers, the persecuted and the outcast , Dostoevsky prayerfully read sacred tales telling of God's fatherly concern for the well-being of His forgetful, wayward, and covetous children, His forgiveness of our sins despite our fiendish desire to kill Him, and His splendid gift to us of salvation in the person of Jesus the Jew from Nazareth. Dostoevsky especially took to heart St. John's story about the wedding party in Cana, of Galilee, by the Lake of Genesareth, where Jesus changed water into wine so that every person present might be festive and happy. At first with trouble and at last with gladness Dostoevsky responded to God's messenger's voice cordially inviting him to sit down at the seat always reserved uniquely for him, Fyodor Mikhailovitch's place at the banquet table in the temple of the holy city of Jerusalem. Dostoevsky, like Don Quixote, a very special reader, by way of imaginative trust in God's saving word, came to seize upon opportunities for joy among his comrades even in the mines underground . The writer bore his cross beautifully. Hurrah for Dostoevsky! The Brothers Karamazov bears witness to the truth of the words which Dostoevsky read and lived in his cell, the cheerful tidings of Jesus the son of Mary . The Brothers Karamazov tells how a person's right relation to God, piety (eusebeia), alone determines his right relation to himself and his fellows in human conununity, righteousness (dikaiosune) . The Brothers Karamazov is a vast staging of the great drama of the human will which shows trust in God's promise rising up against denial of His mercy, acceptance of God's invitation holding sway over rejection of His ways, and openness to change standing strong beside hardness of heart . The Brothers Karamazov acknowledges the presence of Satan's destroying temptation and God's saving redemption of human beings in Skotoprignyevsk, Russia . The Karamazov brothers are true - to - life people, and I shall attend to their failings, struggles, and triumphs, which all have to do in one way or another with Jesus Christ. I hope and pray that nothing I shall say will make you take offense at him, "the bread of life, the well-spring of holiness, the giver of good gifts "(Prayer, St. Basil the Great). i. Apostasy Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov at the tender age of twenty four has already published numerous newspaper articles on street incidents under the pseudonym "Eye-Witness" and as many book reviews on a wide range of special topics under his own name . Ivan prides himself on his detachment and learning, his sticking to the facts and relating events just as they happen, his seeing things in focus from a Christian Holland, '.84, is currently living in a monastic community at Chevetogne, Belgium, studying the music , art, liturgy and theology of the Catholic Church, Orthodox and Roman . Christian is a pilgrim on his way to Jerusalem . u 13 �cannot run away from or deny his conscience without allying himself with Satan's entourage, without turning into a monster . Ivan's anger, grief, and despair come out into the open when he relates his collection of anecdotes on the suffering of innocents to his younger brother in the Metropolis Tavern. Our piling up of suffering upon suffering, adults murdering infants, parents inflicting abuse on their own children, is reason enough, according to Ivan, to re ject God's creation and tender of final peace and joy . How could God, whose fullness of being is self-giving love, create our world knowing that harmless and vulnerable children would be mercilessly tortured? How can He prepare for a feast of song and dance in eternity when even a single innocent child is to be beaten in time? Ivan accepts that God alone could have brought life into being, but he rejects His mysterious plan of salvation on the basis of its apparent utter absurdity. we have been created as a mockery. We are creatures with an inborn need to untangle the perplexing knots present in the world and in our nature, and we have not been granted the capacity to accomplish what is uniquely our task. Our limited, euclidean intellect yearns above all for justice and order yet at every turn meets only with violence and chaos. What shall we say? Are we going to cling to fairness, the source and center of human right, and still forgive the child- murderer? Ivan : "I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! ... the suffering of her tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive the torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, if they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and who would forgive? I don't want harmony . For the love of humanity I don't want it ... I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation even if I were wrong." Instead of looking for guidance from his elders and betters, people with more wisdom and toughness, Ivan stubbornly regards with repulsion the glaring ugliness of newspaper clippings. He won't begin to comprehend God's will and way until he moves right up close to and touches the child's and the mother's anguish, until he enters into it but this he refuses to do. Ivan wrongly believes that he must abide alone and rern~in aloof in order to gain some knowledge of the truth; he mistakenly thinks that facts of themselves fall · miraculously together to. reveal the way things are· Yet it is not the falsity of his position that demands our attention so much as his unwillingness to feel what wretches feel. St. Paul: "I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my heart and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members . Wretched man that r am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom. 7:23-25). Sadly, Ivan does not turn to the psalmists in his sorrow. They are struggling with a concern which goes even deeper than the suffering of innocents: the suffering of the righteous, passio iusti: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all" (Ps. 34: 19) . Ivan speaks as though anyone who does approach and touch an abused child's pain will end up sharing his beliefs. He knows nothing of what it ~eans to be a person who endures persecution and still trusts that she is safely in the hands of the living God. The poor young girl whose parents beat her and bind her feels God with her even in the midst of her di.stress . Ivan does not have the ears to hear her prayers from the outhouse; he is only embittered by them. If Ivan would ·give his heart to a careful reading of certain Psalms alongside the event at Golgotha -- "O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by night, but find no rest" (Ps .22: 2) -- he might learn something about graciously bearing suffering even when faced with God-forsakenness. Jesus is the only person who has led a perfectly innocent and fully righteous life and in his anguish to the point of death, Alyosha finds a ready-to-hand answer ' . to Ivan's outc ry. Jesus the Son of God can "forgive everything, all and for all, because he gave his innocent blood for all and everything." This somewhat groping, distance. Although his own discipline is natural science, Ivan is quite well known and much talked about among literary groups, and to everyone's surprise he has even published a piece in one of the leading journals on the question of the ecclesiastical courts. Ivan would have the church gain total control over the judicial system. With clergymen presiding over secular as well as ecclesiastical cases, the criminal would no longer be able to appease his conscience by looking upon his wrongdoing as a transgression against men but not against Christ. Instead, he would have to face the horror of being accursed by church officials: 'anathema' • Ivan supports the transformation of the state into the church as a way to bring about "the honest adoption ..• of the idea of the regeneration of the criminal, of his reformation and salvation." He is desperately serious about liberating not only criminals but all human beings from affliction and oppression, from the weakness and sinfulness of our past, from the unspeakable miseries, injustices, and calamities which date back to Eve's and Adam's fall from God's grace. The narrator calls Ivan's article "an impudent, satirical burlesque," and there is some truth to that claim, but it does not take account of his grave concern for people's well-being. Although Ivan writes in direct opposition to the views of a le~rned churchman, he cleverly manages to find favor in the eyes of certain monks. Father Paissy and Father Iosif applaud Ivan's salvific plan without challenging him to be less abstract and showy. Only Father Zossima properly remarks that the church never rightly refuses a criminal the blessed sacrament, for his spiritual health depends upon the abiding presence in him of Jesus the healer and forgiver. St. Simeon Metaphrastes, a sinner, prays: "Enter into my members, into every part of me, into my very heart and soul. Burn up the thorns of all my sinning; cleanse my soul, sanctify my imagination; bind firmly togethe r my joints and my bones; illumine the five senses of my body; fix my entire being in the fear of You." (P rayer, St. Simon Metaphrastes) In response to Ivan's wrongheaded belief that the criminal's conscience can be easily manipulated and assuaged Father Zossima tells a story about a man named Mihail who once confessed to the holy listener a terrible crime. Fourteen years prior to his turnabout Mihail murderered the woman whom he loved shortly before her proposed marriage to a nobleman serving as an officer in the army. Mihail carried out the act with cunning and audacity enough to escape notice and direct the blame toward an unlucky servant, Pyotr. Being a man of strong will, Mihail almost succeeds in forgetting his act. He tries to avoid the past by marrying another woman. The opposite happens. The beauty of his wife and the innocence of his children continually remind him of his own vileness and unworthiness . The more others respect him, the more he detests himself . Mihail, haunted by blood, resolves that only confession will bring healing and peace to his soul, but he is afraid of the evil memory he will plant in his children's hearts. Zossima assures him that God will care for the children and that he must accept responsibility for his crime. Mihail finally admits to his guilt at his birthday celebration . Everyone thinks him mad, and no one believes him. Soon after he dies reconciled to God, to himself, and to his family and friends. Zossima was sent to cite St. Paul at the crucial moment : "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:31). St. John Chrysostom's choir sings: "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for conscience' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Thi rd Antiphon, Mass of the Cat_echumens.; Divine Liturgy). Some day close at hand Ivan will have to endure fierce punishment inflicted by his conscience's recognition of his sin, but for the time being he refuses to allow. that conscience wields such power, that a person who perpetrates a crime against an innocent will perhaps never forgive himself until he becomes aware that God has taken him into His gentle embrace. Ivan does not see that after a criminal act the evildoer needs to be forgiven quite as much as the victim needs to be wept over. The worst punishment a person can undergo com.es from within . The sinful human being 14 11 15 �II inadequate, and unhelpful response to Ivan's down-to-earth pain sounds ·like a parody of Father Zossima's dictum: "all are responsible to all for all and everything." A novice-like, jwnbled theological line is all that Alyosha can come up with. It is the only option left open to him by Ivan's obnoxiously argumentative speech. Ivan's story entitled "The Grand }:_~q'l!isi tor", which is intended partly to cast scorn on the saving efficacy of Jesus' self-sacrifice, instead reminds Alyosha of the Christ he knows and cares for, the Christ who is close to his heart, the Christ who walks through the pages of the gospels doing nothing but good things for whoever puts their trust in him and his Father. Ivan's grandiose and motionless poem in prose (the Grand Inquisitor ) has as its deepest concern a question quite simple and close to the human heart: why and how are we supposed to go about showing care and love for our friends and neighbors? Ivan presents Alyosha with a Cardinal of the Roman church in sixteenth century Seville during the Spanish Inquisition. The Cardinal claims to know what love is all about and to endure great hardships while carrying out heroic acts of virtue for the benefit of mankind. He burns heretics at the stake for the same devilish reason Stalin wiped out the faithful, to obliterate any imposition or opposi ton to hi·s salvific plan. The questions are always the same: Why should human beings have to suffer and go hungry?· Are there not a few powerful and ingenious enough to bring order, peace, and happiness to humankind? Force the masses to forget their empty prayers and foolish songs of praise and won't we be on the r oad to blessedness? Look around! What could be more certain than God's lack of concern fo r us? Why not curse Him, call Him a fantasy, and set to the more urgent work of saving ourselves? Why wait around for God's kingly rule in heaven when we can have our own blissful reign on earth? St. Paul announces that God's glory will be fully made manifest only after the coming of the great Gainsayer , the Anti- Christ, whose favorite disciple is the Grand Inquisitor: "Let no one deceive you in any way; for the day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition who opposes and exhalts himself against every so - called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God" (2 Thess. 2: 3-4 ) . The Roman Cardinal claims to be an almighty knower: one who knows what is best for the rabble who are too weak and ignorant to take care of themselves. Bringing light into the pitch-black dungeon in which he has imprisoned Jesus, "the true light that enlightens every man" (Jn. l: 9 ) , the Inquisitor speaks "openly of what he has thought in silence for ninety years." He is convinced that his power and experience are indubitable signs of wisdom far beyond what ordinary men possess. With assumed authority he argues for his so-called right to control totally their lives and their destiny. Having lived the better part of his life as a monk in the wilderness, after the example set by John the Baptist and the early desert Fathers, the Inquisitor has given prolonged meditation to the sayings and doings of Jesus and his disciples as they are related to us in the writings of the early saints. The Cardinal understands the salvific scheme which is at the core of Jesus' message and the apostles' ministry, and he knows it's all wrong. Evagrius, a fourth century writer on the experiences of pious men in the desert, talks abo ut the temptatio ns and tribulations which a monk must pass thro ugh on his way to spiritual wholeness. Living apart from the noises and dist r actions of public life so that he may better attend to the whisperings of his heart, the hermit's long-suffering and arduous task is to grow to discern which voices are God's angels and which voices are Satan's demons . When the devil comes to test him he respo nds with a passage from Holy Scripture especially chosen to combat that temptation. This practice has as its theological foundation Christ's citation of Deuteronomy in response to Satan's wilderness temptations (Matt. 4:1-11; Lk. 4:1-13). After receiving the gift for discerning voices and after repeatedly citing the appropriate responses in order to resist those that are evil, the hermit is near enough to God to 16 become almost invulnerable to the dark whisperings of his heart . The Father being with him and the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, the monk is set free from sin and made a slave to righteousness (Rom . 8:12). For: "Where the Spirit of the Lo rd is, there is freedom" ( 2 Cor . 3 : 17) • Ivan refers to this desert tradition when he asks the devil of his nightmare: " ..• did you ever tempt the holy men who ate locusts and prayed seventeen years in the wilderness ... ?" The devil : "My dear fellow, I've done nothing else . One forgets the whole world and all the world, and sticks to one such saint, for he is a very precious diamond . " The Grand Inquisitor's term in the desert was a good deal longer than seventeen year s , yet he confuses questions with temptations and he cannot discern good from evil voices . The Cardinal reveals the fruits of his prolonged meditation in the context of Christ's desert temptations : "For in those three questions the whole subsequent history of mankind is, as it were, brought together into one whole, and fo r etold, and in them are unified all the unsolved historical contradictions of human nature . " The Inquisitor does not find in the gospels truthful stories which offer him new possibilities for living and being glad among his fellows; instead, he finds a g r and scheme which sums up in a closed and compact formula the subterranean ways of human beings . The fishermen and tax- collecters who wrote the gospels astoundingly surpass the eldest sages and most renowned philosophers with their ability to embody in a single chapter the great riddle of human being. Sadly , the Inquisitor cannot open his heart to simple story- telling, an activity which seeks to enliven mysteries in all their depth and does not anxiously strive to explain away hidden things with an easy, clear and distinct category . The Cardinal's condemnation of Jesus is based on his conviction that Jesus truly loves only the elect, those fit for the eremitical life, the proud and strong, leav i ng the humble and weak to fend for themselves and endure an eternity of sorr ows . Je s us refuses to give up heavenly bread -- "every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Dt . 8 : 3) -- in order to provide all people with sufficient earthly bread by way of s ome spectacular marvel . Jesus allows simple, troubled folk -- you and me -freely to cho o se him as our spiritual nourishment -- "he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (Jn . 6 : 56) -- rather than stomping on our wills by giving us an indubitable sign of his divinity, feeding us like a herd of cattle . The Inquisitor has no patience with Jesus' way of going about doing things . How indeed can downcast and downtrodden human beings who are in no position to feed themselves and their children, the poor who are always with us and the hungry who are dying every minute of every hour of every •.• how can such destitute and despondent people receive the benefits of the words which God has spoken through His prophets and holy men? How can Jesus in all fairness expect a mother on the verge of starvation, looking despairingly upon her children's bloated stomachs, to turn aside from wrongdoing and seek after righteousness? We might answer by saying that God has provided us with earthly bread in abundance, and only due to our inability to get along with one another is the wheat grown in one country held back from the needy in other parts of the world . But a brief story hits closer to the mark. Mother Teresa of Calcutta tells how she was once pa's sing through a remote region of India when she suddenly came upon a village filled with starving families. Immediately she sent trucks out for food and medical supplies. While her helpers were away she sat and talked with a mother of four children in her broken-down shanty . The trucks returned and came directly to Mother Teresa . She set out food for this family before moving on to the others . But something peculiar happened. The mother told her children to wait· and not to eat . She left the hut . She was away for a short while and came back with the other members of the village. Only when they were gathered together in conununity, after offe r ing up prayers of thanksgiving, only then did they begin to eat . The Cardinal accuses Jesus of evildoing by treating ordinary people as if they we r e strong enough to hold fast to thei r faith and obey the law written on thei r 17 �The Inquisitor condemns Jesus also on the grounds that he refuses to establish himself as the supreme authority at whose feet all people can knowingly bow down with reverence: "The craving for community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time." Religious wars and persecutions come to be on account of our lack of a common figure upon whom we can all agree as being worthy of adoration. Jesus had the opportunity to relieve our chief misery by throwing himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, by being saved by God's angels, in order to prove beyond doubt that he alone is the Son and that he alone sits at the Father's right hand. In response to Satan's test Jesus says simply: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God" (Dt. 6:10). Jesus does not withstand Satan's temptation as a sign for men to worship whatever or whomever they please. Jesus believes that there is no living being worthy of our praise and adoration except He who alone is good (Jn . 17:25-26), the Father. Being without concern for his own identity, for recognition as a person in his own right apart from his Father, Jesus is never anxious about asserting who he is so that others may behold him with wonder and amazement: "I have come in my Father's name" (Jn . 5:42); "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (Jn . 14:11;10:38). The Inquisitor bitterly rebukes Jesus for never performing a miracle on demand in order to legitimate his mission on earth. St. Mark tells how Jesus is asked for a miracle from heaven not for the sake of doing good for someone immediately in need, bu.t in order to place people in awe of his power, so that God might be understood as the One who is undeniably and vividly present supporting Jesus' activity, the One who confirms and endorses his ministry (Mk. 8:11-12 ) . Everyone around to witness some wonder-working sign might think for sure that this person Jesus has been sent by God as His special agent. Without any other criteria by which to judge -- his teachings or his holiness -- all could knowingly fall down at his feet and worship him as the Most High. st. Mark is careful to show that Jesus declines all such offers to prove himself before men. Jesus knows that people without faith in his father's abiding presence might just as easily conclude from a miracle-sign that he is Beelzebub's agent (Mk . 3: 22) • During his lifetime Jesus remains decidedly inconspicuous. He wishes us to accept him for who he is on the basis of trust alone, "the free verdict of the heart." The cardinal is greatly dismayed that Jesus did not come down from the cross at Golgotha when the crowd reviled and mocked him, saying: "He saves others; he cannot save himself" (Mk . 16:31). Jesus has the dignity of the two thieves at heart. Both have the capacity freely to accept and acknowledge Jesus' saving presence, but only one is good: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Lk . 23:42). The good thief is the only person of whom we can assuredly say: 'Truly, that man is in paradise' (Lk . 23:43). The Cardinal does not recognize the dignity of the thieves' wills. He boasts that a person who can endure years in the wilderness need not witness miracles, but the ordinary person longs for them with all his soul. The Inquisitor deceives himself in believing that he can endure Christ on the cross. Just as ordinary looks of ordinary people do not drive home an outright worthiness, or show evidence of love freely given through faith, so Christ looks nothing like God on the crG>ss. The Inquisitor is taken in by looks on both accounts. Al though he would be the last to admit it, he desperately wants Jesus to descend and show himself as God. The Cardinal cannot bear the burden of his own freedom, the free verdict of his own heart. There are signs that Ivan also needs Christ to come down from the cross. When he abruptly takes leave of his brother outside the tavern, Alyosha notices that he walks with a sway and that his left shoulder is raised higher than his right. On the Byzantine Cross the footrest is slanted so that the raised right side symbolizes the thief who affirms Jesus and the lowered left side the thief who denies him. Ivan belongs to the crowd of those who say: "Are you not the Christ? save yourself and us" (Lk . 23 :3 9). But there is hope. When Alyosha takes note of hearts even when faced with death. The saints and martyrs showed themselves able to follow Jesus out of fear and to serve him out of love, despite being persecuted and tortured, but the common man, according to the Inquisitor, is "weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious ••• ever sinful and ignoble." It may be true that a Russian soldier in Asia "refused to deny his faith, and was tortured, flayed alive, and died, praising and glorifying Christ," but the rest of us won't stand for deprivation and affliction. We shall do everything in our power to avoid a confrontation with pain. If need be, we shall abandon Jesus for sausage and vodka. Suffering must be held at a distance. Full of anger and spite, the Inquisitor accuses Jesus of misunderstanding human beings in a profound way, considering us capable of imitating him when we cannot even keep from destroying curse 1ves and one another. "By showing him so much respect, thou didst, as it were, cease to feel for him, for thou didst ask far too much from him -- thou who hast loved him more than thyself." This is the wickedest and wretchedest fact that history gives us: Jesus did not know how to love ordinary people. He must therefore be of the devil. The Cardinal suggests that Jesus is himself the great Gainsayer who thrives on nefarious practices: "And so unrest, confusion, and unhappiness -- that is the present lot of men after thou didst bear so much for their freedom!" We only grudgingly persuade ourselves of our responsibility for our sins; we allow our wrongdoing to pass by unacknowledged; we go about idly pretending that our actions have no influence on our fellows. In short, we forget Jerusalem. Why in God's name does Jesus command us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, and to love others as He loves us (Jn.15 :1 2)? The Inquisitor accuses Jesus of being a criminal: "I shall condemn Thee and burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics." The Cardinal's strength and pride led him as a young man to make great demands on himself, living in poverty and solitude, hoping that wilderness prayer would bring him close to God and lead him to do His will. But the Inquisitor strayed from God, opposing His will by attending dutifully to evil voices, saying: 'You are holy and upright; you kneel and fast by seasons and years; you see the light; why isn't everyone else just like you, a model of saintliness?' In the desert the Inquisitor became convinced that only mighty heroes can endure the sight of Christ's saving agony at Golgotha . Father Ferapont's heavy chains, fierce discipline, lengthy fasts, battles with devils, and proud self-righteousness make him one of the Cardinal's chosen. Attending mass, partaking in the eucharistic celebration, the central life-receiving activity of the monk, is too commonplace for Father Ferapont. He must be always on the watch for demons, granting no one forgiveness and accusing everyone of sin. Regarding Ferapont as a foolish, crazy, religious idiot, who cannot do anyone harm, is a shade misguided. His hatred of Father Zossima and his desire to bring about the saintly man's downfall are significant threats to others' proper understanding of righteousness. People are inclined to bow down before Ferapont -"This is the one who is a saint! This is the one who is a holy man!" -- and turn away from Father Zossima. When Ferapont falls to the earth and waters it with his tears, he is not embracing God's creation and he will not rise to bring forth good fruit for the gladness of others. He is instead passing judgement on the Elder's premature corruption: "My God has conquered! Christ has conquered the setting sun!" Father Ferapont yields to the most challenging temptation facing the hermit yearning for wholeness of being and purity of heart. After achieving a full command of worldly voices, this ascetic comes to see himself as a strongman who has truly fulfilled Christ's wish for him to be perfect. Exhal ting himself and casting despising glances at those among us who grasp needily for basic comforts, Ferapont is in danger of being like the Inquisitor, a misanthrope, one who expects from ·others more than they can accomplish and so ends by hating them. The Cardinal's complaints against Jesus all recoil back on himself. 18 II 19 �his disfigured brother, Ivan has his back turned, so that his shoulders and the footrest look identical. If Ivan bears his cross well, he may some day find himself in the hands of the living God. Jesus by upholding freedom has paved the way for rebellion, for the clever people in league with Satan who know what is just and best for all, for the Inquisitor and his mighty co-workers who will finish building the Tower of Babel which the weak have begun but cannot complete. These master builders have yielded to Satan's last temptation of Christ in the desert by falling down and worshipping Beelzebub, the Dragon, the great Gainsayer, who first caused the angels to defect, then Adam, and finally the whole people of God (Schillebeeckx' Jesus: An Experiment in Christology, pg. 277). The Cardinal and his brethren are setting out to rule the kingdoms of the earth "with all power and pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception" (2 Thess. 2:9). Both Satan and the Inquisitor wish above all for mankind's earthly happiness and will pay any price to achieve it, including the annihilation of all that is sacred. The heroic proclamation of the Cardinal and the ecclesiastical rulers is that they are doing God's work, so that the weak can rest assured in their conviction of an afterlife filled with t he beatific vision. The strongmen will suffer greatly knowing that it is all a lie, but the ignorant masses will be blessed with a life which is "a child's game, with children's songs and innocent dance." The rulers will bear the burden of people's sins, taking God's place in the temple and acting proudly as saviors of one and all. Accepting without question this clear division among human beings between the few mighty heroes and the many weak sinners, the Inquisitor believes that he and his cohorts can take full possession of men's freedom and force them to be obedient to "a mystery which they must follow blindly, even against their conscience". Earthly bread, salved consciences, and Caesar·' s sword are the conditions necessary for the fulfillment of Ivan's dream of a church-governed state . The progressive establishment of paradise on earth has been going on, according to our young intellectual, ever since Pope Stephen III accepted the ownership of vast property from King Pepin the Short of the Franks in 756 shortly before the last ecumenical council recognized by the Orthodox church in 787. Father Zossima, who keeps an ivory Roman Catholic cross among his ikons , would say that by perverting the representation of the true God and by pretending to be his faithful servant the Inquisitor is in fact establishing hell on earth. If human beings are deprived of their ability to offer up their love freely, they are right away placed in the burning pit. The Cardinal will set the world afire by laying down laws to which submission is absolute and which provide a concrete foundation for totalitarian order.· In all his wisdom the Cardinal naively dreams of determining how the weak ought to live, what they ought to be and to do and to say, how many children they ought to bear, and what kind of clothes they ought to wear. By returning to the strictness of the law the great Tyrant hopes to contrive a way of correcting Jesus' mistaken work, a way of offering salvation to people not at the end of the ages in the celestial land of Jerusalem, but here and now in this life . The remarkable boldness of the Inquisitor's salvific plan consists in his claim that he can justify his action before God on the day of the Lord. His apparent love for human beings is of such heroic stature he is willing to sacrifice himself, to undergo the torments of hellfire, s o that t he wea k c a n liv e in blissf ul i llusion , t a king no responsibility for their evildoing and being deceptively self-satisfied. The Grand Inquisitor will never succeed in hoarding all human beings into one heap under one law by denying us the dictates of our consciences . God has written His law on our hearts and given each of us a conscience uniquely created to bear witness to that law (Rom . 2:15): "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Dt. 6:4; Lev . 19:18; Mk. 12:29; Lk. 10:27; Rom. 13:18; Gal. 5:14). My 20 conscience may lead me to follow God's law in a way different from yours, and your conscience may lead you to follow His law in a way different from mine. I might sing holy songs and you might work in a soup kitchen, or I might dig ditches and you might lead the union . But as long as we are giving testimony to the law, our ways are good. we shall never condemn or damn one another because we shall trust one another. I shall never feel compelled to pry into your heart if I trust that you are bearing witness to God's law as well as you are able according to the dictates of your conscience, and fo r the same reason you shall never .feel compel~ed to. pry i~to mine . God loves each of us in our particularity and the gift of conscience is a sign of that love . His love for me is different from His love for you because the drama of my will is different from the drama of your will •. My dou?ts, anxie~ies, and fea:s are not yours , and yours are not mine. We both require special attention, but not in the same way. The Inquisitor's hardness of heart will not allow him to b~ op~n to the possibility that God bears a special relation to each and every person in his or her particularity . He denies that with our capacity to accept God's saving help e a ch and every human being possesses an unshakable dignity. Ivan Joins in partnership with the Cardinal when in his other poe~, "The Geological cataclysm", he rejects God and takes up the theme of the exhaltation and autonomy of certain powerful and brilliant people. Ivan i~ obsessed with the. noti~n of standing alone apart from God and his fellows. He thinks that by asserting his independence he is being fully himself, but he ends up showing everyone with ~yes to see that he is desperately lonely and needy. When he sees Alyosha outside the Metropolis Tavern, Ivan yells out that he is upstairs in a room of his own, isolated from the lowlife. It turns out that Ivan is in the same room with the other people in the tavern, with drunkards and billiard-ball players; he is only separated from them by a screen. Ivan tries to persuade himself that he is removed . from and elevated above others in an absolute and definitive way. In truth he is merely setting up a precarious screen between himself and others which can easily be ~n?cked ove r . Ivan must learn the hard way that being a person does not mean attainin~ a divine state through the human intellect . Being a person means first acknowledging his dependence on God for being and for all good things and then acknowledging his necessary relation to others in human community, recognizing them for who they are and being eager to be recognized by them for who he is, Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov, not some false . and imaginary superman. Ivan's writings reveal a good deal about him but it would be wrong to judge him on this basis alone . It is almost always the case that what a person feels most pressed to say or to write is what is closest to his heart. "The Gra~d I.n:ru~sitor'!and "The Geol ogical c at ac l ysm"depictivan's v i sion of a n apocalypse , an end t i me ~hen ~11 contradictions will be untangled, all absurdities will make sense, all confusion will be clarified, all sorrow will turn to joy, all suffering will be fruitful. Paradoxically, the apocalypse brought about by Ivan's god-like heroes conceals the truth from people instead of revealing it to _ them. Ivan has spent hour after hour poring over the gospels and Paul's letters, the book of ?aniel and. Revelatio~, but as in his reading of Christ's temptations he seems to miss the point by anxiously searching for categories. Ivan wants keys to ~nlock the riddles of the cosmos so that he can know just how everything fits together, just where everything belongs, just who people are, what human nature is, what our destiny is, what. our s~ffering accomplishes. He cannot hold back and patiently wait to see how things will turn out. we ought not make Ivan's mistake when we try to understand him. We have a nasty tendency to put him into the box of intellectual pride, and leave him there, as if we know who he is and what he is all about. Yet are we not, like Ivan, repulsed by suffering? And do we not share his dream to make suffering go away once and for all? Isn't this repulsion and this dream a major source of Ivan's willfulness and pushiness and impatience? The nagging dilemma facing such a one as Ivan, the 21 �intellectual par exellence, is: Can my grandiose, brilliant , p r osaic thoughts be made consistent with a healthy way of going about living? If what I believe to be true does not make sense in practice, why on earth do I believe what I believe? ii. Satanic Drama Through their eloquent flow of words both speakers wish to be recognized -- the Inquisitor by Jesus and Ivan by Alyosha -- as simple human beings who are in anguish, not as sophisticated intellectuals who offer a convincing argument. That the speakers themselves would refuse to admit this is, sadly, only further evidence of its truth . Wherever the devil is at work, appearances deceive and complexities abound . Ivan desperately wants to befriend his brother and even to be healed by him, yet he goes out of his way to hurt Alyosha by uttering blasphemous words whose effect could be to turn him away from Christ . Ivan plays the r ole of tempter while the Cardinal plays the role of accuser. Providentially , Alyosha and Jesus both know that the speakers need more attention than what is being spoken about. They are pres~nt to help heal the wounds deep in the speakers' hearts, not to argue in a trifling manner about high-sounding topics in order to get the better of their rivals. Even in our most ordinary conversations , those far less passionate than Ivan's and the Inquisitor's, do we not say things that we do not mean to say but feel compelled to say on account of a similar wound deep in our hearts? This testifies to our fallen condition, to the activity of Satan and his entourage in our midst, whose whole purpose is to capture slyly or violently holy Jerusalem . How crucial it is on these all -too-frequent occasions, when the black whisperings of our hearts find an angry voice , to have on hand a listener who recognizes that this is what is happening: someone imaginative enough to put himself in our place: someone insightful enough to ignore the content of our harsh , stupid words in order to attend to the true speech of a gesture of our hand, a tone of our voice, or a glance of our eyes. Do we not treat one another too often as machines which speak false words instead of persons who say what is not meant? And do we not judge one another on the basis of such treatment? Ivan and the Cardinal are favored to have listeners with places in their hearts for others' griefs . Ivan acknowledges the presence of grace in his midst, saying: "If I am really able to care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them, remembering you, Alyosha." Ivan's yearning for the sticky green leaves, springtime, and the blue sky show that God has blessed him with love of life and joyfulness . Yet on account of his ongoing frantic search for fonnulas , for a neat ittle box in which he might lay to rest the horrors and calamities of the world, Ivan tends to deny his thirst, the source and center of his human being . Alyosha's awareness of the importance of loving "with one's inside, with one's stomach" leads him to command Ivan to relax his struggle with the meaning of life and to "love life, regardless of logic .•. it must be regardless of logic, and it's only then one will understand the meaning of it." Alyosha's simple words hit closer to home than Ivan's grand words. Truly, we enter into the mystery of being alive by going about doing things with freshness and gladness: hiking in the woods, cooking for friends, playing Mozart sonatas, greeting strangers, spreading hope, in short, doing God's will . Ivan's difficulty is that he has to observe coldly the meaning, he has to factualize it, before he can enter into the act of living . He stubbornly refuses to believe that acceptance of grace, bowing to God's creative saving activity, must go hand in hand with belonging to any mystery. We cannot solve life's mystery. It is not a puzzle. we can, however, belong to it, leap into it by singing and dancing, and suffering. God being the source of life, a person can peaceably let things be by trusting in His goodness. Pathetically, Ivan is prevented from recognizing God's heedfulness because of His 22 hiddenness, and so he recklessly goes around imposing his own will on others and his own categories on the world, dead to hope and charity. Dmitri is referring to more than Ivan's closedness when he call him "a tomb." Ivan: "I want to travel in Europe ••. yet I know I am only going to a graveyard ••• precious are the dead that lie buried there .•• ! know I shall fall on the ground and kiss those stones and weep over them ••• I shall steep my soul in emotion." Jesus tells a parable about a sower who goes about sowing his seeds in abundance. He sows his seeds all around regardless of the ground they fall upon, so that some farmer standing nearby might laugh at him for his apparent carelessness. Some seeds fall on rocky ground, others among thorns: some fall on dry, infertile soil, others on rich, moist soil. Ivan will fall as a seed on rocky European ground, watering the stones with his tears. It is scarcely possible for such a seed to bring forth fruit. Ivan is himself the stony ground who does not nurture the growth of the seeds of grace that are implanted in him time and time again. He betrays his native Russian soil by setting himself apart from and against God, the Holy Trinity. Instead of striving to be like the Russian peasant woman who with simple faith lights candles at church in remembrance of Christ's sacrifice and in acknowledgement of His Spirit's divine presence, Ivan wishes to steep himself in the memory of European geniuses, some of whom tried to kill God with their bludgeonous words and to enforce their salvific rule on men with their satanic wills. The Russian peasant woman's emotion is wholesome; her tears bring life to the goodness of her heart. Ivan's emotion is troublesome; his tears inflict injury on the goodness of his heart and seek to bring about its death. Trapped in the pit of self-laceration -- our hideous tendency to destroy ourselves just to feel something vibrant -- Ivan is burdened by a "great grief". He sways between belief and disbelief, hope and despair, love and hate, life and death: he is torn between God and Satan, pious humility and titanic pride. Ivan cannot decide whether he is going to head for Europe to join the ranks of the almighty knowers, Satan's crowd correcting Jesus' work, or whether he is going to remain in his homeland and yield to the simple cheerfulness of his native soil . Father Zossima, the great reader of souls, addresses Ivan's unhappy uncertainty and indecision: "You know that is the peculiarity of your own heart and all its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who has given you a lofty heart capable of such suffering; of thinking and seeking higher things, for our dwelling is in the heavens. God grant that your heart will attain the answer on earth, and may God bless your path." Ivan, aware of the presence of grace and holiness in the person of Father Zossima, "rose from his seat, went up to him, received his blessing and kissing his hand went back to his place in silence." The "finn and earnest" look which comes on Ivan's face after this his most open-hearted gesture, is a sign that he may some day gain "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb . 11: 1) . Ivan may never fully accept God's saving help, but he most certainly will never reject it out of hand. Pe,rhaps he will gaze upon the beauty of repentance, will raise up his dead, his peasant simplicity and gladness, in the future, but for the time being all that he sees is ugliness and degradation. The image of his father's vileness and buffoonery is always present to · Ivan as a warning not to thirst too strongly for too long. He will dash his cup to the ground at age thirty for fear that his quest will no longer be urgent and his passion will degenerate into mere sensuality. Loathing his father's reckless debauchery, Ivan condemns him as a man who has no attachment to higher things. The portraits of the bishop and the prince which hang on his father's living-room wall are a farce and a mockery. The old man lacks all nobility. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov's words and deeds attest to the activity of Satan's disciples in our world, those uproariously hideous beings who wreak havoc at every opportunity, who give free play to their insatiable desire for devastation, who seek to destroy all that is good and noble and all that makes people cheerful and happy, 23 �all that is beau tiful, ail that is God 's doing, f o r the v ery reason t h at it is s uch . Fyodor was devilishly drawn t o I v an's mo t her b y her yout h ful b eauty a n d i nnoce nt piety . An orphaned girl of sixteen , t o rme nted b y her benefactre ss, Sophia looked t o Fyodor f o r affection and stability when he rescued her from the general's widow a nd e loped with her. Instead, after Ivan 's birth a year later, Fy odo r, with t otal disregard f o r family life, began to act out the part of a "le c herous fien d" a nd "vicious prof l igate." Under the influence of lustful demons Fyodor h o sted o r g ies and c arnivals, b rin ging whores and clowns into the home o f the timid and g ent le So phia, who at the time still had Ivan at her breast. Having been "kept in terror from her c hildhood" by the steady work o f Satan's demo ns, Sophia, exhausted a nd frighte n ed, breaks under their destroying power. They enter ' into her and show themselve s in her "terrible fits of hysterics." Fyodo r's grotesq ue revelry, his unwillingness t o offer kindness and love to his own wife, finally drives her to her grave at the t e n d er age o f twenty-four. The inhabitan ts of Skotoprigny evsk are at a l o ss as to why I v an h as retu r ned t o his h ometown i nste ad o f going o ff to Europe t o swear an oath of allegiance to Satan's salvific plan. One hidden reason might . be Ivan's remembering that at his a ge h is mother died in this village. Ivan may hav e a subterranean desire t o take ve ngeance o n his father. He is filled with h o rrib le memo r i es dating b ack to his i n fancy, which, unbeknowst to him, smear hatred in his s o ul and find a bitter voice in his insulting name for Fyodor and Dmitri: "reptiles." Ivan lashes out at the suffering o f inno cents from afar. Now he is righ t up clo se t o one of the t o rturers. What will h e do? Allow his brother t o devour his father? Ivan sees an angel in Father Zossima and a devil in Fyodor, and like Ferapont, he chooses to concern himself with the fiend i n stead o f the seraph . Fyodor is called by the narrator a Roma n o f the decadent perio d. At t h at time it was customary to stage the shameful actions of the pagan gods as a form o f dramatic worship. The plays showing the gods raping and pillaging, killing and stealing , were, sur prisingly , not an offence but a propitiation . The devils' own crimes were used as material for celebrating their praises . Satan's followers "used their influence even to sow and cherish profligacy, by appointing that deeds truly or f a lsely ascribe d to them b e published to the people by means o f theatrical exhibitions, and by gratuitous ly fanning the flame of human lust with the breath of seemingly divine approbation" (St. Augustine's City of God, III) . Taking delight in their evildoing, these malignant and deceitful spirits---even today whisper tempting words which tickle our ears and bring pleasure to our imaginations. Fyodo r pays homage to this crowd of demons by going about playing r idiculous parts, telling stor ies of his own humiliation, reveling in his own disgr ace , and parading "his woes with embellishments . " When a comic role is up fo r grabs, Fyodor, desperately t r ying to make · himself agreeable, is always prepared to make himself the object of laugh ter. Miusov nicknames Fyodor 'Aesop' in response to his fables and 'Pierrot' in respo nse to his clownishness. Father Zossima says that Fyodor plays the buffoon because he is deeply ashamed of himself and because he wishes to fulfill other people's expectations o f who he is, as if he were fixed and immovable with no capacity for change, as if making dumb jokes at rich men's tables were all he could do . Miusov anticipates that Fyodor will do o r say something scandalous and repul s ive at the monastery. He blushe s when he is associated with Fyodor and refuses to admit that Fyodor is his relation. M u s ov is i frightfully anxious about looking bad in the eyes of other s. Yet his perverse need to witness Fyodor being the buffoon he has sized him up to be takes precedence, so that he plays the fall guy for Fyodor j ust to confirm his own convictio ns about Fyodor's sottishn~ss, and ends by looking bad, which is what he wanted most t o avo id. Dev ils play cruel tricks aiding people in self-destruction. Father Zossima sternly ~omrnands Fyodor to stop lying t o himself about himself 24 because in so doing he b r ings violence upon himself . Devils s mile upon the fantastic s pectacle of a ma n g iving and r eceiving abuse with the utmost pleasure . Fyodor want s and needs a cceptance, affir ma t i on , and love, but he does not know how to communicate h is wan t s and needs to othe rs. He t r ies to get othe r s to join i n ·h i s sensuality so t hat everyone may e n ter into the dar kness toge t her . He tries to offe r to others the bene fit s o f h i s yea rs o f p r ofligacy because that is all he has to o ff e r. Fyodor h a s done n o t h i ng els e with his time . Now that he wishes to share his age- earned wi s dom with other s , what else can he do? When Father Zossima rep r imands him fo r lying , he is sever e, but all the same he has a soft gleam i n his eyes . He knows somethi ng Ivan does not : a pe rs on cannot r ightly be judged by his deeds alone . Be s ides being a dis r u ptive sot who a r ouse s contempt and loathing in other s , Fyodor i s a human b e ing with a c a pacity to wor k out his difficultie s and change h is ways . His mo st dest r uctive lie con s ists in pers uading himself that he is not f r e e, that h e is a buf f oon and the r e is no getting a r ound i t . Soon a f te r Father zossima rebukes Fyodor h e is conf r onted by anothe r per son engaged in the elabor a t e activity o f self - deceit , Mme . Hohlakov . She s peaks of he r l a ck of faith , oligopistis , a s king fo r tangible p r oof that the soul is by n ature immor ta l; for her anguish and mise r y , she claims , are a consequence o f this uncertainty , the te r rible thought that the grave might be the end , nothingness . Fathe r zossima sees that the woman 's suffer ing is genuine , but not for a moment does he believe that what she says is the cause is the cause . A per son can no more be judged on the bas i s of wo r ds alone than on the basis of works alone . Mme . Hohlakov has to lear n that concer n with what happens to the soul after death can be idle a nd can p r event a human being from living fully in the present . She is not tormented by anything so removed and abstract as the state of the soul apart from the body . If she wer e , s he would worry more about the scalding pit than about eternal sleep . Yet even here the difficult thing t o face is not hellfi r e , but the awful fact that the life we lived was untr ue , that we did not r ightly understand anyone or anything, that we were b a d to othe rs and bad for others because we were just plain wrong about how to go about being good . Father Zossima tells a story about a pe r son created with the power of saying , "I am and I love," and set upon the ear th only to be g r anted an instant of "active living love . " But "that unhappy creature rejected the priceless gift, p r ized it and loved it not , s corned i t and r emained callous . " How unbearable for any human being to appea r befo r e Christ the Judge in His full glor y, the pe r son who loved us so much that he d i ed for us , without ever having made a sacrifice of living love for the sake of His name , without eve r having acknowledged the gi f t of the Holy Spirit and without ev er having t ake n t he opportunity to act kindly . Such a per son , when face to face with the Give r of the gift and with the human beings who loved him despite the f a c t that he despised their love , must suffer horribly . Now that he sees the beauty of repentance, of allowing himself to be made a living sacrifice by God's grace, it is too late to do anything about it . What greater sorrow than to have God say : 'What was uniquely yours to do you did poorly . ' And what g r eate r joy than to have Him say : 'What was uniquely you r s to do you did beautifully . ' Mme. Hohlakov has the powe r to say, "I am and I love , " as we all do, and only by r epeating this to herself over and over again , and doing something about it while she still has the chance, will she become convinced o f life after death . Father Zossima : " I f you a ttain t o perfect self- forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul . " Sadly, Ivan and Fyodor a r e not p r esent t o hear these words . Mme. Hohlakov , like Ivan , whom she r espects g re a t ly , and the Inquisitor, i s full of love fo r humanity , f ull of dreams of s elf- sac r if i ce and of saving t he afflicte d a nd g r ieved . Fa ther Zo s sima once k ne w a doctor, a cleve r man, who felt the s a me way , but d is cove r ed somet h i ng ami ss: " the mo r e I love humanit y in gene r al , the le ss I love 25 �of Christ in the desert. He cleverly tries to avoid responsibility for Fyodor' s death by asserting that he was only an agent putting Ivan's teachings into practice: "you murdered him; you are the real murderer; I was only your instrument, your faithful servant, and it was following your words, I did it." Ivan, being tempted at his weakest and most vulnerable state, almost believes that he has gained complete mastery over another human being, that he is fully responsible for Smerdyakov' s actions. Srnerdyakov may be sketched as the living embodiment of all that is base and ugly in Ivan, but he too is a person in his own right, and not merely Ivan's double. Thinking that he has imposed his will so fully on the sequence of events leading to his father's death that he alone is properly to blame, Ivan comes perilously close to denying srnerdyakov's personhood, to denying that Srnerdyakov has a will of his own. The Inquisitor for his part claims that he can take total control of his subjects, implying that they can give up their ability to choose freely in the knowledge of good and evil. He is wrong. As persons we must retain our capacity to repent of our evildoing; we must take responsibility for our own actions; conscience demands it. smerdyakov kills himself in part to punish himself for what he knows was his own doing. The Cardinal cannot even rule over Smerdyakov. The best he can hope to do is rule ove r a crowd. Devils support crowds and themselves make up a crowd. Angels and saints support communities and themselves form a community. Kolya Krassotkin is involved in the same satanic drama when he undertakes to shape the character of his younger friend (Ilusha) . Kolya is fully confident that he knows better than Ilusha what is good for the boy. He wants to whip Ilusha into top form and make a man of him. Wishing to avoid all 'sheepish sentimentality', he is cool in responding to Ilusha' s endearments. For the three days following his and smerdyakov's cruel trick on Perezvon Ilusha is downcast, dejected, and remorseful. Hugging Kolya and shaking all over, Ilusha confesses his crime. Kolya knowingly decides to keep silent around Ilusha and treat him contemptuously until he shows signs of a change in his ways. Kolya actually believes that what he is doing is for the boy's own good. He considers himself Ilusha' s master and savior. But Kolya does not know what he is doing, and he ought not to be so confident that he has the special gift of seeing into Ilusha's heart. Kolya is a merciless master when he is training Perezvon, but the dog takes a perverse delight in being abused. Dog s can be mastered by human beings, but human beings can be mastered only by God. Along with Ivan, Kol ya must learn to treat othe rs with dignity and respect and not go about imposing his own will on his friends as if he were their superior. Along with Fyodor, Kolya must control his fiendish tendency to make a big sensation, to do s omething theatrical just to stir up an effect, to be conspicuous. His need to be on stage prevents him from bringing Perezvon to Ilusha's bedside early enough possibly to save him from death. Both Ivan and Kolya are extremely bright and tend unfairly to use their intellects as show-pieces. While desperately grasping for superficial forms of attention, adoration and applause, they grow to mistrust their urge for tenderness and affection. Ivan and Kolya are gravely mistaken in making an unbridgeable division between the life of the intellect and the life of the heart . Pascal for his part would bring l' esprit de finesse under the domain of the heart, and set aside only l' esprit de- geometrie.-When he says, le coeur a ses raisons que raison ~ connait point, Pascal must mean, l'esprit de fin~se ~ ses-r~ons que ..!.' esprit de geometrie ne connait point. Likewise, when the commandment is given, "to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Hirn, to serve the Lord your God with all yo~r heart and all your soul" (Dt . 10:12), the intellect need not be mentioned because it is contained by the heart. So much of Ivan's suffering, his madness in particular, seems to arise from his sense of grandeur and superiority at being a thinker and not a feeler. Even when his heart is wholly present, as when he speaks about the suffering innocents, he does his best to hide it by giving a coldly detached account men in particular ... the more I detest men individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity." Ivan desperately wants to see suffering ameliorated and evil obliterated for the love of mankind, but he never will. At his worst moments he believes that he has the strength to accomplish this salvific task, yet he abhors his father's company and despises his brother's reckless abandon. What super-might does Ivan possess for the salvation of humanity when he cannot bring himself to be kind and giving even to the people closest to him in blood and heart? Ivan and the Inquisitor, and maybe Mme. Hohlakov, share a lofty disdain for the masses no matter what they say about their concern for the weak. By considering themselves superior to ordinary men, being independent and without sin, by considering themselves superior even to Jesus Christ, they make it impossible for themselves to enter into active love, sharing in conunonplace, dirty suffering, and touching feeble, infirm human beings. The Cardinal, Ivan, and Mme Hohlakov, for all their knowledge and wealth-perhaps because of it-are dreamers, not doers. Father Zossima has words for such people: " ... love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed in the sight of all. Men will give their lives if only the ordeal doesn't last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science." Dreamers cannot endure the prospect of giving and not receiving a proportionate measure in return. In the Inquisitor's salvific scheme the mighty insist on being glorified as saviors for their suffering; their own salvation consists in being worshipped. Heroes are people who make their great works manifest in public (andreis epiphaneis), which is why there is no such thing as a sanctified hero . The pious person who truly loves and serves God always wishes to be inconspicuous and never wishes to be adored. Certain saintly people make themselves seen and known, but only because their action redounds for the benefit of others . Mother Teresa inwardly possesses the true spirit of active love and outwardly has the business down to a science. The Inquisitor of Seville sits high on his throne ru ling as a cowardly tyrant with absolute authority over his subjects . Mother Teresa of Calcutta gets down on her hands and knees and bravely scrubs the floor as a servant to the sick and the dying. That woman's toughness makes Ivan look like a whimpering boy~ Mother Teresa's spiritual fruits arise from and are consistent with her trust in the teachings of Jesus Christ . Ivan, although he has the cunning and audacity to write "The Grand Inquisitor" and "The Geological Cataclysm", has not the conviction to put his teachings· into practice . The di vision between what he will allow in his words -- "everything is lawful" -- and what he will allow in his works causes a rift in his entire being . It comes as no surprise that Ivan the hypocrite eventually suffers from madness. He insists upon the stubborn nature of his euclidean intellect, which cannot withstand the absurd, yet he himself is a living paradox, saying things he doesn't really believe, things whose practical application would result in anarchy, nihilism, and parricide . It so happens that there is a literal-minded lackey around who will without hesitation carry Ivan's sayings into action, and Ivan must be held responsible for carelessly tossing his prosaic, elevated words in every direction and letting them fall on the receptive ears of smerdyakov . Ivan playfully amuses himself in conversation as if his words had no deep and .abiding influence on others; he makes outrageous claims just for an effect as if his brilliance were an excuse for his arrogance. What infuriates Ivan beyond all telling is that Srnerdyakov, a born slave, should consider himself to be in partnership with Ivan, the ubermensch, that his hyper- grandiose notions shoul~ be so easily put into practice by a low, cowardly dandy . Ivan must come to terms with the banality of · his own heroic ideal. His talk with a devil who is nothing but a tasteless bourgeois serves this purpose all right. smerdyakov tests Ivan with the simplest formulation of Satan's last temptation 26 II 27 �11 of what he has read in the newspaper. If only Ivan could come to see that the life of his heart and the life of his intellect are not all that different, and what difference there is requires the heart to take precedence over the intellect, then perhaps he would be at peace with himself and others. If Katya can show him warmth and kindness, and if Ivan can openly receive her warmth and kindness, maybe some day he will gladly hear Pascal's words: C' est le coeur qui sent Dieu et non la raison. Voila ce que c' est que la foi. DieU-seriSible au coelir;" non a--rai"sOil: ('Pensee #424). Neither can Smerdyako;t"S cleverness be separated entirely from the activity of his heart. Smerdyakov puts his whole trust in Ivan as in "God Almighty," saying: "What frightened me most was losing you and being without defense in all the world." Smerdyakov'sthoughts and actions emerge from his feeling of kinship with Ivan and his desire to raise him up to glorious heights. He wishes by means of the murder to be saved by Ivan for the rest of his life, gaining stable friendship, support, and protection. His killing Fyodor is not a coldly, logically arranged act. It's an act of desperation. After making Ivan waver back and forth between belief and disbelief in now Dmitri and now himself as the murderer, Smerdyakov discovers that Ivan is no hero, but just a confused, frightened, guilt-ridden young man. Ivan will not uphold his position on lawlessness, and Smerdyakov feels, in his hot-stoved, hellish room with bugs crawling on the deep blue peeling wallpaper, utterly betrayed and alone. Smerdyakov was convinced of his special rapport with Ivan, of Ivan's consent in and encouragement of the murder when he left his father defenseless to go off to Tchermashnya. But now, after Smerdyakov did what he thought had to be done, Ivan is giving him blows and accusing him of a crime and calling him the devil, "a dream and a phantom." Remorseful and haunted by his wrongdoing, feeling that it would have been better if he had never been born, Smerdyakov hears the devil's voice speaking to Ivan: " ••. hesitation , suspense, conflict between belief and disbelief is sometimes such torture to a conscientious man like you are that it is better to hang oneself at once." Father Zossima believes that there can be no one more miserable than a person who commits suicide. He prays inwardly for suicides all his life. Smerdyakov rightly enters into our prayers. The devil appears to Ivan just after Smerdyakov' s death, employing tactics similar to Smerdyakov's, forcing Ivan to think him now a phantom and now a living being. Despairing of the necessity of giving his allegiance either to a God who allows children to be tortured or to a devil who is petty and mischievous, Ivan is tempted by evil whisperings in his heart: "I shall sow in you a tiny grain of faith and it will grow into an oak-tree -- and such an oak- tree that, sitting on it, you will long to enter the ranks of the hermits in the wilderness and the saintly women; for that is what you are secretly longing for. You'll dine on locusts, you'll wander into the wilderness to save your soul." The devil hopes to get Ivan alone in the wilderness so that he can work on him day after day the way he worked on the Inquisitor. The desert, despite the devil's presence, can be a holy place for certain special people to offer prayerful reverence and worshipful devotion to God . Life in the wilderness precedes and anticipates life in the promised land (Ex. 34) . But the hermit must be prepared to lose fully his worldly, imaginary, own self, so that he may gain fully his true self through the in- dwelling of the Holy Spirit. The hermit must wish above all for the death of his own will so that God's will may be done in him. A seed must fall t o the earth and die before it can bring forth fruit for the gladness of others . Despite every appearance to the contrary, the monk's life of solitude is a life devoted to others, a life of compassionate dedication to his fellow human beings, for he is ever mindful of our afflictions in prayer and sub crucis sacramento. It is comforting to know that pious people are praying for us every minute of every hour of every •..•• Carthusian monks, who live as hermits but gather together three times a day to sing the holy office, are buried without their earthly names on their tombstones so that they may more gladly receive.the name which 28 God keeps for them in secret until the last day of mercy (Rev . 2 .1 7) • The whole eremitical life of a monk is devoted to being fully open to the reception of that name when the time comes. Clearly Ivan is far from being ready to enter into the wilderness, ho eremos, only to be unknown and forgotten with Him . If he were to attempt to live as a solitary person in search of God, it would be for all the wrong reas ons, as the devil knows. It would be a self-preoccupied attempt to save his own soul and would lead to a more severe madness-beyond- pride than that which Ivan suffers from at present. No human being has power over his own salvation, or anyone else's, difficult though that may be for the likes of Ivan Fyodorovitch and Katerina Ivanovna and Kol ya Ivanovi tch to accept . The devil is behind all such attempts, laughing hideously at their futility and folly. Katerina dedicates herself to the man who makes a practice of humiliating her. "I want to love you forever," she feverishly writes to Dmitri , "I want to save you from yourself." Katerina in truth wants to exalt herself in the midst of Dmitri's infidelity and sensuality. Her prideful nobility reaches extremes worthy of Ivan: "I' 11 be a god to whom he can pray -- and that, at least, he owes me for his treachery." Whence arises this satanic drama, this mad desire for glory by saving othe rs? Whence arises our need to be on stage acting as though we are humbling ourselves for the good of others when in truth we are anxiously seeking to exhalt ourselves at the expense of others? The Inquisitor, Ivan and Katerina all try to hide their limitations from themselves and disguise their faults as blessings.• They view themselves as heroic, self-sacrificing beings attaining perfection in dramatic anguish. They are deeply troubled. "Perfection is not for those who strive to feel and look and act as if they were perfect ••• Perfection is not for those who isolate themselves in ivory towers of imaginary faultlessness ••• Perfection is not for those who live for themselves alone and occupy themselves with the embellishments of their own souls" (Me rton , The Silent Life). Although their hearts are filled, with conflicts, doubts, hatreds, jealousies, fears, anxieties, contradictions and uncertainties, the Inquisitor, Ivan, and Katerina labor under the profoundly illusory conviction that they are gods and that the cosmos is centered around their saving activity . Of course it would be foolish to say that they each consider themselves to be the one and only true God. If this were the case, they would seek to destroy one another like pagan deities. Although we have a lacerative tendency to hurt the very people we love most, Ivan and Katerina, the laceraters par exellence, keep from carrying their drama to this extreme. Yet in their desi re to be 'as gods' -- a lasting deformity impressed upon human nature by the fall of Adam and Eve -- they yearn for omnipotence : " •.• the power to have everything we want, to enjoy everything we desire, to demand that all our wishes be satisfied and that our will should never be frustrated or opposed . It is the need to have everyone else bow to our judgement and accept our declaration as law. It is the insatiable thirst for recognition of excellence which we so desperately need to find in ourselves to avoid despair. The claim to omnipotence, our deepest sorrow and our inmost shame, is in fact the source of all our sorrows, all our unhappiness, all our dissatisfactions, all . our mistakes and deceptions. It is a radical falsity which rots our moral life in its very roots because it makes everything we do more or less a lie" (Merton , The Silent Life). Ivan's borderline insanity is a telling sign that he almost submits heart and soul to the absurd fantasy that he is omnipotent, that he lives, like the schizophrenic, in a world of his own making, a world ove r which he has total control and in which whatever he says goes without question. When Smerdyakov says that Ivan more than his brothers is his father's son, he means that Ivan goes around lying to himself about himself all the time just like Fyodor. The devil himself, who bears a startling resemblance t o Fyodor in body and to Smerdyakov in soul, helps Ivan see that he is living a lie. But what next? Once we discover that we cannot save ourselves, o nce we admit that we are grievously in need of God's saving assistance, what shall we say 29 �then.? iii. The Salvific Figure Jesus questions his disciples, saying: "Who do people say that the son of man is?" (Matt. 16:15). The disciples have heard some say of Jesus that he is John the Baptist, while others say of him that he is one of the other prophets. Why do people think that Jesus is someone he is not? Why in particular do they think that Jesus' message and ministry is akin to that of John the Baptist? Unless we are able to understand and trust Jesus as a quite distinctive figure, we may forever rely upon our own needy selves for saving gladness and truth , only to find damning sadness and falsity. John the Baptist cries out with a loud voice and makes his home in the wilderness. He is an ascetic and a prophet of gloom: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits that befit repentence, and do not begin to say to yourselves 1 'We have Abraham as our father'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is held to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (Lk . 3:7- 9). John's preaching consists in a warning to the unrighteous, to everyone, of the approaching, wrathful, justly vengeful judgement of God. Jews as well as Gentiles even now, and more so on the last day, stand or fall depending upon our commitment during our lives on earth to the one true God. This commitment involves bearing testimony both in word and in deed to the presence and the glory of the living Father. John establishes a bond between a person's being in the world here and now, in this very place at this very moment, and his being either saved or damned at the end of the ages. Our spiritual condition in time determines what will be our spiritual condition for eternity. John's baptism, which is with water, is important for our salvation; it makes a difference on the last day because it is a sign that we have allowed our hearts to be changed by God. All human beings possess free wills, so we all have throughout our lives the capacity to yield to God's saving goodness by repenting of our transgressions and by acknowledging our dependence on Him for help . As long as a person has the power to repent no other person can judge whether or not he will be condemned, and every other person must deem him worthy of love. Thus Smerdyakov, who until the end possessed a free will and the capacity to turn to God when called, who indeed may have left evidence of his repentance in the form of St . Isaat the Syrian's writings, is worthy of our love . John calls for repentance in the context of the judgement already in effect and the judgement soon to come. Jesus, on the other hand, sees the salvation of human beings in the context of God's infinite mercy, graciousness, and love . Reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, Jesus speaks of himself as a servant of God : The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor . He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. (Is . 60: 1-2; Lk. 4:18) Jesus chooses to read from this passage so that he may teach those in the synagogue who he is: one who makes people glad and whole; one who sets them free; and one who invites everyone to a great feast of fellowship at God's table in the temple of the holy city of Jerusalem . The words which follow 'the acceptable year of the Lord,' 30 the words which Jesus sees fit to close the book upon, are: " ••• and the day of vengeance of our God" (Is . 60: 2) . At this early stage of his mission Jesus pronounces upon the time of God's acceptance of us and invitation to us -- the year when Jesus himself is with us and for us in the person of the Holy Spirit so that we may be healed of the wound deep in our hearts -- but he remains silent about the Lord's day of which Amos speaks: Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light; as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into his house and leaned with his hand against the wall and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness , and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? (Amos 5: 18-20) Jesus is no prophet of woe; he is no ascetic; his home is not in the wilderness. He is the bearer of tidings of great joy; he is an eater and a drinker; his home is the festive table at which people from every walk of life gather together so that we may join in fellowship and celebrate all the good things which God has provided in abundance for our well-being. According to Jesus, God freely gives us a just and reasonable expectation of a time of everlasting rest and peace. Jesus shows us, in the drama of his birth, teaching, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection, that the living God , the Lord of history, is engaged in a saving activity which is directed toward a state of final good for human beings, a state in which the Father is fully manifest to his children and the children are fully reconciled to their Father. According to the Baptist, all men are in a condition of apostasy and all men are in need of a change of heart, a return to the righteous and faithful Father . A person cannot, however, bring about this change by himself. Repentance is a free gift from God which we either accept or reject. Jesus acknowledges the truth of this teaching -- not with regard to himself but with regard to the whole of Israel -- by commanding John to baptize even him , a man who knows no sin (2 Cor . 5:21). Jesus demands from Israel a new confrontation with the living God . He goes about doing good things for people in trouble on the sabbath so that everyone may see that God is still, even now at this moment, active in our world: "My Father is working still, and I am working" (Jn . 5:18). The Pharisees seem to wish that God would stay out of the picture so that what has already been established, what is known and secure , the law, which indeed is "holy and just and good" (Rom . 7: 12) , may be followed, and so that they may be confident in the righteousness of their own doings . The Pharisees hear Jesus' tidings , but they are not receptive to his gladness . st. Mark chooses the event of Jesus' healing of the man with the withered hand on the sabbath to announce that the Pharisees are plotting Jesus ' death. Jesus himself, just prior to making the wounded man whole, shows orge, the wrath of God, because he is astonished at the hardness of their hearts. The Pharisees seem to be afraid of the holy power wielded by this simple, obscure , inconspicuous man, a carpenter's son, who is active for only a few years. Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him •.•.• He will not wrangle or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, 31 �and a dimly burning wick he will not quench •.• (Is. 42 : 1- 3; Matt . 12) Jesus questions his diciples, saying: "Who do you say that I am?" (Matt . 16:16). This is the question to which some, having been filled with God's grace, answer with fearful and loving faith and thankfulness, and to which others, having been filled with the vain imaginings of their own hearts, answer with prideful and despairing hatred and ingratitude. This is the question to which everyone must finally respond, in one way or the other, for there is no in between, as Jesus himself says: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters . Therefore, I tell you every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven . And whoever says a word against the s on of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this aqe or in the aqe to come." (Matt . 12 : 30 - 33). Jesus begins to sound less gentle and more severe . But how can it be otherwise? A person who does not answer Jesus with trust and hope -- "You are the Christ, the son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16) -- denies the power of the Holy Spirit, which amounts to rejecting the source of all forgiveness, for the Father has sent the H~ly Spirit to us in Christ's name so that we might share in the forgiveness of sins by being united with Him in remembrance of Jerusalem (Jn . 14:26) . The sin against the Holy Spirit , actively seeking to turn the faithful away from God by mocking them and persecuting them and hating them, must be the one unforgivable sin. How can the person who willfully refuses to accept forgiveness be forgiven? That there are such people, people who claim to have no conscience bearing witness to their evildoing, who claim to be a law unto themselves with no responsibility for others, who claim complete independence for themselves, who claim to be without need of others' forgiveness, who have no desire to let their hearts be changed, who have no wish to be self- forgetful and self- giving in the love of their fellows, who are, in a word, incorrigible, is a sad fact. Father Zossima : "O, there are some who remain proud and fi e rce even in hell, in spite o f their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute truth; there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to Satan and his proud spirit entirely . For such, hell is voluntary and ever consuming; they are tortured by their own choice . For they have cursed themselves cursing God and life . They live upon thei r vindictive pride like a starving man in. the desert sucking blood out of his own body. But they are neve r satisfied and they refuse forgiveness. They curse God who calls them, they cannot behold the living God without hatred, and they cry out that the God of life should be annihilated, that God should destroy himself and his own creation. And they will burn in the fire of their wrath forever and yearn for death and annihilation . " St . August · ne cal s th · s condition the deathless death. Sadly, some seem to live in hell on earth, victimized by a stubborn and anxious need to deny their own freedom to do good . Jesus' sayings and doings make clear for us the already operative kingly rule of God . His acts of healing, casting out devils , forgiving, showing compassion, nourishing, eating dinner with sinners and publicans, b r inging good cheer to prostitutes and tax- collectors, all these acts and more, are signs of God's beneficent intentions for us regardless of our fallbacks and shortcomings and marble- heartedness . Jesus wishes his joy to be in us so that our joy may be full (Jn . 15 : 11). Wherever he goes, gladness abounds . He comes to us so that we may have life, and have it in abundance (Jn . 10:10) . Just having this person around is a good thing . It is that simple . Jesus invites us to stop and consider that our presence also, among our schoolmates and families and friends, even among our enemies, is either a good or a bad thing; there is no in between; we either negatively influence or positively influence whatever community it is to which we happen to belong . He also invites us to stop and consider that it is not enough for us to go around laughing and being carefree, although it is uplifting and lightening and helpful for 32 us to do so; we must healthily share in one another's suffering too, because beneath our laughter there is usually, if not always, some hidden pain. Unlike John, Jesus proclaims the p r esence of God's kingly rule even on earth, and in doing all things well, he demonstrates in the very manner of his living what this r ule involves. Unlike Ivan, the content of Jesus' teaching is revealed in his deeds . There is nothing in the least bit inconsistent about his sayings and his doings. Jesus simply come s to do God's will on earth (Jn . 4 : 34; 5 : 30; 6:40). That is that. The inconspicuous and mild activity of Jesus Christ makes manifest with splendor and might God's free and unconditional willing of good, His boundless, unquenchable love, for us, even you and me. Jesus' simple and humble parables reveal that the deepest, most mysterious things can be found in our ordinary experience if only we care to look and b e attentive . These stories invite us to think for ourselves in an open-ended way. we may find ourselves trying to hold on to conflicting interests. At one time we may think or feel one way and at another time we may think or feel another way about the same issue or event or position. Isn't that how life presents itself to us from one day to the next? There is no definitive structure or system built into the world or the act of living. Spontaneity and openness bring about the large part of our decisions, actions, and conversations. We therefore ought to be ready to make the most of whatever may come our way . We may become accustomed to looking at the world this way or that way, considering ourselves to be restricted by our past, or bound by our few talents, or limited by our surroundings, hut even in the midst of what is most familiar new possibilities for living are always available. The story of Don Quixote is a beautiful telling of this truth. Jesus' parables also tell us that we can always come up with new ways of going about doing things, new ways of caring for friends and pleasing strangers . On the whole, these stories encourage us to act in a way quite different from our usual way, not for the sake of being unconventional, but simply because it is a good thing to discover what a wonderful freedom we have to do good . But this is by no means easy. We must approach the world with a heart which is prepared t o be transfigured. The parable of the dinner party is partly about a feast at which the crippled and the lame, the sick and the hungry, those who ordinarily are not granted sufficient attention, are honorably seated at the table. Jesus hosts and serves people who are considered anathema by the religious community of his day. He joins in companionship with the outcast, with those who are ignorant of the law. Without hesitation he comforts the afflicted and the needy. Jesus does not hold back in order to determine whether people are rich or poor, successful or not, educated or not , members of this faction or that faction , pretty or plain , useful or not , worthy or unworthy. Jesus simply does God's will on earth, µot because he feels obligated to do s o or because he anticipates receiving s ome reward, but because doing God' s will on earth, al though only som~times joyful and also sometimes sorrowful, is yet always good. Jesus cuts· across barriers o f class and politics. He seeks t o bring an end to relationships among human beings which are founded on the domination of one by the other. He is just as much at ease with women as with men, with people in power as with people without it . Power does not corrupt him as it does other people. Jesus encourages us to serve one another in kindness, for this is a way to show service to God, and to l ove one another in hope, f o r this is a way t o show love for God . Jesus invites everyone to the great feast of spiritual fell owship al\d he himself serves everyone at the table . None are refused entry and none are cast away. We may show up dressed any way we wish, but it is better to be pleasing in God's sight . St . John Chrysostom's choir sings: "The Lord is compassionate and merciful; He is long-suffering and abounding in mercy" (Byzantine Liturgy). But are we then to think that Jesus, with whose life and death and resurrection a new era begins, would wish good men to be rewarded for their good works on the last 33 �day, and evil men to be punished for their evil works? Aside from our difficulty in judging who is good and who is evil-since we all are a different mixture of each, what is good and what is evil-since what is good for one is not so for another, we can at least say this much, that if the human will is free to choose between good and evil works, then rewards and punishments are just. But the simple truth is that all good things come from God . Merely because a person's will is free, it does not follow that he has the capacity to choose or to do good without the aid of God's grace. The exercise of the will in its freedom toward goodness is a human being's doing only insofar as he opts not to resist the grace being offered to him at every moment of every hour of every ••••• by God . And this opting not to resist, this yielding to God's saving activity is not a meritorious act, so that God's mercy and love alone are responsible for a person's being good. Only because God freely chooses to look upon us as righteous are we righteous . St. Paul keeps away from the word 'works' when speaking about justification. He makes a distinction between works of the flesh ..:._ "fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness carousing, and the like" (Gal. 5 : 20) -- and fruits of the Holy Spirit -- "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self- control" (Gal. 5 :·22). St. Paul does speak about faith accomplishing good works through love (Gal. 5:6), but this does not alter his right belief that faith alone justifies (Gal. 2: 16) • The word 'reward' in the context of our final well - being ought to be banned from our vocabulary. God's righteousness and faithfulness are hyper-exceedingly magnificent and glorious precisely because we are undeserving. What a remarkable thing that God knows t he evil imaginings of our hearts, hears our voices cursing Him, railing against Him, misrepresenting Him , and, instead of smiting us with His wrath , He saves us with His mercy. Salvation, found in the small acts of kindness in the piety of daily life as well as at the festive table of the messianic banquet, is the work , astounding beyond measure , of God's bountiful car e for us . He gives us fi r st place in a race we have lost. It is as if He were to walk into a courtroom with all of us guilty sinners present, pronouncing the verdict: 'Innocent, Righteous, Jus tified.' Sadly, punishments are deserved, "because the unfaithful receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved" (2 Thess. 2:10). Jesus' question -- 'Who do you say that I am?' - - demands a response from all of us, from you and from me, now and again, time after time, for the duration of our lives . It is not a question to be summarily answered, set aside, and ignored. When we address the question we either accept more deeply or reject more soundly the mystery of Christ's saving fellowship . We are always either on our way toward him or on our way away from him . This is not to say that the r e are just two ways of standing in relation to Jesus. There are as many responses to his question as there are persons willing to give utterance to what is in their hearts. And if we give one sort of response today, we may find ourselves giving another sor t tomorrow, for we are the kind of being who can receive the strength to accept being accepted by God. Father Zossima: "I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting further from your goal instead of nearer to it -- at that very moment I predict that you will r each it and behold clear ly the miraculous power of t he Lor d who h as b een a ll t he t ime lov ing a nd my ste r iously guiding you. " 'Who do you say that I am?' I cannot answer for you and you cannot answer for me. Each of us must be left to ourselves so that we may give the question the careful heart-felt thought which it demands and deserves. Responding to Jesus in my limited, human way, I shall say : 'You are the one who summons me to put my deep and abiding trust in the hidden and living God; the one who works for my joyfulness and wholeness, delivering me from distress and wrongdoing, releasing me from the chains of self-estrangement and estrangement from my fellows, restoring me to myself so that 34 I may be free for others as a friend and ready servant, encouraging me to bear others' burdens with them; you are the one who commands me to commit myself and to pray to our Father, to put my faith in God not grudgingly and with hesitation but gladly and with abandon; the one who journeyed to Calvary for my sake, who died on the cross so that I might be washed clean; you are the man of sorrows, the one who carried my griefs, was wounded for my transgressions, was bruised for my iniquities, the one through whose stripes I am healed (Is . 53: 3- 6); yet I hold you at a distance and in low esteem; I turn away from your suffering as one repulsed and I cannot bear to look upon you ; wretch that I am, I forget you holy Jerusalem, though you descended into hell for my sake; you are the one whose entrance into the flesh I celebrate at Christmas and whose glorification of the body I celebrate at Easter; the one who tells me to stake my life on the new p r omise of salvation which is offered to me i n the drama of your passion, death, and resurrection; you are the one who says, "unless a g r ain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it brings forth fruit" (Jn 12:24) . You are the Christ, the son of the living God . ' Jesus' concern will finally be with justice, but , as long as he is with us on ear th his concern is not with justice so much as with joy, rendering joy to those who hardly seem worthy to feel joy and giving gladness to those who have nothing to b e glad about: "He who abides in me, and I in him,he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing" (Jn . 15:5) . A line from St. Mark's gospel especially reveals the character of Jesus' saving activity, of Jesus himself, who he is. After Jesus heals a deaf and dumb man, the people who witness the event are, says Mark, "astonished beyond measure" (hyperperissos exeplessonto) , and they say of Jesus : "He does everything beautifully" (Kalos pan ta pepoieken, Mk. 7: 37) • Such a gentle man, and yet he can with good reason be mistaken for John the Baptist : "You brood of vipers! How can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt . 12:34). It is a sign of his perfect holiness that Jesus can be both extremely gentle and extremely severe, that Jesus can both keep the silence of a lamb and speak with the voice of a judge. How else could He accept and endure the passion and the cross? How else could Jesus, when that t r oubling . moment at Gethsemane arrived, pray: "Abba, Father, if you are willing, r emove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will , but your will, be done" (Lk. 22 : 43; Matt . 26 : 39; Mk . 14 : 36) . Jesus i s a Jew, searching out God's will in everything; yet he has a unique rel a tion to God, calling Him Father , Abba . Father Schillibeeckx tells how at Jesus' time Abba was a famil i al term denoting a child's earthly father, the teacher and figure of authority . The word did not occur at all in prayers addressed t~ God. J esu s ' genius s t a nds o ut s ole l y on the g r ounds of praying to God as Abba. The uniqueness of his relation to God lies in its 'unaffected simplicityi-:- Jesus identified his heart and his life, his whole being as a person, with his Father. He so t r usted the abiding presence and concern of His Father that He acted upon His will even to the point of suffering an excruciatingly agonizing and humiliating death, a death by crucifixion, "a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1 : 24) . Jesus' death is offensive to the Jews partly because a man hanged on a tree is accursed by God (Dt . 21 : 23), and to the Gentiles partly because crucifixion is the mos t scandalous form of punishment in the Roman kingdom, a punishment reserved fo r the lowest o f the low, rebels and thieves, a punishment no Roman citizen ever has to endur e . Jesus fully manifests God's saving love for human beings with His death on the c r oss, for only by way of His perfect sacrifice do we attain to reconciliation with God and do we know that God so cares for us that He is willing to give His only Son f o r our we ll- be i ng : "God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Chr ist died f o r us " (Rom . 5 : 8) . Our faithful response to Jesus' question -- 'Who do you say that I am? ' -- involves accepting the g r acious gift God gives to us in the bloody and violent s a c r ifice of His Son, involves yielding to the redemptive power o f 35 �11 the cross, whose saving efficacy frees us from the stronghold of sin. Christ crucified is bearing all our evils -- from our fall out of Eden until the last day -so that they may be nailed to the wood and die with him: "For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). The salvific figure on the cross is so defiled and smeared with black that God His Father forsakes him at the moment of His death. Jesus' death is like no one else's. He is utterly alone, forsaken not only by Roman citizens, fellow Jews, and his disciples, but also by the Person who sent him to walk among us and be with us, the Person whose will it was that he should undergo such horrifying suffering precisely because of his perfect righteousness and blessedness. During the preparation rite of the holy eucharist in the Orthodox church, the priest says: "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is slain for the life and salvation of the world" (Byzantine Liturgy, St. John Chrysostom). St. Mark puts it simply: Jesus is "a ransom for many" (Mk. 14: 24) • witness to Christ crucified and risen, for He cares more about our salvation than we ourselves do . iv. Redemptive Drama .. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. (Is. 53:7) The original, old- fashioned meaning of the word 'redemption' (Latin, redernptio; Greek, apolutrosis) is 'a buying back' or 'a loosening away from.' By being baptised with the Holy Spirit we are bought back by God, loosened away from Satan, purified and created anew so that we may be united with Christ and share in the death "he died to sin" and the life "he lives to God' (Rom . 6: 10) . Although we are not worthy to receive the redemptive power of Christ's sacrifice, yet there it is, a free gift, and by way of it we become God's adopted children, gaining spiritual health and true piety, "for the righteousness of God is by faith in Jesus Christ upon all them that believe" (Rom. 3: 22). And belief entails hardship: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God ••• When we cry 'Abba! Father!' it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him" (Rom. 8: 14-17) . Faith in Jesus as the Christ,· the son of the living Father, not merely as a means to salvation, but as the Way, the Word who became flesh and tabernacled among us (Jn. 1:14), involves suffering unto death, so that we may walk in "newness of life" (Rom. 6:4). Again: The seed t h at falls to the e arth and dies brings forth fruit . Although God reconciled us to Himself through Christ's "fragrant offering and sacrifice" (Eph. 5:2; 2 Cor. 5:18) the death of Jesus is by no means the end of the matter. For: "Jesus was put to death for our trespass and raised for our justification" (Rom. 4: 25). Jesus' Father is the God of the living, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not of the dead. God benevolently wishes to continue our lives so that we may be with Hirn in Christ Jesus and His Holy Spirit . It is not a question of our souls possessing the nature of being immortal. Spiritual resurrection is simply God's way of doing good for us in this life; and bodily resurrection is His way of doing good for us in the life to come. Mut ual r ecognition of unique p ersons by unique persons which can be accomplished only if each one of us retains our distinctive look, is of utmost significance in Christ's kingdom. Just as Jesus arises out of our memory in the Spirit into life during the celebration of the blessed sacrament, so we shall arise out of our ever- mindful-remembrance of him into life in His divine presence at the great eschatological feast. Jesus overcomes sin with his death, and he overcomes the penalty for sin, which is death, by way of his resurrection. God wishes us to laugh whole - heartedly at life's comedy, and to bear 36 I I Drni t r i Fyodorovi tch Karamazov possesses his mother's hot temper, boldness, impatience, impetuosity, impulsiveness, frenzied vigor, and strong build, and his fathe r 's reckless lust - - al though Mi tya' s sensuality is refined by a passionate adoration of beauty and nob_ ty. According to legend, as soon as Adelaida ·married ili Fyodor, .(of cour se they had to elope), she grew to loathe the "abject, vicious, fantastical fellow" and his "persistent and shameless importunity." On occasion she even beat Fyodor, showing him to be a "worthless puny weakling . " Dmitri shares his mother 's repulsion for Fyodor and her tendency to be violent with him. When Adelaida , in one of her enigmatic fits of passion, ran off with a "destitute divinity .student" to her ignominious death, she left the newborn Mitya with his father. But Fyodor carried on in his customary manner, hosting orgies and playing the buffoon, so that he completely forgot about Mitya. Miusov is fond of telling the exaggerated sto r y about Fyodor' s surprise at discovering one morning after waking. up with a terrible hangover that he had a son . Fyodor doesn't just have a few cocktails and fool around a bit; he immerses himself in debauchery and al together neglects his r esponsibility, except, of course, when it comes to his business dealings. After being passed from Adelaida to Fyodor, and from Fyodor to Grigory, Miuzov takes custody of the child . But he too, although he remembers his part in the February Revolution of 1848 all his life, forgets Mitya, so that Miuzov's cousin has to take charge of the poor boy. Finally, after the death of this kind woman, Mitya is raised by Miuzov's cousin's daughter, Mitya's mother's second cousin, once removed. Life does not begin smoothly for Dmitri Karamazov. Adelaida came from a rich, distinguished, noble family, and before her death she bequeathed a small property including a house and some land to her son. Dmitri , however, when he came of age, was serving in the Caucasus as an army officer, so Fyodor took possession of Mitya's inheritance and wired money to support the young man's r iotous exploits , his dr inking, gambling, and womanizing. Surprisingly enough , Father Zossima's youth bears a striking resemblance to Dmitri's. He too was the son of a landowner, served in the Caucasus as an army officer, and outstripped the other members of his regiment in "cruel, absurd, almost savage" practices . Father zossirna always kept the Bible at his side but during his bout with "drunkenness, debauchery, and deviltry" he did not pick up the book and r ead. So it is with Dmitri. He hold's God's glory close to his heart but he has a long way to journey before he will be able to accept his lot in life, what God has planned for him and him alone. Father Zossima passed through a period of ferocious anxiety and misery before his change of heart . He had to give his orderly Afanasey two terrible blows to the face before he could see the black- smeared manner of his living, before he could feel what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb.10: 11) . God's grace was at work even in the young officer's fit of violence. Thanks to Afanasey's stupid yet brave reception of his master's blows, zossirna could be struck by such concerns as: 'What am I worth that another made in the image and likeness of God s hou l d s e rve me? Ought I not to bow down and beg my se rv ant 's f o r giveness ? Am I not the greatest of sinners? More than any other am I not responsible to all for all and eve r ything?' Only by way of this awful event do the tender and life - giving words of his dying b r other Markel return to Zossirna with such force that his ways are altered for good . Shall we not praise Af anasey and seek to imitate him by being ready at all times to receive blows so that others whom we care for might through the recognition of their weakness and wrongdoing turn to the Father for help and forgiveness? Zossima 's turnabout is more sudden and localized than Dmitri's will be 37 �~ - - --- -- Mitya's stomping on his father's face is not enough for him -- but Dmitri's change of heart will be just as dramatic. God works on everyone in a way particularly suited to and designed for them, and them alone. Zossima needed Markel's holy words and Afanasey's peasant toughness. Dmitri will require Grigory's blood, Grushenka's love, his father's death, and more, before he will be able to gain the courage to sing his hymn. With an anvil-ding And with fire in him forge thy will Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring Through him, melt him but master him still: Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul, Or as Austin, a lingering-out sweet skill, Make mercy in all of us, out of us all Mastery, but be adored, but be adored King. (Hopkins, The Wreck of the Deutschla~#lO) Drama is of utmost importance where Dmitri is concerned. Other people, especially Katerina, seem to be so many characters in the play of his life. Dmitri does not leave encounters open-ended like Alyosha. He seeks to make wholes out of his dealings with others so that he may wrap a ribbon around them and add them to his treasury. Mitya confesses to Alyosha that his life has been a lusting after voluptuousness and vice, saying: "I've a perfect album of reminiscences, brother. God bless them, the darlings." He sets up two extremes which are always in tension, the Madonna and Sodom, and attempts to characterize all his doings in this poetic light. Katerina, that "beautiful, proud, imperious" woman who hopes to save Dmitri from dissipation through her own generosity, is his Madonna figure. Mitya sees the truth about her loving her own virtue most; he knows that her benevolence is not pure self-giving for his sake but pure self-serving for her own sake; but he lets that pass as a mere human frailty so that he may haunt the back alley and make Katerina's apparent goodwill shine fo r th all the more . St . Paul : "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!" (Rom.6:1). Katerina also needs someone as dramatic as she is who will go along with her fantasy so that she may play out her salvific role . She needs a debauchee in order to exercise her powers of hysterical self-sacrifice . She needs someone in the dark depths to make it possible for her heroism to be seen and admired by all the talkers in Skotoprignyevsk and neighboring villages : 'Well isn't that Katerina Ivanovna God's gift to Karamazov, so patient and forgiving. I don't know why she puts up with him. My heavens!' Katerina shows her true colors, her self-righteous indignation, her need for someone as dramatic as she is who will fantasize alone with her so that she may play out her salvific role, when she condemns Dmitri with her evidence in court. Thankfully, Mitya possesses some crucial gifts which Katerina lacks: an awarene s s of his own weakness - - "I pray to God I'm not lying and showing off" -- and an abiding trust i n God despite his own sinfulness --" . .• though I may be following the devil, I am thy son, O Lord, and I love thee . " There is no denying that Katerina does kind and charitable things. She sends flowers to Snegiryov's family and takes care of Ilusha's grave; she will also proudly finance Dmitri's escape. But she has a whole lot to work out concerning the source and center of goodness and salvation. Kater i na and Ivan belong together. Dmitri's frankness about his own wrongdoing -- "I'm nothing but an insect" - betrays a lack of self - respect which runs deep in his soul. He goes around saying: 'I'm just this sort of buglike person, so don't expect much from me. What can I do about it?' At the start Dmitri does not challenge himself to accomplish things which, he would be surprised to discover, he has the wherewithal to accomplish. At the end he will consider himself capable of more than his gifts allow. Father Zossima' s bow is a gesture aimed in part to make Dmitri recognize his own inner 38 worth. He has to see that his nature is good, coming as it does from God-it is just that his will is weak, and his upbringing and education haven't helped matters much. Father Zossima, reflecting on his days of carousing among his comrades, says: "I don't say we were bad by nature, all these young men were good fellows, but they behaved badly, and I worst of all." Father Zossima sees what Mitya is preparing fo r h i mself, sees what great suffering is in store for him, and is horrified. After Alyosha r etur ns from his Katerina- backed, ill- fated mission of generosity toward Snegiryov , he first learns of Porfiry's Zossima- backed, successful mission of charity t oward a poor family in the village, and then receives the conunand to be with Dmitri a s a welcome p r esence in order to p r event him from some sudden, impetuous, terrible c r ime . Father Zossima also bows to the whole company and begs for their forgivene ss because it just seems like there is not a whole lot he can do to help them. The peasant women with faith are open to his fatherly words and gestures, but the wealthy noblemen without faith are reluctant to take them seriously .. Dmitri alone is fu lly receptive to Father Zossima's sage counsel and advice. Father Zossima wishes Mitya to understand that despite the ways of Fyodor, "it's the great mystery of human li fe that old grief passes quietly and tenderly into joy •. • the mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth . " Dmitri, along with Ivan, fears he wili b e like his father, plagued by a base sensuality his entire life and prevented by his own weakness from attaining any kind of nobility of heart . God's angels and Satan's devils are fighting over beauty on the battleground of Dmi t'ri' s heart. His passionate attraction and powerful attachment to beauty, a potentially admirable thing, causes him to be self-preoccupied and distracted from issues and activities of utmost concern. Dmitri has not opened his heart to the sor rows of his fellows, or to his responsibility for their sorrows, or to the role he ought to play in bringing relief to those who are burdened by sorrow . Actively feeling and caring for others by graciously accepting their griefs as his own is a good and wholesome thing which Dmitri has at least to learn about, if he is not meant to devote his whole life to this noble doing. Dmitri is not called to be a Fa ther Zossima, or a monk in the world, but if he is going to give testimony to his right belief in the words of Jesus the teacher and lawgiver(Gal.6:2), if he is going to be a Chr istian in the world, he must allow for the wedding of passion and piety in his soul. Under the influence of demons Mi tya' s lust, at its worst, takes the shape of cruelty and sentimentality, distorted forms of Father Zossima's severity and gentleness. Speaking to Alyosha of a critical and unforgettable event that passed between Katerina and himself, Mitya says: "At that moment she was beautiful because she was noble , and I was a scoundrel, she in all the grandeur of her generosity and sacrifice for her father, and I a bug! And scoundrel as I was, she was altogether at my mercy, body and soul ... It seemed as if there could be no resisting it; as though I should act like a bug, like a ve.nomous spider, without a spark of pity. I could · scarcely breathe." Honesty, honor, and simple decency toward and respect for a fellow human being are at stake for Dmitri when he has Katerina in this compromising position. His breathless sensuality, not something to be taken lightly, bears witness to a forgetfulness of life being · shared by all. Mitya lustfully wants to take full possession of Katerina's beauty, which amounts to using her as a tool for t h e e n r ichme nt and r efinement of his own experience. With the prospect o f another colorful anecdote to add to his collection, Dmitri almost succumbs to the temptation of abusing and destroying Katerina's noble stature, disgracing her for life: "I loved vice, I loved the ignominy of vice. I loved cruelty." The temptation which Dmitri resists at this trying moment is the temptation to which Fyodor yields with Sophia . Defiling the purity and innocence of a beautiful young woman holds the same satanic pleasu r e as working for the downfall of the righteous. Yet although Dmitri sometimes plays on the stage of satanic drama- -when he draws 39 �11 aba_ndon~ _d, his sword almost stabbing himself from delight and when he humiliates Snegiryov in the presence of the vulnerable Ilusha, he wants more than anything to sing a song of praise and thanksgiving to God the Father. His desire for a hymn of uplifting joy attests to his hidden certainty that life is simply good and that our deepest purpose being on earth is happiness and laughter, not grief and despair. The world is not, as Ivan would have it, a vale of tears. Good things emerge even out of his encounter with Katerina in his apartment. The old lieutenant-colonel, Katerina's father, dies with military honors and not in disgrace only because Mitya has the money to free him from trouble. At first Dmitri thinks that his only reason for giving the money is to seduce the gorgeous daughter, but later he discovers that he has higher ambitions, helping out a fellow sinner. Although Katerina's father despises him, Dmitri has the capacity to see goodness in the man. Instead of becoming full of hatred in turn, Mitya acknowledges his fault and offers his assistance. He always kind-heartedly notices when he has done some bad thing to cause someone else to be angry at him. "Let me be accursed," says Dmitri, "let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which God is shrouded." Nature, Mother Earth, Dmeter, is that veil, and Dmitri needs the mercy and courage to fall down upon her, "to cleave to her bosom", to embrace and kiss her and water her with his tears. By loving what is lowly and ordinary in a serene and tender way, not by being ecstatically in love with love itself, Dmitri will truly show gratitude to Hirn who created the earth and all that is in it. By giving himself to the Jerusalem above who is our Mother(Gal.4:26), with simplicity and trust, by falling as a seed on fertile ground and bringing forth good fruit for the gladness and hope of others, Dmitri will encounter God's saving presence. The attainment of self-giving means for Dmitri corning to relish the act of loving as much as being in love, kindness as much as pleasure. Dmitri's name suggest that he is himself rich, moist soil which nurtures the growth of seeds of grace, so that he will come to be the person God means him to be. His devotion to the earth will take the form of a commitment to Grushenka. But he must endure a great ordeal before he will be ready for marriage. Mi tya mentions suicide to Alyosha at the crossroads. He cannot stand the thought that he is burdening and dishonoring his Mother with his vile presence. The questions he asks of Fyodor he also asks of himself: 'Why is such a man alive? Can he be allowed to go on defiling the earth?' 1 Do not thou, o Lord, withhold thy mercy from me, let thy steadfast love and thy faithfulness ever preserve me! For evils have encompassed me without number; my iniquities have overtaken me, till I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me(Ps.40:11) While Dmitri dreams of taking Grushenka away to the ends of the earth so that they may settle down in marriage and begin a reformed and virtuous life together, Grushenka is planning to fly off with her Polish officer, the man about whom her imagination has been spinning false romantic stories for five years. Mitya has some knowledge of the Pole but his preoccupation with Fyodor as rival makes him forget the presence of another competitor in Grushenka's heart. Dmitri and Grushenka, each i~ their own way, are going through a painful struggle, a struggle to ensure their future happiness. They must come to see that all their anxious plans and efforts, all the feverish agitation and activity which they dedicate to working out their own destinies, is just so much fighting against God's gentle guiding hand. For five long years Grushenka has refused to be prevailed upon by any man except the tyrannical old Samsanov. How hard it must be for Dmitri to be madly in love with this woman now; he knows "with a sinking heart" that at times she must hate him for his passion. What he does not know is that her soul can find no peace, that she is in misery reflecting upon the hardships and humiliations of her past. Betrayed, 40 II irnp~veris!i~_d,_ and.. d~sgraced at the tender _ age_ of se\7enteen, Grushenka has been forced to establish a business partnership with Fyodor Karamaz.ov in order to raise herself up out of the quagmire. She is hopelessly confused about her standing with the man who once wooed her with his guitar and then left her for another woman. Will she kill him when she sees him? Or will she run to him with open arms and fall at his feet? Her bitterness and pain give rise to a just wrath against men, those seducers and corrupters, self-seekers and pleasure-mongers, who one moment sweetly profess their love and the next moment are slyly out the door. Why not take every possible opportunity to get in strong blows at the bastards? Grushenka drives Fyodor wild with desire with her pride, insolence, and rosy-plump Russian beauty. She toys coquettishly with Dmitri. And in her darkest moments she dreams of enchanting and seducing the young novice, Alyosha. She fiendishly imagines getting the handsome boy in her clutches and ruining him, mocking his purity and innocence. Grushenka's profound unhappiness is rooted in her uncertainty whether any man can or will ever love her, in a genuine way, whether any man can or will ever love her, not her shapely arms and her buxom figure, not her sharp wit and vigorous intellect, but Grushenka simply, with all her bales and pains. Drni tri and Grushenka are much alike in that the vilest scenes enter their imaginations and they yield to grace at the crucial times, Dmitri with Katerina and Grushenka with Alyosha. When Alyosha is at his most vulnerable state upon the death and premature corruption of Father Zossima's body, Rakitin takes him to the vixen in the black silk dress so that he may cash in on his deal with Grushenka and bring about the downfall of the religious idiot. Rakitin licks his chops and gnashes his teeth as a member of Satan's entourage. When they arrive Alyosha learns that his brother is in ambush at his father's house, yet he does nothing. His grief is such a burden that he forgets to attend to Dmitri, as Father Zossirna commanded, at the very time Fyodor is to be murdered. Without knowing the cause of Alyosha's depression Grushenka coyly sits on his knee hoping to cheer him up. Just yesterday Alyosha would have greatly feared such a gesture; lust and temptation would have arisen in his soul; but now the sorrow in his heart swallows up his every sensation. He wants to witness Alyosha eating sausage and drinking champagne, but most of all he wants to witness Grushenka setting to work on him. Yet she cannot. Grushenka looks upon Alyosha's goodness and feels ashamed at her own badness. Her conscience comes to life in his presence. Upon hearing the news of Father Zossima' s death, Grushenka devoutly crosses herself and immediately gets up from Alyosha's knee. Alyosha recognizes her gesture as an outgrowth of simple-hearted goodness, as a gracious gift of kindness, an onion. Even in the throes of despair Alyosha has the eyes to see Grusha' s action as a sign of pity. He, the young novice, came to Grushenka with "base and evil" motives, and she, the reputed harlot, greeted him with "a loving heart". Alyosha's soul is "raised from the depths", saved by this simple gesture of loving kindness and concern for . the gravity of his suffering. He in turn gives Grushenka an onion by calling her "sister" and showing her that she, Grushenka simply, is a person worthy of forgiveness and love tendered by a heart not full of lust and shame. This is precisely what Grushenka needs to know, to feel confident about, in order to be open to and accept God's saving reconciliation of Dmitri and herself. The meeting between Alyosha and Grusha shows forth the coming together of the Madonna and Sodom, yet it is not the case that one is the Madonna and the other Sodom; they are each a mixture of extremes, and only by recognizing this can they begin to purify their hearts. Alyosha needs to face up to his own badness and Grusha needs to face up to her own goodness. Remarkably, Rakitin is utterly insensitive to the gifts being exchanged between Alyosha and Grusha. He considers them "maudlin and mad." He is blind to the fact that these two have passed through a spiritual crisis together such as does not happen often in a lifetime. The ordinary circumstances surrounding the event do not 41 �11 detract in any way from its significance. Sadly, from the way things have turned out Rakitin is the sort of person who makes it all but impossible for others to show kindness to him. He just plain misses the beauty of Grusha's gesture and later pokes fun at Alyosha for having "saved the sinner." Raki tin's proper name is Mihail, the name of Father zossima' s mysterious visitor. He is capable of the murder Mihail enacted with such villainy and daring, but if he never commits his crime, Raki tin will never become aware that he has fallen into the hands of the living God. He will never feel compelled to confess his sins and find deliverance from his misery in Jesus Christ. Rakitin is a man to be pitied. Rakitin' s anxious concern for his career and his reputation close him off to Grushenka's goodness. Knowing all about her shameful past, he refuses to acknowledge that she is his cousin, that they share blood. This is akin to denying her personhood. Rakitin is not alone. Most people pass by her on the street avoiding her and sizing her up only with a view to her past, as if they knew the who and the why of her because they have heard rumors of her lost innocence. They recognize her as a human being only with a glance of disapproval. Grushenka is tougher than they are. She can take it. Yet how unfair that such a young girl should be so put upon by the world that before she even knows what is going on, something precious and dear, something to. be cherished, has been taken away from her. Thank goodness Grusha can turn to Jesus' happy story and read about this man who did not bother himself with people's past, except to forgive them their sins and encourage them to sin no more(Jn.8:11), whether they were adulterers or prostitutes, soldiers or governors. Mitya has the spirit. The narrator: "Mitya looked upon Grushenka' s past as something completely over. He looked upon that past with infinite pity and resolved with all the fervor of his passion that when once Grushenka told him she loved him and would marry him, it would mean the beginning of a new Grushenka and a new Dmitri, free from every vice. They would forgive one another and begin their lives afresh." Without forgiveness human beings cannot attain reconciliation with their past and begin life anew and afresh. Without forgiveness the weight of sin is an unbearable burden which human beings attempt to unload by way of forgetfulness but only manage to make worse by way of further sinfulness. But how can Mitya possibly take Grushenka away to dreamland? All will be lost unless he can come up with exactly three thousand roubles. Why that amount? So that Katerina can be paid back? Because that is how much Fyodor has set aside for Grushenka, knowing Mitya'a need? Because that is how much he can expect to get out of the property at Tchermashnya? Who knows? Poor Mitya has an awful time with money. He alone of the brothers grew up with an income, having fun and showing others a good time; but while Mitya knows all about spending money, he does not know the first thing about earning it. It's a happy thing that Mitya believes in miracles, for if he could not continue to live as though somehow, by way of providence, money would drop from heaven, he would give over to despair and madness. This is not to say that Mitya will do nothing to aid the designs of providence. He must. For the first time in his life he doesn't have easy access to a fistful of cash, aside from the fifteen-hundred roubles protecting his honor, and as we all know, a person can't go far without at least that much. Mitya is on the brink of ruin. Because of his tendency to "give himself up to every new idea with passionate enthusiasm" he passes through a nightmarish experience in search of money during the day and night before his father's murder. Samsanov gets the whole thing started by playing a cruel trick on Mitya, sending him off to Tchermashnya with the hope of selling his property, a trick which ranks with smerdyakov's treatment of cats and Kolya's game with the goose. "You're my salvation," says Dmitri, "you've saved me." He is in one of his ecstatic states thinking that a trip and a transaction will be the happy solution to all his difficulties. If Ivan is a person who yearns overmuch to save others, Dmitri is a 42 . I person who yearns overmuch to be saved by others. Being the kind, endearing, energetic, explosive man that he is, his lodgers give him their last three roubles in all the world to help him pay for a carriage to Tchermashnya. This . is among the most telling signs of the beauty of Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov, that· his lodgers, who are dirt poor, give up everything they have for his sake. He is the so"rt of person who makes it easy for others to show kindness and charity to him. Mitya's childlike ebullience brings gladness to these lonely people, so that they feel honored to be the captain's loyal friends • Every part of Mitya's salvific plan goes wrong. First he is late on account of what he thought was a shortcut; next the priest is not at home; while Dmitri searches for him it grows dark; it turns out that Lyagavy, the prospective buyer of his property, is not at the priest's but at the forester's cottage; after they set out on foot toward the . cottage, it dawns on the priest that it is much farther away than he thought; the priest cannot tell Mitya anything about Lyagavy except that to call him 'Lyagavy', as Samsonov suggested, and not 'Gorstkin,' would mean disaster; when they finally arrive at the cottage Gorstkin is dead drunk and canno.t carry on any dealings; Mitya has to wait overnight for his buyer, his savior, to sober up; meanwhile he falls asleep; in the middle of the night the hut catches fire; Dmitri is in hell; he sleeps again; while he is asleep Lyagavy wakes up and polishes off another bottle of vodka. "It's a tragedy." After exchanging some unpleasant words with Gorstkin, Dmitri finally comes to be convinced that Samsanov was mocking him the whole time. weak as a child, Mitya, being the honest and upright person that he is, leaves fifty kopecks behind to pay for a night's lodging in the forester's hut, although he is broke and he has just suffered the worst night of his life. Striding aimlessly through the black wood, he emerges on to some harvested fields, saying: "What despair, what death all around." Mitya is an · incurable romantic. But in the end, he places his last hope in the wealthy Mme. Hohlakov. The meeting of the two great dramatists, Dmitri Fyodorovitch and Mme. Hohlakov, brings laughter, but the comedy ceases when it becomes evident that the selfish, rich woman is fool,ishly and cruelly playing the role of Father Zossima, "an experienced doctor of the soul." Knowing who Mitya is, what he needs, what is best for him, what he ought and ought not do, Mme Hohlakov confidently proclaims: "I will save you." But nothing Mme.Hohlakov can say or do will deliver Mitya from the agony God has in store for him. Claiming to be all-knowing about another person's heart, and all-powerful in bringing about his salvation, are grave evils. The ways God finds to go about redeeming us are more wonderfully strange and imaginative than anything we could ever come up with. Although Mme. Hohlakov is doing damage to herself and appears to be doing the same to Dmitri, she is also an instrument in the ongoing process of God's dealings with Mitya, His child. When Mme.Hohlakov puts the ikon of the holy martyr around his neck, Mitya must be reminded in some way that trust in Christ involves suffering, that the whole creation, which groans inwardly(Rom.8:23), is part of God's redemptive drama. The faithful Franciscan nun who calls out to Christ in the storm from the Deutschland -- "O Christ, Christ, come quickly" -- does not call through the storm to a Christ who is behind and outside the storm, she cries out to the storm itself because he himself is in it, because Christ is the storm. When we turn away from suffering, we turn away from Christ. Acceptance of Jesus requires that we enter into "the unshapeable shock night" (The Wreck of the Deutschland #29) , for that is where he is to be found. Dmitri is slowly making this ,Piscovery, but, with a slam of his fist on the table and with a throw of his spit on the floor, he will put up a fight. Mitya exits from Mme. Hohlakov's house with childlike tears which save him from madness. The thought that Grushenka could possibly have thrown him over for Fyodor is enough to stop Mitya's flow of tears. His jealousy goes to such an extreme that he contemplates doing violence to his own father, and to himself, with a brass pestle 43 �and a pistol. What saves Dmitri at that critical moment under Fyodor's window as he stands there hidden by the bushes looking loathingly at his father's battered face, dandified by his red handkerchief and his silk nightgown? Wrath, fury, and vengeance surge up in Dmitri's heart as he gazes with contempt at his rival, yet he still has the childlike wonder to notice how colorful the berries are that dark night. Remembering this moment later, Mitya says: "God was watching over me then." Perhaps some sacred memory, preserved since childhood, say, Herzenstube's gift of nuts, saved Dmitri. Not that he was aware of the fact, or pictured an image to himself, but some good memory hidden deep in his heart which made him cherish life may have influenced his action. Maybe it wasn't a childhood memory. It could have been Father zossima's low bow a few days back. How fearful a thing it is to consider that our every gesture, each act, word, and glance, makes a difference in the lives of the people around us, to think that we are always planting either good or evil seeds in the hearts of others as long as we participate in public life. Everyone knows what it is like to be either welcomed or rejected by someone else's eyes in passing. Dmitri's and Herzenstube' s tears in court, the fact that Mi tya went to visit and thank Herzenstube over twenty years after the event -- Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, und Gott der heilige Geist -- attests to the truth of Alyosha's words~the boys after Ilusha' s funeral: "If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometimes be the means of saving us." Who we are has a whole lot to do with what we remember, and what we remember says a whole lot about who we are. Some gestures and events . of supreme importance to our well-being we remember, others we forget. When Dmitri has Penya by the throat, his hands and face smeared with Grigory's blood, it occurs to him that he forgot about the Polish officer as soon as he heard of him. Mi tya in a flash changes to a state of childlike gentleness from a state of violent frenzy upon hearing that Grushenka loved his noble heart for an hour. Mitya smiles and sighs with glee. That memory will endure. In celebration of his making way for Grushenka' s new life with her Polish officer, Dmitri will host a feast, a gala event at which all are welcome, with champagnes, wines, vodkas, chocolates, cakes, pies, jams, sweet meats, all in abundance. Mitya will renounce his own lavish desires for the queen of his heart, if only she can be happy. He is beginning to care for others in their own right, apart from himself. 'Mokroe' is associated with the Russian word meaning 'moist . ' Dmitri's overflowing, Giovanni-like prodigality brings about the drunkenness and merriment, the splendid party at Mokroe, the feast in honor of rich, moist Mother Earth. Mitya's natural element is the party; with sounds of gypsies' instruments, popping corks , and rustic folk songs: with sights of colorful costumes , laughing faces , and peasant dances. The celebration is as much for the people of Mokroe as it is for Dmitri and Grushenka, for the peasants who live in their black, broken- down shanties, in poverty and desolation, day in and day out, year after year, people after Mitya's own heart. Everyone regardless of rank or religion is invited to Dmitri's feast, provided they make merry and find delight in music and dance, and in the company of their neighbors. Mitya's infectious energy exhilarates young and old, rich and poor alike; his expansiveness and exuberance bring joy and gladness to other people's hearts, and simply make good things happen . Andrey, the driver who takes Dmitri to Mokroe at breakneck speed, says, in all simplicity and truth, that though Mitya is hot- tempered, rough, and impulsive, he is still a child, and God will forgive him for his kind heart. Imagine the peasant folks of Mokroe in their huts, late at night, huddled by the fire trying to keep warm, perhaps weighed down by sadness and boredom, but hopeful, when suddenly a cry goes through the streets announcing the arrival of the captain , Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov , who has come to throw another happy feast . What relief and excitement they must feel: with hearts renewed by the anticipation of 44 drinking, singing, and dancing; with hearts renewed by the presence of this man of the earth who will greet them all, men and women , boys and girls , pretty and plain, with open arms, with a hug and a kiss; with hearts renewed by the opportunity to forget their cares and woes this one night and to be with one another as fellows full of gaiety and laughter. The peasants at Dmitri's feast do not lose themselves in Bacchic revelry, in the worship of Dionysos; they find themselves in their folk tradition, they discover the possibility for fun and play in their lives despite their oppressive surroundings . Drunkenness, party spirit, and carousing may be on St. Paul's list of works of the flesh(Gal . 5:20), but God will forgive the people of Mokroe this much for one night . Dmitri's feast at Mokroe must be pleasing to God . Grushenka has the spirit: "When do they get a chance to enjoy themselves, · why shouldn't folks be happy?" Hurrah for Karamazov! But what about Grigory? Can Mitya be excused for running away from the scene of his crime to go throw a party? For all he knows Grigory might be dead. Dmitri has not forgotten the bloody blow he gave to the man who was a father to him as a child . He is thinking remorsefully about this very deed when on the way to Mokroe he begs Andrey to forgive him for everyone and everything, and when he withdraws into "frantic prayer . " Dmitri is at heart a peasant, although in blood he is a nobleman, an honn~e homme, whose honor is of utmost concern to him. His peasant heart allows Father Zossima' s words to make a great impression on him. During the course of Mitya's 'unshapeable shock night' he comes to see more and more vividly his responsibility to all for all and everything, le plus noble des sentiments. Later in the night Mitya, with characteristic exaggeration, says to Grushenka: "I'd give ten vears r~ my life for Grigory to get well, to know he was all right." The feast at Mokroe bears a resemblance to the wedding party in Cana, of Galilee: " ••• the gladness of some poor, very poor people ••• the people living about the Lake of Genesareth were the poorest that can possibly be imagined .•• they hadn't wine enough even at a wedding ••. and His heart was open even to the simple, artless mer ry-making of some obscure and unlearned people, who had warmly bidden Him to their poor wedding ... indeed was it to make wine abundant at poor weddings He had come down to earth?" Dmitri and Grushenka confess their mutual love and even make vows of fidelity in the midst of the uproar at Mokroe. Yet the vows made between these lovers do not quite stand up to the vows made at the marriage feast at which Jesus is present. Dmitri and Grushenka may be on their way to an embrace of the spiritual life, the sacrament of marriage, but as yet they do not hold such a life dear enough. Grushenka still toys coyly with Mitya. Fondling Kalganov, she asks: "Who is it that I love?" Dmitri knows the answer, but enough is enough. After mentioning that Alyosha earlier said something to her that she will remember her whole life long, she is able to confess to Dmitri, and to herself, that she has been carrying spite in her heart and tormenting her lover with it. Grusha, like Mitya, is on the verge of reformation and needs only a spe,cial saving act of grace to push her over the edge. Saying, "tomorrow the nunnery I today the dance" I she means that she wishes to enjoy this night of feasting to the fullest before making a final commitment to Dmitri. Grusha doesn't see that it is not so easy. Living on the edge yields great pleasure; the temptation is to stay put . St . Augustine: "How long, how long? Tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not in this very hour an end to my uncleanness?" (Confessions 8 : 12) . Something te rr ifying must be endur ed this v e ry night if Grus h a and Mitya are to exchange promises with solemn devotion . Dimitri came to Mokroe hoping only to become reconciled with Grushenka . The plan was to kill himself after making way for her new life with the Pole : "I must kill one noxious insect for fear it should crawl and spoil life for others." Mitya has shown a g r eat change in his love for Grusha . At the start he wished to win her from his rival for his glory and satisfaction as well as for his reformation and renewal; he was prone to fierce jealousy and vengeful violence; he was always on the 45 �------------ - - -- - -- - - - -- watch and even employed Smerdyakov to keep track of Grushenka's and Fyodor's de a.lings• Now, however, Mi tya' s only concern is with Grusha' s happiness. He is willing to let Grushenka go off with the Pole if that is what she wishes· he does not imp~s~ his own will on her doings; he respects her enough to let her ~ake her own decisions · Once Dmitri has attained this noble condition, and once the devil's temptation to suicide is overcome on the balcony - - "Let this fearful cup pass from me!" . -- Mi tya can place hope in the future with Grushenka, and he can be fully confident that God is working for his happiness along with hers . Mitya and Grusha are meant to be together; they are made for one another; but it is not until the ~east and the sudden catastrophe at Mokroe that they are fully aware of the gift each is to and for the other, as beings of God. Again, only when Mitya renounces his own will, his own mad desire to possess Grushenka, when he acknowledges her freedom to go abo ut doing ~hat she considers best, and only when he prays that God may order events as He sees fit, only then does everything begin to fall into place, does Dmitri see that he and Grushenka are destined to spend their lives together in holy matrimony. After Grusha's final dance, after Dmitri carries her to rest on the bed, they vow to be honest, honorable, and goo d, to work the land and dig the earth to act ·a s responsible human b eings with a closeness to life and growth, and t o b ow' down befo re God a nd b eg f o rg ive ness. But they do not know what they are willing t o endu re for one anothe.r u nti.l th.e i nvestigato rs appear: felix culpa. . The investig~ting lawyers interpret all the e vidence with a view to Mitya 1 s guilt. The case is closed e v en befo re the condemned man is interrogated. That the Po les cheat at cards is no hindrance t o their tes t imony, but that Mitya lies about t~e three tho usand r o ub l es makes all t he difference in the world. The prosecuter for h~ s p~rt h as a persona l ~take i n t h e matter despite all his c laims t o ' obj e c tiv ity ': h~s wife ~as always particularly f o nd o f Dmitri and his career will skyrocket with a vic t o r y i n court. With dev ilish wi nks and smirks of self-righteousn e s s and se~f-~at isfact ion, the inv estigato rs make the same error as Ivan. They think that by s t i c king t o t h e f acts the tru th will inevitably be t o ld, as if facts of themselves were in the habit o f fa ll ing i nto plac e, as if a selectio n and i n terpretatio n o f fa c ts on t h e part o f fa l l ible human b e ings were not at issue. J ust as Ivan c laims t o know abo ut the in j u~ti c e of suffering on the basis of s o me newspaper clippings, so t h e se attorneys claim t o know about M itya's guilt o n the basis o f hearsay: Grigo ry saw the door open; Trifo n Borisso vitch has no doubt that Mitya spent three t hous and o n each o f his trips to M kroe; and so on. The truth is that the investigato rs h ave o persu a d ed themse lves o f t h eparricidalcharacter of Karamazov. This c ase is just like s o many o thers. The y must have everything in order. They have c hosen to attend to only t h?se fac ts wh ich s uppo rt their fantasy, which fit their pre-arranged p u zzle, and to igno re every o ther relev ant piece of e v idence. They refuse to acknowledge the he art- f elt nat u re of Dmitr i' s horro r a nd sorrow over the where and the how o f h is fath er's de ath. (Not b e ing altogether b eautiful himself, Dmitri has come t o see t h at he h a d no p lac e to fi nd Fyodor repulsive. ) The inv estigato rs refu se to admit that their job consists in s to r y -te l ling . In their eyes ficti on has nothing to d o wi th the t r uth . Yet the y f ab r ic a t e t h e f ab le o f the fif t een-hundred roubles stash e d away some where in the hotel, much to Trifo n Borossovitc h's cha g rin. What t he investiga to rs don't seem t o understand is t h at Dmitri Fyodo r ovitch Karamazov a human bei?g, and an .extraordinary one at that, cannot be boxed and packaged, 'that the moti v es a nd a ctions o f a perso n are far too invo l v ed to be exp l a ined away i n a po l i c e repo rt. Of c ourse, lawyers have to j udge, as do we all, but why do we find such satani c pleasure i n j udging o thers? Why are we s o c o nfident that we know the t ruth o f their heart s a nd a c tio ns, when a goo d deal of the time we haven't t h e fa intest no tio n wha t we are talking about? ~ Dmitri's integrity and frankness make it difficult f o r him t o s h are what is in h is heart with t hese men. Confessing to Alyosha is a relief, but confessing to the 46 attorneys is agony . Honor is not so important to them that they know the distinction between being a thief and being a scoundrel . Even, that is , especially when he is s tanding naked before them , Dmitr i towers above the investigator s . God ' s way s are strange and mysterious. Piety demands that we trust in their goodness . It does· a ll seem fitting and r ight when Mitya says : "I couldn't have lear ned s o much about myself in twenty years as I have on this accursed night . " Dmitri is the sort of person who has to suffer greatly before he is prepared to have his heart changed by God. Out of his grief fo r Grushenka, his anger over the investigators' petty details, his exhaustion a f ter being tossed to and fro all night long, out of Mitya' s great suffering emerges a d r eam about a babe . The d r eam arising f r om Mi tya ' s subterranean depths bears witness to his t r ansfigured self, his careful attentiveness to people who are afflicted and aggrieved, his newfound openness to being of service t o his fellow s , to self- giving fo r the gladness of others . Approaching a bur nt-out town with the houses in shambles -- Mokroe? -- seeing the villagers standing i n tattered rags on the road in t he dead of winter, Mi tya naively a s ks his peasant driver -- Andrey? -- questions concerning the mystery of suffering : Why a r e they c r ying? Why are they crying? ••• It's the babe ••. The babe weeping ••• but why is she weeping ••• why are her little arms bare? Why don't they wrap her up? .•. The babe's cold, her little clothes a r e frozen and don't warm he r •.• But why is it? Why? •.• Why , they're poor people bur nt out ••• No,no ••• Tell me why is it those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poo r ? Why is the babe poor? Why is the steppe bar ren? Why don ' t they hug each othe r a nd kiss? Why don't they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark f r om black misery? Why don't they feed the babe ? Sadly , Ivan never asks "Why?" . Ivan cannot admit that he does not know, that the answer is hidden f rom him . By way of the mystery of suffering, t h e 'irranortal beauty' - as Hopkins calls it- of Christ's sacrifice, that is how God finally chooses to reveal Himself to human beings in history . Mi tya is entering that storm which wrecked the Deutschland, shar ing in the suffering of people whom he does not know, and does not n e ed to know in o r der to feel what they feel . Mitya himself was once a child in tatter ed r ags, outcas t and forgotten; he understands , almost, what it means to shiver in the cold with litt le hope of finding shelter again , suffe r ing unto death . Mo r e s o than on any othe r night, even last night at the fo r ester's hut--his final preparation fo r tonight , tonight Mitya has endured a heart- wrenching pass ion : first being tempted to act c o ntrary t o God' s will by murder and suic · de; next endur ing abuse , condemnation, and mockery by the citizens and judges; las t wi ll b e the bearing of a c r oss for the rest of his life, unto death . And he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had neve r known befor e, was rising in his hear t, that he wanted to c r y, tha t he wanted to do something fo r them all, so that the babe should weep no more , so that the dark- faced, dried- up mother should not wee p , that no one should s hed tears again f r om that moment , and he wanted to do it at once, at once, regar dless of all obstacles , wi th all the recklessness of the Karamazovs • •• 'And I'm coming with you . I won't leave now for the rest of my life . I'm coming with you,' he heard close by him Grushenka's tender voice , thrilling with emotion . And his heart glowed, and he str uggled forward toward the light , and he longed to live, to live , to go on a nd on , towar ds the new beckoning light, and to 47 �hasten, hasten, now, at once! Dmitri is drawn to the sufferin face . . . The urgent call to attend to th g s of individuals, not to Ivan's 'humanity' M't ' e sorrows and woes of his f 11 • 1 ya s brotherly compassion for the woman . e ows comes from Christ. one simple manifestation of God' . and ch~ldren of the devastated village is Christ Mitya would feel no compul:i~~v~:g,, sufferi~g l~ve for human beings. Without starving people. Bearing one another's ~iv~ up h~s life for these withered, feeble, sees feelingly that he has the ab'l't b ur ens is Christ's law (Gal. 6:2). Mitya · i i Y Y way of God's sav· saving efficacy, to respond to th ing power, Christ's death's st th e cares of the babe By f reel . . and concern, by responding to Christ's . . y giving his love and . reng in the sufferings of its inhabitant b h . prese~ce in the burnt out village and bab e, Mitya acknowledges with a d s, b Y earing Christ's vo ice in t h e cries of the · · · . are responsible to all for all ;ep ow the truth of Father Zossima's words· 'all unkindness are just as much th an everything.' Mitya now knows that his mome~ts of · e b e f ore he could have his dream cause of the babe's suffering as anything else. Yet d I · · , a goo dream not the e · 1 d nquisitor and Mme. Hohlakov, Mit a had ., . vi ream of Ivan and the is like to make way to love G hy . k to strike Grigory, and he had to feel what it , rus en a as a human bein d and he had to be UnJ' ustly tri' d d g an not as someone to be won, e an put upon by the · t' · t h e character of redemptive drama inves igating lawyers. Such is H Now Mitya must face the possibility of spending e courageously proclaims that even in the mines years of hard labor in. Siberia. murderers, the persecuted and th t underground, among thieves and . e ou cast he will try t raise a hymn of praise and th k . . , o muster the strength to redeemed man to be full of h anh sgiving t~ God the Father. It is the mark of a ope w en faced with the worst imaginable conditions. I w~ite~ patiently for the Lord1 he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up out of the desolate pit,out of the miry and set my foot on a rock, making my steps secure bog, He put a new song in my m th · ou , a song of praise to our God. (Ps.40) But Dmitri is wrong about himself when . cross in Siberia. That is . t he cons~ders that God wills him to bear his . JUs not what he is meant to d · married, to be married to a woman 1. k G h o. Mi tya needs to be the dream of the babe Mitya's d i e lrlus enk~, no one else. Her voice was also in . . ream a ows him to enter i t th b rings him closer to · Christ th R d n o o ers' suffering. it . e e eemer, but he cannot with f 1 ' weeping and hunger from the face of th h one e 1 swoop, wipe Dmitri has been delivered from tr ~ eart. . The redemptive power with which Mitya' s vows to Grushenka hi s coamrnns'gtresstions hwill work thr ough him in a family way. ' ' i men to er for l' f t · · The sacrament of marriage will be a bi ~ . i.e ime, will be a handful. seeking out run-down towns and d. t g ~nough responsibil.i ty for Dmitri without his Christ's cross. He has a cross ::. r:u~ t m?thers and children. Mitya cannot bear can still reflect the goodness a die is !uniquely his own. His sayings and doings d. n reso ve of his dream th . or inary than he thought' that's all. Th , ey may JUst be more Fyodorovitch Karamazov heretofore is t b e ~:eatest act of love open to Dmitri and a stern and tender father for theiroch:ld:en~nd and gentle husband for Grushenka v. The Holy Koinonia Alexey Fyodorovi tch Karamazov is Skotoprignyevsk after a long ab the .first among the brothers to return to . sence. Having an allegian t comes in search of his mother, s t mb ce o sacred memory, he lies buried; he abandoned his wif 'o • Fyodor in his dissipation forgot where she e s grave and all his memories long ago on a trip to 48 Odessa. Thanks only to Grigory's steadfast service and special fondness for Sophia, a stone was erected in her name. Alyosha visits the place, remembering how his mother once held him up to the slanting sunlight shining on a holy image so that as a child he might receive the gracious gift of faith. Alyosha cherishes this memory his whole life long. Strangely, when he hears a story about a fit of his mother's -- the one incited by Fyodor's spitting on an ikon hoping to destroy Sophia's mysticism -Alyosha falls back in his chair "shaking all over in a hysterical paroxysm of sudden, violent weeping." The blood of a religious idiot flows through this young man's veins. With the memory of his mother's piety working upon his imagination Alyosha decides to enter the monastery on the outskirts of town as a novice. Father Zossima, the Elder at the monastery renowned for his saintly doings, Alyosha's pater seraphicus, also recollects going to mass with his mother as a child and being struck by sunlight streaming down through the window of the church. God's word is planted as a seed in Zossima' s and Alexey' s heart at an early age, and grows of its own accord without their constant care and attention. Being a Karamazov, a person smeared with black, Alyosha is capable of base lust, pre-occupation with himself and indifference to others, willful rejection of God's saving ways, all the sins which lead to a life in hell on earth, which make a human being unable to love his fellows. Alyosha's becoming a novice to escape the darkness and deviltry of the world and his own soul, to avoid temptation by hiding behind cloistral walls, is, as Father Zossima knows, somewhat troublesome; it is a sign of youthful fear and inexperience, not a sign of weakness and aloneness. Father Zossima also knows that Alyosha sincerely wishes to search after righteousness among holy men, to offer himself up to God as a living sacrifice with a view to showing mercy and being of service to others who are in need. He has been blessed with the gifts of unaffected . simplicity and patient humility. Alyosha's soft, gentle, handsome young face raises in Father Zossima's memory the image of his brother Markel whose pious, dying sayings have always been enshrined in his heart. It is good that Father Zossima at the beginning of his life received Markel's words, witnessing his beautiful death, and at the end of his life passes on his treasured memories to the boy who reminds him o f Markel, spending his last days with Alyosha in childlike happiness. Father Zossima can look back in old age over his many years and see God at work taking care of him, giving him then Markel and now Alyosha. Under the influence of a freethinking and isolated philosophy student, Markel came to rail against God and laugh at the servants and members of his family for their devout practices during Lent. Afterwards, Holy Week brought a fatal illness to Markel, but "a marvelous change passed over him, his spirit seemed transformed." When he began speaking in ways obscure and almost unintelligible, the doctor diagnosed his words as insane, but the nine year old Zossima gladly and attentively heard them as free gifts for the enhancement of faith: "I will be the servant of my servants, the same as they are to me .•• every one of us has sinned against all men, and I more than any ... Birds of heaven, happy birds, forgive me, for f have sinned against you ••• There was such a glory of God all about me: birds, trees, meadows, sky, only I lived in shame and dishonored it all and did not notice the beauty and the glory ... it's for you, not grief I'm crying •.. I like to humble myself before them, for I don't know how to love them enough, yet all forgive me, too, and that's heaven. Am I not in heaven now?" Markel says that he has sinned against every created being more than any other person; Dimitri feels responsible for the weeping and suffering of the babe and her mother; Father Zossima blames himself for another man's sin even more than the actual sinner: all because they are aware that they have not fully attained to the joy of being in the world and that in their joyless states they have sown evil seeds in people's hearts. Markel's betrayal of life's glory encourages the brilliant young 49 �philosopher to preach his own plan of salvation, adding to his bitterness and misanthropy; Mitya's violent treatment of Snegiryov -- that large sweeping gesture which prevents him from performing a small act of kindness -- leads to Ilusha' s death; Zossima' s reckless, youthful vanity brings about a duel which could make a murderer out of a nobleman. Alyosha must accept that even the best human beings suffer from frailty and pass through periods of harmful wrongdoing. He must recognize that escaping from the sinfulness of the world and his own soul is no way to combat evil and attain purity of heart, that a monk's life of prayer in a monastery is a life of compassionate dedication to his fellows in the world, that being in the world is a joyful activity even in the midst of anguish and degradation . The primary foundation for joy is God the Creator. Also every being in the created world -- mountains, rivers, even stones -- is a reason to delight in being alive. And since it is all too easy to side with Ivan ' s claim that suffering makes it impossible to find joy and be glad, ·Holy Scripture too is a necessary foundation, for the sacred tales of the Bible place the suffering of God's world in the proper redemptive light. Alyosha holds a naive conviction that Father Zossima's saintly doings will bring extraordinary glory to the monastery. Believing the Elder' s death to be an event worth God's showing Himself and His favor -- as if justice consisted in worldly fame -- Alyosha turns away from God. He acts as though there were a fit recompense for righteousness, even though no human being is justified in God's sight because of anything he does. A person is justified only because God in all His mercy freely and unconditionally chooses to make him just, to fill him with grace, to look upon him as righteous. St. Paul: " .• a man is not justified by works of the law but by way of faith in Jesus Christ ..• I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me . . . if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose" (Gal. 2:16-21). Alyosha grieves over Father zossima's death with his back turned to the hermitage, sitting on Job's tombstone, a monk whose namesake defied God for justice's sake and whose body did not undergo corruption after death. By expecting something extraordinary, a quite peculiar marvel, to affirm and proclaim Father Zossima' s sanctified life before all the world, Alyosha is defying and denying God's will and way. Before Alyosha met Father Zossima he never loved anyone enough -- besides his mot;her -- to feel deep injury at his loss. Alyosha does not weep beautifully for Father Zossima just because of the premature corruption of the Elder' s body. His tears of sorrow turn into tears of disappointment. Alyosha is at his worst when he joins the throng behind Ferapont outside Father Zossima's cell and when he repeats Ivan's cheap phrases about not accepting God's world. Unbeknownst to him, God's saving activity is present even in this seemingly catastrophic event. The apparent disgrace of Alyosha's saint leads to "a crisis and turning-point in his spiritual development, giving a shock to his intellect, which finally strengthened it for the rest of his life and gave it a definite aim." Rakitin finds Alyosha lying motionless, face down, with arms limply outspread on the ground, deeply pained by God's hiddenness, and lures him over to Grushenka's for a drink and a fling. Alyosha's going to Grushenka's home is akin to throwing himself off the pinnacle of the temple, tempting God. On the one hand he has a childish, abstract, dogmatic urge to get back at God for what He has allowed to happen -- not only was Father Zossima not justified, he was ruined - - on the other hand he secretly hopes to find God's saving presence at Grusha's. His expectation of the extraordinary from God defied and denied the divine mystery at work in ordinary things. Grushenka's simple gesture of kindness and compassion helps Alyosha see more deeply the mystery of a Creator who is moved by and overflows with the fullness of love. Only along this path can Alyosha renounce once and for all his tendency to 50 hate God's way of going about doing good. His power to give a small gift in return to Grushenka even in his lowliest condition bears witness to the strength of his love and the depth of his kindness. Alyosha's gift to Grushenka consists in allowing Grushenka to give a gift to him, in allowing her to show forth the ~ood~ess in her oul so that she might take note of it. He is able to offer Grusha this gift because ~f his steadfast, quixotic respect for all human beings, even, that is, especially those who do not respect themselves. The source and center of Alyosha's gladness is his ability to receive with grace the gifts of others and to bear without conde~ation ~he abuse~ o~ others. Receiv~ng is more difficult than giving and keeping silence is more difficult than shouting Alyosha can be a child of the generous Yefim Petrovitch in a way Ivan cannot t OU. 'l simply because Alyosha thankfully acknowledges Yefim's fatherly .gestures whi. e Ivan stubbornly avoids them. Ivan speaks angrily to people who wish to do .him some charity, desiring rather to stand firmly on his own two feet and support himself at all cost. Alyosha, on the other hand, accepts hospitality from anyone; he doesn't bother about who is taking care of him; and even as a child he endures the insults of his school-fellows without a word of complaint, harshness, or cruelty. Ivan tends to turn down invitations to merry-making, but Alyosha, now that he has received Grusha's loving kindness and set aside his troubled spirit, is ready to respond gladly to the biggest invitation imaginable. . . . Father Paissey is reading the story of the wedding party in Cana, of Galilee, from st. John's gospel, over the dead body of Father Zossima, when Alyosha returns to the hermitage f rorn Grushenka' s house. Exhausted by the turmoil and tumult of the day, as is Dmitri when he dreams of the babe and Ivan when he d~eams of ~he devil, Alyosha enters into the sacred tale. He is invited by Father Zossima, who is present at the wedding, to join the party, the marriage feast at which joy abounds. Even Alyosha, for whom receiving is so easy, is hidden and out of sight, so that he requires a special invitation corning from the person whom he most trusts and holds most dear . Alyosha, who has been hiding from the outside, the world beyond the ikon-covered gates of the cloistered monks, is finally ready to grasp fully the words of Father zossirna -- "he who loves men loves their gladness" -- and the words of Dmitri --"there is no living without joy" -- and the words of either Father Zossima or Dmitri Alyosha isn't sure which, probably both --"everything that is true and good is ~!ways full of forgiveness" -- and the beauty and goodness of Jesus. in changing water into wine so that the poor people around the Lake of Genesareth might be festive and happy~ When the walls recede in the midst of Alyosha's dream, the distinction between inside, the cloistral walls of the monastery, and outside, the world is erased. Alyosha finally sees that what happens inside has everything to do with ~hat happens outside and what happens outside has everything to do with what happens inside. The world as well as the church is a place to delight in feasts ~nd celebrations, a place to be with others for the good of all. . Th~ sudden comi~g together of places Alyosha had always considered separate and distinct causes his soul to overflow "with rapture" and to yearn for "freedom, space, openness." For the first time Alyosha sees the splendor and the glory of his familiar surroundings: The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the beds round the house, were slumbering till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens. The mystery of the earth was one with the mystery of the stars ••• 51 �.For the first tim~ Alyosha sees the oneness of all things. Before attending the marriage feast everything is scattered all over the place. Breathlessly Alyosha runs from Father Zossima in the monastery to Dmitri in the garden, from Dmitri in the garden to Fyodor in the house, from Fyodor to Katerina and Grushenka, back and forth, from Smerdyakov by the cottage to Ivan at the tavern. After attending the marriage feast everything is unified. All of Alyosha's experience points toward a common center: the Holy Trinity. Alyosha's acceptance of Christ's invitation through Father Zossima entails seeing how extraordinary are the ordinary things of God. Just by seeing ordinary things as God's things they suddenly become transformed and shine forth in ways which astound and amaze those who are filled with pious awe and wonder. Alyosha's participation in the eucharistic celebration will be truly life-receiving for him and life-giving for others from here on out. Alyosha ' s dream-vision renders less unintelligible some of the misty, mystical words of Father Zossima' s last conversation: "God took seeds from different worlds and sowed them on this earth, and His garden grew up and everything came up that could come up, but what grows lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact with other mysterious worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you, the heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will grow indifferent to life and even grow to hate it." The different worlds which are threaded together for Alyosha at the marriage feast are the various human relationships of utmost importance in his life. Each relationship is a world unto itself but they all have a unitary meaning. Alyosha's dream-vision blends into one holy partnership Father Zossima, Mitya and Grusha, the bride and bridegroom, Jesus and Mary, the wise governor of the feast and the poor villagers. For the one who was hidden and out of 7ig?t ~11 these people and contacts were unrelated, but for the one who accepts the invitation and partakes of the feast, they are mystically joined in spiritual fellowship. Christ's invitation to us all is, as Father Zossima says, unceasing forever and ever: "He is expecting new guests ..• they are bringing new wine." It is not that we a~e invited only once in our lives and if we refuse our hopes are dashed. Every ~inute of ever~ hour of every... Jesus invites all of us to gather together in Joyful fellowship at the sacred table. By keeping hidden and out of sight we offer almost as great a rejection of Him as when we come right out into the open, say: 'No, be lost!' Jesus' suffering did not end at Golgotha, He has to endure our avoidance of his saving gestures again and again, as often as we turn our backs. Yet he still reserves a seat for each of us at the table to help us overcome our horrible abiding aloneness. Imagine how sad it would be to sit at your seat and wait for a friend who refused to take his or her seat. Such sadness, however, can last for a time. Before long a table will be set only for those who accepted the invitation. Who these people are, God only knows, but all will rejoice. What then shall we say? Shall we accept or reject Christ's invitation? Some might respond, saying: 'I am not called and nothing you can say will make me believe that I am called.' Others:'I trust I am invited but I do not want to have anything to do with a party that is no more than a gathering of the elect.' Others: 'I trust I am called, and I am extremely grateful, but the shame I would feel in God's presence would be unbearable for me. ' still others: 'Thanks for inviting me. I shall join but I shall feel no joy there. ' Finally some people might r espond , saying: 'Hurrah! I shall give up anything and everything, even my life, to be able to attend such a joy-creating festive celebration of spiritual fellowship with the Father at the head of the table and the Son serving the new wine of gladness. ' There are as many different responses as there are hearts to respond. The invitation is always being tendered and Jesus always waits patiently for gracious acceptance. For our part, whether we like it or not, we are always responding, each and every second, in one way or another, for better or worse, in sickness and health, unto death. 52 Having attended the marriage feast and witnessed the glory and splendor of the sapphire sky and golden domes, Alyosha is filled with such ecstasy that only one thing is left for him to do: Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love it, to love it forever and ever. "Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears," echoed in his soul ••• He longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. "And others are praying for me too", echoed again in his soul ••• something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered his soul ••• some idea had seized the sovereignty of his mind -- and it was for all his life and forever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion •.• And never, never, all his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute. Now the gentle and open-hearted novice is ready to be fully what he was always meant to be, a ministering angel full of love for the lowest things of the earth because of their relation to the highest things of heaven. Alyosha's arms embrace all people in all conditions through every season and in every place. Having watered the earth with his joyful tears, he will be able to bring forth fruit in abundance once lie enters upon his ministry in the world, which is to serve Jesus Christ in hope of His coming reign by serving his fellow human beings with the new wine. Once Alyosha hugs and kisses the earth there is nothing left for him to do but give himself up for others. He is finally a true disciple of Jesus Christ and a true spiritual son of Father Zossima, that holy man who "joyfully gave up his soul to God" with his arms ecstatically outstretched "praying and kissing the ground." Only after Father zossima speaks to him directly from the marriage feast is Alyosha prepared to obey the Elder's commandments:" Be with your brothers ••. If evil spirits rise up repeat a prayer .•• You will have to endure all before you come back .•• In sorrow seek happiness ••. Begin your work dear one ..• Sojourn in the world." . Part of the work of a champion is to care for others by graciously and patiently accepting their griefs as his own. Alyosha's patience allows him to listen attentively to the hysterical remarks of Mitya and Ivan, Grusha and Katerina, Lise and Mme. Hohlakov, to take calmly upon himself the burden of their woes without passing judgement on their depth or genuineness, to recognize mildly that "tragic phrases comfort the heart." Patience is not passivity; neither is. it ~toical, unmoved endurance. Patience, derived ultimately from the Greek pascho, is, first, an experiencing, or enduring, or suffering, of turmoil and sorrow, with kindness and gentleness, in hope of a coming time of plenty, rest, and joy; and last, an active, attentive hearing and feeling of this experience so that what is offered as a teaching may be learned. Alyosha's patience makes it possible for him to absorb the harsh, sometimes vile and cruel words and deeds of his fellows in human community without condemning the speakers and doers. His simple pious way of being tells us a truth so simple and so common that it is often overlooked, or, what is worse, despised: imaginatively feeling for others who are in anguish, taking their part, whether in prayer or in being fully present for them, not as an advisor or as a counselor, but just as a fellow presence, is a great act of gracious human goodn~ss. Another part of the work of a champion is to gather together especially 53 �children, but also adults, and plant seeds of goodwill in their hearts. Father Zossima remarks on :he first time he understood something read in church -- the story of Job -- and how important that event was for his future well being. All children should be blessed with the oppo rtunity to hear sacred stories fr om the Bible, stories which they may not fully understand -- who does? -- but which will allow them to feel involvement, excitement, fear, happiness, the full array of emotions which an imaginative listener passes through during the reading of a good story. Father Zossima urges priests who are overburdened with "works and services" to devote at le~st one hour a week to sharing the remembrance of Jerusalem with children. The priest ought to invite the children to his cottage during the week, preparing jam and tea. for th~m, ~avo~ites of Father Zossima and Alyosha: "Let him open the book and begin reading it without grand words or superciliousness, without condescension to t~em, ~ut g~ntly and ~indly, being glad that he is reading to them and that they are listening with attention, loving the words himself •.. Let him too weep, the priest of God, ~nd be sure the hearts of his listeners will throb in response. Only a tiny seed is needed -- drop it into the heart of the peasant and it won't die it will live in his s oul all his life, it will be hidden in the midst of the dar~ness and sin, like a bright spot, like a great reminder." The work of the champion invo lves not only being with and for people in their ~orr?w, but also abiding in people as a good memory so that they may call him forth in times of trouble (Jn . 15). Christ's kiss glows in the Inquisitor's heart. Yet on account of his willful and ongoing rejection of the-rnvitation being extended to him he cannot bring forth fruits that befit repentance. The Cardinal adheres to hi~ ideas instead of risking change. Ivan's wish to receive an abiding gesture of love f:om Alyosha is his primary motive for reciting his prose poem . Ivan needs to be ki~se~, b.u t he makes i: impossible for Alyosha's kiss to glow in his heart by br~~ging it about by design. Alyosha earlier kissed Lise right smack on the lips in a f~t of spontaneous passion and joy, but the kiss he gives his brother lacks that spontaneity which is the mark of true sincerity . It is as if Ivan calculates Alyosha's kiss so that he can convince himself that it isn't genuine and so that he ca~ continue to remain alone on his wavering path of doubt and despair. Ivan is still . a.young man; he may emerge from his madness and find himself in the hands of the living God . Nevertheless Ivan warns us how soon a heart can become hardened. It needn't take ninety years. That is in part why Father Zossima wants priests to read holy t~les in the Bible to children, to show them that redemption comes by way of ~uf~eri~g, so that when as adults they freely choose either to accept or reject God's invitation ~o the great feast at least they will do so knowing the Orthodox belief . Father Zossima sheds sad tears over children and youths like Ivan who bitterly turn away from God because of some wrongheaded belief . K~lya Krasso.tkin is in danger of some day being in Ivan's shoes. Kol ya is an e~ceptional~y br.ight boy who closed- heartedly holds certain good feelings at a distance, like his love for his mother, because of their 'sheepish sentimentality'. Desperately wishing to be admired by older and younger friends alike, Kolya goes to great lengths to win approval and acceptance. Kolya Krassotkin is willfully like one of the factory children of whom Father Zossima speaks, children who are never given a chance to be children, to grow up in a heal thy way, playing in the sunshine. Although Kolya is granted a blissful day of tears in his mother ' s arms after the railway incident, he suffers the misfortune of falling into Rakitin's fiendish hands of being indoctrinated in socialist teachings after the manner of the Gran~ Inquisitor. Alyosha: "I am sad that a charming nature such as yours should be perverted by all this crude nonsense before you have begun life ." Kolya is always in a hurry to quote clever phrases and display his grown - up knowledge for fear the whole world is l.aughi?g at. him , as if he were created as a mockery. so much of Kol ya' s preoccupation with his own self has to do with the desire to be 'complex' and to be 54 recognized as 'deep' • Thanks to Alyosha's saving patience and kind-heartedness, Kolya gets a chance to see that a person can be grown-up and childlike at the same time, a person can be simple and gentle and still be respected and loved. Alyosha urges Kolya to stand apart from the devil's vanity which seeks to make clever people feel ridiculous about confessing to themselves their own tenderness and affection for others. Thanks to Ilusha's illness Kolya can feel what it is like to run his fingers through his friend's hair, to forgive and be forgiven, to weep tears of reconciliation and love. Alyosha hopes and prays that Kolya will always remember those beautiful moments by Ilusha's bedside beneath the holy ikons. Alyosha for his part blushes when Kolya acknowledges their declaration of love, not because he is afraid of his own good heart, but because of the simple fact that without any effort on his part people just love him and trust him -- that is a gift Alyosha has been given -- and because he is meant to suffer for himself only for a few short hours, while others, like Kolya, Dmitri, and Ivan, must suffer at length for him. Alyosha must try to understand and come to terms with those struggles of others -- jealousy, envy, bitterness, anger, hatred, pride -- which he has the great good fortune to be without. · He does not have the worldly experience· of others, but he is living testimony that a person may gain wisdom just as well by peacefully attending to his inner life with God as by going everywhere and doing everything. Pascal: ••• _!! ai dit souvent ~tout le malheur des homrnes vient d'une seule chose, q~ est de ne savoir pas demeurer ~ repos dans ~ chambre (Pensee #136) • Alyosha is sent by God as an apostle to teach Kolya that being a simple-hearted child is more wholesome than being a complicated adult, to warn Dmitri that it is not for him to sing his song of praise from the underground and bear his cross in Siberia, and to tell Ivan that it was not he who killed their father. Alyosha's wisdom, his mildness and patience, is manifest again with the boys after Ilusha' s funeral. Kolya says that he could not care less about the very being of Kartashov, his partner in the knowledge of who founded Troy. Alyosha allows Kolya to utter his harsh and cruel words without admonishment, and only later proclaims that he for one cares a whole . lot about Kartashov' s being. Alyosha knows enough to wait for the opportune time before speaking out in response to Kolya's sinful outburst. Meanwhile he learns about how difficult the death of a friend can be for a person like Kolya. Alyosha is simply good from the very start, but he is ever so much better after attending the wedding feast. His new clothes and unshakable serenity are signs that he has learned from his teacher to be a teacher himself, a true monk in the world, bearing other people's burdens, helping them to clarify their confusions, paying heed to every gesture and glance with a view to what will find a permanent place in especially children's hearts. Aside from patient and attentive listening, the champion monk's main activity consists in gathering people together in "good and kind feeling" so that they might be, for a time anyway, "better perhaps than they ordinarily are." At the beginning Father Zossima is at the center of · two gatherings: a simple, heal thy, fortunate gathering among pious women confessing their sins, begging forgiveness, seeking comfort, and offering charity; and a complicated, unhealthy, unfortunate gathering among the likes of Ivan, Rakitin, and Miusov, who are concerned with grand arguments on matters of the state and the church. Father Zossima succeeds at being a champion outside with the open-hearted peasant women, but not inside with the hard- hearted noblemen. At the end Alyosha succeeds in being a champion at the center of a group of twelve boys who are gathered together to share their grief over the death of their beloved friend. Having learned at the marriage party that all worlds are threaded together into one whole, Alyosha knows his place at the stone, the special place where Ilusha and his father wept for one another and shared their dreams. Alyosha knows that is gathering together what God has already gathered, solidifying what the boys have until now only loosely understood, bringing out into the open what has 55 �been hidden, namely, "th at there is no thing higher and stronger and more wh olesome and go od for life in the future than a go od memory . " Alyosha: "You are all dear to me, boy s, fr om t h is day forth, I have a place in my heart for you all, and I beg you t o keep a place in your heart for me! Well, and who has united us in this kind, good fee l i ng which we shall reme mber and intend to remember all our lives? Who, if not I l usha, the good boy , the dear boy, precious to us forever! Let us never forget him . May h is memo ry live forever in our hearts from this day forth . " Alyosha wishes I lusha's death allows our story to end on a no te of new life. t h e boys t o p o ssess a saving memo ry o f Ilusha on his deathbed just as Father zossima p o ssess e d a saving memo ry of Markel o n his deathbed. Ilusha has the same kind spirit as Marke l , asking his friends to c o mfo rt his father and requesting that bread be put o n his grav e s o t h at he might be visited by the sparrows. Alyosha , along with Father Zossima and M arkel, has a difficu lt time making his deepest, most heart- felt sayings inte l lig ible. Altho ugh the barriers o f speech are being broken, as well they should be a t a time like this, this much can readily be grasped from Alyosha's words, that while f o r Ivan, I l u s ha's death is an o ccasion f o r lonesome despair, an opportunity to re j e c t God's creat ion , f o r Alyo sha, I lusha's death is an occasio n for the l iving to join hands i n fe l l ow-feeling , an opportunity t o be good and do something pleasing to God . Ivan's s tubborn s o u l pales beside Alyo sha's pilgrim s oul . Father Zo ssima teache s that we are all bound togethe r , mutually dependen t and mutu ally influ enc i ng , t hat try i ng to g ain c ontrol over the complex web o f h uman re l a t i o ns is a mis gu ided e nterprise. Smerdyakov do es just this in being the great init iato r o f a ct i ons : l y ing t o Dmitri a bout the time o f the gathering in Father Zos sima' s cell; telling Fyodor . that Gr u shenka wi l l show while knowing f u ll well that s h e won't; preparing Dmitri f o r the murd er by i n f o rming him of the se c ret kno cks a nd the whereabo uts of the three-thousand r ou b les; setting up Fyodor for the kill by encourag ing I v an t o le ave t own; f aki ng an e p i l eptic fit. Yet nothi ng happ ens quite t h e way Smerdyakov plan s. Hi s p u r po s e f u l actio n s h ave c o nsequ enc es s o far-r e a ch i ng he cannot maintain his rule . Smerdyako v d enies the operation of providence by wi l l ful l y do ing eve r ything on hi s own , and h e p ays the price. Happenings impo ssible t o p redi ct come t umb l i ng down o n top o f h i m. Alyo sha, on the o ther h a n d, is always on the receiving end, trusting in God 's guidance. His talk with the boys is the f irs t ac t which he i n itiates and l e ad s, as one s e nt b y God. Alyo sha knows that the wo rl d 's complexit y, hugene ss, a nd g randeu r are f o r him to beho ld, n ot t o comprehen d . Fath er Zo ss ima : " My b r o t h er asked the birds t o f o r g ive him: that s ounds s en seless, b u t it is ri ght; f o r all i s like an ocean , al l is fl owing a nd blend i ng ; a t ou ch in o ne place sets up a movement at the o the r end o f the earth. It may be senseless t o beg f o rgiveness of the birds, but b irds would be happier at your side -- a little happier, anyway -- and ch i l dren and all animals, if you yourself were nob ler than you are now. I t's a ll l i k e a n ocean , I t e ll you . Th en y ou wou ld pra y to the bir ds too , consumed by a n a ll e mb rac i ng love , in a s o rt o f transport, and pray tha t they t oo will f o rgiv e your sin s, Tr e asu re this e c s t asy, however sense l ess it may s eem t o men." Acco rding to Ivan, "the earth is s o aked from its crust t o its center" wi t h "the tea rs o f h uma n i ty . " Ivan is a n oc ean o f ind ignation and a nguish . Father Zoss ima 's is a n o cean of f o r giveness and joy . Fo rgive n ess is crucia l. We h a v e t o act all the t i me witho ut k nowi ng what will be the c on sequ ences o f o ur acti on s, without knowing whether and t o what extent we are involved in evildoing. All are responsible to all f o r al l a nd everything precisely b ecau s e t he wo rld is t h e kind o f place Father Zo ssima says it is, a place b o und t ogether by a web o f c omplex relations. An analogue fr om the natural kingdom might help: "it is quite credible that the presence o f a feline ·animal in large numbers in a district mi ght determine, through the intervention first of mic e then of bees, the frequency of certain fl owers in t h at district!" (Darwin, The Origin of Species ) . We might go back one more step, saying, there is a correlation between the number of old ladies living in a t own - - old 56 ladies tend to own cats -- and the occurrence of those same flowers. Fyodor and Gr ushenka employ Snegiryov in a business deal; Dmitri is infuriated and humiliates snegiryov; Ilusha happens to be standing nearby and witnesses the beating of his father; Ilusha kisses Dmitri's hand and begs for the salvation of his father's dignity; Ilusha is laughed at by the school boys on account of Snegiryov's disgr ace; rlusha's morbid sensitivity yields to illness; the doctor cannot help; Katerina's and Alyosha's earlier mission to provide financial help failed; Kolya a rr ives with Perezvon too late; Ilusha' s illness leads to an early death . Who among those involved in this simplified chain of events is not in part responsible for the boy ' s death? or is it Smerdyakov who is responsible because he put Ilusha up to the c r uel trick with Perezvon? Or is it Raki tin, influencing Kolya? Or Ivan, influencing smerdyakov? Or Father Zossima? All are. Alyosha's speaking to a group of boys about what is good and wholesome in life, and his eating pancakes with a sorrowing family in need of companionship, a r e acts of kindness great in-their simplicity . Alyosha sees that small things can make a big difference in a complex world . For this reason alone , Kolya is right to say that Alyosha is better than other people -- including himself and Ivan , even Dmitri . But it is not necessary to stress that one person is better than another . It is necessary to stress that the presence and life of everyone is equally impor tant . Mutual interdependence and mutual recognition are at the heart of human being . Those who are bothered by the hierarchy of abilities or talents which is indeed in the order of things are those who become bitter and envious . God shows his love fo r each of us by providing each of us with the ability to respond to Him and His creation, but He offers me talents, and opportunities to exercise my talents, which he does not offer you, and He offers you talents, and opportunities to exercise your talents , which he does not offer me . My gifts a r e diffe r ent from your gifts , and your gifts are different from mine . But the important thing is not that our gifts are different, or that I have more than you or you have more than me as if gifts of this sort could be weighed or measured; the important thing is that we acknowledge our gifts as such, that we receive them graciously, by doing whatever is in our power to make the most of them fo r our own sake and fo r the sake of one another . We may not have equally strong intellects, that is just impossible , but it is possible f o r everyone to have equally pure hearts, . provided we each walk along the way God has established uniquely for us . Yet this fact -- that the presence and life of each person is to be cherished equally -- should not hinder our tendency to care for some more than others. Father Zossima loves Alyosha more than Porfiry, and Yefim loves Alyosha more than Ivan . That is just the way things are . In order to attain to that blessed state of being whe r eby we love all equally, whe r eby we are as open- hearted to any one as to any other, a state which only Jesus Christ among human beings attained , all those critical and favorable impulses that run through the imagination on the mere sight of another person would haye to be in balance, or would have to be erased altogether . For some r eason, God knows why, we are the sort of being to be drawn to the look and the spirit of one per son over against anothe r . That may be a good thing . May it not be more in keeping with the human way -- and the most excellent employment of it -- to seek to give as much to others as enter s our soul to give on each encounter with another? To be sure, if this were the most we could give, and i f the same kind and deg r ee we r e of f e r ed to all without e x ception, t h en p erh a p s t he highest state could and would be achieved . But as it stands, let us each give to every other all that we are able to give, in recognition of our f r ailty . And when the imagination reaches out for some mo r e than others, we should not despai r , for that despai r will hinder the love we can offer to these few . The highest exellence achieved will always be incomplete. Let us simply set to work stretching our selves out toward the love of God, reaching for the source and origin of all living beings, for only then will we be able truly to love one another. Shall we gather together 57 �into one holy koinonia remembering Jerusalem? Purposiveness in Kant's Critique of Judgment Alistair Morrison Acknowledgements Igor Stravinsky, for Symphony of Psalms; Father Schillebeeckx, for Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (section 111 of my paper relies heavily on his scholarship) ; Mr. Carey and Brother Robert, for our talks on the way to Russian church and at the dinner table, Mr. O'Grady, for our conversations, and Mr. Smith, for his New Testament class, teachers and friends, thank you! The judgment, by its use of the principle "Of purposiveness, provides a bridge between the realms of understanding and reason, between what we know in natural philosophy, and what we know in practical philosophy. The knowledge of natural philosophy is limited to those things whose concept the understanding can form. Thus natural philosophy can only know the agreement of nature with the categories of the understanding. The knowledge of practical philosophy extends beyond these limits to discover those implications of our capacity for free action which are necessary according to principles of reason. It discovers the moral law, and this in turn dictates certain things that we must think about the nature of the world in which we live. "Judgment in ge~eral is the faculty of thinking the particular as contained under the universal." We bring order to our experience of the world by judgment. we unite a multitude of particular experiences under a few universal principles, laws and rules. In natural science we make use of a kind of judgment that Kant distinguishes as the determinant judgment. In determinant judgment the universal is a law. of the understanding, a universal law of nature, which we have ~ priori from the · categories of our understanding. Determinant judgment subsumes the empirical laws of nature under the universal laws, and in so doing discovers an order among these laws. That it discovers such a unity in our experience of nature cannot easily be explained. We can imagine the empirical laws of nature obeying the universal laws of our understanding, without showing any such organization among themselves. For instan2e, while the ·necessity of a universal law such as "every change must have its cause" provides some unity in our experience, it does not necessitate the degree of orderliness met in laws of nature such as the inverse square law of forces. In thinking about such unity · of experience we use another class of judgment reflective judgment. These do not start from universal ~ priori laws·, but seek s°CJme unifying principl~ - f6r our particular experiences. - Prope~ly spe~king, they . do not directly increase our knowledge of the world. For while reflective judgments have only subjective validity, they allow us to find an order in our experience of the world that goes beyond that which determinant judgment can attain. We value such a systematization of nature, even tho~gh we recognize it as only subjectively valid. We are not interested in knowledge that has the form of raw data, but seek organization and simplicity in what we know of the world. The kind of systematization that we find in both the empirical laws of nature and certain natural products transcends the order of the universal laws that we have ~ priori in the understanding. The principles which bring unity to the empirical laws of nature are not objects of experience. Instead we discover them in r eflection about nature. In order to find a principle such as "nature takes the shortest path" we must expect it - that is, we must think it possible. No objective knowledge of nature will allow us to think this possibility; instead, w.e·use the principle of ·Subjective purposiveness. We can think it possible that nature has been arranged in empirical laws for the benefit of our cognitive faculties. We think of nature as the product of an intelligent cause who had our partic~lar cognitive faculties in mind when creating the order of the empirical laws of nature. In natural sc.~ence we must 58 59 �behave as if these empirical laws have an understandable o rder; God is subtle, but not malicious. We cart then use such principles as "nature takes the shortest path" and "nothing in nature is in vain; everything is good for something" to seek nature's empirical laws. We can use the idea that nature constitutes a systematized whole in order to look for consistency between empirical laws which at first seem dissimi lar. The reconciliation of the laws o f electrodynamic phenomena with the principle of re lativity in Einstein's special theory provides a good example of the use of this p rinciple. This principle guides the investigation s of natural philosophy, but natural philosophy does not therefore assert its truth. While natural philosophy uses this principle, it does not ask why it works. Kant defines a purpose as "the product j>f a cause whose determining ground is merely the representati on of its effect . " In judgments o f purposiveness we recognize an o rganization whose possibility we cannot think, unless we think that the idea of the effect guided its production . In our own purposes, we f orm an idea of the effect we wish to bring about; then, as much as is in our p ower, we determine the mechanisms o f nature in o rder to achieve this end . Our own productions have a high level of order which natural p roducts like rocks and mountains do not possess. In our own productions because we know that for the sake of which the object was created, the cause involves the idea of its effect. We attribute purposiveness to an object or state of affairs whose possibility we cannot understand except as the effect of such an intelligent cause. The C:ritigue of Judgment shows that we judge nature to have both objective and subjective purposes. We come to see subjective purposes when we judge that nature has been arranged the way it is for the benefit of our cognitive faculties. Aesthetic judgments are of this sort, and so are the presuppositions of natural philosophy cited above. We see subjective purposiveness in form (or its negation) and in the harmony of form with our cognitive faculties. We come to see objective purposiveness is seen in what Kant calls organized beings. These are products of nature whose existence we cannot think possible unless we think that the ground of this possibility lies in the representation of the being itself. Products whose possibility we can understand as grounded in the universal laws of nature Kant calls products of the mechanism of nature . Such a ground can enable us to think the possibility of rocks, rivers, mountains, or salt crystals. Yet it fails to explain the production of a blade of grass, for such a being is both the cause and the effect of itself. We cannot understand the possibility of the produc tion, maintenance, and reproduction of such a being, without thinking that the idea of the blade of grass has been used to determine the gathering and arranging of the materials .that constitute it . The processes of production, maintenance, and reproduction all take place by means of the mechanism of nature . Yet the possibility of such a combination of (natural) occu rrences cannot be thought to depend upon this cause. We call a blade of grass a purpose of nature because we can think all its parts and processes as possible only by referring them to the idea o f the whole. We thus think that there is an intelligent substrate to the perceived purposiveness of nature, for such a cause tr.at can determine the mechanisms of nature so that they produce a product according to the representation of that product. If we could show that every intelligent being needs the idea of purposiveness in order to think either the possibility of o rganized beings, o r the possibility of the order present in the empirical laws of nature, then we could attribute objective validity to the principle of purposiveness - just as if it were a rational concept suitable for use by the determinant judgment . But Kant says that we see purposiveness in nature only because of the peculiar construction of our cognitive faculties. For human understanding , the possible and the actual are distinct. we need to combine both for knowledge of an object . We find possibility in the concepts of the 60 understanding, while we meet actuality in the intuitions of the sensibility. Because we cannot think. that every intelligent being must have such a discursive understanding, we cannot assert the principle of purposiveness to have objective validity. If we form an idea of a higher understanding, our thought finds it repugnant to think that possibility differs from actuality for God - or even for the angels. We think instead that their superior understandings possess a superior notion of possibility which makes it concurrent with actuality. We do not see why there could not be unicorns in the world, but we think that such an understanding would not share our confusion. For our understanding, then, an organized being results from the cooperation of its parts. It cannot also ground this cooperative combination, for then the actuality would have created the possibility - which makes no sense for a discursive understanding. Since we cannot find the ground of this cooperative combination in the laws of nature, we place it in the representation of the being. Yet we can think of a higher understanding which does not possess the split between possible and actual. such a being might understand the possibility of organized beings to depend only on the mechanism of nature. The knowledge of this mechanism which this being would have transcends. the ·knowledqe that we can have. For it, organized beings would be no more purposive than the rest of nature. Reason's hope in a greater unity underlying nature than that which we know with our limited understanding, and thus its idea of an understanding capable of knowing this unity, makes us acknowledge that all understandings might not require the principle of purposiveness. While universally, subjectively valid for human beings, it cannot be attributed to an object, because we cannot prove that every intelligent being must think that purpose underlies nature. The principle of purposiveness provides a bridge between understanding and reason. We never come to know purposes through natural philosophy. They belong to us as free beings, and natural philosophy cannot know anything about this kind of causality. Instead, it uses the idea of such a causality to guide its investigation of natural laws . In this way, natural philosophy makes it possible for us to discover that the principle which asserts purpose as a cause in nature is at least subjectively valid for human beings. The critique of our teleological judgment shows the principle of purposiveness as essential to human thought, and as its particular possession. The understanding, by the possibility of its~ priori laws for nature gives proof that nature is only cognized by us as a phenomenon and implies, at the same time, that it has a supersensible substrate, though it leaves this quite undetermined. The judgment, by its ~ priori principle for the judging of nature according to its possible particular laws, makes the supersensible substrate (both in us and without us) determinable by means of the intellectual faculty. But the reason, by its practical ~ priori law, determines it; and thus the judgment makes possible the transition from the realm of t~e natural concept to that of the concept of freedom . Reason determines the supersensible substrate in its own special activity of .practical philosophy. Recognition of our will as an unconditioned cause in the world of sense provides tt:ie basis for practical philosophy. Practical philosophy shows that our ability to form our own purposes makes us a final end, an end in ourselves. And when we know the final end of nature, we can learn something about the substrate. of nature.. Practical philosophy also shows why we do not need more knowledge of this substrate . than practical reason can provide. 61 �One of the a priori principles of practical philosophy is that f r eedom is meant to actualize itself in the world . In moral philosophy one mus t think that the exi stence of an intelligent cause in the world is at least possible . We must attempt to bring about the purposes that the moral law sets before us ~ Although the achievement of our purposes is contingent in the world, we must think that ther e is a chance for us to make that which ought to be into that which is . Thus, r eason comes to find agreement with what it knows p r actically about the world in the reflective principle of judgments about nature which natu r al philosophy uses . Both reason and the understanding require the idea of a n intelligent s ubst rat e. Reason, howeve r, cannot merely represent the existence of this substrate - it mus t determi ne this substrate according to the requirements of practical philosophy . It is right to use the principles of pract ical philosophy to inquire into the substrate of purposiveness in the world o f s ense . On l y we must r ecognize as we beg i n this endeavor that we have over- stepped t he bounds of natu r al science whose knowledge demands expe r ience to complete its concepts . Or ganized beings - objective purposes offer the best evidence for the existence of an intelligent author of natu r e . For subjective purposes are thought pur posive wi th r efe r ence to our cognitive facult i es . We think their form designed to conform to our cogn i tion . However, we cannot think the possibility of an organized being unless it has its ground in the repr esentation of the being . Here existence, and not the form of the object , demands the principle of purposiveness . We can think the organized being to be eithe r a final purpose, an end in itself, or a mere relative purpose . The determination of the final purpose of nature would provide some knowledge of the intelligent being that chose this purpose . When we see purposive behavior in humans, we cannot judge very well about this behavior until we know its final purpose . Once we know this, we can app r ove or disapprove both the methods and intentions . A final purpose of nature must be distinct from t he chain of cause and effect that binds the whole of the mechanism of natur e . Its causality would have to be unconditioned . It could be determined by nothing else for pur poses not its own: In side nature everything serves something else as a relative purpose . We call this by names such as "the balance of nature" and admire it g r eatly . We are aware of only one thing that stands free from this chain of cause and effect , and that is our own will . In practical philosophy the will is free of a ny determination by natural con ditions . The purpose s we set befor e our selves are onl y our own , though inclination often influences us . Thus the faculty from which we gain our idea of a purpose provides us with the only possible experience of a f inal purpose . So far we have only discovered where in nature the intelligent author has placed the final purpose (if indeed nature as a whole has such a purpose) . Thus , we have only de termined what Kant calls the ultimate purpose of nature - the one uncondi tioned being in the n a tur al world. To find the final purpose we must discover what about our free will could make it suitable to have the rest o f nature subordinated to it as a means . Kant distinguishes two different ways in which we use our faculty of making purposes. The first searches out those purpose s which natu r e can satisfy . The second makes purposes and bends the mechanisms of nature in o r der to achieve these, developing its power over natu~e. Ka nt cal l s the f i rst h appi n ess, a nd t he se cond culture. He dismisses the idea that happiness is the final purpose of nature by simply pointing out that man has no determinant idea of happine s s itself, but : It is a mer e ideastate that he wishes to make adequate to the idea under me r ely ernpiric~l con~it ions (which is impossible) . This i dea he p r oJ e cts in such diffe r ent ways on account of the complication of hi s of.a 62 understanding with imagination and sense, and changes so often, that nature, even if it were entirely subjected to his elective will, could receive absolutely no determinate, universal and fixed law, so as to harmonize with this vacillating concept and thus with the purpose which each man arbitrarily sets before himself. And even if we reduce this to the true natural wants as to which our race is thoroughly agreed or, on the other hand, raise ever so high man's skill to ac'complish imagined purposes, yet even thus what man understands by happiness and what is in fact his proper, ultimate, natural purpose (not purpos~ of freedom) would never be attained by him . For it is not his nature to rest and be contented wj-th the possession and enjoyment of anything whatever. Kant next points out that we have good grounds to believe that nature has not been set up to satisfy us as pre - eminent creatures of nature, for when viewed as such a creature, man has no priority over any other such product as far as the treatment that he receives from nature goes. Kant then moves on to culture, which he divides into the culture -of skill and training . The culture of skill is our ability to set arbitrary purposes before ourselves and satisfy them by means of the mechanisms of nature. The development of the arts and sciences gives us greater power over nature and makes our lives easier . Yet learning to satisfy purposes without learning how to choose them, is inadequate to the idea of a final purpose of nature, for such knowledge is not directed to anything superior to nature . The culture of training, whereby we learn to free ourselves from the bonds of inclination, and thus develop a truly free will, is adequate to this idea. Here we interact with nature to produce something that not only will become independant of nature, but is in its elf the h i ghest good that we can conceive - a good will . As Kant says in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, a good will is the only unconditionally good thing of which we can have an idea . It contains the worthiness that purposes of inclination lack. As rational beings we must think that there is no purpose greater than the right use of our freedom. Now of man (and so of every rational creature in the world) as a moral being it can no longer be asked why (quern in finem) he exists. His existence involves the highestpurpose to which, as far as is in his power he can subject the whole of nature , contrary to which he cannot 5egard himself as subject to any influence of nature . Thus if nature stands in need of a f .inal purpose its final purpose must be ourselves. Our character as final purpose comes from adherence to the moral law. By ex amining the moral law we can hope to find that, because of our moral worth, we are indeed the final purpose for which nature was created. The moral law puts us in a special relation to the world - one which We do not have without it. It is in the world that we hope to actualize the dictates of the moral law. At the same time mo r ality does not consist in occurrences in this world, but only in the determination of our will. Christ presents much the sa~e message in the gospel of Luke. In this gospel particularly, there is an emphatic asserti.on · that we Qan have no regard for our worldly well- being · l.f we follow cil~ist ." ' 1 He 'tells us that whoever loves his life will lose it. Faith demands that we love nothing- in the world so much that we would not quickly give it up for Christ. when Kant presents his moral law, he tells us that it does not consist in what 63 f 1 �we are able to accomplish in the world. "The fulfilling of duty consis_tts in the form of the. earnest will, not in the intermediate causes of success." With this assertion he makes a claim similar to the one which Christ makes. The moral law will not recognize any obstacles from the world of nature, for it determines what must be done without reference to consequences. In moral determination we can only consider practical principles; our survival or comfort can never be an end, but only a means to our moral life. The potential of human beings for moral action is the highest good that we can think of in the world. The moral law must determine what is good in the world, and not the other way around. Christ emphasizes repeatedly that the good things of this world serve as traps for us. Any love we feel for them can present a stumbling block to us. In the parable of the sower, Christ represents the riches of the world as thorns which choke the growing faith, and bring it to nothing. But we must not only renounce riches and comfort - anything of this world which we might consider a good thing can be such a stumbling block, causing us to hesitate and miss the calling. "If anyone comes to me a~d does not hate his own father and mother and wife and childr7n and brothers a~d sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Christ says this immediately after telling the story of the people who were invited to a great banquet, but were too busy to come when the time arrived, so that the host invited other in their place and locked them out . Christ calls people to leave everything of the world if they would follow him. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God . And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plou§h, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. It is a frightening notion that things which we recognize as good, such as the love we feel for a family, are not good in themselves - are not good unconditionally. The calling from heaven may take us away from those things which we were most sure were good. In this way the dictates of faith demand that we set the value of this life at nothing when compared with the value of the next life. Kant says that we must look upon nature as a means which can further our moral . growth. When we look for any other reason in life, we are desiring happiness something which Kant says cannot provide a final purpose . We must now see the world of sense only as ·a place to learn about the freedom of our will, and demonstrate that .we can live up to the responsibility that accompanies such freedom. We must not look for fulfillment in the things of this world, but must in our actions always appeal to an understanding of what those actions mean which is higher than any understanding that our knowledge o f nature can enable us to achieve. While Kant calls the belief that we do not need morality to fulfill ourselves happiness, Christ calls it love of life. Any love of life or love of happiness will impede both moral growth and our ability for moral action. To follow the commands of Christ we must vest no interest in our own enjoyment of life. "Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, btess t~em that curse you, and pray for them which spitefu~y use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one . cheek offer also the other." In our · de'alings in the WOrld What rna.t terS iS OU-r. behavior tOWardS Other people I and . Whether We have lOSt ourselves in· a love of the world. We must set our lives at nothing and value the lives of others: "Love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself." Loving God with all one's heart means not loving and not fearing the things of the 64 world. I can best make- sense of Christ Is teaching about loving one Is neighbor as oneself when I view it in light Kant's analysis of the categorical imperative, especially in the last two formulations we find in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. There the essential thing lies in treating people as "ends in themselves." ·T his demands that we recognize in ourselves and so also in others the potential for moral action - or in Christian terms, the potential to do the word of God. While we demonstrate this love of our neighbors in acts of charity, it seems important that when we provide for the worldly needs of those poorer than us we do not therefore imply that the satisfaction of worldly needs as any great salvation. In acting from faith, or the categorical imperative, we value each human being as something greater than anything e·lse in the world. We do not seek to have a place in this world for ourselves, but only attempt to serve what we see as the greatest thing in the world - the potential in human beings for good will. "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give and it ~11 be given to you •.. For the measure you give will be the 1 measure you get back." By not seeking to judge or condemn those who do us wrong, by offering the other cheek, we affirm life to be the most sacred of gifts. The life . of the wrong-doer who has struck us or stolen from us matters more that worldly justice. Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and ·he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Take heed to yourselves; if your b7ot~Ir sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. Christ brings the message that setting accounts straight on earth is unimportant. It is not essential whether our actions cause people to treat us well or ill. What matters is that we do our best to love them as we love ourselves. In order to follow Christ then, we must not judge or condemn our neighbors out of love of the world, but must be guided only by a love of God and a love for humanity. Love for humanity is guided by a vision of humanity. as liberated from th~ bonds of this world, so that we see people achieving goodness only in as much as they show love for one another. This is not a love which attaches to any worldly aspect of the person, !or when Christ calls we must hate even our father and mother. The love within families can pose an obstacle to faith because it depends on the worldly situation of the people involved. Christ says that his mother and brothers are ·tho.s e who hear the word of God and do it. The relation of people in faith, then, transcends faith, then their relations in society. One must love people in a way that does not attach one attributes; to their worldly attributes; that is, one must love them as one loves oneself. Fo~ we do not love ourselves .as sons, or husbands, or bankers, or teachers; we love ourselves because we have discovered within ourselves the potential for moral worth, the gift of life and the promise of eternal life. We should not love our lives, but should love the opportunity to glorify God. From our practical philosophy we discover that we must regard ourselves as the final purpose of nature. We do not think that God has made the world for some purpose indifferent to our moral growth, our culture of training. For we must think God to be completely good, all-powerful, wise, just, and all-knowing, and we cannot then think that he has arranged the world for anything other than our own moral growth. Everything in the world must be thought to provide the perfect opportunity for our culture o~- tra~ning to ta~e place. We think that the world has been arranged solely for the education of our will in order to remove the last obstacle which the world could present to our moral actions. We should not examine the events of the world .for . any worl~ly meaning; meaning must always come from the moral law. Kant thinks it 65 �unimportant whether the world was made only for the development of our good will in some objective sense . Morally we must not consider there to be a purpose to life that might conflict with the fulfillment of moral duty. Thus we regard the world as the b~st place for us to develop a good will. We must somehow harmonize this with . our experience of both the world and our own nature. This reconciliation provides the greatest possible determination of the ground of the purposiveness of nature that human reason can achieve. We must think God to be such that the created world per fectly serves our moral development, and that the bad things that happen to us here have simply been judged by the standard of happiness rather than that of morality. All will be made right in the next life. Without the belief that God watches over us now, and that we can expect another world where moral actions shall count towards our reward, Kant does not think there can be any real hope for morality, and thus any meaning to life. We may then suppose the case of a righteous man (e.g. Spinoza) , who holds himself firmly persuaded that there is no God and also (because in respect of the object of morality a similar consequence results) no future life; how is he to judge of his own inner purposive destination, by means of the moral law,' which he reveres in practice? He desires no advantage to himself from following it, either in this or another world; he wishes, rather, disinterestedly to establish the good to which that holy law directs all his powers. But his effort is bounded; and from nature, al though he may expect here and there a contingent accordance, he can never expect a regular harmony agreeing according to constant rules . • . with the purpose that he yet feels himself obliged and impelled to accomplish . •• So it will be until one wide grave engulfs (everyone) together (honest or not it makes no difference) and throws them back--who were able to believe themselves the final purpose of creation--into the abyss of the purposeless chaos of matter from which they were drawn. The purpose, then, which this well-intentioned person had and ought to have before him in his pursuit of moral laws, he must certainly give up as impossible or else, if he wishes to remain dependent upon the call of his moral internal destination and not to weaken the respect with which the moral law immediately inspires him, by assuming the nothingness of the single, ideal, final purpose adequate to its high demand (which cannot be brought about without a violation of moral sentiment) , he must, as he well can--since there is at least no contradiction from a practical point of view in forming a concept of the possibility of a morally prescribed final purpose --assume the being of a moral author of . the world, that is, a Go d • 12 In finding a moral answer to the question of the final end of the world the nature of the question has changed . One does not ask to . understand how 'this . or t~a_t _ , furthers the purp-ose... of the w~rld; rather, one comes to see the fitness ofthi_s or that par~i~~l~r event by asking how it furt~ers one's own striving for a good wi~l •. In this way even subjective purposiveness, such as that of beauty, ,showsitself. ()bJe_ct1ve.ly savs that we see that the beauty in nature allows us · to love nature, tmrpos i y e • Ka.nt . · 66 us tu love nature, and that we feel ennobled by this. Unpleasant things and aff lictions serve to free us from a possessive love of the world . As we try to find that delicate balance netween loving the world because God made it and placed us in it, and hating it for the potential it holds to distract us from finding our salvation, we find that everything serves us in this pursuit. For it seems that if we are determined to see the world in a moral way we cannot fail in our attempt to see its "designed striving" as furthering our moral development . We can find some moral as pect in any situation, whether in the action it demands from us, or merely in our reflection about the God who made this world . Such an approach to learning the purpose of the world is anti-scientific, for in scientific discovery one limits the influence of the observer on the experiment as much as possible, and then extrapolate e (when possible) to the ideal condition of a perfectly uninvolved observer . But in p r actical philosophy we are the real subject of observation, since we can attach no meaning to the world that stands independent of ourselves . In practical philosophy, moral teleology , we do not inquire into a purpose of the world that does not involve ourselves - and perhaps it is not even permissible to inquire into a purpose which does not include ourselves as individuals . In this way moral philosophy discloses to i t self the final purpose of the world . Neither would Christ have us think that the order of nature is at odds with the d i ctates of faith, or even is indiffe r ent to them . After all , Chr ist tells u s tha t every hair on our head is counted . God is the all-powerful author of the world . We should believe that all things in the world can come only through God so that the best success i n the world can come only through loving God with all our hearts and loving our neighbors as ourselves. As with Kant's moral interpretation of the purpose of the world, we gain a different insight into the world. Christ asks us to e x amine the life that we love so that we may find it intangible and uruneaningful without faith. We cannot love the world in the same way once we have heard the word of God . And we could not pursue happiness as we once did before having recognized t h e mor al law. These things, however, are not forbidden to us. The world is God ' s We can imagine having the various comforts of life and c r eatiqn, and it is good. enjoying the earthly love of family and friends without loving life more than God. In fact, we believe we can love God better for having loved them. Thus, we find ourselves in possession of these things in a new way . After calling their attention to the lilies of the field, Jesus tells the disciples: Do not seek what you are to eat and to drink, nor be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need t hem . Ins tead , seek hi s kingdom, and these things 13 shall be yours also." Christ does not here assure us that the righteous shall never be hungry. He means that we must trust that God looks out for us and provides for our needs better than we could ourselves . For while God knows all our needs, we know only our bodily needs, and merely suspect our spiritual need. We must trust that God always gives us everything we need, not to attain earthly comfort but to achieve eternal life. And while we cannot understand why it should be, we must believe. that God has put us on this earth for some reason - the best reason . In this way, our existence in the world does not oppose the call to follow Christ, but somehow makes it possible for us to hear the call. Sometimes the good things of this world make us feel love and awe for their author. Sometimes they tempt us to neglect our love of God. Either way, however, they will serve us in our search. f~tbe kinadom of heaven. Like the moral law faith gives the right meaning to all the things of the world. If we have fa1th, the~ the whole world directs itself to help us follow Christ. There is no doubt. Faith in Christ, or recognition of the moral law, allows us to affirm the order of the world . Our life in this world is the greatest of gifts, for it allows u s to 67 �show our love for God. We must acknowledge Christ before men, so that he can acknowledge us before the angels . We must show our love for him by acts in this world: loving our neighbors, enemies, and those who do us harm; forgiving those who are harm; indebted to us; helping the poor. If we did not feel a part of this world, if we really did believe this life a miserable prison, we could not experience the peculiarly human feeling of turning from love of the world to love of Christ and then . returning to love the world in a deeper way. In order for moral growth to take place, we must confront our love of the world . The notion that happiness might be the purpose of our lives on earth did not stand up very well under Kant's scrutiny. Yet the notion is a powerful one in human affairs. In the Canon of Pure Reason Kant says that "Happiness .•. in exact proportion with the morality of the rational beings who a r e the r eby rendere d wor thy of i t , alone constitutes the supreme good of the world wherein, in accordance with the commands of a pure but practical reason, we under obligation to place ourselves." Happiness combined with worthiness fulfills human nature, which is neither purely rational nor purely animal (belonging to nature) . Our inclinations move us to hope for happiness; practical reason says that if moral satisfaction does not accompany them, our happiness will be hollow - a mere mockery of what we are capable of doing. To enjoy happiness without morality we would have to renounce the responsibility that accompanies our free will. Yet the confused notion of happiness embodies an attempt to find the purpose that underlies the purposiveness of nature by using only our knowledge of nature (internal and external). Happiness is the idea that we have been given an understanding and other intellectual faculties so that we can rise to become the most purposive creatures in nature. Our ability to see purposes allows us to become much more elaborate than any other animal in the things we do to provide for our own existence. We are the only creature capable of striving after a purpose such as "never having to work again." The idea of happiness claims that we should further as a part of our final purpose anything which our existence enables us to find either pleasant o r good - even though we do not investigate that final purpose itself. Such an idea is not as trivial as it at first sounds. For we are certain that we recognize things in the world which, if they are not unconditionally good, come pretty close. Strong family ties, devotion to the welfare of a community, and the loyalty we feel to a good leader all constitute highly-purposive goals. We can never justify calling these things good in themselves, certainly not to Kant's satisfaction. In fact, these highly-purposive goals offer the greatest deterrence to true devotion to moral growth. I remember in T.H. White's Once and Future King that Lancelot was too kind to leave Guinevere t o follow God. we-ao-not u s ually clas s such motivations as d es i re for happiness, but if we follow Kant's definition then they are exactly what the term represents because they hope for those good things which can happen on earth as a part of the process of nature. Christ calls these highly-purposive goals love of life. By means of the purposiveness we perceive in it, the world appeals to us not simply through pleasures, but by a way which we associate with moral worth. In the highly-purposive forms of happiness we almost succeed in finding fulfillment as the fin a l pur pose of nature within our lives. The realm of understanding and that of reason do not, then, stand quite so independent. In understanding the world, we depend upon our moral nature. In pursuing morality, our nature as a creature of the world dictates we explore, challenge, love, overcome, and accept the world in order to bring about moral action and moral growth. If the world did not suit us so well, and suggest to us such a wonderful author, we could not hope to satisfy ourselves in the world. And if we did not have . this hope we could not learn the value of the moral law which tells us that our satisfaction lies beyond these things. Now it came to pass on a certain day , that he went 68 1 into a ship with his disciples: and he said untc them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was calm. And he said unto them Whe:e is your faith? And they being afraid wondered; saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he corgnandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him. The events of this story are very complicated. We see Christ acting once again to save p~opl~ f:om the afflictions of life. Christ puts things right in the world. Wh~n John s disciples come so that they can find out whether this man is the Christ, this man tells them to report what they have seen and heard: "How that the blind see, the lame walk, ~he lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to ~he po~l 6 the g~spel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended: in me. God .s manifestation in the world takes away the suffering of the world. It seems only right that Christ, the spiritual healer, the savior, is also a physical leade:· When he he~ls pe~ple, Christ says "Your faith has made you well." _ and he associ~tes the healing with the forgiveness of sins. The world is most free from suffering for those who have found Christ. Yet, we know that Christ demands our willingness to suffer' many things on ea'rth We shoul~ always pr~fer .re~ard to heaven to reward on earth, shunning the latter: When Christ asked his disciples "Where is your faith?" after saving them from the storm, we wonder what that faith might be. Should the disciples have believed that God.would protec~ them from the storm? It seems logical that God would not let Jesus perish at that time and place . But faith cannot depend on our worldly situation. We cannot attempt to ~nderstand how God chooses the time of death. Should the disciples have had en~ug? faith to calm the waters themselves? After all they can heal in the name of .Christ , .and he has told them of miracles they could accomplish if they had ev~n a little faith. But it does not make sense to think that faith will bring power which we can bend .to our convenience. The miracles of faith compliment God• s pu:poses; ~hen the time comes for Christ to die, he asks for the cup to pass _ but this does not happen. Yet we can be sure that the faith which the disciples lacked would have freed them from the fear they felt for their lives. Perhaps they could h~ve calmed .the storm. themselves, but their safety is the essential thing . Fai th gives us a dif~erent kind of power over the forces OL nature. As with Kant's moral person, the f~ithful see all acts working to bring them closer to God. When Christ says that God has ~ounted every hair on our heads, we do not therefor~ expect the world to provide for all our physical needs· and comforts. Instead C~rist ur~ed.us to look for the provision that God has made for us in every situation. . Th~s is more than an exhortation to face adversity without turning from God Even in ;imes 0 ~ ?appiness, we must make the same effort so that we can acknowledg~ ~oth God s provision and our responsibility to make use of it, our responsibility to ear the call. When th~ dis.ciples ask Christ to teach them to pray, part of the prayer ?e ~;ache~ them is "give us this day our daily bread .• ~and lead us not into temptati~n: This prayer asks God to forgive us what we need so that we can always ~now the difference betwe;n h~ppiness and morality, and be able to choose the latter. In praying this way one aspires to seek always the manne_ __ iri which the world of nar ture can serve our moral development, and accept the situation before us as an opportunity, rather than a curse. 69 �FOOTNOTES Memory and Personal Identity in Shakespeare's Tempest 1 Immanuel Kant, trans. J .H. Bernard, Critique of Judgement (New York, Hafner Press, 1951) I P. 15 2 Amy McManus Ibid . p. 19 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ibid. p. 256 rbid. p. 260 rbid. p. 283 rbid. p. 302 Luke 14:23 Luke 9:59 Luke 6:27 10 Lukr 9:37 11 Luke 17:1 12 op. Cit . Critique of Judgment, p. 303 13 Luke 12:29 14Immanuel Kant, trans. Norman Kemp Smith, Critique of Pure Reason (Hong Kong, MacMillan Press, 1929), p. 641 15 16 Luke 8:22 Luke 7:22 BIBLIOGRAPHY Immanuel Kant, _gritique MacMillan Press, 1929) of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant, Critique of. Judgment, 1951) trans. trans. J.H .. Bernard · · New Testament, Revise d Stand ar d v ersion (N ew York : Holy Bible, King James version (New York: Norman Kemp Smith (New York: (Hong Hafner Press, Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1946 ) Meridian Books, 1974) Kong, What cares 1 these r oarers for the name of king? cries the boatswain near the opening of Shakespeare's Tempest. Yet at least for the magical time which follows, they care very much; the elves and demi-puppets have all lent their aid to Prospero for the righting of human social order , which had been overturned when Prospero was supplanted from his dukedom. In restoring outer social order, Prospero must establish or change the internal order within those who must return to social life and rule in Naples. The transformations Propsero will attempt in Miranda, Ferdinand, Antonio and Alonso will take place on many levels and thus may be examined from different viewpoints. One helpful way to understand the character developments in the play is to investigate the differing roles which memory and a sense of personal identity play within each individual. Memory and identity are important facets in their return to society because these individuals all share a past in which a dangerous disruption of roles has occurred - a past in which the wrong man has become Duke and falsely ordered the court of Milan around himself due to Prospero's neglect of duty. The wider political effects of Antonio's activity provide a significant periphery for the action, since the play is a preparation for the return to political life. Within the play, however, the immediate, personal consequences of the crime are the center of the drama. The primary result of Antonio's action is, of course, the exile of Prospero and Miranda. Though they find a providential haven alone on the island, there are, nevertheless, serious challenges to Miranda's personal growth in the situation - challenges that are usually met in the company, and with the aid, of friends. A second result of Antonio's betrayal is the corruption of Alonso, King of Naples, who, in overthrowing Prospero, attacked the divine basis of his own rule and more importantly, overthrew his own good character, the flaws and strengths of which will be revealed in the crises brought about by Prospero. Lastly, Prospero must overcome the diffidence and disillusion of one betrayed by a brother in blood and a brother in rule, if he is to return as a worthy ruler to Milan. Twelve years of life have been determined by one criminal act and the problem of the play is to gather from this disheartening past the wisdom and courage to make new lives. Prospero addresses this problem by helping the children and adults to a truer understanding of the past, by instilling in them a healthy memory. Each character begins with varying states of remembrance, varying notions of who they were and who they are, but by magic and terror, Prospero implicitly and explicitly guides most of them to a truer self-reckoning and in so doing, restores among them the basis for good society. Miranda is the first, dearest and most unique of Prospero's charges because, due to her extreme youth at the time of her exile, she must rely on him to form an entire memory for her to take back to Milan. In the brief interval before Prospero tells the story of their lives, the playgoer realizes that a pastless Miranda is a good and beautiful person already: O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer! 2 70 71 �Her heart is filled with empathy for those she has never seen, but on that admittedly good basis alone she is not prepared for coming events. Instead, Prospero explains, thou Art ignorant of what thou art, knowing naught Of whence I am; nor that I am more better Than Prospero, master of 3 full poor cell, And thy no better father. As he unfolds his narrative of betrayal and suffering, it is important to r emember that Prospero is not really concerned with her naivete. Her acute and practical questions ("Wherefore did they not I That hour destroy us? 11 ) 4 show that, whatever her inexper~ence.' she ~s . in no danger from the usual sort of human duplicity which one migh t find in an it i nerant patent me dicine peddl er . No , h er preparat ion is aimed towards another sort of danger altogether; she must quickly learn enough about the past and herself to fall honorably in love with Ferdinand . In Prospero's long discourse the most important things that we, in a confused, disordered fashion, must learn and remember are compressed and ordered for Miranda's sake into one sad story. Perhaps the first lesson is that this memory for which .she has longed could be painful; the distant past is not like the undist1¥'bed peace of her father's home - rather it is the "dark backward and abysm of time". Her father, she finds, is not only a father; she is not only a daughter . On one level they are dif :erent people than she thought they were because both were once part of a larger society - were once responsible for the fulfillment of leading roles in Milan . On another, Prospero is now a different man for her because he is revealed as divided against himself - divided by duty and inclination in Milan, and divided by pain, anger and wisdom even now in his storytelling. Further, she needs to learn the dangers of self division - she needs to lea r n how a combination of self division and negligence in Prospero could end in Antonio's betrayal of his brother and his estrangement from himself. Anton i o is the most difficult subject for Prospero to teach Miranda, and Prospero must bring his mind's wisdom and heart's passions togethe r t o do justice to one who is not simply a villain in a cautionary tale, but a man and his own brother. Though the 'social' Antonio will be discussed in greater detail later, it is appropriate to examine how, amidst many outer roles and many inner parts, Antonio was led not just to an estrangement from his state, to error - as was Prospero, but to an estrangement from himself, to true sinfulness. Perhaps surprisingly, it was not a very complex matter. Forgetting his own responsibilities and his brother's character, Prospero had sai d, in effect: 'While I play scholar, Antonio, you play duke, bu t apa r t f r om u s e , ceremony and power, we 'll rememb er who we rea l l y are . ' He being thus lorded Not only with what my revenue yielded But what my power might else exact, like one Who having unto truth by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory To credit his own lie, he did believe He was the Duke, out o' th' substitution And executing th' out~ard face of royalty With all prerogative. Despite the fact that he is a roundly vicious person to us and to Miranda, Antonio must also be a person to recognize and pity. Wrongfully tempted, Antonio .allowed his memory - his very self - to slip through his fingers. He damaged himself beyond his own or Prospero' s power to heal. The tale to Miranda is nearly finished when Antonio, thrusting Miranda and Prospero out of Milan, removes the screen between the part he was playing and himself . Mir anda, confronted by so great a fall, then begins to we ep: 72 I not remembering ho' I cried out then Will cry o'er again; She probably cries for many reasons--because she and her father were abandoned; because her father had so great a wound inside him which she had never seen; and because this frightening story somehow intimately affects her and she does not yet know how that will be so. Until now, she has learned to remember failed relationships, inner conflict and self-deception, but to these sad revelations Prospero provides the true balancing. Though having failed his brother and his city, Prospero did not fail Miranda. Instead, he found in her, he says, a smile, Infused with a fortitude from heaven, When I have decked the sea with drops full salt, Under my burden groaned; which raised in me An undergoing stomach, to §ear up Against what should ensue. Prospero gives Miranda a life history which will be her unique memory, for unlike any other memory in the play, it has no part in confusion or forgetfulness; though to be a real memory, it cannot avoid pain. There is a heaviness to be felt from Prospero's strange story - Miranda sleeps at its close. But soon, in Ferdinand's courtship,her courage and new, well- ordered memory will be tried. · . Because she is so wise and generous, so sure-footed in the steps she takes, it is easy to forget that marrying one's love is a difficult business - even for Miranda. Her love begins when she hears the songs of Ariel and sees Ferdinand; he is to her so beautiful that he seems a spirit, hardly real. They change eyes.with one another at first sight - as Prospero knew they would - but also at first sight the world of confusion and inner division begins. As she sees Ferdinand, she finds herself, quite suddenly divided up. Part of her, at her father's precept, would hide from Ferdinand; part of her, not saying what she feels, would play coquette; part of her, utterly at risk, would profess love. When he asks her for her name, then tells her of the other women he has known, her two replies convey how amazing her experience must be: Miranda. 0 my father 9 I have broke your hest to say so! I do not know One of my sex; no woman's face remember Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen More that I may call ~en than you, good friend, 1 And my dear father. 'I am Miranda and I do not know one other woman who has felt as I do now, nor any other man besides my father who might love me as you do. In my glass was always one Miranda - who is Miranda now?' Infinitely more fortunate than Antonio, Miranda has something of the same decision to make: Amid all these longings, who should she be, and how should she be with Ferdinand? For the second time in the play she weeps this time in her own confusion: ' At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer What I desire to give, and much less take What I should die to want. But this is trifling; And all the more it seeks to hide itself' The bigger bulk it shows. Hence bashful cunning And prompt me' plain and holy innocence! I am your wife, if you will marry me' If not I'll die your maid. To .be your fellow 73 �You may deny me' but I'}! be your servant Whether you will or no. H.er father's dark story gave her some notion either consciously or - fairy-tale like - magically, that adults have to choose to be themselves ~nd that they are wretchedly unhappy when they neglect or abandon themselves for some partial or false role. In the ordinary course of advice given to new lovers, the older heart is anxious to point out that there are many possible spouses in the sea - mainly because one has to be prepared for jilting . But to be prepared for loving, Prospero' s older, wiser heart advises Miranda, not that there are many princes, but that there are many Mirandas and she must choose which Miranda's heart and hand she will give away. Ferdinand's growth in the play is like Miranda's in that he is very young and is preparing for his first commitments. But his growth is unlike hers in that he has not been given careful tutelage and needs a second father to help him reevaluate past experience in a more enlightened way. Though Ferdinand is not quite ready to love Miranda, he is as innocent as she; thus the gentlest spriting,two songs, adventure and Miranda herself are all he needs. Even without seeing anything of Ferdinand before he hears Ariel's songs, one can imagine the needs they are addressing. The second song is primarily about Ferdinand' grief and the transformation that will take place in Alonso: Full fathom five your father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade But suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell; 12 Hark! now I hear them--Ding-dong bell. Without meaning to assign a shameful weakness to Ferdinand's character, it is important to note that this song does not just assuage grief for it affirms most broadly the 'all-rightness' of things. Ferdinand needs to hear this song, above and beyond his grief, for the very reason that he is, in this situation, grief-stricken. In just a logical way, if one escapes a shipwreck one should hope that others do too, but Ferdinand here, and his father later, immediately and unnecessarily assume that only the worst event could have occurred. Security or at least the p~actice o~ hoping is the oldest sort of memory well brought-up children have. All-rightness is the deepest sort of spell that parents cast on children, so here, Prospero provides Ferdinand with comfort and with hope. The first of Ferdinand's songs faces an emotional and intellectual confusion which results from earlier love affairs. Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard, and many a time Th' harmony of their tongues 1 ~ath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear; If before, Ferdinand has found himself a slave when in love, Prospero' s adventure allows him to be a slave and be in love and find the two rather different . Though Prospero is playing a joke by making Ferdinand wear chains and pile up logs, there is also a strong element of compassion in this spell. Prospero, with all the hard-earned respect possible for boundaries and duty, has no wish to see free creatures enslaved; he is the type of man who would hear and release Ariel. Ferdinand enslaves himself by persistently mistaking the bonds of love for a gilded variety of shackle. He is fill ed with far too many protestations when he speaks to Miranda, because he is trying t o defend himself. How sad if, like Ariel stuck in a pine tree, he never grew up enough t o realize that Miranda spoke to him truly and plainly, without any intention of playing a game with him-except chess . In the love song, then, 74 Ariel calls the other sprites to sing the refrain, while at the same time calling on lovers, those who take hands and hearts, to bear love's burden. Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Courtsied when you have and kiss's The wild waves whist: Foot it featly here and there, And sweet s~4ites bear The burden. When he means to profess love Ferdinand says, with true affection but poor speech, that he will be Miranda's slave. That is no answer for Miranda, who has, from the firsb known there was no slavery in help~ Ferdinand carry logs. "Do you love me?" she must ask, and "My husband, then?" , until finally, he, succinctly, takes his freedom where it truly lies: Ay, with a heart as willing 17 As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand. To give Ferdinand due credit, these songs were Miranda as much as they were his, for she, in taking a husband, loses a father and in loving and remembering, must bear new burdens. They are a good pair because if she was unsure of who she was, he, in calling her a 'wonder' recognized her from the first. And he was afraid of slavery, she was always ready to serve. Together they can understand the need to maintain their virginity until the wedding ceremony, because they have reached the inner equilibrium which allows good people with right values to fulfill their obligations to society. Part of Prospero's task is completed in the third act with the engagement of Ferdinand and Miranda. Much remains to be done with respect to Antonio and Alonso, who as adults, cannot be led by songs and stories since their problems are not ingorance or unwarranted fear, but willful crime and self-deception. As an adult, Antonio has an adult memory full of self-motivated, purposeful action (but as has already been discussed) his memory carries the awful distinction of sin. During the course of the play Antonio never becomes any better, yet he is essential to watch because he gradually acts out the social implications which result from allowing a man with moral amnesia loose in society. Unlike Miranda, Ferdinand or Alonso, Antonio does not remember being small, young, powerless, hopeless or confused. he does not remember that anyone has ever given him anything he really needed; he does not remember that there are standards above himself - like Nature, truth or justice - which determine action. His is not simply bad, his very unreasonableness, which he displays both on the ship and in his speech, shows him to be forgetful of what even willful criminals usually know. For when Antonio finds himself ·On a sinking ship, he does not pray - he is not afraid. Rather, he currss the sailors for treachery: "We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards". He cannot imagine that there could exist a group of elements which were supremely unmindful of Antonio's life or death. When he speaks, he shows his conviction that truth and falsity, right or wrong, are a matter of rhetorical emphasis. Therein lies his danger as a social creature. Antonio convinces Sebastian to depose his brother Alonso by jumping all the moral and practical hurdles in speech. First, there is the true heir Ferdinand, who, as has sensibly been pointed out, might possibly be alive. But Antonio just denies the possibility in words: Will you grant with me 19 That Ferdinand is drowned? As for that prickly question about murdering one's sleeping brother, just blur the distinction between life and death: Here lies your brother, No better than the earth he lies upon 20 If he were that which now he's like--that's dead. 75 �Lest it be forgotten that Ant onio can wor k on those less ready to be wicked than Sebastian, Prospero has already explained that, Being once perfected how t o grant s u its, How t o deny them, who t' adv ance, and who To trash f or over-t opping, new created The creatures t hat were mine, I say, or ch anged 'em, Or e l se new--f ormed them; having bo th the key Of officer and office, set all heart i' th' state To what tune pleased his ear, t h at now he was The ivy which had hid my prince~~ trunk And sucked my verdure out on't. Antonio, clever and powerful, forgetting himself and his scruples, can play tunes and change hearts just as Prospero can. In days past he practiced the black magic to Prospero's white. He is not an incredible character - we know that often we have no firm grasp on either who we are or what is right and wrong. Then, too, it is easy to be at ebb tide, like Sebastian, morally indifferent and ready to flow. Standing steadfastly in opposition to Antonio and Sebastian is Gonzalo. Not a wise man, he nevertheless has the finest memory--the best perspective on events and the greatest kindness towards the infirmity of others. Weary and bedraggled on the beach, and trying to make conversation, he wants to tell Alonso something about the joy and sorrow of a whole life - :32_cpiething very true, but very ill-timed: "Beseech you sir, " he begins, "be merry." Antonio and Sebastian mock Gonzalo because he mixes up his history and because he mak~ a very silly political theoretician. They 3 and promise to forget him as soon as he is call him the "lord of weak rememberance" dead. It is they- truest self-revelation that, in their merry fooling, Gonzalo is 4 nothing to them. It is also the truest warning of social danger. Antonio's self - corruption would affect not just the morally weak like Sebastian, and not just the politically powerful like Alonso - those whom we say must 'take their changes'. No, to Antonio all men of good heart and memory are threats - -Gonzalo would hav e t o die too. Alonso is another adult responsible for having committed grave crime - but being Alonso and not Antonio, he is a good man, woefully confused about the past and his responsibilities. He is caught by his shipwreck in a state of being able neither happily to forget nor properly to remember. So ifdicative of his condition, his first words after the wreck are, "Prithee, peace." Ariel will later declare that Alonso is unfit to live with men but it is already evident how desperately lonely he is. Even knowing Prospero' s story one is moved by Alonso's isolated brooding and self-reproach: You cram these words into mine ears against The stomach of my sense. Would I had never Married my daughter there! for, coming thence, My son is lost; and in my rate, she too, Who is so far from Italy removed I never again shall see her . 0 thou mine heir Of Naples and of Milan, whaz strange fish 6 Ha th made his meal on thee? His regret is undeniable, but it is a sickly, misshapen kind of regret that does not correspond to what is truly regrettable about their situation . The tragedy is that Ferdinand, from Alonso's standpoint, is almost certainly dead. While grief for a dead son is completely appropriate, mixed with his grief is an unreasonable guilt. Alonso is no more responsible for his son's supposed death than Ferdinand would have been for his father's . As far as they know, they have been overtaken by a natural disaster; tempests know neither kings nor king's sons . Guilt in some ways, is natural disaster in itself, fo r it chases one unreasonably and destroys without 76 scruple or justice. However, the sort of free-floating guilt with which Alonso is plagued often is the sign of a good, but pleabargaining soul. One would sooner feel guilty for a hundred imagined crimes inside oneself than admit the crime one actually committed. Alonso has not Miranda's well-ordered remembrance, he must hunt and scrape to find the meaning of his past life--and he fails. Alonso's regret will neither cure him nor reform him-it will only wear him down into numbed listlessness, as when he said, I will stand to, and feed, Although my last, 2 ~o matter, since I feel The best is past. With terrifying fanfare Ariel and Prospero disabuse the king of his illusions, force him to realign his memory and feel-not guilt-but heart's sorrow. But remember (For that's my business to you) that you three From Milan did supplant good Prospero; Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it, Him and his innocent child; for which foul deed The powers, delaying not forgetting, have Incensed the seas a~§ shores, yea, all the creatures, Against your peace. In the valor of madness men hang and drown their proper selves. Alonso's proper · self, having died when he connived against Prospero, is reestablished by a second death the death of his improper self. His heart's sorrow is as terrible as he himself is good; that is, terrible in the Greek sense of deinos: 0 , it is monstrous, monstrous! Methought the billows spoke and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass. Therefore my son i' th' ooze is bedded and I'll seek him deeper than e'er ~lummet sounded 2 And with him there lie mudded. This true remorse holds danger, for to feel it as he should, Alonzo must want to kill, not just the part that did wrong, but his whole self. He is not like the playwatcher or Gonzalo .who have known his crime all along and cared for him, Alonso, anyway. The sea change would be unfinished if it gathered all the elusive deceptive selves together for once, and then ended in self-loathing. If Ariel was best to ~tiate Alonso's repentance, only Prospero can comple te it. "I embrace thy body .•• " he says and Alonso replies, Thy pulse Beats as of flesh and blood; and since I saw thee, Th' affliction of my mind amends, with what, I fear, a madness held me. This must crave (An if this be at all) a most strange story. Thy dukedom I resign and ~? entreat . Thou pardon me my wrongs. As Ferdinand and Miranda did earlier, so Prospero and Alonso do now--j oin hands. Forgiven Alonso is himself again, though still perhaps a little amazed. With utmost gentleness Prospero dissolves the charm around Alonso, gives him his son and daughter and-though they must speak of the past at the right time-frees him from its dogged oppression: A: But, 0 , how oddly will it s ound that I Must ask my child forgiveness! P: There sir, stop. 77 �- r1 Let us not burden our re~2mbrance with A heaviness that's gone. Burdens borne, whole selves accepted, and by those harshest critics, one's victim and one's self-- this is the completion of Prospero's restoration of order. The rulers of Naples and Milan are no -longer criminals, · and their future rulers are well- grown and ready to order the state with whole, unfearful selves . There is cause for uncommon joy, and only Prospero himself is left to consider. Through most of the play, Prosper was mysterious conjurer of tempests in human lives, while he himself hovered outside the action. He has ordered Miranda's and Ferdinand's memory of the past, showing them how to understand inner dividedness and the better part of human freedom. He has given them the best and worst in men in a coherent framework and he has left them with the truest source for joy-the ability, (though feeling many emotions) to be true and serviceable to one another. From Alonso Prospero has demanded both an admission of crime and true repentance, but he has allowed remorse to attain its end and thus has set Alonso free from a useless lifetime of self-reproach and confusion. However, when we consider Prospero himself, we can look to no magical intervention and indeed there is some reason to doubt -he believes the happily- ending fairy-tales he tells: M: 0, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! 0, brave new world That has such people ~~'t! P: "Tis new to thee. Prospero arranges and observes human spectacles throughout the play, yet his responses are never so predictable as his results . He is by turns majestically detached, bitterly rueful and achingly sad . These our actors, As I fortold to you, were all spirits, and Are melted into aire, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on , and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed 34 Bear wi t h my weakness; my old brain is tr oubled . The emotions he displays show the uneasiness with which differing inescapable visions of men and women cohabit in one person . On the one hand whether a man behaves well or ill mat ters to the individual, to his society , even to Nature ; on the other hand, a man, especially a meek one, is a dreamy unreality, one easily shipwrecked and spellbound. Having grasped so much of the paradoxical in human life , Prospero is in danger of once again receding into omnipotent, scholarly abstraction . What saves him , what allows him to glimpse a fulle r story, but tell an honest tale to Miranda , is his s t eady remembrance of the potent magic of his human heart . A: Your charm so strongly works ' em That if now you beheld them , Your affections Would become tender . P : Dost thou think so , spirit? A: Mine would , sir , were I human . P: And mine shall . Hast thou which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions , and shall not myself 78 One of their kind, that relish all as sharply Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art? 35 His admission is not a fore gone conclusion-there is no apparent necessity that magicians never forget they are men. Prospero .must choose to take off his magician's cloak and be recognizable to Antonio, Alonso and Gonzalo. Having abjured rough magic Prospero becomes at once vulnerable-but he also becomes so powerful for the good of others that the sight of him, the touch of his warm hands, restores men to themselves. In his benevolence and renunciation of detachment Prospero shows-if not peacefulness at least a knowledge of who he was, and is, and must be in Milan. Prospero can be best remembered in the words he used for Ferdinand: it eats, and sleeps, and hath such senses As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest Was in the wrack; and·, but he's something stained With grief (that's beauty's canker), thou mighst call him 36 A goodly person. 79 �Footnotes For My Soul 1s Filled with Troubles Bruce Johnsen 19 1william Shakespeare , The Tempest (London : Methuen , 1980), Act I. , Scene i . J lines 16-17. 2 0ibid . , II.i.11. 283- 285 . 2 21 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ibid . , I. ii.11. 5- 6. 22 Ibid., I. ii.11. 17- 21. 23 Ibid., I. ii.11. 138- 139 . Ibid. , I. ii.1. 24 so . Ibid ., II.i.11. 246- 247 . Ibid., I.ii . 11. 79-86 Ibid. , II. i.1. 1. Ibid ., II. ii. 1. 235 . Ibid . , II.i.11. 181- 182 25 Ibid . , I. ii.11. 97 - 105 . Ibid . , II. i. 1. 9 . 26 Ibid . , I. ii. 11. 133- 134 . Ibid ., II. i. 11. 109- 116 . 27 Ibid . , I. ii.11. 153- 158 . 28 Ibid . , III. i.11. 36- 37 . Ibid ., III. ii i. 11. 49 - 51. Ibid . , III. iii. 11. 68 - 75 . lOibid ., III. i. 11. 48- 52 . 29 11 3 0ibid . , V. i.11. 109 . Ibid .' III. i. 11. 77 - 86 . 12 13 14 1 31 Ibid ., I. ii.11. 397 - 405. 32 Ib i d ., III. i. 11. 39- 42 . 33 Ibid ., I. ii.11. 377 - 383 . 34 5rbid. ' II I. i. 11. 67 . 16 17 18 35 rbid ., III. i. l. 87 . 36 rbid ., III. i. 11. 88- 98 . For I have eaten ashes as it were bread, and mingled my drink with weeping; because of thine anger and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and dashed me down. Psalm CI, 9-10 rbid . , II I. iii. 11. 95 - 102 . Ibid . , V. i.11. 113- 119 . Ibid ., V.i. 11. 196- 201. Ibid . , V. i.11. 181 - 185 . Ibid . , V. i.11. 148- 159 . Ibid . , V.i. 11. 16- 24 . For on this wise have the gods spun the thread for wretched mortals, that they should live in pain; and themselves are sorrowless. For two urns are set upon the floor of Zeus of gifts that he giveth, the one of ills, the other of blessings. To whomsoever Zeus, that hurleth the thunderbolt, giveth a mingled lot, that man meeteth now with evil, now with good; but to whomsoever he giveth but of baneful, him he maketh to be reviled of man, and direful madness driveth him over the face of the sacred earth, and he wandereth honoured neither of gods nor mortals. Iliad , book XXIV, 527-33 . Ibid ., I.i.11. 413- 417 . rbid ., I. i. l. 56 . "If we hrve received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure evil things?" The existence of evil has posed a problem for all men who have wrestled with the belief in a perfectly good God. For some, including St. Augustine (in his early life), the only solution was to appeal to the existence of a contending evil principle. This Zoroastrian or Nanichaean heresy exonerates God at the expense of His omnipotence by considering Him as the source of all good and the evil principle as the source of all evil. Is such an appeal necessary? Must one alter the concept of the Christian God in order to account for evil, or can one, as a rational being, affirm one's suffering along with Job, while retaining a belief in the Christian God as sole Lord? Can one 80 81 �-reasonably retain belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good and infinite creator, althoug2 He seems to visit evil upon men - even upon one who "abstains from all evil deeds"? The question, then, is not how one arrives at a belief in such a God. This is a matter of faith, something for which a proof cannot be given. Rather, the question is whether such a belief is consistent with man's reason. Logical necessity constrains even an omnipotent God. While His omniscience determines all truth, He does not thereby invent a logic and a truth which corresponds to it. He simply thinks in the only perfectly consistent manner. Since God's thoughts have no temporal progression, He has no need for logic such as human logic. He knows all premises and conclusions perfectly. Only one fundamental logical axiom constrains Him- that of non- contradiction . Consequently, God can actualize any contingency which does not entail logical contradiction. It follows from this that while a perfectly good God cannot do evil, this does not imply a constraint on His omnipotence . Instead, He has the power to do evil , in so far a s an evil act would not be logical contradiction (as creating an object too heavy for Him to move would be) . Rather, the contradiction is moral, for one cannot be perf ect ly good while doing evil . Aquinas di s tin guishes this nece ssary non- contradic tion by calling it 'moral necessity . ' Since God both has the powe r within Himself to commit good and evil acts, and is intelligent, his actions are.morally free. However, t o attribute intelligence to God assumes that He knows both good and evil, for He must choose between them. One may object that God does not know evil, for ex hypothesis He neither thinks nor wills evil. And since God knows those things wh~ch are not in Him insofar as He requires that knowledge to know Himself perfectly, He must know all that He causes , and nothing that He does not cause. Howeve r, if He does not will evil, He does not cause it, and does not know it. The previous argument is false and can be used to establish that God knows evil only indirectly. God does not think evil. Nor does He will evil antecedently , for antecedently God wills only perfect goods. However, since some goods require that something else be imperfect in order that they may become actual, God can cause the imperfection of something else by willing a good. In this way God knows evil indirectly by knowing the good which necessitates it . He also knows the evil that man causes. This knowledge is also indirect, for God knows such evil by the truth of human actions and by the men who commit it. Therefore, God does know evil and is morally free. Since God is perfectly good, He is constrained by moral necessity to choose f ree ly only t he good . Hence be lie f in God can be "consistent with reason" only if God can never be shown to act in any manner other than a perfectly good one. Before continuing i t will be necessary to specify both what evil is and what kinds ~f evil exist. St. Augustine says that evil is "nothing but a privation of good." St. Thomas Aquinas clarifies this position: Absence of good, taken negatively, is not evil; otherwise, it would follow that what does not exist is evil, and also that everything would be evil because of not having the good belonging to something else . . • But the ~sence of good, taken in privative sense, is an evil." 6 It follows that "evil always lessens good, yet never wholly consumes it" ; for if absolute privation were to occur in all respects with regard to some thing, that thing would not be itseif. Hence, every substance is good insofar as it exists, for in respect of existence there can be no privation and thus no evil. Every substance is capable of imperfection , which is evil; but since evil is only a privation of good, the substance 82 must first be good in order to have a potential for ev i l . Now t he substantial being of a thing is absolute, and hence absolutely good, but the re l ative being of a thing is only relatively good. For example, since Bob is a man, and therefore exists absolutely, he is absolutely good with respect to his substantial being. Wi th respect to his relative being, Bob is a man who may be blind, and thus is only relatively good, for he lacks an attribute proper to a man, namely sight. This concerns Bob insofar as he is an object, without regard to his moral quality. The foregoing suffices to clarify the expression 'metaphysical evil'. Metaphysical evil is imperfection, such as imperfection of form. In addition, one must consider two other classes of evil: natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil comprises the environmentally caused suffering of sentient creatures and therefore includes the suffering caused by hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. ; the suffering of animals other than humans; and even such pain as arises from stubbing one' 6 toe. Moral evil considered with respect to human acts may be termed sin. However, since one must also consider the acts of God and since the question concerns the very goodness of God that with which God's will accords, and which we therefore transgress whenever we transgress God's will (that is, whenever we sin)-more must be said. Moral evil, then, comprises free enactments of the will directed toward an improper 'nd, for "the primary goodness of a moral action is derived from its suitable object" • Since an object of choice is suitab~e i f i t is "one of the things in our own power which is desired after deliberation", moral evil results from a failure to deliberate sufficiently when choosing the object of an action. The final end is a matter of intention, not choice, but the specific end of a single action is not itself a final end, but merely the means to that end. Since all men necessarily desire happiness as their final end, an action is judged in relation to its specific end, which is a matter of choice. Such an action can follow as the conclusion of a practical syllogism. Yet since the will must be directed by the practical intellect if it is to have a suitable end, the will must also have the method of attainment as its object. This method must accord with circumstance - an accordance which reason determines. A good will is therefore one which conforms to the rule of reason. Further, since a good will cannot produce a morally evil act, an action of the will can cause evil only in so far as evil results from the will's failure to conform to the rule of reason. The previous paragraph asserted that a suitable end follows as the conclusion of a syllogism. If so, there must be some first principles of morality upon which the syllogism is based. Aquinas addresses these precepts in his theory of a natural law which all men intuitively know. Whether this claim to intuitive knowledge is correct is debatable. However, since such a debate would extend far beyond the scope of this paper, let it suffice to say that all men living in society must hold in common certain moral precepts in order that society function harmoniously . Further and most importantly, whether these common pr,e cepts are intuitive l y held, determined in order to effect a pleasant society, or determined insofar as t hey aspire t o some conceptualized perfection of their agent, all men either possess them by intui tion or formulate them .!?.I_ reason in accordance with an intuitive end. Such an as sumpt i on upholds the previous c laim that moral evil results f rom t he f a i l ure of t he wi ll t o conform t o the rule of reason. The precepts of mo ra l reasoning are e i t her intuited or determined by reason. Earl ier, we demonstrated God ' s mora l f reedom and His pe r ~ect goodnes s . I t remains f or us to de t ermine whether t he presence of evil in t he world empirically i nval i dates t he cla im tha t s uch a God exists . Perhaps t he simp l est and mos t obvious attempt t o disprove the existence of God by appeali ng t o instanc es of evil is the following 1) A perfectly good God exist s . 2) A perfect ly good God would eliminat e a ll evil that He can. 3) God is QJP.nipotent. 4) Therefor e God can elimina t e a ll evil . S) Therefore God eliminates all evil. 6) Evil 83 �exists. 7) The existence of a perfectly good God leads to contradiction. Unless this argument can be shown to be unsound, or at least uncertain, God's existence as a perfectly good, omnipotent being is disproven. Statement one is assumed. Statement three is given. Statement five follows logically from statements two and four. Since six is obvious and seven is a logically valid conclusion, only two and four remain unaccounted for. Now, statement four holds if the elimination of any given evil does not entail contradiction, and two holds insofar as a perfectly good God is morally obliged to eliminate any evil if by so doing He would not cause a greater evil or eliminate a greater good. The remainder of this treatise will examine why God is unable to eliminate certain evils because their elimination would occasion greater evil or eliminate some greater good. It will examine first metaphysical, then natural, and finally moral evil with respect to some greater good. That every thing contributes to the greater good of the universe is clear if one considers that evil is only a privation, that every object is good absolutely and always contains some relative good, and that the imper fection or privation of a given . obj ect does not detract from the r elative good of any other object (as long as objects are considered at an instant rather t han with respect to the conditions of their genesis). That is, regardless of how much metaphysical evil an object contains, the universe contains more good if the object exists, then if it does not. At the instant of creation then, in order that the universe contain all possible good, God desired the existence of an infinite number ·of objects, each of which would manifest some good. Thus Aquinas argues for the diversity of the universe: The perfection of the universe consists in the diversity of things. • Because His (God's) goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, He produced many and diverse creatures, so that what was wanting in the one representation of the di9 vine goodness might be supplied by another. Every thing, regardless of the amount of metaphysical evil it contains, is necessary to achieve the greater good of the universe, but this explains only the metaphysical evil of objects when they are considered at an instant. When objects are considered insofar as they relate to one another in motion over time, they might appear to cause evil in other objects, and thus detract from the metaphysical good of the universe. That objects be able to harm one another - that they be able to cause metaphysical evil, is necessary in a universe governed by laws. Thus, metaphysical evil results from the consequent will of God, which is the series of His antecedent wills with respect to their mutual possibility. God antecedently wills each object as perfect; He wills an ordered universe. However, since objects must be potentially imperfect in that universe, and since some objects through their interaction, make others imperfect, evil results. Further, even if the universe could be ordered so that no metaphysical evil resulted, with the addition of free creatures no such order could yet suffice. Therefore there is no way for God to order the universe without incurring metaphysical evil. The greater good which the ordering constitutes is the representation of the divine intelligence. However, metaphysical evil also is a necessary condition for the existence of ano t her manifes tation of God' s goodness - living creatures. Some of these creatures can sense. Both because the universe has laws which govern the interaction of all matter and energy, and because finite sentient creatures must act within this universe, natural evil inevitably results-especially if some creatures are free and rational. For matter reacts to the actions of the creatures according to the determinations of preexistent laws. These laws sometimes conflict with the creatures' desires. This conflict between matter's tendency and the creatures' desires causes suffering in 84 sentient creatures - even if rational sentient creatures can not be physically harmed by it. That this suffering is evil is not evident. In the case of irrational creatures, the suffering occurs only as physical pain which invariably causes the creature to alter its actions in response thereby causing it to act in a manner not proper to it. This altered action is therefore a privation. The same alteration occurs in a rational creature. In it, however, suffering affects its thoughts~ altering the actions determined by those thoughts. Suffering is not, then, in itself a privation. Rather, like the will's failure to conform to reason, suffering is a privation with respect to a moral action. That natural and metaphysical evil are consequences of an ordered universe which, in turn, is necessary in order for living creatures to function-has been established. One might reply that God could miraculously intervene in all cases of natural evil. However, free moral agents enact moral good or evil insofar as they either do or do not consider the rule of reason. In order to determine by reason whether an action is appropriate to an end, one must be able to understand causality well enough to determine the consequences of that action. Such causality may be understood in a universe governed by law, but in one governed or dominated by miraculous intervention such understanding is impossible. Thus, besides the loss of good occasioned by the disruption of the order of the universe, through the inability of their intellect to guide their will, rational animals would suffer an even greater privation than that of natural evil. Therefore metaphysical and natural evil are necessary for the greater good of both the universe and man. Ex hypothesis, as perfectly good, God commits no morally evil act. However, man does commit moral evil. Insofar as God wills the existence of man, God causes moral evil. For although He does not cause it directly, since man, a free moral agent, is directly responsible for his own acts, God nevertheless causes evil indirectly by permitting man to do evil. This permission may be construed as an indirect cause of evil because of divine foreknowledge, by which God knows when a man will commit moral evil. Now, even i f we assume, (but do not admit), that God permits evil because He knows that each particular moral evil results accidentally in some greater good, God is still the indirect cause . Yet because God's will is directed toward the greater good and not the evil He is not culpable. Note that the issue of a moral act does not determine its goodness since the greater good arises from the action accidentally. Further only that which belongs to a thing essentially can determine it in species. Thus while the action is still morally evil for the man who commits it, it is morally good for God to permit it because He knows essentially the accidental issue of all actions. Aquinas is very clear on the point that must be demonstrated: God is not even indirectly responsible for moral evil. The first cause of moral evil is in man, for God does no violence to man's will, which is the free cause of moral evil. Unfortunately, St. Thomas is not clear on how to vindicate God of even indirect causality. He says, The effect of the deficient secondary cause (man 9 s will) is reduced t o the first non-deficient cause as regards what it has of being and perfection, but not as regards what it has of def ect; just as whatever there is of motion in t he act of limping is caused by the motive power, whereas what is unbalanced in it does not come froll\. the motive power, but from 0 the curvature of t he leg. This mechanical example fails, however, because the will has no power over the leg's curvature, yet God has power over the actions of a man, and He creates man and 85 �sustains him. Therefore Aquinas's claim that God is not even indirectly responsible for evil has not yet been justified. In fact, St. Thomas acknowledges that man's turning to God is by free choice; •.. But free choice can be turned to God only when God turns i t ... He (man) does not do this without the help of God moving him. Man can only act in accordance with God's perfectly good will, that is, he can only enact moral good by virtue of the prevenient grace of God. Even though God grants sufficient grace to all who accept it, it is God Himself who moves them to accept it. Moral evil results from the will' s failure to conform to the rule of reason. Since God's grace brings man's will into conformity with the rule of reason, i f God moves man to accept this grace, He permits evil antecedently when he does not move a man to accept His grace. For whenever acceptance is not caused, man does not consider the rule of reason. This non-consideration is not culpable, f or it is a negation. But when man subsequently acts, he is culpable, for non-consideration of the rule is a privat ion with respect to a morally significant action. Hence, God causes not a privation but a ne gat ion, which man freely makes a privation. God is therefore only the cause of mo r al good and not of moral evil. God does not do anything that He does not cause; acceptance is a non-act. Such an argument, derived from Aquinian positions, is unconvincing. In the first place , God's non-act directly causes man's non-consideration of the rule, which subsequently causes the morally evil act. God did not act because of a greater good which, by divine foreknowledge, He knew would be caused accidentally by the evil act. His non-act is a negation rather than a privation, for action would not be proper to God. However , His non-act still willfully and indirectly causes moral evil. To vindicate God of any such causal ity as Aquinas affirms one must, it is necessary to establish and maintain a slightly different interpretation which yields radically different results. Although God can infallibly cause a man to act in a non-evil manner in a given instance, He does not - except, perhaps, in rare instances. Usually, He determines not to move a man in such a way that the man must act in a specified manner. Rather He grants man prevenient grace. Along with this grace, God moves man to accept it by inclining him to do so. Man either follows this inclination or does not He chooses freely. God, then, at the time of man's choosing cannot fail to permit evil, for to do so would contradict His decision to grant man only an inclination and thus allow man moral freedom with respect to that act. This is important .because, in a situation where God infallibly causes man to act well, man's act is not free . It is absurd to claim that one is caused by someone else to choose freely a particular alternative. According to this interpretation God never permits an evil act per se . Rather, He permits man to act with moral freedom, and so permits the possibility of an evil act. Further, by inclining man toward considerat~on of the rule in all instances of human freedom, God causes man's consideration and, so, man's morally good act. Man's morally evil act, then, results from his autonomous disregard of this inclination ... . Thus, God causes moral evil neithe r directly nor indirectly. For, God cannot eliminate moral evil without also eliminating a greater good-namely, man's freedom. Whether or not moral evil exists is therefore entirely up to man . This is not to say that God does not prevent some moral evils, but He is morally obliged to permit some. Herein it has been demonstrated that the existence of both evil and a perfectly good God is consistent with man's reason, for plausible explanations have been offered for all three kinds of evil. If the arguments presented herein are sound, the faith of one who believes may be renewed and strengthened. For one who does not have faith, the possibility of gaining it remains. Further, if anyone is hereby convinced 86 that it is his own freedom which requires the potentiality of the manifold evils which he endures, and that it is primarily his own responsibility as a free man to determine whether these evils are actualized, he may less readily despair should his soul be filled with troubles. Footnotes 1 Job, II. 10. translated form the Greek text of the Septuagint, as are all further biblical references. 2 Job, I. 8. 3 4 5 6 The Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas, Part I, Q.14. contained in Introduction to St. Thomas Acquinas, ed. Anton C. Pegis. confessions, St. Augustine, Book III, Chapter VII. Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 48, Art. 3. Ibid., Part I, Q. 48, Art. 4. l Ibid., Part II, Q. 18, Art. 2. 8 9 Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross, contained in The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random House, Inc., New York, NY, 1941, ed. Richard McKeon, Book III-,-Chapter 3 section 1113 all. Summa Theologica, Part I, Q. 47, Art. 1. lOibid., Part I, Q. 49, Art. 3. 11 Ibid., Part II, Q. 109, Art. 7. 87 �c Solution to the Junior-Senior Math Problem s Martin Marklin Given the accompanying diagram arc with center at N AEN is a straight line f ormin~ any angle MN; it is to be proven that the area. in which ACBN is a circle, ADB is a circular circular arc with center at M, and CDEN is a less than or equal to a right angle with line mixtilinear triangles ADC and ADE are equal in ~--i"--...::::;;;..------' M FIG .1 FIG.2 N N First, the case when CN is at right angles to MN (figure 1). The area of a sector of a circle is = 8r 2 , where 0 is in radians. 2 Since AM= MN, and AM is perpendicular to MN, Then AN = 2 AM; (I. 4 7) 2 = 2 AM 2 • And AN Since angle ANB is a right angle, 2 Then sector ANBD TI/2 AN 2 IlAN 2 4 Since angle AMN is a right angle, 2 then sector AMNR TI/2 AM 2 TIAM2 4 Substituting 2 AM for AN 2 , 2 sector ANBD : sector AMNR ·· TI2AM 2 •• 2 2 TIAM 2 2 1 But sector AND = ~ sector ANBD. Therefore, sector AND = sector AMNR. And triangle ANM = triangle AON. Therefore, subtracting equal triangles, section AOD = section ANR . Section ADONR = triangle AON - section ARN + section AOD. But, section ADO = section ARN. Therefore, section ADONR = triangle AON. Section CAD, likewise, = sector COA - section DOA. But sector COA = sector AND. And subtracing common section DOA, section ADC = triangle AON. Therefore, section ADONR = section ADC . 88 For the case when CN . is less than a right angle with MN: Draw in ME, OC, and SC. Now, angle MNE = angle OSC (III . 32) And because of equal radii, MN = ME = OC = OS. Since triangles MNE and OCS are isosceles, angle MNE = angle MEN = angle OCS = angle OSC . Therefore, triangle MNE = triangle OSC . And triangle OSC = triangle OCN, because they are on equal bases and under equal heights. Now, sector AQN = sector ANM = sector AOS, from previous proof. And, angle CNO = ~ angle COS (III. 20) Since the area of a sector varies directly with its angle, and given whatever angle for CNS, angles EMN and SOC will each be twice that angle, then, sector QDN = sector SOC sector ENM. Now subtracting the common area of section EN, section QGDENO = triangle ENM = triangle OCS = triangle OCN. Subtracting further the common section OGDEN from both sides, EN + CGD GQO But section EN section SC, Therefore, GQO section CGD + section SC. But triangle OSC section OQG + QGCS section SC = section CGD + section QGCS. section SCDGQ Therefore, section SCDGQ triangle OSC = triangle OCN = section QGDENO. Which was to be proven. Q.E.D. 89 �Brise Marine In the particular case in which CNM is a right angle, show that the volumes of revolution formed by rotating the two mixtilineal triangles ADC and ADN about CN as an axis are . unequa~; and explain why this is the case. The volume, generated by the revolution of a curve, is the product of the area enclosed by the curve and the distance moved through by the center of area or center of gravity. In other words (see figure 3), the volume of the ring generated by the circle A about axis CN is equal to the area of circle A times the circumference of the circle with radius AO (the mean distance). Hence, equal c areas at equal distances from the axis may not always give equal volumes-.~The further o requirement being that their respective centers of gravity be also equidistant from the axis. 1--~-+-~~~-+~~~-+~--t N The volume of rotated. ACD rotated volume of hemisphere ACB - volume ADO Stephane Mallarme' La chair est triste, helas! et j'ai lu tousles livres. Fuir! la-bas fuir! Je sens que des oiseaux sont ivres D'etre parmi l'ecume inconnue et les cieux! Rien, ni les vieux jardins refletes par les yeux Ne retiendra ce coeur qui dans la mer se trempe 0 nuits! ni la clarte deserte de ma lampe Sur le vide papier que la blancheur def end Et ni la jeune femme allaitant son enfant. Je partirai! Steamer blancant ta mature, Leve l'ancre pour une exotique nature! Un Ennui, desole par les cruels espoirs, Croit encore a l'adieu supreme des mouchoirs! Et, peut-etre, les mats, invitant les orages Sont-ils de ceux qu'un vent penche sur les naufrages Perdus, sans mats, sans mats, ni fertiles ilots • Mais, o ~on coeur, entends le chant des matelots! The volume of ADNP rotated = volume of hemisphere ABN + volume ADO rotated - volume APNR rotated. c Let volume volume ADNP. ACD Then, volume APNR ADO. rotated Translation We know, from the previous proof, that the area of APNR = 2 x area ADO. Hence, the centers of gravity of area APNR and area ADO must be equidistant from axis CN. We know the center of area APNR to be at K, which is ~ radius AO (because of its bilateral symmetry). N Nancy Mease 2 x volume But the center of ADO can not be at ~ AO. For, in· that case, there would be the same area to the left of ~AO as there would be to the right of ~AO. But the arc AD has its maximum at the axis and its minimum at point A. I t is impossible for the area of ADO to be bisected along a line which passes through the point ~RO. Hence, the assumption that volume ADC = ADNP must be false. The flesh is bleak; I have read all the booksTo flee, flee alas! The birds must be drunk To exist amid nameless foam and sky! Nothing shall hold this sea-steeped heart, O nights! Neither old gardens shining in the eyes, Nor the desert clarity of my lamp On empty paper defended by white, Nor even the young wife nursing her child. I shall leave! You, steamer, cradling your spars, Up anchor, crowd sail for exotic wilds! A man of ennui, undone by cruel hopes, Still looks to the last good~bye of handkerchiefs. And perhaps these spars, inviting tempests, Are among those that wind bends over wrecks Lost, dismasted, without fertile isles •.• And yet, oh my heart, hear the sailors' songs! Which was to be proven. ~ancy Q.• E. D. 90 Mease, '84, is currently living in Orange City, New 91 Jers~v. �Non -Profit Org. BULK RATE U. S. POST AGE St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 PAID PERMIT No. ·1 20 ANNAPOLIS , ~-~J � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Burlein, Ann (Editor) Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Fall 1984 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Fall 1984. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Fall 1984 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f471a1a3d9705252a449359061b939c8.pdf ca8b5818574b60bf4ad2d38908826e1d PDF Text Text �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. n••• vou ,, tvlpyE~a ~w~ ••• . STAFF: Cover phot<;> by Ondine McRoberts It's called "fiighland Down" Printed by th~ St. John's Coll~ge Press St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) co-Editors: Faculty Advisor: Chris Bailey Talke Breuer Susan Borden Barbara Gesiakowski Nancy Harriss Steve Jackson AJ Krivak Bernadette Rudolph Gabrielle Fink Joe Macfarland Jonathon Tuck Unfortunately due to the limited length of Energeia only excerpts have been taken from some of the senior essays. If you would like to read these essays in their entirety, you may find the prize essays in the library or by contacting the editors. The editors of Energeia extend an apoloqy to Bruce Johnsen for the unauthorized editing, excerpting, and publishing of his ·essay "For My Soul is Filled with Troubles" in the Fall 1984 issue. Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published three times a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis and Santa Fe. The Fall issue contains a sampling of the student work from the previous school year which the prize conunittees of both campuses have selected for public recognition. For the Winter and Spring issues, the Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Note: A brief description of the author accompanies all work not by current St. John' s students. Please include some such statement along with your submission. Thank you. �r ' CONTENTS .. .. ANNUAL SENIOR ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) ''A HORRIBLE AND BLOODY MISCHANCING OF HUMAN AFFAIRS":* WILLIAM FAULKNER'S ABSALOM, ABSALOM! Mark Streeter 1 Michael Strong 17 Stuart Sobczynski 25 Liz Waldner .25 · Daniel Schoos 26 Nancy loevinger 33 Karel Bauer 42 Mark Manry 49 , David Amirthanayam 50 ANNUAL SENIOR ESSAY (SANTA FE) ''A SHALLOW READING OF MARX" AND OTHER LIKELY STORIES* HONORABLE MENTION, ORIGINAL POETRY (ANNAPOLIS) MA ... DEMOISELLE BEST TRAN~LATION OF A FRENCH POEM (ANNAPOLIS) WUIS MFNARD'S "CIRCE" ANNUAL JUNIOR ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) A FISHHOOK FOR HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN ACKNOWLEDGED FOR EXCELLENCE (SANTA FE) THE TWO HANDS OF GOD: AN EXAMINATION OF GOETHE'S FAUST* ACKNOWLEDGED FOR EXCELLENCE (SANTA FE) PERCEPTION AND ANALYSIS IN UNDERSTANDING BEING BEST TRANSLATION FROM A GREEK TEXT (ANNAPOLIS) ·A CHORUS FROM ARISTOPHANES' THE FROGS ACKNOWLEDGED FOR EXCELLENCE (SANTA FE) ON POETIC RECOGNITION ANNUAL SENIOR ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) THE SEARCH FOR WHAT THE MEMORY HOLDS: MEMORY, IDENTITY AND THE USES OF THINGS Liz Waldner ,. *excerpts 65 �''A horrible and bloody mischancing of human affairs": William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! Mark Streeter It's just incredible. It just does not explain. Or perhaps that's it: they don't explain and we are not supposed to know . We have a few old mouth- to- mouth tales; we exhume from old trunks and boxes and drawers letters without salutation or signature, in which men and women who once lived and breathed are now merely initials or nicknames out of some now incomprehensible affection which sound to us like Sanskrit or Chocktaw; we see dimly people, the people in whose living blood and seed we ourselves lay dormant and waiting, in this shadowy attenuation of time possessing now heroic proportions, performing their acts of simple passion and simple violence, impervious ~o time and inexplicable--Yes, Judith, Bon, Henry, Sutpen: all of them. They are there, yet something is missing; they are like a chemical formula exhumed along with the letters from that forgotten chest, carefully, the paper old and faded and falling to pieces, the writing faded, almost indecipherable, yet meaningful, familiar in shape and sense, the name and presence of volatile and sentient forces; you bring them together in the proportions called for, but nothing happens; you re-read, tedious and intent, poring, making sure that you have forgotten nothing, made no miscalculation; you bring them together again and again nothing happens: just the words, the symbols, the shapes themselves, sha.dowy inscrutable and serene, against that turgid background of a horrible and bloody mischancing of human affairs. --Mr. Compson (pp. 100-101) •• ~ I ! •. \ ' ~ l o' '. Absalom, Absaloml by William Faulkner-·is the story of Thomas Sutpen. However, it is not a story in the sense that one would expect, where a narrator, first person or third, omniscient or limited, tells the story with at least some regard for chr~­ nology and fact. Rather, the story of Thomas Sutpen is told by four narrators : Miss Rosa Coldfield, Sutpen's sister-in-law; Mr . Jason Compson; QUentin Compson (his son); and Shrevlin Mccannon, Quentin's roonunate at Harvard, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Each of them gives an account of a part or of the whole of the story, often repeating and revising previous accounts by other narrators; they disregard chronology, jumping from one scene to another twenty years previous without warning or explanation; they not only have a limited knowledge of the facts of the story, but often seem not to care about the facts. For the narrators speak in 1909 and 1910, forty years since the death of Thomas Sutpen, and their interest lies not so much in exactly what happened (though they certainly do guess about what must have happened) as in why what happened did happen. When Quentin and Shreve are imagining together the scene on that Christmas Eve when Sutpen called Henry into the library, imagining Bon and Judith walking in the garden just beyond the library, the author as omniscient narrator inserts: It would not matter here in Cambridge that the time had been winter in that garden too, and hence no bloom nor leaf even if there had been someone to walk there and be seen there since, judged by subsequent events, it had 1 �been night in the garden also. But that.did not matter because it had been so long ago. It did not matter to them [Quentin and Shreve] anyway. (p. 295) Nor is the narrators' a passing interest, for their enterprise seems at times to border on an obsession (especially with Miss Rosa and Quentin) , or at least a fascination with the motivations and thoughts of their long-dead subjects. The cause of their fascination is not at this point immediately apparent; however, let it suffice for now to say that they are all involved and interested in the story and in their telling of it, even though only one of the narrators, Miss Rosa, was present and involved when any of the events took place (and she only in a relatively minor role). In telling it, even by telling it, the narrators are trying to make sense of the story, to make the story itself make sense. Their involvement with and interest in the story of Thomas Sutpen and his design demand that they endeavor to obtain some meaning and truth from it (and this is possible only by telling it), which is often personal, and prejudiced, and yet is not useless or even false. The narrators tell and . retell sutpen's story, each of them seeing (telling} it differently, as if each sees through a piece of tinted glass colored according to his or her own character or personality, which often results in a distorted, inaccurate, and, for the reader, confusing picture. It is through this medium that ·the reader must come to learn, know, and be fascinated with, the story of Thomas Sutpen. Rosa portrays Sutpen as an unscrupulous and ruthless villain with a hidden and unspeakable past, who not only knew what he was doing, but went ahead and did it anyway, as if, she says, he was sent by Heaven as the bearer of letribution and punishment to expiate some long-forgotten familial sin. She speaks in a stylized and extravagant language, employing many "religious" and sexual images to express the extent of her outrage. Combined with the affront which Sutpen committed against her when he suggested that they "breed like dogs" and await the result before marrying, the ruination of the Coldfield family causes Rosa not only to hate sutpen and desire revenge, but to cry when she learns that he is dead: *'Dead? ••• Dead? You? You lie; you're not dead; heaven cannot, and hell dare not, have you ! ' (p. 172) Rosa herself is an old woman of sixty-four years, who was born into her parents' middle age (her mother died while giving birth to her), and who describes herself as never having been young, Since what creature in the South since 1861, man woman nigger or mule, had had time or opportunity not only to have been young, but to have heard what being young was like from those who had, (p. 19) and because, she says, The Narra~ors The reasons for each narrator's fascination with Thomas Sutpen are dependent upon each narrator's character and experience and are therefore as different as the narrators themselves. Because the novel is also in some sense the story of the narrators, I will here concentrate on them and their enterprise, returning to the subject of Thomas Sutpen later in this essay. Miss Rosa's account comprises Chapters I and V: in Chapter I she is talking to a somewhat unwilling Quentin, having asked, "summoned, him to call on her on that September afternoon, while in Chapter v Quentin is recalling internally her words while sitting upon the porch of his house that same evening, waiting for the time when he must go and get her in the buggy to make the trip out to Sutpen's Hundred. Rosa's subjects in Chapter I are Sutpen's early days in Jefferson, his marriage to her sister Ellen, and her relations with and attitude towards the Sutpen family in the days before the war. In Chapter V she recalls the events following the death of Charles Bon by Henry's hand, and, with herself as main character, tells of Sutpen's return from the war, her engagement to him, and her life in Jefferson following her outraged flight from Sutpen's Hundred. Rosa• s account is filled with her visions of Sutpen as a hell-born demon or ogre, with outrage and unforgiveness, and with her "cold, implacable, and ruthles~" hate of the man whom she blames for the destruction of her family. She blames him not only for the destruction of her family, and of his own, but also for the destruction of the South itself: 11 *[this is] why God let us lose the war: that only through the blood of our men and the tears of our women could He stay this demon and efface his name and lineage from the earth. (p. 11) *All quotations marked with an asterisk are passages from the book which appear there in italics. In.the book, italics are used to signal the thoughts of a character as opposed to his or her speech; for instance, almost the whole of Chapter V is not Rosa speaking, but Quentin remembering Rosa speaking (he is still on the porch). 2' I was born too late. I was born twenty-two years too late--a child to whom out of the overheard talk of adults my own sister's and my sister's children's faces had come to be like the faces in an ogre-tale between supper and bed. (p . 22) When Rosa was young she was isolated and outcast, for her father was neither prepared nor inclined to give her what she needed. The aunt who lived with them did not provide the care and attention which was her due either. Both father and aunt were too concerned with Ellen, who had already been married seven years and given birth to her two children by the time Rosa was born. It was, Rosa thinks, as if she had never been born because she had never been raised. This was why Rosa was never young: she had neither received the attention proper to an infant nor ever heard any words but those about Ellen's marriage to that "ogre." Rosa was rudely introduced to the anguished adult world very early in her ife by listening outside of closed doors. *So that instead of accornpl~shing the processional and measured milestones of the childhood's time I lurked, unapprehended as though, shod with the very damp and velvet silence of the womb, I displaced no air, gave off no betraying sound, from one closed forbidden door to the next and so acquired all I knew of that light and space in which people moved and breathed. (p. 145) Rosa was always on the outside looking in, unable to participate in the scene unfolding before her. so was it also with love. During that "summer of wistaria" when she was fourteen, Rosa fell in love. She at first fell in love with Judith's beau Charles Bon, even though she had never seen him. However, in realizing that Bon was unavailable to her she,also realized that she would forever be on the outside of any possible love relationship. She therefore fell in love with love itself; she became *"all polymath love's androgynous advocate" (p. 146) 3 �When Ellen on her deathbed asks Rosa to protect Judith and Henry.., she is inviting Rosa into her family as an actual participant, yet Rosa, who is herself younger than both the children, is unable to comply. Her inability stems not from herself, she would probably desire such a role, but from the children themselves. Henry is away at the war, and she will not see him again until that September night in 1909. She attempts to save Judith when she goes to Sutpen's Hundred immediately after the death of Charles Bon, hoping to give comfort and sympathy to Judith in her mourning. Yet when she gets there she is met not with bereavement but with that mask which Judith wears that shows no emotion. Rosa is repulsed and relegated to her role of onlooker once again. Sutpen's proposal of marriage to her was probably a source of hope for her, hope that someone would see her and c a re for her, yet this too turne d sour . Rosa believes that she died at that moment when she realized that Sutpen did not want her for herself but only for her possibility as a breeder ("my life was destined to end on an afternoon in April forty-three years ago" (p. 18)). She never could get past that moment. She is a Southern lady of tradition , principl e, honor, and pride, who is obsessed with he r hatred of Thomas Sutpen. Mr. Compson says that she is now a ghost because that is what the war did to ladies, though she herself blames Sutpen (who for her practically represents, symboli~es, the war) for her ghosthood. Her character and words recall Dylan Thomas' words : 'We who are young are old . It is the oldest cry. Age sours before youth's tasted in the mouth And any sweetness that it has Is sucked away. ' For Rosa, any sweetness that she ever had has long ago turned to bitterness and rage. Mr. Compson's nar ration dominates Chapters II through IV as he talks to Quentin on the porch the ev e ning following Quentin's visit to Miss Rosa. Mr. Compson first tells of sutpen's early days in Jefferson, his arrival, the town's reaction, and his marriage to Ellen . He then takes up Rosa as his main character and examines her relationship with sutpen and his family. (It is interesting to note that Mr. Compson's narration covers the same material as Miss Rosa's immediately preceding in Chapter I . This allows the reader to get some sense of what is going on in the book, for he is confronted with two narrators telling the same part of the story differently.) Finally, in Chapter IV, Mr. Compson speaks about the relationship between Charles Bon, Henry, and Judith. M . Comps on is de t a che d , e ve n cynical, in hi s t e lling, using hi s s kept ical r cynicism as a defense against becoming too involved with the story, against being forced to acknowledge the tragedy which he ultimately believes the story to be. He is afraid of the force of the story, its ability to move him, and protects himself by his personae using his knowledge of classical mythology and tragedy to create separate personae for the characters of the real story. He sets up a stage upon which sutpen and his fellow actors move and strut, where while sutpen was "still playing the scene to the audience, behind him Fate, destiny, retribution, irony,--the stage manager, call him what you will--was already striking the set and dragging on the synthetic and spurious shadows and shapes of the next one" (pp. 72-73). Mr. compson applies this tragic and theatric formula to the story, completing the metaphor himself by becoming the director who sits in the empty auditorium and tells the actors what to say and do. The characters become his playthings. Mr. Compson does believe sutpen's story to be tragedy; yet by applying to it his own tragic form and setting, he denies the real tragedy of it, and changes it into a trite, banal, and distant happening. Mr. compson distances himself from the story because he sees in Sutpen's fall a ;4 : microcosmic symbol for the fall of the South, and sees in its characters "the people in whose living blood and seed we ourselves lay dormant and waiting" (p. 101). The story is part of Mr. Compson's heritage, which is filled with those same undying ghosts of which Quentin speaks, and which is that past or history which is yet present. Consistent with his tragic setting, Mr. Compson believes the characters of the story larger-than-life, heroic. . ' ••• of that day and time, of a dead time; people too as we are, and victims too as we are, but victims of a different circumstance, simpler and therefore, integer for integer, larger, more heroic and the figures therefore more heroic too, not dwarfed and involved but distinct, uncomplex who had the gift of loving once or dying once instead of being diffused and scattered creatures drawn blindly limb from limb from a grab bag and assembled, author and victim too of a thousand homicides and a thousand copulations and divorcements. (p. 89) Mr. Compson obviously envies this distant and "simpler" time, and accordingly withdraws, not only from the trenchancy of the story, but from his own life as well. The reader of the book very well may pause at this point and breathe a sigh of relief, for with the end of Chapter V comes also the end of the most difficult half , of the book (from the standpoint of a first reading). The reader at this point has been provided with most of the known facts of the story, and the second half is an attempt by Quentin and Shreve to further explain and understand those facts. The two of them try to recreate the events of the story by placing themselves in the shoes of their characters. In this manner they hope to understand why and how such a "bloody mischancing of human affairs" could ever occur. The character of Quentin Compson dominates the book - he is the central narrator and his role is of almost equal importance to Sutpen's. The book is in many ways about Quentin Compson. He is always present, listening more often than speaking, yet when he speaks or thinks he gives voice to some of the most important and germane ideas and themes of the novel. His "section" comprises Chapters VI through IX where he and his Canadian roommate Shreve recreate (or relive ) the story, their enterprise occasioned by Quentin's receipt of a letter from his father telling of Miss Rosa's death. It is now almost exactly four months since Quentin and Rosa went out to Sutpen's Hundred to find whatever it was "living hidden" in the house. Quentin resembles his father in many ways, yet differs in one major aspect: he is unable to distance himself from the story, to allow it to remain mysterious and inexplicable, as his father can and does. Quentin is obsessed with the story of Thomas sutpen and is compelled to listen to it and tell it, even though the listening and telling disturb him both emotionally and physically ("now he began to jerk all over, violently and uncontrollably until he could even hear the bed" (p. 360)). Quentin is consumed by his feeling of purposelessness. He cannot reconcile himself with his tradition, the tradition and history of the South, and because of this has no foundation upon which to build his life. He is lost. 3 Quentin grew up in a land where "tragedy is secondhand" and he accordingly seeks to understand those tragedies in the hope that he might finally understand himself. It was a part of his twenty years' heritage of breathing the same air and hearing his father talk about the man Sutpen ••• Quentin had grown up with that; the mere names were interchangeable and almost myriad. His childhood was full of them; his very body was an empty hall echoing with sonorous defeated names; he was not a being, an entity, he was a commonwealth. He was a barracks filled with stubborn back-lo~king ghosts still recovering, 5, �- - - - -- - - - even forty-three years afte:rward, from the fever which had cured the disease, waking from the fever without even knowing that it had been the fever itself which they had fought against and not the sickness, looking with stubborn recalcitrance backward beyond the fever and into the disease with actual regret, weak from the fever yet free of the disease and not even aware that the freedom was that of impotence. (pp. 11,12) The characters of those Southern tragedies are to Quentin also ghosts which haunt and inhabit his very soul. With the story of Sutpen, Quentin is confronted with one of those tragedies, yet this one is more meaningful than the others, because in the story of Thomas Sutpen~Quentin sees not only a story of the South but also himself in the person of Henry. Becauoe of this Quentin is obsessed with the tragedy of Thomas Sutpen and most specifically with the character of Henry Sutpen. Quentin sees himself as two separate entities; the one self trying to continue living in the present, and the other unable to live in the present without the copresence of the past. He [Quentin] would seem to listen to two separate Quentins now--the Quentin Compson preparing for Harvard in the south, the deep South dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts, listening, having to listen, to one of the ghosts which had refused to lie still even longer than most had, telling him about old ghost-times; and the Quentin who was still too young to deserve yet to be a ghost, but nevertheless having to be one for all that, since he was born and bred in the deep South the same as she was--the two separate Quentins now talking to one another in the long s1lence of notpeople, in notlanguage. (p. 9) These two polarized selves pull Quentin apart and render him a non-entity, one of the "notpeople." Like the post- war South, he is impotent, unable to act; he is paralyzed into a permanent state of anxiety and indecision. This is apparent in his relation to the story. The telling of the story fills him with a kind of terror, yet he desperately wants and needs to tell it. Finally he is unable to prevent the telling of it: *Am I going to have to have to hear it all again ••• ! am going to have to hear it all over again I am already hearing it all over again I am listening to it all over again I shall have to never listen to anything else but this again forever . (p . 277) Furthermore, Quentin's impotence makes him unable to bring peace to his two warring and conflicting selves; the war will always be still being fought within Quentin. 'Nevermore of peace. Nevermore of peace. Nevermore Nevermore Nevermore.' (p. 373) Unable to relegate that ghost-history of the South to the past, Quentin lives in guilt, shame, and remorse. Quentin's attitude towards the South is best expressed in his answer to Shreve's question: "Why do you hate the south?" When Quentin answers "I don't hate it," the reader must know that Quentin both loves and hates the South, and that he is forever doomed to both love and . hate the South, its history, and his tradition. Nor is this any passive ambivalence about his home; rather, it is a passionate affirmation of his own bipartite and lost self. The guilt and confusion which Quentin feels, and which Jim Bond both excites and symbolizes ("You still hear him at night sometimes. Don't you?" (p. 378)), must make him hate the South and the 6 .. heritage it has bequeathed to him. Nevertheless, Quentin deeply loves the south and its traditions because it is his home. Unable finally to break ~he hold which the past has on him, Quentin commits suicide in June of the same year, finally silencing the ghosts which haunt him and which have made him "older at twenty than a lot of p7ople who have died" (p. 377). Quentin himself expresses his condition best, and finally one can only conclude with him, *Yes. I have heard too much, I have been told too much; I have had to listen to too much, too long. (p. 207) Shreve is obviously the most curious choice as a narrator, yet he is entirely necessary to the purpose of the book. Set as a counte:rweight to Quentin in order to balance the narration and keep it sane, he at first forces the reluctant Quentin into reliving the story once again, then insures that Quentin does not become bogged down in his obsession by either prodding Quentin along or by taking over the telling himself. Neither born in the South, nor involved in the story, and from farther north even than the North, Shreve is the one narrator who can ever be disinterested or ambivalent to the story, who can lay it aside and forget it when he so desires; however, he too is fascinated by Sutpen. One reason for his interest in the story is his natural youthful enthusiasm of a freshman at Harvard; for Shreve the telling is a l kind of "play" (p. 280), that is, his fascination with Sutpen is not imbued with the' outrage, anxiety, or dread of the other narrators. Shreve simply recognizes that the story of Thomas Sutpen is an amazing and incredible one, and one that excites his · interest. But perhaps Shreve is most _ valuable because he takes upon himself the part of the reader, giving voice to words that must at times be on the reader's own tongue. One often hears Shreve saying "Wait!", trying to slow QUentin down and make him explain those points about which, though Quentin knows the truth, neither the reader nor Shreve have the slightest understanding. Shreve is also of great value to the non-Southern reader, whose interest and confusion about the South are expressed in Shreve's words: · *Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. do they live there. Why do they live at all. (p. 174) Why On the subject of what it's like to live in the South, to be a ghost living among other ghosts, Shreve gives the best explanation, even though he is only voicing his own confusion and ignorance, and although Quentin answers him with a final "You can't understand it. You would have to be born there." I just want to understand it if I can and I don't know how to say it better. Because it's something my people haven't got. or if we have got it, it all happened long ago across the water and so now there ain't anything to look at every day to remind us of it. We · don't live among defeated grandfathers and freed slaves (or have I got it backward and was it your folks that are free and the niggers that lost?) and bullets in the dining room table and such, to be always reminding us to never forget. What is it? Something you live and breathe in like air? A kind of vacuum filled with wraithlike and indomitable anger and pride and glory at and in happenings that occurred and ceased fifty years _ ago? A kind of entailed birthright father and son and father and son of never forgiving General Sherman, so that forevermore as long as your childrens' children produce children you won't be anything but a descendant of a long line of colonels killed in Pickett's charge at Manassas? (p. 361) 7 ~ �Shreve encourages the reader to dare to fashion his own version of the story by showing no hesitation in submerging himself in the story and in telling portions of it, though he is unqualified and ill-equipped to do it in comparison with the other narrators. Though he often stings Quentin with his jokes and irreverance ("Jesus, the South is fine, isn't it ••• It's better than Ben Hur, isn't it·." (P. 217)), Shreve is sincere in his efforts to understand the South and Thomas Sutpen. Considering the relativistic and biased accounts of the narrators, which they yet hold to be true, one must wonder about the nature of truth in this book. Is truth a personal thing, where each narrator's account is true only because it is true, because it has meaning, to them? The following quotation sheds some light on what the narrators are doing as they tell their stories, and search for what is true. It did not matter to either of them (Quentin and Shreve ] which one did the talking, since it was not the talking alone which did it, performed and accomplished the overpassing, but some happy marriage of speaking and hearing wherein each before the demand, the requirement, forgave condoned and forgot the faulting of the other--faultings both in the creating of this shade whom they discussed (rather, existed in) and in the hearing and sifting and discarding the false and conserving what seemed true, or fit the preconceived. (p. 316) The narrators are trying to "conserve" what seems true, and yet what is true to them is oftentimes that "might-have-been which is more true than truth," and the true that is more true than truth (factual truth) is actually factual falsity. In their act of creating the characters of sutpen and all those who surround him, the narrators are like the woman singer in Wallace Stevens' s "The Idea of Order at Key West" who gives order and meaning to the otherwise mute and meaningless sea in and by her singing. The story of Thomas Sutpen is nothing without them. The narrators' distance from the actual events allows them not only to embellish the story, but also, it seems, to see it more clearly and meaningfully. When Quentin is imagining Sutpen's return to Jefferson in the middle of the war with the marble slabs for his and Ellen's graves, the omniscient narrator states, "he could see it; he might even have been there," and Quentin thinks, *"No. If I had been there I could not have seen it this plain" (p. 190). Thus, the narrators examine the story as they are telling it for its meaning and truth, for had they been involved in the actual events, their involvement would have been too much for them to have any perspective on it; they would have been overwhelmed with the living of it. Shreve, it seems, speaks for all of the narrators when, recalling Miss Rosa's words, he says: there are some things that just have to be whether they are or not, have to be a damn sight more than some other things that maybe are and it don't matter a damn whether they are or not. (p. 322) Shreve is saying that some things are truer than fact, that facts can get in the way of truth and obscure it, and that what is most true is that with which the narrators imbue their accounts: their own innate meaning which they find in their hear ts, or sub-conscious, or somewhere. Because the narrators' accounts are meaningful and true, and put together where the reader can experience all of them, they yield, from the very union of these personal and true accounts, a truth which is the reader' s own, and which is greater than any of them separately. Quentin and Shreve demonstrate the problem of historical truth~ how anyone can ever really know the past. They attempt to "know" by placing themselves inside their characters and by trying to imagine what they felt and thought. Their endeavor to experience history "first-hand" indicates the historical validity and value of a nov- 8 .. el like War and Peace; by placing his reader in that world, Tolstoy allows him to feel what it was like to be there and to know at least better than before what went on in the hearts and minds of the people living at that time. . Quentin thinks that the narrators have a true relation to the story and that any differences between their stories and the original are due only to a different "temper~tur~" and "molecularity" of the medium through which the story must pass. That medium is the narrator. Yet Quentin, with his relationship to history, believes that the story in its truth is "unchanging", and that all the narrators are determined by and dependent in their very being upon Thomas Sutpen; for Quentin, history determines both the physical and spiritual reality of the present, and is therefore present also. *Maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished. Maybe happen is never once but like ripples maybe on water after the pebble sinks, 'the ripples moving on, spreading, the pool attached by a narrow umbilical water-cord to the next pool which the first pool feeds, has fed, did feed, let this second pool contain a different temperature of water, a different molecularity of having seen, felt, remembered, reflect in a different tone the infinite unchanging sky, it doesn't matter: that pebble's watery echo whose fall it did not even see moves across its surface too at the original ripple-space, to the old ineradicable rhythm thinking Yes, we are both Father. Or maybe Father and I are both Shreve, maybe it took Father and me both to make Shreve or Shreve and me both to make Father or maybe Thomas Sutpen to make all of us. (pp. 261-262) Thomas Sutpen So who is this man Thomas Sutpen? For the reader, he must at first be , and finally remain, an enigma. Reminiscent of Milton's Satan, he is described as a demon, a Faustus, a man who "given the occasion and the need ••• can and will do anything" (p. 46) , and yet also as a tragic hero whose "trouble was innocence" (p. 220) , a symbol of human folly before Nature, Fate or God, and a man who embodied those American ideals of hard-working ambition, independence (self-reliance), integrity, perseverance, and success. He is portrayed as an unscrupulous and inhumane man, about whom the townspeople "thought of ruthlessness rather than justice and of fear rather than respect, but not of pity or love" (p. 43), who "had never learned how to ask anybody for help or anything else" (p. 273), and was underbred yet still accomplished his climb to the aristocracy, and who at times legitimately arouses the reader's pity and sympathy. He is Cadmus with his "ironic fecundity of dragon's teeth " and Abraham whose children "sho:uld have been the jewels of his pride and the shieid and comfort of his old age, only-- (Only they destroyed him or something or he destroyed them or something. And died)" (p. 9), and lastly David, who wanted a son and got one too many. The narrators never stop talkin9 about him or thinking about him, even when they are talking about someone or something else, and the reader is therefore inundated with descriptions, opinions, and reflections about him. The image of the townspeople who chant "in steady strophe and antistrophe: *Sutpen. Sutpen. Sutpen. Sutpen." (p.32) hangs over and infiltrates the book. Sutpen elicits both the reader's awe, respect, and fascination, and his revulsion and indignation. Finally, however, one must make a decision about Sutpen. was he a victim of history, circumstance, and coincidence, or was there something truly evil in and about him? Perhaps by examining his life, his design and his actions, his motivations and concerns, we can reach some understanding of the man who was Thomas Sutpen. The years of his youth in the mountains were definitive in forming his charac- r.: �ter. There, a man was judged "by lifting anvils or gouging eyes or how much whiskey [he] could drink then get up and walk out of the room" (p. 226), and not by either possessions or birth. so that when he was introduced to traditional Southern society, plantation society, with its rigid caste system and blatant discrimination,he was·shocked. He had never heard of, never imagined, a place, and land divided neatly up and actually owned by men who did nothing but ride over it on fine horses or sit in fine clothes on the galleries of big houses while other people worked for them; he did not even imagine then that there was any such way to live or to want to live, or that there existed all the objects to be wanted which there were, or that the ones who owned the objects not only could look down on the ones that didn't, but could be supported in the down-looking not only by the others who owned objects too but by the very ones that were looked down on that didn't own objects and knew they never would. (p. 221) Sutpen thought that these "down-looking" men were only "lucky", men whose advantage . and "superiority" were given them by chance and circumstance, "and that the lucky · :·ones would be even slower and loather than the unlucky to take any advantage of it or credit for it, or to feel that it gave them anything more than luck; and he still thought that they would feel if anything more tender toward the unlucky than the unlucky would ever·need to feel toward them" (p. 226). Thus, when he walked up to the front door of that plantation house and was told by a house servant to go around to the back, the shock was not only because of the intrusion of reality upon his private world, but also from the realization of his own innocence of that reality. ~e lost that innocence then, but not all of it, or maybe it was that he lost one kind of innocence and retained or gained another. This other innocence was implicit in his design, though it was not the innocence or naivete that allowed him to believe that he could ever be anything but underbred in that aristocracy to which he aspired; rather, it was the innocence which believed that the features of this aristocratic life could be bought and possessed like objects, and that they were accessible in their genuine form to anyone, provided that he was courageous and shrewd (and Sutpen probably did understand one or the other of these to mean unscrupulous). Sutpen's innocence takes the form of an abstraction which he performed upon and extended to all the facets of his life, and his life was really only one prolonged and iron-willed struggle towards the implementation and accomplishment of his design; anything beyond or outside of it, which coul d not be used towards the f u lfillment of it, was of no interest or concern to him. (He could never love nor hate anyone or anything because neither love nor hate made any difference in his plan.) This innocence become abstraction is visible in his conceptions of tradition, respectability, morality, and slavery. Sutpen thought of tradition and respectability not as traits inherited or handed down in families and towns, but as material as could be assumed upon oneself like a new set of clothes could be purchased and worn. Because these were necessary to his design, he chose to possess them regardless of the persona l or f amilial cost, t hough he never los t sight of his per sonal integrity, for that too was for him part of respectability. When speaking to General Compson about his "second choice," the decision about what to do about Bon, Sutpen says, either choice which I might make, either course which I might choose, leads to the same result: either I destroy my design with my own hand, which will happen i~ I am forced to play my last trump card, or do nothing, let matters take the course which I know they will take and see my design complete 10 \ itself quite normally and naturally and successfully to the public eye, yet to my own in such fashion as to be a mockery and a betrayal of that little boy who approached that door fifty years ago and was turned away 1 for whose vindication the whole plan was conceived and carried forward to the moment of this choice. (p. 274) This need for respectability is also why he had to "put aside" his first wife. Whether he objected personally to her black blood is beside the point here; plantation owners just did not have part-Negro women, not even octoroons, as their "ladies-of-the-house." Sutpen's morality is likewise abstract and betrays the same kind of innocence. According to General Compson, Sutpen believed: that the ingredients of morality were like the ingredients of pie or cake and once you had measured them and balanced them and mixed them and put them into the oven it was all finished and nothing but pie or cake could come out. (p. 263) General Compson also testifies that it was this same morality, "his code of logic and morality, his formula and recipe of fact and deduction whose balanced sum and product declined, refu:s@d to swim or even float" (p. 275), which would not permit him to "malign or traduce the memory of his first wife, or at least the memory of the marriage even though he felt that he had been tricked by it" (p. 272). He refused to do this even when she had, it seems, sought him out in order to avenge herself upon him after more than thirty years. Thirty year s, sutpen says, after my conscience had finally assured me that to rectify it. (p. 265) I had done what I could All these things, morality, justice and conscience, are caught up in sutpen's rational, business-like, and abstract scheme of things. For sutpen, conscience is something that can be bought off and convinced either by arguing with it long enough or by utilizing that concept of justice which is nothing more than a business transaction. The simplicity and innocence of Sutpen's morality is most evident in the way he handles his first wife; he believed that by giving her money he would automatically gain her forgiveness, and that his conscience should not trouble him because of the great amount of money which he gave her. General Compson can reply to sutpen's words quoted above only by exclaiming, 'Conscience? Conscience? Good God, man, what else did you expect? Didn't the very affinity and instinc. for misfortune of a man who had spent that t much time in a monastery even, let alone one who had lived that many years as you lived them, tell you better than that? Didn't the dread and fear of females which you must have drawn in with the primary mammalian milk teach you better? What kind of abysmal and purblind innocence could that have been which someone told you to call virginity? What conscience to trade with which would have warr anted you in the belief that you could have bought immunity from her for no other coin but justice?' (p . 265) Such characters as Miss Rosa and Wash Jones associate Sutpen with the south and the sin of slavery, that South which had, according to Mr . Coldfield, er ected its economic edifice not on the rock of stern mor ality but on the shifting sands of oppor tunism and moral brigandage . (p. 260) 11 '. �One interpretation may indeed equate sutpen 1s fall with the fall of the South and view the book as a kind of allegory and explanation of the ruin of the Old South. Yet such an interpretation of the book, where Sutpen in his prosperity, sin, and final ruin is a metaphor for the South, does not fit in many ways. The failure of sutpen's design is not contingent upon the outcome of the war; even if the So?th had won, Henry still probably would have had to kill Bon in order to prev~nt him from marrying Judith. Nor is sutpen typical of Southern plantation owners1 his character traits, the optimism, innocence and strong-willed and unflagging determination, are .neither emblematic nor especially suggestive of the planter class. sutpen was always on the fringe of the aristocracy 1 and the town's partial acceptance of him was a truce called only when the townspeople realized that it was too late to stop him because of. the money and power he had amassed. The following passage indicates both Sutpen ' s differences with the typical male Southerner, and his attitude towards those "committees" which were the germ of the Ku Klux Klan: *That was the winter when ••• the ruined, the four years' fallow and neglected land lay more idle yet while men with pistols in their pockets gathered daily at secret meeting places in the towns. He did not make one of thesei I remember how one night a deputation called, rode out through the mud of early March and put him to the point of definite yes or no, with them or against them, friend or enemy: and he refused, declined~ offe.re~ them (with no change of gaunt ruthless face nor level voice) defiance if it was defiance they wanted, telling them that if every m~n in th~ South would do he himself was doing, would see to the restoration of his own land, the general land and South would save itself. (p. 161) as Finally, the differences between sutpen and Southern aristocracy are most apparent in his attitude towards blacks and slavery. sutpen grew up in a place ·"where . the only colored people were Indians and you only looked down at them over your r~fle sights" (p. 221) , and so he not only had no understanding of the fact that the lives of people of another race could be usurped for one's own ends, but also.he had none of the fear and insecurity inherent in such an attitude. Sla~ery was JUSt a~oth~r practice which he appropriated for himself from the pl~nt~r soc~ety; there was in him no innate belief in his own white superiority, a superiority which never ?eeded to be doubted or tested. sutpen' s belief in his own superiority was something which . he tried and proved both to himself and to his slaves by stripping down and stepping into the ring with them, "fighting not as white men fight, with rules ~nd weapons, but as negroes f ight to hurt one another quick and bad" (p. 29), gouging eyes ~nd drawing blood. sutpen never escaped from those brutal tests of a man's worth which he had learned as a boy, because they were part of his innocence: . The presence and acceptance of Clytie in the family also indicates that Sutp7n had no special discriminatory feelings about blacks. She is acknow~edge~ as his daughter and lives with the family in the house, and her sometimes being discove:ed · with Judith in the bed or on the pallet probably caused no especi~l 1 ~o~:i~~~ation or distress for sutpen. Rosa's indignation about this.is the a~prop:i­ at e and expected southerner ' s response . Be caus e sutpen re?ards.clyti~ as benign with res ct to his design, he allows her to coexist and grow with hi~ f~ily. . peYet with Charles Bon it is a different matter. sutpen, seeing in Bon a.definite threat to the success of his plan, cannot tolerate Bon's presen~e in t?e family • . T~e harm which Bon could do is of two sorts: the first concerns his marriage to ~udit , and the second involves sutpen's inability and refusal ~o recognize .Bon as his so~. Neither of these matters devolves from sutpen's own opinions or feelin~s abo~t Bo~~ bl k blood· it is only the perfection, both inner and outer, of his design wi . wh~~h he is 'concerned. For had he allowed Charles to marry Judith, the apparent com- pletion and success of his design would be a "mockery and betrayal" of the design itself, not in the eyes of the world and the society, for no one would ever need to know of Ben's true nature, but in Sutpen's own eyes. The reality of his design would not fit that abstract picture in his mind of the perfect aristocratic family and life . The fact that he knew that Bon was black disallowed any marriage, fo r such an event would render his design imperfect. It is Sutpen's abstract conception of blackness as something unsuitable and bad which determines his thoughts and actions. Sutpen's inability to recognize or acknowledge Bon as his son also depended on the success and ultimate perfection of his design. To have acknowledged Bon would mean to acknowledge and accept his own failure, again not necessarily in society' s view but in his own. The perfection of his design had already been impeded and marred by the travesty (in Sutpen's eyes) which was his first marriage. Sutpen r e garded his virginity as part of his design, as he tells General Compson: 'On this night I am speaking of (and until my first marriage I might add) I was still a virgin. You will probably not believe that, and if I were · to try to explain it you would disbelieve me more than ever. So I will only s~y that that too was a part of the design which I had in my mind.' (p. 248) Not only did he lose his virginity in that first marriage, but for the price of it got a black wife and a black son, who: made an ironic delusion of all that he had suffered and endured in the past and all that he could ever accomplish in the future toward that design. (p. 263) So that when he saw Bon when Henry brought him home that first Christmas, he knew, . sensed , what was going to happen, and: he must have felt and heard the design--house, position, posterity and all- -come down like it had been built out of smoke, making no sound, creat_ing no rush of displaced air and not even leaving any debris. (p. 267) Sutpen had failed and probably knew it, yet never gave up trying. He chose to play his last trump card and use Henry to stop Bon. Sutpen's inability to acknowledge Bon is also the reason why he had to use Henry as his instrument in disposing of Bon; had Sutpen himself acted against Bon , it would have been tant amount to acknowledging Ben's existence both as his son and as a problem. sutpen did practice slavery, yet did not reserve blacks for this treatment. He used anyone who could possibly further his design: both his wives, Eulalia and Ellen, Rosa, Henry, Mr. Coldfield, the French architect, and his slaves. Sutpen "chose them with the same care and shrewdness with which he chose the other livestock--the horses and mules and cattle" (p. 61} , and used them in the same way, as tools and instruments to accomplish his design, never recognizing them as individuals, human beings who had lives and thoughts and feelings of their own. In one sense he was trying (like Judith in giving Bon's letter to General Compson's wife) to make an impression, leave his mark, only in his case by establishing a dynasty; yet, he never realized (as Judith did) that his own actions affected and were intertwined with the actions and lives of other people, and that in his blind monomania he might hurt one of those people to the . extent that his business- like justice and recompense could never repair the injury done . Sutpen touched and harmed the "central I - Am" of many of the people with whom he came in contact, but the harm a r ose not out of any par ticular verbal or physical blow; rather, the harm arose out of his re j e ction of 13 ' 12 I �and his blindness to the fact that those people even had an "I-Am," that they had any other existence but that which he could manipulate and use. Sutpen did not deny his own hwnanity because he was never aware that there existed anything like humanity that could either be embraced or denied; he was simply "innocent" of any concept which postulated a shared and common existence. He could never imagine or comprehend that he had wronged anyone, or done anyone an injustice, or, if he had, he believed that he had done everything in his power to make it right. He never realized that someone might give him something like love and not demand something in return. 'You see, I had a design in my mind. Whether it was a good or bad design is beside the point; the question is, Where did I make the mistake in it, what did I do or misdo in it, whom or what injure by it to the extent which this would indicate. I had a design. · To accomplish it I should require money, a house, a plantation, slaves, a family--incidentally of course, a wife. I set out to acquire these, asking no favor of any man.' (p. 263) sutpen is incapable of seeing himself as culpable for any injustice or inhumanity which would warrant the seeming punishment and destruction which Bon was poised (whether intentionally or not) to mete out and accomplish. And he [Sutpen] not calling it retribution, no sins of the father come home to roost 1 not even calling it bad luck, but just a mistake: that mistake which he could not discover himself. (p. 267) su~pen • s inability to recognize his shared humanity, his inability to ask something of someone without believing that sooner or later they would require him to repay his debt 1 and his "crimes" against humanity, are part of the tragedy of his life. The final and fatal irony, however, which completes the tragedy of Sutpen himself 1 is that in perpetrating his crimes, sutpen re-enacts the very offense which was done to that little boy before the front door of that plantation house, and which was the impetus and reason for his design. The plantation owner rejected him because he was guilty of that very same blindness of which Sutpen himself was subsequently guilty, that blindness which in the planter's case designated some people as simply inferior because of the color of their skin or because of their poverty. At one point in the book Sutpen tells General Compson that if a little boy were to knock on his front door: that now he would take that boy in where he would never again need to stand on the outside of a white door and knock at it: and not at all for mere shelter but so that that boy, that whatever nameless stranger, could shut that door himself forever behind him on all that he had ever known, and look ahead along the still undivulged light rays in which his descendants who might not even ever hear his [the boy's] name, waited to be born without even having to know that they had once been riven forever free from brutehood just as his own [Sutpen's] children were. (p. 261) This passage might be viewed as a glimpse of Sutpen's humanity, of some kindness, yet I think that it only lends further emphasis to Sutpen's innocence. I do not doubt that he might say this and believe it of himself, yet it is ironic that even while saying this he was in the process of turning away a little boy {Bon) and that.he had shut the door in the faces of many others, while simultaneously (and unconsciously) advocating and practicing that very "brutehood" from which he believed he had escaped. 14 Though until now Sutpen has been portrayed as a tragic figure, it is difficult to see hi~ as the final embodiment or resultant of that tragedy. Sutpen never does escape his innocence, he never learns the true nature of his mistake or fault, and lastly he never gives up trying to bring his design to fruition. It finally requires Time itself to come personified as wash Jones with that rusty scythe to stop him. Sutpen simply refused to admit and accept his ultimate failure. Conclusion Thomas Sutpen was an amazing man; one cannot help but be attracted and fascinated by him. I have tried in this paper to illuminate the tragic aspects of sutpen and his life, but finally I think his character resists any simple or easy formula . Sutpen refuses to be labeled as simply "tragic" because he never learns (as Judith and Henry do) and never gives up on his design. Yet other characterizations lead to problems also, such as the identification of Sutpen as a symbol for the South, or as simply an evil man. I have chosen the tragic because I think that it yields the most fruit; that is, reveals the most about Sutpen • s character. He remains an enigma. The sensitive reader, I think, may very well sympathize and understand Wash when he thinks: *How could I have lived nigh to him for twenty years without being touched and changed by him? (p. 287) Thomas sutpen and his story affect one powerfully, but not simply. The reader may very well find himself vacillating between two extreme and oppos~te feelings about him; at one moment he m~y feel pity for Sutpen, and at the ne~t be thinking with wash, *Better if his kind and mine too had never drawn., the breath of life on this earth. Better that all who remain of us be blasted from the face of it than that another Wash Jones should see his whole life shredded from him and shrivel away like a dried shuck thrown onto the fire. (pp. 290-291) Thomas Sutpen's story is a story about the South, but it is also ·a story about America, in which the American dream of rising from poverty to wealth and fame becomes a nightmare. Because you make so little impression, you see. You get born and you try this and you don't know why only you keep on trying it and you are born at the same time with a lot of other people, all mixed up with them, like trying to, having to, move your arms and legs with strings only the same strings are hitched to all . the other arms and legs and the others' all trying and they don't know why either except that the strings are all in one another's way like five or six people all trying to make a rug on the same loom only each one wants to weave his own pattern into the rug; and it can't matter, you know that, or the Ones that set up the loom would have arranged things a little better, and yet it must matter because you keep on trying' or having to keep on trying and then all of a sudden it's all over and all you have left is a block of stone with scratches on it provided there was someone to remember to have the marble scratched and set up or had time to, and it rains on it and the sun shines on it and after a while they don't even remember the name and what the scratches were trying to tell, and it doesn't matter. And so maybe if you could go to someone, the stranger the better, and give them something--a scrap of paper--something, 15 �anything, it not to mean anything in itself and them not even to re~d it or keep it, not even bother to throw it away or destroy it, at least it wou~d be something just because it would have happened, be remembered even 7f only from passing from one hand to another, one mind to another, and 1 t would be at least a scratch, something, something that might make a mark on something that was once for the reason that it can die someday, while the block of stone can't be is because it never can become was because it can't ever die or perish ••• (pp. 127-128) Footnotes 1. There is also an omniscient narrator who plays a minor role. He sets the scene for each conversation, and gives an account of Sutpen's arrival in Jefferson in the beg inning ·of Chapter I I. 2. From Dylan Thomas's poem "The World Is Too Much With us." stanza. 3. From The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. is something that Mr. Compson says to Quentin. 4. In The Sound and the Fury we learn that Quentin is obsessed with his sister's virginity, and contemplates incest as a means to "preserve" it. Quentin and Henry share many conunon traits, not the least being the close relationships they have with their sisters. s. From The sound and the Fury. This is the first I cannot find the line, but it Quentin drowns himself in the Charles River on June 2, 1910. 6. The best example of this is the delayed fact that Milly's baby was a girl (see p. 292). (All page numbers used in this essay refer to the Vintage Books Edition of Absalom, Absaloml by William Faulkner.) 161 ''A Shallow Reading of Marx" and Other Likely Stories Michael Strong '. This is a waffling essay. I have tried to be fair in judging two antagonists . They have each in turn seduced my judgement entirely. I hope that I have put each in some perspective so that the place of each contribution might be appreciated. If nothing else, the issues have been clarified somewhat, at least for me. First I introduce the problem: virtually all of those who make it their profession to study economic phenomena believe that Marx is wrong. In trying to understand their reasons for believing so, I point out the flaws in Marx's theory of value from their perspective. I then review the teaching on value of the father of economics, Adam smith. Although he adheres to a labor theory of value that is not in its essence different from Marx's labor theory of value, I show how his theory is "corrected" by subsequent economists. I then turn to Marx and follow his argument on value in the beginning of Das Kapital. I try to show how radically different the entire endeavor of his theory is. Finally, I try to delineate the advantages and disadvantages of each theory. It is almost too easy to defeat his argument: first, it is unnecessary, if not ridiculous to assume that the commonality of commodities relies on a property inher' ent in them. It can be pointed out that the relational aspect of the exchanging parties, both with respect to each other and each with respec~ to their commodities, is obviously significant in determining the quantitative relation in which use-values are exchanged. That is, how much of each commodity each party has in its possession, and how great the need or desire is for each commodity that is not in its possession. or to be generous and speak in Marx's terms, it is not true that "only one property remains, that of being products of labor." (p. 128) Another property remains, that of being scarce items relative to demand. Marx has been defeated in his argument for his labor theory of value. It is too easy to "defeat" Marx's arguments. Especially when he is not arguing what one thought he was arguing. I shall consider the foregoing a shallow reading of Marx as I now proceed to understand him on his own terms. It is very plausible to r ead Mar x in the above manner, and, given the presuppositions of a political economist, it is difficult not to do so. . First of all, such a concept of "defeating" an argument assumes that Marx is arguing in a logically sequential and dependent manner: a deductive sequence rather than in the dialectical mode. I here understand the dialectical mode as one in which a thought is developed until it makes sense, and then another is contrasted with it to deepen it. Like the verbal process of dialectic, the dialectical mode is almost a s e ries of appr ox imations, asymptotically approaching the truth, although a de finite margin of error may exist on either side. Indeed, the error is almost used to define the next step in the logic, for it necessitates its own correction. If this is an accurate description of Marx's method of argument, it is pointless to pull out individual statements as inaccurate in hopes of "proving" Marx wrong. Inaccurate statements will probably be corrected by subsequent developments in the theory. Second, Marx is not trying to argue for a labor theory of value. He is cr~ating the first theor y o f t he commodity . This distinction will prove most helpful in un- 17 �derstanding his argument and hence his contribution to the study of political economy. Statements that seemed to be virtually ridiculous will now have a context in which they make sense. The first step towards understanding Chapter 1 is to read the preface to the first edition. \ Marx writes in the preface to the first ed~tion of Das Kapital his conception of the nature of his project: Beginnings are always difficult in all the sciences. The understanding of the first chapter, especially the section that contains the analysis of commodities, will therefore present the greatest difficulty. • • • The value-form, whose fully developed shape is the money-form, is very simple and slight in content. Nevertheless, the human mind has sought in vain for more than 2,000 years to get to the bottom of it, while on the other hand there has been at least an approximation to a successful analysis of forms which are much richer in content and more complex. Why? Because the complete body is easier to study than its cells. Moreover, in the analysis of economic forms neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of assistance. The power of abstraction must replace both. But for bourgeois society, the commodity-form of the product of labor, or the value-form of the commodity, is the economic cell-form. Marx conceives Das Kapital to be the beginning of a science. He believes that no one before him has satisfactorily illuminated the economic process; he is writing a critique of all previous political economy. His conception of the scope of his science does not seem to be limited to measuring variations in the Market. He perceives his great scientific triumph to be the discovery of "the value-form, whose fully developed shape is the money-form." If it is thought that Marx is offering a labor theory of value, then it does not make sense for him to make the extravagant claim that he has discovered something that "the human mind has sought in vain for more than 2,000 years." At the very least, Smith and his followers had been discussing something like that for almost 100 years. However, he is not simply offering a theory of prices, for Marx understands the value-form to be prior to the money-form. Moreover the form is very important to Marx. Nor is he studying the Market, for that would be "the---cc;mplete body". Marx understands wealth to be nothing more than a great collection of commodities. The commodity is the cell-form or capitalism, the basic unit behind even the great structure of the Market. Thus Marx begins his analysis of economic activity by examining the commodity. I will return to Chapter 1, "The Commodity", Section 1, "The Two Factors of the Commodity: Use-Value and Value" and try to understand the development of his argument a little more deeply. The first step for Marx is to define what is meant by a commodity. Marx's analysis of the colIUl\Odity-form is philosophical rather than scientific. He wants to know the nature and the source of this form. He begins with the distinction between use-value and exchange-value. To be a commodity, an article must have both kinds of value: There must be a use for it, and it must have some value in exchange. Marx describes use-value as the value that an object has through its usefulness to human beings in a given society at a given time. An object with use-value has qualities which satisfy human needs of whatever sort. "Use values are only realized in use or in consumption." (p.126 ) They are "only realized", meaning they are merely potentially use-values previous to their consumption. Use-values are strictly a function of the qualities of an object, without regard to quantity. Marx centers his discussion of the commodity on exchange-value, because it is exchange-value which distinguishes the commodity-form of use-value from other forms of use-value: .18 [Exchange-value] appears first . of all as the quantitative relation, the proportion, in which use values of one kind are exchanged for use values of another kind. This relation changes constantly with time and place. Hence exchange value appears to be something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an intrinsic value, i.e. an exchange value that is inseparably connected with the commodity, inherent in it, seems a contradiction in terms. (p. 126) ,"Appears first of all as the quantitative relation" refers to the genesis of the existence of exchange-value. The question is "How does the commodity-form come to be?" Its distinguishing component is exchange-value. Thus he embarks on his investigation of exchange-value. Marx has introduced the basic problems associated with having a knowledge of "exchange value". It is true that it appears first of all as the quantitative relation, and it has always been quantified. The exact amount, however, does change constantly with time and place. It does seem to be a purely relative phenomenon. But some exchange-value is the prerequisite to a commodity-form. If Marx wants to understand the commodity-form, then he must understand the nature of this exchange-value as prerequisite. Thus, in this logical structure, Marx knows ~ priori that the relativity is merely an appearance. This statement still appears at first to be absolutely absurd; the high exchange- value of a fashionable dress this year can fall to virtually nothing in five years. However, such examples are easily dismissed already; in order for an object to be a commodity, it must have a use-value. In such extreme examples, the object no longer has a use-value. Or if it does have a use-value, it is not the same use- value it originally had, and therefore is not the same commodity that it originally was. The original use-value of the dress was to display the fashionability of the wearer much more than to protect against the elements. As the original use-value vanishes with time, .the remaining use-value transforms the dress into a very different commodity with a very different exchange-value . An intrinsic value becomes a possibility. because a commodity is not simply a material object in Marx's usage. Marx now deduces the relation of exchange-value to commodity: Let us now take two commodities, for example corn and iron. Whatever their exchange relation may be, it can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron, for instance 1 quarter of corn = X cwt of iron. What does this equation signify? It signifies that a common element of identical magnitude exists in two different thing s , in 1 quarter of corn and similarly in x cwt of iron . Both are therefo re equal to a third thing, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange-value, must therefore be reducible to this third thing. (p. 127) "Let us now take two commodities"--The question is, tween two commodities that makes them such? Because have a common element. Exchange-value is that commensurable entities. Because he is investigating commodity, not value, it is no longer absurd for Marx what is the common element bethey are commodities, they must which makes two commodities specifically the na ture of the to state: This common element cannot be a geometrical, physical, chemical or other natural property of commodities. (p. 127) When he claims that "only one property remains, that of being products of labor", he is intentionally defining his analysis in terms of the properties of the commodity. 19 1 �Moreover, he is not ignoring the relational aspects of exchange-value (the supply-demand arguments} , as his subsequent discussion of the nature of this "labor" reveals. In the analysis of his theory, it is more helpful to consider some kind of "labor" as being a property of the commodity-form. In addition, this sort of analysis falls out of the dialectical method--he proposes a hypothesis that is plausible and then refines it as additional theoretical burdens are required of it. It will turn out that this labor is very abstract and relational. Indeed, Marx's next point is that this labor is not any particular kind of labor--it is abstract labor: But even the product of labour has already been transformed in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use-value, we abstract also from the material constituents and forms which make it a use-value ••• All the sensuous characteristics are extinguished ••• With the disappearance of the use.ful character of the products of labour, the useful character of the kinds of labour embodied in them also disappears; this in turn entails the disappearance of the different concrete forms of labour. They can no longer be distinguished, but are all together reduced to the same kind of labour, human labour in the abstract. (p. 128) The point seems easy enough to understand: the labor that is the source of value is abstract labor, not any particular kind of labor •. It has to be something general enough to contain all the varied particular forms of labor. Apparently all that is meant by "abstract labour" is labor insofar as it creates value. However, this is a topic on which Marx provides some wonderful metaphors to help us understand how he is really thinking of abstract labor: Let us now look at the residue of the products of labour. There is nothing left of them in each case but the same phantom-like objectivity; they are merely congealed quantities of homogeneous human labour-power expended without regard to the form of its expenditure. All these things now tell us that human labour-power has been expended to produce them, human labour is accumulated in them. As crystals of this social substance, which is common to them all, they are values--commodity values. (p. 128) time to complete the article. He then corrects himself: ., The labour that forms the substance of value is equal human labour, the expenditure of identical human labour- power. In addition to the abstraction from the particularities of any given profession, Marx's abstract labor is abstracted from the proficiencies of any given worker . It is becoming clear that Marx is not suggesting any simple proportion between hours worked and exchange-value resulting. His theory of value is not meant to be a calculus for comparing prices separated by great temporal or geographical distances, though it is similar enough to Smith's theory to work at that level as an approximation. Marx's point is that regardless of particular conditions, the source of value behind all market variations, in all commodities, is abstract labor. We have learned that a commodity has two factors, use-value and exchange-value. Use-value was purely qualitative, exchange-value was purely quantitative. Labor was the only "property" that commodities had in common which could explain the possibility of exchange-values. This labor was very abstract, at the least an abstraction from the particularities of type of labor and proficiency of labor. Marx wants to learn what makes a commodity what it is. In the last Section of Chapter 1, on "The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret", Marx states: A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. So far as it is a use-value, there is nothing mysterious about it ••• But as soon as it emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness ••• The mysterious character of the commodity-form consists therefore simply in the fact that the commodity reflects the social characteristics of men's own labour as objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves ••• the commodity-form, and the value-relation of the products of labour within which it appears, have absolutely no connection with the physical nature of the commodity and the material relations arising out of this. It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things. (p. 163-165) Marx paints a vivid picture of the commodity-form of value. He speaks in terms of labor as a human experience. The "residue of the products of labour" suggests that which is left behind after one has labored. That nothing has been left in them but "the same phantom~like objectivity" tells us that the subjectivity, the personality, has been taken out. That they are merely "congealed quantities of homogeneous human labor" provokes images of something blood-like having been left behind in the process of laboring towards this commodity. Abstract labor is not simply non-specific labor. It is also no longer human labor, a sign that the capitalist system of production itself is no longer a system of economic relations between people, per se. An observer of the Market would pass over this facet of the economic relation as not pertinent to economics. Marx places it in the middle of his dialectical analysis of the commodity. Next Marx refines the concept of abstract labor: The labor must be "socially necessary" labor. In discussing how labor is to be measured, Marx discovers that it is to be measured by duration. He then replies to himself: In the first analysis of Marx's text, I took a commodity to be an obvious, material thing. Marx's explanation of value in that context was lacking. Here we see that Marx's conception is much more complex. The commodity-form is a congealed version of the social relations between men. As such, for Marx there can be no separation between an economic science and a sociological science, and thus any moral implications that are associated with the revealed social relations. The cell-form of the economic system represents the relations between men. Now that I have some appreciation of the richness and complexity , as well as a knowledge,of the basic elements, of Marx's commodity theory, I am ready to begin to understand what he is saying. To help in this, I will move to his discussion of classical political economy with regard to its failings in analyzing the value-form. In "The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret", Marx states: It might seem that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour expended to produce it, it would be the more valuable the more unskillful and lazy the worker who produced it, because he would need more Political economy has indeed analyzed value and its magnitude, however incompletely, and has uncovered the content concealed within these forms. But it has ne ver once asked the question why this content has assumed that 2b 21 �particular form, that is to say, why labour is expressed in value, and why the measurement of labour by its duration is expressed in the magnitude of the value of the product. These formulas, which bear the unmistakable stamp of belonging to a social formation in which the process of production has mastery over man, instead of the opposite, appear to be political economists' bourgeois consciousness to be as much a self-evident and nature-imposed necessity as productive labour itself. (p. 173-175) Now, one sentence at a time: Political economy has indeed analyzed value and its magnitude, however incompletely, and has uncovered the content concealed within these forms. The first clause is a statement of the purpose of value theory in classical political economy. Marx is aware of the insufficiencies of classical value theory in achieving its purpose of analyzing economic magnitude. The "content concealed within these forms" is opaque from the point of view of political economy. For Marx, the "con.:. tent" is labor and the "form" is exchange-value. But it (political economy) has never once asked the question why this content has assumed that particular form and why the measurement of labour by its duration is expressed in the magnitude of the value of the product. What does he mean "Why the measurement of labour by its duration is expressed in the magnitude of the value of the product"? What kind of answer could there be to such a question? I thought that Marx had deduced this relationship in Section 1. There is no need to ask such a "why". Isn't it like asking why mass "is expressed" as weight? Mass is expressed as weight because the force of gravity pulls on masses equally, thus assuring a proportion between the masses of bodies and their weights. That's just the way gravity works. Likewise, labor "is expressed" in value because the demand for labor pulls on the products of labor equally, assuring a proportion between the duration of labor in a product and its value. That's just the way demand works. Fortunately, Marx provides us with a footnote to clarify this point: It is one of the chief failings of classical political economy that it has never succeeded, by means of its analysis of commodities, and in particular of their value, in discovering the form of value which in fact turns value into exchange-value. "which in fact turns value into exchange-value." What value into exchange-value? In conformity to the usual contrast, I take the it to be use-value that is transformed into exchange-value. The point Marx is developing is that it is not necessary for use-values to be exchange-values. There are alternative value-forms, in alternative economic systems: (same footnote continued) The value-form of the product of labour is the most abstract, but also the most universal form of the bourgeois mode of production~ by that fact it stamps the bourgeois mode of production as a particular kind of social production of a historical and transitory character. If then we make the mistake of treating it as the eternal natural form of social production, we necessarily overlook the specificity of the value-form, and consequently of the commodity-form together with its further developments, the money-form, the capital-form, etc. 22 ., These remarks provide some idea of the scope of Marx's investigation and what he means by a deeper analysis than that of classical political economy. Marx is concerned with where the Market came from and where it is going to. Since the commodity is the cell-form, he is interested in how it came to be that particular cell-form and what other cell-forms are possible. In a communist society, commodities, and thus exchange-values, will not exist. In feudal society, use-values were distributed by means of the corvee and tithes in addition to the commodity-form and its exchange-value; thus Marx's criticisms of the narrowness of political economy. Nor are these idle observations, of interest solely to those who believe in the revolution or with a historical fondness for medieval times. The distinction between use-value and exchange-value, taken for granted in a capitalist system, is the source of a major difficulty, even in a capitalist system. Use-values are commensurable with "human" values1 exchange-values are not. We choose between the various ways of using our time: eating, sleeping, thinking, acting, etc. our time is necessarily consumed by acquiring certain use-values, such as food and shelter. Human values, too, must be expressed in the same finite period of time. There are circumstances in which we choose between the two in our allotted time. We can build an extra shelter or we can study the stars, build a plaything or take time with our civic responsibilities. In our decision-making, we naturally decide between use-values and human values. This is not the case with exchange-values and human values. Exchange-values are the quantity of labor that can be conunanded by a given article, a commodity-form of labor. Exchange-values are quantitative, and, qua exchange-value, more is better. (Thus Marx's later characterization of capital as an uncontrollable, self-sustaining creature that necessitates its own growth.) There are no qualitative considerations in exchange-value. Marx recognizes the critical importance of the distinction between use-value and exchange-value; this importance is not in facilitating calculations, but in the fact that it is an unnecessary, and largely undesirable, social distinction. If we return to the quoted text (leaving the footnote), we can now understand the last sentence: These formulas, which bear the unmistakable stamp of belonglng to a social formation in which the process of production has mastery over man, instead of · the opposite, appear to the political economists' bourgeois consciousness to be as much a self-evident and nature-imposed necessity as productive labor itself. To start with the final (easier) clause, of course the commodity-form, exchange-value, and duration as a measure of labor's value producing capacity appear as givens in the system of economic science. Economics by Marx's time had already defined itself as the study of the Market in capitalist society. An economist would not find Marx's insult interesting or informed. Why "these formulas" bear the stamp of a social formation, in which the production process has mastery over man, is directly related to Marx's emphasis on understanding the nature of the conunodity-form. The "stamp" that these formulas bear is that of the alienating commodity-form, with its congealed abstract labor; the commodity-form, of which the only intrinsic property is exchange-value. Marx sees, in the "givens" of political economy, the essence of human domination by the material forces of production. One of his more extravagant metaphors might now be taken more seriously: The "dead" labor of a commodity, because of the very nature of the commodity-form, sucks the life-blood from living labor. Marx's theory does provide us with a more detailed picture of economic relations than does a merely descriptive theory. Because of science's wondrous successes at 23 �prediction, the bulk of attention is directed towards meticulous description, in hopes that it will lead to accurate predictions. An understanding for its own sake, of what occurs in economic transactions, is not generally appreciated. Yet regardless of accuracy, Marx's theory enables us to consider the type of interactions that occur. It thus allows us to consider factors other than maximizing material wealth. Marx's theory is not very useful for analyzing the fascinating rules which govern the Market mechanism. On the other hand, economic relations become significant human activities in the theory, in that it depicts the dehumanizing aspects of commodity-production in a capitalist system. In addition, one might question the legitimacy of a social theory based strictly on man's material intercourse. Objects that are bought and sold can be quantified and commodities can be defined as such objects. If value is simply a reflection of price, it too can be quantified. But there may yet be a purpose in qualitative observations on these material relations; such observations may even be useful to the quantifiers. The issue of whether the laborer is "exploited" depends on whether labor is the . sole source of value. This question remains undecided. Marx uses the claim that labor is the sole . source of value1 whether that claim is derived from an explicit labor theory of value or a theory of the commodity-form, it still amounts to the same thing when he applies it to his theory of surplus value and exploitation of the worker. Is this claim defensible? Marx's labor is abstract, identical, socially average labor. In order for an object to be a commodity, it must have both a use-value and an exchange-value • . If a commodity has use-value in a given society, then Marx would claim that the ultimate source of its value is congealed socially average labor-time. Such a statement seems true; I know of no objects that are purchased that do not have some labor- time congealed in them. The claim that their value is in some sense proportionate to the amount of labor-time congealed in them is less obvious. Yet the qualifications that the labor-time be socially average labor-time and that the object have a use-value make the proportion impossible to calculate with any precision. Moreover, Marx is willing to believe in a discrepancy between relative price and exchange-value. Given Marx's conditions, it is very plausible that labor is the source of value; but it is not proven in any definite sense. I had hoped to resolve something in this essay. I now fear that Marx is right in that there can be no compromise with bourgeois political economy. Marx's analysis of the commodity has convinced me that exchange-value is incommensurable with human values. I had hoped to see an economic science that could be cognizant of the human condition, as Marx's analysis is. As long as the fi r st distinction in an economic theory of value is between use-value and exchange-value, such a "sensitive" economics is impossible. It is difficult to imagine an economics that begins in any other way. Ma . . . demoiselle Stuart Sobczynski o I Ma ••• demoiselle Liquide Splendide Flowing down the street Glancing from curb to curb Like your eyes within your gaze so of ten So of ten I remember my delight at the beach Staring sullen straight into the sunset As patience alone Caused the sea to stand still Though the waves sang still And the same at the sight Of your eyes Dancing within your face Your smile Singing Light Still A Translation From Louis Menard's Circe Liz Waldner Sweet as a beam of moon, as a tone of lyre At her single smile the feral yield with soft moan. With her eyes' caressing a magical fire Burns each our breath with ecstasy kindling on bone. The lions wild and roaring, the great grizzled bears Lick their ivory claws; a cloud slow from her censers Envelops them. She sings, she allures, she ensnares, Sinister Pleasure, with all powerful philt.r es. All page numbers used refer to the Vintage Books Edition of Capital by Karl Marx. Under yoke of desire she draws in her wake Innumerable troops of creatures, her retinue, Charmed by her virgin regard, her mouth's lies rehearsed Tranquil, irresistible. Ah! accurst, accurst! Since you change man into beast at least lull to sleep The shame and remorse in our hearts sore full of you. 24 25 �..... . A Fishhook for Hobbes's Leviathan Daniel Schoos . How are we to understand the Leviathan to be Christian, or in other words, in what way is a Hobbesian commonwealth a Christian commonwealth? Hobbes is subtle in revealing his true thoughts on this matter, despite his passion for his exactness in speech and his apportionment of the entirety of Part III of Leviathan to the topic "Of a Christian Common-weal th." Hobbes's caution is merited by the heretical and atheistic foundation on which the structure of his commonweal th stands, for hi~ analogy between the sovereign and God, which appears throughout Leviathan, is not an analogy at all, but rather an identity, a practical equivalence. In chapter 43, Hobbes states, "The (Unum Necessarium) Only Article of Faith, which the Scripture maketh simply Necessary to Salvation, is this, that Jesus is The Christ. By the name of Christ is understood the King, ••• " However, throughout the book Hobbes's intent is to argue for the converse of that assertion, namely that the king, or sovereign, is Christ. When we say, "is Christ," it is not meant that the sovereign is truly Jesus Christ, the Saviour, God-man, of Scripture. Rather, the sovereign takes the place of Christ. This is the essence of Hobbes's perfect Leviathan, or Christian commonwealth, specifically, that if the "sovereign" be Christ, then his commonwealth is salvation, or heaven on earth. What Hobbes does not mean is for salvation to rest in God replacing the sovereign. Instead, it is that salvation rests in the sovereign replacing God. The first step towards a better understanding of this answer lies in recognizing the difference between the "Commonwealth" or "Leviathan" as described by Hobbes, and any other kingdom or commonwealth. Hobbes is not looking at any past or contemporary government as a model for the art whereby he builds his "Common-wealth." Instead, he compares himself with Plato, as one who is creating new rules by which the best of commonwealths would be structured. This is an important distinction whose significance is highlighted by a complimentary distinction Hobbes makes in chapter 31. Throughout Leviathan Hobbes speaks of a "Kingdom of God," but there are two kinds of such a kingdom, and these are described in chapter 31. The first is the "Natural!," the second is the "Prophetique," also called the "peculiar." Hobbes defines the "Natural!" as, "wherein God governeth as many of mankind as acknowledge his Providence, by the natural! Dictates of Right Reason." Shortly before this passage Hobbes had explained that those who do not "acknowledge his Providence," such as "Bodies Inanimate" and "creatures Irrationall," as well as "Atheists" and "They that believe not that God has any care of the actions of mankind," are not properly speaking, God's subjects, but, at least for human beings, "are to be understood as Enemies." The "Prophetique" or "peculiar" kingdom is described as, that "one peculiar Nation (the Jews ) " which God chose to rule "not only by natural! Reason, but by Positive Lawes, which he gave them by the mouths of his holy Prophets." Later, in chapter 35, Hobbes dismisses the notion that by the kingdom of God is meant, "Eternall Felicity, after this life, in the Highest Heaven." He restates his belief that it means nothing more than "the Monarchy, that is to say, Soveraign Power of God over any Subjects acquired by their own consent, ••• " (italics mine) The first of these "peculiar" kingdoms was that with Abraham. Hobbes is careful to stress in chapter 40 26 ' that the covenant God made was with Abraham only, and that it was due to the prior situation, wherein Abraham had a "lawful power" · to make all his family and future family "perform all that he covenanted for them," that Abraham was able to extend his covenant over them. This kingdom lasted through Jacob, "but afterwards no more, till the Israelites ••• arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai; and then it was renewed by Moses •.• " According to Hobbes, Moses was not the true "soveraign" of the Israelites until at Sinai they declared: "speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die." Afterwards, the succession continued through Aaron's heirs, ending with the election of Saul as king. For when the Israelites "deposed the High Priest of Royal Authority, they deposed that peculiar Government of God." It is this "peculiar" kingdom which Hobbes claims Christ shall restore at his second coming, as in "The World To Come" presented in chapter 38. Hobbes makes it clear in chapter 35 that this is a "Civill Kingdome" and explains: The Kingdome therefore of God, is a reall, not a metaphoricall Kingdome; and so taken, not onely in the Old Testament, but the New; when we say, For thine is the Kingdome, the Power, and Glory, · it is to be understood of Gods Kingdorne, by force of 00r Covenant, not by the Right of Gods Power; for such a Kingdome God alwaies hath; so that it were superfluous to say in our prayer, Thy Kingdome ~' unlesse it be meant of the Res:auration of t~at Kingdome of God by Christ, which by revolt of the Israelites had been interrupted in the election of Saul. In Chapter 12, Hobbes reveals that in the "peculiar" kingdom of God, "the policy, and Lawes Civill, are a part of Religion; and therefore the distinction . of Temporal!, and Spiritual Domination, hath.there no place." Now as there was a distinction between a "Natural!" and "peculiar" kingdom of God, so is there a distinction made in chapter 12 between the "Natural!" seeds of religion and the "supernatural!" seeds of religion. What shall proceed to be shown is that the "peculiar" kingdom of God is one based on the supernatural seed of religion planted by God. Yet for Hobbes this supernatural! seed, based on revelation by God, is only an empty argument, leading us back to the natural seeds of religion. From there the only path is that to the converse of the "peculiar" kingdom of God, where the sovereign replaces Christ. That the "peculiar" kingdom of God is based on the supernatural seed of religion is evident from chapter 12, where Hobbes describes the two seeds of religion. "Divine Poli tiques," as opposed to "humane Poli tiques," is organized by men "by Gods commandment," men such as Abraham, Moses, and Christ, men "by whom have been derived unto us the Laws of the Kingdome of God." Hobbes elucidates later: "But where God himselfe, by supernatural! Revelation, planted Religion; there he also made to himselfe a peculiar kingdome; and gave Lawes." The relationship between the "peculiar" kingdom of God and "supernaturall Revelation" clearly established, let us explore the signi.ficance of "~upernaturall Re~e­ lation," to see why it cannot stand on its own as a viable foundation for a Hobbesian "Common-wealth.... The very opening of chapter 12, "OF RELIGION," immediately t~rows suspicion on any attempt to distinguish between seeds of religion. Hobbes writes: "seeing there are no signes, nor fruit of Religion, but in Man onely; there is no cause to doubt, but that the seed of Religion, is also onely in Man." Hobbes explains that "every man" is "in an estate like to that of Prometheus," because he "hath his heart all the day long, gnawd on by feare of death, poverty, or other calamity." Fear and ignorance are the basis of the natural seed of religion. . But to return to the "supernatural! Revelation," the seed of God's "peculiar" kingdom, we find throughout Leviathan that Hobbes meticulously and methodically removes all power from the side of the supernatural. Hobbes more often connects 27 �"supernatural!" or "spiritual!" with fear, darkness, strife, and evil, than with God. Hobbes disparages the "Pretense of Inspiration" (ch. 29), cautions against the role of miracles (ch . 37) , and is utterly suspicious of prophecy (ch. 36) • Hobbes is clear: "there is no Covenant with God, but by mediation of some body that representeth Gods Person; ••• [viz.] Gods Lieutenant, who hath the Soveraignty under God." In Leviathan the example is given of Abraham, previously mentioned, whose covenant with God extended to his heirs only because of a previous, natural and civil, agreement. "God spake onely to Abraham," Hobbes claims, "and therefore contracted not with any of his family, or seed, otherwise than as their wills ••• were before the Contract involved in the will of Abraham." In other words, the "peculiar" kingdom of God was first founded, indeed, could only have been founded, because there existed already a civil sovereign. In chapter 40 Hobbes states that, "they to whom God hath not spoken immediately, are to receive the positive commandements of God, from their Sovereign; as the family and seed of Abraham did from Abraham their Father, and Lord, and Civill Soveraign." What of those to whom God hath spoken immediately? Hobbes's discussion on prophecy and inspiration is lengthy and complicated, yet a concise explanation of this particular situation can be given. Hobbes is careful by dividing such prophets into two categories, the "Prophets of perpetuall Calling" and "subordinate prophets." The former class were "first Moses; and after him the High Priest, every one for his time, as long as t..hc priesthood was Royall." After the so-called revolt of the Jews from God, "those Kings which SUbmit.tQd them.s elves to Gods government" were the "Soveraign Prophets. "Of the subordinate Prophets" Hubbes concludes! I find not any place that proveth God spake to them supernaturally; but onely in such manner, as naturally he inclined men to Piety, to Beleef, to Righteousnesse, ••• Which way, though it consist in Constitution, Instruction, Education ••• yet it is truly attributed to the operation of the ••• Holy Spirit ••• For there is no good inclination, that is not of the operation of God. But these operations are not alwaies supernaturall. We see that the "Prophets of perpetual! Calling" are already sovereigns. The only outstandi,ng quality of the "subordinate Prophets" is their inclination to virtue, nurtured by institutions of the state. As a result, Hobbes asserts: "When therefore a Prophet is said to speak in the Spirit of God .•. he speaks according to Gods will, declared by the supreme Prophet." Therefore, a true prophet is either a sovereign or one who obeys the sovereign. It is the "peculiar" kingdom of God which Christ is expected to restore in "the World to come." The "Natural!" kingdom is not mentioned. How will this new "peculiar" kingdom arise? It can only be instituted through the cooperation of a civil sovereign, as with Abraham or Moses. Will Christ be striking deals with the world's leaders at his coming to rule? This is peculiar. Hobbes stressed in chapter 41, "Of the Office of our Blessed Saviour,,-,-that during his first coming, Christ did or taught nothing which would tend "to the diminution of the Civill Right of the Jewes, or of Caesar," and "did therein nothing against their laws." Hobbes explains, "The Kingdome hee claimed was to bee Li another world," and consequently his preaching of it was not seditious . But what is to happen at Christ' s second coming? Hobbes states that Christ will "execute the Off ice of a King." How will he be able to do this without finding himself guilty of the very sedition that Hobbes describes he was innocent of at his first coming? What if Christ restores the "peculiar" kingdom through conquest? Still, as Hobbes writes in chapter 20: "It is not therefore the victory, that giveth the right of Dominion over the vanquished, but his own Covenant." The problem remains. We have shown that the "peculiar" kingdom of God is founded on divine revela- tion, the "supernaturall" seed of religion, and have furthe:anore outlined what little power Hobbes leaves for divine revelation. Hobbes observes in chapter 12 ing: the follow- . '. For seeing all formed Religion, is founded at first, upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person, whom they believe not only to be a wise man, ~nd to labor to procure their happiness, but also a holy man, to whom God himselfe vouchsafeth to declare his will supernaturally, ••• If we view the possibility of supernatural governance with grave suspicion and as a result postpone consideration of the supernatural! as related in the 't ab what re . . th d f. . . . quo e ave, . mains is ~ e inition of a "Common-wealth." Compare the quote from cha ter 12 with the following from chapter 17: p ••• the Common-wealth; .•• is One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude b mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the, Au: th~r, to th7 end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and common Defence. And he that carryeth this Person, is called SOVERAIGNE, and said to have Soveraigne Power; and every one besides, his SUBJECT. We notice that in • the passag.e f rom c h apter 12, Hobbes speaks of the foundation of • • 11 11 "all form~~ relig10~ (it.alic s mine). No distinction is made for "peculiar" or Naturall.. Hence, if we include the "peculiar" with the "all " it · th h "Co lth" appears at t e mmon-wea or Leviathan" can be equated with the "peculiar" kingdom of God th "Mortall God," which Christ, the "Immortal God," the "SOVERAIGNE " 'll t ' e "the World to come." -' wi res ore as 11 • . , . Let us consider the passage in chapter 38 where Hobbes speaks of this "World to come," salvation: There are three worlds mentioned in Scripture, the Old world, the Present World, and the World to~-·· So the first World was from Adam to the g7nerall ~lood. Of t~e present World, our Saviour speaks, (John 18.36) My Kingdo~e ~ not of this World. For he came onely to teach men the way of Salvation, and to renew the Kingdome of his Father, by his doctrine. Of the .world to come, St· Peter speaks, Neverthelesse we according to his pro~ise lo~k for ~ Heavens, and~~ Earth. This is--:that World, wherein Christ coming down from Heaven, in the clouds, with great power ••• and thence forth reign. ' The ~orld to Come is only in the future insofar as Hobbes states earlier, in the conclusion of Part II, that: "I am at the point of believing this my labour, as useless, as the Common-weal th of Plato. And later: 11 I recover some hope that one t · th th · . . , ime or o. er, is wr1~1ng of mine, may fall into the hands of a Soveraign, who w1ll. •. convert this Truth of Speculation, into the Utility of Practice." In other word~, the World to ~ome does not begin on Judgement Day, as one may think after rea~1ng that passage in c~apter 38~ b~t it begins when some prince privately reads Leviathan and puts th.e entirety of it into practice. (Maybe this is the Day of Right Judgement.) That prince would be the practical equivalent of Christ. Christ does not replace the prince. The prince, or "soveraign, 11 replaces Christ. (And Hobbes is John the Baptist?) Only now is the power of that which is called supernatural restored. All such power has as its source the 11 soveraign." There is no covenant with God, ex . .: " pt 11 28 29 �through the sovereign. The hazards of action in accordance with that which men may think to be divine inspiration or prophecy, a folly which would lead such men to, "despise the Commandements of the Common-wealth," (ch. 26) dragging the state into civil war, are all removed when the sovereign is the sole determiner of divine Law and true prophecy. There is no universal church, only the church which the sovereign creates. Hobbes states in chapter 39: I define a CHURCH to be, a company of men professing Christian Religion, united in the person of one Soveraign: at whose command they ought to assemble, and without whose authority they ought not to assemble. Again in chapter 42, on ecclesiastical power, Hobbes asks: How then can wee be obliged to obey any Minister of Christ, if he should command us to doe any thing contrary to the Command of the King, or other Soveraign Representant of the Common-wealth ••• ? It is therefore manifest, that Christ hath not left to his Ministers in this world, unless they be also endued with Civill Authority, any authority to command other men. In addition only the interpretations of scripture presented by the sovereign are to be accepted. In chapter 40 Hobbes uses a metaphor to explain this point further. (Whatever became of the warning against metaphor?) He first quotes two passages from Exodus: Take heed to yourselves that you goe not up into the Mount, or touch the border of it; whosoever toucheth the Mount shall surely be put to death. Goe down, charge the peoples, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze. Hobbes then explains that the Scriptures are the Mount Sinai mentioned above, and "the bounds whereof are the Laws of them that represents Gods Person on Earth." For the subjects in a commonwealth, as the sovereign replaces God, so do the laws act for the Scriptures (as interpreted by the sovereign ) . Hobbes continues: To interpret them; that is, to pry into what God saith to him whom he appointeth to govern under him, and make themselves Judges whether he govern as God commandeth him, or not, is to transgresse the bounds God hath set us, and to gaze upon God irreverently. The "them" above are the laws of the commonwealth, as with the bounds previously mentioned and again seen above: "the bounds God hath set us." Then clearly is for "God" in that context to be read "soveraign." The equating of the sovereign with God is given special attention in chapter 30 , which is entitled, "Of the Office of the Soveraign Representative." In this chapter Hobbes explains the duties of the sovereign and his subjects in light of each of the Ten Commandments. The first in this pattern, "Subjects are to be taught not to affect change of Government," is presented: The desire of change, is like the breach of the first of God's Commandements: For there God sayes, ••• Thou shalt not have the Gods of other Nations; and in another place concerning Kings, that they are Gods. 30 . ' Another list appears in chapter 31, for the "Attributes of Divine Honour." Many of these reflect standard, widely-accepted notions on the nature of a supreme being, for example, that he exists, and is infinite. Later, however, this is all qualified by Hobbes: "And because words (and consequently the Attributes of God) have their signification by agreement, and constitution of men," then those attributes and their associate honors, obedience being of paramount importance, depend on "the will of the Common-wealth, by Lawes-Civill." Hence the sovereign, as the maker of laws, determines what attributes and honors are to be followed in his commonwealth. This is something of an expansion on the placing of ecclesiastical powers in the sovereign's hands, which we have previously discussed. The sovereign not only makes the ceremonies, he makes the god, and this god is himself. Hobbes even accounts for the doctrines of the immortality of God in his argument for the sovereign. In chapter 19 he states: " ••• as there was ord.e r for an Artificial Man, so there be order also taken, for an Artificial! Eternity of life," and then proposes that, "This Artificial! Eternity, is that which men call the Right of Succession." In chapter 31 Hobbes asserts: The Right of Nature, whereby God reigneth over men, and punisheth those that break his Lawes, is to be derived, not from his Creating them, as if he required obedience, as of Gratitude for his benefits; but from his Irresistible Power. As a result, those attributes of God one may generally think to be universal, especially God as creator, disappear on the whim of the sovereign. By excluding all such elements while solely concentrating on power as the cause of God's right to rule, Hobbes again points to the special relationship of God and the sovereign of a civil state. "Jesus Is the Christ. By the name of Christ is understood the King, ••• " is, if by the name of King is understood Christ, this exclusive interpretation as to the nature of God which can allow Hobbes to found his World to Come in the present, on earth. In other words, when it is said that the king is Christ or replaces Christ, we mean not that the sovereign is similar to Christ, or "is as Christ" metaphorically. Instead, we mean that the sovereign defines Christ; that for Hobbes, although he never openly reveals himself, there is no God, unless he be that "Artificial! Soul" of the commonwealth, the king. As we have seen, throughout Leviathan Hobbes systematically removes all of God's powers to the civil sovereign. At the same time, he warns that if the absolute power be usurped from the sovereign, the conunonwealth would be dissolved, and the former sovereign be not a sovereign anymore. In chapter 29, Hobbes discusses this subject, "those things that Weaken, or tend to the DISSOLUTION of a Common-wealth." His list proceeds in every case to describe a situation where absolute power of the sovereign is being diminished, including "Private Judgement of Good and Evill," the "Pretense of Inspiration," and "Subjecting the Soveraign Power to Civil! Lawes." The attributes which define God's power become for Hobbes both the necessary and sufficient attributes which define the sovereign. "The Present World" as Hobbes speaks of it in chapter 38 is consistent with this view. He quotes John 18: 36, "My Kingdom is not of this World," which is clearly opposed to earlier lengthy and vehement arguments - Hobbes citing from many passages in both the Old and New Testaments - for an earthly kingdom of God. The quote from John is simply a restatement of Hobbes's observation that no Leviathan, as he is describing it, has ever been seen in world governments . Following the quote from John, Hobbes writes: "For he [Christ] came onely to teach men the way of Salvation, and to renew the Kingdome of his Father, by his doctrine." There is no renewal or restoration, since no true Hobbesian commonwealth, according to the author, ever ex- 31 i �isted. The doctrine is, in Hobbes' view, nothing more than obedience. Obedience is for Hobbes the same thing as faith, and obedience is assured of being obtained only when power is present to enforce it. Hobbes gives examples in chapter 12 of the causes which weaken faith, one of which is a dearth of miracles. The example is cited from Exodus of the absence of Moses and the resulting revolt from God through the act of constructing the gold calf as a god. Hobbes continues: And again, after Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel, were dead; another generation arose, and served Baal. So that Miracles fayling, Faith also failed. However, earlier in the same chapter, Hobbes left open the chance that a "soveraign" has an effective means with which to restore faith. As we have seen, when "they that have the Government of Religion," the sovereign, "shall be unable to shew any probable token of Divine Revelation," then their religion shall become suspect and rejected. But there is a very important qualifier added parenthetically by Hobbes, namely: "(without the feare of the Civill Sword)." In other words, miracles are not necessary to the sovereign if he retains power in the commonwealth. As Hobbes explained in the beginning of chapter 17, there must be a visible power to hold men out of the "condition of warre," and to "tye them by feare of punishment to the performance of their covenants." The Leviathan is Christian, then, in the sense that the sovereign replaces Christ (with Hobbes as the voice crying out in the wilderness). The sovereign may enforce in any way his right to honor through obedience, this honoring (obedience) being another formulation of what faith is. Rules which guide the subjects in their endeavor to obedience must be promulgated by the sovereign, and can be derived from the Ten Commandments. The commonwealth is sustained by the obedience of its subjects to their sovereign, or rather, Salvation, the kingdom of God, is only possible through faith. In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him. (Job 41: 22) All quotes from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan are taken from the Penguin English Library edition, edited by c. B. Macpherson. The quote from Job was taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible, published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Two Hands of God: An Examination of Goethe's Faust Nancy Loevinger What good is it i f you construct a wh.olt:? The public takes it all apart again. (102-103) -------------------------------------------------Faust is a different man from most of us, more ruthless, more passionate, m ore destructive, more noble. Yet through his striving he asks the same questiuns c ha~ we ask: What does it mean that man was created in God's image? What kina of l~r2. ~nd hence what kind of action, will render man's life meaningful in the face GL (i·a~h? What place does love have in this life? Faust's striving is ruthless and unrepentant, and it is hard to understand why he is saved in the end. Interceded for by a creature whom he had abandoned and destroyed, he is whisked off to Heaven by seductive cherubs in a battle of roses, on the very day that he had caused the deaths of a pious old couple. What does this mean? The most obvious interpretation of the work is that it is a glorification of striving as such, regardless of means or end. When I started this paper ~ believed in a diametrically opposed interpretation: it was Gretchen's love alone that sav~d Faust. Slowly I have come to realize that neither interpretation alone is ~rue, t hat wanting to choose either one or the other is succwnbing to Faust's need for dicnotomies, not Goethe's, and that it is not Faust's striving alone tnat ::aves l"l..L n . nor 's it Gretchen's love alone. It is the combination of the. two, the mysterious ana illogical reconciliation of two irreconciliably opposed ways of life. I have not fought my way to freedom yet. Could I but banish witchcraft from my road, Unlearn all magic spells -- oh, if I stood Before you, Nature, human without ' guile, The toil of being man might be worthwhile.' ( 11403-11407) As the first scene of Part Two opens we see Faust "reclining on a lawn with flowers." He is still restless (unruhig), but he is inunediately comforted by spirits who "cleanse his mind of memories that smart," and rock his heart "in Kindesruh," the rest of children. It was the memory of such childhood peace that saved Faust from despair on the night before Easter, and here too Faust is saved from despair, f rom the pain of remembering Gretchen's ruin without understanding her salvation. .Just as the chorus of angels sang then of Christ's resurrection, the heavenly spirits have now come to Faust with a message of rebirth. The spirits bathe Faust in "the dew of Lethe's spriy," instilling in him the ritual forgetfulness that will prepare him for a new life. As the spirits descend to Faust they sing: When the vernal blossom showers Sink down to embrace the earth, 32 33 �isted. The doctrine is, in Hobbes' view, nothing more than obedience. Obedience is for Hobbes the same thing as faith, and obedience is assured of being obtained only when power is present to enforce it. Hobbes gives examples in · chapter 12 of the causes which weaken faith, one of which is a dearth of miracles. The example is cited from Exodus of the absence of Moses and the resulting revolt from God through the act of constructing the gold calf as a god. Hobbes continues: And again, after Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel, were dead; another generation arose, and served Baal. So that Miracles fayling, Faith also failed. However, earlier in the same chapter, Hobbes left open the chance that a "soveraign" has an effective means with which to restore faith. As we have seen, when "they that have the Government of Religion," the sovereign, "shall be unable to shew any probable token of Divine Revelation," then their religion shall become suspect and rejected. But there is a vert important qualifier added parenthetically by Hobbes, namely: "(without the feare of the Civill Sword)." In other words, miracles are not necessary to the sovereign if he retains power in the commonwealth. As Hobbes explained in the beginning of chapter 17, there must be a visible power to hold men out of the "condition of warre," and to "tye them by feare of punishment to the performance of their covenants." The Leviathan is Christian, then, in the sense that the sovereign replaces Christ (with Hobbes as the voice crying out in the wilderness). The sovereign may enforce in any way his right to honor through obedience, this honoring (obedience) being another formulation of what faith is. Rules which guide the subjects in their endeavor to obedience must be promulgated by the sovereign, and can be derived from the Ten Commandments. The commonwealth is sustained by the obedience of its subjects to their sovereign, or rather, Salvation, the kingdom of God, is only possible through faith. In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him. (Job 41:22) The Two Hands of God: An Examination of Goethe's Faust Nancy Loevinger What good is i t i f you construct o. wh.olt:? The public takes it all apart again. (102-103) -------------------------------------------------Faust is a different man from most of us, more ruthless, more passionate, rr ore destructive, more noble. Yet through his striving he asks the same questions : ha~ we ask: What does it mean that man was created in God's image? What kina of i~r2. i nd hence what kind of action, will render man's life meaningful in the face o~ ~1 a~h? What place does love have in this life? Faust's striving is ruthless and unrepentant, and it is hard to understand why he is saved in the end. Interceded for by a creature whom he had abandoned and destroyed, he is whisked off to Heaven by seductive cherubs in a battle of roses, o.n the very day that he had caused the deaths of a pious old couple. What does this mean? The most obvious interpretation of the work is that it is a glor1f 1cation of striving as such, regardless of means or end. When I started this paper ~ believed in a diametrically opposed interpretation: it was Gretchen'.s love alone that sav~d Faust. Slowly I have come to realize that neither interpretation alone is true, t hat wanting to choose either one or the other is succumbing to Faust's need f or dichotomies, not Goethe's, and that it is not Faust's striving alone tnat :::aves 1 n . nor !s ·i..L it Gr.e tchen' s love alone. It is the combination of the. two, t~e mysterious ana i_logical reconciliation of two irreconciliably opposed ways of life. I have not fought my way to freedom yet. Could I but banish witchcraft from my road, Unlearn all magic spells -- oh, if I stood Before you, Nature, hwnan without ' guile, The toil of being man might be worthwhile.· ( 11403-11407) All quotes from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan are taken from the Penguin English Librart edition, edited by C. B. Macpherson . The quote from Job was taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible, published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. As the first scene o f Part .Two opens we see Faust "reclining on a lawn with flowers." He is still restless (unruhig), but he is immediately comforted by spirits who "cleanse his mind of memories that smart," and rock his heart "in Kindesruh," the rest of children. It was the memory of such childhood peace that saved Faust from despair on the night before Easter, and here too Faust is saved from despair, f rom the pain of remembering Gretchen's ruin without understanding her salvation. .Just as the chorus of angels sang then of Christ's r esurrection, the heavenly spirits have now come to Faust with a message of rebirth. The spirits bathe Faust in "the dew of Lethe's spr~y," instilling in him the ritual f orgetfulness that will prepare him for a new life. As the spirits descend to Faust they sing: When the vernal blossom showers Sink down to embrace the earth, 32 33 �When green fields, alive with flowers, Fill all human hearts with mirth, Then great spirits, looking lowly, Rush to help those whom they can; Whether wicked, whether holy, They would heal the wretched man. (4613-4620) This is a very different song from the one the angels sang on Easter morning. Both songs speak of love and rebirth, but the change in language from Christianity to nature broadens the message in a way that changes its meaning. Since the love of Christianity only applies to those who believe in Christ, Faust was ultimately excluded from grace that Easter morning; but the forgiveness of nature applies to all, "whether wicked, whether holy." In the dungeon scene we saw that ordinary moral justice was allied with the devil, rather than with heaven, and here too the ordinary dichotomy between good and evil is superseded. Heedless of these supposed opposites, heaven, despite Faust's clear moral guilt, heals him of remorse so that he can continue his striving. "Deep within you (Nature) prompt a stern decision: to strive for highest life with all my powers" (4684-4685). Since nature is no longer acting as judge, Faust need no longer confront it merely as an antagonist, and this change is reflected in a change of imagery. Instead of being shown within his study, surrounded by dusty books, Faust is shown reclining upon a spacious lawn, surrounded by flowers. The flowers, with their ephemeral beauty and annual rebirth, represent the regenerative power of nature, and so its eternal forgiveness. Moreover, the spirits that heal Faust are "charming" and "friendly," as opposed to the more impersonal angels of Part One. This change is also brought out in the appearance of Ariel. Ariel had appeared earlier, in "Walpurgis Night's Dream," a dream of the devil. Here, however, he acts in conjunction with heaven, as a personification of the aethereal, and so spiritual, aspect of nature. In this way hell, heaven, and earth are shown to be united. This change in nature, and so in Faust, is also evident in Faust's first speech. Forced to turn away from the sight of the rising sun, Faust contemplates with delight a waterfall and its rainbow: The rainbow mirrors human ••• strife. Consider it and you will better know In many-hued reflection we have life. (4725- 4727) In Part One, Faust spoke on Easter morning to Wagner about the beauty of nature (1068-1099), but there the glorious sight of the sunset angered and dismayed him, by reminding him of his limitations in not being able to follow it. Here Faust accepts, at least for a moment, man's inevitable failure to directly confront life, and in doing so recognizes the value of capturing a reflection of nature in transitory images, a capitulation that earlier would have seemed to him ignoble. Furthermore, the image of the waterfall itself is an image of hope. The constant action of the water forms mist, and when this is illuminated by the light of the sun, a rainbow appears, "enduring through all change." Thus human striving, despite the ephemeral nature of its effects, is capable of creating beauty when it is illuminated by a sense of the divine (v. 4634, "the holy light.") • Healed in this manner, Faust returns to the world, and his less antagonistic, and so more fruitful relation to nature is reflected in his marriage to Helen. Faust first saw Helen in the witch's mirror, where she personified both the beauty of nature and its elusiveness. Helen is, for Faust, the incarnation of beauty without 34 shame, and so an image of man before the fall. This image can only be represented on earth by innocence and purity, a representation necessarily sterile. Faust pursued Gretchen after his view of Helen in the witch's mirror. He sought in her Helen•s earthly image, and he left her, among other reasons, because, once possessed, her innocence was destroyed, and so she no longer contained that image. But Helen forgives herself for her actions in a way that Gretchen could not, and, because of this, her kinship with nature and her ability to create are not destroyed by her lack of innocence. It is thus possible for Faust to achieve through Helen a consummation with nature that was impossible with Gretchen. The marriage of Helen and Faust is celebrated in an idyllic forest grotto, and t~eir child is spoke of as "a faun with no brute nature" (p. 198, Act Three, Arcadia) • By reenacting his relation with Gretchen in this manner, Faust is finally freed from his need to possess nature through the feminine, and, after Helen's death, he turns to the more masculine realms of war and social action. It is significant that for his last battle against nature Faust chooses the sea. The sea is a symbol of nature in its most indifferent and alien form, nature, that is, as Mephisto sees it. "For God separated the earth from the sea on the third ay, and before that the sea was all" (Genesis 1:9-10). Man was given dominion over tne fish of th sea, but never over the sea itself. In this way, the sea, as a symbol of the primal watery chaos, represents a negation of human meaning, which is dependent upon the existence of boundaries, particularly the boundaries of good and evil. Good and evil were separated from each other, and so created, through the action of the fall. In the same way God created the earth by separating it from the sea. Thus, by further separating the earth from the sea and so creating a new earth, Faust hopes finally to prove his likeness to God and so create meaning for his life. My eyes were turned toward the open sea: Its towering swell against the heaven it :Dore, Then, shaking out its waves exultantly, Came charging up the level stretch of shore. This grieved me, that a haughty arrogant flood Can cast free spirit, prizing ever right, Through passion of the wildly kindled blood, Into a trough of feeling's vexed despite. So in a thousand channels creeps the sea, Sterile itself, it spreads sterility. It seethes and swells and streaming far and wide Takes desolate regions in its rolling tide. There wave on wave, by hidden power heaved, Reigns and recedes, and nothing is achieved. This thing can sadden me to desperation, Wild elements in aimless perturbation! To soar beyond itself aspired my soul: Here would I strive, and this would I control. (p. 220-221, Act Four, Mountain Heights) For more than fifty years Faust fights the sea, pushing it back inch by inch, creating gardens and meadows, harbors and towns, "offering men a new existence." But Faust must use Mephisto to create this paradise. By day the ditches are dug with shovels, by night the canals are built with human sacrifice. And so, just as in his relation to Gretchen, the closer Faust comes to God, the closer he is chained to the devil . This opposit;on between means and end confronts Faust in the personae of 35 �Baucis and Philemon. Faust hopes to build a lookout on their land in order to view from above the new world that he has created, and so ignore the particular means that were used to create it, just as earlier he had hoped to use Gretchen to comprehend the earth spirit, while ignoring the particular fact of her seduction. Faust has come to terms with the feminine aspect of Gretchen in his marriage with Helen, but he still has not come to terms with her purely human aspect. That is the test before him now. Faust is infuriated by Baucis and Philemon because they remind him of the entire history of his aspirations and failure. First and foremost, they remind ·raust of the individual and physical aspects of the earth spirit that he has always be.n unable to face. They remind him also that he need not have chosen Mephisto, by showing him . the peaceful life of the farmer that he had rejected before taking the potion of youth (2353-2361). The serenity of their married life reminds him of the future that he destroyed for Gretchen, and, finally, the tolling of their church bells reminds him of the Easter bells of fifty years ago and their promise of peace, a peace that he has nev~r known. Faced with these gentle bu.,t unyielding judges, Faust reverts to his former nature, gives in to impatience, and turns to force. As before, he evades tak~ ing responsibility for his actions by asking Mephisto and his henchman to evict the old couple, and, as before, he becomes disturbed and uneasy when he is finally confronted with his destruction of life. "Commanded fast, too fast obeyed" (11382). But this time no supernatural spirits descend to Faust to heal him, and in the smoke of the fire Care appears • . Why does Care appear now to Faust, but not Guilt? Care (Sorge) is defined as sorrow, anxiety, or uneasiness. Faust spoke of her in Part One, on the night before Easter. "Deep in the heart there dwells relentless care/ And secretly infects us with despair ••• She always finds new masks she can employ" (644-647). Here Care masks herself as the fear of death. Guilt in itself does not inhibit action, but fear does. In this way Care can be seen as a sister to Gretchen's evil spirit in "Cathedral," and she comes in a similar role, to test Faust's strength. Faust refuses to recognize the power of Care and so wins the test, but she blinds him as the scar of the victory. When men defy gods, they cannot hope to escape unscathed. When Jacob wrestled with the angel of God, the angel, "seeing that he could not master him, struck him in the socket of his hip," and Jacob went limping from Peniel (Genesis 32:26-31). In the same way Faust is branded and so set apart. So, too, Cain was branded when he dared to defy God's judgement. Yet Faust still refuses to yield. Hearing the approach of death in the darkness, he returns to his project with a strengthened resolve. But Care is a test of more than j ust Faust ' s strength . When Faust confronts Care and demands that she leave, she refuses. For perhaps the first time in his life1 Faust curbs his impatience. Faust (first irate, then calmer, to himself): Beware and speak no word of sorcery. (11424) This is a crucial turning point for Faust. Impatience has always been Faust's familiar; and magic, the mode of immediate mastery, is the ultimate tool of impatience. It was by the lure of magic that Mephisto first caught Faust, and it was by Faust's impatient pursuit of Gretchen, and his consequent use of magic as an aid in seduction, that Faust's bond to Mephisto was sealed. But, through the ruin first of Gretchen, and then of Baucis and Philemon, Faust realized the destructive force of magic, and through magic, of action itself. It was by the curse of patience that Faust ~ejected the earthly and heavenly wor lds in the pact scene in Part one (1583- 1604) . Thus, hav i ng acknowledged pat ience and r ejecte d magic, even if only 36 temporarily, these worlds become possible for him again. Blind, and standing on the edge of this grave, Faust dreams of a new life : T ' This is the highest wisdom that I own, The best that mankind ever knew: Freedom and life are earned by those alone Who conquer them every day anew. Surrounded by such danger, each one thrives, Childhood, manhood, and age lead active lives. At such a throng I would fain stare, With free men on free ground their freedom share. Then, to the moment I might say: Abide, you are so fair! ••• As I presage a happiness so high, I now enjoy the highest moment. (11573-11586) Here again it is evident that Faust has changed. Earlier, Faust had theoretically sought conununion with humanity, but, faced with a given situation, he invariably treated people merely as obje_ ts . This is evident not only in his treatment of c Baucis and Philemon, but also in his exploitation qf his patients during the plague, and in his exploitation of Gretchen. Even in his final battle against the sea, Faust was primarily concerned with himself and God, and any benefit to mankind was secondary. Here, however, Faust accepts his place within humanity as an equal among equals and so finally comprehends the earth spirit. Yet this understanding, while real, is only conditional. Faust is not yet able to accept man as he is, and his acceptance rests upon his dream of a new man, purified and hardened by a new life. Faust's ambivalence is mirrored in the language of his speech. Faust says both that he~ enjoys the highest moment, and that "then to the moment I might say. " In the German, Faust uses the subjunctive ("Zurn ·A ugenblicke durft ich sagen"), and thus Faust both enjoys the highest moment, and does not, and both loses the wager with Mephisto, and wins it. Mephisto also has both lost and won. Faust has died a natural death, but the original pact is still to be fulfilled. Just as Mephisto was Faust's servant in this life, so Faust will be his in the next. And Mephisto has the "blood-signed scroll" to prove it. Legally, everything is clear. Yet what happens? An army of seductive cherubs fly down from heaven, strewing roses, and Mephisto's devils flee in terror. Caught up in lust, Mephisto do~s not notice unt il t oo late t hat t he angels have carried away Faust's soul: A peerless treasure, stolen shameful.ly: The noble soul that pledged itself to me They snatched from me, and now they moralize. (11829- 11831) M ephis to c l a ims that the angels have r obbed him unjustly, and he seems to be right. In what sense then is Faust's salvation justified? Let us return to Genesis. After the fall, God curses the serpent and says to him: I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspr ing and her offspring. It will crush your head 37 �. And you will strike its heel (3: 15) That helped win the victory, Helped the lofty work conclude And this precious soul to save. (11942 -11946 ) Compare this with the "Prologue in Heaven." There God says to Mephisto: Man's activity can easily abate, he soon prefers uninterrupted rest1 To give him this companion hence seems best Who roils and must as Devil help create. (340-343 ) Evil is given to man so that man will respond to it, and so continue to act. But why is constant action so important? Striving, or incessantly searching for knowledge through action, is the highest use that man can make of the gift of reason, yet it .seems merely to exile man from God, as all action in this world necessarily involves evil. Hence, the more man seeks to become like God through action, the less like Him . he becomes. Yet it is the evil inherent in action that eventually brings man back to God. That is why when God exiled man, He gave him the serpent also, and that is why God does not hate Mephisto. "Man errs a·s long as he will strive" (317), but "unless you err, naught can be truly known" (p. 134, Act Two, Again on the Upper Peneus). It is by the inevitable failure of his actions that man learns the restrictions of his reason. Through reason man abstracts himself from life, and posits himself as a god. Thus Faust, immured in his study, felt himself to be a god in relation to the macrocosm (439). Through the development of his reason through action, and its subsequent failure, man is then forced to confront life, and so to realize his distance from God. Thus Faust's involvement in life ultimately brought death to those around him. This failure to become like God through action alone forces man to recognize that, if he is to resemble God, he must do so by other means. In this way, striving both separates man from God and eventually brings him back to Him. This two-fold aspect of striving explains the seeming injustice of Faust's salvation. Faust both deserves to be saved, and he does not. In other words, just as Faust's striving contains both constructive and destructive aspects, and just as, because of this, Faust both loses and wins the pact, Faust is ultimately saved both by his own actions, that is, by his striving, and by grace, that is, by the undeserved forgiveness of love. · This seemingly contradictory statement is explicitly brought out in the text. When the angels reach Heaven carrying Faust's soul they sing: Saved is the spirit kingdom's flower From evil and the grave: "Who ever strives with all his power, We are allowed to save." And if, besides, supernal love Responded to his plight, The blessed host comes from above To greet him in delight . (11934-11941) Here it seems that Faust was saved by his striving alone, and that the power of love merely added to his acceptance. Yet the song continues: Loving-holy women gave Penitent, the rose to me, 38 Here it seems that the power of love was a decisive factor in Faust's salvation. That the army of cherubs that sweep down to battl.e Mephisto represents love is also evident. What else would lust represent in a devil? This two-fold aspect of Faust's salvation reflects not only a division within Faust's life, but also within human life in general. In Part One Goethe snows us the collision of two opposed modes of life: the mode of action, represented by Faust, which is necessarily amoral, and the mode of purity, represente-a by Gretchen, which can only flower when isolated from the world. These two modes could also be stated as wordly vs. spiritual, or intellectual vs. emotional, or in any other similar way. When brought together, the two modes inevitably destroy one another, for involvement in the world destroys purity, and an over-scrupulous concern with a moral ideal inhibits, and so destroys, action. The opposition of these two modes is seen most clearly in the dungeon scene, and it is the pain of their mutual destruction that constitutes the tragedy of Part One . Yet, as we have seen, these two modes are not as opposed as they originally seem. For example, Faust's relation to Gretchen is inextricably composed of both lust and love. In the same way, Faust's striving for knowledge is composed of both a lust for power and a yearning to know God. But it is a mistake to think of one of the modes as evil, and of one as good, and to think of their unification as merely the inevitable mixing of good and evil on earth due to man's imperfection. Both modes share a common origin: they seek to create, and so to express man's likeness to God. It is through this relation to God that the two modes complement one another, and it is through this relation that they are ultimately reconciled. It is the reconciliation of these two modes that Goethe shows us in Part Two. This unification is seen most clearly in Faust's salvation and in the last scene in heaven, and it is the necessary imperfection of any earthly unification that constitutes the tragedy of Part Two. What does it mean then for these two modes to be brought together? Let us turn again to Genesis, and the story of the fall. Because of his action, and his consequent knowledge of action's correlate, evil, man is condemned to till the soil daily in pain. In this way the knowledge of evil ensures man's continuous striving. This is the first step toward man's redemption, but it is not enough. This _striving is striving against the world. Through action man comes to know himself, but only in a negative manner. He knows, through failure, of his difference from God. And so man despairs. Feeling ashamed, he denies his actions. Thus the darkest moment of the fall is not when Eve eats the. apple. It is when Adam crawls out of hiding and says to God: "It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit" (3 :12-13 ) . Yet through woman man is given the knowledge not only of evil, but also of good. woman too was cursed in the fall. She was condemned to long for man, yet always to be ruled by him, and to bear him his children in pain. In this way the knowledge of good and evil brings forth love. It is only after the fall that the bond between man and woman is consummated. Through the fall man is condemned to strive, and to fail, and woman is condemned to love, and to fail, but through their union a new life is brought into being. This is the second step toward man's redemption. Through the creative marriage of action and love, man realizes his likeness to God and so is released from despair. Thus, if there is hope for man's redemption, it must come through a synthesis of action and love. The play ends with a stanza on the Eternal-Feminine because for the last five hundred pages we have been given the story of the Eternal-Masculine. It is 39 �Bibliography the combination of the two that is important. As Aristotle states in the Ethics, man bouncas from one unbalanced vice to another, continually trying to come closer to the mean. In the same way the eternal balancing of action and love brings man closer to the ideal that he seeks, whether that be called God or Nature. If there is a God worthy of the name in heaven, he will not condemn man for trying, and so failing. Apostle, Hippocrates. tr. Aristotle: The Nichomachean Ethics, D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1975 \ J I What is destructible Is but a parable; What fails ineluctably, The undeclarable, Here it was seen, Here it was action1 The Eternal-Feminine Lures to perfection. (12104-12111 ) Arndt, Walter. tr. & Hamlin, Cyrus, ed. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: Faust. Critical Edition, W w. Norton & Co., 1976 . Bloom, Allan, tr. The Republic of Plato. Norton Basic Books, Inc., 1968 Doherty, Chava. "Goethe's Faust: A Book of Life." 1984 Gregory, Horace. tr. Ovid: The Metamorphoses. Senior Essay, St. John's College, Viking Press, 1958 Hunt, Margaret and Stern, James. tr. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Pantheon Books, Random House, Inc., 1944 It is no trifle to put forth in one's eighty-second year what one conceived in one's twentieth, and to clothe such an internal, living skeleton with ligaments, flesh, and skin, and on top of that to wrap a few mantle folds around the finished product that it may altogether remain an evident riddle, delight men on and on, and give them something to work on. Goethe, letter to Zelter, 1831 5 Jones, Alexander. ed. The Old Testament of the Jerusalem Bible. 1966 Kaufman, Walter. tr. Goethe's Faust • . Doubleday & Co., 1961 Ryan, John K. tr. The Confessions of st . Augustine. 1960 · Wayne, Philip. tr. Goethe: Faust/Part Two. Footnotes 1 For an example of the myth of Lethe, see Plato , The Republic, Book Ten, 620e-62lb, p. 303 in the Bloom tr. 2 All quotations from the section of Part Two not translated by Kaufman are from the following edition: Philip Wayne, tr., Goethe: Faust/Part Two, Penguin Books, 1959. As this edition does not include line numbers, all citations will be referred to by page, act and scene. 3 For an earlier version of their story see: OVid, The Metamorphoses, Book Eight, 11.670- 724, p. 234-23 7 in the Horace Gregory tr. 4 Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Book Two, Chaps. 6-9, p. 28-34 in the Apostle tr. Kaufman, Introduction, p. 11 40 Image Books, Doubleday and Co., Penguin Books Ltd., 1959 Oh, that at long last you had the courage for once to yield yourselves to your impressions, to let yourselves be delighted, let yourselves be moved, let yourselves be elevated, yes, to let yourselves be taught and inspired and encouraged for something great1 only do not always think that everything is vain if it is not some abstract thought or ideal. 6 Goethe, Conversation with Eckermann, 1827 5 Doubleday and Co., 41 �Perception and Analysis in Understanding Being Aristotle acknowledges that some subjects are beyond definition in this quote · from The Physics, Karel Bauer As far as trying to prove that Nature exists, this would be ridiculous, for it is evident that there are many such things; and to try to prove what is evident through what is not evident is the mark of a man who cann~t judge what is known through itself from what is known not through itsel~. We perceive through various mechanisms of the soul which we group together under the terms "senses" and "intelligence". Through the cooperation of these mechanisms we move toward an understanding which Aristotle posits to be the perfect harmony between ourselves and our environment. This motion toward understanding manifests itself in what we call analysis. Analysis is the process through which we interpret our experiences. For instance, in order to designate a piece of our instantaneous experience as an object, we must distinguish that piece from its environment, using whatever criteria we have accepted as valid for such a process. we assign the object a symbol;· that is, a name, and by so doing provide it a place in our memory. Then we can begin to consider and discuss it. r't seems clear that in discussion we cannot exchange actual experiences or objects, but only our representations of them provided through words: language is the exchange of words, not objects. Since this is the case, any understandings which we arrive at through discussion depend for their accuracy upon our understanding of how the names, or words, represent the objects being discussed. Can words represent the essence of objects, or only some collection of their attributes? Can we as readers understand the essence, the Being of an object described through mere strict interpretation of the words, or must we provide some factor entirely of our own experience if we are to achieve true understanding of what is being communicated? The latter is my assertion in this paper. I maintain that in naming and discussing an object· we cannot represent the essence of its Being to ourselves, but only a collection of attributes representing facets of its Being, leaving some other part of us to provide the sense of the Being's essence. This may be the problem of analytical understanding of which I am aware when I read Aristotle. This disparity between our experience of Being and our ability to discuss Being is the subject of this paper. That there are problems in trying to discuss Being is evident at the outset. As Aristotle puts it in the Metaphysics: And so it remains something to be looked for, from of old and now and forever, and thus something that offers no way out: What is Being? 1 The problem of defining Being is the longest standing and deepest concern of philosophy. The problem, as I see it, is centered around the fact that our processes for developing understanding are built upon logic which is an analytical process of examination. Analysis is defined as: a separating or breaking up of any whole into its parts, especially with an examination of these parts to find out their nature, proportion, function, and interrelationship. 2 The breaking or separating of the whole, analysis, necessitates the loss of the whole as a whole in our minds, and this loss is the key to the problem of defining Being. When we discuss Being, or read Plato or Aristotle discussing Being, we are dealing with explanations of parts, or attributes of Being, not with the whole that is Being. But Being is somehow more than the collection of its attributes, it seems, in fact, to be beyond definition. 42 How, then, are we to understand the attempts of philosophy to define Being? If breaking up a subject into parts is the only method we have for developing understanding of it, what is it that allows us to achieve an understanding of the subject as a whole? Or can we ever achieve such an understanding? The recognition of Being simply as an unqualified, universal continuum does not appear to be the understanding that Plato and Aristotle are trying to communicate. Being is completely universal--the most pervasive, underlying fact of our universe and of any expefience. As one author put it, "The [any] thing is, and it is, merely because it is." Anything that we can call a thing partakes of Being, and partakes of Being to the same degree that any other thing does. All things that are, are equally. It is not the Being of an object that defines that object. In order to recognize an object as an object, we must see more than just Being, for everything in our field of perception is equally. In order to recognize a rock, for instance, we must provide some kind o°"f"definition which will allow us to differentiate its Being from the whole, continuous Being of our perception. If we do not make this differentiation, if we simply experience the whole of our perception without interpretation, we are experiencing something very basic, perhaps even eternal. But to what end is this apparently unsophisticated experience? The aim of Western attempts to define Being does not seem to be merely saying, "this is a universal experience", but brings the universal experience, somehow, into the realm of rational understanding. Thus to say, "Being is the primary factor that underlies all experience," is, in a sense, useless. As Aristotle says at the beginning of the Physics, For if Being is only one and is one in this manner, no principle exists at all, seeing that a principle is a principle of some thing or things. Indeed, to inquire wh~ther Being is one in this manner is l~e arguing against any other paradox maintained for the sake of argument ••• The paradox that Aristotle speaks of is this: to state that Being is one and only one, immovable and universal, presupposes any analysis, and leaves the inquiry wi th nowhere to go. For Aristotle, understanding is equat~d with knowing the first principles of a thing; if we posit that Being to be so encompassing that it in effect has no principles, we've made it unknowable (this does not contradict the paper's position, which is, that though Being is the universal experience, it also possesses many aspects ) . We already are aware of Being in the sense of its universality. we acknowledge that universality every time we say that something is, which we do regularly. Our pursuit is not to recognize that everything is, but to understand something about that isness. This is why analysis comes into the picture. In order to try to understand what Being is and in order to be able to talk about it, we break our experience of Being into parts, or attributes of Being. Perhaps the first act of analysis we perform is to select an object so that we can limit our experience of Being and consider an object as a whole having or representing Being, rather than Being enveloping us, for we have already seen that to unqualifiedly experience Being as an enveloping force is not und1>rstanding as we are here concerned with it. We qualify our perception in order to be able to think about it. We define it somewhat, by representing it 43 �through an object. This allows us to consider it as something distinct from our-· selves and from our environment as a whole; a necessary step if we are to be able to maneuver it as a conceptual object, and the first step of our analysis. From this point analysis continues, and we assign more definitions and create more distinctions as our attempt to understand or communicate increasingly specific ideas or aspects grows. We have acted upon our ability to separate and examine specific aspects, yielding specific understandings, but in so doing, we have lost a sense of the initial experience which prompted the whole reaction (analysis). This loss is inevitable: the experience itself was an instantaneous event. What we are dealing with afterwards is our attempt to represent and interpret the experience; to apply some kind of reason to it. In his discussion of the "qualities by which truth is attained", Aristotle describes five distinct functions or regions of the mind, each responsible for separate kinds of understanding. They are: Pure Science, Art, Practical Wisdom, Theoretical Wisdom, and Intelligence. Four of these involve rational processes. The fifth, Intelligence, is a non-rational function and an element necessary to each of the other four; it is the function which apprehends the principles fundamental to reason, and is the function responsible for our perception. Of the role of Intelligence in our understanding, Aristotle says, It is intelligence, not reasoning, that has as its objects primary terms and definitions as well as ultimate particulars ••• For it is particular facts that form the starting points or principles for the goal of action ••• Hence one must have p~rception of particular facts, and this perception is intelligence. Intelligence, therefore, is both starting point and end; for demons~rations start with ultimate terms, and have ultimate facts as their ends • . I interpret this to mean that it is Intelligence that is . responsible for our experience of (perception of) an object or of Being. The quality of our Intelligence determines the quality of our understanding in experience; however, analysis of experience is a process of reason, not of Intelligence. Therefore our ability to connect these functions so that they may influence each other is crucial to the development of our understanding. If we are to grow in-our understanding,we must integrate the information from our reasoning faculties into the function responsible for perception, our Intelligence. · · We have seen that to bring Being from. the point of pure experience to the realm of reason ·requires analysis. We have,. in ef feet, dismantled our experience and examined its various parts seeking a greater understanding, a deeper view, than our initial experience provided us with. But what we're now left with is a pile of parts and our respective understanding of them. This is not the understanding of the whole that we were striving for. The endeavor is to achieve perception with understanding, not to perceive, then shatter our perception into a swarm of individual understandings. In order to do this we must develop the function responsible for our perception, Intelligence. Somehow we must effect a resynthesis of the fragments of our perception that will allow us to re-experience Being with deeper understanding of its nature. A simple reversal of the process that allowed us to dismantle our experience and examine each of its parts is not sufficient to provide a recombination truly descriptive of Being. We must also provide the sense of inunediacy that was lost when we represented our experience of Being as an object, in order to analyze it. As a simple demonstration of this necessity, let us consider the analysis of a fragment of a poem by E. E. Cummings: .44 o sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting fingers of purient philosoph9rs pinched and poked thee ••• we may count its words (17). We may try to discern its meter, the individual meanings of its words, the significance of any misspelled words, its spacing--there are any number of criteria that we can apply in the attempt to reach a deeper understanding of the poem--and doubtlessly they all can contribute to understanding. But we cannot assemble the bits of information determined through our analysis into a group and claim that this assembly constitutes our deeper understanding of the poem. Reading a list of facts, however pertinent, will not give us the feeling that we understand the poem, and we obviously do not expect this. Instead, having analyzed, we reread the poem, and our new perception which results is a step towards the understanding that we seek. This new perspective is not the culmination of our endeavor--the process of understanding is an ongoing one (for we say that no person knows all about anything). This is however a peak in the process; it is a return to the starting point, but at a higher level. The process here described can be imagined as a spiral path; in order for our understanding to grow, rather than remain at a certain level, we must reanalyze our newly-gotten perception, and the process continues, at times, very quickly. This flux of our understanding is, I think, what makes attempts to define Being, and to understand attempts to define Being, so difficult. Written communication allows us to consider many attributes of Being, but minimizes the possibility of dealing with Being as a whole. At the beginning of the Metaphysics Aristotle says, The investigation of truth is in one sense difficult, in another easy. A sign of this is the fact that neither can one attain it adequately, nor do all fail, but each says something about the nature of things; and while each of us contributes nothing or little to the truth, a considerable amount of it results from all of our contributions ••• to have some of the whole truth, and not be able to attain the part that we are aiming at, this indicates that it is difficult. Perhaps the cause of this difficulty, which may exist in two ways, is in us, and not in the facts. For as the eyes of bats are to the light of day, so is the intelleq_f of the soul to the objects which in their nature are most evident of all. The investigation of truth that Aristotle addresses here, he later in the same passage equates with the investigati9n of Being: Accordingly, as each thing is related to its existence, so is it related to its truth. Aristotle's awareness of this difficulty of defining Being, coupled with his perspective on the functions of the soul described earlier, seems to be responsible for the structure of the Physics. The method of this book is described in its first chapter, and is equivalent to the process of analysis discussed in the first part of this paper. In Aristotle's words, The natural way to proceed is from what is more known and clearer to us to what is by nature clearer and more known ••• So we should proceed in this manner, namely, from what is less clear by naIBre, though clearer to us, to what is by its nature clearer and more known. 45 �Through this process we are able to examine aspects of Being, in the case of Physics, the Being of objects, without inunediately having to deal with the overwhelming fact of their nature, the Being itself. An understanding of Being is what we are working towards and what, for Aristotle, is "By its nature clearer and more known." In order to achieve this understanding, we must analyze and, as we have seen, we must integrate the results of our analysis with our perception. This is an essential step in our understanding, and it is here that I see one of the major roles of the Prime Mover. As quoted earlier in this paper, Aristotle considers it useless to attempt to prove "what is known through itself through what is known not through itself" (this is not a contradiction of the process of analysis described above, in which the movement is from the superficially evident to the self-evident) • It seems clear that this quote applies especially to Being, which is by its nature most known through itself . Hence Aristotle posits the Prime Mover as an attempt to represent this self-evident factor, Being. The Prime Mover is actually actualized, the purest form of Being expressible in words or the idealized experience of Being. Perhaps positing the Prime Mover allows Aristotle to keep a representation of the essence of Being as nearly available as possible while discussing attributes of Being. This proximity is definitely desirable when we remember that, in order to complete each cycle of our developing understanding, we must re-experience that which we wish to understand. The position of the Prime Mover at the end of the Physics is a strong one, for in a sense, trying to conceive of the Prime Mover induces us to re-experience. We can, it is true, attempt to create a sense of Prime Mover in our imagination, but this sense will not be effective in creating an understanding which will be in agreement with the world to which it is applied. For, says Aristotle, Imagining lies within our power whenever we wish, but in forming opinions [and understandingsl we are not free: we cannot escape the alternative 9f 1 falsehood or truth. We cannot escape having to apply our understandings to the world--this is what they are for. The Prime Mover is real experience, idealized. The only way we can really grasp it is to experience. We can go no further in analyzing Being from our old starting point. qur capacity for analysis is .what allows us to develop understanding; indeed, this capacity is considered to be the quality that separates man from the animals. The goal of any analysis we perform is the growth of our understanding, which growth depends on our ability to integrate the results of analyses with our experience. This remarkable process in which we are engaged, constantly experiencing, analyzing, integrating, and re- experiencing, is highly active (earlier I likened it to an upward spiral). It is possible that in my attempts to discuss this process, I have made it appear more static than I conceive it to be. This stasis is, in part, an inherent problem in written communication: a problem I hope to have elicited in this paper. As stasis is the antithesis of active understanding, writers of philosophy must be especially aware of this difficulty of creating experience through words. In order to understand what is written, a reader must bring to the reading something beyond what the writer can provide. As readers we must bring our own experience in such a way that is consciously applied to the reading. Only then can the synthesis of active understanding occur. In the final part of this paper I would like to explore some implications of this active understanding as Aristotle has written about it in De Anima. As our understanding develops, we become aware of increasingly fine delineations between objects and experiences. our awareness of the texture and detail of our environment grows. Initially, perhaps, we become aware of objects. Next, ourselves. Then our attentions shift to the relationships which exist between ourselves and the objec~s •. As.we become increasingly aware of the complexities of these relationships, the distinctions we are able to draw between self and object become subtler. It becomes difficult to say where "I" ends and where "it" begins. The thinking part of the soul must therefore be, while impassable, capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be ~~tentially identical in character with its object without being the object. With the continuing growth of our understanding this potential identity of character is becoming actual identity. From relationships initially vague due to poor delineation, objects which appeared to become recognizable as distinct entities are again becoming less distinct because of the difficulty of distinguishing between mind and object. The process of analysis that initially seemed to be happening in our minds about their objects, now seems to actively involve both our minds and their objects equally. What seemed to be an interval between mind and object, we now begin to see as our experience of thinking. Mind is itself thinkable in exactly the same way as its objects are. For in the case of objects which involve no matter, what thinks and what is thought are identical; for speculative knowledge and its object are identical. •• In the case of these which contain matter each of the objects of thought is only potentially present. It folriws that while they will not have mind in them, mind may. yet be thinkable. We are drawing ever closer to a complete experience of understanding, an experience so total that we are aware of the whole of our perception. When this occurs completely we are aware of every facet of the object of our perception and of our relationship to it. There is nothing that remains outside of our awareness. Analysis has become synthesis. We have embraced, or been embraced, by all. At this point our thought becomes its object, the two merge, and understanding occurs in the truest sense. The object and understanding have become one, and as such, the understanding defines the object entirely. This, for Aristotle, is the culminating point of the mind for which we have been striving; this is Actual Knowledge. As he says, In every CfSe the mind which is actively thinking is the object of which it thinks. Mind, thinking itself in the state of true understanding, has become equatable with the Prime Mover, When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing ~gre: this alone is immortal and eternal ••• and without it nothing thinks. Thinking, both speculative and practical, is regarded as akin to a form of perceiving; for in one case as well 's the other the soul discriminates and 1 is cognizant of something which is. 46 47 �A Translation of a Chorus from Aristophanes' The Frogs FOOTNOTES 1 Aristotle's Metaphysics, The Peripatetic Press, Grinell, Iowa; 1969 Hippocrates G. Apostle Mark Manry Trans. 2The Webster's New World Dictionary; 1972 3Aristotle's Physics, The Peripatetic Press, Grinell, Iowa; 1969 G. Apostle 193a3 4 The Phenomenology of the Spirit, G. Hegel 5 6 Trans. Hippocrates Physics, 185a5 . Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Bobbs-Merrill Publishing, Indianapolis; 1962 Trans. Martin Oswald 1139b15 7 Ibid, 1143b 8 100 Selected Poems, E. E. Cummings, Grove Press, Inc., New York; 1923 11Aristotle's be Anima, Random House, New York; 1941 Ibid, 427a18 Ibid, 429a14 14 b'd 430a3 I l. ' 15 Ibid, 431b17 16 Step forward! See that you exalt, singing with noble voice, The Savior Goddess, Avowed protector of our city now and forever, Even if Thorykion does not wish it. {ant. Trans. Richard McKeon 427bl8 Demeter, queen of holy, secret rites, Stand by to assist us; Preserve your band of singers and dancers. Grant me safe playing and dancing The whole day. (str. Let me proffer myriad jests, And many weighty sayings, too, Sporting and mocking worthily for your festival, And victoriously, to be crowned with the wreath Of the victor. lOPhysics, 194a16 13 {str. Come now! Sing anew in praise to the harvest queen, the goddess Demeter; honor her with sacred songs. #5 9Metaphysics, 993b 12 Go now, all men! Into the blooming bosom of the meadow, Dancing, mocking, playing, and jeering; For there has been enough partaking. (ant. Now invite the fair god here with hymns, This chorus' fellow traveler. Ibid, 430a23 Highly honored Iacchos, Most pleasant member found at the festival, Accompany the goddess here. . And show that you have completed the great course Without weariness. Iacchos, friend of dancers, Guide me! For you have torn this my sandal And my ragged garment To make me silly and shabby. And you have contrived this So that we may play and dance Without loss? Iacchos, friend of dancers, Guide me! 48 (a. (b. 49 c �OD. Poetic Recognition David Amirthanayagam The essential moment in poetic experience--both for poet and listener, though I will have to speak for the latter until I am a poet--is a moment of recognition. Poetic recognition begins in a simple way. Aristotle, in the Poetics, explains that: The experience of learning things is highly enjoyable, not only for philosophers but for other people as well, only their share in it is limited; when they enjoy seeing images, therefore, it is because as they look at them they have the experience of learning and reasoning out what each thing represents, concluding, for example, that "this figure is so and so"; for if the image depicts something one has not seen before, the pleasure it gives will not be that of an imitation but will c~me from its workmanship or colouring or some other such source. (1448b4) We like to recognize what things represent. But these words are not as simple as they might seem: works of art, whether made with colours, tones, movements, words, sticks and stones or anything else, re-present objects or experiences to us. As such we can re-cognize them--that is, rethink them, apprehend them afresh, so that in some sense we see them for the first time. At least we never see them in the same way again. A professor once led me through the original Italian of a single tercet in the second canto of Dante's Inferno, at the place where Virgil has revived the pilgrim's wilted spirit with a story of three gracious ladies in heaven. Here translated, gamely but miserably, into English, Dante writes that he recovers: As little flowers, which in a frosty night Droop and shut tight, when the sun shines on them Stretch and look up, erect upon their stalks. (II 127-9) He thudded down, his gear clanged on his body, and blood bathed his long hair, fair as the Graces', braided, pinched by twists of silver and gold. Think how a man might tend a comely shoot of olive in a lonely place, well-watered, so that it flourished, being blown upori by all winds, putting out silvery green leaves, till suddenly a great wind in a storm uprooted it and cast it down: so beautiful had been the son of Panthoos, Euphorbos, when Menelaos killed him and bent over to take his gear. (50-6 0) Bernard Knox quoted this passage in his lecture The Iliad: ~ war Poem, and there pointed out that if one had ever seen olive trees in Greece, which only reveal the silver-gold underside of their leaves when swayed by wind, one would realize how apt is Homer's image, how subtle its pathos. . At the finely crafted close to the finely crafted fifth book of The Odyssey, we find Odysseus the great tactician on shore in Phaiakia, half-drowned, having long since shed the tangled sea-cloak of Kalypso and forsaken his raft, and having loosed Ina's veil; he deliberates on his course of action, how to find shelter from the cold and the wild beasts. Presently, He made his way to a grove above the water on open ground, and crept under twin bushes grown from the same spot--olive and wild olive-a thicket proof against the stinging wind or Sun's blaze, fine soever the needling sunlight; nor could a downpour wet it through, so dense those plants were interwoven. Here Odysseus tunnelled, and raked together with his hands a wide bed--for a fall of leaves was there; Odysseus' heart laughed when he saw his leaf-bed, and down he lay, heaping more leaves above him. A man in a distant field, no hearthfires near, will hide a fresh brand in his bed of embers to keep a spark alive for the next day; so in the leaves Odysseus hid himself. I have many times seen flowers open up at dawn, but never again in the same way after hearing the music of Dante's Italian. Similarly, during Maryland's splendid summer lightning storms, I find it second nature--literally--that some of King Lear's tempestuous invectives, or perhaps Homeric epithets from Fitzgerald's Iliad ("Zeus who delights in thunder") weave their way into the sea bolts, seen and heard. I shall illustrate the case where the "image depicts something one has not seen before," by invoking Homer and his olive trees. At the beginning of Book XVII of the Iliad, young Euphorbos, son of Panthoos, the first to hit Patroklos though Hektor won the glory, comes forward to challenge Menelaos, who is now defending the body of Akhilleus' beloved. They exchange the spine-chilling taunts that so personalize the encounters in the Iliad--the elder angered by the younger's vanity and animal audacity, the younger made bold by thoughts of revenge for his brother, killed by Menelaos in the bloom of his manhood and marriage. But there is never any doubt as to the outcome; only listen to Homer's simile, as Atreid~s' spear hits home: The last line translates ~OA.ouc:n KaA.0\jJcno : so in one graceful stroke, we see what the nine years have been for him with Kalypso, at once a protective covering from danger but at the same time a shroud that hid his inner fire. And now, as ever, above and around him, the intertwined boughs of a deeper love constitute his true home and safety, and are ready at last to reappear: olive and wild olive, Penelope and Odysseus. When he is finally carried in asleep to Ithaka, he is met on the beach by Athena in the guise of a shepherd, who later prepares him amongst her caresses for his upcoming ordeal with the suitors. The place where he lands is described in this somehow recognizable way: 50 51 Phorkys, the old sea baron, has a cove here in the realm of Ithaka; two points �of high rock, breaking sharply, hunch around it, making a haven from the plunging surf that gales at sea roll shoreward. Deep inside, at mooring range, good ships can ride unmoored. There, on the inmost shore, an olive tree throws its wide boughs over the bay... (XIII 96-103 ) Two high points of rock encircle and protect a bay from the sea, so that ships can go unmoored within their arms; on the beach, an olive tree spreads its protective boughs. Is this an image of Ithaka as it ought to be, with its lord and lady present? And then they meet, after the suitors have been disposed of. The decisive--but not the first--act of recognition between them involves a certain bed Odysseus made, and Penelope claims to have moved, much to Odysseus ' surprise and anger. He himself describes how he made it out of a certain kind of tree: An old trunk of olive grew like a pillar on the building plot, and I laid out our bedroom round that tree, lined up the stone walls, built the walls and roof, gave it a doorway and smooth-fitting doors. Then I lopped off the silvery leaves and branches, hewed and shaped that stump from the roots up into a bedpost, drilled it, let it serve as model for the rest. I planed them all, inlaid them all with silver, gold and ivory, and stretched a bed between--a pliant web of oxhide thongs dyed crimson. There's our sign! I know no more. Could someone · else ' s hand have sawn that trunk and dragged .the frame away? (XXIII 190 -204 ) Perhaps we understand why, though exhausted, Odysseus' heart laughed at the sight of those two olive shrubs and his bed of leaves on Phaiakia. Their secret revealed, Penelope and Odysseus embrace, and re-knit their worn hearts' web, tell~ng tales and making sweet love through Athena's magic length of night. Now I have never seen an olive tree--or at least never recogn'ized one. When I am at last introduced to one, I doubt I shall be at a loss for words. Let us now consider a different, deeper kind of poetic recognition, not simply that "this figure is so and so". I began by speaking of a "moment", because I think this kind of recognition takes place in a moment. We remember, though, that moments are living, supple, hard to measure quanta of time: the literal moment it takes for Odysseus' foot to splash in Eurykleia' s basin in Book XIX of The Odyssey involves many many lines of poetry, including a digression about a hunting trip, while very few lines--a moment of poetry--relate nine years of Odysseus' detainment on Ogygia. To aid in this discussion let us enlist Aristotle again, this time from the Metaphysics. Hare he aays: a T W ]J 2\ 1 y p \) ( , ~ .,, Tl a 0x n , fl 'TT 0 1 fll W V "' ~\ ~ VOU S' l1 i \J TE;X \JT) T~ l\ l') 'TT 0 1 0 UV T l OUV <l lJ lS TlS' (1025b22-3) Thia is the Loeb translation, with my alternate readings in brackets: "For in the 52 case of things produced [poems ] the principle of motion [ first cause, origin] (either mind or art [skill, cunning] or some kind of potency [power, strength, force, meaning]) is in the producer [poet ] ." I could describe the moment of poetic recognition as C_;>extensive with the apprehension of these . a pxal, whether VO US, TEX\)n, or ouvaµ 1~' within the poem. - There are several reasons why I shall not. These three are well-chosen terms--I can't imagine three better--but I do not in principle find a categorical approach satisfactory. One good reason is that I am talking about the essential moment in poetic experience, and a reader never experiences one of these principles without one of the others. If one finds VO VS' or mind in a work, for example, perhaps in the form of an argument or a philosophy, this necessarily implies craft. After all, if a poet had something to say in the form of an argument, he would (or should) have said i t , and not wr"itten a poem. Readers of Plato's Dialogues can spend a lifetime discussing the relationship between philosophy and art as expressed ~ these very dialogues', a form of writing which Aristotle mentions in the Poetics among kinds of mimes that have not acquired a common name (a447b8-9 ) . Further, if a reader thrills to the power of force of meaning ( o uv a µ t S"J enmeshed in a poet's words, he never fails to admire as well the poet's skill at his craft. Finally, if one comes to know a work of art through the mind, craft and power within it--whatever their ultimate source--one has come to know something in much the same way that one comes to know a person. And if one does not subject people one knows to such a categorical analysis, why should poems one loves be so deserving? ~hink of Odysseus, for example: to know him in terms of . vous; , · T £_x vn , and cS u vau u" · i s t.o know him well, but they are not in him as distinct characteristics rather he is_ a living, acting mixture of these elements, together with traces. of other ingredients that will forever wreck our best-laid schemes. Getting to know someone, well enough to recognize him or his handiwork, clearly involves getting to know oneself, because of the similarity in natures. The same can be true of a poem. The deeper kind of poetic recognition I am addressing often involves seeing oneself, or an element of one's thought or experience, reflected in the work or its author. The poem becomes a mirror; as such, it allows us to see ourselves, in great detail or perhaps in a glass darkly. And when it becomes a mirror, a poem can show us ne~ things, possibilities hidden beyond our minds' corners, as a glass held to an open door can reveal great secrets. But the sun's unexpected reflection may blind us. we should also note that the relationship between poem and listener is not one sided, for the poem needs us, in our attentiveness and love, to give it life. We understand why identifying with a poem, or with a character or with its author, is such a wonderful way into the poem's landscape, because one then becomes part of the poem itself--literally one of it~ own metaphors. Dante brings this discussion to bear in unique ways on canto XXVI of the Paradiso. Here the pilgrim meets Adam, described metaphorically as an "animal under cover" (97 ) . The first father begins their meeting by saying he can: discern what you wish better Than you can the things you see most clearly; Because I see it in the true mirror Which makes itself the image of other things While nothing makes itself the image of him. (10 4-8 ) Adam is usually taken to be referring to God as this true mirror. He then goes on to list the pilgrim's questions and then answer them in the wrong order. Now two of these answers have no Biblical authority; when asked how long it had been since he 53 �r was exiled from the Garden, he responds first by saying how long he remained in Hell: From that place whence your lady brought Virgil, I longed for this assembly while the sun Revolved four thousand three hundred and two years; These extracts follow in his conclusion: [The translator's ] task, minute by minute and hour by hour, is not the invention of a beautiful imitation--and did not Remy de Gourmont say that the imitation of a beautiful thing is always ugly?--but the effacement of himself, so far as may be, before the text ••• The translator's mind is an empty room in which the verses float before him, surrounded as it were by what he has extracted, as possibly relevant, from the half-irrelevancies of dictionaries and the confusing propositions of commentators. The moment comes--sooner rather than later, later rather than sooner, according to the difficulty (for him) of the passage--when he sees through the original to the matter--the actual objects--of the original. It is at that moment that his own.,words form, and he has to take what he is given and to say what he sees. (118-20) and then when answering how long he had actually lived in the Garden, he relates: On the mountain which rises highest above the waves, I was, counting my pure life and the other, From the first hour until the hour which follows The sixth hour, when the sun passes meridian. (139-42) Strangely enough, after Dante reaches limbo, "that place whence your lady brought Virgil," he spends the rest of the Inferno, save four lines at the end, in Hell; in other words, four thousand three hundred and six lines minus four, or ~our thousand three hundred and two. And the time Dante spends in the Earthly Paradise is 3 from dawn until the sun reaches the meridian, or six hours. Clearly, Dante (poet and pilgrim) is identifying himself with Adam in some way, and if he represents Everyman, so do we. The question forms, is this (heretical) identification meant to be hidden, except from the eyes of those who care to untangle his numerical knots? And who is a better candidate for being that "true mirt'or" than Dante himself, that cagey poet? We must look further for a way of elucidating poetic recognition. If not Aristotle, then to whom do we have recourse in our still dark forest, where the "sun 4 is speechless 11 ? Fortunately, we have a wonderful and neglected resource, provided by people who claim the most intimate relationship in all poetry. These people are translators of poetry, from verse in one language to verse in another, and our resource is their experience, as related in Translator's Introductions. I shall let them speak for themselves; see how my "moment of poetic recognition" comes to life. c. H. Sisson, a recent British translator of Dante, describes an early encounter: the first sight of Dante, for one who catches a glimpse from afar, is of a tailor narrowing his eyes to thread a needle, or a gaggle of cranes stretched across the sky. That does not give you a style to imitate; it gives you a perception of the maximum which can be done, in a few words, to evoke a physical presence. The lesson from this is , silence: t her e is certainly no encouragement to produce °5 few more pages of verse for the next reading, or the next poetry prize. Later, we hear that In my experience, there is an identifiable moment when the translator can first say: I can translate a particu.l ar poet. Until that moment, all is uncertain ••• What might be called the subjective authorization to translate Lucretius came to me on the bus between Avignon and Tarascon : •• The phenomenon is as definite as that of writing a poem: more consciously prepared, perhaps, but finally as spontaneous . After that, the ~our~e ~f the labour before one is clear. Through whatever morass of linguistic and other scholarship you may pass before it is finished you kno~ th~t, as the meaning clarifies itself line by line and page by page, it w~ll take on itsell that newly discovered form to which no further reflection can be given. 54 I feel that not only translators are privileged with this kind of experience. All good listeners strive for the same kind of intimacy of awareness and recognition that Sisson describes. Allen Mandelbaum, in the introduction to his rendering of Virgil's Aeneid, speaks of a journey through his past associations with Virgil, and the influence on him of two other poets, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Dante himself, until he finds "the path that opens when the guides, for whom one has been grateful, fall away or say: 'I crown and mitre you over yourself. 1118 Robert Fitzgerald doesn't seem to write Translator's Introductions. I like to think that this is because he sees a translation of his as itself an introduction--li terally a leading within. It might be instructive to look at two translations. The passage I have selected is the closing eight Latin lines of the Aeneid. Aeneas has just recognized Pallas' armour on warlike Turnus, supplicant at his feet; here follow Allen Mandelbaum's lines: And when his eyes drank in this plunder, this memorial of brutal grief, Aeneas, aflame with rage--his wrath was terrible--cried: "How can you who wear the spoils of my dear comrade now escape me? It is Pallas who strikes, who sacrifices you, who takes this payment from your shameless blood." Relentless, he sinks his sword into the chest of Turnus. His limbs fell slack with chill; and with a moan his life, resentful, fled to Shades below. Notice that Mandelbaum reproduces Virgil's sudden change of tense in the middle of the narrative ("relentless, he sinks his sword ••• ). The present tense makes the scene and the thrusting act strangely present to us, but it never fails to surprise us as part of the narrative. We remember that in Homer, when used in the narrative, it is employed strictly in the service of analogy: collecting all his might the way an eagle narrows himself to dive through shady cloud and strike a lamb or cowering hare: so Hektor lanced ahead and swung his whetted blade; (Illiad XXII 307-11) and: Conspicuous as the evening star that comes, amid the first in heaven, at full of night, and stands most lovely in the west, so shone in sunlight the fine-pointed spear Akhilleus poised in his right hand. (317-20) 55 �My thoughts on the subject are not as mature as I would like, but this is how the question forms: by introducing the present tense into the narrative, does Virgil intentionally place his story, and send his heroes, into the world of analogy and simile, that translucent, shimmering shadow land? Here the spirits of the poet could remain undefiled, escaping the relentless run of time and history, which even got Rome in the end. I agree this is fanciful; Allen Mandelbaum simply says "there is no uniform explanation for these shifts (of tense] in Virgil; but each instance counts in its place and is motivated there." Mr. Mandelbaum himself says the project of translating Virgil came out of his greater, overarching concern with translating Dante. Here now is a version of the above lines rendered by a translator who travelled Virgil's own route--through Homer: For when the sigh came home to him, Aeneas raged at the relic of his anguish Worn by this man as trophy. Blazing up And terrible in · his anger, he called out: "You in your plunder, torn from one of mine, Shall I be robbed of you? This wound will come From Pallas: Pallas makes this offering And from your criminal blood exacts his due." He sank his blade in fury in Turnus's chest. Then all the body slackened in death's chill, And with a groan for that indignity His spirit fled into the gloom below. 10 Fitzgerald eschews the narrative present tense in this case and appears to follow his own rules with regard to its translation throughout his version. One doesn't know what to think of this; should we recognize the special authority he claims, as a poet viewing a poet, to the point where it is up to him whether he translate verb for verb? I have a final observation to make here, a confusing recognition, if you will. These lines are spoken to Hektor by Akhilleus in Book XXII of The Iliad, after Troy's hero, beguiled by Athena, has stopped his running and turned to face his pursuer. He asks for a guarantee that the loser's body be returned to his respective side. Akhilleus responds: "Hektor, I'll have no talk of pacts with you, forever unforgiven as you are. As between men and lions there are none, no concord between wolves and sheep, but all hold one another hateful through and through, so there can be no courtesy between us, no sworn truce, till one of us is down and glutting with his blood the wargod Ares •.• Now there is no way out. Pallas Athena will have the upper hand of you. The weapon belongs to me. You'll pay the reckoning in full for all the pain my men have borne, who met death by your spear." (261-72) I hear an unmistakable echo of this speech in Virgil's final lines. Both Akhilleus and Aeneas speak of acting on behalf of their own, and--inexplicably--refer to themselves as instruments of Pallas, though one meant the daughter of Zeus, and the other the son of Evander. so Aeneas is identified with Akhilleus in this final gruesome moment (at least in The Iliad we end with the funeral, not the death), and indeed he can be seen as a ruthless invader; Turnus is identified with Hektor, a native defending his 56 father~and. But this only points up the incongruity that earlier in the poem, Aeneas was painted as a kind of Odysseus, returning, in fact, to his true destined home with a long exiled people, while Turnus, the frustrated suitof when he enters alone into 1 the Teucrian camp--"a tiger mingling with cowed cattle" --calls himself "Achilles" by name. My preliminary conclusion from this is that Virgil's relationship with Homer, poet to poet, is an essential part of his poem, but remains the hardest depth to fathom in The Aeneid's Roman music. . Some poems have it central to their experience that they be interpreted. I find interpreting the whole Iliad something like interpreting the ocean stream· Dante's Commedia, h~wev~r, is overtly allegorical, and hence demands this kind of ~esponse. Interpretation is not.r:cogniti~n; .if it is good, it follows from and is inspired by the ~oments ?f recognition and insight we experience. At its best, it is an attempt to fin~ m~aning ~n~ order, with~n and without, in the many visions a poem grants us; a nourishing activ~ty for the mind which helps keep a listener's relationship with a poem--or another listener--fresh. Bad interpretation abounds, however; this can res~lt through the ~mposition of an external order on the poem, or the too hasty spinn~ng out of theories from a too limited vision of the object. The great sin of assigned analytical papers in literature classes is that they encourage both these latter. Dante Alighieri .or all poets has suffered most at the hands of his interpreters. He is only to blam~ in that he makes it clear his lines have two meanings, a literal one and an allegorical one. But this does not license an editor to flood an edition of the Commedi~ ~ith 7omment~ries, so ~s to make the .poem inaccessible. obviously. Some modern editions in English come with companion volumes of commentary, twice as long as the poem. At least three editions preface each canto with a detailed summary and fol~ow it u.p with more notes than there was poetry. The poem has to be read like a mag~zine article (turn to page 16C for the next installment) ! one gets the impression that Dante must be a "solved" writer, a poet destined. to be "all figured out" by modern scholarship. Fo: this reason, Ernest Fortin' s lecture, How To ~ Dante• s comedy, was refreshing. He showed how Dante eludes his interpreters, how he hides himself above, underneath, inside his own comedy. As many mirrors confuse the eye so with Da~te' s Comm~dia~ one doesn't know what to think, even about the poet's ~eligious faith· F?rtin .cited many examples, including the secret identification with Adam I have mentioned. He also pointed out a scheme that explains the role of statius, one of the pilgrim's three poet-guides, for whom Dante invents a life history: before he purportedly discovered Christian faith, Statius wrote two pagan epics (that is, he said the wrong thing and too much); afterwards, Statius hid his Christianity, he didn't say enough--he was a poetic miser. Virgil, the first poet-guide, was a non-Christian poet who wrote a non-Christian epic; Statius was a Christian poet who wrote a non-Christian epic; Dante, last in the trio and his own poet-guide, "crowned and mitred over himself", is supposedly the Christian poet who writes a Christian epic. But this setup leaves open a tantalizing possibility: the non-Christian poet who writes a Christian epic. "Who dat?" asks Mr. Fortin. He closed by revealing how in the last canto of the Paradiso, the anticipated allegorical level actually masks the literal meaning; the supposed Beatific vision, a description of the Trinity, fits a~ well, if ~°Jt better, with the object which literally consumed Dante's eye sight: his own poem. I have my own response to these matters. What follows is my guided trip through canto XVII of the Paradiso, where Dante meets his ancestor Cacciaguida. I think something of Dante's experience came home to me as I read this canto. Perhaps I delude myself; I cannot be the judge. 57 �c,_..- If Homer's Odyssey is a poem of return, and The Aeneid is a poem about carrying in one's household gods, Dante's poem is a poem of exile, in all its salt anguish and longing. In two previous cantos, in the sphere of Mars, Cacciaguida has chronicled the golden age and then the decline of Florence. Now, in the opening tercet of the central canto of the Paradiso, Dante approaches Cacciaguida, his ancestral father, As there once came to Clymene, to ascertain The truth of what he had heard said against himself, The young man who is still a caution to fathers. (1 -3) The young man is Phaeton, who came to his mother to find out for sure who his father was. It turns out this was Phoebus, the sun god; to prove it to him, as one version of the myth goes, Phoebus offered Phaeton any favour he wished. The son rashly chose to drive his father's chariot, which he couldn't control, burning earth, mountain and sky, before Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt. Dante's analogy is cryptic at best. The poet asks Cacciaguida to explain the many prophecies he has heard while: , climbing up the mountain which cures souls And going down into the dead world, (20-21) - - -- Heaven chased them out, so as not to become less beautiful, And the depths of hell also re]ected them, Lest the evil might find occasion to glory over them. (Inf. III 40-2) Cacciaguida tells Dante that he: will learn how salt is the taste Of other people's bread, how hard the way Going up and down other people's stairs. (58-60) These words speak for themselves. I might only suggest that as Beatrice, a girl our poet once knew, c~e to represent more and more to Dante, until she became Divine ~ove or Re~ealed Wisdom, so perhaps did his exile from Florence take on deeper meanings for him; perhaps Dante saw in it the germ of that greater longing the longing caused by man's exile from the Kingdom of God. We are less mysti'fi'ed 'then b h' 1 t . . , , y is a er i. d en t. f ying with Adam, the first exile from that Kingdom. 1 . Dante goes on to hear many more things, things "incredible to those who will li~e throu?h them" . (93). Then he makes a fresh start; fearing that his poems might alienate him, not Just from Florentines, but from all others as well he explains to Cacciaguida that in his journey, ' and he responds: I have learned things which, if I repeat them, Will have a bitter taste for many people; Without the circumlocutions in which people were swallowed up before the slaughter of The lamb of God who takes away sins ••• And if I am a timid friend to truth, I fear to lose the life I have among those Who will call the present time, ancient times. But in clear words and plain exact speech ••• Hidden but appearing in his smile. (31-36) This clarity of speech represents the way in which the Christian .Aoyos transformed, fulfilled, and retroactively clarified Old Testament prophecy. Cacciaguida tells Dante of his upcoming exile from Florence. He prefaces the hard words with this explanation: (116-20) Sho~ld he hold back his bitter words, for practicality's sake, or reveal all for posterity? Of course we know what he cpgoses; Brunetto Latini, the rhetorician who "instructed.· .how man may be eternal," is eternally running around the burning sands of Dante's Hell. Cacciaguida says: let them scratch wherever they may itch. Contingency, which does not stretch beyond The limits of your material world, Is all set out before the sight of God: For if your words are objectionable At the first taste, they will yield nourishment Afterwards, once they have been digested. But does not on that account become necessity Any more than a ship which is drifting downstream Drifts as it does because a man sees it. (37-42) This cry of yours will do as the wind does, Strike hardest on the summits which are highest. The image of a man watching a ship drifting would be simpler if Dante had not described his own poem as a vessel, as at the opening of the Purgatorio; if we ha~ not 4 if been audience to the profoundly moving story of Ulysses' Promethean ship voyage; he had not used Jason and the Argona._psts as a recurring theme, which even finds its way into the final canto of his poem. For the first time, the man and the ship are separated, if we think of the man as longing to be on board that drifting ship, for whatever reason--perhaps he is marooned and longs in vain for family and friends; perhaps it ought to be steered upstream--we see the power and subtlety of this image, as it bears on Dante's exile. The helplessness one feels when one is not allowed to participate is, I think, central to Dante's experience of exile. We remember the place Dante gives to those people and angels who, by their own choice, refused to participate: 58 (129-34 ) We are reminded again of Phaeton, swooping low in his borrowed chariot. But if Dante is playing God for a day, he is only the charioteer; it is the sun that th_ poet. e burns , not Cacciaguida ends the canto by explaining that Dante has been shown Only the souls of those who are known to fame; For the listener's mind will not find its rest Nor fix its faith unless it finds examples Of which the root is known and not hidden , And arguments which are plain as day. (138-42 ) In ligh~ of Mr. Fortin's arguments, this is clearly ironic. Dante himself, save for the unmistakable longing that is the root of his words' beauty, remains, as ever, far 59 �from plain view. . . we have yet to acknowledge the most dramatic of all moments of recognition, the one Aristotle mentions by name. These are experienced by characters; two standard examples are the "recognition scene" between Elektra and Orestes in Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (Sophocles' Elektra has a fascinating version of the same scene, and :Euripides' Elektra provides a hilarious parody), and the moment Oedipus discovers the t~th about himself in Oedipus Rex. Aristotle explains: Recognition(\va.yvwp101S'), as the word itself indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, leading either to friendship or to hosti~ity on the part of those persons who are marked for good fortune or bad. It is the second of three elements in a tragic plot, the others being suffering ~ ~ (mi eOS' ) ·and reversal (TIE p 1 TIsTs1 a.) ("a change from one stat\Ef.f affairs to its exact opposite •. in conformance1 with probability or necessity." ) • Though there are many types of ~va.yvwp101s--and we have seen two in Penelope and Odysseus and Aeneas and Turnus--Aristotle says, "The best form of recogWion is that which is accompanied by a reversal, as in the example from Oedipus." surely one of the most sublime of all recognition scenes in dramatic poetry is Act IV Scene 6 of Shakespeare's King Lear. The recognition takes place between Lear and Gloucester. There is no re-;ersal; Gloucester's earlier blinding is a classic ex~le from this play of recognition · combined with reversal, for as he is blinded, he discovers the wrong he has done Edgar. To include this later scene in his Poetics,· Aristotle would have to coin a new terin: recognition through suffering. --. we have been through the banishments and the slow descent; we have wit11essed :&ear and his poor naked train on the heath; we have seen the unimaginable in · Gloucester's blinding. The schemes . of the play's five fiends--Edmund, Regan, Goneril, Cornwall, and oswald--are working themselves to fruition. And we have seen justice responding in a few noble souls: service in Kent and Gloucester, king~iness in France, conscience in Albany and valour in Cornwall's slaves. The scene is set for the final meeting between the two suffering old men. The scene as a whole explores the power of the imagination. It is in part a man's imagination that determines his world. we open with Gloucester's attempted suicide, from a cliff that is not there. I think it well to note that on Shakespeare's unadorned stage, there is no reason to believe the audience will not be deceived along with Gloucester. Edgar's speech about the cliff is superb descriptive poetry; until his explanation: Why I do trifle thus with his despair Is done to cure it, (32-3) we, in our heightened imagination, are on the edge of that cliff, careful that we do not "topple down headlong" (24). The deception prepares us to question our own imagination and conception of what is real; if a detailed account of cliff-side sensations is all we need to believe the men before us are standing on a cliff, in what other ways do we fool ourselves? (The men are standing on a stage, incidentally.) When his father falls, Edgar worries because he know[s] not how conceit may rob The treasury of life when life itself Yields to the theft. (42-4) But Gloucester recovers, to be convinced again by Edgar's story, this time of a miraculous fall and the fiend whom he left on top of the cliff. The message here is 60 strong, however we feel about Edgar's purposes, and bears on all the speeches about the gods and fiends we hear in this play. Whether the gods are kind and just, or whether the world is full of fiends and beasts, can only be revealed through our own actions, just or unjust. We must take the world as what it appears to be, but at the same time it is our world to make; often it appears to others only as we present it to them. Enter the king himself. He invades our discussion by living in his own world, gliding down from unseen heights, to dwell, for a moment, eye to eye with Gloucester. In his first speech, he is apparently hallucinating. George Kittredge explains it this way: In his delirium he sees constables who try to arrest him as a coiner of counterfeit money. The next moment he is a captain engaged in the enlistment of drafted men and in testing the recruits. Suddenly he catches sight of an imaginary mouse •.• Then he is a champion defying all opponents; then a captain once more; then a spectator at an archery contest; then, catching ~ht of Edgar, he becomes a sentry and challenges him: "Give the word." Lear plays six roles in seven lines. Yet he remains completely genuine: as natural as a thunderbolt, or a bastard son. Gloucester says,"I know that voice" (95). Even without seeing him, he recognizes the authority which so masters Kent. "Hal Goneril with a white beard?" (96) responds Lear. We are used to Lear' s imbuing the world with his own pains and concerns; if Poor Tom has b~in reduced to a naked wretch, it must be because he, too, had ungrateful daughters. But Lear continues: ·When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found 'em, there I smelt 'em out. Go to, they are not men o' their wordsl They told me I was everything. 'Tis a lie--I am not ague-proof. {100-05) Apparently we can be greatly deceived by others, even about ourselves. But Gloucester is sure of what he has heard. Though the words make no sense, Glau. The trick of that voice I do well remember. Is't not the king? Lear. Ay, every inch a kingl When I do stare, see how the subject quakes. (106-08) ·Lear works himself up to a fever pitch of fury and revulsion1 the world around him seems populated by demi-human beasts. "Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary," he says, "to sweeten my imagination." {130-1) If we must mark the instant, Lear's recognition begins with Gloucester's plea, "O, let me kiss that hand!". (132) Here is the first heartfelt attempt to make contact with Lear, to touch him, show a sign of love. And Lear hears it. "Let me wipe it first," he says, "it smells of mortality." It seems that Gloucester's loving gesture has united the two, so that they can recognize each other as fellow sufferers: as such they live in the same world. Lear tunes in and out--he calls Gloucester "blind Cupid" (137)--but the bond is still there: Lear. o, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light. 61 �Yet you see how this world goes. Glou. I see it feelingly. (144-8) Lear then begins a tirade against the two-faced justice and corrupted authority that plague the world. Again, the outward appearances deceive: Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it. None does offend, none--I say none! I'll able 'em. (164-7) Mind in the passive .sense is such because it becomes all things, but mind has another aspect in that~~ makes all things(ITOlEl~]; this is a kind of positive state like light. My theme has been poetic recognition, and this is its highest form: recognition of oneself as poet and listener, maker of one's life and world, yet also audience to their creation, in the moments when we live. Christian Holland, in reference to this speech, makes this revealing comparison: In the story of the stoning of the adulteress Jesus shows that he knows that no man is without sin. He therefore urges all of us to take our own sinfulness to heart when we judge the wrongdoings of our fellows. Jesus . pardons, forgives the adulteress, and commands her to go and sin no more. Lear enables the adulteress to go on sinning. Since human beings are no more than beasts, and beasts cannot be said to be sinners~ Lear refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing on her part. Sin is nothing. 2 Finally, Lear knows his friend and servant by name: If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes. I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester. Thou must be patient. We came crying hither; Thou know' st, the first time that we smell the air We wawl and cry. (175-9) We have witnessed a grand but simple encounter. The world can deceive; to some degree, we all live in our own imaginings. But these two, Lear and Gloucester, though one is blind and the other mad, have recognized each other. By weeping each other's fortunes, having acknowledged their sins, they have managed, for a moment, to share the world. But the gods must have their sacrifice. we must offer our best. Cordelia and Lear have learned the art of self-sacrifice, the one by nature, the other through suffering . They are nature's masterpieces. And what goddess demands this ritual, other than Nature herself--the goddess of this play--terrible in her magnificence? The closer one gets to King Lear, or any work of art, the harder it gets to keep oneself clear, as to where the poem's world ends and the real world begins. From my experience with Lear, getting close to the play involves hearing it all inside onesel~, becoming all the parts--hero and villain, king and subject, philosopher and natural fool. As the lines re-echo, the play begins to sound more and more like a piece of music, with its own inner meaning that defies interpretation. And the music of King Lear needs no translation. One simply listens, and returns to the world, · full of words to experience it with. we begin to see the dialogue that poetry fosters: great poems, like these I have discussed, are creations in words that reflect and reshape our experience; but their words in turn become part of us, the matter with which we ourselves remake and ennoble our lives. we remember these words of Aristotle, from his treatise On The Soul: 62 63 �Footnotes The Search for What the Memory Holds: M~mory, Identity and the Uses of Things 1. Aristotle, Poetics, trans. James Hutton 2. The verb is KaA.UrrTw,,meaning to cover up or envelop for protection, preservation, or concealment (Cunliffe). I owe this passage to Jerome Downey, whose insight is at times as big as the rest of him. 3. Ernest Fortin, How To Read Dante's Comedy, lecture given Spring 1984. 4. Dante Alighieri, Commedia: Inferno , I . 60 5. Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans. c. H. Sisson, Regnery Gateway, pg. 37 6. Ibid., pg. 39 7. Ibid., pg. 42-3 8. Allen Mandelbaum, The Aeneid of Virgil, University of California Press, pg. 336 For a moment they are say and are a part 9. Ibid., pg. X Of an element, the exactest element for us, 10. Ibid. In which we pronounce joy like a word of our own. 11. Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald, Random House, pg . 402 12. Ibid., pg. 286 13. Fortin, paraphrased from memory 14. Alighieri, Commedia: Inferno, XXVI 15. Ibid., Paradiso XXXIII . 94-6 Without the labor of thought in that element, 16. Ibid., Inferno, XV. 85 And we feel, in a way apart, for a moment, as if 17 . Ar i s t otle, 1452a There was a bright scienza outside of ourselves, 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. William Shakespeare, King Lear, ed. George Kittredge, pg. 114 (note to 11. 83-92) Liz Waldner OF BRIGHT AND BLUEBIRDS AND THE GALA SUN Some things, nine, some things are like this, That instantly and in themselves they are say And you and I are such things, o most miserable ••• It is there, being imperfect, and with these things And erudite in happiness, with nothing learned, That we are joyously ourselves and we think A saiety that is being, not merely knowing, The will to be and to be total in belief, 21. Shakespeare, III. 4. 47 22. Christian Holland, Edgar's Growth in King Lear, Energeia, Winter 1984, pg. 77 23. Aristotle, On The Soul, Loeb, 430a14-16 Provoking a laughter, an agreement, by surprise. - Wallace Stevens All quoted passages of Dante ' s Comrnedia were translated by C. H. Si sson; all the paasagea from Homer were translated by Rober t Fi tzger a ld. 64 In book X of his Confessions, Augustine endeavors to say what he now is, not, as before, what he has been. His love for God kindles in him the desire to know his God; therefore he hopes, by confessing what he knows and what he does not know of himself, to make his soul a fit dwelling for that God who loves the truth. The attempt to say what he is comes as r~~E__onse to his longing for knowledge of God and 65 �builds on his conviction that what he is and perhaps who he is may be discovered in light of his love for God. In general, knowing what someone loves may help us to understand who she is; believing we are made to love and serve God, Augustine expects to know his own nature better as he delves into God's. Thus Augustine makes a beginning by asking what it is that he loves when he loves his God: But what do I love when I love Thee? Not the beauty of bodies, nor the fair harmony of time, nor the brightness of the light, so gladsome to our eyes, nor sweet melodies of varied songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers and ointments and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs acceptable to embracements of flesh. None of these I love, when I love my God; and yet I love a kind of light and melody and fragrance and meat and ernbracement of my inner man: where there shineth unto my soul what space cannot contain and there soundeth what time beareth not away and there smelleth what breathing disperses not and there tasteth what eating diminisheth not and there cleanseth what satiety divorces not. This is it which I love when I love my God. And what is this? [I asked ••• ] (p. 208) The pleasures which the senses make available are not those loved in loving God, but they are like them; they remind one of the thing sought for. The beauties of this world, subject to diminishrnent, dispersal and ravishment by time are pale in comparison to God who made them. Against the view that the joy we take in air and light, in having a body is full and final, Augustine levels the testimony of the pleasure-givers themselves: heaven and earth and everything in them bid Augustine love God and declare, "I am not He, but He made me." The pleasures of the changeable world are understood to be harbingers of an unimaginable goodness of which they bear tidings. From the world around him, Augustine "turns himself to himself," demanding "Who are you?" Soul and body represent themselves to him upon his answering, "A man ." It is the inner man, "I, the mind" allied with soul who, questioning the things of the world, is able to discern in their form of beauty the report of the outer man: not I, but He made me. For Augustine, it is this inner man who wonders at himself, pondering his memory, its force "excessive great" a power of his through which and in which he seeks his God. · As reason is set over the senses to judge of their reports, so God is "above the head of the soul". Reason enables Augustine to read in the loveliness of the creation--between its lines, as it were--testimony illegible to beasts and' undiscerned by those mastered by the outer man, testimony to the existence of "one greater than I". Because he has avoided mistaking the thing made for the maker, Augustine 's world, like a choirmaster, directs him in a rehearsal of the inquisitive mode: if not you, then whom do I love? Thus, allegiance to the inner man is requisite to the "rising by degrees" which is his pilgrim's progress toward God's metaphorically mixed locus "above the head of my soul;" otherwise he would have loitered unawares and discomfited among way-markers, signs, and images. By means of his soul, Augustine finds the right way; on this he finds the fields and palaces of his memory. Every opportunity is taken to emphasize the expanse and amazing character of this treasure-trove found in the head of the soul. The search for God has led from admiration and inquiry "of the seas and the deeps, the whole air with its inhabitants·, sun, moon, and stars and all that encompass the door of his flesh," to that door itself which, opened in answer to his knock discloses images of all he has admired, his admiration, and, wonder of wonders, himself. The stages of his journey, early and late, and souvenirs thereof, even up to his entry just made, are caught up and held for him--inside of himself. As Augustine somewhat defensively opines, it is as if the memory were the belly of the soul; the outside is taken in and stored 66 there. The more spacious the palace, the more numerous the mansions of this house, the more inexpressible its windings, unfathomable its depths, various its cupboards and pantries, the more wonderful the fact that anything therein should ever be recalled, the more awesome the realization that this great and strange power of remembrance is ours, part of our nature, a thing to be spoken of when saying "what I am." Since this power also bears witness to the yet greater glory of God who made it, the source and object (in true genitive fashion) of Augustine' s search, fear, love and reverence for God increase accordingly. Awe in the presence of God and the search for him are at least furthered if not begun by wonder at his works, which include oneself. In the wondrous cabinets of memory, then, we find two sorts of things: those which the senses bring into it from all sorts of perception, to be stored according to kind; and those "whereof we imbibe not the images by our senses," but have in memory the things themselves. The latter are perceived within, by the mind's experience of its own passions. Numbers and geometry's fissures are among these, as is "all, learnt of the liberal sciences and as yet unforgotten." They are "removed as it were to some inner place, which is yet no place." These lie unknown, scattered and neglected until received and ordered through recollection. The images transported by sense are preserved distinctly; when one is remembering the look of an adobe wall on a winter's evening, the smell of the second floor bedroom at one's grandparents house in 1962 neither intrudes nor commingles. Despite occasional contretemps--a bevy of eager memories present themselves when only one is called for {requiring their dispersal from "the face of remembrance" with "the hand of the heart" ) ; or the would-be rememberer is made to wait unduly long for the desired article while encountering various unexpected, inexplicable others--Augustine suggests that things go on here in an orderly way. One enters his storehouse, requests what he will, and it is fetched, with more or less dispatch as its cubby-hole is far or near, more or less swallowed by forgetfulness. The latter resembles a species of snow which accumulates with time, through every weather; gentle and diligent, it obscures and at last buries what it falls on. The woman of the parable, having lost her groat, sought it with a lamp: one might say that lit lamp is memory: unless she had remembered it, she would never have found what she sought. Memory then, acts as a place holder, albeit a fickle one--a somewhat inconstant zero. Something there is which is not here, it reminds us feeling "that it did not carry on together all which it was wont, and maimed, as i~ were, by the curtailment of its ancient habit, demanded the restoration of what it missed." ( ~. 2~1). Unfortunately for all who would be reminded, it can't be counted on to persist in its demand. Some count this a blessing. The tutor remembered Monday's meeting with his advisee until Friday; on Monday he found himself with the unwonted luxu- ry of an hour before his next class, an hour which he thoroughly enjoyed, disturbed ~nly once~ as he stirred his coffee, by the familiar feeling of memory's suffering its curtailment: he was forgetting something. He decided it was sugar for his coffee, whic~ he got. At 6:30 the next morning the sugar packet, transubstantiated, revealed itself to have been an appointment. Bad conscience or gratitude rose thereupon, like a signal effluence of character. Thus we see the toll taken by th~ ~assage of time (which time ought to be paying, since it is doing the moving, making ~nroads o? memory; memory might do well to add this claim to its suit, as long as it is demanding restorations) upon the figure cut in his memory by the tutor's appointment; it retained a recognizable face for several days, whereupon weathering so eroded its form that it was mistaken for a condiment. It is possible, however, for memory to serve as an enduring standard for the lost, a flag waving Provenance, not lowered until the object of the search at last arrives and identifies itself as prodigal but true-born inheritor of that standard's device-whereupon that device is discerned. When something has slipped one's 67 �mind--what, for instance, was that large-eyed woman-waif's name in Fellini's "La strada"?--one makes attempts to bring before memory's throne the syllables sought. This can be something like memory's holding Cinderella's glass slipper and our proffering multifarious objects, only discovering it was a foot we were loo~ing for when memory exclaims, Ahal It fits! {Lest we be seized rather by exasperation than by Augustine' s admiration at such antics on memory' s part, we may remark these slippers of memory's are sometimes very transparent.) sometimes, however, we have a little more to go on, a feeling for the r~ytlun of· the name or for the sound of its vowels. Then it is like seeing that a foot is wanted and stage-mothering our best friends, mothers, aunts, cousins and lovers into t~ing out for the part--go on, you're a shoe-in. Thus I bring ~efore memory ~uch essays as Dulcinea? Giusetta? Jucipetta? until I say, Ahal or give up •. {Happily, memory is not like those kings who behead their daughter's unsuccessful .suitors.) The woman seeking her groat persisted until she said Aha, kept mindful of her loss and ready to identify the speck when found, meanwhile dismissing pretenders and imposters, by power of her now steadfast and scrupulous, not out-to-lunch memory. one of the memory's more dependable characteristics, and perhaps most wondrous of all, is its capacity to serve as a chamber wherein one may hold court with oneself. · The court, at least, will be there. In it, Augustine finds, he can confer with himself as he now is, or ponder himself in the various guises with their concomitant settings of the "Ancestor Augustines" that he has been. (Of these lat~er, those in favor or disfavor--of especial note to the visiting royalty--are most likely to accept i~vitations; others incline to the impromptu. Still others may decline an interview altogether.) "A large and boundless chamber! Whoever sounded the bottom thereof?" Visiting there, Augustine knows he is surrounded by myriad slumbering things of which he is unaware (and some of which are he) whose awakening.is the exercise of a power that he, its owner, does not comprehend. .Hence t~at dictum re~ark­ able in its somber and devoted astonishment: "Therefore is the mind too strait to contain itself." The vast lumber room of memory, the head of the soul, recalls God's mindfulness of His creation, His attending to sparrows and numbering the hairs of the head. Heaven and earth and all that one could think thereon, besides what one has forgotten, are there to serve him who sits in the seat of the mind as the material of inference , hope , J'udgment, discretion, surprise, counsel, resolve, laughter . and red gret--a large and boundless chamber, indeed. A wonderful admiration surprises an amazement seizes Augustine: brought together in the mind is properly said to be thought upon." (p. 215) Refusal to have any truck with re-incarnation and a virtue that is the gift of a panoply of Gods may be reasons for his failure to remind us of the fair Meno and his would-be slave, the torpedo fish, who will again stir the memory when Augustine takes up the question so like Meno's: whence have we the idea of a happy life, which all desire, without ever having known it? Virtue, we remember, is not acquired through recollection; nor, we shall see, is the knowledge of God which is granted in the moment of learning" him. Let us then scrutinize some sort of happiness that can be learned. Prudence will stand us in good stead. Like the numbers wherewith we number, prudence is recollected and dwells in memory before and after the event, inchoate in its deepest recesses before, near at hand after. We are ignorant of prudence until by conception we order and arrange its scattered components, thus marking or recognizing it for what it is. It is somewhat disconcerting to allow for the presence in memory of unidentified snips and tatters of an idea, languishing until the treacherous spark of conception animates it, only to relegate this creation to memory's caves. Yet the concept does not enter the mind--as a thoughtful effluence, say, commensurate · with some "sense" of the inner man1 its elect bric-a-brac are there already waiting. Apparently, it is galvanized, a sort of elective affinity provoking the arrangement of constituent bits into agreement with Prudence encountered in the flesh. We come into its presence and, Ahal Behold! That's Prudence, we exclaim. Socrates, investigating this phenomenon, consulted "certain wise men and women, priests and priestesses" who sought "to give a reason of their profession," and poets who spoke by divine inspiration. By their account, the soul is inunortal, born into the world and leaving it in death many times. Hence the soul has learned all things, and there is no difficulty in her eliciting, or as men say, learning, out of a single recollection, all the rest, if one is strenuous and does not faint, for all inquiry and all learning is but recollection. (81C-D) This bewilderment--how is it that I, the mind, find myself in memory?--leads to another: how is it that I find God who is not in my memory? An examination of ~he difference between recollection and "learning God" leads to Augustine's conclusion that the search for what the memory holds is itself a sign pointing beyond the memory. At that point the importance of the remarkable array of memory' aspects and abilities is addressed. As we have seen, recollection is that sort of remembrance which is not an image, but consists in the presence in the mind of the thing remembered. How do we come.by reasons and laws concepts like eloquence? We recollect them. Although Augustine does not his ex;lication and etymology do call Meno and Socrates to mind. "The mind has appr~priated to itself this word cogitation, so that what is recollected, i.e., As for the catalyst, the impulse toward recollection seems to be the encountering of difficulties. Why is this so? It would seem that a full knowledge, or fullness of being, is primary, and ignorance like so many clouds before its sun. The soul "wants" to unfold, wholly to recollect the things it holds, thus renewing its acquaintance with the whole of the intelligible world--returning to pay a visit to The Forms. Difficulties keep it from its native place, prolonging its exile; hence they kindle its desire to see its homecoming. Thus, the slave boy possessed of a perplexity, divested of confidence because cognizant of his ignorance, is a slave boy possessed by desire to know. That favorite among the Emperor's New Clothes, that fashion time never renders passe, which moth hardly corrupts and no one need steal, namely, the fancy that one knows what one does not, in fact, know (which is reversible and may be worn as well as complacency: there is no knowing and no use trying to) is shrugged off in exchange for a Deianira's cloak of desire. The truth of all things, then, has always existed in the soul, awakened into knowledge by the putting of questions to it. Questions are put to the soul when the head of the soul is perplexed. One's loss, one's ignorance is recognized. Knowledge is sought after and spontaneously recovered in recollection. The torpedo fish's sting effects a confusion, a torpor like that bothersome feeling that one has forgotten something. we sense a disturbance, a throbbing in the back of the mind, a repeated inkling. The brow wrinkles: what is this? The soul returned greets the world: Aha, aha, aha! I remember you. Furrowed forehead: on the trail. Recollection's nod: the lost is found. A laughter is provoked, "an agreement, by surprise." 68 69 For we are not now searching out the regions of heaven, or measuring the distances of the stars, or enquiring the balancings of the earth. It is I myself who remember, I, the mind. It is not so wonderful if what I myself am not, be far from me. But what is nearer to me than myself? And lo, the force of my own memory is not understood by me. (p. 218) �Having pondered the ways in which lost things are found and considered recollection's recovery of knowledge, Augustine returns to his question, What do I love when I love Thee? His answer divulges that his love has been suffered as search, as desire: "When I seek Thee, my God, I seek a happy life." (p. 222) It also reveals his recognition that its converse is false, which is apparent only to those who "learn God," as it turns out. At this point in his inquiry, Augustine echoes Meno: "How then do I seek a happy life, seeing I have it not, until I can say where I ought to say, It is enough? As though I had forgotten it, remembering I had forgotten it? Or desiring to learn it as a thing unknown?" (p. 2 2 2) The answer 1 ie s somewhere in between or above , encompassing and superseding remembering the forgotten and recollection. To arrive at the answer the inner man pursues that path which reason discerned and desire traced among the reports of the senses upon the things of the world. He who has ears to hear perceives that "when I seek God I seek a happy life" lies in the direction indicated by the earlier answer, "we · are not he whom you seek, but he made us." It, too, points the way. The inner man "solves" the equation "seek God = happy life" when he comprehends that the concept of a happy life itself points to something beyond it. As we remember, virtue was said by Socrates and Meno to be recognized but not acquired by means of recollection. The problem with seeking God is that he can't be recollected, much less acquired thereby. To be learned as a thing unknown, like prudence, he would somehow have to be present in memory, unrecognizable in the rags and tatters of the idea of himself. Although he does prove to have been with Augustine all along and in a sort of disguise, God himself is not present in the memory until learned. Nor yet, Augustine continues, is he among the images of corporeal things stored there, nor in the affections of the mind~ nor is he the mind itself, being rather its lord. The problem with seeking a happy life is that everyone remembers, loves and longs for it without having known it: "All will the happy life; no one altogether wills it not. This could not be unless the thing whereof it is the name is in memory o II (p. 223) The · problem to · end all problems is that seeking God . is seeking a happy life: therefore the thing sought must be at once in and not in the memory. with -the help of the inner man' s audio acuity Augustine reduces this absurdity to a state of impending grace, to be inaugurated by an act of grace, the bursting of the surd, his deafness. All indeed desire to attain the same end, but many fall short, deceived and distracted by semblances of joy. These semblances, lesser happinesses, are present in memory, are recollectable--and hence mistakable for him who made them. Just as Socrates and Meno agree that some desire what they suppose to be goods, although they are really evil, so Augustine maintains that those who seek a happy. life in anything but loving God for his own sake--rejoicing "to, of and for Him"--rejoice in falsehoods. we may seek a happy life without seeking God but the desire that urges one is the mark of God's call. Neither the attainment of the thing in which "false" joy was sought, nor the presence of the thing itself in memory, end the search for a happy life; and this argues that we have not yet found what is wanting. Loving God for his own sake requires, first, learning him and this, as Augustine confesses, can prove a lengthy and painful process. Seeking a happy life necessitates willing it entirely; only then is it possible to learn God. Satisfaction with semblances of joy is a sign of partial willing. Although one must recollect the meaning of the testimony of the senses before God can be learned, no accumulation of such knowledge will amount to or spontaneously convert to knowledge of God. The moment in which he is learned is God's gift. As it was possible for Meno to inquire into the nature of any of virtue's swarm by means of 70 recollection, so Augustine queries and ponders the created world while seeking its creator. In each case the seeker has a vague idea of the thing sought. Socrates explains this with his tale of the soul's previous visits to mortality. Augustine offers us the idea of a happy life which is a placeholder. Recollectable and desired, the idea whets the appetite for The True Happy Life since each desire satisfied only inflames a brighter successor. In this way the happy life we seek in the senses' pleasures is sought like a thing forgotten: we are restless, something is wanting; we know to look for it in its absence and judge of the satisfactions found. However, nothing the senses or the mind offer will satisfy memory, the desires' keeper, for the thing sought, the truly happy life, discloses itself only to a humbled heart whose provenance is the unified will. Toward this disclosure the head of the soul guides us through false joys by means of the desire it tends, accepting no substitutes, unassuaged by the offerings of the outer man. Information gleaned about God from the world induces an ordering of ourselves, a collecting of our wits and wills in preparation for seeing what no ready willingness on our part can make appear. The search is a prelude, initiatory. Augustine's is a God who hides himself; the seeker must wait for revelation of the face behind the veil of the idea of the happy life in his memory. When recognition occurs it is recognized as a gift, as grace. Muscular exertions of will are of no avail, necessary but insufficient exercises. Socrates declared virtue to be the gods' gift to the virtuous; learning God is God's gift to those who deem knowledge of him sweeter than honey. What does Augustine tell us about the experience of . learning God? God called, shouted, and burst his deafness. He flashed, shone, and scattered his blindness. Afterwards, he sees "Thou wert within and I abroad. Thou wert with me but I was not with Thee." God was present but unknown. Where did Augustine find him? "Place there is none." The no place in which God is learned is like the some place in which God was with Augustine all along: the will shapes it. This place is created in a moment during which the previously incomplete will is aligned by a whole-hearted desire to know God. Then God makes his presence known, enables Augustine to note in retrospect God's abiding with him. He understands that the unresolved image from unresolved will had obscured his vision. Whereas the "miserable and ill-fated" of the Meno become so through ignorance of the nature of · the good, for Augustine knowing is not enough: one must wholly will the good. Unfortunately it is as Pogo announced: we have met the enemy and they are us. "The mind conunands the mind, its own self, to will and yet-- i t does not." (p. 165) This, says Augustine, who knows whereof he speaks, is monstrousness. A healing of this split, however momentary, is accomplished in the moment of learning God. Having learned God, Augustine, like the slave-boy of the Meno, is humbled, recognizing the extent of what he does not know, and smitten with desire to know more. Augustine's passion is greater than when he sought surcease of desire plunging amid fair forms; touched by God, he burns for his peace. The two-ness of the mind, its ability to resist its own command, its guardianship of a lost thing which can't be found, thus leading the head of the soul on to the true object of its search, all recall and deepen Augustine's amazement at the varied identities and uses of memory. I-the-mind, the inner man, head of the soul, image in memory, rememberer, chamber wherein image meets rememberer and thoughts upon that meeting--and upon all else that has crossed his mind: this is memory. To what end is memory made multifaceted? How are what conceives and what marks that conception related? It is possible to dismiss Augustine's perplexity as the effusiveness of a hobbyist or scholasticism. On the other hand, we may avail ourselves of an opportunity to recollect, bidding our souls god-speed. Thus to give 71 �Augustine's peculiar and alarming metaphors their due--which is to say, consider them rather than remark on them as distasteful conceits, startling but essentially decorative figures --may yield some insight into his attempt to reduce a conundrum to a figure of accessible wonder. If Christ were understood to be head of the mystical body all share, whose body all comprise; and if, in order so to share, one -must crown the ,inner man king and declare him judge; and if that inner man were understood to have a spiritual body like Christ's, comprising and made in his image (once removed or twice projected, as you will), then it is not surprising that the soul, identified as the inner man, should have a head, that memory should be at its head, nor that the scattered mate7ials of concepts-to-be should be found in a lodging suitable for One whose concepts, in fact, are being. As Christ is mankind's connection to God, so is memory the inner man 's : in an upper room God "has builded a sanctuary", designing to take a room in our spacious palace for his residence. Thus memory is, for the inner-man-which- is-I-the-mind, the head of that mind--the mind's mind, as it were, a truly inner sanctum, a room with a view to an end: love of God. This purposiveness of memory's activities taken as a whole, its finai cause, ·is a paradigm for the curious teleological character of that constituent function, conception. Memory's semblance to packrat's den would puzzle the admirer of nature's famous economy were it not understood that its vast inventory is potentiality earmarked for its bearer's actuality, for Augustine's benefit in his search for The Happy ~ife. God will use all heaven and earth outside and all of that within memory to turn the inner man toward him, to incline his ear--in other words, to push him to · make that effort to unify inner and outer man (also known as mortifying the flesh)--in preparation for God's bursting that ear's deafness. That we have memory is a sign that this hearing, learning God, is the true nature and end of human life, just as perplexity indicated obstruction of the recollecting soul's complete knowledge. Therefore, Memory as the stuff of self, than which nothing is nearer to us, without which we cannot so much as name ourselves , is the stuff of epiphany. our sense of self, of character, personality, identity is developed gradually during the search for God, who reveals himself to whomever he will. Augustine says what he is and spe~ks truly in th~ light of God's self-disclosures, whether they be impending or accomplished. Memory is manifestation's medium. As certain hi the_ to unnoticed odds and ends in the memory unmarked except by r their destiny (which in this context is to say except by God) ~re fore - ordained to concept-hood, so the entire inventory is dedicated to fostering self- hood without which the inner man has no ear to hear. By means of this slug's trail of personal experience and pr~vate histor y , a n on- going col l ection of a ccumulat ed percept ion, thought, and emotion, . we ~hoose our next direction, next move. Decision, such as tha.t to be f!ee from the law of sin, is bound up with the will, with sense of self: with the understanding of identity in the context of human nature. This sense is developed in ~he interaction of a personal past and the present moment, which is made our own by vi~tue of our past's presence in it, in memory. Memory interprets "now" for us; dangling the carrot of our desire, it suffuses the present with our hope for the future· It's as if the slug's silver trail were each moment's expression of self, which, in memory's overview, marks a path with evidence visible only to the i ndividual, a more intimate earnest of "things unseen" than the testimony of heaven and. earth. In fact, .it is just this string of memories that makes their testimony audible; by means of it we have intercourse with the world . Interpenetration of past a nd present in memory's chamber is the process of making sense of what we encounter whose eventuality is the generation of self- identity and whose end is the encounte; with God . As we make our way, each moment, the self is sloughed, its abrasion by the present countered in its conversion into trail, to memory's entailment . 72 Memory is both marker of the way chosen and source of the trail, urging the pilgrim along toward an end obscure to him. This trail-blazing has the feel of a thing half-forgotten, vaguely familiar, almo::;t reco~nized: wending our way toward that which we desire, we travel a path whose origin is with us, in memory. Thus, its end moves as we do; arriving at the place of the desired we hear its call beyond us. we have displaced it. Hearing God's call to the soul, memory serves as a lamp unto the path, marking the last step and lighting the way for the next. Despite its attendant images of dim attic, dusty cabinet, dark cave and subterranean winding, memory is the light of the mind, for by it we are enabled to see what we have been, and thus to say what we are. By analogy to Christ's position as head of the mystical body and as the way to God , the "head the soul" seeks to make straight the way to knowledge of God . M emory, like Christ, stands as an interpreter, mediating between our experience in the world and the meaning of that experience. As an intercessor, memory seeks to bring these to an accord: the happy life is the life desired; the life desired is love of God. The soul is restless until rest is found in him. In this way memory serves as an augury of journey's end and a sign of kinship to God, to whom Augustine prayed at the outset of his undertaking, "Let me know thee as I am known." What might such knowledge be like? It would be comforting to believe that God's knowledge of us included a mindfulness of our memories. Melancholy it is to feel that when I die, my dear memories will be no more. No one else remembers them as I do, no one else has them, no one else can know them, no one else will be me when I am dead. The attitude toward death of the solicitous self is a peculiar poignancy, a protective regret that these memories--so long and hard in the making, so rich and complex and, now one thinks of it, quite wonderful--shouldn't be allowed to go on absorbing and furnishing the world. The indignation is King Lear' s at Cordelia's death: what! a horse, a dog have breath,. but my poor fool have none? We are attached to it, fond; we shall miss it, this memory of ours. But if God knows me, he must know my memories. Thus sorrow over their frail dependence on mortal us is changed in an inkling to joyful hope: all that I remember is with God, already is in God. Home is where the heart is; I am at home in my memories; my memories are remembered by God. My heart, my self, is kept a place in God's memory, a home in the house of many mansions. Nothing is lost. The world will be made whole. My memories are waiting there for my arrival, for me to claim them and be claimed by them at the joyful end of the race well run, with much exclamation and delighted reminiscence, mutual congratulation and grateful amusement: remember how I almost missed you? all become one voice--mine, identical with their sum total at last . source of restless wa nder ings and cove nant like the rainbow b ridging "head of the soul" and Godhead, portent of and guide to rest for the weary, memory is a beacon, calling soul home. What does it mean to experience one's life as a seeking in response to a call? Augustine peers back through time at himself, at his life, and pronounces, "I was ever restless until I found my rest in Thee." His conversion interpreted the meaning of memory's content. Stolen pear, Manichaeanism, Monica, Alypius, Ambrose--all are imbued in retrospect with the appearance of trial and error, with the urgency of search. A moment has occurred in which meaning became apparent. Like a golden thread shot through a dark fabric, ~ t traced a pattern, in-woven, of revelation's design. Its glint is recognized now in the remembered and recast darkness of which it was part. Conversion's hindsight sheds revealing light on events which now by reflection declare themselves: see? We, too, were with you all along. Previously unnoticed in the context of the present1 because discrete, not yet bound to like fiber in other moments, now this thread binds up and repairs the old garment of our days. Thus refurbished, our lives seem to fit, to have been made especially for us, here, now; and as we are. of 73 �This garment i~ fastidiously mended; each loss is restored by its incorporation into foil for that thread of gold. Past grief prepared Augustine for the moment of learning real joy. His painful searGh along a difficult w~y is redeemed by the understanding that the road was made dark and treacherous by the blemish in his own soul, by his not-altogether-willing will. In retrospect, pain is seen to have been a reminder of God's call, proof for Augustine of his fierce love. God was with him, turning his mis-steps back into· the right way, using his error to lead him to knowledge. Past joy is also reinterpreted; renamed sin, it is occasion for remorse, but as such, for present gratitude and praise for forgiveness and mercy. His actions were evidence of God's call, being befuddled responses thereto, and thus witness to his mercy. The fabric of his history is shot through with the meaning that flashed and shone when God scattered Augustine's blindness. Sight restored, loss is restored: he sees he is looked after. Every memory, every moment passed has been bound up into an infinite and all-redeeming Now. The world has spoken to the seeker in an intimate voice words most fit--full of his desire's satisfaction--for his very own ear. He has been known: all along some One has been noting, keeping track, waiting for him. It is like discovering we have always had a mother who loved us 1 only our own waywardness had kept us from full knowledge and actual experience of her loving presence. She was with us all along; it was we who were not with her. She, in our seeking her at all times and in all places, was within, while we floundered among her witnesses without. Now that we · have found her we are no longer lost. One moment's epiphany entailed adoption of orphan aimless moments passed, discovered to us their place and made them at home. These things were preparing a place for us, making straight the way at whose end we exclaim, Aha! This is who I was becoming! as we step into the waiting shoes which that loving Presence made ready. Safe, consoled, befriended, as one, we have learned the uses of the things of the world. we are at home. "I am I!" we say. Memory, trusty guide and interlocutor, enables the world to yield us a life that fits us. In the twinkling of an eye, meaning flashes, gathered from and reflected upon the darkness of the previous moment's ignorance. Its brilliance illuminates the present, and marks it as ours. I.t is recognized as the destination prepared for by all our days. It is a mirror. we see ourselves in this bright element. But what can we say about such a moment when it is not understood to be learning God, a gift whose acceptance marks us as God's own? What do we make of the event which yields reconciliation, solace, hints of home, but which is not identified as response to Augustine's God's call? Since this moment, referred to hereafter as the Moment, seems to point to "a bright scienza outside of ourselves" as did Augustine's creation when interrogated, it is natural for the Christian to ascribe to it evidence for Christianity. Since it initiates us into mystery, permits us to enter that element in which "we pronounce joy like a word of our own," we give it to religion. Since it allows us to become "erudite in happiness with nothing learned" we give it to the omniscient. Since it is a breath of safe-keeping, hearth and home awaiting us, we attribute it God, the Father. Certainly we know a grateful healing, a respite for the heavy laden, refreshment for those who hunger and thirst--a mending of what's ragged. Jesus' promise of rest and peace goes right to the weary heart, but can it relieve those who bear memory's burden and suffer its thirst? What would such relief mean for them? How would their understanding of the world and their relation to it be altered? Everyone lives with memory, with seeking and longing and loss; the experience of restoration is indeed a gift. Receiving it, we feel it has been given by one who knows our heart. our understanding of the uses of memory an.d hence of the things of the world determines our relation to the world. we can put it into the context of 74 Christianity, discovering its use as beacon and beacon's follower, God shining and us finding our way into and finding ourselves in that beam which we follow toward Him. What would our experience of seeking and finding reveal in another context? Baudelaire's ·"Le Cygne" offers us an opportunity to find out. Who has given us this knowing gift, self and the present wrapped in meaning? Who calls us, and to what end? "Andromaque, je pense a vousl" says Baudelaire as he walks through a city whose form has changed more quickly than his heart. His heart contains the city memory has built, .a citadel of the self. Therein the city through which he once walked is kept, taken into memory. He walks across the new Carrousel, and suddenly his fertile memory bears fruit. The river swelled by Andromache's tears, the mirror of her widowhood's grief, has made fecund Baudelaire's fertile memory. The present is made to point beyond itself--to something in Baudelaire. Remembering the old Carrousel, Baudelaire suffers one of the Moments. Andromache's grief has made Baudelaire's fruitful; the thought of her is the water bringing forth and preserved in the fruit. What nourishment, what refreshment does it contain? As Baudelaire crosses the new Carrousel he sees with his mind's eye that which is no more: the camp of booths, the shattered capitals, the hewn stones greened by their pools. The presence of the new place reminds him of the absent one, evokes "en 1' esprit" its presence as memory. An inventory of sights remembered is scanned by the mind's eye; among the confused bric-a-brac it comes upon the menagerie that used to sprawl over the tiles there. There he saw one morning, under clear and cold sky at the hour when Labor awakes, where streetsweepers raised in the silent air a somber hurricane of dust--a swan. Although the memory received and now recalls he~ter-skelter a record of time and place, light, weather, characters and activity, among these blue sky, dust cloud, waterless gutter and a swan bathing in dust stand out. The memory has marked these as self's own, capable now of speaking meaningfully to the beholder. Recognition has occurred. Memory, a Nathan who, like King David's, is no respecter of persons, has declared: that swan is you. The heart of the swan is full of his beautiful natal lake. In a dry and dusty place, waddling over pavement on webs meant to paddle, dragging white feathers over rough and broken ground, the swan bathes in dust by a gutter without water and addresses a blue sky: water, when will you rain down? The present provokes memory and exacerbates the pain of remembering. The lake remembered is no more. It is inaccessible to sense, no part of the outside world, yet present to mind. The lake carried in the heart cannot be entered, its waters cannot wash away the dust or refresh the parched throat except in this experience of longing for it, of suffering its loss. Because of the desert, the lake is recalled; the lake welling up in memory waters thirst, and "suckles grief," by incorporating, naming its own, those aspects of the present which need has marked--thus giving to us what we have of it, of solace. In this way identity is developed; the remembered and its elect in the present are bound up into self via need. The self in the present holds within it past selves and their passed presents. When something outside, something now present as an object to self touches what is held within as memory--as dust cloud touched the swan's lake--the remembered is brought to life in the present. This arousal is a claiming of the stuff of the self, identifying dust cloud as meaningful because related to and ordered by its natal place in the heart. Identification of self's objects as development of meaning allows the self to incorporate the outside, to "take it in". Identity is strengthened and its number of possible objects multiplied. Thus the swan speaks to its own, out of its full heart, when it addresses a blue sky clouded only by the streetsweepers' dust. The swan's posture of reproach is an attitude of need: I am full .of desire both because of the presence in my heart of this lake and for this lake no longer present and accessible in the WQrld precisely a 75 �...., because it is in my heart. The swan is stretched by the lake in the heart from dry ground to cloudless sky. Its presence come to life inside defines him as a figure of longing, impressed by the remembered from within and. shaped by its absence without. Begging a "-sky cruelly and ironically blue" for rain would be merely ridiculous were it not that from it alone relief is to be wrested. In his need for it the swan has all that he ever did and ever will have of it. This is ironic. He cannot help needing it; nor can he reach it. This is cruel. Need itself must blossom into all the recompense it requires. Only the cold clearness of blue sky can satisfy the thirsty swan; absence is made fruitful. This is the exile's sublimity. The swan remembered is present to Baudelaire as a vision by which he is transformed. The memory reveals meaning in the present; in this case the revelation catches up memory itself. No longer "La, je vis " , past tense, but here, now " Je vois ce malheureux, mythe etrange et fatal." The memory yields the vision of swan as exile, a strange and fatal sight: it bears like a contagion the revelation of identity. seeing the swan's exile, he sees his own. Memory has brought the sight; by witnessing, it as a thing seen in memory, by looking on it in the present, he is transformed into an exile. Remembering the swan has made him like the swan: he sees what is not there. An exile, Baudelaire sees what is in_ his heart. He sees the swan in front of the Louvre as one might see the child's features in the face of the mother. In this case those features are discovered to be one's own, become so through one's looking. This surely is a Greek swan, no doubt one of Zeus' bastards, mythic in its potency to reveal, fatal in its relation to us as ancestor perceptible only in retrospect. Its pattern, its story, its word, or muthos, is like Baudelaire's; it explains his present by impregnating a past moment with its image. Thus, as Yeats' account of Leda's "annunciation" has it, "burning Troy engendered there" is discerned (in the past rape) from the vantage of the present. This is a writing of history backwards, as must happen if it is to be made meaningful, using the present to give life and understanding to the past--in order to say what one is. The swan's presence in the new Carrousel is something like the presence of Zeus-as-swan in the new Troy of the false Simo is. It renders history as change allegorical, composing autobiography, an account not of discrepancies wrought by time' s march on the future, but of identities perceived in retrospect. Something past is built up by the present to be its own foundation. That is, what is real is what is remembered. The present is the mother, nurturing the past, "suckling grief". We discern the mother's features in the face of the child which is born of her labor, her flesh and blood. The only sight we have of her is in the face of her child. What we know of the present is that which elaborates and explicates the past. What we have of the present is whatever the past, inspired by memory, needs in order to live, but lacks. In other words, we have a present to call our own thanks to our character .as exiles. The present city becomes allegory, its new palaces, old neighborhoods, and scaffolding encounterable, comprehensible and thus assimilable only as they refer to the self, the more enduring city in the heart, built of "chers souvenirs" heavier than stone. Walking among them we touch, we taste and see; we carry off within us an effluence, an essence which lack and loss of them inspires. They yield to us their souls 1 at last we are with them . At last we know them. At last we are possessed of a world. Baudelaire in the new Carrousel like the swan in the old yearns for a past place in the heart. Baudelaire desires the place in which he saw the swan stretched by desire. Once there, in memory, he stands congruent with the swan and there understands: I am, like the swan, an exile, possessing by pain of its absence the past place and possessed of a self by virtue of this pain. He acquires a present by extension (like swan's neck} of need; need identifies self's objects, those ordained to make up self, by its arousal in their presence. Its objects are allegorical. What he 76 notices is what need points out. What he hears is what tells us about the past. Loss remembered identifies what belongs to self in the present. The present reveals the identity of the self by relating and furthering the meaning of the past. The world speaks to Baudelaire in rhymes of loss. The memory of the old carrousel contains an image of the rememberer and his loss. Now and Before are bridged by identity. swan and Baudelaire and exiles everywhere meet in memory on the banks of the river of tears they share. Baudelaire, then, like the swan is grieved andguided by the lost, by what is no more. Hearts full of a present which has dried like pressed flowers, they suffer loss's determination of the new moment's appropriation. Understandably the image of the swan is oppressive; he sees in its mad gestures his own. He, too, is.wrung ~y its relentless desire; the fullness in the heart evoked by th.e prese~t filling it with his need for what it cannot give him precisely because he needs it. His ?eed comes from within and can be satisfied only there. To set there, to come within a thing must be memory--which is experienced as desir~ for its lost state a7 Present. Need is our element, "O most miserable," the air we breathe. We thrive on ne~d. we have no choice; without our gnawer, our desire, we're as nothing. If not sublime and ridiculous exiles, we become apathetic nobodies, citizens of nowhere. Because Odysseus• identity was so strongly determined by his desire to see the day of his home-coming, he could afford to deceive the Cyclops by saying he was "no-man." Without a like desire we cannot say, I am, let alone what or who we are. Memory consigns us to a life of seeking, drives us to ask the present for what it has supplanted, whose absence it signifies. Need rises like a smoke, conflagration of desire sen~ing up sign~ls of our incongruence with the present, lake in the heart feeding the fire. This smoke's particles congealed and constellated cover the present, marking w~th an outline of our desire what is ours, bringing it to stand before us as- what is not here. The things that are here we have only by remembering, in their passing into our memories. Andromache, deine among exiles, is the form of the fruit of Baudelaire's recognition of self in the swan. His loss is swelled into fruition by their shared grief, a river that calls forth and keeps their tears. She is remembered as another for whom relation to and hence meaning in a new, changed city is informed by the internal gravity of a past not passed, an unbudgeable city of melancholy. The new Ca~rousel and the second Troy weigh upon those who hold within them their predecessors. Their external presence renders the memories they've vitalized insuperably private, inaccessible and inescapable. The remembered as present' s referent is source of tears; as present it is the power which bends Andromache into her ecstasy of grief. The sight of the second Simois is magnified by Andromache's tears. She sees in it both her reflection at the moment--"femme de Helenus"--and the context or support for that reflection, the first Troy, the true Simois, and the reflection's_ original--"veuve de Hector." The moment of ecstasy unifies these, wresting into agreement the forms of widow and wife. The "slower" heart suffers the impossibility of identity, the incongruence that memory, like the river, engenders and preserves. Andromache has become a "vil betail," a pack-anima. led from a fallen husband's l arms by the hand of his proud enemy. Stretched between the two men, between past and present, she is burdened with implacable desire for what was r~ndered past ~oo sc:>°n while bearing the weight of the present necessity. She carries her memories like burdens. The present carries its own weight, only weighing on us when and where we remember. Where we mark an absence within, there the present's touch becomes insupportable. Andromache bent before the empty tomb is like Baudelaire oppressed by the image of his great swan: each is the image of the image before which she or he bows. T~mb and swan become allegorical. Andromache holds memory within as the tomb holds its emptiness; each marks by its presence something absent. As the emptiness within and 77 �the space around it define the tomb, so Andromache is shaped by her intangible memories and the lack and absence to which they refer. The tomb is built out of memory's desire; so is Andromache. Each is present bearing witness to loss, full of what it does not hold. Andromache's posture, bent in tension between Hector and Helenus, burdened by the weight of airy present on the nothingness she carries within, is that of mediator, of exile, grounding memory with grief, watering herself with her tears. What the heart holds is what we have of the lost. The blow struck us by the reminder of its absence stirs its memory, working it to ripeness. This fruit' s succulence is the preservation and transformation of the tears that brought it forth. Tasted, it yields nourishment of knowledge, of fortified self-identity: by such fruits we know ourselves. Its flavor is bitter; it is ripened in the flaring of grief, solstice of that hot sun's season. For one terrible moment we are one in our longing with the longed-for. Very longing has blossomed into its own satisfaction, an "ecstasy of grief." The present is eclipsed by the ripe moment's flaming forth1 dark and cold it is as nothing for us, stirring no memory. Memory itself rises and swells in us to fill all the shape of our desire. Resolution of the internal and external bring them to bear as one on the self, removing us for an instant from the cycle of need-engendering need. The moment of remembering belongs neither to past nor present. For us it is timeless, bearing us outside of time. Remembered and rememberer meet transformed "en !'esprit." This moment of identification, the deepening and enlarging of self, restores an imbalance which is our natural state. Once passed it is felt to have concretized the present; the lost, so painfully present, are restored and re-stored with our experience of this restoration in memory. The moment's ripeness has burst, scattered and conduced outward~ back into the world of the present. Collapsed, the fruit sows the seeds of self, laying claim to what will grow to be self's own. Thus identification contains in the moment of identity with the remembered the transcendence of memory's pain as well as- the · seeds of pain's -source, of its offspring comprising the present regained. In this way Andromache's "Simois menteur" is strengthened; in its drinking of the present it is all the more p0tent to grieve us again. If the river as symbol of loss, as witness to and ·· evidence of the absence of the desired, is enlarged by her tears, so is the present in which it is so experienced. This is bitter fruit, but to be desired: the deeper the river the more fruitful the memory and hence, the richer the self and more meaningful the present. The Simois, then, however false, is not like a river of Dante's hell, encircling .a repetition, a fruitless imitation of living. On the contrary, the wider the river, the wider the array of self's objects in the present: more of the world is our own--in which to walk as an exile. memory's "blast of the horn" in the forest gives the lost soul direction--and punctuates distance, revealing the extent of the dark wood it wanders. our sense of self, of our relation to the world, is forged by such · memory-stirring blasts. When we hear this call we answer out of our experience, out of our identity which is never identical with what is present to it now, never belongs. The emaciated negress begging in the mud asks a wall of fog for the coco-palms of proud Africa·. The mind is helpless, desire puissant. Living in accord with the ponderous city in the heart, she is bound by its necessities. Where are you, desired? water, when will you rain down? we demand of the desert. Mad gestures--there is no help for it: this memory, this need, this voice is our own. Because we are given stones; we ask for bread. When we receive it we are bent and bowed like Andromache by such necessitous fare. Because the name the exile has for herself, her "I", was given her by people and places not there anymore, she suffers their claim on her present, unable and unwilling to be free of them: they are all she has of who she is. Shun them and the present collapses into unidentifiable rubble like the detritus of the old Carrousel, 78 building blocks without an architect's design. The old Carrousel's shattered capitals and crumbling stones were appropriated and restored by memory's "plan". They were needed to make sense and self of Now. The absent whom we need and desire re-invent for us the meanings and thus the uses of things, adjusting Now to meet Then. We are the malleable joint suffering the alignment only to prepare, by our presence, its going awry once more. we "tettons la Douleur", suckle grief. were Andromache to forget Hector immediately upon his death, the painfully perfect fit of her days would be altered. we know the lost through memory's suffusion of the form of its absence, by nursing grief until it grows to press upon the shape of its absence held in memory, holding us tight against its absence in the world around. Like the tomb, we are sculpted by loss. We bear the imprint of the desired. we bear its likeness. Remembered and rememberer meet. This burden of so coming together as to be alike is memory's fruit. This is longing's recompense and the communion of exiles. such painful accord cannot undo loss, yet on it the future world depends: it builds up of these accords self and self's world. Time's erosion itself gives us the stuff of a world. Consuming our souls in the coming together of Then and Now, breathing a smoky future, we are formed by memory's immense store of debris, by the accrual through memory of the ashes of the lost. Baudelaire's thought passes from the swan to Andromache to the Negress and on to all who have lost what can never ever be found, who water themselves with tears, suckling Grief like a good she-wolf. Paris changes, his melancholy remains. The changing external city is, in a sense, the timeless if not the eternal1 outside of us, it is outside of our time. When we mother grief, we acquire through time the personal experience that mingles the times and places of the external with ourselves. The city memory holds is mortared by identity. Once the present is so enjoined, its material claimed--this is my present--then the presents past in memory go to work on it, hewing and chiseling and joining, making it in their image. The external city, unalloyed with time, at large, not yet part of ourselves, wears away the already-fashioned. Memory harnesses this erosion, turning it to its use, using it to fashion self. we stand remembering between this erosion coming against us and the inertia of the past which, if left isolated and fixed in its grief, would not yield an "I" who can make sense of Now, thereby claiming it. Memory mediates between these forces whose interplay determines the development of identity. Thus we are strangely allied with time whose presence in our memories is their guarantor of ultimate obliteration, whose advent as portended by arousal of desire is accomplished in the search to satisfy it. we depend on memory to make time's constructs real, accepting the unweildy present with hands guided by time passed, always seeking to accomplish what desire pre-figured and time proposed: homecoming. we are given an inhospitable present; in it we find no chair familiar with our figure. In fact, we discover here the inexorable eraser of all our imprints. Memory goes before us to e'ncounter the present on our behalf, to save a seat and warm a chair. Memory is Proust's angel custom, making a habitable room of the world. But while we are given this present, we are denied the past as equally present, though present it is to us, in memory. There its comfort of the accustomed is beyond our immediate need to be held; we can't sit in the memory of that old chair. Nevertheless its presence in memory is understood as the subject of an imperative: go home! You go home, you who know and need this very chair, find it! Be one with itl so we seek it. we arrive homesick; homesickness is our native state, furnishing its native daughters and sons with homegrown amenities as souvenirs: melancholy, longing, lonesomeness--our inalienable suitcases. Our native land exists in our experience of the breach and lapse, discord and distance between the city in the heart and that city through whose heart we pass seeking it. 79 �sailors forgotten on an island, captives, the conquered--all are hailed with an old Memory's "plein scuffle du cor." All answer to the name of exile, flock to Memory's summons, as do "bien d'autres encore." Not only those who live with great loss held by memory's terrible fidelity, but any who seek to make sense of their present while grieved because they cannot touch their desired, come to be numbered among the company of exiles. The hero seeking to embrace the underworld's shade wraps his arms around himself--foolish gesture, mad gesture, the exile's fraternal greeting. They are brothers to grief and related by it to others so related. The oddly anti-climactic "an many others, as well" at the poem's end is like the failing echoes of the horn's blast among the trees. Memory's transcendent moment, the moment of the exile's "kinship", subsides into the ebb and flow of longing, into isolation. The roll call of exiles begun by Baudelaire's particular grief fades from individual, to group, to revery's all-embracing melancholy, its "pauvre et triste" mirror. He is again, as he began, alone. Who then calls us? Memory calls us. Memory gives us to ourselves. Memory leads us into a valley of shades where we come into the presence of the lost • . In memory's court where we are changed by grief at its loss into its likeness we become one with its memory. we instill into it our breath of life and it gives us in return our human life.. Praise and thanksgiving are compounded with grief and reproach. Their ally, the exactest element for us, is Andromache's ecstasy of grief, a conversion not . of sorrow into joy, but of joy and sorrow into an "I" unconstrained by time's narrow file, a self who knows and is known--as an exile. What is lost holds us, with its knowing arms, in an embrace of the absent, the company of exiles. What we had and knew in a time passed is truly known and possessed when we are possessed of and by its memory. We suffer the thing we seek to know. Recalling it, we become like it, transformed by this memory's presence in our present, we know it , as knowing us: it has come in response to our need for it. It has come to assuage · our sorrow at its absence. It has come in answer to a summons written in grief from what has taken its place. It delivers us from a welter of presence, unmarked as Mine, interpreting for us its unintelligible formless address. The remembered arranges and orders that hodge-podge, mediates between the woven "I" and the stuff of experience, incorporating the undiscerned design of the moment, binding up with our monogram the wound its summoner has opened in the flawless flatness of Now. Not memory as fact, as noun, as word referring to incident or to sight, but the activity of remembering, capitalized and old, sower of seeds which in us bloom into memories, calls us. It is a power, a source. We are patterned by it. It is an activity. we participate in it, making it our own in the ecstasy of grief. we are struck with passion; its touch sparks desire. It is an activity like thinking on thinking, an inexplicable going round, a spiraling which entails us: we are moved by it. we remembering, partake of its moving, the past recollected inspired, collecting and breathing life into the present whose second coming as memory initiates what is for us its real life and continues our resurrection. Each memory thus redeemed furthers our ascension to the outside-time and no-place wherein we stand one with our longing, and congruent with the figure of our losses. We raise, remembrance by remembrance, a body of self-knowledge into its unfigured garment, a waiting air. Baudelaire's understanding of memory does, then, hint of a completion, a wholeness to be attained, just as it did for Augustine. Something is watching over, waiting for us; why else this longing, this search? How else should the world speak words meet and fit for us? Even without the meaning-giving "speech", the resolution of fragments into a pattern-casting leaded glass of the Moment, the fact of our longing proposes to us the existence of a grail probably holy. That there is a lost thing we seek, something we remember we have forgotten says to us faith is being kept: the memory will not forget us; we are engraved on the palms of its hands. It has slipped our minds, 80 this word on the tip of the tongue, but it will wait for us. So habitual is the attitude, we forget it is that of searching. our days are tinged with apparently native desire, aroused when we stray into the presence of the desired. The thing itself beckons, urges us. We say, No, not this, unable to say what it would be. we feel drawn; we follow; arriving, we sight it elsewhere. It is in our memory, it has become of what has been and yet we turn to face it as though it is yet to be, to be discovered at once, complete and whole. It is what we have of our living. It seems, thus, to be "not-I" , outside of ourselves. We hear its call in the things of the world, but cannot discover the caller there. In this way the things of the world point beyond themselves. For Baudelaire, too, a kind of outer self gathers the mundane material from which the inner gleans, gathering not evidence of, but the unseen itself--the stuff of self. The outer notes the details of the Carrousels prompted by the inner' s longing. The inner is the seeker, sifting the wealth brought before it by the outer, for mementos of the desired. In each case the Moment gives access to a deeply inner self secretly wrought in the room of our days, whose continuity--recognized existence--is at once surprise and confirmation, "an agreement provoked by surprise". All along we have sought; only we are surprised to see what it is that we sought. In the moment of "Aha" is "Yes, here it is" and "What? Is this it?" "This" feels somehow familiar. The inner self senses in the things of this world the presence of it lost, which are at once its progeny and its self-to-be. The memory of the swan belonged to Baudelaire; he had seen it. The memory was one of self's brood, but was held captive in the new Carrousel. That in the new Carrousel which touched on the swan hidden there was claimed by memory to belong. Chance released it. Chance revealed it. Exiles, sublime and ridiculous, are "idiotai", idiots, answering voices only they hear, recovering property that exists only when they are touched by it. They hold their hands before them like sleepwalkers; what is theirs must 'touch them. When stwnbling in the waking world upon last night's dream, we know a quickening. On the verse of recollection, a sense of wonder transforms us. We enter for a moment that element compounded of instantaneous participation in the dream with the present touchstone yielding it, thus displacing memory and bestowing a wondrous buoyancy on the present. The inner self senses this compound's presence, living in a perpetual state of advent. Always it listens, absent-mindedly heeding, turning toward--toward what? What moved it? It may happen that we discover what called us. This feels like grace. This feels like redemption. We feel, for a moment, that we have arrived at a lucidity which raises us, effortlessly. An alignment, a resolution of attention yields an atmosphere of vast transparency. we sense mystery, privy to intimations of a world made whole. Disparate events, tergiversating, have eschewed time's rank and file to lie superimposed, revealing as would transparencies, outlines of correspondence. The thing sought and revealed in the Moment is identified through and identifies the self. The "souls" of those the self has lost, imprisoned in objects, can call it because they share a name. The recognition of this kinship affirms the self and its place in the world. We feel as if two fingers touch, reaching from this world to another whose existence longing suggested and recognition confirms. In this Moment our past is caught up and shown to have spoken the words whose meaning we apprehend now. Our comprehension results in a rapture; we are raised above time, lifted out of ourselves. We feel we have, by participation in something larger than us, learned who we are. There is a knowing, and we are part of it and in these Moments we have access to that knowing and hence to· ourselves. Thus we discover what we have desired and what our desire makes us. This, too, recalls Augustine. How do I say what I am? I seek to discover what I love. In the Moment, identity is discovered as a particular relation to the world. Recognition of identity is portentous; its revelation determines the uses of and re- 81 �lation to the things of the world. Thus the Moment's activity is world-making. In its raising us above time, allowing its interpretation to insinuate itself retrospectively, claiming past events as its emissaries, it is ahistorical and proposes that we, too, are properly more akin to the spiral than to the line. Its meanings spread backwards in a wave, obliterating cause and effect, washing from effect over cause. In the Moment we can see that all those precedents, those causes were this moment; they just happened to be scattered. Something about our presence, something in our nature keeps us from always seeing them wholly recollected, but we have the sense that there is a place where memories gathered meet as one with the rememberer. Recollection is the paradigm. The whole world is memory's treasure-house. Memory gathers up the multifarious outside, extrudes it through self and grounds it in a Larger Than Self. Augustine read the sequence in the opposite order. One God through his people, created in his image, works to deliver--to create--a kingdom of heaven. All creation groans in this labor of turning the inside, Christ's kingdom in our hearts--out. Thus the Christian's relation to the mystical body will determine the uses of the things of this world. Baudelaire interprets the sequence in another way, emphasizing our kinship with the "lesser" creation. Nature is a temple wherein we encounter symbols that look at us and do so familiarly, "avec des regards f amiliers." Here the puppets dance of their own accord in the playroom by night. We may on occasion dance to their melancholy tune, which we're apt to hum, absent-mindedly, while crossing the new Carrousel. we are one of them and all together, taken as one, we in our whirligigs, dervish-like, find revealed in ourselves the figure of a larger, yet like, dance. The things of the world act on us. Because of our presence among them we are swept up into the dance. They speak to us; because their speech is familiar, if confused, we can answer their · overtures. It happens on occasion that we feel they answer to us: for an instant we correspond. Deep and twilit, the Larger-Than-I is unveiled. Through suffering them and being moved by these things we develop identity and a sense of infinite. The very fact that the poets of actuality are outside of us supposes that they are kin to us, will be bound into the final cause, the shape of self to come. They correspond to something within us1 we in turn answer to something in the Larger-Than-I toward which we live. Augustine dismisses the things in favor of the God they bring. They are throw-aways, career emissaries not properly lovable in themselves. our kinship with God is stressed; strengthening this binding tie is the work determining the uses of things. Thus love of music for the pleasure it gives is suppressed; the words' kinship to The Word and music's place as an adjunct to worship are stressed. Baudelaire, on the other hand, counters that what the senses bring to us is bound up in our experience of the infinite. Sense is not a vehicle abandoned at its destination, but is integral to the destination. There is in us sense which answers to color, sound, taste and touch1 and mind, or "l'esprit". In Augustine's view, the former are poor relations, black sheep to be avoided if one would claim inheritance in God's kingdom. For Baudelaire, sense and mind are a desirable continuum, whose inseparability is the source of their transport which the sense of the infinite sings. Each man would claim that the unity of inner and outer precedes the Moment, but for Augustine such accord is understood to be the inner man's conquest of the outer, whereas for Baudelaire each realm is heightened, overflowing bounds to intermingle. Baudelaire is not troubled by Augustine's pause wherein the complete will awaits God's visit. As sense and mind are a continuum so is their transcendence. Augustine's moment of helplessness and humility during which he waits for God is the source of his memory's transformation. Its emptiness, its need, are the perfect receptacle for God's presence. Only its pain is fit to hold true joy; thus past occasions of grief are filled with joy. The finding of the lost requires the submersion of their absence in God's presence. What was dear is denounced by Augustine in order to widen the gap between inner and outer man, drawing inner nearer to God. Memory's grief is still, as for Baudelaire, the source of identity, but it is grief at sin, at offending and thus distancing himself from God. Grief over his loss of his mistress is drowned in joy of loving God. Some part of this joy is remorse at having dallied elsewhere, confused by less fair forms. The moment of conversion inhales . not only all moments past to mark them with its reinterpretation but exhales interpretations of the moments which follow it. This is the working out of self. The capitalized--Travail, Douleur, Souvenir--in "Le Cygne" are present in Augustine's Confessions of what he is. In the pause before conversion they are stilled, stopped. The inner has vanquished the outer. Learning God, Augustine learns new uses for them. They deepen the rift between inner and outer. They split asunder what they had bound together, in order to bind anew. Whether in Augustine's or Baudelaire's view, we are in the middle. Mysterious longing is our lot. We mediate between Then and To Come, between the made and the being made, outside and in, between many things and one, happy life and Happy Life. The inner man's body is a middle term1 memory as the head of the soul is closest to their home, that head from which all souls flow. Through "un vieux Souvenir" the exile approaches home remembered; as its call fades his vision fades; he is lost in the wood once again. Being thus in the middle we affect what we see. We see ourselves in what we look at. The inner man finds evidence of the inner man's existence. If the world points beyond itself, saying not we but he made us, it points in our direction. To see beyond ourselves we have to see through ourselves. When the world points, we are part of . the vision indicated, for we are part of the pointing world. The witness to a Presence, allusion to One, is like our shadow; our own presence as an integrated and integrating one among the world's manifold casts it. A sun shines in the moment of looking; when looking recognizes its shadow then it feels the sun. Andromache sees its glint on her river mirror; in its flash she sees herself, heart full of Hector and Troy, reflected in the present of the second Simois; Andromache in the river and Andromache on its bank are brought together. The sun is here is with her; she knows it in that moment. Correspondence of self in the world, its shadow there, with the inner self who hears its voice and understands its speech yields a sense of an encompassing presence. From the private and particular, from the intimacy of a world which observes us with familiar looks, we are caught up into a sense of infinite things. The world has known this; it is the knowing temple, the portal and dwelling place of this Moment. we have been called into its presence by name. Because the world is kin, we make sense of its speech: it speaks with our voice syllables of accord, sounded by our presence and revealing our nam'e . 82 83 A CONCLUSION OR TWO we all make ourselves at home in the world by means of memory's mediation . Among us are those whose memory holds for them a reminder of another mediator who, by sharing in our memories, shares in memories' uses. This memory in the flesh is a friend. The Shakespeare of sonnets 29 and 30 was one possessed of such a friend. The friend sympathizes as "deaf heaven" is troubled with "bootless cries." His presence belies utter disgrace "with Fortune and men's eyes": here is one who loves me, who holds me in his regard1 this is great good fortune. All-alone-weepings of outcast states are transformed by the happenstantial thought of the friend's acceptance of us �1 and presence in our lives, thus enfranchising and offering access to conununity. As one who knows us, sharing in our memories, mindful of our needs and hopes, the friend grounds us in the present, in an outer changeable world. The friend is a bridge to a familiar world whose presence there enables us to see ourselves at home in it. Memory's grief is converted by the remembrance of the friend. When the remembrance of things past alienates us from the present, eclipsing it, remembering the friend restores the lost, clearing a way back to the present. In the thought of the friend, our grief catches on something external, refers us to someone who, u~like those who people memory, is not-us and is part of the present. The need born of memory is diverted and no longer gnaws at us; from a solitary descent inward, we are restored to a footing in the populous present. The friend grants restoration by remembering us. Relieving our woe in the absence of those who knew us, whom we love and in the remembered presence of those who hurt us, the friend's knowledge of and care for us brings solace: we are not alone. we who remember are remembered; memory's burden is shared. The existence of the friend affirms and sustains our own loss-riddled existence. Augustine, after learning God, had a permanent friend. His friend said, I will never forget you; his friend's immortality gave his words unconunon weight. His friend said, I am always with you, even to the end of the world. Augustine's friend knew his heart, for he made it. His disappointments and sorrows were shared with Christ who promised rest and peace for the troubled and heavy-laden. His happiness was magnified by his friendship with the God he knew to be the source of every joy. Friendship with this never-failing friend transformed the memory of his solitary seeking, revealing in them his friend's benificent presence. With him, the world which had been rendered two-faced by the split in the pilgrim's soul appeared whole. Befriended loss and being lost are seen to be questions of perspective. The finding of the lost sinner "finds out" all his losses, transforming their relation to him through memory' s transformation. Once he is found, Augustine' s "lost" are found. The press of memories can never oppress by their presence. They have been, along with Augustine, restored in an eternal present. Augustine's memory is grounded beyond this world, in his God. In the Happy Life there is no real loss. For the friends of Augustine's God, this world is not a vale, but a veil of tears. Behind it is the face of a permanent friend. Augustine never walks alone. Baudelaire, as he crosses the new Carrousel, is quite alone--with the company of his memories. Only he bears them. Their oppression widens the rift between the city within and that without, strengthening the inner with pain come of the outer until it swells in an access of grief into access to the company of exiles. Memory's grief is Baudelaire's "dear friend"; his "chers souvenirs ••• plus lourds que des roes" abide with him, grounding him in grief itself--in the river to which all exiles' tears are tributary. Every exile has a friend in that river wherein he, like Andromache, sees his other self. Exiles are friends not with one another but with their grief. Thus a.11 are related by this common friend in a fellowship entered into always and only "en l'esprit." such a friend does not share in and keep one's personal memories, but preserves them tr an sf ormed and sublime as "Souvenir." A memory recalled led Baudelaire to Andromache's Siioois; the memory of an exile led him to the exile's "home." Andromache remembered and no citizen of the new Paris led him through his old Carrousel to the bank of the river where exiles weep. For Baudelaire, loss is inalienable and its character indelible. No transformation or realignment of the soul through a friend's presence alters loss' s form or meaning. Loss itself, intransigent and untransfigured, leads him to memory where the exile's friend is found. Loss here is not restored but deepened. Its "unpublished virtue" runs deep in the cleft between present and past. The friend recalled and God's presence revealed lead, like Ariadne's thread, out of the maze of memory back 84 into the light of day. Baudelaire's friend is found in the heart of the maze1 through his grief, enlarging and elaborating its intricacy, he reaches the no-place wherein he finds its river. There the remembered presses upon the rememberer its likeness. Through this "Travail" life is re-stored and restored to memory. Baudelaire enters into the exile's communion: he is one with his memory. The friend Proust seeks is himself. An unknown Proust is hidden in a morsel of tea-steeped cake. Trying its taste, he savors himself. He is his own "dear friend" the encounter with whom in memory's chamber effects a strange restoration. "What is nearer to me than myself?" asked Augustine. Madeleine and cup of tea come between Proust and Proust; matter intrudes, recalcitrant matter. Proust is a god who hides himself and seeks himself in cups of tea and the smell of varnish. He· is an outer man and an inner; the outer reveals what the inner hides. Were all the faithful smells and tastes of things relieved of the burden of "their vast structure of recollection," Proust to Proust would be utterly restored. I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognized their voice the spell is broken. we have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life. And so it is with our own past. It is a labor in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object {in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die. (p. 34) Recognizing the voice of the little lost Proust of Sunday mornings at Combray, Proust is filled with a "gaiety that is being," that element "in which we pronounce joy like a word of our own." No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, with no suggestion of its origin • . And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory--this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence1 or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? (p. 34) A genie of vapor freed from madeleine and tea, Proust past welcomes Proust home. AN APOLOGIA Proust is my cup of tea. By that I mean two things. His "overture" to swann's way was my chosen essay subject 1 reading it recalled to me my feeling for the momenta like his with tea and madeleine, and served as occasion for one of my own. Out of my 85 �reading and thinking and remembering in preparation fc;:>r my attempt, this paper, sprang into being. Thus, you have had before you its recalcitrant vapor, outwardly Proustless, and now arrive at its genius, the cup of tea: And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or fo:an, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on color. and distinctive shape, become flowers, or houses or people, pe:ananent and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings , taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea. Bibliography Augustine; Confessions, Everyman's Library, Dent/Dutton Plato1 ~, trans. Jowett; Liberal Arts Press Baudelaire, Charlesi Le Fleurs du Mal, Garnier-Flammariol Proust, Marcel; Du Cote de Chez Swann, trans. Moncrieff, Random House Stevens, Wallace1 The Palm at the End of the Mind, Vintage 86 �.. Non-Profit Org. BULK RATE U. S. POSTAGE PAID St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 PERMIT No. 120 ANNAPOLIS, MD. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. i, 86 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fink, Gabriell (Co-Editor) Macfarland, Joseph C. Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Fall 1985 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Fall 1985. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Fall 1985 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/7df35c7ec2e3de6f39901fea1ac2724d.pdf 3296f22b600aad80e603074a933bd214 PDF Text Text FALL, 1986 �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. it ... vou svepysta ~wit ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) COVER: Evole by Patricia Dawson Linoleum Block Staff: Talke Breuer Carlos Chamberlin Axel Christensen Patricia Dawson Meetra Doorandish Barbara Gesiakowski Stacy Grimes Steve Jackson Rena Kuntavanish Sarah Waters Co-Editors: Laurie Cooper Joe Macfarland Faculty Advisor: Jonathon Tuck Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published three times a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis and Sante Fe. The Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community-essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Note: A brief description of the author accompanies all work not by current St. John's students. Please include some such statement along with your submission. Thank you. �Corrigenda for The Jacobson Cut by Henry Higuera (Spring 1986) I. Subs tan ti ve. 1. p. 29 1. 8 from bottom: reads "EN:OW .. NO:OT"; ti EN: ow : : NT : OT II should read • 2. p. 30 1. 10: reads "l.GEG=LFED"; should read "LGED=LFEG". 3. p. 31 11. 12-13: reads "EHG NHM"; should read "l.EHG(L.NHM". 4. p. 31 1. 14: should read reads "LEHN<LENH" "LEH~<L.ENH" 5. 6. II. Note 5 1. 1: reads "sq.A: sq. B A:C" should read "sq.A: sq. B)A:C" Note 5 1. 3: reads "A:B and A:C" "A:B and B:C" should r~ad Minor 1. Angle signs missing at p. 29 11. 15, 16, 19, Note 2 11. 2,3, N. 3 1. 2, N. 4 11. 2, 3. 2. Triangle sign missing at N. 4 1. 4. 3. p. 31 1. 7 from bottom: reads . " ... sq. EH rect .)GE, HN ... " should read " ... sq. EH)rect. GE,HN ... " �CONTENTS "THE PLAY' S THE THING ... " (Hamlet II. ii) VISION AND ACTION IN KING LEAR Celeste DiNucci ANNUAL FRESHMAN ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) THE ETHICAL VALUE OF JUSTICE IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC Christopher Storr 6 ASK NEWTON Jana Giles 21 ANNUAL SOPHOMORE ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) "MAN IS DIRECTED TO GOD AS AN END WHICH SURPASSES THE GRASP OF REASON" Dan Touey 23 LIMELIGHT: THE STORY OF A BALLERINA AND A CLOWN -CHAPLIN Carlos Chamberlin 32 ANNUAL SENIOR ESSAY - HONORABLE MENTION (ANNAPOLIS) RIPENESS IS ALL Renee Bergland 34 TO MOLLY IN AUGUST 1986 David Walter 54 ANNUAL SOPHOMORE ESSAY - HONORABLE MENTION (ANNAPOLIS) AN EXAMINATION OF ARISTOTELIAN AWARENESS Fawn Trigg 55 THE STEEDS OF HIPPOLYTOS Andrew Grablewski 62 ON READING W.H. AUDEN'S AFTER READING A CHILD'S GUIDE TO MODERN PHYSICS. TOO LATE FOR HIM TO ANSWER James Beall 69 CYCAD IA James Beall 70 1 �"The Play' s the Thing ... " (Hamlet II.ii) Vision and Action in King Lear Celeste DiNucci Being a perfonner--I do not make the claim with any grave intent, neither am I interested in appending that I am either bad or good, it is simply what I do-- the reading of plays has always been for me a slightly different endeavor than the reading of other forms of literature. Henceforth, I cannot help but approach a play as something meant to be seen and heard, but what I am faced with is the written word. It looks pretty much the same as most other pieces of literature. For the most part, it even reads the same: the character designations are not to be heard in our heads any less than an identifying proper noun in direct discourse, and it would be difficult to claim that we envision a stage direction any more vividly than a descriptive passage in prose . But somewhere in this ~anuscript I know that I want to find the element that makes it necessary that a play be a play. Something in this work must make it appropriate only as a piece of performance art. But a play does exist on paper, and, as can be said of literature in general, a careful reading of a play usually serves to reinforce and clarify our first impression, that is, the sense that we, as an audience, get from a performance. Indeed, we would expect no less from those whose business it is to produce the perfonnance : impromptu perfonnances are fine, but we expect that there is something to be found within a careful reading of a play that should be known by a director or an actor . But is the job of the performer simply to derive this kind of sense from the paper and display it to the audience, to "give voice" to the poetry of a play? Does the theater merely make "spectacle" out of "literature"? This question recurred to me most pointedly in coming to know Shakespeare's King Lear. My first reading of the play was a slow, careful study . Any impulse to flip back, to reread, to note and trace themes backwards and forwards was given free rein. The upshot was that I was simply baffled. It wasn't that there was a lack of themes put forth and developed: quite the contrary, the abundance of themes in the play seemed frighteningly inexhaustible as the variety and number of volumes published on Lear strikingly testify. The same thing is as true of the characters as of the plot : many interpretations are available, and all seem plausible and justifiable in terms of the text; but no single one offers itself as most satisfying, and consequently none is quite satisfactory . In short, it seemed that in this play could be found everything, but what I, as a reader, was left with was nothing. Take, for example, the character of Cordelia . How was I to read her words in the first scene? Her fi rst speech, "Wha_ shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent" t could not exactly be taken as a simple statement of intention, as she neither remains silent, nor when she speaks does she verbally spout gushing love. I did not know whether to cheer Cordelia--af ter all, I think that the reader is put off by Lear's contest just as Cordelia must be--or to be horrified at the coldness of her words, which in themselves could be interpreted as running the gamut from meekness to cruelty. What's more, the subsequent scenes did not afford any greater clue . That Cordelia really loves Lear becomes clear, but whether this first scene is motivated by petulance or by a clear vision that simply seeks to set her beloved father straight seemed to be an arbitrary choice . Her protest of "No cause, no cause" in IV .vii could be an expression o f guilt at her own willfulness or the gentle comfort 1 �I think this is true , but its importance lies in understanding what exactly the nat u r e o f t h i s unint e lligibility is . The humani t y o f t he c h a r a c ters i s a t t his poi nt not in question : their motives may be hidden , but we do not find them unbelievable . We still want the play, through a filling out and clar i fy ing of Lea r 's char acter , to show us what makes this bizarre contest and all of Lear's subsequent actions necessary as a consequence of what he is . Instead, we are discomfited to find that the play is full of futility, not lessons learned; full of deepening ambi guities, rather than movement toward a clarity of the position each character holds in the play , in their world, and in relation to one another . By III . ii , Lear doesn't know whether this storm be his ally, nature's right destruction of "ingrateful Man", or his enemy, the "servile ministers" of "two per nicious daughters" , and neither do we know on whose side nature lies, and who it is who acts unnaturally. Our attempt to judge Goneril and Regan begins to seem as futile as Lear's trial of them in III. vi, since we do not know Lear any better than he himself does (I.iv, 1.227) . This play is moving away from resolution, and we begin to have an uncomfortable feeling that if we are to get the sort of answers we were looking for, either we are in for a very long evening or else nothing short of a deus ex machina will do. But there are no gods here. Shakespeare has left us with only human beings . Still we do have them: as the play becomes less clear through its words, it becomes more accessible and more believable. We are not baffled by King Lear because the characters become wooden and lifeless; on the contrary, their actions are as extr eme as the extremity of their circumstances calls for . Neither does this extremism seem unbelievable : there is no lack of dramatic exigency . What baffles us is that the play doesn't make sense at the same time that it acquires its most convincing reality . And so we are left denying and accepting in the same moment : it is as we see the wholeness of these characters that we are able to deny their words . It is here that we are forced to begin surrendering the comforting belief that what we are witnessing is merely spoken poetry. No amount of careful reading can give us an indication of why we are affected in this way . It is as we have witnessed the play unfolding in time that we admit to its believability, and as we search the text for e x tended metaphor and juxtaposition . And so, we are faced with the question : if it is not the poetic or thematic integrity of this play that makes it believable, what is it? What became apparent to me is that Shakespeare has somehow managed to put his command of poetry into the service o f the immediacy peculiar to a play . In othe r words , here the content and f orm do not simply reflect one another, as in the common device of wor ds doing what they say found often in poetry . More than this, in putting this poetry into the mouths of human characters -- in making these wor ds t h e unpr emeditated speech, not of me re allegories or symbols, but of characters we recognize as be ing human a n d whole --we see and e xpe r ience these words as whole or active t ruths. Content and form are no longer distinguishable as they once were : the words become an act , and t he question of their truth or falsity becomes that of t he clear e xp r ession o f charac t e r. These people , ind eed , mean what they say . This i s what makes the reading of mo s t plays sensible; this is how a performance can convey the sense t hat we find in the reading of the play . But what makes King Le ar stand out as a play i s that he r e, instead of a complicity of poetry and character, we have a dic h o tomy. Shakespeare has invested Lear's character with n o lack o f huma nity, but ne i the r ha s he abandoned his powe r ful treatment of what makes Lear' s characte r with no lack of humanity , but neither has he abandoned his powerful u s e o f wo r ds ! It is th i s that allows for the successful treatment of what makes Lear' s unint el ligibility nonetheless believable : his madness . It is the character t h at remains intact, not the speech; and as Lear's character is revealed in all of his madness and humanity, his words , by their very nature , can only run on and in among themselves . The poetry has created the character, and yet the very stuff of which the cha racter is made , the poetr y , is belied b y the believability it has invested in the characte r. In IV . vi, we are finally able to hear Lear's words, not as offensively nonsensical , but rather as a pitiful expression of his madness, as much as the flowers with which he has bedecked himself . It is only when Lear's words reach the point of utter intelligibility that his character has attained all of the contours of deepest humanity . Still, I was not quite satisfied with this understanding of how King Lear somehow failed a s a piece of literatur e and succeeded as a play . It seemed that what 2 3 of a teacher who realizes she has proferred a lesson her pupil is not ready for. She was only one of the many characters whose words could be interpreted in any numbe r of ways, and the text seemed no help in directing my choice . Still, even in the midst of all this aimlessness, my abiding faith in Shakespeare was not betrayed. That is, I had a sense that King Lear did not fail as a play. Through closer scrutiny, I did not see these characters become contrivances, but rather I became mystified by them just as I become mystified through the closer knowledge of someone I haq previously formed an opinion about . As Kenneth Muir states, in the introduction to the Arden edi tion of the play, concerning the characters seemingly inexplicable actions: Indeed, a certain mystery in the characters prevents them from becoming mechanical, just as in real life we can classify our acquaintances, not our friends. The play had not yielded up its secrets under close examination, and yet I believed in its believability. This was a start. What had become apparent was that reading the play as literature was, in the end, fruitless. Somehow, the sense of believability that I gained from the play did not seem to lie here on the page -- that is , the endeavor to find a sense of the play in this way began to appear to me as wallowing in the beauty, elegance, and mystery of the words . I began to realize that, in order to gain an understanding of what made King Lear viable, a different approach was required: to suspend my reading of the play as poetry, and instead to engage in the reading of it as a tacit performance . It is, after all, in performance that a play becomes a play, and therefore only there that a real evaluation of its effectiveness could begin . And so the question became : what could the distinction between poetry and performance possibly mean? What are the limitations of the written word in preserving a play? The actions, the development of the plot, and even the rhythm of the speech are all preserved here on the page, in the poetry . But, though a performance obviously cannot be viewed as entirely distinct from what is written on the paper, the object became to understand how the play became di f ferent when it utilized that element peculiar to the literary form of "play" : immediacy . This element had to be explored, not by reading carefully, but by "watching" . And so the stage is set, the houselights go down, the actors enter, and the play commences . What do we, as an audience, see and hear? Professor Allardyce Nicoll, in his Studies in Shakespeare (1927), states: Shakespeare has left us with something which simply cannot be tolerated on the stage, for to find an e xplanation of Lear's decision and demeanor in this first scene , we need to know the subsequent developments of the plot : by themselves they are simply unintelligible . .. �ensured the success of the play was that the audience was not at leisure to judge Lear's acts in the way that a reader is: to see them as selfish, or foolish; to weigh the senselessness and the necessity; even to admire Lear's actions, or to seek to learn from them as though he were a tragic hero. Somehow, the need for that sort of decision became irrelevant. Something was accomplished in this conversion of words to acts that was not merely simple believability. The question of what makes seeing these words as acts important began to reveal itself not in the examination of the meaning they acquire but rather in what this sort of seeing makes possible . Words as meaning can elicit criticism or agreement, appreciation or denial. It is only when the words become an act that they can elicit a response outside of this reasonable judgement. Words as acts can elicit act. What literature demands of us is comprehension; a play, on the other hand , can only require apprehension. Seeing a play requires , not that all of our critical faculties be on the alert, but rather that our vision be clear so that our action (or perhaps more appropriately our reaction) can be clear and true . Literature, if it seeks to accomplish something outside of reasonable judgement, can only do this through undermining · that judgement; if it wants to be incisive in this way, it can only succeed through being subversive. But since it is vision and action that belong to a play, what is subversive when it is read as literature becomes the thing that creates its success as a play: trust . I am wary of being too explicit about the term "trust" f or the simple re ason that I would like to retain all of the allusions and all of the depth associated with it in everyday speech . What I would like to emphasize by using it, however, is the idea that understanding can be brought about necessarily even when language is not the medium used to elicit this understanding . When words as acts do not coincide with other acts other words, or perhaps gestures, or even simple character attributes, such as gender or age (Lear's babbling like a child, for instance) - we can have the sense that the character is being false or ironic, or that the character is simply not able to say what he needs to say . And when what needs to be conveyed is something which by its nature cannot be said, this un - saying need not destroy the character speaking: the act of un-saying can elicit the act of understanding in the spectator through the immediacy of the theater. In King Lear, Shakespeare has utilized the immediacy inherent in a play, and the trust it creates, to successfully treat of that most impossible of themes, madness, without making it either humorous or impossible to watch. In a strange way then King Lear becomes a play about trust, not as a theme, but as an act. When our trust is claimed, all questions of judging Lear's character have been left behind. The play has shown us about trust through act and in doing so has shown us something about trust that no piece of literature could accomplish. Trust has not been presented to us; instead, we have engaged in it . Through the use of its own temporali ty, the play has stripped us of the premeditation that could only destroy trust and has instead given us trust as act reflecting act . We have surrendered reason, and it is only this that has enabled us to reflect act with act and so create the trust that the play is about. What belongs to a play that does not belong to a book is that which is created only through vision and action: trust . This trust becomes all but invisible when it reinforces comprehension. But when a playwright treats of other themes--themes outside of comprehension, such as madness, or perhaps love -- this trust becomes necessary and whole unto itself . That King Lear is a play that is successful in its treatment of madness is what makes it impossible to read! That Lear is impossible to read is what brings to light this special claim of the form of "play" . After all of this discovery, then, I returned to my original question, but in a new way. No longer was I concerned with how exactly a play differed from other forms of literature. The question now became how the play might be seen as a form of literature at al 1. Literature, through beauty and reason, or perhaps through the denial of these, may hold a very special place in relation to the reader and may create a clarity within us. Theater, through vision and action, may enable us to be fully where we are, at least for the duration of the performance. To be fully where we are can only be learned in practice though ; and if the theater can , even for a moment, leave us bereft of the need to deny what we know or construct what we do not, then that experience can change our lives. Literature may be able to show us what we are, but perhaps the beauty of the theater is to show us that not knowing what we are is no excuse for not being what we are. 4 5 �The Ethical Value of Justice in Plato's Republic Christopher Sturr 1 In the beginning of Book II of Plato's Republic , Glaucon uses strong words in reference to Socrates' dialogue with Thrasymachus which took place in Book I. Glaucon says , "Socrates, do you want to seem to have persuaded us, or truly to have persuaded us, that it is in every way better to be just than unjust?" "I would choose to persuade you truly, I said, if it were up to me." "Well, then," he said, "you're not doing what you want ." (357ab) After some questioning of Socrates by Glaucon, Socrates continues "I, for my part, suppose," I said, "that it [justice] belongs to the finest kind [of goods] , which the man who is going to be blessed should like both for itself and for what comes out of it . " "Well, that's not the opinion of the many , " he said , "rather it [justice] seems to belong to the form of drudgery , which should be practiced for the sake of wages and the reputation that comes from opinion; but all by itself it should be fled from as something hard . " "I know this is the popular opinion, " I said, "and a while ago justice, taken as being such , was blamed by Th r asymachus while injustice was praised . But I , as it seems , am a poor learner . " "Come now," he said, "hear me too , and see if you still have the same opinion. For it looks to me as though Thrasymachus, like a snake , has been charmed more quickly than he should have been; yet to my way of thinking, there was still no p r oof about either. For I desire to hear what each is and what power it has all alone by itself when it is in the soul -- dismissing its wages and its consequences . " (358ab) Glaucon complains that since the popular conception is that justice is bad and dis advantageous on its own, he constantly hears a r guments against justice, whereas "the argument on behalf of justice -- I've yet to hear from anyone as I want it." (358d) . He goes on to restore Thrasymachus' argument , speaking " in vehement praise of the unjus~ life" (358d), in order to induce Socrates to refute his arguments, and to show that Justice is good and injustice is bad . It is disturbing to hear justice blamed and injustice praised by Glaucon and Thrasymachus, yet their arguments seem difficult to refute . On the one hand, they are constantly heard, as Glaucon points out . What is more, they appeal to impulses that everyone has, and perhaps cannot completely get away _rom . On the other hand, f the arguments go against many forces that form the basis of our actions: parental, religious, and legal authority, senses of responsibility or obligation for things beyond ourselves, the 'Golden Rule', and so on. In a discussion in which what is at stake is a way of life, as Socrates points out (344e) , such conf L.ct of ideas in one's mind is indeed disconcerting. I, like Glaucon, want to hear an adequate argument for justice and against injustice. I want to understand exactly what the position Thrasymachus takes entails and how one could go about refuting it. I propose to examine Socrates' dialogue with Thrasymachus in order to understand the nature of the dilemma, and analyze the dialogue and its arguments to see how one might refute Thrasymachus. The dialogue between Socrates and Thrasymachus can be divided into three stages which correspond roughly to three assertions about justice advanced by Thrasymachus and Socrates' apparent refutations of these assertions. In the first stage Thrasymachus defines justice as the advantage of the stronger; in the second he says that justice is someone else's advantage, whereas injustice is one's own advantage; in the third he asserts that the unjust life is superior to the just life. I will briefly outline the dialogue and then treat the arguments from each side separately. Polemarchus defines justice as "helping friends and injuring enemies." (332b). Thrasymachus is dissatisfied with Socrates' apparent refutation of this definition. He advances his own definition of justice: "the advantage of the stronger." (338c). Socrates uses three lines of argument against this first definition. · First, he claims not to know what Thrasymachus means by "the stronger", asking whether he means those who are physically stronger, such as wrestlers. Thrasymachus clarifies himself by saying that by the "stronger" he means the ruling group. His reasoning: ruling groups everywhere set down laws which are advantageous for them, and say that the laws are just for the people who are ruled; therefore, what is just is advantageous for the ruling group. Next, Socrates points out an apparent contradiction in the definition . Implicit in Thrasymachus' reasoning is that it is just for subjects to obey the laws of the rulers. It is also just for them to do what is advantageous for the rulers. Yet Thrasymachus agrees that rulers are capable of erring, i.e. of making laws that are disadvantageous for them. So it appears that it may be just for subjects to do what is disadvantageous for the rulers -- whence the contradiction. Thrasymachus escapes the contradiction by asserting that rulers, insofar as they are rulers, do not err, in fact. In his third criticism of Thrasymachus' first definition, Socrates says that the ruler insofar as he is a ruler (using Thrasymachus' expression) does not consider his own advantage . His evidence is that the arts seek the advantage not of themselves, but of that of which they are arts . So just as a doctor considers not his own advantage but the advantage of the sick, the ruler, insofar as he is a ruler, considers not his own advantage, but that of those he rules . Thrasymachus responds to · this reasoning by offering his second definition of justice . To counter Socrates' assertion, he cites the example of the shepherd. The shepherd, in caring for the sheep, looks not to the good of the sheep, but to his own good, and to the good of his maste r. The ruler is the same way, and rather than look to the advantage of the subjects, he should look to his own, and 'fleece' them . From this analogy, Thrasymachus also gets the idea that justice , which characterizes Socrates' docto r, is someone else's advantage, whereas injustice, which characterizes Thrasymachus' shepherd, is one's own advantage . People who are incompletely unjust, such as petty criminals, are blamed, whereas those who are completely unjust are praised from all sides . Therefore, he concludes, injustice is "mightier, freer, and more masterful" than justice (344c) . In response to these assertions, Socrates draws a distinction between the normal arts and what he calls the "wage-earner's art" . Cr aftsmen who earn wages do not earn 6 7 �them as a benefit of their particular art, but as a benefit of the wage earner's art . If a craftsman works for nothing, he does not get the benefit of the wage-earner's art, but some benefit, the benefit peculiar to the art of which he is a craftsman, is produced. In this way, Socrates reasserts his belief that the ruler, insofar as he is a ruler, considers the advantage of the ruled, not his own. Talk of wages leads to the third part of the dialogue, which deals with the rel ative · merits of justice and injustice. Thrasymachus has asserted that the life of the unjust is superior to that of the just. Socrates and Glaucon are not persuaded . They decide to engage with Thrasymachus to discover whether what he say is so . They first discuss the relationship of justice with virtue and wisdom . After being ques tioned, Thrasymachus asserts that injustice is in the camp of virtue and wisdom, whereas justice is in the camp of vice and ignorance. As the dialogue evolves, it is deduced that in general the good and wise man tries to get the better only of those unlike him, whereas the bad and ignorant man tries to get the better of those both like and unlike him. Socrates points out ·that the just man tries to get the better only of the unjust, whereas the unjust man tries to get the better of everyone. From this it is concluded that the just man is good and wise, while the unjust man is bad and ignorant. Next, Socrates, Glaucon, and Thrasymachus discuss whether injustice might still be mightier than justice . Socrates makes several points : first, for one city to become stronger than another, it needs justice, since justice is wisdom . Second, the members of any group with a common enterprise must act justly toward one another to be successful, since injustice implants hatred and leads to faction. Third , just as injustice makes any group an enemy both to anyone around it and to itself, injustice makes a man not only unable to act, but also an enemy to others and to himself . Lastly, whereas the just man is a friend of the gods, who are just, the unjust man is the enemy of the gods . Finally, they discuss the life of the unjust man, and whether it might be happier than the life of the just man . Socrates points out that the work of the soul cannot be accomplished if the virtue of the soul is not present . Since justice is the virtue of the soul, and injustice is the vice, the just man lives well , and therefore happily , whereas the unjust man lives poorly , and therefore wretchedly. They conclude that justice has been shown to be more profitable than injustice. Socrates, like Glaucon in Book II, expresses his dissatisfaction with the dialogue with Thrasymachus : in Hades if he has been unjust . So he defines justice as "speaking the truth and giving back what one takes." (33ld) . Polemarchus refines his father's definition by citing the poet Simonides, who said that it is just to give what is owed to everyone. Polemarchus interprets this as meaning that it is just to help one's friends and harm one's enemies (332b) . Polemarchus later talks of justice as being useful in contracts and partnerships (333a). Later in the Republic, Socrates addresses the question of in what situations actions might be considered just or unjust : "--either concerning the acquisition of money, o r the care of the body , or something political, or concerning private contracts" (443e) . It seems that justice is spoken o f as concerning honesty and good faith in agreements, and respect of others ' property. In any case, the examples of situations in which questions of justice arise almost always have something to do with relations in a community . It makes sense that questions of justice should come up in the discussion of a pol~tical community . Aristotle has this to say about justice in the Nicomachean Ethics Ta Ta The noble Ka.A.a and the just a1Karn ), what are studied by p olitical science, have so much disagreement and variation as to seem to be by custom ( V01J£tl ) , and not by nature ( ¢G0El ) • (I , iii, 2-3) This is our dissatisfaction as well. A closer examination of the arguments in the dialogue may give us clues about the nature of the dilemma at hand. Even though justice remains undefined, we can understand from Book I what kind of thing is called justice, and what the attitudes toward it are. When Socrates asks Cephalus what the greatest benefit is from possessing great wealth, he says it is "not having to cheat or lie to any man against one's will" and being able to make sacrifices to the gods and repay one's depts (331b). This is how the discussion of justice is introduced. At Cephalus' age, he is afraid of the evil that may await him Such disagreement comes up in Book I of the Republic: Thrasymachus and Glaucon are suggesting, as Aristotle says, that justice is not by nature, but only by convention. The first book of the Republic seems at first to be concerned not with politics, but with ethics: the members of the dialogue are trying to decide o~the best way of life . But it seems significant that Aristotle's Ethics and Politics are so closely related to it. In the beginnings of each, Aristotle says that every human activity aims at some good. In the Politics, he adds that every group and therefore every city is instituted in order to attain some good . Aristotle also says in the Ethics that the aim of the study of politics is the highest good, o r happiness (I, iv, 1). The connection between ethical and political considerations is even closer in the Republic. The best way of life, which is sought in the first book of the Republic, is the one which obtains happiness. This clearly explains the coincident political nature of the Republic . The question at hand is, what role does a political good, justice have in the ethical consideration of obtaining this best way of life? Cephalus and Polemarchus profess to agree with Socrates that justice is necessary f or the good life. This fact may account for their differences o f opinion with Socrates about how justice should be defined . For although they differ greatly with Socrates about how one ought to act towards other people, they want to say that how they think people should act is the just way to act. For example, Polemarchus believes that one often needs to injure people, specifically one's enemies. Since he wants to say that one also needs to act justly, he must work his belief that one should injure othe rs into his definition of justice. This is where he comes into conflict with Socrates, and this illustrates how Socrates comes into conflict with political life as it operates in Athens. Thra symachus does not believe that justice is needed for happiness; in fact, he thinks that it hinders the pursuit of the good life. Ironically , this belief would make Thrasymachus less reluctant to agree on a definition of justice with Socrates in terms of a code of behavior towards other people: Thrasymachus w0uld not consider that code of behavior a good guide for how one ought to behave. So Polemarchus winces at excluding the injury of othe rs from a definition of justice because that would make his 'perfect man' -- the one who acts as Polemarchus thinks one should act -- unjust; Thrasymachus doesn't mind saying it is unjust to injure others because he 8 9 "Before finding out what we are considering at first -- what the just is -- I let go of that and pursued the consideration of whether it is vice and lack of learning, o r wisdom and virtue. And later, when in its turn an argument that injustice is more profitable than justice fell my way, I could not restrain myself from leaving the other and going after this one, so that now as a result of the discussion I know nothing. So long as I do not know what the just is, I shall hardly know whether it is a virtue or not, and whether the one who has it is unhappy or happy." (354c) �doesn't mind being called unjust. The positions of the interlocutors are analogous to those in the Gorgias . 4 Socrates speaks in that dialogue with Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles successively, about, among other things, justice . Polus accuses Gorgias, and later Callicles accuses Polu~ and Gorgi~s, .of being shamed by Socrates, and of not saying what they really believe about Justice . Callicles claims that by following their instinct for most o~ the argum~nt, a~d then be~ng shamed by Socrates and popular opinion to say something they don t believe, Gorgias and Polus were forced to contradict themselves (Gorgias, 482de). In a similar way, Thrasymachus could claim, Cephalus was made afraid by thoughts ~f H~des,. and Polemarchus was shamed by popular views about justice into saying that Justice is good. But the rest of their views contradict this . Callicles and Thrasymachus, on the other hand choose to be unintimidated by commonly held beliefs, rather than conclude that their original premises were wrong. Ironically, even though Callicles and Thrasymachus are more difficult to refute (if indeed they are ever refuted), their kind of interlocution is better, from a philosophic standpoint . If one thinks that their views are wrong, one is tempted to think that it is correct that they should be silenced by shame. But the philosophical pro~ess of dialectic, which seeks truth, requires that no premises, such as popular beliefs, be accepted on faith in such a way that they silence what could be investigated for truth or falsehood. So it is easier to determine that truth or falsehood of beliefs which, when presented, are unaffected by what others think, and therefore are not inconsistent with themselves. Callicles and Thrasymachus strive to put forward views of this kind. When Socrates , praising Callicles for not being ashamed and for speaking freely, tells him "not to slacken at all, so that it will really become clear how we should live" (Gorgias, 487ab, 492d, 494cd) , and when he urges Thrasymachus to stick to what he has said (Republic, 345b) and praises him for "speaki~g the truth as it seems to you" (348e - 349a), he is not sarcastic or mocking, as at first seems, but sincere . But Thrasymachus is equally justified in the restrictions he makes on Socrates. Thrasymachus requires that Socrates not define justice as "the needful, or the helpful , or the profitable, or the gainful , or the advantageous" (336d) . Socrates claims tha~ this restriction is unreasonable, and that Thrasymachus is forbidding him from saying what Thrasymachus knows Socrates thinks the definition of justice is . Actually, Thrasymachus is forbidding Socrates from expressing his p r econceived judgement about justice instead of defining it. The task should be, Thrasymachus seems to say, to define justice "clearly and precisely" (336d), and then to decide whether it is advantageous or good . This is exactly the point, quoted earlier, that Socrates makes at the end of Book I. Thrasymachus has his own ideas about justice which might be clearer if he would ~ot assume, _ as Socrates does, that justice is advantageous. He tries to express his ideas through his definitions of justice . Thrasymachus' words seem incoherent and contradictory at times. However, a sympathetic treatment of them which tries to un derstand "truth as he sees it" can reveal a coherent and plausible alternative to Socrates' assumption . The sense in which Thrasymachus refers to 'justice' in his definitions is unclear. When he defines justice as the "advantage of the stronger", Socrates rightly responds, "First I must learn what you mean, ... for, as it is, I don't yet understand· 338c) . Does Thrasymachus refer to what justice is, or how it is referred to, or how it should be described? Cleitophon and Polemarchus are equally confused about his meaning (340bc). Thrasymachus' explanation seems to say that justice is created by whatever laws those in power ('the stronger') put down for their own advantage. He seems to think this is appropriate . Yet in his second definition of justice, that it is someone else's advantage, he regards it as something to be avoided . Both definitions seem to express his point of view, but the second violates Thrasymachus' own restrictions on how justice can be defined. Glaucon's speech in Book II is just the kind of sympathetic treatment I referred to, and he cleans up some of the difficulties with Thrasymachus' definitions . Glaucon sets out his first task: "I' 11 tell what kind of thing they say justice is and where it comes from" (358c). According to Glaucon, the greatest good is doing injustice . Justice was established by the weak, who could not carry out injustice . Justice, then, is by convention ( v0µ~ ) alone . It is a compact of people, agree ing not to commit injustice to one another. The strongest men, who are able to commit injustice, would be mad to set down a compact agreeing to be just, because it clearly would not be to their advantage. Another problem understanding Thrasymachus' argument comes from his idea of a 'ruler', which is clearly different from Socrates'. Socrates speaks of the ruler as the person who has the job of ruling. He clearly thinks of ruling as an art . This is why he can compare the ruler's activities, which Thrasymachus says must work to his own advantage, to the practice of an art. If Thrasymachus thinks of a ruler not as an artisan, but as the person in a position of power, it is hardly fair to apply standards which apply to artisans to the ruler Thrasymachus speaks of, unless Socrates can show that this is not the nature of rulers. As it is, Socrates' definition of a ruler seems to be inherently linked with his ideas about justice , and both would be proved together. Just as a doctor is a p r actitioner of the art of caring for the bodies of others, the ruler is the practitioner of the art of caring for the souls of others . He is therefore a dispenser of justice, and does not consider his own advantage. Socrates chooses to view artisans as rulers of the objects of their arts . He also introduces the innovation of the wage-earner's art to explain what benefit artisans get from the practice of their art. If rulers are not as he assumes they are, but do consider their own advantage as Thrasymachus claims, then we get a more telling picture of Socrates' view of the arts. This view would explain, as Socrates' does not, why conflicts often arise between the motives of the wage-earner's art and the art which benefits others. No one hears 'we do it all for you' without some amount of skepticisns. In the Sophist , the Eleatic Stranger divides arts into two classes: the productive arts and the acquisitive arts (Sophist, 219ab) . In the Republic, Socrates mentions as examples only productive arts, except the wage -earner's art. Unlike Socrates' examples of art, the acquisitive arts are not creative or servicing, but are coercive. Socrates' view of the arts excludes consideration of these coercive arts. For example, it is hard to imagine that the hunter, the p r actitione r of an acquisitive art according to the Stranger, is a) the ruler of those he hunts, and b) one who looks to the benefit of those he hunts. This is the substance of Thrasymachus' shepherd example~ and clearly Thrasymachus' art of ruling must lie among the acquisitive arts. The innovation of the wage- earner's art is meant to show how just actions can coincide with personal benefit : if the artisan is just and looks to others' advantage, he himself is also benefitted by the wage-earner's art; if he is unjust, he is not benefitted by the wage-earner's art. Thrasymachus would say that this benefit is by convention, and his 'stronger man' is meant to illustrate the possibility that a man could be separate from the material consequences of his justice or injustice. Thrasymachus proposes that for this man, there is no advantage to justice and no disadvantage to injustice, after the conventional advantages and disadvantages have been taken away. Th~ material consequences of justice are what Thrasymachus and Glaucon want to call convention: laws and common views that label justice 'honorable'. So by pointing out that the 'stronger man might err', Socrates unwittingly avoids the 10 11 11 ( �view he should, and eventually does, defend: that justice is natural ( ¢UCTEl ) , and is naturally good. It seems to me a wrong way to argue against injustice to say that no one could ever execute it efficiently, because this still admits that if it could be done, it would be profitable. Glaucon' s Gyges ' ring story · gives a better illustration of this principle . Glaucon wants to know if justice is, as Socrates believes, a good in and of itself, not just for what it can get someone: "For I desire to hear what each [justice and injustice] is and what power it has all alone by itself when it is in the soul -dismissing its wages and its consequences." (358b) . The man wearing Gyges' ring of fers this opportunity . He "escapes the notice of all gods and humans", as Socrates later says (427d) , and so he does not have to worry about the material consequences of justice or injustice. Glaucon speculates that any man wearing the ring (presuming he would do exactly what is to his best advantage) would not bother with justice at all. Thrasymachus asserts not only that injustice is more advantageous than justice, but also that it is virtuous and wise. The difference between profit or advantage and what is fair or good, which Socrates emphasizes (348e), is unclear. He may want to point out the distinction which is made between what seems to be advantageous o r what is considered to be advantageous, and what is actually advantageous. In any case, Socrates makes his final challenges to Thrasymachus in response to these assertions. Socrates first gives an argument to show that justice is virtue and wisdom, drawn from a comparison between artisans and just and unjust men. He seems to assume, again, that artisans are unconcerned with justice and injustice, and that justice accompanies all forms of knowledge or expertise, by nature. In this, he presupposes that justice a) is associated with knowledge (what he is trying to show at the moment) and b) is natural (which is his fundamental point) . So, these presuppositions beg the question in more ways than one. The definition of justice still in question , that justice is someone else's advantage while injustice is one's own advantage, implies what Thrasymachus asserts about the goodness of justice . This definition clearly sets out the more specific question: Is others' advantage necessarily my own? When Socrates talks about people's actions in a group, he addresses this more specific question most directly. Socrates first tries to show that justice is necessary for a city to act (justly or unjustly). This is because his first argument supposedly shows that justice is wisdom, and so since wisdom is clearly needed for the city to act, so is justice. Thrasymachus says he doesn't doubt that first argument, the one that equates justice with wisdom and virtue . Socrates doesn't seem to, either . If he did think that he had adequately proven that justice is wisdom and virtue, then he wouldn't feel compelled to go on, as he does, and give arguments for why justice is mighty, and why the just man is happy. When Socrates gives the example of the group of people with a common goal, he is making two important assertions. First, he is asserting that the completely unjust group would be unsuccessful. If the group is completely unjust, besides having an unjust common purpose, its members would be unjust to one another. So the group would be unable to accomplish anything. Socrates' second, implied assertion is that justice is necessary for external order. Complete injustice in a group, we have said, includes injustice of each mem ber in the group towards every other . Order within the group is necessary for the group to accomplish anything, as Socrates first asserts. If we consider the group, then, injustice in any member of the group disrupts the internal order of the group by creating faction and hatred. If we consider one member of the group, his unjust actions disrupt the order outside of him, his external order. This point is evident from what has been understood from the beginning about how justice is spoken of: If justice concerns partnerships or agreements, or respecting others , then injustice in a person's actions ·clearly disrupts the order outside that person. We also accept this when we consider the fundamental questio~ of whether justice, a political good, is also an ethical good. F r om these assertions about what injustice accomplishes in groups, Socrates makes some conclusions about what it must accomplish in individuals "And when it is in one man, I suppose it will do the same thing which it naturally accomplishes. First, it will make him unable to act, because he is at faction and not of one mind with himself and, second, an enemy both to himself and to just men, won't it?"(352a) Just as complete injustice in the group disturbs external as well as internal order , so it does in the individual. Thrasymachus does not discern some errors in Socrates' reasoning; or, at least, he does not bother to challenge Socrates at this point in the dialogue . Socrates does not address whether a group could accomplish an unjust act while its members are just towards one another. This seems perfectly plausible, and a limitation of this sort would make Thrasymachus' view less ridiculous. Thrasymachus could argue that perhaps justice is a (slightly) limited good. Occasionally, the unjust person has to act justly towards others to accomplish his eventual advantage . This seems reasonable is we consider how Thrasymachus' view was compared to Polemarchus' earlier. Whereas Polemarchus believed in helping friends and hurting enemies, Thrasymachus saw no reason to help even friends. But if we consider the logical qualification now that Thrasymachus would in fact help others if it were to his ultimate advantage, the positions of the two do not seem so far apart . Thrasymachus and Polemarchus would probably have defined their 'friends' similarly. This also agrees with the earlier point that Polemarchus' and Thrasymachus' views of justice are not so far apart, but seem to be, since Polemarchus allows himself to be shamed by popular belief. Does the small addition of acting expediently in this way really detract from Thrasymachus' doctrine of selfishness in the way that Socrates implies it does? Actually, it seems to make it even more dangerous. Should it be called 'justice' when the unjust person, a member of an unjust group, acts justly toward others in the group in order that they might carry out the ultimately unjust acts? Just as Aristotle says that acting virtuously is virtue only if it is for the right reasons , acting justly should be called 'justice' only if it is for the right reasons. It seems, then, that there should be a distinction between enforced or expedient 'justice' and willful, enjoyable enactment of justice. And if Socrates wants to assert that justice is good, then he shouldn't admit that this former kind of justice is for the right reasons. So if this kind of action is not just, then.the person who acts that way the person who, like the members of the unjust group, acts justly toward others for his own benefit -- may still be Thrasymachus' completely unjust man. In fact, he seems to be the completely unjust man of whom Glaucon spoke (36lab) . He is even more formidable than the man who seems unjust, since he gives the appearance of being just and friendly toward others . Furthermore, Soc r ates very easily assumes that the individual and the group can be compared. He makes such comparisons throughout the Republic, as is seen when he compares the 'states' of the man's soul to various kinds of states. The facility with which Plato compares man and state may have something to do with his idea of the coincidence of the studies of ethics and politics. Here, Socrates shows that justice within the group is internal order and that it is needed to accomplish anything. he also shows that justice in the individual, as a member of ~ group, is necessary for 13 12 �his external order in the group, whether the group be a gang of thieves or society as a whole. He presumes that justice in the individual means internal order . By talking in this way about justice, he presupposes what he wants to prove, again -- that being just is advantageous, or virtuous; that it promotes the health of the soul. Socrates needs to show that what he calls justice in the soul is the same as the justice which rules a person's actions toward others. We have said that Socrates failed to recognize, or at least failed to mention , the possibility of a group with unjust goals, but internal order ~ We have observed that the 'justice' accounting for the order in the group which we have said is expedient may not deserve to be called justice at all . If the comparison can be made, the co rres~a~ ding individual would be one who is just to others, yet has an 'unjust' (if we use Socrates' term for 'unordered') soul. This is exactly the kind of person Thrasymachus suggests can exist. Socrates has not answered Thrasymachus' challenge, but he has silenced him. At first we thought Thrasymachus, like Callicles, spoke freely, and was not ashamed of popular belief. But we see that at 350d, when Socrates claims to have shown Thrasymachus' just man to be "unlearned and bad", Thrasymachus blushes. Thrasymachus, like Gorgias and Polus, is a rhetor, and ultimately concerned with appearing wise and good. The possibility that what Socrates implies may be true, and that Socrates understands this disconcerts him. Thrasymachus, too, as Glaucon says, "like a snake, has been charmed more quickly than he should have been ." (358b). Glaucon and Adeimantus take up_ the argument which Thrasymachus seems to have abandoned. The response which arises out of their challenge, when, in the beginning of Book II, they restore Thrasymachus' argument better than he probably could have, takes the form of the "city in speech". It takes its general idea from this last comparison of justice in the group and in the individual. The idea of studying a city to understand the nature of justice in the individual appears at 368e: "So then, perhaps there would be more justice in the bigger and it would be easier to observe closely . If you want, first we'll investigate what justice is like in the cities . Then we'll also go on to consider it in individuals, considering the likeness of the bigger in the idea of the littler?" After the city has been formed, Socrates calls upon the others to complete the search for justice and injustice and their natures : "In the next place , get y ourself an adequate light somewhere; and look yourself -- and call in your brother and Polemarchus and the others -- whether we can somehow see where the justice might be and where the injustice, in what they dif fer from one another, and which the man who's going to be happy must possess, whether it escapes the notice of all gods and humans or not." (427d) This is asserted again at 435a: "Then ", I said, " is that which one calls the same, whether it's bigger or smaller, unlike or like in that respect in which it's called the same?" "Like," he said . "Then the just man will not be any different from the just city with respect to the form itself of justice, but will be like it." "Yes", he said, "he will be like it." The city is supposed to be bigger than the man, but the same in form. So after the city has been formed, wherever justice is found in it, justice in the man might be found in the same place. What is more, justice may be of the same nature and may produce the same effects in the man as in the city. When Glaucon and Adeimantus begin the scrutiny of the city they have produced, they assume that if it has been correctly founded by them, then it must be perfectly good. Therefore, they conclude, it must be "wise, courageous, and just" (427e) . Again, it is easy to understand the 'goodness' of wisdom and courage for a city, i.e. how they are beneficial to it in every way, but it is questionable whether justice is necessarily good. Their conclusion, then, seems unfair. When they later equate injustice with "extreme evil - doing" (434a), they may be justified, however . They reason that an extreme evil - doing, something which would cause great harm to the city, would be for the members of one class to try to get into another class. Injustice is extreme evil-doing in the sense that it disturbs the internal order of the city, -;-s Socrates has affirmed. Therefore, they conclude, this must be injustice. Its opposite, minding one's own business , must be justice . This makes sense with our original understanding of what was being called 'justice'. They are cautious about the switch from consideration of the city to consideration of the man, and address it after they have defined justice in the city. (434d) : "If there are still any doubts in our soul," I said, "we could reassure ourselves completely by testing our justice in the light of the vulgar standards." "Which ones?" "For example, if, concerning this city and the man who by nature and training is like it, we were required to come to an agreement about whether, upon accepting a deposit of gold or silver, such a man would seem to be the one to filch it -- do you suppose anyone would suppose that he would be the man to do it and not rather those who are not such as he is?" "No one would," he said. "And as for temple robberies, thefts, and betrayals, either of comrades in private or cities in public, wouldn't this man be beyond them?" "Yes , he would be beyond them." "And, further, he would in no way whatsoever be faithless in oaths o r other agreements." "Of course not . '. ' Glaucon wants to believe that justice is good. He knows that the man he and the others have created is good, for he is their own . They simply presume that the man with the o rdered soul the parts of which act justly toward one another is just towards others as well. They go on to give other examples of injustice that their perfect man surely wou ldn ' t commit. Two points about this section: first, Socrates carefully qualifies his statements to cover all forms of injustice, in the appropriately limited sense that it must be understood in orde r for the Thrasymachan argument to make sense. He says that clearly this man won't do these injustices either to "comrades in private or cities in public". As we have said, Thrasymachus might well modify his ideas to allow justice to comrades in private. Socrates himself pointed out that in order for a So g r oup to carry out even an unjust act, the members must be just to one another. 14 15 �all would agree that one should be just to one's comrades in private . Socrates now asserts as well that this man would also necessarily be just to cities in public . This is much closer to the realm in question, the realm of the ruler. Thrasymachus believes that certain men, those who are able, should rule and benefit as much as they can from it. Second, Socrates sets the stage rheto rically for Glaucon and the · listeners to react in the way he wants them to. The "vulgar standards" (442e) are dgscribed by the word cpopT l dis , used of arguments to call them "vulgar" or "low". Socrates seems to imply rhetorically that the consideration of whether the internally ordered person might not also be externally just is hardly worth their time. They again reverse the association between acting justly and having a well - orde red soul at 444d, when they presume that the man who acts justly will also naturally have an ordered soul: "Then, in its turn," I said, "isn't to produce justice [by acting justly] to establish the parts of the soul in a relation of mastering, and being mastered by, one another that is according to nature, while to produce injustice is to establish a relation of ruling, and being ruled by, one another that is contrary to nature?" "Entirely so," he said. The comparison between health of the body and health of the soul is complete: acting justly produces justice , and if justice is the health of the soul, then acting justly naturally produces a relation of ruling in the parts of the soul which is healthy according to nature . They agree at 443b that their dream "has reached perfect fulfillment", and at 443c Socrates says, "And in truth justice was, as it seems, something of this sort; however, not with respect to a man's minding his external business, but with respect to what is within, with respect to what truly concerns him and his own. He doesn't let each part in him mind other people's business o r the three class es in the soul meddle with each other, but really sets his own house in good order and rules himself." We have seen that Socrates' words may not have adequately resolved the dilemma of whether what he says here is so. If we ask, however, what Plato's position is with regard to the ethica l value of justice, the answer is much less clear . First of all , the Republic is fuil of con t radicto r y ideas of justice -- Plato is clearly aware of t he difficulty of the dilemma at hand. For example, even though, as I have pointed out, Socrates does not dis cuss the possibility of an unjust group whose members are just towards one another, the republic Joe? have created is exactly this kind of group . The city has gone from being a "city of utmost necessity" (369d) to being one of luxury, or as Socrates puts it , from being healthy to being feverish ( 3 7 2e ) . To support these luxuries, the city would need an army of guardians to take lands away from neighbors since the land which would have formerly sustained the city would no longer be adequate . Clear ly, taking what belongs to others is not minding one's own business . It is unclear, then, whether this city is, as Socrates says at 427e, "wise, moderate, and just", as well as good. The guardians themselves present another difficulty. Far from being like the perfect man modeled after the city, the guardians are closer to Polemarchus' ideal 16 . man : they must be "gentle to their own and cruel [ xaA.sno65 ] to their enemies" (3 75c). This claim comes from the same Socrates who tells Polemarchus at 338d, "Nor is injuring, in fact, the work of good, but of its opposite." Similarly, descriptions of Thrasymachus indicate Plato's acknowledgement of the existence of people who can get things done through the unjust use of force . At 336b, for example, just after the mention of "men who have a high opinion of what they can do", Thrasymachus is compared to a wild beast as he flings himself into the discussion . Other such passages occur at 340d, 343a, and 344d. Thrasymachus is eventually subdued, in a way , but Callicles in the Gorgias off ers an even better ex ample . Not only does he hold his own in arguing against justice, but he may well be the best candidate for one who could carry out injustice completely. There seems to be a link between the ability to carry out injustice and the shamelessness in argument which Callicles shows, and the others lack in varying degrees . This link may be conscience. Plato, despite Socrates' rhetoric about justice, does not deny in his characterizations the possibility of people lacking conscience to certain degrees. To point out contradiction, however, is not to say that Plato does not have anything coherent to say about justice. Plato acknowledges the difficulty of the dilemma . He also presents evidence and ideas which can help the reader get closer to truth. The common views of political good -- justice -- and individual or ethical good -- happiness -- are such that they necessarily oppose one another . As Glaucon points out, justice is seen as something necessary for the . function of the state but undesirable in itself for the individual. Happiness and internal order, o r the 'good life', are thought to come chiefly with material things, pleasure, and power or honor, as Plato shows through the characters in his dialogues. As Callicles points out (Gorgias, 491e) a man who is enslaved at all by justice or temperance for example cannot be happy . If justice is defined as not trying to get the better of others materially but rather honoring agreements, and yet material betterment of the individual is necessary for happiness, then justice of necessity gets in the way of happiness. By revising the conceptions of the goals of a human being, the goals of a state, and the relati onship between human being and state, Plato resolves the tension be tween justice and happiness. As Aristotle does in his political treatise, Plato as serts the goal of the state to be the happiness· of its citizens. This is the substance of the argument that the ruler thinks not of his own benefit, but of the benefit of those he rules. This claim establishes a first like between ethics and politics. They both aim at the same thing. If humans are political by nature, they naturally need the companionship of other humans and organized association with them to attain happiness. Plato's view of human goals completes the connection between ethics and politics. If human goals are concerned not with external goods, but with internal perfection, then justice no longer interferes with the pursuit of those goals. Take again the e xample of Socrates' suggestion near the end of Book IV "And in truth justice was, as it seems, something of this sort; however, not with respect to a man's minding his external business, but with respect to what is within, with respect to what truly concerns him and his own . He doesn't let each part in him mind other people's business or the three classes in the soul meddle with each other, but really sets his own house in good order and rules himself; he arranges himself, becomes his own f r iend, and harmonizes the three parts, exactly like the three notes in a harmonic scale, lowest, highest and middle. And if there are some othe r parts in between, he binds them together and 17 �becomes entirely one from many, moderate and harmonized. Then and only then, he acts, if he does act in some way -- either con cerning the acquisition of many, or the care of the body , or something political, or concerning private contracts. In all these actions he believes and names a just and fine action one that preserves and helps to produce this condition, and wisdom the knowledge that supervises ·this action, while he believes and names an unjust action one that undoes this condition, and lack of learning, in its turn, the opinion that supervises ~his action." (443c) If "what truly concerns him and his own" is what is within a human being , then jus tice no longer interferes with happiness . Aristotle accordingly draws the distinction between good and bad kinds of selfishness . "Self- love" is a term of reproach for people when they assign to themselves the larger share of money , honors, or bodily pleasures; since these are the things which most men desire and set their hearts on as being the greates goods and which accordingly they complete with each other to obtain . (Nie . Eth, IX, viii, 4). Such competition necessitates injustice . The person who zealously competes to obtain the 'noble' TO KaA.6\J ) , that is , who seeks to perfect his soul, is still self-loving, but in a good way . Aristotle says (IX , viii, 6) , "he therefore who loves and indulges the dominant part of himself [Plato 's calculating part of the soul] is a lover of self in the fullest degree ." This person, moreover, does not need to interfere with others for his perfection . With such an unde rstanding of how happiness is obtained , the connection between politics and ethics can be completed . Not only is it not particularly advantageous to be unjust, as it was when happiness was thought to b e achieved through external goods, but it is particularly advantageous to be just . That the good of the individual as a member of society is equivalent to political good is a necessary consequence of man being a political animal. However, with this new conception of happi ness, Plato can assert also that the good of the individual as a human being is equivalent to political good . Justice, as Socrates says, is something internal . So political good, justice , is equated with ethical good , virtue , just as the concerns of politics and ethics were acknowledge to be the same . The problem remains of how these revisions should be viewed . At first it seemed as if the ethical value of justice could go either way . Justice could be thought of as good o r bad practice, with certain logical consequences following each choice . Glaucon and Thrasymachus presented a plausible alte r native to Socrates' assumption that justice is good . We have demonstrated that Socrates' answer to this alternative does not have the force of a deductive proof , and that this and may contradictions in the text continue to point out the difficulty of the delimma . Finally , it seems that notwithstanding his acknowledgement of the difficulty of the dilemma , Plato does give a coherent answer to t he dilemma. To ask how Plato's revisions should b e viewed is to ask what Plato's intent is in the answer these revisions form . The very least that Plato 's answer to the dilemma affords is an equally plausi ble alternative to Glaucon's picture and Thrasymachus ' view of the character of jus tice . But the insufficiency of this kind of answer induces us to search further . We have said that some, Glaucon and Adeimantus included, desire to hear justice praised and injustice blamed . Motives may be noble by Plato's standar ds and may come from, for example, a person who has been taught to seek perfection of his s oul and needs 18 some reassurance. They may be ignoble and may come from, for example, someone who wants a reason to be just, but would otherwise be inclined to Glaucon's belief that justice is simply a convention and should be avoided. Plato and Aristotle exaggerate the importance of the state, and so have to extol justice, without which the state cannot function, even more forcefully. The idea of justice in the Republic which Socrates presents is a logical and convincing account, elegant in its conception . It therefore provides a comfortable way to believe justice to be advantageous, for those who want to believe this. The myth at the end of the Gorgias fulfills a similar function. In a question of great importance and difficulty, where obvious proof is lacking, people naturally seek answers which rely on faith. Callicles alone, we remember, has been unconvinced by Socrates' assertions about justice and the just way of life . Socrates then de scribes Hades and judgement of souls after death. In Hades, souls are stripped o f the body . When he who judges souls views a soul stripped of its body, he can detect in it how just or unjust the person has been over the course of his life. Acts of injustice appear in the souls as scars or contortions. Souls which are found to have committed "ultimate injustices" (Gorgias, 525c) are incurable and must suffer vengeance in Hades for all times. Socrates addresses Callicles after offering this myth : "Now perhaps you think these things I've said are a tale, like an old wife's, and you despise them. And certainly it wouldn't be at all surprising to despise them, if we should search and somehow manage to find something better and truer. But, as it is, you see that the three of you who are wisest among the Greeks now, you and Polus and Gorgias -- you three can't man age to show that we should live any other life than this, which is shown to be profitable for there too . No; among so many arguments, when the others are being refuted, only this argument is stable -- that we must avoid doing injustice more than suffering it, and above all a man must practice not seeming good, but being good, in private and public life; if someone becomes evil in some way, he is to be punished, and this is the second good after being just -- to become just and pay justice in being punished." (527ab) The myth first of all confirms the fears of those who, like Cephalus, need a reason to be just, such as fear of Hades . But it also gives an account of damage which oc curs to the soul through injustice. That justice is the health of the soul is thereby made more believable . Plato knows that justice is necessary for political society, and therefore some "stable" argument for justice is needed, even if it requires faith. In the same way, the Republic argument will fulfill this function by satisfying a need for some believable . account. This is not to say that the philosophical value of the Republic is in any way diminished by this function. The thoughtful reader who seeks a kind of cognition higher than faith, that is, knowledge, about the ethical value of justice, is challenged. The form of the dialogue rhetorically and dramatically presents the re ader with different and conflicting ideas about justice, and evidence about the nature of justice. These ideas and evidence are the substance of the insight Plato has to offer on the ethical value of justice, and it is through them that the careful reader can come closer to knowledge of the truth. 19 �1 2 3 4 5 6 The Republic of Plato, trans . Allan Bloom, New York: Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham. Aristotle's Politics, trans. H. Rackham. Basic Books, 1968. Jana Giles (Loeb) Plato's Gorgias, trans. Terence Irwin, New York: Plato's Sophist, trans. Harold North Fowler. Greek- English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott . (Loeb) ask Newton Oxford, 1979. (Loeb) Curtains walk out from the windowa fan calling wind's steady sound outside sky's hazy stuffily sultry humid day my eyes pain in the glare somewher e a poet breeds word and soul f renzied, watching hairs glitter gold on his dark arm rubble rattles angrily at me as I kick it down the slope from its ancient broken home; roofless ghosts roam sometime it will stop, and forgive me . ask Newton : his head was dark though the prism cast long colored lights, bar red and striped grate - like . my ceiling is fish - scaled arcs s tolen f r om a goggle - eyed blue - brained damsel of the sea : she invited me to go dancing. Shall I scream and beat the eggs? (my blender keeps the tune) tonight, darling, / / we are having souffle, pit~, rose, Perrier and the Frobishers white lace, green money the dog peed on the rug again honey don't touch me I might scream my bites are mean you'll get gangrene 20 21 �I tittered as I walked Ha! the poet's editor smiled we walked arm in arm 'til the poppies and Noah's 40 days drowned me victim of an impossible jealous aching unending dream children weeping in the dust; a swollen moon lumbered red-faced across the horizon, raging nightmared sleep: in the hot tropical night anacondas wrap their cool supple waists around Yeats' steaming neck; he peeled pears beneath the moonlit mosquito net. Tell Dostoyev?ky the calico man is corning . 22 ''Man is Directed to God as an End Which Surpasses the Grasp of Reason'' Dan Touey . ' The first question of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica asks whether any discipline other than the philosophic ones, whose rule and domain is reason, is required by human beings. As the beginning of an inquiry it has special importance, and not in the sense that it deals with matters that must be taken care of before other, more vital questions can be answered. In the question and in the way Thomas chooses to answer it is implied the difficulty that may have induced him to undertake his work in the first place and that will determine the manner and content of most of the vital parts of it: the opposition of faith and reason. The positions of the Ob jections are these, that man should not seek things outside the domain of reason, since it is the only domain in which he can have any real certainty; and that the philosophical disciplines deal with everything that is, even God, so that any other discipline would be superfluous. Thomas answers by saying that "man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason." This first interchange is the true beginning of Aquinas' s work, and in it are implied the conflicts and questions with which it will be Thornas's onerous duty to deal. Thomas will not attempt to deal with faith fundamentally until the end of his work, and hence it may be wrong to juxtapose faith and reason explicitly in this incipient question. But when he does attempt some kind of definition of faith he says that it is an assent of the intellect to the divine truth at the command of the will, which has been endowed with grace, that is, moved by God. The intellect then, and how this term is actually employed in this context is not altogether clear, must in a sense be overcome for faith to occur. Here Thomas is saying that there are some things necessary for man to believe that the intellect, in itself, will not consent to; and that there is no such thing as an argument, or demonstration, that can lead one to believe the things that must be arrived at through faith. Reason does not require, like faith, that man overcome himself to accept what is true. With reason, we can say that things are apparent, that they simply are, and, to a certain extent, are undeniable. Oneof the reasons for this surety is that we can posit in man a certain faculty, reason, to which there are certain corresponding objects, or principles, that are immediately clear and true, or can be shown to be so by investigation. Therefore I can say that things that are equal to the same are equal to one another, and su6h a statement will be accepted by another because it appeals, in some way, to reason. The truth of this may be a question, but at least we can formulate such a faculty and its objects, and they or something like them seem consistent with the common nature of man. But I cannot posit such a faculty of faith; there is nothing in the intellect o r the consciousness of man that I can say the objects of faith correspond to. There is nothing in the nature of man that can move him to the kind of belief that is of faith; he must be moved by the intervention of God. And so in the Summa, though faith and reason are both ways of knowing what exists, of gaining knowledge, it is only with reason that we have a clear idea of how the process occurs. At least afterwards we can trace a construction of reason that seems to fit with our nature. This we cannot do with faith. So what is it that leads man, to whom reason is in a sense natural and easy, to faith, in which he must overcome what is natural to him essentially, the rational 23 �intellect, and what he cannot arrive at himself but must posit an outside influence, the grace of God, to receive? Why faith? Why isn't the argument of Objections one and two, Article one, Question one, of the Summa enough for Thomas? It seems that the first Objection is right in saying that ~houldn't go beyond the scope of his rea~o~ ~fter all;. and Objection two is correct in saying that Theology should only be a division of philosophy, as far as God can be treated in terms of reason . The most important point of Thomas's reply is that man is directed to God as his final end and that God is something that surpasses his reason . If the existence of God can b~ arrived at through reason, and some things can even be predicated of Him beyond the fact of His existence, as Thomas believes, then why can't man arrive at his end through hiE natural, communicable faculty and experience of reason? Why does Thomas assume from the beginning that God is beyond this faculty, which is the assumption upon which his reply to the first Objections, and hence his whole wor k, stands o r falls? Why isn't reason, in the context of the knowable, enough when the object of knowledge is God? I think that the answer to why this is so, or why it is so to a thinker like Thomas, can be answered by beginning with reason, and examining just what it is we can say with reason concerning the idea of God . This might, but not necessarily , lead us to the idea of faith, or some clue as to the need for the idea of faith. We hope to see what it is about reason that would leave open the room for the idea of faith. But it will not be the complete story; man's ways of understanding God in the context of reason are only one part of that understanding; eventually we will have to look at other aspects of the story . At times the things that follow about faith will merge with other considerations that make us think about faith, but at some point it seems that we must give up our grounding in reason as our reference entirely, and look at faith from a different point of view. Since reason is the ground upon which we choose to begin our attempt to understand faith, it is necessary to ask what can be said about God through our reason . The philosophic inquiry that treats of God, Aristotle's division of philosophy called theology, has its limitations set out by Thomas in Question twelve, Article twelve of the First Part. According to Thomas, God can be known by reason only in so far as he follows from some perception rooted in the senses . This is necessarily so because all thought has its beginning in sense- perception, and abstract thought is the deri vation of universals out of the always individual sense- perception and sense- object . So our rational understanding of God has its beginning in the sensory world. And our understanding of God in the rational sense will always be in the form of a cause . In the second article of Question two, Thomas says that there are two sorts of demonstration, the first in which we reason from a known cause to the effects of that cause, the second in which we reason from effects back to their proper cause. On t he surface, the two methods seem merely conversions of one another, to be different di rections of inquiry into the same process of cause and effect. They both seem to be ways of . proceeding from the known to the unknown and of making what was not evident evident. But it soon becomes clear that they are not different directions of the same process, nor do they achieve the same things . in their ends. When we know a cause or principle, something that is apparent to us and the truth of which can be agreed upon, then if we do accept it to be true, certain things follow from it. In fact, it is only then that we can call anything a caus e ; unt il we f ind that it di rectly leadsto or is in a certain sense responsible for certain conclusions. Then it is only an evident truth . In this sort of demonstration, both cause and effect are evident, known, and the work of the mind is not creative but receptive. The mind, in a sense, has only to follow what reason presents to it . In the case of reasoning from effects to cause, however, such an uncomplicated process does not appear. In reasoning from effect to cause, the process is only simple if the cause is already a thing known, although not known as cause . The establishment of the cause 24 • I and effect relationsh~p using effect as the starting point cannot be an epistemological method in the same way as when cause, or principle, is the beginning . In the latter case we know both cause and effect because we know cause but when we know only effect, we can only infer the need for cause and make a hypothesis for the nature of the cause form what we know of the effect, but not know the cause . In some sense, as Thomas says, the conclusion is implicit in, or a part of , the p r inciple . Because of that we can say that we know the conclusion because of our knowledge of the principle . But can it be said that the principle is implicit in the conclusion in the same way, or even at all? Thomas was fully aware, as evidenced in his own criticism of the method in Article twelve of Question twelve, that reasoning from effect to an unknown cause had its limitations . He said that in treating of God from the evidence of His effects , he could only establish the existence of God and what necessarily belonged to Hirn as a cause . That is, he knew that in this way he could never know God as a thing in itself . This is the most important criticism of the method, but our own may add a further insight. For it seems that not even the establishment of a cause that establishes existence, at least in the way that Thomas would like it, is possible . An examination of the method as it is actually employed might make the criticism more clear, and fortunately we have such an example in Thomas's own use of the method in Question two, Article three, where he uses it to demonstrate the existence of God . In all of his five ways of demonstrating the existence of God, Thomas's method is that suggested in Question twelve, Article twelve, of using knowledge gained from observation of the physical world and reasoning to a principle that accounts for the cause of these observations. He begins by asserting something about the world that he feels to be generally accepted as true, and from this he reasons to a point where the e x istence of God is a logical necessity according to the principles that were deemed evident to begin with. Of course, any reading of the five ways will show that thei~ smooth an~ simple argument does not rely wholly on the demands of pure reason, and is not a s simple as it reads . An examination of the first "more manifest way," the proof using motion, will probably be enough to get an idea of how Thomas goes about his effect- to- cause- proofs . At the r isk of oversimplifying Thomas' s argument, we will paraph r ase it here . He starts by asserting first that there is motion in the world, and second that nothing is in motion unless caused to be so by another thing in motion. All things in motion must have had a prior potentiality towards that motion. Since potenti~lity cannot actualize itself but must be made so by a thing already in actuality, then each motion can be said to have an immediate antecedent cause of motion . But the p rocess of motion causing motion could be traced back infinitely without finding a motion that began setting all things in motion in the first place , so there will be no motion. Therefore it is necessary that there be some thing that moved itself. By common consent, only God coul~ move in such a fashion. Therefore He exists. The question that we need to ask is whether Thornas's conclusion of cause follows from the knowledge that he originally gained from his observations of the world . We must ask whether his construction of cause and effect is one that is determined by the argument, or one that is presupposed by it, and is the assumption that actually gave the argument its form. Thomas states his principles that motion e x ists and all motions are depe ndent on prior motions. Then he states the consequences of that assumption: by following back the process of motion always being the cause of motion, we will regress infinitely without ever finding a first motion that caused all posterior motions to be . ,His principles lead him to a difficulty, a problem, what Aristotle called (anop1a ) , a place where the passage seems to be blocked . What Thomas does to gain a passage, though, does not follow from his principles; what he does is determine that something must exist that does not conform to the rule that he has assumed as 25 �principle, a thing that moves without being moved. He must step out of the bounds of his argument to solve his di ff icul ty and reverse the direction of his reasoning. When he finds a difficulty, an impossibility that follows from his principles, he looks for what must be necessary for those principles still to be true . In some ways Thomas's conclusion seems right; in fact it is probably the only way in which he can pass through his place of no passage, by assuming a first principle of motion that does not obey the laws of motion. But this answer is not arrived at through pure reason, or at least it is not the only conclusion we could have reached at such a point. Perhaps, though, it will be the only satisfying conclusion. For we could also conclude that the principles we started with are either wrong or incorrectly or in comp~etely stated. In fact, in areas such as mathematics that is the way we would go; if an assumption leads to an impossibility, then we cannot accept it as true . In the case of knowledge gained from observation of the everyday world, though , to be forced to regard it as invalid is much more serious; we would have to re - evaluate all such knowledge, reassess the way in which we see the world. We also have another option, which is to still accept our principles, but also accept their problematic conclusions without positing another principle that clears them up . Then we must ~&nit that we live in an irrational world, one without a beginning, or that we live in a world our rationality cannot comprehend . Al though both of the other options lead to conclusions which are less simple and more disconcerting than the one that Thomas chooses, they seem more likely to be the ones that reason, on its own, would be forced to choose. What is it that makes Thomas choose his way? The answer might be found at the point where Thomas reverses his reasoning, where he first inserts God into the argument. His unmoved mover does and does not follow from the argument . It does not follow from what the accepted principles of the argument afford. But it does follow, or at least it is reasonable, if the idea of. such a being has already been conceived of, not in the guise of cause, but as a being whose role as cause is not the parameter of the conception of it . So fo r Thomas, the implicit assumption in his argument that is prior to all other assumed principles is the idea and possibility of God. Otherwise he is left only with his own contradictions. There is some small indication that he was aware of this. His ultimate conclusion in the demonstration being, "th.:j_s everyone understands to be God," instead of the preceding, "Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mov er, moved by no other," is not as unfounded as it first appears if we concede that a kind of belief in God is what gives the argument form in the first place . But of course, we must also sacrifice our hope in establishing God's existence purely from evident knowledge . It s eems that Thomas , in h is arg ument fro m effect to cause, must make a leap out of the line of his reasoning to determine cause. The two criticisms of reasoning about God, Thomas's and the one tentatively set forth here, seem to indicate a severe poverty as to what reason can say about God . Thomas says that our knowledge will be limited to the existence of God and only what necessarily belongs to Him as cause . The other criticism would say that not even this much can be gathered, that the argument that finds God's existence needs to know God beforehand to conclude that He exists as cause . So even the footing on which natural reason deals with God seems questionable. In this way we begin to answer for ourselves the question of why Thomas cannot regard theology as a division of philosophy. It seems that we are now in a better position to understand what Thomas means when he says that "man is directed towards God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason." At least the last part of the statement, that reason cannot treat of God, seems more explicable to us . Why God is said to be the end of man, and how "beyond reason" man is to attain that end, is not clear . As far as attaining to the knowledge of God, the very methods that reason was forced to use seemed to obstruct 26 ' l it from reaching that end. Reason attempted to inquire into God as to a cause from an effect, but it seems that a principle cannot be known from reasoning back from effects . Even if we grant that something like God's existence can be established , the conception of His existence would necessarily be determined by our knowledge of effects. But in attaining to the knowledge of a thing, we wish to see it in itself, and not only in relation to other things. But if all our knowledge is rooted in sense- perception, as Thomas says, then we could never know God in such a way . One example of how Thomas seems to answer this can be found in Article four of Question twelve, when he says, "For knowledge takes place according as the t hing known is in the knower. But a thing known is in the knower according to the mode of the knower . Hence the knowledge of every knower is according to the mode of its own nature. If therefore, the mode of being of a given thing exceeds the mode of the knower, it must result that the knowledge of that thing is above the nature of the knower." By stating the impossibility in a different way, Thomas allows himself to go on. Reason cannot treat of God not because God fails reason, but because reason fails God . The inquiry into God takes a different direction . Reason no longer tries to define God or argue about God in such a way that God becomes reasonable, but reason itself must change so that God can become known as a thing in itself, so that the "mode of the knower" is in accord with the "mode of being" of the thing to be known . Thomas is taking a step out of reason, and looking at its boundaries, when he posits the possibility of anything the being of which exceeds the mode of knowing of the reasoning intellect . He can only do this, it seems, if he has in mind the idea of a boundless God , which of course he does . It is clear that for reason to know God, for it to reach what is beyond its grasp, it must be altered . One option at this point is again to conclude that man cannot know God, since to do so he would have to change the mode of his reason, to change his nature . But Thomas argues out of this position by emphasizing the part of the statement we quoted from him earlier that says God is man's end. In the first a r ticle of Question twelve, Thomas responds to the objection that the created intellect cannot see the essence of God by arguing that man's blessedness consists of the operation of the intellect in seeing his end or source, God. For the mind to be unable to see God would mean that all man's activity is in vain, because that activity is always a striving towards God. Hence it must be possible for man to actually know God, to see His essence . So Thomas will use his position outside of reason that he has arrived at to say that man can know God not through reason grasping God but by God taking in hand the reasoning intellect . The concept of knowledge, where the mind receives into itself only such things that by their nature are fitted to reason , will b e a bandoned ; and the mind instead will be fitted to receive what it knows . This is the essential altering of perspective that Thomas effects to be able to deal with how God can actually be known as a thing in itself . One of the reasons that the whole of Question twelve is so interesting is that it attempts to describe an epistemology that is beyond reason . How far Thomas can succeed in removing his description of seeing the essence of God f r om the terms and analogies app r opriated by reason is anothe r question . But what he does describe is something un i que, ne i the r r eason nor faith , yet simi lar to both . His seeing of the divine essence is like demonstrable science in that the r e occurs an intellectual vi sion o f apparent truth ; and also like faith , in t hat the e xper ienc e i s one th a t surpasses reason and is a matter of grace, indemonstrable and incommunicable . And in his construction of the experience of seeing God , Thomas will also curiously echo one of the most puzzling ideas of Aristotle . Thomas attempts i n the fourth article of the Question to arrange the experience of seeing God ' s essence into a construction that includes the other kinds of knowl edge that the intellect is capable of. All natural knowledge begins , again, in the sense - perception of the individual sense - object , and this Thomas calls the soul's 27 �l "act of a corporeal organ ." But the soul also has intellect, and the intellect has the power to analyze the object of the senses into matter and form. By isolating form, the intellect obtains an abstraction that is common and universal, which is not confined to any individual perception, but relies on the individual object of sense for its being. According to Thomas, this is the extent of natural knowledge. But just as the intellect can transcend the initial sense-perception, so can the intel lect "by grace be raised up to know separate subsisting substance and separate subsisting being." That is, by God acting somehow on the intellect, it can have a knowledge that no longer has its source in sense - perception, but is able to know be ing that is in no way attached to individual being, that is, the being common to all beings, God. But how does this higher state of knowing compare with the intellect's natural capacity to know universal truths? Thomas characterizes this state as a heightening of the intellect, a broadening of its powers of seeing by the influx of divine illumination. This illumination could be seen simply as a quantitative increase of illumination, since as Thomas says, "Hence also the intellectual power of the creature is called an intelligible light, as it were, derived from the first light, whether this be understood of the natural power, or some superadded perfection of grace and glory . " The act of the intellect in its natural capacity is a participation in the "first light'' of God, and the seeing of God's essence is made possible by a "superadded perfection" . It seems that we can understand the basis of this experience by comparing it with natural reason as a perfection of the intellect's natural capacity to see universal truth. The seeing will be analogous to the intellect's comprehension of indemonstrable first principles, which appeal immediately to the intellect as true, such as the principles of logic and science. It is just that it will be able now to see more than it could before . This is one way to interpret Thomas' s statement in Article five that the blessed who see God are made "deiform", that they are able to see, in some way, what God sees. What is infinitely knowable in itself will now become comprehensible to the intellect that has been raised to meet it, because the influx of divine illumination has given it a wider perspective. There are some complications, however, that do not allow us to accept this interpretation. The intellect will never know the essence of God as it knows the principles of demonstrable science . Thomas says that a created intellect could never "comprehend" the essence of God or know it to the fullest e x tent to which it is capable of being known. Since the intellect is made able to see the essence of God by an influx of divine light, but the essence of God is infinite, it follows that, since the intellect cannot receive an infinite amount of illumination, God 's essence can never be known as far as it is capable of being known . But this is the extent to which we say we know the principles of reason, and what we mean by "contemplation". How could a "seeing" occur of an object of thought that is infinite and unbounded? Following the analogy with reason, since the seeing of such an object would always be incomplete, it would have the character of opinion . But if this act is said to be the final end of man, does it seem right that it should have the certainty of opinion? What would be the convincing aspect of seeing God if the object of the seeing were ultimately unclear? There are several places in Question twelve where the analogy with natural reason seems to break down, especially as regards the object of thought, and a new interpretation of "deiform" seems to be needed . Does being "like God" mean that the intellect is broadened so that any object becomes intelligible as a result? In Article four Thomas says, "a created intellect cannot see tue essence of God unless God by His grace unites _Himself to the created intellect, as an object made intelligible to it." Yet at other times it does not seem that God becomes an "object" of the intellect in any intelligible way . In Article five we read, "But when any created in- tellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect." Here he does not say that the essence of God becomes the object, but the form, the shape, of the intellect. It is not clear whethe r Thomas is contradicting himself o r not. But the experience of seeing God seems now more complicated than a broadening of perspective fo r the intellect. God attaches himself to the intellect so that He may become the thinking of the intellect . But if thinking must be the thinking of something, and if God is the form of thinking o r the shape of the intellect, and also in some way the object of that thinking, then such an act does not seem to be thinking, or an act of the intellect in its accepted sense at all. The process that is described by Thomas of seeing God cannot but remind one of the act described by Ar istotle of his own God, the prime mover, in the Metaphys ics. Aristotle describes the prime mover's act as one of thinking,von01S', where the obj ect of this v6ncr u· , TO vonToV, is the mover itself. But since the move r is nothing else but its act , its thinking is of thinking, and the act is the same as the object of the act. This seems to be similar to what the intellect's act would be if God attached Himself to it as both form and object . The act of the intellect would then be inseparable from the essence of God , and the intellect would not see the essence of God, but in a sense participate in the being of the essence of God . It is not for su r e if this is what Thomas really means, but at least it extends some hope about reas on being able to attain to God , if not by its natural powers, then in some other conceivable way. Yet what a fleeting appearance . Article eleven comes as a surprise ~n reading Question twelve, and is a puzzle which makes the whole of the question even more of a puzzle . The Article asks "Whether anyone in this life can see the essence of God , " and the answer that Thomas gives is "It is not possible, " he concludes, " that the so·u1 in this mortal life should be raised up to the highest of intelligible objects, that is, to the di vine essence . " What then is the significance of the whole question? What is Thomas getting at in describing a process that he does not think is possible? It seems that the question of the first article, whether it was possi ble for man to see the essence of God, had to be answered affirmatively, for reasons having to do with God being man's end. Yet the description of what the experience is turns out to be, possibly, of what it would be like were it possible . It is not clear why Thomas chose to affirm and deny what appears to be the same thing . But the hope that man could somehow reach God through some alteration of the intellect, seems now to be qua shed , as was the hope that man could really know God through his natural reason. Any way to God via the intellect, whether natural or graced, seems blocked . Or at least Thomas pulls back the lure of seeing God wit~a rationa l bas is at the last moment for unclear rea sons . But with that retraction, with his blocking of the path, the opportunity for a new focus reveals itself. We have gone, perhaps, as far as we can go, perhaps farther , with reason and with intellect in relation to God . It seems that our new focus would have to be non- rational and non-intellectual if we hope to go on with our inquiry about God . And now that we have exhausted, in a sense, our ground of reason, it seems that we could have a better perspective on faith. But how is the transition to be made, and how can we truly leave our g r ound in r eason? What do we hope to achieve by examining faith, and where has the examination of r eason's efforts to re ach God taken us? For one thing, the examination has taken us to the point whe re faith seems to be necessary for the inquiry to go on , for the inquiry that can be t raced in Thomas . But whether choosing to look at the idea of faith at this point will rea lly enable us to go on with the inquiry or not is uncertain . Because a non -rational ideal like faith is not hindered by the rules of rea son, is it too much of a temptation not to use this idea to solve our own difficulties? 28 29 �we would like faith to help us with two things in Thomas' s statement that "man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason." An ex amination of reasoning about God has shown to an extent why such an end is beyond reason. Ideally, we would like to learn from the idea of faith why God is said to be man's end in the first place, and how he is to achieve that end if not through reason. To some extent we have answered the question, "Why faith?", by seeing reason's inability to deal with God. Any construction where the mind actually pe:r:cei.ved God proved to be untenable. The knowledge of the being of God c~uld not be fit int~ a~y epistomological mold. But faith does not entail any perception, and although it is spoken of as a way of knowing, that knowledge is.very.diffe:ent fro~ any that c?mes from reason. we cannot make an analogy about seeing with faith. While the convincing aspect of reas on's knowledge is that something is revealed, f~i t.h' s "knowledge" is a belief in something that remains hidden. To make the transition, faith must have an analogously convincing element to it. Faith cannot merely follow as an answer after reason has failed to treat of God, or at least run into seemingly irrevocable difficulties. How faith can actually come about must be explored. · For Thomas, faith is something necessary for salvation, for man to attain his end Because reason fails to bring man into contact with God, o r because there are som~ things necessary to believe about God that reason could neve~ come to, it . is necessary that he believe what his intellect itself does not recognize . In Question four, Article three of the "Secunda Secundae", Thomas says that faith does reside in the intellect since faith determines one to something that is true. But what determines the int~llect to recognize truth has nothing to do with the intellect itself; the intellect is not convinced by the object of faith, which it is blind to, but by the will . In Thomas's construction, this will, which overcomes the intellect to de termine it to truth, is a necessary element. But where does this will to believe originate? Thomas's answer, in Question six, Article one of the same part, says that the determination of the will comes from God . Faith, which is an act of the will that · t "Faith," he overcomes the intellect, cannot come about through an in·erna 1 process. says, "as regards the assent which is the chief act of faith, is from Go~ moving m~n inwardly by grace." Faith, which seems to be Thomas's choice of how man is to attain God, cannot be effected by man and must be made possible by God . Man's end, then, can only be reached by it becoming his means as well. What leads Thomas to conc~ude this? In the same article he says, "for since by assenting to what belongs to faith, man is raised above his nature, this must needs come to him from some supernatural principle moving him inwardly ; and this is God . " What "raises man above his natur~" is the overcoming of the intellect. Thomas cannot allow that man should overcome his intellect by himself, for the intellect is what man most essentially is ~nd th~ highest part of him. For man to overcome his own intellect would be something akin to a rejection of himself. Thomas's great reverence for ~he. int~llect would not l~t any other part of man determine truth for it. The only vindication for the overcoming of the intellect could come from God. So it is something that happens to man rather than something he does. But must this be so? Must we conclude like Thomas that there is nothing in man that could determine him to faith? In the same passage quoted from above, Thomas presents his own v~rsion of the view of the Pelagians on faith, who said that man himself chooses to believe, t~ have faith. It seems that this view, where the will be believe that convinces the intellect comes from man himself, is more along the lines of what we are looking for· Thomas's answer that faith comes through grace does not seem to be the answer when we are looking for why the idea of faith came about in the first place. But it remains to be seen how man could choose to believe, how belief could come about from another part of man if not from the intellect . 30 Thomas gives us an idea of how a will to believe could originate in his treatment of grace. Divinely revealed knowledge is not the only thing that God must impart to man because man cannot reach it himself; God must also intercede in a moral way for man to reach his end. In Question 109 of the first part of the second part, Thomas argues that grace is necessary for man to reach God in his actions. In Article eight he says that it is impossible for man to avoid sin without the help of God. The fundamental cause o f this is that man, since the banishment from the garden, is composed of two natures, a "higher" and "lower" nature. His higher nature can more or less avoid the sin it is prone to, the graver mortal sin, because of the control of the reason. But man's lower nature what Thomas called his "corrupted nature", cannot be satisfactorily controlled in its penchant for venial sin . Reason can indeed suppress any desire, but not every one, since reason's control over the desires is not absolute . Hence, for man to overcome his lower nature and avoid sin, it is necessary that God endow him with the ability beyond his present nature to master this part of him. Thomas's image of man fundamentally divided in his nature gives us a much more vivid example of a need for God than anything we explored in relation to man's intel lect. In that part of our discussion, it seemed we were forced to fit God into the structure of the intellect, and He did not seem ever to fit. It was not clear whether the intellect ever really required a being like God. But in the area of ethics and morals, a need seems to clearly arise . If Thomas's assessment of man's nature is correct, it would point to a deep disparity between man's knowledge of moral principle, his ethical beliefs, and what he is actually able to effect in his own actions. If this disparity is really a part of man's nature, a fundamental flaw within himself that he can never hope to repair, then a will to believe in a being that could heal him could conceivably arise. It is perhaps in this situation that the determination to faith could arise internally, and man could choose to believe. It seems clearer, perhaps, why Thomas says that God is man's end. If God is a necessary element in man reaching the end in regards to his own nature, in the mas tery of reason over the sensual appetites, it seems more explicable to say that God is man's end . As to how he is to attain that end, it seems that we are now justified in saying he does so through faith. The abandoning of the intellects sovereign capacity to identify truth, and its determination to something that is not apparent to it, that is, faith, could come about by man's realization of his own incapacity to heal the rifts within his own nature, and his need for a being endowed with power and mercy to make him whole. The convincing element of this experience, what could pos sibly overcome the intellect, depends on the deepness with which this need to be healed is felt. If the need is felt deeply enough, the choices for man seem to be either a belief in a healing God and hope, or resignation to the inalterable disparity of his nature and despair. It is hoped that a plausible explanation of the need and inspiration of faith has been presented; how faith seems possible following reason's inquiry into God; and how faith, belief without proof, could conceivably originate in man himself . (For this writer, this inquiry was necessary to come to some sort of understanding of Thomas' s ideas. ) 31 �Limelight: the Story of a Ballerina and a Clown - Chaplin Carlos Chamberlin Camera 3, eager, operational, and passionate, swept down from above gently, emancipating the audience into applause . It came to rest six feet away from him, he who was standing, acknowledging his audience . The hands clapped till the aisles ran red with blood, ha, ha, so it seemed to him . The hands were pummeling themselves for him, for the show, this show of shows, his, conceived in the mind of some visionary at programming, who once read Boethius . Lightning blazed, and the guy said : "It'll be a game type show, there' 11 be this wheel, see, a wheel of fo r tune, and maybe there' 11 be good luck, and maybe bad, and lots of questions and lots of answers . " And then the prophet shut up for a while, and then he asked for some coffee , and then he said, "We' 11 call it The Consolation of Philosophy . " Eve r yone thought t his was great. Really great . And so did he. Really great . she said she came f r om Montana, and the r e was no r eason t o believe her . She was made up well enough to provide color to a nation of black and whites , a nd to him there was irridescent beauty, and an aur a of pasteuri zation . He r father , she said, was a rancher, (ah) a dairy farmer (Ah!) Once again there was applause , as the audience was assured of the contestant's humanity and Americannes s. She was a dance r , I could dance all day , coul dn't you? Pleasantly , he yes s ed, not at all tired of the babbling of the contestant's river of life, as it flowed through the studio, out the delta of television , and into a million homes . She took his mind away , and the weird contestants began to clamor subtly f or a ttention . The violini st with his psychological approach to botany, and of course , the marine sergeant , who loved all kinds of soups . This show was the futu r e , and the future was wi dely r egar ded as a strange and happy place . Fortune was lucky that night. She won . No sur prise t h ere . And so did Max ine, which was the name of the dancing challenger . They went out to a restaurant , late a t night, after even the satellites had all gone away , and talked like this : "You're very intelligent . " "Thank you ... uh." "Do you watch the show often?" "Every night . Every night that it's on . " "So do I . Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha" . So the inevitable happened, and this alignment of values pushed them ever so gently in the direction of that abstract king, Love, who gave them their money's worth. And then there was another night, another Consolation of Philosophy, and Maxine answered the questions that were put to h er c o rre ctly, winn ing a g a i n, and s pent the evening ensconced in the arms of the grace of television , whose name was Ray, whose fans were the well - informed, the well - entertained, the majority . And on this second night of passion/love, they were found at a newspaper, reading aloud to each other, transcending the sexual act with taste and intellect . "Would you look at this guy , twelve murders and so he says he wanted some peace and quiet . " "I wonder why he did it, he lived in a suburb . " 32 "That's quiet . " "Not quiet enough . " "it seems like ... " "what?" " . .. all true stories are desperate . " "uh-huh." Ray couldn't sleep at all. He took some sleeping pills and an amphetamine, and drove to the T. V. station. It was really dark . He walked to the room where they kept the questions, and searched for the ones for that night's Consolation of Philosophy . Then, he went to the room where they kept all the answers . The door wa s locked . He sat down. He lacked keys. So he took the door off of its hinges, and swept into the room looking for the respective answers . He was eager, and he f ound and copied them . Then he fell upon a great solution . He rested the door against the wall and made a sign . WET PAINT . He disappeared into the night . Dawn hit as his car drove him to the hotel where Maxine was staying . "Good Morning" . He smiled . He handed ove r his presents, and kissed her . "For me?" she asked . "Yes , " he said, "they're the answers to tonight's show . " They spoke briefly on impor tant questions of mo r ality . Finally Maxine accepted, not because she was essentially ev i l , but because t hey we r e r unning out of time . "Ray," said Mike, who ran the station, "somebody broke into the room with all the answe r s . " " So change the lock , " said Ray helpfully . "I think we' 11 have to change the answe r s," said Mike , r unn i ng the station . All a r ound t he wo r ld (that is, the U. S . ) people prepared for the Consolation of Philosophy by eating a warm home-cooked meal and i gnoring thei r wives and husbands and children . Ray and Max ine ate nervously , stagnant chicke n salad and french fries . "Whatever happens, Maxine, I'll always love you . " "Me , too . " "Wh atever happens, don ' t do anything desperate . " "O . K •• II Ray would alwa y s love Max ine, unaware that such a statement was like saying that you would always have lunch wi th the loved one : a nice though t but practical as a toothache. Ray f elt t he cameras go on somewhe r e . He stood up, and held out his arm ; A gallant and his int ended quit the diner and Ray and Maxine followed . Regular watche r s of the Consolation of Philosophy watched as the pretty girl f r om Montana was defeated by a magenta femme fatale, who, lacking beauty , had read books . They then watched Ray , who stepped close r to the camera until his face filled the scr een, and sa i d : "That's it . " Max ine ran up to him, and said : "This is Ray, and he loves me." Ray agreed. "I love her," he said . The audience went crazy, despising Ray for falling for the loser . They stopped clapping . There was absolute silence . Ray had never used a gun before. He fired into the air. The audience was still. "Traitor!" someone yelled . The progr am director came on the intercom, saying, "Ray, this is live T . V . and you can't do this . " The logic of this nearly killed Ray . He grabbed her hand, and they the y ran like l ove r s , away , l eav i ng the audience desperate and unappreciative . Outside, (in the par king lot) the car wouldn't start, and it was raining, so Ray and Maxine walked . Thus love is the limelight, like being , for a moment, on television. So, the Consolation of Philosophy shot out into the ionosphere for one last time, bouncing endlessly in the heavens . One October, in the nineteen seventies, it returned to earth, to the television set of Charles Augustus Gardiner, who, at the time , held the r oy rogers chair for the humanities at Princeton. The police were called. 33 �Ripeness is All Renee Bergland My best friend's mother committed suicide . Six years later, when we were both ei ghteen, my f r iend Rachel aske d me to spend the s ummer wi t h he r i n t he house whe r e it had happened, which was also the house where Rachel ' s mother had spent every summer of her childhood . Rachel herself had only been there a few times befo r e her mother's death . In the years between, the neighbors had mowed the lawn and kept an eye o~ the place, but no one had stayed there . We spent the fi r st week scrubbing out the kitchen and a bedroom, and camped in the r est of the house all summer . When the bare minimum of cleaning was done, we divided our time between the rocky beach in front of the house and investigation inside it . We paged through her mother ' s third g r ade notebooks , and we scattered s napshots of r elatives we we r e n't certain about into p~les on the living room floor . We hung her mothe r 's kindergarten drawing on the fridge . We talked constantly about Rachel ' s mother ' s family , though we knew next to nothing about them. In August, Rachel and I searched out her mother's grave . She bought a tombstone for it , and on the stone she had three words cut : RIPENESS IS ALL I wasn't sure of what the sentence meant . When I asked Rachel she said she liked the sound of it, and she knew her mother had loved Shakespeare . ' I had read King Lear before my summer with Rachel, and my eyes had passed over the phrase without noticing it . When I read the play later , I recognized the words from Rachel's mother's gravestone and began to cry . The whole sentence moved me . Men must endure Thei r going hence, even as their coming hithe r; Ripeness is all . (V, ii, 9) My tears were n ot an incidenta l stinging. I sobbed u ntil my r oommate threatened to take me to the hospital, and then I went outside and wept my way into silence . I was not simply crying for Rachel or for her mother . I wept for myself, for the hopelessness of my relationship with my parents , and for the hopelessness of the childr en I might have · That night chasms opened a r ound me , separating me f r om everyone I loved, and most definitely from my parents . The nature of the chasms and the tears mystified me . My despair sprang from the first line and a half, from the idea that all of us must only endure our births, that having been bor n i s as g r e a t a n af fliction as h aving to die. It sprang at the same time from the awful coupling of unlooked - for birth and longed- for death. In eleven words, Edgar told his fathe r that it is human nature to wa~t. t? die and to regret having been born, and that it is each human's deep re sponsib~lity not to acknowledge or act on either of these feelings . My horror at these ~i~es was also caused by seeing a son assume his father's foolishness, and by recognizing the naturalness of the father's dependence on his son . I saw the inev itability of the responsibility for both of their lives and their deaths especially fo r his fathe r 's death , being thrust upon the son . I saw that Edga r owed' a n unr epay - 34 able, though unwillingly incurred , debt of life to his father. Pe r haps the most upsetting words of all were the last three, "Ripeness is all . " They were offered as t he supreme consolation of the play, and they seemed almost meaningless . The phr ase is so ambiguous that it borders on nonsense , and it i s the only phrase of hope we are offered in King Lear . Since my night of tears , I have often wondered about ripeness . I have always wanted to know what it could be, and how it might be all , i n both birth and death . Rachel and I l i ved across the bay from my father that summer and I was not wel come in his house , the house of my childhood summers. I am not welcome there yet . Yea r s pass between our meetings , a nd when we meet, my father is angry and imperious , and I am wooden . I have often thought about r ipeness between us, and have felt ce rtai n that i t is a laughabl e hope, ma d e complete ly ri diculous by the fact that I h ave no real idea of what r ipene s s would be for us , o r how it would be a balm . I am faced with the question of whether I am ab l e to endur e my own birth, to accept it and the parents who gave it to me . I know that in spite of the pain he has caused me, my father is very much my fathe r and always will be . I must endure my birth . I have less choice in this matte r even than I have in the matter of my death . Where shall I search for r ipene s s? My own ambig uous feelings about my birth have made Edgar ' s lines impo r tant to me . Thei r comf o r t i s str ange, narco t ic , and mys t e ri ous . I have taken the same numbed comfor t f r om the words when facing death . On the way to my cous in ' s f une r a l we stopped a t the house where the Quakers who were going to di re ct it liv e . It was hot . I went into their living room , which was walled with books , and sear ched out King Lear. I r emember being happy that the peo ple in charge of Sam ' s funeral had such wonde r ful , worn books in thei r living room . It was cool wi t h the cool of farmhouses . I sat in the back of the car with my b r other and siste r crunched nex t to me . I searched and searched thr ough the play for my favorite lines ; I knew them by hea r t anyway, but I wanted t o know where they were . It was the stupi di t y that mercifully accompanies grief which made this sea r ch take up the car ride and all of the time of sitting on the porch of the old meeting house, waiting for the service . I wanted to read the lines and say that I didn't know what they meant . Men must endure Their going hence, even a s their coming hither ; Ripeness is all . Did they say that my t wenty - e i ght year old c ou s in h a d been stupid a nd wastefu l to kill himself , that all we can hope for is ripeness, and that we can never decide our own deaths? Is suicide like plucking unripe fruit, does it make everything useless and meaningless? Was our shar ed despair at Sam's death the only appropriate r e action? Or pe r haps the lines implied something else , that every human death is equally appropriate , that the r e is r ipeness in all and for all. Perhaps it is impos sible to die without be i ng ripe, and we ourselves are in touch with our own r ipeness and our own deaths . I wanted to say both because I felt it was somehow dishonest to make only half the speech . But it would have been a speech . Sam's childhood neighbors and college roorrunates were weeping t ogether and it was not the time to be ab stract or academic . I didn't say anything . I listened to my family's muffled weeping, I wondered whethe r ripeness was a comfor t o r a warning, and I wept myself . All summer and on into now I have thought about ripeness and loved its ambiguity . I have wonde r ed what it is and might be, and whether I should hope . Long before we can read, we know some words of Shakespeare and some from the Bible . We hear them on the lips of our par ents , and we have repeated some of them hund r eds of times be f o r e we even wonder about thei r meaning or their context . The 35 �kids in my neighborhood screamed, "To be or not to be" every time they acted out a particularly dramatic death scene. My mother hissed, "How sharper than a serpent• s tooth to have a thankless child!" at every occasion. Shakespeare's words often hold as much power and meaning for us in our own contexts as they do in his context. At S~. John's: we study Shakespeare for the sake of learning about Shakespeare, read and discuss King Lear in order to better understand King Lear. But I have read Shakespeare outside of school as often as in it, sometimes for the beauty of his words or the fun of shouting beautiful words out loud, sometimes for mere dist~action, and other times for myself, seeking wisdom and healing for my own sorrows without a thought for the sorrows in the play. All of the meanings which these words may have, and all of the ways we may read them are important. They influence each other immeasurably. I have spoken about Edgar's words in the context of my own life because I want to establish exactly what is at stake for me in my examination of the words. The sentence is as important to me in my own context as it is in the context of the play. Nonetheless, I will use the play rather than my past to explore the ideas of endurance and ripeness. This exploration is bound to shed as much light on the play as on ~he sentence itself, and may well shed much light on my own situation. But the light it casts for me on personal matters is secondary, and for the most part r will keep it pr~vate. I am not writing an autobiographical essay or a self-analytical one. My hope is that ~he meaning of the lines can be established on the strength of the play, an~ tha~ I will come to a clear idea of the sentence and especially of ripeness, which will help me to see myself. I am neither Cordelia, nor Goneril nor Edgar· my father is. neither Lear nor Gloucester. I do not read the play as a~ analogy t~ my own e~perience. However, I do believe that what is wisdom on the printed page and on the lighted stage may well be wisdom in my cockroach infested kitchen. I will discuss Edgar's words and their significance to the rest of the play in the order which the words themselves outline. First I will talk about the phrase "Men must endure", then about going hence and corning hither. All of this will be i~ the interest 0£ ripeness, of deciding what it may be, and how it may be all. Men must endure Their going hence, even as their corning hither; Ripeness is all. Edgar speaks these lines to his father as words of comfort. He prefaces them by asking' "What, in ill thoughts again?" (V, ii, 9). We are reminded of his recent attempt to cure his father's despair. That time, Edgar let his fathe r think that he had attempted suicide and told him that "the clearest gods, who make them honors of men's impossibilities have preserv'd thee." (IV, vi, 73). Those words reminded Glouc~ster . to hope. These are intended to lead his father to hope again, even to admonish his father to hope. At the same time, they are the bitterly clear-sighted words of a man leading the father who disowned him before being blinded. They are words of hope well informed by despair. Edgar tells Gloucester that, "Men must endure". I assume that when he says II II h d men . e means 1men an. women. The sentence would be weak if it were gender-specific. The first word s meaning is at least reasonably clear. But Edgar says, "Men must". If all human beings must do a single thing, it is clear that there is a common human nature which unites all human beings. This human nature is tied up with their common obligation. "Must" is a funny word. The nature of the conunon obligation is confusing. If everyone really did do what one "must", Edgar would have said, "Men do endure". If we had a choice, Edgar would have said, "Men ought to endure". By choosing "must"' Edgar makes his statement into a sort of conditional: if we are to be 36 human, then we "must". If we are to be human, then we must endure. With these three words, Edgar has made it clear that morality is part and parcel of human nature; that our humanness entails an obligation which we must not shirk. This obligation, as we first see it, is to endure. What we endure is important, but before looking at what we endure, we must examine endurance by itself, so that we will be clear about precisely what we must do. I see two important possible meanings of "endure". The simpler meaning is to undergo. When Edgar says, "Men must endure", he means that every human being must suffer the things he speaks about, that they happen to everyone, and that in order to be human everyone must let them happen. Even in the "undergoing" sense of "endure" there is the implication that what we undergo is unpleasant and that we would avoid it if we were given the choice. The second meaning of "endure" gives it more force. I would phrase it, "Men must stand firm in the face of". This is probably the most important sense of the word in these lines. We must not run toward things, and we must not run from them. We must stand where we are, in full knowledge of where we are, and we must not flinch. "Endure" is a transitive verb. It makes little sense without an object, without something unpleasant to endure. Edgar offers us two things to endure, going hence and coming hither. In the greater context of the play, human beings are called on to endure the physical natural world as well. Lear has shouted, "Pour on, I will endure!" (III, iv, 17), to the storm, and the idea of suffering and standing firm in the face of the natural world is strong in the play. Taken alone, the words "Men must endure" are words about human nature and about physical nature. They are words about nature. The word "nature" is key in King Lear. Nature is invoked by almost everyone who speaks (the notable exceptions are Edgar and the Fool) and means as many things as there are lines which use it. I have grouped the "natures" into three basic meanings. "Nature" can be the natural physical world, where cause and effect govern every event, where storms blow and furrniter weeds grow. This is the nature where "the younger rises as the old doth fall." (III, iii, 23) . However, "nature" can also be human nature, the opposite of the natural physical world. Human nature is precisely what distinguishes us from planets or from plants. It accords (in theory) with natural moral law. In the play, human nature and human natural law are usually mentioned in reference to the natural lawful love between parent and child. When Gloucester calls Edmund a "loyal and natural boy" (II, i, 84) , and when Lear tells Regan that "she better knows the offices of nature" (II, iv, 174 ) than her sisters, they are speaking of this human nature. Thirdly, nature can be used to describe one per son's disposition, the unchangeable qualities with which a person is born and which establish individual identity. When France says that Cordelia has a "tardiness in nature" (I, i, 235), and when Lear says that this tardiness "like an engine wrenched my frame of nature" (I, iv, 257), they are speaking of the daughter's and the father's individual natures. Each character's individual nature is revealed by his or her talk of the other two natures, physical and human. Before I go on to the motion of the play, the going hence and coming hither, let me draw clearly the fathers and their children, bad and good. I will describe where they stand by their own natures, in relation to the physical natural world, and to moral human nature. King Lear mentions nature twice as often as anyo ne else in the play. His first fateful mention is his proposal to extend his largest bounty "where nature does with merit challenge" (I, i, 52 ) . Lear thinks he is king enough to set up bouts in which human nature is just another contestant, and to judge the contest himself. The whole play falls out of his mistaken notion, and this notio n falls directly out of Lear's own nature. He was born king. He is king of the country's lands as well as of the 37 �state. Shadowy forests, champaigns rich with plenteous rivers, and wide skirted meads are his to bestow on whom he chooses. He speaks to the storm as if it were a political ally turned treacherous, calling the elements "servile ministers" (III, ii, 21) to the wishes of his daughters the queens. He seems to assume that they were his to command before he gave up his crown but have recently changed loyalty. He thinks he is king of human nature as well, that he can command his daughters' love above and beyond the natural love of child for parents, and that he can bequeath his property and his power without going through the natural ritual of dying. He also thinks he is king over individual nature, that he can settle the matters of his heart from his throne, before his court. He expect his own heart and nature to bend to his royal power just as he expects the hearts and natures of his subjects to do so. Lear's nature is a king's nature. His ignorance springs from his dominion over nature, imagined though it may be. His gradual awakening happens as he goes hence to nature and discovers his subjection to every aspect of it . Gloucester is an earl rather than a king, and he is as aware of nature's power over him as he is of the king's. Gloucester's first mention of nature is far more respectful than the king's: "though the wisdom of nature · can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects." (I, 11, 99). The wisdom of nature is human knowledge of the natural world, and the scourged nature is human nature itself . The problem here is the one which Edmund points out . Gloucester believes that physical nature is all powerful, and that human nature in general and also in particular can have no effect at all on the events of the world . Gloucester betrays his excessive faith in cause and effect .o ver and over: first when he laughs about the biology of Edmund's birth without a thought for his listening son, again when he bemoans the astrology of the day without a thought for the grave human mistake which Lear has made or for the characters of his own sons . Later, most horribly, Gloucester trusts gravity to take his life, without a thought for the natural human antipathy to suicide. It is amazing that Gloucester can be so completely in the dark about human nature . Although he manages to decide that Regan and Goneril 's behavior is unnatural (after Lear has been tossed onto the nearest heath), he misjudges his own sons as completely as possible. Edgar is his "unnatural, brutish villain" (I, ii, 73) , and Edmund his "loyal and natural boy" (II, i, 84) • Although Gloucester calls Edmund a "natural boy" as a compliment, we cannot help but be reminded of Edmund's illegitimacy. He may be a natural son, but he is so by biological nature rather than by moral human nature. Edmund's first mention of nature is the most emphatic in the play: "Thou, Nature, art my goddess," (I, ii, 1), he shouts. He is singleminded and clear . He operates purely on the level of natural physical laws unadulterated by human principles . This is not to say that Edmund does not understand the human sorts of nature . He sees them as clearly as anyone else in the play, but he chooses to reject them . He rejects the human moral nature which distinguishes human beings from animals because it is not in his nature. Edmund was born because his mother was fair and there was "good sport at his making" (I, i, 21) . He knows his own nature perfectly and states it clearly in his first speech. He also sees the natures of his brother and father clearly, describes them perfectly ("A credulous father and a brother noble!" (I, ii, 68)), and manipulates them with ease. Although Edmund is cer tainly evil, Edgar accuses him only of treachery, and there is something fair about this. Edmund behaves reasonably, according to the reasoned principle of the natural world, that "the younger rises when the old doth fall." (III, iii, 23). Regan and Goneril are completely different from Edmund. He serves a nature of physical laws and reasonable principles. The evil sisters, on the other hand, bring a general curse on nature (IV, vi, 205) . They are monsters. If Edmund's treacherous nature is a result of his base birth, Goneril and Regan's natures are results of 38 their gender. In his madness, Lear says of all women that: Down from the waist they are Centaurs, Though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit, Beneath is all the fiend's. There's hell. there's darkness, there's the sulphurous pit: burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! (IV, vi, 124) This is the most hellish image of female genitals I have ever read. It clearly shows women's connection to something which is much farther from human moral nature than Edmund's rational physical nature is. Women are connected to fiends and to monsters, to darkness and to mystery. There are deep abysses in them, and even they cannot reasonably explain the dark workings within those abysses. The mysteries are not wholly evil; creation and birth are among them. But the womb is a dark place nonetheless, and it connects women to the real power and mystery of nature in a way which makes them far more horrifying than any reasonable villain can ever be. All women might be monsters: France asks if Cordelia's offense is of "such unnatural degree that monsters it" (I, i, 219}, and one of Regan's servants mutters that 11 if she live long, and in the end meet the old course of death, women will all turn monsters" (III, vii, 100). (Foolish Gloucester, who knows nothing about human nature, even goes so far as to wonder if Edgar is a monster. (I, ii, 90)) Not all women are monsters, though everyone in the play is afraid that if Goneril and Regan succeed, all women, and even all humanity, will lose not only their human principles, but even their principled physical world. Regan and Goneril are not aware of the mystery they carry or the horror they instill. They understand the natural world, human nature, and the natures of individuals fairly well; they understand th ems elves insofar as they know their own de sires. They cannot understand themselves completely or rationally because they are mysteries. They are connected to a nature which is deeper, darker, more threatening than any other nature in the play. Their willing connection to primordial nature (they seize power, lust after the same man, and murder each other) has the potential to completely destroy the world. Lucky for the world, Lear has "one daughter who redeems nature from the general curse which twain have brought her· to" (IV, vi, 205) . Cordelia is as separate from primordial nature as her sisters are close to it. She is guilty of "no vicious blot, murder or foulness , no unchaste action or dishonored step" (I , i , 227) , and she s swayed by no passion, by nothing unreasonable. When Lear asks for her profession of love, she gives him a mathematical formula, calculating what she owes him as a loyal daughter against what she will need to pledge as a faithful wife. She is as inhuman as she is good, but her unnaturalness and unhumanness lie in her total devotion to the morality inherent in human nature, and in her success at subduing physical nature and her own personal nature to that general morality. Cordelia's vision of nature in all its aspects is as clear as either of her sisters'. But it is less personal and more just than any other. She is not shallow. Her "smiles and tears" (IV, iii, 17) at Kent's letter betray deep feeling and strong love. But even as she reads the letter unaware of her observer, she is 11 queen of her passion, who, most rebel-like, sought to be king oe'r her" (IV, iii, 13}. The fiends may inherit everything below a woman's girdle, but the gods possess everything above it. Her sisters' sex make them able to be purely evil; because she is a woman, Cordelia is capable of being purely good. Finally, we come to Edgar. Edgar never says the word 11 nature", perhaps because he does not oppose it as the others do. Edmund says that Edgar's nature is "so far 39 �from doing harms that he suspects none'' (I, 11, 169), and naivete is certainly a di mension of Edgar's nature. However, Edgar is not as simple as his father or as singleminded as his wicked brother . Edgar is as strongly connected to the physical natural world · as is Edmund, but Edgar's connection is different . Edmund remains in the human world and lives by the standards of the natural world . Edgar flees to the natural world and lives in it according to the standards of human rQ9ral nature. Edgar is thP. man who is able to say, "Edgar I nothing am!" (II, iii, 21), and to mean it, to give up his own individual nature in order to survive in the natural world without betraying his moral nature. When Edgar claims to be Tom o' Bedlam, he be comes Tom o' Bedlam. On the heath with Lear, Edgar has no purpose but to save his own skin. He is nothing more than a lunatic beggar who keeps a mad king company. He is comfortable as unnaccommodated man . As unaccommodated man he leads his father, but while he leads his father he becomes himself again. At the start he is Mad Tom because he is shocked at seeing his blinded father and because he is not sure how to tell his father that the beggar who stands unseen before him is the son he disowned. As he leads Gloucester toward Dover, the madness becomes a tool . In the end, this madness is the tool he uses to save his father from suicide, and to try to teach h{m to endure, even to hope . Edgar tells Gloucester that, Men must endure their going hence . In the literal sense, this going hence is simply going outside,leaving what is familiar to us and facing what is "out there.'' In each of the first three acts of King Lear, at least one major character is forced to leave home . Lear's banishment is the most poignant example of this sort of going hence. The others suffer in going hence, perhaps as much as he, but their sufferings serve to underscore and compound Lear's. Leaving behind the castle, its comforts and its conventions, is the major motion of the play. The things which humans face, unprotected from the whims of a powerful and threatening nature are dangerous. Kent says, "Man's nature cannot bear the affliction nor the fear." (III, ii, 49) . The play builds up to the crescendo of Lear on the heath in the storm. The rhetoric of fear begins when Lear banishes Kent, but allots him five days "to shield thee from disasters of the world" (I, i, 174). Even in his rage, Lear is not cruel enough to ignore the terrible threat which the natural world poses to unaccommodated man. Disasters lurk everywhere "out there" . Kent's farewell to Cordelia, "the gods to their dear shelter take thee" (I, i, 182), adds power to our notion of shelter as a real human necessity . Cordelia's going hence is slightly different from the other departures in the play: she leaves her father's castle for her husband's . Nonetheless, she has been banished as much as Kent. She cannot come back . Cordelia's going hence may be natural insofar as she is a daughter who leaves home to be married, but it is frightening and unnatural because she leaves for good and is left dependent on strangers outside the castle . If they fail her, as is quite possible, she will be without shelter, alone against the opposing elements of a cruel nature. Edgar's going hence is the third of the play and the third time the point is made. Edgar resolves to become Mad Tom, "and with presented nakedness outface the wind's and persecutions of the sky" (II, iii, 12). Edgar's embracing the outdoors is presented as a form of self-mortification and insanity. The sky is a persecutor . Being beneath it is an affliction . When human beings face the natural world alone, without roofs, the power of the natural world and its unthinking malevolence to anything small, weak, and naked is certain and deadly. Lear makes the best statement of 40 the weakness of humanity in the face of the natural world during his confrontation with it: Poor naked wretches, who so e'er you are, That bide .the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? (III, iv, 28) Lear describes well the wretchedness of Kent, Cordelia, and Edgar. It is strange, though, that he speaks these lines about other people outside when he himself is enduring a terrible storm, unprotected. A few lines later, Lear tells his pomp to take physic , to "expose thyself to feel what wretches feel" (III, iv, 34) . water streams across his face as he speaks, but it does not occur to him that he is also passive, suffering the storm as helplessly as any other wretch would. Lear does not know that the winds and rains and thunderbolts scorn royalty as well as poverty. These speeches are among the most powerful and angry speeches in the English language . They are as saddening as they are anger - filled . Lear sounds absurd and old. His assumption of control which he does not really have makes him look senile and silly. At the same time, Lear's anger and confidence are impressive . He speaks nobly and bravely. The king has been thrown out into the storm, so he conunands the winds to blow and the rain to spout. Gloucester says, "yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain." (III, vii, 61) . The king's tears join with the raindrops in watering the earth, but more important than that , he becomes the storm, joins forces with it. The sky manifests the power and tumult in his own mind even as it beats his body down . At the very moment that the triumph of physical nature over human nature is made complete, the battle between Lear's human nature and his royal one has hardly begun. He is still a king when he resolves to feel what wretches feel, in order to teach himself to "shake the superflux to them and show the heavens more just" (III, iv, 35). This kingliness of Lear is what gives his endurance on the heath its power and its absurdity. We, audience or readers, already know that the storm is greater than the king and the man Lear. Lear, however, decides that the storm shall be greater . When he sees Mad Tom's abused flesh he murmurs that it is appropriate because the flesh begot the daughters . When he sees Tom's bare forkedness, he shouts, "Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here." (III , iv, 103). Lear decides to be overw~elmed by nature and actively renounces his coverings . As a king, he declared himself not- king of his country when he gave up his power to his daughters . He acts as king again in the storm and declares himself not-k ing again, this time not -k ing of the unaccommodated man within himself. With his declaration he goes mad, but in his madness he becomes even more con~cious. Lear's woes don't lose themselves, as Gloucester thinks . In his madness, Lear the man has learned what Lear the king commanded him to learn . He has given up his throne, even his shelter, and has exposed himself to feel what wretches feel. In Act IV Lear crowns himself with rank fumiter and furrow weeds, and he celebrates his own new state. Lear is a king in accord with the natural world, and as such, he is nothing more than a man . This is not merely a victory of the natural world over a king, but also the victory of human nature and of Lear's own individual nature over a king . we are left with the impression that nature triumphs because the king decides it ought to. Going hence in the first sense, going hence by leaving home, is something which we must endure if we are to be human beings. Lear's endurance, and the humility and humanity he wins by his endurance (at the price of his sanity) , are certainly somehow part of ripeness. 41 �Although going outside is the literal meaning of "going hence", dying is the obvious meaning . "Going hence'' is a terrifying term for death because it is so appropriately vague and shadowy . "Hence" is not a place; it doesn't specify a destination or imply any kind of completeness. The great power of the play is its ability to show horror and grief unflinchingly without tempering them, to make every death an awful one. No one in King Lear is put to rest. We a.re glad when the villains die, but we do not get a sense of fulfillment or completion from their deaths. They are cut off, and we are left wondering why they lived at all, rather than being relieved that they live no more. We are sorry when the characters we love die, but more than we are allowed to mourn, we are forced to wonder why they have died, and where they have gone. Death in King Lear ends life by cutting it off. It does not complete it. Gloucester is the only character in the play who wants to die. His blind baf fled reunion with Edgar, the son he cannot recognize, is confusing and pathetic. His son's choice to deceive his father into thinking that he is led by Tom o' Bedlam and, far worse, into thinking that he has leapt from a cliff, is horrible . Everything in these scenes is unnatural. Even Edgar says that he is trifling with his father's despair (IV, vi, 33) in order to cure it. We must watch him trifle . On the other hand, Gloucester's desire to end his life by leaping from a cliff is an awful, unnatural desire, and his confession of this desire to his son is an awful confession . When Edgar sees his blind father stumbling toward him he says, "World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, life would not yield to age . " (IV, i, 10) . The sight of his sightless father immediately makes Edgar think of death as some sort of comfort . His father's misery is almost too much for him to endure and to watch his father endure . This situation has gone beyond the pale of reality. It happens somewhere out there where everything is completely strange and unnatural , where death really does look tempting . It is strange and unnatural for Edgar to be betrayed by Edmund, for Gloucester to believe Edmund, for Edgar to decide to be Tom o' Bedlam, for Edmund to betray Gloucester, for Gloucester's eyes to be put out by Cornwall, and for blind betrayed Gloucester and his betrayed beggar son to meet and journey together toward a cliff from which Gloucester plans to leap. These events don't necessarily exceed the limits of credibility . In fact, they result naturally from the original situation . Howeve r , every one of them violates our sense of what would be natural for humans to do and to suffer . Edgar seems to think that he acts unnaturally because he is in an unnatural situation; that to obey his human instincts during this unhuman afternoon would be to doom his father and himself . He seems to think that s ·Jicide is such a serious crime against nature (against all thre e n atu res : physical , human , and individ u al) , that to interfere with it in a regular human way would be to fail his fathe r. Only supernatu ral c r eatures can fight battles outside of nature's realm . When Edgar meets his father at the foot of the imaginary cliff and speaks to him in the new persona of a gentleman, he tells Gloucester that he thinks Gloucester was led to the cliff's edge by a fiend . Although Edgar is deceiving his father about his own identity, he is honest here . Two fiends stand at the top of the cliff . One is Gloucester, a man who refuses to endure his life and tries to break every natural law by killing himself . The other is Edgar , his son, who leads him to that imaginary cliff without revealing himself, without begging his f ather to reconsider . Edga.r makes the cliff imaginary when it could have been real, but he must act as a fiend to lead his father to an imaginary suicide . Hoping to save his father by doing it, Edgar plays the fiend. I respect this . It makes sense to assume that suicide is something a person must face alone, to decide that although it may be unnatural and evil, suicide must be private as well. Edgar interferes with Gloucester as much as he dares, but he 42 lets his father risk his life alone . It is a brave and perhaps foolhardy thing to do . Defiance in the face of nature runs in Gloucester's family. Edmund defies human moral nature .in service of his own physically natural desire for wealth and power . Edgar defies normal human nature and his own individual nature in service of his superhuman concern for his father. Both defiances spring from their father's strange willingness to turn nature on its head. Gloucester's willingness, in turn, springs from his own conviction of helplessness and uselessness . He is the man who said, As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods. They kill us for their sport . (IV, i, 37). This view of things is defensible . I could argue that the two lines are the theme of the play, that everything which happens in it is just this sort of wanton, meaningless sport of the gods . But somehow, in Lear, Cordelia, and Kent's cases (and perhaps finally in Edgar and Gloucester's), the depth of our suffering and the acuteness of our misery give meaning to meaningless events. Gloucester says that he envies the king's ability to lose his woes in his distraction, but he is absolutely wrong in attributing this ability to the king. Lear may be mad, but he is not for getful . Gloucester, on the other hand, actually has the ability which he envies Lear . Gloucester is able to decide not to endure, to somehow numb his feeling of sorrow. Where Lear shouts, "Pour on, I will endure!" (III, iv, 17), Gloucester instead thinks up a scheme which will release him from enduring . His resolve to kill himself is an unnatural response to suffering . He takes unnatural comfort in the notion that his "misery could beguile the tyrant's range and frustrate his proud will." (IV, vi, 64). Gloucester sees his situation a little more clearly when he is blinded and realizes which son is actually a "loyal and natural boy" (II, ii, 84) and which is an "unnatural, brutish villain" (I, ii, 76) . This does not mean that his spiritual sight is fully restored. The Gloucester who decides to kill himself cannot or will not look his own misery full in the face . He does not see that human beings must "bear affliction till it do cry out itself, 'Enough, enough!' and die" (IV, vi, 75), until he has tried to end his enduring and has failed. He fails in his suicide attempt because Edgar, his son, will not let him kill himself. By this failure, Gloucester is brought to his knees, forced to endure what he would rather avoid . When Edgar finally tells Gloucester the whole truth, and Gloucester faces his life with nowhere to shrink back to, he dies. Gloucester knew when he tried to kill himself that he would never be able to bear his sufferings . What he did not and could not know o r see was that by being fo r ced to bear them, by living on till fortune killed him, by enduring his own going hence rather than trying to force it - by and through all these things he would finally achieve the only triumphant death of the play. Gloucester sees everything before he dies, and when his heart bursts, it bursts "smilingly .. . twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief" (V, 111, 198). Gloucester's growth into awareness kills him, for he is not made of stuff stern enough to bear clear sight . But while awareness kills him, it also saves him in a way that no one else is saved. Gloucester feels deep grief at the end of the play, but he feels joy as well. Gloucester's death is vastly different from the numbed, twisted comfort he would have had from suicide . Rather than tricking his fate, his fate has tricked him into full awareness and a full death . However, although it is full, it is still the death of a man who, if he had lived, could have been happy. His death may be a supreme moment for him, but even in Gloucester's case we do not feel that it is a completion, that it is a solid, meaningful end. Gloucester has gone hence as much as anyone and faces as much uncertainty . Gloucester's triumph is his awareness of the great joy and the great grief which human life and death must be. 43 ~. �After Edgar tells us of Gloucester's death, Regan and Goneril kill each other, and Edmund is borne off the stage fatally wounded. We do not see any of them die . At this point, Oswald's miserable little death is the only one we have acutally witnessed. Goneril and Regan's bodies are briefly displayed, and then Lear enters with his dead daughter in his arms. Howl, howl, howl!!! Edmund held the fates of Cordelia and Lear in his hands and hesitated on the verge of death and on the edge of goodness. He decided to confess and try to save them, but he decided too late. If Edmund had been faster, Cordelia would have lived. This tragedy of timing has gone on throughout the entire play. In Cordelia's death it is manifested most clearly. If human ripeness is some sort of a goal, then timing is obviously crucial. It is hard to die young and ripe. In thE sense of ripeness, Cordelia's death is the most tragic in the play. Cordelia's going hence by leaving home is a sad moment because she cannot return freely. However, the sadness is not unbearable. It is natural for children to leave home, and although their being thrown out is hard, it is also fairly common. Lear's banishment, on the other hand, is unbearably hard. Fathers are not often thrown out of their homes. When it happens, nature has been turned upside down in a frightening and tragic way. Fathers are supposed to die, and their children to survive them. Although fathers' deaths are sad, and the violent suffering deaths which fathers endure in this play are unnatural, they are humanly bearable. For a father to bear the death of his daughter is much harder than for a son to bear his father's. The death of any child is a more shocking and disturbing loss than the death of any parent. Cordelia's death is unbearable and unnatural because she is not a parent but a child. Even in the realm of death, Cordelia's suffering remains mute. Lear suffers when he is banished, and suffers again when Cordelia dies, even though the death is hers. Lear dies with his daughter's body in his arms . We witnessed the first death of the play, Oswald's, and we watch the last. Though we see a few of the dead bodies, Lear is the only important character whose death we watch. Not seeing the others lends much mysterious power to death. We have no notion at all of what it is, why it happens, or where these people go. Lear's death does not help us with any of these questions. In some ways it is a relief when he is finally allowed to die after everything he has cared about, wrapped in Cordelia's body, is gone. In another way, it is the most frustrating moment of the play. He doesn't enlighten us. For the first time in the play he seems really mad, to the point of unawareness . Kent says "The wonder is he hath endured so long. He but usurp' d his life." (V, iii, 316) • Lear's death is at once the saddest moment of the play and the biggest relief in the play. However, his death is no end at all. He dies telling us to look at something we cannot see . Perhaps it is an illusion of life in Cordelia's corpse . Perhaps as he joins her in death he sees that her immortal soul is really alive. Perhaps he has finally turned into the confused old fool who, in our bitter moments, we suspected he might be. We do not know. Certainly though, Lear's death is not a conclusion. It is as vague and shadowy as any other death, and because we watch it , we know for certain that it is not any sort of achievement, in that Lear finds no peace in it. The inconclusiveness of his death is not Lear's tragedy. Every human being dies an inconclusive death. The younger a person dies, the more meaningless and inconclusive the death. It is a general tragedy of the human race that we die and that our deaths are mere "going hences" to be endured, rather than final blasts of glory to be savored and remembered by all who survive us. We endure death in two ways: We endure the deaths. of those who die while we survive, and we endure our own. Being left behind is always inconclusive and lonely, and in this respect every death in King Lear rings true. However, the manner in which we endure our own deaths is not nearly so uniform. Gloucester's death is almost triumphant for him. He is ripe and ready to go. Cordelia's death is absolutely horrifying because she is young and green, completely unready and unripe. Lear is 44 somewhere in between. he could have become. He does not want or even expect to die. He is not fully ripe. He has not become all Edgar tells Gloucester that Men must endure their going hence, even as their corning hither. It is not as easy to distinguish between the literal and metaphorical meanings of coming hither as it was with going hence. If going hence does have a literal implication of going outside, coming hither may mean something like corning inside, coming into a situation which i.s already happening. The word "hither" means "here". Edgar must either be talking about here, this world, or here, underneath this particular tree during the unfavorable outcome of this particular battle. I cannot generalize about coming inside the way I did about going outside because Edgar speaks the line outside. Everyone in the play has come outside in order to get to Edgar's here, the final battle. Instead, I' 11 talk a little about this absurd battle. The play would be very different if Cordelia's army had won the day. The villains would still have ample opportunity to kill each other off, and the likelihood of the happy survival of Gloucester, Cordelia, and Lear would be good. It makes sense that Regan and Goneril's forces would beat Cordelia's, but then it also makes sense that Edmund would defeat Edgar in a duel. The latter does not happen. The former then, must be more than a victory of good warriors over a good daughter. Instead, it is the inevitable result not of Lear's daughters' natures, but of Lear's own nature. Gloucester's ability to die twixt two extremes of passion, joy, and grief, to die the best death in the play, is the ability which his sons have inherited. Their plot does not conclude perfectly - Edmund hesitates too long before repenting - but it does end well. The good, lawful son inherits and the bad son dies repentent. Lear's family is not able to manage things so tidily. They all die, leaving no heir but the milk-liver'd Albany, husband of the most villainous member of the family. It is appropriate that the man whose own death is unambiguously tragic should have a family which ends as ungracefully and as completely tragically. However, Lear's family's ends are much more honest, much more appropriate to themselves than the ends of Gloucester's family. The "hither" which Edgar might mean literally is a battle illustrating the meaninglessness of everything which happens in the family of the king. The warrior sisters' armies win the day, and at the same time one sister poisons the other and is stabbed by her. Their servants unthinkingly murder their father and sister, even though they themselves "desperately are dead". The whole thing is gruesome. Edgar may have saved his father from suicide, but he has led him hither, to a battle which cannot possibly end well. This is not Edgar's fault. Men must endure their corning hither, and living in England at the end of Lear's reign necessarily means being involved in the bloody demise of Lear's family. The real and important meaning of corning hither is not the literal one. Edgar's words to his father are strangely double edged. "Don't worry, Dad," he is saying, "you must endure your death as I had to endure my birth. I cannot do anything about being your son, and you cannot do anything about dying." The order and the emphasis of Edgar's words imply that it is harder to endure birth than death, that being born is a greater burden. The idea that having a father can be a tragic event is definitely central to the play. There are few mentions of mothers in King Lear. Gloucester mentions Edmund's mother when he blames her for conceiving Edmund and having a baby for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed (I, i, 13). Almost every mention of mothers is connected with adultery and illegitimacy. When Gloucester is told of Edgar's treachery, he says of Edgar, "I never got him" (II,i,80) . When Lear arrives at Gloucester's castle in pursuit of Regan, he says 45 �if Regan is not glad to see him, he' 11 "divorce her mother's tomb, sepulchering an adultress" (II , iv, 132). It is frightening and funny to note that Edmund is the only son whose fatherhood is never questioned. The only other mention of motherhood is Lear's curse on Goneril, where he hopes she has a child of spleen that she may feel "how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." {I, iv, 278) • I mention the lack of mothers because I am certain that a mother on the cast would throw the play into a completely different dimension. Mothers have a natural physical connection to their children which fathers, who do not carry their children, can never have. The bond between father and child must be more social than that between mother and child . Fathers love their children according to human moral nature and to their own individual natures rather than according to any real physical bond (though raising someone fr om birth creates a strong bond) . Though fathers by nature love their children, the bond between father and child is not necessarily an indissoluble bond, or at least not an unassailable one . Gloucester and Lear have reared their children alone. The children have grown up in situation$ where the animal nature of families has been easily forgotten and where the bonds of nature alone have been set up as standards, weaker for the lack of physical natural bonds. Every child in the play suffers from having a .father. This is probably because of the two particular fathers. Both Gloucester and Lear reveal an almost total lack of understanding of and concern for their children . It is as likely in other human situations to suffer from having a mother, but that suffering would be different. It is not described in King Lear. This is not to say that the sufferings of children in the play are the same. Edmund must bear his father's scorn. His father conceived him for sport, mocks him in his presence, and sends him away for nine years at a time, all without a second thought. Edgar must suffer the same man, who does not know or care about him, and who believes treason of him without a second thought. Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia must bear a very different father, a king who treats his daughters as subjects and their love for him as a matter to be debated in court . Lear of fers his daughters complete material independence, but he offers it at the price of complete emotional devotion or of flattery. When Goneril and Regan buy their kingdoms with deceitful tongues, Lear must know that they are doing so. He has reserved the best portion for the daughter whose genuine love he is certain of , and he has set the situation up so that his bad daughters can make their graceful, lying speeches without having to do anything to prove the matter of their words . The price Cordelia pays for being Lear's daughter is far greater than the honor which Goneril and Regan give up. If Cordelia were to swear her complete devotion to her father, she would keep her word and wither and die without a life of her own . Her other choice is to not promise the emotional subjection which she does not want to offer, and to suffer and die without her father's love or approval. Edgar has endured his own coming hither, accepting his father for what he is , and behaving as the loya:-.., natural boy Gloucester thinks Edmund is. Regan and Goneril also endure their coming hither fairly well. Lear does not ask them to love him, but to make fine speeches about love in his court . They do as he asks. They are savage and cruel to Lear, but this compounds rather than constitutes Lear's tragedy. In fact, although he toys with the notion of their illegitimacy, Lear is certain that Goneril and Regan are his daughters. He muses that torturing his own flesh may be the most appropriate response to his daughters' treachery, since his is the flesh which begot those peculiar daughters. There is something to this. Goneril and Regan are probably more cruel than Lear, but he has as little reason for banishing Cordelia and Kent as they have for throwing him outside. They are definitely Lear's daughters and they do not do anything to challenge or to try to change the relationship to Lear into which he puts them. Edmund and Cordelia are the two who are unable to endure the situations they are 46 born into . Edmund cannot endure his bastardy. His lack of control over the circumstances of his birth continues , because of those circumstances, into every moment of his life. He does not and cannot believe that his being twelve or fourteen moonshines lag of a brother affects his nature in any real or meaningful way . Although he uses his father's love for him as one more proof of his own merit, he is willing to subvert that love to a purpose which, in his eyes, is much higher . He will do whatever he must in order to take control of his circumstances. We get the feeling that if things had been slightly different, if Edmund had been born twelve or fourteen moonshines earlier, and had been born legitimate, he might have been able to endure his birth and his father's failures. Everything might have been vastly different . Instead, Edmund decides , "Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit; All with roe's meet that I can fashion fit." (I, ii, 176). In the eyes of a bastard, legitimacy is simply a legalistic notion. If the human morality is nothing more than "t~e curiosity of nations" (I, ii, 4) in respect to the primary important matter of his own birth, to decide that morality is no more than ridiculous law-making in every other respect is not difficult. According to these ridiculous la~s, Edmund ou~ht to have nothing and be nothing . At the same time, these laws predict that he will .be lawless and base . Edmund defies the expectations of his powerlessness by grabbing for all he can get and by ruthlessly betraying his brother and his father . But ev~n as he betrays the men whose existence nullifies his in such a complicated way, he is playing the role of the outlaw, the bastard. To ta~e a~tion to try ~o reverse the circumstances of his birth is certainly to stop enduring it. However, in that Edmund is at the same time completely affected by the circumstances of his birth, he is in some way trapped into bastardy . He is responding according to the outlaw nature a bastard is born with. we are not meant to despise Edmund; his speeches are too attractive for that . The timing is off, though, as it is in every other facet of the play. And so Edmund is forced to be base, to be unnatur~l by mor~l .h~an nature at the very moment he is natural by physical nature. Edmund is by def~nition an outlaw . The whole problem with being the child of a thoughtless father is brought . out by Edmund's situation. His birth is his biggest affliction, and he has carried the brand of it through every moment of his life. He cannot unbirth himself, and he cannot even really regret the fact that he has been born. He owes his fa:her h~s very life, and at the same moment, his father is res ponsib le for every. misery in that life. Because his father begot him at all, Edmund is bound to love him and obey him; because his father begot him in the manner he did, Edmund must betray him . Although Edmund rebels against the circumstances of his birth, he does notrebel personally . His quarrel with his coming hither is f or. the mo~t part material rather than spiritual, and his betrayals are motivated by his longing for land and power rather than by any feeling of deep moral and emotional wrongdoing. It is the base material nature of his motivation which decides Edmund's villainy . His father and his brother have not tortured him after all, nor have they asked him to betray himself in any way which would force him to rebel, to stop enduring. Instead, they have, justly or unjustly, deprived him of the wealth and power he craves. We cannot judge Edmund acco rding to normal laws because he was born outside of them. However, we know that he is aware of his family's love for him, and that he refuses to endure his birth in spite of their love f or him and in spite of his for them. Edmund betrays his family's love for the sake of their money, and in doing it, he becomes "a most toad-spotted traitor" (V, iii, 139). Cordelia is the other child who refuses to endure her birth, to obey her fath~r , to take from him what he offers her, or to promise him what he asks of her . Her circumstances, of course, are very different from Edmund's. She is the favorite ~augh­ ter; Edmund is the unwanted son. She is offered the most weal th and power in the 47 �Kingdom; Edmund has been promised nothing. Cordelia's father demands that her love for him be a matter of words and ceremonies, that what is most privately important to her be demonstrated in his court. She endures ·this by standing firm in the face of it, but her firm stance is also a rebellion. She cannot do her father's will because he wants her to promise him every bit of her love . If Edmund suffers because his father will not give him enough, Cordelia's suffering is tied with the much more painful and destructive fact that her father demands too much from her. To give him what he asks would be to deny her honor and to lie. It would be to betray the relationship between them or to deny her own life and every freedom she has ever had, thus betraying herself. She chooses to stand firm, to maintain her honor and her loyalty to herself . By doing this, she fails her father and rebels against him. Cordelia rebels against her father because she loves him. She cannot bear to see Lear the man subsumed by Lear the king. She is deeply hurt that Lear her father refuses to think of her as his daughter and instead tries to make her into a flattering courtier. He..c rebellion, based on these offenses against humanity and fatherhood, starts the tragedy, but her rebellion is not really an active one. She is trapped by circumstance as much as Edmund is . She must love her father and she must be true to him. In order to do so she must betray the king, Lear, and disappoint the man, Lear. Although she rebels against her father and the circumstances of her birth, Cordelia does not betray either. In fact, she does nothing until she returns to invade her homeland and reinstate her father. It is clear that she does not want him to force his kingdom on her . When he wakes from his sleep in her care, she 11 asks, "How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty? (IV, vii, 44). Cordelia's decision to speak in words of the court means two things . First, she wants Lear to know that he is king and must be king until he dies, and that she will not take his kingdom from him, no matter how insistently he offers it. At the same time, she is finally capitulat:lng, speaking to him as king rather than as father. She does not do this because she thinks of him as king rather than as father, but because she knows he wants her to, and she is determined to obey him. When Lear is convinced that she is real, he thinks that she is mocking him. Here is another tragedy of timing . Just when Cordelia sees her way clear to being her father's subject as well as his daughter, speaking to him in the royal language he once demanded, Lear sees the foolishness and impotency which have come out of his royalty, and renounces them. He says he has given her cause to hate him, and Cordelia denies it. "No cause," she says, "No cause." (IV, vii, 75) . She tells the truth here . Lear's unnatural demand for a pledge of total devotion and his unnatural offe r of an inheritance before he actually died, forced Cordelia to rebel against him, and to disobey him. He banished her to a husband who loved her . Although her father ' s anger and her own banishment must have caused her real grief, it was her father's foolishness and the certain failure of his plans which saddened here the most . She has worried about him and wept for him; she has not suffered much in her own fate. Lear seems to see his mistake here. He has learned that he is a man as well as a king, and that the two are separate. He has even gone so far as to decide that his manliness is more important than his kingliness. If the play ended with this reunion, it would not be a tragedy. Of course, it goes on. Lear and Cordelia are taken as prisoners. The words I am writing this essay about are the last words we hear spoken be tween Edgar and his father . The scene which follows Edgar and Gloucester ' s last is Cordelia and Lear's last scene together . The tenors are drastically different. If I find hope in Edgar and Gloucester's last scene together, it must be severely tempered by the despair with which the next scene fills me. Lear's speech in this scene is beguilingly beautiful, and I have often heard it referred to as the happy ending of the play. For me it is a final horror. Cordelia and her father are taken captive. Cordelia speaks words of selfless comfort to her father, and calls him "oppressed king" (V, iii, 5) rather than "dear father" or any other name which expresses af- 48 fection. Her words and her tone here sicken me. She has not stood firm in her determination to be Lear's daughter rather than his subject. She speaks words as wooden as her first, but these, her last , are also false. She speaks a hope which she does not feel, she makes a final attempt to compete with her sisters and proclaim her love for Lear, she falls into the courtly language she despises. Here, for the first time, Cordelia endures her fo rtune in the weak sense of the word: she meekly suffers it. Here, for the first time, she does not endure ' her circumstances by standing firm in the face of them. At the very last, Cordelia weakens . Her weakening fills me with despair . I take little comfort from thinking that she may be standing firm in the face of her going hence, because these words are f or her father. Whatever implication they may have concerning Cordelia's death, it cannot outweigh the horrible blinding of Lear which these words effect. Lear's speech in response to Cordelia's last words is beautiful, and it is ghastly. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage. When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness . So we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out.And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies ; and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones. That ebb and flow by th' moon . Take them away Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The gods themselves throw incense . Have I caught thee? He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes. The goodyears shall devour 'em, flesh and fell, Ere they shall make us weep! We'll see 'em starv'd first . (V, iii, 8) Although Lear has learned the wisdom of humility and humanity and the uselessness of royalty, he has not learned to be a father. He rejoices in the prospect of his own captivity because it will also be his daughter's captivity. He started the tragedy by scheming to catch Cordelia, to force her to declare her love for him, and to arrange things so that he could spend every minute of his old age with her . He thinks he has accomplished his goal here, and he crows with joy while Cordelia begins to weep with dismay. Surely, he will . ask her forgiveness continually and be glad to get it. But Lear will never regret anything now that he has "caught" Cordelia and can command her constant attention and devotion. This is the saddest moment of the play. It is the moment where a story which might have been about a good but foolish king le arning wisdom through suffering becomes instead the story of a man who never learns anything until it is too late, and who never escapes or even comprehends the fault which causes his suffering. This is also the moment when Cordelia must endure her father in a way that few people are called upon to endure their parents. She must directly face the fact that her father will never be a father to her. He will always be someone who plots and schemes in his effort to catch her, to have her all to himself, and to be cared for by her . If Gloucester's great and horrifying unnaturalness is his effort to end his own life, to enforce rather than endure his going hence, Lear's horrifying unnatural- 49 �ness is his effort to demand from his daughter the love which a father ought to bestow on her. Edgar tricks his father out of suicide into seeing all that ha.s happened to him clearly and dying in an honest response to his clear vision. This deceit is appropriate and effective. However, Cordelia has no weapon against her father's unnatural demands except her honesty. She can only refuse, and after fortune goes against them, she cannot even refuse her father's unnatural desires. (There is no evidence that these are incestuous desires.) Instead, Cordelia dies, a victim in every respect, having only been able to endure her birth, and now merely enduring her going hence. She is hung while her aged father fights a desperate battle for her _ nd a Edmund deliberates about whether to stop her hanging. Her death is completely pointless insofar as it advances no one 's cause . There is no real reason to kill her. Her death is also the most piercing event of the play. Cordelia cannot and does not die ripe, because she is young and because she does not expect to d~e. Her death may It seems may not help her father to attain some sort of awareness and ripeness. it thrusts him into madness, that he is never made aware of his terrible fathering, that he dies miserably not because he h.as wro.nged his daughter and . she ~as suffered deeply but because he is alone again. His only chance of reunion with Cordelia and 0 / getting the love he craves from her is to follow her into death. There is something evilly beautiful about Lear's selfish passion for hi~ Jau~hter, but there is nothing comforting about it. Although Lear's last speech, i~ which he humbly asks for help with his button, shows how far he has come from the king on the heath who decided to be unaccommodated and then commanded his servant to unbutton him, nonetheless he has not made the final important step. Lear has learned to be a man, but he remains hopeless as a father. ~~at Edgar says to his father, Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither; Ripeness is all. (V , ii, 9) . Ripeness is offered as a result of , or a comfort in, the face of the things which precede it: our endurance of nature, of going hence, a~d o~ coming hith~r. Ripeness is a natural image, one which we would not ~rdinarily connect with human beings. Let me look briefly at ripeness in. the physica: natural world in order to try to get a clear definition of the word in its most basic sense , before going on to try to talk about ripeness in a human context . The ripeness of a peach is not the peach's achievement . Peaches have no will and cannot achieve or even act. Peaches are capable of being created , plucked, and eaten . All of the activities of a peach are passiv~ . H.owev:r, .not every ~ea~h ripens to full flavor . The reasons for a peach not being r ipe is either that it is still green or that it has become rotten. In the case of a peach, ripeness depe~ds on the weather, and, far more, on the passage of time . In time, e~ery .peac~ will ripen. Given too much time, any one will go rotten. When a peach is ripe, it ~as reached its peak . It tastes best t o us, but our taste echoes nature 1 s perfection rather than deciding it. Ripe fruit is ready to fall, ready to rot for the sake.of nourishing the seed it bears and continuing the cyclical life of the ~lant wh ich bears it . Ripeness is a fruit's perfection, but is is not earned by a fruit . Peaches do nothing but wait to be ripe . Of course, people are no t peac h es . 0 u r Sou ls are not vegetable souls . Ripeness for humans is more than the simple physical maturity which results from the pas~age of time . Nonetheless, Shakespeare compares us to plants when he tells us that ripe- ness is all. Ripeness in humans . must be mostly. a result of the passage of time. whatever ripeness may be, it is not something which human beings can strive for or make strides toward. What we produce is not important to Edgar or to Shakespeare. we are not fruit-bearing creatures, but rather we are fruits. What bears us is beyond our control, and so is what plucks us . The task of a human being is merely to endure, most fully, all that confronts him or her. One is ripe only when one has endured patiently and bravely everything which will be endured and is completely ready to be cut off from this life of endurance, to part from one's children as they will part from theirs, because it is time. This is the physically natural sense of ripeness in humans. We must also look at ripeness according to human nature and to individual will. Earlier, I mentioned two kinds of endurance : plain passive endurance (undergoing) leads to the natural ripeness I have described . But endurance can also have a stronger meaning: standing firm in the face of . We must stand firm in the face of nature, of going hence and of corning hither. Standing firm in the face of nature is best illustrated by King Lear on the heath in the storm. He shouts, "Pour on, I will endure!" (III, iv, 17) and he does, remaining fully aware of himself and at the same moment, forcing himself to be fully aware of the natural world which opposes him and to be honest about its power over him. Lear's final ripeness is not complete. He does not stand firm in the face of his death in that he does not really know he dies. He does not stand firm in the face of his fatherhood; standing still is vastly different from standing firm. His inability to change is an inability to endure because it is an inability to face himself anq his circumstances squarely . However, in spite of his failure as a father and his failure in death, Lear's firmness in the face of nature is triumphant. In respect to the natural world and his awareness of his place in it, Lear grows ripe. When he dies, he is, in at least one respect, fully ripe. Lear on th~ heath is also a good example of enduring our going hence, in the out-of-doors sense of going hence . Lear is not alone in his endurance of banishment and of the things "out there". Kent, Cordelia, Gloucester, and Edgar all endure banishment, each in a slightly different manner . Being banished and going hence is the most certain and most common way in which people ripen. Everyone in the play seems to be able to stand firm in the face of their banishment, and all of them grow wise because of it. The other meaning of going hence is dying. Gloucester has more trouble facing his death than any other character . However, when his "heart burst smilingly, twist two extremes of passion, joy, and grief" (V, iii, 198) , Gloucester has endured his death as no other character has. In spite of himself, Gloucester waits for death to claim him, and he endures it by allowing it to happen to him rather than by seeking it. But his real triumph is in his standing firm in the face of his death, look ing his death and all of his life full in the face , and dying completely aware of what his life has been and of the fact that there is as much to be glad about as their is to mourn . This is ripeness in de-a th, this readiness combined with this hesitancy and, above all else, with this awareness. Ripeness in regard to our coming hither is most fully evinced by Edgar. He ac knowledges his father's weaknesses and goes to great lengths to help his father overcome his faults without shrinking from them or allowing them to remain. In the course of doing this f o r his father and for himself, Edgar is the most enigmatic character in the play. His mys t ery results from the fact that he is able to completely fulfill the advice he has given to his father. Edgar is somehow able to ac cept nature, death, and birth . He is able to outface the winds and persecutions of the sky, to lead his father to a false suicide thereby risking his father's actual death, and to act always in accord with his responsibilities to and his unde rstanding of his father . 51 50 �.:v!1u Ei_~l.ln_<h ~-::<2,'}$~nq_t.-. enpµr~.li ?-~ :1 W E111,, : -iP ,E(;paps b_~SC?-UP:ft _, Ri_qmun.?,.'s original situation is 1 .qar,~~r , tq '- ~~d't~· tz!1~~, )~:?-g'!l-,; ;~ .f?t~ (fS.9 .1(.9.ei~a , ca qn ~t. : P.9 ~t.: eith~;r l perhaps because she is 119..P ~,::f,a..y.~h~~· '1-11 · whth._, ,v;~.i;::~ue J 9o~egg;w,, ;· §h~ canl;lp~1 1 ....il}l!froy.is,~ , in her dealings with her - ~,q.tp~r :>.W ._ i ,!;1. p . r; cr~p P0. ~8:e~r te± fwf1.. s1tu't-t~o~.,. 1 f;~ur:i~ ~~. :.tp,o\ ~ lexible . He gives up any e 0 ~ftg>~~ .. ?-td~n~Hrn11c~ . !ll:DP ~al}ts ~,,B~s o,~ ru~§S . : w~;th.siut . ia , seyord thought . Cordelia, on :. ~p,. e 5 q.~ h~,; r;I?-ar;yi~,~· i~) .. 11:qo ,, 9ti~~ a~d, ·:-,~poqeq ., J.O? : sa~911t ) up ;Lp her passive endurance to " :fA?~}.~ ¥\.i'..-?t'r:~d · _ _:tirm<;1 ~·~.PJH:s. i~ : t_?~[ ~1egoy~p. t,p 1~0,~e :. -.:r;.ig9~ou~ ! standard of purity to be ~c gf? ie c-: t,.o ,,rEfsF><er8 ~s 0 n3r 1 rieA~u~~~qn ~..gerc:iQ.nd,s, <?-ri<;J., ..p~1p ._h,~:r: '~a~~er. ,and herself to ripeness. Edgar's ripeness is interesting to me becq..µ,se ~~ s _eltls ,, .to know about ripeness from e .1 ~f:ie ~· "t!Ht .. <;i~Ch t_~1 te.aqh ,i, ~f f 11'?.r his _, J~1f!_ler t ,· I,t. 1 ,is q,s . :i if 1 be .k:qows that the only possible :-i 5.~.P.?-YW~ 1:r;;t 1 h~ - ~~n ~ke . j:?,_; l.}i~\', •tfa;th~-:r;~; ..L o!_; h,a y" f incq.,, ,g-1-yern .. p~ri;i.,: l .~fe is to give his father rg.eit.th1 BR:':- P r;Q£.~}~,Etri@ tbiP1.' j;.Qst bYi ·: ~~i:HUng )).}me. ,t ? tr:he.:_.J?oint where he can die com,, .Yi ; ~. J?.tE; itr?: +~ riiJ?ie l° i«, ,§,9m~l;1;9,W- ..., he c,r~_P,.yfil,8 9 ~ , o.f ,'l the ,_; §R;n J ,e$.11lt,;:;,. from , the ripeness of the fat ~ (!rh~ ;t; ., 3 "! 1 , ,tlfiip.,~ · &,~a:t"' 1::~.~ - 1 . s,cµ,ne \I2,0~s,~I:? il. irty :~ T.X~.?:t: ed ·_. for.·_ Co ~~dylia and Lear : i f one had been ripe in regard to the other, the other might have been led to ripeness. Their I foggiest are Rachel's mother's death and my cousin Sam's death. What they endured, whether they were ripe, whether their decisions were info rmed by clear vision or by hopelessness, I will never know, and I have no way of finding out. I am certain though, that Rachel and I have hope of ripeness, in respect to those who have left us and to those who gave birth to us. We will endure, and we will grow ripe, and our ripeness will be enough . ~ a l;!-_u:r;~ , fh~ p.0 m1;1,tua.~ • <?;t;_l.~ ( j- aS 1,.Edga):" - and 1 · Glo,uc~.ster'. s s:uccess is mutual. , '"' :.e,,t. ~~J?~f1:,Ss;·.- ~s . Rffy:>;ed ; by 1., E~4mt-F:· tf.o i 0louc~st~r :- a-s 1a,~ .c;Qif\fort . It is a comforting ~)iq·Efp, b,,~c~~se_ i ~t. . ji ,!f . ~'?:t , .an ~ID,P,O§?Jbl~.... pne,.: -Being : ripe-, q0es not r equire being com::PJ..,Efte).y, ,,, , q at. isf~EQ<;1,,_·; or ,:P .Ofl.\P;le:tely · ~a.I?P'Yr- i l ~ipeness " i~ •,, a •, J.C_omfort because it grows H a~urall17 1 pu;t, q;f ,?_.li~ ,. po;r;,ro~s - and ,) OU·r joys · , 1 • In:. order t,o be ripe, we must simply en. .du,r~. . t:nd~r~ns~ ~, i ~ ,. r;tot:.~cqmp~etely.:- passj,ve; ·it .,i s · qu_ e .. p ossible to live through many it_ j ,qys q.np, ,s orrows_ -W tihoµt be_ _:i ing . ripened by them : .. Howeve r,· : endurance is not an impos_9,ih.l e d~pt~P.d 1 a:t;_1a _J,.-. 1 ,. vye mu,st. simply ;force .rqurselve1 1to ,be. aware of what is happening * s t_ Lus. and, fo+c; e:r J 9'A13'se~v~s .-to , re,s pontj naturally . o ., ,.• 1 ,. Ri.J;lER_n~w .s ;L s . ..f!.S IJ\Uc~:i., , a . result oj;: :0urr s_ uf.fe+ing as , it; is a comfort in the face of ,i _ . , 'I;'lt~ ) . less_,.we ,e:_;xp~rien9g r, . . 1 ap9.1 , t}:ie ~E?SS .fully we, allow . our.selves to experience the t events in our lives, the les~.,, ripe T-t~ 1wi].J.. _, g!OV{ . ·Qn .t he other hand , we can be shown _ .e t,ruth p~i q~r. ctfXperiepi:re 1 ,~:f.te r ; it.: [la.s hap,pened,. , as Glqucester is. :t;.f1. Ripeness de P~f?.~ ;up.on tim~ 1.-,.:P,t!~ ·r.iP not . sub;:;e;rv_ ier:t; . to time ·. Alt,hough ; we cannot be ripe without . e,:>tP~;rie:µc~, 'V!c,e ~. san.... ;t>ecp!l\e.. 1 ,. .r_ip~ , rl _ ong<, jifte.r . our experief'.lc. s. e There are many kinds of exp~!i-:~:r;iqe 1 ~.s ., w~;I.._!; ·. if . . . \fe t3) ,ook, .long . .nd: hardirCl.t th~ ·· books we read, we can be tempe red a ~y ~ Pu! ; ~xperiep.~~ _ oJ, the.~ .. arid gro~ _mor~ r.~pe . because... of them •. , ;· ·, ...~lte;r-e , care 1 "'t"fq~ _ waJlp, to; .!iea,d '-.' -q.ll:''. in ~'Ripen~ss is all... . "All" may be some sort of limiting word, saying something like, "Ripeness is the only thing we can hope for. l.lt . ,i ,i:; ~;LJ .J, w_,e C}Ji~1 ,, ac:fiieve ., " . ,~ipenes~ .m ay ,9e a , stq.tement of fulfillment and compl.~t:ion,_: -, , "R;if), neRs _ s _ e i all . ~e need- t9 achieve. To be ri,pe is to be a complete human ; be~ng . ", ]?oth :r;eadings maJse sense wi thqut contradicting each other . Ripeness is all }:hat a humap bE?in,g can hqp,e to . accomplish, and ripeness is the fulfillment of a human beiµg. !'fuen _we a~e ripe, ~ we are complete. ·: I : spoke at tfhe . start a}?oµt, my hope that my e xplor ation of Edgar's words to his fat,.};le:r: -. woulp , be . ':ls~fu,l .to , rqe .in .my ow11 con.text as .well as in the contex t of the play . I will not s~~ . ~o~ t~is . explo~~tion has changed or will until time has passed and the che3:~9e_~ have , happ~n.ed. ,. . ipeness .is something I can hope for, but not strive for . R Rachel spent that summer in her mother's house in an attempt to learn about her mo :the:r and to .:fac,e the circumstances . of her own .birth and of her mother's death . _ R~c.he.l is ~y age,. and she has much growing, learning, and experiencing before her . I am certai.n s~~- .'wi ,i 1 continue to endure ~ravely, and I respect her resolve. -+ am .~1;:. ;i ll bitter toward my father, and he toward me . I do not know whether , ~~ere ,, wi~l be ripeness between us, but I know . that the way toward ripeness is endur ance. with . in:t,eg~ity. I know that. I will ripen i;f I do nCDt resent, and if I can keep myse,1,f frol}l l('.e in.g . at odds with "the situation and from denying it. r .u . , Five yeari;:; ~ave pa!?.sed since the . surruner I spent with Rachel across the bay from my father . , I ~ Dfl.Ve ne~ded the$e years to sift thr. ugh and begin tc see clearly the o things which happened then. Some things will always be foqqy for me. The two ctr:_ag,~5 53 �To Molly in August 1986 An Examination of Aristotelian Awareness David Walter Fawn Trigg As if we know sin too well We blind the eyes with darkness And let benign fingers do the seeing; Because fingers desire, above all, to feel what they see; But eyes desire, above all, to see what they feel. "All men by nature desire understanding. A sign of this is their liking of sen sation "(Metaphysics 980a 20) . This juxtaposition has always puzzled me. Why does the observation that we enjoy sensations illuminate the claim that we are of a certain nature, and that this nature is to want to understand? Aristotle examines the question of our nature as men not so much in the Metaphysics as in the third book of De Anima . The initial task of De Anima is to find what is common to all living things as living, to ask what it means to be alive.* Iri the third book Aristotle focuses his search on what is common to all men as men, to ask what it means to be a man. Since man alone has an intellect, and "intelligence, above all, is man," (Ethics 1178a 7) , the question of what it means to be a man reads more specifically in De Anima as what it means to have an intellect . Aristotle examines this question usi;g-the method of inquiry set out at the beginning of the Physics (184a 17- 21) . He proceeds in De Anima from what is more known and clearer to us, sensing, but also common to animal-;; to what belongs only to men, knowing . Sensation's role in coming to know is brought to light by his search and so sheds some light on what it means to be knowing . The stage is set for one of the comparisons between the simply animate and sentient souls in the last chapter of Book II . Aristotle had discussed sensation in terms of a general definition: sensation is the receiving of the forms of sensible objects without their matter (424a 18). In II . 12 he asks what is the difference be tween our being warm in the sun and plants' being warm, since in both of these cases we could say a sensible form is received without its matter . To feel warm is different from being warmed, since in feeling warm we must sense, o r be aware, that we ·are being warmed . The sentient soul is not only affected, but also senses that it is . In III . 2 he asserts that "we sense the fact that we are seeing or hearing . " (425b 12) • The question for Aristotle is not "do we sense sensing?" but "what part of the sentient soul senses sensation?* But to "sense sensing" he tells us, has several meanings . While the ability to sense sensing is involved in the distinction between what it means to be an animal and what it means to be a plant, it is not clear what this awareness actually is. This question remains. In III.4 Aristotle asserts, "the intellect is intelligi- As if we know sin too well We turn our backs toward it-Like Perseus, tracing the translucent Image of Medusa in the smooth, handpolished Cavity of his inverted shield-Because eyes, seeing , may turn desire to stone . And I imagine my hand r eturning to the lamp-Retracing its path in the just- darkness: Wait, I want, for an instant to see The obscured shape of ecstasy . *If, indeed, there is something in common . The definition of the soul at 412b 4 - 6 takes the form of a conditional sentence : "If, then, there is something common to be said about every kind of soul, this would be : the first actuality of a natural body which has organs ." *A question for which he gives two answers : in De Anima III " . so we should assume that this first sense [vision or hearing]- senses itse1f." (425b 18) and in Sleeping and Waking "each sense possesses something which is special and which is common . . special to vision , for example, is seeing . . . but there is a common power which accompanies them all, in virtue of which one senses that one is seeing or hearing." (455a 12ff) . 54 55 �ble," (430 a 2) , and only explains when the intellect can know knowing, which is "after it has become several of i~objects." (429b 10). He mentions in the Metaphysics in what way we come to s ense that we se nse and know that we know: "knowledge and sensation are always o f other objects and only incidentally of themselves." (1074b 35-36). It is not clear what this awareness is. Is this awareness of knowing vital to what it means to be a man as a man and not as an animal, as sentient awareness was vital in II .12 in distinguishing between an animal and a plant? Just as Aristotle does not explicitly discuss awareness , he does not explicitly compare sensing sensing and knowing knowing. To find what sensing sensing and knowing knowing could be, to be able to compare them in the c ontext of this question, we need first find out what kind of sensing and what kind of knowing Aristotle says we sense and know . s ensing sensing and knowing knowing are mentio ned in discussions focused on one kind o f activity. This activity is the being at one o f the objects of sense and knowledge with the faculties of sensation or knowing.* In II.2 after he asserts that we sense sensing, Aristotle discusses the activity of sensing: "The activity of ·t he sensible object and the activity of sensation [o f it ] are one and the same . " (425a 26) . He makes a similar conclusi on in III . 4, before stating we can know knowing, that the "intel lect become s each intelligible object . " (429b 6) . Late in the chapter Aristotle explains that "the intellect is intelligible," (43 0 a 2), by saying, "that which thinks and that which is being thought are the same . " (430a 4 ) . This actuality of being at one rests o n Aristo tle's notion of the potentiality and actuality of the s o ul . The faculties o f sensation and intellect exist in a state of potentiality (417a 7, 429a 23). The sensible object is a particular which e x ists apar t f r om the soul ; the knowable object is a universal which exists in the soul i n some manner (417b 23) . The potentially sensing facult y and the potentially knowing fa culty are in some way similar to their obj ects and are affected by the activity of their objects (429a 17 - 18) . The activity occurs in t hat which is changing f r om potentiality to actuality . The activity of the obj ect is the ac t ivity of the faculty . They are one in that activity. This change fr om the faculty existing potentially to becoming actual is a par ticular kind of change , because the faculty even while existing potentially is complete. So when actualized, it is not altered (431a 5- 8) . The faculty's change f r om potentially sensing to actually sensing i s like the change a hammer undergoes when it is put to work . The hammer is no t added to or subtracted from . The hammer is complete, but becomes actually a hammer, because it is at work being a pounder of nails . This kin d of change i s con t ras t ed with the chang e of mo tion whi ch "is t he ac t ua l ity (43l a 7). The change involved in the pile of lumber in the o f what is incomplete." process of being built into the house is a motion (Metaphysics 1066a 7) . The activity of being at one is the same for the sensing and know i ng souls , except the different faculties apprehend different kinds of objects . Nonetheless , the objects a re analogous, insofar as they are objects of which apprehensi on can neve r be false . Aristotle distinguishes two activities of the intellect, the forming of p r oposit i ons which may be true o r false, and the apprehension o f indivisibles . The sec ond is neither true nor false, except by equivocation. Apprehension of them would be true, non- apprehension would not be true, and neither could be o therwise (Metaphysics 1 0 51b 22 - 26 ) . Aristotle draws the comparison between this infallibility of the intellective soul and that of the sentient: An assertion, like an affirmation, is of something about something else and in every case it is true or false. But the intellect is not in every case of this sort . If it is a whatness with respect to essence, it is true, and is not something about something else; and just as seeing a proper sensible is true, whereas that the white thing is a man (or is not a man) is not always true . (430b 27-31) Knowing is then like sensing when apprehending, for they are both identical with the object about which there can be no mistake .* Then is knowing this kind of knowing similar to sensing this kind of sensing? Perhaps it is acceptable to begin with a tentative yes, since sensing and knowing are similar ways of being at one . The activity would have itself in activity as the object of its own activity . That is, the sentient and intellective souls can be self-aware. There are problems with this account . $ince the first and second activities can be simultaneous, how is it possible for the sentient or intellective faculty to be both the object of the faculty in its being at one and the faculty which is also aware of the object? Is this not demanding the faculty to be both one and two at the same time? Aristotle considers and rejects the possibility that there is a second faculty which is aware of sensing . If a second faculty is required to sense the second, ad infinitum (425b 17-18) . In re jecting this, Aristotle shows that he considers sentient and intellective awareness as, necessarily, self - awareness . If being aware of sensing and knowing were the only consideration, he could have ended the regression by positing a single faculty which could be aware of sensing and knowing, but not of itself . The alternative is strange , that the -sentient and intellective soul be neces sarily both one and two at the same time. But Aristotle, in the same chapters in which he mentions awareness, discusses the discriminating faculty which also r equi res the soul to be both one and two at the same time . "The faculty which asserts diffe rence must be one " (426b 20) and two for "it is impossible that the same faculty should be moved at the same time by contrary movements ." ( 426b 24) • The fa cul ties of sensing and knowing could be of this same fundamental doubleness . Insofar as the faculty is at one with its object, it is one faculty; insofar as it is both the object and the faculty it is two . Without this doubleness, sensation would be nothing more than the receiving of the for~s of sensible objects without their matter, and *Be caus e the intellect "must exist without being blended" (4 29a 19 ) , and sense cannot, the f acul ty of sensation's being at one with an object entails the actualization o f both an organ and a faculty, which are one in that actualization "numerically .. . but the essence of each is different . " (424a 25 ) . *Perhaps the reason for thei r respective infallibility could be something like this: We know "the intellect should be related to the object of thought in a manner similar to that in which a sense is related to its sensible object, (429a 17- 18), and the faculty is actualized insofar as it is like the object in activity. The sense faculty and direct sensibles are essentially blended with matter . Indi rect sensible are essences of objects which are directly sensed . Since essence is not essentially material, although not separate or separable from material things, the apprehension of it by the essentially material faculty could be false. Objects of the intellect are undivided or indivisible universals and irrunaterial, whether by abstraction or as "the dispositions and attributes of sensible objects ." (432a 5) . The intellect also exists as simple and unblended with matter . Affirmations and denials are not simple, so the assertion of these by a fundamentally simple faculty could be false . 56 57 �there would be no difference between being warmed and feeling warmed, or between being animate and sentient. Is it possible for the sentient soul to be warmed and not feel warm; that is, is it necessary that the soul be aware of its activity? Aristotle answers this directly in the case of the intellect: "whenever the intellect has become several of its objects . . then it is capable ( sUvatcn ) of thinking of itself . " (429b 5- 10) . Although Aristotle does not make the analogous statement for the sentient soul, it is not difficult to provide examples of sensing without being self- aware . City dwellers become oblivious to street noise, and are not aware of it until a snowfall when everything is quiet . I can be absorbed in a book and not hear my name called nearby . We are not necessarily knowing knowing when knowing and there seem examples of not sensing sensing when sensing . If awareness is not necessarily concomitant with apprehension, does the original understanding of what it means to be aware require broadening? Is ac t u a l appr ehension even necessary for awar eness? The answer seems characteristically Aristotelian, for it seems both yes and no . Aristotle gives an example of awareness of the soul when not at one : when we do not see, it is by vision that we discern darkness (425b 22) . The city dwellers are aware of the absence of noise . The intellective soul has analogous experiences : I know I do not know how to fix my car. I need not be successfully apprehending to be sentiently or intellectively self- aware . What could I be aware of when aware of non- apprehension? Comparing these awarenesses of non - apprehension to unawareness of non- apprehension makes this clearer . An example of the latter is that I do not sense that I am not seeing ultraviolet light. Another is that I would not have known that I did not know about automotive mechanics if I had lived befor e there was such a thing as an automobile (and its internal mishaps) . I would not have known that I did not know about automotive mechanics . I do not try to sense ultraviolet light and I would not have tried to know how to fix cars before there were such things. When I am aware that I do not see or do not know, I am aware of trying and failing . I try to see light; I do not; I call i t d arknes s. I try t o know how to fix the car ; I do not; I call it ignorance . I must hold the actual seeing o f t h e light and knowing of mechanics to be possible in order for me to try to see or know . To be aware o f these attempts as failures , I must be awa r e of having actually sensed or actually known . It is possible to be aware of having sensed or known, because after sensation a sense impr ession o r image remains in the soul even after the object is gone (425b 25) . After knowing, the soul possesses knowledge . The soul i s a ce r tain way after apprehension , which al though different f r om its appr ehending way , i s not nothing . Actual apprehension is necessary fo r a warenes s , even the awareness of non- appr ehension . The soul seems to have two opportunities fo r awar enes s, p r imar i ly in its infallible apprehension of objects, and afte r t h at i n its att empts and failures to apprehend . It is not necessary to be a ware whe n a pp rehend i n g, as the New York e r is not necessar ily aware of street noise ; no r i s it necessa r y to be awa r e of non- apprehending , as I am not aware of ultr a v iolet light . The sou l' s awareness o f apprehending o r not is only potenti al during thes e activities . In On Sleeping and Walking, this awareness is a " ~uvoµ.1lS' . . . in virtue o f which one perceives that one is seeing and hearing." (455a 12) . Th i s potential for awarene ss is in the sou l 's ability t o be at one with an obje ct. The actuality of this potential seems an activity and not a motion, for awareness is complete and an end in itself .* *Speculation about awareness being an actuality seems to demand speculation on how it came to be in activity . The change from potentiality to actuality requires there be something in activity which effects the change, something actually aware . The burden 58 It also seems that the awareness of apprehending and of non- apprehending are dissimilar . The soul's awareness of being at one while being at one with an object is a different awareness from the Soul's awareness of not being at one with an object. Awareness of apprehension is an awareness of two separate potentialities as one actuality . Aristotle explains the activity this way : The activity of the sensible object and the activity of sensation [of it] are one and the same, but the essence of each is not the same . I mean, for e x ample , that the actual sound and the actual hearing of it are one and the same, for a man may have hearing and not be hearing, and that which has sound is not always sounding . But when that which can hear and that which can sound is actually sounding, then the actual hearing and the actual sounding occur simultaneously , and one might say that these two are hearing and sounding respectively . (425b 22ff) An awar eness of this activity would be an awareness of two as actually one, of both hearing and sounding . The awa r eness of not being at one is an awareness "in a dif ferent manner . " (425b 22) . Not seeing or knowing is still an undivided whole , but in compar ison to another whole , actually seeing or knowing . At stake in these different shades o f awareness a r e different kinds of discrimination , for Aristotle seems to find the activity of awareness as the root of discrimination . The closeness of these activities is persuaded by the fundamental doubleness required of the soul fo r both of them , and b y thei r ties in the te x t . An awareness of having b e en at one alre ady implies a distinction between two wholes . Ar istotle begins III . 2 a sserting sensing sensing, then explains that "' to sense by vision ' does not only have one meaning , for even when we do not see , it is by vision we discr i minate darknes s and light . " (425b 21 - ~2) . . ~ 'To .sense by vision" can not only be awar eness , but disc r imination. These discriminations between two things , such as light and darkness , a r e called sentient discriminations . This dis c r iminating faculty also "discr iminate s things not in the same genus , [white , sweet] in the same manne r in which it disc r iminates contraries [darkness , light] . " (43la 24) . The faculty also di s c r iminates ma t hematical magnitudes , which for Ar istotle a re only aspects of sensible objects cons i de r ed separately(431b 13) . . There is a s econd disc r iminating power which distinguishes between a magnitude and its essence (429b 10). Th i s f a culty, when p r esented with triangular things can discriminate thei r essence a s t r iangular , and when p r esented with triangles can discriminate what it means to be a triangle. Immedia te l y a f ter the passage in III . 4 which mentions k nowing knowing , Ar i s totle discusses this kind of discrimination . It is aga i n explained in III . 7, with a p r ominent discussion of the identity of the fac ulty and object in activ ity . . This suggests that ·the second kind of discrimination, like the fi:st, is re~ated to awareness . In this case the awareness , which is of being at one with the obJect , is an awareness of a whole without comparison to other wholes . Since this activity is the simultaneous actuality of t he two ·potentialities , it seems possible to be aware both of the sounding of the object and the hea r ing of the obj ect, which a l though are numer i cally one are in essence two . In being aware in this way , the soul of this actual activity seems to come to rest at the feet of the prime mover, who is nothing but knowing knowing . I do not know what it means to say such a thing, and I can only observe that this actuality which seems required is already present in Aristotle's system . 59 �is aware of an object which differs with each particular sensation , and is aware of the faculty which remains the same . This is similar to the process of discrimination between a thing and its essence . The soul presented with specific things can come to find that by virtue of which a thing can be taken as undivided . For these particulars there is one universal, which is not separate f r om the part iculars but numerically one with them . This is the universal "being one beside the many, which would be one and the same in all of them [particular sensations] ." (Posterior Analytics lOOa 7-8) . * While one of these discriminations is called sentient and the other is not, both must be rooted in sentient awareness. Since all knowledge has its origin in sensation, knowable objects must be found in particular sensations (432a 5) . If discrimination is what finds these knowable objects in sensation, intellective apprehension cannot be prior to it. The question-what is at stake in sensing sensing- then receives two answers . The first is the soul's awareness of itself as sentient, of itself as animal rather than plant. Sensation is not only liked for its own sake, as Aristotle obserues further in the opening paragraph of the Metaphysics, but is necessary for understanding . This second answer is that sentient awareness is necessary for discrimination and so is necessary for finding knowable objects . Sensation's part in corning to know not only provides the particulars in which we find the knowable universals, but is the foundation for the discrimination for finding these universals. Is the question, what is at stake in knowing knowing, in turn illuminated by sensing sensing? Is it, like the fundamental meaning of sensing sensing, the soul's awareness of itself as a knower? Is it again something which rests on this activity, the way discrimination does on sentient awareness? The text supports both questions: "only after it [the intellect ] has become several of its objects does it have the potential to know itself." (429b 5-10). In the second question, knowing knowing would mean knowing what it means to know . After the intellect has become several of its objects , it has the potential to discriminate between these particular instances of knowing and the universal of what it means to know. For the first question, knowing knowing would be similar to the most fundamental sensing sensing, and would mean knowing one's self as a knowing being . The intellect must become several of its objects, not in order to have fuel for discrimination, but to become fully 'developed . The beginning of the sentence from which the quotation was taken reads : several things , as being a scientist implies knowing more than one thing about sci ence. This second explanation would be similar to the fundamental sensing sensing, if this becoming of several objects were like the sentient soul's waking up . If being awake is the sentient soul's most fundamental way of being aware, then waking up could mean becoming aware. If knowing one's self as a knower is the most fundamental way of the intellective soul's being aware , then the apprehending of these several objects is the same becoming aware . These two explanations of a more fundamental and derivative awaren~ss are not exclusive; nothing prevents being aware of being a knower and also being aware of what it means to know . If one o f Aristotle 's aims in Book III of De Anirna is to ask of the intellective soul something similar to what he asks of the soul in gen~ral, he is looking for something common to all men insofar as they are men. The answer he may give is that we are men because of our intellects, but just to have an intellect is as good as being asleep .* We are awake when we know ourselves as knowers. Aristotle tells us in the Ethics that the intellect is man, and "it would seem strange if a man did not choose the life proper to himself but that proper to another . " (1178a 4) . This is not Aristotle's exhortation on the best life to live, but his examination of what a life for man means. Whenever the intellect has become several of its objects, in the sense in which we speak of a scientist when he is actually a ·scientist (and this occurs when a scientist can exercise his knowledge by himself . . . ) (429b 5-8 ) . It may be the case that a scientist cannot think by himself as a scientist, and consequently cannot be a scientist until he has learned and can exercise several things about science. Knowing one's self as a knower could only be the result of knowing *I have a speculation about the analogy which Aristotle uses to illustrate this in De Anima. The analogy is as a bent line is to a bent line when straightened out, so is sentient discrimination to intellective discrimination . ( 429b 18) . The bent line / even as an object of abstraction, can have infinite permutations, since it could incline at an infinite number of different angles . There can be only one straight line . The unbending finds within each line, not somewhere else, what is the same for all bent lines, not the particular bend but the universal line . 60 *"A man who sleeps all his life lives like a plant . " 61 (Ethics 1176a 35). �The Steeds of Hippolytos Andrew Grablewski The play Hippolytos by Euripides can be seen to have at its core a fundamental concern with the struggle between humanity and certain natural forces. Nature is such an important element in Hippolytos that at times the play seems to overflow with it. The imagery used is one of animals: bulls, birds, bees, and horses. We are presented with meadows, flowers and oceans. Even the gods who appear in the play seem at times to be more representative of nature's powers than of divine will. Nature's powers are the principles of creations and destruction with indifference to human concerns. What seems to emerge gradually in the play is a theory about the nature of the universe. This is what is really at stake in the play. Euripides, like Plato in the Timaeus, and Lucretius in De Rerum Natura, tries to present us with a sort of system to describe the way things work. The system is revealed through the actions of the characters, and the characters are to be judged by the extent to which they understand the essence of nature. Iri contrast to the other systems, however, man is in conflict with nature. The three major characters in the play are defeated, humbled, and at last destroyed by nature. At the end, however, man uses what is essential to his being to shout down the power of the gods and to triumph over the forces of nature which at first appeared inopposable . Hippolytos is the most important character in the play . There are several reasons why this is so . It is a flaw in his personality which produces the conflict of the play . His scorn f o r the love of women and physical pass i on offends the goddess Aphrodite who induces in Phaidra, his stepmother , an insatiable passion for him . His decision to reject Phaidra ' s passion as · communicated by her nurse leads her to sui cide and a false char ge of rape . Finally, in his death and r e c onciliation with Theseus, the play is resolved in some sense with t he satisfaction o f the goddess in her revenge . The character of Hippolytos is problematic . As the audience of the play, we are made to feel somewhat ambivalent towa r ds him . However , he has in his favor many of the qualities admired in the philosophical dialogues . He appea r s to be a man of reason . He shuns the pleasu r es of the body and fa v ors comp anionship with Ar t e mis , godde ss of the hunt , and the s ociety of other vi r tuous me n . Thr oughout the play , his actions at least a r e indisputably jus t , and he a t t e mpts t o solve his problems through r eason and persuasion . On the o t he r hand , his dislike of women and his scorn for love do not seem like admirable quali t ies . In th i s sense his characte r appear s unbalanced . His love of sophrosune is clear ly more a love f or the quality of chastity than a love for the othe r sense of the word as a quality of mode r ation and balance . Most of us prefer to see Phaid r a as the sympathetic character of the play . To me, however, Hippolytos is the sympathetic , t r agic , and finally heroic fig ure . His flaw is not so much an imbalance as total ignorance of the laws of nature around him and within himsel f. He maintains this ignorance up to the end o f his life . In dying, not only does he refuse to succumb to the will of the gods, but he also achieves a victory for humanity by showing the value of virtue . Phaidra , too, escapes nature, but her legacy is one of deceit and evil . Hippolytos' ignorance of the character of nature , or more properly his misunderstanding of it, is revealed in his first speech as he dedicates a wreath to Artemis : 62 I have brought you this green crown, goddess, fresh from the scene where I spliced its flowers together a meadow as virginal as you are, where no shepherd would think it wise to pasture his animals, a perfect field no iron blade has yet cut down. Only the bees looking for flower~ in spring go freely through its cut grass. This passage shows his great misunderstanding. He sees the beauty of nature, but he attributes something to it which is other than its nature, that is, the human virtue of chastity . Hippolytos fails to see the bees as agents of procreation . Instead, he sees himself as being similar to an insect, attributing a quality to it which it doesn't have. Shortly after this passage he makes another revealing statement. When asked if the gods are pleased by genial souls he answers with total confidence, Yes, if gods and humans share the same inner ') logic . ~ In his close companionship with Artemis, he has a false idea of both the nature of god and of man . He thinks himself above what is congruent with the nature of humani ty, while assuming the gods to value human virtues. However in the universe created by Euripides, virtue is clearly a quality that has value for man alone. The gods enjoy the worship of humans and feel their slights, but to carry out their will they are just as ready to sacrifice the just as the unjust . Aphrodite states, That Phaidra dies I regret , but not so much that I would relinquish th~s great chance to strike my enemy . Hippolytos does not scorn the goddess completely, but he worships her distantly without emotion . To men this type of intellectual deference to the power of god may appear sufficient, but it is totally foreign to the nature of the gods who are satisfied only with, payment in the god's coin . 4 Therefore, Hippolytos' nature is one of virtue . However, he assumes that what he considers virtue has a worth ~n the external world . He seems himself as approx imating the divine through his virtue, when in fact he is virtuous only in so far as he is human . In Plato's Timaeus, it seems evident that the qualities of virtue and beauty exist externally . He seems to assume that the universe must reflect virtue and moderation, since these are the best qualities . But perhaps it is just as erroneous on Plato's part to assume that these qualities have any relation to nature at all . He assumes that these qualities are pa r t of the nature of man which we use to order the universe rather than universal principles which man must strive to partake of in order to reach his highest state . Ironically, it is just the best part of Hippolytos' nature which brings about his doom . For it seems that his objection to the offer made by Phaidra's nurse is solely due to the shame of it being from a relative, as well as being crime against a man whom Hippolytos clearly loves and has every reason to admire . It is not due to an unnatural hatred of women, even though he expresses such a hatred in reaction to the offer . His refusal js clearly an act 63 �of virtue. He in fact could not act otherwise, since his nature is that of virtue. So in his ~efu~al, his artificial nature, which is virtue, triumphs over his bestial nature • . His vir~ue seems artificial because it seems cultivated and due to the fact that he is a rational man, but this nature need not be thought of as inferior to other natures . In fact his nature, like an unstoppable flood, forces his actions as the natures of the other characters force them into action. He cannot even violate his nature to save his life. Here I am, revering you, gods, and yet it's you forcing my ruin. 5 The tragedy of Hippolytos is that he assumes that his virtuous and rational naThis does not happen because once again his view of the universal system is other than its reality . He overlooks the irrational and unjust side of nature as he had earlier refused to see its element of sexuality· Theseus, upon returning home and finding his wife dead with a suicide note accusing Hippolytos of rape, is driven by his own nature for revenge. Hippolytos pleads for law and justice: t~re ';ill somehow s.ave him from destruction. At least won't you let time lay the facts before you in my behalf? ' ' ' T ime is our on 1 y incorruptible witness . 6 Law and justice are perhaps the only two things that could restrain the wild onrush of human ?ature, ~owever imperfectly. But in Hippolytos these do not seem to play any part in the universe as a whole or in the state. Theseus refuses even to address him in the se~ond person; much less is he prepared to listen to Hippolytos argue his innocence . Hippolytos is heroic in his persistence . His nature will not allow him to abandon hope that reason will vindicate him, as it will not allow him to save himself by betraying his oath to the nurse . His arguments have g r eat credibility . At the end however, not even unreasonable arguments can save him. If only this calm intimate house could speak for me and say fairly if there's anything vile in my blood. 7 In effect , Hippolytos calls upon the mute to persuade the deaf, since Theseus' conclusion was reached beforehand and cannot be alte red by persuasion . As Hippolytos is banished, the chorus grieves, When we imagine ourselves in the god's care, our troubled souls are inunensely reassured . But when deep inside us we struggle to make rational sense of our lives frustration strikes from all the erratic crisscrossing paths of reality: man's life is volatile; it will not run clear and reveal its essence. 8 By the failure of virtue and reason to withstand the blind force of Theseus' nature the just man is f o rced out and injustice and irrationality are victorious . If thes~ forces are supreme, the nature o f the universe has been revealed. It is not as in the Timaeus, characterized by reason, justice, aod harmony, but by their opposites : randomness, disorder and irrationality. Faced with such a uni verse, man has two options . Either we put our trust in god or surrender to the random forces of nature. Neither choice allows us free will. Either we are dominated by the whims of the gods or by the chance outcome of blind fate. Either way, as long as we live, we are driven by the forces of nature to our final end. The course of our lives cannot be de termined or revealed by reason. In this play, Hippolytos is doomed by chance and nature. It is hard to see what actions, if any, could have saved him from ultimate destruction. He is destroyed by his nature which will not allow him to do an unjust act, and by chance external forces. It can be argued that he is somewhat to blame because of his slighting of the goddess, but her actions seem extreme and arbitrary. At the end of the play, he is destroyed by nature in a literal sense when he is dragged by his horses after they a r e frightened by the bull of Poseidon. Even at this point, he is convinced of the rational order of nature. He calls out pathetically to his team, Stop! Stop! You mares, .• y~u were my children! Don't kill me! Does he imagine that even they are capable of being persuaded? Or does he endow them with the human property of gratitude? And what of the fact that he looks upon them as his children? Once again his view of nature is totally different from reality. He sees his horses as humans just as he confounds his own nature with that of the gods. He cannot see nature at large as being other than his own nature. He cannot imagine a uni verse in which the causes of actions are so obscure as to be either incomprehensible or nonexistent . He cannot imagine that the virtuous are to suffer along with, or even instead of, the unvirtuous. Well, I see my death-it's ineluctable, it's downhill, and it's black. All the good I did men through the love of god evaporates now. It adds up to nothing ... Why me? I have not d~Be one wrong act in my whole life. Only in his last moments does he come to some realization of the external powers which have destroyed him. I wish we men could curse god's11 curse and destroy those killers from our graves. His impotent rage and threats reveal that he still retains his distorted view of his nature, as if the eternal gods could be destroyed by a dying man's wish. To even consider the possibility of such a thing coming to pass is ludicrous. In contrast to Hippolytos is the character of Phaidra. Phaidra seems to realize from the beginning that the only way to def eat the passion in her nature and preserve her honor is for her to destroy herself. She is aware of a compulsion that's been ~~sery for the women of my clan. which is her mother's passion for a bull ana her sister's for Dionysios. She is equally aware of the same elements in her own nature which compel her towards forbid- 65 64 �den love. Phaidra knows her nature; her only problem is to decide whether to indulge it and remain alive, or die and preserve her reputation for virtue . Her nurse takes the position that total virtue is unobtainable. The forces that compel us forward are too powerful to resist. To spend your life in a neurotic drive for perfection is simply not worth it. Look at the roof of your own house. Is there a single timber not slightly askew? As a roof it's a great success. Sexual passion is a big rough sea and not something you, especially your frail majesty can swim through. The best that you, like any person, can hope for in life, is a little more good luck than bad. It's high time Phaidra, to drop your crazy talk of suicide. No more conceit , for it's ungodly conceit to imagine you can win, when you fight the powers who control your whole being . 13 But the nurse's plan ends in disaster because she fails to recognize that along with the irrational driving forces that exist in the natures of most people, there is an .opposite force that compels them towards virtue, or at least toward making an effort to protect their reputations. The nurse fails to recognize this trait in Hippolytos which will prohibit his accepting her offer . She also fails to recognize that Phaidra has this trait as well. Phaidra cannot endure even one person knowing the secret of he~ true nature, even if that person is bound by oath to keep silent. The nurse is as ignorant of this aspect of human nature as Hippolytos is of the other irrational side . Phaidra is the only character in the play who has an idea of both. Phaidra realizes that the only outcome of the conflict between the two forces in her nature is her death. The death will frighten me. On this day, gone from my life, I will at last delight you, Aphrodite . 14 Only now, the forces in her nature demand that Hippolytos also die to preserve he r secret and her children's future. In Hippolytos, we are presented with a universe in which man is bowed by awesome forces beyond his understanding. But the one aspect of man's nature that allows his freedom is his mortality. Death , like nature, pe r vades the play, touching all the characters. It is always seen as a force for the liberation of humanity. By death man may somehow transcend nature and destiny . As the chorus says, This is clearly a wish for death. similar: Theseus' I feel your life as vanishing from my cradling hands, leaping like a pulse of feathers, 16 a bird alighting in the underworld . In both, the dead soul is compared to a bird flying in freedom from the forces of nature . And Artemis comforts Hippolytos as he dies: Get wings, fly off into a bird's safe life, to keep your feet from miring in this polluted anguish. There are no men . who would ask you to share t h eir l' ives . 17 Death is the one quality that seems to separate mortals completely from the gods . Death is so alien to the nature of the gods that they are unable to bear even watching the death of a mortal . In the universe of the Hippolytos, death is the only means by which the guilty are punished. Artemis cannot save the life of Hippolytos; she can only promise the satisfaction of revenge by bringing death to a favorite of Aphrodite . Even though Hippolytos has lost his life, his death is his triumph over the forces which resulted in his destruction. For by his death we gain the realization that, though we are slaves to chance and nature, their hold over us is only for a finite amount of time. By posthumosly granting Hippolytos the status of hero, Artemis has vindicated his belief in virtue. Virtue is transformed to an external quality by the eternal honor paid to Hippolytos . In the sense that virtue continues to be honored among men, it ceases to be only a part of his individual nature and becomes the common property of all . Hippolytos' death not only results in the restoration of harmony in his family, but in a new sense of order in the world. Man no longer seems helpless in the face of the gods. Virtue has triumphed even in an irrational universe . The gods are exposed for what they are. Athens, you will have your splendor, but never again the splendor of this man you lose. Aphrodite , I have not heart fof your graces . 8 I remember only your savagery . It would be good to arrive in the mountains, poised in a secret recess on the rock facea god there might give me an airborne lightness, make me a bird arnoung the other high floating creatures; My flight will at last touch down on the Hesperian shore that gentle garden where apples thrive 1 and girls sing. 5 66 description of Phaidra's death is very 67 �All notes refer to the Robert Bagg Translation in the series of New Greek Tragedy in Modern Translations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 On Reading W.H. Auden's After Reading A Child's Guide To Modern Physics. Too Late For Him To Answer James Beall 112-121 153-154 29-83 176 1648-1649 1626-1629 1675-1677 1728-1735 1889-1890 2069-2092 2138-2139 525-526 721-736 1108-1110 1120-1137 1164-1167 1960-1964 2205-2208 You should have known that metaphors are zoos used to cage the animals of creation. Instead, we find confused in you a faint nebulosity of irritation. Caged, each moves within the finite knots of a path--no one to lead us. Here and there, vague symbols unite or sprout in air as if to feed us. If somewhere rings some law or regularity stroking a vast sweep of remnant star to make it sing, we might not see it true as our own heat. Yet are these laws not metaphors for lust? Created in the furnace of our brains they come to light and whirl us. In their dust, contrite and incubating, we have lain. 69 68 �Cycadia James Beall Cycadia, these the same low boil into the building hiss rising unto the jet's wail. It the same, hence years will make no difference . The heat encompassed in its vail of air gathers us like love's holding loose and slick . Our bodies, then, are our bodies, and But yet and love the metaphor for air . if insubstantial, still if fluid the holding forms a strange cyclic music , movements r emnant of a forme r self , used , translucent beneath trees . 70 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. iii, 70 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cooper, Laurie (Co-Editor) Macfarland, Joseph C. Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Fall 1986 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Fall 1986. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Fall 1986 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d74c9b17cafddaddef1603965a4613b4.pdf ae383d19d225cd2b273d8301fda978a4 PDF Text Text r FALL 1987 �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. it ... vou EVEpyEta ~wit ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) Cover: "IMPRESSIONS OF A POLISH ARTIST" by Patricia Dawson Acrylic Painting Photographed by Greg Ferguson Printed by the St. John's College Press St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland Staff: Rachel Boyce Anne Carpenter Carloss Chamberlain Jana Giles Glenn Haya Erika Hoffman Daniel Hoh Michael McShane Ange Mlinko Kenneth Paradis Dwayne Rodgers Sarah Waters Co-Editors: Laurie Cooper Rhonda Datcher Faculty Advisor: Henry Higuera Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published three times a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis. The Energeia staff welcomes submissipns from all members of the community-poems, stories, essays, artwork, photographs, original math proofs, and the like. �CONTENTS BEFORE FIRST SEMINAR Beth Cross 1 PRIZE-WINNING SENIOR ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) PENTHESILIA: -A LOVE AFFAIR WITH ACHILLES-BELONGING AND HAPPINESS IN THE WORLD Catherine Irvine 2 ON THE SONNET Daniel Hoh 35 CONVERSATION #4 Brian Cole 35 UNTITLED Dwayne Rodgers 36 IOCASTA'S SONG Rachel Duel 37 ON MECHANICS, GEOMETRY, AND NEWTON'S CONCEPT OF GOD; OR, AN ATTEMPT TO READ THE PRINCIPIA AS A PHILOSOPHICAL WORK Jana Giles 38 CARTESIAN EQUATIONS FOR RECTILINEAR FIGURES Kim Paffenroth 43 IMAGINARY GEOMETRY? Marcus Eubanks 47 THE BUS RIDE Jennifer Mischer 48 THE PASSION Ange Mlinko 50 THE DEATH OF ROMEO Erika Wilson 51 ARIADNE ASHORE Claudia Probst 52 CONVERSATIONS WITH THE MOON Beth Cross 53 PRIZE-WINNING JUNIOR ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) REFLECTIONS ON LEIBNIZIAN SUBSTANCE Robert Demajistre 55 AT CALVERT CLIFFS Gretchen Berg 64 UNTITLED Anne Carpenter 64 THE CONVERSATION Adam Eggers 65 BRIDGE Tequila Brooks 66 IN THE BLACK Patricia Dawson 67 HONORABLE MENTION-FRESHMAN ESSAY (ANNAPOLIS) A DISSCUSSION OF JUSTICE AND ITS EVOLUTION IN AESCHYLUS' ORESTEIA TRILOGY Kenneth Paradis 68 A LETTER FROM AN ALUMNUS 79 �-----~-~------------------------------- -------- Before First Seminar Beth Cross ('88) The evening from solid stone rises s o sure of itself that our footsteps only echoe, the blue that does not stir with out passing words. In the twilight our ideas fold into themselves, their impression forms silent curves in the conversations held under the twinkling sillhouettes of locust leaves . What we cover in our eyes what is hidden from our gaze, the night already knows as if whispered far out at sea where the tide unbridled decides its heav ing weight in favor of the shore--a balance, returning We are returning t o each other ' s ta l k to the quiet of well- lighted rooms where behind straight back chairs black ·rectangles of night hang listening. We bend with intent and pending breath to the voyage. 1 �Penthesilia: -A Love Affair With AchillesBelonging and Happiness in the World Catherine Irvine ('87) My essay is concerned with finding happiness in the world. In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle tells us, "all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good. Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness " (Bk. I, Ch . 3 : l i nes 13-21). He goes on to say that the nature of happiness, however, is not so easily agreed upon. I can only offer a personal thought: happiness is a contentment which is achieved when an individual is in harmony with himself and has gained the things he deems are important for him. I may perhaps be forgiven for the vague character of my def inition, since it is not happiness that I want to explore. I would like to show that the ability to be happy depends upon an important relationship: an individual's feeling of belonging in the world. It is my impression, and I readily admit it stems from personal experience, that in the modern world we lack a sense of place . It is a world in which the laws governing behavior are constantly shifting, and the notions of the 'the good' are always changing. No doubt these things were t rue in Aristotle's world also, but I think that without a sense of place in the configuration of the whole, it is much more dif ficult to come to be happy in the world than it has been in the past. In support of this notion that we lack belonging in the world and that this af fects our ability to achieve happiness, I will compare two charac.ters from literary 1 works. The first is Homer's Achilleus • The second is Penthesilea , Queen of the Amazons, from a play of her name . It was written by the early nineteenth century playwright Heinrich von Kleist. The premise I go on is that the nature of an artist's work reflects, in some measure, the consciousness of the people of his time . The time gap between these two works will then allow a comparison of how a classical individual and a modern individual each feels in relation to his world , and , base d upon that, a sense of whether or not he can come to be content in the world. The choice of these two characters from these particular wo r ks is not a random one, nor does it rest entirely on the fact that they were pr oduced in such different times. Penthesilea purposefully invites comparison with The Iliad . The most general way in which the two works are connected i s in t he action of the p l ay: i t t akes place during the Trojan War, after Achilleus has killed Hektor . Kleist makes use of the myth that the Amazons, led by Penthesilea, went to the battle at Troy as allies of Priam. Kleist also plays upon the story that Achilleus slew Penthesilea and fell in love with her as she died at his feet . But the interesting thing about Penthesilea is that Kleist alters these myths. In the play, the Amazons are allied with no one, and it is not Achilles who kills their Queen, but Penthesilea who kills her beloved, Achilles, in a maenad-like frenzy that calls to mind Euripides's Bacchae. The s i mi l aritie s be t ween the works connect them closely , but it is alterations like these that make it intriguing to try to discover what Kleist intended to convey in the play . Kleist brings to bear his interpretation of Achilleus in his treatment of his own characters, Penthesilea and Achilles. Penthesilea reflects certain aspects of Achilleus, while Achilles takes on other characteristics of the great hero. Penthesilea displays many of the striking feature of Achilleus. For example, she too 2 seeks fame, the fame gained through conquering the most renowned figure in The Iliad . She says, "Once more the battle calls me to the field./ That young, defiant war- god I will tame him . / My friends , ten thousand suns melted into one/ Vast heat - ball seem not half so bright to me,/ So glorious, as victory over him" (Scene 5: p. 186). She is also protrayed as splendid, decked out in "war's rich panoply" (Scene 1: p. 168), and thirsty for the clamour of battle. Odysseus describes his first sight of her in the following way: as the dawn comes creeping up the sky Amazement seizes us ... For there in the wide valley at our feet Fiercely engaged with all the Trojan force We see the Amazons! Penthesilea, As storm winds sweep and rend the scudding wrack, Tumbles the fleeing Trojans down the vale As though her only though across the Hellespont, Ay, off earth's orb itself, to scatter them. (Scene 1: p. 168) Penthesilea, like Achilleus, is the child of an immortal and a mortal, Ares and the Amazon Queen Otrere. She also has about her the air of haughtiness that Achilleus possesses. There is another important respect in which Penthesilea and Achilleus resemble each other. Just as Achilleus must weigh his two fates against one another, Penthesilea must struggle with the way in which she should live her life: as a woman or as a warrior who thrives on the violence of battle. Achilleus, once Patroklos has died, moves in fury towards the end of his life and the glory that will be his. So too does Penthesilea strive after the fall of Achilles, because of the good she thinks this act will bring her. Achilles resembles his namesake in less striking and less flattering ways. He falls short of the image one has of Achilleus, for the depth of spirit and strength of character that Achilleus displays in The Iliad are transferred from his character into that of Penthesilea. For example, Achilleus' s refusal to participate in the fighting following his conflict with Agamemnon is interpreted by Kleist as an insensitivity to the needs and desires of his fellow Greeks. In the play, when Agamemnon orders his forces to stop fighting senselessly with the Amazons, Achilles disregards the orders and instead pursues his own personal goal, which is to capture Penthesilea and have his way with her. He says, Fight then like eunuchs, if it pleases you. A man I feel myself to these women, Though alone of all the host, I'll stand my ground. ••. All's one to me; by heav'n you have my blessing, If you would creep away to Troy again. ••. In short, go off. I'll follow you to Troy; I'll soon have had my way with her. But though I had to woo her many long months through Ay, years - I will not guide my chariot there ••. Nor once again see Ilium's tower'd heights, Until I first have had my sport with her. · (Scene 4: p. 185 ) Here Kleist's contempt for the cause of Achilleus's anger, the abduction of Briseis, 3 �is revealed. He makes Achilles involved only in satisfying his own desires, which in this case involve no high goal of honor, but simply the bedding of a woman. Kleist also protrays Achilles as dishonest and manipulative. In Scene 11, he walks into the Amazon encampment completely unarmed and speaking words of peace. Yet he comes accompanied by men who are armed, and he feels no compunction at ordering them to kill the women who threaten him. This is Kleist's reading of what Achilleus does in Book IX of The Iliad: he presents himself as being moved by things that inspire his desire for a swift return to Phthia, when he is actually moved by pride and bitter anger against Agamemnon. One thing that Kleist does do, however, is to give the character of Achilles the epithet 'god-like.' No other character in the play is consistently given such an epithet. In line with this, Kleist retains the Homeric image in the clear way he describes Achilles: Radiant he stands upon the rising ground, Cased all in steel his steed and he; sapphire Nor chrysolite cannot throw back such rays! The earth herself, the gay, flower-sprinkled earth, Wrapped now in thunder vapors' blackest gloom, Lies but a dark background, a murky foil, To make his flashing glory brighter yet! ( Scene 7: pp. 198-199; First Girl ) This passage calls to mind the image of Achilleus standing upon the ditch and screaming, helped by Athena who drapes the aegis about his shoulders and sets him all ablaze with fire ( Iliad, Bk. XVIII: lines 203-206) . Yet it is nothing but a description that has a resemblance to that scene. It lacks the power Achilleus wields in that moment and the sorrow that has engulfed his heart. Kleist's Achilles is incapable of such depth of emotion. Though both Achilles and Penthesilea share aspects of the Homeric hero, nevertheless it is Penthesilea who captures the attention. It is her on whom I will concentrate with respect to Achilleus. Because my purpose is to examine how a feeling of belonging is crucial to finding contentment in the world, I will first lay out the natures of the worlds in which these two characters live. Then, I will examine whether or not they belong in their worlds. Finally, I will present my analysis of how both characters come to contentment and of whether their contentments are compatible with their worlds. In each case, I will first put for th the Homeric situation and then contrast Penthesilea's situation with it. The world that Homer puts before us in The Iliad is a sharply defined one. Each thing has its proper place and mode of being, and each is portrayed in a detailed, clearly described manner. The most striking element in this carefully outlined world is the presence of the Olympian gods. They are introduced fully formed, and rather than being unearthly in character they are potent forces, supernaturally and physically. We see their strong presence in the very first pages of The Iliad when Apollo angrily strides down from Olympos to punish the Achaians for their treatment of Chryses (Bk. I: lines 43-52). The gods are often the inspiration for men's actions. In almost every way that a man can be moved to do something, the gods are found to be the cause. Zeus, for example, is the reason for Hektor's extraordinary valor as he makes his way unhesitatingly toward the Achaian ships in Book XV. This is a case in which the spirit of some emotion or physical attribute is instilled into men by the gods. There are also instances in which the gods introduce notions into the minds of men. In the beginning of the poem, it is mentioned that Achilleus called the Achaians to assembly be- 4 cause the thought was "a thing put into his mind 'by the goddess of the white arms, Hera" (Bk . I: line 55). Agamemnon's experience with Zeus's deceptive dream (Bk. II: lines 20-47) is another example of how the gods put ideas and courses of action into the minds of men. The gods even appear physically and attempt to make mortals do their wishes. In one memorable case, Athena appears to Achilleus and grasps him by the hair in order to stop him from attacking Agamemnon (Bk. I: lines 194-214). In a later passage, the river Skamandros, angered at Achilleus's slaughter of the Trojans, sends his flooding waters out to hold Achilleus occupied with saving himself rather than with killing men (Bk. XXI: lines 235-272). Given the unavoidable presence of the gods in their lives, the men of The Iliad put great stock in communication with the deities. Achilleus's response to Athena's words of counsel is this: 'Goddess, it is necessary that I obey ... [you] •.• /angry though I am in my heart. So it will be better./If any man obeys the gods, they listen to him also.' (Bk. I: lines 215-218) Achilleus feels the ne9essity, and the advantage, of dealing with the gods in much the same way as he would with men. It is not simply that the gods are more powerful and capable of bringing disaster down upon men. It is also because the influence of the gods in the lives of men is just as immediate as the influence that men have upon men. Libation, prayer, and sacrifice are therefore integral parts of the Homeric man's life. He seeks to know the will of the gods by observing natural phenomena, and he seeks to preserve his well-being through prayer and the rendering of proper respect. He knows that, just as men, the gods like to be shown favor. Phoenix's advice to Achilleus, when he warns of the danger of such immovable anger, captures this principle of communication with the gods: The very immortals I can be moved; their virtue and honor and strength are greater than ours are,/and yet with sacrifices and offerings for endearment,/with libations and with savour men turn back even the immortals/in supplication. (Bk. IX: lines 497-501) These words bring to light another aspect of the relationship that men have with the gods: the gods exceed men in all things, yet these things are shared in the natures of both. Indeed, all parts of the Homeric world reflect one another. Natural phenomena re fl ec t t he mood of the gods, and men are compared to both the gods , as in 'god-like Achilleus,' and to animals in nature. For example: So these lords of the Danaans killed each his own man/ . .• as wolves make havoc among lambs or young goats in their fury,/catching them out of the flocks. (BK. XVI: lines 351-353) Yet the connection between man, god, and nature goes further than this. All three are intimately tied together. There is a thread of commonality running through them. Rivers and winds are gods, men are children of the gods, and even the gods and the animals may love and produce offspring (Bk. XX: lines 215-225). Thetis, mother of Achilleus, is a good example of this merging of diff.erent beings into one another. She is a goddess, but her realm is not mystical. It is utterly natural: she is of the sea. And though she is a goddess, she was given in marriage to a mortal and bore a son from that union. 5 �Though the world of The Iliad is held together by the meeting and mixing of its parts, nevertheless it is a world of war. This means that it is a world in which all things are opposed to one another . All the parts, while overlapping into one another, remain distinct and struggle to maintain that distinction. Thetis through her association with Peleus does not forfeit her immortal status, and when she bears a son he is not a hybrid of god and man. Achilleus is human and subject to all the laws that other humans are subject to - most significantly , death. Although having a goddess for a mother endows him with privileges (such as knowing what his fate will be ) , Achilleus belongs to one specific mode of being, and that cannot be changed. One of the taboos that prohibit the attempt by a being of one kind to place himself among the ranks of another kind is the ban upon a warrior for bidding him to battle with a god. Zeus's comforting words to Aphrodite, when she suffers from an attack by Diomedes, revea l this ban: 'It was the godded Athene who drove on this man / against you; poor fool, the heart of Tydeus' son knows nothing / of how that man who fights the immortals lives for no long time.' (Bk. V: lines 405 - 407) And Achilleus too, despite his fury, stops pursuing Apollo when he discovers he is chasing a god: Deeply vexed Achilleus of the swift feet spoke to him: / 'you have balked me . . . most malignant of all gods, / when you turned me here away from the rampart, else many Trojans / would have caught the soil in their teeth .. . Now you have robbed me of great glory, and rescued these people / lightly, since you have no retribution to fear hereafter . / Else I would punish you.' ( Bk. XXIII : lines 14-20) Striving to maintain one's proper place reveals itself internally among the separate beings and it takes its form in self-assertion . There is, for instance, a constant struggle between Zeus and the other gods. Zeus finds himself compelled to pr oclaim his superiority over and over again, since the other gods are always thinking of ways to circumvent his commands. Many of the descriptive passages linking men to animals also illustrate this self - assertiveness. The passages not only show how man and animal come into conflict (like the wolves who attack man's livestock) (Bk . XVI: lines 351 - 353), but they also depict animals battling one another in an attempt to prove t hemse l ves t he stronger (Bk. XVI : l ines 823 - 829) . Among men, this self-assertiveness is displayed in vaun t ing. The war riors meet, hurl threats at one another, and when one falls or flees from fear, the other immediately begins to declare his dominance. Diomedes's fear of Hektor's boasting grasps the importance that this assertiveness has for the men of The Iliad: 'this thought comes as a bitter sorrow to my heart and my spirit; / for some day Hektor will say openly before the Trojans: / "The son of Ty deus, running before me, fled to his vessels." / So he will vaunt; and then let the wide earth open beneath me. ' (Bk. VIII: lines 147-150) The strong presence that the past has for both gods and men contributes to the significance of autonomy in the Homeric world. The closeness felt to the people and events of the past causes men and gods to be acutely aware of their own being and position in the world. The value that is placed upon genealogies illustrates the 6 weight which the past carries . When Glaucos and Diomedes face one another in Book VI, they give up any hostile stance as soon as they discover the friendship t hat had existed between t heir fathers (Bk. VI : lines 119- 231) . Connected to the proximity that the past has to the present is the power of fate in the world . Jus t as all t hat has occurred has a strong influence on the way that men and gods behave, so too does fate bring them close to the world in all its forms . It gives all their actions an important and immovable place in the patterns of their lives, and this in turn gives their lives a definite place in the pattern of the whole . Despite the opposition between groups and within them, everything is once again connected by a thread of commonality through fat e. Fate exists externally to all things . It operates from the outside, reaching into the world to tie it up into a whole. No one, not even a god, has the ability to evade it . Zeus has the power to direct the course of events and set the mechanism of fate in motion. He looks far ahead to see what must occur in order that all the ele ments in the cosmos (actions, emotions, etc.) may come together and bring destiny to fulfillment . He tells Hera, 'le t Pho i bos Apollo stir Hektor back into battle,/breathe strength into him • .• Let him drive strengthless / panic into the Achaians, and turn them back ... Let them be driven in flight and tumble back onto the benched ships/ ... And [Achilleus] shall rouse up Patroklos/ . . . And glorious Hektor shall cut down Patroklos / .•. In anger for him brilliant Achilleus shall then kill Hektor.' (Bk . XV : lines 59-68) Although from passages like this it might seem that Zeus can arbitrarily arrange what is to take place , it must be remembered that behind all the scheming lies the general question of Achilleus's destiny and the manner of its fulfillment. It is not simply the accomplishment of Thetis's request that Zeus grant her son glory , it is also t ha t Achilleu s must die if he is granted that glory . If he kills Hektor , t hen he will die. Even Zeus must work under the dictates of fate. His own wishes are irrelevant. He cannot save Sarpedon from death (Bk. XVI : lines 433 - 457), and when Hekt or finally faces Achilleus, Zeus mus t check his golden scales if it is truly the right moment for Hektor to die (Bk. XXII : lines 208 - 212) . The world of The Iliad is hence very ordered . There are certain laws which op erate in specific ways , and each object has its own place in the scheme of things. It can be looked at alone, clearly outlined by the things around it , or it can be seen as a distinct unit that goes into the structure of the whole . The world of Penthesilea could no t be mor e different f r om the Homeric one . The comment that best describes i t is uttered by a Greek man whom the Amazons have captured . He asks , "was ever dream so crazed as this reality?" (Scene 6: p. 197). Penthesilea' s world is full ~f confusion. It consists of a swirling mass of circumstances which do not come together in any coherent whole . There is nothing in the play which can be looked at in its own right without reference to other things, things both in the play as well as those brought to it by the reader. For instance, the memory of The Iliad is present throughout; Euripides's Bacchae, in its most hor rifying moment, is reproduced in Achilles's death; Phaedra's consuming passion for Hippolyt us i s c l e a r ly pre sent in Penthesilea ; and the myth of Actae on 's death, his punishment for looking upon Artemis while she bathed, is also woven into the tale. The descriptive passages bring to a focus the c9nfusion which is prevalent in the play. The dust which the armies raise up as they wage war obscures the vision, so that those looking on cannot see what is happening: One great dust cloud, 7 �With flashes here and there of arms and armor: The eye is helpless, strain how it will to see. A struggling mass of maids - and horses too All in a jumbled welter. Chaos' self, The aboriginal, had more of order. (Scene 3: p. 180; Dolopian) The contrast between The Iliad and Penthesilea is pointed out descriptively by Kleist himself. There is a vision of Achilles rising over the top of a hill, clearly visible in every part: Look! Look! Do you not see? Above that ridge A head appearing , plumed and helmeted? And now the neck - the massive neck beneath? The shoulders now, the arms in flashing steel? Now! Now! - The mighty, deep-set chest; oh see! ... His horses now, their white -starred foreheads - See! His chariot's steeds; still but their legs - their hooves Are hidden by the summit of the ridge. Ah, now! Clear-cut against the sky behold The whole equipage, blazing like the sun That rises jubilant in his early spring. (Scene 3 : p. 177; Myrmidon) Yet within a very short time, a cloud of dust billows up in pursuit of Achilles: But, look! Behind him - ! ••• At the mountain's foot Dust Dust, uptowering like a thundercloud And like the lightning sweeping on (Scene 3: p. 178) The world of confusion in Penthesilea is pursuing the clearly delineated figure from the Homeric world. The first clue in the action of the play pointing to the confusion in this world is provided in the opening scenes. The Greeks and the Trojans have no idea why the Amazons have burst into the midst of their conflict. Each thinks that Penthesilea must have come to fight beside one or the other , but she quickly disabuses them of this idea. The Amazons' are at Troy for their own special reason: to reap a crop of magnificent warriors to take back to Themiscyra as future fathers of their children. The Amazons' independence in this war between the Trojans and the Greeks spreads confusion. The sensible way in which the war was being waged, Greek against Trojan, is disturbed. The antagonists find themselves allied against the warrior women. Odysseus says in bewilderment , Each force in Nature , creates its opposite And fights with this; no room for any third. What quenches fire will not make water boil And turn to steam; likewise the opposite. Yet here appears a deadly foe of both, That makes fire doubt: should it not flow like water? And water; should it haply burn like fire? 8 The hard-press'd Trojan, .fleeing the Ama3on Shelters behind a Grecian shield; the Greek Defends him from the maiden's blade, and both Trojan and Greek are almost forced, despite The rape of Helen, to hold each o~her friends And join to fight a common enemy. (Scene 1: p. 170) Among the Amazons themselves there is much confusion. Penthesilea is thrown into confusion at her first sight of Achilles (Scene 1: p. 169; Ody.), and from that point on her disturbance communicates itself to her army. Bent upon pursuing Achilles, she ceases to pay careful attention to her role as leader of the Amazon host. As a result, none of her people knows exactly what is going on. Penthesilea a lso ultimately causes the physical disbandment of her army. She orders that no one other than herself may harm Achilles. Hence, when he comes marching into the Amazon camp no one can stop him. Penthesilea refuses to leave, and the army must abandon her and flee leaderless in many directions. In this world of confusion, nature, so communicative in Homer's Iliad, is hostile. The landscape is hard and cold, full of dust and rfck. Indeed, it serves only as a landscape, a place in which human action is staged. Through its lifeless dust it clouds the sight, and with its rocks it hinders human progress, unrelenting in the face of human advances (Scene 2: p. 175-176). We see young Amazon girls eargerly seek for roses in the plain, but the land is not bountiful. It will not serve their need, but keeps itself protected from interaction with them: 'tis harder far to win Roses upon these fields than prisoners. Though on the hills around the bounteous harvest Of Argive youths stand rank on rank and wait Only for reaping by the eager scythe, Yet in these vales so sparingly, believe me, And so well-fortified the roses bloom, That it is lighter work to hew through lances Than break a way through their entwined thorns. (Sc ene 6: p. 194; Second Girl) In this world no river god, not even in anger, would raise its voice to speak with a mortal in the way that Skamandros spoke to Achilleus (Iliad, Bk. XXI: lines 211-221). Just as nature is devoid of communicative life, ~oo are the gods far away. This is seen in many ways, and it is even said by Prothoe, queen Penthisilea's closest companion: "what thy eyes behold, /It is the world, our transient, brittle world,/On which the gods look down but from afar" (Scene 24: p. 261). When the gods are present, it is in name only. They do not speak, they do not come down from Olympos to aid or to hinder, and they send no omens or dreams. A good example of the distance that the gods have from the lives of men is found in Penthesilea's relationship with her father, Ares. Whereas Achilleus always has close contact with Thetis and hears what his fate will be from her lfps, Penthesilea never comes into contact with her father. Though she does hear from him that she is to lead the Amazons against the men at Troy, it is her mortal mother Otrere who tells her this. Another sign of man's alienation from the gods is the presence of a priesthood. Although there are priests in The Iliad like Chryses and interpreters like Kalchas, these do not play as great a role in the lives of men as the gods themselves do. But in Penthesilea, the priestesses of Diana serve as mediators between the goddess and her people . Diana's words and Ares's words come through the mouths of mortals (Scene 7: 9 �p. 199; High Priestess). It is not, however, quite correct to say that the gods have disappeared altogether. In their external manifestations, the way we know them from The Iliad, they are gone. But they reappear in Penthesilea in different form. They are stirrings within the individual. They belong to the human soul. Penthesilea is the character through which we see them. She often speaks of the powerful presences that are with her, but these presences are companions of her emotions, not the causes of the emotions. In her passionate haste to bind Achilles to her on the battlefield, Penthesilea feels the presence of the furies, and when she believes she has conquered him she feels beneficial deities joining her. She tells Prothoe, Let my poor heart Like a dirt-dabbled, happy child, sink deep One wondrous moment in the stream of joy. With every splash in those exultant waves A stain is washed from my sad, sinful breast. They flee at last, the dread Eumenides; I feel the approach of godlike presences And I would join my voice to their happy choir. (Scene 14: p. 221) These furies are not of the same kind as those who pursued Orestes, seeking vengeance for his matricide. They are not given external form. They are tools with which Penthesilea describes the nature of her own passions and desires. These 'furies' push Penthesilea in the same way the Eumenides drove Orestes to Apollo's sanctuary, but they push from within. There can be no such statements as "He [Apollo] spoke, and breathed huge strength into the shepherd of the people [Hektor]" (Iliad, Bk. XV: line 262) in Penthesilea, for such stirrings belong entirely to the soul. Penthesilea also says, "Man can be great in grief, ay, even a hero, /But only in happiness is he a god" (Scene 14: p. 222). What she is conveying through these words is that the clear boundaries between man and god that exist in The Iliad are lacking in her world. The gods have moved from Olympos into the human heart, and man himself can, upon achieving happiness, become a god. He is not 'god-like,' he is god, and he can be ruler over all things, not just over other men. Penthesilea, in her one moment of joy commands, "Out then and seek o'er the fields! And if /The niggard spring refuse me roses, breathe,/Breathe on the plain and it will burgeon for me!" (Scene 14: p. 220). Since the gods no longer are jn their own right, there are no ceremonious attempts to be in harmony with them. There are no libations, no hecatombs, and the only time something like a prayer is uttered, it is in a call of desperation - a cry that begs for the aid and presence of the gods in a world that is empty of them: nThee, Ares, I invoke, thou terrible one! /Thee, awful founder of our house, I call!/Oh! Swiftly send me down thy brazen car" (Scene 20: p. 246; Penthesi5ea). In the same way that the gods have lost their own forms and have become part of human heart, fate loses its external power to pull the world together in a grand scheme. It is changed into an extension of the human will . When Penthesilea refuses to flee from Achilles and his henchmen who come to raid the Amazon camp, Prothoe tells her, "Then, as thou wilt!/ If thou canst not, wilt not - good! Dry they eyes./ What thou canst not achieve: the gods forbid/ That I should ask it of thee" (Scene 9: p. 20~And when the High Priestess remarks contemptuously, "Cannot! I Though nothing holds her, no fate binds her here/ Only her infatuate heart!" (ibid), Prothoe retorts, 10 That is her fate!· You'd say steel fetters are unbreakable, Would you not? I say: she could break them, perchance, But never this feeling you treat so lightly. What darkly stirs within her, who can say? A riddle is every heart's deep-flowing tide. (ibid . ) Penthesilea's world lacks the nicely constructed pattern of Achilleus's world. The rules are harder to understand, since both the power of the gods and of fate have been transported into the individual. Penthesilea must bear all responsibility for her thoughts and actions. She cannot say, as Agamemnon can, that her anger comes from Zeus (Iliad , Bk. XIX: lines 76-138 ). In addition, Penthesilea lacks the security of knowing that her actions are fated to be as they are and that they are leading her toward a definite and unavoidable end. She must also bear the burden of choice: she governs the direction that her life will take. Again, the High Priestess says of her, "Oh, she runs steeply down to the abyss!/ 'Tis not to Achilles she will fall, when he/ Encounters her, but to this inner foe" (Scene 7: p. 200). The world of Penthesilea is turned upside down. Though the play takes place in the same world that Homer described, nothing is as it was in The Iliad. Order has become confusion. The next question is to see if the relationships that these two characters have with their worlds undergo the same reversal: is Achilleus at home in his world while Penthesilea is not? The first thing to notice about Achilleus is that he does not doubt his world. He does not question what he sees or hears, and he does not doubt his own judgments about what is around him. For instance, he accepts Athena automatically when she descends to stop him from raising his sword against Agamemnon: The goddess standing behind Peleus' son caught him by the fair hair,/ appearing to him only, for no man of the others saw her./ Achilleus in amazement turned about, and straightway/ knew Pallas Athene and the terrible eyes shining. (Bk. I: lines 197-200) To someone not comfortable in the Homeric world, it seems incredible that Achilleus does not think he is seeing things when he turns to see a mighty goddess at his back. But if we take Homer at his word, then we must say that Achilleus not only sees Athena, but faces her without a qualm. A similar thing occurs when Skamandros speaks in anger to the manslaughtering warrior on his banks (Bk. XXI: lines 211-213). It is no surprise to Achilleus that a river should be holding a conversation with him, nor is he shocked when his horse, Xanthos, given voice by Hera, prophecies his death (Bk. XIX: lines 404- 424). In the same vein, Achilleus is always capable of telling a friend from an enemy. Once he has decided that Agamemnon is against him, he never wavers in his distrust and dislike for the lord of the Achaians. Even when Achilleus 'unsays' his anger, he indicates that he must force himself to do so, to push away from his mind the anger "'sweeter ... by far than the dripping of honey"' (Bk. XVIII: line 110). 'We will let all this be a thing of the past, though i t hurts us,/and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us.' (Bk. XIX: lines 65 - 66) Achilleus judges friend from enemy on the basis of behavior . If he finds that their sympathies are not truly with him, then he will put no trust in men . For instance, when Agamemnon sends Phoenix, Aias, and Odysseus to Achilleus to try to lure 11 �him back into the fighting with gifts, Achilleus responds with aloofness. This indicates that he feels, and rightly so, that the embassy is working towards Agamemnon's benefit rather than his own. Achilleus does not believe that the embassy comes to him because Agamemnon has truly acknowledged his value. He knows Agamemnon sent them from fear. His response to Odysseus in particular revels his skepticism: 'Son of Laerties and seed of Zeus, resourceful Odysseus:/without consideration for you I must make my answer,/the way I think, and the way it will be accomplished,that you may not/come one after another, and sit by me, and speak softly./ For as I detest the doorways of Death, I detest that man, who/hides one thing in the depths of his heart, and speaks forth another.' (Bk. IX: lines 308-313) Achilleus also has conviction in his fate. This is shown in the way he takes action based upon what he knows, from Thetis, of his fate. For example, Achilleus's decision to kill Hektor following the death of Patroklos, though it certainly stems from grief and a desire for revenge, is also influenced by his knowledge that after Hektor dies he too is doomed to die . It may sound odd for a man to wish for his own end, but Achilleus knows that if he dies young he will achieve everlasting glory ?nd he wants this glory more than anything else. Thus, Achilleus intends not only to kill Hektor, but to do so in as spectacular a way as possible: 'Now I shall go, to overtake that killer of a dear life,/ Hektor; then I will accept my own death ..• Now I must win excellent glory.' (Bk. XVIII: lines 114-121) Although Achilleus does have moments in which he doubts that his fate will come about exactly as his mother has promised, the most striking of which occurs when he is trapped by the swirling waters of Skamandros (Bk. XX!: lines 273-278), he generally is sure that his fate will take place as his mother has foretold. He takes her words seriously . This is shown when he sends Patroklos out to drive the Trojans from the Achaian ships. Achilleus later reveals that he suspected, or perhaps even knew without a doubt, that Patroklos would die: 'May the gods not the way my mother while I yet lived light of the sun the strong son of accomplish vile sorrows upon the heart in me/in once made it clear to me, when she told me/how the bravest of all the Myrmidons/must leave the beneath the hands of the Trojans./Surely, the, Menoitios has perished.' (Bk. XVIII: lines 8-12) This passage explains why Achilleus so urgently warns Patroklos to return once he had driven the Trojans from the ships. Achilleus knew in his heart that he was sending Patroklos to his death, but because he wanted the accomplishment of his fate, for which he knew Hektor must die, he sent Patroklos out while warning him strongly: 'You must not, in the pride and fury of fighting , go on/slaughtering the Trojans, and lead the way against Ilion,/for fear some one of the everlasting gods on Olympos/might crush you. (Bk. XVI: lines 91-94) His next statement truly indicates that Achilleus knows much more about what will happen than he lets on. Though he has, "deeply troubled," told Patroklos, "'I have 12 no prophecy in mind that I know of'" (Bk . XVI: line 50), he now tells him , "'Apollo who works from afar loves these people/dearly. You must turn back once you bring the light of salvation/to the ships'" (Bk . XVI: lines 94-96). And indeed it is Apollo who brings about Patroklos's destruction (Bk . XVI: lines 786-792). The serious way in which Achilleus treats his fate suggests that he has an understanding of how his world works, and this in turn indicates that he is at home in his world. The shield which Hephaistos fashioned for him is a tribute to Achilleus's belonging in the world. Though we do not see him experience all the different facets of life on the shield, he is the one who carries it, and he is the only one who can look upon it: The goddess ... set down the armour on the ground/before Achilleus, and all its elaboration clashed loudly./Trembling took hold of all the Myrmidons. None had the courage/to look straight at it. They were afraid of it. Only Achilleus/looked. (Bk . XIX: lines 12-16) Achilleus belongs in his world. Penthesilea, however, is displaced in the already twisted character of her world. There are individuals in the play, like Prothoe, who do belong in that world. That means that it is possible to be comfortable in that world, though it is not the case with Penthesilea. The Amazon way of life and character in itself isolates and displaces Penthesilea from the world at large. The Amazons live in a secluded community, in the company only of women. When they do leave the confines of the community, it is only to go on raids to win men from whom they can continue their race (Scene 15: p. 232-233; Penthesilea) . Strict rules maintain that they can only gain these men as lovers by conquering them in battle. Penthesilea tells Achilles, Son of the dread sea-goddess! Not for me The common arts of gentler womanhood! ... I may not, as do your maids, chose my love And draw him to me with shy downward eyes Or with bright wanton nosegay ... I may not in the dark- leaved orange grove, ..• Sink on his breast and tell him it is he. No, on the bloody field of war must I go seek him, That youth my heart has chosen for its own, And clip him to me with harsh arms of brass. (Scene 15 : p. 228) The Amazon tradition of only coming into contact with men through war, and their custom of searing off one breast to facilitate use of the bow, set them apart from the usual mode of being for women. The Amazons inhibit the female inclination to love and be loved by men, and they only allow for it in the warped context of agression and dominance. Achilles asks Penthesilea, "But whence can spring, how ancient is that law,/Unwomanly, forgive me, nay, unnatural,/A custom strange to all the tribes of men?" (Scene 15: p. 228). Yet even mor e unnatural than this style of life and approach to the female constitution is the Amazon ability .to mix together both the feelings involved in aggres sive conflict, feelings of hate, with feelings of love and affection. Once the maiden warriors have gained their prize, they let their warlike feelings fade away, and they cultivate feelings of · love from which they can unite with their prisoners to produce offspring. There is a passage in which this odd 'reversibility of ·the Amazon character is protrayed: a group of Amazons tries to approach their Greek prisoners 13 �with love . But the prisoners, just recently confronted with these women in battle, cannot comprehend this friendly behavior. To make the situation even more bizarre, the Amazons cannot understand why their prisoners do not realize that they intend them no harm, but would like to treat them like kings in the lap of luxury . One Amazon asks, "Strange- mooded men! What gnaws thus at your hearts?/ Now that our ar rows sleep within the quiver,/ How can the sight of us affright you still?" (Scene 6: p . 196). Penthesilea is therefore not in harmony with the world because of this Amazon duality: the ability to one moment feel the hate necessary to wage war and the next moment to feel love. It is as Odysseus remarked: "Should [water] haply burn like fire?" ( Scene 1: p. 170 ) . The Amazons not only completely atter their perceptions and emotions, but they do so towards the same individuals. But Penthesilea is displaced in this already odd situation. For the Amazons, these feelings of love or hate should only accompany the suitable circumstance of war or victory and peace. Penthesilea cannot keep these feelin~ apart. She wants to conquer Achilles in battle, and the same time she has chosen him out specifically because she is infatuated with him and wants to become his lover. When Penthesilea looks upon Achilles, she is beset by both her emotions of love and hate: I long to see him grov'lling at my feet, This haughty man, who in this glorious And gentle field of arms, as no man yet, Sows strange confusion in my warlike heart . •.. Do I not feel - ah! Too accursed I While all around the Argive army flees, When I look on this man, on him alone, That I am smitten, lamed in my inmost being, Conquered and overcome - I! Only I! ( Scene 5: p. 186-187 ) The High Priestess points out how strange a thing it is to have among the Amazons a especially a Queen, so overcome with love: wo~an, The Queen, you say? Impossible my friend! Pierced by love's shaft? How can that be? ... She who doth wear the girdle of diamonds? The daughter of Mars, who lacks even the breast Where Cupid's poison'd shafts may strike and lodge? (Scene 7: p. 200) Because Penthesilea cannot untangle her aggressive feelings from her softer, yielding ones, she finds i t impossible to see anything in a unified way. Unlike Achilleus who puts much trust in what he sees other men do, Penthesilea cannot judge others. Her own thoughts and emotions make it hard for her to see what people are actually doing. For example, she has both admiration and affection for her Amazon people, yet she swiftly turns against them in anger: Curses upon this beastly, wanton haste! ••• A curse on lusts that in my Amazons' Chaste hearts like unleashed dogs do howl and quite O'erwhelm the trumpet's brazen-throated voice And all the leaders' cries of shrill command. Victory - is that yet won, that you should thus 14 In fiendish mockery pluck triumphal garlands? (Scene 9: p. 204) Penthesilea herself has given the order for the plucking of the roses, and she herself is the one who longs for love while the battle still rages on. But in her distracted state she is not aware of these things, and she sees those who are merely carrying out her orders as ridiculing her and as trying to take away her last chance of winning Achilles in battle. This is anger against herself., but the anger is so potent that it infects her ability to see objectively. Therefore, she strikes out at friends as though they were enemies. Penthesilea' s displacement both in the world and in .the Amazon environment does not just show itself in her projected anger or in her conflicting emotions. She is in real doubt about her world and herself in that world. Compared to Achilleus who i s sur e of himself, Penthesilea is a lost individual. She questions what the ru l es are that govern her behavior. She wonders if it is right to try to win her beloved through battle: Is mine the fault that I must woo him thus, Here on the field of war must force his love? What is it I long for, when I strike at him? Is it to send him headlong to the shades? I long - ye gods above! I only long To this warm beast I long to draw him close! (Scene 9: p. 203) And she wonders if it is not, rather, right to give way to her womanly feelings and yield herself to Achilles as any other woman would. Her questioning of Amazon law reveals itself in her discussion with Achilles: like the fiery hurricano's blast, We sweep into the forest of the menfolk, Snatch up the ripest of the fallen fruit .•. And bear them with us to our native plains. •.• Here we conduct them in Diana's temple Through many a solemn rite ... •.. The seed is sown, and when the crop is up, We heap on them full measure of glorious gifts; On steeds richly caparisoned we send Them home. The Fea~t of Fruitful Mothers this, In soo t h a fes t ival of little joy. Ah, son of Thetis! Many a tear is shed, And many a heart, fast gripped by dresry grief, Must ask itself: is Tanais The Great For every binding word so praiseworthy? (Scene 15: p. 233) Penthesilea does not just question, however. She actually loses all ability to recognize things for what they are. When she sees herself reflected in Achilles's armour, she is not sure who she sees (Scene 5: p. 186-187). And though she is very dependent on Prothoe, at one time she believes Prothoe to be working for her cause, while at another time she thinks her friend wants only to thwart her (Scene 5: p. 189-193). This is because Penthesilea is never positive about what her cause is: is it the well-being of her host, or is it her own satisfaction? 15 �Am I selfish? Is it !!!I desires Alone that call me back into the field? Is it not my people, threatened by the fate That even in the maniac flush of victory With audible wingbeat hastens from afar? ••• These captive youths that you have taken in fight. You'll never lead them to the fragrant vales Of our homeland ••• •.• Lurking in ambush, crafty, insatiate, I see him everywhere - Achilles, ready to spring Upon your happy train and scatter it. (Scene 5: p. 188) Ev.e n when Achilles is before her Penthesilea wonders i f h~ is really the man she has heard so much about: Achilles! That man that slew old Priam's greatest son Before the walls of Troy - Say! Was it thou? And didst thou truly, thou, with these thy hands Pierce his fleet ankles, then behind thy car Drag him headlong around his native city? (Scene 15: p. 225) '0 wrapped in shamelessness, with your mind forever on profit, /how shall any one of the Achaians readily obey you/either to go on a journey or to fight men strongly in battle?' (Book I: lines 149-151) Achilleus, with his genuine desire to halt the crisis and find a way to placate all concerned, thinks himself a better man than Agamemnon. The accusations that follow, however, point to an envy that Achilleus has long harbored for Agamemnon: "Never, when the Achaians sack some well- founded citadel/ of the Trojans, do I have a prize that is equal to your prize./ Always the greater part of the fighting is the work of /my hands; but when the time comes to distribute the booty /yours is far the greater reward.' (Book I: lines 163-167) At this moment it is evident that Achilleus is resentful because he is not given the kind of recognition he thinks he deserves. He knows himself to be the 'best of the Achaians,' and he cannot endure the thought that another man, whom he considers both less noble and less warlike, should receive more honor simply because he is lord over many men . Taking into consideration Achilleus's knowledge of his two fates, it is possible to reconstruct the way he must have felt about the enterprise at Troy, in order that this disappointment over Agamemnon be so bitter for him. Knowing that in Troy he faced death, but also everlating glory, Achilleus must have envisioned a splendid career in the Argive host. But though he is recognized as the mightiest warrior among them, Achilleus is never treated as well as Agaemenon is • He finds himself continually dominated by Agamemnon. He ·is disillusioned. When Agamemnon threatens to take Briseis, Achilleus can no longer control his envy. This the ultimate dis honoring, and he is furious because instead of being honored as he had dreamt of being, he has been humiliated. He says, At times, so bewildered and immersed in her powerful emotions is Penthesilia that she does not know where she is. In her joy at discovering that Achilles is her prisoner, 9 though this is a deception, she is so elated that she thinks herself in Themiscyra (Scene 14: p. 221), and when she wakes from her final madness she thinks she is in Elysium (Scene 24: p. 261). Finally, Penthesilea herself embodies that strange Amazon duality of love and hate. She feels in extremes: joy, bitter sorrow, anger, or all three synthesized into one blinding emotion. In her physical appearance, too, she brings together the conflicting elements of the dufoity. She is very beautiful, and her eyes have enough allure to draw any man to her. She is soft and delicate, the epitome of a yielding woman. Yet her beauty is encased in war gear, and she seems indestructible. Antilochus says of her, "A foaming-jawed hyena! 'Tis no woman!" (Scene 2: p. 176). In embodying this duality, Penthesilea is not at home in the world. She is made up of teeming opposites. Though Achilleus also has conflicting elements within him, he belongs in his world and because of this is able to bring those conflicting parts together - to achieve a resolution. Penthesilea, who has no firm ground to stand upon, cannot find resolution in the world. She does attain a kind of harmony with herself, but when she does so she must do it in madness, and when it is over she cannot remain in the world. Achilleus, on the other hand, comes to a resolution which endows him with a fulness of character that is truly great in the world. I will now examine how each of these characters comes to a resolution, and what those resolutions mean. Achilleus belongs in the world, but he is dissatisfied with the way it treats him. His criticisms of Agamemnon suggest certain things about the way Achilleus thinks about himself. He becomes angry at Agamemnon's behavior over Chryseis, and he accuses Agamemnon of being, in effect, childish in his attachment to his prize (Book I: lines 122-129). This suggests that Achilleus is sensitive to an ignoble side of Agamemnon's character. The Achaian men are dying because of Apollo's anger, and Agamemnon will not give up the girl to rectify the situation. Achilleus is astounded that such a man would be considered a kingly leader: Through the course of the story, however, a change takes place in Achilleus. At the start, he is acutely aware that his desires are not being satisfied. But from the moment that the entreats Thetis to plead with Zeus on his behalf (Bk. I: lines 393-412), he sets in motion a chain of events that not only results in the fulfillment of his desires, but also causes a growth in his understanding of himself in the world. The death of Patroklos is the pivotal point in this process. Hence, an examination of Achilleus 's attitudes towards himself and towards what will make him happy, both before and after the death of his companion, wil~ afford a view of what this change in Achilleus entails. In Book IX, Achilleus is a young man with a dream of glory. He is drawn to the warrior's life and the fame that accompanies excellent deeds , but he does not have any notion of what that dream will be when it is translated into reality. Achilleus concentrates on the glory which is foretold, and he does not give much thought to the death that is involved. On one hand this is odd, since as a warrior Achilleus has been faced with death many times, and he is at home on the bloody battlefield. On the other hand, Achilleus sends Patroklos out into the fighting even though he knows that his friend will die. Achilleus does this for the sake of his fate. He knows that he is sac- 16 17 'the heart in me swells up in anger, when I remember/the disgrace that he wrought upon me before the Argives,/the son of Atreus, as if I were some dishonored vagabond.' (Bk. IX: lines 646-648) �rificing Patroklos. Yet, despite prior knowledge of the event, Achilleus experiences real agony over his friend's death: the black cloud of sorrow closed on Achilleus./ In both hands he caught up the grimy dust, and poured it/ over his head and face~ and fouled his handsome contenance, I and the black ashes were scattered over his immortal tunic./ And he himself, mightily in his might, in the dust lay/ at length, and took and tore at his hair with his hands, and defiled it. (Bk. XVIII: lines 22-27) Thus, though Achilleus knew he was to suffer a great loss, he was thinking more towards what that death would accomplish than towards the death itself. Neither does Achilleus feel the force of fate, its completeness and its finality . He accepts fate as a given in his life, but he does not comprehend the range over which it operates, that it brings together many events and emotions in order to come to its accomplishment. he concentrates so much on the end result that he pays no attention to what must happen and what he must experience in order for that end of glory to be gained. Achilleus's withdrawal into the fate which promised a long but obscure life illustrates that he is not truly in touch with what life is. Because of his disappointment with the way the Achaians have treated him, he persuades himself that he wants the long life undisturbed by the turmoil of war. it is clear, however, that Achilleus has no inclination toward that life: he is an aggressive man who craves the opportunity to prove himself the bravest and the strongest of all men. He is not a man who would be happy in the confined and unchallenging world of Phthia. In Book IX, when Achilleus puts forward his reasons for wanting to return to the land of his fathers, he is speaking out of frustration. He is striking out at the Achaians because he feels hurt by them. It is a real moment for Achilleus, but he does not believe what he is saying. He explains: 'For not worth the value of my life are all the possessions they fable/ were won for Ilion ... Of possessions/cattle and fat sheep are things to be had for the lifting,/ and tripods can be won .•. but a man's life cannot come back again, it cannot be lifted/ nor captured again by force, once it has crossed the teeth's barrier.' (Bk. IX: lines 400-409) This is a profound statement, but Achilleus does not know what it means. he has already revealed the real reason for his threat to return the Phthia: his anger at Agamemnon . 'Go back and proclaim to him all that I tell you, I openly, so other Achaians may turn against him in anger/ ••• I will join with him in no counsel, and in no action./ He cheated me and he did me hurt •.• Let him of his own will/ be damned ... I hate his gifts. I hold him light as the strip of a splinter./ Not if he gave me ten times as much .•. not if he gave me gifts as many as the sand or the dust is,/ not even so would Agamemnon have his way with my spirit/until he had made good to me all this heartrending insolence.' (Bk. IX: lines 369-387) Agamemnon offers him because he cares no longer ·for gifts. He wants complete and utter recognition of his superiority. He will accept nothing less than Agamemnon's subordination beneath him. Achilleus hungers for transcendence over others, and his eyes look only toward the brightness of his fate. This is why his threat to leave for Phthia is nothing more than a threat. He intends to stay at Troy and be present for the unfolding of his destiny: 'I shall not think again of the bloody fighting/ until such a time as the son of wise Priam, Hektor the brilliant/ comes all the way to the ships... slaughtering the Argives, and shall darken with fire our vessels.' (Bk . IX: lines 650-653) Achilleus's lack of unqerstanding of the force his fate will have upon him indicates that he is not quite in touch with himself. He has a splendid vision of what he wants to be, but he has not yet found out who he is. He has not come into his own. Following the death of Patroklos, however, Achilleus is forced to confront the world that exists outside of his dreams. He tells Thetis, 'My mother, all these things the Olympian brought to accomplishment./ But what pleasure is this to me, since my dear companion has perished, I Patroklos, whom I loved beyond. all other companions,/ as well as my own life. I have lost him.' (Bk . XVIII: lines 79-82) Now, instead of being like the king on the shield Hephaistos wrought for him, who contentedly watches the reapers bringing in his crop (Bk . .XVIII: lines 550-560), Achilleus suddenly finds himself deeply involved in the work itself. All this time, from his ships, Achilleus has watched the events paving th~ way towards accomplishment of his fate, and now his fate has reached out and pulled him into the midst of it. The shining goal of glory seems as nothing compared to the sorrow and the desire for venge<;ince. Achilleus is also forced to confront himself, not in the terms he had done so before , thinking only of his own hurt and what he wanted from those .who had hu~t him, but in terms of how he affected other: 'I must die soon, then; since I was not to stand hy my companion/ , when he was killed. And now, far away from the land of his fathers,/ he has per ished, and la~ke d my fighting str ength t o de fend , him. I Now~ . . since I was no light of safety to Pat·roklo.s, no.r to my other/ companions, , . who in their numbers went down before glorious Hektor,/buc sit here beside my ships, a useless weight .on . the good land,/ .I, who am such as no other ... in battle .•. why, I .wish strife would vanish away from among gods and mortals,/ and gall, which makes a man grow angry for all his great mind,/ that gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside of a man's heart/ and becomes and thing .sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey.' (Bk. XVIII: lines 98-110) There is only one way in which these words about the value of his life come from any genuine motivation. It is true that his anger does not stem from the stingy way Agamemnon has treated him. Achilleus will not now accept all the magnificence Though there still lurks, in the background, the memory of an Achilleus who works steadily towards the gain of glory - that same Achilleus who knew Patroklos would die - here there is an Achilleus who recognized he lived for more reasons than the achievement of glory . He realizes that there are things dearer to him than he 18 19 �had thought. He reassesses his judgments about what it means to live. As he confronts himself, he must also contemplate what his own death will mean. He had said that no possessions could equal the value of his life. With Patroklos 's death, Achilleus sees that there is one possession for which he would gladly sacrifice his life: the companionship of a beloved friend. With this recognition, Achiileus feels the completeness of fate. He sees that it is not a dream far removed from the innnediate experience of living. He knows now that it touches him in every way, and that it takes away from him things that he values. The ruthlessness with which he pursues Hektor is not, then, simply inspired by desire for vengeance. It is also inspired by a need to clear himself of his guilt in Patroklos's death. He loathes himself - even to the point of guaranteeing his own death. He tells his mother, 'there must be on your heart a numberless sorrow / for your son's death .•. since the spirit within does not drive me / to go on living and be among men, except on condition / that Hektor first be beaten down under my spear.' (Bk. XVIII: lines 88-92) Achilleus refuses even to eat or drink until he has both atoned for and avenged his companion's death (Bk. XIX: lines 319-321 ) . When it is all over, and Achilleus has taken the life from Hektor and may turn to the burial of Patroklos, we see a different man emerge. He resembles neither the fiery youth of the first sixteen books, nor the man consumed by murderous rage. Achilleus still suffers moments during which his rage controls him and he drags Hektor's body furiously around Patroklos's tomb. But these moments do not deny him his new character; rather, they show that he is not yet secure in it. During the funeral games, Achilleus acts with the same kind of grace and courtesy he gave a hint of when he received Agamemnon's embassy in Book IX (lines 185-198) . Here, however, there is more substance to his behavior. Achilleus is not merely pleasing his heart with music, dreaming of mighty warriors and deeds of fame. He is taking part in the interaction between such men. He carefully treats with the feelings of each one, and having learnt of the dangers of quarrelling, he says during a dispute, '"No longer now, Aias and Idomenus, continue / to exchange this bitter and evil talk./ It is not becoming'" (Bk. XXIII: lines 492-493). The consideration and civility that Achilleus exhibit during the games extend to the time when Priam comes alone to him in supplication. Achilleus is following the connnands of Zeus, yet he treats Priam with genuine sympathy and respect. He takes him in, and together they mourn their losses. Achilleus is honestly moved by this man who has wielded so much power, but who has suffered such devastation in the war with the Achaians. he $ees Priam as a fellow human being who has been granted by the gods both joy and misery and who is worthy of admiration (Bk. XXIV: lines 542-551). Even when Achilleus responds warningly to Priam's request to see Hektor's body, he does not indicate that his sympathy was simply an act. He warns Priam because the freshness of his grief is still with him, and he does not want his rage to come to the fore. 'You must not further make my spirit move in my sorrows, I for fear, old sir, I might not let you alone ... suppliant as you are, and be guilty before the god's orders.' (Bk. XXIV: lines 568-570) Achilleus does not want to disobey Zeus, and this is strong reason for his restraint. Yet, he could have complied with the gods without showing the consideration and rev- 20 erence that he does show Priam. By the end of the poem, Achilleus has come into his own. Despite the rage that still smolders beneath the calm exterior, Achilles has discovered who he is in the world. The dream has been translated into reality: he has all he wished for. Achilleus has achieved great fame, and he has achieved dominance over Agamemnon. Throughout the funeral games, Agamemnon defers to Achilleus's wishes, and Achilleus says to Priam, "' (The Achaians ) keep coming / and sitting by me and making plans, as they are supposed to'" ( Bk. XXIV: lines 651-652 ) . Achilleus acknowledges that consideration for others is important. He is like Aristotle's 'proud man' (Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. IV: Ch. 3) who is secure in himself and magnanimously recognizes the value and worth of others. Now Achilleus extends to Agamemnon the respect he deserves as lord of the Achaians . because Achilleus is no longer threatened by Agamemnon. The sense that one has at the end of The Iliad is also that Achilleus is far more aware of the value of his companions Automedon and Alkimos than he was of the value of Patroklos. They serve him, but he does not take them for granted. Achilleus, because he has a place in his world, is able to come to contentment in that world. penthesilea has a very different path to her resolution. it is full of tension, and the only way for it to be resolved is through madness. Certain passages in the play indicate that Penthesilea, unlike Achilleus, is not inclined to the warlike way of life. While he causes himself sorrow by abstaining from the war, Penthesilea suffers because she is in a state of war that she does not want to be in. While in Themiscyra, though Penthesilea was undoubtedly given military training, she was kept from engaging in real war with real opponents. She tells Achilles that until 1 fhe was twenty-three, she had not gone to war with the Amazons (Scene 15: p. 234 ) . She also tells him that she was so overcome with grief at her mother's death that she could not find any interest in taking her own place in life: Long, long I wept, a whole grief-laden month, At my dead mother's grave, neglecting still The crown that lay beside me masterless, Until at length the oft-repeated cry Of the people, who, eager for joyful war, Impatient, lay encamped around my palace, Dragged me by force to mount the throne. (Scene 15: pp. 235-236 ) This suggests that Penthesilea protection of her mother's power, the Amazon people she is destined In addition, Pentesilea is grace: was more inclined to her life at home, in the than she was to going out and proving herself among to rule. remembered as being a girl rull of compassion and Oh, such a virgin, Hermia! So modest! So deft in all the arts of women's hands! So lovely when she danced or when .s he sang! So full of wisdom, dignity, and grace! •.. The mottled worm that sported in the dust Before her delicate feet, she would not crush; She would recall the shaft ere it could pierce The savage wild boar's shoulder, and his eye,· Glazing in death, could drag her to her knees Before him, melted quite in soft remorse. (Scene 23: pp. 254-255; First Priestess ) 21 �l Penthesilea does not fit into her Amazon environment. She is dependent on her mother, and gains from her a false sense of belonging in the Amazon community. Her strange nature among these women who clamour for battle can be seen when her situation is compared with the feelings of a young amazon girl who appears in the play: Another time when all the Amazon host Marches to war with cymbals and with drums, We will go too, and not - oh promise us! Only to grace the mother's victory With rose-plucking and winding toilsome wreaths! My arm here - look! - can hurl the javelin, And from my sling the stone flies swift and true. Why not? Why not? I am no more a child. (Scene 6: p. 195; First Girl) Penthesilea is reluctant to go to war, just as she is reluctant to kill any living thing. She does not care for the dominance that her position as Queen would give her. She is also, perhaps, frightened of assuming the throne, since she feels alone. and vulnerable in a community which thrives on self-assertion. When the priestesses come to tell her that Ares has called her to war, Penthesilea begs, "Oh, let me stay beside thee, Mother!/ Use it once more, thy royal dignity,/ - For the last time - and bid these women go" (Scene 15: p. 235). She wants to stay beside her dying mother because she cares for her, but she is also afraid to leave her nest of security. As the host travels to Troy, Penthesilea begins to be filled with warlike feelings. These are not, however, natural to her. She describes them as though they were a new experience, and exhilirating for that reason. Her feelings are fueled by two things, neither of which stem from her own nature: her desire to fulfill her mother's last wish (Scene 15: p. 235; Pen th.) and her hope that in overcoming Achilles she will achieve a sense of belonging in the Amazon community. She says, Nearer I drew to old Scamander's stream, And every vale around through which I swept Echoed the clash of battle before Troy, So did my grief abate, and my wide soul Drank in the universe of joyful war. To myself I said: if they should all together, The mighty moments of the daedal past, Return for me, if all the company Of heroes whom the songs of minstrels sing, Should step down from the stars, I should not find Not one more excellent to crown with roses, Than that man whom my mother chose for me So dear, so wild, so sweet, so terrible The slayer of Hektor! (Scene 15: p. 236) The importance that conquering Achilles has in Penthesilea' s mind is seen in Scenes 14 and 15 when she believes she has won him. Up until this point, Penthesilea has been wracked by indecision and frustration, but here she falls easily into the role of Queen. She begins to think of preparations for the hosts' return to Themiscyra, and she has an air of confidence about her (Scene 15: p. 227) The surety and joy Penthesilea gains from the belief that Achilles has been tak- 22 en by her illustrates Penthesilea's notion of who she should be in the world. her ideal is an Amazon one: to be completely detached from any submissive, loving, feelings and to be physically capable of subjecting any man to her will. In taking Achilles, she will have proved to herset~' and to her people that she is truly Amazon and that she deserves her Queenship. Her happiness is thus dependent on her winning of Achilles. She explains to Prothoe the unhappiness she has suffered prior to this supposed capture of Achilles: They say misfortune purifies the soul, But I •.. have never found it so. Bitterness still, rage against gods and men, Unseeing passion are its fruits in me. With strange perversity I then have hated On others' faces every mark of joy; The blithe child playing in its mother's lap Seemed but conspired to mock my sullen grief. (Scene 14: p. 221) She was a woman who felt her means to fulfill her natural then have given her both the While she experiences Penthesilea incorporates her of Achilles that she becomes displacement among her people and who did not have the inclination to be loved. The capture of Achilles would love she craved and her place among the Amazons. those warlike feelings on the way to Troy, however, own nature into them. She builds up so great an image intoxicated with him. He fills all her thoughts: 0 thou son of Peleus! Ever my single thought when I awoke; Ever my dream in sleep wast thou! The world Lay stretched before me like a patterned web, And in each glorious, wide-gaping mesh One of thy deeds with craftsman's skill enwoven; Upon my heart, as on silk white and fine, I burned each deed with colours steeped in flame. (Scene 15: pp. 236-237; Penth.) As a result, when she sees Achilles, she falls passionately in love with him (Scene 15: p. 237; Penth) . Her problem of trying to make a place for herself among the Amazons is hence made even more difficult - and the solution even more important because while she tries to establish herself, her own inclinations towards love pull her in the opposite direction: towards succumbing to Achilles. Such an act would, of course, automatically dishonor her in the eyes of her people. At the opening of the play, Penthesilea is in this state of tension. Achilles stands before her as the shining key which will give her both happiness and belonging in the world. The path she takes is one of frantically trying to capture Achilles on the battlefield. His capture will make her what she wants to be. In this respect of having a bright goal to strive for - Penthesilea is like Achilleus. But whereas he looked for his own ability and splendor to be recognized by the world, Penthesilea looks for this through another: through Achilles, as though his brilliance might be incorporated into her . Penthesilea tries in every way to reach her goal, but she is hindered by several things. Nature itself seems to put itself up as a barrier between Achilles and herself. At one point, she is near enough to reffh out and grasp him, but he swerves and she falls as her horse stumbles on a rock. By the time she recovers, Achilles is far beyond her (Scene 3: pp. 178-179). Penthesilea's feelings of love also hinder 23 �her from striking at Achilles in battle. At crucial moments she stays her hand and Achilles goes unscathed (Scene I: pp. 171-172). Finally, as Achilles again and again eludes her, Penthesilea begins to feel desperate. She is overcome by doubts that she can gain him at all. She also worries that in her headstrong pursuit of Achilles she is endangering her host. This worry in itself undermines her ability to be the leader she yearns to be. It is in Scene 9 that Penthesilea comes to terms with the futility of what she is trying to do: work against her own nature. She has pushed herself to make one last attempt to conquer Achilles, and she herself has fallen in the confrontation. She feels then how much she does not want to meet Achilles in the context war. She is stunned that he could treat her with such aggression: So crush and bruise this breast! - How could he do it? Oh Prothoe! It is as wanton-cruel As though I were to rive the innocent lyre That hangs in the night breeze, whispering my name. At the bear's feet I would cower, nestling close, Would stroke and fondle the blotch'd panther, who Approached me with such feelings as I him. (Scene 9: p. 203) Penthesilea now abandons her hope of establishing herself among the Amazons, and of finding love with Achilles. She admits, The utmost I have done that human strength Is able - I have tried the impossible I have staked all upon one throw - all that I have. The fateful die is cast - it lies before me: And I must understand - that I have lost. (Scene 9: p. 207) She also strikes out at those who have helped her think that she could ever reach her Amazon ideal: That hand I curse that decked me for the fight This day, and that deceiving serpent-word That told me I should conquer. Accursed! Accursed! Oh, how they stood around me with their mirrors Flatt'rers! - on either hand and praised the form Divine of my smooth limbs, molded in steel! 14 Pestilence smite you with you tricks of hell! (Scene 9: p. 206) Penthesilea regains this state of mind in Scene 15 after she discovers that Achilles has, in fact, taken her in battle. The urgency of her request that he come with her anyway to Themiscyra is a sign that one final time she is trying to achieve place among the Amazons, and love with Achilles, in the context of Amazon thought (Scene 15 : p . 240 ; Penth . ) . But when Achilles leaves her , Penthesilea abandons any agressive stance. She accepts the shame of her un-warlike nature, and indeed, she feels she can do so since she has been legitimately conquered in battle. In anger she says: Was I not his by every use of chivalry, By fairest chance of war his lawful prize? 24 When man on man makes war .... ... Show me the law - I say, show me! - which then Permits the prisoner who has yielded him To be set free again from his captor's bonds. (Scene 19: p.241) Penthesilea, now trapped in an unsolvable situation, refuses to act at all. In shame she says, "I must bury me in endless night!" (Scene 19: p. 243). There is, however, a hint that Penthesilea expects Achilles to return and take her for his own. That would be the only way in which she might escape her present alienated situation among the Amazons. In Scene 20, when she hears that a herald comes from Achilles, she says in anticipation, "'Tis from Achilles! - Ah; what shall I hear?'" (p. 243). And though she follows this remark ~ith a command to bid the herald leave, she is mer~ly feeling the impossibility of · her situation. Penthesilea wants nothing more of the Amazon life. She wants only to follow her inclinations. towards love. Now that she has heard from Achilles's own lips that he loves her, Penthesilea is willing to leave behind the world she knows for another foreign one in the arms Achilles. This fragile reconciliation is doomed to be disrupted. Achilles is himself the agent. He, assuming that Penthesilea is comfortable in her world, and that she would never think of coming to without first~aking him in battle, challenges her to single combat. He intends to make a farce out of their confrontation, fall to her, and to go with her Themiscyra (Scene 21: pp. 248-249). But Penthesilea, having rejected the warlike stance and having reconciled herself to her womanly ' inclinations, cannot accept - or comprehend - that Achilles approaches her in terms of war: He, he, who knows I am too weak by far, He sends this challenge, Prothoe, to me? My faithful breast here moves him not a whit Till he has crushed and split it with his spear? Did all I whispered to him touch his ear Only with the empty music of the voice? (Scene 20: p. 244) Penthesilea feels betrayed. This challenge reawakens all the tensions that had been present before she came to terms with her lack of belonging in the Amazon world. In their rebirth, they are much more powerful. Penthesilea, experiencing the re-emergence of all these tensions at once, is in agony in her awareness of them. She retreats into madness and accepts Achilles' s challenge: "Now I do feel the strength to stand against him: Now he shall down and grovel in the dust" (Scene 20: p. 244). And Penthesilea goes to meet him, c~lling the gods down to witness her deed: with maniac tread among her hounds With foam- flecked lip she goes and calls them sisters, Who howl and howl; most like a Maenad she, Dancing across the fields, her bow in hand, She urges on the pack that pants for blood Around her, bidding them seize the fairest prey That ever, so she tells them, ranged the earth. (Scene 22: p. 251; High Priestess) In this Bacchic frenzy, Penthesilea kills Achilles, who means her no hf5m. As he hides in the boughs of a fir tree, she brings him down with an arrow and th.en 25 �proceeds to tear him apart, in the same way that Agave destroyed Pantheus, · her son. It is a scene of horror and insanity. The Amazon who witnessed the act reports, like the messenger who looked into the hidden chamber where Oedipus put his eyes out before Jocasta's hanging body: Oh you, Diana's holy priestesses, And you, Ares' chaste daughters, hear me speak: I am the Afric Gorgon, and to stone Behold ! - Your bodies' warmth I freeze at once. (Scene 23: p. 252; Meroe) This madness, despite its existence in the realm of abomination, does resolve all of Penthesilea 's tensions. In her madness she destroys them by killing that which brough t them a ll t oge the r fo r her: Achille s. I n killing him, Penthes ilea proves beyond a doubt that she is Amazon and that she is worthy of descendence from Tanais. Penthesilea had earlier-assured Achilles that despite her lack of a breast, Here in this left breast (all youth's tenderest, sweetest feelings ) have take refuge And are, by threat much, nearer to my heart. Not one shalt thou find lacking, friend, in me. (Scene 15: p. 231) But now, as Tanais symbolically tore her breast from her body at the founding of the Amazon race, Penthesilea has wrenched out of her very being the feelings that that breast symbolized. As Penthesilea drops the great bow of the Amazons at the feet of the High Priestess, the priestess says, Great Queen and lady! Oh, forgive, I pray! Diana is full well content with thee. I see thou hast atoned; her wrath is turned. The mighty founder of our women's realm, Tanais' self, I cannot well deny, She did not wield the bow more worthily. (Scene 24: p. 258) Penthesilea also resolves the tension she has felt between being true to her Amazon upbringing and therefore taking Achilles in battle, and being true to herself and hence taking him in love. She takes him in war, and yet in her tearing of him she is di ssolving t he barrieyg between herse lf and Achi lles. She is joining with him in the most literal of ways. When Penthesilea wakes from her frenzy, she feels· the peace which release from tension brings: "I am so happy sister! More than happy! / Quite ripe for death, Goddess, I feel myself" ( Scene 25: p. 261). She senses that she has achieved all that she could have wished for in life. She is ready for death because there is nothing more she can accomplish. And although she is horrified when she discovers what she has done, she finds that she can account for it: Surely I kissed him? Or did I tear him?... 17 .•. So - it was a mistake. Kissing - biting Where is the difference? When we truly love It's easy to do one when we mean the other. How many a girl, her soft arms fast entwined About he man's neck, says that she loves him so 26 lieyond words she could eat him up for love. And then, poor fool, when she would prove her words, Sated she is of him - sated almost to loathing. Now, my beloved, that was not my way. Why look: when my soft arms were round thy neck, I did it word for word; it was no pretending. I was not quite so mad as they would have it. (Scene 24; pp. 265-266) But in her realization of what she has done, Penthesilea also realizes that she does not have an understanding of herself in the world. She had tried to compromise: to think of what she ought to be, and the'ilto think of what she could be with Achilles. She never actually dealt with what she was. After her murder of Achilles, Penthesilea has no context to put herself in. She has rejected the Amazon life, even though she has now proven herself in it ( Scene 24: p. 266; Penth. ) , and she has destroyed Achilles, so that she cannot find belonging in him either. She can therefore, perhaps hoping to find her place in another realm, only assert her presence in the world through her death: now I will step down into my breast As into a mine and dig a lump Of cold ore, an emotion that will kill. This ore I temper in the fires of woe To hardest steel; then steep it through and through In the hot, biting venom of remorse; Carry it then to Hope's eternal anvil And sharpen it and point it to a dagger; Now to this dagger do I give my breast: So! So! So! So! Once More! Now it is good. (Scene 24: p. 267 ) And Penthesilea dies. It can already be seen that there is a great difference between Achilleus and Penthesilea. He finds himself in the world, and though he is fated to die, it is not necessary, by the very nature of his relationship to that world, that he die. Should he have lived, Achilleus would have been the most glorious product of the homeric world. Penthesilea finds herself and asserts herself. But she does this through the aberration of madness. That in itself shows what an impossible thing she wanted to do . She cannot, like Achilleus, consciously experience her coming into her own in t he wo r ld. Thus, when she has forced a resolution, she cannot remain in the world when she returns to consciousness. In order to spell out the distinction between these two characters, an analysis of the acts that facilitate their resolutions will be helpful . Achilleus wants glory, and in order to gain it he must kill Hektor. Penthesilea wants to find love and place in the world. In order to gain it she must kill Achilles. The ways in which they kill, and the motivations for the killing, are very different. Achilleus treats Hektor with utter disregard for Hektor's own glory and worth as an idividual . So full of r age and pur pos e is Ach i lleus t hat t he re i s no escape for Hektor. In the typical manner portrayed in The Iliad , Achilleus and Hektor face one another and hurl threats at one another: they assert themselves. And when Hektor falls, Achilleus vaunts: 'Hektor, surely you though as you killed Patroklos you would be/safe, and since I was far away you thought nothing of me , / o 27 �fool, for an avenger was left far greater than he was, I behind him and away by the hollow ships. And it was I; I and I have broken you strength; On you the dogs and vultures/shall feed and foully rip you; the Achaians will b¥8Y Patroklos.' (Bk. XXII: lines 331-336) There are two things to notice in this boast. Of the greatest importance is Achilleus 's use of 'I.' He uses it emphatically three times, and what he is conveying to Hektor is this: I am the greater man. You are nothing in comparison. Here Achilleus reveals his need to dominate, to stand alone as the most glorious of all men. The next thing of interest is Achilleus's juxtaposition of Hextor's doom to be devoured by carrion with Patroklos's imminent burial. Achilleus is stressing that while Hektor will receive no funeral rites and will thus never gain access into Hades, Patroklos, the man Hektor had dominated, will. Achilleus therefore not only supercedes Hektor by taking his life, but he further impresses his dominance upon Hektor by threatening to annihilate Hektor' s individuality in death. In being consumed, Hektor will be split into many parts, and he will be distributed among many. To make his point strongly , Achilleus says, 'I wish only that my spirit and fury would drive me/ to hack you meat away and eat it raw for the things that/ you have done to me. So there is no one who can hold the dogs off I from your head.' (Bk. XXII: lines 346-349) For Achilleus, this is the supreme statement of dominance: a threat to destroy the individuality of another by ingesting it into one's self. Achilleus's treatment of Hektor's body is in the same vein. He abuses it and tries to mar it in every way. His wish is that its unique form and beauty be destroyed. What Achilleus wishes he had spirit and rage enough to do, Penthesilea carries out. But Penthesilea's treatment of Achilles stems from motivations that are not the same as those of Achilleus. This changes the meaning of the act. Penthesilea' s desire to conquer Achilles does not primarily come from a need to dominate. She acts with tremendous agression, but it is not directed a supercession. It is directed at absorption of Achilles. She moved to meet that youth whom she so loves, •.. In the confusion of her youthful senses Aiming with all the horrid terrors of war Her hot desire to seize and possess him. (Scene 23: p. 252; Meroe) Penthesilea does not want to destroy Achilles. She wants to merge with him completely. Her deed demonstrates not a contempt of Achilles, but a valuing of him as a special individual. She would go to any lengths to grasp him, and she is so blinded by her eagerness that she does not realize that what she is doing destroys the very thing she seeks. The Homeric Achilleus wishes to comsume Hektor, but he cannot do i t because in that he would be bringing himself into the closest of contacts with Hektor. What he wants to do is separate himself from Hektor as much as possible. Achilleus must hence content himself with abusing the body in the dust behind his chariot. Penthesilea, having inadvertently marred Achilles in her killing of him, treats the body with love (Scene 24: p. 266). Having seen the different meanings that the deed has for Penthesilea and Achilleus, it is possible to gain clear insight into how very opposed these characters are to one another. For Achilleus, who belongs in his world, assertion of his 28 individualtiy is the most important function in liis life: the glory he will gain ensures his shining dominance over men even after his death. For Penthesilea, who has no place in her world, assertion of her individuality has no meaning until she finds belonging in the world. She tries to find this through another individual: Achilles. And because she put her goal in the being of another, her resolution in the world became, with his destruction, only something which destroyed her also. There are many ways in which Penthesilea's love affair with Achilles and the end in which it results can be read. Return for a moment to the idea introduced at the beginning of this paper that Kleist's Achilles and Penthesilea represent two sides of Achilleus. Looking at the two characters as parts of a whole, the play becomes Kleist's interpretation of how Achilleus finally comes into his own in The Iliad. Achilleus is a divided man. Part of him has great depth of feeling and great splendor, and the other part is calculating an manipulative. This part looks only to the end it desires. It will sacrifice anything to bring that end to realization. Through the course of the story, both sides of Achilleus are at work, and he is not in harmony with himself. But through the events that are fated to be, his emotional side and his calculating side are forced to merge with one another. In the death of Patroklos and Achilleus's resulting rage in which he destroys Hektor, these two parts are synthesized. Achilleus becomes whole. That is what makes his youthful death tragic: he has just recently become a mighty man. Kleist's Achilles and Penthesilea try to come together in the same way that the sides of Homer's Achilleus do. There is great conflict between them, and there is much conflict in the character of Penthisilea that represents the part of Achilleus that passionately desires and must feel the pain which the actions of that other, colder side cause. In this, Penthesilea and Achilles are like Artistophanes's hermaphrodites. the female half, Penthesilea, and the male half, Achilles, want desperately to come together. This accounts for Kleist's portrayal of Penthesilea as a Phaedra who, without the love of Hippolytus, cannot live her own life and wishes only to fade into death. It also accounts for why Kleist make Penthesilea an Amazon: being one half of Achilleus, she must have both a female yearning to be united with the male half and the ruthless rage of a warrior who blooms in battle. Penthesilea's killing of Achilleus in the way Achilleus wished to kill Hektor is very elegant, for it is in that moment, standing over Hektor, that the passionate side of Achilleus is fused with the calculating side: at Hektor's death Achilleus's glory is ensured, and he also atones for the sacrifice of Patroklos. Penthesilea, the passionate half of this split entity, does away with calculating Achilles in the same way the Achilleus loses his calculating side into a unity with his emotional side when he kills Hektor. It is also appropriate that Penthesilea must die. Just as it is tragic that Achilleus must die, it is tragic that there is nothing more she can do in the world. And as part of a whole, once Achilles is dead, Penthesilea cannot live. Prothoe says of Penthesilea (and this applies to the Homeric Achilleus also), Her blooming was too proud and glorious! Vainly the gale will shake the withered oak, But with a crash he flings the living down, 19 Grasping with ruffian hands her copious locks. (Scene 24: p. 268) Yet there is more to Penthesilea than this connection to one aspect of Achilleus 's character. Recall Keist' s portrayal 'of Achilles with all the distictiness that the figure is given in The Iliad. With this in mind, Penthesilea can be read as a contrast between the classical Achilleus and a modern one: Penthesilea. Kleist has worked the classical account of a man's struggle to come 29 �into his own in the world into a modern context. The world of Penthesilea and that character's difficulties in the world represent Kleist' s perceptions of the world of his time and the problems he saw hindering an individual from finding contentment. The sense of existing in a world where the individual struggles alone to find himself is Kleist' s evaluation of modernity. He purposefully incorporates The Iliad (and things like Racine's formulation of Pahedra 'a character) into his play in order to make explicit the difference he saw between the modern individual and the classical one· He then relies upon what the reader knows of the classical tale to make h~s meaning cl:ar. Penthesilea captures for Kleist the tensions a modern individual experiences· Given a lack of place in the world, the individual desires both to assert himself and to lose himself by attempting to find belongin~ through other individuals· The 0 (which is an unusual occurrence importance that Kleist gives to the power of love in classical works - only in Euripides's Phaedra do we see such a consuming emotion) suggests that love in this unbounded, blinding mode has become, in the modern world, the answer to this lack of belonging. Keist's opinion seems to have been that the classical individual, because he had definite place in the world and rules that governed him in that place, had no need for such passion. In line with this, · Kleist's Achilles does not have the same kind of love for Penthesilea as she has for him. He is fascinated by her, he wants to share his life with her, but he does not want to be utterly merged with her. 21 Penthesilea's madness is Kleist's judgement of what a modern individual must do if he insists upon achieving harmony with himself in the world. He implies that it is impossible to do such a thing naturally. It requires a madness that is monstrous. Penthesilea's death, achieved by drawing out of her soul an emotion that is powerful enough to kill, is the only thing Kleist sees as glorious and beautiful about the individual. He aggrandizes human mortality by depicting the human self at its greatest height when it rejects its world. It is not just her Amazon world that Penthesilea rejects; in destroying Achilles, she also rejects the shining image of that classical individual who does belong in his world. She has forced even glorious Achilleus to acknowledge the mightiness of her pure being which is uncluttered by things of the world. I think, however, that there is a more positive side to Kleist's analysis of the modern situation. Penthesilea can ,also be read as an allegory of romantic approach to Achilleus: the idealization of, and fascination with, that heroic figure. Penthesilea then represents the modern romantic who is infatuated with Homer's Achilleus. The love affair between the two characters is hence a description of how people like myself, as readers of The Iliad, become intrigued with Achilleus. We, like Penthesilea, chase after an image which exists in thought, wishing to overtake him, wishing to discover his tantalizing secret, wishing to assimilate into ourselves his secret that we might become like such a man. This interpretation of the play makes several things clear. Kleist may have made use of the Amazon character - the love / hate duality - to illustrate the relationship that the lover of Achilleus has with the splendid image. He both idealizes him and yearns to be like him, and yet he feels that Achilleus outshines him. He therefore envies Achilleus. The romantic wants to unveil Achilleus's secret because he does not want the image to loom so far above him. In the light of this idea, much of the disjunction between Penthesilea a nd Achilles is made understandable. If one tries to imagine actually meeting the Achilleus whom one has idealized, the situation would certainly be full of misunderstandings, and perhaps full of some disappointments as well, when the man did not live up to his image. Penthesilea day-dreams about Achilles, and when she meets him she is overcome by that vision out of the 'daedal past' that stands before her. 30 Yet when she talks with him, she is shocked because the man she is speaking with does not seem to be the one she imagined. She asks him if he is really that man who with such a heart of iron abused the body of Hektor. Achilles, too, does not know how to understand Penthesilea. She fills him with wonderment. At one point he says to 22r, "I was wond'ring/ If thou wert come down to me from the moon" (Scene 15: p. 232). The inability, therefore, that Penthesilea and Achilles have of coming together and understanding one another is an indication that they embody two completely different consciousnesses. Achilles is very much himself. He is in his proper environment. Penthesilea is misplaced both in his environment and in her own. She admires his stability and harmony in the world, while he is drawn to her literal unearthliness: 0 thou, who with soft, heavenly radiance, As though the realms of light had open their doors, Descendest on me, strange beyond with: Who art thou? How do I name thee? ( Scene 15: p. 226; Achilles) That it is impossible, however, for these lovers to come together except in the frenzy of Penthesilea' s madness, suggests that this play is a bitter comment on Kleist' s part, resulting from disillusionment with such romantic idealization of Achilleus. The black nature of the play may imply that Kleist thought this 'looking back to the past' and searching for the secret of being a whole individual is not the answer, that it could, in fact, be dangerous. It could go beyond all bounds and leave the modern individual floundering in an image that is truly imaginary. Just as Penthesilea is doomed to fall as she reaches out to grasp Achilles, in looking backwards too fervently the romantic is bound to fall. The presence of the myths concerning voyeurism - Pentheus peeking at the maenads, and Actaeon watching Artemis bathe - might suggest that in delving so deeply into the images of the past one is trying to see what is best not seen. In this attraction, the romantic could become an Oedipus, drawn almost against hi$ will towards an end that is horrifying. The element of punishment in these two myths might also be important with respect to this reading of Penthesilea. Although exact parallels cannot be drawn, it might be that Penthesilea is being punished for refusing to work on understanding and belonging in her world. Actaeon was punished for trying to gain access into a world of the goddess that was forbidden to him. Pentheus denied Dionysus. Agave's fault was much the same as his, though not as extreme. She refused to believe that Semele had lai12 with Zeus and was bringing forth into a world a new kind of god. Both 3 Pentheus and Agave resisted working on understanding how the new god would change their lives. Penthesilea, like these people, took refuge in something other than what could give her place in her world. She tried to find place through another, Achilles, who is not only a completely distinct individual from her, but who comes from another world altogether. It is possible that Kleist felt that looking back to the past was good thing, as long as it did not involve idealization. He might have felt that the approach that idealized would result in an eclipse of what is great in 2 the modern individual. I said earlier that this interpretation of Penthesilea as an allegory of the romantic idealization of Achilleus was more positive than the preceding interpretation. It is so because it does not make the·modern situation impossible. It does not suggest that death, and glorification of that death, are the only acts available to the displaced modern individual. If Kleist's message is to be careful not to lose what is great in the modern individual in looking back to the past, then 31 �Kleist would also advocate careful observation of the modern worzg: trying to see it clearly without having the vision blinded by images of the past. Perhaps Kleist never meant the play to be read as an allegory. Nevertheless, I find such a reading helpful. As I prepare to leave behind the images that have filled my thoughts for the past four years, I wonder about that world that lies beyond St. John's College, and I wonder how happiness can be found there. I have learnt from Kleist that, despite my own tendency to idealize the images of the past and search fervently for their secrets, I must look for what is splendid in modernity also. And though I do not feel at home in that world, I take Kleist's advice to work at finding a place in it. There is much that the images of the past have taught me, but I must hold myself back from turning blindly to them. They can give me a sense of comfort, because of the stability they convey to me, but through them I will not find belonging in my own world. Those images can guide me, since the past remains embedded in the present, but they cannot replace the present. ENDNOTES 1. I shall use Achilleus to refer to the character in The Iliad. Since he also appears in Penthesilea, this will help to distinguish between the Homeric individual and Kleist's Achilles. 2. Kleist is undoubtedly making fun of Homer's 'crafty Odysseus' in this speech. 3. Penthesilea is divided into twenty-four scenes. There are no acts which hold it together. Thus, the play is itself like this landscape in which events simply occur. 4. At least, no ceremonies that we see in the play. 5. It could be said that even the gods of The Iliad represent movements in the human soul. But they are not depicted as such, and I am concerned with the ways in which these things are described by the authors. 6. This is unlike Glaucos and Diomedes, who exchange armor as a sign of friendship. They meet as general foes, but in discovering the specifics about one another, they agree not to fight, though they fight others in the enemy camp. 7. The Amazon law also forbids that a woman pick her man. She is supposed to take whomever the god sends her (see Scene 15: p. 235). Thus Penthesilea, in her love for Achilles, is out of line in her Amazon world. 8. Tanais was the first Queen of the Amazons and the founder of their traditions. 9. The scenes in which this deception occurs correspond to Books XIV and XV of The Iliad in which Hera deceives Zeus. Both texts describe a love scene. Hera is able to alleviate, for a time, the dire circumstances Zeus has put upon the Achaians, and in the play Achilles's deception also, for a short time, keeps Penthesilea away from her tensions and the end they will bring her to. 10. According to myth, the look in Penthesilea's eyes as she died from Achilleus's blow made him fall in love with her. In the play, her gaze as she falls before him in battle drives away all thoughts of violence that Achilles had towards her. 32 . 11. Penthesilea may have accompained the host, as' the young girls who pick roses do in the play, but she would not have engaged in battle. In order to participate in the Feast of Roses, an Amazon must have conquered her man in battle. Since Penthesilea has not taken part in the Feast of Roses, she cannot have battled with any man. ' 12. What is initially taken to be a desire from fame (see p. 2, this paper) now turns out to be a desire to gain place in the world. Thus, though she and Achilles seem to be pushed by the same motivations, they are not. Diomede say~ to Achilles, concerning this well-timed swerve, Yet all that I have seen convinces me That thy so masterly retreat was not constrained But of free choice. One might indeed suppose That with the crack of dawn .... Already thou hadst marked that lucky stone O'er which the Queen should stumble .... With such sure course, by the eternal gods, Didst thou ent~ce her to this very stone. (Scene 4: pp. 182-183) Kleist, therefore, responded to the character of Achilleus in much the same way this I did, seeing him as manipulating his way to his gain of glory and seeing him as willing to sacrifce Patroklos for this goal. Kleist also saw the ~reatness inherent in Achilles. But he gave that greatness to Penthesilea. 13. 14. This is the moment in which Penthesilea most resemble Phaedra. It is interesting, however, that she is most like Racine's Ph'edre: Que ces vains or'n ements, que ces voiles me pesent 1 Quelle importune main, en formant tous ces noeuds, A pris soin sur mon front d'assembler mes cheveux? Tout m'afflige et me nuti, et conspire'a me nuit. (Larousse - Act I, Scene 3: lines 158-161) Kleist copies this passage almo$t exactly. It is significant, I think, that he chooses the modern interpretation of the character over Euripides's portrayal of her in Hippolytus (this passage can be found in Scene 1: lines 198-202). In his reinterpretation of the character of Achilleus through Penthesilea, Kleist uses a reinterpretation of the character of Phaedra. 15.Here Kleist mixes the story of Actaeon, who was changed into a stag and devoured by his own . hounds, with the story of fentheus hiding in the boughs of a tree in order to peek at his mother and the other maenads . 1 16. In Euripeides 's Bacchae, the mother, Agave, · des troys the separate individuality of her son, the being to whom she had given that individuality. . In her consuming of him (though that section of the text is now missing), she and her offspring become one again. Pentheus returns to whence he came. In calling fort,h The Bac~hae, Kleist is emphasizing the oneness of Penthesilea and Achilles at this moment. 17. In the German this reads: So - it was a mistake. Kisses (Kiisse) - bites (bisse) [They rhyme] . . When we truly love/It is easy to. grasp ~ne instead of the other. 18. Penthesilea's killing of Achilles . also occurs in the twenty-second part of the play, though it is not described in full until later. 33 �19. The German reads: But with a crash it flings the living down/ Because it can grasp the crown of the tree. 20. There are also many Christ images present in the play. Achilles is, for example, crowned with a wreath of laurel thorns by Penthesilea after she has killed him (Scene 24: p. 260; Pen th.). She also offers to sprinkle water upon his head, which has overtones of baptism. Penthesilea herself comes back from her deed crowned with thorns (Scene 24: p . 235; First Amazon). This connects Kleist's use of Phaedra and her love with the emphasis that is put upon love in the Christian religion. It also makes sacrifical beings - saviors - out of both Penthesilea and ' Achilles. These images too, as copies of the maenad frenzy in The Bacchae, suggest the presence of Dionysus: the breaking down of all rational barriers and the freedom of the individual to forget his isolated individuality for a time through the gift of wine. Thus, merging with others and finding salvation through that merging, are clearly issues the Kleist wanted to include. 21. Kleist himself committed suicide on November 21, 1811 . 22 . When the play is read in this way, it becomes much less dark . Some of the interactions between the characters, and especially between Penthesilea and Achilles, become very funny . They reveal a sharp humour in Kleist. On the Sonnet Daniel Hoh ('88) Is it mere waste, a trap made just to bind, An ill command, or prison, made to hold One'~ words as fettered to an ancient m ld, .o Denying freedom to the po'~t 's mind? With ornament and pretty meter lined, So that the tongue into a ball is rolled And meaning in the poem be annulled: Is such the cost when poets are confined? Look closer though, and read the words with care, For in such bars are worthy thoughts held fast. And though its stature's small and strict its frame, It says far more .than words of order bare.: A frame of wor'd s, which wood or gold outlast. And if a trap, let beauty be the game. 23. Though the names Pentheus and Penthesilea exist separately in myth , since Kleist wove Pentheus's story into Penthesilea's he must have connected the two together both because their names begin similarly and because he had some notion, whatever it might have been, which connected them together in his mind. .·. 1. 24. Penthesilea, as Kle ist's portrayal of a modern splendor of Homer's Achilleus. But she, in her acknowledge her own splendor. Kleist is suggesting, human soul is (KaAbv ) just like that of Achilleus, put into its own context. individual, has within he r love for Achilleus, does I think, that in modernity and i t should be cul tiv a t ed the not the and 25. The dust which is predominant in the play might also b.e a sign of the way our eyes are blinded by the grandeur of the past. The dust clouds t he vision of those who are looking at Penthesilea's mad pursuit of Achilles, and we, as readers of the play, see through the eyes of those who are looking . We, then , become confused by the confusion inherent in that pursuit. The texts I have used in the paper are as follows : 1. Homer, The Iliad; Trans. R. Lattimore. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Edition: 1961. 2. Kleist, Penthesilea; Trans. H. Trevelyan. The German Library: Vol. 25 , pp. 167-268. New York: Continuum Publishing Co.: 1982 The passages which I quote are marked beneath by Book and line for The Iliad, and by Scene and page (and if necessary, speaker) for Penthesilea. If a passage is pointed out in the text, this indicates that the passage supports the argument, and may be referred to if desired. 34 Conversation #4 Brian ·cole( '91) Scattered corners of important papers like clanging ief tove t pennies 'or smoldering con~ort ions of ·some emotionIn trust they remained safe, . under r usty snap~ in jacket pocke t s. · Until challenge d by t~e middle- aged librarian, who, speaking through her doctor's mask . -. claims they should . be numbered under plastic Laminate d to last a lifetime. I make my r eply gen t ly, asking Why do you wear stockings to cove r your shaven legs? And why haven' t you r eally looke d at the colou r s in a rainbow ? The y t oo s eem desolat e and uno r ganize d , but combine in blinding whi tene s s , She swore by her steri l e scalpe l t hat 'one day I would have t o s t op asking que s tions, But I know then I would just be l e f t wit h answers. 35 �Untitled Iocasta's Song Dwayne Rodgers ('90) Rachel Duel('89) t One hundred twenty-fifth street lies prostrate and still. Having spiralled down a gaping till, Crudely smothered in flat black paint, Not "Sam I am , " but "No I ain ' t " Is spattered on concrete walls, Loudly slanged from tenement stalls Where a screaming man, formerly of four Skid Row, Showers the gasping boys below With "smelling salts for a wasted land!" Where etherized phantoms drown in sand. Night whispers, seducing the day, Like a line of verse might say. But useless are poetic wisdoms of the universe When the boys glimpse a woman's beckoning purse, Glimmering beneath a cracked lamplight In the midst of this late summer's night. They take the purse with stiffly intent fingers Where the spectre of the whimpering woman lingers, Where my grandfather jazzed to Coltrane's tune, Drowsily dying and coming soon. Where nubile girls with needle tracks And peach fuzzed boys are laid on their backs In graves shovelled by their own hand Where etherized phantoms drown in sand. Where the screaming man places his wreath, Streaming from his dangling sheath. "Smelling salts for a wasted land!" And more trickles down his hand Onto the foot of a grieving mother Whose whimpering spectre grieves another. Dwayne Rodgers 36 'I Ah Oedipus , my sweet, my center; what was Laius compared to you? Naught but a shade, like you in form but in substance lacking! You entered my life like a king, by nature splendorous, and saved our city from the dreaded Sphinx. A young and strong monarch you then became, strong where he was weak, giving where he'd been immovable. Thinking back, you were much like him in features; but I don't wonder it escaped me, so different were you in kind. You and he may have resembled one another, but our souls were akin and I had eyes for this only. And what is it to ~w that I've offended the gods with my impure love for you? You are my reason for living; while I tremble to remember Laius' passion when he learned that I had borne him a son, I tremble even more to think that I endeavoured with him to bring about your destruction. I glory in a fate that allowed you to survive and to achieve the greatness that was truly your heritage, and one that allowed me great, all-consuming love! For I love you in all ways, as my son, as my self, as my lover. Oh that god is jealous who tries to destroy this passion by exposing it to the corrosive air. Does it really matter how our love came to be if it is in itself pure? Oh Oedipus, I love you more than life itself for you are my existence! I cannot bear to think that you who have truly known me will shudder with revulsion to have done so. By the god of the flames I am shredded up inside. Your inquiry has forced my hand and I sacrifice myself, not to Apollo but to you, my self augmented! 37 �On Mechanics, Geometry, and Newton's Concept of God; or, an Attempt to Read the Principia as a Philosphical Work Jana Giles ('88) Newton begins his Principia with a discussion on the differences between mechanics and geometry and their relation to philosophy. He concludes the Third Book with the necessity for a Supreme Being to exercise dominion over the world. Between these two very genera l s t atemen t s t hat descr ibe his i ntent i ons , and perhaps his motivation for writing the Principia, lie his mathematical principles and propositions which collectively allow him to apply his universal law of gravitation to the phenomena in his world. He describes the way he associates mathematics and philosophy in his Preface to the First Edition: Therefore I offer this work as the mathematical principles of philosophy, for the whole burden of philosophy seems to consist in this- from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena. (Preface, p. xvii) To understand his "experimental philosophy" requires an understanding of his' distinction between mechanics and geometry. He describes mechanics as corresponding to motion and matter, and geometry to the magnitude of that matter. Mechanics describes the existence of bodies and their motions, while geometry allows us to analyze the qualities of those bodies and to attempt to explain how they move and affect each other: The description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn, for it requires that the learner should first be taught to describe these accurately before he enters upon geometry, then it shows how ·by these operations problems may be solved. To describe right lines and circles are problems , but not geome t rica l problems . (p. xvii) Mechanics would seem, then, to correspond to that part of us which is immediately affected by the physical world. His definition of practical mechanics as that to which all the manual arts belong indicates that we use practical mechanics in the art of drawing a line or in seeing the motion of an object, or in being hit by a moving object. However, practical mechanics has no self awareness. A hand is capable of drawing a circle, but it has no knowledge as to whether that which it has drawn is indeed a circle or is instead a right line. This requires the first purpose of geometry: to define a described circle as a circle, both in itself and in contrast to a right line. While mechanics presumes the application of the relations of the mind of--for example, resemblance, cause and effect, and contiguity in space and time (to use Hume's terms)--geometry analyzes the action that the mechanical artificer has performed, and distinguishes between the different relations. We then can apply the second faculty of geometry: the ability to rearrange those objects and relations and 38 to synthesize new combinations. This is merely an interpretation of this statement: "Therefore geometry is founded in mechanical practice, and is nothing but that part of universal mechanics which accurately proposes and demonstrates the art of measuring" (p . xvii). Notice that he describes that art as that of measuring and not of measurement. It is important to recognize that he is speaking about actions and mo tion, rather than a static state. For , as was explained above, mechanics is concerned with motion, and geometry with the analysis of that motion. But to analyze something already requires that one stop the motion in mid-movement and examine its distinguishable features: matter, position, time, speed, etc. Yet even more confounding is the fact that the act of abstraction is just that: an action. To abstract we must remove the burden of specific examples, locate the essential suppositions, and reunite these in a more general form. To synthesize we must ~ resemblances in different objects, actions, or ideas, we must be able to divide thes e into parts, and we must substitute similar parts from different things so as to create new ones. Therefore, geometry is, paradoxically, the act of describing a dynamic action in static terms. If practical mechanics is the original description of objects, and geometry is the demonstration of the act of that description, then rational mechanics is the explicit joining of the two. In Newton's understanding: "Rational mechanics will be the science of motions resulting from any forces whatsoever, and of the forces required to produce any motions, accurately proposed and demonstrated" (p. xvii). This procession from practical mechanics to geometry to rational mechanics seems analogous to Newton's "burden of philosophy" cited above. This becomes even more apparent when noting the organization and presentation of the Principia. He begins by presenting a few universal laws and definitions taken from the general phenomena he observes. In formulating these definitions, he is applying the first use of geometry to mechanical objects. From these first premisses, he moves on to combine these general definitions and laws with each other and with new mathematical objects to create the propositions that lead him to the universal law of gravitation. And in Book III he reintroduces the phenomena to support his conclusion. This brings us to the General Scholium at the end of Book III of the Principia. Evidently Newton has found the harmony and coherence of his own argument so conclusive that he is moved to assert: It is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions ••• This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. (p. 544) Indeed, Newton's endeavour has been tight, fluid, and powerful, to say the least, but these attributes have never been the standard of judgment for the truth of the existence of God. Whence, then, this conviction? Newton's reasoning in this regard sounds something like St. Anselm's: God is that which nothing greater than can exist. If we examine Newton's statements closely, we see that his argument for the existence of God is much like a geometrical deduction, for he has based it on the regularity and universality of his final general laws of gravitation and centripetal force. As has been elucidated above, these laws came f r om pr opositions formed using geometry, which in turn arose from the original definitions based on practical mechanics. Here we see the root of the problem: where is the origin of practical mechanics? The trouble is that we cannot answer this question using geometry since it presupposes mechanics. And we cannot understand the forces involved in mechanics without geometry to define objects and relate ideas. Therefore Newton's argument for the existence of God is based on phenomena that he fundamentally cannot explain. Did Newton see this problem and 39 �finding himself in a circular argument simply posit God as a final cause? Did he abstract to the concept of God from his own experience? Or was his God based on a different understanding , which either he did not describe , or I have failed to apprehend? If the case is the first, then God is merely a figment of Newton's imagination inspired by a fit of desperation. It adds nothing to the credibility of his project. If the case is the third, then this essay has been to no purpose. The second seems more likely, and also gives me an opportunity to go on with this endeavor. To assist him in his theologico-philosophical search, Newton presents four rules for reasoning in philosophy. They are as follows: Rule I: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearance. Rule II: Therefore to the same possible, assign the same causes. natural effects we must, as far as Rule III: The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever. Rule IV: In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inf erred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made mo ~ e accurate, or liable to exceptions. (pp. 398- 400) Allow me to clarify these using Hume's relations of the mind: Rule I assumes that our mechanics are accurate, that we observe carefully, that we make proper use of the relations of cause and effect, and that we are able either to immediately apprehend or extract the ideas of sufficiency and simplicity from natural things. Rule II assumes that we are able to observe cause and effect, to see resemblances among specific .effects, and from these to generalize regarding causes , and then to reapply these to the specific examples. Rule III assumes that we apply the concept of resemblance to qualities of specific bodies, and that we generalize to all bodies, justified by the consistency of the observation of those qualities. Ru l e I V assumes t hat both our . mech anics and our geometry are perfect l y accurate . He then applies these rules to his concept of God in the General Scholium: Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and in different objects of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in ·duration, coexistent parts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God, always and everywhere. (p. 545) In this statement he is assuming that the soul's perception of phenomena is accurate and continuous, and he applies the simplicity of Rule I and the resemblance of Rule 40 II to posit the thinking substance of God. For although Newton clearly states that God has no substance, he is abstracting from the existence of the thinking principle of man to the thinking substance of God, and therefore the rules are applicable. God is not the thing itself, but the being of it: He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures forever, and is everywhere present; and by existing always and everywhere , he constitutes duration and space. (p . 545) One can see that these assumptions present problems to those who see Newton's reasoning as circular. But perhaps his understanding of God as an action rather than an obj ect might bypass these problems. This brings us back to the conflict between mechanics and geometry. To illustrate this further, I would like to introduce an example. Lemma I of Book I states: "Quantities and the ratios of quantities, which in any finite time converge continually to equality, and before the end of that time approach nearer to each other than any given difference, become ultimately equal" (p . 29). Lemma I is essentially about motion. It is a substitute for the theory of division that presented so many problems to Zeno. The unending convergence to equality of quantities in a finite time is analogous to the continuous division of a quantity into smaller discrete quantities in a finite time. In the case of division, if we divide our quantities into rational halves, theoretically we will never reach a single point since t here will always be left something to divide. The problem with division is that it is based on an abstraction, on a static geometrical analysis in which each piece of matter is examined and defined individually . When the pieces get too small, however, it becomes impossible for human perception, or mechanics, to dis tinguish one from another. Newton expresses this observation himself in Rule III: Moreover, that the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another, is a matter of observation; and in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to dis tinguish yet lesser parts; as is mathematically demonstrated. But whether the parts so distinguished, and not yet so divided may, by the powers of Nature, be actually divided and separated from one another, we cannot certainly determine . (p . 399) Lemma I would seem to obviat e this problem by appealing directly to mechanics and the phenomena of motion as it is presented to the human mind, being an expression of " ... the person of a man, or his t hinking princip l e ••. " ( taking " th inking principle to mean that which perceives and is capable of the geometrical act of abstraction) . When Newton says that "there are given successive parts in duration, coexistent parts in space .•• ", he is referring to division, to the abstract idea of dividing time into discrete particles. But just as the act of division does not explain how one may arrive at a single point, neither does the dividing of time explain how one is living in only a single present moment that is . passing by so rapidly that it cannot be defined nor distinguished from the moment immediately before it (this being one abstract understanding of time) . The implication of all this is that although man's thinking principle is capable of abstraction, it cannot explain the thinking principle itself by means of abstraction because abstraction is contained within it as an operation of it. Hence this reflection on God on p. 546: We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of 41 �anything is we know not. In bodies, we see only their figures and colours, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste the savors; but their inward substances are not to be known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds; much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivance of things, and final causes ..• by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate •.. for all our notions of God are taken from the ways of mankind by a certain similitude. It is obvious from the above statement that Newton's concept of God is indeed an abstraction that derives its credibility from the presupposed Rules. This is an assumption on the part of Newton that, although substantiated by much evidence, ·cannot hope to be accepted because of the lack of a criterion of truth. Although we may remain dissatisfied with his proof for the existence of God, perhaps his motivation for presenting such an idea in the context of his mathematics, and hfs· awareness of the limitations of his "experimental philosophy" can be understood in his regard for the geometrical act of abstraction, or generalization, as presented in Rule III as "the foundation of all philosophy". And perhaps this sheds some light on his conclusive statement in the General Scholium: "And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy" (p. 546). Cartesian Equations for Rectilinear Figures Kim Paffenroth In the sophomore mathematics tutorial, we were shown that all our beloved conic sections - the circle, ellipse, hyperbola, and parabola - could be expressed by algebraic equations. We then found out that all these equations had the same general form, a form that came to be known as the general equation of the second degree: Ax. 2 + Bxy + Cy 2 + Dx + Ey + F = 0 Any conic section could be expressed in the form of this equation, and anything in the form of this equation was a conic or a degenerate conic (line, pair of lines, or point), if it was anything at all. The object of this paper is to see if we can find similar equations, which will likewise share the same general form among themselves and which will also represent rectilinear figures roughly equivalent to their conic brethren. Now, let's not jump right to the general equation. Let's start rather with the most basic conic section, the circle, with the simplest equation, x 2 +y 2 =r 2 • This will, of course, be a circle with center at the origin and a radius of r. Looking just at the algebraic equation, forgetting the figure for a moment, what properties suggest themselves as bridges of similarity between conic sections and rectilinear figures? The first property that suggests itself to me is that there are two values of x for each value of y and likewise two values of y for each value of x, except when x or y equals ±r, in which case the other variable must equal zero; these points are, of course, where the circle crosses the axes. The other property is that there are cetain limitations to the values I can assign to x and y, namely, that neither can be less than -r nor greater than +r; this is, of course, because a circle is a closed figure. Now, what rectilinear figure will display these properties of a circle, and what equation can we use that will also display these properties while representing a rectilinear and not a conic section? After some thought, the two answers occur almost simultaneously: a square with its center at the origin and its vertices on the axes, represented by an equation which includes absolute-value signs, as below. (~o) IXl+IYl=F F>O 42 43 �Now we have the rectilinear equivalent of a circle centered at the origin, along with its equation. And i f we just think of how we can change the first simple equation of a circle centered at the origin to represent first other circles, then ultimately all the other conic sections, we will be able to similarly alter our equation of a square to represent other squares and then other rectilinear figures. How does one move the center of a circle to different coordinates? By adding or subtracting a number from the x and / or the y value before squaring it. Similarly, if we wish to move our square, we will add or subtract a number from our x and / or our y value before we take the absolute value of it. And how does one change the size of a circle ? By changing the radius and / or changing the coefficient of x 2 and / or y 2 , as long as the two coefficients remain equal. Similarly, if we wish to change the size of our square, we will change the value of F and / or change the coefficients in front of our absolute- value signs, being sur e to keep the two coefficients equa l to one another. Thus, we have as the most general equation of a square, Now, if we wish to fold our square or rhomboid outward to make a pair of angles opening outward to infinity, we do the same we would have done to make an hyperbola: we make A and C of different signs. Thus--- (D, E.) A\X-Df+CIY-El=F A~D A=:C F>O F>O C<O F>O We have now arrived at an equation that looks very much like an unexpanded form of the general equation of the second degree: A(x-D) 2 + C(y-E) 2 = F (see footnote) This equation represents a circle if A=C and an ellipse if A does not equal C, but they are· of the same sign. Similarly, I saw that if we wanted to turn our square into any sort of rhomboid, we could do the same thing we would have done to turn a circle into an ellipse: make A and C unequal, but keep them of the same sign. The center and vertices of our rhomboid will be at the points shown in the diagram above, since these are general for any square or rhomboid. And finally, to make only one angle opening to' infinity, we observe that a parabola, the equivalent curvilinear figure, has only one squared term in its equation. Thus we remove one pair of absolute-value signs, our rectilinear equivalent of squaring, and our rectilinear equation becomes--- 44 45 �. A 1x-D\+cy=F · I Ax +C. IY .~E I= F OR F>O F>O c<O (f IE) A>O C>O A<O Equivalent degenerate sections can also be made. Setting A or C equal to zero makes a pair of parallel lines, unless F=O, in which case there is only one line. Removing both pairs of absolute-value signs gives us of course the familiar equation of a straight line. And setting F=O will give us either a point, a line, or a pair of crossed lines. Footnote -- This form has almost the same properties as the general form, namely: l)it represents a circle if A=C; 2) it represents an ellipse if A does not equal C, but they are of the same sign; 3) it represents an hyperbola if A and C differ in sign; 4) ~t represents a parabola if one of the terms is not squared. The manual points ' this out on p. 16 (Eq . 12), p. 22 (Eq". 26), · p. 33 (Eq.· 42), ·and p. 19 (5 th Eq . down), but it is easy enough .to · see, for if we go from the expanded to the unexpanded form, or the other way, for that matter, A and C do not change their values or their signs. 46 47 �ers. The Bus Ride Jennifer Mischer ('91) As number 23A turned down Averiue . de 'la Liberte, I stepped into the circular light of the street lamp so that the driver would be sure to see me. I dreaded these late rides home from track practice at the stadium . The little town of Monastir , Tunisia folded up at seven o'clock and didn't reopen until dawn. The large red bus slowed to an unsteady stop in front of me. Stepping up into the nearly empty bus, I missed the security of the sweaty, molten mass of bodies· which had oozed on and off earlier at lunch. I chose to sit on the long cushioned seat, universally known to bus riders, in the front. Across from me sat the bus's only other passenger--a robust woman, completely engulfed by her sari, as these Arab women often were, so that only eyes and nose were visible. Two corners of the large white sheet were crossed and tucked under her powerful ·armpits, while the other corners had been pulled down over her head and were clenched between· 'h.e r brown, crooked teeth. Fat and round, she seemed as if she might roll more easiiy than walk. Hooked on her left elbow was a faded milky-green ·plastic basket filled with treasures from shopping at the open-market souk. A· new lipstick, a bottle of dried garbanzo beans and a roll of mauve lace topped the basket. Her left hand clutched a newspaper cone of jet black sunflower seeds which she skillfully shelled ~ith her right hand and ate without dislodging the corners of her sari. "Bi 'l 'let..;" said the ticket man, swaying in front of me to keep his balance. "Carte," I responded, surprised that he had failed to recognize me in my schoolgirl tab'lier which clearly identified me as a Tunisian student who could ride with a student pass. The bus slowed, pulled right and stopped at the curb. Two teenage boys boarded. Their rowdy talking interrupted the meditative silence of the bus. The broken ceiling lights inside the bus ·flic_ ered on and quickly off as the bus jolted forward. k The boys bought tickets to Sousse and took the front double seat on my side. They obviously recognized me, and I was poignantly reminded of my instant identity as the girl from America . "You like Tunisia?" asked the tall lanky one, in confident English. I sat stony, staring out the window above the woman's head. "Come and sit on my lap," said the second boy in Arabic spoken so fast that I could barely decipher the words. "We can have some fun. All right?" "Oh, she won't talk to us," said the first to the second. "We' re too low for her. Aren't we, pretty miss?" "Will you make love to me? Come on. Let's make love." I studied the window glass, memorizing the dusty patterns and the clear glass streaks of its surface, aware of the images of the familiar dark streets as they passed through its frame. The boys were silent now. I lowered my gaze to the floor. I was surprised that my neck muscles had become stiff. The bus turned left onto the long straight section of the route before reaching Skannes. The white wall guarding Monastir's furniture factory came into view. The carved bold letters in the wall, spelling MONASTIR MEUBLES, could just be seen in the moonlight. The flat land extending beyond the wall seemed empty without its labor- 48 I was anxious for the bus to turn into Skannes, nearer my house. "That's a nice tablier you're wearing," called one boy. "Show us what's under your tablier, lady." My school tablier had always been my camouflage. I pushed my fists into its navy blue pockets. I was frightened. My eyes were fixed on the window. I dared not look away from the window. "Take off your tablier and show us your pretty clothes" taunted the shorter one, who had bad acne. My heart raced. I began to perspire. The long sleeves of the tablier stuck to my damp skin. I managed to swallow. As I turned from the window the piercing eyes of the woman across from me met mine for a moment. The boys moved quickly to sit on either side of me. My mind and body were paralyzed . Only my eyes could cry for help . "Let's make love," cried the tormentor to my right. The woman moved forward. She took the corners of the fabric of her sari from her mouth with her right hand and held them in the air about an inch from her chin. "You boys are disgusting," she hollered in an authoritative voice. "Look at her. She is not a tourist. She wears a tablier. She goes to 'lycee. We see her on the bus. You stop your nasty talk." The boys recoiled to the back of the bus in silence, temporarily shamed by her disapproval. Still paralyzed, breathing very softly and shallowly, I looked directly at my defender. We looked at each other intently, sharing a rare moment of understanding, possible only when there is common respect. The bus turned into Skannes. I stood to get off at the next stop. I did not look back at the woman. I knew she would not be looking at me. I stepped down out of the bus, breathed deeply, and let myself cry. 49 �The Passion The Death of Romeo Ange Mlinko ('91) Erika Wilson ('88 ) Wood softens in this air, my nails leaving carvings of despair upon the table. But I am unseen. The walls swell and the paint peels the floor gives where you walk swallowed moans the outside breeze slakes off water showered to the ground lighted squares across backyards black & drenched , fuming with rose . The moment sticks like windows at wrong angles to the sills, or like people's faces here snagged be t ween a grin and a gag, watching the street from the vantage of their door where, closely pressed, they sense the thing that crowds their antique foyers and nails them to the frame. 50 But, soft! What whisper doth escape thy lips? Nay, 'tis but a dream departed E'en as my heart now faintly trips, Its amorous leapings thwarted By Death's cuckolding embrace. And now I rush to fill his arms, Mine own grown weak that I must brace Myself with stone to behold thy charms One last lingering time. For I feel the cold steal over me, And hear the church bell chime The heartbeats I have left with thee. 0! Mine eyes grow dim, by night caressed, And I bow my head that I might press My bitter lips to thy marble breast. Yet, soft! And warm, that one might guess A living heart to beat within! Beneath my incredulous cheek I feel the wings Of a bird once caged, eager to win Its freedom from the deadly whisperings Of marble tombs and silent stone. 0 my love, my life, I say goodbye For we both shall wake alone. You to grieve and wonder why 'Tis I who lie upon this stony bed Not warm and sweet and welcoming, But cold and still and wrongly dead, Betrayed by love to prick myself with Death's destroying sting. Once more, I vow , while strength is mine , To take from you a lover's right And rob your lips of their sweet wine And feast upo~ the rich delight That lights your eyes with fierce desire. But no, I feel the bony hand of Death, And so with him retire. I leave to you my last faint breath, And with my whisper soft upon your lips I feel you stir and answe r me, Even as my life so very gently slips Into the midnight sea. 51 �Conversations With the Moon Ariadne Ashore Beth Cross ('88) Claudia Probst ('88) I Gravel sand biting into the soles of her small feet, Ariadne shifted from side to side, cast wild blossoms onto the receding waves. And the waves, expelling her offering, flung the sodden flowers, which lay then beyond their reach like frail ruined mollusks on the sand. She stood, one hip hitched up like a crane dancer, revolving slowly on her heels, and, resting a hand on her matted, golden hair she remembered Theseus, who had once cherished her, worked out the knots in her tresses with patient fingers and scented oil . "My lord and love" she cried "why did you forsake me here, on harsh Naxos, when for you I betrayed my father?" But he had gone, and taken with him her only ambition, to die beloved, and her words were lost, in the rhythmic mocking slap, slap of the waves and the the blood was flowing freely down her thigh to her ankle and seeping into the sand, her womb's small life lost while the wind plucked her dress delicately away, unstained. How would she die, she on the island beach, her chapped lip chatter skipping time with the waves? No trees stood near to chop and heave and plane, no boards would appear from under the sand, nor the bleached ribs of an abandoned boat, which, restored and launched into the waves, might yet save her. Home the last night had been a shallow cave that she had scratched out towards evening, and slept in, bloodied hands folded across her chest. She had no fire, and no other person to address would have welcomed a strayed gull's mew, or a feral dog's bark, sounds she would have gathered and nurtured, during the dark hours, within her thin sandpiper breast. 52 Spine White and whittled away tooth sunk into the <lark's heart I too am salted down to my narrow self shouldered against my dreams. We stare at each other in a stalemate without stakes. II III The odd shape that begs the question what is to be done with you-become? Vexed sharpness not quite concave oblong, off balance , what shall I call you?-who are not ready to be named or taken from. Out of my upturned palm, shallowed from footprints, half-formed intent-of these are you the echo or impetus? 53 Like the cutting of wisdom teeth you are not there but the hardness hiding is felt. Like the things about a day I dream instead of remember you bite. In the inside turning of sleep where the wings whir stirs darkness journeys. There, was it there that I saw you? Flying like a wild thing while abscent from on high? For why do I recognize the smile which you wear as you regain the sky? �Reflections on Leibnizian Substance Robert DeMajistre ('88) IV Pearl or seed awash in all else that is salt brine, knot, pit knuckled in around yourself, so sure of your circled shape, your obstinance is full-Predecessor to my heart, white as you are and so cold as to glow blue, you are not hollow. v On a long journey you follow in the clouds their veil across your face mimicking the quarters you race through in a month. The rails count the seconds in which I watch you, You, taunting-"Remember? The time at full? and where were you as I slid to half? and he? What did my shadowed side hold for you? remember? Can you ever be as swift as I? Time carries-and you?" The rails click in syncopation with the swooping telephone lines outside the window. "Will you ride with me tonight? ---out, alone--complete and evanescent in ourselves." 54 Unless great care is taken, the system outlined in Leibniz's "Monadology" may seem unintelligible. He seems to hold the most difficult and contradictory opinions of both the Cartesians and the Schoolmen. He asserts that the universe is composed exclusively of living creatures, yet, on the other hand, that it is meaningless to refer the motion of bodies to the causes proper to the "souls" of .these creatures. Upon reflection, however, one finds that the reconciliation of such seeming contraries as these would be very valuable, for although they oppose one another, the force of the arguments offered by either of these two schools of thought is nearly inescapable. In dealing with these arguments, Leibniz is attempting to navigate through the most treacherous areas of philosophic endeavor. For this reason, his work, whether successful or not, is of the utmost importance. Because of its importance and the extreme care needed to interpret the "Monadology," I have undertaken the following detailed examination of some of the issues raised in this work. Since the "monad," or simple substance, forms the basis of the "Monadology," I believe it most advisable, in seeking to understand the work, to formulate a general explication of substance, as well as of the relations between different substances. As a result, this paper will be divided into four parts: 1) substance in general, 2) God and substance, 3) the interrelation of simple substances, and 4) extension and substance. I. SUBSTANCE IN GENERAL Questions relating to the being and qualities of a class of entities understood to "stand under" things have challenged philosophers for centuries. Such a challenge is no doubt based on the observation that though things are capable of change through time, most changes seem to be gradual and proceed according to a rule. In the smallest perceptible time, a person undergoes a change, yet he rarely changes so much as no longer to resemble himself. If nothing "stands under" such changes, the person's identity is a mere illusion; yet if such a "standing under," i.e., substance, is posited, it must be admitted that a thing is not the same as itself, at least in some respect. Further, once substance is allowed, more questions arise, such as the scope of its permanence and its ability to be affected by other entities. It will be the purpose of this paper to explore Leibniz's answers to this second order of questions, for he clearly asserts the being of substance. First, it will be necessary to give a general description of his concept of substance, his ideas on simple and composite substances, and his "detail of changes." In the first few lines of the "Monadology," Leibniz separates the class of substances into the simple and the composite. Although the idea of composite substance is very important to Leibniz's teaching ( indeed, its meaning will be discussed subsequently ) , our discussion of substance will be directed toward simple substances or "monads." According to Leibniz, these monads are determined by the following limitations: 1) they have no extension, 2) they can be neither created nor destroyed by natural means, and 3) they cannot be naturally altered from without. He also asserts 55 �• that monads are' the "elements of all things" ("Monadology" #3) and that the "souls" of men and animals are examples of simple substances. There are at least two questions to be asked at this point. If monads have no extension, and they are the building blocks of all things, the manner in which extension arises is unclear. This problem will be dealt with in chapter IV of this essay. The second question seeks the possibility of sensation and death in Leibniz's system. Leibniz's response to this question involves the idea of "detail of change." As stated earlier , an explanation of this detail will be given shortly. Before dealing with those difficulties mentioned immediately above, we should enquire into the meaning of composite substance. What can it mean for a substance to be an aggregate of other substances? At this point, it may be helpful to look at a similar division ·of the class of ·substance offered by another philosopher. Aristotle also admits two classes of substance . Substance, in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that ·w hich is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject ... But in a secondary sense those things are called substances within which, as species, the prim.3f'y sub stances are included. (Categories Ch. 5, #1) monad to monad, and those simp1e substances that have "feeling," i.e., sense perception, have the most distinct perceptions. Since monads are indestructible, and in order to be, they must be perceiving (for wittiout perception they are indistinguishable and thus identical or non-existent), monads must always have perception. It is clear then, that sleep or death may be explained as a time of indistinct perception. Since distinctiveness is an individuating characteristic of the perceptions of a monad, therefore it must be determined by the detail of changes. Thus, this detail of change in the qualities of a substance may explain seeming alterations in the simple substance such as sensation and death. This, then, shall suffice as an overview of the Leibnizian idea of substance in itself, that is, considered without relation to other substances or entities. This explanation is, however, clearly incomplete. Without an account of the interrelation of these monads, any regularity or common perception in the universe must go without explanation. Further, it would seem impossible to say that a monad has perception of anything, as the monad has no faculty for being altered by any object. Thus, it would be impossible for us, being monads, to classify any parts of our perception as substances. A relational account is therefore more than necessary. The first step toward such an account is an explanation of the role of God in Leibniz's system. II. GOD AND SUBSTANCE These secondary substances are also, though in a different sense, collections of primary substances. A relation between the two concepts of secondary substances yields an important observation. Both thinkers assign the term "substance" to entities which do not have the properties of their respective simple substances, but have similar fun·c tions. The species man is predicated of "this man," though for most other relations, man ·may function as the subject. Similarly for Leibniz, the composite, e.g . , an animal, can have extension, and/or can be altered or destroyed. Yet it forms a whole that is generally subordinate to a single monad and for this reason is reflective of the same dispositions as this monad, though it is not clear as to the manner of this reflection (see Ch . IV) . Thus , the relat i on between simple and composite substances differs from the relation of the individual to the species in that a composite substance receives its unity through relation to a single simple substance; whereas the unity of a species is supplied through the definition of that species. We have now to consider the manner in which alterations such as sense perception or death arise in the monad. First, it is not entirely clear how a unity such as a simple substance may be altered at all. For any gradual change assumes a multiplicity (one part endures while another passes out of being), and any sudden and complete change destroys the substance , as nothing can "stand under" this complete disjunction. Leibniz himself uses this argument ("Monadol." #7) to show that it is impossible for a monad to be moved by another natural entity. He then asserts that monads must have some distinguishing qualities or everything would be indistinguishable. The term "quality" must be taken here in a semi-logical manner, that is, used to signify the contents or the predications of the substance viewed as a subject at a certain time. This interpretation allows for the impossibility of efficient causes affecting the monad (for a quality of a substance could not change a quality in another, because neither has existence outside its respective substance) ("Monadol. " 117), without eliminating the possibility of alter a t ion, as t he s e alterations are "accidental" rather than "substantial." Since nothing can change a simple substance, and alteration occurs, the substance must change itself. Leibniz calls the basis or "desire" for this alteration "appetition" ("Monadol." 1115), and the qualification of appetition that distinguishes one substance from another, the "detail of changes" specific to each monad ("Monadol." 1112). He then calls each state of this change "perception." Such perceptions vary in distinctiveness from As shown above, some necessary connection is needed in order for simple substances to relate to one another in the way in which we commonly believe them to. Leibniz supplies this connection through deducing a transcendental cause of perception for all monads. Once such a cause is found and determined to be a unity, a causal interrelation of monads will have been demonst r ated. This transcendental causality Leibniz attributes to God. Since he deduces God, at least in part, by means of a causal argument, it will be necessary to explore briefly some of the technical aspects of Leibniz's methods of reasoning. The first section of this chapter will be dedicated to such an exploration. We shall then proceed to explicate the two proofs of God given in the "Monadology," the one a posteriori and the other a priori. After these arguments have been given, it will then be necessary to fill out Leibniz's idea of God by a short description of the extent of God's power as required by the proofs . It is commonly observed by students of the physical sciences, such as Leibniz himself, that there are two basic classes of truths: those that are mathematically or logically determinable and those that transcend mathematical or logical determination. That a body which falls with a uniform acceleration describes a parabola is a truth of the first order; that bodies near the surface of the earth move with such an acceleration is second order truth. Leibniz refers to the first order truths as truths of " reason " and those of the second order as truths of " fact " ( "Monadol. " #33). From these two classes can be deduced two principles for discovery of truths: "that of contradiction," and "that of sufficient reason" ("Monadol." #30, 1131). Since the principle of contradiction had been overtly employed several centuries before Leibniz, no more need be said of it here. The principle of sufficient reason, however, is more obscure and merits further study. Though Leibniz is clearly not the first to use this principle, he is the first to place it on a par with the principle of contradiction. Leibniz presents a formulation of this principle in a fragment: " t hat every true proposit i on which is no t known per se , has an a priori proof , or that a reason can be given for every truth" (Wiener, p. 94). Further in the same fragment he writes, "These [same] reasons are founded on the principle of contingency, or of the existence of things, i.e., on what is or 'a ppears the best among several equally possible things." And in another fragment, (Wiener p. 95), the meaning of "the best" is clarified: "nothing ever happens without the possibility that an omniscient mind could give some reason why it should have happened rather than not." 56 57 I " �From this, one can infer that contingent truths must be consistent with some omniscient intelligence. It can also be observed that the principle of sufficient reason , like that of contradiction, is very limited in its ability to produce true propositions by itself, for it seems only to point to the existence of some unknown cause and provides little aid in determining this cause. Let us now, having the necessary tools, proceed to the proofs of God. The first proof is demonstrated almost completely through the principle of sufficient reason. First, Leibniz points out that the determination of the causes of anything "might run into a detail without limits" ("Monadol." 1136). Further, each one of the causes that have been determined must have a cause. Thus, no final determination of cause is possible within the series of contingents. The final reason (required by the principle of sufficient reason) must then have caused the entire infinite series from without ("Monadol." 1137). Leibniz then concludes , "and thus it is that the final reason of things must be found in a necessary substance, in which the detail of changes exists only eminently, as in their source; and this is what we call God." ("Monadol." 1138). As stated above, the application of the principle of suf ficient reason is the critical step in the proof. One of two interpretations of this step may be offered: 1) since the principle of sufficient reason presupposes an omniscient and in order to effect completely its designs - omnipotent intelligence, the argument is circular; 2) this argument is merely an analysis of the principle of sufficient reason, setting out to determine such presuppositions. Because there is no indication as to which interpretation is preferable, for the sake of the argument we shall adopt the second . We do so on the assumption that Leibniz could neither allow, nor be ignorant of such an error in such an important section of the work. Once adopted, this second interpretation itself gives rise to one or two observations: 1) this argument undermines the priority of sufficient reason, for if it were a principle, it should presuppose nothing; 2) since it is impossible to determine whether God is contained in the principle or the principle is contained in God, they may in fact be coincident. That is, this may be either a very improper application of the principle or it may be a very effective application , fo r t he pr oof of t he existence of the cause of the regress suffices to demonstrate the proof. I am in no position to give preference to either of these interpretations. Leibniz calls the above argument an a posteriori proof because it proceeds f r om contingent beings ("Monadol." 1145). He then offers a proof a priori. This proof is almost wholly contained in paragraph 44 of the "Monadology": source of all existence, he must be completely unlimited ("Monadol." 1141, 1145). This follows because there can be nothing that could have cause to limit him. Leibniz ascribes to God absolute "Power", "Knowledge", and "Will" ( "Monadol." 1148) • Power must be interpreted as the ability or necessity to be and corresponds to the "subject" of the created monad, that is, the very "substantiality" of the simple substance. Knowledge, or omniscience, corresponds to the "perceptive faculty" or the "detail of changes" in created monads. Will is similar to the appetitive faculty. Thus, all monads are indeed created in the image of God. This points to a third power of God, for not only is he the architect and the builder, but he is also an infinite prototype of the elements of his creation. No direct argument, however, is given for the unity of these powers. There seems to be no proof of one God as opposed to three. Yet one might argue that Leibniz thought multiple necessary substances to be absurd past mention, for each would limit the other. Since we have found that the details of changes of all monads are caused and supported by a single simple substance, a basis for their relation has been established. We also have found a tool with which to determine the origins of extension. As the final cause of all contains infinite intelligence, and we may apply the principle of sufficient reason, in the course of our explorations we should find nothing unintelligible or lacking a reasonable account. We shall, however, often be unable to account for that which transcends our own intelligence . Indeed, all our reasoning henceforth shall depend on the principle of sufficient reason, for only through this principle have we been able to infer the existence of God. All our reasonings will thus stand or fall by this principle . III. RELATIONS BETWEEN MONADS Understanding of this proof is, at least par t ially , fac i li t ated by ano t her fragmen t (p . 92 Wiener) where Leibni z asserts tha t possible essences "st r ive " fo r exis t ence and can exist only thr ough being "grounde d" in something actual. God is t hen t he abso lute ac t uali t y on which t he exis tenc e of any essence or e t ernal truth is based . This pr oof is bas ed on a s ort of fo r mal causal re gre ss while t he former pr oof was bas e d on an ef fi cient causal regress. This formal regress however need not be infinite. Yet, unless someth i ng i s pos ite d t o pr ovj-de unity t o t he being of t h e s e pos sib les, the regre s s s oon becomes unintelligib le. From t he a bove arguments we have come to understand God as a necessary substance wh ich pr ovi de s the f ina l reas on f or both efficient cause and the existence of essences and truths. Since God stands outside the chain of efficient cause, and is the The above account has furnished us with the principle by which a monad is related to entities external to itself. It is now necessary to determine its specific relations with such entities. We shall begin by examining the "connections" between simple substances. Since these monads cannot be externally affected by anything except God, any relation between monads must be given in terms of a harmony. That is, perceptions in each monad must be synchronized with the perceptions of all others to which it is related. The particular organization of monads will be described in the first part of this chapter. Leibniz also recognizes that it may appear to some that monads are in some way limited by other monads. This appearance arises from the fact that though the appetitive faculty provides desire within the monad, this desire is rarely, if ever, attained, i.e., it does not achieve the perception to which it tends ("Monadol." 1115). This will be explained under the head of activity and passivity in t h e l atter part of t his cha pter . Since the relations of monads depend completely on God, Leibniz finds it necessary to consider the intent of God and then to deduce the order of monads according to this intent. In one of the fragments cited above (Wiener p.91), Leibniz asserts that of all possible series, the one that exists contains the most possibles. This assertion, combined with that in paragraph 54 of the "Monadology," gives us a compre hensive formulation of the necessary state of the universe. This formulation is as follows: the existent universe is composed of the series of possibilities containing the maximum possible capacity of positive reality, that is, the series composed of the greatest number of more perfect things. Obviously, this existence is brought about by the choice of God, for this is the best possible configuration. This argument is based on two assumptions: 1) that the perfection of one possible tends to limit other possibles; 2) that a universe with the most reality is the best. The first assumption seems to be based on a presupposition of a sort of "conservation of perfection," where the lack of boundary of one possible causes boundaries to arise in 58 59 For, if there is a reality in essences, or possibilities, or indeed eternal truths, this reality must be founded in something existing and actual , and consequently in the exis t enc e of the necessary being , in whom essence involves exis t ence , or in whom it is sufficient to be possible in order to be actual. �others. The second assumption seems reasonable, for if a universe of a smaller de gree of perfection were created, this lack of perfection would impose unnecessary bounds on creation, and therefore on God - and a bounded God is never as good as it could be. All objections aside, this proposition of maximum perfection will provide us wi.t h a means to deduce the necessary organization of monads. It must be pointed out here that Leibniz does not seek to account for the entire perfection of the universe merely through the relations of monads. Such a quest would involve a study of the perfections of monads in themselves, while the present task is a description of the organization of monads that is able to contribute the most perfection to the whole. According to Leibniz, this maximum potential for perfection is brought about by allowing each monad to express, more or less distinctly, the perfections of all other monads. This leads him to conclude that a monad is a "perpetual living mirror of the universe" ("Monadol." il56). This relation enables the perfection of each monad to be reproduced to a greater or lesser extent in all the monads that perceive it. Indeed, it seems impossible to conceive of any other possible configuration that admits of a greater possible perfection, (aside from an amplification rather than a simple reflection - though such a model, if not meaningless, depends on the details of changes in individual monads, and therefore is not relevant to the argument). This model yields some rather pleasing consequences, particularly for those engaged in metaphysics or the physical sciences. In perceiving more clearly the perfections in nature and beyond, we increase our own perfection, as well as the perfection of the entire universe. Having described the relation of monads in general, we proceed to the said appearance of activity and passivity. Leibniz asserts that a creature is acting on another as far as it accounts a priori for what takes place in the object of its activity ("Monadol" t/50). This a priori account he attributes to distinctness of perception ("Monadol." t/49). In other words, one creature acts on another insofar as it can account beforehand for a change in the other. In order for the argument to be intelligible, this account must be rooted in the desire or appetitive faculty of the actor. Otherwise, a meteorologist could be said to act on the weather. Since a monad can have no direct effect on another, however, these activities must be indirect or "ideal" ("Monadol. 11 1151), for in all cases, God is the true actor. In the ideal interaction of monads, God judges between the appetites of the monads and determines which, if any, should predominate (presumably according to the principle of the best). Insofar as each appetite attains its desire it is considered active. It must be observed, however, that activity and passivity must be restricted to monads in certain relations. With few exceptions, one member of such a relation must be a composite containing or directly related to extension. Otherwise it would be possible for me to change your mind without mediation. This should be a sufficient explication of activity and passivity. Thus, the relations between monads have been explained through God and the principle of the best. It seems impossible that Leibniz could have discovered any other relation since he himself is a simple substance, some "reflectivity" must be assumed in order for him to have knowledge of other substances. If he were unable to reflect any substance, he could not have deduced this substance and would not have included it in the universe. For one who includes himself in a plenum, this conclusion seems inescapable. In Leibniz's "New System of Nature" (113) he reveals that the idea of monads, or "formal atoms", was originally formulated by him in order to account for insuf ficiencies encountered in mechanical explanations of nature. It is clear from this that monads bear an extremely important relation to matter and extension. Yet the "Monadology" lacks a basic explanation of the principles of this relation. It does, however, proceed as if the reader already has some understanding of them. No doubt Leibniz has assumed that those approaching the "Monadology" have read some of his other essays where the monad has been employed as an explanation of natural phenomena. As a result, reading the "Monadology" without textual perspective may give rise to questions regarding the origins of extension, since monads are said to be the "true atoms of nature" yet are not themselves extended. For this reason, the preliminary explication of the relation between monads and matter will draw on sources other than the "Monadology" more heavily than the previous chapters. We shall begin with an elucidation of the manner in which extension may be explained in monadological terms. The character of some particular relations between monads and matter will be dealt with briefly. Then a description of the general relations will be given. Finally, the problem of the connection of the soul to the body will b e discussed in terms of this general relation. Because the basis for the connection of monads to matter is described by Leibniz in works mainly concerned with the science of dynamics, it will be necessary to approach the problem in a manner different from that previously employed. This tack involves assuming matter and deducing monads. In one essay (Wiener 11100), Leibniz argues, against the Cartesians, that the actions of bodies cannot be described simply through extension and impenetrability. He asserts there that a metaphysical principle, that is, substance, is necessary in order to explain the behavior of bodies. In the "New System" (113) Leibniz argues for the need for simple substance. He asserts that since no atomic unity could be found in a purely material body, i.e., since extended bodies can always be divided, at least in thought, and a continuum is not composed merely of points, something non-material must provide the unity in bodies. He calls this non-material unity a "formal atom," and this simple substance he later calls a monad. From this it follows that Aristotle's "prime matter," that is, presubstantial, would consist of pure, undifferentiated extension. We may conclude, then, that monads are the origins of the unity in, and the characteristics of, bodies. In this way, Leibniz joins multitude (monads) and magnitude (extension) in order to synthesize an intelligible interpretation of nature. Monads are, thus, the true units or "atoms" of nature. We have, then, the basis for the relation of monads and extension. Since the arguments given above have been presupposed by Leibniz, this method of deduction should be permitted. There is a great danger that must be avoided at this point. If we accept the fact that every body in the universe has its own unique form or "soul," each possessing an appetitive faculty, experimental physics is clearly at risk. There may be no necessary consistency between experiments conducted on two similar bodies, or perhaps on the same monad at different times , governed by two distinct mona ds . This ab sence of necessary consistency is particularly dangerous in view of the fact that monads themselves have been deduced, at least partially, from the conclusions of experiments. Leibniz recognizes this danger and takes provisions against it. In "Specimen Dynamicum" (Wiener 11122, 11123)", he distinguishes "primitive force" from "derivative force." The former he defines as the substance in its basic sense, or substance considered by itself. Derivative force, however, is a limitation of primitive force which can be observed only when substances come into relation to one another. This latter type of force is only concerned with local motion, and is wholly quantifiable. The quantifications to which these forces are subject are commonly referred to as the natural laws of motion. This distinction must be based on the fact that though monads cannot affect one another directly, God constrains the perceptions of substances in respect to certain qualities (most notably, the quality related to position). From these limitations arise the laws of nature. In this manner, the basis of natural science is saved, and consequently, that of monadology also. This distinction between primitive and derivative force yields some peculiar 60 61 IV. RELATION OF SUBSTANCE TO MATTER �consequences. There arise from these two principles two separate chains of causality. The realm of cause assigned to primitive force is referred to as "final cause" and that of derivative force as "efficient cause." Since the appetitive faculty of any created monad is unable to cause motion, and, conversely, monads are unchangeable by natural means, the perceptions of any given monad must be "synchronized" with the chain of efficient causes in which it is directly involved. In the "Second Explanation of the System of the Communication of Substances" (Wiener #1 18, #119), Leibniz states that this synchronization must be explained in one of three ways: 1) mutual influence, 2) constant intervention of God, or 3) pre-established harmony contrived by God. The first of these alternatives has already been eliminated. The second choice seems to require a miracle at every point in time. The relation between final and efficient causes, thus, is determined by a pre-established harmony. Though such a harmony seems highly improbable, it could be very valuable to the natural philosopher. Not only are natural events predictable a priori through final causes, such as the deduction of the principle of least time found in t4e "Discourse on Metaphysics"; this harmony is able to shed light on deeper questions, such as the connection of the soul to the body. The question of the soul's relation to the body has puzzled philosophers for centuries. This puzzlement is rooted in the lack of definite connection between these two substances. As a result, many have denied any . connection at all, and in this denial, have required themselves to discard one of the two systems of cause. Those such as Hobbes have affirmed only efficient causes and found themselves facing questions involving the origins of consciousness and unity in animals. Thinkers like Hume, on the other hand, discard efficient cause and must seek some sort of subjective cause for perception. These thinkers find problems in determining the cause. of the consistency of perception or the reality of things outside themselves. Under Leibniz's system, the connection between the soul and the body does not rest in the animal, so no direct connection needs to be sought; the difficulties faced by the other thinkers mentioned here are easily avoided. These problems, however, have been faced and more or less accounted for . before this particular question was asked. It is therefore necessary to study this system carefully and determine its truth or falsity as far as possible. The relation between the monads and matter has been, for our purposes, sufficiently explained. If accepted as Leibniz has explained it, this relationship represents some very important natural and metaphysical advances in philosophy. It allows for an extensi~e stud~ of efficient causes, without direct regard to final causes, while preserving the metaphysical integrity of the system. It also allows for the limited application of final causes in natural science, such as the above-mentioned deduction of Snell's law. Such applications .of final cause yield valuabfe principles such as laws of conservation, e.g., the conservaticm of energy or "vis viva, " without necessarily admitting a "black box" into the system. The advantages .to metaphysics fur.nished by Leibn{z 's system have already been partially demonstrated in the above secti~n on the connection of the soul to the body. Further, this system may conceivably give rise to a new study where metaphysics is conducted through experiments relating to efficient cause. most natural philosophers at the time. He even shows that the curiosity that provides the impetus for the sciences is rooted in a tendency to increase the perfection of both the student and the universe. It must be observed, however, that this system is almost entirely based on the principle of sufficient reason and the principle of the best. For this reason, Leibniz may be assuming much more intelligibilty in the universe than he ought, thereby rendering his conclusions empty. Though the word translated in this passage as substance (ousia) has no direct etymological connection to the thought of "standing under," since it is used by Aristotle to signify a thing that serves only as a subject to modifications, such a meaning may be inferred. For since it is not able to function as a predicate, it is impossible for it to be changed in itself, though its function is to bear attributes that may be altered. 2. Leibniz asserts that absolutely indistinguishable entities are either one and the same thing, or utterly non-existent. He justifies that proposition by arguing that such repetition is not consistent with the perfection of God. 3. CONCLUSION 1. e.g., a body near the surface of the earth falls in a parabolic path because it is uniformly accelerated; it is uniformly accelerated because it is pulled toward the center of the earth over a small distance; why is it pulled thus? If the basic assumptions are al.l owed, the "Monadology" would appear to answer some of the . most .important questions of philosophy. The elegance of the system can do nothing but reflect positively on its plausibility. Leibniz not only makes a clear separtation between physics and metaphysics, eliminating the error resulting in their confusion, but establishes a ground for their relations. Thus the science of dynamics may stand upon firm metaphysical grounds, an accomplishment unparalleled by 62 63 �At Calvert Cliffs The Conversation Gretchen Berg ('75) Adam Eggers ('91) We play below chalk cliffs embossed with fossils, forming a ring in the water with our pants rolled up. The constant flux erodes us: even as we shout, salt cuts and wind culls and we are stuff for eons. Untitled Anne Carpenter ('91) This is a lovely kind of night, that plays with your untucked shirt, wafting. God said to Adam "My son come to me my first, most sorrowful son for we must talk" "Yes, Father" Adam replied And God spoke again "But my son do not come to me If you have any hope for mankind any dreams of love between peoples The belief that one man can make a difference Come speak to me when you know what I have just said is true Come talk with me and we can discuss my most wondrous, tragic experiment, Man" And adam answered, most somberly "I am not ready Yet." Sparkle of the charcoal road and fireflies mingle, like expensive scented powder, and the pebbles dent the flesh of your bare toes. Drink the milk the stars are pouring while bubbles break repeatedly, and sweet divine, sleeping cleopatra, with your frayed edges, remind yourself, of the strands of gold ahead, the pearly glow of patience weaves around your head. This is a lovely kind of night This is a lonely kind of night turn off your eyes of light and bow your henna head. 64 65 �Bridge Tequila Brooks ('91) Flanked by a grandmother and two aunts by the cowboy and his sons she enters with t he pr omise that-we're only going to look- neck in the noose of a skinbiting bit of lasso rope And the salesgirls aches with her eyes at the sight of mounds of brightly colored clothing which surround her in the blurr of the dressing room and she the cowboy's daughters look on with such sympathetic in their eyes that Dizzily, forlornly she stampedes the pulls tighter her tongue strains at the opening of her throat pounding hooves beat the grass-stained dirt chokes whimpers on dry tears beseeches the ceiling paneled sky with pounding sc r eams in the echoless bounds of her mind breaks free desperately eyes wild with fright front hooves nicked by stones and grass and the sting of scorpions in her flight until she tells a lie exits with pillow-tongued - i'll take this one she hurls headlong into a grinding tangle of barbed wire now and then she walks with cowed eyes boring holes in the ground directly behind her . " -/ /~ ~.:A~~ 66 67 �A Discussion of Justice and its Evolution in Aeschylus' Oresteia Trilogy Kenneth Paradis ('90) So much blood is spilled on so many hands of the house. of Atreu~ that o~e shudders to speak of the tragic events of the Oresteia as having kin~hip with J~stice. Yet each pair of bloodied hands fashions for itself an image of Justice to JUStify the~r heinous acts of vengeance. Aeschylus exposes the wretchedness of just~ce based on retribution and offers a resplendent vision of justice based on deliberation through the acts of the bitter house of Atreus. The litany of the Oresteia is the evolution of justice· From "bloodshed :or bloodshed" to "grace for grace" (Eumenides 982, 984), the barbaric pas~ of vindictive retribution concedes to a future of civilized clemency and temperate Judgement. Old justice has a narrow, individualistic scope which only concerns itself with. the ben~­ f its of the avenger and the punishment of the of fender, whereas new JUStice is grounded in a pluralism in which judgements are made for the benefit of the whole. One crucial aspect of justice's triumphant evolution is its transformat~on from personal vengeance to societal reason. Through the course of the Oresteia, Aeschylus demonstrates the dangers of the old violence, in this case through the words of the chorus: Here is anger for anger. Between them who shall judge lightly? The spoiler is robbed; he killed, he has paid. The truth stands ever beside God's throne eternal: he who has wrought shall pay; that is law. Then who shall tear the curse from their blood? The seed is stiffened to ruin. ( Agamemnon 1560-66) If the principle of justice is so limited as to be merely a matter of taking life for life, the danger is not only that the seed ?f the house of Atreus ~~ "stiffened to ruin, 11 but also · that the seed of mankind is doomed to fail. For this justice is "eternal" truth, mankind is doomed to eternal violence. How then does mankind escape this ruin? There are no inviolable standards ~f justice by which to assess the actions of mankind because the role of the gods in justice is in a state of becoming as is the ethic itself. Old justice has the intervention of the gods within its confines, and this does not lend stability to the system. In fact, the gods and mortals are both on trial in the Oresteia, and the gods need an end to the discord and chaos old justice is wreaking as much as the house of Atreus does. The gods are only one manifestation of the opposing forces that clash to forge this new justice, not the controlling element that one might expect. The violence of old justice has wrought similar conditions of social and political upheaval in the world of the gods and in the world of the men. .. ·· The Oresteia frees mankind from the , whimsical wills of .the childish gods_ A .• s~'cond aspect of just. fce 's evolution is th.a t it becomes a system based on the ·authority of the gods, but P,r acticed and maintained by mankind. Ridding mankind of the gods' interventions and t~eir passions for vengeance is a necessary step in expelling the mord1ls' penchant for the same ugliness. As we shall see, both Clytaemestra and Orestes believe their actions are divinely inspired and authorized - Clytaem~str:, through an interpretation of the laws stemming from Zeus, Orestes, through the inte - 68 vention of Apollo who shoulders the will of Zeus. In both cases, atrocities are committed, and the end result is more bloodshed - not resolution. The gods are ineffectual in fostering true justice and are committed to cultivating vendettas and hatred. The marrow of human action lies within the act of decision. Therein lies mankind's power of self-determination. Furthermore, it is by the merits of an individual's decisions that he is judged, that he seizes a preparedness for the future and an understanding of the past. Old justice not only strips mankind of his trait of deliberation, but it also seeks to discard basic emotions like compassion and love. These characters labor under the duress of dilemma because old justice is pitting pristine emotions against each other. Love and justice are irreconcilable. The Oresteia spotlights this struggle. "Justice so moves that those only move who suffer" (~ . 250), says the chorus of old justice. Along with Clytaemestra, Cassandra, Electra, and Orestes, the reader suffers the travesties of vengeful justice. As the reader grapples with the characters' decisions, they become his own; thus he experiences and understands justice's evolution. The clambering and struggle of each individual to fulfill his need for justice's company leads to the ugly atrocities of the old justice. Since its place is such a fundamental one, the struggle for justice can feed the ugliness of man's hatred and anger or nourish the compassionate and beautiful aspects of his nature according to the orientation of its laws. The plight of the house of Atreus is an extreme case, an absurd example, in which the thirst for personal retribution overshadows love between family members and honor toward the people the royal house rules. The plight of the house of Atreus demonstrates the inability of old justice to be a viable ethic and lends credence to the justice of deliberation, moderation, and clemency. The scope of this trilogy is expansive, and the themes are so closely interwoven that all of the aforementioned aspects of the plays must be considered to relate a somewhat comprehensive account of Aeschylus' commentary on justice. Therefore, let us examine this evolution of justice - the role of the gods and mortals and its meaning for mankind - in terms of the decisions of the characters who are guided by the entangled forces of the curse, fate and free will, pride and acquiescence, mortal and immortal will, and love and hate in the context of the trilogy. Much I have said before to serve necessity, but I will take no shame now to unsay it all. How else could I, arming hate against hateful men disguised in seeming tenderness, fence high the nets of ruin beyond overleaping? Thus to me the conflict of ancient bitterness is not a thing new thought upon, but pondered deep in time . I stand now where I struck him down. The thing is done. Thus I have wrought, and I will not deny it now. (~. 1372-80) These are the first haughty Clytaemestra dispatches to the chorus as she stands over the dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra in Agamemnon. She flaunts a hatred simmered over a long period of time, and peppered with treacherous tenderness. She proudly admits to the murder and the insidious premeditation that was involved to insure its successful completion. The idea of a curse implies an involuntary affliction which debilitates its victims like a disease. Yet, Clytaemestra claims she "pondered deep in time" on the "ancient" bitterness" of the curse, which leads one to wonder if the act was prideful choice bas ed on more than fated action. Does this passage imply that the curse is a course of action which ~an be voluntarily decided upon and that Clytaemestra embraced her role in perpetuating the curse? Is this curse a mad dog on a leash? At this point, the reader is offered two views on the curse. Cassandra, armed with a seer's wisdom, sees the house of Atreus as a place pervaded by a tangled evil, 69 �a sickness that she and every member of the house is doomed to catch. From Thyestes' one voice, a choir of "vengeful spirits" has raised its voice "drugged to double fury on the wine of men's bloodshed" (~ . 1188-90). Clytaemestra would lead the reader to believe that the curse is not such a disease. Like the fire signals from Troy, it grows stronger as the "watchers" awaken at every flaming post to feed the blaze and "kindle another beacon vaster than commanded" (~ . 301). She sees the curse as hatred kindled by the individual. Clytaemestra arrogantly sees the curse as her weapon. Perhaps both women are correct, in that the members of the house of Atreus display a propensity for violence that could be fate through an inherited character. The members of the house may be like the waiting watchman with his "watchtime measured by years" lying "elbowed upon the Atredae 's roof dogwise" (~ . 3). They cannot control the curse's appearance on the horizon, but they are prepared for it and a r e impelled to build on the hatred and nu r tur e its beacon . Clytaemestra ' s changing justif !cations tend to make the reader wary of adopting her view of the curse and the validity of her choice. Clytaemestra first appeals to the justice of the divine to justify her actions. She states that when Agamemnon was down after having been struck twice with her sword, she "struck him a third blow, in thanks and reverence to Zeus the lord of dead men underneath the ground" (~. 1385-87). With these words, the authority of Zeus and his justice are evoked in the defense of her actions to the chorus and the reader. The reader has no reason to believe that Zeus advocates or demands the death of Agamemnon other than allowing the justice of "anger for anger" to exist among mankind. Aeschylus offers a deluded Clytaemestra in her understanding of divine endorsement. Her pride leads her to believe that she may call upon their gods' laws for justification and that the authority of the gods themselves will be within those laws. She is judged by the gods, and to them she offers her reasons. Clytaemestra does not see a need to explain her actions to the people of Argos, for their judgements are not her concern. Clytaemestra refers to Zeus only to the extent that she envisions the avenging of Iphigenia's death as an act that would be judged righteous in Zeus' eyes and perhaps even necessary for the restoration of justice. Agamemnon deserves his fate in her opinion - carrion crow she sings the crippled song and is proud." (~. 1472-74). The chorus also foresees the end that awaits Clytaemestra: "still fate grinds on yet more stones the blade for more act of terror." The old men of the chorus, having witnessed one of the prophesies of Cassandra reach fruition, anticipate in a cryptic fashion the atrocities of the house to come. Both Clytaemestra and the chorus agree that Clytaemestra committed the murder of h~r own volition. Up to this point, they differ as to the "justice" of the incident and what the results of the action will be, but not as to her responsibility. . "Can you claim that I have done this?" (~ . 1497) asks Clytaemestra of the chorus. She adds that in her shadow stands the "old stark avenger of Atreus" and that "his revel of hatred struck down this man" (!&. 1502). Does this offer a refutation of what she said earlier about committing the crime? Has the pride she displayed over the murder disappeared? Is Clytaemestra claiming that her crime was fated for her and that she was merely an extension of the curse and not responsible for what occurred? Her decision is still valid, and her intention could be to add emphasis to her contention that the murder of Agamemnon is a just act of retribution, a sacrifice for the death of Iphigeneia. She may not be denying her free will in the killing of Agamemnon, but rather making the point that she did so as a willing extension of the "justice" of the curse. On the other hand, she may be completely denying responsibility and contradicting her earlier statements. In either case, Clytaemestra is searching for justification. Clytaemestra might also be readying the reader for the entrance of Aegisthus by uttering in this selfsame passage the ambiguous line, "speak to me nevermore as the wife of Agamemnon" (~. 1498-99). This passage could be construed to mean that Clytaemestra is noting a loss of identity in becoming an avenger of the old avenger of hatred. The passage could also mark a change in identity, in becoming the wife of the newest avenger who seethes with hatred and makes it his trade. At this point, the reader finds himself wondering about the role of Aegisthus in Clytaemestra's decision. Perhaps Aegisthus played on Clytaemestra's sorrow over the death of Iphigeneia and turned it to hatred for her once-beloved Agamemnon. Once Aegisthus had gained enough of Clytaemestra's trust to allow him to share her bed, sharing his hatred was a step easily taken. Were it religion to pour wine above the slain, this man deserved, more than deserved such sacrament. He filled our cup with evil things unspeakable and now himself come home he has drunk it to the dregs. (~ . 1432-34) 0 splendor and exaltation of this day of doom! Now I can say more that the high gods look down on mortal crimes and vindicate the right at last, now that I see this man - sweet sight - before me here sprawled in the tangling nets of fury, to atone the calculated evil of his father's hand. (~. 1577-82) - and his sacrifice is indeed necessary: By my child's Justice driven to fulfillment, by her Wrath and Fury, to whom I sacrificed this man, the hope that walks my chambers is not traced with fear. (~ . 1432-34) Clytaemestra is so firm in her conviction that her actions are just to the gods that she does not fear the judgement of the chorus. She brandishes her o1d justice "rights" with words that are as bitter as the wine of her vengeance. There is not acquiescence to the will of the gods in her words, just prideful seizure of the gods' ugly justice through vengeance. Thus, the reader finds himself back in a "discussion" of fate and free will and their relationship to Clytaemestra' s pride. Whether or not she chooses to do so, Clytaemestra discards the roles of wife, queen, and mother. Does the fate of the curse cause her to shirk these roles and adopt such hatred? She revels in her deed. Clytaemestra is seen by the chorus as unabashedly proud of the act of murder itself. "Standing above the corpse, obscene as some 70 This is a bold and brazen Aegisthus that appears at the end of Agamemnon. He speaks as if the injustice he was subjected to has finally been corrected. He judges that the gods in creating this atonement have restored the justice that existed before his father's rancid feast. Aegisthus may have been the one who told Clytaemestra that retributive justice was the will of Zeus and instilled a pride in her hatred for Agamemnon. He certainly sees himself in a position to judge the gods' actions. Aegisthus used Clytaemestra for his own ends; she was an instrument of his will. This exposes the true nature of the curse in that Clytaemestra was susceptible to being coached into thinking she had chosen to perform the act. Aegis thus is not concerned with justice, not even in the barbaric sense of retribution, but with something even more loathsome. The chorus threatens Aegisthus by stating that the people will not stand for his actions and Clytaemestra's and that they will retaliate with "stones of anger" aimed at his head (vengeance does not seem to be a sickness limited to the house of Atreus). Aegisthus reacts by first berating 71 �the chorus and then stating, "still with money I shall endeavor to control the citizens. The mutinous man shall feel the yoke drag at his neck" (~. 1638-40). Thus, we see that Aegis thus' intentions are insidious and beyond simply avenging his siblings' deaths. He seeks the power of the kingship of Argos and the potential to make of it a vile tyranny. At this point in the play, Aegisthus and the chorus are about to draw their swords to end the heated argument which has arisen over the murder of Agamemnon. The reader is prepared to witness the ends old justice offers, more bloodshed. Aegisthus claims that he is not afraid of death as he puts his hands on the sword hilt, and the chorus states its resolve to test his fears and to "take up the word of fate" (~. 1653). Who is it that speaks to stop more bloodshed and more violence? No, my dearest, dearest of all men, we have done enough no more violence Here is a monstrous harvest in bitter reaping time. There is pain enough already . Let us not be bloody now, honored gentlemen of Argos, go to your homes now and give way to the fate of stress and season. We could not do otherwise than we did . If this is the end of suffering, we can be content broken as we are by the brute heel of destiny. (~ . 1653- 60) The vengeance and anger of Clytaemestra have been replaced with an understanding of the situation and a resignation to claim responsibility for the action taken. She displays a reason that seeks to end the bloodshed. She refuses, at this point, the image of justice she acted upon earlier. Lurking in Clytaemestra's words is the understanding "that the brute heel of destiny" will repay her for her actions. Is she seeking an end to the bloodshed now? Is this sudden wish to end violence motivated by a fear of old justice claiming her life as well? If this curse was ever on a leash, it is absurd for Clytaemestra to think she can constrain i t af t e r she le t it loose . For, as she said earlier, "before this old wound heals, it bleeds again" (~. 1450). Driven by fate, destiny, and the curse, the old system of justice is always hungry for more blood. So where is justice in this stage of its evolution? Justice is primordial . Clytaemestra 's actions do not yield an end to this inward hatred, but its perpet uation. She ends the bloodshed between Aegisthus and the chorus , bu t her husband's blood still flows beneath their feet . Only momentarily, in one instance, does she see the futility of righting violence with more violence , of trying to reclaim a life by seiz i ng anot h er. Cly taeme stra and her j ust ice st ill wear carriage-horse bl inders . Clytaemestra's thirst for personal vengeance leads to more than her love turning to hatred, it convolutes her loyalties and concern for the state of which she is queen . Clytaemestra has not only stained the throne of the king (Zeus' representative), but also allows tyranny to enter the state Argos - which the chorus perceives as worse than death. If the purpose of justice is to restore the proper order of good after a wrong has been committed, her actions were more than fruitless; they were unjust. The imbalance of order that the curse has created becomes more severe as the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra are added to the vengeance end of the scales . This justice has a limited vision of individual concern which not only obscures the concerns of society and the wisdom of pluralism in decision making, but also fails most funda mentally in aiding the individual. Old justice momentarily mollifies seething hatred and feelings of betrayal, and then, as the reader witnesses, repays the avenger in the currency of twofold hatred and death. As the reader turns his eyes and 72 · expectations toward the inevitable homecoming of Orestes, the words of Cassandra are remembered: We two must die, yet die not vengeless by the gods. For there shall come on to avenge us also, born to slay his mother, and to wreak death for his father's blood ..• for this is a strong oath and worn by the high gods. (~. 1278-85) The anger of the house in the Libation Bearers now manifests itself by terrorizing the sleep of its inhabitants and most acutely Clytaemestra's. The chorus graphically describes the state of the house of Atreus and the despair of ever resolving the curse. Only new blood-guilt with deeper stains is brought on by Agamemnon's death; at this point, "all the world's waters running in a single drift" cannot wash out the stains. Yet, as the chorus stands before the grave with Electra offering prayers to placate the angry spirit of Agamemnon, the women beseech Electra to ask for more death as a means of attaining a just solution. In the midst of the cacophony of voices filled with the prideful and angry timbre of vengeance, one voice, Electra's, defies the chorus by introducing a crucial distinction . As she asks the old women of the chorus how to appeal to her dishonored father, she entreats Agamemnon's spirit to pay back Clytaemestra for the evils she has committed. Yet, when the chorus tells Electra to ask for a body of men to ensure that her wish is fulfilled, Electra makes a distinction not seen up to this point: "to judge them, or to give them punishment?" (Lib. 120). . In this passage, Electra recognizes that there is a difference between reaching a judgement on a situation and inflicting punishment. She also imagines a judgement rendered by a body of men, not by an individual. The chorus tries to persuade Electra into simply asking for a life to be taken to honor the corpse of Agamemnon, as if she is foolish and deluded to ask such a question and make such a distinction. Electra also asks whether her appeal for more violence would be considered just in the eyes of one panel of judges, the gods. The chorus responds by simply quoting the law that it is obviously "right to strike back when struck first." Amazingly, Electra does not respond as if entranced by a curse that strikes at an inward penchant to do evil . She asks for temperance . Although she asks for the justice of vengeance, she admits that it is an evil prayer. Electra is not blind to moderation in discerning good from evil and is aware of her brother's and deceased father's welfares, not just vengeance. The curse is not an involuntary affliction in Electra's case, for she does not assume the destiny of bloodshed. With this recognition, the hope of justice's evolution resides. And for myself, grant that I be more temperate of heart than my mother; that I act with purer hand such are the prayers for us; but for our enemies, father, I pray that your avenger come, that they who killed you shall be killed in turn, as they deserve be tween my prayer for good and my prayer for good I set this prayer for evil: and I speak against Them. (Lib. 140-46) Enter Orestes. After confirming his identity to Electra and being exalted by her as "hope of the seed of our salvation" (Lib . 269) and the recip i ent of a ll t he love her sister, father, and mother would have received, Orestes explains his situation. The tone of his statements is not fraught with pride and blind conviction, but with doubt and deliberation . He outlines to Electra and the chorus the "big strength of Apollo's oracle" (Lib. 269) with as much intention to convince himself of the power of Apollo's words a5°his audience. Entering into his deliberation is the welfare of others and an understanding of the vengeance that he thinks must also be acted out 73 �to appease Apollo's "justice" and the wrath of his father. Shall I not trust oracles such as this? Or if I do not trust them, here is- work that must be done. Here numerous desires converge to drive me on: the thought that these my citizens, most high renowned of men, who toppled Troy in show of courage, must go subject to this brace of women. (Lib. 297 - 04) Clytaemestra's. At this point, the chorus and Orestes seem to have an inkling of the coming trial . The chorus explains that it thinks Orestes is right in his actions because he was blessed by the gods, and that ceremonies will "wash clean and cast out the furies" ( Lib. 968). They see a time when the remaining members of the house of Atreus will be free from the curse. Unlike his mother, Orestes publicly explains his actions to the people of Argos. He shows concern for them and respect for their opinions by offering this explanation. Orestes asks Zeus to "look on my mother's sacrilegious handiwork and be a witness for me in my day of trial how it was in the right that I achieved this death" (Lib. 986-88 ) . The pride Clytaemestra displayed after the murder of Agamemnon is not present in Orestes' words, but his concern for others' interests is: "I grieve for the thing done, the death and all our race. I have won; but my victory is soiled, and has no pride " (Lib. 1016- 17). The reader then has a second murder which involves an individual who is not fueled with hatred and bloodlust, a man who is compelled by the god Apollo and his father's .curse. He is not proud of his action or under the sway of a lover and is concerned with the welfare of the kingdom as well as his own, unlike Clytaemestra . The reader may venture to say that this is a more "just" murder, considering the circumstances. Justice has evolved in its intentions but not in its ends. The act is still wrong, and as even the chorus realiz~s, is not the answer to the end of bloodshed. Clearly, Orestes is not void of anger, but he is not a vessel of blind rage, overweaning pride, and a thirst for blood. He recognizes the concerns of others and examines his situation. Clytaemestra acted with less of an appeal to reason and without consideration for others. It must be said on behalf of both that the chorus is the only voice singing the thredony of vengeful justice joyfully . Yet , both Electra and Orestes still speak the vernacular and annunciate the laws of old justice. Both still seek revenge and never contradict the enthusiasm of the chorus . Electra, for all her wanting of temperance, still wishes to "smash their heads" (Lib. 395 ) , and Orestes asks to "take her life [Clytamestra's] and die for it" (Lib. 438). But this reader tends to find it easier to sympathize with the words that follow from Orestes and the mitigating circumstances and motives behind his actions than with Clytaemestra . In lines 554 through 585, Orestes relates the plan of treachery that Apollo spelled out for him and asks for that god to guide his actions. Orestes proceeds with the plan and when he tells his mother of his own death through the use of a stranger's tongue, she blames the curse for cutting down her son. Clytaemestra is not relieved that her possible avenger will not have the capability of killing her now. She laments the death of Orestes. After the chorus follows through on Apollo's plan by informing Clissa to tell Aegisthus not to come with bodyguards, it offers a prayer of supplication to Zeus and asks the "gods of sympathy" to "wash out the blood in fair spoken verdict - let the old murder in the house breed no more" (Lib. 802). The chorus sees sympathy in vengeance. The women add that they want the gods to guide Orestes' hand in the "innocent murder." The chorus seems to think that this bloodshed will cause an end to bloodshed. First Orestes kills Aegisthus, and then he confronts Clytaemestra. He still is doubtful of what should be done . He first asks his f riend Pyla des , "wha t shall I do , Pylades? Be shamed to kill my mother?" (Lib . 899) . From this point onward , we see that Orestes is more a victim of fate and destiny than Cly t aemes tra ever claimed to be. We see again in the coming responses that Orestes is not a blind agent of fate . Pylades' response exposes the role of the gods (in this case Apollo) in determining justice . He reminds Orestes that the oracles compel him to take Clytaemestra's life. "Count all men hateful to you rather than the gods" (Lib . 902) , remarks Pylades. Clytaemestra , hearing this , probably realizes t hat compassion has not left Oreste s' heart and reminds him that she is his mother . Orestes' response is simple . He asks how he could ever live with the woman who killed his father . She now changes the position she held after the murder of Agamemnon by saying, "destiny had some part in that my child" (Lib. 909). Orestes responds with, "why then, destiny has wrought that this shall be your death." Clytaemestra then reminds Orestes of the Furies that will haunt him i f he carries out his deed and of the evils of Agamemnon's acts. When that fails, she ret or ts tha t he is re sponsible and that he just wants to kill he r . Ores t e s r e sponds, "no, i t will be you who kill yourself. It will not be I" (Lib. 923) . Clytaemestra again r em:Lnds him of t he Fur ies. Undaunted·, another motivation for having to kill his mother emerges: "how shall I escape my father's curse if I fail here?" (Lib. 925). Orestes then takes her life . One must wonder if he would have taken his mother's life had not this mandate come from Apollo's and Agamemnon's avenging spirits. Personal revenge and pride do not figure in his decision as they did in The voice of old justice in the Libation Bearers whose strong words and frequent quotation of "blood stroke for the stroke of blood" ironically speaks of the futility in regaining peace and saving the royal house through this harsh, barbaric law. Perhaps the reader can find more sympathy for Orestes because of his circumstance, but he killed his mother and that is unjust . The role of the gods and fate in his actions may clear Orestes of responsibility, but an atrocity still has been committ e d. The fact that Orestes appears to have little or no choice in taking his mother 's life incriminates t he divine will that forced him into t hat situation. The gods are not capable of being judges because they are merely criminals who use old justice as an ins trument of t h eir wh i ms . Driven out of the house of Atreus by Clytaemestra' s bloodhounds, the Furies, Or estes seeks refuge in the sanctuary of Apollo's temple at Delphi at the beginning of t he Eumenides. After Apollo acknowledges responsibility for the crime, he sends Orestes to Athens to appeal to the wisdom of Athena in this matter. The sides are formed: one is the ghost of Clytaemestra and the Furies, who seek the perpetuation of vengeance; the other is Orestes and Apollo, who want an end to the bloodshed and the haunting Furies. The two sides represent more than vengeance and clemency. The chorus (the Furies) points out that Apollo is a "young god" who has "ridden down powers grey with age" (Eum. 150) and that his acts spite tradition. Thus, the reader can also sense that the argument of the Furies will be based on the authority of conventional justice and a fear of losing their role in that justice. They think a new distribution of power which includes mortals in justice will not include the Furies. They thus accuse Apollo: "he made man's way cross the place of the ways of god and blighted 74 75 The children were eaten: there was the first affliction, the curse of Thyestes. Next came the royal death, when a man and lord of Achaean armies went down killed in a bath. Third is for the savior. He came. Shall I call it that, or death? Where is the end? Where shall the fury of fate be stilled to sleep, be done with? (Lib. 1068-76) �At the outset of the trial, the Furies show the inconsistency and lack of fore sight that old justice affords. They first connnent on a valid concern, namely, that the precedent that could be set by freeing Orestes of responsibility would lead to a chaos of matricide, claiming the lives of many. The Furies' concern for themselves and for their role as representing the authority of tradition emerges. Because in the following stanza the Furies feel "parents shal} await the deathstroke at the hands of their children" (Eum. 498), they warn that they (the Furies) will "let loose indiscriminate death" in order to punish mankind (Eum. 502). Thus, they do not seem to be sincerely concerned with the welfare of mankind, but with the honor of their office. For if it were a legitimate concern of theirs that this act of acquittal would lead to the chaos of children killing parents, why would they have mankind atone for this wrong by wreaking indiscriminate death? The Furies also must sense the fall of the "house of Justice" in the process of deliberation itself, as well they should. After all, as they argue, the only things that instill respect for the laws are fear and pain. They doubt that fury would have any place in a justice of deliberation and reason. Within the Furies' questioning of Orestes, another fault of old justice is exposed. When Orestes speaks of the dishonor his mother Clytaemestra committed the • chorus retorts, II of this stain death has set her free, but you still live." One ' must pay for his dishonor with death in the old justice. Orestes asks Apollo to help him at this point because he does not have a refutation of the Furies' claims. He does not scramble for contradictory justifications like his mother, but courageously takes responsibility for his actions. Once again his affinity for deliberation comes to the fore. Orestes asks Apollo to answer th; Furies and adds, "but was the bloodshed right or not?" Apollo's response is another appeal to authority in that what was done was connnanded by Zeus. The gift of kin~ship is a gift given by the hand of Zeus and through his own kingship. Apollo claims to act on behalf of a dishonored Zeus. The murder is justified as a correction of this dishonor. In an attempt to prove Zeus a poor character witness, the Furies remind the jurors of how Crones was enslaved by him. The Furies claim this is proof that a stance based on the divine stature of kings as unassailable is one of contradiction for Ze~s. Thus, the reader sees two additional sides being drawn. Apollo responds to this attack by calling the Furies "foul animals" and stating that death, unlike enslavement, is an irreversible end. The Furies do not imagine any effective and fair implementation of justice as being anything other than dealing out rations of death. In such a childish fashion, the proceedings move along. The divine elements in the play concoct bigger and better threats to sway the citizens of Athens. Neither Apollo nor the Furies argue righteousness from any stance other than that of authority. They do not bait one another into serious discussions based on the motivations of Clytaemestra and Orestes, the debacle of Argos, or the ends to which this justice is leading them. The citizens show integrity and thought in that their decision of half advocating acquittal and half not reflects the evidence that there are good reasons to judge in favo r of eit he r the ghos t of Clytaemestra or Orestes within the old justice. They are stalwart in their resolution and unaffected by the threats of the gods. The citizens also do not think the fact that Athena was born without a mother is an important consideration in the case. That · fact has nothing to do with the case before them. Yet, in another display of frivolous, benighted divine judgement, Athena decides to cast her deciding vote for Orestes because she feels she is living proof that the role of the father is necessary to the creation of life and the mother is not. She judges Orestes' life or death on the basis that one kind of murder is less offensive than another, namely that matricide is not as evil as patricide. Orestes wins. Despite the bickering and the childishness of Apollo and the Furies and the limited wisdom of Athena, the bloodshed finally ends. The brooding Furies are placated with a new name and station; they ·become the passion to be treated justly. Thus, Athens is not blighted with a famine and the world has a new resplendent justice. The bloodshed ends. Mankind has a future. Along with Orestes, mankind wins this case because he can now free himself from 76 77 the age-old distribution of power" (Eum. 171 - 72). Armed with their fears, the Furies insist incessantly that they have a right to their justice. They claim that it is an integral aspect of the divine order. Apollo responds by speaking °'f the ugliness of this justice of vengeance and stating, "the gods spit out the manner of that feast that your loves lean to." This, the reader could imagine, is a preparation for the outcome of the trial. Despite what the reader has witnessed of the gods using this justice in the past two plays, Apollo makes it clear that now the gods find such justice repugnant. The Furies have not a chance, for the gods are vindicating themselves, even if through contradiction. Apollo begins by facing the Furies' objections that kindred blood is more sacred than a blood bond within the oath of marriage. This they see as a way of making Orestes' act more foul than Clytaemesta's. Apollo sees the relationship of a married man and woman as guided by "right of nature" (Eum. 218). The two sides represent the sides of blood bonds being the stronger and convenant oath bonds as the stronger. Since the bond between a citizen and a state is one of oath, not blood, the justice which is created to suit a society must be made with this distinction addressed. Apollo seems to be concerned with keeping his oaths and promises to Orestes for fear of the wrath Orestes will exercise if wronged. The reader witnesses the role of the gods changing because mankind has a power which holds even the gods accountable; perhaps it is man's appeal to justice. "But I shall give the supplicant help and rescue, for if I willingly fail him who turns to me for aid, his wrath before gods and men, is a fearful thing" (Eum. 232-34). Yet, both Apollo and the Furies are appealing to a false understanding of their authority, like inept parents. Apollo wants to claim that he "speaks justly" because of his seer's wisdom and favored position with Zeus. The Furies see their "right to office" as license to "conspire to steer men's lives" (Eum. 310-11) with their song of frenzy and fear. But the dangers of justice based7olely on the authority of those involved have already been shown. There is a difference between the two appeals though, in that the Furies see as a right of their office a justice that ignores circumstance. "We hold memory of evil; we are stern nor can men's pleadings bend us" (Eum. 383), say the Furies. Yet Apollo asks Orestes to be cleared on the basis of the reasons for his actions. Amazingly, both parties allow the court the right to judge their case despite their contentions that their station makes their actions right . Therefore, not only will the court of mortals be judging the actions of a man, but they will also be asked to assess the offices of the divinities that are in opposition. No more unconditional smiting, hunting or haunting will be afforded the gods. They are being held accountable - being judged. The gods will no longer thrive on executive privilege. The court is assembled. Twelve honored citizens of Athens shall strive to find truth. All evidences are admissible and deliberation is recognized as essential. The reader readies himself for an exciting stage of evolution. He pushes onward through the pages anticipating a triumph, an end to the madness. Litigants, call you witnesses, have ready your proofs as evidence under bond to keep this case secure. I will pick the finest of my citizens, and come back. They shall swear to make no judgement that is not just, and make clear where in this action the truth lies. (Eum. 485- 89) �the pathetic litigants of this case. The gods' authority is imbued in the court, but they no longer preside as judges. The gods have been escorted out of the ~ourtro~m to adorn the steps outside with their marble images. This one aspect of Justice s evolution reaches ifrluition. t f its evolution is that it moves from individualistic Another cruc a aspec o . h. d d f Argos vengeance to pluralistic reason. The preservation of the kings ip an or ~r ~ t reflects a societal concern. The pluralism of the jury and th.e presence o t e cour will not be obscured with cloudy, subjective thinking. The JUry can offer clemenc~ and com ass ion and can consider circumstances for mankind's benefit. The futu~e o his law: and their interpretation is finally out of the hands of t~e s~lfish, fickle ods Man now has mastery over his fate; he has the power of true JUStice. g ·Mankind's justice now has the capability to reflect and foste~ the beautiful as ects of his nature: compassion and reason. Now hatred and JUStice are not ir~econcilable . The chorus , which throughout the trilogy has been the vo~ce 0 ~ ~~: justice, offers the reader the prayer of man's new justice in the conclusion o Oresteia: This is my prayer: Civil War fattening on men's ruin shall not thunder in our city. Let not the dry dust that drinks the black blood of citizens through passion for revenge and bloodshed for bloodshed be given our state to prey upon. Let them render grace for grace. Let love be their common will; let them hate with single heart. Much wrong in the world thereby is healed. (Eum. 976-87) All textual references are taken from Richmond Lattimore's Oresteia printed by the University of Chicago Press in 1953. 78 translation of the A Letter from an Alumnus The following letter was written by a graduate of St. John's College and addressed to current tutor. The New York Times Book Review article that is referred to in the letter is entitled "What's Left Out of Literature" and was written by Charles Newman. a Summer 1987 Dear Tutor, Here's the article from the NY Times Book Review that I mentioned. He occasion- --- --ally gets carried away with the literary criticism lingo, but most of it seems coherent, and I think he is very accurate with many of his arrows/observations. The musing in the final paragraphs about the "why" of it all relates to, gee, the debate about liberal education--a debate that has perhaps subsided but the conclusions of which, nevertheless, people don't really want to face. I think the "cultural weight lessness" this fellow speaks of is very much at the heart of the contemporary educated person's disposition towards the world. It receives expression not only in the literature, which a lot of people don't like, but also in the music and certainly in films, each of which are, in contrast to the literature, very popular. I think this makes a certain amount of sense in that there is little to distract one from the emptiness of a novel or short story, while there is plenty of distraction to be had in music and at the movies. Recent NY "art films," like Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law and David Byrne's True Stories (which you've seen), and also the summer's Hollywood smash, The Untouchables, are weightless in the extreme, to my eye, and for the most part I do think this was the intention of the filmmaker. I am friends with the assistant editor of Down by Law, and was at the opening of True Stories, where Byrne came out afterwards and fielded questions for an hour. He made it clear that the irony of the movie was intended as detail and comic relief, and that the general expression was one of approbation. It was the judgement of a sophisticated New Yorker that the small town scene in Texas is okay too and that whatever one does and must do to find happiness has to be considered fine-- what basis for criticism exists, after all? We all want to be happy. Byrne then was intending to lecture the sophisticated New Yorkers a bit, in this odd way. I for one wish he had not been so generous. For better or worse, I don't think that "whatever" is "fine." Too many nights listening to conversations of Happy People in a taxi has left me with this sour state of mind. My roommate and I had something of an argument about The Untouchables. She works in video, is a movie person more or less, and, like most of the NY movie people I know, thought it was a great film. I saw it with four movie people, and all they could do was rave about the cinematography, the "sepia tones," the campy (but so what?) performances of de Niro and Connery, and, above all, the director's "quotations" from Hitchcock, and of the famous baby-carriage-on-the-steps scene from the classic Potemkin. On and on. All the while ignoring-- that is, accepting with no qualms-- the comic book treatment of the theme. The theme was law and order, for it's the story of the treasury agent Elliot Ness, who was imported into Chicago to try to nail Al Capone. Every character in the film was a caricature. No attempt was 79 �made to defend with development any of the pertinent cliches. A high- priced NY playwright did the script (David Mamet), and I have to assume he had his reasons fo r restricting himself to the comic book approach. I can even think of a good reason , to wit, to force a pseudo - sophisticated audience to face the cliches and acknowledge their simple truths, for the modern audience has seen everything. There is no surprising or shocking it, and its sole critical activity has become the activity of recognizing and filing away the familiar formulas. In doing so, it assures itself that whatever is being aired has been seen and presumably deconstructed before and requires no direct consideration. I am not saying this very well, but I think its one of the most important things to note about the way contemporary, educated people approach expressions of all sorts, about the way they approach the world. I listen to it all the time in the cab, and this is really one of the main reasons I took to recording taxi conversations; what I would call social considerations seem to ru l e 90% of a ll discussions, re gar dless o f content . I t is most important to have something to say immediately, to say it, to be agreed with, and to pass on the next thing. That is, the aim is to dispense with whatever has been said, and if there's to be any dissecting at all, it's accomplished with stupid cynicism and pseudo-sophistication. Entertainment remains as the only value- - .how entertaining, for whatever reason, was the film/play/book/painting/person, and more importantly, how entertaining is the blithe discussion in which it/he/she is recognized and filed away? For Mamet, then, to write a screenplay about law and order that is no more sophisticated than a Dick Tracy cartoon is to provide the audience with very little entertainment of the latter sort, for the bare cliche is dispensed with the barest amount of entertaining after- theater conversation. The problem with this tack is that people simply ignore the theme altogether. Especially when the movie's director, Brian de Palma, is obsessed with film history and technique, and is notorious for making movies that say nothing. If it was Mamet's intention to try to make people face the simplicity of the cliche truth, it didn't work well, at least not with the sophisticated NY audience, not with the NY movie people. As to whether it matters that the theme gets no better treatment than it does in a comic book- - to ask such a question is to invite embar assed silence. My movie roollllllate finally said, in exasperation, that it's not necessary that the movie say anything important. I replied that, of course, it's not necessary, but for that matter movies period are not necessary. Necessity has nothing to do with it. What one would like to see, rather, is the question. What one likes, finds interesting, worthy of attention, worth the time. In considering this, I said that a multi-million dollar project that says nothing more than a thirty cent comic book seems less than what one should be satisfied with, and that during this summer America has fallen in love with Oliver North and similar people who seem to have less of an unders tand ing of t he complexi t y of t h e l aw and order questions t han one woul d wish in men working in the White House. When I made these admittedly simple and glib sort of suggestions about what I would have pref erred The Untouchables to be, my roommate said "I get very uncomfortable when I feel I'm being lectured," implying that when something makes her uncomfortable she dispenses with it. Her meaning was that a "serious" treatment of the law and order theme was not only unnecessary but was not at all to be desired, would be declasse, something NY movie people, and perhaps sophisticated audiences in other cities too, would not put up with. Further it would be an insult to their intelligence. But these might well be the words of Ollie North, and Poindexter, and who knows who else. In any case, the attitude that an attempt to state a developed position, one in which certain values are seriously de.fended or attacked, is something that should not be made is the serious underlying attitude of the sophisticated audience. I do think it's pseudo-sophistication, and I think the article here is talking well about this sort of thing. In the end, as the fellow suggests, its a sign of an ignorance, "a king of a quiet nervous breakdown," due to 80 the fact that "we don't quite know what has happened to us." To admit to such a state wou ld b e quite paralyzing for people with a conscience. Most of the contemporary music is trash. I've always thought Springsteen an exception, of course, and there are others I consider great poets and great r The two needn't necessarily go hand in hand but they seem to th d p otesters. something from a lecture Albert Camus gave in Paris in 1957 ese abysf. This is born: ' , a year e ore I was On occasion art may be a deceptive luxury ... For about a century we have been living in a society that is not even the society of ~oney (gold can arouse carnal passio~s) but that of the abstract ym~ols of mon:y. The soc~ety of merchants can be defined as a society in which things disappear in favor of signs Wh ruling class measures its fortunes not by the acre of l~nd ore~h a ingot of gold, but by the number of figures corresponding idealle ~o al~ertain number of exchange operations, it thereby condemn~ tse . to setting a certain kind of humbug at the center of its experience •.. There is no reason for being surprised that such society chose as its religion a moral code of formal principle: an~ that it inscribes the words "liberty" and "equality" on its priso~s.as well as on its temples of finance ... Is there anything surprising in the fact that such a society asked art to be not instrument of liberation but an inconsequential exercise and a: m~~e entertainment? Consequently, a fashionable society in which a troubles were money troubles and all worries were sentimental worries was satisfied for decades with its society novelists and with the most futile art in the world, the one about which Oscar Wilde, thinking of himself before he knew prison said that th greatest of all vices was superficiality ' e In this way the manufacturers of ar~ of middle - class Europe b:!~~~ and after 1900, accepted irresponsibility because respon~ si ty presupposed a painful break with society (those who really broke with it are named Rimbaud, Nietzsche Strindberg a~d we know the price they paid). From that peri;d we get th~ ~ eory of art for art's sake, which is merely a voicing of that irresponsibility ... The more art specializes, the more necessar popularis.ation become.s. In this way millions of people will hav~ the feeling of knowing this or that great artist of our time because they have learned from the newspapers that he raises canaries or that he never stays marrie d fo r mo re t han s ix months The greates.t renown today consists in being admired or hated without having been read ... Consequently, there is nothing surprising in the fact that almost everything worthwhile created in the mercantile Europe of the nineteenth ~nd twentieth centuries - - in literature, for instanc:-- was raised up against the society of its time. It may be said that until almost the time of the French Revolution current literature was, in the main, a literature of consent . From t he moment when middle- class society became stabilized, a literature of revolt developed instead •.. There is no need of determining whether art must flee reality or defer to it, but rather what precise dose of reality the work must take on as ballast to keep from floating up among the clouds 0 : from draggi~g along the ground with weighted boots. Each artist solves this problem according to his lights and abilities . 81 �••• The loftiest work will always be, as in the greek tragedies, Melville, Tolstoy, Moliere, the work that maintains an equilibrium between reality and man's rejection of that reality, each forcing the other upward in a ceaseless overflowing, characteristic of life itself at its most joyous and heart-rendering extremes. Then, every once in a while, a new world appears, different from the everyday world and yet the same, particular but universal, full of innocent insecurity •.• That's just it and yet that is not it; the world is nothing and the world is everything-- this is the contradictory and tireless cry of every true artist, the cry that keeps him on his feet ••. Much is missing here between the last paragraph and the bulk of what I've typed befo r e it, mostly a discussion of social realism and of romanticism. The debate comes to this ambiguous, uniting conclusion. Whatever its merits, the idea that "weightlessness,'' that a value-neutral literature, a literature of silence, can be reputable, seems something Camus would argue against, and something that itself calls for protest. This hasn't been a very clear transistion from the stuff above about movies, but ••• Here is a Springsteen lyric. It eventually, at the end, touches on out theme. It isn't a poem proper, but is a lyric to a song only a piece of the Piece, but-JUNGLELAND (somewhat quietly, with piano and flute in background) The Rangers had a homecoming In Harlem late last night And the Magic Rat drove his sleek machine Over the Jersey state line Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain The Rat pulls into town rolls up his pants Together they take a stab at romance And disappear down Flamingo Lane Well the maximum Lawmen run down Flamingo Chasing the Rat and barefoot girl And the kids round here look just like shadows Always quiet, holding hands From the churches to the jails Tonight all is silence in the world As we take our stand Dowin Jungleland (crashing rock and roll) The midnight gangs assemble And pick a rendezvous for the night They'll meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign That brings this fair city light There's an opera out on the turnpike There's a ballet being fought out in the alley Until the local cops 82 Cherry tops Rip this holy night The street's alive as secret debts are paid Contacts made, they vanish unseen Kids flash guitars just like switchblades Hustling for the record machine The hungry and the hunted Explode in a rock and roll band Face off against each other in the street Down in Jungleland In the parking lot the visionaries Dressing in the latest rage Inside the backstreet girls are dancing To the records that the DJ plays Lonely-hearted lovers struggle in dark corners Desperate as the night moves on Just one look,, and a whisper, And they're gone (breakdown in beat, turn to a long, jazzy saxophone instrumental that eventually dies down to the long piano, sounding exhausted, lost ) Beneath the city two hearts beat Soul engines running through a night so tender In a bedroom locked in whispers of soft refusal And then surrender In the tunnels uptown The Rat's own dream guns him down The shots echo down them hallways in the night No one watches as the ambulance pulls away Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light ( rising) Outside the street's on fire In a real death waltz Between what ' s flesh and what's fantasy And the poets down here Don't write nothing at all They just stand back and let it all be And in the . quick of the night They reach for their moment And try to make an honest stand But they wind up wounded, not even dead Tonight in Jungleland It's the silence, noted in the first two stanzas and then returned to in the last, that made me think of this right now. The crazy str~ggles take place oddly surrounded by sile~ce, and there's a protest here that some people, perhaps the "kid~ just like shadows b~t clearly the "poet," should say something. They have an obligation to say something. I think there's a reference to the very first important 83 �song written by Paul Simon, back in 1967, entitled The Sounds of Silence. Jungle land seems to me far from a naive or romantic view of several different strains of struggle, by the way. It adopts a cartoon hero form, but then turns on itself: the black hero/dreamer dies ignominiously, in a sense a suicide, indeed; his girl has no choice but to just turn out the light; the worshipping youth are conned into a stupid war, eventually setting their world on fire, uncertain of what is real and what is not, uncertain of the value of reality and fantasy. This is something like the uncertainty that Newman writes about in his last few paragraphs perhaps; Newman begins his piece by complaining about the silence of the poets in the face of all this, whereas Springsteen ends his with the same complaint. But each suggests that the poets are wounded, something quite different than the controlled silence of Minimalist art of the seventies, for instance. I really had no intention of writing all this. I have very little in the way of organized things to say. Concerning my alleged novel , I h ave an i mp oss ible time t r ying to judge it, whether it is silent and empty. Or do I -- I guess I don't worry that it's empty. I do worry that no one will, nevertheless, care enough about such a character to read it. It is written from a depressed view of life, certainly. Today such an attitude is not i n vogue. I had not adopted the attitude; it w.as / is something I have to contend with. The hero is not a cartoon character. He has to be both strong and weak. There have to be reasons for people to care about him, as the narrator does. At the same time, there have to be given the secrets of his failure, which the narrator has only barely come to understand as he begins to wonder if he, the narrator, isn't really the better man. That's something he was always sure wasn't so, having always been sure of his inferiority. But then is he the better man, or merely better suited for life? Is viability the only criterion? If so, the question of what happens to a good man in a bad city never gets aired. For such a scenario to exist there must be other criteria to allow for the unviable organism to be nevertheless deemed good. Without other crit eria the environment is always the measure, cannot be deemed bad. Without other criteria, the bad city is a phantasma, impossible. It is a woman, the dead hero's old girl and the narrator's new love, who suggests to the latter that the hero was no hero , in that he was an unviable organism, suggesting then that no other criterion exists. And, given the new love, the narrator has good reason to agree, to dispense with the rival (dead but still a rival). The post- mortem, then, takes place subjected to all sorts of pressures, and is important in that it is an evaluation of how one evaluates life. Why live, why not die? I hope this isn't so vague it is rubbish for you. I've been feeling better the past two weeks, but am still in the process of recovering. I've had little energy all summer, and this has been, I guess, an attempt to bash through and think about the task of painting this character . I've been writing very litt l e , rea l l y a f ra id of doing it while my mind is slowed by the medical problem. I am feeling better, but it's disturbing to feel less than what I know I am. The boundary between the physiological and the psychological, of course has long been blurred. "Know thyself"--no mean thing. I hope all is well with you. Alla prossima, St. John's Alumnus 84 �Non-Pro BULK U.S. PO St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 PA PERMIT ANNAPO � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. ii, 84 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cooper, Laurie (Co-Editor) Datcher, Rhonda (Co-Editor) Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Fall 1987 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Fall 1987. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Fall 1987 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1efb31e2b66a38236bd33d4de7779091.pdf 9542edd8f8bd370577818ee2590bf1b5 PDF Text Text FALL, 1989 �[ ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. 11 •.. vou Evtpytia ~ro11 ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) Cover: "B. GOODE" Photographed by John Silver '89 Staff: Jennifer Accardo Carolyn Barndt Eugenia Bergeron Akiba Covitz George Dolan Bryan Frost Brian Levy Laurae Melbin Ray Rivera Laura Webner Printed by the St. John's College Press St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland Editors: Rhonda Datcher Ken Paradis Faculty Advisor: Henry Higuera With special thanks to: Ray Gifford Geor ge Tu rner Ty Yancey Chris Colby Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published two times a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis and Santa Fe. The Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community--essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. + �l CONTENTS THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI AND TACITUS: THE PROBLEMS OF ETHICS AND POLITICS (Honorable Mention, Sophomore Essay) 5 GRAND L UNA L OVE Ned Dobner 12 "GRACE COMES SOMEWHAT VIOLENT ... THROUGH THE WRECK AND THE BLOODSHED" (Prize-Winning Freshman Essay) Michelle Nicoll 13 CLASS DAY ADDRESS John Verdi 20 Part One of: TRAGEDY, PHILOSOPHY, COMEDY: A VISION OF TRANSCENDENCE IN EURIPIDES, KANT, AND HEGEL (Honorable Mention, Senior Essay) Michael McShane 22 ARISTOTLE'S WHEEL Cherie Craig 33 THE BEGINNING OF TIME Eugenia Bergeron 35 THE CAVE Seung Ahn 37 BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD: CHRIST AND MEN IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN Kev in Graham 38 UNTITLED POEM Laurae Melbin 47 COMING TO IN THE FATHERLAND (Prize-Winning Original Poem) • Alexander Lo Jessica Lamb 48 �•. Thoughts on Machiavelli and Tacitus: The Probletns of Ethics and Politics Alexander Lo ('90) Preliminary Discussion The antithesis between Machiavelli and Tacitus cannot be more apparent than in their works, both in terms of their views of history and their methods of inquiry. In many striking passages, they explicitly spell out their intentions and motives. For Tacitus, the historian's highest task is essentially a moral task. He does not "relate at length every motion, but only those such as were conspicuous for excellence or notorious for infamy." History's highest function is to let "no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds." Thus history, or rather historical reconstruction by the historian, is essentially a series of moral lessons: the historian is a moral critic of the actions of individuals and the events of particular historical periods. In the writings of Machiavelli, political history or analysis becomes a part of politics and is not apart from politics. He too is critical. He analyzes politics as it is practised, but not how it ought to be practised. It is customary to view Machiavelli's writings as 'value-free', as free from ethical consideration. But this is clearly not the case, as even a casual reading of Machiavelli will show. He is full of praise and blame for the political and the historical actor. Clearly, his ethical criterion is that of the good and the bad, as opposed to the good and the evil. But this is only the 'surface' antithesis between the two authors. At a deeper level, there is a common denominator which is shared by all historical and political writers. (I shall use history, politics and political history interchangably.) Regardless of their moral and ideological persuasions, they all aspire to objectivity, historical knowledge, and authentic historical reconstruction. Of course, both Tacitus and Machiavelli, and all of us, are aware of propagandistic writings. Very frequently writers conceal such events as would reflect disgrace upon their century, whilst magnify and amplify those that lend lustre to it. The majority of authors obey the fortune of conquerors to that degree that, by way of rendering their victories more glorious, they exaggerate not only the valiant deeds of the victor, but also of the vanquished. (The Discourses, New York: the Modern Library, 1950, p. 271) The history of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and after their death were written under the irritation of a recent hatred. Hence my purpose here is to relate a few facts about Tiberius ...without either bitterness or partiality, from any mo tives to which I am far removed. (The Annals, New York: the Modern Library, 1942, p. 3) Nevertheless, all historical writers assume the intelligibility of history. History is both a reality and an object of knowledge, is simultaneously that which is experienced and that which can be known. Thus, we have reduced the apparent antithesis betwen Machiavelli and Tacitus to the common assumption of historical intelligibility. In 5 • �order to praise Germanicus and to denounce Tiberius, in order to praise the grandeur of Rome and to denounce the corruption of the Italian pr inces and republics, it must be assumed that the policies of governments and the actions of individuals are historically intelligible. One assumption, two ethical views on history: it is at this level of history as a formal study that the problem of ethics and politics becomes interesting. The two ethical views, which we have discussed briefly at the beginning, lead to two different approaches to historical reconstruction -- in other words, two different ways of making history intelligible. We shall discuss t he limitations and the ad vanta ges of the two approaches and those of the two ethics within the context of historical intelligibility. By limitation, I mean practical intelligibility, the limited extent to which the intelligibility of a historical event is revealed. By advantage, I mean the extent to which the intelligibility of a historical event can be revealed. Machiavelli's Ethics and Method In discussing the two forms qf ethics, it is tempting simply to use the formula of ends and means. While the one emphasizes intentions, actions, and the means by which goals are achieved, the other emphasizes results in tended and consequences resulted. The latter seeks to determine not whether the means a re desi rabl e but whethe r the results produced are desirable. Commenting on Romulus' murder of his brother, Machiavelli expresses the latter ethics elegantly: "It is well that when the act accuses him, the result should excuse him" -- the murder being n ecessar y to the fo u nd ing of Rome (p. 139). Christian ethics is a particular manifestation of the first type of ethics. Significantly, Machiavelli does not condemn "our religion", namely Christian ethics, which " places th e supreme happiness in humility, lowliness, and a contempt for worldly objects." He simply realizes that these [Christian] principles have made men feeble, and caused them to become an easy prey to evil-minded men, who control them securely, seeing that the great body of men, for the sake of gaining Paradise, are more di~posed to endure injuries than to avenge them. (p. 285) Without the qualities of the lion and the fox, "our institutions" do not "teach us to love and honor our country", or to expand our domain of influence. On the other hand, "the other religion", namely the Romans', renders men formidable by emphasizing "grandeur of soul and strength of body" and by attaching the highest esteem to honors and possessions. The latter is the ruthless pursuit of power, whether for oneself (the prince) or for one's community (the republic). The two ethics are incompatible and Machiavelli knows which one he perfers. Nevertheless, Machiavelli does not exclude the possibility of political greatness for the Christian state. It is Machiavelli's realization of such a possibility that prompts Max Weber to comment thus: further than, Mach iavelli. Not sur prisingly, even clergymen in Machiavelli's time had said it, in internal documents of course: When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released from the commandments of morality. With unity as the end, the use of every means is sanctified, even cunning, treachery, violence, simony, prison, death. For all order is for the sake of the community and the individual msut be sacrificed to the common good. (Dietrich Von Nieheim, Bishop of Verden: De Schismate Libri III, A.D. 1411) Nieheim's passage is almost an exact duplicate of Machiavelli's: Machiavelli, in a beautiful passage of the History of Florence, has one of his heros praise those citizens who deemed the greatness of their native city higher than the salvation of their souls. For where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no considerations of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or of shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other cosiderations aside, the only question should be, What course will save the life and liberty of (_The Discourses, p. 528) the country. (Politics as a Vocation, New York: Oxford Univer- · sity Press, 1946, p. 126) It requires exceptional lucidity and humility to Literate and cultured men have been, and still are, prevented from fallowing the "new route" because of their reading of Socrates' decisive arguments against Callicles in the Gorgias and Thrasymachus in the Republic, because of their faith in Christianity, and because of their being shielded from the reading of internal documents. On the basis of the formal ethics of responsibility, to borrow Weber's phrase, Machiavelli is in an unique postition to analyze power as it is practised, as it should be practised if goals are to be realized successfully, but not how it ought to be practised so as to conform to the ethical norm. This is apparent throughout The Prince and The Discourses. He is less interested in individual characters than in the decisions that they have to make, in the actions that they have to carry out, and in their assessment of existing situations. This is partic ularly so in the case of the Prince. U nli ke Tacitus, rarely does he give minute portraits of his characters' thoughts and motives, beyond such general categories as courage, cowardice, and magnanimity. He analyzes in detail material causes as opposed to individual motives. For example, he analyzes the usefulness, or rather the uselessness, of money and fortresses in warfare, and the Roman emphasis on infantry as opposed to cavalry. He is more interested in large social and political movements than in individuals, except to the extent that a knowledge of individuals is necessary towards an understanding of these movements. Book One of formalize the two positions in no uncertain terms, to choose one while recognizing the legitimacy of the other. This by itself is an admirable quality. Max Weber, who formulates the two ethics in contemporary language,_ says, "one cannot prescribe to anyone whether he should follow an ethics of absolute ends (Christian ethics) or an ethics of responsibility (Machiavellian ethics) or when the one and when the other." (ibid.) . This ethics is prerequisite to the particular type of analytical method of history and political analysis on which Machiavelli's fame rests. In the introduction to the first book of the Discourses, Machia vell i sa ys what h e has done here may prove for the common benefit of all; I have resolved to open a new route, which has not yet been followed by anyone, and may prove difficult and troublesome ... I shall have shown the way to others, who will carry my views with greater ability, eloquence, and judgement. (p. 103) His "new route" is "difficult and troublesome" not because of the intr insi c intellectual depth of this type of political analysis. Rather, the new formal ethics, incompatible with the Christian ethics into which political writers and cultured men are trapped, has yet to take hold of our moral and intellectual constitution. This ethics is nothing new; it probably has been practised from time immemorial. Platonic characters Callicles and Thrasymachus have voiced it. The Indian classic Kautaliya Arthasastra has gone as far as, if not The Discourses is concerned with Roman internal politics, while Book Two deals with the expansion of the empi re. Thus, he gives detailed analyses of Roman institutions such as the tribunate (which represents the people), the senate (which consists of the nobles) and the consulate. A brief comparison between Machiavelli's account of the Roman agrarian law and Plutarch's account of the conflict between Pompey and Caesar will illustrate the differences, both in method and style, between Machiavelli and morally motivated historians such as Tacitus and Plutarch. Plutarch tells us next to nothing about the larger historical and political context out of which the conflict between Caesar and Pompey arose. For him, the conflict was simply the personal rivalry between the two greatest Roman politicians of the day: Caesar had lond ago resolved upon the overthrow of Pompey, as had Pompey, for that matter, upon him ... (I)f the one of them wished to make himself the greatest man in Rome, he had only to overthrow the other; and ifhe again wished to prevent his own fall, he had nothing for it but to be beforehand with him whom he feared. (Plutarch's Lives, "Life of Caesar," Chicago: the University of Chicago, 1952, p. 588) From Plutarch's account, we learn that the people were generally behind Caesar while the aristocratic Pompey was greatly respected by the noblemen. But this state of affairs had its origin in the passing of the agrarian law, which, according to Machiavelli, caused the fall of Rome. As decreed by the law, "no citizen could possess more than a certain number of acres of land," and that "all lands taken from their enemies should be divided amongst the Roman people." The law worked to the disadvan tages of the nobles. First, "those who had more land than the law allowed (which was the case with the greater part of the nobles) had to be deprived of it; and by dividing amongst the people the lands taken from the enemy, it took from the nobles the chance of enriching themselves." (Discourses, p. 209) The law caused constant conflicts between the people and the nobles, first in the civil war between Marius, whom the people favored, and Sylla, whom the nobles favored. Later, Caesar joined the party of Marius, while Pompey u pheld the pa r ty of Sylla. It is typical of Machiavelli that he should pay more attention to the agrarian law, while Plutarch simply related the personal rivalry between Caesar and Pompey. 7 6 • �Characteristic of his method, Machiavelli "demonstrate(s) by ancient and modern examples, rather than attempt(s) to do so by arguments, which will not do as well." (Discourses, p. 375) He chooses particular historical situations as examples, and on those bases he abstracts general rules. What he says of the common people, so he thinks similarly of the historical writer: ''Men are apt to deceive themselves in general matters, yet they rarely do so in particulars ... The knowledge of things particular had removed from their minds that delusion into which they had fallen by looking at things in general." (Discourses, p. 233, 236) For example, it is well to argue about equality and the just distribution of power. When it comes to particular actions, such as the election of common citizens to the Roman Consulate, the citizens know that not one of them is suitable. Similarly, it is well to advance Socrates' argument according to which suffering evil is better than practising evil. We all know where this ethical viewpoint will lead to in real life power-politics. Good does not necessarily result in good, and evil does not necessarily lead to evil. How can we know that the initial good deed will reslult in morally desirable consequences, and that those consequences will result in further desirable consequences? As Isaiah Berlin says, in matters such as these, humility is called for. Those who insist that evil must be resisted at all cost, such as Socrates, and those who say arrogantly that if they have to choose between the lesser of two evils, they will choose neither, such as the Austrian writer Karl Draus, have no calling in politics and should stay out of it altogether. Machiavellism is at once an ethics and an analytical approach. It is the vulgar understanding of Machiavelli's works that leads us to equate Machiavellism with the ruthless pursuit of power. In reality, it implies vigor of thought and a profound knowledge of history. It implies moderation and humility which realize the inconclusiveness of political actions and the necessarily limited knowledge of past and present. Machiavelli himself says that it is "a fact that we never know the whole truth about the past." Machia vellism is a mirror of politics as "the art of the possible". It does not hesitate with the use of violence and other morally dubious means. However, it fully realizes the allpervading unpredictability which we encounter in the political realm: "Before deciding upon any course, therefore men should well consider the objections and dangers which it presents; and if its perils exceed its advantages, they should avoid it." (Discourses, p. 245) Since it does not demand perfection, does not claim scientific understanding of historical processes, and does not profess moral purity (Machiavelli is fully aware of the antiChristian, or the evil, character of his teachings), it is the opposite of fanaticism and idealism. Machiavelli says in the introduction of The Discourses that "I shall at least have shown the way to others, who will carry out my views with greater ability, eloquence, and judgment," a subject to which we will return. We shall now turn to Tacitus. which he ascribes to his characters fit in so nicely with the consistence of his protraits, that we wonder whether we are reading dramatic writings or authentic historical reconstructions. In Tacitus's eye, Germanicus could do no wrong. In his own words, Germanicus "was a young man of unaspiring temper, and of wonderful kindliness, contrasting strongly with the proud and mysterious Tiberius." "The nearer Germanicus was to the highest hope, the more laboriously did he exert himself for Tiberius, and he made the neighbouring Sequani and all the Belgic states swear obedience to him." (p. 24) Tiberius, on the other hand, even if he acted expediently on several occasions, as any competent politicain would have done, is nevertheless criticized on those occasions. On the occasion of Augustus's death, when all the religious rituals had been performed, when the nobles urged Tiberius to succeed Augustus, Tiberius delivered a "routine" speech which expediently expressed obviously false modesty as to the greatness of the task, his own inadequacy in the presence of so many capable men. Nevertheless, Tacitus has to comment thus: Tacitus' Ethics and Method I have quoted Tacitus as saying, in the beginning of The Annals, that his purpose is "to relate a few facts" about the Roman emperors, without bitterness or partiality, or any motives . other than for the sake of genuine history (as distinct from romance). But few historians have consciously revealed more about themselves, their moral sentiment, and their preferences and prejudices than Tacitus. He is quite bitter and is far from being impartial, as he himself tells us later: by My labours are circumscribed and inglorious; peace wholly unbroken or but slightly disturbed, dismal misery in the capital, an emperor careless about the enlargement of the empire, such is my theme ... I have to present in succession the merciless biddings of a tyrant, incessant prosecutions, faithless friend ship, the ruin of innocence ... and I am everywhere confronted as wearisome monotony in my subject matter. Tiberius' language even in matters which he did not care to conceal, either from habit or nature, was always hesitating and obscure, and now that he was struggling to hide his feelings completely, it was all the more involved in uncertainty and doubt. (The Annals, p. 11) The animosity that Tiberius had for Germanicus is understandable enough. On the other hand, one wonders whether the latter's unfailing loyalty to Tiberius is as simple as Tacitus thinks. What Machiavelli says of Scipio, the same can be said of Germanicus: (The Annals, p. 162-163) Nevertheless, it is the historian's moral task, or history's highest function, "to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds." Thus, "there must be good in carefully noting and recording this period, for it is but few who have the foresight to distinguish right from wrong or what is sound from what is hurtful, while most men learn wisdom from the fortunes of others." (p. 163) With such a didactic view of history as Tacitus's, it is not surprising that he should be more interested in characrter-analysis, in the thoughts and the motives of his protaganists, and the struggles between individuals, than in social and political movements, ins ti tu tional changes, and other objective or material conditions which make possible individual rivalries among political players. This quality is apparent in his protraits of Germanicus and Tiberius. His characterizations are so consistent, the feelings, motives and thoughts Scipio had conquered, from the great reputation which his victory after so long and perilous a war had given him, from the rapidity of his actions and the popular favor which his youth, his prudence, and other remarkable virtues had won for him. All these were so great that everybody in Rome, even the magistrates, feared his influence and authority, which offended the intelligent men of Rome as an unheard of thing. (The Discourses, p. 191) Tacitus's didactic view of history leads him to paint a Manichaean (good and evil) picture of the conflict between Tiberius and Germanicus. But Tiberius's distrust was manifest even in the golden age of Rome, with the rise of Scipio. And it would be man if est in any age, however corrupt or glorious. Writing about the recent corrupt past, 8 Tacitus cannot conceal his nostalgia for the glorious days of the Roman empire: "How few were left who had seen the republic!" (p. 5) In the words of Marcellus, "I do not forget the times in which I have been born, or the form of government which our fathers and grandfathers established. I may regard with admiration an earlier period." (The History, p. 598) One cannot be in disagreement with Tacitus in one respect: the intelligibility of a historical event cannot be revealed without taking into consideration the thoughts and the motives of individual actors. The problem for the historian is to find out in what way it is possible to know the actor's thoughts and motives. Tacitus assigns speeches to his protagonists which they could not have deliv ered, motives and thoughts of which Tacitus could not have known except through conjecture. For example, according to Tacitus, Tiberius had "a mind which brooded over its resentments even though the first impulse of his displeasure had subsided." (p. 156) He explains Tiberius's final leap into cruelty and tyranny as the resu lt of the influence of Aelius Sejanus, whom he describes in the following terms: Sejanus careless and freespoken ... It was not through his craft, for it was by this very weapon that he was overthrown; it was rather from heaven's wrath against Rome, to whose welfare his elevation and his fall were alike disastrous ... He was as cringing as he was imperious; before the world he affected humility; in his heart he lusted after supremacy, for the sake of which he was sometimes lavish and luxurious, but oftener energetic and watchful, qualities quite as mischievous when hypercritically assumed for the attainment of sovereignty. (p. 144) It is reassuring that Tacitus the historian knows about heaven's wrath which naturally explains Sejanus's rise and fall. We have to conclude that his delineation of Roman personalities, his analysis of their thoughts and motives, possess far greater literary and dramatic merits than historical authenticity. Historical Method and Historical Intelligibility The problem of historical intelligibility is a large question and it goes beyond the scope of this essay. Therefore, I shall not treat the problem independently but only within the context of our discussion, namely Machiavelli's and Tacitus' respective ethics and methods. 9 + �Specifically, there are two problems which I would like to discuss. The first is what I shall call the problem of Tacitean analysis. In line with Machiavelli's maxim, according to which general matters often prove to be confusing, we shall begin with a specific example: Why did Caesar cross the river Rubicon? The very act itself, in this case Caesar's decision to cross the river, possesses a plurality of meanings which is inexhaustible (Raymond Aron, History, Truth, Liberty, "Three Forms of Historical Intelligibility" Chicago: the University of Chicago Press, I 98 5). A historical explanation of the act might conceivably take into consideration what we have called Tacitean analysis, namely the thoughts and the motives behind Caesar's decision, the subjective meanings which Caesar himself experienced and which led to his decision. But the subjectivity of another mind of a different historical epoch and of a foreign culture is complex and probably impossible to discern. How can the historian discover the subjective meanings experienced by the historical actor as distinct form true historical meanings of which the actor himself is probably unaware? One would have to consider the psychological makeup of the actor, his knowledge of the situation, his decision and actio·n within the system of values -- ethical, religious and symbolic · · of the society on culture of which he is a member. This leads us back to the formula of ends and means: within a particular historical and cultural context, what means are morally acceptable? what ends are morally desirable? This implies the application of sociological concepts to history. As such it is beyond history proper. But the application of sociology to history, sociological history, implies that we do not see the individual actor as an independent actor, but as an expression of his time: his action and decision can only be discerned within the larger political, historical and cultural context. The historian must respect facts, which means that he can only explain a historical act on the basis of what is known and what can be known. The Machiavellian historian would be justified in tracing the conflict between Caesar and Pompey back to the passing of the agrarian law, since this is what he knows. On the other hand, we argue that in principle, Tacitean analysis is impossible, since it implies a knowledge of the subjectivity of the historical actor, to whom we have no access (Perhaps psychoanalysis will give us the necessary tool, as Erik Erikson had done in Young Man Luther. I shall say no more on the subject). On the question of Tacitean analysis, it seems that the historian can only give a negative answer: one should not transfer one's motives, thoughts and moral preferences -- one's system of values -- to one's historical subject. To give a crude analogy, a writer should always aspire to tell his readers more about the subject in question than about himself. This leads us to our second problem, which has to do with value judgement. As Leo Strauss says in Natural Right and History, history, or any social science without value judgment, or as a value-free science, would be not only dull but meaningless. Here, I want to argue that value-freedom and value judgment are not the same thing, the confusion of which lead many "scientific students of society" as Strauss complains, "to be unwilling or unable to . make value-judgements." (Thoughts on Machiavelli, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I958, p. I I) As he says of Max Weber, "Weber, like every other man who ever discussed social matters in a relevant manner, could not av oid speaking of avarice, greed, unscrupulousness, vanity, devotion, sense of proportion, and similar things, i.e., making value judgments." This is true. But to bring out more explicitly the issue at stake, let us pose this question to both Strauss and Weber: in what way should value judgements be made in the fields of social science and history? Certainly, they should not be made in the sense of Tacitean analysis -transference of one's moral feelings to one's historical subject. Weber, and all of us, know that valuefreedom is an ideal and is impossible to be realized fully. Essentially, a value-free system does not prohibit value judgments. Rather, it provides a certain rigor to value judgment and the analysis of the historian or of the social scientist. In short, there is nothing to prevent the value-free historian from condemning or praising Tiberius or Germanicus -- in Strauss's words, to speak in the language of praise and blame. To give a contemporary example, instead of adhering to the battered notions of totalitarianism and democracy, French writer Rayond Aron coined the terms monopolistic and constitutional-pluralistic, tw o terms which are like a breath of fresh air to the student of modern history. The. new terms at once minimize the possibilities of disagreement by eliminating controversial and disputable vocabulary in contempory political language. This does not prevent Aron from favoring Western democracies over the Soviet state. Value-freedom is actually implicit in, and an extension of, what I have called Machiavellism as an analytical approach. I say this in the sense of the rigor which Machiavelli displays in his analysis of politics. Often, Machiavelli uses valuewords, such as humility, cruelty and cunning, as if they are value-free words. For example, in Book 3, ch. 19-21, Machiavelli considers whether it is better to rule the multitude with humanity or with severity. He arrives at the conclusion that in the case of republics, it is better to rule with humanity towards one's own citizens. In the case of monarchies, it is more appropriate to rule with severity. He is not deterred by the usual moral preference for humanity over severity, nor does he automatically choose severity as the better of the two. It is only through a lucid analysis of the two words within the context of military affaris and government that he settles the matter. Another example can be found in Book 1, ch. 5, in which he asks the following question: "As every republic is composed of nobles and people, the question arose as to whose hands it was best to confide the protection of liberty." As always, he gives historical examples, analyzes circumstances under which it is better to confide to the people. Examples of this kind abound throughout his works. Machiavelli is always lucid, reasonable, never dogmatic. If his examples are often extreme, it is because he maintains that political essences are revealed most precisely in such cases. If it is misleading to think of Machiavelli as a scientist, as someone who is free from ethical judgement, it is equally misleading to think of him as a teacher of ev ii. It is true that his writings ab oun d with value judgements, and he praises those who practised what we may call evil. However, and I think this is all -important, he does not praise the practice of evil as such, but only within the context of prudence and ability. So it is true that he teaches us to kill Brutus, Brutus' sons, and their sons until the line is exhausted. He also teaches us not to kill Brutus if we are not read y to kill his sons. Decisions must be made, actions must be carried out, all of which require prudence, ability, and courage. It is prudence, ability and courage which he praises, the practices of which may turn out to be evil. But action and thought, and their intentional and consequential good and evil, are all constituent elements of reality; they are inherent in the realm IO of politics, namely the realm of power, violence, and crime. As such, it does not help us to understand Machiavelli by calling him a teacher of evil. Those issues that are raised by Machiavelli will inevitably confront every intellectual or thinking person who participates in politics. The two ethics which we discussed are not necessarily incompatible in all situations. But they tend to be so in extreme cases -- life and death, peace and war. In such cases, we are compelled to choose: either success over moral convictions, or moral con victions over success. I have, in this essay, praised Machiavelli at the expense of Tacitus. Strauss may well be right, that we cannot see the true colour of Machiavelli's teachings because we live in the age of Machiavellism, and we are all heirs to his teachings whether we choose it or not. Nevertheless, as the unfortunate sons of Machiavelli, we should not be deterred from appreciating the morality and nobility of Tacitus, as Machiavelli himself regards Tactitus as a supreme authority. To have discovered one's calling in politics and history, to interpret this calling as a moral endeavor against evil, and to consider as its highest function the remembrance of past excellence and nobility, these by themselves constitute nobility and moral excellence. 11 • �"Grace Cotnes Somehow Violent ... Through the Wreck and the Bloodshed'' Grand Luna Love Michelle Nicoll ('91) Ned Dobner ('91) In Platonic theory, dialectical inquiry arises out of duality and is conducted by reversal. Being is attained when the false hypotheses employed in the search are destroyed to give way to a true beginning, an end to the cycle of reversal and destruction. Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy shall be viewed in terms of the dialectical search. The protagonists utilize a form of hypothesis, the decision to act. Their drive to act is rooted in a duality inherent not simply in the things they perceive but within themselves. These conflicts are between: what an individual demands of others and how he acts himself; perception of disorder and the true state of affairs; the desire for permanence and inescapability of mortality; individual and universal order; and self and others. This paper will illustrate the role of the hypotheses created for the sake of justice and self-interest and the nature of the reversals that occur within the trilogy. I will discuss the murders in order to explore the correlation between judgement and destruction and the consequences of using violence as a means to achieve justice. Specifically, the behavior of Clytaemestra and Orestes will be contrasted to explicate the synapse between suffering and wisdom, or the generation of hypotheses and the dialectical process of casting off the falseness. This comparison will support the redefinition of freedom, pride, and authentic selfhood in terms of the dialectic. Grandmother was today a blooming beauty, breathtakingly alive with the promise of new dawning and ever so alluring in her knowing mystery of unaging timelessness. Her mantle, spread in glimmering wavelets, was tossed in a tassled, fanciful, flitting expanse -- playful and at ease with such soothing sensual languor. Like a pearlescent bouncing ball, she called her tune with a voice serene and melodious, a lulling note, laden with still blooming fragrance of gardenia and first blush of morning. She whispered your name to the cloudless twilight that spread your sound to the farther seagulls soaring near the shore. And they laughed and danced in your grace, blessing the day. Blessed with a luminous shining love. The pervasive theme of the Oresteia trilogy is the rise and fall of man as not only inevitable but necessary for the eventual establishment of equilibrium. Inviolable constants govern this world: man needs to show proper respect to the gods by accepting the will of the gods, or the yoke of necessity, in a manner that is yielding and not high vaunting, and man falls when he commits an action of high daring. At some point the characters decide to strike down the proud and enact these imperatives. They judge othe rs and, in an attempt to stabilize their own world, destroy that which they see as a threat to their order. In lifting a hand to strike those who dare, the one striking dares; but the one striking has perhaps first crossed the line of daring in making a judgement. By satiating their desire for destruction the judges may seem to correct the household temporarily, but they only harm themselves. As they judge, so are they judged; as they destroy, so are they destroyed. The theme of the necessity of destruction of the proud is evident from the beginning of the trilogy. By marrying Helen, Paris disrupted not only the order within the Argive kindgom but also a greater order, the order of moral imperatives, or the "things inviolable". He fractured the established pattern of the guest-host relationship -- a theme common among other killings, for example, Atreus's killing of Thysestes' children. His great daring insured his destruction. 13 12 • �In the end the Black Spirits of Vengeance bring to obscurity him who hath prospered in unrighteousness and wear down his fortunes by reverse; and once he hath passed among them that are brought to naught, there is no more help for him. Glory in excess is fraught with peril; 'tis the lofty peak that is smitten by heaven's thunderbolt. Agamemnon functions as the thunderbolt of the gods when he seeks to destroy not only the man Paris but also the entire Trojan city for their "pride of wealth". By judging the Trojans and seeking to destroy them, he is placed in the position of pride and strength that is not equated with moral virtue but egotism and earthly power. He becomes like that which he tries to destroy. Blackmailed by the gods, he undertakes the "daring" of immolating Iphigenia so that his forces will remain strong. Ironically, it is this sacrifice, endured for the sake of his kingdom and demanded by the gods, that produces disorder within his own household and is thus one of the stimuli for his own death (or even sacrifice) at Clytaemestra's hands. However, it is not the intrinsic value of yielding to the god's dictates that is the daring element of the action; it is the manner in which he performed the action. But when he had donned the yoke of necessity, with veering of spirit, impious, unholy, unsanctified ... For mankind is embold ened by wretched delusion, counsellor of ill, primal source of woe. In this sense, it can be said that he wove his own nets of destruction. Clytaemestra perceives Agamemnon to be the creator of turbulence within the household and her life. She implies that her own internal balance was injured by his actions, saying that his long absence was not on ly a sou r ce of worr y t hat prevented her from sleeping, but also "evil and a thing of terror." He has violated her definition of the conjugal relationship and her desire for permanency by placing warfare above fami ly lif e. By sacrificing Iphigenia, Agamemnon sacrificed that which was a part of Clytaemestra and an extension of her identity. By br inging home the concubine Cassandra, he has introduced a further element of discord, a threat to the ex cl usi veness of the marriage relationship. Thus, he has reduced parts of the identities ':lytaemestra attempts to portray in front of oth ers , h er rol es as mot her an d wife. As a consequence, he damaged her sense of self hood by curbing her strength and capacity fo r control, an injury that makes her desire to lash out in passion to reestablish identity and order. Clytaemestra's passionate actions are provoked both by h er hypocritical condemnation of Agamemn on for faults that are within herself and by he r blame of him fo r actions that she herself has imitated. Clytaemestra plays out the role of faithful wife when greeting her husband upon his return from the war, yet she criticizes him for not appearing as he is. Ref erring to his "hateful [disguise] in seeming tenderness," she more accurately comments on herself than on him. She perhaps carries out the acting of her role to excess, yet feels a need to destroy the excess of Agamemnon's proud warrior pose. Angered that he has brought Cassandra h ome, she has alre ady brought Aegisthus into the household. Although criticizing Agamemnon for his treatment of their daughter, she later sends their son into exile. Clytaemestra th us does not live by the patterns she demands of others, but places herself outside the sphere of moral imperatives by which she judges others. Seeing herself above the order she would have others uphold, Clytaemestra raises her estimation of herself to that of a god. Indeed, she claims to serve as an agent of a god by taking it upon herself to "set aright what fate ordained," that "he who long time ago was great, throbbing with gigantic strength, shall be as if never were, unspoken." She plays many roles both before and after the slayings: dutiful mother, faithful wife, hostess, mu rd eress, judge, prosecutor. In this way, she creates and continually recreates selves and identities, thereby approaching the function of a god. Through the actions undertaken during the fulfill ment of these r oles, she repeatedly reasserts the importa nce of herself as a standard by which to measure others as though she were an absolute value. She is able neither to discern the difference between herself and an absolute standard of justice nor to temper passionate reac tions with objective delibe ration. Clytaemestra does not see; she imagines. She works from a fixed premise, from a need to view things acco r ding to a preconceived notion. The Agamemnon she sees in the chariot must be made to concord with her image of him, for it is necessary that she justify her actions based on her judgement, such as her relationship with Aegisthus. In laying down the carpet, Clytaemestra furnishes the means by which Agamemnon can visibly uphold his image as the proud warrior who must be shaken down. She sees that as he tramples down the carpets, so has he trampled down wid er moral imper atives because·he is so proud. (Later, she refers to the "rage and strength" of Cassand r a as r eason fo r her elimination.) She creates a situa tjon in order to evoke a specific response from him, allowing him no opportunity to act differently than her plans for him. He even protests walking on the carpets, yet she persuades him because it is her will that he do so. He has become a vehicle for the enactment of her imagination, an object to be subordinated. This is a way for her to reduce things around her to terms to which she can relate from a position of superiority and control, thus achieving part of her stru ggl e to actuali ze h er vision. To an extent, Clytaemestra depends on Agamemnon's pride to secure the reality of her imagination. She needs to say "No" to him, to refute what she would like to view as false. This scream of renunciation directed toward Agamemnon was farmed prior to her actual encounter with him. Judgement has preceded perception, a break from a logical order in which pe rception precedes judgement. She thus grants undue importance to her subjective view of her husband, placing it above considerations of fairness or rationality. Agamemnon is not granted an identity outside of Clytaemestra's private world, for she cannot separate her p rejudices about him from his reality. She views Agamemnon not as he is but as she wants him to be, encountering him as an image of her own cr eation a nd no t as a person. Her judgement does not fluctuate but has become a thing that must be upheld . In this way, she does not adapt her vision to the situation but allows her vision to shape the situation. Her perception and judgement have acqui red an undue importance; they are not simply means to ends but hav e become ends in themselves. Distortion of perception regarding the world around h er entai ls the creation of a world of her own. By inventing a situation for Agamemnon to confirm her perception of him, she shares in the formulation of his action. In this way, Clytaemestra has created her own sphere of existence, her own realm within which she provides the standards for justice and enacts her own judgements. She thus chooses isolation, the distancing of herself from the reality of others to immersion within herself and separation fr om others. T his is done not out of strength but out of fear and weakness. Her frantic need to maintain selfhood and to achieve identity and purpose by dehuman- 14 izing others arises out of a weak sense of identity. The demand for order from others is founded upon imbalances or weaknesses within herself. Her own vulnerability allowed Agamemnon undue influence in infringing upon her sense of order, and she must therefore lash back to reestablish her self hood and superiority above him through violent action. This is not actually the independence or superiority of postition that she strives for but rather dependence on others as standards to be superior to, as objects to renounce and to subject. She derives selfrighteousness and pride not from a well-founded belief in herself or in an absolute but from her need to view others as wrong. Although her pride is a building up of self, it is also a self-destruction. "Standing above the corpse, obscene as some carrion crow she sings the crippled song and is proud." Even her speech is "a clamor of pride." In committing an action of daring and thus becoming a "towering mountain," she provides for her own destruction, because the judge shall be judged and the destroyer shall be destroyed. In fact, as Orestes says when killing her, "It will be you who kills yourself. It will not be I." Furthermore, because she shares in the creation and enactment of the image for which she punishes Agamemnon, she appears to be resisting the actualization of her vision when she destroys him. Therefore, her conflict is not only between her vision and reality but also between her desire for the endurance of her vision and her tendencies toward self-destruction, her vulnerability and scramble to project the illusion of strength. Despite these conflicts, Clytaemestra has dared to impose her plan for order by harming others. She pushes aside awareness of her even tu al fall by means of faulty reasoning and a deluded sense of self-accomplishment. Confusing the immediate with the permanent, she triumphantly decl ares, " I swe pt f rom these halls th e mu r d er, the sin, and the fury ." She who has a "lust for conflict" and a tyranny of fury within the brain actually presumes to impose her sense of order while in a state of disorder herself. She has created false hypotheses: that killing Agamemnon and Cassandra will balance the order within the house and that violence is an appropriate means to protest violence. As Cassandra prophesizes, "Rescue is far a way," for Clytaemestra's act of evil will only breed similar acts of evil. By shedding the blood of others, Clytaemestra does not set the course of the house straight but bends it to further destruc- 15 • �tion. She has set a pattern of judgement a nd destruction in which bloodshed is piled upon bloodshed. Oddly, she achieves a t ype of permanence, although it is not the perma nence that she envisions. Such inaccuracy of vision and lack of realism about her actions is further evident when she sends an envoy to pour libations on the grave of Agamemnon. Ostensibly, this movement is toward repentance or sincere grief. In truth, she designs this token gesture out of self-interest, "to ward off ill...", indicating some concern regarding appeasement of the gods and a measure of respect, eve n f ear, fo r th eir power. However, be ca use she does not sorrow sincerely and openly, she merely effects a ''graceless grace" and not "the blessing of tears worked soberly from a true heart." Hindered by the burden of her pride and her immersion in her own private system, she cannot see the ramif ications of what she has done to perceive her true distance from the realm of the divine. Her offering is "too small for the act done" because she cannot show remorse. Instead of proving her deference to the gods, she commits an action of daring. The chorus comments, "Pour out all your possessions to atone one act of blood, you waste your work, it is all useless, reason says." This illustrates how irrevocably distant from reality and rational objectivity she has become. Caught in a web of her own manufacture, she has become so enmeshed within her system that she cannot see beyond it, as her portrayal as a shadow in Eumenides shows. Despite the suffering she has undergone and her construction of hypotheses, she has not achieved wisdom because she cannot see beyond herself to cast off the falseness and reach a true beginning. Electra and Orestes react to the duality and excessive elements exhibited by their mother in a manner similar to that in which Clytaemestra deplored th e disru ptive eff ect of Agamemn on's actions on the household. Both children and mother sense the need for destruction in an attempt to balance the order of the house, concerning themselves largely with the violation of their personal positions. Electra, for example, asks, How shall we be lords in our house? We have been sold, and go as wanderers ... Now I am what a slave is ... while [Clytaemestra and Aegisthus] go proud and live in the high style and luxury of what [Agamemnon] worked for. Electra wants Orestes to "win [their]father's house again," seeming to have less conce r n for the i nfractio n of morality than for the immediate effects of their mother's actions. Like her mother, Elec tra is willing to sha re in a mu r der but does not wish to di e fo r it; she also feels immune to recipr ocal judgement. Orestes' motivations are not restricted to the type of blind personal reaction that may be seen in Electra and Clytaemestra. He says, "The loss of my estates wea rs ha r d on me; the thought that these my citizens, most high renowned of men ... must go subject to this brace of women." His anger toward his mother is not so much due to her violation of his identity but because of her infraction of moral imperatives; his vision transcends perception of the violation of the household order to see that civil law has been disobeyed. He kills Aegisthus for this end. His concern lies with the good of the state which has been usurped by the "twin tyrannies" that have overthrown the normal course of right. He seeks to correct his mother's "daring" saying: "You killed, and it was wrong. Now suffer wrong." Orestes seeks to correct the breach of Justice that has occurred, taking it upon himself to enact the god's dictate that those who dare to assume power for themselves, the mountains of strength, must be checked. Orestes thus acts for the sake of earthly justice as well as a higher standard of justice. He was "in the guidance sent by the god." "His hand was steered by the very daughter of Zeus; Right we call her." One senses that he is playing out the role of savior-by -violence because he "must strike and prove [his] destiny." One does not know, however, if the murders are an action he wittingly condoned, because he speaks of "spells that charmed me to such daring." The chorus' repeated mention of an O r estes "harnessed to the chariot of suffering" adds to this effect. The central image is Orestes' burden of carrying out the roles of savior and avenger: "[Clytaemestra] wrough t so, in h is bu r ial, to make his death a burden beyond your strength to carry." Orestes' role playing is minimal, however, because he has a greater range of vision concerning his action. His attitude closely resembles repentance. Immediately after he murders, he cries, "I grieve for the thing done, the death, and all our race. I have won; but my victory is soiled; it has no pride." Orestes' attitude contrasts Clytaemestra's pride and delusion about the capacity for violent action to balance disorder. Rather than cling to his need for position and identity, he transcends immersion in himself and is able to view himself and his relation to the a bsolutes with accurate vision. This is shown when he kneels a t the temple of Athena. He realistically accepts his humanity and capacity fo r erro r. Humili ty, knowledge of the consequences of his action, and sincere sorrow for the falseness he has created exempt him from the thunderbolts of Zeus. There is no need for him to be destroyed; he is merely removed from the action near the end of Eumenides. In passing from his posture of pride and judgement to that of suppliance, Orestes has enacted for himself the reversal of position necessary after an act of judgement and destruction. He does not falsely conclude that violence will end violence, but knows that in assuming a role of judgement over others he will face reciprocal judgement. He acccepts the reversal of his role from judge to that of the one being judged. Yielding to fate rather than blindly overstating his importance, he goes outside of himself fo r a standard by which to measure his actions. He says to Athena, "This is my case. Decide if it be right or wrong. I am in your hands, Where my fate falls, I shall accept." The judges that Orestes first faces are the Furies, the final storm of potential bloodshed in the house. As a matricide, Orestes supposedly has committed an act of high daring, thus violating the order of justice and incurring the Furies' wrath. Their instantaneous judgement is similar to the type of blind reaction demonstrated by Clytaemestra and Electra, although the Furies concern themselves with an order larger than that of a household -- the sphere of justice and absolutes. The Furies assume the role of those who strike down the proud and relentlessly pursue those who "assume outrage of own hand in violence." Like Clytaemestra, they demand of others standards that they do not uphold. They say, "The man who does right, free -willed, without constraint shall not lose happiness nor be wiped out with all his generation." However, they do not promote this ideal because their method encourages men to become just out off ear, not out of a love for what is just. Athena justly accuses them; "You wish to be called righteous rather then act right." Their anger has its source in their distorted perception, their hypocritical attribution to Orestes for faults in which they sha re. Their blame of Orestes is not precise; Orestes is not proud of what he has done nor is he godless, because he has acted with the approval of Apollo. By gu id ing Or estes, Apollo supposedly infringes upo n the Furies' orde red world. The Furies feel that he has sullied the temple of Athena in sheltering the matricide Orestes. They say, "He made man's way cross the place of the ways of god and blighted age-old distributions of power." (It is interesting that they are also said to disturb the sanctity of the temple.) Apollo's disruption of the temple is also see n as a personal attack. The Furies remark to Apollo, "A young god, you have ridden down the powers gr ay with age." and accuse him of "destroy[ing] the order of an elder time." Thus, the conflict between Apollo and the Furies, representatives of the young and the old generatio n, is heightened by the old order's resistance to the natural progression of the new order. In their method and in their persistent concern for the continuance of their own position, the Furies resemble the killers in the house of Atreus. They choose destruction as a means to achieve balance and maintain order as they see fit, while not actually being in order themselves. They are an "unlyric threnody" that attempts to create harmony while in a state of disharmony. Although they preach to others that it is unfavorable to have a tyranny within oneself, they are victims of their desire for revenge and bloodshed. The hypocrisy continues: they would overthrow the houses of others yet not have their own house, the House of Justice, overthrown. Like the other killers, the Furies aim to strike down the proud but in doing so become proud themselves. Their reiterations about "my old rights" and their indignation and refusal to accept the natural progression from the old order into the new merely highlight the fact that they have become that which they wish to destroy -- the proud and the disturbers of order. The outcome of the trial of Orestes determines which order shall be validated. When the verdict is given , the Fu r ies a ga i n reac t in the mien of Clytaemestra and Electra; for their concern is voiced in terms of "me" -- my order, my rights, my Although they would appear to be position. indomitable destroyers, they display a vulnerability to overthrow: "I, the mind of the past, to be driven under ground, out cast, like dirt! They have wiped me out and the hard hands of the gods and their treacheries have taken my old rights away." The Fu r ies would do well to listen to their own words: "The all is bigger than you." It seems that they must realize the necessity of adapting to the changing nature of things, rather than attempting 17 16 • �to derive function and permanence by continuing the house of Atreus's cycle of judgement and destruction through violence, ruin heaped upon ruin. By clinging to their identity and personal system (or "hypotheses"), the Furies show that they are one in the series of false hypotheses that must be "cast out" or "be stilled to sleep, be done with." The silencing of the Furies is only a silencing of their hatred and not their utter destruction: they are allowed to decide their transformation for themselves. Ostensibly realizing that destruction is not the means to grace, they say: "Let there blow no wind that wrecks the trees. I pronounce the words of grace... let no barren deadly sickness creep and kill." "Civil war fattening on men's ruin shall not thunder in our city ... Let them render grace for grace. Let love be their common will. Let them hate with a single heart." They let go of their concepts of violent vindiction for violent crimes in favor of notions of grace and peaceful justice. It is unclear whether their conversion has been made out of fear of Zeus's thunderbolts or a true vision of themselves and their false hypotheses. It is fitting, howevr, and part of the pattern of reversals throughout the trilogy, that the ones who have spurned others to justice by instilling fear are themselves brought to justice by this method. As they have treated others, so are they treated. By presenting the Furies with an alternative to hateful wrath and an opportunity to take a place in the new order, Athena harmoniously assimilates their old order into the new order of Athenian justice. She accomplishes this without either the violence or the bloodshed that requires more blood to be spilt. Before the trial she says: The matter is too big for any mortal man who thinks he can judge it. Even I have not the right to analyse cases of murder where wrath's edge is sharp ... Since the burden of the case is here, and rests on me, I shall select judges of manslaughter, and swear them in, and establish a court into all time to come. Thus I advise my citizens to govern and grace, and not to cast fear utterly from your city. Be ca use she defers to reason and is able both to yield and to assert her authority, Athena shows that she has acheived freedom. She projects an identity that lacks pride and does not depend on the violent subjugation of others. She is not immersed in her role and does not need to remain in a position of superiority separate from others. Athena can say to the Furies, "Put to sleep the bitter strength in the 18 black wave and live with me and share my pride of worship." The new system that Athena establishes puts an end both to the hasty reactions to the actions of another and to the hypocrisy which characterized the judgements of the Atreiadae killers. Enactment of justice becomes more than a personal attack on someone who is seen as having violated the world of another or the order of the household. The "me" voice of pride is dissipated; rationality has replaced the subjective reactions of soul in conflict. Because the judges are a plurality rather than a singularity, the element of personal vendetta and attacks ad hominem will be subdued. Prosecution will be based on evidence that is not generated by the ones judging. Emphasis in the new court will be placed upon objective analysis and deliberation combined with the subjective judgement of the jury. This harmonious incorporation of the old with the new and the elimination of the majority of the false elements allows for permanency, a tribunal established "into all time to come." Justice has become more than an exchange of wrong for wrong; it is also an exchange of good for good. "For good things given, your hearts' desire be for good to return." A state of grace has been brought about through the wreck and the bloodshed of the house of Atreus. This is said to be brought about by Zeus, "all through Zeus, Zeus, first cause, prime mover. For what thing without Zeus is done among mortals? What is here without god's blessing?" Like the dialectical process outlined in the Republic, equilibrium is gained after a cycle of generation of hypotheses and destruction of the false hypotheses. The false elements in the household have been cleansed and purified through deliberation and reason, not passionate destruction. Thus, "With well-measured cast, caution [has heaved] over boa r d a po r tion of th e gathered wealth, the whole house, with woe overladen, doth not founder nor doth it engulf the hull." It is an earthly sort of grace, not to be confused with the absolute state of wisdom and grace that is attained by the most complete dialectical search, one which necessitates separation from the corporeal world. In dialectical terms, the leap between suffering and wisdom, or disorder and the attainment of equilibrium, is the casting off of the false hypotheses. The characters' progression from the formulation of hypotheses to wisdom is impeded by their resistance to what necessity has dictated. In a sense, they resis t limitations inherent in thei r human condition, seeking to overcome mortali ty by resisting the inevitability of their fall. Their struggle to establish identity depends upon their subjugation of others under the guise of exacting justice according to inmperatives which they violate themselves. Thus they necessitate their own destruction by confusing their ends, the enactment of the god's will, with the means they use to attain that end, the immersion in selfhood and personal vision. This pride can be viewed as a clinging or enslavement to the false hypotheses. What, then, is freedom in terms of the dialectic? Freedom entails self-knowledge, knowledge of one's placement with respect to the gods, accurate assessments of reality, and the realization that, as a human, what one does is necessarily imprecise and does not reflect the absolute. Freedom means holding onto one's own as much as it leads one to the good. It also entails yielding or letting go of selfhood and the actions, or hypotheses, one has created. One cannot decide fate but one can decide the manner in which one encounters it. All of this necessitates acceptance of one's humanity and of one's limited capacity to achieve permanence. It also involves a form of knowledge of self that necessitates viewing what one has done and the false hypotheses one has made, and accepting that one has chosen to act in a certain way that one may regret for its falseness. Regret cannot consist only of a "me" voice -- "I have suffered, I have accepted the yoke of necessity, I cannot bear what I have done, I have borne what cannot be borne." One must progress form this state of regret and shame to place oneself in a larger context; one must look beyond oneself to one's relationship with a higher power. This involves supplication, a voluntary reversal of the position of pride that one has put oneself in. Thus the synapse between suffering and wisdom is bridged through repentance. Repentance is a form of rendering an account of what one has done; it is a transcendence of the limitations inherent in the human condition because it is a realization of those limitations. Through humility and acknowledgement of one's position with respect to the gods, true identity is reached instead of the separation from oneness that occurs due to pride and concern fo r eart hly identity. Thus the self is truly elevated through kneeling, an action that is a posture of lowering. Fullest actualization of identity is found by an apparent abandoning of that identity. Afterword The idea for this essay began when the violence in the Clouds reminded me of the violence of the dialectic (for example, the destruction of the false hypotheses in the Republic, the renunciation of the body in the Phaedo, the sting-ray quality of the Socratic method.) Other themes from the tragedies seemed to support a discussion of tragedy in the terms of philosophy, such as: the relationship between violence and false reasoning; cycles of judgement, violence, hypocrisy, pride, and selfabnegation; fate, will, responsibility, and punishment; the boundary between ambition and tryin g to reach the good and arrogance; the separation of mortals from the realm of the divine; the attempt to escape mortal conditions and the rejection of Necessity. I saw a way to understand the tragedies in terms of the dialectic, choosing the Oresteia as the most complete vehicle for the discussion of this correlation. It was then my intention to understand the Platonic dialogues as tragedies and Socrates in the terms of a tragic character who judges and destroys others (the Sophists, the poets) although being somewhat similar to them himself, then renounces necessity (rejection of the body in Phaedo, when both soul and body pass under the throne of Necessity in the Republic), and thus necessitates his own destruction, becoming like that which he tries to destroy, just as the characters in Oresteia. It would be interesting to discuss the Sacra tic method in terms of a false hypothesis that must be destroyed because of its emphasis on discursive reasoning at the cost of poetry, and then introduce to Christianity as the hypothesis which supplants it. Such was my intention. The constraint of time and the magnitude of the task prevented me from completing this project. One final note. The human characteristics I have discussed as protrayed in the Oresteia are by no means exclusive to the nightmarish world of Aeschylean tragedy; I believe there is a trace of Clytaemestra in all of us. •All citations are from the Richmond Lattimore translation, with a few from Smyth's. The passages ref erred to from the Re public are: 5 lOb, 511 b, 524d525a. 19 �importance of intellect to ourselves and those around us. Though admiration and love are frequently found together, they are, and must remain, independent of one another. Maybe a friendship suffered because you expected your friend to be a better person than he or she was. And this is certainly understandable. But not everything has to be made of gold -- silver, too, has its value. Or was it that you expected too little from your friends? You were content simply to be "sociable," to rub against one another in order to create the illusion of intimacy and contact, as if this was all one could hope for from others. But like any improper use of your spiritual energy, such activity often left you merely exhausted, and no richer than before. By "socializing" you hoped to mask your aloneness, rather than stare it in the eye. And so it is your constant companion. Maybe a friendship failed despite the attention and generosity you showed your friend. You were always around to help, to go out of your way, to give to him or her, but you watched confused as the friendship seemed to slip away. Maybe your generosity was meant to exact a debt, and thereby to bind the other to you. But even if this was not the case, it is still more important and more difficult to be able to receive a gift generously than it is t o make a hundred sacrifices. More is done to help a friendship by receiving a gift in a way that graciously returns it to the giver than by any amount of giving we might do ourselves. I know this may at first sound paradoxical, but hasn't it been your own experience that in living, healthy friendships, each friend is always finding new ways to all ow the other to give? And then there have been those potential friendships, where you knew the seeds were present, and all you had to do was scratch the soil a little, and you didn't, because busyness and distracti~ns had made you r h ea r t rou gh and ra gged. Even today many of you, I'm sure, can think of people you regret not havin'g gotten to know here at the College. Of course, you can't cultivate friendships with very many people, but you can be wary of dissipating your energies fruitlessly. I have myself failed others in all these ways. And what is worse I have often allowed myself to forget my former friends, making the excuse that it's difficult enough to attend to those who are a part of my life today without having to attend to memories of those who shared by life yesterday. And by forgetting, I fail them again. Class Day Address, May 21, 1988 John Verdi I was very moved to be asked to talk to you today. Many of you have been students in my classes, and I've worked closely with some of you on essays and other odds and ends over the three years since I came here from Santa Fe. I've grown fond of this class and will miss you come Monday. When I realized I'd be speaking to you in the Great Hall, I thought back to the last time I stood here, about a year ago, when I was married. The words I spoke then were a public declaration of the most important friendship in my life, and of my hope for and commitment to its future. Today, however, before you all leave St. John's, I want to talk to you about how friendships die, not exactly a subject filled with humor and optimism. Maybe I chose this topic because of the way I've been feeling lately, knowing that our life together will soon be finished. It's also the case that a few days ago marked the third anniversary of the death of someone who had been my friend for over twenty years. Our friendship had very rough times, and it was only during the last year, after we knew he was to die of a particularly painful and insidious disease, that we drew inseparably close. Thinking of him invariably forces me to confront the numerous ways in which my friendships have failed , and to accept the bitter irony of my relationship with him, which was rescued only by the imminence of death. I also want to urge on you that we must do everything we can to keep friendships alive, but that, even after we have exerted the greatest efforts, if we find we have failed, we must discover ways to mourn the death of a friendship just as we would the death of a friend. During your years at St. John's you've lived and worked in a community with people your own age, who have shared many of your interests and enthusiasms. In such surroundings friendships flourish, for friendships are founded on and nourished by common activity, even more so than by common ideas and sentiments. But even in this most fertile of environments, you have witnessed the death of friendships. Sometimes you were yourself involved, and other times you watched from a distance. In either case what happened was upsetting to see, for it laid bare the fragility of human relationships. I want to tell you what I think just a few of the causes are for such failures, and you can then get some idea of how you might try to prevent them. And I know that by speaking in this way, I am revealing to you more about myself than a bout friendship. Perhaps you didn't cultivate that kind of humility which ought to come from the awareness that other people care about you. Instead you wished to be admired as well as loved by your friends. And when you were not, you were disappointed and hardened your heart to them. But we must always seek to allow ourselves to be loved without being admired, which for many of us at St. John's is extremely difficult, aware as we are of the 20 I have known many of you who are sitting here. Some of you I have known for two or three years, and some longer. I know too that you are about to leave people who have been dear to you for a long time. Perhaps you've promised to write one another letters, and that is a very good thing. But we write letters as much to ourselves as to our friends. The written word does not foster friendship. At best it sustains it until that time when friends can see each other again face to face. After you leave St. John's, try to be physically present to your friends as much as possible. Exert yourself to see them and to talk with them. And though no human being is a permanent source of happiness to another, still the love of our friends and families is the most divine gift we can be given. It alone, if anything, gives meaning to our lives. And above all, as St. Theresa of Avila says, "Never grow weary of receiving". I want to leave you with a Neapolitan proverb my mother taught me. It goes like this: "Piu lundana du cammina, a cha d'aspetta." That means, "No matter how far you walk, I'll wait for you here." 11 21 • �seems to me that everyone can clearly recognize the human suffering depicted there. If a dialogue can be established between the tragedian and the philosopher, then perhaps it can be seen that they are talking about the same questions in different ways. The body of the essay will come in three sections, on Euripides, Kant, and Hegel, and in that order. Besides the obvious historical considerations, there is another reason for proceeding in this order. Perhaps it is not giving away too much of the argument if I announce here that this progression is one of gradually increasing optimism about the possibility of human tran scendence. Euripides' vision is almost unrelentingly dark; Kant's is guardedly optimistic; and Hegel's is almost grotesquely cheerful. Yet, as will be seen, these three transcendent writers sha re much in their visions of the nature and possibility of human transcendence. Tragedy, Philosphy, Co111edy: a vision of transcendence in Euripides, Kant, and Hegel Michael McShane ('88) Nothing, however, can continue to give us pleasure always, because our natures are not simple, but contain a second element (which is what makes us perishable beings), and consequently, whenever one of those two natures is active its activity runs counter to the nature of the other, while when the two are balanced, their activity feels neither painful nor pleasant. Since if any man had a simple nature, the same activity would afford him the greatest pleasure always. Hence god enjoys single simple pleasure perpetually. For there is not only an activity of motion, there is an activity of immobility, and there is essentially a truer pleasure in rest than in motion. But change in all things is sweet as the poet [Euripides, Orestes] says owing to some badness in us; since just as a changeable man is bad, so also is a nature that needs change; for it is not simple nor good. Nonescapist Nonfiction: Tragedy and Transcendence in Euripides' Hippolytus Nicomachean Ethics Then if this most perfect mastership and most perfect knowledge are in the god's world, the gods' mastership can never be exercised over us, nor their knowledge know us or anything in our world. Just as we do not rule over them by virtue of rule as it exists in our world and we know nothing that is divining by our knowledge, so they, on the same principle, being gods, are not our masters nor do they know anything of human concerns. Nor ought we to obey those who enjoin that a man should have a man's thoughts and a mortal the thought of mortality, but we ought, so far as possible to achieve immortality, and do all that a man may to live in accordance with the highest thing in him; for though this be small in bulk, in power and value it far surpasses all the rest. But surely, said Socrates, to deprive the gods of knowledge would be monstrous. Parmenides l 34d-e Nicomachean Ethics Introduction This paper will discuss arid criticize the treatment of the theme of human transcendence as it appears in certain works by Euripides, Kant and Hegel. Specifically, it will focus upon the problem of the human suffering of "external" conditions, and the possibility of transcending those conditions. Now "transcendence" is a big word and its sense is not immediately obvious. The term is loaded with heavy connotations, both metaphysical and theological. Yet, I will argue that in the form of such things as forgiveness, learning, and maturation, a limited form of transcendence is certainly present in the everyday world. Since, then, the meaning of "transcendence" is itself at stake in this paper, I hope I can be forgiven for not giving a precise definition of it here. If the essay is successful, the significance of the concept will emerge more clearly as the paper progresses. In more than one tragedy, Euripides has his choruses deliver speeches such as this one from the Hippolytus: One thing should be discussed in advance, however; even though this paper will pay much attention to the writings of Kant and Hegel, it is not about "philosophy" in any narrow sense. This essay will constantly run the risk of losing itself in the intricacies of highly abstract philosophical arguments, but its subject matter actually concerns questions of concrete human suffering -- matters close to everyone's real life in the real world. If this essay succeeds, then, it will be because discussions of the "transcendental unity of apperception" or of "Absolute Spirit" will have revealed something recognizable about the problematic nature of human identity. In fact, one subsidia ry goal of this paper is to try to show how I understand philosophy itself as being a part of the real human world. It is partially for this reason that I have chosen to write about the tragedy of Hippolytus. For it 0 to escape and lurk high under Steep crags, At the touch of a god to rise, A wing'd bird among flying flocks! To soar over the swell of the Adrian coast, Above the waters of Eridanos Where, in lament for Phaethon, His sisters drop their piteous tears Which glow like amber in teh dark stream; And then to reach that shore planted with Apple-trees Where the daughters of evening sing, Where the sea lord of the dark shallows Permits to sailors no further passage Establishing the solemn frontier of heaven Which Atlas guards; Where divine fountains flow beside Zeus' marriage bed, Where holy earth offers her choice fruits to enrich the blissful gods. 22 Typically, such speeches express the chorus's desire to escape altogether from the horrible scene of tragic action unfolding around it. Such speeches attract attention in a variety of ways. First, they are often among the longest sustained passages of writing in Euripides' plays. Their length affords the tragedian the op portunity to freeely display his transcendent poetic talent. Consequently, speeches of this kind often prove to be among the most beautiful in his plays. Yet, because of their length, and because of their subject matter (which is frankly escapist), such escape passages present readers with problems. I have heard it suggested, for example, that such long passages amount to little more than beautiful ornaments -- speeches that are somewhat digressive and ultimately irrelevant to the unfolding of the tragic plot. Such escape speeches can seem like selfenclosed poems, somehow adventitiously lodged in Euripides' dramas. In at least one Euripidean play, however, the question of escape and its possibility emerges as a central motivating theme. This first section of the essay will try to show how escape comes to mean transcendence in the Hippolytus. The section will examine generally the presence and significance of the human yearning for transcendence expresseed in the tragedy. Now, each of the play's major characters seeks escape from their circumstances, but Hippolytus presents this desire most clearly and selfconsciously. Thus the paper will first discuss how the theme of transcendence relates to the Nurse, Phaedra, and Theseus before focusing more closely upon Hippolytus's strivings. Finally, this section will examine the most general vision of transcendence in the Hippolytus: that of the chorus, as expressed in the passage quoted above. Now it is perhaps obvious that, wittingly or not, what all of the characters of the Hippolytus desire to flee is Fate itself. Euripides sets up the problem of fatedness in a particularly brutal way: he has Aphrodite walk on stage at the outset and simply announce (nearly) everything that will happen throughout the tragedy. The play itself then seems to be little more than a horrible repetition of the scenes she describes so coldly at its outset. The chorus summarizes the inevitable end: "The wheel has turned, disaster follows upon disaster. Fate is irresistible and there is no escape." (125 2) But to say that Fate is what all the characters desire so desperately to escape sounds a little 23 • �unsatisfying. The claim is certainly true but a little vague. Bare fate is an abstraction modern readers have difficulty with. The play does offer some help to us by providing mo re concrete ways of thinking about fate and what it would mean to try to escape it. We shall try to see more clearly how fate is expressed in the play. The escape theme first arises explicitly early in the drama. The nurse is confronted by Phaedra's mysterious suffering, and she commiserates. The nurse mourns, The whole of our life is full of pain, And sorrow finds no relief. And after this life, is there a happier world? That is concealed from us, wrapped in clouds and darkness. The truth stands plain: that we blindly love, Such as it is, our little gleam of day. For we know nothing of any other life; The world below is a mystery; And we are carried along by foolish tales. happy unless one's living friends and descendents are also content. Thus, in a tragic turn, it seems as if the only way for her to escape the trap is to entrap innocent others. Phaedra thus makes her fin al escape only by binding Theseus and Hippolytus together in a horrible maze which can only result in destruction. If it has been established that Phaedra desires to escape something, we must then ask what it is that she so desperately seeks to flee and what a successful flight would mean for her. Most immediately, Phaedra desires to escape a fate that expresses itself in her passion for Hippolytus. That passion exists inside her but it is an alien thing: she did not desire it, did not encourage it, and indeed sought to repress it. In every sense Phaedra's fateful love for her son was a passion which she suffered and before which she was nearly powerless. She desired to escape it and could not. Another expression of fate as an external controlling force for Phaedra concerns her family his tory. Interrogated by her nurse as to the root of her problems, Phaedra mentions her mother, who had a "craving for the bull." (322) Then she in vo kes her siste r "whom Dionysus loved." The nurse asks, "Why raise these evil memories of your family?" Phaedra responds, "I am the third, the curse that struck them now kills me." And she conc ludes, "My wretched fate began with them; it is not new." Thus we see that Phaedra desires to esca pe the history of her own family. Like her passio n, her family is something which is both inside her and outside her, both her and not her. It represents something which confronts her from the outsid e; she can have no control over the things wh ich happened in her family's past. Yet her family histor y somehow fo r ms and predestines her inner nature. Finally, it is because of her family's future in the shape of her sons that Phaedra cannot simply 'escape to oblivion,' but must entrap Hippolytus. Phaed ra's understanding of family history or fa tedn ess is also conveyed by her discussion of wha t will happen to her own sons if she die s dis honored: the nurse's escape vision, Phaedra's desire for escape is expressed not in terms of some future time or otherworldly place, but instead in terms of a nostalgia for pleasant places and activities that Phaedra has known. If Phaedra's and the Nurse's escape fantasies differ in terms of past and future orientation, however, they are united by a common yearning for absent times and places. Also, it should be noted that Phaedra's three nostalgic dr eams (of the wild place by the fountains, the sport of hunting and horse racing) share an element off ertile purity. All three are unstained by human social intrigue. But for Phaedra the op portun ity to dream of escape from an unbearable present through nostalgia for past places and pleasures soon proves to be an unsustainable luxury. As soon as her nurse, unbidden, reveals Phaedra's obsession to Hippolytus, Phaedra's dreams of escape turn again to a terrible future: (187) 'Chorus: This passage treats a specific kind of escape from the pain of the world -- that is, an escape to a happier world after death. The nurse is characteristically pessimistic here. She seems to entertain the idea of a happy afterlife and to long for it, but only briefly; then she dismisses the possibility of such an escape as being merely "foolish tales." The interest in an escape to an afterworld here is not accidental, for the nurse is addressing the deathly sick Phaedra who has strong inclinations toward such an escape route. Phaedra herself expresses her desire to escape her present -- although unidentified -suffering in a series of fantastic speeches immediately following the nurse's meditation upon suffering and the afterlife. Phaedra here gives three short speeches: the first one expresses a desire "to k neel by a fo untain in the fre sh dew and drink a cupful of clear water!" (218-231) The second takes the form of a rhetorical command to her followers to "take me out to the hills!" where she "longs" to hunt deer. This "command" is merely the expression of a longing, not a real order, for it is obvious to all concerned that the sick Phaedra is in no shape to go anywhere. Phaedra's third speech expresses an equally unrealistic desire to ride race horses on a race-track. Although both Phaedra and her nurse conclude that these escapist speeches expose Phaedra's madness, they do have significant content. Unlike Phaedra: What then?: Do you see any way out? What will you do? I know only one thing, that death must End this torture as soon as possible. There's no other remedy. (599) It is significan t tha t once Phaedra's conf ession-by-proxy has occurred, and her incestuous appeal to H ippolytus rejected, ther e is no longer any ques tion of escaping to something. Phaedra no longer dreams of better places or times to which she might flee. Moreover, in desiring death, Phaedra does not speak of an afterlife such as the one her nu rse speculated about before. Instead death re presents to her only a n escape from an intolerable r eality, an escape into oblivion. By now, mortal escape itself has become merely the least bleak possibility for her. Moreover, matters become even worse f or Phaedra. She recognizes that even her death will not release her and hers form the labyrinthine ramifications of her situation. Once Hippolytus has announced that he does not consider himself bound by the oath of silence "sworn only by his tongue," Phaedra is in deep trouble. For she then realizes that not even her death can salvage her reputation and the reputations of her sons. In order for her to obtain their excape too, she must implicate Hippolytus himself. Phaedra sees the terrible wisdom of the claim that Aristotle makes in the Ethics that even after death one cannot be I want my two sons to go back and live in glorious Athens, hold their heads high there and speak their mind like free men, honored for their mother's name. One thing can make the most bold spirited man a slave : to know the secret of a parent's shameful act. ( 421) 24 Here again we see the aspect of fate ensla ving people by means of pregiven conditi ons over which they have no control. Phaedra's dreadf ul fam ily history in some way leads to her own destru ction, which in turn will enslave her sons. Is there any reaso n to hope fo r an end to the se fa ted fa milial chains of destructi on? One of the most horri fying aspects of this tragedy is the potentially infi ni te reach of its horror. We shall see thi s theme of infinite horr or recur later in the play. A final conditi on which Phaedra desires to escape is her femininity. In one speech Phaedra says, "I was a woman -- a thing hated by ever yone." (95) In an other place she exclaims, "How cruel a curse it is to be born a woman. Wh o wou ld not pity us? What shift, what resource ha ve we, what words, once we have stumbled, to und o a knot a word has tied?" (667 ) Phaedra recognizes her femininit y as another pregiven condition which someh ow re nd ers her powerless. Again, we see that Fate is somet hi ng which confronts the sufferer as on the one hand someth ing which is external a nd unchosen, bu t on the other hand is something wh ich cond itions her inner nature. In the play Phaedra cannot esca pe the feminine aspect of her fate an y more t han she can flee her passion or her fami ly histor y. But the nurse and Phaedra are not the only charcaters of the Hippolytus wh o dre am of flight. Theseus, too, is moti vated by a desi re to escape his conditions. Now Theseus ha s had a ver y checkered career. On the one ha nd, he has been a grea t hero, killing mo nsters, ba nd its, etc. On the other , he has been a noto riously faithless man , given to deceit, ra pe, murd er. Theseus's ma r riage to Phaedra is founde d upon such cri minality; he married her only afte r marooning his savio r, her siste r, Ariadne. During the pla y, an d throughou t his life, one of Theseus's ma jor charac teristics is his absence from home. It seems reasonable to inf er that Theseus leaves his home so often because he is ashamed of what it rep resents to him -- that is, his past, with its hauntin g viciousness. In fac t, Theseus's very presen ce in tra gic T roe ze n came about as part of a plan to a tone fo r his past criminal bloodletting. (Aton ement is a ki nd of esca pe. ) In general, T heseus desi res to escape the ongoing ramifications " f rom sin commi tted in time lon g past." (8 31) After reading Pha edra 's letter cha rging his son with raping her, he cries, "I am crushed; wh ere can I esca pe?" (87 4) 25 • I I I �As in the case of Phaedra, Theseus's attempt to escape the conditions he suffers leads him into trapping others. Theseus wants to escape from the contaminated presence of his son, who he believes has defiled his wife and home. Yet, because Theseus is king, he believes he can make good his escape without actually having to flee himself. Theseus believes he has power so he attempts to secure his own escape not by leaving his surroundings but by making them leave him. Hence, he banishes and curses Hippolytus, thus ensuring the horrible death of his own son. At the moment Theseus banishes Hippolytus, this significant exchange takes place: Hippolytus: Theseus: If you were my son, I your father, I would not Have corrected you with exile, I'd Have seen you dead if you'd thought fit To lay a finger on my wife. Your words are worthy of you! You shall not die that way-According to a law you've laid down For yourself. Many an outcast would Be glad of a quick death. No, you shall Wander exiled from your native land And drain on alien soil the bitter lees of life. (1074) As father and king, Theseus is in the position to condition others. Here Theseus asserts the dependence or conditioned nature of his son vis a vis him. In attempting to preserve his own power and freedom while actively escaping his surroundings, Theseus necessarily must deny freedom to his son. The key sentence in the exchange is: "You shall not die that way -- according to a law you've laid down for yourself." Here we find Theseus denying his son's autonomy. And, as we shall see, autonomy here is defined almost exactly as Kant and Hegel will define it centuries later: as obeying laws laid down by oneself for oneself. To be autonomous is to be unconditioned by alien powers. We have thus far examined the escape dreams of the Nurse, Phaedra and Theseus. Let us collect their common elements and try to reach a conclusion about fatedness, escape and transcendence before turning to see how these issues are involved in Hippolytus' story. First, it should be noted that while abstract Fate is a concept difficult for readers to grasp today, the play certainly provides a more concrete way to understand fatedness. For surely the idea of someone being radically conditioned -- or fated -- by their gender, political environment, passions, acter is his longing to escape the necessity of honoring "a god worshipped at night" (108) -Aphrodite. Jealously, the goddess describes how Hippolytus "abhors the bed of love; marriage he renounces." (13) It is clear that in attempting to reject these things -- which he regards as impure - Hippolytus is attempting to flee his own sexuality. Surely Hippolytus suffers from a hatred of something in himself -- or at least one of his selves. Yet, in Hippolytus's case, his disdain for his own sexuality issues in a hatred for something seemingly external to him -- women. Outrageously, Hippolytus rails at Zeus for having "established in the sunlit world this counterf cit coin, woman, to curse the human race." ( 617) "Women," he concludes, "it seems are always evil." (695) They are the ones responsible for his lack of freedom. Hippolytus expresses a desperate desire to escape half the human race and enter into a fantastic scenario in which men buy their children instead of requiring women for conception. Again, one wonders whether the feminine is as contingent and external t o Hippolytus's soul as he might believe. A third conditioning factor that Hippolytus desires to flee is the political realm. He says to his father and king, Theseus, personal past or family history, does not sound foreign to modern ears. Each of these conditioning factors seems to come with its own set of laws and determinations. These laws themselves deny the autonomy of the characters, and together they dictate the inescapable Fate of each character in the Hippolytus. If it is established that the characters of the Hippolytus desire to escape such fateful conditions, it then becomes appropriate to examine the relationship between escape and transcendence, the theme of this essay. Certainly not all escapes are examples of transcendence. For instance, if a rock is about to fall on your head and you step ou t of the way and thus escape the rock, it is not appropriate to say that you have thereby "transcended" it. This is because the rock represents a force entirely external to its prospective victim. In the case of the characters of the Hippolytus, however, things are different. They all desire to escape conditions which are in one sense external -- otherwise they would not be perceived as escapable conditions. But in another sense these conditions are internal to the identities of the people who wish to escape them. (To varying degrees, such conditions as gender, passions, personal and family history, political environment, etc., all work to inform the inner nature of the characters who suffer them.) An escape from conditions such as these -- with their ambivalent interior / exterior status -- represents transcendence. From these considerations two related things follow which shall remain important throughout the whole of this essay. The first is that to speak of transcendence implies the overcoming of something internal to the identity of the person who transcends. Another way to put this is to say that often freedom for self becomes freedom from sel f. This consideration leads to the second critical conclusion: Assuming that one's identity in some way remains constant, the transcending self has been internally split. For one aspect of the self transcends; the other is transcended. The identity of these two selves, and their possible relati onship, will become a thematic question for this essay as a whole. Let us now turn to the central character of Euripides' drama, Hippolytus himself. Like the other characters, Hippolytus desires to escape -- or transcend -- a variety of conditions. The most immediately obvious aspect of Hippolytus's char- Do you think a throne carries attraction For a balanced mind? None; since to feel delight in kingship is to be Corrupted by it. No, my wish is to come first In Greek games, in politics to take second place, Secure in happiness, with the noblest of my friends. (1013) By contrast to Phaedra's desperate death wish into oblivion, we see in each instance of Hippolytus's escapism the dual aspect of an escape from something he fears to something he loves. He wishes to flee from Aphrodite to Artemis and the activities she sanctions, such as hunting and riding. (Like Phaedra, Hippolytus seems to be motivated here by a desire for a kind of pureness or innocence he believes to characterize the wild natural world.) He wishes to flee from politics and Athens to Greek games, his noblest friends, and Troezen; he wishes to flee from the presence of women to a fictional world in which the feminine never existed. In each case, Hippolytus dreams of retreating from a realm that is characteristically human; and as the play's ending reveals, in each case his bid to gain freedom from these human realms fails. We will return later to the question concerning the general nature of the realm Hippolytus desires to fly to. Hippolytus's wish to transcend his political and sexual nature can plausibly be traced to his ambivalent attitude toward his nearly-alwaysabsent father, Theseus. As mentioned above, Theseus's history of dealing with women and with his own sexuality is not exactly savory. He is said to have raped Helen when she was thirteen, for example. Hippolytus himself was generated as a result of an illicit affair between Theseus and the Queen of the Amazons, whom he also raped. On the other hand, Theseus is justly famous for his heroic deeds. He is widely recognized as Hercules' successor. Also, he is a great and powerful political figure. [For a fascinating and illuminating account of Theseus's past, see Plutarch's Life of Theseus.] Against the overwhelming background of his father's history, it is Hippolytus's problem to try to establish his own identity. For all sons, paternity itself represents a kind of determining condition. Again, the inside / outside problem arises: Fathers externally pre-exist sons. They first cause their sons and then literally rule them for many formative years. Genetically and psychologically speaking, fathers pass on much of their own identities to their offspring. Thus, like other conditions mentioned previously, all fathers both internally and externally ground the identities of their sons. For Hippolytus, however, this problem is particularly acute, for his father is a much more intruding figure than most. Hence, Hippolytus's rejection of sexuality and politics can be seen as an attempt to transcend the conditioning of his father's past and thereby to establish his own autonomous identity. The stakes are high for Hippolytus (as for all sons) in this connection; if he cannot ground his own identity in himself, then it could regress from him infinitely. In this case, Theseus cannot provide solid ground in either a moral or a theoretical sense. For Theseus, although father, is also himself the son of a father who was a son, etc. Thus, if Hippolytus tries to discover his identity in the identity of Theseus, his quest will be thrown back by an ineluctable logic -- through all of genealogical time. [N.b.: The problem of the infinitely regressing identity is not unique to Hippolytus; it is common to all sons, children and finite entities in general. This problem will emerge thematically in the Hegel section of this paper.] The fin al and most general kind of condition that Hippolytus desires to escape concerns his 27 26 .. �mortal law-boundedness. This is shown at the beginning of the play, when his servant is trying to persuade Hippolytus to recognize Aphrodite. He asks Hippol ytus if he knows "an old law laid down for mortal men." Hippolytus responds, "I don't ..." (91) The argument concludes with Hippolytus claiming that "since gods may choose whom they will honor, so may men." (88) With the question of mortal law and fate versus an escape to autonomy, we can see the most general form of Hippolytus's desire for transcendence. Hippolytus wants to govern himself as he sees fit. He desires to escape the laws imposed upon him (as he sees it) from outside which condition his mortal nature. Now these "laws laid down for mortal men" include the determinations inherent in all the previously mentioned conditions that Hippolytus wants to transcend, but they go mu ch fu rt h er. F or Hippolytus is nothing if not an ambi t io us f ell ow. In order to get a sense of how radical Hippolytus's desire for transcendence is, let us examine what he says about how he believes he will (has) tran scend( ed) these "laws laid down for mortal men." In his second speech of the play, Hippolytus addresses Artemis directly and announces: Goddess, for you I have twined this crown of flowers, gathered Fresh from a virgin meadow, where no shepherd dares To graze his flock, nor ever yet the scythe swept, But bees thread the spring air over the maiden meadow. There with clear stream-water Chastity tends the flowers; And those whose untaught nature holiness claims entire May Gather garlands there; and the impure may ~ot. Dear mistress, take this circlet for your golden hair, Offered with reverent hand. I alone among mortals Enjoy this honor, I am your companion, speak with you And hear your voice, only your face I do not see. And as my life's course has begun, so may it end. (78) This is a very important speech and it contains many important aspects of Hippolytus's dream of transcendence. First is his most striking claim that he is the companion of Artemis, a deity. This apparently is not idle bragging, because Artemis later confirms that the two a re "friends." Now Aristotle argues that in order to be someone's friend -- or to relate to another on any level -- one must in some way stand on the same ground as that person. This would indicate that in some way Hippolytus has at least a limited aspect of the divine present within him. (As we shall see, the text bears out this indication.) "Limited" because he is not able to en joy her full friendship -- ."on ly [her ] fac~ [~e] cannot see." It is t hrough this resort to the divine -- both ins ide himself and externall y in the form of A rtem is -- that Hip polytus believes he can t ran scend the conditi ons of h is mor tality. This a r gument abou t t h e internal presence of the divine helps answer a question posed above. F or we recall that transcendence imp lies a d ual self -- one that is free to transcend and the o~ he r that is con d itioned and , one h opes, tran scended .. I n the case of H ippolytus, at least, it becomes clear that th e free and tran scendent internal self co r responds to some d ivine as pect in the huma n soul. And, in fact , the presence of two selves, one divine an d t he other empirical and conditioned, w ill become th ematic in each account of transcen d ence discussed in this essay as a whole. Let us return to Hippolytus's transcendence speech. The second question it ra.ises concern.s ~he zone in which Hippolytus's relat10n to t he divine tak es place. The "virgin meado w" is a place that is u ntouched by impure mortal s. T h is pla ce that is no human place is ch a racte r ized by an abundance of innocent n a t u ra l th in gs: bees, flowers , clear stream-wate r. For Hippolytus the move to transcendence in volves a reso r t to th e sub-human -- the natu ral -- and the super h u man -- th e divine. He wan ts to be either com plete ly fr ee, in the case of the divine or so en ti re ly conditioned that he no longer kno'ws i t or ca res, as in the case of the animalistic. It is th e mortally human lying between these two r ealms tha t h e ca nnot abide. Both extreme realms are somehow united in the figure of Artemis, the nature goddess. They are also united in the fig ure of Hippolytus himself, who possesses both an animal and a divine self. If Hippoly t us d esi res to flee human space, he also desires to flee human time. In fact, he claims to have alre a dy partially succeeded at this. One might say that the noti on of ''a lrea dy" is central here. For H ippolytus claims that thi s zone is only for those "whose untaught nat:ire .holine:s claims entir e." The thing about teachmg 1s that 1t takes time, and sufferi ng. (I n fact, Socrates argues that learning is itself a transcendence of ignorance.) Hippolytus's claim to be "untaught" then means that he has always known what he knows and thus been what he is -- partially divine. The passage ends with Hippolytus's praying that he. can always remain outside of time: "And as my hfe~s course has begun, so may it end." Of course, this prayer is emphatically not granted, at least in the ·, sense Hippolytus had in mind. Thus several important things have emerged from Hippolytus's transcendence speech. First, Hippolytus's attempt to transcend his conditioned and finite self is contingent upon a resort to atemporal and aspatial divinity, both internal and external. Second, that the "laws laid down for mortal men" which Hippolytus desires to transcend go far beyond the laws of the various external / internal conditions already mentioned, such as family history, etc. In fact, the laws Hippolytus is concerned with pertain to the most basic conditions defining him as a mortal man -- those of human spatio-temporaltiy. To desire, as Hippolytus does, to be independent of those laws is to desire the autonomy of divinity. The desire for divinity, then, is at the heart of the exchange between Hippolytus and servant that starts with Hippolytus wondering, rhetorically, "If we mortals use the same laws as the gods" and ends with him concluding that "Since gods may choose whom they will honour, so may men." The ending of tragedy suggests that, despite what he believes and prays, Hippolytus has a lot to learn and a lot to suffe r. For like all the characters of the play, his dreams of full transcendence are dashed. In light of the play's ending they appear to be exactly as the nurse diagnosed them -- mere "foolish tales." Let us then turn to the play's tragic conclusion. As it turns out, the Hippolytus has two endings. One is narrowly concerned with the destiny of Hippolytus himself and the people around him. The second ending is not an ending and could involve anyone or everyone in the world. First, what happens to Hippolytus: his death reveals a central problem inherent in Hippolytus's attempt to transcend the things that fatally condition him. His very dying itself indicates that he failed to transcend the laws of mortal human space and time. In the death scene , Euripides systematically shows the failure of Hippolytus's attempts to transcend his paternity, his political nature, "his" femininity, his sexuality. For his death was caused by his father's curse, his political exile, his (female) mother's and nurse's conspiracy, his sexual passion [as symbolized by the bull from the water and the past]. Worse, Hippolytus' death was caused by the very elements he desired to escape to -- the divine and the natural. For his death came about through the divine plotting of Aphrodite and the tacit consent of his "companion" Artemis; Hippolytus is killed by means of the natural horses he had used to escape from human society. It is ironic that the very things Hippolytus tries to escape from and to ultimately conspire to kill him. But perhaps this irony should come as no great surprise. For, as we have seen, Hippolytus tried to transcend the various conditions of his mortality by means of flatly rejecting them. But this is problematic: for Hippolytus's revolt against his conditions means a revolt against himself. Thus, in attempting to secure an identity by means of simply negating his conditions, Hippolytus in effect negated his identity; his very attempt to find himself led Hippolytus to kill himself. All of this is closely related to the central problems of transcendence: the interiority /exteriority of conditions, and the dualism of selfhood. The ending of Hippolytus is tragic; however, it is not as grim as it could be. For one possible transcendence does occur there. This transcendence involves the only major event of the play not initially predicted by Aphrodite -- Hippolytus's forgiveness of his father in the moving final scene. The dialogue goes: Theseus: Hippolytus: Theseus: Hippolytus: Theseus: Hippolytus: Theseus: Dear son, what are you doing to me? Will you break my heart? I see before me now the gates of the dead world. And will you leave me guilty, with unholy hands? No, you are free. I here absolve you of my death. I am free? You discharge me of bloodguiltiness? I swear it by the conquering bow of Artemis. 0 dearest son, how noble a heart you show your father! (1454) Now forgiveness is a form of transcendence. It indicates a kind of freedom from the human laws of cause and effect involved in endlessly tragic cycles of violence and counterviolence, transgression and re venge. Forgiveness does mean a kind of negation of history, as Hegel suggests. The fact that this forgiveness is n ot preannounced by Aphrodite at the beginning of the play indicates that it is a kind of break from fatedness. For a variety of reasons, the transcendence involved in Hippolytus's last minute forgiving of his father is hard to interpret. First, it only occurs after much horror, including the suicide of Phaedra. The final forgiving might seem a merely minor bright spot against an overwhelmingly dark background. Yet it does represent a significant accomplishment. Second, it is hard to tell what his forgiveness means to Hippolytus in terms of his transcen- 29 28 - �de nce quest. If it is true that "to fo r give is d i vine," it is also true that to fo r giv e is human. For Hippolytus to recogn ize hi s fa ther 's guilt and still accept h im an yway indicates that he has suffered himself to lea rn. It means Hippolytus has adopted a new attitude towards mortal humanity and thus t owards himself. Previously Hippolytus's whole attitude t owards his father and the rest of the mortal wor ld has been one of rejection and denial. He had re garded himself as beyond the whole finite world, w h ich he accordingly despised. Thus Hippolytus's forgiving Theseus indicates a kind of acceptance of the mortal world, with its viciousness and external cond itioning. Now, forgiveness is good, so, on the one hand, this new acceptance is good. On the other hand, it represents Hippolytus's abandonment of his perhaps unrealistic dreams of radical transcendence. So, th e first ending of the Hippolytus, with its hor rible death and with its transcendent forgiveness, is hard to understand. There is some good the re but the ove rall picture remains tragic. The second and more general "ending" of Hippolyt us will be discussed below. But, before leaving the fi rst ending, and with it Hippolytus and his famil y, per haps it is worth making one remark on how to rea d the character of Hippolytus, the "tragic hero." It is a naive and hubristic mistake, I believe, to understand him as simply a naive and hubri stic you ng man. It is also a mistake to search for his "tragic flaw," as if it were some trait idiosyncra tic to him that we could identify as the contingent cause of his downfall. To do this is to change the Hippolytus from a human tragedy into a mere morality pla y about the downfall of a flawed man. The moti va tion behi nd this way of reading the "tragic h ero" is the h uma n desi re to esca pe tragedy -- i.e. to keep i t safely external to us. We want to say "it couldn't happen to me;" or (as Racine's H ippolyte puts it when speaking of himself), we wa n t " to watch a ship wreck as if we were safely on shor e." To hubristically read a tra ged y in this fashi on is to try to change it into a comedy for us. As both Hi ppolyte and Hippolytus discovered, to deny tragedy is not only foolish, but dangerous. Iro nically, then, the naive reader's very attempt to escape tragedy's "laws laid down for mortal men" only mor e emphatically re-inscribes him into th e r ole of "tr agic hero." Para do xi cally, one way for readers to perhaps tran scend the role of the "tragic hero" is to recognize th emselves in his identity. That is, to 30 recognize that his problems and concerns are theirs, only perhaps on a larger scale. In the case of Hippolytus this means recognizing that he is not merely a fantastic fictional monster. Instead, despite his particularities, Hippolytus was a man who was profoundly concerned with the great potentialities and flaws of human nature. He risked everything to actualize the human potentialities and transcend the human flaws present in himself. From Euripides' point of view, Hippolytus's failure to achieve his end means something, not only for a fictional character, but for all those governed by the "laws laid down for mortal men." T o fail to recognize oneself in that category means to attempt an escape from tragedy; such attempts ofte n have tragic consequences. The possibility of a reader's denying his involvement in tragedy is the subject matter of the "second ending" of the Hippolytus. This second "ending" actually precedes the first. It is even darker than the first ending and literally infinite in the scope of its horror. The second ending comes right before another chilling moment in the play's fin al scene. That is, when Artemis denies her involvement in the tragedy and aband ons her "friend" Hippolytus, saying "I may not look upon the dead, nor strain my sight with the anguish of departing breath." (1465) Two thing s seem to follow from this. First, gods cannot be relied upon to aid humans in their quest for transcendence. Second, it would seem as if Euripides' gods, at last, can escape human tragedy. The "second ending," however, will call into question even the gods' ability to remain external to the laws of tragedy. The tragedy's most general "ending" comes earlier in the same horrifying speech; its moment is when Artemis blithely announces to Hippolytus that, Though you lie in the dark of earth, that Wrong which Aphrodite's angry purpose wreaked on you Shall be repaid, to vindicate your piety And noble spirit. I will requite her, striking down Myself, with this unfailing bow, whatever man Her heart holds dearest in the world. (1446) It is hard to comprehend the brutal significance of these words. At the very least they mean that there is yet another tragedy in store; this tragedy will be an identical repetititon of the Hippolytus, but with Artemis and Aphrodite reversing roles. One imagines this play beginning with Artemis speaking the fateful words spoken· by Aphrodite in the beginning of the present tragedy "To those who reverence my power I show favor, and throw t o the earth those I find arrogant and ~roud." (5) This new tragedy will continue, being httle more than a horrible repetition of the first just. as the Hippolytus itself was little more than ~ horrible repetition of Aphrodite's first speech. · But this promised second tragedy is not all that Artemis's fateful words portend. I think we know enough about the horrible logic of revenge in tragedies to see that Aphrodite will respond to Artemis's vengeful gesture in kind, thus mechanically generating yet another horrible Hippolytus, etc. (If this is true, then even the gods themselves can become locked into the infinite tragic regression.) What is more, there is no reason to think that our Hippolytus is the original link in the chain. Perhaps, like the sin Theseus desires to escape, the "original" act of the series occurred "in a distant age" infinitely long ago. Thus we face the prospect of the Hippolytus being a mere moment in an infinite series of tragedies, extending backwards and forwards forever. Like the bull from the past that killed Hippolytus, the play itself has suddenly crashed through its bounds and roams freely through history. It could re-emerge from the waters of time at any moment. Thus, no longer can we guarantee ~hat the Hippolytus is not written about us today JUSt as much as it is about its ancient Greek characters. Thus, the second "ending" is not an ending. As sons are also fathers, this "ending" is also a beginning and middle. Thus it calls into question those comfortable Aristotelian Poetic categories: beginning, middle, and end; inside and outside; player and spectator. The second ending thereby implicates us in the tale. After the second ending, transcendence is no longer the pressing c?ncern only of Hippolytus and his tragic family; smce we readers are possibly in the play, it is now our concern too. Like Hipp olytus, Phaedra and Theseus, we readers ourselves are challenged by Euripides to transcend the "mortal laws" of our own violent histories; failure to recognize this challenge means running the risk that our personal endings turn out as tragically as Hippolytus's. [My recognition of my own implication in the Hippolytus inspired this essay. M.M.] From the tragedy's double ending we have seen the urgency of the question of transcendence in the Hippolytus, (not only for its characters but for its readers as well). Thus, perhaps we should return to Euripides' most compelling vision of the problem of transcendence, that vision arises in the choral words quoted at the beginning of this paper: 0 to escape and lurk high under Steep crags, At the touch of a god to rise, A wing'd bird among flying flocks! To soar over the swell of the Adrian coast Where, in lament for Phaetohon, ' His sisters drop their piteous tears Which glow like amber in the dark stream; And then to reach that shore planted with Apple-trees Where the daughters of evening sing Where the sea lord of the dark shallows Permits to sailors no further passage Establishing the solemn frontier of heaven Which Atlas guards; Where divine fountains flow beside Zeus' marriage bed, Where holy earth offers her choice fruits To enrich the blissful gods. (731) The first feeling this poetry suggests is one of a longing for great freedom. Flying as a bird, one escapes gravity and earth-boundedness. One has escaped one's conditions, sailing above and beyond the particular places, laws, and tears of one's fated existence. Certainly, for all the characters in the Hippolytus escape means a kind of freedom. When Phaedra announces h~r escape plan to kill herself she says, "[I plan] to die, but how I'll order it is mine to choose." (724) As we have seen, freedom here means both the negative freedom of simply evading the conditions that predetermine or fate one and also the more positive freedom of autonomy. The character of the transcendence depicted in the chorus's escape speech means more than soaring freedom, however. For this freedom comes as a result of a total transformation from human to bird -- a kind of animal -- by means of the interceding "touch of a god." The plight of the characters in the Hippolytus is so desperate that the transcendence they desire must be completely radical. There seems to be no way to escape the horrible conditions of humanity and still remain a recognizable human being. The conditions and complexities of being mortal seem so horrible to the chorus that, like Phaedra and Hippolytus, it envies the wild simplicity and freedom of the sub-human 31 �animal. The fact tha t-a god is required to perform this substantial transformation indicates even more fully that the chorus believes there is no possibility of independent human transcendence. Yet, as the play's first ending shows, gods cannot be relied upon in the mortal human world. What's more, it is not clear that even they are sufficiently beyond it to escape tragedy anyway. We have seen the theme of a longing for escape through animality and divinity already in the Hippolytus. Phaedra's escapist dreams of wild places, hunting, and horse-racing indicate a certain abhorrence of things human. Hippolytus also attempts to escape through hunting and riding animals. He believes he can achieve this through his ill-fated friendship with Artemis. The second stanza of this escape poetry reveals that even the freedom of soaring animality does not suffice for a full escape of mor tal conditions. To fully escape the conditions of human mortality the chorus yearns to pass into a radical Beyond -- a place where sailors are permitted no further passage past the Atlas-guarded frontiers of heaven. Again, as with Hippolytus's vision, this is a place characterized by an unearthly mixture of the subhuman natural and the superhuman supernatural, or divine: "Where holy earth offers her choice fruits to enrich its blissful gods." In the second stanza the bird's eye view is dropped and the chorus seems to long to be present with blissful gods in almost a divine fashion. Here then, we find complete transcendence of all things miserably mortal. All verbs in the passage are either infinitives or in the blank . present tense. There is a sense of timelessness in this condition Beyond -- beyond human being, beyond human determinations, beyond human places, beyond human times, beyond human suffering, beyond human mortality. This poetry of longing seems to me beautiful and I think one reason for this is the sense of yearning, nostalgia, sadness that pervades it. The passage is beautiful for the same reason the play itself is successful -- we recognize the human desire, suffering, and failure it depicts. The chorus delivers the poem at a moment of great horror in the play -- just after Phaedra announces her plan to kill herself and destroy Hippolytus too. This escape passage seems to serve as a moment of sublime relief in the plot. It focuses our a tten ti on on some safe, peaceful, and fanciful Beyond just as matters grow nearly intolerable on stage. Yet, the 32 manifest futility of this escape dream, combined with the contrast its content provides to the action onstage, only serves to heighten the horror of the tragedy as it unfolds. Even the escape to the poetic sublime provides no escape, no transcendence. The dream of timeless immortality only renders more painful the drama's depiction of finite human suffering. The beautiful dream of escape and transcendence expressed in this passage is radically impossible for mortal humans, just as all the other escape dreams presented in the Hippolytus are impossible. That very impossibility of transcendence is what renders tragic the tragedy of Hip- Aristotle's Wheel Cherie Craig ('89) polytus. 1Editor's note: Due to space limitations, only the first two parts -- the introduction and the Euripedes section of Mr. McShane's prize winning essay -- are included here. The complete work is available on file in the College Library. The problem involved in the paradox of "Aristotle's wheel" is one of geometrical correspondence. However, in order to understand what actually is occurring geometrically, one must understand the motions involved. It is clear that the two concentric circles of figure 1, travel an equal horizontal distance. (For now, let those two distances be represented as Ll=L2. ) Also, the smaller circle, being carried by the larger, must rotate at the same angular rate as the larger, (Rl =R2). We also know that if the larger circle makes one complete rota ti on, the distance it travels will be equal to its circumference, (Ll =Cl ). Since RI equals R2, the circumference of the smaller circle also makes one complete rotation; but since Cl does not equal C2, then LI should not equal L2 and C2 should equal L2. We seem to be left with a circle rolling through a distance equal to its circumference, yet moving farther than the length of its circumference. Fig. 1 B D c However, the smaller circle is, in fact, not rolling. When we say that the larger circle rolls, we must recognize the two distinct motions involved: its rotation and its horizontal movement. The hori zontal movement of the larger is acquired solely by virtue of its rotational movement, because it cannot rotate while resting on a surface without moving forward. Therefore, if it rotates through a distance equal to its circumference, then Cl equals LI. The horizontal motion of the smaller of the two circles is not due to its rotation, but due to the horizontal motion of the larger circle, and therefore C2 does not equal L2. Thus the smaller circle's rotational movement is not acquired from its horizontal motion, but from the rota ti on of the larger circle. The larger circle imparts exactly as much motion to the smaller circle as it itself possesses. The smaller circle, then, is being moved horizontally while being rotated, rather than itself actually rolling. Rolling seems to occur when there is a special correspondence, that is, equality, between the length travelled and the length rotated. The problem still remains, though, to account for how it is that the smaller circle rotates through a smaller distance than it travels while its circumference is actually in contact with the line traversed. A point on the circumference of the larger circle travels the same distance on that circumference in a given time as the center of the circle moves horizontally in that same time. Therefore, they move with the same velocity. On 33 �the circumference of the smaller circle, a point travels a shorter distance than the center in that same amount of time and conseque ntl y moves with lesser linear velocity. (The angular velocity is the same as that of the point on the larger circle, but the linear velocity is not the same.) In reference to figure 1, it becomes clear that as every point on arc AB has a corresponding point on arc EF, geometrically as well as in time, and as AB=AC=ED, then every point of ED must correspond to a point on arc EF (even though they are of unequal lengths). This same "type" of correspondence is illustrated [figures 2 and 3] by two points moving along two unequal straight lines, or a curve and its chord, in a given time. -----<--- B E c A Fig. 2 Ref erring to Figure 2, we may move line BC such that point C will coincide with point A, while BC remains perpendicular to AC. In Figure 3 we may meet the requirement by moving both the line and the curve with two given velocities in a given time. However, the curve, being longer, must be moved at a faster rate in order for the motion to be completed in the same time. The semicircle AOB rotates counterclockwise 18 0 degrees such that point B of the curve passes through point 0 and rests at point A. The segment AB slides to the left such that point B of the segment passes through point E and rests at point A. Figure 1 also requires two motions with differing, yet uniform, linear velocities. In a given time, we may slide the segment ED to the left such that D will coincide with E, at the same time moving Eat a slower rate a long the arc EF such that it corresponds with F [figure 4]. In this latter example we may obtain the same effect, or relative motion, using motions which are equal but opposite to those mentioned. 34 Instead of moving segment ED to the left, we can move the circle to the right, and instead of moving E counter-clockwise along arc EF, we can rotate the circle clockwise through arc EF. We thereby obtain the two motions of the smaller circle and their seemingly paradoxical effect. We expect there to be the same relationship between the two motions (namely, liner and angular) in the smaller circle as between those of the larger circle, simply because they are both circles. As a result, we fail to see that, although one of the motions of the larger circle is dependent on the other, the two motions of the smaller circle are independent of each other. Once we recognize this , the behavior of the smaller circle should no longer surprise us, and it is found to be no more problematic then the correspondence without equality as we saw with Figures 2 and 3. Out of this, it must be said that in order to understand what is occurring geometrically when geometrical figures are set in motion, we need to take the natures of the motions involved into account. Geometry cannot be separated from mechanics; rather, mechanics is inherent in geometr y. D ~-------~ E I \ / Fig.3 G The Beginning of Titne Eugenia Bergeron ('92) Eo-A ustralopitheca leather scraped fish dried herbs brewed her man away on a hunting trip suddenly leisured sits on sand before sparkling sunlit water (notices playful progress of three dolphins moving east to west halfway between her feet and the horizon) Eo-Australopitheca my sister my double perfectly acquainted with the Shaman's view on eternity transmitted through measureless eons that then and now are one never having questioned the wisdom of ageless antiquity at this hour in this place permits herself to listen to her senses F D' D E Fig. 4 35 �Eo-A ustralopitheca having observed the evenings and the mornings of many days remembering the playful progress of three dolphins (moving east to west halfway between her feet and the horizon) here then there now she sees as if afresh unhurried unstopping unhastening diagonally advancing waves implying sequence implying time Eo-A ustralopitheca (as all the waters under the firmament wave by curling white-embroidered wave approach her feet each covering one tiny fraction more of sand) chooses the evidence of her eyes over the testimony of tradition ·knowing that soon water will cover the island of sand left by last night's low tide glimpsing a small pale conical shell pierced near the point filled with sand she speculates that held aloft the shell will empty before the water touches her toes 36 37 �request as a gift, and asks him about its source, saying, "How is it that thou askest drink of me," i.e., "What enables you to ask a favor of me?" Behold The Latnb of God: Christ and Men in the Gospel ofJohn Kevin Graham ('90) I. Introduction Halfway through the first chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus enters the narrative in the wilderness beyond the Jordan River, where John is preaching. 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus corning unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. 30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. 31 And I knew him not: but that he should be manifest to Israel, therefore I am come baptizing with water. John comes to baptise us with water and to say to us, "Behold the Lamb of God," in order that the chosen people of God may see Christ manifest. Whoever Jesus is, he is identified by a relation to us, as the Lamb who, sanctified, will take our sin away. And whatever John's annunciation may mean, John announces him to us for our sake. Thus the Evangelist claims that we should want to know who the Lamb of God is. And if we want to know ourselves, we must consider what it means to have sin which this Lamb must take away. In this essay, I hope to discover just these things: Who is Christ, and what are we that we need such a Sa vi or? To this end, I will read a few of the stories in John's Gospel closely, hoping to hear our need articulated in the words of Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter and others, and to hear Christ's fulfillment of that need spoken in his words to them. I am not asking whether we need Christ, but why, according to John, we need him. This essay 38 can only prepare us to answer that larger, more fundamental question. II. Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well 4:5 Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground thatJacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. 7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. 8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) 9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. The scholars off er many explanations for the Samaritan woman's surprise at Jesus' speaking to her: religious and political feuding between the Jews and the Samaritans, the social unacceptability of a Jewish man speaking to a woman in public, the ritual impurity of all Samaritan women. 1 Jesus' words immediately break down these walls of defensiveness and hostility, which normally prevent words exchanged between members of enemy races from becoming conversations. He accomplishes this by an act of humility, forsaking the high social rank a Jewish man would normally assume in this situation in order to allow the Samaritan woman to become his benefactor. I think she wonders not so much at his simply speaking to her, but more at the charity which allows him to ask a favor of her. She recognizes his 4: 10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence hast thou that living water? 12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus confirms her recognition of his gift, and promises her that she does not know the whole of it: his charity, which makes their conversation possible, is of God. Moreover, he who speaks to her is more extraordinary than she could know from his simple words. Had she seen him for who he is she would have known that he is the source of wha~ she needs most, Ii ving water. Though Jesus offers no explanation of what this mysterious living water is, the woman asks not what it is, but whence he would get it. He cannot draw it from the ground, for he has nothing with which to draw even ordinary water from the well. He must speak of a water not drawn from the ground at all -- a water not of the body, but of the spirit. Jesus seems to claim to be able to provide more than the water and fer tile land she and her people inherited from Jacob. The woman relies on such blessings of God for preservation and prosperity. Now she asks Jesus whether he offers her a greater gift of God. 4: 13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; 14 But whosoever drinketh of the water I give him shall never thirst; but the water I give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life . In asking Jesus about the source of the living water, the woman implicitly asks him about its character. Likewise, in speaking about the character of the living water, Jesus speaks implicitly a bout its source. Jes us says that the quenching power of living water is different in kind from that of ordinary water. While ordinary water leaves the body temporarily satisfied but dependent on a well dug in to the ground for replenishment, living water becomes a perpetually sustaining spring in the spirit. Bodily thirst cannot be quenched thus, nor can the life of the body be sustained everlastingly: this must be a water of the spirit, springing forth from the Spirit of God. The woman's hope is confirmed: Jesus speaks of a new blessing from God for His people, which will truly sustain them in spirit, and not just in body. She need no longer rely on the well dug by Jacob for Jesus offers her a new source of life, or perhaps a new kind of life altogether. 4:15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. 16 Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hit her. 17 The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast said well, I have no husband: 18 For thou hast had five husbands; and he whome thou now hast is not thy husband: in that thou saidst truly. 19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive thou art a prophet. The woman asks for the water which Jesus offered and claimed she needed. Jesus seems to have succeeded in showing her who he is and why she needs him. Yet he withholds her fulfillment telling her to go fetch her husband. The woma~ neither lies to cover up her shameful string of living arrangements nor leaves in shame as though to call her husband, sulking in the misery of her unworthiness of Christ's gift. 2 Rather, she makes the least embarrassing statement she can of her situation, "I have no husband." Jesus praises her for speaking as well as a person can under the circumstances and says that he knows all about her past husbands and her present lover. The woman's first surprise is at Jesus' diviner's knowledge of her life; she cannot doubt that he is a seer as well as the bearer of the new gift of God. But perhaps her second surprise is the greater: though this prophet knows her life intimately, he does not condemn her for her sin. To discover that God knows us perfectly is terrifying, for we know we bear the mark of our sin. But to discover that God knows us intimately and yet loves us is joyous, for such a God would almost be a friend. The woman is beginning to think that she has discovered just such a God in Jes us' words; now she asks about this friendship with God. 4: 19 The woman saith unto him, I perceive that thou art a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship the Father. 21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, and now is, when neither in this mountain, noryet in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father. 22 Ye worshipye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers 39 �shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. By stating what she and Jesus both know about the religious division between the Jews and the Samaritans, the woman hints at a question that springs from a hope so great and so dear that she dares not give her question a voice: "May even we, the outcasts of Israel, rejoin the family of God?" Much of her life must have been shaped by being outcast, as a Samaritan, as a woman, and as an adulterer. The charity of Jesus' words has kindled hope in her. To no one else could she voice her desire to rejoin the family of the chosen. Jes us speaks about the true worship of God as he spoke about living water: as he compared ordinary water, which sustains the body temporarily, to living water, which sustains the spi rit everlastingly, so he compares the worship of the Father in many places to the worship of the Father outside of place, in spirit and in truth. Spirit and truth will unite true worshippers with one another and with the Father across all barriers, and will lift them to a higher worship which is impossible in the bodily world. And Jesus specifically says, "The hour cometh when ye shall worship the Father thus: "the community of God shall indeed include you, the outcast and despised. Jesus' words fulfill the woman's desire and reward her hope. What began as a casual conversation has revealed the Kingdom of God to her. She stands in awe before the man who has released her from. e.xile an? welcomed her into the community of sp1nt. The JOY of her soul tells her that he is God · again, she dares not voice a hope so dear in ~ question, but masks it in a declaration. 4:25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh which is call~d Christ: when he is come , he will tell us all things'. 26 Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. 27 And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, Whatseekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? 28 The woman left herwaterpot, and went her way into the city and saith to the men, ' 29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that I ever did: is this not the Christ? The evidence the woman offers that Jesus is the Christ is that he knows everything she ever did. Knowing her enables Jesus to minister to her deepest need, the nee'd for communion. She needs a M~s~iah who knows her and yet loves her by forg1vmg her. Jesus fulfills her need by promising 40 her the gift of the Spirit, which will sustain her everlastingly and enable her to join the community of spirit in God. III. Christ and the Man Born Blind In the beginning of the Gospel's seventh chapter, Jesus sends his disciples to the Feast of the Booths in Jerusalem, saying that he will remain in Galilee; but he follows them to the feast in secret and comes to the Temple to teach openly. The Feast of Booths, or of Tabernacles, is a memorial of Israel's wandering in the wilderness, when Abraham's children were purged of their wickedness.3 Appropriately, Jesus speaks of the Jews' need for his redemption beyond what the Covenant of Abraham and the Law of Moses give them; the p~ople take up stones to kill Jesus for putting himself above Abraham, but he passes out of their midst and into the streets. 9: 1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from his birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. 4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day : the night cometh when no man can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. 6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. 7 ~d said u~to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is, by mterpretatton, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. Jesus answers the disciples' question about the cause of suffering not by explaining the necessity of punishment for sin, but by healing the man outright. The man, Jesus says, was born blind so that the work of God might be made manifest in his healing; something of God is revealed in the healing of the man's impairment which could not have been seen were he not impaired. But to whom is the work of God revealed, to those watching or to the man who is healed? And what is seen in the work of God? 9:8 The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? 9 Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. 10 Therefore they said unto him, How were thine eyes opened? 11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, a?d anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight. 12 Then they said unto him, Where is he? He said, I knovi not. 13 They brought to the Pharisees him that was afore time blind. The man's neighbors do not wonder that he sees, but that he has been healed. To see is not uncommon; but to restore the sigh t of the blind is unheard of. Such a wonder seems inexplicable so the man's neighbors forego asking, "How co~ld Jesus do that?" Instead, they ask where Jesus is. Perhaps they are merely curious about a worker of wonders. But might they not want to seek Jesus out .themselves, hoping that he might heal their spuits?. Such a longing to be made whole in spirit ':ould imply a deep feeling of incompletion and sickness, so close to the core of our souls as to be almost unspeakable. When the man fails to direct them to Jes us his neighbors bring him to the leaders of th~ church. Surely they do not desire to convict him of being healed by an unknown, unauthorized prophet. It seems more likely that they seek the Pharisees' opinion about whether the one who opened the eyes of their blind friend might be able to heal them too. ro: 9: 13 They brought to the Pharisees him that was aforetime blind . 14 And it was the sabbath day, when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 1~ 1'.1en again t~e Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. 16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he.kee~th not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that Is a smner do such works? And there was a division among them. 17 They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet. A student of the Law might respond to the man's story by saying that a man with power such as Jesus' must be divine, or by noting with surprise that Jesus worked the miracle on the Sabbath. But Jesus' app~rent divinity should overshadow any legal quest10ns about the conditions of his work and it is troubling that the Pharisees see th~ situation in reverse. The skeptical Pharisees accuse Je~us of a. literal violation of the Law; the sympathizers voice their wonder only in the context of the legal question. The man born blind perceives God's work more clearly; his simple statement "He is a prophet," reflects an unshakeable visi~n of the great wonder of Jesus' healing. 9: 18 B~t the J~ws did not believe concerning him, that he had been blmd, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight. 19 And .they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blmd? how then doth he now see? 20 His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: 21 But b~ what means he now see th, we know not; or who hath opened his .eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself. 22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. 23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him. I~ order to corroborate the man's testimony, Phansees seek testimony of the healing, from parents who know well that the Pharisees seek evidence about Jesus' work not in order to believe but to condemn, and to threaten their opponents with expulsion from the synagogue. Now, the man's parents know their son, and that he sees; and surely they do not doubt that he speaks honestly a?out t~e healing. Why, then, do they not support his testimony? As parents, they should rejoice that Jesus has opened the eyes of the son they bore into darkness. As human beings, they should rejoice in the hope that Jesus can make them whole in spirit as he made their son whole in body. Their reticence may signify that they do not yet feel this second joy because they fail to see how Jes us' power to heal the bo~y might also be a power to heal the spirit. For wh1l.e fear ?1ight quell their joy over bodily healing, the JOY of seeing Jesus' power to redeem overwhelms all fears, as their son's boldness shows. t~e hi~ 9:24 Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know thatthis man is a sinner. 25 He answered and said, Whether he is a sinner or no I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now see. 26 Then they said to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes? 27 He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples? i Facing conclusive evidence of the man's healing, the Pharisees advise him to attribute his healing to God and not to Jesus. In doing this they probably seek both to control Jesus' popularity, and to teach the man the truth about the agency of his he~ling. The ~an responds that he knows only one thmg, that he is healed. By this he seems to mean that whatever may make sense and whatever he may not understand about healing, he knows that he has been made whole. The knowledge that a prophet of God has made him whole and that this 41 �healing implies the promise of spiritual restoration must be so great and so brilliant that all other knowledge looks dim and shabby by compa r ison. Jesus proposed himself to be the light of the blind man's world by doing this healing work of his Father. When the man sees such a light, he sees that in order to know anything he must see it in this light. Just as the light of the world is the first principle for the man born blind, so is the Law of Moses the first principle for the Pharisees. The man born blind has told them a new thing, but they hear only an apparent violation of the Law. They offer th e man th eir best counsel a bout his healing in li ght of the Law, and he discards it. Again they ask for evidence with which they may convict Jesus under the Law, and thus serve the Law. The man refuses, saying that he has already told them his story, which is far more important to them as potential believers than it could ever be as lawyers; they will not hear it in any important way if they listen so as to con vi ct rather than so as to be restored. 9:28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple: but we are Moses' disciples. 29 We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. 30 The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. 31 Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if a man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. 32 Since the world began it was not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. 33 If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. 34 They answered and said I unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. The Pharisees love the Law because through their study of it, God converts their souls and enlightens their eyes by revealing His will to them in its perfect purity and righteousness [Psalm 19:711]. But thei r love of the Law has grown out of proportion: they have taken it not for a guide toward the light of the world, but for that light itself and are therefore unable to see the true light which is come into the world. When God works a new thing by restoring sight to the blind, they see it not as something surpassing the Law, but only as something outside the Law. When the man born blind challenges them to see God's new work of healing, they cast him out. They fail to see the main lesson of the Law: that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, and cannot share in that glory without the healing Christ offers. Their vision of God, to which they steadfastly cling, is partial. 42 IV. Christ and Mary Magdalene at the Tomb · 9:35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? 36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? 37 And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. 38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. Jes us does not ask the man, "Do you believe that I am the Son of God?" but more generally, "Do you believe that there is a Son of God, a Redeemer of men?" The man asks Jesus to identify the Redeemer. For if Jesus is not the Redeemer, then he must wait for the Redeemer to come to fulfill the promise contained in his healing. The man has, however, been enlightened, he knows that his bodily restoration signifies the spiritual restoration to come. Jesus fulfills this hope, he says that the man has both seen the light of the world in his own healing by Jes us, and now hears the Son of God identify himself with that light. Somehow we all need both to see the Light and to hear the Word. When Jesus restores us to our natural wholeness, and in his healing of us we see the Light, we are ready for Jesus to talk with us. Jesus offers to speak to all of us, even those who did not walk with him as contemporaries. This is the work of the Spirit of Truth, whom Jesus sends us in order to tell us all things. 9:39 And Jesus said, For judgment.I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. 40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? 41 Jesus said unto them, Hye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore, your sin remaineth. By "the blind," Jesus probably means those whom he heals by removi ng their si n, thus revealing to them the Light. But by "the sighted," Jesus cannot mean people altogether unimpaired by sin; perhaps they have a partial vision of God, such as the Pharisees gain from their study of the Law. It is their claim to complete vision which prevents them from admitting their need for Christ's healing. The Pharisses fail by not tempering their delight in the Law with a feeling of imperfection and of need for a healing which the Law cannot provide. The disciples scatter into the night when Jesus is betrayed and arrested. Only Peter and another, most likely John, follow Jesus to the palace of the high priest, where Peter denies Christ]. Only John is present at the crucifixion; he stands before the cross with three other followers: Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary, wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. This is John's first mention of Mary Magdalene; Luke says that Jesus cast seven deamons out of her and that she and some other women Jesus healed supported him and the disciples by their own means. She is also presumably one of the women who help bury Jesus' body. 4 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. 2 Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken the Lordoutof the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. The joy of the Resurrection begins in bewilderment and despair. After the wild joy of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem has fallen into the darkness and despair of the betrayal, the trial, and the crucifixion, Mary comes to the tomb, immediately after the Sabbath, presumably to anoint Jesus' body and finish her ministry to his worldly needs.5 She comes out of love, and out of devotion, not knowing what else to do. Yet even her last service to Christ is denied her, for she finds an open tomb. In her despair, she can only conceive of one explanation, that grave robbers have taken the corpse of Jesus. Now the darkness of Mary's world is complete, the last ember of its light having been extinguished. She must tell someone, find support somewhere, she runs to tell the disciples. 20:3 Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. 4 So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. 5 And stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes; yet he went not in. 6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 7 And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. 8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. 9 For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went away again into their own home. Peter and John's reac tion to the news of the open tomb is not despai ring, as is Ma r y's, but hopeful. Either the hope that Jes us has escaped the tomb or the fear that his body has been stolen could bring them running to the tomb, but only hope could carry Peter into the tomb itself to examine the burial garments. Fear would ask no more than to see the empty linens from the door. Once Peter has entered the tomb out of hope and steadfast love for Jesus, John can follow. In the dim light of the early morning, John sees exactly what Peter saw. By the guess of most scholars, the reason Peter and John conclude that the corpse has not been stolen is because grave robbers, not wanting to carry a naked corpse around, would not have bothered to unwrap the body. 6 Most of us, like Peter, would now be able to hope that the body had not been stolen. But without seeing the living Jesus, we could hardly believe that a man has overcome death, would not this imply that men are no longe r mortal? Yet John puts faith in Jes us' resurrection. John has been chosen to possess both great vision and great belief: the Evangelist calls him both "the disciple whom Jesus loved" and the disciple "which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?" Yet remarkable as his faith here is, one thing is denied him -- to see Jesus risen. And only this vision brings understanding of the resur rection and its place in God's plan as shown in the Scriptures. 20: 11 But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, 12 And see th two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Christ had lain. 13 And they say unto her, Woman, whyweepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. 14 And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. When Mary summons her strength to look within the tomb, she sees two angels, who ask her why she weeps. Their question prepares her to see Christ resurrected by prompting her to voice her need to find Jesus. But they cannot console her. So overwhelming is her emptiness that messengers from Heaven seem but a shadow of what she has lost. She turns from them, failing even to wonder at their presence: could Heaven fail to notice the extinguishing of the light of the world? Now Mary feels the deepest sorrow and the deepest need that 43 �any human being has ever felt, and perhaps possibly ever could feel. She is prepared to see the risen Christ. them, I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. 18 Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her. 20: 14 And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him h ence, tell me where thou h ast laid him, and I will take him away. 16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni.: which is to say, Master. Now the work of Christ on earth is almost complete: having been raised up and having drawn us up to him to become sons of the Father, it only remains for him to breathe forth the Spirit into us and send us forth into the world. When we have seen the r isen Christ with Mary Magdalene, our work as disciples, or learners, is complete, and we are ready to become apostles, or, those sent forth. Mary is at first unable to see Jesus, who, seemingly, has been transfigured. In her despair, an y unfamiliar man would look like someone wh o mi ght have taken Jesus' body. 7 Jesus begins to re ach out to her in order to reveal himself to her, asking, "Why do you weep? Whom do you seek?" Mary's answer, "Where have you taken him?" shows that she can't imagine anyone failing to know wh ose tomb is empty and that what she seeks is not Jesus' body, but Jesus himself. Then Jesus says, "Mary." She hears him, and turn s her soul to see him. He speaks her name with the breath of divine charity. He is nowhere in what he says. Where before he revealed himself by saying "I am he," now the first person in n o way enters his words. Thus he gives himself over to her com pletely, to be her healer and comforter. He ope ns himself completely to show forth his glory as div ine love. Her deepest need is filled by the revelation of Christ to the ears and the eyes of her sou l. Mary sees the risen Christ and says, "Rabbi," which must be understood to mean "Teacher." A teacher cannot simply reveal things to his student. He must know her and reach out to fill her need with a word spoken in char ity; for onl y such a word can truly fill the need of an animal with speech. Mary is prepared to hear the word because she knows that Jesus is the source of her life and because she feels the sorrow appropriate to the loss of that sou rce. Hearing that word enables her to turn to see the glorified Christ as our Teacher, and to see something of the Father in him. T o teach is to speak the word of love and thus reveal something of the Father to the hearer,: it is the mos t perfect of Christ's works. To learn is to prepare ourselves to receive his word , so that he can make us whole and reveal the Father to us. 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren and say unto 44 V. Christ and Simon Peter at the Sea of Tib erias After appearing to Mary Magdalene before the empty tomb, Jesus appears twice to his discip les, once during the evening of that same day and again eight days later. John concludes his Gospel after recording these events in the twentieth chapter, but goes on to write the following epilogue. 21:1 After these things .Jesus showe d himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and o n this wise shewe d he himself. 2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas calle d Di dymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee , and two other of the disciples. 3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with th ee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediate ly; and that ni ght they caught nothing. 4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. 5 ThenJesussaith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answere d him, No. 6 Then Jesus said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast the net therefore, and now they were not able to draw it in for the multitude of fishes. 7 Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Nowwhen Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea. The image of food first appears in John's Gospel after Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well. When the disciples return from the city with food and urge Jesus to eat, he replies, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of... My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." Bringing the Samaritan woman into the Kingdom of God nourishes Jesus' spirit: acts of love sustain the spirit's new life which living water begets. Jes us tells the disciples to look upon the fields of the world, ripe for the harvest of the food men need most, "the fruit unto life eternal." Later, following the feeding of the multitude, Je sus speaks of himself as the bread of life, meaning that the belief in the redeeming power of his crucifixion sustains our spirit into eternity. Now the Son of Man has been raised up, and has ~rawn us up to him; the disciples, having eaten of his flesh and drunk of his blood fallow Peter into the field of the world to reap ~hat God has so~n, and onto the sea of life t o draw up the meat which dwells therein. They toil fruitles sly all night until Jesus ap pears on the shore at dawn.8 At his urging, they persevere to cast once more· when their net fills to overflowing, John percei ;es that the one who made possible and then rewarded their final eff ort must be the Lord. John tells Peter what he sees, and Peter leaps into the sea to swim to Jesus: so strong is his love for the sower whose harvest he reaps. 21:8 And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits dragging the net with fishes.) ' 9 As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. 10 Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. 1.1 Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. 12 Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine . And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. 1_3 ~en ~esus cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish hkewise. 1~ 1:llis is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself unto the d1sc1ples, after that he was risen from the dead. Jes us invites the disciples to add some of their_ abundant harvest to what he is already cook mg, and to share with him the feast of life of whi~h ~e told them beside Jacob's well [4:36]. The y eat m silent wonder at the t oil of the night, at the bou?ty of the morning, and at the transfigured Chnst who made their labor and their harvest possible. I wonder what it was like to eat of the feast of the Kingdom of God, on the shore of the world into ~hich they were about to set out, sharing that feast with a Son of God unfamiliar to them in looks, but unforgettable to them in acts of love and gifts of grace. 21: 15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon,. son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my Iambs. 16 He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love th~e. He sa~th unto him, Feed my sheep. 17 Hesa1th untoh1m the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, Iovest ~?ou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he saith unto him Lord thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love th~e. J~sus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. . J.esus singles out Simon Peter from among the disciples and asks him for an aff irma ti on that his love is greater than that of his fellows. Throughout the Gospel, Peter is the disciple of steadfast love and the leader of the faithful as the beginning of this story illustrates. When' Jesus' followers dwindle, after his discourse on the bread of lif7, and Jesus asks the disciples whether they too will leave him, it is Peter who says, "Lord, to ':horn shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal hf e." Jesus' question points out Peter's need to love Jes us before all others and more than all others if he is to found the church in the world. Jesus' question changes when he repeats it. Rather than reminding Peter of his special duty to the commandment of love, Jesus seems to be doub~ing Peter's devotion to him altogether. Peter's react10n changes from puzzlement to pain as Jesus prods. him with his guilt and weakness, asking his question once for each of Peter's denials: The prospect of setting out to fish for men seems much less promising to him now; he remembers well how hope c_an fail during night's toil. How can he hope that his love for Jesus will sustain his spirit once Jesus has departed? 2!: 18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girded thyself, and walked whither thou wouldest: but when thous~alt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. 19 This spake he, signifying bywhat death he should glorifyGol And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. By his strange, vague statement about Peter's destiny, John, and I suppose Peter as well understands Jesus to propesy that Peter will suff e; martyrdom, perhaps by arrest and crucifix ion. The sea's darkness grows deeper in Peter's mind. He must steel himself against the possibility that his night's toil will end not only in fruitlessness but also in pe rsecution and a painful death. The darkest specters man knows, spiritual barrenness and bodily suffering, never loomed more ominous than they do before Peter now. 9 Then Jesus says to Peter, "Follow me." He ~peaks not of a lonely journey, but of a guided Journey, and this makes all the difference. Even the first disciple cannot toil through the night alone and hope to succeed. But the image of the 45 �apostles setting forth, leaving Jesus behind on the shore, or absent altogether, is wrong, for Christ's role in it is insufficient. Where Peter expected to seek his own way, Jesus promises to lead him. Darkness may sometime come upon us as we labor, because of failing love or fear of death, but the Light of the world goes always before us, that we may work in his eternal day. VI. Conclusion These four stories do not speak of what Christ offers each of four different kinds of people, those who are like the Samaritan woman, those who are like Simon Peter, etc. The need for redemption which we all share is far greater than what sets us apart from one another. This is why each of us can join the one fold which the Good Shepherd guides and protects. Though most of us do not share the political and religious exile of the Samaritan woman, exile from the family of God is common to all people because all have sinned. Jesus welcomes us into the community of spirit by saying to us that he knows us and our sin, but for gives us and loves us as brethren and friends. To receive the Spirit and enter the Kingdom of God is to drink of the living water which becomes a well springing up within us to sustain us everlastingly. We share the blindness of the man whose sight Jesus restored, if not in body, then in spirit, by virtue of our sin. But Jes us says that we are blind in order that we may see the God's healing work manifest in us. Once we se.e this work in Christ's being raised up and taking our sins upon himself, we, like the man born blind, know only one thing: whereas we were blind, now we see. When we know this, we are ready to receive the Spirit, so that Christ may talk with us as well as be seen by us. When we share with Mary Magdalene both the knowledge that Christ is our very life and the sorrow appropriate to the loss of that life, we feel the deepest sorrow and the deepest need that a person could ever feel. Then we are ready to hear Christ speak the word of love and to see him as our Teacher. In order to begin the work of Christ in the world, we must, along with Peter, know the weakness of our love and see the dark specter of the trials we must face. Then we are ready to hear Jesus' command, "Follow me," the promise that he will light our way and make our toil fruitful. 46 \ Christ is the Redeemer who forgives our sins and restores our sight, welcoming us into the Kingdom of God; moreover, he is the Teacher who lifts us out of our deepest despair to hear his word of love, to see him revealed in glory, and to reap the harvest of the field he has sown. We are the exiles with whom Christ reunites, and the sick whom he makes well; moreover, we are the disciples who need to hear Christ's word of love and to see him revealed, and the apostles who do his work in the world. Untitled Laurae Melbin ('92) 1:12 But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God ... she argued everything he said refused to agree or even listen to him but he loved her anyway. 1Raymond Brown, The Anchor Bib le: The Gospel According to John, I-XII, vol. 29, Gardern City, NY: Doubleday & Cop., Inc., 1966, note to 4:9, p. 170. 2Jews, and presumably their Samaritan relatives, were only permitted three marriages; thus, her past two marriages and her present co-habitation would all be considered adultery, a capital offence. [Brown, op.cit., note to 4:18, p. 171. Leviticus 20:10.] 3Deuteronomy 16:13-15 and 31:9-13; Leviticus 23:39-43. she slapped him in public because of her irritation numbly he stood back and waited for her to stop screaming and slapped her back and she held him while he cried he became proof to himself that people he had scorned women who remained with abusive men henpecked husbands were helpless and he was guilty of hypocrisy 419:38-42; Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56. SMark 16:1, 2; Luke 24:1. 6Brown, The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John, XIII-XX!, vol. 29A, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co pl, Inc., 1970, notes to 20:5, 7, pp. 985-987. ?The simplest explanation of the slowness of Mary and, later, of the disciples to recognize Jesus after the resurrection if that he just looks different. This argument is supported by this passage, John's story of the appearance at Tiberias, and by Luke's story of the appearance on the road to Emmaus. 8Darkness falls only three times during the Gospel: when the disciples set out across the Sea of Tiberias without Jesus, when Judas leaves the supper to betray Jesus, and in this scene .. 9Brown, op. cit., note to 21:18, pp. 1106-1108 Bibliography Brown, Raymond, The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John, vol. 29 (I-XII) and 29A (XIl-XXI), Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1966 and 1970. The Holy Bible, Oxford: University Press. he loved her he wanted her to have their children and she would kiss his face gently and repeat that it would make her fat so much more fun this way sometimes he didn't know how he could stand it he suprised her with dinner he loved to cook she laughed and called him a wimp you're not a real man she said he despised her he became a symbol of chains and she was the only way out but she wouldn't let him near her she curled a way from him in bed sometimes put pillows between them he knew her indifference fascinated him and held him and despised himself for he believed that he was weak she would block her ears humming loudly to discourage his attempts to communicate finally when he gave up she found the house empty sat in a chair humming loudly with her hands over her ears. �of the predatory birds. But the dead he says frowning slightly, avoiding my eyes, never let you stop loving. Corning To in the Fatherland Jessica Lamb He has been away what seems like a lifetime, in Africa stalking rhinos with arrows, like a native, and thanks to his native stealth, he returns wealthy, though weathered and past his prime. "Just missed a tusk in my gut last safari," he tells us . "I took that as a sign. Not fear sent me home, but recognition of time's flight." A dangerous business for a man getting on in years. We are sitting on the front proch watching the rain move over the mountains, flashing; he is recalling the violent deaths of wild animals. A difficult recognizance begun carefully with anecdotes. An antelope fled headlong through his window, once, and bled to death on the living room floor. The stripped green of his gaze sharpens with humor. It happens, he says, to this unprotected flesh. And holds towards me, embarrassed, his hand to be quickly clasped. "'Nature is a bloodthirsty mother," he explains, and goes on to tell of tiger attacks on elephant herds , of the constant stench of carrion, I am wearing ivory earrings made from his last kil1. For his son he brought a leopard skin. Peace offerings. How his little on es have grown. We notice the acuteness of his elbows, the starved babble of his fingers , and imagine him in Africa carving arrowheads from tusks, claiming tusks with arrows. We were babies when he left and have imagined him in more unlik ely places: on the moon , under the sea, next door, silently scoping us from behind his devious disguises . He wonders how long we mou med him after his supposed death. I show him the garden I staked out and planted when I was old enough to know my loss. He would return, I believed, by the time the sweet peas grew to my bare I y four foot height. They shot above my head and blossomed, and the lettuce stretched in stalks as tall as I and went to seed; tomatoes , cucumbers and carrots were harvested and canned year after year , "to eat if we're ever stranded here," my mother said in jest. At thirteen I added herbs: savory, oregano, sage; and then asparagus which ripened slowly and would give him time. When it first bore I was f u II y grown. On the hill to the south I planted fruit trees and berries. For five years we've eaten amply from them. 49 �Now as I stoop to cut a spa ra gus for his homecoming feast (that vegetable's seventh season I remark -- all that time in anticipation, not in mourning), he wants to know why mother up and died a f cw years back. "It happened in her sleep. Au topsy said a clot of blood in her brain." After a pause he says unsteadily, "Think of her death as a dcv ia tion . To stay on course is no easy feat. It is hardly human ... " "Yes," I reply. "You arc lucky to find us, at least, still here where you left us, when we could all so easily be worlds apart." We sit down to eat, hands clean, linen in our laps, and the long awaited return has grown already ordinary. I had wanted to greet him fully grown in the garden, or under the apple tree, my lap full of fruit. But it was a father not a king came home. Who knows were he has been. He thinks he has come full circle, finally, back to his point of departure. But this territory cannot be reclaimed. For there were times when I too cou Id have disappeared. Podding peas now while the men build the barbecue, I watch the piece of road pressed into the wilderness off the front porch, as familiar as the press of my own lips against each other, and I remember winters when a long, frostbitten stillness seemed to stretch as far as foreign countries out my window; the day my brother, barely eight, and I, nine, set out over the ridge towards town on skis and emerged terrified at dusk too exhausted to breathe relief, in a valley ten miles fom home. Childhood perils, not worth boasting about, perhaps. But grown inevitably into the strange places and postures of pubescence, I found the greater risks of love to shy from. I have hoped to live perfectly, without storm or shipwreck. Yet I am ashamed that Father found us, waiting, brother and sister, ma rr icd to the same land he left, ma rrooncd there. 50 51 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper (bound book) Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 51 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Fall 1989 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Fall 1989. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Datcher, Rhonda (Editor) Paradi, Ken (Editor) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Fall 1989 Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d114eed6c536e818fdb3886050d7d1a5.pdf 5fee3b20c161dd835e46c59937143215 PDF Text Text �Amy Porter 1 Invitation, We Are Togehter 2 Home, The Hollow Dark 3 Eye Contact, 2am Bleakness 4 Me and the Bugs Anonymous 5 Untitled Louis Petrich 6 Yanked, Over Here, Over There Natalie Walker 7 Untitled Louis Petrich 8 To Those Commencing Young Ellie Laabs 8 a slight embrace of time Lysithia Page 9 Ode to the Stroll Elizabeth Dowdy Raphael Rose 11 Heron on the Dock Daryl Locke 12 Can you see me?/ Deep in the Red Sea 13 Self Portrait 2020, The Unnameable’s Sera Johnson 14 Bedford Samuel Berrettini 15 An End 16 Sofe Cote 17 Seal Attacked by Polar Bears restless Raphael Rose 18 Red Light Sunset Eric Baker 19 The Dry Cleaner 20 Han XVII: Back Home in Isolation �Zeinep Kyzy 20 Untitled Jay Tram 21 Undersell Clare Collins 21 Untitled Avery Laur 22 trapped John Verdi 23 The End Is Nigh �Editor’s note This fall we have endured the stagnant and fought against a common enemy. The enemy is not a body, but is microscopic — almost non-physical. It is an enemy we can unite against in isolation. We have stood in a tableau, we have seen each other framed in vignettes. Temporality has descended to the forefront of general consciousness. The collective sentiment reflects variations of confusion and despair. Finally, we can openly share our anxiety, our solitude. This sharing liberates and we present our tools of liberation. As we retreat, we lose touch; we could easily forget about the world beyond the confines of our four walls. We sometimes find comfort in our undisturbed solitude. Yet, we unite in a far more profound way as we share the experience of the present time in this undefined space. Energeia hopes to be that space as we push forward to new grounds. Our long-discussed experimental issue has come to realization under the theme “Isolation”. With this issue, we hope to give voice to our collective consciousness, and find comfort and connection in our shared loneliness. We would like to thank all our members of Energeia for their hard work and the undying creative spirit that holds us together. �Invitation Welcome, welcome to my mind. Don’t be afraid, come in! They only attack if I’m alone. Come in! Come in! I’ve put my monsters in cages, And labeled them nicely for you. We Are Together We are together in being alone. We are together in loving the lonely. (I hear the blunt taps of water on leaves. I feel, in the quiet, a peace which comes in An unobserved expansion of my old catacombs, For once unfolding, stretched wide without pain.) We are together when company’s not a cage, And the silent distance brings us closer To where presence is not perspective, And nearness not a threat. Amy Porter 1 �Home I have kept your hearthfire in a jar On my cold and barren mantelpiece. It has lit and warmed the room, while I struggle With damp matches and clumsy fingers. If I stop and wrap my hands around this kind, kind gift, I hear your voice, your home, and promise still to live. The Hollow Dark At midnight, here, I find myself To wander after long-lost stars; For any small guide lights my way ‘Tween twisting thoughts of time and me, Reflection of the hollow dark. 2 Amy Porter � Eye Contact, 2am Bleakness Elizabeth Dowdy 3 �Me and the Bugs I like to sit outside in the summer and pretend that I am sitting there with someone and as the sun sets and it gets darker I watch the sky change, listening to the bugs come out of hiding. I like to imagine the feeling of an arm on my back or lips on my lips. It’s hot outside already, but I welcome the extra heat. I like to think that I wouldn’t get so many mosquito bites, because someone would be there to share them with me. I like to realize how the darkness wouldn’t scare me as much if I wasn’t alone, how the bugs wouldn’t be my only company, how comfort in the dark would be good, how a companion in the light would be too. But here I am, another summer passing and nearing its end, sitting outside. I’m wearing a dress and my hair is wavy, everything is in place for my fantasy, except I am alone. 4 Elizabeth Dowdy �Anonymous 5 �Yanked, Over Here, Over There (After William James, George Cohan, and a Cypriot Crier) Feeling conscripted? Under authority? Whose--all together now--is this?-knock the childishness out of you give you standings to weigh proud of more than college privilege gone nostalgia trip this pan of nature mostly pawns off you-so wipe that whining, get to work show your grit, do your bit and tell your sweetheart not to pine keep stead your faces shined on screen for me to see youth all the time on tap— no blacking out for beers or naps— I know your tricks and counterfeits! Maggots! take one for the old home team-whoe’er they are that would count more-you’re the cream of isolation corps who save, of country, burning poor, last beds for those breath-ridden toward, you heard them say but one’s too dear, so brave full hospitality--to fear! Until it’s over here and over there don’t think of norming back ‘till all our care has overcome the rum-tum drummed beware! But yet the pity of it, how it goes! A piteous pearl unsaved—O sweet ago! See sky, how’t caves! See how we make behave! 6 Louis Petrich �Natalie Walker 7 �To Those Commencing Young When first rehearsed, this character of evil worked so strong the actors, our venturing story lurched and heeled like dog- then dervish, tranced and keeled by curving skirting caving fears— their center spread--sky disappeared . . . Here let us not mistake the signs, You handed me your plate to stir: taste-tested dust—e’en this it dures-all questions faced all readiness as house lights invite black. Bereft, but staged for life, you feed my want of sun to break the chains and burn. Warm freckles—come! Chaste moon--return! for time would modesty confine Like this, to tan well always went. good tangling threesome—worth a try. to tongues in proof, so earn kiss meant this to, and efforts honest kind-- All bulge from teeming information. It muscles darkness—fashions creeds to falter springs of laughter free. Disaster’s peelings, caffeine stares addict to disaffection’s bit love’s horsing jawbones, chafing lips of fasting shades that long to sip past fleshed out masking asking holes, untimely ripped for doctored roles, disbanded Adams, Eves dispatched-gone!— save for face that gyps and laps in vacuumed webs. We must rematch. Remember would that friendship can. 8 Louis Petrich Like this--up late to keep bent true for great--none better knows than you. � Ode to the Stroll When I am weary of the world, I walk about my town, And try to notice hidden things, The splendor all around. Here are buried memories, Beneath the bricks and stones, The stories that have given rise To lullabies and bones. Marvel at the dignity The redwood tree commands, A beacon from the world before, Enduring Fortune’s plans. Note weeds that punch the sidewalk cracks And force their spindles through With will to live and taste the air, Charisma fair and true. A man bemasked with downcast eyes Trails back behind his hound; I wonder who is walking whom, And where the pair is bound. Presently my thoughts contortThe future gapes its maw; Malevolence below our feet From sleep has come to thaw. Lysithia Page 9 �Alone together shall we trudge, All wandering fallow land; Though cataclysm comes to call, I cannot hold your hand. Ruin has a bitter taste, How shall we wash it down? What does it take to build an arc, Or will we simply drown? I take these thoughts and smother them, I scrape my mind of fear; In several months, the ball will drop, And end this lonesome year. To break the spell of loneliness, I stroll, behold, and muse; While breathing in the sweet salt air, I pay the Bay my dues. Old-sea swells tell a secret, With words that hush and lull, That all returns unto its depths In love unshakeable. All buildings were but dreams before, So was this well-worn street. Then someone blessed them into life, As when old friends first meet. 10 �A child picks a dandelion, Blows its tufts away. I wonder what the child wished, And hope her dreams will stay. Indeed I dream of dancing On nights that fizz with joy; Though isolation stings my soul, This song no fears destroy. When I can’t remember who I am, And living seems a chore, I gather all my spirits up And step outside the door. 11 11 �Can you see me?/ Deep in the Red Sea 12 Daryl Locke �Self Portrait 2020 The Unnameable’s Objection toward color is just one’s own insecurity. Insecurity because of color is just one’s own folly. Folly due to another’s exquisiteness is an unnameable objection. 13 �Bedford 14 Sera Johnson �An End Indigo sunset. Salt smell, dull wave hum in a night that hides the jungle and reveals stars. I am awake. I think about the sweetness of the fruit that used to fall from trees– dripping, bursting, overripe. Then. Now: brown mush underfoot. Worm food. I stand up. I look down the empty beach. Just past a breeze stands a stone wall that stretches into the jungle and dismantles itself in ivy and moss. Something cries far off beneath the shadow of the wet trees. I follow. The air is clinging close under the palms; the water wants to enter my nose and mouth and clog them. Clouds cover the sky. Mud covers the ground. I peel something off in hushed darkness, becoming more naked– sweet, fresh, fat. Once. Now: bony. Rancid with spit and sweat and ugly dreams. Somewhere shrouded, the moon sets. I breathe. I sit down. Rot loves me. Blind patches of ooze stretch out moldy fingers toward my lips and eyes. I close. Brown mush underfoot. Worm food. Samuel Berrettini 15 �Seal Attacked by Polar Bears 16 Samuel Berrettini �restless Sofe Cote 17 �Red Light Sunset 18 Raphael Rose � The Dry Cleaner My mother and I walk home. It is dark out. Wind is cool and soft. Lampposts dirty and yellow. The street is empty and clear, Except for outside The Korean dry cleaners. Mr. Yi is clutching his wrist. He does not wince. Red stain down tan trousers. Pool of blood At his feet. My mother asks If he is okay. He replies he was just Trying to bring down the gate. My mother asks if there is an ambulance coming. He nods. He says yes. He smiles. We walk on. I look back. He stands there alone. I am nervous. We shut the door to the building. Muffled sirens. Late evening Blood drip Clenched wrist Gentle breeze On the corner Bleeding calmly We greet the cleaner He nods Pants soaked red As blood pools Distant sirens A steady heart Eric Baker 19 �Han XVII: Back Home in Isolation Oma paces, Then turns on the stove to light her Dunhill. She’s been up all night smoking, too. 20 Zeinep Kyzy �Undersell Lazy sun UnderSelling new religion Of self love Sets upon me, my nose Fragility Is telling the truth Of the unheard, aspired Overseen: In fragile places lies floating and captivating Sterilized molecules of beauty and being In the haze of darkening I see my light from below In the haze gettin’ lost I see my heart beautified. Jay Tram Clare Collins 21 � i feel trapped. dispel the liquid on my tongue and let it leave the slight tingle on my lips, like frostbite on the lungs. a revolving door heart, never stopping, always letting in new and letting out old, wanting to know even a glimpse of their souls. i tear at the bags underneath my eyes, set upon my fragile frame from sleepless dreaming and nightmarish evenings; they’re all spent inside my mind. maybe if i stretch the bags down far enough i can wrap them around myself and cocoon for a thousand winter solcistices. i feel trapped. dispel my tongue on the liquid like frostbite on the lips, and let my lungs feel the slight tingle it leaves. 22 Avery Laur trapped �The End Is Nigh John Verdi 23 ��Co-Editors Assistant Editors Cover Illustrations Sophia Cote Adam Schulman Grace Calk Elias Christian Lysithia Page Zeinep Kyzy Special thanks to Enkh-Od Batzorig Energeia Energeia is the Literary and Art Publication of St. John’s College, Annapolis... ... 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Fall 2020 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Fall 2020. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Arts--Periodicals Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia_2020Fall Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/434dd881e88758387fb47297229e1b3a.pdf eb2a0fef027ea742e8542da8f88e6273 PDF Text Text SPECIAL ISSUE 1983 �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. Ti ••• vou Cover: Kevin Tracy, '83, submitted this watercolor for the Baird Award last y ear. E v ~p yELa c;w . . n. (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) The contents of this issue of Energeia have been selected by Annapolis Pr ize Committee and produced by the Ene r geia staff . STAFF PRIZE COMMITTEE Printed by the St. John's College Press St. John 's College, Annapolis, Maryland Chai r man : Robert Druecker James Carey Hugh McGrath William Mullen Jonathan Tuck the Editor: Faculty Advisor: Christian Holland Kathy Buckler Ann Burlein Zoe Churchville Martin Marklin Alexandra Mullen Merle Sokolik J oe Sachs Energeia is a non - p r ofit s t udent magazine with an in- house cir culation to the s tudents , faculty , alumni , and staff of St . John ' s Co lleg e, Annapolis and Santa Fe . Ene r geia is published thrice yearly, in the Fall, Winter, and Spring . The Fall issue is reserv ed for the student work of the previous school year which has been selected by the Prize Conunittee fo r public recognition . For the Winter and Spring issues the Energeia staff we lcomes submissions fr om all members of the comrnunity--essays , poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings , and . the like. Note: A brief desc r iption of the author accompanies all work not by cur rent St. John's students. Please include some such statement along with your submission . Thank you. �All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy: Reflections on Beauty in Plato, Kant, Schiller, and Heidegger Barbara Cooper CONTENTS ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY: Barbara Cooper REFLECTIONS ON BEAUTY IN PLATO, KANT, SCHILLER, AND HEIDEGGER 1 TRANSLATION OF A GREEK TEXT George McDowell 30 RACINE'S PHAEDRA: REMEMBERING WHO WE ARE Lisa Eckstrom 32 TRANSLATION OF A FRENCH TEXT Geraldine McDowell 52 Leslie Bellisario 54 BECOMING ACQUAINTED WITH A KNOT Ann Burlein 55 BEETHOVEN .. . A COMEDIAN?! Kenneth Martin 71 KYRIE Jerry Spires 74 THE HARMONY OF THE SOLIDS Martin Marklin 79 . ORIGINAL ENGLISH POEM Wisdom, for Plato, seems no t to be a noun synonymous with "knowledge of what is," but a verb indicating how to attain that knowledge. For Plato our experience of beauty is erotic; we desire it and move towards it to possess it. Diotima suggests that love (and poetry as well) comes from a desire to be immortal and to beget what is "one's own." If begetting "one's own" means •coming fully into one's own, then love of beauty results finally in a kind of possession of self, the kind of possession which, in the Phaedrus, one attains by seeing oneself mirrored in one's beloved. In the Phaedrus Socrates says that, of all the imitations of what is (in the fullest sense) that appear in the world for humans, beauty alone comes through vision. Vision is the sharpest of our Introduction If we gather together the various notions that Socrates has about beauty we find that, although in the Republic he holds art at arm's length, he also respects beauty highly: in the Phaedrus and in the Symposium Socrates describes beauty as a sort of catalyst or ladder in the search for the Good. In the Republic we see art as dangerous for three reasons: it is not real; it can induce imitation of ways of being in the world which are not the highest and best ways; and finally because, if a poet can move us powerfully towards what he sees as good and true, can he not with equal power compel us in the opposite direction either deliberately or through poor judgment? It is this third objection , I think, which colors much of Socrates' thought about the poet, for he thinks of the poet as the archetype for the craftsman who founds a state, and the unjust man is "like the clever craftsman. 111 Socrates' reservations about poetry indicate his immense respect for its power. In the Symposium Diotima hints that poetr y is like love of the beautiful, whi ch a cts as a spiritual intermediary between the realm of what is most fully and the realm of human being : spirits "weld both sides together and merge them into one g r eat whole . 112 Diotima characterizes love as "at once desirous and full of wisdom, a lifetime seeker af t er truth, an adept in sorcery, ench antme n t, and seduction." 3 In Plato, love and poetry a re not themselves Truth, but a r e r athe r the means to attain it . senses; for Plato and the Greeks, to have seen is to know and all knowing is in some sense "insight." Therefore beauty is ekphanestaton kai erasmiotaton. 4 Beauty shows itself and shines forth most, and of all things is the most lovely and lovable . By appearing for us in this world Beauty leads us back to that higher world beyond the sensible realm. Socrates seems pri marily to be speaking of human beauty here; however, in the end of the dialogue Socrates makes several suggestions about how a piece of writing must be constructed to be pleasing. It must be constructed "like a living creature" and, like a lover, it must be appropriate to the type of soul which it will move.s Thus Socrates' discussion of how the love of a beautiful individual can lead us Barbara Cooper,'83, is currently studying contemporary African music in Kenya on a grant from The Watson Foundation. She is the founder of Energeia. 1 �to love of the Beautiful and the Good applies equally to the love of beautiful poetry or of art in general. The dialogue itself is an example of the power of beautiful art to lead one to the Good, for this speech is lovingly constructed for Phaedrus so that he will not, by following Lysias, neglect one of the most important aspects of life: love of an individual. Although beauty is not the Good itself, it in some ways resembles the Good. In the Republic Socrates uses the sun as an image of the Good. Beauty likewise shines and brings to light the being of things; however, we can behold beauty without being blinded. In the Republic it is not clear how it is humanly possible to stare directly into the sun, or the Good, in its full radiance. In the Phaedrus we discover that beauty is astraptousan: the brilliance of beauty is fleeting like a flash of lightening or the reflection of sunlight on metal.6 Beauty seems to allow us to experience the Good momentarily and to give us a sense of the direction of its source without blinding us in the meantime. In some sense Beauty is closer and more approachable to us as humans than the Good . Thus although in the Republic Socrates seems to relegate art to a position of minor importance, in the Symposium and Phaedrus he seems to suggest that art and beauty can have the highest possible role in human experience. To accord to art the r ole which he gives it in the Republic, Socrates must believe two things: first, that as imitation of the real, it must be less than the real; and second, that beca\lse it is neither real in this world nor true in the full sense in which ·the Good is True, it can have no truth or reality at all. On the question of beauty, as with so many questions, Plato's dialogues serve as a starting point to which later authors respond. In this pape r I shall offer three subsequent discussions of beauty and I shall examine how they differ from Socratic thought. In doing so I shall gather together some notions which I feel describe some aspect of my own experience of beauty. Although it is in response to ,_ Plato, this paper is not intended as a refutation of Plato, for often he is the deeper and more responsible thinker. As I discuss these va ~ious approaches to beauty in art, I shall keep in mind the problems involved in any discussion of aesthetics. I begin with a discussion of Kant, for whom beauty does not reside somewhere far beyond us, but rather in ourselves. His subjective description of beauty accounts for our sense that in experiencing beauty we are learning about ourselves as humans. I then consider Schiller; while Plato believes that poetry, as ~ appearance, can be a danger to society, Schiller believes that precisely because it is appearance poetry leads us to our full humanity. I conclude my discussion with Heidegger, for whom we not only learn about the true because of beauty and art, but Beauty in art is itself a manifestation of the True. Truth resides in the same realm as we do. I shall close this paper with my own understanding of the role of beauty in our own everyday lives, and with a discussion of the difficulties involved in trying to describe what beautiful art is. I. An alternative to thinking of Beauty as residing in the supersensible realm is to claim that beauty is nothing else than sensation. In "Of the Standard of Taste," Hume points out that a judgment about beauty in art must depend on the condition of the "organs" of the man perceiving the work of art. If a man lacks delicacy, practice, experience in comparison, or impartiality, he will not judge well and we will say that he lacks taste. In order to have good taste a man must have good sense. We praise a man of good taste, and his own good sense becomes our standard of taste. Thus the standard by which we judge a judgment of taste lies not in the object, but in the faculties of the man judging. Taste is a kind of health. our sense of beauty is literally bound up with our faculties of sensation and our reaction to a piece of art is "sentiment." Although I may not be able to judge well about a piece of art myself, someone whose faculties are in better order and 2 more practiced may be able to point out to me what is good or bad in the art work, and I can come to see what he has seen. Hume responds to the question of whether there can be some objective standard of taste that we must trust the judgment of those men whose good sense distinguishes· them. For Kant the consequence of Hume' s notion that beauty is not a quality of things, but rather exists in the mind which contemplates them, is that a judgment of beauty must be universal. Kant follows Hume in presupposing that all men must have the same faculties, and that therefore, if I perceive an object to be beautiful, I will expect others to judge it to be so as well. Whereas Hume's essay addresses a dilemma in aesthetics, Kant's Critique of Judgment addresses the workings of the human mind. The Critique describes the nature of the judging faculty rather than the nature of works of art. For Kant the word "aesthetic" does not initially mean "pertaining to the beautiful" or "the science of the beautiful." It is used according to the ancient distinction of aistheta kai noeta. The "aesthetic" pertains to how we perceive the world and to how living in the world feels to us. However, to feel does not mean, for example, "I perceive that this is red" (as it did in the Critique of Pure Reason), but rather "I sense orfeel within my faculties that this is beautiful." Kant uses the word "subjective" in the Critique of Judgment to describe anything which has to do with the subject's sense of himself and of his feelings. Beauty does not reside in the object. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant accounts for how we make judgments about the state of being of objects of perception. We make what he calls "determinant . judgments": we receive perceptions in the medium of space and time and our imagination spontaneously acts on them to synthesize or "determine" them according to the rules set down by the categories. Understanding, as the faculty which contains the law-giving categories, gives the laws to which imagination adheres in giving unity to our perceptions. Productive imagination presents before the mind's eye 1 an object of perception synthesized into a unified thing, or a "presentation." The categories of the understanding are not (as for Aristotle) predicates but are rather functions of the mind by which imagination synthesizes perceptions. In a judgment imagination unifies a particular and places it under a universal (a category), e.g. this vase is red. However in the Critique of Judgmen~we discover that not all ]udgments are determined according to the rules set out in the categories. "Beauty," for example is not a concept or category. This is an astounding notion: we do not think beauty, we feel it. Some of the perceptions we receive cannot be conveniently cate-. gorized according to the rules set out by the categories. In order to unify these perceptions, the mind makes a rule for itself. If my perception isn't unified into a universal of the sort provided by the categories, what sort of universal will account for it? If I must make the rule up anew for each particular instance, there will be only one member of my universal. In synthesizing this particular I make a universal, so that in a judgment of beauty the particular and the universal are the same. I perceive in the object some unity which gives it a universal character . Kant calls this universal character of the artwork an aesthetical idea. An aesthetical idea arises from the presentation of a form which gives occasion to the imagination "to spread itself over a number of kindred representations that arouse more thought than can be expressed in a concept determined by words. "7 For example Jupiter's eagle with the lightning in its claws is an attribute of Jupiter which tells us more about his power and majesty than ordinary words can express. How can I call several different things beautiful if each of them occasions a new aesthetical idea formed by the ~magination according to a self-made law? My judgment that a thing is beautiful accompanies the feeling that I have upon synthesizing the perceptions. If my feeling is one of "free play," I call the object beautiful. If, on the other hand , I 3 �neations _! la grecque , foliage for bo r de rs or wall papers. 11 8 The mystery of the Critique of Judg ment is: how does imagination synthesize formally something whose content is not space or time? That is, how does it syn- . thesize something which cannot be schematized as ordinary perceptions are? The object has some unity beyond that which we synthesize when we synthesize what we have received in space and time . Of course the judgment itself pertains to the harmony of the faculties of the subject when they are in free play. However the activity of the mind is incited by something in the object. F.0r me the mystery behind Kant's terminology redeems it, for it is an admission that beauty is not at bottom analyzable. Some objects have a unity beyond anything we can describe in speech bound by the concepts of the understanding. As Valery comments: The seducer beguiles us with the hope that everything will reduce itself to categorical terms and so achieve completion, tha t everything will culminate in the Word . Bu t we must answe r t he demon with this simple observation: the effect of the Beautiful upon a man is to make him mute. 9 Although we began by supposing that beauty does not dwell in the object, but in the subject, it seems that our feeling is called forth by s omething in the object. Insofar as beauty happens in the subject , it is not an attribute of an object, but a state of mind. Mind in itself is not subject to the formal intuitions, for my awareness of myself has to do only indirectly with space and time . Self awareness arises from my attention to the spontaneity of my imagination. My mind is immediately mine and I cannot help but feel how it is working. The feeling that my mind is at play is called forth by the freedom of objects of nature and art, for while they conform in many ways to conceptual syntheses, they occasion more thought than can be accounted for by the categories. Let us consider two examples of how feel awe, I call the object sublime. Thus aesthetic judgments are not strictly speaking attributable to the thing, but to my own feeling upon perceiving it. Beauty is not a category but a reflection of the mind on its own feeling. Hence aesthetic judgments are reflective rather than determinant . The feeling the mind experiences arises from the interplay of the imag i nation and the understanding. If the understanding along with the imag ination were simply to categorize, they would be "working," as when I make the judgment that the vase is red. But when imagination makes a judgment according to no set law, it makes a law for itself in playful imitation of the categorical laws. The understanding and imagination are "in play . " It might seem that in describing beauty as free play Kant trivializes the importance of beauty in our lives. We play when we find the time, and we are not serious when we play. However Kant's choice of the word play points in another direction as well, for when we work we are under the constraint of necessity. We work because we have to work~ we do not enjoy it and in some sense we are enslaved by it. If our perception of beauty is play, then when we perceive beauty, we are, for a time at least, entirely autono mous. We are ou r own maste rs. In making a judgment of beauty we are acting freely. Although the imagination in free play generates a rule for itse lf, Kant con ceives the synthesis involved in a judgment of beauty to be "formal." Imaginaton's autonomy is not wholly arbi trary and capricious, fo r the understanding sets down the example which imagination will follow . The rule imagination makes for itself will be by analogy to those o f determinant judgments . Determinant judgments synthesize perceptions formed by space and time . Since all my presentations will be of things in space and time (including my "I") which can only be represented by imagination through inner sense (time) as linear, everything represented by imagination must be formal. For Kant, beauty must always lie in the "form" of the thing, and he offers as examples flowe rs, s hells, "deli- 4 We sense that if one part were missing or if something were moved the unity of the painting would be destroyed. We cannot pin down why just this arrangement so pleases us. The mind seems to be able to perceive and enjoy the appropriateness of this particular curve being given to this particular object, where it might not have been found since nothing required it to be there. Free play, then, might be interpreted in several ways. I can sense the appropriateness of this cur ve to this vase; or I can sense the seemingly deliberate near-adherence to law in something which plays ~ith forms so that, for example, they are not quite perfectly geometrical . In both cases imagination obeys no given law. The vase did not have to have that curve simply to be a vase, yet I made that curve an essential part of my experience of the vase . The laws of synthesis of an object do not give me the Cezanne still life as a dynamic unity of objects. Kant calls this recognition of the appropriateness or deliberateness of form "purposiveness." Ordinarily we call the cause of an object, in the sense of formal or final cause, its "purpose." It is the formal end which the object will attain when it is unified and which will be perceived by us as a form. through the concepts. However, beautiful things do no t have purpose in the sense of form through the concepts. Nonetheless, they do seem to have form, and the form looks as if it were prescribed for them in the same way that a formal cause is. We call such objects "purposive." A judgment of beauty then "has nothing at its basis but the form of the purposivenss of an object (or of its mode of representation)." 11 Kant's parenthetical remark reminds us of the question of the l ocat ion of beauty. Does purposiveness arise from the object, or from our perception of it? The wo r k suggests that the object is purposive for me, yet not eve ry object can elicit this feeling. Judgments of beauty arise from my internal sense that the thing has non-conceptual form, and this sense only arises f o r the r elation of my imagination free play might work. If I l ook at Cezanne' s "The Basket of Apples" (plate 48, The Visual Arts as Human Experience) 10 my determinant judgment will give me colors in positions, certain shapes, and these shapes as relatively large and small. But how are these presentations unified for me into one image? For example, I immediately recognize the dish of cookies as just that, but the shape of the dish is not strictly geometric (cf . p . 250). The table edges do not match up, and the bottle is not symmetrical . Nonetheless my imagination immediately and effortlessly offers these elements to my mind's eye as a whole image whose parts . make sense. • To enjoy the real forms in the painting my mind must toy with the image to recognize how it thwarts the laws of perspective . The real beauty of the painting lies not only in the shapes but in the dynamic quality Cezanne achieves by shifting the dish one way and the table another, and by presenting the fruit as both on the tabletop and levitating above it . Perhaps free play comes not simply with form, but also with the activity to which a piece of art invites us through the interplay of its elements. To appreciate this painting we cannot simply imprint the forms upon our retina; we must allow it to set us at play on a teeter- totter of perspective and weight . The upper right-hand corner of the table wants to rise, but is balanced by the sheer bulk of the basket of fruit . An example of free play closer to what Kant has in mind is Claesz' s "Still Life ' (plate 40 , The Visual Arts as Human Experience). Thispainting ~far more conventional and each of the images within it is beautiful in a way that the elements of the Cezanne, taken individually, cannot be since their beauty arises from their balance. In this painting the various · curves of the objects are lovely in thems e lv e s . We e njoy the shape of the glass because it has just this curve, and the ellipse of the chalice lip because it has just that shape. We run our eyes over the forms just as we run our hands over the pleasing curves of a piece of sculpture. The particular arrangement of the elements on the table is also beautiful. 5 �to my understanding . My i maginat ion finds i n the object s omething l i ke a purpos e and reflects on it in compar ison with the s trict formality of the concepts . In orde r to give me the objec t a s an object o f thought my imagination mu s t supply fo r itself some r ule similar to those of the understanding in orde r to captu r e this pur posiveness. My pleasure a r ises f r om t he p l ayful agreement o f my i magination's own law , a n d the laws o f the understanding . If my enjoyment stems from the autonomous imagination's flirtation with the law of the understanding, it depends upon my sense that the understanding is law for everyone. I will be pleased with the play of my f a culties only if, in contrast with the norm, they a r e acting f r eely . What sort of norm is this? It must be the normal activity of mind, not simply my mind but any human mind. Kant claims that a judgment of beauty p r ecedes the fee l ing of pleasur e . Contr a r y to what might have been expected, the judgment of beauty is not uni ve rsa l because it i s universally pleasant; r athe r , it is pleasant fo r everyone because it is universal . "Hence, " c onc l ude s Kant, "it is t he universal capability of communication of the mental s tat e in the given r epr e s entat ion wh ich . . must b e f undamenta l and must have t he ple as ure in the object a s its c onsequent. 11 1 2 Tast e i s t hen "the fac u lty o f j udg i ng a p r iori of t h e conununicab i l ity o f f eelings t h at a r e bound up with a give n r epr e sentat i on. 11 13 This remarkable notion r equires t hat we think b eau ty as firs t and f o r emost something wh i ch p r oduce s the same feeling in e v eryone . We o r dinarily think o f beauty a s s ometh i ng which move s u s pe r sonally and which may take on great e r appe a l when we f ind our judgment reinfo r c e d b y someone el se . I am not sur e tha t Kant's description r ings true fo r me ; it is very important to me that my enjoyment o f be aut y is finally couched in my sense of myself as a human, but I am not at all sur e that communicability is the condition of my enjoyment . Unive r sal communicability can only ari s e in an object if a ll men have t he same faculties in common . Taste , then , i s a k i nd of common s ense which accounts tor our ability to compar e ou r own judgment wi th that of the collective r eason of humanity . It requires unprejudiced , consist ent, and "enlar ged t hought . " We say that a man has enlarged thought i f he "disr e gar ds the subjective private conditions of h i s own judgment , 11 14 and in so doing puts himself in thought in the place of everyone else . We see now why Kant claims that a judgment of beauty must be universal . We will expect everyone to ag r ee with it; for , since we all have the same faculties, we will have the same experience when faced with a painting. The communicability of the feeling to a l l with the same fa cul ties makes the experience universal. How would Hume respond? It seems obviou s that ever yone does not ag r ee about what is beautiful . Hume would say that I cannot e xperience beauty unless my faculties a r e i n order . Someone with good taste has "str ong sense , united to deli cate sentiment, improved by practice, per fected by comparison, and cleared of all p r ejudice . " 15 Furthermore some things wil l appeal to some people because of thei r characte r s ; an old man may love Tacitus and a young man may love Ovid . No blame attaches i tse l f to such preferences , for " it is almost impo ssib l e not t o fee l a predilection f o r t h a t which suits our particu lar t u rn and d isposition . 11 16 Kant i s mo re t e r se in h i s e xplanation o f how judgme nt s may v ary . I sense that h i s explanation ar ises more f r om philos ophi c nece ssity than f r om the tole r ant ob s e r vat i on of a c t ua l human f eel i ng : "eve r yone mu s t admit that a judgment about beauty , i n which the least interest mingles , is ve r y pa r tial and is not a pu r e judgment of taste . 1117 A judgment of beauty must be "disinterested . " It i s he r e, and not so much in his claim that beauty is subjective rather than objective, that Kant's rea l argument with Plato shows itself . A judgment of beaut y is not e r ot i c; I must be speaking very loosely to speak of "love of the beautiful" at all . Kant claims, counter to Plato and our own simplest notions of beauty, that it is not the "object of des ire . " We do not , strictly speaking, even 6 desire to look at beautiful things, although Aristotle claims that we desire to look at and t o know all things . Ordinarily , we think of beauty as a source of motion, as something which, like the beloved in the Phaedrus , draws us with its radi ance . For Dante, to fail to be moved by beauty is sin, and he is scolded by Beatr ice for f o rgetting her divine beauty and following earthly things . Kant, however , wants to claim that I must not be moved by beauty ; my enjoyment of it must be entirely free and unconstrained . In other words, an experience of the beauti ful cannot be an "emotional" experience. It turns out that the consequence of claiming that beauty is no object outside of me is that I have nothing to move to wards . For Plato an experience of beauty is bound to be an important experience , for it will move us towards something . For Kant the experience is merely internal and solely of symbolic interest . One could try to temper the revolu tionary quality of Kant's claim by remarking that my enjoyment of art. must not come from anything private o r peculiar to me, but from those things which I share with all humanity. I must not like the painting because I like fruit, or because it is something I would like to own for its investment value or its c o l or scheme (should it happen to match my living room ) . In other words , I cannot take a simply private interest in the painting, and I cannot use it as a means to some end. Perhaps, then, because my enjoyment f ollows upon a judgment that results from . the universal nature of human faculties, I am permitted to take an interest in the painting because in l ooking at it I am joining in with all humanity to discover something we all share in c ommon . However, Kant does not even allow for this enticing possibility. I personally am at a lo s s to i magine why anyone would devote so much time, energy and t hought t o beautiful art if he is no t to take an interest in it_. Perhaps Kant imagines that we somehow run into beauty and are preoccupied with it f o r a time, as a child is amused when placed in a sandbox. It seems t o me that Plato's account o f our exp erience of beauty is far truer to the experie nce. W do love beautifu l e things, and although we may not desire to po ssess them (I am perfect l y happy to leave my favorite p aintings in museums) we do take an interest in their existence. The world would seem a far p oo rer place if the Louvre were destroyed. We take delight in the thought that such wo nderful things could share the world with us. In other words, we l ove them in much the same way that we love people; we can never pos sess them, we feel a desire to be in their presence, and we feel a deep loss when they disappear . We do no t love them for their usefulness, but simply f o r what they are . Although we may be aware that their presence is beneficial t o us, we do not pursue them for our own benefit: love is never a means to an end. It seems to me that Plato is very wise, in the Pha~drus, when he places a discussio n o f l ove of an individual next to the discussion of a pleasing wo rk of art. Kant, however, has a philosophical rather than an aesthetic reason for de scribing beauty as he d oes. For Kant, the whole power of beauty lies n o t in the beautiful object but in the subject's free response to the object. Art should no t be compelling and the experie nce o f the beautiful in art canno t be pathe tic. Kant is willing t o make such radica l claims because he sees beauty as the symbo l of our own free will. Free play gives testimo ny to the ability of man to make a universal of a particular. If Kant were to allow even an interest in universal humanity to enter into a judgment o f beauty, t he judgment would inclu de a kind o f desire; we would no l onger have in beauty a symbol of morality becau se the mo tive behind the j udgment would no l o nger be the judgment itself, but rather s ome other e nd such as knowledge. The j udgment o f beauty would then be a means rather than an end. As the symbol of morality, the judgment must be entirely autonomou s, a nd must treat beauty never as a mean s but always as an end. Thus f o r Kant t he conse quence o f claiming that a feeli ng o f beauty results from its u n iversal conunu ni c a b ili t y is that we find things beau tifu l because they cal l forth in u s a n awareness o f the freedom of 7 �my own experience of art . Nothing important to my experience of painting and music will be accounted for by describing oscillations and wavelengths, much as I enjoy the Timaeus. Even if my experience could be reduced to mathematics, I would know nothing more about why colors in a Monet strike me; Heidegger will later claim that it is precisely such analyses which make it so difficult for moderns to reach real being and beauty . Kant limit s his n otion becaus e he i s strongly rooted to the idea that because all our experience must be spatial and temporal, it can only be represented (conceptually or through free play) by something linear and mathematical. One might argue with Kant about his point in two ways: one could argue on Kant's own terms, or one could abandon Kant's vocabulary and invent a manner of speaking of one's own . I shall do both. First, if my feeling of beauty belongs essentially to my sense of myself, then it arises in some way akin to the way in which I am conscious of myself. Every presentation which my imagination offers to my mind's eye must also be able to be accompanied by my thought, "I experience this sensation. " In other words, prior to my synthesis of an object I must have a synthesis of the self experiencing that object. I experience the object in time (which was linear) , however I experience myself in my awareness of my own spontaneous synthesis in imagination. This spontaneity occu rs in some sense beyond time, for it subjects i t s elf t o a synthesis of itself in t i me. Con sequently my experience of myself and of my feelings is temporal, yet beyond time. However, to argue without being limited by Kant's vocabulary: the time by which we measure our work may be subject to measurement as if it were a time - line, but the time which we have to ourselves in play seems to stretch or become concen . trated depending on our involvement in what we are doing. Time seems sometimes to be more than one - dimensional. When I become absorbed in something , time seems thicker, or to stand still. At other times, it can perform magical leaps, and can pass by before I have had time to our own faculties. Kant buries the beauty of this notion in his terminology: "the subjective condition of all judgments is the faculty of judgment itself."18 we subject our own faculties to inspection by themselves. The imagination itself subsumes itself under the understanding itself, such that the freedom of the f o rmer harmonizes with the law of the latter . Kant is proposing that in making a judgment of beauty we are in fact playing with our faculties themselves in a self-conscious exercise of our own freedom to conform to law. The ultimate freedom for Kant is the freedom to conform to one's own law. Full freedom means complete self-consistency. In making a judgment of beauty (by making a particular into a universal) I am providing myself and others with an image of moral freedom, in which I act only "in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law. 111 9 Then beauty is only meaningful in society and in culture, for it rests on ·communicability and it hints at morality. Beauty, through "common sense," yields the self-conscious sense of oneself as a social being . Kant's suggestive notion of free play accords with certain aspects of my experi ence of art, although it by no means exhaustively describes art. However it seems to me that he l i mits the notion unnecessar ily by thinking of form exclusively in t erms of delineation, rather than thinking of it as the whole form or "look" o f a wo r k o f art. The who l e o f a painting, for e x ample, arises from the interplay of many elements, only one o f which is delineation. What Kant takes to be bare delineation o r outline , I prefer to think of as the shape emerging from the complex interrelations of many parts . Kant hesitates to accept music and the art of color as beautiful rather than merely pleasant sensations. He offers a somewhat obscure argument for why they might be admitted; however, his argument depends upon their being essentially mathematical. If music and color can only be accepted into Kant's account of free play because they are mathematical, I must re ject the notion because it disagrees with 8 grasp its passage. To think of our experience of art in time as merely linear when we experience leaps and bounds in our memories, and stretches and intensif ications when we contemplate, seems entirely too limited. Allow me, then, to offer my own elaboration on Kant's notion of free play so that it can describe more of the depth of my experience of art. Since it is clear to me that a black and white repro duction c annot always capture the essence of a colorful work of art, I will submit that color is just as much an element of beauty as size, position, shape and line. Compare, for example, the color with the black and white reproduction of Albers' "Study for an Early Diary" (plate 52, page 271, The Visual Arts as Human Experience ) . Much Of the exercisewhich this painting invites is lost in black and white, for part of the play consists in the intensity of the blue box fighting with the size and position of the yellow. The shapes themselves become interesting because of their positions as well as because of their forms. or compare Monet's "Rouen Cathedral, Early Morning" (plate 44, Visual Arts) with the black and white reproduction (p. 234). The black and white picture looks like an unfocused photograph taken from an interesting angle . The color picture draws us into a damp, light-bathed atmosphere . We strain our eyes upwards to whe r e the warm colors of the sunlight b a l ance the cool colors engulfing the ground on whi ch we stand . Texture and dens i t y pla y with color to give the effect of morning light. Something happens in the color picture . There is something purposive in the particular yellow-green which Monet uses to balance the purple - blue , but there is nothing strictly law- abiding about his use of the s e colo rs. Similarly a certain melody in a Dvorak string quartet belongs to t he cello at just that moment, although we couldn't s ay why. A jazz trumpet solo would become something altogether different if it were played on the piano. It seems to me that we experience purposiveness in the interplay of many elements in art, and that to consider free play purely f o rmally limits it. Kant's no tion (when expanded) captures the sense o f restful mo tion which some works cause and which we enjoy in the awareness that anyone would enjoy it. In appreciating that work we are j oining in with all of our cultures in an activity which exercises our own spontaneous creation of lawful form. Let us see what else we can learn about beauty from Kant. He chooses to distinguish between the beautiful and t h e sublime, claiming that while beauty "brings with it a feeling of the furtherance of life, 112 0 the sublime is: a mere appendix to the aesthetical judging of purposiveness, because by means of it no particular form is represented in nature, but there is only developed a purposive use which the imaginatio n makes of its representation.21 Beauty results in restful contemplation while the sublime results in an emotional exercise of the imagination. In a judgment of beauty, imagination approximates itself to the understanding by spontaneously making a universal law for a particular. In a judgment of the sublime, imagination stretches itself beyond its limits t o try to encompass in experience the boundlessness of the ideas of reason . In both cases my imagination is active. Although Kant gives precedence to the feeling of beauty, I myself believe that the sublime can be of equal importance in our experience of beaut iful a rt . F ree play may begin to describe my experience of Monet's painting of a cathedral, but it cannot describe my feeling when · I enter the Rouen cathedral. Whereas Kant intends to describe beauty exhaustively with his notion of free play, I think of free play as only a part of beauty, another part of which is the sublime . If we think of beauty as a source of self-discovery for man (both as an individual and as a race ) then, while playful beauty gives man an i mage of his own freed om, the sublime gives him an image of his own reason. Reaso n is the aspect o f the mind which strives to encompass and to know everything, as in Aristotle's claim 9 �self in a search to grasp the idea which one already has within oneself , an idea of an absolute whole. Kant's sublime de scribes for me the feeling that one some times has that the only appropriate response to a work of art is joyful tears. Kant offers as examples of this kind of sublime beauty St. Peter's in Rome and the Pyramids. Because our judgment of the sublime and the beautiful rests upon our sense of ourse lves as rational members of humankind, our judgments are produced only in the context of culture and of our common faculties. Kant claims that the sublime has its roots in human nature, "in that which, alike with common understanding, we can impute to and expect of every one, viz. in the tendency to the feeling for (practical) ideas, i.e. to what is moral."24 We presuppose taste and feeling in any man of culture. Since the moral ideas arise from reason, and the sublime is a sort of image of our reason, we ascribe a feeling for sublime beauty to any moral man. Kant claims that both beauty and the sublime are purposive in reference to moral feeling; the beautiful prepares us to revere something, not for the sake of s ome private end, but for the sake of its form, while the sublime leads us to respect something beyond our own sensible interests . Kant makes the limited claim that an inte r est in the beauty of nature ... i s always a mark of a good soul; and ... when thi s interest is habitual, it at least indicates a frame of mind favorable to the moral feelingJ5 One is startled, however, to discover at the conclusion of the Aesthetic that Kant has made a reversal, for the final sentence of the first part of the Critique of Judgment reads: "the true propaedeutic for the foundation of taste is the development of moral ideas and the culture of the moral feeling .••. "'ii76" ~It seems clear that culture and an appreciation of beauty are bound to one another, but it is not clear whether a taste for beauty leads to morality, or whether morality leads to taste . Kant very sensibly leaves the relationship ambiguous. that all men desire to know. In sublime judgments the imagination reaches out in an attempt to perform the function of reason. Consequently a judgment that something is sublime, like a judgment of beauty, refers not to the object but the judging subject. The judgment refers to the mind's feeling when faced with an object such as the sea or a cathedral: "the mind feels itself raised in its own judgment if •.• it. .. finds the whole power of imagination inadequate to its ideas. 11 22 While a judgment of beauty rests on objective purposiveness, a judgment of the sublime rests on subjective purposiveness . In a judgment of beauty some unity belonging to the object occasions my judgment, while in a judgment of the sublime my own relative smallness occasions my judgment . Consequently the sublime "is not to be sought in the things · of nature, but only in our ideas. 11 23 Kant's discussion of how this feeling works on us characterizes my own feeling in the face of some few very moving works of art. I am torn two ways: I feel torn because the whole of my imagination can never equal the enormity I face and at the same time I feel warmed and excited by the attempt to capture the whole of the work, as if I were reaching for something beyond the everyday . The cathedrals, which were built for the greater glory of God, do succeed both in uplifting us and in giving us a pained sense of our own limitations . A very great symphony can produce the same effect, when we swim in the sounds and can never hope to grasp them all. To come away from a cathedral having simply admired its lines would be never to have faced it at all. Our mind enters into a disturbed conflict in which we are drawn forward by our imagination's attempts to grasp the whole, yet we are discouraged by the futility of our attempt. Nonetheless, in attempting to equal the ideas of reason in imagination we demonstrate to ourselves that we indeed have such ideas. One can conceive of someone entering into a cathedral and remarking only that it is large. To be awed by the cathedral, Kant very plausibly argues, is to involve one - 10 II Schiller, however, borrows Kant's ideas and boldly claims that artistic beauty will be man's means to reach a moral condition. For him the question of how man can attain political freedom and his full humanity is answered by Beauty, "since it is through Beauty that we arrive at Freedom. 11 2 7 Ideal Beauty will lead us to our ideal nature in which the harmony of our faculties renders us free. It is the task of culture to realize this ideal man in all of us. As the title of his book, The Aesthetic Education of Man, indicates, Schiller is concerned to educate mankind aesthetically so that mankind can become moral. One must admire Schiller for the nobility of his interest. Schiller reinterprets Kant's analysis of the faculties (understanding, judgment and reason) so that it can describe the present division of humanity as a whole. Kant's faculties become impulses or drives towards the rational, the sensual, and the beautiful. Just as judgment mediates between the understanding and reason, so for Schiller the impulse towards the beautiful mediates between the sensual and the rational. In the ideal man the impulses towards reason and sensation are balanced. Modern man, however, has become fragmented. The harmony of the ancients has been lost in the name of Progress and Utility. In order to further the technical arts man has specialized. Some neglect reason in favor of the sensual (like the man who works solely with his hands), while others neglect their senses in favor of reason (l ike those who theorize and invent). Schiller is conscious of the dual nature of art: like anything powerful it can be dangerous as well as beneficial. Through the specialization of the arts, Rea'Son and . the Ideal have become removed from sensation and reality: we his readers feel the truth of his claim in our own imbalance between the speculative and the i ntuitive'. Schiller's striking description of modern man anticipates the thought of Hegel and Marx: Eternally chained to only one single little fragment of the 11 whole, Man himself grew to be only a fragment; with the monotonous noise of the wheel he drives everlastingly in his ears, he never develops the harmony o f his being, and instead of imprinting humanity upon his nature he becomes merely the imprint o f his occupation, of his science. 28 In a dialectic process akin to Hegel's, Schiller describes the progress of history as being reso lved by a Higher Act. This Higher Act is Culture; through it the third impulse (the play impulse towards the beautiful } develops. This impulse corresponds to Kant's faculties in free play. For Schiller, Nature and sensation always combine, while the progress of the understanding demands division and separation. The power of reason performs a second synthesis yielding a new whole. This recombining synthesis manifests itself in history. Our new harmony will not simply be a return to the original harmonized state of the ancients, for the Higher Act will unite the simplicity of the ancients with the historical self-consciousness of the moderns.29 The antagonism between the sensual and formal impulses will be instrumental in this move towards Culture; however, as long as the conflict persists we are only on the way towards culture. Culture will be a state in whi ch our rational and sensual impulses are harmonized by ~ur impulse towards the beautiful. For Schiller the conflict of sense and form in humanity as a whole manifests itself in the individual as a conflict between condition and person. The condition corresponds to the changing particular who is bound to the sensual sequence of time; it is the verbal aspect of my being. The person is the enduring "I" which is an unchanging universal ideal outside of and encompassing all time. Man exists both in the immediacy of the sensu al and as an "I" in some way unaltered by time. Schiller sees mode r n man as caught up in the fragmentation of his own duality: particular v ersus universal, sense versus form, finite versus infinite, �reality versus ideality. Cultur e mu s t bring about a harmony between man's dual impulses. Ar t preserves the ideal humanity embodied in the Greeks: "truth lives on in illusion, and from the copy the original will once again be restored." 3 O For Schiller appearance or illusion does not fall short of the real, as for Plato, but rather it opens up towards the i deal. Schiller exalts the power of appearance. The artist, like Orestes, cleanses the present age by using material from his own age and the form from a nobler time, "from beyond all time, [borrowed] from the absolute unchangeable unity of his being . " 3 l The artist must give the world the direction towards the good by surrounding it with "noble, great and ingenious forms . until actuality is overpowered by appearance and Nature by Art . 1132 Art brings · about the Ideal by reconciling the warring impulses of reason and sensation. The sensuality of beauty will soften the restraint of the overly rational man, while a rt's formality will tighten the slack sensual man . The ideal condition will be "sternness with oneself combined with tenderness towards others." 3 3 The inharmonious man is either unsympathetic or self-indulgent. The impulse towards beauty balances the sensual and rational impulses because it makes use of both of them. This play impulse aims at "the extinc tion of time in time," for it attempts to reconcile the rational (atemporal) with the sensual (in time ) . 34 Because the rational is associated with the universal, and the sensual with the particular, the play impulse echoes Kant's moral imperative, whereby one's own particular act must be treated as if it were to become a universal law. Kant simply points to .the similarity between an aesthetic judgment and a moral judgment by calling beauty the symbol of morality . Schiller, however, in a display of his own poetic freedom, equates the synthesis of the material and formal with that of the universal and particular, so that the play impulse results in yet a third synthesis of physical with moral necessity in man's aesthetic freedom . Whereas for Kant freedom means autonomous self- consistency, for Schiller freedom means that we are not bound to a mere physical necessity, but can unite obedience to physical law with obedience to moral law. The freedom exhibited in a judgment of beauty, by uniting the sensual-particular with the rational-universal, makes manifest man's moral freedom . Thus "living shape," the realization of free play, suggests both the vitality of a beautiful form and the moral shape a life will take on if it follows the harmo ny of beauty . The aesthetic art for Schiller becomes the art of living, anc:i the fulfillment of this life is play : "man plays only when he is in the full sense of the word a man, and he is only wholly Man when he is playing . " 3 5 · I am reminded of Aristotle's conviction that to be fully alive and at work is one's ful lest pleasure . We see here the glimmerings of the notion that what it is for man to be is to be at play : to be creatively at work on his life. Play takes on the sense of ergon, a being at work in the sense of fulfilling what is most necessary for man to be a man . For Heidegger as well beauty is a way of being at work in the world . Thus freedom from necessity in Schiller means play, a play involving the whole shape of o ne's life among men. Schiller has learned from Kant that beauty is not simply an attribute of things, but a state of mind as well : it is certainly form, because we contemplate it; but it is a t the same time life, because we feel it. In a word it is at once our state and our act . 36 Schiller founds his notion of "living shape" on several Kantian notions. First, a judgment of beauty is a reflection on the harmony of our faculties. Second, in viewing beauty we must reconcile the uni versal and the particular. Finally, our concept of the ideal of Beauty amounts to an awareness of our own boundless powers of rational thought . Schiller, like me, is inclined to combine Kant's notions of the sublime and the beautiful. Kant would 12 never posit a "rational concept of beauty," for beauty is not a concept but an idea of the imagination, a reflection on the. state of our own faculties. Schiller considers the recognition of beauty to be proof of our ability to pass beyond the finite just as for Kant the imagination's attempts to encompass the sublime are an image of our boundless rationality. For Schiller, free play affords a triumphant proof that passivity by no means excludes activity, any more than matter does form, or limitation infinity that consequently Man's moral freedom is by no means abolished by his necessary physical dependence.37 This union of disparities in our experience of beauty proves the compatibility of the finite with the infinite, and consequently proves that an individual act can become a universal act. It proves the possibility of a sublime ideal humanity. Schiller means far more by "beauty," "living shape," and "culture" than is implied in our fine arts. When he claims that culture will lead us to ideal humanity, I think that he is aware that no mere intellectual revolution, no blood-bath, and no mere conviction in human free will can lead us to the realization of a peaceful, free world and of our ideal humanity. By culture Schiller means something like what the Latin root suggests: man is nurtured and cultivated into the organic whole which is his ideal condition only through the attentions of his culture. He must grow up out of the earth of nature, but he will only grow freely and well if some artificial attention is given to his form. The illusion and artificiality of human custom makes man conscious of his own power over the nature whose sensual law he cannot escape. Art is only beautiful if we are conscious of it as man-made. our imposition of form on our world yields )Ur sense of moral freedom. action, not for the sake of some necessary of self-interested end, but purely for the sake of freedom. Freedom cannot be imposed by revolution, it must grow up out of the fabric of everyday life. Schiller elevates Kant's "disinterestedness" to the stature of the source of our humanity. Schiller's description of fragmented man yearning to become reunited portrays convincingly the modern world and much of modern art. Man's desire to find a home in the universe and to become one with it may be founded on Schiller's distinction of person and condition. We are often painfully conscious of ourselves as fragmented infinitesimals existing in time yet groping to find a way to equal the world we live in. We sense that the whole of what is excedes us in importance and being, and would like to feel one with the whole rather than separate. Baudelaire's poem, "Les Phares," describes the same yearning: Ces mas maledictions, ces blasphemes, ces plaintes, Ces extases, ces eris, ces pleura, ces Te Deum, Sont~n echo redit par mille labyrinthes; C'est pour les coeurs mortels un divin opium! C'est un cri repete par mille sentinelles,. Un ordre renvoye par mille portevoix; C'est un phare allume sur mille citadelles, Un appel de chasseurs perdus dans lee grands bois! Ces c'est vraiment, Seigneur, le meilleur temoignage Que nous puissions donner de notre dignite · Que cet ardent sanglot qui roule d'age Et vient mourir au bord de votre eternite ! 38 Beautiful illusion is the exercise and manifestation of our freedom. Thus the art of living entails making every moment o f one's life a poetic act, a deliberate exercise of In this poem artists from Michelangelo and da Vinci to Goya and Delacroix all join in one cry lamenting 13 �man's loss of classical innocence. It is the cry itself, the yearning to become one with God's eternity, which gives testimony to man's dignity . This cry repeats itself t hroughout different worlds and ages, al ways reaching for the eternal and timeless as waves reach for the shore . The preceding poem ("J'aime le souvenir de ces epoques nus . . ") s ugge~ts that we are no longer all that we could be, because we lost our youthful innocence t o the God of Utility . Baudelaire captures t he ache we have to return to that innocent, unified state. Of ten we do experience beauty as an attempt to escape from the limitations of time, or to capture time in a moment . This sense of being freed from time ac cords with Kant's description of beauty as a concept which is not a schematization of time through the categories . Although our experience of beauty is temporal we are no longer enslaved by time; our experience is the extinction of time in time. We are not limited by the spatial and temporal qua lity of art, for we become immersed in the entire world t he work of art depicts . Each of the painters in "Les Phares" creates a world, yet when I experience tho se worlds I am not subject to their time or space; rather, I sense for a moment those worlds as a whole. Our consciousness that our experience is not , for onc e, subjec t t o time give s us a sense of f reedom and wholene s s which Schiller calls "universal" and "infinite." I think of Soc rate s gaz ing in timele ss contemplation at the beginning of the Symposium , or of myself when I am "lost in thought." Insofar as we have not yet attained to the reintegration of our faculties or impulses, I think that Schiller's description of modern man hits the mark , and, in comparison with Kant's reduction of the significance of beauty to a symbol, I respect his sense that Beauty can be extremely powerful. I also admire his wisdom in recognizing that full humanity and freedom cannot be imposed, but must, just as the word "ethics" implies, come from custom and habituation. Nonetheless his conception of beauty and Culture as the road to morality dis turbs me deeply. Schiller himself admits that one could argue that precisely because taste pays heed only to form and never to content, it finally gives a soul a dangerous tendency to neglect all reality entirely and to sacrifice truth and mortality to an attractive facade . 39 Schiller dismisses this enormous problem, the problem of the Republic, and all the examples that history has to offer of its likelihood , in two paragraphs . He responds by positing a pure rational concept of Beauty , and "by this conception we are to discover whether what experience calls beautiful is entitled to the name. 114 0 This Beauty cannot be discovered through experience; it must be sought along the path of abstraction , and it can be inf erred simply from the possibility of a nature that is both sensuous and rational; in a word, Beauty must be exhibited as a necessary condition of humanity. 41 We must pursue Beauty because "those who do not venture out beyond actuality will never capture Tr uth . 11 42 Beauty is thus an ideal towards which we strive . This argument is, for me, mere poetic rhe tor ic . Why should we strive for an ideal that Schiller cannot prove we even have, and which we do not know to be iden tical with the Good o r truth? At the foundation of this argument lies Schiller's certainty that we, like Socrates, wi ll in some way ass ociate the beautiful with the Good, and the Good with truth . I do believe that art brings out a certain t r uth , but I am not sure that that truth is always moral truth. Schiller perhaps argues from his own conception of what higher art must be and has in mind his own politically oriented writings. However it would be dangerous, to say the least, to assume that the reader will take Schiller and Goethe as his examples rather than some less scrupulous poet. For me, much of Schiller's writing gains its force from its poetic formulation and not from its argumentation. I have frequently resorted to quoting Schiller rather than paraphrasing him, for he is at heart not a philosopher but a poet. He would like to give his arguments the force of necessary reasoning, as if they were logically deduced. However, his arguments often make use of poetic license. Because of their generality and ambiguity (for example, what precisely are Higher Art, Culture, and Beauty?) his letters are a perfect example o f how art can be dangerous . Schiller gives the impression of having logically presented a necessary truth when he has, in fact, employed poetic persuasion. For Schiller's argument to work, art must act on particular men to make them more harmonized. It is not clear how art is to perform its function, since the arts cannot move men: an impassioned fine art is a contradiction in terms; for the inevitable effect of the Beautiful is freedom from passions. No less selfcontradictory is the notion of a fine instructive (didactic) or improving (moral) art, for nothing is more at variance with the concept of Beauty than that it should have a tendentious effect upon the character.43 Beauty, apparently, does not teach us or compel us. How then do we become more moral? ThQ move towards Culture can only happen in individuals, yet it is not clear how the harmonization is to take place unless Culture in Schiller's sense has already been achieved. Once a whole culture becomes involved in beautiful appearance, it might plausibly be argued that anyone growing up under its influence will be moral. But how are we to reach Culture? If the transformation is to take place in individuals through culture (in the sense of fine arts as we think of them) I am tempted to laugh cynically with Alex, the hero-villain of ~ Clockwork Orange: - - Civilized my syphilized yarbles. Music always sort of sharpened me up, O my brothers and made me feel like old Bog himself, ready to make with the old donner and and have blitzen vecks and pti tsas creeching away in my ha ha ha power. 44 For Alex the form and "lawfulness" of art express dominance, seduction and violence. Because Culture in Schiller's sense has not yet been attained, the art around Alex does not mold him towards moral freedom but towards lawless violence. Schiller claims that through art the sensual and rational impulses will be harmonized; however, in Alex the rational impulse imposes itself violently on the sensual and the sensual overwhelms the rational. The artificial world Burgess portrays may be full of illusion, yet it is not an expression of free choice made manifest in free play. The strict conformity to appearanc_e drives Alex to desire to break free from lawful imprisonment to exercise his freedom in lawless violence. His violence, at least, is not illusory. I have serious doubts about Schiller's claim that beauty leads to morality. Hitler and Stalin appointed ministers of culture, but that did not make them Cultured. Art, beauty and culture do not imply humanitarianism. Schiller has not adequately explained how Culture is to come about through the instrument of the conflict of sense and reason, yet his writing persuades us that it will. My fear is that Schiller's Aesthetic Education, for all its optimism and beauty, will distract us from our attention to. morality itself. I would like to believe what Schiller claims but I have not yet seen justification. When Socrates condemns art as imitation in the Republic he fears the political consequences of illusion. Not all art is illusory, for not all that is artfully made aims to deceive. But Socrates is aware that, because beauty is powerful, it can lead us astray. Schiller's description of the sensual and rational impulses in some ways resembles ~OCJ:~•' tripartite soul in the Phaedrus. Schiller seems to ignore Socrates' image and its implications on his own theory. Certainly the sensual element and the rational element must work together when they perceive and pursue Beauty; however, in 14 15 �the Phaedrus one is always conscious of the danger that Beauty will provoke one of the elements to thoughtless and destructive action . The experience of beauty may in fact unbalance us . It would be foolish to avoid beauty al together on that account, but it must be approached with great caution . What I miss in Schiller is a sense of rese r ve in the face of beauty . There are many k i nds of illusion we can be drawn to and cau gh t up in; we must be very sure what we mean by beautiful illusion if we are to pursue it . Having noted that the danger of art disharmonized mankind in the first place, Schiller would have done well to bear this danger more in mind when he sang the praise of "Higher Art . " III Nevertheless there is something deeply true in Schiller's assertion that "we are citizens of an age, as well as of a State . " 45 The needs and tastes of our centur y cannot help but form our sense of the world, and we owe allegiance to our own time ; it would be wrong to ignore its conce r ns whethe r they please us o r not . Schiller's awareness of the historical nature of humanity gives him an understanding of beauty which will account f or the histo r y o f art . Nothing in Kant • s ae sthet i cs can describe why each of the painters in "Les Phares " so emphatical ly c r eat e s a world of his own, governed by the age f r om which he emerges . Only with the a dvent of a sense of histo ry and o f t h e development of human consciousness within it can we account for changes in style, subject and emphasis . Art seems to have the power to draw us into a world or age; we do not simply stand back and observe the form, or even simply feel the play of our faculties . we find ourselves faced with a new way of being in the world . Heidegger, upon being moved by a Van Gogh painting, comments that "in the vicinity of the work we [are] suddenly somewhere else than we usually tend to be." 4 6 Let us consider for a moment several different works of art: Copland ' s "Appalachian Spring," Munch's "The Cr y , " and Homer ' s Iliad . When we encount er each of these works , we experience the world i n wholly different ways , all of which may seem true or real to us . The world of "Appalachian Spr ing" is hopeful, young, decidedly American and highly conscious of the natural world . Munch's "The Cry" (p . 1000, . Key Monuments of the History of Art) calls forth an age-old despair, a sense of alienation from oneself and from the wor ld . In Homer's Il iad a l iving , teeming, colorful picture of the world embraces the unity and blessedness of everything , in spite of the toil and pain without which that unity would not be pos ~ sible . Although each of these worlds becomes real for us, each corresponds to a partic ular time or age , and each comes out of the sense of the world and the concerns that pervaded that age. Copland was an American in a time when the American dream seemed possible; Munch was a product of European malaise brought on by industrialization and the shadow of the world wars . In Homer' s time the gods seemed active in the world, forming and o r dering it . None of this means that I must know the histo r y behind the work to be drawn into a world, but it does determine how those worlds are historical . How i s it po s sible for a work of art to draw us into a world? Heidegger speaks of a r t as d r awing us into a wo r ld, and although he means by "world" something more ontological than I have in mind in this discussion of aesthetics , we can learn much from his thoughts on the mat ter . Heidegger has his own interpretation of Kantian "disinte r estedness . " While fo r Kant disinterestedness allows for a purely free judgment about an object, Heidegger takes it to be the most pathetic experi ence we can have of an object: "precisely by means of the 'devoid of interest' the essential relation to the object itself comes into play."'+ / We see that whi le in Kant the beauty in a work of art happens within the free play of the subject, for Heidegger it occurs in the relationship of the receptive subject ·to the work of art . An experience of beauty requires that I approach the work without imposing any of my own needs, desires or expectations upon it . Only then will it present itself to me fully . Heidegger quite literally intends to say that my manner of approach ing the beings of the world alters their manner of being present in the world for me . The work has an integrity of its own which I must not violate if I wish to ex perience it . For Kant the importance of disinterestedness arises not from a need to experience the work honestly, but from the necessity that our judgment be free . Heidegger emphasizes that disinterestedness is not apathy or indifference, but a bearing towards things . When I face works of art I must take an interest in them for what they are in themselves; I must allow . them to .move me . Heidegger follows Plato in believing that the beautiful is that which shines forth most and which is most lovable . He too believes that beauty can lead the observer to truth as in the Phaedrus; or rathe r, Heidegger believes that beauty, in its shining, is a manifestation of truth and is not simply an appearance : "Beauty is one way in which truth occur s as unconcealedness . 114 8 While for Plato the r ealm of what truly is keeps its distance f rom the realm in which beauty appears in art , Heidegger believes that art tells the truth . Plato is unwilling to claim that beauty can give birth to anything but "wisdom" . Yet when I am faced with a work of art I sometimes want to claim that it te ls a k ind of tru t h abou t the world , even though the char acters may not be r eal . No one ever spoke as Phedre speaks , and few people would eve r be faced with the conflicts she faces , yet there is something t rue abou t how we see the world t h r ough the work . Her raw emotion is t rue to life , whether or not we will ever e x pe rience it in such an undiluted manner . Socrates does not permi t this kind o f interpretation of art, for if a thing is not a real table or an ideal table, it is less than either of them . Heidegger claims that art is not less than reality, but more . Art brings out the reality of real things by telling a kind of truth about them . Philosophy, in the course of its his tory, has obscured the reality of things by imposing various interpretations upon them . Things have been thought of as made up of subject and accident, of the unity of the manifold of sensation, and as mat ter and form. Heidegger claims that none of these ways of speaking about a thing allows it to be what it is in itself . He calls these theories "thing concepts," and points out that our relationship to things may more properly belong to the realm o f feeling than ratiocination: Perhaps however what we call feeling or mood is more reasonable that is, more intelligently perceptive ... because it was more open to Being than all that reason which, having meanwhile become ratio, was misinterpreted as being rational. 49 Because Kant a r ose out of and con tinued the tradition of thinking of things th r ough conceptual machinery rather than allowing them to move us , Kant is in a sense responsible for the rarity of our e xperience of beauty . He i degge r claims that the prevailing thing - concept of informed matter a r ises from our sense that all things either have a u s e for us o r seem to have one . Matter is always formec by the end or telos we find fo r it . Heidegger would claim that all Kant ' s tal} of purposiveness indicates Kant ' s inabili ty to think of things of the world withoui simultaneously refer r ing to t he ir usE (whether actual or apparent) . Even ir admitting to the non - conceptual element ir a judgment of beauty , Kant must resort tc conceptualization : beauty becomes an "indeterminant concept . " Thus we most of t en approach things a~ use - objects o r equipment . To experience < thing as it really is we must p r event our selves from imposing anything £ n i t , w~ must allow what is in the thing to shrn itself . Here is ho;- Heidegger describe: what we perceive when we allow a Van Gog] painting of peasant shoes to "speak" : From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth 16 17 �In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field ... This equipment belongs to the earth and is protected in the world of the peasant woman.so Heidegger's feeling description of an experience of the Van Gogh painting captu r es more of our sense of the wo r ld of the painting than Kant's free play does. The painting makes us more conscious of the life behind the shoes than of the forms involved in their portrayal. The shoes seemed at first to be mere equipment, but, because of their reliable usualness, they give the peasant woman a secure world in which she can reap the mys terious benefits of the earth. Heidegger sees the being of things as a conflict of earth and world rather than of form and matter or sensation and reason. The shoes are part of the peasant woman's world and they bring he r into contact with the earth. The work of art has its quality as a work because in it the conflict of the earth and world is at work . This conflict works on us, the viewers, in our own world. Art is, for Heidegger, "the truth of beings setting itself to work. 11 51 Art does not testify to our freedom or lead us to morality, it sets up a world through the wo r k it performs on us. In depicting a world the work gives birth to a world . Heidegger does not mean that it creat es an atmo s phe re but that it literally creates a new world. The beings of the world take on a new being because of the power of art. In our ordinary transaction with things, we use them and use them up. We use bricks to make a house, leather to make shoes . We live in a world of useful things. However in the creation of a work of art, the material does not disappear in usefulness, but rather becomes more noticeable. When we see a stone sculpture, the stone suddenly becomes remarkable and beautiful, unlike the brick of the house. In a poem words are not simply useful for getting something done; we dwell on them and enjoy them for their sound and new meaning. After reading "Les Phares" a beacon is something new for us. While Schiller claims that "the real artistic secret of the master consists in his annihilating the material by means of the form, 1152 Heidegger insists that in the work of art the material first ceases to be an object to be worked on and becomes something which acts on its own. I think Heidegger is quite right about this; in the tubes, Monet ' s paints are merely red and green; once they are brought into conflict with one another in the painting, they come into their own and come alive. We of ten speak of a lyric melody, as if the very tones could sing, and we a·r e first conscious of the beauty of wood or metal when they have become part of an icon or statue rather than of a table or car. 53 A good artist does not impose anything upon the material but rather works with the material to find the form within it:" As Aristotle or Michelangelo would agree, the sculptor finds the statue in the stone. Art does not allow us to take its subject matter or material for granted. The stone is no longer mere stone, and the form of the man is not simply "some man." Things which seem familiar and ordinary are revealed by art to be extra- ordinary. Heidegger describes our sense that when we look at a work of art we are seeing what it depicts for the very first time. Rodin ' s sculpture of "La Belle Heaulmiere" (p. 146 , The Visual Arts as Human Ex pe r ience) makes us see the degradation and despair of an old woman as if we had never seen it before. Joself Albers' "Study for an Early Diary" (plate 52) gives us the sense that that particular blue is for the first time remarkable and lovely. Things in the world are no longer mere things, but entities with a bein~ that has nothing to do with their usefulness or purpose for us. This sense that the work of art gives us that things have an integrity and being of their own Heidegger calls "selfsubsistence." The unity we find in a work of art arises from the conflict of world Thus our sense and earth enacted in it. 18 of the thing as an entity in itself arises from the conflict of world and earth . In the wo r k of art "that which is as a whole --world and earth in their coun54 terplay-- attains to unconcealedness . " The interplay which for Kant resided in the play of the faculties, fo r Heidegger arise s in our consciousness of the primal conflict of world and earth. When Heidegger speaks of "unconcealedness , " he is thinking of the Gr eek word for truth, aletheia . The etymology of the word (a- lanthano) hints that truth is the un- hidden and un - forgotten . However , just as for Heraclitus Nature likes to hide , so for Heidegger the unhidden truth about things is that they protect their being by hiding it : Trut h is un- truth , insofar as there belong s to it the reservo ir of the not - yet- uncovered ... In unconcealedness, as truth , the r e occur s also the othe r "un- " of a double restraint or r efusal . Truth occurs as such in the oppositio n of clearing and double concealing . 55 We see this opposition of clearing and concealing in the conflict of world and earth, so that Truth happens in the conflict between the r eticent natu r e of things and thei r manner o f appearing in t he world . The hidden character of things in part arises from our habit of imposing use and intellectual constructs upon them; it is not as though we could impose our will and thought on things forever without caus i ng them i n some way to turn their backs on us. The unconcealed characte r of things is the being they have in spite of or because of our approach to them . These two aspects, earth and world, are differ ent, but are never separated and cannot be resolved . Heidegger's account of art and our wo r ld may s ound e soteric, but I think he is describing something common to our experience . I will offer several simple examples of what he means . In the picture of David Smith's three abstract sculptures (p. 697, Janson, History of Art), the conflict of world and earth appe~rs in the stark contrast between the bold, worldly forms in steel, and the secretive , ancient and earthly forms of the branching tree and the mountains in the distance . A sculpture is always influenced by its setting, which is why a traveling exhibition of sculpture is a contradiction in terms : the same sculpture becomes a new sculpture i n every new setting . The setting is par t of the sculpture . In the same way a piece of architecture is altered by the city- scape which grows up around it. When Santa Fe was no more than a settlement , the Sanctuario stood out for miles as a work looming towards heaven . Now it huddles privately amid the buildings towering above it. In some way it is a different building now, for while it once proclaimed man's desire to pray to God, it now re proaches us for our pride and forgetful ness. These examples show how the con flict Heidegger describes can arise in the world into which the work of art enters . However this tension arises within the w·o rk itself as well. Smith's sculptures deny gravity and our expectations . They are nothing like natural forms, or the forms we are used to seeing in useful steel structures . They seem top - heavy and unlikely; they do not look like they should balance . The world the sculpture sets up counters the earthly setting i n which we find it . Smith plays with our expectations of heavy metal and gravity and thus sets ou r world on edge . Buckminster Fuller often plays with th i s tension between the "stuff" he works wi t h and the natural laws to which it must adhere. The metal of his architecture pulls and pushes into a particular conf iguration. The result is a structure which bears itself up because of the conflict. Fuller calls this conflict "tensegri ty , " for the tension brings about the integrity or unity of the form (see p . 486, History of Modern Art) . If we return to Monet's "Raue n Cathedral" we find this tension in the difference between the atmosphere Monet creates with his play on light and color, and what we know to be the solid, touchable "stuff" of the cathedral and paints. In the Rodin the conflict arises between the openly sagging dejection of 19 �By showing a particular thing from any given angle, he, Durer the painter, brings to the fore not only one single isolated view which offers itself to the eye ... Heidegger then elaborates on this thought: By showing any given individual thing as this particular thing, in its singularity, he makes Being itself visible: in a particular hare, the Being of the hare; in a particular animal, the animality. 59 Heidegger quite literally thinks of art as a "drawing" out from nature of the truth of objects . The act of drawing creates exactly the sort of conflict he has in mind between world and earth. The outline of the form along with the shadings which give it depth, fight with the negative space, the blankness of the paper which conceals the being of the thing the artist draws out. The artist captures the essential conflict between the form of a thing in the world and the earth from which it takes its context . The form is defined by everything which it is not (see, for example, Durer's self-portrait, p. 7 4 7, Key Monuments of the History of Art) . T~ drawing-out which the artist performs "does not let the opponents break apart; it brings the opposition of measure and boundary into their common outline ."6 0 Heidegger gives form as much or more emphasis than Kant does, for the look of the thing, its figure, shape, or Gestalt is the manifestation of the strife between world and earth. Because the conflict of world and earth arises both in the work of art and in our perception of it, it is essential to the work of art that we, as viewers, be conscious of it as a work and not as a use - object. When we see the art as art, we are drawn into the world of the w~k. At the same time, our response to the work draws the world depicted into our own world . We no longer see an old woman as an old woman once we have been drawn into the world of "La Belle Heaulmiere." However we do not find the woman extraordinary until we have seen her as extraordinary in a work of art. Part of the woman's world and the smooth, sheltered beauty of the reserved bronze from which she emerges . Although we can sometimes point out the worldly and earthly aspects of the work, the two aspects are not like parts which can be separated and scrutinized one at a time. One arises out of or in the presence of the other . This interplay illuminates everything which the art work touches on : the material, the f orm , the subject of the work, and the things in the world which the work depicts. The work sheds light on the things of the world: "this shining, joined in the work, is the beautiful. 11 56 Like Plato, Heidegger thinks of beauty as a brief illumination of truth. For Plato, beauty is like the sun and the Good except that we receive only brilliant flashes of it in a kind of flashback or insight. Heidegger also thinks of our experience of beauty as a kind of insight except that, f or him, the true is not simply reflected in the beautiful; it actually comes into being and manifests itself in the beautiful. Thus the making of art is "determined and pervaded by the nature of creation." 5 7 The poet's action is called "creative" not by analogy with God's act, but as synonymous with it. Art does not imitate, o r invite free play; it evokes: "to create is to cause something to emerge as a thing that has been brought forth. 11 58 Truth does not exist somewhere removed f r om the conflict o f world and earth; it occurs in that conflict. The appearance of truth is for Heidegger, as for Hegel, histo rical. For Plato, it would make no sense to think of the artist as creative, fqr everything which "is" in the fullest sense has always been, beyond time and human life. Once truth is seen as historical and the being which is most fully being resides in the world of knowing men , human creativity makes sense . In his commentary on Plato's Republic, Heidegger points our that for Plato art stands far removed from truth. Art can only capture a single angle or "look" of a thing. In response Heidegger offers Erasmus' characterization of Albrecht Durer: 20 The viewer creates the work by responding the beauty o f an object of art lies in our appropriately to it so that the world awareness that it is meant to be opened up by the work becomes part of the artificial . Plastic flowers are meant to world of the viewer . The artwork works on deceive us; their purpose is a pleasant the viewer and his world, while the viewer atmosphere. When we discover that they sets the work at work in the world . are plastic, they become repulsive. The distinction between creator, art Japanese silk flowers, on the other hand , work and observer is lost in Heidegger , are even more remarkable and lovely once for all merge in the worlding of the world we discover that they are man-made, for which the art creates. When a work of art they are not meant to trick us but to .comes into the world, it offers the pos delight us with their delicate perfection . sibility of a new and different world. Art transports us from the realm of Because human being is historical, art the ordinary because "the work casts beacts as a sort of prophetic projection or fore itself the eventful fact that the announcement to man of his own possibilwork is as this work." 61 The work of art ities. Man's response to the work creates does not allow us to ignore its being, as a new world which itself draws man into a we usually do with the things in the new state of being, just as the statue world : " ... and what is more commonplace becomes a new work when placed in a new than this, that a being is? In a work, by setting. contrast, this fact, that it is as a work, Art is an arche; it is a source and . . h a t 15 unusua 1 . 1162 . 15 JUSt w beginning of worlds and ways of being in Our response to each work of art will the world. The source of the work of art be different, and the appropriate response is the art already at work in the world; to a work preserves it. For example, for seeing the David Smith statues set against a religious work of art to maintain its the New England hillside may set me to being as religious, I must let it enter work to recreate the world I see when into my devotional life . Heidegger claims David Smith's world conflicts with his that if I cannot pray in a temple, it is earth. Each work evokes a new world, no longer the work of art which it was for which in turn enters into the conflict of the Greeks. Once I impose some other reearth and world to produce a new work, sponse upon the work I am depriving it of from which another world emerges. Art its work-being, for it no longer works on throws man into a new state of being; me in its full integrity . The work transHeidegger sees in art the power to draw a ports us into a world newly opened up to thing forward into its full actuality, us; we are displaced, or transported out somewhat as Aristotle's final or formal of the realm of the ordinary: cause moves the things of the world. Yet To submit to this displacement Heidegger's history seems not to have a means : to transform our final end (as Hegel's does), for every accustomed ties to the world and world consists in a conflict which can earth and henceforth to never be resolved, and which causes a new restrain all usual doing and world. It will always produce new art prizing, knowing and looking, in works, new drawings. We will never be order to stay within the truth trapped, like Kant or Hegel, in a world of that is happening in the work ... our own making: This letting the work be a work Modern subjectivism ... immed ' ately we call the preserving of the interprets creation , taking it as work. 63 the self - sovereign subject's Thus the being of the work as work performance of genius. . . But depends as much upon my preserving it as (poetic projection] never comes it does on the original creation of the from Nothing in that what is work . A Michelangelo tomb is only a tomb projected by it is only the if it has bones in it; a Vermeer ought withheld vocation of the properly to adorn the wall o f a house. 21 �historical being of man itself.64 Although man is creative for Heidegger, it is equally true to say that art itself is creative. Heidegger, like Schiller, recognizes that man both creates and is created by his culture. An artist can only draw upon the world before him to create his art; history consists of his successive responses to the worlds created by art. For Kant, the power of genius is far more mysterious and subjective than Heidegger's creativity , for we do not know its source. The artist tries, by means of imagination, which emulates the play of reason in its quest after a maximum, to go beyond the limits of experience and to present [rational ideas] to sense with a completeness of which there is no example in nature.65 Whereas Kant's genius spontaneously attempts internally to go beyond what the world offers to him, Heidegger's poet man ifests externally, in his work and being, an attempt to join in with the being of what appears through the agency of art . Because Heidegger's poet has a source outside himself, one cannot escape the question: whence comes the eternally gen erative power of this source? Aristotle's answer to this question is " God," the prime mover and eternal nous . Heidegger evades the question by emphasizing the historical nature of the being of things and of art. There will always be things and art to elicit a response in the poet (much as there wil alway s be fathers to generate sons in Aristotle). Yet Heidegge r claims that "language speaks" and that somehow the poet listens to the silence of being. At the risk of sounding Socratic I must ask, if "language" always speaks to the poet throughout the change able ages, must it not be one thing? Heidegger must believe that there is a sense in which the fullest being of things rests in language. Heidegger's poet lis tens to this language in the same way that Plato's demiurge looks to the shining of the forms. Heidegger cannot escape the implication that there exists something divine which calls upon the poet as the prophet who can lead the world towards Being. This thing, Art itself perhaps, brings us full circle, for we are once again claiming with Plato that Being (or Beauty, Truth, Art) is not in the subject but in something towards which the poet looks. Heidegger must presuppose something of a religious inclination in his reader to be convincing. The religious tenor of his writing provokes an objection similar to the one I raised against Schiller. Heidegger has his own peculiar language and style, and the greatest difficulty in writing about him is avoiding falling into his own language . Heidegger wants to avoid using · ordinary speech, for ordinary speech cannot draw us out of the world of use - objects in which we are inunersed. His work cannot be convincing dialectically because to use logic and argumentation would be to rely upon the sort of conceptual framework Heidegger wants us to abandon. Heidegger must let the language he has created persuade us. However Heidegger's position is difficult, for he is not a poet himself, but the prophet pointing to the saving power of poetry . His writing is not poetry, and it cannot be philosophy in the sense of post-Kantian conceptualization. Heidegger's difficult style, which is so self-conscious as to become at times strained and artificial, results from his attempt to write in a language which cannot be treated as mere equipment . It must be reflected upon because it is extraordinary. Consequently Heidegger cannot prove to me that Truth is historical and that reality happens in the art work. He must rely on wordplay, etymologies and apt expressions. If I am convinced by the essay, it is because it "seems right to me" and describes well my sense that art draws me into a world, a notion which Kant neglects . I am not sure whether his claim that the only true mode of speech left to us is poetry is right, but I am sometimes inclined to think that the images in Plato and Aristotle will move me in the world long after I have forgotten the arguments. For me the greatest appeal in Heidegger lies not in a powerful argument but in the 22 finds its context . When I walk in Paris very honest complexity and con fusion in and s8e the towers of Notre Dame set his notion of Art. I imagine that he is against the straight bold lines of aware of the circularity of his argument . Montparnasse, a conflict comes alive for Beauty is not something which can be an me and I see each of the buildings anew . alyzed, conceptua li zed and packed away. The past world is the stuff out of which with beauty, as with life, the questioning modern man is formed. We are as much made is all . Art has some power over the viewof our heritage as we are of flesh and er and the creator which, by its very nabone, and in some ways that past is as ture, cannot be fully understood , but unr espons ive and unyielding as the hills which can create new worlds for us . of New England . Heidegger's thought seems essentially It seems to me that Heidegger does optimistic to me: the truth can be right not take our confrontation with works of before us if we only open ourselves to it. art which are not contemporary seriously It is in someways a return to the stance enough. A work may in fact come into full of pre - Cartesian thinkers, for whom play long after it was created, as with epistemology was not an issue because Bach, Baudelaire, and Heidegger's own fa there was no unbridgeable gap between us vorite poet, Holderlin. If anything is and the thing-in-itself. We can know as peculiarly true of us moderns, it is that much of the truth as we allow ourselves to we cannot appreciate the art of our own perceive . time. Heidegger is far more sensitive to Perhaps it is this observation which the power and mystery of beauty than Kant prompted Heidegger ~s uppose that works is . However, there is at least one of art can become mere art objects . Beglaring problem in Heidegger's account of ·cause the art work consists in conflict, the beauty in art . If we think of art perhaps conflict must enter into our preshistorically as contextual form ( such that ervation of it. To preserve a Vermeer as the being of things depends on their a Vermeer, the middle - class Dutchman lived surroundings) , we are forced to say that with the painting in his house. It was once the surroundings change the art work not a museum piece . Perhaps to preserve a is no longer at work as a piece of art . piece of modern art I must reject it . The Heidegger claims that once the world of a projective power of modern art may lie in work of art has passed we can no longer the sense that I have that it conflicts experience that work; it has become an art with my understanding of the world . Once object . the work of Schonberg or Pollock has beCertainly it is true that the world come merely palatable it is no longer proof the temple is gone. I cannot pray in jecting us beyond what we are. The modern it, I cannot see it as the appearance of aesthete ·who can complacently claim to the gods. Nonetheless I would claim that enjoy and understand the music of his time it is still at work in the world. It may in fact be simply enjoying his culstands against the new·world and works on tural achievement ("broadening one's me in a new way. When I look up at the mind") rather than being provoked by a vault of a cathedral, that experience con radical, extraordinary work which origiflicts with the experience I recall of how nates a new world . the world appears when I look up in the Certainly we o f ten call modern works streets of New York and see skyscrapers "ahead of thei r time," which suggests that re aching for the sky. My experience of we can only enjoy them later, orice they no the cathedral consists in a different conlonger conflict with the world in which we flict of world and earth than that which live. However, for Heidegger, the work medieval man experienced . For him the consists in that conflict, and only pre cathedral stood against the boundless hotentiousness leads us to claim that we rizon and the fields worked by the peasappreciate art which is dead, because the ants. For me it stands as the earth primal conflict in which it consists no against which the world of mode rn activity 23 �longer exists . Part of me agrees that Notre Dame may be lost to a bus load of camera- clicking tourists (me included) , but another part of me knows that the cathedral still shapes the world of Paris for those who live there . Heidegger's concern for conflict ex plains why we have so much difficulty experiencing the art of the recent past . It has been digested and accepted and has lost much of its original sheen. Once it is olde r we c an o nc e again face i t as something venerable and extraordinary . When it was first made, it was startling and remarkable . But ten or twenty years after it was made it stands little chance of exciting much interest . However, none of these observations are universal, for Shakespeare has always been appreciated while Bach was only tepidly received in his own time, and Andy Warhol, I suspect , will go down in art history as a mere nov elty . The question we are now left with is : in what sense was and is the art work "created" if it continues working even after the "original" conflict which the poet drew out has been left behind? The work has s ome powe r not invested in it by its creator. If the cathedral is as much the context for my experience of Paris as the hil ls a r e fo r my e xperience of Smith ' s sculptur es, what s o r t of thing is "earth"? It ha s both a created and an elemental being . Not only c a n we not dis t inguish b e tween the work , a r tist and viewe r , we cannot finally distinguish the c r eated from the natural. Wor l d and earth , al though they are wonderfully apt prelimi na r y distinctions, prove finally to blend somewhat . Art seems to be mo r e complex than even Heidegge r had imagined . fecundity , and an energy quite comparable to that which springs from love; unable , in this new object of his attention, to separate necessity from the arbitrary, contemplation from action, matter from mind-- the philosopher, I say, kept trying to apply his usual methods of reduction by exhaustion and progressive division to this monster of the Fable of Intellect, this sphinx or griffin, siren o r centaur , i n wh i ch s e n sati on, dream, instinct, reflecti0n, rhythm, and excess are as closely intermingled as chemical elements in living bodies; this strange thing which nature sometimes offers us, but as though by chance, and which at other times is formed , at the cost of immense effort s , by man, who puts into it every bit of his mind, time, determination, in short, his life . Paul Valery, "Aesthetics 11 6 6 It seems appropriate to end this paper with the words of the poet Valery re flec t ing on the whole aesthetic question . With bis precisely aimed barbs of humor and irony , be laughs at us for the absurd it y of our effor ts . Kan t, Schiller and Heidegger all a t temp t to describe beauty a s a mons t e r with a dual n at u r e , but Vale r y su gges ts t ha t art is t oo p r o te an and complex for ou r natur al process of int e lle ctual div ision t o conque r. The elemen t s ent e r ing into our experience of beau t y a r e many and are int angible: they j oin together int o compl ex c r ys t alline struc t ures which dissolve or recombine t he moment we scrutinize them . Although our whole inve stigation is somewhat ludicrous, neve r theless it did bear some fruit . Beauty seems to teach us something about ourselves as humans. No other animals indulge in free play, none discover t heir own f r eedom fr om necessit y o r the boundless character of their thought. None grope beyond t h ei r individuality to find a sense of themselves in the universal whole of things . Certainly none create a world for themselves. If some of the details of our studies have jangled, if some have conflicted and cancelled , we Conclusion Thus, in the presence of that mysterious pleasure of which I am speaking, the philosopher, justly concerned with giving it a categorical place, a universal meaning, and intelligible function; fascinated by, yet curious about the combination here of sensuality, 24 must not dismi ss our search as useless but acknowledge the complexity of ou r subject . For Valery sug gests , a r t is probably more or ganic than we would like to admit . We would like to pin ar t and beauty down , to me asu r e them and move on to other things, but like t he electron , ou r own words, and l i fe itself it eludes us . Valery claims that man puts every bit of himself into art; we might recall Schi ller's conviction that the greatest piece of art is the art of living. For Kant as well, beauty, as the symbol of morality, seems instrumental in the very living of life. Certainly, if art and our sense of life are intimately bound , man ought to take an interest in aesthe t ics. Why should the very seed of life elude us? Heidegger, Valery and Kant all suggest that art is essentially poetic , since t hey place poetry and language above t he other arts. Art seems in some way linked to language, or at least to our attempts t o symbolize , communicate and t ransform our internal p r ivate sense of being into something more external and public, so that we and our fellow men can examine and enjoy it more re a dily . Yet t he language we ordinarily use (the language of grammar and dialectic) proves ironically to be a clumsy instrument for describing what beauty is. Is it a noun , removed and far away from us , or is it a verb depic t ing our own subjective activity? Perhaps it is an adjective, but to what shall we attach it? To my faculties, or to some object outside of me , or to the relationship of subject to object? Or is it an adverb describing the nature of the motion of my faculties? Does the adverb perhaps describe the work of the object on me, or of me on the object? The answer to these questions is probably that all have some truth. Poetry does not demand logical exclusion, for as Valery points ·out, "when poets repair to the enchanted forest of Language it is with the express purpose of getting lost. 11 6 7 I am reminded of the Baudelaire poem "Correspondances:" La Nature est un temple ou de vivants piliers Laissent parf ois sortir de confuses paroles; L'homme y passee a travers des forets de symboles Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers. 68 The poetic is so difficult to analyse or describe precisely because what art itself attempts to capture is so complex: the very forest of life and nature it s elf. If we have had trouble defining artistic beauty, neither can we define life: " s ome men have tried to define life; their efforts have always been rather futile, but life is there just the same. 1169 Each artist attempts in his way to re-evoke the world as it seems to him; art does not talk about things, it presents them before us as experience . To talk about art is in some way beside the point. Art does not happen in analysis, but in experience, in feeling and sensation. Most artists would rather let their works speak for themselves, as if the works had a kind of vitality separate from that of their authors, and a language of their own . we humans live in a historical world that changes constantly; the artist finds new aspects of life to respond to, or he responds to those which have troubled or inspired man as a human for centuries. There will always be love poems, but only in our own century can an artist address the insanity of a rac e to selfannihilation. The word "life" takes on a new meaning at every moment, and yet the faculties with which we feel it we share with all humankind . In general , art seems to have the character that we as moderns can look back to appreciate and experience the art of our predecessors, but one cannot imagine Homer appreciating Camus ~· Art is as alive and changing as the human co nditio n. Being alive means feeling, and as Wallace Stevens comments, "it is quite possible to have a feeling about the world which creates a need that no thing satisfies except poetry. 117 0 Stevens is not alone in this sentiment; Valery too fe l t that some things we experience ask to be depicted in art. Art d o es n o t simply express, for ordinary wo rds can express things. It is a way o f making sense of 25 �living . The artist does not always begin a work with a clear end in view, a message to be expressed . Often the very making of the thing is a way of coming to an understanding of the world, or at least of sensing the world more fully. The poet's concern may be to communicate with himself. If it happens that we, his human audience , can experience in his art something of what he felt in making it, so much the better . Rilke advises the young poet to search within himself , with i n hi s own feelings, memories and desires. The test of the worth of a poet's verse must be his own experience of life, not the opinion of others. In the Republic, Plato says that the Good is the source of all things right and beautiful, universally for all beings . 71 Many things can be measured, analyzed and discussed , but at least part of the Good in the life of all beings is not simply orthos . This other part may not always be perfect, correct or right, but it is beautiful . Ordinary speech cannot describe this aspect of life , for it does not belong to the realm of the philosopher, but to that of the poet . To ignore the kalon would be to be only half alive. To claim that what the poet depicts in his beautiful art has its source in the good may s eem perverse . Baudelaire's poems are flowers arising from evil . Munch 's "The Cry" wr enches us with the agony of isolation. How can these beauti f ul depictions be children of the Good? Perhaps what art depicts is not the Good it self , but t h e route to the Good. The wo r ld Munch depicts is not beautiful, but his art is; when we feel that ugly world vividly through the ?ainting, we pronounce the artwork to be beautiful. The beauty in the painting arises from its ability to make us feel . Baudelaire attempts to shock his audience out of the "ennui" which gnaws at life and dulls its b r illiance. Munch ' s painting prevents us from becoming numb to the world and from ceasing to live because we can no longer feel. The alienation we sense in "The Cry" seems an expression of the despair Munch feels in a world where humans turn their backs on one another's feeling . If we turn our backs on feeling , if we deny our sensual nature, we are not fully human. Sensuality may lead to ex cess, ugliness and pain, but it also brings with it wonder, delight and pleasure . The good beauty can lead us to seems to be an enlivened sense of being, a more alert perception of the world and a greater sensitivity to the feeling of those who surround us . The heavens pro claim the glory of God; each moment of e xis t e nc e must b e savor ed even in its ug liness, for unless we feel this world we are not fully alive . The poet might re spond to Socrates, you are blasphemous, for you belittle the grace that God gave you in simply letting you live in this world in this form, whatever its limi tations . It seems to me that the task of the modern artist is enormous. We have so alienated ourselves from our world that we doubt our very kinship with it . The knower (with whom we most identify ourselves) can no longer reach the sensual wor ld ; our souls are not made of the same stuff as the cosmos . How can we feel at home? Where is our place? Is my soul , like Baudelair e ' s, a tomb? : --Mon ame est un tombeau que, mauvais cenobite ; Depuis l ' eternite je parcours et j 'habite ; Rien n' embellit les murs de ce clo itre odieux. 72 Are we trapped in a mausoleum of life , no longer able t o live and feel? I f feeling me ans f eeli ng t he agony of Cezanne , Van Gogh , Munch , do we want this feeling? They were more vulnerable to life than most of us ; i t is the burden of the genius to have his senses heightened at the expense of his protective skin. I often think that in this , at least, Heidegger was right: without conflict, s t ruggle , and pr ob ably pain, t h e r e wou ld be no ar t , no beauty, and no truth about life in this wo r ld . Row can we b e ar t o be in such a world? But how can we dare t o claim that it should be otherwise? Life is what we are given. We may choose to try to change its quality, to annihilate what is ugly or evil in it, or simply to 26 come to terms with it, but there will always remain the astounding fact that it is ours for no other reason than that we should live. It seems to me that beautiful art moves us because it struggles with the irrational fact that we exist, which fact is not a mere object of knowledge but life itself. We do not know life, we live it; art helps us work through this mystery, play with it, delight, despair and puzzle over it. Art is above all else an invitation to live and make an art of living. Although beauty may overwhelm us, daze us with its genius or estrange us with its power, it will always awaken in us a sense that, at least for the moment we experienced it, we were facing life. Beautiful art enhances our sense of life. Life turns out not to be subjective or objective, rational or irrational, beautiful or ugly, but all of these things in a kaleidoscope of forms of which we are only a member. Seeing the beauty in life arise out of its contradictory and confusing nature is the end of art. .Auden's tribute to Yeats ends with a summons to the poet: Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With Make Sing In a Stop this You shall You shall eyes You shall You shall the farming of a verse a vineyard of a curse, of human unsu ccess rapture of distress; In the deserts o f the heart Let the hea l ing fountain start, In the prison o f his days . 73 Teach the free man how to praise. Each poet inhabits a different world, yet we all share the world in common. The poet must teach us how to praise life, and the source of life, even in the face of its incomprehensibility. Like Adam and Eve exiled from the Garden we must sweat over the soil of evil to reap the fruit of suffering. Only the free man can praise, the man who has risen above the inclination to numb his pain, who rather works upon it so that, by freely embracing and cultivating it, he is no longer imprisoned in life, but living. No animal other than man can remark upon his being in the world and rej o ice in it. Art, like man's very being in the world, is extraordinary. It is essential to art that we know it to be gratuitous, because life itself is a gift o f grace. Art jolts us from our complacency and ennui and gives us a sense that if art can be a conscious blending of chance and necessity, whim and choice, so also can life be. The po et invite s us to make our lives into a poem, or at least t o j oin into life, like a Greek cho rus which is conscious of the play as -a play, yet which jo ins in and reflects on its action. However, I may be drawing upon myself my own criticism of Schiller and Heidegger. Allow me t o let a poet speak as a poet: day and night with me and you shall po ssess the o rigin o f all po ems, there are mil l ions o f s u ns left, possess the good of the earth an d sun • . . no longer take things at second or third hand . . . no r l ook through the o f the dead . . . nor feed o n the spectre s i n b ooks, no t look through my eyes either, nor take thing s from me, 74 listen to all sides and filter them fr om you rself. 27 �Footnotes 1. Bloom 360e . Plato, Republic , (New York: Basic trans . Books, by A. 1968), 2. This and all quotations from the Symposium and Phaedrus are taken from Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. by E. Hamilton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). The passage cited is 202e. See also 205c. 3. Symposium, 203d. 4. Phaedrus, 250d. 5. See Phaedrus, 264c and 271b. 6. Ibid., 254b. 7.Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Judgment, trans. by J . H. Bernard (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p.158. 8 . Ibid . , p . 66 . 9 . Valery, Paul, "Aesthetics," trans. by R.Manheim in Aesthetics, ed. by R. Manheim (New York: Random House, 1956), p.58 . 10. Weismann, Donald, The Visual Arts as Human Experience, (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice- Hall, 1975). 11. Judgment, p . 56. 12. Ibid. , p. 51 13 . Ibid., p.138. 14. Ibid., p.137. 15. Hume, David, " Of the Standard of Taste," in Of the Standard ~Taste, ed. by J . Lenz, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980), p.17. 16. Ibid., p.20. 17. Judgment. p.39. 18. Ibid., p.1 29 . 19 . Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the --Metaphysics of Morals, trans. by H.J . Paton (New York: Harper and Row, 1964) , p. 70. 20. Judgment, p.83. 21. Ibid., p.85. 22. Ibid., p.95. 23. Ibid. , p.88. 24. Ib1d., p.105. 25. Ibid. , p.141 . 26. Ibid., p.202. 27. Schiller, Friedrich, On the Aestetic Education of Man, trans. by R. Snell (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980), p.27. 28. Ibid., p.40 . 29 . I learned this from Gisela Bern's essay "Schiller's Drama--Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry," in The St. John's Review, Summer 1982. See p.23. 30. Aesthetic Education, p.52. I have altered Snell's translation to read "in illusion" since Schiller uses " Tauschung" consistently to mean "illusion or appearance." 31. Ibid., pp.51-52. 32. Ibid., p.55. 33. Ibid ., p.71 . 34. Ibid., p.74. 35. Ibid., p.80 . 36 . Ibid., p . 122 . 37. Ibid. 38. Baudelaire, Charles, Les Fleurs du Mal et Autres Poems (Paris: Garnier - Fl~mmarion, 1964), p.42. 39. Aesthetic Education, p.57. 40. Ibid., p.59. 41. Ibid., p . 60. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., pp.106- 107 . 44. Burgess, Anthony, A Clockwork Orange (New York: Random House, 1981), p . 45 . 45. Aesthetic Education, p.25. 46. Heidegge r, Martin, "The Or gin of the Work of Art," in Poetry, · Language, Thought, trans. by A. Hofstadter (New York : Harper and Row, 1971), p.35 . 47 . Heidegger , Martin, Nietzsche (Volume I: The Will to Power as Art), trans. D. F . Krell (San Francisco:- Harper and Row, 1979), p.110. 48. " Origin ," p . 56. 49 . Ibid., p.25. 50. Ibid., pp.33-34. 51. Ibid., p.36. 52. °AeSthetic Education, p.106. 53. I would, howeve r , claim t hat the wood can come to life in a lovingly crafted table which is so well made that it not only functions, but draws attention to its being a table because it so perfectly performs as a table. 54. "Origin," p.56. SS. Ibid., p.60. 28 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 65 . 66. 67 . 68. 69. 70 . Stevens, Wallace, Poems E.Y_ Wallace Stevens, sele cted by S.F. Morse, (New York: Rand om House, 1959), pp.v-vi. 71. Republic, 517c. 72. Les Fleurs du Mal, p. 44. 73. Auden, W.H.-,-Selected Poetry of W .R. Auden (New York: Random House, 1971) , p.54. 74. Whitman, Walt, Leaves E_f Grass, ed . by M. Cowley (New York: Viking Press, 1969), p .26 . Ibid., p.56. Ibid., p.60. Ibid. Nietzsche, pp.186-187 "Origin," p. 63 . Ibid., p.65. Ibid. Ibid., p.76. Ibid., p.158. "Aesthetics," p.48. Ibid . Les Fleurs du Mal, p.39. "Aesthetics," p.6 0 . Bibliography Auden, W.R. Selected Poetry .£.!.. }i_.!!_. Auden New York: Random House, 1971. Baudelaire, Charles. Les Fleurs du Mal~ Autre Poems. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1964. Berns, Gisela. "Schiller's Drama--Fulf illment of History and Philosophy in Poetry." The St. John's Review, Summer 1982. Heidegger, Martin. Nietzsche. Volume I: The Will to Power As Art . Translated by D~Krell. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979 . -----Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by A. Hofstadter. New York: Harper and Row,· 1971. Hume David. Of the Standard .£.!..Taste. 'Edited by--:f. Lenz. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1980. Ka~t, Immanuel . Critique .£.!..Judgment. Translated by J.H. Bernard. New York: Macmillan, 1951. -----Groundwork of the Metaphysics .£.!.. Morals. Translated by H.J. Paton. New York: Harper and Row, 1964. Plato. Phaedrus . Translated by R. Hackforth in The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Edited by E. Hamilton and - Cairns. p rinc eton·· Princeton · · H. University Press, 1973. -----Republic. Translated by A. Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1968. -----Symposium. Translated by M. Joyce in The Collected Dialogues ~Plato. Edited by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1973. . Schiller, Friedrich . On the Aesthetic Education of Man. Translated by R. Snell. NeW-York: Frederich Ungar Publishing Co ., 1980. Stevens, Wallace. Poems E_y Wallace Stevens. Selected by S.F. Morse . New York: Random House, 1959. Va 1 ery, p au 1 · "Aesthetics." Translated d . by R. Manheim in Aesthetics. Edite by R. Manheim. New York: Random House, Inc., 1964. Whitman, Walt. Leaves ~Grass .. ~dit ed by M. Cowley. New York: Viking Press , 1969. Art Publications Englewood Cliffs : Prentice-Hall Arnason, R.H. History .£.!..Modern Art. New Inc., an d Harry N. Abrams, Inc., York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc-.-,-1974. 1962. Janson, H.W. History .£.!..Art. Englewo od . DL The Visual Arts as Human We1smann, · · -- Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc. and Harry Experience.--"E°nglewood Cliffs: N. Abrams, Inc., 1977. Prentice-Hall Inc., 1979 . -----Key Monuments .£.!.. the History ~Art. Many thanks to Miss Brann, Mr. Mr. Zeiderman and Richard. 29 0 ' Grady, �-------------- From Plato's Phaedrus Translation George McDowell In our present state there is no splendor in the likenesses of justice and moderation and whatever else to souls is precious, although by means of imperfect organs and with difficulty, a few are able to discern in these likenesses some semblance of the originals. Beauty however, was radiant to behold when, in company· with that fortunate choir, we followed Zeus and others followed other gods, and looked on a blessed sight and spectacle, and were initiated into that which is properly called the most divine of the mysteries. Fulfilled, we celebrated unaffected by the evils that awaited us in later days, and witnessed in brilliant light perfect, innocent, peaceful and sacred visions. We were as yet undefiled: free of the bodies in which we are now confined as are oysters in their shells. Let these things then serve as a tribute to memory, on account of which I have spoken overlong in yearning for a distant past. Beauty, as we observed, did indeed shine brightly amidst those visions, and coming hither, we were again able to perceive her glistening splendor through the most distinct of our senses. But even though sight is the keenest of the body's senses, from it wisdom remains hidden; for how powerful would be the love inspired in us for wisdom, as well as for those other equally lovely ideas, if we but had clear images of them within our view. As it is, however, to beauty alone falls the ordination to be both the most v isible and the most beloved . George McDowell attended St. John's in Annapolis for three years. He is now a first year law student at The University of Maryland in Baltimore. 30 31 �Racine's Phaedra: Remembering Who We Are Lisa Eckstrom 109 2 Examinez ma vie, et s ongez qui je suis. le sang fa tale and ignore the story of Helios our grandsire; we refuse to admit both as co-existent. We must not forget Misfortune in Racine's Phaedra that there are true stories as well as comes not from inability to know who we false even though the true stories may are, but from inability to be who we are. tell us conflicting things. The stories Phaedra is a play full of myths and may be of things within us, true things genealogies. We are told the stories of which are in conf lie t. Phaedra remind~ our fore~athers, and apprehend our coming Hippolytus: de~truction, all the while clinging to the 598 Dans le fond de mon coeur vous ne maJesty of our history, for we are pouviez pas lire. descended from the Gods. we are the Hipp~l~tus, the lover of Purity, does not Children of the Earth, and we are the recognize Phaedra as a daughter of Purity. Children of the Sun, the Children of Light It is the other story that he remembers and Purity. 1151 Phedre est d'un sang, Seigneur,' We depend on our stories to know vous le savez trap bien, who we are, and to know what it is to be a De toutes ces horreurs plus rempli If we are told false man .or a woman. que le mien. stories, we will see the world as it is The story of Phaedra is not complete not, .and we may become lost. The glorious unless the story of ~ sang fatale is told stories of the exploits of his father as.a part of her lineage from the Sun. convince Hippolytus that he lives in a This paper will trace the stories of the world in which men ki'll monsters· tw~ major families in the play, the Hippoly~us is destroyed. Oenone, the Children of the Sun, and the Children of woma~ who has raised Phaedra, offers her the Earth. Since a Honste is portrayed stories of the gods: as a member of one of these families, and 1304 Les Dieux meme, les Dieux de ' since Monsters play significant roles in 1 , Olympe habitants, t~eit histories, Monsters will be Qui d'un bruit si terrible discussed as well · It will be necessary epouvantent les crimes J ~ to ex~lor: the relationship of Oenone (and Ont brule quelquefois de feux of Theramene briefly) to those whom they illegitimes. serve as false interpreters · Rac1ne ' s · Oenone's interpretation is clear: Mortal, account of who men and women a re will be submit to a mortal fate. Oenone's role as found not only in the stories he has the story-teller will not end here: she will characters tell, but in their tell Theseus the deceptive stories that interpretations as well. lead to Hippolytus' death. All stories need not be deceptive, though stories that come from within are ****** CHILDREN OF THE SUN complex. In order to achieve a n on-c on tr adict ory account of who we are, We first view Phaedra when she has we of ten te ll one sto ry and ignore rallied her strength in order to see and another. We c oncen trate on the story o f show herself before t he Sun her A 32 grandfather for the last time. The unrelenting brightness of the Sun, a symbol of life and purity, is exceedingly difficult to bear. As a child of the light, she has been instilled with a remarkable sense of innocence and guilt. She sees unhesitatingly: There is only black and white. Crime is crime; innocence is innocence. There are no ambiguities in her distinctions. Just as the light of the day allows nothing within i ts reach to remain hidden, so too the inherited light within Phaedra exposes the darkness of her incestuous love. She may have fallen; there may be no turning back; but she remembers the difference between innocence and sin. She sees no consolation in the fact that she. has sinned in her heart only, and not in deed. She has. sinned. She has blackened what once was all of light. She must exercise the only control she has: she must die. Her first words 153 N'allons point plus avant . Demeurons, chere Oenone: Je ne me soutiens plus, ma force m'abandonne. Mes yeux sont eblouis du jour que je revoi, Et mes genoux tremblant s se derobent sous moi . Helas ! re- echo Theramene's desc r iption of Phaedra as a woman searching fo r dea t h. Phaedra seeks r est . She seeks to be r eleased from her torment, yet she places herself before the Sun . Why would Racine choose to introduce Phaedr a imp l or i ng He l i os r a t he r than Death? The precedent of addressing Helios is set neither by Euripides, nor by Seneca . Placing herself before the Sun is the final act of exposure for Phaedra. By d.o ing so, she acknowledges all that was once pure and majestic within he r . She does sC> for the last time. She can no longe r cla im pur i t y a nd majes t y . The journey is difficult, for Phaedra will not be able to rest under the Sun's gaze as she would be able to rest in the oblivion of death. The Sun's rays compel her to acknowledge that she has betrayed the nobility that she claimed as a descendant of the Sun. Hence, before the Sun, the trappings of earthly nobility seem especially ludicrous: . Que ces vains o r nements, que ces voiles me pesent! Quelle importune main, en formant tous ces noeuds, 160 A pris soir sur mon f r ont d'assembler mes cheveux? Tout m'afflige et me nuit , et conspire a me nuire . The cares taken for her app e a rance are meager provisions against the horror t ha t t he Sun exposes. Oenone mistakes her reaction : 165 Vous- meme, rappelant votre force premiere; Vous vouli~z vous montrer et revoir la lumiere; Vous la voyez , Madame; et prete a vous cacher , Vous haissez le jour que vous veniez chercher? Phaedra does not hate t he day; she hates the blackness which the light of the Sun exposes. The horror of constant l y haying to confront herself as s.inner, o f 1'.ever having some small clause or condition with which to excuse and hide herself , ravages and tortures a soul whose ances.try has imbued it with a signal sense of purity . She calls out: Noble et brillant auteur d'une triste famille , 170 Toi, dont ma me r e osait se ~an ter d'et r e fille ; Qui peut- etre r ougis du t r ouble ou t u me v o is , Soleil , je te viens voir pour la derniere fois. Racine thus reminds us of Phaedr a's glorious ancestry. He int r oduces us to Phaedra, not as the child of Pasiphae , the woman who lusted after the bull, but as the child of Helios. As the Child of Helios , Pha edr a i s noble and b rilliant , · possessing dignity and purity . The stress is Racine's: Euripides does not mention Helios in this context, and Seneca does so only briefly. In Seneca's Hippolytus, Oenone mentions Helios as Phaedra's grandfather while trying to dissuade Phaedra from her love for Hippolytus.l 33 �From Phaedra's first words, Racine reminds us that we are descendend from purity and that we have it within us. "Soleil, je te viens voir pour la derniere fois" is taken from a line in Euripides' Hippolytus. Aphrodite reveals that today is the last day that Hippolytus will see the Sun. By attributing the line to Phaedra, Racine shifts the focus from Hippolytus to Phaedra. There is something eerie in a mortal's knowing it is her last day. It is as if all that Aphrodite knew in the ancient play is now contained within the characters. Though Phaedra gathered her strength to show herself before the Sun, the humiliation is too great. She needs to hide, and cannot hide behind any outward trappings. It is her own imagination that provides the release; escape comes from within. 176 Dieux! Que ne suis-je assise a l'ombre des forets! Quand pourrai-je au travers d'une noble poussiere Suivre de l'oeil un char fuyant dans la carriere? From despair her imagination has taken her to a place beyond the Sun's reach, where the distinctions she cannot avoid would disappear. She cannot see clearly; the image is only murky; fine details are obscured by the dust and shade. The power of Phaedra's imagination is that it can carry her beyond the desire to be out of the Sun's glare and in the comforting shade of the forest associated with Hippolytus, to a definite, though conjured, time. "Quand pourrai-je .•. " places Phaedra in a future world where she will be able to gaze at Hippolytus unashamed. The reality of such a world may now compete with the demands of the real world (of the Sun's gaze) placed on her. There can be no such world: Light, when it enters darkness, does not lose itself in the darkness, but illumines the darkness. Though Phaedra may at times free herself from the strictness with which she judges herself, she will always return to it; she carries it within her and cannot ignore it. Phaedra's imagination implants the seed of a false and therefore cruel hope that there may be such a time of oblivion , a time in which she need not regard her incestuous and adulterous love with horror. She catches hold of herself almost immediately; but it is already too late: Insensee au suis -je ? et qu'ai 180 ]e dit? Ou laisse-je egarer mes voeux, et mon esprit? She struggles to place herself before the sun again , to leave the realm of the imaginary shade. Esprit, properly functioning, must be a quality of the day, of clarity and distinctions. Once she places herself in the world of the. imagination, it can no longer be relied on; its power is cut short: 181 Je l'ai perdu: Les Dieux m'en ont ravi l'usage . The boundaries of Phaedra's shame are expanding. Even earthly dignity is becoming impossible. Oenone, la rougeur me couvre le visage, Je te laispe trop vois mes honteuses douleurs, 185 Et mes yeux, malgre moi, se remplissent de pleurs. Though Oenone urges her to cling to life, Reparez promptement votre force abattue, 215 Tandis que de VOS jours prets a se consumer La flambeau dure encore, et peut se rallumer. Phaedra's path must be to death. When she sees clearly, she knows that there can be no repair. She has made a journey to say goodbye to the Sun, to acknowledge the purity she could once claim as her own, and she realizes that if she were to continue to live, she would have to compromise her sense of purity and impurity: 217 J'en ai trap prolonge la coupable duree Oenone does break Phaedra's silence; she will not spare her. When Oenone assumed the position of the suppliant, Phaedra had to choose between two forms of piety. It would be impious for Phaedra to turn away Oenone, and it would be impious for Phaedra to break her silence. Phaedra has been presented with an escape: she has been presented with a pious means of telling her secret . She takes it. As Phaedra considers where to begin the story she must tell Oenone, her other history comes to mind. She reminds Oenone of her other ancestors, her mother Pasiphae (and thus indirectly her halfbrother the Minotaur) and her sister Ariadne. As a member of such a family, Phaedra knows the horror of the impending disaster, not from prior experience, but from her genealogical history . Racine reminds us in this recitation of ancestors that Phaedra has a unique viewpoint. Not only has she inherited a sense of purity from Helios , but she has inhereited something else which is just as essential, le sang fatale. As her resolve (to keep her shame concealed) cn1mbles, she recalls this other knowledge that her bizarre genealogy gives her. She recalls the mother and sister who were destroyed. She knows passion, though she was never before its prey. She knows the disaster of its false oblivion: O haine de Venus! 0 fatale colere! 250 Dans quels egarements l'amour j eta ma mere! 253 Ariane, ma soeur! De quel amour blessee, Vous mourutes aux bards OU vous f\ites laissee ! 257 Puisque Venus le veut, de ce sang deplorable Je peris la derniere, et la plus miserable. ........... Graces au Ciel, mes mains ne sont point criminelles: Plut aux Dieux que mon coeur fut innocent comme elles! Phaedra's attention has turned from the Sun to the blood she shares with her mother and sister. They too became lost. It must be remembered that they shared Phaedra's royal descent from the sun, that they too were once of purity and light. Phaedra has no illusions that the grasp of eras on her is anything other than fatale . She knows that if she lives, she is lost . She does not have the strength to turn back. She has tried. She has banished Hippolytus; she has offered sacrifices to Venus. She knows that she has lost her ability to see her world clearly, unobscured by imagination, and thus knows that she has lost mastery of herself. Phaedra then begins her story for Oenone. She no longer lists her ancestors, but tells her own history . Having remembered Helios' purity and ability to expose impurity, and having remembered the sufferings of her mother and sister, Phaedra recognizes her condition and the horror of it: 305 Ce n'est plus une ardeur dans mes veines cachee; C'est Venus toute entiere a sa proie attachee: J'ai concu pour mon crime une juste terreur. J'ai pris la vie en haine, et ma flamme en horreur. Je voulais en mourant prendre soin de ma gloire, Et derober au jour une flamme ~ si noire. She resolves to die, She understands her helplessness. "C' est Venus toute e t. e r e a sa proie attachee." Phaedra sees: she is small and she will never overcome her predato.r. Every moment she lives is only a brief postponement of her inevitable destruction and a prolongation of her torture and terror. She has been caught. Venus has her within her grasp. Phaedra will be destroyed . Under such conditions, one desires that the destruction be swift and therefore merciful. As before, however, her resolve to die cannot be sustained. A messenger interrupts her thoughts and brings news of Theseus' death. Phaedra says nothing. It is Oenone who paints a picture as deadly Je t'en ai dit assez. Epargne-moi le reste. Je meurs, pour ne point faire un aveu si funeste . 34 35 �as that of any imagination: 350 Vivez, vous n'avez plus de reproche a vous faire. Votre f lamme devient une f lamme ordinaire. Thesee en expirant vient de rompre les noeuds, Qui f aisaient tout le crime et l'horreur de vos feux. Knowing her ancestry, how could love ever become ordinaire? Within her family love has never been ordinary. It has been monstrous and destructive. Moreover, Oenone's words are false legally and morally. 2 The world Oenone presents is a false world, but it is a world in which Venus' curse no longer exists, a world in which Phaedra could live. She releases herself into a false world which may only be imagined. With the stories told and the. ancestry delineated, Racine properly begins his play. We will learn more of Phaedra's ancestry as the play develops, but we may not begin until properly instructed in the myths that run concurrent throughout the play. At almost every turning point, there is a history that will guide Phaedra or will explain her behavior. Phaedra the grand-daughter of the Sun has postponed dying, though to live she must make moral ly compromising decisions. As the descen dant of Helios, such decisions will go against her nature. We are reminded of our Christian ancestry in Adam and Eve . Through Adam we are the fallen descendants of God. Remembering Phaedra's ancestry, we see ourselves as descended from purity (God) that has fallen (Adam) . We see ourselves as the unwilling and helpless prey of sin. We have moments of clarity, in which we see sin as sin and innocence as innocence; yet we constantly lose our way. We believe we may hide behind extenuating circumstances. But in reality we learn that nothing is hidden from the All-Seeing Sun, though we sometimes take flight in our imagination from the Sun within. This Christian perspective will be discussed further later, but sho~ld be noted here. Part of the power of the play is that it tells us . not only who we are as Christians, but where we are hiding as Christians as well, and exposes the lies that encourage us. Like the strong undertow that pulls Hippolytus further and further from himself, so Hippolytus' presence draws out all that Phaedra would wish hidden. She cannot restrain herself from seeing him. She reasons that she must plead for her child . She then loses her way in his presence. The conflict had become intolerable for Phaedra; her strength was not sufficient to keep her feelings hidden, though she demanded of herself that she do so. Caught between opposing desires, Phaedra's imagination gave release. In Act One, Phaedra's imagination created a future; in Act Two, it creates a past that never was. Phaedra struggles to retain clarity and is unable. A longing to disclose her love· finds its way into her speech: 598 Dans le fond de mon coeur vous ne pouviez pas lire. 615 Ah, Seigneur! que le Ciel, j'ose ici l'attester, De cette loi commune a voulu m'excepter! Qu'un soin bien different me trouble, et me devore! 629 •... Je m'egare, Seigneur, ma folle ardeur malgre moi se declare. In these lines, Phaedra catches herself before she discloses too much to be misunderstood. As Phaedra begins to paint the picture of Theseus, and to imagine his past exploits, she becomes hopelessly lost in an unreal world and thus becomes unaware of Hippolytus' presence before her, though indeed it is that which made this flight of the imagination necessary. The artist is free to change particulars, and in this flight she does so. Her imagination becomes overtly creative: 640 Tel qu'on depeint nos Dieux, ou tel que je vous voi. Her imagination then moves beyond the picture to a story, rearranging details in 36 such a way that Phaedra lives in a past where it is honorable and even virtuous to love Hippolytus. In this imaginary past, she is his rescuer, his heroine, and his lover . She begins: 645 Que faisiez - vous alors: Pourquoi sans Hippolyte Des heros de la Grece assembla-ti l l'elite? Pourquoi, trop jeune encore, ne putes-vous alors Entrer dans le vaisseau qui le mit sur nos bords? "If only things had been different" is Phaedra's tone in this quat rain. The tone then changes. Phaedra begins to alter the details of Theseus' famous descent into the labyrinthe. Her description is strikingly sexual. The descent into the labyrinth will be discussed in depth in the section of this essay on Monsters. It is significant here that it is Phaedra's imagination which betrays her, not Oenone and not Phaedra herself -- that is, not Phaedra as the descendant of Purity. Phaedra's imagination mediates between the desires inf lamed by the curse which Venus has put on her family, and the purity that Phaedra demands of herself as a Child of the Sun, and which, to the degree that she is a Child of the Sun, Phaedra possesses. The power of this imagination is such that when Phaedra discloses all, she is blind to the shocked Hippolytus before her. Her question : 665 Et sur quoi ju~ez-vous que j'en perds la memoire, Prince? Aurais-je perdu tout le soin de ma gloire? is genuine . It is only after a moment has elapsed in which she collects l).erself that Phaedra realizes what she has done. She knows that Hippolytus has understood her meaning, "Ah, cruel, tu m'as trop entendue." Her shame has greatly expanded; she must now prepare to die. Preparing for death, Phaedra again recalls her ancestors and the history of their destruction: 677 Objet infortune des vengeances· celestes, Je m'abhorre encor plus que tune me detestes. Les Dieux m'en sont temoins, ces Dieux qui dans mon f lanc Ont allume le f eu fatal a tout mon sang, Ces Dieux qui se sont f ait une gloire cruelle De seduire le coeur d'une faible mortelle. Remembering her ancestors, Phaedra is able to understand what has happened. She understands what she has done. She understaf1.ds the horror of it; and she knows herself as helpless and guilty at the same time. She begs Hippolytus to kill her, and when he hesitates, she grabs his sword to kill herself. It is then that Oenone takes the role of Phaedra's baser inclination to live at all cost. Human beings cling stubbornly to life; self-destruction eludes Phaedra again and again. "Faibles proj ets d' un coeur trop plein de ce qu'il aime!" Mortals cannot bear extended exposure of self-examination, which are kinds of deaths or humiliations. Phaedra could not have continued demeaning herself-674 J'aime . Ne pense pas qu'au moment que . j e t' aime , Innocente a mes yeux je m'approuve moi-meme, Ni que du fol amour qui trouble ma raison Ma lache complaisance ait nourri le poison. --without her imagination or Oenone has tening to offer some escape. Having exposed an unrequited and shameful love, Phaedra desires to be hidden as Act Three begins. 740 Cache moi bien plutot, je n'ai que trop parle Mes fureurs au dehors ont ose se repandre. J'ai dit ce que jamais on ne devait entendre. And Oenone does try to hide Phaedra from herself as well as others. Pascal's ideas of diversion immediately come to mind. Oenone acts as Phaedra's imagination, 37 �~roposing deliverance . Remembering the last line of the labyrinth speech, it is as if Phaedra now wishes that she and Hippolytus would be lost forever: 0 t oi . qui vois la honte ou je .' . suis descendue, Implacable Venus, suis-je assez conf ondue? Tu ne s~urais plus loin pousser ta cruaute. Ton :riomphe est parfait, taus tes traits ont porte. Cruelle, si tu veux une gloire nouvelle, Attaque un ennemi qui te soit plus rebelle. Hippolyte te fuit, et bravant ton courroux, Jamais a tes autels n'a flechi 820 les genoux. . ~haedra has begun a descent which is gaining speed; she has lost control. She has lost her ability to act as a Child of the Sun with the advent of all the worlds her imagination has imposed: she no ~onger sees clearly, knowing innocence as innocence and sin as sin. She has entered the murky worlds of her imagination in which s?e must depend on her . own blurred perceptions and the perceptions of her nurse to guide her . She has entered into the oblivion of eros. The restraints with which the play began can call to her only faintly. She has no rest · Her sin h as . grown. Oenone's advice under such conditions 11 faut d'un vain amour etouffer 825 la pensee, Madame. Rappelez votre vertu passee. seems wildly optimistic. It is as if Phaedra had abandoned herself to the tid that Hippolytus mentioned earlier. could no longer reach the shore, the undertow being too great' so she allowed herself to be swept out to sea • N~, f ~ f rom shore; Oenone does not understand that there is no returning to it. Phaedra hears that Theseus is al. Sh . 1 ive. e again rea izes that she must die. The story of the world in which Theseus was d~ad, and in which she and Hippolytus might have come to love each other has diversions to prevent Phaedra rom dwelling on the shame and horror of her condition. Oenone proposed that Phaedra involve herself in the govern i ng of Ath ens, since Phaedra is a descendant of Minos. Minos, however, does not play a determining role in what kind f h bei Ph d . o uman . ng ae ra is. We know Phaedra primarily as the daughter of Helios. The descendant of Helios cannot replace lost Virtue by embracing worldly Honor. She answers Oenone , no t as the daughter of a great King, but as the descendant of purity and clarity: 760 Moi, regner! Moi, ranger un Etat sous ma loi! Quand ma f aible raison ne regne plus sur moi, Lorsque j'ai de mes sens abandonne l'empire, Quand sous un joug honteux a peine j e respire, Quand je me meurs. Oenone cannot let Phaedra die. She easily discards one diversion for the next' and advises a more desparate action "F " Phaedra cannot. ' uyez. Phaedra has crossed a boundary, which, once crossed cannot be re-crossed. There is no turning back nor escaping. She can move only if she moves forward, into the madness: Enf in, tous tes conseils ne sont 791 plus de saison. Sers ma fureur, Oenone, et non point ma raison. Phaedra's character is such that it . does not admit of a middle course; her passion takes on the proportio~ of greatness that her purity possesses. Her command renders Phaedra as the grand-daughter of Helios passive. As she concluded the labyrinth speech, Phaedra imagined that she could find herself again in love. S a 1va t• th h ion roug love is no longer .bl possi e; Phaedra acquiesces in despair and then begins to imagine a different Hippolytus.(781) Three times Phaedra has prepared to die' and three times she has lost her resolve. Alone, without hope of delivering herself from Venus, she abandons herself to Venus, hoping for another kind of s~: Act Four begins after Oenone's been shown false. She sees clearly: lies to Theseus have been successful. 853 Je connais mes fureurs, je les Hippolytus has been banished. Yfuile begrappelle toutes. ging Theseus to spare his son, Phaedra 857 Mourons. Setant d'horreurs qu'un learns of Hippolytus' love for Aricie. trepas me delivre. Suddenly, a second story has proved false. Est-ce un malheur si grand que de Hippolytus is not unable to love. Perhaps cesser de vivre? he feels reserve for Phaedra alone of all Phaedra's only fear is for her children. women: As the daughter of an infamous mother, 1203 Hippolyte est sensible et ne sent Phaedra realizes the shame that they will rien pour moi! carry with them. Phaedra must acknowledge a real Oenone grows bold: Hippolytus. She can no longer freely 885 Pourquoi done lui ceder une imagine a time when she will be the woman victoire entiere? to break his cold reserve. Vous le craignez . Osez l'accuser Though her own imagination has la premiere deceived her, Phaedra attributes the deDu crime dont il peut vous charger ception first to Hipploytus and Aricie: aujourd'hui. 1231 Ils s'aiment! Par quel charme Qui vous dementira? Tout parle ont-ils trompe mes yeux contre lui. Comment se sont-ils vus? Depuis Yet Phaedra still clings to her respect quand? Dans quel lieux? for light and purity: She then ascribes the deception to Oenone: 893 Moi , que j'ose opprimer et noircir 1233 Tu le savais. Pourquoi me l'innocence! lassais-tu seduire? Oenone refuses to be dissuaded. The esDe leur furtive ardeur ne cape from death involves the substitution pouvais-tu m'instruire? of one world for another as before. The Les a-t-on vu souvent se parler, world of the Sun, where Virtue alone is se chercher? important, is replaced by the world of Dans le fond des f orets Earth, in which Honor is important. allaient'ils se cacher? Phaedra will neve r regain Virtue, but she Phaedra has known only what it is to may retain Honor, if she will only sacrilove guiltily; she tries to imagine what fice the standards with which Virtue has it is to love innocently: imbued her. Oneone assures her: 1237 Helas! Ils se voyaient avec pleine 907 ... pour sauver notre Honneur licence. combattu, Le ciel de leurs soupirs 11 faut immoler tout, et meme la approuvait l'innocence . Vertu. Ils suivaient sans remords leur Phaedra again relinquishes control, as she penchant amoureux. did before to Venus (815). She believes Though Hippolytus and Aricie have been she may release herself into another's together on stage only briefly, we realize hands, so that her own may no longer be that such is not their love. Phaedra has held accountable; it is a substitute for once again imagined falsely, She then the death for which she has been searchcompares her own plight in a world without ing, a relinquishment of self, to a woman illusions to the plight of the lovers in whose only desire is to keep her alive~ this false world of her own making: blindly disregarding all else: 1241 Et moi, trist rebut de la Nature 911 Fais ce que tu voudras, je entiere, m'abandonne a toi. Je me cachais au jour, je fuyais Dans le trouble ou je suis je ne la lumiere. puis rien pour moi. La Mort est le seul Dieu que Phaedra cannot escape so easily. Such a j'osais implorer. death is not a real one. 39 38 �J'attendais le moment ou j'allais expirer. Phaedra is filled with an enormous jealousy and hatred, the magnitude of which she is conscious of only later: 1271 Mes homicides mains promptes a me venger Dans le sang innocent brulent de se plonger. The false world angers her and she sees herself as victim only . At line 1264, Phaedra sees who she has become. It startles her: 1264 Que f ais-je? Ou ma raison se va-t-elle egarer? Moi jalouse! At one time, she relinquished herself to Oenone, but she realizes now that she can never escape herself. "Je respire a la fois l'inceste et l'imposture." (1270) She will meet herself everywhere in the of those who know her: eyes 1273 Miserable! Et je vis? Et je soutiens la vue . De ce sacre Soleil dont je suis descendue? J'ai pour aieul le Pere et le Maitre des Dieux: Le Ciel; tout l'U.nivers est plein de mes aieux. Ou me cacher? Fuyons dans la nuit infernale. Mais que dis-je? Mon pere y tient l'urne fatale. ........ Que diras-tu, mon pere , a ce spectacle horrible? Remembering the harshness of the sun's gaze, Phaedra longs again for darkn f " ess, or escape. Let us fly into the night of Hell." The lines express a 4esperation that is necessarily Phaedra's. There is no escape. In Hell she will be judged by her father, as the sun judges her on earth. There is no forgetfulness offered in death. What she had imagined before was false. There is no such escape for Racine's Phaedra, though there was for the Phaedra of Euripides. Oenone once again attempts to calm 40 her. Phaedra, however, strong with the remembrance of her ancestors, will not be calmed: 1310 Au jour que je fuyais c'est toi qui m'as rendue. Tes prieres m'ont fait oublier mon devoir. The day has come when Phaedra's hands can no longer be considered innocent: she has spo~en to Hippolytus who alone prevented their love from being consummated. Her hands long to become yet guiltier. She longs to plunge them into the innocent blood of Aricie. She knows that her lies are responsible for Hippolytus' departure . and will soon discover that she has caused his death. When Phaedra speaks in Act Five, she has already taken the poison that Medea, another grand-daughter of Helios brought to Athens. Phaedra no longer desires anything hidden: 1633 Le fer aurait deja tranche ma destinee Mais je laissais gemir la Vertu thought it advantageous tc have Aricie descended from the Earth, may be related to both these functions. As a love interest, the symmetrical contrast to Phaedra is perfect. Phaedr2 is the grand-daughter of the Sun, AriciE is the grand-daughter of the Earth . Phaedra is not a virgin, she is a mother ; Aricie is a virgin . Phaedra is in power! Aricie is not . Though Aricie is nowhen near as magnificent and developed a~ Phaedra, she does possess qualities whicl are easily contrasted with those of Phaedra. The political struggle seems contrived, perhaps because it is not stressec in Euripides' Hippolytus . One wonders wh; Racine developed it. This section wilJ offer no solution6, but can only point ir the general directions where the solution~ may lie. a THE Ch~LDREN OF THE EARTH I. 421 soup~onnee J'ai voulu, devant vous exposant mes remords, Par un chemin plus lent descendre chez les morts. Slowly, and paradoxically, a greatness returns to Phaedra in this speech. It is the old paradox of the gospels, "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. 11 As Phaedra exposes her crimes before her husband, we see a woman humbling herself and we the audience exalt her. She take~ on moral dignity. Part of the distate when Phaedra savagely blames Oenone is that we wish to see Phaedra continue to humble herself. We cannot exalt her for the way she treats Oenone . Phaedra turns on a woman who has been faithful to her. Oenone has served and loved Phaedra. We do not wan: people to be treated in this way. It is only in the context of reviling herself through Oenone that such treatment of her nurse can be made palatable to us With the death of Oenone and Phaedra come~ Why Racine the death of the imagination which deceives. Dying, Phaedra again turns to the Sun: 1641 Deja je ne vois plus qu'a travers un nuage Et le ciel, et l'epoux que ma presence CJUtrage; Et la mort mes yeux derobant la clarte Rend au jour, qu'ils souillaient toute sa purete. There is a strange diurnal motion talking plice at the close of the play. As Phaedra dies and renders herself to the darkness of death, her last word is purete. The Sun has been rendered its purity, its full brightness. The confusion between day and night in which the play began ha~ been overcome. The Rightful Heirs Aricie is the rightful heir to thE throne of Athens according to youn1 Hippolytus. Aegeus and his son Thesern have placed themselves in the successi01 to the throne by adoption and murder . Though Hippolytus is genuine in his belieJ that Aricie deserves the throne, are we tc take his belief as that of Racine? Hippolytus displays an amazing amoun· of innocence and ignorance t o the ways o: court when he is astonished that Phaedr wins the confidence of the chiefs o Athens to rule. He objects: 728 ••••• Dieux , qui la connaissez, Est-ce done sa vertu que vous recompensez? Perhaps his acknowle'1gement of Aricie a : the rightful ruler stems from the sam4 innocence. He does not realize that botl possession of power and a rightful clai1 to the throne are necessary to establisl oneself as ruler. Or perhaps his acknow· ledgement of Aricie as the rightful rule 1 stems from the love he has for her. If Hippolytus is correct, and AriciE is the rightful ruler of Athens, wha1 could this signify for Racine? Athens if set apart from other Greek cities by itf belief that its people sprang from th~ Reste du sang d'un Roi, noble fils de la Terre, Je suis seule echappee aux fureurs de la guerre, J'ai perdu dans la fleur de leur jeune saison Six freres quel espoir d'une illustre maison! Le fer moissonna tout, et la Terre humectee But a regret le sang des neveux d'Erechtee 494 Je VOUS cede, OU plutot je VOUS rends une place, Un sceptre que jadis vos aieux ont recu De ce f ameux mortel que la Terre a conc;.u. From the Preface, we know that Racine claims that Aricie "n' est point un personnage de mon invention," and he cites references in Virgil. Aricie's genealogy is however Racine's invention. Racine has made her a descendant of the Pallantides, not history or mythology. Aricie' s two principal functions in the play are as a love-interest for Hipploytus, and as a further complication in the political struggle between Hippolytus and Phaedra. 41 �local Attic soil. This myth was often used to promote its democracy, for if everyone had the common ancestor, the Earth, everyone was a prince or princess. The very multiplicity of the Pallantides (of ten portrayed as being fifty brothers) suggests that the proper power to rule is not located in a single individual. II. The French King Those in the audience would have been struck by the similarity of Phaedra's claim of the Sun as an ancestor, and the French Monarch's claim to be a direct descendant of the Sun. They may have recognized Theramene and Oenone as the servile ministers of the King. Racine's intentions now become unclear: One reading of Aricie's lineage would suggest that Racine is endorsing the rule of the children of the Earth, and is making some c~iticism, however weak, of the existing monarch. Yet one assumes that Aricie' s desire to tyrannically master Hippolytus is some criticism of her ability to rule as well. III. Theseus The impressions left by the political maneuverings in the play suggest that one 's political fate has nothing to do with one's virtue or worthiness. Racine is unusual in his treatment of Theseus. Theseus is represented, not as the tremendous hero of other myths, but as one who tampers with the natural order of things in his treatment of Aricie and her brothers. He murders the Pallantides and forces their mother Earth to unwillingly drink their blood. He is an adventurer. In a play where adultery is held up in horror, Theseus' descent into hell is anything but glorious. What was he doing trying to help his friend steal another man's wife? Theseus' friend seems to merit being thrown to the monster. The act of feeding the King to his own monster is presented in such a way as would ·rob all greatness from it. Theseus' treatment of Hippolytus, and Racine's with-holding of the final reconciliation scene between father and son, render Theseus singularly unworthy of our sympathy in this play. The mighty King has been exposed for what he is now, apart from what he may have been in the past: he is blind when it is most necessary to see; he is away when his wife and son need him most; and though he accepts Aricie at the close of the play, he is still unchanged. He honors Hippolytus' request only to appease his ghost. Theseus has not regained the sight needed to re-establish himself as a hero. Some of Phaedra's speeches suggest that Theseus was once like Hippolytus-young and innocent. Hippolytus, the bastard son of Theseus, is ungainly, inept at the ways of court, and lacking in proper manners. Honor and honesty give him dignity. He is killed by a father who cannot see Hippolytus as anything other than a projection of himself. Thus Theseus believes that Hippolytus is cunning, though Hippolytus is never cunning in this play. Theseus is cunning. The play suggests that Hippolytus' lack of such cunning is a consequence of the time spent in the forest, away from the corrupting influence of the court. IV. Oenone and Theramene Oenone and Theramene· are the only characters in the play not descended from nobility. Yet they cannot be made to represent the common people. Oenone and Theramene are members of the court, as ministers and courtiers are. There are no common people in this play; we see no alternative society proposed to that of the court. MONSTERS Hippolytus sees a monst~r : 700 Digne fils du heros qu~ ~·~ donne le jour, Delivre l'univers d'un Monstre qui t'irrite. La veuve de Thesee ose aimer Hippolyte? Crois-moi, Fe Monstre affreux ne doit point t'echapper. Phaedra sees a monster: 882 Mais ne me trompez point, vous last words: 1641 Deja je ne vois plus qu'a travers un nuage Et le ciel et l'epoux que ma presence out rage; Et la mort, a mes yeux derobant la clarte Rend au jour, qu'ils souillaient toute sa purete. Phaedra's eyes sullied the day. It is a strange image. The monstrous in some sense comes out of one 's self, and affixes itself to that which one sees. est-il cher encore? De quel oeil voyez-vouz ce Prince audacieux? Je le vois com.me. un Monstre ef froyable a mes yeux . Theseus sees a monster: Perfide, oses-tu bien te montrer devant moi? Monstre, qu'a trop longtemps epargne le tonnerre, Reste impur des Brigands dont j'ai purge la terre. One wonders at the vast number of monsters found in Phaedra. They are everywhere in the play. As the play begins, Theramene and Hippolytus are recalling Hippolytus' youth and the stories he was told about the exploits of Theseus, the great monster-slayer . As the play p r oceeds, we realize that there are not only mythological monsters, but moral ones as well. We see the two kinds of - monsters blended in the Minotaur: the monstrous love gives birth to a mythological monster. The two principal scenes in the play, the scene in which Phaedra declares her love for Hippolytus, and the scene in which we are given a description of Hippolytus' death, both involve monsters. To know who we are in Racine's Phaedra, we must explore our kinship with these strange creations who live in our stories and in our sight. II . Sexuality and Monsters What then are mythological monsters? The monster in the labyrinth and the monster which rises out of the sea in the fifth act both ' fit Aristotle's definition of what is monstrous. They are the unnatural combination of natural parts. What do the half-man/half-bull and the bull-serpent represent? We know them in the play through the stories told about them. They are used primarily to tell stories of conflicts between foes who wish to destroy each other . In Monsters we meet that which in reality exists within us. By creating Monsters outside ourselves, we separate ourselves from the desires or inclinations which they represent. (To understand this separation, we remember the relationship between Oenone and· Phaedra. Oenone is an embodiment of the baser motives of Phaedra. Through the creation of Oenone, we become aware that the true Phaedra exists ou tside these inclinations, that Phaedra as a descendant of Helios interacts with these desires but has an exis tence .a part from them. So too with our monsters.) We confront our monsters. We fight mythical battles in our stories, and sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. In doing so, we have a clearer account of the struggle within and the forces which guide us. Monsters represent all that WP. fear or hate within ourselves . The Minotaur represents a blina sexuality, sexuality without human vision. The monster does not have human sight: He is a man whose head has been replaced by a bull's . I. Eyes and Monsters The monstrous is contained within our sight. It is from something within, something emanated from our eyes, that beings who exist outside ourse lves are transfigured into monsters. The identification of something as monstrous is always dependent on the one who sees. We remember Oenone' s question and Phaedra's reply: Mais ne me trompez point, vous 882 est-il cher encore? De quel oeil voyez ce Prince audacieux? Je le vois com.me un Monstre ef froyable a mes yeux. We also must remind ourselves of Phaedra's 42 43 �Racine's description of the descent into the labyrinth beginning at line 649 is clearly sexual. Phaedra offers to guide the virgin Hippolytus through the many detours of the vast retreat of the monster: 659 Campagne du peril qu'il vous fallait chercher, Moi- meme devant vous j'aurais voulu marcher, Et Phedre au Labyrinthe avec vous descendue, Se serait avec vous retrouvee, ou perdue. As Phaedra guides Hippolytus, they will meet the Monster, a monster molded out of the sexuality within Phaedra. The last line, "Se serait avec vous retrouvee, ou perdue." suggests that through the confrontation with sexuality she will either find herself again, though in some sense annhilated in the sexual encounter, or will become simply lost, for ever annhilated. The line contains a self-absorbtion which is particularly striking considering · the sexual initiation of the youth. .That Hippolytus may find himself or be lost for ever is not considered. The world in which she leads him is made dangerous by Racine: Hippolytus is totally dependent on Phaedra as guide, and may be destroyed at any moment. The suspicion that Phaedra is confronting a monster which lies within her is confirmed a few lines later: 700 Digne fils du heros qui t'a donne le j our, Delivre l' univers d' un M onstre qui t 'irrite. La veuve de Thesee ose aimer Hippolyte? Crois - moi, ce Monstre affreux ne doit point t'-echapper . Things become confused; the monster does es c ape . Phaedra takes Hippolytus' sword and he is un-manned. Before Phaedra can thrust the sword into her own breast, she is interrupted by Oenone. Phaedra and Hippolytus have become lost within the labyrinth without fully conf rooting the monster; they are neither found nor lost . By addressing Hippolytus as the "digne fils du heros," we are reminded, and so is he , of the sto r ies which Theramene told him about his father killing monsters. Hippolytus has been raised on a tradition that human beings can conquer and vanquish monsters. It is Theramene, the teller of tales about Theseus, who de.scribes the bull-serpent in Act V. The bull of the labyrinth has reappeared. Hippolytus, firmly believing in the legends that human beings kill monsters, believes himself c a pable of k i lling t he monster: 1530 Hippolyte lui seul digne fils d'un· heros, Arrete ses coursiers, saisit ses javelots, Pousse au Monster et d'un dard lance d'une main sure Il lui f ait dans le flanc une large blessure . Hippolytus, however, has been lied to. Monsters, when struck with human lances do not die, they grow angrier: 1531 De rage et de douleur le Monstre bondissant Vient aux pieds des chevaux tomber en mugissant, Se roule, et leur presente une gueule enflammee, Quiles co~vre de feu, de sang, . et de fumee. Hippolytus cannot slay the monster . Nor does the Mons t er directly slay Hippolytus. The reins with which Hippolytus curbs and cont r ols his ho r ses become tangled, and they drag him to his death . The horses, associated with Hippolytus' masculinit y t h r oughout t he p l ay , become so frightened that he can no longer · master them-- they flee in horror. Theramene's deception, i.e. that human beings may kill monsters, has pushed Hippolytus into a situation in which, deceived about what is real, he must battle something real. In this regard, Theramene's role take s on similariti e s to that of Oenone. Theramene has told the boy Hippolytus s t ories which inspire a mortal greatness which is false, and which leave him vulnerable, with no true account of the world. Oenone has told Phaedra stories which would release her from the greatness which she would impose on her- 44 self . Such stories, if believed, would render Phaedra vulnerable, thinking she was safe when she was not . ' III . Sin and Monsters The role of the reappearing Monster is the role of Sin. Theramene has lied to Hippolytus about the nature of Sin and its destructiveness . He has taught that sin could be overcome by mortals · without any divine intervention. When we ask who we are, we answer with stories that tell us that monsters are originally foreign to us, and separate from us, and at the same time, stories that tell us that we will always have to fight with our monsters, since they come from within. Racine's comparison of sin and sexuality is not based on a prudish way of seeing the world. Rather, he bases the analogy on the anarchy they produce within the body of the lover or the sinner: "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am not : I am unspiritual, the purchased slave of sin . I do not even acknowledge my own actions as mine, for what I do is not what I want to do, but what I detest." (Romans, 7.14 - 15) Within the play, both love and sin are described as things against which we struggle unsuccessfully; and which, though coming from ·within ourselves as things we inherit whether it be le sang fatale or our fallen natures, are portrayed as separate from our very selves. Lust is separate in Phaedra's nature, something added on as a curse to that natur.e which cannot shake it off, We are the prey of Venus as well as Sin. By separating out our f allen-ness (sin) and putting it into a monster, we are ourselves pure, hopelessly battling against that which must conque r u s . Two lessons are explicit: As human beings we are the descendants both of Purity and of fallen Purity. Our pure nature, however, battles our fallen- ness, which though in our bloodline, is extrinsic to us . Secondly, we realize that human beings unless some special di- vine intervention occurs cannot conquer the monster sin. Both such precepts would agree with the Jansenists views Racine was espousing. Jansenists refused to accept a lax morality for men: men as descendants of God, should be held accountable fo r their sins. They further objected to the idea that men could conquer sin without divine grace. Such views are propounded in t h e Fifth Provincial Letter especiall y : Go and see some of these worthy fathers, I beseech you, and I am confident that you will soon discover, in the laxity of their moral system, the explanation of their doctrine about grace. You will then see the Christian virtues exhibited in such a strange aspect, so completely stripped of the charity which is the life and soul of them--you will see so many crimes palliated and irregularities tolerated, that you will no longer be surprised a t thei r maintaining that 'all men have always enough of grace' to lead a pious life, in the sense in which they understand piety. Their morality being entirely Pagan, natu re is quite competent to its observance. (Pascal , Pr ov i ncial Letters Modern Library edition, 376 . ) --P:- OEN ONE Oenone is the confidante to Phaedra, a familiar dramatic device that rescues a play from having too many s _ liloquies . o Yet this role is complicated in Phaedra in that, as Racine tells us, Oenone is also the embodiment of Phaedra's baser intentions. Throughout the play, she is that within Phaedra which would keep Phaedra alive at all cost. Therefore, she of ten functions like the imagination. She provides interpretations which ameliorate intolerable situations by manipulating the 45 �particulars of certain stories· She creates new worlds in which we may live more comfortably. This further complicates Oenone's role: Creating morally comfortable worlds is a J esuit function (according to Jansenists .) Oenone appears to be so much of a Jesui t at times that her speeches and Phaed ra's accusations against her seem to be taken directly out of Pascal's Pr ovinci~l Letter. Oenone, like the J esuits, will deceive us as t o who we are and what is expected of us . As Phaedra first seeks purif i cation before the Sun, t he Sun's rays become unbearable, and her imagination paints. a picture of shade, of forest, and of a time when all will be well. Oenone will als o off er escapes for Phaedra. She will paint reality in such a way that what properly should drive Phaedra to suicide does not. Her only concern is t o keep P~aedra alive: 229 Quoiqu'il vous reste a peine une faible lumiere, Mon ame chez l es morts descendra la premiere. When Panope gives the news that Theseus is dead, Phaedra is silent. It is Oenone who interprets the news; in t h e news, she sees a world in which Phaedra need not kill herself: 349 Vivez, vous n'avez plus de reproche a vous faire. Votre flamme devient une f lannne ordinaire. The ever-pragmatic Oenone prop oses tha t Phaedra suggest an alliance with Hippolytus against Aricie. In Act II, when Phaedra grabs Hippolytus' sword a fter giving herself away b ef ore_ him, Oenone rushes in and stops her: 712 Que faites-vous, Madame? Justes Dieux! Mais on vient . Evitez des temoins odieux, Venez, rentrez, fuyez une honte certa·i ne. After that disaster, Oenone must propose another diversion. She proposes power: 753 Ainsi, dans vos malheurs ne songeant qu'a vous plaindre , Vous nourrissez un feu, qu'il vous faudrait eteindre. Ne vaudrait-il pas mieux, digne sang de Minos, Dans de plus nobles soins chercher votre rep os , Contre un ingrat qui plait recourir a la fuite, Regner, et de l ' Etat embasser la conduite? When Phaedra objec ts that she cannot possibly rule, Oenone, undaunted comes up · When with another alternative: "F uyez . " Phaedra objects : Je ne le puis quitter Oenone replies Vous l'osates bannir, nous n'osez l'eviter. Oenone will not despair. Despair is the appropriate response. Phaedra accuses Oenone of planting false hope in Phaedra's heart. Oenone s~es no shame in planting hope , whether it be false or true: Helas! de vos malheurs innocent ou coupable, De quoi pour vous sauver n'etais-je point capable? Mais si jamais l'offense irrita vos esprits, Pouv ez-vous d'un superbe oubl ier les mepris? Avec quels yeux cruels sa rigueur obs tinee Vous laissait a ses pieds peu s'en faut prosternee! Que son f arouche o rgueil le rendai t odieux! 780 Qu e PhedTe en ce moment n'avait-elle mes yeux! Oenone 1 s eyes filter out all that would render Phaedra dishonorable or unworthy of life. She will see no shame in being a mor ta l subject to nature. When Hippoly tus begins to seem too danger ous fo r her mistress' happiness, Oenone tries to dissuade Phaedra from seeing Hippolytus as someone who could ever return her love. Oenone is quick t o recognize that Hippolytus is now the enemy and poses a threat to Phaedra. Thus she reasons: 787 Songez qu'une barbare en son sein 46 l' a forme . e'en est fait .• Pourquoi done lui ceder une victoire entiere? Vous le craignez . Osez l'accuser la premiere Du crime dont il peut vous charger auj ourd 'hui. Qui vous dementira? Tout parle contre lui. She is quite willing to sacrifice Virtue . Virtue, if kept alive, would cause an earthly death. Virtue must be sacrificed to Honor, which keeps one alive on the earth: pour sauver notre 907 Honneur combattu, 11 faut immoler tout, et meme la Vertu. Phaedra submits to the force which keeps her alive: In the face of destruction, she yields to Oenone. She cannot face annihilation without trying to escape. No human being in the play can. It is part of what Racine considers hidden within us. Oenone then tells the false story .to Theseus. Phaedra discovers in turn that Theseus has implored Neptune to kill Hippolytus, and that Hippolytus loved Aricie. Phaedra, after a considerable struggle with herself, realizes that she has sinned. Yet, instead of urging confession or some other means of purification, Oenone who would continue Phaedra's earthly existence at all costs , puts Phaedra's Christian soul in jeopardy: 1295 He! repoussez, Madame, une injuste terreur . Regardez d'un autre oeil u.ie excusable erreur. One must not make repentance into nothing; one must not excuse sins as simply errors. Pascal complained of the Jesuits: But, father, do you suppose that a man is worthy of receiving absolution, when he will submit to nothing painful to expiate his offences? And, in these circumstances, ought you not to retain rather than remit their sins?,, Are you not aware of t~~ extent of your ministry, ·and that you have 873 885 and 789 11 a pour tout le sexe une haine fatale. Phaedra then issues the famous command in response: 790 Enfin, tous tes conseils ne sent plus de saison. Sers ma fureur, Oenone, et non point ma raison. Oenone has been working under the illusion that she could protect Phaedra in Act One by convincing her that her love was only ordinaire. She believes there is something safe in being "only human". Rather than combat that which comes from within, Oenone proposes that we submit and not think about the horror of our condition. Yet we see in the play that once abandoned, Virtue can never again be recovered. In abandoning Virtue, we abandon who we are as descendants of th~ Sun. Oenone claims that we may rest in some murky middle ground where distinctions are not altogether forgotten, but are put so sufficiently far from mind that we need no longer feel guilty. I f i t is proper to submit to a mortal fate, we need no abso lution: all we do is in harmony with our natures. Racine claims there is no middle ground: Once we move out of the Sun's realm, our motion gathers impetus and we move far beyond the reach of the Sun's distinctions. We cannot move in and out of the two regions with ease : we cannot recall lost Virtue. With the advent o f Theseus, Oenone advises: 826 Madame. Rappelez votre vertu passee . How does one go about recalling Virtue after trying to seduce one's stepson? If one sees the crime with the horror with which Phaedra sees it no such recalling is possible . She knows her~elf as a sinner. There is not getting around it. Phaedra knows she must die. Oenone's response "Vous mourez?" is an expression of surprise. Oenone cannot imagine a situation which would merit Phaedra's death. Oenone refuses to regret or to.repent the past: 47 �t he powe r o f bind ing and l oosing? Do y ou imagine t hat you are a t l i berty t o give a b s o lut ion ind ifferent ly to all who ask it , and without a scertai n i.ng b eforehand if J esus Chr i st loo ses in h eaven tho se whom y ou loo se in earth ? (Prov inc ial Letters, p. 45 3) Oenone then exp l ains why n o painful expia tion i s necess a ry: 1297 Vou s aimez. On ne peut v ainc re sa des t inee. Par un charme fata l v ous futes entrain ee. Est-ce done un prodige i nou i parmi nous? L 'amou n' a-t-il enco re triomphe que d e vous ? La f aible s se aux humains n 'es t que trop n atu r e lle. M rte lle, s ub issez l e sort d 'un e a mortelle. Vous vous pla i gne z d' un joug impose de s l on gt emps. Les Dieux meme, l es Dieux de l ' Ol ymp e h a b itants, Qui d 'un " r ui t si terrible b e p ouvantent l es crimes, Ont brule quelquefois de f eux i lleg itimes. To those fami l iar with the Jansenist, accusations against the Jesuits, Oenone s arfamiliar as well. The are guments 1 Jesui t s, as portrayed in the Pr ovincia Letters, are ready t o conclu de f r em the weakness of men , that morality must be loosened in o rder that it migh t be:ome more comfortab l e for men. Th e J ansenists regarded this as highest heresy. The weakness of humanity must n o t be catered t o . We serve each other b e s t by reminding each other t o be virtuou s . The Jesuits like Oenone believe t h at mor ality mu st accomodate itself to human weakness: "You know," h e said, "that t he rul ing p ass ion of p ersons in t ha t rank of life is ' t h e po i nt of hono r, ' wh i ch is p erp etually dr iving t hem into acts of violenc e appare ntly quite at v ar iance wit h Christian piety; so that in fact, they would be almost a l l o f them exclud ed fr om our confession al s, had not our fathers relaxed a litt l e from the strictness of re l igion, to accomodate themse l ves to t h e weakness of humanity. Anxious t o k eep on goo d terms b oth with the Gospel , by d o ing their duty to God , and with the men o f t h e wor l d, by showing ch arit y to their neighbo r,they n eed e d a l l the wisdom they po ssessed t o devise expedie nts f or so nicely ad j usting ma tters as t o permit these gent l emen t o adopt the methods usual ly re so rted t o fo r vindi c ating t hei r h on or, without wound i ng their con s ciences, and t h us re concile two t h i ng s s o opp os ite t o e~ch o ther as piety and t h e point o f honor. Bu t sire, in prop ortion t o t h e ut i lity o f the design, was the d if f iculty of the execution .•• (The Provincial Letters, P· 40 2. The underlining is my own. ) They forget that we are the descendants of God and Purity; they would have us forget that s i n i s some thing outs ' de ot ourselves with which we must battle. J esuits were in p ower in France. They l ed the Sorbonne and held sway at c ontra l d h were c ourt. Jansenists bel ieve t ey mislead ing nations; henc e Phaed ra accu s es Oenone: 1319 Puis se le juste Cie l dignement te payer; Et pui sse t on supp l ice a j amais e ff rayer Tous ceux qui, comme t oi, p ar de laches a d res ses , De s Princes ma lhe u reux nourris s en t les fa i blesses, Les poussent au p enchant ou l e u r coeur est enclin, Et leur osent du crime aplanir le chemin; Detestables flatteurs, present le plus funeste Qui puisse faire aux Rois la colere celeste. The role rif advisors at Court is thus exposed: flattery and deception are seen as necessarily accompanying that life. The Jansenists remind us that as the des c end a n t s of Adam we have a penchant for sin. Excusing our sin before proper expiation is made will be disastrous. We will not repent properly and we will be damned. It was Helios, le t us recall, who shed his light in the skies, dispersing the cloud which hid Venus and Mars as they were love-making . Indeed, it was this very action which had led Venus in retaliation to curse all Helios' descendants ..• (Bettina L. Knapp, Jean Racine - Mythos and Renewal in Modern Theatre, p . 171) Helios' descendants will always see through the clouds that imagination creates to obscure the horror of t heir actions. And the descendants of Helios will always have actions that excite their horror; they will not be able to e scape Venus. We are the fallen mixture of purity and godliness and all the desires which Racine labels base. We are the noble children of gods, and we are monsters . Our stories explain ourselves to ourselves in those terms. We are born with the at tributes of Helios and with the curse of Venus locked within us . Dest r uction will come from within and is inevitable. It is not within our power to save ourselves . As children of t he Sun, we are engendered with an ability to judge according to spiritual lawt- a s well as earthly laws. .We know the difference b etween Virtue and Honor . Lines 907 and 221 depend on our ability to make that distinction . For all our know edge of spiritual laws, however, we a re s till unable to prevent ourselves from sinning . We remember Romans 7 . 14- 25: We know that the law is spiritual; but I am not: I am unspiritual, the purchased slave of sin . I do not even acknowledge my own a ct ions as mine, for what I do is not what I want to do, but what I detest. But i f what I do is agains t my will, it means that I agree with the law and hold it to be admirable. But as things are, it is no longer I who CONCLUSION 598 Dans le fond de mon coeur vous ne pouviez pas lire If only one character could have know the depths of another's heart , if only the i s olat ion t hat surrounds each character we r e not so horrible, if only Racine had c reated another wo r ld in t he play, perhaps for g iv ene ss and expiation could have been possible between men and women, and especially between fathe r s and sons . Ye t t her e is none . There are no human confessors to absolve the characters of the i r crimes . Unlike Euripides, Racine offe r s no reconciliation between father and son. The r e is absolut e ly no consolation in this wor ld. We are fallen. Perhaps on ce we mi ght h av e s e en into the depths of one another's h e a r ts , but such is not the world in which we n ow live. We a r e cursed, as all the d e scendants of Helios were cursed, and as all t he descendants of Adam were expelled from the Garden . We cannot rely on ear thly forgiveness. Caught between the intolerable conflicts within us , our i maginat_ons of ten provide temporary but i unt rustworthy escapes. Yet , as the descendants of Helios and God , a part of our nature will always see through deception. In the ancient myth, it was the ability to see through a cloud tha t r esulted in the curse: 49 48 �does not. Whether this is because the play is set in pagan times, or whether Racine meant something more, we do not know. Racine insists however, that we must never abandon that knowledge of ourselves as descendants of God. We must never stop attempting to purify ourselves, we must never abandon the distinctions between sin and innocence. We must not let the Jesuits mislead us. Pascal warns us: .... they conceal their carnal and worldly policy under the garb of divine and Christian prudence as if the faith, and tradition, its ally, were not always one and the same at all times and in all places, as if it were the part of the rule to bend in conformity to the subject which it was meant to regulate; and as if souls, to be purified from their pollutions, had only to corrupt the law of the Lord, in place of the 'the law of the Lord, which is clean and pure, converting the soul which lieth in sin' and . bringing it into conformity with its salutary lessons! (The Provincial Letters, p. 376) perform the action, but sin that lodges in me. For I know that nothing good lodges within me in my unspiritual nature I mean -- for though the will to do good · is there, the deed is not. The good which I want to do, I fail to do: but what I do is the wrong which is against my will and i f what I do is against my will, clearly it is no longer I who am the agent, but sin that has its lodgings in me. I discover this principle then: that when I want to do the right, only the wrong is within my reach. In my inmost self I delight in the law of God, but I perceive that there is in my bodily members a different law, fighting against the law that my reason approves and making me a prisoner under the law of sin. Miserable creature that I am, who is there to rescue me out of this body doomed to death? God alone, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Thanks be to God! In a word then, I myself, subject to God's law as a rational being am yet, in my unspiritual nature, a slave to the law of sin. (The New English Bible. The underlining is my own.) F<'otnotes 1. Racine may also have been tempted to stress the lineage from th S f h e un, apart rom t fe mythological significances , as a mea~s o commenting on the French royalty. It is us~ful to note here that Phaedra and French Kings share the same ancestry. 2. R. C. Knight, in his notes on Phedre gives three examples: 1) the Ch . i , Canon L . rist an aw· I Corinthians 5 1 ( "I actually hear reports of sexuai i~orality among you, immorality such as even pagans do not tolerate: the union of a man with As Phaedra dies, her last word is purity. She herself is not yet pure. The day i s pure . Bo t h t h e l ov e of puri ty and the curse are her inheritance. In dying, she pays final homage to purity . She remembers who she really is. She achieves a moral dignity within our eyes once again. In such a dignity, she may rest. One of the important differences between this passage and Racine's Phaedra is that Paul offers a God who intercedes. Racine 50 51 his father's wife.") 2) the list prohibited degrees in the 1662 Book Commop , Prayer and 3) French Law o o Note: When I use the t " erm Jesuit" withi· the body of this no th. b paper, I am claimin ing a out the Society of Jesus toda or about the arguments of the Jesuit y Racine's d s o. ~y, apart from how they hav1 b een explicated by the J i i 1 ansen sts espec a ly by Pascal in The p i . . Letters. -rov ncia . �Translation A Poem by Francis Jammes Geraldine McDowell I IL VA NEIGER ••• THE TIME HAS COME FOR SNOW ... A Leopold Bauby To Leopold Bauby Il va neiger dans quelques jours. Je me souviens De l'an dernier. Je me souviens de mes tristesses Au coin du feu. Si l'on m'avait demande: qu'est-ce? J'aurais dit: laissez-moi tranquille . Ce n'est rien. The time has come for snow. I harken back to last year's snow. Back to my sadnesses by fire's glow. If I'd been asked, "What is't?" I would have said, "Leave me in peace. 'Tis naught . " J'ai bien refl echi , l'annee avant, dans ma chambre, Pendant que la neige lourde tombait dehors. J'ai reflechi pour rien. A present connne alors Je fume une pipe en bois avec un bout d'ambre. I've contemplated in my room ere now, while outside snow fell heavy covering all. My contemplation's vain. For now, as then, I sit beside the hearth and smoke my pipe. Ma vieille connnode en chene sent toujours bon. Mais moi j'etais bete parce que ces choses Ne pouvaient pas changer et que c'est une pose De vouloir chasser les choses que nous savons. And still my oaken chest of drawers smells rich. Such foolishness to think these things could change! They never change. It is pretentiousness to want to chase the things already known. Pourquoi done pensons-nous et parlons-nous? C'est drole; Nos larmes et nos b&isers, eux, ne parlent pas Et cependant nous les comprenons, et les pas D'un ami sont plus doux que de douces paroles. For Our are our On a baptise les etoiles sans penser Qu'elles n'avaient pas besoin de nom, et les nombres Qui prouvent que les belles cometes dans l ' omb r e Passeront, ne les forceront pas a passer. We've christened stars which have no need of names . And ratios foretelling comets' flights are not their moving force. Now then, where are my sadnesses of old? I faint recall. Et De Je Si maintenant meme, OU sont mes vieilles tristesses l'an dernier? A peine si je m'en souviens. dirais: laissez-moi tranquille, ce n'est rien, dans ma chambre on venait me demander: qu'est-ce? why then do we think and speak? Odd thing; tears and kisses, speechless though they be understood no less, and sweet steps which friends do make are sweeter than sweet words. ~nd I would say, "Leave me in peace. 'Tis naught," if I were asked while in my room, "What is't?" 1888. 1888. De l'Angelus de l'Aube a l'Angelus du Soir From the Prayer of the Morning to the Prayer of the Evening Geraldine McDowell attended St. John's in Annapolis for three years. She is now a junior at Goucher College . 52 53 I �Becoming· Acquainted with a Knot Ann Burlein . Sometimes my mo t h er , s ey e s were green a s g r a ss. How grey t hey gr ow . Un de r the t rees of autumn , red an d blue Paint p or t raits of my r ace . When I r oll over , and b r u s h as i d e t he l e aves The gras s i s s til l green. Burr owing close I see my mo t her ' s eye s ag ain. (I s your soul dus t y , mama , too? Look fo r me , she s ays , I canno t r e a ch t o se e . ) Red is f o r bu r n i ng and Au t umn mus t end . Now tha t t h e win t e r' s come I 'm sure My mo t he r' s e ye s a r e unde rneath t h e s n ow A mi l e d eep and mo r e . They are t he r e t o be fo und And a wi sh i s a s p ade win ter must give way t o spring. And e v e n t he wh iteness Of Leslie S . Bellisario Nov emb er 7 t h , 19 82 Leslie Bel lisario , ' 8 3, · s c u rrently wr iting f i ct i on in London . Seeking to uncover the nature of t he soul, Aristotle learns the range of his inquiry by investigating the doc t rines of previous philosophers. From these he gleans a statement of the attributes which we think belong to the soul because of its na t ure : ·1 ) the ability to discriminate (which is the work of thought and sensation) , and 2) the ability to move from place to place (which results from t he previous ability , since the cause of locomotion desire cannot occur unless the animal imagines something 1 ) • 2 In describing both thought and sensation as methods of discrimination (to krinein) , Ari stotle r ecognizes a shar ing of activity between the thinking and sentient soul - an activity which results in gnosis . 3 result of this sharing, As a Ar istotle separates these faculties more in terms of their objects than in terms of t h e i r activities . Since, for Aristotle , to apprehend means to become like the ob ject of apprehension (a lthough in a unique way) , these objects determine the nature of both the activity of app r ehension and the knowledge which the soul becomes as a r e sult o f this activity . So before we can under stand the soul as the faculty by which man comes to know , we need to under stand, first the things which the soul k nows, and then the nature of that knowl edge . 4 Knowledge and sensation may be so marked off as to correspond to things •.. the knowing and sentient powers of the soul are potentially these things .. . and they must either be these things themselves or their forms . Certainly they cannot be the things themselves; for it is not the stone itself that is in the soul but the form of the stone . 5 Both the sensing and the thinking sou l apprehend forms , by virtue of which we say one faculty senses flesh, and the other knows the essence of flesh . 6 But what i s a form and how do these two forms diffe r from one another? Aristotle pref aces his investigation into the parts of the soul by placing form in the genus of things we call substance . But the science which enquires most fully into substance is first philosophy, for to first philosophy alone belongs the investigation of being qua being . We use the term 'being ' in many senses: something 'is' if it is 1) one, 2) true, 3) either potentially or ac t ually as we say it to be, or 4) one of the categories . Despite this multiplicity , these senses are not equivocal , 7 because "all of these (senses) are related to something which is one and a single nature" . 8 In our investiga t ion of being, t hen, we mus t first examine this central nature, fo r we cannot know any of the othe r senses unt i l we know the one upon which they depend . But after we l ook at the a ious senses of 'being' Aristotle claim s to. encompass , analogous predication seems impossible . Do these diverse senses really point to one nature, as do t he different things we call 'healthy' because they signify either a sign of health or a cause of health? Perhaps the senses which mean ' t o be true' and 'to be one' do . For while ' being' and 'unity 1 do not mean the same thing, they follow one another , since t o be one means to be nothing other than one of the categories . 9 Indeed, what is one is not distinct from what is a being. 1 O Further, we speak truly when we speak of something which is, but falsely when we speak 1) of something which is not as if l. 55 54 �but rather , if anything, it is that which walks or that which sits that is a being . These latter appear to be beings in a higher degree, because there is something definite in each of them , namely, the underlying subject; and this is the substance and the individual. 1 7 Aristotle separat es whatness f rom the other categories because of 'definiteness ' -- that on account of which things appear to be to a higher degree . Translated as 'definite', literally, horismos means 'having been marked off by boundaries' . Elsewhere, Aristotle calls this notion of having been set apart and made distinct p eculiarity (to idion) . In the Topics, Aristotle names the types of things we predicate . One of these, to idion , consists of two par ts : 1 ) properties, whatever belongs to a thing and can be predicated conve r tibly of it ; and 2 ) essence o r whatness. 18 Thi s de r i vation reveals that the idea of peculiar ity underlies and determines our notion of whatness . The d ominant meaning of idios is uniquenes s ; it s i gnifi e s something t hat pe rt ains to one person alone . Often in d icat i ng s ometh i ng t hat b y its v e r y n atu r e i s p ri vate o r p ersonal , i t opposes koinos and d e mosios . Homer uses the word in ex actly this s e nse : Telemachos , when spe ak ing to Nesto r a t Py lo s wh ere he has t rav e lled seek i n g news of his f ather , says : "This is a p r ivate matter, not public business I tell you (prex is d ' he d ' idie ou demois) . I follow the fame of my fa ther , on the chance of hearing of the great Odysseus ... " l 9 A young man's quest to learn about himself in seeking word of his father is an idion, something that by its n a t u r e b e l ong s to him a lone. Ta idia are o ne's private interests, one's own p r operty ; an idiotes is a private person who , due to a preoccupation with his own affairs, does not participate in those of the city . Thus idi o s has its roots in the idea of s omething that, because of its . it is , o r 2) of some t hing which is as i f it is not . 11 Howeve r, a category -- esp ecially 'whatness' -seems neither to point towa r ds nor to be an activity . To ask "What is it?" seems ve r y differen t from asking "What does it do?" . Ye t Ar istotle , in identifying ousia as the sens e o f ' to be ' which signifies tha t which is firs t among all things , merges· wha t n e ss and ac t uality . In Book 7 , he selects whatness as the p r imary sense nf being 12 in 9, he asserts actuality as the being of a thing . 13 But how can we rec o ncile these two senses, which appear so diverse, into one idea of being? Why is to be at work to be definite? And can we describe all sub stances to exactly the same degree by these two ways? A discussion of the categories , the fourth sense of ' to be', begins Book 6. Immediately, Aristotle o pposes the category signifying whatness to those re maining, for "it is evident that of these (i.e . , the categories) the primar y sense is whatness, and used in this sense it signifies a substance" 1 4 • He identifies being and whatness naturally and with as surance - - phaneron. For whenever some thing exists, it exists as itself -- some one, de f inite thing . (Only in thought can the fact that a thing is be separate f r om what it is and even then tha t s epar a tion se r ves only as a momentary p r elude, insures that the proceeding i nv est i gation i nto whatness does not rea lly i n q u i r e i n t o n o th i ng . 15) Unl i k e Plat o , Ar i sto t le does not find t he nature of being in being itself, but r ather in whatness . 16 So certain o f this connection between whatness and being, Ar istotle can even envision someone asking whether affections e x ist at all : Because of this (the primacy of whatness), one might even raise the problem whether walking, being heal thy, sitting and the others of this kind are beings or not beings; f o r by nature each o f these d o es not exist by itself and canno t be separated from a substance , 56 p r ivate natu re, s et s its el f apa rt f r om things we share . Such a thing become s separate a nd d isti n ct s i mpl y b ec a u se it conce r ns t h e owner a lo n e . Ye t thi s eso te ri c s epar ation does n o t result in c o n ce a lment ; rat her, we c al l a t hing pe cul iar i f its wh a t nes s makes it come for th to e xhibit i tse l f. 2 0Be caus e of t h ) s t he ' separ at ion th a t b e longs to pecul iar i t y cause s a thi n g to b e come d e fini te . Peculiarit y the n , as the Topics indic ates, p r ovides t h e key t o t he puz zle o f ousia . This ch a r ac teri s t ic alone do we as cr ibe with c erta in ty t o subs t anc e, fo r by 'a thing's substance' we me a n t h at whic h i s peculiar to it. But as with al l kn owl edge that is mo re kn own to the individual, confusion and generality mark our n o tion of peculiarity; rather than know ing explicitly the type of peculiarity which belongs to substance, we have only a vague notion of a many-faceted whole. First philosophy attempts to unpack this whole, to isolate the parts compounded within and set each out distinctly so that our confused awareness can become definite, complete, and articulable knowledge.21 Aristotle begins 'unpacking' by explaining why whatness --when it signifies subs t ance is primary among the categories . His reasons parallel the theory of pros hen predication which he states in Book 3: "In every case a science is concerned mainly with that which is first, both 1) that on which the others depend, and 2) as that through which the others are named".22 A substance is 1) prior in time because it can exist independently, requiring nothing else in order to be. It is also pri o r 2 ) in logos (for we can't define any o f the other categories wit ho ut referring to sub stance ) , and 3) in knowle d ge (fo r only when we und erstand a th i ng's subs t anc e do we unde rs t a nd t h e t h i n g ) . Chapter One su gge s ts t h at comp os . ite s ap p e ar t o be to a higher degree be caus e of the p r esenc e in each o f an unde r lyin g subjec t. I n Chap ter Three, by ex~mining the n o t ion o f ' und e rlyin g sub •J ect', Arist o tle r efines t he id e a of sepa~ate wh ich led us to consi der an under l v i n g subj e ct as a sub stance . He describes substance as that o f whic h we pre d i c ate I 57 o t h er t h i n g s , bu t which it self we nev e r pred icate o f o t h er th ings.2 3 He su g gests t h is f o r mu l at ion because it seems to indicate a t y pe of se lf - sufficient separation -- t h e kind which b e lo ng s to ind ividuals (a t oma kai hen arithmo i ) . 24 Bu t t he f o r e m .ost d i stinction o f an y u nde r lvin g subj e c t is ~ot sepa r a te n e ss bu t t he- a b i l ity ti re c eive s ome t h ing . Ye t by 'subs tance' wi do n o t primarily me a n such a p o tent i al , a : t he c ase of matter t he · . · primar u n derly i ng sub J ·ec t -- s hows . Whi"l e ma tt e 1 · has a . t ype o f ultima te s eparabil it y i i t ha t it alone can e x i st afte r we r emov t a ll e ls e, matter i n t h i s state is n o 1 defin ite (b ut wou ld a ppear as n o thing25 ) : therefore it can 't be a subst a nce. j substance is n o t th a t whic h is separabl E ~t t h e expense of all else, but that whi c l is b o th separable and a this.26 SeparatE because of its definiteness, a sub s tancE is peculiar. After concluding with the suggestion that form seems to be substance ir the highest degree (since it lacks thE indefiniteness present in composites duE to their material parts), Aristotle re~reats, asserting this to be most perple x ing · 2 7 F or h ow can a form be separable and a this, and also be a part of a com. ? posite · We can always point to tode ti, but we can never point to a form without po~nting to something else as well. ThuE A:isto~le starts again, this time be gin ning with something more famil i a r to u s His reliance upon what we al r eady kno~ shapes Chapter Four, which stresses sp eP c} -- how we say things are. Such ar emphasis highlights the new element of separability he investigates the ability t o be a l one in staterr.ent ( or in the wo rds o f Ch a p ter One, pr io rity in · · knowl e dg e ) . Fou r exa mi n es es s ence, Ch ap ter what we say a t hing t o be in vi rtue of it se lf . By e xplo r ing t his noti on of ' sep arate in virtue of one's self', Aristotle re fi ne s fu rt h er. our n ot i on o f pe c uliarit y . He beg i n s by ex cluding two ins t ances of ' i n vir t ue of itself ' p r ed i ca1) when a pr o perty b elo ngs ess e n . t~on : .~i a lly ; and 2 ) when we predi c ate o f an 'acciden ta l c omp o s i te it s u nd er l ying sub - �ject (for example, when we predicate the definition of 'man' of the composite 'white man'). These disqualifications reveal that substance kath'auta is that which we can utter alone; to be separable means to be said alone. Essence does not belong to something in such a way as to require the statement of its underlying subject in its definition; rather, to b~ the essence is to be the thing. Essence corresponds to the thing in a way in which 28 accidents and properties do no t . Aristotle now returns to sensible composites, asking whether a white man (a composite plus an accident, which is the only type of composite we ever find since all sensible substances, because of their matter, have attributes) is an instance of an essence at all. Aristotle concludes he is not, strictly speaking: But an essence is just a this, whereas if something is said of something else we do not have just a this, eg. a white man is not just a this, if a this belongs only to substances. 29 The type . of separation that belongs to peculiarity belongs also to things which are primary . Something is primary if, in its logos, we do not predicate anything at all. Essence is the only thing we can state in this way: Essence, then, will belong to nothing which is not a species of a genus, but only to a species of a genus; for it is these that are thought to be stated neither according to participation, nor with an attribute, nor with an accident. 30 But a genus does not participate in its differentiae 3 l, nor does a composite re quire its accidents in order to be. Also, if essence belongs to something , · n what way is it primary? Clearly, we don't think about an individual without also considering different things about him; I can't think about Socrates without also considering attributes such as snub-nosed or philosopher. If I were to omit such things, I would be thinking, not of Socrates, but of 'man• . so while separate spatially fr~m the rest of the world, 32 an individual.is . . not separate from attributes whose being differs from his. Because these attributes can change, every individual is somehow indeterminate -there is something of the infinite about each of us. We can separate in thought, howevgenus from its differentiae. I can er, a 'animal' without also thinking think 'bird' and all the remaining 'dog' , or even without thinking dif ferentiae -a genus is However, any at a 11 . indeterminate because these dif ferentiae vary greatly. So while we can separate a genus in thought, in order to speak definitely, we connect the genus with one of its differentiae. Since both an individual and a genus involve potential, and we ~nderstand potential only by reference to .its :orresponding actuality 33 , neither primar~. A species too involves potential, for it includes the intelligible matter of the genus to which it belongs . Yet .both ~n individual and a genus contain, in addition to intelligible matter, still other potentialities which render them even more indefinite. Thus Aristotle chooses species as essence because a species is both separate in thought and a this. Essence, which is prior in knowledge, expresses the thing most fully since it corresponds to ~he thing. But unlike the individual to which it corresponds, such essence is never c omplete y separ ate because it must ~lways act in matter. But how can something we separate in thought not also be separate :s simply? In Chapters Four and Five, Aristotle speaks of essence as belonging. 34 While not denying this relation, Chapter Six asserts that essence is the same as each particular thing. How can. essen:e have this dual relation -- especially ~f an essence is a species? What does it mean to be the same as that whi~h makes one separate because of what it is. . Aristotle provides a syllogism: We judg~ (dokoumen) each thing to be nothing other than its own substance. We say (legomen) that the substance of each thing 58 is the essence . Therefore, he implies, .each thing is the same as its essence. 3 5 Strictly speaking, the conclusion is that we judge or say each thing to be the same as its essence. Thus he says: "From these arguments it is clear that each thing and its essence are one and the same, but not by accident, and that to know each thing is to know its essence." 3"'0The sameness of essence and thing is sameness in knowledge or in speech; essence signifies the thing. 37 To signify (semainein) means to indicate by signs, to declare and also to interpret or explain. Essence declares a thing; the sameness between essence and its composite arises from the manner in which essence accomplishes this declaration. But since essence is substance, sameness in thought would seem to separate a thing's substance from the thing -- to claim that while in a sense each thing is its substance, the two really only become identical by an act of intellect. But Ar istotle rejects this view . 38 The 'to be' of each thing and the thing, then, must be one and the same, not only in the soul , but in the world external to the soul as well . Clearly though, they can't be identical in all re spec t s : Chapters Three and Four assert essence to be a this, but not i t s compos ites . So by 'one and the same' Aristotle must mean 1) that essence and its composite are together in one place and 2) to the extent that they exist together, some one thing exists which both are. This one th i ng , the form of the individual compos ite, functions as the means by which essence declares the thing. Aristotle investigates this (and thereby investigates the extent to which essence can be both a species and be primary) by studying generation. All destructible things are generat ed by something (a form identical in kind with that of the thing generated), into something (which we signify by a form), and out of something (which, because it is a privation, has in a sense the same form as the other two). Throughout the entire process, matter is present, since every change requires the potential to be and not to be. It is matter that becomes something, changing from a 'that' to being 'that- en'.39 This manner of speaking makes it clear that matter is not an active cause of the such-this it becomes, for matter functions as the under lying subject upon which something else acts . Forro plays the dynamic role . An example of generation by art clarifies the nature of form. "Things generated by art are those whose form is in the soul. 1140 Such a generation con sists of two parts, with noes is first. Thinking begins from the principle or form: Now the healthy is generated when a man thinks as follows: since health is so-and-so, if the subject is to be healthy it is to have such-and-such, let us say uniformity, and if uniformity, then warmth; ahd he always thinks in this manner until he arrives at something final which he himself can produce.41 This fin al stage must be potentially in the body, needing only something to make it actual. The second part of generation, poiesis, refers to the motion from this instant onward from the end of thinking, through stages until the form in the soul - health - becomes present in the body. This example presents form at work; it reveals from to be an active whatness . The form in the s ou l -- the essence -- determines both the thinking and the production by organizing them towards itself. Essence oversees the process and imposes its requirements at every stage. In 4, Aristotle recognizes a sense of dynarnis which means " ... the principle of change or of motion which exists in another thing or in the same thing qua other". 4 2 In this sense, essence has a dynamic nature. Thus essence, by existing in the composite, is one and the same as the composite not simply, but in so far as it orders the nature of the thing. Yet why does Aristotle mention stages? 4 3 Even in the case of an animal's acquisition of its soul he speaks of a ·gradual development: 59 �essence, but that each thing is its es ... it is not the fact that sence. Now, 'We judge A to be A's x' is when an animal is f o rmed, at unde rstandable when only essence and matthat same moment a human ter compose A, and matter in itself is being , o r a ho rse, o r any unknowable . 48 But how can a thing, not be othe r particular sort of thought in terms o f s ometh ing that belongs animal is f o r med , because to it, but be that some t hing? A is A, not the end or completio n is the A's x -- espec ially when x excludes n ot last of all, and that which only matter, but t he individual a ttribute s is peculiar to a thing is by which I distinguish A as an individual . the end of its process of When concluding his study of genformation . 44 eration , Aristotle re cognizes this : The significance o f the stages ... in some cases the essence appe ars two -fo ld. The form in a composite of a thing and the thing are is n o t immediately perfect (hence the two the same, as in first sub stages of actuality hexis and stances; ... (By 'f i rst sub entelecheia) nor entirely simp le (present stance' I mean one which is without c ombinat i on with another type o f not stated as being in being4 5) . The stage s account f o r varia something else or in an tion and individuality . Not a mere direct underly ing subject as in actualization of one p o tential, generation matter). But things which is a gradual process during which matter's exist as matter, or which diverse potentialities become actual include matter, are not the 46 and actual to different degrees. With same as their essence ... 49 animate things, these variations continue Because only a first substance is both throughout the creature's lifetime . This separate from matter and separate in continual change however, does not indithought, it alone 'is' in the fullest cate a ceaseless flux -- that we must at sense. However, the substances we find in any ~iven instant give the composite a the world, because they need to act in different name and definition because its matter, can't be separate in every way, 'to be' has always just changed . The form and therefo re can't be totally (both, 1) the stages i.e. , the 47 self-sufficient. Hence. we do not refer composite' s properties and perfections all other beings to substances such as and 2) the attributes we receive these, fo r the one and central nature must through s ens ation) does determine the be simple in all respec ts. composite -- and all the constituents of Chapters Thirteen through Fifteen the form do not remain constant; but the d "sclose another falling short of essence essence, which does rema · n constant, when it is not simple. Thi rteen begins by determines the form. While attributes can r ejecting universals as substances. Each add or take away from the sensible form, of the numerous arguments he presents in so far as they cannot alter the hinges upon a fundamental claim which composite's determining principle arises fr om his notion of sameness. He essence, they can't alter the composite. says that when present in a thing, subThus essence -- not sensible form stance i s present as something pec u liar to -- de clares the co~posite, becau se essence that thing. 5 0 A universal, as the one is the s ource o f the composite' s nature . within the many, is peculiar to no hing Most clearly, then, samenes s in knowledge and s o cannot be substance, because t hings differs from complete sameness, for eswhose substance is one have one essence sence is neither the composite's material and ~re themselves one . 51 But how can we c onstituent, nor simply all the actuidentify essence with substance, then, if alities that comprise its form. Yet the an essence is a species? c onclus i on o f the syllogism that began In a sense, when essence acts in Chapter Six omits the dokoumen and legomen matter, it fragments~ found here and found of the premisses, and asserts, not that we there, essence in each instance makes its judge each thing to be the same as its matter peculiar. Such substances possess 60 oneness in kind, not numerical unity. This differs from the unity of a genus in terms of self-sufficiency, since a species, once generated, does not require its instances in order to be, as does a genus. In the case of first substances, however, nothing inhibits the type of sameness they possess; because they do not require matter, essence and substance here are one, simply. Before unravelling some further difficu lties which arise from essence's fragmentation, Aristotle closes his arguments against universals by repeating his central theme. This time, however, he states it in a new way: the actuality of each thing makes it separate.52 Actuality implies separateness; substance sets each thing apart because of what it is. Separateness provides the first link between whatness and actuality. Chapter Fifteen intensifies the problems which arise from the reduplication of essence in matter . Answering the question "Of what is definition possible?", Aristotle concludes that we can only define things which are both common in some way (not indivisible in place as are individuals) and eternal. If ess~nce exists 'in' each thing, and we cannot define these composites because they do not remain, neither can we define essence. But we define substance most of a1153 and think substance most of all to be p~rma­ nent and unchanging. 54 Clearly, essence possesses a type of permanence, since it preserves oneness in kind from one generation to the next. Permanence without qualification belongs only to first substances . But when we view essence solely as whatness, we cannot account for this permanence . Thinking of essence as that which sets each thing apart because of what it is leads Aristotle to focus upon : the 'setting apart' , thereby unpacking the i notion of. actuality. Chapter Sixteen ; illustrates this progression. In Sixteen, Aristotle identifies the fallacy in two wide-spread notions of substance. " •.. most of what are regarded as substances are potentialities. n5~ The parts of animals, whether we consider them as parts (in which case they are not sepa- rate), or not as parts (but as matter), cannot be substances. For in either case they are ·potential and therefore not primary. " ... for none of them is one, but they exist like a heap until they are . transformed and a uni Y is pro d uced out of "t · t~em." 56 One cannot understand a heap without considering its many elements; one can understand a unity, a heap transfo:med, . by ~onsidering only the type of un~ty. it is by considering its principle or cause. Which is to say, one needs to understand the unity itself, simply. . Neither are universals primary, since we must always ref er them to that of which they are the principle.57 Therefore Aristotle claims that they, too, cannot be substances. In the case of both the universal and material elements of a thing, then, to be potential is not to be one for potentiality is alwayi indeterminat~. To be one, as Chapter Thirteen state~, is to be actual. Aristotle's vision of substance as primary verges on actuality, for ~ctuality implies oneness, and thus also implies separation in virtue of what one is. At this point, Aristotle chooses to " ... continue the discussion from another starting point, so to say, 11 58 by asserting substance to be a principle and a cause . We seek the causes of sensible t~ings in two ways, for we can inquire either 1) Why is. A A? or 2) Why does B belong to A? Only the latter expresses t~e investigation properly, because the f 1:st either i~tends the second (although f ~ils to sr,ec1fy the belonging) , or the first asks Why is a thing its wb.atness?". But when we ask why something is itself, we ask, not whether there exists a cause of its being itself (for the thing's exis tence makes this clear), but what that cause is . Yet as Chap ter One makes clear there exists no other, more fundamentai cause for Aristotle than the . 'what' that the thing is; a thing is because it is its essence. Because of the presence of essence in matter then, when we ask why a thing is, we need to ask why something belongs to something else. For when we seek the 61 �c ause of existence or unity in a comp o site, we seek the unity itself -- we seek t he essence which belongs to the composite. This cause is the final cause and in cases of generation the efficient cause. Compounds which a re one in totalit y the n, consist of material elements and t h e c aus e which makes t he se elements one defini te thing. This las t i s n ot an element , bu t " ... t h e subs tanc e of e ach t hing; for this is the first cause of the thing's existence". This leads Aristotle to identify essence with nature; since " ... those (objects) that are substances are formed according to nature or by nature, the sub stance of these would appear to be this nature which is not an element bu t a principle." 59 The Physics asserts nature to be the principle of movement or rest in a thing.60 Is substance really such a principle? Throughout 6, Aristotle depicted substance as that which, because of what it was, made a thing peculiar. We knew essence as 'the what the thing was and is and always will be' ; any 'making' which resulted from this whatness took place somewhat secondarily. Now however, the 'making' has become identical with the whatness: essence is what we say the t hing to be in virtue of itself . Before , Aristo t l e -emphasized 'selfness' ; now he emphas ize s the at emporal 'to be ' . This shift began in Chapter Seven, which describes whatness as a cause in so f ar as essence acts dyn ami cally . But why should whatness aut omatically give rise t o movement? Can we really combine these two ways of seeing substance, as Aristotle 61 does in his description of essence? By his very method of presentation, Aristotle seems t o say that whatness and actuality are by nature intertwined, and their as similation inevitable. Yet they app ear to conflict. Essence is a this. But when substance acts in matter and determines the nature of the r esultant composite, it no longer seems a this (as Seventeen's insistence upon predRather, it acts as a ication indicates). quality : But the f orm signifies a such and this is not a this and a definite thing; and what the artist makes and the man begets is a such from a this, and what is generated is a such-this . 6 3 No whatness except first substance is ever separate from matter. Yet whenever we speak about essence at work in matter, we also speak about suchness, for forms can f unction as the d i fferences between things . 63 However, we distinguish two types of differences those between individuals and those between species ~ A composite becomes a man because essence sets matter apart and makes it definite . Yet since essence acts in this way mo r e than once, thi s 'setting apart' also groups composites. Hence, essence in itself does not set matter directly apar t, for it unit es individuals in kind . Of the differences between indi viduals , those attributes which ma n if est an individual's p r ogress towards its es sence -- proper ties -- s et the individual apart in the greatest degree . Snubness does not distinguish only Soc rates; the way in which Socrates was what every man is said to be does set Socrates apart from all others . So we call a thing 'such' in vir tue of its essence, but we call a thi ng a ' this ' in virtue of certain particularitie s of its sensible form . Yet the very properties we select to distin gui s h an indiv idual r e f ec t · t s e ssence. Indeed, becau se essence acts as a potency, directing all that occurs towards itself, it both causes the cornposite's properties and alters its accidents (and these two together comprise sensible form ) . Theref o re essence not the properties makes the thing a this. And e ven though essence, due to its fragmentation, acts as a such when it determines basic characteristics, the act of essence itself is still a this. 64 The thisness o f essence appears as suchness then, solely because o f its pres""" ence in matter. But all substances except first substances act in matter. Therefore only first substances are peculiar in the fullest sense for only they bo th act and 62 are a this without qualification. But can an act ever be a this? What does it mean to be in act? In place of a definition, Aristotle opposes actuality to ' potentialities and then to motion. "Energeia is the existence of a thing, not in the way that we say something exists potentially." 65 The examples he cites fall into three classes: 1) the exercise of an ability, which he contrasts with the ability; 2) something we separate from its matter, which he opposes to the matter; and 3) the finished product, to the raw material. In a sense, all three perform the same act -- the act of being what we sa~ each to be. When seeing, the eye is doing what an .eye is said to do; when separated, the line segment is being . i~self rather than a part of some large line . They also if we speak ~nalogically -- share whatness, for each is the accomplishment of an intention Energeia then, is both an act and an end. Derived from erg on , energeia, points t~ entelecheia. This same set of relations creates the opposition between energeia and kines is. While a motion has limit (toperas), a motion is not an end (telos); rather, it e xit s for the sake of something other than itself . Hence, we call a motion incomplete (ateleia). An actualit~, while not finished in the way of a motion (for an actuality can continue ~ndefinitely), nevertheless completes itself at any time because it is its own end· Due to its completeness, energeia points to entelecheia. . But can we identify actuality, as Aristotle describes it, with substance? When we viewed substance as whatness, peculiarity characterized substance most of all. The peculiarity of actuality its ' t h. ' isness ' , becomes manifest as completeness. In Book 6, Aristotle unpacked the separateness compounded within peculiarity by examining the three ways in which whatness is prior. Actuality is prior in the same three ways. It is prior in formula: "that .which is primarily capable is capable by view of the fact that it may be an actuality". 66 Secondly, only a thing in actuality can bring a potential into act.67 This moving cause can either resemble the po tential, in which case the priority arises from time (for example, a seed becomes actual because of its parent), or it can differ, in which case the priority arises because the substance of the cause is eternal simply, while the substance of the thing caused is permanent only in a qualified way. Priority in substance precedes temporal priority because, in order to become actual, every potential relies ultimately upon necessary and indestructible things -- upon eternally active substances. In either case, however, actuality is both self-sufficient and the efficient cause of destructible things. · Finally, we said essence was prior in knowledge, because we understand a thing in the highest degree when we under stand its essence. Essence declares a thing, as Chapter Seven shows, because it acts as a·final cause. An actuality, as complete, is also a final cause. Thus it, too, declares a thing. These three priorities reveal that definiteness does belong to an actuality . We call a thing peculiar when it sets itself apart in virtue of what it is; we say a thing is in act when it sets itself apart in virtue of what it is doing . Aristotle's two visions of substance need not contradict. If something has, in itself and because of itself, a tendency for change, we call that thing 'natural' .68 Since essence ·acts as a final cause, it is a principle of movement which initiates and governs the progress of the composite in its actuality and towards itself. (For · example, if the essence of an animal is to partake in the divine by the preservation of its species, an animal -- because of • desire -- will feed itself and reproduce.) In such a principle resides the nature of each composite. Yet essence does not abandon peculiarity when it acts as · a nature, for an act can be a this. Thus in Aristotle's vision of a substance as nature, whatness and actuality merge clearly. But if we view essences 63 �in this way we must also regard only first substances and souls as genuine substances as things which are substances not merely by an analogy. This merging of whatness and actuality then, transforms the investigation of De Anima into an investigation of substance, as substance appears due to its fragmentation in matter. Just as the Metaphysics progresses towards the Prime Mover as 'substance' in the fullest sense, so De Anima focusses upon one particular principle of movement as the most complete expression of substance when present in destructible things. Fo r De Anima investigates man's last differentia, his ability to know. This ability rests upon a meeting or encounter between the soul and its object. As a result of this meeting, the soul becomes a likeness (to homoion) of this object and exists iila way like that object (homoiotai).69 Hence the object upon which the soul focusses determines the nature of both the activity of meeting and the knowledge in which this meeting results. Now the soul encounters two types of objects -- sensible and intelligible. As the soul comes t o know them, it becomes all things. 7 0 What then, are these objects, which t ogether contain all our world? What does the soul really·come to know by means of this meeting in which the soul preserves itself by progressing towards its own actuality? The division between sensible and intelligible objects coincides with the .division in the Metaphysics between sensible form and essence: Since there is a difference between magnitude and the es se nce of magnitude, flesh and the essence of flesh ... and since fl esh exists not without matter but as this snubness in this nose, it is by the sentient power that the soul discriminates the hot and the cold and the thing s whose formula is flesh; but by the intellect that the soul discriminates the essence of flesh. 71 Therefore when sensing, the soul encounters sensible form -- the form of a composite in so far as the form is sensible; when thinking, the soul encounters essence -what we say the composite to be in virtue of itself. This distinction first appeared in the Metaphysics when Aristotle spoke about generation in 6,7 (pg. 9-11). For in his example of generation by art, he distinguished the essence of health from the various stages in which the doctor produces that form in the body. The stages seem to express the individuality and diversity which mark every composite simply because 1) essence acts as a first actuality and 2) essence is present in matter, which has diverse potentials. Yet although these stages involve individuality, they still progress towards heal th, their cause. Likewise, although the soul re ceives the perceptible attributes in all their individuality, these attributes still point towards essence, their source. Yet even though essence causes this showing forth of itself -- i.e., causes the attributes, while we sense the attributes, we d o not sense essence itself (j ust as the form of heal th regulates the stages which lead to it without becoming identical· with them). We, too, acknowle dge a difference between sensible form and essence: for while we sense water (sensible f o rm) , we wou ld not say that we know water -- but we do know what water is (e ssence ) . And while we drink water, we would not claim to drink what water is. Therefore even our manner of speech suggestS a tension between these two methods of knowing. The s ource of this tensi on lies in the work within the composite that each object perf orms. For essence, as a first actuality whic.h directs the composite onward and towards itself, strains against the present actualities o f the sensible form. This strain constructs a conflict between what the composite appears at this moment to be and what the composi te strives to be. Since both o f these in some sense are the composite (although neither is simply identic al with it ) , it 64 1 seems as if we can know some one composite in two respects -- for we can encounter essence or sensible form (essence as it manifests itself ~hen in matter). But before we know anything in either of these two ways, the soul attends to its object; a 'meeting' occurs. The meeting from which sensation arises appears to be a sort of mediated touching -we come to know each composite through 'touching' its perceptible qualities.72 When I see a robin, it 'touches' me by its color and shape; when I hear it, it 't ouc hes' me by its sound . Sensible form functions as a mediator whose activity enables us to know an individual compos ite . We recognize this immediate connection between attributes and their composite in our speech while I can say "I see a color" or "I hear a sound" without mentioning the subject in which they must be present, when I am actually sensing I would be far more likely to say "I see a bird" than "I see the color of a bird", or "I hear a bird" than "I hear the sound of a bird". While we can separate an attribute from its composite --because they do in fact differ whenever the soul encounters the world we r ecognize their connection : sensible form is essence as essence reveals itself when in combination with potentiality, with indeterminacy. The process in which sensible form becomes known manifests even further the indirect nature of sensation. For we always receive sensible form through an intervening medium which is of a physical nature, such as ai r or flesh. 7 3 Yet despite the involvement of a physical medium, and the related fact that the p r oper sensibles have a close connection with the proximate matter of their composite, we never 'touch' matter. When I 'touch' a composite -- matter that a form has made actual, such as any one of the four elements or their combinations -I 'touch', not its matter, but the actuality in the matter . Since matter, when not in combination with a form, is nothing but potentiality, a type of non-being, 74 a soul can never encounter it. Whenever the soul a~prehends an object, it meets a being. In the case of the meeting we call thought, the soul requires neither a medi · um nor an organ. For an essence is not , being in so far as being shows i tselj through secondary categories associate~ with proximate matter; rather, it is c being simply. Therefore whenever the sou ~ contacts essence, it contacts being di rectly by an indivisible act in ar indivisible time. 75 (Aristotle use~ thigein in place of haphe -- his usuaJ word for touch -- to describe this rare meeting.) As a result of this direct contact, the intellect comes to know ar essence in a way in which such being~ never exist actually outside the soul -as separate. Yet despite its separation fron sensible matter, such essence is still not primary in the fullest sense. Rather, since the actuality that is an essence makes definite one potential of its genus, essence becomes part of an intelligible composite. 76 As a result of the action of essence in the intelligible matter of its genus, the soul can define essence - unlike first substances - because it can analyze essence into its constituents.77 But when the soul meets these two different objects -- sensible form and es sence -- in these two different ways, what does it know? What sort of thing is an aisthema or a noema? What do they reveal to us? In Book 2 of De Anima, Aristotle says: That which acts in producing actual sensation is external to the thing which senses it, and this is the visible thing or the audible thing (to horaton kai .!.£_ akouston~r any of the other sensible objects; and the cause of this is the fact that sensation, when actual is of an individual object. Knowledge, on the other hand, is of things universally taken, and these exist in the soul in a certain manner.78 Because sensible form arises from the activity of essence in matter, sensation car only result in knowledge of individuaJ 65 �expresses that end. Therefore when I hear facts or in groupings of these facts. a whisper behind me, and then a scream, I Thus sensation tells me that this fire is discriminate between the two on the basis hot, or that this round, sweet, red thing of their purpose, which I discover from which I find on a certain tree each year differences in their qualities. But in autumn is an apple. Since, as we sense knowledge of the function for which a qualities, we become aware of the form thing appears to be shaped merely points these qualities somehow express, even our to whatness; the soul has not yet reached most basic sensations are not simple; a clear understanding of the one orde ring rather, they connect a quality or qualfunction which causes all the rest. ities with the composite, which underlies However, as we describe sensation them . For when seeing, I see a particular and thought in relation to what each rebird, as its color and shape reveal it to veals about whatness, the strength of the be. Sensation acquaints us with what is difference between the two dwindles. Why at any given moment, for it tells us how then does Aristotle insist so strongly things appear. By making known the upon the importance of isolating the . one phainomena, sensation enables us to take ordering function? Aristotle states this effective practical action. difference most strongly when he contrasts Therefore when we sense, we the relation each holds to wonder. ('Won'touch' certain differentiae of an indider', to thaumazo comes from theaomai vidual composite 79 ; when we think, we conwhich means to gaze at or behold , and tact a composite's last differentia hence also, to contemplate). (Teleuta diaphona) -- the principle which Knowledge of a phenomenon fails to sets the composite apart because of its satisfy wonder -- indeed, it is the source peculiarity. 8 0 This knowledge of the which sparks our amazement. And while whatness of thing explains the combinarepeated sensations can dull or stifle tions sensation makes known by revealing wonder, they cannot bring us to the contheir cause. trary state -- knowledge of the cause can. But to know the precise contents For example, once a geometrician knows the of such an explanation seems a difficult cause of the incommensurability between a thing. A proton noema is not a definition diagonal and the side of its square, nothbecause when we define something we dis ing would make him wonder more than if he tinguish between its materi al and actual found a diagonal which was commensurable parts yet we contact essence by an with its side. We feel wonder whenever we indivisible act in an indivisible time. can't give an account of something because Indeed, such knowledge precedes it contradicts our expectations definition. But if we don't _really know whenever we are perplexed (aporoumen) and what a thing is until we define it, how lack a way (aporos). 81 Once we know a · can we claim, merely by contac i g thing's cause, however, we can account for essence, to know whatness? it; at this point, conviction (pistis) A similar ~roblem surfaces in the replaces wonder. cas~ of sensation, since the knowledge in Aristotle calls this knowledge which sensation results connects with which satisfies wonder 'wisdom' , and aswhatness, while it also precedes def in iserts it to be the highest of all the scit ion. For when we 't ouch' qualities such ences. He calls 'experience' the most as sound or color, we become aware of the advanced knowledge which the soul becomes essence which causes them, and therefore as a result of sensation. If the strain say that we sense the composite substance between essence and sensible form in which we find them. But in this 'awarbetween thinking and sensing is more eness' we neither contact essence nor dethan just ostensible, it should find its fine it; rather, we gain a sense of the highest e~pression in a conflict between composite's purpose. Because a composexperience and wisdom. ite' s final cause -- its essence -- orders When Aristotle explains the varithe entire composite towards the attainment of itself, sensible form 66 ous ways in which the soul encounters the world, he constructs a hierarchy, all the levels of which arise originally from the soul's ability to encounter sensible form. ... out of many sensations memory comes to be, and out of many memories of the same thing experience comes to be. Out of experience, or out of the universal which has come to rest in the soul, and which, being the one alongside the many, is the same in all of them a . . principle of art or ' of science (comes to be).82 Because the diverse memorie~ which combine to create experience concern sensible form, the soul responsible f or experience is the sentient soul. But A~i~totle also describes experience as similar homoios to wisdom83 , and s pea k s o f . . . it with a universal, for experience is the logos. of ~any memories. Although these me~ories differ in content, because each points to one common thing, they together form ~ system or unit of obse rvations. In ex~erience, the soul recognizes the exist~nce of a cause and effect relationship, for it applies the past to the p:esent but the reason for the success of this ~pplication remains unknown. when a certain set of events occurs (for instance, a child has a fever, sore throat, and lethargy) , experience tells us what to do. to remedy the situation (to give the child medicine since he has strep throat). However, experience can not reveal that t~is medicine cures the child because it kills the particular strain of bacteria responsible for strep throat. 84 Thus wh~le it provides an account of the memories which act as its material, experience cannot account for itself Rather, either science or art provides t~e account we desire . Now wisdom is the highest of all the sciences, for it studies the causes and principles upon which all beings depend. Therefore, as a result of following the method which seeks the one function that orders all the remaining activities we come to know an essence which cannot b~ known by sensation because it doesn't reside in matter. Such a science is not a productive science: . .. for it was when almost all the necessities of life were supplied, both for comfort and activity, that such thinking began to be sought. Clearly then, we do not seek this science for any other need; but just as a man is said to be free if he exists for his own sake and not for the sake of somebody else, so this alone of all the sciences is free for only this science exist~ for its own sake Does t?e tension then, between experience and w~sdom, sensing and thinking, find voice in this self-sufficiency? Has Aristotle cemented the division between sensible form and essence in the estrangement of first philosophy from all other knowledge? . But Aristotle envisions these differe~t ways of encountering the world as form~n~ a hierarchy. Thus, rather than straining against each other, experience leads to wisdom, just as sensib\e form leads to and is ordered by essence. · ~lisdo~, while it does not require the ot.her sciences, regulates them -- practical and speculative alike -- because all th th' o er ings depend upon and strive to resemble the primary object of its investigation.BG Because all other substances stand as u~derlying subjects in relation to this fi~st .p rinciple, whoever knows this first princi~le u~~erstands potentially all other things. Therefore, in order to po~sess the deepest under~tanding of the t~ings and actions around us, we require wi~dom. Yet we do not by nature desire ~his understanding because of the benefits it . renders with respect to these other obJects; rather, we desire it for its own sake. But when a man possesses wisdom he knows not merely the first principles' . but also that which follows from them. 8B To contact essence is not sufficient in o~der ~o be wise; we need to reflect ~iscursively as well. So, then, what do we 67 �know by the act in which we contact an essence? would not the nature of this knowledge be similar to that which the first philosopher possesses of the primary principle? But· what would such knowledge be? Aristotle says : Those who wish to succeed in arriving at answers will find it profitable to go over the difficulties; for answers successfully arrived at are solutions to dif fi - cul ties previously dis cussed , and one cannot untie a knot if he is ignorant of it . 89 Before we can understand the es sence of man -- the essence of ourselves - - we need to understand l ) the object of the soul's activity being (both sensible form and essence ) , and 2)the result of this activity (aisthema and noerna). Clearly then, our difficult knot remains still tied, awaiting a f urthe r attempt. 68 Footnotes 37.Topics, 103b~l. 38.Metaphysics, l033b26-30. and On Interpretations, 16a4-9. 39.Metaphysics, 1033a18-22. 40.Ibid., 1032bl. While there seems to be an inconsistency in naming both essence (the form in th~ soul which determines generation) and the properties and accidents by 'form' ,this is really only another expression of analogous predication. While the two do differ, both are actualities although to different degrees. 41.Ibid., 1032b5-10. 42.Ibid., 1019a15-21. 43.Ibid., 1032b26-28. 44.Generation of Animals, 736a35-bll.45 .Metaphysics, 1037b15~17. 46.Physics, 193b13-19. 47.Properties and perfections are closely related-perhaps even identical. For a property is something that belongs to its composite because of its essence, for example, the ability to learn grammar is a property of man. Thus, properties are essence, improperly understood. Perfections are similar: "For neither the habits of the body nor those of the soul are alterations. For of the habits, some are virtues and others vices ... a virtue is a kind of perfection (for when each thing acquires its virtue it is said to be perfect; for a thing exists in the highest degree according to nature when, to use an example, like a perfect circle, it has become a circle in the highest sense and the best circle), while a vice is a destruction or departure from that perfection." Physics, 246a10-17. 48.Metaphysics, 1036a9-10. 1.De Anima, 433a31-32; 433b29-31. 2.Ibid., 432al5-17. 3.Ibid., 432a30-32. 4.Ibid., 415al5-23. 5.Ibid., 43lb24-a3. 6.Ibid., 429bl3-18. 7.Metaphysics, 1017a9- b9 . 8.Ibid., 1003a33-34. 9.Ibid., 1054a13-19. 10.Ibid., 1003b23-24. 11.Ibid., 1011b25-28. 12.Ibid., 1028a15. 13.Ibid., 1048a32. 14.Ibid., 1028a14-15. 15.Ibid., 1041b4-5; and Posterior Analytics, 89b36-a15. 6.Ibid., 1054a10-13; 1053b16-23. 17.Ibid., 1028a20-31. 18.Topics, 101b19-24. 19.0dyssey, Book III, line 82-84. 20.Metaphysics, 1003a10. A substance is a this and can be exhibited 21.Physics, 184a16-b14. 22.Metaphysics, 1003b16-18. 23.Ibid., 1024a8-9. 24.Categories, 3b10. 25.Metaphysics, 1029a27. Matter would appear as nothing because, in o rder for it to be absolutely separate, we must remove the attributes which bound matter (length, width, and depth) and also those which make matter's presence known to us (colo r ), because the being of these attributes is not the same as that o f matter (which is solely potential) 26.Ibid., 1029a26. 27.Ibid., 1029a33. 28.Ibid., 1007a29-b16. 29 . Ibid . , 1030a3 - 5. 30.Ibid., 1030a12-14. 31 . Ibid., 1037b17-21. 32.Ibid., 1052a23-29. 33.Ibid., 1050a9-10. 34.Ibid., 1030a30. 35.Ibid., 1031a15-18. 36.Metaphysics, 1030b19-21. 69 �F or the form, which is a this and sepa rable in formula (only) • • • II Ibid .' 104228-29. 65.Ibid . , 1048a32- 33. 66 .Ibid ., 1049b13- 14. 67 .Ibid., 1029b32- a28 . 68.Physics, 192bl6-21. 69 . De Anima, 418a6-7. 70.Ibid.,43lb20-23. 71 . Ibid ., 429bl0-18. 72.Ibid., 41Ra?4-~h . . 7 3 .Ibid . , 423b12-17. 74 .Metaphysics, 1089a26- 31 . 75 . De Anima, 430bl4-16. 76 . Just as we call both the sensible c ompo site and its essence ' substance' (because the first points to the second) , so we call both the intelligible c omposite of species plus genus and also just the part of the composite that is actual 'ess ence' . 77.Metaphysics, 1045-34-35. 78.De Anima, 417b20-23. 79.Metaphysics, 1042b32-35. These diff e r entiae are members of the secondary categories. SO . Ibid ., 1038al6-30. 81 .Ibid., 982bl7 . 82 .Posterior Analytics , 100a3-9 . 83 . Metaphysics, 98la2 - 3. 84 .Ibid., 98la4-12. 85.Ibid., 982bl2 -2 8 . 86 . Ibid., 1072bl4; and Nichomachean Ethics,114lb23- 24, and 1145al0- ll. 87.Metaphysics, 982a21- 23 , and 992b3 -4. 88 . Nichomachean Ethics , 114la16-20. 89 . Metaphysics , 995a28- 30 . 49.Ibid;, 1037h1 -R~ SO.Ibid., 1038b24. 51.Ibid., 103Bb14-15. 52.Ibid., 1039a8. 53.Ibid., 1034a20. 54.A substance, because it is prior in time, is that upon which all other beings depend. If no substances were to exist, nothing would exist. Therefore it seems as if substances are eternal. Metaphysics, 107lb5 - 8. 55.Ibid., 1048b5- 6. 56.Ibid., 1040b9-10. 57.Categories, 8a31- b2. 58.Metaphysics, 1041a7-8. 59.Ibid . , 104lb27 -32. 60.Physics, 192b22-23. 61.Metaphysics, 1029b14-15. 62.Ibid., 1033b23-25. 63.Categories, lOall-13 : A fourth genus of qualities is the shape or the form of each thing, and we may add to these straightness and curvature and other like them . For a thing, in virtue of each of these, is said to be such and such ." Topics, 144a20 -22: " ... the differentia alway s signifies a quali ty." three 64 . When speaking of the kinds of substance Aristotle says: " ... another is nature, which is a this, and it is that to which something changes , and a possession ... In some cases, that which is a this does not exist apart from a composite substance." Metaphysics, 107 0all-16. or again: " ... in another sense it (substance) is the formula 70 Beethoven ... A Comedian?! Kenneth Martin At the time that Beethoven wrote the Third Symphony, there was a certain form for the composer to follow when he wrote a symphony. This form dictated the number of movements and a certain order in which. they were to be placed. Since the movements were entitled according to the tempo at which it was to be played, this order also dictated the tempo of each movement . For instance the first movement of the Third Symphony is entitled "Allegro con brio". This means merry, with spirit. Beethoven breaks from this tradition when he writes the second and third movements. Traditionally the second movement was slow--Beethoven keeps that, but he entitles the movement "Marcia funebre" which means funeral march. He seems to want to place an image in the listeners mind . To make sure that the image gets there, he gives the movement a title which will place it there. The image is that of a funeral--thus one of grief. The third movement he entitles "Scherzo" which means joke. The traditional third movement of a symphony was a minuet. This is a dance in 3/4 time which was played quickly. Why does Beethoven bring a joke into his symphony and why is it a joke? Before we approach the techni cal question of "how is it a joke?", we shall put forth a hypothesis about why he chooses a scherzo. As we mentioned before, Beethoven breaks tradition at first with the second movement--the funeral march. This is an extremely slow movement designed to convey a feeling of grief to the listener. At the conclusion of this movement the listener is immersed in a cloud of grief. This cloud is thick, making it difficult to breathe or move. The listener is in danger of suffocating or drowning because he is so saturated with grief. For Beethoven to leave the listener in that cloud of grief is to stab him in the heart and let him bleed. Since he immersed us into that cloud, he now has to reach out to us and help us back into the clear air. He does this by telling us a joke. Beethoven realizes that although . grief is an important thing for humans to express, it should not overwhelm us and become part of us. If grief does ove rwhelm us, it is bad because grieving is basically a selfish emotion. When someone dies, the mourning is not for the person who died, but for the lives that have to go on living without him. After all, if we believe in life after death, we should rejoice for the person who died, for he' has moved to someplace better. Thus it can be seen that grief is a selfish thing and when a person lets it overwhelm him, he is being selfish. Beethoven seems to think that the best way to move a person from grief is to make him laugh. Let us see how he attempts this difficult task. The third movement is a masterpiece whose main purpose is to keep the audience off balance. Throughout the piece, al though the tempo never changes, it is difficult to keep in time with the music. It keeps running away from the listener, who is trying to catch it and make it part of him. Beethoven never lets . the l~stener catch up, because if he does, he will become wrapped in his own inner world . He lets this happen in the second movement. Now he wants us to become part of society again. This means we have to strive to catch what we want--as in the third movement. To make clearer what I mean by keeping someone off balance, to let him laugh, let us glance at how a comedian 71 �r works. A comedian's job is a difficult one, because his audience's purpose is to be made to laugh. Since they expect this it makes the comedian's job tougher, because that is the easiest way to make people laugh--to give them the unexpected. But it has to be unexpected in an uncertain way. For instance, a comedian who came out and read a tragic poem probably would not get laughed at, for tragedy is simply the opposite of comedy. The comedian has to move in a completely different motion than the audience would ever expect. A good stand up comedian never lets his audience rest once he has got them laughing. He tells a joke and when it is over he immediately tells another. If the audience does not laugh, he can sometimes salvage it by buffoonery. If the audience does laugh, as soon as they have quieted enough to hear him speak, he begins another joke. This way the audience does not have time to get its expectations straight. Thus they laugh more easily. Beethoven does much the same thing. The movement opens in 3/4 time with three beats to a measure. He states the theme of the ·movement in the first fifteen measures of the piece. By the end of the seventh measure the listener's sense of time is already confused. If he has a score, he knows it is 3/4 time, otherwise he is in limbo. In the first place the music is moving so fast that it is impossible to count each beat in the measure, so the listener is left to tapping his foot to the first beat of every measure . The problem with this is that the listener has to trust his ear to tell him which beat is the first beat of the measure. Usually, since it is the strongest beat in the measure and composers use it as such, it is easily found. However Beethoven fools everyone because he starts on the last beat of a measure and uses a one, two count to fool the listener into 2/ 4 time. This is accomplished by emphasizing every other beat, thus the person counts 2/4. But at measure nine he slips in an extra unaccented beat--meaning that we are in 3/4 time. The listener starts tapping every one of the one, two, three count. Then at measure sixteen he jumps back into the 2/4 time of the first seven measures . The listener is off balance again. At measure twenty-two, he moves back into 3/4 emphasizing the first beat of each measure again. Then at thirty he reenters 2/4 time.. This lasts until measure forty-two where 3/4 time asserts itself again. We stay in 3/4 time until measure fifty-eight where 2/4 comes in again. This is a confused section where it is tough to get any sort of rhythym at all. This confusion lasts to measure seventy where 3/4 is emphasized strongly by the violas and contra bass playing the same note (D) eleven times through three and two-thirds measures (70 - 73) then moving to another note (Bb) on the first beat of bar seventy-four and playing it eleven times through another three and two-thirds measures (74 -7 7) . Then at the last beat of bar seventy-seven we move back to the one, two punch of 2/4 time. This back and forth motion lasts until bar one hundred and sixteen. we have been in 2/4 since bar one hundred and eleven. Then we get three successive sets of quarter notes moving to half notes. These throw our timing off completely. The nearest thing we can grasp is 3/4, but it is difficult because the strong beat comes on two of the measure, instead of one where we need it to get the sense of 3/4 time. As soon as these three bars (116 -119 ) are finished we get a solid statement of 3/4 time with two bars (122-3) which state one chor d on each beat in the first bar then another chord on all three beats of the second. Then in bar one hundred twenty four we get that confused quarter note to half note step again. After this set (124 -7 ) we get another set in a 3/4 time as before. This lasts until bar one hundred and forty four where 3/4 reasserts itself by playing the melody notes only on the first beat of the measure. This moves us all the way to the repeat o f bar one hundred and sixty four in 3/ 4 time. It is evident then, that Beethoven strives to keep us off balance and does so in the first section of the movement. 72 The trio which begins at measure again, gi~ing us our sure 3/4 time. This one hundred and sixty seven and ends at lasts until bar four hundred and twenty measure two hundred and sixty, may be the only place where we have a chance to catch 1 two wher~ he gives us an authentic cadence on th~ first beat of a measure. This octhe music. Al though the tempo stays the curs in bars four hundred twenty one to same, the fact that the same note is being four hundred twenty two. This gives a held over a longer period of time tends to sure sense of 3/4 time. make us think of a slower tempo. From bar . H~ m~ves into the coda in a 2/ 4 one hundred and sixty seven to bar two time· This is seen in bar four hundred hundred and six he uses the last beat of a measure to emphasize the first beat o.f the . and twenty three in the timpani giving us a. one, two count. Then the violins and next measure. This gives the liste-~~r a viola com~ in emphasizing the 2/4. Oversteady sense of 3/4 time which lasts for a top of this .2/4 time in the bass, he puts time. This enables the listener to catch the melody in 3/ 4 with the clarinet and his breath and get some stable ground for foggotto playing two dotted quarter notes a.moment. A moment later he plunges the back to back followed by a quarter note on listener into a trio of flute, clarinet, the first beat of the measure (425 -27 ) . and bassoon (Fogotto) at bar two hundred The flute joins with the melody in bar and six. Our sense of 3/4 time lasts for four hundred and twenty nine.to four huna measure before he starts emphasizing dred and thirty one . Then we get a solid every other beat again. The listener f al2/ 4 from bars four hundred thirty one to ters, striving to get in time with the f~ur hundred and thirty nine with the enmelody. This lasts from bar two hundred tire orchestra moving at one two, one two. and six to ?ar two hundred and twenty five T~en at four hundred and thirty nine he w~ere a trio of horns comes in with the gives us a cadence on one, then two rests. first melody of the trio to bring us back Bar four hundred and forty and four hunto 3/4 time. Again Beethoven just lets dred and forty one do the same. This the listener get the feel of the rhythm pushes us again to 3/4 time and ends the before he changes it again. we last in piece . 3/4 until the repeat at bar two hundred It becomes evident that Beethoven and sixty. ha~ masterfully designed this movQment to At two hundred and twenty five of bring the listener out of his own inner th~ 7econd ending he brings us back to the world of grief and self pity. He strives or i?in~l theme of the movement, starting ~o mo.ve us to a shared outer world full of again in 2/4 time. This part is almost an ~oy in that sharing. If hE: gives us a e~act ~eplica of the beginning. The cruJoyf~l sounding piece in which we are able cial difference occurs in measures three to f i~d our timing, he offers us a way hundred and eighty one to three hundred back into that inner world whicL is so and eighty five. This is the spot where lonely. By constantly shifting tfi.-, rhythm we are used to a quarter note to half note ~rom 2/4 to 3/4 he refuses the way to that t~ quarter note half note cadence~ we inner world. Before we can get there we finally have come to terms with the back have to be able to become as one with the and forth motion from 2/4 to 3/4. Then m~sic ~ This can only happen if we are here he moves to 2/2 time. Our timing is wit~ it rhythmically. Thus in chasing the thrown into outer space. This is the climusic to become one with it we forget ourmax of the joke and "the joke is on us". selves and think of the music, or even From there he move back into a 2/4 at mea better, of someone else . Thus, the third sure three hundred and eighty five uritil movement is not a joke so much as an end arou~d four hundred and one . Here he emto g!:i;_eving. phasizes the first beat of every measure 73 �Kyrie Jerry Spires / ~ \ ,, I I ~ I a ~- ,, .. ' e · u· 5°"'. 1 .. I': I ... / -e t\ .. ... "' - & ~ • . - .._,- - ... . .. ,,. \ -" ~- ,.~. ~- ~,, ~ , a.- ... ~ . II ' .... ~Ill.I ~ - --... . --:) . I I I .. - . _. t.5-· ~ ·- ~ ~ I I . .I "" - .. .. - .. ., • I Loi;• r r.-.. r' I . --. I.I. . I I I - I • - I - I I I r I ~~. Jt.. !I J. 1 i,.. ,,.., - I - I - I sb ... fI• - ..'- - ..,, . .. ... I c ..i. . . . . - I ..... -. I ./ I ... I 'T ·1 .. r "". ~· I ,_ I "" g ,.-. I• . . I I I I .. I -, I ..,. I - . I I • c; • I • I I T I ....____....., ~ - , ,.. ~ I I I ! P"' T I I ...... :i / - r r- ~ ·~ - IT ci; ', I 1 S~N. \- - ..r • ,.. I t ef " t ~ ..... ti: .... - \ . . •· I I I r l' I I I ..i I I ' .. J I I I I I I ,.t1'1 E.· - I ,.,, " I r " l I ,,,,. I I --- I I r kLl I I I l'1 • I I r-,...,,, - I r I I . .. - l' I .. l T .: r ~ c• I I I ., "'P I 1· I I e. I I . ... . r E- I T I I I I I I I - I a • s~ .' ... , - Nlf'=" Ill I I I I .._____...'"' u• - ~ ~o~ . T T I -.- L::; II ,_, I I .. I \.J LZ' - I":', ,. I I 11 ./) . ~j ,!M ~ r I ~ 'Sot4 . - 1T 0 . I l ,_ , _, · I - I ~ Lli - rr I ~- I.El- I I ~ Q.~ I I a I I I E• "'r.- I " • - e.- n I I I I J I I • ..- r •e - I ,_ I • l"'\l I ~ • 5QN. - r I I E I - -i 1 !.!;· I I 91 I '- . ' 'I I I -,,., r I I I ' -' - r- ~ I'</ _,, - I I - • rll I - I 75 74 -• r r ! l I - l ~ I ... l... ' J ~Otl \ I ,,./' I I I k..'/" I"" 1..f- I ·- (J ~ 1'.'I • ~ ,, I ' V.,.' / • P..I J il· ) Jerry Spires attended st. John's in Annapolis for two years. He is now studying liberal arts at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. The Xyrie here printed is part of his Mass entitled "The Solemn Joy". I ~~ ~~ ~ j _/ e.- ...--... -.... / r." - I I - ~ I i'.'I· ~-~ - r if - ~ . I •IOM. - ·- •,. ..J ~ t"'\ . : S"r{ - ' - I I lt-.p - ' I I l I - r (\,J I l£· - - I I I I I - I I I . I / I - ~ 1t.S.ti·~ I I ~ ~ - ... ' r,-. I I "" II • I~. / I I -i '- I LJUYL..l ,I I I I I I I i ~ ~· ~\-~ ~. ...... . /.\ I -~ I I > I &J I l.f • l _, - f I I ~ 'T • nlJ I ~ · - - r I ~ ,_ . I CV. I I . r I -i I • !- -. . r r ·1 ,.._ r'i " ~ - I I ' -T I ~ - I e.- - "" -· . r.. I I .- ,, 11.a ..' I t:ll· J ~) I ,, I ,. M I I I ' - I I ~~·'-\"I! ~ ~ -- - r , ,.. • A 11 n ~ r1 ~ ' - Lj II r I I .~ ,.... I �~ , / -• ... I ~ , , \. I I I I ~ C/111.\ • , I ~ / I •. '\ \.~ ".: - I I I I - ,_ J ~ I \ ' l " J .. ' . I - ' I e~, II' - J .. -- l t ~ 'II ; - \ I I I - 11 LI· - ' T I - ~ .... I I Clll. •• I -m I I . u ,. \I" I .. I - "" I "'---"' I - I I ~ • 30f'l • -· J. i.- I• . ,. • I I I"" r- I I . .- - - ~ · .. l l) ' t \ l I I I I I I"' I I I E· ....... [ I ! - - Lf; - I I ,- I I I I ' I I I ' J_ I· .... ..,, I l.4 ··I l JoM _ ,_ i..- ~ S•N I ~- ., I r' I I I I l I I I I I I I I ' ' ...,1 c· t· - I I I 1 I 1..E; - -. I I .. ' r-. ~~ I I I ' I ......... I (,")/ "1....._ n _.j(_] Sotl.- ~ I· ,... ,_J I I i • I• - ~ .. I -I !"" I I . r - ... .. J :L. I - I .....____... I ... f ~ ~ I I - 1 cat&l· -\'Te - - I"' I I I l" I I I I I -· - ew-«.1- Jllil. T ,_ Ii..il· . • S• l'l I I '• r I I Le• I 77 76 - i I ~ r • ~"!'" n~ S..~J. - I ' I I I I ~ I I I I I _. ! I I 'I 'l I - .......-1 ~ I .. --,. I I - I I I I .. r I .... I, _ "'" . ~!~ ..... ,. - 1· - c.iic.1- • '$0"4 r... I .,. '-" 1\ _Ji tlc..,. - !:>' 1 1.•· - Jott . .5.,,i l" ,,..---.....,. I E· ' ' •.lff ,.. ' -. . .. - I I I i I I ~ LI• I I -m C:1U.1• - ,... LI a ~ I ·I· - !"" I I . ,,.. I I !.- t - I I I I I -,. "" I I I I .. ~ } I I I I I I I I A I .,.. I I I . ,. I I - I I I ... .. I ~ ... I E· ·si"i I I •-, I li - .. r- I E'· I LJ - - I - .I!! l I -.J ...._ .-,, I .- ~- I I . ,, J....V I .. U• ,.. ' 50"', \ ,J --.. - . - - I ' I ' I 1 II (.M. I • -,.. l I ) I ' ... CM I ' l . ~ -~ . , E· I I I I - I I I i. - I I " - ., .. -· ... -,, ' ~ .. ,, , _ .., l .. ~- ~ .----..... . ~ .... 6 I -1 • SllN, l ..,, "' I I - - \ I Tl I ,,,,,...-..., - - ..... I .,~ lf. . ~I - I _,. ~~ -- . .. ~- I .J+r ,. ft I . .... ' I I r;;1' r-i . 1 I I J I l ,J. ..- I 1' - I I ,,, I ~ I .. . -r I ~ - IS· I e•~1· .J &· I • I . r u LI '\.. ... I r1 11 .A - / - 11 I h I ) c~- "" " .. . - "' ·31'£ ' L I r,o... I I \ I I I ! I . ~. ./1 I ' I I I I QI . I• d C.~1- .. -. ' ' -,,,;[ l - Li- I I I I I I , ~-V -~ -do ~ ,, ... \ ' I " ) ~ ~ I I ~I ! I II I I - . . . .... I I • ) - ",. I _ l �The Harmony of the Solids Martin Marklin . A ~reject ~-o.r . the .~ab_ora~ory Mr. Curtis Wilson, Advisor Preface: -SO' . I sense I have today witnessed something great! It is my intention to show in this little paper something remarkable which I happened upon not totally by accident, namely this: there is indeed audible harmony among the five regular solids. These solids, celebrated since the days of Pythagoras and Plato, have more harmony and design than I suspect has been known until today. But before I begin to give my account, permit me, kind reader, to recount the occasion of such a blessed finding and to explain why I undertook this endeavor. It was some months ago that I first was introduced to the study of acoustics, and undoubtedly the most fascinating phenomenon of this science was the Harmonic Overtone Series of a vibrating string. While I was perusing those small whole number ratios, I recollected seeing them before in my geometrical studies. For I had discovered in Euclid's Thirteenth Book that, for at least three of the five regular solids, the edges were related in square to the diameter by small whole number ratios. What a beautiful coincidence! Lest I lose someone before I even begin, allow me to recall here the ratios of the five regular solids and those of · the Harmonic Overtone Series: Octahedron: The square on the diameter of the comprehending sphere is double the square on the side of the octahedron. (side of octahedron) 2 : (diameter) 2 ::1:2 Cube: The square on the diameter of the comprehending sphere is triple the square on the side of the cube. (side of cube ) 2 : (diameter ) 2 ::1:3 Icosahedron: The side of the icosahedron is the irrational straight line called minor. Dodecahedron: The side of the dodecahedron is the · irrational straight line called apotome . I The Harmonic Overtone Series 1 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5 6 Octave Fifth Fourth Major Third Minor Third Now what was innnediately obvious to me was that the octave and the octahedron have the same ratio, namely 1: 2. Moreover, the octave and the octahedron embody the same number eight: eight notes in the *The symbol ()~ is not algebraic. It is a short way of expressing "The square constructed on ..• " It would be inconsistent to think here that one should multiply the length of the side by itself. 78 Tetrahedron: The square on the diameter of the comprehending sphere is one and a half times the square on the side of the pyramid. (side of tetrahedron) 2 *: (diameter)2::2:3 79 I �former and eight faces in the latter. Now this similarity could hardly be accounted a simple coincidence! And so I set out upon my search for perfection, to see where blessed nature left fingerprints of her perfection. I looked to geometry and music, for my presumption was that music is in a sense "sensed mathematics". The five regular solids were not new models of perfection, harmony, and creation. They go as far back as Pythagoras and Plato; and perhaps the best lighting for the solids appears in Plato's Timaeus, in which Timaeus tells his "likely story" of creation. But his account is not a creation account--and by creation I mean strictly "creation from nothing"--for the demiurge fashions the world after archtypes eternal and perfect. Timaeus links the solids to the four elements: For bodies to be bodies they must be both tangible and visible which are the results of earth and fire, respectively. Earth is represented by the cube and fire by the tetrahedron . Now between any two solid bodies there need to be two proportionals. Hence, water (icosahedron) and air (octahedron) serve to bind these two elements together. The fifth solid, the dodecahedron, serves as the container for the other elements. But even better than this, I had for my guide Master Johannes Kepler, who said that God the creator was a playful, geometricizing God. By this Kepler meant that God created the world out of love and for de light . Fur thermore, God used the two tools of the geome ter, the straight-edge and the compass. Even though the phrase "Harmony of the Spheres" - -to describe celestial mechanics-preceeds Kepler by many centuries (it goes back to Pythagoras, who claimed that he and a few other select persons in history were capable of training themselves to audibly hear the .musical harmony of the planetary heavens) , Kepler used this as his foundation for his Harmonice Mundi (Harmonics of the World). (intelligible, not audible) with dissonant tunings, like certain syncopations or cadences (wherewith men imitate these natural dissonances), Hence it · is no longer a surprise that man, the ape of his Creator, should finally have discovered the art of singing polyphonically · (per concentum) , which was unknown to the ancients, namely in order that he might play the everlastingness of all created time in some short part of an hour by rneana· of an artistic concord of mau1y ·· voices and that he might to some extent taste the satisfaction of God the Workman with His own works, in that very sweet sense of delight elicited from this music which imitates God. --Harmonice, Book v, Chapter 7 Now the phrase "not audible" befuddled me, and I resolved to try to make audible harmonies by means of the five regular solids, in light of the coincident ratios with the harmonic overtone series. First Beginnings : My first i nclination was to construct out of wire the regular solids, given the correct d i me ns i ons so that they would be comprehended withi n the same sphere . My thinking was this : since the edges of the solids were in harmonic ratios, why not make them as one tunes a string? In this manner the notes produced by the plucked strings would give the harmonic intervals of the octave, the fifth, the fourth, and so on. What signi f icance this would h ave l We now str etch strings over several feet within a piano. Wouldn't it be beautiful to have those very same ratios given within the confines of one sphere, determined by the five regular solids--the most perfect of all rectilineal bodies. For the mystery of the five regular solids . Accordingly the movements of the heavens are nothing except a certain everlasting polyphony 80 lies in the fact that there are precisely five and no more . Moreover, the regular solids are the most a. rectilineal body can approach the sphere, the perfectly curved. My enthusiasm was not enough, however, to surmount the obstacle of "conunensurable only in square". For no sooner had I begun my calculations than I realized that those small .whole number ratios applied only to the squares constructed on the sides of the solids. To a geometer these squares mean area, not the algebraic notion of taking a length times itself . It became increasingly clearer to me that my polyphonic model would not be so easy to construe~. I had already begun, whether I had realized at the time or not, my war on incommensurability. One day, however, I learned that while string-lengths exhibit a one dimensional vibration mode, drums require two- dimensional membranes to sound their natural resonances. What a joy and what new hope this news brought to me! Once again I had the hope of somehow circumventing "commensurable only in square". And why not drums? For the five regular solids are three-dimensional bodies; they are polyhedra and not polygons . Why should their natural resonance be limited by a one-dimensional string length? It would be far more appropriate to construct the solids as drums, thus letting the whole body sound its own natural resonance. And so I undertook to study drums and the wave equations appropriate to drum-heads . The first bit of infor mati on was shocking: drums, like bells, do not exhibit a harmonic overtone series like a vibrating string or a column of air. For drums and bells, their partials above the fundamental are inharmonic and their resonance not linear. Two of the most important contributing factors to the pitch of a drum are the volume of enclosed air and the size of the vibrating membrane. The trapped air will reinforce certain partials and cancel others; if this were not the case, one would simply get a "thud" and no musical pitch . Also important to the pitch is the thickness and tension of the membrane. Now each of the five regular solids had its own particular volume, surface area, and lateral face area. I thought to myself: "If I could keep my drum-head of constant thickness and tension- - then perhaps I might be able to bypass 'commensurable only in square'" . Just perhaps in combining the specific volume with the specific aperture of each of the solids, I might arrive at notes harmonically related. For by this time it was clear that what I was hoping was that the natural resonances of the five solids as drums would be in small whole number ratios. Constructing the Solids: The construction of each solid begins by taking a segment equal to the diameter of the given sphere, the sphere within which the regular solid will be comprehended. The diameter is divided into a specific ratio, and a perpendicular is set out from the point of division to the circumference. Lines connecting the ends of the diameter to the point on the circumference give three right and similar triangles. The following two theorems are vitally important for Euclid's proofs in Book Thirteen: A B AB . : AD : : AD : AC (sim . tri.) AC dup . AB : AD (AB) .2 : (AD) .2 dup. AB AD (VI. 20) 1) AB : AC : : (AB) .2 : (AD) .2 AB : AB 2) 81 AB AC . . (AB) BC . . (AB) .2 (AD) .2 .2 (DB) .2 �_.,.;-- - Octahedron Now let us consider more closely the specific construction of the octahedron, the tetrahedron, and the cube. What was noted before about the octave and the octahedron also holds for the diapente (fifth) and the pyramid. But where does the cube lead us? It alone gives us the interval of the twelfth, a fifth above the range of the octave. It would complete things, it appears at first glance, if the ratio of the cube were 3:4, the same as the diatesseron ( fourth). But in fact, the ratio of the cube, namely 1:3, does not appear in any of the octave's intervals. Consider the diagram below. Circle ABFE is the circumference of the sphere circumscribing the five regular solids, and AB is its diameter. BE is the side of octahedron, AF the tetrahedron, and BF the cube. Let us assign 6 units to the square constructed on the diameter. ( It is important to remember that the numerical unit 6 refers to the square constructed on the side AB, not to the specific length of AB). ·~ already know the ratios of the octah~ ~ron* (1 :2 ), the tetrahedron ( 2: 3) , and the cube ( 1 : 3) • Consequently, the square on length AF will be 4, and the square on length BF will be 2. B AD:AB .. 1 : 2 AD : AB . . (AC) :z (AB ) 2 2 (AC ) :z : ( AB ) : : 1 : 2 A Tetrahedron AD: AB:: 2 : 3 AD : AB : : (AC ) 2 (AC) 2 : (AB ) :2 •• (AB) :z 2 : 3 A Cube BD : AB : : 1 : 3 (AB ) :z BD : AB : : (CB ) :z (DB ) :z : (AB) :z : : 1 : 3 *For the sake of clarity and brevity, I will introduce the term "rati o of the (octahedron) (BE) 2 (tetrahedron) (AF) 2 (cube) (BF) (octahedron ) (BE) 2 2 .. 3 : 4 3 : 4 (diatessaron) .. .. .. 2 : 3 2 : 3 (diapente) (cube) (BF) (tetrahedron ) 2 (AF) .2 .. .. 2 : 4 2 : 4 (octave) We can immediately deduce·, from looking only at the tetrahedron and the octahedron, that the square on the side of the octahedron has to the square on the side of the tetrahedron the ratio of 3:4. This ratio, the diatessaron, is the complementary ratio that when compounded with the dipente gives the octave. Arithmetically, we see that 2:3 compounded with 3:4 gives 1:2. Hence, the fifth and the fourth, the two major consonances within the octave, are unequal but complementar y parts that together make a complete and ordered whole, a harmonious whole, the octave. This is precisely what we mean by harmony . Just as the Pythagoreans needed only the octave and the fifth to generate the entire musical scale, so too the octahedron and the tetrahedron will gene rate the other intervals. We saw that the ratio of the octahedron together with the ratio of the tetrahedron gave us the fourth. Alter nately, we get the fifth from the ratios o f the octahedron and the cube. Since the ratio of the octahedron appears in both equations, we can see how closely the cube and the tetrahedron are related-...;.not as regards the ratios of their sides to the diameter, but with respect to the octahedron itself, the octave. Perhaps the most striking proof that the pyramid and the cube are indeed complementary is this : the square on the side of the pyramid has to the square on the side of the cube the ratio 1 : 2 or the octave. A beautiful illustration of all this is seen in compounding ratios. Since triangle AFB is right, we know that the square on the side of the cube when added to the square on the side of the tetrahedron is equal to in area the square on the side of the diameter. (Euclid I . 47). In other words, (BF) 2 + (AF) 2 2 • (AB) Moreover, the square on the diameter is twice as large (2 : 1) as the square on the side of the octahedron. When the ratio 2 : 3 is compounded with the ration 3: 4, the number 3 is used as the middle term. In · the same manner we can use length BE as the middle term: (BF) 2 I (BE) 3 :2 comp . comp. (BE) 3 2 : (AF) 4 2:: •• .. (BF) 2: (AF) 4 2 2 1 2 (octave) proceeded this way: So the groundwork was laid and I begah to experiment . I first constr ucted models of the solids, given a compre hending sphere whose diameter is 20 centimeters. I made the faces out o f ~ inch plexi- glass, and during the assemblage I left one face out. Thi s was to be the opening for my drum. To assure the same tension and thickness in the membrane, I used the same drum- head for all the solids . It was constructed out of 0 . 003 inch mylar stretched between a 10 inch embroidery hoop. - I placed the taut membrane over the open-faced solid, whicb was supported by its edges (to avoid any dampening of the solid) . The over-hang of membrane was dampened by ~ inch foam, upor which was placed 260 grams, evenly dis persed. I repeated this very same procedure for each of the solids. Upon the exposed membrane · I placed poppy seeds, weighed out to 0 .1 gram. l held a four-inch speaker to one face of octahedron" to mean "the ratio of the square constructed on the side of the octahedron to the square constructed on the diameter of the comprehending sphere". Hence, the "ratio of the octahedron" is 1:2; "of the tetrahedron", 2:3; and "of the cube", 1:3. 83 82 2 : �the solid by means of a rubb er band (again, I placed spacers between the rubber band and the edges to avoid any unnecessary dampening). The speaker was hooked up to a frequency generator. My hypothesis was this: I would excite the air inside the solid at different frequenc ies and notice when the membrane would resonate. The advantage of this set-up was that it took into account at the same time both the volume of the solid as well as the size, thickness, and tautness of the membrane. The frequencies at which resonance would occur, I could be sure, would be the natural. resonance of the collective body. The poppy seeds were on the membrane to indicate when there was resonance as well as the mode of oscillation. Since my frequency generator did not have enough power, it was unable to detect the resonance of the unaided membrane. Moreover, the poppy seeds would move when they sat on points of oscillation, seeking nodal points (points of inactivity). Since the drum head could have an infinite number of modes of oscillation, and since four of my membranes were neither circular nor rectangular, I had no way of reasonably foretelling the pattern of oscillation. The poppy seeds would trace such a pattern. Now even before I began my experimentation I knew that there would be inaccuracy. For one thing, my models were constructed with a bevel on each face . When I removed one face, I was left with an extruding bevel which gave a lateral surf ace area greater in proportion to the inner volume of the solid (the thickness, as you recall was~ inch). Furthermore, I did not know how accurately callibrated my frequency generator was, p~rticularly since it was incremented at 20 cycles per second. Given all this, I searched not for precise experimental data, but rather for large pattern s. And patterns I did receive. The following graphs record at what frequency and to what intensity the particu lar s o lid resonates. I had no way o f measuring the intensity o f the resonance other than to watch the activity of the poppy seeds and listen with my ear. Thus, the recordings A, B, C, D are subject to my own limitations. D The _ Findings: c I took the strongest lowest frequency of each of the solids as its fundamental. In all cases I was able to reach a strong second partial, many times with greater intensity than the fundamental. The closest that I came to harmonics was with the cube, where the fundamental was around 350 cps and the second partial (harmonic?) was at 73 0 cps, nearly a 1:2 ratio. This would seem to make sense, f o r the cube in many respects is the most "regular" of the solids, by virtue of its parallelism and perpendicularity. But even more astonishing than this was the pattern and sequence to the fundamentals. First of all, they all fell within the same octave, which happened to be the middle register on the piano, with the dodecahedron being very nearly middle C ( 270 cps ) . And except for the icosahedron and dodecahedron, this pattern holds: as the solids increase in volume or in the number of faces, the frequency decreases. This also is what one wqu.ld B A >- !::: (/) z w 1- z I 300 I I 4 00 5 00 6 00 700 I 800 9 00 1000 1100 1200 1300 I I 1500 14 00 1600 I 1700 18 00 1 9 00 2 000 FREQ UENCY (CPS ) TETRAHEDRON VIEW SHOW ING CONSTRUCTION OF EDG E Natural Resonances for the Five Regular Solids Pitch Solid Frequeng Tetrahedron F 46 0 2 850 - 950 A# Cube F 340 -360 2 73 0 F# Octahedron Icosahedron Dodecahedron &4 ON E OF FOUR FACES TETRAHEDRON fT>:.o.s• F 325 2 1125 D# F 27 0 2 64 0 3 87 5 ~ E F 310,320 2 800 3 1100 I NSCRIBED WITH IN A . SPKER E c TETRAHEDRON DIHEDRAL LENGTH EDGE SLANT HEIGHT A POTH EM 0 .81649658 0. 70710678 0 . 23570226 RADIUS 0.47140452 AREA FACE 0 .2886751 SURFACE 1.1547005 VI EW SHOWING ALTITUDE OF ZONE VI EW SHOW ING DIHEDRAL ANGLE 85 VOLUME 0.06415003 ANGLE FACE SOLID DIHEDRAL 60° 180° 70.53° �D D c c B B A A > >- I- !::: v; (/) z z w 1- z I I 300 <4 00 600 !SOO 700 800 900 1000 1100 I I I I I I I I 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 I z 300 I I 400 500 600 FREQUENCY FREQ U ENC Y (C PS) CUBE I w 1- 700 I 800 900 1000 I 1100 1200 I 1300 I I I I 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 (CPS) OCTAHEDRON VIEW SHOWING VIEW SHOWING CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION OF EDGE d=1 d=1 ONE OF SIX FACES ON E OF EIGHT FACES CUBE OCTAHEDRON I NSCRIBEO WITH IN A SPHERE INSCRIBED WIT+llN A SPHERE CUBE LENGTH EDGE SLANT HEIGHT APOTHEM RADIUS OCTAHEDRON 0.57735027 0.57735027 0.28867514 0.40824829 ACE UR FACE VI EW SHOWING ALTITUDE OF ZONE o.3 VOLUME 0.1924501 VIEW SHOWING DIHEDRAL ANGLE 86 2.0 ANG LE FACE SOLID DIHEDRAL 90° 270° 90 LENGTH EDGE S LANT HEIGHT APOTHEM RADIUS ''°'~ ~ VI EW SHOWING A!-TITUDE OF ZONE V=6 87 E=l2 0.70710678 0.61237244 0.20412415 0.40824829 AREA FACE SURFACE VIEW SHOWING DIHEDRAL ANGLE F=8 0.2165064 1 7320508 VOLUME 1.6 ANG!,.t; FACE SOLID DIHEDRAL 60° 240° 109.5° �D D c c B B A A >- >- 1- t: z c;; w z I (/) z 1- ,..---, I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 300 4 00 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 FREQUENCY UJ 1- I I I I I 300 z 400 500 600 700 FREQUENCY (CP S ) DODECAHEDRON I 800 I 900 1000 I 1100 1200 I 1300 I 1500 1400 I 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 (CPS) ICOSAHEDRON VIEW SHOWING VI EW SHOWING CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION OF EDGE OF EDGE ONE ONE OF TWELVE OF TWENTY FACES FACES lCOSAHEDRON DODECAHEDRON INSCRIBED WITHI~ A SPHERE IN SCR I BED WITHIN A SPHERE DODECAHEDRON LENGTH EDGE SLANT HEIGHT A POTH EM RADIUS V=20 F=l2 VI EW SHOWING DIHEDRAL ANGLE 88 ICOSAHEDRON LENGTH EDGE SLANT HEIGHT APOTHEM 0.1585094 1.902113 VOLUME 0.2519204 ANGLE FACE SOLID CIH ECRAL 0.5257311 0.4552965 Q1517655 RArn~ 0.35682209 0.54909274 0.24556174 0.303531 AREA FACE SURFACE VI E W SHOWING ALTITUDE OF ZONE E=JO Q~35~ ~A~R~E~A_______ 108° 324° 116.5° VIEW SHOWING ALTITUDE OF ZONE VIEW SHOWING DIHEDRAL ANGLE 89 _AN_G_L_E...__ ____, 0.1196817 FACE 60° 2.3936353 SOLID 300° 10 _V_O_L_U_M_E--..,,.0....,.3,....,1=7..,,0...,.18"'"84"'""" DIHEDRAL 138• FACE SURFACE �expect. A larger volume would produce a lower pitch, hence a lower frequency. I hesitate to draw any more conclusions, given the known inaccuracies of the instruments and models . But the results that I have received thus far, however imprecise, lead me to suspect that more awaits to be discovered. Yes, I am guilty of suspecting that there is harmonic perfection in the five regular solids, but even more than that . I should t h i nk t h at one would be able to sense s uch harmony with one's ears, that is to say audibly. Acknowledgements : Allow me he r e to acknowledge those persons who generously gave of t heir time and advice and talents to this endeavor. First of all, I wish to thank Mrs . Allanbrook, my music tutor, fo r her patience despite my ple t hora of questions . Mr. Herbert Neustadt de serves my gratitude for his obliging and professional advice. I am grateful to Mr . Nicholas Maistrellis and Mr . Roy Ar mstrong for providing me with working space and technical assistance. My very special admiration and thanks goes to Mr. Curtis Wilson, a modest and humble adviser. 90 �Non -Profit O rg . BUL~ RATE U. S. POSTAGE St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 PAI D PERMIT No. 120 ANNAPOLIS, M D. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. ii, 90 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Holland, Christian (Editor) Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Special Issue 1983 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983 Description An account of the resource Special Issue of the Energeia, published in 1983. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Special Issue 1983 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e3a52d4b29151522e8bb86bd443de62c.pdf e8b22b0954034c8caa7c70c82d69230f PDF Text Text SPRING 1982 :' �CONTENTS ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. Editorial Staff: Barbara Cooper Matthew Davis Christian Holland Susan Maguire Richard Miller Fritz Monsma Marion Sharp Joe Sachs CHRONOLOGY AND BEING FOR ACHILLES HERACLITUS AND AJAX ON FEEDING THE FLOCK (INCLUSIVE) WITH A GRAIN OF WHEAT JUNIOR/SENIOR MATH PRIZE PAPER 1979 TWO POEMS FROM LE MISANTHROPE Abe Schoener l Liz Waldner 6 R.A. Schainbaum 9 translated by Janet Durholz IO NEWTON'S AND ADAM'S APPLE Howard Zeiderman 12 VIEWPOINT Patti Nogales 23 Stephanie Nelson 24 David Stephenson 29 Ruth A. Johnston 31 LIKE FLIES TO WANTON BOYS. Another Paper about God, Man, and the Universe SOME THOUGHTS ON "MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS" SONNET A CHORUS FROM THE BACCHAE translated by Merle Sokolik 32 THE B DEDUCTION AND ITS RELATION TO FREEDOM (Or Kant, Can Do) Matthew Davis 34 THERE IS VERY LITTLE POETRY IN ONIONS Dan Farrell 43 P.H. Gagnier 44 Lisa Eckstrom 45 THE WRECK OF ELPENOR RECONCILIATION IN THE BACCHAE: Remembering Who We A~e Who Are Not Gods But Men PHAINETAI MO! translated by Terri-Ann Hahn 51 I ON CHAPTERS 11-17 OF PART II OF DON QUIXOTE 11 Paula Rustan 52 I[ !:1 TA-POCKETA, POCKETA, POCKET~ ••• Moliere, Thurber and the Comic Idea 111 1! Fritz Monsma 55 JI: I! -- --- - ~--·----- ---~- - --- -·--- i1[~ �Chronology and Being for Achilles, Heraclitus and Ajax Abe Schoener Diel' s. fragment 30 of Heraclitus names all things in their thinghood.. I f we can read this fragment successfully, we will understand something of the Greek thought about things, the being of things, and--most tempting--the being of being. Here is the fragment: , I f t ' Panta hen is the union of the many and the one, but a , union--since it is panta hen and not just to hen--which preserves the manyness. As the tendencies toward unity and plurality strive with one another, the cosmos lives. If the strife stops, the cosmos dies, the tension is lost. When we see kosmos as this tension we can understand the singleness of the two kinds of "same" we saw before. Kosmos is thinghood insofar as each thing is because of the strife in it; and kosmos is· wholeness insofar as each thing strives with every other one. It is thus the quality which separate things have in common, and also the very coming together of the separate things. It both orders and destroys their mutual distinction. This conflation of contraries is not nonsense: it is the most beautiful harmony. Now we can understand kosmos as "cosmos. " Once we -see kosmos as the tension-filled order that both creates and destroys individuals, we can see the world (or universe) as kosmos. Not as the obvious example of kosmos, but as the most difficult. The world both demands and rejects being called one, and does so with more insistence than any o,ther thing, so it takes the greatest wisdom to see it as kosmos. We learn that we must never explain the Greek kosmos through our notion of world, but can only hope to understand the full meaning of "world" through the challenging contradiction of kosmos. H xooµov TOV aUTOV anaVTWV OUTE TL~ 8Erav o~TE TL' &vep~nwv tnoLnoEv, ' ' ' ' ,, aAA '.:r aEL xaL EOTL XaL EOTaL' riv ' ' nDp &ELsWOV, anTOµEVOV µETpa xal &nooSEVVUµEVOV µETpa. ("Kosmos," the same for all things, was neither made by one of the gods, nor by one of men--but it was always, and is, and ever will be everli¥ing fire, constantly kindling and qqenching itself and the measures of the world.) When Heraclitus says "kosmos," he does not mean "cosmos" or any other word which names something like our "universe." He means the order which is ton auton hapanton--the same for all things. This sameness is twofold: it is the sameness of all things with each other (that is, their common thinghood); and it is the order which brings all the different things together (their being part of the same whole). If we read further in Heraclitus, we find these two aspects of kosmos are one and the same. They are the harmonie of things in strife: the togetherness in conflict df things which oppose and resist each other. Kosmos is thus the same as the tension of panta hen, the greatest strife and thus the greatest harmonie. We have al ready caught some of Heraclitus' understanding of the being of things. Their only being is in a twofold tension: an inner tension (like the 1 �I . !@, .I lyre's), and an outer tension (the tension between world and thing, panta hen). There is no being of a thing without the being of the opposites striving "inside" of it, and no being without the being of tjle kosmos with which the thing strives for its own individualty. This cosmos was never created. It is thus self-caused1 that is, its being lies entirely within itself. Nothing else is responsible (aitios) for it. What is responsible for its being is its manner of being--that is, as fire. This is clear from what is -contrasted with "not created": (~o ~ne made it, but it always was ... ) If I # .. , , ou TLS ErroLnaEv, aAA t :l analogy. He means the being of all things is the being of fire. They. are the same--and so, all things, insofar as they are, are fire. Philosophy is at this point way beyond what are called "material causes." Heraclitus does not name pur as material cause, but as primal cause-==that is, as ousia. If we examined the Pre-Socratics carefully, we might find that they never had "material cause." Did Thales perform experiments to determine whether all things were made up of water? No--this was not the way of the Ancients. When Thales said, "All is water," he was the first to say that the being of all things is one--and that that one being ·is the cool uniformity of water. Thales was talking ousia, not materia. We said before that the essence of things was change, that stasis was death. When Heraclitus calls fire aeizoon, doesn't that contradict our claim? Aeizoon sounds like the unchanging eternity of the Immortal, the life that does not change into death. But it is not, and a clue is DK 62 ("Mortals are immortals, immortals are mortals: the first live the death of the latter, and the latter die the other's life"). F-rom it we learn that the gods have no life, only death. Zoe always includes death, so aeizoon must mean "always dying" as well as "always living." We have al ready seen these two opposites together in fire: part of its life is to burn itself out, it cannot flame except by cons'uming its source. But every burning-out leads to a conflagration, for every quenching prepares new material to be burned again. Fire's being is to live and die at every moment, and for the living and the dying to be one and the same activity. For Heraclitus, this is the being of being: If riv aEL •.• Its being is its aitios. Its being can be "cause" because of the strange nature of its being. The fragment says that: "the being · of kosmos is fi r.e." .As we read it we expect the fragment to run: "it was never created, but was, is and always will ·-be." Instead it supplies a predicate to einai, and says, "it is fire." The predicate is a surprise. In Heraclitus, we learn to take surprises seriously: they must become part of our reading. This surprise achieves a definite effect: it makes us take what we were expecting to read and what we actually read, as the same thing._ Thus: to be is to be fire einai is pur einai. To understand the sense of pur einai, we have to understand pur, fire. It is more than familiar to uS:-- Fire is bright and hot. It rages, roars, fumes, changes color, licks, spurts, and spreads. It hisses, smokes, smoulders, consumes, and inevitably burns itself out. It changes constantly--a strange characterization of being. But for Heraclitus, it is the only one. In the absence of change, strife, and tension, there is no life--there is nothing. This nothingness is not only death but non-being. The raging of fire is the opposite of that "non-being". But when Heraclitus says that the being is "being fire," he is not just speaking by rrDp ElvaL· arrTOUEVOV UFTpa Ma~ &rrocr8EUVµEVOV µETpa. When birth and death not only coincide but coexist eternally as the being of being, then history and even time itself become impossible. The fragment catches this in the words we misleadingly sununed up as "einai" : en aei, kai es ti, - ·~-.-.-.. 2 ---:-- - kai estai. "The cosmos always was anc!·is and· will be "fire"--wa~, is and will be all at ~· We could read the ve.rbs separately--not insisting on their coincidence--.but this would be ignoring the subtle craft of Heraclitus. When he says "was," "is," and "will be" together, where "is always" would have done, we must be careful not to lose his jarring message in the easiest--and less attentive --reading. He says: in the being of fire, was, is and will be are all the same. This conflation of present, past, and future does not actually deny time, but only a "chronological" conception of it. When future falls into past, time cannot be seen along a time-line. But is this nonsense--time not fitting on a time-line? It is not nonsense-- in fact, it is something we will soon learn to call "Greek". By Aristotle's time,· chronos may well have become chronological, but for Homer, _and even Sophocles, time (chronos) was no series of times, but a place. We will see two examples of this: one in the Iliad, one in the Ajax. In the last book of the Iliad, the conciliation of Achilles and Priam culminates in the giving of time. Achilles and Priam meet and their tears mix. They find wonder1ful sympathy for each other in this moment, and Achilles agrees to return Hector's body to Priam. This return seems to be Achilles' great deed, the one that reveals a new and beautiful Achilles to us.. We remember the return of the body as the book's climax. But Priam himself will correct us, as he did Achilles. The return will not be fulfilled without one more gift,, one greater even than the body of his son: keep him in our palace and mourn him, and bury him on the tenth day, and the people feast by him, and on the eleventh we would make the grave barrow for him, and on the twelfth day fight again, if so we must do." Then in turn swift-footed Achilles answered him: "Then all this, aged Priam, shall be done as you ask it. I will hold off our attack for as much time as you ask me." (Trans. Lattimore) T~v o' nµEL8ET' ErrELTa yEpwv ITp~a)..IOs -\JEoELoris • "d. µ~v on µ' E-\JEAELS TEAEOaL Tacpov EMTOPL OL<p, <!ioE ME µoL rn:r;.wv' 'AXLAEU' MEXaPLOl.JEVa -\Jdns. 7 " I I JI '.I OLOva yap ws MaTa aOTU E~AµE-\Ja, Tn).o-\JL o • u).n a~EµEV E~ opEoS, µa).a ot TpwES OEOLaOLV. E:vvnµap µ£v M' auT~v E:vl µEyapoLs yoaoL µEv T~ OEMcXT~ 0£ ME -\JarrrroLµEV OaLVUTO TE ).aos, E:voEMaTn 0£ ME TvµBov E:rr' auT~ rrOL naaL µEV, T~ ol ouwoEMaT~ rro).EµL~oµEv, E~ rrEp &vayxn." I "J'. .I Tov 0 ' aUTE rrpoa~ELrrE rrooapMns oCqs; 'AXLAAEVS • II,, f 1 , EOTaL TOL MaL TaDTa, y~pov ITpLaµ ' I ws I au MEAEVELS" axnaw yap rroAEµov TOOOOV XPOVOV Oaaov civwya.s. 11 t I t (lines 659--6 70) Before the act can become good, Achilles must grant Priam time: tosson chronon hosson anogas. This--t°ime is a space, a space opened up in the turmoil of the war, in which the funeral can take place. Achilles' ability to open up this~ space for Priam is the heart of his brilliance and divinity. Homer points ' this out: when Achilles answers, he · is call dies. This is one of the few uses of chronos in the Iliad. It is also the very last, and because of its place in this In answer to him again spoke Priam the godlike: "I£ you are willing that we accomplish a complete funeral for great Hector, this Achilleus, is what you could do and give me pleasure. For you know surely how we are penned in our city, and wood is far to bring in from the hills, and the Trojans are frightened badly. Nine days we would 3 1: Ii !, �I 1 change it works, but for the changes it undergoes. What was not cause when it once occurred in the past is now cause; · what was once an act of friendship when it occurred is now an act of enmity (ee.661-665). The past--as a series of definite events--has undergone change in this moment. It has thus become indefinite: even the past is now full of new possibilities, just like the present and future. That is why Ajax calls chronos "unnumberable and great": not because of its infinite length, but because of its great depth. At every moment, past, present, or future, it holds open an infinite depth oi possibilities. In time, nothing is impossible: 1. 648, ouk est' aelpton ouden. But this does not mean "given enough time, anything is possible"; it means "in any time--in any moment --unthought-of possibilities lie waiting." After all, when Ajax says this, it has only been a few years since he won the sword which changed his life, and only a few hours since that change has become manifest. "In time" does not mean in the length of time, but in the bottomless depth of every moment. In its every moment, time--the ground of every happening--offers innumerable possibili ties. This is the wisdom Ajax has learned in his god-sent distress; this is the wisdom he gives to us before he goes to his death. His wisdom is not the trivial cliche "things change drastically over the years," but the surprising and even crippling message: "count on the sureness of no event; not only the future, but present and past as well hold unbelievable possibilities." At this very moment in the play (see line 647), time reveals the invisible and hides the bright and shining: it seems even to hold the denial of a thing's phusis. For the hiding of the phanenta (647)--the by nature revealed--~s nothing other than the denial of their phusis as phanenta. So time even holds the possibility for the impossible: the denial of a ~hing' s eternal being, its phusis. If time is to exclude no possibility, it must be bottomless at ~very instant. great scene, this use is the "definitive'' one. Here the depth of its meaning is called on, and this is what it gives up in response: chronos is the opening up of a place in the world for things to occur in. It is the place in which things happen--in which happening happens. It is the ground for being. This· ground is a place, but not a definite location. A location has an address: chronos does not give an address to events (e.g.: 1079 A.D.), it gives them an opening. Consequently, chronos has nothing to do with a time-line: the events in this place do not participate in succession by virtue of the place. This means that the place itself is not ordered: it is not laid out in successive compartments, nor is it any grid. It is very different from Isaac Newton's "tempus"--the conception of time which most colors our own. The opposition of chronos to succession is caught vividly in a few lines from the Ajax: Great and unnumberable time produces all things hidden, and hides all things revealed--and there is nothing that can't be expected. ' " ' ' , , anew-& , o inxpo~ xavap1.,.(}1.mTo~ )(PO\JO~ ~VEL. T, a6nAa xal ~Cl\JE\JTCl xpVTITETCll.." ){Q0){ EoT' aEATITO\J OU6EV ••• ( AIA'[, 646-8) Ajax himself is speaking here: it is his last speech before he leaves his camp to commit suicide. In the speech he discusses what has brought him to this point of suicide, and what might lie before him still. We might say that he is concerned with his present, past, and future. We will see how different that concern is for him than it can be for us. As Ajax recalls what has brought him to this pass, he must be naming the passing of time in chronos. Chronos then seems to be chronological, for it refers to all that has passed in succession up till now. But as we read on, we find that the passing time is not remarkable for the 4 Because of its infinite depth, every moment must be the same as every other. We cannot even consider the past as "determined" because its possibility has become actual. The Ajax teaches us that the past changes constantly: this is the thought at the heart of this speech. Time never gives up its depth. Even when it becomes definite (we must say the Trojan war was a special time, for instance), the definition neve·c completely determines what goes on in it. Thus time opened up a place for Ajax to accept Hector's sword in friendship, though that time should have had no place in the 'War. Events can still happen in succession, but that succession is not in the essence of time. Because time is the eternal confusion of every possibility, in past, present, and future alike, there can be no line of succession in it. Succession is only possible when there is definition, but not mixing and remixing. Because time excludes succession from its essence, it is not only makros, but anarithmetos--for Ajax and all the Greeks. looks like a pleonasm should thus be scrutinized · carefully--and probably read literally. If we read en aei etc. literally, we get something much more worthy of Heraclitus than the verbose "it is, always has been, and always will be ... " We get: Its being is, always was, is, and will be--at once. This means that was is the same thing for fire as is, or will be. There is no difference between past and present, no possibility for a time line. More Heraclitean nonsense? No--now that we have considered chronos for Sophocles and Homer, we know that this talk is no nonsense, it is good Greek. It is a deep and difficult understanding of being, one that sees the being of being in chronos, but outside of "time." Time as time-line, and thus history, excludes being because being happens in a vast undifferentiated ar.d bottomless chasm. That chasm is chronos: what we called earlier, the "ground of being." For a being that changes constantly, whose essence is fire, this is the perfect ground. Since fixity is death for being, a ground that offered only strict and permanent determination could only be barren. Now, the fixed events of history belong no longer in time (chronos) but in chronologies--the study of non-being. Heraclitus affirms this whole view in the kosmos fragment. When he gives the being of cosmos, he does not say "It is fire." He says: I ' t t ' ' " •1\J Q£l., MaL EOTL KQL EOTClL n0p ' , ClEL~wov. It always was, always is, and always will be fire--at the same time. For the being of the cosmos past-being, present-being, and future-being are all conjoined. This is hard to accept: we would not think that en aei kai esti kai estai in anyway impliea- the conjuct,ion of past, present, and future. There are two reasons for supposing that in Heraclitus the expression not only implies it but explicitly demands it. The first reason is usage: estj aei would have meant the same thing in Greek as "it is, has always been, and always will be"--our natural translation for en aei etc. The six word phrase is thus pleonastic in such an interpretation. The second reason comes from Heraclitus: he is never pleonastic, but always sharply terse. Anything that 5 �On Feeding the Flock (Inclusive) With a Grain of Wheat Liz Waldner I Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6:11 Take no thought what ye shall eat. Luke 12:22 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: the bread which I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the wo~ld .. Jon~ 6:51 · Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone, but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. John 12:24 Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of heaven? It is like leaven which a woman hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. Luke 13:20 simon, do you love me? Yes, Lord. Feed my sheep. John 21:16 j l t 1 I Taking the above ingredients so freely given--in good measure, packed down -- I hope to make a little cake like Alice's (with a tag reading Eat me attached), which once tasted will move the reader to essay a little baking of his own-in short one suitable food for the likes of us sheep. consider necessi ties--will be added unto us. Everyone knows we must eat to live,· and probably everyone agrees with Jesus that the life is more than food. From age to age and from place to place, however, people have differed in judgement of what food and what life are. Jesus startled everyone with his ideas; he called himself living bread and said that unless we eat of him we have no life in us. He told the multitude he'd miraculously fed the day before not to run after food that perishes, but to labor for that "which endures unto life everlasting." He said, "He that loves his life in this world will lose it; he who hates his life shall keep it unto life . eternal." Perhaps every nation of the world (excepting those few so cold that starches don't grow) recognizes bread as food if not the . v~ry staff of life; it seems that recognizing the bread as such--true bread sent from heaven, meat (food) indeed--is what's problematic. That is, I·'m guessing that not a few of those claims made by Jesus Everyone knows we must eat to live. Eat often and much, and we store what we cannot eat now to provide for tomorrow, as did Aesop's industrious ant, as did the rich man whose ground yielded such abundance that he needed larger barns to keep his harvest. We reckon many provisions secure much life and so are anxious to preserve what we have and to acquire more. Jesus knew that we must eat to live. Satan used his hunger after his forty days of fasting to tempt him to turn a stone to bread. Jesus answered him, "Men do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Jesus said that our Father in heaven knows, too, that we have need of food, and taught his disciples to pray asking each day for their daily bread. He called the rich man's prudence folly, and asked us to take no thought for our lives, to lay up no treasure for ourselves here on earth, but rather to seek the kingdom of God, to be rich toward God; then "all these things"--those which we're used to 6 I 1 I t I 1 :1 concerning himself as living bread which the Jews found hard to swallow--how can this man give us his flesh to eat?--once transformed from hard grains of astonishment by a patient pulverizing pondering will yield a meal itself suitable for the leaven of understanding: the puzzle is not how to eat living bread, but how to get it into our hands. An understanding--or chewing, if you will--of the latter is the making of the former. If we eat living bread, then we have life in us, do not hunger, and do not die. If we love our lives--fill bigger barns or banks with 1the means to eat ordinary bread--we die. To eat living bread is in some way, then, to hate our lives in this world, and hating our lives brings this bread into our hands. How can this be? First, living bread is bread that nourishes us when we give it to another. Any bread is the free gift of earth's fertility; the single grain given into the ground yields many. Many may eat of that which abiding alone could not have fed one. In the same way living bread is a free gift and miraculously feeds a multitude, but it feeds the seed, the grain which gave itself, as well. Living bread is made of the human sacrifice of abiding alone, of prudently providing for one's own well-being. Living bread, which is true bread sent to us by our Father to nourish the life of the world, life everlasting, is ours for the asking; it cannot be bought, nor earned, but is simply to be sought after. Jesus, God's word made flesh, sent into the world offering that flesh as bread for us to live by as he lives by God, sai~ that eating him we would live in him and he in us. To eat living bread is to accept life given as a gift as food, blood spilled as drink, to take into oneself for one's own fulfillment the fruit of some other's sacrifice of his potential fulness of being, a fruit which can bring forth abundantly after its kind, and live our abundance to another that he, too, might eat living bread: living bread is undoubtedly leavened. The giving and receiving of living bread and the working of leaven in a bushel of meal are like one another in that they both depend on reciprocity. The power to raise, to make bi·g, to feed many, is made manifest by the lifeless meal. The few grains of yeast hidden work all through the meal imparting its ability until the whole is leavened. But left alone the yeast will starve and die; the meal bereft of nutrients fed by the yeast will collapse, less than before. The least become most, the most become least--unless the greatest ever give to the least. A pinch of leavened dough leavens another bushel, and lives in it. As told in the parable of the pounds, the living bread we're given is not to keep, but to invest, to multiply, to make great--and that's done by giving it away. Even Moses' manna spoiled when anxiously stored. Our being given this powerful bread depends on our asking for it, and our asking for it on our giving it freely; our having it, and therefore our eating it, on giving it, too. Or no? Let's think ourselves grains of wheat. If we choose to love our Father, to love one another even as Jesus loved us, in whatever way or to whatever degree we can by laying down our lives for another, then we make of ourselves meal for leavening, nourishment for the life of the world. Until we do, we are ordinary bread, scarcely able (if at all, really) to feed ourselves. We hunger. Sooner or later something in us akin to the appetite for ordinary bread sniffs out the bread of life--perhaps in a loaf given us by another's unrecognized sacrifice--and asks to be fed. Earthly parents don't give their hungry children stones when they cry for bread, said Jesus; how much more will your Father in heaven give to you the Holy Spirit. I wonder if this is not the power to leaven, to make the single grain abundantly fruitful, to nourish those who give of their substance unto life everlasting, to feed unfailingly one's hunger forever. It seems to me that having been hungry for living bread is enough; our asking is our eating. In us its leaven working already prepares us as 7 �food. Recognizing it as food indeed moves us to feed others. The woman whom much has forgiven loved much. I think it's not far fetched to supply: the woman whose great hunger has fed, fed much. In this sense then, we never have in our hands this living bread except)to give it. We are, grains, and giving ourselves. we are broken into meal: the Spirit in us makes us great to be food for many. Having living bread living in us, we hunger to be hungry, to give more of ourselves that · we might be altogether leavened: that we might see, all of us, the kingdom of God. -When we pray as Jesus taught we ask for the coming of that kingdom, for the doing of God's will on earth, for our bread, and for the forgiveness of trespasses, ours and others'. That the leavening of the Spirit which reveals God's very mind to us had to be brought into the world, given as gift nurtured in Jesus' death and resurrection is made plain in the reciprocity expressed here, the participation in which sets free our yearning for the coming of God's kingdom, for the doing of his work on earth, for living with forgiveness toward others. Love begets love when recognized; recognizing God's great love given withou.t regard to our worthiness, 'we are moved· .to dismiss the hurt, the lessening suffered.· at the hands of others, doing the bidding of 'the Spirit within us, which forgiving enables us to know living bread as the true bread, and those who trespass against us as so hungry that they know not what they do. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, that they might eat; his Father loves him: he is well fed. Junior/Senior Math Prize Paper 1979 .f RA. Schainbaum I r j ' 1 f j J j J I This problem has to do with taking a door around a corner in a hallway. If a corridor w wide has in it an ideal door, a rigid line of length L, how narrow can X, the corridor at a right angle to w, be if it is still wide •enough to let in L? towards the lower side of W decreases ' or its horizontal distance from c increases. (2) Let f(0)=y (see figure) be the function that gives the least ¥.. for any angular position of L. The greatest f (9) obtained in bringing L from corridor W into corridor X is also the least posSib'l'e'X for the 91.veD w andI::9 For i f !_ were atallSmaller, -0could only increase to goo if L were- not a rigidly straight line. But L is a rigidly straight line, and L can-only be brought into corridor x- under the condition that 9 be allowed to vary from 80 (the initial position of 9) to goo. Clearly, the greatest y_ obtained from f (9) is also the least maximum for any possible displacement function of e. (3) Let g(z)=y (see figure) be the function in which y_ depends on the distance z from corner C along L to the lower side of corridor-W. As - the -before ' the least ! was equal to greatest f (9) over the range from 90 to goo so -.~--~' it also equals the greatest g (z) over the range from W to L. Sin~it is geometrically apparent that g (z) is continuous between W and .!!' that g(W)=g(L)=O, and that-g(z) is greater than ~· between ! and · .!!; so g (z •) is greater than all g(z), if~ is the only z for which g' (z)=O. i (1) For any given angular position of the line L, its (L's) displacement •(measured from corner .!!' perpendicular to the corridor length) y towards the opposite side of corridor- X is always least when its displacement (measured from corner L, perpendicular to the corridor length) towards the lower side of corridor W is greatest (i.e., it equals !) , and the horizontal distance of.!! from corner Eis least (i.e., c is employed as a fulcrum) . For whatever· the angular position of .!!' y_ must increase as either L's displacement 1. * * * By similar triangles: I y = g(z) = L-z z Ii 'I I, 111 II 8 9 __J '____ 111 11 I; 1 I lit �l Lw2-z3 z2(z2-w2)i, . (2/3) (1/3) Therefore, g(w L ) ~ g(z) for all z such that w ~ z ~ L. 2. g' (z) 3. Setting g' (z) = O, then: 5. z'=w(2/3)L(l/3), which value of z is uniquely obtained. 4. l .J Substituting w( 2/ 3 )L(l/ 3 ) for Zin 1, then: y (2/3) ' i j' I = L (2/3)-w(2/3). ' Thus, the least x=w(( L >213 -1> 312 But since L > w, then: w3 < w2 L < L3 w < z' < L. Hope, 'tis true, doth comfort us And soothes awhile our pain; But, Phyllis, if naught follows hope, It comforts us in vain. Kindness ever didst thou show, But less shouldst thou have shown, And not so far have spent yourself To grant me hope alone. If my zeal is forced to burn Eternally 'til you relent, Then to a cruel death I shall turn, Which all your cares cannot prevent, For, lovely Phyllis, hope is my death, When for hope alone I draw my breath. i w Q.E.I ALCESTE. Si le roi m'avait donn~ Paris, sa grand' ville, Et qu'il me fall~t quitter L'amour de ma mie, Je dirais au roi Henri: Reprenez votre Paris, ,, J'aime mieux ma mie, au gue, J'aime mieux ma mie. (1. 393-400) Two Poems from Le Misanthrope translated by Janet Durholz ORONTE. L'espoir, il est vrai, nous soulage Et nous berce un temps notre ennui, Mais, Philis, le triste avantage, Lorsque rien ne marche apres lui! Vous e~tes de la complaisance; Mais vous en deviez moins avoir I Et ne vous pas mettre en depense Pour ne me donner que l'espoir. S'il faut qu'une attente ~ternelle ' '1 Pousse a bout l'ardeur de mon ze e Le tr~pas sera mon recours. Vos soins ne m'en peuvent distraire; Belle Philis, en d~sespere ... . Alers, qu'on espere touJours. (1. 315-318; 321-324; 327-332) 10 If the King should give me All Paris for my own, To leave my darling true love, And sit upon his throne, I would say to Henry: "Take your Paris back; The throne is nothing to me, sir, If my own true love I lc,ack!" ! I __J l______ 11 �Newton's and Adam's Apple Howard Zeiderman matical--scientif ic aspects are a work of consununate genius - a model for us all since then; the theological allusions are a source of constant embarassment which we charitably overlook. What I propose in the following pages is an exercise .in imagination. I propose to read the Principia as if it were written by one man: and not two. To do so involves investigating a possible Newtonian response to -Leibniz; the world is not a -clock but rather a calendar. If the style sometimes appears an argument instead of an intellectual fantasy, it is only to facilitate the exposition, much as Descartes did in Le Monde. The following is therefore merely a story, a springtime diversion. Had Newton wished to justify the ways of God to man, or at least to Leibniz, he could have answered that they had radically different conceptions of God and, therefore, of his relation to the visible material world. Newton's reply could have been that for God the visible world was a sign to man. The spiralling apart of the planets revealed the eventuality of the Last Judgement. Man's past and future was in a sense writt~n in the stars. Unfortunately, as George Herbert lamented, God's writing could be read only if man knew how to spell. Newton could have charged Leibni·z of having attempted to read God's purposes in the number-names of the Ars Combinatorialis. Newton's cryptography, however, was different; he deciphered God's words in straight lines and curves. The Principia, not logic or arithmetic, is the proper orthographical guide. A decade before Newton composed the Principia, Milton published Paradise Lost. Mil ton's justification of . God's ways to In a letter to Clarke, Liebniz criticizes both Newton and Newton's God. The criticism is simple but pointed. This so-called 'God' acted as a poor watchmaker might because the watch he created--the world--must be continually rewound~ Leibniz's attack stems from the two focal points of the Principia: the revelation of the inverse square law animating the visible world of planets, tides, and stones; and the fact that there are more than two bodies (masses) in the world. In a world where the force law is the inverse square, two isolated bodies would continue in a particular orbit forever, a self-identity through time attractive to Leibnitz. Introduce a third body, however, and this harmony changes. Th~ee bodies moving under the aegis of the inverse square, each to each, results in a change in the apparent total force law. The effects shift toward these which would be caused by an inverse cube law. The bodies spiral out from one another endlessly; the world, as Yeats remarked in the "Second Coming," is such that the center cannot hold. Competent readers of Newton would generally dismiss Liebniz's conunent as somewhat irrelevant. Newton was a scientist. As such, he should be attacked only on scientific grounds. Whether he believed in God was a personal matter. These considerations, though . perhaps tokenly present in the scholia of the Principia, are not present in the propositions themselves. Newton, in other words, is not dissimilar to many modern scientists. Because he is split between two conflicting inclinations, proper reading of the work occurs only by respect:~iBJ such a division. The mathe- man takes the form of an epic which is the culmination of all other epics. The three short chapters in Genesis chronicling man's creation and fall are expanded into twelve books depicting the fall of Lucifer, and through his intercession, the fall of Eve and Adam, as well as the promise of their redemption. I hope in this short piece to show that Newton's Principia is involved in a similar task. This means that the visible world, which is depicted and made possible in Prop. 66 as the three body problem, if read through Newton's orthography, is the detailed and constant reminder of man's fall and possible redemption. In the 18th century, the Bishop ·Berkeley suggested that Newton's Principia was a Bible for materialists and atheists. What my suggestion means is that in composition the Principia was intended as an amplification of the good Bishop's Bible. It was the long awaited reading of God's purposes in his fallen creation. To see this does not mean finding an occasional image of some crucial Biblical or theological moment in a scholium. Instead it involves recognizing that the details of the Propositions and their interconnections display the accepted truths of the Christian religion. our task is to read through the propositions so that we can recognize why the inverse square law is the visible account of the Creation, Fall, and Last Judgement. II In this exercise we, therefore, will attempt a non-mathematical reading of a seemingly mathematical work. ~uch an attempt is obviously precarious. It requires the translation of axioms, propositions and force laws into theological terms which are now antithetical to them. Without an explicit license from Newton, this effort can appear quite gratuitous. And no such license has been issued, i.e. published. The bulk of Newton's work consists of unpublished theological manuscripts, conunentaries on Revelations, and the prophets. Perhaps in a document held in 13 12 -!_ _ _ _ _ __ _ some Borgesian library we could find the warrant for this endeavor. However, we might not. If we combed such remnants and found nothing. it would then be necessary to explain why Newton never supplied a "key" to his work, why it was written only for those with eyes to see. In the General Scholium Newton does indeed connect the visible world, God's works, with his own account in the Principia. However, this may imply no more than that the system, as a whole, reveals some aspect of God's purpose. It certainly need not lead us to expect a connection between the details of propositions -and the details of the Creation and the Fall. We know that Newton believed he lived in the "end of the times", that the day·of judgment would come when the dispersed Jews accepted the Gospel, and that he himself was born on Christmas day. Though Newton did not accept Christ as "of the substance of God," we cannot, therefore, infer that Newton believed himself to be the last Christ, who was writing a Bible acceptable to the Jews. We only know that such a belief would not have been impious. We know that Newton held that the number of the Antichrist was 666 and.we can open the Principia to find the full detail of the three-body problem in Prop 66. These numbers, however, cannot be connected even though as I will suggest, the relation between Satan and falling,spiraling orbits involves the relation of the inverseJcube to the inverse square. We have often heard the story of Newton under the tree hit on the head by the falling apple. If what I propose is a proper reading of the Principia, that story is obviously 'true' and, in addition, significant. However, its truth places before us as a question 'the nature of a fact'. In short, this is what I offer: If I believed what Newton believed and if I had written the Principia, this would have been how I composed it. Whether Newton did is a different matter and may be unknowable. However we must then go on to ask ourselves whether such 'knowledge' is important and therefore we reapproach from another direction the question of the �- l 1 The two beings ·have, however, no reciprocal connection. In other words, the third law is not present. We are in a realm, whatever it is, which is prior to the third law. Many suggesti.ons and images have been given for this model of analysis. However, if one asks oneself in the context we are articulating what is a massless center of force which acts but is not acted upon by what orbits it, the obvious answer is that the center represents God; the mass then depicts a created being. God acts but is not acted upon and the result is the literal drawing of the immemorial metaphor of created things orbiting around the Creator. What Newton's mathematics is enabling man to do is to find the literal sense of Christian 'metaphors'. The first two propositions hold irrespective of the nature of God's action, of the force law with which he acts. In the first two propositions, there is neither geography nor history, differences of place nor differences of time. The two parts of God's sensorium, -absolute space and absolute time, are made visible in the description of equal spaces in equal times. Beginning with Proposition 3, we receive the method of reading the world in more detail up to the culmination in Proposition 6. Proposition 3 allows one to recognize that there is a center of force, to recognize that there is a God, even if now an additional force comes into play. Prop. 4 allows one to calculate the force law connecting one with that center. Prop. 5 enables one to find the location of the center from the mass's orbit. Prop. 6 enables a specific force calculation. There is a surprising repetitiveness to these propositions. Three and four together are enough to calculate the force if one is on a circle and if one can recognize one's velocity and distance at a moment, any , moment, since every moment is the same. In other words, in accordance with our suggestion, one can use three and four if one knows oneself and one's distance from the center. Propositions 3 and 4 characterize a possibility of the nature ot a fact. In this issue I treat section 2, which ends in the creation of Adam, Prop X. Section 3, the creation of Eve and the Fall must remain something for the future. Before we treat the creation and the Fall, a few preliminaries must be set out. Newton, in his Preface, reverses the relation we have come to expect between geometry and mechanics. Surprisingly, in Newton, mechanics is prior: rational mechanics, the mechanics of the Perfect Artisan, draws the lines which geometry treats. The Newtonian laws and propositions connecting equal times and areas (prop. 1,2, and 3) draw these lines and make them into figures. They are true of ali .. 'possible' worlds irrespective of the force law, to use Leibniz's terminology. The first_ law draws the straight line, the second makes the curve possible. The third law, action and reaction, inscribes in all conceivable worlds, those under various force laws, the possibility of writing equations. To begin· our fantasy now involves finding theological equivalents. The three laws will then permit the visible world to serve as continual reminders of our invisible life. The first law allows one to keep to the straight and narrow. Every Newtonian object has both a mass and a velocity. The mass represents what one is, the velocity represents what one does. How one received one's velocity is an open question which relates to one's past. The first law is the representation of the self-sameness of the being. The second permits the possibility of deviation, rise and fall, it is to have a will of one's own. The third law permits punishment or redemption as it is the inscription both of 'an eye for an eye' and 'do unto others'. In propositions 1 and 2, we meet the first crucial aspect of Newton's exposition. We consider a center of force which has no mass and a mass in orbit which cannot effect the center. In other words, Law 1 rules the mass, which is altered in direction by the presence of Law 2 operating from a center of force. 14 pre-lapsarian world, where reason, knowledge of what one is, and piety, recognition of one's distance from God, are sufficient to keep one in orbit. Proposition 5 and 6 are quite different. The characteristics of the moment are not quite sufficient. The actual orbit, which need not be a circle, is necessary. History must, in a fallen world, replace self-knowledge. We will leave open for' now the relation between history and self-knowledge in Newton. History, the orbit, replaces self-knowledge. The question which is crucial is, what it is in a fallen world that replaces piety and which in conjun.ction with history brings one to wl;l.ere one should be. The traditional answer is faith. I will show that Prop. 6 of Section II corresponds in the Principia to Christian faith. These remarks fill out in somewhat greater detail the stage setting for all 'possible' worlds and how to reach a pre-fallen and fallen world. The particular· force laws which may be involved in our world first emerge in prop. 4 in a preliminary way. Four forie 15ws ~e mentioned there. They are R , and the actual one we see in the R , R planets and falling stones, R- 2 , and which in their fall are the story of the Fall. ~at '1Je wi_l} show is that the force laws R , R , R tell a story through their interrelationships which necessitates and is rendered visible in the appearances of masses acting and reacting according to the inverse square law. The first force law mentioned is most unusual. It is one in which the 1 force increases as the distance, F a R . The further away one is from the center of force, the greater the force exerted. It is as if the light from a source became more intense the further one was from it. In a mechanical explanation we would expect the force to diminish in some form as one moved away from its source. This force, however, increases. There is such a force in our world, Hooke's Law, but that deals with a spring, which · is not this sort of case. The force that we are considering involves creation out of nothing. We will take this force to represent the force with which God acts on the creited world. In our account of the fall, R corresponds to God, who must an~ can know how far each being is from him. However, any force which is direct as the distance could capture this sense of creation out of nothing. So we a_._re faced with the q~estion 3 why God is R rather than, say R or R . We will so?f return . to thi5 _is_sue after we consider R . "1. R is a force a little less than R , God, and though equally unmechanical is nonetheless quite rational. It is a uniform force. One which is self-same in a crucial respect. In ·this case, force does not depend on the distance but only on what is acted upon. The same mass is acted upon by the same force at any distance. Space is irrelevant, all that is crucial is what a thing is, i.e. 1 its mass, it's essence..: 1 In the_fase of R as in the case of R and R distance is relevant and has the consequence that the effect is either more or less than the apparent cause. In this case, the effect is entirely equal to the cause. Such a force responds to the what but not the where. If we ask ,what entity has the traits which characterize this force, the answer is clear. It is Reason and from Milton we can glean what Reason is; it is the first created beings ,0 the Angels. We will therefore take R to represent Reason. The question of the .. relation 1 between R and R is now the question of the relations between God and Reason. i.e. the first Fall, a situation described by Newton in Props. 7,8, and 9. The second creation, the creation of Adam, occurs in Prop. 10 which is the last proposition of Section 2. It is now time to return to thl question of associating God with the R force law since any law Rn where n > O can represent creation out of nothing. The first point is that if God's relation to his angels is ordered so that if God is Rn n-1 the angels are R , then if n > 1, the angels could also create out of nothing. The other point deals with the relation of his creatures to Him. God's creatures 15 �1 need to be able to recognize their difference from Him, i.e . . we must be finite. What we see and think must only be ultimately what He thinks, but yet it must ultimately be that. If th~ world were operating according to an R force law there, would be no difference between the non-ultimate and the ultimate, no difference between what appears and what is. The .visible world would be mathematics. . If the wo3ld operated according to the law F a R , the actual orbits could not be reduced to circles of curvature. The world would be completely imcomp~ehensible. One world would be purely intelligible, the other would be opaqu2 and miraculous. We therefore take the R. to r3present God's intellect and we associate R with .God's grace. The third force law presented in prop. 4 is the 'inverse as the distance' law, R-l It is a mirror image of the first law ai:id rather than increasing as the distance, it decreases. This is the most mechanically explicable of the three forces we have .considered, since one expects that the further away from the source of force, the. less force will be exerted. It is a force law which requires neither knowing how far nor to whom the force is directed prior to its action. What we have here is the representation of the force law between men, each man acting in the literal image 1 of God, Hfs reciprocal. As God is R , ma~ is 2 l/R 1 . In terans of our discussion of R , R , R , and R as God's grace, ~<rd' s intellect, God's power .and Reason, R becomes man's Will. In the fourth proposition what we have are three thinkable force laws and a fourth which, Newton points out, is our visible force law: the inverse square. Since this concerns what is visible, it s~2ms feasible to extend the list and add R as the mathematical correlate of perception. This then would give us the conclusion that man's perception is the image of God's intellect and would supply an internal justification of reading . the visible world as the story of God's intellect. -- There is one -more force law for which one must give account: the inverse cube. Since it is the factor which causes the dissolution of the world, we might, for the moment, let it correspond to the inverse of grace i.e. · despair. '(,Ur ques1:_\on is how the three laws R1 , R , and R bring into being through the fall, the visible world which displays the story of that fall in its force law, visibility, and interconnections. In other words, the visible world of the inverse square is the appearance to us of the creation of the world, its fall, and its eventual redemption, a moment which we are told in Revelations will be signaled by the dissolution of the heavens. Newton wrote a commentary on the book of Revelations. Our claim is that the force laws Rn do not concern 'possible' worlds, one of which i~ 'actual'. Rather the laws from -R 3 to Rfit together to tell the story of our world, visible and invisible. III The Fall of Lucifer occurs in Prop. 7. There we are shown a body orbiting in a circle around a center of force which, in corollary 1, is on the circumference of that circle. The figure of the orbit is two circles with a common tangent point occupied by the center of force. p This is the orbit which Lucifer and the Angels described prior to the Fall. It is an orbit whose center is neither within the orbit nor outside it. It stands as the mathematical diagram of the theological fact that God is in Heaven with his angels. He both is and is not with them; there is distance and yet no distance, as there would be were he inside or outside that orbit. He is precisely at the tangent point of all such double circular orbits. This allows for the possibility that the Angels can be different--ordered hierarchically--and yet none be farther from God than any other. . Since these orbits are circles, each point is similar to every other and the difference between, the orbit and a point on the orbit is' ·imperceptible. The Newtonian account of Heaven is therefore, viewed in the plane, the following figure. One might reflect on the oddity that each body generating its own orbit would fall into such a peculiar configuration. Such reflection would not account for the presence and the action of that force at the tangent point. However, it would indicate that the reasoning we described as Satan's is false. Reason would recognize itself limited. Satan does not look to the others and falls. The force law which proposition 6 would give us -Sor this orbit is the inverse fifth, R . Since we are flaiming that God acts according to .R , this appears a discrepancy. But it is not. Prop. 7 asks the general questi.on of the force law connecting a body in a circular orbit with a center of force. It considers an equation for any point in the circle and in the first corollary draws the specific vers!gn for the center on the circumference, R • It does not here present the question of the specific value of Rn where the force is at the center of the circle, i.e. when there is a definite and constant distance between the body and the center, which was not the case in the. creation of the Angels. Newton at this point does not feel such a need. Had he felt that ·need, the general 1 equation of prop. 7 for that case gives R • Satan's rebellion of prop. 7 erects an immeasurable distance between himself and 'his creator. The center of force, God, is pushed out of Satan's world, placed infinitely far away. This infinitely distant center of force is treated in the next proposition which articulates the Fall. In the following discussion I assume that Proposition six which I claim represents faith is unavailable to Lucifer. From the perspective of prop. 4 and not prop. 6, which is needed to calculate the force law, there is no center. We can now present what would be Lucifer's i.e. Reason's--response to such situation. From prop. 2, he, on the orbit, can discern that there is no center either inside or outside. It is from the point of tangency that equal areas are described in equal times. But can that point be the center of force? Any attractive force, so Reason reasons, tends to become infinite the closer one gets. If the center were on the orbit itself, then when the body reached that point the force would be infinite and the orbit would not continue. Since there clearly is an orbit, such a center of force.cannot be there. The orbit, Reason concludes, must therefore be self-generated. Through Prop. 6, we see ~his analysis is wrong and that the orbit continues. What prop. 6 permits which this reasoning does not, is the conclusion that an infinite force results in a finite effect i.e. the mystery of creation. What we have here is the mathematical equivalent of Milton's Lucifer in Bk. I who claims his own self-generation. Without proposition 6, the only way to discern a center of force on the orbit would be to consider the other orbits. a A? Proposition 8 shows an orbit with the center of force infinitely far and the body on a circle. This orbit is unstable. Once the point is reached where the 17 �.., tangent to the orbit is on a line parallel to the force lines, the body begins to move in a straight line at continually increasing acceleration. It moves along the tangent. This is the fall itself. · The force law operating here is the unverse cube which for the first time makes its appearance. The inverse cube is what was mention~d before as involved in the dissolution of the world. The situation of this proposition is that when Lucifer reaches the tangent poi~t of the previous proposition--the place where God was--he begins to move in a straight line continually accelerating according to the inverse cube. The body of Prop. 8 approaching the tangent point of the double circles is acted upon by the infinitely distant force according to the inverse cube of line AB, or A' B' , a ·line dropped from the position of the body ordinatewise to the diameter TW. When the body reaches the point T, the lines A'B' have vanished and are replaced by the increasing lengths along the tangent TP.The body is therefore act3d upon by a force which is inversely as TP . This is the distance between Satan and God as.He was in Prop.7. II ~ limits. He, therefore, must reason, since acceleration is detectable, that ~e exerts force on himself. As such he is not only self-generated but self-generating. Without Prop. 6, however, he can not argue to the inverse cube. He must continue. to believe that he acts on himsetf according to what he is, i.e. the R law. The movement of Satan in the fall is along a line of tangency to his original orbit. In discussing Newton's first law, we pointed out that motion along a straight line was the equivalent to what one has become. It is uniform velocity and constant direction. What we see in Satan's case is constant direction, away from the tangent. point where God was, but also continually increasing velocity. It is the fusion of Law 1 and 2 .a:nd is .. the eq_uivalent to th~~ sin of Satan--pride. Pride we are told, leads to despair and in the next proposition we find just that. Because of Satan's fall a new line has been generated in the world. The previous figure was: A' A The new line is the tangent line to the point of tangency between the double circles. It runs at right angles to the line of the centers of the double circles. Satan could recognize this, his own fall from T, if proposition 6 were available to him, but ~e are assuming, for now without explanation, that is is not. We can say that because it represents faith, it is not available to him but is available to us readers. The crux of proposition 6 is to relate the finite and the infinite through the nascent ratios and calculate a force law in regard to a specific center. Having fallen from the orbit, Lucifer no longer has the possibility of viewing the other angelic configurations and reasoning to reason's Satan's fall draws the figure of the cross, a figure his fall made necessary. Had Satan any movement except along the line away from God, he would describe circles around the original point in his fall. At the infinite distance, he would describe an infinite circle. However, since he has no such movement, he does 18 -·------------------- not. He remains fixed in the infinite point, infinitely far from God. What we see in prop. 9 is the center of force by which Satan was accelerated in prop. 8, the inverse cube, now acting at a finite distance. proposition. In prop. 7, God was considered with the angels in a place which was no place, i.e, the tangent point between all their orbi:ting double circles. God in prop. 7 was with these created beings in heaven. In prop. 10, we find the .second creation, the creation of man in God's image. It is in respect to man and the second creation, to beings at a finite distance from him, that God acts directly as the distance and that is the force.law displayed at the end of section two. God' s relation is such that he is no longer in the same place as his creature. _ He is initially at the center of a ellipse/circle where manor Adam is on the orbit. The force law is direct as the distance. In the previous creation, prop. 7, we were faced by circles. The variety of the general force law in question there, the inverse fifth, left no room for any degree of variation. One either remained on the double circle or one fell. In the second creation, that changes. By God's having moved his creature to a finite distance, there comes into being a certain latitude. Adam can move in a circle or an ellipse and still remain in orbit around God in the center. The difference between the circle and the ellipse depends on the relation between the distance from the center and the body's tangential velocity. The ~atitude mentioned· means that if where one is and what one is are not in harmony, one still need not fall. One can desire, fall back, and still remain in orbit. Newton does not end Section 2 with Proposition 10, but with a Scholium. The Scholium acts as a transition to the next Section which begins with the creation of Eve. In this scholium, the ellipse of Prop. X first becomes a parabola and then a hyperbola. For the parabola to arise out of the ellipse requires that the center of force be moved infinitely far away. The parabola is an ellipse which is missing one point. It is a representation of a being's desire, a being which views himself as essentially incomplete. The force law which causes this figure is what we observe in the fall of apples at the The result is a peculiar image of a force' law '1e previously considered for God--i.e. F R . That law was not the law of the world because it described pure grace. The inverse cube is its opposite. Acting on finitely placed bodies, it causes them to begin a spir~l which, regardless of their original velocity, eventually brings them to the center of force, Satan, if there is any motion at all in that direction. It is the distorted image of grace~ it is despair. However, we have just seen that Satan is infinitely far from any body whose distance from God is finite. He, therefore, can have no effect from his location at the very base of the tan~ent line. However, if we ask ourselves what that base is, we see it is the. foot of the cross which came into being in the transition from prop. 7 to prop. 8. It is only if mediated by God's grace that Satan can ·act and God is grace is alone what is sufficient. Satan imagines lJimsel!f to act according to what he was, R • However, he actually attempts t~ 3 act, unknown to himself, accot;ding to R • His imagined actia_p is made possible through God's grace, R • The result of the magnification of the inverse cube by· the direct cube is RO, which because it · acts without reference to distance can aqt even at an infinite distance. In other words, we have Newton's initial rendering of the claim that God's grace brings good out of evil, which would be . the justification of God's ways to man. We are now ready for the second creation, and Newton presents us with that in the next· 19 �, surface of the earth. As Newton says, "This is Galileo's theorem". The ellipse, which is caused by a force acting directly as the distance, has been transformed into a parabola acted -upon a force infinitely distant. As he stated, "the force will become constant." However, we have just seen what this force might be. Satan is a force infinitely remote from Adam which opera es just as this force should, i.e. F a R • If one now re-introduces God at the center of the ~ld ellipse acting according to the R force law, the parabola becomes a hyperbola where we have a centrifugal instead of a centripetal force. We have here the representation of Adam's flight from God in the desire for something else which would complete him. Adam is requesting a mate. The end of Newton's section 2 corresponds to the end of the second chapter of Genesis. Throughout this discussion, we have not considered the sixth Proposition. Satan, we claimed, traversed the 7th, 8th, and 9th propositions because Prop. 6 was unavailable to him. He had to rely on unaided reason whereas we could calculate the precise force laws. Previously we said that that proposition corresponded to faith and we must now consider that claim. Proposition 6 enables us to mediate between the appearances and the force law which governs them. It is in other words what makes the Principia possible. Had Satan possessed it, he would have recognized he was not self-generated. Prop. 6 deals with nascent ratios in Newton's Latin; in Greek that would be with the logos of Genesis--the word which was "In the beginning." It enables us to view an orbit, an historical fallen appearance, and discern the reality behind the product of lines in the figure is equal to the law of force. In its non-ultimate form, the figure is this: & 0 s and the force is inverse as the product. SP2 QT;;z QR In its ultimate form, the figure changes somewhat. As Newton says in Cor. 1 of prop. 6: "the centripetal force will be inversely as the solid SP;;z . QT;;z QR if the solid be taken of that magnitude which it ultimately acquires when points P and Q coincide." The figure indicated is the one in which "QR_ is equal to the versed sign of double of the arc QP whose middle is P." The figure with the double arc 9p is: it. In order to apply proposition 6, one must reduce the finite orbit at a point to a circle of curvature. A circle of curvature is a circle which has the same curvature at that_ point as the apparent orbit. The circle of curvature is a reduction of the orbit at a point to the pre-fallen world of prop.4. Once this is done a figure is drawn in the circle and It is the cross on which Christ was crucified which mediates between our fa],len world of the inverse square spiralling to the Last Judgement -and our pre-fallen state. It is therefore b_ecause proposition 6 for Newton is the Christ that that proposition is unavailable to Satan. - 20 directed to the center of force are parallel. Obviously someone convinced that Newton's Principia is a work of mathematical physics would insist that these are not real issues. He would admit the same contingency in this work that he would anticipate in the world which that work describes. It is not clear whether this dispute can be resolved at this level. It would require investigating the genesis of the concept 'descriptive'. Scholium Virtues and vices of this reading A brief statement of the virtues and vices of this attempt may be helpful. The principal advantage of the approach is that it insists that every part in the composition be respected and questioned about its role. Mathematically Prop. 8 and 9 appear to be unnecessary where they are. A corollary of prop. 7 is used later in section 3, but prop. 8 and 9 a re not. I do not know if they are used anywhere else. Are they? The situation is even worse in section 3. The scholium which ends that section first appears in Prop. 7, Cor. III. It is used in the 'same otherwise' proofs of Propositions 11 and 12. However, for no reason at all, it suddenly reappears a fourth time after Prop. 17 to complete the section. One must ask oneself why, and no mathematical response is to the point at that stage. This approach also allows one to begin to reconsider the relation between the proofs proper and the versions entitled 'the same otherwise'. These are generally viewed mere~y as alternate proofs. The two in section three, however, prop. 11 and prop. 12, share a similar strategy. They both derive the force law th rough Prop. X of Section 2. The proofs proper do not use that proposition but argue directly from Prop. 6. The different versions appear to bring up a distinction between an apparent force law and an actual one. The ' same otherwise' proofs in Section 2 occur after Prop. 7, 9, and 10. They all emplpy Cor. 3 of prop. 6 instead of Cor. 1 _which is used for the proposition. Cor. 1 of Prop. 6 uses the cross; Cor. 3 does not, but rather a line perpendicular to the tangent. One wonders what to make of this difference. In section 3, Prop. 13 does not have a I same otherwise I . In section 2, Prop. 8 lacks one. Here too one wonders why. This is particularly the case since Prop. 13 is the parabola,_ a figure whose diameters are all parallel and prop. 8 is a circle where all_ lines The vices of such an effort are legion and obvious to anyone. To stop ourselves from speaking of force laws as holding of possible worlds, a Leibnizian characterization, I made an effort to show the Newtonian force laws in a different light. This required presenting an account of R3 and R2 as God's Grace and God's Intellect. I doubt that the suggestions presented are sufficient to convince anyone. An argument is necessary which would involve a treatment of Lemma I I of Section I and the Scholium which follows it. Such an effort is beyond the scope of the sketch which is being presented. This brings up another issue. In such an attempt, a premature guess which is incorrect appears much worse than it really is. It takes on this aspect because everything is, at best, merely implicit. One, therefore, fears that anything is possible. I did not use the now infamous SPQRT which in a giddy mood I once imagined represented the assertion of the Roman rather than the Greek cross in the sixth Proposition. I have no idea whether the shape of the true cross really concerned Newton or whether he had a sense of humor. It is tempting to_ connect Prop. 6 both with Prop. 66 and with the number of the Antichrist, 666. However to show that 6, as the first perfect number, was associated with Christ and to apply it to this" ·text would appear, right now, indulgent, and make the entire effort su~pect. The whole procedure, therefore, hin'ges on the exercise of restraint and that itself is a problem. The most one can hope for at this stage is to have made 21 �the claim that the Principia is a work of mathematical physics ambiguous. To do more would require displaying that our notion of mathematical physics has its true origin, not in the Principia, but in Kant's Critique, and is hardly possible in a last sentence. a function of the mass of the affected body and since there are an indefinite number of these, any force emanating from a center must be infinite. This, however, is a different problem from the one being addressed though it may indicate that for Newton the action of God is necessary in any situation where force is present. God would be necessary because no mechanical explanation could account for an infinite force originating from a mass. 1 In this discussion of the force laws I am not considering the effect of mass but only of distance. Because any force, direct or inverse as the distance, is also Viewpoint Patti Nogales We have not left it as we found it but it seems to me that way; though twelve yea,rs of living have softened the harsh lines the naked floor throws back coldly an echo of my despair. I would like to say "fare thee well" to my room but I look to find four unresponsive walls, an only1- once - before - seen floor, a silent door. Where is my room? Did it leave with the desk hauled out the door, or with my reading chair, my pictures or the bookshelves eased into the back of an old green truck? At what moment, with the loss of which part did the whole disappear in the bustle of the last days? It is lost like a sigh of warmth in a cold winter, In a sigh it was born and died my sigh~ So when we softly close the door. for the last time and look back, we will see, not as we found it, a strangely familiar house at the top of a hill. July, 1978. 22 23 �Ah! cruel, tu m'a trop entendue. Je t'en ai dit assez pour te tirer d' erreur. · H~ bien ! connais done Ph~dre et toute sa fureur. (671-673) Like Flies to Wanton Boys another paper about God, man, and the universe Stephanie Nelson Oh that is cruel, you understand too much. My words already leave no room for doubt. Well then, know Ph~dre, know all her fury's forcer love, but loving still, my eyes refuse Myself all sanction and all innocence. You think this madness that controls my mind Is born of weakness. The poison is not mine. A plaything for the Gods, your proud contempt Is nothing to my loathing for myself. · The Gods can speak for me - these Gods who lit The fire in me which has consumed my house. Cruel Gods, who pride themselves in such a feat To have seduced a helpless woman's heart. Think back, you know that fleeing from you then Was not enough - I drove you from my sight. I strove to be inhuman in your eyes, And to resist my love I sought your hate. What have I gained from all my useless care? You hate me more, I love you none the less. Your misery at last just lent new grace And fed the fire I fed with my own tears. All this in just a glance your eyes could see, If they could bring themselves to look on me. (671-692) In a play full of people attempting to justify their actions, to themselves and each other, Ph~dre stands alone· in accepting her crime for what it is. Certainly it is the question of her innocence, and not of Th~s~e's in condemning Hippolyte, of Hippolyte's in fleeing or loving Aricie, or of Oenone' s in attempting to save Ph~dre, which is the focus of the play. Any guilt of their's is overwhelmed by the horror of Ph~dre' s love for Hippolyte. But the sheer immensity of Ph~dre' s shame should have led her, had she been anyone else, to excuse herself and lay the blame for her actions on the gods (these gods do not deserve capitalization). This, exactly, she will not do. Phedre sees the gods for what they are (or at least for what Racine sees them as being). They have, without reason, placed her in a position where her only choices are to act, and act culpably, or to die. She acts, and blames herself, not the gods, for her action. If at any point Phedre might be said to be justifying herself it is in the speech which I have translated. I will try to show that is is not absolution that Ph~dre is seeking. 24 .. J'aime. Ne pense pas qu'au moment que je t'aime, Innocente ~ mes yeux, je m'approuve moi-~me, Ni que du fol amour qui trouble ma raison Ma lache complaisance ait nourri le poison. Objet infortun~ des vengeances Phedre begins looking at Hippolyte and calling him "cruel." Until this speech Phedre has used the word "cruel" only in reference to the gods. After this she will use it to describe both the gods and Hippolyte, but no one else. In the course of her speech Ph~dre speaks to Hippolyte, to the gods, and then again to Hippolyte. She addresses each in turn as "cruel." She accuses them not of malevolence, but of· indifference. The horror of the god's behavior towards Phedre is not that they bear her some sort of grudge, but that she is too insignificant for them to bother. Their persecution of her is entirely disinterested. They are not concerned with either Ph~dre or her sufferings. The gods do not judge men any more than men 'judge' flies in killing them. As Theramene says to Hippolyte "Le ciel de nos raisons ne sait point s'inforrner." (1.115) The gods are 'not even able to listen. To Ph~dre Hippolyte is a god; he is both as noble "Tel qu' on d~peint nos Dieux, ou tel que je vous voi." (1.640) - and as unfeeling. Phedre knows that Hippolyte could not have failed to understand her declaration of love. He too readily claims he has. Whether Hippolyte cannot, or will not, hear Phedre, she sees that his only desire is to remain ignorant of her suffering: " ... Par combien de detou rs/L' insensible a longtemps ~lud~ mes di scours!" , (1. 743) It is clear to her that Hippolyte does not care any more about her reasons than the heavens do. But Hippolyte is a man, not a god. Phedre demands from him the recognition due a human being, who does have reasons, and has the ability to judge and be judged. This recognition is what the gods have refused her. Ph~dre tries to force Hippolyte to understand her, and her love, not in order to escape judgement but to claim it as her right. Indifference is the cruelest blow of all. c~lestes, Je m'abhorre encor plus que tu ne me d'testes. (673-678) Ph~dre's confession of her crime requires only one syllable. Her need to make Hippolyte understand has overcome any desire in her to win him through passionate declarations of love. She challenges Hippolyte by not excusing herself. She claims that it is possible for a man to act, and at the same moment to understand that his action is wrong. Hippolyte's understanding of guilt cannot admit this. He has referred to Th~s~e' s seductions as "erreurs" (1.23) and to Thesee's actions as "failings." ["faillir" (l.100)] Guilt, for Hippolyte is th.e denial, or, as he is partial to his father, the falling short of moral laws. Th~s~e' s crimes, and trespass ·in general, are the result of a deficiency, a deficiency which can be made up, for example, by killing enough monsters. A man such as Thes~e, in Hippolyte' s eyes, could never condemn himself as guilty while deceiving his lovers; he can deceive them only because he has deceived himself too well to understand his guilt. The inconstancy of Th~s~e' s vows can be 'fixed' by Ph~dre because his inconstancy is not a force to be tamed, :but an error to be corrected. Uncorrected, a man who can deny one limit, finally can deny all. Hippolyte tells Th~s~e, "Quiconque a pu franchir les bornes l~gitimes/Peut violer enfin les droits les plus sacres" (1.1094) . What Hippolyte says is quite true, but not always for the reason he understands. When Phedre abandons her reason to Oenone she does it because "De . I l 'austere pudeur les bornes sont passees" 25 �(1. 766) • It is not because she has been able to convince herself that her acts are not crimes, that she has passed into greater crimes. She is so aware of her guilt that she is unable to act unless she abandons her judgement completely. This she cannot do. She can only tell Onenone "Je t' avouerai de tout; j e n' esp'ere qu' en toi." (1. 811) Ph~dre' s crimes finally do not result from her blinding judgement, but from her need to abandon it. Hippolyte defends · himself before Thesee by reminding him of what Hippolyte believes is the cause of his innocence, his " ... haine des forfai ts qu 'on ose m'imputer" (1.1108). As long as he hates this crime he cannot commit it. His hate however is no stronger than Phedre's. This is the Hippolyte Phedre speaks to when she says "Je m'abhorre encor plus que tune me d~testes." Ph~dre abhors herself because she understands, despises, and yet has committed her crime. Hippolyte detests her because he believes she recognizes no limits. His immediate reaction to Phedre' s declaration of love is to demand " ... oubliez-vous/Que Th6see est mon pere, et qu' il est votre ~poux?" (1. 663) Hippolyte cannot understand the horror or tragedy of Ph~dre' s crime because he does not understand that it is not always men's judgement that motivates their actions. Les Dieux m'en sent temoins, ces Dieux qui dans mon flanc Ont allume le feu fatal ~ tout mon sang; Ces Dieux qui se sent fait une gloire cruelle De seduire le coeur d'une faible mortelle. (679-682) If ·it is not Ph~dre's compliance ["complaisance"] which has made her act against her reason, what has? What but \. the gods? Phedre calls on the gods as her witnesses. But what kind of witnesses are they, who have caused the misery of the woman they are called upon to defend? The supposed greatness of the gods, the gods Hippolyte believes in, and to whom Ph~dre for a moment has tried to appeal, stands in terrible contrast to their real nature. Their "gloire cruelle" Ph~dre sees, is no greater than the pointless torments children impose on one another. Ph~dre's contempt for herself is for her weakness; she despises the gods because they are petty. When Ph~dre speaks of the gods she accuses not only Venus, but all the uncaring and uncontrolable forces which act on men. What does it matter to Ph~dre if the gods have lit the same fire in her that they lit in her mother and sister, or if it was her inheritence to fall in lqve? She cannot control it; she in no way deserved it. Nature or fate is no less "cruel" than the gods, although we are less inclined to accuse them of cruelty. Phedre cannot condemn the gods any more than we can condemn our genes. They act on us, they are all powerful!, and since they are simply not of the world of right and wrong, they cannot be accused of being unfair. Men, however, understand what it is to 'deserve' and somehow that understanding is the best part of men. Pascal wrote, "Mais quand l 'uni vers l'~craserait l'homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, puisqu' il sai t qu' il muert •.. " (Pensee 200) Perhaps we could add - because he knows whether he deserves to die. The gods, like the (empoisonn~) air Ph~dre is forced to breathes,are beyond her control and her condemnation. She can nonetheless recognize that she is in some way superior to them. It is Phedre who understands only too well. She despises herself because she acts against her judgement. She despises the gods because they have no judgement. Toi-~me en ton esprit rapelle le I passe. C'est peu de t'avoir fui, cruel, je t'ai chasse. J'ai voulu te parattre odieuse, inhumaine; Pour mieux te resister, j'ai recherch~ ta haine. (683-686) 26 '' ' Perhaps the saddest words in Phedre's speech are "qu' au moment que je t' aime." "Je t'aime" is not past, it is now, at the very moment in which Phedre talks to Hippolyte. Phedre can despise the gods for their cruelty; despite herself she cannot despise Hippolyte. ... There is no one else in the play whom Phedre feels she must make understand and judge her. It is ,, enough that Thesee or Oenone know her crime; only to Hippolyte does she plead "connais done Ph~dre." But Ph~dre is a play not only about passion and judgement, it is also about the inevitable solitude in which they occur. Perhaps if Oenone had understood why Phedre had to die, if Hippolyte had heard Phedre' s cry to be judged, if Th~s6e had not had " ... de son [Hippolyte's] coeur si peu de connaissance," ( 1. 1429) Hippolyte would not have died. Men are isolated because there is no one to witness the truth of what they say. Men cannot testify for themselves "Toujours les sc~lerats ont recours au parjure." (1.1134) Hippolyte learns the result of trusting in the concern of the gods - " [Les Dieux] ont trop d' in&r~t ~ me justifier" (1.1352) becomes "Le ciel m'arrache une innoc~nte vie." (1.1561). And finally men have so little knowledge of each other that they are unable to know, let alone speak, the truth for other men. Phedre calls herself, the gods, and Hippolyte to witness. All fail. She learns what Hippolyte does not when, in defending himself to Th~s6e, he finds that " ... la terre, le ciel, que toute la nature ... " (1.1133) are not enough to testify for him. Perhaps ~lying he realizes that this is because "la terre, le ciel, et toute la nature," like Hippolyte, do not want to listen. Phedre again calls Hippolyte "cruel" but the irony of even trying to call to witness is so bitter that she cannot help but recognize it. The proofs which would serve to convince an objective judge are precisely the acts that make it impossible for Hippolyte to be objective. "Mes inutiles ... soins" are perhaps not only Phedre' s attempts, now long ago, to resist Hippolyte, but the attempt she has just made to make him understand her. In a sea of past actions "tu me haissais;" and "je t'aimais" alone are in the present. Now, at this moment, you hate me more, not despite, but because of my attempts to make you understand. There are no judges for Phedre except herself. Forcing Hippolyte to see the truth can only make it more impossible for him to judge. The gods have given Ph~dre, as they do Th's'e, exactly what she wanted. Ph~dre' s plea for understanding only makes her, in Hippolyte' s eyes, more "odieuse;" and "inhumaine." .. Tes malheurs te pr~taient encor de nouveux charmes. J'ai langui, j'ai s~ch~, dans les feux, dans les larmes. Il suffit de tes yeux pour t'en persuader, Si tes yeux un moment pouvaient me regarder. (689-691) But "je ne t'aimais pas mains". Even while Phedre realizes that Hippolyte hates her, she loves him. Phedre knows that Hippolyte is.unable to understand her. If kn6wledge governed men's actions her speech would end with "tu me haissais plus." But all of Ph~dre's understanding cannot stifle her longing to have Hippolyte recogni~e her. That longing will not allow Phedre to abandon a hope that she knows it is impossible to satisfy. All she has left to abandon is her reason. Hippolyte will never look at Phedre. Phedre knows this and still cannot stop herself from begging him to see her, just as she can condemn her love for him but cannot stop herself from loving. Her speech is a microcosm of her love. Once she has' given her hope substance by speaking of it, her judgement can no longer overwhelm the force of a De quoi m'ont profit~ mes inutiles soins? Tu me haissais plus, je ne t'aimais pas mains. (687-688) 27 �f -, passion she has done her best to kill. Overall, once Ph~dre has allowed herself to hope that she could love Hippolyte, and in this speech, once she has hoped that he might understand her, she cannot prevent her hope from working out its own fatal conclusion. Nor can she prevent herself from condemning the actions she performs motivated by this hope. \ Phedre' s speech from this point on will build until, horribly, it combines her understanding of her guilt and her need for Hippolyte's recognition. The only resolution to her fatal passion is that it be Hippolyte who, in judging her, punishes her guilt. Only then can her judgement and her passion be reconciled. The fatality of her love is that it is both deadly and seeking death. Hippolyte alone can end the war within Ph~dre. But Hippolyte cannot. He is too young and too naive. He is horrified by Ph~dre's confession, and naturally so. Because he is a man, and a particular man, he cannot do what Phedre is asking of him.· Men are not capable of forgetting themselves in order to understand another. Ph~dre is asking Hippolyte to be what Th~s6e, the gods, and finally Hippolyte cannot be - both noble and understanding. Perhaps it would be sufficient if just one man could be both. Hippolyte cannot. Only Ph~dre can understand both herself and her passion, but alone the only resolution she can reach is the one that will lead to Hippolyte's death. Some Thoughts on "Maxwell's Equations" '" David Stephenson We usually meet with Maxwell's equations in something like the following form if we meet with them at all: curl E =- div D p db dt curl H div B = L -+ it will give rise to another field in directions perpendicular to but curving a round it: hence the use of the word "curl" in the first two equations. The elegance and power of these equations is manifest. They display an even greater symmetry in space free of charge and current, so that L and p a re zero, and without material bodies so that B = H and D = E. Such a concise and pregnant expression of natural law can. only be admired. But these equations were not written by Maxwell. He did list some dozen equations in quaternion form at the conclusion of a chapter entitled "General Equations· of the Electrodynamic Field" in his Treatise. Among them are some more or less equivalent to the four posterity attributes to Maxwell. But they are quite different in form. How then did our four usurp their paternity? Who did write them? and why did Maxwell lack his successor's economical or aesthetic predilections? Though not afflicted with the Pythagorean tesseraphilia nor a confessed admirer of Aristotle's cardinal virtues or elements, Maxwell did apparently succumb to the charm. of the number four in another short treatise: "Note on the Electromagnetic Theory of Light," in which he derived a plane electromagnetic wave equation, which we may write: dD dt 0 These are the field. equations out of which immediately springs the assurance that electromagnetic waves can exist and travel in space. For with E and D signifying electric inten5;1ity and flux, respectively, H and B magnetic force and flux, and p and L electric charge and current densities, the first two equations imply a reciprocal stimulation of magnetic and electric fields that will spread outwards once provoked, like the waves in a pond. The third and fourth equations, on the other hand, cover the quiescent case, locating the source of an electrostatic field in electric charge but denying any local source to magnetism. The terms curl and divergence were invented by Maxwell (although he preferred the term "convergence" for the latter, the negative of the divergence). ~n his "Mathematical Classification of ,Physical Properties" in the The Scientific papers of James Clerk Maxwell, he shows himself to be particularly concerned that these new names express something of their mathematical meaning to the imagination. Thus in selecting "curl," he says, "I have sought for a word which shall neither, like Rotation, Whirl, or Twirl, connote motion, nor, like Twist, indicate a helical or screw structure which is not of the nature of a vector at all." If a field pointing in one direction is altered 28 from four "theorems" or "principles". Two of these "theorems" resemble · verbal paraphrases of the first two of our · equations; this is as close as Maxwell ·comes to our quartet. The demonstration 29 �---------- is simple and lucid; yet Maxwell seems to have preferred the richer, if more prolix, exposition in the Treatise. One of the reasons why Maxwell included more equations than absolutely necessary in his Treatise may have been simply his desire to be explicit. The economy of mathematical notation in general depends on its tacit reliance on our understanding of the meaning of its symbols. Part of that meaning may derive from implicit relationships among them, so that each symbol can conceal a whole train of equations. The brevity of our original set of equations proves to be somewhat illusory. Only someone already initiated into the mysteries of electromagnetism knows, for example, that B and H are proportional to one another. Maxwell, however, writes out the simple equation B = µH for all to see. For similar reasons Ohm's Law joins the parade. But Maxwell's pedagogical frankness is not the only reason for the multitude and appearance of his equations. They do differ in form as well as number from ours. Consider the fourth of the equations given above: extended plot. So the symbol A must be connected with the symbol E in yet another equation. The connection between E and B provided by this new vector then eliminates the need for our curl E equation. Maxwell is very interested in what this new A symbol might represent. A rather extended analogy with mechanical phenomena leads him to the conclusion that it should be called the "electrokinetic" or "electromagnetic momentum," and that its time derivative equals the electromotive force that produces electric currents· in circuits that are in motion relative to the magnetic field. In earlier papers he had associated it with Faraday's "electrotonic state": a state of tension assumed to account for the peculiar action of electromagnetic induction. It thus contributed to Maxwell's understanding of one of the most puzzling phenomena of electricity and magnetism. Anyone nurtured in Newton's school would have trouble explaining the direction of the action of electromagnetic induction. For centripetal forces alone can never account for the fact that when a wire crosses a magnetic field a current springs up in a direction perpendicular to that field, and none whatsoever in the field's direction. Without, as far as I know, confessing this outright, Maxwell implies that the magnetic flux B expresses a rotational property of some kind, and the "momentum" associated with A may be a kind of angular momentum in space. Rotation does, after all, seem to be characteristic of magnetism; even light can be twisted by it. In the place of symmetry we now have a kind of ladder from vector to vector, beginning with current and rising to the electromagnetic momentum A: div B = 0 This can easily be translated into everyday language: magnets have no true poles, no distinct centers or localized sources of magnetism. Maxwell presents this idea in a totally different way. It is a well known mathematical property of the divergence and curl that div curl A = o always for any vector A; that therefore if the divergence of one vector is always zero, the vector could equal the curl of another vector. Therefore Maxwell states our fourth equation in what amounts to the following form: curl A = B This is the first of the electromagnetic equations presented in the Treatise. Wit~ it Maxwell introduces one more vectorial quantity A into the company of forces and fluxes with which alone we have so far had to deal. A new character requires a more curl 1 B = curl H µ curl A 30 I., + dD dt ~.·' electromagnetic vibration. It was left for Einstein to "murder" that one--or did he? Thus began the distillation of Maxwell's electromagnetic equations, refined ultimately into the present concise, balanced, elegant quartet. These four say what.it is necessary to say, and no more than is necessary. Perhaps, therefore it is only nostalgia that longs for the richer and more fanciful panoply of Maxwell. However, there is an ironic footnote to this history; the vector A turns out to be significant in two very modern sciences: quantum mechanics and relativity (cf. Feynman's Lectures, vol. II, ch. 15 & 25). In some respect therefore Maxwell turns out to have been an unconscious prophet. · Now it must be admitted that A (sometimes called the ·"vector potential" of the current 1., to name the relationship implied by the above equations) is a rather mysterious quantity because it is not measurable directly, and can be eliminated by suitable combination of these equations. Maxwell's disciple, oliver Heaviside, with little hesitation confessed that he "murdered" this function along with the electric potential function v, ( E = - 'VV), "with a great gain in definiteness and conciseness." Thus may an Englishman teach a Scotsman ruthless mathematical parsimony. And Heaviside does come up with a symmetrical set very much -like our own. Nevertheless the destruction of this mystery did not eliminate another one: the "ether" itself, the matPrial substratum of Sonnet Ruth A. Johnston Seen moment by each moment am I known, Yet unknown in a moment's blinking eye Unruled by time the hidden changes lie, And eyes must fail to see how I have grown. My eyes indeed grow weak, with nothing gained From oft-repeated tries, oft-failed, to see The outline of what someday will be me; From challenging their limit, over-strained. Viewers stroll by, their careless gaze upon The nascent painting's rough and mottled face. The canvas prays the work may go apace; The painter smiles and strokes his colors on. Judge lightly, then, as knowing half the tale; The end cannot be seen beyond the veil. B 31 �translated by Merle Sokolik Shall I, by Bacchus overcome, yet once again into those night-long rings of dance set my white foot while thrusting up my neck unto the heavens, like a fawn that revels in the green delights the meadow holds for her when she has fled from fearful hunt, from under watch, above the well-strung nets, and yet the huntsman hastens on his dogs? She leaps across the river-bordered plain in whirls of strain and haste, delighting in the spac~s empty of all men and in the leaves of the shade-giving wood. ~p' tv naVVUXLOLS xopoCs , I I ~now ROTE AEUMOV n16' a~a~aMXEUOUaa 1 6~~av ELS aL~Epa 6pOOEpov PLRTOUO ' ws vESpos XAEopaLs EµnaLso~oa AELµaxos n6ovaCs, nvLx' a'v cpoSEp&v cpUYQ ~npav £~w cpuAaxas , , ' ' ' -" EURAEMTWV UnEp apxuwv, ~wl1oowv cl xuvay£TaS . ouvTELv~ opaµnµa xuvwv· µox~oLs T. WM~6poµOLS T. a£AAaLs ~p~OMEL nE6Cov napanoTaµLOV, n6oµ£va SpOTWV €pnµLaLs OMLapoMoµOLO T, EpvEoLv oAas. t ' - ' , What is shrewdness? What is a finer god-paid gift among the mortals, than above the heads of foes the hand should lift its greater strength? The fine finds love-forever. Though it is slowly brought on, power of the gods should still be trusted. For it straightens out those men with maddended views that honor ignorance and do not magnify the works of gods. But they with intricate.cover disguise the too long march of time and hunt down the profane. So never do we need to know and care for what is stronger than that held as custom. The expense is yet so slight to hold that this has force: whatever is divine, the thing held long in time as custom and the thing always come forth in nature. TL Tb oocp6v; TC Tb x&AALOV nap& ~Ewv ytpas £v SpoTots Tf Xdp' Un~p MOplJq>Ci.S TTuY. ~X~P~V MpE~OOW MaT~XELV; ~ TL MaAdv cp~AOV ~EL. How-fortunate the one who from out of the sea has fled the tempest, should he reach the harbor. Fortunate the one who finds himself above such strains. The one goes past the other, prosperous and able, in another way. Yet many are the hopes for many men. Some hopes attain prosperity for men while others go away. The· one whose life is fortunate for all his days, I call him blessed. d6aLµwv µtv o's EM ~aAcfocras EcpUyE XECµa, ALµEva 6' EXLXEV' EUOaLµwv 6. o's {lnEp~E µox.Swv . £y£vE.&'· ETEpa 6' ETEpos ETEpov oAS~ xal 6uvaµEL napnA~Ev. µUpLaL 6' ETL µVpLOLS E~o~v EAnL6ES aC µ~v 0 TEAE~TWOLV (862-911) opµaTaL µOALS, aAA' oµws nLOTOV ( TL) Tb ~ELOV o~£vos· anEU~UVEL 6~ SpoTWV TOIJ S T' ayvwµooUVaV TL ]JWVTO.!; xat µ~ Tb. ~ELOV au~ov­ TaS abv µa~voµ~vq 60~~· MpU~TEUOUOL 6~ noLMCAWS 6apbv xpovou n66a xat ~npwoLv Tbv ~oEnTov. ou y&p MpEL006V ROTE TWV VOµWV yLyvwoxELV XPh xat µEAETcrv. xou~a y~p 6an&va voµLsELV Lox1!,v Too' ExELv, v ,, ' , 0 TL ROT ' apa TO 6aLUOVLOV, TO T EV XPOV~ µaxp~ voµLµov aEL cp'1JEL TE nE•nUKOS, 32 n I • I EV OAS~ SpoToCs, aC 6' &n£Sncrav· TO ct MaT' ~µap OTW SLOTOS EU6aLµwv, µaxapLsw. TL Tb oocpov; TL Tb x&AALO\) nap& ~Ewv y£pas €v SpoTots ff xEtp' &nlp xopucpas TWV EX~pfuv xpELoow xaTtXELV; " 1 , ' , 0 TL MaAOV cpLAO\) aEL. I n What is shrewdness? What is a finer god-paid gift among the mortals, than above the heads of foes the hand should lift its greater strength? The fine finds love-forever. A Chorus from the Bacchae I 33 �The B Deduction and Its Relation to Freedom I. (Or: Kant, Can Do} The question one should always ask oneself when approaching the B Deduction is "Why is a deduction necessary?" To answer this question, we must recall quickly the Transcendental Aesthetic and the opening of the Transcendental Logic. In the Aesthetic Kant proves that time and space are not, as we had always assumed, things outside of us, but rather that they are the pure forms of our sensible intuition. In other words, they are internal, something with which we condition our experience. We receive a sensation from something outside of us (the "thing in itself") and our intuition, made up of the so-called "receiving rooms" of space and time, orders that sensation spatio-temporally. This does not mean that these pure forms of intuition do anything. They are merely receptive, and· do not make images. As Kant points out, that which they receive could be nothing more than a mass of dots which is then ordered spatio-temporally. But in order to think, we need of some kind of object to think about; we cannot think about a mass of dots, a metaphor for what Kant calls· usually a manifold. This problem leads us to the opening of the Transcendental Logic. ·If I am to judge any object in my experience, if I am to say anything about that· object, I must have a concept of that object. For example, if I say "That book is large," I show that I have a concept of some object before me ("book"), to which I am attaching the concept "large." Or, put in another way, I have seen many books and have formed the concept "book" under which a particular book falls, and I have seen books (or perhaps just things) of different sizes and among them this particular book seems "large." Therefore, I have brought together two concepts, book and large, and have made a judgement about some particular incident in my experience. As Kant says: Matthew Davis I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; How ill white hairs become a fool and a jester! I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, So surfeit swell'd, so old, and so profane; But, being awak'd, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace; Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape For thee trice wider than for other men. Reply not to me with a fool-worn jest: Presume not that I am the thing that was; For God doth know, so shall the world preceive, That I have turn'd away my former self; So will I those that kept me company. -King (Prince) Hal to Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part.!.!_ I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith. -Immanuel Kant, Preface to the Second Edition of The Critique of Pure Reason Transcendental Logic, the Transcendental Dialectic. In the Dialectic Kant addresses the principal problems which have plagued the philosophy he so radically alters in The Critique, and primary among these problems is whether freedom exists or not. I do not think I am overstepping any sensible bounds if I say Kant wrote much, if not all, of The Critique to solve this problem. Therefore, I should say: in this paper I intend to give a brief account of Kant's B Deduction with a forward glance at the Dialectic's primary problem, th'at of freedom. In this paper I intend to give a brief account of Immanuel Kant's B Deduction. This deduction is the cornerstone of the first half of the Critique of Pu re Reason, or, more specifically, of the section entitled the Transcendental Analytic, the first division of a larger section, the Transcendental Logic.. Kant explains his philosophy of "limitation" in the Analytic; this is, simply stated, what we can and cannot know. The B Deduction makes this explanation possible. But, caught up in this difficult section, we often forget the other division of the 34 35 In every judgement there is a concept which holds of many representations, and among them of a given representation that is immediately related to an object. (p.105) It is plain that these judgments are not in the things outside of me but that they are in me. In order that I may judge the objects outside me, I must use my concepts of those objects. But it is important also that I have objects to judge. More will be said about this in a moment. We can abstract all empirical content from the judgment "the book is large" so as to discover whether th~re are any a priori, non-empirical types of judgment which underlie this judgment. The· statement, therefore, is about a particular (book) and is affirmative; it is making an assertion about the book. What is the particular (book)? In this case it is something (large). But an affirmative statement about a particular cannot be derived from experience, since we have abstracted from all experience to better see the nature of a judgment. Therefore, there. must be certain ~ priori concepts ("functions of judgment") which I bring to experience so I can make judgments about it. Kant states at the outset of "The Clue to All Pure Concepts of the Understanding," section two: If we abstract from all content judgment, and consider only the form of the understanding, we that the function of thought judgment can be brought under of a mere find in a four heads, each of which contain three moments. (p. 106). This list Kant calls the "Table of Judgments. " But we have assumed up to this point that there are objects about which we can make judgments. For a judgment to have validity, there must be objects to judge. Where did these objects come from? Certainly not from the · intuition, since it is merely a receptive faculty, doing nothing more than spatio �-temporally ordering sensation(s) which come into it. It is clear that there must be a "putting together" (synthesis) of the manifold of the pure intuitions, and that this synthesis must take place in some way that my judgments might be valid, so that my experienc~ might make sense. The synthesis, Kant tells us, will have to take place according to a set of concepts, which he calls the "Table of Categories:" 1 The same function which gives unity to the various representations in ~ judgment also gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in an intuition; and this unity, in its most general expression, ~e entitle the pure concept of the understanding. The same understanding, through the same operations by which in concepts, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgement, also introduces a transcendental content into its representations, by means of the synthetic unity of the manifold in intuition in general. (pp.112-113) This table of categories, analogous to the table of judgments, we bring with us to experience. But how? We have two faculties, intuition and understanding (the home of concepts), one utterly passive and the other active, one a mass of spatio-temporally ordered dots waiting to be put together and the other a set of concepts which can only begin activity when they have something to think (act) upon, i.e. an object. They must be brought together so that thinking is possible. Hence the need for a deduction. II. The B Deduction is in two parts. The first part deals with the synthesis of the manifold 1 given in ~·priori intuiti.on . in general , and thus for any thinking being; the second part deals specifically with those thinking beings who have a priori sensible forms of intuition called space and time, us. We will begin with the first part. In the setting out of the need for a deduction it was clear that a way must be found for the understanding to unify the manifold of intuition. This synthesis of the manifold of intuition in general, what Kant calls the "combination," cannot arise fro~ any combination itself, for that would be contradictory. Something must have been put that combination together, and from the very concept "combination" we a re aware of some unity acting upon some manifold, so we must search for that higher unity. Kant says at the outset of section 16: It must be possible for the 'I think' to ~ccompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought at all, and that is equivalent to saying that the representation would be imp~ssible, or at least nothing to me. This is plain. If I am to become aware of the "world" around me I must be able to think about it. The higher unity we are seeking must therefore be that which generates the 'I think,' that which allows me to combine the manifold in general. Were I not able to do this I would have no coherent thought; some things would be "nothing to me." Kant calls this unity "The Original Synthetic Unity of Apper- _ ception," or "Pure Apperception." He calls also the generating of the 'I think' an act of spontaneity, and therefore an a~t o~ the ':1nde4standing, for the intuition is passive. But pure apperception is also "the transecendental unity of self-consciousness." Kant calls it this for two reasons. First, it is necessary that I.be coherent enough to attach the 'I think' to all representations, and I would not be able to do so if I did not have one self-consciousness; some representations would just go flying by my many diverse selves. Second, it is a fundamental principle in Kant that I synthesize before I analyze. For example, if I say the colors of a bowl are red? green and blue, then I must have al ready synthesized the representations of those colors with the bowl (a "given" manifold) in one consciousness. Any analytic act presupposes a synthesis, and that synthesis presupposes the unity of self-consciousness, the combining of the manifold of representations in general. Pure apperception, therefore, underlies all thought; it makes all connected thought possible. This is why Kant calls it "the highest principle in the whole sphere of human knowledge" (p. 154). But how does this pure apperception make us capable of knowledge? In section 17, Kant says this: object (determinate space, or in this case, line) , or object in general. As Kant says: "The synthetic unity of consciousness is, therefore, an objective condition of all knowledge" (p. 156). But how is this determinate object related back to the synthetic unity of apperception? The perplexing problem at the outset of this essay was that we had a table of judgments but no objects to judge. Now, because of the synthetic unity of apperception, I am able through judgment to say something about a manifold of given representations, representations which by judgment are united into an object. The synthetic unity of apperception guarantees that my judgment will have objective validity (i.e. be about an object), for it guarantees the continuity of my self-consciousness, it guarantees my ability to draw a line. Therefore, a judgment (a statement that something 'is') can unite a manifold of representations, be they a manifold in general or in particular, and that judgment brings judged manifold of representations into self-consciousness to join other judged representations. For this reason Kant calls judgment "the manner in which given modes of knowledge are brought to the objective unity of apperception" (p.159). But there is something more here. We know that we only have twelve ways we can judge, the table of judgments. Therefore the given manifold which is judged must be constituted in such a way that it can be judged. Judgments, therefore, can only be made of intuitions (or intuition in general) that have been determined according to something which will allow of judgment. These determinations are necessarily the categories. Since I have only twelve ways by which I can judge, it is necessary that the given manifold (or one intuition) be constructed by the pure apperception so that I can judge and think. And I can only judge and think via the categories. This, then, is why Kant went to so much trogble to introduce the table of categories. This is the conclusion of the first "Knowledge consists in the determinate relation of given representations to an object; and an object -is that in the concept of which the manifold of a given representation is united." This means simply that knowledge consists in the determination of an object, an object being merely a gathering together of representations. But we said above that . all syntheses of representations required the unity of self-consciousness, and therefore it is, as Kant says, "a condition under which every intuition must stand in order to become an object for me" (p. 156). This will become clearer if we look at his example. If I draw a line in space, in, order to keep drawing it (as a line) I must be conscious of the complete action and each step involved in it. If I did not have the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, I would not be able to bring the line, or any object, synthetically fnto being, for I would forget the first moment of the action even before I arrived at the second moment. The transcendental unity of self-consciousness, therefore, guarantees the continuity of my· synthetic thought, my ability to first know an 37 �In other words, that synthesis deals with intuition in general, with space and time al ready combined as wholes; it does not deal with the separate manifolds of space and time but only with them after they have become unified. So, something is needed to synthesize the manifolds of space and time in the sensibility itself. This activity Kant calls the figurative synthesis. The imagination, which is a part of the understanding, carries out the figurative synthesis. Kant calls the imagination "the faculty of representing in an intuition an object that is not itself present." This means that the imagina'tion acts spontaneously to determine intuition and make it an object, so to speak; to unite the manifolds of space and time into one general intuition, making them palatable for consciousness. Since this spontaneity is given through the understanding (the source of activity), it is necessary that the respective manifolds be combined in accordance with the synthetic unity of apperception. The spontaneity of the synthetic unity of apperception is therefore the same spontaneity which sets imagination to work on the intuitions. This, then, is an application of the categories to objects in sensible intuition, and the categories are thus given objective reality, becoming more than just mere "forms of thought." They are, for us, real. We have, however, known since the start of the essay that the understanding cannot combine the manifold of intuition, that a concept (having no object) cannot reach down into the forms of intuition and combine them. How does the imagination do i t7 A footnote to the deduction (B 160, a) is particularly helpful here. In the footnote Kant tells us that he was lying in the Aesthetic. There he made little of the distinction between form of intuition and formal intuition so he could talk of geometry and such matters. Here, however, the distinction in important. Form of intuition means the uncombined manifold of representations which comes into my "receiving rooms" of space and time. half of the deduct~on. And although it is by no means obvious, it is a refutation of Hume, who said that our representations were connected merely through habit. But to even have that connection I must be self-conscious. And thus Kant has established that our manifold of representations can be connected through judgment in objects; objects which, due to the synthetic unity of apperception, I can judge fearing no chidings of "subjectivity." As Kant remarks at the end of section 19: Thus to say 'the body is heavy' is not merely to state that the two representations have always been conjoined in my perception, however often that perception has been repeated; what we are asserting is that they are combined in the object, no matter what the state of the subject may be (p.159). This leads6 us to the second half of the deduction. Why is the second half of the deduction necessary? For Kant, thinking and knowing are two completely separate things. Knowledge as such is only possible for us human beings if an object is given in our sensible intuition. It is all right if we think a concept that has no object in intuition; we can think anything we like. But knowledge is something else again. Since it is clear from the first half of the deduction that we are the authors of our experience, it is impossible that we should know anything beyond that experience, that we should know, for example, a "thing in itself," something unconditioned by space or time. Therefore, objects for knowledge must be given to us in our pure forms of sensible ·intuition, and the second half of the deduction will concern itself with how this comes about. In section 23, Kant speaks of a thinking being who has a sensible intuition other than ours (not spatiotemporal). He introduces this being to show that the synthesis performed by the pure apperception is purely intellectual. 38 Formal intuition means the unity of these representations, a unity given by the unity which figurative synthesis, a according to the footnote "precedes any concept." But how? Space and time as forms of intuition a re homogeneous. Since all their parts are similar, no concept is needed to give them shape (a shape to space?). They only need a synthesis, a uniting, and this is the synthesis performed by the imagination, prior to any concepts. Therefore the formal intuition is the groundwork for determinate intuitions (intuitions through concepts) within it, such as, to use Kant's example, the setting of three lines at right angles to one another from the same point to represent space. The formal intuition must underlie even our own representation of it through concepts. The activity of the imagination, spurred by the pure apperception, is thus the basis of ou~ connected experience. Since the imagination is the faculty of representing any object (but in greatest generality space) that is not itself present, and since it determines time (inner sense), its continued synthesis of time being the very act through which we are aware of time itself, it shou1d be evident that the imagination can go on indefinitely producing "pictures" for me to think about. But I do not necessarily have to think about them. It is true that the imagination works in accordance with the synthetic unity of apperception, but it is certainly not true that I have to attach the 'I think' to every object in my experience. The action of the understanding on the sensibility through the imagination allows for my eventual empirical consciousness. I will say more on this subject in the discussion of the synthesis of apprehension. But this does not mean that I must attach the 'I think' to every object in that empirical consciousness, only to those which I choose. This, then, is the full meaning of "capable" in the first analytic statement of the deduction. The reason I do not have to say 'I think' about every object in the room around me is because the imagination synthesizes without a concept, but I am capable of thinking an object through a concept if I please. This is, I think, the fundamental distinc, tion between the "putting together" (without conceptg;) and the "grasping" (with concepts), the two phrases Kant uses in his general definition of synthesis. From all this it should be clear that we can only have knowledge of appearances. We have no contact with what gives us our original sensation, the "thing in itself." To become aware we must think, and the B Deduction shows us that thinking is an enormous process. At the center of the process, of course, is the task of constituting our own objects (which are nothing but appearances, per se), and this action, enabling our thinking, shuts us off from whatever the world might be "in itself." Although thinking in this sense seems somewhat bleak, it is precisely because we have appearances that experience is cogent. They will also be the basis of Kant's later discussion of the possibility of freedom. I will address this subject in the third section of this paper. Now, however, we must look at the final step in the B Deduction. The final step Kant calls the "synthesis of apprehension." This synthesis brings us empirical consciousness, i.e. perception. It is the final stage of consciousness made possible by the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, pure apperception. For this synthesis to come about it is necessary that space and time be united by the imagination. I can only perceive in space and time, and therefore space and time must be united through the figurative synthesis so that I may become conscious of them as a united manifold, or formal intuition. In order for this to take place, though, the imagination must be aroused by the original synthetic unity of apperception. This original synthesis, though, unites intuition in general according to the categories. Therefore, all our experience will conform to the categories, and therefore the categories have been united with 39 I' �More specifically, from the B Deduction we know that all experience is subject to categories and is in time. To posit freedom, the ability to initiate a chain of events in this experience, is to posit something that is not subject either to the categories or to time; it is to posit a series of events with an antecedent cause not in experience. The B Deduction, however, shows us that we can never know if this freedom exists, that we can only know the appearances that we have constitu~ed. Why should we posit freedom at all? Every event presupposes a sufficient cause ~ priori, but if we do not posit this sufficient cause (freedom) somewhere in the chain of events, there are only relative causes; in other words, each cause presupposes another cause for it which exists al ready. The assumption of mere relative cause, of course, is the same thing as saying that every cause "just is," and has always existed, that there is no completeness to any series. To take the other side of the argument is to admit that all causes "just are," and that we are fooling ourselves when we say that freedom must necessarily be. This assumption is merely an attempt to get some rest. We cannot go beyond experience and know anything, so we simply must be satisfied in saying that the change in the status of substance has always been. To posit freedom means to destroy cause and effect as the absolute law of nature, and so the other categories. As the B Deduction tells us, this would throw coherent experience right out the window. But if we say that there is no freedom, then we must accept that there is no sufficient cause for any event. This denies our first principle. So we are right back where we started. There is, however, a solution to this antinomy, and the essence of that solution is in the B Deduction. For a moment, therefo~e, we will retrace our steps. Kant tells us in the B Deduction that although the synthetic unity of apperception, or transcendental I, is at work in us, how it works i!:; unknown to us. How can we know? We have knowledge only of intuition and our experience made possible. To use Kant's example, if I have an empirical intuition of a house of which I become conscious, then it is a perception. At the basis of this empirical intuition must be the necessary unity, i.e. formal intuition of space and time. The house must be in space and time for me to perceive it. But space and time have been united through the figurative synthesis, providing the space and time for the house. But the spontaneity of the imagination igniting the figurative synthesis is the same spontaneity of the pure apperception, which unites intuition in general according to the categories, and therefore my experience will conform to the categories. It is important to note here that I have thought the concept 'house' so that the freedom of the imagination to unite space and time into a formal intuition without a concept is pr.eserved. This is the connection that we sought at the outset of this paper, and the outcome of Kant's B Deduction. Kant concludes the B Deduction with a discussion of nature. It is evident that we are the authors of nature, that it will conform to our categories, such as cause and effect. How, then,. is freedom possible, if all experience must conform to certain laws, such as cause and effect? Freedom cannot be freedom if it is in conformity with laws. The third pa rt of this paper will attempt to answer that question. III. What is freedom? I t is .the ability to start a series of events, the ability to be the first cause in that series. But the B Deduction tells us that the categories condition our experience, and one of . those categori~s is cause and effect. Every event without exception will have an antecedent cause. If this is true, freedom is ruled out, for there can be no end to the series, no first cause. This the the problem of the third antinomy. 40 experience, of things which are objects in our intuition. We have, therefore, only knowledge of our empirical self, the self that i"be see in mirrors, the phenomenal self. Nevertheless, we are undoubtedly aware of the transcendental I and our intelligible selves: we are, for example, the only animals aware of our inevitable physical end, tbe only animal who constructs philosophical systems. This awareness is a direct product of the transcendental I, that "thing in itself" which fosters our self-consciousness. It is, therefore, because of the transcendental I that I have awareness of both a noumenal self as well as a phenomenal self. And it is through this noumenal self that my faculty called reason is able to conceive o~ 1 what Kant calls "transcendental ideas." · Briefly, "transcendental ideas" are those things which we use to assert the completeness of a series, to say "all." From.what has been said it is evident that this completeness cannot be given in experience; for example, there is no sum total of causes and effects there. But it is our own faculty of reason, based on the transcendental self, which strives to limit the series, even this limit must necessarily be unconditioned. These transcendental ideas, of course, are necessary to me as an active being; were I not able to say "all" at times my activity in daily life would be almost none at all. It is only because I am able to posit these ideas, based on the existence of my noumenal self and reason, that I am able to act. One of these ideas is freedom. For without the assumption of freedom, I could never assert myself as the cause d: any series of events, nor could I take responsibility for my acts. Necessarily freedom must be what Kant calls a "regulative" principle rather than a "constitutive" principle. The idea of freedom cannot contribute in any way to my knowledge, as do "constitutive" principles, it can only serve as a guide for my existence as an active being, it can only be "regulative." So it must be with all the transcendental ideas. How does Kant make the coexistence of the transcendental idea of freedom and law-governed experience possible? He has, in a sens~, already done it once. In the B Deduction, the unconditioned transcendental I spontaneously acts upon intuition in general to produce the effects that we know as experience, to create the appearances. Kant likewise calls freedom "the power of beginning a state spontaneously." It is the activity of something unconditioned which produces· effects in what we know as experience. But the B Deduction shows, as has been said before, that objects in our experience are appearances. They are not · "things in themselves." This is Kant's solution to the antinomy. If the objects of experience were "things in themselves," then we would be left with the insoluble antinomy. Since the "things in themselves" would still be subject to cause and effect, freedom would not be possible. But since our experience is merely appearance, we can posit the unconditional without contradiction. And we can likewise posit our noumenal side as freely acting with effects only to be known in the appearances. We are, after all, the first cause of those appearances. It is necessary to point out that Kant has allowed only for the possibility of freedom. It may be, and we will never know one way or the other, that freedom does not exist. Kant is careful to remark that we can always reduce every action that seems free to a (certainly endless) series of efficient causes. But for our practical life the "regulative" principle of freedom is indispensable. It is freedom, our connection with the unconditioned in ourselves, which allows for our appreciation .of beauty as well. Freedom, in the end, allows for our totality as men. The long argument of the B Deduction makes freedom possible. On the one hand, Kant has radically changed philosophy; its new limitations are clear. He has indeed ordered it to "leave gormandizing." But on the other hand he has preserved its importance to our practical life as well. 41 �see, still catches our eye. This, I believe, justifies the enormous labor of the B Deduction. He has also saved just a little of its mystery: the things most important to us, among them freedom, remain ideas. ·And their peauty, though perhaps harder to There is Very Little Poetry in Onions Dan Farrell Footnotes 1. 2. 3 .- 4. 'i i! '! ,, :1 I' 5. 6. I take this to mean "overall" manifold, rather than particular manifolds of space and time or judgements of particular groups of representations. A cheap word in Kant meaning just about anything. I suppose a general definition to be "things (in a weak sense) gathered together by any kind of synthesis." This is an analytic statement saying "I must be able say 'I think' about what I think." Special emphasis should be placed on the pure apperception "generating" the 'I think.' It does not do the attaching. All of section 20, read carefully, is helpful here. Thus the power of a simple analytic statement (footnote 3) is revealed. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Page 170, Kemp Smith. Page 111, Kemp Smith. There are probably many answers to this question. The answer- that follows is the least satisfying. In Kant, "phenomenal" means things as appearance, "noumenal" things in the realm of the unconditioned. I have glossed over an important distinction here. Objects in experience when given as a whole can be said to be reducible "ad infinitum." If we are just given a member in an infinite series; however, and seek in that series more members, then ltle must at some point posit an unconditioned end to that series. My thanks to Mr. Carey, Mr. Kutler and Mr. Lenkowski. 42 I have always looked at a poem in a way that will help me learn what it means. The poet is trying to say something and the task of the reader is to reconstruct the message. There is a phrase that teachers introduce early in high school: "levels of meaning". I don't know if we are to think of layers of the onion: of meaning (each layer or 'level' of the onion is a whole and it can be eaten separately) or what. Please allow me to pursue this idea excessively. There is a great danger in looking too closely at a poem's meaning. The poet gives -us a garden filled with wonderful fruits and vegetables, flowers and bees, mud and bugs, and onions. Now I can go to this garden and eat all the onions I like and digest every layer of the tiniest scallion, but I'll end up with bad.breath and a very unsatisfied hunger. I'll probably step on a few bugs and get annoyed about the mud oozing between my toes on my way to the onions (which are in the center of the garden, of course; think of where the tree of knowledge of good and evil was). But not even mud between the toes is enough to sidetrack me: I have onions to eat. What is most remarkable about my careful method of eating o,nions is that it takes a long time to realize that almost any layer of any onion tastes the same as any other. The cause of my slow wit in this matter is the· absolute certainty I have that the onions are the center of the garden, and if I understand the onions I understand the garden. There is no reason for me to think this, but I still go on eating onions and if they all taste the same I only assume that my sense of taste is too weak to discern their differences. Happily, by some miracle (magic?), I now realize my folly arid am willing to change my attitude toward poetry. It is more rewarding to experience poetry as it is, instead of reducing it to one manageable aspect. There is an impulse toward knowledge that led me to the onions in the first place. The basis of that impulse was the desire to become a better person. Perhaps it is best if we forget Aristotle's "All men naturally desire to know," and replace it with "All men naturally desire to improve themselves." This may not be true, but at least it will help me experience poetry. Now I'm ready to discuss poetry as something that is magical. Shakespeare, Sonnet #64 When I have seen by Times' fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased, And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay; Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. I -don't know much about what this means. This, of course, is good because I'm trying to get away from that sort of thinking. The most obvious and most interesting thing about this poem is that it is very difficult to read. Phrases like "Time's fell hand," "Rich proud 43 �gaining advantage on the kingdom of the shore. Once the word 'shore' is mentioned my attention shifts to it and I see an ocean clawing toward the shore. I don't know what this image is supposed to mean, but when I read it I'm at the shore where the poet wants me to be. It seems that magic in poetry exists because the poet does not strive to tell us anything. He hopes he can show us something. He doesn't want. to tell us that time is relentless; he shows it both in the rhythm and in the images he causes us to make. At the beginning of this essay I wrote how thinking about meanings hinders the experiencing of poe·try. Meaning is too concerned with words in themselves to be of any use in poetry. Poetry is not concerned with the words at all! What a poet wants to do most of all is to resurrect a "Gosh, look at that!" attitude. He does this by pointing, suggesting, but not by spelling out. When it succeeds (and if it is real poetry it will) it has performed its magic. cost," and many others are obstructions to the flow of the poetry. This is probably due to the lack of short vowels and the abundance of double . consonants in these phrases. They are made of words that take much time to pronounce. These phrases may seem to prevent any sense of music from becoming apparent, but this is only true if the music of a poem is something to be found solely in sing-song nursery rhymes. Instead of a flowing rhythm this poem has a relentless rhythm, slow but invincible. The images in this poem are not only mentioned, but shown. Images are closely connected to meaning, but there is an important enough difference between them so that I don't feel guilty talking about them. There are enough examples of unimaginative writings that have plenty of meaninq within them. These writings do not offer ·a.n -invitation to the reader to experience~· within the imagination, the truth of what is being said. In this poem we are given a hungry ocean. We are not told, "the ocean yearns for " This is unimportant. The hungry ocean is The Wreck of Elpenor P.H. Gagnier This land was framed without mountains or hills, But wide, bare, came broken open to the slow sky, And rolls in moist, humous rows like sea swells Stilled under wind and sliding clouds, to lie At length along this road ditch. Sweet with water And swishing reeds, it breathes its lucent green On the first steaming mud. Puddles scatter The sun among exhumed stones newly clean, Strewn in cryptic disarray. And here, stretched out on this pregnant bank, threading the stares Of crows, redolent unspooling, unstitched, Grey, I strew a perplexity of prayers. Thus defective I await my return, While all around the drinking earth breathes, "Churn." 44 Reconciliation in The Bacchae: Remembering What We Are Who Are Not Gods But Men Lisa Eckstrom of Dionysus, gentleness and horror intermingled, and we have seen the limits by which we differentiate the two disappear. Opposites by which we define certain t~rnis become ambiguous. Thus Identity (a thing is x and is not y), Sexuality (it is male or female), Mortality (there is life and there is death) , and perhaps of greatest consequence, Power (there is strength and there is helplessness) have become te.rms whose definitions are uncertain. For death the gods exact, curbing by that bit the mouths of men. They humble us with death that we remember what we a re who a re not gods but men. We run to death. As a prelude to the messenger's tale of the death of Pentheus, the chorus sings lines about mortality. Apprehension builds as we start to see the divine sever itself from the mortal. Perhaps we realize that we too are earth-born, and that we are not gods, but men. We shudder when we hear the chorus sing: "O Justice, destroy the evil earth-born· sprawn of Echion ! " because we remember that we are earth-born as well and share his curse. We marvel that the chorus has forgotten that they are earth-born; they sing as if they are not mortal, even while reminding us of death. To run to death as votaries of the god is still to disregard it, and thereby to disregard the ultimate limit of mortal beings. When the chorus no longer identifies itself as human with human limits, our sympathy is drawn to those who have human limits: Pentheus, Agave, and Cadmus. Whether one wants to label this quality in the chorus as insanity, or religious mysticism, one must agree, that they see themselves outside many of the limits by which we define human life: death, relationships with other human beings, and a certain revulsion toward murder. We, the audience, begin to feel our association with the earth-born, with those who are human still. We grieve. As the play has progressed, a fusion of opposites has taken place, and we as audience have experienced this fluidity in which one thing is simultaneously its opposite. We have seen in the character '1 :11. ·' 1 ' i1 This uncertainty climaxes in the death scene. The audience can no longer define a character's identity as "he is x and is not y." We see the identities of Pentheus and Dionysus fuse to the. extent that there is only one on the stage, who is neither Pentheus nor Dionysus, but some amalgamation of the two. The Bacchants see a 1 ion a top the tree , whom we, the audience, know to be Pentheus. The stranger has disappeared. What has happened? The chorus has identified a lion as one of the manifestations of Dionysus; thus the Bacchants see a form of Dionysus atop the tree. If the god Dionysus is in any way atop the tree, he is residing in the earth-born frame of Pentheus. The messenger speaks: I ,, 1 :I' i1! l I .11 11!1 1 ·' Ii 1 11: ,,I' I' And the tree rose towering to heaven with my master huddling at the top ... when the Stranger vanished, there came a great· voice out of heaven---Dionysus it must have been--Both the voice of Dionysus, and Pentheus, are in the aether. Perhaps it is Pentheus who calls to the women to destroy him. 45 ! I I , �11r i: ,,, I They do not recognize the voice as Dionysus' initially, and they do not recognize the being atop the tree as Pentheus. What they see and hear _is the confusing tormented fusion of the two. Pentheus has not been seized by the god suddenly, but instead, the two have been woven progressively tighter until there seems to be only one in the eyes of the Bacchants, and to some degree (in that we see only one being on the stage) in the eyes of the audience as ~ell. This weaving of mind upon mind, limb upon limb, is analogous to wrestling. In wrestling, two separate entities come together into some sort of unity. As limbs and bodies intertwine it is often difficult to see the two entities apart from one another. Perhaps they never become one, but in the confusion of their contortions, the vision of the on-lookers and perhaps of the participants themselves is often unable to distinguish which arm or which leg belongs to which wrestler. It is in line 400 that Pentheus first accuses the Stranger of wrestling well with words. Pentheus then grapples with the bull, and then he hears the messenger's words describing the activities on Cithaeron. There is a progression through which he is both active and passive, wrestler and listener; but for Pentheus, listening itself is a form of wrestling: the Stranger wrestles with words. As knowledge increases, Pentheus must deal with it---the knowledge is inescapable in its elusiveness. Yet, must he wrestle with it? Why could he not listen to the messenger's speech as a mere observer, not a wrestler? Why does he view his conversation with the Stranger as a wrestling match? If he wrestles because he wishes to be in control---is to observe, not to be in control? Or is to observe always to wrestle, to somehow come to grips with one's vision? ~entheus proclaims: "it is hopeless to wrestle with this man. Nothing on earth will make him hold his tongue." With each question and reply in the conversation between Pentheus and Dionysus, the two have become increasingly like wrestlers intertwined. As Pentheus discovers more about the Dionysiac rites on the mountain from the messenger and from the Stranger, he becomes more entangled. We are not sure if he wrestles with an outside force, or with a dread fascination emanating from himself. P~: D.: P.: D.: Tell me the benefits that those who know your mysteries enjoy·, I am forbidden to say but they are worth knowing. Your answers are designed to make me curious. No: our mysteries abhor an unbelieving man. If Pentheus is the unbelieving man, perhaps he wrestles with the believing man within himself. But what is this dread fascination, from where does this believing man come? Perhaps he is that part of the soul which whispers to us the unintelligible rhymes of the eternal world. Pentheus proclaims that it is hopeless because the two are intertwined in such a way that they can never be separated without violence and damage: and yet, with all their writhings and positionings, the two can never become one in such a way that they can rest at peace and not be two separate entities struggling against one another. There seems to be a peace, transient though it be, in the dressing scene. Pentheus and Dionysus begin to be indistinguishable from one another; they form a knot which is drawn ever tighter. The distinction between he-who-leads and he-who-is-led is lost in the confusion. Pentheus is being prepared as a victim for sacrifice, as he is to replace the customary bull (Dionysus). In being prepared, he is made to look as Dionysus looks. He puts on the long flowing robe, the fawn skin of a Bacchant, and a wig of long flowing curls (significantly after he has cut the curls off of the Stranger). He dances and holds a thyrsus. This change in Pentheus is brought about when he succumbs to the "fascination" which finds that to watch something bitter is sweet. 46 If opposites can be said to be one in the world around us, they can only be said .to be so in their eternal context: only divine beings can sustain opposites in unison. When two opposites fuse within an earth-born being (which may happen when we are full of d~vine frenzy, what many might call madness ) the earth-born cannot sustain them as an immortal can. In the confusion he is necessarily ripped apart. Man's earth-born-ness acts as a curse: it drags him down to earth where the opposites must separate. Earlier in the play, when the stranger was trapped by Pentheus, he was replaced with an animal that was one of the manifestations of Dionysus. Now Pentheus is trapped, and he too is replaced with an animal, but only while atop the tree, only while off the earth, and significantly, only in the Bacchants' eyes. The audience's vision separates from that of the Bacchants at this point. Atop the tree, this strange combination of Dionysus and Pentheus exists. Once the tree is cut out from under him, he touches the earth again and is separated from the divine. He makes the proclamation: I am Pentheus! He is again identified as earth-born: he is mortal and he is destroyed. Thus, if motion up to the top of the tree (and motion up the mountain) seemingly brings the individual up to what is divine, it concurrently thrusts one back upon the earth. Movement which would assimilate one to divinity can only result in crashing against the ~arth. (814) As he has conversed with Dionysus, and listened to the messenger, he has begun· to wrestle and merge. To see the bitter as not only bitter, but sweet as well, is to see opposites merge. When Pentheus says that it is bitter to see the Bacchants, but pursues it because what is bitter is also sweet, can he ,be far from seeking to understand the god Dionysus, who is most gentle and most horrible? Pentheus' fascination pulls him further and further. Not only is he willing to go secretly as an observer, but he is willing to go openly as a participant. In his willingness to be a participant, he is not only willing to see the bitter· as sweet, but somehow to be one with these opposites, to be as a Bacchant, that is to be gentle and horrible. The unbidden offer to go openly marks a change in the conversation. The conversation is not such that Pentheus is asking the questions and Dionysus is making ·vague replies as before, but instead, Dionysus is leading the conversation and Pentheus is making vague replies. They have switched roles, or perhaps are at that intersection where the two roles meet as one. When Dionysus clothes Pentheus, Pentheus begins to lose his masculinity. His identity is so ambiguous that his sexuality no longer plays a part in the definition of who he is. As the beardless young man puts on the dress of a woman, and a wig of curls, he is both male and female (as Dionysus is); he has become opposites instead of viewing them. It is an incredible thing to see that perhaps male and female are the same; it is more incredible to. become both. Going to the death scene, it is imperative that Pentheus have fused these two opposites within himself, for if he is to be sacrificed as an immortal he must partake of the eternal world in which opposites are one. As earth-born, he must .be either male or female: he cannot be both. Only to the degree that he is freed from his limits as a mortal can he assimilate opposites. 'I ' i I ,, ' In the play, only Dionysus can sustain the opposites of life and death, which make up the ultimate limits of earth-born life. In being sacrificed and eaten, the god lives. To be earth-born means that when one is sacrificed, one dies. Pentheus though earth-born is viewed as if he were the immortal Dionysus---ready to be hunted down and destroyed that Dio~ysus may live. But Pentheus is not immortal; he shares the curse 'of the audience: if he is destroyed, he does not live. Life and death may be two entwined parts of one whole, but that 47 ". �"whole" is not a possibility for the earth-born. Though we may view it, and begin to realize that life and death are one . in the eternal world, we are constantly dragged down to earth. Our curse as earth-born is to exist and act in a world in which what is destroyed, dies. However, the divine world intersects with ours. It is this fusion that is precisely confusion. If we are to understand what occurs around us, we must have some vision of this whole, as well as the opposites which compose it. If there were no "whole,'' if there were only opposites, we could make choices that Euripides seems to say we a re unable to make. If power and helplessness were only opposite, choosing to be powerful would not also involve choosing to make oneself vulnerable to one's enemies. The divine world intersects with ours, making the earth sometimes act as if it were the realm of immortals, as well as mortals. If the "whole" did not make any difference, choosing to live would not mean willingly risking death; there could be no power in deciding to be solely powerless. 'Agave prefers . leading the hunt to weaving on her loom because she perceives herself as powerful in the leading of the hunt. She is powerful: she and her followers fell a tree with their bare hands, they kill a lion. Yet her power stems from her submission to the will of Dionysus. Her will does not enter into decisions concerning her own actions. As Agave is powerful, she is helpless. We, the audience see the fearless hunt-leader Agave having no control over her own actions: we see her kill her son. Dionysus seems so attractive to women because he heightens their passivity until it becomes a power of frightening force: He lifts them out of helplessness by making them adore it. The women are disturbingly passive in their hesuchia. They have abandoned any desire to control their own actions. Yet this lack of self-direction yields lack of worry about self. It frees one from human fears and restraints; it grants one a peculiar freedom. This freedom is similar to the freedom of the insane, a freedom that one receives when one stops being a person. It is almost immortal. Power and powerlessness are interwoven in the women who are themselves weavers. By giving up any illusion of human power, they gain a divine strength, which in the end renders them powerless and pathetic. Power presides in Pentheus and Dionysus. -The power of Pentheus is earth-born (he is a king); the power of Dionysus is divine (he is an immortal, free from human constraint.) Yet, there is an aspect of Dionysus which seems the epitome of powerlessness: ·what sort of power is there in a god who allows himself to not only be priest {power) but sacrifice (powerlessness) as well? Is there a correspondin~ sacrificial aspect to monarchy as well? In assuming power over people, one may become subject to them. When Pentheus and Dionysus meet, each tries to assume power; they meet as distinctive representatives of the earth-born and the divine. Initially, when Pentheus has Dionysus imprisoned, The fusion of power and passivity is especially striking in the women, the thiasos. As women, before the arrival of Dionysus, they were helpless. At their looms, they had little say in how their lives were played out. Yet, upon gaining power in the contact of the thiasos, they become mighty warriors, who rip apart wild beasts with their delicate hands, who loot a city, and rout an army of men. Yet, their power emanates from total passivity: they obey the St ranger as unquestioning slaves. They no longer inject their wishes as human beings into their actions. They have no nous. The category of right actions, unless one is entirely submissive to a voice or god one designates as right action, involves use of nous. The Bacchants abandon their nous and their will. They do nothing to preserve their individual lives: their unarmed attack on an army of men who are equipped with swords and shields shows a bravery that is a disdain of death. Pentheus assumes the role of the ·priest and Dionysus assumes the role of victim: Pentheus has Dionysus bound and modifies Dionysus' appearance by clipping his curls to make him acceptable. He not only views the Stranger as sacrifice, but would sacrifice the women's blood as well. As Pentheus speaks, the replies of Dionysus are unclear: it is the priest's words that matter, not those of the victim. The stranger then escapes; it is no longer certain who is in the position of power and who is not. A sacrifice is no longer a sacrifice if it eludes the grasp of the priest: It has become free. When Pentheus wrestles with the bull, he no longer has control over what is Dionysus---he instead becomes entangled, becomes one with the immortal beast. In the scene that follows, we see Dionysus and Pentheus share the two principal roles which in the "whole" a re one: Priest and Sacrifice. Pentheus becomes the Sacrifice (Dionysus) which is to be sacrificed by the Priest (Dionysus). In both Pentheus and Dionysus, priest and sacrifice are one: as Dionysus prepares Pentheus for sacrifice by dressing him as a votary of the god, we see Sacrifice and Priest merge into a horrible vision in which that which destroys is the same as what is destroyed. have beheld opposites that are the same. We have been lifted higher and higher away from earth in order that we might have vision. We have entered the aether realm of myth. Yet, we are earth-born, our place is not above the earth, but on it. Before Pentheus cries "I am Pe~theus" we have begun our descent. As our vision begins to separate from the Bacchants we hear the words with which this paper began: They humble us with death that we remember what we are who are not gods but men. We remember what we are, as Pentheus does. Before he was told that he did not know who he was or what he did: now with much grief, he knows: he is mortal. Hesuchia ends and the knife of the sacrificial rite runs deep for both Pentheus and ourselves. We feel pain and it is bitter. We know our curse as ge-gones. If there is some sweetness in our grief it is riot because misery and joy are the same, but instead there is some joy in being able to grieve deeply. Our grief offers a path of reconciliation with ourselves as ephemeral earth-born beings: there can be no true grief if the cause of grief is simultaneously a cause of joy. There is a dignity in our grief which is peculiar to those who cannot live as if opposites were one, and yet a re required to· do so. We remember what we are who are not gods but men; we are humbled but not humiliated, for we have our grief, a gentle luxury. Keats' famous lines come to mind: If Euripides intends for the audience to view opposites as one, why do the opposites sever from each other at the climactic scene? Why is our vision as audience different from that of the Bacchants? They see Pentheus as a lion: we know that they are mistaken. Why do we hear Pentheus cry out that he is Pentheus when he touches the earth if the Bacchants do not? As audience we have participated in this sacrifice to Dionysus as a thiasos. We receive our directions from the priests on the stage. To watch is holy sport. We have become passive listeners: if our listening has brought forth a dance it is a dance of the emotions, being called forth by the wondrous actions on the stage. Ours has been a hesuchia in which to watch something bitter is sweet. We 11'1 1'1 lll'i II: "I My spirit is too weak; mortality Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet 'tis a gently luxury to weep. I I I 48 49 ! II �Phainetai moi Notes translated.by Terri-Ann Hahn 1 Is the poet such a believing man? Do we wrestle with his words and with his myths? It seems that he must wrestle with those very myths which seem to emanate from himself? conception of the Artist and his Work? What is Euripides' motive in choosing the strange myth of Dionysus? Why not write about Zeus or Athena? Why present Dionysus in all his savagery? Why is the theatre the realm of Dionysus? How does the poet participate in it? As maker/god? as audience/man? 2 How is the divine madness of the poet different from that of a Bacchant? Does the vision of the poet offer a kind of freedom similar to the Bacchant? Does that freedom reside in the poet or in us, the receivers of his vision? What is this freedom and how does it come about? If myths are some faint image of the "primordial consciousness of man" what can it mean for a poet to use them as the basis of his work? In myth, he records this consciousness. But he often alters it, or selects some elements and discards others. What can this be construed as? What effect does it have on his own soul to examine what must be construed as something like "primordial consciousness"? Why does Virgil write that Daedalus though he keeps trying cannot record the image of his own son? Why must Daedalus keep trying? What does ~is son represent? What is Virgil telling us about his own ~aLV£TaL µOL xnvo~ Cao~ ~~OLGLV ~ wvnp, OTTL~ EVaVTL 6 ~ TOL LGaaV£L xal XAaGLOV ~av ~WV£L0a~ unaxoDEL £µµ£V ,, t " ,, ' 3 from The Golden Bough, p. 392 "The legends of the deaths . of Pentheus and Lycurguas, two kings who are said to have been torn to pieces, the one by Bacchanals, the other by horses, for their opposition to the rites of Dionysus, may as I have already suggested, be distorted reminiscences of a custom of sacrificing divine kings in the character of Dionysus and of dispersing fragments of their bodies over the fields for the purpose of fertilizing them. It is probably no mere coincidence that Dionysus is said to have been torn in pieces at Thebes, the very place where according to legend, the same fate befell king Pentheus at the hands of the frenzied votaries of the vine-god." aAA& x&µ µtv yAw004 ( µ') Eay£, A~XTOV a' a~TLXa XP~ nDp unaaEapoµnx£v, 6~naTE00L a' ova' EV opnµµ'' EXLppoµ8EL0L a' clXOVaL, by Sappho He must be divine, sitting there opposite you, your face turned toward his face, as he listens, to your speech, sounding so sweet, so near, and to your lovely laughter. These are the very things which have excited the heart in my breast to passion. For when I take even the briefest glance, this voice of mine yields nothing further, my tongue has broken down. With only a look delicate fire burns, running 'round beneath my flesh, so that my eyes no longer see, my ears resound with noises. Yea, sweat pours down over me and a trembling catches me all over (greener than grass am I!) so that I appear little short of death, Agallis-my joy! But, all this must be borne, since I sit alone. 50 51 �On Chapters 11-17 of Part II of Don Quixote Paula Rustan ' I This time even Sancho -- Sancho who dared to endure the fulling-mills; who inspired by Don Quixote's cry that as a Knight he is equal to a hundred, attacked the Yanguesans; Sancho who charged furiously at Cardenio the mad man in order to defend his master from harm -- this time, the most loyal squire in all the world, flees, leaving Don Quixote to face his most perilous adventure, alone. It is so much easier to understand why the gentleman in green and the carter were forced to run; after all they did not and could not be expected to believe in Don Quixote as Sancho did -- Sancho, who not even twenty-four hours before had declared to the Squire of the Wood that he loved his master "as dearly as his own heartstrings" (as dearly as yourself, Sancho) and for thi's reason alone could not think to leave him. It is true that Sancho cried like a baby as he rode away, believing that this time his Knight would surely perish, but just the same, as his Master prepared to fight lions, Sancho urged his Dapple on -- faster and faster. From the moment Don Quixote sees the cart coming down the road, he begins to prepare himself for an adventure. The gentleman in green tries to calm Don Quixote down by telling him it is only just a cart, and judging from the little flags which decorate it, this particular cart must be carrying the property of the King. Don Quixote in turn patiently explains that he knows by experience that he has "enemies visible and invisible" and he goes on to say, "I do not know when or where, nor at what time or in what shape they will attack me." Although we may (along with the gentleman in green) see Don Quixote recklessly challenging a couple of indifferent lions, we know that he himself believes that he is about to challenge_ the power· of those relentless enchanters, who not only have just deprived Don Quixote of the full glory which was due him in ·his victory over the Knight of the Mirrors; but also, and far worse, have deprived him forever or so it seems from looking upon Dulcinea. Thus, it seems to us natural at this point in the history that Don Quixote is at last driven to prove to these enchanters, whoever they may be, that his spirit has not been broken by their ceaseless and cruel tricks. Don Quixote is powerless to lift the spell of the enchantment from Dulcinea; he is helpless to turn Sanson Carrasco back into the Knight of th~ Mirrors; but he can and does challenge the lions (who are sent by the same enchanters) in defiance and to show that his "courage" and his "resolution" still prevail. At least, this is what we first assume especially in light of these cemarKs which Don Quixote makes to Sancho upun the completion of the adventure: What do you think of that, Sancho? Do any enchantments prevail against true valour? The enchanters may indeed be able to rob me of good fortune; but of resolution and courage, that is impossible! But isn't there much more at stake here than just a battle between Don Quixote and his enemy, enchantment? This is unquestionably the most dangerous of all his adventures and it is the first and only adventure since the fulling-mills wherein Don Quixote recognizes that he may be utterly destroyed in the attempt. "If I die he re ... " he says to SancHo, "You will repair to Dulcinea -- I say no more." 52 always longed to become and might have become if only circumstance had been kinder to him. They are both 50 years old, both natives of La Mancha, and they both love hunting. They ride their horses dressed up in their respective finery -the crucial difference between them being that Don Quixote rides as a knight errant and Don Diego de Miranda has never allowed a book of chivalry to so much as "cross the threshold of his door." As Don Quixote faces this gentleman in green, he is forced_to face up to what he himself is and what he is not. He realizes that life for Don Quixote will never be, cannot be what it is for the gentleman in green. Don Quixote de la Mancha, Knight Errant, will never be content with "quiet pointers and good ferrets." The gentleman in green tries to persuade Don Quixote to leave the lions be, reasoning that the lions mean him no harm. Don Quixote answers him in this way: "leave every man to do his duty. This is mine, and I know whether they are coming against me or not, these noble lions." And, clearly, for Don Quixote the lions do come against him. He must challenge them, because he must prove to himself and to the world that he is not afraid to die to die as a Knight Errant, that is. Don Quixote, up until this moment, has held on to the hope that his madness would some day lead him into the arms of Dulcinea where his life would truly begin. But, he is changed largely as a result of his meeting with the man he might have been, the gentleman in green. No longer will Don Quixote gaze sadly at corpses, thinking that death.will soon come to him and that it will be infinitely more tragic because he has never really lived. To fight lions is to proclaim to all that Don Quixote de la Mancha is living life, is fulfilled, not in the same way as Don Diego de Ia Miranda, but finally as a knight errant. Don Quixote has undergone a vital transformation. We have lost forever "The Knight of the Sad Countenance" and we have The adventure is perhaps most remarkable because Don Quixote is transformed by it and he knows it. He " has been so altered that he declares for himself a new ame a ·more fitting name -- not because n I ' h it is a gesture appropriate to a knig t errant in general, but because he is in some way renewed. "The Knight of the Lions" ·is not the knight we saw so long ago by torchlight gazing sorrowfully upon a corpse -- a figure so striking then that Sancho was moved to call him "The Knight of the Sad Countenance." This old title, according to Don Quixote, "shall hence-· forward be so transformed, altered, varied and changed, " and so it seems shall the Knight himself. Three other adventures occur in these chapters: the encounter with the Wagon of Death; the battle between Don Quixote and the Knight of the Mirrors; and, lastly, the meeting with the gentleman in green, whom Don Quixote calls "The Knight of the Green coat." Each one of these encounters helps lead Don Quixote to the Adventure of the Lions. I'll try to say in what way, starting with the last, first: we are told that the gentleman in green is a "sensible gentleman of La Mancha," that he is fifty years old, that he is wealthy, and that he enjoys hunting and fishing. We also hear that he is fortunate enough to have reached the age of fifty and still be surrounded by his wife, children and devoted friends. He gives liberally to the poor and is apparently devoted to his religion. In short, he gives such an account of himself and of his many virtues, that Sancho jumps down from Dapple and kneels at ,this gentleman's feet, convinced that he must truly be a Saint. In the first moments of their meeting, Don Quixote stares at the gentleman in green and the gentleman in green stares at Don Quixote. The gentleman is amazed at the appearance of _the knight and concludes several times that he must be mad. Don Quixote, after gazing upon this stranger and after listening to his story, recognizes that the gentleman in green epitomizes the man whom Don Quixote has .53 !11' !! �I ,j ,i gained "The Knight of the Lions." I hope that we will attempt to understand better why this has happened to our Knight and what it means. It is my belief that the Enchantment of Dulcinea, the encounter with the Wagon of Death, and the Adventure of The Knight of the Mirrors all have something to do with this change in Don Quixote, for each of these adventures compels Don Quixote to turn his sight inward. For example, after their encounter with the Wagon of Death, Don Quixote informs Sancho how he thinks actors and authors benefit mankind. He maintains that they are at best mirrors which reflect back to us our actions, our thoughts, ourselves "Indeed" says Don Quixote "there is no comparison which presents to us more truly what we are and what we ought to be than plays and players." It is shortly after this, indeed, it is in the very next adventure that Don Quixote and Sancho encounter two actors, namely, Sanson Carrasco and Sancho's neighbor, Tome Cecial -- two players cast in the roles, respectively, of a forlorn-in-love knight errant and his squire. Sancho and Don Quixote , as they gaze upon and converse with the The Knight of the Mirrors and his squire, get a good look at themselves and perhaps it is for the first time. Don Quixote not only finds himself in battle with a faceless knight who refuses to reveal himself; but, worse yet, the tunic of this faceless knight is covered with a thousand tiny mirrors. It must be supposed and imagined that as Don Quixote gazes upon his adversary, he sees his own image reflected back to him a thousand times or more. This paper began by accusing poor Sancho of unfaithfulness. But what of us, the faithful readers of this history? Would we remain beside Don Quixote as the cage door is opened? If Sancho could not, Sancho who in a sense personifies all the tenderness and faith which grows in us as we read and reread the adventures of this knight, then we, lesser friends than he to Don Quixote, certainly we could not. We say we believe (some of us do at least!) just as Sancho professes to believe -- but would our faith stand up to lions? I doubt it. Don Quixote cries out to the carter who is desperate to get his mules away before the lions are released, "Oh man of little faith." I am afraid that Don Quixote would be forced to say . the same to us. But, in turn, I would like to ask him, what must we have faith in so that we too may fight lions? 54 Ta-pocketa, Pocketa, Pocketa ... Moliere, Thurber and the Comic Idea Fritz Monsma · love is not really compatible with a message. I see that in Tartuffe there are characters on all sides of the villain, that they have all relationships to him. None of them can stand against his villainy. What message can there be here, unless it is that chaos rules? I feel the play mock me when I scrutinize it and try to find its answer to the problems it puts forth. George Meredith wrote "An Essay on Comedy", and in it put forward Moli~re as the finest comic poet. His theory was that comedy is a kind of medicine for society, a psychiatrist's couch on which an entire culture can lie at once. His essay is not correct, but .it is a good first step to understanding Moli~re. I want to borrow his idea, distend it a bit, and give my account. " .•. To hell with the handkerchief," said Walter Mi tty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Wa~ ter Mi tty the undefeated, inscrutable to the last. James Thurber, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" Moli~re's comedies are enigmas to me. They are well turned and temperate. Their strongest effect is perhaps to make me wish for more urbanity. I have seen a hundred plays and movies which made me · laugh more than Tartuffe did. But I do not want to say that Moli~re's plays were no~ written for comedy. They are not a belly-laugh, but rather a slow grin. I can not say either that they have a great dramatic power. Yet at their best they are engaging theater. Set against funnier and more gripping plays these works fail. But on their own terms they succeed. I should ask whether these plays have a meaning. I will tell you that I cannot find one. They seem, first, to be timely plays. They were written for Louis' court, and I have a sense that pa rt of them stayed there. Perhaps these courtly plays do not speak to humanity. Tartuffe does not question whether . the life of Tartuffe is a fine or base one. This problem should interest us, but this play is rather a warning against false Christians. That warning is not so pertinent now as it has been. My intuition, secondly, tells me that Moliere has a comic poet's love for chaos. Such a Ii ;,I I i ii!' I: 'I iii !I' ]!' :!! I 1111 1111 There is a flatness to the characters in Tartuffe and The Misanthrope. They are, in particular, given to speaking in universals. Dorine says, "They whose own conduct is most ridiculous are always the first to slander others." A real human being, with ordinary feelings of ambiguity, might say the same thing, but not with so many superlatives. The people in Moliere' s plays make a strange, positive race. Sweeping statements are in their mouths constantly, like an accent. This brings them down a bit in our eyes. They are less than we are, not having thought so carefully about things as to have our reservations. It pushes them up, too, this confidence, but as plastic figures. Having abstracted the.l,.r speech from the ordinary human mix-up, the speakers become abstracted too. The 55 !111 1.11, ,,, !ii II I, �~- ' I .,, I I ' I I I i Ii 1: f /: I I I ·• universals iIJ their talk begin to make them suggest opinions dressed in costume' and strutting across stage. At times they are like animated placards with the titles of the plays written on them: the miser, the impostor, the misanthrope. We are not very often in the dark about the kind of person we are seeing on stage, what sort of title to give him or, usually, what is wrong with him. We t·cust our assessment, and Moliere never betrays that trust. We are not forced to fill in the man behind the mask. The interaction· of these characters is balanced and inconclusive. They circle .one another like porcelain ballerinas on . top of a music box. It has been said that if the curtain were to rise again after the fifth act of The Misanthrope, the play could quite naturally continue for five more, and end in the same place. Philinte' s last line, ·and the play' s last is; "Come madam, let us leave nothing untried to deter him from the design on which his heart is set." He was making the same attempt when he spoke his first line. Alceste has fumed through five acts, and his one action is that he has broken with Celimene. He may stay away from her, al though he has not been constant in his resolve. If he does stay away, I suspect he will find another to replace her. He will not go off to the wilderness. As ce"lim~ne points out, he always wants to be contrary, to stand out and above by moral wrath. He will stay to argue with Philinte about leaving. Philinte and Alceste bracket the central issue of the play. They are the two extremes of stoicism in the face of hypocrisy and vice. The Misanthrope and Tartuffe are full of this pattern. Elmire is an upper class woman. She is sane and resourceful concerning Tartuffe, but she brings herself down with blackmail, and she is, in the end, ineffectual. Dorine is a servant. She too is resourceful, and deceit and conniving seem to sit easily with her. But het: low estate keeps her out of the family. She, of all the characters except Tartuffe, is most like a 56 r.- mover, and yet she can not draw the respect among the members of Organ's household that she needs to bring about the coup. She alone is detached enough, during the darkest hour near the end of act five, to be sardonic. Her sarcasm is a sign which shows us that, even if she had been successful, she would not have made a satisfying end to the play. Moli~re's bourgeois audience ought to have seen that such people could not be counted on to solve their problems. Damis is a righteous, guileless youngster. Organ is an old man, once sensible, and with an old man's honest concern with religion. Tartuffe plays these two against each other skillfully. Middle-aged Cl~ante is a mean between them, self-possesed and sane. He has no actions, only staid words. These characters change only superficially in their play. They are unable to resolve the problems in themselves or between themselves. In The Misanthrope the actors turn around on another in circles that are always the same size. In Tartuffe the circles get smaller as Tartuffe leads the players down into the gutter. Having said this much about Moliere's style and the for:m of his plays, let me give a short summary of George Meredith's "An Essay on Comedy". Much of the essay is about particular societies and their comedians. A culture must have two things to support true comedy. First, it must have a regard for common sense, and second, a . near equality between its men and women. Such a society will foster the comic, and he will repay them by giving them more of the heal th of common sense, and by pushing further the equality of their sexes. When the comic has these two things, the more sophistication among his people, the better. It is this that provides fodder for his wit. The folly that comes with high culture is his meat. His spirit loves to expose all presumption: aged coquettes, poor relations full on the dignity of a noble name. He is not simply interested in jokes. He must avoid the bacchanal of hearty laughter as much as the stern face a moment that oqr airs can survive in the face of the harsh world, and, turninq about, shows us the reality of this harshness. In its lowest form, comedy is cute; it is tiny puppies with huge eyes. It· is an oxymoron where we simply posit that the lesser is the stronger. The cute thing is something that does i:iot threaten us, to which we attribute a certain superiority, that is, a superiority to what does threaten us. Norman Rockwell once painted a pinafored black schoolchild, off to her first day of unsegregated kindergarten, surrounded by a guard of the state militia. Our hearts are drawn to the little girl; we see goodness of heart juxtaposed to strength of arms. We cling to goodness of heart; the world would be easier on us (so we imagine, since we all feel some confidence in our heart's feelings) if this were truly the stronger. This is a simple positing of what is contrary to fact, a static act of will. Hence what is cute does not cause the. mental flipflop which would make us laugh. True comedy gives us a reason to embrace the small. Whatever the housing it comes in, comic wit always contains a seed of grace or cleverness that truly touches our soul. We laugh happily at the cleverness of a man outwitting his bullies. We laugh sadly at a man when his quirks, full of familiarity, stand up while surrounded by the grand, the powerful, and the sensible. Chaplin's film Modern Times has many examples. Chaplin is harried by the assembly line he works on; he must turn bolts before they go past him on the belt. We laugh for cleverness when he, being chased around the line by a hulking co-worker, angry at some misdemeanor that Chaplin has committed, points to an unturned bolt on the conveyor, so that the man must scurry back to twist it before it passes altogether. Chaplin has beaten the man on his own ground, and turned the man's machine against him. For a moment we see justice. In the next moment though, things have turned, and Chapl.in is chastised for his running amok. We laugh of puritanism. He wants to deflate pomposity, and through his characters to puncture his audience. But he never wants to take his victims down below common, dignified humanity. It is. not poverty that is ridiculous, but poverty trying to be what it is not. It is satire that makes its targets contemptible, and this office will be left to the satirist. The comic is more like a man who opens his oven door too soon on a ·scuffle, only to discover later the nobility of soggy eggs. If true comedy can find its deeper mark, it will purge our lunacy and bolster in us a hearty, fraternal love for our fellow. · I do not think that this explication of comedy is right. But the idea that comedy is medicinal may help us understand . Moli~re. . . Comedy has never had much respect for common sense. Meredith cites Don QUixote as an example of the comic. I, too, agree that it is a fine instance. Meredith's formula would say that we laugh at Don QUixote because of his idiocy, but we respect his humanity. I do not want to discuss the novel here, but I would say that we delight in his aspirations rather than his vulgarity, and have scorn for the Duke and the Duchess for their cruel, wrongheaded love of common sense. Meredith has comedy take down its victim and then embrace him in. his naked embarrassment, like a man who laughs a ruddy, joshing laugh with his son because, even though the son is ridiculous, the man's love for him does not diminish. Meredith asks a lot from the comic audience. I think we revel in folly, and take delight in the proper sort of lunatic because we wish his idiocy would triumph in life. There is a theory that says that humor comes from the shock to the mind when it is presented with what seems like a weighty idea, but which we almost immediately see is an empty.notion. This explanation, which is as true as any I have heard, tells us why comedy is so closely connected to joking. Comedy fosters the airs we put on, and our self-indulgences. It lets us believe for - J7 - · - - -. ,-- I . Ill !I 11 �'""' I .i (heartily) when his employer brings in his feeding machine (designed to eliminate the inefficient lunch break) . The mac.hine pours soup down Chaplin's front, feeds him bolts, spins an ear of corn in his mouth at tremendous speed, and, after each of these, wipes his mouth rather bluntly with a sponge. Chaplin's face lets us see for a moment that familiar inefficiency is better than efficiency. We might hope that there would be such strong evidence whenever the productive spirit tries to rub out one of our homey pleasures. We laugh again, mournfully, when we see Chaplin in the bathroom at the plant, sneaking a cigarette, and next we see a huge video screen, lighting up with the face of ~is employer, which orders hiif! back. to work.. Such a plea!?ure, obviously enjoyed, would have been triumph for us if it had been allowed. Finally, we laugh when, running out of the plant away from his angry superiors, he stops at the time-clock to punch out, and, running back in having found the police outside, he stops to punch in. He maintains his flustered life even while he is so painfully under the thumb of his methodical employers. In each case we see for a moment an o·cder that we think is superior in action, and, almost immediately, the power of what makes that order no more than a wish. Meredith mentions exposing ancient coquettes as stuff for comedy. But we all would like to see age defied, and an innocent love of frippery last. This desire, followed soon by the truth, makes better comedy than the truth alone. In the movie version of Gone With the Wind the dashing Rhett Butler hears a noise when Mamie, his old, overweight black maid walks by. "Mamie", he says, "what's that rustling sound?" Mamie lifts up her black cotton skirts to show that she is wearing what was a present from him; a red taffeta petticoat. We can not supress a smile. We do not laugh at this woman's folly. We laugh at her wonderful impudence in the face of fat and old age. James Thurber is perhaps the great master of this, the funniest of the forms of -comedy. There is a story about himself, breaking his glasses and not going to get them fixed for three days because he .is so pleased to be able to see hazy and strange objects while walking down ordinary streets. There are several stories about words that get twisted in the mouths of foreigners or colored maids. Thurber is usually sad at the end of the. story, to have found out that what sounded weird and macabre is actually quite mundane, and sadder still if the wayward tongue has gone and can not slip again. Above all there is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I can find no simpler example of what I mean by comedy. Mitty's valor in the face of all reality is truly touc;;hing, and his wild thoughts and attention to the least detail of the · cliche's of heroism are endlessly funny. There is a third, more sophisticated kind of comedy, and this is where Moliere lives. The mental turn-about is made with bulkier things than it was in the last form, and the transition can not be made so deftly. The essential discrepancy here is between our life inside the theater and our life outside it. Outside the theater we have a somber piety towards religion. Inside we see how religious men can betray us. Outside the theater we sometimes feel a righteous spleen at hypocrisy. Inside, we see spleen with its pants down, we see how self-serving it can be. This form of comedy does not aim at truth: the poet is not a muckraker. It wants to shake our sensibilities, to see if it can knock off the crust of respectability that grows over the merely old, or the mask of misanthropy or humble piety that is sometimes worn over vanity or greed. When this sort of comedy is impish, it is like the following scene from the Marx Brothers' movie, A Night at the Opera: Harpo, the mute, honking brother, is approached by a bum, who asks for help tow a rd a cup of coffee. Ha rpo reaches down into his clown pants and pulls out a steaming cup of coffee and a saucer, and, handing it to the bum, walks away. I think that this is comic not because Har~o has a full cup in his pants pocket a 58 ·typewriter was delivered to her by mistake (sample dialogue; "Oh no George, my virginity is a priceless thing to me.") The family manufactures candy and fireworks, and prints up leaf lets which, by happenstance, are filled mostly with quotations from Trotsky (God is the state. The state is God.) Of course, much of the play's humor comes from a juxtaposition of the two families. At times the philosophy of the play seems to be the title's; that you can't take it with you. But characters in the comedy say things like; "Five years ago I just wanted to have fun. I used to think that was enough, but now I just don't know". The work never decided the question. What it does do is present· the audience with the possibility of living to h~ve_fun. (Trouble is taken to show that it would be poss lb le for this family to live outside of the theater.) The absurdity of this play comes from its showing the achievers on the bottom, stripped of the respectability that America had given them. The sting of it comes from the possible superiority, and even stranger the possible existence, of this situation. Tartuffe is similar. Its ending, where the king takes the role of God, must be taken as ironic. The play's true ending is that Orgon is sent to prison and his family to the gutter. Moli~re shows us a man who uses piety to disinherit an upperclass family. It shows us how piety can be everything that its reputation is not. It is true, or at least very likely, that Tartuffe shows us not what Moli~re thought was possible, but what he thought was a common occurance. Tartuffe is a black comedy, and its wit suffers for this. The Misanthrope is a working model of court society. The characters may seem hollow, and a few struts may show, but it helps us understand ho~ this rather spurious confederacy works. Hypocricy is essential to Alceste. It is what he craves most, and he is willing to squander a duke's ransom losing a lawsuit so that he can rail_ ag.ainst it. He admits to (although this is perhaps what makes us laugh). Everybody knows that that bum doesn't want coffee. He knows, though, that if he asks us to help him to a pint of Thunderbird, he won't get his dime. We understand him, and he us. But we will nonetheless play the game. The comedy in this scene bullies a thoughtless convention. Meredith mentions many times that the equality of women is important to the comic spirit, but he never says why. The reason is, I think, that women desenfe equality in many ways, but do not get it because of the empty traditions of society. This is perhaps why Moliere makes the most sensible characters of both Tartuffe and The Misanthrope female. This idea does· not seem comic today. This is because women have all but achieved lequality. Meredith did not see that it is essential_ that women be nearly but not quite equal, so that comedy could be made out of the discrepancy between good sense and habit. Twenty years ago a successful comedy might have been made merely by having black actors play white roles, and white black. The laughs might have come from the seeming absurdity of the situation, but the sting would have come from its plausibility. Now that the lie that blacks are an inferior race has been exposed this comedy would have no punch. Nor would it have had an effect when blacks were fully slaves. Only if the question of black equality were loose and stirring up trouble in society could the idea be the basis for a comedy. George Kaufman and Moss Hart's comedy You Can't Take It With You is about the engagement bf the son of the president of a respectable New York City business to a secretary at that firm. The young women is the sanest member of a somewhat lunatic family. The patriarch of the family spends most of his time playing darts and going to university commencements. The mother has, at the start of the play, been writing her own plays for eight years, since it has been that long since a 59 �,J Orgon that he has no gre.at taie.nt for poetry. Yet he can not bear tci .be anything less than absolute judge of anything, and when he is absolute judge, he condemns. Orgon' s sonnet is not so very bad, nor Alceste's rustic ditty very good. But, having been asked his opinion, he can not restrain himself. Philante says he expects no good qualities from men. If this were true he could have no friends, or perhaps no more among men than among wolves. But he is peculiarly affected by his contrapositive, Alceste. He is bent on disuading him from his retreat into the desert. He would not feel this compulsion unless he thought Alceste a man of worth. He is attached to Alceste's forthrightness. This virtue engages him; it is a standard py which he hopes he can square himself and (or perhaps, even in his own mind, in spite of) his leaky views. These two friends need one another reciprocally and serve one another admirably. Celim~ne is a delight to the audience. Her gossip scene with the two marquis is perhaps the high point of the play. Comedy was made to endorse such frippery. The audience can indulge itself there. . It is no wonder that Celim~ne is the hub of the circle ·of the people of this play, that she p.ot only pulls in Alceste, but most of the other men and their hangers-on. She is what high society offers; beauty, spritly talk and clever slander. She indulges herself knowing that she, too, is a target for gossip; her libel comes from a true sportsman's spirit. We bear ludicrous society for her refinements. The Misanthrope is a white comedy. It showed Louis's court how shaky compliment and insult are as pillars of society. It took their code of conduct and broadcast that it was farcical.· The joke is that the loudest opponent of hypocrisy lives a life of utter falsehood. And Celimene, the great magnet of the court, does her entertaining mostly by putting others down. By this account, one could almost think that Louis's court could throw away its pompous idea that an insult is a grave thing. I should think that a member of high society would come away from the theater, having seen The Misanthrope, ready for a little airy and innocent gossip. He would, however, have to fear a law suit. Like the bum and his cup of coffee, society will never say what it really wants, nor tell the truth about what hold~ it together. The sad ending to the play has to do with Celimene. She deserves something for being the spectacle that draws the crowd. What she deserves is what she has at the opening of the play; a troop of adoring men. The men who want to live the life of the court ought to be willing to share the main attraction. But no man in this play is willing to have a part of Celimene' s ,affections. They stay only as long as t.hey have some. hope of getting them all. In the end, they all try to damn her to a solitary life. At any party, the band gets to drink free. They are, after all, providing the entertainment. The same principle should hold for Celim~ne. 60 ... ·- · - .·---··-·---~------------------- �A Note on the Cover In "Kepler and the Mode of ·vision," in theJuly, 1980, issue of The St. John's Review, Curtis Wilson wrote: Melancholy is pictured in curer's famous engraving of 1513 or 1514, the Melencolia .!· Here we see a winged, presumably celestial being, staring fixedly, evidently in despair. The scene is lit with an eerie light from the moon, a comet, and a lunar rainbow. Strewn about in bewildering disorder are the tools of geometrical and architectural construction. She, the celestial being, is afflicted, we surmise, with a sense of spiritual confinement, of insurmountable barriers separating her from a higher realm of thought. Durer's conception of that highest realm is presented in another engraving which he made at the same time as the Melencolia, and distributed with it as its appropriate counterpart: St. Jerome in his Cell. Here Jerome, comfortably :: ' ~---------·-~-~- --. -- - ·- - seated in his warm, sunlit cell, which he shares with his contented animals, is absorbed in his theological work. Even the skull looks friendly. Jerome's incorporation into the strictly mathematical projection of our perspectival system, though it reveals his contentment, in no way reveals the secret of it, which may remain for some of us inaccessible ••• For all we know, the perspecti vi ty revealed by the fact that we opine, and that opinion is not knowledge, may be the correct perspective. In any case, our perspectival viewing reveals a world into which we, along with others, are launched as essentially equal citizens. We recognize others, equally with ourselves, as potential measures of the truth. The claims of others call us out of our particularity into discourse, into the search for Right Opinion. This is a category unknown to skeptics, a human category revealing both our poverty and our power. �i I St. John's College Annapolis, "'.\1ary1and 21404 ~ ! I I Pnnted at· the St. John·a College Print Shop in Annapolu � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cooper, Barbara Davis, Matthew Holland, Christian Maguire, Susan Miller, Richard Monsma, Fritz Sharp, Marion Sachs, Joe, 1946- Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1982 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1982. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1982 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1da4e0ffd3ccc6a2095dbeed71cfc01c.pdf febe3aefec5007982aa7c84185da8cd8 PDF Text Text ~~---"2Siic--·-,-,..T-..i~..---i'in-iro~~-r-~-...;::17r'--..,..~~-r--.~~-lr---.i~--,~ --1& q"t---........ SPRING, 1983 �CONTENTS PLATO'S FRIENDSHIP 1 ON SHAKESPEARE'S SONNET LXXI Laurence Berns 11 THE GENESIS OF MODERN SCIENCE IN GALILEO'S CONCEPT OF MATHEMATIZABLE NATURE Pierre H. Gragnier 13 - ON THE NATURE OF CONES AND CONIC SECTIONS Michael Landry -20 SUBSTANCE IN BOOK VII OF THE METAPHYSICS Cover: POINT OF TRA NQUILITY by M o rris Lo uis (1 912-1962). 1958, A cry lic. Photo courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , Smithsonian Institution , Washington , 0 . C. Llffey Thorpe Lisa Tomasi 26 A TRANSLATION OF VALERY'S ''PALME" John Tracy 30 THE BREATH OF KINGS: ON THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD THE SECOND Jonathan Antonio Edelman 33 A NOTE ON THE MATTHEW PASSION Elliott Zuckerman 43 NO EXIT A TRANSLATION OF SARTRE'S HUIS CLOS Wendell Finner 47 IN THE WAKE Andrew J. Krivak 24 THE TRESTLE - Andrew J. Krivak 25 CITY BLOCKS Richard E. Miller 29 SHORT STORY Liz Waldner 42 POEM John S. Carnes 46 Printed by the St. John 's College Press St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland ; WILLING BUT WEAK Poetry �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. STAFF Kathleen Bergren Ann Burlein Barbara Cooper Christian Holland Susan Maguire Martin Marklin Richard Miller Alexandra Mullen Joe Sachs Merle Sokolik Plato's Friendship Liffey Thorpe that I went to a college that required all its freshmen to study one year of Greek. But my choice to continue with the language, after the external compulsions to do so were removed, stemmed from my conviction that I could not befriend Plato, which I very much wanted to do, unless I could enter and inhabit his world, as I believed I could only do by learning his language. That was twelve years ago, and on good days I can almost believe that I have entered, and do inhabit Plato's world, if only as a resident alien. I should say, I think, that while I have come to believe that a deep acquaintance with Plato cannot be achieved without Greek, knowledge of Greek by no means guarantees understanding, much less friendship. And I am also aware that there are many people who read the dialogues in translation only, who deal better with the philosophical issues in them than many who read the dialogues in Greek --and I include myself. Still, it's one of those academic oddities, that while very few people would ever think of devoting themselves to Dante, or to Lady Murasaki, or to Homer or Aeschylus, without knowledge of the author's languages, not a few people who have, .at best, a passing-fair familiarity with the Greek alphabet, write books and articles on Plato, and on Aristotle, every day. And in light of this, I shouldn't be surprised, though I often am, at how often Plato's dialogues are discussed with little or no reference to their dramatic There are two kinds of things that I want to talk about this afternoon. First, I want to describe for you some of the reasons I have had for befriending--and being befriended by--Plato. This may make the afternoon somewhat more personal than those who asked me to speak intended. But I will try to compensate for this in the other thing I am planning, that is, to demonstrate some of the particular ways in which reading Plato's dialogues in Greek, rather than ·in translation, can make a difference, a difference not only in how one apprehends Plato's thought, but even sometimes, in what one apprehends. But I assume-that most of you already believe at least some of this, that whenever possible, it is preferable to read an author's works in that author's language, rather than in translation. It is one of those widely circulated opinions that translation means sacrifice, if not . complete sacrifice of meaning, then sacrifice of a good deal of an author's sense. Still, I know that I am usually curious about just what this sacrifice entails in the case of a particular author. I would like, for instance, to have a sense of the sense of Dante's Inferno, or of Lady Murasaki's Tales. And so it is on my mind today to try to convey to you some of that "sense of the sense" of Plato, what the experience of approaching Plato's thought through his language may be like. Let me first explain how it was I began to read Plato in Greek. It is true Liffey Thorpe is a former student on the Annapolis campus. She is now teaching at Earlham; this talk was first delivered before that community November 3, 1982. 1 �and linguistic features, as if Plato's meaning could be apprehended quite apart from the particular dramatic contexts with which he chose to give form and shape to that meaning. And yet, people who do not experience Plato in his language rarely, if ever, feel that a distinction between a dialogue's logos- -what is said--and its erga- -what is done, between the matter and the manner of matter, is a useful, or even possible distinction to make. Let me begin, then, by explaining something of the provenance of my relationship with Plato. I th ink you know that last month our freshmen class read the Lys is in Humanities. The Lysis was, for many, their first encounter with Plato. And I got to thinking, as we were reading it, and as thoughts of this lecture began to loom, that it had been almost exactly twelve year s since I had read a dialogue for the first time. I was then a freshman at St. John's College, and the dialogue was not the Lysis, but an even shorter work, the Ion. But St. John's made up for the brevity of that first encounter by requ1r1ng us, in subsequent weeks, to read as wel 1: the Apology, the Cri to, the Euthyphron, the Phaedo, Theaetetus, Sophist, Parmenides, Timaeus, Meno, Gorgias, Phaedrus, Symposium, and the Republic. You could say that St. John's tried harder to Platonise its freshmen than Boswell did to Johsonise his land. And you might also expect that, given this immersion-theory of platonisation, it would have been surprising had my affection for Plato failed to take root. But my first impressions of the dialogues were pretty inauspicious, as I ·rememher them. And the marginalia that litte r ~y first volume of Plato's dia logues c nf irm that I was, on the whole, unenchanted by Sokrates, nonplussed by the bizarre conversations he habitually struck up with anyone he happened to run into, and annoyed--as people who don't under stand what they are reading. I wanted to believe that Sokrates was no fool, because people whose opinions I trusted seemed to think he was not. But secretly, I was convinced that Sokrates suffered from having been born before most people had had time to figure most things out. After a while, we moved en classe to some of the headier dialogues: the Parmenides and the Theaetetus. I didn't know what epistemology was, but I did begin to think that Sokrates was getting a lot smarter. I enjoyed the third-man argument, what I understood of it . And al though I thought it odd that crates of pigeons and wax tablets should occur to anyone as useful models of cognitiveretrieval systems, I wasn't sure I could come up with anything better. It struck me that human error was not so easy to explain, that how most people know things; and how they manage to make mistakes about the things they suppos~dly know, were questions worth thinking about. So I was partialiy converted, though not yet what I could call a friend. I mentioned that by design of the St. John 's curriculum I was, at the same time, taking a year of Greek . And this is where you will see how I finally capitulated and became a friend and admirer of Plato's. Learning Greek at St. John's might best be described as the "hit-or-miss" theory of language learning. It is college policy that every teacher at St. John's should, at one time.or another, teach all the courses of the curriculum. As it happened, my Greek teacher was still trying to achieve detante with the first declension on the day classes began. (I might add that, despite this, Bob Anderson was the most important teacher of my life.) I didn't learn much Greek that year, but for some reason I liked it, and that winter I decided to · apply my very rudimentary skills to Plato's Cri to--the choice was merely fortuitous, as the Crito was the only Greek text I then owned . If I have anything true to say to you today, it is that nothing on earth more effectively slows down one 's ability to read a complete sentence than Greek. If you want to experience deliberate, painstaking, incremental comprehension, the sort where, midway through a sentence you've forgotten what was said at the beginning, and could almost believe that, 1 ike one of Zeno's paradoxes, no matter 2 how much you cover, you will never reach an end-~try reading something in Greek. I spent a month reading the first page of the Crito. And I was more acutely aware of what I was reading than I had ever before been. I became aware of how deliberately Plato had chosen words, words whose connotations were often highly apposite to the visible situation of Sokrates' incarceration and imminent execution. In particular, I came to one exchange between Sok rates and Cri to that gave me special trouble. (You may remember that the Crito is the dialogue in which Crito comes to Sokrates in his prison, on behalf of Sokrates' friends, to persuade him to escape; Sokrates declines the offer.) At a certain point, Sokrates explains to Cri to how he knows that he will not be executed on the following day, but on · the day after that. He says that he had had a dream, in which a woman appeared to him and announced: "Oh Sokrates, nµaTL XEV TPLTaTw ~~Lnv EPL8w~ov ~XOLO~ ~ - The six words I have just read slowed down my reading even more, because they are written, not in Plato's attic Greek, but in the more ancient, epic dialect. The six words form a single line of epic hexameter, so it took me longer to . figure out what Sokrates' dream-lady was saying: "Oh Sokrates, on the third day you will reach lovely Phthia." Now once I had this, I became curious to know what poem Sokrates' dream was making reference to. The line is from Iliad Book IX, and it is Akhilles who speaks these words: "On the third day I will reach lovely Phthia." --Akh~lles, when he refuses to be persuaded by his friends, who have come to persuade him to return to battle against Troy. His friends off er several face-saving proposals, but Akhilles, whom Homer calls by his epithet µLvuw.5'a6Lo~ "minute-lived," because he is young and doomed and he will, in fact, return to battle and die, and will never see his homeland again--Akhilles says he will leave Troy and start home: "And on the third day I will reach lovely Phthia." I was struck by two things as I considered this. First, that the word naming Akhilles' homeland, Phthia, ~~Ln , is very nearly another word, ~~Lw , [phthio], meaning, "to perish1 to waste away and vanish." The pun, if it was intended, is in Homer, reflecting, perhaps, Akhilles' unique dilemma, that, stay or leave, either way he is doomed to perish, either by quick death ~n the battlefield, or through living out an obscure, invisible life in Phthia that would earn him namelessness forever. And I was struck, too, by what seemed to be the unavoidable suggestion of a compari•on between those two critical moments in the lives of Akhilles and Sokrates, where the refusal to be persuaded by friends would have profound mortal consequences for each. But the comparison is not an exact fit. In something of a similar situation, Sokrates, unlike Akhilles, never wavers in his conviction that what he is doing is right, while Akhilles will finally change his mind, and will choose heroic immortality. It made me aware, this passage, of Plato urging me to reflect on the heroic dimensions of his Sokrates, who, in his stark jail cell, faces a choice .that even the most splendid pattern of Greek heroes faced. And in · a way , the dream transformed that visible cell and placed Sokrates right there on the plains of Troy. I read the next line, Crito' s response to Sokrates' dream: five words, utterly clear: "AToltov To €vunv1..ov ili rwxpaTE~ • "Your dream, Sokratea, is aTOltOV {atopon]." That word aTOltO\) means, literally, "without a place," "placeless." "Your dream, Sokrates," says Cri to, "has no place here." If you read a translation of ~Crito, you will most likely find - Cri to' s reply translated something like, "Strange dream, that, Sokratesl" This isn't really inaccurate, for aTonov comes to mean "strange." But in this translation we lose a good deal of the irony of Crito's obtuseness, his failure to see how perfectly in place and appos.ite Sokrates' Homeric dream is. It was here, then, that I saw the place, the Teno~, {toposl, that Plato had 3 �He does not know what . a getting into. He cannot say what a sophist sophist is. And he only dimly "thinks he teaches. what he might learn from knows" Protagoras. At this point, Sokrates delivers one of his rare lectures. .I can't quote the whole of it, but according to Sokrates, sophists are like people who sell foods, but with these differences: one, in what they sell, for food vendors sell nourishment for the body, while sophists sell nourishment for the soul. The second difference is in how they sell their wares: for food vendoTs sell foods in containers that can be carried home and examined, to avoj d the risk of cofl sumi. ng poisonous or harmful foods; whereas sophists sell what is necessarily, as it were, consumed on the premises. For there exists no container to carry away what these men sell . Hippokrates asks what it is that sophists sell, and it is Sokrates' answer that I want to quote you from two current English translations, the ones you would be most likely to read . The first is taken from the by Bobbs- Merrill edition, translated Martin Ostwald. Hippokrates asks what created for me, the reader of his Cri to. Sokrates does not explain his dream, or the allusion to Akhilles; and yet the allusion is unmistakably there. And at that moment, I no longer tried to identify my point of view with the person Sokrates is speaking to, with Crito. I became a third person in the dialogue, a person for whom Plato was taking special pains to point out what Crito himself seems not · to notice. This passage from the Cri to illustrates, then, what is always evident to me in Plato's dialogues, the deliberateness with which Plato invites, and sets a place, a 1onos, for his audience, so that we become, not merely listeners , but shareholders in the dialogue -- as when Sokrates' Homeric dream invites me to envision what is not actually visible, that scene in Iliad IX . I will try to go a 1 i ttle further now, and discuss why I think Plato's attempt to involve his audience so directly in the dialogues can be crucial to his ulterior, philosophical aims . The passage I want next to consider comes from the Protagoras. And I will need to give some contextual background first. Early in the Protagoras, Sokrates engages in a conversation with a young Athenian, Hippokrates. Hippokrates is older than, say, Lysis and Menexenus. He has finished his education in the gymnasi um, and now wants to do graduate work with the sophist Protagoras . Hippokrates is so eager to study with Protagoras that he tells Sokrates, with all the innocent candor of someone who has never had to earn a living, that he is prepared to pay Protagoras not only all of his own mon ey- -b ; wh i ch I suppose he means his parents ' money--but is prepared to pay the sophist all his friends' money as well. Sok rates, of course, hasn't got ar.y money, but Hippokrates knows that Sokrates does have a gift for getting people's attention, and hopes that he will agree to introduce him to Protagoras. But in the course of their interview--you can probably anticipate this--it transpires that Hippokrates has little idea what he's sophists sell, and Sokrates replies,· "Surely," I said, "knowledge is the food of the soul; and we must take care, my friend, that the Sophist does not deceive us when he praises what he sells, ..... For there is far greater risk in buying knowledge, than in buying food and drink . The one you purch~se of the wholesale or retail dealer and carry them away in other vessels ..... But you cannot buy knowledge and carry it away in other vessels; when you have paid for it, you must receive it into the soul and go on your way, either greatly harmed or greatly benefited." This is also, in essence, the translation found in the Modern Library series. In the Bollingen collected dialogues, this passage, translated by Mr. Guthrie, reads: "Indeed, the risk you run in purchasing knowledge is much greater than in buying provisions. When you 4 What Sokrates is really talking about here, then, is the problem of received opinions and learning. The problem looks something 1 ike this: Knowledge, the apprehension of truth, is never fallible, never in error. And knowledge, whatever it may be, must be grasped from out of those things that we have in mind; for it seems impossible that we could ever know something that we don't have in mind. But we can have lots of things in mind: false opinions as wel 1 as true opinions. But the certainty that what we have in mind is true, not false, opinion--the certainty that we have apprehended the truth, knowledge -- can only be gotten through examination, o~E~L..Sr [skepsis]. And the difficulty is, that to merely learn things--that is, simply to take them in, whatever you are told--provides no container, no ayyECov [aggeion], to use Sokrates' word: something by which it becomes possible to hold learning at a distance while it is examined for possible truth. It is here that recollection, as Sokrates speaks of it in the Meno and elsewhere, becomes important: since truth can never be grasped in what is immediately seen, or simply learned, it must be buy food and drink, you can carry it away from the shop or warehouse in a receptacle, .••.• But knowledge cannot be taken away in a parcel. When you have paid for it, you must receive it directly into your soul, benefitted or harmed accordingly." Now I want to consider, first, what Sokrates seems to be saying about the matter, ~ Protagot:"as sells, which in these translations is "knowledge." If you had to reason out Sokrates' epistemology on the basis of these passages, you might conclude that Sokrates, like the often misquoted Pope, thinks that knowledge can be a· dangerous thing, that the knowledge sophists sell has, at least, the potential for doing harm to Hippokrates' soul. We might wonder, does Sokrates--does Plato? - -believe that knowledge can be dangerous because there are some things we ought not know about? Or that too 1 ittle--or too much--knowledge might injure the soul? A reader more familiar with Plato's works might figure that something is suspicious here, since elsewhere, and always, Sokrates is immovable on at least this point, that knowledge, E:noTnJ.lil , is virtue, strength, and a good thing for the soul. And how could what is good for the soul harm the soul? But the word Sokrates uses here to describe the commodity that sophists sell is not the word commonly translated as "knowledge", ETIL..onh1n ,nor even its near synonym, "wisdom" oo<pLa • The word is µa.er)µa Ta' [mathemata] , that is, "learnable th in gs." A mathemata is anything that a person can learn: doxa, opinions, both true ones and false ones. Pope never said that knowledge is a dangerous thing, and neither did Sokrates. But learning could be, because learning--but not knowledge in the very precise sense in which Plato and Sokrates always use that word--learning could be fallible, untrue, deceptive. Sophists like Protagoras sold learning, µa~nµaTa~ and so, for instance, one could, for perhaps three drachmas, purchase a proof for squaring circles, or an argument to demonstrate the existence of not-being. apprehended through a process of skepsis, examination, and will always amount to a kind of second, reflective, sight, a recovery of truth that escaped notice when it wa~ first "seen." · This notion 0£ the danger of received opinion is prevalent, of course, in most dialogues. And it arises, not only in connection with the sophists, but, perhaps more insidiously, in the matter of poetry. I say "insidiously," because poetry was the first and most important leg in a young Athenian's education--as we see, for instance, in the Lysis. Athenian education, to µa~EC'V Ta µa~nµaTa to learn learning, consisted chiefly of memorizing -- taking in mind -- the words of the poets: Homer, Hesiod, Solon, Simonides. Protagoras himself recognizes what is clearly a common opinion among Greeks, that "The mark of a truly educated person is being well-versed in poetry." In the Lysis we see two young boys, Lysis and Menexenus, who are undergoing just such a .5 �skepsis . I will return to this point, because I want to su9gest that in the form of the dialogue, in the particular ways that Plato invites the reader · to take an active part, not mere 1 y as audience, he has attempted to solve that problem of received learning, by designing a contain er, a yy ECov I that forces skepsis. Now I want to look at another passage, also from Protagoras, where again the Greek 1 anguage prov ides a sense that translations often do not . The Protagoras, I should say, is like the Lysis, and at least half of all socratic dialogues, in being a "recollected" dialogue: that is, it is a dialogue that Sokrates Rlready has in mind and is recollecting . In this sense, then, the Protagoras -- and the Lysis -- are not, in the first place, imitations of dialogue , they ar e imitations of monologue recollecting the dialogue . The Protagoras is fairly long . About midway through, in the middle of a dis cussion about human virtue and wisdom and justice, Protagoras answers one of Sokrates' questions by introducing a quite different point on the useful and the good. It's pretty clear that Protagoras is deliberately sabotaging the argument, because he's had enough of Sokrates' questions, and suspects that he is beginning to appear a lau9hingstock, 11 cna y~>-a0 T o <; in front of his colleagues and prosepcti ve students. So Protagoras changes the subject by introducing a short speech on the useful and the good. It really is brief, too: both in comparison with other answers that he has given, and compar·ed with answers that Sok rates h imse 1 f has made. Protagoras' speech earns him plenty of audience applause. But this is what Sokrates says (and here I again quote from two current English translations) : "Protagoras," (he says ) , 11 I have a wre t ched memo r y, and when any one makes a long speech to me, I never remember what he is talking about . . . so now, having such a bad memory, I will ask you to cut your answers shorter." A second translation reads: "Protagoras, I happen to be a "traditional" education, "traditional" in the exact sense of its Greek synonym n:apa61., 6 ova1., [paradidonai] , "to hand over to." Lysis and Menexenus are not empty wax tablets onto which Sokrates introduces new ideas, only later to scratch out. Sokrates is working, as he so often does, with the stuff, the µaBriµarn, , that Ly sis and Menexnus already have in mind: these words of Solon's, the 1 ine of friendship by Homer, and again by Hesiod, the opinions of Empedocles, and Euripides, the ideas of more contemporary th inkers, the anti-logicians, and the sophists. Their heads are full of "received wisdom" by the time Sokrates talks to them. And even in the dialogue's name, Lysis,/\.uoL s , as any Greek speaker would have heard, we can hear the sense_ of "breaking down," or "destroying," (as wel 1 as the more favor able sense of "solution , " as to some enigma) . And against those who have maintained that in this dialogue Plato has attempted to vindicate Sokrates of charg~s of co r rupting the young, I can't imagine that Anytus and Meletus could have done better _than this dialogue to find evidence of Sokrates' almost systematic calling into question of the traditional tenets of received wisdom. Let me back up a bit here and just review what point I wanted to make about that passage from the Protagoras. Sokrates objects, not simply to the matter that sophists sell,--and now I mean to include poetry, too--but, more important, his objection is made about the manner in which all µa.BnµaTa, learning, is received: uncritically, without a container that would make skepsis possible . I have talked about one passage from · the Cri to and one from the Protagoras. In both instances, translation has tended to obscure, or to distract from, Plato's meaning. I have also brough t up, in connection with the Protagoras, a particular way in which Plato, through Sokrates, articulates the "problem of learning," and of received opinions and ideas. For learning is received in the mind, or the soul, uncritically, that is, without a container, ayyE COV , that WOU 1 d encourage 6 forgetful sort of person, and if someone speaks to me at length, I forget what he is talking about ... So since you are dealing with someone with a bad memory, cut your answers short and make them briefer." Even in these translations, you're not likely to miss the irony. In fact, if Sokrates is claiming to "have a bad memory, 11 --that he cannot remember what Protagoras has just been saying--it wouldn't amount to a very interesting irony, since it would be merely and blatantly false. For it is obvious by the very conditions of the Protagoras-remember I said it was a recollected dialogue--that Sokrates has no trouble recalling verbatim entire conversations, including, here, Protagoras' disquisition on the useful and the good, as well as his own claim of having a bad memory. Only o ne translation of the two I read conveys in part better the sense of Sokrates' words, £n:LA.noµwv TL,~ wv [epilesmon tis on tungkano], "I happen to be a forgetful sort of person. 11 'Ei(1.,/..,noµwv, [epilesmon], the wo rd often translated as "having a bad memory," is an adjective from the verb epilanthanomai meaning "to escape o ne's own notice," "to forget." Now it is merely false for Sokrates to claim to have a bad memory. His capacity to recall what is said is never, in any dialogue, a matter of dispute, (although Ei(LATlalJWV could convey the sense of "bad memory," describing, that is, a constitutional incapacity for remembering.) But when Sok rates says he is £n: 1., A.noµwv, and in view of the evidence that he does not suffer from an inability to recall what is said, we may avail ourselves of that other sense of E:n:1.,A.noµwv that is, "forgetful." In this sense, E: j( 1., A. naµwv describes one who is 1 iable to fail to notice something, but without connoting that forgetfulness is any permanent condition. Thus, for instance, when Sokrates says in the Apology that he almost "forgot same verb himself" (using that epilanthanomai) because his accusers spoke so persuasively, we need not think he means that he was ever in serious jeopardy of permanent amnesia of his identity; only that, confronting those false appearances promoted by Anytus and Meletus, Sokrates momentarily lost sight of his true self. When, then, Sokrates claims to be EnLAnoµwv in the Protagoras, he is not merely telling a great lie about his ability to recall--! grant that level of irony--he is as well telling a great truth about himself: that he is a profoundly forgetful person, a person, that is, who is ever intent on recovering, in the face of conflicting or false appearances, something that is true, but that has somehow escaped his notice. Sokrates is (n: 1., )..r)oµwv in that sense of being always self-conscious of a concern for the forgotten, the unnoticed. Indeed, . this sense of forgetfulness is at the very heart of Sokrates' habitual self- recognition: that he knows that he does not know: he is self-conscious of his ignorance, his failure to notice, truth that is concealed by appearances. I want to point out, too, that in the example I have been talking about, in the Protagoras, it is not, I think,Protagoras' speech that Sokrates really means he is liable to forget. It is, he says~ n:E:p 1., o ~ 6 A.oy os ~ v "what the argument was about. 11 And this, I take it, is not the sophist's disquisition on the useful and the good, but those more remote arguments about human virtue and justice and courage. But what difference does it make, how we understand EltL ATfoµw v--not as "having a bad memory," but as "forgetful"? I have mentioned the Greek names for a number of words I have talked about. And now I want to introduce one more, the word for "truth, 11 &)..nBE1.,a, [aletheia]. The etymology of this word has been disputed, but many Greeks, and certainly Plato, regarded a/.., rl~E \., CI. 1 S etymon as derived from A.avBavw, [ lanthano]: )..n{Jn , [lethe], meaning "forgotten. II Thus aAr)BE LCI., truth --the "a" negates lethe--means something like "unforgotten" or "un-concealed." In fact, th~s same word A.n~n is contained in that very word for forgetful,En:L)..noµwv. 7 �only what Plato says, but how Plato says: my sense that Plato alway~attempted to create a room, a place, for his reader. To conclude I want to turn to the dialogue that is explicitly concerned with friendship, the Lysis . Here, Sokrates attempts to elicit from two young boys, Lysis and Menexenus, a definition of what a friend is . We have only to look at the conclusion to see that the attempt fails: "But what a friend is, we have been unable to dis cover . 11 The immediate reason for the failure is the intrusion of the two pedagogues who have come to take Lysis and Menexenus away; had they not _app~ared, Sokrates intended to turn the conversation ov~r t0 those standing on the periphery, oL TIEPlEOT W TES [hoi periestotes] , the observers of conversation. The failure of the Lysis makes it one of those dialogues sometimes described as "aporetic," which is to say, inconclusive, unsuccessful. That word, "aporetic," like two other words I have mentioned today--aletheia and atopon- -is compounded of the negative prefix a - and a noun: nopos. ITopos is a lovely word . It is cognate with our words "port" and "ford"-- TIOpo s means "a way" or "a passageway from here to there," a road that gets somewhere. Thus "a- poretic" dialogues are so- called because they fail to complete a passage, fail to get from here to there. Sok.r ates speaks the word TIO po s in describing at the end of the Lysis the two pedagogues: they were, he says, anopo1., lAporoi], that is, impossible to get past, impossible to get through. And so, he continues, we had to break up the discussion, 6 1.,EA. uoa -µ Ev: you can hear Lysis' - Auo1.,s - name in that word, dielusamen. So the discussion breaks up. And yet, we cannot be satisfied, I think, that the afternoon was merely u~successful. For we must keep in mind that th e whole Lysis is a performance of Socratic recollection, which at least implies that, al though the actual conversation achieved no llG ~os , somehow i n the reco] lection of it, and the OHE(j;l S of it- - the distanced examination of it--maybe there exists some Tiopo s; some way of getting to the truth, (It is also the name of the mythological river of forgetfulness, the Lethe . I guess I'm lucky my parentE didn't know Greek when they thought to name me after a river.) Some of you may recogniz.e what I am saying from Martin Heidegger's Introduc tion to Metaphysics, where he discusses aA.n~ElO., as being, for the Greeks a matter of unconcealment, the apprehension of what is there but has escaped notice, has been forgotten. At any rate, for Plato, it was in the nature of truth, aA. nBE 1.,a, to make its appearance as something unforgotten, disclosed. It is this performance of recollection that Sokrates speaks of in the Meno, the process, through skepsis, of apprehending what has momentarily escaped notice. In the Lysis, for instance, Sokrates describes philosophy as that desire for what one properly possesses but does not grasp, namely, wisdom. For Sok rates, philosophy is that desire for wisdom in the face of ignorance, which makes him the perfectly f orgetful man, attending always to the attempt to discover, through skepsis I the truth I l~A nB E \., 0., and to recognize it as truth, to remember what he has forgotten, to notice what has escaped notice. Socratic forgetfulness has less --if anything--to do with "having a bad memory" as with Sokr.ates' habitual self-consciousness that he is failing to notice something, failing to notice the truth. I said I was going to try to convey something of the experience of reading Plato in Greek. In some instances, it is the experience of apprehending connotations that are difficult to convey in translation: the sense of ctTOITOV as "out of place" as well as, more idiomatically, "strange," or £:TI 1., A. rfoµw v as "forgetful" rather than "having a bad memory;" and the sound of A.nBn in ETILAno µuJV and aA.r)Baa And it is also the experience of apprehending with perhaps more accuracy what Plato means, as for example uctBnµa1u ,learning, but not knowledge. I said, too, that I wanted to explain something of what endears me to Plato's words, and makes me regard Plato as something of a friend--that I enjoy not a 8 aA.nBELO'.. Yet it is characteristic of aporetic and recollected dialogues that Sokrates never adverts to direct speech to tell us the result of his OHE(j;LS. The Lysis gives us only that imitation of Sokrates' "second-look;" the results of it must finally be ou r own . I began by talking about the conclusion of the Lys is. Now perhaps when I tell you what the first word of that dialogue is, you will hear something in it that you would not have heard before: the first word is EnopEBoµnv, [eporeuomen]. ' ETiopEuoµn \. is a verb, and in .m ost English translations you will find that this word has been translated, "I was walking" or "I was going ." There are at 1 east a dozen verbs in the Greek vocabulary that mean something like going or walking or traveling on foot. ~Plato chose the verb poreuomai, which means travel, but particularly, literally in the sense of making ~ opos a passage for oneself . Thus when Sok rates begins ,ETiopn1oµnv, he is saying, "I was attempting to make a way for myself" --I've translated that "attempting," because the form is in the imperfect tense, and this imperfect--uncompleted--aspect does not imply · that the activity was completed. "I was attempting to make a way for myself," says Sokrates, "from the Academy to the Lyceum." In fact, for all we know, Sokrates never did get to the Lyceum; at least his attempt was frustrated by those people who persuafied him to enter the gymnasium instead . But cnopc1c5µnv I tells us something else, not about Sokrates' literal travel between two places, but about his travel in speech, what he later describes as "a difficult road," the conversation about friendship with Lysis and Menexenus, where he attempted to find his way. So we hear in ETiopEuo11nv the literal nopo~ that Sokrates attempts and fails, to cross the distance between Academy and Lyceum; and the hint, too, of that figurative travel, in speech, to get from the appea ra nce of friendship to a knowledge of what a friend is, and this too fails. But I want to suggest that in ETiopEuoµ nv we h~ar the p~ssibility of a third rropos 9 attempted, that is, the recollection of truth. For we have, in the Ly sis, not direct conversation, but conve rsat ion at a remove, a distance, contained in the imitation of socratic OXE~LS. And so for us, the reader, the Lysis becomes a road that we, too, may travel. Let me give you one example of the sort of thing that we, as readers, are able to notice in the Lysis, something that suggests that although the Tiopos was not found in speech, something at least was accomplished in the course of the dialogue, something encouraging. Throughout the Lysis, Lysis and Mene xe nus ~re conspicuously close friends. I say "conspicuous1y" because, in describing them, Plato has chosen to use a rather rare inflection of Greek nouns and verbs, the so-called dual. The dual, which was common enough in epic language consists of a particular set of wordendings that designate pairs of things: hands, eyes, feet, oxen . But as I have said, by Plato's time this form had become obsolete, and twos of things were no longer differentiated from threes or fours or hundreds of things. But Plato makes the friendship between Lysis and Menexenus conspicuous to the Greek reader by always designating these two friends in the dual: E'yEAaochnv aµcpw, "they both-together-as-a-pair laughed"; < LA. w yap E: a T o v , p "for the two of you are friends"; Ecpa1nv, "they spoke together"; 01>vE:cpchnv, "the two agreed in unison ." The boy's unaimity, their absorption in each other, is signified, too, in the early conversation in which Sokrates attempts to distinguish them from each other: Which of you is older? Which nobler? Which wiser? Juster? Wealthier? These are things, says Menexenus, that "we spend a lot of time arguing about." And you cound say that Sokrates' remark, that friends share all things,xoLva Ta TWV cp(A.wv [koina ta ton philon) , applies, at least trivially, to these boys: each shares the other's characteristics; at least, they are unable to distinguish themselves. But by the end of the Ly sis, something has changed. The communality of a �friendship is no longer mone~, looks, age, pedigree , but a shared pursuit of knowl edge in the face of self- conscious ignorance. They are, says Sokrates , t.pLAOL , (philoi 1 , but the object of their love, their desire, is no longer merely one another, but, in the recognition that they are equals in ignorance, a desire for what is truly c.pL.\o v , dear, namely, wisdom. In the final words of the dialogue, Sokrates describes this circle of friends, a circle that is now wider by one, and distinguishes itself as a group of those who stand on the periphe r y, observers but not participants: "Well, now, Lysis and Menexenus, we have become laughing s tocks -- I, an old man, and you . Fo r those people will say as they leave that though we believe ou rs elves frie nds --f o r I place even myself in you r midst --what a friend is, we have been unable to discove r." To the people standing around as observers, O TIEPLEOTWTE~ , the sight of L other people 's ignorance appears as an object o f r idicule : Sokrates and the boys have become laughable in the eyes of others . But am0ng themselves, as friends, friends whose cornmuna 1 i ty is the pursuit of what is truly dear, wisdom, the recognition of ignorance will never appear ridiculous. Before their conversation with Sokrates , Lysis and Menexenus had only themselves as objects of philia . But the dialogue has created a new place, a new T O ll O~ , and a new starting place from which to make a journey, a llopo~. The enlargement of the circle of friends is shown in Sokrates ' words, ~aL Eµ l yap i) µ Cv TL Br µL., [kai eme gar en hurnin titherni), "for I place even myself in your midst . " I began some time ago by saying that on a good day I can be 1 ieve that I have entered, and am inhabiting, Plato's world . For me, the invitation to enter came through the language, Gr eek . It i s 1 an gu age that always for ces r eflection , language that, in its own way, becomes a way, ll opos; • And on good days when I am reading Plato , I can believe that I am standing, not on the periphery of the dialogue among oC llEP LOT W T C~ , but that I, too, "place myself in the midst" of that ci r cle of friends who have all things in common . cv 1 On Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXI laurence Berns No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell. Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot If thinking on me then should make you woe. o, if, I say, you look upon this verse When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much a·s my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life decay, Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone. The first quatrain of this poem is bleak as bleak can be. The poet addresses his love with his own death either :i'..n prospect or accomplished. The funeral ringing of the church bells is sad, bemoaning the loss, but also comforting, raising the hope of passage, perhaps, to a better place. The poet will have none of this comfort: the bell, surly and sullen, warns, even threatens. There is a reminder of the usual expectations, for he does not say " the " or " our " vile world, but "this" vile world, suggesting that there is another. Fleeing from this vile world, supposedly to a more peaceful place~ again rouses religious expectations. This world is styled vile in comparison to that more perfect heavenly one. If the poet wants to remind us of the usual hopes, it is only to dash them to the ground more strongly. This world is vile, but death is a dwelling with greater vileness, with vilest worms. If life is vile, and its ending vilest, the advice of the first line is plausible. Yet, despite - the meaning of the words, the ringing assonance and alliteration of the first four lines is not unpleasant. The steadi--. ness and regularity of the bell's ringing somehow suggests the natural regularity of c9ming into being and passing away. The first clause of the second quatrain repeats the advice of the first lines of the poem. At the same time, howeyer, it draws our attention to the poem itself and "the hand that ~rit it". But the way the advice is offered seems to make it impossible to follow. The sudden change of tone in the sweetly simple declaration, "for I love you so", deepens the paradox. Is this the kind of language lovers are likely to forget? The central word in the first of the central lines of the whol.e poem is "sweet". For lovers Mr . Berns is a tutor at the Annpolis campus. 10 11 �whose love has been mutual the world cannot have been al together vi le. Sweet times breed sweet thoughts. The poet seems to have contrived this poem so as to be remembered, not forgotten by his beloved, but only in the beloved' s sweet · thoughts. Theirs is a proud love. The poet would rather be forgotten, if thinking on him would only bring on woe. By exhorting the reader to do what is impossible, the third quatrain elaborates the conceit of the first line and a half of the second quatrain. The final sestet as a whole is designed to relieve and to sweeten the sadness of the beloved. The poet plays with his beloved even after he is dead. By the ninth line of the poem, "O, if, I say, you look upon this verse", there is no longer any question about whether these lines will be read. Surely, the poet doth protest too much. The advice, however, is backed up by a threat: if the beloved does not forget the poet, the wise world will mock. Along with the sentiments of the first quatrain, the wise world, or the worldly wise, think that all hopes for immortality are ridiculous and vulgar . In this sonnet, taken by itself, the poet seems to agree with the worldly wise. Established religion's consolation, belief in an after-life, seems to be rejected. The words soul and spirit never occur. But the wise world may not be as wise as it thinks: the poet may have found a way of preserving something of himself even after he is gone. He preserves only that ~art of himsel~ whi~h he regards worthy of survival, thi::· sv•eet and playful thought-provoking part. 1 The word "with" in the final line of the poem abounds in fruitful ambiguity. It could mean that the poet will join the wise world in mocking his love if the beloved persists in bemoaning the poet's loss. It could also mean that the wise world would use him, the poet, as the instrument of its mockery. It could even mean that the poet "and" his love "together" will be mocked, if the beloved should openly bemoan their loss. The poet knows that nothing can obliterate the sorrow from the death of those we love. Yet by mixing a spirit of sweet loving playfulness with that sorrow he has contriv2d to transform lover's moans to smiles. . 1. In the third foot of the twelfth line the only major break in metrical regulari ty, substituting anapaest for iamb, suggests that the love is stretched out rather than cut short . 2 . Sonnets LXXI to LXXIV may form some kind of unity. I have tried to interpret Sonnet LXXI by itself. The central lines of Sonnet LXXIV, however, seem to express the central thought of this sonnet as well: The earth can have but earth, which is his due; My spirit is thine, the better part of me. The Genesis of Modern Science In Galileo's Concept of Mathematizable .Nature Pierre H. Gagnier The general aim of !h~ Crisis of th~ Eur opean Scie nces and Transcendental Phenomenology involves the critical exploration of the history of modern philosophy, considered according to its radical meaning as apodeictic science. The task of modern science, and its failure to fulfil that task, contain hidden sources which point to the necessity of a transcendental science . of phenomenology. This science is then developed in light of the examination of the pregiven "life-world", and of the problem of transcendentally ungrounded psychology. In the examination of philosophy, phenomenology is presented as the hidden telos of modern apodeictic science . Husserl opens the whole work with an explication of the crisis of this science. Thus presented, it constitutes a most important motivation for the whole work. In order, however, to understand the crisis and its importance, the nature of science must first be understood. The . beginning of this task lies in the uncovering of the hidden roots of modern science through the examination of its radical f ormation in Galileo ' s thinking. My beginning then will follow closely Husserl's setting out of this genesis, and I will confine my efforts to a more or less pedestrian tracing of his footsteps. Why must analysis of the meaning of modern science begin with a look at Galileo? The task of modern science could not .b e t a ken up until its range was delimited and made specific, and this determination arises out of the re- alization v~rsally of Galileo's idea of a uni - mathematizable world whose nature ' is disclosed through mathematical physics. The motives for this idea will lead us to .the motives~ behind moder~ philosophy whi~h constitute its hidden telos. This first motive arises from a two-fold source, or two_interrelated givens. The first is the array of special sciences inherited from the ancients . Each of these sciences presides over an ~ priori region which is finite; although they yield neceisary truths, these sciences draw their objects from a finite realm. For instance, Euclidian ,geometry is not the science of all of the infinite number of possible, geometric configurations, but rather the science of all the geometrical objects that fall under its exhaustible purveyance. The other given is a new idea about science, a new attitude toward universal and apodeictic reasoning, through which the old sciences are taken up and given infinite tasks. Thus Euclidean geometry leads to the method by which an infinite yet delimited region of possible ! priori- geometrical knowledge is systematically ·disclosed, or in another manner of speaking, it leads to the· method by which the infinite realm of geometrical ~ priori knowledge is systematically constructible in advance according to universal principles. These two givens motivate an unexamined. presentiment in Galileo: that the realm of objective being is a rational tota lity tha t c an be constructed in advance ! priori by its own universal science. This presentiment Pierre H. Gagnier, a junior, wrote this paper for Mr. Lenkowski's prece~torial on Husserl's, The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. 12 13 �leads to the mathematization of nature in Galileo's physics. The meaning of the mathematization of nature can be discovered in the train of thought which led Galileo to it . This train of thought involves presuppositions the problematic nature of which Galileo does not see. First, if we examine what is given for Galileo in this respect, we find 1) that the world presents itself as objective in everyday experience, and 2) that pure mathematics is a science of absolute, self-evident validity. The presupposition that remains unexamined for Galileo is this: it is to be taken for granted that the content of objective experience is the very thing which makes it objective, and is thus its true nature; and this "true nature" consists in ideal mathematical properties . The apodeictic science of these properties is mathemat ics, and specifically, geometry. In orde r to explicate the meaning of this presupposition, the "meaning" of geometry which guided Galileo must be examined . The "meaning" of geometry contains notions of which Galileo may or may not be explicitly aware. Nevertheless our investigation attempts to formulate these notions. In Husserl's analysis of geometry, pure rational geometrical space never means the abstracted transformations which the imagination derives from sense, · for these will always be sensible, however abstract or arbitrary, and they will always be "thinkable only in gradations: the more or less straight, flat, circular, etc. " Sensible things, considered as shapes, whether empirically intuited or abstractly conceived, are only approximately self-identical, that is, approxi ~ately the same things at different times, app r o x . ately the same as themselves, and approx i ma tely the same in other things. They are not exactly identifiable in terms of shape . On the othe r hand , they have shape determinations which are capable of ever more accurate measurement. As the technology of measurement improves, the accuracy of determination improves. As improvement proceeds, it comes to be seen as improvement toward something, and this something comes to mean the ideal lifil= it-shapes of pure geometry. These limit-shapes are unattainable poles of perfection and constitute the realm of "pure thinking", which uses a systematic method of idealization and construction to gain knowledge of this realm. Rut this root meaning of geometry need not be formulated, nor even become a matter of interest in oraer to be employed as ideal method . In fact, as such, it is a cultural accomplishment which does not give evidence of that which gave it its original meaning. The original meaning is obscured, or "sedimented" over by consequent cultural accretions. of meaning. Nevertheless, geometry arises out of the idealization of objectively standardized shapes. In time the discovery is made that all conceivable ideal shapes may be constructed by . the~ priori, universal and systematic method of pure geometry, so that it becomes, in and of itself, the science of an infinite ~ priori. Geometry was a given for Galileo, and though he did not know it, its meaning arose out of the art of measur ement. The art of measurement was itself a tradition given to him which guided him in his relation of empirical matters to the pure mathematical ideals of limit. The idea of mathematical limits set a task to the art of measurement, according to which a method is developed of progressive approximation to geometrical ideals. Pure geometry, remaining autonomous, provides a means and guidance for this task. Since the meaning of geometry was "sedimented" for Galileo, he did not know that it arose from the art of measurement, but he did know that geometry was applied to the art of measurement. For Husserl, "sedimentation" is the process through which original and originary meanings are lost or forgotten. The question which was hidden for Galileo becomes urgent in the unfolding of the late r misdirection of European science: how does the self - evidence "work", by which pure geometry arises out of the art of measure as an origin itself of knowledge? In any case, Galileo sees that geometry, through the art of measurement, achieves obj ecti ve, identical, non-relative demon- 14 strations of truth by its progressive approximations from empirical givens to geometrical idealities. For him, this is a way to see what truly is, with respect to phenomena. At this point Galileo's application of geometry to appearances presents us with a great difficulty. Pure geometry can only be applied to intuited and conceived bodies as abstract spatiotemporal entities. But bodies present themselves to us as concrete. In order to clarify this problem, we must first investigate what we mean by concrete int.ui tions . There are two aspects to this meaning of bodies .as concrete in actual and possible experience: 1) shape is foxm · "filled in" with the "matter" of specific sense qualities, and 2) concrete qualities are concrete because they hang together. But they do not ·just hang together, rather, qualitative changes are related interdependently in a meaningful way. For example, if I move a brown cup from .one location to another, the qualities of location and color will be interrelated. This manner of interdependence · conforms to types of relatedness which give to sensible bodies which exist together the character of the belonging together. In other words, the ways in which bodies present themselves in everyday experience are typical, and the typicality is one by which they present themselves as being essentially causally related to one another. In fact, this typicality is part of the essential structure of the life world. (With respect to this discussion, the "life-world" is merely the world of everyday experience, pregiven before the adoption of any scientific attitude. Thus the life-world can be characterized as prescientific experience.) We are now i~ a position to disclose something more of this essential structure of the life world. The things of the world of everyday life can be characterized as behaving according to an over-all empirical "style·." They have . "habits" of typical behavior which are made possible by this one habit of the _flowing present of intuition, by which it is always for us a world, and not only a world, but one which continues as it has up .to now. By freely varying in imagination the possibilities of this world, the horizon within which they are found is explicated, and the invariant general style which persists throughout can be seen as the essential meaning of the life world. Much . more remains to be said regarding this method of free variation and its present application, but Husserl only assures us ~hat if one were to t~ke up this investigation, one would see that this over-all style is universal- . .!x invariant, and that everything intuited in everyday life is bound by this a priori. This is not a Kantian sense of priori, according to which the ! priori would be a principle prerequisite to any experience, or which stands before experience and dictates its form. The meaning of all intuitions is to be worldly. That is, they belong together in a whole totality of one world, and this world is one because everything in it has the style of belonging together according to causal regulation. Why a priori? No argument is given; perhaps the implication may be drawn that since the . world . of possible intuition is whole only through this style, it cannot be derived ! posteriori ·, and so must be ! priori. That is to say, I can only have a worldly object in relation to a whole world which is prior to it. This causal style discovered in life makes possible the systematic knowledge of the everyday world. Explanations of how and why events occur, as well as predictions of future events from knowledge of present situations are made possible. But if we are to build exact, scientific knowledge from this, .we need more than the general insight that the experiencible is causally related in a single, whole world- horizon. This is the task of an infinite apodeictic science. As such, this science must be the means of constructing the world according to ! priori causal principles, from a meagre base of contingent data. Just as in the realm of pure geometry, any shape is theoretically constructible, so in the realm of the 15 a �intuitable world, any event should be collocation ot all c:ualitative properties . predictable, and capable of being "con Any method that achieves this must include all concrete qualjties as mathematizable, vincingly" verified back in experience . To state this problem is to express the insomuch as they all participate in the Thus natur~ would be task of philosophy: knowing the world in • causal world style . a serious scien~if ic way can have meaning the subject mat te r of this epi s temic and be possible only if there can be science of the world . In order to devised a method by which we can systemat accomplish this, however, the specific ically 1 ) construct, in advance, the world sense qualiti e s, or plenum qualities must of infinite causalities, starting from be found to be indirectly mathematizable . In order tu continue, we must look at direct experience, and 2) verify this construction, accomplishing both in spite specific sense qualities in order to see what it is about them that r equires that of the infinitude of causality and the they be mathemati z able only indirectly, if meagre and r elative nature of direct at all . The whol e notion here is contrary experience . Mathematics itself points to to modern pre s uppositions , used as we are the possibility of accomplishing this task to assuming that measurement r elates through two of its own accomplishments . The first is actually its hidden genesis, always to idealiti e s . We only assume , for insta nce , that a plenum quality such as the idealizing of the world in-respect to spatiotempor al shape, whe r eby shape is sound is d e term i ned by transverse sine waves because of ou r s cientific attitude . abstracted f r om relat~ve, subjective , and vaguely rep r esented object s of sense and It is just this attitude which is ul ti imaqin a tion, and an infinj te uni vers P 0f ~at e l v und e r inves t j0ot i o n he r e, and which we must endeavor to get behind . We must perfectly determined ideal objec ~ s is abst r act ·f r om our e v e ry day wo r ld of bodies apodeictical ly gene r ated a prior i and the ir s p e cific se n se qu a lities (which is absolu t ely . The second accG;plishment was diffe r ent fr om t h e abst r ac t. io n of thei r not hidden fr om Galileo . Through it , spati otempo r al s hape s ) , and con side r t hem g e omet r y retu rns t o the s ens i ble wo r ld to in this aspect . F irst, we find that there f i nd pract i cal application in the art of .is· no immediate ex act measur e for them, meas uring, and guides the method in o r der although we do sense , and have concepts to att a i n obj e ctive knowledge of sensible of , their essential gradations--e . g . more matte r s in respect to their approximate or less hot , cold, light, dark, loud, spatiotempor ality, and in order to predict soft, etc . Exact measurement requires through induction previously unknown, empirical approximation to ideal struc unobservable events . This accomplishment tures which have been constructed objec within the art of measurement is not to be tively in a dvance , s uch as the objective confused with universal mathematical world of pur e geomet r y . The only ~ priori physics, the origin of which is not yet structure of the world we have is explicated. What I refer to here are spatiotempora:; shapes are abstractable finite inductions such as the special from all possible bodies, and their s cience of a s t r onomy which Galileo inher ultimate abst r action encompassing all i ted f r om t he ancient s . fo r ms is the infinite extension of the B ~t a lthough these t wo accomplishunive r se . Idealized, this gives us one ment s po i n t to the possib i lity of a pure science of the world form: pure universal apodeictic constructive science, geometr y. The specific sense qualities we are still f aced with our original are not idealizable analogously, are not difficulty: how can the art of idealizing part of some qua li tati ve world form, and abstractive features of concrete bodies have no measure approximating ideal exact yield a method for the apodeictic science objective constructions given in advance. of all qualities of sensible plena? So, the plena can only be Experience can be characterized as having mathematized, if at all, indirectly . If two aspects: a spatiotemporal aspect, and we turn again to a prescientific attitude a plenum aspect. The plenum aspect is the 16 toward the world of everyday life, and perform the same method of free variation as before, we find that the over-all style of the world includes three predetermined meanings. These are undetermined anticipations of essential regulated ways that shapes relate to specifically sensible qualities. 1) It is predetermined that all things of the world present themselves in the form of space-time. 2) The style of general causality is of this sort: that actual shapes require actual plena. 3) The style of general causality is universal concrete causality. That is, cause relations constitute the infinite world horizon, and every cause and effect is necessary for concrete bodies, for shape aspect as well as plenum aspect. But this may not be so helpful.· These predetermined meanings of concrete bodies hold only with respect to bodies insofar as they are actual and concrete. ·When the plenum aspect is abstracted, we still have not shown that that aspect is dependent in a consistent causal way on · the shape aspect. Our investigation of the realm of possible experience has not shown us that every possible change in a plenum must somehow have a causal counterpart in the shape aspect. This seems strange to us because science gives us assurances about the mathematical nature of plena qualities, while the prescientific world does not. But it is even more strange to note that for Galileo, this assurance is not available. Such being the case, hoW-Could he arrive at his conception of an infinite mathematizable causally integrated nature, in which all plena events can be systematically, though indirectly, determinable through mathematical idealities? The answer to this question is the explanation of the hidden source of Galileo's conception of nature as mathematizable in its c o ncrete actuality. As was indicated earlier, this motive does not arise from prescientific experience. All such experience basically consists in vague and indeterminate dependencies between plenum characteristics and shape c.haracteristics. Even where these dependencies are more determinate, for example the functional dependency of tone on string length, such cases are comparatively rare and not obviously connected with one another in terms of their inductive clarity. · In other words, the basic indeterminate habit of causality of the world of everyday life can provide no source for 'the kind of attitude that Galileo's concept of nature entails-- an attitude of analytical inquiry aimed at the nexus of shape/plenum causal dependencies. In addition to this difficulty, there are two other difficulties behind Galileo's conception of nature: 1) we still have no method for measuring the plena, and 2) with regard to the measuring of space, the prescient if ic era did not yet have methods of space-time measurement adequate to · some visible shape events. Finally, the hypothesis that would suggest this universal causality is foreign to the prescientific world experience. The source of Galileo's view does, however, arise from at least two causes. First, there was a general attitude prevalent which is part of the vague attitude often referred to today as the Renaissance. This attitude involved an inclination to intellectual boldness a nd exuberant hypc>theses. Sec. nd, there was a o very powerful tool available to these men--the infinite,. universal and ideal realm of pure mathematics, with its apodeictic, constructive science. When these two factors are combined, a strong and constructive belief in mathematics is able to lay o ut a completely new task for science, as the source (through technology and the art of measurement) of objective knowledge about the world. This depends upon four prerequisites: 1) the discovery of methods for measuring everything encompassed in geometry, 2) the determination that the whole world is mathematizable with respect to these methods, 3) the possibility of successful induction from particulars, and 4) the determination that the plenum aspect is indirectly mathematizable. All of these gave rise to a universal idea for Galileo, the true meaning of its hypothetical nature being unknown to him: an essential "inductibility" or universal inductivity characterizes the world of possible 17 �intuition, and announces itself in everyday experience, while possessing a hidden infinity. What does it mean to say that this universal inductivity announces itself in everyday life, and that it has a hidden infinity? It was already shown that mathematical shape idealities are the poles of infinite approximations. This is manifested in their extensive and . intensive infinities, whereby mathematical space is infinite in extension and infinitely divisible. When mathematical shapes are applied to concrete, intuitively given experience, they give up their character of being independent from the plenum aspect. In this application they cause actual bodies to become idealized to the extent that they are charged with the same infinities, i.e. these infinities become part of the actual bodies. This "substruction" implies that the plenum qualitie~ become charged with the same infinities since the n 1 Pnnm qualities are inseparable from spatiotemporal qualities. So, in prescientific experience (the attitude from which this hypothesis arises) we find universal causality to be an obvious general and invariable style of possible experience, but only as a vague indeterminate interdependence of events. The application of mathematics to the space aspect of the prescient if ic world causes it to be charged with ideal infinities, and since it is essentially concrete, there is also a hidden infinity substructed for the particular sense qualities, or the plenum aspect. Galileo makes this infinity explicit in his universal idea of the mathematizability of pature. 'I'hough we have come some way in the clarification of the source of Galileo's conception of physics, we still have need of a methodical approach to the determining of the ways in which factual shapes and their plena stand in causal relation to one another. This methodical approach can arise from certain presuppositions involved in the idea of a universal inductivity. These presuppositions present themselves as "how's" pointing to the methodical exposition of the causal relations in question. Each presuppo sition must be clarified; that is, in order to realize the idea of a universal inductivity, each presupposition about the ways shape and plenum are causally related will arise in the consideratio n of method, as a question of "how?", which must be answered in order to bring the presupposition to determinateness. Each "how" leads to its succeeding "how": 1) How do I methodically regulate this inductive task? 2) How are we to determine causality in both aspects ( shape and plenum) of bodily data? 3) How is methodical measurement to disclose pro~ gressively the hidden infinities within this data? 4) How are the resultant shape approximations to make apparent progressivelY. perfect indirect measurements of plena qualities? 5) And lastly, how are these approximations according to all their ideally possible occurrences, to make concrete bodies scientifically determinable? These questions are answered not by any systematic deduction of what possibilities are derived in principle from all the presuppositions essential to this universal idea. Rather, the questions are formulated and answered through what Husserl calls a "passionate praxis of inquiry" which yields discoveries. Because of this approach, the method must be built on unclarified grounds--upon a hypothesis which is not recognized as such. In this light, Galileo is a discoverer; his task is to realize his idea of general inductivity through a twofold process: 1) of inquiring into actual experiences, and 2) of achieving discoveries therefrom. He develops methods according to the anticipations of his hypothesis, and applies them to the intuitable world. These anticipations may be no more than hunches, or matters of instinct, but when he finds them demonstrated by experience, his idea is realized. Discoveries enable more developments in method and set the stage for more discoveries, and Galileo finds that some of these causal relations can be expressed mathematically as formulae, or laws of 18 physics. There is another way of describing the realization of Galileo's hypothesis, by proceeding from the consideration of the twofold nature of the measuring praxis which was discussed earlier. On the one hand, this art yields only inexact quantities. But it also yields the capability of more exact measurement through its own self-improvement. This steady improvement gives the inexactitude of the measurements a new sense--they become approximations. It then only becomes necessary that the end to which the approximations advance be made explicit. Here the unclarif ied relatedness of the world to pure mathematics comes into play; the approximations acquire meaning as being approximations toward ideal, self-identical, perfectly exact mathematical quantities; that is, unattainable poles of accuracy approachable only through progressive improvement of measurement in infinitum. Galileo's method, considered first in regard to the unfolding of inductive discovery, and secondly in regard to the explication of hidden infinities through the art of measurement, can now be considered in regard to the general sense which it possesses as a whole, and which is carried over from the prescientif ic world's invariant over-all style. This over-all style involves a totality of types by which particulars present themselves to us as being related according to the over-all style. For instance, the pencil I hold is an instance of the type, "combustible solid bodies," and as such will burn if I let it fall into a fire. This typical nature of experience is carried over into the Galilean idealization of the world. As formulae are derived from experience, they can be referred to experience in order to ideally · objectify particular events. In the case of my pencil, the rate of its free fall, and its rate of combustion are determinable for any given instance according to mathematical laws of nature. And so these systematically acquired formulae are expressions of general, causal, concrete interdependencies in the form of numerical functional dependencies, and their meaning as such lies in the Galilean idea of a universal physics explicated above. Most important for the considerations Husserl is engaged in, Galileo's physics and its motivation in the idea of universal inductivity, are radically hypothetical. Their necessity is not grounded according to ~ priori principles in the life-world. Therefore the inductive verification of Galileo's physics will never make universal inductivity anything other than a hypothesis. It is throughout the undeniable progress of Galileo's science nothing more than an unendingly verified hypothesis. Like _ the approximations by which the art of measurement approaches true objective determinations in infinitum, the approximations of successive theories to "true nature" proceed in infinitum as toward ideal poles. But this is only an analogy. The ideal poles of theorv are not a region of idealities like the pure shapes are. Pure shapes are realizable mathematically, but the poles of theory are not attainable through my finite progress. They are historically open-ended. This is a consequence of the explication of Galileo's idea of physics which is not properly part of the matter at hand. The hypothesis that Galileo took to be granted--the universal inductivity of nature with its science of mathematical physics--is, in all its complicated motivations from given concepts and presuppositions, the original source of the modern conception of science. 19 �H ILLUSTRATION On the Nature of Cones and Conic Sections Michael Landry A 0 This paper deals with the geometry of J Third, for the hyperbola and ellipse cones and conic sections. In one sense it is concerned with the principle properties of conic sections as revealed by Appollonius of Perga in Book I of his Conics. In quite another sense it is concerned with those properties of cones that Apollonius does not reveal. Given three cones (See Illustration) , let pl a nes be passed through the axes cutting off axial triangles, ABC. Let a nother plane be passed through the cones cutting the base in the line GF so that GF is perpendicular to BC. Let this plane, called the plane of reference, be posi tioned in three separate ways with respect to one side of the axial triangle (we will use AC ) . First, let DE (the intersection of the plane of reference and the axial triangle) be parallel to AC. Second, let DE intersect AC extended past the vertex, outside of the cone at H. Third, let DE intersect AC extended past the b ase (but within the cone extended) at H. We now have th.ree types of conic sections, FOG, named parabola, hyperbola and ellipse respectively. In Book I, propositions 11, 12 and 13 of his Conics, Apollonius sets out the basic properties of the p arabola, ·hyperbola and ellipse. First, in all thre ~ c on e s he c on structs p line, DJ, perpendicular to DE at D. Second, for the parabola he determines the length of DJ by the following contrivance: J he first d r aws a line through the point A parallel to DE and intersecting BC (exten ded) at M. He then determines the length of DJ in this way: DA :DJ : : rect. BA,AC :BC 2 2 HD:DJ :: AM : rect. BM,MC Using these contrivances, then proves that in the : Parabola, Hyperbol a, El 1 ipse, GE 2 GE GE 2 2 Apollonius B = DE,DJ F F DE,DJ + DE,JO where JO is determined by the rati o HD : DJ .. DE : JO HYPERBOLA PARABOLA A DE,DJ - DE , JO by the same rati o. Now, a moment's thought, should reveal that the contrivances which determine DJ stand on no geometrical foundations. They are not logically obvious for the purpose they serve, nor is their derivation indicated in the slightest. Because the contrivances are right fo r their pu r pose, Apollonius is able to prove his propositions, but he does this without revealing anything about the sense of the contrivances. However, since they work so wel i · in the proofs, the overwhelming tendency is to ignore this problem and to pass to other, more profound mysteries. Th e first real difficulty that confronts a student of the Conics is the possibl~ difference between the parabola Michael Landry is a graduate of the Santa Fe campus. He wrote this paper while at St. John' Si it has since become a spark of insight passed from class to class. 20 C(M,N) M H ELLIPSE and the other two sections. This problem is extremely subtle. One intuitively sens e s no difference . Yet, the two separate contrivances suggest a difference, and Apollonius' techniqµe of sepa- 21 rate proofs tends to confirm it. If one tries to demonstrate a kind of sameness, the contrivances actually impede a rigorous proof. I have to report that if the ttue �nature of the contrivances is k nown a n d understood, the pro blem vanis he s. Th ere is no difference between the parabo la a nd the other two secti o ns. If, c o nsidering the differences bet ween them, t he hyperbola and the ellipse are said t o be the same because the same c on triva n ce serves them both, then, necessari 1 y, t he parabola must be said t o be the same as the hyperbola and the ellipse since, in fact, one and the same contrivan c e serves all three. This may be easily demonstrated: If, through the point D on the axial triangle, the. line DK be drawn parallel to the base, with a little manipulation we find that: t he r e f o re, DA:DJ .. AB,AC:BC 2 therefore, DA:DJ comp. AB:BC, AC:BC and since, AB:BC .. DA:DK and, AC:BC .. DE:BE therefore, DA: DJ c omp. DA: DK, DE:BE and compounding both sides with DK:DA, comp. DK: DA, DA: DJ . . comp. DK: DA, DA:DK, DE:BE therefore, :: DE:BE. Th e c on trivances are ide n tical. We mu s t n o l o nger think of them as two, but as o ne. Thu s we c o nfro n t a n unsuspected my stery at the very heart of the ge ometry o f con es an d c o nic secti o ns. In o rder t o give a full explanation o f this mystery. I p r o p o se t o set o ut a new proo f b eginning with the passing of planes through a cone. Fo r c on venience I will use three cones and · suggest that all constructions and c ontrivances be applied to all three cones at the same time. ( 1 ) Let the cones be set out and cut by planes as described above. (2 ) Through the point D on the axial triangle, let the line DK be drawn parallel to the base BC. ( 3) Through the p o ints A and K on the axial triangle, let the lines ALM and KN be drawn parallel to DE, the dia meter of the section. (Observe that in the parabola the points K and L coincide as do the points C, M and N. Th is proof will remain one proof if these p o ints are distinguished though they coincide. Point K is the intersection of DK and AC; point L is the intersection of DK and a 1 ine drawn through the point A parallel to DE: etc. )_ 2 (4 ) Now in each cone GE = BE,EC, f o r BC is the diameter of a circl e , and GE is p erpendicular to it (Eucl. III.31; VI. 8, Po rism ) . But, in the: (A) In the parabola, DK: DJ DK:DJ :: DE:BE. 2 Earabo la, GE == BE, EC a nd s ince , EC = EN (B ) And in the hyperbol a 2 and ellipse, HD:DJ .. AM :BM,MC = DK t h erefo re, and since, BE, DK. hyperbo la, there f1..,re, BE,EC HD:DJ c omp. AM:MC, AM:BM AM :MC .. HD : DK but, therefo re, GE = EC therefo re, and , (Eu cl. I. 3 4 ) AM:BM .. DE : BE 2 EN + NC = BE,EN and compoundin g both sides with DK:HD , c omp . DK: HD , HD: DJ :: comp . DK:HD , HD: DK, DE:BE + BE,NC ( Euc l. II. 1) HD:DJ comp . HD : DK, DE:BE and si n ce, th eref o re, 22 = DK EN GE 2 = (Eu cl. I. 34 ) BE ,DK + BE ,NC ellipse, GE 2 (5) Let DJ be drawn perpendicular to DE, and let it be contrived that: = BE,EC c:ind adding the r2ct. BE,NC to both sides, GE + BE,NC = BE,EC + BE,NC but, EC + NC = EN therefore, GE BE,DK = DE,DJ 2 2 + BE,NC therefore, GE and since, EN = DK therefore, GE 2 This, then, is the heart of our mystery, for the contrivance may be rewritten: BE,EN (Eucl .II.I) DK:DJ : : DE :BE since the product of the means is equal to the product of the extremes. The route from this contrivance to that of Apollonius' is simply a matter of manipulation. The new contrivances, at least the contrivance for the hyperbola and the ellipse, become necessary because of a difficulty inherent in the next step. (6) Let JO be drawn, and let it be con trived that: . = BE,EN - BE,NC (Eucl. I. 34) = BE,DK - BE,NC We have therefore, Parabola: GE Hyperbola: GE ElliEse: GE 2 2 2 BE,DK BE,NC = DE,JO BE,DK + BE,NC BE,DK - BE,NC. or, Now, two important things may be said about these three equalities. The first is that they all may be expressed by the 2 general equation: GE = BE, DK ~ BE, NC. DE:BE :: NC:JO (7) The transposition is complete, for now we have: Parabola: GE 2 Since in the parabola the points N and C coincide, the rect . BE,NC is simply equal to zero. Thus, the factor vanishes from the equation. Yet, it may be said to exist, for the generality holds. Second, it is essential to recognize that the line DK is a natural geometric "parameter" generated by the passing of planes through a cone . DK is a constant and va~ies not a whit as GE increases from zero to infinity . To proceed with the proof, we must reason as follows: since GE lies in the plane of reference as well as in the base of the cone, and since DE varies directly as BE, it ~ possible to transpose the value o f GE f r om the base of the cone to the plane of reference while maintaining equality. The problem is essentially that of altering the parameter DK to accommodate DE instead of BE. Since 2 GE is a function of two rectangles, BE,DK and BE,NC, the transposition is most easily accomplished in two steps. 23 HyEerbola: GE ElliEse: GE = DE,DJ 2 2 (5) DE,DJ + DE,JO (5 & 6) DE,DJ - DE,JO (5 & 6) A difficulty exists, however. How will the rectangle DE,JO be accounted for as GE increases? The difficulty is solved because of the interesting relationship between DE and JO. (8) Since, DK:DJ .. DE:BE (5) and, DE: BE . . NC : JO (6) therefore, ex aequali, DK: DJ : : NC : JO and alternately, DK:NC : : DJ :JO but since, DK:NC .. HD:KN therefore, HD:KN .. DJ : JO �= DE and since, KN theref o re, nec e ss i ty for it exp lai ned , t here r emains the problem of expl a i n i ng the new contrivance for the parabo la: HD:DE .. DJ:JO and alternately, (Eu c l . I. 34 ) DA:DJ :: BA,AC:BC HD:DJ :: DE:JO. Thus we find that DE:JO is always given rati o . The procedure cont r ivance : is obvious . If the DK : DJ . . DE : BE be corrected to 2 HD : DJ .. AM :BM,MC i n one step it becomes possible to find the new paramet e r DJ and to set out the ratio HD:DJ of t he sides of the rectangle DE, JO wh~h is constantly the diff e rence between GE and the rectangle DE,DJ . With the new contrivance f o r the hyperbola and ellipse set ou t, and the In the Wake Andrew J. Krivak And t here he lay beneath one hundred sad bouquets. They b e nt t o kiss hi s fa c e-a t i r ed wh i t e , his powe rfu l hands with faded spots of ag e now holding what we can' t, a r osary entwi ned in finge rs clutching the bead of the r esur rect i on--then knelt to p r ay for themse lves . Dr y your tear s, Ste lla . W a re the dead. e Andrew It was simply a matter of time. Each lacked the foolish balance of a boy, It was a way over the river that the ease of a familiar road, demanded time from other ways. and the concentration that fear dissolves. The other ways she knew; Again she saw the river -- through but the trestle was as straight and fast the ties her foot was caught in. as the train that ran over it. She looked at her baby. The train ridde.n only by old engineers In desperation growing with the and brakemen easing it over the rails sound of the train, she wrapped on time; the trestle walked upon only by his blanket tightly around him. village boys flirting in time with Her tears streaked his face as she kissed him, then threw him off, the train on time, feet with animal his blanket fluttering as he fell grace that touch the ties down, down into the river below. the rails are riding on, the flash of river between each one as they She l ooked up at the boy standing in front of her, watching, dumb. streak, head down, back to the shore they came from; just in time. Through the tears her eyes asked why? Why he did not run? She set out across thinking He looked at the track ahead, only of the other side, th'e -water b~low, and.the woman next to him. and her son, blanketed in her arms as he stirred in his sleep. She laid her head on the rails, sobbing. As he reached to touch her Her thoughts carried her halfway across the trestle, to the boy the train screamed by, helpless. yelling as he ran towards her, his voice slowly being overtaken by the roar of the train. The mome nt of dumb realization ... "That was so long a go," s he sa i d , stood still. Her eyes absorbed the trestle , and I could see the tear that told the boy, the train, the river t he sto ry fi l l her eye a nd rust the trestles that crossed rivers and below that flowed to her side. In fear's attempt to gather up all the memories that each time b r ough t another tear, falling what has foolishly been laid down, she turned to run, not from the train, and shattering like crystal in the past. He was seven years old when she but back -- back to where there was t o ld him about Mother, the train, more than one way to go . a nd t he fisherme n who had saved him. But step takes step a nd never gives up the steps it has taken . A. J . Krivak is a fres hman. h istor y . 24 J. Krivak 2 Since there is no line HD in the parabo la, t he line DA is an obvi ou s c hoice. However, t here is no real necessity for t he new contrivance since both the old and new perform the same function. They merely find the parameter DJ . The argument that the new contrivance can be stated in terms of given lines in the axial triangle, whereas in the old contrivance the line DK must be constructed, can be countered by arguing the i mportance of DK . Without DK the way back is lost! We will never know how long Apollonius thought about that fascinating fact before he decided to pull his little joke. We can only accept it and stand in awe of this master of al 1 geometricians, Apollonius of Perga. in a The Trestle His narrative poems arise from sto ries o f his family's 25 �Substance in Book VIII of the Metaphysics Lisa Tomasi ov ) Being (To has two senses: the individuality or " thisness " (To6E n ) , and the "what" (TL ~OTG) of the thing. By the opening of Book VII Aristotle has equated the what with substance (ouoLa as the primary meaning of being and is ready to explain what he thinks substance is. After explaining what substance is, he will be able to answer other questions which he lists in the second chapter; What things are substances? Are there any substances besides sensible ones (e.g. forms of sensible substances)? How do sensible substances exist? Is there any nonsensible substance capable of separate existence (i . e. any pure unsubstantial forms)? But first, what is substance? The four most immediate possibilities are substrate, essence, universal, and genus. Aristotle devotes chapter 3 to a discussion of substrate, chapters 4, 5, 6 to essence, and chapters 13-16 to universal and genus. But what about the chapters not mentioned? Chapters 7, 8, 9 discuss generation; 10, 11, 12 discuss parts of definition, matter, and form again; and 17 concludes by saying that substance is the cause (i.e. the form) by virtue of which the matter is a definite thing. Although these latter chapters do not inunediately appear to fall under any ~f the headings essence, substrate, universa l, or genus, they · bear on the discussion of substance. The word that repeatedly crops up in, and unites these chapters as well as the first one, is form. Form is continually the subject of Book VII. It is not surprising that by the final chapter substance- is form. But let's start at the beginning to see how form is introduced. The first possible meaning of substance that Aristotle discusses is substrate. (uno~ELµEvov) - that which underlies all the predicates of anything. There are three senses of substrate: mattf'r ( uA.n ) , form ( µopqin ) , and their combination. Matter might be thought to be substance since like substance it is -always predicated, but never predicates . But since substance has separability and individuality - thisness - which matter lacks, the two cannot be one. Neither could the combination of form and matter qualify as substance at least until form has been discussed . And so begins the discussion of form - under the heading of essence. Essence, roughly speaking, is that which a thing is said to be by its own nature. It does not include the whiteness of a surface, nor its smoothness; neither of these attributes is part of the definition of surface. The essence of a thing includes only what is necessary to define it without actually using its name. The close relation between essence and definition implies what things can be said to have essence: all things whose account is a definition. Definitions are those accounts which do not involve the predication of one thing of another. Therefore only species of a genus can have definition and essence in the primary sense. That is, only substances have unqualified essence. Lisa Tomasi, an Annapolis senior, wrote this paper for Miss Brann's preceptorial on Aristotle's Metaphysics. 26 parts: form and matter. Neither part is With this conclusion, Aristotle itself generated1 generation is their excludes such things as snubness from the combination. That form is not generated category of substance. Snub means snub but is the same in the generator and the nose. The word involves the name of its . generated are Aristotle's first points subject (nose) _ and cannot be explained about form with regard to generation. He apart from it. For this reason it cannot also speaks as if form and essence are the be included in those things whose account same thing in several places: "The thing is a definition. It is not a substance, in the sense of form or essence is not and has no essence, unless qualifiedly. generated." (1032bl). Thus far the arguments about essence But perhaps there remains a differhave not shown whether essence is subence between essence and subst ance , sinc e : stance. But at least we conclude from them that substances alone, in the primary ·"By substance without matter I mean the essence." (1032b15) .. Aristotle's first sense, have essence. In chapter 6 inquiry into substance was form or matter Aristotle approaches the identification of or both. Now he seems to be claiming that a thing's essence and its substance by way it is both matter and form or essence of their identification with the particuunless he thinks at least some substance lar thing itself. If it could be shown actually is without matter. But that that a particular thing is its own eswould imply that forms exist of themselves sence, and that substance is the same as independently of matter. He clearly the particular thing, the rest would argues against that being the case. It is follow. Is the particular thing the same impossible, since then an individual as its essence? Terms denoting the uni?n composed of form and mat-t:-er must itself of a subject with an accident cannot be contain another individual, the form. the- ·same as their essence since a def ini ':"" Generation of individual composites would tion does not include accidents. But be ·impossible if each form was its own terms denoting unpredicated subjects are individual. "Form means 'of such a kind:' the same as their essence, according to 1 it is not a definite individual, but we the following arguments. produce or generate from the individual First, if a thing is separate from something 'of such a kind;' and when it is its essence that thing will be unknowable, generated it is an individual 'of such a since we know things by knowing their kind.'" (1033b23) Thus form or essence essence. Also, if we could separate a seems to be more and more identified with thing from its essence, we could next the "whatness" - substance. It describes separate that essence (as a thing) from the nature of each thing, but not its its own essence, and so on to infinity. individuality, for many things share a Therefore in the case of primary and Form cannot by itself be common form. self- subsistent terms, the individual substance, however, since substance is thing is the same as its essence. that which exists independently1 form does Aristotle does not conclude from this not. that substance and essence are one, since Next Aristotle takes up a discussion he has not argued that the individual of definition. It is an enlargement upon thing is the same as its substance. his earlier explanation of definition in Rather he seems to leave this train of its relation to essence. Definition is of thought behind in order to discuss form the form: it is divided into parts which from a different viewpoint that of correspond to the parts of the form of the generation. subject. Matter can compose parts of the Generation, whether by nature, art, concrete subject, but not of the form. or accident, is always by something, out These material parts are posterior to the of something, and into something. By the whole1 the parts that compose the ·definiform of sphere, bronze is generated into a tion, and the essence which it describes, bronze sphere. Therefore, that which is are prior to the whole. These latter generated is always divisible into two 27 �one rather than many indi~iduals. Secondparts refer to ' the universal since only ly the universal is always the predicate the universal can be defined. The conof a subject, while the substance is never crete subject, with its material parts, a predicate of a subject. cannot be defined. Thus essence is the Neither can the universal be sub"what" of substance - the definable part. stance in the sense of being part of a The .material which makes the individual is sub~. ect' s essence. 'Animal' might be not included in the definition. considered a substance which is part of a The importance of matter in the man's essence. But then the substance man discussion of substance as essence comes contains the "substance" animal . But forward in the 11th chapter: "to dispose since animal is a universal it cannot be of the matter is going too far; for some prior to substance. Thus substances things are presumably a particular form in cannot be composed of other substances. a particular matte r." (1036b23) The Especially since each substance is itself material parts are in the concrete an individual, there is no way to unite substance, even though they are excluded from the formula of the substance . Things · one substance to another or to include one in another. which do not have any material (for These conclusions lead Aristotle into example, crookedness) therefore are the a difficulty which he admits at the close same as their essence; but material of the chapter. That is, since substance things cannot be. cannot be composed of universals, and only There remains to be discussed yet universals can be defined, it would seem another aspect of definition - its unity. that :;ubst.ance:; <n>=> undefinable . But Aristotle asks: what constitutes the substance must be definable since it is unity of a thir.g of which we say that the the "whatness" of every being . f ormu la is a definition? First of all a Aristotle does not need to argue defin it ion of a species ·consists of the against the fou rth alternative meaning of name of t he genus a nd at least one substance, the genus. This argument is dif ferentia. These parts form a whole included in that of the universal, since because they have no existence apart from the genus is a universal. The unive rsal one another. Each differentia specifies argument applies as well to Plato's Forms. what form the genus has taken in the case For either the Form of animal must be of the species being defined . The genus different in man than in horse, or man and is as matter to the dif ferentia which give horse will have the same substance. If it it form. Neither part can exist except as is different in each case of animal, it a part of the whole object; the names for cannot exist outside o f the individuals as each part can make sense only as pa rts of a separate unity. And certainly, man and the whole definition. horse cannot have the same substance if Each dif ferentia presupposes the one they are to be different individuals. before it. "Two-footedness" presupposes Thus of the four possible substances, "footed". It is the last differentia that genus and universal have been denied, is most simply the definition of the thing substrate in so far as it is matter has s ince it includes all the rest. This last also been denied, while form and essence · is the ultimate specification of the form remain. Aristotle's last chapter takes of the subject being defined. Aristotle yet another tack at explaining how form calls this form the substance . and essence are substance. In chapter .13, Aristotle take·s up the Substance is a principle and a cause. question of wh~ther or not the universal We ask: why does this bronze sphere exist is substance. He concludes that it is not, for the following reasons. Substance - what is the cause of this bronze sphere? its substance is the cause. is that which . gives each inaividual its We answer: uniqueness; the universal is that which is But we still do not know what is meant by common to many things. If individual s substance because we have not asked the We must ask instead: shared a common substance, they would be question properly. 28 why is this bronze spherical - what is the cause of the sphericalness in the bronze? And answer: the form of the sphere in the material bronze is the cause. Then the substan.ce is 'the- forl'D1n the material. It is that which causes the material to be an .individual thing. Cicy Blocks Richard E. Miller Drunk Father has hurled poor Ganymede from his quarters, carel~ssly sweeping long bolts of lightening from h~s unmade ~ed. 1 These hissing threads unravel, kink and explode against the night s canvas, while you and I, huddled around the embers of our past,. reach across the invading blackness with words and stories to warm, to reassure. wrap myself in heaven's cloak, trailing clouds and stars behind my cape of silver night. Flying above the reaching fingers of our fence, I enter your world; we spoke of travel, the--jewel you found on sleeping Italy's breast, street violence that drove you into the gardens to hide, children sailing boats on the pond. Encouraged, I chop further into this jungle, through fields, thickets of memories, seeking the colored, alphabetized blocks that found you. I walk into this city I which crumbles, recoiling in fear as the drunkard relinquishes his hold; household lights up, refrigerator hums to life: power back on. Behind the security of carefully replaced masks we grope in empty wells for something to say. Peeking through the clearing storm, stars shine down on silent houses, losing the struggle with buzzing street lamps for night's domain. Richard Miller a senior; this poem is part of a set entitled "Offering", for which he received the Baird Award this year . 29 �A Translation of Valery's ''Palme" John Tracy Barely veiling the brilliance of his awesome grace, an angel sets before me soft bread and smooth milk. His eye forms a sign, the hint of a prayer that calls to my vision: --Calm, calm, rest calm! Recall the burden of a palm bearing the ponderance of its gifts. De sa gr~ce redoutable Voilant peine l'~clat, Un ange met sur ma table Le pain tendre, le lait plat; Il me fait de la paupiere Le signe d'une priere Qui parle ma vision: -Calme, calme, reste calme! Connais le poids d'une palme Portant sa profusion! For its form is fulfilled as it bows in accord with the abundance of its wealth. Its weighty fruit becomes its bonds . See how it sways, and how this pliant thread, dividing the present from the past, separates without ceremony the allure of the earth from the weight of the firmament. Pour autant qu'elle se plie A l'abondance des biens, Sa figure est accomplie, Ses fruits lourds sont ses liens. Admire comme elle vibre, Et comme une lente fibre Qui divise le moment, / ' Departage sans mystere L'attirance de la terre Et le poids du firmament! This fair mediatrix, rocking between shade and sun, recalls the sibyl in her wisdom and her slumber. The ample pa lm r ocks r ound place; never to be wearied with hellos or goodbyes. How noble, how tender, how worthy is it to await the hand of the gods. Ce bel arbitre mobile Entre l'ombre et le soleil, Simule d'une sibylle La sagesse et le sommeil. Auteur d'une m~me place L'ample palme ne se lasse Des appels ni des adieux ... Qu'elle est noble, qu'elle est tendre! Qu'elle est digne de s'attendre A la seule main des dieux! about a a one L'or l~ger qu'elle murmure Sonne au simple doigt de l'air, Et d'une soyeuse armure. Charge 1 1 fune du desert. The delicate gold it whispers rings through the purity of the air, and fills the desert's soul with its silken weave. John Tracy, currently a senior in Annapolis, wrote this translation for his Junior Language tutorial. 30 It sends forth to the desert winds which spray it with grains of sand an everlasting voice serving it as oracle, and imagining to announce the miracle its burden is to sing. Une voix imperissable, Qu'elle rend au vent de sable Qui l'arrose de ses grains, A soi-~me sert d'oracle, Et se flatte du miracle, Que se chantent les chagrins. Yet between sand and sky it stands unaware that each day dawns to make its honey of a sweetness measured by a divine time, a time not keeping count of days, but concealing them well in an essence where it acquires all the _ fragrances of love. Cependant qu'elle s'ignore Entre le sable et le ciel, Chaque jour qui luit encore Lui compose un peu de miel. Sa douceur est mesuree Par la.divine duree Qui ne compte pas les jours, Mais bien qui les dissimule Dans un sue ou s'accumule Tout l'arome des amours. If sometime you despair, or if, despite your tears, revered rigor labors under a shade of languor, do not accuse a sage of being miserly who prepares such gold and influence. For through this solemn sap eternal hope climbs to its maturity! Parfois si l'on d~sespere, Si l'adorable rigueur Malgre tes larmes n'opere Que sous ombre de langueur, A N'accuse pas d'etre avare . . , Une Sage qui prepare Tant d'or et d'autorit~: Par la s~ve solennelle Une esp~rance ~ter~elle Monte la maturit'! These days which seem to you empty and lost to the universe have thirsty roots which work the deserts with select and hairy substance and through the darkness delve never resting til they've reached the very bowels of the earth in search of the deep waters the summits do require. Ces jours qui te semblent vides Et perdus pour l'univers Ont des racines avides Qui travaillent les d~serts. La substance chevelue Par les tenebres elue Ne peut s'arr~ter jamais, Jusqu'aux entrailles du monde, De poursuivre l'eau profonde Que demandent les sonunets. Patience, patience, patience amid the blue! Within each seed of silence lies the hope of ripened fruit! The gladsome prize shall come! A dove, a breeze, a gentle rustling, a woman seeking rest, shall let loose this rain at which you fall to your knees! Patience, patience, Patience dans l'azur! Chaque atome de silence Est la chance d'un fruit m~r! . Viendra l'heureuse surprise: Une colombe, la brise, L'~branlement le plus doux, Une fenune qui s'appuie, Feront tomber cette pluie ' . Ou l'on se Jette "a genoux l Let a nation now fall, Palm, . . . They may not withstand! ,,, / Qu'un peuple 'a present s'ecroule, Palme! ..• irr~sistiblement! a 31 �Dans la poudre qu'il se roule Sur les fruits du firmament! Tu n'as pas perdu ces heures, Si l~g~re tu demeures Apres ces beaux abandons; Pareille celui qui pense Et dont l'ame se depense A s'accro1tre de ses dons! In .the dust let them roll among the fruits of the firmament! You have not lost these hours If you do linger awhile amid the remains of these abandonings like he who reflects, and whose soul's sole concern lies in his gifts' in c rease! Jonathan Antonio Edelman a Notes to the translation: The initial difficulty of the translation of ·the poem was purely of my own invention. I struggled to provide a smooth beginning to the poem, but upon closer examination of the French, I realized that this was uncalled for. The angel interrupts, or rather bursts into the poet's thoughts; there is no smooth introduction in · the poem. "De ~ grace redoutable. . " begins in mid-sentence, and eminates to its beginning "Un ange met sur ma table" much like a pebble cast in a pool fo r ms ripples eminating from the focus of the stone's splash. The bril liance of the angel is immediately contrasted to the simplicity of its offe rings, and the exhortation of its eyes. Its appearance is a disturbance, but its eyes bid the poet "reste calme". Its annunciation recalls images -oft.he poet whose work becomes a burden like the burden of ,. a palm laden with ripe fruit; his work nearly completed is most heavy on his mind, most burdensome, most tiresome. The image of the palm is designed to comfort the poet by showing him the necessity of this burdensome time. The second and third stanzas invoke the time and timeless image of the palm as it stands as mediatrix between the earth and heaven. The palm becomes a pendulum whose fruits form the bob, and whose stalk forms the thread. Its incessant swayings recall images of sibyls; just as the sibyl sits fixed within her temple, the palm is set upon the sands never to move from the focus of its rocking. They await the hand of the gods, each anchored by ito . ardor. The Breath of Kings: On the Tragedy of King Richard the Second The fourth stanza compares the gentle murmuring of the palm to the oracles of the sibyl, and may be compared to the song of the poet whose gentle force can enchant the burdensome from man. The fifth stanza returns us to the palm fruits and the seeming timelessness of their maturation. Their sweetness is measured not by time, but by that which conceals time within itself. This compul sion of time, in the sixth stanza, seems to be the catalyst for the angel's opening exhortation, "Calme, calme, rest e calrne ! " . Fruition must ~measured ~this~low (saplike) progression of divine tim~. The poet despairs and his days seem slow and empty. In the seventh stanza, these empty days seem so because of the depths that t~eir roots must delve to provide food for their summits, just as the palm must delve its roots to provide food for its fruits; time falls second to the concerns of ripening fruit. In the eighth stanza, the angel soo t he s t h e p o et with 't s wh i spers of "patience". This echoes the "calme" of the first stanza . The silences, the "jours vides", become seminal, possessing the "chance d' un fruit m~r". They shall fall naturally, or from some other occur~nce: "une colombe, la brise, une femme" or perhaps the angel-of the f i.rst stanza shall cause the shower of ripened fruit. The angel c omforts the p o et with the hope that the seeming empty times are not in vain if we recall the necessity of slow time for ripe fruit. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second speaks of a second fall of man, caused by an anointed king who breaks his bond with his kinsman. Though pointing to a resolution, Richard II itself offers no solution. It is a study of a breakdown between language itself, and what language addresses. This breakdown is concurrent with the decay of a theological-political order which binds men not only to each other but to God. At the center of the conflict lies the succession of Kingship, from Richard to Bolingbroke, men who are in many ways incommensurate in speech and action. Shakespeare juxtaposes Richard's use of language with Bolingbroke's by showing how each uses titles, oaths and bonds, and by showing how each regards the significance of the pardons he bestows. Although allusions to the Fall occur throughout the play, the two major discussions of the Fall occur in Gaunt's speech (II, i, 31ff) and the garden scene (III, iv). These sections are particularly important in understanding the movement of the play, for they are not historical; that is, not subject to any limitations other than those which Shakespeare de termined. These scenes act as a commentary on the play, indicating perspectives from which to consider the events ~ Gaunt's speech in part deals with the fall of England from its sacred position in the world. Just before he dies, Gaunt considers himself "a prophet new inspi r ed" . (II , i , 31) He speaks of England as "this other Eden, demi-paradise... This blessed plot ... John Edelman is Sophomore essay. 32 currently a senior teeming womb of royal kings... Renowned for their deeds as far from home for Christian service and true chivalry as •. . blessed Mary's Son ... " (II, i, 42ff). However, this "other Eden" verges on a Fall. For rather t,han · conquer other nations in the name of Chri.st, England has set upon itself. The garden scene further links the succession of kings to the story of Adam. The gardener compares the garden he tends to the "garden" of England. Unlike Adam or the gardener, the king has not tended his garden. Instead Bolingbroke performs this task: "The weeds [Bushy, Green, and Wiltshire] which his [Richard's) broad spreading leaves did shelter, That seem'd in eating him to hold him up, Are plucked up root and all by ~olingbroke--" (III, iv, 50ff) The King ought to be an Adam to England, yet Richard is unable to tend his garden. The Queen rebukes the gardener and refers t o the fall of Richard as " a second f all of cursed man." (III, iv, 76 ) The fall of Eng land results from Richard's breach of faith with his subjects. In seizing the properties of Lancaster, Richard undermines an order which links the nation to God. Allusions to Christ and the Passion are numerous in the play , R ·char d• s comparing himself to Christ being the most . frequent. That so dishonest a king can in Annapolis. 33 "The Breath of Kings" is his �ref er to himself as a Christ can be understood in light of his seeing himself as blameless and martyred. Richard's lack of awareness concerning the implications of his action exemplifies this . Though Richard clearly sees others' transgressions and the implications of these acts, he does not realize that he acts dishonestly . "Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend; They breach their faith to God as well as me." (III, i i lOlff) Bolingbroke, on the other hand, is quite conscious of the implications of his actions, both against men and the crown. This awareness is what allows Bolingbroke, unlike Richard, to be essentially poli tically mined, a quality necessary for good kingship. The comparison of Richard to Christ further suggests the position of king Richard in relation to God, as God's anointed, tending his people. However, the corrupt Richard is incapable of the concerns for his flock that a Christ must have . Bolingbroke is like Christ in some of those aspects in which Richard is deficient. He comes to right wrongs, and whether he knows it or not, takes the sin which must be committed, that is, the demise of Richard, unto himself. He dies in the Jerusalem room, rather than in Jerusalem. The juxtaposition of some of the characteristics of Adam, Christ, and good kingship in the two men is part of a conflict · in which neither Richard nor Bolingbroke is the solution, for each is incomplete. The resolution of the conflict must occur in a man who is the synthesis of the best elements of the two. A story concerning the second fall, because it occurs after Christ, must be a political drama. Neither God, His first creation, nor His Son is directly present in the world. Instead, the king who is both divine and political is present. The concern of Richard II lies in the welfare of the State, for the proper governing of God's kingdom on earth is at stake. . A second fall has to do with the identity of the king as man, and his relation to God and the State. Eventually it becomes the story of how a legitimate king is re-established and what kind of man he must be. Richard's kingship is discussed mainly by Richard himself, though also by the Bishop of Carlisle, Gaunt and York. In I, ii the Duchess of Gloucester confronts Gaunt with his failure to speak out against the King's involvement in the death of Gloucester. Gaunt replies that it is not his place to correct the misdeeds of the king: "God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute, His deputy anointed in His sight, Hath causes his death; the which if wrongfully Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift an angry arm against his minister." (I, ii, 37ff) The problem of correcting Richard, culminating in his deposition, is more complicated than merely acting against him because of his position in relation to God. Action against the king is sacrilege, and the effects of such a move would be devastating. Carlisle speaks to this problem in IV: "What subject can give sentence on his King? And who sits here that is not Richard's subject? •.. And shall the figure of God's majesty, His captain, steward, deputy-elect, Anointed, crowned, planted many years, Be judged by subject and inferior breath, And he himself not present?" If this were to occur, Carlisle continues, England would be called Golgotha. Thus the deposition of Richard, is a "heinous, black and obscene" deed. (IV, i, 121ff) Richard must be deposed "legitimately", that is, in such a way that no one 34 takes the crown from him. The problem of <leposi tion is developed in Richard's speech in III, ii: "Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm off an anointed King; The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord" (III, ii, 54-57ff ) The course that Bolingbroke takes is to orchestrate events so as to put Richard in a position where Richard himself must abdicate. Although this technically frees Bolingbroke from responsibility for the deposition itself, it is questionable· whether the king can abdicate legitimately. For, it is not clear whether Richard is a "worldly" man. The Abbott of Westminster, Carlisle and Aumerle in IV, i, refuse to acknowledge the validity of the succession of Bolingbroke and plot against him. Concurrent with the breakdown of a social order, words change in relation to that which they address. Because he is something of a poet, Richard's interest lies in how the moment can be made into words. this. (I, i, 152-159ff) Bolingbroke's use of metaphor is much more straightforward. His diction is muscular and rough in comparison with Richard's fine diction. Prior to the entrance of the King, (III, iii, 54ff) the Duke utters one of his few lengthy metaphors in the play. However, he carefully roots the imagery in the matter which he describes: "Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water: The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain My waters; on the earth and not on him." (III, iii, 55-60ff) In Act III, iii, 176ff Northumberland asks Richard to meet Bolingbroke: "My lord, in the base court he doth attend To speak with you; may it please you to come down?" Richard's response exploits the idea of corning down into the "base court", where he will surrender himself to Bolingbroke: "Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaeton, Wanting the manage of unruly jades. In the base court? The greater his despair, the more Base court where kings grow base, poetic he becomes, and the more detached To come at traitors' calls, and do his words are from the world. In I, i, them grace! Richard calls Bolingbroke and Mowbray into In the base court? Come down? Down his presence: court! Down King!" " ... face to face, When Bolingbroke kneels before Richard, And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear the king still clings to the pun: The accuser and accused freely speak. Fair cousin, you debase your High-stomach'd are they both, and princely knee full of ,ire, To make the base earth proud with In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as kissing it ... " fire." Richard is interested in the stories (I, i, 15-19ff) that will be told of his experience as The opposition in his speech describes the · tragic rather then in the experience moment eloquently. It is almost too itself. In III, ii, line 150ff and v, i, poetic. The emphasis is on the opposition line 40f f, Richard speaks of telling sad stories about the deposing of kings. He of words and metaphors rather than the is concerned with how the event is mani confrontation itself. The seiffested in words and with the effect of the containedness of the metaphor is curious; words on an audience rather than with the it is as if the metaphor takes over in nature of the event itself. relation to itself rather than the words The modes of speaking of Richard and in relation to that of which they speak. Bolingbroke are manifest in the manner in The "physician" metaphor is an example of 3.5 ,, �which they name and .t he importance they attach to a name. The act of naming speaks to both an object's movement in the physical world by virtue of its name, and the name's movement in language. When these two aspects are severed, the name no longer corresponds to the complete nature of a named object. Bolingbroke's use of names is characterized by his manipulation of different titles in order to justify what he must accomplish. However, Bolingbroke recognizes that an object has to have its own character without a name. Richard takes more seriously what the name itself signifies in the physical world. When he abdicates he is not simply disturbed because he is no longer king, but also because he no longer has a name. Without his title, Richard has little sense' of himself apart from "untitled." A striking example of Bolingbroke' s use of names occurs in II, 111 when Berkeley must deliver a message to the Duke. Bolingbroke refuses to accept the message unless Berkeley addresses Bolingbroke as "Lancaster". Berk: "My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you. Bal: My Lord, my answer is to Lancaster; And I am come to seek that name in England; And I must find that title in your tongue, Before I make reply to aught you say." (II, iii, 69-73ff) Bolingbroke is concerned with being addressed as Lancaster because it is that name which lends legitimacy to his return to England. In the subsequent encounter with York, Bolingbroke responds to York's chastising by calling attention to his title: "As I was banished, I was banish'd Hereford; But as I come, I come for Lancaster. (II, iii, 112-113ff) In Bolingbroke's message to Richard, in III, iii, Bolingbroke refers to himself as "Henry Bolingbroke" rather than the preferred "Lancaster". In order to 36 acquire an audience with the King, he uses a title that Richard will accept. The Duke's usage is conventional, in that he will call himself by a given name according to how the name facilitates his movement. Richard's concern with names and usage is less conventional than Bolingbroke's because his identity, his sense of self, is bound in a name. In III, ii, Richard is shocked by news which Salisbury bears, that twenty thousand of the king's men have fled. The King despairs and Aumerle tells him to remember who he is. Richard composes himself by remembering not only that he is King but that his name is King: "I have forgot myself: am I not King? Awake thou coward majesty! Thou sleepest. Is not the King's name twenty thousand names? Arm, arm, my name! (III, ii, 83 -86ff ) Richard is quite conscious of the meaning of his title. As long as he remembers what he is call~d, he is secure. Richard's concern for his name becomes more pronounced as he nears his demise. He refers to himself in the third person, not as "King Richard" but simply as "the King". His actions are subject to his title: "What must the King do now? - - must he loose The name of King? O God's name, let it go." (III , iii, 143-146ff) At th.e conclusion of this speech, he refers to Bolingbroke as "King Bolingbroke" and himself as '!Richard". In a sense, self-indulgent Richard has already imagined himself as deposed, unnamed himself from kingship and acts according to his lack of title. In IV, i, Richard abdicates. His speech essentially consists in un-naming himself. Anything more than un-naming and disavowing his decrees (such as naming his crimes and thereby himself as a criminal) , is out of the question for Richard. At the conclusion of the speech, rather than refer to himself with a title, he prefaces his name with a negation to title: "God save King Har ry, unking'd Richard says." (IV , i, 220ff) The problem of re-naming himself without a title to define him becomes central to Richard's speech. Northumberland petitions Richard to name his crimes: North: "My LordRich: No Lord of thine, thou haught insulting man, Nor no man's Lord; I have no name, no title, No, not that name was given me at the font But tis usurp'd; ... And know not now what name to call myself! ( IV, i, 253-259ff) It is in part due to Richard's self-indulqence that he is insulted by Northumberland's naming him "My Lord," for Richard enjoys the role of nameless, deposed King. No doubt this is linked to his interest in language and the manipulations he can effect with the words. However, in part, it reflects Richard's true d is orientation and sorrow in his loss, which for Richard is a loss of identity. Without his title, he is "no man's Lord" . Without his kingship, Richard feels that he is nothing. The abdiction speech is typical of Richard's tendency to negate rather than affirm. A good king must not only negate, but affirm in order to command. He must be able to give as well as take back . Unable to make amends between the quarrelling Bolingbroke and Mowbray, Richard comments: "We were not born to sue, but to command; Which since we cannot do to make you friends, Be ready, as your lives shall answer it .... " (I, i, 196ff) Richard is both an ineffective and incomplete king, for he cannot unite Bolingbroke and Mowbray by means of his word. In Act IV, when Richard abdicates the throne, he must do it with his own words. Again, he is the only person who can remove himself from his position. However, it is not clear who can legitimately name Henry as King. It is through Richard's characteristic negation that he gives up the title. When Bolingbroke asks Richard if he is "contented to resign the crown", Richard begins his abdication . His language marks a departure from the connections of words to things, to a connection of words to words. This occurs when Richard is about. to give up his title, a word which is his most significant connection to the world and to himself . Curiously, his speech begins with a pun: "I no; no I; for nothing I must be; Therefore no no, for I resign to thee. (IV, i, 201-202ff) Full of obvious negation, the first words are ambiguous. Because the written word is a symbol for a sound and the play is meant to be spoken, many meanings can be derived from these lines. "I" can by "ay" or "eye". The word "no" can be negation o r "know". Thus, the first line can mean "Yes, no; no, yes" indicating that Richard is ambivalent about resigning. The fourth word "yes" is the answer to the question Bolingbroke asks: he must resign. Another meaning might be: "I know no I", that . he must be nothing; without his name, he cannot know who he is. Another meaning could be : I know no 'yes'". That is to say, Richard, because he is nothing, can affirm nothing . The next line is also ambiguous . It can be understood to be a simple repetition of "no" . Because Richard must resign there can be no "no" to Bolingbroke's question. Anothe r meaning could be: "therefore know 'no' for T resign to thee"; Richard tells Bolingbroke to "know negation" and "Now mark me, how I will undo myself." Richard proceeds to negate his kingship. Richard gives his crown "from off my head", his sceptre "from my hand" and his kingly pride "from out of . my heart". He then washes "away" his balm and gives "away" his crown with his own tears and hands. His tongue denies his "sacred state" and his breath releases himself 37 �from "all duty's rites". He forswears, foregoes, and denies. Richard's conception of language, in which the name of an object has more bearing on the object than the object on the name, makes words which refer to· appearance rather than essence affect him. Flattery is the use of words in order to please, rather than to speak truly. In II, Gaunt tells Richard that he has been wounded by flatterers: "And though too careless a patient as thou art Commits't thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee. A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown .•. " (II, i, 97-lOOff) Flattery has caused an illness which overtakes Richard. Richard's "illness" is manifested in his inability to hear good counsel. For instead of hearing good counsel, his ears are "stopp'd with other flattering sounds, as praises, of whose taste the wise are fond". .< II, i 17ff) That is, the wise are made "fond" by the "lascivious meters" of flattery. The flatterers of the King - Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire - are sentenced by Bolingbroke in III, i. They have "misled a Prince, a royal King •.. made a divorce betwixt his Queen and him." They have made the King "misinterpret" Bolingbroke. Misinterpretation is a breakdown in communication, in which the hearing of the words is correct but the intention is misconstrued. These f la~terers cause Bolingbroke to "sigh" his "English breath in foreign clouds". That is in banishment, which Mowbray refers to as "speechless death which robs my tongue of breathing native breath." In other words, the real punishment in banishment has to do with speech. To be divorced from one's native tongue and unable to understand and be understood is banishment. In II, Northumberland states that the King is "basely led by flatterers", and that he is no longer himself. Flattery not only causes Richard to dissociate himself from his subjects but from his kingship. Pardoning and the use of pardons indicate the relation of language to God, for pardons must be made in relation to God in order to be meaningful. In the breakdown of society's relation to God through its relationship to the King, the meaning of the pardon loses its clarity. Before York's discovery of Aumerle' s involvement in the plot against King Henry, Aumerle asks his father to pardon him from showing his father the letter he carries. York does not pardon him. Upon reading the letter, he goes to the King to seek condemnation of his son. Aumerle arrives before York and asks the King to pardon him before the nature of his crime is disclosed. The king consents on the condition that the crime was merely intended rather than committed. Bat because · plotting against. the crown is treason , the pardon is not val id. The Duchess of York enters and refuses to rise from her knees until the King pardons "Rutland." Pity must move the King to pardon Rutland. The Duchess impresses the importance of pardoning on the King: "No word like 'pardon' for a King's mouths so meet." (V, iii, 118) . York continues to protest and finally urges Henry to speak the words in French: "Speak it in French, King, say "pardonne moy'" (V, III, 119). Even though the words are practically the same, the meaning is different. The Duchess comments that·this sort of usage: "Sets't the word itself against the word!" (V ,iii, 122), for word is set against word when the intended meaning and the accepted meaning differ. Henry does pardon Rutland. But the worth of the pardon is not clear. Henry is not a king by proper succession, therefore pardons do not have their original import because the King's relationship to God is precarious. His position is "King" rather than "rightful King." Henry's accession to the throne introduces into politics the question of the nature of "treason" if one's king is not anointed. Henry's pardon of Rutland is conditional: "I shall pardon him as God shall pardon me." (V, iii, 131) Henry's 38 pardon of Rutland is contingent on his own relation to God, that is, whether he has been pardoned for his own usurpation and treason against Richard. The Duchess asks Henry to repeat his pardon for : "Twice saying "pardon" doth not pardon twain, But makes one pardon strong." (V, iii, 132-133) Speaking a pardon twice does not negate a pardon, but strengthens it. This stand in contrast to Richard's speech of negation . The giving of pardons is necessary for a king. After Henry repeats his pardon, the Duchess calls him "a god on earth" (V, 111, 134). For the Duchess, to pardon, a king must be a divine giver of grace. The problem with all the pardons in Richard II lies in their undetermined relationship to God. When Richard pardons Mowbray it is unclear to Mowbray if, in fact, he has been pardoned. When Bolingbroke pardons, it is unclear what that means. Oaths and bonds are perhaps the most significant element of language which loses meaning when the social order breaks down. When oaths are made but not kept, the importance of language and one's word is diminished in its relation to that which it speaks. Oaths are made not only in relation to physical things but also in relation to God, for they are bound in God . Breaking oaths, therefore, is breaking a bond with God . Oaths and bonds are essential to holding society together, particularly a Christian society. In Act I, scene i, the truth of what Bolingbroke says rests on its relation to heaven: "Heaven be the record of my speech". This is characteristic of the oaths in Richard II. Their verity rests in a bond with heaven. In Act II, scene i Gaunt sees the decay of England in the decay of its bonds, for it was once: "bound with the triumphant sea," but "Is now bound in with shame, With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds." (II, i, 61-64) Its bond is not with God or the sea, it is with shame and on "rotten parchment bonds". York tells the king that if he seizes the Duke of Hereford's rights, he is no longer himself, for he breaks the bonds that insure his office: "Be not thyself~ for now art thou a King But by fair sequence and succession?" (II, i, 198-199) In breaking his bond with his subjects, the king breaks his bond with God, and thus the crown. The King's theft of Hereford's rights also indicates Richard's lack of concern for succession which stands in contrast to Henry's interest in Hal. In concert with Bolingbroke's mode of speaking, his treatment of oaths is quite literal. He is able to avoid breaking the "letter" of the oath because the meaning of the letter is ambiguous. In act II, scene iv, Northumberland claims: "The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is but for his own." What exactly is "his own" is unclear. However, it becomes England. The beginning of Act IV is analogous to Act I, scene i, in that Bolingbroke, rather than Richard, presides over a conflict between nobles. In contrast to Richard's inability to deal with the conflict in Act. I, even though the scene is characterized by verbal chaos, Bolingbroke effectively controls the quarrelling lords. There is no indication which lords are speaking the truth, because oaths are meaningless in England's fallen state. When Richard abdicates he asks God to pardon all oaths made to himself and to keep all vows unbroken which are sworn to God. This separation of oaths made to Richard from those made to God accentuates the separation of Richard from his past and from God. Oaths to a King are meaningful only when the King has a relation to God. The most startling example of the change in the relation of language . to what it speaks in respect to oaths and bonds occurs when Aumerle must carry his bond in 39 �his doublet. This contrasts with York's reference to his pledge to be loyal to Henry earlier in that scene. Significantly, Aumerle's action occurs after Richard has abdicated. The value of a verbal oath is lost with the loss of an anointed King. In order for Aumerle's bond to be valid, he must carry it. Words are not significant unless written. Even more striking is the necessity for Aumerle' s taking of the Sacrament (IV, i, 328ff) in order for him to maintain secrecy. One must not merely swear, but partake in Holy Communion in order to be bound. The only link to God and true speech is theological. The secular coDUDunity under God is lost. The culmination of Richard's separation from the world occurs in Act V. Because he is alone, Richard is unable to "compare this prison ..• unto the world". He is unable to see how his isolation is analogous to his isolation in the world. Richard constructs a world from thought and word. In order to do this, he must split himself into two parts: brain as mother and soul as father to thoughts and consequently words. The naming of these divisions is curious because the brain or intellect is traditionally male and soul female. This kind of reversal is characteristic of Richard in that"he is turning the relationship of words and the world inside-out. The marriage of brain and soul begets "a generation of still breeding thoughts". In being a poet, Richard is a begetter of words rather than flesh , and his lack of concern for succession is a manifestation of this. The world Richard creates mocks the outside world, and is distinct from it. It is a world of words and their relationships are of words to words. Richard names three orders of thoughts: "the better sort .•• intermix't with scruples", those "tending to ambition", and "those tending to content". The first sort are described as setting "the word itself against the word". Considering the Biblical citations he makes one would expect that "the Word" would be set against "the flesh". However, for Richard there is no t~ue flesh in his world nor true Word, but merely words. The setting of word against word indicates Richard's inability to see the complexity of his position as King or ex-King, that is, the culmination of Word and flesh in his having been anointed King. There is no Word in Richard's flesh. He is merely named King. Richard as "unking'd Richard" no longer has the name King and is merely flesh. Yet, oddly, Richard's existence to himself is an existence in words. Rather than being the "Word made flesh " , that is, God's anointed and agent by seeing justice done in the flesh, Richard turns flesh into words, and resides in a world where words have more substance than flesh. The "thoughts tending to ambition .•. plot unlikely wonders". Unable to break through the prison to the outside, his thoughts are unable to break out and make real contact with the world. They are contained within him and "die in their own pride". "Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves". They are content because they do not differ from others who bear a similar burden. Flattery contents them. Thus, thoughts which have only incidental connection to the outside world are buoyed up by words which please and incur illness rather than address the essence of the situation. Richard can be a King and wish he were a beggar; from beggar he returns to King. When he thinks of being banished by Bolingbroke, he becomes nothing. When confronted by the man who causes his .un-naming, instead of the Richard under the mask of King, unking' d Richard appears. When stripped of the words and the name of King, Richard finds himself little more than words. In Act II, scene i, line llff, Gaunt speaks of the setting sun and the music at the end of men's lives. None of Gaunt's music comes through Richard's ears. For his ears have been stopp 'd by flattering sounds. For Gaunt, the "music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last ... " For Richard, however, when the sun is about to set for the last time, the sun hears music as "sour-sweet" because the time is not kept. Richard 40 takes the music inside himself and once again, creates a world in which his interest is in the relation of words to words, a relation more important than the music itself. However, it is from this music that he finally calls into question his acts and inability to hear. "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me." (V, v, 49ff) Richard has become Bolingbroke's "Jack o' the Clock". A mannikin, not flesh nor word, but merely the mock of a man which marks time. It is not surprising that music maddens Richard. For he has become so corrupt that he is unable to take the cure which David administered to Saul: Music. In his inside-out world, Richard's madness is wisdom to Richard, and the first king's cure is maddening to him. Al though Richard I I has an ending, the conflicts of the play remain unresolved. Bolingbroke's succession and Richard• s death mark change rather than resolution. Both the problems of his own kingship and the repercussions of Richard's deposition and death plague 41 Bolingbroke throughout his reign. In the subsequent episodes of the Richarc,-Henry cycle, the events of which the Bishop of Carlisle foretells (IV, i, 114ff ) actually occur. As the society gets thrown into greater disorder, so too, language suffers a greater separation from that which it speaks. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second not only speaks of an end, but points to a beginning. Like Adam banished from Eden, Richard cannot be reinstated, nor can England be restored to its previ ous state. As in the completion of the Fall of Man by the coming of Christ, there must come a man who in both word and deed completes the fall of Richard by changing the effect of the past and the meaning of kingship. This will occur three plays later, when Hal makes the convoluted speech of Falstaff his own, thereby transforming it into a new speech. With it, Hal can make his faults into virtues. For him, even wooing a French Queen in a language not quite French brings a new Queen for England. �Willing but Weak A Note on the Matthew Passion Short Story Liz Waldner Elliott Zuckerman Posole soaks in a bowl and makes little kissing noises. This morning cats on the compost pile cried musically--at, to, for? Is a preposition appropriate here? I am always so content in the mornings. I lay listening before I What fol lows is a spelling - out of the obvious. It is presented as a shapes in air r eminder or review for students who have analyzed moments in the recitatives of threading through ear, discerning whether not cats but babies of our kind cried, at which I should have to go out into the morning in bathrobe to be afraid at the world uncontained by the ideal, to find babies crying the waving strands of our singing on the compost pile. Last night in the evening, in that high and uninhabited place of empty house and dark window, above the din of busyness, beneath the mountain with storm at its head, headdress of cloud purple and blue, a black- headed girl cried loudly over a low adobe wall into the evening--at, to, for? I came walking beneath her on the road below the wall and was stood before her crying out over the wall into the evening not at, not to, not for; neither to inquire nor to console, although these rose in the throat: only crying might go through air. She cried and cried. Only crying could go through air. All the empty houses with doors ajar admitting wind and spil 1 ing darkness: inside the moment stillness and around it the crunching of foot on gravel, juniper and cedar threshing air; around it the balloon-like journey of child- voice upward into first dark. Far below and far behind it noise of car- going and of dog. A woman appeared and she walked into the yard of the house of the crying girl in silence and she put fist to door or to drawing of door on wall with no window: no sound. She caught there bringing fist to door, door to fist, wind going through crying girl hair, and dirt, in the darkening wind. Cloud, drawn over all of our heads to the darker mountain, stayed. The moment I rose to see cats a noise from the kitchen. Posole soaking in a bowl fell over the edge in the kitchen where nobody was, in the white kitchen full of light. I lay back down as if told, not knowing . the Matthew Passion, and as an example for those who want to do so now. Closely following the harmony where the music closely imitates the text -- or comments on it -- can impress on the memory the motions of the progressions themselves. The diction is technical, and the musical examples by themselves can tell the story. Behind them lies the brief passage of Bach's music. And behind what Bach does lies tonal music itself, the power of which, alluded to here, ought, I think, to be an occasion of recurrent wonder. The text is from the 4lst ve r se of the 26th chapter of Matthew, and it is set by Bach in section 30 of the Passion, measures 7- 9 (page 49 of the Peters vocal score) . It is sung by Jesus himself, with his unique accompaniment of strings: Liz Waldner has contr ibuted awoke , several 42 pieces to Energeia. E~ - I In the vocal part there is one tone for each syllable. If we elide the second syllable of 'spirit', the standard English translati on can repla ce the German word for word -- with the important exception of 'aber' ('but ' ) . The music depicts the three aspects o f Jesus 's observation about his disciples: the willingness of the spirit, the weakness of the fles h , and, between them, the 'but'. At the start o f measure 7 , G minor has been established in a c a dence. The vocal line has dropped to a low B-f lat, the mino r third of the triad, and (approp riate ly for the word 'fallet') the lowest tone sung in this recitative. The Mr. Zuckerman, a tutor in Annapolis, contributed this piece as the first of several comments on the Matthew Passion; further installments will appear in later issues of Energeia. 43 �willingness of the spirit is shown in the vocal line by the brightening of the minor into the parallel major: Again, harmonically one would expect the following resolution if there were no 'but': wil-liJ The . B- natural on 'willig ' is especially strong because it is approached in the ascent Cs) 1 2 i· But the instrumental bass adds another dimension. The willingness is not only bright but expansive, because the F- natural below turns the B-natural into the upper tone of the tritone of C major: The notation of the c hords in closed score r eveals what has happened to all the voices . The F has descended · ' correctly' to E . The B and the D are common tones to both chords. The surprise alteration is the chromatic lifting of G to G- sharp -tone § of C is sharpened to become the leading tone of A (minor) . In Bach's scoring the significant changes occur in the outer voices, an 'expansion' of f. urther willingness : In the surprise resolution that follows the contradiction, the low F does indeed go the half - ~tep downward to E: /\ 7 ~~.3 ~ The new dominant - seventh will t ually r esolve normally: It is, of course, a dimin ished- seventh chord, the 'headless' . tetrad, the most ambiguous . It can be accounted f or as pointing to E -- qr ,• in A minor, dim vn 7 of v . But. here it (weakly) follows the chord it 'ought' to p r ecede -- o r , to put it ano ther way in the light of the subsequent return to the v 7 , it interpolates itself as a st r iking r eve r sal in the otherwise no r mal cadence in A minor . The 'weakness' , as we hea r it, is strongly asserted . The r e is anothe r way of viewing the 'wea k ' progression . The (first) domi nan t - se ven t h of A mino r res olves ' co rrec tly' : even- ~ But the E is not 3 of C major. Instead it is made the root of a major triad. Moreover, since we have just heard the D's of ' aber' , we hear the new chord as a dominant- seventh: And one expects the resolution outward to the tonic of C : but the diminished fifth below each of the resolution tones are slipped in unde r neath : --9- ~ -:).-&- ~ ~ [ +J But the r e i s still ·the ' weakness' to be accounted f o r. The oute r vo i ce s e xpand a half - step further : Harmonically, the tones on 'willig' constitute the last inversion (V 2 ) of the dominant- seventh in C: Up to 'abe r ' , the voc al l i ne ascended . 'das Duri.ng Fle is c h schwach' i t now descends twice , in minor thirds : ~-1 ~ h as ist . two The D's of 'aber' thus belong to two different dominant- seventh chords, one . pointing· to C and the other td its relative minor: l;z'·lO The O's of 'aber' belong to that chord and seem to complete it: 44 The chord on 'schwach', outlined by the A, and is fifth D- sharp diminished completed with another diminished fifth, F- sharp and C: The ascent between them is the interval of the dimished fourth . There will be more to say about this interval in late r inst~llments of these comments. 45 �A harmonic summary shows that the willingness sets out to be a cadence in c : major. At the 'but' it becomes instead a cadence, with a 'weak' the relative minor: interpolation, in No Exit A Translation of Sartre's Huis Clos Wendell Finner C Ma..jor vo1. v1 • Wi I{ i~j Poem John S. Carnes Awkward are the silences, slow stutters time - when I would tell you of the love of mine. And yet, I would not wish to be too smooth and glib. _The freshet in its thicket runs both fast and pure, and our love too has merrily been borne along. Yet, did it not slow and stutter some we would not find ourselves with the needs to think upon. Thus I am glad to find no easy speech and think it not wrong being without a ready word for it will come when it is called I've heard. (The stage depicts a Second Empire drawing-room, with a bronze on the mantlepiece. Enter Valet, Garcin . ) GARCIN(looking around): So here we are. VALET: Here. GARCIN: This is it . . . VALET: This is it. GARCIN: I . . . I suppose one gets used to the furniture eventually. VALET: That depends on the individual. GARCIN: Are all the rooms like this? VALET: Think. Chinese, Hindus come here. What would you have them do with a Second Empire armchair? GARCIN: And me? What would you have me do with one? Do you know who I was? Bah. . . it doesn't matter. After all, I always lived with furniture I didn't like, in artificial situations; I loved it. An artificial situation in a Louis-Phillippe dining-room--does that tell you anything? VALET: You'll see; a Second Empire drawing-room is no worse. GARCIN: Ah, good . Good, good, good. Still, I didn't expect. .y ou do know what they say down there? VALET: About what? GARCIN: Uh. . (La rge, vague gesture) About all this. VALET: How could you be 1 iev~ such foolishness? From people who have never set foot here? After all, if they had come here . . . GARCIN: Of course. (They laugh together, then Garcin becomes suddenly serious again): Where are the spikes? VALET: What? GARCIN: The spikes, the grilles, the leather funnels. VALET: You're joking. GARCIN : Oh? Oh, good . No, I wasn't joking. (Silence. He paces.) No mirrors, no windows. Of course, nothing breakable. (With sudden violence) : And why have they taken my toothbrush? VALET: Ah, yes. Now your human dignity returns. It's amazing. GARCIN: Please spare me your intimacies. I am well aware of my position, but I will not allow you to . . . VALET: There, there. Forgive me. What can you expect--all ou r clients ask the same question. 'Where are the spikes,' they say. At that moment, I swear to you that they don't dream of personal hygiene. Only then, when they are reassured, then the toothbrush. But can't you think about it, for the love of God? After all, I ask you, why would you brush your teeth? GARCIN: Yes, indeed, why? (Looks around.) And why look in a mirror? But the bronze, after a while. • I imagine there will be moments when I' 11 look at that with open eyes, eh? Come on, come on, there's nothing to hide. I ' m well aware of my position, I tell you. Do you want me to tell you how it goes? A fellow suffocates, he sinks, he drowns, only he sees beyond the water. And what does he see? A bronze by Barbidienne. What a nightmare! All right, you're probably forbidden to answer; I won't insist. But remember: one doesn' t take me by surprise. You won't be able to boast that you've caught me unawares; I look the Wendell 1 Finner is a senior in Annapolis. He translated Sartre's Huis Clos for a s · pr1ng 983 production by the King William Players, produced by Copyright 1983 by Wendell Finner. Craig Bradshaw. John Carnes is a senior fn Annapolis. 46 47 �situation in the face. (Begins to pace again.) So, no toothbrush.· No bed either. Since we never sleep, right? VALET: You seel GA RC IN: I could have bet on it. Why would one sleep? Sleep takes you from behind. You feel your eyes closing, but why sleep? You stretch out on the sofa, and poof. • sleep flies away. Then you get up, rub your eyes, and it starts all over again. VALET: What a romantic you arel GARCIN: Be quiet. I won't cry, I won't tremble, but I want to look the situation in the face. I don't want it to jump me from behind, without my seeing it. Romantic? Nonetheless, there is no need for sleep. Why sleep if you're not sleepy? Perfect. Wait. Wait--why is it painful? I've got it; it's a life without interruption. VALET: What interruption? GARCIN(imitating him): What interruption? (Suspiciously) : Look at me. I thought so. That explains your intolerably tactless stare. My word, they're shriveled up. VALET: What are you talking about? GARCIN: Your eyelids. We, we close our eyelids. A blink, it's called. A little flash of black, a curtain that falls and rises again; the break is complete. The eye is moistened; the world annihilated. You . couldn't know how refreshing it is. Four thousand rests an hour. Four thousand little escapes. And when I say four thousand. .so, I'm to live without eyelids? Don't be an. idiot. No eyelids, no sleep, it's all the same. I shall sleep no· more. .But how am I going to stand it? Try to understand; make an effort. I'm a teasing type, you see, and I • • • I like to tease myself. But I . . . I can't tease myself endlessly: down there there were nights. I slept. I slept softly. To compensate. I made myself simple dreams. There was a meadow. .A meadow, that's all. I dreamed I was walking there. Is it daytime? VALET: You can see for yourself, the lights are on. GARCIN: Right. I meant your daytime. Outside. VALET(bewildered): Outside? GARCIN: Outside l On the other side of these walls. VALET: There's a hallway. GARCIN: And at the end of the hall? There are other rooms, and other VALET: halls, and stairways. GARCIN: And then? That's all. VALET: GARCIN: You must have a day off. Where do you go? VALET: To my uncle's, on the third floor. He's the head valet. GARCIN: I should have guessed. Where's the light switch? VALET: There is none. GARCIN: What? Can't you turn it off? VALET: The management can cut the current. But I don't remember their having done so on this floor. We've got all the power we want. GARCIN: All right. So, one must live with open eyes . . . VALET(ironically): Live?. GARCIN: Don't quibble over a question of vocabulary. The eyes open. Forever. There will be broad daylight in my eyes. And in my head. (Pause . ) And i f I swung the bronze at the light bulb, would it go out? VALET: It's too heavy. GARCIN (grasping the bronze and trying to lift it): You're right. It's too heavy. VALET (after a moment of silence) : Very well; if you have no further need of me, I' 1 leave you . GARCIN(startled): You're leaving? Goodbye. (The valet reaches the door) Wait. (valet returns) This is a bel 1, here? (valet nods) I can ring it if I want you and you must come? VALET: In principle, yes . But it's unreliable. There's something jammed in the mechanism. (Ga re in goes to the bel 1 and pushes the button . Ringing sound ) GARCIN: It works! VALET(astonished): It works. (Ring s it himself) But don't get carried away~ it won't last. Well, at your service. GARCIN (making a gesture to retain him): I. . • VALET : 48 CAPCIN: c=i nd r I C'K s Nothing. 1:p t he (Go~s to th e raper-knjf c ) mantle What's this.' VALET : You can s e P for yourself; a paper-kDifo. GA RLlN: The re are books here ? VALET: No. GARCIN: 'l'hcn what good if' it ? (Vakt shrugs ) All rig h t. Go ahead. (Val e t exits. Garcin go e s t o the bronze and pats it with his hand. He sits down; stands up again. He go e s t o the bell and presses the button. The bell does not ring. I-le tries two or three times, in vain. He goes to the door and t ric·s to open it, without any Juck. He calls:) Garcon! Garcon! (No answer. He rains a s hower of blows on the do o r with his fists while calling the valet. Then he c alrns aown sudden 1 y and goes to sit down. At this moment, the door opens and I nez e nters, followed by the valet. ) VALET: You called? GARCIN (starts to answer, then notices Inez) : No. VALET ( turning to Inez): This is your room, Madame. (Silence from Inez) If you have ar>y questions. . (Inez remains silent. The valet is disappointed): Usually our clients lik e to acquaint themselves . I won't insist. Anyway, as for the toothbrush, the bell, and the Barbidienne bronze, this gentleman is informed and can answer as well as I can. (Exits . ) (S ilence. Gare in does not look at Inez. Inez looks around, then speaks gruffly to Garcin . ) INEZ: Where's Florence? (S ilence from Garcin. ) I said, where's Florence? GARCIN: I don't know. INEZ: Is this the best you can do? Torture by absence? Well, it's no good. Florence was a little fool and I don't miss her. GA RC IN: I beg your pardon; who do you take me for? INEZ: You? You're the torturer. GARCIN(Starts, then laughs): What an amusing mistake. Really, the torturer! You came in, you looked at me, and you thought, 'This is the torturer.' What foolishness! The valet is ridiculous; he should have introduced us . The torturer! I am Joseph Gare in, publicist and man of letters. Really, we're in this together, madame . . . INEZ (dryly): Inez Serrano. Mademoiselle. GARCJN: Very good. Perfect. The ice is broken. So you see the look of a torturer in me? And how does one recognize them, the torturers? INEZ: They have a frightened look. GARCIN: Frightened? How curious. Of whom? Their victims? INEZ: Go on! I know what I'm talking abo~t. I've seen myself in the mirror. GARCIN: In the mirror'! (Looks around.) It's annoying; they've taken everything that resembles a mirror. (Pause . ) In any case, I can assure you that I'm not afraid. I don't take the situation lightly; I'm quite aware of its gravity. But I'm not afraid. INEZ(Shrugs): That's ycur business. (Paus e. ) Do you take a walk outside, now and then? GARCIN: The door is bolted. INEZ: Too bad. GARCIN: I can see quite well that my presence annoys you. And personally, I'd rather be alone. I need to put my life in order and collect myself. But I'm sure we cc..n come to terms with each other. I don't talk, I seldom stir, and I make little noise. Only, if I might 'suggest something, we must maintain an extreme politeness between us. It will be our best defense. INEZ: I'm not polite. GA RC IN: I' 11 be polite enough for two. (Sil ence. Garcin sits on the sofa. Inez paces back and forth.) INEZ(looking at him): Your mouth. GARCIN (to rn from his trance ) : Excuse me? INEZ: Can 't you stop your mouth? It twists under your nose like a top . GARCIN: I beg your pardon. I didn't realize. INEZ: It annoys me. (Tic from Garcin.) You pretend to be polite and you let your face run wild. You're not alone and you have no right to impose the spectacle of your fear on me. Yes? 49 �~ - GARCIN (gets up and crosses toward her) : And you, you're not afraid? INEZ: Why should I be? Fear; that was fine before, when we had hope. GARCIN: There's no longer any hope, but we're always before . We have not begun to suffer, mademoiselle. INEZ: I know. (Pause.) So? What's going to happen? GARCIN: I don't know. I'm waiting. (Long pause. Garcin sits . down again. Inez resumes her pacing. Garcin' s mouth twitches and, after a glance at Inez, he hides his face in his hands. Enter Estelle and Valet. Estelle looks at Garcin, who has not raised his head. ) ESTELLE: No I No, no, don't raise your head. I know why you're hiding it in your . hands; I know you don't have a face anymore. (Garcin removes his hands . ) Oh! (Pause.) I don't know you. GARCIN: I'm not the torturer, madame. ESTELLE: I didn't take you for the torturer. I. • I thought someone was playing a trick on me . (To valet) : Who are you waiting for? VALET: No one else is coming. ESTELLE(relieved): Then we'll be all alone; monsieur, madame, and I? (Starts to laugh.) GARCIN(dryly): There' s nothing to laugh about. ESTELLE (still laughing ) : · But these sofas are so ugly! And look how t~ey're arranged. It's like New Year's at Aunt Marie's. To each his own, I suppose. This one ' s mine ? (To v a let) : But I c a n' t sit there, it's a catastrophe; I'm wearing light blue and it's spinach green. INEZ: Would you like mine? ESTELLE: The red sofa? You're t oo kind, but that's hardly an improvement. No, it's the luck of the draw. I go t the green one; I' 11 keep it. (Pause. ) The only one which would do, barely, is monsieur's. INEZ: Did you hear her, Garcin? GARCIN ( starting ) : The. .sofa. Ohl Excuse me. (Gets up. ) It's your's, madame. ESTELLE: Thank you. (Takes off her coat and lays it on the sofa. Pause.) Since we've got to live together, we should get acquainted. I'm Estelle Rigault. (Garcin bows and starts to give his name, but Inez crosses in front of him.) INEZ: Inez Serrano. The pleasure is mine. GARCIN (bows again ) : Joseph Garcin. VALET: Have you any further need of me? I'll ring fo~ ESTELLE: No, go ahead. you. (Valet bows and exits. ) INEZ: You' re very pretty. I wish I had flowers to welcome you with. ESTELLE: Flowers? Yes, I loved flowers. But they'd wilt here; it's too hot. Bah ... the important thing is to keep our good humor. Are you . . . ? INEZ: Yes, last week. And you? ESTELLE: Me? Yesterday . The funeral isn ' t over yet. (She speaks quite naturally, as if she sees what she is describing.) The wind's mussing my sister's veil. She's doing what she can to cry. Come on, come on, make an effort. There! Two tears, two tiny tears sparkling under her veil. Olga Jardet is quite unattrac tive this morning. She's supporting my sister by the arm. She's not crying because of her mascara, and if I were her. . . She was my best friend . INEZ: You suffered? ESTELLE: No, I was mostly unconscious. INEZ: What . . . ? ESTELLE: Pneumonia. (Same manner as before ) : Well, that's it; they' re le~v­ ing. Goodbye! Goodbye I Such handshaking. My husband is sick with grief; he stayed home. (To Inez ) : And you? INEZ: Gas. ESTELLE: And you, monsieur? GARCIN: Twelve bullets in my hide. (Gestures to Estelle. ) Excuse me; I'm no t a very respectable dead man. ESTELLE: Oh! Please, monsieur, if only you wouldn't use such crude terms. It's . . . it's shocking. And, after all, what does it mean? Maybe we ' ve never been so alive. If we abso lutely have t o name this ... state of things, I suggest we call it absence; that will be more c orrect. Have you been absent long? GARCIN: About a month. ESTELLE: Where are you from? 50 ESTELLE (dryly ) : Well, we don't have the GARCIN : Rio . same tastes . That's all that proves. (To ESTELLE: I'm from Paris. Do you have anyone left, down there? Inez ) : Do you like them, men in s hirtsleeves? GARCIN : My wife . (Same manner as INEZ : Shirtsleeves or no, I don't like Estelle) : She's come to the bar r acks, men much . like she does eve r y day . They won't let ESTELLE ( looking at the others in her in. She ' s staring through the bars. She doesn't know that I'm absent yet, but amazement ) : But why, why have they put us together? she suspects it . She's leaving now . She's all in black . So much the bet INEZ (stifling an outburst ) : What are you saying? te r-- she won't have to change . She's not crying; she never cried . It ' s a nice ESTELLE : I look at the two of you and I sunny day, and she's al 1 in black in the think that we must room together . .I expected to find friends, family . deserted street, with the wide eyes of a victim . Ah, she irritates me . (Long INEZ : One excellent friend with a hole in the middle of his face . pause . Garcin sits on the middle sofa and puts his head in his hands . ) ESTELLE : Him, too . He danced the tango Estelle! INEZ : like a professional . But us, us; why have they put us together? ESTELLE : Monsieur, Monsieur Garcin! GARCIN : Ex cuse me? GARCIN : It's just chance . They put ESTELLE : You're sitting on my sofa . people where they can, in the order of their a r rival . (To Inez ) : Why are you GARCIN : Oh, excuse me. (Gets up . ) laughing? ESTELLE : You seem so absorbed . GARCIN: I ' m putting my life in order . INEZ: Because you amuse me with your (Inez laughs. ) Those ·who laugh would de 'chance' . Do you have such a need to well to imitate me . reassure yourself? They leave nothing to chance . INEZ : It is in orde r , my life . Totally in order . It's put itself in ESTELLE(timidly ) : But perhaps we've met bef o re? order, down there, and I don ' t need to t r ouble myself with it . INEZ : Never. I would not have forgot ten you . GARCIN: Really? You think it's that ESTELLE: Or maybe we have acquaintances simple! (Wipes his forehead . ) What heat! in common . Do you know the Dubois You'll allow me? (Starts to take off his Seymours? jacket. ' ESTELLE : No! (More softly ) : No . I INEZ: I'd be surprised. detest men in shi r tsleeves. ESTELLE: But they entertain everybody. GARCIN (putting his jacket back on ) : Fine . INEZ: What do they do? (Pause . ) Myself, I spent my nights in the ESTELLE (surprised ) : They don't do editorial rooms . It was always anything . They have a chateau in Careze, oppressively hot . (Pause . Same manner as and . . . before ) : It is oppressively hot . It's INEZ : We l l, I worked in the Post night- time . Office. ESTELLE: Let's see; yes, it's night ESTELLE (backing away slightly ) : Oh! You already. Olga is undressing . How quickly · mean. .? (Pause . ) And you, monsieur time passes, on earth . Garcin? INEZ : It's night . They' v e put t he GARCIN: I never left Rio. seals on the door to my room . The room is ESTELLE : Then you're quite right. Chance da r k and empty . has brought us together. GARCIN : They've put their jackets on the INEZ: Chance. Then the furniture is back of their chairs and rolled their by chance. It's by chance that the sofa sleeves up above the elbow. It smells of on the right is spinach green and the one men and cigars. I liked living among men on the left is burgundy. Chance, is it? in shirtsleeves . 51 �All right, try to move them and then tell me what you think. And the bronze, that's just chance also? And the heat? This heat? (Long pause.) I tell you everything is regulated. Even the smallest details are chosen with love. This room was waiting for us. ESTELLE: But how could that be? It's all so hideous, so hard and angular. I always detested angles. INEZ (shrugs): Do you think I lived in a Second Empire drawing-room? (Pause.) ESTELLE: Then everything was foreseen? INEZ: Everything. And we were matched up. ESTELLE: Then it's not by chance that you, you are facing me? (Pause.) But what do they expect? INEZ : I don ' t know. But they expect something. ESTELLE: I can't tolerate anyone expecting something from me. It gives me a sudden desire to do the contrary. INEZ: Well, do it. Do it, then. But you don't know what it is they want. ESTELLE: (stamping her foot): It's insufferable. I should be subjected to something by you two? (Examines them.) You two. There are faces which I can read at first glance. But yours tell me nothing. GARCIN(suddenly, to Inez): All right, why are we together? You've said enough -about it1 now finish it. INEZ (astonished) : But I know absolutely nothing about it. GARCIN: We must know. (~eflects for a moment) INEZ: If only each of us had the courage to say . . . GARCIN: What? Estelle! INEZ: ESTELLE: Yes? What did you do? Why did they INEZ: send you here? ESTELLE(excited): But I don't know1 I don't know at all. I even wonder if it isn't a mistake. (To Inez): Don't smile. Think of the number of people who. . .who become ~sent every day. They come here by the thousands and they're only the responsibility of subordinates, uneducated employees. How could you imagine that there'd be no mistakes? But don't smile at me. (To Garcin): And you, tell me something. If they're mistaken in my case, they could be mistaken in yours. (To Inez): And yours, too. Isn't it just as good to think we're here by mistake? INEZ: Is that all you have to tell us? ESTELLE: What more do you want to know? I have nothing to hide. I was an orphan; poor. I raised my younger brother. An old friend of my father's asked for my hand. He was rich and kind; I accepted. What would you have done in my place? My brother was sickly and his health required a lot of attention. I lived with my husband for six years without a cloud. Then two years ago I met the man I was destined to love. We recognized it at first sight. He wanted me to run off with him, but I refused. After that, I caught pneumonia. That's all. One could, perhaps, charge me with sacrificing my youth to an old man. (To Garcin): Do you think that would be a fault? GARCIN: Certainly not. And you, do you think it would be a fault to live according to one's own principles? ESTELLE: Who could reproach you for that? GARCIN: I edited a pacifist · journal. The war broke out. What to do? All eyes were fixed on me: 'does he dare?' Well, I dared. I crossed my arms and they shot me. Where's the fault? Where is the fault? ESTELLE(placing her hand on his arm): There is no fault. You are . . . INEZ (perfect irony) : A Hero. And your_, wife, Garcin? GARCIN: All right, what? I pulled her from the gutter. ESTELLE(to Inez): You see! You see! INEZ: I see. (Pause. ) Who are you acting this comedy for? We're alone. ESTELLE(saucily): Alone? INEZ : Among thieves. .We are in hell, my dear; there is never· a mistake and people are never damned for nothing. ESTELLE: Be quiet. INEZ: In hell! Damned! Damned! ESTELLE: Quiet . Will you be quiet? I forbid you to use such vulgar words. INEZ: The little saint, damned. The 52 spotless hero, damned . We had our moment of pleasure, didn't we? There were people who suffered on our account until we died and this amused us greatly. Now we must pay. GARCIN (threatening gesture ) : Will you keep quiet? INEZ ( looking at him without fear, though with great surprise ) : Ha! (Pause. ) Wait! I've got it; I know why they've put us together ! GARCIN: Be careful what you say . INEZ: Yo u'll see how stupid it is. Incredibly stupid! There's no physical torture, right? Yet we are in hell. And no one else will come . No one. We will remain here alone with one another until the end. Right? In short, there's someone missing: the torturer. GARCIN(softly) · I know it well. INEZ: So, they've perfected an economy of personnel. It's the clients who provide the service themselves, like a cafeteria. ESTELLE: What are you trying to say? INEZ: The torturer is each of us, for the other two. ( A pause while they digest this news.) GARCIN ( softly ) : I will not be your torturer. I wish you no harm and I've got nothing to do with you. Nothing. It's quite simple. Here, each of us in our own corner; here's our weapon. You here; you here; myself here. And silence. Not a word--that's no t too difficult, is it? Each of us has plenty to do by ourselves. I think I could go ten thousand years without speaking. ESTELLE: I've got to keep quiet? GARCIN: Yes. And we. .we will be saved. Just keep quiet. Look to yourself, don't raise your head. Agreed? INEZ: Agreed. ESTELLE (hesitates ) : Agreed. GARCIN: Well, then, goodbye. (He goes to his sofa and puts his head in his hands. ) Inez begins to sing (A long pause. to herself. ) INEZ: On Whitemantle Street they built a platform, And spread the bran below, And it was a pretty scaffold On Whitemantle Street, you know. The headsman he was up at dawn, He'd quite a job to do, To chop off the heads of generals, The bishops' and the admirals' On Whitemantle Street, it's true. To Whitemantle Street the ladies came, With all their pretty frills, But their heads they had to go, Heads along with hats would roll, In the gutter of Whitemantle Street. (During this time, Estelle restores her makeup. She powders herself and restlessly looks around for a mirror. She searches her bag, then turns to Garcin.) ESTELLE: Have you got a mirror , monsieur? (Garcin does not respond. ) A mirror, a pocket- glass, whatever? (No response.) If you're going to leave me all alone, at least get me a mirror. (Garcin buries his face in his hands. ) INEZ (eagerly ) : I've got a mirror in my bag. (Searches her bag and says resentfully ) : They must have taken it from me in the office. ESTELLE: How annoying. (Pause. She clo ses her eyes and sways unsteadily. Inez rushes to steady her. ) INEZ: What's the matter? ESTELLE (opens her eyes and smiles): I feel so strange. (Touches herself.) It doesn't have this ef feet on you. When I can't see myself, I can touch myself as much as I like; I wonder if I really exist. INEZ: You're lucky. Me, I feel myself constantly, from inside. ESTELLE: Oh, yes, from inside. .Everything that happens in people's heads is so vague. It wearies me. (Pause.) There 53 �\ are six huge mirrors in my bedroom. I see t h em. I see them. They reflect the lov e-seat, the rug, the window. . How empty it is, a mirror without me. Whenever I spoke, I'd place myself so there'd be o n e I could look at .myself in. I talked; and I saw myself talking. I saw myself as others saw me; it kept me on my toes. (With despair ) : My lipstick! I'm sure I put it on crooked. I simply can't spend all of eternity without a mirror. INEZ: Couldn't I be your mirror? Come, come pay me a visit. Here, sit on my sofa. ESTELLE (indicating Garcin ) : But ... INEZ: Let's not worry about him. ESTELLE: We're not going to hurt one another1 you said so yourself. INEZ: Do I look like I want to hurt you? ESTELLE: One never knows INEZ: It's you who' 11 hurt me. But what difference can it make? If I've got to suffer, it might as well be on your account. Sit down. A little closer. There. Look into my eyes. Do you see yourself there? ESTELLE: But I 'm so tiny. I can barely see myself. INEZ: But I see you. All of you. Ask me questions. No mirror could be more faithful. (Estelle, embarrassed, turns toward Garcin as if to call for help.) ESTELLE: Monsieur! Monsieur! We're not boring you with our chatter, are we? (Garcin does not respond.) INEZ: Leave him be , he doesn't count; we're alone. Interrogate me. ESTELLE: Did I put my lipstick on right? INEZ: Let me see. Not too well. ESTELLE : I wondered. Good thing (glance at Gare ~ , ) no one saw me. I'll try again. INEZ: ·r hat' s better. No. Follow the line of your lips; I'll guide you. There, there. Good. ESTELLE: As good as when I came in? INEZ: Better. It's heavier, crueler. A diabolical mouth. ESTELLE: Hnmun. And that's good? How irritating, when I can't decide for myself. You swear that it's all right? INEZ: You're beautiful. ESTELLE: But do you have any taste? Do you have !!!Y taste? How irritating; how simply irritating. INEZ: I've got your taste, since I like you. Look at me. Smile. I'm not so ugly any more. Aren't I better than a mirror? ESTELLE: I don't know. You intimidate me. My reflection in the mirrors was tame. I knew i t so well . If I smile--my smile will fall into your pupils and God only knows what will become of it. INEZ: And what's to stop you from taming me? (They look at each other. Estelle smiles, a little bit fascinated } Wouldn't you like to be my friend? · ESTELLE: I have trouble making friends with women. INEZ: Especially with postal clerks, I suppose? What's that there, at the bottom of your cheek? A pimple? ESTELLE (startled): A pimple, that's horrible! Where? INEZ: There, there! I'm just a bird-trap, and I've got you, my little dove! There's no need to blush. Not the slightest. And if the mirror should lie? Or if I shut my eyes, if I refused to look at you-- what would you do with all that beauty? Don't be frightened, I must look at you; my eyes will stay wide open. And I'll be gentle, very gentle. But it's up to you. (Pause.) ESTELLE: You like me? INEZ: Very much! (Pause.) ESTELLE (nodding in Garcin' s direction): I want him to notice me too . INEZ: Ha! Because he's a man. (To ~arcin); You win. (Garcin does not respond.) But look over here! (Still no response.) Don't play this game; you haven't missed a word we've said. GARCIN (Abruptly raising his head ) : You can say that again; I haven't missed a word. It was no good to stick my fingers in my ears; you just kept on chattering inside my head. · Will you leave me alone now? I've got no business with you. INEZ: And the child; have you got some business with her? I've seen your tricks-- it's for her sake that you put on such airs. .54 GARCI N: Le ave me alone , I te11· you . Someone's talk i ng about me at the jour nal an d I want to listen . And I couldn ' t ca r e less about the ch i ld , i f t hat ' ll make you happ y. ESTELLE: Thank you . I d i dn 't mean t o be r ude . GARCIN : ESTELLE : Pig! (A pause . The y s t and, fa c i ng each othe r. ) GARCI N: Th e re ! (Pau se ) I b e gg e d you to be qui e t . ES'l,ELLE: She s t a r ted i t . She came to o f fer me he r mi rro r, and I didn ' t ask he r f o r anything . INEZ: Nothing . You ju s t r ubbed aga i nst h i m a nd conto rted you r s e lf so he ' d l ook at you . ESTELLE : And so? GARCIN : Are you bot h i diots? Don 't you see whe re we are ? Ju st keep qu iet! (Pau se. ) W onl y have t o s it back down , e pe a ce f ully , clo s e our ey e s and try t o fo rget th e presenc e o f the othe r s . (A pau s e . He sits. The women r e turn t o the ir p laces wi th he si t an t s t e p s. Ine z s udd enly turns back. ) INEZ: Ha! Fo r get. How chi l dish . I fe el you i n my bones . Your s i l e nce sc re ams in my ear s. You could nail your mouth shut , cut out you r tongue , but can you k eep you r s elf fr om exist ing? St op you r thoughts? I hea r i t , it goes tick, tick, like an a lar m clock , and I know you hea r mine . It's no use cur ling up on your sofa ; you 're everywhere . The sounds a r e soiled when they r each me becaus e you've hea r d them on the way . You've even stolen my face -- you can see it and I can ' t . And he r ? He r ? You ' ve r obbed me of he r. If we were alonP . do v o u think she ' cl dnre treat me the way she does? No, no : take your hands f r om your face . I won't leave you alone , i t would be too convenient . You would stay the r e, unconscious, sunk in you r self like a buddha . I'd have my eyes s hut, but I'd hear h er o ff e r you a l l t he little no i ses of her life, even the rustle of her dre ss, and she'd send you smiles that you wouldn't even see . . . None of that . I want to choose my hell; I want to look at you with open eyes and struggle face to face . GARCIN : Good enough . I suppose it had to come to thi s-- they ' ve manipulat e d u s l ike child r en . If only they'd put me i n with men . . . men know how to keep quiet . I t wouldn ' t be too much to ask . (C r osses to Estelle and places his hand unde r he r chin . ) So 1 please you , my p r etty? You ' ve been giving me the eye ? ESTELLE : Don ' t touch me . GARCIN : Bah! Le t' s put ou r selve s at ease. I loved women a lot, you k now. And they loved me a lot . So r el a x, we 've go t Poli teness-- what for? nothing t o lo s e . Ce r emonie s-- what ' s the use? Among u s? Soon we'll be as naked as worms. ESTELLE : Leave me alone . GARCIN : As wo r ms . Oh , I e xpecte d th is. I demanded nothing f r om you , no t h i ng but p eace and a l it tle quiet . I put my f inge r s in my ear s . Gome z wa s spe aki ng , sta nd i ng between t h e t ab l e s, a nd a l l the c omrades at t he jour nal were lis te n i ng . In s hi rts le eve s. I wanted t o unde r stand what he was s aying -- it wasn't e as y ; t h i ng s on earth h a ppen so qu i ck ly . Couldn It you k eep quiet? Now i t I s all ove r, he ' s not talking any mo r e ; a l l that he think s about me is back inside h is head . Good enough ; we ' ll just have to see . it through to the end . Naked as wo r ms : I want to know who I'm dealing with . INEZ : You know . You al r eady know. GARCIN: Until each of us has admitted why we were condemned, we know noth i ng . You, the blonde, you sta r t . Why? Tell us . why; you r honesty can p r event disasters. ·when we know our monste rs . . Come on , why? ESTELLE: I te ll you I d on 't k now . They didn't want to tell me . GARCIN : I know , it was the same with me ; they didn ' t want to answe r. But I know. You ' re afraid to go first? All right, I'll begin . (long pause . ) I am not ve r y nice . We know you we r e a Go ahead . INEZ : des e rter . GARCIN : Leave that be . Don't even mention it . I'm he r e because I to r tu red my wife . That's all . For five-years . Of course, she's still suffering . There : when I speak of her I see he r. It's Gome z I'm interested in and it's her I see . Whe r e's Gomez? Five years . Say, they've 55 �given her my things . She's sitting by the window, with my jacket on her knees . The jacket with twelve holes. The blood, you'd think it was rust . The edges of the holes are burnt . Ha! It's a museum piece, a historic jacket . And I wore it. Won't you cry? Won't you end it with tea r s? I'd come home d r unk as a pig, smelling of wine and women . She'd have waited up all night for me; she never cried . Not one word of reproach; naturally. Just her eyes. Those .huge eyes. I don't regret a thing. I' 11 pay for it, but I don't reg r et a thing . It's snowing outside. But won't you cry? She's a women with a flai r for martyrdom . INEZ (almost softly) : Why did you make her suffer? GARCIN : Because it was easy . One word was enough to make her change color ; she was a sensitive thing. Ha! Not a single reproach . I was quite a tease . I waited . But no , not a single I wait ed foreve r . reproach . I pulled her · from the gutter, you und er stand . She's r unning her hand ove r t he jacke t, wi t hout looking at it , her fi nge r s g r oping blindly for the holes . What are you waiting for? What are you hoping for? I tell you I don't regret a thing. There you have it. She admired me too much . Understand? INEZ: No. No one admired me. GARCIN: So much the better. So much the better for you. All this must seem quite abstract to you. Well, here's a story. I brought a mulatto woman home with me . What nights! My wife went to bed first, but she must have heard us. She got up first, and since we'd slept late, she brought us breakfast in bed. INEZ: Cad! GARCIN : Yes, yes, a well loved cad. (Seems d i s t r acted.) No, nothing . It's Gomez, but he's not talking about me. Damn! Anyway, that's what I'm doing here. And you? INEZ: Well, I'm what they call down there a fallen woman. Already damned, of course. So it came as no great surprise. GARCIN: That's it? INEZ: No, there was also that affair with Florence. But that's a tale of corpses . Three corpses. First him, then she and I. No one's left, below . I am at peace. The room, only. I see the room, from time to time. Empty, with the shutters closed. Oh . Oh! They've taken the seals off . For Rent It's for rent. There's a sign on the door. It's . . . mocking. GARCIN: Three. You did say three? INEZ: Yes. GARCIN: One man and two women? INEZ : Yes. GARCIN: Wait . (Pause . ) He killed himself? INEZ: Him? He was incapable of it. But not for lack of suffering. He was crushed by a trolley . It was comical! I lived with them-- he was my cousin. GARCIN: Florence was blonde? INEZ: Blonde? (Glance at Estelle.) You know, I don ' t reg r et a thing, but I don't enjoy telling you this story much. GARCIN : Go on! Go on ! You were disgusted with him? INEZ : Little by little . For example, he made t his noise when he drank; he snuffled i n his glass . Little things . Oh! He was a sor r y sort, vulnerable. What are you smiling at? GARCING: Because I'm not vulnerable. INEZ: We'll see. I slipped into her; she saw him through my eyes . After a while, she was in my grasp. we took a room on the other side of town. GARCIN: And then? INEZ: And then there was the trolley. I told her every day, 'Well, my darling, we had him killed . ' (Pause . ) I am wicked. GARCIN: Yes. Sc aIT T. INEZ: No. You're not wicked. It's something different. GARCIN: What? INEZ: I'll tell you later. Me, I'm wicked . That is to say I need the suffering of others in order to exist. A torch. A to r ch in thei r hea r ts. When I'm alone, I flicker out. For six months I blazed in her heart. I burned it out. She got up one night; went and turned on the gas without my knowing it; then she lay down beside me. There you have it. GARCIN: Hmmm! INEZ: What? 56 GARCIN: Nothing. That's not right. INEZ: No, it's not right. So? GARCIN: Oh. You've got a point. (To Estelle. ) And you, what did you do? ESTELLE: I told you, I know nothing about it. I tried to ask myself . GARCIN: Good. We'll help. This fellow with the shattered face, who's he? ESTELLE: What fellow? INEZ: You know quite well. The one you were afraid of when you came in. ESTELLE: He's a friend. GARCIN: Why were you afraid of him? ESTELLE: You have no right to interrogate me. INEZ: He killed himself because of you? ESTELLE: No. Don't be foolish. GARCIN: So why did he frighten you? He put a shot into his face, eh? Is that what carried off his head? ESTELLE: Quiet! Be quiet! GARCIN: Because of you! Because of you! INEZ: Shot because of you! ESTELLE: Leave me alone! You frighten me! I want to leave! I want to leave! (She rushes to'the door and shakes it. ) GARCIN: Go ahead. Myself, I couldn't ask for more. But the door is locked from the outside. (Estelle rings, but the bell does not sound. Inez and Garcin laugh. Estelle turns around to face them, with her back to the door.) ESTELLE (her voice slow and harsh) : You are beastly. INEZ: Perfectly beastly. So? And this fellow who killed himself on your account; he was your )over? GARCIN: Of course he was her lover. And he wanted to have her for himself alone. Isn't that true? INEZ: And he danced the tango like a professional, but he was poor, I imagine. (Long pause. ) GARCIN: You were asked if he was poor. ESTELLE: Yes, he was poor. GARCIN: And then again, you had your reputation to preserve. One day he came and begged you, and you laughed. INEZ? Well? Well? You laughed? Was it for that he killed himself? ESTELLE: Was it with those same eyes that you looked at Florence? INEZ: Yes. (A pause. Estelle begins to laugh.) ESTELLE: You haven't got it at all. (She straightens up and looks at them, keeping her back to the door. Dry and provocative tone:) He wanted to give me his child. There, are you happy? GARCIN: And you, you didn't want it. ESTELLE: No. The child came anyway. I left to spend five months in Switzerland. No one knew anything about it. It was a girl. Roger was at my side when she was born. He was delighted to have a girl. But not me. GARCIN: And then? ESTELLE: There was a balcony, above a lake. I took a large stone. He cried, "Estelle, I beg you, I beseech you." I hated him. He saw everything. He bent over the railing and watched the rings in the lake. GARCIN: Then? ESTELLE: That was all. I returned to Paris. He, he did what he wanted. GARCIN: He blew his head off? ESTELLE: Yes, quite. It wasn't worth the trouble. My husband never suspected a thing. (Pause) I hate you. (Dry sobs.) GA RC IN: Useless. The tears don't flow here. ESTELLE: I am horrible! I am horrible! (Pause . ) If only you knew how I hate you! INEZ (taking her in her arms) : My poor darling! (To Garcin): The inquest is over. No point in keeping that torturer's scowl. GARCIN: A torturer's (Looks around) I'd give anythino to see myself in a mirror. (Pause . ) How hot it isl (Mechanically removes his jacket.) Oh! Excuse me. (Starts to put it back on.) ESTELLE: You can stay in shirtsleeves. For now . GARCIN: Don't be angry with me, Estelle. ESTELLE: I'm not angry with you. INEZ: And me? Are you angry with me? ESTELLE: Yes. INEZ: Well, Garcin, we're as naked as worms. Do you see it more clearly? GA RC IN: I don't know. Perhaps it's - a little clearer. (Timidly) : Can't we try to help one another? INEZ: I don't need any help. 57 �GARCIN: They've tangled all the strings, Inez. If you make the slightest movement, if you raise your hand to fan yourself, Estelle and I feel the tug. None of us can save ourselves alone; we've got to pull together in this, or sink together. Choose. (Pause . ) What is it? INEZ: They've rented it! The windows are wide open. A man's sitting on my bed. They've rented it! They've rented it! Come in, come in, don't be embarrassed. It's a woman. She goes to him and puts her hands on his shoulders Why don't they turn on the light-- one can hardly see. Are they going to embrace? This room is mine. Mine! And why don't they light it? I can't see any more. What are they whispering? Is he going to fondle her on my bed? She says it's noon and sunny. So I'm going blind. (Pause.) Finished. No more. I no longer see; I no longer hear. Well, I suppose I'm finished with the earth. No more alibis. (Shudders.) I feel empty. Now I'm completely dead. Totally here. You were saying? Something about helping me, I think? GARCIN: Yes. INEZ: Help me do what? GARCIN: Frustrate th~ir tricks. INEZ: And in return? GARCIN: You'll help me. It wouldn't take much, Inez, just a bit of good will. INEZ: Good will And where do you want me to get it? I am rotten. GARCIN: And me? (Pause . ) But if we tried? INEZ: I' m dried up. I can neither give nor receive; how can I help you? (Pause. She looks at Estelle, who has ·her head in her hands.) Florence was blonde. GARCIN: This little one will be your torturer, you know. INEZ: That could be just what I fear. GARCIN: It's through her that they'll get to you. As for me, I . • . I I pay no attention to her. If you were to What? INEZ: GARCIN: It's a trap. They' re watching to see if you'll let yourself be caught. INEZ: I know. And you, you're a trap. Do you think they haven't foreseen your very words? And that they don't have hidden pitfalls that we can't see? .Everything's a trap. But what does that make me? A trap for her. Maybe I' 11 be the one to catch her. GARCIN: You won't catch anything. We run after each other like the horses on a merry-go-round, without ever catching up; you can be sure they've arranged everything. Let it go, Inez. Open your hands, let go. Or else you'll make us all miserable. INEZ: Do I look like someone who lets go? I know what awaits me: I'm going to burn; I am burning, and I know that it's endless. I know it all-- do you think I'll let go? I will have her; she'll see you through my eyes, like Florence saw the other one. How can you tell me about your misery? I tell you I know it all and yet I don't feel sorry for myself. A trap, ha! A trap. Of course I'm caught in a trap. And what then?. So much the better, if it makes them happy. GARCIN (taking her by the shoulders): Me, I can feel sorry for you. Look at me; we're naked. Naked to the bone; I know your inner heart. We are bound together-do you think I should want to hurt you? I don't regret a thing, I'm not complaining, I am dried up too. But for you, I can feel sorry. INEZ (having left his hands there while he spoke, recoils ) : Don't touch me. I hate being touched. And keep your pity. Come now, Garcin; there are plenty of traps for you in this room. For you. Set just for you. You'd do better to mind your own business. (Pause . ) If you leave us alone, the child and I, I' 11 be · in no position to harm you. GARCIN (looks at her for a moment, then shrugs): All right. ESTELLE: (rai sing her head) : Help, Garcin. GARCIN : What do you want from me? ESTELLE (rising and approaching him): Me, you can• help me. GARCIN: Talk to her. (Inez has approached Estelle, and is standing behind her, without touching her. During the following exchange she speaks practically into Estelle's ear. Estelle,_ facing 58 Garcin, responds uniquely to him, as if he . were the one questioning her, though he looks at her without speaking.) ESTELLE: I beg you; you promised, Garcin, you promised! Quickly, quickly; I don't want to be alone. Olga has taken him dancing. INEZ: Who? ESTELLE: Pierre. They' re dancing together. INEZ: Who's Pierre? ESTELLE: A little fool. He called me his live ly brook .' He loved roe . She's taken him dancing. INEZ: Do you love him? ESTELLE: They're sitting down. She's all out of breath. Why is she dancing? At least it'll make her lose some weight. Of course not. Of course I didn't love him . He's eighteen years old , and I'm no cradle robber. INEZ: Then let them be. What can they do to you? ESTELLE: He was mine. INEZ: Nothing on earth is yours any more. ESTELLE: He was mine. INEZ: Yes, he was . Try to take him, try to touchhiro. Olga, she can touch him. Can't she? She can hold his hands, stroke his knees. ESTELLE: She's pressing her enormous breasts against him; she's breathing in his face. Tom Thumb, poor Tom Thumb, what keeps you from laughing in her face? Ah, one · glance from roe would have been enough, she never would have dared Am I truly no more? INEZ: No more. And there is nothing left of you on earth. All that belongs to you is here . Would you like the paper-knife? The bronze by Barbidienne? The blue sofa is yours. And I, darling, I am yours forever. ESTELLE: Oh? Mine forever? Well then, which of you dared to call roe their · lively brook? You are not deceived, you others, you know that I am filth. Think of me, Pierre; don't think, but of me; defend me. As long as you are thinking, 'My lively brook, my dearest lively brook,' I'm only half here; only half guilty. Below, I am a lively brook, at your side. She's as red as a tomato. See, it's impossible; we've laughed at her toget her a hundred times. What is that song? I loved it so much . Oh, the St. Louis Blues . Go ahead; dance, dance . You'd laugh if you could see it, Garcin. She can't do a thing without my seeing it. I see you, I see you, with your tired hair - do, looking so overcome. I see how you step on his feet. It's enough to die laughing. Come on! Faster, faster! How he pulls and pushes her. It's indecent . Faster! 'You're so light,' he always told me. Come on! Come on! (Dances as she speaks.) She's laughing, she dances across my view. Our dear Estelle! What, our dear Estelle? Oh , be quiet! You didn't even shed a tear at the funeral. And she says, 'our dear Estelle.' She's got the nerve to speak of him of me . Come on! In time. She's not one who can talk and dance at the same time. What? No! No! Don 't tell him! I give up; take him, keep him, do with him what you will, but don't tell him (She has stopped dancing . ) Good . You can keep him for now. She told him everything, Garcin: Roger, the trip to Switzerland; she told him the whole story. 'Our dear Estelle was not No, no, after all, I wasn't . He shook his head with a sad look , but you couldn't say the news upset him. Keep him for now. I don't grudge you his long eyelashes or his girlish manners. But he called me his lively brook, his crystal. Well, the crystal is in pieces. 'Our dear Estelle. ' Dance! Dance! Come on! In time. One, two. (Dances.) I'd give the whole world to return to earth for a moment, a single moment, to dance with him. (Dance s. Long pause.) I don't hear so well any more. They've turned down the lights, like for a tango. Why are they playing so softly? Louder! How far away it seems. I I don't hear anything at all now. (Stops dancing.) Nothing. The earth has . le.ft me. Garcin, look at me. Take me in your arms. (Inez, behind Estelle, motions to Garcin to move aside.) INEZ (impe riously ) : Garcin! 59 �GARCIN (retreats a step and indicates Inez): Talk to her. ESTELLE: (gripping him): Don't go! Are you a man? Look at me, though, don't turn your eyes away. Is it so painful? I 've got golden hair, and after all, someone killed himself for me. I beg you; you've got to look at something. If it's not me, it'll be the bronze, or the table, or the sofas. I'm still more pleasant to look at. Listen; I tumbled into their hearts like a little bird fallen from its nest. Pick me up, take me into your heart, you'll see how nice I can be. GA RC IN (pushing her away, with dif f iculty): Talk to her, I tell you. ESTELLE: Her? She doesn't count; she's a woman. INEZ: I don't count? But, my little bird, my little dove, you've been in the shelter of my heart for some time now. · Don't be afraid; I'll look at you without a break, without even a blink. You will live in my eyes like a speck of gold in a ray of sunshine. ESTELLE: A ray of sunshine? Hal Get lost! You've tried to catch me already, and you've seen well enough that it failed. INEZ: Estelle I My lively brook, my crystal. ESTELLE: Your crystal? What a joke. Who do you think you' re fooling? Everyone knows that I flung my child out the window. The crystal is in pieces on the ground, and 1 don't care. I'm nothing but an empty skin-- and my skin is not for you. INEZ: Come! You' 11 be whatever you like; a lively brook, a briny brook. In the depths of my eyes you'll have whatever you desire . ESTELLE: Let me go! You have no eyes I But what do I have to do to make you let me go? Here! (She spits in her face. Inez quickly releases her.) INEZ: Garcin I You' 11 pay for this! (Pause. Garcin shrugs and goes to Estelle.) GARCIN: So you want a man. ESTELLE: A man? No. You. GARCIN: Don't bother. Any man would do. I 'm to be found here, so it' s me . Good enough. (Takes her shoulders.) I've got nothing to please you, you 'know~- I'm not a little fool and I don't dance the tango. ESTELLE : I ' 11 take you as you ar~ . Perhaps I'll change you. GARCIN: I doubt it. I'll be distracted. I 've got other things on my mind. ESTELLE: What things? GARCIN: It wouldn't interest you. ESTELLE: I'll sit on your sofa. I'll wait for you to bother with me. (Inez laughs.) INEZ: Ha! Bitch! On your belly! On your belly! And he's not even handsome. ESTELLE (to Garcin): Don't listen to her. She has no eyes, she has no ears. She doesn't count. GARCIN: I'll give you what I can. It's not much. I won't love you; I know you too well. ESTELLE: But you desire me? GARCIN: Yes. ESTELLE: That's all I want. GARCIN: Then . . . (Leans toward her.) INEZ: Estelle! Garcin! You're losing your senses! I'm here, me! GARCIN: I see. So? INEZ: In front of me? You you can't! ESTELLE.: Why not? I used to undress in front of my chambermaid. INEZ (grabbing Garcin): Let go! Let go! Don't touch her with your filthy male hands. GARCIN (pushes her away violently) : There: I 'm no gentleman, and I won' t be afraid to hit a woman. lNEZ: You promised me, Garcin, you promised! Please; you promised me! GARCIN: It' s you who broke our agreement. INEZ (Lets go and moves back to the edge of the set) : Do what you like; you' re stronger than me. But remember that I'm here and I'm watching. My eyes won't leave you, Garcin; you'll have to embrace under my stare. How I hate the both of you! Go on, love! Love! We are in hell and I'll have my turn. (During the following scene she stares silently at them.) 60 GARCIN (returning to Estelle and taking her by the shoulders): Kiss me. (Pause.) He leans over, then abruptly straightens up again.) ESTELLE (annoyed gesture:) Ha! (Pause.) I told you to pay no attention to her. GARCIN: She matters. (Pause.) Gomez is at the journal. They've closed the windows; it must be winter. For six months they've I told you I'd be distracted. They ' re shivering; they've kept their coats on. It's curious-- they're so cold, down there, and I'm so hot. This time they're talking about me. ESTELLE: Will this last long? (Pause.) Tell me what he's saying, anyway. GARCIN: Nothing. He's not saying a thing. He's scum, that's all. Just scum. Ha! (Returns to Estelle.) Back to us! Will you love me? ESTELLE (smile) : Who knows? GARCIN: Will you have faith in me? ESTELLE: What a silly question! You' 11 be constantly in my sight and there's only Inez for you to cheat on me with . GARCIN: True. (Pause. He releases her shoulders.) I meant a different kind of faith. (Listens.) Go on, go on! Say what you like; I'm not there to defend myself. (To Estelle.) You've got to have faith in me, Estelle. ESTELLE: What a fuss! But you've got my mouth, my arms, my entire body, and everything could be so simple My faith? But I've got no faith to give. You're annoying me terribly. You must have done something pretty awful to beg for my faith so. GARCIN: They shot me. ESTELLE: I know; you refused to go . So? GARCIN: I . . . I didn't exactly refuse. (To the invisible ones.) He speaks well, he accuses me as well as the can, but he hasn't said what I should have done. Should I have gone to the general's office and said, 'I won't go, general?' What foolishness! They'd just have locked me up. I wanted to testify, to testify, myself. I didn't want them to suppress my side of things. (To Estelle.) I . . I took the train. They pinched me at the border. ESTELLE: Where would you have gone? GA RC IN: Mexico City. I figured on starting a pacifist journal there. (Long pause.) Well, say something. ESTELLE: What do you want me to say? You did what you could since you didn't want to fight. (Garcin makes an annoyed gesture.) Oh, darling, I've no idea how to answer you. INEZ: You should tell him, my treasure, that he ran away like a lion. For he did run away, your great darling. That's what's torturing him. GARCIN: Ran away, left, call it what you will. ESTELLE: But you had to run away. If YOU Id Stayed they WOUld have put YOU in handcuffs. GARCIN: True. (Pause.) Estelle, am I a coward ? ESTELLE: But I know nothing about it, my love. I'm not in your skin. It's for you to decide. GARCIN (weary gesture): I can't decide. ESTELLE: Well, after all, you should remember; you have must have had reasons for doing what you did. GARCIN: Yes. ESTELLE : We 11? GARCIN: Are they the real reasons? ESTELLE: How tangled you are. GARCIN: I wanted to testify . . . I . . . I had thought about it for so long . Are they the real reasons? INEZ: Ha! That's the question. Are they the real reasons? You deliberated; you didn't want to enter it lightly. But fear, hate, and all the filth hidden inside; these are also reasons. Go on, look, interrogate yourself. GARCIN: Shut up! Do you think I need your advice? I paced in my cell, all night, all day. The window to the door, the door to the window. I lay in wait for myself. I followed my tracks. It seemed as if I'd spent an entire lifetime questioning myself. But the deed was still there. I . . . I'd taken the train that much was certain. But why_ ? Why? Eventually I came to think that my death would decide: if I died properly, it would prove that I'm not a coward. INEZ: And how did you die, Garcin? 61 �GARCIN: Badly. (Inez bursts into But I'm out of the game; they'll keep the laughter.) Oh I It was simply a bodily records and not worry about me, and· weakness. I'm not ashamed. It's just they're right, since I'm dead. Finished like a rat. {Laughs.) I've fall en into that everything remains in suspense, for the public domain. (Long pause) eternity. (To Estelle): Come here, you. ESTELLE {softly ) : Garcin. Look at me. I need to have someone GARCIN: You're there? Good, listen, you looking at me when they talk about me on earth. I love green eyes. can do me a favor. No, don't flinch. I know, it seems funny for someo ne to ask INEZ: Green eyes? Well, look at that. you for help, you're not used to it. But And you, Estelle, do you love cowards? if you wanted to, it you tried, couldn't ESTELLE: What's it to me? Coward or not, as long as he kisses well. we perhaps love one another for good? Look, there are a thousand people who' 11 GARCIN: They' re shaking their heads and repeat that I'm a coward. But what's puffing on their cigars; they' re bored. that, a thousand? If there were one soul, They're thinking, 'Garcin's a coward'; just one, who' 11 swear against all ·their tiredly, weakly. Still, history's got to forces that I didn't run away, that I think something. Garcin is a coward. couldn't have run away, that I had That's what they've decided; them, my courage, that I am straight, I . • • I'm comrades. In six months they'll be positive that I' 11 be saved! Will you saying, "yellow as Garcin." You two are believe me? You'll be dearer to me than lucky; no one on earth thinks about you any I myself. more. Me, my life doesn't end so easily. INEZ: And your wife, Garcin? ESTELLE (laughing): Idiot! Dear idiot? Do you think I could love a coward? GARCIN: What about my wife? She's dead. INEZ: De?d? GARCIN: But you said . . . ESTELLE: I was teasing you. I loved men, GARCIN: I must have forgotten to tell Garcin, real men, with rough skin, strong you. She died not long ago. It's been about two months now. hands. You haven't got the chin of a INEZ: Of grief? coward, you haven't got a coward's mouth, or a coward's voice, or the hair of a GARCIN: Of course, of grief. What do you coward. And it's for you mouth, your think she'd die of? So, all is well. The voice, your hair that I love you. war is over, my wife is dead, and I have a GARCIN: Is it true? Is it really true? place in history. (He emits a dry sob and ESTELLE: Do you want me to swear it to covers his face with his hands. Estelle you? holds him.) GARCIN: So, I defy them all; the ones ESTELLE: Darling, darling. Look at me, down .there and the ones here. Estelle, my darling. · Touch me, touch me. (Takes we' 11 stroll out o f hell. (Inez bursts his hand and places it on her throat.) out laughing. He stops and looks a her.) Put your hand on my throat. (Garcin What is it? attempts to pull away.) Leave your hand, INEZ {laughing): But she doesn't believe leave it here, don't stir. They will die, a word she says. How could you be so all of themr what does it matter what they naive? 'Estelle, am I coward?' If only think. Forget them. There's no one but you knew how much s}1e cares! me. ESTELLE: Inez I (To Gare in.) Don't GARCIN- (withdraws his hand) : They won't listen to her. If you want my faith forget me. They'll die, but others will you've got to give me yours. come who'll pass it on. I've left my life INEZ: Of course, of course! Trust her. in their hands. She needs a man, that you can believe, she ESTELLE: Ahl You think too much. needs a man' s arms around · her waist, a GARCIN: What else is there to do? man's smell, a man's desire in the eyes of Before, I acted . Oh I To go back a man. As for the rest . . . Hal She'd with them for one day • . What a lie I suffering, which tickles and caresses and tell you that you're God the Father, if it is never bad enough. (Grabs for the would make you happy . button and presses it. ) Will you open? GARCIN : Estelle! Is this true? Answer (The door opens suddenly, and he just me : is it true? avoids falling. ) Ah! (A long silence.) ESTELLE: What do you want me to say? I INEZ: Well, Garcin? Go ahead. don't understand a word of all these GARCIN (slowly): I wonder why that door stories. (Stamps her foot) How annoying opened. this all is! Even if you were a coward, I INEZ: What are you waiting for? Go, go, would love you . There! Is that enough quickly . for you? (Pause . ) GARCIN: I'm not going out there. GARCIN (to both women ) : You disgust me! INEZ: And you, Estelle? (Estell e does (Walks to the doo r. ) not move. Inez laughs . ) So? Which? ESTELLE: What are you doing? GARCIN: Leaving . Which of the three? The way is free -- so what's keeping us? Ha! It's enough to INEZ (quickly) : You won't get far; the die laughing . We're inseparable. door's locked . (Estelle pounces on her from behind) GARCIN : They'll open it, I tell you. ESTELLE: Inseparable? Garcin! Help me, (Pounds on the door.) I can't tolerate help me, quick . We' 11 drag her out and you any more. I can't. (Este lle runs to shut the door behind he r; she'll see. him . He thrusts her away.) Go away! You INEZ (str uggling): Estelle! Estelle! I disqust me even more than she does. I beg you, keep me. Not in the hall; don't don't want to be swallowed by your eyes. throw me in the hall! You 're clammy; you' re soft! You are an GARCIN : Let her go. octopus, a swamp . (Beats on the door.) ESTELLE : You're a fool, she hates you. Will you open? GARCIN: It's because of her tha t I ESTELLE: Garcin , I beg you, please don't stayed. (Estelle releases Inez, and looks go . I won't talk to you, I'll leave you at Garcin in amazement.) all alone, but don't go. Inez has shown INEZ: Because of me? (Pause . ) Well, her claws; I don't want to stay alone with her. good enough; close the door. It's ten times hotter since it opened . (Garcin GARCIN: Look after yourself. I never crosses to the door and closes it.) asked you to come. Because of me? It Is so ESTELLE: Coward! Coward! Oh! true;you are a coward. GARCIN: Yes. You, you know what a coward INEZ (appr oaching Estelle) : Well, my ' is . INEZ: Yes, I know that . dove, aren't you happy? You spat in my GARCIN: You know what evil is, and shame, face to please him, and we quarrelled and fear. There were days when you saw because of him. But he ' s leaving, the through youself, right to the heart. And kill- joy; he's going to leave us girls it shattered you. And the next day you alone could do nothing but think, but you could ESTELLE: It won't do you any good . If no longer understand the revelation of the that door opens, I'm gone . day before. Yes, you know the cost of INEZ: Where? evil. And if you say that I'm a coward, ESTELLE: It doesn 't matter where. As far it's because you've lived with it , right? from you as possible . (Gare in has not INEZ: Yes . stopped beating on the door.) It's you I've got to convince, GARCIN: Open! Open it! I'll accept GARCIN: you are of my breed. Did you imagine that everything: the boot, the pincers, the I was going to leave? I couldn't leave molten lead, the tongs, the garrotte; everything that burns and tears . I want you here, triumphant, with all those to suffer for the good. Better a hundred thoughts in your head, all those thoughts stings, better the whip, the acid, than about me. this suffering in the head, this phantom INEZ: You truly want tp convince me? 62 63 �GARCIN: I want nothing more. I don't hear them any more, you know. No doubt they' re finished with me. Finished; the case is closed, I 'm no longer on earth, not even as a coward. We ' re alone here , Inez; there's nobody but you two to think of me. She doesn't count. But you, you who hate me; if you believe me, you' 11 save me. INEZ: This won't be easy. Look at · me. I've .got a thick skull. GARCIN: I'll give it all the time it takes. INEZ: Well, you've got all of time. All of time. GARCIN (takes her by the shoulders): Look, everyone's got their own tastes, right? Me, I didn't give a damn about money , or love. I wanted to be a man. A real man. I put everything on one horse. Is it possible to be a coward when one takes the most dangerous routes? Can you judge an entire life by one act? INEZ: Why not? For thirty years you dreamed that you had courage, and you allowed yourself a thousand petty weaknesses because for heres everything is permitted. How convenient! And then, at the hour of danger, you were up against the wall and. • . you took the train for Mexico. GARCIN: I did not dream of that heroism. I chose it. A man is what he wants to be. INEZ: Prove it. Prove it wasn't a dream. Only acts determine what it is one wants. GARCIN: I died ·too soon. I didn't have the time to finish my acts. INEZ: One always dies too soon-- or too late. But the life is there, finished; the line is drawn; you've got to take the total. Besides your life, you've got nothing. GARCIN: Viper! You've got an answer for everything. INEZ: Come on, come onl Don't give up. It should be easy to persuade me. Look for arguments, make an effort. (Garcin shrugs.) Well, well? I told you you were vulnerable. Ha! How you' 11 pay for it now. You are a coward, Garcin; a coward because I will it. I will it, you hear? I will it. And yet see how weak I am, a 64 breath of air. I'm nothing but the eye that sees you, the colorless thought that thinks you. (He walks toward her with open hands • ) Ha! They are open, these great manly hands. But what are you hoping for? You can't catch a thought in your hands. Come on, you haven' t got a choice: you'll have to convince me. I've got you. ESTELLE: Garcin! What? GARCIN: ESTELLE: Avenge yourself. How? GARCIN: ESTELLE: Embrace me; you'll hear her sing. That's true, Inez. You have got GARCIN: too. (Holds me, but I've got you, Estelle. Inez lets out a cry.) Hal Coward! Coward! Go ahead. INEZ: Go ahead and console yourself with women. ESTELLE: Sing, Inez, sing! INEZ: The handsome couple! If only you could see his great hand on the flat of y·o ur back, pawing at the flesh and the cloth. He has wet hands. He sweats. It's leaving a blue stain on your dress. ESTELLE: Sing I Sing! Squeeze me tighter, Garcin; she'll burst. INEZ: Yes, squeeze her tightly, Garcin, squeeze her. Mingle your heats. It's good, love 1 eh, Gare in? It' s deep and mild, like sleep. But I won't let you sleep. (Gesture from Garcin.) ESTELLE: Don't listen to her. Take my lips; I am totally yours. INEZ: Well, what are you waiting for? Do as you're told. Garcin the coward holds in his arms Estelle the infanticide. Betting is opened. Will Garcin the coward embrace her? I see you, I see you 1 by myself I am . a crowd. The crowd, Garcin, the crowd; do you hear them? (Muttering.) Coward l Coward! Coward! Coward! You flee in vain; I won't let you go. What are you seeking in her lips? Forgetfulness? But I won't forget you . It's me you must convince. Me. Go on! Go onl I'm waiting. · You see, Estelle, he's losing his grip, he's as tame as a puppy • . • You can't have himl GARCIN: So it will never.be night. Never. INEZ: You'll see me always. GARCIN: INEZ: Always. (Ga re in releases Estelle and takes several steps upstage. He approaches the bronze.) GARCIN: The bronze . . . (Caresses it.) So here we are now. The bronze is here; I contemplate it and I realize I'm in hell. I tell you everything was foreseen. They p~edicted that I'd stand before this mantle, with my hand on the bronze, and all eyes upon me. All those eyes, devouring me. (Suddenly turns around.) Ha! 'l'here ' s only two of you? I thought there would be a lot more. (Laughs.) So, it's hell, here . I never would have thought You remember-- the brimstone, the spikes, the grilles . . Ah! What a joke . No need of the grille. Hell? It's The Othe rs. ESTELLE: Darling! GARCIN (pushing her away): Leave me alone. She stands between us. I can't love you while she's watching. ESTELLE: Ha! Well, she won't see you any more. (Takes the paper-knife from the table, rushes to Tn c'!z and stabs her several times.) INEZ: (struggles with her, laughing): What are you doing, what are you doing, are you mad? You know quite well I 1 m dead. ESTELLE: Dead? (She drops the knife. Inez picks it up and stabs herself with rage. ) Dead! Dead! Dead! Not a knife INEZ: It's already been or poison, or hanging. done, understand? And we are together forever. (Laugh s.) ESTELLE (burst of laughter) : Forever? My god, how comical! Forever! GARCIN (laughs , looking at the others): Forever! (They sit, each on his own sofa. A long silence. They stop laughing and regard one another. Garcin gets up.) Well, let's get on with it. CURTAIN 65 �- - - - ·- - -- - - - - -- - - Non-Prof it Org. BULK RATE U. S. POSTAGE PAID . St. John's Collegf2 Annapolis, Marylanu 21404 I I 'l ·1 PERMIT No. 120 ANNAP OL,IS, MD. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. ii, 65 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bergren, Kathleen Burlein, Ann Cooper, Barbara Holland, Christian Maguire, Susan Marklin, Martin Miller, Richard Mullen, Alexander Sokolik Merle Sachs, Joe, 1946- Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1983 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1983. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1983 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b5c2335be4651c5f180426aec753ae9e.pdf 2d89921fd14117036df7629a908ec6df PDF Text Text SPRING, 1984 _,;;. - �SPRING, 1984 ,. . �ENERGEIA: The a ctiv i ty in which anything is fully itself. n... vov Cover: Mary Napolitano (1947) Still life. Oil. The artist lives in New York. Her work has been exhibited at The First Street Gallery in Soho. £V~PY£~a ~wn ...(Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) STAFF Editor : Printed by the St. John's College Press St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland Faculty Adviso r : Christian Holland C<lthy Buckler Ann Burlein Zoe Churchville Frank Durgin Martin Marklin Alexandra Mullen Merle Sokolik Joe Sachs Energeia is a non-profit student magazine with an in-house circulation to the students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis and Santa Fe. Ene 'r geia is published thrice yearly, in the Fall, Winter, an~ Spring. The Fall issue is reserved fo~ the student work of the previous school year which has been selected by the Prize Conunittee for public recognition . For the Winter and Spring issues the Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the conununity --ess a y s, poems , stor ies , original math p r oofs, lab p r ojects, drawings, and the like. Note: A brief description of the author accompanies all work not by current St. John's students. Please include some such statement along with your submission. Thank you. �.......... ~-- ~--- - ~~ The Music of the American· Republic Karl Walling CONTENTS 1 THE MUSIC OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC Ka rl Walling CHARACTER AND LIBERAL EDUCATION Eva Br.:: 1· MUSIC AS A MEMBER OF THE QUADRIVIUM Jeremy Laue r THREE DREAMS TO WAKING Pierre Gagn ie r MARTHA'S CONVERSJOf\; Zoe Churchville SONNET Step hen Morse THE TEARS OF ODYSSEUS Cary S tic kney ·: ;) MATHEMATICS AND THE CONCEPT OF FOR CE John Ritner u THE FORT A.J. Kriv ak 50 G ALILEO'S LIMITS / .drien Helle r 51 SONNET Stephen Morse 52 DIVIDED BETWEEN TEARS AND SMILES Merle Sokolik 53 POEM Pierre Gagnier 64 "No sooner do you set foot on American soil," Tocqueville says, "than you find yourself in a sort of tumult, a confused clamor rises on every side, and a thousand voices are heard at once, each expressing some social requirements." [ 1] The voices Tocqueville describes belong to men and women governing themselves . For some, the sound they make is mere cacophony, for the confused clamor comes from every American struggling to attain a new or larger piece of the action, and a new or better place in the sun. For others, the sound is a symphony wh i ch expresses the well-ordered functioning of the American polity according to the fot•nders' grand design. Neither the cacophonic nor the symphonic view is exactly correct. Americans have a connnon creed, indeed a political religion, which is expressed in the Declaration of Independence, many of Lincoln's speeches, and the myths which make us a people. The creed gives too much form and depth to the American character for the sound we make ever to be just noise, devoid of order or meaning. We simply have too much in common. Nevertheless, we are also an ambitious people. Americans and American interest groups all pursue their ends with great energy, and often without regard for the interests of others. Symphonies require too much coordination of each sound for the political jockeying characteristic of America to ever have the order, sense, or purpose of a symphony. We are simply t oo free. The sound Tocqueville heard is most like improvised jazz, the organized musical chaos indigenous to America. This improvised jazz leaves plenty of room for displays of virtuosity. Our politicians, for example, constantly blow their own horns. In fact, every interest and leader in America seems to aim at grabbing our attention by being louder or more sophisticated than the competitors whose But the horn-blowing requires accommodations. sound they try to drown. Back-scratching--jiving and staying in tune with others--is absolutely essential for every American politician and interest group to get ahead. In order to play their solos, they have to play with the band. The music of the American republic is therefore full of much harmony and dissonance, much unity and diversity. How did this come about? What. purpose can the music serve? Is there any sense in it? Without laying too much stress on the vision of one man, I would like to suggest that J ames Madison provides the best answers to these questions in Federalist l.Q., and that, indeed, he deserves to be called the theoretical father of American political jazz. BACKGROUND: DEMOCRATIC RULE AND THE PROBLEM OF FACTION In Federalist ,i, Hamilton observes t hat, "it is impossible to read the histories of the pett y republics of Greece and Italy" wi t hout being overwhelmed by "sensations of horror and disgust" at the i r perpetual " vibrations between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy." .[ 2] Thoug h we today tend to t hink that any regime that is not democratic cannot be respectable, Hamilton expressed a view of democracy that has been far more common in history. Historically, democratic 1 �rule has been far from respectable. In Plato's Republic, for example, democracy ranks just above anarchy in the decay of more or less just ststes, and is soon followed by despotism of one form or another . The following passage from Thucydides' description of the civil war in Corcyraea is arz example of what ntany men at the time of the writing of the Federalist thought to bf" an inevitable consequence of democratic rule: [3] "The Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those of their fellow citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and though the crime imputed was that of trying to put down the democ:racy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their debtors because of the money they owed to them. Death thus raged in every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no lengtb to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and supvliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it: while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there." According to Thucydides, this kind of violent civil st·ruggle has always happened and always will happen "as long as the nature of n1 remains the Bame." an [4] As long as men are greedy or envious, Thucydides says, then they will go to civil war, and democratic nations, such as Athens, Corcyraea, and Rome, will be most likely to go to civil war. In such nations. the poor will have a common passion and interest in taking from the rich and giving to themselves, and the. rich will have an opposite passion and interE!st in defendlrig theit property. The poor, who almost always outnumber the rich. will have the voting power to do what they like. The rich, to defend their property, will often resort to illegal and violent means to defend themselves. Society will become polarized into two warring camps, and no man will be safe from the greed or envy of other men. To be fair, the problem Thucydides describes is not so much a problem of democratic rule as it is of smallness. Small nations are easily divided into warring camps, if only because it is easier for the passions of a moment to spread through all the citizenry. But all democratic nations before the writing of the Federalist had been small, and smallness was considered essential by political theorists before the writing of the Federalist because only small nations ~ere capable of allowing their citizens to meet and vote on every issue. Hence, democracies took the blame for the factional vices of small nations, even though faction was primarily a problem of small nations. Federalist 1Q. is an attempt to prove Thucydides was wrong. Although Madison admits that democracies have been one of the most common sources of civil war (or as he put it, the violence of faction) ''and in general, have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths," Madison sets out to show that it is possible to both mitigate the dangers of faction and have democratic rule. His task is to make democracy safe for America: "to preserve the public good and private rights against" factions and "at the same time to preserve the spirit and form of popular government." Although Madison addresses an ancient problem, the problem of factional civil war in democratic nations (leading to anarchy or tyranny of one form or another) is as modern as yesterday and today. The chaos and near civil war of democratic rule in the Weimar Republic, the very condition of Hitler's coming to power, demonstrates the perennial nature of the problem. As order breaks down, men will often accept the leadership of any strong man, even if the order they receive in return comes without or at the expense of laws. A brief look at fledgling democracies around the world (at Lebanon, El Salvador, Greece, Turkey, and many other nations) shows that · 2 democratic nations are still often on the verge of civil war or forced to resort to the rule of a strong man to prevent civil war.. Perhaps because he understood that civil war would always be a problem for democracies, Madison, in a rare evangelical temper, suggests that preventing the "mischiefs of faction" is the "desideratum" to recommend democratic rule to "the esteem and adoption of mankind." After all, who would ever wish to live in a democracy, if life in a democracy always led to anarchy, civil war, and despotism? TREATIRG THE CAUSES OR THE EFFECTS? Madison begins his task by defining his terms. A faction is a group of citizens "united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate i terests of the community." The dangers he sees from faction are twofold: they may act or rule unjustly and they may act or rule unwisely. In either case, factions can provoke civil war by forcing others to rebel against repression or prompting the able to take things into their own hands. Madison's solution must therefore mitigate both of these dangers: it must make factions both wiser and more just and it must prevent civil war and coups d'etat. Like a doctor treating a dreadful disease, Madison sees only two ways to remedy the ills of factions. Either the causes or the effects, the symptoms or the disease, must be treated. Two causes--one motivational and the other conditional--create faction. Liberty is the conditional cause of faction and "essential to its existence." Without liberty, men cannot communicate, organize, or unite. They cannot oppose anyone or anything. The motivational c·ause is the diversity of passions, interests, and opinions of the human race. Men struggle, and perhaps always will struggle, because they are different. Madison soon discovers that it is unwise and in fact impossible to completely cure the causes of faction. Though "liberty (the conditional cause) is to faction what fire is to animal life," liberty is also "essential to political life" in America. We would not choose to live without it. The American Revolution was fought in the name of liberty. To eliminate liberty in order to prevent factional strife, would be to destroy the aims of the revolution. Though tyrants everywhere and in all times have eliminated liberty in order to control faction, such a cure would be "worse than the disease" of faction in America. Since Americans would rightly not tolerate removing the conditional cause of faction, Madison considers removing the motivational cause, but this is simply impracticable. "As long as the reason of man continues to be fallible," men will form different opinions, and they will be mistaken about their opinions. As long as man's "reason and his self-love" are connected, even the best of men will be vain. They will love and defend their opinions as much because they are their own opinions as because they think .their opinions are the right opinions. They will also tend to use their reason as a means to satisfy their passions rather than subject their passions to the rule of their reason. Moreover, though all men have passions, they do not all have the same degrees or kinds of passions. This diversity of degrees and kinds of passions ensures great diversity in the will to satisfy them, and potential violence when the passions conflict. Most important ly, "the diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is ••• an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests." Protecting each man's right to use his faculties, including his property acquiring faculty, is the "first object of government." But when the government protects "different and unequal faculties of acquiring property," a host of opportunities for factional struggle appear. Men begin to possess different 3 �degrees and kinds of property. The greed of some, the envy of others, influence the have's and the have not's, and thus begins "a division of the society into different interests and parties." For all these reasons, Madison argues that the motivating causes of faction are "sown in the nature of man." To cure the causes of faction, human nature would have to be changed, a task which Madison assumes to be almost impossible. The other way of mitigating the dangers of faction is to control the effects of factional struggle and for Madison, this is the only practical way. In any democratic nation, if a faction is a minority, "relief is supplied by" the principle of a majority rule, "which enab lee a majority to defeat'' a minority through the ballot. Though the minority "might clog the administration" and "convulse the society" with all the clamorous turmoil Tocqueville saw and heard, the principle of majority rule will prevent the minority faction from gaining power. But the very virtue of majority rule in dealing with minority factions is also its greatest vice. If a faction consists of a majority, the faction is able to "sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens." MAJORITY RULE WITHOUT FACTIONS? Madison's primary purpose in Federalist 1Q is to solve the problem of majority faction: of unwise or unjust rule by majorities. He sees only two possible (and complementary) solutions. Either majority factions must be prevented from having the same passion or interest at the same time, or, if they already have common passions and interests, they must be denied the chance "to carry into effect, schemes of oppression." Notice that Madison is not rejecting the principle of majority rule. He calls himself a "friend of popular government" and insists that laws be made by majorities. But to solve the problem of majority faction, something must be done to ensure that majorities rule with more justice and wisdom than ever before. Madison does not believe that "pure democracies," such as Athens, could ever aolve this problem. The small size which the ancients (and most moderns until the writing of the Constitution) had considered essential for democracies ensures that "a common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority." In such nations, "communication and concert" result from the "form of government itself" and factious majorities therefore possess both the will and the means to rule unwisely and unjustly. But an extended republic, such as America, differs from a "pure democracy" in at least two very important respects. The first is delegation of powers; the second, the greater number of citizens and larger territory which delegation makes possible for an extended republic. The effect of the first difference may be to "refine and enlarge the public vievs" through the public's representatives: people whose experience, love of ju1tice, and patriotism will enable them to withstand the passions of a moment and the clamor of a thousand voices. The effect may also be inverted, however. Demagogic delegates may "obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people." But this inversion is much less likely in a large republic than a small republic. To guard against "the cabals of a few," the delegates must be raised to a certain number; to avoid the "confusion of a multitude," the delegates must be limited to a certain number. Though the mean number is bard to determine, that mean number would prevent the sound made by the delegates from being either a cacophony verging on civil war or a symphony verging on despotism. The delegates would debate and disagree, but they would not make just 4 no'ise if they were limited to enough people to meet, listen to each other, make decisions, and, above all, be held responsible for their decisions. The people the delegates represent would demand action, and, in order to be reelected, the delegates would have to reach some consensus and act. The delegates would also conspire and meet in many back rooms, but if there were so many different kinds of delegates that it were hard to communicate with all of them, let alone pack them all into one room, their conspiracies would lack a sufficient number of conspirators to do any damage. EXTEND THE SPHERE. or DELEGATION In an extremely large republic with 13, or even better, 50 states, it is much more probable that the delegates and the interests they represent will be extremely diverse--so diverse, in fact, that forming any majority at all would be an extremely difficult task. "Extend the sphere" of a republic, Madison says, "and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less likely that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens, or if such a motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength and act in unison with each other." If the vast republic Madison envisions is also a commercial republic, the effect of geographical diversity may be compounded by economic diversity. The most "common and durable source of faction," Madison observes, bas ever been "the various and unequal distribution of property." In small nations, such as El Salvador and much of the Third World today, very little diversity of and between economic classes exists. As long as such economic conditions prevail and the many poor with nothing to lose from civil war outnumber the few rich who have everything to lose from civil war, then such nations, particularly when they become .democrati~, will be prone to violent factional struggle. In large, commercial republ1cs, however, "a landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity." The acquisitive instinct in each interest group will lead it to put its interest first. The interest groups will compete with each other, and when they cooperate, it will be because cooperation is the only way they can attain their ends. Geographical diversity compounded by economic diversity will therefore act to split potential majorities into actual minorities. Such minorities will be "rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect" unjust or unwise laws. They will become politically impotent. In fact, they will no longer be factions. They will be interest groups, weakened by the diversity of the nation and tame enough to act only by cooperating with others. The sound of Tocqueville heard is very much the sound of a great commercial people clamoring for more and more .wealth. Tocqueville heard that sound in every part of America. The nation is so large that even though some economic interests are concentrated in the four corners of the nation, great diversity exists within regions as well as between them. Even now, with the advent of telephones, computers, and million name mailing lists, comnw.nication between members of similar interests is often very slow and difficult, and frequently impossible. The ~ost important consequence of the nation's economic and geographical (not to mention cultural and religious) diversity is that America has never bad the same kind or degree of rich-poor polarization which characterizes so much of the rest of the world. To be sure, the nation does have its poor (and far too many of them), but most of us have moderate incomes and our economic interests are largely determined by where we live and work. These different kinds of economic 5 �interests make the formation of a worker's class in America very difficult. If for a trucking firm, for example, we are just as likely to side with the company we work for in asking for help from the government as against the company in a strike for higher wages. We want the work, even if the work for the truckers means less work for others--the workers in the railroad, airline, busing, and merchant marine industries. Therefore, no proletariat exists in America, only interest groups. With such diversity, it is almost impossible for class struggle to characterize the factional struggle which does take place in America. As Friedrich Engels observed, "There is no place yet in America for a third (workers') party. The divergence of interests even in the same class group is so great in that tremendous area that wholly different interests and parties are represented in each of the two big parties." [S] we work "RUINED" BY MIDDLE CLASS MORALITY If I understood Engels correctly, Americans, like Mr. Doolittle in Shaw's Pygmalion, have been "ruined" for the purposes of class struggle by "middle class morality." But the ruination comes from the character our commercial society imparts to us as well as the diversity which makes our commercial society possible. Writing as long ago as 1787, Hamilton observed that the "assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer--all orders of men, look forward with eager expectation ••• to the pleasing reward of their toils." [6] These men very much want to be rich but they will.settle for being comfortable. These are acquisitive men, but the; are also cautious men--men with some property and men who would regard taking their property from them as a crime. That is why so many of them abhor the thought of taxation, even if it comes with representation. Though this acquisitive, property worshipping characteristic of Americans is often vulgar, and sometimes cruel, it does have some important saving graces. It makes us wary of revolutionaries of any kind because we are very interested in preserving the comfort that we have. Just as importantly, it diverts our attention from one of the most enduring and frequent causes of factional struggle--religion. As Madison observes, "A zeal for different opinions concerning religion" has often "divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than cooperate for the common good." Madison assumes that the nation's "miltiplicity" of religious sects will fragment tyrannical religious majority factions, but the acquisitive character of Americans can greatly reduce the desire to eppress anyone for religious reasons. Bluntly stated, many Americans worship Mammon as much as God, and many others have a long history of confusing Mammon with God, or at least His grace. Who wants to have civil war when it is po11ible to get rich, or at least become comfortably well off? If the people of the Mideast or Northern Ireland worshipped Maunnon as much as God, would they be as likely to sacrifice their lives and property for the sake of God? Or would they adopt the more moderate live and let live attitude of the acquisitive man who lets others prosper so that he can prosper? Engel's reference to parties suggests something which Madison never envisioned in writing the Federalist . America has almost always had two majo r par ties, and occasional third parties. Party was a dirty word for Madison, and synonymous with faction. Large parties, however, are absolutely essential for American government. No single interest group can attain a majority by itself in America, and this fact is the greatest testament to Madison's vision in Federalist 10. The function of parties in America is to provide majorities, but the maj~ities 6 parties provide can rarely be called factions. Parties are coalitions of interest groups which often share philosophical· and humanitarian goals and convictions, but which always share one immediate practical political objective: power. Each interest wants, and assumes all other interests want as much power as it can get. To attain such power, however, the interests must make accommodations and compromises with each other. No interest can dominate for a long time; each eventually has a chance to influence the party in some way to some extent. To be sure, Madison never envisioned modern political parties, but such parties are essential to overcome the nation's diversity, and make it possible to assert that ."a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good." That is why I would call Madison the theoretical father of American political jazz. Had the effect of the nation's geographical, economic, cultural, and religious diversity been to prevent Americans from ever uniting at all, then the sound Tocqueville heard would have been just ugly noise. Instead, with the expressed purpose of overcoming differences between sections, interests, creeds, and cultures, parties have developed flexible and changing coalitions which meet every four years (often to the sound of jazz) in an atmosphere resembling a large New Year' s Eve Party. The sound of men and women struggling to be heard at these conventions is not at all unlike the sound of trumpets, drums, pianos, and trombones improvising in a great jazz band. Each voice and musician wants to be heard, but knows that the success of the party (victory in November) and the band (a happy audience) depends on satisfying most interests (giving everyone a say or a solo). The success of the whole depends on satisfying the parts and the parts depend on the success of the whole. We are forced to get ahead by getting along. SOME PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON SOME POLITICAL PARADOXES I Having seen the utility of the diversity of the nation as a bulwark against factional struggle, it is worthwhile to try to imagine the philosophical method and assumptions which might have led Madison to think of his "republican remedy for the diseases most incident to repub lie government." Though much has been made of Madison's debt to men like Hume, Locke, and Hobbes, I think the assumptions which underlie Federalist .!Jt are owed primarily to Francis Bacon and his maxim that nature, to be conquered, must be obeyed. There is something very paradoxical in the notion of conquering by obeying. After all , most conquerors give orders; they do not take them. But think of what engineers do when they construct huge hydroelectric dams to stop floods, irrigate land, and provide energy for cities. They do not order the water to do as they will, but rather obey very st~ict rules for manipulating floodwater for constructive ends. The water must be allowed to move, or it will overflow and wreak devastation on the towns and land nearby. When the water is channeled in the right direction, it can move the motors that make the electricity. Nature is not conquered so much as it is used, but it is used by letting it do what it must do. The water must move. If it is all too often the Can the same things be said about human nature? nature of men and factions to pursue their own interests and passions without regard for the interests of other men, how can one use this aspect of human nature to control the tendency of men and factions to forsake justice and the common good of their society? If I understand Madison correctly, human nature and the nature of factions, like everything else in nature, to be conquered, must 7 I I �be obeyed. Therefore, the way to control the effects of faction is to use human selfishnesa--the ambition of some and the greed of others, to oppose human selfishness. In an extended commercial republic the size of America it is inevitable that men will have different passions, interests, and opinions,'and if t?ey are left free to follow their passions, interests, and opinions, then they will come to oppose each other. The larger and the more diverse the nation becomes, the more will human nature tend to break up groups with similar interests, passions, and opinions. By a kind of political judo, the forces of human nature and of faction are used against each other. We become so individualistic a~d so diverse that we do not have the political power, i.e., the votes, to accomplish anything by ourselves and are forced to get along with each other and respect each other in order to accomplish anything at all. THE LIMITS OF MADISON'S STRATEGY It seems clear that Madison's strategy for controlling faction is not appropriate for every time and place. Some nations are simply too small; others, too culturally or religiously or economically homogeneous. In America, however, the limits are of a different and almost opposite kind. The dangers come from being too diverse and trusting too much in human selfishness. What I mean is that communities and peoples are defined by something shared. In Federalist 1, John Jay notes some of the things which the American people shared at the time, and by and large, still share. We are, he says, "one united people-:a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, p:o~essi~g the.same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs ••• " Political communities, as distinguished from other kinds of communities, such as business corporations and markets are defined by such shared characteristics as the ones Jay listed. In partic~lar, they are defined by shared notions of right and wrong, of the just and the unjust. Madison's strategy, I believe, depends as much on this sharing as upon the diversity and pluralism for which he is famous. At the beginning of this essay I noted that Americans possess a common creed--a political religion. That creed means that certain truths are considered to be self-evident to us and that we are shocked when others do not accept those truths as being self-evident. We tolerate dissent and more diversity than any nation bas ever had before because we believe that all men have an equal right to use their faculties as best they can. The self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence are the fundamental shared characteristics of the American polity. They are the truths which make us different from other peoples because they are the truths which we hold in common. In Madison's Not';s of the Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787, Madison observes that "the states were divided into different interests ••• the most material of which resulted ••• principally from the effect of having or not having slaves." In all fairness to Madison, it has to be said that he and many others hoped that this great division of the nation would disappear as the industry of the South became more diversified and the need for slave labor disappeared. But Madison's hope was unfounded. Far from disappearing, slavery became the "peculiar institution" of the South. It was institutionalized because it was too profitable to give. up. Slavery could not be eradicated by obeying the greed of human nature. Far from it, slavery almost eradicated the Union which the Federalist was written to preserve. The house divided could not stand. The division of the Union, however, was a different kind of division than Madison thought necessary to 8 preserve the Union from civil war. Economic, religious, cultural, and geographical diversity are different from disagreement about fundamental principles. The disagreement ~bout whether all men are creat~d.e~ual undermin~d the possibility that all Americans could be free, and the divisiveness of this issue did split the nation into warring camps Our house· must be divided in order to stand, but if the people do not agree about the meaning of our founding principles, the house cannot stand. Those principles.are meant to be obvious to all rational men, but, as Madison well knew, the passions often prevent men from being rational. To prevent the irrational from gaining complete control of our politics, the nation therefore requires something more than Madison's reliance on competing elements of human selfishness. Constitutions are written as much in a people's character as on the documents and social structures they treasure, and Madison's strategy therefore requires fundamental agreement about the principles of the nation, and men to write those princples in our ~ouls. It requires political religion in order to avoid the religious fanatism which so often occurs when men disagree about fundamental principles. In recognizing the limits of Madisonts strategy, we see that it is very contingent on the character of our people. We begin to grasp the thought of Lincoln together with the thought of Madison, and see that our political jazz, the chaotic sound of our politics, presupposes essential harmony about the purpose of the republic. 1. Democracy in America, 2 vols, Phillips Bradley, ed. 1980), I, PP• 249. (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 2. All quotations from the Federalist will be from the 1980 National Home Library Edition, and unless otherwise noted, from Federalist l:Q. 3. The Peloponnesian War, III, 81; Crawley York, 1951). translation, (Random House, Inc., New 4. Ibid, III, 82 5. I owe the truckers example and the quotation from Engels to Martin Diamond's Founding of the Democratic Republic, (Peacock Publishers, Inc., Itasca, Illinois, 1981). 6. Federalist 11.. 9 �Character and Liberal Education Eva Brann Thinking about the conjunction of the terms "character" and "liberal education" . b:ings to mind the beginning of that great Greek work which deals most directly with t h~ relation of human vi~tue to learning: Plato's dialogue Meno. Meno the The~s~llan abruptly accosts Socrates in Athens with a demand : "Are you in a pos1t1~n! Socrates! to tell me whether excellence is a thing got by teaching or by ~raining, or neither by teaching or learning but it gets into people by nature or in some other way?" Socrates, with an irony lost on the provincial visitor answers to this effect: You people up there used to be famous for horsemanshi; and wealth, but ~ow your intellectual-in-residence, Gorgias, has seduced you into the love of wisdom, so that you have magnificent answers for all questions ~hfatsoever, while we Athenians have been left behind, since not a one of us, but l asked whether excellence is taught or gets into people some other way, would l~ugh and say, "How can I te 11 whether it can be taught or not when, to beg in with, I don't even know what it is?" I draw fro~ that opening, mutatis mutandis, the warning first to fix my terms when attempting to speak about character in its relation to liberal education. I shall therefore begin by defining character, and in such a way that unlike Socrates~ vi:tue which turns out to be, strangely, a matter of learnin~ but not of ~e~ching in the ordinary sense, it is eminently a matter both of teaching and t:a1~ing. Then I shall go on to an understanding of liberal education as quite distinct from character training--indeed it may sometimes disintegrate character. But, of course, I shall nonetheless try to save the day for liberal learning. I take my lead for discovering the essential meaning of the word ';.character" from certain overtones in its usage--not that I belong among those who think that u1age i~ mea~ing,, but because usages often preserve implicitly an original gist of meanl.Ilg which might have been lost in the explicit acceptation of the word; in the case of character that first meaning serves to distinguish it from "nature " " exce 11 ence, " " v1r t ue, " " mora l' . . ' ity, " " temperament," "personality," "values" and what have you • Let me start with a revealing extreme. We say that someone is a character, colloquially a "card". We mean that the person displays with abandon characteristics amounting to comic charicature. Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor as bead of his school, wrote a slim volume called Characters, in which thirty human types are characterized, each marked to absurdity by one trait· for example the congenitally abstracted type will do an addition in his bead and, turn Eva Brann is currently a tutor on the Annapolis campus. She delivered this lecture at the Center for Twentieth Century Studies Middlebury College in . ' ' April, 1981. 10 to his neighbor to ask ·for the sum, annd the tactless type at dance will seize a partner not yet as drunk as he.· Theophrastus, to · be sure, does not distinguish · such characters from nature--he expresses wonder that Greeks, all brought up in the same way and under the same clime, should display such a variety of natures. But, it seems to me, in that identification he is mistaken: it is not thirty natures, but thirty "types", in the French sense, that he is fixing in their recognizable and therefore comic peculiarity. For human beings are never by nature as quintessentially comic--it is precisely on those moving occasions when comic characters act "out of character" that their nature is revealed. Besides "being a character" people are said to have a character, and that in two senses: in the sense of bearing a conformation, a shape, upon themselves and in the sense of having that form or mark publicly acknowledged, in bearing a reputation -- a letter of reference used to be called simply "a character". Both of these ways of speaking preserve something of the original sense of the Greek word character. Like our word "scratch" it is onamatopoetic and means a scratched, engraved, stamped or identifying mark, as on a coin or a seal. A character is what we bear upon ourselves, as a brand or mark. Therefore it requires an underlying substance, a human material, a nature upon which it is impressed. People "without character" are by no means without a nature; rather their nature comes out antically, without reliably gaugeable determination, like unminted metal. The notion of character is, then, in its very origin figurative, since it relies on the metaphor of an underlying substance disciplined by an impressed shape. There are, of course, also other ways of imaging nature and its post-natal modifications; for instance one may think of what life does to the soul as a kind of maiming or disfigurement, as when Socrates compares it to a sea god, dredged up from the salty depths with limbs worn off and encrusted with barnacles. All such representation are open to criticism, I am aware, precisely because they are anthropomorphic, and more sophisticated, less image-like, models of individual humanity certainly exist: it may be viewed as a node in a societal or linguistic context, as a concatenation of habits, as a system of responsive behavior, as a mechanism for managing instincts, as a world-generating existence. For present purposes, I prefer the simple figurative model, since it makes the fact of character training pedagogically plausible. For one thing, it offers a resolution to the old debate of nature versus nurture. These two inseparable aspects of human shaping appear to me to be antithetical only when we view humanity remotely, as through the wrong end of a telescope, so that it looks either as if it were helplessly what it was born to be or hopelessly what it was But anyone who has ever been admitted to intimate knowledge of made to be. another person knows that the effort to discern the interplay of original nature and acquired character is one of the most rewarding preoccupations of love and friendship. Parents of very small children, too, watch with fascinaton the original and highly individual motions and emotions of the soul which often manifest themselves in typical gestures. In short, the bald opposition of nature and nurture may be false but the terms themselves are right enough. What I mean to argue is that there seems to be in every human being that which is practically ineradicable, congenital, aboriginal, and also something else which is imposed on that first nature as a second nature. That first nature has been delineated in numerous · schematisms. the first is Socrates' scheme of the tripartite soul, composed of a desiring, a spirited and a reasoning part; here the nature of every human being is defined by the original preponderance of one of these parts. Then there is the medieval theory of temperaments, which distinguishes natures by the peculiar complexion of the four 1 1 11 I ' �physical humours in them: the phlegmatic, the choleric, the sanguine and the melancholic. There is another, Pascal's division of the human disposition into the "esprit de geometrie" and the "esprit de finesse", the mathematical and the intuitive mode. I will avoid deciding the deep question which of these typologies is ultimate -- each seems to have truth in some context -- especially since I want to add one of m~ .own. In my experience, people's most proper nature is revealed in their prevailing sens~, not so much in the physical as the figurative meaning--whether eye, ear, or skin, so to speak, determines the way they take in and act in the world. Those of the last, the surface sense, are immediate and spontaneous, sensitive to creaturely needs but sometimes obtuse to non-immediate desires, ready believers in magic-working patterns rather than searches for hard truths, given to ~ream visions rather than sharp observation, indifferent to logical :equirements, but .full of warm wisdom, naively candid and naively cunning, 7mpetuous.and tenacious. Those who primarily hear, move clumsily and myopically in the wide world, stubbornly warding off wordly wisdom; they are undeflectably moral and honest to jagged harshness--wilful Jacobeans wh~ are forever giving battle t~ the ange~ of the ~ord. Those who primarily view, are given to panoramic p7rspect~ves and live mor~ in scenes than with people; their long-view serenity, t~nged with complacency, is all too vulnerable to atmospheric clouding; in their wish for wholeness they oversee imperfections, and they prefer fittingness to honesty, large shapely truth to detailed accuracy. We all, I suppose, have such schemes, and the point is that most of us do attribute an original nature at least to those we have tried to know well and that we h~ve usually discerned also some shapes superimposed on this nature:-not mere~y blind and breakable patterns of behavior, but also firmly fixed forms. As I sa~d bef~re,.a larg~ part of the fascination of friendship does consist precisely in discovering what the connatural matter is and how it takes the imprint both of brute circumstance and of that deliberate discipline specifically call~d character training--how sometimes nature is too craggy and recalcitrant to receive the marks ~f such training, so that some people remain chaotically and perhaps even c?arm1~gly unshaped, born outlaws, as it were; how in others the ~atu:al material is so soft and viscous that, like pitch, i t fails to hold an imprint and yet fractures when struck at a certain angle; bow in a brush with catas~rophe some characters are wiped away, sometimes to r eveal a pulpy base and sometimes an even firmer original self; how some combinations are made for crisis and others for daily life; how some people's character is harmonious with their being, while others' is at chafing odds with it; and finally, how some exude the path~s ~f a maimed nature.w~ich has been st r uck t oo hard by the die o f an un happy upbringing so that the original blank of the coin has been fractured. It seem~ to me further that however vivid one's image of original human nature may be, it. c~nnot come to appearance at all except under the imprint of cbaracter--it is through character that nature manifests itself and without its shaping what emerges is excessive or amorphous, weak and wild.' Second nature is ~hat appears, and first nature is discerned through it; what shows to the world 18 what the world has circumstantially or deliberately shaped. It is the planned and deliberate shaping that the world administers to us that I shall now particularly mean by character. Let me specify more. Character is a m~ral shape, not.a mere pattern of behavior into which we are driven against our will •. It sho~s in conduct, not in behavior; in willed action, not in driven rea~t~on, though no doubt behavioral patterning, such as children's toilet training, plays a role in shaping the most intimately personal aspects of character. 12 Now human action is distinguished by having purpose before it and principle behind it. Therefore it is governed by articulated thought, by propositions. One might say that these aspects of character can be imaged in the format of a geometric construction problem--on one side there is a diagram containing the lines necessary to the doing of the problem; it corresponds to the fixed form of character revealed in facial expression and bodily bearing. Alongside this drawn figure there runs a mathematical text enunciating the problem to be solved and verbally carrying out the steps under the constraints of logic; it corresponds to the articulated principles of action a person of character possesses. Accordingly character training always has these constituents: the shaping of a form, best accomplished by means of visible examples and models, the inculcation of moral maxims by means of insistent ethical discourse, and some implicit or explicit pressure of enforcement, either through the mere inconceivability of deviating or by reward and punishment. Parents, of course, always have and always will follow some such pattern in bringing up their children. Let me tell a little tale of character training concerning a boy, Collin, the son of an acquaintance, which strikes me as exemplary because it so clearly comprises all three elements. Collin is two and a half, right within those terrible twos which bring the first discovery of the will as an instrument of pure opposition and negativity. Collin is asked by his mother for help in picking up his crayons so they can go for a walk. He won't. "I don't like to do it," he says. His mother ins is ts, reasonably but firmly: "You ought to help me; don't I always help you pick up?" He still doesn't like to. So he is sent upstairs and told to close the door until he is ready to come down and help. He goes, and the door opens a couple of times. Collin is crying hard: "Mommy, I don't like it up here." After a while he gets tired of futile resistance and comes down to help pick up the room, saying with the satisfaction of one who has surrendered to reason: "Mommy, I didn't like it up there; it's much better when we work together, isn't it?" And he earnestly repeats that maxim later in the afternoon. nere the conjunction of good example, reasonable maxim and gentle coercion are perfectly exemplified. I cannot believe that anyone doubts that parents and teachers could, if they would, administer such training. To be sure, it becomes very difficult to teach standards of respect and self-control, industry and style without communal support , when the adults themselves decline to serve as moral models, when there are no common commandments, and when scruples are voiced about all constraints, so that nothing remains permissable but the infuriatingly evasive injunction that "you have to decide for yourself." The causes of this disintegration have been investigated to weariness, but I think there is some agreement that at least two main roots are: one in historical circumstanc e , namely the demogr aphic f a ct t hat the young have achieved numerical and economic power, and the other in the Rousseauean theory which interprets the communal upbringing as a societal conspiracy to repress nature and turns the very observation that human beings can be shaped against education. There is clearly some general agreement now that what is needed is not more pedagogical theory but a summoning of the public will. In fact there are interesting new views on how and where such communal resolution can best be expected to arise, such as Gerald Grant's contention that it is the private schools which are at this juncture most apt to have a real public, that is to say a constituency that knows what it wants. So the cause of character needs action rather than analysis. Nor was I, in any case, to speak about character and schooling but about character and liberal education, a very different matter. Therefore, reverting to Socrates' injunction, let me begi~ by saying precisely what I understand by 13 �l' liberal learning. It scarcely needs repeating that there is no current agreement about the matter of liberal learning-- indeed, the educational community seems to be fixed on reiterating that there can and ought to be no such agreement because that would constitute a confining and arbitrary choice which no faculty has authority to make. But, oddly enough, that one feature which characterized liberal education from its very beginning is generally and apologetically conceded to distinguish it sti~l:-- i~s "uselessness." In speaking of the education of the young, indeed, in defining 1t for the Western world, Aristotle says, in his Politics that though usefu 1. arts . are indispensable for the young, they should not be t~ught ~o many mechanical skills as to make them narrow, but they should be educated in the free or li~eral arts; clearly, education is liberal essentially in contrast with vocational training. Its liberality then and now is its freedom from the constrai~ts ~f application. It can take a leisurely, large, and long perspective; it allows the mind to play over possibilitie s; it strives for no immediate application. And that is still an element which the most diverse set of course offerings have in common they are largely disciplined play. Now.that sort of education seems to me to have a most dubious and problematic relation to character training. To begin with, in order to profit from such an education a student must bring to it a character already shaped. That holds in the most practical and obvious way simply because college work, being done at the leisure and discretion of the student, demands self-discipline just as self possession is demanded by th ~! pressures of student life in its gamut from childish piggishness to yo\J. tbfol splendor. But this circumstantial need for an already-formed character is not the essential one. That has to do with the pedagogical fact that it is next to impossible for students to assimilate books critically, to test themselves in engaged discussion, to close in on a complex problem, if they do not have strongly-ingrained principles to pit against the new influences. There can be, it seems to me, no reflective learning which does not begin in the raking-up of well-stamped prejudices-- and that is exactly what principles held by tradition and training are. That great and continuous re-opening of issues is impossible for an unshaped human being. Into an amorphous mind all notions drop with a dull thud or messy splatter, to produce accesses both of vapo rous en t husiasm and ~haotic resistance. Students are ready for liberal learning when t heir training in character as well as in basic skills is pretty well done -- both the undertrained and the prematurely-liberated are hard to teach. (That incidentally , is why the middle middle-c lass often produce ideally teachabl~ students, students docile in the best sense: well-prepared, receptive, yet staunch.) It follows that liberal education understood as a critical and reflective interlude is more apt to test and perhaps disintegrate character than to form it, a fact all too well known to teachers and parents. Freshmen who have discovered the cudgel of dialectic can be the scourge of their surroundings-- Socrates compares such new-born philosophers to yapping puppies. Sometimes the harm is more serious and lasting; students begin to lose their internal -- and external contour as their familiar faith and trust comes unravelled. Most college students, to be sure, have already undergone a stage of adolescent rebellion, but that is like an exuberant tribal ritual compared to this loneliness, lostness, and melancholy of young adulthood. What then can liberal education do with respect to human formation? I think it is exactly this: to reveal to students their own acquired opinions with their 14 - limits and to show them ·how their upbringing jibes with their nature how it constrains or consummates what they are. In a word, the achievement proper to liberal education is self-knowledge. Aided by the study of just such schemata of human nature as I have mentioned, by reflection on the notion of character, by thought about principled action, students learn to shape an image of themselves for themselves. That, rather than the acquisition of academic information seems to me the point-- as Socrates says in the Phaedrus: "I can't as yet 'know myself' as the description on the Delphic temple enjoins, and so long as that ignorance remains it seems to me ridiculous to inquire into extraneous matters." And so, he says, he will let such learning go and make an effort to discover whether he is like that seething, hundred-headed monster Typhon or a gentler being. What then is the end result? It seems to me quite without guarantee. There will be some students who emerge from college pretentious and unstrung, fit neither for action nor for contemplation. But in general the influence of a liberal arts college on character should be neither disintegrative nor even neutral. At the least, early character training does usually reassert itself, and most people after a period of salutary breaking away do return to the established way of their families and grow back toward their parents as they grow in to the world. Secondly, most theories of moral action concur in assigning to the intellectual virtues at least ancillary value in realizing goodness, since right action does require that large perspective on the way things are and that versatility in the choice of means which liberal education is supposed to engender. And finally, there is even one understanding of liberal learning the only one I know of -- according to which learning, if it actually occurs, is directly and unfailingly related to human excellence. If such excellence is a kind of knowledge, knowledge both of oneself and of the nature of things, then a course of reflective learning is the shaping of a good human being. That is why the name of Socrates has figured several times in these observations -- because that is his view. If he were right, the notion of character would be to some degree obviated -- it would recede into the background as a facilitating form, somewhat higher in standing but not different in kind from those good habits, like washing one's hands, which surrender to a fixed rite necessities of civilization not worth keeping in mind, while our conscious deed would issue quite immediately from having thought about and from knowing -- subject to continual correction -who we are and what we are doing, that is to say, from a kind of thoughtful sanity. So let me set out for you what are the presuppositions and consequences of this strange Socratic doctrine , that "excellence is knowledge" -- you may have heard the formula. Since most knowledge, at least most knowledge of the kind spoken of in colleges, is connected with learning, it is at least likely that Socrates' saying connects some sort of goodness with education. Now what kind of goodness is this excellence? The word has at best an antique, at worst a somewhat discriminatory ring. Two decades ago a liberal arts college like your own would usually claim in its catalogue to strive for excellence, but now the word has often been censored. Not that the word "character" is much in vogue -- but it is probably felt to be more quaint than offensive. The reason is, I think, precisely in the fact that character, as a mold, is in its very description common and democratic, while excellence seems to be distinctive and uncommon. And what is more, character can be associated with common . decency, while excellence might well seem to go with all sorts of brilliant immorality. What · Socrates means by excellence is indeed not decency or honesty or sympathy 15 �--------y or kindness. The Greek word -- you may have heard it before -- is arete. Some people connect the .!!.. root with the name of the god Ares -- Mars. The word expresses pot~ncy, the ability to be effectively to be -- a certain way. It does not particularly carry the notion of surpassing others which is in the Latin word ~cell~nce, but there is a sense that it is not particularly part of common humanity, either, to be very powerfully what it was meant to be. Excellence, then, as an antique term -- and of course, it is not in the least for so-called historical reasons that I am recalling it but because it seems to me a valuable notion -- excellence, then, is potency, effectiveness. That means that there are as many excellences as there are contexts for being what one is. For example, excellence with respect to fearful stituations is called courage and with respect to what is one's own it is called justice. Socrates thinks tha~ all such situ~tions. can be collected under four main headings; these are the so-called cardinal virtues-- but that is not so important at the moment. Now what has this potency with respect to one's own being in certain situations got to do with liberal learning? If anything is meant by such learning it must be, it seems to me, this: the liberally educated human being can articulate reasons, give causes, spell out why~s~ wherefore's, and how's. I doubt you will find my saying that wildly exciting. It has the sort of insipid obviousness that a truth much battered about but never quite exterminable does have. Three or four student generations before yours it was aggressively and even brutally denied, in an attempt to regain a lost paradise of primitive, inarticulate, spontaneous, playful imme~i~c~. Now it is again. tolerated, but without any commonly-acknowledged specificity. For as I mentioned earlier, the only commonly recognized mark of a liberal education is the negative one of non-specificity and uselessness. And while t~at notion is nostalgically tolerated as an ideal it is also practically set aside as luxury. So reduced to a pulp first by the aggressiveness of its enemies and then by the insecurity of its friends the terms will scarcely cause anyone's heart to miss a beat. And yet it ought to. If there is one realization which proves itself over and over it is this: that the human being is an animal, that is that physical organism, which cannot find its fulfilment in mere functioning or even in mere consciousness, but which needs needs - to come to terms with itself to be self-conscious, to be clear and truthful about itself. There is always so~ething moving and pitiable about watching the laborious, awkward, helpless efforts of older people who are without that learning which makes such self-consciousness shapely and adequate. For there is such learning and it is useless and unspecific only because it is as the root of all usefulness and at the foundation of all specialization . I will tell you very few , terse terms wha t I think it is but I am most willing to explain myself after this lecture. ' Such learning is made possible by and begins with the blessed fact that there are those in.this world who think deeply and write down what they have thought, and that their books are known and available. I shall be glad to tell you later who I think they are and why I think so. Liberal education begins with, -- and I might even argue consists of , the devoted study of such texts. By devoted study I mean first of all this: that one studies the text with the ardent hope, but by no means the sanguine presupposition that it might tell the truth-- in other words, real study in the approach to remarkable writings in a spirit of wary expectation. The only preparation necessary for this advanced sort of learning is literacy. When I insist that liberal study begins and ends with the best of texts, the so-called tradition, I might sound as if I thought the subject matter was of no account. But that is just what I do not mean-- it is one of the functions of the 16 inescapability of its falling short, when heard in the chord, engenders a tension that is rendered a 11 the more satisfying wr1en ans·wered by a chord that fills two conditions. The first condition is that the fundamental base of the second chord imply by potential division of the string every tone of the seventh chord, but Dot vice versa; that is, that the string of thte dominant tone and its division is only a part of the string of the tonic tone and its division. The second condition, and this is also the second quasi-assumption, is that the voice motion from the first to the second chord of the cadence be stepwise, as is natural for melody. Once. this has been granted, music has a principle in the theory of hC'lrr:wny by v1Hch four- o : even five-part pieces may be written, as every two successiv~ ~h~rds ~ilJ reflect either more or less strongly the paradigm c r-: J e·iF ':. . T.::1 fa(t a good deal of the interest that rnusic has for a listener stemR r ,.ci m C:' P "c:~:atiC> n s ." ':tt1t:"r confirmed or denied as a result of the cade[lce. •..._ 1 tf; f n·1\ r;- ~· he ca .::'. , , ::<· c•mf irms the argument of using the harmonic proportion as · \! i d '-.' 1h0 d ; ·, t ~ ·o i. c =- ~· der because in the cadence is every tone of the t- ::· : · c Er S <-' ' ·i P 011':., which can certainly be thought to be in1 plied. From , ,',/ E I , a s c<.1dc·n c('l indicates in the fundamental base of the second chord ~i-i ~ no t ion of key is born . In fact it is difficult to discuss key or ·1:-·' • r:: in the beginning of this paper, without also discussing , ;·1('.-n · · d - ;_ ~ i. 0 ::1 to what harmony has already clarified about music, also in : 11t.· <.t, T:"c'l :i cin of the cadence the notion of dynamic values is born, on ;·:,"C r:' i l fil" .' ·:t:3 J · ., , ;.ind ninor dissonances . . Tl-: ·i s ~ ·:-; <'<> t . .. , ;_ i1p theory of harmony has a significance in explaining even r~ (·:od y s itr· 0 yT.: . : r..: values for Zucket'kandl are a kind of explanation of 11 : :·, · .i y. MeJcdy Le·· · l':t is essentially different than harmony, with few clear , , ;:;ndards to su1d2 it :~ production. Rameau says, "giving definite rules for its H f '" is almost impossible, since good taste plays a greater part in this than A J'..hing e lsP. We shall leave to privileged geniuses the pleasure of c1i, · inguj sl-:ing themselves in this domain on which depends almost all the strength •> r sentiment." Up to this point an argument has been followed where as little as possible has bH'n assumed in an attempt to fulfill the stated principle: to mathematize the emoti ons and affections, the beings of the soul. However this is not to say that a lot has not been assumed. If music, or the study of it, is truly a mathematization of the beings of the soul, then it is not difficult to see why it ~K cn 11i E'S obr,cure, as first principles of the soul are understandably hard to ;»:. :·m t n •_, ,, Nc n is it difficult to exp1ain why music might be thought to be so Cl osely re 1ated to th soul. Boettius says, "there can be no doubt that the unity of cur body sn<l soul seems to be somehow determined by the same proportions that joir: togE>ther ;rnd unite the h.nmonious inflections of music . " In support of this hE' supplies several striking exan1ples of music's effect on the mood, actions, and well-being of listeners and one can easily augment the list with examp1es from personal experience • . OnE~ n:ight say that the point at which music becomes unexplainable by strict rati ona l method, therein lies the mystery of the soul's sympathy with it and consequently the mystery of the soul itself. H~re music seems to leave the quadrivium and become a thing; explainable only in tE·rms of itself. Music has now become something like metaphysics and something like psychology. Specifically, some of the respects in which music is unexplainable are 1) what is the special nature of harmonic division and why is it not continued beyond the interval of the third in the forruation of the diatonic scale? 2) what makes a cadence indicate the tonic note so strongly? Although it is by examination of the relationship between melody and harmony that some of these questions are answered, the answers remain, at best, likely stories. Furthermore, since one · " 1 i 19 �begins to see that melody and harmony, two different disciplines, both approach one single nature, the question is what is the nature that they approach? There are many different styles of music that are diatonic; there are types of music that are not diatonic also. Harmony and melody can be said to mirror images of the same thing. Even more fundamental, there are many different species of intervals and possible tunings for a scale. No tuning is mathematically perfect, yet each is equally valid in its own musical context. What it is that the ear hears the same in different fifths or in melody and harmony or even in diatonic and non-diatonic music alike? What other than that universally significant thing: music. There are many different kinds of earthly music, but obviously there can be only one Music, existing both in the soul and the world. Because of its significance and sympathy with the soul, it follows how it is not only a matter of speculation but also of morality, or as Rameau says of good taste. However this is now backing off from the discussion of music as a purely mathematical art, a member of the quadrivium. The solace from this confession of ignorance is that since music is by nature subject to investigation by methods that attain to knowledge, not merely speculation and wonder, for example mathematics, the soul is also, perhaps through nothing other than the study of music. Until it should become clearer how to formalize this study not directly through mathematics, but in a more definite manner though, it is wise to trust the opinions of those wise in the matters of the soul, i.e. the epitome of a man of distinction: Socrates, and his advice on music in Books III and IV of the Repub lie. Three Dreams to Waking I I listened with all my flesh Rigid in the small room: A shape in the window light, Composed of some intrusion of the moon, Who stands by the slanted squares Creeping on the still loom: Waits, musing beneath a veil. Last night she stood in the cold, Flinging her salt like seeds Upon the glassy ice. Her pearly fingers stroke the pearly trees. Inchoate mud that's bound, Binding roots, softens, bleeds -Ineffectually. II Dark. I hear clanking storms in distant rooms; Gaping wrenches weigh down my obscure hands; The world is inside-out -- this vaultless maze Of basement pipes swallows my whole round light Of spacious sky -- a dry pea dropped in night. The surge of nrud climbs heaving deep crawlways: All is now a blind, viscuous search for plans, Plumbing, breath-torn, this wilderness of tombs. III A shining map is spread upon my knees; The sun sets there as in a mythic lake That shifts and whispers in the golden wind -There I was found, crying beneath the trees, In their waving dance centering the skies. In their long shadows I push down roots, White, into the low ground's heart; my map's wings, Dazzling, impart their flight into my new eyes. Pierre Gagnier 21 20 11 �Martha's Conversion Zoe Churchville to her, just like that in a parking lot. God. Death. Faith. She had confronted and accepted her own death. She was doing it nowi She was doing something which almost no one was capable of doing--maybe once in a generation a person arises who--who is chosen. "Chosen," she whispered to herself. Martha looked around again at the sky and trees, and smiled. If you bad seen that smile, if you had seen her joyous, serene expression as she leaned against the car with her arms folded and gazed up at the sky, you would have thought that she was a very attractive woman, that she must have been a beautiful, happy girl. When Martha Northe was forty-one years old she was told that she had multiple sclerosis. She had a peculiar reaction to this news, a reaction that was surprising even to her. But there it was, there was no denying it: Martha was relieved. And the relief she felt was so unexpected, so liberating and, as it seemed to her, complete, that it produced a great change in Martha's character and way of life. The change began right in the doctor's office. Martha sat quietly looking into her lap while Dr. Emir finished his diagnosis and went on to describe the course which she could expect her illness to take. Martha strained to listen to him. but she could hardly make out one word from another. This made her very uneasy, even though she was not trying, at that point, to understand anything. No, all she wanted was to feel certain that she could control herself. A cold, rapturous sensation was coursing so violently through her body that she was afraid she might utter some sound. Her bands were jerking in her lap. She couldn ' t look at the doctor, couldn't even raise her head. She bit her lower lip to keep from smiling. "Now I know what is wrong with me." she repeated fervently to herself. "Are you a 11 right, Mrs. Nor the?" Dr. Emir asked gently. Martha glanced up at him and immediately dropped her eyes again. "He's so dark," ·she said to herself, not knowing what to think and conscious only of a terrible sense of embarrassment that she had to be with another person at this moment. "Yes," she said in a hollow voice. "Yes, I am." "Well, how do you feel about all this?" he asked, and Martha almost said "All what?" She looked at the wall opposite and cast about in her mind for some thought, any thought, which would bring her back to her senses. Doctors, she thought with an effort, aren't so bad. They can be compassionate. Suddenly she stood up and extended her hand to Dr. Emir. Her mouth was so twisted that he looked concerned. "We 11, doctor, thank you for everything," Martha said in a feeble voice. "I just--! just need some time to think things over." Dr. Emir looked more cheerfu 1. "Of course you do, my dear. These things•" he waved his hand a little," these things take time to accept." "Yes," Martha said, and added caustically to herself. "We'll see what - can I accept." Once outside, Martha shuddered involuntarily several times. She looked at the sky and at a few distant trees as she walked through the parking lot. "Nature," ahe thought, and stood stock still beside her car. An urgent need to articulate something to herself was holding her there . "What is it?" Martha asked. "What has happened?" She put her hands to her head. "Accept. To accept. That's it. Acceptance. But what--exactly--have I accepted?" Then it came to her, as coldly and vividly as that feeling which had overtaken her in Dr. Emir's office. She knew that she had understood something, faced something, but it had to have a name. Maybe even a few names. And they all came That curious feeling of relief lasted for more than a year. And it was not just a feeling. Its effect was so overpowering that some. might say it was.the cause of a gigantic breakdown or collapse of Martha 1 s will. Every once in a while Martha herself wondered whether this could be true. Later on. however, she came to realize that that year had been necessary for the development of her faith. Of course everything bad changed that day at Dr. Emir's. Her life had been divided in two and there was no going back. There could be no doubt about that. But she had still needed a block of time in order to understand what ~ad happened to her and to figure out or discern, as some say, what she was being called upon to do. "It takes time," Martha thought with satisfaction when that year was over, "and it takes patience to ~nder~tand the wil~ of God. You can't just leap into things. You have to wait. You have to 11e on your bed and be still.' Transformation takes time." So Martha spent a year doing very little and, for the first time in her life, she didn't worry about how much she did or what she did. The world was simply a harmless, pretty place which she felt that she understood. When she woke up.she would stand by her bedroom window and stare out at the backyard for a long time. The clump of birch trees, some little brown birds hopping about, the tool shed, Mrs. Adelle shaking her nasty green kitchen rug over Martha's azaleas; every object, every spectacle pleased Martha's senses. Nothing bothered her. Ma:tha realized this, of course, and she was positive it meant that she loved all things with a proper sense of detachment. If it was warm and rainy for days on end, she was indifferent. If she chanced to notice that her husband and children had grown very quiet, even sullen, and studiously avoided catching her eye, Martha would merely consider these facts for a moment, like the sight of a bird or a tree and, smiling to herself, reflect upon how the world had less and less of a claim on her with each passing day. Oddly enough, Martha almost never thought about her illnes~ or her ~eath during that first year (unless you were to count those sweet, tragic fantasies she used to have about growing pale and emaciated and always wearing black dresses). She would have admitted to this herself. "No," she would have said, "I do my best not to dwell on it. But I carry it with me everywhere." Nor did she think about her faith very much, although she would ask Clifford or the children about the gospel reading when they got back from Sunday services. She flipped through the Bible at times, but she knew that she was still too tired for any kind of study. Martha did not, however, permit her fatigue to get her down She made a consistent effort to keep her spirits up and her thought clear: • • • she bought a lot of expensive nightgowns, read hundreds of ladies I magazines, watched television, and ate to her heart's content. She felt herself to be detached enough for these few indulgences. When she did think, she would reconsider her whole life in the light of that critical moment when Dr. Emir had finally told her that there was indeed 22 23 �something to all of that twitching and dizziness. She had a disease which everyone knows is terrible, debilitating, and fatal. She was going to die. Not now, but eventually. Propped against half a dozen pillows, wearing a wrinkled blue satin bedjacket and eating chocolate after chocolate, Martha could spend hours musing over how her past life had been justified. She had suffered from twitches, dizziness, and a tendency to hyperventilate ever since she was nineteen. No one ever knew what it was, but everyone had his theory. It was the pressures of going to college, of getting a job, of having a family. · Or it was an oversensitivity to life, or some disposition she had to worry excessively. Martha herself had never really believed that it was just a bad case of nerves. For a while she had thought that she had a brain tumor, but then she had noticed that all of the symptoms went away after her engagement to Clifford. They had returned, however, with a frightening intensity soon after they had gotten married, and they had never gone away again until Dr . Emir's diagnosis. (Strange that those symptoms did go away then for a year or more. But she was sure that this could safely be attributed to a new phase of her illness.) Those had been awful years, Martha would think with a shudder. Just awful. Especially after she and Clifford had gotten married. She remembered it as one long day of pitiful, frantic attempts to be useful. She pictured herself as she had been for the last twenty years and almost every scene was of a small, anxious woman struggling to appear competent, self-assured, and full of purpose. And the struggle had gone on from morning until night. Why, the very way she used to jump out of bed in the morning, the way she would put on her make-up as quickly and as firmly as possible, the way she would bustle with the children or charge through the grocery store; everything that Martha could remember of her old life revealed one desperate attempt after another to prove that she was someb ody who could do something. And those projects and resolutions! The courses in French, wine-tasting, photography; the lists and vows! Martha often winced at these memories. Yes, it was gratifying to be able to recast her life-- and not just her life, but her opinion of herself--in a better, a truer light. But there was still an unpleasant, almost bitter edge to her memories. If only she had known then what she knew now! If only she could explain those years to everyone. Sometimes these thoughts got the better of Martha and she would involuntarily moan aloud, or kick the blanket off the bed. One day, however, it occurred to her that perhaps she had known all along what In a subconscious way, of course, but didn't subconscious was in store for her. things mean a lot? A stray recollection brought this idea to mind. For some reason, Martha t hought of how she bad a lwa ys had to lie down on t he so f a in t he ea r ly afternoons. That had been the time of day when she would feel so shattered that she no longer cared what happened to her. She would lie there for an hour or so, her arms folded across her chest, and try not to think or feel anything. But then she had to get up and do something before Joseph and Lizzie came home from school. She would always feel most desperate just before they walked in the house, and she would sit down to read or study in a state that was very close to hysteria. Sometimes she would. get the Bible, kneel down in the middle of the living room floor and, with her right hand on the Bible, she would swear that she was going to make something of her life. Have a purpose that would surprise everyone. But it had never worked. While she was still down on her knees her resolution would crumble into that old, anxious question: how could a person acquire a sense of purpose which would not go away? Martha went over this scene with great care. Everything fit together now. The sofa, the Bible, that terrible desire to have a purpose. For the first time in 24 .[ her life Martha was able to pity herself freely (or all of those wasted, tortured days. She had been sick. It was as simple as that. Why, Dr. Emir had even told · her that she might have had multiple sclerosis for a long time and not have known it, since she was young and probably quick to dismiss bodily disorders. That was it, that was it. She had been young, she thought, crying and eating a chocolate at the same time. She hadn't understood. Her fate, her vocation, it had been there all along. It was hard to believe. Not only was she facing something now which very few people had the courage to face, but she had been facing it for years in some mysterious, biological way. For a while this realization set Martha's mind completely at rest. But after that first year of her illness had gone by she became very uneasy. The signs were unmistakable. She lost interest in staring at things. She felt fat and restless. At night, she began to wonder what Clifford and the kids were doing downstairs, and she made frequent requests for cookies and juice. She was irritated to find that whenever Joseph or Lizzie came in with her tray (Clifford never came up until it was time to go to bed), they would answer her questions in an extremely morose and perfunctory way. "Where did you get that dress?" Martha would ask Lizzie. Lizzie w~s fourteen. "I bought it." "How I wish I could go shopping with you darling." Silence. Lizzie would actually stand there and say nothing. "Didn't that girl Claudia- -didn't her aunt have M.S.?" "I don't remember. I think I'll just take these dishes away for you, Mot her." Martha wonder~d. They were rude, out and out rude. "What was the matter?" Row could they not care about her at a time like this? How could she feel anxious again? Then, late one night, it came to her. Clifford walked into their bedroom looking down at his shoes, the carpet, his pants' leg--there was no telling. He undressed very methodically, hung up his clothes, and turned out the light without saying a word. Martha could tell that he was angry, but she didn't care. She was angry herself. And then all of a sudden, as suddenly as she had understood everything in Dr. Emir's parking let, Martha knew what it was. No one believed her! That was it! They didn't really believe that she was sick. The shock and pain of such a realization brought tears to her eyes. Then a profound sensation of tranquillity and warmth flooded through her. She was entering into a new level of acceptance. She would have to face . everything alone; she was going to die and no one believed it. For a moment it was all that Martha could do not to switch on the light and confront Clifford with this ugly truth. If only he knew that she knew. But no, she would wait. She would find some ot he r , una r guable way of showing t hem what was wrong with her and of --Martha tried to think of what she wanted to show them. "Not show them," she corrected herself. "I want to teach them what my illness means." The next morning Martha got 'up right after Clifford and the children left. First, she read a few Psalms. Then she made appointments to see Dr. Emir and another neurologist who had been recommended to her. She spent a long time getting dressed because almost none of her clothes fit. But at last she found something, an old blue maternity dress, and set off for the library. She spent t he whole da y por ing ove r medica l books and artic l es on multiple sc l eros i s. She took notes on everything and dutifully looked up all of the technical words in a med ica l dic t ionary . She even photocopied an article by some woman from Missouri who, she supposed, had already succumbed to M.s. "One of the most painfu 1 things about MS," the woman had written, "is that the symptoms are neither omnipresent nor easily distinguishable ." Martha was so happy and absorbed that she didn't even look at her watch until it was a fter six o'clock. lj 25 �"Oh, Lord," she thought, laughing a bit. "Now THIS is s good beginning. I can't very well convince them of the gravity of my situation if I get home after they do." When Martha walked into the dining room, Clifford smiled at her and stood up to · help her off with her coat. "You must be feeling better," he said softly. Martha looked at him and then at Lizzie and Joseph. "No. No, I don't. I need to sit down." Clifford went back to his seat. "The truth is--I feel much worse·." Martha said in a solemn, businesslike tone. "Lizzie. Joseph. Why don't you go upstairs? I want to have a talk with your father." The children darted out of the room as Martha slowly and painstakingly sat down at the opposite end of the table from Clifford . "Clifford, I want to dis cuss some very serious things with you." Clifford nodded. "I wish that you would look at me." He raised hie head and looked directly at her. Martha noticed, but only for an instant, how cold and blue his eyes were. And his face--his cheeks--were extremely flushed. Almost purple. "If the truth were known, Clifford, I am very, very ill. M.S. i.s a strange disease, you know. It takes time for it to do its work, so to speak. You see, it comes in waves. Sometimes the patient feels fine for long periods, that's called remission. Then, all of a sudden, the patient enters into a painful, degenerative period." Here Martha took a deep breath and looked pointedly at her husband. "I am now entering into one of those degenerative periods," she went on. "I'm sure I'll have times when I'll feel better, but right now I am a very sick woman. I don't know what to say to you, Clifford. This could go on for years." The expression in Clifford's eyes sharpened even more. "I don't want to be a burden to you--" · ''You are not a burden to me," he said harshly and looked down into his lap. Martha smiled at him. He is a good husband, she thought to herself. "The Lord," she said with an air of resignation, "The Lord works in mysterious w.ays. But we have to trust--" "What can I do for you?" Clifford interrupted in a low, restrained voice. "I- think we should install an elevator," Martha said promptly. Not an ELEVATOR elevator. Just one of those electric chairs that you attach to the bannister. I've been having trouble getting up and down the stairs. And I need one of those walkers. You know. Those silver walkers that old people use." There was a short silence. "Can we afford this, Clifford?" "Yes." "Well, in that case, I really think we need a live-in maid, too. Can we afford that? Good. A live-in maid would be a great help. A big weight off my shoulders." Clifford stood up and pushed in his chair. Martha was a little startled, but she managed to say, "Thank you, Cliff." He nodded and looked at her once more before leaving the room. She could never tell with him. His eyes had been perfectly blank just now. "Well," Martha thought as she limped over to the stairs, "at least he looked at me. Strange, though. He clearly doesn't want to think about God." 26 The electric chair was installed and Martha got not one but two walkers. The maid was finally hired after three full weeks of interviews and telephone calls to double check on recommendations. (Martha was amazed at how many of those women lied.) The maid's name was Jane. She was a nice, neat, respectful Scotswoman of fifty or more. She kept to herself, finished all of the cleaning early in the day, and never once objected to cooking dinner--even though she had not been hired to do so. As soon as she felt sure of Jane, Martha forgot about the household and settled down to her studies in earnest. She began to go out more, especially after she had mastered the art of inching along with her walker. Normally, she would spend a couple of hours each day in the library, pursuing her medical researches and writing a little diary of her illness. (Martha thought it might help someone else after everything was over for her. And she was determined that her family should have a record of what she wa s going through. They were so stiff when she tried to talk to them; she didn't want to push it. But they had to know the truth some day.) The remainder of her day was divided between visits to masseuses, chiropractors, health spas with whirlpool baths, snd neurologists. Everyone else acknowledged that Martha was seriously ill, and this had a softening, inspiring influence on her. She joined a weekly Bible class at her . local church, which she liked to think of as her "stronghold." Martha would always, somehow, manage to come in the room a little later than the others, and all of the ladies would beam at her as she inched in. After the class was over, someone would invariably press her hand and say, "You are one courageous woman, my dear," or: "I just want to te 11 you, Mre. No rt he, that you are an ex amp le, a rea 1 1 ight for the rest of us. Row many people just sit at home and do nothing and complain about how life has no meaning? It makes me so mad. if they could only see you, honey, getting up every day of your life and doing what you can, in spite of everything. It's true, you know. God helps those who help themselves." Martha particularly enjoyed it when she was asked to read aloud in class. She knew that every eye was on her; she even thought that some people shivered a little when she spoke. When she finished, she would smile timidly and stare into her lap for a long time. Martha's life went on like this for seven years. She would be the first to tell you that she had never been happier. In fact, she had a little speech worked up which she liked to deliver to anyone who asked about her illness. "I know my place in life," she would say. "The most important thing a person can do is to believe in God and to acknowledge his own mortality. Then everythin.g becomes different. Not just for you, but for everyone who meets you. Of cou r se this is also one of the hardest things to do--probably THE hardest." At this point, a faraway express ion would come into her eyes. "But I try," she would say slowly. "I do my best." During that time, Martha had resigned herself to the fact that her family did not want to understand her. Why, Clifford and the children were almost unrecognizable. She hardly knew them anymore. Of course, everyone said that Lizzie and Joseph were at the age when kids don't care about anything. And Clifford had always been a preoccupied person. But Martha knew that something had changed as a result of her illness. The kids were never home. Clifford slept in the spare room now, and, from what Martha could tell, he drank a lot. His face had grown quite purple from drinking. She would probably never know whether they believed in her illness, especially Clifford, but she had long ago decided that this was just another trial for her to bear. 27 �Eight and a half years after Martha's momentous visit witb Dr. Emir, her son Joseph was killed in a car accident. The maid told her. Clifford and Lizzie wouldn't come upstairs. it was raining heavily that night. Martha lay on the bed for a long while. Then she got up and went over to the window. She had never seen it so dark out. She could just barely make out the tool shed. What else was out there? Where was the moon? she wondered, and everywhere she looked, everything that occurred to her, was accompanied by the sound of Joseph, Joseph, Joseph. Her chest hurt. She stood by the window for more than an hour. Then she put on a bathrobe and walked, unaided, to the head of the stairs. Without thinking (it bad been over seven years), Martha sat down in her chair and rode down the stairs. When she walked into the living room she found Clifford alone, lying on the sofa with his arm bent over his face. He heard her footstep and stood up. "Clifford." Clifford's face was very flushed. He gave her a curious, crooked smile before he spoke. "You are not going to the funeral," he said. Martha stared at him. Later that night she realized that she had understood exactly what he had meant at that moment. "Oh not It's okay, Clifford, it's okay. I can manage it--I must--" "I don't ¢are what you can manage," he said, and went back to the sofa. "What on earth do you mean?" "What do I MEAN? What do I mean"? Oh, sweetheart. Do you think I would try to explain anything to you?" He jumped up from the sofa again. "I won't have you there I If YOU go, I won't go--" · Martha started to cry. Her chest hurt so much--her throat--she could hardly swallow. "He' a my son," she said hoarsely. ''Don't talk about him. I don't want to hear you mention his name. Don't come near me, Martha." "Clifford," she begged. Clifford started to pace around the living room. "Okay, okay. I' 11 te 11 yoY ' tbia much." . He stopped and looked at her. His eyes were narrowed ~~ bloodshot. "You," he said carefully, "have ruined everything." Martha was silent. "You've ruined everything," he repeated. "Clifford ., please--! HAVE been sick. I couldn't help it. I AM sick. I am really, really sick." "I don't care if you're sick or not," he said very quietly. Martha began to shake . She felt as though something, she didn't know what, were coming apart inside of her. "Clifford, I'm sorry. I've tried. I didn't know what I · was doing, I--" "And you are not brave!" he roared. "Do you hear that? You are NOT brave!" "What do you mean? Tell me what you mean! What made you think of that?" Martha was suddenly overcome with panic. Clifford smiled at her again, but bis mouth was trembling. "I know about you, Martha. And I know what you all do at his funeral. Jesus," he turned his bead away. Tears ran down his face and into his mouth. "Jesus God, you won't even let someone e lee die! You' 11 hog it. I--" he stopped and shook his head violently in an effort to control himself. "I don't know anything about God," he went on in a fiercely restrained voice, "but I know this much. 28 You haven't been anywhere near Him, Martha." "Is there one thing that made you say this? It is Joseph? I know, I know--" "That's it, Martha. I'm through talking to you. But you' re not going to his funera 1. Joey wouldn't have wanted it himse 1f." When Martha sank into a chair and cried, Clifford left the room. Martha sat there the whole night, crying and looking at the furniture. For the most part, she did not think about what her husband had said. She couldn't. She kept thinking of Joseph and of how black and frightening all of this rain was. What happened? she said over and over to herself. What has happened? She was un~ble to picture anything but herself going to the doctors, herself at a meeting, herself lying in bed. She couldn 1 t remember the last time that she had talked to Joseph. He was away so much. Why was he away so much? He was only twenty-one. Was that right? She was almost thirty years old when he was born. My son, she thought. My little son. How could a person live for fifty years without ever having acted purely, without ever having been free from the desire to be noticed? How could she have been so mistaken? What was the point of it--making so many terrible errors? Why had that been allowed to happen? Martha did not go to her son's funeral. She made no fuss about it. Lizzie told everyone that she was too ill to go. Martha sat at home during the service and tried to read some of the book of Psalms. ~ut she closed the Bible after only a few min.utes. She had no concentration. She couldn't think. Sonnet Ste ph en MtJrsf' o l d s ak , fad e d J i k e a ri o d sock , rock s And wait. s beside the open 1A ind ow. Breeze Enters softly, sliding through his locks Of white hair, bright thE:'re in thE.· sunlight, pleased To be so near. Isak knows t.ht• su11 Knows to go down now, k ri l~~·s t }1p moon wt.tits, st i l l, Patiently for the ictervention · (Wren in nest, o1d n1an e1t I(' St) of his will. Waits like a cellist waits and \Vatches (One stroke in a tlrnusand) for Hs cue, Like a suitor for his lady's time Old Isak waits; for now and then he catches Snatches of the harmony, a few Clear and perfect pieces of the rhyme. 29 �what I may yet do or think. I must connect myself by causes and purposes and fears to the rest of my life, or else I will be a mere point, without so much as location. I could not be going to or from one place or another by my own motion because I could not hold onto either my or1g1n or my destination. If I were a heavenly body which moved in a perfect circle perhaps then could I have a motion and a location, but only in respect to myself. I would always be the same, always be at my origin and my destination, but the circular self thus constituted surely bears little resemblance to a human being. Aristophanes relates that the original unsplit humans were the offspring of the sun, or the moon, and resembled their parents in being spherical. The comic playwright goes on to tell a tragic story: in their arrogance, these spherical beings became a threat to the gods and so were struck down. What might this mean? If I were the sort of indivisible point I described, truly an unconnected whole, I would need nothing and no one, for to be whole means to lack nothing. I could then have no relation to the rest of things or I would thereby have become a part of something larger. Thus these fragments, these whole beings, as selves without others, are a gap in the fabric of things. If there is a larger whole, they deny it, indeed, they may be said to refute it, since it will hardly be the true whole if there are things which do not belong to it. But this denial of any larger whole is hubris, the pride of tragedy. Oedipus the tyrant pretends to master his own destiny, destroys the man and possesses the woman to whom he owes his own being, and imagines he is a self-made man, who owes nothing to anyone. And so too, says Aristophanes, will we be struck down again if we forget that we are but parts, not wholes. We have lost any capacity or simple circular motion; the right reverence for the gods consists in recognizing that we cannot simply possess, or be at one with our origins or our destinations, that we are part of a larger whole and for that reason are set apart for a real unity with our selves. Love becomes an admission of neediness or partiality, or a submission to a larger order in which I am not sufficient unto myself. Two questions arise here: Why does Plato put this story in the mouth of a comic poet? And, why is the service of love recommended not only as a submission to and an admission of our own partiality but also as the best cure for that partiality? Later on I hope to say something about the first question, but right now I will try to speak to the second. What is the special connection of love with wholeness? Lovers ask one another that they hold nothing back, that they have no secrets from one another; both in Plato's time and in ours one sign of a true love is thought to be that the lovers spend the whole of their lives together. And sometime we hear of lovers' suicides and may imagine that the sense of mutual surrender and entire possession seemed so perfect to them for one moment that they could not bear the thought of ever disagreeing or even feeling the slightest holding-back in the other or themselves again; and that knowing such a ·fall to be inevitable if they went on living, they preserved their imagined wholeness by dying together before their own partiality and the thousand trivial details of living could begin to separate them. What is this wholeness, this possessing which is not content unless it is at the same time a being possessed? May it not be in the same relation to our ordinary ways of being as being at home among kin is to travelling among strangers? When I try to know myself I find most of the time that I am broken into pieces: I do not desire only one thing, I do not remember only one, or fear only one, Usually I do not even know which of the many pieces of myself is the most important at the moment. I find myself doing or thinking this or that and I may puzzle long over the many possible reasons, good or bad, before coming to a provisional conclusion, which I may later conclude is mistaken. The "I" that The Tears of Odysseus Cary Stickney I. INTRODUCTION About a month before I wrote this lecture I heard a Friday night lecture on the Hippocratic Oath, and I learned that the first thing sworn to in that Oath was reverence for one's teacher. In one sense that might seem to say very little to us here. We often proceed on the assumption that it is precisely by a kind of irreverence that we learn; I mean that readiness to question and cross-examine and perhaps to see refuted not only the serious opinions of our elders and betters, the authors, but even sometimes, when we are generous, our own cherished opinions and habits of thought. That is the irreverence of which Socrates was accused, and convicted. Nevertheless, I think our readiness to question is a way of searching for what is truly worthy of reverence, and it is not unusual to feel a reverence arising for the patience and affection and hope and generosity and insight of one's partners in that search. Without them one would surely give up too soon. I don't think it is a bad idea to call upon the divinities to witness and aid our resolution not to forget the depths of reverence and gratitude we owe to those with whom we have learned. Like other debts it is all too easy to forget, but when we do, we not only commit the crime of ingratitude against our teachers, but we make ourselves that much less able to be moved and taught by them or anyone else again. Perhaps the worst of ingratitude is not an insufficient attention to gifts already received, but rather the pretense that further gifts are neither needed nor desired. I expect this lecture will be a sufficient showing that further gifts are needed in my case; I want to say beforehand, in gratitude to all here who have helped me learn by their insight, affection, and patience, and especially to those whose patience had to be the longest, how much their further gifts are desired. II • PARTS Alm WHOLES I want to speak first about parts and wholes. In the Symposium Aristophanes tells a story of how all humans were once whole beings but have since become split. And now, he says, we must seek to approach our original nature in the union of love, and meanwhile beware lest we be split again. What is this split which love is said to heal? I think it is connected to being what we call a self, to having a memory and personality. In order to know myself at all, it is not enough merely to be aware of whatever one thing I happen to be doing or thinking at the moment. I must divide myself, that is, I must remember what I have already done and thought and anticipate Cary Stickney is currently a tutor on the Santa Fe campus. this lecture to the Annapolis comnrunity in the Fall, 1983. 30 He delivered !I 31 �does all this is like a wanderer among strangers. It doe~ not know precisely where it is, but can only take the next step of an indefinite journey. It must place a certain trust in the companions of the moment and may even come to know some of them much better, but, like Odysseus, it must always hold something of itself back; it must not forget the possibility of dangerous surprises. When Odysseus falls asleep, almost within sight of his own home, his crew members, the men he has fought next to and travelled with for four years, open the bag he has held back from them and their ship is instantly blown far away from Ithaca by the winds they set free. They violated the rule of travellers: do not demand from another whatever he prefers to hold back. The best sorts of hosts the stranger Odysseus meets in his wanderings do not even demand his name from him. They take him in and feed him before they so much as ask, and when he is unwilling to answer they do not press him. And so, too, must I behave to the different parts of myself: I do not know their origins or all their possible connections with one another and if I try to possess them utterly or to wrest from them by violence what they will not willingly give, I may find myself, like that bad host Polyphemus, made drunken, blinded and befooled, or like the shipmates of Odysseus, blown off course forever. And yet, I must give those parts a place in me or I will not know myself at all. Our first view · of Telemachus in the Odyssey is of a boy dre aming of his father returning to drive away the oppressive crowd of uninvited guests. Yet when Athena appears in the guise of yet another uninvited guest, he hurries to welcome her. Of course, he hopes to hear news of his father, and he is not altogether disappointed in that hope, but his immediate readiness to welcome a stranger--we are told he was indignant with himself that a guest should have to wait--this unpremeditated hospitality springs from an innate readiness to be changed, to become more than and different from the boy he is now. Every stranger welcomed may change the looks of the world, may reveal origins or destinations we had not dreamed of, which may yet become our own. This is what happens to Telemachus; he had dreamt only of his father returning to make things right, but his welcome of Athena leads to his own bold defiance of the suitors be fo r e t he evening ends, and to his own voyage forth from Ithaca a day later. He calls an assembly, commands a .crew of sailors and presents himself and his questions to Old Nestor on the beach of Pylos. He has never done any of these things before and he w ould not be doing them now without Athena's help. But he would not have Athena's help had he not welcomed her when she was a stranger at the gate . Beginning by making an opportunity for him to discover that he can still give willingly when requested what has come to be rudely demanded of him by others, Athena goes on to let him give gifts he didn't even know he had. Her first visit, in the guise of Mentes, ends with her refusa l of Te l emachus ' offer ·of a gift, " a treasure from me, such as guest-friends give to friends." She tells' him not to hold her back from her journey now, but to give her a very fine gift when she returns; her final words are that there will also be something fine for him, something worthy of exchange. She returns of course the very next day, following the assembly in which Telemachus's request for a ship has been refused. This time Athena is in the guise of nentor, and her gift is a swift ship with a good crew and her own presence among them. What is the very fine gift of Telemachus? It must be his active trust: he bas followed he r adv i ce and done wha t she said, and when it seemed to have led nowhere he has prayed for her help. These are gifts he could not have given the night before . She had left him then more confident and mindful of his fat her t han previously , but now he has begun to do things that have been his father's :· speaking in assembly, pl anning a voyage, relying on Athena. These things are thus both gifts t o him and from him, and that is as it · should be for they are part of hi s inherit ance. Wi t hout welcoming and trusting 32 the stranger he would not have begun to take po~session of his own birthrights. So, too, if we cannot make room . for the imperfectly known and the fragmentary in ourselves, we may never discover our inheritance, or even very much of the way the world looks. Of course trust is often violated, as when Odysseus' crew, impatient and resentful over what they imagine to be his withholding of a treasure from them, open the sack of winds. But perhaps Odysseus' shipmates were misled by the nearness of home, for there can be a place where one is not among strangers, and where a demand that nothing be held back is no violation, but a sign of love. Such a place is home, and it is a mark of how perilously close Odysseus knows he has come to losing his home forever that when he does at last return, he cannot permit himself, at first, with his son, his father, or his wife, to make that demand. The twenty years he has been gone may have made his family strangers or even enemies to him, and be no longer feels sure of his right to expect love from them. Athena must intervene and tell him it is time to reveal himself to his son, and Telemachus cannot at first believe the truth. He saw an old man in rags, a strange wanderer, and now he must try to see a well-dressed young nobleman, Odysseus as he must have looked sailing off to Troy when Telemachus was a baby. Both figures are Odysseus, yet how can they be one? How can there be anything left of the Odysseus who had scarcely begun to be a father when he went away for twenty years? Telemachus thinks that only the gods can accomplish such transformation. Odysseus tells him he is no god, but his own father, and weeps as he embraces him. When Telemachus still cannot believe it, he adds, first in tones of rebuke, that it is unseemly for Telemachus to be so astounded at the sight of his own father, and then says: "There certainly will not come hither yet another Odysseus, but I, just as I am here, am be." [bode _ggQ_ toiosde] He admits that Athena has indeed changed his appearance, but explains that it is easy for the gods to make humans appear glorious at one time and ignoble at another. Now, at last, Telemachus recognizes a man he has never seen before, throws his arms around him, and begins to weep, too. There is something truly miraculous about this scene, but it is not so much the sudden change in Odysseus' appearance as the sudden change of two strangers into father and son. Odysseus succeeds in making himself one, a kind of whole, and his son succeeds in seeing it, but how? It is very hard to unravel, but I think it has to do with the strength of the desire, the whole - heartedness with which they long to become father and son. Odysseus conceals nothing: as he names himself father he immediately adds, "on account of who, you suffer, groaning, many pains, bearing the violence of men." This is the plain truth; when Telemachus was asked in Book One if Odysseus were his father, he replied that he was not sure of that but that he did know his inheritance was trouble and t ears. Te l emachu s has no t given up hoping, but l ike anyone who has been fooled by hopes before, he fears deception. Now Odysseus makes a demand of Telemachus, namely, that he cease to marvel over much at his own father; the act of making the demand, of telling Telemachus that his behavior is unseemly, speaks as loudly as the words themselves. u.r am your father and I expect you to trust me and listen to me as someone you belong to, not as a marvelous stranger or a god." When he says that yet another Odysseus will not come and that he, as he is then and there, is that Odysseus who has suffered and wandered so much and taken twenty years to reach his native land again , he does not deny that much has happened to . change him; but he gathers all of that together and says it is one and the same with the man who right now most of all wants to have, demands to have, every right those twenty years might have destroyed, to be treated by Telemachus as a loved and loving father. Sometimes, very rarely, we are able to say all of what we mean at a given moment. Most of t he time a great deal more is left unsaid, even left inexplicit in thought, than 33 �we manage to say. But now and then we may feel we have sai~ everything we have to say for that moment. "I'm sorry," spoken through tears, may for an instant say everything I know about myself, everything I am. "Thank you" under certain circumstances may be said as though everything I am has gone into those words and poured forth, leaved not a single undissolved grain behind. "I love you" may sometimes still be such a phrase, in spite of all the ways it can be trivialized. I think that Odysseus speaks to Telemachus here in just the same way. As he finishes speaking, he sits down, as if indeed he has said his say and there can be not~ing to add. Had Telemachus hesitated after this, he would have made himself a stepson and his father a stepfather. But his acceptance is as total as his father's offer. He embraces him without another word and now both men are weeping. If this account has made any sense of the meeting of Odysseus and Telemachus then it may suggest something about the wholeness found in love. That wholeness seems to consist of a gathering-up of all the unpossessable parts of oneself in order to give them to another. The power of that desire to belong to another and for the other to belong to oneself, will not permit that anything be held back. There may be no secret reservations to whisper that at some later time it may suit me better not to belong entirely to the other, or for the other not to belong entirely to me. Each must perform a self-unification for real love to exist because one cannot offer oneself as a whole to what is only a part of someone else, and still feel that one entirely belongs, and one cannot accept such an offer with a part of oneself and still feel that one entirely possesses. So that the only real acceptance is a full giving in return, and the strength of desire enables a real possession of oneself only in the act of giving oneself away. That the strength of this desire is so great as to accomplish what seems nearly impossible may suggest that at the deepest level we so truly belong to one another. If Telemachus wanted no more than someone who would kill the suitors and leave him ·a large inheritance, then how could he accept and share Odysseus' tears? He would not be one whole person, but part of him would be intent on pleasing this useful relative, while another part looked forward to the gains to be had, while yet another part shrugged over the spilt milk of a twenty-year separation which made it impossible to feel close to this stranger. Instead, he too becomes a whole in bis acceptance of his father. Thus there seems to be a wholeness proper to a part. This kind of wholeness is so far from needing no one and nothing, that it can only exist in the powerful need to belong to another; the whole so constituted is not free and unconnected but is bound is a part -- that is, if its meaning is not exhausted in self-reference but requires a larger context, then we might say that insofar as its reference to the larger context is concealed or overlooked, it appears as a broken fragment, an accident. On the other hand, if it were possible to see all the connections of the part to the larger context of its whole, then the part would so to speak, have become the whole. But if we could only see far enough ' . beyond the part to recognize the possiblity of the larger whole, to begin to trust that the part might have its own rightful place, then one might be able to see what should be called the wholeness of the part. This sort of unity would not be perceived in the light of some perfectly complementary other half or of a background with a perfectly-defined blank spot awaiting a foreground figure to fit it, but rather in the light of a belief, perhaps an opinion, midway between ignorance and knowledge, that a fragment is never just an ace ident but a~ways a fragment of something larger. So, too, what we call whole-heartedness is most often a state of wanting or trying wholeheartedly for something one does not have. Nobody simply is whole-hearted, without reference to an~ g~al or activity. The heart is whole in its direction toward something outside itself. 34 ! ' We are bound together in wholeness because we are bound for some destination. Someone who is in no way bound, not even a~ a traveler is bound for a destination, or someone for whom every bond, like the origin and destination of a merely idle traveler, is ultimately a matter of indifference, that is to say, someone who accords to any possible bond no more that a minimal hospitality or a traveler's welcome, such a person will act not freely or spontaneously but randomly. Without the bonds that make up any sort of determinate self, such a person can never be helped to become more of himself or herself as Telemachus was helped by Athena. How can one learn from a stranger when one has no home in which to invite her, no fire by which to warm her or see her face? Telemachus is not so much of a boy or a dreamer as to forget he is in hie own home and that it is his part to greet the stranger, even if the place looks more like a rented banquet hall and the question of ownership grows daily more doubtful. However unlikely it may seem that the place will ever belong entirely to him, he knows he belongs to the place, and his dream had in fact been of a time when he could belong to it even more deeply, for the return of his father would make it more of a home than he has even known. It is just this very bond to a dreamed wholeness that gives him a place into which he may welcome Athena. In this way Telemachus already has the wholeness of a part, that is, he has a destinatione And, because he has a destination, it is possible for his journey to matter. For we all journey, but we must ask ourselves the question Nestor asks when Telemachus lands at Pylos: "Do you sail to get somewhere, or do you wander at random like pirates, who gamble their lives bringing trouble to others?" This is a question that seems especially pressing in the case of Odysseus, and, indeed, it is not always easy to tell the difference between him and a pirate. But love gives him, too, the unity of having a destination. Without the powerful desire to belong to another it is not possible to unite the myriad loose ends, contrary impulses, and separate parts of the self even briefly into one, for the wiliness of the wanderer dictates that some things must always be held back in case of unseen dangers. No arguments can compel utter trust as long as the possiblity of the unexpected is looming as large as it does in our minds even as in that of Odysseus most of the time. Unless some kind of love comes to our assistance we lead our lives as wanderers, always ready to lie to our companions, or, worse, to discover we have lied to ourselves about ourselves, taking every step with the reservation that we must "wait and see" how things seem to be turning out. Of course, it will turn out that we die, having made of ourselves meanwhile just what Telemachus feared Odysseus had become, someone "altogether without a fate among mortals" [apotmotatos], "invisible to all" [aistos], worse than dead in the eyes of anyone who might have felt connected to us. The freedom of the wanderer becomes the freedom of the ghost. .1 use the word "freedom" because I think we often console ourselves with the thought of our freedom when we succumb to the temptations to believe that all voyages are ultimately aimless. · The strongest temptation is contained in the fact of death. Our family and friends all die; those essential parts of our homes and our destinations become insubstantial phantoms, whom we can no longer embrace, as Odysseus discovers with his mother in hie voyage to the land of Death. In deed, at that moment Odysseus himself is little more than a shade as far as his wife, father, and son are concerned. He is as far away from home as he can be. And anyone who reflects that not only must the parts of his own home all become phantoms someday, but that he himself may do so at any moment, is very likely to feel that if he is ultimately a phantom he must already be one in some way even now, and that sense of belonging anywhere in the present is part of an illusion. But almost worse for us is when we are not despoiled of the people and places we love by death, which at least robs everyone impartially, but by 35 �betrayal or apparent desertion. A constantly repeated part cf the background of the Odyssey is the disastrous home-coming of Agamemnon, betrayed by his wife; and the continual . temptation to Penelope and Telemachus, never mentioned by them and only once hinted by Odysseus, must be to suspect that he does not return because he doesn't want to. The last temptation is contained in the passing of time. The closest embrace must soon end, the deepest understanding must yield to future misunderstanding, nothing seems to stay the same or remain trustworthy. This is what Odysseus and Telemachus struggle with at their meeting and what causes the lovers' leaps mentioned earlier. But most of us, most of the time, are neither leaping, nor embracing, nor even imagining we are on the way to an embrace. We commit suicide on a smaller scale by concluding that we live as we die, alone. Since, then, we are already essentially phantoms, our embraces must be illusions at bottom, too, and any order or beauty we may see, however impressive, must in the end be no more that a lovely lie told by a traveler with no destination. It is perhaps less painful, when one has been robbed, to decide that on the contrary one never owned anything in the first place; and we sweeten the bitter pill further by boasting that it takes great courage and clarity of vision t.c• see the real bleakness of things, and even more courage to enjoy the phantom's freedom that results. It does take courage to wander at random gambling one's life, but perhaps that only says that it takes courage to endure lovelessness and homelessness, not that it is good to do so. Maybe all of that courage is just the fear of being robbed, a brave mask over the rage and resentment with ~hich someone whose hopes have been disappointed swi::a rs never to hope for anything again. Still, one cannot cure such despair by mere reason. If one asks on whet grounds everything has been concluded to be i ! ·~ scry, this fear, or courage, or skepticism, will reply that no grounds can be ~ iven for the groundlessness of all things. It becomes a kind of faith, and again, if other sorts of faith are often suspected of being empty products of fear, surely we ought to wonder what this faith is a product of. The cure for this feeling of being a part without a whole must be love, if Diotima is right when she says that love binds the All together with itself, and if it is love that brings Odysseus back from Hades and lets him discover while he is there that the dead are more than phantoms, that if we give them the stuff of life they will speak truth to us. I want to propose an understanding of how tears and laughter may help us to feel the wholeness of a part; how they may help us to love, and to find our way home. III. TEAllS What makes us weep? Physical pain, fear, frustration, compassion, grief, loneliness, joy, the list is long; and yet weeping is for many a rather rare occurance in spite of their frequently feeling, to some degree at least, most ~f these. If their feelings most often partake in the ambiguity of sights seen on a voyage, where clouds may mean an island, or a storm, and the signs that mark the end of one trouble may spell the beginning of the next, then it is not surprising that to wait and see is more often our response than to weep. Mingled with our frustration may be the suspicion that our frustrated desir~ is not so important as it seems; mingled with our pain, the memory of worse pains or the determination never to yield or show weakness; mingled with our compassion may be fear or contempt. This ambiguity could be called suspicion or unwillingness to trust any one feeling, and a large dose of suspicion is necessary for travelers, both for those who do and even more for those who do not know where they are going. But suspicion alone will not help a traveler to the destination, if there 36 is one, or help find orie if it hasn't yet appear~d. Tears may help. When we first hear of Odysseus in the Odyssey, Athena is telling Zeus that in spite of the beguiling talk of Calypso, who keeps him on our island and seeks to make him forget Ithaca, Odysseus' desire to see even the hearth smoke of his own land is so great that he longs to die. The first news Telemachus gets of his father's condition is from Menelaus, who has heard from Proteus that Odysseus is weeping on an island. . The first we see of Odysseus' present is in Book Five, when Hermes descends to Calypso's isle to set him free. He does not find him within Calypso's cave, we are told, "but rather that one was crying, sitting on the beach just where he always did, tearing his spirit with tears and groans and pains." It is ~ot throu~h suspicion of Calypso's soft and cunning words, nor through one of his many wiles that Odysseus preserves himself as someone still able to go home . It is through his tears, through trusting his tears. It is hard to see how he could have retained any rational suspicions of the nymph after seven years. It is clear she means him no harm, and if it is adventuring he likes she is ready to make him immortal and thus equip him for an eternity of advent~res though obviously preferring that he stay home with her. But Odysseus does no~ even address the possibility of becoming immortal in his reply to her suggestion that he stay and live forever with her. Still less does he imply that it is the glory.of mortals t~ die and thus define their lives. For him it is a simple question of longing for home. Mortal or immortal, this island is not his home and Calypso is not bis wife. This may seem very simple but how does he in fact know these things? Why should he not have decided, wee;ing one day on the beach after four or five ears alone with C~lypso, that Calypso and the isle of Ogygia were not part of the way back to Penelope and Ithaka, but that Penelope and Ithaka had been part of the way to Calypso? There would certainly be no proving of th7 one or the other, and perhaps he ought to have ceased weeping and decided to wait and see. But that would mean that even if he had eventually returned to Penelope thereafter, she would have seemed to him merely another Calypso--perbaps a.home, perhaps a way station. Instead he sits on the beach "tearing his spirit with tears.and groans and pains." Tears that tear the spirit may seem hard to connect with wholeness, but I think it is through this very tearing that he r etains the possibility of becoming whole again. When he weeps he feels his loss~ be doesn't feel it, I think, ~ingled with hope, or mingled with despair, but Just .!t!. loss. He feels the pain of a part separated from its whole and he feels it entirely. That he does not avoid the place or the thoughts that give rise to this pain may signify hope, but it is a hope based on how deeply he knows and feels himself to belong to Penelope and Ithaka. Whether there are real gr~unds for hope or not, he can never succeed in forgetting a happiness without which he would rather die. This is what tears his soul. Of course he might if h7 can't forget it, at least try not to think about it, become more suspiciou~ of his own tears, as most of us do when someone or something we long for is temporarily or permanently out of our grasp. He does not as I say 1 explain himself to Calypso or to us, beyond the simple statement ~hat each day he longs for home and the day of his return. To Nausikaa in Phaiakia he adds a little more, in the form of a blessing upon her: "May the Gods give you all you long for in your heart: a husband and a home and ~ay ~hey send as companion to those blessings, a true kinship of spirit; fo; nothing 1s stronger or better than when husband and wife together hold their home and agree in their thoughts." The verbs in the phrases translated "hold their ~ome" and "agree in their thoughts," are neither singular nor plur~l. They are in the dual, a form used to describe things that are two but act as one: a pair of horses yoked at the same plow, a pair of eyes or ears. Perhaps the line 37 �1 should be translated: "Nothing is stronger or better than when husband and wife, acting as closely together as two hands, hold their home and share their thoughts." "But that," adds Odysseus with a kind of delicacy, "they themselves always know best ,"as if to say there is something about a home and marriage that cannot be explained, a trust and belonging that ought to be felt. This wily trickster and lying voyager has an extraordinary respect for trust. The next time Odysseus cries it is at the court of Arete and Alkinoos, Nausikaa's parents in Phaiaikia. He has been listening to the minstrel Demodokos sing, at this request, a song of the taking of Troy. And Odysseus let the bright molten tears run down his cheeks. As a wife cries, throwing herself upon her husband Who fell before his own city and people Trying to ward off the pitiless day from his home and children. Seeing him dying in gasps Giving herself to cover him she wails loud But those behind, beating her back and shoulders with spears Lead her off b.ound, to have toil and pain. Her cheeks wear away under most piteous grief So Odysseus wept piteous tears ••• These are different tears: Odysseus does not long to be back at the sack of Troy, nor does he mourn the death of his companions in &rms. He weeps as though he were one of the women of Troy whose husbands he helped to kill. Is it too much to suggest that only on the last night of his t en-year wanderings has he realized that what he helped destroy was not just an enen1y city, but somebody's home? He and his nob le comrades killed the husbands and made the wives and children into slaves, permanently homeless people, into!!.. andrapoda, to use a peculiarly bloodchilling, though not Homeric, Greek word for slaves; literally "things with men-feet," more loosely, "plunder that can walk." Are ten years of homelessness too much to have paid? And now he begins to tell the story of his wanderings, perhaps because only now does he understand how where he is coming from fits with where he is going. He learned in his tears. If his tears on Calypso's island could be called a reaching out of his present and into his hopes, then these tears on Phaiaikia might be called another kind of tearing, a tearing himself away from his past. He cannot return wholeheartedly to his home if a part of him is still at Troy. Troy was not easy to escape from in one piece. ; of t he peopl e \.'e tteet in the Odyssey who have been there, most are dead. They either died at Tr oy, like Achilles and Ajax, or on the journey home, like all of Odysseus's crew, or upon arrival home, like Agamemnon. Of those who are alive and back safe at home, we meet first Nestor, then Menelaus and Helen. lestor is on the beach, as if still at Troy, He and all the men of Pylos are offering a glorious hekatomb of black bulls to Poseidon, presumably in gratitude for their safe passage home. Telemachus states his business: that he has come seeking word of his fathe r, and Ne st or replies : "Ah frien d , when you remind me of the pain we sons of the Achaians bore in that land, relentless in ou r anger, sometimes in the ships on the misty sea , ranging a fter plunder , where Achilles excelled, sometimes around the gr eat town of Lord Pr iam ••• we fought." A student showed me that two things are especially striking in this beginning of Nestor's answer. The first is that we find ourselves transported not just back to Troy but back to the beginning of the Iliad. The words I have translated 38 as ''relentless in our ~nger" are menos aschetoi and they remind one of the anger of Achilles both in meaning and in sound, for menos--"spirit, force, anger" is not far from menis--"wrath, rage." Moreover, Nestor then mentions Achilles by name and speaks of his preeminence at the pillaging which kept the army supplied with food. But one of Achilles's own complaints in his rage at Agamemnon in Book One of the Iliad is that he does the fighting and Agememnon distributes the plunder, always reserving the lion's share for himself. In fact, one could say that the distribution, or in this case, the redistribution, of plunder is the occasion for the ruinous wrath of Achilles. The second striking thing is that Nestor never fulfills the expectations he raises with the third word of his reply, "when." "Q. phil 1 epei. •• " One wants to ask, "Yes, when he reminds you what then?" But .Nestor cannot come back to the present once he steps into th; p~s t. He goes on to te 11 who died there, Ajax, Achilles, Patrok los, Anti lochos, his own son, then pauses to tell Telemachus that even if they had five years he couldn't tell him the whole story of the suffering of the Achaians at Troy. Perhaps he means to convey how hard a time it was by a figure of speech. But if there is anything expressed in his choice of that particular figure of speech it may be that, ten years later, he still cannot separate himself enough from the experience to make it a tellable tale. He has not, it seems, finished saying farewell to the Trojan war, so as to put it behind him and view it whole. Instead one suspects that when he views his present through his memories of the past, of the sheer magnitude of the suffering and of the men who bore it and caused it at Troy, his present can only seem small and disappointing, even when as in this scene, he is presiding at a sacrifice of 81 black bulls conducted nine companies of 500 men each. But if this is only conjecture about Nestor, it is clearly true that Menelaus and Helen cannot put Troy behind them. Telemachus arrives at their palace on a wedding day; Menelaus's son is getting married, but, we are told, his son by a slave girl during the war, for after one daughter Helen has never born any more children since going to ·troy. When Telemachus remarks on the opulence and beauty of the palace, Menelaus replies that it all means nothing to him without the friends he l~st at Troy and thereafter. He revels in his tears, he says, for his lost companions, or stops weeping before the surfeit makes him shiver. Soon after this Helen drops an anodyne into everyone's wine to make them incapable of tear~ •. Perhaps tears :or what is irrecoverably lost~ worse than useless, and yet it ts strange to find Helen so ready to numb herself and her companions so long after the occasion of the pain. There seems to be no hope of a natural cessation of tears, and this is confirmed in the stories which Helen and her husband then recount. Hera seeks to assure him that her escape to Troy was an aberra tion and that she longed to return to him during most of the war while his . r~minds her of her attempt to trick the Greeks in the horse on the ' very last night of the war, and so save Troy. She is asking him to believe that she is now truly on his side again, that she · really loves him ,and he is replying that he can never forget that he got her back by force of arms and that he will thus always suspect her of being with him against her will. She is his prisoner in his mind, not his wife, and all the opium in Egypt will not erase ~hat unhappiness for them. Telemachus asks if it isn't time for everyone to be going off to rest, and I don't blame him. Menelaus and Helen remind me here almost of those people in the lowest circle of Dante's Hell, whose tears freeze in their eyes. Perhaps it is that chilling, deadening character of his tears which is b; signified by Menelaus's earlier remark that he must sometimes stop weeping before the surfeit makes him shiver. In any case, Odysseus's tears at the song of Demodokos are anything but cold; the literal translation of one of the verbs used is that he melted (teketo). He is not yet assured that be can rejoin his family 39 �------=~==- in the full sense of becoming part of it again, but thos~ tears disjoin him, dissolve him from Troy in a way that no one else in the book who has survived the war manages to get dissolved. By a grief as whole-hearted in its rejection of the consequences of the war as the grief of one who has utterly lost home and family, Odysseus is freed to make a whole-hearted attempt to embrace home and family. have already The next tears Odysseus weeps are with his son, in the scene I spoken of. This is how Bomer describes it: Telemachus embraced his noble father, weeping. A longing or tears of mourning arose in both and cries burst from both as keen and fluttering as those of the great taloned hawk whose children farmers take before they fly. The fledgling and the hawk are here restored to one another, yet they must mourn their separation. When Odysseus left for the war he cannot have wanted to believe he would not return in time to see his son growing up. Whatever had been foretold him he could not then have been comparable to the hawk who sees its nest robbed; and Telemachus was not ever aware that in one moment he had been deprived of his father's presence and care for twenty years. Re had only known, as the years wore on, that his father was not home .I.§!.• They have both ~ad twenty years to get used to this seperation, to be insensibly hollowed out by it day after day as drops of water hollow rocks. But the fullness o~ their restoratio~ to .each other lets that separation suddenly appear in all of its full, .harsh. immediacy, and a longing to mourn arises. Now that they truly ~ave it again, they.are pierced by what they had lost. An overly lite~al translation of on~ of the lines might read: "They cried loud and clear, something more fully flow7ng. than the great taloned . hawk cries ••• " and so forth. The alpha at the beginning of the word "adinotarov " "more fully flowing" is not the privative alpha, but what is called the inten~ive alpha, used to denote fullness or joinedness. It is the same A in our Latin-derived word "satisfaction," fullness, completeness; and the oldest meanings of the English word "sad," in Chaucer for example, are in fact "whole, fully ripe, constant, steadfast." It seems to me that the best sadness is indeed a wholeness that produces constancy, the wholeness of a part; the wholeness to be felt in tears. IV. LAUGHTER. Since J.. began with a speech attributed to Aristophanes, I should try to say a very little about laughter before I close. For, in spite of all the tears, or perhaps because of the kind of tears they are, the Odyssey is a comedy. A lecture on Dante by Mr. Littleton suggested that the soul of comedy had to do with being able to turn around and go back. According t~ that definition the Odyssey is preeminent among comedies; but also according to the words of Aristophanes in the play bis chorus describes as the one he'd worked ha~dest of all upon, The Clouds; Athens is said, by the chorus of Clouds, .to be a c:ty full of folly but whose very mistakes the gods tu:n to the better. T~e ~thenians are then urged to see that trusting Cleon is a mistake, and to put him in the st~cks that things may again turn out for the best. That mistakes may turn out r~ght 80 if only we recognize them is, I· think, a thread that runs through most. comedies• ,It is assumed that turning things to the better is what the gods are dispos~d to do for us if we will let them. This is comedy's opposition to tragedy, which assumes that the gods are disposed to let certain mistakes develop until they 40 crush us. Laughter is, then, a recognition of a forgiveable or reversible or non-fatal ~istake. To ~augh at something is to feel that there is a whole and a way that its parts fit together and that that laughable something does not fit as it pretends to! but that it also in no way threatens the whole. A German writer of the ea:ly ninetee~th century, Jean Paul Richter, speaks of comedy in the figure of a bird •. The. bird Merops, or as I am tempted to trans late, "eye for the part," he says, flies into heaven backwards, by looking back and laughing at all things earthly. The great hopefulness of most comedy must proceed from the insight that to laugh at a.pa:t is to affirm the whole. One need not see the whole as such to be a~are of ~t in the laugh that recognizes the absurdity of a part and at the same time cont~ins the possibility of reconciliation. Theodor Adorno, a contemporary German thinker, suggests tb~t laughing may be like naming in these two aspects . In on~ w~y to laugh at a thing and to call it a name can be a glorying in our own super10:1ty.and mastery over it, while, in another way, it is precisely by thus separa~ing it off and addressing it directly that we are able to let it have its o~ being, ~o freely accept it for what it is. On this understanding a certain ~i~d er wh~ s never bees. a chance to trust that even as there is some absurdity in everything, so there is some rightness, some truth, in everything, too. ~he ~tory of Odysseus, as Adorno points out, ends with a joke meant to produce this kind of ~aughter. Odysseus, as he learns in Hades, is to walk inland with an oar over bis shoulder until so~eone asks him what kind of a winnowing fan he's got 7h7re. At :hat spot he is to plant the oar upright in the ground and sacrifice to Poseidon. Then he may return home and live to a ripe old age, finall~ to die a gentle death that comes from the sea. You may not find the confusion of an o~r with a winnowing fan terribly funny, but I think Poseidon is expected to. He is the god who holds the whole middle realm with his brother :eus taking th: Heavens and his brother Hades the Underworld,' and he knows that JUSt as the shield of Achilles showed, Ocean circles everything and makes up most of the world. Nevertheless here is some clodhopper who's never heard of an ocea~, and doesn't ~now ~he great sea-farer Odysseus from a migrant farm laborer or h18 oar from a winnowing fan. Poseidon has to laugh at this ignoramus who h~s never tasted salt, and at Odysseus, the island-dweller and sailor like a f1sh.o~t of water,.tryi~g to explain what god it is he is honoring ~ith great sa~rifices an~ this winnowing fan. Like Adam Smith so deep in thought about things economic that he wallked off the end of a dock, these are people who don't know where they are. More than any sacrifice could, the laughter Odysseus calls forth fr~m Poseidon remind~ the ~od who each of them really is, and where they a~e. This laug~ter reconciles him to Odysseus, even disposes him especially kindly toward ~im, so that he will send him prosperity and a gentle deathh. May we, too, who live much of our lives no less ignorant of the whole to which we belong than the farmer, be granted such a reconciliation. 41 �Mathematics and the Concept of Force John Ritner We live in a world of motion, so that if we are to understand our world and ourselves, we must understand motion. Indeed, it seems that nothing can occur in this world we perceive without motion's being involved--yet how do we grasp such. a changing thing? Our minds seek something unchanging, sometbing we can say we know, so our question is, what is the unchanging or absolute part of motion, and how do we grasp it? As we shall see, the answer has vast implications for philosophy as well as physics and must lie in mathematics and the concept of force. The Ancients tended to make a distinction between theoretical and applied sciences. We need only read, say, the first line of Ptolemy's Almagest: "Those who have been true philosophers, Syrus, seem to me to have very wisely separated the theoretical part of philosophy from the practical." Ptolemy goes on to note that the practical part of philosophy involved constant repetition, while the theoretical involved progress onwards. He mentions Aristotle's division of the theoretical into "three immediate genera: the physical, the mathematical, and the theological." Of these three, we can have scientific knowledge only of the mathematical, and Ptolemy undertakes the investigation of the astronomical part of mathematics. His intention is not really to explain the physical movements of the planets, but to "save the appearances" and expound upon the theoretical mathematics of astronomy. His science is not meant to be applied; rather, he prefers to "indulge in meditation mostly for the exposition of many beautiful theorems and especially of those specifically called mathematics." When we open Euclid's Elements, we are struck by the very first definition: "A point is that which has no part;" and the Elements continues in a similar fashion to expound "pure" geometry--perhaps a measure of the earth, as its name implies, but in a purely theoretical way. In this way, mathematics was, with a few except ions, firmly separated from the other sciences, such as physics. For instance, Aristotle gives no truly mathematical account of this science, but merely an account from observation and meditation. Yet this account, due to its vast subsequent influence, is the necessary starting point f or an examination o f physics. "Physics" comes from the Greek word for nature, and Aristotle defines nature as "a source or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it · belongs primarily." (Book II, 192b.22) The last clause, "in that to which it belongs primarily," is included in order to indicate that a man- made item like a bed, insofar as it is a bed, has no "innate impulse to change," but only insofar as it is wood. Thus, physics is the study of the causes of motion and rest. I t is the science immediately necessary to understand the world ar~und us, for nature obviously exists and things obviously move --t o try to prove these things would be absurd, as Aristotle points out. So we are set the task of studying the causes of motion and rest. To do so requires a great deal of explication about many things. For instance, as Aristotle states at the beginning of Book III, we must understand the necessary conditions of motion, among which are place, void, and time. We must also 42 consider that motion is continuous and that "the infinite" is necessary in some way to explain "continuous." The definition of motion is then given as "the fulfillment of what exists potentially, insofar as it exists potentially." (20lal0) It has been debated whether this definition is comprehensible but it does at least point out the central position of motion in the study of the world for it is in.motion that things ar: fully what they should be. For eight book~ the explanation~ go on about such things as the four causes, the infinite, place, space, tendencies of the four elements--all with scarcely a word about math:matics or an indication of how we practically deal with motion. We know not~ing . about the natural paths of motion or about the velocities bodies can achieve or about the work they can do or about their relationships to each other. At best we have a mediocre knowledge of nature. "My purpose is to set forth a very new science dealing with a very ancient subject," proclaims Galileo at the beginning of the "Third Day" of his Two New Sciences. There is, in nature, perhaps nothing older than motion, concerning which books written by philosophers are neither few nor small; nevertheless, I have discovered by experiment some properties of it which are worth knowing and which have not hitherto been either observed or demonstrated. Indeed, a new age is being introduced--Galileo has opened this "vast and most excellent science," and some of the greatest thinkers from his time on have exp~ored it in de~th. Galileo treats of uniform motion, naturally accelerated motion, and the motion of projectiles, and he proceeds using Euclid and other mathema.ticians--this is the revolution. He does not abstrusely define motion but proves how the elements of motion--time, velocity, and space--are related t~ one another. From Galileo's work, we know that with falling bodies the distances covered vary as the squares of the times and that projected bodies move in parabolas--and to prove these things, he uses the ancient mathematicians. Now we have a way of understanding the world, for we have applied the certainty of mathematics to the physical world. We are shown that this world has mathematical laws as clea: as Euclid's or Apollonius• ·mathematics--though certain unaccoun~ed -f or factors.will throw off the results of the application of these m~thematics t? the physical world. That is, for instance, the motion of a body will follow given laws except insofar as it is affected by air resistance or other such (and perhaps limitless) factors. Still, we are left with the hope that .we can mathematically take into account even these factors and explain them by fixed laws. Descartes clearly expresses this hope in the second part of the Discourse on Method, written shortly after Galileo's time: Those long chains of reasoning, so simple and easy, which enabled the geometricians to .reach the most difficult demonstrations had me wonder whether all things knowable to me might not fall into a ~imilar logical sequence. Descartes proceeds to combine "the best traits of geometrical analysis and algebra, ... and correct "the faults of the one by the other." As he shows in his Geometry, the key is to develop a formula which takes into account all the various factors and which can be solved algebraically. 43 �With Galileo and Descartes, the primacy of mathematics in the consideration of physical matters is established. To understand the.moving world around us, we must understand how it is mathematical. Once we understand this, it is claimed that we have knowledge as certain as that of, say, Euclid, and we may solve practical problems. We can predict with great accuracy, for instance, how nruch velocity a machine would require to move a certain body a certain distance. Thus, we must measure and quantify--distance, velocity, time all become numbers--and we must learn to relate these numbers. Given the establishment of mathematics in physics, we must seek out just what mathematics is dealing with--what are the factors, how are they related, and what is absolute in motion? Our first considerations of motion dealt with single objects moving uniformly or falling with uniform acceleration or being projected in a parabola. Given two of the three elements of velocity, time, and distance, we can find the third , without having to take into account any other factor. For instance, among heavy bodies, it is not true, as Aristotle maintains, that the heaviest falls most rapidly--mass makes no difference. All heavy bodies accelerate in the same way and achieve the same final velocity at the end of the same amount of time. Two . projectiles of different weight will form in the same parabola given the same velocities--assuming, as usual, ideal conditions. Yet we know from experience that it is generally much easier to send a lighter projectile farther than a heavier one, and that it is more painful to be hit by a larger projectile than by a smaller one . Something more goes into the mo tion of a heavier body, and that factor is dependent upon its mass in some way . The bes t starting point for the consideration of this new factor of mass is Huygen's The Motion .Q.f Colliding Bodies, for in this work is demonstrated the effect that perfectly hard, moving bodies have upon each other. Further, Leibniz' Essay on Dynamics can be brought to bear on Huygens' work with particular advantage, for Leibniz is searching for something absolute in motion and explores many of the ideas Huygens puts forth. Proposition 4 is the first proposition in Huygens ' treatise to deal mathematically with bodies which have different masses. It states that the relative speeds of the approaching bodies--whatever their masses are--are the same as the relative speeds of the departing bodies. That is, for example, if body "B" approaches with a velocity of 10 a larger body "A" at rest, then the two bodies will separate with velocities that together add up to 10. Leibniz points out this fact in his Essay on Dynamics, and notes that although it is a conservation, it is not something absolute in bodies, for the true :velocities and the absolute forces of the bodies can change in .innumerable ways. Thus, the conservation of relative speeds tells us very little--nothing abou the actual speeds of the mass of the body or the effect they would have on other bodies. The sixth proposition of Huygens points out a negative truth, namely, that contrary to Descartes' theory, the quantity of motion in two colliding bodies is not always conserved. What Huygens means by "quantity of motion" depends upon the velocity and size of the bodies, and Leibniz takes it as being the product of mass and velocity--what is now called momentum. This is on the surface a strange idea--for we have never before multiplied together two unlike things in order to obtain the definition of a third. It is true that nowadays we conceive of velocity as a ratio between distance and time--that is, velocity is equal to distance divided by time--but that is more directly comprehensible, for we truly think of a body covering a certain distance in a certain time. Besides, Galileo presents velocity as a measurable quantity in its own right, and it took later developments in calculus to completely define velocity as a derivative of 44 distance over time. Now, although we have a good idea of why mass and velocity should be considered togethe:, we can have no im~ge of momentum or of other "absolute" quantities soon to be discussed. T~e. notion of such quantities measurable only indirectly in terms o~ other.quantit7es has several important implications, some mathematical, ~ome philosophical. First of all, the dominance of mathematics has been secured ~nso~ar as the c?ncept--at least the precise concept--of a quantity like momentum 1s incomprehensible except mathernat~cal~y and s~ecifically quantitatively. Further, when we.say.that we ~re multiplying mass times velocity, we really mean that we are multiplying numerical quantities of mass and velocity. We have advanced beyond Euclidean ratios of like things to manipulations of the measurements of very unlike things. Only by thus turning to algebra and quantification, as Descartes does in his Geometry, can we make any solid advances in physics. The justification of such steps is precisely that they work (as shal~ be seen eve~ mor: clearly in the following discussions of force). That is, for 1~s~ance, bodies wit~ equal momenta can stop each other upon impact. Their velo~ities and m~sses in~ividually may vary widely, perhaps, but multiply each body s mass by its velocity, and if the results are equal, the two bodies can stop each other. In subsequent physics, the predominance of mathematics has grown to such an extent that, with the introduction of quantum mechanics, Schroedinger warns us against attempting to imagine what we are studying. Our knowledge of physics is strictly mathematical, for even though we may have started with images of particles or waves, we can achieve consistency only through abandoning such images and studying the mathematics. In the end, such paradoxes have indeed led to a thorough questioning of whether the mathematics is then meaningful at all-:-but. stil~, t~e only way to consistency in physical concepts and to · their application lies 1n mathematics. But to return to the seventeenth century, one of the philosophical ramifications of these new concepts involves the specific idea of absolute or living force that Leibniz developed, so discussion of it will be postponed. There are, however, two other philosophical ramifications of particular importance that I hold to have come directly from these new, unimaginable physi~al concepts an~ the mathematical expression of tbem. The first is the doctrine that . na~ure rn general may be trea.ted mathematically, and the second that concepts which exceed the imagination can validly be used and in fact must ~e u~ed,, th:oughou~ philosophy. Both Descartes and Spinoza develop the latter implication in makin~ a distinction between the highest type of knowledge--the purely conceptual, which exceeds the imagination--and sensual knowledge or as Spinoza ca~ls it, opinion. Now, granted that the theory of higher 'form~ of know~edge is sc~rc~ly ~e~, ~hat is important is that these advances in physics prov:de a certain Justification for Descartes and Spinoza; for them, the modern, physical concepts are a necessary .part of our understanding of the moving world around us. They are not abstractions, but workable concepts which suggest that there a:tually a:e some relationships--clearly understandable and fundamental to ~an--w~ich underlie the world we perceive and suggest something absolute about it. Finally, such a view of the world, with the Cartesian claim that all things knowable ~o man.can.be demonstrated mathematically, ultimately leads Spinoza to develop.h:s Ethics i~ a geometric fashion---an ethics which includes every topic we traditionally assign to philosophy as a whole. But to set aside the philosophical ramifications let us continue the search for something more truly absolute than momentum in, physics. Now, momentum is not conserved between colliding bodies J but the momentum in a given direction, or • quantity of progress, as Leibniz calls it, is conserved. Further, this 45 �conservation holds for all bodies, not just perfectly hard or Flastic on es. But it does not correspond to somet.hing, absolute in bodh•s, for ir1 g,f-'n~ · ral twc f·quaJ bodies with equal velodties which approach each other- gj •.,i <~ o q li-1r:f_ jty of progress of zero. Thus, we know nothing about the indiv i d ua J bocl'ps - -th ~ ~ cou1d be going any velocity an<l have any ruass. , Finally, Huygens prove$ in his elevenlb proposition t\-..:H ~.; 1· f.·~t :_, i! 1 qt .-:1 ntjt;/ which Leibniz calls C1bsolute or living force i2... cc1nsPrved . In H11 y2. H•3 ' ~ 1.vc\rds, "the sum of their [the bodie.s'] magnitudes su1t:ip~ier1 b;: tlw ~.qu ;1 r ei:. n !" th i: ·1-r respective velocities is equal bPfore and ~ftt-:1 tl ·e · o1Ji.s ·ion4'~ 'fr; tb< ric tat 1o r· of Leibniz, avv + byy = a:xx -+ bz2, wlif' rE- ''.:· '' i~. '; ~ · r::.·-1,:. s c1'. r· p(~; ' ·· ·· , " ~:. " 1 u; L1 11 -· . . - b ,.1 \ f . . . , . ' • t mass of body two, "v" is tbe velocity c· f . o u:; ;·~c' c E»(i -E' c: _,J \ ~ :,: ,r ;; f ! :J x 1 :-; velocity afterwards, and "y" is tht- vt-:loc ~t y 0f b ody tv1c• rwfcr '- c · · 1 _ t,i("fl ;-ind!''."." ; its velocity afterw<Hds. So Leibniz cloir.i s thc;t at ~ast \>'<' \ , i;,,~ .:,c; n1t>t~!ng absolute in motion, something independent o f directjon c·f iro\·c:rniont cind ncit relative to any othE·r factor. Tbi_s livirig, f(ITC•_ is H n:1:..:;~1.t r :,1 ~,l.· qt•<:n t -: ty , '" ' 1 comprehensible and unchangin~ tbi.ng---altlwugr. i t i;:; 1irni.l.t·(, tr ~,.-rf.:11> ·;2rc1 bodies and their perfectly elastic co11is ·Lrins. Leihni;·. not ~·s rL:l !. '. ~1 it:d ) , 111~ and suggests that although the 1ivint, fr,rcF- r:;a;· bP Jo:..t f .~, r : L~, ~-h -· 1:' \t , ;., absorbed by the small parts of thE" body imd is not ~cist f<·r th e un;,, ,_, ,- ,c. This is the place to pick up the postponed d) scussion c:7 ~ '. P.- t:,l'>-f.<'t philosophical ramifications that Leibniz draws from this concept 0f ~t s 0 ute force. Principally, he makes the clairr tk1t 1 ivinE:, force muq bf• co n ~; t'. n.·E'c'. h the universe as a whole--there in nev~r any more nr less of it--for 8 ~ r: 8 tt ~ r ho~ much bodi es collide, this living fc,ree remains und.angt>d. lier,c<', ld~ c;:ir: sp('8k 0f conservation of living force in the s~ne way ~s cons~rvation of matter-- it ~uuld be absurd to think of either changing, for how can something come from nothing? Yet this living force is nothing which is as :ir.:mediately imaginab~e <:;S ir.3ss or velocity. Why should tbe universe's basic cor.sE-rvCJtion be of sonietbing, found hy squaring the velocity and multiplying by the mass of bodies? It remains for Newton to seek out the natural mathematical reasons for the absolutes of physics--to rebuild the science from the ground up using an amazing system of definitions and axioms. He ignores (for the most part) thE> theological arguments which spring from physics and lead to the defpnse of th" r,;ost vi.-nying concepts of God, from Leibniz' teleology to Spinoza's idPntif:ication o f God with nature. Instead, Newton seeks to grasp the basic l aw s behind natural forces and to express them mathematically. Herice the title, the Mathematical !'rinciples of Natural Philosophy. He makes it cle<ir tlwt he is stic'l:ting to n1t1t't. t> n1::1t ;cs <n1d t l ) nat.u re 's own forces in his very pre face: 1 1 1 1! ,. • 1 1 I consider philosophy rather than 11rt and wTitf· nut c on<":err;jng e1Hn u Dl but natural powers, and consider chiefly those tlings wrich re1atc to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistancE:· cf fluid's, ;.i ncl thE-" :H.0 forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and theref orE I 0ff~r t~is work as the mathematical pdncipJes of philosophy> for tbE' \vro1e burden of philosophy seems to consist in tt.is--from tbP pben or.1E'f1a c-f mot ior:s to investigate the forces of nature, and then from th ~sP forces t0 demonstrate the other phenomena • • • • Hence he is not dealing with the collisions of lard bodies, but with the forces that they naturally have between each other. Further, he i s not concprr.ed with the or1g1n of these fore.es. He designr. "only to g,ive a math e matical notion of these forces, without considering their physical causes and seats." Let us start by considering certain of his definitions. The second definition is of the impressed force "f" has a kinetic energy equ2l to the integration of force over distance, or, in other t~rrns, one half rov squared. Remember that similarly momentum is equal to force integrated over t1'me, th a t · 1~, to mass times accel~r~tion integr~ted over time, or simply mass timPs velocity. All of these quantities have their 1 articular uses, depending on the circumstances, and their con~- epts are fundanwntal to our understanding of the moving world around us. With subsequent advances in physics , Newton , Leibniz , and the- other p h y S J. C 1 S t _S · · . . o f t h e seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were shown to be dea1ing with Ji 't d cases; that is, New:-onian physics cannot explain physical ptienoniena iwhichmi extremely small or which move at A a veJocity approaching that of light r n d ee d , d ., t l . . • mo ~:T· q~an um. t 1 eory introduces ~ notrnn of uncertainty and probability into physics,.and this eugge~ts that strict cause and effect relationstips and even mathematical understandings of nature may be severely limited . Modern physics suggests that our Vf'ry mathematics may break down at the atoIT.'ic level; in other word~, our tool of mathematics may not conform so well to the atomic basis of the pb~~1cal world. But ~his consideration is beyond the scope of this paper. Besides, the fact remains that mathematics and our scientific understanding of th~ world cannot be> sep<ffate<l--when the old matbematicaJ theorems break down, we seek new onps c:r ~u~po~e t'- t <;; f·urt h er k nowledge is beyond human capabilities . 1:a Note tha~ FV~n a stat1st1cal method is mathematical. If there is a third ~tlternat1ve betwe~n mathematics and resignation, then I have not yet heard of 1 a~e 1 • In conclusi on, the search for something absolute in motion -- in pbysics--leads to the applir~tion of mathematics to nature and to the development of concepts--not2blv fc > rrc•---·whirh f'XIJress that which , t",_ b eyon <l \_ . . . . ., . uougu uum.an in: 8 &1 n .a t l on , l s ll b s o 1 u t e ~ IJ t h e ~ h y s i c a l wo r 1 d • Su ch d e v E lop men t s 1e ad not on 1 y to the greatest .advances 1n physics, but to applications of mathematics to ethics and to metap~ys1cal ~e1i:fs in the conservation of an absolute force (as well as to ~he pract1ca~ belief in the modern conservation of energy). What all of these no71ons . have in common is the be 1 ief in something stab le in and fund amen ta 1 to tb~s moving world of ours • . And even today, the advances in physics discussed in ~bis paper form the basis of our understanding of our changing world which includes, even, ourselves. I quote from the following editions and translations: Almagest, Ptolemy, from the Great Books edition, translated by R. Catesby Taliaferr o Elements. Euclid, from the Dover edition, translated by Sir Thomas L. Heath Physics , Aristotle, from the Random House edition, translated by R . P . Hardie and R. K. Gaye Two New Sciences, Galileo Galilei, from. the Carew and Alfonse de Salvio Discourse on Method, Rene Descartes . . translated by Laurence Lafleur' fron1 ed1t1on, tl1e Library of ~athe~1atical Pr~nciples cl_ Natural Philos.Q2.hy, Sir Isaac Un1vers1ty of California edition, translated by Andrew Motte, Cajori 1. "D" here and everywhere else 1n 11 t·\.11' s _ _ paper repres en t s d e lt a 49 46 Dover edition, translated by Henry the Liberal Arts Newton, from the revised by Florian �Galileo's Limits The Fort Adrien Heller In the fading heat of August when we were young and the trees were old the fort rose to save our once young season from falling into the hands of an old enemy. The walls were high and stayed the attacks from those who'd found out where we'd built her . They came in swarms like yellow-jack~ts . coming f r om the grass where the mackintosh . lay squashed and brown and smelling like a rotten apple should. In Autumn when every breeze felt like wind again we stuffed the cracks with leaves and the only light came through the door e So we sacrificed for warmth, the days for night, the green for gold. When the trees stood bare we could see the fort from at least a hundred yards and no one ever dare sneak in or out before we came and caught them there. We finally closed the door the day before Christmas I believe. She lay covered in white and watched Orion hunting night thro ugh . '' The proposition is carefully worded to naintain a proportion between somet hing call ed time and something called space. By putting his descriptions in Euc]idean terms Galileo is able to maintain the~ as descriptions. If, however, Galileo had employed Descartes' mathematirs in ~{s descriptions he would have been forced to state a definition of motion. He would have to have said precisely what motion is. For the equation he ~11ould have arrived at, V=D/T, is an identity, not a relationshjp or a prr1portioi:-1. We should have been able to ask - after night until we had forgotten bow dark and cold it must have been inside. It melted from the roof at first, trickling through the boards we had known to creak on occasional nights but never thought would ever leak. Galileo, "What is speed?" D /T is e s sent i a 11 y speed • And he would Vo i 1 a • " h2vc to1d us, "Speed is the number D/T. Seemingly, equations explaini~g what precisely a thing is run counter to Galileo's intentions. His intentions are stated in the beginning of the treatise: "I find many symptomata of motion t11at. are worth knowing." Stillman Drake translates "symptomata" as "esseutials.'r Th:is may bf' the right word with which to transJate "s:ymptomata." I c<ln't say with authority whether it is or isn't, as I am not familiar with anybody's thoughts about what "essentials" are, particularly Mr. Drake's. The word ''syrr.ploriau, ," howe.ver, can be translated, Oh how it leaked! The water dripped in fecund drops down the walls and onto the chair and table top left in the darkness from Winter. We tried to fix it and dry the dampness in the warm new breath of Spring; and bring in light through the door That had not opened since that Eve. Adrien Heller, '83, currently lives in Springfield, Illinois. A.J. 50 There is one aspect of a many-sidf~d <";alileo that I would like to s.cty sor.ietr.i rf, about. The subject is old, but the words are new. Tbe subject lS thP bet th:: GaliJeo uses Euclide8n magnitudes. There appears to b~ a differenc~ between the sort of magnitudes Euclid thought · about in his Elements and the sort of magnitudes most mathematicians hav~ use d sincr Descartes' particular geometry gained currency. Euclid and tbos~ n f bis school tl1ought of numbers only with reference to p<..;.rt icular magnitudes. ThE:y did not sciy, "Five -- voila!'', they said, "Five of what?" Thus they could not !:'ay that if C:E·rtair1 ratios \VE:re in tlw same propn·t'io n they wPre also equal~ they werE-> talking about. specifically different t.hfr1~,s , .C'! !Hl were interested in telling you what the relationship was, not what thP t}~n fP ~erP. Descartes, on t.he other hand, by telling y~u t~~t R certain proportion WHS actna11y ar, pq1 !l1ity, was telling you what th ..- ,., . t ! ~ ·-. :;s actually were: "Five [or J v.i hat eve r L " W:i t h : ": s c a r t e s t here i s no r P 1 n t fo Ml r .i I' , ' ) :-· l y id en t i t y • ' ( I d en t i t y of what? Who kno~s? Not important.) But reL~ti.ons Btf-' very important for G3ljle o. We see, first of all, that in the first proposition in the treatise on local motion, Galileo uses Euclid's definition of same proportion. Looking fort.her into his and the followins propositions, we see that Galileo is really not interested in explaining what motion is, or what speed is. He appears to be interested only in the relationships of what happens when motion occurs. He says, "If a moveable equably carried with the same speed passes througb two spaces, the times of motion will be to one another as the spaces pass ~ d Krivak 51 �" h according to Messrs. Liddell and Scott, as c ance, characteristics." Indeed, our word, "symptoms," expresses lty casua ' the same accidental notion of accident. that Galileo's "symptomata" are "accJ'.dents" and his treatise I suggest, t h en, • ] that are wo1·th knowing." This on local motion is about "accidents of [motio~ keeping with Galileo's own translation of "symptomata" seems muc h m~re in . . not insistance on the use of Euclidean proportions . Euclidean proportions do show the essentials of the magnitude which compose them: .They set fo~th ,a en whatever the magnitudes are. Similarly, Galileo s relationship betwe d d time are· they show us a propositions do not show us what spee , space, an . , relationship between.magnitud~s Galile~ ha~pened to p~rce1v~.his observations are Galileo was a cunning perceiver. His interpretations o . · . . . informative. But his interpretations are still his de~cr1pt1ons ~n the1~tmo~~ distinct formulation . One describes accidents. One ascribes essent1als:t. t · · d · 'b entials quite in oppos1 ion o only our modern age which wishes to es:r1 e ess ' the limits which Galileo imposed upon himself . Sonnet Stephen Morse The silent, sombre sentinel creeps high Above the mountain's purple battlement, And climbs up cloudy stairs across the sky While all around that milky ghost, the firmament Like some jeweled raven -- spreads its pitchy plumes, Encompassing eternity and man Within a cold and timeless, still stfll tomb, A tomb awaiting us since time began. But now that silver spectre slips below The world's edge, shunning, unlike we, The blinding star, with its deceitfo 1 glow; For that which light illumines soon shall flee Into the gaping dark which needs no light. And waits for me to step into the night. 52 Divided Between Tears and Smiles Merle Sokolik I. "this state of schemes and hopes and connivance" It is right for social man to find pain in solitude. Change, looked on as the loss of the familiar, always makes us~ little more alone. With his daughter's marriage and no~ Miss Taylor's, change has left Mr. Woodhouse sharply more and more a]one . For a mar1 "without activity of mind and body" th~ power of change is overwhelming. The acute solitude that it brings Mr. Woodhouse drives him into "hating change of Pvery kind." Emma also feels the solitude that the change of Miss Taylor's marriage and move brings. Hers is an intellectual solitude. In losing Miss Taylor, Emma loses "a friend and comp&nie:n such as few possessed, intelligent, well informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns and peculiarly interf'::;ted in herself." (I.1). Such a companion her father's age, constitution, ~nd habits could never offer. We, along with Austen, must wonder about Emrna: "How was she to bear the change?" (I.I). Emma finds some sat:isfaction in considering how ' she always wished for and promoted the match . She can even tell Mr. Knightley that she made the match . Not being blind, as her father is, to all change not fully determined, being far more resourceful than her father, and always having had rather too much her own way, Emma can take the responsibility for bringing about change herself . To bring about change, Emma must look on change differently from her father. She is able to see change not only as the loss of the familiar but also as the arrival of what is new. The novelty and promise of the match between Mr. Weston and Miss Taylor might make the change appear good, something to be wished f0r and worked for. This view of change gives Emma special adeptness in lessening for her father the harshness of beneficial or necessary changes. Only she could lead Mr. Woodhouse to accept the replacement of the familiar small-sized Pen~roke with the large, modern, circular dining table. Only she can lead him not to lament in excess Hart field's loss of Miss Taylor. This loss still remains a sorrow, though, to her father and to her. This loss might tell us that no adeptness in the face of change is strong enough to ward off the pain of an inevitable solitude. But Ernma hc:is a "disposition to think a little too well of herself," and she does not fully recoznji~e ber powerlessness. Sorro"W does come, but it is a "gentle sorrow • • • not Git al 1 in the shape of any disagreeable consciousness," (I .1). Encour~1~e d hy her success in managing Hart fie Id and her father and not cnnsc·io11s of ht·r ~'' eakness, Emma protects h~· rself from solitude not by spurning ch~ng~, HS ~er f a ther does, but by setting out to make changes herself. Only tr.is wjJl !:~atisf y her fascination and love for what is new. ("News! Oh yes, I a hrnys J ike M''t.'S ."--II .3) She therefore desires not only a new companion to fill the place of Miss Taylor but also someone to whom she can be useful. That is, Emrra nt>eds E .onennt? on whom she can practice change . She notices the artless Harriet Smith. She sets out to improve Harriet, detach her from her bad acquaintances and introduce her into good society, form her opinions and manners: 53 �"It would be an interesting and certainly a very kind undertaking, highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure, and her powers," (I.3) .. "Emma never thinks of herself if she can do good to others." In telling this to Mr. Knightley, Mr. Woodhouse unknowingly lets on that her concerns of being useful to others are a constant distraction to solitude. Emma's attachment to Harriet will be even greater assurrance of not being alone than her companionship with Mrs. Weston. Emma could do nothing for Mrs. Weston, but she can be useful to Harriet. The power to have influence on the life of another intimately connects us to that person. Harriet's life wil bear the mark of Emma, and Emmci will never be alone. This is the -charm of meddling. But the charm is deceptive. Change always brings some loss along with its new gains. It is not a simple thing to arrange the life of someone else, and Ennna's first failure with Harriet, the mistake of Mr. Elton's behavior, brings her the loss of some comfort. Emma is a"1are to some. extent of her wrong conduct and feels regret. But the discomfort is of the sort that is much alleviated upon waking to a new morning. This failure in meddling does not reveal all the deception of the charm. Although Emma swears off matchmaking, thinking it "adventuring too far; assuming too much making light of what is serious--a trick of what ought to be simple,'' ' . she still applauds her having persuaded Harriet not to accept Robert Martin. She then comically goes on to consider a match between Harriet and William Cox. Ennna's blunder is not severe enough for its effect to be either radi ~ al or lasting. This blunder, which comes to light at the end of the first volume, is a tf-!ll i ng foil to the blunder that comes to light in the last part of the thi r d volume --Emma's mistake of the true object. of Harriet's attachment. Emma's meddling has failed miserably now. She has endeavored to give Harriett notions of self-consequence , and Harrriet has dared to fall in love with the man Emn~ has unwittingly loved for many years. This mistake promises a loss much greater than a little discomfort: Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never kno~n how much of her happiness depended on being first with Mr. Knightley, first in interest and affection. (III.12) This loss--change--will leave Emma all alone: The prospect before her now was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled--that might not be even partially brightened. If all took place that might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the spirits only of ruined happiness. (III.12) comes in part wi t h his hybrid r aising : "Ther~ is something s o shocking in a :hild ' s being ta~en away from his parents and natural home," (I . 11). Also the illness of ~rank . s aunt M s. Churchill is offered up as what stood in the way of r Fran~'~ paying his.natu r al duty to his father and his bride . Mrs . Churchill's detaining and calling back of her nephew riddles the course of events after Frank's introduction - -most drastically with the postponement of the ball. There are als~ such unn~tural things as Emma's supposed growing neglect of her famil for s~c1ety, da~cing, and a ball where a girl like Harriet can fix her sight on man like Mr. Knightley . Novelty, confusion, and disruption of nature make the middle of the novel a maze of intrigue . Changes in the outer occurrences are now quick and close. Far from disheartening Emma , as they may her father, they hold a great fascination for ~er. What harm ~s there in ~etting in to the romantic image of Frank saving Harriet fr~m the gypsies. a~d setting up a "scheme , a mere passive scheme?" Why not let in to the deceiving charm of meddling, under which, though, lies great sorrow? ! II• II jusqu'~ ce qu'il comprenne qu'il est un monstre incomprehensible." --Pascal Besides th: indulgence to Emma's inclination to look on change as gain of the new, the arrival of Frank Churchill also marks the beginning of self-interset for Emma. Emma always.believed--even before meeting Frank--that if she~ to marry, no .one would su:t her rn?re t~an he. During his first visit to Highbury, Emma begins :o wonder if she might Just not be in love with him. Upon consideration s?e decid~s ~ot, but after he leaves and she hears of his expected return, a little agitation sends her to further reflection. For the first time Emma who never thinks of herself if she can do good to others must think of herseif and sort out her feelings. ' . A person who is drawn into making change, forming even just a passive scheme in order .to. combat solitude will find himself bringing on situations disruptiv~ to. t7anquillity: "She felt. as if the spring would not pass without bringing a crisis, an event, ~ some~h~ng, t? alte: her present composed and tranquil state," (III.~). Once this crisis arises its proper resolution seems to demand self-i~terest. A crisis brought on by defying solitude-bearing change face to face will leave us alone--perhaps forever. The only way out of loneliness will be to use our own resources . (Recall the irony of Mrs. Elton: "Blessed with so many. resources within myself, the world was nothing to me."--II.15) This means looking at ourselves, having a certain self-interest. Those who sneakily escape chan~e encounter no crises. But then no one would ever call Mr. Woodhouse heroic. The hero's resolution of a crisis begins in the appreciation of the crisis, the realizaiton of his own wretchedness having brought on the crisis: What makes this blunder so much more severe than the other is what has happened in between the two. Frank Churchill has entered upon the scene, and with him novelty~ confusion, and unnaturalness come to play their rol:• The n~velt~ com~s with Frank's being new to Highbury, arriving at unexpected times, having his hair cut in London. The confusion comes with his secret engagement to Jane Fairfax, which plays on both Emma's delusive fascination that Jane has some attachment to Mr. Dixon and the to-be-expected pairing or Emma and Frank. The unnaturalness 54 How to understand the deceptions she had been thus practising on herself and living under! The blunders, the blindness of her own head and heart! She sat still, she walked about, she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery--in every place, every posture, she perceived that sh7 had acted mos~ w:akly; that she had been imposed upon by others in a most mortifying degree; that she had been imposing on 55 �herself in a degree yet more mortifying; that she was wretched and should probably find this day but the beginning of wretchedness . To understand , thoroughly understand, her own heart , was the first endeavour. (III . 11) Emma has fought with change and has been violently hurt . Unbearable confusion takes hold of her thoughts. The inescapable feeling of her past weakness , the pain of probably long - continued wretchedness, marks the first clear ing of her confusion . Ennna cannot accept confusion; the situation must be made sense of. But the realization of wretchedness cannot be much more comfortable to her than unsettling confusion . . Emma cannot settle with wretchedness . She must ask why she has come to be wre t ched . She begins to answer by looking at her past vanity: With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody's feelings, with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody's destiny . She was proved to have been universally mistaken, and she had not quite done nothing--for she had done mischief. (III.II) To account for her present wretchedness Emma turns to her past assurance of her greatness. Emma dared to work change, to arrange destinies, and her presumption carries the shock of wretchedness. Not quite doing nothing, taking desti~ies in hand, is the work of heroes, though. A hero's story, at least a comic hero's story, cannot end in wretchedness~ Once aware of her weakness Emma longs for self - contentment. The hero ca~ envy the boring old man, for that old man may be content with himself and at peace. Mr. Woodhouse, ever concerned with the preserving of good health of his body and the bodies of those he loves, is the image of self-contentment. But a boring man can only be a valetudinarian of the body; he is unaware that there is a health for the soul. This is the health that Emma's wretchedness sets her out to procure. She may in fact grow to give us along with Mrs. Weston "the idea of being the complete picture of grown - up health," (I .5, emphasis added) . The hero's sickness calls for the curing of heroic faculties . For Emma these faculties are her understanding and her fancy . Emma is always admired for her clevern e ss , quickness of mind, and observation . Mr . Knightley repeatedly appeals to he r understanding . She excels by far her sister's power of observing . She can quickly form an insightful judgment of character as we can see in her cons id erat ion of M . El t on . Emma can obse r ve and read the appearances well . rs --That is until her second strength, "that very dear part of Emma, her fancy," intrudes. Emma can imagine herself the future Mrs. Frank Churchill long before their meeting. She can imagine Harriet the child of a gentleman in the face of Mr. Knightley's well-founded suggestions otherwise. In her drawing she :an portray Harriet a bit more becoming than she truly is. Emma has the charming talent of being able to manipulate and fabricate appearances. She can see what there is to be seen and make seen what is not. In failing to notice her love for Mr. Knightley and fancying herself in love with Frank Churchill there is a conflict of understanding and fancy. So there seems to be, at leas~ to Harriet, in Eunna's attaching Harriet to Frank instead ~f Mr. Knightley in her mind. The occasion, therefore, of Emma's blunder is conflict of understanding and fancy. The first response upon recognizing the blunder is still a confusion of these faculties. Emma tries to be detached and follow her understanding in considering the possibility of a match between 56 Harriet and Mr. Knightley. Her fancy confusedly comes to the understanding. The result is the mistaken regret that the match possible. aid of is all her too Somehow, for Emma's health of soul, understanding and fancy must be reconciled. Mr. Knight ley is right that Emma wi 11 never submit to "anything requiring industry and patience and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding." (I.5) True, such a subjection would bring less pain, but it cannot be expected from .a hero. A hero needs keen understanding. He must be able to read the :hanging appe~rances well and recognize heightened solitude. But he cannot let his understanding overcome his power to look on changes as gain of the new.and to con~emplate future change. He must not just accept what is brought to light but bring to Ught ("fancy" .: phaino) things himself Emma~s. l?nging for self-contentment can only be satisfied by a true reconc1~1at~on o~ her unde~sta~ding and f~ncy. But what is a strong enough guide for th~1r direction? Emma s first lessening of the pain of her wretchedness is found in her resolution to come to know herself: the only ~ource whence ~nything like consolation or composure could be draMl was in the resolution of her own better conduct and the hop~ that however ~nferior in spirit and gaiety might be the ;ollowing and ever~ future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her mor~ rational, more acquainted with herself and leave her less to reg re t \1111 en i t we re gone • (I II • I 2 ) ' Emm13 desires to grow acquainted with herself, think of herself before doing good to others. Emma promises to come to act with the dignity found in being ever mindful of her self-respect. S?e has turne~ to ~eek knowledge of herself, and the conclusion of the first series of ~eflections is.that she never really cared for Frank Churchill at all. Her af~ection for Mr. Knightley, the only sensation revealed to her, is the only s7nsation that does not make her sorrowfully indignant and ashamed. Emma d1~covers a love for truth, a willingness to submit to the influence of Kn~ghtley . I~ only she had a?cepted Mr. Knightley's penetrating suggestion t~:~ Fr~nk Churchill loved Jane Fairfax, she might have escaped her tragic mistake. If .only she had followed Mr. Knightley's known wishes in paying attention to Miss Fairfax, "she must in all probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her now" (III.12). It is painstaking and bitter to try to make sensf' of confusion in the heart. But t~e sense . of progress an·d honesty are great rewards for the melancholy of scrutiny: The weather continued much the same all the following morning; and the same loneliness and the same melancholy seemed to reign at Hartfield; but in the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a softer qua:ter; :he clouds were carried off; the sun appeared; it was With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, summer again. Emma .r:solve~ to be out-of-doors as soon as possible. Never had the ex~ui~1te sight, smell, sensation of nature--tranquil, warm, and brilliant after a storm--been more attractive to her. She longed for the serenity they might gradually introduce • • • • (III.13) Change has brought solitude to Emma. 57 But as she seeks t o gain com f ort b y · . �. s begins to pass. Mr. Perry comes to .ng to know herself t h e l one 1 ines . h . h" turni · h h. climate of health, wh1c is 1s .Hartfield after dinner and brings wit 1m a professional concern. when her truthfulness to herself leads her Emma's health of soul is only se~~:e in terms of a plot, seems to be only to a broader love of truth. But Mr.1sinightley. When Mr. Knightley enters ~he possible with an attachment to Re asks her to bear with lk "th Emma he has a truth to revea 1 • shrubbery to wa wi '. h. . t. ism Only upon looking closely at it as well as she has borne with a 11 is cr1 ic • M Knightley's love what appears about her and what lies within her own he~r~~-~:; understanding and for her and her love for him--will Emma be healthy. do fancy must somehow marry truth--which all knights defen • . nc1tice truth · h · h · It demands keen understanding to A marriage to trut is eroic • h t .· ~ criticism that that appears. But it also demands keen fancy to endure t e ryino truth presents: You hear nothing but truth from me. you, and you have borne it as no other borne it. (III .13) I have blamed you and lectured woman in Engl:rnd would have account ed to her ability to imagi.ne Emma's endurance of such trials is to be nd to design destinies, including imagine and work change a · d t and work change. To of tbe fancy. Emma's understanding makes ber suite o our own, is the work that allows her to bear it for the good and truth. But it is her fancy appreciate it. Is anything too wondrous for the Lord?" III. "Why did Sarah laugh • • • --Genesis reconciled with her understanding. by the help of an When Emma's fancy was not . . of h could fail miserably. Mr. attachment to truth, her proJection c ange t der h brings a momentous change to Emma. Emma m~s won ·. Knightley's proposal to er k how to hope for could come so pleasingly true. how a change she did not even now Emma was almost ready to sink The dread of being awakened from most prominent feeling. (III.13) under the agitation of this moment. the happiest dream was perhaps the · K · htley's fantastic hope is true. Emma's happy dream is reall, andl_Mr.f nigy and understanding towards truth and to • ty of sou to a ign anc . A. h It tak es ma t ur l K . htley has patiently guided Emma • .lj_s er have a truthful hop:· The mature Mr. n1gnd ainted pictures of a more cautious, educator he has manipulated what he ~:~~la en~eavor has gone into making his hope caring Enrrna that come true. Not a 1 e that Emma will marry him come true. But the outcome does not rest wholly on his work: wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He Re had in fact been · 't H had come followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying i • ~ . h how she bore Frank Churchill's engagement wi~ no in anxiety to see ·f h 11 ed him an selfish view, no view at all but of endeavouring, i s e a ow k of to Soot he or to counsel her. The rest had been the wor opening, 58 the moment, the immediate effect of what he· heard on his feelings. The delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill, of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth to the hope that in time he might gain her affection himself; but it had been no present hope--he had only, in the momentary conquest of eagerness over judgement, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his attempt to attach her. The superior hopes which gradually opened were so much the more enchanting. (III.13) Mr. Knightley's lack of suspicion of his influence, the absence of selfish view, the spontaneity, the conquest of eagerness over judgment, and the enchantment of hope all speak of grace. Mr. Knightley knows himself, has become champion of truth, and has ordered his soul with dignity. Re has tried to influence the appearances about him for the good. What is beyond his power but not beyond his good hope may be granted him by grace. The endeavor of a mature soul can bring about many beneficial changes. But it is unlikely that one person's good work to arrange the life of another will be fully effective. Mr. Knightley's hopes of Emma's accepting a proposal of marriage from him, although enchanting, always remain superior. But when the hopes come true, we must ask "why?" What sense does the ans"'er "grace" make for a book whose greatest villains are the vicar and his wife and whose heroine rejoices over not being able to get to church on Christmas or the next Sunday? How can grace act where "devotion might be interrupted, [but] curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew," (II .14). The story of chance may seem odd and the story of good fortune might seem nice. But both of these in contrast to the story of grace seem rather dismal. I doubt that these stories hold any lasting interest for us or can continue to make us laugh. Everything unexpected may be funny, but good comedy goes beyond the funny unexpected. It seems to allow room to hope for the unexpected, rising above the story of chance in this way. It also seems to hold interest by telling of growth, rising above the static story of good fortune in this way, since good fortune requires no special maturity to notice or receive. Jane Austen secures these two claims for her comedy with great artfulness. She never lets us forget that this world is contrived, directed, and orderly: She exercises judicious balance placing one blunder in the beginning, one at the end; one instance of penetration for Mr. John Knightley in the course of the first blunder, one for his brother in the course of the second. Her ordering is almost intrusive with the three marriages at the end. And then there are such distinct resemblances . Among the marriages: the John Knightleys', Eunna's and Mr. Knightley's, Frank Churchill's and Jane Fairfax's, and Harriet's and Robert Martin's. Among the characters: Almost everyone can bear some telling resemblance to Emma--Jane Fairfax, Miss Bates, Frank Churchill, Mr. Woodhouse, Isabella, Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Knightley. Jane Fairfax resembles Mr. Knightley in character and Mrs. Weston and Harriet in situation. Mr. Woodhouse is as engagingly self-centered as Mr. Weston and as much a homebody as Mr. John Knightley. This is a world where events bear the clear mark of manipulation. From the beginning we have an assurance, from Mrs . Weston, that all is destined to turn out for the good in the end: " • • • [Emma] will never lead anyone really wrong; she will make no lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred times," (I.5). The novel seems to bar all chance and invite all hope. The balances and resemblances also offer foils against which we can take notice of Emma's growth. When Emma believes everything is going well with Harriet and Mr. Elton, she might think Hartfield to be a pocket of good fortune: 59 �There does seem to be a something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right direction and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow. The course of true love never did run smooth-- A Hartfield edition passage. of Shakespeare would have a long note on that The course of love does not run smooth, at least for a while. When we notice Ennna's growth out of failure, we notice something hope for good fortune never could excite. Hope in grace, though, might. To notice grace, though not necessarily to receive it, takes a niature soul. We must be able to see that things might not always turn out for the good. We therefore get to see the two blunders, and Emma gets to be bothered by a check to all her great happiness. Harriet remains hurt, and it is most J y Emma's fault• It seems that not everything will turn out thoroughly good. Emma feels the weight of Harriet's claim, and how best to guard her COQfort becomes the quest ion. Emma knows that it is really "too much to hope even of Harriet that she could be in love with more than three men in one year," (III.15). Harriet's pain will not wholly subside until Mr. Knightley is forgotten, which will not be soon . But Emma must hope that some e:omfort can be found. She therefore devises her last scheme of th~ novel and sends Harriet to the home of her sister and brother-in-law. Emma fully understands her powerlessness to do any better than this. But Ennna's growth of soul has led her to the alliance of fancy and understanding with truth. I said earlier that a well-grown soul, like Mr. Knightley's, gains the possibility of truthful hope. It seems that Emma's might now be well ordered enough to invite grace. Perhaps she will receive it. When Emma hears from Mr. Knightley of Harriet's engagement to Robert Martin, it seems that she has received grace. Nothing that Emma has done stands in the way any longer of her happiness. She truly appears "faultless in spite of all her faults." Such is the power of grace. Emma now has a genuine hold on "some of the best blessings · of existence," which we are told as we first meet her she seems to unite. That existence has its blessings is a religous sentiment, and grace might be what delivers these blessings. We gain assurance that the answer "grace" makes sense when we can lau~h at the story. The comedy of Emma gains its force from the fact that after thrngs ~eem to settle in their turn for the worse, they take a turn for the better. Things have the audacity to turn out right in the end, and that ' s lau~hable • . Laughter seems to be a healthy recognition of grace. Sarah in the Bible cannot help laughing when she hears the Lord's rnessenge: report that she will soon bear a son. It is too incomprehensible that a ninety-year-old woman can have a child. God's fancy--his power to change the way things see~--is too great not to bring on laughter. The messenger seems to approve of this response, for he comically taunts Sarah: "Why did Sarah laug.h, saying, 'Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?' Is anything too wondrous for the Lord?" • • • Sarah dissembled, saying, "I did not laugh," for she was frightened. He replied, "But 60 you did laugh." (Genesis 18:13-15) We must laugh at the incomprehensible close of Emma's story, and so must she: Serious she was, very serious, in her thankfulness and in her resolutions; and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the very midst of them. She must laugh at such a close--such an end of the doleful disappointment of five weeks back--such a heart--such a Harriet! (III.18) ·:··' " 1" 2 dth, hope, love abide • • " --Paul to the Corinthians Changes occur in Mr. Knightley's and Hariett's lives that betray the craftsmanship of grace. For a religious person grace 1 s probably always at work in the designing of destinies. But there is room for human initiative: Mr. Knightly ~ends himself off~ and Emma sends off Harriet to the John Knightleys'. At Bru~swick Square Mr. Kn1ghtley and Harriert might have come into contact with something that could act as the instrument of grace. it is rather clear that the model of the goodness of home had its effect on Mr. Knightley: He had gone to learn to be indifferent. But he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much domestic happiness in his brother's house • (III .13) Emma's world apears to be very much a world of social man. That is what makes Emma's candidness to Miss Bates on the Box Hill expedition so distasteful. Emma t:ansgresses the strictures of social intercourse much more blameworthily than Miss Bates has ever done. As Mr. Knightley pointed out to her earlier it is almost human instinct to preserve smooth social relations even at the e~pense of truth: We all know the difference between the pronouns "he" or "she" and "thou,'.' the plainest spoken amongst us; we all feel the influence of a something beyond common civili.ty in our personal intercourse with each other--a something more early implanted. we cannot give anybody the very disagreeable hints that we may have been very full of the hour before. We feel things differently. (II.15) The demands of society are very early concerns, but there are other concerns still more basic : the concerns of home. Mr. John Knightley finds Mr. Weston's dependence on society for his comforts a bit unnatural. Emma was half a mind to take up this reflection of her brother-in-law's when he shares it on his Christmas visit, but she struggles and lets it pass: 61 �She would keep the peace if possible; and there was something honourable and valuable in the strong domestic habits, the all-sufficiency of home to himself, when ce resulted her brother's disposition to look down on the common rate of social intercourse and those to whom it was imp ortant. It had a high claim to forbearance. High in t'be rank of ·i-.l-'r nnist serious t: 1 ·,.J l· t·.i1 t - ft:, H f <-· 1 1, --; r :1"'· \·':.::::. t r1e r E' f 1e c t i n n t h ., t 8 1 ] n c c i::' ~ s i t. y c f c n n c f' ~ '. n.; :u I : fr t": rn '!,I l • t'- '' ; :., \ i t -~ •.~- ~; would r:;oon t:f' OVf"·r . Thi- ·3 ifgtd.se, eql1iv,)c .::it:l "~ n, myst~·ry, sc l : .'.1( .. ;·,, ! 1 1, · · 1-: t-> r t 0 p r a c t i s t-' , ir i g b t s (,o r 1 b c, c v (-· r • S h (· c o u ~ d n ~, ,, ? o c -~:. ( ~ , : ·. · ~ · 1 1 gi ving him t h f;t fu ::1 an,: f!f'. rfect c ot ; fid ..." n Lt' whictJ l-:. ·r d>:r·' ·f·, ; ; 1 .. :·: \ . £:J:; r.lost ready tl'.1 we 1 cc1' '. f· ;-i s .: 1 duty. (JJT . 18) (I . 11) Emma later comes to share something of her brothe r's disposition . When she realizes that she is only one of Mr . Weston's several intimates that he asked to survey the Crown before the ball , she is a bit disappointed : She liked his open manners, but a little less o f open - heartedness would have made him a higher character. General benevolence , but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be . She could fancy such a man . (III .2) Noh th.-1t c~. '-11Jty .c, ,. ~... r 11ir-: o f t-">: ptt- s si o n hetwf·E'. n Emme! hnd M::- .. f: · : -..' t :r .:-' ~- ; , : hf'l-'tl ri.~.r1.acf.'c with t.n~t 1~, •rnuth f' r· hr:rc i c turn comeB: th? r0 ;-·1.:• .• r . r: (• f the ,~ ,-n ,r• T t: f :. r t'- ~: pt• dj e n1 · ; w:th tb·, ci::n(f·rri for what is tn:. 1: ;_ :; c;d, .:· im .. • 1,, .-:1;,t. s !c L1: 11f:pf u l to ~larr~. ~ · t , nnc~ • <'f't">dit·ri l" _y : ~; h e r concfrn in mald.nt:, H;..rr:cr. 's tn <.•tcl: ,,_· ; l: Mr. ~ 1t o n: "Tb:· 1ongeT sht cor.~; id(· rt-d it, the f;r t at 1:-· J ~•• n :; 1-t· r ~<, .-,.::. ~:· c~ i l ' < . p·diency>'' ( T .4). Euf th f· e > ssiv t: desirE: tc" bt: usE:fu~ ic• r -1 !·;;1 :-' lt-~: l ·ifi< ·:c; t <: "> :e:e .' : L i d . o f s ~· ;_ : [· -- ront· 1-· ntn: t'nt -- sonH:.~tbing our hen·. gainPG ~rcn :d i g nint u ndt·r ~ tcrnd in~ :rn d ·· ,rn ,: y tc·h· t rch : rnth,. .Expediency betrays t00 1,1,:: 11 nnn !puL1t:i(>n ;;i ·,,; cc>1 1l : v lf.'· -m ,,dr{ 1ins . Tt: is D(Jt loyo.1 enougl: tc; tn: ti-. f·~) r- '' h ere. Wl1 :--n ~,- , c- n:~v t-·r·sc· ·•... ith thc:se we love, ot:r conco:n c- .Jn t-. (• r~)tl: '·•'h < ;s truJy it (1rncond-it l(1n ~dly) ~o od. Emma's mardagi'> to Mr . Kr:ight10:r i .s ~_..: ..-.J J.n thj,s ~.., 3 y- -·f"?VOl ;; ::·(Jd fc.r } it t 1 ~ · H<''n ry Knight 1 ey, even goou fc., r Vir, ~lcod h ut:_.., E'. It is f.ml! 1 ;i's t; ,s~ t< : b rf n ~: her fathe.r, whom sbE· 1o"es, to "1elcornE. what iB good. At thf'.' c1ei s (' 0f t'h. i noveJ Emma's talt•nl for <:lrT8nging the livE:s of other~ 'has : , 1- • E' n f u 11 y (. 11 ~ t i " a L ·· .3 • ··' he urn i ndu c e Mr • Wood ho u s e t o c on s en t t c1 he r n~ a 1 f'i ~1 ~ t> • ~ h ... r- :s! ~o1 Jor·1 ~ i rs . ;.~r· ston 's Jead i [I prf'senting, thf' subject as both s r· t tJp( nnd .• 1 ~ ,· .. , ,_: --- • · .; ,; t:• ·· ·~· ,. ~ 1 <~vJ<JT t= ::i f' t bP n e rtrJ y E"'"lu ~i1 i.n,purt cince of the t.vm r t- ccn !•, f·r 1d cii i ~·, :1r I• i ·: .. 1 .. c'l·Jli , S ':"~ ' n!nd," :-., (1Jf.17). Put <H tlie t i me for the Wf'dd~n t :iPf. r ::: .:ichc; .·· r,.' r- 11. \.fc,,dhcusr· resign<; birnseH to i t~ i1H.:vitabi1ity without: bC ·. ··: i:t ;llL iu; (~ f'.' ~ ~ r :-d:i ility, Fm:nJ's fancy and underst<rnding meet an(lthl:'r crisis . .i:-_ 1 ~ ;;; l.:1_9~·.Q.. rr.cit iv!r. Woodh0t•SE'· -wiJJ calm down soon after the weddjng, but ~h· 2.]_1"_'.jL_::·. G~ t:is suffering is too strong for her to go on with it: 1 1 Perhaps Emma fancies a man who recognizes that men are not first so cial animals, that they are ultimately alone. This man must recognize that solitude. is painful and that the safest, most legitimate, noblest way t o comba t that pain is with the love to be found in a good home. Home can be the seat of the starkest solitude as Hartfield seems t o be after Emma recognizes her second blunder. The weather is dismal, and she is left all alone with her father: "It reminded he r o f their first forlor n tete-a-t'ete on the evening of Mrs. Wes ton's wedding-day; but Mr. Knightley had walked in then, soon after tea and dissipated every melancholy fancy," (III .22). Hartfield seems to have lost,what magic it might have had at the opening of Harriet's attachment to Mr. Elton. It is time for the magic of the heart t o take over. Mr. Knightley must walk in again. When he does, he brings with him love that can make Hartfield a rival to Brunswick Square in the power of domestic happiness. The "all-sufficiency of home" at Hartfield will be even greater t han at Brunswick Square since it will be heroic. Part of the heroism of Emma's and Mr. Knightley's marriage is that it can be the occasion t o share trut h . Society cannot always allow this; Emma ought not to be candid to Miss Bates. Emma fears, though, that even her love for Mr . It causes her great pain not to Knightley will not allow the sharing of truth. be able to divulge the truth of her conduct regarding Ha rr iet. But she can divulge her true feelings at the momen t of the proposal: Seldom, very seldom, does complete trut h belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen t hat something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken; but where, as in this case, t hough the conduct is mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material. (III .13 ) That Emma and Mr. Knightley can feel genuinely and show their feelings as~ures u s that they have gone beyond common intercourse . But the power to bare painful truths like that of Emma's conduct, even to someone as dearly loved as M r. Knightley, is rare, heroic, and not quite human. With the help of t he graceful event of Harriet's engagement even this comes: 62 1 Sti]], however, he was not happy. Nay, he appeared so r:mcb <;t1 1er wisf' b j_ ~i d2ughter 'S ('OUT <'lg€ fa i 1t>d. r.be C Oll Jd not bear tc S E>E• r it;·. t hM s~ f f ~r{ng; to knn~ him f~ncying unc1d:·r s tnn<ling alr:iost acquiEsced Kn ig1it 1eys that when once the hi~s~Jf i.n the neglected; Assurance• and of though her tl ~ P Mr. both evE::nt YIE'H over hi.s distress would be so o n uver too, she hPsitated -- she could not proceed. (JJI.19) But i.n ht:r ~•ttach!H'nt. to t.ruth Emma h&s g<dnt:>d trE· .:.e}f-contentment shf· longed f o r • S r'. <> k nows h E-" r s nu 1 , a nd i t i s we 1 1 c, rd f r e d • Hc· r s o u 1 c an n ow in v i e grB ce . Mr. Knightley's bridl" is to be "thf.· c:he£;t?n, the first, the d<:arest, the friend, the wife to whom he l ooked fo r a]J the best b1E's si ngs of existence,'' (ITI.12). This is not Ea rriE·t but Emni<:i. TiiE'. irr.::ig,t> of don:u. tic pf·ace once again acts as the instr11n:t-•nt u, hring on grace . This ti.me Fartfit>ld, not Brunswick Square, with Emma's and µr. KnightlPy's loves brings g r ace tu ~ ~ cur~ the best blessings of ~xistence f( ' r aJ1 in volv€>d . TI-:f> grau· cor.;es iri the form of poultry-yard raids. Mr. Woodhcuse fea rs housebreaking, and ''the strength, resolution. presence of rr,ind and of the M r. Knight h-y s commandecl. his fulJpst depPndPnce," (JII.19). Mr. Woodhouse's n0rvous systeo is hrought to oper a t ~ in ~nother ~ ~y-- h~ is able to l ook on the marriagf' as good - - by an act of grac e -with the image of the peae:e of Hartfield in the fore ground . Grace . a lways at work in the designing of destinies, still leaves room for human arrangement of 1 ives. Emma is right; there is a third sort of matchmaking 63 �---(which Mr. Woodhouse's change of mind truly is) that is "a something between the do-nothing and the do-all," (I.1). I t takes talent, a special strength of soul, to meddle well and with love. Emma Woodhouse seems to have this talent whose basis is self-contentment gained by an attachment to truth and an ability to see not only what appears but also what lies beyond appearance, something a Mrs. Elton could never do: • • • Mrs. Elton, from the ·particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby and inferior to her own. "Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business! Selina would stare when she heard of it." But in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union. (III.19) One night beneath the turning sky, I stood Above the floor -- the cusp bearing us two In its great sweeping round. You, sleeping pearl crescent, Transfixed me at your bed, as if below The gently floating shell in slow turning The sea pulse brought you for the land toward day, While the deeps still wound in your wide black hair . What fe 11 away Suddenly lost Like a warm stone When I reached down And you stirred? -- Pierre H. Gagnier 64 -- �~ St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 Non-Profit Org . BULK RATE U. S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT No. 120 ANNAPOLIS, MD. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. ii, 64 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Holland, Christian (Editor) Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1984 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1984. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1984 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9976c1f86b361cc55af4ca52f53cccca.pdf 4f747db0774ec99e61b1a47a0a8a6885 PDF Text Text SPRING 1986 �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. ~ ... vou ev&pyew. ~co~ ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) Cover: The Emerging Odyssey by Jennifer A. Lapham Ink and Watercolor Printed by the St. John's College Press St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland Staff: Barbara Gesiakowski Chris Howell Steve Jackson A.J. Krivak Bernadette Rudolph Co-Editors: Gabrielle Fink Joseph MacFarland Faculty Advisor: Jonathan Tuck Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published three times a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis and Santa Fe. The Fall issue contains a sampling of the student work from the previous school year which the prize committees of both campuses have selected for public recognition. For the Winter and Spring issues, the Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the commun~ty-essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Note: A brief description of the author accompanies all work not by current St. John's students. Please include some such statement along with your submission. Thank you. �CONTENTS PHOTOGRAPH Christopher K. Watson 1 THE CHARACTER OF A METER David Amirthanayagam 2 POEM James Brown 8 THE GORGON AND THE BRIDE OF LEBANON Catherine Irvine 10 SOCRATES Elizabeth De Mare 22 THE JACOBSEN CUT: A GEOMETRICAL PROPOSITION Henry Higuera 27 PHOTOGRAPH Christopher K. Watson 33 PURGATION OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT William O'Grady 34 A WAY TO THINK ABOUT DARK TIMES William O'Grady 40 TWO POEMS: #3 AND #8 Stuart Sobczynski 45 FINAL CAUSE AND THE PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE Jim Guszca 46 ANTIGONE Hugh Brantner 49 THREE FACES (WATERCOLOR) Yolanda Rivera 55 SONNET FOR A SLAVIC MINER A.J. Krivak 58 THE DEAD Renee Bergland 59 THE FLESH MADE WORD: SOME THOUGHTS ON GOGO~S STORY "THE OVERCOAT" Christopher K. Watson 61 LA REINE DE JADIS Liz Waldner 67 �1 �The Character of a Meter David Amirthanayagam A friend of mine who helps young children learn to read and write told me recently about a special class of children: these children read very well, in that they can follow words on a page with their eyes and sound them out. If, however, they are asked about the meaning of a passage they have just read, they make no connection. The words themselves and the act of reading seem to bear no relation in their understanding to anything the words might mean. For this reason, schools single them out as "problem" children; the young learners grow greatly distressed and discouraged by their confusion and its effect of singling them out. Yet I wonder whether the problem lies not with the children, but with the words, and whether, taken another way, this "problem" can be seen as the root and mainspring of our poetry. For clearly, words have a dual nature, which confuses children, and ought more often to arrest us. First, they are signs, which have a relationship with what they signify, or simply with what is outside them, by which we express their "meaning". (This relationship of "meaning" is clearly very subtle and complex, and might hurl us into philosophy.) Second, they are things in themselves, half-created, sensible measures of space and time. In this second nature, words are elements of poetry. We can see that the connection between meaning and the words themselves might not be obvious for children. I suggest that, if we are willing to accept that words have two natures, neither of which is necessarily problematic, the tension (or harmony) between the two might be the richest source of our best poetry. I reflect on these things because I have been asked, for my edification, to do what problem children do, that is, to sever the connection between measure, or form, and meaning. In examining the iambic pentameter as used by five English poets, I see that this can be done fruitfully, both for its own sake, because the meter itself is a changing thing of beauty and character, and for the sake of reharmonizing the duality. I mean that one can see a kind of meaning in meter. Even with my limited knowledge of metrics, the simplest awareness of metrical, or more generally, formal purposiveness on the part of the poet sent my study into realms of significance deeper than this paper can practically follow--waters I fear to tread safely for long, though I might, in what follows, rush in on impulse. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and Wordsworth all employ the iambic pentameter line. I will look, as agreed, at the opening of the Canterbury Tales, Sonnet 29, the opening of Paradise Lost, An Essay On Criticism, and "Tintern Abbey". The line is recognizable in each poem as the material and vehicle of the art; yet in each it takes on a characteristic signature dress. Calling the line of each poet a signature might allow me to conceal my critical, formal duty behind a claim for the uniqueness and individuality of each poet. Yet I find I can get a good way into the individuality of the poets by treating their lines formally, arranging their dress into its parts. Three "parts,''. or elements, of the pentameter line single themselves out, as signature strokes: rhyme, enjambment, and metrical substitution. Each is conspicuous through its presence or absence. From hearsay I gather that the Old English poetic line had four strong Germanic stresses, with a great variety of syllable counts and sometimes a dropping of the fourth stress. The effect of these was vigor and variety, without rhyme. My crude 2 sense of such things is that the Norman conquest brought French grace and syllabic verse into our language, producing at last the harmonious synthesis of Chaucer's five-stress, ten-syllable, Middle English line. There is nothing composite or artificial, however, about Chaucer's line, despite its genealogy; there can be no more natural a line than Chaucer's in English. Dryden later characterized the verse as having "the rude Sweetness of a Scotch Tune ... which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect". The last remark was based, I think, on an incomplete appreciation of final "e" and the phenomenon of elision. Following my text's editor's instructions, I find Chaucer's lines to be true pentameters. Consider lines 13-14 of the General Prologue: And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes If palmeres scans as a dactyl, the second foot of the first line is an anapestic substitution; final -e in kowthe elides with the following vowel. These are two pentameters with feminine endings. I think Dryden's Scottish prejudice stems from the Middle English vowel sounds, and so I partly hear his "rude Sweetness"; yet at the same time, the most remarkable thing I observe about the lines is their elegance and stately grace of movement, unmatched in the later poets. The cause of this grace is the gentle lilt of the French "e" and of the long vowels. The latter essentially introduce the quantitative element into a stress meter; the combined effect of quantity, stress, and final "e" seems impossible now to reproduce. Consider line 5: When Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth In the iambic scansion, it seems to run spondee, pyrrhic, trochee, iamb, iamb. This peculiarity comes to light, however: the initial spondee is a stress spondee, while the other feet are stressed and quantitative. Note the breathtaking way the line prepares for "sweete breeth"; I would prefer to measure only four feet, naming stress spondee, quantitative anapest, anticipatory pyrrhic, gorgeous quantitative cretic. Rude sweetness indeed! In terms of our three signatures, we call this verse rhyming, closed, and metrically variant, though all five poets employ metrical variance, and so the question becomes one of degree. Here the amount of metrical substitution is relatively small, though we have seen its artful use. I think Chaucer's regular iambic line, with stress, quantity, and romance "e", is too musical to become monotonous, even in lengthy service. The romance "e" also waters the significance of the rhyme; in Middle English, rhyme seems more nature than art. Not so with Modern English: compare Dorothy Sayers' translation of Dante's Italian, which does nothing but mock the terza rima with forced rhymes. Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 reveals the modern iambic pentameter as an element of an overarching form. The sonnet itself is larger than any particular language: it is a form of "thought poetry," shaped by end rhyme into three quatrains and a couplet, or two quatrains and a sestet. The form is logical, and yet the poem's meaning is rarely the implied syllogism. The question of poetry's dual nature, and ours, becomes ~ipe and mysterious in the sonnet. The sonnet's thought is a thought that needs measure and time, and spaced rhyme. And not just any measure: in English the pentameter is no arbitrary brick, but the only measure to suit and space the rhymes, the only context that gives the thought its life. English hexameters fall apart at the seam; tetrameters are too short (see Shakespeare's unimitated sonnet number 145). Here follows the poem. Note the structural significance of end rhyme, the occasional tasteful trochaic or spondaic substitution, and the stunning use of enjambment in line 12, made most poignant and meaningful by its avoidance elsewhere. 3 �When in disgrace with Fortune and mens eyes, I all alone beweepe my out -cast state, And trouble deafe heaven with my bootlesse cries, And looke upon my selfe and curse my fate. Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possest, Desiring this mans art, and that mans skope, With what I most injoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts my selfe almost despising, Haplye I thinke on thee, and then my state, Like to the Larke at breake of daye arising From sullen earth sings himns at Heavens gate, For thy sweet love remembred such welth brings, That then I skorne to change my state with Kings. A peculiarity of this sonnet is that it "turns" twice, once at line 9, and again in the closing couplet. This is to say, it exhibits a tension between the Petrarchan · (octe t-sestet ) and Shakespearian forms. I noticed this also in two of Charles Baudelaire's sonnets, "La Beaute" and "La Musique". The tension there pulls the other way: both are Petrarchan sonnets, but with closing couplets in the sestet . In "La Beaute" the couplet stares at us with "de purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:/Mes yeux, mes larges yeux, aux clartes eternelles!" In "La Musique", it introduces elements of the dark and dreadful with a sinister enjambment ("Me bercent"), then turns the poem on its head with despairing swiftness: "D'autres fois, calme plat, grand miroir/De mon desespoir!" In Shakespeare's sonnet, enjambment and substitution are used sparingly, as counterpoint, and so with great effect. In Milton, they become the rule, producing a line of awesome power and vigor. His iambic pentameter is unrhymed, open, and full of substitution. Milton's case against rhyme (or Rime) is powerfully made, "as a thing of itself ..• trivial and of no true musical delight; which consists onely in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one Verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings." He was wrong, however, to call rhyme "the Invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter," for Chaucer defies any such criticism. But English had changed. I am no linguist, but Milton's language seems less French than Chaucer's, but more Anglo-Saxon and more Latin. Under these conditions, the pentameter unleased the power of stress. Heroic verse, except in Old English, had known no such stress. Homer's and Virgil's lines were also open and unrhymed, but Homer's Greek hadn't stress (and didn't need it!) while Latin stress was more or less strait-jacketed by the adoption of Greek quantitative standards. In Milton, open lines and substitution bring the stressed feet into their own. Milton's freedom in substitution was no license: his line was strictly decasyllabic, so only trochees, spondees and pyrrhics could be used. Consider the effects these three have in sharpening the image and making the line itself brood: And chiefly Thou 0 Spirit ... .•. with mighty wings outspred I confess I am better at feeling than pointing out such usages, unless they are both obvious and effective, as above. That we feel the effects of such substitutions without always needing to account for them, was made apparent to me when I looked again at Blake's The Sick Rose; for our class's discussion, and the poem's interest, surely stemmed from the black and consummating spondaic substitution in the phrase, "dark secret love". One characteristic of the open line is that it can begin with a verb. A whole range of effects can be transmitted this way; here we see an active, Middle English verb opening the line with a stressed spondee, supporting sense with number: Him the Almighty Power Hurld headlong flaming from th'Ethereal Skie With hideous run and combustion down To bottomless perdition. I find it remarkable and ironic that in looking back to classical poetry, the English iambic pentameter rebels against the norms of its upbringing, and yet discovers not something classical, but something completely new about itself. A rebellious line for a rebellious angel! Pope, on the other hand, as a translator and critic, is a follower and no rebel, though he makes an i mpass ioned eulogy and justification of t he critical life in his Essay On Criticism. I find his iambic pentameter the most troubling of all. By our classification, the lines are closed rhyming couplets with a fair amount of substitution. This sounds like Chaucer's line (!), but the two are even further apart than their separation in time would indicate. Rhyming here is premeditated bravado. In modern English it can be a powerful tool, and surely Pope can thank rhyme for immortalizing some of these lines; used at length, however, end rhyme in couplets tire s the reader, even if the rhymes themselves are full of wit, as Pope's are. A further distinction must be made between his and Chaucer's lines because Pope follows Dryden; Pope 1 s must, therefore, according to convention, be called "heroic" couplets. The use of heroic couplets in something called An Essay On Criticism, as opposed to The Aeneid, might imply broad irony on the poet's part ( in particular if one considers the respective heroes of the two poems). Irony is perhaps the critic's strong suit. The title itself seems ironic: This is an essay on criticism that is itself a poem. The metrical variations attempt to compensate for the regularity of the rhyme; coming from a critic, they are very self- conscious. Consider these examples; first lines 150-51 on poetic license: Thus Pegasus, a. nearer way to take May boldly deviate from the common Track. The word "deviate", being hard to say in two syllables, is itself the deviation. Here is line 356: A needless alexandrine ends the Song, That like a wounded Snake, drags its slow length along. Dove like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad'st it pregnant ... Clearly, such a technique of metrical substitution can be used with great subtlety. 4 The wounded alexandrine is needlessly lengthened by trochaic and spondaic substitution. More metrical wit follows a few lines later: When Ajax strives, some Rocks' vast Weight to throw, 5 �The Line too labours, and the Words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the Plain, Flies o'er th' unbending Corn, and skims along the Main. The first couplet suggests weight and slow labor with spondaic substitution, while the last line, though an alexandrine, runs fastest of all because of a pyrrhic. . My quarrel with Pope is that he has turned the iambic pentameter into a society man, with too much wit and too little real art. An irony that might be lost on Pope, since he translated Homer into couplets, lies in his emulating ancient poets and critics, and yet using a poetic line that, unlike Milton's, has nothing in common with them. Closed rhyming lines better suit the Grinch than Pope's nobler sentiments •. With Wordsworth's poem of loss and reconciliation, let us conclude. The lines of "Tin tern Abbey" are open and unrhymed, and employ much artful substitution. We might expect a line with Milton's vigor and cadence, but again, the English pentameter discovers a new character and motion. "Tintern Abbey" is sweetly elegiac, longing in mood, above all reflective in its use of rhythm. The sensibility of the poem cannot be separated from our familiar yet newly flowing meter. I believe the open lines permit Wordsworth this elegiac mood, by freeing him to let his lines overflow and commingle, repeating words in different stress positions, and so heightening the sense of reflectiveness and of passing things over in memory. Consider how the fives in the opening lines set the tone: Five years have passed, five summers, with the length Of five long winters, and again I hear These waters rolling from their mountain-springs With a sweet inland murmur. Notice then the quiet repetitions in these lines near the end, as the poet addresses his sister seeing the country for the first time: For thou art with me, here upon the banks Of this fair river, thou, my dearest friend, My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh, yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear sister! He has learned an art of poetry, to hear, in an iambic line, "the still sad music of ' humanity. " In what follows, the number and meaning of the verse are completely interfused, and. we leave our study of Wordsworth's line, our numbered English line, awake to all its possibilities: And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man-A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains, and of all that we behold From this green earth--of all the mighty world Of eye and ear, both what they half-create, And what perceive--well pleased to recognize In Nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thought, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being. In a shifting and unmusical world, at least we still speak English. Where so many read, and where so many words and symbols re-echo in commercial profusion, still there breeds in our world a deeper illiteracy. But the rhythms and meters of English spring from the language itself, and thankfully, for as long as English lives, their numbers await the rediscovery of new poets, who will learn to keep proportion and mend our broken time. I do not believe that these five poets, or their many imitators and occasional equals, have come near to exhausting the rhythms of the iambic pentameter. Perhaps we won't see the Shakespearian sonnet again, or the heroic couplet; but new poets will discover new movements, ascending in iambs, moving with thought, with power, with wit, with longing--a sweeter breath, perhaps, stressing always from within, like a wind through a mighty English oak. (115-22) Sometimes the verse has the quality of measured prose, breathing and moving in natural rhythm; yet the meter is always there, spacing and nudging the lines, a pervasive force that anchors and shapes the whole meditation. At the heart of the poem the poet reconciles himself to his loss: For I have learned To look on Nature not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. ' 6 7 �----- , Poem James Brown Because I cannot forget, Because every day flickers sickly empty .•. waits for action! watch the deserts in a smile or breath, my soul, I breathe . (Which man is meditating on the mountain, he of skin, of desire, of soul) Reason exceeds all bounds, resting in a meshland crushed. The little bits we held tightly vanish. Beauty is on the table Love in the wineglass in the countryside in the emotion. as I saw a lone sparrow creeping across my wet sky of dreams poets and ghosts invited me to a celebration (fame in the sense show, the hostile cracks of contact, of lambs and dry blood ••• ) blood in the doorway, blood in your mouth. The ground is disguised as a cracked smile, the cymbal ceases after the throat swallows, preparing to laugh. Too many torn, ripped, wounded words. Blow on a feather bursting in repose, now is a moment I give you forever. So I'm bound, you stuck seer, so I'm free, you roaming eyeless face. Calamity beckons me, nestled in wooly womb of letters I thrust meaning in your face. Somewhere I lose, I have lost. Intimate memories surround, hemorrhaging . My blood is soft, flowing through screens of dying sanity, screams unquenchable and unfulfilled. Does this anger have a home? Can I come home? (a mirror speaks in shades of light, darkness in absence thereof. And thus the silence) Spliced awareness The replication can be divided ( the quartering cleavage in pregnant hips, new sorrow, shivering at dusk, my disheartening years) I once believed the colors I see came from within, seasons of delight. But in the crowd of people I forgot myself: and so I disappeared. Now t he qui tters return (so then ) abashed and speechless with dumb shame. Some times I (look the dther way) In the game show I was the victor: look! 8 9 I �The Gorgon and the Bride of Lebanon Catherine Irvine In The Divine Comedy, the images of the Gorgon and of Beatrice are intimately connected by the notion of love. The connection is based upon the idea that when the human being loves, he may be led either to salvation or into the depths of Hell. . What will be shown in the following pages is that both the Gorgon and Beatrice represent the two faces of Dante's own loves. In ~ppearanc~ an~ in eff~ct they are opposites. The Gorgon is ugly and destructive, while Beatrice is beautiful and redeeming. Their opposition, however, will be seen to stem from the human element. For the soul immersed in sin, to look upon love is to look upon the Gorgon and be doomed. For the soul in grace who follows the true path, to look upon love is to look upon Beatrice and find the doors of Paradise swung wide open. These two images stand out amongst the hordes of others which fill The Divine Comedy. The atmosphere at the Gates of Dis is full of tension caused by a combination of doubt, fear and danger. This makes it a dramatic moment in the story. There is a feeling that the whole of the journey is in jeopardy and that its success is at stake. The same kind of feeling accompanies the reading of Cantos XXX through XXXII of the Purgatorio in which the unveiling of Beatrice occurs. This ~ime, however~ the tension is not born of danger and suspense. It is a result of climax . There is an exaltation, a culmination of emotion, present that makes the scene sparkle in the memory. The life that both images take on is so real and persuasive that in remembering them they become strongly bound to one another. They have an interdependence that is a determining factor with regard to the existence of the story. The prevention of the first instance, Dante's looking upon the Gorgon, allows the possibility of the second, Dante's looking upon Beatrice. Likewise, the allowing of the first would result in the prevention of the second. In the first case there is a story to tell of Dante's journey . In the second case The Divine Comedy would have ended at the Gates of Dis. Looking closely at this interdependence, one sees that the key to both situations is the act of beholding. The effectiveness and potency of the images lies in Dante's looking at them. There are no other elements involved. If Dante looks upon the Gorgon he will become stone. If he does not look upon her he will remain untouched. Beatrice has an influence upon Dante that extends beyond his looking at her~ for instance, in his memory of her. But the actuality of the good she promises him is only accomplished through his beholding. Although Dante undergoes change up to the point where he encounters her, his full purification does not take place until he looks fully at her. It is also the case that when Dante is involved in this act, he must be involved alone. It is a private experience. Virgil has no influence upon what Dante se~s. With the Gorgon, Virgil encounters the possibility of a situation in which he will not be able to help his charge. Virgil can exert no control over what happens to 10 Dante if Dante looks. The only thing he has control over is whether or not Dante looks, and that is a control that does not involve reason, but command and force. If Virgil fails to prevent Dante from looking at the Medusa, he can do no more. Similarly, Virgil has much influence over Dante in the period of time before Dante meets Beatrice, but precisely at the moment when Dante sees Beatrice, Virgil is gone. He is completely absent during the unveiling. It might be looked at in this way. Virgil's function is to bring Dante to the point where Dante will be able to look at Beatrice. This being so, his function in the jo·u rney is also to prevent Dante from looking at the Medusa. Virgil has a definite relation and function with regard to the two, but the act of beholding in itself and the consequences of it are beyond his realm. This act Dante must do without the aid of his mentor and guide. ***** At the Gates of the City of Hell the situation is menacing. Virgil's capabilities are inadequate. He cannot use reason or art upon these souls who do not even respond to the truth that all of Hell, in addition to all of Heaven, is under divine will. Virgil must wait for divine aid. Meanwhile, he has no idea what the inhabitants of the dread city might do. They are rebellious and unreasonable. If they show aggressiveness they have the power to harm Dante. Dante is doubtful and insecure, for the most part because he sees Virgil, who is his only safety, in a position of weakness. The appearance of the mad and self-destructive Furies who attack intensifies Dante's fear and Virgil's anxiety. Hence, even though the act of beholding the Medusa is only a potential one, it is clear that Dante is in danger. If the potentiality of that act were to become a reality - and there is a possibility of that happening - Dante would be lost. Virgil, accordingly, reacts immediately to the threat alone. He does not wait, not even for a moment, to see if it will be carried out. The Medusa is a force he cannot reckon with if Dante is to be her victim. The only way that Virgil can protect his charge is by forcing Dante not to look. 'Turn your back and keep your eyes shut tight; For should the Gorgon come and you look at her, Never again would you return to the light.' This was my Guide's command. And he turned me about Himself, and would not trust my hands alone, But with his placed on mine, held my eyes shut. (Inferno IX, 52-57) The Medusa is a formidable enemy. Firstly, the temptation to look upon her is so great that Virgil does not trust Dante to resist alone. Secondly, should Dante submit to the temptation, he will be transformed into stone. His being will be drastically altered: animate to inanimate, rational to unthinking. This inanimate characteristic of stone would alone doom Dante to remain in Hell. In addition, when Virgil tells Dante that he would never return to the light he is referring to man's need to have light, both phys{cally and mentally, in order to be the creature that he is. Physically, as stone, Dante would remain stationary in the darkness. But the implication is also that mentally Dante's capabilities of distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil, and beautiful from ugly will be destroyed. On this level, Dante will become in life what the souls of Dis are in death: eternally sinful and rebellious, with no hope of ever leaving Death's kingdom and with no hope of ever being able to see his own miserable condition. This is the threat that the Medusa poses. She would alter him so greatly that his nature would 11 �become essentially 'other'. In doing so she would doom him to a world of blindness and immobility - a world without God, a world without hope, a world that for a man become stone is a world of eternal death. ***** In Cantos XXX through XXXII of the Purgatorio, the beholding is not potential but actual. Beatrice's unveiling takes place gradually, since it is a process rather than a mere possibility which can only _ be looked at in terms of result, as in the case with the Gorgon. Dante's beholding takes place in three stages. Each stage has more power over him. The first time that Dante sees Beatrice he undergoes a kind of fixation which he describes as a stupefaction. He recognizes his emotional reaction as that of his old love for the mortal woman. Yet Dante is not completely riveted. Recognizing this emotion, he is able to turn to Virgil. He is free to move his attention elsewhere. He is able to be distracted away from Beatrice when he discovers that his guide has left his side. He is not quite overcome by Beatrice yet. Dante feels the pain of Virgil's disappearance acutely. He is fully involved with grieving until Beatrice begins to reprimand him as a woman would reproach a lover who has strayed. She demands that he confess his infidelity to her. Dante is so overwhelmed by her reprimand and the harshness with which it is delivered that he says he became frozen in place. He confesses that he has sinned. This confession is essential to the process of unveiling, for if he does not confess, Beatrice will not unveil. The second time Dante looks upon Beatrice is when she prods him to feel the full weight of his sin. Dante says: With my tear- blurred and uncertain vision I saw Her turned to face that beast which is One person in two natures without division. Even veiled and across the river from me Her face outshone its first-self by as much As she outshone all mortals formerly. And the thorns of my repentance pricked me so That all the use and substance of the world I had most loved, now appeared my foe. Such guilty recognition gnawed my heart I swooned for pain. (Purgatorio XXXI, 79-89) image of the Griffon reflected. Dante describes how a thousand .burning passions held his eyes fixed upon hers and how his soul "in wonder and delight/ was savoring the food which in itself I both satisfies and quickens appetite" (Purgatorio XXXI, 127-129). While he is still in this state of bliss, he is led to her mouth. Beatrice's face is now completely uncovered. The vision that Dante sees when he looks upon her smile is indescribable. It leaves him even more helpless than he had been before. My eyes were fixed with such intensity On quenching, at long last, their ten years' thirst That every sense but sight abandoned me. Tranced by the holy smile that drew me there Into the old nets, I forgot all else My eyes wore blinders, and I could not care. (Purgatorio XXXII, 1-6) Beatrice has now completely taken off the cloak of mortality t hat she wore in Dante's mind when he first glimpsed her in the pageant. She has a god-like potency for him. Here when he is finally able to look upon her with no obstruction between his sight and her face, he is made incapable of doing anything but stare. Every other bodily sense has ceased . He i s t ransfixed . Dante gazes with such intensity that he is forced to look away, and when he does look away he discovers that the brightness of his vision has blinde d him. In addition to being aware of the effect that the unveiling has upon Dante, it should be noted that when Beatrice begins to explain her purpose to Dante, she says: I see your mind Turned into stone, and like a stone, so darkened That the light of what I tell you strikes it blind. (Purgatorio XXXIII, 73-75) It is important that Beatrice says this about Dante's mind. What it implies is that during the process of unveiling Dante's mind has become like a stone, so that it does not respond to what he is being told. When the unveiling is completed, Dante drinks from the Eunoe and is made •.. new, ... per f ect, pure and ready for the Stars." (Purgatorio XXXIII, 142-146). " What Beatrice has worked in Dante, through his beholding, is a final purification that will allow him entry into Paradise. ***** This time Dante sees Beatrice as more than the mortal woman he had loved. She has a great control over him, a power that she never had while she lived. As he looks upon her when she faces the Griffon, he comes t o know his sin and to fear it - so much so that he cannot bear even to look upon her anymore. He is rendered unconscious in a faint. When Dante wakes from this swoon he finds that he had been immersed in the waters of the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. From that immersion he rises in a new purity that will enable him to look fully upon the face of his beloved. Previously, the weight of his sin caused him so much agony that he could not stand the sight of Beatrice's face even still covered. Now, the memory of t hat sin and that grief washed away, he may look upon her naked face fully conscious and gain from what he sees. The four nymphs who are Beatrice's ordained handmaids come and lead Dante to this final beholding. Dante looks into Beatrice's eyes. There he finds the changing Having looked at both situations in detail, it becomes evident that Beatrice has essentially done to Dante what the Gorgon threatened to do. She has frozen him still, immobilized him, blinded him, and caused his mind t o be turned to stone. The things she does to him, however, have been done for his redemption rather than for his destruction. When he is initially frozen cold by her, what results is his confession . The swooning leads to his immersion in the Lethe:, which then enables him to look upon Beatrice fully. The blinding is the result of being forced to look away from the most beautiful being he has ever seen. The gazing and the forcing away are both good things. What Dante experiences when he looks at her smile is a heavenly rapture, but Dante himself says that while he gazed he forgot all else - and did not care that he had. Since he may now go with Beatrice to Paradise, he cannot be allowed to stare forever at the smile of his beloved. His condition then would be stationary. No 12 13 �-, growth would take place within him. So although he suffers from temporary loss of physical sight, ultimately he gains from that loss. As for his mind being turned to stone, Beatrice tells Dante that this has been done for good purpose. It is meant to demonstrate, in a potent way, how far his attempts to know the truth are from the truth itself. Furthermore, Dante must have a completely clean slate, one unconfused by many previous thoughts, so that he can go on and learn in the Paradiso. [My words] 'fly so high', she said, 'that you may know What school you followed, and how far behind That truth I speak its feeble doctrines go; And see that man's ways, even at his best, Are far from God's as earth is from the heaven Whose swiftest wheel turns above all the rest.' (Purgatorio XXXIII, 85-9 0) Nevertheless, though the content of what Beatrice does to Dante differs from the . content of what the Gorgon would have done, it is still the case that both have the same power over Dante. If these two entities exercise the same power, then why would the Medusa's power be destructive while Beatrice's power is constructive? ** * ** To We know love in tion by this by begin searching for an answer, let us look at what we know about Beatrice. much more about her than we know of the Medusa. Beatrice is connected with two important ways. The first is that it is she who set the journey in mogoing to Virgil and sending him to Dante. Beatrice claims to be spurred on to love. It is I, Beatrice, who send you to him. I come from the blessed height for which I yearn. Love called me here. (Inferno II, 70 - 72) The second is that Beatrice was Dante's greatest mortal love while she lived. It is because of her that Dante finds enough courage and confidence to make the journey. When Dante sees her again in the Earthly Paradise, he describes what this mortal love had done to him . My soul - such years had passed since last it saw That lady and stood trembling in her presence ... - now •.. felt the full mastery of enduring love •.• ... I was smitten by the force, Which had already once transfixed my soul Before my boyhood years had run their course. ... I recognize(d) The tokens of the ancient flame. (Purgatorio XXX, 34-48) XXX, 130-132). In reproach she tells Dante that after she had died he should not "have been weighed down by any joy below/ - love of a maid, or any other fleeting/ and useless thing ... " (Purgatorio XXXI, 58-60). Since Dante's love for Beatrice kept him on the true path and his love for othe r things led him astray, it seems that the answer to the question about Beatrice and the Gorgon lies in what love means to the human soul. ***** Virgil tells Dante "that Love alone/ is the true seed of every merit in you,/ and of all the acts for which you must atone." (Purgatorio XVII, 102 - 105). Thus it may be concluded that if love led Dante to Beatrice and from thence to the highest good, then love must also have led Dante to his confrontation with the Medusa. Accepting this conclusion, what is it about love and the human soul that causes this two-faced image of love to appear? To answer this we must begin by looking at where the source of man's love is in the scheme that Dante provides. Marc the Lombard informs Dante that: From the hand of God, whose love Shines like a ray upon it, even before birth, Comes forth the simple soul which, Like a child at play, cries, laughs, And ignorant of every measure But the glad impulse of its joyous Maker, Turns eagerly to all that gives it pleasure . (Purgatorio XVI, 85 - 90) Virgil similarly says: The soul, being created prone to Love, Is drawn at once to all that pleases it, As soon as pleasure summons it to move. From that which really is, your apprehension Extracts a form which it unfolds within you; That form thereby attracts the mind's attention, Then if the mind, so drawn, is drawn to it, That summoning force is Love; and thus within you, Through pleasure, a new natural bond is knit. (Purgatorio XVIII, 19- 27) Virgil further comments that this inclination towards what is pleasurable is an "innate primordial appetite/ •.. as within the bee/ the instinct to make honey· and such instincts/ are, in themselves, not blameable nor worthy. 11 (Purgatorio X~III, 57-60). However, man is attracted to what is pleasurable with his mind: "Neither Creator nor his creatures move ... / .•. but in the action/ of animal or of mind- directed 11 love· (Purgatorio XVII, 91-93). The pitfall in this is that after Adam disobeyed God's command and fell from grace, man's reason was no longer sustained by the clear light of the truth. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us: Beatrice indicates that Dante's love for her was desirable. He had had such potential for fulfillment that as long as she lived and he could keep his gaze upon her countenance he was not in danger of straying from the true path. She says, however, that as soon as she left him "He turned his steps aside from the True Way, pursuing the false images of good that promise what they never wholly pay." (Purgatorio The human reason cannot have a full participation of the dictate of the divine reason, but according to its own mode, and imperfectly. Conseq~e~tly, just as ~n the part of the speculative reason, by a natural participation of divine wisdom, there is in us the knowledge of certain com- 14 15 �mon principles, but not a proper knowledge of each single truth, such as that contained in the divine wisdom, so, too, on the part of the practical reason, man has a natural participation of the eternal law, according to certain common principles, but not as regards the particular determinations of individual cases . (Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae . Q. 91, Art . 3) Man does not always perceive the truth and he cannot always correctly distinguish between what is good and what is bad. He is given a natural light which helps him to determine what is true and what is false, but being instinctively drawn to pleasure, he does not always discern correctly which pleasures are good and which are bad. In The Divine Comedy, St . Thomas gives Dan te the following advice: Move slowly, like a weary man, To the 'yes' and 'no' of what you do not see. For he is a fool, and low among his kind, Who answers yea or nay without reflection, Nor does it matter on which road he runs blind . Opinions too soon formed of ten deflect Man's thinking from the truth into gross error, In which his pride then binds his intellect. (Paradiso XIII , 113-120) The hastiness that Aquinas warns against is precisely what is dangerous about pleasure. The mind deems that something is pleasurable and it is prone to rush after it without careful consideration. Marc the Lombard describes how men are caught up in sin because of this. The simple soul "tastes small pleasures first . To these it clings,/ deceived, and seeks no others" (Purgatorio XVI, 91 - 92) . Things appear worthy of love, but "though love's substance always will appear to b71 a go.od,. not every impress made,/ even in the finest wax, is good and clear. (V1rg1l Purgatorio XVIII, 37 -39 ). Being in the dark, so to speak, and with this natural handicap, man does not always realize that the love and pursuit of God would give him the greatest pleasure . Man has the insightful knowledge, however, that there is a good in which he will find what he most seeks : a fulfillment in loving. All men, though in a vague way, apprehend A good their souls may rest in, and desire it ; Each, therefore , strives to reach his chosen end. (Purgatorio XVII, 127-129) This desire spurs man on and encourages him to love. Man is endowed with a free will, and hence is able to choose, through the use of his intellect, the good that will give him salvation rather than damnation. He can escape the trap that loving sets for him. Virgil says: Natural love may never fall to error. The other [mind- directed love] may .•• While it desires the Eternal Good and measures Its wish for secondary goods in reason, This love cannot give rise to sinful pleasures. But when it turns to evil ... The creature turns on its creator. (Purgatorio XVII, 94-102) 16 and he continues: Now, that all later wills [after the natural impulse] and this first bent May thrive, the innate counsel of your Reason Must surely guard t he threshold of consent. This is t he principle from which accrue Your just deserts, according as it reaps And winnows good or evil love in you. ... all love, let us say, That burns in you, springs from necessity; But you still have the power to check its sway. (Purgatorio XVIII, 61 - 72) St . Thomas describes how this rational aspect of man leads him into sin: Everything, by its own natural appetite and love, loves its own proper good because of the common good of the whole universe, which is God ..• Hence in the state of integral nature man ref erred the love of himself and of all other things to the love of God as to its end •.• But in the state of corrupted nature man falls short of this in the appetite of his rational will, which •.. follows its own private Good . (Sunnna Theologica, Prima Secundae . Q. 109, Art . 3) It is this rationally chosen love of the lesser things that dooms man by bringing him into sin. Because man does not find satisfaction in t he false pleasures that he loves, if he is not somehow checked, he begins to travel down a pathway littered with one love after another. Eventually, in his greed for satisfaction , his ability to distinguish what is good and what is bad is undermined by his growing desire . He does not look closely at what appears to be good in orde r to judge whether or not he has found the true provider of this satisfaction. As he is continually tempted by false promises and is continually deprived, he begins to care less and less about the things he pursues. He thereby falls into error with increasing frequency. The influence and good of his reason is submerged beneath his passion, and finally, if he never turns away from the path he has taken, it will die. He will not be able to use his power of judgement any longer. As Virgil says of the souls in Hell, they have lost the good of intellect. They were led to that state by perverted love . Augustine says in The Confessions: We are carried away by custom to our own undoing and it is hard to struggle against the stream. Will this torrent never dry up? How much longer will it sweep the sons of Adam down to that vast and terrible sea which cannot easily be passed. . . (Book I, 16) ***** The next question is why the weakening of the intellect is the greatest cause for punishment. On the most obvious level, what results from weakened reason is sin. But this extends further beyond punishment for doing wrong. It delves into the soul of man and claims that his very being finds its greatest fulfillment in the per fection of the intellect, and its damnation in the loss of that intellect. St. Thomas says: Each thing is inclined naturally to an operation that is suitable to it 17 �.I according since the a natural according to its form: e.g., fire is inclined to give heat. Therefore, rational soul is the proper form of man, there is in every man inclination to act according to reason; and this is to act to virtue. (Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae. Q. 94, Art. 3) He also says: The law of man which ..• is allotted to him according to his proper natural condition, is that he should act in accordance with reas on; and this law was so effective in man's first state, nothing either outside or against reason could take man unawares. But when man turned his back on God, he fell under the influence of his sensual impulses. In fact, this happens to each one individually, according as he has the more departed from the path of reason. (Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae. Q. 91, Art. 6) Since man is given intellect, if he utilizes the ability to distinguish right from wrong he will be able to see that the highest good and the highest pleasure is found in God. Or, to put it another way, he will see that the false pleasures he loves do not give him the rest he seeks, and so, whether he has full knowled~e of God or not, he will use his rationality and willinglychoose the other alternative: God and the truth. If he does not come to this conclusion, then he is being unreasonable. Thus the souls who are in Hell have chosen to be unreasonable because they have travelled along the path of perverted love. As a result, they are unable to perceive and acknowledge the truth. Being unreasonable, they have become 'other' than what they were created to be: reasonable creatures. Therein lies the cause of man's greatest sin. He is fallen, but he is given the opportunity to rise. If he does not take this opportunity then he falls again, only this time he falls to a condition that is beyond redemption. It is true that man requires guidance from the law and from grace in order to avoid this. But even if a man is caught unawares in the trap that his own loving sets for him, he is doomed unless he finds his power of judgement and realizes that the path he is on will lead him to damnation. Treading on this path will turn him to stone: the image of which conveys the impression of being stuck in one place, unable to move and not knowing enough to realize that one should move. Virgil tells Dante that: Within the habit of mankind You set your whole intent on earthly things, The true light falls as darkness on your mind. (Purgatorio XV, 64-66), and Beatrice says: Tranced in blind greed, your ever deepening curse, You have become as mindless as an inf ant Who screams with hunger, yet pushes away his nurse. (Paradiso XXX, 139- 140) . ***** 'mmersed 1'n the surge of its passions in this manPlotinus describes t h e sou 1 1 ner: 18 The ugly soul •.• is dissolute, unjust, teeming with lusts, torn by inner discord, beset by craven fears and petty envies .•. friend to filthy pleasure, it lives a life abandoned to bodily sensation and enjoys its depravity .•. The life it leads is dark with evil, sunk in manifold death. It sees no longer what the soul should see. (The Essential Plotinus, Beauty, p. 38-39) Although Plotinus' idea of how the soul comes to be in this condition may not be completely in accord with Dante's, his description is surely in agreement. It is when a man is in this condition that to look upon his love fully is to look upon the Medusa and be turned to stone. Prior to Dante's waking in the Dark Wood, his soul was in this condition, and as he stands at the Gates of Dis his condition is not much changed. He realizes that he is lost, but he is still full of sin. Dante is hesitant. He has confidence in Virgil, but he lacks confidence in himself. He lacks this confidence because his mind is clouded over with false impressions and his reason is weak from long disuse. His weakened reason rebels at the decision that he has made to follow Virgil into the underworld. He rebels because he fears, and he fears because he does not see the truth. This state of wavering from his resolve is very much present at the Gates of Dis. Virgil has had to constantly support Dante. At Dis Dante is so awe-struck and frightened by the resistance that they meet that he is more willing to turn around and put an end to the journey than he is to face the difficulty before him. Oh my beloved Master, my guide in peril, Who time and time again have seen me safely Along this way, and turned the power of evil, Stand by me now ... in my heart's fright. And if the dead forbid our journey to them, Let us go back together toward the light. (Inferno VIII, 94-99) Even though he is on the way toward salvation, before these Gates he is dangerously close to being stone. He is teetering upon the edge . He has not climbed up far enough to be safely out of danger. Dante is unprepared to look upon love while in this premature and sinful condition. It would destroy him. It would make him truly stone. Dante is making this journey in order to gain back his good judgement and be rid of the things that are false within him. He is on his way to seeing "what the soul should see. " What is seen in his encounter with Beatrice is a much more mature Dante. He had undergone a gradual process of elimination. Virgil has taken him through Hell where he had seen the damned. Dante has been through Purgatory, and the seven deadly sins, in the form of . P's, have been removed from his forehead. He has not yet seen the full truth, but he has seen the false. By the time he reaches the Earthly Paradise he has been able to witness the false loves that made up the crooked path upon which he had been walking. Dante has been able to see the sin within himself. He has been purged. Dante's soul is so greatly changed that Virgil relieves himself of his role as guide: I have led you here by grace of mind and art; Now let your own good pleasure be your guide; You are past the steep ways, past the narrow part ... Expect no more of me in word or deed: Here your will is upright, free and whole, 19 �And you would be in error not to heed Whatever your own impulse prompts you to: Lord of yourself I crown and mitre you. (Purgatorio XX.VII, 130-132, 139-143 ) Love prompts men to do all that they do, whether it be love of glory, or wealth, or another human being ...... the list could go on and on. Even if he does not love what he does in a specific instance, he is acting for the love of something else. Consequently, the two faces of love, either that of the Medusa or that of Beatrice, await him around each corner as he walks upon the paths of life. False pleasures have no allure for Dante now because he is capable of seeing that they are false. He is ready to rush joyfully after all that pleases him. He is no longer in danger of rushing after the wrong thing. Dante is prepared to l ook upon his love. This time it will not bring him death and destruction, but eternal life. Beatrice will make him ready to go on and stand upright before the bright glory of what is true and can never be false. In this cleansed state love will infuse him completely, leaving him whole, perfect and fulfilled. This means the rising of the intellect, within the mortal body, to the utmost height: Bibliography Main text The truth I wished for came Cleaving my mind in a great flash of light ... ... I could feel my being turned Instinct and intellect balanced equally. (Paradiso XXXIII, 140- 144) Three volumes of The Divine Comedy : The Inferno, Dante John Ciardi New American Library Inc. 1954 ***** At this point it would be well to remember t hat Dante is still living when he makes this journey. For the soul that is dead there is no Gorgon and no Beatrice . The life of that soul has already come to the conclusion of its earthly travels and is already in its chosen place. What Dante faces when he encounters the Medusa and Beatrice is the culmination of the two paths upon which love may take him . It is as though, for Dante, love with all its power contained in the two faces of the Medusa and Beatrice exists simultaneously in its end result in Dis and in the Earthly Paradise. To look upon his love naked and powerful when he is in sin or when he has been purified is to choose the pathway that he will take in the life he still must lead . Thus it is appropriate that Beatrice was a mortal woman whom Dante loved and who is now, in Paradise, filled with divine love. It is also appropriate that the Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal and is now, in Hell , filled with perverted love. Could not the Medusa, once a beautiful woman, represent the false pleasures which Dante had loved after Beatrice left him? The potency which the two hold then stems from the fact that Dante loved both. That the opposition between the Medusa and Beatrice should find its source in the human beholder is not surprising when one recalls that they bo th have their birth from out of the human element. Hell exists precisely for the punishment of human sin. The Gorgon dwells within the walls of t he City of Hell. Grace exists solely for the redemption of man . Bea trice is the being through which Dante re ceives divine aid, and she resides in Paradise. Both Beatrice and the Medusa stem from that force, that necessary instinct in man, of love . Love is what spans the distance between Heaven and Hell. It is the force that has the greatest power over the human heart. Love has driven men to the greates- heights and it has caused men to fall into total ruin. Because man's heart t is schizophrenic when it comes to loving, love often works its two-faced might in the mind of one and the same man. Sometimes it causes him to do the noblest of deeds, sometimes the most foul . Man's heart is deep and mazed. Love enters into it and in that natural bond between man and the things he loves the contradiction, and perhaps the tragedy, that is present in all facets of his behavior is born. 20 The Purgatorio , Dante John Ciardi New American Library Inc. 1957 The Paradiso, Dante John Ciardi New American Library Inc. 1961 Supplementary text The Divine Comedy, Dante Prose Translation H.R. Huse Rinehart and Winston Inc. 1954 Other sources quoted from: The Essential Plotinus Elmer O'Brien Hackett Publishing Company Inc. 1964 The Confessions, St. Augustine R. S. Pine-Coffin Penguin Books Ltd. 1961 Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas Anton C. Pegis Random House 1945 21 �I still remember you as children, small and afraid, on the day of your father's execution, although by now you must be young men just beginning t o set out to make lives of your own . It is to help guide you in this endeavor that I am wri ting now . I had come into Athens to I only met your father once - on the day of h i s dea th. trade some oriental fab rics, and by a stroke of luck happened t o accompany Phaedo to the prison where your father was be ing held. I am no philosopher, but the will and intellect of your fathe r was so strong that they seized my attention, and I listened intently to all that was said. Some of the things that your father said seemed so inconsistent with the man himself and what he said and did, that I have been thinking about them ever since , and, in thinking about these contradictions, I have come t o some small understanding of wha t your father believed . Crito promised that he would make I have imagined you growing up as orphans. sure that you were well cared for, but he is such a practical man tha t I fear he has not told you anything real about your father. It is perhaps presumptuous of me to believe that I could tell you anything about Socrates, after only meeting him once. And yet, because of all of the thinking that I have done about the things that he said, I hope that I might be able to explain him to you, and help you to come to love the man as I have . By now your memo rie s of you r father mus t have become so jumbled with all of the things that you have heard about him t hat you can hardly know what to think . On the day of his dea t h , your father spent mos t of his time discussing what might happen to the soul afte r the death of the body . We considered whether it was immortal or not, and what type of o t her world it might inhabit i f it were. This might seem to you to be a t opic mos t wo rt hy of discussion, particularly in the hours just before death , and so it seemed to all of us listening. But the further we got into the discussion , the more each of us began to realize t hat we we re not going to find any concrete answers to the questions which we were ask ing. We all came to feel that the immortality of the soul could not be proven beyond a doubt . I have since learned that your father must have known this from the v ery beginning. On the day of his trial he had said that anyone who t hough t that he knew anything about death was a fool, for it was simply unknowable . This was t he first contradiction that I became aware of between what your father said and what he did, and it set my mind buzzing, trying to figure out what the man was up to. I think that I have finally come to understand something of this. I believe that your father was not particularly interested in finding answers, in knowing the knowable things, because answers can not really explain anything . This is certainly the impression I got from listening to him talk about his experience with natural science . He said that he became interested in natural science be cause it promised him the knowledge of the cause of everything. What he found instead was a description of the materials of which things were made and the shapes which these materials took . He found these sorts of descriptions to be confusing and misleading, for they did not approach an explanation of the kinds of causes he was concerned with. Yet it was easy for men to get caught up in them and forget about their real concerns. I had always believed that natural science was an important study of why things happened, but I think that your father was looking for a differ ent type of 'why', one that would explain things and actions in human terms rather than describe strange substances and proclaim them t o be the reas ons for everything. Your father was trying to find answers to human concerns - -an swers t ha t need t o be c o uched in human terms. What is interesting ab ou t a thing is its relati on t o mankind in general and the individual in particular, not t o some other t hing . Once he realized that natural science was not going t o prov ide the answers he was seeking, your father devised a system of his own that explained absolutely everything. He explained that a beautiful thing is b eautiful because it partakes in absolute beauty. To all of us listening t his seemed to be a mos t elegant and understandable explanation of things, one which could faultlessly answer any questions we might poss ibly ask. But as I th ought more about this formulation o f things, I came to realize that it, to o , does not begin t o deal with any of our real, our human, concerns. It does not help us t o understand anything which we do not already know . I think that your father also realized this, and that after his encounter with natural science he had come to realize that answers were not really what humans are after. In order to help us to come t o feel thi s way to o , he concocted this incredibly simple system which could answer all of our questions and none of our concerns. Your father used many such inherent contradictions and paradoxes--such as "the answer is not really The Answer"--to get us all to think. What becomes evident to all who do think a bou t this is that we are not really looking for simple answers to the questions which perplex us. Well then, what are we looking for and how d o we come t o have some human under standing of things which are not thus "knowable" , like the soul or virtue or knowledge itself? Although we may not really wish for God , or Socrates, t o drop down out of the heavens and just give us some answer--this would not truly help us to understand anything which we did not already know--we do care ab out these things and need to have some understanding of them which can serve as a b asis f o r our actions in the world. I think that your father was using this discussion of the soul as a paradigm to show us how best to approach all of our human concerns with the unknowable. Since I knew nothing of philosophy, there were many thing s about the way your father spoke--with such keen intelligence and lively imagination--that struck me as strange that day, but one of the words your father used seemed par ticu lar ly unusual. Early in the morning he said that it would be fitting for him µu80Aoy21v about the soul. This word, a combination of A.oyos , rational speech, and µG8os story, seemed a particularly striking one, since the two terms are often t hought t o be opposites. But throughout the rest of the day, your father employed both of these means in his discussion of the soul. , 1 . The young men in your father ' ,s company were very read y t o accept AOyo1 , rational argumen ts,as a means of prov i ng t he immortality of t he soul . This type of discussion was apparently customary f o r your father. Indeed, h e proved the immortality of t he soul twice, once beginn ing with t he notion that learning is recollection and then, when we were n o t satisfied by t ha t, in a very involved argument using the relationship between oppos ites and some t hird accompanying factor . But Simmias and Cebes - I suppose you know the men I mean - seemed able to come up with objections to even the finest of arguments, until finally we all despaired of even understanding any t hing through A.6yos . Your father was very careful t o make sure that we never let ourselves come to mis trust Aoyos comple tely. He seemed to believe that our trust in arguments and use of them was a v ery es sential thing . I have b een thinking about why he felt so s trongly about this, and I think that I have the answer. These arguments of your father's began with some belief that one of us had, such as the idea that learning 22 23 Socrates Elizabeth De Mare Dearest children, �was recollection, the soul is a harmony, etc ., and examined it. By means of a dis cussion, we were able to see if this concept had any self - cont r adictions and if it contradicted any of the other things which we believed. The idea of contradiction was very important to your father . He believed that a man could not hold two contradicting beliefs at the same time, once he had been made aware of these contradictions. I think that on his last day, he was using theses arguments which dis closed contradictions in par t t o force us into really thinking about the things that he was talking about. For if he is right, and a man cannot hold two contradicting views, then that man must try to reconcile them within himself . In the process of this reconciliation he comes to understand the topic at hand more thoroughly. Arguments also proved to be a marvelous way for a man to come to understand himself and discover the things which were important to him. When two of Simmias' beliefs were shown to contradict one another, that learning is recollection and the soul is a harmony, he had then to choose the one more important to him and stick by that. Argument could not tell him which one was true, but it could force him to re alize which things he wanted to stand for. The importance of comparing two ideas did not lie in their contradicting each other absolutely, but rather in how they related · back to the person who was believing them, and how he was t o reconcile himself to them. Once our beliefs were found not t o involve us in contradiction , your father was able to lead us in a discussion of what the logical consequences of these beliefs were. As in his proofs of the immortality of the soul , he could help us build an almost mathematical system, beginning with our conceptions and deducing necessary consequences from them . The young men surrounding your father were frustrated because his Aoyos could not give them beliefs which they did not already have; but they did not realize how much more confident it could leave them about beliefs which they did have . For they had weeded through many things they had heard and thought, until they arrived at a few beliefs which were important to them, and these beliefs had been tested against themselves and others and found t o be sound. They were therefore as likely to be true as it is humanly possible to insure. In addition to arguing , your father also told us many stories . He used two distinct types of µG8os . The first was the simple example. Throughout the discussion, both your father and the young men, used examples in order to make their meanings clear. I was very surprised to find lovers, coats, and lyres, to be the stuff of philosophy. The second was the full - fledged myth . After we all had become frustrated with argument and sure that it could not give us the answers we believed we wanted, your father replied to a question by telling us some of his life story. He ended with a myth about the real configuration of the world and the after-world. Crito, always the practical one, seemed to believe that all this story-telling amounted to nothing . Though your father said that only a fool would believe that everything was exactly as his story made it out to be, he defended stories against Crito's disbelief. Again it took me some time to understand what your father could have meant by insisting that myths were important. One of the very first things he did as we went in to him that morning was to tell a myth about one of the gods having joined pleasure and pain at the head because the two could never stop quarrelling . Then, only five minutes later, he said that he was not a maker of myths . Here was another of his blatant contradictions which was, I believe, designed to set our minds racing. What could this man who obviously could make up tales, mean by insisting that he was not a maker of myths? These stories shared with examples that ability to make things exceedingly clear . They had a very soothing effect, calming us all where arguments had left us heated and emotionally disturbed. But your father seemed t o want us to think of them as more than mere emotional outlets. 24 Then I remembered that your father, by using the word µu6oA.oyElV , had given e qual importance to µD8os and .\oyos , and that Simmias had warned that arguments based upon pro bability , in philosophic .\oyos as well as mathematics, were unreliable. From these facts, I deduced the importance of story-te lling . In addition to making ideas seem much mo re vivid to those trying to understand , stories actually help us to understand our principles. In a story we can examine the questions, "What would it be like t o live that way?" and, "What are the possible and probable consequences of our system of beliefs?" Story-telling can succeed in a regi on where logical argument fails to have any real sway : stories are able to look at the probable ends of abid ing by your beliefs. This examination by µD8os is jus t as important as a logical one, for it is possible that all of a man 's principles are logically sound, and yet once he looks beyond their logic to the consequences of believing such things he dis covers that they lead him or others to evil. By imagining what things your beliefs will probably lead to, you then have another means besides contradiction to judge whether they are truly the things which you want t o believe in or not. One of the necessary parts of an approach through A6yos is the breaking down of an idea , and the examination of its component parts. MUAos , on t he other had , serves as a means of seeing the entire system of your beliefs . In this sense, µu8os can come much closer to relating those beliefs to the real, whole world. Logical arguments and µu8os thus compliment each other. Aoyos serves the essential function of sorting through beliefs t o find those which are the truest (least contradictory) ones possible, and then deducing the absolutely logical consequences of these beliefs . M08os can take over from there and make sense of the possible and probable consequences of these beliefs. A6yos without µu8os does not fully relate ideas to the human realm, and µu8 os mus t have a firm beginning of noncontradictory beliefs from which to opera te or it becomes meaningless . Perhaps you are surprised to hear that such human things were your father's concerns. Most people imagine philosophers to be men who take leave of their senses, removing themselves from their own bodies and all things tainted with humanity, and concentrate their attention upon understanding those things which are not seen by the rest of mankind . Indeed I have heard of a play by Aristophanes which protrays your father as such a man . During the course of your father's last day, Socrates himself gave just such a definition of a philosopher, elaborating upon it several times. I, like the rest of the company, swall owed it whole at the time; it sounded so usual. But because your father is renowned for convincing people who believe they know some thing that they do not, I believe that he said such things just to make us all think about the differences between his own philosophical life and the stereotype which we carry around inside us and sometimes try to emulate. Your father was certainly not a man who had drawn away from himself and his f ellow humans . He always seemed supremely present in the room and in the conversation. I have rarely met a man who observed so carefully, cocking his head to listen and piercing us with his gaze . And he certainly understood our moods. Although he was about to die, he seemed much less afraid than we, because he understood the fear of death, both his and our own. He was quick to resp ond to our feelings of distrust in A6yos which followed the loss of our hope for an answer. Whatever his philosophy did involve, it clearly was not a withdrawal from this real world. I believe that philosophy for him did not involve avoiding people, but rather involved examining their principles by means of his beautiful and ordered stories and arguments. He sang the people's own beliefs and deeds to them as Homer sang those of the heroes. Your father was concerned with matters which could not be called mun dane, such as the existence of absolutes and the meanings of opposites, but I think that he understood that both this world of absolutes and the world of mere bodily sensations meet and join harmoniously in the man who thinks and acts . Your father's concern seemed to be how these absolute things, envisioned by the human mind, related 25 �to our human affairs, rather than study of them as unrelated to human thought. He certainly did not attempt to discuss matters which were not heart-felt by us all. I think I may have a clue to what your father thought was important above all. He spent much of his time talking about invisible things or worlds, and the way to approach these. He said that we must do this through A6yo1, speeches, for the task was beyond our other means. What kind of a realm can be approached through speech with others? From what happened on the day he died, I can only suggest this much: while I was listening to your father, I felt and thought about myself and others, more perhaps than I ever had up until then. By means of a discussion, he managed to expose our thoughts, beliefs, hopes and fears. I think that it is these human ideas, suggested by the world around us, yet existing separately from it, which are the things which people your father's invisible world. Thus he was a man concerned not with some kind of distant ultimate world as we tend to believe all philosophers must be, but rather with the much more human world of our intellectual beliefs and hopes which can be entered whenever we think and converse. I think this was what he meant when he envisioned a world above this one, clearer and more pure. I believe that he thought of this world as better, not because it was full of bodiless souls, for he spoke of its inhabitants as having senses, but because they had lost the basest concerns of the body, such as illness and decay, and had realized that thinking about their beliefs was essential. They were therefore able to live together and approach a perfect society where justice and virtue were realized in action and thought and men were able to think and love and hope much more exquisitely. The things which I heard from your father on that day have changed my life , not all at once , but gradually as I have come to understand them better . I have not given up my lifestyle to become a philosopher; however I have come to understand that it is essential for a man to examine all his beliefs to discover what exactly they are, in orde r for him to be able to live a truly full life. A man who neglects the search of the soul for an understanding of the absolutes and unknowables is not fully living as a human being . This wonder about the absolutes combines in man with an understanding of the visible world and makes all of his actions much more certain. He understands why his beliefs are important to him and acts upon them. By knowing the values that he holds, he can become a better person, aspiring to that ethereal world while living in this one. I shall not rec ount the noble manner in which your father died, for you have only to ask anyone about it. Rather I shall end here and hope that these few words have made some difference to you, that somehow they will help you to know that above all a man must examine his beliefs closely and, if he is convinced they are the best he can find , he must stand by them and mold all of his actions after them. This , I think, is what your father believed . The Jacobsen Cut: A Geometrical Proposition Henry Higuera I would like to share a solution I discovered to a question about conic sections proposed by Bryce Jacobsen--largely because his conjecture, which I proved to be correct, is so pretty. I hope the reader feels as I do, and that his interest in the question helps get him through my proofs. In addition, I managed to prove it by purely Apollonian means, which increased my admiration for the power of his approach; and for this reas on too my proof is worth sharing. This is the situation which made Bryce and me wonder: A You are given an oblique cone with axial triangle ABC perpendicular to the base of the cone. (Upperclassmen will recall that with this kind of cone and axial triangle there are two kinds of cuts which will produce a circle a fact which will become important in a moment). Now, if you take this cone and start making cuts producing ellipses, a couple of facts are obvious: A steep cut, like the one in Figure 2, will give you a highly-elongated ellipse: i.e., DE will be the major axis and will be much bigger than the minor axis; and the ellipse will get more highly-elongated the closer D gets to A. This is clearly true as well for a cut down the other side of the axial triangle, as in Figure 3. Again DE is the major axis and will be much bigger than the minor axis; and again the ellipse gets more elongated the farther down D is. Mr . Higuera has been currently on leave. 26 a tutor at St. John's since 1982 and is �I say t hat RO>OE, so that HE is the minor axis. But what if your cuts get less steep, so that the ellipses become less highly elongated? Does t he effect eve r get reversed? Specifically, what if (so Mr . J . mused) you make a cut at an angle in between a cut parallel t o the bas e and a "subcontrariwise" cut? These two cuts [Apol. I 4, 5] give you circles, i.e., "non- elongated" ellipses; so, do cuts in between give you ellipses elongated the other way, with DE as the minor axis? And if so, is there one specific cut for any oblique cone that gives you the "fattest" ellipse? The answer is "yes" to all these questions, as I hope to show. For, DP : PE :: HO : OE and HO:OE: : FN:NE; theref ore OP and NO when joined are parallel to HD and FH , respectively [Eucl. VI 2]. But F, Hand Dare all on AB, so N, O and p are all on a straight line parallel to AB, one side of t he axial triangle. Produce line NOP t o meet AC at T and BC at U, and from U draw UV ou t to the conic surface perpendicular to BC. Then UV is parallel to LG and MK, and thus to QN, RO, and SP as well . And QN , RO, SP and UV are all in one plane, having a common 1 transver sal TU . Therefore, by Apollonius I 11 that plane produces a PARABOLA when it cuts the cone --with ve rtex T, diameter TU, and ordinates QN , RO, SP, &c . The proof basically rests on this fact. A The. f"\ysh.ry C1.1t ~ Now from 0 draw OW parallel to FE and meeting AC or AC produced. OWll FE and L ABC=LAEF from the subcontrariwise cut; so, Now , DEii BC, . UTllAB , I. To prove that t he elongation becomes reversed--the so- called "Jacobsen Effect . " LCBA=LCUT=LEPN while LCBA=LAEF=LEWO; so EPN= EWO . 2 Now , EON> EPN [Euc . I 17) , so LEON )ilEWO. £EWO; then LEOY<L.EON and (This proof uses an easily-proven LEMMA: Given three lines A, B and C, if A:B>B:C, then sp.A :s q . B:?J\:C. I'll sketch an argument for this in a note when I use it.) Construct a new angle,LEOY, equal t o EN>EY . 3 OK, here we go: Given a cone with axial triangle ABC perpendicular to the base . Make three cuts, all intersecting side AC at the same point E: one parallel cut, producing a circle with diameter DE [Apol . 1.4]; one subcontrariwise cut, producing a circle with diameter FE [Apol. L 5]; and a random cut in between , producing an ellipse with axis HE [Apol . 1. 13, 7]. Of course the common sections of the cutting planes and the plane of the base, LG and MK, have to be perpendicular to BC produced [Apol . I 5, 13] ; thus they are parallel to one another . Now you've Therefore : constructed EOY equal t o OWE, while YEO= EOW [alt . int. angles]. b YEO is similar t o 6EOW 4 and EY : EO::EO:OW. BUT EN >EY, so EN:EO)EO:OW [Euc . V 8 , 13]; Bisect the diameters FE, HE, DE at N, 0, P respectively; and draw NQ, OR , and PS out to the conic surf ace to LG parallel These (and MK) . are all ordinates I 13] [Apol. therefore and conjugate axes of their respective diameters [Apol. I 15]; and QN=NE and SP=PE, since those cuts produced circles. therefore sq . EN : sq . EO>EN:OW [LEMMA] 5 . Now, EN:OW: : NO : OT [Euc. VI 4] so sq. EN: sq. EO)NT:OT [Euc . V 13] ; but sq. QN: sq. RO::NT:OT [Apol. I 20], since QN and RO are ordinates, and NT a.nd OT abscissas of a parabola; furthermore QN=EN , since they're radii of the subcontrariwise circle, so sq. QN=sq. EN. Therefore sq. EN: sq. RO :: NT : OT [Euc . V 7, 11] and sq . EN : sq. EO)sq. EN: sq. RO [Euc . V 13]. Therefore sq. RO)sq. EO [Euc . V 10] and RO)EO . Q. E. D. 28 29 t I I �I I II. To prove that the cut bisecting the angle between the parallel and the subcontrariwise cuts -- the so-called "Jacobsen Cut" -- produces the maximum degree of elongation the other way. I say that KG:GE)LH:HE--i.e., the Jacobsen ellipse is more elongated out towards the reader than an ellip se resulting from any other cut. For, extend HG to meet AC at M, and from H draw RN parallel to DE meeting AC or AC produced. Then, first, KG and LR are ordinates of a parabola with vertex M, so Proving this involves a preliminary fact that I'll establish separately: a Jacobsen cut cuts off an isosceles triangle on the axial triangle. sq. KG: sq. LH :: GM :HM [Apol. I 20]; but, second, GE: HN::GM:HM [Euc . VI 4] , so sq. KG: sq. LH::GE:HN [Euc. V 11] . Let GE bisect the angle between DE and FE, so that: Now, with GE as a common height, GE:HN:: sq . GE : r.GE, RN, LGEG=,LFED. so sq. KG: sq. LR:: sq. GE : r. GE, RN , or sq. KG: sq. GE :: sq. LR : r. GE, RN, alternating. Then, since in addition LABC=LADELAEF, because of parallels and the subcontrariwise cut, LGED+LADE=tFEG+LAEF [C.N. 2]; NHM . Now, it was given that LADE=LAED , so because of parallels, LNHM=LHNM . Therefore: but LGED+LADE=LAGE [Euc. I 32] while LFEG+LAEF=LAEG, LEHN<LENH. Cons truct a new angle,LEHO, equal to LENH , with 0 on DE . so LAGE=LAEG and 6AGE is isosceles. Then, LEHO>LEHG and EG< EO. Meanwhile, LOEH=LEHN too [alt. int. angles], so Now to prove that the Jacobsen cut delivers the maximum Jacobsen Effect. Given a Jacobsen Cut, so that LADE= LAED, producing an ellipse with DE as min.or axis and KG as major axis; given also a cut random producing an ellipse with FE as axis and LR as the 6 conjugate axis (G and H are the midpoints). ..60EH is similar to 6EHN and EO : EH : : EH : RN . But EG<EO, so EG:EH(EH:HN or EH:EG)HN:EH, inverting; therefore sq. EH rect.)GE,HN. [Apol . I 34, n. l] But it was shown above t hat : sq. KG: sq. GE: : sq. LR : rect.GE,HN, sq. KG: sq. EG)sq. LR : sq. EH [Euc . V 8 , 13] and KG:GE)LH:EH. A similar procedure would deal with cases where F is above D. Q.E.D . 30 31 But EHG �NOTES 1. Euclid never bothers to prove t hat three parallel lines with a common transversal must be in the same plane, which is too bad. I won't try to do it here, but I'm sure it's true. 2. Here you can see one reason why the Jacobsen Effect only exists in between the parallel and subcontrariwise cuts: if 0 were below P , EON would be less than EPN and the proof wouldn't hold. 3. Is this self-evident? At any rate, if you look at all the angles in the triangles involved, EYO> ENO, so EYO has to be the exterior angle of NYO , or Euc. I 17 is violated. 4. Here's another reason why the Jacobsen Cut has to be in between. If 0 is above N, then even if (as is perfectly possible) EON> EPN, as in the earlier part of the proof, the angle EWO will here be the exterior angle of EOW, and it won't be similar to YEO. 5. Given three lines A, B, and C, if A:B>B:C, then sq.A:SQ.B A:C; basically because the first ratio if compounded of A:B and A:B, while the second is compounded of A:B and A:C . 6. Note that the cut FE doesn't have to be above the parallel cut for this proof t o hold--the ratio just keeps decreasing. 33 32 _ II �Purgation of the Human Spirit William O'Grady enjoyed my drinks. make you I? What happens i f you drop all the things that I would like to present some quite fragmentary thoughts about Dante's Purgatory and about what the purgation of the human spirit might mean, why human beings might hope for it and why they might fear it. I am very eager to know whether these thoughts make sense to you. She means, I think, and Augustine means, that what arouses dread is not so much the prospect of giving up the reliable pleasures for the sake of something less well known, nor even the anticipated pain of the straightening of what has been crooked in one's life and one's self; but rather the possibility that there will be nothing left to mean when I say "I"-- the very word will nu longer have content. What am I, am I anything at all, when stripped of the ways of being l have chosen to make my own and have somehow placed myself into and taken responsibility for in laboring through my life? When the human spirit, my very own spirit, has been purged of all that is displeasing to God, will there by anything left of me?-- this most disquieting of questions is felt by Dante the pilgrim as well as by ourselves. I II Let me begin with a passage from Augustine's Confessions, occurring just before he recounts the moment in the garden when he hears a voice "as of a child" inviting him to "take up and read" a passage from St. Paul that seems addressed specially to him. He reads and "as if before a peaceful light streaming into my heart, all the dark shadows of doubt fled away". But this is how Augustine describes his condition before receiving and responding to the invitation: I think it is impossible to understand Dante without holding fast to the realization that he insists with equal passion on the legitimacy of two fundamental human desires: the desire to enjoy the highest good, to be in the loving presence of God, to be as full of His grace and light as one may be; and the desire to be one's very self. Neither of these desires must be sacrificed to the other--this is the source of many of the great tensions of the Comedy (as well as being the reason, I think, why there is no regret, let alone resentment, in a hierarchical paradise: Cunizza, for example, within the sphere of Venus, knows that she could be a more perfect vessel for God's light only by ceasing to be Cunizza--and this she cannot want). Because of the properly irreducible duality which Dante recognizes as fundamental to humankind's deepest desire, the purgation of the human spirit is a complicated matter. But it is also of the greatest importance that the journey of Dante the pilgrim does not begin at the base of the mount of purgation. If that were so, some calculation of cost and benefit might be imaginable: how much is one willing to sacrifice for how great a good. The fact is, however, that Dante arrives at Purgatory having emerged from Hell, having seen with the greatest clarity--a clarity none of us, I take it, possesses--what the alternative to purgation is. That alternative is unbearable. Therefore purgation is necessary: Dante cannot impose conditions or otherwise negotiate; he can only hope that at the end of the purgation of his spirit, his "I myself" will still have some content, and indeed will have its most proper content, whose properness is recognizable not only by God but also by Dante himself. (In memory of my mother, Isabel Geddes O'Grady) What was there that I did not say against myself? With what scourges of self-condemnation did I not lash my soul, so that it would follow me as I strove to follow you? [All of these words are spoken of course to God] Yet it drew back; it refused to go on, and it offered no excuses for itself. All arguments [against being a Christian] were used up, and all had been refuted. There remained only speechless dread and my soul was fearful, as of death itself, of being kept back from that flow of habit by which it was wasting away unto death. In order to understand something of Augustine's paralyzing dread, which only the most definite invitation (as Augustine understood it) from God Himself could overcome, we must understand something of what he means by "the force of habit", which is his remarkable and bold paraphrase of what St. Paul calls "the law of sin". I think he means by habit something very radical, something that is perhaps suggested in some words spoken by the adulteress--heroine in Grahame Greene's novel The End of the Affair. Sarah is resisting the renunciations--above all the renunciatiDn-o~her lover--which she is coming to believe God requires of her in fulfillment of a bargain into which she entered out of desperation and love. She writes in her diary: Nothing to do till seven when Henry Had a couple of drinks by myself. It give up drinking too? If I eliminate I was somebody who loved Maurice (her (her husband) would be back. was a mistake. Have I got to everything , how will I exist? lover) and went with men and Mr. O'Grady was a tutor at St. John's from 1970 until his death last January. 34 III The alternative to purgation (whether in this life or afterwards) is Hell. Allow me to digress briefly upon what I take to be the principle of the choice for Hell. I think that according to Dante's presentation the principle of that choice is, above all, the unwillingness to be moved by another, to have the source of one's motion outside of oneself. That is why the extreme of Hell is sheer frigid immobility: those who were unwilling to be moved by another are ultimately unable themselves to move; at the furthest point from the unmoved mover Who draws all beings to Himself, we encounter the unmoved movers whose only power--an irresistible power, it seems--is to repel. It is important to be aware that the unwillingness to have the source of one's motion outside of oneself can, and often does, assume subtle guises. It is possible to seem to be moved by another, by a being outside of oneself, while in fact using 35 �11 that other as a mere substratum upon which to project one's own fantasies, so that in fact one is being moved by one ' s own fantasies, and the sou rce of one's motion is exclusively and securely within oneself . This appears to be part of t he meaning of the dream of the siren, the ancient witch, which Dante experiences upon the terrace of sloth. IV I said earlier that Dante as a characte r in t he poem p oss es s es perfect clarity concerning the alternative to purgation, and t ha t we do not. But we seem t o have some clarity about that alternative, and in any case neither Dante's submission t o purgation nor our own seems comprehensible as nothing but flight from; there is surely also an element of the motion toward. After all, what overcomes Dante's final dread of the flames through which he must pass is the promise of Beat rice awaiting him on the far side. But the elements of flight from and motion toward seem to me intimately connected, as I shall try to indicate by distinguishing between t wo aspects of purgation of the spirit as presented by Dante. The first has to do with the so-called seven deadly sins. Of three of these--pride, anger and lust--Dante knows himself to be more guilty than he is of the others. These sins, or perhaps roots of sin, are surely serious and dangerous matters; but one can, after all, do something about them. At least within certain limits, willing avails to mortify pride, for example, and to restrain at least the out ward eruptions of anger--one can undertake to practice gentleness of speech. But t o be lost in the dark wood, to come t o oneself again in the dark wood, seems t o involve more than recognition of one's entanglement in particular sinful ways. Dante's own heart is not fully healed until at the top of the mount of purgation, "the ice that was bound about my heart turned to breath and water and with anguish came forth from my breast by mouth and eyes". What had happened to Dante, above and beyond his particular violations of the conduct proper for human beings, is that his heart had grown hard and cold; and he knew that; and he knew that he could not, by howsoever heroic an act of will-power, undo that hardness and coldness. The most he could do--and that was difficult enough--was to sustain his sorrow that it was so, his sadness that his heart was no longer capable, as the heart of the young boy had been capable, of opening in awe and gratitude in the presence of the beauty presented to him in the figure of a little girl, and of resolving to be as good as he could be so as to be worthy, not indeed to possess her, but to be in the world that contained her. Had Dante been unable to sustain his sorrow over the growing coldness of his heart, had he self-distractingly or cynically accommodated himself to it, he would have be en truly dead, and neither the grace of God, nor the graciousness of Mary , Lucy and Beatrice, would have availed him anything. v Let us now finally enter Purgatory with the pilgrim Dante . In the fi r st Canto he is perfectly silent. What does this silence contain? There mus t be in it great re lie f, and wonder, and some bewilderment. Above all, there is the certain knowledge that Hell must be rejected , and hence the way of purgation must be chosen, must be submitted to. What will this submission require? Dante first of all hears the se vere Cato say that although Marcia was, in the old mode, t he surpassing love in his life, in the new mode he is wholly unmoved by he r. Whatev er Cato means by these words, they must be heart -rending for Dante to hear. When Dante does finally speak, in the second Canto, it is to ask Casella, the friend of his young manhood, to sing for him "one of the songs of love which used to 36 quiet all my longings, so as to refresh my soul with them for a while, which is so spent coming here with my body . " But Dante prefaces his request in this way: "If a new law does not take from you the memory and use of these songs." It seems to Dante entirely possible that a new law does forbid lovely and, as it seemed, innocent t hings which once brought him consolation and refreshment --and if it is so, the new law must nevertheless be submitted to. But what then will be left, not merely of consolation and refreshment, but of Dante himself? I think these worries are very much on Dante's mind, as they may be on ours, and they are hardly alleviated by Cato's sharp rebuke, castigating delight in song as blamable negligence . Well, it requires the presentation of Paradise itself before Dante and we can even glimpse the aliveness, the richness and fullness of personality, the being more myself than I have ever been before, enjoyed by the spirits whose purgation has been completed . But there are two moments within Purgatory itself that I should like to indicate briefly as bearing upon our hopes and fears in this matter. The first occurs in the second Canto . As the thousand souls disembark from the angel- piloted ship , they sing, all together with one voice , In exitu Israel de Aegypto, "when Israel went out of Egypt" , a hymn of liberation anddeliverance . And, Dan t e expressly tells us, they sing "all that is written after of that psalm". Let us listen to a few more words from this hymn (Psalm 114) which Dante heard: The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like young sheep -- Why, mountains , do you skip like rams, and you, hills, like young sheep? Dance, 0 earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the r ock into a pool of water, the granite cliff into a fountain. There is in these words heard by Dante the promise that in the delivering, liberating, purging action of God there comes to pass the greatest and most joyous enlivening of all his creatures-- submission, still less renunciation and loss, are very far from being the final moment. VI And yet as we read the end of the Purgatory--t he second moment to which I wished to call attention--we cannot help but feel a heart - rending sense of loss : "But Virgil had left us bereft of him, Virgil sweetest father, Virgil to whom I gave myself for my salvation"; and Dante, in Eden, weeps. I cannot say anything adequate about this moment. But I would like to say some thing about Virgil's words, Vir gil's poetry, of which Dante has not been lef t bereft; and then, very shyly, about Virgil himself . In the thirtieth Canto , in which is told the re-union of Dante and Beatrice and the loss of Virgil , we encountei two lines from the Aeneid, the first spoken as it were by Dante the poet, the second by Dante the pilgrim. The poet in describing the pageant in honor of Beatrice tells us that as she approaches "there rose up a hundred ministers and messengers of eternal life, who all cried, Benedictus qui venis ("blessed are you who come", which must be referred to Beatrice despite the masculine grammar) and, t hrowing flowe r s up and around , Manibus o date lilia plenis ("with full hands give lilies")". The second of these utterances occurs originally in book six of the Aeneid, as Anchises speaks sorrowfully of the early death of the beautiful young man Marcellus, his life cut short before its full flowering, bringing a sorrow which is not overwhelmed by the splendor of Rome's accomplishments. At first glance it appears that by transferring to an occasion of reJ01c1ng words originally belonging to an occasion of mourning, the Christian poet is correct- 37 �ing the pagan poet who knew so well of the tears of things and the affairs of mortals that touch the heart: mourning has been transformed into joy. But upon reflection we find that it is not so simple. For the words "Blessed are you who come", that is, "Blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord" (Ma tthew 21-9) are spoken to Christ on Palm Sunday as he enters Jerusalem acclaimed by a greai crowd. That is, they are spoken at the beginning of the week of the Passion of Christ, the agony that revealed most fully the depth of the tears of things. The Christian poet cannot simply transform or reverse Virgil's words - -mourning into rejoicing; he must first of all deepen them or at the very least--which is not so little--remember them. Now let us turn to the words from the Aeneid which Dante the pilgrim utters at his moment of greatest need, of greatest awe, bewilderment, and overfullness. As he sees Beatrice and once again, for the first time in ten years, feels "ancient love's great power", he can find no words of his very own, no words originating with him. But he needs words, and words are available, from Virgil: "Not a drop of blood is left in me that does not tremble; I know the marks of the ancient flame." "I know the marks of the ancient flame"--the words are Dido's as she comes to realize that the part of her that died with the death of Sychaeus is coming to life again in the presence of Aeneus. That the story which comes out of this experience turns out painfully is immaterial here; what matters is the experience itself, an experience which has befallen men and women in all times and places, and which once upon a time was tenderly and truly understood and put into unforgettably beautiful words. That true and unforgettable words had once been found for such an experience, and that, through the loyalty and devotion of Dante they were not forgotten, had the result that in the most overwhelming moment of his life, Dante did not have to live wholly out of his own resources. It is true of course that the pilgrim Dante must make Virgil's words his own: Virgil's Latin becomes Dante's Italian. Kepler puts it more fully, "formed, contained and terminated" by Christ. Or, as St . Augustine says near the beginning of the Confessions, quoting the 139th Psalm which speaks to God: "If I descend into hell, you are present." VII I cannot close without trying to say something about the loss of Virgil himself at the peak of the mount of purgation, whatever may be the consoling power of the knowledge that we do not lose his words. Of the distressing question of the destiny of the "virtuous pagans" much could be said, and the least that should be said is that their apparent exclusion from the presence of God seems to have been as dis tressing for Dante as for many of us--he returns to it again and again, finally in the heaven of Jupiter, the sphere of justice , where his question about the possible salvation of those who know not Christ receives a negative answer theologically but an affirmative answer empirically: the pagan Ripheus, an obscure figure in the Aeneid who is said in that poem to be the most righteous of the Trojans, is encountered by Dante in Paradise . The only suggestion I have to make about this matter is the following. I think Dante would have been very grateful for, and would have made good use of, a certain speculation of the astronomer Johann Kepler . Traditionally, of course, Christ is thought of as the mediator between man and God , as occupying a sort of in-between position. Kepler suggests an image complementary to this one in his discussion of the regions of the world. There are three of these, he says, corresponding to the three Persons of the Trinity by way of a "divine symbolizing." In the center is the sun, symbolizing the Father. The sphere of the fixed stars symbolizes the second Person, Christ; and the region in between, which of course includes the earth and its denizens, is pervaded by the Holy Spirit. Thus it is we human beings who occupy the in-between position, our lives centered in the Father and contained by Christ; or as 38 39 �A Way to Think about Dark Times William O'Grady transcending his r age and despair . Had Priam come earlier his pe ti tion would have been futile . Bu t if the gods had not , contrary to all rational expectation, pre served the body of Hector while Achilles was enduring and laboring through his rage, if divine grace had not secured harmony between t he requirements of Achilles's inner time and the requirements of the world-time which men share, Achilles would have had nothing t o offer Priam except regret, and the most beautiful moment within the Iliad, from which light streams upon all of the darkness and bitternesses of the poem, would never have occurred. Homer writes: But when they had put aside their desire for eating and drinking, Priam, son of Dardanos, gazed upon Achilleus, wondering at his size and beauty, for he seemed like an outright vision of gods. Achilleus in turn gazed on Dardanian Priam and wondered, as he saw his brave looks and listened to him talking. I have been asked to talk about dark times, about t he darkness of the times in which we live . I shall try to do that, bu t it seems t o me t hat , being who I am, for better and for worse, I can only indirectly carry out what has been asked. A sign of that· indirectness, which I hope will not dismay you, is that I shall present what I have to say in the form of refle ctions on brief passages from four books, t he most recent of which was writte n about seven centuries ago. But I shall try very hard to make myself understand and I hope t ha t some good may come from our being together. From t he Iliad of Home r, composed more t han 2500 years ago, I wish t o talk about what it means for one human being t o offe r another as much time as he needs; from the Confessions of St. Augustine ab ou t what it means to be faithful t o that original care for one's own well-being which seems t o be a part of each of us; fr om Dan te's Purgatory about the sort of weeping that might b e redemptiv e and about how one can keep intact one 's capaci ty f o r that sort of weeping; and finally from the Gospel of St. John about why it might be that if all the deeds done by Christ were t o be written down, the world itself could not contain the books t ha t would b e re quired . I would like to b egin with a moment in the Iliad because that book seems t o me t o be very much about time. In pondering the assignment to speak of living in dark times, I had to ask myself what it would b e like t o live in bright times . And it occurred to me that the difference between dark times and bright times might not be the most important diffe ren ce , just as Achilles , t he beautiful young warrior who is the he r o of Homer's poem, comes to his proper wisdom when the choice which had always seemed so important to him--a long life versus a short life, much time versus little time --comes to be re placed by the difference which depends not upon choice, but rather upon a sor t of g race. I shall try to explain what I mean. Because o f a certain prophecy, Achilles believes he has a choice between a brief life of unforgettable glory or a long, undistinguished--though not unhappy--life. He broods much over t his choice and is greatly confused . Then his dearest friend is slain in war and he is impelled into acti on of a despairing and merciless sort. He slays scores of men and even does battle against a mighty river. He finally slays Hector, the slayer of his friend . In his rage he drags the body of Hector on the ground behind his chariot, around and around the camp , every day for twelve days. But the gods Apollo and Aphrodite protect Hector's body, and the natural outcome does not en sue -- Hec t or 's body is preserved rather than being mu tilated beyond rec ogni ti on. Finally on the twelfth day Priam, who is very old , the father of Hec t o r, c omes t o Achilles t o ask for his son's body so that a proper funeral might be celebrated, with ritua l lamentation and the feasting of a great feast. Achilles and Priam weep together, Achilles now f or his own father, now for his dead friend, Priam for his dead son. Their tears somehow form one stream and are indistinguishable. Achilles, moved by the beauty of Priam, grants his reque s t--h e is willing to restore the body of Hector . And--this is the one act of divine grace which takes place within the Iliad--there is a body t o restore not a formless mutilated obscenity which would break Priam's heart to see, but the body of Hector, young and handsome . Reconciliation takes plac e within the Iliad because Achilles has been given enough time, as much time as he needs . At no earlie r moment would he have been capable of Achilles has been given--graciously, independently of any claims he might have --e nough time, and he knows it. Anyone who has experienced being given enough time-and part of that experience seems to be a powerful sense of how easily things might have gone otherwise, how likely it is for one to be given not quite enough time--the question of much t ime versus little time, of a long life versus a short life, cannot seem very important. Thus Achilles asks Priam how long he will need to mourn and bury his son. Priam says t welve days and explains why . Achilles grants him twelve days - he will hold back the war for that long. Achilles, having himself been given time, gives Priam enough time. This is Achilles ' imitation of t he gods , his truly god-like act within the Iliad. And it seems to me that for us too, it is utterly important to give people as much time as t hey need, t o let them tell us just how much time t hat is, and to understand that clear reasons cannot always be given for needing just that amount of time. But I do not think that many of us - I leave out of account a few great souls among us - are capable of giving another time unless we ourselves have, in one form or another , had the experience of being given, beyond any fair claims we can make, and contrary to all rational expectation, enough time. However dark our times may be, I do not think that such experiences are altogether impossible for us . And when they do befall us, surely gratitude requires that we make available to another, as graciously as may be, what has been made available to us. Let me now turn to the Confessions of St . Augustine, a book written about 1500 years ago. The title Confessions means something different from what we might sup pose . For Augustine , the proper subject of confession is the goodness of God. But God 's goodness is shown not only in the deep-down, always - presen t goodness of His creation, but also in t he mercy He shows to sinful man . Hence to acknowledge and praise God ' s goodness includes acknowledging and praising His mercy, and that re quires that the occasions of that mercy, the sins and sinfulness of our lives, be set forth . That in turn requires a travelling through memory . This is what Augustine does in his Confessions : he presents himself in his neediness in order to present God in His graciousness and to give Him praise for His graciousness. According to Augustine, this praise is not so much our duty as it is our deepest delight, the de ligh t for which we were made . I would like t o consider with you something Augustine says about himself as a young child. He finds something wonderful in that child, something altogether worthy of praise. That something is no achievement of the child, nor any potential for achievement, but rather something wholly God- given : it is, Augustine says, "a care for my own well- being" which shows itself, among other ways, by the fact that " I shunned sadness and dejection." This may seem s trange t o us. We are accustomed to saying and perhaps thinking 40 41 �that it is a matter of course for each of us to care for himself--"to take care of number one," as we sometimes say--the only surprising thing--perhaps even a miracle-being that occasionally we also care for other people. But for Augustine the most difficult thing in the world is to care for our own well-being, or more precisely, to be faithful to that original care for our own well-being with which God endowed us in the beginning, to ~ on caring for our own well-being, to ~ on shunning sadness and dejection. The reason is that we grow weary, feel worn-out, are bewildered and embarrassed as we attempt to sustain the care for our own well-being. We long for rest. Not that Augustine thinks we ought not to long for rest. He says to God: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." But until that most proper rest comes to be, the human task is to be faithful to the original restlessness and to the original care for our own well-being from which it springs. Augustine does not praise himself in the Confessions, one reason being that he knows the great power of what he calls "the passion for self-vindication", that is, not merely pride in the sense of having too high an opinion of ourselves, but rather the awesome passion to vindicate ourselves when accused, whether by others or by ourselves. Augustine does not suppose that this passion within him needs any help from him. But if he were to praise himself, to find something praiseworthy in his life-achieved with the help of God of course but still achieved by Augustine--it would be for being faithful through many years to his own restlessness, for sustaining, in the face of so many temptations to come to some false settlement, to some false peace, that restlessness which so wearied him. From the point of view of Confessions, written when he was about forty-five, he writes of himself in his thirty-first year, fully the thirteenth year of his most earnest searchings for a truth in which his heart and mind could find genuine rest-that is, the 13th year of what we so easily refer to as an "adolescent religious crisis." He writes of how weary he was, and how embarrassed--how embarrassed, since he had been making such a fuss about his own well-being for so long a time, instead of getting on with the practical business of life (he was, after all, a Roman). But he held out in his weariness and his embarrassment until, as he recounts it, he received a true invitation from the true God. And then he said yes. Now let me turn to a passage in the Divine Comedy. There is a certain story told to Dante by a soul in Purgatory which I would like to tell you. But first I must say a few words about how Dante thinks of Purgatory. The souls in Purgatory-every one of them--will one day be in Heaven with God and each will be f illed--in the measure possible for each without his ceasing to be himself--with light and joy. But first--and this is what Purgatory is for, according to Dante--a kind of patience is necessary, and a coming to understand the ways in which our lives have been perverse, and an attempt--for once, happily, an attempt which is bound to succeed--to straighten out what has been crooked in them, not because otherwise God could not stand the sight of us, but because otherwise we would be simply ashamed and bewildered and miserable in the presence of God. The straightening out of what has been crooked in our lives--in us--is painful, but it is pain which the souls in Purgatory do not wish to avoid. Now let me recount to you the story which one of the souls in Purgatory tells Dante. His whole life, he says, or almost his whole life, had been full of violence and hatred, of hating and being hated . He met his death hunted down by his enemies, who wounded him and drove him into a swamp, where as he lay dying he saw pools of his blood form alongside him in the stinking water. He was alone and there was no one, even far away, who loved him. The moment before his death he shed a tear: " I ended on the name of Mary and there fell and only my flesh remained" (Purgatory V. 101-2). The devils came to take him away to Hell. But angels came who would not permit them. The devils were furious at the unfairness of it: "On account of one little tear (una lacrimetta in Dante's Italian) we are deprived of what is rightfully ours," they shriek, "What is one little tear against a whole life-time of violence and hatred?" But the angels are firm, and the soul goes to Purgatory, to prepare itself for the presence of God. I want to reflect with you upon that one little tear, so strangely powerful. First, I think it must be not merely a tear of self-pity, of feeling sorry for oneself--! think some wider sorrow must be in it, some sorrow for having offended God or having offended against the beauty of His creation or some sadness at having betrayed things one shouldn't have betrayed. But I am not so sure that there may be nothing of self-pity in it. It would be strange, after all, and perhaps perversely prideful, to see and sorrow over the deep sadness of the world--the "tears of things", as Virgil says--and to exempt oneself, to stand above that sorrowful world and look down upon it. No, I do not think that self-pity--of which we so often speak harshly-must be excluded from that tear, although of course much more must also be included. Second, we must be aware that to shed such a tear, to shed the right kind of tear, is not an act of will. We cannot heroically, at that final moment, make ourselves do it through strenuous exertion. Such a tear comes forth or it does not. It comes forth from a heart in which there is still some goodness. Here, I think, is where the will comes in, where trying hard and struggling come in. Not indeed the kind of struggle to be as good as good can be, the struggle to be very good. Rather I am thinking of human beings in· whose lives it is much too late in the day to make of their lives a beautiful thing which might gladden those who behold them, but for whom the question is: after so many betrayals of the things I ought least to have betrayed, after so many acts of violence against what I ought most to have cherished, what difference could one more betrayal, one more act of violence, possibly make? What difference could there possibly be between a thousand betrayals and a thousand and one? Perhaps I could resist this present temptation to betrayal--it would be painful, but perhaps I could do it--but what's the use? What difference could it possibly make? And surely tomorrow I shall be guilty of some new betrayal. What Dante means to say, I think, is that it does make a difference: that one moment of fidelity in the midst of a thousand betrayals does not indeed make a life into a beautiful thing in which men and angels may rejoice, but i t may be enough to keep somehow intact a heart capable of shedding the right kind of tear when it matters most. Let me conclude by saying a few words about the final sentence of the Gospel of St. John. That sentence says: "But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." This makes sense, I think, only if we suppose that John does not have in mind only the deeds of Jesus during his thirty-three years in Palestine, where of course he encountered only a not very great number of souls. Rather, John must mean that every soul that has ever been in the world or ever will be encounters Jesus in one guise or another, knows him by one name or another, responds, however obscur~ly, to his invitation. And I think it is not blasphemous to speak of these deeds of Jesus as being not only for our rescue--although surely it is right for us to think of them in this way most of the time--but also for this own fullness and therewith for the fullness of the creation. For we must take seriously his being a person. And of myself as a person I know that there are some things in me which are brought out -- and in some mysterious way even called into being--only by a certain friend, other things brought out only by another friend. The loss of a friend is the loss of a part of me. As Jesus issues his invitation in as many ways as there are souls in the world, the creation comes fully into its own. These words may sound to you outrageously serene coming from one who was asked to speak about the darkness of our dark times. Surely an urgent and bewildered sense of our need for rescue, and painful doubts about the very possibility of rescue, its 42 43 �availability in any comprehensible way, are among the deepest parts of our experience here and now . But I wonder whether there are not moments in the experience of each of us in which we can somehow sense the truth of these words spoken by Wisdom, that is, somehow , by Christ: "I am from eternity, and before the earth was made I was with Hi m forming all t hings , and was delighted every day, playing at His feet at all times; playing in t he world. And my delights were to be with the children of men." How such moments--moments in which the world seems a deeply innocent place--are to be put t ogether with the dark moments is very hard to say--it is surely beyond my powe r t o say--but not t o give voice t o them at all seems to be a lie. #3 I lay on my back in a field Beneath the moon I close my eyes, open them And the moon is no longer above but before , Earth no longer beneath but behind , Like a wall where prisoners are sent to die. #8 Now you've left, My bed is flat Hot I'm falling asleep A drop of spit on a just-hot griddle Skittering, Diminishing. Stuart Sobczynski 44 45 �]I Final Cause and the Problem of Existence Jim Guszca Though separated by nearly 2000 years, Aristotle and Erwin Straus asked some of the same questions about the causes of human existence in their re spective works, Parts of Animals and "The Upright Posture" . Both philosophers questioned the validi ty of ~ientific theories that only gave "material" causes for "the products of nature." Both believed that a Final Cause must be given to explain why animals, particularly the human, exist as they do. Aristotle was refuting one of the physiologers when he said that "it must be explained how it comes to pass that each of these [non-uniform parts] is charac terized as it is and by what force this is effected" (640b - 20). In other words, it is not enough to say that the stomach, for example, is formed by water flowing through the body; a re ason mus t be given for the specific form of t he stomach, a complicated non- uniform part of the body . To do t hi s, one must consider the precise purpose for which the stomach exists. This purpose is observed as the function t he stomach performs in its environment. Straus had a similar argument against t he paleontologists. He said, in effect, that it is not enough to say that man developed from the primates through an evolutionary process. "Paleontology t ells us wha t man o r what his ancestors once were, but not what man actually is ..• it has little to say about how the change to modern man came about and what its final result was" (pg . 140). In other words the prehis toric forms of our ancestors do not explain how or why humans exist as t hey do in the present. Both philosophers advocated similar scientific methods: t hat we accept as given whatever is and go on to state its cause . Mere observation isn't enough. The reason why something came to be as it is is necessary in order to understand its place in the world. Aristotle gave t he example of the house. The house is formed by a certain process . Each step of the process, however, is determined by the house's Final Cause. That is, we first consider the function, and therefore the nature, of the house in relation to its environment and then go on the build it in such a way that it will se r ve its function. So the process of formation itself isn't the cause of the final form of the house, or similarly the animal, since the process is ultimately dependent on the house's (animal 's ) function in its environment. In describing the automobile, Straus gave a similar example. One cannot "explain its present form and shape by mere reference to its forerunner" for "it is the automobile's own function and dynamic structure that determines its shape". The development of the automobile didn't occur spontaneously . Certain problems with its functioning lead us t o draw up new plans for design. Let us note that both men dealt with the hand as an "organ" because they both considered its Final Cause . The important fact about the hand is not that it is made up of certain uniform parts in a certain way. The hand exists as a part of us and has a special function. That function explains why the human body has the hand that it has. It also explains why it is an organ, as oppos ed to the finger, whose func tioning is incomplete out of the context of the whole hand. What each of the philosophers gave as their Final Causes differed, however. To illustrate this difference, we will consider the authors' respective treatments of the human hand. 46 Both authors allowed that the upright posture is a necessary prerequisite for the human hand (Aristotle, 687a 10; Straus, pg. 149) . Aristotle, however, went on to say that the human being "has his hands because he is the most intelligent animal" . That is, he has his hands because of the nature of his soul; his soul is not determined by the nature of his hands. In On the Soul, Aristotle called the soul the Final Cause of the living body: "Just as the mind acts with some purpose in view , so too does nature, and this purpose is its end. In living creatures, the soul supplies such a purpose ('function') , and this is in accordance with nature, for all natural bodies are instruments of the soul" (415b 15) . Aristotle also compared the living being to a wax figure. The body is the "wax" in the raw state, and the soul is t he "impression" made on the wax to give it shape. The impression is what must contain the Final Cause of the figure if its final form is to agree with its func tion. Neithe r can exist without the othe r, but it is clear that the wax (body) exists for, and is moulded to conform to the needs of the impression (the soul). Thus , the soul is the Final Cause of the body . It determines the form and the function of each of the parts of the body. Straus wasn't quite so definite in giving the Final Cause of the body o r of its parts. Like Aristotle (687al0) , Straus said that "In upright posture, the frontal extremities are no longer asked to suppor t and carry the body ... they are free for new tasks" (pg . 149) . So the anterior limb of the primates develops into the human arm , and t he hand develops into an "organ of gnostic toughing". Note the implication that the hand is formed the way it is to perform certain functions : "The hand is a tool in re lation to the living, experiencing being" . For t he development of the hand, "upright posture is not only the gene tic condition, but also continues to domi nate the function of the hand" (my underline) . In this last quote, uprigh t posture seems to be to Straus the same type of Final Cause as the soul is to Aristotle . But although Straus listed a number of body parts denoting intelligence: "While upright posture permits the formation of the human skull, and, thereby, of the human brain , the maintenance of upright posture demands the development of the human nervous system", he was unclear about the role that human intelligence plays in causality: "Who can say what comes first and what comes last --what is the cause and what is the effect (pg . 164)". So could we say that the Final Cause of the human form is an evolutionary inter action between the sensory organs and the central nervous system? "The sensory o rgans cannot change without a corresponding change in the central nervous system. No part could be altered alone. With upright posture, there is a transformation of sensorium and motorium , of periphery and center, of form and function." The implica tion is that the development of one, either mind or body , creates a function that the other must develop in such a way as to serve . So we could say that Aristotle and Straus disagreed as to whether the body adapts for the soul or whether the "soul", or mind, adapts along with the body . But I don't want to end with this comparison, either. Using this evolutionary interaction to explain our present state of existence seems like the physiologers' use of purely material causes to explain the stomach. Why does this development take place and why does this development produce the changes it does? Bo t h bel ieved that body and soul are interdependent. But where Aristotle be lieved that the body exists for the sake of the soul, Straus believed that the two cannot be separated in this way. He did say that all of the evolutionary "alterations (in nervous and sensory parts) are related to upright posture as their ba sic theme". Thus the upright posture is the Final Cause of the human mind/body complex . Going back to t he house analogy, upright posture is the basic structure, while evolution works out the details as development proceeds. There are, then, two levels of final cause here. The reason Erwin Straus, a phenomenologist, wrote about the upright posture is 47 �that it has had an important role in determining our present form and therefore our present existence. But specific causes are needed to explain specific evolutionary changes. These come from problems with our being -in-the-worl d on a biological level . The existence of the creatures we once were was threatened by various cases of incompatability with their environment. As nature's trial-and-error process of development stepped in to change our form, the factors of upright posture and intelligence began to have more major parts to play in the development. Presently , they play the most important parts in the makeup of our being -in-the-world. Aristotle, it seems, would agree with Straus . Like Straus, he knew that a reason must be given for everything that happens in nature. Not being an evolutionist, he personified Nature and give her the ability to make rational, and very economical, decisions that directly determine the order of things. Straus believed that nature makes her decisions by the trial- and - error process of evolution . Both men made it a point to explore human existence through biology. They did this by trying to determine the way in which man arose out of nature, that is, what his final cause is. As one man put it, this isn't the type of science you smash atoms with, but it does deal effectively with the key problem of our existence: how we live our lives. 48 Antigone Hugh Brantner At the time of the first paper on Antigone it seemed to me that the character of Antigone was unambiguous; so much so that she was difficult to write about. Indeed, it seemed she was so intent upon her actions and so unremitting of them that she was a long distance from audience sympathy. "Her unwavering intent upon her goals dis tances us from her such that our ability to live with her through her role is diminished." Perhaps it was a reluctance on my part to see Antigone's faith in her own actions as anything but the negative sense of the the Greek word - an untold presumption or arrogance. Perhaps it was also because Sophocles presented her character to us in such a way that access to her heart is not allowed until late in the play, and then not simply by watching her. There is little doubt that Antigone's intentions in the play are of a righteous nature. Long before they are uncovered by the plot, the audience knows her actions to be well done. Yet from the first lines of the play it is much easier to be sympathetic with Ismene's fears for her sister and her subsequent unwillingness to cross the state decree. Perhaps this is the result of an inability to see the human usefulness of such an action, which makes it difficult for us to find the reserve of strength necessary to fly into the face of death. Of course we don't want Antigone to die; we have the belief that she is right. Yet we are not one with her. Indeed, what she does seems beautiful, but its apparent cost causes us to shrink into ourselves, away from her. Antigone, though, is not all strength and purpose. She is human. As a human she too must recognize death and know its meaning. It is in acknowledging this that Antigone seems to become accessible to the audience. It is through her last lines in the play that we can come to affirm her judgement and perhaps come to love her. It is here that the superhuman effort needed to overcome the all too human fears falls away leaving an heroic but very human being. To accept this interpretation of Antigone's character is to step into some apparent controversy over a series of lines in the play. Sir Richard Jebb along with some other translators find these lines, vv 904 - 920, to be spurious. Perhaps these lines are not authentic as Jebb argues. If this is the case it would seem that the audience is robbed by the playwright of a view into another mortal's soul-- the soul of the namesake of the play. If o?e reads this play without these lines he is denied the realization that the actions of the play are all human actions. Instead the veil that surrounds the driven Antigone remains drawn. Creon dashes his ship upon her, an unmoving, unyielding rock. If, however, the lines stand, then Antigone is not the foil of Creon. Certainly they cross one · another, but i t is in going to different destinations. It is as if Creon has set his sights upon the monsters lurking at the edge of the sea thinking them to be beauties. He sails by his own navigation over the edge. Antigone runs afoul of Creon enroute to her own destination. She is purposeful, like a river flowing where it must until the very end. Jebb's arguments against these lines are fairly concise. It seems that he objects to them primarily on grounds of logic and grammar. He states three objections to these lines. The first objection is: "The general validity of the divine law, as asserted tn vv. 450-460, cannot be intelligibly reconciled with the limitation in vv. 90 5-9 0 7." 49 �In lines 450-460 Antigone asserts in her confession of the rites of burial for Polyneices that the immortality of the gods is to be respected above all. A law of the gods must be obeyed prior to any law of man who is mortal. It is not possible for any of man's laws to "over-run" one of the gods'. Since the rites of death have long been held as an act of piety towards the gods, Creon's order to withhold burial rites cannot be obeyed. She acknowledges that death is necessary, for she must cross a man's law. She obviously does not perceive any hope of Creon rescinding his edict. But what kind of ill could death at the hands of man be when held in relation to the ill of being impious to the immortal gods? These lines do seem clear in affirming a belief in that law. Jebb apparently feels that lines 905-907 contradict the priorities Antigone states in lines 450-460. After having uttered these lines, why would Antigone say that the actions would not have been done had she been a mother or wife with a child or husband mouldering away? He seems to feel that if one is ready and willing to die to honor divine law above mortal law, then it would make no difference what the mortal-world conditions were. The divine law must take precedence. Therefore, it is illogical to babble in the later lines about a child and husband. Jebb's second objection is an extension of the first: "A still further limita:.... tion is involved in 911 ff. She has buried her brother, not simply as such, but because, while he lived, he was an irreplaceable relative. Could she have hoped for 1 the birth of another brother, she would not then, have felt the duty so binding . " Jebb seems to feel that this statement by Antigone further eclipses her from lines 450-460. Again it is illogical that any mortal condition, even human love, should stand in the way of the priority of divine law. How could the loss of a "replaceable" brother possibly alter the law? It would still stand, and the lack of burial rites would of course be impious. The third objection Jebb cites is simply that: "The composition of vv. 909 1 912 is unworthy of Sophocles." Further down in his line-notes, Jebb elaborates with three points. The first is about a word which is not believed to have been in Attic use at the time of Sophocles. The second is about the jumbled hypotheses in the lines. The arguments are not kept grammatically clear and distinct, but instead fall over one another. His third is again a point over awkward grammar. An overview of Jebb' s statements seems only to turn up the two categories of objection: logic and grammar. These seem odd grounds in some ways upon which to base a decision about the authenticity of these lines . Antigone is about to die . Would anyone ask of a person facing death by any form of execution that he be consistently logical and grammatically correct? Perhaps. If the person was of high moral character, strong, confident in the righteousness of his actions , then one might come to expect coherency from him even in the worst of conditions. Antigone is all of these, but it seems that Sophocles shows us more of her character than just this side. What Sophocles shows us is important in order to fully understand Antigone as a human character, to sympathize with, and possibly to love her. Sir Richard Jebb was a Greek scholar impossibly far beyond my own abilities as a student of the Greek language. If he says that a point of grammar is so or that usage in a particular fashion is unusual, I must believe him. However, I see no reason to hold fast to his conclusion that lines 905-912 are not Sophocles'; and that lines 904 and 913-920 must fall also because of unity within lines 905-912. Jebb may be right and the play should be read without these lines. If so, then an image of a strong character until the end prevails. Sure in the righteousness of her actions, Antigone sails straight to her destination, slipping off the edge of the mythical sea, but into immortal fame. If, however, one grants that the lines were penned by Sophocles, then the picture, it seems, is different. The rough grammar and the twisted logic portray another depth of character. The superhuman effort breaks up, dashed upon the reality of Antigone being human. Then these lines would be a mark of 50 a skilled playwright rather than the crude insertions of a lesser mind. . One ,Problem for ~hose wh? call these lines spurious is their appearance in Aristotle s, The Art of Rhetoric. Jebb answers this by saying that the lines mu t ha:e been inte.rpolated shortly after the poet's death, perhaps by the poet's so:. This chronological approach is far less interesting than the points Aristotle mak · · es in t h e section i n wh" ich he quotes Sophocles. . I~ t~e Nic~omachean Ethics Aristotle writes that it is by a man's actions along with his intentions that man should be judged. Outlining the nature of Tragedy, he writes in the Poetics that action must occur within the narration for there to be a good story. Action takes precedence over character; then character fleshes out that action for the listeners. In the Rhetoric he draws a distinction for how an audience will perceive an action, given the type of motivation for that action. Do not let your words seem inspired so much by intelligence, in the manner now current, as by moral purpose: e.g. 'I willed this; aye, it was my moral purpose; true, I gained nothing by it, still it is better thus.' For the other way shows good sense, but this shows good character; good sense making us go after what is useful, and good character after what is noble.2 Aristotle has drawn a dichotomy in the reasons for which a person may be perceived to accomplish an act. On the one hand, he could be doing something because it is useful. This usefulness could admit of several species, such as prof it, need, desire, etc. On the other hand, he could be doing something out of "moral purpose". Motives springing from usefulness are perceived as less honorable than those of moral purpose. The primary difference seems to come with the lack of visible gain in the latter. One does something out of moral purpose with no end in mind, perhaps even at a great cost to himself. The point that Aristotle is taking up is that it is desirable to show character in a play. Moral interest and moral purpose show character in a way that purely sensible actions springing from reason cannot. When we see a character on the stage move through actions motivated by reason alone we judge him by that reason. Our sympathies and energies focus on the action in terms of the steps leading to the end. Perhaps the end is not clear to an audience right away, but his actions nonetheless move in quantifiable, logical steps. He is acting upon a common ground we all can trea~ and so can look backwards and forwards, coming to know what he has done, what he might do, and why. Of course reason is not always consistent between men. When a character makes an unexpected move we search for the reason in the new action that might indicate the new end sought. We see action that might indicate the new end sought. We see action in terms of a motivation towards that end. However, if a character is ac~ing from moral purpose, the linear quality of reason breaks up. It is no longer clearly motivation with an end in mind + action toward that end + end. Instead the action and the end can become one. No longer is there a more-or-less objective grid available to trace an action upon. The act must be perceived in a more subjective manner. This places two individuals in a realm where emotional responses must be elicited. The first person is of course the character who will display qualities of some emotional and moral depth. The second is the individual member of the audience who will see this side of the character and must respond in kind. He will not be able to appeal to some more neutral contrivance as a reason to judge the character's actions and intentions. Instead he must respond emotionally from inside of himself. The more morally deep the action, the more depth the audience member must plumb in himself if he is to understand what is going on before his senses. It is this type of character who can move an audience and give meaning to a play. 51 �l T I will lie together with him, a beloved together with a beloved A playwright must have some moral purpose motivating a character received with some emotional attachment by t he audience , and that character must display the pur pose through his action, his wor ds , or through other charac te rs a r ound him. In some way or another the intention behind the actions must be made manifest for the audi ence. Aristotle continues beyond these points i n the Rheto r ic to the actual quote of Sophocles . He cites lines 911 and 912 as an example t hat gives cause to Antigone's behavior : It is, however, the pie t y of lines 74-77, and 89: having dared a righteous crime; since the time is greater for those below , who it is necessary for me to please, than for those here. There I will lie forever . But it may seem right to you to hold in dishonor the things the gods hold in honor. Where any detail may appear incredible, t hen add the cause of it; of this Sophocles provides an example in the Antigone, where Antigone says she had cared more for her brother than for husband or children, since if the latter perished they might be replaced, 'But since my father and mother in their graves Lie dead, no brother can be born to me. ,3 But I know that I am making good to whom it is necessary to most have pleased. which gets carried forward from this scene and reaches its climax in lines 450- 460 . Somehow Antigone's love drops beneath the surface of the play . Ismene's expression of love in line 99 seems to heighten the obscurity of Antigone's feelings: This cause is an irreplaceable love . This, however , does not seem to convey the whole picture to me . These l i n e s are important for showing Antigone's cha r ac t er and purpose . It does not seem , however , t hat Antigone feels love for Polyneices because he is irreplaceable . Neithe r does it s e em tha t she would ac t any di f fer ently i f t he dead was a r eplaceable loved one. Ar i stotle se ems r igh t i n hi s unde rstanding t he underlying cause for Antigone' s action as love . Yet he wants to put a qualifier on the depth of the love which seems to delimit some of the character t hat may have been put into the play by Sophocles . If Antigone is not elucidating a reason for her actions, and not contradicting herself, then what do t hese lines say? Simply that Antigone is shuddering under t he mantle of her own actions . It i s not a shuddering of r e gret , but rather a giving ouz of the extreme reserve of st r ength necess~ r y to "go to t he fullest verge of daring", t o find "the high foundation of jus t ice" . She is now alone . The act has be en done , the confrontation is past. Her momentum is all but spent. She seems like a rough stone ball which rolls when i t has force and momentum, but which to t ters, wobbles , and shudders in its motion as t hat force is spent . Her speech of lines 891 - 928 is not spoken to Cr eon or the chorus . It is spoken to the dead, and as an inwa r d reflection t hrown outwar d. The wo r ds she speaks seem to be ones of some doubt . They seem to be casting about for a reason . Yet the anguish which r ises up thr ough the lines indicates that there is no doubt. Antigone has not changed. Her self is no longer full of her singular will. Instead she is giving herself over to emotions which have only been undercurrents through the earlier portion of the play . Antigone's action of performing burial rites for Polyneices is of course the center of the play. When she talks early in the play, the reasons she gives for her action are those of piety . Yet they are not purely of piety. In lines 27 - 29 she speaks of the burial rites not in terms of piety, but rather in reference to mortals: they say he has proclaimed to the whole town that none may bury him and none bewail, but leave him unwept, untombed .. . 'Go , if i t seems so to you ; but know this, that foolish you go, but by those who love you, rightly loved . ' Ismene, while running short of the strength necessary to act as Antigone asks, none theless has the ability to r each beyond those limit s with an expression of love . Ant igone's interest in piety is a real one . It is neither a cover for her actions, nor the prime motivation for them . If her actions were guided purely by an interest in piety, then the lines Jebb questions would indeed sound out of place. She would be denying herself the very r eason for her action . In this light Jebb's arguments would be a little bit more persuasive . As it turns out, Antigone's lines of 909- 920 do sound odd. Falling on our ears as they do, they seem in contrast to the hardened Antigone who leaves Ismene in the first scene, and who corrosively responds to Creon's vehemence against her. They do not make sense with the other things we have heard from Antigone. Because they seem in contrast, they do not pass by smoothly. Instead they stick and jam and must be internalized . Their meanings do not indicate why they are spoken. Only in their disorder do they convey their meaning. The unities we expect of logic and grammar become broken. Mortal conventions fall before an immortal passion of the soul. The Antigone who leaves Ismen e in the opening scene is har dened, anneal e d f or what she wills. The task she asks Ismene to share must now be done alone. Arguing piety, she leaves for her task with Ismene' s words of love falling like petals on frozen ground. When we see her next she must confront the attacks of Creon. Defiant and firm she remains hardened. She cites the divine law as her defense. She answers law with higher law as they exchange barbed statements over the justice of the situation . Finally in lines 522 - 523 t hey come to the issue at hand: 5 Creon : Antigone: She seems to see the burial rites in terms of the human needs to which they attend. Here she is not thinking of piety as much as expressions of love for one who has died. Lines 48 and 73 reflect not primarily pious thoughts, but ones of love: Never the enemy, even in death, a friend. I cannot share in hatred but in love. 6 Antigone's response falls upon our ears in an odd way much like line 909-920, though this line (523) is prior . Antigone uses the verb ¢uw , which here means that But there is not for him a right to shut me out from those of mine. 53 52 I_ �T it is by nature that she is disposed not to join Creon in hating Polyneices, but rather love him. It is a strange statement falling after the rapid-fire, heated words over justice. It is hard to reconcile this vision she has of herself with her character on stage. She has been scathing in her treatment of Ismene and of course Creon. The words seem somehow misplaced. However, there is not time to reflect on them as the force of Creon's reply, along with the momentum of the preceding lines, carry us quickly beyond them. His reply itself in lines 524-525 only helps bury her words, for he cannot connect with her sense of love: And now he leads me, taking me by force unbedding, without a wedding song, obtaining not a share of a wedding feast nor in the nurture of a child, 7 but an ill-fated one, alone from friends. The lines preceding line 905 from line 897 also speak of her idea of love in ref erence to the burial rites she has attended for her father, mother and brother, Eteocles. Couched between her expressions of love for others in the past, and those · once hoped for in the future, these lines lead us to see that her actions sprang not from a need to be right, to honor the gods, but rather to express her love for her brother. Thus we are led deeper into the soul of Antigone and for a moment can be sure of her actions and humanity. Indeed what we once shrank from may seems less fearful for a moment. In finding her motivation we have to open ourselves up to the love we have known. And for that moment our hearts are open in an attempt to understand, death seems to be remote while it is Antigone who is near. Sir Richard Jebb has his reasons for eliminating these lines which seem to open Antigone up. Somehow though, I find his Antigone colder and more removed. I have come to like the closeness that this perhaps less scholarly interpretation allows of her character. There is meaning and depth in her which are born of love. Yet when all is said and done, I think that it is the sense of promise that I most respond to; the promise that the love I experience in this human existence can be powerful enough to extend me beyond the self which delimits my existence in terms of fear and death. This is a promise one cannot be reminded of too often. 1 - Jebb, Sir Richard, The Antigone of Sophocles abr. version, E.S. Shuckburgh, editor; Cambridge Univ . Press . 2 Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, W. Rhys Roberts, trans., III, 16, lines 24 - 27. 3 - Ibid, III, 16, lines 28 - 33. 4 - Antigone, Elizabeth Wyckoff, trans, lines 852 - 853. 5 - Ibid, lines 27 - 29. 6 - Ibid, lines 522 - 523. 7 - Ibid, lines 524 - 525. 55 54 �56 57 �r Sonnet for a Slavic Miner A.J. Krivak The Dead Renee Bergland Let us roll all our strength, and all our sweetness, up into one ball: and tear our pleasures with rough strife, through the Iron gates of life. Thus though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run. In this town, along this river, down these shafts Darkness reigns under the earth. In America, a still struggling re-birth Carries you along, men in and endless rafts Of coal out in a stream of blood-smeared dust . From Prague peasants rode the civilian trains To steamships waiting in Hamburg . The rains Come for days to thaw, the leeching cars leave rust On your hard blue hands; the tortuous sound Of ceiling drops, muffled ground-thunder below . Memories of the old kawntree fade, Your children soon are breaker boys who pound Piles of stone with hammers for pay. Shenandoah fires burn, your Anna collapses in tears she made. 58 -Andrew Marvel "To His Coy Mist,ress" Gabriel Conroy is falling asleep. His wife is beside him, dreaming dreams which have no room for him. He muses, "Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age". Then he falls asleep peacefully. His soul swoons slowly into sleep, and the snow falls faintly upon the living and the dead . We close the book peacefully and fall asleep ourselves, lulled and comforted by the warmth of human hospitality and kind humor which Gabriel has told us about. We are certain somehow that Michael Furey, beautiful, passionate, blazing boy that he was, was somehow wrong. We do have world enough and time. Eternity is not a pressure, but a peaceful promise. Gabriel brings us glad tidings. Tidings of peace on earth in a joyous, but somehow wistful manner ... Something in the struggle and the blaze is attractive to the human soul. Tragedy is romantic, powerful, and moving in a way which no happy ending can ever be. It is strange that his glad tidings are not more powerful, nor any more compelling. And at the same time it is utterly appropriate. One could not paint peace in violent, vivid color. His message has, as he himself does, a melancholy, almost awkward, glory. What is this peace? The biggest, best part of it is the fact that the war with time is over. The sun need not stand still, nor fly from us. For somehow, as the snow falls, blanketing absolutely everything, truce is declared. Yes, yes, that would happen very soon, Gabriel muses on Julia's death, knowing that he does not need to fear her death, or even his own. We are all, living and dead, in this thing together . Death is all that has ever given time any sting at all. But strangely, the victory over time strikes me as a bigger one than the one over death. Time's shrinking gives Michael and Gabriel the chance to love Gretta completely or shall I say, to make Gretta completely loved , each loving as much and as well as he can. Were Gretta loved by one man or the other, she would be a sad, grey woman. She is not. Two loves in two different time schemes have made her warm, rich and beautiful; and each love has done the same for each man as well. When Gabriel accepts Michael's love, he joins Michael in a new, strange world where the living and the dead are equally present, equally important. That world, however, has been building the whole time. Part of the reason a timeless, deathless, lifeless, snowy world seems so natural is that we have spent most of the story at a holiday ball; it holds every one of its past manifestations in it, as only an annual party held where it has been held for a good thirty years can hold its past. What is 59 �it about that party which makes it see so frighteningly real? Reading the story now halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the parties I have been attending since I was born, I feel self-conscious. That's it. That's a holiday ball. Right down to Freddy Malins and his poor mother, everything is captured. Everything can be captured because there is a universal element to a party like Julia and Kate's. Year after year they remain the same; and year after year t hey go off splendidly, in spite of Freddy and Mr. Browne. Every year the old ones get a little frailer, and every few years one of them dies. The party never changes . This party, t his truly changeless, unremarkable occasion is our entrance into timelessness. Having entered, we find eternal love, and we find it twice: Living and dead. The two loves do not oppose each other. Both are warm and fiery. One is a pale and tender flame which never wavers, and the other is a blast of heat and fury, quickly doused in rain. But as Michael Furey dies for Gretta, he gives her all his warmth in one mightly explosion. He leaves her warm, but ready to receive more warmth, quieter and steadier. Gabriel gives her this with all his heart and with all his tender, deep passion, dissolved across years, books and children, but never stilled, never doused. His love grows when he learns that it has been completed by a strange young boy from Galway long ago. It grows more quiet , but it also grows stronger. Finally Gabriel sees that there is nothing to fight and no need t o deny. He can go west. He is not excluded and he does not lack the wild watery romance which is Ireland. Rather, he shares in it through his wife, who has been filled with it by another, different lover. And at the same time, as he watches the quiet snow which binds him to the wildness with peace, he holds his wife close to himself, and he rests deeply and warmly with her. He guards Gretta, he keeps her feet dry. She lets him watch her, hair dry, bronze, and clean . They are dry and warm and safe. Michael Furey is wet and cold and dead. Both, or shall I say all three, are quiet, peaceful, snowy. Times' winged chariot may hurry as close as it likes. It is empty. It has been emptied by a new, compound, eternal love, shouted forth by two men: one tearing through the iron gates of life toward death; and the other , quietly, with world enough and time, letting his vegetable love grow vaster than empires and more slow. The Flesh Made Word: Some Thoughts on Gogol's Story "The Overcoat" Christopher K. Watson If modern philosophy can be said to begin with Descartes' methodological skepticism, his making ontology essentially problematic, a whole tradition of the novel, as the paradigmatically modern narrative genre, is informed by the same critical-philosophical awareness, beginning almost a half-century before Descartes with Cervantes . Ontological critique in the novel, moreover, is carried on typically not as discursive exposition but as a critical exploration through the technical manipulation of the very form that purports to represent reality. This observation by Robert Alter in his book Partial Magic is extremely helpful in a consideration of Gogol's "The Overcoat", for in such an endeavor one must necessarily begin with the problem of perspective. However, the story does not willingly lend itself to the normal avenues of approach. In fact, the most revealing characteristic of the story seems to be its virtual absence of perspective . We are not presented with a concrete structure but with an elusive and constantly changing entity. This applies equally to the parts as to the whole. For this reason "The Overcoat" tends to escape the greedy and prosaic clutches of analytical interpretation . Not because its words and sentences will not retain meaning, but because its protean prowess is so great as to enable it to take on all possible meanings. This process extends itself in such a way that a complete reversal of meanings, hierarchies , and even characters can be seen to occur throughout the course of the story . Hence, ongoing metamorphosis being the predominant aspect of this text, one begins to question the place in which a reader might figure in this self - contained and (as will be shown) self -consuming Gogolian universe. In the department ... Starting with the first paragraph, we are immediately exposed to Gogol's elliptical style . The normality of the first three words is fleeting and they quickly become enshrouded in an elaborate digression. Thus the formal beginning is yanked out from under the reader, exposing him to the acutely self-conscious considerations of the author. Gogol forces the reader to realize just how impossible it is to designate relevancy or give meaning to anything without dangerously enormous and escalating effects. He even repeats this process in the digression when he claims that he can't recall the town of the police commissioner even though the incident occurred "not so very long ago". The careful reader finally has to commiserate and even take on a certain amount of the anxiety that has infected the narrator. The whole process ultimately endows the undefined department with immense significance. As if by magic, a concerted attempt to make something insignificant and undefined has mysterious ly given it the utmost significance. But what is significance? "A certain department" could mean anything, and in its infinite possibilities lies both its significance and absence. 60 61 �Absence most certainly plays a central role in the dynamics of the story. The most perplexing absence is that of the narrator. As the classical pillar of perspective, the narrator's frequent disclaimers, his states of amnesia, and his lack of control over the course of events and descriptions of characters (as if they were queuing up behind his pen and pushing it across the page) continually def late his worth as an interpretive gauge. His self-professed lack of memory progresses to such an extent that towards the end of the story he says: ••. everything in St. Petersburg, all the streets and houses, has become so blurred and mixed up in our head that we find it very dif f icult indeed to sort it out properly. An amusing example of Gogol's craftiness in this respect is the derivation of Akaky's name, undoubtedly from the Greek 6.Ka.Kos: "innocuous" or "guileless", of which the narrator innocently states: His name and patronymic were Akaky Akakyevich. The reader may think it a bit odd, not to say somewhat recherche, but we can assure him that we wasted no time in searching for this name and that it happened in the most natural way that no other name could be given to him. The name itself denotes absence (in-nocuous or guile-less. Among other things, Gogol has conceived a multilayered mimicry of his own denial of device). Of course, the christening of Akaky comes about in the most unnatural way: this is, through an obstinate mother's fear of novelty and the creative whims of an intractable calendar. Akaky himself, who when only a tot seems to have had "a premonition that he would be councillor one day", is described as the paradigm of stasis: his a titular constancy is so extreme as to verge on non-entity: price of the new overcoat and after reconciling himself to the fact "His whole existence indeed seemed now somehow to have become fuller". The overcoat becomes "a sweet helpmate", "as though he had got married" and "his character even got a little firmer" . The day of the overcoat's delivery is "one of the greatest days in Akaky's life", a life which has been depicted as an absolute homage to uneventfulness. Akaky, who previously was gustatorily unconscious_ . eating "flies and all", is even , affected physically: his heart begins "beating fast", he suddenly is aware of the St. Petersburg night life, and he _i_~ls the first impulses of erotic attraction. When he is invited and compelled to the assistant head clerk's birthday party, he is like a debutante going to her "coming out" party: "and indeed he had not left his room in the evening for several years". At this point I would like to make my own small tribute to excursiveness and absurdity. When Akaky grins in front of the provocative painting of a woman "taking off a shoe and showing a bare leg", the narrator questions, "Why did he grin?". He then proceeds to posit the following seriocomical reasons: It might have been because he had seen something he had never seen before, but a liking for which is buried deep down inside every one of us, or because (like many another Civil Servant) he thought to himself, "Oh, those damned Frenchmen! What a people they are, to be sure! If they set their heart on something, something ..• well, something of that kind ... " But perhaps he never even said anything at all to himself. How indeed is one to delve into a man's mind and find out what he is thinking about? This implies that the character's derivation is not one from nature but from nature as refracted by established fictional conventions. This serves to nullify any understanding of Akaky qua human being. Seen in this light, Akaky's quest for a new overcoat, which is properly spurred by physical necessity (it is the inclemencies of the St. Petersburg weather which drive him into the world of contingency), seems to be a progression towards normality. He raises his voice "probably for the first time in his life" upon hearing the This last question, adequately dressed in ironical trappings, is perhaps one of the most central questions of the story; however, another, completely illogical intuition arises as an answer to the initial question--that is, posterity. In the beginning stages of the story the narrator, struggling to find something revealing about Akaky's "unremarkable" persona, traces the etymology of his surname, Bashmachkin , to the word "bashmak" --"to wit, shoe". But any facts concerning the "metamorphosis" remains a mystery, the whole endeavor seems to yield nothing. Nevertheless, this simple act of research impresses the image of a shoe on the reader's mind; and through Gogol's artistry this word, as do many others, takes on a certain magnetism and seems by itself to be able to retain the reader's attention. This also serves as a good example of how Gogol's concerns for the insignificant, the purely quotidian, pervades the whole story. Returning to the hypothesis that Akaky's overcoat may represent a catalyst for i dent i t y , or even a spiritual mediator (a kind of textile Beatrice), we must immediately begin to doubt it. An inspection of the overcoat's source seems to be the most proper place to begin. And, although one might contest the source as not being in any one place, Petrovich, the tailor, appears to be its most striking abettor. In introducing Petrovich, the narrator gives us subtle admonition: "We really ought not to waste much time over this tailor". However, "time", which seems to have very little to do with this story anyway, is wasted and Petrovich proceeds not only to function as an important transitional vehicle, but also as the most externally unique character in the story. Everything that characterizes him is mysteriously nefarious, his flat is in a back alley and surrounded by mist so dense "that even the very cockroaches could no longer be seen". He drinks "in the tradition of his forebears", "on any church holiday, on any day, in fact, marked with a cross in the calendar". And when Akaky brings him his bedraggled overcoat, Petrovich is sitting "with his legs crossed under him like a Turkish pasha"--an infidel. To his wife he is a "one-eyed devil" or at least a lesser demon under the dictates of a Devil, who occasionally nudges him and makes "him ask more than he is worth himself". And one 62 63 During all the years he had served in that department, many directors and other higher officials had come and gone, but he still remained in exactly the same position, in exactly the same job, doing exactly the same kind of work, to wit, copying official documents. We are told that Akaky is ithelbutt of the off ice wits' jokes, but that he is utterly immune to their disparaging jibes, living in "a multi£ arious and pleasant world of his own"--the Russian alphabet. Moreover, his "tormentors" must invent special stories about him, as they are hard-pressed by his lack of character. Even an attempt to compare Akaky to a "real-life" counterpart is baffled by Gogol; for he says that Akaky's rank, which is equivalent to his identity. ... has been sneered at and held up to scorn by all sorts of writers who have the praiseworthy habit of setting upon those who cannot hit back. �must concede that it is a brilliantly comical stroke on Gogol's part to emphas i ze in this way the necessity for a t ailor af t er the fall . Petrovich is said to be "greatly pleased that he had neit her demeaned himself nor let down the sartorial art". Here one must ask oneself just what it i s t hat this "sartorial art" consists of : a tailor patches, he alters , he hems and covers, he is the "Artificer" . And at a crucial point in their encounter he seems even to cast a spell over Akaky: At the word "new" a mist suddenly spread before Akaky' s eyes and everything in the room began swaying giddily. The only thing he could still see clearly was the general's face pasted over with paper on the lid of Petrovich's snuff box. This is an amazing example not only of the command which the insignificant exercises over the events of the story, but also of the way in which Gogol is able to reverse and even merge opposites, in this case presence and absence . The clearest thing to Akaky in his state of ve r tigo is a non- picture. We had previously read of this por ~ trait of "some" general that "the place where the face should have been had been poked in by a finger and then pasted over with a square bit of paper" . But this pic ture is more than simply an amplified abs ence : it is also an example of t he way in which predestinat i on seems t o fi gure in this Gogolian un i v erse . No t unl i ke Akaky ' s premonition that he would one day be come a titular councillor, we discov er later on in the story that the rank of the Very Important Person , who ul t imately becomes Akaky's agent of doom (being his last hope for the recovery of his overcoat), is th~t of a "general". Moreover, Akaky' s encounter with the Very Important Person culminates with Akaky fainting in front of him . But who is this Very Important Person? On one level he is seen as the menacing counter-pole to Akaky's meek obsequiousness. However, there are striking parallels that seem to call this relationship into question . In the first place, we are told that this Very Important Person was once a "rather unimportant person" which seems to oddly echo what was previously speculated about Akaky's diligence: If he had been rewarded in accordance with his zeal, he would to his own surprise have got as far as a state councillorship. Like Akaky, who on his nocturnal excursion drinks champagne and feels sexual desire before the disaster, so the Very Important Person seeks diversion in champagne and a visit to his mistress before the ghostly encounter. The Very Important Person is defined by his false and authoritarian facade: "Strictness, strictness, and again strictness!" he usually declared, and at the penultimate word he usually peered very significantly into the face of the man he was addressing. There seemed to be no particular reason for this strictness, though, for the dozen or so Civil Servants who composed the whole administration machinery of his off ice were held in a proper state of fear and trembling, anyhow . towards a "fuller" self is thwarted. The overcoat now begins to symbolize a spurious growth towards selfhood, a false _ idol. And Akaky' s former state, which "might have flowed on as happily to a ripe old age", appears idyllic, as i f it were a kind of civic Eden. Also in support of this view one comes to see another correlation, but in this case it is to literature itself. The first details of the robbery are related as follows: Soon he approached the spot where the street was intersected by an immense square with houses dimly visible on the other side, a square that looked to him like a dreadful desert. A long way away--goodness knows where--he could see the glinnner of light coming from some sentry-box, which seemed to be standing at the edge of the world. Is this not reminiscent of Dante's and after him Tennyson's depiction of Ulysses' errant quest to "the unpeopled world"? Perhaps for a brief instant we imagine Gogol with disheveled hair laboring away in the eighteenth ring of the Inferno. To isolate either one of these views as "correct reading of the text" would be just as erroneous as taking Chaucer's Nun's Priest seriously when he asks his audience to "taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille". For, as has been mentioned above, Gogol does not always create a reversal of hierarchies and meanings, but seems to merge them as well. So that the final effect becomes what Nabokav calls "a vicious circle". The ghost at the end of the story which is taken as being Akaky's is in fact that of the miscreant who had robbed Akaky in the first place (he displays "a fist of a size that was never seen among the living" and "a pair of huge moustachios"). Even the most traditional opposition is blurred: the cops and robbers, the good guys and the bad guys. We recall that the story began with a police commissioner, and that both the policemen and the thieves are characterized by the same anatomical parts. The first policeman that Akaky bumps into is defined by his "calloused fist", well-used and expansive receptacle for snuff. And the "guardsmen", who were the only known witnesses to Petrovich' s wife's facial appearance, have "twitching" moustaches, all of which correspond to Akaky' s marauders with their own moustaches and "a fist the size of a Civil Servant's head". Can we in any way not be dizzy at this point? Is it not clear that this conglomeration of words will not allow themselves to be glossed over and quickly reshelved? Ultimately a "message" must be discerned through the sentiments of the reader himself, priority must be imposed. Gogol's comedy seems to have an uncanny effect upon its reader: if pondered too long it unfolds, revealing a limitless sadness which cannot be defined by any text. The way in which this occurs structurally is by a dovetailing of humor and horror. The most striking instance of this is the effect of Akaky's voice on the departmental rookie who falters: ... abruptly at Akaky's mild expostulation, as though stabbed through the heart; and since then everything seemed to have changed in him and he saw everything in quite a different light. A kind of unseen power made him keep away from his colleagues whom at first he had taken for decent, well- bred men. And for a long time afterwards, in his happiest moments he would see the shortish Civil Servant with the bald patch on his head, uttering those pathetic words, "Leave me alone! Why do you pester me?" And in those pathetic words he seemed to hear others: "I am your brother". The voice of Akaky Akakyevich when he asserts himself "for the first time in his life" at the police department and threatens "that i f he lodged a complaint against them, they would see what would happen" is equally authoritative. Further, the rumor of his vindictive ghost (as if it were a new fashion trend) is enough to cause "alarm and dismay among all law-abiding' citizens of timid dispositions". Viewed from this angle our initial and instinctive sympathy for Akaky's progress Here, unlike the other examples, there is no "vicious circle", and there is no sign that the young man returns to his former state; he is unable to sneak back through 64 65 �the point of departure. Something similar occurs with the Very Important Person when he is remembering his delightful evening at the party: La Reine de Jadis Liz Waldner Feeling very pleased, he recalled without much affort all the pleasant happenings of the evening, all the witty sayings, which had aroused peals of laughter among the small circle of friends, many of which he even now repeated softly to himself, finding them every bit as funny as they were the first time he heard them, and it is therefore little wonder that he chuckled happily most of the time ... All of a sudden the Very Important Person felt that somebody had seized him very firly by the collar. Turning around, he saw a small-sized man in an old, threadbare Civil Service uniform, and it was not without horror that he recognized Akaky Akakyevich. It is most likely impossible to state succinctly what Gogol wants us to consider when he propels us into this realm, but I leave you with Pascal's thirteenth pensee, which seems to come close. Two faces are alike; neither is funny by itself, but side by side their likeness makes us laugh. I. Here again amongst flowers and candle-not roses, no more the little lantern its breathy fog, its quavering star no night through the casement rolled wide, but a dry room, splintered and bare, higher in air: this is winter. Old brick, this; old wood, old care cups of tea old, too, however made new in hope of the queen's coming. Remembering the advent of various princes of wine in the afternoonses, kisses elaborated, slumbers ennervated, many a dawn met with an own transparency temporary, for the medium of air; hair that flowed while walking, that bobbed that flew, that lay on the pillow so and new new new: nothing to think on simply to do. Feel the night, meet the day go on an own way, back remarking angles of repose along the stem of the carnation spiraling into a receiving known as the heart of the rose, a hope for coronation. Goes, goes the time proposed; my assent was head to toe and then some. But here the chair scrapes the floor and I sit on bones that scrape the chair feeling my knowing Ago and There, ghosted by this or that remembered damp. Fair, fair was eclipse of apperception debonair was skin's near kin. How then with such short hair have I come to be here in the presence of dead wood and the province of books? It was memory brought the one and stole the other flower. My like power, until my book is opened anew shrinks to two breadths and inkily goes as prose across some page. Is it reading or writing the queen must do? The candle climbs the carnation across or through the angle of wall and roof. I sit and drink and stick tea twigs into its steepley flame and look at the shadow not mine any more, nor mine were I in disbelief to look to lovemakings not mine anymore to deliver me from Memory who will deliver me my name--mine whose hand was raised against every man's who reaches now to those who felt its blow before I knew Ago. 66 67 �II. IV. My hand itches where the scab is coming off pink skin and I am filling the room with heat and drinking, thin the first uncalculated drinks in years since when in my other life where it was warm, I'd swallow afternoons entire to evade their evenings; even so such quickenings are only signs by which I know I am into Like or a I am that I am dead. For instance, when I read that the queen that Elizabeth of Romania called Carmen Sylva (given a Celtic brooch and a Balmoral shawl by Queen Victoria) waved a napkin to a grazing cow she'd taken for a loyal subject , then I knew . Quixote, aha, oho I said; the life is mor e tban windmills . I know when one lives and when one's dead (as Lear also de la Mancha , s aid) . For me no feather sirrah, nor mirror . Cordelia lives and I am dead; these are clear . III. It's not the food that I want--it never was; but the jars of jelly marked a place and held it unti l another day I could in atonement come bellying up like a fish to the surface to t he grinding place where the days and I met like a face with a mirror, gnashed together our teeth held one another to the promise: asked for bread, ate want made flesh. It's not the moon which isn't risen yet or is set, nor her Pleiades nor the loved men named Baptiste or Ben neither the life nor the death of the motorcycle boy nor the women peculiar with liquids and bridge-the myriad longed for, imagined one by one now arriving like leaves on the top of a pond that cancel the sky with their gold; growing in, growing in, growing in the life my mother bled. a window framing a very particular air shape, a figure, heading through an air come to stand inside her knowing. A luxury here of knowings how: of how one loves, of how they need of how one needs, of how they love how one is no more taken care of-here, just here, I stand congruent with her. She bled a prescient blood. surprised by the silence and numbed by the air in the coolness of distance I hear with her ear; hailing Mary, angels bear Damocles' sword. Denied! I heard. Bleed air, breathe fire spin, spin, spin. Take in the laundry of the earth and hide its poor beneath your skirts. Beware the dark, the car, the bar, the men . Then flee, flee, flee on what ass? to the stable, the gate, the way you came in . See her shadow pour from your feet as you walk see her eyes in the mirror they will bring. Or sing: Stella Maris, amongst women blessed, and what for? She gave no birth unbegun of her blood; unbegun and always her blood was a window giving onto his growing in to be born of her prescient blood . not any silence o f Cordelia's, Hermione's, Penelope's Philomenas who showed me the surface of faith not the thought of the thinker, a profile in lamplight a Gretel fed on breadcrumbs behind somebody's back but to be in clear wat er safe, unseen suspended and shadowless : not to be denied. Liz Waldner is a St. John's alumna, class of 1985. 68 69 �Non-Profit Org. BULK RATE U.S. POSTAGE St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 PAID PERMIT No. 120 ANNAPOLIS, MD . � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. i, 69 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fink, Gabriell (Co-Editor) Macfarland, Joseph C. Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1986 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1986. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1986 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/0d42625fcd83c70110a9c55c16cb566e.pdf 7ab04196e3ede8489a4d025939cc32cb PDF Text Text SPRING 1987 ~ ar: ~ z iiii z <I: . ~ lll:: u ..... :z: ..... :z: .... I �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. Cover: ARES: "The Tremble and Scream of a Body's Undertow" by Lance Connin Pastel on Watercolor Paper Photographed by Greg Ferguson il ... vou c:vtpyc:ta ~roil ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) Staff: Printed by the St. John's College Press St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland Talke Breuer Carloss Chamberlain Meetra Doorandish Barbara Gesiakowski Jana Giles Chris Howell Steve Jackson Rena Kuntavanish Sarah Waters Co-Editors: Laurie Cooper Joseph Macfarland Faculty Advisor: Jonathan Tuck Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published three times a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis and Santa Fe. The Fall issue contains a sampling of the student work from the previous school year which the prize committees of both campuses have selected for public recognition. For the Winter and Spring issues, the Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community-essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Note: A brief description of the author accompanies all work not by current St. John's students. Please include some such statement along with your submission. Thank you. �CONTENTS A CRITICISM OF SOCRATES' THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE Fritz Hinrichs 1 SENTO-GOSHO GARDENS Jennifer A. Lapham 4 PRIZE WINNING PO EM (1986) . THESEUS' PASSAGE Claudia Probst 5 THE BOUNDARY OF THE METHOD Sally Fine 7 ON WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS' POEM "HE THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS WHEN A PART OF THE CONSTELLATIONS OF HEAVEN" Anne Leonard 9 A PARTIAL DEFENSE OF VICONIAN ETYMOLOGY AND TOUR GUIDE TO SOUTHERN MARYLAND Christopher Bailey 13 DISTANCE #2 Stacy Grimes 17 THE NEST Patricia Dawson 18 CHICAGO LABYRINTH Ellen Schwindt 19 SENIOR ESSAY (1986) HONORABLE MENTION ORIGINS OF COHESIVE THOUGHT Lawrence Seidl 20 FOR LI CH'ING CHAO Judy Kistler 35 SURF AND MISFORTUNE A STUDY OF OEDIPEAN TRAGEDY Jeff Kojac 36 A TRANSLATION OF JEAN DE LA FONTAINE'S "THE CAT, THE WEASEL, AND THE LITTLE RABBIT" James O'Gara 38 STREETLIGHT Walter Plourde 42 AN APPRECIATION OF APOLLONIUS 1.34 Henry Higuera 45 �A Criticism of Socrates' Theory of Knowledge Fritz Hinrichs In the Meno, Socrates is faced with the problem of how we can go about searching for virtue when we do not know what it is. He has to explain how we can search for some thing and know when we have found it when we do not know what to expect . It is similar to the problem we would have if someone said, "Go find my dog," and then refused to give any description of the dog. To solve this problem, Socrates refers to the belief expounded by the poets that our souls never die and have lived through many lives . This being the case, they can recall the truths they have gained in past lives . Our learning, therefore, is nothing but the spontaneous recovery of knowledge that was previously known. To try to substantiate this idea, Socrates asks Meno to bring to him a slave boy without any previous geometric knowledge. He then proceeds to ask this slave boy questions about geometric figures that he draws in the sand . Gradually he leads the boy to an understanding of a particular train of 8eometric reasoning. First Socrates shows the boy why his initial idea about the geometric figure is wrong, and then he asks the boy questions until he comes to the correct understanding of the figure. Because he never tells the boy anything, but only asks him questions, Socrates claims that the boy has recalled the knowledge of the figure from his own mind. Now, if all our learning were recollection, then one would expect that our learning would resemble the way we recollect things that we have learned in this lif e. This is one point where I find fault in Socrates' theory, fo r the process that Socrates uses to teach his student does not at all appear to be the same process one experiences when recalling other facts one knows one has forgotten. It can be seen that the boy never really recalls anything from his own memory; he only approves of the ideas Socra t es presents to him . If he truly were recalling the ideas from memory, Soc rates would only have to give him lit t le hints, and the boy's memory would do the rest, just as our memory does when we recall things that have become dim in our minds . Instead , we see Socrates lead t he boy through almost every step of the geometric argument, and the boy obediently following behind. This can be well seen in the second part of the discussion in which Socrates corrects the boy's misconception that one can double t he area of a square by doubling the length of the sides . Socrates erases his old square and starts with a new one to show the boy that the base of a square twice the . area of the square he dre·w would be the square's diameter . He shows this by constructing three other new squares around the one he had drawn and dividing each along its diameter to construct a new square that is made up of the diameters from each one. Because there were four squares, the new square is twice the original (four halves make two). This whole construction is made by Socrates with the boy contributing nothing to the argument beyond his consent . When Socrates finishes constructing the figure, he asks the boy some questions that require more of a reply than "yes" or "no." SOCRATES: Here are four squares. inner half of each of them? BOY: Yes. 1 Has not each line cut off the �SOCRATES: And how many such halves are there in the figure? [The figure made by the diameters of the squares.] BOY: Four. SOCRATES: And how many in this one? [The original square.] BOY: Two. SOCRATES: And what is the relation of four to two? BOY: Double. SOCRATES: How big is the figure then? [The one cut off by the diameters.] BOY: Eight feet. SOCRATES: On what base? BOY: This one. [The diameter of the original square.] (85a-85b) In this quotation, Socrates asks the boy six questions. In the first, the boy consents that a diameter cuts a square in half. In the second and third, he counts how many triangles are in particular squares. His response to the fourth and fifth shows his knowledge of ratios, and that to the sixth his knowledge of what a base is. I hope this quotation adequately shows that the reasoning the boy goes through does not originate from himself, but is the product of Socrates. What occurs in this dialogue is certainly a far cry from the boy's needing a little prodding to remember those things that are obscured by the forgetfulness of his mind. In 84d, Socrates infers that his method is closer to the interrogating for opinion than to instruction or explanation, but in fact the opposite seems to be the case. However, part of what Socrates says is correct. He repeatedly tells Meno that the boy's opinions are the boy's own; this is reasonable in the sense that Socrates never forces the boy to believe in anything. But the opinions are not the boy's in the sense that he made them up or had previously consciously held them. It is reasonable to say that the boy agrees with what Socrates is saying, but not that he already knows what Socrates is saying; if this latter were the case, Socrates would not need to be continually telling the boy how to deal with the problem of the square. Also, if we are to say that the boy understands something because he recalls it, how would we account for the mistakes he makes? For example, the boy proclaims that if the side of the square is doubled, the area will double. How could the boy come up with this idea i f he recalled it? This is what he recalled, so how can it be wrong if recollection is what determines truth? Socrates would probably answer this accusation by saying that the boy recalled incorrectly or that he did not recall at all. I think a hint to what his response would be can be found in line 82e. I will present two translations that from my inquiry seem to represent the two ways that this passage is typically translated: "Now watch how he recollects- things in order--the proper way to recollect." (W.K.C. Guthrie) and, "Watch him now recollecting things in order, as one must recollect." (G.M.A. Grube). The actual Greek is "GE1' 1 11 ) ' I _,. ( 1 (82 e ) ; t h e pivota 1 wor d • au-rov m.>aµ 1µvncrKoµsvov scps~ns, ws as 1 avaµ 1µvficrKso8a 1 is OEl . If Socrates admits there is a proper or correct way of recollecting, he is implying there is an incorrect way of recollecting. Now, if we call some recollection proper and some improper, then there must be something by which we are evaluating it by; there must be something higher. To make a judgment would be meaningless if there were no criterion. This is why I think Socrates is not using recollection as his ultimate source of truth, but is using something else, most probably reason, as his final criterion. The word os1 can be translated as proper or necessary (the two translations give examples of each). If it is translated "proper", then my idea is supported, but translating it "necessary" does not really escape the problem either. Why should something be necessary? Is it not because we have an end in mind by which we are evaluating the process? I think Socrates has shown that he is not really relying on what he calls recollection, but is actually using reason to get the results that he wants. There is another problem in Socrates' theory that needs to be addressed: when Socrates states that we learn by recollection, he is not really solving the problem of how learning came about in the first place. He may say that we learn now by recalling what we learned in the past, but that does not tell us how we learned in the past. The only thing that his theory does is to push the problem back into the past where it might not occur to us to think about it. This way of dealing with the problem would be like trying to answer the problem of the origin of life by saying that it had been placed on the earth by outer space life-forms. This method is evasive but not substantive. However, since Socrates seems to do so well using myths, I suspect he could have easily answered this objection by stating that when man first came into being he was endowed with perfect knowledge and has since lost it. Socrates is able to convince Meno of his theory because it does make a comparison that is superficially correct--when we remember something and when we see something is true, we tend to experience the same feeling of insight or perception. We experience the same sense of "Aha" when we remember and when we gain understanding, so it is tempting to see them as coming from the same source. But to equate them does not really answer the problem of where learning came from to begin with; moreover, when more closely examined, remembering and understanding have some distinct differences that rule out their being one. on 2 3 �Theseus' Passage Claudia Probst ' vi \ l\v: ~ ,ff-I\j j ~ ~ ~ j ~ ( r j t ~ i ~ ~ "'<j> ~ I \ ~ ~ \\ ~ ~ ~ t} Theseus, kneeling by the slain monster picked up the trail of a golden thread and followed it, wearily, through the dim eternal twilight of the labyrinth. He wound it over and between his knuckles, the sweat of his palm matting the thread, darkening the filament of his direction and enclosing the heat of his hand. He recalled his fingers entwined in his mount's mane, after grasping suddenly for lost balance when shame had made him sway in the saddle, on the day he saw his father surrender the city's youths to the Minotaur. Later his hands had traced the curving wooden ribs of the prison ship's hull during the voyage to Crete, and mesmerized his seasick companions with endless soothing caress. So long did his hands travel circularly on their backs, waiting for gasping nausea to subside, that in darkness he could name each by resting his hands lightly on their sides, touching for the duration of a breath. He felt the thread's tension, more than guide it impelled him, tugging at his memory -sunlight and sweet airTheseus longed to follow his eyes frontwards as Man, to probe then where a man may. He remembered in those passages the dark servant halls of his home, nights in his early youth when, trembling, he had eased blindly down stone steps fingertips brushing moss along rough walls groping his way to she his destination. Images of her bare limbs' movement, first stolen through a crack in the wall of the servant bath had rooted in his mind. And when he first clasped her to his breast, 5 �his pulse had quickened, hammering in his ears until her image, blooming, had threatened to burst from his head shattering the night with strong remembrance of sun on olive skin and the play of her muscles underneath, as she lifted an earthen water jar. Then it was no longer the still air of the labyrinth and memory that enveloped him wind-driven dew struck his forehead and he emerged again into the living worldTo find Ariadne, her hair unbound falling "'loosely golden in the blessed dawn . The Boundary of the Method Sally Fine In Book VI of th~ Republic, Plato discusses the geometer's use of the figures and the three forms of angles as hypotheses and asserts that the geometer uses these hypotheses as the basis of his argument. That is to say, the geometer takes certain properties as common notions and from those common notions stem the images in geometry . In addition to this assertion, Plato continues by asking if geometers use: visible forms ... and make their arguments about them [visible forms], not thinking about them, but about those others that they are like? They make the arguments for the sake of the square itself and the diagonal itself, not for the sake of the diagonal that they draw, and likewise with the rest. These things themselves that they mold and draw, of which there are shadows and images in water, they now use as images, seeking to see those things themselves, that one can see in no other way than with thought. (510e) Plato's account of the geometer seems an appropriate description of Euclidean geometry, but hardly applicable to the realm of geometry which Lobachevski provides. In Euclidean geometry we are provided with images that we consider to be intuitive . The pictures that accompany the propositions fit the image of the figure we have in our minds. The pictures fit so well that one might wonder if Euclid might be 'spoon feeding' us by appealing to our intuition of how space should be defined and described. It is easy to lose track at times that what we actually see before us when we work through a Euclidean proposition is not square or triangle, but the image of square or triangle. It is important, however, to remind ourselves of what Plato suggests, that as long as geometry depends on hypothesis, it can never really grasp square or triangle. I interpret this to mean that, unless we can move beyond hypothesis, we can never grasp the eidos of square or triangle, but must content ourselves with their images . In the imaginary geometry that Lobachevski gives an account of, the images provided certainly do not 'spoon feed' our intuition. Few things are more counter-intuitive than parallel lines that converge or a quadrilateral with three right angles and the fourth angle acute. The images that accompany Lobachevski's theorems seem almost incommensurate with the language of his geometry. It is very difficult to convince oneself , after years of being led to believe that parallel lines never meet and remain equidistant from one another, that the two lines depicted as converging can really be called parallel. Although we see the images before us on paper that illustrate converging parallels, in our minds we still imagine parallel lines that do not meet and do indeed remain equidistant. In Lobachevski we have a discrepancy, between the image on paper and the image in our minds, that we did not have in Euclidean geometry. How does one look at the images provided with the same language used in a completely different way and make sense of it? The first reaction, and certainly a legitimate one, is that the system that Lobachevski introduces is counter-intuitive. Well, yes, it does seem awkward to be 6 7 �given a quadrilateral with three right angles and then to be asked to prove the fourth angle acute. This does not come easy because in all of our previous experience, a principal property of the quadrilateral was that the angle sum was consistent. However, now that we are in the world of imaginary geometry, we no longer have that proportionality, and that is disconcerting. At this point I don't know whether it is right to question Lobachevski's idea of geometry or to question our own. Euclid gave us a beautiful system of geometry, but he never claimed it to be more than a system. He offered us images, and we took to them eagerly, again, forgetting that he offered us image, not eidos. Plato reminds us that the geometer can only offer us image in his discussion of the geometer's use of hypotheses. I don't think that Plato is judging whether the geometer is justified in using hypotheses, but rather he is pointing out the problem that all geometers face in being limited by the common notions. The boundary lies in being human, a limit that we cannot surpass. Euclid and Lobachevski, if nothing else, at least share this boundary. I think that the geometers themselves are much more willing to acknowledge this boundary than the students of their geometries. Why are we so unwilling to accept Lobachevski? First let us examine what it would involve to accept Lobachevski's system. The obvious thing that comes to mind is the denial of the necessity of the fifth postulate. Once one denies the need for the fifth postulate, one must acknowledge that Lobachevski's geometry is certainly as feasible as Euclidean geometry. Of course, this is much easier said than done. How can we possibly acknowledge a geometry other than Euclid's when we quite obviously live in a Euclidean world? Everything that surrounds us is Euclidean. Is it because we are surrounded by Euclidean images that we come to expect Euclidean images in our geometry as well? After all, what is our real problem with Lobachevski? His images are consistent within his system, so we can't find fault there. His theorems follow in logical progression and still we balk. Consistency and logic aside, his system still goes against our expectations. We have been habituated to Euclidean geometry, and that is what we expect. Although I readily accept the argument that Lobachevski is counter-intuitive, I am still puzzled by this intuition that we cling to so desperately. Do we really have the criteria to determine our world as Euclidean? I hesitate to make this claim when I consider, once again, Plato's discussion of hypotheses. It seems impossible to deny that there are certain things which are inexplicable and those things we call common notions. I want to call them self-evident, but after studying Lobachevski and re-reading Book VI of the Republic, I wonder if we only intuit them to be selfevident. This question is seemingly rhetorical, considering that we are bound by . image. If we could actually get to eidos, then we would truly grasp geometry. Apparently, the methodology in the activity of geometry is our problem. Plato seems to make an argument for the method of dialectic. In dialectic we begin with an hypothesis and match it with an antithesis. The struggle between the two eventually produce some sort of conclusion or falling out of a bigger idea. No matter what the outcome, one is able to get beyond the hypothesis. Some progress is made. With the geometry, however, we are bound by the hypothesis. No antithesis is presented in opposition to the common notions. We can build and build our system, but the hypotheses that Plato mentions time and time again remain. Using the methodology of geo-metry as we do, we can never approach eidos which is free of hypotheses. On William Butler Yeats' Poem "He Thinks of His Past Greatness When a Part of the Constellations of Heaven Anne Leonard I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young And wept because I know all things now : I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough Among my leaves in times out of mind: I became a rush that horses tread: I became . a man, a hater of the wind, Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head May not lie on the breast nor his lips on the hair Of the woman that he loves, until he dies. 0 beast of the wilderness, bird of the air, Must I endure your amorous cries? William Butler Yeat's poem "He thinks of his Past Greatness when a Part of the Constellations of Heaven" is a poem which is hard to understand on the intellectual level but which strikes deeply into the human heart. What stands out in the poem more than anything else upon a first reading is the tone, and the meaning itself is dependent upon the tone. The poem is sad. It is not raging, burning, passionate grief, but more gentle, implacable sorrow--embers of grief which will never go but will remain, ceaseless and unchanging. The very first hint of sadness occurs in the title; someone who has become a constellation, who has become part of heaven, is thinking not of present glory but of past greatness. The feeling is then brought out more in individual lines of the poem. In the second line, the second word is "weep." This, a tangible and open expression of sorrow, is coupled with "because I know all things now" and as such furthers the sadness. It is a human desire, wish, aim, to know, and this knowledge makes the line sad in two senses: first, things that are learned can be sorrowful and second, in the deeper way the fulfillment of a dream can be sad, even painful. Sadness occurs too in the fact that knowing all things, the speaker is no longer human; he is something different. With knowledge, humanity is lost, and that is reason for grief. In this line, there is regret, regret for having "drunk ale from the Country of the Young" and thus learned all things, leaving no mysteries or secrets, and regret for the actual things learned. The relationship between knowledge and sorrow is expressed in another manner in the seventh through tenth lines: I became a man, a hater of the wind, Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head May not lie on the breast nor his lips on the hair Of the woman that he loves, until he dies. 8 9 �Here the knowledge is of only one thing, yet that thing--loneliness--is so great, so powerful, that it brings sadness. The sadness is felt not only by the speaker, is not only empathetic grief for the poet, but is a reawakening of individual, human sorrow; everyone has known loneliness and estrangement. Indeed, the word that those four lines focus on is "alone." It is difficult to tell from the grammar of the eighth line whether "alone" modifies "one" or "man," but this difficulty is exactly the purpose of the vague syntactical structure: "alone" applies to both. The one thing a man knows is that he is alone. WP.ether a man or not a man, knowledge brings grief. The last two lines, "O beast of the wilderness, bird cf the air, must I endure Being a your amorous cries?" are an expression of the sorrow, a plea for surcease. man, he is denied the love and the companionship that the beasts have, and this brings grief and pain , pain that others have what he does not . The cry is not one of Even taken by themjealousy or anger, but of helplessness and deep loneliness. selves, the lines are sad, and as the last two lines of a sad poem, they round out the grief and the sorrow. Sadness is not the only emotion expressed in the poem, however . Another is one of captivity, of helplessness. This is evident not only in the language but in the structure of the poem; it has a fairly rigid ABABCDCDEFEF rhyme scheme, the only appropriate rhyme being between "mind" in the fifth line and "wind" in the seventh . Although the rhyme scheme is no t the most dominant expression of captivi t y , it serves to lock in the feelings and reinforce the captivity present in the imagery . The very first image of captivity occurs in the first line, "I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young . " Ale from the Country of the Young is ale which controls and changes a person, and although the drinking itself may have been volitional, the effects of the drink are beyond the power of the drinker . It is a subtle image, one which does not present itself at first for what i t is , but which sets the captive tone for the rest of the poem. The very next two images presented, the hazel-tree and the rush, are images of captivity or helplessness. In the lines I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung The Pilot Star and Crooked Plough Among my leaves in time out of mind the haze-tree is not acting but being acted upon . Long ago the tree stood, and the stars were hung by some unknown "they" amidst its boughs; it did not hang the ' stars itself, or even choose which one were hung. It stood and was used . Likewise the ru sh is helpless; "horses tread" it . A ho rse is an image of freed om , of wild grace , and the rush is that which is repressed, pushed down by the free. Like the t r ee, the rush is a passive, emotionless thing of nature which is only acted upon. And then there is the man, "a hater of the wind . " This hatred is a rejection of and resentment of freedom. Wind is wild, powerful, reckless, goes where it wills when it wills. Wind can destroy, wreak havoc, ruin. It is uncontrolled. One who hates the wind hates that total, raw power and does not know the exhilarating joy present in a wind dashing wildly through the trees. Unrestrained and unrestricted, the wind is a symbol of all that is free and of all that that freedom means. Hating what is free, the man is not free. The final image of captivity is expressed, like the sorrow, in the plea of the last two lines. The beast and the bird are like the horse and the wind; they are free, unfettered. It is to the "beast of the wilderness." the animal that lives wild, subject to no rule but its own, and to the bird of the air," that animal which lives among the wind, that the plea is addressed; these things which can love are free, and which are free, can love. Nor is the object of the plea the only way that 10 captivity is expressed; the word "endure" is one which applies to a prisoner. One who is free would not have to endure the amorous cries; one who is free could leave, or could vanquish the cries. But that the cries are endured is an indication that they cannot be escaped. Sadness and captivity are the dominant emotions, the first impressions which leap from the words into the heart. These are what the spirit understands. But there are things underlying these emotions, reasons for them, and they are buried deeper in the poem. Even understanding the tone, the poem itself is still an unresolved puzzle. There are two questions which seem to contain the core of the matter. The first involves the "Past Greatness" anrl the second the separation of the man from the woman he loves until after death. There is sadness involved in both questions, and a sense of being trapped. " Past Greatness" seems to refer to being a hazel-tree, a rush, and a man. These are all things which have been, which the speaker became, which are no longer, and for which there is some grief . None of them seems particularly great, yet there is reason for sorrow; they have one thing which a constellation does not. They have life. A hazel-tree and a rush have sprung from the earth, have been nurtured by the sun and the water and the soil, have grown and changed and developed and will continue to do so. Attached, they belong to the world and to each other and to all living things. They may be helpless, they may be controlled, but they belong, and this in its own way is far greater than being a constellation, fixed, immutable and completely unconnected. Better to have the stars amongst one's leaves than to be a star; for a star is not alive. In a way, the constellation is even more a captive than the rush and the tree, and this too is reason for sorrow. And why a man? What greatness is there in being a man, in hating the wind, in knowing one terrible thing? There seems to be no inherent greatness but inherent grief in this. Yet, there is something in the man which is as great as or greater than the hazel-tree and the rush. Perhaps it is as with the rush and the hazel-tree. Living, no matter how terribly, is greater than being a constellation. However, it seems that there must be something deeper than that. A man is not so connected to the earth and to the world as a plant or even a wild animal is. In addition to living, a man thinks and knows. Feeling sorrow, feeling captivity, are things which a man can do and a rush cannot. It is these, the feeling and thinking as well as the living and connecting, which make a man great. It is a sad, painful, captive existence, but it is an existence which is unique and wonderful. That seems to give some answer, inadequate though it may be, to the first question, the question of "Past Greatness." The second question, the question of love, still remains. Why cannot a man be with the woman he loves until he dies? The most simplistic, obvious answer--the woman he loves is already dead--just does not seem to do. The loneliness is part of it. The loneliness is two-fold in nature; first, the man is lonely because he cannot be with the woman he loves, but second, he cannot be with the woman because he is by nature alone. Only in death can the solitude of self be broken. This part of human nature, this loneliness, exists in several different ways. The human race itself is separate from other animals and from nature by means of language and rational thought and technology. Other animals have societies, forms of communication and of tools, but none so sophisticated, and no other animal can change the face of the earth in the way a human being can. This separates the human animal from the earth and from the other animals; to be human is to be separate. Further, every individual is alone. The soul of each person is unique. At the 11 �very center of the self is something which only one's own soul, and sometimes not ev en that, can understand. There is separation from other people and even from oneself. No thing, not even love, can cause the centers of two individ~al souls to ~oin­ c ide, and in s ome deep, almost terrifying way, every human soul is always solitary and l one l y. This seems to be the loneliness Yeats is expressing. . To say that a man cannot be physically close to the woman he loves is, on the literal leve l , r i diculous . Bu t it is metaphorically quite true; the laying of the head on the br east or t he lips on the hair are metaphors for human companionship, for unity, for mind t o heart and speech to thought. Only after death, when humanity is exchange d f or s ometh ing e l se, can such companionship be. The knowledge the man has is the knowl edge of his own loneliness ; he is captured by his very nature. What, then, is the meaning of the poem? It certainly cannot be captured in one single sentence or phrase . The essence of it is both sorrow for loneliness , and lack of free dom , but a l s o the greatness of life itself . The poem has to do with the struggle to find one's place in the world , and with the pain that knowledge brings, wh ether it be knowled ge only of one's nature or of all things. More than anything else, it shows the paradox of humanity: how hard but how essential it is to be human, how painful and how great , how separate and how connected. And this seems to be why the tone, expressed through images, is und erstood before the reasons underlying the tone. The poem is the speech of one human to another, the expression of common feelings. And so, like the human soul , the poem is a paradox; by its expression of human l oneline s s, it t ouches human connectedness. Thus there is greatness to think of wh en a Part of the Constellations of Heaven. A Partial Defense of Viconian Etymology and Tour Guide to Southern Maryland Christopher Bailey Preface By the terms ordinary etymology, scientific etymology, etc., I mean the use of scientific rules of word-mutation and language comparison to trace the development of wo r ds. Or at least I mean something like that. Any other words I use ought to be comprehensible from the context in which I use them; it's very likely that there ar e some which aren't, but I can't think of everything. The fundamental argument of this pape r is that ordinary etymology is not ade quate for the complete understanding of a word's history, and of its effect on the people who speak the language of which it is part; and that therefore Vico's attention to superficial similarities in words should not be lightly dismissed. This brief prefatory statement may be used as a map and compass to guide the reader out of the dar k and trackless digressions which lie in his way , and which might otherwise persuade him that the author of this essay has never quite decided what he's talking about . "Port Tobacco," says the Maryland Writers' Project guide to Maryland, "was the most important of the many Maryland ports on the Potomac ruined by the silting up of the creek at its landing. Made the seat of Charles County in 1658, it continued to be the center of the county government until La Plata developed around the new railroad down the peninsula. The Indians also considered it a desirable village site, as Captain John Smith's map shows; and by 16Rl it had enough settlers to be the scene of the uprising of Kendall's followers . " The name "Port Tobacco" is not a terribly unlikely one for a colonial Maryland port town, since tobacco was probably Maryland's most important export. But Captain Smith's map shows an Indian village on the same site before any English settlers had planted themselves there . One might have expected the Indian name of the town to survive, as the names of other Indian towns did in Maryland, and as the name of the river on which Port Tobacco was built-- the Potomac -- survived. I n fact the Indian name did survive. For these were the Potopago tribe. Their name was attached to their town, and when the English began to settle there, it was rapidly corrupted into its present form . It was quite natural for it to be so corr upted . The wonder would be, if anyone who was not making a special effort to speak distinctly should mention a tobacco port called Potopago, that any ordinary listener should not understand him to have called it Port Tobacco. Now, if one wanted to t r ace the etymology of the name Port Tobacco, one might go about it in the normal way . One might first look up port, and find that the Rev. Dr. Skeat tr aces i t back to the Latin portus , closely allied to porta, from conj e ctur al root par, to pass through, and thus eventually related to English fare. Then one could' do the same for tobacco (where one would have less luck, since, the word being derived from a West Indian language, its ultimate roots are inaccessible to the Rev . Skeat). One could do all that, and one would be no closer to the truth than when one started. Obviously, without the critical knowledge that the place was originally a Potopago Indian town, any derivation of its name will be at best only partly correct: 12 13 �And then, not much later (869) : "Tradition says that Homer was blind and that from his blindness he took his name , which in the Ionic dialect means blind . " If Vico is, as he seems to be, offering each of these as the derivation of Homer ' s name, t hen he ha s certainl y contradicted himsel f . The most f undamenta l laws of logic would seem to insist that only one of the t wo could be t r ue. Possibly Vico, composing these paragraphs at different times, didn't notice the cont radiction : perhaps one derivation seemed right to him the first time, and then later the other. But he did let both stand in the third edition . There are infinitely many other possible explanations of Vice's mo t ive in giving these two different derivations, but, skipping entirely the question of Vice's real motive, I shall try to invent a plausible defense for him . , If Vico acutally has discovered the true Homer in the Greek people themselves , then there must be some reason why the name Homer was associated with the Iliad and Odyssey , and not the name Orpheus or Dobzhans~In fact , we must look for~ason why any name at all was given for the author of these poems , when their real author was a whole nation. / Perhaps Homer became a so r t of poetic universal for epic poe t, as Hercules for strength or Achilles for swiftness, because there was once a rhapsode named Homer who was extraordinarily good at rhapsodizing . Thus, in the same way that stor ies-a~ su- perhuman strength might come to be associated with the name Hercules, eventually giving us a Hercules who travelled to all places at all times and did just about everything; so epic poe t ry of great quality might become associa t ed wi t h the name Homer. But even if this we re the true explanation, it might not quite explain why the name of Homer and not that of some equally proficient rhapsode became the poetic universal . In the case of He rcules, the name itself had significance . Perhaps it was thus in the case of Home r . Let us suppose that there are two rhapsodes in ancient Gre e ce, both equally admired; one of them is named Homer , the other Dobzhansky . Now, to the Greek ear, Dobzhansky might not suggest much . But Homer--Homer is a name fraught with associations . An Ionian would immediately hear the word as blind, and immediately would remember the rhapsodes he had known who were , if we can believe Vico (who takes his evidence from Homer), conrrnonly blind. The name would seem as appropriate as some I have noticed in businesses in Inverness, Florida, where on the same street one can find Grumbling Motors, Crook Real Estate, and Hood Bail Bonds . Those names don't slip out of memory easily . I can't remember the name of any other bail bondsman , though I have doubtless seen many who displayed prominent advertising signs; but the name of Hood Bail Bonds is ineradicably stamped in my memory. Similarly, one who happened to be thinking of the strung- together aspect of the rhapsodes' tales might be led to hear, though perhaps not altogether consciously , hom' eirein when the name Homer was spoken . If an English speaker heard of a poet name Stringtale, he might hav e the same reaction. Just so the name Shakespeare often suggests to us, without our being aware of it , a vigorous, thunderous, rugged sort of drama that a name like Jonson doesn't suggest . (In fact some of his contemporaries made the most of Shakespeare's name, believing that entirely too much spear- shaking went on in his plays) . In the same way, some theorists have suggested, any person's name carries with it a package of vague associations which partly determine the way we react to the person who carries the name . I have heard of some studies which seemed to indicate that school teachers had pr edetermined conceptions of their student s acco r d i ng t o the students' names . And I remember how I was often shocked in elementary school when I learned a teacher's first name . (She didn't seem like a Mavis to me, I might explain . ) Now , or dinar ily these associations of names with character types migh t be specific to me only, depending , perhaps , on events in my individual experience . (I might , for example , have known a Mavis in early childhood.) But there might be certain cases in which the name was likely to produce a similar group of associations in all the members of a certain culture--as Mr. Hood, Mr. Grumbling, and Ms. Crook can probably attest . This might especially he the case when the name resembled some common word or set of words . Contrast the effect of the name Homer with t he effect of Dobzhansky , and i t seems obvious why Homer would become the poetic universal and Dobzhansky would be forgotten . Homer simply suggests poet, and suggests it in more than one way . Thus Vico' s two "derivations" of the name Homer both would add to our understanding of how that name came to be associated with the author of t he world's greatest epics . As derivations in the strictest sense, they might not be historically correct, but they might help explain why the name was applied as it was in the same way that a knowledge of the meanings of port and tobacco helped explain the name Port Tobacco, t hough his t ory may t ell us that t he name is actual l y a corr up t ion ---of Potopago. And for that reason that one "derivation" need not exclude the other . For both may have operated on the common sense of the Greek people in driving them to select Homer as the name of their national poet. What is true for names we might suspect of being t rue for any word. For we find we have more to explain, even in ordinary wor ds , than simply how a basic root was changed into its modern form . Knowing the etymology of the word lift or the parts 14 15 for it would be misleading to give a derivation based on the meanings of the words in the name without noting that those words only came to be assigned to that place through corruption of its Indian name. On the other hand, it would be equally misleading to say that the name is a simple corruption of the name Potopago without taking into account the meanings of the words port and tobacco. For the town was a port where tobacco was shipped, and that is why the corruption arose in the first place. It would be just as useless to study the etymological history of the name !'_~!~p_ago as i t was to study the histories of port and tobacco. What is most necessary is an understanding of the conditions which led to the choice of the name Port Tobacco for that particular place. In his New Science, Giambattista Vico often uses the etymology of a word as part of his argument. He doesn't seem to have much of a method for his derivations: the one facto r c ommon t o mo st of them is incorrectness . If Vico wants to say that a certain word actually developed in history in a certain way, he ought to have some sci entific methods for determining that development . Otherwise he should keep his mouth shut. At least, that would be my attitude as a twentieth- century admirer of the accomplishments of scientific etymology . But Vico may not have seen etymology quite the way I do. He certainly was not aware of the scientific methods which came into use after he was dead. But he may not have had in mind the same purpose I have when I search for the one true historical root of a word . Anyone who pays attention to the etymologies in the New Science is bound to no tice that, within a few pages, Vico gives two entirely different derivations for Homer's name. First he says (852), By the etymology of their name from the two words which compose it, rhapsodes we.re stitchers together of songs , and these songs they must certainly have collected from none other than their own peoples . Similarly [the common noun] homeros is said to have come f r om homou, "togethe r ," and eir e in, "to link," thus signifying a guarantor, as being one who binds creditor and debtor to gether. This derivation is as far - fetched and forced [when applied to a guarantor] as it is natural and proper when applied to our Homer ci.s a tier or putter together of fables. 1 �from which elevator was coined will not explain to us why the first is used in one part of the English- speaking world and the second in another . The same goes fo r lorry and truck . or solici t o r and lawye r; and, taking a broader look way and chemin, since French and English are supposed to be derived from the same ultimate source . Why does one society choose one root to build its ways on and anothe r choose another? I have often heard it asked why the same word should have different meanings , but it seems to me just as interesting to ask, Why does the same meaning have different words? Ordinary scientific etymology is of no use in answering this question. A new etymological science would be needed to supplement the old. Perhaps no science at all could be adequate: perhaps thjs is a field for wild speculation . . I don't ordinarily like wild speculation as a method for finding answers to important questions, bu t i t i s a t l east mor e u s e f u l he r e t h an t h e o r dinar y etymolo gy . The r ules of vowel- shifting and consonant mutation and such are simply not applicable to this ques tion: one might ·as well try to answer it by referring to a yardstick or Ptolemy's Table of Chords. The laws of etymology have been spectacularly successful in showing the historical mutations of words; now what we need is a sort of transcendental etymology to fill out the picture. We already practice this transcendental etymology, although we really have no method for it. If we ask why the word ~ as a synonym for ~ has almost disap peared from our spoken language, no rules of word- mutation will give us an answer . Rut we probably can answer the question for ourselves by pointing out that the word has come into use as a synonym for homosexual, and that in our society homosexuality is an embarrassing subject . We used no scientific procedures to dete r mine that answer: it simply seems obvious to us from what we know of American society . Vice's method of etymology seems to us today to be crude and sloppy . And it is . For I believe Vico usually wants to tell us the way a word historically developed , and modern scholars could off er very convincing proofs of the wrongheadedness of most of his derivations . But perhaps in back of Vice's mind there was an unformed idea or assumption that the true histo r ical development of a wo r d was not its only important story--and perhaps not its most important for his purposes. The similarity of one word to another to which it bears no historical relation might in fact have a great effect on the use of both words, and might not otherwise be associated. Modern etymology might tend to persuade us to ignore such similarities as mere coincidences, but they ought not to be so easily tossed aside. I regret that I am completely unable to provide a scientific method for dealing with such similarities when they are noticed; but we should not close our eyes to extra-etymological considerations when non-etymological relations suggest themselves. And therefore we should not pass over Vic o' s "der ivations" as if the y were mere emb arrassments . M any of them may be totally worthless, but in some of them may lurk a social truth inaccessible to scientific Distance #2 Stacy Grimes ,, 0 wet day blanket-of-deep - forest - green day steam, my body is spice tea, I curl I am the Sun the Center, heat I am pulling o tugging o Venus I want smashed into betwixt me to be me but all and every ring around me rosy. Stasis, stance in this and in all wet days I am the Sun o shining Sun. etymology; and if he uncovered even one such truthrthen Vico's wild speculations were not entirely in vain . 16 17 �Chicago Labyrinth Ellen Schwindt feet thud on wettish concrete slabs of buildings building song no rhythm is forced by metronome of traffic light the loop rumbles softly a lofty thought sways in blue chiffon dances a spectral jazz sandal softens upon the area above my head my foot sweeps into someone else's space no one screams for air accepts suffocation with welcome coffee yes please lines becomes a sweeping ellipse of warmth dark purple apathy to fluorescence Emily creeps around the fringes repeating the bit about frogs unintelligably through saxophone slur of brown corner booths tea and roses drifting darkness is becoming sweeping around mouths open in effort to breath thick air eyes swell to almost open ended corridors of sea fog fading black 19 �Origins of Cohesive Thought Lawrence Seidl INTRODUCTION Philosophy is an analytic endeavor. It takes things apart and looks at them, and in a way this artificial mental reading irrevocably changes the things it looks at. One never loses the insights that are gained through philosophical analysis. Even if one chooses to give up philosophy, the pursuit of its questions leaves an indelible impression--i ts effect, as belonging to one's experience, is present in every subsequent endeavor. Perhaps the only real philosophical synthesis available to humanity is the acceptance of the ever more potently described limits of thought that thought itself struggles with. The acceptance might lead one to leave the study of philosophy and to incorporate it simply and completely, living the question rather than asking it. But here the challenge is in the asking. The question that brought me to this paper was: What is in the "space" between the steps in a logical sequence? The question forces me immediately to look a.t the language that such a series could be described in. Say, for example, that I examine a series of statements and judge that they follow logically, one after another. It is the logical rigor of the series that I am concerned with testing, and not the content of each statement, which, as language, depends on the rules of linguistic construction . How am I testing the logical rigor of the sequence, what do I mean by logical? This is a basic question, asked in simple language. "What I mean by logic" is an expression for one thing. It is the thing to which we refer when we use the word logic. We think of it usually as a criterion by which we judge . thought as ''making sense'i. Kant says, the science of the rules of understanding in general, that is, logic." Any series of statements seems susceptible to being made more logically coherent and rigorous, by filling in the "spaces" between with other statements, making a new series which more thoroughly explicates the necessity of the steps. The aim of this would be to understand better. This filling in can go on until it becom~s ridiculous--the understanding that resulted from the initial series becomes confused and the process begins describing itself. Language, when its logic comes into question, begins justifying itself, turning inward, and describing its own limits. Logic is not language--it is independent of its description. We can make a progression more logical with language, but we are limited by the dependen~that language has on logic. At a certain point, we will use up the empirical content; no more actual detail will be available. The logic of the progression will remain unexplica ted, and we will be left only with an unsupportable affirmation of the necessity of logically stepwise movement. For Kant, considering a series of statements as f o llowing logically is an example of the subsumption of the concepts contained in the statements by pure, a priori concepts of the understanding , that is, categories. His assertion is that this subsumption is necessary if there is to be any thought at all. In order to substantiate this assertion by showing it is logically correct, and thereby proving it is true, it would seem that he must explicate the necessity of the categories for thinking. Now the idea that thinking must be proved categorical is itself a categorical 20 thought. "The co~plet~ness and. art.iculation of this system [of pure understanding] can at the stme time yield a criterion of the correctness and genuineness of all its components-." On the face of it, categorical necessity wouldn't seem sufficient to prove that thought is categorical, just as language, a logical construct, doesn't ultimately serve to explicate logic. Logic and categorical necessity themselves require to be made necessary by something more coherent and more necessary from which they can derive their power. ' The search for this ground can take place only on the edge of meaningful language. The language of the search ts admittedly insufficient for the task of explaining its quarry, and at some crucial moments must rely on its ability to point, to imply the ultimate coherence and necessity that must validate thought. Kant's own language suffers these weaknesses, and yet it resounds with the power of its rational intent. The completeness and coheTence of the system speak for the power, while at certain points the rules of language represent an obstruction to Kant ' s clarity o f intention. The ultimately coherent source of logical necessity is the synthetic unity of apperception. In trying to make this unity an "object" of my thought, I must, it seems, deny the use of those elements of thought which depend on it for the necessity of their existence. This puts me very near the "I", in the immediate logical vicinity of the noumenal center of my being. It makes me feel alone. In what follows, I have presumed to begin with unity, itself the seemingly logical beginning of thought. I have attempted to explore Kant's treatment of this function of unity, and to give a sense of where we are in relation to the "I" we cannot know. I. A. Preliminary and purposely naive examination of the relation between unity and thought. Reason is the unified faculty which binds our mental activity into what we call thought. Its singularity reflects the unity of the thinking subject in which it is housed. Reason views the subject's body of knowledge as one comprehensive thing, a manifold of systems of understanding, each of which contains subordinate systems of concepts. Since systems and the concepts are themselves considered as whole things, this suggests that the manifold into which reason unifies them need not be considered as a whole at every moment in our thought. We are not thinking all our knowledge at all times. Our body of knowledge, and the subordinate wholes within it, are all susceptible to analysis. Indeed, the large encompassing order that reason prescribes is its fullest end, and we rarely have any sight of its oneness. This is because our understanding does not always succeed in its effort to secure fully unified concepts. We possess concepts which seem incomplete. They contain strongly associated impressions but their boundaries are not clear, and they are thus not fully unified. These concepts present problems to reason's goal of unity. Since reason is a faculty acting on already unified wholes, a question presents itself. What is the relation between the unity of the concepts considered as parts, and the unity of the system of reason? Do the unities we see in each share a common source? Thinking of reason as subsuming the understanding, fully contained and extended within itself, we may also consider both faculties as concentric around a central unity, from which the unity of each is derived. Since concepts are ultimately formed from the chaotically independent world of pre-appearance, and therefore rely on a unification of these jumblings for their wholeness, they require that the unifying source be active continually during this nearly constant process. Making concepl tual ones out of the chaotic many, and then organizing the ones into a rational manifold we identify as ours, seems to be the general character of thought. I Reason thinks ideas, which incorporate intuitions and concepts. Reason is thus a higher faculty than sensible intuition or understanding. But it is -e ssential tb I 21 �see the dependence of reason on these subordinate faculties. It does not depend on them for its existence, but it needs the concepts they produce to carry out its function, so as to be useful to the subject. Intuition and understanding, considered with regard to this use, are in reason, and their functions are part of reason's own usefulness. All three faculties rely on unity. Pure reason is in fact occupied with nothing but itself. It can have no other vocation. For what is given to it does not consist in objects that have to be brought to the unity of the empirical concepts, but in those modes of knowledge supplied by the understanding that require to be brought to the unity of the concept of reason--that is, to unity of connection according to a principle. The unity does not serve objectively as a principle that extends the application of reason to objects, but subjectively as a maxim that extends its application to all possible empirical 3 knowledge of objects. This subjective maxim of systematic unity is an idea that belongs to the thinking subject. It is an idea that can apply only to knowledge. Without a unifying faculty of understanding, we would never coalesce the manifold of the sensible impressions that constitute Kant's "beginning" of all knowledge. The thinking subject first intuits, then thinks concepts through understanding, and then orders his thought through the unifying function of reason. We must look to the subject for the unity upon which the elements of this process depend. This assertion presupposes an important question: how does the unity, which I assert to be central to the nature and activity of thought, relate to my concept of unity? This echoes Kant's criterion for determining a given concept to be synthetic. "The question is not what we ought to join in t,fought to a given concept, but what we actually think in it, even if only obscurely." If what we actually think in a concept is a manifold, and can thus be separated or analyzed, the "what we think" has a two-sided existence. On the one hand it is many, on the other it is one. As a concept, it is synthetic if we are aware that the two sides are required to be put to gether . The many impressions have somehow been previously conjoined into a manifold . If I ask myself what I actually think in my concept of unity, that is, what kind of synthesis resulted in my concept, I become confused. The question loses meaning because I fail to find a coherent concept of unity in my thought. Examples of unity pour forth, empirical and partitive. I am unable to gather them. Soon I see myself thinking, over against the lot of united things thought. This serves to point out ~ oneness in a comparative way. My failure to find unity as a concept, does not prevent me from thinking of myself as one, more truly one than any other example I have. Is my own unity also my concept of unity? To answer this question, I must analyze my thought without the benefit of Kant's system. I can't think about my thought through his system without first determining my own relation to it. According to Kant, I can have no empirical experience of unity. I can have experience only of concepts arising from sensibility, which are possible in part because of the category of unity. The category is at work each time I am conscious of a given representation. But what do I think about unity, what notion do I hav e of it that allows me to hope to apply Kant's ideas in my thought? It is appropriate here to be somewhat naive, and briefly to follow my sense of being pushed back from the empirical experience . of the cohesive aggregations we loosely term "unities", to the reasons why we do so. In the second paragraph of the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant distinguishesr: empirical knowledge from "what our own faculty of knowledge supplies 22 ·~ from itself ."5 His cautions against the error of deducing necessity from examples ot experience are frequent and numerous. This suggests that Kant wants to remind not only the reader, but himself as well, that care must be taken to limit consideration of the role of necessity to the realm of pure thought. As creatures in the world, we don't often need to question the truth of appearances. We treat objects as things entirely knowable in themselves, even as we contemplate the inherent error of so doing. If we look at the process of our giving up on the hope that experience can illuminate the character of unity, perhaps we can reveal something about the way we come to see unity as crucial to thought in general. · Strictly speaking, we don't see unity in experience, but rather unification, or the results of processes of unification. In the first case we see the actual "bringing together" of diverse empirical elements into a "whole". In the second case we see the "whole", and its composition is apparent to us by analysis. In the world of objects treated as things knowable in themselves, unification is the process whereby individuals are grouped. This results either in an aggregation in which the individuals are judg.ed as sharing an identical quality, or in a system where the individuals are seen as complementary elements of a unique singularity. The description of the simple aggregation can serve as a general description of any of its members. Similarly, the end toward which the system-group is aimed is greater than any of the diverse purposes of the complementary parts. In both instances, the parts are more effectively comprehended. Our thinking, which was scattered because it had to address many thing, gains cohesion and power by our gathering them into encompassing wholes. Next we may notice in gathering individuals into unified groups we do not negate their individuality. The unified groups strive to imitate the cohesion of the individuals they contain, which are always simpler than the groups. This pushes our thought into the regressive exploration of increasingly simpler wholes. Our empirical examples fail to show us unity, because the successively simpler wholes contain parts that can in turn be analyzed. We are forced to explore unity in thought. A purposely naive retracing of the path that we take in moving from the awareness of empirical unification and the power it seeks to secure, back into the necessary principle of unity in thought, mirrors what must have been the philosophical preparation for the writing of tht Critique. "There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience." This first sentence of the introduction to the Critique reveals Kant's awareness that he must subsume empiricism in stepping away from it. There can be no doubt that man's first knowledge comes from an unexamined process of acquisition. Kant knew that he normally treated objects the way we all do. His initial examination of experiential knowledge must have involved basic questions, and threatened ( at least initially) his confidence in the "reality" of the world. Ultimately his philosophy does not ask us to change our physical relation to objects; but it does demand that we recognize "reality" as a subjective idea. The empiricists were confident that their observations were undeniably objectively real, and that unerring logic following from these observations taken as principles could not fail to be correct. Kant ushered in transcendental philosophy by simply asking how they observed, how they thought, and from that, how observation and thinking are possible. I. B. Discussion of the presuppositions behind considering experience to be the beginning of knowledge. The assertion that all our knowledge begins with experience only seems possible after an extended analysis of the faculty of understanding. It presumes a specific definition of knowledge as relying on concepts, which are themselves defined as the reproducible representations of manifolds in intuition. The statement also therefore 23 �presumes that the understanding is the faculty which makes concepts. The beginning described above is a temporal one, where perhaps the connotation of origin is missed. It cannot be otherwise, since time is the form of all intuition, the root of knowledge~ but the awareness of this temporal beginning presupposes analysis of understanding. It is the first sentence of the Critique. It has been placed there for a specific reason. We must transcend this temporal beginning, and examine the analysis from which it results. Consideration of the presuppositions involved in Kant's assertion that experience must be the temporal beginning of knowledge, helps to reveal the logical convolution of the Critique's explication. Logical analysis reveals sensible intuition as the temporal beginning of possible knowledge. For this reason, the Critique begins its explication with an analysis of sensible intuition. Logic reveals intuition as the source of knowledge. Logic is a faculty which lends necessity to the movement of thought. Thus intuition is revealed as the necessary beginning of the process of acquiring knowledge. We may acquire knowledge that begins with intuition, without explicating this process to ourselves. Logic then simply works in us unanalyzed. We treat our intuitions as given and from them determine what logically follows. But when we wish to explicate the workings of the process, this is, to say what in us receives impressions, and what we do with them, etc., we are faced with the problem of explicating necessity. In effect, logic is then led to explicate itself, its function of lending necessity. A further complication is the fact that the language of the explication depends on logic for its capacity to ''make sense''. The logically derivative, complex rules of syntax must constitute the form of an explication of the most basic beginning of logic. What approach can we make to the explication of logic? The Critique is Kant's offering to us in our predicament, the result of his sharing our dilemma. It can only have followed in the wake of the incisive questions which carry it along. Our initial attempt to judge his rigor, his logic, his depth, consists of trying it on. That is, we try to think as he does. As a result of this effort we come to a point where we rely heavily on the prefacing remark , "Kant would say . • • " , in answering philosophical questions put to us. We give Kant permission to answer for us. The temptation and indeed (if we want to know his thought) necessity of this "trying on" is analogous to the aforementioned unanalysed acquisition of knowledge. We read Kant and accept him, working to give the system its full due. We do not isolate clearly and methodically the concepts that we understand arising from the book, but we do generate them, as unquestioningly as we avoid cars in the street. As we grow comfortable with the Critique, we disentangle ourselves, achieve some distance, and try to figure out what we think about it. · · •t We apply his method to his own system, once we can b egin t o " p 1 ace " 1 , o r glimpse its collective rational unity. The above description of our familiarization process , could perhaps be generalized into a description of familiarization in general. But the fundamental character of Kant's subject matter puts limits on the process of looking within his system. We want to go beyond an unquestioning acceptance, to a full explication of the necessity, carried to its original source. This "source" may well be seen as the true beginning" of knowledge. As it is the source of logical necessity, it is also a limit to the logical process of validating philo sophical systems. II. A. Dependence of e ach stag e of the analysi s of und e rstanding on the u nity it reveals as its highest principle. This paper began by discussing reason as the unifier of and of possible knowledge. We think of the expression "what only one thing, albeit comprehensive. Kant terms this aspect unity", and he relates it directly to the unifying capacity of 24 our body of knowledge we know" as intending of reason "systematic the faculty of under- standing. Just as the understanding unifies the manifold in the object by means of concepts~ so reason unifies the manifold of concepts by means of ideas, positing a certain collective unity as the goal of the activities of the understandi~, which otherwise are concerned solely with distributed unity.' ., This collective unity is the totality of possible knowledge, and it apparently re flects the unity of the understanding which facilitates the generation of concepts . The Critique of Pure Reason is. distinguished from the system of pure retson since it does not claim to offer the "exhaustive application of such an organon." Rather, it seeks to delimit completely the principles of a priori synthesis. Two results of a priori synthesis are possible: the form of possible manifold in intuition, or a body of ·a priori knowledge based on pure concepts of the understanding. The first synthe sis is temporally prior in relating to acutal experience, but depends on the logical ly prior possibility of the second synthesis. Pure concepts of understanding must relate a priori to objects, but their exisfcrnce, Kant says, already presupposes the combination attributable to a higher unity. [Combination] .•• is an affair of the understanding alone, which itself is nothing but the faculty of combining a priori and of bringing the manifold of given representations under the [systematic] unity of apperception. The principle of apperceptioIJ.. is 1 the highest principle in the whole sphere of human knowledge. This lofty evaluation of the synthetic unity of apperception may seem surprising, since we associate it with concepts of understanding rather than with the disjunctively considered, "higher" sphere of pure reason . It is often difficult to retain the awareness of reason as the legislator of thought . This is because we are normally put upon by need and see legislative function only when we reflect op the 2 "how" of thinking. Reason itself supplies the principles of understanding, of which the highest is t he unity of apperception. This high principle of knowledg e alone can reflect the systematic unity of pure reason, whose ideal end is the totality of all possible knowledge . But this is a statement of its stature and is not illuminating as to the nature of the principle . Our initial , more naive conception of the shared unity at the center of thought was based on the dependence of reason on understanding and intuition. We imagined t he subordinate faculties as contained within the faculty of r eason . In makin g such a formulation, we abstracted from the movement in the process of acquiring knowledge to a fixity of the interrelation of the elements of our mental activity. I suggest that Kant's description of the .;3.cquisition of knowledge arose from an analytic and methodical questioning of empiricism, which centered around a complaint that it lacked explicit logical necessity and didn't address the condition of its thought. The original synthetic unity of apperception is the ultimate yield of Kant, s rational analysis of the possibility of understanding. When we have it revealed, we have attained the abstract fixity in which all the fundamental elements of rational thinking are displayed before us . Their necessary order can only now be ascertained as truly necessary, since only by seeing its root in the principle of unity is cat egorical necessity even deemed possible. Once we have attained this high principle that lends necessity to the generation of concepts, we can look back at the process of its revealing , that is , the sections of the Critique prior to the Transcendental Deduction. We then see the dependence of each stage on the principle itself. In the first stage, the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant is primarily concerned with estab- 25 �lishing space and time as the sole formal conditions of sensible intuition. "It is ... indubitably cerf~in that space and time ... are merely subjective conditions of all our intuitions." Kant's analysis of the faculty of receptivity thr ough which objects are given to us is the epitome of plausibility. He offers a complete argument for its acceptance, since our alternative of ascribing objective validity to space and time would be a relinquish::Lng of our ability to say "indubitably certain", that is, to prove the necessity in the relation of space and time to our intuition. But the completeness of the argument is not assured until we have gone further. This "indubitable certainty" is not explicitly possible until the ground of the necessity is revealed as the unity of apperception . "Time and space are therefore two sourcI~ of knowledge, from which bodies of a priori synthetic knowledge can be derived." Such bodies of a priori synthetic knowledge necessarily contain concepts derived from sources in intuition, and so establish these sources as indubitably certain and subjective. To question their necessity is equivalent to denying synthetic unity, and questions Kant's formulation of concept making. In the short introduction to the Transcendental Lo~, the understanding is designated as "spontaneity in the production of concepts," which it makes in conjunction with the other fundamental source of knowledge in the mind, the sensible intuition. Here, the two-fold role of logic that we have already described is made explicit. First, it must give necessity to the process of acquiring a priori knowledge; and second, it must reveal the source of this, its own necessity. This is the role of transcendental logic, which is distinguished from general logic in that it treats only of the a priori use of understanding. Empirical objects, even should they never vary in our experience, cannot be shown to exist necessarily. Their consistence in experience refers us to the subjective necessity that underlies the possibly of their being judged as unvarying . General logic, which supplies the rules under which these objects must be brought in the understanding, can therefore only treat of the form of thought, irrespective of its sensible content. But since a priori synthetic knowledge is available to us, a distinction might likewise be drawn between pure and empirical thought of objects. In that case we should have a logic in which we do not abstract from the entire content of knowledge. This other logic, which should contain solely the rules of the pure thought of an object, would exclude only those modes of knowledge which have empirical content. It would also treat of the origin of the modes in which we know objecr~' in so far as that origin cannot be attributed to the objects. · The origin of the modes of human knowledge is attributed to the thinking subject. Is this saying that knowledge derives from the knower? If appearances provide only the substance of knowledge, and in no way contribute to the actual modes of knowing, this would suggest that in the thinking subject alone are we to find the functional origin, or true beginning of thought. II. B. Transcendental Analysis purest concept. of understanding reveals synthetic unity as the The Transcendental Logic is divided into two sections, one of which, the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant claims to be "no more than a critical tre17ment of the pure understanding for the guarding of it against sophistical illusion.'' The first part, the Transcendental Analytic, is the more substantial, recognizably logical section. The initial book contains first, the exposition of the table of categories, or 26 pure concepts of understanding; and then the Transcendental Deduction, where the unif~ing function of the categories is made explicitly possible and necessary. The first book of the Transcendental Analytic contains what seems to be the essence of the Critique of Pure Reason . The analytic is an attempt to understand understanding Here is found the full force of the word "transcendental". Here is also felt th~ extreme limitation of words and language. If we think of the term "transcendental" as indicating movement out of a given mode into the understanding of its possibility, then what do we intend by the application of this "movement beyond" to the under standing itself? The determination of the system of concepts of pure understanding is an analysis which Kant does not describe. The system seems to yield itself to him effortlessly, through the act of his looking at understanding with only the aid of his concept of purity, which prevents his looking, as it were, from admitting any empirical blemish . What is Kant analyzing? We might offer some of his own words--he' s analyzing the faculty which generates concepts a priori--but are these words satisfying to the purity of what they intend? Kant's own description is equally troubling. By analytic concepts, I do not understand their analysis, or the procedure usual in philosophical investigations, that of dissect ing the content of such concepts as may present themselves, and so of rendering them more distinct; but the hitherto rarely at tempted dissection of the. faculty of undP-rstanding, itself, by looking for them in the understanding alone, f~ their birthplace, and by analyzing the pure use of the faculty . The analysis is explic itly a mere "looking" and yet it serves to "dissect" the under standing. What is intended by the two metaphors? "Looking" is that evaluation of the thinking self, in which we determine what concepts are available . They need to . . . . b e " soug ht II , t o f in d " p 1 ace ,, -- I can ' t seem to avoi d spatial analogies or of fer a description of what is intended by this process of "searching out'' the contents of a thinking faculty . It is a mental "searching" t o which we have such a simple relation that our need to employ analogical descriptions of it cannot tarnish the clarity of o u r th oug ht . "D. sec t. " is even more comp 1 ex as it presupposes the more specific . · is ing condition of the prior cohesion of the elements of understanding. It is the dissection of a faculty we must already "have" in its entirety. Th~s ~alls up t~9 distinction initiated in the Introduction between analytic and synthetic Judgments. There Kant claims that the effect of this distinction on philosophy has not been keenly felt before his own treatment of it. This is an important indication of the role that his analysis of thought occupies in his own mind . Analytic judgments, he says, can be thought of as explicative; while synthetic judgments should be termed ampliative. These words point to a question which becomes vital when thinking of the unity of apperception, namely, is one of the two kinds of judgments more necessary? The possibility of an analytic judgment depends on the existence of a concept that is unified, or has already been synthesized. All analysis then, is grounded by a priori synthesis. And while the determination of a concept as synthetic depends on the capacity to analyze it, it might be imagined that synthetic concepts could exist alone without any analysis possible. They would simply foster other synthetic concepts in one direction, that of a progressively more encompassing and complex concept. All learning would then be the building of a super-concept that contained all of an individual's knowledge. Analytic judgments, adding nothing to concepts, do not sit in the position of grounding synthetic ones. Thus the entire Transcendental Analytic presupposes a synthesized subject matter already existent. Since the actual steps in Kant's "analyzing the pure use of the faculty" of understanding, are not described, we are forced to trust that a synthesized 27 �ill understanding that must be presupposed is known to us so simply and fundamentally that it is indescribable and susceptible of an equally indescribable analysis. Upon presenting his table of categories, Kant says, This then is the list of all original pure concepts of synthesis that the understanding contains within itself a priori ..• by them alone can it understand anything in 2Be manifold of intuition, that is, think an object of intuition. The table is the result of the undescribed analysis. The next statement is an assertion of their fundamentality to thought. At this stage of the argument, Kant relies on the rigor of his preparation to make up for the "space" in between the categories and their function . The above statement is an encapsulation of the move from the analytic determination of what the categories are, to the analytic deduction of their indispensability, in which he set out to prove their uniqueness and exhaustiveness. "Concepts of synthesis" are principles of . the combination of the manifold in intuition. The possibility of combination is rooted in the original synthetic unity of apperception. In the same way that we presume as necessary a pure synthesized understanding whose analysis reveals the categories, so the syn the tic unity is described by Kant as an analytic proposition. We must be able to deduce a priori the form in which an object may be represented to us. Only by this will we be able to extend ne,cessity to the object, as known. Deduction is a logical process, and it is analytic. It has the character we looked at earlier, of "pushing" us back to necessary conditions. Since, in this case, all its movement is born of a priori necessity, Kant terms it a transcendental deduction. The necessity that this deduction pushes us back to is so pure as to validate the categories themselves. It is the source of their power to give cohesion to the chaos of pre-appearance. It is the purity in pure thought. The word "necessity" seems insufficient to its actual intended function. impossible bind? We feel the push of analysis, but we can't offer an illumination of the nature of the synthetic unity that is presupposed. We can only deduce that it must exist, and this deduction is the result of an analysis that began by looking at sensible intuition. I suggest that this whole preliminary analysis stands in need of the ultimate unity that it reveals as the limit and source of its own power. Here we feel both the push of analysis and the ultimate synthetic coherence of unity co- existing and giving rise to thought itself. In support of his attributing an analytic nature to the principle of synthetic unity, Kant makes the following statement: I am conscious of the self as identical in respect of the manifold of representations that are given to me in an intuition, because I call them one and all my repr1~entation, and so apprehend them as constituting one intuition. It seems that the unity is an analytic proposition because it serves only to explicate the thinking subject, not to join anything to the concept that we have of it . Looking at the language of the argument, I question whether there is any "rooul." for analysis in the simple realm where the unity exists; or whether anything is mo r1 e analytically appropriate than that my representations must be called mine. By analy\ sis, I identify my capacity to say "I think" as signaling a unity in my represent~r­ tions which must be the result or prior synthesis. Explication is often essential to understanding. Analysis, in the empirical world, would seem capable of providing more information to the mind than synthesis. Here, however, isn't analysis in an The analysis of any concept will result in a sequence of analytic judgments in which "I" am the judge, and I identify the elements of the judgment (subject and predicate) as ~ representations. In order that this be possible, we must conceive of the necessity that a synthesized , potentially divisible concept already be available, aris ing from the original unity. The formation of the above sentence is revealing. I am something because I do something. "I" both is and does, and its doing is a proof of its being. Upon whar-does this proof rely if we accept that we can have no knowledge of the "I" as it is in itself, but only as it appears? The synthetic unity of apperception is not the "I". We want to attribute it to the "I" as a way to get "nearer" to what the "I" in itself may be. In the unity, we see a coexistence of analysis and synthesis nearing the absolute cohesion we suspect must exist in the "I" that is capable of sensing, understanding, and reasoning. We have said that analytic thinking is pushy in general. It seems that a concept isn't fully known, isn't knowledge per se, unless it is fully analyzed . So the understand ing pushes for completeness in concepts. Similarly Pure Reason is a kind of transcendentally analytic, or potentially analytic faculty, that applies itself once a body of potentially related complete concepts are known. What is reason's analysis pushing toward? A complete system is what Kant suggests is reason's focus. What do we mean by a complete system? His assertions about the responsibility of philosophy and the exhaustiveness of the categories, all suggest that he intends to fully delimit the parameters of possible truth. He wants to be infallible, so that all questions of the form of thought, that is, the a priori condition of the mind, may be answered. The only proof Kant will accept of the connection between an object and its synthesized representation in the understanding, is one that establishes an a priori readiness to know the representation as an object. These words--know, representation, and object--have the very narrowly defined meanings offered by Kant in order to limit confusion. He rejects an empirical proof of the connection between object and representation (i .e. that the object makes the representation possible), because it cannot be shown to rest on a stronger condition than the commonality of experience. The object itself is out of range of possible knowledge. It is truly independent of our thought. Commonality of experience could only yield what Kant considers a de facto deduction of the form of its representation in thought. This brings us back to transcendental deduction, and its relation to the noumenal synthetic unity whose activity brings the categories into existenc~ 4 Deduction is a logical process and cannot contain the unconditioned in any way. But this is the deduction without which no other deduction is possible. It is at the beginning, and logic cannot simply start itself up like a motor. If we wish to make it logical , it seems we must find a way to condition the original unity. We are 28 29 III. A. The thinking subject considered as object leads to our inability to reject individuality. The application of the analytic/synthetic distinction discussed in section four of the Introduction to the consideration of the synthetic unity of apperception, serves to exhibit the depth of my conceptual dilemma with unity. Kant identifies the principle ~f the unity of apperception as "an identical, and therefore analytic prop 2 He explains, osition." For it says no more than that all ~ representations in any given intuition must be subject to the condition under which alone I can ascribe them to the identical self as synthetically combi~2d in one apperception through the general expression, "I think". · �i pushed and reason won't yield, even here where its own effectiveness finds its root, its limit. Kant certainly does not proclaim the unity of apperception to be unconditioned, nor does he claim to condition it so as to preserve the strict logic of the deduction. Indeed, as logically necessary, unity must he conditioned. His description of its necessity only succeeds insofar as his language succeeds. And while his language and logic are impeccable in regard to establishing the "I" (or at least the synthetic unity attributable to it) as a kind of ground for thought, he makes statements which out of context sound like tautologies. "For the manifold representations, which are given in an intuition, would not be f?e and all ~ representation, if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness." Perhaps it is reason's unceasing drive toward comprehension that "conditions" the unity of apperception. For there is an idea of "complete systematic unity belonging to reason. Kant assigns three ideal object~ to this idea, the first of which is the "I" considered as "thinking nature or soul." 7 Since we are beyond "I think", where the thinking self is an object, we are also outside of understanding. Pure reason is looking at an object that it gives for itself. Instead, then, of the empirical concept (of that which the soul actually is), which cannot carry us far, reason takes the concept of the empirical unity of all thought; and by thinking this unity as unconditioned and original, it forms from it a concept of reason ... The idea of a simple self subsisting intelligence .• It is endeavoring to represent all determinations as existing in a single subject, all powers, so far as possible, as derived from a single fundamental power, all change as belonging to the state of one and the same permanent being, and all appear~§ces in space as completely different from the action of thought. If we consider this in conjunction with our understanding that tq~ synthetic unity of apperception constitutes the objective validity of the object,~ and so determines itself as utterly subjective, we see here, at the root of the thinking process, something like an inability to reject our own individuality. When I say, "my mind makes me •.. ", I mean that l feel a necessity in my thought that "pushes" for completeness. I believe this is what Kant describes as the effect of the transcendental ideas on my understanding. I wish to order my knowledge and to have concepts in their fullness of meaning. Reason is always seeking to complete the system of knowledge that is born in the understanding, thereby giving concepts place and "extension". Transcendental ideas are not bound the way concepts are to objects, as they have no object in concrete. By identifying "I think" as a kind of ultimate object, we have introduced a ranking of a priori concepts--a transcendental hierarchy of importance that reflects the truth of the concepts contained in it. "I think", as we know, accompanies all representations. We may therefore consider our knowledge of any concept to be expressible in a judgment. This can be seen most clearly in the common response to the question, · "what do you think?" We say, "what I think is ••• ", in which objective truth, that is, subordinate judgments concerning objects, is united in the predicate of a self - directed judgment of myself as thinking. This is only redundant, since all representations are susceptible of such a construction, but it is also a very common use of language. This suggests something we have already alluded to--the "ultra a priori" nature of original unity. One might think that the universal applicability of "I think" would eliminate it as an effective linguistic tool. But we seem to need to say it, to reaffirm a connection between the object we make of our self, the activity of thought, and the empirical object of the cosmos. 30 III. B. Thought directed toward the self is recognized as conditioning being. All our concepts must come in a categorical form. Kant says, The table of categories, as contains all the elementary concepts of the understanding in their completeness, nay, even the form of a system of them in human understanding, and accordingly indicates all the momenta of a projected spec~~ative science, and even their order, as I have elsewhere shown. Any concept may be placed in a category which subsumes it a priori, and we can see a necessary relation between empirical concepts only because of the necessity of the relation of the categories that subsume them. The necessity of the categories is not, however, the so"rce of necessity itself. The deduction of their necessity is different from the necessity that "I think" accompany all representations which, as we said, involves our inability to reject the individuality of our thought, or to separate our being from the condition of this activity of thought. Our consciousness of this inability is what leads us to deduce the original unity of apperception as underlying the analytic unity of all consciousness of objects. The logical necessity of the existence of this unity is categorical, implying a tautological circularity--that the categories could somehow provide proof of their own necessity. Logical necessity is the result of our holding up individuality of thought as undeniable, our challenging ourselves to "get behind" it in thought, and our inevitable failure to do so. Can we ever get behind logical necessity? This is to ask whether we can get behind original unity. Perhaps we cannot do so directly, as we have shown that the language we would use relies on the principle of unity in a truly transcendental way. Its reliance prevents us from actually explicating the truth of the original unity's being, or the truth of its transcendental necessity. What can we do with language that might cast light on this hidden place in us? --I have spoken of the "I think" as an ultimate object. I have intended by this to show that the reliance of human thought on "object" limits and bounds our language and conditions the true independence of the unity which constitutes individuality itself. Thus far I have not dealt with the fact that my ultimate object "I think" is also a verbal construction. Because it is language, our expression is analyzable into the linguistic elements it contains. But the truth of the object is that, in the "thinking being" we intend, the so-called activity of the being is not deemed analytically separable from the being itself. That is, the thinking seems to "constitute " the being, or is unified to it so closely that language is unable to describe the joining. Still, language calls this "I think", which, as containing elements, suggests that, though the unity of the thinking being may not be described, it is not the ultimate source of unity. Considering the predication of being in the "I am", we find it illusory and self-indicting in its self-consciousness. The predication does not trace back to an inner sensible intuition. Does it make sense to just say "I" and look? My status as a thinker is changed by questions concerning the "I". As the ground of thought, it seems no conclusions may be reached about it analytically. There can be no concept of it. Alone in its presence, I am thinking, but my thinking is a mere looking, the simplest mental affirmation that I am real, and I am thinking. Kant justifies the principle upon which his Transcendental Deduction, and I claim his entire philosophy, is based, by presenting us with a challenge. It is a challenge he must have presented to himself as an "I". The challenge is simply to reject the 31 �consciousness of the absolutely unified self, to say that it is not one , or that we are unsure where we acquire whatever internal cohesion our thought has. If being is separated from thinking, perhaps we are introducing a demonstration of the independence each has from the other. In any case, the justification for the principle which lends necessity to all thought, both a priori and empirical, is not strictly a logical appeal. We cannot ultimately reject our own individuality . Kant tells us what must fall out from this, if we accept it as true, but we cannot offer logical proof. May the justification ultimately be our own feeling of oneness, and might this not still be a rational justification? The analytic nature of the principle of original unity has come into question. What we know of the original unity is not "what it is", but only that it is necessary for us as sayers of the expression "I think". This is because we must understand by thinking, because there is no understanding available to us intuitively. Intuitional understanding may be possible, but Kant says that we can ' t imagine what it would be like. The "I" that thinks is phenomenal, and its concept may be traced empirically to inner sense, the representation of myself as I appear to myself, i.e. as thinking. Of the two verbal expressions in which we place the "I", the expression of being, I am, offers no synthesizable manifold. The active expression, I do (in this case I think) implies an obj e.ct of the action, something done or thought. The object cannot come from anywhere else than a given united manifold of intuition, whose unity is derived from the unity of apperception. I may attach "I think" to any of my representations. Thus each of them presumes a self directed judgment of myself as thinking, and not merely thinking, but thinking something. This would seem to indicate that I cannot be aware of the unity of apperception except as necessary to my perception of a unified object. The unity's effect is extended from the origin to the potential object in the joining of the elements in a judgment. Through the judgment (a relation itself), the being of the subject, conditioned by the predicate, ts seen in relation to or is "brought to", the original unity. The simple relation of the judgment, when seen as a uniting of its disparate elements, can receive this unifying force only from its original source. If I am not specifically conscious of my judging, I am nonetheless conscious of "what I think". When I unite disjointed representations into an objective concept, I do not make the object into a part of ~ unity. My extending of unity is not something I may choose or not choose to do. It makes my thought, and thereby all consciousness of myself, possible. I force the manifold into a state that reflects my unity of thought; I make it a whole by relating it to my unity. In the third class of categories, those dealing with relation, such a whole corresponds to community. The logical function associated with community is the disjunctive judgment. We may say "I think", or we may off er a conditioned verb of being, "I am a thinking thing". If we say only "I am", we are still conscious of our saying, and so of our thinking. We cannot think of our being without thereby conditioning it. Our thought recognizes the condition it sets on our being. It recognizes its own function as the impediment to itself--it seems ultimately to preclude examination of itself. Even stranger, thought isn't stopped in its tracks by this realization, it retains all its normal power intact. It still is able to prove propositions and provide the full framework for human truth. It can categorize itself, but not know itself. The origin of all its limited ability, is its ultimate inability. I say this because of unity. Oneness and wholeness are words that I associate with empirical observations , for they are primarily attributable to things. I associate unity, on the other hand, with origin, and I consider these to have specifically transcendental implications. The synthetic unity of apperception is the yield of a self-directed analysis. It is attributable to the I. Somehow, looking.at its place , and its surmised function, puts me near the unspeakable truth of my exis tence. The power that binds analysis with synthesis into coexistence within the uni ty of apperception roust be even greater in the unkno-wn self. Because the challenge of rejecting this origin stands ( that is, because we do not know what it would mean if it didn't stand), we are sure of the unity of the self, despite its being unknown . The self is the groun<l we stand on when we look at object, whether empirical or a priori. What can ground us if we wish to look at the self, to extend out the sphere of knowledge to meet it? What if man were. able t~ cultivate an. abilit~ to feel the unity of empirical wholes as simple, despite possible complex division into parts? Maybe if we listened more closely to ourselves, we would realize the depth of our own unity. Each time we possess or claim, or otherwise subj ectify ourselves, maybe we "touch base" with the center of our minds. We do this to a degree in certain recognitions and responses of a less philosophic character, more instinctively. For example, need is an awareness of necessity in the self, and so the need, as mine, has a self-focusing quality. The self-awareness that results from this kind of necessity is one in which the self is alone with its need. Such a need can beco~e so acute that it drives everything out of the mind except self- awareness. In considering unity as the fundamental center of thought we put ourselves in a similar position of being alone. It is from this cohesive center that we open out to the world. We must observe that in all disjunctive judgments the sphere (That is, the multiplicity which is contained in any one judgment) is represented as a whole divided into parts (the subordinate concepts), and that since no one of them can be contained under any other, and so as determining each other, not in one direction only, as in a series, but reciprocally, as in an aggregate - if one member of t~I division is posited, all the rest are excluded, and conversely. Concepts are coordinated with one another, and thereby unified into a judgment. The concept of this coordinate relation is the most illuminating description I can find of the actual process of extending unity and making "wholes" in thought. It seems like transcendental organization. The coordination is most like the activity of unity. The categorical necessity of the coordination reflects the pure internal cohesion that must constitute the truth of unity. 32 33 �For Li Ch'ing Chao FOOTNOTES Judy Kistler All notes refer to the following: Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. St. Martin's Press, New York 1929. Trans. Norman Kemp Smith. 93 102 552 54 42 41 533 58 58 152 154 58 86 80 92 95 101 103 Section IV, Intro. 113-4 155 157 155 501 153 556 557 557 156 Last night the upper heavens were the color of eggplant, but the last breath of the sun shone golden through the trees. I often watch in silence, then turn aside to read the Chinese poets. Unlike them, I have no phoenix hair ornaments t o crush in my uneasi.ness over your absence. Unable to decide, we dance about each other; repelled and attracted, magnets unsure of our polarities, moths flirting with the flame. 114 117 Judy Kistler graduated from Santa Fe in 1977 and teaches math and Chinese at the Forman School in Litchfield, Connecticut. 34 35 �Surf and Misfortune A Study of Oedipean Tragedy Jeff Kojac In the final choral ode of Sophocles 1 Oedipus Tyrannos, the tragedy and the moral of the play are portrayed in the words, s\s toov KAdowva OElvns mJµ¢opas sAnA08sv (He was taken into the great fearful surf of misfortune) . l The c onc l u sion to t h e play begins with a parall e l to Oedipus ' opening speech. The chorus addresses those who live in Thebes and reminds the heare r that Thebes i.s a city cursed with bloodshed since it was founded . It describes Oedipus as a masterful riddle solver envied by all . Yet this Oedipus, the cho r us sings , was swallowed by the sea of misfortune and found that no mortal could be counted happy until dead , fo r the future can hold great misery no matter what may be the blessings of t he pr esent . Such a closing statement to the play leaves the reade r with a mo ra l ve r y close to that Solon shar es with Croesus-- that the rich and powerful king i s by no means the happiest , fo r his downfall can ccrne b e fo r e his de at h . Th e ke y t o this mo ra l in Oedipus Tyrannos is the fearful surf of misfortune actually swallowing Oed i pus ; this is the tragedy of the play . The nature of the swallowing is Oedipus' inability to perceive himself due to his fear and anger . Oedipus clearly is in the sea of ouµ¢opas right from his birth , long before he drowns himself . He flees from Corinth in fear, kills Lauis' par t y in ange r , and b r ings about his own downfall in the dialogue of t he play . Re becomes angr y a t Teiresias and forces the seer to speak words which only make Oedipus mo r e ang ry and b r ing him into conflict with Creon . Oedipus' anger agains t Creon draws Jocasta int o the play, and thr ough her Oedipus ' guilt is exposed . When the messenger fr om Corinth presents the news that Polybus is dead, Oedipus openly expresses his fea r of t he bed of his mother in Corinth. This fear dissolves whe n the messenge r ex plains that Me rope was only his step- mother . This in turn brings a h e rdsman to th e palace . Oed i pus again becomes ang r y , and i t is because of this ange r that he f inds t h e tr uth and realizes the oracle has been proved true . His r age t akes him t o Jocas t a ' s chambe r s and, finding he r dead, he vents h is wrath on hims el f: h e blind s his own eyes and thus completes his descent into the waves of misfo r tune . Oedipus sinks in misfortune's waves thr ough his t h r ashing abou t i n ange r and fear. Bo t h o f t h es e emo tion s b lind h im fr om true se l f-kn owledge and make it all the more painful when the truth is finally impress e d upon h i s e yes . The dr owning in misfortune is an understanding of the self . Oedipus lear ns o f his tr u e s el f , jus t a s Cr oesus even t ually sees his fragility and mo rt alit y whe n h e is abo ut t o b e bu r ned at the stake by Cyrus . Oedipus does not only lea r n of his tr u e se lf in t he sen s e of his heritage and the consequences of his actions . He catch e s sight of h i mself a s a man who is proven able to err and suffer r egar dle ss of p re viou s rank , ble ssings , o r abilities . Yet Oedipus i s not happy in his newl y gain e d s e lf-knowl e dge, and t o use his own phrase (line 1444), he is "&vcSp6s ke>.. lO-U " - - a man of mise r y . The ho rr or of his wretchedness is not purely a product of the discove r y of h i s inc e s t and pat r icide , for as Jocasta hints at , unknowing inc e st do e sn't necessarily d e se r ve such horror (line 982), and Oedipus' father surely attempted to kill him t wi ce--Oedipus' killing was self - preservation. The unde r lying r eason fo r Oedipus 1 wre t chedness mus t lie elsewhere. 36 Oedipus ' tragedy comes about through his fear and anger, and it is these two facets of his character that blind him. Oedipus cannot see because he is too frightened to see. He does not believe in himself as an individual, for clearly he is affected by the words and actions of others to such an extent that he loses himself in rage. Such rage expresses his inability to accept his own self; his anger comes as a reaction to those that challenge his authority in any way. This anger shows that he does not feel himself truly to be the great man that he is considered, for if he were the 'great man' he could not successfully be threatened. Thus Oedipus' insecurity is his blindness. The word translated as misfortune is cruu~opas , but this word can be rendered as luck, either good or bad, and as a chance event. This explains why ouµ¢opas is described as the surf; the waves can be positive, negative, and neutral in their apathetic treatment of a surfer. The waves do not set out to drown the surfer or provide him with a good ride or bore him with small breakers; rather the waves are a natural function of the planet without any intentions or cause to them (other than a merely efficient cause). The surf of cruµ¢opas is pictured as great and fearful because it is man who is responsible for the outcome of the waves; his actions decide whether the luck is good or bad. Oedipus is taken into the horrible world of chance: this is a totally different understanding of the play from the usual speculation that Oedipus is fated and trapped into his tragedy. But it is a solid interpretation: he can react in any way he chooses to the oracle, his father, the plague, Teiresias, Jocasta, the messenger, and the herdsman. And he does so in a consistent manner: with anger and fear. Swept into the world of chance, Oedipus acts in a destructive and insecure fashion. He thrashes around in the surf of ouu¢opas with his actions because his self-perception produces the consequences of the great fearful surf. The play' s tragedy therefore lies in Oedipus 1 being given the chance to make his own consequences. The reason why such 'chance' is tragic is that his true self is relied upon. It is his true self that fails him; it resp onds with decisions that topple him from his throne. Oedipus' horror comes fr om perceiving that his true self is prone to the same mistakes and follies as that of any other man. Sophocles' lesson in Oedipus Tyrannos is not simply for haughty kings trapped in fate. Sophocles writes in such a way that his play is applicable for all men who can strive to see themselves truly and avoid both arrogance and self-deprecation. Through a portrait of Oedipus' being taken into the great fearful surf of misfortune, Sophocles gives the reader an exhortation to stay away from the extremes of conceit and self-hatred and instead to seek after a balance simi l ar to Aristotle's 'mean' in The Ethics and Plato's 'sophro syne' in Cha rmides. 1 o e d i p us Tyr a nno s line 1527, my transla t ion . 37 �I ':~ I I A Translation of Jean De La Fontaine's "The Cat, the Weasel, and the Little Rabbit" James O' Gara LE CHAT, LA BELETTE ET LE PETI T LAPI N A rabbit ' s pala tia l home fe l l, one f ine morning, As spoils to Dame Belette , who, without war ning, Seize'd on it ; her cunning wit was weaselly-The maste r was absent , the thing was done easily . She brought and installed her hearth- gods one day While he had gone to Aur or a , his homag e t o pay Amid the thyme and the r ose . Having grazed , trotteCT , made his rounds , Johnny Rabbit re t ur ned to his abode , unde r gr ound . The intrude r weasel pr essed to the window her snou t. "O hospitable gods! What ha t h caus'd such a r ou t ?" Cried t he animal evicted f r om his ancest r al hous e. "O Madame Belette , Kindly dislodge , else further me upset! Pr ovoke me not the local rats t o r ous e !" "But , " said the lady of the pointed nose, "To the first occupant needs must go the land . Me t hinks t hi s subje ct unwo rthy of t h rea t 'ning po s e-This lowly pit where I have crawled . And , I demand , Were this a kingdom Pr ay tell, what law were i t t o cede Eternal right , " asked she , "unending deed To John , son or nephew of Peter or William , Rather than to Paul- -or better still , t o me ?" John the rabbit invoked custom and ancient code . "It is these laws that have granted me the run Of this my hutch, and that have, from father down to son, From Peter, thence to Simon, then to me, John , fai r ly won . This 'squatter's right,' 'tis mos t unjust and incommode . " "Ah well, sir , let us no more sco r n and scold But take our case," said she, "to Haughty- snou t. " 'Twas a cat who lived as a devout hermi t, Pr acticed in all the arts of the hypocrite , A saintly sort, deck'd out , all big and fat , Pois'd referee , dispenser of much tit - fo r- tat . Johnny Rabbit agrees the cat should ju9ge the case , 38 Du palais d'un jeune Lapin Dame Belette, un be au matin , / S'empara : c'est une rusee. Le Maitre 6tant absent, ce lui fut chose ais~e. Elle porta chez lui ses pe'nates, un j our Qu'il ltait all/ faire~ l'Aur ore sa cour / Parmi le thym et la r osee. Apr~s qu'il eut brout{, trotte', fait tous ses tours, . . /. Janot Lapin retourne aux souterrains seJours. La Belette avait mis le nez~ l a fen~tre. A 11 0 Dieux hospitaliers! que vois-je ici paraitre? Dit l'animal chass{ du paternel logis. Hol~! Madame la Beletee, / Que l'on deloge sans trompette, Ou je vais avertir taus les Rats du pays." La <la~ au nez pointu r~pondit que la terre Etait au premier occupant. "c'ttait un beau sujet de guerre Qu'un l ogis O\i lui-~me il n'entrait qu'en rampant. Et quand ce serait un r oyaume, Je voudrais bien savoir, dit-elle, quelle l oi En a pour toujours fait l'octroi A Jean, fils ou neveu de Pierre ou de Guillaume, Plut~t qu'~ Paul, plut~t qu•}i. moi!" Jean Lapin alltgua la coutume et l'usage: "Ce sont, dit-il, leurs lois qui m'ont de ce logis ~ . . ' Ren d u maitre et seigneur, et qui, d e pere en f i·1 s, L'ont de Pierre 'a Simon, puis a moi, Jean, transmis. Le premier occupant, est-ce une loi plus sage? -Or bien, sans crier davantage, Rapportons-nous, dit-elle, 'a Raminagrobis." C '~tait un Chat, vivant comme un dlvot ermite, Un Chat faisant la chattemi te, U saint homme de Chat, b i en f ourre", gros et gras, n Arb itre expert sur t ous le s cas. Jean LaP.in pour juge l ' agr/e. 39 �See the pair of them arrayed in face Of fur-lined majesty, stuffed with pomp, but claws as mace. Scratch-paw bids them come: "Advance a pace, For I am deaf, infirmity of age the cause." The two approach, gullible both, right to the traitor's jaws. As soon as he has seen the plaintiffs near, Scratch-paw, the good Judas, of canting mind, Engulfs them both in a flurry of claws; and a wave of fear Reconciling the plaintiffs, devours the pair combined. Les voila taus deux arrives . / Devant sa maJeste/ f ourree. Grippeminaud leur dit: "Mes enfants, approchez, Approchez, je suis sourd, les ans en sont la cause." L'un et l'autre approcha, ne craignant nulle chose. Aussit~t qu'~ port{e, il vit les contestants, Grippenminaud, le bon ap"ci'tre, Jetant des deux c~tls la griffe en m~me temps, Mit les plaideurs d'accord en croquant l'un et l'autre. All of which quite resembles the squabbling things Which petty lords argue forth before their kings. Ceci ressemble fort aux d~bats qu'ont parfois Les petits souverains se rapportant aux rois. 40 41 �Streetlight Walter Plourde The streetlamp shines outside the window. The light falls on me all the time when the room is dark, even though a Japanese blind is rolled down, obscuring the light. The glow from the street falls across my knees pulled up tight to my chest; it spreads across her sleeping face, across the cluttered floor, only to be lost in the corners of the room not ten feet from where I sit. I don't know how we survived, she and I, three months in this tiny room. For three months this has been almost my entire world, our self-contained cave, and I'm not sure what spring bubbled up to keep us alive, feed us. Love, I tell myself. I told her the same thing a couple of days ago. I was sitting as I am now, my knees pulled up, arms wrapping my shins, hard wall cramping my back. She was sitting right next to me--the wall never seemed to hurt her back. She turned her head to look at me, her right eyebrow arched high above her pale, blue eye. A scolding glare twisted otherwise smooth features. She covered my face with her hand and slammed my head against the wall. "You sap," she said. She laughed. I laughed, and I chuckle softly now as soft images of love float around my head. Sweet-lipped cherubim dance in dew-kissed grass, and curly-haired cupids gently pierce swooning lovers. But I don't see our love; it's more like a hulking lunk, too dumb to die. The blind rustles against the window. A draft lifts the blind and lets it drop against the window. The air is chilled around me. Cold air enters the room. Warm air leaves, and I am drawn with it. I am drawn to my other room, really my room, because I pay the rent there. And I draw myself out to repeat a stroll taken on a harsh winter morning months ago. An early morning, and I left behind my cold, spare room with its drafty windows. Better to walk the streets in the cold than let the cold creep upon me through the windows. My feet made the only sound on the sidewalk, empty except for a light dusting of snow. The grey, still clouds pulled the world in upon itself, a place for solitude that day. And then her figure from around the corner. She pulled her grey cloak around herself and swooshed by me. She spun me on my heel. "Hey, honey," I said, "What's your hurry?" Empty, vapid speech tossed out on the wind, swirling down the street. I recognized her from a time before. She turned. Her cloak fell open. "Oh, hi," she said. Better for her if she had passed on by, never noticed me; better still if I had stayed in my room and let my teeth chatter together. It's too late. A cold blast from the window brings me back, but it's too late. I am being pulled apart, my pieces spread through everything in this room. I pull back the blind. The direct light hurts my eyes. It feels real, but even the light is taking its piece of me. I let the shade fall back in place, and I look out across myself into the dark room. A goat hair rug covers the floor to the door. The rug is soft and littered with debris. Clothes, books, and papers are scattered in no particular order. Every day 1 42 she says that it's a mess or it's a pig sty. Every day she cleans it, but every night it's messy again. "It messes itself," I tell her. She shakes her head sadly and squeezes my cheeks together with her fingers: "No," she says, "You're a slob." The stereo ~plifier is still on; I reach across her and turn it off. The lamp for the whole room is on the amp. It's a small lamp with a white shade always covered with unused bandanas. Every time I want to read I beg her to remove them. "I can see fine," she says. "But I'm going blind," I tell her, "Now, what could be causing that?" She chuckles: "Probably the same thing that makes your palm rough." I can just make out the books in the far corner near the door. They're not on shelves, not really in any order, but piled haphazardly two feet high. Somewhere.in the pile is the book we fight about. She explains in detail her thesis of ironic, yet sexist symbolism. In the telling she loses her breath, and at the end she pants and stares triumphantly at me. "That's nuts," I tell her. "Chauvinist pig," she says. "Jesus Christ," I say. I slouch down and wait for the attack. "Pig," she says. She need say no more. I waver, and her eyes give the fatal blow; her glare is like a death crazed army crashing itself against my feeble defenses, until I finally yield to the sweetest defeat, self-righteous guilt. "Don't try to be nice to me now, you pig," she says. I chuckle to myself in the dark; she stirs in her sleep. Again, I pull back the blind from the window. I am drawn to the lamp on the corner like a moth, but I am the only moth here. The others have yet to be born. The snow is still on the ground--dirty, spring snow with months of traffic grime coming to the surface. But the streetlight makes the snow look clean, fresh, alive as if it had fallen this night. The light, reflecting off the snow, is like Aegean-blue water. I sit back and let the blind fall shut. I have to squint to see very far into the room--it is growing wider than the Aegean, and a salty spray is filling my eyes. Everything now, all my pieces fly back at me. Everything that is me cuts into me, scratches me, scrapes me, pain upon pain, until my senses die; no hearin~, no sight, no smell nor taste, no touch, but I can feel. I can feel that warm figure sleeping next to me. I can feel each breath, each memory, each hurt. I can even feel her dreams, both happy and sad. I can feel her dreams becoming mine; they are my dreams. Most of all I can feel beauty--outside and inside, so much deep inside her that there's no more room, and it flows out, covering me, raining down on everything. This is hell, I tell myself: eternal damnation is a slow walk through this tiny room. A hand softly touches my arm; she's not sleeping either. "Go to sleep," she says. Her voice is far away, but clear, and it brings me back. "Yes," I say, "That's a good idea." I lie down. My senses return. I can smell her warmth. I can touch her hand. I can see her profile in the dim light . "I l ove you," I say. "Yes," she says ev en further away, but warm and alive. I go t o sleep. She is all ar ound me. Wh en the alarm rings, it is t oo early, and I am t oo tired. I get up anyway. I have t o go t o work. The house this little r oom is in is quiet. No one else fs up, 43 �and that pleases me. I don't want embarrassed shame this morning, no knowing glances . As I'm putting on my clothes, she stirs. She, too, must get up early this morning. She watches me, her eyes half shut, but we don't speak. My clothes cover me, but I feel as if they are covering nothing, as if they move, but I'm not in them. I'm not there; the only thing left is one last memory dropping slowly like a forgotten, slimy tear staining a dead cheek. "I'm going away," she had said, "We can't be together any more . " "Yes, I know. You're right," I had said. I am ready to go. I must leave; I must stay. The distinction is lost on me. I lean down and kiss her. Her arms circle my neck too lovingly and too long. Her face is wet, or maybe it's mine. I walk to the door. "Don't forget to take care of my stuff," she says. "I won't," I say, "Have fun." "I'll try." My throat hurts, and my eyes burn, as a I close the door . I walk out --it is a bleak spring day. The sun cowers somewhere behind a cloud. When I burst into the room later that day, I pray for the impossible. I pray that all is as it was: nothing's changed. I pray she's sitting down, watching tv. I pray she's smiling, waiting for me to get home. She gives me a kiss, and we are happy. I pray many foolish things. The boxes are piled up near the window. The stereo and posters are in boxes. The blind is off the window. The records, books, everything is in brown cardboard boxes. The room suddenly smells stale and musty, as if nothing had ever lived there. She is gone, but I am here . I try to let numbness, emptiness, take over. This is practical, I tell myself, as I carry the first box down to my car. And for every box, I tell myself, I will send them away tomorrow. Yes, that is the practical thing to do. Every box I want to be just as it is: If light, full of nothing, if heavy, full of a lot of nothing. I want, but I can't have. One box I want to throw through the window, another to set down, open, and gently replace the contents where they were. I want everything to be as it was, or I want it never to have been. I want, but I can't have. I come to the last box. As I pick it up, I see that something is written on it. Something is written in bold letters with magic marker. Lt says: I LOVE YOU. I put the box down. I must laugh, though I'd rather not. I would rather scream, cry. Even better weep, weep blood, but I can't have that either. I lift the box again. It is the heaviest box of them all; I laugh. I laugh out loud. Even the distinction between my emotions is lost. "Damn her," I say. I take a step: "Damn her." And each step, damn her. It is my antiphon, every step, damn her. My strophe and antistrophe: Damn her, damn her. The door closes behind me, damn her. Damn her, the box is in the car, damn her. But there, on the back seat of my car, is a simple message: I love you. An old saying pops into my head: If it'd been a snake, it would've bit you. What a song I sing to myself: Damn her, a snake bit you, I love you, damn her, yeah, yeah, yeah. I slam the door, walk around the car, and get in behind the wheel. I lean forward and look up at the streetlamp. It is humming with energy, pulsating with life. Its light is strong and clear. That light is the only thing keeping me and everything from flying apart and into space. The light hurts my eyes. It is cold and I shiver. I drive away. I can't see the streetlight anymore. I imagine that someone, somewhere, is paid to turn the streetlights off in the morning, but I hope he forgets this one. I hope it stays on a long time. THE END 44 An Appreciation of Apollonius I.34 Henry Higuera As upperclassmen will remember, in Book I of his Conics Apollonius demonstrates that there is a surprising and pleasing relationship between the "harmonic mean" and the tangent to an ellipse, hyperbola, or circle: B E A D B Specifically, in I 34 he proves that if AB is the transverse, CD is an ordinate, and E is located so that AB is a harmonic mean between BD and BE , then EC is tangent to the section. One of my very fav o rite memories from sophomore math is the morent when I was up at the board blithering some nonsense about I 34 and two students managed to explain to me the significance of the harmonic mean. On the other hand, some of my other most vivid memories from sophomore math are of whole classes spent slogging through that monstrous proof, with its un-reconstructable construction, its two doublefold footnotes from Eutocius (I always called him "Atrocious" to myself), and Lord knows what else. Remember? The proof has always bothered me, especially in comparison to the beauty of the fact it establishes, and I've spent some time trying to understand why Apollonius did it the way he did. My efforts have paid off to some degree, for I now feel I appreciate the situation which Apollonius faced and the accompJ,.ishment which his particular proof represents. This article is an attempt to spread that sense of appreciation and is dedicated to anyone who will ever go to the board to do I 34. I. First, it seems certain that this proposition struck Apollonius and his original readers differently than it does us, because they m.ust already have known that I 34 was true of circles. Euclid never proves it; but it follows so easily from his method of drawing a tangent from a point outside a circle (III 17) that it must have been common knowledge. Here is Euclid's method (the actual proof is omitted): From a given point to draw a straight line touching a given circle. 45 I I I �Let A be the given point, and BCD the given circle; thus it is required to draw from the point A a straight line touching the circle BCD . For let the centre E of the circle be taken; let AE be joined, and with centre E and distance EA let the circle AFG be described; from D let DF be drawn at right angles to EA, and let EF, AB be joined; I say that AB has been drawn from the point A touching the circle BCD. A II. On to the proof itself. If you look at it (it's on pp. 641-3) you'll remember that it's really in two parts . First comes the terrible part, which is based entirely on Euclid, not on earlier propositions in Apollonius. Then, just after the line rect.BD,DA: rect.BG,GA ) sq.DE: sq.GE Here is the easy proof which demonstrates that I 34 holds for circles: Let there be a circle ACB with center H and diameter AB, CD perpendicular (i.e., ordinatewise) to AB, E on AB produced so that BD:DA : : BE:EA (i.e., so that AB is a harmonic mean between BD and BE), and EC joined. EC is tangent to the circle ACB. For, draw concentric circle EF. At A erect a perpendicular to AB meeting circle EF at G. Join RC and HG (i.e., do not assume that C is on HG: this has~ be proved). Now clearly, BE=AF, while BD:DA so BD:DA But BD:CD and AF:GA so BD:CD .. .. .. .. E [given] AF:EA [Euc. CD:DA GA:EA, D A G B using only Euclid Bk . II and clever manipulations of ratios. (I have not succeeded in doing this, although I have proven it without any constructions by using maxima/minima calculus techniques) . Furthermore, this property is not limited to lines; for example, a version of it holds for Euclidean numbers. If this property had already been proven in some treatise on the harmonic mean, the figures to I 34 should have looked like this: f [Euc. VI 8, Por.] 7, 11] H A GAF is similar to B B AF:GA, being subduplicates of the same and L DBC= L AFG; so (p. 643 1. 5) he brings in a property of conic sections for the first time (I 21), and the proof is f]nished in four more lines. The fact that I 21 gets brought in so late may have alerted you to the important fact that r.BD,DA:r.BG,GA ) sq.DE:sq.GE is a property of the harmonic mean E.z itself; it holds true entirely independently of conic sections. In fact, one could pre sumably prove it without constructing any extra line.s at all, E [Euc. VI 8, Por.] v And the right angles GAF and CDB are of course equal so I say that [ C. N. 3] BE:EA; for the moment their unique characteristics and considering them merely as a "special case" of a conic section . r~tio [Euc. VI 22, note]. [Euc. Post. 4] A CDB [Euc. VI 6] and the whole proof could have taken five lines: L DHC= L AHG as well, being their doubles. [Euc. III 20] Therefore C is on GH and the construction satisfies Euclid III 17. tangent to circle ACB. Q.E.D. Therefore EC is and but so and For, r.BD,DA:r.BG,GA::sq.CD:sq.GH sq.DE:sq.EG::sq.CD:sq.FG; r.BD,DA:r.BG,GA > sq.DE:sq.EG, sq . CD:sq . HG ) sq.CD:sq . FG HG ( FG Q.E.D. [I 21] [Euc. VI 4, 22] [Treatise on Harmonic Mean LXVII 873] [Euc. V 10] In other words, I 34 was not originally the proclamation of a startling new fact about circles. On the contrary, it belongs to that interesting series of proposit~ons which shows that some well-known properties possessed by ci3cles considered as circles also belongs to them considered purely as conic sections. This proposition contributes to one of the most important subplots of the Conics : that suggestion that we can deepen our understanding of the complex simplicity of circles by ignoring Furthermore, this would have helped to highlight what the horrible clutter of Apollonius' proof tends to conceal--namely, that the connection between the harmonic mean and the property proven in I 34 is quite remarkably direct and intimate. 46 47 �I III. Now, the enunciation of the property would have to go something like this: PROP. LXVII 873: If there be four unequal lines, of which the second is a harmonic mean between the first and the third and the fourth is another, random line, then the rectangle contained by the first and the difference between the first and the second has a greater ratio to the rectangle contained by the fourth and the difference between the fourth and the second than the ratio which the square on the difference between the first and the third has to the square on the difference between the fourth and the third. This is an enunciation only Apollonius cases: could love. Furthermore, there are four At A draw a line AX, at any angle, of any length. Bisect it at N. Connect BX and DN, and produce as necessary until they meet at C. From C draw a line parallel to AN until it meets AB at E. I say that ED:DA::BE:EA. (Easy, huh? Here's the proof.) Then so but and so For, from B draw a line parallel to AN = NX, BK:AN: :BK:NX; (Euc. BE:AE::BC:CX::BK:NX (Euc. BD:DA: :BK:AN, (Euc. BD:DA: :BE:EA (Euc. AN until it meets DN produced at K. V 7) VI 4) VI 4) V 11) Q.E.D. Case 1 • • D G Case 2 B Case 3 X E Case 4 'n b, A. E: ~ On top of that, as far as I know, this fact has no application to anything in the total universe except to I 34. So, perhaps it is not surprising that nobody ever bothered to prove it. On the other hand, if one already knows that I 34 is true of circles and one bears in mind Euc. VI 4, 22, and 8, Por., it becomes extremely obvious that this proposition is true at least in Cases 1 and 2: '"' B E "Behold! Rect. BD,DA: rect.BG,GA ) sq.DE: sq.GE!" Notice that this by itself is already enough to prove that I 34 is true for ellipses. Maybe this is what gave Apollonius the hint for how to attack the general problem. Look familiar? These are the first five steps of Apollonius' proof to I 34 run exactly backwards; the constructions look exactly the same (except of course for the angles) as the correspondingly-lettered constructions in Apollonius' figures. No wonder he was able to figure out that AN equalled NX! I'm less impressed by that than I used to be. On the other hand, the proof now looks impressive in an entirely new way. To a reader familiar with this construction, the first part of the proof emerges as an extremely clever and resourceful use of a familiar old device, instead of appearing mind-bogglingly oracular and weird, as it does to us. Also note that in his reverse version (i.e., to prove that AN=NX) Apollonius didn't have to use the particular lengths and angles he did. Any AX bisected at N would have served to prove LXVII 873. By making C in our Figure 5 be the point of tangency in his proof , all he did , basically, was save himself an extra point and a couple of extra lines on his figures (because that way CD is set up an ordinate and CE turns out to be the tangent). The proof would have been just as valid if he'd set up perpendiculars at A, B, and E, with C up somewhere in mid-air, and not brought up the ordinate and tangent until he needed them in the last five lines of the proof: K M IV. But Apollonius obviously wanted to prove LXVII 873 without assuming that I 34 holds true for circles--otherwise the proposition couldn't take its place in the series we mentioned. In figuring out how to do this, he seems to have been helped by another private joke between him and his readers which we hoi polloi tend to miss 21 centuries later. I would bet anything short of money that the following was a commonly-known method of constructing a "third harmonic proportional": Given AB, BD; it is required to place E so that BD:DA :: BE:EA. c Beautiful. E 48 A This is a figure not even Apollonius could love. To my mind, aft er all this muddling and fiddling with I 34, the great difficulty and most admirable achievement of Apollonius' way of proving it is that, using this commonly- known construction, he found a method of proof so powerful that he could show that all four cases of LXVII 873 were true with the same steps. It looks like he really wanted to be able, in I 34, to proceed just as he did in, say, I 21: he really wanted to show that Cases 1 and 2 of LXVII 873 (which only apply to the ellipse and circle) and cases 3 and 4 (which only apply to the hyperbola) have the 49 I �same kind of inner kinship which the circle, ellipse and hyperbola have among themselves. That he managed to do this is a mark of the sure instinct, subtlety, and ambition of his great genius. NOTES 1Andy Freda and Jeremy Lauer (Class of 1986). 2Things are made worse, too, by the fact that Eutocius' N. 2 is very clumsy and roundabout.. If you study it you can write a proof of your own that's three lines shorter. 3other propositions in the series: I 21 (compare Euc. VI 8, Por. and remember that the upright always equals the transverse in a circle, a fact which actually follows from Apoll. I 5); I 32 (compare Euc. III 16); I 47 (compare Euc. III 3); II 6 (compare the other half of Euc. III 3), and II 26 (compare Euc. III 4). It's worth wondering why Apollonius doesn't mention circles in I 15 and I 30. He's clearly drawing some kind of line here (no pun intended). 50 [, �Non-Prof it Org. BULK RATE U.S. POSTAGE PAID St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 PERMIT No. 120 ,ANNAPOLIS, MD. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper (bound book) Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. ii, 50 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1987 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1987. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cooper, Laurie (co-editor) Macfarland, Joseph C. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1987 Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/924796add137ab5c36edcd43f8d1366e.pdf e37b4b15422eb7cf2819d801075b9e76 PDF Text Text �- - --- -·- - ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. ~ ... vou EVEp"fEta ~ro~ . . . (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) Staff Sara Gama Marie Pelczynski Amy Thurston Senior Editor Douala Dennis Junior Editor Jeff Seidman Faculty Advisor Henry Higuera Special Thanks Tina Davidson Curtis Davis Chris Colby Don Murchak:e Don Smith Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published two times a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis and Santa Fe. The Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community - essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. �Contents Spring 1992 Truth and Teaching Eva T. H. Brann, Dean 1 Ode to an Hour at Summer's End Thomas Madden, '91 4 Knowledge and the Two Faces of God (Prize-Winning Sophomore Essay) David Walter, '91 5 The Divergence of Acute Angles: A Proof in Absolute Geometry Bryan Dorland, '92 10 Front and back cover photographs by Rakesh Brennig Untitled (photograph) Greg Francke, '92 12 Desktop Publishing and Printing by the St. John's College Print Shop Rex to Wretch: Transfonnation and Riddle in Oedipus Tyrranos (Prize-Winning Freshman Essay) Zena Hitz, '94 13 Nick (photograph) Greg Francke, '92 17 The Day of Picking Melissa Bond, '94 18 From Ambiguity to Epiphany: A Qairvoyant Reading of ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (Prize-Winning Senior Essay) Ange E. Mlinko, '91 20 Untitled (photograph) Rakesh Brennig, '93 29 Animals in Motion: the Flattery of Becoming in Plato's Timaeus (Lecture) Peter Kalkavage, tutor 30 Time the Dominant (photograph) John Dunn, '92 39 Origami David Ruy, '91 40 ''The" Exponential Curve Henry Higuera, tutor 41 Balance (photograph) Jeff Seidman, '93 47 Two Humors (Prize-Winning Preceptorial Essay) Ellen M. Myers, GI '90 48 The Wrath of Aeneas (Prize-Winning Preceptorial Essay) Donna Schueler, GI '89 53 Ricardo J. H. Beall, tutor 60 The Other Face of Darkness J. H. Beall, tutor 61 Angel and Quill (photograph) Nathan J. Humphrey, '93 62 �Truth and Teaching Eva T. H. Brann What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness [cogitationum vertigine], and count it a bondage to fix a belief .... The quotation is from the essay "Of Truth" that heads Bacon's Essays, Civil and Moral (1625). Bacon's borrowing is true to its source, the Gospel of John (18 : 38). Jesus has just spoken to Pontius Pilate of the truth; the Roman says: "What is truth?" and goes out to tell the Jews that he can find no blame in Jesus. He does not impugn the truth of Jesus but truth in general; he does not stay for an answer since he had asked no question. And though we may doubt that the Roman governor took delight in cognitive vertigo, we may well believe that he counted it a bondage to fix his belief. But whatever was Pilate's case, Bacon has given two motives, obverses of each other, for setting truth aside: the positive pleasure in a levitating skepticism and the willful resistance to a settling of the mind. He immediately associates these with lying: But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth; nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that does bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. Here we hear in Bacon a voice from a golden time when the proper antithesis of "truth" was "lie" - golden, since every genuine lie confirms the actuality of truth. Our condition is more difficult: the foil of truth now is not falsehood, intended or unintended, but honesty. I. Honesty Honesty, I must argue, though it is a civil and moral virtue, can be an intellectual and pedagogical scourge - both honesty and its even more subjectivized mode, sincerity. I say "even more subjectivized" because it seems to me that there is a cognitive spectrum here: truthfulness is the desire to find the truth and to tell what can be told of it; honesty is a scrupulous determination to say all that one knows and no more; and sincerity is attention to the pure-heartedness of one's meaning. Truthfulness is concerned with what is, honesty with unexceptionable speech, and sincerity with purity of intention. Thus truthfulness pertains to the speaker's accord with the object of knowledge, while honesty involves the candor of the person and sincerity the intimate integrity of the self. Now I am saying that the sophisticated attack on truth mounted so successfully in the last hundred-some years is not in the name of truth - its assailants are too acute for such a logical solecism - but under the banner of painful explicitness and agonized resolve. Think of the personal modes of the two founders of our condition, one in the last and one in this century, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. Why would one cavil at so noble a cognitive stance? Well, just because it is so centered on the self, so unswervingly bent on public self-examination, so unforgivingly fixed on inner unexceptionableness. Because it puts the self before the world, turns all knowledge into epistemology, is always masterful and rarely receptive. Because it eschews the play that permits wild surmises, the analogies that draws truth from images, even the hypotheses that make contemplation possible. But above all, because this noble and even exquisite way, since it requires a peculiar! y fine and high-strung personal nature of a sort not common in academia, is prone to a particularly racy corruption: while the older philosophies of truth would suffer degradation into rigidity, the contemporary debasements have a galvanic vigor. However, these are descriptions and not analyses, so let me start again. II. Truth What is truth? We too cannot stay for a thorough answer, but there is a least time for a distinction. If the word has any meaning it has at least two: there is truth of being and truth in speaking. The tradition used to be preoccupied with the relation of these two: what things must be like so that they can be told and what speech must be like so that the telling might be true. Let me offer here merely the grossest pedagogical conditions for maintaining the tradition of truth-directed inquiry. Iflearners are to conceive an interest in this activity, they must come across at least some objects that are natural and some opinions that are traditional. If truth-seeking is to have an even chance with them, they must have experience of some things that are grown rather than constructed - trees rather than pylons - and of some beliefs that originate in the community rather than with the intellectuals - faiths rather than theories. Again, if teachers are to guide such a search they need the help of some books that take nature and tradition seriously while they make the discovery and telling of truth their aim. I mention these inchoate points only to show how well I know that the pursuit of truth is not without conditions and presupp0sitions - of the strongest sort. 1 �III. Doubt It is these that the party of honesty throws into doubt. What I want to do now is to sketch out four points of attack on these presuppositions (A), to delineate their noble original versions (B), to characterize their debased outcomes (C), and to offer a saving mean, saving that is, for truth (D). A. 1. Quandaries of knowing 2. Consequences of formalism 3. Disposition of mind 4. Reading of texts c. B. => => => => 1. Perspectival viewings 2. Undecidable propositions 3. Vertiginous positions 4. Hermeneutic problems dogmatic relativism willful suspension settled indifferentism arbitrary construal D. 1. Aspectual inquiries 2. Perennial questions 3. Tensed dialectic 4. Direct reading Let me try to clarify these somewhat opaque rubrics. 1. Cognitive quandaries concerning the possibility of reaching the objects of knowledge go back to antiquity. Protagoras gave them their starkest expression, as reported by Plato: He says that the human being is the measure of all things, of those that are, how they are, and of those that are not, how they are not .... [He says that] as each thing seems to me, such it is for me and as it seems to you, such it is for you. [Theaetetus 151] Strong as this relativism is, it is not total, for there is reference to the things - albeit unknowable - that are, and what is relative is only their perceived quality. It is a modern radicalization that phenomenal aspects might be all there are, that no true thing underlies the perspective views from which individuals construe their mundane and moral solids. This perspectivism is deeper and more complex than the notion that the world is appearance; it involves the claim that the appearances themselves, which to ancient relativists have at least the practical inertness of thingbased variability, might from time to time shift radically and out of all recognition as the human viewpoint shifts, making older knowledge obsolete and inaccessible: Since some temporary trust in science is necessary to modem life, the stabilizing of opinion devolves on society, and the doctrine that wins the apptoval of the social group concerned with it is not, indeed, verified but rather justified. The vulgarized version of cognitive perspectivism and social justification is well known to teachers: it is a dogmatic relativism in which the all-too-comfortable doctrine of the impossibility of principled choice becomes the occasion for succumbing to inarticulate social pressures. 2 The saving mean between surrendering to the sophisticated or succumbing to the debased version of cognitive perspectivism seems to me to be an inquiry beginning very literally, namely with an investigation - even calling to aid some projective geometry - of the "perspective" metaphor, to go on to ask what the world must be like so that it may present views, what society is such that it might serve as the guarantor of opinion and how opinion comes about such that a human being should defer to it. In short, teachers might invite students to a serious program of what I would call "aspectual inquiries." It would amount to a critique of the critique of knowledge, and it would at least recall the presuppositions of truth-seeking to the scene of learning. 2. One of the several sophisticated intellectual discoveries of this century that have been victimized by careless extension is the formal undecidability of certain propositions in arithmetic. (The special theory of relativity is another such.) The highly technical context of the astounding fact of such undecidability is set eagerly aside and hasty application is made to the wide realm of human thought: certain questions are in principle unanswerable and hence there is no point in asking them. The questions so classified are of course those taken up over and over in the history of reflection and supposedly always unanswered. Thus the historical experience appears to coincide with the logical theory, and the permanent suspension of truth-judgement, willing and willful, becomes universal doctrine. I would propose the mediating approach of inquiring into the nature of the putatively perennial questions. What are they? What must one know to pronounce such questions unanswerable? Do questions represented as unanswerable incite effort or induce lassitude? Have the questions themselves endured, or have they changed? Does the questioning activity itself evolve or only its object and context? Does the fact that questions have contesting answers mean that they are unanswered? It seems to me once again that such a regimen of questioning questions would at least make room for the hypothesis of truthseeking. 3. It is an uncontestable part of the contemporary frame of mind to enjoy what Bacon calls the "giddiness" of the liberation from the obligations of truth. For serious thinkers there once was the choice intoxication of rope-dancing over the abyss, of assuming difficult vertiginous positions. The original efforts at retaining balance on the rope and integrity on the knife's edge were fierce and compelled admiration. But more relaxed followers found that falling off was no calamity, that the abyss was a soft bed to all positions, that the hard landing was as yet out of sig?t, and that settled attitudes of light-headed indifference were quite comfortable. It seems to me that there is a third position between the strenuous refusal of all truth and the easy unconcern with any deep issue. It is the tensed condition of actual dialectic, liv~g conversation. It means that teachers help students to find the vital element in many contesting opinions including, of course, the denial of the possibility of truth. It means helping learners to bring the positions to life so that they do not confront each other as petrified neutralizing opposites but respond to each other as moments of thought. And again it may be found that such revivified responsiveness has implications not unfriendly to the hypothesis of truth-finding. 4. Almost all thinking past a certain naive stage, certainly all thinking in institutions of learning, takes place with the aid of books. In the last century certain tricky problems with the interpretation of texts began to be formulated. For instance, it became a concern that every text is written into a context and that the reader needs some prior knowledge to construe the text adequately. Moreover, the reader's own presuppositions were shown to shape readings powerfully. Such hermeneutic insights were eventually pushed to extremes. Books were interpreted not in their context but by their context, authors' personal or social histories were used to nullify their intended communication of truth. The difficulties of getting at"the true text were so recklessly and sophisticatedly exaggerated that the flashy art of creative interpretation began to replace the modest effort to read receptively. A hopeful mean between the subtle difficulties of serious hermeneutics and the inesponsible resolutions of deconstruction, is, I think, an ever-present possibility for students in particular: the direct reading. Teachers of present-day students need expect so little common learning and so few deep-rooted opinions that, if only they succeed in focusing interest on the text, they can almost count on a certain immediacy of reading. In fact, making students face books directly, in amazed alienation, as if they were monoliths just now shot up from the earth, is about the only practical beginning I can think of. It also happens to offer the fairest chance for the truth-telling claims that most serious books make. I do not of course mean that the teaching of truth, its knowledge and belief, will become fashionable in academia. That would be worse than the near-universal suspicion of the possibility of truth-telling we live with now. What we may rather be ready for is a revival of the inclination to seek being and of the presuppositions that make "the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making and wooing of it," again a respectable enterprise. But why wait for that? ****** [Y]et truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the know ledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. ["Of Truth"] That the finding, having, and enjoying of truth is the highest good - that is the teaching of truth itself for Bacon, though for recent generations the proposition has become systematically dubious. Yet we may not be in the worst position for a revival of the hypothesis of truth-seeking. There is a zest in destructive doubt for the several generations that are still supported by the learning, the faith and the tradition they are opposing. But when the branch on which the destructionists sit is finally sawn through, then there may well come a moment of grasping for the trunk itself, a wish to find something to hold on to. We may possibly be at such a juncture. 3 �Ode to an Hour at Summer's End Knowledge and the Two Faces of God Thomas Madden St. Thomas, the Church, and Aristotle David Walter Ah, in Shakespeare's garden there was surprise: diamonds scattered among the leaves, and stars perched, pregnant, atop grass-blades. She and I we both could see the rain as a benediction. It was to be our last night, and the rain had come - a mother's hand upon a fevered brow, the breath of a promise. Giddy with the air's approval, we chased after a wrong turn and walked into sudden, cultivated vibrancies of shadow. The shape of a garden stands and grows, and restores wine of memory to a shattered heart. A steeple's cap kept watch in the curtained sky. And we came to a fountain, and accepted the consciousness represented in the winding of a wet branch. I danced over flagstones trying to find expression as this moment, this season, this year all melted - resolved into the seal of forever. Awake to the measure of the dream, her fingertip's gesture across my lips never said goodbye. We never gave a name to our desire. 4 Preface The Church, in the time of St Thomas, was very conservative. Seeking to preserve their authority, church members were very wary of writings, both ancient and modern, which threatened the vitality of its written Creed. Certain writings were altogether condemned as heretical works, while the writings of others were considered dubious and held under close scrutiny. Such were the writings of Aristotle. Aristotle's writings were accessible to intellectuals at that time, because he was considered to be primarily a natural philosopher. Aristotle was concerned with the causes of natural events. He traced events logically to God as a First Cause. Thomas Aquinas found Aristotle's logic very compelling, and very pertinent to his Christianity. Although there were certain subjects on which Aristotle and the Church disagreed (such as whether or not the universe had been created), Thomas thought that he could incorporate the Aristotelian philosophy to suit the demands of the Church dogma. It remains to be seen whether Aristotle himself would have approved of the mysteries of the Church, which are not according to reason, but according to tradition based on revelation. Nevertheless, given what Aristotle left in writing, Thomas enthusiastically set out to found a theology, based on Aristotle's philosophical thought. The question of his success will be considered in part in this paper. ***** For St. Thomas Aquinas.knowledge is concerned with things as they appear to us. The method of science, by which we gain knowledge, begins with the appearance, or the thing as sensed (The Summa Theologica I, 12, A12). The sensible world constitutes our primary "reality." What is "real" to us is the particular object of sense - the entity existing apart from all other entities. The intellect seeks to know the "causes" of a particular thing, by abstracting universals from that thing. Hence, our knowledge of universals, while not given, is inferred from our perception. Consequently, we are born with no prior knowledge or understanding of universals; we gain such knowledge or understanding through a process of inference from repeated individual experiences. Of course, Thomas' view that we come to know about things through first having sensed them is not the only possible one. We know of others, most prominently Plato, who posit a reality apart from sense perception. Thomas, presumably aware of other possible view points, such as that of Plato, chose this characteristically "Aristotelian" epistemology. It seems to be a curious choice, in some respects, because it results in limitations in talking about God. We get knowledge about things from our interaction with them, and the problem lies herein: we have no direct interaction with a transcendental God.We only know Him through His "effects"(!, 1, A8, rep.1). We are separate from Him because of our "mode" of being - separate in action, and separate in speech: "Nothing temporal can be in God, for He is above time"(I,13,A7). On the other hand, the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, depict a God who has an intimate relationship with creatures. He speaks directly to them. In short, Thomas' choice limits the knowledge we can have of God; and these limitations seem to bar the type of intimate interaction between God and creatures presented to us in the Scriptures. At first glance, Thomas' choice seems to present us with an irreconcilable conflict between the impersonal God of Aristotelian logic, and the very personal God of the Scriptures. The Aristotelian God spends all His eternity thinking about Himself. He does not involve Himself in our ethical struggles. The Scriptural GodisaLaw-giver, andaLaw enforcer. He has an undying devotion to His people. The two concepts appear antithetical. But there is a subtle strategy underlying Thomas' choice. On the one hand, Thomas wants to show how the Christian faith can increase and perfect our scientific knowledge. But also Thomas wants to show us the limits of scientific know ledge, inasmuch as recognizing such limits reinforces our faith. Faith perfects knowledge; knowledge reinforces faith. The Aristotelian epistemology yields concrete limitations, which Thomas can exploit. Working from the Aristotelian assumptions themselves, we can subsume the Aristotelian epistemology into the Christian doctrine. We can make it conform. In natural science, we reason from abstractions of particular events, to conclusions about those particular events, by means of demonstration from first principles inferred from experience. Sciences are differentiated because different classes of knowledge deal with different classes of events. The physicist deals with physical objects; the mathematician deals with mathematical objects; the metaphysician deals with metaphysical objects. These are formal objects, two of which may inhere in the same body, in different respects. Each of the respective classes of objects is abstracted from the real objects of sense. Reason classifies these objects, and investigates them according to the first principles of demonstration. But, what if the object of our knowledge is God? Is God abstracted from objects of sense? It is not possible to classify God as we classify mathematical objects. When we classify a thing, we give it a definition according to its essence, or nature. But we cannot do this with God. We do not know His essence. We have no direct experience of God through our senses. However, we are aware of Him indirectly, through His effects. Hence, because of our mode of knowing, which is grounded in the senses, we (natural scientists) can only see Him as if through a mirror; as in the saying from I Car.xiii: "We see now through a glass in a dark manner," a favorite quote of Thomas'. Nevertheless, as natural scientists, drawing our principles from natural reason, we are able to know some things about God. 5 �For instance, that He exists can be demonstrated in His absence, from His natural effects. Now one of His effects is motion. So, if we are able to ascertain the essence, or nature (formal quality) of the event of motion, and then to apply to it our first principles of reason (cause and effect, non-contradiction, impossibility of infinite regress), and arrive at a conclusion, then this constitutes a demonstration. The demonstration will allow us to arrive at a primary source of motion, i.e., the First Mover. And we may ·"understand"(!, 2, A3) this First Mover to be God, in the sense that we identify God as the First Cause of motion. But knowledge of the fact that God exists (as a First Mover, as a Primary Efficient Cause, as necessarily always existent, as Greatest in Being, as Supreme Intelligence) is not enough for the theologian. He is interested in God "not only so far as He can be known through creatures just as philosophers know Him ... but also so far .as He can be known to Himself alone and revealed to others" (I, 1, A6). The theologian is interested in uncovering particular truths concerning the nature of God. But in order to obtain a fair amount of such truths, he needs more than what he can gather from his senses. Since he does not have the capacity to discover knowledge of the supersensible on his own, it must needs be given to him immediately, by God, through revelation. The Scriptures and the Articles of Faith contain principles revealed directly by God. Man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason ... But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their intentions and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths should be made known to him by divine revelation.(I, 1, Al) And this gift of revelation christens a new science - the divine science. The Articles of Faith are "given" to the theologian (divine scientist) just as, say, the mathematical objects (points and lines) are given to the geometer; or as the physical objects (stars and planets) are given to the astronomer. And they are as certain to the Christian as any of the things we perceive by means of sense. As a formal body of objects the Articles of Faith have relationship to one another that is rational, as do all the other objects of science. We can infer principles from them, just as the natural scientist infers . principles from his particular class of objects, by virtue of their being formally classified. Just as music accepts on authority the principles taught by the arithmetician, so sacred doctrine accepts the principles revealed by God. (I, 1, A2) So the divine science obtains its principles primarily from a divine source (revelation), and only secondarily from a natural source (reason). This is what separates Thomas' science from the strictly natural theology of others (Aristotle, for example). Our knowledge of God may be confined to what we can know of Him through His effects, but Thomas finds compensation for this: God gives us a special set of effects manifest in the Scriptures, and in the Articles of Faith. They are certain, in that they have been revealed to the Christian by God. This gives the theologian a great advantage over the strictly natural scientists. It allows him to infer certain principles which cannot otherwise be obtained by the scientist (such as that God is both three and one). These principles taken from the body of the divinely revealed texts are the highest principles available to man. They deal with the acts of the Christian in respect to the First Truth, God (II, 1, Al). Theology, which considers such acts which terminate in God, presides over all other sciences, which consider only natural acts. He who considers absolutely the highest cause of the whole universe, namely God, is most of all called wise. (I, l,A6) But what happens when we treat the Articles of Faith as objects of science? As canons of faith, they are primarily to be believed. In what sense do they invite our knowledge of them? To answer this, Aquinas makes the distinction between what we believe, and how we believe it. What we believe is a reality. We imagine the object of our belief to exist. Like every real object we perceive, it exists singularly. Existence is in the individual thing. But we are compelled to represent that belief as a proposition; just as when I say "this giraffe is an animal," as if there were two entities, when, in fact, there exists to my eyes only one. Consider the object of faith from its two perspectives. First,from the perspective of the reality believed in, and then the object of faith is something non-composite, i.e. the very reality about which one has faith. Second, from the perspective of the one believing, and then the object of faith is something composite in the form of a proposition. (II, 1, A2; emphasis added) The thing believed is simple (non-composite). The believer expresses his belief in a composite manner. He divides the thing believed into components of a proposition, as he is accustomed to do with objects. A proposition about a thing distinguishes between the thing and its essence: the predicate signifies a part of the essence of the subject. A proposition is composite. To make things clear to ourselves, we may distinguish between (1) the reality provided by the act of faith: "I believe in God eternal;" and (2) the proposition which signifies the reality: "God is eternal" (c.f. II, 1, A2, ob.2). The only way we get knowledge of a real thing put before us (1) is to predicate essential qualities of that thing (2). This necessary operation is the restriction occasioned by our own mode (modus proprius humani) of knowing (II, 1, A2). Thus, if the object of faith is to be considered by theology just as the real thing we sense is to be considered by science, then we need to understand the object of faith as we understand the things we sense - in the form of a predication. As an object of belief, the Article is self-evident. As an object of knowledge, the Article is not self-evident. With respect to the mode of the knower/believer, a principle is only self-evident if it is "seen," i.e. if it is inferred from perception (II, 1, AS). Now, the reality signified by the Articles of Faith is not seen by us only imagined. The principles derived from the Articles (such as, that God exists) are self-evident from the standpoint of that reality. But that is not a reality which we see. Clearly, then, no belief or opinion can have as object things seen, whether by sense or by intellect. (II, 1, A4) We only believe in it. The angels, who see higher things than us, may actually see that which we only take on faith ; c.f. II, 1, AS. Therefore, the divine principles revealed by the Articles of Faith are self-evident only from the perspective of the reality represented in our belief. In turn, any proposition found in the Articles is evident with respect to the divine principles obtained from the Articles. It follows that it (the proposition) is not evident with respect to the natural principles (or "seen" principles) which we obtain through experience. Therefore, in order that the proposition be of knowledge to us, it needs to be made clear, apodictically, in terms of principles which are evident to us through sense ("seen" principles). The task of the theologian, then, is not to demonstrate the Articles of Faith per se, but to make them clear to us in tenns of our natural knowledge of things. He shows that in principle, they do not contradict one another; for the principles revealed by the Articles of Faith will not fail the test oflogic. It is very important to understand that the Articles do not compromise themselves to science; they maintain their divine status. Man ... ought to believe matters of faith, not because of human reasoning, but because of divine authority . (II, 2, AlO) Each Article has a reality all its own, which is manifest in the act of belief. The act of belief is simple (non-composite). The process of knowledge is complex, because the believer is complex. The way the known exists in the knower corresponds to the way the knower knows ... the way of knowing truth proper to the human mind is by an act of combining and separating. For this reason the human mind knows in a composite way things that are themselves simple [i.e. non-composite]; this is quite the opposite of the divine mind, which in a non-composite manner knows things that are themselves composite. (II, 1, A2; emphasis added) Knowing involves "combining and separating." The intellect understands the Articles as (composite) propositions, just as the intellect understands the objects of sense as (composite) propositions. These propositions may be brought forth and verified by demonstration from logical principles. As has been mentioned earlier, concerning all t~ings, it should be understood that when we are talking about the thing as a real and particular being, and again, about that thing in its formal sense, as the object of science, we are not talking about two different things. Rather, we are talking about two different senses of the same thing. The formal thing has no separate existence apart from the particular being. It is abstracted from that being. As rational creatures, we must make predications concerning abstractions of the individual thing. This is in order to have actual knowledge of that thing which is "given" to us either sensibly, or supersensibly. As is clear from its language, the Creed expresses the things of not have a proposition as its term, but a reality, since, just as with scientific knowledge, so also with faith, the only reason for formulating a proposition is that we may have knowledge about the real. (II, 1, A2, r2) As has been stated, knowing is a process of combining and separating. And it is in this necessary operation that theology justifies itself. The Articles of Faith exist simply in the Christian attitude. But in order to bring them down into our domain of knowing, we consider each as it predicates something of God's essence. As the mediator between ourselves and the divine principles, theology secures its role as the highest of sciences. And, more importantly for Thomas, it insures the pre-eminence of revelation. Science does not tread on God's territory. Faith forms the body of Thomas' theology. Faith is a simple act, unquestioned. But this gift of belief makes it possible for the scientist who believes, as one would trust his senses, to know principles about God which the natural scientist could not discover on his own (such as that God is both three and one, c.f.I, 12, 13), and to formulate propositions from these principles concerning the complex points of faith. The topic of knowledge has to be discussed in more detail. It was said that the thing believed is non-composite. But it is expressed in terms of the believer, as a proposition which is composite: "God is eternal." A proposition can be demonstrated, and thereby it is known. Thus, God is believed in some respects, and known in others. In order to see more precisely what, according to Thomas, is our relationship with God, we have to ask, "What does it mean for a thing to become known?" "How do we know it?" We can only know things that are by nature composites of form and matter. When we sense, we sense that particular thing, which exists apart from all others. Now, a particular thing consists of a form which is individuated in matter. Form and matter make up the object that we sense. We take the step towards knowledge of that thing by abstracting from it its form . That is to say, we differentiate between the thing in particular, and its essence, or formal quality. We categorize it. The form makes it intelligible to us. To abstract from a thing is to "inform" ourselves of that thing, quite literally(c.f. I, 12, AIO). We replace its matter existing outside of us with "matter" in our minds. Hence, the thing becomes whole again in the mind - wholly composed of its abstracted form, and the "mental matter" we provide for it. Thus, "Each thing is known in so far as its likeness is in the one who knows" (I, 12, AIO). The thing becomes "reproduced," as it were, conceived of form and matter in the mind. A form on its own is not known or sensed by us. The mind is always housing it in matter of its own. As has been said above, form can never be "stripped" from the object itself. It always exists in conjunction with the thing particular to it. In short, we are able to know something because it (like ourselves) is composite of matter and form. faith as they are the term of the believer's act. Such an act does 6 7 �Our soul, as long as we live in this life, has its being in corporeal matter; hence naturally it knows only what has a form in matter, or what can be known by such a form. (I, 12, Al 1) Things which are not individuated in matter (non-composite things) are not suited to be informed in the mind. We do not have the capability to conceive them in our minds. Form is intelligible only in conjunction with matter. God is pure form, and contains no matter; so He is unsensible and unknowable by us. We depend on the compositness of a thing in order to know it. God is non-composite (I, 3, A2). We depend on differentiation between a thing and its essence. In God there is no such differentiation (I, 3, A3). He is the same as His essence. Hence, we cannot comprehend His pure form: "God cannot be seen in His essence by a mere human being, except he be separated from His mortal life" (I, 12, All). We cannot inform ourselves of Him; so no likeness of Him can exist in our minds. To know God, we would have to be Him. This is obviously impossible, since He is a purely transcendental being. Consequently, we only know of Him through sense experience, with the help of principles given by revelation. What do we know of Him? That He is simple, that He is eternal. The reason can know that a simple form is, even though it cannot attain to understanding what it is. (I, 12, 12, rl) But we can only express these qualities of Him "by way of temporal things, because our intellect has a natural proportion to composite and temporal things" (I, 13, 1, r.3). We know Him as everything natural and sensible is ordered to Him; as far as every natural event we perceive can be traced to Him as a permanent and unchanging Cause. How, then, is it possible to speak of Him as having changing relationships with creatures, or having conversations with them? "Moses asked 'If they should say to me, What is His name? What shall I say to them?' the Lord answered him, 'Thus shalt though say to them, HE WHO IS hath sent me to you"'(I, 13, All, from Exd. iii). How is it possible to say that He was speaking with Moses at one time, and not speaking with him at another, when, according to Thomas "God is above time" (I, 13, A7)? In general, how are we to reconcile the logical God of Aristotle with the God who appears in Scripture, as giving commands, or the God who handed down the Articles of Faith in written words? Can God dictate? We have, broadly speaking, answered this question. There are some things which we cannot, and were not meant to know concerning God and his mysteries. Our mode of knowing prevents us from passing beyond a certain point of comprehension. If we could know these mysteries, then faith would no longer be meritorious (I, 1, A8). The challenge for the theologian is to come up with some logical, or analogical explanation of our particular relationship with God. Thomas wants to "place" himself, and hence his new-found science in a proper relation to God. He has to try to give an account of this relationship with God in tenns that we can understand. 8 In Article seven of Question thirteen of the Summa Theolo gica, Thomas addresses this matter concerning our proper relationship with God. To follow his discussion, we must first make clear what a relationship is. Thomas gets his notions of relationship directly from Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book Delta, section 15. For Aristotle, it seems that a relationship is not something which subsists outside the things related. It exists in each of the terms. This will become clear as we go on. It must be understood for now that if we define a relationship between two things, then we say "x is related to y," and "y is related to x", not simply "x and y are related." We always consider a relationship from the point of view of its distinct components. Thomas proceeds to expound the different possibilities for a relationship based on what Aristotle has set up for him. The singular component of a relationship may have a relation to the other component (assuming still we have only two terms) which is only in thought, or it may be an actual "real" relation which inheres in the thing itself. Hence, there are three types of relationships which are possible, according to Thomas. The first is a strictly mental coupling of two terms, in which each has to one another a relation because of some trick of the intellect: such as identity - mentally reproducing one thing we can say "the same is the same as itself'; or extrapolation - such as the relation of a "thing" to "nothing," which involves mentally conceiving a negative term; or selection - whereby the intellect pictures a set and a subset, a genus and a species, etc. None of these relations are formed in reality, but only in thought. The second type is an actual "real" relation between two terms, because there is something common to both in reality. Quantity is given as an example as that which inheres in each of the objects themselves. The "being bigger than" and the "being smaller than" are "really" related to one another because they share the sensible property of magnitude. So with "being double" and "being half." The "being what is changed" and the "being what changes" are "really" related because they both share in a real causal action. This dichotomy between what is "real" and what is only an idea may seem to be an artificial and confusing distinction to some, but it really conforms to Thomas' notion that primary reality is in the thing sensed. Thinking refers to internal operations. The mind can think up relationships between things which do not inhere in nature and are outside of sense. The third possible relationship is the one Thomas is most interested in. It is the hardest to understand, because it relies on the clear distinction between "real" things and ideas. Thomas also discusses this relationship in his commentaries on the Metaphysics, which is the source of the notion as far as I can tell (c.f. Commentaries on the Metaphysics, V. L.17: c 1001-1032). I will try to point out the main tenets of this crucial relationship as Thomas explains it in Article 7, question 13 of the Summa. A relationship may occur in which one of the components has a real relation to the second; but the second does not have a real relation to the first. This is the case, Thomas says, with the "being knowable" and the "knowing." As we have explained, when something is known, a likeness of it is created in the mind; it itself remains outside the domain of knowing. Hence, the "being knowable" itself has no real relation to the knowing, but from the perspective of the "knowing," there is a real exchange taking place between it (the "knowing") and the "being knowable." The relation qualifies as "real" from the standpoint of the "knowing," because the "being known" is external to it. It is not merely a relation in thought, it is a genuine interaction. Hence, the knowing has a "real" relation to the knowable. To repeat: taking separately our two terms: From the perspective of the "knowing," there is areal relation between itand the "being knowable." From the perspective of the "being knowable," there is no real relation between it (the "being knowable") and the "knowing," but only in thought. So, when we think about something, or when we sense something, the relationship betWeen us and the thing can change. But the thing does not change in itself, as a result of our thinking . it, or sensing it. It only changes from our perspective, with respect to our change. As we move and change, we have a real relation with the external object. As the object neither moves nor changes in reaction to our change, it has no relation with us at all. The pillar, standing still, is at one time "on the right" because of my relation to it. Then I turn around, and it is "on the left." This is due to no change in the pillar. The situation applies analogically to the relationship between God and temporal creatures. God, unchanging, is at one time "speaking with Moses," we say, because Moses is being spoken to; then Moses is not being spoken to - so we say God is not speaking to him. There has been no "real" change in God, as we well know - only in Moses. God's temporal relations to creatures are in him only because of our way of thinking of him, but the opposite relations of creatures to him are realities in the creatures. It is quite admissible to attribute a relation to God because of something that takes place in the creature, for we cannot express the reality in creatures without talking as though there were matching relations also in God, so that God is said to be related to a creature because the creature is related to him, just as, according to Aristotle, the knowable is said to be related to knowledge because knowledge is related to it. (I, 1, 13, r4) knowing Him. Yet from our standpoint, we have a relation to Him sine qua non, as created beings, as recipients of salvation, as lorded beings, as beings who are moved. And from our standpoint, His relation as Creator, Savior, Lord, Mover, is real. It is the relationship of lordship in him that is supplied by our minds, not the fact of His being Lord. (I, 1, 13, r5) Hence, he "really" is the Creator, Savior, Law-giver, and Mover, as we are all ordered in respect to Him; also though, He really is the unmoved transcendent God, who is ordered only in respect to Himself. Out of Thomas' rational account of the relation between creatures and God, God emerges startlingly as both impersonal, and personal, as unmoved, and mover, God of philosophy, and God of the Scriptures. The two-faced God that Thomas set out to reconcile has turned-out to be none other than Aristotle's Unmoved Mover. Thomas' argument in defense of the active God of the Scriptures is drawn directly from Aristotle's formal discussion of relations in book delta of the Metaphysics (ch. 15). This gives it incredible weight. Using the Aristotelian assumptions of how a thing is known, Thomas manages to justify (analogically) his relationship with the Christian God. Of course, due to our knowledgeable limitations, it is impossible for Thomas to provide an explanation in logical terms of how the transcendental God speaks to us - that would imply the contradiction of knowing God's essence. Itis just the nature of God to transcend such logic. This has been Thomas' assumption all along. If God were not what He is (absolutely unknowable), theology could not subsist as Thomas wants it. However, if we accept Thomas' analogical argument, based on Aristotle's naturally-founded assumptions, then we have thoughtfully reconciled the problem of the two notions of God - the one which falls under the Aristotelian epistemology, and the one which falls under the Christian dogma. Which is what we have set out to show. The reasons which are brought forward in support of the authority of faith are not demonstrations which can bring intellectual vision to the human intellect; and so the unseen is not removed. But they remove obstacles to faith, by showing that what faith proposes is not impossible; and hence such reasons do not diminish the merit or the measure of faith. (II, 2, AlO, rep.2) The only real relations which exist in God are those that are predicated of Him eternally, insofar as He exists outside the domain of sense and knowledge. As He is portrayed as having anything to do with creatures in the temporal world, there is no relation in Him to us. We "import" this relation, because it is impossible for us to conceive of having a real relation with something which has no relation to us. He exists independent of us, just as the "being known" exists outside of knowledge. To recount our analogy: from the standpoint of the "knowing," knowledge does not exist apart from the "being known." From the standpoint of the "being known," it (the "being known") does exist apart from knowledge. So, from the standpoint of God, who exists absolutely outside our knowledge, He has absolutely no relation to us, not even in our sensing and 9 �The Divergence of Acute Angles: A Proof in Absolute Geometry Bryan Dorland I suppose we all went through the same test in our first semester at St. John's. "Can you independently prove Euclid's fifth postulate?" asked our devious tutor, all the while knowing full well that the task is impossible from within merely plane geometry. Euclid was not being coy when he "asked" ('Ht't~aeco let it have been asked) for the fifth. He seems wiser, in retrospect, than that legion of geometers which followed him who thought it necessary to prove the fifth. Lobachevski reveals why this is so. The positive form of the postulate is logically simultaneous, not posterior, to plane geometry. Lobachevski's Theorem 22 represents the resolution to the problem of parallelism as a decision the geometer must make. The geometrical road has come to a fork. Either the angle of parallelism 1 is rt/2, or it is less. If we take the former path, we will arrive at the plane geometry of the Elements, and if we choose the latter, we will enter the realm of the imaginary. Euclid has truly "asked" us to journey with him by granting him the positive form of the Fifth Postulate. Similarly, we grant the specific negative form (i.e. the angle of parallelism is less than rt/2) to Lobachevski, and we leave the well traveled path to follow him. We are not forced to make this choice at the outset of the journey. We may choose to linger on that stretch of road which leads up to the fork. Here, every property we discover must prove true later, regardless of where we go, for the discoveries here must not make any assumptions regarding parallelism. This region has a name - it is the realm of absolute geometry. Any geometrical property we discover should fall into one of three categories. It should either be true in plane geometry and false in imaginary, false in plane and true in imaginary, or true in both. A property in either of the first two categories should involve specific assumptions about the angle of parallelism, while one from the third should be free from such strictures. This is to say that a geometrical property true for both systems must properly belong to absolute geometry. Or should it? The problem of the limitless divergence of acute angles presents itself to us as paradigm. In a Euclidean formulation (vid. fig. 1), the problem is sufficiently self-evident as to not require a proposition. If I call BC the distance between lines BA and AC (which form some acute angle at A), it is clear that I may increase this distance beyond any limit. Extend AB to AB', drop the perpendicular to C' on AC extended, and B 'C' will be in the same ratio to BC as AB' is to AB. Because I can construct increasingly larger, yet similar triangles , I may exceed any limit for B'C' by sufficient augmentation of AB'. This demonstration relies on specific properties of triangles whose lineage may be traced to the angle of parallelism. These properties are not present in imaginary geometry, and we know from Lobachevski 's 23rd Theorem that Euclid's similar triangle construction is specific to plane geometry. The "Non-Euclidean Geometry" manual we use in the ~enior year presents a proof for the boundless divergence which is specific to imaginary geometry. We have a problem: the divergence seems to be a property in both systems, while at the same time being specific to both. Is this possible? Are there some properties which are not absolute, but true in both systems? 2 If the unbounded divergence of the sides of an acute angle can be shown without recourse to parallelism, then it is a property of absolute geometry. This is what I shall show. Proposition: The sides of an acute angle diverge without limit. d' >1.D 2 C'E=D B'F= B'E c Fig.1 C' If in the quadrilateral ABCD, the angles at A, B, and Care right, then the side DC must equal or exceed the side AB. 1. Here I use Lobachevski' s formulation. By the angle of parallelism, I mean the angle a formed with a first line when a transverse cuts a second line with aright angle~. i.e.: 2. The system of absolute geometry is posited as comprehending two subsystems - euclidean and non-euclidean. Now if a property can be found which is proper to both subsystems yet not to the system itself, then the existence of more subsystems, for which the property does not hold, is implied. But in his Theorem 19, Lobachevski argues that there are only the two subsystems. Hence the problem. 3. This means properties which can be established without recourse to the angle of parallelism. Examples of such properties are propositons 1 through 28 of the "Elements", and Lobachevski's Theorems 1 through 22. 4. I can say by Euclid I.26 that if D is a boundary, it must be a member of the class of distances which d can never attain. In other words, D cannot be the greatest distance for d, but must always exceed d. Therefore to solve the reductio, I need only show that d can equal D. 5. In a systematic treatment of absolute geometry, the lemma would take the form of a proposition and would appear prior to the acute angle proposition. It is included here as a lemma because it is necessary to the main proof. B' a B G F Fig.3 d A c d" d' C' D J Fig.2 A Lemma5 quadrilateral ABCD, the sum of the angles exceeds 2rt, or four right angles, which is impossible. [This follows from Lobachevski Theorm 19.] Therefore the side CD can not fall short of AB. H E B' B distance which distanced will neither meet nor exceed. 4 Extend AB to B' such that the perpendicular B 'C', or d', is greater than 1/2 D. Extend C'B' to point E so that C'E equals D. Cut off on B 'C' some length B 'F equal to B'E. Erect from point F some line FG perpendicular to EC' at F. FG will fall on AB' at some point other than either of the vertices [Lobachevski Theorem 4]. From point E, erect some line EH equal to FG and perpendicular to EC'. Connect B' to H with a straight line. By construction, lines FB' and FG equal lines B'E and EH respectively. The angles at E and Fare both right. Therefore triangle B 'EH is congruent to triangle B 'FG and angle a equals angle ~- Therefore line AB' lies evenly with line B'H, so AH must be line AB' extended to H [Euclid I .13]. From H, drop some line HJ perpendicular to AC. The angle EID can not exceed the angle at E [Lobachevski Theorem 19], therefore EC' can not exceed HJ [vid. lemma]. Distance HJ is d' '. Thus some d'' has been found which is either equal to or greater than the limit D, which was supposed impossible. Therefore there is no limit to the divergence of the lines which constitute an acute angle. Given line AB meets line AC at some acute angle, it is necessary to prove that the distance between the two lines grows without bounds according to the precepts of absolute geometry. 3 From some point B on AB let fall a perpendicular to AC [Euclid 1.12]. This distance shall be called d. Let there be some other distance D which bounds the divergence, i.e. D is the least If not, let DC be less than AB. Extend CD to CD' such that CD' equals AB. Draw straight lines AC, BD'. CD' was constructed equal to AB, the right angle at B equals the right angle at C and BC is common. Therefore triangle ABC is congruent to triangle D'CB and AC equals BD' [Lobachevski Theorem 10]. Draw the common line AD '. Therefore triangle BAD' is congruent to triangle CD' A [ibid.], and angle BAD' equals angle AD'C. Angle D'AB is greater than rt/2, so AD'C must also be greater. But angle ADC is greater than AD'C [Euclid 1.16], so angle ADC must be much greater than rt/2. Therefore in the 10 11 �Rex to Wretch: Transformation and Riddle in Oedipus Tyrannos Zena Hitz 1H0o<; au0pro1tro Oatµoru. -Heraclitus,frg.1211 Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos is a play fundamentally composed of opposites and motions between them. The principal motion, of course, is the transformation of Oedipus from king to wretched old man, but contained within that are many more: sight becomes blindness, ignorance becomes knowledge, hubris becomes humility, master becomes suppliant, foreigner becomes native. The play consists of a series of scenes in which Oedipus is set up against people of varying positions and objectives, and through dialogue the character underlying these transfonnations is gradually and subtly drawn out. The play also involves a series of riddles that are like nested boxes, beginning with the solving of the Sphinx's riddle, ending with the solving of Oedipus' riddle, and leaving us, circularly, with the first one again: the riddle of the nature of man. Is man recmsive; do all of his actions eventually fall back on himself? Is he merely bronze for the sculpting hands of the gods? Is he a victim of a world of blind chance, his will meaningless? This paper will analyze the transformations and reversals within the play to try to get at their meaning in the context of these questions. The most external change that occurs in Oedipus is his loss of sight. He calls out as he strikes out his eyes with Jocasta's brooches: "They [his eyes] will never see the crime I have committed or had done upon me! Dark eyes, now in the days to come look on forbidden faces, do not recognize those who you long for!" (1271)2. He seems to be avoiding the horror of the visual recognition of his crimes (namely, his children) - a futile task, since mental recognition is quite enough to send him raving in disgust. The relation between vision and knowledge is taken to its full metaphorical extent in the dialogue between Teiresias and Oedipus. That scene involves a complex interplay of physical vision, that is, the vision for which one uses one's eyes, and supernatural vision, with which one derives information beyond normal human perception. Teiresias, physically blind, proclaims that he sees the truth, that he knows the answer to the riddle of the ,plague. Oedipus, eyes in full working order, denies that answer, opposing his own riddle-solving powers as demonstrated by his conquest of the Sphinx to those of Teiresias: "I solved the riddle by my wit alone. Mine was no knowledge got from birds" (398). He repeatedly tries to discredit Teiresias' vision, asking first why he could not answer the Sphinx's riddle and, after the prophet leaves, why, if his accusation is correct, he did not speak sooner. Teiresias answers neither of these ques1translated "A man's character is his daemon." Untitled Greg Francke 12 2Unless otherwise marked, all translations are by David Grene, University of Chicago Press, 1954. tions, but merely spouts more riddles: ''This day will show your birth and will destroy you" (438), and "You have your eyes but see not where you are" (413). Although to the reader familiar with the myth the meaning of these riddles is painfully obvious, to Oedipus they are bewildering: "How needlessly your riddles darken everything" (439). This line shows a particularly interesting reversal: Teiresias, who offers the first answer to theriddle of the plague, instead of shedding light on the question so that Oedipus can see for himself what the answer is, rather darkens it, answering riddle with riddle. It may seem as if Oedipus is stupid for not seeing the truth; however, Teiresias never once states that Oedipus either married his mother or killed his father, let alone showing a circumstance in which that could have occurred, but only says that he killed Laius after Oedipus demands that he clarify his first answer. Even then the answer is cryptic: "You are the murderer of the man whose murderer you seek" (363). By the end of the scene, Oedipus is not only clearly blind to his origin, but blind to his blindness as well. Rather than being convinced of his own guilt, he is convinced of the guilt of someone else. This discrepancy between what he should know and what he does not is a principle irony of the play. It is a reversal explicitly connected with sight: at the end of the play, when he sees the truth of where he is, he blinds himself, crying out that he wishes to avoid his crimes but actually confronting and answering his own previous blindness to them. The reversal of sight and knowledge is also demonstrated when Creon presents the riddle of Laius' murder to Oedipus at the beginning of the play. Oedipus responds to the name, although Creon has posed no question, with "I know of him by hearsay. I have not seen him" (105). In his attempts to solve the murder, he first inquires of an oracle, then a seer, then eyewitnesses. All the information he receives, however, is hearsay, sometimes two or three people removed from the actual source. Once again, the proper roles are reversed: Oedipus himself, he who has seen, learns of the event from people who have not seen. Oedipus and those around him, however, have no reason to trust Teiresias' judgement over that of Oedipus. Teiresias is the man who could not solve the riddle of the Sphinx, a blind man who speaks in riddles. Oedipus, on the other hand, is the great riddle-solver with functioning eyes and a keen wit. Because the reader is acquainted with the story, he believes Teiresias and laughs at Oedipus' foolishness. The person in events offstage, however, has neither true prophet nor any other way of discerning what is to come. The second major transformation of Oedipus is that of parentage and place. This issue begins in the title with the word 'tUpmmoc;. The word means "master" or "ruler," but it specifies a ruler without traditional political legitimacy, one who did not receive the crown by parentage, but by some other means. This is clearly true of Oedipus at the beginning of the play. He is king 13 ��by wit and riddle-solving ability; indeed, he is a foreigner. As he learns the truth of his parentage, it becomes clear that he is not only a native of Thebes but a legitimate heir, a Kpetcou (king). However, at the same time that he learns this, he learns that he is a moral atrocity, and thus sentences himself to exile, to be a foreigner without title, and Creon (Kperou) becomes king, due not to direct lineage but as the brother to the queen. Oedipus' sons are not mentioned, indicating that Oedipus' transformation back into foreigner at the end is complete. Just prior to his final realization, though, comes word from Corinth that he will be king there. Oedipus thinks at the time that this is a position acquired by birth; in fact, it is a position acquired by association and perhaps character, similar to his rise to power in Thebes. Oddly enough, it is this second rise to power that is the key to his downfall: the same messenger tells him that Polybus and Merope are not his parents. So what should be a confirmation of heritage, an inheritance of a throne, is in fact a double dethroning. Thus Oedipus lives another contradiction: he is a "tyrant" both at the beginning and the end of the play, although he is also legitimate heir throughout. We see the importance of parentage and lineage to personal identities for Greeks in the Iliad, when each person is considered not only the sum of his achievements, but of the achievements of his forefathers. Indeed, to the heroes of the Iliad, the names of one's forefathers serve as inspiration to overcome fear of death, as reasons for preferential treatment by the gods, and in general, indications of honor and character. Thus far Oedipus has four parents: two biological and two adopted. But by proclaiming himself a "child of fortune (1tUXTJ)" ( 1080), Oedipus offers us another way to understand his parentage. Aristotle describes fortune as an "accidental cause of things done according to choice andfor the sake of something" (Physics 197a), a sort of displacement of final cause. This describes Oedipus' actions and their results: Jocasta gives away the child for the sake of its death; the child lives. Oedipus runs away from Corinth to avoid a prophecy; he runs straight into it. He marries the queen of Thebes for the sake of power and greatness; he instead marries into moral atrocity. In requesting Oedipus' help at the beginning of the play, the priest describes him as having brought fortune with him to Thebes, telling him to "be now no less in fortune" (53) 3. However, this is an unsatisfying answer not only because it is thematically empty, but because it does not 3Along with fortune, the gods are sometimes used to explain the discrepancy between Oedipus' intention and his actual deeds; however, unlike in the plays of Aeschylus and Euripides, the gods never make a physical appearance in the play. They are frequently referred to as those to whom men are suppliant and as revealers of information beyond human knowledge. The gods in this way are extremely important they reveal the limitations of man and his thought and perception. However, it seems that they lack the role of definite agent. They do not chase characters with whips, or set up courts of judgement as in the Oresteia. They do not vow punishment on stage as in the Hippolytus. They are seen solely through the filter of human perception and action. They are always off-stage. 14 account for Oedipus' character as determining the choices he makes, which fortune may displace. He solves the riddle of the Sphinx, as he says, by his "wit alone." Although the priest says he did so by fortune, this seems an implausible way to solve a riddle. Solving a riddle requires thought and perhaps intuition, but fortune seems to be something outside of these, something beyond the power of human choice and skill. The priest also says Oedipus solved theriddle "in virtue of no knowledge we could give you, in virtue of no teaching" (38), which implies that either it came by "some god" or from within Oedipus himself. Sim~larly, he kills a man, out of the same irrational temper we see displayed in his encounters with Teiresias and Creon. He discovers his origin due to his own thirst for knowledge and blindness to the warnings around him. Considering Oedipus' character as a cause also involves understanding him as a parent. This is shown in the fact that he not only destroys his lineage through his father, but that he marries his mother, essentially replacing that lineage with him- , self. He is husband to his mother, brother to his daughters, and therefore father to himself. He is thus the ultimate self-made man, the character without bonds of lineage or history. The chorus expresses this, saying "Cithaeron was mother and nurse to you" (1094). It is as though Oedipus springs fully grown from the earth, like the men sprung from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus to found Thebes. However, it is his lineage, indeed the fact that he was generated, that is his destruction. His discovery of his parentage is at the heart of the play. This brings with it the knowledge that the he is the murderer he seeks, that he is the plague on the city. Thus he proclaims at the end," the hand that struck me was none but my own" (1331 ). Even those actions and events attributed to fortune throw Oedipus back on himself. The shepherd sends Oedipus to Corinth to rub away his lineage; he ends up returning to it and tangling himself within it. Oedipus runs away from the prophecy of who he is and what he will do, and heads straight - not to Nicaea or Megara or Athens - but to his home town. He kills a man at a crossroads; it is his father, and thus he replaces his lineage with himself. He marries the queen of Thebes; he does not know that it is his mother, but he yet again throws himself back on himself, like a stone tossed upward, only to return with multiplied velocity. Oedipus' transformation over the course of the play replicates the same pattern of the return to the self. He begins a search for the murderer of Laius as "one who is stranger to the story as stranger to the deed" (220), an outside investigator, aware only of his ignorance. His search for' a solution to the plague progresses into a search for parentage and thus self-knowledge through his dialogues, first with the priest: "why the plague?"; next Creon: "who killed Laius?"; then Teiresias: "what is going on?"; and finally and fatally with the messenger and the shepherd: "who are my parents?" The truth that he discovers is no longer the answer to any one of these questions, but an answer to all of them: the answer to a simple "who am I?" Thus, although he begins the play investigating something seemingly foreign, he ends completely inside himself, all-knowing, all-responsible. "To this guilt I bore witness against myself..." (1384), he proclaims, and therefore testifies against himself, judges himself, and punishes himself. He blinds himself, cutting himself off from outside stimuli, and making himself so gruesome none can look at him. ("I shudder at the sight of you!" [Chorus, 1306]) He is recursive, he is isolated, he is wretched. All tools and events in the play - his blindness, the discrepancy between intention and recursive result, and all transformations, yield Oedipus himself, Oedipus the man, and thus man himself. The riddles thus come full circle: 1) The riddle of the Sphinx (what is man?) 2) The riddle of the plague (what is being done wrong?) 3) The riddle of the murder (who killed Laius?) 4) The riddle of parentage (who is Oedipus?) 5) The riddle of Oedipus (what is man?) Oedipus is then the great riddle-solver both as supplier of answers and as answer himself. Similarly, Oedipus underlies the contradictions and motions between opposites in the play - sight to blindness, ignorance to knowledge, hubris to humility, master to suppliant, foreigner to native. He is both seeing and blind to himself, both ignorant and all-knowing, both close to god and near to beast, both in control and completely powerless, both legitimate heir and tyrant. These extremes cancel to yield simply Oedipus the man. For example, consider the opposites previously discussed of Oedipus' birth and Oedipus' position at the beginning of the play: KPE"QN 'OIAI"TIOYL What, then, is the nature of Oedipus? What is it that remains constant? The most literal answer is his name. oiot7tOU~ is composed of two words: 01.ocro, to swell, and 7tOU~, meaning foot. Forms of oioeco can also be used metaphorically to mean 'of inflated style.' It is also related etymologically to tumors and diseases e.g. ot&i,µa, swelling or tumor. He is the infant left on the hill to die with his feet bound, the disease of the city, and he is also the one who truly "knows" as in "o1Ba ",the perfect of eioeco, to see. The term 'swollen' or 'of inflated style' is a way of speaking of something inflated, something out of shape, and perhaps of a sense of transience, since the swelling will go down. Oedipus' rise to power is such a swelling. Oedipus is he whose feet were bound; the secret of his birth is contained in his name and yet o!oa, he knows and has seen, he is the city's disease and its cure, he is swollen with greatness and yet he is wretched. He in some way contains king and wretch, heir and tyrant, master and suppliant. However, there must still be an underlying material that undergoes these transformations. This material, then, is that which constitutes Oedipus' character and physical form. As man, he is neither of foreign nor noble birth, but he is born. He can see physically but has neither eyes for the future nor eyes to look inside himself. Many raised and conditioned him, but he is ultimately descended from no one except himself. He seeks mastery but much is beyond his control. He seeks knowledge but much eludes his grasp. He does everything in his power to be moral and good: to save the city from the plague, find a murderer, keep himself from killing his father and marrying his mother. The three major character traits that underly these actions are a thirst for knowledge not easily quenched, a desire to do what is good, and a fierce temper. It is his thirst for knowledge that leads him to ask his parents who he is after a drunk calls him a bastard, to ask the oracle when the answer is unsatisfactory, to try to answer the riddle of the Sphinx, to solve the murder of Laius, and to discover his parentage, despite multiple warnings as to its result. It is his desire to do what is good that leads him to leave the city where he was raised, to avoid killing his father and marrying his mother, and it is that desire which motivates him to decipher the cause of Thebes' plague. It is evident from the way the town and priest beg him to solve this problem that he is under no obligation to do so but does it only out of concern for the city. It is his temper which flares when he is pushed out of the road by King Laius, and thus he kills him and his entire company. When Teiresias pushes him out of the riddle-solving him of road, so to speak, his temper flares again and he accuses_ conspiracy. "Perhaps it was a sudden gust of anger that forced the insult from him, and no judgement" (Chorus, 523). These are the very characteristics which define man. His lack of foreknowledge in making his choices reflects that of all men. Although in the play the audience has the blueprint of what will happen, Oedipus does not, and neither do we in everyday life. Indeed, Oedipus' characteristics are similar to the three parts of the soul presented in Plato's Republic: the contemplative and rational part, the part concerned with honor and duty, and that ruled by the passions. Oedipus passes through all stages and extremes in which people find themselves, thus demonstrating that all of those extremes - king, wretch, master, suppliant, etc., flow from man, and are not imposed from the outside. The tragedy of the play, then, is that which all mankind experiences, much more tragic in its universality than it could be specifically: the tragedy of the impossibility of foreknowledge of events, and the tragedy of all knowledge, all mastery, and all greatness being inescapably transient, likely in the space of a day to collapse into its opposite. Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy southwind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, does he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year. And the light-headed race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the suiface, he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive, man excellent in wit. And he 15 �masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wild, who roams the hills; he tames the horse of the shaggy mane, he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain bull. And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods (6P'YtlJ that mould a state, has he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when 'tis hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; he has resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come: only Death can he not flee from; but from sicknesses without cure he has devised escapes. Cunning beyond fancy' s dream is the fertile skill which brings him, now to evil, now to good. When he weaves the laws of the land to that justice which he has sworn by the gods to uphold, he is high in the city: no city has he who.for his rashness, dwells with sin. Never may he share my hearth, never think my thoughts, who does these things! - Chorus, Antigone, 332-372 Slightly modified from the translation of Sir Richard Jebb. Nick Greg Francke 16 17 �The Day of Picking Melissa Bond I was ten years old the day we picked the com. My brother and I had been waiting for it all summer. Going out each afternoon, behind the rusted chicken house and up the small muddy path to our beloved garden, we would wonder if it was time. I could never tell if the corn was tall enough. Dad always said it had to be just a sprinkle above my head, whatever that meant. I would ask Kenyon if it was a sprinkle yet, but he would just squinch his face, raise his eyebrows for a minute and then return to catching the Japanese beetles that he always fed to the fish. It was a Sunday in late July when the day of picking came. Kenyon and I were pretending we were dead when Dad came in to get us out of bed. "Ready-Up!", he shouted dancing around the room. He was humming to himself and had a half-lit, fivepenny cigar sticking out of his mouth. "Hmmmm-uhhhhhmmm-hmmm." His hands glided through the air, tracing wind currents back and forth, back and forth. "Hmmm-uhhh-hmmmhmmm." Kenyon and I began to giggle. Dad leapt over the small footstool I used to reach the bookcase, and farted exquisitely upon landing. "My dearest, loveliest children," he began, ''Today is a day of infinite grandeur. The air is stilled to perfection, the sun has warmed the back of the earth and all is toasty and content." I looked at Kenyon who was smiling and blinking his eyes at the flurry of our father's arms. Kenyon's head inclined slightly toward me as he rolled his eyes. Dad was given to making speeches. " ... the grasshoppers make lazy love sounds, the honey is sweet and the magnolia's smile. My dear, beloved children, today the corn is sprinkle high. Today is the day of picking." Kenyon and I jumped up on our beds and began running in place. "Wooo-woooo-woooo," Kenyon yelled. "Wooo-wooowooo." With a great exhalation, our father stopped us. "First," he said with all seriousness, "breakfast." Kenyon and I yelped. Dad clomped off toward the kitchen, cigar clenched firmly between his lips. The day of picking had begun. Breakfast consisted of sourcream poundcake, buckwheat pancakes with real maple syrup, fresh strawberries from the garden, and big glasses of Tang. Dad was waiting at the table when Kenyon and I began to heap food on our plates. As I reached for the strawberries, dad grabbed my wrist. "Homage to all grasshoppers, the sky and every silk thread we find." he said gently into my eyes. "Understand?" I nodded my assent. He let go of my hand slowly, becoming distracted by the maple syrup. Kenyon's amber eyes looked into mine. "Pass the strawberries," he mouthed. The following six hours Dad, Kenyon, and I spent Hauling manure water. Kenyon and I were given three foot yellow plastic shields to drape over our bodies for protection as we hauled five gallon pails of water and horse shit from Clay Odom's house to the garden. "We must replenish before we consumeth," said Dad, slopping a big turd around his zucchini plant. "We must replenish before we consumeth," Kenyon and I 18 echoed, trying to splash each other. Each haul took several hours as Clay Odom lived a little over three miles away. The three of us walked to Clay's house swinging our buckets. Kenyon and I then waited for Dad to finish the cigars he smoked with Clay on all days of picking. They shared two cigars, passing them back and forth and commenting on the quality of corn that season. "Got Silver Queen this year." Dad said scratching his ear. "Swee test damn com you ever put in your mouth." "Yup," Clay answered, sucking his grey teeth, "I ain't never got it off the stalk fast enough though. You got to get it off the stalk while it's still green, while it's still alive if you want that sweet honey taste." "Yup," Dad said. He stood up, extinguishing his cigar. "I think it's about that time." Kenyon and I picked up our buckets, waved goodbye to Clay, and followed our father's intent body up the road. After thorough scrubbings, Dad gathered Kenyon and I in the kitchen. It was about four o'clock and the afternoon heat had dissipated into a slow, contented warmth. Dad was pulling all the pots from the cupboards and examining them. He pulled each one out, holding it away from himself for inspection. After inspection he would gingerly place it back in the cupboard, pulling out the next one for examination. He finally decided on an old chili pot Clay had given him at a Bar-B-Q three years before. The pot held five gallons, was made of stainless steel and had huge handles on each side. "Yes. Good. Good." Dad whispered turning it. He filled the pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. Kenyon's foot was wagging back and forth as he stared at the garden. Dad put a stool in front of us and sat down. He ran his hands through his dark hair and then clasped them together, grinning at us. "My most beloved children," he began. "Today is the day of picking, it is a day of honor. We must honor... ". He trailed off, his eyes locating a butterfly outside. The air was quiet, only the sun and our breath beating through the silence. He began again, "Fivecobbseach. Only five. Don'tpick them until I tell you to. Once you have picked them, run as fast as you can to the kitchen. Shuck them and throw them into the water. You want them to be alive when you put them in. They have to have life to get that sweet honey taste. Okay?" "Okay," Kenyon and I whispered, vibrating. The water began to boil. Dad, Kenyon, and I walked to the garden with deliberate slowness. "You don't want to cleave the air too fast on a day like this," Dad said "it makes for bad pickin' ." we arrived at the garden. The stalks were golden with feathery blooms for heads. The sun made slats through the rows, taking its place with all fairness. Nothing pushed too fast here. Kenyon and I began to walk slowly, caressing the dark green and the light. "Homage to all grasshoppers, the sky, and every silk thread." I thought. We took our time, cleaving the air slowly, finding the com we thought would be the biggest and sweetest. "Has everybody found their corn?" Dad yelled from somewhere to my right. "Yes!" I yelled. "Yup!" Kenyon yelled. Okay," Dad said, "on the count of three, I want everyone to pick, shuck, and boil! Ready! One! Two! Three!" Kenyon and I screamed. I rushed to each of my beloved com cobbs and picked them with all the delicacy I could muster before rushing to the next. At the fifth one I ran down to the house, my lungs screaming in my chest more from laughter than from exertion. Dad was shucking like a madman and throwing the naked cobbs to Kenyon who dropped them into the boiling water. I joined the shucking and within minutes all fifteen cobbs were rolling around in sweet, aquatic, Clay Odom's chili pot bliss. Dad smiled and nudged me, "Did you hear them sigh as they went in?" he asked. "I think we got them alive. I believe we are going to have us some Silver Queen com shooting sweet honey straight down our throats." We set the table with three plates and one big bowl of fresh butter. We didn't even use knives, we just jabbed those com cobbs straight in and let the honey mix with the butter until it was just right. It was sweeter than honey when that sigh shot straight down my throat. Dad said, butter glistening on his beard, that the magnolias must be smiling. 19 �From Ambiguity to Epiphany: A Clairvoyant Reading of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Ange E. Mlinko Introduction A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear. (Mat. 13:3-9) Jes us told this parable by the seaside. He speaks here of his own mission to convert, but the parable might apply to all storytellers, whose words fall likewise on shallow and fertile imaginations. Stories aim to teach, but their subject- the mystery of life - defies simple or literal language. Instead the language of parable or poem circles around its subject, approaching the vortex with circumspection. This is not, however, our usual method of acquiring knowledge about the nature of things. We think of communication and inquiry as arrows with a target: information. The following passage by a seventeenth-century theologian exemplifies this: I can easily believe that there are more invisible than visible beings in the universe. But of their families, degrees, connections, distinctions, and functions, who shall tell us? How do they act? Where are they found? About such matters the human mind has always circled without attaining knowledge. - T. Burnet These exact questions of category belong to the natural philosopher. Yet man's most "natural" approach fails when applied to spiritual inquiry. It is ironic then that this passage begiris the long epigraph of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," a parable about a man who goes off in search of the unknown, violates its mystery with his blundering arrow, and undergoes an astonishing penance: initiation into life-indeath, the prophet's condition. To become prophetic one must attain clairvoyance, the ability to apprehend the invisible. For one who wishes to know at all costs no suffering is too great. The Mariner is doomed to wander the land, exiled from spiritual and human society, sowing his tales among other chosen men and thereby sundering those men from human society. Similarly, we the readers of ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" must attain some degree of clairvoyance in order to "see" what the poem means, but does not say. Our minds, drawn to its beauty and then to its mystery, circle around its ambiguities until we experience the same epiphanies the Mariner experiences. The epiphanies are three: seeing in the dark, hearing the invisible, 20 and feeling the wind of welcoming, the creative breeze. It is my hope in this essay to chart the progress from the "circling" mind to the "clairvoyant" mind first in the Mariner, then in the poem's reader. And I hope throughout to impart the sense of danger that permeates the quest for knowledge lying beyond the realm of natural philosophy. II - The Circling Mind and the Mortal Eye The Mariner thwarts the Guest's purposeful passage the way the elements thwart the purpose of his ship. His first lines express the initial excitement of the mind venturing forth into regions unknown: The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the light-house top. Below, below, below; the ship sails off with ease, as the word "drop" indicates. Yet the very next stanza counterpoints downward motion with upward motion, straight line with circle: I -The Wedding on the Periphery Outside the frame of the Mariner's story is a second story wherein will lie the real moral. The Mariner must tell his parable to someone, like the sower tossing his seed. He diverts "one of three" from the doors of a wedding feast, and that man, the Wedding-Guest, must hear him. But he must conquer the will of his victim, first with a "glittering eye" and then with bewitching words. The Mariner brings the sea into the Wedding-Guest's ken with his very person: "glittering eye" and "long grey beard" suggest the hypnotic moon, and the stretch of ocean beneath it. And when the Wedding Guest cries, "And thou art long, and lank, and brownj As is the ribbed sea-sand," we think of something washed over and over by a motion as inexorable as the tide. Indeed, the Mariner later reveals: Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns. Over and over he experiences that eroding fever. The Mariner's voice and features bring the natural elements into a wedding feast. Marriage is the cornerstone ritual of society, which is itself man's greatest bulwark against the elements. And as the Wedding-Guest puts it: The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin. This next-of-kin enjoys the protection societies and marriages give to individuals. With protection comes cheerful ignorance. The Mariner, by not allowing the Wedding-Guest passage across the threshold, breaks the spell that sheltered ignorance holds over his heart. The Wedding-Guest "beat his breast" at the sound of music and laughter coming through the doors. He and the Mariner must remain outside the human domain, as must the knowledge they come to share. mind's eye confuses its nature; he circles, like the mind in the epigraph looking for "families, degrees, connections, distinctions, and functions." As the Mariner builds his stanzas toward the revelation that he killed the bird, the pace heightens. But at the crucial moment when he might have given away his motive, the Wedding-Guest preempts two and a half lines to cry, God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! Why look' st thou so? Whatever the Mariner might have said is lost in the drama of cry crashing on cry: "With my crossbow/ I shot the Albatross!" What caused the Wedding-Guest to cry out just then? The stanza prior to it goes: The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he; And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea. Instead of saying "we headed south," the Mariner incorporates the rolling motion of the orbit in his words. "We headed south" conveys purposeful ease, which Nature will subvert. So as soon as the ship goes beyond "the line," or equator, it can no longer navigate itself. A storm-blast causes it to lose its bearings. This storm, "tyrannous and strong," is likened to the ship's "foe." And in the absence of men and ·beasts, the very landscape takes on a malevolence; the ice "cracked and growled, and roared and howled." The ship finds itself in the land of mist and snow where eye and mind flounder in confusion. The simple compass needle, which so scientifically points north, spins. The Mariner cannot see shapes for the mist; this is a physical indicator of a mental condition. Most importantly, he does not know he has drifted into the territory of the Polar Spirit. Coleridge wrote in the marginal gloss that it is "one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels .... They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more." This might remind us of the world of the Odyssey, where one must be on guard against the capricious wrath of the many immortals and semi-mortals who inhabit the seas and islands. But the characters in the Odyssey know quite well that such beings exist; the Mariner does not, and so incurs their wrath by killing their messenger, the Albatross. The Mariner's tale is told in retrospect. Hence when he tells us it came like "a Christian soul" we think of the bird as a good omen. But the Mariner amid the mist and snow cannot tell if an omen is good or bad. He tells us "the ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around" - and we picture him spinning dizzily about, overwhelmed on all sides. Whence comes the Albatross: "Through the fog it came," "It ate the food it ne'er had eat," "round and round it flew." And round and round the Mariner's mind goes, first describing it as spirit, then as bird. His In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moon-shine. The obscured moon-eye, the magical nine nights, the mist, the shroud - all theses serve to fill us with vague dread. Is it bird or ghost? If the bird is a ghost, an arrow won't draw blood. So to answer the question, "What manner of beast are you?" the Mariner draws his bow. When the senses fail to inform us, we proceed to experiment; that is the way of the human mind. The shot arrow attempts empirically to penetrate the mysteries to which reason cannot gain admittance. Afterward, the crew cannot decide whether the bird is innocent or the Mariner heroic: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow! But: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist. Minds still circle around the issue of the Albatross' goodness or evil. The Polar Spirit, who "loved the bird," enters the dreams of the sailors: And some in dreams assured were Of the Spirit that plagued us so. 21 �Because the soul's eye sees what the mortal eye can't, the Polar Spirit appears to sleeping men. The dreaming eye tells the truth. By day, the Mariner once more mistakes the nature of an apparition on the waters: At first it seemed a little speck And then it seemed a mist; It moved and moved ... A speck, a mist. a shape, I wist! And still it neared and neared: As if it dodged a water-sprite. It plunged and tacked and veered. Frenzy rises in the Mariner; he desires to name what he sees, but his eye renders nothing clearly. Once again he draws blood in his mental tonnent; he savagely sucks the blood of his arm to cry "A sail! a sail!" - apparently to engage the eyes of the other crew members. He wants confinnation: Do you see what I see? Blindly. the crew follow his example, and drink likewise. There• s no indication in the poem or gloss that they see the skeleton ship bearing Death and Life-in-Death. ill - Two Epiphanies [Seeing in the Dark] Twice up to this point the Mariner draws blood, twice as a way to answer his uncertainty regarding the nature of what he sees. Twice this act fails. In part III, the poem makes a distinction between the carnal and spiritual eyes, symbolized by the sun and moon. The carnal, or mortal, eye of the Mariner has thus far mistaken a bird for a phantom. and a phantom for a ship. The new world he has trespassed into demands the growth of a new eye - one that, like the moon, sees in the dark. In part II, the ship bursts into the doldrums at the equator; there the "bloody Sun" stands above the mast like a judging eye. But the sun's great telling moment comes when the skeleton ship drives "suddenly/ Betwixt us and the Sun." The Mariner's eye, entrenched in his body, is unable to judge right. The setting sun now symbolizes the judging eye as the imprisoned eye: And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, (Heaven's Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered With a broad and burning face. The carnal eye is shown to be imprisoned in flesh. Furthermore, the "bars" that obscure it are the "ribs" of the ship. At the invocation of "Heaven's Mother," that blue-mantled Mary, another apparition answers: the Mother of Flesh. Red-lipped and golden-haired. her skin "white as leprosy," she is the Muse's 22 alter ego: if the Muse gives immortality, she gives mortality. If the Muse inspires with the Breathe of Life, Life-in-Death provides the unregenerate clay. We could explore her extensively, or shudder and pass by, knowing that she is meant to touch an oxygen-less depth in us. The human eye sees by the sun; another eye. akin to the moon, must take over the senses when darkness falls, as it does very suddenly after the spectral ship takes off. First "four times fifty living men" drop dead, each with a curse in his eye meant to repel the Mariner's bodily eye and spur the development of his spiritual eye. He says: An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! By the Moon the Mariner finally attains his first epiphany~ How goes the movement from damnation to grace? He mourns the dead: The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I. The Mariner can still see the dead men; but he cannot see the "thousand thousand slimy things" that live in the deep. His confusion about the nature of things he can't see begins to resolve when he closes his eyes. First "I looked upon the rotting sea," "I looked upon the rotting deck," "I looked to heaven, and tried to pray." To no avail, until, "I closed my eyes." He does not say when he opens them again. Then like a moon rising in the night, a new eye causes him to see through the darkness. Again he looks at the sky, the deck, the water, and finally sees: Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes. "Slimy things" have become, with epiphany, "water-snakes."No longer does the sea "rot:" Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam, and every track Was a flash of golden fire. As the Mariner looks for the first time in fearless wonder, the Albatross falls away. He comes to know something without desiring possession of its very nature. What is it that he now knows? He has seen the essence of Creation; he understands a universal order, born in beauty as well as chaos. As a result he realizes the futility of apprehending beings with scientific instruments and faculties. When he looks down at the circling, flashing creatures. he sees through the dark; he succumbs to the circling. the confusion, that prepares the mind for its flash of understanding. [Hearing the Invisible] Beast and man take their places in the cosmos for the Mariner; now he must learn to comprehend the spirits. After seeing into the depths, the Mariner hears the music of the spheres. In part V, the spirit world perfonns an opera. The Moon and stars are still out. but joined by stonn clouds, lightning, and torrential rain. And soon I heard a roaring wind: It did not come anear.... And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; - and, in the commotion The dead men gave a groan. Under these supernal auspices, the dead rise, possessed by an angelic troop, to work the ship. Like the Albatross. they give it t~e means to go, and they also steer. The Mariner works alongside them and pulls "at one rope" with a spirit. He becomes one of them even as they become one of him in their borrowed bodies. Their steering represents what happens when spirit joins man to overcome the dead, chaotic matter of Nature: a direction may be taken. This is exactly his second epiphany. For at dawn, when the troop departs, Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies passed. Around, around, flew each sweet sound. Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one. After the opera of chaos, true music plays. The Mariner compares these sounds to three things: angels' song (a bow to the supernatural), songbirds (a bow to Nature), and musical instruments (a bow to man's art). The possible harmony of these three reahns - so unfortunately sundered, only seen together through the power of clairvoyance - transfonns the Mariner again. He hears the Invisible. IV - The Two Epiphanies in the Ideal Reader . :r?e Mariner's epiphanies. seeing in the dark and hearing the mv1s1ble, are repeated elsewhere - in the heart of the reader reading the poem. The reader sets forth on the sea of Coleridge's cosmos, and comes to the last of its 625 lines. She more than likely will begin again; her mind acts out the circling and circling that is confusion. Too much remains unsaid or invisible to her. But as she begins to penetrate, she comes to clairvoyance. We achieve our first level of understanding when we "see in the dark" - order inchoate images in a coherent way. We have been doing that quite a bit up till now. One of the first questions we asked was, "Who is the Mariner?" Putting images together, we created a picture, made him visible to us. Through another image, we answered for ourselves the question of why he killed the Albatross. Seeing in the dark requires, for us, letting images answer to the unsaid; we allowed ourselves to imagine obscurity, ambiguity, mist and moonlight, until we realized that ambiguity compelled the Mariner to test his senses. After we learn to see the meaning in recurring images, we learn to hear meaning in recurring rhythms. The ability to do both results in a kind of clairvoyance. The paradigmatic pattern of the poem is the circle, a continual return to the same places, same images, same rhythms. The archetypal wanderer is not so much the time-traveler, faring ever forward, but the earth traveler, following the circles of latitude and longitude. Thus the hill, lighthouse, and kirk in the beginning of the tale recur at the end. On the outskirts of that tale, we come to a wedding, depart, and return to it. The Mariner must repeat his.story again and again. The ship crosses the line once, twice, thrice. The sun rises, the moon sets, the sun rises. These are motifs, macro-rhythms in conjunction with micro-rhythms like meter and rhyme. We will speak of the latter presently; first we must look at just a few recurring images and see what insights come to clairvoyant eyes. [Seeing in the Dark] Repetitions of images occur in disguise, for instance these images of chaos from parts II, III. and IV respectively: About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue and white. Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam. and every track Was a flash of golden fire. I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, 23 �And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes . The upper air burst into life! And a hundred fire-flags sheen, To and fro they were hurried about! And to and fro, and in and out, The wan stars danced between. A Witch's oils, water-snakes, and lightning stonns are all described by Coleridge in such a way as to conjure up the same flickering patterns each time. The death-fires and the dancing stars are also imagistic kin. We think of all of them as images of chaos. And yet by being orchestrated, they appear to us as chaos half-ordered. Such is the effect of another recurring image: that of a multitude set against a lone one. The many, or chaos, is constantly contrasted to the one, or unity. "One," aloneness, is always left. In the first two lines of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," one meets three; as if by mitosis four divide into two, and by the very end the last two also divorce. In a poem of two's - a groom for a bride, a sun for a moon, an eye for an eye - one is the remainder. We never see the bride and groom together through the doorway. The spirit world never mingles with the human. The sun and moon never appear together. The Mariner can neither hold the Albatross nor the listener. This is a poem of matter dissolving into atoms: Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. Four times fifty living men ized number is a recipe for incantation. Numbers like three, seven, and nine occupy the space between unity and chaos where man's mind lives, makes patterns, an out of patterns, magic. This seems to be the message encoded in the following stanza regarding the skeleton ship: The ice was all between. The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice; ''The game is done! I've won! I've won!" Quoth she, and whistles thrice. Is it real gambling going on? In the words themselves, numbers riddle: the dice are two (because one is a die), and dice rhymes with thrice. Dice signify chance, but a witch who whistles thrice invokes its opposite, magic. Done rhymes with won, a homonym and double entendre (the Mariner is the crucial one to be won); and both eye and ear follow the progress of twain to one (twain wanes into one). The gambling image- connoting chance - is counterpointed by the play of number. What is said and what is unsaid conflict, with the greater weight of truth resting on the unsaid, the hidden. Hence Coleridge seems to be making a bid for order underlying chaos. While there is an order, one must practice magic to learn it. [Hearing the Invisible] After looking for epiphanies in patterns of image, we look to patterns of rhythm for another kind of epiphany. Coleridge incorporates the music of the sea into his hypnotic poem: V / I.I / V v ,, v ,,. v / / V / The Sun came up upon the left y / The Sun now rose upon tne right VV 1..1 ,/ / V And a good south wind sprung up behind ...the stars rush out, At one stride comes the dark; And the good south wind still blew behind And now 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute. The orchestration of many-dropping-to-one prepares us for disbelief at the Mariner's ending prayer. God may love "all things both great and small," but even they will drop "one by one" someday. But between unity and chaos is the kind of half-order that orchestrated images represent. A detail like number gains significance: In nature, number is random; in language, it is purposeful. Chosen numbers are reiterated in the poem: "one of three," "three-years child," "I saw a third," "vespers nine," "nine fathoms deep," "seven days," "seven days, seven nights." Symbol- 24 Vl..I / V ""'v The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around. The overcrowding of "ice was" conveys exactly the crowding in of the ship. But in the next example, we hear the isolation of: Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! Here repetition conveys a great deal of space. The long o's sound like a lone wolf baying. The echo about all-all one-one goes on and on. The rhythm of "the ICE was ... the ICE was ..." sounds like teeth gnashing compared to "a-LONE, a-LONE ... ," which is all vowel. Echo also conveys both weariness and excitement: There passed a weary time. Each throat Was parched, and glazed each eye. A weary time! a weary time! How glazed each weary eye.... The alliteration of passed/parched, the assonance of time/eye, each/weary, and the repeating of glazed and weary all weigh the stanza down. But the following is an exciting stanza because as the Mariner waits with bated breath for the skeleton ship to close the distance between them, so do the lines: /V/ They dropped down one by one. And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I. sometimes it is used to accelerate the heart. Echo, rhyme, and meter provide the tools. Echo, for instance, is used to convey crowded or empty space, weariness or excitement. Here the echoing of "ice was" crowds: .;' i..J / These iambic lines imitate the periodic motion of the sun, gusts of wind, and ocean waves. Hence the bewitching quality of the words that force the Wedding-Guest and us to listen "like a three years' child." Rhythm carries amazing powers of suggestion. The lines quoted above are near-repetitions from parts I and II of the poem. The difference is that between each repetition a crucial act, the Albatross' murder, has occurred. Immediately after the murder we are told "The Sun now rose upon the right" as if the world has taken an 180-degree tum. But in fact; the universe takes no notice. The turnabout of the sun is really the turnabout of the south-bound ship, and the underlying rhythm of the sun, wind, and waves - and of the above lives remains the same. Nature is oblivious to man's drama. Just so, rhythm is oblivious and inexorable. Coleridge can, however, half-order that rhythm. At times it is perfectly regular, giving us a stifled and monotonous feeling; At first it seemed a little speck, And then it seemed a mist; It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist. A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! And still it neared and neared.... and forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled. Here the bumper-to-bumperrhymes of prow/blow/foe mimic the intense chase. It is a timely variation that segues promptly into our established pattern after a caesura between lines 4 and 5. The internal rhyme in line 5 is typical as well. This is musical virtuosity! The tension between regularity and variation in rhyme as well as meter illustrates the tension between the chaotic "dead" matter of the elements and the "inspired" matter of the mind. One may say, for instance, that this is a poem of ballad stanzas, that each stanza contains alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines, but that is only so when Coleridge wants to convey weariness or calm: /VV "'Vv .I' V "-'.I' V/V .I' We stuck, nor breath, nor motion; VIJ/ V" V / As idle as a painted ship v.l'V.I' V.l'V Upon a painted ocean. ~_,. V""V/V/ I woke, and we were sailing on ""' ~ / / I.I v V/IJ ,,. V As in a gentle weather: With sloping masts and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, t,J u / ,.. 'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high; v ,, v ,,. I.I ,,,. I.I The dead men stood together. These lines are very regular and iambic, with alternating masculine and feminine end stresses. The fact that feminine, that is, unstressed syllables end each stanza contributes toward a low-key, fading-out feeling. And in the painted ship stanza, where each line is so symmetrical and droning, the long a's and o's, the multiple p's, don't segue into other sound patterns; they, and the stanza, go nowhere. But just eight lines prior to this withering stanza came this blood-rush: V/"' ""'V .;' / / The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, V/1.J/v The entire stanza closes up like a fan, underscored by '·'neared and neared." Rhyme is another "echo" constantly bouncing on the ear. Rather than have meaning in specificity, it has meaning in its generality, a constant ABCB, DEFE that creates expectation in the reader of an endless wave-like motion. Sometimes Coleridge varies with a six-line stanza that rhymes AAABCB or ABCBDB. Take this stanza: / Day after day, day after day, / The furrow followed free; v v .Y VV V "'V v ; ,, v "' We were me first that ever burst / Into that silent sea. The variation here takes the fonn of a regrouping of stresses, all masculine, into what sounds like a longer stanza of shorter lines. The former stanza was one lone iambic stream: "As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean" seems like a long sentence, but the strong stresses of "The fair breeze blew/ The white foam flew" break the stanza into short, fast-moving phrases. In addition, the alliteration moves us forward: from 25 �breeze, blew, burst (from the air) and foam , flew , free (from the waves) to the deflated sibilants of ~ilent sea. A similar pattern energizes this stanz~: v ,,- _, " V/ / ,- The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out: °""' " / V / At one stride comes tlie dark. V/ /; v / v/ With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, I./ / V It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek Like a meadow-gale of spring It mingled strangely with my fears, Yet it felt like a welcoming. /V~ Off shot the specter-bark. The first line breaks into two fast-moving lines of three stresses each; the next line pitches three stresses together to counteract the tendency of a four-line stanza to sound symmetrical, and the fourth line metes out four stresses such that the line still strikes the ear as trimeter. All the way the stanza fights regularity and symmetry. It is a stanza of wind-gusts rather than waves; inspired matter, not dead. No wonder we can go from "The fair breeze blew" to "day after day" in a few short lines. As the rhythm is apt, our emotions keep pace. And so we learn to hear. Rhythm buttresses surface meaning and subtly complicates it; it is like another voice muttering behind the stage voice. It is difficult to hear, much less make m~aning o~t of it. But doing so constitutes a second epiphany, without which the overall meaning of a poem is incomplete. V - The Final Epiphany The Mariner endures still more suffering after his epiphanies. The Polar Spirit gives his ship one last kick, the dead men still wear a curse in their eyes, two daemons visit the ship while the Mariner lies paralyzed; they reveal the motive of the Spirit: He loved the bird who loved the man Who shot him with his bow. ~ter the ship reaches the "line" for the third time, it is driven on wmdlessly by angels. The Mariner is in a state of great uncertainty and isolation; meanwhile, "The dead men stood together." All stood together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: All fixed on me their stony eyes, That in the Moon did glitter. Here the living dead seem to stand in condemnation of the Mariner; he seems utterly forsaken and alone. But without warning, "soon there breathed a wind on me." Nor sollild nor motion made: Its path was not upon the sea, In ripple or in shade. 26 This_is the Mariner's third and last epiphany: a life-giving breath or wmd that blows on him alone, even as the ship moves without a breeze. The Mariner, who has finally looked and seen, listened and heard, is indeed being welcomed. It is the spirit world welcoming him. Indeed it ought to mingle with his fears; the life of a man divided between the human and supernatural realms is both a blessing and a curse. He is no longer wholly human. Even so the wind is like "a meadow-gale of spring," that time of year V:hen the air warms things to life. Thus the wind is both unsettling and comforting to the Mariner. Yet he is welcomed even as he is bid farewell by the souls who bring his ship into his home port. After the inspiration lifts him "sweetly," he turns to the dead men who filled him with dread and sees with shock: Each corse lay flat , lifeless and flat, And, by the holy rood! A man all light, a seraph-man, On every corse there stood. The spirits have bared themselves one last time for the Mariner to see before they depart. "Each waved his hand" to the Mariner. The inspiration he had enables him to divide spirits from dead matter, the angels from the corpses; he now is himself a hybrid: a human body with a supernatural eye. The Mariner is Wlequivocally exiled from the spirit world. His ship is sunk with all two hundred corpses. No physical evidence remains of his voyage; proof is impossible. No more does the Mariner belong to men, either. Rescued from drowning by three men in a skiff, he promptly drives two of them to the brink of madness. I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach. Only one out of three may receive the terrible truths the ~ner knows: This knowledge of the larger world encompass- mg and governmg man's small and myopic one is taboo; it has the power of ruining man's order. Thus does the Mariner "pass like night:" night is also anarchic and taboo, and we would rather receive its witch's truths in dreams. "Say quick," gasps the Hermit who saves the Mariner, "I bid thee say - what manner of man art thou?" This, the question that silently accompanied the arrow to the Albatross, cannot be answered quickly or forwardly. It is answered with a riddle this poem. Plain language, simple and natural categories, are preposterous things to use to describe the plenitude of the universe. VI - The Reader's Final Epiphany How are we to speak of the third epiphany, L'le experience of a life-giving breeze, as it applies to the reader? This breeze is as individual, and inexplicable, as vocation. It is the breath upon the face of the deep prior to Genesis. It is inspiration. Let us return, briefly, to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, which began this essay. When asked by his disciples why parables were his method of teaching, Jesus replied: Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given .... Therefore I speak to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. We can imagine the effect of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" on the soils of various imaginations, some rocky, some thorny, and some fertile. Those who read hoping for an easy moral constitute shallow soil, where nothing grows. They leave the poem disturbed and dissatisfied with its ambiguities. Others might attain the epiphanies of sight or sound and yet not feel the breeze that bestows fertility or creativity: these are the readers who constitute thorny soil, where new life flourishes briefly, but withers from neglect. But how does one explain the fact that some fertile souls take the Mariner's seed to heart? In other words: Reading ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" will leave some of us confused and frustrated; some of us will pore over it till it yields its secrets, and some fewer of us will be compelled to make our way into the spirit world ourselves. We do so by setting sail, by putting ourselves in the hands of a larger power beyond the shores of the known. And there is no question but that we too must shoot the Albatross, succumb to Nature, pass through the initiation of the spirits, and live to tell the story. Our achievement of clairvoyance depends on our willingness to go to any length to penetrate mystery. So Coleridge seems to believe. The Mariner deliberately sails off into the unknown. Having gone beyond "the line" and to a realm bordering on the spirit world, he cannot make out the nature of things with his mortal eye. When the Albatross arrives to guide him, he cannot put his faith in it, and shoots it to answer his own inquiry into its soul. This violation incurs the wrath and reward of the spirits: on the one hand the Polar Spirit pursues him in vengeance; on the other hand Life-in-Death rewards his pursuit of knowledge with a knowledge of the order and plentitude of the cosmos. Thus he becomes a clairvoyant, cursed and blessed. Myopic man, the natural philosopher, shuns prophets such as the Mariner, perhaps because prophecy could drive him mad, or perhaps because there is no way to make a man see. Yet I do not doubt that sometimes it is well for the soul to contemplate as in a picture the image of a larger and better world, ~est the mind, habituated to the small concerns of daily life, limit itself too much and sink entirely into trivial thinking. But meanwhile we must be on watch for the truth, avoiding extremes, so that we may distinguish certain from uncertain, day from night. By the poem's end, Coleridge has made a mockery of his chosen epigraph. Here, the supernatural is presented as a tonic for the natural philosopher who has overdosed on prosaism: The academic mind is told to read a few poems once in a while. The warning against extremes seems especially fllilny to the readers of Coleridge, who said, "Grant me a nature having two contrary forces," and "Extremes meet." VII - The Wedding on the Periphery, Part Two What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding-guests are there: But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are: And hark the little vesper-bell, Which biddeth me to prayer! Looking through the doorframe, we glimpse a singing bride enveloped in a protective bower. How frail that bower seems after such a tale! How vulnerable the bride, how deceptive the prettiness of gardens and the strength of human covenants like marriage! The daemonism of the cosmos lurks palpably near. At the moment that a bell rings, the Mariner utters a prayer: 0 Wedding-Guest! This soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely ' twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be. 0 sweeter than the marriage-feast, 'Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company! To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends And youths and maidens gay! 27 �Farewell! farewell! But this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both bird and man and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. This prayer, so seemingly sentimental that even Coleridge regretted ending the poem with it, is in fact not sentimental: it is a gesture of propitiation, an ancient display of piety that runs the gamut from human sacrifice to crossing oneself in a thunderstorm. The impulse to walk with a goodly company is that ancient impulse to ward off evil with sheer number. "Farewell," he tells his listener, but is it like the farewell of the spirits on the ship - that is, just another covert welcoming to the fold of the blessed and the damned? And why does he repeat "thee, thou Wedding-Guest!" as though he were mocking the fact that his listener will not cross that threshold, will not join the company, is no longer the Bridegroom's kinsman but the Mariner's? Why tell him to love, and to pray? This moral lacks power. We have seen what the real cosmos is like, and "God himself/ Scarce seemed there to be." The Mariner has come from the land of Cain to turn this wedding's wine to vinegar. It is fitting that a tale about the world outside the world is told through a frame within a frame. Herein lies the real moral: the Wedding-Guest never goes through those doors; he is sundered from his kinsmen. He rises the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man" and we feel almost as though another story is beginning. But it would only turn out to be the same story in the end. Untitled Rakesh Brennig 28 29 �Animals in Motion: the Flattery of Becoming in Plato's Timaeus Peter Kalkavage ...it has appeared to me more fitting to go directly to the effectual truth of the thing than to the imagination of it. And many have imagined republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in truth ... Machiavelli, The Prince XV Towards the beginning of the Timaeus, Socrates articulates a most unusual desire. He tells Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates that he wants to see the just city go off to war. Socrates describes his feeling - his mx0o~. as he calls it - through an image. Here is what he says: It's as if someone who gazed upon beautiful animals somewhere, either fashioned by the art of painting or truly living but at rest, ~ived at the desire to gaze upon them moving and struggling m some contest that seemed suited to their bodies. (19b4-cl) Socrates' desire gives rise to a barrage of questions. Why does he want such a vision? What is there about it that would gratify him? Is an animal more beautiful- or more of an animalwhen moving than at rest? And where is this someone to whom Socrates compares himself? Is he in the wild looking at real animals or only at the movies looking at their images? That is, is he in the sunlight or in the cave? Apparently, it makes no difference. It is the motion that counts, the motion as such that is the object of desire. Socrates wants to gaze upon, to contemplate, beautiful animals in motion. He is resting from his customary passion for inquiry. With the desire for such contemplation, the Timaeus moves us from the serene realm of being to the troubled and turbulent world of becoming. It moves us away from the speeches of the dialectician and towards those of the historian, statesman, poet, and physicist. The man who gazes upon beautiful animals is the central image of the Timaeus. If only we could understand it, we would then understand the entire dialogue. This essay is an attempt to see how the famous likely story of Timaeus responds to Socrates' curious desire. The Timaeus presents itself as a sequel to the Republic. And yet it is far from clear why a sequel is at all necessary, still less clear why the sequel should have a physics as its centerpiece and jewel. What is abundantly clear is that the Timaeus is above all a political dialogue. Whereas the Republic moved from the practical-political question of justice to the transpolitical nature of philosophy, the Timaeus returns us, with a vengeance, to the passionate concern for the political as such. We see this in a number of ways: in the opening "summary" of the Republic, which concentrates on the political nature of that dialogue to the exclusion of the higher life of philosophic virtue, in Socrates' 30 desire to see the best city brought to life in the arena of mortality and war, and in the eminently political nature of Socrates' three hosts. Of these three, it is perhaps He.. nocrates, the least talkative of the group, who best exemplifies what the Timaeus is really about - the transition from mere speech to living deed. Hermocrates is one of the most illustrious heroes in Thucydides' account of the war between Athens and Sparta, the Syracusan statesman whose rhetoric unifies Sicily and plays a central role in the ultimate defeat of the Athenian forces. In the Platonic drama Hermocrates plays a similar role. His two brief speeches - one in the Timaeus and the other in the Critias - are both intended to beget action, specifically, to goad Critias into telling his story about the once glorious Athenians, to draw Critias out, as it were, into the battlefield of speech. Critias is the focal point of the dialogue. It is he who claims to have just the speech to satisfy Socrates' desire, a story about an Athens grown young and beautiful. Critias makes it very clear that for him the just city in speech was nothing but a fairy tale. He tells Socrates: "the city and citizens that you went through for us yesterday as in a myth, we shall transport back into the truth" (26c7-dl). Critias identifies the truth with what the politically-minded call "the real world," the world of body and motion. In this he agrees with Machiavelli that the truth is to be found not in the imagined republics of the philosophers but in the deeds of history. Critias is the dialogue's radical spokesman for the claims of becoming, for the claim that truth is fact. Through the character of Critias we see how the project underway in the Timaeus, far from attempting to complete the Republic, is in fact an attack upon that dialogue' s praise of philosophy. Nothing is more characteristic of Critias than his lack of imagination. The story of Atlantis is as far-fetched a tale as we are likely to hear, and yet Critias insists that it is "true in every way" (20d8). He refers to it repeatedly as a A.6ruc; rather than a µueo~. In short he confuses history and poetry. The author of this confusion seems to be none other than Solon, the famous poet-lawgiver, who brought the story back from Egypt. No sooner does Solon get his hands on the story in praise of Athens than he proceeds to compose a poem about it, a poem which, if only Solon had completed it, would have made him more famous than Homer (21c4ft)! In contrast with Critias, who scorns all images only to fall victim to their power, Timaeus comes forth as one of the greatest defenders of images and imitation in all the Platonic dialogues. The account he will give Socrates is not "true in every way" but a likely story. Timaeus gives two reasons why physics must take the form of a likely story. The first is that becoming, the object of physics, is inherently unstable. Whereas being is always what it is, becoming is always ceasing to be what it is and coming to be what it is not (27d5-28a4). The second reason is human nature. Here is what Timaeus says: But if we provide likenesses inferior to none, you should be happy with them, remembering that I who speak and you my judges have a human nature, so that for those who are receptive to the likely story, it is fitting to search for nothing more beyond it. (29c3-d3) The like!y story emerges from the context of human imperfection and vulnerability. As Timaeus says later, when he mixes up the natural order of soul and body, "we who have a great share in the chancy and random do so also when we speak" (34c2-4). We recall how the dialogue opens. Socrates' ability to count the human order also allows him to know that something is missing: "One, two, three - but where, dear Timaeus, is the fourth?" Timaeus' answer is the very first likely story he gives. "Must be some infirmity," he conjectures (17a4). The dialogue opens, in other words, in a way that playfully mimics the world as Timaeus sees it - _ athematically ordered but at the same time imperfect. m Socrates' count mirrors the inescapable togetherness of strength and weakness, calculation and the incalculable, in all matters pertaining to the physical world. It is a prophecy of the drama to come. When Socrates asked for a speech about the just city at war, he was not asking to be informed. It was not as though the Republic left something out. What Socrates wanted was to hear his city and citizens praised. He wanted, as he says, an encomium and confessed his inability to supply it (19d2). Now an encomium is just what Critias provides, namely, an elaborate flattery of his own city's glorious ancestors. But Timaeus too fits into the drama of praise. The word Kocrµo~ means not only order but also ornament. It suggests the heightening and embellishment of looks, a beautification and flattery. This is just what Timaeus does with the cosmos - he makes it look beautiful. The cosmos of Timaeus is not just an ordered whole but an animal, and not just an animal but a god. It is, he says, a happy god (34b8-9). Timaeus goes so far in his beautification of the world as to deify it. The whole likely story is a hymn of praise to the god Kosmos, who, as we hear in the dialogue's closing lines, is "the greatest and best and most beautiful and most perfect" of all generated things (92c7-8). Clearly, Timaeus intends not merely to speak about the cosmos but to arouse our love and admiration for it. In the prologue, Critias refers at one point to the Koureotis (21 b2), the festival in which Athenian youths were welcomed into the fold of the city. The youths compete in the recitation of poems, among them the poems of Solon. We must imagine that the impressionable souls of these youths, through the music of Solon's poetry, become knit to the fabric of the city, rooted in the v6µot of their fatherland. Something similar is happening in the likely story. In being receptive to Timaeus' speech, we are assimilating ourselves to the cosmic regime that transcends our more narrowly conceived political communities; we are enacting the proper and respectful relationship between the human soul and the divinely established order. Socrates, it seems, was being prophetic when he called the likely story a voµ0<;, a word that means both "law" and "song" (29d6). He seems to have divined that the music of Timaeus, while extolling an order that goes beyond all cities, would nevertheless have a quasi-political end - the instilling of piety towards our cosmic fatherland. The entire likely story is a grand act of imitation. Timaeus imitates the divine work by which the unmelodious chaos became an artfully arranged whole (30a2-6). In the first part of the story, he imitates the construction of the highest visible things - the cosmic body and soul, the circular motions of the heavens, time, and all the stars and planets. This whole first part is ruled by the supreme goodness of intelligence. Such goodness manifests itself for Timaeus in the objects of mathematics, particularly in the binding power of 'auaA.o)'La or proportion. The mathematical objects have a primarily political function; they are appointed as the guardians of all decency and good character. In their provision of boundaries, they are to the world what laws are to the city. They make the cosmos just. The moral and political goodness of the whole is rooted, mythically, in the moral goodness of Timaeus' demiurge or craftsman. This craftsman, we are told, lacked envy (29el-2). He did not cling to the perfection in himself but wished to pass it on to his offspring. The divine craftsman thus comes to resemble a political founder like Solon or Lycurgus. The world for Timaeus is an altogether noble poem written by a morally wise and generous poet-statesman. And yet, like any human poet-statesman, the divine craftsman must surely be filled with the love of begetting, with the l£pmc; wu ')'EWW which Timaeus describes at the end of the dialogue (91b4). Why else would his passion turn from seeing to making? As the craftsman gazes upon the world's intelligible archetype, he must be longing to see it become a beautiful animal in motion, an animal that will, in being generated, reflect his own good looks. The lack of envy sounds suspiciously like the human desire to beget beautiful images of oneself. Timaeus is out to praise imitation. The method of the astronomers gives him an excellent opportunity to do so. Referring to the astronomer's attempt to plot the heavenly motions, he says: "to speak of these things without looking at their imitations is vain labor" (40d2-3). Timaeus is referring to the astronomer's mathematical hypotheses, to something like Ptolemy's eccentric circle and epicycle. Such hypotheses are not meant to be taken literally, as the actual mechanisms by which the stars accomplish their motions. Ptolemy himself calls them "likenesses manufactured by us" (Almagest XIII.ii). To construct such likely stories about motion is precisely what it means to "save" the appearances. But more is being saved here than just the appearances. The human good for Timaeus is our assimilation to the divine order. It is through astronomy that this assimilation is brought about. In Timaeus' words, "through learning and sharing in calculations that are by nature right, by imitating the absolutely unwavering motions of the gods, we might stabilize the wanderings within ourselves" (47cl-4). By giving the heavens a divine soul, Timaeus gives the world interiority and good judgement. Circular motion becomes an outwardly displayed image of thinking as a turning inward upon oneself. The fact that we sometimes refer to thinking as a reflection, that is, as a bending back, reveals the implicit connection between thoughtfulness and circularity. The circles of Same and Other are the motions of good judgement (37a2-c5). When we look up at the stars at 31 �night, we are gazing not outward but inward; we are looking at the best and most precious part of ourselves. Since we originated in the stars, we are also gazing into our own glorious past. What Critias is doing in his praise of the ancient Athenians, Timaeus is doing for everyone in the likely story. Astronomy is the true homecoming of the human soul. It returns us to what Timaeus calls "the look of our first and best condition" (42d2). As long as Timaeus stays with the heavenly things, he is in a realm that is virtually problem-free. To be sure, the heavenly motions are very complicated in how they appear to us. But in themselves they are divine motions, good motions, and are therefore friendly to mathematical inquiry. We must never forget how successful Ptolemy is in accounting for all the motions that can be seen with the naked eye. All this changes once Timaeus descends from the heavens, once he enters the realm of becoming and mortality, the realm of being-at-war. But he must enter this world; he must descend from the heavens or the heavens themselves will be incomplete (4lb7-8). The descent of Timaeus begins with the construction of human nature. The human condition reminds Timaeus that the whole account so far has been one-sided in its devotion to goodness and beauty. There is another principle or beginning, another hpxfi without which the world as a whole could not have been made. This principle is necessity. Timaeus calls it "the look or form of the wandering cause" (48a6-7). Necessity is the unpredictable realm of power, expediency, and war. It is the realm on which Machiavelli so likes to gaze, and indeed Timaeus' wandering cause in part resembles what Machiavelli refers to as "fortune." Timaeus has tried to build the world from the top down. Now he must try to build it from the bottom up. In his new beginning - the most interesting and most problematic moment in the whole likely story - he will give us a more accurate portrait of what it means to imitate. Socrates' desire was for a vision of beautiful animals in motion. He wanted to see what would happen in taking the leap from the serenity of being to the turbulence of becoming. With the excursion into necessity, Timaeus encounters becoming in its strict meaning, becoming as process. Here, more than anywhere else in the dialogue, Socrates is treated to the vision he desired. Now beauty is king of the likely story, not beauty as that which incites erotic love, but beauty in its political aspect, as the fine or noble which restrains the notorious disorder of erotic love. This political good is made to shine forth in the guise of beautiful mathematical structure. For Timaeus, beauty is always connected with stability. To be beautiful is to be solid, that is, dependable. Indeed, in his first founding, Timaeus crafted the world as an image of changeless being, not to ground the world in a truth available to the intellect but to make the world as stable as possible (28a6-b2). Timaeus strongly disagrees with the poets who would have us believe that a rose is all the more beautiful for being mortal. But becoming is pure process, pure flux. How in the world can such a thing be rendered beautiful and stable? It seems to be like trying to grab hold of Proteus, the old man of 32 the sea. Timaeus knows that here he is up against an especially elusive problem of saving the appearances. He calls on the help of Zeus, the Savior (48d4-5). Timaeus uses an image to capture the fleeting look of becoming; the image is that of a new demiurge. Becoming, he says, is like a man who molds all possible shapes out of gold (50a5 ff) . The man does not stop when a figure is completed but continually transforms every figure into every other figure. In the process of a figure's coming to be what it is, the figure is already passing away. What Timaeus is describing here is the transmutation of the four elements of body - earth, air, fire, and water. To give an account of becoming is to say how these four elements are involved in the continual process of turning into one another. The problem of becoming is this: to save the restless look of becoming as process while at the same time saving the distinct and quasi-stable looks of earth, air, fire, and water. The problem is that of knowing how to harmonize motion and form. That the medium of becoming is likened to gold, a beautiful and precious metal, is important. It expresses Timaeus' unremitting passion for adornment. The flattery of becoming is already underway. Timaeus first tackles the problem of the fluid medium. He refers to this medium in a variety of ways. He calls it the receptacle, fntoBoxil, and space, xropa (51a5, 52a8). Its nature consists in its exquisite receptivity to form,.its power to capture the looks of earth, air, fire, and water. It is like the shiny surface of a mirror or better - since Timaeus endows it with motion (53a3-4) - like the surface of a rippling pool. In order to reflect the looks of the elements, the receptacle must itself be pure, void of all form. We might say that the only real looks that the receptacle has are the ones it steals from somewhere else. The receptacle is like any human imitator, any poet or sophist. Again using an art that aims at flattery and beautification, Timaeus compares the receptacle to the neutral base used by the makers of perfumes (50e4-51al). In his first account of beginnings, Timaeus had distinguished two factors involved in imitation-the original form or archetype and the image that was patterned after it. He made no mention of the reflecting medium. In his new beginning, he revises the account of imitation by introducing this third and necessary factor. The whole truth about imitation is that imitation requires three things: the image that comes to be, that from which it is likened, and that in which it comes to be. Once again Timaeus uses an image to clarify his meaning, only this time the image is that of sexual generation rather than craftsmanship: the original e'tooc; is like a father, the receptacle like a mother, and the resulting image like their offspring (50c7-el). With this simile, we are being reminded that sexual generation is, among other things, a form of imitation. We are also being reminded that the word for becoming, ,,Evecm;, is also the word for generation and birth. The receptacle not only provides room for all things; it also gives them their fleeting life. It is the womb in which all mortal things live, move, and have their being. In descending from the stars to becoming, we are passing from one region of life to another, from the intellectual cycles of the heavens to the biological cycles of organisms. We are descending from astronomy to embryology. Timaeus braces us for his account of the elements. He calls it "strange and uncustomary" (48d5-6). At this point Timaeus shifts from the phrase "likely" µue0<; (29d2) to "likely" AO)Ut (48d2). Story has become account. Timaeus is starting to sound like Critias! He tells us that the "account" will be even more likely than what has come before (48d3). What this means, however - as we shall see - is not that the account will be closer to the truth, but that it will be more imitative, more mythical, more removed from the truth. Apparently, Timaeus' speech at this point will be even more like a beautiful animal fashioned by the art of painting, life-like but not truly living. The construction of body is one of the two most impressive architectural feats in the likely story. The other is the composition of the soul out of the musical ratios. Now the soul is an intelligible being, not a body. It makes sense that an intelligible being should have an intelligible structure. What, then, are we doing when we turn our intellectual gaze to body? What does it mean to think body? Is this not a contradiction in terms? In Book IX of the Republic, Socrates commands Glaucon to mold an image of the human soul in speech. Glaucon responds: "since speech is more easily molded than wax and the like, let it be molded" (588dl-2). In his account of body, Timaeus takes full advantage of this demonic power of human speech, this capacity for imitation. He reconstructs body, founds a body in speech, so as to make body thinkable. He treats physical body as though it were a mathematical body in motion. The "as though" is the most important thing here. Timaeus is being playful. He knows full well that sensed bodies cannot be built up literally out of mathematical objects. He warned us beforehand that the account of body would be strange! In mathematicizing body, in making it a fit object for gazing, Timaeus blurs the distinction between two senses of body - body as geometrical solid and body as physical solid. He defines body as that which "has depth" (53c5-6), thus locating the solidity of body in three-dimensionality rather than in impenetrability. Armed with this slippery definition, Timaeus can shuttle back and forth between the properties of geometric body and those of physical body, between the body in speech and the body in deed. Mathematical physics in this way comes to be founded on a pun. It is this pun that allows body to shine in the mind's eye. In Timaeus' earlier account of body, the four elements were beautifully arranged in a double mean proportion: fire: air:: air: water :: water : earth. They did not interact and waged no wars. They held fast to the integrity of their own forms. Most interesting was fire. In the first account of body, fire was not violent at all. It was put in its best and most serene light as the source of the world's visibility, just as earth was defined not in terms of its stubborn resistance to change but as the cause of tangibleness (31b4- 32c4). Air and water came on the scene there only for reasons having to do with orderliness, because the cosmos is solid in shape and because a solid requires the presence of two mean proportionals. Their physical properties were completely suppressed on behalf of their mathematical function. In this first account of body, body is altogether noble; it is the natural friend of intelligence. In the second founding body changes its character. The receptacle is not by nature a friend of intelligence, although it can be persuaded, as Timaeus says, to take on beautiful forms (48a2-5). Apparently, the mother of becoming is susceptible to flattery. This persuasion of necessity seems to be none other than Timaeus' mathematical construction of the four elements. Timaeus' account, like the divine intellect of the story, aims at persuasion. It will attempt to elicit our trust in beautiful images, to win us over to its poetry. The eliciting of our trust begins with the selection of the regular Platonic solids. Four of the solids are assigned to the four elements: the pyramid to fire, the octahedron to air, the icosahedron to water, and the cube to earth (55d6-8). The regular solids are chosen because of their consummate beauty; they are "the most beautiful bodies" (53el). Next to the sphere, these bodies are the most regular of three-dimensional objects, the very picture of lawfulness. In English the adjective "becoming" sums up Timaeus' dual use of the beautiful. When someone says, ''Those earrings are becoming," he means both ''They suit you" and "They flatter you." This is exactly the function of the regular solids in the likely story: they are designed to fit the appearances and also to flatter them, that is, to make them more beautiful than they really are. The regular solids are, as we say, becoming. The fifth regular solid, the dodecahedron, has an extremely suggestive use in the likely story, especially when we recall Socrates' desire for a vision of beautiful animals in motion. The god uses it in making the zodiac or, as Timaeus puts it, "in decorating the whole with paintings of animals" (8ta~roypa<J>rov, 55c4-6). The dodecahedron is given scant attention and would seem to be superfluous: since there are only four elements, we presumably need only four of the five solids. The god takes the fifth solid and- gratuitously, almost whimsically- tosses it in the sky, aligning its twelve pentagonal faces with the twelve "animals" of the zodiac. But this gratuitous use of the dodecahedron really brings out what Timaeus is doing throughout the likely story and especially in his elaborate treatment of necessity - he is attempting to persuade us that the only world worth contemplating is one that goes beyond the merely useful, one that has been beautified by the mathematical arts. Now Timaeus discovered that he needed necessity when the gods were making our eyes (45b2 ft) . Vision exists for the sake of a noble end the contemplation of the heavens (47al ft). But without the mechanism of the eyes - without the necessary powers of earth, air, fire, and water- vision cannot come into being. The noble end requires necessary means. Now why spend so much time beautifying the elements if all that really interests us are their powers and functions? The beautiful comes to light precisely in the gratuitous, that is, in the luxurious, in what goes beyond the useful and necessary. The dodecahedron tells us loud and clear that neither Timaeus nor Timaeus' god would have been at all 33 �happy in the city of sows, the city of "utmost necessity," in the Republic (II.369dl 1, 372d4-5) . Quite apart from how useful the receptacle and its four powers are, the receptacle's plain but supple face is simply begging for something unnecessary that would "complete its look." No wonder Timaeus gets carried away in his extensive treatment of necessity. He has made necessity as such beautiful, necessity apart from the noble ends that necessity was supposed to serve. Earlier we noted that the problem posed by becoming was to save the phenomenon of transmutation while also saving the quasi-stable looks that entered into this process. Timaeus finds his solution in the regular solids. The elements can change into one another because, unlike the atoms of Lucretius, they are not simple uncuttable bodies but have parts. A given arrangement of parts may be said to define a given element. The pyramid is a certain arrangement of triangles that now, in speech, defines the element of fire. Change the arrangement and you change the element. In this mythical mathematics of body, the intelligible . look or effoc; of an element is being located in its geometric shape. The thing's being now lies in its structure. When that structure changes, the being or whatness changes; the element turns into a new element with altogether different properties from what it had before. This structure gives each element the integrity of a highly distinctive look, in fact, a flattering look. At the same time, the structure is mortal, vulnerable, in so far as it can be taken apart, decomposed. The fascinating transmutation of the four elements has been rationalized as a reshuffling and displacement of structural parts. Timaeus' method of construction is highly interesting. It shows us the precise sense in which Timaeus is an imitator and poet. First he constructs the geometrical analogues of the four elements. Only afterwards does he show how the various affections and motions of the elements could be conceived, imagined, as the result of mathematical structure. The same procedure can be found in the Almagest. Ptolemy first constructs his mathematical hypotheses and afterwards fits the appearances into them. It is almost as though the appearances exist so that we might see in them the beautiful painted animal of our hypotheses. Once Timaeus constructs the regular solids, he proceeds to establish a correspondence between the geometrical properties of the one and the physical properties of the other. All proceeds by way of analogy. The whole account lies in this playful construction of a mathematical analogue and the establishment of correspondences between this analogue and the appearances. Here is what happens in the case of fire. The pyramid, Timaeus says, is "the element and seed offire" (56b3-5). He reminds us in passing that fire, although conceived as a mathematical object, is nonetheless part of a living whole. Fire is the Achilles of the elements; it is the swiftest, most penetrating, and most terrible. The reason or cause - Timaeus would have us believe - is found in fire's pyramidal shape: the pyramid has the smallest base, the smallest volume, and the most acute or "sharpest" angles (56e7 ft). The pyramid is fire in speech, the painted image of a beautiful animal in motion. By displacing our passion for the truth with our love 34 of beautiful animals in motion, Timaeus has fashioned an image of becoming on which it would be a pleasure to gaze. At one point Timaeus tells us that w ,enever we look towards space, that is, towards the receptacle, we become dreamy or, as we would say, "spaced out" (52b6 ft) . But as mortals we are constantly looking towards space. Dreaminess is our human condition. We are constantly thinking, quite unreflectively, that bodies are real and ideas are fairy tales, that bodies are "concrete" while ideas are "abstract." We fail to distinguish the dreamy and evanescent nature of body from what Timaeus calls "the truly sleepless nature" (52b7), by which he means the ungenerated and purely intelligible e1ooc;. Bombarded by images, rocked to sleep by the swaying motions of Mother Becoming, we become anaesthetized to the difference between images and originals. Because of this powerful and ceaseless anaesthesia, we do not know what it means to be truly alive. We confuse life with motion and wakefulness with being excited. We come to resemble the man in Socrates' image who does not seem to care whether life is real or imaginary so long as it is motion. The anaesthetic power of space has a special relevance for the likely story itself, which, after all, is constantly directing our intellectual gaze towards space. Does Timaeus want to wake us up, convert us to the "truly sleepless nature?" To answer this question, we note what Timaeus tells us about space. Space, he says, is not apprehended through the senses, nor is it an object of reason. It seems to hover between the senses and reason, to be in a sort of twilight zone. Timaeus says that space is apprehensible "by a kind of bastard reasoning with non-perception" (52b2). It is "barely to be trusted." The word for non-perception here is CxUat09TlcrtCX, the word from which we get our "anaesthesia." By non-perception, Timaeus seems to mean simply the imagination. Through the power of the imagination, we "see" things that are not presented to our senses. The geometric construction of the elements was non-perceptive in the sense that it generated beautiful pictures in the imagination. Indeed, the account of how space came to be mathematically ordered is really the beautification of our own imagination of body. Timaeus begins with the truly sleepless nature - that is, the purely intelligible form - but it is not his intention to lead us back there. That would be at variance with his praise of the god Kosmos. The mathematical disciplines in the Timaeus are not being used, as they are in the Republic, to turn us towards dialectic. They are being used instead in their political capacity - to order the unruly cosmos and the warped imaginings of the human soul. Timaeus is attempting to persuade us of the goodness of mathematical order, but he is also telling us to be happy with this conception of goodness and not to search beyond it. One must not step beyond the laws of one's fatherland. In being receptive to the likely story, we are still asleep, but at least we are having better dreams. As we saw earlier, the likely story of becoming is based on a noble lie. To render body thinkable, Timaeus cooks up beautiful geometrical models and then shuttles back and forth between the two senses of body. He reasons about physical body as though '· it were geometrical and about geometrical body as though it were physical. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Timaeus manufactures a new theoretical object that illegitimately combines the conflicting natures of the sensed and the intellected, the body in deed and the body in speech. This is a technically refined version of the bastard reasoning that for Timaeus characterizes our relation to the poetic sophistry of space (52b2). Even the noblest mathematical physicist is subject to the conditions of the world on which he gazes. In his noble beginnings, Timaeus is always very careful to draw a sharp distinction between image and original. But as he goes on, as he descends from those beginnings to the various particulars, he seems to become increasingly caught up in the pseudo-explanatory power of his bastard triangles. His disturbing playfulness takes the form of treating these triangles more and more literally, as though they actually were the cause of physical body. As the likely story unravels, the distinction between image and original is more and more blurred, the painted animal more and more confused with the truly living one. Timaeus is the poet lost in his own poem, the sophist persuaded by his own bastard reasoning. The sophistry of Timaeus' account of body is a mirror of the sophistical nature of space itself. Space seduces us into thinking that to be is to be spatial (52b3 -5). Let us see how Plato dramatizes this seductiveness of space in Timaeus' account of dimensionality. In his first founding , Timaeus informed us that the cosmic body was three-dimensional. It befitted the All, 1tPOmlKT\V, to be, as he said, "solid-looking," oi:EpEoEtofl (32bl-2). Had it been fitting for it to be two-dimensional (apparently a real possibility for Timaeus!), the god would have needed only one mean proportional rather than two (32a7-bl). The second founding seeks to remain true to the the solid look of body, to body's appearance of having depth. It constructs geometrical solids. But what is the origin of their depth? When we examine the inception of the solids as Timaeus constructs them, we see that their origin is the plane: "it is a complete necessity that the plane-nature comprehend depth. And the rectilinear plane is put together out of triangles" (53c6-8). Timaeus' solids are built by stitching together their two-dimensional faces. The construction seems harmless enough, yet it is worlds apart from the one we find in Euclid's Elements. Euclid begins with the sphere and proceeds to construct the solids within that sphere. That is to say, Euclid postulates a naturally existing three-dimensional space of which the plane and all plane figures may be said to be abstractions. For Timaeus, on the contrary, the nature of two-dimensionality is prior to, more natural than that of three-dimensionality: the plane, strange to say, is more comprehensive and in that sense more real than the solid. It is very important to remember that in the likely story, body is not "given;" it must be constructed. This means that the third dimension of depth, too, exists by construction, by art rather than by nature. When Timaeus introduced us to the receptacle, he compared it to gold. This flattered becoming in two ways: first by making the kinetic material of becoming sound and look like a precious metal, and secondly by making the receptacle sound and look three-dimensional. Looking three-dimensional and "solid" is, after all, more beautiful than looking two-dimensional and "flat." To stick with Timaeus' gold simile, solid figures are simply richer, worthier, more valuable than flat ones. The demiurge of this simile sounds at first like a sculptor rather than a painter. But what are the shapes that appear in this golden medium? Timaeus' example is -the triangle (50b2). Here he betrays his preoccupation with the plane as opposed to the solid. He as much as tells us that the receptacle is by nature flat, that it is all surface and no depth. Bodily depth, then, is an illusion, the cunning product of artfully arranged perspectives within the plane, and Timaeus' flattery of becoming is the technically beautiful accomodation to that illusion. The regular solids merely seem to give depth to the receptacle. In fact, these solids appear to be no more than a cosmetic re-arrangement of the naturally existing plane. Indeed, as we see from Timaeus' account of the human body, it is the triangle rather than the solid that dominates and grounds all the motions and affections that pertain to body. In the warfare between inner and outer that defines metabolism, it is our triangles that defend the body from invasion and corruption, just as it is the collapse of our triangles' structure that spells our death (8lb5 ft). The triangle is Timaeus' beautiful animal in motion. Contrary to all appearances, the receptacle is not at all a three-dimensional container but a movie screen that captures the beautiful appearance rather than the being of depth. In its natural two-dimensionality, the receptacle sounds very much like the cave wall of Republic VII, the medium in which the cave-dwellers, fascinated and "held" by the spectacle of animals in motion, locate their exciting and solid-looking "real world." The confusion between plane and solid had been prepared, in fact, invited, by Socrates' opening image. The man who gazed on beautiful animals did not care whether these animals were painted or truly living, that is, two-dimensional or three-dimensional. Socrates underlined a distinction only to erase it. Now what does it mean to be happy with the plane, to rest content with the appearance and not the reality of depth? It means to be superficial, to be content with surface and with opinions undeepened by inquiry. In the Timaeus, this contentment with surface appears as the love of praise and the concomitant suspension of dialectic. To praise something or someone is to dwell at the beautiful-seeming surface and, to quote Timaeus, "to search for nothing more beyond it." In the Symposium, the dialogue whose dramatic form most resembles that of the Timaeus, Socrates tries to break through the surface preoccupation with the praise of eproc; in his cross-examination of Agathon. In the Timaeus, he not only does not break through the surface but encourages and even compels his hosts to be superficial, to engage in flattery. When Critias accused Socrates' city of being merely mythical, he was saying in effect that it was two-dimensional and dead, that it lacked the solidity of a really existing bodily city. Ironically, what appears in Critias' own story is the flattest, deadest city of them all - the Egyptian city in which the 35 �depth of philosophical inquiry has been squashed down into the plane of unreflective v6µrn; or custom, and in which a materialist physics replaces the "vertical" inquiry into cause with the mere observation of the whale's customary motions, the whale's surface (22clff). Perhaps it is only fair that those who accuse Socrates of being a two-dimensional animal be challenged to produce what they take to be three-dimensional, solid, and truly alive, that in doing so they be compelled to reveal their own lack of depth. The deepest and in a sense truest part of Timaeus' story is his description of the receptacle apart from its mathematical ordering, the part in which Timaeus is not trying to flatter becoming with the illusion of depth but simply tries to tell us what the receptacle is. As we see, the receptacle is not just the unstable context for the four elements. It is, more importantly, the medium and cause of all mortal life. Our humanness inheres in and grows out of the receptacle. It is thanks to the receptacle that individuals, families, cities and even whole civilizations come to be and pass away. It is here in the play of powers that animals fight and cities make war. In Socrates' opening image, someone gazes upon beautiful animals somewhere, nou (19b6). This somewhere is the receptacle. But where exactly is this "somewhere?" As we have seen, Timaeus' ordering of space is virtually indistinguishable from the ordering of our imagination of space. Within the mythical context of the likely story, the "outer space" of sensed body is effectively replaced by the "inner space" of the imagination. Crudely stated, it is the body in speech that counts - not deeds per se but stories about deeds. Now it is typical of the likely story to recreate the outer as something inner, to cause the surface of body to seem imbued with the depths of soul. According to Timaeus' first founding, the heavenly motions are only apparently outside us, "up there" in the sky. But in the meaning conferred on them by the likely story, they become the inward thinkings of the whole. The entire realm of outer body, the so-called "external world," is actually within the all-embracing contemplation of the soul (36d8-e5). The cosmos in speech is an altogether inward world, the world as contemplated world, or more accurately, as the world reconstituted and flattered by the mathematical arts. The receptacle must be seen in light of the likely story's attempt to transform the outer into the inner. At its very deepest level, the receptacle is the soul in its receptivity to images. In its turbulent and eminently plastic nature we are being invited to contemplate the excitable and highly impressionable part of our own souls. One can even go so far as to see in the four elements a bodily projection of our emotionally charged nature: we are ambitious like fire, faithless like water, as light-minded as air, and as incorrigible as earth. In short, the four elements are bodily µu0ot about the human soul. When Socrates fashioned an image of his desire and affection, he was gazing upon the just city as though it were a body capable of motion and rest. But he was also gazing within himself, contemplating the very part of the soul that desires and is affected by images of body. The "some- 36 where" of Socrates' image is this inner "somewhere," the emotional and unreflective "space" within us that longs to be filled with moving images. The more deeply we examine the likely story, the more we see that its true object is not the cosmos but the human soul in its relation to the cosmos. Timaeus prepared us for this fact when he reminded Socrates that "I who speak and you my judges have a human nature." We recall that human nature was the goal of the likely story as announced by Critias. Timaeus was to generate the cosmos down to human nature, to make man a citizen of becoming so that Critias could then make him a citizen of ancient Athens (27a2-b6). Timaeus celebrates the Koureotis for man's cosmic indoctrination, after which Critias celebrates this same festival for his full-fledged political one. This is the drama of the Timaeus-Critias. In Timaeus' flattery of becoming, human nature is given a decidedly unflattering portrait. The demiurge does not set out to make man. Man is not a natural end but rather a necessary means by which the cosmos attains its perfection (41b7 ff). The god washes his hands of the whole business at this point, goes into retirement, and bequeaths the unenviable task of making man to his dutiful sons (42e5-7). Timaeus defines the invention of man through an oxymoron: the gods are described as O'E~6µeuot µtat VEtv 'tO 0Eiov, "being reverentto pollute the divine" (69d6). The self-contradictory phrase captures man's ambiguous place within the whole, not to mention the ambiguous character of the whole itself. Man is a desecration of the divine who, for that very reason, accords with and even fulfills the divine plan. With the story of human nature, Timaeus reveals his most central paradox: the cosmos cannot be beautified, flattered to the hilt, without a descent from the beautiful to the monstrous and the grotesque. The gods put us together piece by piece, starting with our heads and working their way down to the sexual organs. The whole account is meant to impress us with how much forethought and artistry went into our being. But at the same time, it tends to remind us of Dr. Frankenstein stitching together his new man. Timaeus takes human nature as he understands it and does something extraordinary. He concocts an outrageous pseudo-scientific myth that compels the depth of soul to show its true colors at the surface of the body. He does humorously with the whole body whatErwin Straus does more seriously with our upright posture. In bringing depth up to the surface, Timaeus shows once more his connection with the art of painting: he projects the "deep" or "three-dimensional" soul or principle of life into the two-dimensionality of body's surface. Simply stated, he wants being to appear. In the account of human nature, the tone of the likely story suffers an erosion: the noble poetry of the astronomer gives way to the black comedy of Aristophanes in the Symposium. This is especially evident in Timaeus' funny and yet not at all funny treatment of our sexuality (90e6-91d5). Timaeus' cosmos, we recall, has two'apxaL, two principles or beginnings. The good pulls the world up towards the starry life of intelligence; the necessary pulls it down into the "mighty river" of becoming (43a6). The likely story dramatizes, in its two beginnings, this fundamental tension and incoherence within the cosmos. It mimics its object through a pun on the word hpx~. Now man, for Timaeus, combines the good and the necessary in his nature and his outward shape. He is the whale's necessary incoherence rendered visually explicit. His sphere-shaped head contains the circles of Same and Other, the divine circles of reflection and sound-mindedness. The rest of him is elongated, the outward sign of his exile from the spherical heavens. In an unmistakable reference to the receptacle, Timaeus calls our lower passions "terrible and necessary" (69c8-dl). They are housed in the torso - spiritedness in the chest and the desire for food and drink in the belly. The pollution of the divine is this joining of the divine and the bestial. To mitigate its bad effects, the gods cook up an invention - the neck. The neck, by far the most striking example of our radically artificial nature, is the only thing that holds us together. It anchors the head to the body while at the same time sequestering the head for its divine life of astronomy. The neck is our constant reminder that our being is the sacrilegious togetherness of two things that should not be together but must be together if the cosmos is to be complete. The mouth is the clearest expression of our contradictory and profane nature. It was invented for the sake of the noble stream of speech that flows out and the necessary stream of nutriment that flows in (75d5-e5). Human nature is caught in the middle of two streams flowing in opposite directions, pulling human nature simultaneously towards its two cooperating yet conflicting origins. The fact that we cannot eat and speak at the same time shows how profoundly incoherent we are. For Timaeus, to be human is to be altogether tragic. The only cure, short of death, is the study of astronomy, the study in which we tum away from our monstrous nature and seek refuge in the act of noble imitation, in the life of the head. The truth about Timaeus' cosmos is not contained in any of the things he says about it. It is revealed in the motion of the likely story, in the path of the construction by which the cosmos is made. The being of the cosmos lies in its becoming. This motion is downward; it is tragic motion. If Timaeus' godKosmos had a voice, he would say with Shakespeare's Richard II, "Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaethon" (III.iii). The whole likely story is one grand descent from deathless being down to the stars and from the stars down to human nature. As the likely story moves towards its end, human nature degenerates into all the various beasts. It gives birth at last to all the animal possibilities that sleep within it. The hierarchy of beasts, born of human degeneracy, completes the whole and causes it to be in full agreement with its intelligible archetype. As the cosmos degenerates, it becomes more perfect. This is the paradoxical truth about Timaeus' cosmos. Like man, the god Kosmos, in spite of his beautiful ordering, is in the end a tragic hero. When Socrates announced his desire, he warned against the deficiencies of poets and sophists (19d3 ff.). Poets are too rooted in their own cities. That is, their tendency to imitate the familiar and conventional holds them back from contemplating a city that is good by nature. Sophists, on the other hand, wander too much. They transcend the poets' attachment to place but end up utterly placeless, that is, lacking the experience of being political ani- · mals. Their failure to be political is exposed in the Gorgias, where the sophists are portrayed as teaching technique without the proper use of that technique. The sophists show us that being outside the city is not necessarily to be above it. Neither poets nor sophists, it would seem, know how to move vertically into the third dimension of "depth;" they are rooted ultimately in the "flatland" of conventional cities. The center of the likely story is the treatment of the receptacle and the four elements. It is there that we come to see what a likely story really is. We see that it shares in the natures of poetry and sophistry. It is µuern; masquerading as A-6'){)<;. As poetry, it begets .beautiful images of animals in motion. As sophistry, it uses a pseudo-science to get us to believe that its images are real. But Timaeus' relationship to poets and sophists runs deeper than his scientific methodology. It enforms his whole perception of the human good in relation to the intellect and the city. Timaeus is a combination of noble extremes. On the one hand, he is immersed in conventional political activity: he runs his city and enjoys its honors (20al-5). On the other hand, as an astronomer, he soars high above all political regimes... or does he? As the likely story shows, Timaeus seeks to ground our being in a new and higher regime. He seems to want to redirect our political spiritedness and piety away from conventional cities and towards the natural "city" studied by the astronomers. Instead of Solon's political poetry, we now have Timaeus' political poetry. It seems that Timaeus, even when he soars, cannot escape his political perspective. Just as he apparently cannot get beyond the love of honor, he cannot transcend the noble opinion that the highest human good is stability of character and obedience to law, political qualities eminently displayed in the stars. Coming from a city with excellent laws, Timaeus "imitates well the things on which he has been reared" (19d5-e2). This is the poetic deficiency of his soul. It helps us to see why Socrates calls the likely story a v6µrn;, thereby suggesting that Timaeus, no matter how much he seems to be the lover of natural order, is still bound by the right opinion of conventional cities. The astronomical side of Timaeus is sophist-like: it wanders through the heavens with no thought for political rootedness. All cities are banished from the likely story: there is no fellowship or community among men but only the individual and the cosmos. In the character of Timaeus, Plato has painted a moving picture of the poet-sophist at his best and most magnificent, a poet-sophist who seems to be a combination of philosopher and statesman. Timaeus is at once apolitical and ultrapolitical. His noble extremes do not temper one another. There is missing that mean position in which the soul, in leading the philosophic life, soars above the political perspective without losing sight of its political rootedness. The Timaeus inevitably brings us back full circle to the Republic, the dialogue that the Timaeus had pretended to surpass. Socrates' desire was for a sophistic poem. He wanted to see beautiful animals in motion. He wanted to be fooled into thinking that these moving animals were truly alive, to lose himself in the 37 �beautiful image in the way that we all tend to lose omselves in a truly great poem. Socrates stressed the irrationality of his desire by repeatedly using words related to feeling and being affected. He presented himself as "pathetic," as a man at the mercy of poets and imitators. What is Socrates doing here but imitating the souls of his hosts? articulating the desire and the 1t6:0o~ that is theirs? What is Plato doing through Socrates but painting a moving picture of our own nature in its love affair with moving pictures? What, then, is Socrates' true desire? Perhaps, it is to see in what precise ways the human souls before him will show their true colors in the act of being painters. The silence of Socrates is really the contemplation of Socrates. It is the philosophical and ironic distance at which Socrates places himself with respect to the realm of all doings and makings. In being entertained, he is placing himself outside the "real world" of his hosts. As Socrates himself tells us, he is "at peace'' (27al) while his hosts go off to war, gratifying the desire that is really theirs. They are the turbulent object of his serene contemplation. In the Timaeus, Socrates is gazing, as usual, upon the human soul. He is reflecting on the animal that beautifies itself in order to forget that it is a monster. Time the Dominant John Dunn 38 39 �Origami "The" Exponential Curve David Ruy Henry Higuera The swan comes to life. A paper-folded splendor. The wings flap slowly with a rhythm that could only be life. The wings flap with caution; a babe-like vanity prevents it from grace. But the wings flap with a careful wonderment. Suddenly, a winged flutter; a fluttering sound echoes through my room. I can only shudder with a blaze of paranoia. I run to the door and tum the lock; chain the door. There is interested motion outside the door... What was that noise? It was me. What are you doing? I am dancing. Dancing, as is usual. Why are you dancing? I dance because I need to. Let me in. I wish to see you dance. ... can only back away. I am not dancing. I have never danced. I s.it inside this room and fold these pages into swans, only to wait for them to come to life. I have been waiting for a long time ... Tell me if you need anything. ... I need nothing now. The swan flutters. It turns its head from side to side. Does it see? Does it smell? I sit and watch the paper-folded swan. I am nervous, pricked by a thousand needles of crazed anticipation. The.swan is flying. It took the air with such nimble agility. I am excited. I watch the swan. It is beautiful. It is flying. . I ~m looking through my drawers; I look for string. Once I f~d It, I shall be able to tie the swan down. I am going to keep this swan. I am catching the swan; I hold it in my hands. It struggles. This paper-folded swan. I am tying the string around the neck of the swan; I tighten th~ noose. I tie the other end to my own wrist. I am going to keep this swan. The swan circles ·the room counter-clockwise. Continuously. The room is about ten feet by ten feet. A cage. A sheet-rock cage. For the bird. For me. But I am delighted. I have the object of my childhood fancy tied to my wrist. I sit down and watch the beautiful thing as it flies. I remember seeing a child yesterday. I find much in common with the memory of that child right now. 40 The child was sitting on a park bench with a wonderful red balloon tied to its wrist as his parents were walking about the paths somewhere in the park. The child stared with joyful wonderment at the red balloon - bouncing it up and down with the string; it was a tantalizing feast for the child - the balloon so close to escape; it was ready to soar towards the heavens, to crush the finnament- saved by the subjugation of a child's jealous fancy. I find myself in the memory of that child. The swan is getting stronger. And stronger... Please, let me see you. ... stronger. The string starts to cut into the flesh. The pain grows strong ... Please, I want to see what you've made. ...stronger. The flesh starts to rip. Blood, dropping by droplets, splashes and stains a wooden floor. And the swan is growing stronger... Why won't you let me in? ... stronger. I frantically search for something to cut the line. My blood is dropping by droplets onto the floor. And the swan is stronger... Those who have taken Sophomore Mathematics may have come across the fact that all pru·abolas are similar - identical in shape, differing only in size. This is very easy to prove once Apollonius establishes that every parabola has an axis, and every so often a Sophomore Math Tutor will ask the class to try and prove it for themselves. Recently, I discovered, much to my surprise, that "exponential" curves have exactly the same property: they' re all similar. Stated algebraically, all equations of the form or x'= x +Ina (see Fig. 1), so that x = x' - Ina. Now, a= elna, so that y =aex =(elna)ex' =ex+ Ina. Now substitute for x: = e(x' - Ina) +Ina =ex. define similar curves for all values of a and k. This surprised me because different exponential curves certainly don't look similar near the origin, but hey, proofs don't lie. I'm first going to establish this fact algebraically. I don't consider these proofs especially pretty, and (in the typical way of algebraic proofs) they don't give much intuitive insight into why these curves are indeed similar. So, I will follow my algebraic proofs with a geometrical discussion which, while not quite rigorous, helps one see why it is that all exponential curves are similar. In fact, unless you like algebra, you might consider skipping ahead to Part II. Are you alright in there? ... stronger. The blood streams from my wrist. The string becomes singed of redness and the redness slowly climbs the length of the string as the cotton string slow1 absorbs y the redness of my blood. Chairs are being overturned. Drawers are being pulled from the desk and thrown. Piles of papers are thrown. I am searching desperately for something to cut the line. As I frantically search, I notice many paper-folded swans, come to life, flying within the room, as if they can feel the opportunity, building to a climax, to escape from this sheetrock cage. I finally find a razor. As I take it to the line, I hesitate for a moment and remember the child. But the pain finds me. Someone is banging on the door as I cut the line. With a crash of glass, the fluttering sounds build to a din as the swans fly through a window. The fluttering echoes from the distance. From a greater and greater distance, a fainter and fainter echo catches my ear. The blood flows quietly from my wrist as I walk to look beyond the smashed window. I can only vaguely remember the words that were written on the pages of those paper-folded swans as they fly towards the town over the landscape that I see beyond my broken windowa landscape composed by some loving hand, so barren and subjunctive. Then Part I. Algebraic Geometry Prop. 1. Every curve y = aex is identical for all positive values ofa. For, let a new origin be chosen on the x-axis, defining new x-coordinates, x-, and placed a distance of Ina to the left, if a is greater than 1, or right, if a is less than 1; keep the size of the xand y-units the same. >"leW ]-y.I y- t\X is And this means that in relation to the new origin, with identically-sized x- and y-units, this curve is simply an ex curve, identical to the ex curve which was relative to the old origin . Q.E.D. In other words, trying to vertically "stretch" or "flatten out" an ex curve doesn't stretch or flatten it out at all, it just moves it over! Prop. 2. The curve y = ekx is similar to the curve y =ex for all positive values of k. For, let a new origin be placed on the x-axis and new units be defined: y' = ky, that is, the new y-units are 1/k as big as the old; while x' = kx +Ink, that is, the new x-units are also 1/k as big as the old, and the new origin is at a distance of Ink from the old (to the left or right depending on whether k is greater or less than 1). new l"---1 y- 0ixis J ! I I 1. ~K::o x'-;. In°' new LA nit FIG.1 Ink FIG.2 41 �Then y=t_ k and 1 x = k (x' - lnk). Now substitute for x and y in order to describe y = ekx in terms of the new coordinates. Y =ekx v' L.=e k ~(x' - lnk) k y' = kex' - Ink = (elnk)ex' - Ink = ex' - lnk + Ink =ex'. Therefore, in relation to the new origin and measured in the new units, this curve is simply the ex curve. Q.E.D. Now, I haven't shown that such curves exists; there might be a hidden impossibility in the definition. Even if they do exist, I haven't shown that they're continuous, there might be gaps in them. But let's assume such curves exists and are continuous. I also haven't shown that this corresponds to an equation y = aekx; but in fact with suitable choices of a unit length and an origin, you can set up coordinate axes such that the curve will correspond to this equation. An illustration of how to do this is given, without proof, as Appendix I. Let's also assume that the perpendiculars or ordinates increase continuously too. That is, let us assume that as one ordinate gets closer to a second without limit, the two will differ by less than any given length. Not assuming this would amount to allowing "jumps" in an exponential curve: for if the difference between the smaller and the larger were always greater than or equal to some finite length, no matter how close together they were, there would have to be a jump up to the larger - see Figure 4. So in effect what we 're doing is ruling out jumps in our curves. . N_ote that ekx = (ek)x = Kx, where K = ek. Thus this proposition is also about changing the base of the equation: changing the base of ex both moves the curve over and blows up or shrinks down the entire picture, but it doesn't alter the shape of the curve. Prop. 3. The method used in Prop.1 shows that aekx is simply the ekx curve moved over either to the left or the right. Prop. 4. Finally, if a or k are negative, that merely reflects the curve around the x- or y-axi.s, respectively, so no new shape occurs. Part II. Geometry DEF!N1TION. An exponential curve is one with the following relat10n to some given straight line, called the axi.s: perpendiculars erected until they meet the curve from any set of equidistant points on the axis will form a series of continuously-proportional lines. In Fig. 3, if A,B ,C and Dare equidistant, then The proofs that such "corresponding parts" actually exist run to a couple of pages, so I have relegated them to an Appendix. If the claims seem obvious to you from your impressions of exponential curves, you might skip Appendix II entirely. If you have doubts, however, or love rigor, I do try to give real proofs. AB: CD :: AE: CG :: BF: DH (see Fig. 5). AE: BF:: BF: CG:: CG: DH . FIG.3 42 FIG.6 the same ratio, as Euclid never proves but Heath does; and the general case is clearly true, even though I don't know of a general proof. Anyway, since this is so, in our two series of continuouslyproportional ordinates that constant ratio which every ordinate has to the next is the same for both series. But there are also exactly as may lines intervening between DH and LN as there are between BF and KM. Therefore you have a huge ex aequali: the ratios BF: KM and DH: LN are both determined by the same ratio compounded with itself the same number of times. Therefore they're the same: BF: KM :: DH: LN or BF: DH:: KM: LN. Q.E.D. Thus far I've only handled a special case, ordinates situated at commensurable distances. But now let there be ordinates at K and L, and let BK and DL be proportional to but incommensurable with AB and CD. I say that KM and LN are still proportional to BF and DH. For, 0 and P exist on the axes such that the distances BO and DP are proportional to and commensurable with AB and CD, and also such that the ordinates OQ and PR are closer to KM and LN than any given distance. (See Figure 7.) Therefore OQ and PR can be chosen closer in length to KM and LN than any given length. Now OQ and PR can be chosen closer in length to KM and LN than any given length. Now OQ and PR, as I've just proved, are proportional to BF and DH. If KM and LN were not proportional to OQ and PR, then one or both of the former would have to differ from one or both of the latter by some finite length. But this is impossible, since for any finite length we can find an OQ and a PR closer in size to KM and LN. Therefore they must be proportional. Q.E.D. BK: DL :: AB: CD; AE: BF:: CG: DH and also C D KM: LN :: BF: DH , which will show the similarity of the curves. It is actually rather easy to prove this, at least in a special case: let there be two exponential curves, with "corresponding ordinates" AE and BF on the first curve and CG and DH on the second, and let K and L be two other points, one on each axis, situated so that AB and BK are commensurable, CD and DL are commensurable and (see Figure 6) Having made these assumptions, this in brief is how I will go about showing the similarity of all exponential curves. I will first set up "corresponding parts" of any two curves, as follows. Let us assume that on any two exponential curves there is a pair of ordinates on one which are proportional to some pair of ordinates on the other, and also that the distances between them are in that same ratio. That is,·corresponding to A and B on the first axis let's say that there are C and D on the second such that T?e purpose of this section is to provide intuitive clarity, not A 8 then FIG.4 full ngor: we want to understand enough about these curves to get a feel for why they are similar. I'll start by defining them. {~xis Now, given these corresponding parts, I will show that if any other points are similarly placed along the axis, then the corresponding ordinates will be proportional as well - that is, if in Figures BK: DL :: AB: CD , 1 A B K L FIG.5 then I say that KM: LN :: BF: DH . For, since they are commensurable, AB and BK have the ratio of some number to some other number (Euclid X. 5), and so do CD and DL; but they're in the same ratio, so they are to one another as the same number is to the same number. Therefore, a unit exists on the first axis which measures AB and BK, and another unit on the second which measures CD and DL, and AB contains the same number of its units as CD does of its units, and BK the same number of its units as DL of its units. Therefore on each curve we can set up a series of continuously-proportional ordinates including all our ordinates, with the same number of new ordinates intervening between the corresponding original ones. AE: BF and CG: DH are the same ratio. Each of these ratios is produced by a smaller ratio (the one between any two adjacent ordinates) compounded with itself the same number of times. Now, if two ratios which are compounded with themselves the same number of times give the same ratio, they too must be the same ratio. For example, "subduplicates" of the same ratio are M Q c. D LP FIG.7 I hope that this treatment, especially the device of imagining a crowded series of continuously-proportional lines, will help you visualize what it is about exponential curves that makes them all similar. 43 �By the way, it is easy to see why ex and aex are not only similar but identical if one uses some things proved in Appendix II. As a bonus for those of you who read that Appendix, I include as Appendix III a proof that those two curves are identical. I'd like to close with a remark about the significance of the famous number e, 2.71828 or whatever. As we have seen, there is absolutely nothing geometrically unique about the ex curve, as opposed to 2x or any other base. The ex curve is not a special case in a family of curves: it's exactly the same curve as all other exponential curves. Consequently e has no geometrical significance whatsoever, as the base of a special exponential curve. As a special base, the importance of e is entirely an artifact of algebra, and above all the calculus. On the other hand, e does have a geometrical significance, and in fact one which extends over the exponential curve as such - so that e is both more and less important than one might think at first. That significance has to do with the tangent. On any exponential curve, the segments cut off on the axis by the tangents at any points and the ordinates to those points are all equal, no matter where the points are on the curve. I give proofs of this in Appendix IV. That segment can be taken as a fundamental measure of the "size" of the curve, like the parameter to the axis of a parabola or the diameter of a circle. Well, it turns out that on any exponential curve, any two ordinates that are just that constant distance apart are in the ratio e : 1. Thus, in its own way e is as indissolubly linked to all exponential curves as pi is to all circles. Now it is obviously convenient, in algebraic analysis of exponential curves, to pick that length as the unit; and so it is this geometric fact which underlies the immense convenience of the number e in the algebra and calculus connected with these curves. Appendix II: Auxiliary Proofs PROOF 1: Proportional pairs of orc. J nates exist on any two exponential curves. For, in any series of increasingly long, continuously-proportional lines, each increment is longer than the last (in fact each such pair of increments is in the same ratio as the lines themselves, by Bue. V. 12). Therefore, since you're adding ever-increasing increments without end, the longest line can be made longer than any given length, no matter how small the shortest line is. Thus the ratio between some two of these lines can be larger than an~· given ratio. Furthermore, we are assuming that on our curves the ordinates increase continuously, so that you can get any ratio in between. Therefore, all you have to do is pick a reasonably large ratio on the first curve, and you 're assured that two ordinates exist in that ratio on the second. PROOF 2: On any two exponential curves, there exist proportional ordinates which are situated at proportional distances. One way of seeing this is by first establishing a preliminary fact. Indeed this fact will be so important in understanding these curves that I'm going to call it a theorem. THEOREM I. On any exponential curve all pairs of ordinates that are at equal distances are proportional. I must first restrict myself to commensurable distances. That is, given an exponential curve and random ordinates AB and CD, pick ordinates EF and GH, such that EG=AC and also such that AE is commensurable with AC. That being the case, I say that N B_~ ---1r, t[_ ± A AC= EG- E C. G- Case 1- overlappin!J se9»unts y-t).X/5 FIG.8 FIG.10 Now we can prove that somewhere on our two curv~s we c~ find proportional ordinates which are also at proportional di~­ tances. For on each curve, given a pair of ordinates in any ratio whatever, other pairs of ordinates exist in that same r~ti~, getting longer and longer without limit as we move to the ngh~, but all at the same distance from each other. Therefore, smce the ordinates increase but the distances between them do not, by suitable placement the ratios AE: AB and CG: CD can be i;nade as great as we please. Thus, picking a reasonably large rati~ on our first curve, we can be assured that on the other curve pmnts can be found such that AC.= EG- FIG.6 bis Appendix III: That ex and aex are the same curve. For, for given any numbers a, p and q, and so ex and aex can be described geometrically as curves which have the same axis and for which any two pairs of ordinates from the same two points on the axis are proportion~. Consequent!!, however, any two ordinates on one curve are m the same rat10 as any two ordinate at an equal distance on the other curve, by Theorem I. fun' Now the ordinates on both curves get longer without It, as also ~roved in Appendix I, so that for any ordinate AB on the higher curve there must somewhere be an ~qual ordi.nate CD on the lower curve, as in Figure 11. But now if any ordinate on the lower curve is at the same distance from CD that another o~ the higher curve is from AB, these two will be in the same ratio as AB and CD, again by Theorem I. Therefore they're e_qual: all ordinates at equal distances from AB and CD, respectively, are equal. AE: AB :: CG: CD Ct1se 2- Non-overl11p;iir19 5egr'Ylenf-s AE::CGor, alternating, ( aJ< : J< : : (). : 1 ) rl AB: CD:: EF: GF. Appendix I: Fitting an equation to the exponential curve. Call the axis as defined above the "x-axis;" pick an origin at random; pick a unit length at random. The numerical value of a is then determined by the ratio between the unit and the ordinate to the curve at x = 0. Now go out one unit to the right. The ratio of the ordinate there, at x= 1, to the unit, then determines the numerical value of aK (or aek). By suitable choices for both origin and unit you can get any values for a and k. For because of the commensurability there is a unit of length whi~h measures the whole interval AG and the smaller intervals AE, EC and CG (or AC, CE and EG). Therefore there exists one series of continuously-proportional lines, which includes our four ordinates and a bunch of intervening lines. But EG = AC, so each pair of our ordinates has the same number of ~ontinu­ ously-proportional lines between them. So the tw~ ratios AB: CD and EF: GH are compounded of the same ratio the same number of times. Therefore, ex aequali, they're the same ratio. The same is true of any other equidistant pair in this series. Thus far I have only proven this for commensurably-situated ordinates. But these can be found as close as we like to the location of all pairs of incommensurably-situated ordinates the same distance apart. So, if EG = AC but AE and AG are not commensurable with AC, it is possible to place Kand Min such a way the KM is commensurable with AC, it is possible ~o place Kand Min such a way that KM is commensurable with AC, KM= AC= EG, and KE and MG are smaller than any given distance. Therefore KL and MN can be chosen closer in size to EF and GH than any given difference. Now KL and MN are proportional to AB and CD; and ifEF and GH weren't proportional to KL and MN (and thus to AB and CD), they'd have to differ from them by some finite lengths. This is impossible, however, for given any finite differences we can find a KL and MN closer in length to EF and GH than them. Therefore EF and GH must be proportional. Q.E.D. AE: CG :: AB: CD , which is what we needed. FIG.11 FIG.9 44 45 �Appendix IV: That all tangents and ordinates cut off equal segments on the axis. Algebraically, this follows from the famous fact that the derivative of ex equals ex. Recall that the derivative gives you the "rise over run" of the tangent, while the function itself give just the "rise," i.e. the height of the point of tangency, above the x-axis. So for all x, the "rise over run" equals the "rise" from the x-axis: therefore the "run" along the x-axis everywhere equals 1. A geometrical proof can also be given. This, too, depends on Theorem I from Appendix II. Let EFGHefgh be an exponential curve, with ordinates AB, DF, ... ae, df &c. as in Figure 12. Let AB equal ab. Let the line AGK touch the curve at G, so that it and the ordinate CG cut off AC on the axis. Let ac equal AC, and draw the line agk. I say that agk is tangent to the curve. so that DM: DF :: dm: df, Euc. V. 9 and alternating. Similarly BN:BH::bn:bh, and so on for all ordinates at equal distances from A and a, respectively. Therefore, if DM is less than DF, then dm is less than df; if BN is less than BH, then bn is less than bh, and so on for all such pairs of ordinates. Therefore the line amgnk is below the curves everywhere except g, just as AMGNK is below the curve everywhere except G. Therefore amgnk touches the curve at g; and it cuts off, with its ordinates cg, ac on the axis equal to AC cutoff by AMGNK. Therefore &c. Q.E.D. Actually, I haven't proved that the line AMGNK is indeed everywhere between the curve and the axis, but if you go back to the definition of the curve and use Euclid VI, it's pretty easy to see for yourself. k FIG.12 For, by Theorem I the ordinates at equal distances are proportional, i.e. AB : ae :: CG : cg :: BH : bh ; but now by Euclid Bk. VI (I'm not going to go through all the steps; they're quite easy) AGK and agk, as they cross ordinates at equal distances, cut off proportional segments on them, all of which are in the same ratio as CG: cg. For example, if D and d are placed so that AD = ad, then DM: dm :: CG : cg . But since AD= ad, Theorem I also applies, and DF: df:: CG: cg , Balance Jeff Seidman 47 46 �Two Humors Ellen M. Myers Machiavelli opens a chapter on the creation of the Roman tribunes with the remark, "All writers on politics have pointed out, and throughout history there are plenty of examples which indicate, that in constituting and legislating for a commonwealth it must needs be taken for granted that all men are wicked and that they will always give vent to the malignity that is in their minds when opportunity offers" (Discourses 1.3). This sounds as though Machiavelli has decided to dismiss the populace as worthless and dangerous. But a few lines later, he summarizes the _history of the offenses of the nobility against the plebeians, saymg, But, no sooner were the Tarquins dead and the fears of the nobility removed, than they began to vomit forth against the plebs the poison hid in their hearts and to oppress them in every way they could. This bears out what has been said above, namely, that men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are too free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become everywhere rampant. (D 1.3) It is clearer in this second passage that when he refers to the men who "never do good," he has primarily the offenses of the nobility in mind; although perhaps the aristocracy and the masses are jointly guilty of causing "confusion and disorder." These remarks open an extended discussion of the difference between these two groups, here beginning in sections 1.4 through 1.6, but recurring throughout The Prince and The Discourses. He makes this one of his themes very early in Discourses 1.4 when he writes, "Nor do they [readers of Roman history] realize that in every republic there are two different dispositions [due urrwri diver si], that of the populace and that of the upper class and that all legislation favourable to liberty is brought about by the clash between them." But what are these two different dispositions, that is, what is the character of each group? Surprisingly, it turns out that rather few generalizations are made about the nobility apart from contrasting them to the masses. A number of specific examples are given of the behavior of the nobilities of Rome, Athens, Sparta, Venice and Florence in different events, but they are not much discussed in the abstract. The nobilities of two aristocratic cities, Venice and Sparta, are singled out for further consideration in Discourses 1.6. The oligarchy in Venice was "due to chance rather than to the prudence of its legislators," in that it was based on early residence in the city; latecomers became the general populace, and could not dispute established custom. In Sparta, the nobility was also defined early, and was distinguished by its equal distribution of (and comparative lack ot) luxury. In both cases, however, the oligarchical government could be maintained because, first of all, the plebeians did not engage in warfare, and hence never became dangerous; and secondly, the number of foreigners admitted to the city was strictly limited. So in no fashion were 48 either the numbers or the ambitions of the plebeians augmented. In Venice, this was possible due to a certain geographical isolation and continued numerical superiority: "Besides, there were not many who came later to dwell in Venice, nor where they so numerous as to upset the balance between rulers and ruled; for the number of gentlefolk was either equal to, or greater than, that of the newcomers" (D 1.6). In Sparta, this isolation took more the form of a cultural separ~tion from the rest of Greece. Thus, in history, the most successful oligarchies are isolationist and conservative in character. Sparta and Venice are used throughout The Discourses as examples of successful, long-lived, and relatively benign oligarchies. Far more instances are quoted of foolish, wicked, and self-destructive groups of nobility; for example: For since such a state [an oligarchy replacing a formerly free city] has been created by that prince, it knows it cannot stand without his friendship and power, and it has to do everything to maintain him. And a city used to living free may be held more easily by means of its own citizens that in any other mode, if one wants to preserve it. (P 5) That is, a formerly free city may be held by the treachery and sycophancy of its nobility. On the whole, however, there are rather few general descriptions given of the upper classes, except of their tendency to oppress the masses. So it is easiest to consider the two groups by examining the differences Machiavelli points out between them. Machiavelli's "populace" is seen in a surprisingly favorable light, when all is said and done. They may be sheep, they may be gullible, and he may say rather less than the average political writer about the Common Good, but a close reading reveals quite a number of times in which he assumes and counts upon their essential decency. They exhibit, collectively, a baseline level of common sense, tolerance, and enlightened self-interest that could stand as an example to their wealthier counterparts. They are sometimes fickle: " ...the nature of peoples is variable; and it is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult to keep them in that persuasion" (P 6). On the whole, though, they can be counted on to acknowledge good sense and act on it: "And though, as Tully remarks, the populace may be ignorant, it is capable of grasping the truth and readily yields when a man, worthy of confidence, lays the truth before it" (D 1.4). This common sense and good judgement are what often save the city in times of trouble, and should be the desiderata of any good ruler: "I will conclude only that for a prince it is necessary to have the people friendly; otherwise he has no remedy in adversity" (P 9). Not only is the populace a bulwark against adversity (hostile nobles, external invasion). In some sense it is also the standard against which successful government is measured: " ...I look upon those rulers as unhappy who, to make their government secure, have to adopt abnormal methods because they find the masses hostile" (D 1.16). Machiavelli has a great deal to say about these abnormal methods, the dictatorial authority necessary to reform a state or lead it in time of war. He speaks approvingly and at length about the leader who has the virtu and audacity to take command in such a situation. Yet here he acknowledges that, after all, such methods are abnormal and unhappy to the one forced to make use of them. The basic difference between the humors of the people and the nobility is in their ambition, of which the populace has relatively little: "The demands of a free populace, too, are very seldom harmful to liberty, for they are due either to the populace being oppressed or to the suspicion that it is going to be oppressed ..." (D 1.4). And, says Machiavelli, the impression is rightly founded, because as he has already said, the nobility will only do right by the masses under the force of necessity. Or, as he says in the Prince, For in every city these two diverse humors [umori] are found, which arises from this: that the people desire neither to be commanded nor oppressed by the great, and the great desire to command and oppress the people.... Besides this, one cannot satisfy the great with decency and without injury to others, but one can satisfy the people; for the end of the people is more decent than that of the great, since the great want to oppress and the people want not to be oppressed. (P 9) It is true that, if sufficiently provoked, the masses will attempt to avenge themselves on their oppressors: " ...What I say is that he [a prince] ought first to ask what it is that the people desire, and that he will always find that they desire two things: (i) to avenge themselves against the persons who have been the cause of their servitude, and (ii) to regain their freedom" (D 1.16). This vengeance can be bloody, as when Cesare Borgia had his minister sliced in half in the city of Cesena: "The ferocity of this spectacle left the people at once satisfied and stupefied" (P 7). But it is Cesare's action; to the people, it is a spectacle that overwhelms. This look at the difference between the two humors of populace and nobility, I hope, will shed some light on some similar contrasts which Machiavelli draws in other areas. On the level of states, for example, there are two major considerations: what the city itself desires, and what it believes its neighbors desire. In large measure, it is its own disposition and its perception of others' dispositions that will control how aggressive it is. "For war is made on a commonwealth for two reasons: (i) to subjugate it, and (ii) for fear of being subjugated by it" (D 1.6). If a state appears fearsome, it will trigger the same fear of oppression in its neighbors which the plebeians feel in the face of their opponents the nobility. Machiavelli warns against giving this impression unnecessarily, as it invites attack. On the other hand, the attacking city may simply be of an expansionist disposition; in which case, the only defense is to appear strongly defended, or not worth conquering. Similarly, independently of its neighbors, a city can have one or both of two general goals: " ... a city in which freedom prevails has two ends in view. One is to enlarge its dominions; the other is to keep itself free. In both it can err by excess" (DJ .29). The excesses and dangers of expansion are obvious, and Machiavelli spends a number of sections discussing them. The excesses of freedom are harder to imagine, and Machiavelli is not especially persuasive. His major point seems to be that one can be unnecessarily suspicious; this would seem to be related to his discourses on ingratitude: ''The vice of ingratitude arises either from avarice or from suspicion" (D 1.29). Avarice, a greedy desire to enrich oneself at the expense of someone to whom a debt of gratitude is owed, is far more a failing of the prince or any small ruling class, where the personal impact will be felt, than·it is of the people as a whole. Suspicion can be a failing of either a prince or the populace, though it is more likely that the prince will be guilty of it. But in either case, more than avarice, suspicion is an essentially conservative and defensive trait. One fears that the successful general may become the oppressor, like the aggressive neighboring state, or like the nobility against the plebeians. In summary thus far, Machiavelli posits two different sorts of temperament to be found within a city, and two sorts of interests in the city as a whole. In both cases, one is essentially conservative, isolationist, and negatively defined: the city wishes to remain free, and fears its expansionist neighbor. The populace wishes only not to be oppressed. As Machiavelli describes it in The Discourses, this is "the possibility of enjoying what one has, freely and without incurring suspicion, for instance, the assurance that one's wife and children will be respected, the absence of fear for oneself... " (D 1.16). This impulse is to preserve the status quo in a peaceable fashion, whenever possible. In opposition to this live-and-let-live attitude is the equally universal one of aggrandizement. The nobles are ambitious; they wish to expand their privileges at the expense of the masses. States, in general, keep one eye on the weakness of their neighbors and exploit it as soon as it becomes evident. It's a dog-eatdog world, and the meek are likely to have the worst of it. The very nature of life ensures that. "Nor have I the least doubt that, if this balance [the status quo] could be maintained, there would be genuine political life and real tranquility in such a city. Since, however, all human affairs are ever in a state of flux and cannot stand still, either there will be improvement or decline, and necessity will lead you to do many things which reason does not recommend" (D 1.6). We would somehow expect, from what we've seen so far, that the expansionist city would be found in tandem with an expansionist form of government, i.e., an oligarchy. At this point, Machiavelli's analysis is astutely based on experience rather than reason and similarity. In The Discourses 1.4 - 1.6, he points out that this is exactly the opposite of the real situation. A city, even an empire such as Venice's or Sparta's, which has an oligarchy in charge generally assumes a defensive character. Its acquisitions are strategic, designed to protect the existing interests of the city; and it poses no threat to its immediate neighbors for at least long stretches of its lifetime. On the other hand, for a 49 �republic to expand, it should be governed in large part by the people: Should, then, anyone be about to set up a republic, he should first inquire whether it is to expand, as Rome did, both in dominion and in power, or is to be confined to narrow limits. In the first case it is essential to constitute it as Rome was constituted and to expect commotions and disputes of all kinds which much be dealt with as best they can, because without a large population, and this well armed, such a republic will never be able to grow, or to hold its own should it grow. In the second case it might be constituted as Sparta and Venice were, but, since expansion is poison to republics of this type, it should use every endeavour to prevent it from expanding, for expansion, when based on a weak republic, simply means ruin. This happened both in Sparta's case and in that of Venice. (D 1.6) An oligarchy may prove to be expansionist, but will probably prove too weak, as Machiavelli's later image of trnnk and branch illustrates. But in order to expand, a large, armed and active populace is essential. "In the first case it is necessary to do in all things as Rome did. In the second case it is possible to imitate Venice and Sparta... " (D 1.5, emphasis mine). A large populace is essential to expansion, and expansion will prove essential to a large populace. Though they individually desire only "not to be oppressed," the simple pressure of population growth will force them to grow larger; and the example of a large, active, and growing city will probably encourage at least some of its neighbors to choose alliance or union over enmity and defeat. Still, it seems perverse in some way that the nobility, which has expansionist tendencies within the city, should be essentially conservative in dealing with outsiders. This is explained, however, by the Hobbesian remarks Machiavelli makes in his section on the "haves" and the "have-nots:" There arose considerable discussion as to whether the 'haves' or the 'have-nots' were the more ambitious, for the appetites of both [l' urw e l' altro appetito] might easily become the cause of no small disturbance. Actually, however, such disturbances are more often caused by the 'haves', since the fear of losing what they have arouses in them the same inclination we find in those who want to get more, for men are inclined to think that they cannot hold securely what they possess unless they get more at others' expense. (D 1.5) So we realize that, although property often becomes ours through an acquisitive instinct, it remains ours through a conservative one; in fact, it is the very occasion of a defensive posture. How can we defend what is ours if we have nothing to lose? On the other hand, if we have nothing because we are essentially peaceable and unambitious, then we are almost certain to need and want something that isn't ours already, even if it is only freedom from oppression. Thus, the two humors of the city are not only in tension with one another, but in a real sense, they create one another. This reminds us of a phrase in The Prince. In speaking of these two dispositions of the city, Machiavelli talks about their results: "For in every city these two diverse humors are found, which arises from this: that the people desire neither to be 50 commanded nor oppressed by the great, and the great desire to command and oppress the people. From these two diverse appetites one of three effects occurs in cities: principality or liberty or license" (P 9, emphasis added). This is very similar to what he has already said about the Roman republic, that its liberty wasn't threatened by the tumults of the populace; in fact, liberty was the very result of the constant quarrel between the nobility and the people. "All legislation favourable to liberty is brought about by the clash between them" (D 1.4). Nor would Rome have been outwardly successful if this had not been the case. If Rome had preferred internal peace, then "in seeking to remove the causes of tumults, Rome would have removed also the causes of expansion" (D 1.6). Rome obtained the happiest of the three possible outcomes, liberty rather than license or principality. The liberty is the result of a balance between the two humors. Excessive domination by the people would lead to license; by the nobility, to principality. But is this true? Perhaps, on the other hand, excessive domination by the corrupt nobility is what can lead to license, since the people are rather conservative in comparison. As he writes in Discourses 1.3, " ...when they are too free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become everywhere rampant." Or, perhaps the increasing license of a democracy would cause a revulsion into tyranny, as Machiavelli suggests in Discourses 1.2. How confusing these two dispositions are! Every time we seem to be in a position to apply labels to two oppositions, the answer eludes us. It is interesting that a third option, liberty, is available within the city, and that it derives (in the case of Rome) from hammering out the differences between the nobility and the plebeians through the public institutions. Liberty, or at least stability, is also possible through the intervention of a strong man with a clear vision of the reforms and balances he wishes to institute. It seems that the two dispositions within a city can arrive at a useful compromise if there is some common authority to which they are both accountable. In the case of Rome and many other republics, this authority lay in the agreed-upon institutions with their dynamic balance. In other cities and during transitional times, the authority generally lies with one person. But some control is exerted on both dispositions. Why doesn't this work in the relations between whole states? Because they have no common authority. If they did - if two or more cities could appeal their disputes to a higher authority, they would not be independent states, but parts of a larger whole, and the dispute would be an internal one that would fall into the natural jurisdiction of the common ruler. In the terminology of Hobbes, the men of a city are in civil compact with one another, but cities are in a state of nature or (frequently) war among themselves. Let's consider another instance. Machiavelli spends a tremendous proportion of both The Prince and The Discourses on Livy's discussion of the methods of foundation and reform. One of his primary concerns is the consideration of when, whether, and how change should be introduced, and on what principles a city should be organized in the first place. One of the institutions necessary to a city is the ability to reform itself within law, so that extraordinary measures will not be required. Change is seen as inevitable, and so it must be accommodated. Ideally, such change could grow out of the inherent tensions between the two humors of the city, as it did in Rome's case. Very often, however, drastic change will require the intervention of some strong individual (whether inside existing institutions, as the Roman dictatorship, or outside when the institutions are inflexible or the populace is corrupt). The degree of authority that Machiavelli is willing, indeed eager, to bestow on this individual is quite extraordinary: One should take it as a general rule that rarely, if ever, does it happen that a state, whether it be a republic or a kingdom, is either well-ordered at the outset or radically transfonned vis-avis its old institutions unless this be done by one person.... Wherefore the prudent organizer of a state whose intention it is to govern not in his own interests but for the common good, and not in the interests of his successors but for the sake of that fatherland which is common to all, should contrive to be alone in his authority .... It is a sound maxim that reprehensible actions may be justified by their effects, and that when the effect is good, as it was in the case of Romulus, it always justifies the action. For it is the man who uses violence to spoil things, not the man who uses it to mend them, that is blameworthy. (D 1.9) We will come back to the question of a ruler's severity later. For now, it's interesting to note that Machiavelli is actually talking about two sorts of change, foundation and reform. And when we examine reform itself more closely, we find that a portion of his comments apply to renovation, while others apply to innovation, and that there is a considerable difference between the methods of the two, though both aim at promoting stability. Innovation is both easy and difficult, because men are both attracted to and worried by novelty: " ... Men are by nature inclined to look with favour on new enterprises; a favour which is likely to be bestowed, above all else, on enterprises which seem to have in them a certain virility and which are taken up by young men" (D 1.33). Current interests drive out considerations of the past: "For a new prince is observed much more in his actions than a hereditary one; and when they are recognized as virtuous, they take hold of men much more and obligate them much more than ancient blood. For men are much more taken by present things than by past ones, and when they find good in the present, they enjoy it and do not seek elsewhere ..." (P 24). On the other hand, the novelty value (which appeals to men's expansive, audacious nature) can wear thin when faced with the fears and suspicions of man's natural conservatism: Those like these men, who become princes by the paths of virtue, acquire their principality with difficulty but hold it with ease; and the difficulties they have in acquiring their principality arise in part from the new orders and modes that they are forced to introduce so as to found their state and their security. And it should be considered that nothing is more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than to put oneself at the head of introducing new orders. For the introducer has all those who benefit from the old orders as enemies, and he has lukewarm defenders in all those who might benefit from the new orders. This lukewarmness arises partly from fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not truly believe in new things unless they come to have a firm experience of them . Consequently, whenever those who are enemies have opportunity to attack, they do so with partisan zeal, and the others defend lukewarmly so that one is in peril along with them. It is however necessary, if one wants to discuss this aspect well, to examine whether these innovators stand by themselves or depend on others; that is, whether to carry out their deed they must beg or indeed can use force. In the first case they always come to ill and never accomplish anything; but when they depend on their own and are able to use force, then it is that they are rarely in peril. From this it arises that all the armed prophets conquered and the unarmed ones were ruined. (P 6) This long quotation spells out very neatly the problems of introducing "new orders." Men are unable to believe what they have not yet seen, and they continue to anticipate and fear the powers of the old order. Despite their attraction to the opportunities offered by novelty, their essentially conservative fears usually win out and they hold back to see the outcome of the confrontation. This resistant passivity, and the tendency of the people to be won over to new ideas but not steady in these new convictions, means that the ruler must use whatever force is necessary to accomplish his ends. Reason and persuasion are not enough; good intentions are not enough. He must enforce his vision on a reluctant population. That is, in order to overcome the passive, unaggressive humor of the people, he must employ his own active virtu to force the innovations he sees as necessary. If effectively done, the results will be praiseworthy - regardless of the means. In contrast to the innovation of new institutions, whether as part of founding a new society or as a much-needed reform, the renovation of a state is essentially a conservative process. The need is to return to the virtues of one's ancestors: " ...Those changes make for their conservation which lead them back to their origins .... The way to renovate them, as has been said, is to reduce them to their starting-points" (D 3.1). In this section, Machiavelli does not even point out that the starting-point must have been a sound one; the assumption seems to be that any lasting institution was originally founded on good principles, and these need only be rediscovered. Often enough, these principles are either explicitly religious or, at very least, moral in nature insofar as "moral" in Machiavellian terms means "not corrupt," that is, neither effeminate nor bribable nor devoted to selfish pleasures and luxuries. The reason for this return to origins seems to lie very close to Machiavelli's appreciation of history- at least, of the great and successful examples in history: For since men almost always walk on paths beaten by others and proceed in their actions by imitation, unable, either to stay on the paths of others altogether or to attain the virtue of those whom you imitate, a prudent man should always enter upon the paths beaten by great men, and imitate those who have been most excellent, so that if his own virtue does not reach that far, it is at least in the odor of it. (P 6) 51 �Imitation becomes a reasonable substitute for active virtue of one's own. If a prince hasn't the type of brain which sees for itself, he must at least have the sort which can judge the reports which others bring to him. From examining the two humors and the two goals of the city, as well as innovation versus renovation, we seem to have arrived back at Machiavelli's perplexing use of the word virtu. At times, Machiavelli uses this term as if it implied nothing more than strength and audacity, for example when speaking of Agathocles (Prince 8) or Cesare Borgia. At other times, he talks as if it has what we would term a moral connotation, as when he finally concludes of Agathocles: For, if one considers the virtue of Agathocles in entering into and escaping from dangers, and the greatness of his spirit in enduring and overcoming adversities, one does not see why he has to be judged inferior to any most excellent captain. Nonetheless, his savage cruelty and inhumanity, together with his infinite crimes, do not allow him to be celebrated among the most excellent men. Thus, one cannot attribute to fortune or to virtue what he achieved without either. (P 8) There are thus at least two sorts of virtue for Machiavelli. He writes of whether a ruler should prefer being loved or feared, whether he should rule with mercy and sociability or cruelty and severity (Prince 17; Discourses 3.22). He praises Romulus and Tullus for their warlike nature, but Numa who came between them for introducing religion. There are two forces at work here, both of them important and valuable, and each having its function. In Discourses 3.9, he speaks of adapting to the times. Piero Soderini, that decent man, failed because he did not exercise sufficient virtue (audacity). Pope Julius II, who succeeded because of his audacity, would have failed had the temper of the times changed. Both things need to be kept in mind. "Very rarely do Men know how to be either Wholly Good or Wholly Bad" is a shocking title for Discourses 1.27, but it summarizes his view that both are necessary and effective if applied in turn, at the right time. It is the attempt to compromise between the aggressive and the peaceable, the active and the passive, the cruel and the tolerant, that leads to disaster. Balance must not be construed as wishy-washiness. Even Fortune itself has aspects of both the conservative and the audacious. On the one hand, he says that "it is bette1 to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down. And one sees that she lets herself be won more by the impetuous than by those who proceed coldly" (P 25). On the other hand, in the letter in which he writes to his friend Vettori that he has just completed The Prince, he praises the quiet and disciplined life his friend is leading: "And because Fortune wants to do everything, she wants us to allow her to do it, to remain quiet and not give trouble, and to await the time at which she allows men something to do; and then it will be right for you to give more effort.... " An amazing contrast in the images of Lady Fortuna! Yet it makes sense when we begin to realize that, in 52 fortune, as in cities and in individuals, there are two humors. We cannot ignore either except at our peril. Sometimes these two humors are in constructive competition. Sometimes they tear one another apart. In some respects, each begets the other. At times audacity is called for; at other times, a cool head. Sometimes the two dispositions are so confused (in the literal sense, fused together) that we cannot be sure which is which or what the outcome may be. "So that this is just one of those things in which evil is so closely associated with good, and so bound up are they one with the other, that it may easily happen that he who thinks he will get one, gets the other" (D 3.37). Given all these difficulties, it seems we can only summon both our courage and our wits, draw on the examples of history, and do the best we can to balance the two humors: Nor should any state ever believe that is can always adopt safe courses; on the contrary, it should think it has to talce them all as doubtful. For in the order of things it is found that one never seeks to avoid one inconvenience without running into another; but prudence consists in knowing how to recognize the qualities of inconveniences, and in picking the less bad as good. (P 21) The Wrath of Aeneas Donna Schueler Near the beginning of this poem that sings of a man and his fate, Virgil wonders, in horror, about the gods - are their minds moved by unrelenting wrath? Aeneas, sings the poet, is a man remarkable for goodness; by poem's end, he will have become a man of whom it can be said, his wrath is godlike. Pious Aeneas, hounded by the wrath of Satumian Juno throughout the poem, is, at its end, caught in the unyielding grip of Saturnian rage, a rage which fills the poet with horror. The wrath of this good man will be as unrelenting as that of the goddess. It is a redoubtable transformation the poet gives us; why does he give it? A man remarkable for piety, and his fate - does fate require of this man more than piety; is piety insufficient to his hard fate? Our first encounter with Aeneas in fury is not in the present tense; nor does his fury play itself out. He is recounting for Dido the tale of his city's fall. In his narration, he has come upon Helen. She is crouched in terror beside an altar, the altar standing among the fifty bridal chambers of Priam's daughters. Seeing her there, a fire bums in Aeneas' mind, anger spurs him to avenge his falling city. He knows that he is mad, that to kill a woman, even the Laconian woman, is at best a dubious thing. But the bitterness in his heart drives him after her. And then Venus comes between them; the fury of this man remarkable for piety gives way. The poet has not made us witnesses; we hear, with Dido, an account of forestalled violence, of a fury that relented. What can happen, so that by poem's end, pious Aeneas comprises a rage equal to the rage of High Ones, equally relentless? Aeneas remains with Dido for a full year. What could make him so heedless, knowing what the future holds in Hesperia, for him and all his line? The need to resupply stores and revive his weary men would not want so long a time. Such needs as these would not keep him the whole year at Carthage, building Dido's walls, heedless of his own great walls, which have still to be raised in Aussonia. This is pious Aeneas, son of Venus by Anchises; he bears with him the household gods of Troy, entrusted to his keeping by great-hearted Hector, and he is not building the walls which are his fate. It will want much to make this man stray so far from his fate that Jove must send Mercury with high remonstration. It will want much, and yet Aeneas' lingering, his role in the love-story, is not the result of divine machination. Did~, on the other hand, has been seduced by a power larger than herself or Aeneas. It is necessary that she abandon her pious vows to the dead Sychaeus, and this has required the intervention of Venus. The goddess has sent Cupid in the guise of Ascanius: Dido has dandled him on her lap, kissed him tenderly. And all the while Cupid/Ascanius invades her body with the fiery poison his mother has prescribed. No such inflammatory measure has been taken with Aeneas. When he comes to their encaved 'marriage,' Apollo to her Diana, (see N, 172-210) no god has impassioned Aeneas. What Venus wakes up in Dido is present in her already, waiting there susceptible of arousal, ready for the divine ruse. But it has wanted the divine nudge. On the other hand, what Dido's beauty arouses in Aeneas is wakened solely by her. It has not been necessary that Juno devise the infiltration of his soul when he mates with Dido, he is entirely his own man. It is true that Juno and Venus have brought them to the cave, but to Aeneas himself they have done no more than this. We take new measure here of Aeneas' greatness; for all nature attends this marriage. Primal Earth aids Juno, fiery lightning flashes, and the upper air is witness when Dido and the son of Anchises mate. To achieve this, Dido has been inflamed by Venus, but the psyche of Aeneas has needed no divine push. It has not required the gods' contrivance to rouse Aeneas to so great a passion, but it will want divine intervention to recall him to his reason. Jove must send Mercury to rebuke him, to recall him to his fated walls and the glory waiting for Ascanius. When he is mindful once again of who he is, Aeneas burns for the onward-going, burns to be underway. This is the first time we have seen him impassioned for the walls he must raise in Latium. But before he can go, there is Dido. Who knows. She lashes out at him in fury, denouncing him as a deceiver and breaker of vows. Aeneas' reply to her is heart-wrenching; we see his heart wrenched. He protests his love for her in a way bitterly ironic in light of what is to come; and yet what more could a lover who is compelled to leave behind him his beloved ever say? These are his words: "I never shall regret remembering Elissa for as long as I remember my own self, as long as breath is king over these limbs." (N, 451-54) Strange words. For this is Aeneas, a man for whom (despite his Carthaginian exile) self and fate are inextricable: To remember himself is to remember his fate; to remember his fate is to leave her; remembering his fate he will remember Dido - what do they mean, these words? He tells her that Apollo's oracle, and Mercury and his father's anxious image urge him; Lycian prophecies tell him that Italy must be his love. It is not his free will, says Aeneas, that leads him to that other love. Dido reviles him. Growing more and more delirious, she says that truly this is the work of High Ones. In fury she tells him to go; heaping curses, she says she will not keep him back. She leaves Aeneas groaning, "shaken in his mind because of his great love." (IV, 542-43) She leaves him hesitating, in fear, and longing to soothe her. But his piety turns him toward his ships, toward that other love, to Italy. When Anna comes to him to make Dido's plea for empty time, even in his great strength, Aeneas is shaken. He stands as a great oak, its crown touching the stars, its roots reaching to Tartarus, the poet says. But Anna's assiduous words are like north winds. The great oak shakes in this wind; it does not fall. Dido wakens in Aeneas for the first time in the memory of the poem an elemental, even a bestial, passion. When he leaves her, he can say for the first time that he loves Italy; for the first time he burns to accomplish his fate. Virgil makes Aeneas tell the reader, in his reply to Dido's accusations, how this has come about: love for Italy derives from love of Dido, love of Dido is 53 �transformed, to love of Italy. That irrational energy which she has aroused, the passion which love of Dido sets loose in his soul is now set toward Italy, transferred to his hard fate. Now Aenea~ has what it talces. I believe this is what Virgil signals when he says in Book VII, "Sing Erato." Sing not the passion of your ~sual song, sing rather what such passions can become. Sing that m some fundamental way it is all one. Without the unfated, uncivilized marriage with Dido, the fateful and lawful marriage with Lavinia might not come to be. Aeneas has begun to learn the significance of the not-good, of the irrational. Until his time with Dido, all that Aeneas has known comes ':ithin the scope of civilization. When he arrives at Carthage he fmds scenes of Troy, splendidly wrought scenes of his greathearted city that fell. When he looks back on Carthage from his ~eeing ship, he sees a sight which can only look to him like Troy m flames. Between the two simulacra of Troy lies a space of time he ~o~~d nei~er tame, no~ prevent, a time unfated and utterly unc1~ihzed. Like the mamage of Paris and Helen, the marriage of Dido and Aeneas - bestial, elemental, pointedly uncivilized - has destroyed civilization. Does Aeneas need to live the violence of such passion himself before he can know that while it has nothing to do with civilized ways, it is yet ge~uinely human, and so, ineluctable as any fate? He arrives at Carthage knowing all there is to know about pious ways and civil man. Does his uncivilized marriage say to us that this is insufficient to secure his long line's fame in the great city he will raise? Does Aeneas need to know that elemental passion is always latent, even in the most civilized breast? Must he know, before he can father great Romans, that which can never be sanctioned in a great civilization, yet is never separable from it? It is as if, before Anchises can inflame the soul of Aeneas with love of Roman glory, Dido must set the kindling. In Book VI Aeneas, obedient to Anchises' command, descends to the Underworld - to seek a meeting with his father, to learn of his coming race, of his walls in Latium. Anchises directs Aeneas to Avernus, to the Sybil; she will guide him past Tartarus to Anchises in the Elysian fields. She will turn out to be a wildly irrational guide. The temple over which the Sybil presides is housed in a cave; the poet has shown us already what irrationality is housed iri caves. When Aeneas and his company are at the threshold, the Sybil's wild heart heaves with frenzy, and .she cries out to him: "Are you so slow with vows and prayers, T~oJan Aeneas? Are you so slow?" (VI, 73-4) Tartarus, she raves, will never open its jaws without his vows. We think of Dido, raving about broken marriage vows. We remember that Aeneas denies having made such vows. . Now the power of the god closes in on the Sybil. His breath ts upon her, but she cannot yet speak, she has not yet yielded to Phoebus. The lines in which she does yield are lines of sexual innuendo: She tries to drive Phoebus from her breast but "he tires out her raving mouth, he tames her wild heart, he shapes by crushing force." (VI, 112-13) He "urges the reins as she raves on; he plies the spurs beneath her breast." (VI, 139-41) Would the pious Aeneas have been willing to consign himself to the 54 guidance of this madwoman if he had not known Dido? Until the point at which he submits to the Sybil, his piety has not been one of access to the inner workings of di vi.Le madness, his piety has been, with a single powerful exception, one of good and proper observance of the rites demanded by household gods - his pious ancestors at Troy. But with submission to the Sybil his piety grows more complex. He is coming to know the value, the sanctity, of this kind of wild irrationality, of high passion. Aeneas' submission to the Sybil's guidance is linked still more directly to his submission to his passion for Dido. After he has retrieved the golden bo•1gh, Aeneas and the Sybil stand at the opening of Avernus; she calls upon Hecate, queen of heaven and hell, and he sacrifices to Night, the mother of the Furies. We have heard Hecate invoked before this - when Dido placed on the pyre their couch, and Aeneas' effigy, clothed in his clothes and armed with his sword. At that moment, she called upon Hecate and the triple-shaped Diana, triune goddess of female initiation to marriage, of whom Hecate is one third. She called upon Hecate, night fell, and Dido was consumed. Her death, like the Sybil's possession by the god, is given to us in lines of sexual innuendo. Dido lay upon the couch that was their bed and, pressing her face into it, murmured endearments to the Trojan's clothes, while she took his sword into her body. The goddess called upon to witness this deadly consummation is the goddess upon whom the Sybil calls to open the way to hell. The Sybil his guide, Aeneas proceeds. At the middle of Book VI, in the Fields of Mourning, he sees Dido. He swears by the gods above and by whatever there is of trust in this netherland, his unwillingness when he left her. Brutally consumed in brutal waste, Dido will not raise her eyes to him. Nothing he can say will move her, though he so clearly wants to move her. When she turns from him he follows with tears and pity. He will at last "struggle on his given way again." (VI, 627) His guide brings him to the Blessed Groves - to his father, who had feared Sidonian Dido, feared that the kingdom of Libya might do so much harm to Aeneas. In the course of the poem we will not hear again that Anchises is frightened for his son's fate; only the Sidonian passion scares the great father. Aeneas catches sight of the river Lethe, and the swarms of heroes flocking to its banks. He wonders. These, says Anchises, are the spirits to whom fate owes a second body, they have gathered here at the river to drink deep drafts of forgetfulness before returning to the upper earth. Aeneas is shocked. Who so mad to long to leave these fields, to long for the light of earth? For answer, Anchises tells his son a tale of the human soul. In the soul, he says, are fiery seeds whose source is heavenly. But these are housed in a dark prison of mortal members and earthly limbs; the body is a plague to the soul, causing sorrows and fears, and joy. Even in death these bodily plagues do not relent, "for taints so long congealed cling fast and deep in extraordinary ways." (VI, 973-75) And here below, each must pay with fresh torment the price of his old taint - each suffers his own shade, the shade his life has merited. It requires the cycle of ages to anneal a soul's stain. When this has been accomplished, shades are summoned by Dis to a great Lethian assembly, where they drink deep and forget the plight of the soul in the flesh, its longings and pains - its joys. Forgetful, they long to return to upper earth. This purification through loss of memory is at the middle of the poem; and it is what Aeneas, not dead but living, must accomplish in order to emerge again to the light of day. Moreover, Aeneas, a living soul, has begun already this arduous purging of the longings and joys of the flesh. In the upper air of Carthage he renoWlced Dido, stood like an oak in the face of their mutual love, her entreaty, his own longing to remain. Alive, he has paid already, in the manner of shades below, a great price of torment for his stay with Dido. Aeneas will forget, in the way of shades departing Lethe, the name. of Dido, but unlike the shades, he will not have been granted a cycle of ages in which to cleanse his memory. Because he lives while he forgets, something will remain. Anchises will fire his son's soul, but it is Dido who has laid this fire. His tale of the soul's cycle complete, Anchises reveals to Aeneas "the fame to come from Dardan sons," (VI, 1000) the Trojan shades who will become the great Caesars of Rome. These names too, he forgets. When he sees the history of Rome bossed on the shield his mother brings to him, he is moved, greatly, but does not know what it is he sees. Anchises brings Aeneas and the Sybil to the Twin Gates of Sleep for their departure from Hades. Through the gate of horn true shades rise to earth. Through the gate of polished ivory, Spirits send false dreams to the world above. Anchises sends Aeneas back to his fate through the gate of polished ivory. Why, why? His departure in this way is almost more harrowing than his descent. Two possible explanations come to mind; but they do not relieve the reader's uneasiness. One: We remember that Aeneas seems somehow to have to do what the shades by the banks of Lethe must do, he too must forget. But he is alive. He will not utter Dido's name again in the course of the poem; and when he sees the scenes on his Vulcanmade shield, he is moved with wonder, but uncomprehending. Aeneas forgets, but something irrational remains with him, something to which he could not put a name, some vague intuition moves his soul. It is true that Aeneas emerges from hell a new man, annealed and ready. But he is not, like the Lethian shades, a clean slate. Though he cannot say what it is that moves him, Aeneas remembers. And we remember his words when he abandoned Dido: for as long as breath moves his limbs, when he remembers himself, he will remember Dido. Does Aeneas rise to earth through the gate of false dreams precisely because some stain oflonging for Dido even now "cling(s) fast and deep?" (VI, 974) Two: In showing the great Romans to his son, Anchises does point out to him the elder Marcellus, but he hopes to pass over Marcellus the younger; Aeneas must persuade his father to name the young man and say something of him. Anchises does so in tears. Marcellus will be but shown to the upper air, fate will not allow him a full lifetime. For ''The line of Rome, o High Ones, would have seemed too powerful for you, if his gifts, too, had been its own." (VI, 1161-63) Anchises' purpose in exhibiting for the soul of his son the future of his long line is to fire his soul for the exigence of that which, shortly, he must do. And to that end, Aeneas must believe that the city which will come from the labors of his progeny will be the proper place for such a one as Marcellus, that it will be such a place and, that the High Ones will not harrow it with their ferocious passions. He ascends, believing in the pious greatness of Rome, through the Gate of False Dreams. He comes to Latium, to the fated place. His arrival there has been safeguarded by Neptune, who has guided the ships safely past Circe's island. (The Trojans are not men to be transformed to raving beasts.) And here it happens that, the men hungry and rations short, they consume their tables. With this, Aeneas realizes where they are. He rouses his men to pour their cups out to Jupiter, the High One, and the household god of Troy, father Anchises. And Jupiter grants them omens: thunder out of a clear sky, a cloud flashing great light and gold. Here the Trojans will raise their new walls. The next morning, Aeneas sends to the king of Latium an embassy of one hundred men, led by Ilioneus. He himself remains behind. At last in the place where he belongs, he stays behind to lay the site of the Trojans' first Latin settlement. We should note that it is not a logical landfall. That is, Aeneas is, at last, in the place that is his, fundamentally his because fated to be so. Yet it is not his. Latins live here. This place that belongs to Aeneas, must be conquered. The embassy comes to the Laurentian palace, a place, it turns out, of great irrationality. It is now the palace of Latinus, but it is called the palace of Picus, Latinus' grandfather, whose father was Saturn. And before Virgil permits Latinus to speak to the Trojan embassy, we hear about Picus - that his bride, Circe, in the clutch of lust, transformed him into a speckled bird. Latinas welcomes the Dardans, saying to them that they have come to a people who need no laws to guarantee their righteousness, for they are sons of Saturn. The Latins hold themselves in check by their own will, he says. The Trojans shall have what they ask of Latinas, but he wants one thing first, to clasp the right hand of Aeneas. He is remembering the oracle of Faun us, that his daughter Lavinia must not marry from among her father's own, but marry with a stranger, for great things await her. He regales the Trojans with gifts, sending to Aeneas a chariot with a pair of fabulous stallions, horses bred by Circe on a mortal mare with seed she stole from her father's stallions. Strange bastard horses, they come to Aeneas from a palace which has seen strange · things. Juno cannot rest. Aeneas is in his place, but she will not rest, for she hates his race. She sends Allecto to break the peace, to "let sudden quarrel spur young men to want, demand and seize the sword." (VII, 449-50) These peaceful sons of Saturn, who need no laws to restrain them, are to be waked to the fury of Juno by the stratagems of Allecto. It is significant that for the most part, as she goes about her hideous task, Allecto does not need 55 I �to implant violent passions, she needs only to rile them up. The snake that winds its way between the breasts and dress of Amata, into her bowels, breaths its serpent breath into a frenzy Amata feels already. Allecto can inflame Ascanius so that he is over avid in the hunt because of his own inherent love of honor. The farmers who respond to Silvia's loss, the young men who rally to Turnus, the mothers who rally to Amata, all have in them something waiting to be stirred. Only Turnus resists. Although he knows that Trojan ships are in the Tiber and is aware that his betrothal is endangered, he laughs at the Fury in her disguise as an old woman. She must assume her full furious strength to rouse him, she must cast a torch of fury into his breast. This torch does not burn brightly there; it smolders with a murky light. But it has its effect. At the Laurentian fortress Turn us lifts the flag of war. Meanwhile, back at the camp, Tiberinus appears to Aeneas and exiles his cares. He gives Aeneas further proofs: the white sow with her sucklings, the sign Hellen us had said to watch for, is nearby. The very earth and all her waters have awaited Aeneas - his household gods are secure. This is his home. But he must set out from home, he must now fulfill the words of the Sybil and seek a Greek city. Tiberinus says he will tell Aeneas what he must do to conquer this land that is his home, this land that has waited for his arrival. He must journey to Arcadia, to Evander's great city, to Pallanteum. What Aeneas will find there are deeper, even more ancient roots and, his future. Aeneas and his men arrive at Pallanteum on the feast day of Hercules. The son of Evander leaves the ceremonies to confront the strangers; he asks to hear who they are, of what tribe? Aeneas tells the young man who he is, and Pallas clasps his right hand in fast welcome. Pallas brings the strangers into his father's city, where Evander will reveal to Aeneas still more about who he is. He tells him that they are relations through Atlas, who props the stars. The king relates for Aeneas the history of the Arcadians, and we who have been guided along the way by Virgil see that Evander is telling Aeneas still more about who he is, that their relation is still closer. Evander says, these groves once were inhabited by a race of men sprung from sturdy oaks, men who had no civilization. We remember that when Aeneas' soul was buffeted by the entreaties of Anna, the strength he found was the strength of an oak. We remember, too, that the great and remarkable piety of this man, who bears with him what remains of a great civilization, was interrupted by a fierce and heedless passion; that, for a time, Aeneas and the queen of Carthage lived outside the bounds of a civilization; that their love destroyed Carthage. The analogy with Paris and Helen is obvious. What is not so obvious is why Aeneas, in the haste and urgency of fleeing a Troy that was burning and falling all around him, should have carried away with him the gold-worked tunic and saffron-fringed veil that belonged to the hated Helen. Was something inexplicable moving in him even then, even as this man remarkable for piety preserved what he could of his great city? Who are you, Pallas asked? 56 The history of Arcadia includes Saturn, who found sanctuary here when he was driven from Olympus by his son. The exiled god came to this land and made a natim. of its untamed men and gave them laws. But Saturnian law is notlike theJ avian law Dido gave at Carthage, not like the law Aeneas gave at various settlements along the way. The law of Saturn is a law of revenge and passion, its guardians are the Furies. Will Evander and Aeneas turn out to be related through Saturn as well? Evander explains to Aeneas how it is that his people honor Hercules with such solemnity, lest he think that the Arcadians neglect the older gods. On ~e, their land was ravaged by the monster Cacus; the ground was always warm with the blood of slaughtered Arcadians. Hercules smashed the monster in his own cavern, opening up that foul place to the light of day, delivering the Arcadians from ferocity. Above all, the Arcadians celebrate the slaying of Cacus. Aeneas is permitted to witness the holy rites in honor of the hero who accomplished every labor set him by the Saturnian Juno. · Evander offers Aeneas an alliance; he will make him chieftain over thousands of Latins. A new Cacus is on the scene; the king Mezentius devises particularly foul and inhuman tortures for his victims. His subjects have driven him from his city, and now Turnus gives him refuge. Augury has revealed to Evander that a successful force against Mezentius must be led not by an Italian, but by a stranger. Like the husband of Lavinia, the deliverer must be a stranger. When he has delivered Latium from Mezentius, Aeneas will have conquered the land that is his, the land that has awaited him. And like Hercules before him, he will have delivered Evander' s people. Aeneas will conquer this land, he will bring the rule of Jovian law into Latium. But he is kinsman, through Atlas, of Evander, whose Arcadia is ruled by Saturn, by that older law which erupts with sudden fury. And now, Aeneas has made an alliance with his kinsman. Evander sends his son, Pallas, with Aeneas. As their galley glides through the night, Pallas clings close to him, and asks to hear his history, his deeds and trials on land and sea. He clings, we have a picture of the young man hanging on every word the great Aeneas says. Like Dido before him. It may be disputed, but in what follows I shall assume that Pallas is the beloved of Aeneas, that the love of Aeneas for Pallas is not only the pious love of father Aeneas who has given his right hand to Evander, but the passionate love of the lover. It is at this point that Venus brings to her son the great shield forged by Vulcan. It is the offspring of a night of love: his wife takes Vulcan into a "soft embrace," (VIII, 509) instantly he catches "the customary flame." (VIII, 510) And in the morning, early, he sets to work. The shield of war born of love has at its center the battle to come at Actium: Antony faces Caesar, his Egyptian wife close behind. The shield's center pictures a man who turned his back, for love of a woman, on Rome - as Aeneas himself, for a time, has done. Sing Erato, of passion and the irrational, Sing the link of love with war. When she presents Aeneas with the shield, Venus, who throughout the poem has held herself aloof from him, shows herself freely and reaches out to embrace her son. Why has she held herself from him before this, and why does she now open her arms? What has changed? Aeneas has allied himself with Evander; he has found that force by which he will conquer Latium. His alliance turns out to be, at some level, an alliance with the law of passion and revenge, that law older than the law of Jove. Because Arcadia is the land of Saturn in exile and the land delivered by Hercules, Aeneas has pledged his right hand to the adamantly passionate. Has Venus found Aeneas, before now, wanting in filial devotion? (Harsh as this sounds! ) Now Aeneas has begun his approach to the rage of the High Ones now, she may embrace him, now he is worthy of this mother's tenderness. Moreover, Venus knows that he has clasped the hand of the boy who will become his ·lover, and be the occasion of rage. She opens her arms. The battle will rage this way and that. Pallas will be notorious in battle, dealing terrible slaughter to the Latins. But he will be killed by Turnus. As he faces him, Pallas calls on Hercules to let the dying Turnus see him, Pallas, strip the bloodied weapons from his enemy. It will not be so. It will be Turnus who takes bloody spoils from Pallas: the fateful belt, on which are engraved fifty slaughtered bridegrooms, an image resonant with the defamation of the inner chambers of Priam's palace. When Aeneas learns of Pallas' death, time slackens its pace: "Pallas... Evander... all are now before his eyes ...." (X, 710-11) The pious hero is infuriated. Before this he has been dutifully valiant, now his warrior's rage is something more than human. In Book XI, Turnus will say to Latinos that he would go boldly to meet Aeneas, though he be "as tremendous as Achilles." (XI, 580-1) By virtue of the huge force that the death of Pallas has for him, Aeneas has taken that name, that rage. Like the death of Patroclus, the death of Pallas sends into battle a ferocious warrior. We turn to the poem's end, to the slaughter of Turnus. Turnus has been defeated in single combat, the fate of Aeneas is accomplished, land and bride are his. Now, as he dies, Turnus implores Aeneas for that which piety cannot deny. He asks the return of his body to his father, saying to Aeneas, remember Anchises, your father - which is to say, remember the household gods of your piety. Aeneas in his goodness wavers, moved in his soul by Turnus' words. But he is moved two ways. His eye falls upon the belt on Turnus' shoulder, and he is enraged; not by the guile of a god, but by the sight of fifty bridegrooms slaughtered there on the belt of his beloved. And it must be that everything at once rushes into his mind: Priam's hundred daughters, the bridal chambers near which Pyrrhus slaughtered Priam, the brutal murder of Deiphobus at Helen's hands. And this: Pallas, son of Evander, Pallas killed by Turnus, Pallas his beloved, Pallas' plundered belt. Frenzied, he butchers a man already dying, attacks the already vanquished in a rage like the rage of High Ones. His fate already accomplished, Aeneas butchers needlessly. Acting outside his fate, and once again, outside the scope of civilization, Aeneas is as a god-like Hercules before him. We remember it is not any young man who has aroused his ferocity, it is the son of Evander whose death Aeneas avenges. He grants the impossible dying wish of Pallas, who called upon his father's guest friend, upon Hercules, to let him slay Turnus. The god heard Pallas' plea, and wept for its impossibility. It is a plea Aeneas could not have heard, and yet, slaughtering Turnus, he cries - Pallas does this! When he kills Turnus, the protector of Mezentius, Aeneas is the new delivererofEvander's people. He is the new Hercules, who grants the dying wish of his beloved Pallas. If such fury waited even in Aeneas, how shall Rome sustain a Marcellus? Rome will not be the place to exclude such gods as Virgil has figured here, they will not have cause to fear that their vengefulness and cruelty will be excluded from the Roman empire. We might even say that with the establishment of the Jovian, the Saturnian is restored; for if Aeneas brings the Jovian into Latium, he does so by overt alliance with the king whose people received Saturn in exile. Moreover, in Book XII, we see Jupiter himself recourse to the Saturnian in order that Aeneas and Turnus face each other unaided by any divinity. He calls on a Fury to terrify Turn us' helpmate, his sister Juturna, into quitting the battle. It is Jupiter who does this. Pious Aeneas as Rome, as the Rome Anchises says they will build together, is not simply pious; he has within him a great store of passion. Because one face of that passion is furious, impious and cruel, Aeneas has had to depart the underworld through the gate of False Dreams. The glory of the Rome to come with which Anchises has inflamed the soul of his son is not unequivocal. When Anchises says, "My sons, do not let such great wars be native to your minds ... cast down the weapon from your hand!" (VI, 1105-1109) and exhorts Aeneas, "Remember Roman ... to teach the ways of peace to those you conquer," (VI, 135-6) the irony is bitter. The shade to whom Anchises speaks, before he returns to earth's upper air, must forget all that he has learned below. By the poet's own device, Anchises' words are as ciphers to the forgetful shade, are like the leaves of the Sybil blown by the wind. And yet his words are necessary. For Anchises must inflame his son not with any fire, but with appropriate fire. To temper, to steel the soul of Aeneas for his arduous fate it must be pious flame Anchises fans. For when Aeneas leaves his father, he does not yet know that he is capable of a violence which ordinary piety could never condone. He must ascend through that gate passionate for what his piety can approve. He must ascend through the Gate of False Dreams. When he drives his blade into Turnus, the wrath of Aeneas is like the wrath of Hercules when he killed the monster Cacus. It · is like the wrath of Juno at the beginning of the poem. Can the mind of pious Aeneas hold such wrath? To ask this is to paraphrase the horrified wonder of Virgil at the beginning of the poem. How can a man remarkable for goodness be made to endure such torments as Juno will devise for Aeneas? "Can such wrath hold the minds of gods?" (I, 18) By the end of the poem the poet will be constrained to ask which god is it can help him to sing the bitterness and the butchery in the minds of Turnus 57 �and Aeneas. He asks Jupiter, can it have been your will that, despite the fact that these two nations were destined to live in peace, they unleashed such brutal, indiscriminate fury - so many men dead? At the close of the poem, Virgil will ask no question to help us with the horror he has presented us. Upon the flight of Turnus' resentful life to shades below, Virgil is silent. Even as our horror is shrieking at us, Virgil is silent. The only words the reader can find to give expression to his shock are a paraphrase of Virgil's opening question. Can such wrath hold the mind of pious Aeneas? It can. And when it does, when Aeneas' piety is coiled round with fury, when he is still plunging his sword into Turrms 'chest, the poem closes. The song is finished. The poet has shown us Rome will rise. what we need to see. 59 58 �Ricardo J.H. Beall The Other Face of Darkness -for Harry Golding J.H. Beall Her hands, the saddened darkness touched once. The future is history: her hair, the curve of her neck gently following spaces held between muscle and bone as though tension were the only metaphor for love. Look back. The mind is filled with shards of glass green of their own volition, or her eyes in a moment's repose before sleep, bruited of that color which sits above the horizon, culled from a litany of distance and blue. Of the future's hue, that opalescence we confined in, nothing serves but the tin-cup smell of water, warm on a dry, hot day, as it parts our lips like another's tongue, without words. In beginning, the trees mimic the colors of the fall. Though subtler, shades conspire and cut the throat of the bud's reticence. Then green is poured into the flagon of the air. Our eyes swill the mind's declension of the tongue's delight - green as a liquor. Thoughts hold tightly the fact that green is poured into the flagon of the air. All of this - the meridians' convergence, the circumstance of the sun's other motion into summer - like arteries pump green liquid into the flagon of the air. And we see the other face of darkness - light penitent for the winter' s sorrows, and with spring become contained by an emerald light poured into the flagon of the air. 60 61 I I �If you are not currently working at or attending St. John's, and you would like to continue receiving Energeia by mail, be sure to return this slip to: ENERGEIA St. John's College P.O. Box 2800 Annapolis, Maryland 21404-2800 Your name: Angel and Quill Nathan J. Humphrey 62 Address: � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1992 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1992. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dennis, Douala (Senior Editor) Seidman, Jeff (Junior Editor) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1992 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1992 Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/41ca83e7d4697ba19586b96932869f9c.pdf efe5b8a09f4cad31825ceb03a9208413 PDF Text Text SPRING 1993 . �ENERGEIA: The activity in which anything is fully itself. fl ... vou £Vepyeia srofl ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) Staff Laudelyn Asinas Amy Flack Aimee Lalone Kristen Riddlespurger Senior Editor Rachel Blistein Junior Editor Yvonne Belanger Faculty Advisor Abe Schoener Special Thanks To the St. John's College Print Shop: Chris Colby Tina Davidson Andy Long Don Smith Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis. The Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community - essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. �Table of Contents Kristen Riddlespurger Untitled [Photo] .. 2 Elliott Callahan Attacking the Image . 3 Panayiotis Pappas Salome and John 11 Eugenia E. Skarstrom Window [Photo] 12 D. Jennings Descartes' Interpretation of the World as Arising from his Method . . 13 Stacie Slotnick Orion outside my window . . . . . . . 18 Nancy Marcus An Investigation of Key Characters (and Character's Keys) In Mozait's Don Giovanni . 19 Sara Valentine Untitled [Sketch] . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Kathleen Wilson The Reeve's Tale by Geoffry Chaucer 29 Jean Holman Untitled [Poem, Photo] 33 Rachel Blistein Greek Urn . . . . . . . 34 Laurence Berns An Introduction to Kant . 35 Burton Blistein The Visual Arts and the Liberal Arts 39 Eugenia E. Skarstrom Ancient Ones [Photo] . . . . . . 53 Francie Roberts Her Hair by Charles Baudelaire 54 Susanna Beiser Choosing to Believe: Free Choice and the Knowledge of God in St. Thomas . . . . . 57 Eva T. H. Brann Cover Art-Eugenia E. Skarstrom, GI '94 Front: "Euclid and Stella" Back: "Journey" On the Relation of the Speech of Alcibiades to the Other Speeches of the Platonic Symposium ......... 61 Nedalina Dineva Hope in Sophocles' Antigone 63 Jean Holman Untitled [Photo] ...... 66 Janice Thompson Human Nature and War in Thucydides' by Nietzche History of the Peloponnesian War 67 Kristen Riddlespurger Untitled [Photo] 73 J. H. Beall Two swans .. 74 J. H. Beall Morning-for Mary Ruth Clance . 75 �Attacking the Image U Elliott Callahan '92 Where are you going, Don Quixote? What demons have you in your heart that incite you to assault our Catholic faith? Devil take me! Look, it's a procession of penitents, and that lady they're carrying upon the bier is the most blessed image of the spotless Virgin. Look out, sir, what you're doing, for this time you've made a real mistake. (p. 453) Loving and reading are acts of faith. In order to be seduced by the beloved, or enchanted by the book, we must place our faith in the imagination, and believe what it, and no other, can tell us. It is important then, from time to time, to have our faith tested and our beliefs questioned. The imagination, it appears, needs to be roused from its slothfulness, exerted, and provoked. For it realizes its potential when it unexpectedly finds itself towering over reason-when it is twisted and contorted until it discovers itself creeping up on its own shadow-and surprising us, its not very attentive keeper. Then we can revel in the imagination, for clearly it is most delightful when we discover that, unbeknownst to us, it had been busily working away, seducing our more reasonable halves. Reveling in the imagination fortifies our faith in it, and hence, our capacity to love, read, and believe. Don Quixote, "mirror of knight errantry," is the champion of the imagination. He reads with the same amount of passion with which he loves, and vice versa; a degree which is clearly beyond our grasp. Don Quixote's superior imagination and unwave1ing faith, display labors of love rivaled only by the labors of Hercules. It is possible that Don Quixote is the greatest lover the world has ever known. For unlike most of us, for whom it is true that "love is not loving," Quixote is capable of loving love and Dulcinea del Tobosa at once, and yet somehow remains conscious of both without contradiction. He is able to allow the image to enchant him and, at the same time, to recognize it as an image. Quixote is the embodiment of the paradox that we spend our lives trying to resolve. In the author's prologue, Cervantes says: Don Quixote's final adventure represents the culmination of his exploits. Throughout the course of his enterprise, the Knight of the Sad Countenance has attacked the objects of what the reader considers the "real world," mistaking, or understanding them to be images of his imaginary world. Now, instead of attacking reality, he attacks images. The consequences of Quixote's attack upon an image, and especially an image of the Virgin, are essential to understanding our relationship with this "lean, shriveled, whimsical child" (p. 25). The final episode is a crucial point in the story where Don Quixote's character begins to emerge in a new light. This new perspective is the result of the transformation that occurs in the relationship between Quixote and the reader. The events in the last adventure force the reader to reexamine his notions of reality and imagination, upon which are based his dual relationship with Quixote-both as a character and as a book. In his earlier adventures, Don Quixote attacks windmills and various innocent travelers whom he meets on the highway. He mistakes squalid inns for castles, whores for ladies, and a barber's basin for a helmet. In those adventures, Don Quixote's imagination overpowers his perception and transfonns everyday ordinary objects-"real" things-into the cast and props of knight errantry. In the final episode, Quixote is no longer the only one to recognize and incorporate images into reality. He is joined by his companions, and although they disagree on the basis for admitting this image in to the real world, they all perform the same act. In the eyes of the other characters-Sancho, the barber, the priest, and especially the penitents who scourge themselves-Don Quixote does not merely attack their wooden statue, but also attacks the Virgin herself. This adventme is the pinnacle of Quixote's movement from the real world, that is the real world of the characters as seen by the reader, to the imaginary. Although his comrades obstinately resist being seduced by the realm of the imagination, Quixote has forced them, albeit unwittingly, into a battle in which they cannot resort to the experimentally verifiable world. For the first time, the battle in which Quixote is engaged is no longer between the real and the imaginary, but takes place solely within the bounds of the imagination. The battle is a contest of faith, and Quixote has dragged his companions down into the murky cave where he can But I, though in appearance Don Quixote's father, am really his step-father, and so will not drift with the current of custom, nor implore you, almost with tears in my eyes, as others do, dearest reader, to pardon or ignore the faults of this child of mine. For you are no relation or friend of his. Your soul is in your own body, and you have free will with the best of them, and are as much a lord in your own house as the King is over his taxes. So who is the bigger liar, Cervantes or Benengeli? For Quixote is our fiiend and brother, and we love him dearly: he is the great mirror of our imaginations, and his adventures are the reflection of our faith. * * * In Book I, Chapter LII, in which is related Don Quixote's last adventure, the enchanted knight leaps on his steed and gallops off to offer combat to a band of kidnappers abducting a noble lady. Sancho says: 3 2 �challenge their beliefs just as they have challenged his. For Quixote's companions, attacking the image of the Virgin is tantamount to attacking the real, flesh-and-blood Mother of God. For Quixote, the statue is also equivalent or parallel to a living, breathing maiden, but not to the Holy Virgin. Both Quixote and his companions have granted the image, through their faith in it, the certainty and significance reserved for the "real" object it represents. In their minds the image is no longer an image, but a living woman. Thus their disagreement is only in terms of the particulars of the imagination, and the battlefield has shifted from one between the two separate worlds to the imaginary world alone. By attacking the image of the Virgin, Quixote also attacks the Catholic faith. Thus by denying or misperceiving a single idea, Don Quixote inadvertently attacks the foundations of his comrades' beliefs. In one fell swoop Quixote deals a decisive retaliatory blow to his comrades' beliefs. He suddenly shoves their world into the same perilous position into which they have forced his throughout the novel. The tables are turned when Quixote, who is continually forced to defend his system of beliefs throughout the course of his adventures, requires his persecutors to defend their own beliefs. The same questions with which his comrades have challenged his beliefs, he now unwittingly forces them to ask themselves about their own beliefs, namely their faith in Christianity. How sacred is their image? Can it be any more sacred that the image of Dulcinea del Toboso? Quixote's actions force us to compare the sanctity of the Virgin with the sanctity of Dulcinea. It seems that in the minds of their respective champions they are equal. How then can we assert our faith in one image over another? And how can we be certain that the faith we put in any system of beliefs is anything other than quixotic madness? Don Quixote's last adventure is crucial in exposing the absence of reason and the dependence upon the imagination that is integral to all our beliefs. When Don Quixote attacks the image of the Virgin, he not only challenges his companions, but, as we will see, he challenges the reader as well. We are too drawn into battle with Don Quixote-and this battle is important in the determination of our relationship with him. Like Quixote's companions, we have insisted that Quixote is a madman. But when his image (Dulcinea) is compared with theirs (the Virgin), and they appear equally legitimate, we are compelled to consider the validity of our own. First, we must address our relationship with Don Quixote up to this point. Then we can examine how the last adventure draws us into battle with him, and finally, how the results of that conflict change our relationship with Quixote. It appears that before this pivotal adventure, our relationship with Don Quixote is a fairly simple, almost superficial one. We love and admire Don Quixote because he has an unshakable faith in his principles. Moreover, they are principles that Quixote easily convinces us are noble and true. Like the priest, the barber, and the others, we are surprised by the sound reason Quixote displays when discoursing on the virtue of his profession. In these moments of lucidity, when Don Quixote does not endanger the lives of innocent people as well as his own, it is difficult for us to deny the logic which underlies laws of chivalry. But because it is universally agreed that the profession of knight errantry is half fiction, half nonsense, Don Quixote is considered a madman. Even though his arguments are sound and persuasive, the laws of chivalry are incongruent with our system of beliefs: His hearers were moved once more to pity at seeing a man, apparently of such sound intelligence and with such understanding of everything he spoke of, lose it so entirely on the subject of his foul and accursed chivalry. The priest said that there was much justice in what he said in favor of arms, and that he was of the very same opinion himself, although a scholar and graduate. (Ch. XXXVIII, p. 345) Both Quixote's companions and the reader perceive Quixote as a madman because the focus and foundation of his apparently sound reason and judgement is chivalry. We do not consider chivalry in any serious fashion, so any man who treats it so rationally and with such conviction must be insane, despite his seeming intelligence. But this apparently raving lunatic is a charm and delight in part because he is no threat to us. Many others have good reason to bear some animosity towards the "mirror of chivalry": Andrew, who is doubly beaten by his master for Don Quixote's interference; the innkeepers in whose inns Don Quixote wreaks havoc; and all the various travelers and shepherds, who fall victim to Don Quixote's outlandish escapades. But the knight's ardent conviction, his physical vulnerability, and his tender heart, soften our judgement of the damage that he does. We are in no danger and can thoroughly enjoy (from a comfortable distance) the spectacle of the havoc that he wreaks upon the innocent. Despite his imperviousness to the destructive effects of his actions, Quixote is also a tender, caring man. He offers the same courtesy to whores at an inn, as he does to the Duchess; every woman he meets is a damsel in distress to whom he extends his unconditional service. ... the first man of our times, of these calamitous times of ours, to devote himself to the toils arid exercise of knight errantry; to redress wrongs, aid widows and protect maidens, such as roam up-hill and down-dale with their whips and palfreys and their whole virginities about them. (Ch. IX, p. 76) Don Quixote is also a faithful lover and friend-a lover who must be admired and ranked amongst the best. His faith and devotion to Dulcinea del Toboso, whose honor he places above his own life, are flawless. And despite his sometimes harsh treatment of Sancho's drolleries, Don Quixote's unfaltering resolution to find his squire an island and the paternal tenderness with which he attempts to instruct him on the laws 4 of chivalry, testify to Don Quixote's noble intentions and tender heart. It seems important that Quixote be a character whom we neither fear nor dislike. On the contraiy, as our relationship with the Knight of the Sad Countenance begins to change, it becomes essential that we love him. This relationship with Don Quixote, that we establish early on in the novel, changes in the last adventure. It changes not because of any alteration in Quixote's character, but indirectly with the reversal in the status of his companions' beliefs. Tluoughout d1e adventures, we have been more or less in agreement with Sancho, the barber, and the priest. They, like us, love the knight, but consider him a lunatic whom they are obligated to restore to his senses, his family, and proper way of life. This diagnosis, namely that Quixote is insane, excludes us from his world (the imaginaiy) and includes us in the world shared by the otl1er characters (the real). We have shared with Quixote's companions a common system of beliefs loosely based on the description of our experiences primarily through inductive reasoning. Quixote, on the other hand, describes his experiences deductively from the fictional "laws of chivalry." But when Quixote attacks the image of the Virgin and we see our allies ascend into the imaginary world where the image is tantamount to the living Virgin, they too begin to paiticipate in Quixote 's deductive reasoning. Regardless of whether or not we are Catholic, or even Christian, we are forced to realize that the beliefs of our cohorts, which we were certain were just as rationally grounded as our own, are now indistinguishable in kind from Quixote's. The world of Quixote's companions, which we supposed was entirely rational, and wid1in which we included ourselves , suddenly manifests this quixotic ai10maly, thus undermining its rationality and certainty. Hence we must doubt the original certainty which we have placed in our own world. This world in which we ai·e left in becomes even less certain with the disintegration of the alliance we had formed with Don Quixote's companions. As they ai·e drawn into the imaginaiy world through their belief in the image of the Virgin, we are left alone in the world that only recognizes the image as a wooden statue. Hence what was once the imaginary world in the view we shared with Sancho, d1e barber, and the priest, and the penitents, is now their real world, and we are left suspecting that they, including Don Quixote, imagine our world, which recognizes the image as a mere image, as imaginary. Because we do not participate in the belief that the image of the Virgin has any special significance, we are immediately excluded from the world of the bai·ber, the priest, and the penitents, in which we originally included ourselves. But it is the awareness of exclusion that allows us to realize that we had believed in a different image-the image presented by the book- but we were completely unaware of the belief. In a single moment we are excluded from the world of the characters because we have not embraced the image of the Virgin, and at the same time brought back into the world with a whole new insight. We sudden Iy become aware of our belief in literary images. We are able to be enchanted by the book, and thus to have that spell broken by our exclusion from the characters' beliefs, only because we were initially able to transcend the literary images of the characters through the imagination and to allow them to become as real to us as the image of the Virgin is to them. Our relationship with Don Quixote is dramatically changed. For we are now unable to approach Quixote with the same objective rationality as before. Ouroriginal analysis that Don Quixote is insane, is no longer valid. We see that we ai·e like Quixote in many ways we never suspect until the certainty of our own world begins to deteriorate. It is Quixote then who demonstrates to us the uncertainty of our world, or that the certainty we put in our beliefs can only be as absolute as the certainty Quixote puts in his own . This revelation has the potential to be a frightening one. If Don Quixote were evil, if the enactment of his beliefs required murder and robbery, the discovery that we are unable to condemn his beliefs with any legitimate judgement would be teffifying. But we love Quixote, and now that he has led us to this self-discovery, we love him more. Don Quixote, the "mirror of chivalry," is also the mirror of ourselves. For without Don Quixote, we have no means of examining the certainty of our own beliefs. Without Don Quixote we are stuck in the so-called "real world," forever peering into the imaginary world, ai1d separated from it by an insurmountable distance. An analysis of tl1e last adventure, in which Don Quixote attacks the image of the Virgin, reveals to the reader the almost imperceptible barriers that separate the imaginary world of the book from the so-called "real world" of the reader. The bar1iers only become apparent after Quixote, albeit unknowingly, indirectly trespasses into the reader's world by questioning our unexamined beliefs. His attack upon the image allows us to recognize our own participation and faith in certain images by highlighting our lack of faith in a particular one (the Virgin). Our distance from the image of the Virgin reveals our intimacy with the characters, which can only be achieved through faith in d1eir literary images. But "The Last Adventure" represents a simple, isolated case of a more complex and thorough subordination of our unconscious faith in the literary images. For in the discussion of the authorship of Don Quixote, another, more effective, and more disturbing, attempt is made to subvert our faith in the image. At the beginning of the book, in the author's prologue, Cervantes claims the title of authorship for himself, declaring in the opening line: "Idle reader, you can believe without any oath of mine that I wish this book, as the child of my brain, to be the most beautiful, the liveliest and the cleverest imaginable" (p. 27). The perfectly rational assertion that Don Quixote is Cervailtes' brain-child, which any reader would easily grant, turns out not to be so cut and dry. A few sentences later, Cervantes tells us that though he appears to be Don 5 �the author and the character may confront one another, and second, that the author may confront the reader. The author's presence in the story is a constant reminder to the reader that he is reading-that the reader's involvement with the characters is an act of faith. The author is the craftsman who has created this image. His presence within the form of his own creation undermines our faith in the story and accentuates our willingness to let this creator of images seduce us, the believers. The remainder of Book I is taken from the work of Benengeli and the discussion of authorship is dropped. But the origin of Don quixote's history has been thoroughly convoluted and demands some explanation. There is some evidence to indicate that Quixote himself is at the bottom of this endless chain of narrators. Don Quixote is aware of the necessity of a knight errant to have a personal sage who will direct and record his adventures, and states this a number of times. When Sancho dubs him Knight of the Sad Countenance · he says: Quixote's father, he is really only his step-father (p. 27). Already, before the story has even begun, the identity of the author is cast into doubt. This is a strange way to write a story, but as this subtle departure from our expectations lies somewhat inconspicuously in the prologue, the importance of this subtle departure from our assumption of authorship is easily overlooked. The question of authorship becomes unavoidable in Chapters VIII to IX, which relate the stupendous battle between Don Quixote and the Basque. At the height of their combat, Cervantes abruptly interrupts the narrative: "the unfortunate thing is that the author of this history left the battle in suspense at this critical point, with the excuse that he could find no more records of Don Quixote's exploits than those related here" (p. 74). We are forced from this statement to conclude that Cervantes is not the original author of this history. Rather, he is narrating the work of a previous author, who based his version of Don Quixote's history on certain documents and records whose origin is a complete mystery. Cervantes goes on to describe his search for the conclusion to Don Quixote's battle with the Basque, and how by chance he found it amongst a heap of old parchments in a silk merchant's shop. A tattered old book which catches his eye miraculously turns out to be the "history of Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, Arabic historian" (p. 77). Cervantes relates how he had the book translated for him by a Spanish-speaking Moor. The conclusion of the story is Cervantes' account of the translation of Benengeli' s work. Unfortunately, there are two points which further complicate the origin and veracity of Cervantes' Don quixote. The first difficulty is Cervantes' own doubt as to the veracity of the original which he expresses immediately after relating his discovery of Cide Hamete Benengeli' s history: ... the sage whose task it is to write the history of my deeds must have thought it right for me to take some title, as all knights did in olden days ... the sage I mentioned has put it into your thoughts and into your mouth to call me now The Knight of the Sad Countenance . .. (Ch. XIX, p. 147) If Don Quixote is the original author, then it is he who has put these words into Sancho Panza's mouth. Despite Sancho's wit, "Knight of the Sad Countenance" does not sound like a title that the squire we are familiar with would contrive. But, the explanation Sancho gives for the title, namely Quixote's shriveled up, pathetic appearance, does. It is not unreasonable, then, to suppose that Don Quixote might have given himself the title for another reason: his eternal longing for Dulcinea del Toboso. Don Quixote knows that, according to the books of chivalry, which form the foundation of his beliefs, his adventures should be carefully guided and recorded. Since the laws of chivalry demand it, so does Quixote's system of beliefs. It is possible to cite that Cide Hamete Benengeli is this omniscient, omnipresent sage, and he is actually referred to as "the sage Cide Hamete Benengeli" at the very beginning of Chapter XV (p. 111). But it is more likely that Quixote himself is his own sage-and that Benengeli, a liar, distorted the famous deeds of the Knight of the Sad Countenance. If this is the case, then in the original account of Don Quixote's adventures, written by Don Quixote, though Sancho may actually dub Quixote "Knight of the Sad Countenance," he is inspired to do so by Quixote's appearance rather than his love for Dulcinea. In the original work, we speculate, Sancho is perhaps slightly more informed of the laws and customs of knight errantry. But this, of course, could only be a figment of Don Quixote's imagination, which the Arabic historian Benengeli uncovers, and reveals in his own account of Don Quixote's adventures. The disastrous ramifications of this Now, if any objection can be made against the truth of the history, it can only be that its narrator was an Arab-men of that nation being ready liars, though as they are so much our enemies he might be thought rather to have fallen short of the truth rather than to have exaggerated. (Ch. IX, p. 78) The second difficulty arises in Chapter VI, but is only manifest in light of the entire discussion concerning the authorship. During the inquisition that the priest and the barber hold in Don Quixote's library, Cervantes describes how a copy of one of his own works, Galatea, is spared from the flames by the priest, who says: ''That Cervantes has been a great friend of mine for many years" (p. 62). Suddenly Cervantes and Don Quixote become contemporaries. The notion that Cervantes is the original source, the metaphorical biological origin of the hero begins to collapse. Time and priority become confused. the author finds himself in the mind of the character that was supposedly his brain-child. The reader is forced to consider two disturbing possibilities: first, the possibility that 6 hypothesis lead us to conclude that Benengeli is less of a liar than we had initially supposed. Don Quixote is well-read, and apparently not without some literary talent of his own. According to Chapter I, "often the desire seized him to take up the pen himself' (p. 32). On more than one occasion he displays the ability and inclination to write. His sonnets are found carved in trees in the Sierra Morena and he has a propensity for literary criticism. Furthermore, Don Quixote knows that, according to the laws of chivalry, as a knight errant, he is obliged to be a poet: " . .. for I would inform you Sancho, that all or most knights errant in the olden times were great troubadours and great musicians as well" (Ch. XIII, p. 185). If Don Quixote is the original author of his history, he could not have begun recording his adventures until the time of his penance in the wilderness, when he first comes into possession of Cardenio' s notebook. But it is possible that he had already begun composing his personal history in his mind. Quixote spends many of the nights awake, while the other characters, especially Sancho, are asleep: "Sleep yourself, for you were born to sleep, or do what you will. I will do what best suits my profession" (Ch XX, p.152). One of the essential requirements of Don quixote's profession as "knight errant" is chastity, which, in this story, is the equivalent of being a poet. Throughout Book I of Don Quixote, Cervantes devotes special attention to distinguishing the literate characters from the illiterate. But this peculiar detail is discussed only in connection with certain characters---characters that must be recognized as lovers, or distinguished as non-lovers. The first time this distinction is made is in Chapter X, when Don Quixote and Sancho Panza discuss the laws of chivalry. This discussion exemplifies the author's treatment of lovers and non-lovers, literate and non-literate. Don Quixote, as we already know, is the most well read character in the book. On the other hand, we might asswne that Sancho, as a peasant, is illiterate. At first this distinction between the knight and his squire hardly seems to matter. In fact, however, it does. For in their conversation in Chapter X, Quixote repeatedly insists that if Sancho had read the "histories" he would know the practices of knights errant. Sancho insists that he can neither read nor write. The emphasis put on the respective literacy of knight and squire gains added significance from the interpretation of the pair as lover and non-lover. Quixote is clearly the most ardent of all the lovers in the book because he alone is capable of passionate faith in the image of Dulcinea del Toboso, a woman whose noble qualities he invents despite all appearances to the contrary. Dulcinea is nothing more than an image of the ideal maiden who holds a knight errant's heart captive. None of the other characters can claim such zealous, unceasing love in such a distant, ungrounded idea. Quixote's passion for Dulcinea finds expression in poetry, a highly developed form of literacy. By contrast, Sancho, an illiterate laborer, though he loves his wife, daughter, and ass, is not capable of the faith, devotion, and complete selflessness that is required of a lover. Sancho is capable of loving only what is physically real. It is impossible for him to place his faith in Dulcinea, giants, or any other characters which people the world of knight errantry. It is evident from their many conversations that Sancho, because he is utterly ignorant of the laws of chivalry, has no concept of being a lover. 111is connection is made clear in Don Quixote's tirade on him in Chapter XXX: ... excommunicate rogue! For that you certainly are, for defaming the peerless Dulcinea. Do not you know , you clod, you ignominious vagabond, that but for the power she infuses in my arm I should not have the strength to kill a flea? Tell me you viper-tongued villain, who do you think has conquered this kingdom and cut this giant's head off-if it is not the might of Dulcinea, employing my arm as the instrument of her exploits? She fights and conquers through me, and I live and breathe and have my life and being in her. (p. 264) The connection between love and literacy is not accidental. Immediately following Chapter X, Don Quixote and Sancho meet a group of shepherds, with whom they spend the night. One of the shepherds entertains them that evening with a song which he sings for them; naturally, it is a love song. This shepherd, according to his comrades "is a very clever lad and very much in love; and, what is more, he can read and write, and plays the fiddle as beautifully as can be" (Ch. XI, p. 87). Again, love and literacy appear in relation to one another. Shepherds seem to attract love-sick literates, for no sooner has this shepherd finished his song than another arrives to tell them of the death of Chrysostom, whose funeral Don Quixote and Sancho attend the next day along with the other shepherds. Chrysostom is yet another shepherd-student whose fierce love of Marcela, the beautiful shepherdess, has consumed his very life. Chrysostom is a poet as well as a fervent lover, he "was a great one for making verses , and was so good at them that he used to write carols for Christmas Eve and the plays for Corpus Christi" (Ch. XII, p. 92). The story of Chrysostom provides us with the beginnings of an explanation to the apparently invariable little between lovers and poets. At the shepherd's funeral, one of his comrades reads aloud one of Chrysostom's poems, in which he complains "of jealousy, suspicions, and neglect" (Ch. XIV, p. 107). But one of his fellow shepherds claims that Chrysostom "was tormented by imaginary jealousies and suspicions, as fearful as if they were real" (Ch. XIV, p. 107). It appears that imagination is somehow necessary to the experience of becoming a lover. Returning to our paradigm of lover and non-lover, we find in Don Quixote an unnaturally powerful imagination and hardly any at all in Sancho. Imagination seems to depend on literacy, because reading and being seduced or enchanted by a literary image require imagination. 7 �In order for the reader to give life to the dormant ideas and lifeless words that fill the page, he must exercise his imagination. He must transform the static images of the words and sentences into living motion. Don Quixote, the most voracious reader in the novel, has exercised his imagination to the point where it no longer depends upon the literary image. His imagination is no longer constrained to roam the pages of books and corridors of the mind, but has broken its fetters and lives independently of the books. But his imagination remembers its origins, and occasionally frequents its old haunts for renewed inspiration. When Don Quixote serves his penance in the Sierra Morena, he debates with himself over what route his penance should take, and which knight errant's example he should follow . Quixote's debate over whether "to imitate Roland's downright madness or Amadis' melancholy moods" (Ch. XXVI, p. 214) depends on how Dulcinea has injured him. But it is uncertain if Quixote has ever seen Dulcinea del Toboso, and it is certain that she is totally unaware of his existence, so that Don Quixote's injury, and thus his extravagant penance, like Chrysostom's, are completely dependent upon his imagination. Furthermore, since the entire notion of retiring to the wilderness to serve this penance is inspired by the fictitious histories of the knights of old, it is also dependent upon literature. Sancho, on the other hand, has no imagination at all. while his master gallivants around the meadows, carving poems into the trees, the dutiful squire sets off to Toboso with a letter for Dulcinea that describes the knight's afflicted heart. Sancho, of course, never gets to Toboso because he is intercepted by the barber and the priest. The three men set about concocting a plan to retrieve Don Quixote from the mountains, and return him to his home, where his madness might be cured. Later in the story, when Don Quixote asks his squire about his mission to Toboso, Sancho is unable to describe Dulcinea, whom he can only imagine as Aldonza Lorenzo, in terms of ordinary, peasant activities. Sancho describes Dulcinea, winnowing wheat, smelling "rather mannish," and, moreover, unable to read Don Quixote's letter because she is illiterate (Ch. XXXI, p. 268). The imagination and literacy are inextricably connected. Sancho, an illiterate, has an utterly weak imagination. The ability to become a lover also depends on the imagination. As Quixote says: Dulcinea, an image, is very real. Quixote's love for Dulcinea follows from the rules of chivalry: Quixote is a lover because he must be; his profession demands it. As Cervantes relates: Now that his armor was clean, his helmet made into a complete head-piece, a name found for his horse, and he confirmed in his new title, it struck him that there was only one more thing to do: to find a lady to be enamored of. For a knight errant without a lady is like a tree without leaves or fruit and a body without a soul. (Ch. I, p. 34) Dulcinea del Toboso is part of the larger scheme of his faith in a system of beliefs which he finds irresistible. Since being enamored is such an integral aspect of knight errantry, one can make the claim that Dulcinea is not merely incidental; rather, that Don Quixote's priorities really lie in becoming a lover. Whatever the relation between lover and knight errant (perhaps they are ultimately equivalent), as a lover, Don Quixote is in love with love, and not Dulcinea. In this sense, the relationship between love and imagination essentially signifies faith in a system of beliefs. Don Quixote's system, like Chrysostom's, requires that he be injured by his lover (inadvertently or intentionally). And like the beliefs held by Cardenio, another great lover-poet, Quixote's love requires a temporary suspension of reason. When we speak of Don Quixote as a lover, we mean a lover of ideas: " ... and so, carried away by the strange pleasure he derived from these agreeable thoughts, he hastened to translate his desires into action" (Ch. I, p. 33). The two stories that are told in the inn confirm the connection between lovers and their imaginations. "The Tale of Foolish Curiosity" illustrates the disastrous effects of unhealthy imagination, and a general lack of faith in the imagination when combined with passionate love. "The Captive's Tale" exemplifies a healthy imagination, and the faith that is rightly placed in it. Accordingly, its characters find love, happiness, and good fortune. In "The Tale of Foolish Curiosity," the characters demonstrate the dependence of love on faith in imagination, and the tragedy that results from warped imaginations in would-be lovers. Anselmo wants to prove that Camilla's faith is that than which no greater can be conceived. It is not enough to believe that his wife is the most faithful, circumspect, and modest woman in the world; he must prove it empirically. His fanatical insistence upon a demonstration of Camilla's virtue and dedication renders Anselmo incapable of being a real lover. His friend, Lothario.tries to persuade him against his foolish enterprise: Most of [the poets' mistresses] were invented to serve as subjects for verses, and so that the poets might be taken for lovers, or men capable of being so... I imagine all I say to be true; neither more nor less, and in my imagination I draw her as I would have her be, both her beauty and her rank... (Ch. XXV, p. 210) You seem to me, Anselmo, to be in the position of Moors, who cannot be convinced in the error of their sect by quotations from the Holy Scripture, nor by arguments drawn from intellectual speculation or based on the canons of faith, but have to have examples, Don Quixote's love of Dulcinea is possible only because of his faith in his imagination. But although her "beauty and her rank" may be subject to Quixote's imagination, his love of 8 palpable, simple, intelligible, demonstrable, and indubitable, with irrefutable mathematical proof like: If equals be taken from equals ... (Ch. XXXID, p. 287) taken place at the inn, the captive's story is not only incredible, but continues in the audiences' own lives, leaking out of the past into the present; from the world of the story into their own. The captive, Ruiz de Viedma, and his Moorish bride, Zoraida, both have faith in their imaginations. Ruiz's imagination contrives that attached to a beautiful white hand is a beautiful woman who will be his deliverance and his bride. He also imagines the renegade to be an honest man who does not double-cross him. Zoraida imagines that the captive is a gentleman who will take her to Christian soil, have her baptized and marry her. But all of Zoraida's imaginings depend upon her faith in her visions: Anselmo's lack of faith in his imagination render him incapable of loving, just as the Moors' disbelief in the scriptures render them incapable of Christian love. Love, as we have witnessed in Don Quixote, requires the lover to imagine and truly believe in the beloved. Since Anselmo has become obsessed with obtaining proof of his beloved's fidelity, Camilla is incapable of being truly beloved. She no longer moves Anselmo to believe what can only be accepted as a matter of faith. Just as Anselmo is incapable of loving, he is incapable of friendship. For, like his supposed love for Camilla, the great friendship he once shared with Lothaiio depends upon trust and faith. Anselmo refuses to take sincerely honest and solli1d advice his friend offers him, because it would require him to believe in "intellectual speculation." Even when Lothario finally yields to Anselmo's pleading and promises to attempt to seduce Camilla, Anselmo does not even believe his friend's word, but spies on him through the keyhole. But Anselmo is not entirely without imagination; he is merely incapable of placing ai1y faith in it. Unfortunately, the imagination he does possess is unhealthy. The fact that Anselmo derives so much pleasure from pushing his scheme as far as it will go, suggests that he needs to live vicariously through his f1i end. Even when Anselmo claims to be satisfied with Lothario's attempts to seduce Camilla, he has him write love sonnets to an imaginary lover, and then read them in front of her. It seems Anselmo's perverse imagination has already decided that Camilla is unfaithful and will allow herself to be seduced by Lot11ario. But Anselmo's lack of faith in his imagination is so weak that he must convince his friend to enact it for him under the pretense of demonstrating Camilla's modesty. Eventually Lothario and Camilla use Anselmo's weakness to their own advantage and enact the tragic scene with the dagger in order to hide their affair. Undoubtedly, within the context of the novel, a character like Anselmo would be despised, and destined for ruin. It is important to observe the reactions of the characters who listen to "The Tale of Foolish Curiosity" When I was a girl my father had a woman slave, who taught me the Christian prayers in my own tongue, and spoke to me often about Lela Marien. This Christian died, and I know that she did not go to the fire but to Allah. For I saw her twice afterwards, and she told me to go to Christian lands and see Lela Marien, who loved me very much. I do not know how to go. I have seen many Christians out of this window, but none of them except you has seemed a gentleman. (Ch. XL, p. 358) The story of the captive and Zoraida is received quite differently than "The Tale of Foolish Curiosity,'' which is almost completely rejected by its audience. The only comment is the priest's brief critique of the latter tale concerning its plausibility. There is no further discussion because there is no sympathy or love for the chai·acters. Zoraida and the captive, however, are exalted by t11e audience: ... Cardenio and all the others offered him their utmost services, in such warm and sincere language that the captain was thoroughly convinced of their goodwill. Don Ferdinand, in particular, offered to make his brother the Marquis stand godfather at Zoraida's baptism if he would return with him, and himself to provide enough money to appear in his country with suitable dignity and decency. (Ch. XLII, p. 381) Their story is marveled over and the women in the group delight in Zoraida's beauty. this scene is entirely charming, while "The Tale of Foolish Cwiosity" evokes nothing but disdain. The fact that two stories whose treatment of the imagination is the same, but whose endings are almost exactly opposite, are told before the very same audience and elicit opposite reactions, demands that we consider the relation of the reader as part of the audience to the story. This question returns us to the discussion of the aut110rship and the consequences of the attack upon the image. The mysterious treatment of the authorship of Don Quixote confuses the relation of the chai·acters to authors. Cervantes, Benengeli, and Quixote all act both as authors of the story and characters within it. Don Quixote is a narration of a narration of Don Quixote's own writings. Since Cervantes is trapped I like the tale, said the priest, but there is something unconvincing about it. If the author invented it he did it badly, for it is impossible to believe that there could be a husband so stupid as to want to make the costly experiment Anselmo did. If it were the case of the lover and his mistress it might pass; but between husband and wife there is something impossible about it. Though for the manner of its telling, that does not displease me at all. (Ch. XXXV, p. 324) But "The Captive's Tale," which is equally fai1tastic, is received by the same audience with enthusiasm and belief in its credibility. On top of the already astonishing events that have 9 �n Salome and John within the consciousness of the very character he claims to have created, we are lost in a circular history that has neither beginning nor end; neither author nor characters. This labyrinth of characters and authors forces us to think about where the story really begins. In whose imagination does the story begin? Perhaps it begins in our own. Until we actually engage ourselves in the process of reading the story, it is nothing but a collection of dormant ideas. Reading those ideas activates them and our imagination breathes life into the characters, bringing motion into their movements, depth and meaning to their thoughts and feelings. When we exercise our imagination we become a little like Quixote.Just as he invests his faith in the image of Dulcinea, we put our faith in literary images. We bring the images to life in the real world of action and consequence. When we believe in the image, we translate it in our mind into this real world of action. It is possible, however, and even probable, that we will not recognize such a translation unless someone, or something, forces us to. Don Quixote, which has one, three, or no authors, demands that we attack the image of the story and thus realize our own participation in its creation. The same thing happens when authors become characters. They step into the imaginary world of the novel and thereby at once blur and clarify the boundaries between the imaginary and the real world. Faith in the imagination is the essential element to reading a story. This faith, as we have seen, is also essential to loving. Reading, then, becomes an act of love. When we read a book, we cannot be like the priest, who, by failing to observe his own reflection in Anselmo, is doomed to read as the characters love in ''The Tale of Foolish Curiosity." Instead, we must turn to the captive and Zoraida as our models of faith. When the literary images of the book fall under attack, our faith in the imagination is questioned; our love of the characters and our willingness to believe in them is challenged. Such an experience is disturbing because we are forced to declare our loyalty to the imagination. When we read, the imaginary and real worlds blend together, but when that delicate balance is disturbed, the reader must make a choice between the two. Unless we close the book, we choose to put our faith in the world of the imagination. The aversion that we experience when the images are attacked lasts only as long as we allow ourselves to doubt our belief in them. When we read Don Quixote, however, we are required to rise to a higher, more complex model of faith. We must imitate Quixote himself. In addition, our faith in its images (like any other story), Don Quixote constantly challenges them and makes us conscious of our faith. As we become aware of our faith, we become aware of our kinship with Quixote: we are bound together by our faith in imagination, and our belief in images. by Panayotis Pappas '93 A dragon lifts his misty head out of the cumbersome clouds of rapture and scatters them across the dusty halls. Dance now, dance here. Sway like a swallow, with wings woven of silk, sweep through the royal chambers alight before king Herod's feet. Unfold, bend back and rise again a woman. SuITound the fires and veil their radiance; the night grows deeper in your gown's tint. And dance. Move slowly, lightly graze his hair, flow like a soul-thieving fiery breeze. What is your fee ethereal meander? John of fire loudly poking the silent ashes of Jerusalem; bring forth your charcoal eyes, restful upon this silver platter, as you soak in, and scorch, these your last visions. Leaping, twirling, crouching, writhing, within a divinely orchestrated se1mon, you rattled your tambourine of words; a fire lasting against all desert winds, tlu·ough water spreading your spirit-consuming Lord. Waiting you were for the serpent to rise out of the cumbersome clouds of rapture, and scatter your embers across the Heavens. 10 11 �Descartes' Interpretation of the World as Arising from his Method D. Jennings '93 methodological doubt. This doubt, the subject of the first The world problem is, stated simply, the consideration of how we are to interpret the world as a whole. Our answer to this problem entails an explanation of the phenomena of consciousness. For experience to be possible there must be a "coming together" of entities both in the world and in the "I." Accordingly, this coming together is conditioned by both the nature of the entities and the nature of the " I." In an analysis of philosophical works, one is rarely in the position of exposing blatant illogic or even sophistry. The ultimate point of interest in such an analysis is rather how the thinkers see the world. The presence of the world problem and the attempt to resolve it form the core of human thinking, even "everyday" thinking. The world problem according to Descartes arises in the context of his method. The essence of Descartes' philosophy is method. As early as 1620 (Descartes was only 24 years old at the time) Descartes observes that the use of "definite rules" is a fundamental part of solving mechanical problems. In the Regulae, composed eight years later, he posits method as the sine qua non of scientific and philosophical investigation. He writes in rule four, "By a 'method' I mean reliable rules that are easy to apply and such that if one follows them exactly, one will never take what is false to be true... but will gradually and constantly increase one' s knowledge (scientia) till one arrives at a true understanding of everything within one's capacity." The aim of philosophy is scientia, a systematic body of indubitable knowledge. The possibility of such a system is grounded upon method. The purpose of critiquing Descartes' method is to find the guiding principle which serves as its foundation. This foundation itself acts to reinterpret the world. The text most conducive to analysis regarding the world-problem, then, will be the one that is closest to being a "world-text,'' a text that presents the world as a problem. It is the Meditations that serves this purpose both inlrn- and extra- textually. The Meditations is not about method or physics, but rather it is an application of the method to the world problem intent upon finding what is true and un true in experience. Through the Meditations the resolution of the world problem is presented extra-textually to the world. Thus Descartes sees fi t to dedicate his book to the " doctors of the Sorbonne" as judges. The Cartesian resolution of the world problem, one that is to a certain exten t our own, arises within the course of the Meditations. This resolution is itself at the core of the method. The first step in the method is the implementation of 12 Meditation, is the radical leveling of past opinions. The purpose is to destroy what came before in the guise of scientia and to startover"from the foundation s" to build a true scientia that is "stable and likely to last." The leveling is not conducted in regard to the viability of independent acts of thinking, but rather it throws out old opinions on the force of the doubtfulness of their common foundations as a scientia. Cognitions ("cagnitianes") as Descartes names acts of thinking, are themselves internally unaffected, meaning Descartes does not question what a thought is or what value it has independently of its place in the overall scheme of the scientia. Descartes lays the ground for truthfulness-"is this indeed the case?"in principle distinct from considerations of the qualities internal to the cognition in question. As a result, Descartes asks two questions concerning entities that the mind takes under consideration. He asks what an entity is (quid) and whether it is (quad). These two questions are always distinct. The quid question concerns the internal aspects of the cognitions formed with respect to entities under consideration. The quad question, on the other hand, concerns whether or not the cognitions concerning an entity fall within the larger scientia. If they do then we can admit that (quad) the entity truly exists. Descartes' application of the method not only reveals the quid/quad distinction, but it also shows that the quid precedes the quod in the proper methodological order of inquiry. In the methodological exercise with a piece of wax in the second Meditation, Descartes takes up the wax and investigates its quid while its quod is still under the effect of leveling doubt. This procedure consists in the suspension of belief in the existence of some thing under consideration. In other words, a cognition formed concerning something is investigated before that cognition is given a place in the scientia and its existence granted as true. The precedence of the quid over the quad is expressed in the Discourse on Method as the division of "difficulties" into "as many parts as possible .. . in order to resolve them better." Here the "difficulty" is the thing under consideration. The division of the difficulty into parts is an approach to the quid question. The resolution of the difficulty, a resolution that takes place after division, is the resolution of the quad question. The quid question is fundamentally an ontological one, meaning one that proposes "what the thing is" as a problem. (The quod question, on the other hand, is a factual one. Whether or not some thing exists is a matter of determining 13 �whether or not that thing can be encountered in the world.) Descartes, in the investigation of the piece of wax, present this investigation as a process of reduction to "what the wax is really made of." Already, we see that Descartes in posing the question allows the thinking subject an intimate knowledge or ontological access to the thing. This access, i.e., this ability to approach and know the thing, is extra-experiential in principle. Descartes does not even know whether or not the wax exists, but he nonetheless endeavors to find "what it is really made of." (There is a question as to how much "what a thing is really made of' provides an ontological account of the thing. The confounding of "what a thing is" with the logically distinct question of "what a thing is made of' may indeed be at the heart of Descartes' understanding of the world problem.) The thing's presence in the world is temporarily passed over to allow for a reduction of an item of experience to its real make-up. The mind reviews all the stages of appearance of the wax as it is heated by a candle. At first the wax tastes of honey, smells of flowers, is hard and cold to the touch, and so on. When this same piece of wax is put to the flame, however, the taste of honey disappears, the wax becomes soft and warm, and all of the other sensible qualities of the wax change into others. That which remains of the wax is the ontological characteristic of things in the world, namely extension. This extension, because it assumes an infinite number of manifestations, cannot be comprehended by the imagination. What Descartes calls "pure mental scrutiny" reveals the knowable aspects of the wax. The "pure mental scrutiny" provides the ontological access to the wax. The act of this "mental scrutiny" is "knowing" itself. Descartes' interpretation of knowing follows directly from the precedence of the quid question in the method. ff we do not know that a thing is then our interpretation of what it is will necessarily take on an extra-experiential character. The quod question, because it concerns matters of fact, carries with it considerations of context. Facts, because they appear in the world, occur within the context of experience. For example, if one said that there are clouds in the west today, then that person has made a statement concerning clouds within a specific temporal and spatial context. Without this context the statement makes no sense. The quid question, however, lacks any experiential context. The quid question is, in effect, a reduction of experiential data to "what things are really made of." The ontological make-up of a thing stands independently of any context. In following the method, we raise the question of what a thing is as if its quod were not apparent, even when it appears in an "everyday" manner. The smell, taste, etc. of the piece of wax suggests its quod to the everyday consciousness. Descartes' method, however, rules that this consciousness has no bearing upon any real knowledge of the wax. The richness of experience is reduced to a knowledge of extension. Because the quid of extended things has priority over the quod in the order of analysis, we will not prove that some thing in the world that is cold and has the smell of flowers as its ontological make-up exists. Instead, we will prove that what we can know, i.e., extension, exists. What we can know to exist determines what we do know to exist. This statement is a truism adopted by Descartes. What is important, however, is not the truism itself, but Descartes' sense of the word "know." Since the scope of knowledge is confined to extension, so are entities in the world. For instance, we can no longer say that there is a true, ontological foundation for, e.g., smell when smell is no longer an item of know ledge (scientia.) The precedence of the quid question over the quod question, then, entails that the entities met with in the world be of a determinate kind. Experience is predetermined by the understanding of the quid. The experience that goes beyond the bounds of the quid is seen merely as an accident of subjectivity. The resolution of the quid question regarding a thing is in effect the judgement of what holds true of the thing. The conditions of true judgement are in turn the determinate factors in the quid analysis of a thing. At the beginning of the third Meditation Descartes states the condition under which judgement is valid. He writes, "So now I seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true." A true judgement is made when the object of that judgement is seen "clearly and distinctly." But in the fourth Meditation that deals with truth and error specifically, the judgement and the will are taken as one faculty while the faculty of producing ideas provides for know ledge. The judgement will' s sole function is to recognize that something is true. This recognition is merely the recognition of a correspondence between idea and object. The faculty of judgement, then, adds no know ledge not already provided by the mind's production of ideas. Judgement itself is given the material for judgement, i.e., the idea and the object to which the idea corresponds, and simply pronounces "yes" or "no." The result of the dominion of ideas over both the quid and the quod is that the existence of an object becomes interpreted in light of the idea which corresponds to it. An object to which an unclear idea corresponds cannot be said to exist; hence, an unclear idea cannot be said to correspond to an actual given thing. A smell, for example, does not indicate a real object. The greater part of experience becomes in some sense unreal. A question remains, however, of what is meant by "clear and distinct." Descartes shows his meaning in the course of the Meditations by trying to discover an item of knowledge that is "clear and distinct" on its own. In the second Meditation he turns to the "I" as the first object of this self-evident certainty and the only object whose quod can be resolved before its quid. He achieves the certainty of the "I" by formulating a series of questions regarding what he can know with 14 certainty: "Can I know God? my body? myself?" His only the last question that Descartes can, indeed must, answer affirmatively. It is the pure subject, the "I," that is unavoidable regardless of the validity of what the "I" thinks. An "evil genius" cannot deceive the "I" as to its own existence so long as the "I" thinks. From this point Descartes turns to the quid of the "I," asking likewise what cannot be denied of it. The answer is that thinking cannot be denied the "I" regardless of whether what is thought is ever true. "I feel," "I doubt," "I think" all indicate that feeling, doubting, and thinking cannot be denied the subject and are thus of the quid of the "I." Undeniability is itself what constitutes certainty. Clarity and distinctness are to be found in the certainty of the existence of the " I" and in the certainty of the different types of thinking as constituting the quid of that "I." In the course of the rigorous subjection of the world problem to Descartes' method, the idea of the "I" is the first clear idea to arise. The argument of the existence and characteristics of the "I" show that clarity and distinctness are to be found in undeniability. What this means is that whatever is clear and distinct cannot be self-consistently denied. But hitherto we have dealt only with the metaphysical "I." Extension, on the other hand, can only be undeniably attributed to a thing under investigation if we assume beforehand that the thing is extended. We must assume that "thing" means "extended thing" if the denial of"this thing has extension" is self-contradictory. Descartes, therefore, bases his judgement of what is true of the wax upon a pre-existent notion of the true make-up of entities in the world. Descartes, in investigating the quid of the wax, rejects its mutable characteristics, those that change when the wax is heated. It is the permanent aspect of the wax for which Descartes searches. It is assumed beforehand that intelligible in order to conform to a "form of instruction." The presence of the wax is the condition of its know ability. And because knowing a thing is equivalent to knowing what a thing is, the condition that allows a thing to be known must also be a condition of its being. In other words, the presence of an entity is an ontological as well as epistemic presence. How, then, are entities present to our analysis? How are entities present in their being? Ideas under mental scrutiny must fulfill certain criteria implicit in the task of analysis. Only then can they be considered clear and distinct, considered to correspond to actual entities. The work of analysis is to start with some given entity and from there to discover its underlying principle, its ontological make-up. "To start with an entity" means to isolate the items under scrutiny as entities. Isolation is a tactic central to the method. An entity is present, in isolation, and its ontological make-up is such that it is utterly transparent before "mental scrutiny." Such transparency itself entails that an entity is answerable to the quid question. Descartes calls the special sort of entity in the world that is thus isolated and transparent a "body." According to the sixth Meditation, any body that is "intimately present" to the mind "therefore exists." For an entity in the world to qualify as existent it must be "intimately present," meaning that it must be a body in Descartes' sense. The question ofbodies-"how are we to account for these bodies in their isolation and materiality?"-is a new ontological problem, the body problem. The body problem acts as Descartes' principle of judgement concerning entities in the world. When he asks "what is true of entities in the world?" Descartes in essence asks what is true of them insofar as they are bodies, i.e., insofar as their knowable and real constitution is accounted for by the sort of "presence" that bodies have. The question of the existence of entities in the world, and of the manner in which they exist, becomes more specifically a question of bodies. According to Descartes, the world presents itself in bodies to the subject, and the subject unveils the world, finds out the truth about the world, in terms of those bodies. The world is extension, and the phenomena of things-the totality of which make up our intimate experience of the world-are phenomena of extension. The world problem is reduced to a body problem. All entities in the world are taken to be bodies, and thus all entities are required to assume the conditions of body, viz. permanence and presence. All problems of experience are thought of in terms of extension. Hence the smell of wax is ultimately explained by the motion of extended substance, while the fundamental question of that experience"what is it about my being that underlies this experience called smell?"-is left unanswered. Under the dominion of the body problem, we account for the experience of smell completely in terms of extension, the object of experience, and not in terms of the subject. The Cartesian explanation of a pleasant smell, for instance, would read as follows: "I smell something this permanent aspect indicates what the wax is "really made of" Descartes' notion of permanence as that which characterizes the ontological make-up of a thing determines his judgement of what is "clear and distinct." This determination in turn determines what is true, and thus what things really are. In judging specifically of things in the world, Descartes combines with the notion of permanence a notion of space. The result of this combination is the notion of permanence in space. This permanence in space, this "materiality," is assumed as the condition underlying the existence of things in the world. Permanence in space, or "materiality," is precisely what Descartes "discovers" in the piece of wax that allows him to ascribe extension to it as its ontological condition. The piece of wax presents another condition of its knowability, another principle of judgement. This condition is that which first presents the wax to investigation. The form of investigation, as prescribed by the second plank of Descartes' doctrine of method, is analytic. According to Descartes' second set of Replies, analysis is "the best and ttuest form of instruction." The wax must present itself in such a way that it can be analyzed. This "presence" must in turn be 15 �nature. The investigation of this relation culminates in the "real distinction between mind and body" found in the sixth Meditation. the resulting picture is the anthropology of experience. This anthropology interprets the place of the "I" in the world according to the scientia commanded by the quid of bodies. The body problem determines the interpretation of all things, including the "I," insofar as it exists in the world. According to Cartesian analysis, the "essence of material things" is shown in the illustration with the piece of wax. The existence of material things follows easily: if I perceive the existence clearly and distinctly then they do, in fact, exist. Also, I perceive clearly and distinctly that I have a body, and I perceive clearly and distinctly that this body is distinct from my mind. Hence man's position in the world, his anthropology, comes to light. The physiological body supplies the subjective constitution that allows for the "intimate presence" of bodies before the consciousness of these bodies. Hence, the body is temporally prior to the mind in the order of the apprehension of objects. The mind, however, is necessarily prior to the body in the principles of knowledge, i.e., in the foundation of a scientia. It is in the mind that the possibility of an object as knowable is established. We have already seen how the true character of a·piece of wax is revealed not through sensation or imagination but through "mental scrutiny." This scrutiny also surveys the physiological body in terms of the body problem. The fact of the body's existence only enters a survey of the world through the scientia. The physiological body is, like the wax, an "intimately present" object, even though the physiological body obviously has a special attachment to the mind that the wax does not have. The physiological body, then, is itself seen in terms of the body problem. Experience is, in tum, seen in terms of the physiological body. Descartes, the physician who in his Discourse posits medicine as the end of the scientia, clears the way for an explication of the experience of phenomena in terms of the body problem. The practice of medicine must be raised to a scientia. This transition is made possible by the method. The unclear ideas surrounding the body, and the subjective experience of the body, give way in accordance with the method to the clear ideas, and in particular, to the overreaching idea of extension. A body's "presence" becomes the startingpointforthestudy of the body. Wedonotaskwhat a smell means, nor even what a smell indicates, but rather we ask what conditions, i.e., what bodies in extension, give rise to the physiological impression called "smell." Through an investigation of imagination Descartes offers an anthropological account of the "intimate presence" of bodies. Descartes in the sixth Meditation defines the imagination as "nothing else but the application of the cognitive faculty to a body that is intimately present to [the mind.]" This "presence" is the condition that makes imagination possible. "When [the mind] imagines," writes Descartes, "it turns to- pleasing when bodies in extension emanate from one body and affect my body in such a way that it benefits." The "I" that is not a body or my body or my brain but "me," is passed over in this account. The condition of entities that gives rise to analysis is made plain, but the condition of entities, including the "I," that gives rise to the phenomenon of consciousness is passed over. The world problem, which amounts to the fundamental question behind experience, is raised from the level of consciousness to the special question of God's existence, beyond the level of consciousness. The "I" and God are both discovered through the analysis of ideas, and these ideas are assumed to stand in relation to the world from a vantage point outside of the world. God is radically separated from the world and the understanding of God is cast in terms of verification. "Is God a deceiver?" becomes Descartes' most radical formulation of the world problem. The question, however, refers directly back to the body problem-"does my assessment of bodies reveal the truth of entities in the world?" The question of whether God is a deceiver does not stem from the usurpation of the world problem by the body problem. On the contrary, it is the body problem that initially determines the formulation of the question of whether God is a deceiver. The effect is that the world is thought of in terms of body, while the "I" and God are radically separate from the world. When the world problem is resolved into the body problem, the deeper question of what kind of being underlies the consciousness of entities is left unanswered, and indeed unquestioned. It may be argued, however, that extension does serve as an account of consciousness. Consciousness, it is said, originates in the brain. The passions, for instance, are specifically accounted for by the action of the pineal gland. This account is in one sense correct, but it is not complete. The theory behind the functioning of the pineal gland may admirably account for the appearances, but it cannot account for the "I." I am not a pineal gland or a brain or any bit of extension, no matter how important they are to how I carry on in the world. Following Descartes we regress into a labyrinth of extension looking for the point at which the "I" itself enters the world, but we never find it. Only in a world ontology that includes the fundamental "I'' are the real phenomena of the world capable of explication. Indeed, the possibility of these phenomena is itself inconceivable until the "I" is fully explained. Because Descartes passes over the question of the "I" in the world, any account of experience can only be made in terms of the body problem that is in terms of action and reaction in the world of extension. The quid of bodies as determined by ideas is now the universal quid of the essential and true being of bodies. In other words, the world is extension. The result of this assertion is that the question of experience is necessarily referred to a notion of extension. Man's relation to the world becomes fundamentally physiological in 16 ward the body and looks at something in the body that confo1ms to an idea understood by the mind or perceived by the senses." It is the "something" that is "present" which the imagination surveys, and this "something" in turn "conforms" to some idea. This something, then, must be a body that conforms to some idea. Such a body, insofar as it is imagined, must in tum be in contact at some point with the physiological body. In Descartes' anthropology "a body" (corpus) and "the body" (corpus) are such closely connected terms that in some passages of the sixth Meditation it is unclear which one is intended. The physiological body seen in this light is a sort of tabulation of information about bodies that is yielded up to the imagination (as tabulator) and the pure "I" (as judge) to build the scientia. The process of tabulation is easily explained: hard bodies are impressed upon soft membranes; nerves are pulled and severed; extension affects extension. Ultimately, ideas determine the whole view. To say that bodies are intimately present can mean nothing more "anthropologically" than that their essence is accessible to the mind via the body. An intimately present body can be unclear, but it cannot escape some sort of place on the tabulation. The imagination itself is a corporeal or semi-corporeal faculty. It is conspicuously absent from Descartes' roster of purely mental faculties featured in the third Meditation. Furthermore, it is of no avail in those metaphysical matters concerning God and the "I." The imagination is strictly "an application ... to a body." According to Descartes, any body is first accessible through the imagination. When Descartes turns to the wax, he pictures it in his mind and then reduces that picture to the underlying extension. This act of picturing is imagination. Hence, we see the significance of the imagination in the quid question. This significance is especially apparent when we remember that questions about the world are ultimately questions about bodies. The concerns with God and the "I," though central to the plan of the Meditations, are themselves not part of scientia proper. Problems beyond the scope of the imagination, i.e., metaphysical problems, are special ones relating to the foundation of the scientia while the problems of the imagination, i.e., physical ones, constitute the body proper of the scientia. Although mention of the imagination appears late in the Meditations, and is not considered explicitly until the fiftl1 Meditation, this faetµty is all important in the quid analysis of physical things. The imagination is of no avail, however, in the realm of the metaphysical, and the realm of the metaphysical is itself entirely out of the world. Thus tl1e imagination determines the boundary of the material world by indicating where the physical (imaginable) ends and the metaphysical (unimaginable) begins. Descartes' anthropology of method is therefore clear: the physiological body is referred to the body problem, and the "I" is refeffed through its physiological connection to the world. Man in physicality is interpreted according to his role in the resolution of the body problem. The pure "I," the one that accords most closely not with "my body" but with what I mean by "me," is not a concern of the anthropology, but rather, is a metaphysical concern, i.e., one outside of the world. In Descartes' method, the world problem becomes the body problem while the "I" and God are radically separate from the world. The consequence of these distinctions is that Descartes passes over the fundamental questions of the ontological basis for a coming together of the "I'' and entities in the world. Descartes replaces this question with a physical interpretation of worldly phenomena and a physiological interpretation of subjective experience. The ontology of consciousness, meanwhile, is neglected and relegated to an other-worldly sphere. Descartes depicts the "l" peering from a distance upon a world of bodies, explaining the phenomena of the objects in terms of bodies. his "I" does not, however, attempt to explain its own consciousness in terms of world ontology. This description is itself implied in the method insofar as the method assumes the body problem as a principle. Do we, then, reject Cartesian methodology? A defender of Descartes would say that such a rejection would be foolish. One does not, he says, dismiss the method and its body problem on the force of a vague desire for the resolution of some world problem that may not even be expressible, useful, or even existent. The Cartesian revolution of thinking consists largely in what Descartes (in the Discourses) proposes as the replacement of the "theoretical philosophy of the schools" with "practical philosophy." In common language, we say that the Cartesian revolution is motivated by the desire to disregard the world-problem thinking of the Scholastics and replace it with the body-problem thinking of the Method. Further, says the defender, any attempt to reject Descartes' method and its conditions seems to oppose rational thought. Our response to this would-be defender is that the critique of Descartes' rationalism is not one of the contents of that enterprise, but rather is an investigation of how that rationalism directs us in an interpretation of the world. If a rejection of Cartesian methodology carries with it a rejection of the findings of that methodology applied to the world, i.e. , the findings of natural science, then such a rejection would be unwarranted. Keeping our science, however, does not necessarily entail a compete dismantling of the world problem. Instead, the meaning of our science is called into question, as is our understanding of the world. It is that understanding that is here of interest. Our ability to formulate the world problem is enough to make that problem of importance. Our inability to conclusively resolve this problem may not be of any real significance. The question in its very open-endedness, in its very lack of resolution, carries with it meaning not provided by the body problem. To raise such a question is indeed within our rights, and is, perhaps, even our duty. 17 �~ Orion outside my window U Stacie Slotnick '94 And tonight I met my guardian angel. It is not enough to be kindone must be armed (at all times). It is not enough to pleadto plead for any reason beyond the stars. Plead to them. They see you, they know you, and they may answer. Now I know this. Now I understand. He is no Beatirice. He cannot save me. But he told me to stay on guard (at all times), to aim carefully when I shoot, and to stand up very straight when Ido. ("One must never slouch," he said.) Tonight I woke up and saw Orion outside my window. He smiled at me. He straightened his belt and inquired: "How are you?" And I asked him: "You know me?" He laughed. So I asked him to show me how to shoot straight. So, I have no guardian with white wings and a gauze gown. So he does not play a harp and gaze benevolently. But he's betterbecause his arrows move quickly and his eyes gleam with cunning held in check. An Investigation of Key Characters . (and Character's Keys) in Mozart's Don Giovanni Nancy Marcus '93 Opera is a creative combination of two expressive mediums, a happy union between literature and music. When an artist has a sufficient understanding of both realms, the dramatic and the musical, he can enhance one with the other, uniting music and drama into a single unified and aesthetic whole. Such a successful marriage of mediums is made in Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni. Don Giovanni, because of its operatic form, has advantages over both non-textual music and non-musical drama, in that it can use music to expand the drama and character development of an already powerful story. Mozart's music, by itself, can easily affect the moods and emotions of those who listen to it, without providing any literal ideas to accompany its effects. The drama provided by the plot of the opera, on the other hand, contributes an abundant supply of ideas and literary themes which correspond to Mozart's musical themes. While the theme and plot of Don Giovanni's story are complemented by Mozart's music, the opera's music is most crucial to dramatic progress in the area of character development and the portrayal of the characters' emotions and personalities. In the arias and vocal ensembles of Don Giovanni, the characters express their sentiments as much though their music as through their words. Music is able to suspend and expand their emotions, resulting in a deeper empathy in the outside audience toward the characters within the drama. Even when the characters are physically absent from the stage, their presence can be sensed through the music. This transposition first occurs in the overture of Don Giovanni. In Don Giovanni's overture, the music foreshadows future conflict between the characters of the Commandant and Don Giovanni. The opening chord of the opera, a powerful, tremulous D minor chord, embodies both the characters and their conflict: The conflict between the Commandant and the Don can be felt in this solid declaration of the key of D minor, which is to become their "key of conflict" throughout the course of the opera. The Commandant's foreboding presence can also be felt in this opening chord through the oscillating octaves in the lower voice of the orchestra. The same descending D octave heard here is later heard again with added significance, and will play an important role in the finale, when the two characters are reunited for their final, most horrific scene together. The first thirty measures of the overture continue to foreshadow the future conflict between the two characters, as several key themes are played: These motifs will not be heard again until the climactic scene in the finale. Direct parallels can be found between the first eighteen measures of the overture and the first eighteen measures of the Commandant's appearance in the finale. The overture's ominous beginning loses its grim tone after thirty measures: as the mode changes to major, the tempo picks up, and the strings and woodwinds engage in a frantically playful game of tag. One such game of tag occurs with the frequently appearing phrase: Lower Voices I" 19 18 �but they are also revealed to be deceptively final by their immediate succession by the aforementioned "stalker" phrase: Whenever this phrase occurs, it is either split between two different voices that chase one another with the same musical figure or conflicts with another musical phrase. Wind s St rin gs 1 - if f1ff~1 1 fn 1 r1 1F f1 2$#F n:r, 1 4~# F which resumes the musical chase each time. These unresolved dominants might suggest that the conflict between Don Giovanni and the Commandant is not easily resolvable. The overture itself is never quite resolved. Such a lack of resolution rarely appears in the overture of an opera. The overture starts in D minor, but ends on a C major chord, not the predominant key of the overture. Instead it segues directly into the F major key of the scene immediately following the overture. The modulation from D minor to D major to C major to F major (which is the relative major, and thus an extension of D minor) is incomplete until the eventual return to D minor. This completion of the modulation culminates at the moment of the Commandant's entrance in the first scene. With the Commandant's entrance, the cycle of modulations begun in the overture is completed, the "key of conflict" (D minor) returns, and the conflict between the Commandant and Don Giovanni becomes a musical reality. In this first scene of the opera, Leporello's entrance begins the action with a bit of comic relief, called for by brooding intensity of the overture. Leporello is portrayed, both literally and musically, as a shallow character, capable of only the simplest melodies. In this first scene he seems to hopscotch around with basic intervals, revealing no ("No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!") dramatic or melodic substance. As is seen in his character throughout the opera, his simplicity shines through most brilliantly in the "Catalog Aria," a humorous depiction of Don Giovanni's amorous exploits, and also a revelation of Leporello's pathetic lack of melodic capability. But Leporello's character is not the focus of this first scene; his character is too weak to do anything more than introduce a scene. Leporello' s arietta, and the transitory key of F major with which he enters the scene, lasts only seventy measures. Don Giovanni and Dona Anna then enter the scene, bringing with them a key change to B flat major, the penultimate step of the series of modulations begun in the overture. The passionate but brief exchange between Donna Anna and Don Giovanni is the first glimpse we receive of the Don's romantic habits, and the only time we see him before his fatal confrontation with the Commandant. In this scene, we see a man and a woman engaged in a violent battle of wills: Donna Anna snuggles to unmask the man who has "attacked" her, and Don Giovanni to quiet the furious woman. Yet one hears something more than this battle in the music between the two, which may as well be a duet l e t c . 1 ~ndJ1333 I f tt U(!rrrtrrr nt t 1 This second musical conflict, one between the stem, condemning stalking motion of the descending octaves and the flightier, carefree tease of eighth notes again exemplifies the musically metaphoric representation of the Commandant (in the first phrase) and Don Giovanni (in the second). The overture is filled with images of a similar nature such as the unsettling occurrence of unresolved dominants, which may suggest another unresolved conflict that lies ahead. The first two of these unresolved dominants are especially striking, for not only do they sound like convincingly final cadences: 20 between lovers. The music here reveals a bond between Don Giovanni and Donna Anna which the libretto alone cannot elucidate, a bond which is revealed by Don Giovanni and Donna Anna' s musical distance from Leporello, the only other character present. Though all three characters sing simultaneously, Leporello is musically detached from Don Giovanni and Dona Anna. The latter two characters, oblivious to Leporello's eighth note ramblings beneath them, alternate between echoing one another's melodic phrases and singing together, rather romantically, in parallel thirds. IJonna IJon As the scene continues the two men duel and Don Giovanni mortally wounds the Commandant. An andante trio between the Commandant , Don Giovanni, and Leporello accompanies the Commandant's death. This trio further reveals the nature of the bizarre bond between Don Giovanni and the Commandant. Just as Leporello was musically detached from Donna Anna and Don Giovanni in this scene's earlier trio, he is similarly separated, musically and lyrically, from the Commandant and Don Giovanni in this later trio. A. G. Leporello's signing is typically hasty, rushing along with dotted eighth note-sixteenth note combinations beneath the slower rhythms of the Commandant and Don Giovanni, sun together at a mournful, pensive pace: Having thus introduced Don Giovanni's character to us through the characters of Donna Anna and Leporello, Mozart finally brings the Commandant onto the stage. With the Commandant's first physical entrance the D minor "key of conflict," anticipated since the overture, reappears. The fatal struggle between the Commandant and Don Giovanni that occurs in this opening scene results in the old man's death and eventually, in the Don's damnation. By killing the Commandant, Don Giovanni precipitates his own downfall; all the action in the remainder of the opera evolves from this fateful scene and brings Don Giovanni closer to his second fateful encounter with the Commandant. The first musical suggestion of this strange bond between them occms at the beginning of the battle scene, on "Misero !", the word sung by Don Giovanni to commence the duel. On " Misero" (miserable or wretched one) , aimed by Don Giovanni at the Commandant, Don Giovanni sings a descending octave on D. That musical figure, first heard in the overture, becomes the trademark address of the Commandant to Don Giovanni in the final scene between them. It is through descending octaves that the Commandant condemns Don Giovanni in the finale and it is upon the same descending D octave that Don Giovanni eventually falls to his damnation. lt is ironic, therefore, that the first time this descending D octave is heard, it is sung by Don Giovanni, and not by the Commandant. When Don Giovanni curses the Commandant with the falling D octave, he in effect curses himself, hastening his own descent into hell. The Commandant's later curse upon Don Giovanni with the same descending octave suggest that the two enemies have, like a pair of lovers , become as one. I Do n G. .. :; - I ;:: :.. ;:: r Com. l ep. ~ :.. :; -fft-· ..- 1 ~ ... - ,.. ~ ~ )" - . . ~ ~ ;;; r r == The libretto further separates Leporello from the other two characters. Don Giovanni and the Commandant's words in this scene are nearly the same. While the Commandant is singing, "I feel my life ebbing away from my throbbing breast," Don Giovanni is singing, "I see his life ebbing away from his throbbing breast." Leporello, however, is far removed from the sentiments of the other two men; he sings, "I can feel my heart pound with terror in my breast." The contrast between Leporello' s isolation from the other characters, and the intertwining of Don Giovanni ' s character and with the Commandant's is most vividly portrayed by the music in the last few measures preceding the Commandant' s 21 �aria is a fast-paced whirlwind of sensual indulgence, as Don Giovanni excitedly anticipates the party eh is to throw that evening, and all the new girls he will soon add to his list. The frenetic rhythm of this aria mirrors the restlessness in Don Giovanni's soul. While other characters, when given an aria, reflect upon themselves in a somewhat leisurely tempo, Don Giovanni is incapable of the inner stillness required for such reflection. The cause of his perpetual motion may be his unquenchable desire for pleasure. But, as Pascal might observe, it may also be seen as a desperate pursuit of distractions which might forestall the approach of any quiet moments during which he would be forced to confront the darkness within himself. Whatever the cause of Don Giovanni's restless presto pace, it contrasts greatly with the slow, deliberate pace of the Commandant, the ghost of whom, though not yet materialized, may well haunt the Don in all his actions, as the audience is haunted, unable to forget the dark, foreboding music of the overture and the first scene, despite all Giovanni's attempts at distraction. Don Giovanni's second aria, "Meta di voi qua vadano," is sung to deceive MaBetto and the other armed villagers set upon the Don's death that he is Leporello. This is an aria of deception in two respects: Don Giovanni lies to his pursuers by pretending to be Leporello, but he also lies to himself on a deeper level. Just as he sees everything else as a game, even his own destruction becomes a mater of humor to Don Giovanni, as he sings in this aria, "If you hear a man with a maid... making love beneath a window, then strike out hard." The fact that Don Giovanni takes nothing seriously, even his own life, becomes a matter of fatal consequence later in the opera. Both of these arias sung by Don Giovanni are devoid of the serious emotion which can be found in the arias of the other characters in the opera. Don Giovanni's arias, although musically adroit, are comparatively shallow in content. Don Ottavio' s "Dalla Sua Pace" is a slow, heartfelt song which concerns his love for Donna Anna. The aria's music, which wavers between major and minor, reflects Ottavio's love, a mixture of joy and suffering. Though Don Giovanni frequently sings about love, with seeming passion, he feels nothing but momentary flirtation and conquest, nothing nearly as substantial and pennanent as Don Ottavio' s love for Donna Anna. Donna Elvira's aria, "Mi tradi quell'alma ingrata," reveals not only Donna Anna's conflicting feelings for Don Giovanni, but also a profound understanding of the dangers of which he seems completely oblivious. The aria is preceded by a prayer-like recitative, in which Donna Anna accurately prophesies, "The wrath of Heaven must be at hand; its justice will not tarry. I see the deadly thunderbolt raised above his head! I see the fatal abyss open before him." Of her own feelings for the Don, she sings in the recitative, "Unhappy Elvira, what conflicting emotions strive in thy heart! Why death. Leporello is tonally static, maintaining one pitch per measure, but ascending slowly from one measure to the next: Meanwhile, Don Giovanni and the Commandant are both dying musically, singing descending chromatics: I :J= &'F D 11p I&~ ~ 1 ~ IF ' ~ F ' DIF F Veg-go l'a-ni-ma par-tir (Comm. )C ~ ~ I IC:J:&F nal l'F1le1 ~1 IE sen-------tola---n1-----ar-----t1r Di es) omm. This musical death shared by both characters emphasizes the transfonnation of Don Giovanni's curse on the Commandant to a fatal curse upon himself. Her it appears, at least musically, that by killing the Commandant, Don Giovanni kills some part of himself. Don Giovanni's tonal descent, or metaphorical "death" actually begins several measures before the Commandant's, and on the final note, Don Giovanni falls to an F, while the Commandant rises up to the same note. Though the Commandant physically dies on this note, he is not completely destroyed. His spiritual (or musical) presence lingers on through the course of the opera, and his physical presence is also resurrected at the end of the opera. The music relays the shadowy inconclusiveness of the Commandant's death in the four measures after he sings his final note. In these measures, the orchestral music continues its chromatic descent, which ends on a G major chord in its first inversion, results in a lack of resolution. In the dialogue that follows, Leporello' s comic question, "Who's dead? You or the old man?" echoes the musical confusion which characterizes the previous tragic scene. This crucial step adds an element of imbalance to the basic conflict between Don Giovanni and the Commandant, which proceeds from the questionable pennanence of the Commandant's death, and the foreshadowing of Don Giovanni's own self-propelled destruction, which has yet to be actualized. Don Giovanni's self-destructive nature is variously shown throughout the rest of the opera. Although Don Giovanni is the central figure in this opera, present in almost every scene, he is rarely seen alone with his thoughts. He has only two arias, both of which he sings for the entertainment or mockery of those around him; in both he reveals neither serious emotion nor introspection. The first one of his arias is the presto "Finch 'han dal vino calda la testa," better known as the "Champagne Aria." The 22 these sighs? Why this distress?" Her emotions, wavering between selfish hurt at his injustice toward her and selfless pity for his soul, are echoed in the music, which alternates between her sighs of pity- Even the threat from the apparition of his mortal enemy fails lo shake Don Giovanni's casual attitude; the statue's warning is to him just one more challenge in the game of life. As this scene concludes with Leporello' s aria, which Don Giovanni forces him to sing, in order to invite the statue to dinner, Don Giovanni's path to his inevitable damnation in the finale approaches its fatal end. Undaunted, Don Giovanni opens the finale in a spritely D major key, feasting and drinking in preparation for a dinner guest from Hell. Don Giovanni's humor is contagious; even Mozart cannot resist making fun of himself with a musical pun. and her angry cries to God about the wretchedness Don Giovanni has brought upon her. 1 Leporello That's a song ,.,~rchestr:a 0 Dio! mi fa, (theme from Moz11r~'s Figaro) , infelice I r o· r r r r 1 0 Dio! 1 etc. The sighs outweigh the angry outbursts in this aria, and Donna Elvira remains the one character, apart from the Commandant, concerned for the salvation of Don Giovanni's soul. It is appropriate that this aria is immediately followed by the "statue scene." The "statue scene" (Act II, Scene XII) again displays Don Giovanni's flippant attitude towards death. In this scene, his extreme tendency to laugh at everything, coupled with his inability to fear his soul (as Donna Elvira does for him in her aria), leads him to literally invite the form of his own damnation to dinner. This scene begins with Don Giovanni's laughter, which resounds throughout his duet withLeporello, as he recounts the trouble he's made, and the girls he's recently encountered. Leporello,w ho in earlier scenes occasionally expresses mild disapproval of his master's lifestyle, becomes truly offended in this scene, when Don Giovanni relates an amorous exploit he had with one of Leporello's own love interests. Under the shadow of the Commandant's moonlit statue, Leporello demands of Don Giovanni, "Supposing she had been my wife?" and then Don Giovanni callously laughs in response, "Better still!" At this moment, the statue of the Commandant comes to life, supported by the forceful harmony of a brass ensemble, and sings a warning to Don Giovanni: "Your jest will turn to woe ere it is morning!" The playful mood of the scene's opening is broken as Donna Elvira rushes in with one last attempt to convince Don Giovanni to change his ways. Don Giovanni's response is typically mocking, and Donna Elvira finally surrenders her hope for him, singing, "Monster! Then remain a horrible example in the stinking pit of your iniquity!" She sings this denunciation on a descending octave, the same musical figure (though in a different key) with which Don Giovanni curses the Commandant in the first scene, and which the Commandant repeats as he enters in the final scene. 23 �The orchestra ushers the Commandant's ghost to the stage with two dissonant chords of thunder, which the Commandant resolves into D minor in his address to Don Giovanni: Lepore/lo ~I Ort i w Ah! I 2: ~ uJ ron! ) With his entrance, the Commandant brings about a complete key change to D minor, the "key of conflict," sobering the tone from the relative F major that preceded his entrance. This entrance, as foreshadowed in the overture, begins the culmination of the conflict between the Commandant and Don Giovanni. The struggle between the characters in these first eighteen measures of the Commandant's entrance, which parallel the first eighteen measures of the overture, is depicted in their music more forcefully than in their words. The Commandant's forceful, regular rhythms and condemning descending octaves are engaged in a musical battle against the more agitated, syncopated rhythms shared by Don Giovanni and Leporello, which are confined to a span of five pitches , as if to escape the fearful octaves sung by the Commandant. The orchestra supports the Commandant with the rhythmic phrase, 1 @~ Ah! Padron! Pad- 'Ah! ~Padron! ~ Siam tutti ~~ ~ ~ q;§rn§mdn The source of the agitation which the two display musically differs in each of the two men. Don Giovanni is not (at least externally) afraid; he is rather beside himself with the excitement of playing host to such a tremendous dinner guest, singing in response to the Commandant's appearance, "Truly, I did not believe it, but I'll do what I can. Leporello, serve the table for my guest-bring another platter!" The source of LeporeHo's agitation, however, is his understandably extreme fear, which separates him from his master, and reveals him to be the wiser of the two. Voicing the fear which Don Giovanni mocks, Leporello exclaims, "Ah, master. ..we are all dead men!" Don Giovanni, having no patience for the cowardice of his servant, rebukes Leporello, singing, "Go, I say!" Vanne d1co in his address to Don Giovanni, and throughout the scene. The dotted rhythms beneath the Commandant emphasize the downbeats of his phrases, and further reinforce the adamance of his weighty half notes. The orchestral music which accompanies Don Giovanni andLeporello, is, in contrast, rhythmically syncopated, stressing the agitated response to the Commandant's appearance: Ferma un po' T (stay) In this brief moment of rebuke, Don Giovanni loses control, taking on that same musical phrase with which the Commandant addresses him upon his arrival. The Commandant does not miss the irony of Don Giovanni's unintentional musical slip; he repeats the descending D octave back to Don Giovanni, reclaiming his authority, and reversing Don Giovanni's order to Leporello: /Jon Giovanni 12=~ , p· ~ Vanne, 24 t This demanding invitation results in a musical struggle between the ghost's octaves and Don Giovanni's rising fornths, which, in conjunction, add up to the musical figure, The final musical battle of wills between the Commandant and Don Giovanni having now commenced, the ghost of the Commandant begins to explain his purpose in coming to dinner: "Earthly food he no longer desireth, who of heavenly food hath partaken! Another purpose more grave than this, another mission, brought me here." The orchestra's music accompanying this ominous statement is a powerful succession of chromatically rising scales, each one bringing increasing tension to the scene, while the Commandant's voice, unmoved by the turbulence he creates beneath him, remains stolid in his slow, deliberate composure of constant half notes and minimal tonal movement. I affectionately dub this the "tragic hero motif," for contained within it is the triumphant fourth representing the hero, and the falling octave which symbolizes his downfall. It is with this musical figure that the Commandant addresses Don Giovanni upon entering the finale, and with the same musical motif Don Giovanni finally falls to his damnation. In the musical struggle here presented, the motif is split between the descending octaves just heard in the Commandant's invitation and the rising fourths in Don Giovanni's proud, heroic-sounding response: m r 1r r ~ ) 14tj'gpl ~ QIJj J@1@j~!ij I Commandant Al-tre gra- pi~ cu-re, vi di que- . , ii 111J mpd I th n filste pD Dlq! rn p Irln p I A torto di viltate tacciato mai sa- The musical battle continues as the Commandant's deliberate rhythms and monotonic speech oppose the other two characters' agitated inte1Tuptions. WhileLeporello's interruptions fear, Don Giovanni's become bursts of increasing impatience with the presumption of his dinner guest. Don Giovanni's impatience soon begins to mirror the Commandant's own impatience; the speech of the two characters becomes increasingly similar, leaving poor Leporello behind in his trembling triplets. Don Giovanni continually repeats, "Parla, parla, ascoltando ti sto," ("Speak then, I am listening.") and the Commandant similarly repeats, "parlo, ascolta, piu tempo non ho,"(" speak, listen, my time is short.") The climactic moment of the finale begins when the Commandant sings his most forceful speech, a speech abundant with descending octaves, as he demands that Don Giovanni accept a reciprocal dinner invitation to Hell. The commandant responds to Don Giovanni's rising fourths with minor tenths, which suggest an even more demanding imperative than does the octave. In response to the Commandant's last question ("You'll come?"), Don Giovanni attempts a final musical moment of triumph, grandly singing, "My heart is firm within me, I have no fear, I'll come," before he takes the Commandant's hand. This moment of glory is short-lived; as soon as he takes the hand of the Commandant, he cries out in horror: him~! p I His fourth, no longer heroic, has become diminished! 111is is the first sign of a strange musical transition that begins to occur between Don Giovanni and the Commandant as they stand, bonded together by a deadly handshake. The di co 25 �by singing the pitch a mere halfstep below the tonic, a C#. In response to this near realization of the tonic, the Commandant sings, "Si! Si!" on an A and an F, which forms the top part of a D minor triad. Don Giovanni's completion of this triad is almost inevitable. Don Giovanni cannot, indeed, avoid singing the Don his next "No!", but he does so with a horrible scream an octave above the expected D, and without any verbal repentance. Though he tries to escape the D he is forced to sing by succeeding it immediately with an A, it is too late. He has sealed his doom by singing the tonic, as the Commandant makes clear, singing, "Ahl Your time has now come!" The Commandant ends this damning proclamation with a clear return to D minor, accompanied by the fires of hell and a chorus of demons, who sing, "No doom is too great for your sins! Worse torments await you below!" After bringing the hellfire and demons to the stage, and reintroducing the key of D minor, the Commandant departs the action of the opera. His purpose fulfilled, he leaves Don Giovanni surrounded by infernal wrath, the fires of Hell lapping hungrily at his soul. Don Giovanni finally confronts the darkness which surrounds him as he sings, "My soul is torn in agony, my body is in torture! What torment! What madness! Ah! What hell! What terror!" Just before the flames engulf Don Giovanni, bringing a most horrifying end to his earthly existence, he sings: Commandant, no longer accompanied by the dotted rhythms of the orchestra, loses the rhythmic regularity he possessed up until this point, and instead sings with the same rhythmic figures as Don Giovanni. The effect of this musical change is the Commandant is that he seems to take on some of Don Giovanni's agitation, losing his statuesque composure. The orchestra's tremulous forte music is also agitated in this incredible moment which embodies the musical suggestion made earlier in the opera of a bond between Don Giovanni and the Commandant. For the first time, Don Giovanni grows fearful, losing his ability to control the moment at hand, capable only of singing "No!" to each "Yes" sung by the Commandant.; the struggle between them becomes more fierce even as they become more unified musically. In this struggle for Don Giovanni's soul, during which the Commandant actually tries to save Don Giovanni by allowing him a last chance for repentance, the music metaphorically illustrates the conflict between them and the conflict between the characters' cries and the tonic D of the D minor key, the "key of conflict." Each of the Commandant's cries "Si" points diatonically to a resolution on D, the tonic, but each of Don Giovanni's "No" sidesteps the admittance of the resolving D. But each time he refuses to sing the D that the Commandant demands of him, he does so by an increasingly narrow margin. ....0... Ah! l -n~! This solid cadence concludes the saga of Don Giovanni in D major, not minor. This big change in no way mitigates the finality of his demise, but rather restores to the world the joy that Don Giovanni's existence detracted from it. The happy ending is further celebrated in the scene that follows Don Giovanni's fall. In the last scene of the opera, all the remaining essential characters come together to sing about living (more or less) happily ever after. While this opera might appear to some to be primarily about Don Giovanni's romantic adventures, I would argue that it is instead an opera about the conflict within a man who has no conscience. The conflict that occurs within Giovanni's soul may be metaphorically represented by his conflict with the Commandant. As the music reveals, in killing the Commandant, Don Giovanni kills a part of himself. It may well be that in the battle between them, Giovanni murders his own conscience. In some obscure part of his soul, Don Giovanni's conscience lingers on throughout the action of the opera, though as embodied by the Commandant, it is not physically present. Eventually, Don Giovanni is compelled to confront this part of himself one last time, hoping to destroy it completely (or, at least, to get it drunk). But the Commandant, the embodiment of his conscience, can never be destroyed, for he (it) is as much a part of Don Giovanni as the music he makes. Unwilling to part with his libertine lifestyle and unable to completely destroy his conscience, Don Giovanni can only destroy himself, and join his conscience-the Commandant-in Hell. It is highly significant that Don Giovanni's character falls to its damnation on this musical figure, the earlier mentioned "tragic hero motif;" this is the only time Don Giovanni embraces this phrase in reference to himself. There can hardly be any doubt that in this moment, when Don Giovanni sings the damning D octave, surrounded by the fires of Hell, his end is conclusive. Unlike the inconclusiveness of the music that follows the Commandant's death, the orchestra's cadence at the end of Don Giovanni's scene is deliberate and final. The first "Si" that the Commandant sings in on a C, in response to the B natural of Don Giovanni's "No" that precedes it. The natural response to this progression from B to C is the next successive pitch, the tonic D, but Don Giovanni avoids that resolution; his next "No" is on an F#. This F# is, however, closer to the impending tonic that the B natural of his earlier "No." The Commandant then proceeds to edge Don Giovanni even closer to D with his next "Si" which falls on a G, but again Don Giovanni sidesteps an easy resolution on D Music typesetting by John Allanbrook. 26 27 �~ The Reeve' s Tale by Geoffry Chaucer Lines 321-375 translated from Middle English and paraphrased in Native Rural Texan Kathleen Wilson GI '93 Up at Ingram, up the road from Kerrville at the Quinlan Creek crossing there's a low-water bridge. Back from the road a piece, right where the bridge runs by a thick cedar brake, there's a saw mill for cedar choppers, still work.in'. Now this is the truth of it. There was a ole chopper operatin' it years ago. May still be there. He was a big old boy, prouder of hisself than any chopper around those paits. Strutted like a fanned-out peacock, could bring down a deer with a bow and arrow on a foggy morning after a beer bust. Never got too drunk to fish , either, and wrastled for the joy of it. He was always decked out with knives. He'd stick one in his belt, one in a scabbard on the belt, and a ole Sheffield knife down in his sock. Them knives was honed sharp e,1ery day, ready for him to use. Didn't nobody mess with this chopper who didn't want to die. His face was big ai·ound as a big moon pie, with his nose flat in the middle of it. He was bald as a gorilla besides, and brought hisself into town pretty regular, swaggering and blustery. Didn't nobody want a thing to do with him, what with his being such a nuisance and mean to boot. People pretty much stayed clear of him, as they didn't want him toting a grudge against them. The truth of it is, he was nothing but a slick thief, and could cheat a rancher in a cedar deal by just looking and acting as dumb as any other old chopper. He was a sly one, all tight. He was used to turning a living that way. He was called Scornful Simon, and didn' t tolerate any foolishness about his name. Which everybody knowed, so Simon it was. When Simon got hisself a wife, it was a girl in the town. Her momma considered her fine , and she thought so herself. Even the preacher from the Holiness Church, who was the best preacher that Holiness crowd had seen in a coon's age, took an interest in helping the girl, sending her to the Holiness school on scholarship and such, and the family was proud about it., The fact of it was that the girl took her looks from the Holiness preacher. Which everybody knowed. Simon was a fine one for her. He had high aspirations that way; ai1d since it was time for her to get mai-ried and he was there and willing, the Holiness Church had a shower at the preacher's urging, and loaded her up with pot-, and pans and whatall, as a little enticement to get the wedding done. So Simon got hisself a suitable wife for a third-generation chopper, and a virgin to boot, what with the Holiness crowd watching out after her all that time. That girl was a cheeky thing, brazen as a jaybird, and she detennined to have a show of it. At the Holiness Church revivals, of which there was a few more than would suit most 28 folk, Simon marched right down to the front row of folding chairs under the tent, wearing a custom-creased Stetson. She was right behind, decked out in polyester chiffon, red of some kind as it was her color, al ways matched to the feather trim in Simon's hatband. Which everybody knowed was show, as snakeskin is enough for a hatband and a feather is painting the lily. It was "Yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am" to the two of them when they got with that Holiness crowd. The men of the church was a cautious lot around that pair. Nobody looked twice, passed the hymn book special, or talked over the goings-on with Miz Simon for her chopper was a jealous man, and he come prepared to exact a price from any who got out of line, what with his knives tucked around him. He was a dangerous man when his jealousy was roused. And even if he wasn't everybody thought he was. Which Miz Simon knowed, and was careful about it. She kept her nose in the air anyway. She was a stink with pride, bad as water in a ditch. She knowed who she was, special and all, with her special looks and special education. So she scorned 'most everybody in the town and in the Holiness Church. She was superior-like. That pair got themselves a daughter, and when she was about 20 there came another one, a fine looking boy laying in its cradle. the girl was a chubby one, with glass-grey eyes, fine pretty hair, but Simon's same flat nose parked in the middle of her face. She was a big-boned girl, and had a behind any quarter horse would take pride in, and a bodacious set of ta-ta's. As some people say. And that was the family. The Holiness preacher, who put much stock in family values, took a constant interest in Simon's girl, though he did it quiet-like. He intended to leave her all his worldly possessions since he had no offspring of a legitimate nature, and since he was interested in matching her up with someone of a like ancestry he wanted her undefiled. After all, his worldly possessions come from the Holiness Church, whether direct from salary or from more round-about ways, and he intended for his own blood (which would be considered holy if the Holiness Church ever inclined to think that way, which they wasn't as it was idolatrous) to be rewarded no matter how bad he had to bleed his congregation. Getting back to Simon and his business sense, he was shrewd about taking in juniper logs for fence posts, or sweet cedar for milling. He charged a heavy toll per load, but what was brought in at one end of the mill for preparing and selling was not always what come out at the other. Now one of his best customers was the college in town, which owned considerable land and which also was devoted to the education and 29 �where Simon strips the cedar logs. I don't know one thing about the lumber business. I believe I'll just st.and here and watch." Alan allowed as how that was such a good idea that he'd just stand at the foot of the mill and watch the sweet cedar come through as Simon sawed it into fine two by fours. Simon just smiled, and his brain was a-spinnin'. "So they want a honest deal," he thought to hisself. "I guess they got it all worked out in their college-educated brains. Well, I ain't the learned sort, but my mama didn't raise no fool. Let 'em try to keep a eye on me. Those two are going to haul h?me twisted-up juniper that wouldn't make a fence post and milled wood that ain't fit for nothin' but to fuel a fire. Simon was out the door fast as a hog on ice. He headed straight for the horse and wagon. He sidled up to that horse friendly-like, unhitched it, and eased off the bridle. He give it a little slap on the behind for encouragement, and off it run. Didn't take long for that horse to figger out they was. a herd of wild mares nearby. Bein' the horse of preachers, he had the appetites of preachers, and headed right toward 'em a mile a minute. The chopper headed back inside to his sawmill and did his jobs as good as he'd ever done, with Alan and John awatchin'. When the posts was bound together,and the lumber stacked John headed out to get the wagon, and he was pretty pleased with hisself. That is, until he saw he'd lost his horse and was well nigh stranded in the cedar brake. It was not a desirable place to be stranded, which everybody knowed. "Lord help us, Alan," he hollered. "We've gone and lost the horse! Get out here quick! We're done for!" "What? Lost? We got to find him! Which way was he headed?" Alan yelled. He ran outside and didn't think no more about the sorry enterprises of old Simon and how he was going to prevent 'em from occurring. "Where's our horse?" he wailed. Those fine ways of talkin' went out the window, and they both commenced to hopping up and down, they was so distressed. Out come Simon's fine wife, looking mournful and holding the bridle and reins. "Your horse has done gone past the cedar break and into the clearing. He's found the wild mares, and there's no getting him back now. What sorry soul tied him up so sloppy?" She stared at 'em accusing-like. Alan looked at John and John looked at Alan. Finally John spoke up. "Throw that knife down outen your belt, Alan. We look like regular fools here. I'm fast as a roadrunner and soareyou. We'regettin' ourhorseback." Andtheybothflung down their knives and headed into the cedar brake. Simon commenced to talking to hisself even as he waved goodbye to 'em. "They may be smart and scholarly enough to handle the High Church crowd, but they aint learned enough to trick the likes of me yet. Them two will be hauling home some cedar post not fit to wrap a wire around." and he swapped out their cedar for a pile he'd got thatnobody'd buy, what with it being so gnarled and twisted. training of future preachers of the Protestant persuasion. They was viewed as a High Church bunch to the Holiness crowd, and proved to be easy pickings for Simon's particular business practices. Especially the building and grounds man, who was on the simple side. He hauled in cleared cedar on a regular basis, bringing it by horse-drawn wagon since the roads was too rough for much else, transportation-wise. Which everybody knowed. When the building and grounds man took sick Simon was like a hog at the trough. His profits from the college doubled and doubled again. Where he once had held back a little, as one who believed in honor among thieves, now he turned hisselfloose. The director of the college made a fuss, writing letters and all, but that was nothing to Simon, who even took to bragging about his business sense, and allowed as how anybody who had serious complaints could settle them the Holiness way, with knives and such. Which nobody from the Protestant bunch much wanted to do. Two of them Protestant college boys, figuring theirselves to be pretty smart and being restless for a little adventure, got the school to send them out to the saw mill so as they could keep an eye on that cedar chopper when he took their fence posts in to the mill to get the bark stripped. They figured they'd easy catch him trying to cheat them by swapping their good straight posts and sweet cedar for old bent and wormy wood. They was named Alan and John, and they had charming High Church ways. They had a way of talking that was much admired, especially in a pulpit man. It also weighed a good bit as part of their skill for persuasion. They was allowed to go. Alan and John hitched the horse to the wagon and loaded it up with cedar for posts and cedar for sawing. They even stuck knives in their belts, figuring they was to have more advantage if they looked like they was used to dealing with all kinds. John took the reins and headed for that creek like a bee to honey, for he knew the way from secretly admiring those Holiness girls any chance he got. When they got there Alan took to hollering. "Hey, Simon, how y'all? How's the wife? Where's that girl of yours?" "Well, my Lord!" Simon was at his sociable best. "If it ain't Alan and John! What're y'all doin' here?" He lounged at the door to his mill grinnin' a big 'possum grin. "Our building and grounds man has took sick and we think he's ready to give up the ghost. That's how bad it is. So we can either do this job ourselves or get took for fools. We've got the finest straight cedar logs for you to peel for fence posts, and sweet cedar to go through the mill. You fix it and we'll carry it home again, as we can use it at the college. What we don't use we' ll sell in the town. Quick as you can get it done, we '11 be out of your hair," J oho spoke up. "You want it, you got it!" Simon crowed, for he had spotted a business opportunity for hisself. "What you boys want to do while I'm workin' fer you?" "Look here," said John, a'starin' into the mill. "Here's 30 Meanwhile, John and Alan was galloping after their horse, yelling "Whoa up!" and "Halt!" but they never caught him till nightfall, when they'd run him all the way back to the road and chased him into a borrow ditch. They was all three spent and had sweated a right lot besides. "I wish I'd never been homed," yelled John. "Look at the fix we're in. That old fool has for sure swapped out our good cedar posts, and the whole town will know soon enough we 're fools, not to think of the laugh the Holiness crowd will have on us." He dragged the horse by the reins, Alan bringing up the tail, till they got back to the cedar mill. There was old Simon, asitting by his fire and looking serene as a saint at the gate. Seein' as it was night, they appealed to Simon's Holiness trainin' to take 'em in. And with some cash thrown in to seal the deal, he did. "My house ain't much," Simon opined, "and you are educated folk, but you are welcome to a spot in it. Talk it bigger if it ain't grand enough." Alan andJ ohn began to soothe their host, taking his invitation as a great and clever joke, and saying that, after all, a man can have one of two things- such as he finds or such as he brings. They was willin' to settle for what they found. Hoping as they were for some meat, some home brew, and a bed, the two of 'em was happy to cough over a little cash money in return. Simon set to roasting a goose, and charged his daughter with rounding up the bread and brew, and the whole family saw to it that the horse was tied and hobbled so as not to get loose agai11 . That chopper made up a bed with sheets and quilts for the town boys, not twelve feet from his own bed. The daughter slept nearby, all of ' em light in the same room. They ate and talked, and took in all the ale they could hold and then some, what with needing to cheer themselves up. Around midnight the lot of them headed for bed. The miller had done oiled hisself up, and was white as a sheet from drinkin', havin' passed the red stage altogether. He belched a good bit, then pulled his wife over to the bed to lie beside him . She was stirred up as a cat stalking a jay, the ale having a opposite effect upon her, but settled in after tuckin' the wee one into his cradle at the foot of the bed. She needed to keep him handy, in case he needed rockin' or suckin' in the night. The daughter also headed to bed, but not until she'd used the last drop in the jug, and Alan and John went down also. A dead quiet fell over the room, for nobody needed a sleeping draught after all they'd pulled from the jug. Simon had done took in so much ale that he begun to snort and whinny in his sleep, workin' both ends as if they was musical instruments. The wife soon joined in with a powerful bass snore, and it was a blessing there were no near neighbors, for the sound would have kept the countryside awake. Alan poked John. "Are you asleep? Have you ever heard the like? They're singin' Wednesday night prayer service among 'em. It's a fire in their lungs. Well, that redneck may have our good logs, but they'll all have the worst of it in the end, for I'll not rest my eyes this long night; but no matter, for I'll have justice done us. For, John," he said," I intend to have that chopper's daughter. I'll swivel her proper before this night is done. It's the law, ain't it?" For he was forgettin' that fine coatin' of high church ways. "For the law says it clear that if a man's grieved on one point he's to be relieved on another, and by God I'm gettin' into that gold mine tonight." "Aw, hell, Alan!" hissed John in Alan's ear. "That chopper is a dangerous man. If you git that girl, he's like to wake up and then we're both done for." "He don't scare me," Alan hissed back. 'Tm as scared of him as I am of a house fly." And up he rose, and crept in like a coachwhip snake in the hen house, close beside her. By the time she woke up, it was too late to c1y out, and she soon found that she didn't want to give a warnin ', for he was artful as clergy are wont to be, and they was soon the same as one. And while Alan played, John lay still, thinking dark thoughts. "This is tumin' out to be a bad joke," he brooded, "with the laugh on me. I'm left over here lookin' like a regular ape, but Alan has got repayment for the harm done him. He's got that chopper's girl to lay with. He took the chance, but I lay like a log in my bed. When this joke gets spread 'round town I'll sound like the sissy and the fool. Well Iain 't havin' it. I can take a risk, too. They say a coward has no luck. Well, I'm beginnin' to feel lucky." And up he rose, got hold of the cradle, and carried it back to the foot of his own bed. Not long after, that wife left off snoring and woke up, for she needed to take a piss. She headed outside to the outhouse, and soon come back in, groping for the cradle in the dark and not finding it. "Lord God," she whispered to herself, "I like to got in bed with those two boys. Wouldn't that have ripped Simon's britches!" She felt around some more in the dark and finally took hold of the end of the cradle. She crawled up into the bed and laid herself down close beside young John, where she would have gone back to snoring but for John's sudden activity. He rolled right on top of her and took to showin' her a good time such as she hadn't had in many years (for that chopper carried his manhood more in his blades than in his trnusers, as tl1e size of his family attested to. Which nobody knowed but the wife, and she was wise not to mention it). John rogered her like a madman, and in fact those two young cocksmen kept at it till the cocks crowed at dawn. Alan was raw and weary by this time, for he had met his match on the mattress and had been at it all the night. "Farewell, Molly my sweet," he said. "Here comes the sun, and I'll be leaving. But wherever I go, remember that I am your own true man, and I do hope for your happiness." "Goodbye, sweetheart," she cried. "But before you go, know this one thing. As you head out, stop by the right of the sawmill. You'll find a pile of fine straight cedar post, peeled and ready, that is your very own load of cedar which I helped my daddy steal. Take it back, and God save you, my big fine man." And she commenced to weeping. 31 �n [Untitled] Alan rose up and headed back to the bed where he knew his friend was layin." But he put his hand on the cradle at the foot of the bed and thought, "Oh, Lord, my head is still spinnin' for I outdid myself this night. I've nearly got in the bed with Simon and his wife." So he crept 'round, with the devil's own luck, and got into bed with the chopper when he thought he was in with John. He grabbed that chopper by the neck and began to whisper soft to him. "Wake up, John, you hog's head, for the love of Christ, and hear a brave game. I swear on a stack of Bibles that I have three times this night had the chopper's daughter, and in ways that didn't occur to no missionaries. I'm a man and not afraid to prove it, while you lay abed scared." Up rose Simon, eyes buggin' out, screamin'. "You sorry bastard! Is that what you've done? You ain't fit to be a preacher, dishonoring my fine daughter and defiling her fine family tree!" And the cords bulged out on his neck as he screamed. He grabbed Alan by the throat, and Alan grabbed him right back and socked him on his flat nose. The blood flowed down like a river on Simon's chest. Down they rolled onto the floor, rollin' around like two hogs in a waller. Up they got, down they went, till finally Simon fell back onto the bed where his wife slept, exhausted from her own night-long workout with John. Jolted wide awake, she began to bray like an ass. "Lord, take me home! I'm ready to give up the ghost! Help, Simon! Wake up! These preacher fiends has started a fight and one has fallen on me!" John rose up quick and groped along the walls hoping to find a walking stick. She rose up at the same time, and knowing the walls better than the young preacher, latched right on to a stick. Seein' a little shimmer of light, she picked out the fighters. She honed in on what appeared to be a scrap of white cloth, which she took for the young preacher's nightcap, and took aim and smashed down with that stick. Down fell Simon, clutching his bald head and hollerin', "I'm done for!" Alan and John jumped on him as quick as they'd jumped on his women, and beat him soundly, and left him layin' there on the floor. They quick got their horse, hitched their wagon load of cedar post to him, and headed back to civilization as they knew it. And thus was the proud chopper well beaten, and poorer by one load of cedar post and enough groceries to feed a crowd at a church supper. His wife had been rogered, and his daughter too, and that is what happens to a dishonest chopper. He should have expected it, for he who does evil is repaid with good in the Bible but in the world it is a different story. The truth is, the lot of 'em - Holiness and High Church- was common as pig tracks. Which everybody had suspected and now everybody knows. by Jean Holman There in the half-light in the shadow of her brain they drank straight vodka from paper cups By candle light And he noticed that her eyes were more than blue "And what is in that head of yours," he said As the candle flickered across the starkness of her cheek Like a searchlight passing on an asylum wall "Constellations saclificed across the sky Virgins crucified in starlight," She said, "You will go to heaven when you 're dead But I shall live forever here in dim light With my stany lovers." 32 33 �An Introduction to Kant D Laurence Berns Most introductions to Kant begin with his modifications of the doctrines inherited from Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Hume and others whose philosophies can be associated with modem mathematical physics. This procedure is certainly correct, but is it sufficient? We suggest that it is not, because it tends to obscure a part of the whole, if not the, fundamental stratum of Kant's thought. By emphasizing those modifications, the premises which those thinkers all share, in particular those premises formed in opposition to the classical PlatonicAristotelian approach, tend to be taken for granted, to be insufficiently questioned, and thereby to be insufficiently clarified. 1 Itis, nevertheless, generally acknowledged that the issues between the "modems" and the "ancients" were fundamental issues for Kant. The following inb·oduction was designed to approach the study of Kant in such a way as to clarify these issues and to see how dealing with them shaped his philosophy as a whole. The key to this approach is the articulation of the very close connection of Kant's thought with the thinking of Thomas Hobbes, for Hobbes seems to be unrivalled for the lucidity with which he stated his oppostion to classical thought while working out what have come to be called the foundations of modem thought. " ... whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they be not there, but are seeming and apparitions only." What we think are the characterisitics of things in themselves are rather the effects upon, or appearances in, ourselves of causes or things which are in themselves utterly unknown to us. As for intelligibles, the realm of ideas, Hobbes tells us that universals are not in rerum natura (Elements . .. , 5.6); "there being nothing in the world Universal but Names; for the things named, are every one of them Individual and Singular" (Leviathan, ch. 4 ). In his logical and methodological chapters he frequently criticizes Aristotelian philosophy for taking logical distinctions for metaphysical distinctions, for mistaking discourse about our thoughts and the ordering of our thoughts for discourse about things in themselves. Traditional metaphysics from this point of view is absorbed by logic, if not by psychology. Kant continued and developed this critique. According to him we can have no knowledge of things in themselves; science, the study of nature, is concerned only with what appears to us, with what lies in our experience and as far as we can know, lies only in our experience. We may be forced to think, but we have no way of knowing, that what lies in our experience exists outside of or beyond our experience. We can know only "phenomena," the Greek word for appearances. Sense intuition, furthermore, is the only intuition available to us, there is no such thing as intellectual intuition for man. To bring this point home Kant contrasts phenomena, which we can know, with "noumena," the Greek word which he knew meant objects of nous, objects of intellectual intuition. In his Critique of Pure Reason he defines noumena negatively, as a word to refer to that which we can in no way know, an unknowable "x," the unknowable thing in itself. Yet Kant differed from most of the earlier modems; he seemed to aim at restoring certain aspects of classical thought. He is often regarded as the man who reinstated thinking as the most authoritative element of experience. He insisted that to identify the source of our thoughts with the source of our sensations is "intolerable." He claims to have demonstrated that although we can know only phenomena, we can have objective, universal and necessary judgements about them. His famous phrase is "Concepts without intuitions are empty and intuitions without concepts are blind." Thought, the "concept," is what forms and makes meaningful the unorganized material of sense data. There is something like a "realm of ideas" in Kant, but it in no way exists outside of the human mind. Kant's substitute for "ideas," "concepts," have no special purely intellectual objects of their own; they are valid and meaningful theoretically only in application to human I On the supposition that genuine knowledge is attainable for human beings Plato, Aristotle and their followers argue that human beings are endowed by nature with two kinds of intuition or insight, two intuitive faculties, sensation, or sense intuition, and intellectual intuition, or intelligence (nous). These faculties when used correctly, according to Alistotle, enable us to understand and to know the sensible and intelligible characteristics of the things to which they are applied, that is to say, the characterisitics of the things themselves. While both faculties are indispensable for humans, the intelligence is most athoritative; to be in the fullest sense for Plato and Aristotle is to be intelligible, and, perhaps, intelligent. The ideas , intelligible forms, the universals, are the most stable elements in the world and in the most fundamental Vfay, shape the character of the world. The intelligibles come to be the primary objects of the highest kind of inquiry, tl1e study which came to be called metaphysics. The great modern opponents of the classical tradition, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke seemed to regard this presupposition of harmony between the mind of man and the nature of things as a kind of naive optimism. Nature is not a kind mother, she deceives us; the cognitive equipment she has endowed us with conceals rather than reveals the true character of things. In Hobbes' Elements of the Law, 2 2.10, we read, 35 34 �experience, meaning sense experience. Reason, the ultimate source of understanding, and its concepts, is not intuitve, but legislative; it provides rules for the meaningful organization of sense experience, these rules we call concepts. Thus Kant can say paradoxically that "Reason prescribes to nature its laws." Kant was probably thinking of how in Newton's Principia . .. mathematical reason prescribes to nature its laws. A consideration of Hobbes might help make this connection more clear. According to Hobbes, geometry, the model for all science and philosophy, is the ony well grounded body of knowledge we have recieved from the ancients. Geometry is, or mathematical hypotheses are, the demonstrable core of physics. He defines it broadly: "Geometry is the science of determining the quantity of anything, not measured, by comparing it with some other quantity or quantities measured" think scientifically we must think that the succession of appearances in our experience is connected necessarily, that is, that the prior is cause, the latter necessary effect. In other words, our scientific understanding imposes the law of cause and effect, the concept of the relation of necessary connection, upon the succession of appearances in experience. Kant spoke of his "critical philosophy" as part of the Copernican revolution of modem science. To take the most important example: we see the sun rise, move across the heavens and set each day. The Copernican hypothesis accounts for the apparent movement of the sun by the activity or the movement of the observer, by the rotation of the earth. Kant accounts for the meaningfulness of sense experience in terms of its conformity to the rules set by our own conceptual activity, just as physicists try to make sense out of physical phenomena by seeing whether they conform to the laws they have deduced about them from their mathematical representations. Hitherto, Kant says, it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects, but Kant reverses the priority by asking whether it is not rather that we attain knowledge of objects when those objects, sense objects, conform to the conditions that our concepts and understanding set for all objects of experience. The principle common to Kant and Hobbes might be said to be that we can know fully only what we make. 4 Sense intuition itself takes on a new meaning in the context of Kant's argument. Generally speaking, for Aristotelians intuition means an essentially passive reception by the soul, more or less adequately, of the things intuited. To maintain oneself in the proper state of openness for the reception of adequate intuition may be arduous, but the actual process of intuition itself is essentially passive. Intuition for Kant too is, in part, receptive, but for him that is the least interesting part of the process. The receptivity is merely the capacity of the subject to be affected, to be impressed, by objects. Mere sense impressions must be worked up into meaningful objects of sensible intuition by the synthesizing activity of the imagination and the understanding, the faculty of judgement, that is, in sum, by the synthesizing or composing activity of the thinking subject. Locke's words towards the end of his chapter on property come to mind, where, in discussing the value of property, he tells us that nature furnishes only "the almost worthless materials." We are indebted for the meaning we find in the world, not to a beneficient nature, according to Kant, but to our own cognitive activity. (Six Letters to the Professors of the Mathematics . . . , Molesworth ed., English Works, vii, p. 191). It includes the study of the quantity of time, of swiftness of motion, and weight, as well as the usual subjects. As it was for Newton and Kant, it is very important for Hobbes that the geometric entities be defined operationally, for "of true and evident definitions the best are those which declare the cause or generation of that subject, whereof the proper passions are to be demonstrated" 3 (Ibid. , p. 212). Emphasis supplied. Consider the beginning of Newton's article on "Quadrature of Curves" and Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B740ff). Why should geometry, or mathematics, have this privileged status for Hobbes? Of arts, some are demonstrable, others indemonstrable; and demonstrable are those the construction of the subject whereof is in the power of the artist himself, who, in his demonstration, does no more but deduce the consequences of his own operation. The reason whereof is this, that the science of every subject is derived from a precognition of the causes, generation and construction of the same; and consequently where the causes are known, there is place for demonstration, but not where the causes are to seek for. Geometry therefore is demonstrable, for the lines and figures from which we reason are drawn and described by ourselves; and civil philosophy is demonstrable, because we make the commonwealth ourselves. But because of natural bodies we know not the construction, but seek it from the effects, there lies no demonstration of what the causes be we seek for, but only of that what they may be. (Op. cit., pp. 183-184). II Morality, as such, was hardly recognizable in most modem philosophy before Kant. The virtues appeared as passions in Hobbes and Descartes, as emotions in Spinoza, and as sentiments in smith and Hume. Once again, Kant seems to be restoring something that had been lost with ancient philosophy. But agian the differences are more striking than the similarities. The watchword of classical morality is virtue, the What geometry, or mathematics, does for the science of physics is very much like what, according to Kant, human reason in general does for our experience of the natural world. Let us take the concept of cause and effect as example. It is meaningless, according to Kant, to talk of things in themselves causing and being effected by each other. Yet when we 36 watchword of modem, or Kantian, morality is freedom, freedom understood as self-legislation. The older notion implies that we can discern a natural hierarchy of human desires, culminating in the desire for the highest happiness. This, in turn, presupposes a natural hierarchy of human achievements, or ends, correlated to a natural hierarchy of human faculties, or pwers. The modem notion, with one eye to non-teleological mathematical physics,5 presupposes no such fixed order of ends, ends that might allow for one man, who understands them, to decide what was better for another, who does not understand them. Human beings are subject to rules, but, as far as morality is concerned, only to those rules they impose upon themselves. Morality is self-determination, autonomy (the Greek word for self-legislation); it cannot, for Kant, be based on any form of heteronomy (the Greek word for legislation by another), whether that other be nature, God, or some other man, no matter how wise. Human beings, as moral beings, are subject to nothing, or to no one but themselves, or to the practical reason themselves. The first man to explicitly formulate the new defintion of freedom was Rousseau, and Kant has acknowledged his great debt to Rousseau, occasionally speaking of him as the Newton of the moral world. Once again, however, it would be best to begin with Hobbes. Why should we obey the sovereign, according to Hobbes? Because through the social contract we have covenanted to allow his will to represent our wills, to take his will for our wills; his legislation, through social contract, is legally considered, our own self-legislation. In obeying him, we are really obeying ourselves. This construction is necessitated by a more fundamental principle: as Hobbes says in the Leviathan, "there being no Obligation on any man which arise th not from some Act of his own; for all men equally, are by Nature Free" (ch. 21). All genuine legislation then becomes a form of self-legislation, and injUiy, or injustice, is like a self-contradiciton, willing to do that which one has already willed tlu·ough contract not to do. In the Social Contract (bk. I, ch. 6) Rousseau puts it as follows: will, having to express one's will in such form that it coincides with the wills of all others, moralizes the will, frees it from the irrationality and immorality of selfish desire. For example, I selfishly decide that I do not want to pay taxes. Then I generalize that desire and put it in the form of a law: No one ought to pay taxes. But then I consider that the police, public schools, etc. would disappear, and I become aware of the iffationality of my original inclinaiton. The form of general or universal law not only guarantees the freedom of the subjects, but guarantees that the will itself will be rational and moral. 6 The moral law sets down one fundamental imperative for Kant, the categmical imperative: so act that you can will that the maxim of your action can become a universal law. Another example: A man is hard pressed. Kant has him ask, May I not make a promise with the intention of not keeping it? But under the categorical imperative he asks again, Should I be content that my maxim of getting out of a difficulty by making a false promise should hold as a universal law? Should everyone make false promises when they can extricate theselves from difficulties in no other way? Kant goes on: I then become aware that I can indeed will to lie, but can in no way will a universal law of lying, for by such a law there could properly be no promises at all. No one would trust in any promises and my maxim, as soon as universalized, would contradict and annul itself. When seen in contrast to the naturalistic ethics of Plato and Aristotle, the legalism, egalitarianism, logical formalism and the emphasis on will common to the moral docttines of Hobbes and Kant can be understood as rooted in their common depreciation or rejection of purposive nature as the ultimate source of ethical standards. In Hobbes the goals and character of moral and political life are still determined by reference to naaaature, especially human nature, but in a way very different from the way of the classical n·adition. The "state of nature," according to Hobbes, is a state of war, a war of all against all; its only relieving feature is the possibility it holds out for leaving, and by means of the social contract, entering into the state of civil society. Instead of serving as a direct guide to human goodness, the idea fo the state of nature is meant to clarify what in human nature is to be overcome. It becomes a source of negative standards, part of a plan leading to the more general conquest of nature. For Kant, the student of Newton, nature is, or must be understood as, a mechanism. If morality is to be saved, it must be traced to a source, or sources, altogether independent of nature. This source Kant calls practical reason. Only as a moral being, acting in accord with practical reason, when one is, and can know oneself to be, the cause of what one does, can one see oneself (and therefore others) as a noumenon, as a thing in itslef, as outside the chain of mechanical causation, as free. Kant claims to have proved that practical or moral reason and theoretical reason, which sees everything, including human beings under the aegis of the concept of mehanical The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, meanwhile uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. This .is the fundamental problem for which the social contract provides the solution. The solution is a society in which all are subject to the general will, to the law, and in which each contributes to the making of that law. All are subject to laws which each has in part imposed upon himself. Thus Rousseau could conclude that direct democracy is the only perfectly legitimate form of government. For Rosseau and for Kant this generalizing process of the 37 �nThe Visual Arts and the Liberal Arts Notes: cause and effect, do not contradict one another; they simply do not meet. This carefully elaborated solution, we can only note, leads in turn to one of the greatest difficulties with which Kant's philosophy as a whole is beset: the realm ofnature and the realm of freedom having been separated, how is one to understand how natural man and moral man come together. How do the realm of freedom and the realm of nature come together in one and the same world? These problems are among the chief concerns of his philosophy of religion and his reflections on history. However close the main argument of Kant's moral philosophy is to that of Hobbes, the moral earnestness that permeates this writings on morals and politics is far from the "impish" spirit we find in Hobbes. Though both seeme~ to share in the hope of the Enlightenment, that populanzed philosophy would supercede biblical religion, Kant's incorpration of Christian elements into his moral philosophy seems to do much less violence to the spirit of his sources. Yet however much he may have believed that philosophy can learn something from Christianity, it is clear that for him Christianity can never be more than a hand maid for practical reason. That the good will, or moral law, or practical reason exists in all men can be seen by considering what men say and do when others behave badly, or unjustly, toward themselves: the rules then spring easily to mind. The problem is, according to Kant, that under the pressure of their inclinations and desires men exempt themselves from those rules which they can so easily discover and apply to others. Acting on the basis of natural inclination, under the heteronomy of nature, has nothing to do with morality for Kant. Thus happiness, the goal of our natural inclinations, according to Kant, has nothing to do with morality. In fact, one can never be sure that one's motive is moral unless one acts contrary to inclination. An action may be moral and coincide with one's inclinaitons, but if that is the case one can never know whether one was acting on the basis of pure respect for the moral law itself, which would be moral, or on the basis of inclination, which would not be. The only subjective determinant, or feeling, that has anything to do with morality, according to Kant, is respect, or reverence, for the law itself. Duty is defined by Kant as the necessity to act out of respect, or reverence, for the law. Respect, however, is a very special feeling.7 For Kant, respect is the basis of all true love. Respect differs from all other feelings: it is not recieved from outside influences, but is · self-produced, he says, by a rational concept. Our respect for the moral law is complex: in so far as we are subject to it we have a feeling towards it analogous to fear; in so far as we produce it ourselves we have a feeling towards analogous to love. This combination of fear and love is not altogether unfamiliar. It is the combiantion of feelings that pious believers associate with the God of the Bible. 8 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 38 For example, the question, why did Kant reject intellectual intuition? Reprinted without epistle dedicatory in Thomas Hobbes, Body, Man, and Citizen, ed. Richard S. Peters, Collier Books, 1962. "Operation" here is meant to include mental operation: for example, Hobbes does not define line, like Euclid, as breadthless length, but as the way of a body moved, in which the magnitude, the dimensions of the body, are not considered. He emphasised the "considered," "not considered" means "not put to account in demonstration." Cf. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1953) pp. 169-177; Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and The Origin of Algebra, (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1968); and David Lachterman, The Ethics of Geometry: A Genealogy of Modernity, (New York and London: Routledge, 1989): The other eye looks to the "ego cogito": cf. Swift's Laputans. Leo Strauss, "The Three Waves of Modernity," in An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Cf. H.J. Paton, The Categorical/mperative, ch. v. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, ch. 1, note 2. lJ Burt Blistein signified both the craftsman and the student of the liberal arts. The Renaissance inherited this view. Hence the numerous artists who were also mathematicians and scientists--Piero della Francesca, Leonardo, Alberti. They too assumed that the "work of art" was a work made by art, that is, in accord with rational principles. Our doctrine of "art for art's sake" would have been unintelligible to them. The fine art of painting and liberal art of poetry were long regarded as "sister" arts, sharing the same subject matter and objectives. 2 Their association can be traced, in Western civilization, at least as far back as Homer. It is suggested by the language. Grapho in Greek means "to draw" and "to write." Poetry in this tradition is characterized by clear and precise visual imagery, painting by narrative, didactic or symbolic subject matter (as a rule the three occur together) each of the arts in that respect borrowing from the other. Visual images serve the same function as poetic narrative. Poetic accounts of pictured events-such as Homer's description of the shield of Achilles-stress the imitation of continuing action, and explication of motive that we associate with poetry or drama. The visual image is made to move and speak. Carved or painted figures think and feel: I. History The arts designated as "liberal" by the ancient Greeks and Romans differed at different times. They included disciplines that we now number among the fine arts (drawing, painting, architecture) and disciplines that we now consider neither fine arts nor liberal arts (medicine). For long the classification was ambiguous and even when finally codified continued to be disputed. During the Renaissance many humanists and critics argued for the inclusion of the visual arts-excluded from the liberal arts in the Middle Ages-and it was at length generally acknowledged that the visual arts were liberal arts. We now study in colleges of the liberal arts disciplines that would have been excluded earlier-experimental science, for example. Many liberal disciplines-such as music-have been so transformed that, as presently studied, they would probably have been rejected by those who first proposed including them among the liberal arts. We find, moreover, that the liberally educated were often exceedingly well-versed in, and in fact practitioners of, the arts classified as "illiberal." The medieval clerics actively participated in the design of churches and cathedrals and determined the "program" or meaning of the sculptures and paintings which they contained. This history should make us wary of applying the current classification arbitrarily, and in particular of excluding certain disciplines, such as the visual arts, from liberal education simply because they once were excluded. We tend to think of the fine arts as the products of intuition, and the liberal arts and sciences as the products of reason. That distinction is often used to justify the exclusion of visual art from the liberal arts curriculum. It is argued that visual art lacks a logos, or rational component. The Greeks and Romans thought otherwise. Techne and ars-their nearest equivalents to our term "art"-signify" 'organized knowledge and procedure applied for the purpose of producing a specific preconceived result,' or simply 'rational production."' 1 Aristotle observes that "Art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning" (Eth. Nie. 1140a 10). Such "reasoning" could be reduced to first principles and communicated. It was eminently "teachable," differing from other forms of knowledge only in that it was ordered to a practical or productive end. All art-not excepting the visual arts-was then a rational means to a predetermined end, (as in "the art of bricklaying"), not an end in itself; and that end could be a product, an activity, or a change of state. Poetry and music (our liberal arts), painting, sculpture, engineering, architecture, shoemaking and carpentry, horsetraining, dance and medicine were all equally arts; the sophists proposed to teach the art of virtue or excellence. Medieval man also assumed that ars sine scientia nihil: "without science art would be nothing." The term artista then They were leading the brides along the city from their maiden chambers Under the flaring of torches, and the loud bride song was arising. The young men followed the circle of the dance, and among them The flutes and lyres kept up their clamor as in the meantime The women standing each at the door of her court admired them. Iliad 18. 492-496 Rhetoric and the visual arts were once closely linked. Greek and Roman rhetoricians-notably Cicero and Quintilian-use the same terms to describe stylistic and formal characteristics of the visual arts and rhetoric, and emphasize parallels in their historical development. 3 Liberally educated citizens of Byzantium delighted in ekphrasis-elaborate descriptions of paintings and sculptures employing all the tricks of rhetoric. The results closely resemble our example from Homer. 4 Paintings and mosaics quicken with life; painted figures speculate, act and react. In Medieval Europe, the injunction to follow Christ or identify with Him, led to equally vivid verbal recreations of painted or sculpted images of biblical events. Such exercises assumed thorough familiarity with one's subject matter; the liberally educated rhetorician was of necessity a student of the visual arts. Not to be outdone, 39 �cated, skilful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and theory of the heavens" (De architectura I, 1.3). Such criteria reflect the belief-common not only in antiquity, but, as we shall observe, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance-that a building must image the mathematical relationships responsible for the beauty and stability of the cosmos if it is to be beautiful and enduring. The Greek architect did not supply the builders .197'with a plan and elevation (that did not become commonplace until the Hellenistic period) but with a mathematical schema8 incorporating the proportions thought to mirror macrocosmic relationships. The temple thus became a "model" of the cosmos. For similar reasons classical sculptors and painter-potters sought canons of proportion which would embody "the beautiful."9 The visual arts were then in effect the realization or embodiment of truths derived from the liberal arts. And the liberal arts borrowed from the visual arts, or from the same sources that visual artists exploited. Aeneid and Republic incorporate in the numerical division and grouping of words and lines the very proportions that determine the dimensions of certain temples. 10 The medieval belief in the unity of the visual arts and the liberal arts is exemplified by the cathedral which derived its form from the quadrivium-in particuJr,rlJ .,,,,;, lar mathematics and music which supplied the essential ratios that determined the proportions of the building-its expressive content from the trivium and from scripture. 11 For there is a "rhetoric" of architectural form just as there is of words. I la The Renaissance inherited and perpetuated belief in this unity. During the Renaissance, the painters enriched their works by incorporating gestures drawn from the repertoire of the rhetmicians.5 Belief in the unity of the arts was as durable as it was pervasive. Caesare Ripa (c. 1561-1623), writing nearly three thousand years after Homer, emphasizes the same unity:[ see illustration] The woman with the gag, who represents painting, rests her arm upon a symbolic portrait of poetry which she is in the process of completing. In the words of Ripa's editor, "the cloth bound over her mouth indicates that painting is a silent art, conveying its mess age by other means than CXCVll. words-it is mute poetry." 6 Painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, drama, and rhetoric were then all thought to share the common end of rectifying or perfecting human character. Beauty of ornament and of form, whether visual or verbal, could awaken and nourish one's desire for the Good. IL is valued--0r, we are told repeatedly, ought to be valued-as a means to that end, not as an end in itself. This conviction deeply influenced medieval and Renaissance thought about the arts and indeed, persisted well into the eighteenth century. Such a system excluded in theory both "abstract" beauty or a rhetoric without content, and art that appealed primarily to the senses. These did not become completely respectable until the divorce of the visual arts from the liberal arts, and the isolation of the former from theology and philosophy. (Much early art that seems to us erotic is religious in intent; early "abstractions" frequently symbolize religious or philosoph- xi.rlthr. Jtl ical concepts.) We know that there were many classical texts dealing with sculpture and architecture regarded as "liberal" or mathematical arts. Vitrivius (first centwy B.C) lists twenty in his De architectura, twelve concerned specifically with "symmeteria" or proportion. (Unfortunately, none save the writings of Vitruvius have survived.) These treatises suggest that Greek architects were by and large liberally educated men. The fourth-century Greek architect Pytheos proposed that architects "should be all- round experts who beat the specialists in every field."7 Vitruvius requires that the architect be "edu- theorizing on literature and on arl coincided in many ways and on many levels ... the aesthetic problems which may be traced to antiquity and which interested the poet and painter alike were the same for each-art 40 vs. nature, instruction vs. delight, form vs. content, ancient vs. modern, imitation vs. invention. Such problems were debated in much the same terms in the literary academy and in the artistic atelier. Petrarchism and Neo-Platonism affected the imagery of the poet exactly as they did the iconography of the artist. Michelangelo as artist "imitated" Dante, Villani, and the Dies /me-whereas writers "imitated" plastic sources. Witness how Sadoletus strove to imitate the classic craftsmanship of the newly unearthed Laocoon in "elegant verse," even though, as Lessing pointed out, the marble group was already an imitation of a Virgilian passage. And Giovanbattista Zappi "translated" Michelangelo's Mose into a sonnet ... Unusual as it may seem, both poets and artists drew upon the same treatises of antiquity for their theoretical ideas about their crafts. The Poetics of Aristotle and theArs poetica of Horace, which were the archsources of Renaissance literary thinking, were also the primary influences upon the artistic thinking of the day... If in our time the bridge between belletristic and bellartistic aesthetics is not quite so easily crossed, the crossing was a much simpler matter in the sixteenth century. Not only were the issues similar, but even a single vocabulary served both types. 12 human figure, and would need to be familiar with the primary religious and historical texts for subject matter and iconography. (Pheidias remarked that his Zeus was suggested by Homer's description in the /Iliad. Quintillian observes that this figure "added something to traditional religion; to such an extent [was] the majesty of the work equal to the majesty of the god.") The complex systems of proportional relationships that Greek arhitects, painters, sculptors, and potters incorporated in their works derived from the study of what one might characterize as a mathematical physics. Unlike our physics, however, theirs comprehended the good and the beautiful, the organic as well as the inorganic. The physician Galen, who considered medicine a liberal art, is able to include discussion of the Canon of the Greek sculptor Polyclitus-a system of proportional relationships which reputedly enabled one to attain "the beautiful"-in a passage devoted to bodily health because he thought both sculptural beauty and health instances of symmetria, a certain harmony, equilibrium or proportionate relationship of contituent elements. Pliny the Elder (first century A.D.) tells in his Natural History of the painter Pamphilos (teacher of Apelles, the most famous of Greek painters), erudite in all branches of knowledge, especially arithmetic and geometry, without which, he held, an art could not be perfected .. . As a result of his prestige, it came about that, first in Sikyon and then in all Greece, free-born boys were given lessons in drawing on wooden tablets... and thus painting was received into the front rank of the liberal arts. And indeed it has always been an honorable feature of it, that it was practiced by free-born men, and subsequently by distinguished people, while there has been a standing prohibition against slaves being instructed in it. Hence neither in this art nor in the sculptural arts ... are there any renowned works done by someone who was a slave. 14 The artists of classical antiquity, of the Middle Ages, and of the Renaissance were either liberally educated or were directed by others who were. As the body serves the soul, and the hand obeys the mind, so the artist's activity was free or "liberal" to the extent that he was responsible for the idea of his work, and servile to the extent that he was responsible for its execution. Thus the artist could be both freeman and slave in the one person, or he could be merely an artisan who realized the ideas of others. In either case his art expressed or embodied the liberal arts. Hephaestus, artificer of the Shield of Achilleus which depicts the cosmos, Daedalus (whose statues were reputed to move of their own volition), and Odysseus are early examples of the first type, the liberal artist who is also a maker. They obviously reflect a tradition in which craft or skill in making, craft in the sense of "craftiness" or cunning, and craft as knowledge of the principles which order the cosmos are held to be one and the same. Diodorus Siculus (first century B.C.) observes that "because of his genius [Daedalus] was honored with great fame, and, after having made many discoveries, he attained honors equal to the gods. For on one of the islands of Memphis there exits even today a sanctuary of Daedalus, which is honored by the local inhabitants." 13 A master such as Pheidias, in charge of complex building programs requiring a multitude of skills ( v. Plutarch, "Life of Pericles") must have had what we would today call a liberal education. He would need knowledge of geometry and physics to insure that his structures would fit, would stand, and would embody the essential proportions responsible for the beauty of temple and cosmos. He would need knowledge of anatomy to render the The artifacts that survive from antiquity, despite all hazards, testify by their number to the profound interest of the liberally educated in the visual arts, and by their quality to the informed taste of those who commissioned them. The collaboration of Pericles-student of the philosopher Anaxagoras and paradigm of the liberally educated-with the sculptor Pheidias, to whom Pericles assigned the task of overseeing the rebuilding of the Acropolis-exemplifies what was probably a commonplace relationship of patron to artist. The Romans had what amounted to factories for the copy of Greek originals, produced outstanding visual art themselves, and wrote voluminously about the visual arts. In this connection it is noteworthy that architecture was included among the liberal arts by the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (c. 116 B.C.) and by Vitruvius, painting by Pliny and Galen, and drawing by Aristotle, who recommends it as a way to gain knowledge of "the beautiful" (Politics VIII. iii. l, 10, iv. 9; in 41 �Those "geometrical laws" had been decreed by God who had "ordered all things in measure and number and weight." They were manifest in His creation, and had been revealed to the Pythagoreans, to Plato, and to Augustine. All good artwhether visual, verbal, or audible-incorporated them: fact, drawing was for a long time part of the school curriculum in ancient Greece 14a): [F]irst the painter, then the sculptor. . . was recognized more and more as a privileged and blessed individual. Painting .. .. was expressly received into the liberal arts (i.e. art worthy of a freeborn person) , art connisseurship and art criticism began to flourish, the collector's instinct was aroused, and the favor of princes and the rich did more to raise the prestige of the arts .. . . Philostratus [3rd century A.D.] says in the introduction to his Eikones, ... "He who does not love painting, does an injustice to truth and does an injustice to wisdom." This statement shows that the higher valuation of the arts in all outward appearances was connected with a greater esteem for the internal values of art-that ever more general recognition was accorded to what Plato was inclined either to deny completely or to consider attainable only by a sacrifice of artistic freedom and originality: the autonomy of art in relation to deceptive and imperfect reality. 15 Boethius points out that the proportions of double and half, triple and third-those, in other words, that yield the perfect consonances on the monochord-are as readily perceived visually as they are acoustically, for, he continues, echoing Plato, "the ear is affected by sounds in quite the same way as the eye is by optical impressions." Boethius does not confine this doctrine of synesthesia only to proportions of line or surface; he discovers "geometrical harmony" in the cube, since the number of its surfaces, angles, and edges, 6:8: 12, contains the ratios of the octave, fifth, and fourth. But the Platonists of Chartres expounded not only the aesthetic excellence of these proportional relationships but their technical importance as well. . . they maintained, with the Timaeus, that the indissoluble stability of the cosmos is grounded in perfect proportion ... . Since art is an image of nature "Must not the ideal church be constructed according to the laws of the universe?" In other words, application of the "perfect proportions," determined by rigid geometrical means, became a technical necessity as well as an aesthetic postulate if the building was to be stable as well as beautiful. 17 The design of the medieval cathedral and the programs of sculpture, painting and stained-glass which it housed were often conceived by the clerics-who had of course studied the liberal arts preparatory to the study of philosphy and theology-in collaboration with the architect. The execution of that design was the responsibility of masons, sculptors, glaziers and the like. The artist was thus a composite creature. In his head reposed the liberal arts, in his hands the practical, the first directing the second: The liberally educated man of the thirteenth century could reduce the visual arts to first principles, relate the use of the builder's square and sculptor's compass to the constitution of the cosmos. Can that be said of his counterpart today? As then conceived, the liberal arts constituted a remark ably flexible system capable of unifying the most disparate expe1ience. Such a system had many points of contact with the visual arts. Music, for example, was not, as it is for us, the study of musical composition or compositions, but of "those 'numbers' which govern the temporal and spatial intervals of creation and reflect, ultimately, the supreme Equality." Such numbers could be expressed visually as well as audibly, and the use of the monochord, which represents intervals as lengths, encouraged this. Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1100) defined music as a "concord of dissimilar things reduced to one." Wherever he perceived the Divine Hamony he perceived music. Hence for Hugh music existed in the four elements, in the planets; in periods of tin1e; in weight, number, and measure; in the alternation of day and night; in the waxing and waning of the moon; in the changing seasons; in the humors of the body; in the spiritual virtues of justice, piety and temperance. "In short, the study of music was the study of those aesthetic principles which govern the universe and the activities of man": Quite apart from the writings of Vitruvius, kn own and respected since Carolingian times, it was Au gustine who kept alive the classical definition of the architect. His distinction betw een the mere practicioner and the true architect who deliberately applies scientific principles occurs in at least three differe nt treatises, all studied and admired throu ghout the Middle Ages. While this definition permitted the medieval application of the term "architect" to even the mere craftsman, it left no doubt that only the "scientist" who had mastered the liberal arts was truly entitled to it. Boethius, moreover, had illustrated the intellectu al dis tinction by a metaphor that was bound to have its effect upon the social status of the medieval artist. He had compared the practical execution of a work of art to a slave, the science th at should guide such work lo a ruler. This meant, of course, that what counted in a work of ar t was not the humble knowledge of the craft but the theoretical science that laid dow n the laws to which the craft had to conform. It is no wonder, therefore, that we find so many "architects" among medieval ecclesiastics: the "science" of architecture was a purely theoretical one-the development of a plan in accordance with geometrical laws-and the knowledge of the quadrivium that it required was for a long time and with relatively few exceptions the privilege of clerics. 16 A few illustrations may make the pervasive relevance of musical theory clear. The ratio 1:2, or the octave, is said by St. Au gustine to represent the concord 42 made possible by Christ between Himself and the inferior nature of man (On the Trinity, 4.3). Christ died once and was resurrected once. But we die two deaths: a death of the spirit and a death of the flesh. In the same way we undergo two resurrections: a resurrection at baptism and a final resurrection. Thus there is, in both instances, a ratio of 1:2 or an octave between Christ and man. So far as times are concerned, Sunday is not only the first day of the week, but, counting musically, it is also the octave, and here the octave again recalls the Resurrection, which took place on the Lord's Day. And this meaning is said to have been foreshadowed in the Old Law by the Circumcision, which took place on the eighth day. A numerical calculation also makes an octave of Pentecost. If we project our calculations on a larger scale, the eighth age of the world, following a seventh, which is sometimes made to stand for the age of purification in Purgatory, is eternity; and in general, seven, which represents temporal things, is followed by an eternal eight. Hence the inscription on the eighth tone as it is carved on a captal of the abbey church of Cluny reads, appropriately, "Octavos sanctos omnes docet esse beatos." Throughout the terza rima of Dante's Commedia, the ratio 1:2 keeps the underlying lesson of the poem always before our eyes. But the octave had more striking visual results. Octagonal baptismal fonts, symbolizing the harmony which they established between the faithful and Christ, stood in churches and cathedrals throughout Christian Europe during the Middle Ages . . . . Whether the eight sides of these fonts, or, for that matter, the eight sides of towers and lanterns which had a similar significance, were more appealing to the eye than five sides would have been a matter of small importance. It was important that a number be suggested which led the mind to contemplate a harmony established by an Artisan whose handiwork in the human heart transcends anything man may do in stone. 18 The close collaboration of the artist and of the liberally educa,ted theologian, philosopher, or patron is also characteristic of the Italian Renaissance. Consider, for example, the association of prominent artists with the Platonic Academy of Florence established by the philosopher Marsilio Ficino. The profound influence of Platonism and Neoplatonism upon visual art of the period has been amply documented and is indisputable.20 Widespread interest in the impresa or device-an enigmatic visual metaphor, combining image with text-reflects the same intimate association of fine and liberal arts. As this example suggests, the liberal artist frequently detennined subject matter and symbolism to which the fine artist or artisan gave concrete form. 21 However,itwasnotlong before the artist himself-perhaps as a result of the spread of secular institutions of learning-acquired a liberal education. Then, as in the case of Leonardo and Alberti, head and hand belonged to the same individual. Visual artists insisted upon, and received, recognition that their profession was a liberal art. Leonardo, paradigm of the learned artist, is not in that respect unique, but typical. He is the perfect embodiment of a tradition that has its roots in classical antiquity: What characterizes the period is not only the quality of the works of art but also the close links that were established between the visual arts, the sciences, and literature. The appearance of a distinguished artist who also was a humanist and writer of merit, such as Alberti, was no coincidence in a period in which literary and classical learning began, in addition to religion, to provide the subject matter for painters and sculptors. When a knowledge of perspective, anatomy, and geometrical proportions was considered necessary for the painter and sculptor, it was no wonder that several artists should have made important contributions to the various sciences. On the other hand, ever since Filippo Villani, the humanists, and their journalist successors in the sixteenth century, looked with favor upon the work of contemporary artists and would lend their pen to its praise. From the end of the fourteenth century through the sixteenth the writings of the artists and of authors sympathetic to the visual arts repeat the claim that painting should be considered as one of the liberal, not of the mechanical arts. 22 The system of seven liberal arts, first proposed by the African barrister Martianus Capella in the fifth century A.D. (whose heliocentric theory, described in the same work, may have inspired Copernicus), was accepted by the Church (whence it was transmitted to us) in part because there were seven arts. "[T]he Seven Arts recalled the Seven Petitions of theLord'sPrayer, the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost, the Seven Sacraments, the Seven Virtues, etc. The Seven Words· on the Cross, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom [Prov. ix, 1], the Seven Heavens might also suggest particular branches of learning." 19 Clearly neither mathematics nor music then meant quite what they mean to us; nor, for that matter did astronomy or the other liberal arts. It is also evident that the use of certain numbers and ratios in the dimensions of a building, altar, sculpture, or painting could convey profound meaning, and in fact be regarded as manifes tations and confinnations of the truths of the liberal arts, and of the disciplines which they served, philosophy and theology. Finally we should note that belief in a sacred mathematics constituted an essential link between the the liberal arts and the visual arts during the Renaissance, just as it did in classical antiquity and in the Middle Ages, The visual arts were thought to embody or give physical fonn to the proportional relationships that, according to the liberal arts, were responsible for the harmony and stability of the cosmos: The conviction that architecture is a science, and that each part of a building, inside as well as outside, has to be integrated into one and the same system of mathematical ratios, may be called the basic axiom of Renaissance architects . . . . the architect is by no means free 43 �depdved-in theory at least-of any function save that of giving pleasure. Lessing assumes this in his Laocoon (1776): to apply to a building a system of ratios of his own choosing, ... the ratios have to comply with conceptions of a higher order ... [the demand that] a building should mirror the proportions of the human body ... became universally accepted on Vitruvius' authority. As man is the image of God and the proportions of the body are produced by divine will, so the proportions in architecture have to embrace and express the cosmic order. But what are the laws of this cosmic order, what are the mathematical ratios that determine the harmony in macrocosm and microcosm? They had been revealed by Pythagoras and Plato ... 2 3 We laugh when we hear that with the ancients even the arts were subject to municipal laws. But we are not always right when we laugh. Unquestionably the laws must not usurp power over the sciences, for the ultimate purpose of the sciences is truth. Truth is a necessity of the soul; and it is nothing but tyranny to offer her the slightest violence in satisfying this essential need. The ultimate purpose of the arts, on the other hand, is pleasure, and pleasure can be dispensed with. So, of course, it may depend on the law-giver what kind of pleasure, and in what measure any kind of it, he will permit. Painting too was ordered mathematically, not only through application of the laws of linear perspective, but, like architecture, according to the ratios of the musical intervals. The transformation of audible into visual relations was "the great achievement of 15th century artists .... A familiarity with musical theory became a sine qua non of artistic education." This "was no mere theoretical speculation; it testifies to the solemn belief in the harmonic mathematical structure of all creation. "24 We can perceive from the foregoing how it was in the past possible for the liberally educated to have a profound interest in the visual arts, indeed to participate in their creation, yet to renounce the activity which we regard as essential, namely the manipulation of material substance, as not befitting a free man. All evidence suggests that during the periods W1der consideration knowledge of the visual arts by the liberally educated was assumed, whether or not training in those arts was required. The beautiful, the true, the intelligible, and the good were not neatly separated, but seen as one or as emanations of the One. Familiarity with the liberal arts necessadly implied familiarity with the visual arts. A science of aesthetics or sensation was not needed and so did not exist. The manner of representation or style, of which we make so much, was less important to artist and patron than what was represented, what was represented less important than meaning, and meaning less important than the connection that it established between becoming and Being. Not until the eighteenth century do we encounter the term "aestl1etic" (coined by the German philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten) in its modem signification. "It is also generally agreed that such dominating concepts of modem aesthetics as taste and sentiment, genius, originality and creative imagination did not assume their definite modem meaning before the eighteen th century." Then too, in all probability, originated "the term 'Art,' with a capital A and in its modern sense the related term 'Fine Arts' (Beaux Arts)."25 This development was coupled with the separation and isolation of the beautiful, the true, and the good. The beautiful became the domain of the new science of aesthetics, truth became the possession of science, and the good became the responsibility of moral philosophy. To each realm was assigned a separate faculty of the soul. Art was thereby Lessing eliminates from the realm of visual art the spiritual and "significant" as well, on the grounds that doctrinal requirements inhibit the artist and prevent the fulfillment of what should be his chief and highest aim, to give pleasure: If in individual cases we wish to compare the painter and the poet with one another, the first and most important point is to observe whether both of them have complete freedom, whether they have, in the absence of any outward compulsion, been able to aim at the highest effect of their art. Religion was often an outward compulsion of this kind for the ancient artist. His work, designed for reverence and worship, would not always be as perfect as if he had a single eye to the pleasure of the be holder. Superstition overloaded the gods with symbols, and the most beautiful of them were not everywhere worshipped for their beauty .... I should like the name of "works of art" to be reserved for those alone in which the artist could show himself actually as an artist, in which beauty has been his first and last object. All the rest in which too evident traces of religious ritual app~ar, are unworthy of the name, because Art here has not wrought on her own account, but has been an auxiliary of religion, looking in the material representations which she made of it more to the significant than to the beautiful. ... The extraordimnily rich and complex art of classical antiquity, of the Middle Ages, and of the Renaissance originated when there was no science of aesthetics as we understand that term, or a category known as the fine arts. When, in the eighteenth century, the "aesthetic" became of pdmary concern to artists, philosophers, and patrons, the quality of visual art-as measured by the profW1dity and scope of its subject-matter-began to decline. We can attribute this in large measure to the separation of the fine arts from the context that gave them meaning and substance, the liberal arts, philosophy and theology. The new categories were both symptom and cause of the movement of visual art from the center to the periphery of 44 human concerns.26 That movement did not cease until art became in the twentieth century "a thing of of no consequence," an entertainment or diversion merely. 27 Conditions were ripe for a visual art that aspired chiefly to please the senses, and that is what, in the main, visual art became. fixed and stable cosmos. He argues that we probably derive our notion of unchanging Being from vision. The belief that we receive visual impressions as soft wax receives a stamp has been proved false. Vision is not passive but active and inherently rational. We now know that the eyes, in conjunction with the mind, make of sensory input an orderly, coherent whole. The appearance of even a simple object metamorphoses continuously as our vantage point changes. Yet we see a relatively fixed, characteristic shape. Eye and brain simplify, abstract, and geometricize visual experience. We perceive discontinuity as unity, imposing upon fragmentary experience the visual form that is the simplest and the most regular. In the illustration below we see not three unrelated dots, but a triangle. Yet there is no triangle: II. Theory We have seen that in the past the liberal arts and the visual arts were closely allied-were in fact virtually one thing, as nearly W1ited as body and soul, the visual arts being the concrete embodiment and expression of the liberal arts. We have noted that the liberally educated were then thoroughly familiar with the visual arts and that study of the visual arts often formed a part of liberal education. The magnificent artifacts which survive confirm the educated sensibilities of those who commissioned them; for the artist was then not nearly as free as he is today. He was required to gratify the wishes of his patron, and elaborate contracts were drawn up to insure this. We have observed that the ancient unity of the visual and liberal arts was in our own time obscured by those who applied the cdteria of the present to the past, thinking the visual artist one person as he is now (and thereby confusing him with the artisan who may well have lacked a liberal education), whereas he was then often two or more beings-a liberal artist and a mechanical artist-acting in concert. But even allowing the traditional alliance of the visual and liberal arts, ought the visual arts be part of contemporary liberal education? Let us review a few of the arguments for and against this option. Visual art is frequently compared to music, whose status as a liberal art was never questioned. It is argued that music is more closely related to the other liberal arts than the visual arts and that consequently music should be the fine art included in liberal education. We will begin with consideration of the relative merits of the visual arts and music. I have put the arguments against in italics; my reponses follow: • • • All of the senses, share with intellect the task of ordering experience. They do not merely transmit experience, but, like the eyes, make it intelligible. Two phrases that we often use, but rarely appreciate, come to mind in this connection. We speak of "making sense of' something when we understand it, and say "I see" to signify that we understand. When the senses discover the order that they always seek we experience pleasure. When they fail to discover such order we experience discomfort, dissatisfaction, even pain. Certain objects possess in the highest degree the order that the senses always seek and thus are, potentially, capable of producing the greatest pleasure. We call such objects works of art. The ear takes pleasure in ordered, mathematically related sounds; the kinesthetic sense that tells us the position of our limbs in space takes pleasure in measured or rhythmic movement- tapping, swaying, and so on. Music satisfies both senses. Touch takes pleasure in surfaces that possess a certain order and intelligibilty, whether by nature or by design. The ability of the senses to order experience and the pleasure that they take in such order is deeply rooted in our evolutionary past. For survival depends upon the organism's ability to "make sense of' its environment. In the work of art sensual order is divorced from such urgent practical considerations. There is an element of freedom, of play, of pure pleasure. We experience simultaneously the order that implies limitation (for without constraint any order is impossible) and liberation or release from constraint. To constitute or perceive order eye and mind must be capable of numbering and measuring. And in fact we can immediately distinguish two objects from three, four from five; we can judge whether one line is twice or three times the length of another. We derive our concept of the fundamental constitutents of mathematics-number and mea- a. The ear is more intimately connected with intellect than the eye. The ear perceives number directly (it senses, for example, the frequency doubling that indicates the octave and the ratios of the musical intervals). The eye cannot perceive numerical relationships. The ancients regarded sight, not hearing, as "the most excellent of the senses. The noblest activity of the mind, theoria, is descdbed in metaphors mostly taken from the visual sphere. Plato, and Western philosophy after him, speaks of the 'eye of the soul' and the 'light of reason.' Aristotle, in the first line of the Metaphysics, relates the desire for knowledge inherent in the nature of all men to the common delight in perception, most of all in vision."28 The author of these lines attributes the Greek belief in the primacy of vision partly to the fact that all other senses convey the external world to us as process or flux. Only vision conveys a relatively 45 �sure-primarily from vision, not from audition. The Greeks quite logically identified the mathematical with the visual. They thought of numbers as points or lengths. Mathematics was for them in large measure the study of geometric or visual shapes. There was of course then no knowledge of the wavelike character of sound. The study of music was the study of quantity manifest as the visual ratios of the lengths of tensioned strings. Vision too conveys knowledge, but immediately rather than sequentially or discursively as words do. The ancients were well aware of this. Vision becomes for them a metaphor for the highest knowledge, surpassing and indeed of a different order than discursive reason, knowledge that must be grasped immediately in its entirety or not at all: Finally, we should note that vision not only orders and connects the information transmitted by our other senses but typically takes precedence over them. In moments of crisis sight usually guides us. If there is a conflict, that is, if different sensory inputs appear to require contradictory responses, we defer to sight. Vision is not only responsible for our conviction that we inhabit a (relatively) unified, orderly cosmos (compare the world as it seems to you with your eyes open and shut) but in large measure for our sense of our own wholeness. If you close your eyes and rub thumb and forefinger together, you will note that your fingers feel oddly detached, almost as if they belonged to someone else. Open your eyes and that sensation vanishes. Stopping our ears isolates us to a degree from the world, but not from our own bodies. b. Musical structures are mathematically ordered and therefore inherently rational; with the exception of linear perspective, the structure ofvisual art is neither mathematical nor rational. This image [of cave and upper world] we must apply as a whole to all that has been said, likening the region revealed through sight to the habitation of the prison, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the sun. And if you assume that the ascent and the contemplation of the things above is the soul's ascension to the intelligible region, you will not miss my surmise ... But God knows whether it is true. Republic 517a-b The ancient belief in the identity of the visual, the mathematical, the beautiful and the true led, as we have seen, to many attempts to embody in visual art the quintessential mathematical relationships. Hence the widespread interest of Greek artists in the Golden Section and other canons of proportion. Medieval and Renaissance visual artists, engaged upon essentially the same quest, also frequently had recourse to mathematical schema- indeed to the mathematics of music. The proportions of medieval and Renaissance churches were frequently based upon the ratios of the musical intervals. 29 The spatial organization of Leonardo's Last Supper is determined by the same intervals. 30 Linear perspective is but a special case of proportionately ordered space (space in linear perspective is in continued proportion). We can attribute its discovery largely to earlier interest in the mathematics of visual art. Our own century affords numerous examples of artists who incorporate mathematically determined relationships in their painting, sculpture and architecture. (Many were influenced by Jay Hambidge [1867-1924], who claimed-perhaps rightly-to have rediscovered the geometric schema employed by Greek polters and architects .31 ) Although we derive pleasure from such art, we are not in the habit of applying calipers and rule to it, and are therefore unaware of the source of much of that pleasure. 32 We are in that respect rather like the Greeks who lived before Pythagoras had discovered the roots of music in number: they enjoyed music but knew not why. The Western listener brings to music an innate sense of the periodic diatonic scale and the ability to locate tones on that scale. The spectator of visual art brings to painting, sculpture, and architecture an innate sense of the absolute vertical and horizontal, and the ability to locate forms with respect to these axes. In practice, this fixed frame of reference is bounded by the limits of the visual artifact, permitting For each manifestation of knowledge and wisdom is a distinct image, an object in itself, an immediate unity, not an aggregate of discursive reasoning and detailed willing. Later from this wisdom in unity there appears, in another form of being, a copy already less compact, which announces the original terms of discourse and unravels the causes by which things are such that the wonderrises how a generated world can be so excellent. (Plotinus, "On the Intellectual Beauty") I think from the keeness I endured of the living ray, that I should have been dazzled if my eyes had been turned from it; and I remember that for this cause I was the bolder to sustain it until I reached with my gaze the infinite Goodness. 0 abounding grace, by which I dared to fix my look on the Eternal Light so long that I spent all my sight upon it! In its depth I saw that it contained, bound by love in one volume, that which is scattered in leaves through the universe, substances and accidents and their relations as it were fused together in such a way that what I tell of is a simple light. Paradiso XXXIII. 76 ff. Compare a modern poet: I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. The Waste Land 11. 38 ff. precise distinctions of higher/lower, left/right, diagonal/vertical, centered, displaced and so on. The center of such structures corresponds to the musical tonic. It is the point of rest or equilibrium. We must wonder at the eye's ability to perceive this center. For it must measure a multitude of distances simultaneously, or instantaneously distinguish symmetric from asymmetric fields: Visual structures can be ordered hierarchically, much as words are in the topical outline. Primary structures control, limit, and define secondary; secondary structures control tertiary, and so on. The Gothic cathedral is perhaps the outstanding example of this, but all good visual art exhibits hierarchical organization. It is another source of unity.33 DD This is but the simplest case of a more complex phenomenon: any visible change at any point in the visual field immediately affects our perception of the all parts of that field: Gradations of value, or of degrees of light and dark, permit effects analagous to scaled musical tones. We can construct a scale of visual tones in which the intervals between values are equal or increase or decrease systematically and which is therefore apprehended by eye and brain as intelligible. We can then use either the entire scale, a portion of the scale, or values widely separate on the scale (e.g. the darkest and the lightest) to render values in the visual work.33a The possible effects of systematically applied color are exceedingly complex; we can only suggests a few. 34 The color wheel provides us with precisely related primary colors, secondary colors (constituted of primaries), and tertiary colors (constituted of secondaries). We can select from that wheel a palette of colors that are immediately adjacent, separated by one or more intervening colors, or on the same diameter. The last are the so-called complementary colors that intensify each other when juxtaposed. Complementarity is another instance of what we have termed field relationships. In actuality, we cannot change any color anywhere in the work without affecting all colors everywhere. We can divide the visual field in accord with any number of mathematical or geometric schema. The eye does not necessarily require certain schema-although it appears to prefer those that are mathematically ordered, such as the Golden Rectangle-but it does demand that the schema selected be internally consistent and to that extent intelligible. Inconsistency is read as disorder, imperfection. It prohibits many of the operations that give the work unity (motif and variation, hierarchical organization, scaled tonality, etc.). The introduction of a new color, line, or texture into an established design can be compared to the introduction of a metallic body into a magnetic field. The entire field is immediately distorted. Field relationships (which may have their own complex mathematics) are characteristic only of art that always confronts us in its totality, that is only of visual art. Sculpture and architecture, which have multiple views and introduce the element of temporal and spatial progression, will exhibit field relationships from any given view. Within such fields we can creat effects analagous to acceleration, retardation, tripartite ABA form, and so on: 0 0 0 0 Eye and mind perceive similar shapes as parts of a larger whole. This permits visual effects analagous to motµ and variation in music. We can combine two or more distinct visual motifs to produce a third possessing features of both yet identical to neither. The process can be continued indefinitely, resulting in a structure in which all parts are in some way related yet in which all are distinct and different. Unity and diversity develop simultaneously: 7 c. Visual art not only lacks a logos or rational schema comparable to the mathematical schema of music, but also lacks clearly defined "elements" such as we find in music. It 46 47 �practical representation. We rely upon vision to convey information too complex for words. Sound is much less useful in this respect. Surely these facts cast doubt upon the thesis that music is more nearly related to thought than is visual art. If classroom discussion were limited to the written word we would have to forgo discussion of the natural world. For it is inarticulate. But we do not find that an insuperable difficulty. We discuss what we observe when we dissect, perform experiments in the laboratory, and so on. Hence, even if visual art were altogether inarticulate it should still be possible to discuss it. But it is not inarticulate. Most visual artifacts embody meanings intended by the artist. Many depict figures from mythology or sacred text that convey specific meanings, and employ a symbolic visual language that is equally specific. The meaning of such visual art is clearly more accessible than the meaning of purely instrumental music. My own experience, and that of many other teachers, is that visual art is eminently discussable, given the right choice of subject-matter and an adequate curriculum. Those institutions that have seriously attempted discussion of visual art have found this to be the case and have successfully incorporated such discussions into their programs. is therefore nwre difficult to develop a program of instruction in the visual arts. Because music is inherently nwre rational it is inherently nwre teachable. We can see from b) that visual art is capable of formal elaboration possibly as complex as that of music. Elementry instruction in visual art traditionally emphasizes the elements that permit this: line, plane, shape, color, value, spatial organization, and so on. First exercises stress the development of visual structures using one or several of those elements. The study of visual art closely resembles the study of music in that respect. d. Music has a natural relation to the words that convey rational thought, whereas visual art, lacking a logos, or intelligible schema, excludes words. For that reason it is difficult or impossible to discuss visual artifacts as we discuss a written text. Those silent entities cannot contribute to the Great Conversation. They have little to say about the primary questions of interest to the liberal artist. It is not true that visual art excludes words, and thus the meanings that words convey, or that there is naturally a more intimate connection between music and the word than between word and image. Writing began with visual images. Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Islamic script, medieval illuminated manuscripts are all instances of the perfect fusion of the visual with the verbal. Early Chinese landscape paintings are frequently overwritten with poems that have become part of the painting and deepen the meaning. In these examples ikon and logos are as closely allied as music and word are in the opera, Passion or lied. Many visual works-the prints of Daumier, for example-are unintelligible without their titles. There is much evidence that the thinking mind utilizes images as well as words. Indeed, images may be primary. The organization of the brain's neural networks appears to resemble the interactive visual field more nearly than it does linearly ordered speech. Those points aside, there is no basis for assuming that music and thought are more closely related than visual art and thought. As the art historian Edgar Wind points out a chief purpose of visual art was, until quite recently, to convey thought. 35 Raphael's School of Athens is not exceptional in that respect, but typical. Painting and sculpture are of course quite capable of incorporating written words and often do. When we add to those words the meanings conveyed by symbolic images (as in Jan van Eyck's Annunciation, which contains symbolic images and painted words) the possible meanings become complex indeed. To be sure the meaning of a painting cannot be entirely expressed in words, but then neither can the meaning of a musical composition. Consider also the charts, graphs, and other visualizations that contemporary science cannot do without. The visual representation of significant relationships is often the only e. Visual art is mimetic, and,nwreover, imitates only the trwst superficial aspects of the sensible. For that reason it of limited significance. Why study a deceptive copy when one can study the original? Music is not mimetic; it is naturally related to the supra-sensible or to Being. This objection is best considered in the context of Socrates'arguments in The Republic, often used to justify the exclusion of the visual arts from the liberal arts curriculum, Socrates asserts that the painter's couch is but an imitation of the cabinetmakers, which is itself but an imitation of the Idea of Couch. He argues that the painter's couch is at a second remove from the Real, an imitation of an imitation, as it were. Visual art is held to be essentially re-presentative. These arguments obscure a crucial distinction: the cabinet maker's couch is made to be slept in, while the painter's is made to be looked at. The latter is not an imitation of an imitation, but a unique entity, whose final, formal, and material causes are very different from those that qualify the cabinetmaker's couch. So inadequate is Socrates' definition that it does not permit us to distinguish between the greatest painting and images that are clearly not visual art at all, such as a mediocre snapshot or a mere reflection (Republic X 596e). The latter could well exceed the painting as accurate representations of the visible, and hence would have to be regarded as more successful examples of visual art. In fact the excellences of painting qua painting have little or nothing to do with conformity to the visible. They are the result of formal and expressive qualities-some of which we have considered-not 48 tripartite being that represents the human soul (Republic 588b) and "moulds the model of a happy state" (Republic 420c); the new Homer who tells of the dangers that confront that City-for the embodied soul is besieged as surely as Troy was-and of the Odyssey that is the soul's thousand-year return from exile in this world to its true Homeland (Republic 621d). But much visual art also satisfies the Platonic criterion, and therefore cannot be rejected on that basis. To loosen the ties that bind soul to body was the chief purpose of the art of Byzantium and of medieval Europe. Those who should know tell us this. Consider the poem which the Abbot Suger (10811151) composed in praise of the golden portals of his church, St. Denis: found in nature, but made or brought into being by the artist. Space, for example, does not preexist in or on the canvas to be "filled" by the painter. The painter creates space. Spatial relations in a painting are analagous to the silences between musical tones. They are shaped, structured, to define and express certain relationships. The complexity of those relationships depends upon the skill and vision of the artist, not upon the intrinsic attributes of the space which we occupy and in which we move. It is more correct to say that the visual artist strives to make visible the invisible than it is to say that he imitates the visible. The artifacts actually produced verify this: the "abstract" art of so-called primitive peoples, such as the African tribes; the symbolically distorted art of our own Middle Ages; the deliberately elongated figures of Byzantine art which occupy a space that intentionally violates the rules of linear perspective; Chinese landscape painting which is "realistic" only in the sense that it expresses Reality; the geometric art of Islam; twentieth-century Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism and the like; architecture, which is intrinsically abstract. While these art forms may imitate the principles or relations that order the cosmos, they clearly do not imitate visible appearances. If, notwithstanding, we accept Plato's criterion we must fault the philosopher equally. The painter has at least the material couch to imitate. Plato did not have the living Socrates before him, but merely the memory of Socrates-itself an image or imitation of the man. Hence the Socrates of The Republic is also an imitation of an imitation. As Plato himself insists, so are the personae of the dramatist and poet (Republic X 598e-599). Philosopher, dramatist, poet, and visual artist are all on an equal footing, in this respect. Plato's criticisms of the arts in Book X stem from his conviction that the images of the poet, dramatist, painter and sculptor corrupt and degrade the soul, strengthening and confirming its bondage to the body. He would have us forsake such images for others that can exhault, purify, and ultimately liberate the soul. The Socrates of The Republic is obviously such an image. It is likely therefore, that Plato's rejection of poetry, drama, and the visual arts in Book X, coming as it does at the conclusion of his own artistic masterpiece, is-notwithstanding its author's keen awareness of the limitations of any text that incorporates images- in fact an appeal to the reader to accept the art of which Plato has just given him an example-the art of The Republic composed of images that encourage ascent from becoming to Being-in place of the images of the Greek poets, sculptors and painters which, in Plato's opinion, lead to the abyss. This is also suggested by Plato's many allusions in The Republic to Illiad and Odyssey, and by his comparisons of Socrates to Odysseus, Heracles, Daedalus and the like. He would replace the ancient myths with his own, the ancient artists and heroes with his Socrates. Socrates becomes in The Republic the new Daedalus who sculpts the Bright is the noble work; but being nobly bright the work Should brighten the minds, so that they may travel, through the true lights, To the True Light where Christ is the true door. In what manner it be inherent in this world the golden door defines: The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material And, in seeing this light, is resurrected from its former submersion. There is much great visual art that even a confirmed Platonist might be hard put to reject. To be sure, in Plato's day Greek art was becoming increasingly concerned with appearances. He was certainly right to protest this through Socrates. But it makes no sense to apply his criticism to visual art as a whole, or to use it as a justification for denying the visual arts a place in the liberal arts curriculum. Finally we must note that if we accept the arguments of Book X we must exclude from the liberal arts not only visual art, but all imaginative literature (save the Platonic Dialogues) . Homer and the tragidians-whom Socrates specifically condemns- must of course go, but also, obviously, Shakespeare and Rabelais and Cervantes, and Dostoevski, and all of their kind. Moreover, it is by no means certain that Plato's criteria would admit much of the music currently studied by students of the liberal arts. Would Wagner survive, I wonder? f. Music affects the soul nwre directly and immediately than visual art and therefore can form character nwre effectively than visual art. The visual "impresses" our souls no less than the audible. Indeed, visual images evoke compassion, sexual desire, anger, fear and so on nwre readily than music. Witness the power of cinema and television to move us, to involve us, to appropriate thought and feeling. The traditional view (the view that prevailed through the eighteenth century) is that all 49 �i. The visual arts were excluded from the trivium and quadrivium during the Middle Ages when the seven liberal arts became the educational norm, whereas music was included and even emphasized. arts, not simply music, shape character. (Had Plato not thought so he would not have excluded the poets, the tragic dramatists, and the visual artists from his Republic.) In the case of visual art that was accomplished directly through depiction of exemplars such as Hercules or Christ, with whom the spectator was expected to identify and whom he was expected to emulate as best as he could, or indirectly through exposure to certain visual relationships that were thought to induce kindred relationships in the soul. It was long assumed that the parts of the "healthy" soul were symmetrically disposed, or in equilibrium, or related by a certain proportion. The symmetrical architecture of classical antiquity was expected to induce such inner symmetry or proportionality. The moralizing art of painters such as Hogarth and Goya is a late expression of that ancient tradition. Its purpose is, in part, to make us admire what we should admire and despise what we should despise. Seeing injustices can sometimes make us betterpersons--can, in fact, move an entire society to benevolant action. Would anyone seriously argue that music could have induced us to aid the starving thousands in Somalia? This objection, too, has been answered under "History." j. There simply is not room in a four-year curriculum/or the liberal arts and the visual arts. To include the visual arts would compell us to sacrifice something more essential. The traditional seven liberal arts provide a rational schema for a compact yet rich and comprehensive program. If we depart from that schema we abandon meaningful criteria for including or excluding subject-matter. Will we next be asked to add the social sciences? Or horticulture? As noted above, colleges that profess to offer a liberal education no longer adhere strictly to the traditional schema of the seven liberal arts. Hence one cannot argue again~t adding the visual arts on grounds that it would violate that schema. Among the criteria actually used to determine the disciplines included we frequently find the following : a) that the discipline promote the good of the individual by perfecting those faculties which distinguish man; b) that the discipline promote the good of society as a whole; c) that it be a primary discipline, that is one which cannot be reduced to more elementary disciplines (as engineering can be reduced to mathematics or medicine to biology); d) that it relate as nearly as possible to other parts of the liberal arts curriculum. Let us apply these criteria to the study of the visual arts. a)While vision per se does not distinguish man from other sentient beings, the kind of vision which he possesses does. His is a "thinking eye." That potential becomes manifest almost as soon as we gain some control of our bodies. All children delight in drawing. Their drawings are schematic or symbolic: a circle represents the head, two dots the eyes, a line the mouth and so on. Children 2-4 years of age "apparently make no attempt to translate their visual images into plastic equivalents (imitative or naturalistic representations), but are fully satisfied with certain graphic signs which they identify with their images." 36 Our ability to draw and to make three-dimensonal shapes is as fundamental and as universal as our ability to form intelligible sounds. It implies that we possess by virtue of our nature as rational beings not two major symbolic languagesspeech and mathematics-but at least three. If one of the purposes ofliberal education is to develop those faculties that distinguish mankind we should study all three languages. Our appreciation of visual beauty is also unique. As noted it possesses a rational component-we admire consistency, regularity, conformity to a schema which we think of as "ideal" and so on. It would appear then that if we are to promote the good of the individual, we should, as Aristotle recommends, seek to "develop an observant eye for beauty of g. Liberal education rightly emphasizes the use oforiginal texts. To study visual art we must employ reproductions. These are inherently innacurate and deceptive. Good reproductions of two-dimensional visual art can be quite accurate. Some are so precise that the naked eye is barely able to distinguish originals from copies (this is especially true of copies of prints). We can make exact copies of sculpture using moulds. Such reproductions are certainly preferable to the translations (which are after all interpretations) through which most students of the liberal arts gain access to the majority of the Great Books. Music always reaches us translated or interpreted-unless the performer is also the composer. And since few students of the liberal arts can reconstitute music by simply reading the written score, and live performances are few and far between, most use recordings or reproductions of performances, further increasing the distance between creator and auditor. Students can of course discuss original works of visual art in local museums and galleries. Unlike music and poetry, which reach us via symbolic notation, such works bear the mark of the maker's hand. They constitute permanently accessible "performances" by the artist. One might compare the experience they afford to hearing Beethoven play his Appassionata or Homer read his /Iliad. To be sure, one must look closely to appreciate this-at the brushstrokes that constitute forms and colors, at the scratchings and rubbings that constitute line and tone. h. The Greeks, who knew a great deal about the visual arts wisely excluded them from the liberal arts. We should follow their example. This objection has been answered under "History." 50 they constitute, alas, lacks a head; or perhaps we should say that it has, like Cerberus, fabled guardian of Hades, too many heads. For the liberal arts are now proposed as preparation for virtually any activity. Moreover, with the passage of time the intersecting ways have tended to become parallel, or even divergent. We note that as we move from study of the ancient texts to study of the modem. Even allowing this, the liberal arts constitute the nearest thing we have to a synoptic, unified educational program that has withstood the test of time. For that reason they have appealed and continue to appeal to educators troubled by the fragmentation of knowledge, the centrifugal forces loose in the modem world especially those who hoped and those who still hope that we might learn through immersion in the works and thoughts of a more coherent past ways to restore or at least to encourage coherence in our own culture. Any addition to, or modification of such a program of study should certainly take into account its original intent and the motives of those who sought to revive it. The visual arts satisfy those conditions. They naturally constitute a point of intersection for other disciplines traditionally among the liberal arts, or closely allied with those arts: mathematics (the form of the visual work, perspective, the golden section and other proportional schema); biology (theories of perception, the contribution of eye and brain, conditions that permit the illusion of reality on a two-dimensional surface, optical illusions); philosophy and theology (symbolic content of the visual work); music (formal analogies and structural parallels between the visual arts and music); mythology, sacred and secular history, and literature (narrative content of the visual work). A proper program of study would not be confined to portable easel painting (the earliest surviving examples of this art-form are relatively late; itisratherlike beginning the study of the Great Books with the Renaissance) but would include fresco and mosaic, architecture and sculpture. There would thus be opportunity to examine artifacts, such as the medieval cathedrals and Renaissance churches that were in their time foci for a multitude of disciplines, and in particular for the disciplines of the liberal arts. Mathematics, philosophy, theology, rhetoric, music, architecture, sculpture, painting all come together here to make one thing. Study of the the Greek temple and of its sculptures (supported by selections from Vitruvius, supplemented by study of the images and proportions of Greek pottery) would have similar advantages. To add such a program to the existing curriculum might require the . elimination or abridgement of certain texts. But that will be outweighed by the more complex and comprehensive whole that results. All of this becomes possible if to books and balances we add calipers and rule, thereby restoring the ancient unity of the visual arts and the liberal arts. form and figure." b) It is abundantly clear that the visual environment influences our moods, dispositions, and thoughts. The colorscheme of any dentist's office testifies to this. Deny people all view of the landscape and most will eventually cease to think about the relation of man to nature. Cage them up in drab high-rises constructed of indistinguishable cells and they will become mean-spirited. The ancients were right to assume that visual art shapes character. Lessing was wrong to assert that the pleasure which we derive from visual beauty "can be dispensed with"; it cannot. A responsible citizenry will promote the creation of a suitable visual environment by commissioning, by advising, by criticizing. We cannot depend upon our artists and architects to do that for us. As we have observed the visual arts and the liberal arts parted company some two-hundred years ago. With few exceptions, artists and architects are now specialists educated in specialized schools of art or architecture that for the most part exclude meaningful study of the liberal arts as rigorously as some liberal arts colleges exclude the visual arts. Architect, painter, and sculptor are not expected to have a liberal education, and are not usually directed by those who have such an education. We need only look about us to see the consequences. For the good of society the liberally educated should resume their historic role as knowledgable patrons of the visual arts. To do so they must be familiar with the visual arts. Liberal education can and should facilitate this. c) Visual art is the mature expression of a unique faculty that all men possess by nature and that distinguishes man from other sentient beings. It presents the perfect object of perception to the most complex of our senses and thereby perfectly exercises that sense. It satisfies the eye in the same way that music satisfies the ear. The field-like organization of the visual artifact is unique. For no other art-form confronts us immediately in its totality. The paleolithic sculptures and cave paintings indicate that mankind possessed from the beginning an impulse to make beautiful and expressive images. For all of these reasons I would argue that the study of visual art is a primary discipline, quite different in that respect from the social sciences, medicine, or any number of worthy studies. d) Trivium and quadrivium, meaning "the place where three (or four) ways meet" are tenns that originally described what we would call highway intersections. The terms emphasize that the disciplines each grouping includes all lead to the same destination. They interrelate, inform each other, and constitute a larger whole. During the Middle Ages, when the trivium and quadrivium first became the educational norm, the seven liberal arts were parts of a still more comprehensive unity. Study of the liberal arts prepared one for the study of philosophy. Philosophy was not then the independent discipline that it is today, but the handmaiden of theology. The seven "ways" crossed in God. We cannot say that of our liberal arts. The body which 51 �18. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. J.J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Ari (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 32. See Rensselaer W . Lee, Ut Pictura Poe sis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting (New York: W.W. Norton, 1967); Mario Praz, Mnemosyne: The Parallel Between Literature and the Visual Arts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974); Jean H. Hagstrum, The Sister Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). Pollitt, Ancient View, pp. 60-61 and ch. 7. See Henry Maguire, Art and Eloquence in Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). See M. Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators (Oxford, 1971). 14. The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1914), vol. 1 p . 726. See Erwin Panofsky, Idea; "The Neoplatonic Movement in Florence and North Italy"; "The Neoplatonic Movement and Michelangelo" in Studies in Iconology (New York: Harper and Row, 1962). See E. H. Gombrich, Symbolic Images (Oxford: Phaidon, 1978), pp. 7-11. Paul Oskar Kris teller, "The Modem System of the Arts" in Renaissance Thought and the Arts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 181-182. Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Hurnanism (New York: Random House, 1965), pp. 101-102. Ibid. p. 117. Kristeller, pp. 163-164. Edgar Wind, Art and Anarchy (New York: Vintage, 1969). See esp. ch. IV, "The Fear of Knowledge." Jose Ortega Y Gasset, "The Dehumanization of Art" in The Dehumanization of Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), p . 49. Hans Jonas, "The Nobility of Sight: A Study in the Phenomenology of the Senses" in The Phenomenon of Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 135. von Simson, pp. 22-41; Wittkower, IV, "The Problem of Hannonic Proportion in Architecture," pp. 101-154. Thomas Brachert, "A Musical Canon of Proportion in Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper," The Art Bulletin, Dec. 1971. Hambidge, Elements. See "Rectangles and Ratios: Proportion in Art and Architecture," unpublished essay by Frank Carr, 529 Powell Drive, Annapolis, Maryland 21401. See Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholastic ism, (Cleveland: Meridian 1963). John F. Taylor, Design and Expression in the Visual Arts (New York: Dover, 1964), pp. 199-2 12. Ibid. pp. 159-192. Wind, pp. 56-59, 62-67. Herbert Read, Education Through Art (New York: Random House, 1956), p. 121. 20. 21. 22. 23. See Caesare Ripa, Jconologia in Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery, ed. Edward A. Maser (New York: Dover, 1971), p. 197. J.J. Coulton, Greek Architects at Work (London: Elek, 1977), p . 25. Coulton, p. 53. See Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture (New York: Dover, 1960), Book III . Jay Hambidge, The ElemenJs of Dynamic Symmetry (New York: Dover, 1967); Dynamic Symmetry: The Greek Vase (New Haven: Yale University Press,?); The Parthenon and Other Greek Temples: Their Dynamic Synunetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1924). Rhys Carpenter, The Esthetic Basis of Greek Art (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959), pp. 120-130. P.H. Scholfield, The Theory of Proportion in Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958). Pollitt, Ancient View, pp. 14-22, 160-168. Howard Fisher, "Dynamic Symmetry, A Theory of Art and Nature," The St. John's Review, Winter 1985. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. See George Duckworth, Structural Patterns and Proportions In Vergil's Aeneid (Anne Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962). On Plato's Polity, a lecture by John A. Bremer given at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, February 17, 1984 (tape no. 770). 33. 33a. See Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 3-58. 34. l la. See for example John Onians, Bearers of Meaning: The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 12. R. J. Clements, Michelangelo' s Theory of Art (New York: New York University Press, 1961), pp. xxix-xxxi. 13. D. W. Robertson, Jr., A Preface to Chaucer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), pp. 122-124. 19. Notes 35. 36. J.J. Pollitt, The Art of Greece 1400-31 B .C.: Sources and Documents (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965), p. 7. Ibid. pp. 162-163. 14a. Thomas Davidson, Aristotle and the Ancient Educalional Ideals (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899), p. 240. 15. Erwin Panofsky, ldea, A Concept in Art Theory (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), pp. 13-14. 16. von Simson, pp. 30-31. 17. Ibid. p. 33 . 52 53 �I Her Hair [] by Charles Baudelaire Roberts '93 translated by Francie La Chevelure by Charles Baudelaire Oh tresses, curling down upon her neckline; Oh ringlets; Oh perfume thick and overflowing with nonchalance; Ecstacy ! This night how I desire, in order to populate this solemn alcove with the memories sleeping in her hair, to shake it in the air like a handkerchief! I will plunge my head so desirous of intoxication, into the black ocean where she is imprisoned, and my penetrating spirit caressed by rolling waves will rediscover you, oh abunant laziness; endless rockings of my perfumed leisure! Blue-black hair, lodging of taut night, you restore to me the azure of an immense, round sky; upon the soft borders of your tangled curls I become passionately intoxicated by the mingled scents of coconut oil, of musk and of tar. Listless Asia and burning Africa, all of a distant world, away from home, nearly lost, lives within your depths, aromatic forest! As other souls go sailing upon music, so does my soul, oh my love, swim upon your perfume. For a long while; Forever! my hand in your thick, heavy hair will scatter rubies, pearls, sapphires, that you may never be deaf to my desire! For, are you not the oasis where I dream, and the wineskin from whence I swallow in great gulps the wine of memory? I will go far away where tree and man, both full of sap, swoon for long stretches of time under the ardor of the climates; long tresses, be the oceanic surge which carries me off! You contain, sea of ebony, a shining dream of sails, of oarsmen, of flames and of masts: 0 toison, moutonnant jusque sur l'encolure! 0 boucles! 0 parfum charge de nonchaloir! Extase! Pour peupler ce soir l'alc6ve obscure Des souvenirs dormant dans cette chevelure, Je la veux agiter dans l'air comme un mouchoir! Je plongerai ma tete amoureuse d'i vresse Dans ce noir ocean ou l'autre est enferme; Et mon esprit subtil que le roulis caresse La langoureuse Asie et la bn1lante Afrique, Cheveux bleus, pavilion de tenebres rencluc s, Tout un monde lointain, absent, presque defunt, Yous me rendez l'azur du ciel immense Yit dans tes profondeurs, foret aromatique! Comme d 'autres esprits voguent sur la musique, Surles bords duvetes de VOS meches tordues Je m'enivre ardemment des senteurs con fondue Le mien, 6 mon amour! nage sur ton parfum. De l'huile de coco, du muse et du goudron. J'irai la-bas OU l'arbre et l'homme, pleins de seve, Longtemps! toujours! ma main dans ta criniere lourde Semera le rubis, la perle et la saphir, Se pament longuement sous l 'ardeur des climats; Fortes tresses, soyez la houle qui m'enleve! An echoing harbor where my soul can drink, in great waves, the perfume, the sound and the color; where ships, gliding through gold and through watered silk, open their vast arms to embrace the glory of a pure sky where shudders the eternal passion. Tu contiens, mer d'ebene, un eblouissant reve De voiles, de rameurs, de flammes et de mats: Saura vous retrnuver, 6 feconde paresse ! Infinis bercements du loisir embaume! t:l rumL Afin qu'a mon desir tune sois jamais sourde ! N'es-tu pas !'oasis OU je reve, et Ia gourde Ou je hume a longs traits le vin du souvenir? u n port retentissant OU mon ame peut boire A grands flats le parfum, le son et la couleur; OL1 les vaisseaux, glissant dans I'or et dans la moire, Ouvre nt le urs vastes bras pour embrasser la gloire D'un ciel pur ou fremit l'etemelle chaleur. 54 55 I �Choosing to Believe: . ree Choice and F the Know ledge of God in St. Thomas by Susanna Beiser '94 It is the intention of St. Thomas to exalt the intellect above every other human power. In this way he is like Aristotle and other ancient philosophers who believed that the acuity of reason would serve to explain every phenomena and solve any problem. Such philosophy preserves and celebrates the nobility of human reason. Aristotle, however, answered to himself alone in regard to the proper pursuit of his science. He answered to no God. Thomas' approach is different because he believes in a God who is a loving creator.a super-intelligent being with absolute governance of the world. We have responsibilities to this God, among which are love and humility. We are not meant to rejoice in our natural abilities while remaining oblivious to their origin and constant source of inspiration. On the contrary, to best love God and conform our actions to His will, we must try, to the best of our abilities, to understand Him and His effects. Thomas' sacred doctrine is established to serve this purpose. As a science, sacred doctrine has as its subject-matter both God and His creation. In the realm of human endeavor, practical guidelines are sought so that we might fulfill our duty to ourselves and to God on both thought and deed. This duty goes beyond belief in God's existence, beyond faith, to require of us our continuous attention to increasing our knowledge of God. This is not a burden, however, on the individual. For when a man has a will ready to believe, teaching based on natural reason (II-II, Q.1 A.7)." These are the premises on which the best human knowledge of God is founded, and only by reasoning from them can we gain, in any measure, knowledge that is beyond our reach. Thomas believes that man's reason is a participation in the perfect intellect that is God. God created man with reason as an essential part of his soul and in this sense the intellect is a natural, rather than accidental, part of us. Our reason is inferior to the divine intellect and comparatively incomplete, but it is the divinity in us. We are created in the image of God insofar as we can have knowledge. Since the human intellect resembles God's, what God knows perfectly through His infinite knowledge should not be inconsistent with the determinations of our own natural reason. In this way man was originally created with the ability to know truth. The fall of Adam altered the functioning of the human intellect. Since the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, man has been in a state of corrupted nature. With Adam's assertion of his free will came disease, so that "since man' s reason is not entirely subject to God, the consequence is that many disorders occur in the acts itself of the reason (II-I, Q.109 A.8)." No longer is the human intellect infallible, even in reference to objects well within the bounds of the visible and the comprehensible. Lesser still is our ability to know anything about God through the natural process of reasoning. How, then, can we pursue this knowledge? Is it in our power to choose to increase our knowledge of God? What is the nature of this science which seems to grasp at know ledge beyond our reach, yet claims to reveal the sw-est truths? In order to answer these questions we must examine in detail the process described by Thomas as the path to knowledge. In explanation of the necessity of sacred doctrine, Thomas writes that "man is directed to God as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason ... (I, Q.1 A.1 )." From this description we are meant to understand the end of man to be a final cause, a result for the sake of which the means to this end are deliberately ordered. According to Christianity, man's true end is life after death in perfect happiness: beatitude. Since happiness is . man's experience of the good, it easily follows that perfect happiness must result from contact with God, who is perfectly good. The exact nature of this contact, however, must be further explored. The best part of man is necessarily what is created to be most like God, his most divine aspect. For Thomas, this is certainly the intellect, both because it resembles the power by which God governs the world and because it is a part of man he loves the truth he believes, he thinks out and takes to heart whatever reasons he can find in support thereof.... (Summa Theologica, II-II, Q.2 A.10) * * * The practice of scared doctrine, although it makes use of reason, does not entail thinking out reasonable explanations for the truths which are believed by faith. The articles of faith are truths about God that are unreachable by means of the reason with which man is naturally endowed. These are the basis of Christianity and include the existence of the Trinity and the mystery of Christ. Such truths are neither self-evident nor demonstrable and therefore require belief without the sure know ledge that arises from the practice of any other science. This does not mean, however, that articles of faith are absurd or inconsistent with reason. They are beyond reason but possess the nature of first principles in the practice of sacred doctrine. "The articles of faith stand in the same relation to the doctrine of faith, as self-evident principles to 56 57 �into different kinds according to its various effects: that seems to be incorporeal. The excellence of the intellect remains essentially unchanged, despite the corrupted state into which we have fallen. If, then, man is to attain the condition of the greatest possible happiness, the condition of experiencing the greatest good, he must do so by means of his most perfect faculty. It follows that "the ultimate beatitude of man consists in the use of his highest function, which is the operation of the intellect (I, Q.12 A.I)." Thomas makes a distinction between two aspects of the operation of the intellect. On the one hand there is the actuality of the faculty. Simply stated, this is the activity of thinking. On the other is the determination of the thinking to a particular object. In order tocontiibute to beatitude, man's intellect must be both active and focused on the greatest good. Beatitude, therefore, consists in thinking about God. Furthermore, perfect happiness requires the perfect operation of the intellect. For this reason a merely general or confused knowledge of God is insufficient. Man must know God as He truly is. Thomas describes the connection established by this contemplation as "the divine essence itself united to their intellect (I, Q.12 A.9) and the effect of this connection as 'deiformity' (I, Q.12 A.6)." The intellect is detennined to its proper object and so takes on, to some finite extent, the infinite goodness that is God. In this way man attains beatitude. This kind of knowledge, a vision of God in His essence, is possible only in the afterlife, for it is not granted that man, still encumbered with his body, may 1ise above his nature to comprehend the incorporeal Being. The human intellect is accustomed to understanding immaterial objects by abstracting from composites, combinations of matter and form. This is impossible when thinking about God because He is infinite and utterly immaterial. The best knowledge of God is beyond the reach of natural reason, for the human intellect cannot change its mode of operation. Therefore man needs assistance if he is ever to know the essence of God. Here enters the crucial factor in the pursuit of the divine science: the grace of God. Grace is the gift of God's assistance, bestowed on man to enable him to rise above his own nature, gain knowledge of God, and thereby attain beatitude. This blessing springs from the love that God, the creator, has for His creation. It is to be distinguished from the care that accompanied the original fashioning of man, whereby he was given the power of reason as a natural part of the soul. So it is said that grace indicates "a special love, whereby He draws the rational creature above the condition of its nature to a participation of the divine good... (I-II, Q.110 A.I)." Grace is in operation throughout man's journey toward knowledge of God, both before and after bodily death. Thomas often calls this power a light: "this increase of the intellectual powers is called the illumination of the intellect" and "By this light the blessed are made' deiform '-that is, like to God... (both from I, Q.12 A.5)." All grace stems from God's love and is essentially the same, but it can be divided Now there are five effects of grace in us. Of these, the first is, to heal the soul; the second, to desire good; the third, to carry into effect the good proposed; the fourth, to persevere in good; the fifth, to reach glory. (II-I, Q.111 A.3) The first four of these are needed to compensate for our corrupted nature. In the state of integral nature man's intellect functioned perfectly. It was originally a natural characteristic of man to tend toward apparent good in both his will and his actions. This aspect of human nature remains. What man has lost, however, is the unening ability to determine this tendency to an actual good, to enact the good, and to continue to do good works of his own inspiration. It is God' s grace, operating throughout his life, that is responsible for moving man to will or enact good. The fifth kind encompasses all the effects of grace that_ specifically pertain to man' s beatitude. In regard to knowl" edge of God that is beyond the reach of reason, grace bridges the gap between the relatively confused and general knowledge of God that man can gain by natural reason and the essential knowledge necessary for beatitude. It is only by faith that man can have this essential knowledge. Thomas describes the aspects of grace that allow a man to attain Christian faith and then to continue in the contemplation of God. The knowledge gained by faith is unlike knowledge that results from natural reason. Faith is a kind of knowledge, inasmuch as the intellect is determined by faith to some knowable object. But this determination to one object does not proceed from the vision of the believer, but from the vision of Him Who is believed. Thus, as far as faith falls short of vision, it falls short of the nature which knowledge has when it is science .... (I, Q.12 A.13) Faith does not permit man to reasonably understand its objects; rather it "signifies the assent of the intellect to that which is believed (II-I, Q.l A.4)."In the normal course of intellectual activity, a proposition that is believed is assented to by a process of reasoning. When a proposition cannot be reasonably understood, it cannot be believed in the usual manner. The propositions about God which constitute the articles of faith surpass human reason, and so cannot be believed without an assent being made possible by grace. God, therefore, grants that man may come to believe the truths of faith that are essential to beatitude. After grace initially acts to establish faith, its continuing presence allows man to increase his knowledge of God. We reason from the articles of faith, our natural intellectual power enhanced by the light of grace. Beatitude is insured by faith and the degree of happiness obtained is heightened as the share of grace increases. The question that now arises pertains not to these operations of grace, but to what precedes them. Grace appears to be the only addition to the soul's natural powers that is necessary for attaining faith. Not every man, however, is a Christian. Hence, it is apparent that some do not receive this grace. Considering that God intends man's happiness, what prior condition in the individual allows him to receive the grace that leads to faith and beatitude? It is reasonable to suspect that the absence of faith in an individual is due to some failing of his own rather than to the will of God. A lack of the proper preparation to receive grace accounts for man's failure to attain beatitude and absolves God of any responsibility for withholding it. The likely source of man's error is his reason because it is functionally corrupt and not necessarily attuned to the will of God. Man's fallible reason is also responsible for the misdirection of his free will. If reason is to have a decisive role in preparing for grace, the course of intellectual progress towards beatitude should include a point at which a free choice is made. This choice would allow each man to take responsibility for the condition of his soul and, by choosing correctly, to prepare himself to receive God's grace. An extension of the grace/light analogy is helpful in determining what must occur in man prior to having faith. Q.109 A.6)." Perhaps these men have a greater desire for God and therefore are more receptive to the initial gift of grace. This explanation, however, is insufficient. According to human nature, every man tends towards good as it appears to his mind. All men also tend toward God, although in a confused and indeterminate way. But no man, his nature corrupt and unaided by grace, can know the truths that would allow his reason, and thereby his desire, to rise above lesser goods to the greatest good, to direct him to God. Thus it is clear that man does not specifically desire or look to God before he first receives grace; "man cannot prepare himself to receive the light of grace except by the gratuitous help of God moving him inwardly (II-I, Q. I09 A.6)." All men, then, appear to be moved in the same way toward knowledge of God. By nature their minds tend to the good; by grace they are focused on God, enlightened, and raised above their natural abilities to assent to the articles of faith. None of these movements, however, appears to involve a choice on the part of the individual. Yet Thomas states that there is a form of cooperation between God and man concerning the gift of grace and that man's part consists in free choice: It is the part of man to prepare his soul, since he does this by his free choice. And yet he does not do this without the help of God moving him, and drawing him to Himself. ... (II-I, Q.109 A.6) Now to prepare oneself for grace is. as it were, to be turned to God; just as whoever has his eyes turned away from the light of the sun prepares himself to receive the sun's light, by turning his eyes towards the sun. (II-I, Q.109 A.6) Man's turning to God is by free choice, and thus man is bidden to turn himself only to God. But free choice can be turned to God only when God turns it. ... (II-I, Q.109 A.6) In one sense, man' s eyes are never turned completely away from God because of his natural tendency toward the good. The problem is that this general leaning is not specifically to God, but toward whatever object the intellect believes to be good. Due to the corruption of the intellect, this determination is often incmrect. This inability to positively identify God as the object of desire was not a part of the first man. In the state of integral nature the human intellect recognized its cause and creator, but "in the state of corrupted nature man falls short of this in the appetite of his rational, which, unless it be cured by God's grace, follows its private good... (II-I, Q.109 A.3)." Because true intellectual vision depends on sure belief and God desires man's beatitude, grace determines the mind to God; it turns man to Him so that he is prepared to receive the light of further grace that will lead him to faith. Since not all men receive grace, it remains to be said what kind of man is moved in this way. Again, we would like to understand how free choice plays a role in obtaining grace. Perhaps the solution is a sirnple form of cooperation: he who wishes to find God will be turned to Him by God. In this vein Thomas writes, "He directs just men to Himself as to a special end, which they seek and to which they wish to cling ... (II-I, In making this choice man has neither alternative objects from which to choose, nor the ability to actively direct his mind to the object of choice. In what sense, then, is the choice free? The solution to this problem is contained in Thomas' understanding of choice as an act of the will. As a power of the intellect, will is characterized by the two aspects mentioned earlier: the activity of the power and the determination of the power to an object. Thomas explains this division: Now the reason why it is possible not to choose, or to choose, may be gathered from a twofold power in man. For man can will and not will, act and not act; and again, he can will this or that, and do this or that. The reason for this is to be found in the very power of the reason. For the will can tend to whatever the reason can apprehend as good. (II-I, Q.13 A.6) These distinctions can be understood by examining our outward actions. For example, a man might read a book of his own choosing. In this case he is the active principle in two senses; he reads rather than not reading, and he determines the object of his action, this book rather than that one. A different 58 59 �case is illustrated by the man who obeys a particular law. It is by his own power that he acts in obeying the law, but the law itself is not of his determination. It has been framed by someone else and presented to him so that the range of his action is limited. Turning to God is an action of the second type. There is no need to determine the object of the action; God is a given. The only options, then, are to turn or not to turn. There appears to be a problem, however, because we know that man does not have the ability to tum to God on his own. he must be turned by God's grace. In the absence of the power to act there appears to be no place for choice. It seems impossible for man to choose to tum to God when, in fact, his role is passive. At this point we must remember that choice pertains not only to action, but also to willing or desiring. Because most of our actions are both willed and enacted by our own power, this distinction might seem unnecessary. It is essential, however, in the context of receiving grace, a situation in which we appear to have no active role. In this case man can choose neither the object of his desire, nor the means of attaining his end, for both are dependent on God. The only choice that remains to be made is to will or not to will. If a man cannot choose God as the object to which he is turned, and he cannot choose to turn himself, his choice consists in willing or not willing the turn. Why, though, would anyone choose not to be turned to God? As Thomas mentions, the explanation for this lies in the condition of man's reason. The will naturally tends toward good, even in our corrupted state. It must rely, however, on reason's frequently incorrect determinations of what is good. Although anyone with clear knowledge of God could not mistake his goodness, any less perfect vision is subject to this error. It is possible for a man who ·is without faith, not yet enlightened by grace, and lacking any clear intellectual vision of God to be blind to the goodness of grace and so to choose not to receive it. The first step towards enlightenment, then, is desire, not for God specifically, because His essence is unseen, but for what is greatest. It is the willful, and therefore intellectual, yearning for the highest knowledge, the first principle sought by the philosophers. Accompanying this desire is the understanding that what is highest is truly beyond our grasp if we attempt the search alone. We must rely on God to enhance our reason and raise our sights to a vision of the truth we seek. The source of our hope for divine assistance is reason itself. Thomas believes that some knowledge of God, known through the images of His effects, is within the reach of our natural faculties. Included is the knowledge that there is a creator and an intelligent being "by whom all natural things are directed to their end (I, Q.2 A.3)." The conect consideration of these truths compels the thinking man to submit his will to that of the creator and to look to the greater intelligence for guidance in his search for knowledge. In this way the lover of knowledge may prepare his soul for the assistance he needs to transcend his limited abilities and gain a vision of his true end. On the Relation of the Speech of Alcibiades to the Other Speeches of the Platonic Symposium by Friedrich Nietzsche (1864) Translated by Eva T. H. Brann [Nietzsche wrote this essay when he was twenty years old. I came on it while helping a senior with his essay on the Symposium. It seemed to me that I should translate it to serve as an encouragement to our students. The German text appears in Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe: Historischkritische Gesammtausgabe, Vol. 2, Jugendschriften (18611864), edited by Hans Joachim Mette, Munich: C.H. Beck (1934).] All passages are quoted from Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Anton C. Pegis, ed., Random House, New York, 1945. 60 ladder to the highest eros that he erects I notice this peculiarity, that the different points of view of the speakers recur. Phaedrus is, to be sure, as elsewhere, only the "midwife" of the following speeches. But Pausanias, in whose speech one must never lose sight of his love for Agathon, shows the standpoint of a human being as long as he still loves one beautiful object, be it physical or spiritual. Eryximachus is a lover of all that is beatiful, as it is revealed in the whole of nature. Aristophanes has already advanced to the higher rung oflove for art and science, just as has Agathon, who, as a tragic poet, seems to me to have been awarded by Plato a higher place, above Aristophanes - a judgment with which we would not nowadays concur. The spiritually greater human being by far is Aristophanes. Finally Socrates himself reaches the rung that Diotima has designated as the highest, the love of the Arch-beautiful; we do not doubt that he has reached it, but Socrates himself does not and may not tell us this, true to his own character. What he does describe is how he was once caught in the same error as Agathon is now; that is the great insight he has gained. But how far it has carried over into life, whether it is even capable of being actualized - that has to remain uncertain for the reader of the dialogue. That is why Alcibiades appears, to represent the love for the Arch-beautiful in its effect on the practical life of human beings, that is, the effect of this love in a particular human being such as Socrates, and the countereffect a human being filled with such a love has on others, such as Socrates has on Alcibiades. Here is the reason why Plato chose precisely Alcibiades in order to depict this effect. If any disciple of Socrates had come on the scene to glorify Socrates, the effect would have been incomparably weaker. Alcibiades, on the other hand, is a youth completely apostate from Socrates and wholly alienated from philosophy. The influence of Socrates on such a one, a human being of such genius, is the most wonderful that Plato could have cited in proof of the above-mentioned countereffect. Furthermore, Alcibiades knows nothing of the preceding conversation. To the surprise of the audience he depicts the practical side of the human being consecrated to the Archbeautiful, while Socrates had drawn the theoretical side. Plato represents him as intoxicated in order to let him express himself more freely about things which had to be avoided in serious, measured conversation; their mention was, however, necessary, especially since they were historical facts. Then too the contrast between the speeches of Socrates and Alcidiades is worthy of notice, as is the contrast between their natures, while both are expressing their deepest feelings, the To come right out with how I conceive of the relation of the first five speeches to that of Socrates: It seems to me to be a completely erroneous claim that in those five speeches Plato collected only mistaken opinions about Eros in order to confront them with the only correct one, that of Socrates. Socrates himself does not deny them his applause; he comes back to all of them, assigning to each opinion its appropriate place. I rather believe that from the first to the last speech a definite progress takes place, insofar as each successive opinion substantially increases and broadens that of its predecessor; each speaker sees the concept of eros appear before him with growing clarity, until Socrates, far from overthrowing it, finally rounds off into a dome the edifice they have gradually erected. This holds of course only with respect to the basic opinions of each speaker. What the others add to their exegeses by way of ornament is often rejected by Socrates as unjustified. The speech of Phaedrus only sketches out the area within which the question is moved. He depicts Eros as the oldest god and the cause of the greatest goods. Of course, I here pass over the significance of each individual speech for characterizing the persons and emphasize only the basic thought. Pausanias explains the eros of the heavenly gods as love with the purpose of the active or passive ennobling of humankind. Eryximachus widens the meaning of eros to extend over the all-encompassing life of nature, while the two first speakers represent love only in its operation within the human being. Aristophanes says that eros is based on a necessity of nature, the law of elective affinity. Agathon, finally, calls eros the love of the beautiful, which begets everything good and great, in nature, in art, everywhere. In summary, the concept of eros according to these speeches would be: Eros is love for beauty as natural law, directed to the procreation of the good. Socrates' definition does not sound substantially different: Eros is love directed to the begetting and bearing on the beautiful, which he then characterizes as the instinct for immortality innate in spiritual and physical nature. In the 61 �Hope in Sophocles' Antigone D one through the mouth of the divinely inspired prophetess, the other under the inpiration of wine - their deepest and yet similar feelings for the Arch-beautiful, the one in the Idea, the other in a reference to reality: Socrates is the lover of the Arch-beautiful, but Alcibiades is also the lover of the Archbeautiful. And yet, what a difference of natures - the one as morally elevated as the other is morally fallen, the one as physically beautiful as the other is ugly, the one as sober and self-controlled as the other is intoxicated and excited. It is clear that these points of view are relevant as much to the philosophy as to the artistic conception of the dialogue. Here we should notice that with the entrance of Alcibiades a transformation of tone takes place; it is the most daring of artistic uicks that at the moment when the speech of Socrates has led the auditors as it were onto the high seas of the beautiful, the band of inebriates and revellers breaks in and yet does not undo the speech of Socrates but rather enhances it. The speech of Alcibiades is the work of eros, just as is the speech of Socrates. But the speech of Alcibiades works through facts, as that of Socrates does through ideas. And the facts work more forcefully and more compellingly than the articulated ideas. The speeches of Socrates and Alcibiades are related similarly to those of Agathon and Aristophanes, to those of Eryximachus and Pausanias, only in a higher sphere. Socrates, Agathon, E1yximachus are the greater thinkers; Alcibiades, Aristophanes, Pausanias work through facts and myths - in Pausanias especially we must note that he always keeps his own love for Agathon in view. The three thinkers elevate Eros to the widest circle of the arts and sciences peculiar to them: Eryximachus regards Eros as a physician, Agathon as a poet, Socrates as a philosopher. Through the contrast between Socrates and Alcibiades that demonic double nature of Eros himself finally comes before the imagination, that being-betwixt-and-between the divine and the human, the spiritual and the sensual; just so on the other side, the dialogue itself obtains through the appearance of Alcibiades that wonderful coloration, that oscillation between opposing tints that can be traced into the separate parts of the dialogue and that extends even to the language. Even the wondrous union of philosophical speeches with the enjoyment of wine reminds us of it. Thus the appearance of Alcibiades seems to be the turning point of the artful drama, and at the same time of philosophy, toward the side of actuality. And if I may be permitted to draw an analogy: Plato has pulled all the parts of the dialooue together in this nodal point, just as Zeus twisted 0 . . together the different sides and skins of the human bemg m the umbilibal cord and unified them in a knot. Nedalina Dineva '95 a 'YflP 01'\ 7tOAU7tAfl')'!CtOCT eAmcr n:oUotcr µev characters' actions or an omniscient power able to give a voiced expression of the characters' innermost thoughts and motives? Although this last version is a traditional interpretation of the role of the Greek chorus, it may oversimplify the way in which the play strives to render its meaning. I would much rather view the chorus as someone just like myself, uncertain and puzzled, struggling to unravel the mysteries of human life. The chorus may be seen as a group of aged men whom long experience has made wise but, perhaps, slightly senile. They proclaim truths striking in both the scope and depth of their perception. But a comprehension of eternal truths is not enough for the exercise of right judgment. One must also practically apply these truths to particular situations. The chorus lacks the ability to do so. The reader who would gain a true understanding of the play must bridge the gap between the universal and the particular. In this respect, the play is similar to a puzzle, all the parts of which are present but scattered and obscured so well that their assembly presents a problem, surmountable, we hope, with reason. Though not explicitly discussed, Hope is a constant thread woven throughout the texture of the play. An exposition of its role may provide considerable insight into the characters' development. While hope is a power that no human being can avoid, the volatility inherent in its nature is unsettling. According to the chorus Hope exhibits two contrary effects: ovacno avopcov 7tOAAota an:ma Kou<j>ovorov epCtYtmv et&>n o oou&v ep7ret, nptv 7tUpt Sepµro nooa ncr 7tp00'fl'\)0'1'\. (1.616-20) For indeed, wide-roaming hope is a benefit to many among men, but to many-a deceit for empty-minded passions; to one who knows nothing it creeps, until he bums his foot in the hot fire. As the opening stanza of one of the turning points (a'tpo<j>rt) in a chorus' speech, this passage typifies the generally sententious, truth-pondering character of the chorus' entrances. It appeares in a succession of generalizing statements which obviously bear upon the particular events in the tragedy-the far-reaching and contaminating power of evil and man's helplessness before Zeus' will (fate). Against this background, the appearance of the word "hope" and the optimism which it connotes seem quite striking and unfathomable. This is the first time that the concept of hope is treated as a potentially central concern in the play, and nowhere else does it receive so full a development. Haem on' s appearance on stage immediately after the chorus has finished speaking might lead one to believe that the reference to hope reflects his state of mind. Such an interpretation is emphasized by the connection between passion and hope in the passage quoted above. Hope is presented in an obscure causal relationship with Eros whose primary translation as physical love recalls Haemon's character. At this point the reader could easily understand the chorus' words as foreshadowing Haemon' s hope to save the Iife of his beloved. But this view is too limited in comparison with the broad scope of the other concepts articulated by the chorus. Besides, according to their own words, neither Haemon nor Antigone feels any passionate love for the other. Haemon himself, upon Creon's accusation of serving as "the woman's champion", claims in a guilessly passionate tone that his concern is more for his father than for his betrothed: "If thou art a woman; indeed, my care is for thee (1. 741 ;Jebb)." Such inconsistencies suggest that in the passage on hope the chorus addresses another, broader issue. In order to explore the significance of the chorus' treatment of hope we must first consider the chorus as we would any major character in the play. Is the chorus merely a group of bystanders offering their own subjective judgements on the 62 wide-roaming hope is a benefit to many among men, but to many-a deceit for empty-minded passions; In our experience we can distinguish between a general hope which manifests itself as an optimistic outlook towards the future, and a particular one which deals with the specifics of present situations. General optimism brings "benefit" to man, giving breadth to his horizon and vigour to his actions. The more restricted type of hope, however, is painfully insubstantial and unrealistic. It causes the person in whom it dwells to . forsake reason in his actions and to seek support from something outside of himself that he expects to emerge from the nebulous beyond at the moment of his greatest need. Such hope brings a "deceit for empty-minded passions", and, as it must by definition remain in the realm of the unfulfilled, it inevitably entails disaster. Ironically, the existence of this kind of hope in a person's mind is most clearly manifest by an abrupt change in his behaviour at the point when all hope is forsaken. 63 �We observe radical transformations in the views and actions of all the characters in the play. Antigone and Creon, the two central and mutually opposing figures, best illustrate this transformative process. Antigone, as she appears by the end of the play, is quite different from the strong-minded, resolute woman that we encounter in the beginning. In an earlier conversation with her sister she sees death as a beautiful end, an opportunity to "res t, a loved one with him whom I have loved (1.72-73; Jebb)." Even when confronted with Creon's threats she maintains a defiant attitude and presents death as an escape from her miserable existence: jus tice according to his rigid standards and heedless of any stance which opposes his own. His personality exemplifies yet another collapse of a man 's character after hope, his unsubstantial ally that was supposed to strengthen the belief in the correctness of his deeds, has stealthily departed. Upon the death of his son Creon is subject to the constrictions of a situation in which his hope can no longer thrive and support him. Without the internal instigation of hope he is suddenly humbled. A state of abjection is highly unexpected in a man who in his obstinacy is ready to rave even against the gods. He must doubt the beliefs which inspired his actions and realize the emptiness of his motives. Further evidence that Antigone and Creon are led to their tragic ends by Hope is the fact that they themselves realize, to a certain extent, the faultiness of their resolutions long before disaster strikes. Both characters admit that their decisions are not perfectly justified. Antigone indulgently calls this imperfection "her folly," Creon proudly names it "the power of the ruler." How can one admit the falsity of one's course of action and still follow it? Is the self-destructiveness which such willful blindness entails an intrinsic trait of human nature? It is unbelievable that a sane man could intentionally go towards his own doom. The only other impulse, besides madness, that can explain such behaviour is Hope. It baffles man with empty promises and inflates his pride and courage until the final moment when terror fills the hollow form that Hope has just forsaken. It is this attraction to self-destruction that leads people to great exploits and is often admired by outside observers. Is approval of such behaviour justified if it is not based on one's innate capacities but rather on something external? And should we not deem blind sacrifice a weakness and insecurity rather than strength, when it relies on empty hopes instead of reason? With regard to these questions it is helpful to consider the immediate context in which the "Hope" passage stands. It acts as the counter-movement, the avncnpoqn1, of another passage that treats of fate, represented by the inexorable might of Zeus, and ends with a proclamatory statement, "Nothing that is vast enters into the life of mortals without a curse (l.614615; Jebb)." At first sight, this line seems to refer directly to the extraordinary personalities of the two main characters in the play, condemned to disaster by their own respective natures. If, however, we are to take the following antistrophe as an answer to the vague universality of this statement, the "vast thing"-naµnoA'l)-that comes into life with a curse is in fact "wide-roaming hope"-noA.unA.a:)'K'tOO' £Amcr. A special emphasis needs to be put on the fact that naµnoA.u denotes a thing and not a person, an observation which lessens the immediacy of the application of the word to either Creon or Antigone. It is significant that the adjectives modifying "the thing" and "the hope" have similar connotations and even share a composite part, namely 7tOA1J. Moreover, the manner in which they enter, creeping into life and man respectively, But if I am to die before my time, I count that a gain: for if anyone lives, as I do, compassed about with evils, can such a one find aught but gain in death? (1.463-466;Jebb) At the very last moment, however, when directly faced with the prospect of dying, she mourns her fate and attempts to invoke pity for herself in others. We realize that her previous resignation to the inevitability of death was not securely grounded. Strong beliefs, based on rational thought, would not yield so readily to feelings; but passions, emerging from powerful impulses and obstinate self-righteousness, are easily overcome by like passions. Antigone, as she first appears, is moved by a violent, almost blind, determination to act. This determination is a likely manifestation of OL epffi't£CJ or "loves," "passions." Just as physical love is irrational and uncontrollable, so is any other inexplicably powerful attraction or drive. Antigone is resolved to bury her brother but refuses to consider the destructive consequences of her actions. Hope is what fosters such an attitude-hope in the correctness of one's decision, in the possibility of achieving one's goal, and in the relief which will ensue from its accomplishment. When this hope is not realized (the corpse is still unburied; no approval, divine or human, is granted her), Antigone behaves like a child irritated that events do not accord to her desires. She bewails her fate, the same fate which not long before she eulogized as leading to a most beautiful end in life. She stands uncertain, groundless; her hope is gone and with it, all the principles that have hitherto driven her actions: And what law of heaven have I transgressed? Why, hapless one, should I look to the gods any morewhat ally should I invokewhen by piety I have earned the name of impious? (1. 921-24, Jebb) Creon is also led by a "passion" that is stined by a deceitful hope. He hopes to establish justice in his city, but 64 is expressed by the same verb---epnffi. These two stanzas in ~h~~ juxtaposition, suggest much broader implications than imtially apparent. Vastness and its concomitant curse are at work not only in single, exceptional cases. They are intrinsic elements of the realm of hope of which we all partake. If our firs t impulse is to separate ourselves from the characters and ~he events in the tragedy, deeming them too extraordinary to m any way bear upon our own experience, we must now face the realization that the cause and driving force behind them is something common to all men, by whose disastrous effects we are all endangered. The application of Hope to human existence does not end here but is taken to an even higher level. Its central role within the pl.a~ is further enforced by its presence in the proverbially defm1tive passage, the "noAAcx 'ta Bf:iva" chorus. Once again we ar~ faced ~y an obscure expression and a passing mention of an ~<lea which, when fully explored, might yield important meanmgs: Wonders are many, but nothing is more wondrous than man. Having an ingenuity of art, and wisdom beyond hope, he creeps, now towards evil and now towards good. (1.332,362-363) He~e ~~ is p~esented as wise "beyond hope" (1J7tep ~A.mo) m his mgemous arts. This expression, mysterious in itself, stands in a peculiar relation to wisdom and arts Moreover, it is man this time, as opposed to hope, who. creeps (epmo~, now t~wards evil and now towards good. The commonality of t!ris action to both man and hope suggests a fundamen~ link between them. In the core of their relation stands vastn.ess, which they both share. Man, vastness, and ~ope mer~e mto one and spread over all the instances of tragic ~mpa~se m the play. Once understood, their inseparability illummates the tragedy in the context of human existence as a whole. Note: Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. 65 �Human Nature and War in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War by Janice Thompson '95 Individuals can oppose individuals, parties can oppose parties, states can oppose states, with impunity. But these levels are interdependent and the hostility in one cannot always be contained in the stratum in which it originated. When enough individuals form an alliance they become a city which can oppose other cities; likewise cities allied together become a state and can oppose other states, while states allied together become an empire. Thucydides begins his History at the end of the greatest state of possible unity in the Grecian world, when all people, cities, and states were united against Persia. He then describes the degeneration of that cohesion through all the strata of human society. Thucydides' views on human nature and the breakdown of law and order are most evident in his analysis of civil war and disunity, particularly in his presentation of the Athenian plague and the civil war in Corcyra. The plague in Athens was a natural disaster that so overwhelmed men that they came to ignore the old structures that had unified them as a city and governed their behavior. Such a removal of the accepted order seems to be the first step into lawlessness. In the new situation created by the plague there was no apparent evidence that the moral ties of virtue and honor that had once guided men's actions still had relevance to the suffering they then encountered. For example, those honorable enough to care for the sick received no reward; instead they usually became sick themselves. The disease struck randomly and relentlessly, inflicting suffering upon both the virtuous and the corrupt. Many of the living stopped caring for the sick or observing burial rites out of fear for their own health. Thus Thucydides describes men as becoming "indifferent" (II, 52) to rules of law and religion when they are no longer able to see the relevance of such rules to their present situation. Thucydides then describes how the state of "indifference" develops into one of fearlessness. He writes: "No fear of god or law of man had a restraining influence." (II, 53) As the disease continued to spread wildly, people lost hope and concern for the future. All were weak in the face of the plague, and no one expected to live long enough to be respected for virtuous acts or punished for crime. For similar reasons the laws of the state quickly followed the laws of morality into disrepair. The greatest value became the pleasure of the moment as they could be certain of nothing else. (II, 53) The citizens acted on this new value by becoming openly self-indulgent and unrestrained. The despair and fear felt by the Athenians when threatened by the plague, an enemy they Human nature is presented as inextricably entwined with history in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides writes in the introduction that: It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future. Thucydides presents the human motivation that directs the course of history. Throughout time human nature shows its effects in all the different strata of human interaction. Insight into the human spirit is, thus, integral to understanding of the past, and of the relations between nations and individuals. Thucydides' history concerns a time of war. In order to understand the state of war we must understand the human nature that causes it, the human nature that develops under its threat, and the effects of human nature in the political situation. War permeates all aspects and levels of human society, from the social to the moral, from the international to the individual. Human society is unified through "social" ties and "moral" ties. The social ties, necessitated by common interest and self-preservation, are a balancing of strength against strength in order to set up a system in which a society can function. They consist of agreements and rules designed to make aggression unprofitable. Examples of the social structures are such things as laws and alliances. Less obviously motivated by self-interest are the moral ties. These are not based on a position of strength but are a precaution against times of weakness. The benefit for the weak is immediately obvious: security in times of distress, when strength can not save them. The benefits for the strong are less apparent: a good reputation for their virtuous behavior, and the hope of receiving similar treatment in times of trouble. Justice, ethics, 'and friendship are examples of such ties. A state of war depends on the creation and maintenance of a fine balance of unity and disunity, understanding and blindness. A state must be internally unified in order to have the strength and stability with which to direct itself against another state. Such internal or domestic unity allows a state to take an opposing position to another, setting up a disunity on the external, or international, scale. Unity and disunity can develop in all levels of human relations, and their effects on one level spread to others. 66 67 �could not fight, undermined their respect for law. This led to a reckless disregard of their social structure of values. In the absence of such structures they came to observe new values of individual self-preservation and indulgence, values which threatened their ability to act as a society. The societal effects of the destruction and replacement of previously established systems of values are evide?t i.n Thucydides' description of the civil war in Corcyra and m his generalization of the nature of revolutions. The structures of society, in the case of revolutions, are purposely attacked by rival political factions, rather than deteriorating from neglect, as they were in Athens, during the plague. In Corcyra, both the democrats and the oligarchs were supposedly trying to save the city, but through opposite means. They were not interested in compromise and they soon came to act as enemies towards each other. Internal fighting destroyed Corcyra's ability to put forth an organized self-defense against outside forces. Even worse, it released internal forces that destroyed civil unity. At this point in his chronicles, Thucydides departs from his simple presentation of fact and analyzes the aspects of human nature that direct the course of revolution. He begins by describing how the change from attitudes of peace to attitudes of conflict and war come to permeate the whole structure of understanding: "To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings." (III, 82) Along with the logos of speech, the existing logos, or order, of human values was displaced. Aggression was now seen as courage, moderation as unmanliness, consideration prior to action as cowardly inaction, villainy as cleverness, and honesty as simple-mindedness. Thucydides further comments: "The simple way oflooking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist." (III, 83) In language, law, and national character the concepts of virtue were changed from those which benefitted the weak to those which benefitted the individual. It is necessary to understand why this change occurred and its influence in the generation of the resulting situation. The existing structures of understanding are purposely destroyed in times of revolution to allow for structures of hostility and conflict to be established. During the plague in Athens, a time of civil disunity but not revolution, the moral ties of law and religion were disregarded; human nature took advantage of such lawlessness. But in Corcyra and other revolutions, these laws were attacked and replaced in order to destroy the existing social order. A certain type of human behavior was encouraged rather than simply left unrestrained. Revolutions create hostilities and enemies while at the same time they remove the systems of justice that once mediated and restiicted such behavior. Thucydides explains that "Society had been divided into two ideologically hostile camps .. ." (II, 83), thus providing a structure in which indi- victual desires conflicted with another party or individual. People could no longer depend on any common standard or belief or behavior. There could be no confidence in others and so all energy was devoted to individual strength and quickness for self-preservation. Potential enemies were everywhere, and simple survival was so tenuous that to strike first became the best way to be secure. Vengeance and profit became the ideals governing man's behavior. Thucydides asserts that the emergence of the structures of conflict and revenge propel a state further into its own destruction for two reasons. First, the loss of unity permits the emergence of a dangerous form of human behavior: Then, with the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself; for, if it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice. (ill, 84) And second, the lawlessness and hostility established by such behavior destroys the means of salvation from the disorder and suffering. Indeed, it is true that in these acts of revenge on others men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which a.:e there to give a hope of salvation to all who are m distress, instead of leaving those laws in existence, remembering that there may come a time when they, too, will be in danger and will need their protection. (ill,84) In the revolutions, the "structures" of hostility that encouraged self-interest and revenge in order to dismantle the original unity ultimately could not be contained within an ordered system. The competition for power to further party interests that had corrupted the strata of national unity, eventually spread to individual competition for power, corrupting all strata of the once cohesive city. Thucydides claimed: "Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils." (III, 83) Party programs seemed admirable, but they appealed to public concerns only to gain the support necessary to empower those competing for leadership. Party attacked party and individual attacked individual. Public spirit became a guise for personal ambition; nothing was as it seemed. Hence violence erupted throughout the society. The only way to achieve one' s ends was quickly and forcefully. Other means, such as agreements and unions, could not be trusted as they were assumed to be motivated by aggression. The disorder, fear, and hostility that spread through all levels of organization caused terrible suffering, which could not be prevented as the structures of from weakness she thought she did not need to act with concern for the weak. Thus the other states came to realize that Athens' "justice" could be depended on only when it benefitted her self-interest. Athens also suspected such selfinterest in the actions of others states. Since true justice is difficult (ifnot impossible) to separate from bias, the appearance of justice can easily be used to veil self-interest. By upholding and displaying such attitudes Athens presented herself as superior to other states and to any rules governing dealings between states, such as justice, which could restrict her power. Similar to the early stages of rebellion within a city, initial disunity and a lack of a common structure had been established, this time on the international stratum. Policy had to be based on self-interest, acted out of strength, or avoided through fear. Power now ruled justice and law. Athens had thus begun to dismantle the moral order from the system in which she and other states has to interact. The Athenian speech is followed by King Archidamus' speech to the Spartans advising them on how to respond to the Athenian situation. Thucydides cites fear of the growth of Athenian power as the reason that motivated Sparta to finally declare war (I, 23). King Archidamus viewed the Athenians ' pride as excessive and dangerous. But, most significantly, he feared the effects of such an attitude on the internal unity of the state. He was concerned that the overriding self-interest set up by Athens on the international level might permeate the state level and destroy national unity. King Archidamus cautioned the Spartans against such behavior with the same arguments used by Thucydides in his analysis of human nature at the destruction of Corcyra. To maintain a powerful and unified state he called on them to uphold the social order: to be self-controlled and unified through honor and regard for law and custom. He also warned them not to remove the moral order; they must never become too confident in their own strength; they must realize that success is subject to chance and change. Athenian policy did not address such concerns. Athens saw her strength as the principle of her foundation that enabled her to act according to self-interest. The perpetuation of such strength required that she be unified. Pericles realized this and labored to encourage her confidence and solidarity. In his speech to the Athenian assembly after the Spartan ultimatum, he attempted to show that Athens truly was the stronger. He also argued the necessity that she demonstrate her power by refusing to make concessions to such trifling rewards as included in the Spartan ultimatum. Athens' refusal to concede to the conditions of the treaty was a display of strength to the world. Pericles, in his funeral oration, labored to ensure that Athens truly was strong by being internally unified. Pericles spent a great deal of time praising the special character of Athens as good and noble. In doing so he presented them with the ideal character for Athens and encouraged them, out of salvation had been removed. Civil war in Corcyra destroyed the society. Specific unities (under party lines) were set up to achieve certain ends through the creation of disunities in the city. The structures of justice were removed. But eventually the once directed hostility and disunity between parties grew beyond the control of its creators. Without the structures of justice to stop it, this destructive form of human behavior spread until the whole society collapsed. Such human behavior consists of a mixture of greed, power, hostility, and self-preservation; a combination that seems to be very similar to the attitudes of states on the international level. Athens attempted to avoid a declaration of war with Sparta by presenting Sparta with a justification for her actions. Thucydides first presents evidence of Athens' attitude of hostility in her statement of character to Sparta. Athens described herself as obtaining and maintaining her empire according to three powerful motives, namely "security, honor, and self-interest." (I, 76) Security upheld her social ties, honor her moral ties, but self-interest encouraged her to set up disunities that weakened such ties. Without the external threat of Persian aggression, Athens believed she was strong enough to rule others and no longer needed their cooperation and trust. She also claimed that "it has always been a rule that the weak should be subject to the strong" and that she was worthy of her power. All of these beliefs established specific "disunities." Security and self-interest imply that one state has personal interests that may conflict with those of other states. Each state recognizes the potential for enemies and, fearing for its own safety, acknowledges the need to protect itself. If alliances are made, they cannot be fully trusted, because any state may choose to break the terms of the agreement as soon as it seems more advantageous for them to do so. Thus Athens was forced to depend on her allies' fear of her power. Potential disunity was ever-present due to conflicting interests of states, but a specific enemy had not yet been recognized and an uneasy international unity remained. The formal structures of alliance and Grecian unity established as a result of the Persian conflict had not yet been dissolved. But since the original cause for unity, the Persian empire, was gone, the adherence of states to the alliance was much more tenuous as the faith in such a social order was dismantled. Athenians talked of paying" ... more attention to justice than they are compelled to do so by their situation." (I, 76) This attitude seems to undermine the importance of justice, as justice is presented not as something to which Athens was subject, but as something she chose to respect. honor was still cited as a controlling value in the Athenian character, as it was for the sake of honor that they continue to recognize justice insofar as it didn't compromise their strength. Athens was prepared to undermine the social order existing between states because she believed that she herself was not subject to any moral order. Because she was so strong and protected 69 68 �love for the state and all that is good, to emulate this ideal. He thus gave the citizens a sense of unity based in their own belief. He reinforced this sense of unity by praising and encouraging their respect for the laws. Internal moral structures were upheld, but so as to encourage the Athenian sense of national unity, Pe1icles was careful at the same time to depict Athens as having a very specific and superior charact~r. For example, Pericles claimed of Athens: "In her case, and m her case alone, no invading enemy is ashamed at being defeated, and no subject can complain of being governe? by people unfit for their responsibilities." (II, 41) Penc~es worked to unify Athens, and to give her a distinct and supenor self-image. In this way he tried to mold public attitude into the conditions he needed in order to maintain a strong state capable of successfully waging war. . As Thucydides and the Spartan King warned, strenglh is not infallible: it can be overturned by chance. The Athenian plague is the first illustration of the effects of c~anc~ in the History. Suffeiing from the hopelessness of the situation and desperate for an end to their suffering, the Athenian people began to lose confidence in the leadership, valu~s, and l~ws they had hitherto upheld. Pericles attempted to give meanmg to their suffeiing for them, prevailing upon them to recollect the ultimate benefits to be confeiTed upon all of Athens, for which they had all promised to fight. A hope for the fu~ure was necessary to make the people see beyond present difficulties and to deter them from exploiting the opportunity for lawlessness. Pericles was able to convince the Athenians to continue to follow his policy of war, though they still suffered and were angry because of it. Through such descriptions Thucydides shows how desperate people become to find an end to their suffering. Pericles was able to unify the Athenians despite their suffering because he was such an intelligent and well respected leader, dedicated to the glory of the state. Not all leaders, however, possess such qualities. Even worse, some leaders go so far as to exploit the volatility of human suffering for their own selfish ends. Disorder threatened to destroy civil society during the time of the plague, but strong leadership was ultimate~y able to maintain order. The stability of such order was agam threatened when disunity emerged in Athenian national leadership. Competition for leadership and support is strikingly evident in the debate between Cleon and Diodotus about whether to destroy the population of Mytilene, an ally that failed in its attempt to revolt. Cleon spoke first. He claimed t?at fear ~d conspiracy were permeating the empire, potential enemies were everywhere, and that the harsh treatment proposed for Mytilene would render the other subjects obedient by instilling them with fear. Cleon greatly expanded upon the sense. of superiority that Pericles had initially inspired in the Atheman citizenry. Unlike Pericles, he did so, not for the good of Athens, but for his own quest for power. He tried to frighten the Athenians by the dangers he described so that they would empower him with their trust to protect them through whatever means he claimed necessary. Cleon encouraged fear within the state and violent action against its adversaries. He was not interested in maintaining any" general laws of humanity," structures of justice, or any restrictions on conduct in adversarial relations with other states: As for compassion, it is proper to feel it in the case of people who are like ourselves and who will pity us in their tum, not in the case of those who, so far from having the same feelings towards us, must always and inevitably be our enemies. (Ill, 40) Cleon advocated an extreme structure of hostility, fear, and self-interest from which he removed any consideration for moral law. Both his opinions and his motivations seemed dangerous to the preservation of unity. Diodotu~ prese~ted an outlook in opposition to Cleon's recommendation. D~odo~us was opposed to putting the Mytilenians to death. As did King Archidamus at the debate at Sparta, Diodotus warned the people against acting out of haste and anger. But he also warned them of a new danger, namely that speakers and leaders could no longer be trusted or believed. Not only were moral acts rendered void of purpose and influence on the international level, but basic values such as honesty and oust ceased to function as a means to preserve order within the state. For now that self-interest had spread so far as to corrupt the balance of political power within the state, the citiz~ns h~d to suspect the motivations of every leader. This state of ~faus is strikingly reminiscent of the situation that resulted m the destruction of Corcyra. Good leadership dming the plague maintained among the people a hope of salvation fro°! t~e disorder. In Athens, however, there was no longer the fruth m leadership that might empower it to restore unity to the nation should it fall prey to disorder. Diodotus argued only according to the self-interest of the state, as this was the principle governing Athens' foreign and domestic affairs, but he argued insightfully as to the nature of such a system. He provided evidence that even the death penalty could not prevent men from b eaking laws. Fear of death is not enough to prevent crime if men are truly determined to break the law. Diodotus cited factors of human nature as the cause of this behavior: Hope and desire persist throughout and cause the gr~at­ est calamities-one leading and the other followmg, one conceiving the enterprise, and the other suggesting that it will be successful-invisible factors, but more powerful than the te1Tors that are obvious to our eyes. (Ill, 45) If Mytilenians are given nothing but hopelessness and a well defined enemy to blame, then shouldn't they do everything in their power to destroy their enemy since, at the very 70 were apparently intended to protect the weak, Athens would ultimately hurt herself, regardless of her present strength. The Melians warned Athens: "And this is a principle which affects you as much as anybody, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance and would be an example to the world." They suggested to Athens that her attitude was needlessly creating enemies, but Athens was unconvinced. Athens remained confident of her own strength and security, and of the accuracy of her understanding of world affairs. Her attitudes were so ingrained that more dialogue could never convince her that her international relationships would bring about the eventual downfall of the Athenian empire. Despite Athens' assurance of her strength and justness in her international relations, her internal order had been dismantled and could no longer support her interests. Athens' allies came to trust Sparta more than Athens, her leaders manipulated state affairs for their own private interests, and the citizens followed whomever promised the easiest solution to their present difficulties. At the end of her empire Athens was too disorganized to fight her enemy, the Sicilians. Her internal disunity made her externally weak. The ultimate blow to the glory of her state was that she was finally betrayed to Sparta by one of her own leaders. Social ties were in sham bles throughout all levels of society. During the time of Pericles, Athens followed the same principles of strength and self-interest, but her ability to wield such weapons against other states was securely rooted in the internal strength and the unity of her state. Previously, when civil difficulties threatened moral order and national unity, good leadership could contain their spread and redirect the people toward law and unity. When self-interest, revenge, and the exercise of brute force replaced the moral structures which previously protected the weak, the principles of disunity eventually brought about the ruin of the entire society. Thucydides presents war as an establishment of specific unities and disunities in an otherwise stable system so that one state, party, or individual can put forth a unified attack against another. In order to do so, some of the moral and social ties of human interaction must be removed without destroying the whole delicate web of human affairs. Since these ties connect and guide society in all respects and on all levels, the effect of breaking one law, or of setting up hostility on one level of interacting, soon resounds throughout the entire sphere of human affairs. The human motivations of self-interest, power and revenge create and spread the disunity of war because they change the understanding of what is good or most beneficial. Such intentions thereby change the rules that govern all levels of human interaction. The good of the whole, the "common good," is no longer understood to be the good of every individual; individual "goods" are therefore bound to conflict. By removing the order determined by the common good that restricts individual goods, two things happen: hostilities are introduced, and the structures that guide and protect least, their fate could be no worse than if they had never tried at all? This seems to be a good explanation as to why the social conditions generated by suffering are so volatile. Diodotus claimed that once on a certain course human nature cannot be controlled through intimidation (III, 45); physical strength is unreliable as such a control. This comment is significant as it was through Athens' strength and the fear which she inspired that she maintained her empire. Diodotus suggested that Athens' security must not be based on force but on "good administration" (III, 46): maintaining friendships not yet based on fear and keeping a very close wat.ch on those which are based on fear. Diodotus cautioned Athens not to depend solely on her military might. In calling for strength in administration, he also advocated maintaining structure and unity in the empire. Diodotus did not ask Athens to be compassionate. He realized that there was no longer any place for moral considerations in Athenian policy. Athens set out to act according to her self-interests; she could not maintain such interests if she were to recognize the damaging effects of her actions upon others. Although the motion ofDiodotus was passed, the vote was close, indicating that a division was growing among the Athenian population. The national and civil interactions between Athenians began to reflect the disunity of Athenian aggression on international affairs. The Athenian attitude of unchecked self-interest is starkly apparent in the Melian Dialogue. This passage concerns the fate of Melos, an island state that wanted to remain neutral to the Athenian empire. The Athenians refused to recognize this neutrality, as they perceived other states only as enemies or subjugates. The Athenians claimed that justice is based on the distribution of power and that it is the "general and necessary law of nature to rule whatever one can." (V, 105) Moral justice was rendered valueless, weakness was ignored; opportunity and strength governed all. The Melians were told outright that the only arguments the Athenians would understand had to reflect the concerns of Athenian self-interest. Since their hostility was already assumed, it was useless to argue their neutrality or innocence. The Melians had to accept these limitations. They did, however, raise some important observations on human nature and self-interest. They tried to suggest to the Athenians that it would be useful to Athens not to destroy a principle that is to the "general good of all men": " ... in the case of all who fall into danger there should be such a thing as fair play and just dealing, and that such people should be allowed to use and to profit by arguments that fall short of a mathematical accuracy." (V, 90) The Melian speech is strikingly similar to the general laws of humanity which Thucydides himself describes earlier. The Melians further said that by repealing these laws, which 71 �an individual person or state are removed. The individual must face hostility with his own strnngth and intelligence without hope of protection. But Thucydides shows that strength cannot be relied on as the only bulwark against destrnction; chance and decay can undermine its protective value. Virtue, however, seems to guard against the extremes of fortune and time by directing men to the notions of common good and societal unity. In creating partial disunity, a state of war risks total disunity. Should suffering or destruction result-should the individual need help or protection, the structures of society can no longer assist him. The society has been destroyed; even the "general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all ... "(III, 84) are lost. 73 72 �Two swans D Morning at Midnight- for Mary Ruth Clance · D by J.H. Beall by J.H. Beall A pale blue seen wan across the pale water cries its swan song as the placid pair curve their white necks into the rush weeds near shore, near a tumble of rocks as the long shadows come, long toothed with winter, the occasional, ochre sedge of sea grass a line against the fm1her . burgundy ridge of trees. The other pair A midnight's fancy in its tones resolves a deeper chord and hues the shades would fit on evening lay like cats upon a purry clime. All resonate and thrust upon the tautest edge, would stop and trust to make the evening so. Thus violate, the sleeping lover lies, and in the carnal bed so troubled with repose, tranquility of ages in a breath of sighs eye not the pale blue jumble of the rocks but the darker ebb and current the wind asks where the yielding water sloughs up and is thrown back. Without comment, each wave awash demarking dreams all-literate, "Suppose." Yet here upon the dark incontinence of sleep, mass continents of thoughts the mind itself would not have dreamed, where toppling, high meridians with its own desire, draws weakly up. "Perhaps a will there," they say. Perhaps the pawn of spent breath the way is given to, words being that they are cold comfort under coming winter star. alone in keening silence fall, as should a great tree fall in dark and soundless wood. 74 75 �Non-Prof it Org. BULK RATE U.S. POSTAGE St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 PAID PERMIT No. 120 ANNAPOLIS, MD. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1993 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1993. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1993 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Blistein, Rachel (Senior Editor) Belanger, Yvonne (Junior Editor) Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/735a3e690bc5af6c2e155eb46ef128eb.pdf d15a9862f616edbedbffd595d2cccbd3 PDF Text Text SPRING 1995 �ENERGEIA: The activity in whicp anything is fully itself. Tl ... vou EVEp)'Eta ~ro11 ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) Staff Carla Echevarria Veronica Gventsadze Rebecca Michael Sean Stickle Junior Editor Christopher Anderson Senior Editor Amy Thurston Faculty Advisor Abe Schoener Special Thanks To the St. John's College Print Shop: Marcia Baldwin Chris Colby Vernon Magee Don Smith To the St. John's Computer Lab: Matthew Braithwaite Chad Cranfill Sean Stickle Eva Brann Leigh Fitzpatrick Adrienne Rogers Jennifer Swaim Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published once a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis. The Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community - essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. �D Table of Contents Cary Stickney On Beginning Hegel's Phenomenology.... .. .............. ........... ..... ................ ............. I Cindy Lutz Dawn Shuman Dissection of Morning Glory Seed Pods ............................................................... 8 Devin Rushing-Schurr Definition of Faith in Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments .......................... IO Edward Freeman The Manipulation of the Field .. .. ......................................................................... 27 David Jennings A Possibility of Beauty........................................................................................ 30 Eva Brann The Tin Star at High Noon ................. ........................................... ...... ....... ......... 32 Carrie Lynn Sager Separation and Combination: The Unity of Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise .............................................................................. 36 Mary Dietch The Offence of Socrates: A Look at the Philosopher in Athens ........................ 44 Dawn Shuman The Infinite Straight Line in Book I of Euclid's Elements .................................. 48 Emily Katherine Brock Character, Reader, Author, God: What It Means to Read Ulysses ..................... 50 Gregory Alan Brandt An Attempt at Unlocking "Benito Cereno" ......................................................... 62 Cover Art Cindy Lutz, to accompany Dissection of Morning Glory Seed Pods, page 8. �On Beginning Hegel's Phenomenology D Cary Stickney Let me begin with a confession. Some of you may remember that in the second act of the Tempest the drunken butler Stefano appears with a bottle which he has somehow made of tree bark and filled from a cask of sherry which he rode ashore. He presses this liquor on Calib,an with the phrase, "Kiss the book." My confession is that the first book I ever kissed, twenty years ago this December (1994), was Hegel's Phenomenology. I was home on Christmas vacation and I had persuaded Robert Bart, my Senior Seminar leader and Essay advisor, that I could write my Senior Essay on Hegel. Of the Phenomenology I had read only the two most famous parts: the lengthy Preface and the short, mystifying, unforgettable section entitled "Lordship and Bondage." A few days into the vacation I sat down to read the Introduction and the first chapter. It was on finishing the first chapter that I kissed the book. It seems now a very strange thing to have done and it seemed a little strange even at the time, I remember, but it was the only expression I could find adequate to my gratitude and happiness at that moment. I suppose I had better add, in the interest of completeness, that I never kissed the book again , and that in fact, though I have studied it a fair amount since, and even went to live in Germany for several years largely in order to study Hegel, I cannot say that I have ever read the whole book through. I hope you will not think me fickle on this account, or conclude that I am not after all enough of an expert to be of any use to you. One of the main things I want to say is that the Phenomenology, like other books on the Program, is too great to be left to the experts. So why, exactly, did I kiss the book? Perhaps, like Stefano, I had the soul of a lackey and I was intoxicated with what did not even belong to me? Maybe I had no one else to kiss? Of course I must have been kissing myself in part, congratulating myself that I could make any sense at all on my own of this famously obscure philosopher. But I think I was primarily responding to a liberator. I felt that I had been set free; or restored to myself. To what had I been enslaved? I think I had been afraid of, if not exactly in bondage to, a deep suspicion that thought didn ' t ultimately make any difference; things are as they are in the world, you can think about them or imagine you understand them as much or as little as you like-nothing is thereby changed about the way things really are. I might take that suspicion another step and suspect that I myself am like everything else in the world: My being, too, will then be indifferent to any thoughts about me, even my own thoughts. I will do whatever I do and feel whatever I feel quite apart from what I or anyone else may surmise to be the reasons. If this is so, then any seeming confirmation of my understanding becomes somewhat empty. I may successfully predict an event or exert control over a force either human or natural, but I am always coming from somewhere outside. I could as well have predicted or controlled from several very different beginning points and still succeeded, so my success is not any ultimate criterion of a true understanding. Maybe it is all the criterion there is, though. This, or something like it, was my suspicion, from which I was so grateful to be set free. I suppose I could very roughly abbreviate it with the name "Kant," though other names suggest themselves-"Descartes," or even "Modem Science," at least as that science tends to appear on television and in high schools, and hence as it appears in its claims to be a worked-out version of good solid common sense. Hegel sets about to demolish this view at the beginning of his book and in my opinion succeeds brilliantly. It is the first task of the Introduction to step behind Kant, to tum his skeptical mistrust of the powers of human knowing back upon itself. Kant had asked, "What are the conditions of the possibility of human knowing?"; that is, "What must be the case if there is to be such a thing as knowing?" . That real knowing did exist he took to be given by the existence of geometry and by the dazzling successes of Newtonian celestial mechanics. His answer was couched in terms inherited from Aristotle: form and material. Let knowledge consist of necessary conclusions about objects of possible experience and its form will be the element of necessity, while the material · will be the objects of experience. Kant reasoned that necessity could not be the contribution of experience, since, as Hume and many other Skeptic philosophers had long since pointed out, the mere fact of something happening to exist or to behave in a given way says nothing at all about any necessity for things to be thus. So if there is. truly necessity in things it is a form we humans have placed on experience, and it must in tum be neces �sary and inescapable that we do so, otherwise there would be no real necessity and no real knowledge after all. But this all feels rather cumbersome; it is a little like the children's game in which you must jump back and forth over a rope which is raised and lowered. First the experiences of mathematics and celestial mechanics are invoked as containing necessity, then empirical one-at-atime experiences are recalled as mere happenstance, void of all necessity, then again even they tum out to necessarily belong under the rubric of possible experience which must after all be governed by various necessary categories of understanding, imposed indeed by us, but necessarily, ineluctably imposed by every human qua human, such that there is really no access to any experience in which this imposed necessity is not already an inextricable element. I hope I am not doing too much injustice to what I continue to find a beautiful argument and a worthy enterprise for the Junior Seminar. It has been some years since I have heard any protest in Faculty Meetings about devoting as many Seminars as we do to Kant. This year it is ten, and I take it as a sign of the depth of intellect of my colleagues that they recognize what a giant Kant is. Let me stay with him a little longer, since, as Mr. Venable has remarked, Hegel is to Kant somewhat as the New Testament is to the Old. At least, it is nearly always illuminating to ask, when one has to begin with some idea of what Hegel is talking about, "What would Kant have said about this?". Sometimes every argument Hegel makes can sound like an argument against Kant. One result of Kant's own argument is that a world of so-called "things-in-themselves" turns out to exist, about which we can know nothing. These things-in-themselves are at least required by the terms of the argument: While the imposition of necessity and various other kinds of order upon experience is our constant spontaneous act of forming, we must still be given material to form. But since time and space themselves are products of our formative activity, then the sources of the material to be formed must lie outside time and space and indeed outside all the categories of c~r understanding. It becomes again a problem how we can be sure these sources do exist. Kant addresses this problem in the section of the first Critique entitled "Refutation ofidealism" but I think we will hasten past to what Hegel replies to all of this. Hegel asks how we can be satisfied with a knowledge which begins by proclaiming its separation from things as they are in themselves. What then lli it a knowledge of, if not of the way things really are? Why call it know ledge at all? He questions one of Kant's deepest assumptions: that the world is over there being and that we are over here thinking. If that is our immovable beginning then we will never solve .the problem of how to own the truth. With truth on one side and thought on the other we will need a middle term, a bridge where they can meet, a tool to pull the truth over or a telescope to observe it close up from afar. But all of these things only involve us again in Kant's difficulty: What we wanted was the truth itself and what we got was how it appears in a telescope or how much of it fits onto a certain kind of bridge or how it looks after being hooked and dragged out of its home. The problem, as Hegel puts it, is about mediation. Words like "absolute" or "in itself' suggest a truth having nothing to do with the knower. But if this is so then all knowing, all attempts to mediate the truth to the knower will be some kind of falsification. It is not a new problem. The following exchange takes place in Plato's dialogue the Sophist. Theaetetus the mathematics student is replying on behalf of the "friends of the forms," that is, the believers in the n811, to the Stranger from Elea, a one-time disciple of Parmenides. (248d) Str.: ... Do they acknowledge that the soul knows and real being is known? The.: Certainly they agree to that. Str.: Well, do you agree that knowing and beingknown is an action, or is it experiencing an effect, or both? Or is one of them experiencing an effect, the other an action? Or does neither of them come under either of these heads at all? The.: Evidently neither, otherwise our friends would be contradicting what they said earlier. Str.: I see what you mean. They would have to say this. If knowing is to be acting on something it follows that what is known must be acted upon by it, and so, on this showing, reality when it is being known by the act of knowledge must, in so far as it is known, be changed by being so acted upon, and that, we say, cannot happen to the changeless. The.: Exactly. Str.: But tell me, in the name of Zeus, are we really to be so easily convinced that change, and life, and soul, and understanding have no place in that which is perfectly real-that it has neither life nor thought, but stands immutable, holy, and exalted, devoid of intelligence? The.: We would indeed be yielding to a fearsome doctrine, stranger. 2 Hegel's answer is that change and life and soul and understanding are inextricably entwined in the truth; in other words, that mediation is not something that must be brought to bear on a reality over there. Being is mediation. It mediates itself to itself. As the Eleatic Stranger's teacher, Parmenides, had written: Thinking and being are the same. So I have arrived, as I had to, at one of those grandiose claims that always seem to infuriate a certain proportion of Hegel's readers. Parmenides doesn't provoke anything like that response; I'm not sure why. Perhaps because he wasn't a German Professor? So Kant, that other German Professor, was not after all so very far wrong in Hegel's view. The world is, indeed, just as Kant claimed, thoroughly permeated with thought. The categories of the understanding are indeed structures of the world itself; only not of a merely phenomenal world behind which would exist some unreachable realm of things-in-themselves, forever denied us, holy, exhausted and mindless. No, the very articulation of Being into Kant's phenomenal and noumenal realms is in its entirety part of the self-mediation of Being. That is, the "things-in-themselves" belong together with thought just as much as the categorically determined objects of possible experience do. Far from being unknowable, they are known to us preci. ely as the other s half of Kant's argument: We know them to be the noumenal source of the phenomenal world, we know them to be outside time and space, to be beyond the dominion of the understanding, to be the unreachably high standard of truth without which the humanly attainable truth would have no meaning. That is a great deal to know about something Kant himself sometimes modestly proposes to denote with no more than an "X." It is that last thing we know that has the most importance for the program Hegel lays out in the Introduction. We know enough about these things in themselves to say that our humanly attainable truth is not the whole truth. Thus, apparently, we can conceive of knowing the whole truth, if it is meaningful to us to speak of not doing so, and thus there must be more knowing left for us to do. After learning about the limits ofreason, we must ask, "In the light of what kind of a Beyond have we recognized these limits a:s limits?" Limits cannot reveal themselves as limits unless there is some sense of what lies on their other side. But as soon as there is any sense of that at all then they are no longer absolute limits, for we are already, at least in thought, beyond them. As Socrates put it, the terrible thing is not to be ignorant, but to be unaware that you are; and on the other hand, to know of one's ignorance is already to have some hope of relief from it. We can begin to have a conversation about what our experience of knowing might be, about what kind of beings we might ourselves be in order to know how to critique our knowledge, or hope to improve it. This conversation goes by the name Dialectic, both for Hegel and for Socrates, and for both of them it seeks to go beyond all ordinary human limits to the unifying source of all that is. For Hegel the full self-mediation of Being is found in the Being that knows itself to be all that is, one and many, same and other, Being and Becoming. This he calls Geist or Spirit. The title of his book means: The Ordered Account of the Appearing of Spirit to Itself. For we humans are Spirit, and so is everything we think about. Let me dwell a little longer on what it means to say that Being is mediation. It means that nothing is simply and immediately itself alone. Everything is involved in a great whole and nothing could"be" by itself. So the conventional understanding of matter cannot be correct. By that account matter simply exists as a kind of inert opposite of thought. It needs nothing else to exist and on some level it is impervious to thought. Thought always connects and relates things to one another; it mediates by gathering and separating. But if matter as such is immediate then thought will never grasp why matter is or what it is, because there will be nothing in terms of which an explanation could be formulated. Matter would be a given, a brute fact. That givenness, conceived apart from any actual giver, that impenetrability to thought, constitutes for most people a very large part of the realness of what is real. Such a view makes the intellect into a stranger in the world. Moreover it gives no account of any motion. If matter is only as it is, inert, then why is it always moving and changing? I think Hegel would tell us that we are not minds surrounded by matter, in the sense of two opposed and equally fundamental principals; but that we are Mind in the presence of Mind, or if you prefer, Spirit in the presence of Spirit. It is very exciting to see the details of this extremely bold thought worked out. Maybe it would be helpful for me to read a few passages aloud and approach them with these thoughts in mind. In Paragraph 91 of the Introduction Hegel is beginning to speak of the testing of knowledge that he will conduct, and of its difficulties. A test seems to require a criterion, but how can a criterion justify itself in advance? We would seem to need already to know the truth in order to begin sorting out the true in our knowledge. This is very like Meno's paradox that we cannot learn what 3 �we don't know because we will not know it when we see it; and Hegel has a not dissimilar answer to the one Socrates gives. Let us, he says call to mind the abstract determinations of truth and knowledge as they occur in consciousness. Consciousness simultaneously distinguishes itself from something and at the same time relates itself to it, or, as it is said, this something exists for consciousness; and the determinate aspect of this relating, or of the being of something for a consciousness, is knowing. Shall we dwell on this sentence a moment? It is, as he says, abstract, by which he nearly always means "rather schematic and relatively lifeless." If Hegel had a pair of columns, as the Pythagoreans are said to have had, with the good in one and the bad in the other, he would certainly have "concrete" in the good column and "abstract" in the bad. "Concrete" comes from a word meaning "to grow together" and so for one who believes that the truth is the whole, the higher the degree of concreteness a thing has, the more it is grown together with other things, the more adequate it is as an expression of the truth. Still, abstract though it be, the sentence does show how we tend to think about knowing. It is an analysis of what we mean by saying "I am conscious of something"; this may mean "I see something" or "I imagine something" or "remember something" or "I am explicitly aware of something". "Conscious" translates Hegel's German word "bewusst" which might be overly-literally rendered "beknown." "Conscious" and "bewusst" both take a genitive object: One is conscious of or has a share in this or that. The earliest attested usage of "conscious" given in t~e Oxford English Dictionary is 1601, when it appears in its Latin-derived meaning of "sharing knowledge with" or "privy to, sharing in, or witness of human actions or secrets" and is applied in a line of Ben Jonson's to Time. It comes to be applied to the knowledge one shares with oneself, so that to be conscious means to be a fellow-knower with oneself of something. Something like this is what we mean by our conscious: Not only do /know I have done something wrong, some other judging part of me is a fellow-knower of my trespass. A division in ourselves and even in the knowing part of ourselves is necessary to be able to speak this way. It is suggestive that this usage comes into English during the century of those tireless dividers Hobbes and Bacon, Descartes and Pascal, but the Latin usages of conscious are many centuries older and perfectly paral- lel: One may very well be conscious to or with oneself of something else already in, say, the time of Ovid. "Bewusst" seems to have more the sense of being known to oneself as knower of this or that. But this too is a dividing up of myself into two knowers, one who knows something, the other who knows that the one knows something. "Ich bin mir <lessen bewusst" is a common expression for "I am aware of it" which literally translates as "I am beknown to myself of it". One sometimes hears that there is no word for consciousness in Hegel's sense to be found in Ancient Greek. I think this is true if it means the same as saying that no one before Hegel endowed consciousness with such a panoply of forms and powers. On the other hand there is the verb O"UVotba which is often used with a reflexive pronoun, as when Socrates says in the Apology, "crnvmoa Eµmrt(J)t ou8 0110uv <JO<pO<J (J)V ." "I am well aware that I am not clever at anything" or literally "I know with myself, not being clever at anything." There are also the nouns <JUVE<m; and <JUV£l0£01~ which mean "conscience," as well as "awareness" or consciousness." Certainly the words one is accustomed to see in Plato and Aristotle for "intellect," such as "vou~," "C>tavota," "<j>pOYT101~,'' do not translate "consciousness" and that fact cannot be without significance. Still, a knowing that is doubled and thereby fully explicit, the being well aware that comes from one part of me knowing something and another part knowing that I know; doesn't that kind of knowing imply that another kind would exist? If the first kind is called conscious knowing, the other kind would be unconscious knowing: One part of me will know something without this being known to all of me, without my being well aware or my knowing fully explicit. And isn't this very much what we find in some of the Platonic Dialogues? The story told about Recollection in the Meno is intended to explain the possibility of learning by proposing that the soul knows all things in an unconscious way, which can be compared to the way one knows something one has temporarily forgotten. In the Theaetetus Socrates is constantly bringing the conversation to a halt by the peculiar consequence that we would have to know something and at the same time not know it, or not know that we know it. This does appear absurd and unacceptable to the young mathematician, but Socrates surely knows that if something of the sort is not possible, then neither is dialectic at all. I conclude that many of the thoughts which Hegel associates with the word "consciousness" are indeed present in the thought of Plato and that perhaps Whitehead is right when he says that all Western 4 Philosophy is footnotes to Plato. But this etymological digression is in some danger of sounding like a footnote itself. The second part of Hegel's sentence was" ... the detrminate aspect of this relating or of the being of something for a consciousness is knowing." Notice that knowing is a rather loose term: Anything determinate in the aspect of a thing presents to us is something we "know" about it. What comes next is very important. ti on, one step closer to the Whole. Thus we change along with our'knowledge of the thing and this, says Hegel, is what is meant by Experience. The ordinary view according to which I learn some error of my ways when I happen to have some new experience, is only another limitation of the learning consciousness. Hegel, who is by hypothesis already at the end of the path, will show how the only way I was ready to have that new experience make sense to me was by having reached a kind of end of my previous pattern of consciousness, and by having sensed what lay beyond that end. These movements indeed were actually what constituted that which seemed to present itself as a spontaneously occurring new experience. Of course hardly anyone can experience life as a relentless march toward final wisdom, and when Hegel speaks of a necessary sequence of patterns of consciousness, he doesn't mean that it is necessary that any one consciousness go through all of the forms he lays out in the ordered sequence of his book. On the contrary, his claim is that everyone before him has without exception gotten stuck somewhere along the way, and that he is the first to see the completed whole of the self-unfolding Spirit. Still, if there is to be a whole, then there must be an order to its parts, and if it is a whole over time, that order must be also a temporal order. Hence there must be a necessary sequence of patterns of consciousness, ending as Hegel says, as a point where consciousness But we distinguish this being-for-another from being-in-itself, whatever is related to knowledge or knowing is also distinguished from it, and posited as existing outside of this relationship; this being-in-itself is called truth. Just what might really be involved in these determinations is of no further concern to us here. Since our object is phenomenal knowledge, its determination too will be taken directly as they present themselves, and they do present themselves very much as we have here apprehended them. I think the reservation Hegel is voicing has to do with his understanding that there cannot ultimately be a being-in-itself outside any relation to consciousness. Why then is this impossibility so much a part of what we first mean by truth? I think Hegel's answer is that we are somehow gets rid of its semblance of being burdened with inexplicitly aware, within the division of ourselves that something alien, with what is only 'for it' and is called consciousness, of an overarching oneness or some sort of'other,' at a point where appearance wholeness of ourselves, or of ourselves with everything, becomes identical with essence, so that its expowhich we nevertheless do not see directly, as we do the sition will coincide at just this point with the auvarying particular contents of our consciousness. thentic Science of Spirit. And finally, when conThis unity cannot be reached until the end of the "necsciousness itself grasps this its own essence, it essary sequence of patterns of consciousness" has been will signify the nature of absolute knowledge itfound. It is the only real "thing-in-itself," because it is self. the whole, and thus needs no other to complete its being These are the last words of the Introduction. But or its intelligibility. It is our implicit connection to that whole which makes us discontented with every limited you were promised a talk on sense-certainty and percepand partial knowledge or pattern of consciousness we tion. Maybe we could look at the transition from senseencounter, or rather become. Our discontent always takes certainty to perception and try to see in what sense it the form of noticing that what we have understood is not · might be called a part of a necessary sequence. So sense-certainty has proposed itself as true knowlthe thing itself, but only how it appears to us. That is, we notice that there is more that the thing can be than we are edge, invoking its purity and immediacy as character yet seeing, because we who do the seeing know that we witnesses. But its truth has turned out to be not the imare limited in this or that particular respect. But as I said mediate particularity it intends by saying "This" and earlier, we only perceive those limits in the light of what pointing, but rather the most abstract generality, a unilies beyond them, and so we can go beyond them and versal "This" made of a universal "Here" and "Now." revise our view of the thing by means of our new posi- Only by being indifferent to any particular content can 5 �the terms stay open to all possible examples of their mean- can't hope to get anywhere with steps D and E. I have ing, and only so can they be applied to any one thing sometimes been asked by worried Seniors if it wouldn't meaningfully. In Hegel 's words, "An actual sense-cer- be better for them to reread an earlier Hegel reading sevtainty is not merely thi s pure immediacy, but an instance eral more times before going on to the upcoming assignof it." That is, it is one among many others of the same ment, since they felt they have so much left to underkind. If I could manage to be and remain fully absorbed stand already back there. I try to remind them of Aristotle, in my immediate sense-certainty of the one and only be- another system-builder, whose system is nevertheless ing in existence, I would have no need to say "this" or to more like a circle whose identical curvature reveals itpoint at all. Of course I would have to keep myself un- self everywhere, than like a brick wall, the location of aware that there were after all already two things and not whose particular bricks would have to be gauged by keepjust one, namely this solitary thing I am sensing with ing a careful count of how many units up and over from certainty, and myself. But once I recognize multiplicity the cornerstone one had traveled. Not only may one fail then my knowing will have to take it into account. To to understand many previous sections and suddenly be know one thing will then involve knowing how it is not illuminated by a later chapter; even within a page or parasome other, but also how it could be. That is, I will at graph one may go from the darkest kind of puzzlement least need a way to recognize that insofar as they all have about one sentence to piercing insight in another. Such being, all beings are the same and insofar as each is not at least has been my experience. A stubborn and atten-. the others they are all different. Universal words like tive gnawing and worrying at an obscure passage is prob"this," "here," and "now" do precisely that: They single ably never simply a wasted effort, but don ' t imagine you out a particular by saying that it is not any other and at must solve each sentence before you are allowed to read the same time they say nothing about it that could not be the next. Hegel often seeks to say the same thing in other said of any other, for every particular is a "this," every words, or to say briefly what he has just said at length, location is a "here," every time a "now," and each of or, most often, as Mr. Venable's note pointed out, to dethem is not any other. We use them sometimes when we scribe in one way for us his readers what he describes in want to let a thing speak for itself, because we suppose if another way as the experience of the consciousness that we say the very minimum the richness of the thing 's own is his protagonist. A glimmer of understanding found in particularity will have the most room to come across . any of these can sometimes be used to unlock some of But if we are replying to the question "Wherein lies the the surrounding mysteries. And sometimes not. I will (briefly) return to perception. Sense-certainty certainty of your knowledge of the thing?" with the words, "I am certain of it because it is this unique one, had ended with the coming-to-be of the universal as a here and now immediately present before me," then we unity of one and many: The Here is "in its own self a say the opposite of what we intend, for all of those words simple Together of many Heres." (Even so the "I'' is refer us to the very broadest categories of things, and now know as this I only be not being any other I, each of hence to mediation and relation, and not at all to a kind which is, insofar as it too is just an I, not nameably difof self-contained pot of truth, sitting on its own off to ferent.) Consciousness continues to seek the truth outside one side, whether that be the side of this "I" or of this thing. The true is the universal, and insofar as we al- itself, as it imagines namely in the object. But the obj ect ready see that the word "I" is just as universal and non- means something different now. Hegel says, unique as the "this," we are a step closer to seeing that Since the principle of the object, the universal, is our being is not ultimately other than that of the things in its simplicity a mediated universal,the object of the world, and that to understand the one will be to must express this its nature in its own self. This understand the other. it does by showing itself as the thing with many Now, how does the truth of sense-certainty become properties. the new truth of perception? Before addressing that let me dissent a little from a view of how to read Hegel that may seem to be implied One of the things these sentences are saying is that the by the selection of Senior Seminar readings. That view, very simplicity of the universal implies some unfinished if I were to exaggerate it a little bit, might claim that business, a thought that has not been thought through yet. Hegel's thought is not only systematical, but mathemati- In order to be simple the way it is, the universal must be cal, so that if you haven't understood steps B and C you mediated. But that means it must be negatively related 6 to many others. Mediation always involves negation. Hegel somewhere reckons it to his credit that he has gone beyond Spinoza' s insight that every determination is a negation to the realization of the converse: Every negation is a determination. Spinoza had meant that we define a thing by marking it off from what it is not; that everything we say about something is really a form of saying how it differs from some other thing and is thus a negation. Hegel 's advice is to say, as he does in the introduction, that to discover a thing is not what we thought it was is never a dead end, but is always a gain. If we have negated then we have further determined. He speaks of negation that s not empty but is precisely the determinate negation of some specific previous understanding. In fact he is speaking of it in Paragraph 113, right after the passage I just read. He says: The This is therefore established as not This, or as something superseded; and hence not as Nothing, but as a determinate Nothing the Nothing of content, namely of the This. Consequently, the sense-element is still present but not in the way it was imagined to be in the case of immediate certainty ; not as the singular item that is "meant," but as a universal or as that which will be defined as a property . Supression (''.Putting Up") exhibits its true twofold meaning which we have seen in the negative: It is at once a negating and a preserving. Our Nothing as the Nothing of the This, preserves its immediacy and is itself sensuous, but it is a universal immediacy. Being, however, is a universal in virtue of having mediation or the negative within it; when it expresses thin in its immediacy, it is a differentiated determinate property. As a result, many such properties are established simultaneously, one being the negative of the other. 7 �Dissection of Morning Glory Vine Seed Pods D Dawn Shuman Cindy Lutz We dissected a morning -glory vine from Mr. Schoener's garden. 1 The plant was intact, including the roots. The vine was past flowering and was producing seed pods, which became our focus. The earliest growth of the pods was somewhat unclear at first. In fact, we originally suspected that they might be flower buds . However, there were several dead flowers, still attached to what are called the "leaves" in the following notes, and when we detached the petals we found a very small, pod-shaped bud at the base of the flower. When we broke this mini-pod off of the stem and examined it under the microscope, the beginnings of the six sections in the mature seed pod were clearly visible. Therefore, we conclude that the plant flowers, then produces mini-pods after the flower dies, and that these pods then mature to produce viable seeds. The function of these pods for the vine as a whole is obviously that of reproduction. The resemblance of the seed contents to miniature leaves is remarkable. If time were no object, it would be fascinating to germinate the seeds and observe them closely at each stage of growth. However, for now we are content with the information gathered from the pods and seeds themselves. There were three basic levels of maturity of pods on the vine: -Green (young) pods -Green/brown (slightly dried out) pods -Brown (completely dried out) pods At this point, the pod is green with healthy leaves. At the spot where the three sections of the pod come together, there is a small stem-like object. When broken off, "milk" leaks out from inside the pod. GREEN/BROWN PODS The external appearance of the more mature green/ brown pod is very much like that of the green pod except for a slight difference in color and the fact that the leaves and casing of the pod are slightly dried out. BROWN PODS The external appearance of the dried pod is much like that of the green and green/brown pods in shape, et cetera. However, while they felt solid to the touch, the dry pod feels hollow. Its outer membrane is hard and splitting apart at the three seams. When shaken, the dry pod sounds like a rattle. The three sections of the pod fall away easily to reveal six seeds, two in each compartment, separated by a stiff, Y-shaped membrane. While almost all of the seed pods have six sections which form six seeds, we found a few with only five seeds. GREEN PODS The sections have pulled away from each other slightly as well as away from the wall of the pod. The exterior of each section has turned off-white and the green that was casing each section has turned to brown. l---:;:::::::.::::::::::----~ ~1'eM The seed can be removed at this point. 1 This was first submitted to Mr. Schoener's Freshman Laboratory Tutorial. 8 9 �Definition of Faith in Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments sessment of Climacus's account of faith. once. For the dialectical part of the problem, there are the strict and categorical philosophical discussions (Chapters I and III, and the Interlude). And for the pathetic, there are the poetical chapters (II, IV, and V), which try to convey the passion that is bound up in the prospect of true eternal happiness. Of course, these are only broad divisions. Within each section, there is much blending of the poetic and the philosophic, if only because "the difficulty of the problem consists precisely in its being thus composite." (PS 345) In a more particular way, the philosophic and poetic tracks of the book can be seen as addressing two specific audiences, each of which is at a disadvantage with respect to one side of the pathetic-dialectic problem. One audience consists of the mid-nineteenth century Hegelians who dominate the philosophical circles at the time of Climacus' writing. Climacus feels that these Hegelians have gone astray in their attempt to apply speculative philosophy to revealed religion. He thinks that they need a lesson in dialectic. It is primarily for the sake of the Hegelians that the book adopts its philosophic tone. Climacus wishes to address them directly, and thus he speaks their language. This extends even to the point of adopting a completely new terminology. The word "Christianity" does not tum up in Philosophical Fragments until the very last page of the final chapter. Throughout the book, Climacus brings up traditional points of Christian doctrine, but all of the talk is thinly veiled in a quirky, Hegelian-sounding terminology: the god, the occasion, the difference, the fellness of time, et cetera. The other audience of the book is composed of the apathetic, "matter of course" Christians. The typical member of this group is born into Christendom, baptized two weeks later, given a Bible at the appointed age, and taught over time to mouth the tenets of Christianity by rote. This person does not reflect on what it means to be a Christian. Christianity is a matter of custom, the mark of a respectable citizen, but it is not a subjective and eternal relationship with Christ. This group takes Christianity for granted, a fact that incenses Climacus: Devin Rushing-Schurr Part I (Prenuptial Agreements) For Jennifer Aileen Michael Schurr, whom I will happily marry on February 28, 1993. Introduction (The Proposal) For Pascal, it happened at 10:30 p.m. on Monday, November 23, 1654. For Augustine, it happened in the summer of the year 386, when a child sang, "Take it and read, take it and read," and Augustine obeyed. It is the experience of total Christian conversion-the decisive, wondrous, all-consuming event in the life of a believer. Kierkegaard refers to it as "the moment." In the moment, the god gives me faith, by means of which I abandon my human understanding and embrace eternal happiness. In Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard tries to get inside the moment. The entire book is his attempt to give an account of the acquisition of Christian faith. This is not to say that Kierkegaard is using Philosophical Fragments to proselytize. The book is an exercise in definition, nothing more. Kierkegaard wants to state clearly and precisely what faith is, but he does not seek to pass judgment: Only let me again repeat: I do not attempt to decide whether Christianity is right or wrong. I have already said in [Philosophical Fragments] . .. that my bit of merit, if any,consists solely in presenting the problem. (PS 330) 1 To this end, Kierkegaard writes in the voice of Johannes Climacus, and interested and inquisitive nonbeliever. Kierkegaard does not present us with a definition of faith as a point of doctrine. Instead, Climacus begins with a question about Socratic recollection and proceeds from there to develop the definition of faith ex hypothesi within an independent thought experiment. Climacus's objectivity, his integrity, and his passion PF-Kierkegaard. Philosophical Fragments . Trans. H. and E. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. PS-Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments. Trans. D. Swenson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. References to the Bible and Shakespeare are in standard form. 1 for clarity and definition are admirable. Regardless of whether he personally will attain faith, he seeks to know what it is and what it is not. The spirit in which he conducts his experiment is summed up in his motto, "Better well hanged than ill wed," which serves as the epigraph of Philosophical Fragments. In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Ph ilosophical Fragments , Climacus sheds some light on the sentiment of this epigraph: My idea is that if Christianity is the highest good, it is better for me to know definitely that I do not possess it, so that I may put forth every effort to acquire it; rather than that I should imagine that I have it, deluding myself, so that it does not even occur to me to seek it. (PS 340) How are we to approach a book such as this, undertaken by an author whose attitude is, "All I have is my life, which I promptly stake every time a difficulty appears."? (PF 8) How can we respond to a man who casts his whole life in the stark alternatives of "Better well hanged than ill wed?" There really is only one thing for us to do: we owe it to him to determine whether, in fact, he was hanged well. Since defining faith is the prevailing task of Philosophical Fragments, the only question we should ask when trying to appraise the book is whether the definition is a good one. Has Climacus succeeded in giving us insight into what faith is and what it means to acquire it? In attempting to answer this question, we will proceed in five steps. In Part I, we will briefly look at the structure of Philosophical Fragments, and we will cover some preliminaries for our reading of Climacus's definition of faith. In Part II, we will tum to the definition itself. This will necessitate further consideration of how the definition is developed in the book. In Part III, therefore, we will look at Climacus's presentation of the ab solute paradox, a key stage in the development of the definition. This will make it necessary to think about the intended audience of the book. In Part IV, then, we will focus on Climacus's refutation of the Hegelians. Finally, in Part V, we will conclude with an overall as- 10 Climacus divides Philosophical Fragments into six major sections (five numbered chapters with an interlude between Chapters IV and V). As the headings and subheadings of these sections show, the sequence of the book is, speaking broadly, an alteration between philosophic and poetic modes: Philosophy Chapter I. Thought-Project Chapter III. The Absolute Paradox: A Metaphysical Caprice (with Appendix) Interlude. Is the Past More Necessary than the Future? Or Has the Possible, by Having Become Actual, Become More Necessary Than It Was? (with Appendix) Poetry Chapter II. The God as Teacher and Savior: A Poetical Venture Chapter IV. The Situation of the Contemporary Follower Chapter V. The Follower at Second Hand This constant switching back and forth between poetry and philosophy reflects the peculiar nature of the problem of faith, which Climacus characterizes as "patheticdialectic." (PS 345) The object of faith is the paradox that eternal happiness rests in a relationship to something historical: The eternal is rooted in the temporal. Grappling with this paradox is a pathetic problem, "for human passion culminates in a pathetic relationship to an eternal happiness." (PS 345) And it is a dialectical problem insofar as one must recognize that the paradox is indeed a paradox. Faith is possible only through the combination of these pathetic and dialectic qualities: Although I am only an outsider, I have at least understood so much, that the only unpardonable offense against the majesty of Christianity is for the individual to take his relationship to it for granted, treating it as a matter of course. (PS 19) The problem here presented demands an existential inwardness adequate to an apprehension of its pathos, passion of thought sufficient to grasp the dialectical difficulty, and concentrated passion, because the task is to exist in it. (PS 345) Primarily for these apathetic Christians has Climacus prepared the poetic side of the book. He seeks to rouse Thus we have a book that proceeds along two tracks at 11 �their passions, to spur them to become personally engaged in the issue of eternal happiness, and to put an end to their unreflective ways. To this end, the odd terminology serves a second function. By avoiding customary words that the apathetic Christians would instantly recognize, Climacus is able to present the ideas of Christianity in a fresh and unfamiliar way. He catches the apathetic Christians off guard, and for once they actually hear what they themselves have been reciting since youth. This leads to an interesting result in the book. Caught in the cross fire between Climacus and the Hegelians, the apathetic Christians sit in their pews and watch as barrages of strange terms fly over head. Every now and then, one of these Christians will lay hold of an idea that seems familiar and, recognizing it as Christian, will bolt up to exclaim righteously, "What you are composing is the shabbiest plagiarism ever to appear," (PF 35) or "you talk like a book, and, what is unfortunate for you, like a very specific book," (PF 68) or something similar. This happens with amazing regularity. Each chapter ends with the sudden insertion of a snippet of dialogue between Climacus and one of these Christians. The Christian criticizes Climacus for his manner of speaking, and Climacus responds by suggesting that, instead of being angry, the person should perhaps try to pay attention to the ideas that are being put forth. To get a general sense of the content of each of the two major tracks of the book, we should look briefly at Chapters I and II, in which the philosophic and the poetic are introduced. Chapter I, "Thought-Project," establishes the philosophical exercise that will occupy the book. It begins with reflections on Socrates. Climacus observes that all philosophy involves some form of the Socratic theory of recollection insofar as philosophy presupposes every human's innate relationship with the truth. For this reason, says Climacus, philosophers who claim to have gone beyond Socrates have not really done so. Climacus then mediated on what "beyond Socrates" would mean. This leads to the assignment uf the thought-project: to go truly beyond Socrates by constructing a system that departs radically from the theory of recollection. Viewed Socratically, the moment in time in which the learner passes form ignorance to knowledge is merely accidental, for the learner has been in possession of the truth all along. By contrast, Climacus 's project starts from the hypothesis that "the moment in time must have such decisive significance that for no moment will I be able to forget it. .. " (PF 13) All of Philosophical Fragments is framed by the thought-project, which is another way of saying that the whole book is an exploration of the moment. Chapter II, "The God as Teacher and Savior: A Poetical Venture," begins the poetic track of the book. In the famous parable of the king and the maiden, Climacus tells the story of a loving god who seeks to be understood by the lowliest human. But true understanding requires equality, and the inequality of the god and the human seems insurmountable. Thus, Climacus commissions a poet (himself) to construct a story that enables the unequal to be made equal, so that the god and the human can embrace one another happily. These two opening chapters prepare us for how the rest of the book unfolds. Throughout Philosophical Fragments there is an interweaving of the poetical venture and the philosophical project. These two strands are sometimes difficult to distinguish. In trying to keep them apart, one can easily get tangled up within them. With this as our introduction to the book, let us now tum to the presentation of faith. Part II (Writing the Vows) In one sense, it is not at all difficult to discover what Climacus thinks about faith. All we need to do is open up Philosophical Fragments to the seventh paragraph of Chapter IV and, behold, there sits a formal definition of the term. This is true. Climacus's definition is a beautiful, powerful, concise representation of Christian belief. But to read the definition requires a bit more preparation. Climacus's definition of faith happens to be the point of convergence of three distinct lines of thought, one from each of the first three chapters of the book. Thus, before we look at the definition itself, we should briefly point to these th ee lines. In Chapter I, Climacus begins to work out some of the implications of his hypothesis that the moment must have decisive significance. If the moment is to be truly deci sive, it must effect a complete transformation of the learner, comparable in importance to the transition from "not to be" to "to be." It must be the transition from untruth to truth. For this to occur, the learner prior to the moment must be untruth-must be completely oblivious to the existence of truth. Moreover, the learner must not even be in a condition to understand the truth. If the learner is already in a condition to understand the truth, then the learner can begin to inquire after it. In such a case, the learner's discovery of the truth would tum out 12 to be self-motivated and self-accomplished, and hence merely Socratic. Thus, if the moment is to be of decisive significance it must contain not only the gift of truth, but also the very condition for understanding the truth . The condition is just as much a gift as is the truth itself, and both are given within the moment. This condition, as it turns out, is faith. Chapter II, as we have said, is the beginning of the poetical venture. Given a god who loves the human but nevertheless cannot be understood by the human, the poet has the formidable task of finding a meeting ground for human and god, "a point of unity where there is in truth love's understanding." (PF 28) This point ofunity also turns out to be faith. In Chapter III, Climacus reflects on the nature of the understanding. He observes that the understanding has the potential to collide with what is, for it, a mortal threat. He gives this threat the name "absolute paradox." The absolute paradox is, quite simply, "something that thought itself cannot think." (PF 37) When the understanding collides with the paradox, there are two possible outcomes. The understanding can assert itself by denying the paradox-this is called "offense at the paradox"-or the understanding can give way to the paradox . The latter opinion, this giving way, becomes the act of faith. These are our three lines. Let us see how they come together. After the metaphysical caprice of Chapter III, Chapter IV returns abruptly to the poetic mode and tells a story of the god coming down and taking the form of a man. The god-man is careful not to reveal himself directly as the god, but nevertheless the manner in which he goes about teaching in the streets raises quite a stir. People take interest in the god-man in different ways, and some speculate as to who he might be. We pick up the story with the following lengthy passage, which culminates in Climacus' s definition of faith (the ellipses represent the omission of roughly two hundred words): vide the condition to understand this, how will it ever occur to the learner? But that the god provides this condition has already been explicated as the consequence of the moment, and we have shown that the moment is the paradox and without this we come no further but go back to Socrates ... How, then, does the learner come to an understanding with this paradox, for we do not say that he is supposed to understand the paradox, but is only to understand that this is the paradox. We have already shown how this occurs. It occurs when the understanding and the paradox happily encounter each other in the moment, when the understanding steps aside and the paradox gives itself, and the third something, the something in which this occurs (for it does not occur through the understanding, which is discharged, or through the paradox, which gives itself-consequently in something), is that happy passion to which we shall now give a name, although for us it is not a matter of the name. We shall call it faith. This passion, then, must be that above mentioned condition that the paradox provides. (PF 58-59) Thus we have Climacus's definition of faith. Faith is the condition-provided by the moment-which enables me to let go of my understanding in order to make way for a paradox, the paradox that states that my eternal consciousness begins with an historical event. This definition is an achievement in brevity. If we unpack what has been said earlier in the book regarding the philosophical content of the moment; if we bring forward what we have been shown poetically about the loving, suffering god; and if, further, we translate all of this out of its strange terminology and put it back into Christian dress-if we do all of this, then, without adding anything essential to Climacus's words, we see the expression of Christian faith to be something like the following: The appearance of the god is now the news of the day ... the occasion for much loose and empty talk. .. But for the learner the news of the day is not an occasion for something else, ... it is the eternal, the beginning of eternity. The news of the day is the beginning of eternity! If the god had let himself be born in an inn, wrapped in rags, laid in a manger-the swaddling clothes of the eternal, is indeed its actual form, just as in this assumed case, so that the moment is actually the decision of eternity! If the god does not pro- God, out of love for me, you became human and suffered-the all-powerful God suffered! You did this for me because it was the only way I could be made to see that I have sinned and that, despite my sin, you still love me. Right now, in this glorious moment, I have for the first time seen that I truly have sinned and that through my sin I had distanced myself from you and from 13 �eternity. But in this very same moment you have given me the boldness to accept your love. That in one moment I could come to face with eternal happiness, that by entering once into human history as you reached across time to embrace all who will accept you-these things are beyond my comprehension, they are repellent to my understanding. But in this moment you have given me faith to believe what I cannot understand, and in this moment I do believe it. All of this is contained in the short statement that faith arrives in the moment and enables the understanding to submit to the paradox. But Climacus does not choose to define faith in the way that he does merely for the sake of shorthand. Simply to translate his experiment back into the standard Christian wording is to do a disservice to Climacus and betray a misunderstanding of his whole enterprise. He intentionally expresses the familiar concept of faith in the awkward terminology of moment, condition, and absolute paradox. The terminology reflects his attempt throughout the book to present the essence of Christianity in a new light in order to command the attention of the philosopher as well as the lazy Christian. In the guise of a philosophical explication of an alternative to Socratic recollection, Philosophical Fragments is Climacus's attempt to bring out the pathos of faith, the passion that must attend a decision on which eternal life depends. Before we assess the definition of faith on the basis of how accurately it expresses the traditional notion of Christian faith, we should explore some of the nontraditional aspects of Climacus' s account. Thus, we will proceed to a more careful study of the third chapter of the book, "The Absolute Paradox: A Metaphysical Caprice." Does Climacus succeed in giving us insight into what faith is and what it means to acquire it? We cannot answer the question until we look more closely at how the definition is developed within the book. Has Climacus been hanged well? So far, we have not s~en any hangings. Again we come back to that epigraph, "Better well hanged than ill wed." Those words-they are borrowed from a clown in a Shakespearean comedy, yet they loom heavily over our discussion, giving it an air not of comedy but of tragedy. If this is indeed a tragedy, if Climacus really is to be hanged, then he must somewhere make a tragic mistake. We state this as a simple literary fact. Instead of stopping now to dwell on the matter, let us continue with our analysis. Part III (The Last-Minute Crisis) At the beginning of Chapter III, we leave the thought project and the po.e tical venture behind. We put on hold our investigation of the moment, and we temporarily suspend our story of the god who seeks to reach an understanding with the human. We do this in order to embark on what Climacus calls a "metaphysical caprice." The metaphysical caprice is a logically self-contained discussion of thought and paradox. Just as the book as a whole proceeds from the premise of the moment, so too does Chapter III begin with a premise of its own, namely, that thought is passionate. From this premise alone Climacus derives almost everything that he says within Chapter III. Much of what is said in this chapter is carried forward into the remainder of the book. The metaphysical caprice turns out to be an important step for the. thought-project. But the presentation of Chapter III is such that the metaphysical caprice could, if necessary, stand entirely on its own. In this way, we can view Chapter III as a discourse within a discourse. The premise with which Chapter III begins-that thought is passionate-is not entirely new. That thought is in some way erotic has been proposed by many ("The sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher."). And that there is something appetitive about our continual acquisition of knowledge has also been noted before ("All people by nature desire to know."). But to this premise Climacus joins the observation that all passions are selfdestructive. This leads to a remarkable conclusion that is, to my knowledge, original: Thought ultimately seeks its own annihilation. Let us begin our discussion of Chapter III with Climacus's observation that all passions tend toward their own destruction. This is certainly true of the appetites. When I an hungry, the hunger causes me to eat, and eating destroys my hunger. Thus, the hunger brings about its own destruction. By analogy, this is sometimes said of the higher passions, too: If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die ... (Twelfth Night or What You Will I. i. 1) But for Climacus, the way in which the understanding seeks its own destruction is more complicated. It is more in line with certain description of the self-destructiveness of erotic love. The best analogy is the familiar poetical treatment of the moth and the candle-flame. 14 Here, the moth is the lover, the flame is the beloved, and cisely because it has content, precisely because it can be erotic love is that which seeks the union of the two . called a " paradox of eternity and temporality, it is not the Driven by erotic love, the moth passes closer and closer formally absolute paradox of "that which cannot be to the flame. This, in tum, drives erotic love higher and thought." higher. When Eros is at its highest, the moth seeks to After stating that thought seeks to collide with "somebecome one with the flame . But what would happen if thing that thought itself cannot think," Chapter III proerotic love achieved what it wants, of the moth actually ceeds with a restatement of the paradox. First, the paraflew into the flame and burned? The love would die. dox becomes the unknown. This is a proper designation. The love would die because the moth would die. Erotic Insofar as the paradox is that which cannot be thought, it love lies precisely in the duality, in the opposition. When is in principle and by definition both unknown and unthe lover loves the beloved so strongly that it actually knowable. Because it cannot be thought, it is the absodies for the sake of the beloved, the lover is gone, the lutely unknown. duality is gone, the opposition is gone. There is no longer Next, apparently for the sake of shorthand, Climacus any place for erotic love. Erotic love, if it achieves the seeks to give the unknown a name. Again, this is legitiunion it seeks, must itself die in the process. In this way, mate. If the name does not imply anything about the say the poets, erotic love is self-destructive. unknown, and if the familiarity of a name does not fool So too is thought, according to Climacus. We see us into thinking that we therefore know something about that thought constantly pushes outward toward its own the unknown (which, by definition, we cannot), then what boundaries. It seeks out that which it does not know, harm can there be in giving the unknown a name? and it wrestles with the unknown until it comprehends Climacus chooses to call the unknown "the god": it. Most have interpreted this as a positive desire to grow and to gain knowledge, but Climacus interprets this conBut what is this unknown against which the untinual seeking to go beyond as an indication of self-dederstanding in its paradoxical passion collides structive passion. This is most clearly see, he says, in and which even disturbs man and his self-knowlour love affair with the paradoxical. We cannot disenedge? It is the unknown. But it is not a human gage ourselves easily from a paradox. Though paradox being, insofar as he knows a man, or anything defies our understanding, for this reason alone we grapple else that he knows. Therefore let us call the unwith it more fiercely than with any other object of thought. known the god. It is only a name we give to it. (PF 39) Thought is most passionate when it confronts what it cannot immediately understand. Climacus says that this is an indication of its ultimate potentiation. In continuFrom here, Climacus takes us through a long diverally seeking to know, thought is really only failing in its sion in order to tell us something that we already know, attempt to find that which it cannot know. What the namely, that we cannot prove the existence of the god. understanding ultimately seeks is the absolute paradox; We cannot use works, wisdom in nature, or goodness in "something that thought itself cannot think." governance to say anything about the god, for in prin"That which cannot be thought"-this formal, verbal ciple we can say nothing about the god except that the statement is the pa adox. It is not a description of some god is that which cannot be thought. Nevertheless, thought will not rest until it can say other paradox . The very words "that which cannot be thought" are the rocks on which thought wrecks itself. something concrete about the god. This is why the absoLater in the book, however, Climacus gives · the name lute paradox is paradoxical, and it is why the absolute "absolute paradox" to another, more substantial paradox. paradox becomes impassioned. It seeks to do the only He takes the paradox that stands at the heart of Chris- things it knows how to do: to think and to understand. tianity-namely, that eternal consciousness depends on a · But the more it engages with the god, the unknown, the relationship to historical knowledge-and he gives this paradox, the more it becomes frustrated by the fact that the name "absolute paradox." By looking closely at the it cannot think it or understand it. presentation in Chapter III, I hope to show that this later Everywhere it turns, thought collides with the unappellation presents difficulties. While the paradoxical known. Thought cannot simply give up and be content notion that eternity meets time at one specific point in to allow that there is something that it cannot know. Such history may be the essential paradox for Christianity, it apathy is not in thought's nature: should not be called an absolute logical paradox. Pre- 15 �To declare that it is the unknown because we cannot know it, and that even of we could know it we could not express it, does not satisfy the passion, although it has correctly perceived the unknown as frontier. But a frontier is expressly the passion's torment, even though it is also its incentive. (PF 44) The unknown is a frontier at which thought continually arrives, which is another way of saying that the unknown is beyond, or is the absolutely different. "But it is the absolutely different in which there is no distinguishing mark." (PF 44-45) We cannot say that it is different from this or different from that or different in some specific way. It is the absolutely different, and as such even its differentness defies description. Thought cannot think the absolutely different as such. So what does it do? It begins to conjure up many, varied, and fantastic things, attempting to lay hold of the god by trying to generate what is different from anything that it knows. This, of course, cannot work. No matter what novel or strange conception thought comes up with , the conception is still a product of thought, and as such it is known. To arrive at the absolutely different, thought would have to transcend itself completely. But any myth that it generated is created from within itself. Thus, deep down, thought realizes that it has not arrived at the god, but at its own fabrications. The unknown is not just something different, it is the difference. It is so different that there is no point of reference or distinguishing mark by which thought can gauge the difference. This leads to an interesting result. Because thought can in no way distinguish itself from the different, it begins to confuse itself with the different: If the difference cannot be grasped securely because there is no distinguishing mark, then, as with all such dialectical opposites, so it is with the difference and the likeness- they a.re identical. Adhering to the understanding, the difference has so confused the understanding that it does not know itself and quite consistently confuses itself with the difference. (PF 45) have a mortal contest. We have two warriors. Formally, we can already state that there are two possible decisive outcomes. But before w~ proceed, let us pause to see where we have come in the argument and how we have gotten here. We started with the premise that thought is passionate. From this , and from the self-destructiveness of passions in general, we said that thought must in some way will its own downfall. Reflecting on how thought works , we recognized that thought loves to embroil itself in paradox. This as a clue led us to "that which cannot be thought," which we have variously called "the absolute paradox," "the unknown ," "the god," and "the difference." We suspected that thought could neither free itself from the paradox nor conquer it. Ultimately, lacking any distinguishing mark between itself and the paradox, thought began to confuse itself with the paradox. All of this we derived from the opening premise of Chapter III simply by reflecting on the nature of thought, of passion, and of paradox. We have not had to invoke the moment, nor the theory of recollection per se. That is, we still stand in isolation from the first two chapters of Philosophical Fragments. Ultimately, of course, Climacus wants the absolute paradox to be a Christian paradox. The highly abstract paradox of "something that thought itself cannot think" is objectified into the Christian paradox of temporality and eternality. The god that was simply defined as "the unknown" becomes the god about whom we indeed know much-a loving god, a god who suffers for our sake, a god who gives us the paradox in order to make us aware of our sins. Because he is ultimately concerned with Christianity and Christian faith, Climacus begins at this point in the argument to edge his way back toward Christian conceptions. Why are we different from the god? Climacus harkens back to Chapter I: .. .if a human being is to come truly to know something about the unknown (god), he must first come to know that it is different from him, absolutely different from him .. .But if the god is to be absolutely different from a human being, this can have its basis not in that which man owes to the god, (for to that extent they are akin) but in that which he owes himself or in that which he himself has committed. What, then, is the difference? Indeed, what else but sin, since the difference, the absolute difference, must have been caused by the individual himself. (PF 46-47) Thus we see what strangeness results in this war between thought and the almighty absolute paradox . How will the matter end? Will though find a way to preserve itself, or, following its true passion, will it allow itself to collapse beneath the force of the absolute paradox? We 16 In just these few remarks, the god that at one time was simply synonymous with the unknown has become quite recognizable. That we "owe" something to the god makes the god our creator. That the difference is somebody's fault-it is my own fault-gives us the fall and the concept of sin. Once this not-so-sly transition takes place, in which the absolutely unknown god of Chapter III is replaced by the Christian god of Chapter I, we have completely abandoned the abstract, purely logical argument of the absolute paradox. This, of course, is as it should be. Climacus never meant for the metaphysical caprice to go uncorrupted. Philosophical Fragments is not a treatise on formal logic. It is a half-poetic, largely comical book about Christian faith. This conspicuous, shameless betrayal of the formal argument is perfectly in keeping with Climacus's ironic style. Nevertheless, this deviation from the formal argument leaves us with a question: If he never intended to see the formal argument through to the end, why did he embark on it in the first place? What does the abstract, theoretical treatment of thought and paradox add to the book? We ask the question now, but let us hold off on the answer. Let us first look at the rest of the argument as given, rife though it be with intrusions from Chapters I and II. The god is now the god of Chapter I who seeks to make us aware of the difference (sin). And at the same time the god is the god of Chapter II who seeks to annihilate all difference so that god and human can become equal: Thus the paradox becomes even more terrible, or the same paradox has the duplexity by which it manifests itself as the absolute- negatively, by bringing into prominence the absolute difference of sin and, positively, by wanting to annul his absolute diffe ence in the absolute equali ty. (PF 47) The absolute paradox, then, is not simply the god (as it was before when the god was simply the unknown), but it turns out also to be a gift of the god. In this way, it can be said that the god gives itself for the sake of the human. Now, as we had already predicted, there are two decisive ways that the collision of thought with the paradox can tum out. Before returning to our question about the formal beginnings of the metaphysical caprice, let us look at these two options and consider how they help us to understand Christian faith. We shall not be in a hurry, and even though some rriay think that we are wasting time instead of arriving at a decision, our consolation is that it still does not therefore follow that our efforts are wasted . (PF 25) The first possible outcome of the collision is taken up in the appendix to Chapter III, "Offense at the Paradox: An Acoustical Illusion." Although technically a different section from Chapter III, the appendix continues in the same abstract and philosophical mode. Offense occurs when thought completely rejects the paradox in order to preserve itself. Seeing the paradoxthe gift of the god-as a mortal threat, thought summons the strength to thrust the paradox away once and for all. Thought does this precisely because of the paradoxicalness of the paradox. All that thought knows is that it can think, and it is too prideful ~o entertain the possibility that there is anything which it cannot think. It is easy to see how the notion of offense applies to Christianity. When the understanding encounters the unlikely story of Christianity, offense may very well be the result. Someone tells us that the eternal god made an appearance in history as a particular human being. The person says that the god did this only once, about nineteen centuries ago in the Near East. "Sure," I say, "and I have some land in Florida ... but tell me, why would god do what you describe?" "To suffer and die in order to save you from sin." "To save me from sin? How do you know this? How do you know that what you are saying is not just a clever myth? Maybe it was a good story, and it caught on, and now millions of people believe it. But how do I know that those millions of people are not wrong, that they are not deluding themselves, that they are not throwing away their entire lives because of some concoction of the imagination? What can you do to persuade me?" "I cannot persuade you. There is no way for me to prove to you that it is anything but a story. But I believe that it is not just a story. Even though it lies outside my understanding, I believe it to be real. And now I will tell you something else: Your own eternal happiness depends on whether you believe it. I know this challenge of mine offends you, but I offer it anyway. Do not expect to make sense out of what I have told you. The whole point of it is that it cannot be understood. It must be believed." By nature, we seek to know and to understand. The understanding is our most loyal ally. In some ways, our understanding is all that we have. Christianity challenges the understanding and defies it, for all of Christianity is 17 �built upon paradox. The understanding chokes on paradox. The notion that in order to Ii ve eternally one has to throw away one's understanding is perhaps the most abhorrent notion ever presented to a human being. Thus, thought may take offense at the paradox. Climacus says that when this occurs it is thought misunderstanding its own passion. Thought seeks clarity. But the hypothesis of the metaphysical caprice is that what thought really wants is to pass away. Here, in the collision with the paradox, thought finally has a chance to realize its own ultimate goal. But offense occurs when thought mistakenly thinks that the more superficial drive, the urge to know and to understand, is its true tendency. This is one of the great advances of the book. Why would eternal happiness require from us something as unnatural as the complete forfeiture of our understanding? Climacus's metaphysical caprice gives us reason to think that, ultimately, such forfeiture may not be altogether unnatural. We see that though is continually on the move, that it acts all the time. It does not seem to be erotic in this way. Perhaps, then, it really does seek a kind of passing away. Perhaps thought continues to move only because it is seeking a point of rest. Perhaps thought really does wish to stop thinking. This would not go any further toward making the paradoxes of Christianity reasonable (if they became reasonable they c:ould not be thought's resting point), nor would it make faith any easier (just because it may be in thought's nature to give way to the paradox does not mean that thought can know its own nature). But it does suggest that the phenomenon of faith might make a certain amount of sense. Often, faith is looked upon as a kind of feebleness of mind, an easy way out for those who lack intellectual vigor and integrity. Climacus's metaphysical caprice gives us another way to look at the issue. This brings us to the other possible outcome of the collision, the so-called happier collision which takes place in faith. The discussion of this second option does not occur in the appendix. ·After the offense, Climacus suddenly departs from the philosophic mode of .presentation and moves on to Chapter IV, "The Situation of the Contemporary Follower." The chapter begins with the words, "So, then (to continue with our poem) ... " (PF 55), putting us securely back into the poetic mode of the book . We have already discussed what happens in Chapter IV. The story is told in which the god comes down and takes a human form. As his presence and his teachings are reported, some fortunate souls realize that "the news of the day is the beginning of eternity." This notion, that one can find eternity within a historical moment, is a paradox. In Chapter IV, it becomes not just a paradox, but the absolute paradox. The person who embraces the beginning of eternity does so at the expense of the understanding. In one sense, this is the logical end of the argument begun in Chapter III. The metaphysical caprice begins with passionate thought, predicts a collision between thought and the absolute paradox, and then states that there are two possible results. One possible result, offense, is taken up in the appendix. The other result, the happy collision in faith, is dealt with here in Chapter IV. In another sense, however, we have distanced ourselves as far as possible from the original project of Chapter III. Chapter III began as an abstract and isolated discussion of thought and the absolute paradox. After a while, though, the formal argument was compromised. Now, not only have we gone back to poetry, but the ab.., solute paradox has become something completely other than it was. "That which cannot be thought" has turned into "My eternal happiness depends on my relationship to an historical event." We shall consider the issue of formality in just a moment. First, though, let us try to see how it is possible that this latter paradox comes to be called the "absolute paradox." I am a thinking being, but I am also an existing human being. As a human being, I have a great interest in my existence and its continuation. How much more interest must I therefore take in my own eternality ! What prospect could engender in me more pathos than the prospect of eternal happiness? And if it should so happen that the possibility of eternal consciousness lies in a single decision, would that not have to be the most important decision in my life? It would be an absolute decision. But my life-it takes place in time. Therefore, any decision I make in this life must be a decision made in time. Is is not paradoxical that my own eternality is something that is decided in time? Of course it is a paradox, but it is not the absolute paradox of thought. Of thought? Perhaps not. From the standpoint of logic, "that which cannot be thought" is the absolute paradox of thought. But here we are not talking about thought; we are talking about existence. Viewed existentially, the paradox that decides the eternality of my being must surely be called an "absolute paradox ." Here lies one of the most important messages of Philosophical Fragments. The paradox of Christianity is absolute in a way that differs from logical absoluteness. In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Climacus refers to Christianity as an "existential com- 18 munication" as opposed to a philosophical doctrine or logical structure. (PS 339) Christianity is not philosophy, and we should not treat it as if it were. If Christianity claims that its basis is a paradox, then attacking the paradox on a purely theoretical level does not ultimately do much good. Some thinkers do this, but in so doing they often fail to attach themselves personally to the pathos of the paradox. In most cases, a paradox is interesting only insofar as it is a logical riddle. The terms of the paradox, taken individually, do not need to be intrinsically interesting. But this Christian paradox is a paradox of eternal life, a term which should command some attention even from the coldest of logicians. This gives us some insight into the rhetorical value of the transition made during the metaphysical caprice. By starting on a lofty and abstruse theoretical plane, then shamelessly violating the logic of the argument, then descending without apology to the realm of pure poetry, Climacus tries to show how foolish it is to try to treat Christianity as if it were a philosophical position or a logical problem. In a sense, this answers our question of why Chapter III begins as a formal argument only to be abandoned later. But it is only a partial answer. While, for ourselves as readers, we may get much out of Climacus's satirical treatment of the purely philos?phical approach to Christian doctrine, we must consider that Climacus wrote at a particular time to a particular philosophical audience. To fully appreciate the richness of his attack on philosophical treatments of Christian faith, we must consider how Climacus's metaphysical caprice stands in relation to Hegelianism, the prevailing philosophical trend in Climacus's day. cal Fragments should itself be thought of as a play. It would, o'f course, be a play in five acts, since there are five chapters. This fact, together with the epigraph, suggests Shakespeare. But which play? The epigraph is from Twelfth Night or What You Will, but Climacus refers to Shakespeare throughout the book: As You Like It, King Lear, All's Well that Ends Well. Which play? One of these, a combination, a different play entirely? In Shakespeare, the turning point of a play often occurs in the third act. The third act of Philosophical Fragments is, of course, "The Absolute Paradox: A Metaphysical Caprice." Let us return there and look for further clues. There is only one direct reference to Shakespeare in all of Chapter III. It does not occur in the body of the chapter but stands slightly apart from the book. It is tucked away insignificantly in the middle of a footnote : A fly, when it is, has just as much being as the god; with regard to factual being, the stupid comment I write here has just asmuch being as Spinoza's profundity, for the Hamlet dialectic, to be or not to be, applies to factual being. (PF 41) The Hamlet dialectic, the soliloquy of "To be or not to be," does in fact occur in Act III of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. It need hardly be said that "To be or not to be" is central to the meaning of Philosophical Fragments. The subject of the book is the acquisition of faith, which brings about a total transformation in the learner. Climacus calls this change one of rebirth. He says in several places that it is "the transition from not to be to to be." Also, "To be or not to be" is the great dialectic of the understanding, which in the moment must Part IV (The Rival Suitors) decide between its outward tendency toward self-preservation and its inward desire to pass out of existence. But "To be or not to be" is perhaps the single most The interlude between Chapters IV and V begins as overworked soliloquy in all of literature. It is hard to follows: conceive of any discussion of existence that could not in some way be linked to this famous speech. Thus, we My dear reader! We assume, then, that this should not make too much of the connection. In a more teacher has appeared, that he is dead and buried, significant way, though, Act III of Hamlet is a good model and that an interval of time has elapsed between for Chapter III of Philosophical Fragments. A key event Chapters IV and V. Also in a comedy there may in Act III of Hamlet is the presentation of the Mousebe an interval of several years between two acts. trap, which is a play within a play just as Chapter III is a To suggest this passage of time, the orchestra sometimes plays a symphony or something simidiscourse within a discourse. The Mouse-trap is performed for the audience of lar in order to shorten the time by filling it up. (PF 72) Claudius, King of Denmark. Hamlet's purpose in showing the play is to represent to Claudius that his reign is The clear implication of this passage is that Philosophi- illegitimate and his marriage ill-gotten. Likewise, the 19 �metaphysical caprice is performed for the Hegelians (Hans Lassen Martensent, et al.) who hold dominion over the philosophical circles in the Denmark of Climacus's time. Climacus uses the metaphysical caprice to demonstrate that the Hegelians's appropriation of revealed religion is illegitimate, and that despite their nominal Christianity, they are not truly wed to Christ. Climacus objects to what the Hegelians have done on their way toward an overarching conception of Spirit. As Climacus says in the preface to the Concluding Un scientific Postscript, "better well hung than by an unfortunate marriage to be brought into systematic relationship with all the world." (PS 3) In many ways, The Mouse-trap can be seen as representative of the whole of Hamlet .. To appreciate this, of course, we must see how Hamlet and Claudius interact with one another throughout all five acts of the play. Likewise, if we are going to see how the metaphysical caprice addresses the Hegelian lords, we should first point out what the book as a whole has to say to them. "We shall take our time-after all, there is no need to hurry." (PF 16) Climacus's assessment of the Hegelians seems to be as follows. For the Hegelians, all contradictories are merely relative. Because all contradictories are merely relative, they are all subject to mediation. The Hegelian's whole enterprise is based on this presupposition. Mediation occurs within System (speculative philosophy) . In System, the opposing terms of a paradox or contradiction are set over against one another, and the dialectical distinctions between them are drawn. Upon inspection, it becomes clear that the opposing terms, properly viewed, are actually identical. This being so, the barrier between them dissolves, the opposition ceases, and the terms are synthesized into a higher unity. This is mediation . Through mediation, System attends to the unfolding of the Idea. The Idea, of course, is immanently knowable by Mind. Philosophical Fragments as a whole is a vehicle for Climacus to state two main objections to the Hegelians, one regarding their axiom that all oppositions can be mediated. Climacus thinks that the Hegelians have entirely misunderstood what dialectic is. As he says, "Basically, an unshakable insistence upon the absolute and absolute distinctions is precisely what makes a good dialectician." (PF 108) Socrates understood this. Socrates was always pursuing precision in definition; he was always trying to cordon off one idea from another in hope of seeing correctly how the various ideas relate to and inter- penetrate (but not become) one another. Hegelians make distinctions, too, but even before doing so they have resigned themselves to the supposition that no distinctions can hold. They draw lines of division, but only in order to erase them. They are so caught up in the motion of System, they are so eager to, mediate in order to get on to the next paradox, that they fail to experience the forcefulness of the paradox that is right in front of them. This, in part, is why we see constant reference to Socrates in Philosophical Fragments. Climacus is trying to shame the Hegelians into recognizing that their dialectic is weak and sloppy. By continually eulogizing Socrates as the greatest of all dialecticians, Climacus hopes to show the Hegelians that in going "beyond" Socrates they have actually failed to get even as far as he. Climacus attributes the feebleness of the Hegelians' dialectic to lack of passion: ... dialectics .has lost its passion; just as it has become so easy and light-hearted a thing to think contradictions-for it is passion that gives tension to the contradiction, and when passion is taken away the contradiction becomes a mere pleasantry, a hon mot. .. (PS 345) The Hegelians are too much at ease with contradiction. They have grown so accustomed to the inevitable resolution of paradoxes that they no longer can feel the tension that makes a paradox unsettling. This gives us yet another way to view the two modes of presentation in Philosophical Fragments. Climacus 's endless switching between poetry and philosophy is not just a depiction of the pathetic-dialectic problem of faith, but it is also a constant, inescapable reminder that thought cannot be separated from life, that intellect cannot be separated from passion. As Climacus says at the beginning of Chapter III, "the paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion: a mediocre fellow." (PF 37) So it is that the entirety of Philosophical Fragments is an attack on the dialectical methods of the Hegelians. Ultimately, though, Climacus is less concerned with the Hegelians ' faulty methods than with where those faulty methods lead. Hamlet ... you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife. (Hamlet III. ii. 270) 20 For the Hegelians, all paradoxes are relative, even those of Christianity. In their quest to mediate all oppositions, the Hegelians have sought to bring Christianity under the domain of speculative philosophy. By explaining the articles of Christian belief, they claim to have removed the need for Christian faith. Faith is crude and primitive. It lacks rationality. It yearns to be elevated to a higher form of knowing. But through System, all in principle is ultimately knowable. According to the Hegelians, Christianity can be understood. This being so, the Hegelians say that they no longer have a need for faith. But despite their lack of faith, the Hegelians still consider themselves to be Christians. Climacus cannot abide the Hegelians' attempt to replace faith with reason. Faith is the very core of Christianity. If ever faith were made unnecessary, Christianity would no longer have a place in the world. tianity is altogether different from philosophical doctrines. 'Because of its emphasis on the absurd, it is opposed to philosophy in general. Because of this, true Christianity lies beyond the reach of speculative philosophy, as Climacus says in the following rather lengthy passage from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript: Is not mediation a speculative category? When the opposites are mediated they (Christianity and Speculation) are not equal before the arbiter. .. When two opposites are mediated, and reconciled in a higher unity, they may perhaps be equal before the mediating process, because neither of the entities is an opposite of speculative thought itself. But when one of the opposites is speculative thought, and the other is an opposite to speculative thought, and a mediation is proposed, and mediation happens to be a speculative category, it is illusory to speak of an opposite to speculative thought at all, since the reconciling factor itself is speculative thought or the mediationfunction which is its category. (PS 335-336) Player Queen But here and hence pursue me lasting strife If once a widow, ever I be a wife! (Hamlet III. ii. 228) To render faith reasonable kills it. The Hegelians cannot kill faith and still hope to wed themselves to Christ. It simply will not happen. This brings us to the second and more important of Climacus's objections to the Hegelians. He rejects their axiom that all oppositions are merely relative. The Hegelians seek to mediate Christianity and to explain its central paradoxes. But Climacus maintains that the paradox at the heart of Christianity cannot be resolved, and that Christianity itself cannot be brought into conformity with philosophy. If Christianity were just another doctrine or theory, it could be translated successfully into speculative terms, and then it would indeed be subject to mediation. But Christianity does not present a theory; it indicated a mode of being. Christianity is an existential communication. It is not a philosophical doctrine to be contemplated; it is an absurdity to be believed and lived. The absolute paradox of Christianity is not a merely logical paradox that can be treated by speculation. It is an existential paradox that engages more than the mind. The paradox states that a life entirely outside of time is nonetheless causally dependent on a personal decision made within time. This paradox challenges one's whole being, not just one's intellect, for eternal happiness is, subjectively speaking, the highest goal that an individual could ever have. In its form of presentation, in its subject matter, and in its relationship to the individual, Chris- 21 For philosophy, reason is the sole criterion, but Christianity calls for the abandonment of reason. Philosophy addresses itself to the mind alone, but Christianity is addressed to the entire self. Before speculative philosophy can mediate an opposition, the terms of the opposition must first agree to be placed within a speculative framework. Without this initial agreement, any attempts to mediate are illegitimate. But Christianity cannot be expressed in speculative terms, for speculative philosophy ("The truth can be known through reason alone.") is itself the opposite of Christianity ("The truth cannot be known through reason alone. "). According to Climacus, the Hegelians hasten past this all-important initial agreement in order to get on with mediation . Because the Hegelians fail to hammer out the initial agreement, not only is their mediation invalid, but-because they themselves claim to be Christians-it is an act of high treason: It is indeed permissible within speculative thought to assign to everything which claims the status of speculation its relative position, and thus to mediate all those opposites which have the common character of being essays in speculation ... But it is very different when the opposite in question is an opposite to speculative philosophy in general. If there is to be any mediation in this case ... it will mean that speculative thought �judges between itself and its own opposite, and therefore plays the double role of litigant and judge. Or it means that speculative thought assumes that there can be no opposite to speculative philosophy, and that all opposition is merely relative, as being an opposition within speculative thought. But it was just this question which should have been dealt with in the preliminary agreement. Perhaps this is the reason why speculative philosophy ... is in such a hurry to apply mediation and to recommend mediation: Because it fears the worst would happen if it became quite clear what Christianity is. The behavior of speculative thought in mediating Christianity is not unlike the behavior of a rebellious ministry which has seized the reins of power, and now governs in the king's name while keeping the king himself at a distance. (PS 336) The Hegelians try to overthrow faith and supplant it with reason. At the same time, they seek to wed themselves to Christianity on their own terms. Such a mad marriage never was before. (What a superb theme for revenge tragedy!) Climacus uses the whole of Philosophical Fragments to rail against the Hegelian appropriation of Christianity. The Hegelians have attempted to rationalize Christianity from top to bottom, to explain away every article of Christian belief, and to resolve the paradoxes that are at the heart of Christianity. With regard to the Hegelians, Philosophical Fragments is Climacus's way of saying, as a spokesperson for Christianity: Hamlet Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! you would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass-and there is much music, excellent voice,. in this littleorgan, yet you cannot make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. (III.ii.372-381) The whole of Philosophical Fragments is presented as a thought-project that seeks truly to go beyond Socrates. But Socrates represents all of philosophy, or at least all ofldealism. And the result of the thought-project is Chris- tianity. In this way, the entire book can be viewed as a statement to the Hegelians that there is something, namely Christianity, that in principle lies wholly outside of speculative philosophy. The thought-project frames the book, and the absolute paradox is its center. Both attempt to demonstrate that Christianity lies forever beyond the reach of speculation. This, at last, brings us back to the metaphysical caprice, Climacus's version of The Mouse-trap. "Now we shall begin." (PF 100) When Philosophical Fragments is viewed as a refutation of the Hegelians, Chapter III becomes a logically independent representation of the entire book- a self-contained whole within the whole. It accomplishes this in a synecdochical way. The book as a whole shows that speculative philosophy, which seeks to mediate all things, cannot mediate Christianity, which stands opposed to speculative philosophy. The metaphysical caprice attempts to show that the primary organ of speculative philosophy, the understanding (which seeks to understand all things), cannot understand the object of Christian faith, the absolute paradox (which stands in opposition to the understanding). The proportion, then, is: speculation : Christianity :: the understanding : the absolute paradox What I hope to show is that, as is often the case with synecdoche, the metaphysical caprice works beautifully and gracefully as a metaphor, but it must not be take too literally. In order for speculative philosophy to mediate an opposition, both terms of the opposition must be placed fully within a speculative framework. In the case of speculation versus Christianity, this cannot work. One of the terms of the opposition is speculation, and thus it does not fall within speculation. The other term lies entirely outside speculation in principle and therefore does not fall within speculation. Neither term will fit wholly inside speculation, and thus no mediation can take place. In order for the understanding to resolve a paradox, both terms of the paradox must be placed securely within the understanding. (To begin to come to grips with "This statement is false," one must first understand why the statement has to be false and why the statement cannot be false.) In the case of the understanding versus "that which cannot be understood," this cannot work. One term of the paradox is the understanding and therefore does not fall within the understanding. The other term by definition lies entirely outside the understanding and 22 therefore does not fall within the understanding. Neither term will fit wholly inside the understanding, and thus no resolution can take place. As poetry, this analogy is delightful. But if we try to take it literally, we quickly run into a problem. It is the same problem we encountered before: "That which cannot be understood" is not the essential paradox of Christianity. As we have seen, the absolute paradox of Christianity is not an abstract paradox of formal logic, but a specific existential paradox regarding time and etemality (eternal consciousness is rooted in an historical moment). Chapter III begins as if it were a discourse all its own . Until the very end of the chapter, the presentation is highly abstract. "That which cannot be understood" is the absolute paradox of Chapter III. It is a verbal paradox, and its absoluteness lies precisely in its formality. Any significant deviation from the words "that which cannot be understood," and attempt to imbue the paradox with content, and the absolute paradox ceases to be the absolute logical paradox. It may very well become the absolute existential paradox of Christianity, but in so doing it gives up the title of being the paradox that, by definition, defeats the understanding. It is clear that we cannot have both kinds of absoluteness at once, for we see what the two paradoxes are, and we see that they are different. Nonetheless, I think that, on some level, Climacus does want both kinds of absoluteness at once. I say this simply because he himself does not explicitly point out the two senses of "absolute" that we have been discussing. He obtains "that which cannot be understood." He gives this the name "absolute paradox" because it is a paradox that absolutely defies understanding. He then goes on to find another paradox, the essential temporaletemal paradox of Christianity, and he proceeds to call this the "absolute paradox" as well. I think that in giving the latter the name "absolute paradox," Climacus hopes to bring forward the sense of logical forcefulness that accompanies the paradox of "that which cannot be understood." That is, I think that he wants the essential paradox of Christianity also to be the paradox that absolutely defies the understanding. Why he might wish to do this is clear. It would fit · nicely as a third step in his refutation of speculative philosophy, and thus it would serve to further secure Christianity from speculation. First, he has brought the dialectical fastness of the Hegelians' methods into serious question. Second, he has shown that in principle the very attempt to mediate Christianity is illegitimate. I think that Climacus wants to go the third step of beating 23 Hegelians at their own game. Suppose for a moment that we 'overlooked the impossibility of accurately representing Christianity within a speculative framework and allowed the Hegelians to attempt to mediate Christianity. Suppose further that we granted them the right to employ all of their questionable dialectical methods in trying to achieve the mediation. Would it not, after all this, be nice to be able to show very simply, in a way that even they might acknowledge, that the essence of Christianity resides in an absolute paradox that is by definition impossible to resolve? I cannot say with certainty that Climacus wishes for the double usage of the term "absolute paradox" to have this effect. The matter becomes highly difficult to judge when we consider the profusion of paradoxes, discontinuities, and qualitative leaps that occur over the course of Philosophical Fragments. How does one get from a demonstration to the thing demonstrated? How can I know that something has come into existence, for when I experience it, it simply is, and afterward ·I am separated from it by time? Is coming to be an existential change only, or is it an essential change as well? -These are just a few of the thorny problems that come up in the book. Even the essential Christian paradox has its rivals (the suffering god, the human god). Amidst all of these difficulties, it is hard to tell exactly how to take the nominal link between the two "absolute paradoxes." Even so, I think that in some way the double usage of the name indicates an overeagerness on the part of Climacus to refute the Hegelians on as many fronts as possible. So, then, we come to the end of our analysis of the absolute paradox. In an earlier section, we said that in order to be hanged Climacus would have to commit a tragic mistake. Has our analysis uncovered anything that qualifies as a tragic mistake? I do not think so. At worst, we have discovered a little bit of logical sleight of hand, but we cannot even prove intent in the matter. And besides, even if Climacus were guilty of misusing the name "absolute paradox," would such a minor crime be a hanging offense? No, it would not. I am not what they call a "hanging judge." I would much prefer to see our play tum out a comedy instead of a tragedy. So rather than hang the poor man, let us try to marry him off. Let us proceed to our final act, where we will try to find a proper spouse for Climacus. It is only fitting that a comedy should end with a wedding. Part V (The Big Day) �We began with the question of whether Climacus was well hanged. What we meant in asking the question was: Has Climacus given an accurate and insightful account of what Christian faith is and what it means to acquire it? At the time, we did not know that we were going to opt for a wedding instead of a hanging. Nevertheless, the question still stands, and we can ask it in another way: Does Climacus really know who it is that he is getting ready to marry? There are wonderful insights to be found in Philosophical Fragments. For one, Climacus makes it clear that faith requires both thoughtfulness and passion. It does not require thoughtfulness in the sense of erudition or intellectual acuteness. If that were the case, then faith would be differently accessible to different people, depending on how clever they were. No, faith requires only so much thoughtfulness as is necessary to recognize the fact that much of what Christians believe does not make sense. There are genuine contradictions in Christianity, literally embodied in Christ himself, who is believed to be not only the one, eternal, all-powerful God, but also a particular man, fully human, who lived, suffered, and died within human history. To be a Christian is to believe in these paradoxes. But to embrace a g~nuine paradox, one must defy one's own understanding. This requires tremendous passion. To believe in something even when one's own understanding says that the thing cannot be, one must love the thing greatly. It is not easy to say, "As far as I know, you are an absurdity, but I love you so much that your absurdity is not an obstacle to my believing you." Of course, it would be easy to say if one were, in general, not bothered by the prospect of believing in the absurd. This is where passion comes back, and this is where Climacus makes one of hi greatest contributions: Thought itself is passionate. If one's thought lacks passion, then one does not bother to get worked up about contradictions and paradoxes. It takes passion in order to say firmly, "this is so," or "this is not so." Philosophical Fragments makes a valuable statement in saying that thought and passion are intimately connected and that, in particular, clear and forceful thinking requires its own kind of passion. In this regard, Climacus seems to know his future spouse quite well. Faith requires clear thinking in order to discern that the object of faith is an absurdity. From here, it requires passion to believe the absurdity. But one cannot then allow one's thinking to get slack. One must have the passion of thought that is required for holding on to the recognition that the absurdity is still an absurdity even when one believes it. But in some ways, I wonder whether Climacus really knows what he is getting himself into. He is so concerned with staving off potentially bad marriages that to a degree he has lost t_ouch with his own notion of what a good marriage would be. That is, Philosophical Fragments is so caught up in the philosophical project of refuting Hegelianism that this impinges on the theological project of explicating the content of Christian faith. Because he is addressing himself to the Hegelians, he has gone to great lengths to adopt their way of speaking and to present Christianity in an abstract and categorical way. Thus, in Philosophical Fragments , everything is bound up in the moment. the moment of decisive significance is indeed an ingenious device for simply but totally distinguishing between philosophy and Christianity. In terms of what philosophy is inclined to consider important, the Christian idea of a single point in which time · meets eternity is a unique and fascinating proposition. But Climacus sees it as more than just a handy way to set off Christianity from philosophy. He also tries to make it the entire essence of Christianity: That an eternal happiness is decided in time through the relationship to something historical was the content of my experiment, and what I now call Christianity ... To avoid distraction again, I do not wish to bring forward any other Christian principles; they are all contained in this one, and may be consistently derived from it, just as this determination also offers the sharpest contrast with paganism. (PS 330) I do not think that this quite works. I do not think that all of Christianity can be deduced from the moment. The moment is brilliant as a way of demonstrating the need for the subjective appropriation of Christianity. Regardless of the time in which one lives, regardless of how many or how few Christians are around, the problem of faith is equally problematic for every individual. When one truly recognizes what Christianity is, when one sees that faith entails a complete turning away from the understanding, then personal belief in Christ becomes a difficult and terrifying proposition. But Climacus's nearly total focus on the subjectivity of the moment leads, I think, to a neglect of the objective elements from which the moment draws its power. The all-important paradox of the moment is that eternal happiness rests on historical knowledge. Should we not, therefore, show some concern for the content of that historical knowledge? For the intellect, the idea that the eternal God erupted into time is a great perplexity. But theological writings fail to treat the personal offensivefor the heart, is it not more essential that the eruption ness of Christianity. Climacus places it in the center of was an act of pure love, and that by coming down as a his book. human the omnipotent God had to experience human Nonetheless, I think there are limitations to suffering? The abstractness of the moment does not, I Climacus' s treatment of the offense. Here again, we come think, capture the full pathos of the great Christian event. back to the neglect of the message. Climacus speaks of the importance of God's appearance as a teacher. What then, of the teaching? Is it not imporThen came his disciples, and said unto him, tant that Christ came down in order to bring us the Word? Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, Is it not important that the historical event left the world after they heard this saying? (Matthew 15: 12) with two great commandments? The moment places too much emphasis on the simple recognition that God ap- Why are we offended by the person of Christ? In a large · peared in time. Climacus does not show, in this book, part, we are offended because the very notion of Christ that he fully appreciates why God appeared in time. By is defiant to reason as such. But in another significant not talking more than he does about the objective mean- way, we are offended by the way in which Christ's teaching of the appearance, Climacus makes it seem as though ing challenges our understanding of the world in which it were merely a photo-opportunity. Climacus makes it we live: sound as if God came down solely in order to give us the opportunity to believe that God came down. Though the Ye have heard that it hath been said to you, An simple fact of God's appearance in time is an amazeeye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say ment all by itself, and though it alone tells us much about unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever God's nature and God's love, it does not provide us with shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the entirely of Christianity. When he made his appearthe other also. And if any man wi11 sue the at ance, Christ could have told us anything. I do not think law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy that we can deduce the particularity of Christ's message cloak also. And whoever shall compel thee to merely from the fact that he brought us .one. go a mile, go with him twain . Give to him that But it would be wrong to criticize Philosophical asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of Fragments too strongly on the basis of what Climacus thee tum not thou away. Ye have heard that it did not say. Philosophical Fragments is a short work. hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and In the space of little over a hundred pages, Climacus not hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your only goes a long way toward summing up the true esenemies, bless them that curse you, do good to sence of Christianity, but in so doing he also offers a them that hate you, and pray for them which derefutation of Hegelianism in general and of the systemspitefully use you, and persecute you. (Matthew atic appropriation of revealed religion in particular. Given 5:38-44) all that it sets out to do and how successfully it accomplishes it, Philosophical Fragments is to be praised Or again: highly. Another of the riches in Philosophical Fragments is If any man come to me, and hate not his father, Climacus's treatment of the offense. He displays a proand mother and wife, and children, and bretheren, found awareness of how the paradoxes of Christianity and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot are not only absurd, but also abhorrent. When the mind be my disciple. (Luke 14:26) reflects on such attributes of God as omnipresence and omnipotence, its first impulse is to reject on aesthetic · Or again: grounds the notion that such attributes are commensurate with that skinny kid from Nazareth. The understandTherefore I say unto you, Take no thought for ing takes pride in its categories. We stake much of our your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; personal worth on our ability to think. When Christiannor yet for your body, what ye shall put on ... ity comes along, shatters the categorical framework of (Matthew 6:25) our understanding, and shuts down our thinking, we are threatened with ridiculousness and impotence. Many These statements are not statements that defy our facul- 24 25 �ties of thinking qua faculties. They defy our notions of justice and morality and causality. They contradict what our own experience tells us about how the world works. Climacus succeeds brilliantly in showing us how offensive Christ is to our process of thinking and, to the extent that we identify ourselves with our thinking, how offensive Christ is to our person. But I do not see much in Philosophical Fragments that treats the offensiveness of Christ's worldly message. Does Climacus know his future spouse? He knows much. His insights into what it means to acquire faith are profound and, in some ways, original. Though in focusing on subjective appropriation he may de-emphasize the objective and worldly implications of Christianity, he nevertheless makes and invaluable contribution to Christian theology. They say that you never really know the other person until you are married. If this is true, then we should not expect Philosophical Fragment to nail down every important detail of Christian teaching-especially since abstraction and philosophical generality are partly the goal of the book. Rather, we should thank Climacus for what he has told us about his future spouse. His poem is a gift for which we should be grateful. As we take our leave of Climacus, we should say to him with all sincerity: The Manipulation of the Field D Edward Freeman We are dissatisfied with the explanation founded on the hypothesis of attractive and repellent forces directed towards the magnetic poles, even though we may have satisfied ourselves that the phenomenon is in strict accordance with that hypothesis, and we cannot help thinking that in every place where we find these lines of force, some physical state or action must exist in sufficient energy to produce the actual phenomena. Thus Maxwell states, in the beginning of "On Physical Lines of Force," the nagging question left unanswered by the theory of action at a distance. 1 Action at a distance theories do not address what phenomena could cause "sufficient energy" to enable the "actual phenomena." How does one account for the mysterious power of the magnet? In what does the energy reside? The magnet and similar phenomena exert a physical force upon objects in their vicinity. There exists, according to empirical observation, an area around such electromagnetic sources that registers a buildup of something that causes physical responses to certain things brought into proximity with them, but what is this something? The most basic field hypothesis presented by Maxwell was that account given in "On Faraday's Lines of Force." There we found a mathematical construct designed to exhibit the lines of force found in the vicinity of a magnet, static charge, or live wire. Maxwell imagines mathematical fluid tubes carrying an unnatural, yet ingenious, incompressible fluid incapable of momentum, created to demonstrate that the direction of the natural forces displayed around an electromagnetic source could be accounted for by some type of system of real forces in the area around the source. Infinitesimal tubes which resist the passage of a massless fluid pervade the area around a source. This account certainly gave us a map of these phenomena but fell short of presenting an actual account of the physical forces involved in any electromagnetic circumstance. We could account for the diminishing strength of the field as it moved from the source Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy. (Much Ado About Nothing II. i. 295) This paper was written for Mrs. Marilyn Higuera's 1993 Preceptorial on Maxwe11. The text used was The Dialec1 Let us next consider the mechanical effect of a state of stress symmetrical about an axis. We may resolve it, in all cases, into a simple hydrostatic pressure, combined with a simple pressure or tension along the axis. When the axis is that of greatest pressure, the force along the axis will be a pressure. When the axis is that of least pres- · sure, the force along the axis will be a tension. The axes spoken of in the passage were formerly known to us as the fluid tubes in the first analogy. The new mechanical concept described above is the vortex. This tic of the Field: Three Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, edited by Thomas K. Simpson of St. John 's College. His commentary was invaluable to our study. 26 by the resistance of the medium (fluid tubes) . But this only demonstrated one of the many facets of electromagnetic forces. The Jack of an account for induced currents and other phenomena forces one to conclude that this conception of Maxwell's falls short of a true expression of the field. Maxwell knows this and pinpoints the difficulty, attributing it to the lack of momentum in this mathematical analogy. Even though this analogy fails to explain electromagnetic phenomena fully, Maxwell is advancing our thought, leading us to shift our perception of these phenomena. When one considers the meticulous care Maxwell exercised to prevent the infusion of false impressions through inappropriate analogies into the study in which he was employed, it seems that we can see exactly where the problem lies. There is no substance to the fluid. There is no more physical force to this conception than in that of "action at a di stance." But, even with this difficulty, I find that I am no longer questioning whether the choice is between action at a distance or the field . It is now merely a question of what is truly the nature of a field which exhibits electromagnetic properties. It now seems to be possible to find forces originating in a field. Maxwell has oriented our thought towards pressures through a medium pervading the area around electromagnetic phenomena. The proposal for an electromagnetic medium that most intrigues me is given in "On Physical Lines of Force." We still need to follow the pattern of forces indicated by the fluid tubes of the last paper, but we also need to utilize forces that are more conventionally physical. Maxwell gives the fundamental concept of this paper in the following paragraph: 27 �vortex answers the problem of having a non-physical Now we are in a quandary. Maxwell's solution to entity create a physical force. It is the answer to the prob- the field in physical terms cannot be felt although it should lem created by the strictly mathematical conception found be present everywhere. The degree of the force of its in "Faraday 's Lines." By whirling the fluid around and particles is nonexistent when set beside the effects attribgranting it momentum we initiate centrifugal pressures uted to it. Degrees of magnetic force are granted though that, when coupled with an additional hydrostatic pres- differing densities of this ether, but no differential in sure, give us conditions that will coincide with those found weight can be distinguished. In typical fashion, Maxaround a magnet. To incorporate induced current and to well is prepared for such difficulties. Speaking of the keep the vortices from rubbing together and creating fric- vortical hypothesis, he says: tion Maxwell imposes an insulating layer of "particles" between the vortices. By imposing elasticity upon the I do not bring it forward as a mode of connexion shape of the vortices we incorporate the electrotonic state existing in nature, or even as that which I would into our model. We now have a complete conception of willingly assent to as an electrical hypothesis. It the situation in the vicinity of the magnet, live wire, and is, however, a mode of connexion which is meelectrostatic field: Three-dimensional whirling and glidchanically conceivable, and easily investigated ing forces silently buzzing away in impossible intricacy, and it serves to bring out the actual mechanichal all of which could, mathematically speaking, be caused connexions between the known electromagnetic phenomena; so that I venture to say that any one by the momentous vortical fluid. But this aura of force only occurs in the vicinity of who understands the provisional and temporary character of this hypothesis, will find himself electromagnetic items. Does this vortical fluid, with its intervening layer of particles, reside only near electrorather helped than hindered by it in his search magnetic entities? This is rather absurd, if almost everyafter the true interpretation of the phenomena. thing is receptive in some manner to the effects of electromagnetism. Maxwell postulates this conceptual vor- Here of course is Maxwell at his best. What does it mattical fluid to be an ether, residing everywhere, actualized ter if the vortices are not actually there? They could be. in the presence of an electromagnetic source. How does At least this hypothesis demonstrates that physical forces this fluid appear in its neutral state? How can the par- can be responsible for the equations given by the "action ticles remain in position to prevent friction in the vorti- at a distance" theorists. He now has us thinking of the ces in the event of actualization? Although the vortical field and believing that it is possible to understand these motion of an ether when it is actualized seems sufficient phenomena as more than mysterious forces acting upon to account for the forces in a field, it is very difficult to each other from afar without physical connection. conceive of ether in its unactualized state. Now that we are thinking in terms of the possibility There is, of course, another difficulty presented by of this electromagnetic ether, Maxwell asks us to step this ether. It must necessarily be physical and have mo- away from any definite conception of the manner of its mentum if it is to effect the forces attributed to it. It must existence. It is sufficient to say that it is possible that this also be able to infuse any medium with which it is pre- ether could exist and could mechanically cause the phesented. To answer these needs, the particles of the field nomena we experience. In "A Dynamical Theory" we are made infinitesimally small. Maxwell grants them mo- are asked to take a step away from the vortical concepmentum but not gross mass. Having no mass, this is a tion and return to something very like the mathematical very odd momentum which which he has postulated for conception in "Faraday 's Lines." He speaks of the field us. Can we find the results of action with momentum but in terms of energy and abstracts his theory from the physino mass? Maxwell designed an experiment to examine cal hypothesis. We now look at the dynamics of a posthis question. It was entitled "The Inertia of a Current sible field and leave the difficulties associated with its Experiment" and is found in the Treatise Volume II, Ar- physical ordering behind us . The frailties of physical ticle 217. This experiment was designed to discover if a conception are no longer a factor. The field is postulated current carried momentums of the same magnitude as and its dynamical effects examined. those found in fields near electromagnetic sources. MaxIn the Treatise Maxwell invokes the image of bell well could find no momentum. Modem scientists have ringers pulling at ropes to fulfill their charge. Hidden to found momentums, but they are very small compared to them behind an opaque ceiling is the machinery which it the effects found in the field. is their duty to sound. Therefore, their vision of the ac- 28 tual sounding bodies is blocked. The "action at a distance" formulas give a like understanding of electromagnetic phenomena. The effects given by the exercise of certain actions are known, but the mechanism remains dark. The culmination of Maxwell's work is ultimately to arrive at the action at a distance formulas through the examination of the field itself, not the electromagnetic sources. Thus the mechanism itself is examined, not merely the ropes. 29 �A Possibility of Beauty D David Jennings Is the Special Theory of Relativity beautiful? The answer is no. A theory, insofar as it is an abstract construct (as differentiated from its presentation), cannot be beautiful. The abstract can never be beautiful. Carravagio's "Conversion of St. Paul," for instance, is stunningly beautiful. The concept of the painting-its essence or meaning or whatever-is on the other hand a flimsy, insipid thing by definition (if definition is to be had). What we mean by the "Theory of Relativity" is not the progression of the argument on the page or the blackboard or the tabula rasa of our minds. If it were then we would not have a single theory but a multiplicity of theories, one for each page, blackboard, and tabula rasa that falls under Einstein's sway. We speak, however, of a theory that may be thought of as the permanent form of each of its representations. And if we have learned anything, we have learned that form is just as flimsy and insipid (and boring) as matter. We can ask, though, whether Einstein's presentation (his "text") is beautiful. It is often said that mathematics is beautiful, the subtler the better. This means that the dizzying concatenation of logic and proof that constitutes the working out of propositions is thought of as sublime. Again, this cannot mean that mathematics itself (whatever that entity may be) is beautiful. Instead, the descriptive term beautiful is attached to what may be vaguely termed the experience of mathematics. Proof and procedure seem unsullied, clean, pure (c.f. pure reason). Perhaps because of evolutionary reasons, or perhaps because of the presence of our divine selves within our bodily selves, the (somewhat) neutral attribution of cleanliness is associated with the decidedly valuational attribution of beauty. So, we ask, is Einstein's theory clean? The last question is very difficult to ~pproach and more difficult to answer. Mathematics does not imply criteria of cleanliness. Perhaps one could claim that Einstein's work, insofar as it is mathematical, is beautiful when compared to dirty old physics. However tenuous, indeed ridiculous, 1 this claim is, it is at least a little 1 I hasten to point out that for my part, I am not quick to disparage the ridiculous in a case like this. It may indeed happen that beauty resides in what is childish, silly, and (yes) unsubtle. As Heraclitus supposedly says, "Enter, for there are gods here too." more tenable than saying, for example, that Einstein is more beautiful than Lobachevski. A part of the beauty of mathematics is that it, like a goddess, is indifferent to itself. Without some sort of recourse to something outside of mathematics only this indifference will pertain. All mathematics is aesthetically equivalent (equally "clean") when viewed upon purely mathematical grounds. But we want to know something specific about Einstein's text. It is uninformative to say that it is beautiful insofar as it is mathematical. We only gain some sort of new glimpse upon the text when we make an aesthetic judgment concerning the text itself.2 Our recourse is a common one; we reread. Math~ ematics, abstract or not, is not our interest. Here the reader faces a text, and just for a moment, as if in a dream, he disregards the appellation "mathematics" altogether. Under the thick veil of notational argot, and through it and in it, the reader finds a perspectival gigantomachia. The earth giants, the brutal and stone-like creatures of primitive gravity and rest, pile on mountains of calculation to comprehend the airy, motive Olympians. The Olympians on their part hurl lightening (velocity=c) upon the heads of the giants. The former are called collectively "small k" and the latter "large K." Or perhaps there is no war at all, but rather a never-ending tension of isolated looking. The two parties, mr. k and Mrs. K, share one thing in common, one event, but the entirety of the rest of their lives (in time) are out of synch. And then there is above all (giants, gods, lonely couples, et cetera) the transcendent (unreal) hope of ultimate redemption: synchronicity. We once had it in an innoTo take an example: "The works of Cummings are beautiful because they are poetry." This statement, if "poetry'' is thought of as analogous to "mathematics," is senseless. Now it may be argued that what the speaker means is that there is some body of real poetry, all of which is beautiful as compared to fake poetry. In fact, we often use the term "poetry" in this sense. However, such a use implies that task of distinguishing the real from the false. In making such a distinction, we are going through a process of judgment no different from that implied in this simple valuation: "The poetry of Cummings is beautiful." "Is beautiful" is here no more and no less informative than "is poetry" in the above context. cent (Newtonian) age, where with Leibnitz (Einstein's favorite tragi-comedic hero) we thought that Chinese was the answer to the curse of Babel. But Einstein's work is a tragedy. We never get where we want; we live isolated in time; the greater our velocity the more we risk obliteration by candle light. 3 So is this beautiful? I would say yes, but it is beautiful only in its completeness. The gigantomachia is an ancient tale, and the story of mr. k and Mrs. K is even older. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing we can learn here from the "content." There is something remarkable, however, in the straightforwardness of Einstein's text. Seamlessly and effortlessly, Einstein winds his way (our way) through simple functions, transformations, synchronizations, electromagnetic formulae, and mathematical approximations to tell his tale. There is a great deal of finality implicit in the work; note for instance the devastation in Einstein 's description of the Doppler Effect. Yet the presentation is direct, concise, and somewhat cool. Einstein, who lived to see the bomb and the Copenhagen interpretation, paints his picture like a Carravagio. There is seriousness and doom, darkness and luminescence, but there is also a coolness and distance that allows the reader/observer to encounter the text/paining as a work of sheer, simple and devastating harmony. 2 3 Fanciful? Yes, naturally. But what tells us that Einstein's presentation is not a text in the sense that for example, the Bible is? Where are the criteria that g~ide our "textual" reading? They must be outside of the text in a context of social exigencies, instinctual exigencies, habit, etc. (And this may-just may- be precisely how any text is informative in an interesting way.) And this is the point. I use this gruesome and tactless figure of the gigantomachia to get my point across in the first brutal moment. 30 31 �The Tin Star at High Noon D Eva T. H. Brann disillusioned mentor, in the movie. Gary Cooper was fifty in 1952, when the movie was filmed, and no effort was made to make him look youthful, but he is not old, or impaired, or disillusioned, though some of the story's sad feel carries over. "Will" suits him well enough, for he is indomitable, and "Kane" fits perfectly with the new element in the screen story, because he is an outcast in his battle with the outlaws. He bears a kind of reverse mark of Cain, a mark of courage among the craven. The story itself is slight, but it evidently made a good starting point for transformation. For another example, in "The Tin Star" Will is a sor-: rowing widower, while in the movie Will is newly married. The movie opens with the ominous rendezvous of Frank Miller's three accomplices on a hill. From it they are converging on the town to meet their vengeful leader, who has just been pardoned from his conviction of murder and released from the pen. There is a second beginning, Will's brief civil marriage ceremony to Amy, his young Quaker bride. He is wearing his marshal's star, and we see that he is acutely aware of his office: As marshal he is bashful about kissing her in public, though once he takes the star off and pins it to his gun belt, he is a playful enough lover. He has promised to leave town with her and tum storekeeper. He says he will try his best, but it is evidently something of a sacrifice for him to settle into a star-less life. The point is made that the star is not just a piece of cheap beaten tin to him, and that he is marshal before husband. And now arrives a telegram telling that Frank Miller, the badman he had sent up to the pen, is returning II. Now this magazine story actually bears scarcely any on the twelve o'clock from St. Louis. And the clock starts relation to High Noon. Its reluctant hero's name is Sher- ticking. Three devices mark this movie. The first might be iff Will Doane,which was changed to Marshal Will Kane called "the sound of time passing" : the horses' clipbecause, I have read, the script writers were afraid that it would come out "Well Done" on the sound track. The clopping, the rails ' clicking, the clocks' ticking and the shift from sheriff to marshal shows the care of the script pendulum's swing. The action begins at about 10:40 AM , writers: sheriff is a county office, but a marshal works comes to its culmination as the sun does, at high noon, for a city; Marshal Kane' s relation is to his town, intensely when Miller gets in, and ends with a brief shoot-out. This so. In the story Will is old and arthritic and speaks all the is a real-time film. The movie takes-though I haven ' t bitter words attributed to the old marshal, Will Kane' s clocked it-about the same time as the action, an hour and a half. If anything, near the climax its clocks move somewhat slower than real time. It obeys. only far more strin1 I want to thank Mr. Adam Schulman for giving this gently, one of the requirements of dramatic unity of anessay a critical reading which saved it from some errors cient tragedy. that the action should take place within a and enriched it with new insights. High Noon is, to my mind, a movie of near-perfect artistry. 1 It gets to me more and in more different ways each time I see it, and I've seen it more often than I've read the Iliad. One of my younger fellow-tutors confided to me that often as he had seen it, it never made him weep until he became a married man. I have watched it dry-eyed and wet-eyed, but always with that sense of being all there-all coolly attentive to its artful devices, all warmly receptive to its gathering pathos . That dual consciousness, in which the powers of noticing and of empathizing are activated together, seems to me to be the trustworthy signal of being in the presence of a work of art. The following collection of observations and interpretations are only partly my own. The Chicago Alumni invited me to a seminar on the film in the summer of 1994, and in November the Student Committee on Instruction chose it for the All-College Seminar. I have double cause for thanks to these two groups, first for indulging my enthusiasm, and then for the discoveries I made while listening, talking, and thinking along. High Noon came to be from a series of happy circumstances . The first of these was the fact that John Wayne turned down the lead. I am no Wayne-basher, but Gary Cooper, as I will try to show, was just right for the story as adapted in the script, and he gives the performance of his life. The script itself is felicitous in its deviation from the story which the credits cite, "The Tin Star" by John M. Cunningham, published in Colliers December 6, 1947, two years after the end of World War plain-spoken . Cooper's facial acting is altogether miniThere are, incidentally, four more allusions to antiq- mal, a Clroop of the mouth, a switch of the cheek, a glint uity. Judge Mettrick-excellently named, for he is a cyni- in the eye. His body language is similarly restrained; he cal, if not bad, judge who takes the measure of his town's is all held-in grace, intensely controlled length, or better, unreliability-cites Herodotus on the corruption of ancient height. Will, as played by Cooper, is even in happy times Athens in allowing the return of the Pisistratid tyranny as a quiet, modest man, and under the pressure of time he an excuse for his own flight. And Will, to make his es- becomes more and more laconic. As he tells Amy, he has cape from the fiery stables in which the outlaws have no time to explain. He has pinned his star and buckled trapped him, clings to the side of this mount as the herd · his gun back on, and she has given up pleading her Quaker rushes out, just as Odysseus once escaped from the Cy- faith and is waiting to leave him and the town on the train clops' cave by grasping the wool on the underside of a on which Miller is returning. The ballad sings to us what big ram. The beautiful woman who has known the men he can't say to her; it pleads where he is dumb; it is the on both sides is called "Helen," as in Helen of Troy. And feeling descant to his brusque words. It shows that his finally "High Noon" itself is an antique moment, as I will decision to stay and fight is not heroics but heroism, because it is made in the face of a great loss . show in a minute. Some of us who watched the movie in the Francis To return to the unity of the film: It wonderfully concentrates the mind and allows us, the viewers, to close Scott Key Auditorium asked ourselves why there was this the distance between a fiction and an event. As we hear misplaced laughter at crucial moments. I think I have an its time passing, we are living indistinguishably in the idea what induces it, aside from the fact that in a student audience not everyone will have developed the self-posfilm's time frame and in our own. The second device of the movie is what might be session necessary to assimilate quietly the representation called "the critical moment." High noon, when the sun of strongly charged moments. Students feel that they owe culminates, is in ancient myth the time of the god Pan, something to sophistication. This film is not morally sothe panic time, the moment of revelatory terror. It is the phisticated but simple-though not simplistic. That is to time when the shadows are the shortest and blackest, when say, it presents a situation which is humanly wrenching the sun beats straight down, hot and brilliant, and there is but not morally ambiguous. The laughter, though we no place to hide. It might even be midsummer day. In could have done without it, is a tribute to a moral world this sunlit scene with its black edges, Will walks up and in which gravity reigns rather than confusion, and where down the deserted streets of Hadleyville. Since it is, more- complexity does not entail ambiguity-at least not for over, Sunday, the Lord 's Day, that part of the population the hero. That brings me to the figures who are-for the present which is not in the saloon is in church. Will, with inclusive trust, seeks help in both places, and finds more purpose very rightly-called the "characters" of the movie. straight talk among the drinking rabble than among the First, Will's bride of ten minutes, Amy: She is, as was mentioned, a Quaker (which is the reason they are not hymn-singing burghers. The camera work is of the essence to this quintes- married in church), but what kind? Clearly an adventisential black-and-white film. The clean, stark rectangu- tious Quaker, converted more by circumstance than by larity of the deserted town under the midday sun and principle. For she has seen both her fathe a d he b othe Cooper's elongated striding figure work together to tell shot and killed, and so she disavows all shooting and killthe moral tale. Here colorization, which works fine for, ing. Yet she ends up killing, and very mercilessly too. say, one of those delightful Danny Kaye musicals, is sim- She shoots the second to last gunman in the back as he is reloading. ply an aesthetic crime against the camera. When, already settled in the train, she hears the first The third device is the ballad written for the movie by Tiomkin and sung by Tex Ritter. It has a clip-clopping shot from town, she jumps out, clearly expecting to find under-theme, a lyrical melody which culminates in a her husband dead. She recognizes the body as that of heart-rending modulation, and words that might be maud- one of the outlaws, and she walks by his gun without lin in ordinary speech but are archetypal in a ballad: "Do picking it up. Once in the refuge of the sheriff's office, not forsake me, oh my darling ." The ballad makes we see her head next to the gun belt that Harvey, Will's Cooper's interpretation of Will possible by complement- childish and resentful deputy, has hung up. It is this gun ing it. Will is shy, sad, and inarticulate, except in the she uses to kill the third outlaw, and so she becomes Will's ordinary business of life, when he is simple, candid, and surrogate deputy. In concert they dispose of Miller himday. 33 �self. Has she given up her principles? Well, they weren't principles to begin with, but rather a strong revulsion to all the senseless killing. And that revulsion she does not disavow in her action. She is not engaging in an honest shoot-out involving manly principles of honor. She is rather saving her man in the most effective way possible. She is doing efficiently what her Quaker principles forbid but her heart requires-her heart shaken both by the reprieve from Will's death and by a new influence. It is the influence of Helen Ramirez, "the Mexican woman." The wise madam, the south-of-the-border oddwoman-out, is a stock character of westerns. The character of Mrs. Ramirez is an upgraded version. She owns the saloon, not the house, and her business partners have genuine respect for her, though the ladies shun her. She has been intimate in turn with Frank, Will and with Harvey, the broad-shouldered boy-man against whose low, rationalizing vacillation Will's resolution stands out. She loves Will with resignation. She is, in fact, his fit complement. She will not, as he cannot, explain her moral judgment. She is as socially solitary as he is morally alone. She has dignity as he has stature. They share a high pathos, but qualified by the sex and status of each. It is Mrs. Ramirez who intimates to Amy, first scornfully and then kindly, what's what. She would not forsake her man. Why is it nonetheless this girlish blonde (Grace Kelly was twenty-two to Cooper's fifty) who wins Will's heart and not the darkly beautiful woman? The reason is not only the stock social prejudice. The choice also makes sense, for if the Mexican is Will's complement, the Quaker is his counterpart. Will is like Amy in a certain innocence, and Amy is in tum his equal in strength of will. Mrs. Ramirez, the "nomad," is alien to them in her illusionless realism. She bends where they risk breaking. This is a marriage of like to like. Will and Amy learn more about each other in the first hour and a half of their marriage than they seem to have discovered during their courtship. She learns of his history with Miller and with Mrs. Ramirez; he learns that just as he puts the star before his love, so she too puts her conviction before her marriage. But he is also to find out that in the end she will stand by him and that she will answer the ballad's plea. We may imagine that they will not be mere storekeepers to the town in which they settle, but that they will be among its first citizens. In Louis L' Amour's well-researched westerns, such men as Will eventually find their voice and go to the Senate. What, above all and finally, of Will's own character? In American golden oldies the typical moral setting is a supine crowd finally carried along by a lone hero, often through the speech of his life. Think of situations as diverse as Jimmy Stewait's in the good-natured Christmas favorite It's a Wonderful Life and Marlon Brando's in the brutal world of On the Waterfront. For Gary Cooper the case is altered: He makes no speech, and the town doesn't come through. He is morally alone for two cooperating reasons. One is his mild, brief and candid mode of speech. He is the very type of the unrhetorical man, the strong silent man, only in a finely honed version. We get the impression that the complex elements of the moral situations are all present to him, that he understands how his high practicality might look like outdated quixotism to this tame frontier town. But he is not good at articulating his thoughts and uttering his feelings. In this movie the antiheroes make the prevailing. speeches. He knows that he cannot, being the man he is, run away, because he has tried. The buggy is already running in the prairie, and he sitting silent and disturbed beside his bride, when we see it coming to a halt and turning back. Later on, in what he calls a moment of tiredness, he goes for his horse to ride off without Amy, but it takes no more than Harvey's attempt to force him on his way to bring back his resolution. He also knows that running away is not only morally impossible, it is also realistically impracticable because the outlaws will eventually find him and his wife. He gauges his outlaw adversaries more accurately than do the the ostrich-like townsfolk who want to avoid provocation by having him leave, on the chance that the pen might have reformed Miller. He has a respectful sense of Miller's unregenerable wildness. Will's judgment that the town will revert to the time when no respectable woman was safe on the street in broad daytime is amply borne out by the youngest of the Miller men, Frank's brother. When they stalk through the town four abreast, he breaks away to make a commencement of crime by smashing a store window-incidentally at once warning Will of their whereabouts and giving him cause for arrest-to steal a ladies' bonnet, which he then ties to his belt as a sort of forcible favor, a sign of rape to come. But above all, Will knows that he cannot on any pretext doff the responsibilities of a sheriff by unpinning the star. He is marshal through and through. He thinks of his charges even in the most distracting circumstances, warning Mrs. Ramirez at the risk of being misunderstood by Amy, releasing the drunk from his cell before the fight starts, and untethering the horses when the stables are on fire. 34 Will is right and he is responsible, but he has no moral suasion, not merely because he is laconic but principally because he has no time. Will's life has readied him for a moral crisis, though even he needs a few miles' run into the prairie to find his will, but the townspeople, decent enough, are c~ught in moral unreadiness on this Sunday. The preacher is courteous but indecisive, the first men of the town hide, vacillate, misjudge. The mayor makes a spe.ech, the i~nobly sensible turning point for the congregat10n, wammg of the consequences a shoot-out will have for the town's commercial prospects; Will listens in drained silence. The women have a better sense of danger and of decency, but will-lessness prevails-not the d~ep lack of caring that the crippled marshal imputes to his .fellow-citizens out of his own impotence, but a lack of timely resoluteness. · . Three times in the movie we are briefly shown the town's name, Hadleyville. It is an allusion to Mark Twain's story "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg," a tale of the effects of evil on a small town of weak charac~er.. The name betokens that what is lacking in Hadleyville is mdeed moral readiness. As the old marshal says: People need time to work themselves up to law and order, that is, into moral decision. That is why the inexorable clock ~ominates the movie as a sound and a sight. The endmg reverts to t_ e tin star theme though it h isn't in "The Tin Star" story. (There is, inci,dentally, a pretty good movie of this title with Henry Fonda, which has a quite similar plot but with the tragic edge taken off._) Will and his wife-no longer a bride-have together delivered the town from evil. The townspeople crawl out of the woodwork (the shot is from above) and come running. The best man in Hadleyville, a boy who runs messages for Will, has brought up the packed buggy for a second departure. Before mounting, Will again takes off the star. It is the movie's most subtly expressive moment. Cooper does not fling it away into the street he drops it. It lands near the pointed toe of his boot which we see slowly turning, not to grind the tin star into the dust, but away from it. It is a consummate gesture of speechless contempt-not for the star but for this town. It must be that somewhere, sometime, on the frontier wn there was some such to_ and some such marshal. To be sure, the town would not have been so starkly clean-lined, the townsfolk so craven, the outlaw so fear-inspiring or the marshal so alone. No matter-the movie has concentrated the event and raised it to a mythic dimension, to a monumental and artful American frontier myth. Recall, ho~ever, ~hat the movie was made just seven years after a warm which a whole nation submitted to villainy 35 ~rom ~ack of civic courage and had to be delivered from its evil.largely by American arms. It does the director ~red Zinnemann, honor that he managed to incorporat~ m an archetypal American setting lessons recently learned abroad. �~ Separation and Combin~tion: The Unity of Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treqtise Car rie Lynn Sager Everyone has been strangely hasty in affirming that the prophets know everything within the scope of human intellect, and, although certain passages of Scripture plainly affirm that the prophets were in certain respects ignorant, such persons would rather say that they do not understand the passages than admit that there was anything which the prophets did not know; or else they try to wrest the Scriptural words away from their evident meaning. (33) The dismemberment of orthodox religion is so severe at the beginning of Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise that it is difficult not to condemn Spinoza of blasphemy. In his attack on Scripture Spinoza shows little reverence for the sacredness of Scripture. Rather, he ferociously preys upon Scripture, continually discarding crucial doctrines which had been cherished for hundreds-if not thousands-of years. His examination is exhaustive; it seems that no chapter or verse escapes his scrutiny. After his rigorous purging is complete, it seems that almost nothing in Scripture remains sacred to Spinoza. Yet, as shocking as this may seem, at the very height of his attack on the tenets of religion , Spinoza claims to have discovered the true core of religious belief-a universal faith-that he firmly establishes at the center of his political thought in the remaining chapters of the treatise. In order to better appreciate this restoration, a close examination of the extent and severity of Spinoza' s attack is necessary. Spinoza wasted little time in contesting the "tissue of ridiculous mysteries" that men had made out of religion. In going straight to the source of religion- Scripture-he declared that he This is Spinoza's testimony of man 's predisposition .to superstition. According to Spinoza, nowhere does Scripture indicate that the prophets were endowed with perfect minds. Men, therefore , should not make that assumption but rather accept what Scripture does indicate: namely that the prophets had "unusually vivid imaginations." (27) From this premise Spinoza proceeds as follows: Since the imagination is not grounded in the sure fabric of objective reality, its products-words and figures which may be either real or imaginary-lack the certainty of truth. Therefore, as Spinoza concludes, "prophetic knowledge is inferior to natural knowledge, which needs no sign, and in itself implies certitude." (28) Prophecy, as a product of the imagination, needs an exdetermined to examine the Bible afresh in a careternal reason to make it real and to give it certitude. For ful, impartial, and unfettered spirit, making no the prophets this external certainty came from morality. assumptions concerning it, and attributing to it (29) Hence, the only certainty that men should look for no doctrines, which . .. are not clearly therein set in the prophets' writings is moral certitude. In short, down. (8) 1 "knowledge of natural and spiritual phenomena" cannot be found in the prophetic books . (27) This, however, is In other words, Spinoza's new method of interpreting Scripture is to let Scripture explain itself. If men try to only Spinoza's first salvo. Miracles are the next part of the religious world to do otherwise, they will continue to bury Scripture, and bear the brunt of Spinoza's "method." For while men religion along with it, with misconceptions .that will lead may have traditionally looked upon miracles as the ultithem only deeper into superstition. Rather than cloud mate expressions of God's power and have thusly stood Scripture with mystery and unnecessary meaning, men in awe of them, Spinoza shares no such sentiment. Acshould endeavor to explain Scripture with Scripture only. cording to Spinoza, "the masses think that the power and This is Spinoza's "method," his only means to his puriprovidence of God are most clearly displayed by events fication of Scripture. that are extraordinary and contrary to the conception they The first territory to which Spinoza lays waste is the have formed of nature . . ." (81) By styling miracles prophecy sung by the Hebrew prophets. He states: after this fashion, men are only furthering their misconception of God. As Spinoza points out, what men fail to 1 All citations refer to A Theologico-Political Treatise, recognize is that the power of God and the power of Dover edition , 1951, tr. R.H. M . Elwes. 36 Nature are co-extensive, and moreover, the power of God is equal to His will. Therefore, anything which contradicts Nature necessarily contradicts God's will. (83) For Spinoza it is the mark of sheer absurdity that men claim that miracles are the most awesome demonstrations of God's power, for as men view them, miracles are a direct contradiction to his power. Therefore, Spinoza declares: e~ations, each of which surpasses human comprehens10n- they are altogether beyond reason. (100) And as ~eason cannot explain nor reason from what is beyond its grasp, man cannot call upon reason to help deduce the m~aning of Scripture. On the contrary, the meaning of Scnpture can only be deduced from Scripture alone. Spinoza's conclusion has an important consequence, namely, "We are at work not on the truth of the passages, but solely on their meaning." (101) Furthermore, "We ... it comes to this, that a miracle, whether it has must take especial care, when we are in search of the natural causes or not, is a result which cannot be meaning of a text, not to be lead away by our reason in explained by its cause, that is a phenomenon so far as it is founded on principles of natural knowlwhich surpasses human understanding; but from edge ... " (101) To put it another way, men should not such a phenomenon, and certainly from a result look ~or truth in Scripture, but only meaning. According surpassing our understanding, we can gain no to Spmoza, when men try to search for truth in Scripknowledge ... (85) ture, they are only succeeding in turning philosophy into superstition. As they vainly try to use their reason in a In short, miracles defy human understanding and stand territory not fit for reason, all men's philosophical specuoutside of the deductive order of the universe so that they lations cannot help but become mere superstitions. This can teach man nothing about God. For, as miracles can- wrongful application of philosophy results in both the not be grasped by the understanding-not "clearly and contortion of philosophy into superstition and, more imdistinctly understood"-they cannot be the basis for fur- portantly, the usurpation of religion by this superstition. ther deductive reasonings. (85) Therefore, men shouldn' t While Spinoza's claims about prophecy and miracJes make miracles out to be more than what they are. Spinoza could be accepted by some without too much grief, his views miracles simply as powerful tools used in the nar- treatment of Scripture is undoubtedly offensive to anyratives of Scripture that appeal to men's imaginations. one who has been reared by orthodoxy and holds the Bible . (91) In this view, miracles arouse men in such a way as as The Book. For example, Spinoza is nothing short of to promote both admiration for, and devotion to, God. insulting when he makes his claim that the Bible is a Since miracles do not afford men sure knowledge of collection of histories written by authorities but compiled God, they do not constitute a dogma of religion. There- promiscuously by historians. (135) Rather than accept fore, under no circumstance should men solidify their that there are some inconsistencies in the Bible which faith in God solely on account of the doctrine of miracles. like the causes of miracles, are beyond human under~ As Spinoza points out, Scripture does not teach the doc- standing, Spinoza is quick to conclude that the Bible is a trine of miracles "as a truth necessary to salvation ... there- corrupted text. fore everyone is free to think on the subject as he On this point Spinoza surrenders to no one, not even likes ... " (97) Thus, Spinoza has pruned another branch the illustrious Jewish commentator Maimonides. To from the tree of orthodox religion by debunking the be- Spinoza no biblical scholar has presented a satisfactory lief that miracles can bestow on man a knowledge of God. method of interpreting Scripture which can do away with While his onslaught against prophecy and miracles all the inconsistencies contained therein . In fact, Spinoza is quite clear, Spinoza's aggression towards orthodox claims that Maimonides' method of Scriptural interprereligion is best elucidated with an examination of his re- tation is not only unsatisfactory but may be dismissed as view of the canon of Hebrew and Christian Scripture. "harmful, useless and absurd." (118) At the heart of Spinoza's analysis is the following Again, he begins his report by criticizing previous bibli- · cal interpretation. He states that "scriptural interpreta- c1aim: The Pentateuch was not written by Moses- which tion proceeds by the examination of Scripture, and infer- had been the traditional Jewish claim-but rather it was ring the intention of its authors as a legitimate concJu- compiled from many sources by the prophet Ezra. ( 130) sion from its fundamental principles." (99) In other For anyone, Jewish or Christian, the enormity of this words, although they have tried, men cannot possibly c1aim is positively shocking. God's authorship of His strive to deduce Scripture from reason. For Scripture is books of revelation is precariously challenged. Could filled with both narratives containing miracles and rev- any other claim be more damaging? 37 �Hence, Spinoza completes what he promised in his preface, namely "to point out the misconceptions which, like scars of our former bondage, still disfigure our notion of religion," (6) by exposing Scripture for what it really is, rather than the collection of philosophic speculations and theological prejudices that men have mistakenly introduced into it. Hence, he has returned religion to its proper domain by making light of how under the rule of philosophy, Scripture was corrupted by superstition. Yet, it is here , when Spinoza's interpretative "method" is at its most incisive, that a remarkable change of face occurs. Amidst the carnage, Spinoza claims that true religious faith is not only unscathed, but finally free of its "trappings of superstition" so that its proper splendor can shine forth brilliantly. In fact, the faith that arises from religion, now emancipated from superstition, possesses-in Spinoza's eyes-a stature that allows it to become the centerpiece of his political theory. Spinoza signals this rebirth at the outset of the fourteenth chapter of his treatise: "Let us recapitulate the chief aim and object of Scripture; this will indicate a standard by which we may define faith." (183) That standard, the solid and true foundation upon which to rebuild faith, is stated earlier by Spinoza as: "For from the Bible itself we learn, without the smallest difficultly or ambiguity, that its cardinal precept is : To love God above all things, and one's neighbour as one's self." (1 72) With this as its main precept, Spinoza declares that the aim and object of Scripture is thus to teach men obedience. (183) For Spinoza, obedience to God is the cornerstone of religion. (172) In fact, to him it is the only sure ground that religion has to stand on, and without which it would crumble completely and be buried again under " the trammels of superstition." The structure of the treatise is now set into relief: Spinoza's purpose in the first thirteen chapters is to rid religion of all dogmas which men have mistakenly deduced from their reason-rather than from Scripture alone-which do not support the Bible's main precept. With this work complete, Spinoza, in the fourteenth chapter, builds his argument for a new foundation of religion based upon the aforementioned precept. His construction of this religion based on deductive reasonings that begin with Scripture alone, and not superstition, is so thorough that not only is he able to generate new dogmas from it, but this religion in turn becomes the heart of his defense for political liberty and the freedom of thought. Faith, according to Spinoza, "consists in a knowl- edge of God, without which obedience to Him would be impossible, and which the mere fact of obedience to Hirn implies." (184) As this definition follows his earlier claim that the fundamental precept of both Hebrew and Christian scripture is love of one's neighbour, and that the Bible' s purpose is to teach men to obey the will of God, it follows-for Spinoza-that obedience to God is the same as loving one's neighbour. (183) In addition to considering this precept as the proper foundation for religion, Spinoza also con siders it as the standard by which faith is defined. Hence, as obedience is the standard for the definition of faith, obedience precedes faith . To put it another way, Spinoza claims that to obey God is to know him. Since without knowledge of something it is impossible to obey it, as Spinoza points out, men could not even begin to obey something they did not know. This is, in fact, one of the subtlest points in Spinoza's treatise. To grasp it fully keep in mind that for Spinoza, knowledge is not of who or what God is, but rather an understanding of the meaning of God inasmuch as is necessary for obedience. (176) And since man can only know God by obeying Him, obedience both implies and is the origin of knowledge of God, which is faith . Following this declaration of the true definition of faith, Spinoza reveals several consequences which arise from this definition . The first is that "faith is not salutary in itself, but only in respect to the obedience it implies." (184) Next, he states that any man who is obedient is necessarily faithful. (184) Or, in other words, if a man is faithful , he must needs be obedient, while at the same time a man is not faithful if he is not obedient. His obedience, moreover, is only demonstrated through his deeds, namely loving his neighbour through acts of justice and charity to him. Hence, Spinoza concludes that, as quoted in Scri pture, "Faith without works is dead," and that a man is only judged "faithful or unfaithful by his works." (18 5) This accords precisely with Spinoza's words in the preface: "If deeds could only be made the grounds of criminal charges , and words were always allowed to pass free . .. " (6) Soon, when we examine Spinoza's account of the beginning of the state, the importance of this conclusion will bear even greater relevance. For now, however, consider again the design of the treatise. Spinoza has spent the first thirteen chapters eroding the foundation of religion until he found the one, true foundation upon which he could construct a new religion. The Archimedean point for his ecumenical labors is the precept to love one's neighbour. And as the love 38 of. one's neighb.our is. to obey God, so obedience implies just and mercifu!, ~he Exemplar of the true life, faith. Yet obedience 1s only displayed through works so 1 th~t· w?osoever is ignorant of or disbelieves in a man can only be judged faithful or unfaithful by his Hts existence cannot obey Him or know Him as works , and faith becomes a measure of one's deeds r a Judge. (186-187) s.hort, faith leaves men free to say or think what ~he~ hke, as long as their deeds conform to obediance of God. Remember that Spinoza does not believe his dogmas to So after b~ginning with a universal precept, Spinoza reveal the truth. of God's nature·, the1'r onl y purpose is to . now has a umversal rule: Faith is a measure of deeds . mculcate obedience. and men are judged ·only according to this rule. As this Of faith then Spinoza believes he has shown that it ru1~ foll~ws clearly from what has already been proved, Spmoz~ 1s able to deduce dogmas for his newly articu?o.es not so much require truth as piety, and that la~ed fa1t?. Yet before listing them, Spinoza states someit ts only quickening and pious through obedithm? wh1~h sheds a bright light on the nature and scope e~ce, consequently no one is faithful save by obeof his project: dience alone. The best faith is not necessarily possessed by him who displays the best reasons Lastly it follows that faith does not demand that but by him who displays the best fruits of justic~ dogmas sh.ould be true as that they should be piand ~ha~ity. How salutary and necessary this ous-that ~s •. such as will stir up the heart to obey doctrme is for a state, in order that men may dwell ... Thus it is not true doctrines which are extogether in peace and concord. . . 0 8 8 ) pressly required by the Bible, so much as doctrines necessary for obedience. . . ( 185) A~ we will see momentarily Spinoza is prepared to weave this strand of "universal religion" into the fab . f l' · . nc o po This conclusion has significant implications First ~heal hfe. Yet before he proceeds he undertakes one ac.cording to Spinoza, men need only obey God ~o hav~ fihnal task: to separate once and for all faith and philosofaith, .or ~ather to know God. This claim is the key to p y. esta~hshmg an equality among all men. Regardless of Ac.tually this divorce has already been accomplished. the time, age, situation, language, or any other condition Fo: ~pmoza makes it quite clear that when the orthodox tha~ ma~ separate them, all men are equally able to love rehg1?us .autho:ities began looking for truth rather than their neighbour, thereby obeying God and thus coming meanmg m ~cnpture they confused the aims of philosoto know God. Men don't need to be specially chosen as ph~ and ~a1th . . The end of philosophy, according to ?od'~ people, nor do they have need of a supernatural Spm~za, ts truth, whereas the end of faith is obedience i~telh~ence to have a knowledge of God. Despite the ~tspanty among all the people who read the Bible, Chris- and p~~ty .. Hence, as their ends "are as wide apart as the poles, fatt~ and p~ilosophy ought never to be conjoined. tians, Jews, Turks, etc., can all alike obey God. Spinoza (189~ Agam we fmd another explanation of Spinoza's has fo~n.d one aspect that is universal to all men, of evmerciless attack on orthodox relig1'on·. The erosion o f · ~ry rehg10n: obedience to God through justice and charth~ foundation of religion and the separation of faith from ity. N~ one, a~c ~rding to his universal rule, can deny a ph1lo~ophy a~e, in fact, one and the same. In other words, man fat~h who IS_J~st and charitable. In short, Spinoza's as S~moza discarded all the old prejudices and misconr~storat10n of rehg10n and faith has resulted in the estabcept10ns, that is, the philosophic speculations which men lishment of a " universal religion," one that is based on had wr?ngly layered on top of Scripture, he was in fact deeds alone. separatm~ religion from philosophy. He dismembered From the "universal religion" stems a universal faith ~11 the. a~1en branches of philosophy that were disfigura~d th~s Spinoza deduces the dogmas that accompan; · mg rehg10n. Fo.r Spinoza, religion and philosophy stand this faith, na~ely only those that are absolutely necescomple.tely dtf~erent foundations. Thus, only by clearsar~ for o~ed1ence and without which obedience would mg a.11 .ph1losoph1cal speculations from the foundation be 1mpos~1ble. .(186) The first of these dogmas is the of :ehg1on could Spinoza permanently separate faith from one doctrme which lays the foundation for those that folph~losophy. As religion was shown to be separate from low: ph1loso~hy, so too is faith in that it stems solely from the foundat1?n of religion-whatever pertains to religion, That God or a Supreme Being exists, sovereignly necessarily pertains to faith also. Furthermore, this sepa- ?n 39 �ration was essential in order for Spinoza to salvage the one, true faith that had been lost-religion and faith could only be restored to their proper foundation by casting off all the vain adornments and embellishments of philosophy. Only by returning them, moreover, to their proper form could Spinoza establish his "universal religion," one that is based on deeds alone. If only this had been the extent of Spinoza's restoration of faith, then his tum from a destroyer of faith to its savior would have been remarkable enough. Yet this is only the beginning. For now that Spinoza has rescued faith from what he considers to be crippling superstition, he intends to include this strand of theology into the workings of political life. In order to better appreciate Spinoza's final elevation of faith, that is, its incorporation into the state, we must take one last step backwards for just a moment. Having seen the theological part of the treatise, we must consider the political side of Spinoza's treatise before the two can be united as one. For Spinoza, government is fundamental for the betterment of mankind. He states: to do so, for I believe it to be of all forms of government the most natural, and the most consonant with. individual liberty. In it no one transfers his natural rights so absolutely that he has no further voice in affairs, he only hands it over to the majority of a society, whereof he is a unit. Thus all men remain, as they were in the state of nature, equals. (207) For Spinoza, democracy is the best form of government because it is most suited for granting the greatest amount of freedom in a state. While these comments are altogether too brief in sketching the complexity and subtlety of Spinoza's political thought, they should suffice in showing where Spinoza's political allegiances lie. Having established a democracy, a state in which liberty can be granted unfettered, Spinoza wants to extend that freedom as far as possible within the state: namely, all the way to the inclusion of freedom of thought and speech. In fact, freedom of thought and speech is not only a "virtue in itself' for Spinoza, but it is instrumental for the well-being and preservation of the state. For, in his preface to the treatise, Spinoza stated: ... the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain , by fear, but contrariwise to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others. (258-259) That is, government is necessary for all men because it makes men free. Or, as Spinoza points out, "the true aim of government is liberty." (259) Liberty is of utmost importance for Spinoza. For when men are held in check by fear, they cannot live properly as rational beings; it is only when they are freed from fear, that they can "develop their minds and bodies" and progress in the noble pursuits of science and the liberal arts . (261) For Spinoza it seems that without liberty and the security of public peace, men might as well be beasts rather than rational beings. Or to put it another way, the liberty afforded by government allows men to enjoy God's greatest gift to them-their reason . (59) Democracy is for Spinoza the ideal (or as close to ideal as possible) political association. In fact, the one political issue that Spinoza seems least afraid to declare is his love for democracy: I think I have now shown sufficiently clearly the basis of a democracy: I have especially desired I have believed that I should be undertaking no ungrateful or unprofitable task, in demonstrating that not only can such freedom be granted without prejudice to the public peace, but also that without such freedom, piety cannot flourish nor the public peace be secure. (6) No one can stifle men's thoughts, not even the sovereign has enough power to lay down and uphold laws designed to make men think in a certain way. If, however, they attempt to charge men for "crimes of opinions," they will only succeed in "surrounding victims with an appearance of martyrdom, and raise feelings of pity and revenge rather than of terror." (265) While such law s are calculated solely to bridle the thoughts and speech of men, they in fact serve no other purpose but to inspire men to seditions and crime, both of which lead only to the sinking of the ship of state. Therefore, since men cannot be prevented from making their own judgments, the only remedy for the situation is to grant men this freedom. While it does have some disadvantages, the advantages are far greater-in Spinoza's eyes-and more instrumental in the securing of the public peace. The only way, however, for Spinoza to grant men the freedom of thought and speech within the state is to bind men by their actions alone, while leaving their rea- son and judgment "free and unshackled." For example he says that ' the safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of c?arity and justice, and that the rights of rulers m sacred, no less than in secular matters should merely have to do with actions, but tha~ every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks. (265) ~eeping in mind Spinoza's declaration that the ultimate aim of government is liberty, and democracy is the form of government b~st suited to this end, we can begin to underst~nd the umty of Spinoza's treatise. It is now clear why .spmoza considers this a theological and a political treatise. H~r~, fi,~ally, is where the aforementioned "universal r~hg10n of deeds. takes on its greatest importance and is elevated by Spmoza to its acme. For Spinoza's only m~ans for gra~ting men freedom of thought and speech IS to make piety and religion-in addition to all ob~ervances of the. sovereign law-consist entirely in action, there~y leavmg men's judgment and their reason free. Accordmg to Spinoza, therefore: If we hold to the p~inciple that a man, s loyalty to the state should be Judged, like his loyalty to God from his actions only-namely from his charit; towards his neighbours, we cannot doubt that the best ~ovemment will allow freedom of philoso~h1cal speculation no less than of religious behef. (261) Thu.s faith sets the standard for the state-only by followmg the standard that Spinoza had set for his " . 1 f · h" umver sa a1t can i:nen be granted freedom of thought and sp~ech: That is, through faith men are judged by the umversal rule-a man is judged solely on account of his deeds. Hence, faith is the only means by which the freedom necessary for the security of the public peace can be gr~nt~d. Or, for Spinoza, to extend the limit of freedom m his democracy to include the freedom of thought ~nd . speech, h~ ~an only do so by the integration of his umve~sal rehg10n" that is, a religion based on deeds alone, mto the political life of the state. ~pino~a does not seem to give a full explanation of the mcept1on of his "universal religion" into the fab . of _the .state .. Despite this minor gap, one aspect of umon IS elucidated clearly by Spinoza: The sovereign is t~~~ 41 40 c.rucial to th~ seamless combination of theology and politics. F~r Spmo~a, the sovereign is the entity that wields power whether It be the body politic as a wh 1 t · b d f o e, a ceram : o yo. men, or one man. Upon entering the compact m formmg the state, all men agree to hand over their power-and. therefore their natural right-to th e sover· eign. ~y virtue ?f this right to rule over all men, the sover~1gn po~er is thus the origin of justice in the state. To .spmoza, m fact, justice exists only through the sov~re1gn . .(246-24 7) T?erefore, if the "universal religion" IS to be mc.orporated ~nto the state, it must be codified by the s?ver~1gn. As Spmoza succinctly declares: "religion acqmr~s It~ force as law solely from the decrees of the s~vere1gn'. (245) That is, without the force of law relig10n remams only a "universal precept of reason',' and has no s~ch p~wer as to compel men any differently than does theu desue or passion. In f~~t, as Spinoza points out, men only obey when they are und~r the fear of a greater evil, or the hope of a greater go?d, (203) that is, when they are bound by the law established by the sovereign power. He nee, re l' . . . 1g10n can~ot be p.ut mto practice or "received as the law of a particular km~dom" until it is codified." (248) Rememb~r that for Spm?za religion consists exclusively in obedience to God ~n t?e form of loving one's neighbour through .act~ of !usttce and charity. However, the existence of Justice IS wholly dependent upon the sovereign power. There~ore, by necessity, it follows for Spinoza t?at the sovereign's rule is crucial to effect the codification of religion into the legal order of the state. One final ~titch must be made in order for Spinoza to com~l~te his seemingly seamless union of theology ~nd politics: the deliverance of all religious authority mto the hands of t~e sovereign. Spinoza is quite insist~nt that the ~overe1gn must be given both civil and relig10us authonty; as the codification of religion is depende~t upon the decrees of the sovereign, it follows for Spm~z~ that the sovereigns are the "proper interpreters of rehg10n and piety." (249) For: ... it is c~rtain that duties towards one's country are the highest that man can fulfill; for, if government be taken away, no good thing can last all falls into dispute, anger and anarchy reign un~ checked amid universal fear. Consequently there can be no duty towards our neighbour which ~ould not become an offence if it involved injury to the whole state, nor can there be any offence _against our duty towards our neighbour, or anythmg but loyalty in what we do for the sake �of preserving the state. (249) Hence, if men are to obey God while simultaneously conducting themselves in a way that is most conducive to the preservation of the state (i.e. securing the public peace) , the only solution-for Spinoza-is that "the outward observances of religion, and all the external practices of piety should be brought into accordance with the public peace and well-being if. .. men would obey God rightly." (249) Said another way, Divine law must be made to conform to sovereign law. Spinoza seems to believe that the only way to accomplish this successfully is to give the sovereign authority over both civil and religious matters. All tension between church and state is resolved as they are united once and for all by having the sovereign of the state absorb the authority of the church. While this solution may appear altogether one-sided in favor of the state, in the remaining chapters of the treatise Spinoza argues vehemently that this union does not injure the church but is actually in the best interests of both the state and the church. On the side of religion, the result is the final establishment of God's kingdom on earth. For, as Spinoza points out, inasmuch as the kingdom of God consists entirely in rights applied to justice and charity or to true religion, it follows that (as we asserted) the kingdom of God can only exist among men through the means of the sovereign. (247) That is, God 's kingdom can only exist on earth through the sovereign. Without the sovereign there is no justice, and justice is the sole foundation of God's kingdom as Spinoza declared earlier. Without the codification of religion, therefore, the whole idea of God's kingdom and religion is nothing more than a "universal precept of reason" that cannot compel men to obedience more than can any other desire or passion. Meanwhile, on the side of the state, Spinoza has finally found a way to secure public peace. By eroding religion and then resurrecting it on its proper foundation-obedience to God-Spinoza gave birth to his "universal faith" on the basis of a universal rule: A man should be judged only according to his deeds . Then, as he wove this standard into his political fabric he was finally able to grant men freedom of thought and speech. In sum, the structure of the Theologico -Political Treatise is best captured by two words: separation and combination. Spinoza set for himself the task of demonstrat- ing that not only can the freedom of thought and speech be granted without jeopardizing the public peace, but moreover, such freedom is necessary in order for piety to flourish and the public peace be secured. (6) As the title of the treatise betrays, Spinoza believes he accomplished this by combining theology and politics. Yet before this combination could be wrought, he had to first make a separation, namely the separation of faith and philosophy. Only by clearing the philosophical speculations and false notions that disfigured religion, could Spinoza find the one, true cornerstone of religion-obedience to God through love to one's neighbour. Upon this "universal" foundation, Spinoza then resurrected faith, one altogether free of "credulity and prejudices" and entirely separate from philosophy. Once Spinoza had thus cleansed faith , then, and only then, could he implement it as the single thread for the weaving together of theology and politics seamlessly into the fabric of the state. Hence, the separation is the means to combination, the end of which is the securing of public peace th.rough allowing the freedom of thought and speech to men. Spinoza's enterprise, however, is ingeniously twotiered. Not only is his separation of faith and philosophy the means to his end, but it is, astonishingly enough, an end in and of itself. Although freeing faith from the hindrances of philosophy is Spinoza's expressed end, it seems, more impo rtantly, that philosophy is finally left to its own devices . For, once Spinoza had separated faith and philosophy, he declared : seemingly .e~er-presen.t, .floating on the periphery, never wholly qmttmg the v1s10n of either the author or the reade~. In fa~t, in his preface Spinoza overtly declared that his treatise was meant for "philosophical readers" o~ly, and no one else, especially not the multitude whose mmds ~~e-and perhaps forever will be-bent towards s~perst~tlon. Furthermore, philosophy appears at the crucial pomt of the treatise: As mentioned above at th ~oment when Spinoza has finished with his ex,amina~ hon of theol?gy an? is about to embark upon his political undertakmg, philosophy is given due recognition It s.eems that ~h~losophy stands between theology and p~li­ ~1~s, and th.is is further supported by the realization that It is the philosopher who grasped the delicate workings o~ theology a~d politics. Could it be, then, that what is viewed as Spmoza's end is really his means? While the free.dam of thought and speech is the means to the protect10n of the public peace, perhaps this preservation is not the end, but is itself the means to the truly desired end-the freedom to philosophize. Faith, therefore, allow s the greatest latitude in philosophic speculation, allowing us without blame to think what we like about anything, and only condemning as heretics and schismatics, those who teach opinions which tend to produce obstinacy, hatred, strife and anger. . . (189) In short, the freedom of thought and speech-now seen as the freedom to philosophize-is both the means to the securing of the public peace while at the same time a noble end in itself. How is one to grasp this multi-layered undertaking? Both the multitude and philosophers benefit from the implementation of Spinoza's enterprise. From his presentation, on the one hand, it seems that Spinoza has tailored his treatise to serve the best interests of the multitude by affording them the preservation of the public peace. Yet, while the freeing of philosophy is not the central point nor the expressed end of the treatise, it is 42 43 �The Offense of Socrates: A Look at the Philosopher in Athens D Mary Dietsch committed no crime and that his behavior in no way harms I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subj~c~s about which you hear me talking and exammmg b?th myself and others is really the very best. thmg that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living ..." Apology 38 1 Athens. Socrates then deviates from the critics' charges to explain the origin of his unpopularity. ':ith them. ~e explains that his behavior reflects a spmtual. revelat10~ to him at Delphi declaring that no one was wiser than him. So, compelled by a spiritual duty, Socrates de~eloped th.e habit of questioning individuals thought wise by their fellow Athenians to discover if the oracle spoke.the truth. The approach taken by Socrates in Plato's ~~ology Proceeding from one interview to another, he.discov~red to defend himself against the accusations of cnttcs and no one to be wiser than him. Having explamed this to the comrades of Meletus emerges as an exhib~tion of the the court, Socrates then seeks to broaden his defens~. He true "crime" for which the court condemns him. He at- decides to explore in court the breadth of a p~1t1cul_ar tempts to expose the true purpose of the cou~t's proceed- man's knowledge. However, in searching for this, h~ irings and seeks to inform the jury of the precise nature of ritates a sore at the heart of the public's grudge aga~n~t that truth. In the first two paragraphs of the Apology, the him, for it was the result of previous encounters that mi"truth" appears four times, culminating in Socrates' tially gained Socrates their disdain. . word h" declaration: "From me you shall hear the who1 trut . e Thus, by revealing his search to discover .the nature ( 17 c) He reveals the truth to the jurors th~oug? the way of human wisdom, it appears that Socrates aims to ag· hich he conducts his defense. So begms his address gravate the jurors . He systematica~ly ~~poses to them mw . .. bf as he faces the accusations of his pubhc cnttcs e ore the types of ignorance displayed by mdividuals who beconfronting the specific indictment brought by Meletus, lieve they know more than they actually .do. H~ att~cks all of the prominent members of Atheman society . the Anytus, and Lycon. . Pronouncing the most dangerous in~uence i~ the politicians who know absolutely nothing; the poe~s who court to be the public's inaccurate perceptt?n of _his ac- by their instincts appear to know something, but m fact tivities, he considers the charges levied agamst him .. He do not; and the artisans who possess the knowledge of a suggests that the affidavit might read "criminal med~lmg, particular skill, but also presume to possess know_l~dge in that he inquires into things below the earth and m the of other things. In one fell swoop, Socrates humiha~es sk and makes the weaker argument defeat the stronger, the Athenians by clustering them into various categones an~ teaches others to follow his example." (l:b) Soc.r~tes of ignorance. Recounting his discoveries'.~e _now taunts quickly denounces these charges as havin~ httle vahdity. the jurors , knowing full well that the p~httcians, poets, He declares that he has no knowledge of either the.heav- and artisans present in the courtroom will be aware th~t ens or the earth, and unlike the character Socrates m The he ascribed a type of ignorance to each of them. It is Clouds, he has never discussed the relationship betw~en because of this particular behavior that he accumulated weak and strong arguments. He also asserts that, havmg enemies in the past. never imposed a fee to educate others, he may not be Socrates next endeavors to demonstrate befor~ th.e considered a teacher. He challenges the jur?rs to ask a~y court his exact method of discerning ho_w mu_ch an mdtAthenian if his declaration is false. In domg ~o, h~ m- vidual knows. He proceeds in this direct10n with a couple vites his critics to consider whether or not his actions of purposes. First, he wants to refute the formal court accurately represent his reputation. He alleges that he has charges, not as they officially stand but as they reflect the court's misinterpretation of why he stands accused .. Second, he wants to demonstrate his activity a~ a philoso1 All references refer to The Collected Dialogues of Plato , Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds. Princeton; pher, the true "crime" for which he stands tnal. ~ence, Socrates addresses Meletus directly before ~he Jurors , Princeton University Press, 1961. for this accuser epitomizes a particular type of ignorance. 44 Meletus represents the aggrieved poets whom Socrates previously described as having apparent knowledge guided by instinct, but no actual knowledge. In the crossexamination before the jurors, Socrates attempts to prove that his accuser speaks in ignorance even as he seems to know. Now Meletus has asserted that Socrates "is guilty of corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the state." (24c) When questioned, Meletus maintains that all Athenians except Socrates are a good influence on the young. Here Socrates is able to point out to the court his accuser's ignorance. For he asserts that only skilled trainers have the ability to improve their wards, and educators, like trainers, are few rather than many. Therefore, education hinges not on the ability of the entire Athenian population to teach, but on that of a select number of educators. Meletus is then manipulated to alter his indictment to claim an intentional harm of the young. Thereupon Socrates replies, "Either I have not been a bad influence, or it is unintentional, so that in either case your accusation is false." (26a) The first charge being dispelled, he proceeds to the second one. Again he influences Meletus to amend the indictment and this time accuse him of preaching atheistic beliefs. Socrates also refutes this charge; arguing that one who believes in spiritual activities must likewise believe in deities. To demonstrate that he is not an atheist, he then refers to the spiritual activities in which he has been engaged: questioning the oracle a Delphi and fulfilling his divinely inspired quest as a philosopher. Concluding this portion of his defense, he chastises Meletus. "There is no avoiding the conclusion that you brought this charge against me as a test of my wisdom, or else in despair of finding a genuine offense of which to accuse me." (27e) So, the philosopher is successful in both purposes. He clears himself of the set of amended charges; and most importantly, he allows the jurors to witness philosophy in action. Here his performance speaks for itself. He is not so interested in proving himself innocent of the formal charges as he is in providing the jurors with a dramatization of the events. which offended Meletus and his colleagues and subsequently brought him to trial. He now occupies center stage and offers Athens the truth, that is, the truth of his actions as they have been witnessed throughout his life. For Socrates, the charges brought by Meletus are not of concern solely as they pertain to his own safety. He neglects to disprove Meletus' initial charges and instead 45 amends them in order to argue their validity. This alone demonstrates that he is little interested in the indictment. What he is interested in, though, is elucidating the ·disparity between what an individual thinks he knows and what an individual really does not know. In this, he demonstrates the profession which has occupied his entire life. Meletus is the model of an individual who appears to know something, as for example the offenses committed by Socrates, when in fact he knows nothing . The chief focus of the interrogation of Meletus is not the refutation of the charges, but something else more important. It appears that Socrates is more concerned with his so-called spiritual duty. His life as a phil~sopher is to comprehend the truth, and his desire to illuminate for others the limitations and aspirations of human kno~ledge reflects this concern. Socrates cares little about clarifying for Meletus the nature of human wisdom, but he does offer the court this demonstration of exposing the truth. In doing this, Socrates does not give the jurors what they want, not because he does not shed tears, but because he fails to provide them with a customary defense . What he gives them, though, is something much more important. He presents them with what they need to determine his guilt or innocence, for if they recognize his defense as a reenactment of the so-called crime he is actually accused of committing, then they can reach a j ust verdict. In questioning Meletus before the court and addressing the jury directly, Socrates turns away from the standard environment essential for a philosopher's inquiry. For he normally converses wi th indi viduals either on a personal basis, or within a small group. His private mission to expose what an individual knows and to help others attain goodness acquires a different quality in the courtroom. Euthyphro previously remarked to Socrates that this would be the case. He stated that Meletus brought accusations against him "well knowing how easily things can be misrepresented to the crowd ." (2b) This is precisely the case during the defen se since what Socrates asserts insults many Athenians who consider him arrogant. . Socrates never hides his guilt in committing the "crime" of philosophy, for his behavior faithfully reflects that of a lover of wisdom who seeks to know the breadth of human knowledge. By exhibiting the true nature of his life as a philosopher, he acts as if it were that life standing trial. He has put the Athenian court into the position of having to determine whether or not the philosopher has a right to operate in the city. He remarks, "So long as I draw breath and have my faculties, I shall never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and �elucidating the truth for everyone that I meet." (29c) Socrates flaunts his offense by daring to philosophize whether or not the law permits him. Hence it is obvious that Socrates will not allow his behavior to be censored by the state. He implies that there exists a natural order in the universe ranging from what is most important to what is least important. Man obeys God first, as Socrates does with respect to the revelation at Delphi, and obeys the state second. God deserves man's primary consideration since His pronouncements are faultless and indisputable. Therefore, Socrates maintains that individuals must adhere to the manner in which God commands them to act. His offense is a grievous one in the eyes of the state. That is to say, he will continue to philosophize in Athens despite any decree attempting to prohibit his behavior. Only if the state physically prevents him will he cease to engage in philosophy. He goads the jury with this information, declaring, "I am not going to alter my conduct, not even ifl have to die a hundred deaths." (30c) Such a statement leaves little latitude for interpretation and Socrates' critics have every right to be infuriated by his declaration. His impudence provokes the jurors again and again, especially as he continues to insult them by alluding to the extraordinary nature of his occupation. So necessary is Socrates' profession to his existence that at one point he compares himself to Achilles. He remarks: you." (30e) Socrates' examples only gain the contempt of his jurors as he proceeds from one infuriating analogy to another. His conduct indicates a man who does not fear recrimination, and who indeed tempts his jurors to reprove his insolence. Strange though it may seem, he purposely irritates the Athenians and arouses their disdain. A fear of death does not inhibit him, for he expected a guilty verdict from the beginning of the trial . In later contemplating his defense, he reflects, "I [was] quite clear that the time had come when it was better for me to die and be released from my distractions." (4 ld) His desire to pass from life to death is evident at the trial in his whole behavior while even his divine voice does not oppose his defense. Socrates' trial was the first instance where he entered the political forum of the courtroom. It seems that the only reason he decided to attend the trial was because his divine voice did not prohibit him as it had in the past. For he admits that his divine voice prevented him from engaging in politics previously: "If I had tried long ago to engage in politics, I should long ago have lost my life, without doing any good either to you or myself." (3ld) Yet now he engages in politics by appearing before the court and defending himself. He must have been aware that the nature of politics had not changed and that the encounter between politics and philosophy would not be a pleasant one. By appearing at the trial, he made a tacit agreement with the state to comply with the final verdict. Not only that, he is conscious that the conflict between Where a man has once taken up his stand, either politics and philosophy could only be resolved with the because it seems best to him or in obedience to dissolution of one, and that one would necessarily inhis orders, there I believe he is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death clude him. However, Socrates neglects to reveal in his defense or anything else before dishonor. (28d) that he suffers nothing whether he continues to philosoBoth he and Achilles fear living an "ignoble life" much phize or whether he dies. In fact, Socrates will gain a more than they fear death. He then continues later to great deal when his soul is released from his body, for in assert "the law of God [does not] permit a man to be the Phaedo he asserts harmed by a worse." (30d) The announcement reflects We (i.e., philosophers) are convinced that if we his belief that he is a better Athenian than his accusers are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we insofar as he is wiser. His wisdom includes an awaremust get rid of the body and contemplate things ness of his state of knowledge and the confidence that by themselves with the soul by itself. (66e) man should not fear that which he is incapable of comprehending. He also contends that he offers the greatest service to Athens by acting as an agitator and keeping He also explains that this liberation of the soul from the the Athenians from becoming complacent. In compar- body cannot occur "until God sends some compulsion ing himself with a stinging fly, Socrates proposes that he like the one which we are facing now." (62c) So it apis a gift from God to prevent the thoroughbred horse from pears that a guilty verdict will oblige him by releasing growing lazy. Each day he must "settle here, there, ev- him from the bonds of the living. erywhere, rousing, persuading, reproving every one of Yet Socrates chastises the state for inflicting more 46 harm on itself than on him by reaching a guilty verdict. He asserts that philosophizing improves the dty, and that A~hens would lose its single best influence with his demise. It seems strange that he who wishes to remove his mortal bonds would reprove his executioners. However Socrates desires what is best for both himself and for thos~ whom he leads to a better understanding of human wis?om. As long as he lives, he will aid them in understandmg ~nowledge. Still, he also recognizes that he cannot elucidate the truth if an individual refuses his assistance At his trial, the jurors, on behalf of the Athenians. refuse t~ acce~t this assistance. Perhaps this explain~ Socrates surprise that there is only a marginal difference between the number of jurors voting for his conviction an~ th.ose voting for his acquittal. He expected the vast ~a!onty to vote agai~st him, the philosopher, but a sigm~1cant n.umber vote m favor of him to continue his life w1t~out disruption. Nevertheless, his verdict is guilty and he Is sentenced to die. In reaching such a decision the state declares the philosopher to be a criminal. ' S~crates manipulates the state in his defense to place the philosopher on trial. By forcing Athens to confront ~h~ conflict between P?litics and philosophy, he compels It to earn the reputation ... of having put Socrates to deat.h, "tha~ wise man.'" (38c) While he refers directly to h1msel~, it may be reasoned that it.is the philosopher, and not simply the man, who is put to death. His sentence reveals an ultimate truth: The philosopher and the state ca~not co-~xi_st because the two are inherently in~omp~tible. Their mcompatibility stems from the state's mab1.h.ty. to control the philosopher who is compeIIed daily to cnt1c1ze and persuade men to understand the limited scope of human knowledge. 47 �The Infinite Straight Line in Book I of Euclid's Elements D Dawn Shuman In Book I of the Elements, Euclid uses certain basic elements to design propositions and then manipulates them to do the proofs. The line is one of these elements. Euclid defines a line as a "breadthless length," (I Definition 2) and a straight line as "a line which lies evenly with the points on itself." (I Def. 4) These terms and definitions are certainly fascinating and complex in and of themselves. However, I will focus on the line which Euclid did not define: the infinite straight line. The definitions of lines and straight lines do not exclude the possibility of infinite lines. Euclid simply does not define infinity or finiteness, although he does use "finite" in Postulate 2. Euclid defines a boundary as "that which is an extremity of anything." (I Def. 13) I think I would define as "finite" anything with boundaries and as "infinite" anything without boundaries. Therefore anything which is finite has extremities, and anything which is infinite does not. Euclid says that "the extremities of a line are points," (I Def. 3) which could cause logical problems since an infinite line has no extremities and might therefore be supposed to have no points. But an infinite line would have an infinite number of points upon it without having any particular end-points. This is only possible in infinite space. In some ways, infinite space is a very impractical concept, because it is difficult to imagine, and impossible to fully comprehend. In the concrete world, every human being has location, and is limited to comprehending those things within sensory range. We can expand that range indefinitely, but we cannot comprehend all of infinity because there is no end to infinity. The same limitation of location applies to the geometrical world, an assertation which I will support using Proposition 12 in Book I. Proposition 12 is the first place "infinite" is used : "To a given infinite straight line, from a given point which is not on it, to draw a perpendicular straight line." When first reading this enunciation, I found it very odd that Euclid needed to prove that a perpendicular could be drawn from any point not on the line to any infinite line, in infinite space, rather than just using a particular finite straight line and a particular point somewhere near it. However, in a way, all of the propositions are described and manipulated in infinite space. Most propositions are applied to single elements or figures made up of several interconnected elements. These figures, in order to be truly universal, can theoretically be located anywhere in t~on. That is, each element has its own particular loca- tlo~, no 'matter what it happens to be, and those two locat10ns are related to one another. The proposition I put forth forms the r~l~tionship in a more usually E_ uclidean way than Propos1t10n 12, by placing the point within a struc~r~ base~ ~n a line. Proposition 12 is unusual because it is exph~1tly in infinite space: The point may be anywhere; the lme may be anywhere. However, in order to understand how these elements relate to each other we mus~ draw a circle, as large or small as it may need to be: but it_ must be drawn to allow us to see the relationship._ Without this limitation we cannot draw the perpendicular. Just as when we read a work of philosophy we ~an only understand what is claimed to the extent that ~t rela~es ~o :-'~at is within our own experience, when dealmg wit? m~m1t~ geometrical space we can only use as m~ch of it as is within the limits of that relationship of locat10n. . infinite space. In this case, with any givenfinite straight line and point, a problem occurs because the elements are not connected in the enunciation and there is no specificity as to their location. The point might be loc~ted beyond the ends of the line, making it impossible to draw the perpendicular. In infinite space, with an infinite line, there will always be a sure relationship between the location of the infinite line and the location of the point, hence allowing the universality needed in an Euclidean proof. This definite relationship between the locations of any infinite straight line and any point is very impo~ant to Proposition 12. The proof consists of picking, at random, an additional point on the other side of'the line, and then, using the original point as the center, describing a circle with the radius the distance between the two points. This cuts off a portion of the line which is close enough to the point to have the perpendicular drawn to it. If it did not, if there were no way of connecting the two elements of line and point, the proposition would not work. As long as there is that connection, it will. With a similar connection, a perpendicular line from almost any point to almost any line can be drawn using a finite straight line and a point. Had Euclid done this proposition it might have been like this: To a given finite straight line, from any point within the circle of which the finite straight line is the diameter but not on the finite straight line, to draw a line perpendicular to the given line. (It also might be done using parallel lines or any right-angled quadrilateral figure.) Let AB be the given straight line, and let AB be bisected at point C. Let the circle ABD be described, using point C as the center and either AC or BC as the distance. Let point Ebe found anywhere within the circle ABD not on AB. Now let a point F be taken anywhere on the other side of line AB but still within the circleABD, and let the circle FGH be described with center E and distance EF. Let the line BCA be drawn through to point G (on ciq:le FGH). Connect the points E, G and E, H; · H being the point of intersection of line AB and circle FGH. Let the angle GEH be bisected, intersecting line AB at point K. 48 I .say that the bisecting line is also a line perpen?•cular to ACB. For GE is equal to EH, and EK Is common, and angle GEK is equal to angle HEK; therefore the triangles G KE and HKE are similar and coincide. So angle GKE is equal to angle HKE; and they are adjacent. But when a straight line set upon a straight line makes the adjacent angles equal to one another, each of the angles is right, and the two lines are perpendicular to each other. So line EK, drawn from the point, is perpendicular to line AB. Q.E.D. This proof works partly because of the limitations put o~ i~s universality. The point in this proposition must be w1thm very circumscribed limits. On the other hand t~e enunciation does contain its own universality: Th~ lme c~n b~ of any length; the points can be anywhere on o?pos~te sides of the diameter of the circle, even on the ~Ir~l~ itself; the whole figure can be located anywhere in mfm1te space. Euclid's enunciation is entirely universal, although the line and point must be connected and hence are limited to the same plane of infinite space. However, what is needed to draw the perpendicular and to prove that the line is perpendicular once drawn is the most striking and vitally important similarity between Euclid's proof of Proposition 12 and this proof. Both p~oofs take place within infinite space, that ~oncept which we are incapable of fully comprehend1~g ..In _o~der to delineate the relationship between the lme, .mfm1te and finite, and the point by drawing a perpendicular, we must find what they have in common. We must be able to find, with the particular line and point we happen to be using, a relationship in terms of loca- 49 �Character, Author, Reader, God: What It Means to Read 0 Ulysses Emily Katherine Brock · izations or others like them, we begin to see by what paths m~aning will reveal itself in this book. . Joyce shows us Stephen Dedalus first: to tram us for Marie: . Leopold Bloom later. The novel starts with t~ree chapJust as the day's long and the world ancient, ters that deal exclusively with Stephen, before i~ chan~es many people can stand all in the same place, to a novel mainly about Bloom. First of all, this contmone after another. ues the similarity between this book and the O~yssey, Woyzeck, Georg Buchner, 1837 since that epic starts with several chapters centenng on Telemachus' search for news of his father. Ho~ever, that The thing that hath been, it is that ":hich shall format also allows Joyce to characterize an easier person be· and that which is done is that which shall be first to get us trained for the important one, Bloom., w~en do~e: and there is no new thing under t?e sun. his ~tory comes. Stephen ha~ a very strong sense of himIs there any thing whereof it may b~ said, see, self, and fits a fairly recogmzab~e templat.e as a young~ this is new? it has already been, m the ages charismatic artist, conscious of his own actrnns a~d pass before us. ing judgment on the actions of those around .him. AlEcclesiastes 1. 9 though he is unhappy and confused, he r~mams a very concrete individual personality. As well, it.helps us that Joyce's previous novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young PART I: LEARNING TO READ JOYCE'S W~RD~ Man was about Stephen, and thus that his charac~er has James Joyce's Ulysses greets the reader :'ith a title alre~dy been established, making him more easily unwhose symbolic meaning is very easy to decipher: ?bd h' viously someone in the book will parallel the classical derstood. Stephen stands out against the people ~roun. im, character Odysseus in some way, and thus every reader becoming a clearly defined person not m~vmg ~tth .the must open the cover with that in min~. We foresee an eneral flow of life, a charismatic personahty that is fairly epic imbued with timeless meaning, an im~e~ect but sym- ;asy for the reader to gauge. W,here Stephen stands out, athetic main character, perhaps even .a similar construc- however Bloom blends in. He is not very self-aware, he iion of the plot. As well, the book's title refers us to andoes not 'participate in conversations, much less mo~opo­ other book, taking it for granted that we hav~ read, or ~t lize them as Stephen does, and he tends not to pass JUdgdyssey We start to realize that this least k now of , the O · ·t t or do anything else that could let the reader get a book will draw on an assumed background of other wn ;::d fix on his personality traits . In his role as a sort of ings, that it is asking mo~e of us as reader than other more Everyman, he is necessarily much harder for th~ reader self-contained novels might. . to picture clearly, since Eve~ma~ must blend mto th~ After opening the cover, words and images that the background and not distingmsh himself. Stephen pro author presents to us get increasingly harder t? make se~se duces poems, fables, arguments and so on, and we can of as we read farther into the book. The first narrat~ve understand him by looking at what he has made. . age we get after beginning the book, for example, is a Stephen's last name fits into this image: Dedalus was :cical mass given by Buck Mulligan. It seem~ to be the artificer of Greek myth . While Stephen produces just an absurdist image, until we remember that this book objects but stays himself relatively .unc~anged, Bloom . " . ,, and every good epic-the Iliad, the Odyssey, ts an epic, . A blooms, producing nothing but mutatmg.his own self. He t . Paradts e Lost-opens with an invocation of the Muse. d gives. us no tangible offspring to examme, and because " ,, tt the end of that chapter comes the word us~rper, u ere he is in a state of change, it is harder ~or the reader t~ by Stephen Dedalus to his friends, and with that we beunderstand his character. Because of this, Joyce ~oesn t come aware that Stephen must paralle~ Telemachus, and start us off with him. By encountering Stephen first, we his friends are Penelope's suitors. With those two realWoyzeck: . ? Devil! Was it there you saw him. can get trained in understanding characters in Ulysses, and so when we get to the much harder case Of Bloom, we are ready to see him for all that he is. Joyce has begun to train us for the task of reading Ulysses, and images that reveal parallels less obviously are building upon images that are easier to understand. By Chapter Nine, for example, finding out how our Odysseus, Leopold Bloom, is sailing unharmed between Scylla and Charybdis hinges on several small phrases. Stephen imagines that the person to whom he is talking is drowning in a whirlpool of mystical Platonism, and Aristotle, on whom Stephen is basing his arguments, like Scylla, sits on a rock. 1 The most distinct of these references are the two sentences, "Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded," (9. 405) and "A like fate awaits him and the two rages commingle in a whirlpool." (9. 464) At the end of the chapter, Leopold Bloom, who has barely been seen in this chapter, walks between Stephen and his opponent, sailing to safety: "My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between. A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting." (9.1202) If we hadn't been trained by the eight chapters that came before, we might have skipped right over these cryptic lines. These few phrases would have been much harder to understand if we hadn't become used to thinking that every phrase is important and already been sensitized to hints of Homeric parallels. The repetition of phrases hides the key to the symbolic parallels that will help us understand the meaning of the book. The main characters embody several different sets of historical and literary parallels for us to look out for, as well. Thus, Ulysses operates on many more levels than simply plot action, character traits and so on. The readers must supply the missing links to connect Leopold Bloom to Odysseus, and recognize the other parallels that together constitute a whole other set of meanings for the novel. Joyce, through training us to read Ulysses successfully, also uses us as a way to continuously connect the events we read to those of all of history. Our memory of every other thing we have ever read does more than enhance the imagery used; it is the building block of that imagery. He comments obliquely on the role of memory in reading many times, in the ways that his characters read written words. Perhaps the best example is an advertising campaign that Bloom encounters in his wanderings. In it, five men walk in single file around the streets of Dublin, each with a letter on hi s tall hat, spelling out HELY'S, the name of a store. A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like t,hat priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats : H. E. L. Y. 'S. Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his foreboard , crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked .. .(Bloom) crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. (8 .123) 1 All references to line numbers in Ulysses refer to the Vintage edition, edited by Hans Walter Gabler. I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words apout the use of secondary texts in this essay. No secondary text was used for any interpretive points, but several of the symbolic connections I make during the course of the paper came from either published guidebooks or other people in my preceptorial and study group. I decided that footnoting these connections, most notably the one referring to Chaucer's "The Manciple' s Tale," was not necessary, since they are not original ideas or interpretation, but rather discoveries of what was already there. As well, they serve only as examples in my essay, and are not at all crucial to the general argument of the paper. 51 50 They pass him several more times: "H. E. L. Y. 'S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, plodding towards their goal." (10.310) And later, "At Ponsonby's comer a jaded white flagon H. halted and four tallhatted white flagons halted behind him, E. L. Y. ' S, while outriders pranced past and carriages." (10.1238) Bloom sees, and we see, each letter as an individual consciousness, with thoughts and actions of his own. Alone, each redlettered man also recalls the image from The Scarlet Letter of being branded, publicly labeled for a private sin, and therefore be an ennobled figure. Together, however, they spell out a word which has a completely different meaning than the individuals had, a comical image, five human beings turned into nothing more than an advertisement. Likewise, when we read we see the parts as well as the whole, each individual image or event as well as the completed, coherent picture that they want to make. And likewise, the final message, the whole, necessarily neglects the intricacies of the parts. The newly trained reader 's memory and sense of continuity affect the coherency of the text. Unlike most novels, here the reader is asked to draw on his past reading experience, not only to understand small references, but �T HELY' S and the men that are forming it. It is similar to to understand the whole of the book. Meaningful things the way a believer reads the Bible; since he considers the that would be stated outright in other books are here hid- Bible the word of God, he treats each word as precious den in a maze of literary references through which we and poetically full of meaning. Thus, at the end of Joyce's must find our way. We remember when a phrase we book, we come away with a new, and ancient, way of read resembles, in form or content, a phrase from earlier reading. It becomes a reflex to study every word as if it · in the book, and get better at recognizing what is impor- held the key to great understanding, instead of just skimtant as we get more experienced. Subsequent readings ming the surface of the text for the general meaning. Joyce may tum up even more recurrences as we learn what to returns us to a time when books themselves were rarer remember. Joyce needs readers properly trained to re- and the written word more respected and valuable. We member these little things, because repeated images only are reading everything as closely as if it were the Bible. become meaningful when there is a reader who remem- Even if this reflex doesn't last long after we've closed bers, and recognizes them as repetitions . Without the the book, at least he has shown us how much we might recognition that comes from our memory, events might be missing in everything we read. We learn to treat evappear to be random events, and therefore ignored; but ery sentence as if it were very important, never ignoring the author, relying on the reader to recognize them, loads anything because it seems inconsequential. them with significance. Because we learn that our recEven more interesting are those recurrences, coinciognition of his symbols and parallels helps establish the dences, and parallels that don't seem to have anything to coherency of the book, we try very hard to understand all do with the book's obvious symbolism or themes. The of them. We realize this early on, when the Homeric sailor in Chapter Sixteen has a tattoo that reads "6-16," parallels are first introduced, and as connections get more which just happens to be the date of the day chronicled in diverse and more difficult to find, we try harder to ex- Ulysses, for example. This is just something to remark tract meaning from the events. Although Joyce cannot upon, a chance occurrence at which to wonder. Howbe sure that we have read everything to which he refers, ever, Joyce has purposefully placed that tattoo on that he does seem to use books which are firmly placed in the sailor to convey some meaning and remind us of the omcanon of Western Literature, thus keeping the require- nipresence of the author. Not merely a coincidence but ment for the proper reading his book as the classical edu- rather a conscious act, we see in the history of such items cation in literature, history, and religion that any person a decision by the author to include such "accidents." If could, or perhaps should, have. We begin to see any and we saw such a coincidence in our daily life we would no all superficially meaningless references, objects and doubt think very little of it, and dismiss it as meaningless events as containing, somewhere within them, a seed of chance, as Bloom does. As far as the action of the plot meaning that will give us deeper insight into Joyce's "big goes, it is an inconsequential coincidence, but for the readthemes" of the novel. Thus Joyce is counting on our pres- ers, it can only be an encrypted message from the author ence to hold together the book, and what his words call to us, reminding us of his presence. In a work written up in our minds is not incidental, but rather something on with such care, we cannot dismiss it as chance, as a result which he relied very much as a level of meaning for the of randomness , but instead must consider it as having book. He can only hope that we take what he has given meaning, since it is deliberately placed in the text by us and interpret it correctly, now that we know what to Joyce. Other examples of this sort include the crazy man Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farell, whom do with it. The world that Joyce has created gradually becomes Bloom keeps seeing on the street, who can be seen as a filled with meaning, alive and organic in its circularity, message from Joyce to us about what happens to form where otherwise it might seem inert. We don't want to without any content. Another example is when Bloom let a single reference pass us by unnoticed or misunder- unwittingly predicts the outcome of the horse race. He stood, and thus most people that wish to read the book did not intend to say anything about the race but is miswell read it with other readers or published guidebooks. understood as having offered a betting tip on it, and the Very few people are going to have all the background prediction he unwittingly made turns out to have come Joyce cites, and a perfect memory besides. For this same true. reason, it is beneficial to read it many times, and flip back However, Joyce also warns us that words are treachand forth in it while reading. We learn from Joyce, as we erous for us. We learn from him both on the one hand progress through the book, that to read well is to read in not to take words at face value, rather to recognize the that way, and that a good reader sees both the word awa~en~ss presence of a possibly undiscoverable deeper meaning, and on the o~her hand not to trust in the truth of written ~ords. A wntten word differs from the object it signifies m that th~ word had to be written by a person, and therefore cames a particular intent that we may never understand. So~e. force had to inspire the person to write, and thus all wntmg carries such hidden motives. A person must choose between writing one word instead of another, or even whether to write a word at all . A word is . bo f . ~ o a wnter, and must be consciously brought into ex1~t~nce, b~t a physical object exists without human activity. Whil.e a tangible thing may be manipulated by human h.ands, its substance, its material being, exists without any mtent we know of. We give more thought to the ~ords we. read than the objects we see because of this history, this connection to a writer that words have. A h . t t e. same time, however, Joyce asks us to view these pr~c10us. words as untrustworthy. We could mist~e the mtent10n we want words to have for the intenti~n they actually do carry. As an example of this kind of mistake, he shows Stephen in a heated argument about Shakespeare, Hamlet in particular. As Stephen's f. d Buck po rt.rays it, " He proves by algebra that Hamlet's . nen gran?son IS Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father." (1.555) We don't hear th~ ~ctual argument until Chapter. Nine, and when we do •. It IS as tenuous and complicated as Buck jokingly made It .out to be. Stephen argues it earnestly, but then on lookmg back realizes, as we do, just how far on the wrong track he has gotten. rat1ve techmque, the filter through wh1.ch we view the . 1 pot, changes periodically. Yet this change i's no acci. d ·h ent, e1t er. Each chapter's narrat1·ve techmque corre. sponds to the plot's action at that point, to a greater or lesser degree. In the beginning the choice of tech . . f ·l b · · mque is air y o 'viou.s, with. chapters centering on Stephen from Stephen s pomt of vie':", presenting his thoughts, and with chapters from Bloom s point of view in Bloo ms v01ce, ' . b ut as the b~ok goes on the narrators become less and less co~vent10nal. For example, the chapter in which Bloom he~rs people singing in a bar not only includes a lot o.f musical phra~es in it, but also is itself arranged in a musical pattern, w.1th motifs introduced in the beginning that . . f then are used m the construction of the piece, as m a ugue .. An?ther good example is the chapter in which Blo~m is ~ith a group of doctors, all waiting for a woman to give birth'. The chapter is arranged as the development of Engh~~ prose style, from druidic incantation to modem expos1t10n, echoing the development of a fetu After the birth occurs, the narration deteriorates into amalgam of slang, almost mimicking a baby 's babble. B~caus~ of the training that Joyce gives us, and the ':ays m which we are reminded of the author behind his lmear plot, we feel that author's presence, who reciprocally felt our pres.ence as he wrote his book. He assembles a worl~ out of.literary motifs, historic events, and real pl~ces m Dublm. .As he guides his characters through this wo~ld , h~ mampulates it deliberately to mirror them and their act10ns, creating the recurrences and parallels that we then n?t~ce. He affects every level of this world down to the tlmest detail, making every aspect of the ~?rid ~ddress the story and the characters. For the reader It is as if Dublin has been turned into a giant amusemen~ ~ark ~.here Leopold Bloom is the theme. His intentions ~n wntmg phrases that see~ cryptic are at the front of our houghts, and much of our mterpretation of the book thus takes the fo~ of the statement, "What the author means when he wntes such and such is .. ." The effect of this is tha~ we feel the presence of some mind at work with .which we never have direct contact, but which we' sense as someone who ca:es that we understand the book, someo~e who took the time to build up our new reading techmques. The r~ader of Ulysses distinctly sees that there are two consc10usnesses aware of the action, the reader and the au~hor. We cannot be as self-centered as we are when read1.ng more conventional things where the writer conceals himself. We have responsibilities. Both the reader and the author are part of the narra- a~ You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have brought us all this way to show _ s a French triangle. Do you believe your u own Lheory? - No , Stephen said promptly (9.1064) . Thus, even as we grow more adept at reading Ulysses e:ents i~ the book warn us of how untrustworthy a me~ dmm wntten words are. As well, we see that we, as read~rs , are untrustworthy. We could be reading too much mto ~he t~xt, or reading with biased eyes and omitting certam pomts . Part of Joyce's training is teaching us to open ourselv~s to every part of the text. We are left always suspectmg that we could be misreading-attaching more, less,' or the wrong meaning to any word. . Joyce s use of multiple narrators is one of the most noticeable ways in which this novel differs from most other ~ovels. and epics. The technique of using everchangmg vmces to tell a continuous story increases our 53 52 of something behind the narrator. For the lot co~tmues to .progress chronologically even while the ~ar- �1 , I tive, but while the reader always experiences the book as a linear chronology, it seems that the author does not. We get this impression from little recurrences, of the sort that indicate the author at work, some occurring many chapters apart, each time existing only as one small phrase. A good example of this is the image of a drowned man who has just been found in the sea near Dublin after floating for many days, a news story that both Stephen and Bloom hear. We see the man in their thoughts here and there, and Bloom runs into a friend, a coroner's assistant, who must handle the body. The drowned man floats through the first half of the book, a symbol of Bloom drowning in the backwaters of his life, the odious, bloated corpse always turning up in different conversations. Without a careful, trained reading, however, one might skim over each of these references as it occurred, however, and thus never see the recurrence. Once the reader notices the references as similar, they give him the impression that they were placed all at the same time, although each time it fits perfectly into the story. When a thing is recognized as recurrent it becomes more obvious that Joyce intends it to have real meaning; a word said twice might be accidental, but not a word said repeatedly. It is as though the entire book had been written all at the same time, had happened all at the same time, instead of over a period of time. We can imagine the entire book appearing suddenly out of his head, already fully formed, having the same sort of birth as Athena's, out of the head of Zeus, rather than the Old Testament creation of man in which it takes time and toil for God to fabricate his creation. We see Joyce as one who knows everything, one who is atemporally omniscient. We begin to see a meta-narrator, manipulating the host of voices used in order to make certain statements about the characters or emphasize certain parts of the plot. This so-called meta-narrator must be none other than the author himself. Thus, because there is no single static narrator like in other novels, but a series of static narrators successively carrying the same plot line, the plot and himself and Joyce himself become independent of a single point of view. We are couscious that Joyce has chosen the different narrators, whether clear voices like Chapter Seven's newspaper headlines or Thirteen's voice of a romance novel heroine, or cryptic voices like Chapter Fourteen, the embryonic development of English prose sty le or Chapter Fifteen, a drama starring Bloom's unconscious, subconscious and conscious minds. Narrators are generally taken from text styles that we have already probably read in other places, but here they have meaning apart from what is the usual. Joyce's hand in this, separate from that of the narrators, is obvious; we know that there is a human intelligence behind the story. Since the story, on its most basic level, comes from Homer, and since much of the other material comes from various historical and fictional sources,most of what we read has the tone of reorganization rather than the Biblical creation from dust. The characters' traits, roles, their world, everything is derived from other sources, so that they are just newer embodiments of timeless tern-: plates. Yet we still can see Joyce as a creator thanks to his manipulations of the symbols and motifs that he has pulled from various places, and in the wide array of narrators that he has conjured up from our common literary background. Because the reader senses the presence of the author in the book, we treat the book much more as if it were the author's product than we otherwise would . That the SYf!lbolism was conceived in the author's head, and conveyed directly to the reader, gives the work a tone of commentary. We see the phenomenon of chance, of blind luck, playing an important and prominent role. Joyce thus molds us into the readers he wants and needs for the book he has written. He makes a new reader by writing a new kind of novel, and then slowly reteaching us how to read. As we realize this, the question why he does this nags us more and more. We will have to examine the material that is presented to us before we can fully understand why such a roundabout, cryptic process was chosen. PART II: BLOOM'S EXPERIENCES IN JOYCE'S WORLD The symbols, motifs, and parallels taken from our shared tradition of Western philosophy, history, and literature are more than simply clever ways to reinterpret and revisit the books of our heritage. Most often, they serve as commentary on the action taking place in the story. For example, Bloom encounters in the course of the day at least three things that are on the surface confusing and cryptic, but are actually warnings about the adultery that Molly is committing at those exact moments. The first of these is the image of a crowing cock that recurs several times, connected with the name of a romance-writer that Molly Bloom has been reading, "Paul de Kock." The cock's crow becomes an image of betrayal in Chapter Eleven, when Bloom sees Blazes Boylan leave the Ormond Hotel bar to go see Molly, ostensibly about a singing performance for which he is booking her. Bloom idly suspects that they are probably having an affair, but does nothing to stop it, and sees in his mind Bo~ Ian, in his horsedrawn taxi, .approaching the Bloom residence where Molly awaits him: By Bachelor 's walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bach.elor'. in sun in heat, mare 's glossy rump atrot, with fhck of whip, on bounding tyres: sprawled, warmseated, Boylan impatience ardentbold. ' a bell chimed ... Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest's house cooed ... Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo bec.aus~ it was a little canarybird that came out of its httle house to tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed. (13.1 285) Several pages later he sees Boylan knocking on the front door,. and he~e he hears the knock sounding like a cock The cuckoo clock sounds nine times altogether, audible crowmg as his betrayal grows imminent: "One rapped on the beach to both Bloom and Gerty from the nearby on a door'. one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de house, a.nd thus th~ chapter ends. The cuckoo is not simK ock with a loud proud knocker with a cock ply to. signal the time; It recalls a passage from "Th ~arracarracarra cock. Cockcock." ( 11. 986) The sound Manciple's Tal~," of The Canterbury Tales in which : carracarracarra" is interjected twice more in the text man learns of his beloved wife's adultery. before the chapter ends. The sound of the knock rese~bles ~cock's crow, bringing to mind Christ's converWhen Phoebus, the master, returned home, sat10n with Paul after the Last Supper. The crow greeted him with "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" Peter said ~o him, "Though all become deserters because ",W~at, crow?" said Phoebus. "What song are you of you, I will never desert you." Jesus said to him "T l smgmg? ... " I tell you, this v~ry night, before the cock crows, ;ou ~i{i "B y God'" said the crow, "I don't sing incorrectly · . deny ~e. three .times. " (Matthew 26. 33 ) Combrnmg this reference to Christ with the obvious For I saw him make love with your wife on your sexual connotations leaves us with a clear image of adulbed." tery. Peter's wor~'s are like Molly 's marriage vow, and W~at more do you wish? The crow then told him the rooster-soundmg knock signals her betrayal. With convincing evidence and bold words Another ex~~~le of a warning to Bloom of Molly 's How_ his wife had conducted her adultery, ~dultery, and .cntic1sm of his complacency, occurs twice, To his great shame and dishonor. m Chapter Nme and at the end of Chapter Thirteen: the The crow said it had seen the act with its own call of a cuckoo. The first instance occurs while he overeyes. hears Stephen debating about Shakespeare. ("The Manciple's Tale," lines 242-261 In Cymbeline, in Othello, he is bawd and cuckModem edition paraphrase) old. He acts and is acted on. Lover of an ideal or.a perversion, like Jose he kills the real Carmen. Thus Bloom he~rs ~he same bird 's lament again, but still His unremitti?g. intellect is the hornmad Iago does ?ot recognize it as a warning. He does not question ceaselessly w11lmg that the moor in him shall why It has s.ounded at this exact moment, when he was suffer. · a~le to he~r it. If he thinks of it at all, it is only like Gerty "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" Cuck Mulligan clucked t~mks of It, .on .the most superficial level of marking the lewdly. "O word of fear!" tm~e, an~ thm~mg of a clock reaching the top of the hour Dark dome received, reverbed. (9.1021) at JU st this pomt does not seem significant to him. .Bloom. does not recognize these or other references ~h~ cuckoo reappears as Chapter Thirteen ends . Bloom to hterar~ i~ages of betrayal and cuckoldry, but treats s1.ttmg on the strand after Gerty bares her underwear him. from afar, thinks about Molly, and about sex, sitting, them a~ mc1dental events. Indeed, the reader too may not decipher all thes~ things on the first reading, since restmg, looking out at the water. they appear to be ummportant. We have an advantage over Bloom, however. The training Joyce has given us A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey for proper reading of his novel means, first, that we are fo; 54 55 �not willing to treat any word as meaningless.' and second, that we will be studying, not merely readmg, the te~t. That is to say, we will read it multiple times and with groups of people, and if there is an image th~t seem~ meaningless to us, we will work together until we fmd the meaning we know is hidden in it somewhere. Eventually, then, we understand these things for ~hat th~~ ~re, and will be able to interpret them. We can view critic1sr:i of Bloom that he does not notice, much less heed, as primarily commentary from the author directly to us. We are already very aware of the presence of t~e author, and we already know for a certainty the unfaithfulness that Bloom only suspects. We are expected to have the background in literature to see these warnings for what they are. Even if one reader has not, for example, re~d "T~e Manciple's Tale," for example, no doubt some~ne m on~ s circle of fellow readers has read it, and the i~age will resonate for that person. Joyce is a spectator J~St ~s we are, and just as we are, he is criticizing and pa~smg J~dg­ ment on Bloom's actions. Indeed, on closer i~s.p~ctlon, most of the symbolism can be regarded as cnticism of Bloom. . ·· d We see symbolic meaning in Bloom's _act1vitl~s an surroundings, and we interpret some of this meanmg as critical of him. Bloom, too, perceives the recurrences and coincidences, reflecting on the chance an~ vagary of life when, for example, he crosses paths with Blazes Boylan three times in one day, .or when ~e tosses away a stick he has been holding and It lands with one end embedded in the sand, perpendicular to the ground. "Now if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn't. Chance." (13.1271) To some extent, he even half-consciously realizes the similarities tha~ ?e has to the great character types of the western tradition, most distinctly to the betrayed martyr template represented ~y Christ and Socrates . But the only time we really. see h.im run away with this idea is in the fifteent~ chapte.:, m which there is a large part dedicated to the idea of . The New Bloomusalem," and where Bloom is put on.t~ial. The difference between Bloom's recogmt10n o~these parallels and recurrences and our own,. howev~r, ts that he does not see them as anything special, or give them anything more than idle thought. To him, they are a sort of background noise, easily ignorable, present every day oflife. Others he obliviously passes by, such as the :'arnings of Molly's imminent betrayal mentioned earlier, or the parallel between himself ~nd .Throwaway: the proverbial "dark horse" in the day s big race. He is dressed in mourning, thus "dark," generally co~sidered. a loser, and considered somewhat inconsequential by his peers, like a throwaway brochure. Boylan, then, is Sceptr~, t~e favored horse, the bright star with a hint of royalt~ m its name who in the end is beaten by the dark horse, JUSt as . Bloom wins Molly back from Boylan. It seems equally unlikely that anyone would fmd a parallel between one's marital problems and a horse race as that anyone would find the parallel between oneself and Odysseus, or Jesus Christ, God the Father, t~e famous Irish politician Parnell, or the fairyt~le hero Smbad the Sailor. Such a recognition would brmg the detachment that might help us to solve our problems, but we tend to think of literature and history too impersonally to equate them with our own situations. w_e do ~ee the benefit that Bloom would get out of thinkmg this way, a~d perhaps Joyce is telling us that we should look to classic character templates for insight about ourselves . If we think that we resemble the Odyssean "wanderer who wishes to return home," perhaps we should pinpoint what tasks we need to do to get there, what "suitors" we ~ust slay. If we resemble the "lover martyred by the ~raitor­ ous beloved" template of Christ, then we need to ~md out what forgiveness we have to grant to get back ~nto the heart of the beloved and be resurrected. Our heritage of story and history ought to be alive, not dead and mounted in a museum. . During the whole day, Bloom thinks often. about his wife's suspected infidelity, the letter he ~eceived. from Martha his relationship with her, even simply his unhappy Job or new ad ideas. J?espite this, he_ do~s not share these thoughts with the fnends he sees, his wife'. or anyone at all. He has big problems, and one would thmk that he might ask advice from the people he trust~. Bloom has no one that he trusts, however. No one strikes up a real conversation with him, or seems to want to talk to him either, even though several people know about Molly's infidelity and pity him for his ignorance. At the funeral, at the bar in Chapter Twelve, and at the ~estau­ rant where he eats lunch, among other places'. he is continually perceived by other characters as the silent, cry~­ tic, unapproachable man. A good example comes up m Chapter Eight, in the restaurant w.he~e he eats !unc~. The point of view has been firmly withm Bloor:i s mmd for several chapters at this point, and suddenly it pulls away for several paragraphs to a conversation two men are having behind Bloom's back, after ~e leaves his table. They ask each other questions about him that, for some reason, they didn't want to ask him ~irectly: Whether he had recently changed his occupat10n, whose death he was mourning. They find him odd and unapproachable, based mainly on his Jewish background and the fact that he 56 never gets really drunk. After some insinuations about Molly, one of the men gives his own theory for Bloom's cryptic quality and supposed secrecy: He is a freemason. This seems unlikely and out of character, but we never ascertain the facts on this matter. -He's in the craft, he said. -Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said. -Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He's an excellent brother. Light, life, and love, by God. They give him a leg up ... They stick to you when you're down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they're close as damn it. .. -And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. (8.962) late in the book, also fraught with meaning, but referring to Bloom instead. He views it as merely a meaningless error, although it can be deciphered in a way similar to Martha's. The error in this case cannot be attributed to a single person, since it occurred as a glitch in the newspaper typesetting system. Bloom reads the announcement for the funeral he had attended that morning in the evening newspaper. So to change the subject he read about Dignam R.I.P... This morning (Hynes put it in of course) the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence .. . for interment. . . The mourners included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan (brother in law), Jno. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John Power, .)eatondph I \8 ador dorador douradora (must be where he called Monks the dayfather [typesetter] about Keyes's ad) Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus, ... L. Boom, CP McCoy and several others. (Bloom was) nettled not a little by L. Boom (as it incorrectly stated) and the line of bitched type. (16. 1248) Indeed, he never even has any real conversation with anyone at all until Chapter Seventeen, when he and Stephen sit in his house talking. Thus, before the last two chapters of the book, and the accompanying breakdown of structure which I will speak of later, the author is the only one who can show him how he's acting and what his life looks like from a detached perspective. The "scientific mind" Bloom is so proud of possessing, the craftiness any good Odysseus must have, is more With random chance as the culprit instead of a particular person, it is easy for him to ignore the error as annoying, than a gift; it is a tool. With it he is meant to discover the but meaningless. Yet "L. Boom" does have meaning: clues to decode the message, which exist in coincidence "The decent quiet man" is being described as an exploand parallel. We know Bloom is capable of looking besion. A reader can interpret from this that Bloom needs hind the obvious to infer a deeper meaning from several to do something out of character, to break the fog of idle events, most notably when he reads the slightly sadistic complacency in which he finds himself. He must do love letter from Martha. In it, she says, "I do not like that something violently different to make Molly notice him other world" (5.245) instead of, we presume, "I do not like that other word," since she is writing about Bloom's again as a man. That explosion would flatten the rickety structure of their current relationship leaving a clean, bare word usage at that point. If one reads that as something foundation upon which they could rebuild their lives and more than a typo, Martha appears to be someone who their relationship. We understand this because we are fantasizes and holds a lot of hope for the world of which looking over the shoulder of the author, while Bloom is she imagines Bloom to be a part. She unwittingly prenot aware that he is Joyce's creation. If Bloom were willsents herself as someone who wishes she were also in ing to anticipate that meaning can come in unexpected that world, and is not at all satisfied with her own life. ways, he could see these signs. But he has not been trained Bloom reads this as a sort of Freudian slip, as do we, and the way we have, however, and although he has the abilsenses a great dependence on hir.1 to rescue her. He mulls ity to see these things, an hour of life is not looked at as over that sentence on and off for the rest of the book, and carefully as a page of text. sees it as a valuable glimpse into what is really happenAnother example of Bloom's inability to interpret ing in their relationship . He has the gift of a very rational seemingly meaningless events as having any message for mind, and the insight to use it for prophecy when he him occurs in Chapter Thirteen. After Gerty leaves, he wishes, just as Odysseus does. begins to leave her a message in the sand, which she could Although a typo gives him insight into Martha's mind, read if she returned the next day. He is sitting alone watchhe does not analyze misprints, partial words, and so on ing fireworks over the water, thinking of Molly, fantasizas addressing his own situation. There is another typo ing about Gerty, and worrying about Martha. He gets as 57 I '/ 1 �---' far as I AM A before he stops: ity: Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write a message for her. Might remain. What? I. Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide comes here ... What is the meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not like. AM. A. No room. Let it go. Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand . Nothing grows in it. All fades ... We' ll never meet again . But it was so lovely. Goodbye dear. Thanks. Made me feel so young. (13.1258) We are first left trying to figure out what he was actually going to write: "I am a-." The answer cannot known. But what we, and he, should be reading here is wh_at_ he did write, "I am A." Bloom erases it without givmg thought to any unintended meaning. But in the midst of his gloomy thoughts he has actually given himself the answer to all his problems, if he were to read th~ sentence written as "I am the alpha." It counsels him to make a new beginning, in light of the Biblical passage, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the ~ast, ~he beginning and the end." (Revelation 22.13) He is_ bei~g told that he needs to stop drifting, complacent, ffilred m the middle of life, and become a fire-and-brimstone, ~x­ plosive beginning. This messag~ is ~ot purpos~~lly ignored by Bloom, since to ignore implies recogmt10n, and he never identified it as a message, even though he wrote it. It is hard even for us, detached though we are, to stop wondering what he intended to write and lo?k at what he actually did write. It does, however, remam a mess~ge of criticism, not from the author but from Blo~m ~im­ self. Bloom could have benefited if he had noticed it: This brings us to the moment when the prop?esied explosion actually occurs, the point towards which all Joyce's criticism of Bloom has been driving. Through the course of the book, we have seen Joyce criti_ciz~ Bl~om and suggest that he do something to change h1.s s1tuat10~. Bloom has not noticed these encoded suggestion~, but i~ the second to last chapter of the book, the author s fabncated superstructure of symbolism begins to break down as Bloom nears the climax. He comes close to true recognition of his mirroring of histo.rical and lite~a~y ~em­ plates as he enters the bed, reflectmg on Molly s mf1del- ?e If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity. (17 .2127) The explosion occurs when, in bed , Bloom asks 1'.1olly to day. He w~shes ~o bring him his breakfast in bed the next_ wake up the next morning in a new kmd of ~elatt?ns_h1p with her, be greeted by the vision of her feedmg _him ~n a reversal of the unhappy roles of this day. The first tune we saw Bloom, he had been fixing breakfast for Molly. Now he demands that she feed him, as she did at the beginning of their relationship. An image is repeat~d through the book, both in Bloom' s thoughts and m Molly's, a reminiscence of an instance befor~ they ~ar­ ried in which, in Molly's words, "I gave him a bit of seedcake out of my mouth." (18.1575) This is a mothering image, a bird feeding her newly-hatched young, and he wants to return to the relationship where she sheltered and nurtured him. In a way, the odyssey of his entire day can be looked at, not only as a return to his Penelope, but also as a return to the bed, which is also Molly's nest, and metaphorically the womb. The most interesting thing for us, the readers, _about this explosive question is that it does not occur m the narrative. The prophesied "Boom" from the newspaper misprint is neither at the end of Chapter Seventeen n~r the beginning of Chapter Eighteen, although as Molly s monologue begins, it has already occurred. In fact, the only way that we find out that he has asked ~er _to do anything is through what Molly says at the beg1~nmg_ of her monologue: "Yes because he never did~ thmg hke that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs." (18.1) It is as if the first seven.teen chapters constitute Bloom 's past, the eighteenth his future, and the question his present. He will ~ot know Molly's answer until he wakes up in the mommg, so her monologue represents his unknown future . We leave him suspended in the uncertain present, having ended the day and the life that it represented at the moment he got into bed, but not in the future yet. As T.S. Eliot said in "Burnt Norton," Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past ... Time past and time future Allow but little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time. ers that sh.e has gotten her period, which gives us another way to view the chapter as a renewal, an end to all the problems that existed the day before, and the chance for a new beginning. For Bloom had been worrying all day about his own virility. He seems disappointed in, or at least unfulfilled by, their daughter Milly, and he is haunted The bed, and Molly's half-awake thoughts, are outside by visions of their son, who had died while still a baby. of linear time, existing only in the sense of a now time, He has not had sex with his wife for many years, and he and represented by the unanswered question. The queswonders if he would or could ever produce another son, tion cannot be included in either the past or the future, someone to carry on his family name, a duplication of and thus it isn't written about in either Chapters Sevenhimself. He also worries that Molly might be pregnant teen or Eighteen, but between them. We can connect the with Boylan's child, in which case Boylan would have explosion to the layers of commentary urging Bloom tostolen Bloom's dream of fatherhood. With this, the last wards it, fabricated by the author in the first seventeen barrier to Bloom's happiness has been removed, and the chapters . To understand this connection perhaps one two of them can still try to conceive a son in their new needs first to understand what the last chapter constitutes. relationship. The end of the book, traditionally called Molly's The other thing that stands out in this chapter is the monologue, has none of the punctuation or grammatical last "sentence," which begins with Molly rejecting Hugh structure of the rest of the book. It is designed to be a "Blazes" Boylan: look at the thought patterns of this person as she lies, unmoving, in bed. This is the first thing that strikes a no thats no way for him he has no manners nor reader; it isn't even divided up into real sentences. It has no refinement nor no nothing in his nature slapnone of the linear plot line of the rest of the book, either, ping us behind like that on my bottom because I but orbits around several topics of conversation, with difdidnt call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt ferent layers of circularity. The word "yes," for example, know poetry from a cabbage thats what you get begins the chapter, ends the chapter, and in the middle for not keeping them in their proper place pullpairs up poetically with "no." We get a view of how ing off his shoes and trousers there on the chair thought processes might link together in someone's head, before me so barefaced without even asking perand there is no sense of the passage of time here. This mission and standing out in that vulgar way voice is entirely without artifice, with none of the con(18.1368) sciousness of the reader that first seventeen chapters had. It does not have mastery of the language as all the other and ends with her accepting Bloom again in a reiteration narrators did, using the beauty of words to seduce the of her acceptance of his marriage proposal many years reader. Here language returns to its primal state as a feaago, and, at the same time, answering his request for tureless medium, communicating all ideas. But most breakfast in bed: importantly, this voice has none of the artifice of symbol, recurrent image, and encrypted commentary that the first yes that was why I liked him because I saw he seventeen chapters had. If we accept that all those things understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I were present more to help Bloom than to entertain us could always get round him and I gave him all with empty but beautiful symbolism, then then the reathe pleasure I could leading him on till he asked son for their disappearance is obvious. All those things me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only were there expressly to goad Bloom into action, and with looked out over the sea ... and the rosegardens his question to Molly, he has acted. and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses Almost all the linearity of the plot disappears from and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a flower of this chapter as well. Molly's thoughts could be put down the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair in any order and the entire chapter rearranged, since it is, like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a for the most part, a random access of all her memories. red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish But two things stand out in this flood of memory. The wall and I thought well as well him as another first is the only physical motion of the chapter; Molly and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again gets out of bed to go to the bathroom. There she discovyes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes 58 59 �I stead of the indifferent visage of "fate" or chance there might be a caring face similar to his own. In the modem age, it seems, we attach meaning only to those things which explicitly .tell us they are meaningful: written words, speech, memory. We pay attention to things that obviously come from the mind of ourselves or other humans, with the mark of having been conceived in our Thus the entire novel ends, looking back in a retrospecown mind or in one like ours. We think of information as tive arrangement to the genesis of their relationship. The something born of man. We, in this rational, data-packed final "yes" is both a remembrance of their early days toage, find it difficult to think of messages coming to us gether and an immediate answer to Bloom's question. through channels not based on language. At the same Fusing these two affirmations together shows that she time, we put our history on so high a pedestal that even wants to return to their earlier form of love for each other. if, like Bloom, we do resemble Christ, or Odysseus, so She, too, wants to begin again; after the return to the womb that thinking of ourselves in those terms would be helpthat this chapter represents, with the new day they will ful, we will not pay attention to the similarities. Cerbe reborn. The last image one has of the chapter, of Molly, tainly even if one recognized the similarities, one would of the whole book, is an absolute, all-embracing accepnot make the next step and say that what happened to tance. This recalls the first image we have of her, and the Christ is happening to oneself. first word she speaks in the book, as Bloom stands in the Joyce's role in the book, his relation to the characters hallway calling in to her, still in bed, to ask if she wants he has both created and reassembled, mimics the relation any meat for breakfast. "He added: 'You don't want anyof man to God. If we believe that the author means for thing for breakfast?' A sleepy soft grunt answered: 'Mn. ' authorship to be analogous, in the context of at least this " (4.58) He interprets this as a no, but it could just as one book, to being God, then the attributes he has given easily been a yes-she is portrayed as a completely amhimself within the finite bounds of the book make sense. bivalent being, not stirred by her husband enough even All authors have these attributes, but he plays them up: to articulate her desires, much less get out of bed. creative power, omnipotence, atemporality. And if Joyce Through examining the ending of the book, both how is analogous to God, then it only follows that we, as people Chapter Eighteen is written and why it is written as it is, rather than as readers, are analogous to Bloom. Bloom is we better understand Joyce's manipulations. Indeed, we the quintessential Everyman even as he resembles the can understand all his literary parallels, encrypted warngreat heroes of literature, being, in a way, the perfect exings, and meaningful coincidences as advice for Bloom ample of man's estrangement not just from God but from that the character himself can perceive. The role and the everything natural and good. His obliviousness to the responsibilities that the author has taken on can now be warnings the readers find so obvious must mimic the avclearly seen. He has conceived of the characters, aserage man's relationship to God. The ratio sembled their world, and created the progression their story will follow, and having done all this, writes the book. Character : Author :: Reader : God, He loves his characters as any maker must love his creation, and wishes the best for them as they play out the seems to .be what Joyce is finally suggesting, the ultiHomer-based plot. Since he is atemporal and hence the mate analogy of this book. only being involved that knows what will happen, he is We see Bloom, in his role as the both Christian and spurred, through his benevolence, to inco,rporate clues Jewish Everyman, try these methods and reject them. and warnings into Bloom's surroundings. He grants himBecause he has belonged to both religions , he is an outself the ability to talk to his creation as he writes the book, sider as well as an Everyman, and the alienation from to attempt to help that creation reach happiness. religion that may be inside us is visible in him. Early in From Bloom' s perspective, the situation is this: He the course of the day "the cold smell of sacred stone called is surrounded by urgent warnings and criticism of his him," (5 . 338) and he enters a Catholic church and actions, but he ignores them all. Some of them he may watches a service in progress. The process seems to have not have the literary background to decode, but most of very little to do with God, in his eyes. them he notices but regards as mere random events not deserving understanding. It does not occur to him who Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Lollipop. might have placed these events in front of him, that inmy mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. (18.1577) 60 It does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. There's a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you feel. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I'm sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. . . Thing is if you really believe it. (5.360) Wonderful organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to . And I schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? . .. God's little joke. Then out she comes. Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. (5.424) Joyce senses that the average reader has similarly given up hope on God, and the disconnection that Bloom portrays here shows just how empty much of the ritual of religion has become. The people he sees in the church don't seem to him to have much spirituality. With the message he is conveying to us here, he·shows us how we might better be able to find significance in the world after rejecting the methods that are conventionally acceptable. Perhaps, then, Joyce is saying that we are as terminally oblivious as Bloom is. We could interpret the constant drone of "random" coincidence and parallel in our own lives as having direct meaning for us, instead of discounting it as ignorable background. In the same day, each one of us has a different set of thoughts and sights, pieces of internal and external data, which perhaps is as custom made for each of us as Bloom's was for him. We should be looking for sense and order in the white noise of events in our days, deciphering messages meant for us from what seems like a chaotic, impassive world. Recall the augury, through bird flight, that is practiced in The Odyssey, among other places. Specifically, we should keep in mind the passage in Book Two in which the suitors ignore an old man's prophecies about a pair of eagles. He said that Odysseus lived still and would return soon to slay them if they didn't change their ways. They scoffed at his augury, made no change, and were all proved wrong at the end of the book. It would seem that Joyce is trying to tell us to look for God, not just through the normal channels such as prayer, ritual, and revelation, but re- united wjth the older, classical conception of a higher power. God is fate, luck, chance, as well as a discrete bei~g. C?od is r~absorbed into nature, the chaos upon which this world is based. Faith in God means then faith ~n the abs~nce of random activity, that all activity has mtent behmd it. If a thing was created, it was created at the hand of a rational maker, and thus no facet of the world should be considered ignorable. By extending the analogies in this way, we see that there is indeed a force in the universe that is helping us, but not in the rational ways to which we might have always looked before. Our God wants to help us as the gods helped Odysseus, but we are not attuned to hear his commentary. He is not neglecting us, we are just not looking at the right part of our world to find these divine messages. "Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made." (Romans 1.20) Thus chance, part of nature, is one of the things God made. In the end, Joyce shows us a way back to God, that if we look for him in his creations instead of ours, we will find guidance. What seemed like a negligent God, an uncaring universe, is a very personal one, with guidance tailored to each and every person. When we accept chance as a powerful force of nature, we come back into alignment with our ancient philosophy about deities, and the universe welcomes us back with a resounding Yes. 61 I �\ An Attempt at Unlocking "Benito Cereno" D Gregory Alan Brandt "Benito Cereno" is the story of one man's assaying the character of another: Captain Amasa Delano tries to comprehend the ambiguous words and actions of his counterpart, Don Benito, in order to determine wh~t~er he is a pitiable figure, unhinged by misfortune, or a sm1ster one. The American withholds judgment until Cereno leaps into his boat-seemingly to attack him-and he errs in judging then. As readers we must assay Delano's character and, further, the narrative as a whole. Is he an obtuse man who saves himself and his ship by dumb luck, or is his decision "to leave open margin" to "the Spaniard's black-letter text" a shrewd one? (55) 1 Is the story incidentally about slavery or is that institution at its heart? We should note that essay and assay both derive from the French essai, "an attempt, a trial," for this etymology points to a truth about writing: An essay is an attempt to grapple with a problem that jumps at us from the books we read and the text of our own lives. The problem that I have been wrestling with, and the one that I hope will afford a means of understanding "Benito Cereno" as a whole, concerns the many religious references in the tale. To put it simply, what are they doing there? How do they flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. (37) Something is not right with the foreign ship as well; it fails to show its colors, possibly a sign of piratical intentions , yet it is so badly handled that Delano dismisses any fears and soon goes to its aid. As we are not sure what to make of the grayness of the morning and the actions of the vessel, so we are perplexed by the religious overtones of these words. They do not seem to harmonize with the scene. For example, wimple carries benign associations, but here the sun, fit in? The first few references are slight and easily overlooked. The sea on the morning that the Spanish ship enters the harbor of St. Maria is "undulated into long roods of swells." (37) A rood is an English measure of length varying by locality from about five to eight yards. · Yet the word originally denoted a crucifix, in particular one placed at the chancel entrance of a medieval churc_h (hence the Old English poem The Song of the Rood). This overtone is quickly strengthened by the descriptions of "the far matin light" streaming from the cabin of the stranger and of the clouds that "wimpled" the .sun. (3.8) The words matin and wimple are both associated with religious orders, designatiilg respectively the first hour of prayer in the canonical day and the headpiece worn by nuns. These three references contribute to the feeling of strangeness that prevails at the opening of the story. The wimpled by the same low, creeping clouds, showed not unlike a Lima intrigante's one sinister eye peering across the Plaza from the Indian loophole of her dusk saya-y-manta. (38) More importantly, these passing references prep~re us for the first explicit one, the likening of the Spamsh ship to "a whitewashed monastery after a thunderstorm, seen perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees.~' (38) Melville's simile is a rich one. At a simple level, it communicates the isolation and foreignness of the scene. The stranger seems cut off from both the land and other ships. Moreover, to one from Duxbury, Mass~chuset~s, even to a captain who has sailed on the Spanish Mam, the vision of a monastery in the Pyrenees might evoke thoughts of medieval romances, of the long ago .and.f~r away. When Delano steps aboard the San Dominick, i ~s no exaggeration to say that he enters a world that he ts not prepared to understand. . .. The word "whitewashed" is especially s1gmficant because of its association in the New Testament with feigned virtue. Paul refers to a hypocritical priest as a "whitewashed wall." (Acts 23:3) In the most widely known example, Jesus says, day is placid, but "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." (Mat- (f)lights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with 1 All citations refer to the Dover Thrift Edition. thew 23 :27) 62 We think ofBabo, whose appearance of simple loyalty to his master so touches Delano while concealing the "hive of subtlety" inside him. (104) The words "dead men's bones" certainly remind us of Don Alexandro Aranda's fate, for his skeleton lies underneath the sun-bleached canvas wrapped around the prow of the ship. The San Dominick has become his tomb, and we get a slight foreshadowing of this fact when Melville, in the paragraph describing the shrouded area, calls the roll of the ship "hearselike." (40) A far stronger hint is the allusion to Old Testament prophecy which preceeds this description: The stranger's "keel seemed laid, her ribs put together, and she launched, from Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones." (39) For the first-time reader, these references ready oneperhaps not even consciously-for what is to come; for a reader going through the narrative again, they create a powerful resonance. I observed at the outset that this story is about ambiguity, about how one judges the shades of grey in words and deeds. It cannot be an accident that Melville uses the word grey so many times in the opening of the tale. White is no less an ambiguous color, however, and few have thought more deeply about whiteness than Melville. He devotes an entire chapter to it in Moby Dick, published four years before "Benito Cereno." In the novel he notes the many associations of white with "divine spotlessness and power," "the majesty of Justice," and "the benignity of age." (Chapter XLII) But it can also be the color of disease and death. Babo makes a great deal of the connection between white skin and skeletal whiteness: According to the deposition, when he re vealed Don Alexandro's remains, he asked the Spaniard "whose skeleton that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white's ... " This question is followed by the injunction "Keep faith with the blacks from here to Senegal, or you shall in spirit, as now in body, follow your leader." (95) The problem of whiteness has bearing on the story because we can be tempted to break it down thematically to a conflict of white and black, good and evil. When Cereno says that "[t]he Negro" has cast a shadow over him that he cannot escape, we can interpret this remark to mean that the wickedness embodied by the blacks has overwhelmed his spirit. (The word negro in Spanish is itself equivocal, meaning both "black," as in the color or the man, and "wicked.") Delano resists this temptation and so should the reader, precisely because it is too reductive. The American not only is unwilling to resolve grayness into white or black but he also refrains from judging whiteness and blackness. We shall develop this idea further below. One last observation about the color white concerns a change Melville made from his source for the tale Amasa Delano's Narrative of Voyages and Travels. I~ Delano's work, the Americans take the Spanish and blacks to Concepcion, where the trial is held. Melville, however, alters the setting to Lima. He could have made the change simply for its own sake, that is, to fix his story in its own imagined place and assert his authority as its creator, not a mere reteller of another's narrative. Chapter XLII of Moby Dick provides us, though, with a more compelling reason. Here Melville gives the awful vision of a city rocked by "cathedral toppling earthquakes" and pounded by "frantic seas." He concludes: 63 -it is not these things alone which make tearless Lima the strangest, saddest city thou can'st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its distortions. These three sentences point us at once back to the "whitewashed monastery" at the opening of the tale and forward to its closing image, the view across the white city, whose church holds the bones of Aranda, to the monastery on Mount Agonia (agonia means "death agony" in Spanish) where Cereno is ensepulchered. We can now move forward to the next religious reference and the problem that it raises. Adding to the monastic appearance of the foreign vessel is its carrying what seems at first "a shipload of monks." (38) The narrator tells of "Black Friars pacing the cloisters." (39) Shortly thereafter we learn that the Spanish craft is named the San Dominick-after, we assume, the founder of the Dominican order, also known as the Black Friars. It quickly follows that the Spanish captain is "like some hypochondriac abbot"; (42) he listens to the reports of the ship's status in a manner not unlike that which might be supposed to have been his imperial countryman's, Charles V, just previous to the anchoritish retirement of that monarch from the throne. (44) The consistency of these references is pleasing, and again we see foreshadowing of Cereno's eventual fate. I want to argue, however, that the choice of San I �Dominick as a name is more than merely consistent. It is illuminating, giving us a way of approac.hing. the theme of "Benito Cereno." First we shall co~sider i~s ety.~ol­ ogy. Dominic is derived from the ~atl~ ~ommus, . lord or master." The Spanish title Don is sim1larly denved, and the Dons in the story are the slaves' masters- at least in name. Baba invariably refers to Cereno as "mas.ter." Dominic, however, comes from an inflection of dommus , dominicus, "belonging to a master." In the case of the saint the name indicates his servitude to the Master of Crea~ion and reminds us of Donne's claim in Holy Sonnet 14 that "I, I Except you enthrall me, never shall be f ree.. ." The name is a knot of master and slave, and we 1 are not any more certain of what to do with i.t than De ~n.o . 'th the knot thrown at him by the old sailor. Dominic IS Wl .. is properly the name of a servant, yet St. Domimc was one of the lords of the Church. Don is properly the name of a master, yet Don Benito is the slave of Babo and ~tufal. San Dominick is a fitting appellation for a slave ship, but the question for Delano and the reader is, who really pos- hardly then, to indulge in personal ~l~rms any VY_,~Y involving the imputation of malign evil m any man (37) might be a kind of wisdom distinct from "accuracy of intellectual perception." (38) What he himself refers to is Providence. After the old seaman tosses him the knot, he feels uneasiness and tries to resist it. His qualms pass away not through the agency of prayer but through the sight of his boat Rover, which "had often press~d the beach of Captain Delano's home ... " He says to himself: What, I, Amasa Delano- ... I to be murdered here at the ends of the earth on board a haunted pirate ship by a horrible Spaniard? Too nonsensical to think of! Who would murder Amasa Delano? His conscience is clean. There is someone above. Fie, fie, Jack of the Beach! you are a child indeed .. . (67) We can read these words in two different ways .. On ~he one hand, they might show a movingly simple faith, hke that of a child. On the other hand, we can argue more cynically that here is a man with ~ remar~abl~ lack of imagination. He cannot even conceive of his bemg murdered. He does not deserve the fate and hence whatever it is that is above-he himself never uses the wo~d God~ will not let it happen. Later in the story when his suspicions of Cereno return, he immediately feels remorse, . feanng that "he should by implication have betrayed an b " atheist doubt of the ever-watchful providenc~ ~ ove. (86) In this case, it is again the presence of his . household boat" and, above all, the beauty of the evenmg that sess the key? Another problem with the name concern~ the actual on Delano's narrative. The incident our story ts based _ lved the Spanish ship Tryal in 1805. Melville . mvo . · 1 · changed both the name and the date, settmg his ta e m 1799. He could have done so for the reason ·se~ o~t above, to put the story in a frame of his own imag.mmg. But why not, say, the San Salvador in 1801? Lea~mg through a chronology of world history, I found a possible answer. In 1799 Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former sl~ve, led an uprising against the Spanish on Santo Dommgo.' (San Dominick and Santo Domingo are, of course, d1~ferent versions of the same name.) This fact, along with the etymological analysis,suggests that Melville's cho~ce was purposeful and that he wanted the reader to consider the story as a commentary on slavery. . . Before we undertake this cons1derat10n, I want to examine one further religious aspect of "Benito Cereno," the faith-if that is the right word-that guides Delano. VY_e can compare him to a blindfolded man who walks unwittingly along the edge of a precipice ~here .the smallest misstep will destroy him. He has ghmmenngs that .the situation is dangerous but puts his feelings of.unease aside. And it is precisely his good-natured se.remty that saves him· if he were to act suddenly out of ill temper-to object 'too strenuously to Babo's hovering around Cereno perhaps-he would surely be at.tacked. It might ~e God that delivers him to safety or JUSt luck,. or he .~1ght be responsible for his own deliverance. Ht~ unw1.llmgness "except on extraordinary and repeated mcenttves, and restores his confidence. . In Delano's defense, we should note that he has little time to ponder theology during the .rescu~. He acts unreservedly to help a stranger in obvious d.istress when he could sail the Bachelor's Delight away. Like many people acting in the moment, he relies on his visceral sense of the situation. When faced with words or deeds that demand interpretation, he judges as magnanimously as.possible. So, for instance, he explains Cereno's occas10nal incivilitv as a product of his misfortunes. We can wonder abo~t Delano's mental acuity, but we cannot question his charity. Ultimately, Melville might not supply us with enough information to measure the. depth of the captain's faith, but, given Delano' s own km?ly .way of viewing others, we might hold that this behef is more than just a lack of imagination. In the remainder of this essay, I want to apply the 64 analysis of religious references to the conclusion of "Benito Cereno" and to determine whether, as suggested above, we can read the tale as an indictment of slavery. After giving the reader the deposition of Cereno, Melville makes the following enigmatic statement: If the deposition have served as the key to fit into the lock of the complications which precede it, then, as a vault whose door has been flung back, the San Dominick's hull lies open today. (101) This sentence recalls to us an earlier exchange among Babo, Cereno, and Delano. When Atufal, bound in chains, appears before the two captains to be given the opportunity to beg the Spaniard's pardon, Babo draws the American's attention to the fact that "master here carries the key." Delano then notices the key "suspended by a slender silken cord" around Cereno's neck and says, "So, Don Benito-padlock and key-significant symbols truly." (53) (So they are, although the American does not realize how truly and ironically he speaks.) The key is a symbol of dominion, whether over a man, the Church, or a narrative. It is interesting to observe that we say we have "mastered" a work and thereby "made it our own" when we attain a thorough knowledge of it and can unlock its complications. Melville here suggests that we have been given what we need, yet the hull of the San Dominick and the whole of the tale lie open to us only if Cereno 's statement to the court is the key. Melville does not write, "Thus the deposition serves as the key ... ";he leaves the matter open to doubt. For many who read the story, including Melville scholars, its central mystery is why Cereno at age 29 loses the will to live, "the Negro" having cast a shadow over him. The deposition provides little help with this complication. Taking up this problem, we should first remember Delano's remarks earlier in the story on the power of anguish to unhinge one's mind. Not only does Cereno endure physical hardships but he also suffers the effects of prolonged terror. He has seen his friends murdered and has lived in fear for his life for many days. One of Delano's most penetrating observations about the Spaniard occurs after Cereno recoils from one of the American's many innocuously meant comments: "He is like one flayed alive, thought Captain Delano; where may one touch him without causing a shrink?" (83) For one flayed alive, the mere weight of the air on one's skin"the thousand natural shocks I That flesh is heir to"-is intolerable. What makes Delano's thought especially powerful to the experienced reader is the fact that after the blacks hack Aranda to death with hatchets, they strip the skin from his body. (It is significant that Don Alexandro's bones come to rest at last in a church named for St. Bartholomew, for this saint was flayed alive while preaching in Arabia.) Don Alexandro's skin is tom off after his murder; Don Benito's spirit is rended while he is still alive, and the damage might simply be irreparable. Delano does not believe so, however. On the voyage to Lima, he does his best to cheer his fellow captain and understand his ailment. "Again and again," writes Melville, their conversation turned to Cereno's acting the part forced on him and Delano's failure to grasp what was really happening aboard the San Dominick. Don Benito sadly remarks: 65 ... you were with me all day, stood with me, sat with me, talked with me, looked at me, ate with me, drank with me; and yet, your last act was to clutch for a monster, not only an innocent man, but the most pitiable of all men. To such degree may malign machinations and deceptions impose. So far may even the best man err in judging the conduct of one of the recesses of whose condition he is not acquainted. But you were forced to it, and and you were in time undeceived. Would that, in both respects, it was so ever, and with all men. (102-3) At the broadest level, we might conclude from this passage that Cereno despairs to live in a world in which such misjudgments can occur. If malignity and the deceits that it inspires can fool even the best of men, can one ever truly be sure that he understands another person? In this interpretation, Cereno is overwhelmed by his realization of the power of evil among humanity and so retreats from it, first to a monastery and then to a grave. I wonder, though, whether Cereno's insight is not more personal. Don Benito is a young man from a wellknown family, "a sort of Castilian Rothschild, with a noble brother, or cousin, in every great trading town of South America." (55) At least some of his family's wealth has undoubtedly come from the slave trade, and he is comfortable with the institution before this voyage. He might well never have thought about slavery-it was merely a necessary part of his country's mining and agricultural interests in the New World. What then if the "deceptions" that he mentions are those one puts upon himself? That is, when Cereno speaks of an error in judgment, perhaps he is thinking of Aranda's and his own in under- �estimating the desire of the blacks for freedom and overestimating their tractability. The two probably assumed that the slaves were reasonably content with their lot and, in any event, incapable of organizing and carrying out a rebellion. They deceived themselves about the capabilities of the blacks because their fortunes rested on a slave labor, an institution premised on the slave's lack of humanity. They are brutally undeceived: to gain their liberty, the blacks act with all the craft, vigor, and ruthlessness that rebellious whites are capable of. If errors in judgment are possible when the two men involved share occupations and cultural heritage, how much more difficult is it to weigh the conduct of one from another race and culture? Don Benito himself is made a slave. He is compelled to say things that he does not want to say and to do things he finds repugnant. He knows the fear of one whose life is entirely at the whim of another, and we sense that Baba enjoys provoking terror in the Spaniard. The shaving incident supports this last generalization and also provides a good example of the curious reversal of the master and slave relationship we noted when we examined the etymology of Dominic. In this scene the ostensible servant is wielding all the power while "master" is in his thrall. For an instant Delano's mind grasps this fact, and we are told that " ... in the black he saw a headsman, and in the white a man at the block." (74) The more Cereno shudders, the more coolly professional Baba acts. To follow out this reading of the story's conclusion, I would argue that what leads to Don Benito's despair and lies behind his utterance "The Negro" is not wickedness but "subtlety." (104) He cannot believe how badly he misjudged the blacks until they become his master. The reason, therefore, that he never again looks at Babo--faints before the tribunal rather than do so-is his unwillingness to admit that the black ruled over him, used him as a means to an end. His former assumptions about his own superiority have been destroyed and he cannot live without them. In other words, he has had an experience and learned something about himself that he cannot bring into his understanding of the world and of his place in it. He cannot forget what has happened and he cannot live with it. After Cereno's enigmatic two-word reply, Melville writes what are among the saddest sentences in the tale: There was a silence, while the moody man sat, slowly and unconsciously gathering his mantle about him, as if it were a pall. There was no more conversation that day. (103) Like Bartleby turning hi s face to the wall of the Tombs, Don Benito resigns himself to the quietness of dust. Captain Delano, by contrast, is untroubled by whatever it is that afflicts Cereno en route to Lima. Fanned by the mild trade winds, he enjoys the beauty of the sea and sky, and cannot fathom why his companion does not. He acknowledges the role of Providence and the importance of his own "good-nature, compassion, and charity" (102) in carrying him through the danger. His own thinking about human malignity and slavery seems unchanged by his experience on the San Dominick. One cannot deny that Delano does patronize the blacks throughout the story. Melville writes that "like most men of good, blithe heart, Captain Delano took to Negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs ." (73) Elsewhere he thinks of them as "too stupid" to be in complicity with Cereno. (65) Yet he also sees "pure tendernes s and love" (63) in a black woman's treatment of her infant and, under the misapprehension that Cereno has injured Babo to retaliate for the shaving cut, sympathizes with the black. He thinks, "Ah, this slavery breeds ugly passions in man.Poor fellow!" (77) When the water arrives from his ship, the American doles it out equitably: ugly passions" in both master and slave. Captain Del who thinks of blacks in terms of "the unas . . ano , pmng content. . ment of a limited mind" (73) is no paradigm of enlightenment; he would be an incredible character if he were. Bu~ he does trea~ the blacks as if they have as much right to 1t;e as the whites . Constitutionally unwilling to assay men s h~arts by their ambiguous words and actions, he acts chantably to all and so delivers himself and his crew to safety. The original investigation of religious elements has th~refore led us to one way of reading "Benito Cereno." Given th~ nature of this "grey" tale, we cannot claim to have the i~terpretation of it or the best one, but we have made quenes and con~ections that merit further thought. In ans:v~r to the openmg question, we can now say that th~ rebgi~us references serve three ends: They help to umfy. the i~agery of the story, contribute to our under- stand1~g of Its central characters, and thereby point us to a crucial theme. These "significant symbols" are not the key that ~nlocks the tale, but perhaps they bring us closer to knowmg how to find the key. He complied, with republican impartiality as to this republican element, which always seeks one level, serving the oldest white no better than the youngest black, excepting, indeed, poor Don Benito, whose condition, if not rank, demanded an extra allowance. (70) Judged by today 's standards, Delano is a racist, but he does do what Cereno cannot, namely, regard the blacks as fellow humans and treat them accordingly. He is a decent man, and his virtue, as noted earlier, is that in a situation where he feels unable to draw clear distinction , he withholds judgment, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. "Benito Cereno" thus sounds no strident tocsin for the abolition of slavery but instead makes a quiet argument. If one is willing to entertain the notion that another race possesses at least some measure of humanity, then he cannot wonder when that race plots revenge for its enslavement. After Babo is captured, he gives every indication that, offered again the chance to revolt, he would do so, and he goes to his death with noteworthy dignity. During the passage to Peru,"[h]is aspect seemed to say: since I cannot do deeds, I will not speak words." (103) Denying the human qualities of such a man "breeds 66 67 �St. John's College Annapolis, Maryland 21404 NON-PROFIT ORGAN. U.S. POSTAGE PERMIT NO. 66 PAID LUTHERVILLE, MD � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1995 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2399b256d21cedeb254cdccd40ee949e.pdf 9d396685e69b6547bf5dee1bf35c3a47 PDF Text Text - SPRING 1996 ~-I . . ~_.' : . '· ' . ·.' · �ENERG E I A: The activity in which anything is fully itself. fi ...vou EVEpyELa(wv ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) SENIOR EDITOR Christopher Anderson JUNIOR EDITOR Lydia Polgreen FACULTY ADV I SO R Abraham Schoener S P EC I AL THANKS To the Print Shop: Marcia Baldwin Chris Colby Vernon Magee Don Smith also to: Eva Brann Jennifer Coonce Lynette Dowty Cindy Lutz Seth Milliken Adrienne Rogers Jennifer Swaim Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published once a year and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis. The Energeia staff welcomes submissions from all members of the community - essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. �TABLE OF CONTENTS John Singleton September 17, 1995 .............................................. 1 Carla Echevarria Joyce's Ulysses: The Quest for Paternity ............. 2 Matthew Braithwaite Magical Politics and the Perfection of Nature ...... 7 Jesse Berney Haiku on the Motion of a Stretched String ........ 16 Eva Brann Translation of Hermann Hesse's An Evening At Home With Doctor Faustus ........ 17 Beatrice Robbins Form of Language .............................................. 20 Dawn Star Shuman They Do Not Understand: A Discussion of the Heracleitus Fragment Number 12 ..... ........... 24 Janice Cater "For He Unlocked the Hidden Treasuries of Truth" Entertaining Ourselves with the Delightful Contemplation of Newton's Principia ............... 26 Peter Smith Heroism in Racine's Phedre ............................... 34 Alexa Van Dalsem Lyric Narrative ................................................... 37 �September 17, 1995 By John Singleton February 1996 First-born son and Sunday born, Blue-lipped, in fits he kicked and hit, A wingbeat flutter in my arms, He sung to me in squeaks and clicks. Like yeast and flour, the doughy flesh, Rose round, lamb-soft, and toasty white, His vernixed skin baked oven fresh, Eyes fixed upon the simple light. He'll go - and in his journey find, A young man's passion, folly, joy. A father measures his decline, In set-jawed stances of the boy. My own song then, I do extend. A relic father to his son. That wet lipped at the breast again Hot fisted under sabbath sun: Dance chanting in the star-lit night, Stomp blessings 'round its fires, Bend low beneath the kindred light, Sons crowned, unbound, unbriered. "Sing kindness in life's mystery, Beat praises to adventure, Sculpt rhythms to its history, Painting beauty at its center." �J 0 Y CE ' S ULYSSES : THE QUE ST F 0 R PATERNITY Joyce's Ulysses: The Quest for Paternity By Carla Echevarria Of "many-faced" Odysseus' many faces, one of those we glimpse least is that of him as a father. Among his multiplicity of personas throughout the Iliad and Odyssey are the sailor, the captain, the soldier, the trickster, the king, and of course, the mighty hero. In the latter poem, we also get a chance to see him as a husband: his long journey home and the bloody battle to reclaim his household finally find their conclusion in tl.ie arms of his beloved Penelope. But what of Odysseus' relationship with his son, Telemachus? Comparatively little is written about the reunion of the father with the son he left as a child, and found a young man. The result of their reunion is not a profound "mingling in love," filled with nostalgia and story-telling, but a strategic military alliance. They unite, but as soldiers, not family. Joyce's Ulysses is a hero in a much-less-thanmighty sense, and he is not at all a sailor, a soldier, or a king. But Leopold Bloom, at the end of the day, holds at least the potential for fatherhood. His odyssey through the Dublin of June 16, 1904, past dead men, drunks, whores, and Catholics, is one well worth considering with an eye to this potential end. When we first meet Bloom, he is the Odysseus of he Calypso episode: chained in domestic servitude to a goddess. Newly risen in the morning, his first concern is to prepare his wife's breakfast while she sleeps, and serve it to her in bed before attending to his own meal. It is clearly a regular morning ritual which Molly no longer even appreciates. Over the course of the morning, he displays signs of his marital servitude as he takes great care in running small errands for his wife: buying her favorite kind of soap at the druggist's, even picking out a sufficiently smutty romance novel to suit her reading tastes. While in another marriage these might be construed as little gestures of love, the fact that Bloom obviously does them out of habit and that Molly obviously doesn't care transforms them instead into shackles of slavery. Bloom must escape this ''Calypso's island" in order to realize the goal of his odyssey to fatherhood. The episode that follows ends with Bloom taking a bath. The organs corresponding to this episode in Joyce's schema 1 are the genitals, and it is here that we first get an explicit look at the sexual Bloom. His organ of fatherhood is described as he sits contemplating it in the bath: sheds much light upon a re-reading of this episode, for it marks the beginning of Bloom's odyssey toward fatherhood. At this point, he is "limp," and only the "father of thousands" by a remote potential, one that he brings closer to actualization by the end of the day. The Nausicaa episode [Book II, Ch. 10] describes a significant turning-point in Bloom's sexual process. It is 8 p.m., at the end ,of Bloom's working-day, and he has come to take a walk on the beach. An entire conversation of non-verbal flirtation-from-afar that takes place between him and the Nausicaa figure of the episode, a young girl named Gerty MacDowell. She coyly shows off her undergarments to him and awakens his sexual desire. Joyce uses the description of the fireworks display to hint at what is happening to Bloom, as the tumescence technic of the episode swells and climaxes with him: And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind blank and 0 ! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of 0 ! and everyone cried 0 ! 0 ! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, 0 so lovely! 0 so soft, sweet, soft! [Book II, Ch. 10] He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemon yellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower. [Book II, Ch. 2] We do not learn until much later that his "languid floating flower" has been languid for eleven years; he has been impotent since the death of his infant son, Rudy, at the age of eleven days. This information, however, 1In his "schema" for Ulysses, Joyce lists the Title, Scene, Hour, Organ, Art, Symbol, Color, and Character Correspondences that correspond with each chapter, or episode, of the novel. For example, let us take the first episode of the Book II: it is Titled the "Calypso" episode, and narrates a Scene which takes place in Bloom's house at the Hour of 8 a.m. The Organ of the kidney plays a prominent and interesting part in this episode, and because it concerns Bloom's domestic matters, the Art corresponding to it is economics. The Title alone makes it clear that the central Symbol of the episode is the nymph. Joyce chooses to identify this episode with the Color orange; he has written the episode with a Technic he chooses to describe as a "mature narrative". And, finally, the Correspondences between Joyce's characters and Homer's are listed as: "Bloom= Odysseus, Molly = Calypso". glish, to Middle, to Elizabethan. The transitions are seamless, and the reader feels as though he is witnessing somehing changing and growing with time, like a child in the womb. It is the Oxen of the Sun episode, and oxen are one of the age-old symbols of fertility. It is in this episode that Bloom's quest for fatherhood finds its first concrete object, in the form of Stephen Dedalus. Stephen, whom Joyce's schema explicitly lists as the Telemachus figure to Bloom's Odysseus, is in this episode sitting in a waiting-room at the hospital drinking with some rowdy, young companions. What we know about him has been established by the first three chapters of the novel, which Joyce names the Telemachia, and by the story of his early years as told in A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man. We know him as a charismatic young man whose status as an "artist" has yet to be firmly established; we have seen into his mind, saturated with a mess of unorganized bits of erudition, and acutely conscious of itself. But his role as the "son" of Bloom is yet unclear (their paths have not even crossed except in indirect encounter), and will only come to fruition over the course of this evening which has just begun. The conversation that the young men are having over their drinks is largely concerned with sex and pregnancy. At one point, Stephen condemns contraceptive intercourse and masturbation, asserting, in Thomistic argument, that the true end of sex is parenthood: "Gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord and Giver of Life? For, sirs, our lust is brief. We are but means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we." The setting of this episode in a maternity hospital serves a purpose other than symbolism: Bloom, hearing the cries of women in labor, recollects the birth of his own son, Rudy, and it is the recollection that becomes an important segue into his paternal focus on Stephen: His onanism demonstrates that Bloom has regained his virile capacity for fertilization, and he is one step closer to fatherhood. From here, Bloom proceeds to the maternity ward of the National Maternity Hospital on Holles street. This episode [Book II, Ch. 11], one of the most stylistically difficult, opens with three incantations, each · reapeated thrice. They are delivered in the manner of the Arval Hymn, a chant which was part of a ceremony performed by the Fratres Arvales, priests of the Roman goddess of fertility. 2 This, along with the less subtle hint of the maternity hospital, are Joyce's signals to the attentive reader that this chapter will deal with fertility and reproduction. . This theme is reflected even in the technic which Joyce uses. In an impressive display oflinguistic capacity, he has written the chapter in a style that evolves slowly over the course of the episode, from Old En- But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had pity of the terror-causing shrieking of shrill women in their labour and as he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only manchild which on his eleventh day had died and no 2 1 owe this information to Ulysses Annotated, by Don Gifford, p. 408. 3 �ENERGEIA to "she." Bella/Circe is the central figure of this episode, and she represents the emasculating powers that Bloom must face and overcome. The madam herself switches back and forth between being Bella and Bello, and in her masculine aspect she is cruel and tyrannical like the Homeric goddess, holding dominion over Bloom with the words, "Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under the yoke." She then makes him put on women's clothing of "shot silk". She and her whores then hold Bloom down to the floor and torture him with physical sadism as she recites a litany of his womanlike weaknesses. These turn out to be multiple and rather surprising. Made to don a corset, petticoat, and garters, he confesses to being a cro~s­ dresser: to having tried on his mother's clothes, and to having been turned into a "true corsetlover" by playing a female impersonator in a high school play. He is also revealed to have masochistic tendencies, linked to his fear of women: "(Cowed.) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination." "The Sins of the Past" parade by in a medley of voices, telling of his deeds with whores and strumpets, his having masturbated in phone booths and over used-pieces of toilet paper, having written pencilled messages in pub1ic places offering his wife's services "to all strong-membered males". His subjugation to his wife is brought back to our attention by Bello: "The missus is master. Petticoat government." To this, Bloom can only reply, "That is so." His gender reversal and Bella's is symbolic of the reversal of traditional roles that has taken place in his marriage. We are reminded of our very first look at Bloom, eleven episodes ago, when he began his day by bringing Molly breakfast in bed. Bello completes the symbolism when he places a ring on the female Bloom's finger and says, "With this ring I thee own." The bizarre mess of hallucinations is finally shattered by Stephen, toward the end of the chapter, when he shatters the chandelier with a blow of his ash plant. With this sudden return of reality, Bloom regains his masculi nity by taki ng control of the situation. Bello, before whom the female Bloom once cowered in fear, reverts to being Bella, and she in turn cowers before the male Bloom, shrieking in fear when he raises the ashplant as if to strike. Having thus overcome the symbol of his emasculation in the form of Bello, Bloom is ready to take an man of art could save so dark a destiny ... and now sir Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon him his friend's son ... so grieved he also in no less measure for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and murdered his goods with whores. [Book II, Ch. 11] From Bloom's train of mental association, we can see that Stephen is to somehow become a replacement Rudy, at least for one night. This, finally, is the first explicit hint at the relationship between the two men, predicting a crossing of paths which, by the end of the evening, will have changed three lives forever. From the hospital, Bloom follows Stephen and his crew of "wastrels" to Dublin's red-light district, and the Circe episode begins [Book II, Ch. 12]. It is probably the weirdest of all the episodes, written as a "hallucination" by Joyce's description, and it reads like a surreal nightmare. Here, in the sordid setting of a lowclass brothel, we get a more intimate look into the candid workings of both Bloom's psyche and Stephen's, and the foundation of their relationship is cemented. Essential to paternity is masculinity, and one of the most formidable obstacles in Bloom's path to fatherhood are the forces which seek to emasculate him. In order for him to overcome his impotence and become a father, he must first overcome is emasculation and become a man. The division between the sexes is examined, contorted, ripped apart, and utterly done away with in this episode, and it is the process by which Bloom regains his manhood. One of the most bizarre things about Bloom's "hallucination" is the mess of gender-reversals that take place in the episode, following the entrance of the brothel's madam, Bella. She is the Circe figure of the episode, and we are reminded that in Homer's epic, Odysseus is warned by Hermes against this particular goddess, "lest you find yourself unmanned by her". In Homer's context, the warning is intended to mean that Circe's magic turns men into swine, but in Joyce 's, unmanned has a twofold meaning. Bella turns Bloom not only from a man into a pig, but from a male into a female. There are only the smallest, and rather confusing hints that this is so: Bloom falls to the ground "on all fours" and cries "Truffles!", and at the same time the personal pronoun pertaining to him switches 4 JOYCE'S ULYSSES: THE QUEST FOR PATERNITY active, real step toward paternity. This he does by rescuing Stephen from the redcoats who assault him. As Bloom stands over the younger man, waiting for Stephen to regain consciousness, a figure appears to him, an eleven-year-old boy in a school uniform, reading a book. It is the figure of his son, Rudy, who died at the age of eleven days, and is here seen by Bloom at the age he would haV'e been had he lived. The white lamb's wool coverlet that his mother knitted for his burial is transformed into a white lambkin peeping out of his waistcoat pocket. The delicate apparition hovers over Stephen, like the Holy Spirit above Christ in the waters of Galilee, and serves to symbolically "baptize" Stephen and, finally, make Bloom a father. Thus begins the Nostos, the homecoming [Book III]. United with his father in Ithaca, Telemachus must now help Odysseus conquer and slay the suitors who overrun his household, that he may regain his position as master of his home. Joyce spent a lot of time acquainting us with Stephen Dedalus not because he is the essential figure in this novel - else the novel might have been titled Telemachus - but because he is the necessary component to Bloom's nostos. No other character in the novel, not Buck Mulligan or Lynch or any other young man, could have fulfilled the role that Stephen does in Bloom's odyssey. This may be because of the reciprocative nature of their interaction: Stephen acquires from his evening with Bloom something that no one else could have given him, if only because no one else would have been willing to be a father to him for one night. In any case, the relationship that develops between Bloom and Stephen, adpotive father and son, though it endures for only the remainder of the night, would require an entire other essay to examine completely. I will not examine it incompletely here, because it is not the end of Bloom's odyssey toward fatherhood, but only the penultimate step. Once father and son have stolen back into their house, Telemachus bars the door behind them so that the suitors may not escape. But most of the slaying is left up to Odysseus. Likewise, after Bloom sneaks into his house via the window (having forgotten his keys), he lets Stephen in by the front door, and the younger man locks the door behind him. But the "slaying" of the "suitors" is a task that Bloom must do alone. The slaughter begins when Odysseus proves his identity to the suitors by stringing the great bow that none of them were able to string. Joyce lists the bow in his schema as a symbol for reason, and it is through reason - that is, rhetoric - that Bloom persuades Stephen to quit the company of Buck Mulligan. Mulligan corresponds in Joyce's schema to the first suitor who is slain, Antinous. The second suitor who is slain is Eurymachus, who corresponds to "Blazes" Boyland, Molly's lover. Bloom "slays" Boylan in his mind by rationally examining his emotional responses to his own cuckoldry (envy, jealousy, abnegation, and equanimity), and examining his options for retribution in a likewise very rational manner: Assasination, never, as two wrongs did not make one right. Duel by combat, no. Divorce, not now. Exposure by mechanical artifice (automatic bed) or individual testimony (concealed ocular witness), not yet. Suit for damages by legal influence or simulation of assault with evidence of injuries sustained (selfinflicted), not impossibly. [Book ill, Ch. 2] Finally, he justifies the affair and his own feelings by a process of reasoned "reflections" : The preordained frangiblity of the hymen, the presupposed intangibility of the thing in itself. .. the fallaciously inferred debility of the female, the muscularity of the male: the variations of ethical codes. . .the continual production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of the stars. [Book III, Ch. 2] Just as the aegis of Athena appears as a heavenly portent in Odysseus' hall in the midst of all the slaying, Bloom and Stephen simultaneously observe a "celestial sign" in the form of "a star precipitated with great apparent velocity across the firmament" as they stand outside urinating. When all the slaughter is done, Telemachus is sent away and Odysseus fumigates his house, just as Bloom does after Stephen's departure. Bloom has offered him the guest bedroom of his house, but Stephen declines. They have made plans between them, for voice lessons and Italian lessons, for "static, semistatic, and 5 �ENERGEIA peripatetic intellectual dialogues" in the future, but Bloom forsees difficulties in realizing these plans. He recalls how: once at a performance of Albert Hengler's circus in the Rotunda, Rutland Square, Dublin, an intuitive particoloured clown in quest of paternity had penetrated from the ring to a place in the auditorium where Bloom, solitary, was seated and had publicly declared to an exhilirated audience that he (Bloom) was his (the clown's) papa. [Book III, Ch ..2] We learn that the clown was not, as a matter of fact, Bloom's son. This memory is an illustration of what Bloom calls "the irreparability of the past." The past stands as it has happened, with Bloom's biological son dead and Stephen's biological father being someone else. It is for this reason that Stephen and Bloom go their separate ways at the end of the evening. Bloom may "adopt" Stephen for one night, as he has, but adoptive fatherhood is not true fatherhood, and his odyssey is not quite over yet. Throughout the slaughter, Penelope lies unaware, sleeping. When she awakens and.Odysseus presents himself to her, she is skeptical, and after ten years of separation, is reluctant at first to accept the "beggar" in rags as her lost husband. What finally secures her belief is Odysseus' knowledge of the unique construction of their marital bed. The final episode of the novel takes place in Bloom's marital bed, where Molly lies sleeping. He climbs into bed, she awakens, and they converse a little before falling back asleep. Two very important things happen, however, and together they constitute Bloom's final step towards fatherhood. The first of these is that Bloom, in kissing his wife's rump, gets an erection. This would not be a spectacular event, were we not alert to the fact that it is the first he's had while lying with his wife in eleven years. Traumatized by the death of his only son, Bloom was unable to have sexual relations with Molly for over a decade. This, his first instance of arousal in her presence, signals the beginning of a new episode of fatherhood for Bloom. The second important event is that Bloom, before he falls asleep, requests that Molly get him breakfast in bed the next morning. As she falls asleep, she reflects that "he never did a thing like that before", and we again remember how, for time immemorial it seems, Bloom always brought Molly breakfast in bed. The event of Bloom's erection, a figurative return to his marital bed after a long hiatus, is the culmination of the sexual process of revolution that has taken place over the day: from his limpness in the bath, to his masturbation on the beach, and finally to the beginnings of real sexual intimacy with a real woman, his wife. His request for breakfast in bed is the culmination of the psychological process of revolution that took place mainly in the Circe episode: the conversion of his marriage from a condition of domestic servitude and inequality into a real union of love _ nd a partnership. Bloom, with these apparently-inconsequential gestures, completes his odyssey and his homecoming. Just as Odysseus must now rebuild his kingdom on Ithaca and restore the familial bonds of his home, Bloom has begun the rebuilding of the both the physical and psychological foundations necessary to raise a home. He is ready to face a new marriage and a new fatherhood. It will be a fatherhood not only in the adoptive sense, but in the true, biological one. And as she drifts off to sleep, Molly responds to this proposition, yes I will Yes. • 6 Magical Politics and the Revelation and Perfection of Nature By Matthew Braithwaite The Tempest is a play the whose structure seems knit together by political events. Prospero's betrayal is the catalyst for the action of the play; his reinstatement its conclusion. Yet it is impossible to read the play as the tale of a wronged duke regaining his dukedom. This is mostly because there is much of the play that is more than political, and more to Prospero's actions than is necessary to his dukedom and Miranda's marriage. Furthermore, his magical powers allow him to achieve whatever ends he wishes with much less delicacy than he in fact devotes. By being as delicate as he is, Prospero manages wholly to avoid coercing others to do his bidding: even Caliban gets a measure of freedom. Prospero does form illusions and false impressions as guides,,but the characters' actions are their own. What is more, the situations Prospero creates prompt their actors more fully to express their natures in their actions: his illusions allow the light of truth to shine on whom they charm-a valuable gift for a philosopher. The decisions that most clearly enable this to happen are the division of the characters on Alonso's ship into groups according to Prospero's aims, and the manner in which Prospero appears to each group. To Ferdinand he appears directly (since Ferdinand needs no encouragement to fit into Prospero's plan; far from it), and to Stephano and Trinculo through Caliban's report. But he reserves his strongest use .o f magic for Alonso (who needs prodding to find his conscience), to whom he appears through the speech made by Arie1's "figure of a harpy" . The first scene of the play typifies Prospero' s treatment of Alonso and his company: he gives them pressures to endure, and all but Gonzalo take them poorly. Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio are absurd in their interference with the boatswain's office: they try to command what they cannot, and obstruct those who know better than they what to do. They are leaders who, by not recognizing nature for the rightful authority during the tempest, show that they do not know how to be led. When the boatswain says that they "assist the storm" (l.i.14) 1 he is of course unaware that the storm is Prospero's hand, but this is not lost on the reader. This is the first of many wonderful such ironies: these three wicked men by their very character cannot but assist the action of Prospero's justice upon them. When they are exposed to "state of nature", it becomes clear that Sebastian and Antonio do not have nobility within them but thrust upon them, as their viciousness here and later shows. Despite Gonzalo's urging them to behave as befits civilized men, it is clear that they do not consider anyone's case to be as their own. From Prospero we shortly learn that their evil has some history to it. The political arts that Prospero disdained, he cast upon Antonio, in whom they "awak'd an evil nature" (I.ii.93): Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who t' advance, and who To trash for overtopping, new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd em, Or else new form' d 'em; having both the key Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the ' state To what tune pleas'd his ear (I.ii.79-85) What Antonio learned, that is, were the arts of favor; and with them he re-created Prospero's court in his own image. The license granted Antonio by this power is like that granted by the island: in most men, law 1 All quotations are taken from The Riverside Shakespeare, Vol. II, G. Blakemore Evans, ed. All citations to the play are made within the text in standard form. I am grateful to Dean Brann for her guidance; and particularly for the suggestion that I write on a work of literature, which, taken, has provided good instruction. �ENERGEIA fects nature, has so done, or merely gives the appearance thereof. Prospero's exchange with Gonzalo shows that he is acutely and painfully aware of the horrors that a civilized veneer can conceal: may be relied on as a counterweight to wrongful desires; but a ruler must rely on conscience to serve in that office, and Antonio has none. Like Caliban, he gives free reign to his desires (though they are of a different kind than Caliban's), subject only to practical obstacles; and so, like Caliban, he is slavish-the most unfitting condition for a-ruler. If Gonzalo's statement that "our case is as theirs" (l.i.55) is metaphorical, meaning that the state of the subjects is as the state of the sovereign (as we might suspect from Prospero's metaphor of subjects being "new created" in the sovereign 's image), the case of Antonio 's Milan is truly miserable. The most terrible example of Antonio and Sebastian showing their true colors comes when Prospero puts all but this evil pair to sleep. Prospero clearly anticipates what in fact occurs, as is clear from Ariel's words to Gonzalo: Gon. Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of Our human generation you shall find Many, nay, almost any. Pros. (Aside.) Honest lord, Thou hast said well; for some of you there present Are worse than devils.(III.iii.32-6) The illusion created by Prospero for these "three men of sin" that they are sole survivors on a desolate island is completed by Ariel's appearance in III.iii. Alonso, despairing of ever finding Ferdinand, is prepared to enter into the dream that Prospero has made for him: that nature has requited his past injustices through the death of his son. Though this is not, strictly, true, one might well wonder if it makes a difference. Gonzalo, despite his not having seen Ariel, sees nothing peculiar or inexplicable about Alonso's guilt. Nor does Alonso himself think his own guilt to be a temporary insanity, as his penitence does not vanish with Ferdinand's restoration: he has undergone, Scroogelike, a curative dream. Unlike his brother, Alonso is not beyond redemption, and it is this that Prospero's illusions cause him to reveal. When Prospero breaks his charms, Alonso has expiated his guilt, and is minded as Prospero wishes him to be, suggesting himself the very solution to all problems that Prospero has planned: My master through his art foresees the danger That you, his friend, are in, and sends me forth (For else his project dies) to keep them living. (II.i.297-9) Exactly as one might expect, Antonio's evil wells to the surface, and resonates in Sebastian. Both in this scheme and in his betrayal of Prospero, Antonio counts on two things: the absence of strong men opposing him, and the means to crush any opposition swiftly and decisively. In deposing his brother, the first of these requirements is met by Prospero's preoccupation with study and by the malleability of his subordinates; the second by Naples' army. In plotting to do away with Alonso, he counts on being able to do in Gonzalo as well (whom he had previously ridiculed, but here takes seriously), and again on the weakness of his victims' subordinates. The things Antonio fears are men of strong conscience and outraged mobs. What the island provides is a means of avoiding these difficulties: there Gonzalo is easily killed, and a tearful Sebastian can tell the Neapolitan army and citizenry that his brother and nephew perished at sea. That is to say, by its isolation the island gives aid chiefly to the concealment (rather than to the perpetration) of an evil deed. The fact that Gonzalo's waking does not weaken Antonio's resolve suggests exactly this; that by means of the freedom its isolation provides, the island tests whether nurture, taken as that which per- A daughter? 0 heavens, that they were living both i Naples, The King and Queen there! That they were, I wish Myself were mudded in that oozy bed Where my son lies. (V.i.148-52) But of course this neat end, which moves Prospero's cherished daughter into the world, and in so doing, restores Milan from its "most ignoble stooping", is like Alonso's penitence in respect of its cause: though Prospero creates a setting in which the two may fall in love, it is their own natures that draw them together. Ferdinand's isolation, like that of Antonio and Sebastian, gives him a degree of liberty. He takes 8 MAGICAL POLITICS Miranda for his bride, as he says, "when I could not ask my father for his advice; nor thought I had one" (V.i.190-1) (the pain of which thought Ariel's music has softened). Miranda, for her part, is encouraged by Prospero to disobey his commands and show her love for Ferdinand: his own laborious trial tries her also. Though Miranda thinks her father sleeps when she converses with Ferdinand (III.i), both of them withstand their supposed freedom from his eyes with propriety. Indeed, Ferdinand's first request to Miranda is that she "will some good instruction give on how I may bear me here" (I.ii.425-6). Ferdinand carries his nobility with him, and so Miranda's reaction to him, Prospero knows, though, that she cannot forever inhabit his artificially pure and dream-like world; that he must release Miranda from being a daughter so that she may become a queen. His statement that she is ignorant of what she is (which fact she is aware of) means, I think, that Miranda belongs also to the world and that he can no longer keep her from it. Ferdinand's wish that they may keep Prospero's wise company in his island paradise is impossible, if for no other reason than that it denies a duty to rule. Miranda's upbringing on this island is, as Prospero says, blessed. To him the world of the political is suspect, since it conceals nature and breeds falsehoods: how could his child know the true from the false in such a setting when even he did not? Better to let her be exposed to truths: the only imperfections which Miranda has seen are Caliban's, and his nature is not evil, but simply not human. Nothing of Caliban is concealed; his very appearance speaks his nature. Against him Miranda can measure what it means to be a perfected human being. So by experi~nce Miranda knows the distinction between animal and cultivated, about which it is impossible to be deceived; but she is not for her innocence ignorant of the subtler corruptions particular to political man, as her question to Prosper_o, "Wherefore did they not that hour destroy us?" (l.ii.137-8) shows. Miranda is free from the clouded vision engendered by the political world, and this may help her survive in it. The forthrightness of her mind may be seen in Ferdinand's courtship of her. They speak between themselves with directness and purity. Miranda's admonition, "Hence, bashful cunning, and prompt me, plain and holy innocence!" (III.i.81-2), is the prerogative of her nature. She and Ferdinand are such as to banish suspicion and banter from each other's minds: to see is to love. Prospero's illusion for Ferdinand and Miranda is the same as that he creates for Antonio and Sebastian: freedom from watchful eyes. But the plain difference between the two pairs is captured perfectly m Ferdinand's defense of his virtue: There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with 't. (l.ii.457-9) and his to her, show great clarity of mind, though some might cynically remark that it is only Miranda's naivete that makes her speak thus, and that it was a lucky thing for her that the first young man she set eyes on was Ferdinand. This suggestion has an unfortunate hereditary parallel in the fault which lost Prospero his dukedom. But this is too ugly a thought to be true; it is both better and more plausible to take their "changing eyes" as the result of beautifully clear perception: they see each other's spirits made flesh in each other's appearances. It might at first seem paradoxical to say that Miranda exhibits this kind of sight. She is, after all, entirely innocent of human affairs. But her wholeness and intelligence say that she is not as ignorant as her isolated upbringing might suggest. Prospero has devoted no small amount of care to his daughter's education, and the education of a scholar and magician must be rich with teaching stories and dreams, and other noble lies. Miranda has been in some measure formed by Prospero's Art; she is a created thing, of whom Prospero is justly proud: Here, afore heaven, I ratify this my rich gift. 0 Ferdinand, Do not smile at me that I boast her off, For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise And make it halt behind her. (IV.i.7-11) ... the murkiest den, The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion Our worser genius can, shall never melt Mine honor into lust... (IV.i .25-8) And in fact, both pairs were given "the most 9 �ENERGEIA opportune place" to act wickedly, but while opportunity exposes baseness in Antonio, it makes Ferdinand's purity and devotion all the stronger. Prospero's description of Caliban as "a born devil, on whose nature nurture can never stick" (IV.i.188-9) illustrates the difference between these types neatly: it is clear that nurture has done more than stick to Miranda and Ferdinand. While Antonio's evil is concealed by his civilized garments, Ferdinand's and Miranda's natures incorporate the perfection of nurture, and so require no revealing. This last can be said also of Caliban, for when he is given opportunity he reveals nothing of himself that was not obvious. Caliban and Miranda are antitheses: the one animal and the other perfected, but both true. But while Prospero calls Caliban a devil, he rightly calls Antonio worse than a devil, because he is nurture perverted. So Caliban is at the center the play, for against him its foulest evil and most perfect beauty are both opposed .. Caliban has a deep connection to the island. Not only was he born there, but he is, we assume, left alone there at the end of the play. Where Prospero and Miranda are guests on the island, Caliban is its sole native. He knows the island's every corner, so much so that the island provides for his sustenance. He is infused with the island's nature. Strangely, misshapen creature that he is, he speaks beautifully. Even his curses are delivered in neatly-turned phrases. While uncivilized and crude, Caliban is capable of feeling, and is a lover of beauty, as this wonderful passage reveals: Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. /Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments /Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, /That if I then had wak'd after long sleep, /Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming, /The clouds methought would open, and show riches /Ready to drop upon me, that when I wak' d /I cried to dream again. (Ill.ii.135-43) It is no mere beast that dreams and takes delight in music. What is, in a small way, tragic about these capacities is that Caliban is not sensitive merely to natural beauty, but also to human beauty. He has an expression of wonder for nearly everyone in the play: "These be fine things, and if they be not sprites. That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him." (Il.ii.116-7); "But she so far surpasseth Sycorax as great'st does least." (IIl.ii.102-3); "O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed! How fine my master is!" (V.i.261-2). But if he finds beauty in Stephano, it can only be in comparison to his own ugliness. He is driven to serve Stephano simply because he sees him as something wondrously superior to himself (though, to his credit, he eventually escapes this misapprehension). Though it may be tempting to call Caliban a natural slave because of this, natural slavery requires that it be better for the one in question to be ruled. But Caliban is no better for Prospero's rule over him, since the latter's "humanly taken pains" cannot soften Caliban's inhuman nature. The idea of natural slavery depends on rule improving on the state of nature, but a human nature seems to be required to be susceptible to this improvement. When Prospero embarks for Naples, and Caliban is left alone as he was before Prospero came, he will be just as he was before, but with consciousness of his own inferiority and of beauties he will never attain. If ever enlightenment were cruel it is so here. The apparent contradiction between this picture of Caliban on the one hand, and that of the ill-mannered and bestial slave on the other, wants explanation. Certainly it is not merely an animal that speaks in unrhymed iambic pentameters. Caliban owes what he is to three things: his bestial nature, which he inherits; the island on which he grew up; and his association with Prospero and Miranda. Caliban has had from these two the gift of language. Though he says that his only profit from it is cursing, this is far from the truth. Without speech, there would be nothing curious about Caliban: the creature Miranda describes (l.ii.355) sounds truly like an unreasoning brute, an animal. The reverence we have for speech causes us habitually to assume that the abilities which we see expressed in speech, such as reason and poetry, are inseparable from the faculty itself. In Caliban, we find speech separate from humanity, so it pays to examine what in Caliban is due to speech, and what is independent of it. Such a division would also be the division between things that (in speaking creatures generally) are learned, and things that are required to be susceptible to that learning. 10 MAGICAL POLITICS Caliban first describes Prospero's teaching him language thus: different from an animal, but does merely that make him rational as we understand the term to apply to ourselves? If there is anyone in the play who typifies the man in whom reason has its rightful place, it is Prospero. His first words, "be collected", neatly summarize his behavior throughout. Even in seeing Miranda's and Ferdinand's love for each other he maintains his reserve, saying that he cannot be so glad as they because of the requirements of his designs. But his exchange with Ariel shows he is far from immunity to passion: [Thou wouldst] teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night; (l.ii.334-6) If the most fundamental act of language, that of naming, had to be taught to Caliban, then Sycorax must have died when he was very young, else she would have done this. But more interesting is that Caliban's own account of his learning language stresses his ability to name. Miranda's account is similar: Ari. Him that you term'd, sir, "the good old Lord Gonzalo", /His tears run down his beard like winter's drops /From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em /That if you now beheld them, your affections /Would become tender. Pros. Dost thou think so, spirit? Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human. Pros. And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling /Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, /One of their kind, that relish all as sharply /Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd that thou art? /Though with their high wrongs I am strook to th' quick, /Yet, with my nobler reason, gainst my fury /Do I take part.(V.i.15-27) When thou didst not, savage, know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like I A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes /With words that made them known. (l.ii.355-8) So both accounts of Caliban's learning, in other words, describe his being given words for what he already has. But Miranda says that prior to being given language, Caliban did not "know his own meaning". It seems to me that this is the first of at least three aspects of Caliban concerning which the influence of language ought to be investigated. The second is his human aspect, expressed by such abilities as emotion and dreaming. The third is his rationality-is there any sense in which Caliban can be called rational? Concerning these things, it is useful to rephrase the above conclusion more formally: Miranda implies that prior to language Caliban is capable of intent. Similarly, Caliban's own words ("how to name the bigger light...") suggest that prior to language, he was capable of seeing things for things and (hopefully this is not stretching a point) of seeing relations between things: the roots of rational behavior. And Caliban's plotting against Prospero (IIl.ii.87-103) looks a great deal like the genuine article. One could, however, observe that animals exhibit behavior that seems rational in the same way: if a wolf seldom attacks waking victims, can't we say that it forms unspoken syllogisms, for example "defenseless animals are easier to kill, a sleeping animal is defenseless, therefore a sleeping animal is easier to kill"? In other words, how is instinct given language different from what we call rationality? Caliban's use of language makes him In this speech Prospero is held in the grip of two passions, fury and sympathy, with reason occupying its proper role as arbitrator: the very paradigm of human rationality. But the very fact of his sympathy is worth noting, since Prospero has somewhat turned his back on humanity. The chapters of his life with which the play acquaints us are his solitude with his books, his solitude on the island, and the solitude of his eventual retirement to Milan. The first _ these was clearly of willful; and though his banishment was not, neither does he look forward to his return to society with any apparent relish-understandably so, since Prospero has no very great reason to be fond of humanity in general (though he certainly holds some of its particulars dear), for he is acutely and painfully aware of the spectrum of human natures that runs from Gonzalo to Antonio. This speech makes it difficult blithely to attach to Prospero that most odious of scholarly stereotypes, 11 �ENERGEIA the unfeeling automaton. Prospero more resembles the philosopher-king, in that most of his joys in humanity, though lesser than those of the intellect, are not precluded by the latter (and like the philosopherking, he evades his duty to rule). Miranda, in contrast to her father, has none of the gloom or cynicism that presumptively underlie his withdrawal. Humanity's novelty to her makes it as wondrous to her as to Caliban. Her reactions to the dark underbelly of mankind are therefore a strange mix of youthful emotion and innocence made potent by a mature intellect. Her joy in her "brave new world" is a gift of Prospero's upbringing, which may save her from his disillusionment. Ferdinand is another, for he and Miranda are two of a kind, and so will keep each other from receding from the world. But Prospero has no equals to call his companions, only his daughter and the insubstantial Ariel (who shares his secret designs but not his humanity). In addition to all this, Miranda has a genuine love of humanity. Though Prospero's stories leave evil known to her, her first words to him show that she is perfectly unreserved with "the very virtue of compassion" (I.ii.27). Taken literally, as we are precisely to do ("I have suffered with those that I saw suffer" (I.ii.5)-the most precise evidence the subject admits of), compassion could be called the fundamental social instinct. It is certainly remarkable in Miranda, since she has only known the society of her father and Caliban. It is doubly remarkable in that her life has been uncommonly free from suffering. Her compassion, which we could say is due to something like nurture (acting on a good nature), is exactly what is absent in Caliban. Caliban is driven by desire, and if he has a conscience it is surely vestigial, being bothered by attempts at neither rape nor murder. But we are obviously not meant to take Caliban as an evil nemesis, since his attempt to do away with Prospero is entered into with drunken buffoons: the contemplation of murder is mingled with the comic relief. Caliban's animal nature, the way his actions flow directly from his desires, is precisely what mitigates his contemplation of murder, even as carefully as he plans it (Ill.ii.8795). If an act is not just unless it is done with just intent, then we may say that an act is not evil unless it is done with evil intent. And if one cannot intend to act justly without some knowledge of the just, one cannot have evil intention without some knowledge of evil. Most would agree that evil acts are so by nature. We take it that this implies that all men know what an evil act is. That is, to say that evil acts are so by nature is equivalent to saying that man naturally knows what acts are evil, or more generally, that man naturally knows what is by nature. But Caliban clearly does not have this knowledge (or has it in a different way), since he seems wholly to lack evil intent. This prompts the question of what difference between Caliban's nature and man's nature underlies his ignorance and our knowledge. Reflexively, one leaps to suggest man's rationality as the distinction. But Caliban appears to confound this idea, as he is in some way rational, and yet does not seem to know what is by nature. Then we must say whether man is rational in a sense that Caliban is not, or whether knowing by nature what is by nature is due to some other property that belongs to man but not to Caliban. If we were to adopt the first of these alternatives, namely, to conclude that Caliban is not rational in the proper sense, there arises a difficulty. If his rationality is to be distinguished from that of man, it must be done on grounds other than that of the ability to reason (since he appears to have that), and it seems like there are only two (related) options: the objects to which he applies reason, and the manner in which his reason is applied. The first of these alternatives certainly looks inviting, since one would imagine that there are objects about which Caliban would have difficulty reasoning. The difference could perhaps be captured by defining proper rationality as the capacity to reason abstractly, or as the capacity for intellection. The second of these alternatives is likewise appealing, since one could say that reasoning applied only to the satisfaction of desire is merely animal instinct given language, and so define proper rationality as the ability to reason with the desire to know. The two alternatives are nearly equivalent, so they may both stand as the consequence of assuming that Caliban, though he can reason, is not rational in the fullest sense. But neither illuminates why man knows by nature what is by nature, since when we say that man by nature knows what is evil, we do not have in mind a reasoning process, but as said before, something like an instinct for what is by nature. The ability to reason abstractly, therefore, or the ability to reason 12 MAGICAL POLITICS desiring to obtain knowledge, does not completely account for man's advantage over Caliban. The other alternative, then, is to name the property of man, deficient in Caliban, which allows him to know by nature what is by nature. Since we see Caliban's deficiency in this regard manifested in his asocial nature, it seems right to examine compassion, taken as the fundamental social virtue. Compassion (in the sense of knowledge of the likeness of others to oneself), when found in a rational creature, can be seen as a kind of knowledge: it makes the likeness of other men to oneself an intelligible fact, from which reason may proceed; in other words, compassion is what permits man knowledge of his own nature. It is the source of man's capacity for intellection about man. And so I think if compassion is natural in man, it is what permits man to know what is by nature (inasmuch as it permits him to know his own nature). But Caliban is not a man, and he knows it. Therefore, lacking compassion, he is not.by nature social, and so good and evil natures (which belong to man as social) have no meaning with respect to him: he has potential for neither. This makes it seem that Caliban is not fully conscious of himself: whereas man is naturally introspective, Caliban is not. Thus it may be that it was more right than it first appeared to suggest that human rationality is distinguished by its objects or its motivation. Caliban's lack of understanding of his nature is perhaps the strongest argument that he is not human, for when we speak of being rational, we mean rational and conscious of that rationality. If ther~ is any sense in which Caliban is rational, it is not a self-conscious one: he has neither the means nor the inclination to reason about himself. So it seems that he does not "know his own meaning", but only his purposes. Language puts Caliban somewhere between a syllogistic wolf and the self-consciously ration.al being (for a mere animal could not have understood the necessity of seizing Prospero's books) in that understanding language only gives him access to more information. Since he only uses the information gained from language to vent his desires, he is not rational in the same way that man is. Something like awareness of nature is probably still at the heart of this: man delights in language and reason for their own sake (rather than merely to serve desire) exactly because he is aware of these faculties in himself. In one respect, Antonio is much like Caliban, in that neither has a conscience to obstruct the satisfaction of his desires. But while Caliban has no pretensions to humanity (though perhaps he has hopes), Antonio tries to hide his lack of human compassion under the skin of a social creature. In his speech to Sebastian he shows that he understands himself perfectly on this point: Here lies your brother, No better than the earth he lies upon, If he were that which now he's like-that 's dead, /Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it, /Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,/To the perpetual wink for aye might put /This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who /Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest, They '11 take suggestion as a cat laps milk; They' 11 tell the clock to any business that We say befits the hour. (Il.i.280-9) Prospero's comment on Antonio, "You, brother mine, that entertain' d ambition, ex pell' d remorse and nature ... Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee, unnatural as thou art." (V.i.75-9) illuminates this disparity. "Unnatural" is precisely the right word, for the compassion that causes men to act well to each other (and so makes man social) is exactly absent in Antonio and Sebastian. Despite this, they preserve the appearance (but not the reality) of a social creature, using it to satisfy a desire that is peculiarly social: power. This concealment, which Prospero undoes, is perhaps the most awful perversion of civilized man. Miranda and Antonio are opposites in that they represent high perfection and low corruption, but are alike in that they are "nurtured". In other important respects, however, Miranda is very like Caliban. Both are the offspring of magicians expelled from human society, and both have had nearly no contact with mankind as a result of having been brought up on the island. Their island is a paradise: it furnishes fresh water and food (as we know from Caliban's account of his services to King Stephano), and the climate is presumed hospitable. Nothing in Caliban's various accounts suggests that the island's magical properties result from Prospero, so we assume they belong to the 13 �ENERGEIA island itself. I recall no mention of any remotely harmful thing residing there- nor, in fact, of any animals whatsoever, save small edibles. There are only magical creatures, who fill the island with music and sound. The foremost feature of the island is thus, I think, its unreality, and this taints Miranda, making her perfection strange. Despite her embodiment of the finest characteristics of nurture, she, unlike Antonio, is not the product of any society, but of Prospero's careful education: Here in this island we arri v' d, and here Have I, thy schoolmaster, make thee more profit Than other princess' can, that have more time For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful. (I.ii .171--4) In its general form, this resembles the suggestion I think implicit in the Republic that the perfection of nature comes about through a deliberate act of reason (in this case Prospero's), and not by chance: not simply by nurture, but by design. As Prospero intends her to rule (and hopefully better than he), this care is doubly appropriate. Both he and his brother "new create" others with an eye on political aims, but while Antonio 's creation breeds vice, Prospero's stories have bred a virtuous ruler. This perfection of nature through reason is the aim of Prospero's Art, as Ariel's speech to the "three men of sin" indicates: But remember, (For that's my business to you) that you three From Milan did supplant good Prospero, Expose' d unto the sea (which hath requit it) Him, and his innocent child; for which foul deed The pow'rs, delaying (not forgetting), have Incens' d the seas and shores-yea, all the creatures, Against your peace. (IIl.iii.68-75) Prospero, that is, has animated the hand of nature according to the demands of justice and reason, motivated by love for his daughter. While nature of her own strength will reward sloth, overindulgence, and the like, the "cankered mind" finds its reward from such human (and hence unreliable) sources as law and vengeance. Ironically, Alonso calls the events of the play's end "unnatural", the more unnatural viciousness of Antonio and Sebastian having escaped him. Contrary to his opinion, the nature of The Tempest, embodied by Ariel, is both animate and has a conscience, though perhaps it is apolitical: Antonio's betrayal has its natural reward only in the slavishness it requires; its temporal reward must come from Prospero. It is nature's conscience that makes it at once susceptible to Prospero's guidance, and, sadly, unreal. It may be this that accounts for Prospero's tone at the end of the play. He doesn't seem exactly sad, but he doesn't seem truly happy either. Mostly, he seems ready to die. His famous speech: You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort, As if you were dismay'd; be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These our actors (As I foretold you) were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air, And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself; Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And like this insubstantial pageant faded /Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff I As dreams are made on; and our little life /Is rounded with a sleep.(IV.i.146--58) is tinged with the unmistakable melancholy of a lonely man. Prospero cares for two things in all the world: Milan and his daughter. But Prospero knows that he must return Miranda to the world of men, where he cannot himself live. As he acknowledges, he is at the end of the play engaged in a departure which will mean the end of his life . His great human drama is so dedicated also to ensuring that the things that are important to him are well and orderly disposed. Prospero appears to be substantially unchanged from the time, twelve years past, that his "library was dukedom large enough" (I.ii. I 09-10). Prospero's return to society entails the renunciation of his magic, which does not belong to the world of men, and by means of which he found a satisfying kingdom in the island. By his magic, natural power serves the just rule of man's reason, transmuting Alonso's submerged guilt into redemptive penitence, Ferdinand's and Miranda 's apparent nobility into graceful matrimony, Antonio's and Sebastian's hid- 14 M AGIC A L POLITICS that no long~r need serve him, nor will; to fall back on the hands of humanity, which will hopefully bear the careworn mage gently to his grave. His island has been a meeting place for nature and nurture, wherein all the possibilities are explored: the perfection of Miranda, and the imperfection of Caliban; the hopelessness of Antonio's evil, and the hope implied by Alonso's penitence and Gonzalo's nobility. The two worlds never really meet: Prospero is left with the memory of a paradise that could not fully be a kingdom, since nature's spirits belong ultimately to her, not to man; and Caliban is left with the memories of "brave spirits" that he can never become, and of a beautiful woman whom he cannot love. We can picture the two of them ending their lonesome days in their respective kingdoms, the brief touch of which leaves each impossibly wanting what belongs to the other's world. • den and hollow inhumanity into clear and gruesome treachery, and Prospero's own banishment into the opportunity to achieve these ends. In the island, "temporal royalties" and what may be termed "philosophical royalties" are one. Miranda's question, "What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or blessed was't we did?" (l.ii.60-1) seems to imply that nobody would willingly relinquish temporal rule, but also that ruling the less "temporal" kingdom of the island surpasses it. Though Prospero always held the source of rightful authority in Milan (the love of his people), he effectively relinquished temporal rule by putting it in Antonio's hands, thinking that love and trust would protect him. In Milan, Prospero had to choose between the two sorts of royalties, but on the island he does not. The practical administration of that kingdom requires only the application of true Art and learning. 2 Magic is the means to all this, the agents of which Prospero addresses as: Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, I And ye that on the sands with printless foot /Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him /When he comes back, you demi-puppets that /By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, /Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime /Is to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew... (V.i.33--40) There are no elves of cities, it seems, nor sprites of houses and fairies of roads. As the agents of magical power withdraw from the concentrations of men, Prospero must do so also to rule the perfect kingdom, a kingdom which is consequently small-though while it endures, an ideal, where music may be had for nothing. Prospero's island does not depend on him for its essence; and there is certainly something to Caliban's claim that he is an usurper, for Caliban belongs there more surely than he. Prospero's tenure on the island is inevitably temporary-it serves a purpose, but he must leave ; and leave there the instruments of magic 2 0f course, the island is made in the image of other rulers also. To Prospero's rule of reason we may compare Gonzalo's kingdom (II.i.144-69) of innocent and ignorant primitives, Stephano's coalition of murderous but essentially carefree drunkards, and Caliban's simple and undemanding anarchy. 15 �The Motion of a Stretched String: A Series of Haiku and Equations An Evening At Home With Doctor Faustus 1 By Jesse Berney By Hermann Hesse Translated by Eva T.H. Brann The taut striMg vibrates. We must describe its motion. But how? Equati011s. We describe two curoes. Two ratios are the same, Formed by ordinates. On these string-like curves Displacement and curvature Are in proportion. Acceleration Of any point on the curve Is as curvature. 2 2 2 d y/dx ad y/dt 2 All points on the string Reach the axis at one time. How is this explained? It is like our curves: Displacement and curvature Are in proportion. A function of "x," The curve is sinusoidal: Crest to trough to crest. d2y/dx2 = -k y y :i= A sin(kx) Our function describes The string still in one instant, Not its whole motion. Acceleration Proportional to distance, A function of "t" Combine our functions. Our equation now has both Time and displacement. Curves move down a line. This is a function of both Displacement and time. The speed of this "wave" Is determined by the string: Its tension and mass. More derivations Discover all the constants. Complete equation. d 2y/dt 2 = -roy ; y = B cos(cot) f(Jt,t) = C sin(kx) cos( rot) y = g(x-ut) Doctor Johann Faustus was sitting in his dining room together with his friend Doctor Eisenhart (the great-grand-father, incidentally, of the physician who later on became so famous 2 ). The sumptuous evening meal had been removed. From the heavy gilded goblets rose the bouquet of an old Rhine wine. The two musicians who had performed at dinner had just disappeared - a lutenist and a flautist. "Well, now I will give you the promised sampling," said Doctor Fa~stus and poured a draught of the old wine down his gullet, which had grown somewhat fat. He was no longer a young man; it was two or three years before his frightful end. "As I already told you, my assistant sometimes produces these droll apparatuses, by means of which one can see and hear this and that - things far off from us, or long passed away, or yet in the future. Today let us try out the future. The fellow seems to have invented something very amusing and curious, you know. So just as he has often shown us, in magic mirrors, the heroes and beauties of the past, he has now invented something for the ears, a sound funnel. It allows us to hear the noises which will be heard in the distant future in just the same spot in which the sound apparatus is positioned." "Might it perhaps be, my dear friend, that you serving spirit is swindling you a little?" "I don't think so," said Faustus. "For black magic the future is not at all unattainable. As you know, we 1 u 2 = S/µ 1928-30. In translating it, I disclaim any reflection on the sounds enveloping our quad on a balmy spring afternoon. 2 f(x,t) = C cos(cot) sin(2n/A.)x This vignette was revised by H. H. for publication in the years A reputed quack who lived from 1663-1727 and was memorialized in a German children's song as "the Doctor Eisenhart who cured the folk by his own art." When I was little I confused him with the serial killer of wives, Bluebeard, who was invented about that time. have always proceeded on the assumption that events on earth are, without exception, subject to the law of cause and effect. Therefore nothing about the future can be changed, anymore than about the past: The future too is fixed through the law of causality. Thus it is already there, only we do not yet see it and taste it. As the mathematician and the astronomer can calculate the occurrence of an eclipse accurately far in advance, just so any other part of the future we please could be made visible and audible to us, if we had invented a method for it. As it happens, Mephistopheles has invented a sort of di vining rod for the ear; he has built a trap in which tones are captured. We have tried it out repeatedly. Sometimes, to be sure, nothing becomes audible at all, because we just happened to come on a void in the future, on a point of time at which nothing audible is taking place in our room. At other times we have heard all kinds of things; for example, we once heard some people, who will live in the far future, speak of a poem in which are sung the deeds of Doctor Faustus, that is, my own. But enough; let us try it out." At his call the domestic spirit appeared in his customary gray monk's cowl. He set a small machine with a sound funnel on the table and urgently enjoined the gentlemen to refrain from all comment during the whole process. Then he cranked the machine, which began to work with a low, soft buzzing. For a long time nothing was heard but this suspenseful buzzing, to which the two doctors listened expectantly. Then suddenly a tone, never before heard, shrilled forth: an evil, devilish howling, of which it was impossible to say whether it stemmed from a serpent-monster or perhaps from a raging demon. Impatient, warning, angry, commanding, the evil tone screamed, repeating itself in short, fierce pulses, as if a hunted dragon had come whistling through the room. Doctor Eisenhart grew pale and breathed in relief when �ENERGEIA the horrid scream, having frequently repeated itself at ever increasing range, faded into the distance. There followed a silence, but then another sound became audible: a male voice, coming as from a great distance, in an urgently preaching tone. The listeners could understand fragments of the speech and take them down on writing tablets that had been placed ready to hand, for example the sentences: " ... and so, following the shining example of America, the ideal of economic enterprise marches irresistibly toward its victorious perfection and realization. .. .While on the one hand the standard of living of the worker has reached a height never heretofore experienced, ... and we can say without presumptuousness that by means of present-day production techniques the childlike dreams of paradise dreamed by earlier ages are more than ... " Again silence. Then came a new voice, a deep, earnest voice, which spoke thus: "Ladies and gentlemen, I request you lend an ear to a new poem, a creation of the great Nicholas Underwhelm3 of whom it may well be said that he, as no one else, has turned inside out the innermost recesses of our time, has most wisely discerned the sense and non-sense of our existence: He holds the chimney in his hands. From either cheek a flipper's hung. According as the mercury stands, He climbs the ladders without rung. So up along long ladders climbs He. Clouds are lining for his cloak He longs to save a life betimes. He's overcome with nolicroak. Doctor Faustus was able to write down the larger part of this poem. Eisenhart too took notes assiduously. A sleepy voice, without doubt the voice of an older woman or a spinster now became audible. It said: "Boring program! As if the radio had been invented for that! Well, at least here comes some music." And, indeed, some music now broke out, a wild, lascivious music with a very steady beat, now blaring, 3 The poem by Underwhelm ("Unterschwang") is in the style of Christian Morgenstern, a zany surrealistic poet writing early in the twentieth century. now languishing, a totally unfamiliar, alien, indecent, malevolent music of howling, quacking, and cackling wind instruments, vibrating with the banging of gongs, overridden now and then by a singing, howling vocalization, which ejaculated words and verses \nan unknown language. In between, at regular intervals, was emitted the mystifying verse: The world will marvel at your hair If you use Go go for its care! That first, malevolent, furious,, warning tone, too, that dragon-howling full of torment and rage, audibly interjected itself from time to time. When the domestic spirit had, with a smile, brought his machine to a stop, the two scholars looked at each other curiously, with a painful feeling of embarrassment and shame, as if they had unintentionally become the witnesses of an indecent and forbidden occurrence. Both of them reviewed their notes and showed them to each other. Finally Faustus said: "What do you think of it?" Doctor Eisenhart drank a long draught from his beaker. He looked at the floor and remained thoughtful and silent for a long time. Finally he said more to himself that to his friend: "It is horrifying. There cannot be any doubt about the fact that that humanity out of whose life we just heard a sampling is insane. These are our progeny, the sons of our sons, the great-grandchildren of our great-grand-children whom we heard saying such dubious, sad, confused things, who emit such dread-inducing screams, who sing such unintelligible idiot verses. Our progeny, friend Faustus, will terminate in insanity." "I don't want to assert that so definitely," Faustus said. "Your point of view has nothing unlikely about it, to be sure, but still it is more pessimistic than necessary. Just because here, in one single, limited spot on earth, such wild, despairing, indecent and indubitably insane tones are heard, that does not actually have to mean that all of humanity has become mentally ill. It could, after all, be the case that on this spot where we happen to be a madhouse will be located in a few centuries and that we got to hear fragments from it. Or it could be that a party of total drunks treated us to their brain-storms. Just think of the bellowing of a merry crowd, perhaps at a carnival. That sounds quite similar. But what takes me aback are those other tones, 18 AN EVENING AT HOME WITH DOCTOR FAUSTUS those screams, which cannot have been produced either by human voices or by musical instruments. They sound, so it seems to me, absolutely devilish. It can only be demons that utter such tones." He turned to Mephistopheles: "Would you possibly know something about this? Can you tell us what sort of tones we have just heard?" "We have indeed heard," said the domestic spirit and smiled, "demonic tones. The earth, gentlemen, half of which is, to be sure, already today the property of the devil, will within a certain time belong to him altogether and will form a part, a province of hell. You have expressed yourself somewhat harshly and negatively about the tonal and verbal language of this earthly hell. To me, however, it seems at any rate noteworthy and nice that in hell too there will be music and poetry. That is the function of Belial, to whom this whole department reports. I think he does his job rather nicely." • 19 �FORM OF LANGUAGE The Form of language By Beatrice Robbins Socrates claims thatthought is internal discourse. (Thea. 189e) Therefore, language is as necessary to thought as it is to conversation. But not all words mean the same things to all people. A word might have a standard definition which, given the existence of the Platonic forms, is wrong. So it seems that the intent of almost every dialogue is the creation of true language. A term is picked: be it justice, knowledge, or table. The rest of the dialogue is spent on comparing per.:. sonal definitions and eliminating false notions in an attempt to find each word's true definition. This perfect definition, were it ever to be found, would, by virtue of its truth, be accepted by and mean the same thing to everyone present. The word in question would be truly standardized, and from there thought would evolve towards understanding truth. The need to standardize language is demonstrated by the dialogues being multi-person conversations, not monologues. Because each participant is an individual there is no assurance that any particular word has the same meaning for him as for anyone else. One knows his own definition of the term in question, but because language is not completely standardized, he can not know exactly what the word means to anyone else. The Sophist' s Stranger explains the problem thus: At present you see, all that you and I possess in common is the name. The thing to which each of us gives that name we may perhaps have privately before our minds, but it is always desirable to have reached an agreement about the thing itself by means of explicit statements, rather than be content to use the same word without formulating what it means (Soph. 218c) 1• 1 Quotes from The Sophist, Theatetus, and Timaeus are to be found in: Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Edith Hamilton, ed.,(New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1989). Sophist - pp. 958-1017, Theatetus - pp. 847-919, Timaeus - pp. 1153-1211. For the discussion to work as an interchange of ideas, the terms involved must mean the same thing to all those involved. To reach any meaningful conclusion, the thought and communication must be done with terms for which the standardized definition is the true definition. This need leads to the format of and material in the dialogues, most noticeably in the Theatetus and the Sophist. , In each dialogue, the quest for each true, standard definition begins with a question. Socrates provides examples: "But if our guest wil1 allow me, I should like to ask him what his countrymen thought and how they used these names ... sophist, statesman, philosopher (Soph. 217)," and, "Then knowledge and wisdom are the same things (Thea. 145e)." The question clearly and simply provides the terms which are to be the focus of the dialogue, and asks for their definitions. Because this is the obvious commencement of philosophical dialectic, one might claim that at this point thought begins. Perception, however, must be prior to thought of any type. Before one begins to think he must have something to think about. It need not be a sight, as suggested in the Timaeus, where vision is recognized as the foundation of philosophy (Tim.47a-b), although sight seems the most easily acceptable of the perceptions. Smell, taste, and hearing work just as well . That the perception is is the only necessity; there is nothing else to spark man's though process. Only after he has perceived something can he name it and begin to inquire about its nature. Thought will be further affected by later perceptions. Perception never stops causing and mutating thought. But it is from questioning the original perception that thought begins. Philosophy 's reliance on perception raises the problem of the forms: how can man inquire about the forms when he surely can not perceive them? No man's inquiries can start with the forms. He can ask, "What is Justice?" only after having perceived and identified some act or acts of justice or injustice as such. Whether or not he identifies them correctly is we' follow or get left behind (Soph. 243b)." In other words, Euclid is using terms whose standard definitions are not commonly understood. And, even the modern notion of defining a plane by three non-colinear points is confusing. For to understand that idea, one must understand exactly what a point is. So, while higher math and geometry are standardized, at their roots one finds the same problem that Theatetus, Socrates, and language face: irrelevant at this stage; he has merely found something about which he can begin to inquire. And, after recognizing that same property inherent in many actions, he might begin to guess at the existence of imperceptible forms to provide an explanation for the various perceived similarities. Perhaps the overwhelming dependence in perception is responsible for a general dependence in metaphors. When a concept seems to elevated, vague, or difficult to grasp, it is often made easier to understand by metaphorical transformation into perceivable images. Because metaphors force one to call an image of a concrete entity to mind, it becomes possible to 'see' the relationship in question. From that internal perception, thought about the abstraction develops. For the same reason, some concepts are so elevated one can only begin to attempt their comprehension through metaphor. Hence, Socrates uses them constantly in The Republic's allegories of the cave and the divided line. The need of metaphor, while painfully apparent, is troublesome to one attempting to standardize a true language. For, what could be farther from using each word as its one true meaning demands than using a seemingly random selection of words to illustrate various other, unrelated words? Metaphors are nothing more than a "common use of words and phrases, which the vulgar twist into any sense they please (Thea . 168c )" . In a true and standardized language, there would be neither metaphors, nor any need of them. Math may be taken as the closest thing to a model for standardized human language. The closest one may come to a figure of speech is an analogy, or ratio, between like terms. Terms are either precisely defined or defined as unknowns. There is only one meaning of scalene triangle. It is a triangle with no sides equal. There is only one meaning of triangle: a three sided figure on one plane. But, what is the exact definition of a plane? Euclid calls it "a surface which lies evenly with the straight lines on itself (Elem . bk. 1, def. 7)2," for which he, like the great ancient philosophers, might be faulted with "showing too little consideration for ordinary people like ourselves ... (and) pursuing his own argument to the conclusion without caring whether the first elements of which we and all other things consist are such that no account can . be given of them. Each of them just by itself can only be named; we cannot attribute to it anything further. .. (Thea. 201e-202) This, too, is one of the paradoxes of language. The most simple concepts, the elements, are undefinable but necessary to all that follows. Perhaps this similarity between the language of math and philo.sophy is one of the reasons Socrates puts the mathematical world 'immediately before the philosophical on his divided line (Republic . 510a5 llc)3. Perhaps, also, one must learn from the standardization present in the maths what he is searching for with philosophy. Math shows one mostly standardized language in a purely theoretical world, while, through philosophy one hopes to gain a standardized, true language which will work even in its starting place, the perceivable world. But the dependence on perception remains, presenting a difficulty. In the Sophist, the Stranger suggests that: "thinking and discourse are the same thing, except what we call thinking is precisely, the inward dialogue carried on by the mind with itself without spoken sound. (Soph. 263e)" And in the Theatetus, Socrates himself claims that the process of thinking is: "a discourse that the mind carries on with itself about any subject it is considering ... 2 Euclid, Elements,translated by Sir Thomas L. Heath, Robert McHenry, ed., In Great Books of the Western World, vol 10, 3 Plato, Republic, translated by Allan Bloom, (New York, HarperCollins, 1991. ), 190-191 (USA, Encyclopedia Brittanica Inc, 1990). 21 �ENERGEIA when the mind is thinking, it is simply talking to itself, asking questions and answering them, and saying yes and no ... So I should describe thinking as discourse, and judgment as a statement pronounced, not aloud to someone else, but silently to oneself. (Thea. 189e-l 90)" In other words, by Socrates' definition at least, thought is purely internal dialogue. As said briefly before, if this is so, thought demands language. Man must have a language in order to identify, name, and ponder his perceptions. But he must have perceptions before he can develop a language naming them. Perceptions give rise to names. Man saw rock, food, fire, before he began to try to communicate their existence to his fellow creatures. But surely as he was able to recognize his food for himself before he was able to name it. Isn't that thought? Perhaps rather than being thought, the recognition of food is an instinct or the beginning of an action. Urges to action and reason, although often coincidental, are not the same thing. One dances by muscle memory, eats and dodges oncoming cars by instinct. Impulses to action are not decisions. No internal dialectic is involved,. They are immediate reactions to the situation, an ability shared by all men and most animals. Thought, however, even if it be thought towards an action, is a slow, deliberative process: "Knowledge does not reside in the impressions, but in our reflection upon them (Thea. 186d)." But what provoked man to develop language, and how could he think to do it without already having begun? Further, accepting the definition of thought as being internal dialectic, how does one account for the strange difficulty of explaining ideas to others? Even Socrates must "try to put (his idea) into words. (Thea. 165e)" This simple phrase suggests that ideas or thoughts are not recognized in coherent groups of words but need to be structured into them to be communicated, which does not follow if the mind thinks by "simply talking to itself (Thea. 190)." That the mind thinks in its own variation of the common language is only a partly valid explanation. One must speak the language he thinks in. The two processes feed off each other; neither can develop without the other. On the other hand, it is not necessary that the mind use with itself exactly the same manner of speech that it uses when communicating with others. External language must be much more standardized than internal language, because, while one is sure to understand one's own thoughts, for others to understand these same thoughts as they were conceived they must understand the organization of and the terms used. Hence the need for the standardizing tools of grammar, punctuation, and common vocabulary. The more abstract and complicated the thought is, the greater the need for precise, comprehensible language. Man can not point at Truth the way he .can at food. He must be able to comprehend it with thought and explain it with words. The better standardized the language, the greater the chance the explanation will be understood. Hypothetically, truly standardized language, meaning language in which the one true definition for each word was know and understood, would allow perfect knowledge. Because it would be the only possible perfect, exact language, it would be the form of language. As such, it would allow absolute knowledge of the forms. One would actually know what Virtue was. One would know all Truth. But, as previously stated, language can never be truly standardized because it is based on ideas too fundamental to be explained. Just as Theatetus has far more difficulty in explaining letters than syllables, so one can explain a sentence or paragraph far more easily than the terms it uses. And, other words must be used to explain the terms in question, creating the need for further explanations in an ever-growing, meaningobscuring cycle. Additionally, because language is a human, bodily function, it can not ever actually 'reach' the forms. Humans, being a conglomeration of both body and soul, are not perfect creatures and can never reach perfect understanding, "We have intercourse with becoming by means of the body through sense, whereas we have intercourse with real being by means of the soul through reflection (Soph. 248)." Reflection, or internal dialectic, is the only way to use the soul. But, the perfect soul is shackled by the imperfect body, and so, the form of language as well as the rest of the forms, can never be reached. Language can never be completely true and completely standardized. Completely standardized language in the modem sense is not 'true language'. It is what computers speak. It is inhuman language for the lowest common 22 FORM OF LANGUAGE denominator. The emphasis is on standardization and not on truth. All that matters is that everyone understand the one definition for each term in the same way. What the definition is has little significance. And, because it allows no room for spontaneous expressions, for emotion, for the ever-changing connotations of words, it can only be the almost meaningless language of machines, a dead language. Attic Greek is far more standardized in the twentieth century than any current language, but one must use his own language to define Greek terms. So, while most Greek words have an accepted English definition, the translations themselves are part of the ever mutating English language, and thus are not completely standardized. No spoken human language can be because human thought is not stagnant. One grow, encounters and perceives new images and ideas, and his though process changes. No two people go through exactly the same metamorphosis, so no two manners of thought, and thus, no two personal dialects, can be exactly alike. And so, while Socrates strives towards both standardization and truth, even his lesser goal is an impossibility. "True" language, too, that seems the goal of philosophy, must be eternally static. Rather than subhuman, it must somehow be superhuman. "True" language can easily be imagined as the language of the gods. But, for the same reasons completely standardized human language is impossible, completely true language is impossible. "True" language faces the additional difficulty of at once being responsible for · and acquiring absolute knowledge. To create the language of the gods, the form of language, one must know all perfectly. To fully know all, one must use the form of language. So, the best one can hope to do is as Socrates does: attempt to purify and make more true his own, ever-changing language while reaching towards the forms. The problem of thought dependent on language is a clear paradox: neither can exist without the other, neither can begin without the other. Dialectic is the best path towards the forms, but grows from base perceptions. Language is necessary to thought, but must evolve with mankind. But if language evolves, how can it hope to reach the changeless, eternal forms? The effort is doomed, but necessary and noble. One must attempt to understand. "To rob us with discourse would be to rob us of philosophy. That would be the most serious consequence. (Soph. 260)" • 23 �THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND They Do Not Understand: A Discussion of the Heracleitus Fragment Number 12 By Dawn Star Shuman The translation of the Heracleitus fragment number 12 in the series of fragments read for Freshman Language may not be the most difficult of these fragments. However, the nuances of meaning in some of the words are lovely, and the understanding of these nuances makes the meaning of the entire sentence both clearer and more complex. The sentence is as follows in Greek and in my English translatlon: ou ~uvLCiaw ws 8LacpEpoµEvov EauT0 6µoAOYEL. TTaALVTOVOS apµov(a WO"TTEp TO~OU KaL AUTTES They do not understand that in being rent asunder a thing agrees with itself; just like the back-stretched harmony of a bow and of a lyre.. This sentence makes sense grammatically, both as a translation of the Greek and as fluent English. What may not be immediately apparent is that it also makes very good sense as a statement of an idea. Some questions about the idea might be: how does a thing agree with itself? What is this thing? What kind of understanding are they failing in? The answers to these kinds of questions lead to a possible explanation of what the sentence means. cvvLCiaw is a form of the verb CJ'UV-L11µL, meaning "to bring or set together, in hostile sense ... mataph. to perceive, hear... 2. to understand." 1 This adds the idea of opposition to the more basic sense of perception and understanding. In this sense, understanding Except where otherwise noted, definitions for the Greek come from: Intennediate Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell and Scott, 7 ed. 1 might be the setting together of a prior knowledge in a person's mind with a fact or perception of the outside world and thereby coming to a new idea or knowledge about a thing. It is important to detail the relationships between the three verbs in the first part of the sentence. ~uvLCiaLV is the main finite verb. 6µo)..oyE'Lis also a finite verb which is modified by the circumstantial participle 8LacpEpoµEvov . The manual gives the meanings of6µ0)..oyE'L1s "agree, admit, or allow." Although I do believe it to be the most concise translation, there is something awkward about saying that a thing agrees with itself in English. It carries the sense of something maintaining internal consistency. But another possible meaning of 6µo)..oyEL is "simply to make an agreement, come to terms ... with another." With that meaning, agreement with itself might imply a process of reaching internal consistency rather than maintaining it. It is clear that Heracleitus is attributing this process of agreement directly to the circumstance of being rent asunder, not simply describing two concurrent events. I have translated apµov(a as harmony. This meaning is given in the Lexicon as the third possibility. Harmony in English does have some of the same connotations as apµov(a: in Greek, and I feel it is important to notice them. One meaning in Greek is "a fastening to keep ship-planks together, a clamp ... a joining, joint, between a ship's planks." This kind of joining is literally what is necessary for a stretched bow or lyre to remain whole. Another meaning given is "a covenant, agreement, settled government, order." In a bow, this might be a metaphorical covenant between the frame and the bowstring not to part. These meanings are consistent with the English connotations of harmony, which can mean "1. agreement; accord; harmonious relations. 2. a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts; congruity ." 2 Beyond the details of what each word means by itself is what they all mean together. I do not know who They are, but I do believe I understand how Heracleitus means that they do not understand. Understanding is the setting together of two possibly contradictory things in a person's mind and through examination finding their common purpose or meaning. A question that cannot be answered by looking at the text is what this thing is. Because the sentences in general are aphorisms, it seems likely that the thing is supposed to represent any particular thing a person might think of, including the people who do not understand. They do not understand how it is that they themselves could ever understand in his meaning of the word. Being rent asunder is compared to a bow being back-stretched. Thi~ means that the rending is not a destruction but something that allows the thing to do what it is supposed to do. When a bow is stretched, the wood and string are wrenched apart and a strong fastening at the point of connection is what allows the bow to impart energy to an arrow. What the thing is supposed to do depends upon the thing. They do not admit that they themselves can only be and function as whole things, as units, because they contain contradictory parts or ideas which play against each other. I am willing to admit that possibility, and to really consider it by comparing the differing ideas on the subject, which They apparently were not.• 2 Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, s. v. "harmony" I fl 25 �".F O R HE UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF TRUTH" ton puts forth the fundamental aspect of his method: In this philosophy [experimental philosophy] particular propositions are [deduced2] from the phenomena, and afterward rendered general by induction. (Ibid, 547) "For He Unlocked the Hidden Treasures of Truth" Entertaining Ourselves with the Delightful Contemplation of Newton's Principia By Janice Cater With his preface to the first edition of the Principia Newton gives to the student of his system unusual insight into his ideas of geometry and mathematics as a whole. He says in this preface that his purpose in writing is to explain mathematically the natural forces of the world. In putting forth this statement of intent, he implies that he believes natural forces are governed by mathematics, for what purpose would it serve to explain something mathematically that is not in fact ruled by mathematics? Such an explanation would be no more than an interesting account, one no more valid than any other. This important aspect of Newton's thought is frequently misunderstood. Often his approach is described as giving only a mathematical analogue to nature. By this analysis his method has three parts: first, a presentation of nature simplified and idealized, creating a system in geometric space in which mathematical entities move in mathematical time according to specific conditions expressible as mathematical laws or relations. Consequences are deduced by mathematical techniques and then transferred to the physical world. Second, a comparison of these results with experiential data and the results from such data. Successive attempts at correction of the original mathematical construct, which in turn alter the second stage, lead to a more accurate representation. Third, an application of the results of stages one and two to natural philosophy, in order to elaborate the entire system of the world. This stage applies results to the entire system rather than to individual objects, i.e., applying them to all planets rather than just to Jupiter. Even objects which are very dissimilar are included. For example, the same laws govern the forces of the planets in orbit as do the motions of falling bodies on earth. While the above account is perhaps a plausible reading of the Principia, it does not truly capture the spirit of the work or of the man behind it. From his words in the Preface and his letters to Oldenberg and Cotes, it is clear that Newton has something greater in mind. He believes that mathematics rules the world, that it is universal and basic to all beings. Hence, an explication of the system of the world must necessarily be a mathematical one. The Principia is not a mathematical reduction of the world, neither, however, can it be called an exact replica. A careful examination of this work provides ample evidence for attributing to Newton the belief that he had set out the only true method of describing the system of the world. In defense of this reading of the Principia, an account of Newton's method is crucial. While any sort of in depth inquiry into his method would yield volumes of findings, we can, for the moment, be satisfied with an identification of several major characteristics of his style. He says in the Preface: I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of Nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles, for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces .... These forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of Nature in vain; but I hope the principles here laid down will afford some light either to this or some truer philosophy (Principia, xviii). 1 The method of "reasoning from mechanical principles" is at the very core of his entire endeavor. Introduced in only a few words here in the Preface, its meaning is revealed only through statements of his method found elsewhere. At the end of the General Scholium, New- But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. (Ibid, 547) The process of deducing propositions from phenomena and then rendering them general by induction is very important in the Principia. It elucidates the distinction Newton makes between the physical and the rational. While he clearly values both components as necessary to science, he has extremely strong views on their respective roles. Comprised of two parts, the deductive process begins with phenomena, the visible and humanly accessible world. Through analysis of the general principles one conclusions both certain and necessary are drawn 3 • This step gives the boundaries of the particular inquiry, setting the stage for the thorough mathematical investigation. The next step is inductive; through synthesis, from the specific principles uncovered and proved through the mathematics, one arrives at general principles. Newton works from the physical world, to the rational, and back to the physical; while each is necessary, the roles are quite distinct. Also present throughout his works is appreciation for geometry as a science Newton's; he clearly values the accuracy of its method. To him, it is the only logical way to attack the problem of accounting for natural phenomena. Unlike his contemporaries, Newton was quite wary of using hypotheses. He is often quoted as saying "hypotheses non fingo" - I frame no hypotheses. This statement can be quite misleading, for he did in fac use hypotheses. (The Optics, in particular, is full of them.) No science can progress, no knowledge can be gained without hypotheses. With due attention to Newton's own words, howe~er, his true meaning becomes clear. The passage in question reads: This passage does indeed seem to be disavowing all hypotheses within experimental philosophy. However, he is speaking of the causes of gravity. Since Newton can deduce nothing of the sort from phenomena, he is not free to continue along such a line of reasoning. The strength of such reasoning lies in the certainty and necessity that comes with deduction from phenomena. Replacing this step with an hypothesis could not possibly lead to any definite knowledge. In a letter to Oldenberg, Newton elaborates his manner of using hypotheses: ... For the best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be, first, to inquire diligently into the properties of things and to establish those properties by experiments, and to proceed later to hypotheses for the explanation of things themselves. For hypotheses ought to be applied only in the explanation of the properties of things, and not made use of in determining them; except in so far as they may furnish experiments (Thayer, 5) 4 • He continues, a little later, to warn of what may follow misuse of hypotheses: And if anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science; since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties. (Ibid, 5) 2 replaces Matte's inferred; from the Latin, "In hac philosophia Propositiones deducuntur ex phrenomenis, et redduntur gerenales per inductionem." 3 Sir Issac Newton, Principia, Cajori revision of the Motte trans- 1 lation, 2 vols. (Berkley, University of California Press, Ltd., 1962) this in contrast to inference, where the formal process is less clear or present. "Newton's Philosophy of Nature, Thayer, H.S., ed., (Hafner Press, New York, 1974), p.5 27 �ENERGEIA In a letter to Cotes, Newton is even more explicit about his use of the word hypothesis: And the word 'hypothesis' is ... used to signify only such a proposition as is not a phenomenon nor deduced from any phenomena, but assumed or supposed - without any experimental proof. (Ibid, 6) Newton recognizes the role hypotheses can be made to play in science and he places the proper restrictions to their use. As he says above, one should begin by · investigating the properties of objects, carefully establishing their behavior through experiment. After one has done this, hypotheses may be formed to explain these behaviors. Experimental facts must invariably take precedence over any hypotheses which happen to come into conflict with them. Those hypotheses which seem incapable of proof by experiment must be viewed as highly suspicious. The distinction between exact experimental results and mere suggestions derived from hypotheses must be foremost in one's mind at all times. When found to be in irreconcilable conflict with experimental fact, they must be scrupulously eradicated. The strict guidelines Newton sets for himself are presented frequently. In the Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy in Book Three, we discover another such statement. These four rules are not astounding, in fact one would assume that any good scientist proceeds following principles such as the ones laid out here. Rule 1 orders one to keep all explanations simple, and to avoid unnecessary complications of such explanations . Rule 2 requires that the same causes or explanations must be applied to the same phenomena. Rule 3 states that the qualities of bodies derived from experiments are to be regarded as universal. It is in the explication of the third rule that we find another passage attesting to Newton's extremely high opinion of experimentation. As he says here: For since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments, we are to hold for universal all such as universally agree with experiments, and such as are not liable to diminution can never be quite taken away. We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple and always consonant to itself (Principia, 398). Having a more complete understanding of the strict use of hypotheses, the relationship between the rational and the physical, and the process of deduction from phenomena and subsequent generalization through induction, a clear idea of "reasoning from mechanical principles" is still lacking. The Preface, though merely sketching Newton's ideas and goals for the Principia, does offer a remarkable amount of insight into the role of geometry as it relates to such "reasoning from mechanical principles." Here Newton goes to great lengths to show how mechanics and geometry relate to each other. He begins by making a distinction between the aims of the ancients and those of the moderns. The ancients, he says, valued the science of mechanics more than any other in the investigation of natural phenomena, while the moderns attempted to fit the naturally occurring phenomena into the bounds of mathematics. Mechanics, as understood by the ancients, was a twofold science, comprising both practical and rational components. The rational proceeded by demonstration, the practical by construction and observation. For the ancients all manual arts fell under the heading of practical mechanics, for these arts are not perfectly accurate. Perfect accuracy became for them the property of geometry, distinguishing this science from mechanics in its accuracy only. Newton asserts that this lack of accuracy in mechanics (as opposed to geometry) is due to the artists, not the art. Were there such a thing as a perfect mechanic, he·necessarily would be perfectly accurate. He also asserts that the description of lines and angles belongs to mechanics rather than to geometry. Geometry is concerned with the properties of these objects, not the physical production of the objects themselves. He calls it the "glory of geometry" that it is able to produce so much in spite of so heavy a reliance on the production of these lines and angles by an entirely different science. Geometry, for Newton, is founded on mechanics; one must use mechanics to produce the lines and angles which are required for the study of geometry. Geometry becomes, then, a part of universal mechanics, namely that part which "accurately proposes and 28 "FOR HE UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF TRUTH" demonstrates the art of measuring." Since the manual arts are concerned primarily with the moving of bodies, geometry is often used to speak of their magnitudes, and mechanics of their motion. In this way, rational mechanics then becomes the science of motions resulting from forces. However, Newton is concerned with only that part ofrational mechanics which deals with natural powers. In explaining the relationship between the two sciences, Newton clearly says that mechanics is the starting point for geometry. Now, geometry is perfect, yet mechanics is not necessarily so, being subject to all of the imperfections of the mechanic. However, a system that begins with an imperfect foundation cannot yield perfect results. In a letter to Cotes, Newton mentions first principles (and their relation to hypotheses) briefly. ... [A]s in geometry, the word 'hypothesis' is not taken in so large a sense as to include the axioms and postulates; so, in experimental philosophy, it is not to be taken in so large a sense as to include the first principles or axioms, which I call the laws of motion. These principles are deduced from phenomena and made general by induction, which is the highest evidence that a proposition can have in this philosophy (Thayer, 6). Since in the Preface Newton claims mechanics provides the foundations of geometry, the laws of motion, which he here names as first principles, must have some relation to mechanics. Because mechanics is the science of the forces which cause motion in bodies, the laws of motion must belong either to mechanics itself, or to geometry, which describes and measures their motion. But, as mentioned earlier, geometry takes its foundations from mechanics in the form of the actual production of lines and circles. The resolution of these two seemingly different concepts of the starting points of geometry (mechanics and the laws of motion) is not yet evident. One possible solution lies in an examination of another mathematician and philosopher, Pascal. In his work "On the Geometrical Mind" Pascal proposes a treatment of geometry and its first principles which offers unusual insight into Newton's own beliefs. In respect to scientific and perfect demonstra- tion of truth, Pascal says: I can give no clearer idea of the procedure we should follow to make our demonstrations convincing than by expounding the method observed in geometry (Pascal, 430). 5 He believes that the only method more rigorous and complete is one that man could never use, for "what goes beyond geometry goes beyond man" (Ibid, 430). This method would involve defining every term and proving every proposition. Simply because he is finite, man cannot participate in this ultimate method of finding truth. The first terms defined would require other terms; the first propositions would rely on prior propositions; in other words, he could never arrive at the first propositions or terms. Even though man is incapable of partaking in this perfect order or method, he should not surmise that any sense of order is outside of his capabilities. While geometry is certainly less convincing than this perfect order, Pascal claims that it is by no means less certain. By this distinction, Pascal only means to point out that geometry falls below the perfect order in failing to define or prove everything. However, this limitation does not weaken the certainty we acsribe to its findings. Geometry is certain in that it only assumes those missing proofs given perfectly clearly by natural light; nature steps in to fill the void left by discourse. Thus, it is perfectly true as well. Geometry does not attempt to define the things that are clear and understood by all men but seeks to define all of the rest. It is obvious that there exist words which cannot be defined. For example, we cannot define any term without using the words it is. Even a definition of being would utilize these two words. Since defining a term by using the term itself fails to yield a valid definition, we must conclude that there exist words which we, as men, cannot define. Nature makes up for this defect in us by providing a common concept of these words. If she had not, we would be unable to speak to each other, for we would have no basis for agreement 5 Blaise Pascal, On the Geometrical Mind, Richard Scofield, trans., In Pascal, Britannica Great Books Series, v. 33, (Chicago, Encyclopredia Britannica, Inc., 1952). 29 �ENERGEIA about the words we use. These terms given by nature are used with the same assurance as those we have had explained to us. Therefore, all of the terms used in geometry are perfectly intelligible either by the natural light or by the definitions given. This is the way in which geometry avoids falling into error in respect of either defining terms or proving propositions. Again, it defines only those terms which need to be defined, and proves only those propositions which are not evident. When in geometry man traces his steps back to the first truths that can be known, he stops there and requires that they be granted since geometry has nothing clearer to prove them with. Thus, all of the propositions in geometry are perfectly demonstrated either by the natural light or by proofs. Since nature supplies all that discourse cannot give, the order of geometry is just as perfect as anything of which man can partake. A telling example of Pascal's first principles is the (fouble infinity. For Pascal, the most important of all the properties that are common to everything is, constituted by the two infinities which are found everywhere, the infinitely great and the infinitely small (Ibid, 434). However great a space there may be, we can always conceive of one greater, and also, however small a space there may be, we can always conceive of one that is smaller. Whatever space we take, there will always be one greater and one lesser, so that everything lies between nothing and infinity, always remaining infinitely far from each extreme. This cannot be demonstrated, yet it is one of the foundations of geometry. While geometry can neither define its objects nor prove its principles, it is neither deficient in clarity nor in truth. Man has no knowledge more basic than this double infinity or any that surpasses it in clarity. Even so, since man cannot completely understand the infinite, he is often reluctant to admit its existence as well as its properties. Pascal claims that those who do not admit of the infinite divisibility of space will not be able to proceed in geometry. Those who do, however, can admire the greatness and the power of nature in that double infinity which surrounds us on every side, and learn by the consideration of such marvels to know themselves, seeing themselves placed between an infinity and a nothing of extension, between an infinity and a nothip.g of number, between an infinity and a nothing of motion, between an infinity and a nothing of time . Whereupon we can learn to assess ourselves at our just value and to make reflections worth more than all the rest of geometry itself (Ibid, 439). In this examination of geometry as a demonstration of truth, Pascal is not just defending the validity of its methods, he is saying something important about the nature of man. Man is incapable of perfect knowledge precisely because he is trapped between the two infinities. He is unable to prove first principles and know without a doubt that they can be extended to the truly infinite. This understanding of geometry's foundations produces an imperfect system, one that is based on first principles that can't be defined. Thus, as a whole, it relies on common acceptance, not on a common understanding. Pascal says that there is no geometer who does not believe that space is infinitely divisible, yet there is no geometer who understands an infinite division. This gap between acceptance and understanding is, in Pascal's mind, not a flaw in geometry itself, but in man. Pascal's treatment of the first principles is certainly an interesting one. In building any system of thought, one must start with at least one first principle. This starting point must stand on its own, or whatever came before it would be the first principle, and so on . In order to avoid this infinite regression, the starting point needs to be something common to everyone. Pascal, of course, posits that these first principles are implanted by nature in all men, so that they come from inside. The question of first principles is an important one. While Pascal's treatment of first principles certainly differs from Newton's in respect to source or origin, there are definite similarities. For Newton, geometry begins with mechanics, the actual physical production of the figures. These figures, borrowed from without, correspond to the indefinable beginnings of Pascal. To Pascal, man is imperfect, God is perfect. Geometry is imperfect, but it is the most perfect science that men have. Since geometry is imperfect, it draws 30 "FOR HE UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF TRUTH" on certain indefinable terms and unproveable principles for its foundations. Now, Newton does not concern himself with the idea of first principles formally. Rather, his preoccupation with the distinction between mechanics and geometry seems to hint at questions of origin. But, in contrast with Pascal, to Newton geometry is, in fact, perfect; the beginnings are supplied by something no less perfect than the actual science. In contrasting the two views ot: geometry and the world, three distinct divisions arise. The first of these divisions is founding principles. For Pascal, these are granted by God and are therefore perfect. From this perfect foundation springs the second division, the system, or geometry. Pascal believes that since it springs from indefinable and unproveable elements (albeit perfect ones) from without, this system is necessarily imperfect. Yet it is the closest man comes to accurately describing the third division, the world. This is the actual God-given, God-granted world from which man derives his imperfect model. For Newton, these three divisions are not as distinct as they are for Pascal. Newton begins with the belief that the world was created by the perfect mechanic, of whom he speaks in the Preface, namely God. · This perfect mechanic, working with perfect accuracy, produced and set into motion the natural forces of the world. The orbits of the planets, the motions of fall ing bodies, all follow the precise mathematical laws He ordained. The first principles of this system, which Newton refers to as the laws of motion in the previously cited letter to Cotes, are directly related to mechanics. For example, the first law states: Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a right line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it (Pricipia, 13). This law may be interpreted as the production of a perfectly straight or right line. The continuation of this law further provides for the description of the parabola as well as the other conic sections as they can be seen in the planetary orbits: sion are continually drawn aside from rectilinear motions, does not cease its rotation otherwise than as it is retarded by the air. The greater bodies of the planets and comets, meeting with less resistance in freer spaces, preserve their motions both progressive and circular for a longer time (Ibid, 13). These laws serve as the rules for generation of both the actual world created by the perfect mechanic, God, and the system proposed by Newton. In contrast to Pascal's first principles, which are logical, Newton's are natural and physical. Experimental philosophy itself allows for their discovery. Confidence is engendered by experience and the accuracy of the mathematics. For example, the parabolic motion of falling bodies depends on both the inertial and accelerative components set forth in the first two laws of motion. This motion can be seen experimentally as well as demonstrated geometrically. Since God created the world, it is perfect. The first principles by which He did so must necessarily also be perfect. God used mechanics to set the world in motion. Since Newton also uses mechanics as the foundation of his system, this system too begins with perfect first principles. If the first principles are perfect, and the method used is perfect also, how can the system itself fall short of perfection? Newton is very emphatic about the perfection of the perfect mechanic; any doubts must be referred to us, not to Him. Newton does not claim that the system of the world he comes up with is perfect, rather that his method is. The system is not necessarily completely accurate, and he allows for refinements. In the Preface, speaking of the forces by which particles of bodies are impelled to and repelled from each other, he says: These forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of Nature in vain; but I hope the principles here laid down will afford some light either to this or some truer philosophy (Ibid, xviii). Projectiles continue in their motions, so far as they are not retarded by the resistance of the air or impelled downward by the force of gravity. A top, whose parts by their cohe- He has given an account of the general forces which dictate motion in the world. He has provided the fundamentals; all else is particular. This clarification Newton provides between the 31 �ENERGEIA system and the method elucidates the very subtle distinction between what wondrous things Newton has done and what lesser things are commonly ascribed to him. Proposition sixty-six (Ibid, 173) demonstrates our inability as men to see the whole system. We may treat mathematically all the things which we perceive, and-this itself is no small task, yet we cannot account for those things we do not perceive. Newton here gives a proof of our limits of understanding. (The very fact that he can demonstrate and prove the limits of our scope affords much credibility to his method.) All apparent uncertainties about the world are merely a result of our lack of ability to see the whole. In this way, one sees that while Newton is not merely proposing a simplified mathematical analogue of the world, neither is he putting forth a direct representation of it. He believes that the world is governed by mathematical forces which move it in a perfectly mathematical fashion, and sets forth, therefore, a compl'etely mathematical analysis of it. He is explaining the world through the only method capable of producing truth. In this respect, his system is not a simplified mathematical analogue to something more complex and not mathematical. However, it is true that we, as men, fall short of God in our abilities to perceive and understand the universe as a whole. We are able to grasp only parts at a time, and therefore, whatever system we devise to explain the whole will indubitably fall short of the truth . Nonetheless, Newton does give us truth after a fashion - his method. And this seems to be the most important distinction between the two mathematicians/philosophers: namely, the degree of perfection each of the divisions entails. Pascal, troubled by the question of the origin of first principles in a not-quite-perfect system, is led to question man's own perfection. To him, the benefits of geometry are obvious; geometry leads to truth. In agreeing with him, though, we must concede our imperfections and consign ourselves to an eternal struggle to decrease the ignorance we have of our own world. Our limited understanding of the double infinity leads us either to despair in the futility of scientific inquiry, or to pursue moderation in our attempts to explain the world. We are barred from true knowledge, and are able only to admire and delight in the workings of an incomprehensible universe. All we are left with is the task of focusing on ourselves and our surroundings, hopefully learning, as Pascal says, "to assess ourselves at our just value and to make reflections worth more than all the rest of geometry itself' (Pascal, 439). Newton, on the other hand, clearly believes that we can have true knowledge of both ourselves and the world. His veneration of geometry is evident throughout the work, and is found to be excessive nowhere. He proves to us the strengths or, as he calls it in the Preface, the glory, of geometry. We too are taught to revere this science for its accuracy as well as the enormous scope of its findings; we come to understand it as Newton does, as the science, inextricably linked to mechanics, which accurately describes the natural forces of the world. It should not be overlooked that our views of God and the world are irrevocably changed as well, for though the Principia is a geometrical treatise, it is not so narrow in scope, and is rightly entitled the "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy." After a careful examination of this work we come to agree with Cotes's words from his Preface to the second edition: "FOR HE UNLOCKED THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF TRUTH" thence incited the more profoundly to reverence and adore the great Maker and Lord of all. He must be blind who from the most wise and excellent contrivances of things cannot see the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of their Almighty Creator, and he must be mad and senseless who refuses to acknowledge them (Principia, xxxii-xxxiii) We see now that Newton leads us, through a sincere and careful mathematical inquiry, to an informed participation in the glory of a most perfect universe.• Fair and equal judges will therefore give sentence in favor of this most exce-llent method of philosophy, which is founded on experiments and observations. And it can hardly be said or imagined, what light, what splendor, hath accrued to that method from this admirable work of our illustrious author, whose happy and sublime genius, resolving the most difficult problems, and reaching to discoveries of which the mind of man was thought incapable before, is deservedly admired by all those who are somewhat more than superficially versed in these matte s. The gates are now set open, and by the passage he has revealed we may freely enter into the know ledge of the hidden secrets and wonders of natural things. He has so clearly laid open and set before our eyes the most beautiful frame of the System of the World, that if King Alphonso were now alive, he would not complain for want of the graces either of simplicity or of harmony in it. Therefore we may now more nearly behold the beauties of Nature, and entertain ourselves with the delightful contemplation; and, which is the best and most valuable fruit of philosophy, be 32 33 �PHEDRE Heroism in Racine's Phedre By Peter Smith Yes, prince, I languish, I burn for Theseus: I love him, but not as hell saw him, The fickle lover of a thousand different objects, Who would dishonor the marriage bed of Death; But faithful, but bold, and even a little savage, Charming, young, drawing all hearts after him, Such as one depicts our gods, or such as I see you now. He had your bearing, your eyes, your speech; Your noble modesty reddened his face, When he crossed the waves to our Crete, Worthy subject of the vows of Minos' daughters. What were you doing then? Why, without Hippolytus, Did he assemble the elite heroes of Greece? Why, too young still, couldn't you then Board the ship which took him to our shores? You would have slain Crete's monster, Despite the windings of his enormous lair. To unfold the uncertain mystery, My sister would have armed you with the fatal thread. But no: in this scheme, I would have gone before her; Love would have inspired this thought in me first; It is me, prince, it's me, whose useful aid Taught you of the Labyrinth's twistings: With what cares I would have held dear this lovely head! A thread not enough to reassure your lover, Companion in the peril which you sought, I would have wanted to walk before you; And Phedre descended into the Labyrinth with you Would have, with you, returned or be lost. (Act II, Scene 5) eration and pious chastity are starkly contrasted with the uncontrollable lusts which plague Phaedra. He falls in love, it is true, but nicely. It makes sense, of course, that Racine should see the proud restraint which Hippolytus exhibits as the means of conquering one's passions. And just so that the analogy is made perfectly clear even to those who were not paying close attention during the first four acts, Hippolytus is made, in the finale, to battle the beast nobly in front of the wedding chapel, symbol of honorable, chaste, and divinely sanctioned love. With his heavy-handed use of metaphor Racine forces this understanding of man's battle with passion into the somewhat unwilling Labyrinth myth with which he is, after all, constrained to work. It does not always seem to fit though. What does it mean for Phaedra to lead the hero into the Labyrinth? Racine presents us with the image of a lecherous old woman enticing an innocent, luring him into the darkness of perversity. Her promise to teach him the turnings of the Labyrinth takes on a horrible and vivid significance, but it is a significance irreconcilable with the myth. There is a discrepancy on two different, but related, points. First, is the matter of the seduction: it is backwards. Theseus seduced the innocent Ariadne (and later abandoned her), and not the other way around. Secondly, it is only because of the knowledge she gives him, because of the fact that she betrays to him the secrets of her family, "du fil fatal efit arme votre main", that Theseus is able to kill the Minotaur. It is Ariadne's thread which suggests an alternate understanding of the hero, and a reexamination of the character of Theseus. That which makes it difficult for the young Hippolytus to see Theseus as hero explains the necessity of the seduction of Ariadne as preface to his battle with the Minotaur. In the eyes of his son (in the first scene) and Phaedra (in her speech), Theseus' penchant for playing the role of "volage adorateur" and his crimes against "trop credules esprits que sa flamme a tromp~s", tarnish the memory of his heroic deeds, but in the myth these seductions are closely bound to the idea of Theseus as a hero. Theseus was able to descend into the Labyrinth not because he was pure of heart, but because he was an initiate of the island's profane mysteries. He could kill the Minotaur not because of his strength and courage, but because he What is most striking about this passage is how Hippolytus usurps his father's position, not only as object of Phaedra's love, but also as hero. It is Hippolytus who should have descended into the Labyrinth. It is Hippolytus who should have killed the Minotaur and freed Athens. The fact that Phaedra ascribes to him the deeds of Theseus gives insight into Racine's reworking of the myth, and into his understanding of the hero. The image of the Labyrinth is an obvious one and central to the play. The story of its origin, of Pasiphae and the bull, of passion and bestial lust, hangs over the characters like a prophecy. It is the product of an ancient curse which dooms the descendants of the sun; the sun who looked upon, and revealed, the sins of a goddess. Their punishment , Phaedra's punishment, is unspeakable, subterranean desire. The torture is made more horrible for Phaedra because of the other half of her ancestry: she is the daughter not only of Pasiphae, but of Pasiphae and Minos. She is afflicted with remorse, the union of sin with the consciousness of guilt, of insatiable lust with divine, all-seeing, all-judging conscience. This monstrous union of man and beast is depicted for us in the image of the Minotaur, Phaedra's halfbrother. But if this is how we are to read the metaphor of monstrosity in Racine's play, how are we to understand the character of the hero, the monster-slayer? Theseus, as he appears on stage, is of little help. He is bumbling, incompetent and helpless. Until the final scene he has no idea of what is going on around him, and seems, for that little bit of the play he is actually in, more of a plot device than a character. In order to understand the nature of the hero one must tum toward the double image of Hippolytus Theseus being led into the darkness by Phaedra Ariadne. It is not difficult to see Hippolytus in this role. The imagery of the play, not only in this passage, points towards him as the monster-slayer, and in speech after speech his virtues are recounted. Racine writes Hippolytus as a bland paradigm of manly virtue, a character very different from the ambiguous and slightly repellent Amazon that appears in Euripides' play. He is proud and honorable, but in this play, only "un peu farouche". His sober mod- 35 �ENERGEIA was able entice Ariadne into revealing her secrets to him. It is also interesting to note that not only in his Cretan escapade are his heroic deeds linked_ to his conquest of women (if in the final analysis we can even make the distinction between the two). Theseus is able to save Athens from the Amazons who threatened it by coercing their queen, Antiope, the mother of Hippolytus, into committing an act of betrayal similar to that of Ariadne. Both of the threats to his kingdom come in the form of a woman (the product of Pasiphae's awesome lusts, and the proud and unbowing Amazon), and Theseus overcomes these threats not in combat, but with an act of seduction. This is the nature of Theseus' heroism. Racine ignores neither of these two heroes, but plays them off against each other, which is what makes Phaedra's speech so interesting. Even if, in the end, he seems to see Hippolytus as the hero, justifying his claim that this play, more than any other he wrote, exalts virtue, the decision is yet an ambiguous one. The fact that in loving Aricie he becomes her captive, that in finally battling the monster he becomes entangled in the twisting reins, leaves open the question as to whether the man who contemplates the storm standing safely on the quiet shore can really call himself its master. • Lyric Narration By Alexa Van Dalsem "Sing, goddess, of the destructive wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus ... " begins the Iliad, and through vivid language the reader is swept into the emotion and story of Achilles. The words provoke sympathetic sensations and pry upon the memory and imagination to relate a hero's tale. For from simple words, spoken or written, placed in careful succession upon the mind, one may experience countless lives and events and ideas. Being social, communicative animals, humans strive to communicate with others, most immediately through words and when words cannot suffice, perhaps through dance, art, theater, or music. In the studying and listening of the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No.7 the music plays into a storyline, evoking different emotions in the parade of musical measures, combining to tell a story, such as the first words of the Iliad. Like a narrator's words, music is a storyteller. The oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horns introduce the second movement as if ending a section of music, holding their notes for three measures. C makes an appearance as 3 in the oboe and bassoon, and E as 5 in the oboe and horns, outnumbering the A's in the clarinet and bassoon. The introduction has a feeling of being almost complete, not quite hitting home, leading to the entrance of the main character, who I call Kedos, represented by the lone notes of measures three and four, theme (a), a slow, precisely measured, melancholy beat (measures 3-26). The A-minor key gives the notes the familiar minor-key sadness. Measures 11-18 repeat from measure 19 on, but more quietly. Having victoriously concluded a war the stately Kedos leaves the battle land, walking in solemnity and solitude grieved of lost lives and his homeland. Coming upon a divinely lit clearing, he does not slow his steps, but approaches quietly, not wishing to be noticed by nor to disturb the figure dancing in the light. The viola and cello take up the melody, theme(~), 36 dancing behind (a) as a less solemn tune (measures 27-50). (~)moves up to the second violin, urging (a) to the first violin as the two tunes intertwine, the beat becoming momentarily less prominent (measures 5174). As(~) proceeds to the first violin, (a) is driven into the wind instruments in a crescendo of (a), made more prominent by the high pitch of the tones overriding, but not wholly hiding, the continued(~) melody in the first violin, and the contrast of the seeming lightness of the preceding section. In sympathy(~) plays along with (a) (measures 75-9.8), dropping off for a moment at 99-100 for (a). Despite his precautions, the figure turns towards Kedos, dancing around him, winding her song amidst his melancholy. Softly she sings of happiness, beguiling him to join her, to forget his pain for lightness. Tempted by her promises and the rays of joy laid against his sadness, prodded by the sharp pangs of his pain, Kedos tries to dance, to mingle with her song. But in his pain he can only erupt into the song of his sorrows, weeping and singing as she sings with him, dancing in sympathy, as he tries to purge his mind of the past. Enchanted by her continued song, Kedos ends his weeping, forgetting sorrow, and eases into her dance. After the crescendo and fall off of (a) , (~) picks up a lighter tune in a lighter key, A minor, in the clarinet and bassoon. The original rhythm of (a) continues in a variation by the bass, but pizzicato, so that the role of the pounding dominant beat is lessened (measures 101-42). Ending the tune,(~) reverts to A minor in measure 139 and begins a downward scale, to .spill into a full tumbling scale, covered by winds and strings from the flute to the bass (measures 144-48). A pair of eighth notes hang suspended at the end to be answered by two more sets of eighths (149). Having relieved Kedos 'pain, eased his piercing cries into soulful looks, she sings of her life, of the happiness he would find with her further soothing his wounds with �ENERGEIA tales of continued gaiety and merriment. She ends her song with arms outstretched towards him, asking if he will join her in the lightness, suspended as she wonders if she has convinced his pain to escape into her dance. He cannot but assent, wrapped in her enchanted song. (p) returns in measure 150, still accompanied by the pizzicato bass beat. Measures 176-77 hold a short set of saddened tones that give way again to a soothing tune, leading into the fugue. The fugue subject as appears in measures 183-86 is another variation of (a), using the same rhythm in a smoother sequence of notes. The fugue having begun with two string instruments widens to all four string instruments, comes to include the wind instruments, and builds to another crescendo of music for a return of the solemn pounding (a) theme (measures 214-23), repeating a part of what the flutes so plaintively declared in measures 7598 . Falling into the lightness, Kedos and she dance, signing her notes of glorious, lulling melody. Under her enchantment his pain finds rest, resurfacing in fleeting instances to be blanketed by her swift hands. She wove his pain into light, relieving his soul with masks made of his sadness. As he dances his light ascends, as she sings he flies, floating only among her notes to be gripped by his unyielding pain. Falling to ground, he cries in familiar anguish as memory triumphs over her presence, seized with realization of his dances 'futility, of the enchanted mask resting upon his face. As (a) repeats in measures 214-23, so does the melodic variation of (p) of measures 101-42 return, again to A major, futilely trying to dispel the reinstated sadness (measures 224-51). The sad (a) struggles over (p), returning softly in measures 243-45 to A minor and the original beat, and is more strongly reinstated in the following measures, becoming climactically loud (by all instruments except strings) as (a) returns, softly (only by the strings), loudly, softly, as if to reveal two contrary views of a situation (measures 24753). The succeeding beat series of quarter note, two eighths, and two quarter notes is played by pairs of the wind instruments in succession (flute and oboe, oboe and clarinet, etc.), to be supported and answered by all four strings in pizzicato, and then repeated (measures 255-70). Finally, the winds consent (measure 271) and the strings, returning to area, speed off to the end. Trying once again to dispel Ke dos' pain, an- swering to his repeated cry, she sings her song' of gaiety and merriment, enclosing his soul in her leaves of easement. But his melancholy winds shu.ffie her leaves to the ground, and as if to convince himself he exclaims, "I have t'o go," a yearning to stay lingering in his eyes, but convinced by his own words. Calmed by his conviction, he found his pain echoed in her slowing song, in her consent. Little to reply, he disappeared beyond the boundary of her faded light. Perhaps not coincidentally, this story resembles that of Odysseus and Calypso. As Homer's epic poetics composed the tale of Odysseus, so does music hold the ability to compose a tale. Listening to music, I often put phrases of words with the music, naturally matching the tones with words. Songs intentionally combine music that expresses emotions to simiiar emotions expressed by the words (or vice versa). Palestrina used voices formed around words to produce a musical composition, expressing sentiments through words and music. An in the Kyrie of the Missa Papae Marcelli, the singing of the "Kyrie" is shortened compared to the elongated "eleison," as if calling attention to the Lord and then singing in supplication for mercy, lengthening the word so that it reaches the Lord and giving "eleison" importance as if the Lord's attention can be easily gotten, but his mercy requires more effort. Together and separately music and words express a story or emotion or can portray a scene. According to Aristotle, " ... that which has a beginning and a middle and an end is a whole." (Pqetics VII.27) Musical compositions and written stories, being complete and whole like tragedy, should have a beginning, middle, and end in which to contain a story, and methods of revealing the building, climax, and resolution within those boundaries-words through suspenseful and climactic literal illustrations and music through the soundings of instruments. In the second movement Beethoven denotes when instruments should become loud or soft, when to crescendo and other such dynamics to set a scene or mood. Music from the beginning (a) overlaps the end of the fugue in stretto, building to a powerful reinstatement of (a), to give a booming and dynamic entry to a familiar tune. While (a) rested beneath(~) and hid within its variations, it could never disappear. Its reentry sneaks up on the listener and hits the ear with grand resolution at its return. (a) and(~) of the second movement 38 LYRIC NARRATION differ through dynamics as well-( a) being more of a march, stately and solemn, using the same rhythm every two measures, with each note pronounced. Whereas(~) flows into a dance rhythm, creating a song theme through varied notes, many tied together to soften the evident beat of (a). Dynamics of music describe a scene and actions as words and phrases describe a scene in a story. As words invoke images of characters which are carried in the mind throughout a story, the use in music of different instruments or tunes defines characters. The musical characters interact as the instruments and tunes interact, playing separately or together, one perhaps louder or higher in pitch that the other, to reveal different qualities and positions of the characters. Beethoven's use of two tunes (the beginning stately (a) and the added flowing(~) which play together, and sound separately, and build over one another, sets apart two characters acting together as the music acts together. Shiitz's St. Matthew Passion similarly distinguishes the characters, having the Evangelist and Jesus as single singers with music and words presented more as speaking than song, sung by musically different voices. The High Priests and Learned Ones as well as Jesus' Disciples sing with multiple voices to represent a group of people, differentiating the Evangelist, Jesus, and the followers. In music, characters are described through musical qualities, which act as words ion character descriptions by playing on the emotions conjured up by the musical qualities. Both words and music evoke one's emotions, letting the mind hold the story within itself, to experience vicariously sadness and joy, trouble and resoluti on, being the· foundation for humans to participate in stories. Different keys easily set the tone, as the beginning key of A minor of the second movement gives the music sadness and the intermittent A-major sections give the music a lighter, less solemn air. The regular beat of (a) reminds the listener of marching, giving the tune solemnity and stateliness. The melodic (~) , on the other hand, with notes tied together, trickling up and down scales in notes of smaller time increments, sounds like a dance, resulting in a tune with a tendency towards happiness. Without these memories or sympathies, one can only see words or music, without truly reading or listening, failing to fly above the tones. Like written compositions, music combines musical elements as a form of expression, resulting not only in a musical composition but an expression of emotion, resembling a story. • 39 �Non-Profit Or~ U.S. Postage PAID St. John's College Permit No. 6t Lutherville, Mc Annapolis, Maryland 21404 ___J � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. ii, 39 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anderson, Christopher (senior editor) Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1996 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1996. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1996 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/93b41461b7659ace3466c7bd09408866.pdf 43956f41b1e4e5b469fe5ec38ad5529c PDF Text Text �EvepyEia: The activity in which anything is fully itself I ._, / , 11 ... vou EvcpyELa ~WY) ... (Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1072b) Staff: Cover: The character for the word tao, "way," "course," in the sense of a way one travels on-a road, path or watercourse. Tao is a key term in traditionalChinese intellectual discourse, where its meanings range from anormativewayof conduct to the dynamic principle that underlies the movements of nature. The character was written by Ch' en Po-chin. -note by Cordel/Yee Assistant Editors: Matthew Holtzman Kristin Masser Anne McShane Zachariah Swindler Junior Editor: Eve Gibson Senior Editor: Danielle Tabela Faculty Advisor: Chaninah Maschler The Energeia staff would like to extend its gratitude to Chris Colby, the St. John's Print Shop, and Barbara Goyette Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine which is published yearly and distributed among the students, faculty, alumni and staff of St.John's College, Annapolis and Santa Fe. The Ig98 issue contains a sampling of the student work from the previous school year which the prize committees have selected for public recognition, and submissions from members of the community. Energeiawelcomes essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, photography, and the like for the I999 issue. 3 �CONTENTS K.I57 6 DRIVING IN VENEZUELA Alexandra Boozer 8 PARABLES AND FABLES Anne McShane 10 CLASS DAY SPEECH I997 Chaninah Maschler 12 EXCERPTS FROM: ''BECOMING HUMAN: A DIALECTICAL JOURNEY TOWARDS SPECIES BEING" Lydia Polgreen 14 UNTITI..ED Marianne Thompson 23 THE TENSION BETWEEN MERCY AND JUSTICE IN SHAKESPEARE'S MEASURE FoR MEASURE Heidi Jacot 24 THE KING OF ISRAEL Samuel Davidoff 36 A TRANSLATION OF EMIL VERHAEREN'S "ONE NIGHT" Eli Wiggins 42 Two TRANSLATIONS OF WILLIAM VoN Gomrn's "NATURE AND ART" Eli Wiggins 44 ANOTEON WILLIAM VON GoErHE'S "NATURE AND ART" Eli Wiggins 45 CHINESE GRAMMATOLOGY Cordell Yee 47 MooN CRATER DEPTII ExPERIMENT Anna Milazzo and Jill Nienhiser 54 THE HALF-DAY Aaron Pease 56 LANGUAGE AND MIND: AN ExAMINATION OF THE PHAEDO AND 0mER DIALOGUES Alan Rubenstein 60 VIRGIN MARY (MOTHER OF Gon) Marianne Thompson 71 EXCERPTS FROM: ''PARADOX AND EVOLUTION: IMAGES OF THE DEMANDS OF MODERNITY" 4 Chris Colby Matthew Braithwaite 72 5 �K. i57 * Christopher Colby classroom on a stage where a lectern was centered. Next to it was a table upon which he placed his suitcase, and he opened it as if he were opening ajar of formaldehyde. In ithe kept his lecture notes: dead, sterile things, drained oflife. On and on he droned in his dry, lifeless voice: mummified notes read year after year to each suffering generation. All from the same jar of preserved, dead feelings. "This isn't music," I thought, "this is mortuary science." Soon, I dropped out of school, disillusioned, and fell into the wild chaos that was rock music and the anti-war movement tearing apart 196o's America. Music of the '6os was loud, sometimes gentle, mostly angry and always heard best while taking drugs. I was not like the wanna-be politicians yet to come, who, for their future careers, and a gullible public, did not inhale: I did. Afterwhile, the warm summer glow of drug-induced blue skies and Woodstock faded into the cold, gloomy, and lonely grey of solitary Minnesota winter nights. I was unemployed, uneducated, and burned out after years of protest marches, rock concerts and all the youthful silliness that comes with drug abuse. The highs and lows came closer and closer until I was always high. On one of my endless wanderings, lost like a refugee, exiled even from myself, I came across a record store in an area known as "the Left Bank" ofMinneapolis near the Mississippi river. It was notorious for rebelling students, smoke-laced coffee houses, and a thriving trade in drug trafficking. There on a shelf I found K.157. The music didn't have a name, just a number, tattooed as if on the forearm of some forgotten boy. K.157. It was a string quartet in C major by Mozart, written very early in his life while he was in Italy, and the recording was an old DGG record in a yellow dust jacket with dark blue lettering. On the back, it said K.157was particularly loved by Albert Schweitzer, who played it on his violin. "Albert Schweitzer?" I wondered. The jungle doctor who helped the poor in Africa, and who, of necessity, sewed torn human flesh together with the snapped-off heads of soldier ants. I bought the record. I find it difficult to describe nowwhat I heard, lest I in turn become another embalmer. I can t1y to describe my feelings about K.157. I don't think it is Mozart's best. It was written while he was a teenager, and other fugues he wrote later were much more complicated: rich tapestries of woven counterpoint. It is uncharacteristically sad-Mozart is not usually a sad man. But K.157 contains one of the most poignant and exquisite second movements I have ever heard. My feeling is that Mozart wrote it while he was in some great pain. Perhaps "The Kaminskis were musicians in Poland," my mother explained to me one day. "They came here after the war. They're refugees, you know, and their son will go to school with you this fall." They had been among those freed from a concentration camp at the end of the war. I was six or seven years old then and about to begin school. They lived several blocks awayfrom us, but in the smallcommunitythatwelived in outsiders made ripples like stones cast into a pond. Even though he was older than me, Christopher, their son, and I had become great friends. He played the piano, and could say his prayers in Latin. On his forearm a black and blue number was tattooed: it was an enormous curiosity to me, but he always kept it covered. In the way that children often do, we had somehow discovered each other; I don't remember how. Heliveddownarutteddirtalley, across asumac-studdedandgrassyfield. "Watch out for the ditch with barbed wire," he used to say, or, "Remember the fallen log where Grey Boots the cat lives? She's had her kittens." On a comer was his tan-colored stuccoed house. In one of the trees nearbywe built a tree fort. We were quiet children, always careful of the witch living next door, in a house with a basement where she threw little children and wicked boys. Christopher practiced his piano lessons nearly everyday, and while his mother tutored him, I had to leave. So I wandered home alone or waited in our favorite treetop for him to finish. Often, while we played together in his room or elsewhere around his house, I could hear his mother playing her viola and his father playing the cello. I was entranced. They were like two mourning doves warbling their tunes : they chased each other, they played together, and sometimes they danced alone. When I was older, I learned the musical term fugue came from an old Italian word, Jugere "to chase or dance". The music they made was full oflife: sweet and calm. It filled me with joy, full of the here and now. I didn't know what the music was they played or who the composers were, but the quiet peacefulness of them playing together cast a gentle, magical spell over me. Three years later, my parents moved our family away to another city and I never saw the Kaminskis again. I never listened to 'classical' music after that until sometime in high school. Then, in a classroom full of bored students like me, I listened to worn and scratchy records. "This is music," we were told. Later still, in college, I sat in a darkened lecture hall with two hundred others trying desperately to keep awake. From a side door the professor entered the 6 .1 he mourned the loss of his own child}iood, when music-making was no longer simply fun , but had become work. The An·dante evokes feelings of great sadness, lost innocence, and pathos without the mind-numbing stillness that comes with melancholia or depression. No wonder Schweitzer played this at the end of a day without anesthesia, perhaps too full with the misery of chi1dbfrthing and of the pain of the dying. This nameless , numbered, second movement written two hundred years ago , sang to me in my jungle as it must have sung to Schweitzer in his . I remembered the Kaminskis. My childhood memories of them flocked back to me like mourning doves at sundown. I remembered hearing the story about musicians playing string quartets by Mozart at a concentration camp in Germany during WWII. Perhaps the Kaminskis played while naked women and children flocked past them on the way to their suffocating showers. Those who listened heard a moment of beauty before their screaming final solution: lives flamed into smoke, anonymous ashes turned into sludge and dumped into a nearby swamp. How can we , in our own personal concentration camps that are our work-a-day lives, understand such madness? "Arbeit ma ch das leben suss" -"work makes life sweet," was written above the entrance of one such notorious death camp. No, not work, but music makes life sweet. Between the little deaths we all suffer during the counterpoint of our lives, music offers moments of beauty and rest, and provides a link to the immortal. It cheats death. K.157 sounds the same to me as it did to someone else while black smoke filled the sky in another land. Whenever the Kaminskis played their music, whoever listened shared in the wonders of the eternal and the immortal, in the great terrors of the here and now, in the forever gone and yet to come , with all its sadness and happiness. In the same way as music, time moves forward. Ifirstheard K.157 a quarter century ago when I was 22 years old, almost as young as Mozart was when he wrote it two centuries before. I gave up drugs then. Like Schweitzer, music was what I really needed. My eight-year-old daughter came home today from school. In her hand, a violin in its case swung carelessly as she chased two mourning doves by the side of the road. Now her fugue begins . 7 �Driving in Venezuela • Alexandra Boozer I. Trying to Return to the Port Hotel with R. The moon roof opened by crank, the leather had a female smell; I was speaking to him through the sound of birds confusedit was night and they were flying. I was a bright orange plume, marking the night, tangerine beads and slight sunburn, a bright flash like the sudden passing of a familiar ghost, or a pet bird speaking, lost in the wild heat. We left the gaudy club an hour before, full on hydroponic tomatoes, wine-marinated fruits, pale green drinks. I have been kissed all night on the neck, though not by R. ; rare bright seeds have been tossed at me while dancing; I listened to Blue Serenade sung by a whore and wept, he didn't notice. I imagined the salt on my thighs cooling his free hand as we drove . We were lost on a forest road driving parallel to a river we knew by smell. Those were water birds flying above. I was surrounded by sexless sounds and painful heat. I knew he would find the way soon to that bleached hotel. I was beginning to fear the separate bed, the cold air-conditioner smell on the sheets, the lone hands. And if we travelled allnight, ran out of fuel, wrecked the car ... I imagined that we were already dying, that he was forced to venture into the heat with me, to hide in the woods and sleep, to never be found. Complete solitude, and the honesty that comes from hunger, the connection between fear and gender. 8 II . Inquiry into the Last Hours Low morning, we stumbled from the useless car, truly hurt and alone, we lay down to rest for days. Our clothes were torn but we were not ashamed; my wound was bound in his own Oxford cloth. His blood glimmered like nothing I have ever seen, he was beautiful and terrifying, speaking while asleep. I was the ignorant nurse, hungry and stunned. We were surrounded by remedies locked in hardwoods, the bitter milk of plants. I dreramed the nurse's dream: His watch read two a.m. a wounded doe eats a native plant, I fell asleep. sleeps to wake up healed. At four he made choking noises I find the plant, we both eat it, and woke me. we sleep together on the mat of vines. "Whose hands are choking you?", I I plead with our bodies for the blood to end. asked him; "Darling", he said and held my hips. But perhaps it is the right medicine: He told me would weep for sex, for regret of if you find this record, you will want leaving me cold so long. to know what our dreams were, what lit our fourth night. I was terribly hungry, surrounded by the sounds of unseen water predators R. told me years ago that he rarely dreamed. feeding at night. I envisioned killing I stayed awake to listen to him talking; that huge beast with my hands. I licked the he muttered a long time about some salt on R.'s elbows. Bangkok beauty stabbing his wrists. His wrists in the moonlight seemed alright. Land of dark oil underwater, I bound them tighter. the crushed carbon, brilliant hidden diamond of the bloody gods, sustain us. And I ate the last supper with my blood husband, seeds and fruit, narrating the myth oftwentyyears and war and bones, the final armistice. I baptized him in that slimy water and my own spit. I sleep next to his life. 9 �Similes, Fables, and Parables * Anne McShane I Similes, fables and parables serve different purposes. In looking at the three , I would like to examine what those purposes are, and how they are accomplished. several reasons: first, to put some distance between the listener (presumably a human) and the character. Second, so that certain characteristics can be targeted; the wiliness of a fox , the stupidity of a bird, or the irritating quahties that only a fly could have. Third, and this may be related to the first reason, stories can be both simpler and a little more extreme. That is to say, had a person pinched the Bald Man on the head, and the Bald Man was moved to shoot the person, but somehow missed and ended up shooting his kid or something, the story would seem both ridiculous and bloodthirsty. Killing flies is something almost everyone does, and is not be regarded as unusual. Having animals rather than people allows for little complication in the story; motivations are always simple, often based on pride, hunger, or, as in this case , irritation/pain , and glee at someone else's pain or irritation. The animals in the fable always represent people, and their actions are to be taken as simple and distinct cases, which can be applied to particular situations in the listener's life. And, lastly, the parable. The parable is also meant to teach a lesson . First, the simile. The simile is used for purposes of description. As a huge oak goes down at a stroke from Father Zeus, ripped by the roots and a grim reek of sulphur bursts forth from the trunk and a passerby too close, looking on, loses courage-the bolt of mighty Zeus is hell on earthso in a flash, for all his fighting power, Hector plunged in the dust, his spear dropped from his fist, shield and helmet crushing in on him, bronze gear clashing round him (li 489-496, book 14 )'. The simile sets up a proportion: as Oak to Zeus' thunderbolt, so Hector to Ajax' hurled rock. The simile is not just an exaggeration-I ate a billion hamburgers today-but a description of a relationship. The simile gives life to the sentence, makes it three dimensional. If one can imagine how such an oak would, at first , creaking, slowly topple, and then falling with increasing crashing speed at the chops of an ax, then so much more vivid is such a tree ripped out by the roots, inspiring terror into an onlooker. And such is Hector. But then, one must consider the rest of the simile; as terrifying as the tree is, that one instigating its descent must be inconceivably powerful. And such is Ajax. Clearly, the image itself of Hector falling under Ajax' rock would be less powerful without the accompanying image of the oak falling to Zeus' thunderbolt. .\ The parable teaches differently than does the fable. A story is told, but the moral is left in story form , rather than brought outside of the context of the story, as in the fable. This creates ambiguity regarding the moral, making different in.terpretations possible. Also , animals are not used, thus bnnging the listener much closer to the story's characters, is, at the same time, making the story more complicated; motivations and feelings such as forgiveness, love and resentment are introduced, as well as multiple motivations within characters. The characters in the parable do not immediately present themselves as good or bad; is the parable above so much a story about the younger son , than a story about the older son? It presents levels of good behavior, brings in attitudes, as opposed to simply actions. There is something in the parable that is not intuitive. The father's actions, to the black and white eye, do seem unfair, and the elder son's reactions justified. But the parable is, quite clearly, not suggesting this, but, rather, the opposite. On a gut level, I cannot escape sympathy for the elder son, though intellectually, the father's reprimand makes sense. I suspect this is a problem the fables do not often pose. 1. Fagles, Robert. Homer The Iliad, Iggo. New York: Penguin Books. 2. Caxton. Aesop's Fables, I95I. London: J.M. Dent and Sons, Ltd. 3. Class translation. Then he said, "A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to the father , 'Father, give to me the share of the household that falls to me. The other divided between the living. And after not many days, having collected everything, the younger son went away from home to a distant place and there scattered his goods, living profligately. Having spent everything, strong hunger came to be throughout that place, he began to be in want. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that place and he sent him into his fields to tend pigs. Having come to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread? I am undone in hunger. Having risen, I will go to my father and I will say to him , Father, I sinned against heaven and against you, no more am I worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men .' And having risen, he went to his father himself. While he was still at a distance , his father saw him and felt mercy, and running, fell upon his neck and kissed him . The son said to him , 'Father, I sinned against heaven and against you , no more am I worthy to be called your son. The father said to his slaves, 'Quick, bring out the first robe, put it on him , and give him a ring upon his hand and sandals upon his feet, and bring the fatted calf, sacrifice it and eating, let us be merry, that this son of min e was dead and returned to life, was lost and is found. And he began to celebrate. His elder son was in the field. And thus going, he neared the house, he heard sounds and dan cing, calling to one of the children, he asked 'What could this be?' He said to him that the brother came, and your father sacrificed the fatted calf, that, being healthy, he had recovered . He became angry, and did not wish to go in . His father having come out, called him. Answering, he said to his father, 'Lo, so many years I work for you and you never gave me a kid in order that with my friends, I might be happy. When your son, this one devouring your life with prostitutes, came, you sacrificed with him the fatted calf.' He said to him , 'Child, you are always with me, and all things mine are yours. There was need to be merry and to rejoice that your broth er, this one was dead and lived , was lost and is found." 3 Second, the fable. The fable is used to teach a lesson. THE BALD MAN AND THE FLY Of a little evil may well come a greater. Whereof Aesop reciteth such a fable of a Fly which pricked a Man upon his bald head. And when he would have smote her she flew away. And thus he smote himself, whereof the Fly began to laugh . And the Bald Man said to her, "Ha, an evil beast! Thou demandest well thy death if I smote myself, whereof thou laughest and mockest me. But if I had hit thee thou haddest been thereof slain." And therefore men say commonly that of the evil of others men ought not to laugh nor scorn. But the injurious mocketh and scorneth the world, and getteth many enemies. For the which cause ofttimes it happeneth that of a few words cometh a great noise and danger. 2 The fable teaches in a very straightforward manner. A story is told; usually involving animals , with a moral. In this example, the moral is put at both the beginning and the end of the fable. It's rather difficult to miss. Animals are used for 10 11 �Class Day Speech I99? * Chaninah M aschler Thank you for the honor of inviting me to speak to you on this, your special day. In the course of the one fifth to one sixth of your life that you have spent at St. John's you have learned a few pregnant facts: For examplethat the avenging slaughter at Odysseus' house, well on the way to civil war, stopped, not of itself, but by a mentor's persuasive command; that the periodic table of chemical elements (which you bought at the bookstore for less than one dollar) is not a copy of an Ur-chart in some Ur-textbook of chemistry, but derives ~om innum~rable experiments inspired by and in turn inspirmg speculative hopes for chemical theory; that the behavior of gasses is less difficult to account for than is the behavior of solids, though gasses seem to be so much more mysterious, mind-like in their impulse to spread; that it was not by looking more intently at the planets that Kepler came to pronounce their paths elliptical rather than circular; that there are languages in which you cannot say "it" (for instance, French); that Greek idiom seems to suppose that once you have seen something, you know it, though your own experience is probablyatvariancewith this supposition (The studentwho's bothered by this discrepancy is the one who gets the hang of the Greek perfect, which usually is a "perfect of result," such as is illustrated by ou bouleuesthai eti oora, alla bebouleusthai "it is no longer time to be deliberating but to have finished deliberating," that is to make a decision, as in Crito 46a); that the American tradition of constitutional law, in keeping a record & thus preserving the memory of the Supreme Court's di.ssentingminorityopinions, holds resources for selfcorrection (thus , in the case of Dredd-Scott Vs Sandford Judge George Ticknor Curtis held that Congress does hav~ the right to control the spread of slavery into the territories, and the words in which this minority opinion was expressed gave guidance to the majority that later declared what the Constitution requires ); that the sources of moral courage are deeply mysterious-I am thinking of the courage of Frederick Douglass and his little band (p 307), the five slaves who, here, in this Chesapeake region, planned their run-away to freedom; that the God of the Bible, just and merciful as he may be, is not nice. You have acquired some proficiency in laying out a mathematical demonstration or executing a laboratory exercise. You have had experience of the pleasure of discerning what makes a proof or a theory tick-what links the many argumentative and observational steps into one melody of connection among connections, and of the pain of not getting it, of the notes of reasoning not swelling into song for you. Occasionally, unpredictably, while working on a paper, or chatting in the coffee shop, or reading a poem out loud that previously would not yield, there has been an epiphany. . _And in anticipation of the next night's seminar, you have, twJ.ce a week, stuffed yourself, sometimes nearly to bursting, with very big books. But this little sample of the things that you have done or that have happened to you while we were here together does not capture what's been distinctive of our endeavor. Bearwith me as I try for a better description. In the second week ofyour freshman year, when you began to study The Elements, you noticed with surprise and pleasure that this mathematics book, unlike all the others you had read previously, does not hide the fact that the words that are coming at you from the page have an author. Your implicit knowledge that the words that are made available by a language do not, on their own, arrange themselves into speeches, that even mathematical speech is personal, was made startlingly explicit through the recurrent formula Lego hoti, "I say that ... " Everytheorematic proposition began with an enunciation, a statement claiming that all figures or all magnitudes or all ratios that fall under a given description also fall under a second description. While promulgating this all-sentence the author simply declared. In the next portion of the proposition , theekthesi.s , or "setting out," the hidden first person who was the source of the declaration made plain that he was addressing a second person, ourselves, the readers, because he issued a command or r~quest, such as "Let ABC be an isosceles triangles having the side AB equal to the side AC," and even so-called "third person imperatives" place responsibility for the execution of the command on the addressee, the second person. Because of the fact that our editions of Euclid's Elements supply a picture of this very triangle ABC that was just mentioned, we mistake, perhaps, what's happening in the" setting out": Maybe it's notthepromulgatorof the all-statement by we, the hearers , who (to grasp the sense of the enunciation's grammatical subject) are invited to draw a case that instantiates it. Otherwise we cannot know what the hidden author is talking about. Now comes the Lego hoti step: the author pops out and proudly proclaims in the first person singular thatourtri- 12 angle ABC has the property he promised all of its kind to have. And, in the apodeixis itself, he makes good on his words by experimenting on our case and winning our assent to his claims about it. Finally, and this is the logically most mysterious step, the proposition circles back to its opening all-statement and claims that "therefore," which means, presumably, as a result of the conversation, which seemed to be about particulars, the universal enunciation holds, apart from that conversation (cf. Post. Anal. I 3 73b32.; Proclus on the" conclusion" of a Euclidean proposition, quoted p. 131 Heath, volume i). The conversational reading of Euclidean proposition that I just laid out stems from the feeling that there is more than a little overlap between what goes on in Euclid'sElements and what happens in Plato' s dialogues. Take, for instance, the episode in the Meno where Meno asks Socrates to teach him that what men do when they study is more properly viewed as recollection than as getting taught (81e) . Socrates says: It isn't an easy thing, but still I should like to do what I can .. .I see you have a large number of retainers here. Call one of them, anyone you like , so that, in him I may demonstrate/or you ... It sure looks as though both Euclid and Socrates believe that they do not have to run through an infinity of instances to obtain the logical right to make their statements about all triangles or all learning human beings so long as they grant their interlocutors the freedom to select the example that is to be experimented on-either in fact or in imagination. The slave who comes to be used by Socrates as though he were some triangle ABC drawn by Meno was perhaps not the cute little "boy" that many of us conjured up for ourselves as we read the dialogue. In ancient Athens, as in the still not entirely bygone American South, even a white-haired old man would be called "boy", so long as he was a slave. By calling these morally uncomfortable features of the situation to mind, we are helped to realize the following: Socrates may have been trying to persuade Meno that, since even when the interlocutor is at liberty to pick his instance from the least likely subspecies of humanity-slaves-it turns out that the learner actively participates in achieving his second, his educated, nature and does not persevere as a mere piece of wax that gets imprinted by the informing teacher, therefore all situations of human learning are misdescribed when the teacher, or speaker, is conceived of as artisan, the student, or hearer, as his material. Euclidean-style deductive science is, as Kant points out (in a section of the Critique which you were not assigned), the wrong model for philosophical inquiry. It's absurd to talk about human beings as though they were triangles. Deductive reasoning (though it's always going on in the interstices of our talking and listening and thinking), is an evanescently tiny fraction of it. Granted. And, as you found out by reading Lobachevsky and Einstein, if you want your geometry to be not only consistent but also cosmologically true, the imagination may have to be stretched to what feels like its breaking point. All of this is true and important. Yet doesn't my main contention stand-that it is only when the reader or hearer cooperates with the speak.er or author by using his conjuring faculty, his imagination, and tries to "set out" for himselfwhat the author is saying, that he grasps his meaning? Don't your four years here confirm that it was by entering upon conversational exchange with the author who speaks in, say, Leviathan or Genealogy of Morals or the Discourse on Inequality that you were enabled to guess at what he means and to determine on what interpretation of his words they would merit your assent? And isn't the courtesy of hearing the author out so damnably strenuous chiefly because our powers of imagination, of calling up the instances to which our author'swords apply, are too weak.and uninformed for us long to sustain the fellowship with him that we demand of ourselves? Fellowship with speakers who are present in the flesh, who offer us faces and hands to look at, not only words, is in some respects easier to sustain. Besides, isn't it both the source and the goal of fellowship with authors? It ought then, to come more naturally! But all of us know-from our years of St. John's coffee shop, classroom, dining hall, not to forget parties and soccer or baseball games-it's not all that easy. It takes concentration, patience, suppleness, humor, the willingness to risk saying or doing or asking something foolish. It takes tact, and (as was so beautifullysaidatlastyear's Class Day), it takes hope: Hope for hearing the unexpected, which may even come from you own mouth! There was a time when advocates ofa St. John's-style education claimed that it educates people to live where other colleges groom them for merely earning a living. Said in acertain tone of voice, this smacks to me of haughtiness and of regret at or disdain for the fundamental fact that, living as we do in modern America, our dignity, who we are in our own eyes and in the eyes of others, must depend heavily on how we spend our working day, how worthy we believe our work to be, how fit we are for doing it, and how much of ourselves we give to doing it as well as we are able. Since all of this is involved in the phrase earning a living, I hope that over the long haul you will be able to say truthfully that your alma mater has helped you become a person who earns his or her living. This will not be easy. It may take more than a little time and cause you some suffering. Yet I do believe that the allrequired program of studies at this talking college has given you not only a preliminary sketch of some of the main continents of the intellectual and moral globe but also some participatory sense of the work that went into and continues to go into the making and maintenance of this humane globe. Apt speaking and hearing-as you've had occasion to find out here, and as your working and leisure life henceforth will confirm-is by no means the sole condition for its existence. But it is a prime condition. In Yiddish, the most heartfelt word of praise is Mensch, human being. My wish-for you, for myself, and for the next generation-is that you'll be a Mensch. 13 �excerptsfrom: "Becoming Human: A Dialectical Journey Towards Species Being * the end of the material dialectic. The goal, Absolute Knowing, or Spirit that knows itself as Spirit, has for its path the recollection of the Spirits as they are in themselves and as they accomplish the organization of their realm. [Phenomenology of Spirit, § 808] II. The Marxian Dialectic The Production of Commodities in General A commodity is, in the first place , an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. [C.I, P-43i' The metaphysical question of the relationship of subject to object is taken by modern philosophy from the time of Hegel to be a matter of the history of the subject's relationship to the objects that make up its world. This is the dialectical point of view: the subject is not a fixed quantity, but rather a fluid, changing one, and as it changes, so , too, does the object and its perception of the object. If formulating a world history is the task of philosophy in our modern era, then the question remaining is from what premises this history is to proceed. The first formulation of a dialectical history of the world was made by Hegel, in hisPhenomenology of Spirit. He begins from the premise of individual consciousness as a substance existing in itself, and from there lays out the history of that consciousness and its journey towards its ultimate end, its solution to its metaphysical quandary, Absolute Knowing, or knowledge of itself as Spirit. Marx proceeds on very different premises. He begins with the fact of human existence in the world, rather than in mind and in itself, and formulates world history on that basis, with the goal ofspecies being as the end of its dialectical quest. Species being is analogous to absolute knowing, but the latter is a state of consciousness existing in itself, while the former is a state of man 's existence in the world. The goal of this essay is to examine the premises upon which Marx.formulates his dialectical history of the world, and follow this dialectic through to its logical conclusion, species being. The first section, entitledDialectic, is an exposition of the Hegelian dialectic of consciousness. I will then take up the inadequacy of the Hegelian point of view, and propose the material dialectic as the true formulation ofworld history. In the second section, The Marxian Dialectic, I will follow the thread of this dialectic through Marx's argument as given in Capital, in order to understand why Marx believes idealism is inadequate. I will then examine the effects of the material conditions of capitalist production on man's consciousness in the section entitled The Material Dialectic of Consciousness. The final section of this essay, Communism, will deal with the actualization of species being, which Marx sees as Commodities are produced to satisfy some human want. The very first kind of production takes place when man produces the objects needed for subsistence out of what is presented to him in nature. The work involved in this process is of a definite kind: it is the labor expended forthe object itself, and it is expended by the one who is to enjoy the fruits of his labor. This simple worker works only to satisfy his wants, and the value of the objects is determined by the intensity of his desire for them. This value is true for the self-laborer only, it has no universal content. As the wants are his, and their intensity entirely subjective, there can be no common measure of them for all men. This is what Marx calls use-value. The worker feels no need to measure the value of the objects of his work when he works only for himself, because his subjective desire for the object is all that is required for its production. When division oflabor begins, for whatever historical reasons, the need for a universal standard of value inevitably arises , as the worker no longer works only for himself. His relationship to the object he produces has changed: it is no longer an object of desire for him in itself, but rather an object of desire for someone else. He produces it in the hope of gaining some object that he desires from someone who desires the object he has produced. In a word, he wishes to exchange his object (for which he has no need) for an object he does need or want. This is the origin of barter. The two producers involved mutually exchange their products for one another. It is precisely when he produces for an other that the object on which he has labored becomes a commodity: The Division of Labor Prior to any talk of exchange there must be a division of labor. In order to engage in exchange, one must produce what one does not need in the hopes of exchanging it for another commodity. The division oflabor takes place quite naturally. It exists already in the family, according to Aristotle .., The various tasks of the household are divided among the family members according to who will best be able to perfonn them. Here, of course, it is difficult to see the "work-for-other" that shows itself quite clearly in the social division oflabor. Members of families probably did not see their relations as alien from themselves, much less opposed to them , but still, the concept seems to exist here first and most simply. The social division of labor also seems to happen rather innocently.Natural ability makes some people more adept at certain kinds of work. If each man had to farm his land, sew his clothes, cobble his shoes, and forge his tools, his days would be quite arduous. In order to reduce his labor time, or perhaps improve the quality of the goods he consumes, he undertakes only one occupation, leaving the rest to others who will practice their trade much better than he did, no doubt. And so begins the division oflabor, or "workjor-other." The division oflabor is the first revolution that takes place in the history of production. Adam S~ith describes its advantages for production. Exchange Value and the Market Commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values .... This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities, only because they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value. [C.l, p.54) When our producer of commodities wishes to exchange his commodity, he brings it to the market, where the exchange of commodities takes place. The challenge he faces here is to ascertain what he can get for his commodity. He knows that it is worth nothing to him in terms of use-value. He did not produce it for that reason. He cannot gauge the subjective value of the commodity to another, as he will surely be cheated in such an exchange. He cannot look into the wants of another in order to find the intensity of his desire for the commodity, and the person with whom he hopes to exchange cannot fathom his desires. Their respective desires for each other's objects cannot serve as the medium of exchange . The only thing that the two commodities have in common, then, is the amount oflabor invested in each. How can one compare two objects that seem to be unrelated? Only with respect to some quantity, some common measure, can they be compared. Since they are qualitatively different, the quantitative measure must be completely abstract, like number. We said earlier that the amount of work invested in an object when man works exclusively for himself was determined purely by the intensity of his desire for the object. When the laborer produces the object as a commodity for consumption The division oflabor ... so far as it can be introduced, occasion s, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers oflabor. 3 The division oflabor undeniably increases the productivity of labor, and probably increases the quality of the goods produced. It is a natural , rational, and dialectical motion, demanded by the inadequacy of the previous mode of production.Work-for-self is inadequate for meeting the aims ofwork, so it is sublated into work-for-other. The division ofla~or better accomplishes the end of work, which is the satisfaction of human wants. This revolution has inevitable consequences for its participants. It places men in relationships ofboth mutual independence and dependence: Whoever directly satisfies his own wants with the produce of his own labor, creates, indeed, use-values, but not commodities. In order to produce the latter, he must produce not only use-values, but use-values for others, social use-values. [C.I, P-48] The social division of labor causes his [the owner and producer of commodities] labor to be as one-sided as his wants are many-sided. This is precisely why the product of his labor serves him solely as exchange-value. [C. I, p.108) Similarly, the work that goes into the production of the commodity is of an essentially different kind. It is work with 14 satisfy with his own commodity. The division of labor transforms the producer of any particular commodity from an undifferentiated human being into a baker, weaver, smith, or carpenter, and defines his being in terms of the commodity he produces. His social position is determined by the commodity he produces, something that simultaneously brings him together with other men (although only because they possess commodities he needs) while separating him from them as individual men apart from the commodities they produce. The division oflabor, then, necessarily brings about an alienation of man from man. It brings men together as producers of commodities, entangled in an antagonistic, estranged relationship with them as producers of other commodities, or simply as others. Once work-for-self is sublated into work-for-other, the former antagonism between man and nature is transformed into an antagonism between men in the form of barter, the first kind of exchange. The division oflabor marks the beginning ofsociety among men as we know it. Society is a conglomeration of individuals dealing with one another as individuals. Social relations are the relationships between individuals in the context of society, that is, where there exists both attraction to and repulsion from other men. The division of labor necessitates the recognition of man simultaneously as an independent individual and as one dependent upon other men. Hence all social relationships between men are merely a function of the division oflabor and the beginning of exchange. Only such products can become commodi~ies wi~h regar.d to ea~h other, as result from different kinds oflabor, each kind berng earned on mdependently and for the account of private individuals. [C.I , P-491 Lydia Polgreen Introduction another in mind. I call this kind of work labor, as opposed to simple work. Labor is work done with the aim of exchange, rather than consumption. Producers are independent insofar as they produce different commodities, but are dependent because each one must rely upon others for the satisfaction of the wants he cannot 15 �by another, he speculates on the amount of desire that the other might have for the object. He expends the same amount of labor as when he produced the object for himself, but the labor involved is essentially different. He guesses, in essence, how much labor the other would be willing to invest in the object if he were producing it for himself. This is how they come to agree on the terms of exchange. Each looks at the labor required to produce the commodity, and bases the value of it in terms of exchange exclusively upon this . Each has labored a certain amount to produce his respective commodity, and this is all the two commodities have in common. This, therefore, is their only measure of value with respect to one another. The labor involved in producing particular use-values is of a particular kind, such as weaving, wood-working, forging, and so on. But as far as the commodity is concerned, the labor invested is entirely undefined and formal . For the purpose of exchange all forms oflabor are merely different expressions of the same thing: human labor as a social substance. Thus the labor that is used in measuring value for the purpose of exchange is what Marx calls "socially necessary labor." This is the amount of labor that would be required to reproduce the commodity today, expressed in terms of a social mean, or average. The qualitative differences between the various kinds oflabor are as unimportant in exchange as the qualitative differences between the commodities they produce. All that matters is the quantitative difference in socially necessary labor. This value is the exchange-value of the commodity. Exchange-value is a purely social expression: objects enter into exchange by their own nature . Once they have been produced, the producer is merely transportation and a mouthpiece. I tis important to note at this juncture the important change that has taken place in this abstraction from use-value to exchange-value. Each producer estimates the value of the commodity in terms of his own labor, but that labor is abstracted, as it has not actually been performed on the object they are now hoping to obtain . Each takes the value of his own labor to be the same as that of the other. Once a value is assigned to labor, it is labor of an essentially different kind. The work that produces use-values is a means to the end of satisfyingwants, while the labor involved in producing use-values is a means to exchange. Work is the activity of gaining one's sustenance for oneself from nature; labor is work performed for an other with a view to exchange. The dialectical antagonism of usevalue and exchange value that arises out of the division oflabor is expressed here by the end of each kind of production . In the first, use-values are the primary end, in the second, exchange values . Hence what was once a use-value, or an end in itself, has now become a means to an end, exchange. So the commodity leads a double life; it has at once both use-value and exchange-value, the latter of which is completely alien from it as a use-value. The commodity is speechless with respect to its use-value; this value is inexpressible .4 Accordingly, this value cannot be alienated from the commodity, as it resides inherently in it. It can, however, through its seller, articulate its exchange-value. Its exchange-value is precisely the amount of socially necessary labor required to produce it as a commodity. This quantity has meaning independent of the commodity itself; it is fully alienable. Labor, as something universally applied to nature in order to bring forth use-values, is a quantity that can be articulated. Use value and exchange-value express the two-fold antagonistic nature of the commodity both in its production and in its exchange. It exists in two ways: for the seller, it exists only as a receptacle ofvalue, while for the buyer, it is a good he can use. For each, the exchange-value that they agree on in common is an articulation of their alienation from one another and from their commodities. Implicit in the reliance upon an alien standard of value is an alienation of the buyer from the seller. They meet one another as opposites, brought together by their differences: each has a commodity that he does not need, produced by labor that he alienated specifically for the purpose of exchange. They meet not as men , but as buyer and seller. Their relationship is defined by the relationship between their commodities. One has a commodity to sell, the other has realized value which he hopes to exchange for unrealized value, i .e. something he can use. Each offers the other something he has alienated. Also implicit in this expression ofvalue is the acknowledgment that there is an other, that the two people in this situation are fundamentally different and that the difference between them with respect to the commodities they produce is what brings them together. In resorting to an abstract measure of exchange they in effect say to one another "You are not myself, and furthermore, I have interests that do not co- The value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composition .. .. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only insofar as they are expressions or embodiments of one social substance, viz., human labor, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity. [C.I, p.54] The commodities begin to take on a social meaning, and with it a life of their own. They become not just external objects in the world, but objects imbued with a certain social quality, the mirror image of the social relation of buyer and seller. In fact, it is rather more accurate to say that the social relationship between the two people is a product of the relationship of their commodities, as it is for the sake of these commodities that they came to market in the first place. A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing.. . because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation, existing not in themselves, but between the products of their labor. [C.I, p.77] The reason for the mystery, of course , is that in producing the object for another, man alienates his labor, and by so doing gives it an independent, objective existence in the world. This objective existence is a condition of the possibility of exchange. With object in hand he goes to market, and the 16 Labor for another necessitates the existence of private property. The philosophy of the natural rights of man, which claims that work is the agency of ownership, mistakes work for labor, and confuses cause with effect. John Locke, one of the primary founders of the philosophy of the rights of man, describes the process of appropriation thus: incide with yours." This expression isolates one 'I' from the other, and drives a permanent wedge between them. 5 Although the buyer and seller are alienated from one another, they seem also to have a natural affinity for one another. They are a beautifully matched pair, each perfectly meeting the needs of the other. But this harmony is a mere semblance. Exchange is possible only because commodities are two-f~ld, having two separate modes of existing in the world. The fust is as themselves, as use-values. The second is as exchangevalue, or as an expression of human labor invested in them. These two are at odds with one another, because they are housed in the same object and yet are of essentially different natures. Buyer and seller approach one another as mouthpieces for their respective commodities, as beings defined entirely by those commodities .6 The commodities have a natural affinity to one another, but they have this affinity only as two ways of expressing exchange-value. The commoditythe producer hopes to exchange attracts other use-values because it has exchange-value. Therefore it is only because the commodity is dual that the exchange can take place. The commodity and its owner recognize something of themselves in the commodity they hope to gain from the buyer, something that simultaneously brings buyer and seller together and repels them from one another. Whatsoever then he [man] removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. 8 But Marx considers this account inaccurate. It is onlywhen the division of labor takes place and the time for exchange arrives that there is any question of ownership. Work is the operation of creating use-values for one's own consumption . It is hard to see how this gives the worker any right over either the means of production or the product itself. For what does right mean here? Rights only become meaningful when man is alienated from man through exchange. With the division oflabor, man allows himself to come into relations of dependence with other men, while simultaneously putting himself at odds with them. For labor is the work performed with a view to exchange. In order for this exchange to take place, there must be some kind of ownership. This is when labor (not work) becomes the hallmark of ownership. It is not simply by performing work that one makes something one's own. It is by performing labor and bringing the fruits of that labor to market. But this is not the agency that brings about private property. Private property is simply the name we give to the means of production and the commodity produced for the sake of exchange. Furthermore, the owner of private property is necessarily alienated from that which he owns. For how is it thathe owns it? He is said to own it only because there is an other. Private property, then, is merely the material expression of the work pei-formed for the other, or labor. The quantitative division oflabor is brought about in exactly the same spontaneous and accidental manner as its qualita~~e .division. The owners of commodities therefore find out, that the same diVIs10n oflabor that turns them into independent private producers, also frees the social proce.ss ?f production and the relations of the individual producers to each otherwithm that process, from all dependence on the will of those producers, and that the seeming ~utual independence of the individuals is supplemented by a system of general and mutual dep endence through or by means of the products. [C.I, p.109-rn] The dependence brought about through the products is the true state of affairs. The alienated products have a truly social relationship with one another, while the producers simply tag along. For what does it mean for men to have a social relationship? The two parties involved must be simultaneously individuated and mutually dependent. The truly social relationship exists between the commodities first, and in the owners only after the fact. The producers come to market for the sake of exchange, for the sake of the social relationship of their commodities. Separated from their respective commodities, the buyer and seller have no relationship at all. Their products are the result of alienated labor, labor brought forth into the world as objective being-for-other, and hence have a life entirely independent of the producer. The commodities are a kind of Frankenstein, a creature created out of noble hopes, but necessarily imbued with an independent existence which inevitably must supersede the original intentions of its creator. The Division of Labor and Private Property So far we have considered only the simple barter exchange, which arises out of the division ofl abor, and examined how private property comes into being out of this same division. We have shown the dialectical move from work-for-self to work-for-other. With the division oflabor and the beginning of exchange, which both bring about private property, all the elements are in place for capitalist production. We must begin our investigation into capitalist production with ~n exa~i­ nation of the various kinds of exchange, and the dialectical motion from one to the next, beginningwith barter, and ending with trade by means of money. IV. Communism [Communism] is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man - the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Com- The subjective essence of private property - private property as activity for itself, as subject, as person - is labor. [EPM, p.128)7 Private property arises directly out of the division oflabor. 17 �'I munism is the riddle of history solved, and knows itself to be this solution . [EPM, p .135] country. In these three modes of production we see how labor is divided. The property, or mode of ownership, associated with each is identical to its particular way of dividing labor. Property, then, is simply the expression of how a particular organization of people, be it a family, state, or trade , divides the labor involved in its mode of production. There is a further division, however, between the owners of property on the one hand, and the property-less workers on the other. In the ancient communal property of the state there are the slaves, acquired through conquest, and in the feudal system the serfs. (The feudal system is somewhat more complex, as there are two kinds of property and two kinds of workers , whereas in the ancient communal system there is only one kind of property and one kind of worker.) Hence we have two kinds of antagonism existing in each system, the first in exchange, the second between the owners of property and the property-less workers. These are separate antagonisms , and they do not intermingle, as exchange does not generally occur between the classes, but rather between states or between the owners of property. There is no real intercourse between them, and hence the issue of property and the issue of exchange seem completely separate. The means of production in any given era are given by the particular circumstances of those producing, as we saw in the three modes of production outlined above. The mode of production is simply the way in which these means are used in order to produce. This is identical with the division oflabor: the mode of production is necessarily dual. It divides society into two classes, the owners of property and the property-less workers. The mode of production is the sum total of this relationship. It manifests itself as a class struggle between the two groups. Capitalist production begins with the appearance oflabor as a commodity for sale on the market. The conditions that bring labor to the market place have been set out elsewhere in this essay, but they primarily consist in the decline of feudal agriculture and the flight of serfs to the cities, and the decline in the guild system due to improvements in technology and growth of the small capital invested in manufacture. The division oflabor in capitalist production exists between capitalists, who exchange with one another. Capitalism brings with it private property, that is , property owned strictly by individuals. In the feudal mode of production the owners of particular kinds of property were allied with one another and did not engage in exchange, for they all essentially produced the same things; feudal lords almost exclusively produced agricultural products, guilds produced different manufactured goods , and the two groups engaged in exchange as groups . But capitalist production places individual capitalists in competition with one another, as capitalist production can take place in any industry and in any place. Thus the alliance of property owners is broken. With the advent of capitalist production the antagonisms inherent in exchange and in property ownership which once were separate become identical. The property-less worker in the capitalist system sells his labor as a commodity, and in- Thus farwe have given an account of production not in its overall history, but within the dialectical process of the capitalist mode of production itself. There are actually two dialectical processes taking place simultaneously according to Marx. The first is the inner dialectic of each particular mode of production, which finds its roots in the individuals who produce and the antagonisms implicit in their self-production. The second is the larger dialectic of world history, which is made up of the serial progression of the modes of production as sweeping historical movements. Each new era in production brings with it a new kind of property, or with reference to the subject, a new mode of ownership. Marx gives a brief sketch of this progression in The German Ideology. The first kind is tribal ownership, that arises out of the hunting and gathering mode of production, which included animal husbandry and farming on a small scale. The division oflabor here is entirely in the family, and the tribe is merely an extension of the family unit. Ownership here is communal in the sense that no particular individual holds title to the land, animals, or other property; they are all owned in common by the tribe, which is divided along familial lines. These tribes eventually come into contact with one another, through trade or war. Because of mutual interest or by means of conquest, they begin to consolidate into city-states. With conquest come slaves, hence the mode of production changes, and agriculture and large-scale construction become possible. Also, commerce develops between states, and cities become mercantile centers, with greater populations. The slaves are the laboring class and the members of the conquering tribes, citizens, are the masters, with the state as the owner of property. Property is still owned in common bythe citizens, but now by means of the state rather than the family. Here we see the first real separation of classes between citizens and slaves. Also, the division of labor between states, brought about by the natural resources available to each state and the various industries indigenous to each, leads to commerce, and hence antagonism, between states. 9 Feudal property arises not out of cities but rural areas. Marx gives the decline of the Roman Empire as a possible reason for the rise offeudalism. Commerce, which was made possible bythevastreachoftheRomanEmpire,wasvirtuallydestroyed by its fall, and in its place came large-scale farming of land owned by local nobility. The laboring class consisted of the local peasantry who became serfs, and farmed the land for the feudal lords. In the towns, industry flourished in the form of guilds, which consisted of small capitalists who employed apprentices to ply their trades. This set up the opposition between town and country, as commerce between them was necessitated by the division oflabor implicit in the feudal mode of production. Manufactured goods invariably came from the cities, and were traded for agricultural goods from the country. The feudal system, then, created two kinds of ownership out of its particular division oflabor: the small industrial capital of the cities, and the large land-based ownership of the 18 tercourse between the owners of capital and workers begins. They are both free individuals , coming together as equals in exchange on the common market. But the laborer is not exactly property-less. Labor here is taken as a kind of private property, something alienable. Since everyone owns private property (now that labor is included as a kind of property), the antagonism of ownership and non-ownership between the classes seems to be resolved. Now the worker has a commodity he can sell, his labor, so all that remains is the antagonism between the various producers of commodities, brought about by the division oflabor and exchange. Just because everyone now owns property, it does not mean that everyone is a capitalist. To the contrary, only the owners of property other than labor can be capitalists. Hence what appears as an elimination of the class distinction between the owners of property and the disenfranchised is actually the reinstatement of this same distinction in a different form. The division oflabor is the true source of all divisions in society, and exchange is the source of all antagonism. Once ownership is the right of an individual rather than a class , the division oflabor and exchange reveal themselves to be two sides of the same coin. Thus the capitalist class is one of individuals engaged in antagonistic relationships of exchange. Their mutual interests as a class are secondary to the desire of each individual capitalist to expand his capital. The laboring class, the proletariat, is engaged in an antagonistic relationship with the capitalist class because there is exchange between them. Labor, the production of use-values for the sake of exchange, is divided amongst the capitalists, and they engage in exchange with the laborer as well as other capitalists .. Where there is exchange, there is alienation , hence the capitalist is alienated from both his fellow capitalists and the workers he employs. The free sale of labor is the first and most impor tant condition of capitalist production. The laborer and the capitalist must meet in the open market, where " Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham " [C.I, p.172] rule. Capitalism depends completely on the freedom and equality of the laborer and the capitalist, as these are the fundamental conditions of any exchange. But so soon as the laborer leaves the market and follows the capitalist to his factory, his labor becomes, albeit only for a stated amount of time , capital belonging to the capitalist. The laborer becomes property just like a slave or a serf, but it is for a limited time , and rather than being placed against his will in servitude, he went to the market willingly. But this freedom is a sham, one that must be debunked if we are to understand the true nature of capitalist production. The laborer is not free; he finds himself forced to sell his labor by the conditions that surround him . The only other choice is death; he sells his labor as the last possible way in which he can sustain himself. The dialectic of the modes of production has delivered him to this state. The laborer is no more free than the slave delivered into servitude by his conquerors. He is brought to that point by forces that are beyond his control. The notion that a person can own himself as property, as something external and hence something that is within his control, and by definition, alienable, is fundamentally untenable. Capitalism, by placing property in the individual and not the class, destroys the fortress that formerly safeguarded it. It is the antagonism between capitalists that brings about the final destruction of capitalist production. The opposition between the capitalist class and the proletariat is a product of capitalist production, but it is not the cause of its downfall. The proletariat need not destroy capitalism by force , as it dies at its own hands. Capitalism relies on the laborer as a free individual, but this freedom is merely an idea, not an actuality. Real freedom is the absence of material constraint on the lifeactivity of man. This is clearly not the kind of freedom that the laborer has. His freedom is in name only. Similarly, the capitalist is constrained by his material conditions. Capital by nature wishes to be expanded, and the capitalist is simply the human form of capital. He is as enslaved by capital as the laborer is. He has even less freedom than the laborer, as he is at odds with everyone and allied with no one. He seeks only his own interest, which is obtained necessarily at the expense of others in his class as well as the laborer. The laborer has only one antagonist: capit al. There is no natural source of antagonism within the proletariat as there is no exchange between them, because there is no division oflabor. They labor only for the capitalist, and hence are able eventually to unite and see their common interests. The capitalist class, by its very nature , can never do this ." Marx calls communism the "positive transcendence of private property." [EPM, p.135] Private property is the kind of property that arises out of the capitalist division oflabor, property owned by individuals. It places individuals in opposition to one another. In the earlier modes of production tribes were opposed to tribes, states to states, and classes to classes. Capital pits man against man directly, without recourse to some unified structure to support his claim. The resolution of this antagonism , of this estrangement, necessarily demands the sublation of private property, the rendering of it into its opposite, social property. This sublation puts the means of production that formerly served capital in the hands of the proletariat. The means of production determine the mode of production , which has been up to this point antagonistic. By removing the concept of individual ownership from production , com munism removes the class struggle completely. The mode of production is simply the way in which the means of production are set in motion in order to produce. When this is undertaken on asociallevel, the means of production are set in motion by society as a whole, not by some particular class. This is possible only when society as a whole owns the means of production. But the dialectical process is essential, as it makes the division oflabor an unnecessary division. The division oflabor arose out of the inadequacy of the previous mode of production, but in capitalist production it eventually becomes its opposite. It is rendered useless by the capitalist mode of production. Private property is the result of the division oflabor, so the removal of the latter destroys the former. Capital, through its accumulation, continually improves production and systematically reduces the amount of labor and level of skill required to produce commodities. It reduces all labor to 10 19 �11 1 essentially the same thing, and effectively turns the division oflabor into its opposite. The division oflabor in capitalism exists only between the various kinds of manufacture, which are represented by individual capitalists. This division has no meaning for the laborers. The transcendence of private property consists in the birth of social property. This can only take place when man recognizes himself as a species being, rather than an individual. Man as species being sees nothing as alien from himself, but sees all objects as objectifications of himself as a species being. ties once enjoyed, and appropriates it for himself. He, as a conscious beingwith a life-activity, work, recognizes himself as species being. This is the end that communism, as the transcendence of private property, makes possible. Man's life becomes an object for him, rather than his being himself an object of his life. That is, his life-activity is his essentially, and is an end in itself, rather than the means to an end. Once his life is his, the dialectic of antagonisms ends. The key is the activity of man: the dialectic moves man by its own forces, propelled by antagonisms that are the product of something external, the material conditions of his life, which are fundamentally beyond his control. His individual will is powerless to overcome them. The recognition of the other (be that man or nature) as identical with man, allows man to appropriate the activity for himself, and the seemingly external activity of the dialectic becomes the self-propelled and selfcontrolled life-activity of man. This cannot, however, take place on an individual level. It relies on the universal recognition of man as a species being. Communism is "the riddle ofhistory solved" because it resolves all the antagonisms that seem to be essential to human existence. By placing man's essence in his species being rather than his individual existence, it removes all traces of otherness from the world. The resolution of Marx's material dialectic is essentially identical in form with Hegel's dialectic of consciousness. But for Hegel, the end of dialectic lies in a certain kind of knowledge, rather than a certain way of being, or way of life. Consciousness's knowledge of itself as Spirit, something over and above itself of which it is an expression, is state of mind. Species being is a mode of being in the world, which Marx sees as the only possible mode of being. Being in the mind, or knowledge, must necessarily be an expression ofbeing in the world, not the other way around. To the question "why a material dialectic?," Marx would surely answer this: "Show me an idea that exists independently in the world as a force that moves men, and I will give up my material dialectic. " The argument for a material dialectic is clearly an argument of the whole, and is made from experience. The world is made up of objects, and objects are moved by other objects, not by invisible forces of the mind. Man's conscious being only reveals itselfwhen he is engagedin some kind of activity, or being in the world. Hence the notion that his ideas are independent of this being, or that the world is a product of these ideas, is es sen ti ally backward. Man becomes conscious through activity, and through his activity he makes the world around him. His activity is not a result of his consciousness, his consciousness is the result of his activity. Ifwe set out from the premise that man first and foremost exists in the world, and thence proceed to his consciousness of his existence as a means by which he perpetuates his existence, we fully understand the material dialectic and its primacy over the dialectic ofideas. This , Marx argues, is the correct understanding of the history of the world, and the only means by which we can realize the ultimate goal of the human species. Idealism, for all its attractions , fails to address the fundamental question ofhuman existence, man's beingin the world, because it places his being elsewhere than in the world. [M]an is not lost in his object only when the object becomes for him a human object or objective man. This is possible only when the object be- comes for him a social'~ object, he himself for himself a social being, just as society becomes a being for him in this object. [EPM, p.r40) Man becomes an object for himselfbynegatingthe reality of the objects outside himself as something alien, and hence independent of him. By so doing he appropriates the objects as expressions of himself as man. This can only take place on a social level, that is, on the level of common recognition of all men as social beings, or species beings. The true inner equality of man lies in the common condition of all men, that of work. The recognition of this equality takes place through the destruction of the division of labor as a qualitative division. Commodities long ago realized that they were all expressions of the same social substance, human labor. There is no alienation between commodities, only between the producers of commodities, for the commodities, as commodities, are aware of nothing in themselves other than the labor invested in them. This is how exchange is possible. Man must recognize himself and other men in the same manner, as being qualitatively the same, and hence equal and unified. Exchange brings alienation only because the producers of commodities see their labor, and thus their products, as something alien from themselves, and see themselves as separated from other men, with whom they necessarily exchange, by the qualita-tive difference between their commodities. This alienation disappears when man ceases to produce for another individual and commences production for all of society. This is not a backwards motion to the prehistoric state in which man worked only for himself; it is aprogressive motion towards a new state, in which man works for society, with which he sees himself to be identical. The common social substance, work, becomes a unifier of men, rather than of commodities. The laborer, by producing himself as a commodity, learns well the lesson that commodity production teaches: that all commodities are essentially the same with respect to other men. By becoming a commodity himself, man recognizes the essential equality of himself as a working being. This is why it is the proletariat that becomes the ruling class. They unlock the secret of human equality through having found themselves made essentially equal (albeit against their will) by capital. The dialectical motion from work-for-self to workfor-other thus completes its elfin work-for-self, where the self is taken as a species being. Man thus enters into the social relationship that com modi- 20 Bibliography The fundamental problem of human existence lies in existence, that is, in the world, and nowhere else. To find its solution, we must look only to the world, the world of objects, of which man is one. His consciousness exists only on the condition thathe exists, and hence his material life, his beingin the world, is necessarily primary. This primacy is the key to understanding the necessity of a material dialectic. This dialectic is one of man's becoming. At the end of his journey, man becomes human. In order to become human, man must undergo the dialectical process that facilitates this becoming. Man's humanity lies in his activity, and because he is conscious, that activity must be his essentially. The only way in which man can possess himself in this manner is by becoming a species being. Once he becomes a species being, man becomes himself. Thus as the dialectic draws to a close, man is completed, and with this completion, man actualizes the true essence ofhimselfbymeans of work, the conscious activity that ultimately defines him. As with every other mode of production, communism produces a certain kind of man. Communism makes men equal and free, not as a mere idea, but as an actual state of being in the world. Communism is a return to work-for-self, but the concept of self has been expanded to include the whole species. Thus it is not really a return, but a sublation. Man is both preserved and transformed. This expansion, this dialectical growth, is the fundamental process of the history of the world, and its immanent resolution is that which propels it. History, that with which philosophy is primarily concerned, ends with the resolution of its process. Where history ends, so too does philosophy. Here man leaves off his investigation of himself and the world as something outside of himself, and begins living in the world, which is merely an expression of himself. The end of philosophy marks the beginning of truly human life. The commencement of this human life is that to which the entire process of history is ultimately directed. Aristotle. Politics. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Princeton University Press, Princeton, Ig84. Hegel, G.W.F. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V. Miller. Oxford University Press, Oxford, I977· Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, I99I. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, Ig8o. Marx, Karl. Capital. Translated by Samuel Moore & Edward Aveling. International Publishers, New York, Ig67. Marx, Karl & Engels, Frederick. The Communist Manifesto. Translated by Samuel Moore. International Publishers, New York, Ig48. Marx, Karl. The Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of !..8..44.· Translated by Dirk J. Struik. International Publishers, New York, Ig64. Marx, Karl. The German Ideology. Translated by C.J. Arthur. International Publishers, New York, I947· Rousseau, Jean-Jaques. Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. Translated by Donald A. Cross. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, Ig87. Smith, Adam. An Inqui:r:yinto the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Oxford University Press, Oxford, Ig76. Footnotes I The C in my notation refers to Capital. The roman numeral following it refers to the volume number. 2. "The family is the association created by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants .... " Politics, I252b I3-I4. 3 An Inqui:r:yinto the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, Book I, Chapter I, Adam Smith. 4 That is, for commodities to have universal meaning, as they do in exchange, they must have a language. Note here the resemblance to Hegel's description of language: '' Language is self-consciousness existingfor others, self-consciousness which as such is immediatelypresent, and as this self consciousness is universal." [PS, § 652] It is also interesting to note that this description comes in the context of morality. What is consciousness trying to bring into the world of objective existence through language? Its inner worth, or value. So the exchange value of a commodity is actually the commodity existing as a universal, or for another. 5 This is the true beginning of the "mine and thine" that so embittered Rousseau. Private property begins with the division of labor and the birth of self-interest in opposition to 21 �other men. This is perhaps the force of Rousseau's distinction between amour-propre and amour de soi-me me. The former he sees as a product of society, while the latter is but an expression of the instinct for survival. 6 There is a kind of community of commodities, they have a truly social relationship. That is, they recognize themselves as identical with one another as values. There is no alienation between commodities, only between their producers. Commodities are social in the sense of being of the same social substance, human labor. The social relationship between producers is a reflection of this, but necessarily different. The attraction and mutual recognition of commodities leads to repulsion and mutual alienation between the producers. 7 The EPM in my notation refers to The Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of1844 . 8 Second Treatise on Government, Chapter V, John Locke. g In Section II of this essay we saw that wherever there is division oflabor, there is exchange, and wherever there is exchange, there is antagonism. (The exception to this is the family, where there is no real exchange.) 10 This raises an interesting question about The Communist Manifesto. What is it if not a call to action on the part of the proletariat? The rhetoric of the Manifesto seems to contradict the notion that the dialectic will be the primary cause of the end of the antagonistic mode of production. Marx's use of rhetoric elsewhere is similarly troubling. What place could rhetoric possibly have in dialectical philosophy? 11 This is parallel to the Lord and the Bondsman in Hegel. The double alienation of the bondsman from his lord and the object he makes for his lord leads the bondsman to find new certainty in himself through his activity and progress dialectically. The lord, because he has no activity other than pure negation of the objects the bondsman produces, from which he is alienated, cannot progress, and his consciousness plateaus. The fundamental difference between Hegel's account of this stage of consciousness and Marx's account of the laborer is also revealing; for the bondsman in Hegel, the next stage is stoicism, certainty in oneself and indifference to the outside world. For the laborer in Marx, this change in consciousness must be manifested in the world if it is to have legitimacy. It must take the form of a demand for changes in the conditions of his life. 12 It is clear that by social Marx does not mean here the society of individuals as alienated from one another by exchange, which is the sense in which this word was used earlier in the essaywith reference to man in society. He clearly means social in the sense that commodities are social; they recognize their mutual identity as expressions of a common substance, human labor. Untitled Woodcarving Marianne Thompson 22 23 �The Tension BetweenMercy and Justice in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure * Heidi Jacot William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is a study of the uneasy tension between the principles of justice and mercy in government. The theme is debated by the play' s main characters. It appears in the conflict between public and private duty, and is raised as a struggle between two competing systems: divine justice and earthly justice. The tension between mercy and justice is most visible in Isabella as she fights within herself to find compassion in her heart for the man she hates above all, whose very life is placed into her hands. If there is one crucial moment in Measure for Measure, it is undoubtedly the moment of Isabella's indecision, when, struggling between Mariana's pleas, she shows mercy and her own desire for revenge, standing silently before Angelo. In this moment, the play hovers between comedy and tragedywith Isabella's soul in the balance. She is being tested by the Duke, whose enigmatic speech urges her first to show mercy and then to exact revenge: Then, Angelo , thy fault's thus manifested; Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage. We do condemn thee to the very block Where Claudio stooped to death , and with like haste. V.r.461-5 Perhaps Isabella is brought up short by this blunt comparison. She does not speak; instead, Mariana and the Duke alternately beseech and goad her on, and Isabella is swayed from one side to the other. Although the Duke speaks sharply, his purpose is still to test Isabella, hoping that she will rise above her instincts and ask for Angelo's pardon. It is less of a test of Isabella than/or her. For Isabella stands in danger of being consumed by self-righteous anger and a desire for revengeby the inhuman coldness with which she had accused Angelo. When put to the test, Isabella finds it hard to give mercy, although h er pleas on behalf of her brother to Angelo in the second act are among the most eloquent and moving lines in the whole play. This woman , a novitiate from the convent, who stands in our minds as the representative of divine mercyin the play, has another side to her as well- one that is less forgiving. Pushed to her breaking point by Angelo's lascivious demands and her brother's cowardice, which makes him willing to sacrifice her honor for the shred oflife, Isabella at one point cried out against the brother she sought to save: For this new-married man, approaching here, Whose salt imagination yet h ath wronged Your well-defended honor, you must pardon For Mariana's sake. .i-449-521 Here he brings out her "imagination," her "well-defended honor," and her friendship with Mariana as grounds for mercy. However, the tone changes as his speech continues: 0 fie ,fie,fie ! Thy sin's not accidental but a trade Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd: 'Tis b est that thou diest quickly. But as he adjudged your brotherBeing criminal, in double vision Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach Thereon depende nt- for your broth er's life The very mercy of the law cries out Most audible, even from his proper tongue, "An Angelo for Claudio, death for death! Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure . V.i-452-60 III.i.156-73 In this moment, Isabella sees such foulness in her brother that she claims that mercy itself would act like a procurer to help him on to further evils. This is the same Isabella who , in her rage at Angelo's treachery (the broken promise of pardon for Claudio's life), says in fury, "O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!" (IV.iii. n9 ). Her experiences in the world have brought her a long way from the convent and her idyllic vision of "fasting maids whose minds are dedicate/ To nothing temporal," (Il ,ii ,189-90 ). Before the Duke in the last scene, she cries out against Angelo, calling for "justice, justice, justice, justice! " (V.i.28). The invectives she hurls publicly against Angelo are some of the most severe in the play. How does this passionate, vengeful fury we see in Isabella, the young novitiate, fit with what we saw in her earlier appeals to Angelo to show divine mercy? This is the same woman who movingly pleaded with Angelo: It is as if these words are Isabella's own thoughts, swinging between pity and anger. There is a curious line here: what does he mean by " the very mercy of the law" which demands Angelo's death in recompense? The word "mercy" is surprising in this context-we usually think of mercy as a departure from the letter of the law, not the fulfillment - but perhaps the Duke intends for it to ring in Isabella's ears. The conclusion of the speech goes beyond the righteous feeling of" death for death," it focuses on the parallel between Angelo and Claudio in order to bring out Isabella's empathy: 24 her appeal that lecheryis, after all, a common sin , Angelo suddenly turns on her with the full force of his righteous anger blazing: ... How would you be If He, which is the top of judgement, should But judge you as you are? 0, think on that, And mercy then will breathe within your lips Like man new made. II.ii.97-IOI The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept ... Isabella : Yet show some pity. Angelo: I show it most of all wh en I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismissed offense would rather gall; And do him right that answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied. Your brother dies tomorrow; be content. How can we understand this disparity in Isabella's character which shows itself in such vindictive extremes and tender appeals? Let us look, though , at those appeals in Act II scene ii. We usually think of mercy being invoked because of extenuating circumstances, corning from the consideration of the particulars of the individual case. In the case of Claudio, Isabella could have pleaded his engagement (a legallyrecognized precontract no less) , and intention to marry Juliet, hampered only by lack of money. She begins, however: II.ii. n5-32 It is a weak conclusion to such a powerful speech. He has lost the force of his argument and tries awkwardly to cover over the brutality of his own anger by telling her to take comfort . But where Angelo breaks down , Isabella gains strength, and she comes back at him (provoked by his insufferable arrogance) in a tone of contempt: There is a vice that most 1 do abhor And most desire should m eet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead but that I must; For which I must not plead but that I am At war ' twixt will and will not. So you must be the first that gives this se ntence , And he that suffers ... Could great men thunder As, Jove himself does, Jov e wo uld ne'er be quiet, Forever pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder, Nothing but thunder! ... but man , proud man, Dressed in a little brief a uth ority, Most ignorant of what he's most ass ured , His glassy essence, like an angry ape Plays such fant astic tricks before high Heave n As, makes the angels we ep ... II .ii .133-50 II.ii-40-4 This speech of Isabella' s comes out sounding simply garbled: She is forced to plead to save her brother-although it comes in conflict with her natural inclination and sense of duty- so that she is at war between will and will not. It is neither a defense for Claudio nor a passionate appeal to show mercy. In fact, when Angelo argues with her about the justice of Claudio 's sentence, Isabella agree s with him , " O just but severe law!/ I had a brother , then " (Il.ii.55-6) , and prepares to go! She acknowledges th e claims oflaw on her brother' s life , and, h aving don e her duty in asking for his pardon, is ready t o relinquish. There is something chilling in the absolute detachment of, "I had a brother, then," she r eally does con sider herself as part of the convent and divorced from life and its "earthly concerns" already. But Lucio will not let her give in so easily, and under his insistence she returns to Angelo. She presses him with unsetding questions. Backed into a corner by his own contradictory statements, he tries to send her away (ll.ii.85). But Isabella is not to be gotten rid of easily. This seemingly callous dismissal from Angelo has needled her. I hear her response, a kind of "I would I were you," coming out of long pent-up frustration at a woman 's dependent and submissive role. In this speech we see Isabella genuinely affected and reacting from the inside, shaking off the demure and reverential character she has assumed. It is not furious, but it is a passionate statement about herself and I think that it is this that catches and fixes Angelo's attention : Ratherthan appealing to ahigher law than man ' s, Isabella attacks human justice itself. Her criticism of the pretensions of man are less reflections on law and government than arrows aim ed at Angelo' s pride and self-righteous attitude. As we have seen, h er first speeches (delivered in cooler blood) show a reverence for and acceptan ce of the jurisdiction of hu man law. It is her interaction with Angelo that leads her further and further into making ardent statements which h ave the sound of religious conviction. Righteousness meets righteousness: Isabella reacts to Angelo's disdainful coldness and arrogance; Angelo is driven to extremes by her attack on him, on law, but mostly on his authority which rests uneasily on his shoulders. When we look at her speeches and how this first scene between them unfolds, we see that Isabella speaks less out of conviction than in response to him - impulsively. We might not be so surprised to find her behavior inconsistent with her statements. Perhaps now we have a better understanding of her character an d why it turns out to be so diffic ult for her to p ut these petitions for mercy into practice in her own life. For Isabella it is an effo rt to forgive. Isabella needs to learn t o let go: she is holding herself so tightly. She shares with Angelo a fierce pride and love of absolutes , grand-sweeping gestures , and high principles; which is preciselywhythey feed off one-another in their arguments. Having so much in I would to heave n l had yo ur Potency And you we re Isabel! Sho uld it th en be thu s? No, I would tell what ' twe re to be a judge And what a prisoner. II .ii.86-9 Stung in turn, Angelo reacts , and the scene escalates. At 25 �Perhaps Isabella's mild plea for mercy at the end of the play is a mark of wisdom her character has come to in the play. More experienced, less fantastically idealistic, she has learned to plead within the framework of human justice, and to consider the case as that of an individual, rather than as an abstract matter: a fault to which both Angelo and she are prone. It is a triumph for Isabella to have overcome the strong temptation to take revenge, and she is now rewarded with the "heavenly comforts of despair/ When it is least expected" that the Duke promised: Claudio returns, seemingly from the dead, and is joyfully reunited with his sister! Most bounteous sir, Look, if it please you, on this man condemned AB if my brother lived. I partly think A due sincerity governed his deeds, Till he did look on me . Since it is so, Let him not die. My brother had but justice, In that he did the thing for which he died. For Angelo, His act did not o' ertake his bad intent, And must be buried as an intent That perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects, Intents but merely thoughts. V.i.500-10 In contrast to her impassioned speeches to Angelo for mercy earlier, this plea sounds somewhat grudging, on conditional te ms rather than on principle. The argument has been "ari Angelo for Claudio, death for death," and Isabella recasts it in terms oflaw again: Claudio died for committing the act of adultery, but "for Angelo," (and there is a heavy pause here in the text), he has not, in fact, taken her maidenhood and stands not condemned under the law's sentence. For mercy, this sounds very much like justice. If itis mercy-pardoning what the law condemns- it must be because justice does not demand intent be dismissed as "merely thoughts" and excused. We might have hoped her petition here would have been in a more lofty vein - some grand redeeming gesture ofloving compassion. Instead, what Shakespeare gives us, is a much more human Isabella. We see what a great effort is required on her part to even bring her so far. In part, such great gestures which paint life in high principles, black or white, have been brought into critical scrutiny in Angelo's character. noble and princely, Barnadine seems to be little more than an animal. Their pairing is especially meaningful because throughout the play, Shakespeare has been raising a question in the comparison of murder and begetting bastards, children born out of wedlock. Angelo is the first to put these crimes side by side when he says (half to Isabella, half to himself): But despite the affirmation in the last scene of the play of the prevailing power oflove shown in mercy, this scene is characterized not by mercy, but by justice! Angelo himself begs nothing more than justice according to the law: "I crave death more willingly than mercy:/ 'Tis my deserving and I do entreat it" (V.i.537-8). He stands by his vow made earlier to Es cal us (although little thinking at the time that his sin would be Claudio's), "When I, that censure him, do so offend,/ Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,/ And nothing come in partial" (Il.ii.3I-3). But Angelo is not to be let off so lightly. He longs indeed for death to bury the shame and selfloathing that has become interminable to him . Instead, he is "punished" with life, the heavier burden for him to bear. The Duke measures Angelo not by justice according to the laws of the land, but with dramatic justice- which punishes and rewards, in exact and appropriate measure, good and evil in proportion to the character's actions. Angelo has not killed Claudio, he shall not die either. He has wronged Mariana's honor, he must restore than honor by taking her now in marriage. In so determining, the Duke also rewards Mariana with her due , honor for dishonor, the fulfillment of her wish for marriage in return for her years of sorrow at Angelo's rejection. The plays supporting characters also receive their desserts. To Escalus the Duke gives "thanks ... for thy much goodness ," and promises more to come , "that is more gratulate": that is , rewards for his faithful service (V.i. 592-3). The Provost, although first arraigned for his disobedience to the deputy is released for his loyalty to the Duke and also thanked. Claudio is given his due as well . "She ... that you wronged, lookyourestore." (V.i.598) . Everything seems to be tidily concluded: the Duke returns and reassumes his rightful place, and Angelo is exposed and forced to make amends. Yet there is one man at the end of the play who does not get what he deserves ... Barnadine- a prisoner of nine years, a murderer, perpetually drunken and surly, who was to share Claudio's fate. He is introduced to us first by the Provost: common with the temperament of Angelo, she too stands in danger of sharing his fate: self-loathing and self-control taken to such extremes that natural longings finally break through violently, destroying the last threads of moral conscience. To feel self-righteous is a pleasant satisfaction, but pride is no more a source ofhappiness than it is of power - Isabella must learn to forgive out of compassion or, nourished by her anger, she will shrivel away. That she does, in that moment of struggle, finally go down upon her knees on Angelo's behalf, is a singing triumph of the power of mercy and love in the play. Swayed one way and then the other, she is caught and held by the sudden similarity she sees between Angelo and her brother (whom she believes dead), and by what she sees in Mariana. When she joins Mariana on the ground to beg Angelo's pardon, it is not because of Mariana's offers to lend Isabella all her life to do her service, or even out oflove for Mariana, but because she begins to see -as if from far off- the unfathomable depths of Mariana's love for this man. Looking at Angelo again and wondering what must be in this man that he can be so loved, perhaps simply struck by the intensity of love a woman can feel for a man; drawn toward what she barely knows, Isabella make the choice to extend forgiveness to the man who forced her to search into her deepest fears and sense of shame. Haltingly, she begins: And he intends to punish lechery as severely as murder: with beheading. To Angelo the crimes are one and the same. Isabella's reply to this is "'Tis set down so in Heaven, but not in earth" (Il.iv.55) . In the eyes of God both sins are equally grievous, but on earth, lechery is given more leeway. Again and again it is said in the play, by Lucio, by the Provost, that Claudio is a man "more fit to do another such offense/ Than to die for this" (II.iii.I5-I6), while for Bamadine there is only the disgust his crimes and dissolute life have earned him. He is regarded by the Duke and Provost in Act IV as something dispensable, a substitute whose head might be used in place of Claudio's. The coupling ofBarnadine' s fate with Claudio's has the effect of making us ask: is adultery a crime? And , if so, is it as great a crime as murder? Only Angelo stands behind the state's old laws which demand death as penalty. The opinion among the play' s characters, however, seems to swing in favor of answering no. Dramatic justice demands the taking of Barnadine's life since he , unrepentantly, took another's. But Bernadine does not die. Instead, the Duke has Barnadine secreted awaywith Claudio, and offers free pardon to him when he is brought into the Duke's presence at the end of the play. How can it be just, by law or by deserving, to set this unrepentant murderer free? Why does the Duke release him? To answer why the Duke rescinds his policy of justice according to desert, releasing Barnadine, we must look back at his experiences as a friar , in disguise, and how they have changed him. In this role he faced and began to come to terms with his fears, his inadequacy, his moral incertitude, and to reach a new level of understanding of the church and tl;ie place ofGodin the world of men. Seeing the degeneracy of Vienna, the Duke has decided, before the play opens, that the old, stern laws, which during his rule he has let slide, must be reawakened. He thinks it will be perceived as tyrannous though, if he, who had given vice tacit permission by failing to punish it, were now to unleash strict Justice. Instead, he resolves to leave Angelo to reinstitute the laws in his place, since he "may, in the ambush of my name, strike home, I And yet my nature never in the fight I To do it slander" (I.iii .44-6 ). Is it a brillant political stroke? Or is it overly optimistic to think that the people will not turn against him when he returns? Perhaps they would be angry if he suddenly be- Call hither Barnadine and Claudio: Th' one has my pity; not a jot the other, Being a murderer, though he were my brother. IV.ii.60-2 Barnadine provides a foil to Claudio in prison: Claudio is 26 gan to enforce the laws, but will they be any happier when he returns and picks up where Angelo has left off? He merely delays the effect. It might, in fact, be worse if the people had been looking forward to his return to end the "oppression," only to find him in support of the new regime. My sense is that the Duke thinks thepeoplewillresentareinstatement of the law from him, having let them get so out ofline, but that they will be surprised, rather than angry, at Angelo because he has no such expectation to maintain. I also suspect that the Duke is not thinking of these ''strict" laws in the particular-that he never intended for Angelo to put anyone to death. Angelo is to him a trial case, a figure of his own creation, not a ruler in his own right. Is this shifting of duty admirable? ~ a ruler, perhaps his plan makes good pragmatic sense, but however astute a political maneuver it may be, how can we respect a man who loads the blame on another's shoulders and walks away? The fact that the Duke is telling his reasons for leaving the state in Angelo's hands to Friar Thomas, unashamedly, leads me to think he does not consider what he is doing and his reasons for it as such a bad thing. We the audience, however, have that friar's observatioon, "ltrested in your Grace I To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased ... " which I tend to read as the voice of the play casting a doubtful shadow on the Duke's behavior at this point. It is difficult to justify. On the other hand, in a certain regard, it does seem like the perfect plan. The Duke is freed from a duty which is distasteful to him, and the job is put into the hands of Angeloa man of spotless reputation, free from the taint of hypocrisy or blame, who embraces the task ofreinstating the laws willingly. At the same time, this gives the Duke an opportunity to test Angelo himself and see "if power change purpose" is in him (l.iii.56-7). What is more, though conceived of the necessity ofreestablishingthe laws, the Duke is not entirely sure of his plan (after all, he has not ruled this way in fourteen years). Through a substitution he gets to observe, from the outside and at the ground level, what such a system would be like. With this end in mind the Duke disguises himself, choosing the habit of a friar. It is for this purpose he has come to ask Friar Thomas' assistance in Act I scene iii: . . .It were as good To pardon him that hath from nature stol'n A man already made as to remit Their saucy sweetness that do coin Heaven's image In stamps that are forbid. (II.iv-47-51) ...to behold his sway I will, as 'twere a brother of your order, Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee, Supply me with the habit and instruct me How I may formally in person bear Like a true friar I.iii-46-51 Here it is apparent from his words that the Duke believes that as a friar he can "visit both prince and people," that that character is somehow outside the political sphere, neither ruler nor ruled. But as Lucio , more wisely than he knows, remarks, "Cucullus non facit monachum,": a cowl does not make a monk (V.i. 298), and the Duke finds the role to be more demanding than he had expected. His treatment of Pompey, whom he meets being led off to prison in chains, shows him still reacting more like the duke he isthan the friar he is pre- 27 �ii persuasion. Duke: But hearyouBarnadine: Not a word! If you have anything to say to me, come to my ward; for thence will not I today. tending to be: Duke: Fie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd! The evil that thou causest to be done , That is thy means to live. Do thou but think What 'tis to cram thy maw or cloth thy back From such a !lithy vice ... Canst thou believe thy living is a life, So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend. Pompey: Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would proveDuke: Nay, if the Devil hath given thee proofs for sin, Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer. Correction and institution must both work Ere this rude beast will profit. IV.w-49-63 The Duke is absolutely stymied! Barnadine he finds "unfit to live or die" (IV.iii.64) , and he cannot bring himself to order his execution. Perhaps the Duke is a somewhat squeamish who prefers "the life removed" and theory to practice, but I think that there is something that he sees in Barnadine which makes him unable to carry out the sentence of death upon him. It is not that he suddenly perceives something noble in Barnadine's life to make it worth preserving, butthe opposite. Barnadine's life bespeaks intemperance and brutality. He has shown himself to be more of an animal than a man. He has wasted away, idle , in prison these nine years , a social outcast neither harming nor benefitting his fellow man. If Barnadine were to die now, what could be said about his life? Is man no more than this? The horror he feels in this reflection makes it impossible for the Duke to give the order to end this life and so conclude the story. Moreover, the same concern which he showed in this instance that Claudio be persuaded to be reconciled to death cries out against the beheading ofBarnadine in his drunken stupor. Yet, as a Duke, it is his reponsibility to see that the law and the punishment of criminals are carried out-and in this particular case, it is necessary if his own plot is to work. Helpless, in disgust, he gives the order for Barnadine's death , but confesses to the Provost that Barnadine is "a creature unprepared, unmeet for death; I And to transport him in the mind he is I Were damnable" (IV.iii .68-70). Here, and for the first time, the Duke shows some concern for the state of his own soul-and doubt in himself. From this predicament, the Duke is saved, not by his own cleverness, but by the hand of God. "Here in the prison," the Provost reveals, "there died this morning of a cruel fever I One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate, I Aman of Claudio's years, his beard and hair just of his color ... " "O, 'tis an accident that Heaven provides!" the Duke exclaims (IV.iii .70-8). God has provided a ram caught in the thicket to be offered in place of the son whom it would be a sin to kill. The experiences of the Duke in disguise are for him, life-changing. In diguise , the Duke has watched Angelo strip off his virtuous " seeming" ; in disguise he has been startled by Juliet and has fallen in love with Isabella. He has seen the inadequacy of "reason"to persuade Claudio, and its complete and utter failure before a man like Barnadine. He has heard his own character abused by Lucio (and had to struggle to hold his temper). He has been confronted by th e frustration of wanting to act, and the conflict between acting as a man of state and a man of God. His understanding of what it is to be a ruler, in the end, is expanded to include the religious. His images ofleadership now include both the sacred and the secular. To Isabella he says: III.ii.20-35 There he speaks as a ruler, as one who must think of the general welfare and public safety, not as a priest for whom the individual soul is of primary importance. Would a friar advocate "correction and instrcution" in prison for the well-being of Pompey's immortal soul? The Duke shows in his language he considers Pompey even less than a man with an immortal soul, for he is a "rude beast," incapable of responding to anything but physical punishment and reward. It is worth taking a moment to recall that this violent rebuke of Pompey for being a bawd comes almost immediently after the Duke arranges with Isabella Mariana's secret tryst with Angelo. Is it possible that some of the abuse the Duke hurls on Pompey comes out of a secret disgust with himself? He is not as unlike Pompey as he would like to think. The real moment of change, when the Duke begins to grasp both the inseparable connection between political and spiritual matters and at the same time his own incompleteness and inadequecy, is in his encounter with Barnadine in prison. Taken by surprise by Angelo's double-dealing treachery which will deny Claudio life through the forfeit that has been paid in a maid's dishonor, the Duke has to quickly come up with another plan to save Claudio's head. A substitute must be found for Claudio as there was for Isabella. And why not Barnadine? Barnadine, who has been proven guilty beyond doubt, and who openly confesses his crime without penitence; Barnadine who is sentenced to die the same day-might his head not be struck off early and be sent to Angelo in Claudio ' s stead? "Call your executioner," the Duke tells the Provost, "and off with Barnadine's head. I will give him present shrift and advise him for a better place" (IV.ii.221-23). But Barnadine proves to be more of a challenge: he will not consent to die! Dragged, half drunk from his prison cell, he refuses to listen to the Duke's prepared speeches and sanctimonious words: Dulce: Sir induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you. Barnadine: Friar, not I: I have been drinking hard all night, I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that's certain . Dulce: O sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you, Look forward on the journey you shall go. Barna dine: I swear I will not die today for any man 's Come hither, Isabel. 28 mercy as they hope for grace. Sexual offense, the play has impl1ed, is less grave than murder, but the Duke's pardoning ofBarnadine goes beyond even this distinction: all crime, even crime as grievous as murder, can be forgiven. Punishment now in the Duke's realm is to be instruction , not by blows, but by spiritual counsel. With Barnadine's judgment, the play is raised beyond the narrow margins of justice by the Duke's visions of commonality, and therefore sympathy, among all men. It is an inspiring moment, but unfortuneately, this is no way to rule a kingdom. Law has been and will be created to protect a stable society from the ravages of crime bred by greed and unchecked license. If one wishes to pardon all offenses , one would have to live secluded from the world or die its vic6m. There must be a balance in the state between justice and mercy, although this seems to be against the spirit of Matthew' s writing. Shakespeare recognizes and brings out the tension between political and private duty. How can you be arulerwho must judge and enforce lawagainstyourfellow man, and yet obey the spiritual injunction t o forgive as you yourself hope for forgiveness from God? In some ways Angelo is a better ruler because he knows this, and makes a careful distinction between what is public and what is private. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the example he gives Escalus of a jury passing judgment who "may in the sworn twelve have a thief or two I Guiltier than him they try." This is the basis of his conception oflawandits proper use: "What's open made to justice, /That justice seizes. What knows the laws I That thieves do pass on thieves?" (Il.i.23-5). Justice (which for Angelo means carrying out the penalty of the law) concerns itself only with what is made public; private causes or sympathies are not to be urged for they are irrelevant for this understanding of government. Although he claims concern for the good of the polity, discouraging crime by invoking harsh penalties, it seems to me that Angelo has essentially two motives in wanting to see justice served. The first is simply a love of rules and stricture which shows reverence for the law as a thing in itself: because a man has broken the law, he will p ay the penalty directed by that law (not from any consideration of what that penalty is, but solely because it is handed down by tradition); the second is a natural desire for reciprocity, to insure that he who injures aniother is hurt in equal measure. Angelo blends both of these motives to see justice wrought: a strong motive of vengeance which he cloaks (even withoutknowingithimself) in the objective , political garb of doing his duty as a deputy of the state. To a certain extent, Angelo' s attitude towards justice does make him a good ruler, since he respects the law and makes it his primary concern to see it carried out. He neither expects nor considers any exceptions on personal grounds; he understands his position and accepts the responsibility alone for his decisions, keeping the distinction between public and private. His view is pragmatic. I find his argument for the justice of Claudio's sentence according to the law strong and convincing. At the same time, how can we help but be aware of how Angelo (untried, ignorant and unforgiving of Your friar is now your prince. Advertising and holy to your business, Not changing heart with habit, I am still Attorney to your service. V.i-426-31 What he has gained from his experiences is a new respect for religious concerns and for the providence of God in the political realm. The roles of friar and ruler have become blurred. What the Duke has learned reflexing upon the example of Angelo is this: He who the sword of Heaven will bear Should he as holy as severe; Pattern in himself to know, Grace to stand, and virtue go; More nor less to others paying Than by self-offenses weighing. III.ii.265-70 Here the Duke is saying the ruler ought not to punish "more nor less" than what he finds within his conscience. This is diametrically opposed to Angelo, who casually accepted that, often, "the jury... I May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two I Guiltier than him they try" (Il.i.20-23). Affected by this reflexion, (perhaps having gained newwisdom into the common ality of man, or perhaps moved by Isabella's plea for Angelo) when Barnadine is led before him in the final scene, the Duke addresses him thus: Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul That apprehends no furth er than this world And squarest thy life accordingly. Thou ' rt condemned: But, for those earthly faults , I quit them all; And pray thee take this mercy to provide For better times to come. Friar, advise him ; I leave him to your hand. V.i .542-58 Ifhe is condemned, it is by Heaven , for the Duke will not presume to pass judgment upon Barnadine for his earthly crimes. Not to the correction of a prison cell where he once sent Pompey, but to the care of a friar the Duke now commits this man who had been proclaimed, "careless , reckless , and fearless of what's past, present or to come ; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal" (IV.ii.157-9 ). In light of this example of mercy, I believe the intention of the Duke's speech, "He who the sword of Heaven will bear ," is not that one ought to take care to be spotless in virtue, but, (coupled with the telling example of Angelo's fall) that no man can hope to attain such freedom from imperfections, and that we are bound accordingly to use the utmost mercy. The title phrase " Measure for Measure," (which appears in the Duke's speech to Isabella in Act V, inciting her to take revenge on Angelo as he has killed her brother ) comes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew-and the meaning there is not to justifythe Mosaic law, " An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth ." Quite the opposite: Jesus in Matthew's account says to the crowds, "If you want to avoid judgment, stop passing judgment. Your measure will be used to measure you" (Matthew r1-2) 2 • To God is left the power to judge and to condemn; men must use 29 �his own humanity) is setting himselfup for a fall? Against Angelo's uncompromising reliance on the law stand Isabella and Escalus, who try to persuade Angelo to mercy by appealing to conscience. They ask him to regard the situation as if he stood under the judgment of Heaven rather than think of himself as the dispenser of justice on earth. In contrast to the earthly justice Angelo represents , Isabella and Escalus urge a kind of divine justice which differs in two respects: r) the judge himself is judged, " and wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote from thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?" (MatthewT4)both of which urge the ruler to think of himself first as a man and take care for his own soul; 2) desire is equivalent to crime in Heaven just as surely as if you had committed the act: "Ye have heard it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: Butl sayuntoyou, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery alreadywith her in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-8). Both Escalus and Isabella rely upon these two premises of divine justice in their arguements. When Isabella asks Angelo, in essense , to love the sinner and hate the sin, Angelo replies scoffingly: unrelated to Claudio's sentencing, although it might make for a powerful emotional appeal. But Angelo has , in fact, not committed the crime for which Claudio is arraigned, as Ecalus knows, and so he makes a "you would" argument, which moves rhetorically from desire to action: it is only a matter of inauspici ous circumstance which keeps desirer from becoming fact in Angelo's case. Angelo's response is to separate desire and action , "'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, I Another thing to fall. .. " (Il.i.18-9) , and to emphasize the impartiality of the law and his willingness to give up his own life under the same charge. Two wrongs do not make a right. The appeal of Escalus' to " natural inclination," desire , makes me wonder what it is we pass judgment up on? Fact, answers Angelo, deed, violation of the law. "Thoughts are no subjects," Isabella says at the end of the play, but "Go to your bosom and knock there" in Act IL T his seems to be a crucial distinction between earthly and divine justice. On earth, how can we know punishment on the basis of motive alone? We have access only to deeds, to public , not private matters. On earth, the person standing trial must be considered separately, apart from any other at that moment in timesomeone else's crime is irrevelant (ifwe agree that two wrongs do not make aright). We may feel sympathetically, atthe same time, that crime should not be punished if many others or the judge himself is guilty of the same crime. But, before Heaven each man stands trial himself, and there can be no pointing fingers to your neighbors ' sin as greater than your own . The crimes of my fellow man are not my concern, only my conscience before God. And we are not judged only for our deeds, but for our desires as well. How can the ruler on earth perform his duty under the weight of the perpetual duty to Heaven? Earthly justice requires that we consider each crime as a separate case, and that we punish on the basis ofaction ratherthan desire , but to say this is to remove oneself from the juristiction of Heaven: the ruler must, temporarily at least, think of himself as not under the judgment of God. The arguments for justice and mercy in the play reveal a tension between the idea of earthly and divine justice and and call into question the possibility of being both a good ruler and a man. What I do not understand is how Angelo can be so right, and at the same time so wrong. Examinded piece by piecelfindmyselfwholeheartedlyin agreementwith the practices and principles of what I have called earthly justice, but he is under assault throughout the play from Escalus, from Isabella, and from the Duke, and these people are vindicated (morally) while Angelo descends lower and lower into hypocrisy and corruption. It is true that ifwe expect our rulers to be free from all taint, and even impulse, then no one can live up to demands made on the ruler in the Duke's speech, "He who the sword of Heaven will bear ... " (and this means a radical statement against all forms of government, unless on e can be conceived of which is not disciplinary), but why should the ruler have to try to live up to this impossible standard? Is Angelo's position wrong because he becomes unscrupulous? By his own understanding, no, since two wrongs do not make a right-condemn me then to if I so offend, the law stands by Condemn the fault and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done. Mine were the very cipher of a function, To fine the fault s whose fine stands in record, And let go by the actor. II.ii.50-4 Which is true ; such a protest leaves no room for earthly justice. Just as Isabella demands of Angelo "Go to your bosom: Knock there and ask your heart what it doth know I That's like my brother' s fault. " Escalus' argument is: Let but your Honor know ... Had time cohered with place or place with wishing, Or that the resolute acting of your blood Could have attained the effect of your purpose, Whether you had not sometime in your life Erred in this point. Il.i.9-16 But consider carefully the foundation of Escalus' argument: There is a logical fallacy called "Pointing to Another Wrong," a means of confusing the issue athand byintoducing another. In Fallacy-The Counterfeit of Argument 3: Though many give lip service to the adage "Two wrong do not make a right," few are not tempted to mitigate blame for wrongs on one side by citing those on the other. Justice seems to demand that one who complains of wrongdoing should himself have "clean hands ." Powerful charges are difficult to answer, by showing that the accuser himself is guilty of misconduct. This device is an effective rejoinder in controversy since it both deflects attention from the original grievance and creates sympathy for the accused party... Yet even when the countercharges are deserved, all that is demonstrated is that neither side is right when both are wrong. 3 Whether or not Angelo has ever felt the desire is irrelevant. Even if Angelo had committed adultery that fact is logically 30 When nights are longest there: I'll take my leave And leave you to the hearing of the cause, Hoping you'll find good cause to whip them all. II.i.136-9 itself, not subject to my example. The danger of that thought surfaces in Claudio's shaky morality. His definition of crime depends upon the judge, and he reasons that an action can not be considered a crime if teh judge is guilty of the same. Angelo , for all his strong arguments, does not stand by the~, because he did not turn himself in as he ought to have done if he really did believe in the absolute objectivity of the law as he says he does. Would anyone have turned himself in? Is the problem not "can anyone be of sin to judge ," but, "can we expect anyone to show such honesty?" There are judges who are not guilty ofbreaking the law, but this is considering crime to be deed rather than inclination. The powerful thing about inclination that I cannot quite let go of is that it is the basis for seeing commonality of men. There is something so profound and beautiful to me in the Duke being able to look at Barnadine and see something of himself. The moral we draw is not, we are all sinners, therefore I am wretched and evil, but, here is something to pity and to love, loving your neighbor as yourself. And indeed, at the end of the play Angelo , the judge, himself comes under the sentence of the law and is judged. Angelo stands condemned for two different things: for adulterywhich is a matter for the law, andforthe death of Claudio, which is not since Angelo is in this case entirely justified according to the law and by the power invested in him by the Duke. It is the death of Claudio which Isabella pardons him for, though , and the remainder of her plea for "mercy" for Angelo focuses on the fact that Angelo really did not committ adultery with her. These two separate charges become confused in the end, because the argument is that Angelo is guilty of the one (Claudio' s death) only because he is guilty of the other (adultery). Not only does this reason rely on the same "two wrongs" fallacy, but the characters who prosecute Angelo for his misdeeds have wanted to argue throughout that play that adultery is not a crime. Actually they are passing judgment on Angelo for being a hypocrite. What is Angelo's crime? To me it is not Claudio' s death (real or supposed) which is legally justified, not even desiring Isabella or making love to Mariana since she is a willing and consenting party, but that moment when he realizes, "Who will believe thee, Isabel..."; that he can use his position to force her, that acceptance of hypocrisy, duplicity in choosing from then on to hide the truth behind until he is utterly confuted by the Duke's revealing himself. But whether we side with the justice of Angelo or of the Duke, there are elements in Angelo' s character which make him, even at his best, a poor ruler of men. We see this in act II, scene i, when the bumbling constable Elbow and his two prisoners appear before Escalus and Angelo. Although Angelo strives to maintain his "gravity," that cool, collected mask of impassivity, Elbow's malapropisms , Pompey's coarse, high-handed manner (conducting his own trial), and the general confusion and ineffectuality of the whole proceedings drive him to the breaking point of utter frustration where he suddenly explodes: Escalus remains and spends his time listening, trying to sort out the complaint; he tries to reaon with Pompey and reawaken his conscience, indulging in a little humor on the side. Escalus (whose name contains the word "scale") considers each case separately and tailors his punishment accordingly. Unfortunately, the play casts doubt on the effectiveness of Escalus' methods (Pompey leaves unrepentant and fixed in his ways) , but Escalus' example is chiefly imp ortant here for the contrast it provides to Angelo's pent-up fury, pride and impatience. Because Pompey is oflow birth , Angel o sees him (not unlike the Duke in Act III ) as incapable of instruction: punishment alone will keep him in line (nothing better can be expexted of such a creature), and his punishment will be whipping. Angelo judges Pompey unworthy of death; indeed, how can one punish with severity a man in whom vice is regarded as simply nature? Angelo's class prejudice and impatience expose the weakness of his character and of his rule. Control, for Angelo, is primary. He wants people and events to conform rather than stopping carefully to look and listen to the way other people perceive the situation. Behind this lies a certain self-importance and lack of consideration. Although Escalus is able to see the humor in the misguided ramblings of Elbow, Angelo is frustrated to the point of rage by the confusion and incompetence which surrounds him. But in no small part, frustration at incompetence is also a feeling of righteous self-satisfaction . It contains a judgement that the situation is important, and that it is someone else mistake which is causing the "trouble," (another value judgment about outcome): I know better, but it's his fault that what I think is right is not happening. The situation is important to Angelo because it is a case for the law to be enforced, but the details of the case (precisely what Pompey emphasizes) he finds interminable. Angelo has no patience with "trivialities": everything must be big and bold, principle against principle, ofheroic, tragic stature- smallness and ambiguities are repulsive, life is to be lived greatly with drama and power. The message Angelo communicates by his abrupt departure is that trivialities are a waste of his time (my time is important) , and that his work here thwarted, now to be sought elsewhere, is pressing and significant (I am important). Angelo's outburst is not only a a response to the imbe cility he sees around him, but to Pompey's repeated attempts to take charge of his own trial. In this situation control is tenuous, and the authority of the law and the statesman is mocked, Angelo is unable to tolerate such high-handedness from an underling. A good ruler, however, cannot have such contempt for his subjects, nor hope to avoid the mundane business of government. The state is a collection of people , after all, and any ruler who forgets this and looks on justice as something abstract is either tyrannical or ineffectual. The Duke, I believe, succeeds, where Angelo fails . The dramatic justice which the s This will last out a night in Russia 31 �Duke delivers at the end of the play shows him to be individualistic where Angelo is absolute, forgiving where Angelo is proud and untouchable. Our concern should be, though, whether the Duke shows mercy to a fault. What has happened since the beginning of the play, when the Duke decided greater strictness ought to be enforced? Must law be upheld? So much seems to depend on how disordered the city has become. The evidence we have of the lawlessness ofVienna comes almost entirely for the Duke's own report, and the question is whether his perspective is an accurate reflection of the dissolution of state. Then, too, the only crime which Angelo and the Duke are concerned with is sexual promiscuity. Why should licentiousness be a political concern? Possibly it encourages instability and helps to nourish other small petty crimes such as gambling, stealing, or drinking which fill the brothel-taverns. Possibly there is a very real public health concern about the proliferation of venereal disease among the populace-our only other hint as to the condition of the city, in fact, is this: a comic scene in which Lucio and his friends pun on venereal disease and its spread. Has the duke changed his methods of governing, or has seeing the example of Angelo caused him to reevaluate the need for strict laws? The change we saw in his character wrought by his experiences as a friai· is the inclusion of a religious or spiritual concern in politics. This is most apparent in contrasting his treatment of Pompey, and later, Barnadinebut then we ask has the Duke' s policy changed, or are the causes of Pompey and Barnadine different in kind? The one a clever, long-time bawd, the other a brutish and violent single offender. If Pompey had appeared in the final scene (though he and other low-life of the play are, perhaps conspicuously, absent), would the Duke have found it in his heart to offer pardon to this repeat offender? Will the Duke, put-off by Angelo's deadly justice, turn to the other extreme and set all free? When we look at the judgements the Duke passes at the end we see the difference between Angelo and Duke's conception of the purpose of justice. Angelo is not a statesman pure and simple; he wants to purge the state, not just keep it in reasonable functional order. Angelo's conception of justice is carrying out the penalties incurred by the violations of the law-his system of justice is based on expectations and absolute measures which leave no room for mercy except as weakness on the part of the judge in being susceptible to emotional appeal. Mercy is foreign to Angelo's concept of statesmanship; pity he understands only as the extirpation of criminals from society which both removes the offender and forestalls, by the severity of the example, further vice: to punish the crime? His betterment by instruction? Claudio is to die, not learn from his error. Does it better his soul in heaven to have his crimes punished on earth? Or is "right," not better, but justly served?-a sentence which does not benefit but balances the account . The purpose of justice in Angelo's eyes is to remove the offender from society and to deter others by making harsh example, but, underneath , it is fulfilling a desire to see evil deeds punished. 4 The Dukes' purpose in passing judgement is the social good, the effect it will have on the society-so that punishment is not an end in itself but a means to some further end which protects the polity. This is appropriate because justice is a concept of community. The "dramatic justice" he serves in the end accomplishes this. Angelo's justice is rooted in a sense of moral outrage which demands that a man who has hurt another is to be hurt himself in equal measure. He would fit the punishment to the offender so that he is punished by the excess of his own crime. But the desire to see offense punished equally could be accomplished by demanding equal payment, such as an eye for an eye. Or, in a milder form, the trespass might be accorded some unspecified punishment which is only concerned with makingthe criminal suffer in someway forthe suffering he has caused. Now, all of these are different from the dramatic justice the Duke shows in the end because the purpose of dramatic justice is to compel the offender to make amends, not to inflict more injury to make it "right" . This is a radically different idea of the purpose of justice, and one which focuses more on the ramifications of the punishment than on the punishment as an end in itself. Dramatic justice does not resolve the tension between earthly and divine justice: it is still a kind of judging, and as such belongs to the realm of earthly justice, but holding a people to make retribution without inflicting further penalty is the closest a system of government which still protects its citizens can come to acting a according to the idea of divine justice. It is therefore a kind of compromise between the extremes Angelo and Isabella argue. In the dramatic justice the Duke dispenses in the final scene of the play he manages to hold people accountable for their misdeeds, but not to punish them beyond making amends-the sentence of death Angelo , Claudio, and even Lucio, stand under is commuted to marriage: the tragedy becomes a comedy (another kind of substitution !) . In this final scene Lucio stands out because he is the on e the Duke claims he cannot find it in his heart to forgive. In Barnadine the duke saw something of himself, and pardons him as he hopes to be pardoned in turn, but here he says, "I find an apt remission in myself;/ And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon ... " (V.i.561-2) . Lucio's slanderous, snide witticisms have gotten under his skin, and he proposes to have him whipped and then hanged, against which Lucio (for once deprived of his supercilious, cocky air ) cries out piteously. He is, of course, forgiven his slanders (as I suspect the Duke intends all along), and let off with only the injunction that he must marry the woman he got with child, (another case of marriage being used I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know , Which a dismissed offense would after gall; And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, lives not to act another. II.ii.I27-3I But this second argument which has slipped in here is curious. " Do him right"? How is it "doing" the criminal "right" 32 to restore honor and make amends), and Lucio, one of the most comic characters in this dark tale is taken awayprotestingthat beingmarried to a whore " is pressing to death , whipping, and hanging! " (V.i .586-7). The reversal further underscores the tragicomic nature of the playwhen Lucio can complain that marriage is like death to him! We have seen that the play raises the question of acting with regard to the judgment of heaven or according to the laws on earth , and that this places the ruler in the problematic position ofbeing both the one judging and the one being judged. It would be wrong to say that the tension between political and private duty is resolved by the end of the play, but the Duke does manage, in a way, to combine roles ofboth a ruler and a man. In the final scene we see him dispense well-measured justice-the capable ruler-and we are made aware of him at the same time as a single , private man by his offer of marriage to Isabella. Previously he had considered himself past marriage, preferring to study rather that " to haunt assemblies/ Where youth and cost a witless bravery keeps" (I.iii.ro-1) ; well-defended, as he thinks, from "the dribbling dart oflove" that cannot "pierce a complete bosom" (I.iii.2-3 ). But his experiences as a friar have changed him , not only in bringing him close to Isabella, a woman he deeply admires, but in forcing him to see things larger than himself and face situations where his powers were inadequate to the task. Perhaps one of the motivations behind his decision to leave in the beginning of the play was to test Angela as a successor. If so, that has been subsumed by his decision to marry. And Isabella? Is she also allotted justice in the end? The ambiguous end of the play, which leaves her no lines to accept or decline the Duke' s proposal, has often been interpreted darkly as a final miscarriage of justice. Whether Isabella is thwarted in her religious aims , or suppressed by a dominant male society, she stands in the fading light as a tribute to the good that can be corrupted by society. Underneath, however , this is a fundamentally self-righteous feeling, and such self-righteousness has been criticized throughout the play in the person of Angelo. It is my belief that the end of the play is comic, as its form implies. The end of Measure for Measure contains typically comic elements: the apportionment of dramatic justice , marriage between the principle characters, and the loose ends tied together in a last epiloguelike speech given by the Duke in the style of Theseus in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Leontes at the end of The Winter's Tale, or the KinginAll' s Well That Ends Well-where the confusion which has reigned has finally been sorted out and as Pucksays, "JackshallhaveJill;/Noughtshallgoill" (Midsummer III.ii.62-3) (although we may doubt the passions of the characters in Measure for Measure can be so tidily concluded without a magic love potion). Why should we look for comedy at the end of this often grim play? Because the genre of tragicomedy seems to be a statement about life: life is not all high tragedy and extremes oflove or death, but, on the whole, a joyful and often amusing thing. One of the messages of the play is superiority of temperance, acceptance of human failing, and love, over high-principled idealism was which thrives on abstractions and is fueled by righteous pride. To read the final scene of the play as dark in tone is to ignore all that has come before. The real argument for a happy ending lies in Isabella herself. It is tempting to read her as a kind of martyr to the cause (be it religion or feminism, as I have seen it performed), but look closely at her character and one begins to find inconsistencies, pride and petty jealousies, fears and temptations , which make her fallible and real. She stands so close to Angelo, and she must be won slowly, by degrees , to the temperance and understanding the Duke embodies and represents. The play details not only the secularization of her character, but also the transformation she goes through in order to descend from her tragic heights to a comic, life-embracing, heroine who does not always take herself seriously and is able to laugh Isabella, I believe, really does not belong in the convent, where she starts out. Her passion and demand for stricter rules are naively exaggerated. It is tempting to picture her as a young novice walking about the gardens, but it is worth remembering that Claudio has sent Lucio off with the words , " This day my sister should the cloister enter" (I.n.I82). She is taken from the convent before she has a chance to experience its life; her descriptions of its transcendent joys are really the fanciful work of imagination . There is something eerie in the ardent, otherworldliness of her picture of " preserved souls ... fasting maids whose minds are dedicate/To nothing temporal" (II.ii.188-90). She longs for exalted heights rather than seeking, realistically, a quietlife of prayer and menial duties. I see Isabella, in her scenes with Angelo, slowly driven back into personal involvement with the world, a change which allows for her transition between the impervious detachment of "O just but severe law,/ I had a brother, then " and "Die, Perish!" with all its fiery passion and wounded anguish. Her encounter with Angelo in the play brings sharply into focus the tension between the two sides of her personality. On the one hand, she is a person of quick wit and great intelligence, on the other a woman who is expected to be both cold, submissive, alluring, and desirable at the same time. We see this double standard in Claudio's picture of his sister: ... in her youth There is a prone speechl ess dialect Such as move men; besides, she hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse. J.ii.I87-90 This same dual nature which women are expected to have in society is reflected by the rules of the convent: When you have vowed, you must mot speak with men But in the presence of the prioress. Then if you speak, you must not show your face; Or, if you show your face , you must not speak. J.iv.IO-I4 There it is again: show our face (loosely, be admired, be looked at as a woman) or speak (use reason and discourse) , but you cannot do both. And it is Angelo in that emotionally 33 �wife, and let every woman have her own husband .. .it is better to marry than to burn" (Corinthians r2-9). The disorder of the state at the beginning was in the form of sexual promiscuity; the play ends with a series of marriages which "legalize" sexual desire. Marriage is society's recognition oflawful or unlawful intercourse and determines a woman's honor or dishonor. It is a way ofbringing passions potentially destructive to society under control and imposing the stability of family. In the midst of this play about sexual crimes and "after the fact" marriages the Duke and Isabella might be exceptional: a couple married for the sake ofromantic love. But the proposal is ambiguous, Isabella's reaction impossible to determine , and the union in many ways is so un expected that it is less likely that they represent an exception than that their marriage takes its color from the many examples which surround it. Isabella's experiences have made her more aware of her sex; possibly they have awakened desires in her which she had forbidden. Whether or not her marriage with the Duke is truly for love , it allows her a socially acceptable role in the world as a wife. The Duke is a more curious example-his falling in love, or discovering passions in himself, is surprising, not only to him (having thought himself immune) but to us as audience who might otherwise be tempted to see him as a manifestation of the author or divine presence, determining the action of the play but being removed from it himself. His proposal to Isabella (and his reaction to Lucio's jibes) bring him back into the play as a real character with quite human tendencies to love and anger. One might have thought, still, that like Paul he would have encouraged others to marry while remaining apart himself. But it is interesting to find this ruler, whom I am tempted in so many other ways to call almost ideal, knows and accepts himself as frail-as human-as his fellow men and women. To deny that would have made him another Angelo, who fell trying to climb too high. Who is there to bestow dramatic justice on the judge himself? What dramatic justice is there for the Duke in the end? Somehow, he distributes dramatic justice on himself in his new self-knowledge. Having learned by being confronted with his weaknesses and passions, he knows something more of what is appropriate to him as a ruler and as a man. Is there a moral to this story and its struggle between the principles of mercy and justice? If so I think it must be the truth the Duke recognizes at the end of the play, that we are all flawed, that a man should not take pride in virtue or set himself apart, and that should teach us not to judge harshly. No one can obey the law truly. Although this sounds more like the divine than earthly law, perhaps the implication is that there is not such a great difference between them as we are used to imagining. We have an idea of sin which somehow we recognize all men are prone to an frequently slip into. The law is supposed to be something most people can follow, and only the willful wrong-doer indulges'himself with predictable consequences. But in this play even the most virtuous have discovered their frailty. Between the example of Angelo (the "angel" who fell), of the futility of trying to be "holy and severe " enough to wield the sword of Heaven, and Escalus' ar- oveiwhelming scene of his abominable proposition who says, "I do arrest you words. Be that you are,/That is , a woman" (II.iv. I47-8). Having chosen the convent, Isabella-consciously or not-denied her sex, but she is dragged by her brother's plight back into the world of men (where, as we have seen, she is desired by Angelo less for her mind than for her beauty). It may be that Isabella is not entirely unaffected by Angelo herself. So often one feels in productions that Angelo onlypercipitates revulsion in her, but could the encounter between them not be an awakening (however surprising and unwelcome) of the feelings she has denied, as it is on Angelo's side? Could the extremityofherreaction to his proposal, when she finally understands it, be not so much fear of him as fear of herself? Is it possible for a young woman of Isabella's vibrancy to be touched for the first time by a man and not physically oveiwhelmed by the experience? Threatened by Angelo, betrayed as she feels herself by her brother (the only man she could turn to in her distress) , s4e turns naturally to the Duke in his friar's habit and clings to him as someone "safe" and sympathetic to her distress. It is easier to see that he is struck by her than to gauge her reaction to him, but the two of them end up putting their heads together and working as a team. Although it is true that in the second half of the play Isabella has almost no lines until the final scene in which she accuses Angelo, it seems to me that she is working in close conjunction with the Duke, as much a part of the planning as he is. The scene in Act III in which the Duke first approaches her with the idea of Mariana's taking her place, the details ofMarianaandAngelo's past and the trick they will play on him appeal to her immensely and she becomes wrapped up in the proposal: Isabella and the Duke think alike; they share a love of puzzles and tricks. Simple consideration for the balance of the drama mightlead us to draw this conclusion: watching their gradual coming together and the awkwardness of the friar's guise which both allows them to be together and keeps them apart drives, I think, the second half of the play, which otherwise is apt to flounder in production under the weight of pure plot devices. What must herreaction be when, in that final scene, he stands revealed, the friar's hood torn away?! The Duke's two proposals of marriage have drawn criticism as being informal and public rather than romantically private, but I now think it is possible that his manner can be attributed to their closeness and the "naturalness" of the arrangement. Having undergone throughout the play this process of secularization, discovering in her energy and her love of plans perhaps a calling to a life of practical virtue, how can she return to the convent of her exalted but sterile fantasy? Is marriage for Isabella dramatic justice? Is it an appropriate reward for her virtuous words and deeds, and triumph over temptation? The other marriages seem just, but Isabella needs no such justice from marriage. For Isabella, marriage is not so much dramatically fitting, or just, as it is necessary if she is to end up where she belongs, among her own kind. Marriage is not, however, a "reward," in this playnor is it the romantic fulfillment oflove. The spirit of Paul dominates: "to avoid fornication, let every man have his own 34 Footnotes gument that only lack of opportune circumstances keeps us from sin, there emerges from the play a warning against righteousness and self-justification , against thinking we stand on better ground than our neighbor since we have not committed the same crimes. The play reveals Angelo's practice of government insufficient and, in fact, detrimental. We have called Angelo ' s justice "pragmatic," butitis the Duke's policies, his concern for the individual and willingness to forgive (his focus being not punishment as an end in itselfbut a question of how best to turn social disorder into social benefit), which are truly pragmatic. Human beings cannot be confined by narrow precision and the use offear. I. Line numbers are taken from the Folger Edition. Shakespeare, William, Measure for Measure, ed. Louis B. Wright, Simon & Schuster, New York, I975· 2. Translations from the King James Version of the Bible 3. W. Ward Fearn side and William P. Holther, Fallacy-The Counterfeit Argument, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersy, 1959, p. 126. 4. Is it possible that this desire in us to see wickedness punished and good rewarded also stems from self-righteous pride? -,· 35 �The King of Israel * Samuel Davidoff And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. (Exodus 20: 19)' and to save Israel from the hand of the Philistine. Regardless of God or Samuel's feelings about the correctness of Israel having a king, the establishment of a monarchy has certain necessary effects on the people. In particular the choosing of king must in some way alter the nation of Israel's relationship with God. Until now they have been led more or less by God through the medium of His prophets, but now they are to be led by a king. He is to be invested with the power ofleadership; a power that formerly was the domain of God. The new king will, in a way, fulfill an almost religious role for the people. The new king is not merely replacing an old leader but is in some sense replacing God. What kind of man does God pick? All we are told about Saul is that he was " a choice young man" and "from the head and shoulders upward he was higher then any of the people."(9:2) The description seems to be merely one of physical beauty. We are told nothing about Saul's soul or his heart. But God does not ignore these things . Immediately after he has Saul anointed we have the scene quoted above. The Bible says that the spirit of the Lord descended on Saul and he prophesied with the result that he becomes a new man. Prophesy here does not seem to refer to the type of communication with God that we usually associate with that word, such as the communication that Samuel has with God. We are not told that God "says" anything to Saul. Instead what we know is that Saul is among a troop of prophets, but not prophets like Samuel; there is something Bacchanalian about these prophets with their psaltery, and pipe and harp. When Saul prophesies he does not speak the word of God, instead he receives a new heart and becomes another man . What Saul exper iences seems to be a sort of ecstasy. Ifonly for a moment he sees something of the divine, he is touched by God, and he is forever changed. I think that what this contact with God instills in Saul's heart at that moment is a longing for further contact with the divine, a love of God or perhaps even a lust for God. And so the first king of Israel is picked, perhaps, merely for physical appearance, but he is then bound to God through an ecstatic vision . Saul's action as the king of the nation oflsrael reflect this unusual process of appointment that he has undergone. What we see in Saul's actions, and particularly in his failures, as the king oflsrael is almost directly a result of how he is bound to God. There are two peculiarities about the relationship that God establishes with Saul. First that Saul is bound by some sort of transcendent experience as opposed to a verbal communication or prophecy of the kind that Samuel and the other The nation oflsrael' s peculiar predicament is that they are a divine nation. They are chosen by God but they are nevertheless human. They are not of the same make as their leader, and their communication with this leader, with God, must always be mediated. Startingwith Moses the medium that God chooses is prophecy. The major prophets in each generation are people who have direct communication with God, such as Moses, who spoke to God "face to face" or Samuel, whom the Lord speaks to "in his ear." Even in the case of certain lesser prophets, prophets who merely see God in dreams or visions, there is a decidedlyverbal aspect to their interaction with God. God speaks to His people through His prophets. It is through the prophets that the people know the commandments of God, the advice of God in pru:ticular situations, and, in some cases, the future intentions of God. In the book of Samuell it is primarilythe prophet Samuel who conveys the people's requests to God and who reports God's responses. Later, when a king is appointed, it is Samuel who, under God's guidance, selects him and Samuel who tells King Saul the wishes of God. But while Samuel, and perhaps some of the lesser prophets of the time, may be the only voices of God, the only speakers of God's word, it is not the case that other people do not experience God. Contact with God, however brief, plays a crucial role in the lives of several other figures in the story of the origins of monarchy in Israel. " ... And it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they shall prophesy; And the spirit of the Lord will come upon thee and thou shalt prophesy with them and shalt be turned into another man ... And it was, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day. And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him; and the spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them. And it came to pass, when all that knew him before time saw that, behold, he prophesied among the prophets, then the people said to one another, What is this that is come unto the son Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?" (Samuel I 10:5-6, 9-11)";,, The scene occurs immediately after the anointing of Saul, the first king of Israel. Samuel's feelings and God's words about the appointing of a king are ambivalent and unenthusiastic. The people have clamored for a king and God has seen it as an act of rebellion. Why should they have a human king when they have the Lord? But God has granted their request and has sent them a king to be" captain over His inheritance" 36 prophets receive. Second that he is .instilled with a longing for God as opposed to being granted an ongoing relationship with God. He is granted a yearning for God not a communion with God. With one exception, which I will discuss later, Saul has no other direct experience with God. All his other communication takes place through prophets and priests. Both aspects of Saul's experience with God make themselves most apparent in Saul's failures as king. Saul is not a bad kingin consideration of military or political leadership goes. He neither loses any wars nor is there any sense that the people are unusually dissatisfied with him at any point. Saul fails with respect to his position relative to God. He may serve well as king but not as the king of God's people. Saul is disobedient to God and it is this that causes his kingdom to be taken from him. The first instance of disobedience occurs in the second year of Saul's reign right before a battle with the Philistines. Saul is waiting for Samuel to arrive so that they can make a sacrifice before the battle. Samuel does not arrive and so Saul makes the offering without him. Then Samuel arrives: managing of a particular battle. What sort of picture are we to form-of Saul? Does it make sense that a man would be on the one hand so eager to please God and yet on the other hand be found guilty of flagrant violation of the divine command? I think that both of Saul's failures stem from the particular attitude Saul, as a result of his ecstatic experience, has towards God because of his ecstatic experience. k:, said above, Saul's experience of God has two aspects: first, its transience which leaves him with a sense of unfulfilled longing and second, the visceral and emotional aspect of it as opposed to the rational and communicative prophecies of Samuel. Saul's position is an odd one. k:, a young man he has an extremely powerful experience with God and is then left alone. He is left, though, with some idea about the nature of his responsibility to God; after all, he is made king of God's nation. Due to the particular nature of his divine experience, Saul is left with a peculiar sort of motivation. He wants a repetition of the rapture he experienced previously. He does not desire to fulfill the will of God, but merely to experience or 'see' God again. It is this type oflonging for God that makes Saul crave the type of assurance he does before he goes into battle. He does not sacrifice so much to please God, but to please himself through an attempt to bring God closer to him. What he fails to realize is the importance of following God's commandments. The nature of his experience with God has caused him to see this as unessential to being close to God. This causes his disobedience in the war with Amalek. He spares the animals so that he can sacrifice them. This particular disobedience is paradigmatic of his misunderstanding of his relationship with God and Samuel says as much in his rebuke: "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat oframs."(15:22). In fact, this is exactly Saul's misunderstanding; he has a longing for the presence of God, but not for the word of God. Let us leave Saul for now and look at another example of a man who has contact with God, Saul's son, Jonathan. The first time we meet Jonathan is during the same war with the Philistines in which Saul first disobeys God. Saul and his army are reluctant to attack and are waiting in Gibeah near the Philistine garrison. Unbeknownst to Saul, or the rest of the a my, Jonathan takes his armourbearer and they go up to the camp of the Philistines. "And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou earnest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash; Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the Lord: I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God." (I3:n-I3) Samuel then tells him that his kingdom shall not continue. The second, more prominent failing of Saul is also an act of disobedience. In this case he has been instructed by God to utterly destroy the nation of Amalek. Instead, Saul spares the king and the livestock. Samuel rebukes Saul and tells him that "Because thou has rejected the word of the Lord he has rejected thee from being king ... And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death ... and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel." (15:23,35) The second example of Saul's disobedience seems to be incongruous with the first . In the war against Amalek Saul fails to completely follow God's instruction concerning the battle. However, in the first war Saul disobeys God because it seems he is to eager to please God before he goes into battle. Saul thinks he is giving God some token of his faith. This .desire is characteristic of Saul. We are told several times of his building altars before battles and his consulting priests. Most notable is his attempt before his final battle to contact the dead Samuel through a sorcerer. "And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the Lord will work for us: for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few." (I4:6) "And Samuel said to Saul , Why has thou disquieted me to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams : therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do?" (28:I5 ) Jonathan then proposes a test. They will call up to the Philistines and if they are told to come up to the camp they will know the Lord is with them. The Philistines respond appropriately and Jonathan and his armour bearer, alone, destroy their camp. Right awaywe see that Jonathan has a unique faith in God He believes that God can bring destruction to the army of the Philistines even with only two men. He believes also that God This striking dependence on God's approval of his battle plans seems odd when compared with Saul's supreme act of disobedience in which he disobeys God's instructions for the 37 �is with the nation oflsrael and favors them over the uncircumcised nation of the Philistines. Of course one could ask if there is anything particularly special about this kind of faith? After all isn't there something obvious about the sort of belief Jonathan has? In the period of the people of Israel's initial establishment in the land oflsrael their warfare has been noticeably characterized by the presence of God. It is typical of Israel's battles that the many should defeat the few with the help of God. What, then , is unusual about the faith Jonathan exhibits? Most of the examples of faith we have seen fall into two different categories. There are the obvious examples of the faith found in people who have direct communication with God. Abraham and Moses come to mind. The greatness of their faith did not lie in their beliefin the existence or the ability of God. After all they spoke with God and so the question of his existence does not have the same force in their case as in Jonathan's. In general, the faith of the forefathers and prophets seems to be on a grander scale then the faith of a smaller character like Jonathan. There is a less obvious kind of faith that we find exhibited by the people oflsrael. After all they must have gone into battle in the times of Moses, Joshua, and Samuel with a certain faith in God's protection. But the faith we find in the people of Israel at large is of a different nature the Jonathan's . It is only in directly a faith in God. While it has been Israel's experience that the many have defeated the few, the connection to God has been less evident. Israel has always been under a leader of some sort, a prophet or a king. The people' s communication and faith have been in the leader as the medium between them and God. I do not think that the nation has gone \nto battle, as Jonathan did, with f~th in God so much as with faith in their leader, the emissary of God. Therefore, Jonathan's faith is different. He believes in _God directly despite the fact that he has had no communication with God. He has the experience of a common man but a faith that approaches the faith of the prophets. Jonathan's contact with God, however, is of a completely different nature than Saul's. Jonathan does not have any·direct experience of God or any mystical or divine ecstasy. God does not come down and touch him, at least not in the way He does Saul. Jonathan's invasion of the Philistine's camp is not simply an act of faith. He does not march blindly into the camp with confidence that God will help him. There is the test that he proposes to his servant so as to determine whether or not they will be successful. While there is no doubt that faith plays a decided role in this scene, Jonathan's use of a test changes the character of the scene.Jon athan asks for a sign, he is given it, and then what amounts to a miracle occurs. He and his armourbearer destroy the Philistine camp. I imagine that Jonathan must see the hand of God clearly manifesting itself at this moment. He has faith in God to be sure, but when he is granted a sign of his victory it seems to point decidedly to the fact that what occurs in the invasion is divine intervention. God comes down and wins the battle.Jonathan too has a communication with God, not a mystic experience but a revelation, a miracle. These two examples of God's communication with indi- viduals comes at an important time in the Bible. The important issue at this point in Samuel I is that of the monarchy. As discussed above in the case of Saul, the appointment of a king calls into question this very issue, the issue of people's relationships with God. Thus far, we have seen two categories of relationships that the majority of the people, the non-prophets have with God. There is primarily the relationship of the people to God through the medium of the prophets, but there are also these examples of divine contact that individuals have at certain moments, such as those that Saul and Jonathan have. For the most part the former relationship to God, the relationship through the prophets, has been the standard. The people have believed and known God because of the prophets. With the creation of a monarchy it is this very relationship that is called into question. It is no longer God' s intention to communicate with the people through the prophets He intends now to have kings. There is, however, the same problem that was present in Saul. What kind of man will God choose? We might reformulate the question now to ask, what kind of man will God choose as his intermediary with the people? The king will be the leader of the people, but, as a leader, he repla'ces God to some extent. Who should be picked? The answer is David. I think in David God picks a new form of communication with the people. He picks a form similar to the sort of individual communication manifested in the examples of his relationships with Saul and Jon athan. The first hint of David's existence that we get is when Samuel tells Saul, after his first disobedience, that he will eventually lose the monarchy. "Butnowthykingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart." - this, of course, is David. What this description means is unclear. We first meet David when he is anointed by Samuel after Saul's second disobedience. The Lord tells Samuel to go to Jes~e's house for he has chosen a king from one ofJesse's son's. "And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord's anointed is before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel , Look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him : for the Lord seeth not the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (I6:6-7) Finally David, the youngest, is called. "And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him : for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward." (16:12-13 ) It is odd that while we are told that God looks on the heart we are not told anything about what he sees in David's. In fact all we get of David is a physical description of his beauty, a description that sounds suspiciously like the initial description of Saul and, furthermore, a description of characteristics that sound just like what God explicitly told Samuel not to look for. We are also told that the spirit of the Lord descends on David, but we are not told that he was changed as in Saul's case, furthermore , though we are told several times that the 38 lectual, or verbal understanding of Him. His senses are overwhelmed, not his mind. When he sees David he has a similar experience. He hears music, as before, and he sees this beautiful youth, whom we are told he loves. Perhaps he even sees David's beauty as divine for the spirit of the Lord is with David. David's coming before Saul is the only time that he is comforted, it is the only time that his melancholy is dispelled. It is as if David's presence serves the same purpose for Saul as God's. His reaction to David is also very much like his reaction to God. While he does not receive a new heart, we are told that he loves David. With David's approach Saul sees a glimmer of hope , a glimpse of his beloved. He sees that there is a chance that the spirit of the Lord has not utterly forsaken him. This is not to say the Saul's relationship to David is perfect. While it is true that he feels closer to God in the presence of David he at the same time sees David as a threat to his other link to God - the mornu:chy. Saul has a paradoxical relationship to David. It is at the times when he sees David as the most divine , when David plays for him, that he sees him as the most threatening. The two times that we are told of Saul's greatest anger towards David are when David is playing for him and Saul attempts to kill him with his javelin. Saul's pursuing of his hatred for David leads to an instance that I think portrays this paradox of Saul's hatred for David coupled with his seeing the divine presence in David. In Chapter rg Saul has decided that he must kill David. He appeals to his closest relatives, to Jonathan and then to his daughter Michal, to kill David. Both of them refuse to help him out oflove for David. David meanwhile flees to Samuel in Ramah and Saul himself decides he must pursue him there. He goes to Ramah expecting to find David, but what he finds instead is God. Lord is with David, in all of Samuel I we never see God say anything else to David. There is, in fact, a decided absence of God's explicit appearance , particularly around David. We do see , however, David's effect on the people around him-particularly on Saul and Jonathan . I think that by looking at David's relationship with these two we will gain an understanding ofwhat kind of choice David is for the future king oflsrael. The first thing we are told of after the story of David's anointment is that "the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him."(16.14) Saul's longing for God has met with despair, Samuel has left him and he has been told that the kingdom will be torn from him. "And Saul said unto Samuel. .. Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord. And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. And as Samuel turned abo ut to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent. And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom oflsrael from the this day ... [Saul] said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people , and before Israel, and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God." (15: 2'4-30) It is as if Saul is a lover who sees all his ties to his beloved slipping away from him. He is not concerned with the loss of the kingdom in and of itself (this is actually the second time he has been told he will lose it) but rather with the loss of the gift of the Lord. He pleads with Samuel to pray with him so that he might not lose all hope of feeling God's presence again. But it is to no avail; his links with God are gone, and his only hope of receiving the presence of the Lord is gone. ~e falls into melancholy, the Bible says "and the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house"(r8.rn). The use of the word "prophesy" to describe Saul's depression seems ironic when compared to his previous prophetic rapture. He is at the other extreme of his experience of the divine, as far from God as he can imagine. What his servants tell him is to call "a man that can play well." Hence, David is sent for. "And he went thither to Naioth in Ramah: and the spirit of God was upon him also and he went on, and prophesied, until he came to Naioth in Ramah. And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and he lay down naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets. (19:23-24)" The scene is almost identical to the scene of Saul's initial rapture . Even the people's reaction is the same. But what is interesting is the timing of this scene. The scene comes when Saul is forced to search for David himself after all his followers refuse to help him out of love for David. Saul too is prevented from finding David by his love for God. It does not seem to me coincidence that the scene of Saul's second rapture comes at the same time as his pursuit of David. The presence of God defeating Saul's attempts to murder David underscores the idea that somehow the presence of David goes hand in hand with the presence of God. When David comes on the scene so does God's presence and we see this most clearly realized in the rapture seeking Saul. In Jonathan, Saul's son, we find another person who is greatly affected by his contact with David. "And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly; and he became his armourbearer .. . And it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. (I6:21,23)" There are two things that work to dispel Saul's melancholy; the first is David's music, the second is his presence. I thinkit is important that we are told that Saul loves David. What causes the evil spirit to depart from Saul is listening to music as it is played by a boy who we already know is "of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to ." In a way the scene is parallel to the scene of Saul's initial rapture in the presence of God. In both cases the experience is transcendent but in both cases it is also intensely physical. Although in the first instance Saul is experiencing the presence of God, nevertheless, there is also something decidedly material about a scene filled with singers and music. Saul "sees" the beautifulin God in a corporeal sense, as opposed to having an rational, intel- "And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him. Whose son art thou, thou young man? And David answered, I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite. And it came to 39 �pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." (ITS7-I8:1) man closeness that Saul and Michal attempt. Jonathan has seen the hand of God work through David and realizes that there is something superior about David. We are told how much Jonathan loves David but the only mention of David's love for Jonathan comes much later in a psalm he composes after Jonathan's death. This is not to say that David does not love Jon athan but there is a certain disparity in their positions. The expression oflove that Jonathan turns to is the expression oflove, not that exists between equal people, but that exists between man and God, a covenant. What Jonathan does is bind David to him with God as an intermediary. Before David leaves Saul's palace, after he and Jonathan have made a second covenant, Jonathan says that the Lord will be "between thee and me for ever." An oath allows Jonathan to express his love for David in a way that does not require physical proximity. Instead Jonathan has the Lord between him and David. So what do we see of David in all these stories of his life with Saul and Jonathan? What do we see of David the future king and chosen of God? One thing we do not see, as said before, is God having anything explicitly to do with David. His voice is, with one minor exception, never heard from the scene of David's anointment until the end of Samuel I. It is not exactly true, however, that God is not present. Having seen David's interactions with Saul and Jonathan I think that God's presence with David is made strikingly clear. When David comes into the story both Saul and Jonathan find their experiences with God mirrored in him. Saul finds a form of his ecstasy in the presence of David. Before David approaches Saul, Saul is as far from God as he has ever been, a state of melancholic prophesy. After David comes to Saul, God becomes once again present in Saul's life. In someway, his presence is equivalent to Saul with the presence of the Lord. In Jonathan's case, he sees two things in David. He sees his own faith in God mirrored in David's actions but he also sees God's work made manifest in David. When he sees David, he sees the hand of the Lord. Jonathan sees David's defeat of the Philistines repeat, in fact embody, the Lord's actions towards himself. His way of expressing his love towards David, with covenants, is the way that man relates to God because Jonathan has seen in David the same thing he has seen in God. It is interesting to note that the stripping off of his clothes that Jonathan performs when he makes his first covenant with David is the same act of devotion that Saul performs when he has his second ecstatic experience. Now let us consider the notion that David is a man that God has chosen "after his own heart," I think that we see in David a type ofleader that we have never seen before. David is not, like Samuel or Moses , an intermediary between God and the people, neither is he a leader like Saul who is fastened to God though not really under His command. With David God finds a new answer to the problem of the establishment of the monarchy. Israel's position when God alone was their leader had two aspects. There was the political sense in which God led the people, deciding which wars to fight, which lands to conquer etc., but there was also the fact that there is something spiritually unique about a.people led by God. The nation What has Jonathan seen in David that causes him to "love him as his own soul"? The most obvious event is David's slaying of Goliath, but what is it about that event that makes Jonathan love David? Jonathan has seen David, a young boy, challenge and defeat the champion of the Philistines with only his sling. However, it is not merely David's courage that Jonathan admires. I think he sees something in David's action against Goliath that reminds Jonathan of his own contact with God. "Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies oflsrael, whom thou has defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand ... And all this assembly shall know that Lord save th not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord' s, and he will give you into our hands. (1T45-47)" David's words and his faith in God almost mirror Jonathan's at the time of his invasion of the Philistine camp. Jonathan must see in David's success a repetition of his encounter with the Philistines. Both of them went into battle against overwhelming odds with confidence in God and in both cases God made clear the correctness of their belief. And so Jonathan does not merely love David, as we are told of Saul, but he loves him "as his own soul": Jonathan sees himself in David. But Jonathan does not see an exact mirror of his situation in David's. David does not ask for a sign from God before battling Goliath. While Jonathan had faith that God could turn the battle in his favor, David has faith that God will. Jonathan does not see an exact repetition of his miracle in David's slaying of Goliath, for David's action is not the same as Jonathan's. David's absolute confidence and the absence of a sign in his case seems to me to show a different manifestation of God. While in Jonathan's case God responds to Jonathan and helps him defeat the Philistines, in David' s case God acts through David. There is no dialogue between David and God. It is as if David's action of going against Goliath and God's defeating of Goliath are the same act. God does not respond to David, David and God act as one. Jonathan's initiation of his friendship with David represents this aspect of David's relation to God. "Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.(18:3-4)" This is the first of three covenants that Jonathan is to make with David. The next is made before David flees Saul's palace in Chapter 22, the third when David is fleeing from Saul in Chapter 23. A covenant is an odd expression oflove, one that we have only seen before between God and man, namelywith the forefathers. Michal, Saul's daughterwho loves David, marries him. Saul, when he first meets David, takes him from his fathers house. Jonathan sees, when he first loves David, that David's relation to God does not permit this sort of man to 40 Footnotes whose king is God must necessarily have a special connection to the divine. With the establishment of a monarchywe then have two questions which we saw first addressed with Saul. First, who would be merely a good king in a political sense? In this respect Saul was a good choice, he won his wars and behaved for the most part as is to be expected of a king. Second, how is a nation to maintain its relationship with God in the face of His abdication of power to a monarch? It is David who is the answer to this question. In the choosing of David God picks a man who is first of all a good leader. Presumably we find this out later in Samuel II, but I believe this similarity between David and Saul is already suggested by the fact that they are both described as beautiful when they are first introduced. More importantly, David's appointment also serves as some sort of way of allowing the children oflsrael to maintain their relationship to God. Having abandoned prophecy as the form ofleading his people, God finds in David, the people's new leader, a way of maintaining a more individual relationship with them. I think that the fact that Saul and Jonathan's interactions with David parallel their interactions with God point to what is unique about David. He is not an intermediary between God and the people but rather a representative of God. Jonathan and Saul show us that people see in David a manifestation of the divine presence. When David acts they see God acting through him, when they feel David's presence they feel God's presence. I think this is the way to understand that fact that we are told "But all Israel and Judah loved David because he went out and came in before them." (18:16) It is not that David communicates God's will to the people but merely that he is there. The spirit of the L~rd is not alongside David but is in him. Let us then take one final look at David, the man whose actions are imbued with the divine spirit, this time after he has become king. After the death of Saul, all the tribes oflsrael come to David and ask him to accept the monarchy. He does, and we then hear his first decree as king. 1. All quotations are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. 2. All quotations are from the book of Samuel I unless otherwise noted. "And David said on that day, Whosoever geteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites , and the Jame and the blind, that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain." (Samuel II, 5:8) It is fitting that David's first decree should be in his name and not the Lord's. After all David does not communicate the word of God, but manifests it. His actions are not done in the name of God, moreover, they are performed under the Spirit of God. But perhaps it is also fitting that David's first action as king is one that is violent and terrible. The mediation of the prophets between the people and God was necessary partly to shield the people from the terror of God as seen in the previously mentioned quote from Exodus "let not God speak with us, lest we die." I wonder if David's first action as king is not the action that most shows David to be God's representation. For with the removal of the intermediate, with the approach of the spirit of God within David, it seems appropriate that the people would see again the horror that they fled at Mount Sinai. 41 �- , A Translation of EmileVerhaeren 's "One Night" Un Soir * Eli Wiggins He, who of an eve and not age of ours, will ope' Me up, disturb my verse in slumbers or in cinders, Lend new life to far-off feelings, and surrender To how we of today did arm ourselves with hope, Celui qui me lira dans les siecles, un soir, Troublant mes vers, sous leur sommeil ou sous leur cendre, Et ranimant leur sens lointain pour mieux comprendre Comment ceux d'aujourd'hui s'etaient armes d'espoir, Let him know with what wild dash towards the fray My Joy has hurled itself through cries, revolts and tears, Into the proud and manly war of woes and fearsFor love to level them like conquerors their prey. Qu'il sache, avec quel violent elan, ma joie s' est, a travers les eris, les revoltes, les pleurs, Ruee au combat fier et male des douleurs, Pour en tirer l'amour, comme on conquiert sa proie. I love my fevered eyes, nerves, brain, the blood wherein My heart has life, the heart inside which lives my torso; I love Mankind and too the world, and I adore so The force my force can take and give the All and Man. J'aime mes yeux fivereux, ma cervelle, mes nerfs, Le sang dont vit moncoeur, le coeur dont vit mon torse; J'aime l'homme et le monde et j'adore la force Que donne et prend ma force a l'homme et l'univers. To live is this: to take and give with jolly rush. My fellows find themselves exalted just the same As I myself feel hungry, heaving, hardly tame At intense Life and its own wisdom's ruddy flush. Carvivre, c'est prendre et donner avec liesse. Mes pairs, ce sont ceux-la qui s'exaltent autant Que je me sens moi-meme avide et haletant Devant la vie intense et sa rouge sagesse. Hours of Downfall or Grandeur! All is gone Blurred and, in the blaze that is existence, bereft Of former form; so long as Longing yet is left In leaving, 'til Death, before th'horizon's wakeful dawn . Heures de chute ou de grandeur!--tout se confond Et se transforme en ce brasier qu'est I' existence; Seul importe que le_ desir reste en partance, Jusqu'a la mort, devant l'eveil des horizons. The one who finds is thus a wiseman not above Communing with the sweeping swarm, humanity. The spirit dives now drunk in full immensity; In order to discern with genius, one must love. Celui qui trouve est un cerveau qui communie Avec la fourmillante et large humanite. L' esprit plortge et s' enivre en pleine immensite; 11 faut aimer, pour decouvrir avec genie. One great kindness can fulfill the grating grope Of knowledge; it exalts the beauty and the force Of the world; foretells the basic bonds and source. Oh you, who an eve and age is not ours, ope' Une tendresse enorme emplit l'apre savoir, 11 exalte la force et la beaute des mondes, 11 devine les liens et le causes profondes; O vous qui me lirez, dans les siecles, un soir, Me up, see wherefore you're summoned by my verse? 'Cause in your time some hothead will have had to gauge From his own heart, no doubt, the truth, the empty page, To draw from it the meaning of the universe. Comprenez-vous pourquoi mon vers vous interpelle? C'est qu'en vos temps quelqu'un d'ardent aura tire Du coeur de la necessite meme, le vrai, Bloc clair, pour y dresser l' entente universelle. 42 43 . �A Literal Translation and a Verse Translation of William Von Goethe's ''Nature and Art" * Natur und Kunst, sie scheinen sich zu fliehen, Und haben sich, eh man es denkt, gefunden; Der Widerwille ist auch mir verschwunden, Und beide scheinen gleich mich anzuziehen. Es gilt wohl nur ein redliches Bemuehen ! Und wenn wir erst in abgemessnen Stun den Mit Geist und Fleiss uns an die Kunst gebunden, Mag frei Natur im Herzen wieder gluehen. So ist's mit aller Bildung auch beschaffen: Vergebens werden ungebundne Geister Nach der Vollendung reiner Hoehe streben. Wer Grosses will, muss sich zusammenraffen; In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich erst der Meister, Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben. Verse Translation It seems that Nature always flies from ArtHas found and fast embraced it, though it flee; And all aversion vanishes in me, Till both with equal pull tug at my heart. Upright pains and toil alone are blest! And if at first in measured hours we bind Ourselves to Art with work and spirit's mind, Then Nature may burn freely in our breast. Only an upright effort counts! And if we once in measured hours With spirit and industry bind ourselves to Art, Then may Nature freely glow in our hearts again. All learning, too, must listen to this call: The unbound spirit strives in vain to stand, To perch upon perfection's purest height. This is how it stands with all education: Unbound spirits will vainly Strive for the completion of pure heights. He who wants greatness must pull himself together; In limitation only does the master prove himself, And Law alone can give us Freedom . 44 * Eli Wiggins Eli Wiggins Prose Translation Nature and Art, they seem to flee one another, And they have, before one thinks it, found each other; Aversion h as also disappeared from me And both seem to attract me equally. A Note ·on Goethe's "Nature and Art" Man, to be great, must snatch himself up small; For Confines limit Lords however grand, And Law alone will lend us Freedom's light. Whenever we translate Greek or French poetry at this school, we strive first for literal accuracy and leave the style ans the sound of our English mor e or less to unconsidered chance. This I find unfortunate. It makes sense to translate without regard to style someone like Aristotle, who obviously gave no thought to it himself. But as soon as we set before ourselves the task of Anglicizing a dialogue of Plato , which is dripping with self-consciousness of syntax, meaning, and their interplay, it is criminal to come up with an English version, no matter how painstakingly "accurate," andclaim that it is a true translation if it doesn't sound good in our own language. And what is criminal with regards t o beautiful prose approaches deadly sin when we slug our way through the poetry of Sophocles with the same plodding literalness that Aristotle deserved. (I think our essay-writing-or at least my own-also suffers from this sole attention to meaning at the cost of style.) I find that the best translators are by no means the Lattimores and the Fitzgeralds of to-day, who turn Horper into a fusty old scholar, but rather Chapman and Pope , who may well make Homer out to be a boisterous, wordstruck Elizabethan and decorative, neo-classical Georgian, respectively, but who at least keep him a poet! I am most enamoured of the mediaeval school of translation, through which Boccaccio's 11 Filostrato doubles in size, entertainment, and beauty to become Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde , or by which King Alfred's Boethius can list "ensamples" from everyday life in seventh century England. In our readings for the Goethe Preceptorial last semester, the translations of Faust by Kaufman and Arndt, although they were in rhyming English verse which which should leave them open to more innacuracythan prose, disturbed me far less than Mueller' s rendition of Goethe' s Botanical Writings. Mueller seemed to omit all the force and vigor of Goethe's style, missed the strength of his choice of verbs, and ignored the wonderful connections that Goethe draws between disparate elements by the links of syntax alone without descending to the grubby trouble of stating the likeness explicitly. Therefore, after giving us as bare a literal translation of Goethe's poem as I could, I decided to try my hand at turning "Nature and Art" into an English sonnet. Despite Goethe's insistence that the master proves himself by limiting his enterprise , I have chosen to disregard the limitless list of good reasons against amateur college students slaughtering the true works of art by presuming to render Goethe's poetry in English verse. Amidst this process I feel that I have learned to notice more about the brilliance of Goethe's poenythan I ever would have had I stopped at the literal translation. It has also been grand fun. Allow me to remark briefly, however, on the inadequacies of my verse that mar its ever approaching the elegance and beauty of the original. In general, since English usually requires fewer syllables to say something than does German (observe lines 3-5, rn , II, & 14 of the literal translation especially) , I was forced to pump up the English lines with stuffing of my own in order to fill the pentametre. I tried to do so with as much significance and as little hindrance as possible , but I know that the least amount of extra baggage slows the slick, unburdened journey of Goethe's sonnet. Another general problem is a perennial curse of philosophical poetry in English: whereas German, Greek, and other languages have built their metaphysical terminology from the simple , everyday language of their own tongues , English took the lazy route of borrowing all our complicated words from French, Latin, and Greek. Latinate verbiage such as "indusny," "education," "completion," "limitation," and any other "tion" sand "ism" shave no place in English poetry. Their German equivalents, however- "Fleiss," "Bildung," "Vollendung," and "Beschraenkung" - are quite natural constructs that sound no fancier than the simple words which break them up. Philosophical poets in English have to be doubly clever: not only in the intricacy of their thought, but in the subterfuge by which they trick their readers into following their thoughtlines without putting them off with un-English fancy-talk. The greatest structural change in my translation was in the rhyme scheme of the second quatrain. Goethe repeats the ABBA structure of the first quatrain, setting off the tone of the A rhyme, however, by slipping in "Bemeuehen" and "gluehen" in place of the "fliehen" and " ziehen" in lines I and 4. The "ue" diphthong is often rhymed with " ie" in German, but they are far enough near-rhymes to signify a changea sort of A,BBA1 • I despaired of achieving this subtlety in my own version, and resorted to a complete switch in CDDC in the second quatrain, which is still a viable form of Petrarchian sonnet, but of course sacrifices the tighter unity of the octet that Goethe achieves. Goethe ' s rhyming alone comments beautifully on the meaning of his poem. Two pairs of opposites are bound together in dual unity by the four rhymes of the first quatrain alone . The A rhymes ("fliehen "-to flee from and "anziehen " - to attract towards) point towards the inevitabil- 45 �Shu-tao: Of Grammatology, Chinese Style ity of opposing forces working together. They share the encompassing places of the first and last rhymes . Framed between them "gefunden" (found) and " verschwunden" (disappeared) compliment each other with equal opposition . The final rhyme in the poem is also meaningful. In the last line Goethe writes that law will give us freedom. Line I I stresses how useless it is to strive for this freedom if we are unbound . .A£, even the modern English spellings of" give" and and "strive" suggest, they once rhymed in their Germanic roots, and "geben" and "streben" dutifullyrhymein German. It is wonderful how Goethe uses this rhyme to emphasize how we can achieve nothing by our own will (as subject) striving, but only when we submit to the strict exactions of scientific method will this law (as active agent-subject) give us (as object-indirect, even) liberty. I attempted, certainly, to make the poetic devices and the structural requirements of my sonnet more than vapid and empty formulae , but I think that after all I have made only a rhymed rendering of Goethe's meaning, and have not written a poem. It would require a poet to do that, and he, like Chaucer and King Alfred, would end up with a work similar in premises, perhaps, to Goethe's sonnet, but with a poem apparently independent from its germinal seed. Goethe's poem is entirely composed of various yet complimentary weaves of self-referential threads. He wove them so tightly and seamlessly together that my version can only be an unravelling knot in comparison. But perhaps my fraying edges can point to some of the beauty of the eternal boundlessness that pleased Goethe so much, and that he imitated in his inimitable verse. * Cordell D.K Yee T he title of this essay may require some explanation. Shu means "writing," and tao might be translated as " discourse." Shu-tao might serve as a translation of "grarnmatology," discourse on writing. 3 Those hoping to read something about Jacques Derrida-or perhaps waiting to pounce on him-will be disappointed. The subject here is far less theoretical and far more trivial than deconstruction and the margins of philosophy. The subject is the material of Chinese text , specifically Chinese writing itself. Writing is perhaps the most distinctive feature of Chinese civilization. Few things separate us more from Chinese culture than its writing. Our writing is , more or less, a phonetic script. Our letters are , more or less , attempts to represent units of sound. Chinese script is logographic. Each character represents a word or, more accurately, a complete syllable. The linguistic differences between Chinese writing and ours are explained in detail in more than a few popular and academic works on the Chinese language,4 and I will not deal with these differences any further. What is of more interest to me is the difference in the value placed on the two kinds of writing as art. For us in the West, writing has been at best a minor arr. Normally we do not rush out to the National Gallery, say, to look at samples of handwriting. With computer graphics widely available , interest in handwriting seems quaint, nostalgic, and even backward. For us, wi-iting is usually not meant to be noticed; it should not be obtrusive; it should not call attention to itself. We want to see past it to the words it represents. Reading efficiency is what matters. For us, writing is not supposed to be a complicated matter. Its elements are as simple as ABC. In the Chinese scholarly tradition, writing was far from a simple matter. Good handwriting was one of the crowning achievements of the intellectual life. Virtually no one could be considered as having any intellectual virtue without mastery of the art of writing. Ifwe ask what accounts forthe high place ofwriting, satisfactory answers are usually hard to come by-at least answers satisfactory to us brought up in the Western intellectual tradition. If we tum to traditional Chinese works on the subject, we do not seem to get much help at first. On the most important and most serious matters, Chinese works tend to be long on assertion and metaphor-and short on argument. In works devoted to the art ofwriting, we might read that writing contains "profound secrets of change ," and that it is "the integration of reason." This sounds promising, but no explanation is given. Instead we will get comparisons of writing to the flight of geese , the wings of a cicada, a firm 46 mountain.s Understanding the Chinese art of writing seems to be like reading inkblots. The art seems to be highly subjective, lacking in universality. If we turn to the modern scholarship on writing, we fare perhaps a little better. 6 At least the terms are easier to grasp . In traditional China, from the seventh century on , the ability to write well was linked to power, wealth , and privilege, even more so than in the West. The government bureaucracy provided the main avenue of upward social mobility, and a prerequisite of government service was the ability to write. Writing was a form of cultural capital that helped one gain membership into a political and economic elite. This elite was highly exclusive. During the sixteenth century, for example, only one in 10 , 000 males could expect to pass the "advanced scholar" examination and gain a position in the imperial bureaucracy.7 If the same standards were applied here , only one student out of 100 classes at St. John' s would be awarded a degree. With such tremendous odds against success, it is easy to understand why those seeking economic and political advancement practiced writing diligently. If there are any doubts about the relationship between economics and the value of writing, what has happened to Chinese writing in this century should dispel them. Take away the political apparatus of the empire, and the importance of good handwriting diminishes. Replace a managed agricultural economywith a capitalist market system and a somewhat more liberal political regime, and the art of making money becomes more important. In the modern world the art of making money is not identified with the art ofwriting. In one context the art of writing is the means to powe . In the othe context it is a sign of power' specifically economic power-a form of conspicuous consumption. One purchases works of writing much as one buys antique furniture. The experience of modern Chinese societies confirms that the art of writing was of a certain value in a particular place for a period of time. It is not of our time and place. In our time , it should go the way of bound feet. This is a strong conclusion, and there is a great deal of truth in the account that leads up to it. But the argument has a number of omissions. Some are factual, but the most serious omission concerns method. It is possible to do political and economic analyses ofartwith one's eyes closed. I mean that such analyses often emphasize context at the expense of the art itself. Such was the case in the account I summarized. And for that reason, we do not find it fully persuasive. So to make up that defect, let us begin to look at the writing itself. 2 47 �j.A ~~~J ~ !\~~~ ~il~t FIGURE I. WEN I TSAI TAO, WRITTEN IN Presented here (Figure 1) is a highly simplified and truncated view of the development of Chinese writing. Reading vertically from the right, the first four characters, more figures composed of straight lines. The types of strokes have been reduced to basically three: dots , lines, and hooks; or points, lines, and angles. In the traditional criticism, the standard script is described as square and straight. These adjectives are also classical Chinese geometric term s, and the coincidence in terminology seems more than accidental. What happened in the movement from seal to standard script was thatwritingwas mathematized. Its forms became clearer and more abstract, thus easier to read and reproduce. Writing transmits thewayin the sense of mathematical reason. One of the ways in which the chart of styles is misleading is in suggesting that characters in all styles are in a uniform size. In fact, it is characteristic only of the standard script to be written in such a manner. Here (Figure 2) the -# writer has supplied boxes ~ around his standard forms ---:I:0 as if to emphasize their ~ regularity and uniformity. The appearance of the text ~ is suggestive of movable type. We can imagine each square representing a piece of type. The standard script does lend itself to mechanical reproduction. Its straight-line forms are easier to carve than the curFIGURE 2.. WEN CHENGvilinear forms of the other MING (I470-I 559) . styles. Because it was a DETAIL OF TsuI-WENC good typeface, one might T'INC CHI (ACCOUNT OF TSUI-WENG PAVILION). consider the standard script to be a remarkable technological achievement. As a typeface, it has been fairly stable for more than ten centuries. Chinese printed texts from the ninth century are still highly readable today. This (Figure 3) is an example from the tenth or eleventh century, a printed edition of the Tao-te ching. If the development of a good type style does not sound particularly impressive, consider that we are still waiting for a wen i tsai tao, THE FIVE MAJOR FORMS OF CHINESE might be loosely translated as ARE NOT SHOWN; FOR THE MOST PART, "Writing transTHE ARTISTIC TRADITION WAS NOT CONSCIOUSLY AWARE OF THEM. THE mits the way." WRITING IS BY CH'EN Po-CHIN (CHEN It is typical of BonN)' A PRESENT-DAY PRACTITIONER Chinese sayOF THE ART. ings in that its tone of certitude is matched by the uncertitude about what exactly it means. As we look at writing, at least a few ways of interpreting this statement will emerge. For the sake of comparison, the saying has been written four more times, each time in a different style. From right to left the styles appear in more or less chronological order. The rightmost style is known as the seal script, dating from the third century B.C.E. 8 It is followed by the cursive, semicursive, and clerical scripts, which are almost contemporaneous. The style on the far left is the most recent style and dates from about the second century C.E. It is probably the most familiar to us in the West. It is seen on most Chinese public signs, and perhaps most important for us, it is found on most Chinese menus. It is sometimes called the perfected script. When we move from right to left on the chart, it seems that the other forms are striving toward it. The leftmost style is also called the standard script. From a formal point of view, the standard form seems to be the one from which the others arise. The other forms seem to be deviations from it, the variation increasing as one moves from left to right. Even those with little familiarity with Chinese script are able to sense the rightness of the standard script. The notion that a script can be right might be somewhat disconcerting to those of us brought up to believe in the arbitrariness of the written sign. With some hard looking, though, it becomes clear that something is not right with the seal script. The seal script characters can be intricate and thus difficult to memorize. Each character seems to present a different set of structural elements; each seems to have its own organizing rules. In addition, writing in the seal script presents difficulties, since it is hard to tell where one stroke ends and another begins. The standard script seems to address those problems. The contours of the characters have been simplified, as have the components of the characters: we see more straight lines and SCRIPT. THE EARLIEST FORMS OF SCRIPT ~~ ~'~ ~ Jf."4 '± tJ --- ~ -;r: FIGURE ~ .\ 11 1~ \ l·:i:'. I IH 11 ,\ , I 1\:=:CJI I P ~ TY 1 D\ ll'Q<"i \: \ ' FIGURE •1.f)·ri:i1:-;:q lih-/1 pl' ~on po;n 1 11 1 x1Ji« 1 ti F; -rJ' 1/'> OF GREEK TYPE: !\ BC~EZH81KJ\MN20flPLTY.-PXY.JQ EUCLID FONT. 4. SAMPLE ctl3y8r:l;q8u.:/..µv ; onpcr;i:u1px41(»ts F~?)'1 p ABIL'IEZHGIKAMN:=:onPLTYct>Xl!JQ?:S a0yoE ~TJ~tKApvE,onpcrc;w¢xljJw~ Fr; '?;J lop ABrnEZH01K/\MN~OnPLTY¢X4JO a~y5E~l]6LKAµ v~onpoc;ru<Px4Jw~ Fr;~t,~ FIGURE 5· SAMPLE OF PRINTED GREEK TEXT IN NEW HELLENIC FONT: PINDAR' S ODES (TOP); THUCYDIDES , PERICLES' FUNERAL ORATION (BOTTOM) . APIHON MEN YllWP, 0 llE XPY202: Al80M ENON nYP Che 5tcrn-phm vvKTi µEy6:vopos E~oxa ni\ouTov· el 5' &eOi\cx ycxpvev ei\5m1, cpC\ov fiTOp, µf)KEe' CxALOV 01<0TIEI a i\i\o Ocxi\TIVOTE Ev aµEp<;i: <pCXEVVOV aCITpov pov epi] µas 5 L' aleEpos· µ115' 'Oi\vµnia5 aywva <pEpTEpov mi56:croµev · oOev 6 noi\vcpcrros vµvos a µcp1!3 6:i\ikrcx1 :fltJ ~ 3· ingprocess byincreasingthe spacing between characters. He forces a reader to linger on each character. The writing calls attention to itself, and when we pay attention to it, we notice more deviations. The horizontals are not true horizontals, but are slanted. We seem to be viewing the characters obliquely. The writing space appears to be three dimensional. The characters seem to have volume, monumentality, a sculptural quality. We notice also that certain elements seem to be incomplete. Elements normally joined or closed are left open: we see open rectangles, angles without vertices. We get the sense that we are viewing the characters as they are coming into being. Here the lines seem to be reaching out, stretching out, toward each other. The strokes themselves seem to pulsate as a result of the variations in their thickness. At their best, characters are often thought of as organic: in traditional criticism , characters are spoken of as having bone, blood, breath. As organisms, they have weight: they must be shaped so as to be able to stand and maintain their wholeness. The example we have been looking at does not exhaust the ways in which one can make the standard form new. In this example (Figure 7), again in the standard FIGURE 7. Su SHIH script, the writer has perhaps (Io36-noI). SECTION tilted his horizontals even OF CH'IH-PI FU more than in the previous ex(RHAPSODY ON RED CLIFF). ample, and has altered the satisfactory typeface for Greek lettering. I haven't really analyzed the Greek situation carefully, but these examples make one source of the problem clear. 9 TAO TE CHING (CLASSIC OF THE WAY AND VIRTUE; FACSIMILE OF A SUNG DYNASTY PRINTING). THE BOOK IS OPEN TO CHAPTER II, WHICH DEALS WITH MAKING In Figures 4 and 5, the upper case forms are block letters, mostly rectilinear. The lower case letters are curvilinear cursive forms. The two do not harmonize well and even irritate. Having just asserted the importance of the standard script for its legibility and mechanical reproducibility, I will go on to say that the art of writing the standard script begins where legibility leaves off. It does not take a genius or much talent to write clearly. It does take something more than clarity to lift writing to the level of art. The end of writing _q!li! art is vitality. This is a quality seldom associated with typographic forms , which seem static, inert, dead, with their boxiness and uniform appearance. Writing as art aims to counteract the inertness. It does so by departing from the norm . Several departures from the norm are illustrated on this example (Figure 6). First, the writer has altered the spacing. On a printed page, the characters are as close together as they can be without causing confusion about word boundaries. Here the writer disrupts the read- 6. PAGODA. BEGINNING OF THE YEN PAGODA PREFACE TO THE BUDDHIST CANON. SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING. 48 (778-865). KuNG- STELE AT HsliAN-MI (596-658). FIGURE 8. Lrn SECTION OF RUBBING OF CH'u Sm- LIANG FIGURE cH'tiAN 49 proportions of his characters so that they appear more squat. In Figure 8, in the standard script as well, the writer has elongated his characters and has varied the pressure applied to the brush so that certain strokes appear bolder than others. Excellence in the standard script was measured in part by how far one could depart from the standard and still be recognized as following the standard. The same could be said of the other styles of script. Acommongoalwasto produce vital forms of script. In order to excel, one needed to have some ingenuity, some �t 1f ~~ manual dexterity, and some perceptiveness. In this way writing bore the imprint of a person's mind. It provided some indication of a person's mental capacities. It was also important in shaping a person. Writing transmitted the way in the sense of ethics. Those who mastered writing developed discipline and excellent memories. They had to memorize thousands of characters and their various forms. According to one account, a student should spend eight years studying the standard script, practicing writing it in various sizes and imitating various masters. After that one studied the semicursive script for three years, the cursive script for five, the seal script for ten, and the clerical for five. 10 Fortunately, some styles were studied concurrently, otherwise one would spend thirty-one years practicing and studying writing. Much of the practice was tedious and repetitive. Success required patience and persistence. A dozen characters could take as long as an hour to complete. Mastering the art of writing also meant mastering its history. A student spent considerable time studying and imitating the works of past masters. Copying past works was not simply a matter of exact reproduction. Too many factors worked against a perfect copy. Variations in ink, brush, paper, even differences in breathing patterns, could affect the outcome. One almost invariably fell short as soon as one put brush tip to paper. In order to make progress one had to learn to adjust as one proceeded, compensating for one's mistakes so that the overall impression of the original would be preserved. Mastering the art of writing meant developing acertain resourcefulness and adaptability. (See Figures 9-1I.) The practitioners held up most often as models were known for the excellence of their characters. Thus, to imitate a model of writing was to imitate the thought and action of a virtuous person, atleastfor awhile. Writing practice was an opportu- FIGURE 9. Lrn KuNG- *~~~ 1.f FIGURE II. RUBBING AND COPY COMPARED. THE "DEFECTS" OF THE COPY ARE MORE APPARENT ON CLOSE EXAMINATION-NOTE THE DIFFERENCES IN ANGULARITY, IN LINE VALUES, AND IN THE SHAPE OF THE HOOKS. nityto enterthe mind ofanotherperson, to try to understand why a certain stroke was executed in a certain manner. Writing provided an escape from one's personality, or perhaps a better way of putting it, writing enlarged one's personality. One acquired, in small ways, traits one would not have acquired otherwise. In the course of one's practice, one would copy out classic works and commit them to memory. This was no mean feat, since the core texts contained more than 400,000 characters. As one worked to master writing, one also worked to acquire a tradition. Writing transmitted the ways of past excellence. The selection of texts a person copied beyond the core works said something about what that person valued. In that sense also, writing revealed the person. This aspect of writing should be familiar. The last time I looked the application to St. John's asked about one's reading. I suppose we would judge a person who could recite the works of Aquinas in the original language differently from one who could recite the works of Danielle Steel in the original language. As we do here, so they did in imperial China: as an index to a person, what shaped a person, what a person valued, HEN MIN RIBAO writing was an important con FIGURE I2.. MAO TSE-TUNG (I893-I976). sideration in deMASTHEAD OF ]EN-MIN JIH-PAO (PEOPLE'S termining a DAILY). person's fitness to serve in the government. The cooperation of mind and body, the harmony of wholes and parts, achieved by the mastery ofwriting, were analogues of the harmonious society that was supposed to be the goal of the ruling elite. Ideally the Chinese official would find political direction in the written word, just as the philosopher-king would find it in his or her vision of the good." The notion that there was a resonance between writing and politics survived even until recently. Chairman Mao's understanding is shown by this sample ofhis handwriting (see Figure 12). FIGURE IO. MODERN COPY OF 9· cH'tiAN. SECTION oF FIGURE RUBBING OF STELE AT THIS COPY SEEMS TO BE A FAIRLY HstiAN-MI PAGODA. SEEN AS A WHOLE, GOOD MATCH, STROKE FOR STROKE. IT IS CLEAR THAT IT IS BASED ON Lrn ~ KuNG-CH'tiAN's WORK. 50 This is the masthead for the People's Daily, written by Mao in 1949, just before the Communists took over China. The characters are still recognizable as standard script, though there are a number of deviations. Mao introduces cursive strokes into the last character. The characters are not uniform in size. Mao enlarges the first and last characters,;en meaning "people" and pao meaning " report. " In the past reports were directed upward. This newspaper addressed to the people reverses that process. Mao also changes the direction of the "legs" of the character Jen . Normally they would point down. Mao bends them upwards, almost reshaping the legs into wings. From this sample alone, one might read Mao's revolutionary tendencies or at least infer a change in political emphasis: he aims to lift up the masses. So far I have been describing the political consequences of wTiting in ideal terms. It was of course all too easy to corrupt the political process. Those who could not write well could cheat by paying someone else to write for them or by purchasing an office. There could be mistakes in judgment or just poor judgment when it came to evaluating writing. The imitation of models could become slavish. Writing could be used primarily to inculcate a respect for authority, a reverence for precedent. These are good qualities to instill in one 's subjects if one is interested in maintaining a repressive political structure. It has to be granted that writing often served the purposes of autocratic rule. Even so, it was also a democratizing force. The equipment required to write was not too costly, and once acquired, the art of writing enabled a man to rise above his social class. In order to justify their mandate, emperors were not exempt from the expectation th11t office holders write well. They often sought criticism of their work, and their ministers might be able to couch political criticism in terms ofartistic criticism. In one famous example, the emperor asked for advice because he was having trouble holding his brush straight. One ofhis ministers replied, "If the heart is straight, then the brush will be straight." It would have been ideal if such freedom of expression had regularly spread to other subjects of discourse, but at least the potential was there for more openness and liberality. Writing also had its value beyond politics where it often served as recreation. It was a means ofliberating oneself from daily cares, especially if politics proved to be too dirty a business. Just as often writing was a matter of serious discussion. Examples ofwritingwere analyzed. Good pieces were canonized. There were at least four standards for canonization. A piece of writing must have stood the test of time, or have appealed to large number of people over the centuries. It must have merit as fine art: it must have vitality. It must be beautiful; it must impress with its order, elegance, and form. It must be original, and it must have influence. What I have just summarized are not only standards of Chinese writing, but also, of course, some of the criteria Scott Buchanan applied to books. One might question whether works of Chinese writing prompt interpretations and raise questions, thus satisfying more of Buchanan's criteria for greatness. I would argue that they can do both. Subject to interpretation is the movement of the brush, the writer's thinking as he wrote, the qualities expressed in the writing, and its points of excellence. The interest of the piece shown in Figure 13 goes beyond what it says.The text here deals with a familiar topic: whether one can learn to be a sage. The text says that the key is to be without desire. The writing itself suggests a somewhat different answer. The work is quite large , more than five feet high. BeFIGURE I3. TUNG CH'Icause the characters are CH' ANG (I555-I636). TRANSCRIPTION OF T'UNG large, they are difficult to SHU (PENETRATING THE execute. The coordination BooK OF CHANGES), BY between mind and body is CHOU TUN-I (IOI7"?3). quite impressive here , especially considering that the writer was about seventyyears old. By writing so large, he seems to answer the question. Yes, one can learn to be a sage, and you are looking at him. As for whether works of writing can raise questions, questioningwas an important aspect of the art of writing. Refinement of the art itself depended on a questioning of the past. Furthermore, in writing a word, one might think about it, question what it means, clarify what it means. As an example, we can take a rendition of the Chinese characters for the infinite (see Figure 14). It is barely recognizable as standard script because of the indefinition of its boundaries. Something like this indefiniteness, this vagueness, this difficulty in comprehension, is associated with our notions of the infinite. The writing itself thus suggests something about the meaning of the term. Practiced at its best, the art of Chinese writing involves a fusion of thought and feeling. It is an art critical ofitself, and in that respect it may be considered modern-of our time. FIGURE I4. CHIN In our time the question of NUNG (I687-I763). whether Chinese achievements Wu-LIANG (INFINITE), belong in our education has been DETAIL OF AN ALBUM. the subject of some debate. The focus has mainly been on books. But the books have not been entirely persuasive. To many in the West, they do not seem to depend on reason, they often seem 51 �to undermine it, and they often do not seem to encourage questioning. The problem with the discussion so far is that its scope has not been wide enough. If one looks only at books, one gets a limited view of the Chinese intellectual tradition. We risk misunderstanding that tradition by taking what we would call its philosophical works as representingwhat is best in it. Chinese scholars often put their highest thought not into discursive prose, but into poetry, painting, and calligraphy, the art of writing. Their highest expression took place not only between the lines, but in the lines. The Chinese elite did much of the work we try to do, but by a different object of study. Their art of writing is in a way a reflection of who we are. In the end East does meet West. China, after all, gave us the technical foundation for our modern world. In Novum Organum, Francis Bacon identifies printing, gunpowder, and the magnetic compass as the three defining inventions of the modern age. ' 2 All three, as far as we know, originated in China. The list of Chinese contributions to the West might be expanded without too much effort to include the art ofwriting. '3 If there is a Chinese contribution to the liberal arts, the art of writing is it. Those who learned it well were freed from having to labor in the fields and allowed to participate in the political process. Learning and practicing it required considerable leisure. In addition, the Chinese art ofwriting represents the study of grammar at its most basic and perhaps most intense . It involves a kind of rhetoric and a kind of geometrical construction. I do not advocate that everyone go out and pick up a brush, but I think that a more informed look at Chinese writing is possible. At the very least, consideration of the centrality of writing in China should adjust how we view certain Chinese paintings. Such paintings often depict scholars writing or discussing writing amid spectacular natural surroundings. In the West, these have typically been interpreted as "landscape" paintings showing the insignificance of human beings in relation to nature. This view is gen- erally a misrnterpretation. The paintings are generally not transcriptions of scenes, but metaphors. They affirm the power of human activity, specifically writing. The natural scene often emanates from the scene of writing, as in Figure 15. In Figure 16 the eye's movement up the pictorial space culminates in writing. To write is to be taken from one's FIGURE I6. SHIH T'Ao (I64I-CA. I7IO). urban setting. To PAINTING OF WILDERNESS COTTAGE. THE write is to be able POEM AT THE TOP LEFT READS: "THE SHEEN OF BAMBOO SURROUNDS THE WILDERNESS to make new SCENEJ THE IMAGE OF A COTTAGE RIPPLES worlds. To write is IN THE FLOWING RIVER." also to participate in the processes of nature. The interplay ofyin and yang, ultimately responsible for the phenomenal world, is imitated by the alternation of black and white in Chinese writing. Through writing, human beings resonate with the natural world. Notice in Figure 17 how the writing at the top of this painting merges with the branches of the pomegranate. Footnotes r. This is a slightly revised version of a lecture presented on January 23, 1998, at St. John's College, Annapolis. 2. Wade-Giles transcription is used here. 3. Shu-tao is also one of the traditional Chinese terms for the art, or "way," of writing. 4. Forexample,JerryNorman,Chinese (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 5. The examples come from Shu-p'u (Treatise on writing) , completed in 687 by Sun Kuo-t'ing. A translation of the treatise appears in Two Treatises on Chinese Calligraphy. tr. Chang Ch'ung-ho and Hans H. Frankel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. 6. In this paragraph, I am following, perhaps caricaturing, the types of analyses offered in Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, ed. Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 7. Useful accounts of the Chinese examination system are Ichasada Miyazaki, China' Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations oflmperial China, tr. Conrad Schirokauer (New York: Weatherhill, 1976); and Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368rgn. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962). 8. More accurately, this style is known as the lesser seal script. There are forms of writing older than this one , but for centuries the artistic tradition was unaware of them. 9. Useful discussions of Greek typography can be found in Greek Letters: From Tablets to Pixels , ed. Michael S. Macrakis (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press , 1996). rn. This regimen was prescribed by Feng Fang in the seventeenth century in "Hsueh shu-fa" (Learning the art of writing). Feng' s essay is translated in Tseng Yuho, A History of Chinese Calligraphy (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1993), 240-42. rr. The philosopher-king is compared to a painter in Plato, Republic, Book 6, 484C-D (see also Book 7, 540A-B). 12. Novum Organum, Book I , Aphorism 149. 13. It has influenced a few Western artists, such as Robert Motherwell. FIGURE I8. CHENG HSIEH (I693-I765). PAINTING OF BAMBOO. THE TEXT CONSISTS OF A NARRATIVE AND POEM ON THE "INTOXICATING" BEAUTY OF BAMBOO. IT IS UNCONVENTIONAL IN THAT IT READS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. Notice in Figure 18 how the writing at the bottom of this painting provides the ground, the nourishing soil, for the bamboo. Writing transmits the Way. The Way is Nature . Nature is writing: it is a book for us to read. Thus we can affirm with Jacques Derrida that there is nothing beyond text. Su ggestions for furth er r eading Billeter, J ean-Frarn;ois. The Chinese Art ofWriting. New York: Rizzoli, 1990. Chiang Yee. Chinese Calligraphy: An Introductio to Its Aesthetic and Technique. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973. FIGURE IS. K'uNTs 'AN (Ifo2"'73). DETAIL OF SHAN KAO SHU/ CHANG (TALL MOUNTAINS AND LONG RIVERS). FIGURE I7· HUANG SHEN ( I687I766). PAINTING OF A POMEGRANATE. 52 53 �Calculations of Moon Crater Depths * Anna-Clare Milazzo Jill Nienhiser Objective to obtain pictures of the moon that included the terminator, which is the line that approximately separates the" day" from the "night" on the moon. There is no terminator with a full moon and thus, our images were procured during the first quarter. The terminator also takes into the account the angle at which the sun would appear to an observer on the moon. The sun increases in height by one degree for every degree shift from the terminator. An image of the nebula in Orion (M42) was also taken in order to determine the scale factor in the images. The two stars very close to the nebula (SAO 132321 Theta2-0rion and SAO 132322) are convenient since they are separated by one arc-minute. The depth of craters on the moon's surface can be determined with simple geometrical concepts. Using a ChargeCoupled Device (CCD) camera with a telescope, we obtained pictures of moon craters. By using a picture of stars in the Great Nebula in Orion, we were able to find the scale factor between visual distances and the known radius of the moon. The corresponding triangle comprised of the length of the shadow cast by the sun across a crater; the distance of the crater from the terminator, the radius of the moon , and the depth of the crater can be demonstrated. Setup Analysis All images were taken in the St. John's College Observatory. The pictures of the moon were obtained with a 12" Schmidt- Cassagrain telescope and a Meade CCD camera. For some of the images, a dark cover was held over roughly three quarters of the telescope aperture to diminish marked turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. Images of a star were taken to determine the proper focus of the telescope with the CCD camera in place. This focal length is far different than the usual eyepiece used. Twisting the adjustment knob clockwise by quarter turns brought the image into focus. Procedure Once the telescope was focused, we centered the moon in the finderscope and took a number of images. In order to proceed with our calculations, it was necessary x z T enninator For our calculations, it was necessary to treat the sun as a point source at an infinite distance from the moon . The method for determining the depth of the crater required knowing the radius of the moon , the length of the shadow within the crater, and the distance from the crater to the terminator. The diffraction in the atmosphere of the earth and the irregular geometry of the crater were ignored to simplify the calculation. The scale factors between the images of the moon and the actual distance were found in the following manner. The apparent moon's diameter is known to be approxim ately 30 arc-minutes. The unit of an arc-minute was measured from the image of the Great Nebula. 0 Light Somte Figure 2 d Figme 1 Figm-.:. 3 54 terminator (D) =173.81 km. Solving for H with the above equation yields H= 2.67 km. The radius of the moon (R ) is known to be about l738km. Using the diameter, the scale factor between images and t~e actual moon may be determined. Arate which expresses this scale factor is 30 arc-min.:2 *Rkm:: l arc-min: n5.87 km. In figure l, the crater's shadow and the depth are related to each other through the angle at which the sun light strikes the crater. Sin(theta)= H/L. Figure 2 shows the crater (rotated to demonstrate the coordinate system we are using) with the sunlight striking it at angle 8. The center o_f ~he ~oon is our origin of the xyz coordinate system. Combmmg figure l and figure 2, Rand H lie in the xy plane. Land D are parallel to the xy plane and are thus used as straight lines rather than as arcs. Let it be noted that the rotation shown in figure 2 allows us to treat the moon as a disk. However, the results represent a three-dimensional moon. Figure 3 demonstrat~s the relation between the two similar right triangles formed m the crater and in the sphere of the moon. Because Land Dare parallel to one another, sin(8)= DIR. Thus, a proportion b~­ tween the two triangles may be created as H:L::D:R. Our final equation is H= (L *D)/R. The crater we chose to do our calculations upon is located in the picture of the moon attached. The length of the shadow (L)=3/r3arc-min. Thus L=26.74 km. The distance from the Conclusion The method employed allowed us to determine the crater depth using a very simple triangulation. However, there are expected errors in this procedure. Besides irregular cr~ter geometry and diffraction, error is expected from measurmg distances with a ruler and then converting those numbers to kilometer. Yet, the geometry is elegant and gives a reasonable approximation. Acknowledgments We would like to extend our thanks to Hai Sun and Nelson Hernandez for their help. Bibliography Kelsey, Hoff, and Neff. Astronomy: Activities and Experiments. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company: Iowa, 197r. Levy, David. The Sky: A User's Guide. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, rggr. 55 �' he Half-Day T Aaron Pease The cup lay on his lap, bouncing back and forth beween his knees as the bus lurched up the hill. He cradled it delicately as if it were a chalice, his thumbs caressing the raised gold lettering: "William Ripley, Award for Excellence, 2nd Grade." Katie Man done received one too, and he let his head fall back against the seat as the ramifications of that fact drifted past. The bus jolted over a pothole and disrupted his thoughts, much like Miss Dranski when she had pierced through his daydreaming fog to inform him that he had won the award. He had burst with pride as he walked through the narrow columns of desks to the teacher. But that had changed when he turned around with the trophy and realized that all eyes were on him. He couldn 't see them all, but he could feel them, and they burned like searchlights on his reddening face. He knew that some of them were smirking, and he wished he could just fade back into the blackboard. The eyes followed him as he returned to his desk, and he had spent the rest of the morning feeling guilty for having been singled out. The embarrassment was gone now, andhe leaned back in his seat and wondered somewhat abstractly if the trophy counted as a Christmas gift. The bus turned to the left and his lean toward the window was accelerated bythe impact of an airborne body. The boy pushed the cup forward as his shoulder and cheek were squeezed against the window. "Frankie, get off me!" "I couldn'thelpit, Billy, the bus turned and threw me over on your seat." The boy answered in a husky voice as he dropped his equally husky body into the seat across the aisle. He wiped the hair from his eyes and grinned at Billy. "I didn't mean to ." "You almost busted it!" Billy thrust out the cup as evidence and just as quickly pulled it back as the other boy' s hands swiped outward and narrowly missed it. "It's plastic," Frankie sneered. Billy ignored this and scooted over to the window. He watchedintentlyas the close-set houses staggered past, many decked with ribbons of Christmas lights that streamed down the roof and crested over the gables like waves breaking onto the shore. Their porches hung from the eaves like jowls, and they seemed as much fit for Chrismas as a dog wearing reindeer antlers. His reverie was interrupted as Frankie plopped down in the part of the seat Billy had just vacated. Billy turned his head, but in order to shield the trophy he kept his thin shoulders parallel to the window. "You can't see it, Frankie, it's mine!" he wailed. "C'mon Billy, lemme see it," Frankie replied, his hand dis- regarding the frail fortress surrounding the object in question just as his voice had effectively overridden Billy's entreaty. Billy turned away from Frankie's groping hand until his shoulders were pinned between the wall of the bus and the seat. His head, which he could no longer turn toward Frankie, was wedged into the corner to protect against any sorties from above. Frankie's body followed his hand until he lay on top ofBilly, who had slipped down and become a tent folded about his Ark. Frankie rested atop Billy and continued negotiating. "C'mon, I just wanna take one look at it. It'll just take a minute." Billy didn't answer at first, satisfied with his defenses and content to wait for the bus stop to break the siege. He knew that the next stop, which was his, wasn't Frankie's, even though it was only five blocks from his house . Yet, uncomfortable with the silence that followed his own refusal to answer, he howled into the muffled vacuum , "Frankie, get off me! You can't see it! I know you won't give it back!" Frankie leaned his head toward Billy. "What's that, Billy? I can ' t hear you. I just want to see that dumb plastic trophy. " "GET OFF ME!" With this last protest Billy jerked his elbows up, barely missing Frankie's head. Frankie, taken aback by Billy's general convulsion, jumped away. He sat back on his side of the aisle and regarded Billy with a hurt look. "I was just playin', Billy. You don't have to get all worked up over that stupid thing. See ifyou ever get to play football with us again." Billy lay prone on the seat, his head leaning against the side of the bus as he looked over at Frankie. His cheeks were flushed and he still held the gold cup tightly in both hands, a situation that became precarious as the bus stopped suddenly and he rolled forward and almost fell into the leg space between the seats as his pivoting lower half found the floor . He gathered himself into the seat and stood up, trying to save a last vestige of dignity from Frankie' s steady laughter. He stepped into the aisle and pretended not to notice Frankie staring up at him as he moved toward the door. A feeling of elation caught him as he stepped off the bus into the wet snow. The imminence of Christmas washed over the now distant schoolday and the revelation of his newfound link with Katie pierced through the colorless sky. "Wanna race?" This, accompanied by a hard clap on the back, sent a chill down his spine. He cringed as Frankie continued, "The winner gets the trophy." Billy shook off the hand and jumped away. "Frankie, it's notyoursit'smine! Youcan'thaveit! getaway from me! go 56 home! " He had nowhere to go now., and could only spiral fruitlessly to keep Frankie away. Frankie stepped around him and grabbed the trophy. They stood there, Frankie grasping the cup while Billy held the base in his trembling hands. "Go!" With that Frankie took off. Billy was pulled along behindhim but tried to resist. The cup tore away from its base and into Frankie's thick hands. Billy stopped and stared at the plastic square that remained in his grasp. "C'mon , Billy, finish the race or I'll win!" But Billy did not hear him. He looked at the meaningless lettering with an empty gaze. He gave off a low moan and began to run, gripping the remnant tightly in his hand, past Frankie, past the silent houses whose Christmas finery could not assuage the scowl with which they always regarded each other, the street, and now the boy stumbling past. He ran home, shedding muffled sobs into the still air as soon as he had breath enough to release them. He stormed up to the house, flung wide the front door, and charged up the steps, his voice fluctuatingwith his movements until they were both cut off by the slamming of his bedroom door. He had passed his bewildered mother who, alarmed, followed quickly after him . She had been cleaning the house again, as she had just gone to Confession and revealed her many small misdeeds to Father Mitchell. But that didn't help and maybe she had forgotten a few, so she decided one was laziness since vigilance can't be a sin. She was a thin woman, on the tall side with faded red hair. Her features were sharp, much sharper than in her youth, as if time, instead of dulling, had refined and narrowed them, each passing trial and tribulation honing and whetting a blade so fine it soon would be nothing more than an edge. She came up to his room, and managed to filter his story through his sobs. She wiped his tears away, and gave him an embrace that seemed to surround him with the warmth and comfort of the womb. But then she spoke. "Who did this, William?" It was on the tip of his tongue, but, when he opened his mouth to speak, he found he could not answer. He remembered that time when Frankie and his buddy Craig had ambushed Steve and plastered him with snowballs. Steve had gone home and told his mom, and she called the school, and the next day Frankie and Craig got paddled by Sister Elmira. They hated Steve after that, and even Billy felt that Steve had breached some unspoken agreement. So Billy did not answer. His mother pressed his hand tighter and asked again. But there was something else, something more than the mere realization that his friends' punishments could be much worse than anything his parents doled out. He was ashamed that he had allowed Frankie to bully him and take his trophy. He wanted it back. But he realized now that he had to do more than just get it. He didn't want to be the baby who cried until he got his lollipop back. He had to get it back himself, somehow. Even as the thought occurred to him he knew it was wilder than any daydream he could concoct, but his resolve remained in defiance of his child's logic. He remained silent. His mother, caught between an objectless indignation and a compassion that was the hopeless cons01t of justice, abruptly rose and released his hand. She left the room on the verge of anger, not wanting the boy to witness her sudden swing of emotion. Children were so unpredictable , one moment wailing as if they were mortally wounded, the next moment going to great lengths to defend their oppressors. She tried to remember what it was like to be a child, but it was like trying to catch a handful of dust motes wafting through a lonely shaft of sunlight in an old, cluttered room. He spent his solitude lying on his bed, gazing at the bare pedestal of the trophy. The shame was still there, but even now he could not muster any resentment against Frankie. He began to think that, in refusing his mother, he had done something Frankie would understand and sympathize with, and that somehow the indefinable but everpresent connection that bound all children had between them been strengthened. He hadn't tattled, and somehow that salvaged some of the pride he had left at the bus stop. His reverie was shattered by the ringing phone. His mother yelled through the door that it was for him, and he got up reluctantly and went to the phone. It was Craig. Billy gleaned from him there was a football game down at the public school in a half-hour. This was a difficult process because Craig, whenever he became excited or was saying something funny, sounded like a braying donkey. As he hung up the phone, the full import of the call hit him. By now everyone would know that Frankie had taken his trophy, that he was a wimp and a pushover and couldn't stick up for himself. He dreaded what they would say to him, but he decided to go anyway, not so much because he knew that eventually he would live it down, but because he couldn't (and didn't want to) avoid his friends forever. He walked down the street slowly and resolutely, like a criminal being led to to his execution who, with the hope of a reprieve inexplicably fresh in his mind, is determined that, whatever the outcome, he would dignify his own memory and that of others. His head still ached from his previous exertions, and his tears were still caked on his face like dry creek beds. He concentrated on the houses looming before him , filling his mind with their every detail, as if their massive immobilitywould somehow bring him to a halt. They we e huge and rambling and mysterious, monuments to a faded intention of opulence that once crowned the hill overlooking the town. Theywere meant to be a gilded gateway, but were now merely a distraction from the working-class neighborhood which lay beyond. Their images rose up within him, stone bulwarks stemming the emotional tide within. But he kept moving, and one after another they vanished from his imagination like afterthoughts. He was the last to arrive as he half-slid, half-walked down the slushy slope to the field. As he crunched through the ankle-deep snow he was met by a flying football, which he caught despite his thick mittens. He looked hard at each boy there, searching their faces for some shared secret or an unpleasant smile, but he found nothing. Only Frankie seemed to avoid him. Billy was caught now between that simple, deceptive elation that only implies the absence of worry and a 57 �Frankie's sturdy, wideboned face. The only reason he could imagine that Frankie was not astride him and pounding him into the ground was that he had gotten luckier than he would believe possible. He crouched, poised to run, yet he knew full well that he would take his beating in peace. It had not occurred to him that what he had been playing was a game, and that what he had done was not only an essential part of the game, but if done well, could rouse the respect, admiration, and even the fear of his peers. The pride that he had just discovered he possessed he figured everybody else had too , only more of it. Like the child who usually understands the joke too late, he thought that what he had just understood, everyone else had known for a while. This pride would teach him to endure pain and defeat, not because it was the nature of pride, but because he had felt pain and been defeated and probably would continue to be , and he needed a way to cope with it. And Billy, who in his awe of Frankie saw him as the kid in the rocket ship reaching for the stars, like the poster in the hallway at school, knew Frankie must have the same pride, but not the pain , the defeat, or the loss. No doubt Frankie would deal with the pitch and roll in his otherwise steady upward trajectory with the same necessity as a plane lowering its flaps and adjusting its rudder to maintain its altitude. But Frankie did nothing. He was helped to his feet and with merely a glance at him mumbled, " Damn , Billy, you almost broke my neck. " The game didn ' t last much longer. Billy felt again that simple elation but this time gave in to it. He felt indistinguishable from Frankie or Craig or any of the others , and he basked in the anonymity. So he was not surprised when he went with everybody else to Frankie ' s to watch HBO and drink hot chocolate, even though his parents expected him home for dinner. They piled through the side door, throwing off snowcaked gloves, hats, coats, and the damp socks rattling mound in their boots. They tumbled down the steps into the rec r oom; the TV sprang to life , and they nestled into the deep cushioned couches. " I gotta go to the bathroom." "Upstairs to the left." Billywalked up the stairs . The wet, uncomfortable elastic of his sweatpants forced him to shuffle up the stairs with short steps as if a chain was binding his legs together. He stepped out into the reassuring blackness of the hallway, the soft light of the kitchen to his right aglow with the sounds of Frankie's mother preparing food, and to his left a muted blue haze emanated from the otherwise dark living room. He was in the bathroom only for a moment, and he stepped back into the hallway. H e stood there for a moment, enj oying the stillness of the house, the noises of activity remote enough to allow him to contemplate them. He tiptoed into the living room. The television was on, its mahogany casing intricately embroidered, and it crouched in the corner, roaring not with sound but with light, which bathed the room in blue. It was absorbed by the metallic ornaments which hung on the metallic tree . Across from the tree, Frankie' s burly father lay in a lounge chair with his feet guarded, suspicious aspect that he knew he could n ot ignore. No doubt they were waiting for him to mess up (drop a ball, miss a tackle, trip) and then the floodgates would open. He remembered a time over the summer, when theywere all here playing baseball. Somehow he had managed to get a hit, and as he led off first base, he gazed up at the deep blue sky and thick white clouds which had broken free of the encircling trees, and became entranced. One of the clouds looked like a dragon, and he imagined himself a knight rearing his white charger before galloping across the blue expanse to save Katie. Meanwhile, the pitcher had thrown the ball over to Frankie at first base, who had leisurelywalked up to Billy and tagged him out. He had walked back to the makeshift dugout shamefaced, the angry cries of his own team burning his ears. He had messed up in the worst way: he had done something worthy of being made fun of and had hurt his team's chances ofwinning. He had determined then that something like that would never happen again. The teams were picked up. The best athletes in the class, Frankie and Craig, displayed a political savvy that rivalled even the most polished politician of Tarn any Hall. They managed, day in and day out, during recess or after-school, to place themselves and a select few on the same team.Using cajolery, jerryrigging, glad handing, and threats, their dynasty showed no signs of crumbling. Billy, as usual , was on the other team, ready once again to play the New Jersey Generals to their Harlem Globetrotters, although this was an imagined match up between the Steelers and the Cowboys. The outcome was never in doubt, but Billy surprised even himself with his play. He caught all the balls thrown to him and otherwise managed not to be an embarrassment. As the game was winding down , Craig hiked the ball and pitched it to Frankie, who , despite his bulk and the sliding snow, dodged tacklers half his size. Billy saw that Frankie would run his way and began to move forward. As would-be tacklers dove and missed , some intentionally, he realized a collison was inevitable . He realized that he too could dive and miss, but overriding that thought was fear, a fear mixed with a pride that could stomach any outcome but the discovery that he had been afraid. He was running full speed now, and Frankie saw him and made n o effort to spin away. At the last moment Billy threw his whole body sideways , almost on all fours , and hit Frankie directly at the knees. " Fuuck! !" The expletive was quickly muffled in the snow. Billy turned around, his body trembling and weak from the release of adrenalin. Frankie rolled slowly onto his back, his face caked with fast-melting snow that concealed any tears. He repeated his first shocked reaction several times with a low moan. He had landed on his face. "Frankie, are you okay?" "Whoa, Billy, you almost flipped him! " Everyone was torn between looking at Billy and the unfamiliar sight of an upended Frankie, so they reserved their stares for one and their words for the other. That was it, then . Billy clenched his fist and just as quickly unclenched it. He knew how futile it would be against 58 again at his prize. It seemed to be in motion , fading slowly back into the mantle through the double row of pictures whose reflections continued through the mirror. He felt like he was witnessing a procession, the cup a ceremonial grail moving through the everpresent review of courtiers , whose plastic smjles (as always grasping the significance of nothing) and gaudy dress were outshone by the faceless block of wood and its priceless burden. The vision continued to drift regally away from him; he was in the court of a king, he concluded, and the chalice was a gift to the king. Or maybe it was from the king. His back caught the hard edge of the banister, and the vision dissolved into the warm blue glow of the living room. He turned towards the basement door and went downstairs. "Frankie, I gotta go home." "All right, see ya. " The others were glued to the television and didn't bother to echo Frankie. Billy didn't mind, and he pulled on his coat and boots. He sprang up the stairs and out into the night. He walked around Frankie's house to the sidewalk and gazed through the front window into the living room. It flickered still with the soft blue light which Frankie's family would gather around as if it were a hearth. This comforted him, and as he walked down the sidewalk, he thought again about the trophy. Maybe itwasn ' ta king's to give or a king's to receive; maybe it was still his somehow even though it remained in its proper place on Frankie' s mantle. He continued home, wrestling unsuccessfully with the problem as the falling snow caressed his cheeks and drifted peacefully about the haloed streetlamps. up. He was still in his work clothes and he was snoring, head thrown back. The features of his face seemed a foundering ship slowly sinking into the plump expanse of his cheeks. Billy stopped, his breath drawn inward. He saw it. It was on the mantle, reflected in the mirror as if to prevent any initial disbelief. It had been r eplanted on a nondescript block of wood, and was flanked either side by pictures ofFrankie' s several brothers at various dances and proms. They all seemed to be escorting the same girl, a child-woman wrapped in a glittering glovelike dress which revealed more than was intended, and whose mountainous, overarching mass of hair made superfluous the balloons and confetti meant to serve as a backdrop. He was already moving toward it, slipping noiselessly past the sleeping man. He was filled with the hopeless desire which follows hard upon the realization that had he never seen it again he would have been none the worse. Slowly his hand reached upward towards the cup as he raised up onto his tiptoes. "What you doin' boy?" Billy jumped. Frankie's father was sitting bolt upright in his chair, looking at him. He retracted the footrest, got up, and lumbered towards Billy. Billy shrank back, but the cold fireplace stopped him, and as much as he wished to turn and scramble up the chimney, he knew the fireplace was fake. The father was close now, and he reached over Billy's head (so that Billy winced in spite of himself) and took the trophy down. His face softened as he gazed at the gold plastic. "I know why someone like you would be jealous and want something like this. Francis told me he got it from his teacher for bein' the hardest worker in class, you know, bringing his grades up. I think it's important to work hard, 'cause that' s how you get anywhere in life. He got to stand up 'in front of everybody and they all clapped for him . The teacher talked to me a while back about his deficiencies, not puttin' forth an effort and so on, so this time I'm kinda eager to see his improvement. Usually I just throw his report card in the trash, 'cause that's usually what's on it. Francis told me some kids was tryin' to take that trophy from him on the way home but he fought 'em, though there was enough of them that they still managed to break it. He came home on the verge of tears so I went right downstairs and fixed it up as best I could. You wasn't one of them, was you?" "N-no sir." "I didn't think so. You don't look the type. Francis, he gets a hard time of it at home. His brothers are always mes sin' with him, and Maggie and I are so busy at the mill we can't do anything about it. I guess I can be a little hard on him too. I wish I was at home more, and I could spend more time with him, throwin' the football and whatnot, but I'm gettin' old and can't do the things I used to. But I got him a bike and one of them Atari things, so I imagine he'll be too busywith them to notice. I'm proud of him, though, real proud. Now don't you go takin' this now." He placed the trophy back on the mantle, tousled Billy's hair, and walked out of the room, his cheeks billowing with pride. Billy stood quietly for a moment, and then began to make his way across the carpet. Halfway, he turned and looked 59 �Language and Mind: an Examination of the Phaedo and Other Dialogues of Plato * Alan Rubenstein Among the first dilemmas a student of philosophy faces is whether to proceed with the belief that the truth is commensurable with his own intellect. What is the discussion of philosophical topics supposed to achieve? Do we , by making speeches and challenging the ideas of other's speeches, advance ourselves toward any real goal which we can call truth? One might suggest that philosophy is mer ely a game of words or perhaps a means to some other limited end and that our language has n othing to do with reality except perhaps to name it in a superficial way. This dilemma is dearly a crossroads at which a student must decide what philosophy will mean to him-what will be at stake in his study. In this paper, I will investigate Socrates ' position on this question of intelligibility and, as a consequence, explore his ideas on the relationship between language and reality. Socrates believes in the intelligibility of the world. His way of understanding man 's r elation to truth represents a defense against the looming threat of skepticism and misology. It is a peculiar kind of defense, h owever. Belief in th e intelligibility of the world is not a conclusion to which one comes from an argument. It is, itself, the foundation of argumentation. In th e Phaedo, the intelligibility of the world becomes a central, although often implicit, issue at stake in the discussion. Socrates explains what it really means either to assert or deny that some truth can be gotten at through argumentation. The defense of the notion that our world is intelligible is , in part, the plausibility and attractiveness of the arguments which rest on it as their foundation. Another aspect of its defense is the ways in which it contributes to and stems from a more virtuous lifestyle. The first task of this paper will be to make explicit the implicit issue of intelligibility in the Phaedo and show the ways that Socrates convinces his interlocutors (including us as readers ) that believing in intelligibility is permissible as well as beautiful. The second part of this paper will focus on the difficulties which accompany holding such a position. Socrates mentions Anaxagoras as one of his early influences, but claims that his adherence to intelligibility led him to an extreme position on what could be apprehended by a human mind and an extreme denial of the role of sensible phenomena in causation. This denial forced Anaxagoras into hypocrisy when he tried to explain the specifics of how things come to be and pass away. Socrates' view is that the extreme of Anaxagoras is in need of reconciling with the facts of everyday life , yet this is difficult to accomplish without abandoning intelligibility and once again placing truth in the ever-moving sea of sense-experience. Socrates manages to accomplish this reconciling, however, by positing a system where words, or 'A.oym ', are at the center of the cause of generation and corruption. Unfolding how this can be so will be the goal of the third part of this paper. Language is an activity of the r ational intellect and it is an image of the reality that truly is to the same extent as are the sensible objects. Part of Socrates' system is an assertion that we, as limited beings , can n ot commune directly with reality, its ~lf, and thus we must r ely on images of that reality. In this way, truth is commensurable with our minds but not limited to what they can encompass. Which images we make use of, however, is the crucial question . Our avenue to truth lies not in the images which are the sensible objects , but in the images which are our language, our speeches, our A.o yot , which express them an d, at the same time, point to the something universal and eternal. I will make extensive use of the Republic in order to investigate what it means for there to be images of reality which are different in kind. At the end of this third section of the paper, I will look specifically at the relationship between the A.oym and the forms , or ,,. nori'. This is a necessary task as the forms are obviously crucial to Socrates' idea of what the reality is which language images and also what the truth is at which argumentation aims. In this sub-section, I will refer to the Parmenides, in the hope that by addressing Parmenides' challenges to the young Socrates and his idea of the forms I can find an avenue into understanding the mature Socrates' idea of forms and language. This section on the nori will be somewhat more speculative than what proceeds it. What I intend is to give an interpretation of the relationship between the A.oyot and the El.Ort which will make sense of Socrates' system of an intelligible world articulated through language. r. The Attractiveness oflntelligibility Introduction The explicit issue at stake in the Phaedo is the immortality of the soul. This issue is set in the dramatic context of an account of the last day of Socrates' life. At one point, Socrates says, "I do not think that anyone who heard me now ... could say that I am babbling and discussing things that do not concern me. " (Phaedo 7ob) The issue of whether the soul perishes at the death of the body is, obviously, a critical issue for Socrates and his friends at this moment. There is another issue, though , which is central to the argument in the dialogue and which also fits into the dramatic context. This is the issue 60 of whether or n ot the world is intelligible; whether one can get at truth through argumentation . As the interlocutors , especially the Thebans Simmias and Cebes, find problems with Socrates' argument, the implicit question is raised whether any answer to such an important question as immortality can be convincing or comforting. This issue of intelligibility is appropriate to the dramatic events of the dialogue because on it depends the question of whether debating with one's colleagues into the meaning of things is the right activity for a man about to die and, moreover, for any man who wants to live rightly in the ultimate sense. To put it bluntly, if the activity of argumentation is not directed toward a truth which is real in the deepest sense then Socrates has wasted his final hours and the majority of his life. Thus , the Phaedo becomes another defense of the philosophic way oflife. The activity of dialectic rests on the notion that the world is ultimately understandable. If it is not, then all that is left is the activity of the contradictor: spite his distance in spac.e and time , Echecrates feels this anxiety. We , as readers, feel it as well. By means of this interjection, Plato temporarily removes the walls between the levels of the dialogue. It is appropriate that he should do so at this moment because it is here that the second main issue of the dialogue comes from out of the background to the fore of the debate . As living beings, Socrates' listeners at every level feel the importance of the issue of immortality. As students of philosophy, the same importance exists for every listener in regards to the intelligibility of the world. The two possibilities which Phaedo suggests are (a) that we are worthless critics or (b) that the subject admits of no certainty. Either of these options amounts to a confession of the incommensurability of our intellects with the truth. These two possibilities will resurface as the alternatives to intelligibilitywhich loom over the discussion at all times. What is at stake is the way oflife of all those who search for truth through argumentation. Mi so logy The interjection of Phaedo's narrative voice allows us to see Socrates' reaction to the anxiety into which his interlocutors have been plunged. Phaedo describes him as " sharply ... aware of the effect the discussion had on us. " (Phaedo 8ga) When Phaedo returns to his recounting of the events in the cell, it is significant that the discussion he takes up is between Socrates and himself. Phaedo is a participant in the jail-cell argument only at this place- only when what is at stake is argumentation , itself. The man who disappears into anonymity as the narrator of the dialogue takes on a real dramatic personae for this discussion only. This is another case of blurring the division between levels of the dialogue in order to examine argumentation directly. Socrates begins his rebuttal of the Thebans ' objections by stating how much is really at stake in them. The following interchange shows where he believes one' s priorities should lie: "You know how those in particular who spend their time studying contradiction in the end believe themselves to have become very wise and that they alone have understood that there is no soundness or reliability in any object or in any argument" (Phaedo gobc) Socrates' task in responding to Simmias and Cebes is twofold. He must convince them that their objections do not disprove that the soul is immortal and he must convince all those present that dialectic is not a worthless endeavor because the world is ultimatelyintelligible to the mind of man. The former task is the more explicit. What I will first demonstrate is that the latter task is implicitly present in the dialogue. Iri doing this, I will show wh at it means to Socrates for the truth about things to be ultimately intelligible. Socrates' innovations regarding language , which will be the focus of the succeeding sections of this paper, can be better understood with this meaning as a backdrop. "Tomorrow, Phaedo, (Socrates) said, you will probably cut this beautiful hair. Likely enough , Socrates, I said. Not if you take my advice, he said. Why not? said I. It is today that I shall cut my hair and you yours, if ou a gum nt di es on us, and we cannot revive it." (Phaedo 8gbc) Simmias and Cebes' Challenge to Intelligibility Plato uses the multi-leveled nature of the dialogue to present the issue of intelligibility. After Simrnias and Cebes raise their objections, Echecrates and Phaedo-the men in the town of Phil us discussing Socrates' final hours long after the events occurred-re-enter the dialogue for the first time. The action of the dialogue is moved to one level up -on ~ level closer to the reader's point ofview. This happens when Phaedo says, By suggesting that Phaedo cut his beautiful hair, Socrates expr esses his belief that the death of the argument is more worthy of mourning than the death of a man. He also suggests that if the argument dies , beauty will somehow be sacrificed with it, implying a close connection between truth and beauty. This is on e indication that the issue of what is beautiful h as a proper role in developing one's opinion regarding the n ature of argument. It is not the rebuttal of any single argument, of course , which should occasion such mourning, but rather the death of argumentation , itself. Simmias and Cebes introduce a state of perplexity by presenting arguments that seem reasonable and convincing. More important than the particulars of the Thebans' objections , the interlocutors are discouraged by the very fact that there seem to be two mutually exclusive "When we heard what they said we were all depressed, as we told each other afterwards. We h ad been quite convinced by the previous argument and they see med to confuse us again , and to drive us to doubt not only what had already bee n said but also wh at was goi ng to be said, lest we be worthless critics or the subject itself admitted of no certainty." (Phaedo 88c ) Phaedo was present in the jail cell, feeling the anxiety at the prospect of unintelligibility. Echecrates, hearing about the discussion at second hand, feels the same anxiety, as is made clear in his response, "By the gods, Phaedo , you have my sympathy, for as I listen to you n ow I find myself saying to myself: "What argument shall we trust?'" (Phaedo 88c) De- 61 �ideas which are both appealing. If things are left in the state of confusion which they introduce with their alternative arguments, it will seem to indicate to all that argumentation is a worthless enterprise and the only 'wisdom' lies in skepticism and distrust. After promising to fight the objections raised "as long as the daylight lasts," (Phaedo 8gc) Socrates introduces this danger of skepticism or ' misology. ' Misology arises factory answer. They are fearful that their objections may really be devastating to Socrates' argument. Consequently, all the interlocutors would be hard pressed to believe in the productivity of any argument regarding such an important matter as immortality. However, belief in intelligibility inspires much courage, as Socrates shows them. He tells them that he, like the swans of Apollo, is gladly singing before his death. Socrates' song is his argument and he will not be so fearful as to leave it halfcompleted because of the threat that any objection would be too strong for the argument to bear. Therefore, he says, "you must speak and ask whatever you want as long as the authorities will allow it." (Phaedo 85b) Simmias responds to this with a statement which shows that he , too , has a tendency toward believing that the world is intelligible and that this is cause for a courageous attitude: "When one who lacks skill in arguments puts his trust in an argum ent as being true, then sh only afterwards believes it to be fal se- as sometimes it is and sometimes it is not-and so with another argument and then another ." (Phaedo gob) This experience, common to all students of truth, forces one into a decision . Either one can become a skeptic, believing that they alone have understood that there is no soundness or reliabilityin any object or in any argument, or one can maintain their trust in the intelligibility of things and therefore continue to search for truth through argumentation . Socrates tells Phaedo that one is not compelled to accept the first of these alternatives. He explains this when he says, "I believe, as perhaps you do , that precise knowledge on that subject is impossible or extremely difficult in our prese nt life, but that it shows a very poor spirit not to exa mine thoroughly what is said about it, and to desist before one is exha usted by an all-round investigation ." (Phaedo 85bc) It is no matterthat 'precise knowledge' (aa q>cc; w)Evm) is near impossible on matters like immortality (a position which Socrates also maintains , as I will discuss later) . One must have the courage to pursue the matter with his intellect as far he are capable. This courage is a product and a cause of the notion that the truth which is sought is commensurable with our minds. Despite Simmias' invocation to courage, the interlocutors, including Simmias himself fall into the fearfulness I described earlier when both The bans put forward their piercing objections. Thus it is necessary for Socrates to, in Phaedo 'swords, " (recall) us from our flight and defeat and (turn) us around to join him in the examination of their argument." (Phaedo 8ga) Courage, again, stems from belief in intelligibility. During the discussion of misology, Socrates gives one more exhortation to the courageous behavior which the search for truth represents. He says, " If there is any system of argument which is true and sure and can be learn ed, it would be a sad thing if a man .. . should hate and revile (arguments) all the rest of his life, ande deprived of the truth and knowledge of reality." (Loeb, Phaedo god)' The possibility of there being a true and sure system of argument, Socrates suggests , should keep one from becoming a misologist. It is because Socrates will not accept the possibility that the world is unintelligible that he tries so fervently to deter his listeners from becoming mere contradictors and not seekers of truth. Courage, Beauty and the Choice oflntelligibility Plato does not present his readers with any solid proof upon which Socrates stakes his belief in intelligibility. Instead, he creates events an d speeches which suggest that the search for truth is a worthy endeavor because it is beautiful and because it is connected to ethical virtues such as courage. One point at which he suggests the connection between courage and the belief in intelligibility is immediately before Simmias and Cebes make their objections. The Thebans are hesitant to bring up their objections, for which Simmias offers the following reason: "We should not allow (µl] napwiµEv) into our minds the conviction that argum entation has nothing so und about it; much rather we should believe that it is we who are not yet sound and that we must take co urage and be eager to attain soundness." (Phaedo goe) The hortatory subjunctive, 'µri naptwµcv' indicates that Socrates is delivering an exhortation to act in a certain way. He is saying 'let us not pass into our mind the hatred of argument.' Given the choice-and it is a choice, not a compulsionbetween believing that argumentation is faulty or believing that argumentation is the only avenue to the truth, Socrates indicates that the latter is the choice made by the courageous man and the lover ofbeauty. This position is consistent with the one which Socrates puts forward in the Meno when he says, "Both of us have been in difficulty for some time, and each of us has been urging the other to question you because we wanted to hear what yo u would say, but we hesitated to bother you, lest it be displeasing to you in your present misfortune ." (Phaedo 84d) Simmias is expressing a lack of confidence in Socrates' courage to take up their objections given his present circumstances. This can, of course, be understood as simple politeness to a man who has only hours left to live. However, there is more behind the Thebans' hesitation than Simmias says. These men know that they hold a threat to all of the interlocutors' trust-including their own-in the possibility of a satis- "I would contend at all costs both in word and deed as far as I could that we will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search 62 for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it isnot possible to find out what we d9 not know and that we must not look for it."(Meno 86bc) Cebes, for it requires a thorough investigation of the cause of generation and destruction" (Phaedo 95e) It is here that Socrates again raises the issue of intelligibility, this time presenting the difficulties and limitations which accompany it. Here, as well as in the Phaedo, the essential connection between holding that the world is intelligible and leading a virtuous life is made evident. The view that truth is intelligible to the mind of man is an idea too close to the foundation of all argument to be proven in the conventional sense. One would have to use argumentation to validate argument. To understand this difficulty, one only needs to imagine a conversation with a 'true' and uncompromising skeptic. The would-be proponent of the proof forintelligibilitywill always be accused of ' sophistry' orwordmixing and will never get off the ground unless it is agreed upon, in an axiomatic way, that some sort of truth is accessible through discussion. This axiom (from 'asw~,' worthy) does not compel its acceptance. However, it attracts acceptance with its beauty and its inspiration to lead a courageous intellectual life. Socrates makes the case for accepting this axiom not only by the things he says, but by the very act of spending his last hours in philosophical conversation. For that matter, he makes the case by the way oflife he has always led, centered as it was around dialectic. If Socrates' life has an appeal to us and to his listeners, then the axiom of intelligibility will attract acceptance. Natural Science In this investigation, Socrates gives a brief autobiography of his struggles with causation early in life. The earliest part of this struggle was his interest in natural science' (n:cpL <j>uocw~ LO't'op1..av). Socrates describes the fruits of this early experience when he says, "This investigation made me quite blind even to those things which I and others thought that I clearly knew before." (Phaedo g6c) Socrates became disillusioned with natural science because its net effect was to confuse him. Even the simplest problems came to be puzzles. For example, Socrates says, "I will not even allow myself to say that where one is added to one either the one to which it is added or the one that is added becomes two, or that the one added and the one to which it is added become two because of the addition of the one to the other." (Phaedo 96e) Socrates' account makes it clear that he became disillusioned with this method of inquiry into nature because it led away from intelligibility, whereas he was convinced that the proper method of explaining generation and corruption should lead toward intelligibility. The axiom of intelligibility forced Socrates to look elsewhere for the final answer to this question of cause. It is important to understand what this method of inquiry referred to as 'n:Ept <j>uaEw~ LO't'Optav' is and why it should lead one to confusion as it did for Socrates. There is an indication of the answer to this in the image Socrates describes of an eclipsing sun. He says, II. The diffi.cultyofintelligibility Introduction "Thus prepared, Simmias and Cebes, (Socrates) said, I come to deal with your arguments." (~ g1b) Socrates, as he proceeds to deal with the explicit challenges which Simmias and Cebes have raised, maintains this notion of intelligibility as an accepted axiom from which he will make his counter-arguments. The issue of intelligibility recedes to the background during his rebuttal of Simmias' objection. However, it comes to the fore again when Socrates deals with Cebes'. Cebes has potently challenged Socrates by assenting to much ofwhat he has said but maintaining that immortality has not yet been established from this. This partial agreement makes his objection more plausible to the listeners and therefore more threatening to their sense that an understan'dable answer can be found. Socrates restates Cebes' objection saying, "I thought that I must be careful to avoid the experience of those who watch (moJtouµEvm) an eclipse of the sun for some of them ruin their eyes unlessthey watch (mcoJtO>Vtm) its reflection in water or some such material. A similar thought crossed my mind, and I feared that my soul would be altogether blinded ifl looked (~AE Jtwv ) at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with each of my senses" (~ ggd) The method of investigating nature that confused Socrates attempts to understand it through the act of perceiving sensible phenomena. The verb 'OKon:£o.>' has the meaning of to look about' and also 'to contemplate or consider.' (cf. Liddell and Scott) The image gets its power from the ambiguity of looking with the eyes as opposed to look.ingwith the mind. As is the case in many places throughout the dialogues, vision and contemplation, seeing and knowing, are paired in an imagistic way. However, this ambiguity is dropped in the second sentence when the word '~AEJtcov' - a looking which is unambiguously with the senses- is used. This word, and generally the image of looking into the sun, suggests why natural science confuses: it looks for truth through instruments of the body, making secondary the role of intellect. A further indication of this is the image of an eclipse of the sun, in particular. An eclipsed sun, unlike that which we see day to day, is "To prove that the soul is strong, that it is divine, that it existed before we were born as men, all this, you say, does not show the soul to be immortal but only long-lasting ... indeed, its very entering into a human body was the beginning of its destruction." (Phaedo 95cd) In order to convince Cebes, Socrates must show him that the soul is not a more durable thing of the same kind as the body, i.e. long lasting,' but that it is something eternal. Socrates does not address Cebes' objection directly at first. He says, "This is no unimportant problem that you raise, 63 �r I obscured in a way that can mislead one to believe it can be looked at without causing damage. Only during an eclipse, when it seems safe to look, could one be blinded. Looking at an eclipse of the sun is analogous to investigating the truth of things by means of the facts of daily life which we perceive with our senses. It does not seem that one is being blindedi.e. losing their ability to make things intelligible-yet this is what is happening. Any thinker who seeks to challenge the notion that knowledge is perception must convince his challengers that they are deceived. After all, the most commonly held and intuitive' view is that those things which we perceive are the most true things of all. Natural science, the mode of investigation which Socrates shies away from, is blinding to his soul. It leads to un-resolvable confusion. The question remains, however, why should investigating truth through visible phenomena lead to such confusion? Socrates only gives a few examples of the kind of causes which natural science yielded for him. One of these is the addition of one and one, cited above. Another is the idea of growth being caused by food, for food "adds flesh to flesh and bones to bones." (Phaedo 96d) The difficulty Socrates might have had with these explanations of cause is that they are simply additive. They point out that where there were two things there is now one or where there was one there are now two, but they do not answer the question of why? in the way that a true theory of causation should. Socrates says of the natural scientists' kind of answer to the placement of the earth in the heavens, rect everything and arrange each thing in the way that was best." (Phaedo 97c) This is the activity of the rational intellect-to aim at what is best-and therefore, ifMind is the cause of all things, the cause of generation and destruction is reducible to the most advantageous way things can be arranged: I never thought that Anaxagoras, who said that those things were directed by Mind, would bring in any other cause for them than that it was best for them to be as they are." (Phaedo 98a) Socrates claims, however, that this theory of cause fails in its application. Anaxagoras himself was unable to explain the generation and destruction of things without abandoning Mind and ascribing material causes to them: "The man made no use of Mind, nor gave it any responsibility for the management of things, but mentioned as causes air and ether and water and many other strange things." (Phaedo 98bc) These material causes hearken back to the additive causes of the natural scientists. Socrates gives an example of the difference between what Anaxagoras should have said and what he actually said when he explains cause in respect to his own rational mind. Rather than say that Socrates is in his jail cell because his bones and sinews are arranged in the way that they are, Socrates rightly points out the real cause of his being there: "One man surrounds the earth with a vortex to make the heavens keep it in place, another makes the air support it like a wide lid ... they believe that they will some time discover a stronger and more immortal Atlas to hold everything together more." (~ 99c) If Anaxagoras really means that Mind directs all things, then Socrates believes he should be able to offer an explanation for their generation and decay, not by reference to ether and air, but by reference to what Mind considers more right and honorable. Anaxagoras' suggestion leads one to hope that the cause of all things can be explained relatively simply based on the principle that Mind on the grand scale functions like mind on the individual level. This hope is the one that Socrates would not have exchanged ... "for a fortune." (Phaedo 98b). These hopes are nonetheless dashed, however. Mind may be the cause, but it is by no means simple to sort out the best and most honorable reasons for all the events we experience. Here, again, the image of the eclipsing sun is instructive. On the one hand, as I discussed above, the image points to the mistake of trying to grasp truth through the senses. The image also points to the futility of trying to comprehend (CJKontw) the source of all truth. This source of all truth is, in Anaxagoras' system, Mind and, in the metaphor, the sun. Mind may be-even, perhaps, must be-the cause of all things, but it can not be apprehended directly. Recall Simmias' comment about the difficulty, or even impossibility of gaining precise knowledge about a subject like immortality (cf. Phaedo 85c). The Greek there for 'precise knowledge' is aaq>t~ nOtvm, which can also be rendered 'to see clearly.' To Socrates' thinking as well, it is impossible, or at least only possible for a very few, to see the sun or to understand the ordering Mind clearly. This is, perhaps, why Anaxagoras fails in the application of his system. It does not mean, however, "For by the dog, I think these sinews and bones could long ago have been in Megara or among the Boeotians, taken there by my belief as to the best course , iflhad not thoughtitmorerightand honorable to endure whatever penalty the city ordered rather than escape and run away." (Phaedo 98e-99a) Looking for answers to such questions in the visual phenomena always simply yields more observations and more questions. No material answer will ever be 'strong and immortal' enough to answer the question, 'why is the Earth held together?' or 'why does food add flesh to flesh?' The type of answer which is appropriate to such questions becomes clear in the next section of Socrates' autobiography. Anaxagoras and Mind Socrates says that, after renouncing the method of natural science, he developed a new method of his own. His account of this new method begins with a description of his encounter with the theory of Anaxagoras who assigned Mind as the cause of all things. Socrates describes his response to finding this theory by saying, "I was delighted with this cause and it seemed to me good, in a way, that Mind should be the cause of all." (Phaedo 97c) It should not be surprising that Socrates was excited by this idea. In it, one has intelligibility of the world at its purest. If the cause of all things is the working of a rational mind, how could our rational intellects not be commensurable with the truth about reality? Here was a suggestion that would not yield endless confusion. Socrates explains, logically, that, "If this were so, the directing Mind would di- 64 some such material.' This is, first of all, another subtle indication of the mixing, the furw,' he is accomplishing. The sun, representing Mind, is reflected in water, representative of always-moving visible phenomena. It is still the sun that is being seen, indicating that the system is, first and foremost, intelligible. However, it is only capable of being seen in the water, indicating that the facts of everyday life are not without impact on the true system of understanding. They are, in fact, the location' of truth, in that they are what occasion language. In the dialogue Timaeus, the claim is made that the true value of our sight is that it leads to philosophy: that a system which makes the truth intelligible to our minds is impossible. Socrates' new method has the task of preserving the intelligibility of Anaxagoras' system without pretending that reality can be apprehended directly. He must describe a way that our minds can remain commensurable with the truth without having the capacity to apprehend it directly. III. Socrates' Solution to Intelligibility: The cpupoo Method' and Language Mixing Wet and Dry Socrates introduces his new method of investigation by saying, "Sight, then, in myjudgmentis the cause of the highest benefits to us in that no word of our present discourse about the universe could have been spoken had we never seen stars, Sun and sky." (Timaeus 47a) "I do not any longer persuade myself that I know why a unit or anything else comes to be, or perishes or exists by the old method of investigation, and I do not accept it, but I have a confused method of my own." (Phaedo Sight occasions language and language is the articulation which points to the truth beyond any visible things, to reality, itself. Kinds oflmages One misconception Socrates anticipates in putting forth the image of the eclipsing sun is corrected when he says, 97b) The words 'confused method' are interpreted from the Greek verb used in this sentence, q>'Upw . This word has the primary meaning of "to mix something dry with something wet." (Liddell and Scott, author's emphasis). Socrates' system is a mixture of the dry stability of Anaxagoras' Mind with the fluid unpredictability of the visual phenomena with which natural science concerns itself. He accomplishes this mixture by positing language as kind of 'medium' for Mind and visible things. Language becomes for him a new kind of cause of generation and destruction. To begin to explain how this is so, I return to the image of the eclipsing sun in the Phaedo: "However, perhaps this analogy is inadequate, for I certainly do not admit that one who investigates things by means of words is dealing with images, any more than one who looks at facts." (Phaedo 99e-rooa) Taking the sun to be representative of the truth, language is not an image of this truth any more than facts are. The means ofinvestigating reality that is language is no more distant from reality than the means of investigating things that is the use of 'facts'-i.e. the use of sensible phenomena. The words 'anymore than' in Socrates' statement are significant as he is not denying the imagistic character of either sensible experience or language. They are both images of pure reality, though language is clearly the one which represents an avenue to truth. In order to understand why this is so one must consider what the nature and kinds of images are for Socrates. All of the dialogues are filled with images of different kinds which are meant to convey truth to Socrates' interlocutors. The claim made in the Phaedo is that all language is imagistic, not just the part ofit which announces itself as an allegory, a metaphor or a myth. Moreover, the claim is made that the sensible phenomena of our daily lives are also images and even images to the same extent. Clearly, however, language and visible objects are not images in the same way. Other places where Socrates discusses images and their relation to that which they image are in the divided line and cave analogies of the Republic. An excursion into these images will be helpful in order to understand how the A.oym are a refuge from un-resolvable confusion. In the divided line image of the Republic, the second and third segments of this line correspond to, respectively, the visual objects and the intelligible objects conceived through the use of hypotheses (sometimes referred to as mathematical objects). These segments are equal in length, however, meaning equality in the amount of truth in which they par- "I feared that my soul would be altogether blinded ifl looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with each of my senses. So I thought I must take refuge in words• and examine in them the truth about things ." (Phaedo 99e) Taking refuge in words or 'A.oym' means fleeing from the danger of un-resolvable confusion by basing one's understanding of truth on language. Language is, in the sense in which I am using the term, the articulation of the mind's encounterwith reality. Socrates, by putting language at the center of his understanding of causation, is putting the human mind into the equation of the natural scientists, and, conversely, he is putting the multitude of phenomena that the natural scientists observe into the intelligence-based system of Anaxagoras. He affirms the existence of the many visible phenomena and returns to them their role in the system of causation. The truth is not attained by the observation of visible phenomena, themselves, but rather by the contemplation and manipulation of their expression in language. Through this expression, the visible phenomena have a role in our understanding of generation and corruption. In harmony with Anaxagoras' system, though, Socrates retains Mind as the primary factor because language is, after all, an activity of the intellect. Socrates suggests in his image that one can look at the sun without being blinded by looking at its reflection in water or 65 �ticipate. The connection between natural science and the second segment of the divided line is clear enough: both occupy themselves with visual phenomena in order to gain understanding. The correlation between the mathematical knowledge and Socrates' investigation through A.oym, however, is not immediately clear. After presenting the image of the eclipse, Socrates says, Both of them differ in significant ways from the images in the intelligible realm. The artifacts and statues in the cave are similar to the real objects in the world outside the cave in a way that the reflections in water are not. They are three-dimensional, solid things with a kind of being in their own right. In contrast, the reflections in water are more obviously images . However, the artifacts and statues are 'phony.' They are mere copies of real things, separated from their source and separated from the light which illuminates the outside realm. If these two things are taken as corresponding to the second and third segments of the divided line, then it is possible to understand how they can be equal in length, yet different in kind. Language is, indeed, more obviously imagistic than sensible things which have a deceptive real-ness about them. However, language is an inhabitant of the intelligible realm. It retains its kinship to the realities it images in a more connected way. For this reason, the observation of the artifacts in the cave only advances the seeker of truth a small amount, while observation of the images in water trains the eyes for observation of the realities themselves and provides an experience of them , albeit distorted. If, on the other hand, one takes the shadows cast on the wall as indicative of the visible phenomena (these are that which all of the prisoners see and judge) then one gets theidea of a two dimensional, colorless projection of a copied objectagain separated from the illuminating sun-as opposed to the kind of colorful, and dimension-retaining reflection one sees in a lake on a sunny day. The difficult question remains as to how we can say that sensible objects are images to the same extent as words. These objects seem real enough for most people never to question whether there is a reality beyond them. One solution to this question lies in the Timaeus, when Timaeus says, "I started in this manner: taking as my hypothesis in each case the theory that seemed to me most compelling, I would consider as true, about cause and everything else, whatever agreed with this, and as untrue whatever did not so agree." ( Phaedo rnoa) The description in the Republic of the third segment of the divided line is very similar: "One part of the soul, using as images the things that were previously imitated, is compelled to investigate on the basis of hypotheses and makes its way not to a beginning but to an end." (Republic 5rnb) In both cases, some degree of truth is gained through the use of hypotheses and argumentation. Both the second and the third segments of the divided line are equal in length and they both stand for affections arising in the soul which are images ofreality. Nonetheless , the way in whic.h the visible phenomena are images differs from the way in which language is. The images represented by the second segment are a 'dead-end' in terms of finding truth . This is true, first, because the idea of truth has no real meaning in terms ofvisible objects considered 'in isolation' (to whatever extent this is possible). Onlywhen visible objects are named and in some way considered through language by a rational mind do they obtain a truth value. In other words, it is intelligible objects, not visible ones, which are either true or false. This is reminiscent of the failure of the mode of explanation of natural scientists. They fail to address the question 'why?' because they speak in terms of visible rather than intelligible objects. Still, more needs to be said about the difference between noetic images of reality and sensible images. In the analogy of the cave , the visual phenomena are strictly limited to what is perceived inside the cave, while the intelligible obj ects are those experienced in the fully illumined outside world. The rocks and trees and astronomical bodies in the world outside are the realities and they cast their shadows and are reflected in water in the outside realm. These images are the first level removed from the realities and correspond, I would say, to language and the third segment of the divided line. The man who leaves the cave must occupy himselfwith these images in order to accustom his eyes to the real world. Inside the cave there are two sets of things which are clearly images of the realities. One of these is described by Socrates when he says, see along this wall human beings carrying all sorts of artifacts, which project above the wall, and statues of men and other animals." (Republic 514c) The other type is.the shadows which are cast by these artifacts and statues on the cave wall. One, or perhaps both, of these sets of objects correspond to the visible phenomena and the second segment of the divided line. "Nor must we speak of anything else as having some permanence , among all the things we indicate by the expressions ' this ' or 'that,' imagining we are pointing out some definite thing. For they slip away and do not wait to be described as that' or this' ... We shouJd not use these expressions of any of them but that which is of a certain quahty and has the same sort of quality as it perpetually recurs in the cycle."' (Timaeus 49e) Even the most seemingly solid objects around us are only temporarily in the state in which we experience them . To say that a table is a real thing is to ignore that it is a thing in the process of changing into something else. In this way, visible things are images. They are transitory instances which we perceive and with which we interact. On the other hand, to say that the word 'table,' by itself, is a real thing is also abchords or the letters placed surd. The sound made by the vocal_ next to each other on the page are clearly an image of something beyond themselves. Both of these thiugs being images, however, it is clearly the latter, the words and accounts, which have the capacity to advance the soul toward the truth. By speaking orwritingwords we can engage in rational discourse. We can create and explore truth. Language and the Forms When Socrates finishes with the image of the eclipse, he 66 anticipates that still more needs to be said to the interlocutors to make them understand what his system means.It is at this point that he draws out a connection between the A.oym and the forms , the w)ri. The forms , or things-by-themselves, perform a dual function in his presentation . Socrates says, not answer the question why' a certain quality exists by simply refe:r;ring back to that quality in its universal sense. Here lies the key to Socrates' solution. His suggestion amounts to uniting the universal idea with the particular object through the medium of the intelligence. There exists in the intelligent mind an idea of beauty which applies to many different objects. This idea has an articulation in language even before it is ever spoken. When a certain object is recognized as beautiful, the cause of its beauty is the fact that it is something to which the idea ofBeauty is applied and this application is accomplished through language, i.e. by calling the object 'beautiful.' To put this another way, it makes sense to say that all of the different things which we call beautiful have something in common. This common 'something' is signified by the word 'beautiful.' Socrates is asserting that it is better to refer to that which is common to all beautiful things in order to explain why they are beautiful than to try to find the answer in the particulars of the object. It is for this reason that language can refer back to itself in order to explain causation. It is because of our intelligence that we recognize 'common things,' or universals, and it is by our language that we articulate them. The fact that it seems like Socrates is begging the question leads him to call his method 'simple,' 'milve,' and 'foolish.' In truth, however, the method removes the divide between objects and universals which mistakenly leads one to expect a more sophisticated' answer. He is able to remove this divide because of his emphasis on the role of language and intelligence in the being of an object. In one manner of speaking, the forms, such as the Beautiful, itself, are universals. This is how we usually think of them when we relate them to sensible objects. In another manner of speaking, however, the forms are intelligible realities of such a nature as to never undergo change. Only they are eternal and immune to the process of becoming and for this reason they are the only things which truly are. This is the crucial way in which they are unlike those things Timaeus refuses to grant the status of a 'this' or a 'that.' For this reason, the forms are not images, though we only have discourse with them by articulating their images, in one sense, through speech and observing their images, in another sen se, through perception. In the Parmenides, the aged Parmenides challenges the young Socrates' theory of forms which are separate unto themselves by suggesting that such a hypothesis places an unbreachable divide between the eternal realities and the temporal things. Parmenides tells Socrates, "you have, so to speak, not even touched upon how great an impasse (anopLa) there is if you try to posit each form as one, somehow distinguishing them from the beings." (Parmenides 133ab) The word 'rucopw' has a clear spatial connotation. It is formed with the alpha-privative and the word :n:opo~, whose primary meaning is " a means of passing a river" (Liddell and Scott) Besides the explicit meaning of a difficulty which faces Socrates, this word carries with it the implicit meaning of a chasm, or divide, between the elements ofthetheoryofforms: the temporal and the eternal. Parmenides' final objection most clearly makes this chasm manifest. He says, "I am going to try to show you the kind of cause with which I have concerned myself. I turn back to those oft-mentioned things and proceed from them . I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself-by-itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest. Ifyou grant me these and agree that they exist, I hope to show you the cause as a result, and to find the soul to be immortal." (Phaedo rnob) Socrates just explained that his new method involves seeking truth through arguments based on hypotheses. On the one hand, the Beautiful, 'itself-by-itself and the other forms, serve here as an example of hypotheses which , iftheir consequences are adequately explored, will lead to certain conclusions. One such conclusion, Socrates claims, is the immortality of the soul. On the other hand, however, the forms are themselves the cause which Socrates' autobiography meant to uncover; they underlie theA.oym into which he fled. He goes on to say, "If there is anything beautiful besides the Beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than that it shares in that Beautiful and I say so with everything ... I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes , and if someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons-for these all confuse me." (Phaedo rnocd) Socrates rejected the kind of causes which the natural scientists put forward because they did not adequately address the question, 'why?' . By suggesting this alternative, Socrates is asserting that his 'simple-mi~ded' idea-that beautiful things are beautiful because of the Beautiful, itself-is somehow a more adequate answer. It is an answer which goes beyond finding 'a stronger Atlas' and answers the question in a deeper way. I suggest that the reason it does this is that ascribing the Beautiful, itself, as cause means that the language we use signifies reality in a more direct way than is commonly thought. Neither the word 'beautiful ' nor the description of the color and shape of a beautiful object fully describe the reason that object is beautiful. In this way, they are both images. However, the word points to something universal- to the quality ofbeautywhich adheres in all ofthe things which are described as beautiful. The description of color and shape confuse Socrates in the samewaythat the whole method of investigating truth through visible phenomena did. Nothing about the color of an object points to anything universal. The same color may make another object ugly. The word, and the articulation that follows upon it, however, are images which point to the universal. This should remind one of the reflection of the sun in water outside of the cave. The reflection is not the sunnot as clear or as bright-but it points directly to its heavenly source. How does this answer keep from 'begging the question', however? One might criticize Socrates by saying thathe does 67 �"Although one and the same, then, (the form's ) whole will be in many separate beings at the same time, and so would be separated from itself. Not if it is like a day, (Socrates) said, which, although one and the same is many places at once and is not at all separate from itself... Socrates, he replied, how nicely you make one and the same thing many places at once! It is if after covering many men with a sail you would say that it is one whole over many." (Parmenides 131b) "The things among us, then, these things which take the forms' names, are themselves related only to themselves, but not to the forms, and they belong only to themselves and not to whatever things are named the same." (Parmenides I33d) If eternal things are distinguished from the temporal, what intercourse can they possibly have? The young Socrates is unable to answer this objection. I suggest, though, that Socrates at the end of his life has come to a resolution of this problem based on language as a medium of both the eternal and the temporal. The key is to understand language as an image of the true realities that points to those eternal realities from the vantage point of an intelligent mind living in a world of visible phenomena. The eternal and the visible seem hopelessly separated only if one underestimates the faculty oflanguage and thus intelligence. Parmenides suggests that only Knowledge, itself, can know what Truth, itself, is. This may be true in the strictest sense of knowing, Socrates would say. However, this does not preclude our minds and our knowledge from understanding that part of truth that lies within their scope. This understanding begins with pointing to the eternal by means of our words and proceeding to develop our articulation byworking from hypotheses to conclusions. Parmenides, after pointing out the anopw which lies ahead of Socrates makes a concession of sorts regarding the young thinker's idea of the forms: Parmenides sees the forms, including their articulation in language, as being like a sail. They are overlaid on top of the reality which actually is. For this reason, they can be necessary for discourse but, nonetheless, not real. On the other hand, Socrates, even in this rudimentary stage of his ideas of the forms, believe them to be like a day. They are ever-present in and inseparable from every aspect of reality. As in both the Phaedo and the Republic, sunlight shining on the visible realm is used as an image of truth making intelligible objects intelligible. The sunlight cannot be separated from the objects on which it shines as the A.oym can not be separated from the reality which they articulate. Conclusions Language as Cause I have attempted to articulate in this paper the wayin which Socrates develops language as a new way of explaining causation, or a new way of answering the basic question of why?' Before recapitulating the argument for his having done this, the question should be brought to the surface, what does it mean for language to be a cause?' The immediate intuitive reaction to such a statement is to assert that in no way can the objects of reality come into being as a result of our speaking of them. Surely they are, in some crucial sense, before our minds or our language enter the picture. Thus, the cause or responsibility (mna) for them must be something else. In order to overcome this initial reaction, one must first try to imagine what it could possibly mean to speak of an object without any mind to observe or encounter it. The only objects, whether sensible or intelligible, that we encounter are ones that are articulated or, at least, demarcated in our minds. From this perspective it is not so absurd to say that the word 'chair' or 'elephant' is the cause of the furniture or the animal I am encountering. Of course, it is not the sound which falls off the tongue or the particular characters written on a page which are important. Something underlies that sound or those characters, however. What it is which underlies our language is not at all crystal clear. It is here that one starts to speak of 'things-in-themselves' or' essences' These things are only pointed to, or indicated, by our accounts-the more so, the more in-depth the investigation is. Nonetheless, when the participation of the observer is taken into account in the observation of things, it becomes evident that his activity of pointing to universals is crucial to the observed thing's coming to be. "And yet, if someone, in turn, Socrates, after focusing on all these problems and others still, shall deny that there are forms of the beings and will not distinguish a certain form of each thing, wherever he turns he'll understand nothing, since he does not allow that there is an ever-same idea for each of the beings. And so he will utterly destroy the power of dialogue." (Parmenides 135bc) Parmenides is suggesting that the forms are essential to speech and understanding, but nonetheless they do not have the sort of true existence which would convince Parmenides that there exist many things. There is a similarity here between Parmenides' opinion and Anaxagoras'. Where Anaxagoras seems to deny the sensible phenomena a role in causation, Parmenides denies them existence in any sense. If one assigns language its proper role in the generation and destruction of the world, the distinction Parmenides makes between being necessary for dialogue and being truly existent vanishes. If the forms exist in speech and, moreover, are the realities which underlie all our efforts to articulate the being of things, then that is enough existence for Socrates. Our indication of the forms comes through our words, but the forms are by no means merely words, nor merely necessary for dialogue. The forms have a real causal role in the being of things. In order to make this last point clear, it is useful to look at one more interchange between Socrates and Parmenides. At one point in their discussion, both men put forth a simile for the forms which expresses the way they are inclined to think about them. The interohange, beginning with Parmenides speaking, reads, Review of Major Arguments 68 The first step along the line to undetstanding language as a kind of cause is to grasp the nature of the proposition that the world is intelligible. If one denies this proposition than one would not be inclined to look to language, an activity of the intellect, for causation in any sense. Language, under this supposition, would have nothing to do with what is real and true because what is real and true is not available in anyway to our minds. Plato shows in the Phaedo, however, that to accept the proposition of intelligibility is to recognize it not as a proposition, in the sense of something compound and provable, but as an axiom, something basic and foundational. It is to be accepted not because there is no other alternative, but because it is more beautiful than its alternative. It is the choice made by a courageous thinker who emulates Socrates and his valiant activity in the face of death. Proceeding with this axiom that the world is intelligible and that dialectic is a fruitful activity, Socrates describes a tension which exists between two ways of developing an understanding of this intelligible world. One way is the way of the natural scientists, who see in sense-experience the onlyrealitywhich is to be uncovered and explained. Investigation and description of the things we see and hear is meant by them to get to the truth about why things are the way they are . Anotherway of working toward understanding is the (first) way of Anaxagoras. He sees the workings of a Mind behind the generation and destruction of things but, apparently, does not find any way for that Mind to relate to our day-to-day experiences. Socrates' brilliant image of the eclipsing sun finds its first application in this tension. Both the natural scientist's way and Anaxagoras' way are blinding to the soul. This former because of the inappropriate use of the instruments of the body, the latter because of the over-ambitiousness of the source upon which it sets its mental gaze. More concretely, the natural scientists can only give additive answers, they can only push back the question of 'why?' to less and less proximate material causes. Anaxagoras, on the other hand, treats the source of truth, the Mind, like simply another intelligible object to be examined and understood. Considerthewaythat the sun, the source of all light and therefore all things being visible, is, itself, not really a visible object. The tension between sense-experience and Mind can be approximated by considering the tension between 'knower' and the thing known. Both must be accounted for, and some medium described, in order for a way of achieving understanding to be satisfactory. Socrates finds in language the medium he needs. In the words of the image, he takes refuge in the A.oym. Language depends on the diversity of sensible things. It is their expression, occasioned by encountering them. It is the mind, however, that does this encountering. Thus, I have understood language as an articulation of the mind's encounter with reality. One difficulty which might be intuitively present for a listener of Socrates, but must be overcome, is the idea that language is simply' an image. This idea would lead one to dismiss language as something not essentially present in the cause of things. Socrates overcomes this difficulty, in part, by showing that not only is language an image, but so are the sen- sible phenomena to which we so fervently cling as real. The true realities are outside the cave and not at all simple to commune with directly. Therefore we must have commerce with them through their images. Interpreting the cave and line images of the Republic, I find more credence for the view that language and sensible phenomena are images of reality to the same extent, but in different ways. Language is an image illuminated by the light of the intelligible realm, however, and this, in particular, makes it the more fruitful one to concentrate on in the search for truth. If the difficulty of language as 'merely' an image is overcome, one can begin to understand its true value in terms of its kinship with the forms, or HO'YJ. Language is the path which leads us from particulars, e.g. this bookinfrontofme and this beautiful thing, to universals, e.g. book and Beauty. In doing this, it makes for a more satisfying answer than the natural scientists are able to give when they delve deeper and deeper into the specifics of their objects. Still, it does not explain how each thing is ordered in the bestwaythatitcan be, as the most perfect type of answer would. It is, after all, a "second best" version of the explanation that Mind as cause (Phaedo ggd). Nonetheless, the power of language is not to be underestimated. While it is expressing particulars, it is pointing to the underlying eternal things which never undergo change. In this way it is a medium between the eternal and the temporal and the fear of Parmenides that these will be hopelessly separated is assuaged. Final Thoughts There is one more tension which is present in the dialogues and in this paper which needs to be brought to the surface. This is the tension between intelligibility and mystery. Socrates does believe in the intelligibility of the world and he does believe that our minds are commensurable with the truth. However, his retreat from Anaxagoras' pure reference to Mind and his prolific use of images i~dicates that this commensurability may be like the kind that one finds between a drop of water and the ocean. The dialectic process is the proper way for us as humans to proceed toward understanding our world but it does not arrive at straightforward answers to every question, no matter how great. It is likely that the question of the immortality of the soul exemplifies this fact. With this in mind, one can better understand why Socrates at times throughout the Phaedo and especially at the end leaves the process of rational argumentation somewhat behind and uses logoi in a different way. I am referring, of course, to the use of myth. Socrates enters into the myth at the end of the dialogue after Simmias tells him that, although he is convinced by Socrates' account, "In view of the importance of our subject and my low opinion of human weakness, I am bound to have some private misgivings." (Phaedo 107ab) Socrates' first response is to tell Simmias to continue with the dialectic process of working out better hypotheses and their conclusions. After saying this, however, Socrates launches into his µv8o~ about the nature of the heavens (expressed here as the true earth) and the underworld. Socrates must feel that something 69 �Footnotes more than rational argumentation is necessary for his listeners. He must give them a story which they can "repeat (to themselves) as if it were an incantation" (Phaedo n4d) Why is this necessary, given all that has been said? One message of the myth which is entirely consonant with the account that proceeds it is that man stands as a kind of middle-term in the proportional relationship between obscurity and clarity of knowledge. We do not live in the murky sea, but neither do we live on the surface of the earth surrounded by the ether. Socrates' recourse to myth may be the natural extension of what I have already said about language being a pointer, in the form of an image, to something eternal and beyond our grasp. When, as Simmias says, "the subject is so important" 'µEyE8ouc;', which can be better translated as 'great' ) we must use our imaging power to the fullest and create stories to soothe our fears. The philosophic way oflife can extend beyond simply the enjoyment of discussion to a pursuit of moral and spiritual excellence. Much ofwhat the dialogues teach us is how to think about virtue and justice and courage so that we can act in accordance with them. Before this instruction can begin, however, one must deal with the issue of intelligibility. One must put their trust in words and arguments as a guide before they step onto the road with "many forks and crossroads." (Phaedo 108a) Socrates believes in the intelligibility of the world. He lives his life with a true respect for what can be accomplished in arguments and discussions. We are meant to understand that it is as a result of this that the officer of The Eleven who brings news that it is time to drink the poison calls Socrates, "The noblest, the gentlest and the best man who has ever come in here," (Phaedo n6c) and Phaedo concludes his tale with the comment, "Such was the end of our comrade, Echecrates, a man who, we would say, was of all those we have known the best, and also the wisest and the most upright." (Phaedo u8a) The first step on the path to living a life of such nobility is a choice. Socrates offers us a way of viewing the coming into being and passing away of all things based on our power of language to mediate between our- minds and what they encounter. We have a choice about whether this way is worth pursuing. There is no better reason to respond affirmatively to this choice than that which Socrates gives when he tells Simmias, "The reward is beautiful and the hope is great." (Phaedo n4c ) 1. For this quotation, I used the Loeb translation rather than the Grube. Grube begins the passage," When there is a true and reliable argument..." (my emphasis) The Greek reads, "EL ovwc; OYJ uvoc; aA.ri8ouc; Km ~E~mou A.oyou Km ouva-tou Kat Ka-tavorioat ... " For reasons I hope to make clear, I felt that it is crucial to retain the conditional sense of this sentence. 2 . The Grube text actually reads: "I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of things by means ofwords." However, the Greek says simply, " EOO~E OYJ µm XPYJVat ci~ -rov~ A.oyov~ Ka-taqmyovta Ev EKnvmc; CTKOJtELv -rwv ov-rwv LYJV aA'YJ8ELav. " This translation, therefore, is my own, though it is mostly a combination of Grube's and the Loeb's. Virgin Mary (Mother of God): Photograph of a Painting Marianne Thompson 70 71 �excerpts from: ''Paradox and Evolution: Images of the Demands of Modernity" * Matthew Braithwaite The Reality of Physical Ideas continued to call atoms atoms, even when they turned out not to be atomic-but the idea that theywere the fundamental components of matter remained. And , I suppose , even that has ch anged. Now it is clear from history that physical ideas can be deprecated but not destroyed. It's not that we don' t wantto destroy some ideas: if one is trying to un-think a perspective that seems undesirable , there is a powerful temptation simply to try to banish it from language, hoping, perhaps , that thought will follow. There is a sense in which this desire can be achieved: one could plausibly banish "phlogiston" and "flowers of zinc," for example. There are theoretical advances that remove the want we have of these words-or rather, redirect it, for the words are answers to specific phenomena to which we cannot close our eyes. Things still burn , even though we don 't use the idea of phlogiston to explain the phenomenon any more-but we could. We cannot remove the utility of a physical idea. We can see this in the fact that banishment from the scientific vocabulary only makes the usage of a word wither and die, but does not at all affect our ability to understanditthat will forever be possible! So one cannot un-think an idea; one must settle for a partial success, that of making the idea less tempting, or less complete. And we do this by introducing another idea that is more revealing. What is even more interesting is that there can be evolution and change within (if that is the right word) a single concept. We might look at what Wittgenstein says about Moses (I. 79) in this connection. He begins by pointing out that " if one says, 'Moses did not exist' , this may mean various things"; and he goes on to list what some of them are. What is critical is that the word, Moses, in some way means all these things and in some way means none of them in particular . Certain parts of our idea of Moses can be removed from our understanding while still permitting the word, Moses , to have had a historical bearer. This is what happens, when, for example , we say " Moses was not the man who led the Israelites out of Egypt. " Or we couldkeepusingthewordeven though we hold it not to have had a bearer, as when we say that Moses was a historical fiction. If we were asked to give a definition of Moses we might list a number of characteristics, and say that Moses was their sum-but this would not reflect our use of the word. Nor can we point to any one thing as the essence of our use of the word. Wittgenstein puts it thus: " But where are the bounds of the incidental? .. .I use the name 'N' without a fixed meaning. (But that detracts little from its usefulness ... )" (l.79) Similarly, in science we might observe the continuity of the word "atom" or "electron" as it comes to be understood differently. (Consider for example the argument overwhether "electron" should mean a particle or a unit of charge.) We At som e point in history, th e live qu estion was , " are there atoms? " When the answer to that was agreed to-and this is inseparable from the experiments that produced that agreemen t-it b ecame p ossibl e to ask about the nature of atoms in a way that was not possible before. And the answers that we give to questions about the nature of atoms can go on changing forever, because we have "decided what an atom is" in the sense that we decide which experiments " show" atoms to us . This fixes the denotation of the word, in a way of speaking, but its sense can change as we learn more about the thingso to speak-denoted. In the same way, we could now potentially do exp eriments on light using only invisible frequencies, because we h ave now decided what exp erimen ts and apparatus tell us about the presence and characteristics oflight. Wittgenstein' s me taphor of a skein of threads is th e only way of describing what goes on in this changing. I But we can contrast these shiftily-defined objects of physical thinking with the ob jects of dire ct ob servation : in a marginal n ote Wittgenstein quotes Faraday as saying, "Water is one individual thing- it n ever changes." To put it another way, a physicist' s knowledge of what water is is in one sense identical with anybody else's: water is that thing there . In anoth er sense , the physicist has a unique under standing of water, based on his advan ced concepts of atom s, and so forth. But as soon as we think hat the hypothetical h idden structure of water that is revealed to science is the same identical thing as thewaterwetouch and feel, we have com mittedthe errorthat leads us to belief in a hidden reality. We have, one might say, " sublimed our hypoth eses" -forgotten th eir truly hypothetical character. This suggests another link , which came up much earlier, between physics and Wittgenstein 's philosophical ideas. The aim of logic which Wittgenstein criticizes was to produce a logically clearunderpinning for all utterance . We might now re-ask the question of how this is different from the task of physics, which seeks a mathematically clear description of all phenomena. To begin with, Wittgenstein points out that logic does not seek to learn anything new about language. Hence , he says, its workings are uninvolved with phenomena. In answering the question " In what sense is logic something sublime?" he comments: 72 a reality that lies between appearances and our attempts at physical laws. We can dismiss reality as the same kind of imagined ideal; we might say, " it is apparentwhat the world does, and apparent what the law prescribes.-So what more could you want to know?" "For there seemed to pertain to logic a peculiar depth-a universal sig nificance. Logic lay, it seemed, at the bottom of all the sciences.-For logical investigation explores the nature of all things. It seeks to see to the bottom of things and is not meant to concern itself whether what actually happens is this or that.---It takes its rise , not from an interest in the facts of nature, nor from a need to grasp causal connexions: but from an urge to under stand the basis, or essence , of everything empirical . Not, however, as if to this end we had to hunt out new facts; it is, rather, of the essence of our investigation that we do not seek to learn anything new by it. We want to understand something that is already in plain view. For this is what we seem in some sense not to understand." (I.89) The analogy between reality and meaning (or signification) is fairly precise, really, and what I mean to suggest is th t we can dismiss them in the same way. We cannot find meaning in the phenomena of language. One of the cautions that Wittgenstein makes is that we should avoid introspection if we want to understand language. Instead, we should look only at how others use language, and see what we can say based on that alone. Rhetorically, this suggestion assumes what it is trying to show; namely that language is to be understood by looking at its use. But the similarity to the rhetoric of language-games ends there: the prohibition on looking within is not an appeal to imagination but to our scientific instincts. From a properly cautious point of view, nothing living only within the mind can be considered a phenomenon. The way people use words, on the other hand, does admit of phenomenal description . So if we are being scientists, usage is the only material that we have on which to base a theory of language. And the number oftheories neither suggested nor supported by usage alone includes: that every word is correlated with a meaning, that the intelligibility of an utterance can be tested according to articulable rules, that all names signify objects, and so forth. And similarly, in the philosophy of science, we would have to say: ifyou wanttounderstanda physical idea, look at the way it is employed. There is neither necessity, justice, nor indeed any sense in inventing a reality for the idea to describe. The content of the idea is no more nor less than its use in working with phenomena. This is the sharpest possible contrast to physics; but it is interesting that the final suggestion-that we somehow do not understand what is right before us-is common between logic and physics. So let's ask, " in what sense is physics something sublime?" Or on a plainer level, does the physicist really know more about what water is, or only a whole lot more about how it behaves? We can observe, first , that physics is the exact opposite of logic in its approach: we do seek to learn something new in science. Wittgenstein accuses logic of not wanting to look at the world, and hence of thinking that we can know how things are merely through a terrific act of contemplation. But by contrast, physics believes that its advancement is secured only by trying to look through the world. As scientists we do believe that the world has hidden but intelligible features, but we also believe that they can be revealed through ingenuity-not discovered by thinking. But by revealed, can we mean anything other than, revealed in the phenomena; revealed by a clever experiment that tricks nature into giving up a secret? We cannot escape the roots of physics in ourperception, because even the most formal descriptions of the invisible world must include the ordinary senses of some words like length, position, color, pitch, time, motion , and so forth. In so far as there is a general principle here , it is that the only certainty we can have about phenomenal things is their description.2. If we describe reality through the use of a coherent group of concepts that are merely formally defined, we still do not overstep the bounds of description. But when we attribute intuitive ideas, or any kind of reality, to these concepts, we have overstepped the bounds of description (in the former case) or sense (in the latter). The only certain statements we can make about physical phenomena are predictions of their behavior, because these are the only statements that can be falsified. Statements about what underlies phenomena have, therefore , the status of rhetoric-again not an insult in diguise. This makes us understand that a sense of the word, reality, that is distinct from the sum of all appearances doesn't really fit into science. The descriptions that physics gives of objects that underlie appearances do indeed transcend phenomena, but they are also hypothetical. We cannot, and can never, be certain of those objects. We need only look back to our examples to see this. We might have a sort of certainty that atoms exist, but our idea of their nature is always changing. And as with the example of ether, we must keep in mind that we have never seen an atom. Saying that " there are atoms" is a proposition about use and experiment; and reflects So we ought to follow Wittgenstein's thoughts a little further, before we gain too much confidence about the power of physics to tell us about the hidden. By the " subliming of logic ," he has in mind something specific: "' A proposition is a queer thing!' Here we have in germ the subliming of our whole account of logic. The tendency to assu~e a pure intermediary between the propositional signs and the facts ... For our forms of expression prevent us in all sorts of ways from seeing that nothing out of the ordinary is involved, by sending us in pursuit of chimeras ." (l.94) That is , we get into trouble when we become confused in a case where we should not. The suggestion here is that he ought to refuse to see anything mysterious or strange about logic and logical symbols. We are to say, simply, "it is apparent what the world does, andapparentwhat the sign does, because our use of the sign , too, is an observable phenomenon the world.-So what more could you want to know?" And this illuminates our search for reality or truth in physics. The tendency to assume an ideal interposed between a propositional sign and the sensible fact it refers to is analogous to assuming 73 �ing configuration," with wonderful formality but nothing that could be called a justification-save that the formalism agrees with experiment (and of course no other justification should be asked). The idea of a wave is intelligible on the assumption of a medium; and this, in turn, reduces to a mechanical explanation. But having no proof of the medium , we are certainly forced to say that the wave explanation oflight is merely a formally correct description . Similarly, if we had to account for mass in mechanics, we would be forced to give a merely formal description of how the things to which we attribute mass behave. We do not need to do this, because intuition assumes the role of formal specification . We know how mass behaves in intuition, so we assume we know "what it is." Similarly, we know "what a wave is." This is not to say that electrodynamics and mechanics lack rigor, because it would certainly be possible to replace their intuitive ideas with formal descriptions; as indeed we do for light by describing it with differential equations. But as the fact that we have never seen the wave that we think light is suggests, whatever is formal can be no more than formal. Mechanics is a description of how phenomena behave, simply; and the fact that it invokes concepts derived from intuition is irrelevant to its accuracy. However, when it becomes the case that experiment calls the intuitive part of a purely mechanical description of the atom into question, by suggesting that intuitive mechanical concepts simply do not work, then the derivation of mechanics from intuition ratherthan formalism becomes very important indeed, as a hindering rather than a helping force! That is to say, an intuitive account is very difficult to abandon, because intuitive explanations make us think that we have grasped the "what-ness" of things . But we have already said enough about the grammar of the statement, "light is a wave," to know that this sort of grasp is quite illusory. Evolution of Concepts: I ntuition and Formalism Because we are interested in phenomena, the first thing to observe about physical ideas and concepts is their behavior. I mean by this that we ought to regard physical ideas on the biological model. The truth or correctness of a physical idea, as suggested above, can have the grammar of" descriptive" -or, we might add, even of"useful." We might say, on the basis of the preceding, that physical ideas are use-valued rather than truth-valued. Hence, they exhibit the biological characteristic of growth or attenuation according to selective pressures. In part these pressures can be seen as coming from us, in so far as we choose between competing physical accounts of things. But we could also see these pressures as coming from experiment, as for example when interference phenomena force us away from the emission theory of light. But all experimental pressures on our physical ideas are mediated by us in a very real way: witness that doomed concepts have never been without their champions. The separation between our influence and the influence of experiment is thus a very real one, because we can see them conflicting. We are free, then, to examine our own role in the changing of the concepts that we use. We have to look at the question of what we should find satisfactory, or coherent, in an account. One of the ways of stating the impossibility of the metaphysical is that we have an inability to escape our nature. We want to escape language in doing philosophy; we want to escape phenomena in doing physics. These desires are psychologically and formally the same, and there are similar arguments against them. In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues through the inability to construct another language from the one we have. In physics we may point to the ability of an experiment to puncture our pretensions of having described reality accurately. Classical electrodynamics and Newtonian mechanics represent beautiful and simple projections of our intuition onto the world, as Euclidean geometry beautifully captures the projection of our intuition onto a (mostly) formal deductive system. But in both cases we could even have said in advance that they had not the completeness they pretended to. Mechanics made no attempt to give an account of mass. Similarly, electrodynamics incorporates the idea of a wave, a "moving disturbance" or "mov- culmination of the paper is what one might call a solution , albeit a mystical one, to the initial problem that he poses of the relation between the world and the ideas that occur to us about it: " ... are we to conclude that these various departments of nature in which analogous laws exist, have a real inter-dep endence; or that their relation is onlyapparentandowingto the necessary conditions of human thought?" This is the question that perplexes us in doing physics. So we might say of intuition that although it needn't and shouldn't play any formal part in physics, it plays a powerful psychological part. It is important to the coherence of a body of theory-the word we are trying to understand. We should own that the intelligibility of both of the above-mentioned physical theories seems to have much to do with their analogies to the sensible. The wave account oflight is not desirable simply because it is descriptive, but because it is also imaginable. Similarly, Rutherford's mechanical description of the atom is no mere formal account, but appeals strongly through sensible analogy. This is in part what is meant by saying that science has a rhetorical component-and of course, it is possible to be deceived about the truth by rhetoric, as the difficulty of abandoning these intuitable theories shows. the fact that we are inclined to look at experiment as a kind of seeing. But we only think we see: how do we "see" that light is a wave , when we see interference phenomena? Well, we see it with our imagination , with our analogic faculty; something on that order. We see, with our mathematical eyes, patterns of dots on a screen that are intelligible as the footprints of the interfering ofwaves. The wave is the idea that the phenomena produce in us. The idea that there is areal wave causing the patterns that we see is a statement which must, in our analysis, have the character of a story to which we are led by phenomena. There is no test of its truth. We must, following Wittgenstein, simply say: here the pattern on the wall, there the descriptive equations-and nothing more. Something like this idea seems to be at the root of the following obscure paragraph, which I take to be an oblique mocking of meta physicians: Maxwell's essay, Are there Real Analogies in Nature, is I think meant to address this subject among others (it is, as he says, somewhat "diffuse and confused"). But about one thing in it he is clear, and that is the analogical component of so much that we do in physics. Two results of his paper are especially important to us: first, that he points out how broad the reach of analogical thinking is; and second, that he gives us some means of dealing with its tendency to deceive us. The 74 where we see the interactions of force more visibly manifested. So one question that arises from these worries is that of what sorts of thinking properly belong to physics. The suggestion that "the analogy between reasons , causes, forces , principles, and moral rules, is glaring, but dazzling," is helpful to seeing how great and wide are the dangers of using the wrong sort of analogy in physical thinking. We are inclined, by force of analogy, to lump together what are really separate things under the name of cause , or even of force. But when we are inclined to identify cause and force this leads to a poor and incomplete understanding of nature: Maxwell seems to have a few things in common with Wittgenstein in the way he looks at words , in that his idea of analogy suggests Wittgenstein's idea of family resemblance among words. Maxwell presents ideas in a biological way, by showing us the analogies through which they arise in us. His account of cause, in keeping with this, is not metaphysical but historical: "But there are other laws of nature which determine the form and action of organic structure. These are founded on the forces of nature, but they seem to do no work except that of direction. Ought they to be called forces? A force does work in proportion to its strength . These direct forces to work after a model. They are moulds, not forces." "We cannot, however, think any set of thoughts without conceiving of them as depending on reasons. These reasons, when spoken of with relation to objects, get the name of causes, which are reasons, analogically re ferred to objects instead of thoughts ." This I take to be a reference to our use of the word, formal cause. But these moulds, as Maxwell calls them, are not phenomenal: he says twice that they merely seem to use the visible forces of nature to their ends. Following this we might suggest that physics is interested in what Maxwell calls events, which are to be distinguished from actions (a term that belongs to the moral realm) , as well as from any employment made of these events by formal and final causes-the reality of which, it is important to note, Maxwell does not doubt in the least. Despite this, though, he reminds us: Now the thought that the word " cause," in its employment in physics, is our projection onto the world of the fact that thoughts follow one another according to reasons, is not one that would ordinarily occur to us. But put in this way, the suggestion sounds both plausible and somewhat disquieting; for as Maxwell says later," cause is a metaphysical word implying something unchangeable and always producing its effect", in contrast to force, which "is a scientific word, signifying something which always meets with opposition \ldots" Looked at in this way, we might wonder if it is right to use the word "cause" in science at all; for Maxwell seems to be suggesting that the term has its origin in the observing subject. "Again, if we know what is at any assigned point of space at any instant of time, we may be said to know all the events of Nature. We cannot conceive any other thing which it would be necessary to know; and, in fact, if any other necessary element does exist, it never enters into any phenomenon so as to make it differ from what it would be on the supposition of space and time being the only necessary elements." The thought behind the phrase, we cannot conceive ofany other thing which it would be necessary to know, deserves to be looked at unflinchingly. It is identical to Wittgenstein's suggestion that we should look, and not think. In a sense, once we have observed, we have done all there is to do- assuming, that is, that we are only interested in explaining (in Bohr's sense) the events of nature. And the phrase has, too, some of the same content as the reminder that comes up in quantum physics that all experiments must ultimately express themselves in mechanics. These reminders draw a border between the phenomenal and the hypothetical. It seems to me that one might, following this, suggest that the task of physics is to make rules that describe all the events of nature, using whatever means are available or necessary. And looking at the other side of that coin, we must say that physics must be interested in nothing but the events. "This conception of cause [I take it he means the idea of force as a sort of cause], we are informed, has been ascertained to be a notion of invariable sequence . No doubt invariable sequence, if observed , would suggest the notion of cause, just as the end of a poker painted red suggests the notion of heat, but although a cause without its invariable effect is absurd, a cause by its apparent frustration only suggests the notion of an equal and opposite cause." I believe his suggestion is that invariable sequence belongs to observation, whereas cause belongs to the connection of reasons; so that the identification of them is a forced and false one-a bogus attempt to relate metaphysics to observation. The idea of cause could perhaps be prompted by observation, but the circumstances givingrisetotheideaare no more identical with the idea itself than the red-painted end of a poker is with heat. And he seems further to be suggesting that invariable sequence is not the observed fact that we carelessly take it to be: striking the earth with a tiny object has n o effect that we can see, for example. The idea we have of what happens in this situation arises through analogical reasoning from cases Now the poverty of this restricted vision is plain throughout Maxwell's paper. And yet it does reflect a certain valuable discipline: for if we allow ourselves to be interested in more than mere events, we run the risk of being misled about the events themselves. Maxwell suggests this in his brief statement about final cause-which is also a natural history of how 75 �a metaphysical concept arises through analogy: next represents the same problem that Kant called the Third Antinomy, but Maxwell appears to be content with simply saying that the matter is a very confused and indefinite one. And yet there is order in the confusion. When we see an event as an act, we are twice perplexed. First we see mechanics taking up where will left off (" ... another set oflaws , the operation of which is inflexible once in action, but depends in its beginnings on some act of volition"), as, for example, ifl were maliciously to throw a rock at someone. And second we believe that actions have what we call moral consequences, an idea that employs the physical language of cause and effect. But we cannot see these consequences in the world, and so, "we connect the idea of retribution much more with that of [human}justice than with that of cause and effect." And so we are confused by our having thought of moral consequences in causal terms, on the one hand; and by our tendency to "regard retribution as the result ofinteiferencewith the mechanical order of things, and intended to vindicate the supremacy of the right [moral] order of things." This refers to Maxwell's earlier statement that we find moral laws to be supreme laws in one sense, but contingent laws in another sense , because we do not see them always acting in the world. "Perhaps the next most remarkable analogy is between the principle, law, or plan according to which all things are made suitably to what they have to do, and the intention which a man has of making things which will work. The doctrine offinal causes, although productive ofbarrenness in its exclusive form, has certainly been a great help to inquirers into nature; and if we only maintain the existence of the analogy, and allow observation to determine its form, we cannot be led far from the truth." Now what this seems to be saying is that in doing physics, we ought not to use the doctrine of final cause to determine what we see: we may only apply it to what we find-a prescription that we can hardly violate if we restrict ourselves to seeing only events. And one might say similar things about beauty: we may certainly identify the true and the beautiful, but what this means in doing physics is that we have to find beautiful whatever we discover to be true. The identity is not a permission to allow our sense of beauty to legislate what we believe about nature. For indeed, in so far as the word, nature, represents a hidden reality, it is a confused word. If nature is to have a meaning in physics, it must mean the sum of all phenomena, which simply are, without being beautiful or ugly. And our laws, too, are what they are; their beauty belongs to us, and is also our choice. To say, "if the laws are not beautiful they cannot be true" is meaningless, because the grammar of the word true, when applied to a physical law, is identical with that of the word accurate, as suggested above. And the accuracy of the laws has no relation to how they appear to our aesthetic sense. The most that can be said is that if the laws are not beautiful, we will try to improve their beauty. But the phenomena will decide whether we are able to do so. If the phenomena do not permit it, it would be better to revise our idea of the beautiful such that it fits what we have discovered to be true, i.e., accurate (and perhaps this means that physics is now done by a different sort of person than before, owing to the historical change in the sort ofbeautythat physical theories exhibit). Otherwise history might number us among those who labor against the evidence of experiment, and count us on the same side as those who denied the movement of the earth. Maxwell gives a description of this muddle that is both metaphor and resolution: "The theory of the consequences of actions is greatly perplexed by the fact that each act sets in motion many trains of machinery, which react on other agents and come into regions of physical and metaphysical chaos from which it is difficult to disentangle them. But if we could place the telescope of theory in proper adjustment, to see not the physical events which form the subordinate foci of the disturbance propagated through the universe, but the moral foci where the true image of the orginal act is reproduced, then we shall recognize the fact, that when we clearly see any moral act, then there appears a moral necessity for the trains of consequences of that act, which are spreading through the world to be concentrated on some focus, so as to give a true and complete image of the act in its moral point of view. All that bystanders see, is the physical act, and some of its immediate physical consequences, butas a partial pencil oflight, even when not adapted for distinct vision, may enable us to see an {\em object}, and not merely light, so the partial view we have of any act, though far from perfect, may enable us to see it morally as an act, and not merely physically as an event." This is saying that our state of confusion is inevitable; fo we can only see the occasional footfalls of the moral and the voluntary in the world of appearance, just as all sensible objects appear to us only with the help oflight. The possibility of being able to see the whole chain of moral consequences of which physical events are the "subordinate foci" is closed off to us because we do not have the means to see it-except with partial and imperfect vision. And this in turn suggests the following idea about analogy in science: the world of events can be circumscribed, and so we can exclude analogy from our thinking about it. Ifwe please we can talk about events and only events (whats, wheres, and whens), using the formal language of mathematics. We have complete vision of the whole world of appearances-a statement that would almost be a tautology, were it not for the contrast with our imperfect vision of the world of acts. Physics is thus not the complete understanding of the world, but only a line drawn around what we I want to return to the subject of the poverty of this worldview of physics. It is plain from what Maxwell says that the world of physics, the world of events, is not the whole world to our minds. Indeed, establishing this appears to be one of the principal goals ofhis essay, as we may infer from what appears to be a repudiation of universal mechanism: "Now the question of the reality of analogies in nature derives most of its interest from its application to the opinion, that the phenomena of nature, being varieties of motion, can only differ in complexity, and therefore the only way of studying nature, is to master the fundamental laws of motion first, and then examine what kinds of complication of these laws must be studied in order to obtain true views of the universe. If this theory be true, we must look for indications of these fundamental laws \ldots among those remarkable products of organic life, the results of cerebration (commonly called 'thinking')." This passage appears to be not even trying hard to mask amused contempt. We can note in passing that what he says 76 is ident~cal to the question , implied by Wittgenstein (l.54) , of how we tell when a game is being played according to a rule; and it depends on our prior ability to pick an object out from the world. Maxwell's answer to this question, with which he closes his essay, is a mystical one: can sense, considered as mere events , and the question, "what can we say about that?" We have no requirement for sensible intuition, aesthetics, or metaphysics in that investigation, because the formal description that we can give ofevents is complete within itself. In one way this is obvious; the question is entirely of whether it is a useful way to think. "And last of all we have the secondary forms of crystals bursting in upon us, and sparkling in the rigidity of mathematical necessity, and telling us neither of harmony of design, usefulness or moral significance,-nothing but spherical trigonometry and Napier's analogies. It is because we have blindly excl uded the lessons of these angular bodies from the domain of human knowledge that we are still in doubt about the great doctrine that the only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter." One way in which it might not be is as a concealed insult: if we meant simply to divide statements into physical and nonphysical for pejorative purposes, we would not accomplish anything. But this suggestion about how to view physics is a useful one, because it permits us to understand physics better. We have a hard time accepting theories that are contrary to our metaphysical preconceptions, to sense intuition, or to our ideas about beauty. But even more do we desire to be free of any impediments in learning about the world: the state we want is best described as perfect and clear receptivity to anything that describes the phenomena. And this is what the circumscription of physics is good for: when we say that we must take seriously any true (agreeingwith experiment) theory, we are really just reminding ourselves of am eans where by we can raise our vigilance against non-physical ideas impinging on our physical understanding. Bearing the circumscription of physical ideas in mind makes it easier to say, "I accept the use of non-mechanical ideas, because mechanical description is only a requirement of my intuition." Or, "I accept the use of a probability function without any other justification, because determinism is only a requirement of my metaphysics." Or, "I accept this ugly wave-particle hybrid, because its ugliness is only due to my aesthetics, and its unintelligibility to my weakness." Since physics can be circumscribed, we.will the more nearly perfect our understanding of it the less we permit the non-mathematical, or the sense-intuitive, to leak in and corrupt the focus that our "telescope of theory" has on the purely mechanical aspect of all phenomenal things. If we do not employ sense intuition, aesthetic sense, or metaphysical ideas in looking at physical ideas, there is only the mathematical sense left to us. It is a relief to note here the existence of mathematical analogies: without them there would be no procedure at all for us to use! But we might have known this already; because it is only the quantitive part (or one might even say, the quantitative expression) of a physical idea that can be tested. To say that in physical thinking we should try to stay within the phenomena is equivalent to saying that we should try to remain within the mathematical in our descriptions; our procedure should be to seek out and accept readily all analogies between nature and the math ematical that we can find-using elegance, metaphysics , or sense intuition as decision principles only where there is a choice to be made between equally predictive laws. For indeed, as Maxwell reminds us , the characteristic of an event is that there is nothing to be known about it besides what is where at what time; and hence nothing about the objects involved needs a language other than mathematics for its expression. And yet his mysticism is highly satisfying in some odd way1 suspect because there is not much more to do about the relation between mathematics, the mind, and the world, beyond simply noting their harmonies and goggling at them. To suggest, as Maxwell does, that the harmony is in fact an identity, is an answer in words; but it is mystical in its import. The only phenomenal statements that we can make, in the end, are that we certainly seem to have a faculty for picking mathematics out of nature; and that nature, in her turn , certainly seems to have a propensity to behave mathematically. The mystical answer to this incomprehensible observation must, I think, be the correct one, because it is the only one possible. Consider, for example, the way Newton lays out a purely mathematical science of motion before even speaking about phenomena. Does not the mathematics seem a separate thing, to which nature is like? Similarly, we can look at the way the definition of a wave shifts over the history of natural science, perhaps by conjecturing a history along the following lines: The idea of a wave begins life as a disturbance in water. Noting certain features, we generalize to find the idea of a periodic undulation, to which we are capable of giving some degree of mathematical description. Finally we eliminate intuition entirely: our most potent and useful idea of a wave is any function that satisfies a certain differential equation. Does it not seem as though the things we call waves, now, are not sensible but mathematical analogies to one another, things that have their essential being and relation in the mathematical formalism? Maxwell seems to suggest something like this, in what seems a good description of the characteristics of our employment of analogy: "This supposes that although pairs of things may differ widely from each other, the relation in the one pair may be the same as in the other. Now, as in a scientific point of view the relation is the most important thing to know, a knowledge of the one thing leads us a long way towards a knowledge of the other. If all that we know is relation, and if all the relations of one pair of things correspond to those of another pair, it will be difficult to distinguish the one pair from the other, although not presenting a single point of resemblance, unless we have some difference of relation to something else, whereby to distinguish them. Such mistakes can hardly occur except in mathematical and physical analogies ... " This is consonant with the above suggestions about waves: it seems as though the physical motivation behind a formalism can be lost as the latter takes on a mathematical life of its The question of the perception of a mathematical analogy 77 �own, enriching itself in utility and generality, and becoming the essential aspect of the thing for us. Waves are in some sense real to us as physicists only by their exhibiting the relations prescribed by our formalism. And this is the sort of thing that leads us right into the tenacious jaws of the "reality blunder," because we let the formalism take on a transcendent life. Footnotes I. Indeed, in l.79 he comments: "The fluctuation of scientific definitions: what to-day counts as an observed concomitant of a phenomenon will to-morrow be used to define it." The possibility of characterizing all physical concepts with mathematical analogies strongly suggests to us that we ought to aim for a completely mathematical understanding of nature; that is, one that is formally specified in its entirety. The desire for formalism in physics should be understood to be identical with the same desire in mathematics, discussed below: when we say that everything in geometry should be formally specified, we do not mean to eliminate intuition. We only mean to distrust it. And by doing this, we are in effect saying that formal or logical certainty is of an entirely different kind from intuitive certainty. They have functional similarities, yes-but they are not comparable. One might say they belong to different language-games. Intuition and inspiration are the only modes of invention and progress that we have-ofcourse! No one would have us change the way we do mathematics and physics, even if that were possible. But there is a sinister philosophic intent rooting mathematical formalism, which from the description given so far might seem to be just a harmless waste of someone else's time; and that is the identification of the inconceivable with the contradictory. Maxwell wryly remarks, of our tendency to make analogies, "if [nature] is not a 'book' at all, but a magazine, nothing is more foolish than to suppose that one part can throw light on another"; meaning, I gather, that we should train ourselves in total readiness for surprises. As, in mathematics, all statements against non-Euclidean geometry that do not show a contradiction in it are void; so, in physics, should agreement with experiment and mathematical coherence be the only principles by which we decide what sorts of descriptions to admit as being possible ones. 2.. Recall Wittgenstein's saying, "we must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place." (l.iog) This tangled search for physics can be summarized, or rather gathered together, as follows. We stand a better chance of being able to succeed in physical thinking if we follow therein a principle of mathematical thinking; namely, that anything formally possible which appears useful, or interesting, is unworthy of being dismissed. As increasing use of mathematics squeezes sense intuition out of physics, the only . intuition that can remain is mathematical intuition. We thus become better physical thinkers in proportion as we are good mathematical thinkers, and as we allow our mathematical intuition total freedom in suggesting answers to the questions posed by phenomena. For as we descend deeper into the unseen, it may be that mathematical intuition is the only kind that has the answers. Maxwell's mysticism suggests a final justification for this, in that it is a strong implication of his last paragraph, quoted above, that nature is capable of anything we can think within the right laws of our minds, which are mathematics and logic-because, indeed, these laws are identical with nature's capabilities. 78 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. 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U.S. POSTAGE PERMIT NO. 66 PAID LUTHERVILLE, MD �to yap £pyou t£A.rn;, i] 0£ £v£pyna to £pyov. 010 Kat 'tOUVOµa EVEpyna A.EyEtm Kata to £pyov, Kat O"UV'tEl yn npoc; TflV eV'tEAEXEtaV. For the end is work, and the work is a being-at-work, and this is why the phrase being-at-work is meant by reference to work and extends to being-at-work-staying-complete. -Aristotle, Metaphysics IX, 8 I OSOa-b, 20-25 Translated by Joe Sachs Staff. Amy Humphrey Susan Ellis Catherine Stirling Jessica Morgenstern Johan Swindler Todd Pytel Kelly O'Malley Josh Emmons Assistant Editors: Hannah Pittard Vanessa Cohen Michael Busch Jessica Brotman Paige Postelwait Junior Editor Anne McShane Senior Editor Eve Gibson Design Sarah Waters Faculty Advisors Catherine Haigney Cordell Yee Cover art b Corey Sebastian, A99 y The Energeia staff would like to extend its gratitude to Chris Colby, the St. John's Print Shop, Barbara Goyette, the Public Relations office, Vicki Cone, the Library, Terry Maguire, Harvey Flaumenhaft, and Chaninah Maschler. Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine published annually and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis, and Santa Fe. The I 999 issue contains a sampling of student work from the previous school year which the prize comminees have selected for public recognition, and submissions from members of the community. Energeia welcomes essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, photography, and the like for the 2000 issue. �Contents Seeing the Light: How Light Illuminates Aristotle's Noetic T heory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · . . . . . . . . I Mark Alzenhaur, AOO Detroit (photograph) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paige Postelwait, AO 1 . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . 3 Aries, France (photograph) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · · · · · · · · · · . · · 7 Vada Mossavat, AOO Puerto Escondido, Mexico (photograph) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · . · · · · · · · · · · · · 1I Abigail Weinberg, AOO On Mimesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · l 2 Robert Dickson, AOO Architectural detail, 1984 Winter Olympic Museum, Sarajevo (photograph) . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Vada Mossavat, AOO Greek Translation and Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · . . . . . . · l 9 Samuel Carcia, A99 Attorney General (conte on watercolor paper) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · . . . .. . · 20 Corey Sebastian, A99 Sarajevo, 1997 (photograph) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . · · · · . . . · 21 Vada Mossavat, AOO French Translation Prize, 1997-1998 . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 22 Lauren Connolly, A98 Translation and Commentary on Le Cripuscule du Soir .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. 24 R. Justice Schunior, A99 Your Choice Was to Live: lsmene's Resistance to Her Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · · . . . . . · 27 Megan Greff, AO 1 Math Prize, 1997-98, Geometry: Solution and Commentary . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . · · . . . . . · 30 Piroska l<Dpar, A 99 Math Prize, l 997-98, Trigonometry: Solution and Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · . · . . . . · 33 Daniel Braithwaite, AO I Lobachevski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 35 Wendy Braithwaite, AC! Sophomore Essay Prize, 1997-98: Striving for Harmony: A Reading of the Book of Job . . . . . . . . . . .. . . · 36 Michael Goodrum, AOO Amendment XV, (gouache on paperboard) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Corey Sebastian, A99 Sarajevo, 1997 (photograph) . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Vada Mossavat, AOO Senior Essay Prize, 1997-98: Understanding the Mythical Nature of the Wilderness and its Role in Isaac McCaslin's Repudiation in ''The Bear" Aaron Pease, A98 . . . . . . . . 47 Freedom and Limitation: The Understanding in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Todd Pytel, A99 Aries, France (photograph) Vada Mossavat, AOO . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . 67 Junior Essay Prize, 1997-98: Sympathy and Selfishness in George Eliot's Middlemarch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Deborah Carlos, A99 Airborne . . . Alicia Potee, A02 Gone West . . Eva T H. Brann, Tutor ode to my mug Eve Gibson, A99 Listening For Planets Alicia Potee, A02 Three Husbands Alicia Potee, A02 Untitled . .. Eve Gibson, A99 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 .. .. . . . . . . . .. .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 83 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 �I Seeing the Light: How Light Illuminates Aristotle's Noetic Theory Mark Alznauer, AOO 0 f necessity, there is a certain degree of difficulty in investigating nous (or, the intellect). It is not something we directly perceive, but is only intelligible through the things it thinks. And though it is perhaps among the most knowable things there are, it is, because of this distance from sensible things, also among the most unknown. An examination of it must be careful, and not rushed to understand it in its most proper formulation too quickly. One's eyes need to adjust to the metaphoric light. Adjusting to the light will be, in a way, the focus of this inquiry. And the very quickness with which we are willing to accept such visual imagery as a natural metaphor for acts of the mind suggests that the connection is not an insignificant one. Aristotle makes the connection several times himself, but this essay will focus mainly on his use of it in the fifth chapter of the third book, De Anima. The main goal of this essay, however, is to clarify the workings and foundation of Aristotle's noetic theory, so in that respect our focus on that passage and the light metaphor will be subservient to the greater task of understanding what nous is and does. As the subject dealt with is somewhat obscure, the first section of this essay will be an attempt to isolate the function of nous in Aristotle's other works. Then, with this preliminary investigation accomplished, I will proceed to the passage mentioned above. In the second section, I will restrict myself to an examination of Aristotle's statements about light. Then, in the third section, I will try to pin down what Aristotle meant by comparing nous to light. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle describes philosophy as being certain concerning the things about which dialectic is tentative. This inquiry, then, could best be described as "dialectical," in that it will not be a straightforward expostulation of the "Aristotelian" position, but rather a tentative attempt to flesh out Aristotle's ideas which will examine many possibilities, only focusing on the analogy of light in an exploratory fashion. PART ONE: A PRELIMINARY UNDERSTANDING OF NOUS Before we approach the light analogy to see what it has to add to our understanding of nous, it is best that we learn what role Aristotle has designated to nous in his other writings, keeping in mind that he might in them be speaking of nous in a more restricted (or even looser) sense than he is in De Anima. In this reconstruction of the Aristotelian noetic, I will remain mostly within the Posterior Analytics. The Nicomachean Ethics, in a briefer account, repeats a lot of what is said there, and the Metaphysics in many ways surpasses it, both in scope and in complexity. I have taken the middle road. The only major drawback of staying within the Posterior Analytics is that it uses largely mathematical illustrations. These can mask some very significant differences between the knowing involved in mathematical and logical studies and the knowing involved in other forms of knowledge. Though the mathematical many times serves as a good analogy for what Aristotle is trying to say, it is often a bad example. This difference will be dealt with in greater detail in the third section of this paper. At the end of the first book of the Posterior Analytics (AP88b36), we are given a compact definition of nous. Aristotle calls it the "arche epistemes." This has been translated as "the source of knowledge," "the principle of science;' and "the starting-point of scientific knowledge.'' All translations are necessarily vague until a determinate knowledge of the terms a translator employs is worked out. Aristotle has something very definite in mind when he chooses these words and we are well advised not to quickly arrive at a cursory understanding of them. In this section, we will look at each word closely and then see if we can come to a more complete understanding of what nous is. I will start with "episteme." Traditionally translated as "knowledge;' "episteme" is used more narrowly by Aristotle than we use "knowledge.'' Aristotle in AP7Ibl0 speaks of what he means when he says we know something: �2 3 We think we know each [thing] without qualification, but not in the sophistical manner with respect to an attribute, when we think that (a) we know the cause through which the thing exists as being the cause of that thing and that (b) the thing cannot be other than what it is. This clearly distinguishes episteme from other faculties of the rational part of men's souls, such as opinion (by which one apprehends true things of which one does not have the cause) and prudence (which is about changeable particular situations and can thus be other than what it is). The object of knowing appropriate to epistemic knowledge, then, exists of necessity, and hence is eternal, and what is eternal is ungenerable and indestructible" (NEI 13%24). The only things which meet these qualifications are universals. And knowledge is not just of universals, but is universal itself. Aristotle makes this clear in AP88b30: "Knowledge and the knowable object differ from opinion and the object of opinion in this: knowledge is universal and proceeds through necessary [premises], and that which is necessary cannot be other than it is." This is why there cannot be knowledge of Callias or of any other particular, only sensation of them. Another primary characteristic of episteme is that it is teachable and, therefore, can be learned. It is not an experienced facihty or a "knack" with things. It is a reasoned understanding. It is in the master craftsman, who knows the "why" of his art, more than in his obedient apprentice. What makes anything learnable is that it is discursive, or follows from what one knows by reason. Aristotle speaks of this following upon reason as syllogistic. That is, it demonstrates the unknown by conclusions drawn from the known according to the dictates of reason. One trait, then, of demonstrable knowledge is that it "must be acquired from primary [premisesJ which are undemonstrable: otherwise one who has no demonstration of them [i.e. demonstrable principlesJ will not know" (AP7Ib27). Those primary premises must be outside of epistemic knowledge, in the sense that episteme is built upon them. Without those primary premises being known, there could be no episteme. This, Aristotle would contend, is part of the reason Socrates disclaimed knowing anything. For a premise is "dialectical if it is any one part of a statement taken indifferently {we might say, "hypothetically"}, but it is demonstrative if it is defi11 nitely that part which is true" (AP72al0). This is undoubtedly a more complicated issue when it comes to the Socratic method, but, merely to contrast this method with Aristotle's, it suffices to say that the basic indeterminacy of Socrates' premises (his archai) enabled him to continue to explore new possible answers to fundamental questions, while it prevented him (at least on the surface) from coming to a definitive answer. For Aristotle, however, these principles are determinate and knowable enough to build definite, demonstrable knowledge upon. With Aristotle, one can know. But this knowledge has a questionable foundation until we can come to an understanding of what these principles are and where they come from. They cannot be merely assumed or hypothetically posited without man falling into Socratic ignorance. Aristotle states this in no uncertain terms in the NE: . . . it is only when one is both convinced and is familiar with the principles ( archai) in a certain way that one has knowledge, since he will have know ledge only by accident if he is not convinced of the principles more than the conclusion (I I 39b33). And in the AP: . . . it is necessary not only to know the primary [principles], whether all or some, prior [to the fact or conclusionJbut also know them to a higher degree ... . (72a27) The archai of episteme need more certitude than the syllogisms based upon them. We should find out, then, what these archai are. The meaning of "arche;' however, is no easier to grab hold of than that of episteme." In fact, it is one of the "words used in more than one sense" that is listed in the fifth book of the Metaphysics. And the comprehensive definition given there (" . .. what is common to all sources { archai} is to be the first thing from which something is, or comes to be, or is known") is wide enough to encompass almost any usage. It is extremely important to pay close attention to Aristotle's use of arche'' in the whole of his philosophy (he uses it in a systematically ambiguous way), but we can get more specific here without sacrificing too much of the word's rich meaning. In the Posterior Analyics1 it is reasonably clear 11 11 Detroit, Paige Postlewait, AO I �4 that there are three sorts of archai on which demonstrative knowledge is based. For various reasons they are never listed together, but they are (a) axioms ( koina ), (b) definitions/ terms ( horoi), and ( c) what I have named "existentials" (with thanks to William Jennings for the felicitous term). These three designations effectively describe the extent to which any episteme is dependent on archai. Axioms are the most conventionally perceived "first principles." There is usually little doubt that these are archai of episteme. The most frequently mentioned example of an axiom is the so-called "law of non-contradiction." It is easy to see how premises like this are necessary for knowledge to exist. Further, in Euclid's Elements we are deluged with a host of example axioms. There they are called "Common Notions" and all of them meet the criteria clearly: they cannot be demonstrated, cannot be other than they are, and one must surely be convinced of them more than the proofs which are based upon them. The only remotely surprising thing about these principles, is that they are not the only principles. The next category of archai are the definitions (or terms) of episteme. These, too, have their mathematical counterpart in Euclid: the point which has no part, the length which has no breadth. It is relatively evident that these two and their other counterparts in Euclid are principles. One could not learn geometry without knowing these, and they certainly cannot be proved through some more fundamental knowledge. But definitions are principles in a wider sense than the one Euclid used. The definition of a triangle, for example, is an arche. It is both universal and eternal. But there is definitely a difference between definitions of things we must accept and those we can construct out of the former. That difference is made manifest by the third and final category of archai. The last kind of archai includes what I ambiguously referred to as the "existentials." Existentials are no more than statements positing some definition's (or term's) existence. One can see how it is necessary to posit the existence of a point, in a way that it is not necessary to posit the existence of a triangle. This is because the triangle can be constructed, or proved to exist. The existence of a point, however, must be assumed or posited. So a triangle is an arche only in the sense that it is a definition, but a point is an arche in two senses: that of the definition and that of the existential. Axioms do not admit of this division because they are states of affairs which must exist (e.g. the law s of non-contradiction), and do not admit of even the possibility of being false. Now these distinctions are clear in formulation, but their very precision is a little bit misleading. Finding these distinctions in other sciences may prove difficult. But Aristotle gives a list of six qualities all archai share that help such a task and neatly summarize our discussion of archai. ... it is also necessary for demonstrated knowledge to proceed from [principles which areJ (I) true, (2) primary, (3) immediate, and also ( 4) more known than, ( 5) prior to, and ( 6) causes of the conclusion; for it is in this way that the principles will also be appropri.:. ate to what is proved. (AP7Ib20) They must be true in the sense that knowledge is of unchanging universals. They must be primary and therefore undemonstrable. They must be immediate, which means not known through anything else. And the three qualities they must have in relation to the knowledge based on them are that they are more knowable (which explains the mandate that one be more convinced of them), prior to (which explains the mandate that one be more familiar with them), and causes of their conclusions. That last one will prove very significant. And such are archai. Nous is more an enigma. As the variable in our initial formulation (nous is the arches epistemes), I have left it for last. Aristotle proceeds similarly in the Nichomachean Ethics, concluding that nous is responsible for providing the archai of episteme only after trying to account for this dispensation by means of the other faculties of the rational part of man's soul. In the Posterior Analytics it makes a late appearance on the stage and is only then unveiled as the foundation for knowledge. The mystery is how nous provides us with these principles. Aristotle has left us some clues as to this, and a close reading of his works yields several examples. We will be spending the third part of this essay looking more closely at this phenomenon, so here only a brief sketch of the activity will be given. We will start in the Posterior Analytics. At one point, Aristotle speaks quite comprehensively about the matter at hand. One must keep in mind while reading this that when he says we "learn either by induction or demonstration" that he is speaking both of the learning of knowledge proper (episteme) and of its principles. But perhaps this is clear from context: It is also evident that if a faculty of sensation is absent from the start, some corresponding science {episteme} must be lacking, seeing that a science cannot be acquired if indeed we learn either by induction {epagoge} or by demonstration. Now a demonstration proceeds from universals, whereas an induction proceeds from particulars. But universals cannot be investigated except through induction and even the so-called "things by abstraction { aphairesis} ," although not separable [from substances { ousia} ], are made known to us by induction ... and it is impossible to learn by induction without the power of sensation. For of individuals [there can be onlyJ sensation, and no knowledge { episteme} of them can be acquired; and neither can we demonstrate conclusions from universals without induction, nor can we acquire universals through induction without sensation. (AP8Ia38-8Ib9) There are three things I would like to emphasize from this passage. First, nous attains universals (and therefore archai) by epagoge. This is not an insight peculiar to the Posterior Analytics. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle explicitly states that "it is by induction {epagoge} that principles {archai} are acquired" (NEII39b31). This is regularly translated "induction" but there are problems with rendering it so. It seems to limit the term to an analytic understanding, or perhaps suggest that one needs a number of lower premises from which one can "induce" a primary premise. Although both of these senses are included in Aristotle's use of "epagoge," they do not exhaust it. Joe Sachs suggests translating it as "example," in his translation of Aristotle's Physics, suggesting that we learn universals by looking at single instances: This seems to get at the meaning more, for Aristotle seems to use the word every time he describes the culling of a universal from a particular, even in cases where this is done from only one particular or in settings far from analytic. The second thing I would like to emphasize is the sub-species of epagoge, aphairesis. r'Aphairesis" is almost always translated "abstraction" and has the connotation of a subtraction or a taking away. It is used exclusively for mathematical terms. A circle, for example, is abstracted from a beach ball, whereas its logos or definition (its ballness) is properly "induced." The difference between the two is an important one, and I will deal with it in more detail in the third section. Third, I would like to emphasize the dependence of epagoge upon the experience of sensation. All knowledge for Aristotle can be traced back to sensible th~ngs. Without sensation we would never know anythmg. Aristotle is very explicit about this and in the De Anima goes as far as to say that we cannot think anything without images (though this is not to be taken without qualification). Below is an example of the induction of principles: ... it is for our experiences concerning each subject to provide the principles { archai}. I mean, for instance, that it is for astronomical experience to provide the principles for the science {episteme} of astronomy (for when the appearances had been sufficiently grasped, in this way astronomical demonstrations were discovered; and it is also similar concerning any other art or science whatsoever. (APR46al8) A similar passage occurs at AP87b40. This example, with what we have said about nous as the "arche epistemes" will serve us as our preliminary definition and understanding of Aristotle's noetic. To break new ground, and come to a more fundamental understanding of it, we will look at the ways the light analogy changes or informs our conception of nous. Before we can understand the analogy, however, we must look at Aristotle's general account of light. SECTION TWO: LIGHT AND THE FACULTY OFVISION IN DEANIMA Aristotle's comparison between light and nous in De Anima is brie£ It does not even carry a sentence by itsel£ but instead merely serves as the last clause in a sentence that would be interesting without it. With this in mind, it might seem excessive to give an extended treatment of Aristotle's theory of light in order to explicate it. However, my hope is that the value of such an endeavor will become clear in its application in the third section. The account of sight that I will be explicating can be found primarily in the seventh chapter of the second book of De Anima. My recapitulation will be mostly (and without further reference) drawn from that account. Any references to other parts of De Anima will be given. �... 7 6 respect, we can apply what Aristotle says of sense in general to sight. For sight, as is the case with all senses, The proper object of sight is the visible, and that is color. By "proper" it is meant that color is not sensed by any other sense than sight, in contrast to things like motion which can be sensed with two or more senses (in the example of motion: sight and touch). It is regarding "proper sensibles" that one has the least chance of being mistaken. Aristotle refers to color as "that to which sight is directed." This directedness of sight reminds us that Aristotle describes sight as potency ( dunamis), and that since potency is in a way stretched out toward its fulfillment or actuality (energeia ), this fulfillment for sight is in the being-atwork of perceiving color. Things in the world, he says, are not perceivable because of a certain articulation (logos), but because they have their cause of visibility (color) within themselves. That is to say, we do not see a bright blue ball against a dark green wall because of its ballness, but because its surface is colored. The way color affects this perception is by having the "potency { dunamis} to set in motion what is actively { energeia} transparent." This dunamis is the nature of color. The transparent that it sets in motion is the medium of sight; Aristotle's examples of this transparent include air and water. It is the realm of the visible, the place visible things come together and are made manifest. The transparent is in energeia when it is lit, and it is in dunamis when it is not lit, or dark. "And for that reason it {any color} is not visible without light, but of each thing every color is seen in light:' The formula for sight then seems to be as follows: one needs the actively transparent (light) first, then the colored object which is switched from dunamis to energeia by that light, then the color sets in motion the transparent which causes (as in efficient cause) something visible to be sensed in the eye. The transparent is not ever seen by itself. It is said of the transparent that light is its "color," but this is only said metaphorically. A lit transparent with no colored objects in it would be invisible. The transparent is not an object of our sight except in that it can be said to be that which is between the colors we see and our eyes. But colored objects without the transparent would also be invisible. Aristotle's example is that an object held directly against the eye is not seen. This is the sense in which the transparent is the realm of sight. It is where sight happens. To understand this process in a different ... is receptive of the forms of perceptible things without their material, as wax is receptive of the design of a ring without the iron or gold, and takes up the golden or bronze design, but not as gold or bronze: and similarly the sense of each thing is acted upon by the thing that has color or flavor or sound, but not in virtue of that by which each of those things is the kind of thing it is, but in virtue of that by which it has a certain attribute and (DA424a I 9) according to a ratio {logos}. First, and most obviously, this passage makes clear that the material of a visible object is not reproduced in the sight, but merely its form, which in this case seems to be color. But this restricted understanding of form's analogue in sight is made questionable by the last phrase in that passage: "according to a ratio {logos}:' We stated earlier that the sense of sight is not affected by something because of its "definition," the Greek of which is also " logos". This must be a different understanding of the word. Sachs, again, seems to hit on the appropriate translation with "ratio". This indicates that perception, then, is not like a game of "Kick the Can" where our sense organ is the can and the colors are the kickers. For perception is not without logos, even though it is physically affected by its respective stimuli. It still retains a sense of perspective, or proportion. Without this sense, assembling our perceptions of things around us would be as fruitless as trying to understand the exact topography of a river by examining the chaotic path of a feath er floating down it. And so it is in this sense that all perception worthy of the name has a certain logos. This logos is both in the perceptible things themselves and also in our sense organs, which explains why extreme ratios in sensible things (colors too bright, pitch too high) can destroy their corresponding sense organs. For the ratios in colors are duplicated by the ratios physically formed in our eyes. And since our eyes have some physicality, and are not pure potency, they can only accommodate a certain range of ratios. These are the basics of Aristotle's theory of light. As I said before, we will not find this to be a perfect model for intellection (they are, after all, different phenomena), but with luck we should be able to use it to see into the actions of nous in a way we could not before, Arles, France, Vada Mossavat, AOO �8 9 even if part of the benefit we derive :&om this stems :&om contrasting Aristotle's theory of light with his noetic. SECTION THREE: HOW NOUS IS LIKE LIGHT, ONLY BETTER It is not the entirety of what we call nous that Aristotle compares to light, but nous poetikos) the maker mind. Let us look at the passage in which the comparison is made: But since in all nature one thing is the material { hule} for each kind (this is what is in potency { dunamis} in all the particular beings of that kind), but it is something else which is the causal and productive thing by which all of them are formed, as is the case with an art in relation to its material, it is necessary in the soul too that these distinct aspects be present; the one sort is the intellect { nous} by becoming all things, the other sort by becoming all things, in the way an active condition such as light does, for in a certain way light too makes colors that are in potency be at work as colors. (DA430aI 0) It seems likely from the analogy that the nous that becomes all things would be analogous to the sense organ, which becomes the form of all sensible things. But the dichotomy between the maker and nous and its counterpart, the material and nous (which is in potency), does not line up with light and the sense of vision as cleanly as it might first appear. Like so many difficult terms in Aristotle, "dunamis" is used relatively. Because of this non-static quality of the word, Aristotle finds it more efficacious to define it by analogy. In MetI048a30 Aristotle gives us two examples, corresponding to two degrees, of dunamis. His examples are: Hermes in a block of wood or a half line in a whole, because they can be separated out, or someone who knows, even if he is not contemplating, if he is capable of contemplating. This is reminiscent of a similar distinction made in DA4I7a2I: There is something that has knowledge in the way we say any human being is a knower, because humanity is part of the class that knows and has knowledge, but there is also a sense in which we mean by a knower the one who already has, say, grammatical skill; and each of these is in potency { dunamis} but not in the same way, but the former is because his kind and his material { hule} are of such a certain sort, while the latter is because he is capable of contemplating when he wants to, if nothing outside him prevents it. Both passages make the same distinction, and it is clear that Hermes in a block of wood has the same degree of potency as the human being who is a knower only in the sense that he is a human being. Both require something outside of themselves to help them into actuality (energeia), for both have potency ( dunamis) as material (hule). Since this potency is furthest removed from actuality, or being-at-work, I will henceforth call it "first potency". The human being who knows grammar already and is merely not thinking about it is in "second potency" as regards his status as a knower. Now material nous, both in virtue of its name and its dependence upon maker nous, is in first potency. The problem is that the sense of vision, in contrast, is in second potency. Later, in the same chapter from which the above quotation &om De Anima was taken, it is explicitly stated that "In the potency { dunamis} of perception, the fust change comes about by the action of the parent, and when a living thing is born it already has what it takes to perceive, just as it has the capacity for knowledge." That is, a living thing at birth has already undergone the change from first potency to second as regards sight, whereas it only has the capacity (first potency) for knowledge. The baby only has to open his eyes to see, but he still has to learn grammar before he conjugate. This makes the analogy between light and nous trickier. It implies, first of all, that light effects a transition in the sense organ from second potency to full actuality ( energeia ), whereas nous effects only the change &om second potency to first in the mind. As we learned above, these are substantially different changes and they would make the two (light and nous) very difficult to compare. One would also have to answer the question of what it is that brings the material nous into full actuality, and why it is that whatever that may be is not compared with light. I propose a sort of compromise based on a reading in the eighth book of the Metaphysics. Aristotle gives there examples of the ways in which energeia (actuality, being-at-work, etc.) takes precedence over dunamis and establishes that ... it seems impossible to be a house-builder if one has not built any houses, or a harpist if one has not played the harp at all; for the one learning to play the harp learns to play the harp by playing the harp, and similarly with those who learn things. The harpist is helped into second potency by the same instrument of actuality (a harp) with which he will take himself into full actuality. His case is unlike the baby's, in which development in the womb brings the baby's sight to second potency and a different instrument (light) takes it to full actuality. Aristotle says in this passage that learning works on the harpist model. One does not have the capacity to think of grammar added to one like a memory expansion on a hard drive, and then have the ability to actualize that knowledge or not. Rather, the thought occurs to you (or is presented to you) and then you can think or not think about it. The difference is not in the faculty by which you understand a grammatical concept, but in the agent by which the thought is generated. In the first case, it is a teacher (or the thought, itself) which brings itself to your attention (there is an analogy at the end of the Posterior Analytics that makes this especially evident) and then it is you by your will that can think of it. But, in both instances (and regardless of the origin of the act of thinking), your actual conceiving of the grammatical concept is grounded in the maker nous. This is an important difference to understand, and it seems to stem from memory. The one who has never thought of a specific concept cannot will himself into thinking it because it is not an object on his horizon. One who has thought the concept before can open himself up to cognizing them again. (In this way, thinking of something you have already learned is very much like opening your eyes to something.) But in both the case of the person who first comes across a concept and the case of the person who is recalling it for the hundredth time, it is nous which perceives the concept. And this understanding makes the light analogy tenable, for it makes the degree of potency to which maker nous takes material nous unimportant as far as understanding the workings of maker nous, because it causes both changes and acts the same in both. By following that thread we have made significant progress into how we are to read light (it repre- sen ts maker nous) and the sense organ (which seems to represent material nous). But by looking more closely at our experience of the transition from first to second potency we are led to formulate a question about the object of vision, or rather its analogue, the object of thought. I will let Aristotle both formulate and answer the question I am thinking of: And if one were to inquire why it is possible for a boy to become a mathematician but not wise or a physicist, the answer is: the objects of mathematics exist by abstraction { aphairesis} while the principles { archai} of philosophy or physics are acquired from experience; and young men have no conviction of their principles but only use words, while the nature of the objects of physics and of wisdom is not unclear to physicists and to wise men. (NEI 142al5) It is the difference between aphairesis and epagoge that was made in the first section that is key to understanding this passage. Apparently, we are more quickly disposed to allow maker nous to abstract mathematical objects &om our experiences that we are to "induce" through maker nous the archai of philosophy and other such sciences. Insight into the difficulty of coming to see the true archai of such studies, and how easy it is to come up with vacuous archai, can be had from a look at the process Aristotle goes through in De Anima to find the characteristics and essence of the soul. There are two ways Aristotle defines the soul there; one he describes as empty and the other, meaningful. The meaningful definition takes into account all of the faculties of a particular kind of soul. It must do this because a truly meaningful definition is about a single kind of soul, something that gets to the essence and thinghood ( ousia) of a particular being. The empty kind is one that would "fit them all but be appropriate to none" (DA414b24). The meaningful kind of definition takes experience and time to unfold. It is not, like mathematical objects, immediately obvious. As an afterthought, I would like to add that there seems to be another difference between mathematical and philosophical objects which springs from Aristotle's ontology. Because ousia is being in the primary sense, and mathematical objects have a derivative and abstracted being, there is a sense in which mathematical objects do not strive for any energeia like �IO II beings in the more primary sense do, but borrow their energeia from the particular contemplative thinker (see Metl 05 I a30). Philosophy is the study of living essences, not of the empty and static relations between magnitudes to which math is restricted. Because of their dependence on the thinker they do not stretch themselves out toward (or suggest) "metaphysical" questions, as Aristotle would understand that term. This is what I meant, earlier, when I said that they were a good analogy for much of what Aristotle wants to say but a bad example. The failure of the young to see in a clear way the principles of philosophy, and the requirement of time and experience to accomplish that task, seems to contradict something else Aristotle says about the maker nous. In DA430al8 he says the maker nous is by its thinghood ( ousia) a being-at-work ( energeia). And right after that, that it is not the case that "at one time it thinks and that at another time it does not think." If objects of thought are perpetually bathing in the light of nous, why do we not see them? Aristotle answers in Met993b5: ... perhaps, ... the cause is not in the things but in us; for in just the same way that the eyes of bats are related to the mid-day, so also is the intellect {nous} related to those things which are by nature most evident of all. It seems that we are too used to seeing things as particulars and not looking for the reasons past where we have already found them, as though we were accustomed to feeling our way around a room with our eyes shut because the lamp-light hurt our eyes and the rooms colors were too bright. This brings us back to the original analogy and asks what noetic ingredient corresponds to color, and if an answer to that can be found, what corresponds to the transparent. Its equivalent in intellecdon is probably universals, and they are drawn from images probably in the fashion "universal judgements" are said to develop in the first book of the Metaphysics. That is: we have multiple sensations which stick in our memory, and many memories of the same sensation which make our experience possible, and then "out of many conceptions from experience, one universal judgement arises about those that are similar:' This also makes the most sense out of the brief elaboration Aristotle gives the analogy (that it is "in a certain way light too makes colors that are in potency be at work as colors") because making one see universals in particulars is equivalent to making things intelligible (for knowledge is of universals). Maker nous makes the potentially thinkable, actually thinkable. And as light is the energeia of the transparent, we are tempted to say that maker nous is the energeia of something like an inner transparent. Perhaps, though, no such analogue for the transparent can be found in the mind because the material nous is what it thinks, it "becomes all things;' and there is no separation between the thinker and the thought. This seems to be the limit to which this analogy can be stretched. But before we leave this text, we should see if what we have discerned can help supply an answer to one of the bigger questions about the maker nous. ls the maker nous also the Maker? It seems unclear whether nous poetikos can be considered God or whether it is merely a part of every man. D.W. Hamlyn, in a gloss of his translation seems to think it is not, because (among other reasons) Aristotle would have mentioned something like that. This seems to me to assume that if Aristotle linked our minds to God's through the maker nous this would, in the context of his other works, be surprising. But I will try to make a case that there is reason to believe that the maker nous is God and that this claim makes sense in relation to Aristotle's other works. The Metaphysics makes this point most clearly. For what is receptive of the intelligible and of thinghood is the intellect {nous}. And it is at work when it has them: therefore it is in being-at-work { energeia} rather that in receptivity that the intellect seems god-like, and its contemplation is pleasantest and best. So if the divine being is always in this condition that we are sometimes in, that is to be wondered at; and if it is in it to a greater degree than we are, that is to be wondered at still more. And that is the way it is. But life belongs to it too, for the being-at-work of the intellect is life, and that being is being-atwork, and its being-at-work is in itself the best life and is everlasting. And we say that it is a god who everlastingly lives the best life, so that life and continuous and everlasting duration belong to a god; for this being is god. (MetI072b22) Now the maker nous is always at work in a state of contemplation, it is also continuous and it is also everlasting. And as much as we participate in the energeia of the maker nous (which is always itself an Puerto Escondido, Mexico, Abigail Weinberg, AOO energeia) we are participating in the divine. It seems that separating the maker nous from Aristotle's god is unnecessary. Why, then, is Hamlyn hesitant to do it? Perhaps he thinks this would turn Aristotle, who seems to be an otherwise level-headed philosopher, into a transcendental mystic. There is no reason to conclude this either, though. Taking Plotinus as our model of mysticism, who, in a mystical moment, is one with the divine only to slip down from intellection back into the discourse of reason, it is clear to see that Aristotle is no mystic. For Aristotle's divine is pre-eminently rational. In fact, it is only in the discourse of reason that the eternal and divine is attained (and it is that {nous} in us which is deathless and eternal"). He understands the world as a certain intelligible whole with a beginning ( arche) and an end (telos). Thus his pleasure in contemplation is similar to the pleasure of contemplating a well~written play, not the ecstasy of a religious experience. The Aristotelian experience of the divine is not even something properly transcendental. For man is the animal with logos. Participating in god-like contemplation is natural to him. He is fulfilling his dunamis by contemplating. And Aristotle even concedes that the difference between man and god is unbridgeable. One can never contemplate perpetually, like the gods do. Men get tired of thinking, and get hungry and need to feed themselves. But inasmuch as they think on eternal notions, they become those notions, and it is that within them that is deathless. It is not the per- sonality of man that survives, but the intelligible notions his intellect becomes. And it is because these intelligible notions are in substances and things all around him, that his survival in them is no departure to another realm. That is the essential novelty of Aristotle's understanding of objects of thought, as he contrasted it with Plato's (or whoever's doctrine it was that he attributed to the Platonists of his day). This understanding objects of thought (and by that I mean noetic objects) is primary in two ways to Aristotle's noetic theory. First, since objects of thought are archai, they are primary in the sense that they are the principles of all knowledge. This relationship, and the way these archai are perceived, was the main theme explored by this essay. The second way this is significant is that understanding the being of objects of thought is necessary before any epistemology or noetic can be formulated. At least on the surface, Aristotle distanced himself from Plato (and Socrates) by coming to a different understanding of the ontological status of these notions. This is then the groundwork for an understanding of how Aristotle saw his place in the tradition. + Thanks to Mrs. Pamela Kraus for advising this paper. All translations are Mr. Joe Sachs). In cases where he does have a published translation, Mr. Hippocrates G. Apostl.e~ are used. All statements within { } are my own words. �12 13 On Mimesis Robert Dickson, AOO I n his Poetics, Aristotle argues that mimesis is natural to humans, both as something to engage in and something to enjoy. Described as one of the engendering causes of poetry, our relationship with mimesis remains unclear as the Poetics explains how playwrights should best move us with their craft. In the first book of his Metaphysics, Aristotle again speaks of mimesis in passing, recounting the Pythagoreans' understanding of the universe: So he called this other sort of beings forms, and said the perceptible things were apart from these and all spoken of derivatively from these, for the many things with the same names as the forms were results of participation. He changed only the name participation, for the Pythagoreans said that beings are by what of mimesis of the numbers, but Plato by way of participation, having changed the name. What this participation or mimesis of the forms might be, however, they were in unison in leaving behind to be sought. [Metaphysics 987b8J Obviously, the word 'mimesis' meant more to Aristotle (or the Pythagoreans) than simply what occurs when we create art. But why would the same word be used fo r the writing of Oedipus Rex and for the relationship between the tangible realm and the eternal? T hough Aristotle's thought differs greatly from what the Pythagoreans must have meant by mimesis, his view of our world and of our art gains great clarity when we widen the definition of mimesis to its limit and ask what relevance our art has to our souls and nature itself. By considering general mimesis, we shall be forced to consider its relation to our souls, our education, our politics, and our universe. Then we may return to the particular mimesis that goes into making art and ask why it is natural for us to imitate what is outside us. Mimesis: General and Poetic Before we can understand how the human soul produces and enjoys mimesis in its arts, we must fully comprehend mimesis in a more general sense, not limited to human creations or even to humans. For clarity, we will speak of mimesis in two ways: the widest way the word allows and the specific kind of mimesis relevant to our inquiry. By general mimesis we mean not the activity by which a thing becomes the same as another (such as when water comes to be air through evaporation) but rather when a thing assumes some defining characteristics of another thing without changing its own nature (such as when water is dyed to look like red wine but remains water). By 'defining characteristics' we mean that if being a given thing means possessing X necessary qualities (such as being red wine means being alcoholic, derived from a grape, red, and tasteful), the mimetic object assumes not all qualities encompassed by X, but rather so many as to appear the same as or closer in relation to the original object (such as water imitating red wine may mean simply being dyed red). We must acknowledge now that general mimesis is not restricted to human perception or creation, evidenced at the least by chameleons and other animals that assume the color of their surroundings seemingly at will. By poetic mimesis we mean general mimesis restricted to that which is ordered by a human to effect emotion in any human who should see it (such as poetry, painting, and music). The observer must know the object to be mimetic; if he or she is fooled into thinking a painting is actually a window, there will be no pleasure particular to poetic mimesis. It is clear why an art like painting fits our definition of general mimesis: it is paint arranged to present the image of an actual thing. But something should be said about what way music and abstract art are mimetic when there is no clearly imitated thing outside the work. In his Poetics, Aristotle states that poetry is more philosophical than history, "since poetry relates more of the universal, while history relates particulars" (Poetics I 45 I bS). T here is a way in which history is generally mimetic, in that it recreates as best it can actual events in new form. But what separates history from poetry is the structure given to events in order to effect emotion, so that what is conveyed from artist to audience is not merely fact but feeling. In this way, it is not only the particulars that are imitated in art, but the more universal human experience of emotional reaction to things. Music does not attempt (usually) to resemble anything outside itself; it is form and motion applied directly to sounds. But contained in a piece of music is mimetic human emotion, a universal more directly imitated through music than even tragic poetry, which must effect emotion through the use of particular names instead of generic notes. A casual listening to a major and a minor scale reveals that music imitates tension, resolution, conflict, brightness and dreariness (feelings entirely present but difficult to articulate) through differently pitched tones while tragedy must imitate the same human feelings by presenting tension, resolution, conflict, happiness and pathos as they occur in our actual lives, as if we are the tones. Thus we understand music to be poetically mimetic not in that it imitates any particular outside itself but because it attempts to reflect universals directly. The same can be said for other art that effects emotion without representing particular things. Mimetic Creation For it is an instinct of human beings, from childhood, to engage in mimesis (indeed, this distinguishes them from other animals: man is the most mimetic of all, and it is through mimesis that he develops his earliest understanding) [Poetics I 148b4J This curious claim described by Aristotle as one of the engendering causes of poetry is difficult to believe when we restrict ourselves to reading "mimesis" as poetic mimesis. For how many children speak in verse? Or gain their earliest understanding through painting? Widening the term to general mimesis reveals how mimetic man truly is. That we gain our earliest 1tpcfrta~, better translated as "primary" or "first") understanding through mimesis is a remarkable statement considering that mimesis is not mentioned in On the Soul as a distinct faculty of the intellect. But perhaps we again limit ourselves reading mimesis as something independent in the soul: superfluous, mimesis is the soul's fundamental method of acquisition in all its respects. In their different ways, perception, imagination and intellect are all mimetic faculties. We shall speak of them individually. Perception, as a potency, is nothing other than what it sees, constantly assuming potentially the actual forms of the things before it. Its being is strictly mimetic, taking upon itself the objects of the senses as they are in outside things. This fits well our definition of general mimesis, as the perceptive potency remains a potency as it beholds a rock, though it assumes the being-at-work visible nature of the rock outside of it. Intellect is much like perception in its mimesis, though complicated greatly by the fact that there is no clear distinction between the intelligible thing and the intellect thinking it ( OTS 430 a20). H ow is this mimesis if the intellect not only takes the form of a certain thought but is the form and thought? Without fully exploring the difference between the intellect that becomes all things and that which forms all things, it is enough to recognize that intellect is abstraction from tangible things, an existence that one could say is mimetic of that which can be perceived. "And it [the intellect J is itself intelligible in the same way its intelligible objects are, for in the case of things without material what thinks and what is thought are the same thing, for contemplative knowing and what is known in that way are the same thing... but among things having material, each of them is potentially something intelligible, so that there is no intellect present in them (since intellect is a potency to be such things without their material), but there is present in them something intelligible" ( OTS 430al). The intellect that becomes all things is the clay of the sculptor, taking upon itself (in fact becoming) the form of something else. The intellect that forms all things is the sculptor of all that follows the order of intellect, causing a formed universe, existing as a being-at-work without which nothing thinks. Intellect is mimetic in the same way it is potential and at-work, as the formed and as the one who forms. We are left with imagination: "the motion coming about by the action of sense perception while it is at work" ( OTS 429al ). Its mimetic nature is different from that of perception and intellect, which take on qualities of objects outside the soul. Imagination represents the objects of perception as imaginings for the intellect, in a sense translating the objects of one faculty into those of another. "And for the soul that thinks things through, imaginings are �14 15 Architectural detail, I 984 Winter Olympic Museum, Sarajevo, Vada Mossavat, AOO present in the way perceptible things are ... for this reason the soul never thinks without an image" (ors 43lal5). Imagination is the only potency of the human soul that is mimetic of the soul for the soul. Imagination's mimetic function is especially significant to an inquiry into poetic mimesis. Just as through a synthesis of imaginings we derive something greater with the intellect ( OTS 43 lb), in poetic mimesis it is through a synthesis of particulars that the audience is brought to recognize some underlying universal and feel some elevated emotion. Both imagination and poetic mimesis are willed types of mimesis, instances of one person being able to recreate a universe according to some reason. We will see below exactly how related imagination and poetic mimesis are. Something more should be said about human reason and its mimetic nature. For the intellect is not only mimetic in becoming and forming things, but in articulating what things are. Our words are symbols of impressions in the soul, impressions common to all people, though our words differ (On Interpretation, l 6a5). Words gain meaning mimetically, the sound of "horse" only meaning something to someone who can attach it to its appropriate thought. Complex statements, such as "All horses have hair," are instances of us unfolding in speech what is already present in what we know simply horses to be. This is mimesis, humans representing simple forms and divisions between things in statements of truth and falsity. This is significant to our inquiry because our speech only lets us represent thoughts of things, not other impressions in the soul. The word "fear" spoken by one person can conjure the thought of what fear is in another, but not the emotion itself. Poetic mimesis is what allows us to do this: by representing a fearinspiring thing, an artist can conjure that emotion in another. As A.6yoa is to thought, poetic mimesis is to emotion. Both are extensions of our political nature, which is further confirmed by the shared pleasure of more than one person responding similarly to the same poetically mimetic object. Another way in which mimesis is natural to us from childhood is in our acquisition of virtue, which occurs through habituation. Consider: The virtues ... we acquire by first having actually practised them, just as we do the arts. We learn an art or craft by doing the things that we shall have to do when we have learnt it: for instance, men become builders by building houses, harpers by playing on the harp. Similarly we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. [Nie. Ethics l I03bI J Thus although actions are entitled just and temperate when they are such acts as just and temperate men would do, the agent is just and temperate not when he does these acts merely, but when he does them in the way in which just and temperate men do them [done with knowledge, chosen deliberately and for its own sake, and with the act sprung from a fixed and permanent disposition of character]. [Nie. Ethics I I 05b5J In order to become morally virtuous, we do the things that virtuous people do until we do them for their own sake and we take pleasure in the act itsel£ This is general mimesis continued until it is more, actual change into the thing imitated. Moreover, it is through childhood mimesis that children grow to become full members of family and community: by mimicking parents and neighbors they assume what qualities are specific to their families and communities, such as language, customs, and mannerisms. The link between mimesis and our political nature is strong. Mimetic Enjoyment ... and [it is J equally natural that everyone enjoys mimetic objects. A common occurrence indicates this: we enjoy contemplating the most precise images of things whose actual sight is painful to us, such as the forms of vilest animals and of corpses. [Poetics I I 48b8J Aristotle here seems to speak mainly of poetic mimesis and our enjoyment of it, though what is said is quite similar to this statement about imagination in On the Soul: When we have the feeling that something is terrifying or frightening we immediately feel the corresponding feeling, and similarly if we think it is something that inspires confidence, but with the imagination we are in the same condition as if we were beholding terrifying or confidenceinspiring things in a painting. [ OTS 427b23] This furthers the above claim that imagination is an �17 16 instance of general mimesis tied closely to poetic mimesis. Our imagination presents to us an image of, say, a bear, which we do not fear but instead welcome (~atpci V, translated above as "enjoy"). We are "in the same condition" as when we behold the bear as a poetically mimetic object. Why is imagination so much like poetic mimesis? As stated above, both imagination and poetic mimesis are willed. They grant humans the god-like ability to create things not merely as they are but according to whatever reason seems best. Both then grant humans the power to study images outside of any time of immediate duty to act. Imagination and poetic mimesis bring us omnipotence and omniscience over tangible things through a divine removal. But a grand impasse arises when this removal is considered: How, if the removal of the object from us removes us from the corresponding feeling, does tragedy (mimesis of "fearful and pitiable matters") excite us to feel fear and pity? More generally, how exactly does any poetic mimesis move us to emote when the things represented are removed as such from us? Our answer is in the difference between particulars and universals. Though poetic mimesis removes particulars from our experience, it effectively calls to light universals that are not at all removed from us. In our bear example above, for instance, the painted claws of the bear are removed from us and do not excite fear. But a sudden recognition that some animals are created by nature to do violence to humans would not be at all removed from us, and would excite fear. Even a sudden recognition that we are terrorstricken at irrational creatures would be more generally fear-inspiring than being afraid of a single bear's claw. The difference between particular and universal should be made clear. The particular represented by poetic mimesis is the apparent object independently existent outside of the mimesis, such as the actual bear in our example above. The universal may be a more general truth articulated through symbols or, more likely, a common human response to a given thing. A play may use particular names and actions to convey the truth that "Courage is a necessary virtue for kings" or it may simply call to light in the audience's minds the happiness that follows from courageous actions. Since poetic mimesis is created primarily to effect emotion, it follows that the primary universal relayed is not a rational truth, but rather a response, such as the connection between action and happiness that can be described but not relayed through words. We return to imagination. Aristotle says: Now the thinking potency grasps in thought the forms that are present in things imagined, and since what is to be pursued or fled from is marked out for it in those imaginings, even apart from sense perception, it is moved when it applies itself to imagined things. For instance, perceiving that a signal light is fire, and observing by what is common to the senses that it is moving, one recognizes that it is an enemy; but sometimes, by means of the imaginings and thoughts in the soul, just as if one were seeing, one reasons out and plans what is going to happen in response to what is present. [OTS 43lb2J The particular imaginings, say of fire and motion, are independently removed from our actions and emotions. But through a synthesis of the imaginings something new arises in us, knowledge that it is an enemy, and we are moved to act or to emote. This mirrors and cannot be far in soul activity from the beholder of poetic mimesis, synthesizing particulars relayed directly to recognize something more general. The relation between poetic mimesis and imagination does not fully address the main question raised by the above passage: Why do we enjoy mimetic objects? The explanation of this too is that understanding gives great pleasure not only to philosophers but likewise to others too, though the latter have a smaller share in it. This is why people enjoy looking at images, because through contemplating them it comes about that they understand and infer what each element means, for instance that "this person is so-and-so:' For, if one happens not to have seen the subject before, the image will not give pleasure qua mimesis but because of its execution of colour, or for some other such reason. [Poetics 1448bl2] The enjoyment of mimetic objects is the enjoyment of knowledge. Yet beholding poetic mimesis is not the same as learning, for it follows from the above passage that poetic mimesis cannot present anything new to the audience: the pleasure would not be that particular to poetic mimesis but rather of the lesser parts of the art (diction, spectacle, color, etc.) But is this restricted to particulars or to universals? · It is the particulars represented that cannot be new to the audience. Without knowing what an apple is, one cannot enjoy a painting of an apple as something relaying a univers~l. If a language is a common collection of symbols for thoughts, it follows that an artist can no more communicate a universal through an unknown mimetic object than a Greek word can convey a thought to a strictly English speaker. But the universal relayed through poetic mimesis is different, and does not appear to be the sort of thing that one "knows" like one knows what an apple or a king is. The universals relayed are recognized by the audience through their own activity: "through contemplating them it comes about that they understand and infer what each element means." There is pleasure in coming to understand the particulars of an artwork as elements of something larger, even if the larger truth is something already somehow known to us. This is different from learning, as what is universal must be apparent to everybody. "Recognition" is an appropriate name for what happens in observing poetic mimesis: something known but not acknowledged is brought to light by the audience's response to the object. Political Mimesis Mimesis, general and poetic, has been discussed as closely tied to our political nature in its creation and its enjoyment. As the emotional counterpart to our rational 'A6yoro, it represents the impressions in our soul for others. It is how we are habituated to moral virtue by others, and it is how we become members of communities. But the most striking connection between mimesis and politics is in the most elevated relationship possible, that of two virtuous friends. Friendship, the bond of the state (Nie. Ethics l 155a25), is in its most perfect and complete form when it is between two people who are exceedingly virtuous. The affection between the two is prompted by similarity in virtue (Nie. Ethics l 156b20). Aristotle says the following: Also, when men wish the good of those they love for their own sakes, their goodwill does not depend on emotion but on a fixed disposition. And in loving their friend they love their own good, for the good man in becoming dear to another becomes that other's good. Each party therefore both loves his own good and also makes an equivalent return by wishing the other's good, and by affording him pleasure; for there is a saying, '.Amity is equality; and this is most fully realized in the friendships of the good. [Nie. Ethics l l 57b30J Though we wish goodwill for our friends, it is our own virtue that we see in their actions. The approval of a virtuous person is self-recognition for the approved one, who cannot fully know himself independently. Happiness follows from a virtuous person's actions, but a virtuous person may not recognize the extent of his or her virtue unless it is reflected in another, someone admired. I believe the difference between being happy from virtue and being aware that you are .happy because you are virtuous is what friendship provides and poetic mimesis presents for contemplation. Is this mimesis? Obviously, there is no true creation of the friend like there is of a poem. But if a sculpture was created of a man,' he could see himself through the eyes of another and react to himself in a new way. He could gain insight into not just what he is but how he is to others: he could see himself as a political animal while remaining himsel£ We are friends with people as much like ourselves as possible, such that our choice of friends is something of a poetic selection. We replace mimesis of ourselves with what actually is us, unimitated, and we behold ourselves as if we are images. The "bond of the state" is akin to poetic mimesis, a recognition of everything outside us as fair or poor reflections. Before any more can be said about poetic mimesis, we must understand more fully general mimesis in its most universal sense and what causes it. opE;t~ and Mimesis Consider these passages: Its [the nutritive/ reproductive potency's J work is to beget offspring aswell as to use food, since the most natural thing for a living thing to do ... is to make another like itself, for an animal to make an animal and a plant to make a plant, in order to have a share in what always is and is divine, in the way it is able to do. For all things yearn [6pE:yemt J for that, and for the sake of it do everything that they do by nature ... So since it is impossible for them to share continuously in what always is and is divine, since no destructible thing admits of remaining one and the same in number, each of them does share in �19 18 it in whatever way it can have a share, one sort more and another less, enduring not as itself but as one like itself, that is one with it not in number but in kind. [ OTS 4 I 5a25J There is a certain ceaseless motion that is always moving, and it is in a circle (and this is evident not only to reason but in fact), so that the first heaven would be everlasting. Accordingly, there is also something that moves it. And since what is in motion and causes motion is something intermediate, there is also something that causes motion without being in motion, which is everlasting, an independent thing, and a being-at-work. But what is desired [ 'tO opEK'tOV J and what is thought cause motion in that way: not being in motion, they cause motion... And it [the unmoved moverJ causes motion in the manner of something loved, and by means of what is moved moves other things. Now if something is moved, it admits of being other than it is; and so, even if the primary kind of change of place is a beingat-work, insofar as something is moved, it is in that respect at least capable of being otherwise, with respect to place even if not with respect to thinghood. But since there is something that causes motion while being itself motionless, this does not admit of being otherwise than it is in any respect at all. [Metaphysics I 072a20] In the On the Soul passage, Aristotle presents the activities of ensouled, mortal things as imitative of that which does not change, what is eternally itself In the relation of the fixed stars to the unmoved mover, a circularity is the proper motion of place to mimic the eternal because it is more continuous, more perfect than linear. This is ope~t<;, translated often as 'desire' or 'appetite: But it truly means a thing's stretching itself out, a meaning almost captured by the English word "longing." ope~t<; is the link between the tangible and the eternal, that which the transient has in its attempt to be as complete as that which does not change and never will. It is also evidence of the most grand mimesis existent, that of all changing things in their efforts to be like the eternal and constant. In fact, the only 11 thing that is never mimetic is that which does not admit of being otherwise than it is in any respect at all," the motionless first mover. All motion of comingto-be, all being-at-work from potency, is mimesis on the part of a changing thing attempting to assume the completion and perfection of the eternal, the unmoved. If OpE~tc; is a grand cause of motion, and of our general mimesis, what particular relevance does it have to our poetic mimesis? The answer is that it is the same: poetic mimesis is a stretching out to the divine on the part of humans, elevating our practical concerns to the level of the unchanging. The difference between history and tragedy, discussed above, is that tragedy presents a universal behind its particulars. What's more, the events of tragedy follow strictly according to necessity from each other, whereas history does not present the cause of each action in its scope. All art presents some kind of nature in a frame, a thing with a beginning, middle and end. An observer, as said above, is granted omniscience about a contained image of our practical realm, something we would normally deliberate about (as if we were to act) , and instead he contemplates (Poetics I 448b I 5). This is the opE~tc; of poetic mimesis. Just as the fixed stars stretch their natures to partake in the divine, poetic mimesis stretches the part of the human soul generally reserved for changing things and elevates its function to something akin to contemplation of unchanging things, the most divine activity of the human soul. The true feat is that it does so through an appeal to our emotions, in a sense elevating them as well, allowing us to contemplate them as well as the mimetic objects. This is not particular to tragedy, though it is illustrated well by it. Beholding any poetically mimetic object allows the human soul to treat the affairs of the transient earth as eternal ideas of contemplation. This is a luxury present because of the structure, the extended A.6yocr, introduced by the artist to changing things. A person's perception of a bear must be met with deliberation. A person's perception of a painting of a bear is removed from deliberation and will not alter in any way so long as the observer wills. It becomes a thing that can be contemplated like a metaphysical truth, continually. A melody arranges sound so that it all seems present, that what has been heard and what is anticipated are felt together as parts of a thing, something that can be understood as a whole but experienced in parts, and contemplated. I believe this to be a fair way to understand aesthetic beauty: a contemplation of that which, without the added order of a person, could simply not be contemplated. This is the cause and end of poetic mimesis. • GREEK TRANSLATION Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, Lines 668-720 Samuel Garcia, A99 Chorus: In this land, stranger, renowned for its horses you have come to the fairest dwellings of the earth, splendid Colonus, there the sweet nightingale sings, ·incessantly engaged, from under the green and wooded glens, dwelling in the flushed ivy and in the god's inviolable foliage, hidden from the sun, with countless fruit, with neither wind nor wintry storms; where Dionysus, ever the reveler, spends his days, tending to divine nurses. And beneath the dew of heavens, day after day, the fair-clustering narcissus blooms always, ancient crown of might goddesses, and so does the · gold-gleaming crocus; nor do the tireless springs from which the wandering streams of Cephisus issue forth diminish, but ever daily, with water undefiled, does that river flow fervently over the plains of the broad-swelling earth. The choruses of Muses loathe not this place, nor, in turn, does Aphrodite of the golden reins. And there is something the like of which the land of Asia has never known; nor has it ever yet grown in the great Dorian island of Pelops, a tree planted not by the hancis of men, but rather self-produced, a terror to hostile spears which flourishes mightily in this land: the leaf of the gray olive, nurturer of young life. This none of the young nor any dwelling in old age will ravage nor make barren with their hands; for Zeus Morios, with all things ever in his sight, gazes upon it and so too does gray-eyed Athena. And I have yet more praise for this city our mother, a gifi: of a powerful divinity, the greatest glory of the land, glorious for its noble steeds, for their young colts, for its prosperity so near the sea. For it was you, Son of Kronos, Lord Poseidon, you who enthroned her in this glory, having brought first to these streets the bridle that tames the steed. And the much rowed oar of the sea, marvelously wrought by the hands, leaps in the air, following after the hundred-footed Nereids. Xo EUt7t7tOU, ~EVE, 'tUOe xwpao I.Kou 1a Kpchtma yfo; e7tauA.a, 'tOV apyfi'ta ICOA(J)VOV' eve a A.iyeia µwupe'tat 0aµ.i~ouoa µaA.tm' ariorov xA.ropa'ic; u7to pacromc;, 'tOV oi. Vffi7tOV EXOUOa !ClOOOV Kat •av <'iPmov Sc.au cl>UAAaOa µuptOKap7tOV clVcXAtOV clVTJVeµOV 'te 7tclV't(J)V xc.tµ.rovrov· 'i.v' o l3aKXtffi1ac; ad L\tovuooc; eµj3a1c.uEt 0dmc; aµcl>t7toA.ffiv neiivmc;. 0aA.Af:t 8' oupaviac; u7t' axvac; o KaUi(3o1puo Kai-nµap ald vap!Ctoooc;, µeyaA.otv 0eo'iv apxa\.ov O'tecl>avroµ', 0 'te xpucrauyiic; Kp6Koc;· ouO' au7tVOt Kpfivm µtvu0ouoiv Kricl>toou voµ.aoc.o pc.e0prov, aU' aii:v E:n'T\µan cOKU'tOKoc; 7teoirov E7ttvioc.'tat clKT1p<hcp crUV oµppq> mc.pvouxou xeov6c;· ouoi: Mouoav xopoi VtV cl7teITTUYTIOOV, ouo' au a xpuoavwc; 'Acl>poooi.a. EO'tlV o' ofov Eyffi yoc; 'Acri.a<; ouK E:naKouro, ouo' EV ·~ µ£clA.<;i L\ropiOt vaocp neA.o7toc; 7tc07to1c. PA.ao-rov cl>u1c.uµ' axdprowv au't07tot6v, enerov <1>6P11µa oo'lrov, o ·~& eaA.Af:t µEyrn-ra xc.Op<;<. yA.auK<lc; 7tat0o1p6cl>ou cl>l>Uov E:A.aiac;· 'tO µEv nc; OU veapoc; ouoi: yvp<;i ouvvairov aA.tcOOel XEPl 7tEpoac;· 0 yap dcrmi:v opffiv KUKAO<; Af:uocrc.t vtv Mopiou L\1oc; XU yAaUKffi7tl<; 'NJava. «AA.av o' at vov exro µa'tp07t0Aet 't~Oe Kpcl'tlO'tOV, oropov tau µeyaA.ou 0aiµovoc;, d7tciv, (X0ovocr) aux11µa µf.ytO'tOV, c.um7tov, eu7troA.ov, c.u0aA.aocrov. ro 7tat Kpovou, cru yap VtV E<; t60' etcrac; auxriµ', ava~ IlooetMv, t7t7tOtcrlV 'tOV clKecnfipa XOAtVOV 7tpcO'tatOt 'tatOOe K'ttcrac; ayma'ic;. a O' c.uijpc.tµoo h7tayA: aA.ia xc.pcrt *7tapa7ttoµEva* 7tA.a.a 0pq)mcc.t, 1&v hmoµ7toorov Nripflorov aK6A.ou0oc;. �21 20 COMMENTARY Sam Garcia, A 99 I wooded glens, I dwelling in the flushed ivy, I and in the gods inviolable.foliage... " began by doing something that may soundpecuThe word.for ivy, Ktooov, is modified by liar: I rendered it as gracelessly literal as possible. a word that often describes a persons complexion, Only after having a basic understanding ofthe otvronov, what I translate a.s 'Jlushed. "This word thoughts and images that the original seeks to convey otvronov is related to the Greek word.for wine do I feeljustified in departing.from it, as depart we (otv0<;). The color, then, ofthe ivy is obviously ultimatelymust. For, in my opinion, a translation being compared to that ofwine; must not simply aspire to beauty, but, more interestingly, the ivys in sonority and arrangement of complexion is perhaps being words, but to beauty and accuracompared to the complexion of cy: Ifbeauty be your only criteria man grown drunk.from wine. on, you may wellfind yourself The ivy, then, is a perfect symcomposing some beautiful new bolfor an exuberance which, passage, rather than.fashioning the chorus declares, distinguisha beautiful rendition ofan es Co/onus. This beautiful already existingpassage. Of personification of Colo nus' course, what you are attempting landscape gives this passage to translate is also an important a life it would have otherwise consideration. Aristotle sLogic lacked. admittedly deserves a different In such a way can sort ofattention than, say, poetry, much like paintings, Baudelaire s Les Fleurs du Mal. offer us an image oflife which AttMney Ctnt1'al, Conte on Watercolor Paper, "What seemed most important Corey Sebastian, A99 seeks not only to capture a about this particular Greek pasmoment in time, but the very sage was the vividness ofits movement oflife. In this passages case, the images imagery: More than anything else, I wanted to prearise not onlyfrom the choice ofwords, butfrom serve that in translation. the structure within which those words are cast. I will give a briefexample ofthis vividness, ''Flushed ivy" is an example ofdescription which I hold p rincipally responsible fo r the bringing life to a passage; but looked at from passages beauty. In the first stanza, the chorus anotherperspective, so does the very succession eulogizes Colonus. Apart ofwhat makes the ofdescriptions surrounding it. The structure of imagery .so powerful here is that the descriptions this passage and its individual images offer us .succeed each other very rapidly, building a palpaa vividly memorable picture I hoped to convey ble momentum: "there I the sweet nightingale .sings, in translation. + I ince.s.santlyengaged,from under the green and n translating this passagefrom Greek to English, I Sarajevo, 1997, Vada Mossovat, AOO �22 FRENCH 1997-98 TRANSL A TION Ia Chanson du Mal Aimi, by Gaullaume Apollinaire Translation by Lauren Connolly, A9 8 A night of half-fog in London A hooligan who resembled My love came to meet me And the look he threw me Made me lower my eyes in shame I thought of these happy kings When false love and the one With whom I am still in love Colliding with their faithless shadows Made me so unhappy I followed this lout Who whistled hands in pockets We seemed between the houses Open wave of the Red Sea Him the Hebrews me Pharaoh Regrets upon which hell relies That a heaven of oblivion would open on my wishes For her kiss the kings of the world Would die the famous poor For her might have sold their shadow Let fall these waves of brick If you were not well-loved I am the sovereign of Egypt Her sister-spouse her army If you are not my only love Ac the turning of a street burning With all the lights of its facades Wounds in the bloody haze Where the facades were lamenting A woman resembling her It was her look of inhumanity The scar on her naked neck Drunk leaving a tavern Ac the moment I recognized The falsity of love itself When wise Ulysses returned Ac last to his homeland His old dog remembered him Beside the cloth which hung shimmering His wife was waiting that he might come back The royal house of Sacontale Weary of conquering rejoiced When he found her pale from Waiting and her eyes grown dim with love Caressing her male gazelle I have wintered in my past Sun of Easter return To warm a heart more frozen Than the forty of Sebaste Less than my life martyred My beautiful ship o' my memory Have we sailed enough In wave bitter to drink Have we rambled enough From beautiful dawn to sad night Farewell false love confounded With the woman who draws away With the one that I lost Last year in Germany And chat I will not meet again Milky Way o' luminous sister Of the white streams of Canaan And of the white bodies of loving women Will we dead swimmers follow panting Your course towards other nebulas I remembered another year It was the dawn of an April day I sang my beloved joy Sang love with virile voice At that moment of love the year Un soir de demi-brune a Londres Un voyou qui ressemblait a Mon amour vine a ma reconcre Et le regard qu'il me jeta Me fit baisser les yeux de honte J' ai pense a ces rois heureux Je suivis ce mauvais gari;:on Qui sifflotait mains dans les poches Nous semblions entre les maisons Onde ouverte de la mer Rouge Lui les Hebreux moi Pharaon Regrets sur quoi l' enfer se fonde Qu'un ciel d' oubli s' ouvre a mes voeux Pour son baiser les rois du monde Seraient morts les pauvres fameux Pour elle eussent vendu leur ombre Que tombent ces vagues de briques Si cu ne fus pas bien aimee Je suis le souverain d' Egypte Sa soeur-epouse son armee Si ti n' es pas l' amour unique J' ai hiverne dans mon passe Au tournant d' une rue brulant De tous les fuex de ses fa~ades Plaies du bruillard sanguinolent Ou se lamentaient les fa~ades Une femme lui ressemblant Mon beau naivre o ma memoire Avons-nous assez navigue Dans une onde mauvais a boire Avons-nous assez divague De la belle aube au triste soir C' ecait son regard d' inhumaine La cicatrice a son cou nu Sortit saule d' une taverne Au moment ou je reconnus La faussete de I' amour meme Adieux faux amour confondu Avec la femme qui s' eloigne Avec celle que j' ai perdue L' annee derniere en Allemagne Et que je ne reverrai plus Lorsque' ii fut de retour enfin Dans sa patrie le sage Ulysse Son vieux chien de lui souvint Pres d'un tapis de haute lisse Sa femme attendait qu' il revmt Voie lactee o soeur lumineuse Des blancs ruisseaux de Chanaan Ee des corps blancs des amoureuses Nageurs motes suivrons-nous d' ahan Ton cours ver d' autres nebuleuses L' epoux royal de Sacontale Las de vaincre se rejouit Quand il la retrouva plus pale D' attente et d' amour yeux palis Caressant sa gazelle male Je me souviens d' une autre annee C' ecait I' aube d' un jour d' avril J' ai chance ma joie bien-aimee Chance l' amour a voix virile Au moment d' amour de I' annee Lorsque le faux amour et celle Dont je suis encore amoureux Heutant leurs ombres infideles Me rendirent si malheureux Revienne le soleil de Paques Pour chauffer un coeur plus glace Que les quarante de Sebaste Moins que ma vie martyrises �24 25 Translation of and Commentary on Baudelaire's "Le Crepuscule du Soir" R. Justice Schunior, A99 Twilight Here is the charming evening, friend of the criminal; It comes like an accomplice, with a wolf's step; the sky Closes slowly like a great alcove, And impatient man changes into a musky beast. Oh evening, lovable evening, desired by the one Whose arms, without falsehood, can say: Today We have toiled! It is evening which soothes Minds that a savage grief devours, The stubborn scholar whose forehead weighs him down, And the laborer who regains his bed. Nevertheless unhealthy demons in the atmosphere Awaken heavily, like businessmen, And knock the shutters and the awning as they fly. Through gaslights that the wind torments Prostitution kindles the streets; Like an anthill she clears her exits; Everywhere she pushes through a secret path, Thus as an enemy attempts a night raid; She moves to the bosom of the city of filth Like a worm that steals from Man what he eats. One hears here and there the kitchen hiss, The theatres shriek, the orchestras purr; The gambling tables, where games cause delights, Fill with whores and swindlers, their accomplices, And thieves, who have neither mercy nor respite, Soon go to begin their work, they also, And softly force the doors and the cash boxes In order to live some days and clothe their mistresses. Gather yourself, my soul in this grave moment, And close your ear to this roar. It is the hour where the pains of the diseased grow bitter! The somber Night takes them by the throat; they finish Their destiny and go towards the common abyss; The hospital fills with their sighs.-More than one Le Crepuscule Du Soir Voici le soir charmant, ami du criminel; II vient comme un complice, a pas de loup; le ciel Se ferme lentement comme une grande alcove Et l'homme impatient se change en bete fauve. 0 soir, aimable soir, desire par celui Dont les bras, sans metir, peuvent dire: Aujourd'hui Nous avons travaille!-C'est le soir qui soulage Les esprits que devore ine douleur sauvage, Le savant obstine dont le front s' alourdit, Et l' ouvrier courbe qui regagne son lit. Cependent des demons malsains clans l' atmosphere S' eveillent lourdemont, comme des gens d' affaire, Et cognent en valets et l' auvent. A travers les lueurs que tourmente le vent La Prostitution s' allume dans les rues; Comme une fourmiliere elle ouvre ses issues; Partout elle se fraye un occulte chemin, Ainsi que l' ennemi qui tente un coup de main; Elle remue au sein de la cite de fange Comme un ver qui derobe a l'Homme ce qu'il mange. On entend ~a et la les cuisines siffler, Les theatres glapir, les orchestres ronfler; Les tables d'hote, dont le jeu fait deluces, S' emplissent de catins et d' escrocs, leurs complices, Et les voleurs, qui n' ont ni treve ni merci, Vont bientot commencer leur travail, eaux aussi, Et forer doucement les portes et les caisses Pour vivre quelques jours et vetir leurs maitresses. Recueille-toi, mon ame, en ce grave moment, Et ferme ton oreille a ce rugisseement. C' est l'heure ou les douleurs des malades s' aigrissent! La sombre Nuit les prend a la gorge; il finissent Leur destinee et vont versele gouffre commun; L'hopital se remplit des leurs soupirs.-Plus d' un Will not return to look for his evening soup, In the corner by the fire, in the evening, next to a loved soul. Ne viendra plus chercher la soupe parfumee, Au coin du feu, le soir, aupres d'une ame aimee. Yet most have never known The sweetness of the hearth and have not lived! Encore la plupart n'ont-ils jamais connu La douceur du foyer et ri ont jamais vecu! -Les Fleurs du Mal, p.277, Godine edition. - T wilight is the transition between day and night. We might imagine Baudelaire stopping on a busy city street to observe this transition in the passers-by, both those who are ending their labors and those who are beginning their night'~ work. Evening is welcomed differently by different people and these various approaches to the coming night are reflected in the confused and conflicting images of the poem. Our first image of evening is ominous. Evening is charming in that it puts us under a spell. It bewitches and transforms. Dimming light has the intoxicating power to make us speak and act with greater freedom. Quietly and slowly like a wolf, almost without our looking or noticing it, evening approaches and the light fades away. Evening is a hunter of men and transforms men into hunters. The friend and accomplice of criminals, it covers their work with its darkness. It assists men in their crimes and works its own special magic, giving them the courage to do what they would be ashamed to do in the light. It is as if a great lid is slowly closed over the world, trapping men in together without the watchful eye of the sun. But evening has another face. Baudelaire does not waste any words on a transition from one image of evening to another. He merely begins the next stanza as if his attention has abruptly turned from evening's sinister aspect to its comforting one. Evening is the greatest joy to those who must toil during the day. For those who have labored long, both physically and mentally, evening is the only time that is truly theirs. The day must be spent in earning a living; the night must be spent in sleeping. Only evening remains for them to enjoy the company of loved ones, a warm dinner, a quiet house. Evening is that moment right before sleep when we can revel in the comforts of home. Evening is the reward, the goal that scholar and workman have been striving for during long hours of tedious work. While this aspect of evening does exist, Baudelaire only cares to devote six lines to its description. In the next stanza he returns to the seedier side. He is most interested in those that welcome evening as a beginning to their work and particularly in the similarity of this evening beginning to its morning counterpart. In lines I I-I 3 he describes demons awakening like bats from their daytime slumber. Although we might imagine demons gleefully flying off to midnight revelry, Baudelaire describes them as no different from businessmen who must shake away their sleepiness and trudge to work. Evening is no different from morning in its form; only the kinds of workers vary. Knocking the shutters and awnings as they fly by is all in a night's work for demons. One image leads quickly to another. In lines I 4-20 we see how one word catalyzes another image to tangle and confuse what we picture. As the demons fly through the street, they stir up a wind that causes the gas lamps to flicker. From this image we are led to Prostitution kindling in the streets like those same flickering lamps. We picture women going to their separate posts below a street lamp, marking out their territory like ants with their scent. The image of the anthill in line I 0 portrays prostitution as an insidious force that infests the city. Like the workmen and the business-like demons, ant-like prostitutes march diligently to work. But they are workers of the underworld, and their paths are secret (line I 7). This path-clearing activity of Prostitution leads Baudelaire to associate the tunneling of ants with a secret attack on the city, which prostitution treacherously destroys from the inside. It opens the doorway to all crime and leads to a kind of urban decay. Like a worm that causes an apple to rot as it works its way to the core, Prostitution "moves to the bosom of the city of filth" (line I 9). Baudelaire's final image of Prostitution is that of a parasitic tapeworm (line 20) that lives off the city and weakens it morally. One image leads into another. It is almost impossible to separate them. Baudelaire is fascinated and revolted by the life that begins in the evening. It is both like and unlike the activity of those who work during the day. Instead of the force that creates the city with legitimate work, prostitutes, thieves, and gamblers destroy it. There is something pernicious in the underworld of the night. These images pile up one on top of the other and build to a climax. In line 2 I, approximately the middle of the poem, the noise is overpowering: hissing, shrieking, howling, and purring can be heard all around. We can imagine that as it gets darker the entertainment for the evening begins. Restaurants and cafes open, orchestras begin to play, people laugh and shout. Nighttime confusion fills the streets. These s~unds are all the more confused because of the growing darkness. Again Baudelaire sees a similarity between those who begin their work at night with those who begin during the day. In lines 25-28 he describes thieves who must go to work in order to make a living a clothe their mistresses, just as any businessman must provide for his family. I picture Baudelaire watching both the man returning to his hearth and the thief setting out on his �27 26 night's work. The thief, prostitute, swindler, and demon interest him more. Their world is bright and bewitching. Yet it is in the midst of this scene of evening activity that Baudelaire stops and speaks directly to his soul (line 29). This is a moral command to gather himself in the face of confusion and chaos. He rebukes himself for being drawn in by the evening's attractions. Evening, as we have seen, is filled with all kinds of pleasures that result in both good and evil. Both returning home after a day's labor and setting out for a nights sinful dissipation are the delights of the evening. It is this roar of the world that passes us each evening on the streets that Baudelaire wishes to close his ear to. He wants to hear what we cannot hear on the street. Just below the roar of the street is the sound of the sighs of the dying. This sound is horrifying, not fascinating. More than once Baudelaire has noticed that both those who find solace in the evening and those who make their living at night are workers. But there are those who do not work but wait. Evening is not just the time of universal pleasure, it is also the time when life most often comes to an end. In line 3 I Baudelaire speaks of the diseased who lie in forgotten corridors of hospitals that no one wishes to visit. Evening ushers in the night that leads them to oblivion. Baudelaire reminds us in lines 34-36 that many will not return to enjoy their evening meal and quiet time by the fire. The last terrifying couplet of the poem speaks of others yet, others who have no advocate and have no pleasure from evening. Baudelaire seems to consider living as the enjoyment of evening, whether its pleasures are a beginning or an end to work. What is so frightening about this last couplet is that the people Baudelaire has been describing, scholar, workman, gambler, and prostitute, are all in the minority. All the chaos and noise they create is small compared with the large number that have never known life or any kind of sweetness. The majority are those we do not see and do not want to see. We can easily moralize about the, corrupt nature of the city at night, but we would rather not think about the lost ones. These are the ones facing their last hours alone and in pain. They are led to the common abyss without having known the sweeter pleasures that evening offers. Evening is not only a beginning; it is also an ending. The first few lines of the poem can be seen in a new light after the last couplet. Night closes in not only as a cover over our wicked deeds but also as a coffin lid. It is wolf-like because it comes like a predator to pick off the weak and old among us. Baudelaire is gifted with the ability to paint a picture of what is before him in words. Yet the moral force of this poem is that he commands his soul to repel the attractive force of what is colorful and fascinating in the night. He focuses on sound, not sight. Our ear is shut to the bustling activity of the night and is directed to quiet murmurs. In this way we are led to consider a world not directly before our eyes. Evening is presented to us both as an end to the day's labors and as a beginning of the night's pleasures, but the final image of evening is the ultimate and lonely finish to sad and unnoticed lives. + Your Choice Was to Live: Ismene's Resistance to Her Family Megan Graff, AO I M Yhigh school literature teacher once asked our class who were the Antigones and who the Ismenes. I raised my hand with the former group, looked around and proudly labeled us as the Leaders: strong-willed, determined go-getters who were not afraid of sacrificing convention or taking risks to get what they wanted. The latter were the Followers: weak, indecisive, unable to remain firm under pressure and willing to sacrifice their principles for safety. I placed the sisters at two ends of a spectrum and characterized them accordingly: Strong vs. Weak, Daring vs. Cowardly, Heroine vs. Foil. As with most strictly dualistic partitions, this was an oversimplification. Experience and closer readings have shown me that Antigone is not to be admired in all things, nor is Ismene to be despised. More and more I suspect that Ismene is not the weak and passive character I initially believed her to be. The story of Antigone begins long before the play opens. Oedipus, Antigone and Ismene's father, was king of the city of Thebes until it was revealed that he had murdered his father and married his mother. Upon discovering this, Oedipus blinded himself and left Thebes in his brother/uncle's care until Oedipus' sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, were old enough to rule. At the beginning of Antigone, the audience discovers that Eteocles had stolen the rule of Thebes from his older brother. Polyneices in turn gathered Argive allies to invade Thebes and level it in revenge. The brothers met in battle and killed each other. Now Creon is once again in charge of the city and has issued an edict saying that, although Eteocles is to be buried with full funeral honors, Polyneices' body is to be left to rot. Antigone performs funeral rites for the outcast body and is captured. She is left in a rocky cell outside the city to die of exposure and eventual starvation. Creon's son Haemon, Antigone's betrothed, tries to rescue her, but arrives only to find that she has killed herself; he subsequently falls on his sword. Creon's wife Eurydice also kills herself when she hears the news, and Creon is left a broken man at the end of the play. Note that Ismene is not mentioned at all in this summary of Antigone. She could have been mentioned; she appears on stage two separate times and has more lines than Haemon. But she is not a source of action. Ismene causes nothing. This is not to say that she does nothing, but it is what she doesn't do that makes her stand out from the rest of her bloodline. Ismene does not participate in the family's doom. The tragic actions of the House of Laius have three aspects. The first is that the family brings death to those around them. Second, they act in opposition to or perversion of their natural roles. Finally, they act on impulse and out of emotion. The House of Laius seems to bring death wherever it goes. Oedipus kills his father Laius and the revelation of his true identity causes Jocasta, his wife/ mother, to kill hersel£ Antigone continues this course: Eteocles and Polyneices each bring about the other's death; Antigone's death causes Haemon's, which in turn causes Eurydice's death. Haemon and Antigone both recognize the nature of the curse, Haemon when he tells his father, "Then she must die, and in her death destroy another," Antigone when she cries to the memory of her own father, "Alas my brother, illstarred in your marriage, in your death you have undone my life!" 1 The only two relations of Oedipus left standing after this bloodbath are Ismene and Creon. Ismene is the only living descendant of Oedipus, for she has killed no one nor has she been killed, despite Creon. He at first wants to sentence her with Antigone: "[AntigoneJ and her kinsfolk shall not avoid a doom most dire; for I charge that other with a like share in the plotting of this burial." Yet he changes his mind, and Ismene is not drawn into death with Antigone after all. Somehow, the curse has passed her by. The second family characteristic is that no one fits into his/her proper role. The family's fulfillment of these roles is either twisted or perverted. Oedipus was the son of the woman to whom he was also husband. Eteocles and Polyneices fought and killed each other, reversing the ordinary role of brothers to support each other in war.2 It is Antigone, however, who most strongly exemplifies this inversion of �28 29 the proper role, especially in contrast to Ismene. Antigone's name in Greek is avti-yov'tl, against-descendant, a variation of which mighr be avti-yuvil, against-woman. Antigone is, indeed, against womanhood in many ways. She takes action herself and causes 0thers to center their actions around her in a manner more characteristic of Greek men than women. Creon even says of her: "Now verily I am no man, she is the man, if this victory shall rest with her and bring no penalty." Antigone contemptuously dismisses Ismene's objections, which are rooted in femininity. She argues with Creon and dares to confront men on their own terms. In Oedipus at Colonus1 Oedipus says, "these girls preserve me, these who are men, not women, in true service." 3 Oedipus may have considered both Antigone and Ismene to be doing the duty of men, but in truth, Ismene plays the part of a woman. She knows her duty and says that she would help bury Polyneices if it were not that her very nature as a woman prevents her from taking part in the action. She is aware of the futility of impossible tasks and reproves her sister for pursuing such with lack of judgment: "to act beyond nature has nothing in it of reason" (67-68). Unlike the rest of her family, Ismene is exactly what she should be. The third characteristic is this family's tendency toward hot-tempered impulsivity. As Antigone is being taken to her death, the Chorus tells her: You have rushed forward to the utmost verge of daring, and against that throne where Justice sits on high you have fallen, my daughter, with a grievous fall. She is not alone in her rashness. The Chorus continues: "But in this ordeal you are paying, perchance, for yo.ur father's sin." The sin they refer to is Oedipus' illstarred marriage. He, too, showed signs of imprudence. His killing of Laius, his marriage to Jocasta, his decree that the man causing the plague on Thebes must be immediately exiled: each of these actions was taken without any pause for reflection. Antigone shows a similar lack of consideration. Upon hearing of Creon's edict, she immediately begins forming plans to bury Polyneices which defy all self-preservation. She does not make any attempt to compromise-to talk to Creon, to bribe the guards. When Ismene refuses to help, instead of enlisting others to aid her, Antigone undertakes the rites herself When they are undone on Creon's orders, she goes again to cover the body and does not bother to hide herself; the guard reports that "she cried aloud with the sharp cry of a bird in its bitterness". She is not upset at being captured. In the opening dialogue between Antigone and Ismene, Antigone reveals that her devotion is to what is KaA.6v: good, noble, and beautiful. Ismene, instead, is focused on <j>pOV£<H<; and VOU<;: consideration, or judgment, and mind. Antigone acts from her heart, as Ismene points out when she says to her sister, "You have a warm heart for such cold things" (88). Ismene remains practical in thinking about the implications of her actions, considering their impact on her present situation instead of joining in Antigone's obsession with the thoughts and feelings of those in the underworld. While she does serve as the perfect dramatic foil for Antigone by playing the part of the chiding parent with whom no self-respecting rebel child would agree, it takes a kind of strength to retain one's mind in such a situation. Ismene is by her nature an uncharacteristic member of her family. By the end of the play, she is not seen as a member of the family at all. Ismene is completely dismissed from the minds of Antigone and the Chorus, so much so that it is taken for granted that Antigone is the last surviving descendant of the House of Laius. What has happened in this time to accomplish Ismene's complete alienation from her unfortunate family? The answer lies in the opening dialogue between Antigone and Ismene, in words we can read in English without hearing an untranslatable feature of Greek, its little-used dual person. The dual is used when two things are together in a special way, a matched pair of sorts. In line 13, Ismene refers to herself and Antigone as a dual and to their brothers as another dual. When she does set herself apart, as in line 39, she makes a special point of it by using the emphatic pronoun £yffi. Ismene, at least, believes that she and Antigone are bound together. Antigone has different ideas. While she starts out addressing the "shared sister head" of Ismene (1), I suspect that she may have been trying to wheedle her sister into agreement. In raging against Creon's proclamation, Antigone says, "They say the good Creon has proclaimed such things to you and to me, I say even to me .. ." (31-32). The last clause implies that it is one thing to issue such a proclamation to lsmene, but quite another for it to apply to Antigone as well. Aside from being rather rude to Ismene, the specification implies a partition between the sisters, that they act under different restrictions. Ismene continues to use the dual, this time in a possessive referring to Oedipus as "our hateful and infamous father." She also uses the dual to include Antigone in her statement that their nature requires them to bow to Creon's demand: But it is necessary to consider that we were indeed born [dual £<j>uµ£v J women; it is not for us to fight alongside men; and therefore for that reason we are led by those more powerful, and to hear and obey these things and even ones more grievous than these. ( 6 I -64) Without realizing it, Ismene has in this speech destroyed any chance she might have had to be linked with Antigone. She has refused to join her sister in burying Polyneices. From this point forward, neither sister uses the dual; rather, the speech is now peppered with the emphatic personal pronoun. Both of the following speeches are Ismene's: So then I [E')'IDJ am begging those below the earth to have understanding, as I am forced in these matters, for I will obey those who stand in authority; for to act beyond nature has nothing in it of reason. ( 65-68) I indeed [£yffi J do not do dishonorable things, yet I am by nature [£<j>uv; singular4] without means to act with force against the city. (78-79) Antigone rejects her sister after her refusal, using not only the first person pronoun but also the second person, even adding a µ£.v . . .OE construction to complete the separation: "You [<JU], for one [µ£v ], may use these things as a pretext; I [£')'ID], on the other hand [0£ ], will go to heap up a funeral for my dearest brother" (80-81). Ismene's alienation is almost complete. By choosing not to help Antigone, she cements the setting-apart that nature itself had begun. Now Antigone and even the Chorus deny Ismene a place in the family. Antigone claims to go alone and friendless to her death, ignoring Ismene. She presents herself to the Chorus as "the last daughter of the house of your kings". The Chorus says of Antigone: "that hope of which the light had been spread above the last root of the house of O edipus-that hope, in turn, is brought low". It is Antigone who is the "last root," while Ismene has disappeared from the minds of the characters. She is not mentioned, nor does she appear after she has left the stage the second time. At the end of the play, the Chorus comments compassionately on Creon's grief at having lost a wife and son to his pride, but Ismene's grief at having lost two brothers, a father, and a sister within a short time is not mentioned. Consideration of these things leads me to wonder which of the two sisters has the real strength. Is it Antigone, who dares her life and sacrifices her hope of a future to take care of the dead, who also confronts the ruler of her city with his flaws? Or is it Ismene, who endures with the flexible tenacity of a reed? I used to admire Antigone for her principles, for her fine drama in dying gloriously. But at seventeen, I had never seen the death of a family member. I had yet to observe the spirit that can resist the power of despair. I know now the courage required to continue living daily in the face of grief- and I know that I do not have it. My greater admiration goes to Ismene, who has been abandoned to fill the void left by her doomed family. It took more strength to live than to die. + Notes: I. Note on translation: translations that do not include line numbers are taken from the I 96 7 publication of Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb's translation. Passages that include line numbers are the author's own class translations. 2. As, for example, in the case of Menelaus and Agamemnon. 3. Also the Jebb translation. 4. Contrast to the use of dual £<j>uµ£v in line 62. �30 31 MATH PRlZE, , 1997•, 98 Geometry Piroska Kopar, A99 1. Prove that the quad~ilateral so formed 2. Prove that the 4 triangles that are shaded on the figure are congruent. If we dissect each of the· triangles AEB, BFC, CGD, DHA above to three triangles as shown on the figure (just by shading in those little triangles). We get 12 new triangles. I say that these 12 are but three sets of congruent triangles; each set containing four triangles. For the triangles AJC, FMC, CGN, HAI all have one side that is half of the diagonal of the small square, and we already know from the previous proof that the angle denoted by S are equal, and that the angles marked by E are 45 degrees. Thus all these triangles are congruent. Similarly triangles EKB, BFL, OGO, HOP have one sided that is half the diagonal of the bigger square and two equal angles ~ and E. Each of the big triangles AEB, etc., then, is made up of three smaller triangles, two of which I have shown to be congruent with the corresponding two triangles of the other bigger triangles. Therefore the remaining, shaded triangles are congruent as well. Q.E.D. is a square. (Figure 1) First, let us draw in the diagonals of the squares on the sides of the parallelogram. In ~ach square the center of the square is where the diagonals cross each other. From the four sets of diagonals and from the four sides of the big quadrilateral figure (the one that results from the connecting the centers; ABCD on the figure) we get four triangles. If I can prove that four hypotenuses of these triangles are equal and that the angles that the four sides cut around the centers of the squares are right angles, I have proven that our quadrilateral ABCD_ is a square. I say that the four triangles descnbed above (AEB, BFC, CGD, DHA), are congruent, and hence their hypotenuses are equal. For let us take two of them that are not symmetrically situated around the parallelogram: triangle ABE and tri~gle ADH. Since their two sides are the half of the diagonals of the squares on the sides, AE = AH and E~ = HD. (Since the opposite sides are the half of the diagonals of the squares built upon them will also be equal.) ~ o~ we also know that the diagonal of a square cuts its nght angle into half a right angle. Therefore if we call the acute angle of the parallelogram a, angle AHO will be a+45+45; that is, a+ 90. But the obtuse angle of the parallelogram is 180 - a. Thus the angle AEB is 360 - (180 - a) - 45 - 45 =a+ 90. We now have triangles with two equal sides and one equal angle, so we can conclude that they are congruent. Similarly in the case of the other two triangles. It remains to be shown that the angles of this equal sided quadrilateral are each 90 d~grees. Since the four triangles are congruent, all their corresponding angles are equal. Thus BAE = OAH, ABE = ADH, AEB =AHO, ETC. Now since the diagonals of a square when crossing each other cut two right angles, (such as EAH), we can say that the angle c?mposed of EAI and HAI is a right angle. But HAI ts the same as DAH, which is equal to BAE, so the angle composed of DAE and EAB is also equal to a right angle. And similarly in the other three cases. . The quadrilateral thus constructed is therefore a square. Q.E.D. 3. Can the same square result from other parallelograms? !J so, from which parallelograms will it be constructed? !J not, why not? figure I Let us look at our first figure again. The area of the big square is composed of the following: + the area of the parallelogram: a·µ (since the shaded triangles are congruent, we can reposition them so that we substitute the two that are part of the parallelogram but not part of the square for the two that are part of the square but not part of the parallelogram) + twice the area of the isosceles triangle with base a and sides that are half of the diagonal of the bigger square: a/2 (because of their ~ongru­ ency we can substitute triangle HPO for DGO, and triangle BFL for BKE) + figure 2 twice the area of the isosceles triangle with base b and sides that are half of the diagonal of the small square: b/2 (we can substitute triangle HAI in for AJE, and triangle FMC for GCN) But a·µ can be written as abcoscj>, thus if we call the side of the big square c, we can say that: 2c =a+ b+ 2abcos<)> Using the law of cosines in the triangle AEB, where the two sides of the triangle are halves of the diagonals of the squares we can write: c = a+ b - 2abcos angle of AEB. And since the angle AEB is 360-45-cj>-9045= 180-<j> and since the cosine of (180-<j>) is the same as -cosf, we can now write the law of cosines thus: 2c= a+b+2abcos<j>. Now to find the parallelogram that will have the same square as the original one, we simply pick two sides and solve for the angle. This angle will tell us how to construct our new parallelogram. We have one restriction, however. When we look at the equation and the figure we see that a, b, and c, are sides of one triangle. Since we want to find a parallelogram that will give us the same square as the first parallelogram, (our c is already given), we must pick our sides a and b so that when added together, their sum will be greater than the length of the third side. Q.E.I. Corollary I From this it is evident that if any angle <)> is O; that is, if any angle between the sides is a right angle, the equality of the resulting square will depend only on the length of the sides. Hence rectangles will equal perimeters will yield the same square. Corollary 2 It is also obvious that if our original parallelogram is a square, the resulting aquare will be twice the original. 4. What figure results if the squares are drawn inward? Prove your claim. (Figure 2) I say that the resulting figure will be a square. For just as in the first case, if we can show that the triangles resulting from the diagonals of the inward squares are congruent and that the equal sides of the figure meet at right angles, we have proven what we wished to prove. The triarigles thus formed on the sides of the square are triarigles BCE, OCH, ADG, ABF. All of these have one side equal to the half of the diagonal the small square and one side equal to half of the diagonal of the big square. As in the case of Figure I , let us take two triangles that are not symmetrically situated, say triangle OCH arid OGA. Since angle AGB is 45 - a arid arigle DHC is 45 - p, if I can show that a arid p are equal, I have shown the congruence of these triarigles. Now angle AIH is a right arigle, because its sides are the perpendicular diagonals of the two big squares (arid it makes no difference that one diagonal belongs to one of the big squares arid the other one to the other, since we built these squares on parallel sides �33 32 M of the parallelogram). So the angles in the triangle HIK are a right angle, ~and y, while in triangle GHK the angles are a right angle a and y. ~ and a are therefore equal. And similarly with the other two triangles. · It remains to be shown that the angles of the equilateral figure ip the middle are equal to two right angles. Angle GOA is composed of a right angle (because of the crossing diagonals) and of angle ADH. Since the triangles GAD and HOC are congruent, angle GOA= angle HOC. Now the angle HOC is also composed of two angles; of angle ADH and ADC. Angle ADC therefore has to be a right angle and similarly with the other three angles of the quadrilateral. The quadrilateral so constructed is therefore a square. Q.E.D. 5. lfithout necessarily proving your cl.aim, state a problem about any triangle, rather than any parallelogram, with figures drawn outward, such that their centers when joined form an equil.ateral triangle. If on the sides of any triangle we draw equilateral triangles (similarly as in the case of the parallelogram when we drew squares), the centers of the triangles joined will also form an equilateral triangle. + c OMMENTARY Piroska Ko par, A 9 9 M y goal was to solve each step in a way that might enable us to see the proofas a single picture. In order to do this I was trying to keep the connection between steps very tight. I wanted to convey the simplic{ty ofthe proof, and the beaa(! arising from this simplicity, 'the way it appeared to me. To me the entire proof consists in the rotation and the repositioning ofa single triangle that is defined by halves of the diagonals ofthe squares built on the sides ofparallelograms, and the angle in between them (which varies depending on the construction.) I am always suspicious when we are faced with a .surprising mathematical result. How can a mathematical result be surprising? The way the system is set up (in this case Euclid's), these results are necessary and contained in the composingfigure.s, before we perform the construction. We have come up with a closed system that we believe we understand quite well, and we are stillfaced with surprises. I believe that if not in all, yet in most cases of Euclidean geometry, if we were only able to have a greater imagination, a greater ability to see things as one, the proofs could be reduced to a single picture is in our minds. I am veryfond ofexercises that help us .see at least a section ofthis geometry as a single picture, as a selfcontained entity I .saw this proofas such an exercise, and tried to show its .single picture. A T' H ·P R l zE ~ I 9 91- 98 Trigonometry Daniel Braithwaitet AO I Parts I and II A Let triangle ABC be right and isosceles with hypotenuse AC=6. Let F be the midpoint of AC, and place E on AC so that AE=2. Connect BF and BE, and draw the parallel to BC through E. Note that BF is perpendicular to AC. Then, triangle ADE is right and isosceles, similar to triangle ABC, and in particular tan angle DEA=l tan angle BED= DB/DE=DB/ DA= EC/ EA=2 tan angle DBE=l / tan angle BED= 1/ 2. Moreover, triangle BFC is right and isosceles, so that BF=3, and thus tan angle FBC= 1 tan angle EBF=l / 3 tan angle FEB= I/tan angle EBF=3. Therefore, arctan 1 +arctan 2+ arctan 3= angle DEA+ angle BED + angle FEB= n arctan 1 +arctan _ +arctan 1/3 = angle FBC + angle DBE + angle EBF =n/ 2 Part III For convenience, let a =n/7 throughout. Let triangle ABC be isosceles with base angles measuring 2a and legs of length 1. Let CD bisect angle BCA. Then angle ADC= 3a, so triangle ADC is isosceles and in particular DC = 1. 2 E F 3 B ~-----"'C Figure I A D B Figure2 A Figure3 A Draw perpendiculars to BC from D and A. Then, EC = cos a and FC = cos 2a, so that EF =cos a - cos2a. Draw the parallel BC through D. Then, DG = 2DH =2EF = 2cosa - 2cos 2a. Moreover, angle ADG = 2a, which subtracted from angle ADC =3a gives angle GDC =a, so that triangle GDC is isosceles. Thus GC = DG. Figure 4 A If we imagine the perpendicular drawn from C to AD, it becomes clear that AD =2cos3a. But AG=AD, so that 2cosa - 2cos2a+2cos3a=GC+AG=AC=l cos a - cos2a + cos3a= 1/ 2. Figures �34 35 COMMENTARY What is Trigonometry? Daniel Braithwaite, AO I P ropositions 4, 8, and 26 ofthe first book ofthe Elements state thatfrom the equality ofcertain corresponding parts oftwo triangles, equality ofthe remaining parts follows necessarily. For example, according to Proposition 26, if two triangles each have a 9 inch side lying between 30 degrees and 40 degrees angles, then the two triangles are in fact equal in every respect. Itfollows straightforwardly that in a singk triangk composed ofa 9 inch side between angks of30 and 40 degrees, the remainingparts are uniquely determined. That is to Figure 1 say, the measures ofthe remaining angk and two sides are not suhject to any variability. (This would not be so ifit were only known that the triangk had a 9 inch side bordering on a 30 degree angk - infinitely many different triangks fit this descnption). Well then, how large is that angk, and how long are those sides? The angle is easy: Since the angles ofa triangle together must sum 180 degrees (Proposition 1 32), it must be 180 degrees - 30 degrees 40 degrees = 110 degrees. It's not so clear how to figure out the sides. OJ course anyone couldjust draw the triangle, whip out a ruler, and measure them, but that's the wrong spirit. What's needed is a method of calculating the side lengths from the known side angles. Trigonometry is the solution to this problem. A precise account ofit took 2000 years to develop and is pretty complicated, Figure 2 but it was approximated by Ptolemy and can be imagined in Euclidean terms, as follows. With any acute angle, a right angle can be constructed, and the ratio ofthe side subtending that angle to the hypotenuse must be taken. In this way, a sort of table is made, associating acertain ratio to every acute angle. For example, the ratio BC.AC is matched with 17 degrees (figure 1) . This table is known as the sine function and is the heart of trigonometry. The sine function solves the earlierproblem: Given the triangle as described above, simply draw a perp endicular to AB through C (figure 2) . Obtain, from the sine function, the ratio corresponding to 40 degrees this is equal to this ratio CD:AC by its very definition. Then, since AC and the ratio CD.AC are known, CD can be calculated. Finally, the ratio CD, BC is the sine of 70 degrees, and since CD has been calculated, so can be BC. A similar process yields AB. But the missingpiece in this account is the determination ofthe sine function. How are those ratios that it associates to angks actually obtained? Not by making the tn'angk and measuring; that's still cheating. Finding a way, in ftgure I, to derive the ratio BC:ACfrom the measurement 17 degrees alone is what took 2000 years. (And in fact, because the sides are incommensurable, the calculation is an interminabk process). Much earlier, Ptolemy's table ofchords served the same role as the sine.function, but his ftgures were only approximate. Although certain ideas in Book II of the Elements bear a conceptual resemblance to the sine function, Euclid's geometry is essentially different from trigonometry. This is because problems ofmeasurement, from which trigonometry is born, are entirely absentfrom Euclid. Perplexing, then, that the definition ofthe sine is purely geometric. Tension has always existed in mathematics between its visihk and invisihk objects. The discipline treating thefirst is geometry. The discipline treating the second has no adequate name, but could be called calculation or algebra. The two might exist independently, but in fact measurement links them, and origi,ns oftrigonometry exemplify the oddity oftheir relation. + Lobachevski c c Not for me this gift this jewel whose quickened facets flicker with inconstant fire and flow like molten ice. Let go its mutable beauty and take up the gifts left br an ancient suitor: a claw, a rock, a shell, a bone. H/en~y Braithwaite, AGI �36 37 Striving For Harmony: A Reading of The Book of Job Michael Goodrum, AOO he Book of job is an experiential book. Because its premise is unreasonable (a blameless man has his family and possessions destroyed and is made to suffer "for no good reason," as God puts it (2:30)1), Job's suffering and the uncertainty regarding the nature of justice and wisdom that arises from it cannot be settled by the rational intellectual meditation of Plato or Aristotle. Greek philosophy does not apply: Job's troubles must be settled by experience. The people that populate the book bear witness to their experiences in order to resolve what is happening. For job's human inhabitants, the uncertainty that develops over the course of the book is relieved by God, the source of justice and wisdom. While the reader cannot witness the events of the book directly, and experiences Job's theophany second hand, the reader has a personal experience which draws him into the book's poetry and reaches beyond the mere examination of text. The reader must summon this experience to relieve his uncertainty regarding the questions that Job poses. The fundamental question for the reader is not "What is?," but rather, "What happened?)) In order for one to understand justice and wisdom, one must understand the experiences of those who witness Job's affliction, because each witness gives an account of wisdom, justice, and the nature of God. Experience in The Book of job is defined primarily in terms of seeing and hearing. The most compelling example of this is Job's final response to God: T I had heard You with my ears, But now I see You with my eyes; Therefore, I recant and relent, Being but dust and ashes. ( 42:5-6) Seeing is the most important of the two modes of experience, because seeing brings a thing into being in a much more substantial and convincing way than hearing can. Seeing God, Job has relief and resolution. In opposition, if a thing is obscured in dark- ness, its being is in doubt, as when Job curses the day of his birth, wishing that it had never existed: May May May May May May that day be darkness; God above have no concern for it; light not shine on it; darkness and deep gloom look after it; a pall lie over it; what blackens the day terrify it. (3:4-5) If the day of Job's birth is taken out of light into darkness, out of the realm of sight, it might never have existed, and thus Job might never have existed. But Job does exist, seeing and hearing, as do the rest of the witnesses to his affliction. By properly examining the seeing and hearing of the book's inhabitants, one can be led to an understanding of their experience, opening the door to an understanding of justice and wisdom. The book is framed with prose narration. The narrative prose guides the reader, telling of the dialogue between God and the Adversary, and relating the events in Job's life that give one a sense of who he is both before and after his affliction. Through the narration, one receives the four assertions that focus one's perception of the book more than any others. First, at the beginning of the book, we are told that Job is "blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil" ( 1: 1). The fact of Job's blamelessness is restated twice, by God, when he speaks to the Adversary ( 1:8, 2:3). Second, both the destruction of Job's community and his physical affliction, while effected by the Adversary, are carried out with God's permission: "See, he is in your power" (1:12, 2:6). God allows the Adversary to tear down the protective fence that He has built around Job and his household. Third, J~b is made to suffer "for no good reason" (2:30). Fourth, at the end of the book, God tells Job's comforters twice that He is incensed with them, "for you have not spoken the truth about Me as did My servant Job" (42:7, 8). Without these crucial facts, The Book of job would be an entirely different, less compelling book. Unless it were established that Job is a blameless man, that God allows his suffering, that it is unreasonable, and that Job's speech about God is true, the questions regarding the nature of justice and wisdom.that one is presented with would not be so difficult to settle, because Job's experience and claims could be easily dismissed. There would be no way to discriminate between truth and falsity, making it convenient for the reader to join with one of Job's accusers in condemning him. After the prose prologue, seven days and nights of silence ensue, in which Job must be mulling over his dilemma. Job understands that there is no reasonable cause for his suffering (9:17). As a result, he is powerless: Job has nothing to repent for, there is no damage he has done to God that he can repair. It seems to Job that his suffering can end only if he ceases to exist. Suicide is not an option; Job is a created being, and his life is not his to take (12:10). Because he is blameless, Job will not "blaspheme God and die" (2:9), as his wife demands. When his possessions were destroyed and his children were murdered, Job responded by saying, "The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (1:21). Even when the things most precious to Job were taken from him, Job maintained his blamelessness. If Job were to blaspheme now, he would marginalize the value of his children, an impossibility for such a loving father (1:5). The only possibility left for Job is never to have existed. Job does not embrace the notion of nonbeing for its own sake; he makes his desire to live apparent (19:26-27). Rather, Job embraces the notion of non-being because he believes it is his only means of escape from suffering. The very fabric of creation must be altered for Job to be taken out of existence. God must uncreate Job and the time of his birth for Job and his suffering to cease from being. Job does not command God to do this, but rather wishes that it were done; by wishing he maintains his piety: Perish the day on which I was born, And the night it was announced, "A male has been conceived!" M ay that day be darkness ... Because it did not block my mother's womb, And hide trouble from my eyes. (3:3-4, IO) When God created the world, He saw that it was very good (Genesis I :3 l ). When Job asks God to alter the fabric of His creation, it is apparent that Job sees otherwise: "Why does He give light to the sufferer / And life to the bitter in spirit?" (3:20). Job questions God, asking for help; Job needs God to reconcile how the world, and Job's existence in it, is good (a notion that Job, as a blameless man is bound to accept), with the pain and bitterness that Job's existence has become to him. For this to come about, God must reconcile the good that He sees with the apparent evil that Job sees and feels. The notions of justice and wisdo~ hang in the balance of this questioning. After the curse, Job's three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, the "comforters") speak in turn, and make several attempts to resolve Job's questions and assertions about justice and wisdom. Because the reader eventually knows that they do not speak the truth about God, no analysis of the truth of the testimony of the comforters is necessary. God makes it clear that they are untrue witnesses to the divine. The question, then, is not "Is their testimony true?;• but rather, "Where do they go wrong?" What makes their testimony untrue? This is a difficult question; the comforters are not liars who can be easily dismissed. Much of what they say is literally true within the proper context. The downfall of the comforters lies in the fact that they take literal truths and apply them recklessly to Job. Job's friends do not take his situation into account, and refuse to listen to him. In doing so, they rob the truth of its spirit, twisting it into falsehood. Eliphaz is the first of Job's friends to speak. In his part of the first "round" of comfort (Chapters 4- l 4 ), Eliphaz refers to three separate visual experiences. The first proclaims the fate of evil men: "As I have seen, those who plow evil / And sow mischief reap them. / They perish by a blast from God" ( 4:89). The second is of "thought-filled visions of the night" ( 4:13). The third regards foolish men: "I myself saw a fool who had struck roots; / Impulsively, I cursed his home" (5:3). Clearly, it is Eliphaz's sight that is primary to his experience, and it is his sight that leads him down the path of untrue testimony, as his "thought-filled visions of the night" show: A wind passed by me, Making the hair of my flesh bristle. It halted; its appearance was strange to me; A form loomed before my eyes; I heard a murmur, a voice, "Can mortals be acquitted by God? Can man be cleared by his Maker? �38 39 If he cannot trust His own servants, And casts reproach on His angels, How much less those who dwell in houses of clay, Whose origin is dust, Who are crushed like the moth, Shattered between daybreak and evening, Perishing forever, unnoticed. Their cord is pulled up And they die, and not with wisdom:' ( 4:15-21) Eliphaz, by using his vision of reproach to attack Job's questioning of God's methods, assumes that his vision is from God, that the form of strange appearance he sees is the Lord or one of His angels, although this is improbable. Man does not perish unnoticed, as the source of the vision would have it, because God is the "watcher of men" (7:20), and Job makes this clear in his reply to Eliphaz. God pays close attention to man, "inspect[ing] him every morning, / Examin[ing] him every minute" (7:18). The source of Eliphaz's vision is unknown. If God is the source of his vision, then God is intentionally misleading Eliphaz. Either way, Eliphaz's unreliable sight, his primary source of experience, is what makes him an untrue witness to the divine, calling into question all of his future visual references and the predictions that he generates from them. In his portion of the second round of comfort (Ch. 15-21), Eliphaz alludes to his vision (15:1416), makes the ironic assertion that Job's eyes have failed him (15:12), and carries on about what he claims to have seen regarding the fate of wicked men. Eliphaz has no right to make claims about the fate of others; only God can determine such things (12:10). Eliphaz is rationalizing the things he has seen in order to make them appear reasonable. Job responds to Eliphaz's dubious testimony by saying, "Surely mocking men keep me company, / And with their provocations I close my eyes" (17:2). Instead of offering Job consolation, Eliphaz, and the comforters in general, vex him with a rational world view that must disregard his suffering in order to be consistent, and Job will not bear witness to it. Having had his sight attacked, Ehphaz in the third and final round of comfort makes a full-out assault on Job, claiming that Job finds even God's sight questionable: "You [Job J say, 'What can God know?/ Can He govern through the dense cloud? / The clouds screen Him so He cannot see / As he moves about the circuit of heaven"' (22:13-14). Job does question God's sight, but only in incredulous disbelief (10:4). Job knows that his suffering is not made to continue by some fault in God's vision, but rather because he cannot see God, and thus does not know how to reach Him: But if I go East-He is not there; West-I still do not perceive Him; North-since He is concealed, I do not behold Him; South-He is hidden, and I cannot see Him. But He knows the way I take. (23:8-10) If only he knew where to look to find God, Job would have his questions settled. Eliphaz can offer Job no help in this regard: even if Eliphaz's vision were trustworthy, he would be of no use, because Eliphaz is not looking for God. Eliphaz has no reason to look for Him: when Eliphaz rationalizes about God's creation, he implicitly posits that God must be reasonable, which is untrue (2:30). In doing so, Eliphaz makes the erroneous claim that the only substantive difference between God and man is that God is immortal, while man is mortal. Because man's mortality is a barrier that he cannot overcome, Eliphaz sees no need to look for God; he has nothing to gain,by it. Bildad is the nex~ of Job's friends to speak. At no point does Bildad claim to have seen anything with his own eyes. What he understands has come only by the hearing of the ear via the reports of others. He discounts Job's vision and suffering, claiming that learning by report is the proper path to understanding, as he explains to Job in the first round: Ask the generation past, Study what their fathers have searched out -For we are of yesterday and know nothing; Our days on earth are a shadowSurely they will teach you and tell you, Speaking out of their understanding. (8:8-10) Bildad would have Job deny his experience-the divinely decreed suffering that he knows and the things he has seen-for the sake of the words of men long dead. For Job, this is impossible, as he says in reply: If I say, "I will forget my complaint; Abandon my sorrow and be diverted," I remain in dread of all my suffering; I know that You [God] will not acquit me. . (9:27-28) Job cannot divert himself from the Now, for the sake of studying the past of others, or for any other reason. The Now is consuming Job. He cannot reflect on the past until his suffering is resolved. An understanding of the generation past is not immediately relevant-Job must understand his own existence before he can account for the teachings of dead patriarchs, who are unable to defend themselves in the face of the comforters' misrepresentations of their understanding. The second round brings Bildad's most powerful speech. Job has been lamenting his future, wondering what will happen when he descends to Sheol, and Bildad angrily retorts with a litany of death and destruction, cataloging the terrors that befall wicked men: His progeny hunger; Disaster awaits his wife. The tendons under his skin are consumed... [TerrorJlodges in his desolate tent; Sulphur is strewn upon his home. His roots below dry up, And above, his branches wither. (18:12-13, 15-16) Job defends himself against this verbal abuse by asking "How long will you grieve my spirit, / And crush me with words?" (19:2). Relying on the "wisdom" of the ages as he does, Bildad can only speak of death. But Job would have life, as he exclaims: "l would behold God while still in my flesh, / I myself, not another, would behold Him" (19:26-27). Bildad continues to be irrelevant. His crush of words serves no pertinent purpose, because justice and wisdom are of no account to dead men. There is something eerie about Bildad's speech here, a sense that what Bildad is saying has been said before. It proves to be a reformulation of Eliphaz's statement about the happiness of ''The man whom God reproves" (5:17). Eliphaz was demanding that Job admit to sin to recover God's good graces (which would have reduced Job's relationship with God to the level of simple transactions, an absurd proposition given what has transpired), and promised Job a happy fate if he did so: You will know that all is well in your tent; When you visit your wife you will never fail. You will see that your offspring are many, Your descendants like the grass of the earth. (5:24-25) Claiming no visual experience of his own, Bildad is forced to rely on the report of Eliphaz. This proves to be Bildad's undoing as a viable witness to the divine. Bildad's third round speech is another reformulation of Eliphaz's words: How can man be in the right before God? How can one born of woman be cleared of guilt? Even the moon is not bright, . And the stars are not pure in His sight. (25:4-5) Bildad derives his words from the report Eliphaz gave of his "visions of the night." Looking through Eliphaz's eyes, Bildad is subject to Eliphaz's faulty vision and his consistent, convenient, unfitting world view; Bildad's testimony of the divine cannot help but be untrue. Zophar is the last of the comforters to speak. Zophar speaks only twice, and does not relate a personal experience of any sort. He does not rely on experience (and speaks of its fleeting and problematic nature (20:8)), but rather on wisdom, which he claims to possess: But would that God might speak, And talk to you Himself. He would tell you the secrets of wisdom, For there are many sides to sagacity. (II:5-6) Zophar presents himself as one who knows the secrets of wisdom. Does he have any basis for this claim? To understand this, one must have a definition of wisdom. Job, in Chapter Twenty-eight, supplies a definition, given by God: "He said to man, / 'See! Fear of the Lord is wisdom; /To shun evil is understanding"' (28:28). Zophar does not seem to fear the Lord. Zophar claims to be in a privileged position that precludes him from truly fearing the Lord. This limits Zophar's relationship with God, blinding Zophar to the truth about wisdom that sits in front of him. In reply, Job mocks Zophar, saying "Indeed you are the voice of the people, / And wisdom will die with you" (12:2). Job then refutes Zophar, stating that wisdom is God's alone: �41 40 Is wisdom in the aged And understanding in the long-lived? With Him are wisdom and courage; His are counsel and understanding. (12:12-13) Amendment XV, Gouache on Paperhoard, Corey Sebastian, A99 Given the definition of wisdom that God has supplied, and what the narrative frame tells us about Job, it is clear that Job is in possession of wisdom and understanding. Why then does he say that God is the sole possessor of wisdom? Because the wisdom that Job possesses is the part of wisdom that God has measured out for men, its beginning, and what Job seeks is wisdom in full, divine wisdom, and an understanding of divine justice. Zophar cannot supply this; only God can show the way to it. Since his first exchange with Eliphaz, Job has understood that the comforters do not consider him to be blameless and upright, and do not believe that God allows both the pure and the wicked to suffer. Thus Job tells Zophar to rely not on the testimony of men, but on the testimony of the rest of God's creation: "Ask the beasts, and they will teach you; / The birds of the sky, they will tell you, / Or speak to the earth, it will teach you" (12:7-8). Job has a sense of the world as a whole that reaches beyond the rational world of man, which the comforters are bound up in. Job has acquired this sense of things by taking notice of the wild and unreasonable ways of nature. Here Job is appealing to the comforters to look beyond their world, to bear witness to the testimony of nature, so they can understand that what is at stake lies far beyond their judgement. They fail to do this, and fail Job in the process. The testimony of God's creation will later play a crucial role in Job's experience of divine wisdom. In his second and final speech, Zophar himself casts doubt on his claims by telling Job that "A spirit out of my understanding makes me reply" (20:3). This sounds like something parallel to Eliphaz's experience, his vision from an unsubstantiated source. It raises further doubts about the nature of Zophar's testimony. How can he know that God is the source of his reply? Indeed, Zophar would have God "loose his burning anger at [the wicked man]" (20:23). But this does not happen, because as Job says, God cannot be instructed (21:22). Even if Zophar possesses the wisdom of men (which he does not)he cannot claim to have divine wisdom, and his witness to God is therefore untrue: "Of your replies only the perfidy remains" (21:34). After the comforters, who "would help with- out having the strength" (26:2) have finished speaking, Job presents his argument against God, unhindered by untrue accusations. The rational question that the comforters have been asking is "What sin did you commit that has caused God to punish you?" Both Job and the reader know that this is the wrong question to ask. The proper question is "Why have you allowed a blameless man to suffer?" In asking this question, Job lays bare the great problem of the book. As a blameless man, Job knows that God ts just, and yet he suffers. There is no way for Job to rationally reconcile his notion of justice with his experience; because the comforters can do no more than rationalize, they do not have the strength to help Job. Just how excruciating it is to exist in a world where God appears to be just and unjust in the same way at the same time, Job expresses with a fatal wish: "May [God] my enemy be as the wicked; / My assailant as the wrongdoer" (27:7). If God showed himself to be in the wrong, as the wicked are, the world would be a consistent, understandable and insufferable place, a place without hope. Job, whose sons were "marked for the sword" (27:14), is sharing in the portion of evil men, a portion that he believes is not rightfully his. Job challenges God to "weigh me on the scale of righteousness, / Let God ascertain my integrity" (31:6). Certain of his blamelessness and the just nature of his claim against God, Job demands punishment from Him, should Job be found to have committed sin: If l raised my hand against the fatherless, Looking to my supporters at the gate, May my arm drop off my shoulder, My forearm break off at the elbow. (31 :21-22) One must remember that Job has not lost faith in God. Job remembers that he is a part of God's creation: "In His hand is every living soul/ And the breath of all mankind" (12:10). Job recognizes that he is ultimately defenseless against the wrath of God. Job also recognizes that, troubling as the idea may be to him, God cannot be in the wrong, because God has allowed Job a measure of hope: "Shaddai has terrified me. / Yet I am not cut off by the darkness; / He has concealed the thick gloom from me" (23: 17). The world is not a hopeless place; God has given Job the will to live. This is very bewildering. While God is assaulting him, Job can see that God is also acting �43 42 benevolently toward him, adding strength to the notion that God's being is contradictory. What is happening? What does God intend Job to see, that he is 'concealing the thick gloom' from Job? Only God has the wisdom required to answer such a question, for it is "hidden from the eyes of all living" (28:2 I). Only God can see that this is the question that needs to be answered. This is why no human reason will suffice to comfort Job; this is why Job so desperately needs to present himself in God's court: "O that Shaddai would reply to my writ, / Or my accuser draw up a true bill!" ( 3 l :35). Having finished presenting his argument, Job waits quietly, looking for God. What he finds is Elihu. Elihu, the narration tells us, has been silently watching the proceedings, waiting patiently for Job and the comforters, his elders, to finish speaking. When they have done so, he rises to speak, "angry at Job because he thought himself right against God. He was angry as well at his three friends, because they could not reply, but merely condemned Job" (32:2-3). Elihu is the most problematic witness to the divine in The Book of Job. God does not make any statement about the nature of Elihu's testimony of him, as he does with Job and the comforters. There is, in fact, no interaction of any kind between Elihu and anyone else in the book, in spite of Elihu's attempts to engage the comforters and make Job answer him. God appears immediately after Elihu finishes speaking, but the narration makes it plain that God is addressing Job, not Elihu (38:1). What is the nature of Elihu's testimony of God? Is Elihu speaking the truth about Him? Job has asked for a hearing with God, and Elihu claims to be God's emissary: "If you QobJcan, answer me; / Argue against me, take your stand" (33:5). Whether or not Elihu is a messenger from God, Job cannot trust him, because Elihu misquotes Job at several points. The first instance of this occurs not long after Elihu begins speaking: I heard the words spoken [by Job], "I am guiltless, free from transgression; I am innocent, without iniquity. But He finds reasons to oppose me, Considers me His enemy:' (33:8-10) This is what Job actually said: How many are my iniquities and sins? Advise me of my transgression and sin. Why do You hide Your face, And treat me like an enemy? (13:23-24) Job proclaimed his innocence, but not at this point. Here, Job was asking God to grant him an audience, and cure Job of his ignorance should he have cominitted sin without knowing it. The most important discrepancy between what Job said and what Elihu here claims he said lies in the lines "But He finds reasons to oppose me / Considers me His enemy." God has not found reasons to oppose Job, as he told the Adversary (2:30). Job knows that God's actions are unreasonable, and he has said as much (9:17). Further, while God is treating Job like an unjust man would treat an enemy, and Job calls God his enemy (27:7), God does not consider Job to be His enemy. Job is God's servant, as He tells the comforters ( 42:7, 8). These are fine, yet crucial distinctions. Elihu, in his youthful arrogance, misrepresents both Job and God in one fell swoop, making his account of both human and divine testimony null and void. Elihu cannot be an emissary from God. Of course, just what it means to be God's servant is uncertain; perhaps one ought to give Elihu the benefit of the doubt with regard to his account of God. However, even if one pardons Elihu with regard to his representation of the particulars, one must convict Elihu of being untrue to God in his main assertion: "Let us decide for ourselves what is just;" he asks of Job and the comforters, "Let us know among ourselves what is good" (34:4). Though they disagree on almost every detail regarding justice, on this Job and the comforters agree: justice comes from God, not men. In addition, Job knows that if that part of justice bequeathed to men by God could bring resolution, Job would have the power to relieve his affliction on his own. There would be no reason for Job and the comforters to argue, no need for Job to have an audience with God. Everything that has taken place up to this point in the book would be moot, and need not have happened. Indeed, rendering the experiences of Job and the comforters nugatory is Elihu's intention: if he can do so, his own lack of experience will not be a factor, and he will be able to speak as an authority. Elihu is thwarted in this enterprise: God appears, making Elihu irrelevant. Who is this who darkens counsel, Speaking without knowledge? (38:2) , God questions Job from within a tempest, beginning the theophany. God is rebuking Job, not for sinning, but rather for asking God to alter the fabric of His world. If Job had sinned, he would not have been granted an audience with God: "[This J is my salvation: /That no impious man can come into His presence" (13:16). Job has not given an untrue account of God and His creation; he has not mistaken the relevance of the unreasonable and terrifying aspects of the world, as Elihu and the comforters have. Job's problem is that his vision is limited by his perspective as a suffering human being. In order to gain divine wisdom and understanding with regard to God's justice, the sense of the world as a whole that Job has must become more than just a sense: it must be known as a whole. In order for Job to know the world as a whole, he must see it 'as a whole. If Job is to see the world as a whole, and gain divine wisdom and an understanding of divine justice, he must undergo a shift in perspective, and see the world as God sees it, with divine vision. God allows Job this vision when He shows Job His creation, "draw[ing] mysteries out of darkness/ And bring[ing] obscurities to light" (12:22). When God appears to Job, He does not give Job a report of the world, but rather speaks it into being, as He did in the beginning (Genesis 1:1-31). The world is not physically recreated; God does not scale down His carefully measured creation so that it fits into a space that Job's unassisted eyes can take in. Instead, God communicates His perspective by means of an epiphany, so that Job can see as God sees, looking down on the whole, while still being a part of creation. This heightening of Job's vision must be what allows him to see God with his eyes. Because God communicates directly to Job, Elihu and the comforters are rightfully prevented from seeing God's creation as a whole. Because Elihu and the comforters did not look and listen p~operly, because they did not question God about his creation, they do not have the experience necessary to see things from God's perspective. Echoing Genesis, God brings the mysteries of creation to light gradually, moving from small to great, so that Job is prepared to face divine wisdom. God begins by showing Job how carefully He has measured the foundations of the earth, setting its limits (38:47). Job knows that he is a created being, and that God is greater than him, but in striving with God, Job has shown that he is unclear about his own limits. Earlier Job asked God, "Am I the sea or the Dragon, /That You have set a watch over me?" (7:12). Speaking of the sea, God begins his response to this question: ... I made breakers My limit for it, And set up its bar and doors, And said, "You may come so far and no farther; Here your surging waves will stop." (38:10-11) It is clear that Job is greater than the sea; Job has the breath of life, and is capable of looking beyond himself, unlike the sea. However, the notion that everything in God's world has, from His perspective, a wellmeasured place, is crucial to Job's new view of the world: his understanding of divine justice depends on it. These things will come into sharper focus when Leviathan, the Dragon, appears. Which path leads to where light dwells, And where is the place of darkness, That you may take it to its domain And know the way to its home? Surely you know, for you were born then, And the number of your years is many! (38:19-2I) Job does not know, and cannot give an answer. God is mocking Job. Not only is it impossible for Job to instruct God, it is folly for Job to request of Him that He remove a day from His creation when Job does not even know where light and darkness reside. God shows Job the rest of the non-living, elemental part of His creation (storms, constellations, etc.) so that Job can see that what he would have to contend with to remove his birth and its time from the world is far beyond his capacity as a human being. Next God presents a parade of animals to Job. The animals fall into two distinct classes: those that God has given men dominion over (Genesis l :28 ), and those that answer only to God. In the class that God has given men dominion over, the group of animals that are lesser creatures than Job, the two that are most important with respect to shifting Job's view of the world are the hind and the ostrich. Can you mark the time when the hinds calve? Can you count the months they must complete? Do you know the season they give birth, When they couch to bring forth their offspring, To deliver their young? (39:1-3) �45 44 God shows Job the hind to change Job's perception of birth. Job sees his birth as a bitter curse, the source of his pain and trouble. God shows the hind in the midst of calving, an image of tenderness. When He does this, God is commanding Job to look and see that the delivery of young, in which nature has its share of God's creative power, is not only good, but beautiful, even though it is painful. Through this Job sees that all of God's world is invested with an inherent measure of beauty and goodness, and that his own birth is intrinsically good. Of all of God's lesser creatures, the ostrich is the most vexing, for both Job and the reader. In his final speech, Job said that he had become "a co~p~­ ion to ostriches" (30:29). God presents the ostnch m an unsavory light: She leaves her eggs on the ground, Letting them warm in the dirt, Forgetting they may be crushed underfoot, Or trampled by a wild beast. Her young are cruelly abandoned as if they were not hers; Her labor is in vain for lack of concern. For God deprived her of wisdom, Gave her no share in understanding. (39:14-17) There are strong parallels here. Like the ostrich, Job has had his children trampled underfoot. Like the ostrich, Job believes himself to be without wisdom and understanding. But God has given Job a share of wisdom and understanding, albeit not the kind that Job seeks. And Job's children were not killed for.Job's lack of concern; there is no good reason for their death. Here God is showing Job that while the protective action that he took on behalf of his children (the sacrifices he made for them (I:5))is important, because it is the most important distinction between Job and the ostrich, Job's community will be preserved or destroyed according to God's wisdom alone, and not according to Job's will. Job's dependence on God is absolute. _ Job acknowledges his ignorance and lack of power when he complies with God's demand that he respond to the question that God is asking, namely, "Do you see where you belong in My world?": See, I am of small worth; what can I answer You? I clap my hand to my mouth. I have spoken once, and will not reply; Twice, and will do so no more. ( 40:4-5) At this point God asks Job, "Would you impugn My justice? /Would you condemn Me that you may be right?" ( 40:8). Job cannot c~n~em_n ~od as he earlier wished (27:7), because Gods JUSttee is unassailable: Job does not have the experience necessary to define either divine wisdom or divine justice. Their defmitions lie beyond the capacity of human speech, and they must be seen, to be ~own. . Job's response to Gods question was mconclusive, simply an active silence, which is why God-shows Job Behemoth, the first of His two great creatures . . Behemoth reveals to Job his place in the world, leavmg Job no doubt about where he belongs. Earlier, Job made it known to the comforters that he wanted God to kill him, citing his weakness as a reason for God to end Job's life: "What strength have I, that I should endure?/. .. Is my strength the strength of rock? / Is my flesh bronze"? (6:II, 12). Behemoth, "the first of God's works" ( 40:19), proves to be stronger, and thus greater than Job: "His bones are like tubes of b:onze, / His limbs like iron rods" ( 40: 18). Behemoth 1s the insurmountable hedge that lies in Job's path (3:23). Finally, God reveals to Job His greatest creature, Leviathan: See, any hope of capturing him must be disappointed; One is prostrated at the very sight of him. There is no one so fierce as to rouse him; W ho then can stand up to M e?... I will not be silent concerning him Or the praise of his martial exploits . . . Divine beings are in dread as he rears up; as he crashes down, they cringe. ( 41:1-2, 4, 17) The wisdom of men, the fear of the Lord, is made manifest in Leviathan. God has given Leviathan the freedom to inflict dread upon anything that crosses his path, even divine beings. God praises Leviathan's n:artial exploits; to God, Leviathan, who causes suffermg, is beautiful. Because he sees, for a fleeting moment, as God sees, Job can recognize this beauty. Seeing God's greatest creature Job has a glimpse of divine wisdom. Job understands that there is a place for terror and suffering in God's world, that it is a natural part of the fabric of God's creation. To call Job's suffering just or unjust would be folly; it is a reasonable distinction appropriate only to the world of men and the relationships that exist within it, and not to the whole of creation or to the relationship between man and God: its meaning crumbles in the face of Leviathan's awful presence. God's creation is far too great to be contained by the boundaries of such an easy conclusion. By creating an unreasonable world in which blameless men are allowed to suffer, in which the hind knows pain and the ostrich lacks understanding, God gives His creation a measure of freedom that would not be available in a logically consistent world which knew no suffering. Each creature in God's world is granted the freedom to be an individual, to act according to its own will and limitations. Seeing this, Job learns that he must continue to reach beyond the rational, because the world view that falls out of strict rationality is not really a view of the world. Rather, it is a vain attempt by man to create his own world, which must be incomplete and would not allow life to be lived fully, if it could be lived at all. To be fully human, and a true servant of God, Job must face the complexities and apparent contradictions of the world, not for the sake of reconciling and understanding them, but in order that he may appreciate their harsh beauty and strive to live in harmony with them. This striving is what makes life compelling. In this striving Job can achieve harmony with God. Job has been striving for harmony with God from the first. Now that he has seen his boundaries and knows the terms under which he must search for it, Job understands that his desire for a full explanation of divine wisdom and justice was improper: I know that You can do everything, That no plan is impossible for Yqu. Who is this who obscures counsel without knowledge? Indeed, I spoke without understanding Of things beyond me, which I did not know. Hear now, and I will speak; I will ask and You will inform me. I had heard you with my ears, but now I see you with my eyes; Therefore I recant and relent, Being but dust and ashes. (42:2-6) Job knows that his suffering was not unjust, and he now possesses the wisdom he needs to find his way in the world. Job reached out to God, and God touched him, giving Job a sense of awe and wonder at the greatness of His creation. Any further understanding of divine wisdom and justice is beyond Job; it belongs only to God. "Thus the Lord blessed the latter years of Job's life more than the former" (42:12). Having had a glimpse of divine wisdom, Job is a changed man. Before his suffering, Job was a man alone: he watched over his family with a cautious eye, but did not take part in it. A caring but aloof father, Job did not feast with his children at the houses of his sons, but made sacrifices on their behalf (1:4-5). After his affliction, Job understands that if he is to live in harmony with the world, he must live in harmony with his own community. Job must not be a distant spectator; rather, he must take an active role within his family. Job acknowledges this by holding a feast at his own house, where he is surrounded with and consoled by his family and foends. "[Job J had seven sons and three daughters. The first he named Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch" (42: I 3-I 4 ). Having seen the beauty of the hind in labor, Job knows that women, the bearers of children, are the handmaidens of God's creation, and as the curers of loneliness (Genesis 2:I 824 ), they are also the creators of human community. The beauty of his daughters serves as a visual reminder to Job of the exalted place God has given them in His world. With these things in mind, Job gives his daughters a share in his possessions along with their brothers ( 42:15). When he gives his daughters estates, Job relinquishes his control over their lives and care, granting each of them the freedom to fmd their own way in the world. "So Job died old and contented" ( 42: I 7). + Thanks to Ms. Nancy &henauer-advisor, mentor, trusted friend. Notes: I. The Book of Job. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, I 980. References are to chapter and verse. �46 SE N IOR EssAY PaizE, Understanding the Mythical Nature of the Wilderness and its Role in Isaac McCaslin's Repudiation in "The Bear" Aaron Pease, A98 T Sarajevo, I 997, Vada Mosavaat, AOO he Bear," by William Faulkner, contains mythical elements. Both the bear, Old Ben, and the wilderness in which he lives become larger than hfe. They are not merely personified, but raised to a level which seems more than human. Their grandeur is contrasted to the triviality and smallness of the human stage and its passions, prides, and tragedies. It seems at first that it is only in their presence that man can become fully human. However, the continuing development of this story, along with the themes and issues dealt with in "The Old People" and "Delta Autumn," reveals an underlying complexity which muddles the purity of our expectations, and forces us to question how we have understood the myth. It is not that the myth becomes diminished in our sight but that it must share our vision with other themes. It seems necessary, in order to gain a fuller understanding of the novella, to examine carefully the mythical elements and their effect on young Isaac McCaslin, the sensitive boy for whom the myth has the most impact. We must then examine Isaac's repudiation, and how that one decision and its aftermath affects our reading of his youthful encounter with Old Ben. The bear is described in three ways. He is a mortal being who will one day die. He is a legend, the stuff not of tall tales but the measured, deliberate stories delivered in a serious, almost disbelieving tone which guarantees the listener that the apparently incredible conclusion is not hyperbole. Finally, the bear is "epitome;' "phantom," and "apotheosis out of the old wild life:'l He is an anachronism, from an old dead time when all our land was wilderness and man was merely another creature slinking through the woods. How can we link these three descriptions? To what form can we fit them so that the three-sided figure will give us a complete picture? The story leaves us in no doubt that the bear is a mortal being. Boon kills him with the aid of Lion. However, Old Ben has such a hold on the minds of the characters, especially Isaac, that it is fair to ask whether the grandeur of the bear is a human construction, a foisting of nobility upon an irrational beast from some sort of psychological need, or rather the inspired chronicling of an actual being who incites man to wonder, awe, and a dread of his fragility? The question arises from Isaac's realization in Chapter One that the bear which had: run in his listening and loomed in his dreams since before he could remember and which therefore must have existed in the listening and the dreams of his cousin and Major de Spain ... before they began to remember in their turn, was a mortal animal and that they . .. had no actual intention of slaying it, not because it could not be slain but because so far they had no actual hope of being able to. (p.192) 2 This seems to combine all three elements mentioned before confusedly: mortal, legend, and apotheosis. This bear, this mortal being, has been present in the preconscious minds of the ten year old Isaac McCaslin, his 26 year old cousin, McCaslin Edmonds, and the elderly (or at least middleaged) Major de Spain. If this is due merely to the recounting of Old Ben's exploits by the hunters who vainly sought him, then the bear must have been living at least 60 years, at least twice a normal lifespan. This seems to suggest that the bear is really the stuff of legends and fables, an unattainable goal that every generation of hunters needs: a cunning, almost human creature who consistently outwits his pursuers. Perhaps we must investigate further the notion of its being an anachronism out of an old dead time. We must take seriously the possibility that the bear, though a mortal being, may possess slightly more than mortal powers, as if aided by gods. First let us try to see with more precision how the bear "runs in the listening and looms in the dreams" of the hunters. The first seems relatively simple. From their earliest childhood, in the company of their elders, gathered around the fire in the libraries of town houses or trophy rooms of plantations, they have heard the best of all listening, stories of Old Ben. They give him a name like a man's because he has foiled their best attempts to catch him. Using clever- �48 ness or brute force when necessary, he has earned himself a place among humans, if not for his power of reasoning than for proving how ineffective the best human plans can be. These stories seem to be a constant; that is, the same stories never seem to grow old upon retelling and perhaps even become more vigorous and robust each time they are repeated. Why are they the best of all listening? The first answer that comes to mind is that they are about the wilderness, but that begs the question. Let us instead grant that because they are of the wilderness, they have the best of all settings. What is the appeal of the bear? The earlier suggestion, that the bear represents the unattainable goal, the almost human creature who outwits his pursuers, seems to fit. But again we must ask, why do hunters need this unattainable goal? What does this fact tell us about human nature in general and especially in the postReconstruction South in 1877? Perhaps we can generalize to say that any story, to be a story, needs an element of wonder. It must contain a motive, action, or being which defies our understanding or categorization. Even if the story has as pedestrian a purpose as imparting a moral lesson, it is often portrayed in a fanciful setting with magical characters. Perhaps the story is offering an explanation of something incomprehensible which stuns our intellects. If this is so, then the bear not only satisfies a requirement of storytelling but the need of the listener as well. This may be where the second part, the looming in the dreams, comes in. At first glance this seems to have a simple explanation. After a night of listening to stories about Old Ben, the children go to bed and dream of him. Some nights they have nightmares, in which he chases them through the dark wood; other nights they are hunting him and bring him to bay. They assuredly daydream about him while going about the humdrum business of school. Yet the phrasing seems to indicate more. The use of "looms" in this story is strange; it has an ominous connotation yet does not fully convey danger. Rather, the "looming" indicates an everpresence which never fully steps out of the shadow of subconsciousness, so that its motives or effect are never clear. Is it fair to speculate that the bear may be a part of human nature? The hold Old Ben has on the hunters suggests that the hunt is not just the vain pursuit of that which refuses to submit to humanity, but that it may also be a chase after a part of man which he has lost through the course of history. In this sense 49 the attributes of Old Ben are not alien to human nature, but may actually be essential to being a human. The looming in the dreams seems to locate the bear in the minds of the listeners. He seizes their imagination, but it seems he is merely ascending a throne already prepared for him. What then is the nature of the bear? With the previous analysis we are in danger of reducing him to an abstraction. He is first of all big, too big for the hunters and all their accessories, even for the country which was his constricting territory. In the first instance the bigness seems to deal with sheer massiveness; the dogs and bullets are ineffectual, the horses are too slow. But how is Old Ben too big for man? and for the country? The bigness in relation to man see:i;ns not a mere ratio of physical size. Man, with his reason, has reached up to the stars and comprehended their motions; he has set into motion a chain of events which will lead to him surveying the earth from the vantage point of the moon. Yet Old Ben is too big for man. Does this mean man cannot comprehend him? If so, this story is a critique of modern man in contrast with the sublime character of Old Ben. Man certainly cannot corner this quarry. Is this a figurative way of saying that he is beyond the scope of man's comprehension? To hunt is to seek out. Certainly when we use our discursive reason we are seeking out something, whether it be Truth, Beauty, or Euler's e. The fact that Old Ben eludes his pursuers apparently not by cunning or guile but merely by sheer bigness seems to place him among the objects which cannot be grasped by our reason. Our reason can bump against these objects, but cannot embrace them or define their boundaries. If it could, it would be able to cut them up into parts and render them easily analyzable. Old Ben is also too big for the country, the backdrop against which his drama is played out. This certainly includes the wilderness, but it also must include the surrounding farms, mills, and plantations. As these are the works of man, it is no surprise that he is too big (or merely very disproportional) for them, even though they are steadily reducing the extent of the wilderness. Yet is this bigness one of appetite, that Old Ben cannot coexist with the creations of man, because they demand the same sustenance and there isn't enough for the two of them? Or is it one of right, where two opposing claims to the land must clash for supremacy? If it is the first, then it is the wilderness we are talking about. It provides the deer and berries as well as bed and home for Old Ben. Likewise it provides the raw material for the ever expanding plantations and mills which daily become more efficient and productive. Therefore it seems natural that these two opposing force~ should fight over the same territory. The legend of Old Ben chronicles the devestation he wreaks upon the livestock and stored food of the farms that lie on the fringe of the wilderness. Are these simply the forays of a bear whose habitat is being steadily diminished and thus needs to carry off pigs and calves and rifle the corncribs because the wilderness no longer can feed him? Is it the revenge of the wilderness upon the encroaching farms, a grim reminder that their holdings are mere scratches in the surface of the large and fecund earth? In either case we are forced to see that more than just the land is at stake; the values these opposing forces represent lie at the heart of the conflict. The bear is characterized as having the ruthless and irresistible deliberation of a locomotive. Yet it is the locomotive which is the crowning industrial achievement of the men who have turned the land into mills and farms. This comparison gives one a sense of the bear's power but also buttresses the reader's suspicion: that despite the characterization of the farms and other signs of civilization and industry which surround the wilderness as puny gnawings and hackings, it is this smallness which will prevail and the great wilderness which will disappear.Two visions claim the land, both powerful and seemingly inexorable, but one which is big, the other which is puny. This description seems more qualitative then quantitative. The wilderness, however much it diminishes, will always be big, and the commercial land, no matter how extensive, will always be puny. Let us try to understand further how the bear stands as the "apotheosis" of the old wild life which lives on in the wilderness. The old wild life is presumably emblematic of the time when the Chickasaw warriors, Sam Fathers's ancestors on his father's side, roamed the forest, which was unsullied by farms and mills. Not only was the land pristine and untrammelled, but the values of the people who used it kept it that way. It was not until the white man arrived that the thought of ownership of the land was introduced to the wild and free men, and they succumbed to the notion as if it were a disease to which they had no immunity. Perhaps Old Ben represents the old wild life in the freedom that he possesses. His is not merely the freedom from capture but the freedom to take what he pleases. It seems that the people who lived in that older time could claim a greater degree of freedom than the people nowadays. Although they lived together in tribes, they were not bound by others to till the soil or work a mill. They lived by hunting, and while it is unrealistic to suppos e their existence was utopian, they had readily accessible to them the experience of the wilderness. Perhaps their vices and passions were muted by its "soaring and sombre solitude" (I 7 4 ); its presence served to ennoble them just as we see Old Ben ennobling McCaslin, Major de Spain, etc. They were not tainted by the urge to dispossess and own, and they could do as they pleased within the framework of the wilderness and be happy. Old Ben epitomizes this life not only because he is one with the wilderness and possesses all of its virtues, but because he can dispossess and subjugate man, who in this new time has become the ultimate dispossessor and subjugator. He dispossesses man of his property, and subjugates man's will and imagination to emulation of him. How can we understand the bear in relation to the wilderness? If the bear is big, then the presence of the wilderness is even bigger: "tremendous, attentive, impartial, omniscient" (p. I 7 4 ), and "the same solitude, the same loneliness through which frail and timorous man had merely passed without altering it" (p.I 94). The bear is always in action, the protagonist of stories, the infiltrator of dreams, brazen and huge. The wilderness is immobility and sentience. Yet one cannot be found without the other. Isaac, upon hearing of Old Ben, divines the wilderness; likewise, on first hearing the sounds of the dogs reluctantly following Old Ben's scent, it is not Old Ben who is ahead of them but the wilderness. And it is the wilderness, not Old Ben, who lightly pats the bitch for her temerity. Should we think of the bear as a personification of the wilderness or as a metaphor for it? Old Ben is definitely a part of the wilderness, but it is also clear that man's encroachment upon the wilderness has been slowed by the presence of Old Ben. He discourages squatters and farmers from living too close to the · wilderness. He also holds the hunters in his power, and their hunting of him serves to keep the wilderness intact a little while longer. He carries an appeal to the men, who despite their fragility and smallness in juxtaposition to the wilderness, also hold the wilderness in a life or death grip. They hunt Old Ben, but they hunt him according to the rules of the wilderness. They are not the squatters and sharecroppers who impinge on the wilderness and are at the mercy of Old Ben. They do not want revenge; they could easily get rid of Old �• 50 Ben by setting the Big Woods afire or selling it off to a lumber company. They keep pure the hunter-hunted relationship, and imitate Old Ben when hunting him. They apparently have an unspoken agreement with Old Ben which both have kept in good faith. In this sense Old Ben appears as a mediator between the wilderness and the men who hunt Old Ben and so unwittingly preserve it. The wilderness not only inspires awe, but abhorrence and fear. Perhaps most men are not comfortable with the ahnost palpable presence of the wilderness. In any case, its immobility and brooding sentience are much harder for man to appreciate or contemplate, and the active, roaming figure of Old Ben is much easier to understand. Motion is a common characteristic of those things that we can comprehend, while supreme immobility is often predicated of God, the Unknowable. Further, not only is the bear a moving figure, but through the hunt man is also able to be in motion, as our reason is always in motion when seeking out the truth. It appears that the presence of the wilderness, which only Isaac and Sam Fathers seem to appreciate fully, must rely on its manifestation within the bear to affect the rest of the hunters. This seems to support the idea that Old Ben is a metaphor for the wilderness. The freedom that he so aggressively asserts and revels in, is perhaps parallel to the "soaring and sombre solitude" of the wilderness, where man can experience an inner freedom which, uncluttered by small and puny desires and hopes, can expand his soul in contemplation of the mysteries of the wilderness. What are the mysteries of the wilderness? The wilderness is composed of myriad life. Yet each part is somehow joined together to create a single presence which seems to possess a soul or at least an intellect. Perhaps it is akin to a rapidly vibrating string which gives an impression of solidity within the diameter of its vibration. The change of seasons, the growth of plants and trees, the passing of the sun and rain, run together to form a seamless, timeless whole which extends beyond the senses. It is forever adding to itself, not only with the physical growth, but with the many lives which have quitted physical existence. For it is here that Sam Fathers sees the majestic buck who apparently is the incarnation of his grandfather, Issetibeha, and Isaac sees the snake who is Old Carothers. Here Isaac believes Sam, Lion, and Old Ben to live on, not dead but translated into the myriad life of the wilderness and thus into its soul. Here there is no death, only a natural transition to become a part of SI the wilderness's presence. Isaac's observation when standing in the cane brake that the woods are exactly the way they were when the Chickasaw warriors roamed it is not a wish or a supposition but a fact. There doesn't seem even to be any such thing as sin or punishment for sin within the wilderness. The noble Issetibeha lives on, just as vile Old Carothers, who has done more than most to bring on the ruin of the wilderness. Somehow the constant renewing of life which characterizes the wilderness has even revived Old Carothers, although the wilderness is not completely lacking in a sense of justice. Old Carothers is a snake, and harmful only to those who do not know the wilderness. One could even argue that the brooding sentience of the wilderness contemplates things much bigger than itself and thus to it man's evils appear trivial and fleeting. The presence of the wilderness profoundly affects Isaac. While composed of the "myriad life which printed the dark mold of these secret and sunless spaces with delicate fairy tracks... which watched him from beyond every twig and leaf" (p. 313), the effect on Isaac is almost always one of solitude and loneliness. How can we reconcile these two experiences? Man's natural desire to know forces him to try to understand the wilderness and the awe it inspires within him. However, the wilderness is disproportionately big, not just in comparison to his physical size but with regards to the smallness of his intellect. He can find no analogies or comparisons to which he can make a ratio to its massiveness. Therefore man comes to feel loneliness and solitude because none of his concepts are adequate to accompany him into this contemplation. He becomes aware, rather, of its presence which he perceives, though not just through the senses. It impresses upon him a sense of being which does not fill him but which rather reminds him of the being he possesses. That is why the boy, to whom Isaac is compared, recognizes the existence of love and passion from entering the presence of a woman (p.195). He is filled with an emptiness and a temporary despair because his life is so empty of the fullness which the woman has experienced in loving and being the beloved. However, this emptiness, once it is recognized, gives him hope that one day it can be filled, that the realization of emptiness is better than never knowing how much he could lack. He desires to know of the men she has loved or who have loved her, of their excellence and their deeds which made them deserving of her. In short, he seeks to create an imagined life which will provide him with a model of emulation so that he too will one day be worthy to love that woman. The wilderness contains the memories of untold eras and peoples and beasts. It stands over man, who to prolong his short life's memory can merely construct edifices and monuments which will barely outlive him. These too pale in comparison with the wilderness, which had stood for milennia before the white man even thought to seek out a New World. Its presence implies a history which contains greater deeds, nobler men, and more horrific monsters than anything the white man has heard of or imagined. Yet it stands silent, brooding, sentient, as if contemplating something else, something even bigger than itself (perhaps its own fate). Yet the wilderness is vulnerable. It cannot resist the puny gnawings and hackings, which, multiplied a thousandfold, steadily diminish it. This indicates that it is somehow subservient to man, that it must depend on man for its current existence. It is man who for now, as slave of the modern profit driven world, holds power of life or death over it, albeit ambiguously because he is not its master. Only recently has the wilderness become threatened. Most men live outside of the wilderness and have no regular experience of it. It seems that the experience is key, whether simply with the wilderness or as mediated through the chase of Old Ben. Without any experience, there seems to be nothing which can give man a sense of a presence outside of him. It seems analogous to a cathedral, which is designed to give one a sense of the majesty of God. However, a cathedral is man-made and filled with symbols which lead one to see the cathedral itself as a symbol. It even contains pictures or statues of the God who inspired it. In the wilderness, its natural symbolism, if it possesses one at all, is inaccessible to man and points to a God or Principle even more awe-inspiring than itself Considering the presence it has, and its effect, it might as well be considered an end in itself The wilderness is doomed, and Old Ben is a mortal being and so must die. It is Old Ben's death which spells the beginning of the end of the wilderness. After Old Ben there is nothing to keep men from transforming the wilderness into raw material for their mills, homes, and farms. But the manner in which Old Ben is brought down points toward a deepening complexity which suggests to the reader that his death is not the tragedy it might at first seem to be. What is needed is a dog who can hold Old Ben at bay. In what seems an incredible piece of luck they find the dog in the wilderness. He is wild, more fearsome than a wolf because he doesn't care enough about men to be afraid of them. He possesses "a cold and almost impersonal malignance like some natural force." His hide is blue-tinted and similar to the color of metal, so that he seems to be like a bullet in silent pursuit when fired at his target. He is employed by the hunters in the hunt for Old Ben, but they do not own him. He seems similar to the machines and technologies that man employs for his own ends but which take on a life of their own and come to dominate man, their creator. The day comes that is inevitable once Lion has been found. It will be when, as Isaac realizes, "Even he [Old BenJ don't want it to last any longer" (p.204). It is like a festival. Both townspeople and the poorest sharecroppers have come to witness it. They process into the woods, which to the first is merely foreign, and to the other both foreign and antagonistic. They are led by a dog whose blue hide infers not just "courage and all else that went to make up the will and desire to pursue and kill but endurance, the will and desire to endure beyond all imaginable limits of flesh to overtake and slay" (p.22 7). Soon after, Lion finally brings Old Ben to bay. The dogs mill about uncertainly, but Lion does not hesitate. He attacks and jumps for Old Ben's throat; Old Ben catches him in an embrace and falls backward. It seems that even Lion is not enough, until Boon leaps to his rescue and buries his knife deep in Old Ben's neck. Old Ben is at last brought down both by a dog who cares for nothing and the man who loves him. It was also an act of redemption, for previously Lion brought Old Ben to bay and Boon missed him five times with his pump gun. Old Ben seems to embrace his fate by embracing Lion. Turning at bay is a the symbolic gesture of defeat. There is nowhere (or no reason) to run, nowhere to hide, and while his ability to fend off the . dogs alone makes the kill a dicey proposition, it plays into the hands of the hunters, who prefer an unmoving target. It is a tactic out of the old wild life, where once the chase has ended and the fight has begun, the beast with the most courage and endurance will win out. It has no place in the modern, levelling world of machines and the mere fact that it is resorted to spells doom for Old Ben. However, Old Ben is not brought down by bullets. He is killed by Boon, who risks life and limb �52 53 I I to save Lion. In effect it is an act of love that brings down Old Ben, a man's love for a dog that is not even his. Perhaps this is why Isaac knows that he will not grieve when Old Ben dies. How are we to understand Isaac McCaslin against this backdrop? From his earlie~t d~ys the be ~r 1 has "run in his listening and loomed m his dreams. It is he who, before he is ten, believes that the hunters who each fall set off to hunt Old Ben do not even intend to kill him. Instead, he perceives that their failed hunts are not futile but are celebrations of the "old bear's furious immortality" (p.I86). It is Isaac, more than anyone else, who gives the hunt a mythical symbolism and meaning. What are the factors which lead Isaac McCaslin to see things in this way? It is Sam Fathers who undertakes to teach young Isaac the ways of the hunt. He creates for Isaac that mystical world where the past seems more real than the present, where the Chickasaw warriors roam the woods as if they had never left it. In the child's imagination the small copses and creek beds and wooded ravines which adjoin the farms and fields become the pristine land which existed before the white man's invasion. His farm and his family's other holdings seem to him as insubstantial as the faded page on which is recorded his legal claim to the land. We don't know the truth of what Sam Fathers relates to Isaac. He has never known the Indian peoples from whom he is descended; he doesn't even remember his father's face. However, he fashions a world out of recollections he has never had. Certainly then they are coming from his imagination. As memories they may be false, but as a myth or story with a moral they are not mere lies. Or perhaps they reflect what Sam Fathers wishes could be the case. He is training Isaac to become a hunter, a man, but also to become part of the bigger world to which the wilderness is the entrance. The world Sam Fathers creates captures Isaac's imagination completely, not just because he is a boy and likes to hear stories about Indians and hunting, but also because it relays to him a moral system and way of life which is vastly different from the one he lives in. It conveys to him a nobility, a sense both of right and privilege but also humility in the face of that which with one is entrusted. He absorbs so much of this way of life that it is the past which seems real and the present which usurps. The ideals of the past are the true ones, not the ones which have brought with them the harsh life of the plantation. Isaac's values are those of the hunter. They are humility, sufferance, endurance and pride. The pride only exists because of the previous three. It is virtuous i and gracious, and prideful not by accompl_shment ~ut by association. So the world that Isaac believes he lives in, where the present is tenuous and is always in danger of sliding back into the past, is supported by the existence of the bear. He has foiled the best attempts of the men who control the present as he knows it: plantations, farms, and mills which dominate the land and the people who work them. He has plagued them since even before he was born, so that the bear has loomed in their dreams or run in their listening since even before they could remember, just as with Isaac. He has made their innovations and domestications look silly and useless. But even though he is too. big, so that everyone is small in comparison, the men who hunt him ennoble themselves by doing so. They are drawn back by Old Ben into the past to participate in that "ancient and unremitting contest according to the ancient and immitigable rules which voided all regrets and brooked no quarter" (p.I84). Each November or June they travel to the Big Woods, back into the past, and return emptyhanded. But that is the way it should be, according to Isaac, for Old Ben is their ticket into that ancient, brooding world. But Isaac is a believer. He has faith in Sam Fathers, in the stories he is told. He believes that the wilderness is alive and sentient, and that the deer that Sam Fathers calls Grandfather really is a reincarnation of the man who has been dead for I 00 years. It is the bear who confirms his faith, makes the stories more real than even his imagination can make them because Old Ben is real. He enters the wilderness and soon encounters the bear. He has inherited the bear and the wi.lderness as the stuff of legend, as the phantom who time and again glides through the ring of hounds and bullets because they are not enough. But the bear is alive, and faith cannot exist without the hope of its dispelling. That is why Isaac must see Old Ben, to affirm the fear that he hears in the voices of the hounds, that he himself feels when he sees the mark of its trap-ruined paw. He will be scared, because there is no helping it. The massiveness of the bear, coupled with the grandeur of the wilderness, cannot bu~ reduce him to a state of fear and awe. But he will not be afraid, he will not be seized by the irrational fear of a coward, who must lash out at the object of his fear. The fear will possess him but will not drive him mad, because there is no necessary reason to be afraid of what is bigger than you. But Isaac can't just walk out and see Old Ben. He must become a woodsman, he must learn from Sam how to hum and read trails and sign. Even further, he must remove himself completely from the world of plantations and mills and progress. His search for Old Ben is futile until he leaves off not only the gun but also his watch and compass. None of the other hunters would have dared to leave without a gun. To them the wilderness is still dangerous and uncertain, and they would require protection and a means to take advantage of an opportunity to hunt. When he finally finds Old Ben, or rather, Old Ben reveals himself, he is no longer a hunter, part of that art which brings man so close to nature yet still remains intrinsically antagonistic. Old Ben moves across the glade and into the glare and then stops and looks at him again. He fades back into the woods, not as if he slipped back but as if the wilderness closed around him like a curtain, like the host were being placed back in the tabernacle after being displayed to the faithful. And so the appearance of Lion should have caused Isaac to hate and fear him. He has seen the bear, even jumped it once with the fyce, but he knows he will never shoot at it. He knew this the first time he ever felt the presence of Old Ben. Isaac knows now that the hunters don't kill Old Ben not because they are celebrating his furious freedom but because they have no hope or chance to. But with Lion things will be different. He is the dog to run down Old Ben, and Isaac accepts it, and even feels privileged to be a part of it. He feels a sense of fatality about what is going on; he feels as if it is the beginning of the end of something big. "He would be humble and proud that he had been found worthy to be a part of it too or even just to see it too" (p.2 I 7). Is this the code of the hunter? Earlier hunting is described as "the ancient and unremitting contest according to the ancient and immitigable rules ·which voided all regrets and brooked no quarter." It is a game of life and death. It requires strict rules because the hunter can easily become the hunted and the field upon which they play can be just as dangerous as the wild animals they hunt within it. And when Sam marks Isaac with the blood of the deer in ''The Old People," which consecrates and links him to the halfIndian chief irrevocably, it absolves him not of love and pity for the things he slays but weakness and regret, which would prevent him from being a man's hunter. It is this voiding of regret which seems odd, as regret is a wish to change the past and to Isaac it is the past which is always mingled in with the present and which the present is always trying to subvert it. Isaac has immersed himself into the life of the wilderness more than any other of the hunters. He transforms their hunts into "pageant-rites," celebrations of the bear they try to slay but cannot because he is too big for them. He is not content to merely be a hunter; he voids all the laws of that "ancient and unremitting contest" so that he can see Old Ben, so that he can fill himself with the presence and mystery of the wilderness. He seeks the meaning behind things; whereas, the other men are content to see the wilderness through the medium of hunting, having killed and been marked but still in some sense antagonistic. It is Isaac who sees "the two of them, shadowy in the limbo &om which time emerged and became time: the old bear absolved of mortality and himself who shared a little of it" (p.I95). Yet he does not mourn Old Ben's passing, even though he knows it sets into motion events which will mark the end of something, presumably the wilderness, as the story seems to indicate. Does the absolution of regret which marks him as a hunter prevent him from properly mourning Old Ben? Does the code of the hunter include some sort of quietism which fails to do what is necessary to prevent the wilderness's passing? Or does the code base itself upon a bigger perspective, on a knowledge of the wilderness as mentioned before, so that death is not tragic, even though the death contains a significance beyond itself? The hunt, as has been mentioned before, is a deadly serious game. It involves the virtues of humility, pride, and endurance. It rewards the ability to submit oneself to the dictates and hardships of the wilderness, and because these are followed and endured, the pride follows, which is a virtuous selfrespect and a respect for all that lives, even if what lives will someday be brought down by the hunter's gun. There can be no regret because the hunter's code pushes two contradictory messages: the one which demands an appreciation, respect, and even love for all life, and the other which demands a steady aim, a sure hand, and no remorse as the trigger is pulled. The hunter loves the life he spills. But he spills it nonetheless, and he seems to have firmly entrenched in him the notion that everything must die someday. It seems almost cynical. At the very least it seems not to be a fitting end to the story of the bear. He dies with no objections from Isaac, and one wonders if the code of the hunter, the code of the wilderness which Sam Fathers inculcates into Isaac, and which Isaac accepts �54 I I I joyfully and humbly, is too perfect, too complete a code, so that the boy becomes a man too soon, before he can fully appreciate the tenacious loves, desires, and thoughts of a child. Five years after the death of Old Ben we witness a second death, a death which signifies the beginning of the end of the white male McCaslins. Isaac is 21, and at the age when his inheritance gives him, the huge farm and former plantation which McCaslin Edmonds has caretaken until this time. But Isaac refuses it, and the reader is swept into the crux of the story, the fourth chapter which flows like a river through the middle of the story. It chronicles both Isaac's arguments for his repudiation of the land and a litany of wrongs which he has inherited and which powerfully affect his reasoning. The seamlessness and the turbidity of the grammatical structure, in which sentences run through paragraphs and even pages, gives us a structural wilderness through whose ragged and continuous underbrush the reader must uncover the flowers of his relinquishment. The motives and experiences twist and turn around and through each other like brambles, so that time and place seem to take second place to the powerful pulls of the psyche which order and rank them according to its peculiar criteria. The argument begins simply enough. It is the land that is in question. According to Isaac he does not own it, nor did his grandfather Old Carothers, nor even the Indians who sold it to him. As he has been taught by Sam Fathers, the land is owned by no one, and Sam is echoed in the Bible, where it is chronicled that God made the earth to be held in common, to be shared and enjoyed by everyone. Ownership is an illusion, because the very idea that the land is something that can be bought or sold renders invalid the actual buying and selling. He who buys land buys nothing, because the land cannot be owned. The men who bought the land, brought in slaves to work and have as proof of their ownership of a commodity which brings them money, are deluding themselves. They have no more claim to the land than the drifter who spends the night on it and then moves on. McCaslin's retort is that nevertheless the land is owned. Isaac's reasoning is based on an ideal of the land not borne out in practice. In practice, there are men who claim to own the land and still more who believe them. Even granting the illusoriness of legal claims, it is men like Old Carothers who have seized the land in defiance of whatever principle to the contrary and kept it and made something of it, not 55 only for themselve but for their descendants. In practice, then, Isaac is forced to repudiate the land, while in theory he has nothing to relinquish. It is Isaac who first refers to the Bible, and it is McCaslin who first creates the historical link between them and the Garden of Eden. It is a series of dispossessions starting when God first exiled man from Eden. Man has successively invaded and taken back the land he may or may not have a claim to, so that the history of man seems to be the ebb and flow of a confused, meandering tide. And if God intended that the world be held in common and shared in peace, then where has he been during the sordid history of man, displacing his neighbor and being displaced in return? Isaac's answer: He has been dispossessed. The history of man has been the history of the displacement of God. God has not merely stood by, ignorant or impotent, and watched the people who claimed to be His believers carry out horrible acts of injustice and slavery, often in His name. Rather the history of dispossession and wasting that seems to characterize the history of man is a removing of the simple virtues which God has ordained will preserve his creation and lead to Him. The discovery of America was allowed by God because it is here that redemption is possible, where "a nation of people could be founded in humility and pity and sufferance and pride of one to another." God permits his laws to be broken, for someone like Old Carothers to own and keep the land in the eyes of man because the white man, even before he began to divide the land into parcels and demarcations, has cursed the land. The white man is needed to break his own curse, which he has brought to the New World. And it seems that the land must be allowed to degenerate into a model of the old world, so that out of the rubble man will create for himself, one man will stand back and cry, "What have we done?" The seeds of the old world's corrupt and worthless twilight, which the white man has fled, have been brought to the New World like a disease. The wild men who inhabit the land have no defense against it and succumb to it (witness Ikemotubbe's ruthlessness upon his return from New Orleans); therefore it seems it is necessary for the white man to destroy the curse he has brought. This process is unfolding through the line of Old Carothers's descendants. Old Carothers was the carrier of the curse, and the subsequent generations have been slowly undoing the curse, as the dictates of the times have allowed. McCaslin misunderstands the curse interpretation that Isaac is explaining and mentions the sons of Ham, the descendants of Noah who are cursed to serve the descendants of Ham's brothers. It was commonly thought that the sons of Ham were the black people, and was often argued by those with a vested interest in a Biblical justification of slavery. Isaac argues that the Bible is a complex work and sometimes says things which are not literally true. Notwithstanding the considerable interpretation and moral myopia demanded by the conclusion McCaslin reaches, the Bible does employ symbols and myths to convey truth to man. The Bible must be read by the heart, not by the reason, and only a true heart can navigate the complex web of the Bible. The message God wants to be conveyed is simple, too simple for the complex and driven human heart. It must be explained by complex and driven men whose hearts are filled with lust and passion and hate, to men whose hearts are likewise filled with lust and passion. Truth must survive the medium of humanity's condition before it can reside in the human heart. This argument by Isaac seems to be key to his character. He maintains both that truth is simple and that truth is complex. The heart already knows truth, but it must be filtered through the complex passions which drive the heart. The Bible, which is God's Word, is a huge, sprawling pseudo-historical spiritual work out of which both the most commonsense and the most delusional beliefs have been taken. It has been written by the driving passions of the human heart, for the driving passions of the human heart. But for Isaac, the truth is simple. His notion comes to the fore when McCaslin reads to him Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," which McCaslin believes explains the nature of truth. The closing lines of the second stanza, "She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,/Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!," which is addressed to the young lovers frozen on the side of an antique vase, is symbolic of truth and man's relation to it. Truth is unchanging, and even if we cannot grasp it, we are destined, through courage, love, honor, pity, and pride, to confusedly seek it out. McCaslin is prompted to reflection on this poem by the story of Isaac risking his life to save the little fyce which was going to attack Old Ben. Not only does he not shoot Old Ben, but he drops his gun when he rushes to within ten feet of Old Ben to save the hysterically courageous fyce. McCaslin cannot understand why Isaac didn't shoot, and then the poem springs to mind and helps him understand. What insight does McCaslin have into Isaac's behavior which the poem helps bring to light? The poem celebrates the feeling of timelessness and youth which the urn inspires. The scene depicted on the urn is irrevocable; but it forever engages in the viewer not only a sense of eternal bliss but also a desire to construct a world which can produce a scene such as this. Who are the lovers? What city have they come from? What god is being sacrificed to? These details are not of historical interest; past answers are not important. What is important is that the viewer is drawn into the scene, experiences its immediacy, yet is also aware that it continually renews itself. The youthful lovers will always be youthful. In a sense the scene has a past and a present but not a future. That frozen moment speaks not of fulfillment but of the beauty of desire. In a story we might require some sort of resolution, while in this scene we instead prize the motion that is implied in the stillness. The suitor is forever courting while the beloved is forever coy. How can we link this to Isaac and his experience with the bear? We know very early on that Old Ben means much more to Isaac than a mortal being should. Old Ben is something he inherits from his elders, and which he knows first through stories and then in dreams. His first experience of Old Ben's mortality is one of awe, and he knows that he will never fire upon Old Ben. Therefore, when he surprises Old Ben and the fyce amazingly brings him to bay, we have frozen in an instant of time the boy juxtaposed against the bear, looming as he looms in Isaac's dreams. Isaac is aware of Old Ben's mortality and the hunter's code which voids all regrets towards slain prey. Yet the immensity of the bear, both literal and figurative, impresses upon him a sense of preservation. The hunt is not a real attempt to kill Old Ben; rather it is a framework within which the bear is revealed in all his grandeur. The "yearly pageant-rite of the old bear's furious immortality" must go on. Isaac knows the bear will someday die, but it will not be him who brings the hunt to a close. Isaac preserves a tradition, one which preserves both Old Ben and the celebration of his life. One wonders if this is analogous to the preservation of the urn, so that its message can inform subsequent generations. The urn can have no effect if there is either no one to appreciate its beauty and if it becomes cracked or ruined from mishandling or neglect. This is what McCaslin apprehends, that the truth of the bear is �56 preserved only in the experience of him. Truth covers all things which touch the heart, so that the things we do for truth are manifested in our virtues. Isaac is led by his heart to save the fyce, to throw down the gun in abnegation of technology, to refuse to shoot Old Ben even when he holds the gun. It all happens so fast, that reasoning doesn't seem to play a part. It seems to be a direct apprehension of truth which man only is confusedly aware of, a sense of something bigger than himself which prompts him to action, bypassing the normal acts or ratiocination and deliberation. This is an example of the simplicity of truth, an impetus to direct action which seems to be the right thing to do. The complexity comes into play in the evaluation of the consequences of the human action. For example, Boon's killing of Old Ben to save Lion's life is another example of truth acting directly on a human heart. We do not fault Boon for his impulsive, courageous action. It is an act of love, and the worst we can say is that Old Ben died a worthy death at the hands of love. Yet the consequences of Old Ben's death are not all good. His death insures the death of the wilderness, as the Big Bottom is soon sold to a lumber company. The almost ritualized hunts are no more, and the men who perhaps unwittingly preserved the wilderness now have little to no connection with its presence. Likewise we can see Isaac's repudiation in this light. It seems an inherently simple act, a refusal to take over what has been destined for him because what he will own was not only founded upon injustice, but still employs it in its seemingly inexorable expansion. Yet Isaac admits to himself that even his own motives will be forever incomprehensible to him. Further, the consequences of his decision insure that he will be derided by society, even by his wife, and that he will have no heir to carry on his return to purity. The possible psychological harm that his separation from society can cause him is also unknown. What is known is only that his motives are unknown even to him and that his decision can perhaps be regarded as impetuous or incomplete. It seems important then to try to understand the complex factors which molded the young Isaac McCaslin's heart and mind. It seems that Isaac is trying to escape his grandfather, Old Carothers, by escaping his legacy. This includes the plantation that he will inherit. But even more devestating is the inheritance of the state of affairs upon the plantation. Some of the slaves that Old Carothers owned bear the same blood which runs 57 through Isaac McCaslin. It is not evident to Isaac until he investigates the ledgers which have chronicled the lives dwelling upon the plantation. His investigations reveal not only that Old Carothers impregnated a slave, who bore him a daughter, but that Carothers also impregnated this daughter, who bore a son as she died in childbirth. That very same day the mother, Eunice, walked into a creek and drowned herself In both cases the children went unacknowledged by their father. They were slaves, and thus property. However, when Old Carothers died he left in his will a monetary legacy which was to be bequeathed to the son, Terrel, upon his reaching the age of 2I. This posthumous, cowardly acknowledgement is another aspect of the legacy of Old Carothers. His twin sons do not participate in his excesses; upon his death they move out of the "tremendous abortive embryo" which is the grandiose, half-finished mansion Old Carothers was building, and into a modest house they build for themselves. They set themselves to undoing the evils their father perpetrated. They begin to free their slaves, and they move the ones they have into the mansion, with the unspoken agreement that what they do at night is their business if they are all behind the door in the morning. They also expand the monetary legacy to each of Terrel's three children. It is Isaac who takes it upon himself to insure that the legacies are bequeathed. The oldest child, Jim, one day runs away and is never heard from again. Isaac pursues him with the money but never catches up with him. He is also forced to seek out the second child, Fonsiba, who marries a Negro carpetbagger whose educated demeanor and sense of protocol belie his foolishness and inability to provide for her. Isaac finds her and makes sure that the legacy will keep her from ever starving. Finally, it is Lucas, the youngest, who seeks Isaac out and takes command not only of his portion but Jim's as well. It seems that guilt drives Isaac to this duty. It also seems that this responsibility, while virtuously carried out by Isaac, is not a lifelong trust, but a feeble means of rectifying a purposeful flaunting of power. The trust is money, the literal coin of the realm which the plantation ( and perhaps even more importantly, the commissary) employs. It can do nothing to actually raise these third-white Negroes to a status commensurate with humanity in general: with Jim it is ineffectual, with Fonsiba it enables her not to live as a beast, and with Lucas, his acceptance of it links him to his grandfather in more than just parentage. It is Lucas's special burden (as the reader witnesses in "The Fire and the Hearth") that he must fight the white man's obsession for miserliness and hoarding. The backdrop against which this drama is played out is the post-Reconstruction South. Isaac was too young to remember the Reconstruction and the devestation it wrought on the land. On the one hand there were newly freed Negroes with no previous experience of freedom and a tendency to misuse it just as the white man was prone to misuse his license. On the other hand there were the defeated Southerners, bitter and defiant, who were charged with the task of rebuilding their homes and lives and cities. Thirdly there were the carpetbaggers, whose rapaciousness was unbounded. At first entering the South under the banner of freedom, it is they who are soon fighting with the blacks over the limited number of jobs and acres of land. In a few generations they will be actively trying to subvert the blacks' freedom under the white hoods of the Klu Klux Klan. Through this all the plantation and commissary plug on, following the pattern of the seasons, the harvests and plantings, holding all who work the land in thrall. The black ex-slaves', now sharecroppers', lot has changed little since before the War. They are still beholding to the white man to sell them their farming supplies and to buy his cotton at prices not only the white man knows to be fair or not. Isaac's repudiation is the refusal to become part of this machine; the machine not just of the farm and commissary but the bigger machine of the South. The economy-driven exigencies of this life are repulsive to him. They make of the people, not just the workers but also the owners and overseers as well, means to the end of profit. There is no presence beyond man which can force him to contemplation and awe. Instead the land, which has been transformed by man, translated, if you will, into a force which has quickly grown beyond any man's control, so much so that it is referred to as a curse. Perhaps it contains within it the beginnings of sin, the desire to establish what is mine and what is thine, and then to take what is other and make it one's own. In any event, it proved too big even for Buck and Buddy, whose attempts at reparation were ineffectual in stopping the onslaught of the white man's curse upon the land. But Isaac breaks free from more than the plantation. He acknowledges not only that he is free of the "two threads frail as truth and impalpable as equators yet cable-strong to bind for life them who made the cotton to the land their sweat fell on" (p.245), but that he is also free: the frail and iron thread strong as truth and impervious as evil and longer than life itself and reaching beyond record and patrimony both to join him to the lusts and passions, the hopes and dreams and griefs, of bones whose names while still fleshed and capable even old Carothers' grandfather had never heard. (p.286) What is this thread Faulkner is speaking of? It seems to be the thread of human nature which binds all men however different, together. The attributes which are , tied together by this thread seem to be very similar to the components of the heart's driving complexity mentioned earlier. The mention of the past at first has the effect of linking Isaac to the wild and free men who first inhabited the land. But how is he free of them if his decision has been in emulation of them? Rather, it seems that the past is significant in providing a scope, a historical survey, through which has passed a single strain which has been broken by Isaac McCaslin. What is the significance of Isaac being free from this thread? How does it bear on the fact that he is forever childless, spurned by his wife, and believed even by his friends to have just given up? In effect he is rejecting society, by refusing to accept their established traditions of inheritance and property ownership. He marries, and thus enters society through its conventions, but he still manages to live amidst society but not of or in it. His wife cannot accept this, constantly being held in contempt even by the blacks, for example Lucas, who have witnessed his decision. She sleeps with him one final time, knowing he will never move onto the farm, and then becomes as remote to him. Isaac acknowledges that the wilderness will always be his mistress and wife. It is the communion with the wilderness which means the most to him. Old Ben and Lion and Sam are gone, but their spirits live on within the wilderness. He journeys back to the woods, not merely to hunt, and not merely to mourn their deaths, but also to celebrate their continued presence, albeit translated, within the wilderness. It is here that he almost steps upon the snake whom he calls "Grandfather." In recognizing Old Carothers in the snake, he is acknowledging Sam Fathers's influence. This buttresses the fact that their is no parallel �58 I I I mystery in the supposedly tamed and ordered land which can compare to the experience of the presence of the wilderness. This is what Isaac chooses over the farm and the conventions of society. He chooses a world which is fast disappearing before the onslaught of the modern world and its machinelike farms and mills. It is a world where silence and solitude reign supreme, where man is confronted with a sense of his own fragility and powerlessness. This experience seems only to be available in the tamed and ordered land in something like death; whereas, in the wilderness this confrontation is followed by an awareness of life, both of one's own and of the life of the wilderness. Given this, how can we understand the apparent contradiction which is voiced most aptly by Roth Edmonds while addressing Isaac in "Delta Autumn": "Where have you been all the time you were dead?" (p.329). The contradiction of purity versus compromise stems from the perception that society has of Isaac. To them he has quit, he has forsaken what was rightly his, and he has failed to carry on his name to the next generation. While the opinions of society in general are often mean-spirited and narrow, the reader has several questions of his own which parallel these opinions. Why doesn't Isaac sell the land he inherits and buy back part of the wilderness? Why doesn't he assume control of the farm and make it a model of justice and equity? Why does he not regret the fact that he will never have a son to mark as Sam Fathers did him? How can his ideals and concern for the wilderness outlive him? These questions refer to the moral tradition with which Isaac was raised. He learned a nobility, a pride in oneself for having the humility to accept unchangeable conditions, and the endurance and sufferance to outlast them. However, this moral code seemed inundated with a sense of fatality that may often accompany nobility. This was due to the fact that the hunter had to embrace a contradiction: he loved the land and the creatures which inhabited it, yet he also killed some of those creatures. This carries with it a responsibility (not to overhunt, for example), but it still does not take away the fact that the hunter kills what he loves. Isaac early on feels part of something big and privileged to participate in it, but he never feels the impetus to try and change what to him is the established order. Thus, when Isaac inherits the land, he not only takes seriously the idea that the land is no one's, and should properly be held in common, but he is also 59 overcome by the evils that have been perpetrated on the farm. The blacks are basically still slaves, and some of them are living evidence of the white man's license. If he were to assume ownership and then sell it, he would merely be passing the farm and all its evils on to someone else, who more than likely would continue to perpetuate these evils. The refusal is key, a deliberate forsaking of the established mores of society. He cannot forsake his ideals to save them. Likewise accepting ownership of the land to become a wise and generous landlord would be futile. The farm, the solvent and ever increasing machine which binds people to the land for the duration of their lives, would snap him up into its jaws in a second. No matter how hard he tries, he would be bound to the land as well, constrained to make others work, to raise or lower p~ices according to the dictates of the economy, and to sell and buy from cheats, skinflints, and harsh overseers. He would become a cog in the machine no matter how pure his intentions were. Lastly, Isaac has no son. He tries to break free of his blood, from the specter of his grandfather as manifested in the farm which becomes in minutia a model of the South. In so doing he alienates himself from the society of man, not just the tainted, corrupt, profit driven society, but also from the political life of man, of families, friendship, stewardship, and civic responsibility. In freeing himsel£ he means to free his descendants; but this freeing instead insures that he will have no descendants. It seems that we cannot separate man's passions and desires from the arena in which they are played out. To love is a glorious thing, but the very nature of love involves another person and one cannot love without compromise and negogiation, which are governed or at least overseen by the society of man. Isaac frees himself from love and responsibility; he becomes "father to no one and uncle to half the county" (p.286). Who is Isaac McCaslin? Is h e a visionary or a failure? It is through his eyes that the reader experiences both the wilderness and the bear. Both fragile-in that they are mortal-yet their presence is anything but. They reduce man to weakness and fragility, but also incite him to wonder and awe. They are not gods, not even in the Olympian sense, but huge, sentient beings who make man aware of the bigness of creation whose origins or causes are unknown. Their brooding inattentiveness or furious grasping of freedom leads man to contemplation not just of themselves but of the drama of which they are a part. It is Isaac who sees that they are doomed, not just because they are mortal but because there seems to be a higher, remote and mysterious plan in which man's role is so miniscule he seems almost a spectator. It is Isaac who also sees their sublimity and grandeur, and who brings them to life for us, so that we can be awed by them as well. If, as he says, he is "an Isaac born into a later life than Abraham's and repudiating immolation: fatherless and therefore safe declining the altar" (p.270), then why does he flee? Does the sacrifice entail entering into society, fathering children to carry on his name, and teaching them how to respect and love the wilderness and the life it contains? In order to save the wilderness must he enter into the mazed complexity of the human heart, where his ideals and beliefs may become muddled, confused, or bent? Or is he analogous to John Brown, that one silence among the moiling and yapping of humanity (p.272), that defiance of society's contradiction, that causes God to turn his face back to the South? Because, as in "Delta Autumn" (p.337), he is content to see the wilderness die with him, is he instead similar to Uncle Hubert, who bestows a legacy to the next generation yet bankrupts it within his own lifetime? For we see the fullness of Isaac's youth, his love affair with the wilderness and his message of hope to the oppressed blacks, yet we also see him in "Delta Autumn," where the granddaughter of James Beauchamp (also his distant cousin) asks him, "Old man, have you lived so long and forgotten so much that you don't remember anything you ever knew or heard or even felt about love?" (p.346 ). He cannot recognize love any longer. She also accuses Isaac of spoiling the Edmondses by giving them the farm that they are not entitled to. Isaac possesses the same type of insight which John Brown possessed. However, John Brown's decision spurred him to an action: an attempt to subvert society. Isaac's decision, while itself an act, leads him to inaction, at least within society. He is ignored by society, and ignores it in turn. He believes he will find peace in his decision, because he will not have the responsibilities that society will place upon him as a prominent landowner, and which will inevitably corrupt him. However, his decision insures that the McCaslin curse will live on at the (now) Edmonds plantation. Even with his repudiation, he still must bequeath the feeble monetary salve which cannot bandage the gaping would of McCaslin rapaciousness. He is still beholden to society and its evils, regardless of his rejection of it. Since he has rejected society, and yet has not removed himself completely from it, must we see him as a failure? For his repudiation has also guaranteed that he will have no son, and thus no one to mark as Sam did him. Does he thus appear to be like Uncle Hubert, who bankrupted his own legacy? The answer is no. We owe much to Isaac for his refusal to be "tainted" by the modern world. His love for the wilderness and the life within it are important not only because they are values held in poor esteem today, but also because his spiritual understanding of them challenges the self-absorbed modern man to experience and acknowledge the being outside of himself Isaac's failure to enact a unity between the wilderness and the modern, profit-driven world is tragic but understandable, because this schism still exists today. Although one cannot ever truly escape society, it serves to define the nature of the conflict as it did with Lucas Beauchamp and Sam Fathers. His failure to completely remove himself from society serves to remind us how important it is, and Isaac's purity in the face of it reveals to us how decrepit and in need of reform it has become. The wilderness will die with him because he was the only one pure enough to truly see it as it is. The lack of such a purity, both in the now extinct wilderness, and in ourselves, will make our own search for truth through the labyrinthine passions of our heart that much more difficult. He has not bankrupted the legacy, for we are the children who, by reading about him, have been marked with his heritage. + Notes: I . Go Down1 Moses1 Vintage International Press. 2 . All citations from same edition as previous. �60 6I Freedom and Limitation: The Understanding in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason Todd Pytel, A99 I I I have only one experience, the elements of which can always be compared to each other according to certain fundamental relations. Immanuel Kant uses this simple reflection to bind together his philosophy of the powers and limitations of human understanding in his Critique ef Pure Reason. This, according to Kant, allows us to steer through the dangerous strait between skepticism, the view that reason can know nothing with certainty, and fanaticism, the opposing view that reason has no limits (BI28). Just how such a reflection does this is explained in the Transcendental Deduction. In this section, Kant attempts to prove that all incoming sensible intuition must always be subject to the conditions of one possible experience. These conditions have an intimate connection to the categories, a priori concepts that Kant discovers through reflection upon the table of logical judgments.1 A reasonable first reading of this very difficult section might lead to the following summary: all appearances are shaped by original apperception into harmony with the categories, otherwise they would not form parts of one unified experience. Thus the categories seem to be innate predispositions that determine the one and only way that we can view the world. Such a view seems consonant with Kant's description of the transcendental unity of apperception as a condition for all cognition as well as his description of the categories as concepts which correspond to the forms of thought. But a few important passages reveal that Kant views the categories in a different way. At the end of the first edition's transcendental deduction he remarks, "If we got the concepts [the categories J from ourselves, then they w~uld lack objective validity" (A I 29 ).2 This statement ts not obviously in conflict with the view of categories as predispositions. Kant has already ruled out any knowledge of the things-in-themselves. Thus, "objective validity" certainly does not refer to those things. We might indeed believe that "objective validity" is only our view of the unity of experience caused by the categories as predispositions. However, he decided in the second edition's version of the Deduction to expand the statement considerably. After ruling out the possibility of abstracting the categories from experience, he restates his view, "that the categories contain the bases, on the part of the understanding, of the possibility of all experience as such" (BI 6 7). But then he proposes and rejects a third possible view as a "middle course" between the above two views. This "middle course" holds that: [T]he categories are neither se]f-thought a priori first principles of our cognition, nor again are drawn from experience, but are subjective predispositions for thinking that are implanted in us and given to us simultaneously with our existence. (BI67) Kant dismisses this view, which is exactly the one most easily carried away from the Deduction, by noting that the "categories would in that case lack the necessity which belongs essentially to the concept of them." (BI 68) In the case of causality: I could then not say that the effect is connected with the cause in the object (i.e., connected with it necessarily), but could say only that I am so equipped that I cannot think this presentation otherwise than as thus connected. And this is just what the skeptic most longs to hear. (BI68) Clearly, we now have a problem. Kant consistently portrays the unity of apperception as a conditio_n of possible experience. In that case, the understandmg seems passive, merely processing the data in unalte~able forms of thought prescribed by original appercept1on. But in this passage, Kant clearly rejects as unsatisfactory the view that the categories are any sort of passive or subjective predispositions. Instead, they are "selfthought" first principles, which seem to allow the understanding a more active role in relation to appearances. Precisely how are the categories and the transcendental unity related in order to condition incoming appearances while retaining an active understanding? What does it mean for the categories to be "selfthought" and still have a claim to objective validity? And what is the philosophical importance of the distinction that Kant hopes to draw? What, then, do we mean when we talk about an object corresponding to, and hence also distinct from, cognition? We can easily see that this object must be thought only as something as such = x. For, after all, outside our cognition we have nothing that we could contrast with this cognition as something corresponding to it. (AI04-I05) I. The Transcendental Object = x If we are to reject characterizing the categories as subjective and passive predispositions, then we must immediately rule out looking solely to the understanding for their source. But where dse can we look if we wish to retain their character as concepts which are somehow related to the forms of judgment? One of Kant's earliest definitions of the categories points to a solution. He says that the categories "are concepts of an object as such whereby the object's intuition is regarded as determined in terms of one of the logical junctions in judging" (A95). Just how to read "an object as such" is unclear. If we were to take it as "any object" (that is, one of a number of potential objects), then the sentence would mean that the intuition of the particular object presented to me is unified according to certain preset functions (forms of thought) expressed by the categories. Unfortunately, this is the same as saying that the categories are predispositions. Instead, what if "an object as such" refers not to one of many objects, but instead to one original object, like a blueprint which specifies what any possible object must look like? An "object as such" would then be like a "form of an object." Such a reading solves some problems while introducing others. If the categories are concepts of some original object that the understanding has access to, then we have succeeded in moving the source of the categories outside of the understanding, provided that this object is in some way distinct from the understanding. According to this view, the categories would be derived from the understanding's analysis of an original object logically prior to any specific object of experience. But what role would such an object play in the process of synthesizing the manifold of intuition? And how would the understanding's access to one original object be practically different than a subjective predisposition? To answer these questions, we must turn to the Transcendental Deduction, and particularly to Kant's discussion of the "synthesis of recognition in the concept" (AI03-I IO). He remarks there that we should clarify what we mean by an "object of presentations," asking. Kant again uses a peculiar locution, "something as such," similar to the "object as such" at A95. Here, he uses the phrase to denote an object removed as far as possible from our cognitions. This "something as such x" (I will henceforth call it the general object, to avoid confusion with other specific Kantian terms) is not a thing-in-itself A thing-in-itself is never an object of our understanding, since it must be perceived before it reaches the understanding. Once it has been perceived, it is an appearance, by definition no longer the thing-in-itself. With the general "x," however, we are dealing with an object present to the undtrstanding prior to any actual experience. Thus, it "corresponds to" cognition because all objects require cognition. However, it remains "distinct from" cognition because it is not an object given in cognition. An object given by cognition would be a specific concept, such as unity or causality. Hence, this general object seems to occupy some sort of limbo between an actual, specific concept and the thing-in-itself which is never present to the understanding. It is still unclear, however, how such a strange thing would fit into the actual process of cognition that Kant has described. = II. Synthesis and Cognition To approach this problem, we should briefly recall Kant's discussion of synthesis in general, introduced just before the categories at A77-80. There, he divides the synthesis of the manifold, "cognition," into three necessary components: intuition, imagination, and unification (A79). Any cognition must begin by receiving some sensible intuition, be it empirical sensation or an a priori intuition of space or time. But a mere intuition is never used by the understanding. Instead, it is taken up by the imagination, which acts as an intermediary. This mediation by the imagination creates several problems of its own. Most significantly, it appears that imagination plays its own role in shaping cognition alongside that of the general object. This would lead at least to a complication, if not to a �T 63 62 conflict, in the process of cognition. But, these problems can be solved only after we understand the role of the general object. So, let us pass by for the moment the difficulties involved with the imagination and try to explain as well as possible how the general object acts in the unification of a sensible manifold. Assuming, then, that the imagination has produced an image for the understanding, the rem~ining step is the unification of the produced manifold. This unification is later explained as dependent on the schemata, which are rules for assembling the manifold in a certain way. The role of the schemata is most easily understood in the context of the unification by empirical concepts, as opposed to the unification by the categories, which rely on the more subtle transcendental schemata. In this simpler case, Kant explains how the schemata provide the concept with true universality as follows: Even less is an object of experience or an image thereof ever adequate to the empirical concept; rather, that concept always refers directly to the schema of imagination, this schema being a rule for determining our intuition in accordance with such and such a general concept. (A I 4 I) I I Later, Kant will use the a priori intuition of time to explain the transcendental schemata (that is, the ones corresponding to the categories) in a similar way. Thus, we may safely say, in general, that the understanding unifies the manifold presented to it by applying a certain rule. This rule, in turn, points to a corresponding concept. A concrete example may help to illustrate this view of cognition. Let us choose an empirical concept as an example, since its components do not involve the complexities of the transcendental schemata. Accordingly, let us suppose that we have the concept of "dog," which is defined by a schema that assembles, in a determinate way, the three elements "fur," "barks," and "four-legs." The process of cognition would then run as follows. First, sensibility receives intuitions. These intuitions have not yet been presented to the understanding, and thus I am not consciously aware of them. Then, the' imagination takes up these intuitions and presents them to the understanding as the elements "fiur," "b arks," an d "£ 10ur-1 "L ast1 t he egs. y, understanding finds that the schema corresponding to "dog" applies to the given arrangement of elements. In other words, the particular elements, and their relations to one another, actually present are the same as the elements af,ld relations that the understanding finds in the schema corresponding to "dog." Accordingly, the given appearance is unified and cognized as "dog." With this simplified example in mind, we are prepared for Kant's view of the general object in cognition. In a discussion about cognizing a triangle, he remarks that: [W]hen we think of a triangle as an object, we do so by being conscious of the assembly of three straight lines according to a rule whereby such an intuition can always be exhibited. Now this unity ef the rule determines all that is mani-. fold, and limits it to conditions that make possible the unity of apperception. And the concept of this unity is the presentation of the object = x, i.e., the object that I think through the mentioned predicates of a triangle. (AIOS-106) The first sentence here sounds almost exactly like the unification in synthesis outlined above, except that he has not yet introduced the technical term "schema" for the determining rule. How, then, does the rule, or schema, relate to the general object? The second sentence of the passage describes the effect of the "unity of the rule:' What does Kant mean by saying that the schema is unified? I believe, in light of the adjective "this," that the "unity" refers back to the previous sentence's assertion that, according to this rule, such an intuition could always be exhibited. A concept, by its very nature, is universal. It refers, through a schema, to one thing in various circumstances. "Such an intuition" can be assembled in the same way regardless of the situation. If it could not, then it would not be "one such" intuition but several. One concept would refer to two essentially different things, which would be absurd. The next part of the sentence explains the effect of a schema that links one concept to one object in different situations. Kant states that the unity of the rule "determines all that is manifold." That is, the rule places several disparate appearances into a determined, fixed order with certain definite relationships present to our mind. In the dog example, the rule would change three unconnected . e1 ements ( "b arks," "£ 10ur-1 " "fu r ") mto t h ree e1 egs, ements connected in a system ("barks + four-legs + fur"). But at this point, the elements, though related, are not considered as one thing. The fmal part of the sentence, "[The unity of the rule J limits [all that is manifold] to conditions that make possible the unity of apperception," brings back the question of the imagination's production of rule-governedness. Let us pass it by for the moment, for only with hindsight can we understand how the rule makes possible the unity of apperception while still not inhibiting the active role of the understanding. Kant's last sentence in the quotation above (AIOS-106) gives us the key to understanding the role of the general object in cognition. Here, Kant introduces another new phrase, "the concept of the unity." By this I believe him to mean the concept that corresponds to the elements connected by the rule, e.g. the "dog" that corresponds to the "barks + four-legs + fur." How, then, is "dog" a "presentation of the object = x," that is, the general object? Now, we will soon see that "dog," being empirical, is not simply a presentation of the general object. In fact, only the categories are direct determinations of "x," while "dog" would be a composite of those fundamental categorial determinations. But let us follow the dog for the sake of simplicity. To resume, Kant says that the concept of the unity is thought "through the mentioned predicates." I take this to mean that some of the characteristics present in the indeterminate object = x are determined and presented to the understanding by the application of ~he rule to the given appearances. A specific concept, then, is a determination of the general object= x. Kant will later reaffirm the presence of the general object in all cognition, saying that: The pure concept of this transcendental object (which object is actually always the same, = x, in all our cognitions) is what is able to provide all our empirical concepts in general with reference to an object, i.e., with objective reality." ( AI09-I IO) Thus, the general object = x is always present in cognition and is determined (that is, made into a specific concept) by the understanding's application of a schema to the appearances. If we read between the lines here, we can see that the notion of a general object becoming a specific one is implied by Kant's description of the object as "= x." The process of synthesis is, in many ways, analogous to the process of solving an algebraic equation. The numbers given in an equation, e.g. "3 + 2 sin30°," correspond to the manifold ,of intuition presented to the understanding. If we add "= x" to the end of "3 + 2 sin30°," then we say that the left side is equal to "x:' This "x," by itself equal to any possible number, is limited to only one number when it is placed in the equation. This number can be found by calculating the values on the left side and finding their relation to one another. Then, of course, the right side is no longer "=x"; instead, it is equal to "4." The general "x" has been reduced to the specific number in a way similar to the determination of the general object = x in all cognition of objects. This analogy, taken together with Kant's discussion of the categories as "concepts of an object as such" (quoted above, from A95), takes us a great distance towards solving our original problem: explaining how the categories are not simply predispositions of the understanding. The categories are not characteristics of the understanding, but are rather the concepts that the understanding fmds presented to it by the general object = x. Given a set of appearances "equal" to, i.e. organized by, the general object "x," and given the characteristics, the categories, that the understanding discovers a priori in that object, the understanding can solve the equation, determining the manifold in a certain manner, expressed by the schema. But there seems to be a significant departure from the algebraic analogy when the origin of the categories is considered. In an algebraic equation, we say that we solve for x "in terms of" the other elements of the equation. All of the order and relation in the equation comes from the side of the equation with the numbers and relations. This is similar to cognition insofar as we determine one specific concept from the presented manifold. But for a priori cognitions, the manifold can only be determined in twelve ways (one for each category). Since these categories are the concepts of the . general object, it seems that the unknown "x" is exerting some influence on the given manifold, unlike the algebraic example, where the "x" is entirely determined by the other side of the equation. But then do both sides of the "equation" of cognition play a significant part in organizing the sensible manifold. That is, is there only one ordering of the manifold, by the unknown "x"? Or is the manifold already arranged when it is presented and then rearranged? These questions will be examined shortly when we look at the imagination, but in either case we now have a sense of what Kant means when he says that the categories are "self-thought." Even though the �64 65 general object = x, and thus the categories as. t~at object's characteristics, are present in all cogmtton, the understanding is not, in its nature, limited to them. If a different general object "= y," utterly unlike our familiar "x," were presented to the understanding, then the understanding could find new categories that would apply to any appearances set equal to that "y." We shall soon see that the fact that we have only one experience shows that we have only one general object, with the familiar categories derived in the Metaphysical Deduction. But this singular experience of the understanding does not detract from its nature as an active, unlimited power of the mind. Once we have traced the source of the categories to the general object = x, however, we may then ask where that object comes from, and what it really means to say that the categories are objectively valid. These questions bring us at last to apperception and imagination. ID. Apperception and Imagination I I In our discussion of the object= x, we have heard almost nothing of one of Kant's central terms: apperception. If the act of cognition is in so~e way like solving an equation, how does appercept10n affect it? And from where does that apperception's transcendental unity arise? It will be important first to clear up exactly what sort of thing apperception is. On one hand, Kant's connection of it to self-consciousness might make it sound something like an "ego." But its relation to the categories makes it sound more like a thought process. Then again, its name might suggest that it is a power or capacity like perception.Two of Kant's statements help to clarify this confusion. He says first that "in original apperception everything must nec~ssaril~ conform to the conditions of the thoroughgomg umty of self-consciousness" (AI I2). Shortly afterwards, he remarks that "nothing can enter cognition without doing so by means of this original apperception" (AI 13-114). The use of the preposition "in" and especially the prepositional phrase "by means of" point to the last of the above alterna~ives: that apperception is a power or capacity. We might say that things are given to the understanding "through" apperception in the same way we speak of an intuition passing "through" sensibility. Furthermore, the second sentence quoted above leads to the defmition of apperception in terms of the algebraic analogy to cognition. It states that all things must enter cognitioh through apperception. But what does it mean to enter cognition but to set the entering appearances equal to the general object = x? Thus, we can say, in terms of our analogy, that apperception is the power of applying x" to a given set of appearances. Though this power is a necessary component ?f the human mind, it is distinct from the understanding, which is the power of fmding rules (AI26-I27). The power of this definition is that it immediately reveals the source both of the categories and the transcendental unity of apperception. The categories are the characteristics of the object = x, present to the understanding prior to all cognition. The transcendental unity of apperception is the unity produced by the constancy of this object in all cognitions. Sinc.e the object is constant, the categories must apply to all p.ossible cognition, that is, all possible experience. And if all possible experience can be cognized accord~g to the same concepts, that experience is unified. Fmally, this definition of apperception clarifies Kant's distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. The categories are objectively valid because they stem from apperception, which is a power outside the unde~stand­ ing. But because the human mind deals only with . appearances, the categories can never have ~ s~urce m the thing-in-itself. The most that can be said is that they originate in apperception, ~hich is no.t part of our active power of understandmg. T~e ev~dence ~or such a view and its philosophical ramificat10ns will be taken up shortly. . The last of Kant's terms that plays an tmportant role in ordering cognitions is imagination. He often ascribes to it an active power to synthesize the manifold. For example, he states that: a= [P]erceptions need to be given a combination that in sense itself they cannot have. Hence there is in us an active power to synthesize this manifold. This power we call imagination; and the act that it performs directly on perception (AI20-I2I) I call apprehension. If it is simply true that the imagination arranges intuitions before the understanding unifies them, then two distinct arrangements are taking place, one by the . imagination and one by the general object. Such a pair of arrangements would be troubling. How would the two work together? Would the ~ategories be ~f~ected? And even if that could be explamed, wouldn t it seem like a needlessly complicated theory? Such questions, reasonable as they seem, rest upon a false separation of the arrangement by the imagination and the application of the general object through apperception. The two are, in fact, the same act. The basic function of the imagination "is to bring the manifold of intuition to an . image; hence it must beforehand take the impressions up into its activity, i.e., apprehend them" (AI2I). To change intuitions into an image is to present them to the understanding. But the understanding only deals with images to be cognized into an object. This cognition, moreover, is the process of applying "= x" to appearances. It is thus absurd to say that the imagination's presentation is truly separable from the application of the general object, because such a presentation would then somehow be present to the understanding even though it was not an object of cognition. I believe that Kant refers to this yoking of imagination and apperception when he states that: The mind could not possibly think its own identity... if it did not have present to it the identity of its act-the act that subjects all synthesis of apprehension ... to a transcendental unity, and thereby first makes possible the coherence of those presentations according to a priori rules. (AI08-I09) The identity of the mind's act must refer to the single general object = x that is present in, and is the essential act of, all cognition. This identity subjects the synthesis of apprehension (that is, the synthesis and arrangement of the manifold by the imagination) to a coherence of rules. Hence, while the imagination and apperception are two subtly different powers, they are bound within a single act, the imagination's presentation of the manifold to the understanding through the "equation" of that manifold with the general object presented by apperception. IY. Conclusion This description of the categories as characteristics of "general object = x" gives us the beginning of a path through the Transcendental Deduction. We have shown that Kant believes the categories to be concepts of the general object, the presentation of which is the power of apperception and the beginning of cognition. This power is distinct from the understanding. Because of this, we know that the understanding is not limited in its nature and that the categories are not subjective predispositions. Instead, they are "self-thought" concepts that the understanding fmds in the general object prior to all cognition. But for all this, questions still remain. What evidence does Kant have for considering apperception to be distinct from the understanding? And what importance could such a distinction possibly have for a system of philosophy? Kant gives us no clear answer for these questions, but we can draw some inferences from the remarks that end the Deduction in the second edition. He states that, if the categories were subjective predispositions: [T]hen all our insight, achieved through the supposed objective validity of our judgments, is nothing but sheer illusion; and there would also be no lack of people who would not concede this subjective necessity (which must be felt) in themselves. At the very least one could not quarrel with anyone about something that rests merely on the way in which his self as subject is organized. (B168-I69) The last sentence, while holding the false hypothesis that the categories are part of the understanding, reveals Kant's view that it is the understanding that we properly call the "self." Since he is in fact rejecting the attribution of the categories to the understanding, i.e. the particular individual, should we infer that he believes that the origin of the categories in apperception makes them common to all human beings? It seems impossible to fmd any direct, conclusive evidence for such a view. But if we accept the theory we have sketched out from the Deduction, a cer ain plausibility is revealed. Let us take for granted, then, that there is a general object = x which is the same in all cognition. This object would have, as explained above, an active power to arrange the manifold of intuition. But it would also be static, insofar as the object presented is always the same. Now, it seems likely that such a constant power would never originate in the understanding, which is both active and varied, in that the understanding finds different rules to govern different appearances that are presented to it. Instead, we might speculate that apperception has a physical source. After all, we expect physical bodies to behave in constant, predictable ways just as we believe apperception to act. Apperception, as well as the categories that it entails, might then be linked to the phys- �66 67 ical structure of the thinking mind. This connection would make Kant's philosophy compatible with the ever-mounting scientific evidence for an understanding of thought as a chemical or biological process. In addition, this view gives some suggestion that the categories are common to all human beings, since we believe that we are essentially physically identical to other men. Thus, Kant's doctrine is both consistent with our knowledge of the physical world and suggestive of common modes of thought among mankind. Implications other than that are more difficult to sketch out. From a practical, individual perspective I can see no difference between a "subjective" predisposition and the constancy of the general object. In either case, the understanding is forced to cognize an object in a way which is not at all determined by the thing-in-itself. But Kant has concerns apart from questions of practical objective validity. By keeping the source of the categories outside of the understanding, Kant is keeping in mind what he considers the three necessary problems in philosophy: God, freedom, and immortality (Bxxx ), all of which bear on moral questions. Speaking of freedom and morality, he states: All I need for morality is that freedom does not contradict itself and hence can at least be thought ..... [AJll I need is that freedom in my act puts no obstacle whatever in the way of the natural mechanism that governs the same act. (Bxxix-xxx) I I The categories as predispositions of the understanding would be just this sort of obstacle. For how could any sort of freedom (empirical or transcendental) be maintained if the understanding, by its very nature, were confined to twelve distinct forms of thought and no more? The importance of this freedom is amplified when we consider with it the above suggestion that apperception is the same for all men. If man's mind is essentially free, and his apperception identical to that of others, we have the foundation for a rational ethics that applies to all men. Such an ethics might well be different than previous systems, since Kant accepts that all phenomena, including actions, are governed by cause and effect in the empirical world. But it is a beginning nonetheless. The separation of understanding and apperception has similar ramifications for religious faith and immortality. Kant certainly acknowledges the possibility of faith, even if, according to the Transcendental Dialectic, such faith cannot be obtained rationally. But by separating apperception from the understanding (that is, the self), Kant preserves the possibility of a truly transcendent afterlife. If my self, and not my apperception, lives on after death, then the afterlife would be completely beyond any earthly experience. Thus, Kant's doctrine saves him from a possible contradiction between his philosophy and personal faith. All of these considerations must have been at work in Kant's mind as he formulated his doctrine in the Transcendental Deduction. Though certainly subtle and difficult, the argument in the D eduction fulfills his goal of discovering both the limitations and the strengths of human understanding. Although, the understanding can never reach the things-in-themselves, it can at least realize the possibility of both a rational ethics and a transcendent immortality. Perhaps this lack of an extreme view causes some to label Kant as tedious. But he himself believes his work to be an exciting challenge, envisioning it as a safe passage between the "dangerous cliffs" of skepticism and fanaticism. And if we are to be impressed by Odysseus' passage between Scylla and Charybdis, or the achievement of Aristotle's virtuous mean between vices, we must indeed be impressed by both the depth and moderation of Kant's thought in the Critique ef Pure Reason. + Notes: I. I do not treat here the important question of how the categores as concepts relate to judgment as form. Such a topic would be more suitable for an examination of the Metaphysical Deduction. 2. All quotations are taken from Werner Pluhar's translation of the Critique (Hackett Publishing, I 996). All emphasis in quotations is Kant's. I have omitted the translator's braketing for simplicity. Thus, any bracketed insertions in quotations are my own. 3. We must remember that here, as elsewhere, Kant is speaking of logical, and not temporal, priority. I do not believe he would maintain that we are conscious of a general object before any specific object has been cognized. For a similar statement related to the forms of sensibility, se B 349. Aries, France, Vada Mossavat, AOO �69 68 JUNIOR Sympathy EssAY PRIZE,, and Selfishness in George Eliot's Middlemarcb Deborah Carlos, A99 n my essay this year I would like to examine one of the major themes in George Eliot's novel Middlemarch, the relationship between compassion for others and self-interest, and the way in which they each influence human actions and beliefs. Eliot illustrates the complex relation between the two, both within one person and between individuals, primarily through her depiction of two unhappy marriages. The unions of Dorothea Brooke and Edward Casaubon, and Tertius Lydgate and Rosamond Viney, are defined by the conflict of expectations that each has of the married state. These different expectations are the products of selfish inclinations, in which. the purpose of marriage is to achieve some other social or professional end, in which the spouse does not have any real · interest. (This is very different from the purpose that marriage has for the Garths and their daughter Mary, to live and raise a family with a partner worthy of love and respect, who returns such feelings.) Each makes the mistake of not looking for the real character of the future partner during courtship, but instead projects onto the person the ideal that is in his or her own mind. Marital strife soon disabuses them of these ideals, and the characters begin manifesting either compassionate or selfish behavior towards each other. Dorothea and Lydgate first repress and then sacrifice any interests of their own that displease their spouses, while Casaubon and Rosamond seek ways to assert themselves even more, without much consideration for the pain they cause. The idea of ardency is closely connected to Eliot's portrait of the relationship between compassion and selfishness, because both Dorothea and Lydgate have ardent natures, while Casaubon and Rosamond do not. Eliot defines ardency in the Prelude, in which she describes another ardent nature, Saint Theresa of Avila, the sixteenth century Spanish nun who reformed the Carmelite religious order. Theresa is portrayed as a passionate, idealistic woman with two intimat~ly related central desires: to accomplish a deed of clear unportance in the world, and to devote herself to an object worthy of all the serious thought and intense emotion she can expend on it, and would in return offer her the I I I possibility of self-transcendence. The latter desire is expressed at the end of the first paragr~ph of .the book: "some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile selfdespair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self" ( vii).1 The former is made explicit a few. sentences later, where Eliot specifies "a constant unfoldmg of far-resonant action" as the defming characteristic of an "epic" life, which a nature such as Theresa's "demanded". Eliot goes on to say that Theresa fulfilled her desires within the framework of the Catholic Church, which provided a "coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul" (viii). It is interesting that Eliot names the social conditions in which Theresa lived, dominated by the Church, as the source of the knowledge, in the form of religious faith, that was essential to her achievements, both in spirit and in action. Religion seems to be the only thing Eliot thinks can provide an endlessly fulfilling goal, with ideas ge~­ eral enough to be considered all embracing and .specific enough to guide one's own actions in everyd.ay life.' !he assurance of how actions can be matched with religious or moral beliefs, and of the positive consequences of those actions, is especially secure if one lives within a religious community, and not in the outside world. This social "medium", in which a woman like Theresa or Antigone could perform "ardent deeds" ( 8 ~ I) i~ lacking in the modern world, for Eliot early V~cto~ian England. In this society, the Anglican Church is either itself seen as an avenue for worldly success (by the money-minded manufacturer Mr. Viney) or as .a s~urce of justification for worldly success (by the. puntan.ic~l banker Mr. Bulstrode). This early emphasis on rehg10n in Eliot's discussion of ardency makes her later use of the word for Lydgate's enthusiasm for medic~e s~em. odd, but it is still appropriate, since he seeks m his science "the most direct alliance between intellectual conquest and the social good" (143) and is "ambitious of a wider effect. .. fired with the possibility that he might... make a link in the chain of discovery" ( 145). However Lydgate is called ardent only in reference to his work, and Eliot slyly remarks that "his intellectual ardour did not penetrate to his feeling and judgment about furniture or women" (149). In both Dorothea and Lydgate, the search for self-transcendence takes the form of the quest for the social good, both seeing the need for reform in different areas, with Lydgate obviously focused on medical practices. This tendency, in addition to the different role that religion plays for them, is a striking difference between their manifestations of ardency and Theresa's. Religious principles do not seem to concern Lydgate at all, while Dorothea is interested in them for the moral guidance they can provide for her actions. Eliot gives no indication that Theresa was ever interested in "social good," and the reformation of an order of nuns is not a mission that would result in making very many people in the world happier. This discrepancy is due to an emphasis on different aspects of Christianity on the part of Dorothea and Theresa, with Dorothea concerned with helping her neighbors in this world (i.e., building better cottages for the tenant farmers) and Theresa concerned with people living up to the moral requirements of a life of devotion. These two aspects are also contrasted in the different styles of the two clergymen nominated to be chaplain of the new hospital, Reverend Tyke and Reverend Camden Farebrother. Tyke is "methodistical" (183), strict, austere, and very concerned with the proper interpretation of religious doctrine, assuming that morality necessarily attends such concern. Farebrother, on the other hand, believes that the Church is the wrong vocation for him, and is very aware of his own inner conflicts relating to religious teaching, for example, about gambling, which he practices purely for the money. Since he sees himself as unfit to dispense hardand-fast rules of right conduct, he concentrates on offering solace and comfort to the suffering, and he is very well prepared to do this. Farebrother has the ability, which Dorothea develops, after a long struggle, to use "vivid sympathetic experience" as "acquired knowledge" (764), an ability resulting in feelings of non-judgmental compassion for people who are, he realizes, subject to the same passions and sorrows as he himself is. However, Farebrother has already paid a large price in personal happiness in return for this compassionate knowledge. He tells Lydgate, who has just cast the tie-breaking vote to give the chaplain's office to Tyke: The world has been too strong for me, I know ... But then I am not a mighty man ... shall never be a man of renown. The choice of Hercules is a pretty fable, but Prodicus makes it easy work for the hero, as if first resolves were enough. Another story says that he came to hold the distaff and at last wore the Nessus shirt. I suppose one good resolve might keep a man right if everybody else's resolve helped (184-5) him. Eliot comments: " ... he had not escaped that low estimate of possibilities which we rather hastily arrive at as an inference from our own failure". While Eliot does not explicitly say how Farebrother believes he has failed, she emphasizes his dislike of Tyke's sponsor Mr. Bulstrode, and the dogmatic religious hypocrisy that the banker uses his influence to spread. Perhaps Farebrother would like to oppose Bulstrode and others like him, even attempt to reform certain practices of Anglican Church, as Lydgate would like to reform the medical profession, but realizes that he does not have the strength or means to do so. While Eliot uses Farebrother to say that the world tends to make martyrs of great-spirited individuals, she also maintains that these great-spirited individuals often contribute to their own suffering. The Prelude includes the story of Theresa and her brother, while still children, leaving their home "to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors" (vii), showing that Theresa eagerly would have tried to accomplish a great act by getting herself murdered if she had not found less dangerous means. Likewise, Dorothea is "enamored of intensity and greatness and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek martyrdom, to make retractions, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a quarter where she had not sought it" (IO). Even Lydgate, with his well-focused ardency, is not free from such a tendency, as he shows in his admiration of persecuted physicians from the past, like Vesalius, who was forced to steal bones to study anatomy and "died rather miserably" ( 443). The very desire for self-transcendence, the opening up of the mind and emotions to experience things beyond the reach of the self, devalues the worth of the self, since such desire assumes that the perspective of a single person is too small for the most all-encompassing thought or feeling. This is a view that Eliot supports when she writes: "Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self" ( 407). Yet she does not seem to think that self-transcendence �71 70 which would lead to seeing beyond the speck of self is achieved very well simply through self-sacrifice, on a large or small scale. The tendency towards martyrdom is just as much a fault in the ardent nature as the tendency never to think of anything other than oneself is in the selfish nature, since neither leads to the practice . of much actual good in the world. It would seem that the desire and capacity for self-transcendence inherent in the ardent individual would lend itself to compassion. However, while no one is born compassionate, it does seem to be a quality that develops earlier and to a greater .extent in some people than in others. We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves: Dorothea had early begun to emerge from that stupidity, but yet it had been easier to her to imagine how she would devote herself to Mr. Casaubon and become wise and strong in his strength and wisdom than to conceive with that distinctness which is no longer reflection but feeling-an idea wrought back to the directness of sense, like the solidity of objects-that he had an equivalent center of self whence the lights and shadows must always fall with a certain difference. (208) I I But ardency is not required for compassion, even compassion involving self-sacrifice, as we see, again, in the character of Farebrother. He willingly gives up his courtship of Mary Garth when he learns that she and Fred Viney are in love, certainly a compassionate act, and a painful sacrifice. His motives are a mixture of resignation-Mary has told him that she could never love anyone else like she loves Fred-and genuine concern for the well being and happiness of both. Now, he could have tried to put Mary's claim to the test, and Eliot does hint that, if Mary were to love another man, it would be Farebrother. Being able to respect a man's character is essential to Mary's affection, and she already respects Farebrother greatly: she thinks he is "the cleverest man in her narrow circle" ( 503). This is an estimation that her mother, whom Mary strongly resembles in personality and taste, also made of her father Caleb (546), and we know where that led. But while Farebrother is not passionate or idealistic enough to be ardent, he has magnanimity enough to renounce any intention of proposing to Mary with his dignity and his sense of self intact. A revealing difference between Farebrother's more sophisticated compassion for Fred and Mary and Dorothea and Lydgate's raw pity for their spouses is in the view taken of the objects of compassion in each case. The idea of Casaubon and Rosamond as weak creatures requiring special care seems to be essential for inspiring compassion in Dorothea and Lydgate, while Farebrother respects Fred and Mary, although he worries about Fred's bad habits and lack of maturity. After Dorothea restrains an especially fierce outburst of anger, "she felt something like the thankfulness that might well up in us if we had narrowly escaped hurting a lamed creature" ( 4 I 6 ). Lydgate thinks, while comforting a tearful Rosamond, after her meeting with Dorothea, "he had chosen this fragile creature and had taken the burden of her life upon his arms. He must walk as he could, carrying that burden pitifully" (775). Such attitudes would seem offensive, if Casaubon and Rosamond were not as pathetic as they are. But the question remains, what does the presence of such an attitude indicate about compassion? Are there two different kinds of compassion, one judgmental and one not, or are these just different stages in the development of sympathetic feeling in a person? It seems useful to examine the main characters more closely in their relations with each other, and a good place to start is with their expectations before marriage, since the disappointment on all sides is largely due to these. For Dorothea, Casaubon's chief attractions are his extensive classical education, and his status as a clergyman, which she takes as evidence of profound religious faith and therefore certain knowledge of right action. She is "a girl whose notions about marriage took their color entirely fi-om an exalted enthusiasm about the ends of life" (29). She accepts Casaubon with the intention of helping him complete his life's work, The Key to All Mythologies) believing that in return she will receive the education, in both universal truths and how to apply them, that she feels is necessary to be sure of accomplishing anything worthwhile. "I should learn everything then;' she said to herself. ..." I should learn to see the truth by the same light as great men have seen it by. And then I should know what to do when I got older: I should see how it was possible to lead a grand life here-now-in England. I don't feel sure about doing good in any way now; everything seems like going on a mission to a people whose language I don't know.... " (30-1 ). This last comment emphasizes the importance of social context for ardent deeds. The understanding, appreciation, and practice of art, such as the paintings and statues that Dorothea sees in Rome, requires a social context analogous to that required for the understanding, appreciation and practice of ardency. Without it, not only do those who are inclined to make art not know how to go about it, they do not properly understand their own desire to do it, or the worth of anything that they might produce. But art still retains a confused power, even over those who are ignorant, as is seen in Dorothea: At first when I enter a room where the walls are covered with frescoes and rare pictures, I feel a kind of awe .... I feel myself in the presence of some higher life than my own. But when I begin to examine the pictures one by one, the life goes out of them or else is something violent and strange to me .... I am seeing so much at once and not understanding half of it.... It is painful to be told that anything is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine. . . (203) Before she learns to use her emotions and experience as a guide for her actions, there seems to be a parallel between Dorothea's approach to art and her approach to life in general. Only the perception of a whole, vast because it encompasses many individual things, unified through special knowledge, can move her to great feelings. She may wish to see the grandeur in a single painting, but she cannot. By the end of the novel, Dorothea has begun to feel that her own life and her actions can be fine, despite her lack of sure knowledge of why it would be so. Casaubon's motives for selecting Dorothea as a wife are equally revealing of his character. He had always intended to marry someday, but never fell in love with any woman, and apparently was sufficiently absorbed by his scholarly pursuits not to notice that many years were passing without a wedding. Dorothea fits his prudent standards for a suitable wife for a man like himself: "a blooming young lady-the younger the better, because more educable and submissive-of a rank equal to his own, of religious principles, virtu- ous disposition, and good understanding" (272). In fact, he believes that he has found even more in Dorothea, a woman who also displays a strong admiration for his intellectual goals and achievements, and who can help him conquer the persistent demon of self-doubt. However, Casaubon falsely believes that because Dorothea is a woman, she cannot or at least will not dare form opinions of her own. Since Casaubon himself will determine her opinion of him, her admiration will be complete, eternal and unquestioning, and serve as the self-confidence that he sorely lacks. He has no idea whatsoever that his wife has rigorous expectations of him, that he will be "a modern Augustine who united the glories of doctor and saint" (26). Consid~ring the utter lack of connection he feels between his life, even the living world in general, and his learning, he is singularly unsuited to teach Dorothea how to put theoretic principles into action, even if he had the desire to teach any to her in the first place: "such capacity of thought and feeling as had ever been stimulated in him by the general life of mankind had long shrunk to a sort of dried preparation, a useless embalmment of knowledge" (194). The very idea of teaching anyone anything would probably frighten him into paralysis, since it would require exposing himself to examination and ridicule, the student-teacher relationship by nature inviting mutual evaluation by both parties. Casaubon is so "nervously conscious that he was expected to manifest a powerful mind" (272) that he refuses to hire a secretary, for fear that some insolent young man (perhaps reminiscent of Will Ladislaw) would secretly, or not so secretly, think his mind not powerful. This fear is certainly the product of a hidden suspicion that he himself has, but will not admit, and he, "like the rest of us, fel how soothing it would have been to have a companion who would never find it out" ( 407). Lydgate shares the opinion that a wife should always be an uncritical admirer of her husband. Eliot, with sarcastic exaggeration, says he sees "his superior knowledge and mental force" as a "shrine to consult on all occasions" (567). However, he is young, self-assured and ardent in his profession, and needs no outside inspiration to urge him on after his goals. He is also so far from appreciating a woman with ambition and ideas of her own, that he observes upon first meeting Dorothea: "She did not look at things from the proper feminine angle. The society of such women was about as relaxing as going from your work to teach the second form instead of reclining in a paradise with sweet �72 73 I I laughs for bird-notes and blue eyes for a heaven" (95). Rosamond captures his interest because she fits so perfectly his conception of the ideal woman: beautiful, charming and sympathetic, someone with "that feminine radiance, that distinctive womanhood which must be classed with flowers and music, that sort of beauty which by its very nature was virtuous" (2 62). Indeed Eliot emphasizes how much Lydgate's attraction to her comes from this absorption of the popular image of womanhood, in which beauty means virtue, "the complexities of love and marriage ... being su~jects on which he felt himself amply informed by literature and that traditional wisdom which is handed down in the genial conversation of men" (162). His opinion that Rosamond will make a perfect wife is only reinforced by the sense of knowledge of women's nature that he took from his experience with the French actress Madame Laure when he was a medical student in Paris. At that time, he seems to have had an even less complicated conception of the ideal woman: all that Laure needs to attract him is her automatically virtuous beauty and silence, which he sees as "melancholy radiance" ( 151 ). The course of this ill-starred romance runs parallel to Lydgate's later involvement with Rosamond. He falls in love from afar with a beautiful woman, indulges a fantasy of her perfection while having no intention of ever becoming involved with her, then impetuously decides to propose under the impression that she suffers from some grief and needs a comforter. (To be fair to Lydgate in his youth, Laure is married when he first becomes enamored of her, so pursuing a relationship would be against his better judgment.) Fortunately for him, Laure is not interested in remarrying after her husband's death, and she cures Lydgate's ill-conceived ideal by confessing that she killed Monsieur Laure because she was tired of him. Lydgate realizes he has been a fool, but he is too tender-hearted to become bitter, and vows in the future to get to know a woman's character more thoroughly before asking to marry her, "entertaining no expectations but such as were justified beforehand" (152). His disappointment is severe when he realizes that, while Rosamond is beautiful, charming and sensitive (and not a murderess) she is not sympathetic, towards him or anyone else. Of the four, Rosamond's motives for marrying Lydgate seem to be the most shallow, since the benefits she seeks in marriage are entirely concerned with appearance. For her, Lydgate's chief attractions are his aristocratic family, the fact that he's not from Middlemarch, and his potential to provide money and material things. However, Rosamond is not merely mercenary; if she were, she could simply marry the rich young tradesman Ned Plymdale, but she wants a husband who is wealthy and well-mannered and handsome. In Rosamond's romance it was not necessary to imagine much about the inward life of the hero or of his serious business in the world; of course he had a profession and was clever as well as sufficiently handsome, but the piquant fact about Lydgate was his good birth, which... presented marriage as a prospect of .. . getting a little nearer to that celestial condition on earth in which she would have nothing to do with vulgar people. . . . ( l 64). Rosamond, like Casaubon, is chiefly interested in how she is perceived by others, with some differences that seem mostly due to her gender. Of course she must be constantly concerned with her physical appearance, while the good Reverend can blissfully ignore his moles, because beauty in a woman is by its nature virtuous, but is not so in man. Whatever natural inclination to selfconsciousness may be in Rosamond has been greatly enhanced by her education at Mrs. Lemon's school, which has trained her to be "adorned with accomplishments for the refined amusement of man" (263). She is scrupulous about not showing any "unbecoming knowledge" (262), in fact all she needs to know in order to determine the best way to act is "what her audience liked" (159). In contrast to Dorothea's simplicity and lack of concern for appearances in general, Rosamond has "that controlled self-consciousness of manner which is the expensive substitute for simplicity" ( 4 l 9) which requires having "an audience in her own consciousness" (159). One of the reasons she is so fond of Lydgate is her belief that he will, with the discriminating taste of a man whose uncle is a baronet, appreciate her far more than any of the provincial young men of Middlemarch possibly could. Thus the stage is set for intense marital strife between the Casaubons and the Lydgates, which provides a good showcase for the conflict between self-centeredness and compassion. It is easy to categorize Casaubon and Rosamond as selfish, and Dorothea and Lydgate as compassionate, if misguided, and 0is seems to be an accurate appraisal. However, for Ehot, self-centeredness is quite ordinary, and seems to be the natural result of being only one person with a single point-of-view, as every individual is: Your pier-glass... made to be rubbed by a housemaid will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a center of illumination, and lo, the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun .... These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person (258) now absent. . . . Rosamond is slyly given as an example of a "person now absent," but this "parable" does not seem to refer exclusively to such exceptional egoism as hers. But while it may be natural to perceive the events that happen around us, not only directly to us but also to our neighbors and our business rivals, in relation to ourselves, it is a limited view that leads to unnecessary bitterness and grief. The self-centered individual has scant resources for recovering from misfortune, because it is a direct blow to the ego, or the sense of the self. The compassionate individual knows that the concentricity is an illusion, and this knowledge helps protect the self from being crushed if the candle is blown out and the scratches are revealed as random and chaotic. When Will Ladislaw makes Rosamond aware that she is not the object of love for all the men who know her, as she is naive and selfish enough to believe, she feels close to "losing her sense of identity" (755). The illusion that because she is beautiful, amiable, and refined, she is therefore the proper object of love for any man is the foundation for her idea of herself. She indulges the fan tasy that Will is in love with her, or at least as much in love with her as with Dorothea, until he rudely shatters it. During an early conversation, when Rosamond asks Will what men think about when with Mrs. Casaubon, meaning what qualities does she have, Will responds simply "Herself" (422). Rosamond does not appreciate this answer. The exceptional thing about Casaubon and Rosamond is not that they are selfish, but the degree to which they are. Their preoccupation with how others see them, which in Rosamond leads to vanity and in Casaubon, to crippling self-doubt, is a symptom of their defmition of themselves solely in terms of outward requirements. Casaubon fails to experience joy in marriage because "the deeper he went in domesticity, the more did the sense of acquitting himself and acting with propriety predominate over any other satisfaction" (274). Unfortunately for him, Dorothea is not a woman satisfied by meeting outward requirements, but inward. Casaubon does not have any feeling for the importance of these outward requirements apart from his own reputation, but both he and Rosamond share a need to be beyond blame in any situation. One gets the impression that if doing the opposite were not considered proper and expected in their respective cases, and afforded opportunity for praise, then Rosamond would feel no qualms about yelling at her husband and Casaubon would have left Will as an illiterate in some orphanage. Such reliance upon the judgments of others for the determination of one's actions and opinions betrays the absence of a solid, independent sense of self, although such a lack seems paradoxical in the two most self-centered characters in the book. Is compassion conducive to such a sense of self? Do Dorothea and Lydgate display more of such a sense before or after their marriage trials? Dorothea and Lydgate both respond initially to the discovery that their marriages are not what they had hoped for with self-accusation, frustration, despair and anger. Indeed, most of the effort that Dorothea and Lydgate expend in repressing their feelings is focused on their anger, that most accusatory of emotions, and most offensive to their spouses, who wish to avoid accusation. Anger is also exceedingly difficult to reconcile with compassion, especially if it is perceived to be just anger. After her very first quarrel with Casaubon during their honeymoon in Rome, Dorothea is already determined not to let anger guide her actions, and so she goes to the Vatican museum with her husband, rather than stay to sulk in her room. "However just her indignation might be, her ideal was not to claim justice, but to give tenderness" (I 99). This argument started when Dorothea asked her husband when he planned to start actually writing his book, seeing that he had acquired literally volumes of notes. The anger she expresses on this occasion is tempered from the start by a guilty awareness of her own selfishness in wanting more from Casaubon, namely the opportunity finally to put her ardency to use by helping him with his great work: "what she inwardly called her selfishness" (196). Given her view of her marriage as a "state of higher duties" ( 42) in which all obligations take precedence over her personal desires, she is bound to see any preoccupation with her own needs as selfish. Her honeymoon is a time of great pain and confusion for Dorothea, and she fmds it hard to maintain her previous dedication to the high ends of life in the face of the daily struggle to under- �74 stand and cope with a husband who is not at all interested in her concerns. "And by a sad contradiction Dorothea's ideas and resolves seemed like melting ice floating in the warm flood of which they had been but another form. She was humiliated to find herself a mere victim of feeling, as if she could know nothing except through that medium: all her strength was scattered in fits of agitation ... "(195). This remark is very revealing, because it emphasizes the paradox that Dorothea, a woman of intense emotions, should distrust her feelings so. Here, her need for principle and knowledge, which she disassociates from passion, comes from the very intensity of her emotions, and is only at base another form of them. This may indeed be a paradox inherent in any ardent nature, and is worth further consideration in another essay. The second quarrel between Dorothea and Casaubon, after they have returned to Lowick, is even more interesting. The occasion this time is the arrival of two letters from Will Ladislaw, who had become friends with Dorothea in Rome, and in one of them requests permission to visit. Before she even reads the correspondence, Casaubon announces his intention of prohibiting his cousin from coming, and implies that Dorothea will be upset by this. "This gratuitous defense of himself against selfish complaint on her part" (275) when she has not even made any complaint, is too much for her to endure silently. Dorothea is so angry for several reasons, not all of which she admits to herself: she would like to see Will, regardless of whether she is really in love with him at this point; she would voluntarily hide her pain at not being allowed to do so to spare Casaubon grief; she thinks it unfair for him to restrict both herself and Will from a harmless mutual pleasure; and she is sensitive to the charge of selfishness. It is not so easy for her to conquer her anger this time, and she allows it to come through silently in the fierce energy she expends on copying a Latin text, even after expressing it vocally to her husband. However, she soon receives a powerful check to her indignation when Casaubon has an apparently agitation-induced fit of "bodily distress" (277), and Lydgate diagnoses heart trouble. Dorothea feels intense remorse and guilt, and becomes aware with depressing certainty that Casaubon, who never made progress with his book when he was healthy, will surely never finish it now that there is the additional obstacle of illness. Casaubon's attack is a turning-point in the marriage for her, for two reasons. It sets her on the road to that peculiar pity which she will come to 75 feel so thoroughly for him, which casts him as a small, weak creature requiring her protection. It also draws her ardent energy away from his work, since she is given a new task by Lydgate, that of guarding her husband's health. The strife between Dorothea and Casaubon is paralleled with Lydgate and Rosamond, and there is even an incident where Lydgate is called upon to repress his anger and show compassion for Rosamond when her health is endangered, although she suffers no lasting ill-effects. Rosamond suffers a miscarriage after going horseback riding, and this disobedience is especially provoking for Lydgate, since she ignores both his authority as a husband and his judgment as a doctor, for the sake of riding in the company of his cousin Captain Lydgate, who, as the son of a baronet, is ev.en more charming than the nephew of one. The question of authority in marriage is complex in Middlemarch, because of the desire to rule that Eliot attributes to an ardent nature. While Dorothea does not expect to be able to command her husband, since everything she has ever learned about marriage tells her that this is not proper or possible for a wife, she does expect to have some influence over him, assuming he will listen when her arguments are reasonable or her pleas for the sake of some good. She has "the ardent woman's need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul" (351). (She even says, in response to Will's remark that he will never do anything that he knows she disapproves of, "I shall have a little kingdom then, where I shall give laws" (357). Lydgate expects to have full authority over his wife, willing of course to follow her discretion in matters where she may know better than he, for example, flower-arranging or (more seriously) tact. But when it comes to asserting his will after he learns that "Rosamond's quiet, elusive obstinacy... would not allow any assertion of power to be final" ( 640), he cannot do it. The question at stake is whether they will stay in Middlemarch and ride out the town's disapproval of his involvement with Bulstrode and the death of Raffles, or leave. Rosamond has wanted to leave since marrying and move to a place that will give her more social cachet, like London. However, Lydgate feels that doing so would be cowardly, an acceptance of the shame that ignorant, gossiping neighbors want to put on him for all kinds of imaginary offenses that bear no resemblance to what actually occurred. But he agrees to leave, sacrificing his pride and, most damaging of all, the last remnants of his sense of independence, and with it all the ardent energy upon which hinged his hopes of scientific discovery and a truly great medical career. He does this for Rosamond's sake, because he is painfully aware of how much her happiness depends, not on him, how he feels and what he accomplishes, as he wishes it did, but on the societal benefits she would receive from marriage to a prosperous, aristocratic doctor. This sacrifice is perhaps attributable not so much to his compassion for her in her suffering, but to the self-doubt as to his capacity for greatness, that arise from both his role in Raffles' death and his inability to assert himself with his own wife. While Dorothea does not sacrifice anything as definite as professional ambition for Casaubon's sake, she is prepared to give up something just as vital to her: her personal freedom. Casaubon's illness is just the beginning of the final process of "more complete renunciation, transforming all hard conditions into duty" ( 196), culminating in her readiness to agree to the promise he wants from her to carry out his wishes after his death. During a conversation with Will following Casaubon's attack, she shows how her feelings toward her husband are changing. When Will disparages Casaubon's abilities, she is "not immediately indignant, as she had been on a like occasion in Rome ... now when she looked steadily at her husband's failure, still more at his possible consciousness of failure, she seemed to be looking along the one track where duty became tenderness" (355). However, Will sees another side of Dorothea's growing compassion for her husband: he has "the unutterable contentment of perceiving-what Dorothea was hardly conscious of-that she was traveling into the remoteness of pure pity and loyalty towards her husband" (357). This remoteness seems to crystallize during a later incident, which occurs after Lydgate finally tells Casaubon himself that he suffers from "fatty degeneration of the heart" (412) and he is struck with the certainty that · he will die, sooner rather than later, and will not be able to complete his life's work. Dorothea, realizing what has occurred, wishes to comfort him, but is completely and unceremoniously rebuffed. She is used to his coldness, but his complete lack of response-not even acknowledging her to tell her to leave him alone-triggers the most intense anger she has ever felt, and her sense of his injustice and self-absorption leaves no room for pity. [S]he saw her own and her husband's solitude-how they walked apart so that she was obliged to survey him. If he had drawn her towards him, she would never have surveyed him-never have said 'Is he worth living for?' but would have felt him simply a part of her own life. Now she said 'It is his fault, not mine' ... pity was overthrown .... She was able enough to estimate him-she who waited on his glances with trembling and shut her best soul in prison ... that she might be petty enough to please him. In such a crisis as this, ( 4 I 5) some women begin to hate. However, Dorothea is not a woman to let her anger coalesce into lasting hatred. It is characteristic of her to want to con&ont her husband openly, although surprising in this scene, simply because she has learned to repress herself so well in dealing with him: "she believed now that she could not see him again without telling him the truth about her feeling.... He might wonder and be hurt at her message. It was good that he should wonder and be hurt." It is uncertain what Dorothea thinks will come of such confrontation, whether she imagines that informing Casaubon that he is selfish will somehow shock him out of being so, or establish that he has forfeited his authority over her, and that she will no longer obey him. Maybe she does not expect to have any influence on him, but simply must release her emotion, no matter how much pain that might cause him. However, she loses her chance when he sequesters himself in the library for the evening, and she has time to reflect on the grief that Lydgate's news must cause him. "The energy that would animate a crime is not more than is wanted to inspire a resolved submission when the noble habit of the soul reasserts itself ... It cost her a litany of pictured sorrows and of silent cries that she might be the mercy for those sorrows, but the resolved submission did come" (416 ). Pity, as for a weak or wounded being, has become her predominant feeling for her husband, and seems to leave her as separated from him as any hatred would have, while compassion such as Farebrother's both requires and leads to a sense of communion. Since Casaubon has shut Dorothea out, and her own nature recoils from hating him, such pity seems to be her only option. Both Casaubon and Rosamond dislike being pitied, although Rosamond does not seem to mind having someone feel sympathy for her when she is distressed, especially when the sympathizer is a handsome man, or when such feeling assists her having her own way. However, the idea that anyone would pity her I I �76 AIRBORNE instead of admiring her, perfection of womanhood that she is, offends her. But Casaubon has an intense hatred of all compassion because he sees any such feeling as criticism. Eliot explains his reaction to Dorothea's efforts to please him: To his suspicious interpretation Dorothea's silence ... was a suppressed rebellion; a remark from her which he had not in any way anticipated was an assertion of conscious superiority; her gentle answers had an irritating cautiousness in them; and when she acquiesced it was a self-approved effort of forbearance. (407) I I I While it is an effort for Dorothea to be so kind to him, what is beyond Casaubon's comprehension is that she is trying to make him happy, not corning up with excuses to gloat over her superior magnanimous soul. Again, Eliot claims that this trait of Casaubon's is but an excessive form of an ordinary human quality, pride: "Every proud mind knows something of this experience, and perhaps it is only to be overcome by a sense of fellowship deep enough to make all efforts at isolation seem mean and petty instead of exalting" ( 406). Lydgate also scorns the compassion of others, as is shown in his rejection of Mr. Farebrother's offer of help as he descends deeper and deeper into debt. However, he does not do so out of fear that Farebrother will think less of him for needing aid, but because he is used to thinking of himself as Farebrother's benefactor because of his role in obtaining the living at Lowick for the clergyman, and he is reluctant to reverse this relationship. He is also aware that since Farebrother is not a wealthy man, he cannot provide any financial assistance, which is what he feels he really requires, only spiritual assistance, and, at this point, Lydgate is still determined to bear his problems alone. Even Dorothea is "habitually controlled by pride on her own account" (189) and is not easily induced to describe her distress to others. In Middl.emarch, the exaltation of the self through isolation leads to a conception of the self that is indeed exalted, but only within the narrow confines of an individual perception, and which cannot survive "under the varying experiments of time" (vii). Casaubon is pitiable because, although he exalts himself in an attempt to be great and accomplish great things, he is doomed to failure, because the very act of exaltation destroys his ability to care about anything outside of himself Eliot says of him: It is an uneasy lot at best. .. to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small, hungry, shivering self-never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dimsighted. (274) makes in her marriage and from her later experience with Will and Rosamond. One is to trust that her own emotions and past experiences are sufficient to guide her actions towards the good in her very non-epic life, and the other is to focus her compassionate impulses. During her honeymoon, Dorothea tells Will that "It spoils my enjoyment of anything when I am made to think that most people are shut out from it" (216), and Will calls this a "fanaticism of sympathy". Eliot would seem to agree: If we had a keen vision and feeling of all Rosamond, for all her inflexibility, does not escape with her egoism intact: she has "her dream-world in which she had been easily confident of herself and. critical of others" irreparably damaged. She continues to act as though she still lived inside it, because she lacks the understanding, energy and courage to change. However, she manages what Casaubon never could, to accept Dorothea's compassion gratefully, without resentment or fear. She always thinks well of Dorothea, despite the fact that Lydgate often compares her unfavorably to Mrs. Ladislaw, an offense that Rosamond would not have born without resentment before. It is difficult to compare the fates of Dorothea and Lydgate, because Casaubon dies before she can give him her promise to let the rest of her life be determined by his wishes posthumously. And it is certainly a narrow escape. But Lydgate never seems to advance beyond the stage where he sees himself as superior to the people he must show compassion towards-whether his patients or his wife-and the consideration that this is so because of lack of opportunity does not change the fact. The last words we hear from him in the Finale are bitter and show that his relationship with Rosamond has not changed over the years: he calls his wife his basil plant, because "basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered man's brains" (808). Bitterness is often accompanied by a feeling of inherent superiority, although with the recognition that such superiority has been put to no good use, usually through the fault of someone else. But Dorothea, like Farebrother, comes to see that she is not better than the people for whom she feels compassion are. Her ardent nature, her desire for knowledge and noble deeds, does not exempt her from the frailties and accidents that befall all human beings, and it sometimes even makes it more difficult for her to cope with them. However, Dorothea has gained two important insights, from the mistakes she ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well-wadded with stupidity. (191) . In Middlemarch, there is no concrete answer to the question of how to properly balance compassion and selfishness in one's life. Indeed, it is Eliot's contention that this is an issue that cannot be resolved by a book or a body of knowledge, and all individuals must sort it out as best they can, given their own natures and the peculiar circumstances of their lives. This is not to say, however, that a book cannot be of some help, by examining dilemmas and offering insights into the subject. This is the case with Dorothea and her struggle to do good: the realizations that she comes to are valid for the majority of non-ardent people as well, and can be of use for those people, like Farebrother, who, while they may not want to change the world, do want to do some good in it.+ Alicia Potee, A02 like a keychain decades old, last year somersaults amid change in my pocketoutdated, collecting dust. they say time works in circles, and I'm trying to agree. but still, there lies a single dead second, when chariots turn to rust, when the carousel loses momentum, when the very last nickel is spent. the revolution stops (an empty alarm) flat broke, as if on cue. hanging stillborn in soundlessness, these hollow horses propel me past a string of pitch-dark midnights, (in pieces) like a loveletter or a twenty-ton sledgehammer crashing through bone thin air �... 79 78 Gone West Eva T. H. Brann, Tutor I n 1995 I wrote about the Western High Noon in these pages, roused thereto partly by the incredulity of people who can't believe in Westerns as a creditable genre, partly by the good ideas I got from undergraduate and alumni seminars, but above all by my own affection for that movie and for some others close to it in time. The fact is-or so it seems to me-that what I think of as classical Westerns are very finely and thoughtfully made, as are their literary counterparts, and together they make an admirable and lovable and thought-provoking genre. But though I'm probably preaching partly to the choir and partly to the unconvertible, I've got something more to say. One thing I like about these Western movies is that they constitute about as American a genre as you can find. As such it both redeems and complements the gangster movie, its all-American counterpart, which has a sort of depraved purity all of its own. As Robert Warshow says in the article we read together in one seminar, "The Movie Chronicle: The Westerner" (1954, in "The Immediate Experience, Atheneum, New York 1979), both genres are melancholic, even tragic. But the Westerner's tragedy is that he is a man of virtue who is called on to exercise the craft of killing, while the doom of the perfectly corrupt gangster is "the outrageous presumption of his demands:' Another appealing feature is that Western prose and Western scripts are so simply and straightforwardly written and so pungently flavored with Western idiom. And they are well researched in what the German call "realia"-detail, say, about techniques of horse-breaking or the supplies found in chuck wagons; a reader who takes pleasure in the paraphernalia of various lives can trust classical Western movie-makers and writers for the facts. The reason is that they think of themselves not only as yarn-tellers but as affectionate chroniclers and accepting memorialistsyou might say, anti-revisionist historians-of a bygone era and a geographically remote place. It is a cherished fact to me that Shane, a book I have grown to love over five readings, was written by Jack Schaefer in Norfolk, Virginia, when he had never been west of Toledo. To be sure, he, like other writers of the West, eventually drifted toward the land of his imagination and settled in Santa Fe (where one of our tutors, Tom Harris, sold him his own house). Yet a third factor that draws me is the temporal backdrop of those movies and books that touch me especially. They were made or written during or shortly after the Second World War-my war, the war 'of my particular childhood-and that fact has subtly seeped into them. Of course the war that dominates them from within is the Civil War-our war, the war of our common imagination-largely because the Western hero is so often a defeated and displaced Confederate officer who bears a melancholy burden of loss from way back. **** For all these and more reasons I proposed to the alumni in charge that we should devote a week of their 1996 summer program to watching, reading, and discussing Westerns. I got some grave looks-Plato or Jane Austen were evidently felt to be more in character. But we did it, and it was delightful and illuminating. I was joined in leading the seminars by a colleague from Santa Fe, Mr. Krishnan Venkatesh, and by an Annapolis alumnus, Jim Sorrentino, both more knowledgeable aficionados than mysel£ Mr. Venka esh added Uriforgiven (1992, director and lead Clint Eastwood) to my choices, to good effect as I will tell. I chose a list of three, all made within five years just after the Second World War. Red River, I 948; director Howard Hawks; John Wayne, Montgomery Clift; dramatic date, 1850-65. High Noon, 1952; director Fred Zimmerman; Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly; dramatic date, late in the century (a tattered poster on the sheriff's wall says: "War declared;' perhaps an old Civil War memento or possibly a proclamation of the Spanish American War). Shane, 1953; director George Stevens; Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Brandon de Wilde; dramatic date, 1889. The truth is that I haven't watched much of the later work in this huge and irrepressible genre, neither the TV series that damped movie production for a while in the fifties, nor the spaghetti Westerns produced later in Italy. For a while everyone I ran into told me of a different best Western ever, and I realized how little I had seen. But even I knew that there were other candidates galore even just for this time frame, especially The Gunfighter (1950) as well as Rio Bravo (1959), made by Howard Hawks as a tough response to some supposedly discernible whiny liberalism in High Noon-search me. One bonus of this project was that in the weeks before I met the alumni I got to do as a smug duty what I otherwise do as a guilty pleasure. In fact our president, Chris Nelson, had me over more than once to watch selections from his large Western video library. It turns out that there is so much to see and think about in these movies-little but telling things-that watching in couch potato passivity is out of the question; on yet one more viewing of High Noon, I saw and had pointed out to me a lot I missed in the earlier Energeia article. For example, at his marriage his bride says the conventional "I do;' but Marshal Will Kane, who is governed by a Kantian sense of duty, says "I will." By a Kantian sense of duty I mean one in which the rational will asserts itself over mere wishes; in the ballad of the movie, "Do not forsake me, oh my darling," which expresses Will's heart, the need to kill the outlaw Frank Miller who has come to avenge himself on Will is immediately related to his desire for a peaceful future with his young wife, but in his thinking as just-resigned marshal he does his death-courting duty. Red River, too, is full of nice observables: As Caesar once crossed the Rubicon, the "Ruddy River" that is the boundary between Gaul and Italy, to win a political empire, so the movie begins with Tom Dunston crossing the Red River into Texas with three cows to build a cattle empire. And it ends with an addition to the Dunston brand, D::::s signifying Dunston and the Red River's curving banks. Tom adds 1y,1 (~~M) for Mat Garth, his son in spirit, neatly sigmfymg both the northerly recrossing of the river, now with a herd of nine thousand head, and the adoption of Garth as a Dunston. And so on, detail by detail. · But there are of course also larger elements worth attending to. Movies, being cooperative and commercial enterprises, are particularly apt to reflect, whether purposefully or accidentally, current society (by which phrase I here mean such opinions and per- spectives as people have in large part because others have them). Warshow points out, however, that the classic Western hero is concerned with timeless person_al questions of individual honor, not with solving social problems. Nonetheless, both Red River and High Noon do bear intimations of the time. Red River, which is a fiction about the historical opening of the Chisholm Trail, over which huge cattle drives from Texas to the new railroad at Abeline, Kansas, could be accomplished, is brim full of the boundless energy and human naivete of postwar America, the maturing effects of war on young veterans, and an aversion to tyranny. Thus the chorus for this drama, Groot the Cook (Walter Brennan), keeps a journal in which we glimpse the word "tyrant" used of an increasingly hard-driving Dunston. Again, in the later High Noon some of the social cowardice of the McCarthy era comes out; I've been told that the director meant the town's name, Ha~eY,"i~e, to call Hollywood to mind and to decry the mc1p1ent unheroic conformism of the fifties. . . But allusions to current society are only faint whiffs m these two high classical Westerns. In Shane and Utiforgiven, on the other hand, the times are powerfully at work. Uriforgiven, whose great reviews may actually be taken to prove my point, is a thoroughly postmodern creation and plays to postmodern sensibilities: a slasher movie gussied up with bottomless moral ambiguity. It is filmed alternately with very beautiful long shots and very ugly tight shots. My sense of the close-up ugliness, particularly of faces, was confirmed by our ~u~us Tom Stern (SF69), who was in charge of the hghtmg of the set. (I wish there was a gore tax-so many hundreds of thousands of dollars paid by the industry for every bottle of ketchup, or whatever, expended.) The movie appears to be built on a systematic subversion of classical Western conventions. Peopleto begin with, a woman-are slashed about the face, kicked and beaten when they are down, shot in cold blood by the "hero"; women are terrorized and manhandled, while the whores put out a contract on their attacker. Real Westerners are photographed mostly at a decent middle distance; the heroes wait for the other man to draw first and only then drill him with a neat bloodless hole; they help opponents up after a fair pugilistic ballet, keep their hands off the women, who, especially if experienced, have hearts of gold and low expectations; and above all, though the naive old Western contained plenty of the melancholy of sad �;y; •' 81 80 choices, it never ended in such bleak irresolution as does Uriforgiven: The hired assassin simply picks up and leaves, as is emphasized in the end credits when his figure appears at the upper right at his wife's grave and is quite suddenly simply gone from the screen. These latter-day revisionist Westerns have pretensions to realism, but you don't get real by just inverting the given myths; you get ugly. The new terror is no realer than the old types. But ugly as Uriforgiven is, it gives a brilliant lesson in the postmodern perversion of a classic genre. The movie Shane, too, bears the marks of its contemporary society, albeit seen through the happy haze of the fifties. To observe how the intrusion of social life modifies the pure Western genre, one need only compare the novel Shane with the movie script. Schaefer's sharply-honed mythical poignancy is everywhere muffled in the movie to achieve a comfortable romantic family tale: "Beautiful Dreamer" is the theme song. In seminar and in dinner conversations we collected a score of evidently deliberate changes-transfers of speeches, transposals of events, and the likeall to the same effect. Let me mention just a few of the most telling ones. The first set of these has to do with exploiting the nature of the moving medium to achieve certain effects, the others seem less determined by the contingencies of movie-making than by a systematic desire to tone things down. First, then, is the fact that in the book the story is told retrospectively by the adult Bob, Joe and Marian Starrett's son. The boy Bob is somewhat older than the renamed Joey of the movie. Both facts, the new age and the new name, serve to make the boy, movingly played by de Wilder (who sadly died young), more his parents' son-in the book there is a tension as Bob's love is fixed on the stranger. But the main defusing comes from the fact that all four, the elder Starretts, Joey, and Shane, are seen by the camera in one and the same visual plane externally and panoramically-just as it periodically pans the Tetons that form the spectacular backdrop to the farm and the town only in the movie-while in the novel, Shane, seen through the boy's eyes, looms larger and darker as an inner vision and no gratuitously glorious scenery intrudes its spectacle. In a famous early essay on the nature of the cinema (a word that is, I can't help noting, just Greek for movie) the art historian Erwin Panowsky observes that the moving medium not only temporalizes spacemeaning that it moves through space in time, but also spatializes time-meaning that in moving pictures the ..... intense psychic internalities need to be spread out to view in external action. And that is exactly what the movie does to the novel, in numerous other instances besides the shifting of the narrative source: For example, whereas in the book, Shane, wanting to keep Starrett out of the final gunfight, deftly lays him out cold with a sideswipe of his pistol butt, in the movie there is a prolonged and nearly equal tussle. Joey is here as elsewhere seen watching with a boy's absorption, but the concentrated worship that young Bob bestows on the man of myth is damped as the watcher is watched. Classical Westerns are in black and white and so, one might say, is the novel. Some members of the seminar argued that color is the medium of fantasy, and that may well be, but so much the more do~s it seem to me that black and white is the medium of the mythical imagination. Shane is a good instance. Schaefer's Shane is, except for his final departure, always seen from the front, and Bob notices that he takes care, like a hunted and haunted man, always to sit with his back to a wall; there is something at once candid and shadowy about him. When Bob first sees him riding into their valley he appears dressed in dark clothes that have a kind of formidable elegance-and he is, strangely, gunless. Alan Ladd, a soft-faced golden boy, is first tracked by the camera from behind, riding out of the mountains wearing a beige buckskin shirt and his gunbelt-a considerably less ominous figure, who continues to move through the movie with uninhibited grace. The color makes for a prettier but less poignant scene. The relation of Stevens' Shane to the Starretts is considerably toned down from the tensions Schaefer's Shane brings with him. It is accomplished in dozens of little modifications. A Fourth of July festivity is introduced into the movie-the social dimension-at which Shane dances with Marian in candidly innocent elegance, Joe watching with pleasure. Joe and Shane fight side by side-in companionable equality-when Shane is reluctantly forced into a fistfight in the saloon; in the book Shane fights alone. The wonderful stump scene in which Shane, in gratitude for trust shown by Starrett, attacks with an axe a huge stump, a symbol of nature's recalcitrance to landclearing, is fraught with danger in the book. One at a time both Joe and Shane get under the stump, each putting his life in the other's hands, and when Mari~ gets so intensely involved that she burns h~r apple ~ie, Shane recognizes the equivalence of rebakmg the pie and battling to conquer offending nature: "That's the best bit of stump I ever tasted!' In the movie the stump scene comes right away and is merely a friendly axe-flailing match. Altogether, Jean Arthur's Marian is more sappily feminine than Schaefer's, and more coyly romantic about Shane. In the novel it's Joe Starrett who warns Bob not to become too attached to Shane because one day he'll drift away, and Marian who spiritedly refuses to leave the farm once Shane is gone; in the movie it's the other way around. The relation to the cattle baron who is trying to drive out the farmers-"nesters" as they were derogatively called-is also softened. Fletcher in the book is mostly absent and acts through agents. Renamed Ryker in the movie, he appears in person to give a long, rather persuasive speech about the rights of the cattlemen who were there first and about the necessity of maintaining the open range. As it happens, Schaefer was deeply sympathetic to the cattle and cowboy world and wrote movingly of its passing in his long novel Monte Walsh. But the book Shane, although set in 1889 when the rising homesteaders were fully embattled with the waning cattlemen, eschews the social problem, or rather turns it into a moral standoff between bad henchmen and frightened farmers. Jack Palance as Stark Wilson makes a marvelously cold and conscienceless hired gun, but the movie, by making Shane bright and Wilson dark, loses the fmely detailed antithetical brotherhood of Shane the gunfighter and Wilson the gunman. Shane, who had hoped to put his gun away altogether, thinks one gun is all a good man needs, Wilson packs two; Shane goes by a mysterious single name, Wilson boasts a scary given name; Shane is distinguished in his dress, Wilson is a dude; Shane inspires awe, Wilson spreads terror; and, finally, Wilson is fast on the draw but Shane is faster. The movie Shane is thus a soft, though lovable, fantasy, while the novel is a classical Western. So perhaps the time has come to say what I mean by "classical." Winckelmann (I 717 - I 7 68), the first historian of Greek art, gave a famous characterization of antique classicism: "Noble simplicity, silent grandeur"-"simplicity" in the sense of naivete, "silent" in the sense of quietly reserved. Speaking more generally, one might say that works in the classical mode are never sui generis, one of a kind, by the deliberate creative intent of the maker. What is classical is not only classy individually but belongs to a class, a genre, and tries for the perfection of its type, for the consummate realization of its codes and conventions in a particular individual, be it god or hero, horse or weapon, on Olympus or in the American West. Let me mention here that in our I 996 field trip to Western movie locations near Santa Fe, the genre character of the Western was reinforced-if it needed reinforcement-by the fact that these magical movie ghost towns are resurrected over and over for new productions with small changes, a paint job, a new sign. Tomes could be (and probably have been) written about the utilitarian unreality of these charming wooden sets, with their realistic rendition of the peculiarly American propensity for homespun reminiscences of classicism. It is not so absurd to look for this classicism in the Western, whether in novels like Shane and Monte Walsh or in movies like Red River and High Noon. These works certainly have moral simplicity as opposed, say, to the raucously realized sophistication of Uriforgiven. The heroes try for nobility within their human type and the movie-maker does not revel in saleable bloodyminded baseness. If the hero fails he fails grandly, playing out the Western counterpart of the Greek tragic flaw: He is in an unresolvable moral dilemma where human viability demands one thing, such as running away or shooting first, and his unambivalent code of honor another, such as putting himself in harm's way and waiting out the villain's first draw. But simple isn't stupid. The classical Westerner is mentally acute and observant, a characteristic the directors honor by the intelligent detailing of his world. In particular, the Westerner, be he cowboy or lawman, is supremely competent-just the myth-making best: the best horse-breaker, the best rider on the trail, the most self-sufficient loner, the best leader of a posse, the best eradicator of varmints and badmen. His closest classical counterpart is Heracles who won his place in myth by a special competence for the work to be done: ridding the world of monsters, animal and human. To my mind, a central feature of the ideal Westerner is a sort of speaking laconicism. These heroes are not so much taciturn as quiet, silent from reserve, self-sufficiency, and bashfulness before their own excellence. They are, to be sure, also finely expressive, but more in body-language and action that in words (and this is why the Western type is made to be depicted in moving pictures). Their words are few and at crucial moments insufficient-that is a part of their pathos. Thus in Red River it is Groot the comic chorus who is loquacious. Tom and Mat never say quite enough to each other. Thus in High Noon Will cannot �82 83 explain his unbending resolution. He can articulate one part of it, what Kant would call the maxim of his action, the rule determined in accordance with experience and foresight; he briefly indicates thoughts along these lines: "This is not a private feud for me to fight out on the open plains; the town must be the place where the destroyers of civil life must themselves be destroyed; even if the judge has decamped, taking with his the American flag, we must prevent the community from returning to the state of nature." But he can't express that other element of duty that has to do with what Kant calls the practical reason, a person's capacity for willing freely in accordance with his self-conception. Will is too reserved to speak readily of his innermost self in its integrity. That is why Will's moral inarticulateness is winning to the heart rather than irritating to the mind. I cannot keep from pointing out a fact germane to this college. We live by Socrates' continual injunction to his partners in conversation: "Try to tell me ... :• Perhaps in this lies the crux of the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy: Heroes of poetry are often nobly silent; participants in philosophy try to tell-it's a different sort of nobility. Shane too is silent. Not only are his communications, both in book and movie, mostly gestural, but, although his rare speech is elegant, discerning, and courtly, there is a great silence about him, about him and his past. Little is revealed of his origins except that he is, as are so many Westerners, from the South, from Tennessee. But his coming is mysterious: He was the man who rode into our little valley out of the great glowing West and when his work was done rode back whence he had come and he was Shane. Recall that "going West" is an idiom for dying, and indeed Shane goes off into oblivion-and for Bob into myth. The cause of his great silence is, the book reveals (and the movie obscures), not so much that he has killed and is hunted but that he knows something unspeakable about himself: He is a man of virtue who truly lights up only in violence; violence is his fate, his dark forbidden glory and trouble. Jim Sorrentino pointed out that his name differs from "shame" only in a stroke. His teaching to young Bob, that a gun is only a tool, as good as the man who uses it, has the pathos of a self-exonerating half-truth. A man has to be preeminently good to turn a gun into a tool for living; he needs the most finely-honed reflexes, the speediest judgment, and the most steadfast virtue. And even then, it's a mighty strange tool. Shane and Kane then share the laconic nobility of the classical Westerner, and yet the genre permits them to be deeply different. Will, the quondam marshal and shopkeeper-to-be, acts from the disillusioned but unbudgeable will to do his duty as he construes it; Shane, the solitary gunfighter temporarily turned farmer's hired hand and friend, acts out of his nature because "he is Shane"-a phrase several times repeated in the novel. Their modes of action are to each other as willed character is to fated being. So finally Shane has the greater pathos .and the more mythical status. (High Noon is often referred to as the first psychological Western, and though this seems to me a misnomer-" characteriological" would be more apt-the description does intimate a slight decline from classical purity; this was, I suppose, the motive for Hawk's remake of the Cooper character in Rio Bravo.) Shane is a savior who takes on the burden of evil for his adopted family. When he has gone, he is said still to be "all around us and in us;' and perhaps not subject to ordinary mortality. Schaefer took account of this aspect of his hero by writing in a letter (April 18, 1975) that his Shane does in fact qualify as a savior, but not as a Christian one; he is more universal, "more an alpha primate male fulfilling his genetically ingrained obligation to his kind" (Shane: The Critical Edition, edited by James C. Work, 1984, p. 352). Well, I don't know about alpha primates and genetic obligations, but the drift is that Shane acts from his very being, a mythical being. A myth is, as Giambattista Vico put it in a deep paradox, a "particular universal." Therefore myths are the natural material for any classical mode, for, as I ventured to say above, the classical seems to be the intersection of the uniquely best with the perfectly generic. That, incidentally, also seems to be the reason why classical works always arise within a genre, that is, within the collection of respectable attempts to realize the givens that frame the path to this particular sort of perfection. And the Western is the genre of genres. I must say that to me America seems lucky to have a genre that has such myths and such classical moments. And yet there is no getting around the fact that the West is gone, a fact that gives current nonrevisionist Westerns an elegiac tinge. The highly spe- cialized competencies and peculiar virtues of the Westerner seem to be well past their date of expiration; even the lanky Anglo-Saxon rawhide types in which they were embodied are rarities nowadays. So we might ask: Why open oneself to such myths? For several reasons. One is that the passing of a pattern of virtue is not so set a thing. The world at large may find the Western virtues outdated because the callings to which they pertained have lapsed--cowboy, homesteader, gunfighter, marshal. But the world is wrong, I think. Self-reliance and self-sufficiency, a lonely sense of duty, laconic competence, courtesy to the opposite sex, slow-forged human bonds, deep-seated love of a landscape and its figures, are ever-resurrectable virtues. It is just when they seem to have lost their place in the world in general that particular people will go looking to remake a place for them. Then, as the cause for being receptive to these local fictions will be a moral longing, so the effect might be to give it some definition. But above all, it seems to me imaginatively sound that we should stay in touch with our past via myths. Now novels and movies, being entertainments enjoyed in receptive leisure and re-read or reviewed at pleasure, are pretty nearly the best we moderns can do by way of participating in the reenactment of myth. One might, to be sure, argue that figures like Dunston, Garth, and Kane are more composite idealizations than mythical beings because they represent the once-in-a-while, scattered excellences and flaws of the factual type compacted into one larger-than-life character. But Shane surely has this additional mark of a bona fide myth: Although when pressed for a model, Schaefer said that it was his father, the Shane we know comes, a being at once uniquely himself and the perfection of his type, from a region beyond, from "the heart of the great glowing West." And when his work is accomplished, that is where he goes. + ode to my mug Eve Gibson, A99 ode to my mug unexpected birthday present peace offering natural handmade massaged clay scored and slipped arched love blue beautiful unexpected mug. i love the way you feel in my large hands the way you feel on my lower lip. mug of love better than a hug useful, practical, no one knows how much the mug is private love not public like embrace or kiss when i hold my mug i am holding my unexpected token of love. LISTENING FOR PLANETS Alicia Potee, A02 suspended in an echo, spotlights fall on Saturn: how you straighten stockings with a beat like blues (piano-banging teeth, like keys beneath trance-stricken fingers), all your jazz-joints splitting plaster, cracking walls like paper pulse-sheet music to your breath. Still rhythmless, i sway to match the wreath of resin you call skin. it's soundless ... dull. i'm hearing you (a woman moving-slick, just barely frictionless), and in this pit of indigo, i sense my hips can hear you too. they dream of turning thin blood thick, snapping elastic veins with one curved hitthat cosmic chord, still ringing in my ears. �84 THREE HUSBANDS Alicia Potee, A02 I. the fighter II. the lover III. the doubting saint he was a high school football star with a taste for red meat, curvy brunettes, cocktail waitresseshad a right hook with the sting of an ex-con. he once drew back his throwing arm to the catcalls of three grown men, bloodied them all in a single swing before treating himself to a beer. for him, one touchdown was never enough. the thrill was in · the tackle. a lady's man since the day of his birth, he kept a collection of lipstick-stained napkins with names, scribbled pink, like Cherry or Vida. he could charm a snake with his smile. sobering up in'82, forehead against a deadbolted door, near dawn at 4 a.m., he begged for a three egg omelet, or one last chance to kiss his kids before the money ran out. after ten years, the birth of a child who claimed his buried father's eyes, the death of a mother who named him from the Bible, one out of practice East Baltimore Catholic still kneels beside her holy wounds, reciting a prayer to one day know the fable of her secrets: blessed are they who have not seen yet still believe amen. (untitled) Eve Gibson, A99 mood music move me from these orange moon table tops and circular decals I hurl you into orbit. Spin Sex Wax, Starbucks, and Sea World Bumper sticker. Away with you regular, concentric, colored, informational blurbs on circular blobs. I exile you from the orbits about my head. I'll throw you up in the air like a fist full of coins and drop you on the ground. I'll play jacks with you And when I think I have lost you I'll step on your sticky side and march you face down into the ground. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource <em>Energeia</em> Description An account of the resource <em>Energeia</em> is a non-profit, student magazine, which is published once a year and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of St. John's College, Annapolis.  Staff welcome submissions from all members of the community -- essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, and the like. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context energeia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. iii, 84 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gibson, Eve (senior editor) Title A name given to the resource Energeia, Spring 1999 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Description An account of the resource Issue of the Energeia, published in Spring 1999. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Energeia Spring 1999 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Energeia Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/60ed2a03aef4aa313211dc47cddb3adb.pdf 7dd2e0ebf11e6517ac55851f88ec1fad PDF Text Text SPRING2000 �A v ERY SHORT ESSAY ON ENERGEL.\ Anne C. McShane, Ed. Traditionally. the Energeia has had, on its first page, a quotation from Aristotle's.\ fetaph:vsics regarding the definition of cvipy8ta. (Aristotle invented the word). That quotation takes very different forms depending on its translator. r give Hippocrates G. Apostle's and Joe Sachs' here: Apostle's: For performance is an end, and actuality fcvcpycmj is performance. And so even the name ''actua!izv·· is derived from the name "work" [spyovj and points to actuality [EV'tEl-CXEtaJ. (lOSOa 22-24) 1 Sachs': For the end is work, and the work is a being-at-work [cvc{-iysw.l, and this is wh~· the phrase being-at-work is meant by reference to work Idpyov I and c:-..1cnds to being-at-work-staving-complete Ic\.·-rt.AEX.Cte< j. (1 OSOa 22-24 )2 Neither quotation serves well as a definition. Apostle's acluali ry, even combined with perfonnance and end, leaves one unenlightened. But, if one closes one 's eyes to actuality and latches onto Apostle's translation of cpyov, ''performance," it is possible to construe some idea of why a magazine filled with prize essays and art would be called Energeia. Closing the eyes to actuality, however, is hardly satisfying: actuality is f!vcpycia! Sachs' translation, though at first more daunting, tells us more about what tvipyt:ia really is. For it to do so, however, we must read a little more: Since of the actions \vhich have a limi1 none is an end but each is for the sake of an end, as in the process of losing weight, vvhose end is thinness , and since that which loses weight while in motion does not have that for which the sake of the motion exists, such an action is not an action , or else it is not complete, for it is not an end. But the end and action belong to that other kind. For example, we are seeing and at the same time we have seen .... we live well and at the same time have lived well , and \1v'e are happy and have been happy. . .. Of these, the former should be called " motions," the latter "actualities [read, being-at-works]. '' (Apostle, 1048b J 8-~8) It becomes more clear why Sachs chooses lo translate l:?w~pyEta as being-al-work. The being-at-work is a kind of work, the end of which is the doing ofthe work- there is no product. other than the work itself. One does not sec in order to see in the future: one secs now, in order to see now. From here the step to cvn-:/cEX~~ta is easily taken : just as the £v8ryEta of an eye is to see, the cvt:pywx of a human is the being-at-work of the whole self As Sachs says, . . . the human being that can experience rsight, knowledge, happiness J is similarly a heing-at-work, constituted by metabolism. Since the end and completion of any genuine being is its being-at-work, the meaning of the word converges with .. cntclcchcia. (244-245 )3 The word SVLEAEXE:ta is composed of three parts: tv'tEAE:~ (from 't8A.oc;), meaning complete or full-g own. ~xf-:t v. meaning to be a certain way by the continuing effort of holding onto that condition. and a pun on the word tvoEA.cx.i::m. meaning persistence (Sachs' Physics, 245). 8v8pyi;ta extended is tv'tE:/\,t:X,wx.. Through the persistence of a meaningful work, 8vipy8t<.x., humans fulfill themseJvcs. Unfortunately. there cannot be a magazine consisting of 8v8pyE:ta. cvipy8ta, as an activity, a motion, extends through time and cannot be put on paper. The activity of painting a picture, like the activity of being happy, is not transferable (that is, without one taking part in the activity itsel{). What we can do, however, is give evidence that tvepyi;ta. has taken place on our campus. That evidence can also serve as an opportunity for the reader to engage in knowlege; that is, in another kind of ~vi;pyt:ia. That is what this magazine has tried to do. As one can tell from my poor attempt to elucidate it, as well as from the apparent difficulty in its translation, the meaning of£v8pyi:;ta is difficult to get across. Indeed, Aristotle says this himself in reference to tvspyr.ta.: "What we mean is clear by induction from individual cases, and we should not seek a definition of everything but should also perceive an object by means of an analogy" (Apostle, 1048a 36-1048b 7). Let us then take his suggestion and, rather than trying to define hipyE:ta, look at examples. Please tum the page. IAristotle'sMetaphysics. Trans. Hippocrates G. Apostle. Peripatetic press, Grinnell, lA; 1979. 2 Aristotle'sMetapf1ysics. Trans. Joe Sachs. Green Lion Press, Santa Fe, NM: 1999. 3 Sachs, Joe .A ristotle;, Phyoics: A Guided Sh111y. Ma.terworks of l)i•coveiy: Guiden Studies of Great Tex I ~ in Science. Hll!Vey F1n11menh•tl, e<l. R11tgero llniversity Pre•s. New Rnms\\frk , NJ: 199.i . ' �Contents Sketch (man) ... ...... ......... .... .... ... ... ..... ... ............ .......... ........... .. ................ ..... I Melina Hoggard, A '00 Editor Anne C McShane Junior Editor Jan Jungbacker Assistant Editors Julia Bell Maro Casimattis Jonathan Culp Melina Hoggard Matthew Holtzman Peter H eyneman Casey Moore Sarah Whitesel Photography Acquisitions Vada Mossavat Photographers Jonathan Lawless Peter Speer Design Matthew Holtzman Faculty Advisor Chaninah Masch/er Front Cover 37 .......................... ....... .............................................. Highway 4 New Mexico Peter Heyneman, 'OJ 38 .. ........ ........ .. ... ... ........... ......................................... ................... ... 3 Sketches Melina Hoggard, A '00 Seeking by Means of Speech Freshman Essay Prize, 1998-99 ......................................................................... 2 Blakely Phillips, '02 39 ... ...................... .... .. ...... ... ......................... .The Legacy of Claudius Ptolemy Cordell D.K. Yee, Tutor Warwick Castle ..... ...... ...... ...... .... .... .. ..... ... ....... .............. ... .. ..... .. ... ..... ... ....... 6 Isabel Clark, '02 Lucy ... ....... ..... .......... .... ....................... ......... ......... ........ ........ ....... .... ..... ..... ....... .... ... 7 Caroline Picard, '02 Basement Door. ..... .................. ............. ............... .............. ......... ............. ....... .... 8 Isabel Clark, '02 46 ................... ..... ........ ..... ........ ............................................ ........... .... Untitled Sara Wilson, '02 4 7 ....................... ......... ... ...... ... ..... ..... ...... ....... .. ....... ..... ..... ........ .. Paris, France Rizo Popovic, A '00 Selection from On the Sublime : Longinus 48 ..... ..... ............. ...................................... .... Greek Translation Prize, 1998-99 Samuel Garcia, A '99 Confessions Involving Balance and Equilibrium: Lab Experiments Laboratory Prize, 1998-99 ................. ...... ............ ..... .. ....... ............. .... .. .... .. ........ 9 B1yan Thorpe, 'OJ Le Promenade d'Automne: Marceline Desbordes-Valmore 49 ....... ....... ................................................. French Translation Prize, 1998-99 Robert Dickson, A '00 Sailboats ..... .... ........... ... .. ........... .... ...................... ... ..................................... 16 Karin Ekholm, A '00 50 .. ... ...... ........ ......... ...... .... .. .. ....... ............ .. ................ ... .. Aidan Dreaming-Elk Karina Hean, A '00 Backlit. ... .............. ....... .......... .... ... ...................... .............. .. ................ .... ..... 17 Karina Hean, A '00 51 ....... .. ..... ..... ......... ........ ... ........................ ........ Vrbnica, Kosovo; June, 1999 Vada Mossavat, A '00 Profit of Wisdom: Ecclesiastes, Solomon, and the Loathing of Life Senior Essay Prize for Literature ..... .. ............. ........... ...... ...... .. .. .... .. ............ 18 Derek Alexander, A '99 52 ........... ......... .............. .:............ ........ ......................... ..... Guardians, 1998-99 Anne McShane, A '00 Scenic Overlook (secret spy picture) ............... ... .......................................... 28 Isabel Clark, '02 Cain and Saul: The Men God Rejected 53 .......................... ........................................ Sophomore Essay Prize, 1998-99 Sarah Whitesel, 'O I SQUATTING FIGURES Caroline Picard, 102 Tiffany Joly ................................ .. ........... .......... .. ..... .... .................. .............. 29 Andrew Baisch, A '00 Back Cover KELSEY, NEW MEXICO Kristin Masser, 'OJ A Decent Burial. .. ....... ...... ..... ... ..... ....... ................ ... ...................... ..... ........ 30 Christopher Colby, SJC Community Untitled ............................... .. ............ ..................... ...... ............. .. .. ............... 32 Caroline Picard, '02 Waterwitch ..... ............. ................................................................................. 33 Cara Gormally, '02 Seven-Year-Old Poets ............... .... ... ........... .............. ... ... ................. ........... ... .34 Matthew Holtzman, A '00 Aswan ....... .... .. .......... ..... ....... .......... ........................ ... ......... .. ..... ....... ........... 36 Karin Ekholm, A ·oo 5 8 ........ ..... ... ........ ....... ... .... ...... ....... .. ........ .... ... ................ ... Elephantine Island Karin Ekholm, A '00 59 ... ...... .. .... ...... .... ... ....... .. ...... .............. ... .... .. ...... Gjinovce, Kosovo; July, 1999 Vada Mossavat, A '00 The Importance, for Consciousness, of the Discovery of Self 60 ...... ...... ........ ........ .... .... ...... ........ Senior Essay Prize for Philosophy, 1998-99 Piroska Kopar, A '99 70 ................ ... .......... ... .... .. .................. ............. ............... .......... ..... Part of Me Karina Hean, A '00 71 ..... ..................... ... ........... ...... ........ ... .. .................. ........ ...... Sketch (woman) Melina Hoggard, A '00 72 ........... ..... ....... .... .... ........ ...... ................................. ... ... ......... .... Liberty Tree Cara Gormally, '02 The Energeia staff would like to extend its gratitude to Christopher Colby, Cordell Yee, William Pastille, Pamela Kraus, the St. John's College Print Shop, and the Gadfly. Energeia is a non-profit, student magazine published annually and distributed among students, faculty, alumni, and staff of both St. John's College campuses. The 2000 issue contains a sampling of student work from the previous year which the prize committees have selected for public recognition and submissions from members of the community. Energeia welcomes essays, poems, stories, original math proofs, lab projects, drawings, paintings, photography, and the like for the 2001 issue . �Sketch (man) Melina Hoggard, A '00 �3 E NERGElA Seeking by Means of Speech Blakely Phillips, '02 One of Meno's sarcastic remarks, imperfectly under- hands. He possesses them, and, only possessing, he may stood as it may be by Meno himself, strikes at the heart of even forget them. Seeking to know something, in this case, the philosophic enterprise: How can we seek what we do is seeking to have what one in some way possesses. not already know? Answering this question means no less What does it mean, though, to possess knowledge that than discovering what "knowing" means for Socrates. Thus, one yet does not have? Possession is the capacity for using; Meno 's question reverberates in the background of the possessing knowledge, then, means retaining a thought in Th eaetetus, in which the title character and Socrates seek one's mind unconsciously, whereas having knowledge means the nature of knowledge itself. The various images given in holding that thought in one's mind consciously. It is posthe Thea etetus imply that speech is the key to seeking what sible, then, for something known to be in one' s mi~d yet one does not know : knowledge, it seems, involves more than not at the front of it; to be stored unconsciously, not "ready one level, and speech is the connection that allows us to at hand for thought" (198d). We possess notions that give move between those levels. By examining the images of us direction in the search for wisdom; having some acquainknowledge and speech, then, disregarding their initial hasty tance with "virtue," we can seek the nature of virtue . Alrejections in the course of the dialogue, we may discern a though the original notion of virtue is very different from coherent picture of what knowledge is and how speech en- any definition one might contrive for its nature, it is on ables us to seek it. This examination, in tum, also reveals account of the former idea that the latter is possible. Socrates, Meno 's slave and the rest of us can seek what we do not some implications of the nature of knowledge.' How is knowledge sought? We can say that if we are know if we somehow possess the knowledge of it already able to seek knowledge, we need two things: an idea of that and only seek to have it more explicitly. for which we are searching and a way of attaining it. ConIn order for knowledge to be seekable, though, we must cerning the first, if Meno's slave does indeed discover that somehow be able to move from possessing knowledge to the line on which the eight foot square is based is neither having it, from a partly-conscious notion of a thing, to full two nor three feet, if Socrates can seek the elusive forms of awareness of its details . Thus, seeking is the movement things, both must already possess a general notion of what from one level of knowledge to another, the relation bethey seek to know more explicitly . If seeking is to be suc- tween possessing and having. How , then, do we seek? Ho w cessful, it must also be possible to move from vague knowl- do we come to possess knowledge-birds in the first place, edge of something to clear knowledge of it. Partial knowl- and how do we grab them again later? Socrates hints that edge allows us to look up words we do not quite know how the first and the second are different manners of "hunting": to spell, or to attempt to recall an image of someone or some- "we . .. will say that the hunting was twofold, one before place which has undergone the contortions of memory . It the possession for the sake of possession, ana one by the must be possible, then, to know enough about X to ask the possessor for the sake of seizing and having in his hands question "What is X?" without knowing precisely what it is what he has possessed for some time" ( 198d 1-5). The first hunting, since it is for the sake of possession, about X that is sought. In other words, if we are able to seek knowledge, we need multiple levels of knowledge and is akin to the acquisition of an art, the second to its practice. a way of relating them- a theory that is significantly elabo- Precisely how we are able to seek an art before we know what we are looking for, however, is confusing and unclear . rated in the Theaetetus with the image of the dovecote . Socrates and T~eaetetus, indeed, distinguish between Acquiring any art, does not the apprentice always have a two levels of knowledge, possessing and having-a distinc- sense of the skill he is after? For most arts, from mathemattion Socrates explains thus : "if someone buys a cloak and ics (a science) to chaim1aking (a practical art), the one trybecomes its owner but does not wear it, we would deny he ing to learn the art already has a notion of the knowledge has it but he still possesses it" ( l 97b ). The soul, Socrates encompassed by it. It seems, too, that this will be the case continues, is a dovecote that "when we 're children is empty" so long as one seeks an art consciously, with intention. Seek(197 e2 ), but which one fills with various sciences, birds of ing, by definition, is looking/or something, after all. Thus, knowledge, catching them and stowing them away . Once even if acquisition of an art is what enables us to seek furthese birds are caught, however, the hunter/keeper does not ther knowledge, we need knowledge in order to acquire most actually have them unless he holds them up again in his arts. The trail of the knowledge needed for seeking does not end here. There may, perhaps, be "a.i1s" that one learns inadvertently, however, which enable one to seek not only all other arts, but also the active knowledge yielded by those arts when seized in the hand of the mind. (Language may be just such an unconscious art.) The other half of the analogy, that between practicing an art and seeking to have what one already possesses, is more completely accurate: "it is precisely by lthe aritfoneticalJ art ," that is, practicing the art, "that lthe arithmetician] has the knowledges of the numbers" (198all-bl). Therefore, practicing something already known is the path from possessing to having knowledge. Practicing the arithmetical art involves applying what the arithmetician possesses knowledge of-numbers, which he possesses from his original acquisition of the art- to the world through numbering things, asking always "How many?" The path from possessing to having, then, involves looking at the world, asking about it, and applying to it the knowledge one possesses: practicing an art. The pursuit of philosophical knowledge, in the same manner, involves looking at things that affect us a.i1d inquiring about their natures. Whatever the philosophical art is, one has knowledge through it by practicing it, applying it to the things in the world. Thus, seeking knowledge, generally, for any art , means practice of an art one already knows: one has chainnaking knowledge through actually making chairs out of materials from the world. Of course, the way one applies previous knowledge to the world, in order to keep having that knowledge, does depend both upon the sort of knowledge one begins with and the sort one ultimately seeks. Although one must always have a prior notion of what one is looking for, both the prior notion and the method of getting more elaborate knowledge differ in different situations. Philosophical knowledge, for i nstancc-that is, knowledge of the natures of thingswill be sought diJferently than mathematical knowledge or chairmaking knowledge. For chairmaking knowledge, one applies the plan for a chair (prior notion) to the world by actually making chairs. For mathematical and philosophical knowledge, on the other hand, the knowledges one starts from are number and what tilings are. These knowledges are applied by asking questions, comparing the world with what one knows, asking "How many?" or " What is this?" Since philosophical knowledge, knowledge about the natures of tilings, is what we are concerned with (as tl1is is what Socrates and Theaetetus are concerned with), we will ask: what prior knowledge or art is necessary to seek the natures of things, to ask what something is? First, the philosopher must have some acquaintance with that something. To ask of virtue "What is virtue?" the philosopher needs only know the word "virtue," the name of what he wants to know better. Thus, the philosopher needs words, language. Does the philosopher train in language, with a view to the natures of things, as if it were an art and he an apprentice who knew what he was after? Surely not, if the philosopher claims with Socrates not to know the natures of things .. . . He knows only words, and we all learn our first language without much thought about precisely what we are doing. Thus, language seems not to be an art but it is, at Least for philosophical knowledge, the root of what allm; s us to seek. v From language we have all the knowledge required to seek the natures of the things we name. How does the philosopher, then, use words to seek what things are? How does he apply what he knows to the world a.i·ound him? He asks questions of the form "what is XT and attempts to a ~wer them . This much is evidenced by the method of Socrates in the Theaetetus , asking "What ever is knowledge? Can we really say itT (146a3) . The answer will be an account p,oyoc;). Asking what things arc and giving accounts of t11em, then, is how the philosopher seeks, starting always from words and the meanings they imply. The way knowledge must work if we are able to seek it , then, has been shown : the philosopher needs words, questions and accounts-words to give an idea of what he is looking for, questions and accounts to convey him from that hazy understanding to a clearer, more articulated one. It remains to be considered, however, why philosophical knowledge is sought this way, why words, questions and accounts are necessary, and how they work. L ANGUAGE Theodorus says in the Theaetetus, following Socrates, that the difference between philosophers and lawyers is that philosophers "are not subservient to speeches , but the speeches are as it were our domestics," whereas lawyers are slaves to speeches (173c3-4) . Mastering speech is crucial to practicing philosophy, and thereby to seeking what we do not know about the natures of things. We have said already that language provides both the prior knowledge of things (names) needed to seek them, and the way to seek them, to move from unconsciously possessed knowledge to clear knowledge (questions and accounts) . What about language makes this possible, and what makes language necessary for philosophic knowledge? How does language provide both the basic notions necessary to seeking what we do not know and the means of attaining it? The words philosophers must possess if they are to formulate questions have a peculiar faculty: they name things, physical or intangible, and at the same time reach beyond those things. The words we use, while pointing to indi vidual things, do so by putting those things into classes. (Every single tree, for instance, does not have its own name, Bob or Martha, as people do: each tree is one in the class "tree.") The word tree, then, signifies both an individual tree to which one might point, and the entire class "tree," the mysterious qualities of the category that cause one to call that particular object a tree. Language points to things �4 PHILLIPS in the world and beyond, to the commonness that, though words, and arise when one thinks of what one word means not explicitly stated, guides and iies behind the grouping of in comparison to another. One might say, simply, a tree is various objects together under one name. Words serve as not a bird or a bush. Introducing other terms, other words, names for what many different things have in common. one could say, more specifically, a tree is a larger plant than What many different things have in common, in turn, a bush. Including ratio, then, the peculiarity of /,oyoc; is, gives us insights into what those things are. These elusive starting with words, to state relationships between their srnndards, by which we give names, are the forms, since it meanings. is precisely the guiding principle of namjng that Socrates is Implicit in the use and knowledge of words is the abilafter when he seeks what knowledge or virtue is, wanting to ity to relate those words to one another in speech, since know what it means to call anything ''knowledge" or "vir- words themselves signify relationships between the things tue .. , Phaedo, too, says that Socrates and company "agreed they name by grouping each object into a category (which that .... Forms existed, and that other things acquired will include some objects and exclude others). Thus, the their names by having a share in them" (Phaedo 102b). philosopher, in possessing words, possesses the ability to The same principles are what we try to state when defining draw from those words the categories they imply by calling words, as in a dictionary. Thus, speech links the each (indi- a name into question ("Whatever is knowledge?") and tryvidual object) and the all (category), as the Stranger of the ing to give accounts of what it names (that by which we call Sophist warns: "To detach each from all is the final and various things "knowledge") in terms of other ~ords, other utter eclipse of all speech., (259e3 ). When we possess words, names of things. Starting with words as his prior knowlthen, we imp1icitly possess knowledge of why things are edge, the philosopher seeks an account that will explain grouped under certain names, and this is the knowledge what it means to call something what we call it. sought by the philosopher. Words, it seems, are very helpIf we are able to seek what we do not know through ful things for the philosopher to know, since, as categories accounts, what kind of account will yield success? Socrates into which we group particular things, they imply truths and Theaetetus consider the same question. Having decided about what things are to us. that the knowledge sought by a philosopher must be some How, then, does the philosopher use the words he pos- sort of account ("true opinion with speech [is] knowledge, sesses to seek knowledge of what things are? How do ac- but true opimon without speech [is] outside of knowledge, counts use words to arrive at what one did not know before? and of whatever there is not a speech, these things are not The philosopher begins by asking "What is X?" and call- knowable ... and whatever admit of speech are knowable"), ing the identity of the thing he names, X, into question. He they continue to give accounts of speech (202dl-5) . These then uses other words to rename X. This renaming consti- accounts they give in order to determine how the "knowtutes the account. Having called the name of the thing into able," (speakable) and "unknowable" (unspeakable) things question, the philosopher seeks to discover what that name are divided-to determine what is knowable and thereby means by thinking about the thing itself and its relation- what kind of account will succeed. Discovering what sort ships to other things. (Whether he is seeking the thing of account is successful will clarify how language, as acitself, as separate from its name, or just what is meant by counts, enables the philosopher to seek what he does not the name, or whether a difference even exists between the know. two, is unclear. It is possible that the philosopher thinks he In the first account given by Socrates and Theaetetus, is seeking the thing itself while only toying with names.) a syllable is explained and accounted for by the list of its He seeks to give a definition of a word, and therefore can letters, in order. The other terms used to define what the only use other words to define it. The object of the syllable is, then, are its parts, letters. The letter, not conphilosopher 's quest-what something is-becomes an ar- sisting of multiple parts, cannot be expressed through a simiticulation of how that thing compares with others. lar account. What syllables are, though, does not consist That accounts articulate the relationships between only in thei r letters, Socrates points out, and philosophical things is reinforced by thinking of accounts (via A.~yos) as accounts must express the natures of things. Defining a ratios. Just as Euclid's ratio shows the relations between wagon in terms of its parts is likewise rejected, since such magnitudes, an account does the same with what things are. an account, though a faithful and accurate list, does not Further, just as the mathematical ratio requires at least two state, for instance, the use and purpose of the wagon. Foreterms, an account does also . An account of anything needs most, however, is the objection that anyone can correctly both a subject to describe and terms in which to describe it. list the parts of something, through guessing or mindless Therefore, with at least two things named, the philosopher recitation, without necessarily understanding and knowing can make a ratio between them that, hopefully, reveals some- that of which he is listing parts (208b4-6). Accounts-asthing about the one in question. With tree: bird or tree:bush parts, then, do not approach the knowledge of the natures one discovers the difference between what is meant by tree of things sought by philosophers, and therefore are of no and bird or bush. These differences are embedded in the use in seeking such knowledge. 5 ENERGEIA The last account given of language is more accurate. The sort of account necessary for the philosopher's seeking is, Socrates discloses, "some sign to say by means of which that which is asked about differs from all things" (208c 11 ). The example Socrates gives is that the sun is "the most brilliant of the things that go around the earth across the sky" (208d3). This sort of account will reveal precisely what is sought: the peculiar nature of something-that is, that by which we call it what it is-through showing its relation to other things. While all accounts define a term by means of its relationships to other terms, the account-as-difference gives specifically how the thing sought is different from (and similar to) other things. What is striking about speeches of difference is that they are also accounts of similarity. We think first of how the object is similar to those things and secondarily how, in relation to what all have in common, the object nevertheless stands out and refuses to be fully commensurable with them. Words already imply these relationships in the two aspects of naming, mentioned earlier: specifying a particular thing and, at the same time, classifying it among other things. Thus, the account-as-difference is the way to have the knowledge only implied in the words we know. Too, if words themselves hold any weight in determining the na, ture of language, the definition of Xcysw as given on page 37 ofMollin and Williamson's An Introduction to Ancient Greek ("to gather things together into a whole within which the gathered parts retain their distinct identities") confirms the importance of accounts-as-difference. That is very well, one might say, but-how does the philosopher seeking knowledge go about giving such an account? What enables him to give it? Socrates makes this objection, fearing that, in order to properly articulate the distinctive nature of something, one nevertheless needs to somehow already possess an understanding of that which one seeks, the distinctiveness of that thing. How do we come to know the distinct natures of things (for example: that it is part of a coat to be worn)? How else than through our possession of language, of names for things? We saw above that words both point to individual .things, physical or not, and reach beyond them by classifying them among other things, according to an invisible principle (the relation between it and other things) that is articulated in a word's definition. All this is embedded in ordinary use of words. If, then, the philosopher listens to the way words .are used and masters speech instead of letting shifty usages master him, he will be able to discover the knowledge he seeks. Language, then, provides the basis and means of seeking philosophic knowledge. Possession of words is capable of abstracting our thought from things in the world that words name to the mysterious source of those names. In words, we possess implicitly what we seek because words contain, in their uses and definitions, the manifold ways they compare with other words; the relationships between things that lie in words are the natures of things the philosopher seeks. The accounts the philosopher gives, then, only make explicit what he already has in his use of language. The probing questions of Socrates are attempts to bring people to that decisive point at which they realize the elusive categories behind words, hoping that they will recognize then the nature of what they do not know and accordingly seek to know it by means of speech. It is only through mastering the usage of words, however, that the hopeful philosopher will be able to give a true account. IMPLICATIONS What, though, does it mean that philosophic knowledge is tied up in language? Several possible implications fall out of these considerations: What does mastery of the usages of words entail? What is the standard for true knowledge, and should philosophers agree? First, if philosophic knowledge begins with what is implicit in words as we use them and explicates this, the forms (excuse the severity of the phrase) are not eternal. Uses of words change over time, after all. Although there will always be hidden definitions behind the words we use showing why we call things what we call them, these will be at least somewhat modified along with the words' uses in speech. "Nice" once meant "stupid and harmless," but now means "kind and friendly," with no derogatory undertones; the form of the "nice" has changed. The knowledge the philosopher seeks, being knowledge of what words mean, is subject to the same alterations and erosions. The standard by which the philosopher's accounts are judged, then, is that of contemporary linguistic usage, and it is this the philosopher must master to attain knowledge. It is possible, of course, that the standard could be the philosopher's own ideas about what words mean, that meanings are subjective- in which case no one philosopher could ever be called incorrect. If words are used for communication, though, no one 's definitions will be terribly different from another's. If that is so and there is a standard for truth in the practical use of words, why do not all philosophers agree? Simply, some are more aware of their language and more skilled at articulating accounts than others. Thus, the dependency of philosophic knowledge on language ties it to the language of the time-and possibly also to the particular language in question, though this is an immense question for which no clear suggestion comes from the previous arguments. In any case, possessing one level of knowledge about things in words, the philosopher seeks to have the knowledge words imply by articulating their meanings, catching and holding account-birds. Language enables philosophers to seek knowledge by providing them with words that reach �6 beyond individual things to the relationships of those things to all other things, as named by words. Because these relationships are the know ledge philosophers seek, they ask questions and give accounts, hoping to articulate the peculiar nature of one thing, like knowledge, by showing how it differs from others. To master speeches is to become aware of what words mean, and articulating those meanings is to find knowledge of what things are to us. Leaming to master speeches, if it is possible, seems to involve listening to and using one's native words, the words one was endowed with. Simply, though, language allows the philosopher to seek because what he seeks is part of language. PHILLIPS ENDNOTES 'References are to the Theaetetus unless otherwise indicated. TRANSLATIONS CITED Plato, Phaedo. Trans. G. M. A. Grube. Classics of Western Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995 . Sophist. Trans. Eva Brann, Peter Kalkavage and Eric Salem. Newburyport, MA: Focus Philosophical Library, 1996. Th eaetetus. Trans. Seth Benardete. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Warwick Castle Lucy Isabel Clark, '02 Caroline Picard, '02 �Confessions Involving Balance and Equilibrium Lab Experiments Bryan Thorpe, 'OJ I'm presenting two experiments. The first experiment became the impetus for the second experiment-the two are closely related. Bear with me and I'll make myself clear. First, consider the following diagram: c A B Let us suppose that this is a fulcrum point with a meter stick resting on it in a state of equilibrium. Consider how the meter stick is balanced: for every point on side AC there is a corresponding point on side CB having the same weight and distance from point C. The meter stick balances because each side-representing a sum of points-exerts the same amount of stress as the other side. It might be more clearly put this way: side AC is a lever pressing down, having as much lifting power as side CB, which is also pressing down. Their combined forces cancel so that each side is lifted with as much force as it presses down. The result is what we call equilibrium-a balance of forces, of stresses. These stresses do not have to be uniform and exactly symmetrical for equilibrium to exist: A D c B To compensate for the block added to side AC in the above diagram, I must add an equal stress to the other side. As Archimedes well demonstrates, that equal stress can take any number of forms involving widely disparate combinations of mass and distance . The meter stick by itself is a particularly unifo1m example of a system in equilibrium, but otherwise no different from a similar system having objects resting upon it. My point is this: no matter what the system, we intuitively recognize the fulcrum point as the determining agent of equilibrium. Put another way, we might say that the fulcrnm point is the unity that gives rise to the possibility of equilibrium. But what happens if the meter stick is resting on two or more fulcrnm points, as in this diagram: A Basement Door Isab el Clark '02 B �10 THORPE We must say that, yes, this system too is resting in a kind of equilibrium- not a useful kind, for ce1tain, but a kind nonetheless. What are the stresses in this system? What forces are exerted on each fulcrum point? This is what my first experiment examines: the stresses created by a system with two fulcrum points. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT A. Setup Equipment needed: two scales, two balls of putty, two razor blades, one meter stick, one baros circular weight (32g.) To determine ~hat stresses were being felt on which fulcrum point, I put a scale under each fulcrum point. The fulcrum point itself is a razor blade held in place by a ball of putty, which in turn is resting on a tray attached to a scale. The scales were set to zero after the putty and razorblade were placed on them. I won't be able to draw this exactly, but the following diagram should illustrate the general setup: EN ERG EIA 11 There are no conflicting stresses in this setup: line AB, as a lever, is only exerting force on line BC, and line CD is only exe1ting force on line DC. Thus, for every point we pick, there is only one other point on the meter stick that is exerting an equal force across a common fulcrnm point. Also note that an object placed on the meter stick at the 30cm mark doesn 't have any effect on the weight felt at the 80cm mark, and vice versa. Of course, I could achieve the same results with any number of setups- e.g. fulcrnm points at the 1Ocm mark and the 60cm mark, etc.-so long as the fulcrum points divide the meter stick into balanced sections that don't overlap. Case Two Next, I arranged the fulcrnm points beneath the meter stick so that fulcrum point A was at the 40cm mark, and fulcrum point B was at (remained at) the 80cm mark: C. 80 B. Case One To begin, I arranged the fulcrum points so that fulcrum point A was at the 30cm mark of the meter stick, and fulcrum point B was at the 80cm mark: 30 With this setup, scale A registered 7 5 percent of the total weight of the meter stick, and scale B registered 25 percent. Now the question is why is the weight of the meter stick divided between the two fulcrum points in this way? What forces are at play here? After much experimentation I discovered a h. rd mle for answering this question, not just with this setup, but with any a setup having conflicting stresses: dete1mine which sections of the meter stick are in equilibrium and which are in conflict. I' ll try to illustrate. In this case we find that only one portion of the whole system is in equilibrium. In the following diagram that section is line BD: 80 Scale A registered 60 percent of the total weight of the meter stick, and scale B registered 40 percent. This makes sense . The 30cm mark on the meter stick is the equilibrium point for the first 60cm of the meter stick, and 80cm mark is the equilibrium point of the last 40cm of the meter stick. Thus, the whole system rests in equilibrium, and the stresses on each fulcrum point are also in equilibrium. The following diagram, I hope, makes this clearer. Line BD is in equilibrium becausP. its two component parts, lines BC and CD , exert equal stress on each other. In contrast, line AB is in conflict because the section that would normally counter its force , line DE, must also counter the force of line EF. In other words, lines AB and EF are competing to lift the same section. And, at first, it looks as if they are exerting an equal lifting force-after all, both lines are 20cm in length. However, line AB has substantially more lifting power because it ' s farther from its fulcrum point than line EF, which is butted up against its fulcrum point. There is a difficulty here in calculating the lifting force of these lines . The problem is that we're not talking about weights placed on the line, as if the line were in equilibrium, but the line itself. Each point of the line is a different distance from its fulcrum point, so we need a measurement of force that equals the sum of the forces exerted by all the points individually . Taking a hint from Archimedes, I've found that this collective force is perfectly expressed by multiplying the length of the line (which represents the line's total weight) by the distance from the fulcrum point to its center of weight. (The center of weight of a line is found by bisecting it.) In the above diagram, the length of line AB is 20cm, and its center of weight is 30cm from fulcrum point C. The length of line EF is 20cm, and its center of weight is 1Ocm from fulcrum point E. Line AB has 600 units of lifting force . Line EF has 200 units of lifting force. The line on top represents the meter stick, the globular shape is the putty, and the two labeled trapezoids are scales. �12 THORPE We can better express this by saying that line AB will exert three times as much lifting force as line EF. Thus, in the common section DE, which both lines are competing to lift, line AB lifts 15cm-three times as much as line EF, which is lifting only Scm. And from this it follows why one scale is registering 75 percent of the weight of meter stick, and the other scale 25 percent: Weight on first scale: Weight on second scale : 20 (line AB) + 40 (line BD) + 15 (the lifted portion of line DE) = 75 20 (line EF) + 5 (the lifted portion of line DE) = 25 Similar calculations can be made for any combination of fulcrnm point positions. No matter where the fulcrum points are located, the system as a whole can be broken down into sections resting in equilibrium-and thus constant-and conflicting sections that are exerting unrequited lifting force . These sections can then be used to predict how much stress is being felt at each fulcrum point. Is this an accurate representation of real life physics, or just a useful mathematical trea trnent of such phenomena? I don't know-but I lean heavily toward the latter. This first experiment, working with two fulcrum points, inspired me to think about plane figures in similar manner. That is, I wondered if a plane figure, balanced on a single point, could also be conceptualized as a collection of balanced sections . I was amazed at what I discovered. ENERGEIA 13 How does a plane figure, resting on a pin, balance? And why does it only balance on the center of weight? I performed the following experiments hoping to answer these questions . A couple of notes ~efore I begin: for the sake of precision and ease, I've worked largely with triangles . Their areas can be exactly calculated, and their center of weight is easily found (using Archimedes' method) . I have performed the exact same experiments on completely irregular plane figures , and the results are the same, though with a larger degree of error. Also, from here forward the.diagrams will be from a bird's eye perspective. To begin, I divided a triangle into different sections. The first section, and the largest, was the section most clearly resting in equilibrium. In the following diagram I've shaded this section gray: THE SECOND EXPERIMENT Equipment Needed: cardboard to cut into plane figures, scissors, one ball of putty, one ruler, one needle In the freshman lab manual, we learn that a cardboard cutout plane figure, no matter how hung, will always orient itself with its center of weight directly underneath the hanging point. After doing this a few times, we conclude that, somehow, the center of weight appears to be heavier than all the other points . But the center of weight has another characteristic, equally interesting, that is not presented in the manual: the center of weight is also the only point upon which the plane figure can be balanced. By balanced, I mean that the cardboard plane figure, oriented parallel to (coplanar with) the earth, can be rested upon a single point (a needlepoint, for example). Figure 1 is the experiment described in the lab manual. Figure 2 is the same cardboard cutout balanced on a needlepoint: This section is in equilibrium because for any point taken on it, there is another point, directly opposite it, on the other side of the center, that counteracts its downward force. Points outside of this section have no corresponding point to balance them. I'll elaborate. Consider points A and D in the following diagrams: Point A is balanced by its correlative, point B. Point D, on the other hand, should be balanced by point E-but point E doesn't exist. In fact, none of the points in the remaining sections-the tluee triangles outside the gray shaded polygon-have correlative balance points. How do these sections keep each other in check? How are they in equilibrium? To answer this question I simplified the problem. In the diagrams above, the triangles are balanced on infinite axes passing through the center, point C. In my experiments I worked with a single axis of balance. I took a metal ruler and mounted it in putty so that the edge of the ruler was perpendicular to my desk. The putty was stuck to the desk itself. I then balanced my cardboard cutout triangle on this single axis . (Note that this axis, and every axis that allows the triangle to balance, passes through point C, the center of weight.) Line AB represents the rnler: Figure 1: cardboard cutout triangle hung so that point C (center of weight I rests directly beneath the hanging point. Figure 2: the same triangle being balanced on a needle at the center of its weight �14 EN ERG EI A THORPE 15 B A A B Next, I found the centers of weight for the sections in question (I've labeled these D, E, and F in the following diagram). Then I weighed the sections, which, in plane figures, is a matter of° determining the area of. each section. Following this, I measured the distance of the sections, from their respective centers of weight, to the axis of balance. This measurement supposes that the force exerted by the sections is perpendicular to the axis of balance. The lines with arrows represent the distances between these centers and the axis of balance: B A Let the weight of the top section, with center of weight D = Figure 1: (Wvx DG) + (W£x El)=(WFx FH) Figure 2: (WEx El)=(WFx FH) Note that the center of weight for section W 0 is on the fulcrum point, and, therefore, the whole section W 0 is already in equilibrium. This seems to be a reasonable explanation of how a plane figure balances on a single point: equal forces balance every possible axis, and, therefore, the whole figure balances. I might have guessed this . If the figure were unbalanced on any one axis, then it would fall to the side of that axis having the lesser force . But this theory is not complete. There's a complication. I've divided my plane figures in a very particular way-I'm referring to the gray and non-gray sections. It turns out (after many experiments!) that this particular division of sections is not necessary . Plane figures can be divided into any number of randomly shaped sections, and the rules of balance, as I've been using them, still apply. Consider the figure below: WD. Let the weight of the first bottom section, with center of weight F = WF. Let the weight of the second bottom section, with center of weight E = WE. Here ' s what I discovered: WD x Distance DG = (WF x Distance FH) + (WE x Distance El) It is better rendered in prose: the force exerted by the top section is equal to the combined forces exerted by the bottom sections. By this account, the whole system, with respect to fulcrum AB, is in equilibrium. But that's just the beginning. No matter how you orient the fulcrum line, the forces on one side, by this means of calculation, always equal the forces on the other side. For example: G Figure 3: There are six sections. Each section exerts a force equal to its weight multiplied by the perpendicular distance from the section's center of weight to the axis of balance. Let the force of section E be expressed as FE' Let the forces exerted by the other sections be expressed in a similar manner. We find this: (FE +FF+ FB +FA)= (FD+ FG) �16 THORPE This complication, the infinite number of ways in which a plane figure's balance can be mathematically portrayed, at first, clouded my understanding of what was really, physically happening in the figure-but I've had time to ponder it. I think the following two axioms generally explain what's happening : First, as I've already stated, a plane figure is balanced on a given axis because the collective force of the points on one side of the axis balance out the collective force of the points on the other side of the axis. Second, a single point can collectively represent any set of adjacent points on the plane figure-if that single point is their center of weight. This works because the center of weight is really just a fulcrum point and nothing else. With lines, the center of weight is a fulcrum point having only one axis of balance. With plane figures, it's a fulcrum point having infinite axes. Thus, in dividing Figure 3, above, into six different sections, I've reconceptualized the whole triangle into six different, unconnected systems, each resting in equilibrium on top of a single fulcrum point. To restate that: if the whole triangle can be thought of as balance beam with a single fulcrum point, then I've just divided it into six smaller balance beams and measured their respective forces across the original, now meta-level, fulcrum point. Either as a whole, or subdivided, I'm still weighing the same triangle having the same number of points. Without these axioms I don't know how to describe the physical reality of a plane figure balancing. I'm convinced that the problem is one of points. But the only way I can account for every point is to compound them into sections: the sections make the infinite points of plane figures finite and manageable. This works, in a way, but it leaves me with more questions than it answers. For example, does a point exert force only on those points it is in direct contact with-or does every point exert force on every other point? In one case the points form an infinite collection of mutually cancelling levers, and in the other case the points f01m a web of energy waves .. . a web of gravity? My experiments only take into account leveraging force . I ignore the force that makes this force possible-gravity-because I wouldn ' t know where to begin. I can only examine its byproducts, ideas like balance and equilibrium. I look forward to Junior year and resolving some of these questions. Sailboats Karin Ekholm, A 'oo Backlit Karina Hean, A 'oo �19 ENERGEIA Profit of Wisdom Ecclesiastes, Solomon, and the Loathing of Life Derek Alexander, A '99 In our thickest moments we feel our uselessness and know the world is bent. We know the futility of our work; we see the world stand fixed beneath our actions. We afflict the innocent or, innocent, are afflicted. We crave unmerited praise, or flippantly praise others. At moments we are happy and look on our works. But look away! For if you stare, a word will tum to letters, and a life will tum to dust. Fixity and time eat vigor, and death will pierce through any profit a man has made . When Ecclesiastes cries all is vanity! it is both a beginning and an end. And when we read those words we feel our relationship to them swell and recede with the choler in our hea11s. We sometimes cry 'but life is good! '-and sometimes cry for the absurdity of it all. The crookedness of our lives now hides, now reveals the futility, the vanity, the absurdity of our toil. And enjoyment gives relief, but flees. Solomon-so we will call our guide and writer in this wrenching book-is a searcher. And while he can give us only words-and while that is all we will give-he can use those words to point to life and living . And we live. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house offeasting; for that is the end of eve1y man, and a living one should take it to heart. (7 :2) 1 Is it so? Let us go instead to Ecclesiastes itself, and take it to heart. Let us try its bitterness , and see if it stays on the tongue of consideration. What is behind its loathing of life? We will look for the nature of wisdom, and the value of wisdom, both in Solomon's life (I Kings 1-11 or II Chronicles 1-9) and in the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon's life is inconsistent, and Ecclesiastes is a wandering book; yet one who follow s both will glimpse behind the despair a dark and splendid queen-wisdom. SOLOMON THE KING It is not to our point to consider whether Solomon penned Ecclesiastes: the book claims to be his, and it draws on his unique place in our minds. At 1: 16, Ecclesiastes reads , "Here I have grown richer and wiser than any that ruled before me over Jerusalem, and my mind has zealously absorbed wisdom and learning." Here and throughout, no question of origin will exempt the reader from considering Solomon. Either Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon, and draws on his life, or it was not written by Solomon, and draws on his life. This paper, like the book, is interested in him. No one is less afflicted from without than he-Solomon controls himself and those about him. His God gives, indeed asks to give. Found at the beginnings ofl Kings and II Chronicles is a famous story : Solomon, having just married the daughter of Pharaoh , and before building the great Temple, sacrifices magnificently to the Lord. Then, in divine munificence, the Lord comes to Solomon (II Chronicles 1:7-13): That night, the Lord appeared to Solomon and said to him, "Ask, what shall I grant you?" Solomon said to God, "You dealt most graciously with my father David , and now You have made me king in his stead. Now, 0 Lord God, let Your promise to my father David be fulfilled; for You have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. Grant me then the wisdom and the knowledge to lead this people, for who can govern Your great people?" God said to Solomon, "Because you want this, and have not asked for wealth, property, and glory, nor have you asked for the life of your enemy, or long life for yourself, but you have asked for the wisdom and knowledge to be able to govern My people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge are granted to you, and I grant you also wealth , property, and glory, the like of which no king before you has had , nor shall any after you have." From the shrine at Gibeon, from the Tent of Meeting, Solomon went to Jerusalem and reigned over Israel. And true to this singular grant, Solomon's reign over Israel was blessed. He built the Temple. He judged aright. He administered with genius. He prospered like no other before him. But he would splinter Israel by dividing his heart between the Lord of David and the gods of his many forbidden wives (I Kings 11). In all external matters- adminis tration, diplomacy, exhortation-Solomon was excellent and severe. His dedication prayer for the Temple was magnificent. It was his heart that wandered . This was fatal, for it was Solomon's heart that God wanted, and He had conditioned Israel's unity on the singleness of Solomon's devotion. He is, indeed, a jealous God. The account makes it wholly clear that Solomon is without excuse in his polytheism, for the Lord visits again, and warns him precisely, vividly (I Kings 9:2-9): The Lord appeared a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. The Lord said to him, "I have heard the prayer and the supplication which you have offered Me. I consecrate this House which you have built and I set My name there forever. My eyes and My heart shall ever be there. As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked before Me, wholeheartedly and with uprig~tness, doing all that I have commanded you and keeping My laws and My rules, then I will establish your throne of kingship over Israel forever, as I promised your father David, saying, 'Your line on the throne of Israel shall never end.' But if you and your descendants turn away from Me and do not keep the commandments and the laws which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worshjp them, then I will sweep Israel off the land which I gave them; I will reject the House which I have consecrated to My name; and Israel shall become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And as for this House, once so exalted, everyone passing by it shall be appalled and shall hiss. And when they ask 'Why did the Lord do thus to the land and to this House?' They shall be told, 'lt is because they forsook the Lord their God who freed them from the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods and worshipped them and served them; therefore the Lord has brought all this calamity upon them. ' " These words are thorough, stark, clear, and from the mouth of God; Solomon must have understood their seriousness. They present so clear a reward for devotion, so stark a punishment for sin, that they could not be mistaken by Solomon. The fate of Israel rode on the wholehearted obedience of people and king. King Solomon, who in the first visitation of the Lord sought the good of his kingdom in asking for wisdom, must feel the weight of th e state upon his fealty towards God . Yet he turns away. Just as God had forbidden, Solomon lets his heart wander to the gods of his foreign wives. The God ofisrael finds the builder of His temple building again, not for Him, but for Malech, for Chemosh and for other gods (I Kings 11 :6-8). This jealous Lord loved David, peculiarly, especiallybut in breaking loyalty with the Lord, Solomon makes the transition from being good David ' s son to b eing evil Rehoboam' s father. It is only the tenacity of the Lord's love for David that allows Solomon to cling to his control of united Israel: "but for the sake of your father David, I will not [tear away your kingdom] in your lifetime." (I Kings 11: 12) Even Solomon's son Rehoboam is blessed by the Lord's love for his grandfather- he will be pe1mitted to rule a solitary but mighty tribe of Israel: Judah. To Solomon the Lord gave, and from Israel the Lord took away. Solomon, for all his wealth and wisdom, though a king of peace, lost Israel with his heart. Solomon ' s life and words recounted in Kings and Chronicles will not untangle Ecclesiastes, nor will that knot unfold his life. But they fill one another. In the accounts of Solomon's life we learn of his deeds and words, not of his thoughts. Thoughtful Ecclesiastes, however, is introverted, ruminative. Though said in public, being a book, Ecclesiastes remains in feeling private-but is about things done and said in the world. Bold and strongly felt, it expresses much that sits deep in a great man's heart. It is a dark book- and yet there is some hope . It befits Solomon's unified Israel: lost, but with promise of restoration.2 Ecclesiastes is the heart of gain and loss-economic and ultimate. MAN: ENGULFED BY NATURE The opening exclamation of Ecclesiastes is famous and the opening question is key. Here are both (1:2-3; Seow translation): Vanity of vanities, says Qohelet, vanity of vanities! Al l is vanity! What advantage does one have in all the toil , at which one toils under the sun? This question is the heart of the book; it sparks the inquiry into human toil, and its finding of emptiness is expressed as the verdict Vanity! What advantage? One does best to ask in return 'Advantage with respect to what?' Solomon sets the criterion high. The lines which follow this question are no diversion: When Solomon turns to the stability of nature, he sees a context into which a human or two simply disappearand all their advantages with them (1 :3-5, 7) : What real value is there for a man In all the gains he makes beneath the sun? One generation goes, another comes, But the earth remains the same forever. The sun rises, and the sun sets - And glides back to where it rises ... All streams flow into the sea, Yet the sea is never full .. . It can seem unfair-the bar is set high. Ecclesiastes asks what advantage a single man has, and gives not just a global context, but a global natural context. It is what a solitary hiker finds awesome about the earth- its stately stability and seeming indifference toward man. But Solomon is not a hiker, and Ecclesiastes is not a hymn to nature- in the context of man and his toil, the stability of nature is not so much awesome as overwhelming. It is hard to feel at ease, to be at home in the world. Nature ' s stability does not, alas, extend to predictability. Crops may flourish or fail, and the farmer must plant in the face of this uncertainty. This is asking much of the farmer: overwhelming, indifferent, fickle nature is intimidating to toil. It is fearsome, paralyzing. And while Ecclesiastes will spend relatively little time observing this face of nature, it will fight the paralysis its observation can �20 ALEXANDER induce. Near the end of the book, roughly opposite the passage above, we find this ( 11 :4-6): If one watches the wind, he will never sow; and if one observes the clouds, he will never reap. Just as you do not know how the lifebreath passes into the limbs within the womb of the pregnant woman, so you cannot foresee the actions of God, who causes all things to happen. Sow your seed in the morning, and don't hold back your hand in the evening, since you don't know which is going to succeed, the one or the other, or if both are equally good. It is characteristic and central to Ecclesiastes to make this compound movement. First, the fearsome and unmovable face of the way of things (in this case, of nature) is seen, and profit of toil (wealth or fortune) collapses as uncertain against it. The overweening and self-assured search for advantage fails. Second, however, there emerges for the innocent and persistent a strand of hope, not for the profit of the man, but for the good of his toil or work. What that good is must be seen. Solomon can demolish hopes for advantage because he can manipulate the scale of comparison; as has been noted, one may wonder if it is fair to assess the value of a man's labor against the immensity of the earth's stability. Wisdom will lead one to see how many shapes toil, for example, can take in the face of nature, children, enjoyment, death. To wonder about the fairness of thinking about a man's toil up against nature's stability is to see much of the point already: that the juxtaposition is possible and dangerous. These comparisons must either be warned against, or be done wisely-and even then with the real danger of despair and loathing. So the wise will ask: where does the danger lie-in the nature of nature, or in the nature of advantage? This question is well answered by placing advantage in contexts other than nature (for example, time), and observing whether the danger persists. There are many other contexts available- some parochial and some grand. Solomon will combine the two in considering human forgetfulness over divine eternity. MAN: SWALLOWED BY ETERNITY Time outstretched-One generation goes, another comes-and the sameness of the earth swallows streaming hoards of men: the small with their wretchedness, the great with their advantages. Time is the context of the assertion of recurrence (1 :9): "Only that shall happen which has happened, only that occur which has occurred; there is nothing new under the sun!" Ecclesiastes would thus deny men the consolation of thinking that if, indeed, no one person can find real advantage, then many people over time might accumulate some profit. The wise will call recurrence to mind in the context of the sameness of the earth and expect to see motion- inplace-even cycles . This recurrence of sameness contributes much to the worth of wisdom. Obvious as it is, proverbs and wisdom would be impossible in a world ever-new or amorphous . On the other hand, wisdom would be cheap in a world where these patterns were always seen and heeded-what use for a proverb were the world's ways clear? But the assertion of recurrence, in the context of people, is sister to forgetfulness. Ecclesiastes says that men do not remember who or what came before, that they do not even remember their deeds, and so it will continue ( 1: 11 ). This is a difficult assertion to accept, especially coming from an old and remembered book. But forgetfulness is the human complement to a world made bent, a world whose people need wisdom. Forgetfulness gives wisdom part of its worth by robbing simple observation of its completeness. But then forgetfulness turns around and empties wisdom of its advantage over foolishness in death: neither the wise nor the fool are necessarily remembered (2: 16). The wise man may become embittered at this turn. Human forgetfulness adds much to that scarcity of understanding which makes a proverb valuable, a wise man needful. But the proverb and the wise man are themselves forgotten. Here, as elsewhere in Ecclesiastes, the valuable and needful are unprofitable . Here, as elsewhere, value and vanity share a common root. (In this case, wisdom both gained value from and was emptied by forgetfulness.) The wise find no lasting remembrance, no sure fame . For a wise man fixed on making a profit, like Solomon, this is bitter (2:15-16 Seow): So I said in my heart: "If the fate of the fool befalls even me, why then have I been acting excessively wise?" I said in my heart that this too is vanity, for there is no remembrance of the wise forever- as is the case with th e fool-becaus e all too soon everything is forgotten . 0 how the wise dies just like the fool! We saw the farmer deprived of the profit of his toil by the very ea1th which made the work possible and good . And now the human forgetfulness that gives the wise their use and place denies them any lasting profit or advanta ge. Wisdom, insofar as it is work, is not more lasting than the work of the hands . Time swallows wisdom. That statement, like Ecclesiastes , will appear too dark and too universal- for it is itself wisdom. W ISDOM : EVERYTHING HIDDEN Wisdom here and throughout does not mean that which philosophy loves. We here search for the nature of the wis- ENERGEIA dom Solomon receives, the wisdom Ecclesiastes finds vain, the wisdom Proverbs express. Solomon gives us a vivid demonstration of wisdom while sitting in judgment over two women. Found in I Kings (3: 16-28), the story is this: a baby, born to a prostitute, is also claimed by a second prostitute of the same house, whose baby is dead. The two women come to Solomon for justice. He hears the case and says, "Cut the live child in two, and give half to one and half to the other." The true mother, hearing this, seeks to save her son and cries, "give her [the other] the live child, only don't kill it!" But the mother of the dead baby envies the life of the other and says, "It shall be neither yours nor mine; cut it in two !" King Solomon gives the child to the life-loving mother, sure that the child is hers. Israel was awed by their new king, the account tells us, "for they saw that he possessed divine wisdom to execute justice." (3:28) The ruthless resourcefulness of the trick Solomon played is indeed a marvel. It is cruel and, happily, effective. He clearly sees the situation; he knows the opposing testimony gives insufficient ground for judgment. Indeed, just before ordering the child halved, he acutely summarizes the testimony, and implies the need for a test: he says, "One says 'This is my son, the live one, and the dead one is yours'; and the other says, 'No, the dead boy is yours; mine is the live one. ' " Interestingly, Solomon does not seek to question the account the women gave further-yet since one gave an account of how the other baby died (3 :19), he might have tried to catch a contradiction in the account of the lying woman. Solomon instead takes a risk. The reader does not know whether the child is actually in danger of being halved, but knows that Solomon cannot know how the prostitutes will react. He cannot be sure that his trick will uncov er the truth. Nonetheless, he brutally simplifies the discovery of the h-uth, in the effort to gain it. In the realm of an active wise man, risks abound (and this alone accounts for part of the connection of wisdom and wealth) . Wisdom has no assurance of finding the truth or success it seeks, but resourcefully acts, having perceived clearly . A good specimen of wise statement, like Solomon's, will not recount what is seen clearly, but simplify it, usually drastically . A wise action, whether it be a severe test, like Solomon's above, or the giving of a proverb, is not so much factual as acute. It is essential to the safe use of proverbial or Solomonic wisdom to understand that it will not be true in the same way that honest testimony is true. The (very common) error is to turn an acute proverb into a false universal, or a trivial conditional. Proverbs 11.16 says, for example, "A graceful woman obtains honor; ruthless men obtain wealth." This statement becomes false when universalized: "All graceful women obtain honor; all ruthless men obtain wealth." A similar problem occurs with the insertion of only. To insert some turns wisdom into timid conditional testimony, 0 21 and dulls the hortatory prick of the proverb ( 12: 11 ). The wise proverb points and directs by its acuity; the universalized distortion obscures and falsifies by its narrowness. Wisdom is exemplified in map-making- a most useful and acute labor of simplification. The vivid revelation of political boundaries will on a map generally obscure the presentation of environmental features, or preempt them altogether. It is unwise to try to represent everything on one map. It is foolish, and certain to fail. To make maps is to distort, yes, but with an eye toward the truth of the matter. To insist 'on the complete and undistorted fidelity of a map to the land is to lose the truths revealed by cutting away other truths. The land does not bare itself to the mere observer. One cannot see that a plot of land lies in the center of an island; nonetheless it does, and a map will reveal that fact. But this map, in order to porh·ay the island, has ignored innumerable distinctions, introduced the distortion of scale, and , importantly, made certain facts more obvious than they are when encountered directly. A wise map-maker will know the distortions of maps, and will not be led astray. He will know that the loftiest aim of the map maker-absolute fidelity- is a useful and worthy ideal, but unattainable . At moments he may even be frustrated that the desire for fidelity cannot be satisfied but instead results at best in a high degree of fidelity-which is so much as to say, an excellent distortion. How much greater is the frustration of one who seeks to represent, not land, but humankind and God! The stakes are higher for one who exercises wisdom in the service of his nation and his Lord . Both King Solomon's capacity and his responsibility to inquire with wisdom into cases of justice are Godgiven. His specifically divine grant of wisdom encouraged, no doubt, the boldness of Solomon ' s manipulation of the prostitutes' case. The Solomon of Ecclesiastes also considers as Godgiven the burdensome work of inquiring with wisdomespecially when inquiring with wisdom into wisdom itself. And while he is bold ih his search, he is vexed in his heart ( 1: 16-18): I said to myself: "Here I hav e grown richer and wiser than any that ru led before me over Jerusalem, and my mind has zealously absorbed wisdom and learning. " And so I set my mind to appraise wisdom and to appraise madness and folly. And I learned that this too was pursuit of wind: For as wisdom grows, vexation grows; To increase learning is to increase heartache. Wisdom, one would think, is a good thing and brings happiness. It often does. Ecclesiastes will say as much in places yet to be discussed. But throughout, Ecclesiastes refuses to �22 ALEXANDER make a wand out of wisdom-it does not turn good everything it touches. Wisdom is not its own reward, nor is wisdom necessarily virtuous . It is generally rewarding, and it is the prime accomplice of virtue. 3 Wisdom is clear seeing of what is to be done, or of what underlies. It gives no surety; it does not change the world whole: it does not replace truth itself. Wisdom, that is, must be interpreted: a good proverb will indeed lay flat some bend of the world, but in turn requires the reader to stretch his mind to see the flattening. Again, wise sayings are like maps-one must learn to see them. This, of course, is the focus of Proverbs itself, whi ch opens with great and teaching purpose (1: 1-1.6): The proverbs of Solomon son of David , king oflsrael: For learning wisdom and discipline; For understanding words of discernment; For acquiring the discipline for success, Righteousness, justice, and equity; For endowing the simple with shrewdness, The young with knowledge and foresight. - The wise man, hearing them, will gain more wisdom ; The discerning man will learn to be adroit; For understanding proverb and epigram, The words of th e wise and their riddles . The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; Fools despise wisdom and discipline. To make the simple shrewd, the discerning adroit-learning, understanding, acquiring-the work of wisdom is noble, finding its root in fear of the Lord. Its opposite is foolishness, over which it surely triumphs . Or does it? Ecclesiastes, being afflicted with the task of searching out wisdom, says that though wisdom can see clearly, giving it advantage over folly (1:13), there is nonetheless a problem with wisdom's superiority. That problem is death. Solomon muses aloud (2: 15-16): "lf the fa te of the foo l befall s even me, w hy th en have I been acting excessive ly wise?" I said in my heart that this, too, is vanity, for there is no remembrance of the wise forever-as is the case with the fool-because all too soon everythin g is forgotten. 0 how the wise dies just like the fool! Ecclesiastes here places wisdom as it placed toil-in the context of advantage. Again, the bar is set high. Recall that toil was found useless in the context of the stability of nature (Chapter 2: Man Engulfed by Nature). Here, wisdom is found vain in the context of mortality- specifically, wisdom does not preserve one from death. In this context, the distinction collapses between wisdorti. and its opposite, foolishness-for foolishness, too, of course, does not preserve one from death. This sort of observation, a sort of productive flattening, is a core work of wisdom. One might well ask, incredulous, "Productive-what was produced?" A partial appraisal of wisdom and folly was producedspecifically that they make no difference in the face of death. Nothing prevents death-not even wisdom herself. Solomon despairs (2: 17) : "So I loathed life. For I was distressed by all that goes on under the sun, because everything is futile and pursuit of wind." One hopes in vain that wisdom, if it will not save life, will at least perpetuate memory (2:16, 4:16). One hopes in vain even that wisdom will persist in a single wise man during the short span of his life (7:7, Seow translation), "for oppression turn s the wise into fools, and a payment perverts the mind. " The wise are mortal , their wisdom , eradicable. They are not worse than the foolish, but neither are the wise in every respect better. Nor can wisdom see completely. In Ecclesiastes, as has been said, wisdom is a gift of God. But it is the same God who has made the world bent, like a road curving out of sight before and behind the traveler. The God-given gift meets the God-given limitations, and gives way. Or, as Solomon will recount it (7:23-24 Seow) : "I said, ' I will be wise,' but that is beyond me. All that happens is inaccessible and utterly unfathomable; who can discover it?" And while one might try to search out a wiser man to try to discover what Solomon could not find, one will more likely despair of finding anyone better qualified. Who, we ask with Ecclesiastes in 7: 13, will be able to unravel what God has knotted? Wisdom is not a project, and gives no sense of completion in its examination of the ways of the world. It must strain, always. It is indeed productive, but gives no sure advantage. Like toil, it is good without being ce11ain. There is much reason to want wisdom; after all, Ecclesiastes 2:26 reads (Seow translation): "For to the one who is favored, [God) has given wisdom, knowledge, and pleasure." But, importantly, this casts wisdom as a reward, not a means, to Godliness. Ecclesiastes understands the distinction between searching by wisdom and effusive piety. And it will, in the end, see Godliness in the face of the Lord 's judgment, not wisdom, as the heart of the matter. I Kings 3 suggests that Solomon received his wisdom as a result of his love of the Lord and his magnificent sacrifices. Proverbs in turn has memorably said that the fear of the Lord is the starting-point of wisdom. Ecclesiastes, too, sees God as the source not only of wisdom, but of its righteous opposite: simplicity, or uprightness (7:29) .4 For to the one who is f avored, God has given wisdom, knowledge, and pleasure. Solomon is upper-class in the extreme: favored, privileged, born to the house of David, chosen. Having found wealth-like his toil, like his wisdom, like his life-to be vain, Solomon is..speaking of pleasure, but a'1so of his superiority, when he says (2:24-26): There is nothing worthwhile for a man but to eat and drink and afford himself enjoyment with his means. And 23 ENERGEIA even that, I noted, comes from God. For who eats and who enjoys but myself? To the man, namely, who pleases him he has given the wisdom and shrewdness to enjoy himself; and to him who displeases, He has given the urge to gather and amass only for handing on to one who is pleasing to God. That too is futile and a pursuit of wind . This God-given pleasure, in all its futility, is an important. companion to wisdom, knowledge, and toil-and should be examined. MAN : DROWNED I N P LEASURE Ecclesiastes finds human toil and wisdom to be empty of advantage when considered against the stability of nature and the sameness of death. And when, immediately after the first discussion of the vanity of wisdom, Solomon approaches pleasure or mirth, one feels sure that it, too, will fall. Indeed (2:1-2): l said to myself, "Come, I will treat you to merriment. Taste mirth!" That too, I found, was futile. Of revelry I said, "It's mad'" Of merriment, "What good is that?" What good is that? This question eats merriment by appraising that quality by the degree to which it is its opposite. That is, the rhetorical force of the question What good is that? comes from taking what good to mean what use . Since that refers to merriment, we have What use is merriment? This is tellingly close to asking What work does not working do? The futility of merriment is established on the grounds of its not being something it never meant to be-useful. This maneuver is often what makes it so easy for Ecclesiastes to depreciate a subject like wisdom, toil, or pleasure: it need only find something the subject is not and ask why not. Uncareful defenders of the attacked subject (in this case, pleasure) will often find themselves bamboozled into defending it against the charge of not being what it never was (in this case, useful). Even if pleasure is in cases useful, insisting that it always be useful is absurd, and a path to despair. To resist someone who says pleasure is not practical by denying such an obvious statement is just such a path. So, when Solomon finds mirth futile, one wonders why he expected more. The answer lies in the problem of recompense within wisdom. There are many paths that lead to an understanding of enjoyment and pleasure in Ecclesiastes-a consideration of toil or a consideration of mortality among them. But the present excursion-a consideration of recompense-is best, for it will remove a consideration of pleasure from the slippery and onerous context of advantage, and defend it on more solid ground. To receive proportionate good for good, proportionate evil for evil-this is recompense. Especially when medi- ated by God, recompense may be considered a matter of cause and effect, or as a special kind of recurrence: recurrence in the service of justice. It is characteristic of wisdom, in fact, to express itself in causal or judicial terms: for example (7: 12, JPS emendation), "For the possessor of wisdom becomes a possessor of money." This is an acute and useful proverb. The distinction between wisdom and true testimony is indispensable here-one who confuses the two will choke on the juxtaposition of that and this proverb (9: 16): "A poor man's wisdom is scorned, and his words are not heeded ." As proverbs, they are not contradictory (one is about wisdom, the other about poverty), but if universalized and considered testimony, the two will contradict. One must understand that when compounding proverbs, a world-view, and not a world, is being produced. In any case, both proverbs above suggest that the appropriate recompense of wisdom includes wealth. But the world is not always compensatory; there are problems with cause and effect when thus imagined. Innocent men are afflicted. And Solomon, despite his sins, was not himself afflicted. His nation and son were. The wise look around, and see recompense achieved, and recompense frustrated. Wisdom must hold on to both. Justice is real. Injustice is real. In the world they are not negations but enemies. The defeat of one by the other is not annihilation, but victory. Wisdom shows her worth when she discerns one in the thicket of the other. Even dark Ecclesiastes, full of bewilde1ment and despair, frustration and injustice, draws out from the depths of its own confusion a surprising certainty in its conclusion (12:13-14 Seow): End of the matter; everything has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for every human it is to be so. Surely God will bring every deed to judgment for everything hidden , whether good or evil. For everything hidden-God will give justice. Wisdom sees final justice beneath all the injustice and delay, some of which was itself found hidden-where there should have been human justice in the first place (3: 16): And, indeed, I have observed under the sun: Alongside justice there is wickedness, Alongside righteousness there is wickedness . Matters are dark, thick, deep; even if there is ultimate recompense and comfort (if but fo r the righteous), one will yearn for comfort at the place and time where the frustration occurs (8:14-15): Here is a frustration that occurs in the world: sometimes an upright man is requited according to the conduct of the scoundrel; and sometimes the scoundrel is requited according to the conduct of the upright. l say all that is frustration. I therefore praised enjoyment. For the only �24 ALEXANDER good a man can have under the sun is to eat and drink and enjoy himself. That much can accompany him, in exchange for his wealth, through the days of life that God has granted him under the sun. Here, enjoyment returns again, and this time, with the expectation of immediate recompense removed, it can be differently approached. No vain attempt to evaluate the advantageousness of enjoyment is found here . Instead, enjoyment becomes the comfort of the frustrated seeker of justice. Wealth is unsure, toil is transient, wisdom is limitedonly after this is seen does pleasure seem to be a proper member of that group. For pleasure, assuredly, is unsure, is transient, is limited- but it is also good. Moreover, simple pleasures-eating, drinking, sleeping, and such-may be seen as enough, seeking no further advantage, seeking no special variety of uncharted stimulation. Pleasure, without strain, is good . The alternative- not seeing simple pleasures as enough- leads to self-defeat in appetitive seeking, which is not enjoyment, but toil. Worse, straining or working for enjoyment inflames the inner impression that the special pleasure, having been sought out with toil, is deserved. That reintroduces the problem of recompense, and expectation of good-in-kind. Still worse, some searches for pleasure will occur on a scale larger and grander than any available pleasure; in those cases, recompense is impossible, and the toil is vain. In intense straining for pleasure, there is no hope for reward-in-kind, only despair. Early in Ecclesiastes, Solomon so oveneaches for pleasure, and with such grand intent, that the pleasure is entirely overwhelmed by hate . That loathing comes from the frush·ated sense ofrecompense, of which the account is this: Solomon decides to hold onto his wisdom, while releasing his body to temptation and folly (2:3). He envisions this as an ambitious experiment which will teach whether a pleasure-directed life or a wisdom-directed life is better for man on earth. He multiplies his holdings, slaves, buildings, gardens- all beyond measure. He acquires all his eyes want, every enjoyment- and he enjoys himself for a time . In Solomon's despairing words (2: 10) : "I got enjoyment out of all my wealth. And that was all I got out of my wealth." Without the strain of acquisition encouraging Solomon, would he ever have desired more out of enjoyable things than enjoyment? Probably not-the despair came from overexpectation. It can be thus with wisdom, too: wisdom is indeed fine and good, and so it will seem until expected to enlighten every depth, explain every bend. It is not surprising that Solomon makes this connection between expecting too much of pleasure and expecting too much of wisdom. His thoughts above turn from the disposition of his monstrous estate after his death-it would be given to a man whose qualities were unknown, unknowable-from this to the emptiness of wisdom in the face of death. Solomon's desires reach beyond the capacities of any human means, and what can come but loathing and despair? The loathsome world, every loathsome thing, the loathsome appetite that turns every available good grey for its inability to be more than it is-Solomon hates, hates his life's indifference in death to his wisdom, and hates his wealth's indifference in falling into the hand of any heir, however undeserving. No recompense, pleasure gone, Solomon "loathed life . . . distressed by all that goes on under the sun, because everything is futile and a pursuit of wind" (2: 17). He loathes his wealth because it will endure beyond his presumably wealth-deserving life, obdurately willing to be spent by a fool. Wealth and death, of so much interest to wise Solomon, do not return interest: they care not a mite for him. Unstrained pleasure, exemplified by eating and drinking, and youthful maniage, are commended. Such immediate pleasure, pretending to no advantage, searching for no permanence, is good and real. Ecclesiastes' Solomon hopes the wise will take this to heart. The pious may be accustomed to seeking that which endures, but they should not be trapped by that mode. Unstrained pleasures are the good of life under the sun-no riches will make life more worthwhile than do they (see, for example, 6:3). MAN: SWAMPED BY M EN Solomon is sunounded in space not only by accumulated wealth, and by his pleasure-seeking acquisitions , but also by his multitude: Israel. He is bracketed in time by his son and his father. Solomon's disgust at the thought of an undeserving heir inheriting his wealth, mentioned above, occupies a surprisingly large fraction of Ecclesiastes . This prospect threatens Solomon' s esteem for himself; his fear of some mishandling of his wealth in the future by an heir is difficult for him to ignore . As it happens, this threat is also connected to his past, for Solomon both was and has an heir. Solomon believes his wealth to be a God-given accessory to his God-given wisdom and knowledge and shrewdness. But why should his heir, if a fool, be so well equipped? This question galls Solomon, for he wants his wealth to reassure him; he wants his riches to prove to him, above all, that God loves him. He would, with all his heart, that he could believe it so; he would, with all his heart, that unique wealth were evidence of unique divine favor. For all Solomon's splendor and wisdom, God loved his father more. Solomon may have built the temple, but David was after God's own heart. Solomon, for all his splendor, for all God's gifts, must know his heart's inferiority. King Solomon, recall, knows from the mouth of God that his heart was what the Lord wants-and He wants it whole (I Kings 9:4). Solomon knows that his kingship, his realm, his wisdom, his wealth, his enjoyment-every aspect of his superiority ENERGEIA comes from God, who, therefore, will not be impressed to find him thus bedecked. He knows himself a freeloader, heir to God's love for his father . His heir would inherit material wealth, which is so much less. And if his heir is an ungodly fool-and who could know-why, then Solomon cam1ot pretend his gold is proof of God's tenderness toward him. Gold will guild foreign idols as readily as temple walls. When Solomon laments again and again in Ecclesiastes that wealth falls to the unworthy as well as the worthy heir, we hear the lamentation of a man encrusted with wealth, three thousand proverbs, one thousand women, unrivaled grandeur, and every other asset which, taken together in stupendous sum, is outweighed in God's eyes by one faithful heart-like the heart of Solomon's father. King David feasted on the love of the Lord; everything Solomon has falls from that table. When Solomon remembers his father, he sometimes thinks of his son, Rehoboam. Will he be wise, or a fool? And while the words my son at the end of Ecclesiastes or in Proverbs hardly represent Rehoboam, it is well to call him to mind now and then. What, after all, would Solomon want his child to have-his wealth? Yes, but also his wisdom. This is the work of Proverbs: the teaching of wisdom. Proverbs, incidentally, are not wisdom coined; a parent can give a child a proverb, but no parent can simply give a child wisdom. Proverbs and human knowledge are contained in books, but wisdom and understanding are at best conveyed by books. Besides, there is no end to the making of books (Ecclesiastes 12: 12), and Solomon would not have his son forever rummaging in books for the good things like wisdom that books cannot contain. A reader of Ecclesiastes, whether a son or not, is shown a great deal of emptinessand if attentive can learn where not to look for fullness of life. That is a generous gift-to rummage less is to decrease despair. But if one seeks to eliminate rummaging and despair, Ecclesiastes will seem useless and futile itself Solomon cannot assist one who so completely misses his point. The book is, importantly, not splendidly engaging or even terribly clear. Ecclesiastes is a knotty book because it is a book about knots. Much of its beauty lies in its refusal to shine, in its way of being suddenly gorgeous and then just moving on. However maddening for the reader, it is hard to see how a book could reflect the crookedness of the world and its gifts onto a straight line. Wisdom, the great flattener , is not flat; a discussion of wisdom, though it will straighten some things out, will not itself be straightforward. Ecclesiastes is a singular inheritance-few would value it. It must anguish Solomon to have glimmering wealth and dark wisdom and an heir. Which will Rehoboam value, having both? Whether Solomon looks back to his father, or forward to his son, there is anguish. Anguished Solomon seeks solace of just the wrong sort. Surely he knew of husbands and wives who comfort one 25 another, who enjoy one another, who have happiness. Solomon should know that many of the finest and most companionable things about people get smothered in crowds. A thousand friends at once can give, at best, admirationbut not friendship . A thousand wives are less than one in matters of comfort and fulfillment. It is the paradox of the baron's gut: always full, never filled. It is a fool thing to have a thousand women: always caressed, never comforted. Not a husband so much as a connoisseur, he likes his wives foreign . Surely frustrated, and altogether unable to soothe his hea1t, this mass of wives deflect it to their gods, to Israel 's enormous loss. Wisdom, comfort- these things cannot be gotten from a crowd. And if one crowds people together, and calls them wives , why, one will still get no wisdom and no comfort. When put in a crowd, the way to get is to grab, trap, snare. Watch a crowd hy to touch a great man, and see hands become claws . Solomon surely lives in a miserable home, and that is his fault. How sad to think that Solomon likely got more happiness from the visit of Sheba than from all his wives . Solomon's understanding of women as people is, at best, skewed. 5 He engaged many women, but Ecclesiastes' Solomon says he never found the woman he sought (7:28), but found instead that "God made men plain, but they have engaged in too much reasoning ." (7:29) It is a telling transition from women to reason, for Solomon marginalized both in the same way: by excess. Solomon finds himself sunounded in time and in home by people who, in different ways, make him miserable. Solomon lives awash. In wealth, wisdom, women, worksin these and more he sinks his heart. They are not bad things, but rather excess of good and goods. In this heaving sea of a home, Solomon looses his grasp on wholeheartedness, a loss that turns all that he has, every seeming gain or profit, grey. Solomon's relationship to his father, his son, and his wives is controlled by his relationship to his God. He could have been his father's peer, even King David ' s superior, but he turns from the Lord, and guarantees himself a second place, despite wealth and wisdom, beneath David's great heart. He could have been Rehoboam's great benefactor, giving his son riches, wisdom, a united kingdom, and an unbroken connection to that special love of the Lord that was their intended boon- but Solomon turns from the Lord (I Kings 11 :4), and his son's fortunes are splintered (I Kings 11 :32). He could have been a great and happy husband, but he crowds his wives, cheating them of the distinction that should have come from sharing a home with so splendid a man. Instead, they are shamed indeed, remembered for the ages as temptresses, as the catalyst of Solomon ' s tum from the Lord. He could have been remembered as a pacific and munificent king-but gives the people, in the end, not only less than they had, but also his embittered son, who would �26 ALEXANDER oppress them (I Kings 12: 11). But Solomon's relation to every one of them occurs in the context of his relation to the jealous God, and would have been entirely different without His activity. He is the main character in King Solomon's life, and the chief actor in the world portrayed by Ecclesiastes. He is a most active and supreme Lord, who pulls and twines every cord. Goo: LORD OF THE HIDDEN God brings times and seasons just as He pleases, and this is the point of a most repetitive, and oft repeated, set of verses. Their familiarity obscures neither their dogged sameness nor their rhythmic beauty (3: 1-11): A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven. A time for being born and a time for dying, A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted; A time for slaying and a time for healing, A time for tearing down and a time for building up; A time for weeping and a time for laughing, A time for wailing and a time for dancing; A time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones, A time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces; A time for seeking and a time for losing, A time for keeping and a time for discarding; A time for ripping and a time for sewing, A time for silence and a time for speaking; A time for loving and a time for hating; A time for war and a time for peace. What value, then, can the man of affairs get from what he earns? I have observed the business that God gave man to be concerned with: He brings everything to pass precisely at its time; He also puts eternity in their mind, but without man ever guessing, from first to last, all the things that God brings to pass . A time for sewing. Ecclesiastes sees God bringing everything to pass precisely at its time. These verses are not primarily interested in soothing the listener. Rather, one feels the utter pervasiveness of God's anangement of time and event. God here sets a time for sewing . God of the large, God of the small-all the things God brings to pass-war and laughing, silence and peace. Humankind will never guess it-God has given them the notion of eternity, but not its content. Death comes , timed by God, unknown to man . This God is strong, and a man will not escape his time: "man cannot contend with what is stronger than he." (6: 10) And, since God gives the good time and the bad, one does well to react well to both (7: 13-14): Consider God's doing! Who can straighten out what He has twisted? So in a time of good fortune enjoy the good fortune; and in a time of misfortune, reflect: The one no less than the other was God's doing; consequently, man may find no fault with Him. God twists lives, and the wise will see the bends. The natural world, lasting longer than do men, curls its bends all the way around into cycles, and it is in that way ever same (Chapter 1); such a world calls for systematic accounting. But the human world was God-bent and truncated by death: there will be no systematic view from beginning to end (3: 10). This human world calls for wisdom, acuity, shrewdness. Solomon knew to ask for wisdom and knowledge, for he was ruler not of the elements, but of Israel. God made man simple, yes, but he remade Solomon wise. Solomon's God is, fittingly, a giving God. Ecclesiastes, too, finds God ever giving-giving times to human works, wisdom and wealth to His favored, eternity to their thoughts, and death to all . If the world were straight, it would be less frustrating . But this frustration is the work of God (8: 10b-15a; note that frustration is here translating 7:J ;i hebe!, or vanity): And here is another frustration [vanity): the fact that the sentence imposed for evil deeds is not executed swiftly, which is why men are emboldened to do evil the fact that a sinner may do evil a hundred times and his punishment still be delayed. For although I am aware that "It will be well with those who revere God since they revere Him, and it will not be well with the scoundrel, and he will not live long, because he does not revere God" here is a frustration [vanity] that occurs in the world: sometimes an upright man is requited according to the conduct of the scoundrel; and sometimes the scoundrel is requited according to the conduct of the upright. I say that all this is frustration [vanity]. I therefore praised enjoyment. The identification of frustration leads to the praise of enjoyment-a primary movement in Ecclesiastes. That God-given frustration often, as here, consists of a fact and a proverb in opposition. Every element of this is God's doing. The frustration is extraordinary, but results from the contact of two most typical elements . The abo ve proverb is of the very most familiar type: righteous rewarded and wicked punished. The above observation-justice delayed and inverted on earth-is the most common counter-observation in wisdom literature. The frustration of combining observation and proverb in the reactive manner above is the very fuel of wisdom literature. There are numerous iterations. Though taken from the passage above, our present example is also the mainspring of the Book of Job: the Godarranged fi'ustration of static wisdom by tempormy inversion of justice. There is very much more to so mighty a book, but that is the mainspring. God-given frustration is the great stimulant of wisdom: without the strange gift of frustration, wisdom would be absurd. Imagine again the uselessness of wisdom were human affairs straightforward, and again the uselessness of wisdom were human affairs utterly scattered. God bends 27 ENERGEIA human affairs, but He does not shatter them. This twisted (but not snapped) middle way is God's underlying giftand the environment where wisdom flourishes. Wisdom isolated from frustration will wither into foolishness. Self-satisfied wisdom will be malign. So it is, for example, with Job's comforters, who refuse to confront their wisdom with the twist of Job's innocent suffering-if they had, their dusty wisdom would have shivered, gasped, and come to life. But more: they would have held to the mighty promise' of restoration. Consider: God keeps wisdom alive by allowing it to make connections, but not of such pemrnnence or universality that it ossifies. This is the work of what we have called stimulation and frustration. It is this divine agitation that engenders the resilience and tenacity characteristic of the wisest people. But, if this were the end of the matter, wisdom being kept alive by nothing more than a divine agitation, wisdom would also be entirely cynical. But there is a second element: the promise of restoration. This is what keeps wisdom right-side-up . One may already have noticed that the bent character of the world, were it isolated, would often produce wisdom on its head-deviled proverbs like this: "It will not be well with those who revere God since they revere Him, and it will be well with the scoundrel, and he will live long, because he does not revere God ." (a conuption of 8: 12f) It is the promise of restoration which prevents this: frustration stimulates wisdom, keeping it alive, and then the promise of restoration keeps it facing in one direction (the righteous direction, of course). Now, restoration marks the endpoint of frustration, and the endpoint of frustration is the endpoint of wisdom's liveliness. Restoration is also the endpoint of Ecclesiastes (12:14). Restoration must occur, to keep wisdom upright, but must occur last, so as not to cut off wisdom from the frustration which keeps it lively. Restoration marks the end of an excursion into wisdom. MAN AND W ISDOM It is, of course, difficult for people when the hope of restoration is put at the end. It seems s'o far off. Yet, for the sake of wisdom's liveliness, the end is the only place restoration can go. Happily there is, as we have seen, the intermediate comfort of simple enjoyment: it is pleasure that makes lively upright wisdom livable on earth. Affliction is very good for wisdom, but not very good for people. A wise people will be best served by bad and good times, enjoyment and affliction. Both must be ultimately empty, so that there is, ultimately, a need to look to a hope ofrestorationkeeping a wise people right-side-up, that is, upright. It is a good God that, yes, twists human affairs, but then provides the promise of restoration and recompense and judgment to help men regain the uprightness with which He created them (7:29). This is the work of God portrayed in Ecclesiastes, the very difficult gift of wisdom, a gift lacking in the sort of profit that would undo itself. The wise have no profit in respect to their being alive-the fool is alive just the same . And death comes for all. The wise in the face of nature and time on earth will discover no impossible advantage, no real value, and they will have pain and enjoyment like the fool. But the words of Ecclesiastes will lodge in the hearts ofa few, and irritate. These are Solomon's true heirs, holders of a dark and fertile gift. Every human spirit is alive, but the wise spirit is liveliest . ENDNOTES 1. The new Jewish Publication Society translation is used throughout, and occasionally the Seow translation from the Anchor Bible series; passages taken from the latter are noted. Often a passage will be involved in one of the many textual difficulties of Ecclesiastes. These difficulties are important, scholarly, and technical, and they are ignored throughout the paper. 2. Loss and restoration for Israel occupies the interest of much of the Scriptures. A reading of Lamentations fits well with Ecclesiastes when considering that subject, and much could be said (elsewhere) about them together. 3. Accomplice connotes it well. The same surprising connotation is found in Matthew 10: 16, a most memorable Christian command: "be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves ." 4. The word translated here as simple, or upright is the one used by God to describe Job to the Satan ( 1117' , yashar). Seow renders itjust right. It is also, as L. Kem recalls, the root for the command given to Israeli taxicab drivers who need to go straight at intersections. S. Two comments about Solomon and women are appropriate here: First, the famous concluding acrostic of Proverbs, on the virtuous woman (31 : 10-31 ), is explicitly not from Solomon, but from King Lemuel of Massa ' s mother. The more than twenty references to women in the Solomonic sections Proverbs are, with one small exception, about strange women, odious women, whorish women, and so on. Both Solomon and the Solomonic proverbs are lopsided when it comes to women. Second, we can reread the dark and deeply strange story of Solomon's judgment over the two women and their baby. This paper's main reading is focused on the wisdom displayed, not the people involved. The story emphasizes, as does this paper, that these women are prostitutes. Solomon's threat to halve the baby seems to assume that the only way to get the truth out of these whores is to provoke a maternal �28 preservation instinct: an animal reaction. It certainly assumes that the lying prostitute will have, not human compassion, but brutish indifference to the child, at best. And Solomon may genuinely qave been ready to halve a baby that is, after all, illegitimate. That is, Solomon may see all Scenic Overlook (secret spy picture) Isabel Clark, A '02 ALEXANDER three as effectively subhuman or animal. While we may tend to see two grieved mothers and a baby, Solomon likely sees two whores and a bastard. Solomon is just the sort of person one can imagine handing a woman a writhing half of what was her baby. Tiffany Joly Andrew Baisch, A '00 �EN ERG El A A Decent Burial Christopher Colby, SJC Community I love a good funeral, especially an in-law's. I'm just that way. Blood relatives' are even better. A chance to share one last lie about their useless lives before they're planted six feet under. But when Brownie died, I must say I was touched. Poor Brownie. I had just gotten home from happy hour. Not too sober, not too tight; enough to chase away the gloom of another grey work-week. There, under his ratty plaid blanket, he lay. Two-hundred pounds of dead mutt. Well, not really a mutt. The Woman's St. Bernard, you understand. I was not overwrought, like The Woman and #1 Daughter were, at Brownie's demise, however. I had long tired of Brownie's thunderclap farts that withered flowers a block away. I found it a great relief that I wouldn't have to cart away any more of his wheel-barrelsized turds that daily littered the patio. A mine-field of poop. How is it that a dog's stomach can do that to Alpo Crunchies? Brownie had his own room. Big enough to house any number of the homeless. Brownie had health insurance. More than most Americans. Brownie had birthday parties, toys under the Christmas tree. Brownie ate more grams of protein than entire thirdworld nations do each day . And, oh yes, how could I forget? When Brownie was feeling a little low, The Woman had a psychiatrist for him. "Can I have some of his Prozac?" I asked once, feeling a bit low myself. But The Woman's eyes shot fire-darts at me. Brownie was dead. I knew this wasn't going to be as much fun as Uncle Bertie's funeral last month. Brownie was a gift from me on the anniversary of one of our weddings . #1 Daughter had not yet been born, and Brownie helped to break up the intensity of our empty life together. Pets and children can do that sometimes. "How ya gonna bury him?" the #1 asked me. "I'm not. We ' ll have him butchered and donate the meat to a soup kitchen." That sent The Woman to our bedroom in tears. She's never had much of a funny-bone. "Da-ad, you're such a pig." Will no one teach our children it's only one syllable? Now that the onslaught of puberty has left its scars on her, the #1 D has few illusions left. Like the rest of us. Claire always said there was a mean streak in every Thule she'd ever known. I, her son, was the only exception to the rule I knew of in all my family. But the # 1 seemed to fit the pattern quite well. "See? She can't help it: it's in the genes," I always tell The Woman. But what was I to do with Brownie? Our rowhouse backyard in St. Paul was a small cement patio. No cemetery there. I considered the dumpster at the supermarket across the street. Or maybe, in the middle of the night, chucked off the Mendota Bridge into the Mississippi? This needed some thought. I'm good at planning things, though. It's my job. "I'm off to The Democratic Club," I tell the locked bedroom door. Hat in hand, and out the door. "You're such a pig, Da-ad." *** Now, you might think the Democratic Club is named after the political organization. It isn't. That would give it a kind of high-mindedness it certainly doesn't deserve. One might think it's democratic, you know, open and equal to all. That its membership is a social and cultural cross-section of the Twin Cities. It's not, and the roster is suspiciously fair-skinned. The name has the advantage, though, of hiding any number of sins. No members ever brought their wives. No, I really think it's named 'The Democratic Club' because, after a few gallons of beer or liters of gin, members sit at their table or the mahogany bar and talk about all the things they hate in the world. We're not racists, or antipolitical, or chauvinists, you see. We hate everyone equally, democratic-like. Mark, my brother-in-law, my sister's husband, that is, introduced me to the D .C. years ago. I am quite fond of Mark. We don 't talk about our wives or our family. We are islands of mutual comfort at dinners, reunions, and weddings. Baptisms and funerals, Thanksgiving and Christmas. At these occasions, Mark and I drink away the tedium family life indentures us to. I had long surmised by the amount of time he spent at the D .C. that he was like the rest of the unhappy husbands that crossed its doorsteps daily. Poor bastard- I grew up with his wife, after all. When I entered that Friday night, he was resting his buns on a tall stool, one foot propped against a decorative spittoon. He pitched salty peanuts into his mouth. "Hey." 31 "How're you?" he slurs at me . Um, he's had a six-pack at least, and not even on seven o'clock. I can catch up though- I've had more experience, you see. Before I settled in, a very dry martini slid before my nose. "Thanks. Yeah, start a tab." I'm partial to gin, you see. Martinis especially. Dry, with ice the only mixer. Just a squeeze of lemon. It's a delicious way to eat olives, and my doctor says I need more fiber in my diet anyway. Ten minutes later, after the third, I told him about Brownie. "Christ, that's a pain in the ass. Wadya gonna do with him?" Somewhere between gin #10 and gin #11 I figure out what to do with Brownie. "We'll hold a drawing for him," I said. Gawd, when I get on a roll, I'm good . "But he 's dead ," Mark objected. Mark can be so annoying at times. "Of course he's dead, but we won't tell anyone." "You'll piss a lot of people off," said Sam. The bartender had gotten pretty interested by now. "No we won't, only the winner, and we'll give his money back ." Sam nods his head in thoughtful approval, even allowing as how I could keep Brownie in the beer cooler until the raffle was over. He lent me the two-wheel dolly to haul Brownie's one-tenth of a ton over. Now, I've always liked Sam. I don 't hold the opinion, shared by others, that he short-changes everyone after they've tipped a few. There now, people can be so nasty, even members of the Democratic Club. I left Mark at the D.C. with his promise to help me move Brownie the next day. Home, over-ginned as usual, but content with my world: we had a plan. I didn 't try to go to the bedroom where The Woman was sleeping. I am used to the sofa in the study. Next to a half-eaten and petrified hot dog, I laid my wallet on the desk. It did seem a little lighter than usual ... I eased my rump onto the sofa, seeking the slight depression it had worn after so many years. Life was getting back to normal. *** "Da-ad, Mum says ya gotta take Brownie to the SPCA." My foggy head was in the refrigerator, looking for something cold to pour over my shoe-leather tongue. "She took the steamer trunk from the attic, and ya gotta take Brownie in it to the SPCA. She says they'll bury Brownie for us." Dreams of paying off several weeks w01ih of gin at the D.C. with raffle money vanished in my pulsating head. "She left a note on the table, and won't be back from Gramrny's until tomorrow afternoon." #1 left, head wrapped in a towel. This week's color was purple. Last week was "manic red." "And call Uncle Markie ." Her bare feet plop-plopped on the kitchen floor as she left. The Woman ' s note gave instructions and the address where I was to take Brownie. *** "Maybe you should have put him in the trunk before rigor mortis set in," Mark said. It had been difficult bending Brownie's legs so the lid would shut and latch properly . Brownie could be such an ornery cuss when he wanted. Mark told me then that Paula had the car, at Claire's, for the weekend. Gawd, what would we be without our mothers-in-law? "We'll havta take a taxi." *** "No way," the cabby said when he got there. When I began to argue and threaten, he drove off, waving good-bye to me with his middle finger. "Hell, we'll have to take an MTC bus ." *** We huffed and pulled the trunk into the bus, where, covering the "Handicapped Seating Only" sign, we propped Brownie. On Hennepin Ave., a grey-haired lady limped aboard, led by a small child. Looking for somewhere near to sit, she tapped at the trunk with her cane. "Please, could you sir?" "Sit somewhere else," I snarled at her. What the hell. People these days have no sense of proportion . It's The Woman's dog, for gawd's sake. "No sensitivity to others ." "Oh ya, do whatever they want," Mark says. Someone behind us asks what that smell is. "Some kinda cheese?" "Um, what kind ya s 'pose?" "Puts me in mind of Asiago." A little girl starts to cry. "No, more like a ripe Brie." "Camembert?" someone suggests . "Maybe it' s Fontina," Mark pipes up . My elbow in his ribs shuts him up quickly. We drag Brownie out to transfer at Nicollet Ave., just before the mob got too dangerous. "Hey, there's Charlie's D&D Tavern," Mark says. I love that about Mark. "Let's have a brew until the bus comes." *** Two hours later I remember Brownie, left outside. We drink a couple more, then head out the door to gather Brownie for his last constitutional. The trunk is gone. *** At the Democratic Club, an hour later, Mark asked what I was going to tell The Woman. �32 I grabbed him by the throat and I shake his head back and forth. "We gave him a decent burial." I could hear his brains swish in beer at every jerk I gave him. He can be so annoying at times. Next afternoon I was still napping off Saturday's memories. Downstairs I could hear The Woman and #1 Daughter talking in the kitchen. The #1 D taps at my door and peeks her head in. I was wrong. More like cranberry than purple. Untitled Caroline Picard, '02 COLBY "Yo, dude, Mum and I are going to the pet store to get a puppy." "Get a chihuahua." "Da-ad, you're such a pig. " #1 's tongue can clip a hedge: God help the poor son-of-a-bitch that marries her. Maybe I'll see him at the D.C. someday, too. I roll over and snuggle my rump into its favorite spot. Waterwitch Cara Gormaliy, A '02 �ENERGEIA Les Poetes des Sept Ans : Arthur Rimbaud French Translation Matthew Holtzman, A '00 Les Poetes des Sept Ans Seven-Year-Old Poets Et la Mere, formant le livre du devoir, S'en allait satisfaite et tres fiere sans voir, Dans les yeux bleus et sous le front plein d'eminences, L'ame de son enfant livree aux repugnances. And the mother closed the workbook with an air Of pride, went away, satisfied yet unaware That beneath his furrowed brow and behind his sweet blue eyes, The spirit of her child was given to despise. Tout le jour il suait d'obeissance; tres Intelligent; pourtant des tics noirs, quelque traits Semblaient prouver en lui d' acres hypocrisies. Dans I' ombre des couloirs aux tentures moisies, En passant il tirait la langue, Jes deux poings Al' aine, et dans ses yeux fermes voyait des points. Une porte s'ouvrait sur le soir: a la lampe On le voyait, l'a-haut, qui ralait sur la rampe, Sous un golfe de jour pendant du toit. L'ete Surtout, vaincu, stupide, ii etait entete A se renfermer dans la fraicheur des latrines: II pensait la, tranquille et livrant ses narines All day long he toiled in diligence, and though of great Intelligence, certain dark suspicious traits Spoke of a mind embittered with hypocrisies. And when, in dark halls, he passed the musty tapestries, He stuck out his tongue, jammed his fist in his pants, And shut his eyes tight to make motes of light dance. A door swung wide on the night, by lamplight He could be seen, high up, blind, drowning on a flight Of stairs, beneath the sun flooding from the ceiling. In the summer, undone, amazed, he found it most appealing In the outhouse, in the chill dark all enclosed; And there he thought, tranquilly, opening his nose. Quand, lave des odeurs du jour le jardinet Derriere la maison, en hiver, s'illunait, Gisant au pied d'un mur, entene dans la mame Et pur des vision ecrasant son a:il dame, II ecoutait grouiller les galeux espaliers. Pitie, ses enfant seuls etait ses familiers Qui, chetifs, front nus, a:il detaignant sur la joue, Cachant de maigres doigts jaunes et noires de boue Sous des habits puant la faire et tout viellots, Conversaient avec la douceur des idiots! Et si, l'ayant supris a des pities immondes, Sa mere s 'effrayait; !es tendresses, profondes, De l' enfant se jetaient sur cet etonnement. C'etait bon. Elle avait le bleu regard, - qui ment! When the garden, washed clean of the smells of noon, Behind the house, in winter, was filled with the moon; Interred in marl, at the foot of a partition, And rubbing at his bleary eyes to conjure visions, He listened to the barren fruit trees moan and bend. Alas! The paupers' children were his only friends; Who, unfed, heads bare, with eyes sunk in their cheeks, And sickly fingers, black with mud, jaundiced and weak Hidden beneath quaint consignment rags, fragrant with stool, Sweetly conversed with him in the gentle speech of fools. And if, catching him immersed in sinful sympathies, His mother took offense, with soothing pleasantries The child would try to calm her, to temper her surprise . All was well; she still received the blue look - that lies! A sept ans, ii fai sait des romans, sur la vie Du grand desert, ou luit la Liberte ravie, F6rets , soleils, rives, savanes ! - 11 s 'aidait De Journaux illustres ou, rouge, il regardait Des Espagnoles rire et des ltaliennes. Quand venait, l'reil brun, folle , en robes d'indiennes, -Huit ans- la fille des ouvriers d'a cote, At seven years he wrote passionate romances On life in the vast desert where shimmering freedom dances: Forests, shorelines, suns, plateaus! He would aid His fantasies with picture books. The drawings made Him stare, the Spanish women made him blush with shame . But when that brown eyed, crazy neighbor's daughter came, (Eight years old in a calico dress - a little brute) continued on next page 35 La petite brutale, et qu' elle avait saute, Dans un coin, sur son dos, en secouant ses tresses, Et qu 'il etait sous elle, ii lui mordait les fesses, Car elle ne portait jamais de pantalons; -Et, par elle meurtri des poings et de talons, Remportait les saveurs de sa peau dans sa chambre. She jumped at him, he hid from her, she gave pursuit, Cornered him, mounted him, then through storms of hair, Note: the savage never bothered wearing underwear, Maneuvering to deflect her blows, he bit her ass . And, still smarting from his tussle with the feral lass, He took the taste of her sweet flesh back to his room. II craignait !es blafards dirnanches de decembre, Ou, pommade, sur un gueridon d'acajou, 11 lisait une Bibile a la tranche vert-chou; Des reves l'oppressaient chaque nuit dans !'alcove. Il n' aimait pas Dieu; mais les hommes, qu'au soir fauve, Noirs, en blousse, ii voyait rentrer dans le faubourg Ou !es crieurs, en trois roulement de tambour, Font autour des edits rire et grondes les foules. -11 revait la prairie amoureuse, ou des houles Lumineuse, parfums sains, pubescences d' or, Font leur remuement calme et prennent leur essor! He feared the wan December Sundays when, well-groomed And powdered, he would stand and read long passages From a Bible with pages green as cabbages. Dreams oppressed his sleep each night in the alcove, He loved men, not God, men like those he ' d see rove The streets on mazy evenings, dressed in over-alls Gathering round the criers to mutter and guffaw At each new edict they announced with drumming din. -He dreamed of loveswept plains, where golden perfumed winds, Pubescent zephyrs of invigorating light, Would rustle calmly in the sage, and then take flight! Et comme ii savourait sourtout les sombres choses, Quand, dans la chambre nue aux persiennes closes, Haute et bleue, acrement prise d'hurnidite, II lisait son roman sans cesse medite, Plein de lourds ciels ocreux, et de f6rets noyees, De fleurs de chair bois siderals depolyees, Vertige, ecroulements, deroutes, et pitie! -Tandis que faisait la rumeur du quartier, En bas, - seul, et couche sur des pieces de toiles Ecrue, et pressentant violemment la voile! And since it was the somber that he savored above all, When, in his empty room with sweating acrid walls, Dark behind drawn blinds, with a ceiling high and blue, He'd read his storybooks, he'd read them each sh·aight through: Taken in by ponderous ochre skies, drowned tree tops, Flowers of flesh unfolding in a starlit copse, Vertigo, collapses, betrayals, and sympathy. -The streets still murmured on outside his fantasies Alone, he sat transfixed by these transfiguring tales, On linen sheets, which violently suggested sails. �Highway 4 New Mexico Peter Heyneman, '02 Looking down upon the valley ringed by red mesas patchwork shadows of perfect clouds quilt the low green weed hills but forever wide. Wide as the inside of Christ's mouth. Swallowing the world between the cows and the molars of sun and sky. The breath of the wind, as a solid wall of air, marching up the mountains and into the wild peaks. Wider than one man can see without swivelling around, wider than he can stretch his arms or the distance between his eyes. As the blanket of shadows ripples in the breeze and the breeze hums to him foolishly a man could feel awe, fear, that the expanse the space is engulfing him, ingesting his car, his camera, his shoes, his hands and leaving his bones to be bleached beside Highway 4 to be ignored by less observant travellers. But this is not the valley. This is looking down upon it. Aswan Karin Ekholm, A '00 �The Legacy of Claudius Ptolemy Cordell D.K. Yee, Tutor 3 Sketches Melina Hoggard, A '00 When we use a map, we take it for granted that it will present accurate information. We usually don't think much about maps until they fail us. Still less do we think of those who make maps, especially now that they can be computergenerated. We can go on the Internet (e.g., MapQuest) and find a map of just about any place we want and, in many cases, have one made to our specifications. We owe a good deal of our cartographic good fortune to one of the authors in the St. John's Program, Claudius Ptolemy. We study one of his works, the Almagest, as one overturned by the Copernican revolution. The most memorable features of what we read are probably the errors: a geocentric conception of the universe, uniform circular motion, epicycles, and the equant. We do not study what is probably Ptolemy's most lasting conh·ibution: the Geography. This book represents the completion of Ptolemy's ash·onomical work. If the Almagest shows how mathematics helps one understand divine and heavenly things, the Geography shows how mathematics helps us to order earthly things. In the Almagest, Ptolemy placed a network of meridians and parallels on the sphere of the fixed stars as a way of locating objects in the heavens. He saw that the same network could be reduced and placed on the earth's surface. All positions on the earth would then be uniquely identified by a pair of coordinates. In the Geography, one of the things Ptolemy does is extend his method of ordering heavenly space to earthly space. He also provides coordinates for about 8,000 places. Tables of these coordinates make up the bulk of the Geography. For that reason, it is not a particularly readable book. Nonetheless, the Geography is important because it is a precursor to the coordinate space that supposedly marks the transition from ancient to modem mathematics, a focus of the sophomore mathematics tutorial. It s~ems to be no accident that a number of key modern mathematiciansGauss, Euler, and Descartes, for example-took an interest in maps, and more specifically, mathematical maps made according to Ptolemy's techniques. Ptolemy described h·ansformations by means of which one could h·ansfer points on sphere to a plane or flat surface (see Figures 1 and 2) . Such transformations are needed for practical and mathematical reasons. Globes are more accurate representations of the earth than flat sheets of paper (or papyrus or parchment), but they can be hard to cany around. If one were interested in a small area, the globe would have to be rather large to accommodate the necessary detail. For Figure 1. One of Ptolemy 's transformations. (From Claudius Ptolemy, The Geography, tr. and ed. Luther Edward Stephenson [1932; rpt. New York: Dover, 1991 [.) Figure 2. Another Ptolemaic transformation. (From Ptolemy, The Geography.) �40 YEE '-'L. ~ I\ '(, 1J- I'<- I<!- ~ :i ~ ~ f----µ ~- 1""1-.....__ ~..: ~ '"" """,.. ·- · ., ::::b\ -T ·c"-' -~ 'i'\ Y\ "\J ~: \1r ~.>~.s' .y , )/.. ~\)· "ii g ;; ' •. / l b~<>- ~ ., ~~~ ··,. . . ·-~~- - - \)" I'; ·~ ' \ ) ,__S N I v ; !( Ji ~~.'.f uv...r . ' 17' V'" "' v.~ L{ ~ t: A:~ ~ I <T"' ~,.;::; 1v..f~ (0; {)ti · ~- / ~ ;?I~ f;\1)5 [.,.:..ih "") 7'~ ~'{I '~u 1 \ ' . ii )J .. ~i~~-)~,~~+: J~ ·Jjrrf--r11r-i~- r r · rrrTT I "'1'1 / / l'ii ' t7" l'----1 ""'> I. 11..-- !>' f----1-- ~ --j 1j .,"D I Ir-r-< fJ !'-<., r-' 1' I 1 1 .v"'" / I r--( I Figure 3. An example of a conformal transformation (Mercator). (From John P. Snyder and Phillip M. Voxland, A11 Album of Map Projectio11s, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1453 [Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989j.) ~!(; ~ ~ ~F=>- >',__ i"i ~- ~- ~- <""I '"' =" r.:~ v~~ l~V ( ~, \ ··, 3/, ~ 'L i-1 !:'-;~ - -- P;l.f.\ I''\ -~~~ \... _j_ -f---f--- _I.I - - f - - - f -- = =+-= :µ l --v ·, . - ( D '-r:i I/ ~- 1---~ - b 4 -' - 1- ~ '~ · 10 •. : \ ',.1.,, ""'- '\\ .l ..,,. - 1i~r~ -;;- ll 7 I I( '<, I ~ -- 'f \_.... - .r -= · ei= -- ~1~ _:~· ~i -~- - r:=;--: - - - ~ Figure 4. An equal-area transformation (Gall orthographic). (From Snyder and Voxland, A11A/b11m ofMap Projectio11s.) Figure 5. A compromise between conformal and equal-area transformations (Robinson). (From Snyder and Voxland, A11 Album of Map Projectio11s.) I such areas, a flat, r~llable or foldable medium would be easier to handle. But one cannot simply take a globe and flatten it out: it is impossible to do so and preserve the original proportions and shapes of the figures on the globe. As a practical demonstration of this fact, one can try to flatten a grapefruit rind that has been hollowed out. It will not flatten out without tearing or overlapping on itself. The same result would happen with the surface of the earth. Ptolemy did not demonstrate this mathematically, but seemed to appreciate its truth. The mathematical demonstration would not come until Euler published a proof in the eighteenth century. 2 A flattened-out globe would have rips and overlapping areas: distances and directions would be distorted. The discontinuous map would lose some of its usefulness . Ptolemy explains how one can derive a flat, continuous map from the globe. But these flat maps entail some loss: to put it simply one can preserve shape while losing accuracy in area; one can preserve area at the expense of shape .3 Maps drawn on projections are usually a compromise: they sacrifice a little of both area and shape (see Figures 3-5). Ptolemy's transformations were geometrical: geometrical conshuctions are employed to relocate points on the globe to a plane. Each point is relocated following the same procedure, as in the Hjelmslev transformation employed in senior mathematics. And, like the Hjelmslev transfo1mation, certain characteristics of the original are retained , while others are lost. The map transformation, or projection, results in a rep lotting of the lines of latitude and longitude, altering their configuration on the plane . The transformation associates each position on the sphere with one and only one position on the plane. From here it is not a long jump to the notion of functions . Since the development of analytic geomeh)', map transformations, or projections, have often been expressed in terms of mathematical functions. These are equations of lines: they describe the behavior of meridians and parallels on the plane surface. Contemplation of the lines of latitude and longitude on the globe could have led to other insights. A Gauss or Euler might have noticed that on a globe it is possible for tTiangles (non-Euclidean of course), to contain two 90-degree angles, to have an angle sum greater than 180 degrees. Map projection could have been conceived as transfom1ing a nonEuclidean space into a Euclidean one. Thinking about maps could have been a way of beginning to think about different kinds of space. None of these possibilities are made explicit by Ptolemy in the Geography. It seems to be intended primarily as a manual for mapmaking. But it also seems to be no small coincidence that the development of analytic geometry and non-Euclidean geometry follow close behind the reintroduction of the Geography to Europe. 41 ENERGElA ... ................... ":_~~::-=-:- . Figure 6. Ptolemaic world map (ca. 1460). (From Ptolemy, The Geography. ) �42 It is necessary to speak of a reintroduction because for about ten centuries Ptolemy was unknown to scholars in Europe. Ptolemy completed the Geography in the second century C.E. After the fall of Rome in the fifth century the work was lost in Europe. European scholars were not reacquainted with it till the end of the fourteenth century. During this period of Ptolemaic darkness , maps of the world were made more for religious purposes than for the communication of geographic information. Some showed Jemsalem as the "center" of a what appears to be a diskshaped earth. It is unclear what people in Europe thought of the world during this time . The disk-like representations of the earth could have been attempts to represent a globe by mapmakers who did not fully understand how to achieve an illusion of depth. Scholars would have had access to writings, by Aristotle, for example, according to whom the world was a sphere. What commoners thought is largely unknown, as they had no access to books. In any case, in the absence of the Geography and other Greek works, scholars in medieval Europe probably had at best a hazy notion of the earth's dimensions. The Geography, however, was known to Islamic and Byzantine scholars. Contact between Europe and Byzantium was limited until the late middle ages . In the late fourteenth century, Byzantium was under pressure from the Turks, and Byzantine scholars began making their way to Europe. One was Manuel Chrysoloras, who was invited to Florence to teach Greek. In 1400, a Florentine who had obtained a copy of the Geography from Constantinople asked Chrysoloras to translate it into Latin. Chrysoloras handed the job to one of his students who finished the translation in about 1406. Florentine scholars began touting the work, and more copies were transcribed. The advent of printing later in the century hastened the spread of the Geography. The print revolution, almost concurrent with cartographic revolution, made mass literacy possible (not to mention a Great Books program). The wide distribution of Ptolemy ' s work was not simply a matter of technology. The book did capture imaginations . The Almagest had been available in Latin translation since the twelfth century, more than two centuries before the Geography was translated, and the merits of the Almagest's mathematical model of the cosmos were recognized. But no one made the leap that Ptolemy had made centuries before and saw that his method of ordering celestial space could be applied to the earth. Roger Bacon had proposed that earthly positions be identified by coordinates but, without a clear notion of the earth's dimensions, lacked a way to make definite assignments: he could not determine a unit. In addition, his proposal, made before printing, was hardly known. With the established authority of the was positioned to stimulate a cartographic revolution. YEE Once one accepts that the earth is one sphere at the center of another, the reduction of the celestial coorqinate system to fit the earth's surface becomes an easy step to take. One sees that taking the height of the polestar at midnight would yield a latitudinal measurement. Longitudinal coordinates can be determined by a combination of astronomical measurements and linear measurements on the earth's surface. The task of those wishing to make a world map was simplified by Ptolemy's inclusion of coordinates . One could, and quite a few people did, reconstruct a Ptolemaic world picture from the data in the Geography (see Figure 6). Such a reconstruction is required since none of Ptolemy's maps survives intact, and the provenance of the fragments of maps that survive in manuscript is unknown. The coordinates Ptolemy provides in the Geography are intended for a world map and twenty-six regional maps, and Renaissance editions of the book often include reconstructions of those maps . Looking at a Ptolemaic world map, one can get a sense of why the Geography stined the imagination. If we accept that the earth is spherical, and if we tmst Ptolemy 's coordinates, it appears that roughly two-thirds of the earth's surface is unknown. The map ends abmptly just south of the equator. The Eurasian landmass extends at least 180 de grees longitudinally, and perhaps even more. In Europe, human beings stretched themselves out to know the rest. There were, of course, other reasons for the European expansion into parts known and unknown. There were economic benefits to finding sea routes to Asia that would allow merchants to avoid middlemen in the Middle East. There was also the quest for gold. Good maps were a necessity in these endeavors. Even so, it does not seem plausible to discount completely intellectual curiosity, a desire to fill in the world map. In hindsight we can see that there is much that is wrong in Ptolemy's world picture . Ptolemy po1irayed the Indian Ocean as landlocked. He underestimated the ea1ih ' s circumference-incidentally, this underestimate probably helped to mislead Columbus into thinking that sailing westward from Europe would be a shortcut to Asia. Since Ptolemy was working before air travel, aerial photography, satellite imaging, and accurate tin1epieces, errors would have to be expected. Ptolemy himself seems to have expected that his data would be improved. It is impossible that he took the measurements for all 8,000 coordinates by himself. For places far from Alexandria, his home city, Ptolemy would have had to rely on reports from travellers, and he recognizes that such reports would tend to be unreliable. Thus the world picture he offers is more of a hypothesis than an established fact. He expected refinements and corrections. Measurements need to checked and re-checked, not only because of errors and variations in observations but also because the earth' s surface itself changes. Second- 43 ENERGEIA . A.- · ·v, N V ~ R::.'-S ·i\"-' L ElI ·' N i..;_~~~~-'-~--=..,__~,._--"'~.-.:::..;:e-:: ~ 0 V----"O._____ _ _ -.; I TiJi.1'. 0N'I LN .< • Figure 7. World map published in 1548 by Giacomo Gastaldi, about 150 years after the reintroduction of Ptolemy's Geography to Eu rope. (F rom Jonathan Potter, Co1111try Life Book ofAntique Maps (1988; rpt. Seracusc: Chartwcll Books, 1989).) hand reports need to be verified, and, if possible, replaced by measurements with instruments. With Europe ' s economic expansion into Asia and the New World, mapmakers had opportunities to refine old geographic data and to collect new data . Pilots for the J?utch East India Company, for example, took measurements of their positions, and the English East India Company sponsored a trigonometrical survey of India. Improvements to Ptolemy's world picture were not steady. Old information has a way of ossifying. It can take some time for conect information to win acceptance, so that old atlases often present both Ptolemaic and Copernican models of the cosmos. Further impediments to progress were laziness and the profit motive. A later map is not necessarily better than an earlier one. The wide availability of print technology made map piracy easy. It was more economical for a map publisher to copy someone's else's map than to draw a new one . (Today with photography, photocopying, and scanning widely and inexpensively available, the temptations to map plagiary are even stronger. Map publishers wishing to protect their intellectual property have been known to include fake place names on their maps in order to trap the would-be pirates.) Despite the hindrances, the progress made in mapping is clear and distinct (see Figure 7). The easy reproducibility of a map also made geographic data open to scrutiny and potentially to verification and falsification. Reproducibility of results and potential falsification would prove cenn·al to the scientific enterprise. The painstaking process of verifying geographic information, not only the profit motive, �l 44 also led to greater uniformity in maps. To some extent, the uniformity was the mark of agreement on what was the case. The easy reproducibility of geographic data, while making it easy to plagiarize, also inhibits unscrupulous practices. Once an updated world picture has won general acceptance, an unscrupulous map publisher will no longer find it profitable to keep reprinting umevised maps. No one wishing to keep geographically current would want to buy a map depicting California as an island, for example. When one looks at a reconstructed Ptolemaic map, one question that arises is that of purpose. In his tables of coordinates, Ptolemy provides nothing about roads, and on the reconstructed maps, no roads are shown. The maps were not meant for travel and, since they do not show roads, would not seem to be of much use for that purpose. They seem to have been meant to as reference tools, to give users a sense of where places were. This sort oflooking could have been an end in itself. The act of looking at the earth whole in a single gaze is physically permitted to a being that can see two hemispheres at once . In a way a flat map of the earth gave us superhuman power: it lifted us off our planet. In the Almagest Ptolemy says that he is interested in understanding motion, both celestial and tenestrial : "almost every peculiar attribute of material nature becomes YEE apparent from the peculiarities of its motion from place to place." 1 A key element in understanding motions is to know where they occur-where they begin and end, and where they pass. To gain an understanding of human movements, often one begins by considering where they took place. Not surprisingly, then, history was one of the ends of cartography in the surge of mapmaking that began after the European rediscovery of Ptolem y. Abraham Ortelius, a Renaissance map publisher, called mapmaking the "eye of history."2 The earth, as the poet Samuel Daniel put it, is the "universal map of deeds ." 3 Maps do help us to understand that geography at least contributes to destiny, as in the case of Athens' Sicilian expedition. There is one respect in which modern mapmaking has not followed Ptolemy's instructions. The Geography focuses on mathematical cartography based on measurement. This sort of mapmaking, geographia, is what lent Ptolemy's book its name. But Ptolemy describes another type of mapmaking, one for small areas, chorographia. This type of mapmaking does not require the skills of a mathemati_ian, but those of a painter. The emphasis of geographia is c on the quantitative (to poson). In contrast, the emphasis of chorographia is not on position, but on the quality (to poion) of a place. Ch.orographia is more detailed than geographia: ENERG EIA 45 if geographia presents the entire body, chorograph.ia fo- be lost-features that say something about and often affect cuses on a small area such as the eye . the people living there (see Figures 8 and 9) . Ptolemy does not say much about chorography, but ReBy including a brief mention of chorography in a naissance interpreters all seem to agree that it is meant to manual of mathematical mapmaking, Ptolemy may have be pictorial rather than abstract and geometrical. With the been warning of the limitations of a mathematical approach triumph of mathematics in the natural sciences, pictorial to the world. It is reductive in more ways than one . A maps have become less and less important in mapmaking. " quantitative approach to mapmaking not only regularizes If atlases today include city maps at all, these tend to be the earth's surface, but is also less challenging, less demandplans, which tell little about the architectural character of ing than a qualitative approach. According to Ptolemy, a the places they represent, suggest little about the look of mathematical map can be made by almost anyone. These places. On plans, distinctive local characteristics tend to are the types of maps that are readily available in this newly christened information age. Ptolemy implies that such ease �46 is not characteristic of chorographic, pictorial maps. Modem examples of such maps are hard to find, even in this age of computer-aided design. So there seems to be something to what Ptolemy says . It seems that we should be describing quantitative studies as soft, and qualitative studies as hard. ENDNOTES Almagest 1.1 (Toomer trans.) . Abraham Ortelius, Preface, Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570; English-text edition, London, 1606). 3 Samuel Daniel, Musophilus (1599), 1. 910. 1 2 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING (all of which have been used here) Dilke, 0 . A. Greek and Roman Maps. 1985; rpt. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Untitled Sara Wilson, A '02 YEE Harley, J.B., and David Woodward, eds. The History of Cartography, Vol. 1: Cartography in the Prehistoric, Ancient and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987 . Monmonier, Mark. How to Lie with Maps. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991 . Osserman, Robert. Poetry of the Universe: A Mathematical Exploration of the Cosmos. New York: Doubleday, 1995. Ptolemaeus, Claudius. Geographia. Ed. C. F. A . Nobbe. 1843-5; rpt. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966. (There is a poorly regarded translation by Edward Luther Stevenson available in a Dover reprint.) Snyder, John P . Flattening the Earth.· Two Thousand Years of Map Projections. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Paris, France Rizo Popovic, A 'oo �Selection from On the Sublime: Longinus Greek Translation Prize, 1998-99 La Promenade d'Automne: Marceline Desbordes-Valmore French Translation Prize, 1998-99 Samuel Garcia, A '99 Robert Dickson, A '00 Et6~vm XP~, ¢tA'W/C€, 8ton, KCX8U7t€p K<iV i;9) KOtv~ ~'tV> ou6E:v tmapxst µBycx 06 'tO KCX'tcx¢povstv scrn µf:ycx, oiov 7tAO~'tot nµcxt 60/;m wpcxvvt8sc; KCXt ocm 8~ aA,A,cx Ex€t 7tOAO 'tO 81;m8sv npocri;pcxym8ooµcvov OOK av 't~ ys ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ¢povtµr;I) 8ol;w-,v 'cxycxBa. 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' ' ' ' A ' ' One must know, dearest friend, that, just as in our daily life nothing is truly great which is great to despise, such as riches, honors, reputations, sovereignty, and as many other things which have an exaggerated exterior-nor would one in his right mind deem things to be surpassingly good whose very contempt is good without measure-indeed, one ad0mires those capable of having these things, but through a greatness of soul choose instead to look down upon them, rather than those who have them-just so, must one consider it here, in the case of the elevated in both poetry and prose; one would not have some image of greatness such as that in which many works are artlessly conceived; unfolded differently, these would only prove empty, works which are more fittingly held in contempt than admired. For, our soul is uplifted by true sublimity and, seizing pride at such a height, is filled with both joy and exultation, as if it itself had produced the very thing heard. Whenever, then, something is heard many times by a sensible man; one well acquainted with words and also possessing a greatness of mind, something which neither disposes his soul towards, nor leaves his soul behind in a thought more considered than the word alone, but instead falls, like a visitation, into disesteem, it is no longer true sublimity in so far as its sound did not outlast its utterance. For this, true sublimity, by being great, whose rebellion against is not only difficult, but impossible, for this, the memory is strong and indelible. Speaking generally, consider sublime and truly beautiful those things which please everyone always. For whenever men differing in their pursuits, lifestyles, interests, ages and languages share one and the same opinion, then the verdict and assent from such discord makes our faith in the object of their admiration strong and indisputable. La Promenaded' Automne Te souvient-il, 6 mon ame, 6 ma vie, D'un jour d'automne et pale et languissant? 11 semblait dire un adieu gemissant Aux bois qu'il attristait de sa melancolie. Les oiseaux dans les airs ne chantaient plus l'espoir; Une froide rosee enveloppait leurs ailes, Et, rappelant au nid leurs compagnes fideles, Sur des rameaux sans fleurs ils attendaient le soir. The Autumn Walk Oh soul, oh life, do you remember the day, In autumn, so languid and pale? As if departing, it seemed to bewail The forest it darkened with sorrow to gray. From the birds in the air, no more hope was sung; Their wings by a frozen dew were encased, And, calling their friends to their nesting place, For evening they waited, to barren boughs they clung. Seule, je m'eloignais d'une fete brnyante, Je fuyais tes regards, je cherchais ma raison. Mais la langueur des champs, leur tristesse attrayante, A ma langueur secrete ajoutaient leur poison. Sans but et sans espoir, suivant ma reverie, Je portais au hasard un pas timide et lent; L'Amour m' enveloppa de ton ombre cherie, Et, malgre la saison, l'air me parut brulant. Alone, I withdrew from a noisy herd, I sought my reason, I fled your gaze . But the pastoral languor, its sadness allured My internal languor with poisonous haze. Along with my dreaming, without hope or goal, My slow, timid stroll transformed into toil; Love enshrouded me with your shadowy soul, And in spite of the season, the air seemed to boil. Je voulais, mais en vain, par un effort supreme, En me sauvant de toi, me sauver de moi-meme. Mon ceil voile de pleurs, a la tene attache, Par un charme invincible en fut comme anache. A travers les brouillards, une image legere Fit palpiter mon sein de tendresse et d'effroi; Le soleil reparait, l' environne, 1'eclaire, Il en tr' ouvre les cieux . . . Tu parus devant moi. Je n' osai te parler; interdite, reveuse, Enchainee et soumise a ce h·ouble enchanteur, Je n'osai te parler: pourtantj'etais heureuse; Je devinai ton ame, et j 'entendis mon cceur. As much as I wanted, as hard I tried, it was something I could not do: I sought to save myself from me by saving myself from you. My eye, veiled with tears, to the cold earth bound, By invincible charm was wrought from the ground. My breast started pulsing, with softness and fear As from foggy murk a dim image grew; The sun appears 'round it, makes vision clear, The heavens half-open . .. Before me stood you. I didn't dare address you; confounded and suppressed, Dreaming and submissive underneath your misty spell, I didn't dare address you: I was happy nonetheless; I divined your spirit, I heard my own heart well. Mais quand ta main pressa ma main tremblante, Quand un frisson leger fit tressaillir mon corps, Quand mon front se couvrit d'une rougeur brulante, Dieu! qu'est-ce done que je sentis alors? J'oubliai de te fuir, j'oubliai de te craindre; Pour la premiere fois ta bouche osa se plaindre, Ma douleur a la tienne osa se reveler, Et mon ame vers toi fut prete a s'exhaler! 11 m'en souvient ! T'en souvient-il, ma vie, De ce tourment delicieux, De ces mots arraches a ta melancolie: "Ah! si je souffre, on souffre aux cieux!" But when my trembling hand was by your hand pressed, When my body was shivered by a delicate chill, When a fiery color flushed my face and chest, My God, tell me, what did I feel? You, I forgot to fear; You, I forgot to shun; Complaint for the first time sh·eamed off your tongue, My grief to yours was finally self-revealed, And my soul to you was almost exhaled! I remember it! Do you recall it, my life, This delicious despair, These words in your strife: "They suffer in heaven if I suffer here!" continued on next page �l 50 Des bois nul autre aveu ne troubla le silence. Ce jour fut de nos jours le plus beau, le plus doux; Pret a s 'eteindre enfin il s' arreta sur nous, Et sa fuite a mon creur presagea ton absence! L'ame du monde eclaira notre amour; le vis ses demiers feux mourir sous un nuage; Et dans nos creurs brises, desunis sans retour, II n'en reste plus que l'image. Aidan Dreaming-Elk Karina Hean, A '00 DICKSON The forest said no more to disturb the silence. This was our sweetest, most beautiful day; It finally stopped about us, prepared to die away, And its quick escape foretold to me your absence! The soul of the world made our love bright; Under a cloud I saw the death of its flames; And in our shattered hearts, which could never again unite, No more than their image remains. Vrbnica, Kosovo; June, 1999 Vada Mossavat, A 'oo �Cain and Saul The Men God Rejected Sarah Whitesel, 'O 1 Jf thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin li eth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rul e over him. (Gen- Each of his failures comes from looking at the people around him to make decisions which ought to be made with his eyes on the Lord alone. The standard for acceptance comes esis, 4:7) down to a recurring image of the orientation of a man 's heart. In I Samuel 10:9, when Saul is anointed, God gives This verse describes the biblical stories of both Cain him another heart. 'Yet even with this reborn spirit, Saul is and Saul. Both men try to serve God as they see best and unable to keep his attention focused upon the Lord. In 13: 14, are rejected. Both are much desired by sin, succumb to its Samuel tells him that he will lose his kingship to a man seduction, and, because of their own failures, seek to pun- after God ' s own heart. That man is David, who is chosen ish others for their successes. Both wander the land in an- because, even as a child, his heart is filled with love and guish, marked so that other men will not slay them. Yet it reverence for God (I Sam. 16:7). Saul falters by misplacing is the conh·ast between these two lives that ultimately al- his priorities. His heart is guided by a fear of and preocculows their similarities to info1m one another. Cain's story pation with men like himself, rather than God's commandrealizes the formula of rejection, sin, and punishment with ment. perfect simplicity. Abel dies, Cain's crime is complete, its Cain and Saul have not done well. They have not earned consequences absolute, with personal reprimands from God God's acceptance. Sin crouches desirously at their doors . at every misstep . In his exile he builds the first city and The dreadful undoing of these men is so much more signififounds a glorious dynasty. Saul's situation is more com- cant than their initial rejections . When reading these texts plex. He sh·ives to kill David several times, each time fail- there is a powerful temptation to justify how Cain and Saul ing, humiliated and repentant until his fury blazes anew. began unworthily, to find a primary reason that will explain With every fresh iniquity, he becomes further seduced by away what follows. We long to justify why an offering of sin, committing progressively more grievous mi sdeeds , the soil deserves rejection. For instance, the harvest of Cain punctuated by tenib le, hopeful moments of pain and re- came from land bearing Adam' s curse . His sown frnit was morse. At last, thoroughly steeped in wre tchedness, having lifeless while Abel's lambs yielded up their breath on God 's lost many battles, his kingdom, and his sons, Saul commits altar. When he kills his brother he spills onto the cursed sui cide. earth the blood that he failed to offer God, now as a sacriThe origins of sin and the possibility of conquering it fice to his wounded vanity. In the same way, Saul was made are the two most important issues in these tales. All we are king for his stature , a soulless value, while David was chogiven in the austere case of the Second Man Alive is that sen for his noble heart, an an imate versus an inanimate virGod "had not respect" unto Cain and his offering (Gen. tue. Saul ' s position as king exists only because God finally 4:5) . His fa ilure is briefly touched upon, mysterious. The relented in disgust to the pleas of the faithless Israelites who disgrace of the First K ing is more complicated. Saul' s fears wanted a powerful human figurehead to lead them in battle. on the battlefield are strnnger than his faith and he offers They desired him as cravenly as sin longs for weakness in sacrifices without waiting for God's prophet, Samuel (I Sam. men; and as the tall, unholy sovereign they had asked fo r, 13). Two chapters later he bows to the will of the people he pandered to their fears instead of ruling over them in the and disobeys Samuel' s order to desh·oy all of the Amalekites name of the Lord. Saul and Cain had to be rejected and and their goods, saving some to burn on God's altar. It once their rejections hav e been explained, their j ea lous seems to be the combination of these errors by which Saul bloodlust that follows dwindles to a vicious mis ery ravenis lost. After the first, Samuel declares that his kingdom ous for other men ' s ruin. will not. continue. After the second, the Lord regrets ever Such explanations of rejection are attempts to sew up making Saul king, Samuel abandons him, David is anointed, the lives that proceed from them with threads of demerit and an evil spirit descends upon Saul. Just as the villainies and necessity . They render the infinite potential for human later engendered by his failure are compounded, so is the strength and frailty in the narrow terms of a balanced equafailure itself. tion. They also gloss over the weight of the choices rejected Both of Saul's misdeeds involve putting immediate, men must constantly make between, on one hand, followworldly concerns before his obedience to and trust in God. ing sin's compelling call which grows louder and louder 1 Guardians, 1998-99 Anne McShane, A 'oo �WHITESEL 54 with each error, and, on the other, the increasingly difficult, but always present, possibility of resisting it. This is particularly important for Saul whose conditions of failure are so detailed. The life that comes afterwards is so indete1mina te that one cannot dismiss him as a man justly and irrevocably lost, possessed by the evil spirit of his own guilt and anger, consumed by an impotent pantomime of malice that he must reenact until he can bear it no more and kills himself. Saul's gradual decay is actually far more sophisticated. In that bitter sinking, he wrestles desperately with his corruption, calamitously choosing sin more often than God. For Saul and Cain, in narrative and psychological te1ms, rejection is an instigative engine. Without dictating what their reactions will be, it is the condition of pain which calls for an answering choice. Cain's immediate response to rejection is a scowl, the loss of self-control. Unable to accept that he has not been accepted, his ungoverned countenance falls "wroth" (Gen. 4:5), wounded and defiant. Then God makes the crucial speech cited at the beginning of this essay: And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him. (Gen. 4:6-7) This warning makes explicitly clear that his rejection is just. Cain cannot have done well and receiving even such a painfully true judgment is no cause for anger, exactly because it is true . This is enough. This is all. Perhaps Cain should have known better or perhaps God could have respected his offering for its earnest submission. Neither of these possibilities matter once they are no longer possible. The thing now at stake is Cain's future acceptance or corruption. The only significant reflections he can make are those that apply to doing well now, as opposed to the bitter attempts at justification which prevent him from moving beyond the past. Outrage against truth, the determination to challenge and transform the hurtful verdict, seeking other people to blame and punish-making the destruction of their wellbeing the cure for one's own despair-these seem to be the streaming lights of weakness summoning sin to the door of a man who has failed. In this speech God acknowledges for the first time how vulnerable man can be to sin- that wickedness actually lies in wait, lusting after him. Never before has a man been tempted as the result of a previous misstep. Juxtaposed with this peril is the possibility of subjugating that iniquity . Cain may still master his sin. "Thou shalt rnle over him." It is framed almost as a declaration, promise, or command. Man is not to be the passive victim of his own weakness, rendered defenseless by pain and anger. Failure may bring man closer to evil but it remains in his power not merely to resist sin, but to conquer it. Anger is very clearly sin's access point to Saul as well. Until he tastes fury, Saul is not drawn to sin. After the failures that cause him to lose his kingship and the favor of God, Saul listens penitently as Samuel upbraids him. His countenance is meek and abashed . He accepts God's judgment and asks for forgiveness. One of the most poignant moments in Saul's life occurs in his final hours with Samuel. The elderly prophet has just ripped Saul's royal cloak to signify how his kingdom will be torn from his hands. Samuel, who made Saul king , must soon abandon and mourn him. This point marks the culmination of Saul's failures and he asks Samuel, "Tum again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God" (I Sam. 15). Although Saul is broken and alone, having lost his throne and God's counsel, it is still possible for him to look to God. He knows what penalties he has earned and accepts the Lord's judgment. Until he becomes jealous of David's glory and anger kindles within his breast, Saul, with all of his inadequacies , has still chosen God. Back in Genesis, one verse after he is cautioned by the Lord, "Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him." In Cain's simple narrative, rejection, anger, and envy climax in sin. But what exactly is Cain's sin? Is it fratricide? There are still no commandments, no prohibitions against murder. Abel is the first man ever to die. Human mortality, one of the curses of Adam's fall, has just entered the world and it is wrought by sin rather than nature. Is Cain's crime attempting to deceive God? Abel's blood cries out from the ground, from the earth cursed by Adam, from the land where Cain raised his unfortunate offering. When asked where his brother is, Cain naively and clumsily dissembles, "Am I my brother's keeper?" offering the Lord a flippant and defiant answer (Gen. 4:9). God's own asking implies that even God must gage Cain's understanding of what he has done. There is no reason to assume that befo e he kills his brother, Cain comprehends that men 's lives must end or that other men can end them. He has some knowledge of good and evil from the error of his parents-enough to realize that what he has done is wrong and to speak of it disingenuously to God. Does Cain's fault lie in claiming an office of God? The Lord's jealousy of his own authority has already been evidenced in Eden. Propitiating wrath has the flavor, if not the character, of justice. Is Cain's crime a sorry parody of God-establishing his own pathetic pride in the place of divine judgment, dispensing life and death in his defective way? Or does he try to punish the Lord by destroying the man God has blessed? This account hardly seems adequate. Cain's brutality is neither intelligent nor controlled enough to be worthy of the name of judgment. All of these things, brother murder, deceit, and the presumption to God's power, are merely peripheral evils blos- 55 E NERGEIA soming from the actual sin of Cain. The essential nature of Cain's-and later Saul's-sin is really an unwillingness to accept the Lord's initial judgment, which brings them to violate the intimacy of each's relationship with God. Cain and Saul both en in believing that what lies between God and other men can somehow become part of their own dynamic. Cain has disregarded God's explicit warning. The Lord ' s respect for Abel's sacrifice is no more connected to Cain's rejection than David's triumphs are the result of Saul's decline. Their jealous anger comes from a failure of personal responsibility. Their misbegotten and misplaced feelings of rage and jealousy become violence. This inappropriate connecting of blame fosters the false idea that killing another man could possibly amend or assuage the pain of their original failures . Saul is able to bear his disgrace until his tortured soul lays it beside David's honor. His fatal purpose is born as the people sing, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands" (I Sam. 18 :7) . Then, with the evil spirit upon him, filled with guilt and anger, Saul rises up and tries to slay David. However, the Lord is with David and the javelin misses its target (I Sam. 18: 11). Then in the hopes that David will fall in combat, Saul offers the young man his daughter's hand in marriage on the condition that he twice defeat and collect a hundred Philistine foreskins. The pitiful king conh·ives an accidental escape fr~m his will to sin, but the plot fails and David is victorious (I Sam. 18: 17-27). Saul endeavors to avoid his wicked purpose but will not relinquish the bitterness that goads him forward. In chapter 19, when Jonathan speaks in defense of David, Saul hearkens to his righteous cause and swears his first oath to respect David's life. However, as soon as the evil spirit returns to him, his anger and guilt recalled, Saul hurls another ill-aimed jav~in at David before he flees and Saul's pursuit begins. At this point, the simple (Cain's) and complex (Saul's) stories diverge; one moves while the other tangles . Abel is dead. Cain 's m alice is brought to complete fruition and God renders Cain's sentence (Gen. 4:11-12). He is cursed by the ea1ih into which he poured his brother's blood, may no longer till the soil nor reap its harvest, and must wander in barren exile. To soothe his fears, Cain is given a protective mark that caITies sevenfold vengeance for any man who would slay him, a mark to shield him from becoming the victim of a crime like his own . As Cain has dearly learned, and Saul will later recognize, it is necessary that the right of judgment and punishment belong to the Lord alone. So Cain roams away, far from the presence of God, where he builds the first city and sires a family ingenious in music and metalwork that flourishes for many generations. That is the end of Cain's story. Saul's murderous efforts cannot be completely analyzed without also considering his wandering, since it is the pursuit of his lethal fury that drives Saul to vagabondage. Just as Cain was condemned to rove, hidden from God's face , Saul too suffers the affliction of a fugitive as the price of his sin. He flees before his guilt and anger. He runs to lay the bloated burden of his failures on another man ' s head . Saul makes two more bloodthirsty expeditions in search of David, and, with each new resolution to plunge back into wickedness, Saul commits graver and graver atrocities. The second time Jonathan speaks in David's defense, Saul attempts to kill his own son by casting yet another poorly aimed javelin (I Sam. 20:33). He orders the slaughter of the priests who gave David food and armor and then commands the execution of their entire city (I Sam. 22). His next predatory foray brings him into the wilderness of Ziph and Maon, but David proves elusive and Saul must cut short his hunt to repel a Philistine attack (I Sam. 23 ). In the following two pursuits, God almost seems to be mocking Saul's dete1mination to satiate his rage. Saul assembles three thousand men and marches to the wilderness ofEngedi where he immediately makes camp and falls asleep in a cave in which David and his men lie concealed (I Sam. 24). David cuts Saul's robe but spares his life , refusing to raise his hand against the Lord's anointed. In the succeeding pursuit, Saul returns to the wilderness of Ziph where he chased David once before. The Lord covers Saul and his host with a deep sleep. David easily enters his camp and takes Saul's spear as a trophy and evidence of the respect he has shown the anointed of the Lord (I Sam. 26). Saul, like Cain, has a protective mark, only for Saul the value of the mark is bluned. It preserves his life each time the Lord delivers him into David's hands, except this protection carries with it an intense humiliation. The noble mercy of his intended victim compounds Saul's already monstrous shame. It is unclear whether God means for Saul's anointing to keep him safe. David, not God, declares his respect for Saul's status. The Lord simply delivers Saul defenseless into the hands of his enemy over and over again . David's anointment doesn't prevent Saul from trying to kill him. Perhaps David is being tested and Saul is genuinely in peril. Perhaps he is safe, made ridiculous by his inability either to kill or be killed. Either way, this mark of anointment, originally a blessing upon Saul, has become the mark of Cain, a testament to his cursed failure. In Genesis 4:7, God cautions Cain that failure will make him desired by and vulnerable to sin, and promises the po·tential for still ruling over that weakness and conquering the temptation to further abasement. It is still possible to do well and win acceptance . For Saul, the key to this acceptance lies in the living example of David. When David confronts Saul, after each double deliverance (Saul into David's hands and David sparing Saul), his words apply to the wretched king's entire life: The Lord judge between thee and me bur mine hand shall not be upon thee. As saith the proverb of the an- �WHITESEL 56 cients, wickedness proceedeth from the wicked : but mine hand sha ll not be upon thee. After whom is the king of Israe l come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea. The Lord therefore be judge and judge between thee and me, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand . (I Sam. 24: 12-15) David places judgement in the hands of the Lord and submits his will to that judgement. Of the biblical proverbs, there are three that David might be paraphrasing (Proverbs 11 :15, 13:6, and 26:26). All of them describe how wicked actions undermine their perpetrators , just as each of Saul's misdeeds increase his rapacious appetite for sin. David understands how every offense disposes a soul to further evil. The power of sin is a desire, a negativity, a yearning. Mastery of sin lies in resisting that compulsion. David' s relationship with God is perfectly intact, a fortress many leagues away from sin. This completeness, this safety make it impossible for him to sympathize with or even comprehend Saul's anguished jealousy. When David cannot understand why Saul finds any meaning in chasing after him, like hunting for "a dead dog, a flea," his speech portrays a man so secure that he is almost incapable of entering into this aching world~ David may be secure, but David has never failed . It seems impossible that Saul and Cain could simply tum their eyes to God, regardless of their flawed histories. Wouldn't such callous progress really constitute the dismissal of God's judgement? The answer appears paradoxical. By concentrating on the vindications and vengeance that would unmake his failure, a man amplifies its results, arousing the event in his sh-uggle to tame it. A wroth countenance cultivates a disposition to sin. There are three ways in which a man might respond to rejection and only one of them makes him stronger against iniquity . He might try to forget the disaster and move on, accept it and move on, or clutch hold of it and let his bitterness fester. The first is not really an option because the impact of rejection is undeniable and any attempt to void its tneaning could only lead to deeper enor. The third response is an invitation to sin. In this context, moving beyond each failure without trying to deny its consequences and returning to God-with the understanding that there is no effective alternative-is the real hallmark of respect and reconciliation that drives sin away from one's door. When he puts aside his anger and listens to Jonathan's first intercession, Saul resolves to change. However, he does not rule over sin for long and this promise is soon broken. In the wilderness of Engedi, faced with David's integrity and having come so close to death, Saul acknowledges his enemy's righteousness and swears to end his wicked quest. He concedes David' s right of succession to his throne and David pledges to preserve Saul's descendants. After breaking this second oath and encountering David again in the forest of Ziph, Saul repents once more. Even David's diction recalls the slaying of Abel when he entreats Saul, "Let not my blood fall to the face of the earth" (I Sam. 26:20). Saul recognizes his own error, "I have sinned ... behold, I have played the fool and erred exceedingly" (I Sam. 26:21 ). David is able to redirect Saul's gaze to God for brief interludes in which Saul, having acknowledged his guilt, is relieved and conscious of his potential to do well and conquer sin. After each contrition, Saul's wandering is permitted to end. Both apologies are followed by Saul returning home . Yet Saul continually loses his inte1mittent sovereignty over sin. His gaze always falls back to the figures of his oym guilt and anger and the man gloriously before him. This may be because he is continually led aright by David's words, rather than forging his own independent reconciliation with God. It is only in the presence of his external compulsion, the human object sought by his sin, that Saul is able to repent. Just as David's harp soothed away Saul's evil spirit in their early days, so David's virtue mends him at moments in their confrontations. It is as if David's voice has become the only one that Saul can hear-even Jonathan's ~annot reach him anymore . The only person able to penetrate his fixation is its object, just as the Lord might succor one who looked upon him. Thus, though God no longer answers Saul, God is no longer what Saul seeks or craves . Saul does not ask the witch of Endor to raise Samuel 's spirit so that he may ask how to serve God well. He rouses the dead prophet hoping to receive the reassurance in battle that he deservedly lost, committing a new sin in search of a promise that the penalty of his old sins may fall more lightly (I Sam. 28) . It is no wonder Samuel declares the Lord to be Saul ' s enemy: for Saul, in his weakness before sin, has chosen to be the enemy of the Lord. David helps him to tum to God, but only Saul's own sustained resolution could have held him on that path. His repeated assurances and oaths, while sincere, are shortlived. David knows this and flees to the land of the Philistines after their second encounter because he mistrusts Saul's ability to keep h\s promises. Though genuinely wretched each time he glimpses at what he has become, Saul throws away this insight over and over when he chooses instead to slake his iniquity and avoid the fact of his rejection. Since God will not permit the harming of David, there are only two ways for Saul to halt his descent. He must either truly abandon his obsession or die . The latter fate is how his sin ultimately ends. Just as Samuel prophesied, the next day the Lord delivers the host of the Israelites into the hands of the Philistines. The battle turns overwhelmingly against Saul. The arrows of his enemies sorely wound him. All three of his sons are slain. He entreats his armorbearer to kill him that he might not fall into the hands of his foes, but the servant refuses . Saul falls upon his own sword . EN ERG EI A These two lives have such different final acts. Cain builds a city. His ending is also a beginning. Saul falls on his sword. His situation doesn't close with either of the conditions, renunciation or murder, that could have fully concluded it. Saul spends his reign wavering, suffering between these two opposed states, and his death only reinforces this limbo. His tale is complete, not because it actually resolves, but because the possibility for any closure dies with him. So where does the distinction between these stories begin? Cain killed Abel. Saul was never able to kill David. As a result, Cain's sin was fulfilled and discrete. Punishment clearly followed . It is this crucial difference that makes Cain simultaneously more fortunate and more miserable than Saul. Like the farmer he is, Cain sows and reaps his sin. He is more fortunate than Saul in that this fru)tion, this crime as irrevocable as his rejection, brings him to accept his chastisement and the history that caused it. Cain crosses over his sin and moves beyond it. He is never forgiven, never reverses the meaning of his past, but assumes its weight and makes that burden a foundation for his future accomplishments. Cain succeeds, not because his sin at last proves acceptable, but because he relinquishes the belief that it could ever be made so. He is more miserable than Saul in that, despite God's warning, he never even dimly admits the possibility of ruling over his sin until it is too late and he is a murderer . Saul's position is more ambiguous, his struggle more complex. Sin and punishment are intricately entwined for him. His castigation is the escalating product of his sin. Cain does not work past his wickedness until it is realized. It is as though Cain must pass through his sin bef~re he is able to abandon it. Saul is unable to commit the crime that might help him make such a passage . The first king sees the innocent alternative to his evil, the repudiation of his unconsummated malice, but this resolution never holds sway for long over his wrath. Yet, although Saul cannot take credit for his repeated deliverance from error, he does not kill the man he hates and therefore never loses the possibility of renouncing his ter-ible purpose forever. So Saul and Cain are never doomed by their previous evils . Although every descent makes Saul a more cherished object of sin's yearning, increasingly vulnerable to choosing deeper wickedness, there is always the possibility of turning aside and conquering sin. The potential for re- 57 demption is always present. Saul proves that dishonor is neither a direct nor inevitable fall. Rather, he welds a sinuous chain of causality-his descent is causal, but not deterministic . His weakness nourishes his corruption, corruption weakens him but this only means that it becomes more difficult, but never impossible, for Saul to break free . Every link, every crime, draws the next one nearer, but only because Saul fails to sustain his resistance and pursues the siren song of sin, forging his own shackles . This is emphasized by Saul's periodic epiphanies when, however briefly, he huly repents and promises to change. For that moment he recognizes that such a choice is possible . Cain and Saul look to the mundane context sunounding them to resolve their own struggles over serving God. Unless such a man claims personal responsibility, unless he assumes self-control and the sense of exclusive and absolute accountability to God, he cannot conquer sin ' s desiring. Sin supine at one's door is the characterization of unfortunate proximity to something external, to a lure from the realm beyond its prey's concerns. This image delineates the ties to and pressures from circumstances foreign to one's situation. Both men judge themselves reactively from within such a context. This meager, mortal perspective constantly fabricates false relevance between itself and other people, refusing to accept responsibility for the choices it pursues among the fibers of this web. Cain and Saul evaluate their failures before God in terms of other men ' s successes. It is so easy to sympathize with Cain because one immediately misunderstands the same thing he does, that is, why he should kill Abel, a response which clearly cannot address the source of his misery. It is the way in which both men misconstrue and react inappropriately to their original errors that makes them vicious, not some necessary product of the original enors themselves. For this reason, sin is never justified by the events that precede it. Saul and Cain's awful conclusions that murder might assuage rejection stem from their denials of God's judgement. They do not realize that, for God, their failure is irrevocably over. Its consequences are immutably set. There is no cause for anger. If they do well, they shall be accepted. The painful severity of such a firm ending is what make~ choice and change possible at all. In this finality lies the p~ssibility of redemption, human freedom through divine justice . �Elephantine Island Karin Ekholm, A '00 Gjinovce, Kosovo; July, 1999 Vada Mossavat, A '00 �ENERGEIA The Importance, to Consciousness, of the Discovery of Self Piroska Kopar, A '99 In the Phenom enology ofSpirit, Hegel introduces a new, revolutionary way of understanding both the world and philosophy. He does not follow the traditional route of presenting an argument with an extensive commentary in its defense, or the even older method of Plato's dialogues; nor does he merely record some selected facts, like a historian. Instead, Hegel invites us into a theatre- the theatre of philosophy. He asks us to take a seat in the front row and let him show us a play in which we can see all the phases of our cultural and philosophical evolution. He takes it upon himself to narrate the play in the order that will reveal the necessary logical progression of the different scenes. Let this play be called The Becoming of Spirit.' We philosophers are not used to such peculiarities; we want to know the truth, and we want to know it now. According to Hegel, our impatience is understandable, but unacceptable; the evolution of truth takes time, and it is only at the right time that our minds are prepared to take in the truth. In the Preface, Hegel claims that his time is the birth-time of Spirit, or of Truth (11). 2 The time, then, is right for us to step off the stage of philosophy, and look at it from the outside, with the eyes of a viewer and not those of a participant. Only thus will we be able to see the truth in its progression and comprehend it as a whole. It is essential that we keep the distinction between viewer and participant perfectly clear throughout this exposition. The participant, or the main character on the stage, is the consciousness of the Universal Individual. The consciousness of the Universal Individual is the consciousness of all human beings past and present, joined together. Its being is superimposed on the individuals of the world, and its development overarches all cultural progress. The transformation of the Universal Individual begins with the primary form of consciousness and is completed with its final maturity. The viewer of Hegel's theatre is the student of his philosophy. He is a very advanced participant who is ready to step off the stage and whose testimony will earn him the last step in the development of consciousness. He has already been through most of the transfo1mation, and is at the stage in which he can proceed only if he steps down and observes. While the participating Consciousness sees everything subjectively, the audience takes an objective point of view. By the end of the play, the viewer will have seen who he himself is, generated by the truths that he carries within his consciousness. He will then know that he knows, and this knowledge will elevate him to become the com- pletely transformed Consciousness, or Spirit. "The goal is Spirit's insight into what knowing is" (29) . But why should we commit ourselves to become students of Hegel? What would convince us that his play might reveal Truth to us? Do we even have the capability of seeing the truth? Hegel addresses this question in the Introduction: Should we not be concerned as to whether this fear of error is not just the error itself? It presupposes that the Absolute stands on one side and cognition on the other, independent and separated from it, and yet is something real; or in other words, it presupposes that cognition which, since it is excluded from the Absolute, is surely outside of the truth as well, is nevertheless true, an assumption whereby what calls itself fear of error reveals itself rather as fear of truth. (74) Hegel reasons that we should have no scruples about suspending our disbelief in our abilities, because the kind of knowledge that we are investigating is phenomenal knowledge. Consciousness knows its object, as the object is present for Consciousness. What this means is that the object of our investigation is our knowledge of the object. It is nevertheless a true knowledge, because the object is for Consciousness. If the object were in essence something else, Consciousness would never have any knowledge of it. The nature of this phenomenological knowledge will become clearer as we examine it in the context of the actual transformation . Consciousness, in its most primary form, is made up of two moments. "The immediate existence of Spirit, consciousness, contains the two moments of knowing and the objectivity negative to knowing" (36) . The first moment corresponds to what Consciousness knows of its object. The second moment corresponds to the knowledge that Consciousness has of its own knowledge of the object. At the outset of the play, then, the protagonist is the immediate, yet undeveloped, form of Consciousness; he is natural Consciousness. Now consciousness contains two moments : knowing and objectivity. Imagine that the actor portraying consciousness enters in a white costume, and starts to examine an object on the stage . This corresponds to the first moment, to knowing. No sooner does he begin his examination, however, when a figure, of the same shape and size but wearing a black costume steps out from behind him to one side, and starts examining the first actor in his 61 examination of the object. Here the object for Conscious- cess, a circle that repeats again and again. It is, nevertheness is its own self, which in the first moment was a subject. less, more than a pure formalism, because the completion This corresponds to the moment of objectivity; this is when of each circle invariably depends on the content to which Consciousness is aware of the fact that it knows something one applies this method. As the content determines the about an object. outcome of the cycle, and the contents may be varied indefiBut both of these moments evidently lie within Con- nitely, the dialectical movement is an ever-changing, dysciousness. The immature, yet undeveloped, Consciousness namic, vital experience. is not aware of this. It thinks that what it takes to be the Hegel writes in the Preface, "it must be maintained that case about its object is indeed the case. But in reality it truth is not a minted coin that can be given and pocketed finds this is not trne, because when Consciousness com- ready-made. Nor is there such a thing as the false .. ." (39). pares what it knows of the object with the criterion pro- We, the spoiled children of mathematical thinking, need vided by its own self, it keeps discovering contradictions in some convincing of the superiority of such a conception of its knowledge of the object. It therefore enters on a path huth. Dogmatic systems (including mathematics) are dethat Hegel calls the "pathway of doubt, or more precisely . . fective, because they are based on a few principles from . the way of despair," which will constitute the learning which the sequence of the propositions do not follow in a experience of Consciousnes's (78). necessary order. Their arrangement is not a strict succesOn this road, whenever Consciousness attains a new sion; the order of arriving at them may be varied to our truth, it removes another one of its veils. Consciousness liking. In addition, the result of a proposition, the very manages to get behind the object by tr·ansf01ming its own point of it, is complete Iy detached from the body of the propounderstanding of it. All of the same veils are also present sition: we can prove a proposition in countless different ways. in the object, but it is only for Consciousness that they ex- . These systems therefore cannot justify their principles. This hibit themselves as obstacles of the development. The ob- kind of science can indeed supply us with the answers to ject contains all the phases of the logical progression of the practical questions of everyday life, but it is unable to Consciousness, not as its own logical progression, but as penetrate into the deeper realm of truth where everything is simple truths. While on stage, however, Consciousness does dependent upon everything else, and where the end result not recognize its own alteration; it believes that it is actu- contains everything that is true within it (42-44). We are ally removing the veils of the object. This subjective knowl- therefore in need of a method that will provide a system edge will become objective knowledge once we understand that is organized according to necessity. This method is the what Consciousness has learned on this road. Once we see dialectical movement. the veils that Consciousness removes from itself in their In the particular case of the metamorphosis of Contrue light, our knowledge will also present itself in its full sciousness, the dialectical movement begins with the first truth. truth Consciousness discovers. Consciousness now tries to Before we examine this process more closely, we must hold fast to this as the ultimate huth. But soon Consciousunderstand the nature of truth in this play. For Hegel, the ness recognizes that its huth cannot be the ultimate tmth, True is the whole, or the Absolute. because it does not include the opposite of the first truth within it. The first truth cannot said to be the Absolute, The True is the whole. But the whole is nothin g other because it cannot account for the existence of its opposite . than the essence co nsummati ng itself through its develThe quest of Consciousness for the Absolute huth must conopment. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentinue. Since its first truth has proven to be untrue, Contially a result, that only the end is what truly is; and that sciousness takes its opposite to be hue. Naturally, this will precisely in this consists its nature, viz. to be actual, give rise to the same problem that arose in the case of the subject, the spontaneous becoming of itself. (20) first truth. The second truth cannot be the Absolute, beFor Hegel, the ultimate truth can only be the Absolute that cause it does not contain the first truth within it, since it is contains the truth of the entire development in itself. A . its direct opposite. Consciousness, thus defeated in its attempt to find huth blooming red rose is a fragile, green bud before it opens its in its second object, returns to its first truth. It rea lizes, petals to the sun. Its final beauty is the result of all the phases of its growth; the flower carries their truth within it. however, that to avoid having to switch its objects again, it The hue result is the developed flower that contains, but must find a new truth in its first object. It in fact discovers supersedes, its first truth, the bud. To access a truth of this that the second truth gave determination to the first huth: it kind, we have to follow a progression, a movement, to which defined the way in which the first truth was defective. The Hegel often refers as the dialectical movement, or a simple third, new truth for Consciousness is created out of the union reflection. The method of the dialectical movement is the of the first two truths. For its third truth, Consciousness principle of all of Hegel's philosophy. It is a three-step pro- invents an object in which both of the first truths are necessarily brought together. In the third truth the contradiction �62 of the first two moments is no longer an opposition, but a distinction. This completes a cycle of the dialectic.al movement and a scene of the play. In terms of the actors on the stage, the play should continue from where it left off: the two moments of consciousness portrayed by two different actors . But Consciousness, just because it is in essence a unity, cannot remain thus alienated from itself, so it returns into itself. On the stage, we see the actor in the black costume stepping behind the first actor. But the first actor now changes completely: his size, his shape, his figure have become completely different, and his costume is half-black and half-white. Consciousness thus returned into itself contains both of its moments; it is the whole movement. Hegel calls the three huths of the dialectical movement the three moments. On stage, the three moments conespond to the three actors. The first moment is always the initial truth for Consciousness; the second is its negation, or its opposite; the third moment is a creation of Consciousness that necessitates the existence of the first two moments as distinct. This, of course, is still only the empty form of the dialectical movement that will be filled with specific content once the transformation begins. From our seat in the audience, we see that in fact the third moment is a deeper tJ.uth in Consciousness, because it necessitates the first two moments . Each time a cycle of the dialectical mCYVement is completed, Consciousness reaches a truth that, because it includes all the previous moments, is closer to the Absolute. Whenever Consciousness uncovers a defect in its truth, it starts a new cycle of the dialectical movement or begins a new scene of the play. The movement is initiated qy what is missing in the object of Consciousness, and is driven by the necessity for a truth that encompasses the whole. The quest can end only when Consciousness discovers an object that satisfies this desire . Only the Absolute can put an end to this movement that is set in m~tion by what is lacking, or the negative . "Notion" is the name of this moving negative, and "Logic" is the organizer of this movement. But Notion, because it displays the defect of the previous moment, is also a form of knowledge . Logic is what guides Consciousness in the direction that will compensate for the defect of the previous moment. Logic is what dictates to Consciousness the character of the new object to which it can appeal for the solution of a contradiction. Consciousness, thus driven by the Notion in the direction indicated by Logic, continues its exhaustive search for the Absolute. I shall now give a brief description of the first two chapters of the Phenomenology, in preparation for considering the third chapter, which will constitute the core of this essay. Kor AR S ENSE-CERTAINTY Consciousness steps on stage and is instantly astounded by the richness of the world. What is the first experience Consciousness is likely to have upon encountering an object in the world? An object appears to Consciousness unexpectedly, and it overwhelms Consciousness with its presence. Consciousness wants to seize the object as it finds it, just as it is "now" and "here." But how can Consciousness possibly say what it sees "now" and "here"? By the time it does so, the truth of its claims will vanish. Consciousness immediately faces a new "now" and a new "here" of whose content is quite different from what it was a second ago. In fact, Consciousness itself changes from one moment to the next. Consciousness tries to say what its first "now" and first "here" were, but it cannot. Instead, it points out the moments, but even pointing out takes time. Thus Consciousness learns that its object is not the particular that it fa ces at any one moment, but the universal that is indifferent to the specific contents of the "now"s and "here"s. P ERCEPTION Ever since Consciousness stumbled upon its obj ect it has been trying to grasp the truth of it. Sense-Certainty failed to do this : its object slipped away from it. At the stage of Perception, Consciousness fa ces the obj ect not in its living immediacy, but as a thing. Perception has given up on defining the object in terms of the "now" and "here ;" it wants to describe its obj ect, the thing . In the process of description, however, there arises an antithesis. The thing, on the one hand, is a "One": it can be distinguished from another thing. On the other hand, the thing is a "Many" : it can be described in terms of its color, shape, size, and so forth . For example, if I talk about a book, I am talking about this book here; it is one thing. On the other hand, this book is small, and blue, and bo x-shaped; it has many different properties . These properties do not seem to affect each other; in fact, each seems indifferent to others. The book is blue and also small, and also box-shaped. But if they do not affect each other at all, how can this book be distinguished from another thing? It seems that the properties must demarcate the boundaries of the thing. But if they are definitive properties, what allows me to talk of them independently? Percep tion alternately makes the obj ect and Consciousness itselfresponsible for the "oneness" and the "manyness" of its object. To avoid contradiction, it posits the object as the cause of "oneness," and Consciousness as the cause of the "manyness," and then it reverses its position. But as a consequence of positing alternating truths in the same place, Consciousness is unable to find a way to grasp both of these huths simultaneously. Instead, it introduces the "sophistJ.·y of in-so-fars"(130). Hegel equates this activity of Percep- ENERGEIA tion with sound common sense. The thing is "Many" inso-far as it is in itself, but "One" in-so-far as it is conh·asted with other things. As a "One" the thing is a unity, as a "Many" it holds the distinguishing qualities of the object, or it gives the object "determinateness." But it is through its "determinateness" that the object preserves itself. This means, then, that the thing preserves itself through its outside opposition: the thing has its essential being in another thing. But to have the essence of a thing outside of the thing is absurd! Perception can see the tmth of a single moment, but is unable to see the object as the entire movement of the different moments. It holds fast to the idea that its object is a real, sensuous thing, and is unable to give up the solidity, the "thinghood" of its object. Not being able to justify the antithesis concerning its essence, it must give up the object itself. 63 moments of the "One" and the "Many" not as opposites, but as two aspects of the same thing. Such an object is Force. When we think of Force we conceive of a unity, but at the same time, it is impossible to imagine a particular force without opposition. The principle ofN.ewton's Third Law of Motion seems appropriate here: To every action there is always an opposed and equal reaction: or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. ( 13 )3 Force necessarily implies two, but as a cause, it is taken to · be one. It is important to note that "Force" here is a primarily intellectual result. It is that object of Consciousness that fulfills the need to be a "One" but which creates the "Many." Force is therefore the solution to the problem of PerFORCE AND THE UND ERSTANDI NG ception. Force itself is one object, but in action, it must This brings us to the main topic of our examination: split up into many; that is to say, there is never only one the section on Force and the Understanding. Why is it nec- force . Forces are always acting against one another, and it essary to go on to this phase? How does this phase of con- is forces in this state that Hegel calls "Force expressed." sciousness differ from, and accomplish more than the pre- The different fo rces that we detect in action are now what vious ones? One thing is readily apparent: as a result of used to be the contradictory moments of Perception, the this chapter Consciousness becomes Self-consciousness. By "One" and the "Many." But the one concept that is behind the end of this phase, the obj ect of Consciousness will have the acting forces as their cause is what Hegel calls "Force changed into itself; it will be a Consciousness that knows proper. " The same inherent necessity that revealed Force to be itself to be Consciousness. This suggests that in the course the new truth of consciousness is what brings about the fa ilof inves tigating the truth about the wo rld, we find it in ourse lves; in some sense we become one with trnth. Ag ain, ure of this new huth. This plot complication comes about when Consciousness realizes that since Force is essentially Hegel claims that this pro gression is a logical necessity. both of its aspects, the distinction that Consc iousness has Perception has failed, but the obj ect is still in front of Consciousness. In giving up the object, Consciousness can- made between its two forms is mere ly its own distinc tion ; it not ignore what is physically present before it, so it starts is a distinction in thought (1 36). Consc iousness sees that on the only available path: it lets go, not of the obj ect, but of both of the moments of Force, "Force expressed" and "Force the object as a thing, or of its thinghood. Consciousness proper," are essentially forces; it is therefore impossible to cannot hold that a concrete thing could be essentially a make a distinction with respect to their essence, or content. What is the significance of this failure? Let us recall "Many" and also a "One ." As a result of the fa ilure of perthat the moments that are here exhibited as th e "Force excep tion, Consc iousness now thinks of its object, because it rea lizes that it is poss ible to hold the contradictory moments pressed" and "Force proper," are the transformed moments of the "One" and the "Many." But the "One" was the obj ect's together in thought. "in-itself," or how it was perceived by itself; it was th e " inHegel now begins to discuss the new obj ect of Consciousness that is such a thought: Force enters the stage. ner" essence of the obj ect. The "Many" was exactly the Why is Force the next phase of the development? How is opposite of this. It was the obj ect' s "being-for-another,'' as Force a solution to the problem of Perception? Conscious- it was in conh'ast to other things, or its "outer" esse nce. ness was confronted with a conti·adiction. Were Conscious- Since the distinction turns out to be one of thought alone ness to stop at this point, it would be forc ed to admit that it and not one of content, these two essences become the same fo und no truth in its obj ect. A contradiction is simply not thing: there is now no difference between "outer" and " inacceptable as an end, fo r Truth must be a One. Conscious- ner." If Force falls short of accounting for the distinction of ness needs to create the third moment of this cycle of the outer and inner, it does not solve the problem of Perception . dialectical movement. It needs to find a truth that will ne- Force would then not be the one object that necessarily crecessitate the existing contradiction, not as a contradiction, ates two. The disappearance of this distinction deprives Force but as a distinction. That is to say, Consciousness needs to of any claim it might have laid to the title of the Absolute: find an underlying cause that will result in the two distinct �62 of the first two moments is no longer an opposition, but a distinction. This completes a cycle of the dialectic.al movement and a scene of the play. In terms of the actors on the stage, the play should continue from where it left off: the two moments of consciousness portrayed by two different actors. But Consciousness, just because it is in essence a unity, cannot remain thus alienated from itself, so it returns into itself. On the stage, we see the actor in the black costume stepping behind the first actor. But the first actor now changes completely: his size, his shape, his figure have become completely different, and his costume is half-black and half-white. Consciousness thus returned into itself contains both of its moments; it is the whole movement. Hegel calls the three truths of the dialectical movement the three moments. On stage, the three moments conespond to the three actors . The first moment is always the initial truth for Consciousness; the second is its negation, or its opposite; the third moment is a creation of Consciousness that necessitates the existence of the first two moments as distinct. This, of course, is still only the empty form of the dialectical movement that will be filled with specific content once the transformation begins . From our seat in the audience, we see that in fact the third moment is a deeper truth in Consciousness, because it necessitates the first two moments. Each time a cycle of the dialectical mO'Vement is completed, Consciousness reaches a truth that, because it includes all the previous moments, is closer to the Absolute . Whenever Consciousness uncovers a defect in its truth, it starts a new cycle of the dialectical movement or begins a new scene of the play. The movement is initiated qy what is missing in the object of Consciousness, and is driven by the necessity for a truth that encompasses the whole. The quest can end only when Consciousness discovers an object that satisfies this desire . Only the Absolute can put an end to this movement that is set in m~tion by what is lacking, or the negative. "Notion" is the name of this moving negative, and "Logic" is the organizer of this movement. But Notion, because it displays the defect of the previous moment, is also a form of knowledge . Logic is what guides Consciousness in the direction that will compensate for the defect of the previous moment. Logic is what dictates to Consciousness the character of the new object to which it can appeal for the solution of a contradiction. Consciousness, thus driven by the Notion in the direction indicated by Logic, continues its exhaustive search for the Absolute. I shall now give a brief description of the first two chapters of the Phenomenology, in preparation for considering the third chapter, which will constitute the core of this essay. KOPAR SENSE-CERTAINTY Consciousness steps on stage and is instantly astounded by the richness of the world. What is the first experience Consciousness is likely to have upon encountering an object in the world? An object appears to Consciousness unexpectedly, and it overwhelms Consciousness with its presence. Consciousness wants to seize the object as it finds it, just as it is "now" and "here." But how can Consciousness possibly say what it sees "now" and "here"? By the time it does so, the truth of its claims will vanish. Consciousness immediately faces a new "now" and a new "here" of whose content is quite different from what it was a second ago. In fact, Consciousness itself changes from one moment to the next. Consciousness tries to say what its first "now" and first "here" were, but it cannot. Instead, it points out the moments, but even pointing out takes time. Thus Consciousness learns that its object is not the particular that it faces at any one moment, but the universal that is indifferent to the specific contents of the "now"s and "here"s. PERCEPTION Ever since Consciousness stumbled upon its object it has been trying to grasp the truth of it. Sense-Certainty failed to do this: its object slipped away from it. At the stage of Perception, Consciousness faces the object not in its living immediacy, but as a thing. Perception has given up on defining the object in terms of the "now" and "here;" it wants to describe its object, the thing. In the process of description, however, there arises an antithesis. The thing, on the one hand, is a "One": it can be distinguished from another thing. On the other hand, the thing is a "Many": it can be described in terms of its color, shape, size, and so forth. For example, if I talk about a book, I am talking about this book here; it is one thing . On the other hand, this book is small, and blue, and box-shaped; it has many different properties. These properties do not seem to affect each other; in fact, each seems indifferent to others. The book is blue and also small, and also box-shaped. But if they do not affect each other at all, how can this book be distinguished from another thing? It seems that the properties must demarcate the boundaries of the thing. But if they are definitive properties, what allows me to talk of them independently? Perception alternately makes the object and Consciousness itselfresponsible for the "oneness" and the "manyness" of its object. To avoid contradiction, it posits the object as the cause of "oneness," and Consciousness as the cause of the "manyness," and then it reverses its position. But as a consequence of positing alternating truths in the same place, Consciousness is unable to find a way to grasp both of these truths simultaneously. Instead, it introduces the "sophish·y of in-so-fars"(130). Hegel equates this activity of Percep- ENERGEIA tion with sound common sense. The thing is "Many" inso-far as it is in itself, but "One" in-so-far as it is contrasted with other things. As a "One" the thing is a unity, as a "Many" it holds the distinguishing qualities of the object, or it gives the object "determinateness." But it is through its "determinateness" that the object preserves itself. This means, then, that the thing preserves itself through its outside opposition: the thing has its essential being in another thing. But to have the essence of a thing outside of the thing is absurd! Perception can see the truth of a single moment, but is unable to see the object as the entire movement of the different moments. It holds fast to the idea that its object is a real, sensuous thing, and is unable to give up the solidity, the "thinghood" of its object. Not being able to justify the antithesis concerning its essence, it must give up the object itself. 63 moments of the "One" and the "Many" not as opposites, but as two aspects of the same thing. Such an object is Force. When we think of Force we conceive of a unity, but at the same time, it is impossible to imagine a particular force without opposition. The principle of Newton's Third Law of Motion seems appropriate here : To every action there is always an opposed and equal reaction: or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. (13) 3 Force necessarily implies two, but as a cause, it is taken to · be one. It is important to note that "Force" here is a primarily intellectual result. It is that object of Consciousness that fulfills the need to be a "One" but which creates the "Many." Force is therefore the solution to the problem of PerFORCE AND THE UNDERSTANDING ception. Force itself is one object, but in action, it must This brings us to the main topic of our examination: split up into many; that is to say, there is never only one the section on Force and the Understanding. Why is it nec- force. Forces are always acting against one another, and it essary to go on to this phase? How does this phase of con- is forces in this state that Hegel calls "Force expressed." sciousness differ from, and accomplish more than the pre- The different forces that we detect in action are now what vious ones? One thing is readily apparent: as a result of used to be the contradictory moments of Perception, the this chapter Consciousness becomes Self-consciousness. By "One" and the "Many." But the one concept that is behind the end of this phase, the object of Consciousness will have the acting forces as their cause is what Hegel calls "Force changed into itself; it will be a Consciousness that knows proper." The same inherent necessity that revealed Force to be itself to be Consciousness. This suggests that in the course the new huth of consciousness is what brings about the failof investigating the truth about the world, we find it in ourse lves; in some sense we become one with huth. Again, ure of this new truth. This plot complication comes about when Consciousness realizes that since Force is essentially Hegel claims that this progression is a logical necessity . both of its aspects, the distinction that Consciousness has Perception has failed, but the object is still in front of Consciousness. In giving up the object, Consciousness can- made between its two forms is merely its own distinction; it not ignore what is physically present before it, so it starts is a distinction in thought (136). Consciousness sees that on the only available path: it lets go, not of the object, but of both of the moments of Force, "Force expressed" and "Force the object as a thing, or of its thinghood. Consciousness proper," are essentially forces; it is therefore impossible to cannot hold that a concrete thing could be essentially a make a distinction with respect to their essence, or content. What is the significance of this failure? L t us recall "Many" and also a "One." As a result of the failure of perthat the moments that are here exhibited as the "Force exception, Consciousness now thin.ks of its object, because it realizes that it is possible to hold the contradictory moments pressed" and "Force proper," are the h·ansformed moments of the "One" and the "Many." But the "One" was the object's together in thought. "in-itself," or how it was perceived by itself; it was the " inHegel now begins to discuss the new object of Consciousness that is such a thought: Force enters the stage. ner" essence of the object. The "Many" was exactly the Why is Force the next phase of the development? How is opposite of this. It was the object's "being-for-another," as Force a solution to the problem of Perception? Conscious- it was in conh·ast to other things, or its "outer" essence. ness was confronted with a contradiction. Were Conscious- Since the distinction turns out to be one of thought alone ness to stop at this point, it would be forced to admit that it and not one of content, these two essences become the same found no h·uth in its object. A contradiction is simply not thing: there is now no difference between "outer" and " inacceptable as an end, for Truth must be a One. Conscious- ner." If Force falls short of accounting for the distinction of ness needs to create the third moment of this cycle of the outer and inner, it does not solve the problem of Perception. dialectical movement. It needs to find a truth that will ne- Force would then not be the one object that necessarily crecessitate the existing contradiction, not as a contradiction, ates two. The disappearance of this distinction deprives Force but as a distinction. That is to say, Consciousness needs to of any claim it might have laid to the title of the Absolute: find an underlying cause that will result in the two distinct �64 KoPAR This true essence of Things has now the character of not Force is now most definitely not the end of the quest for being immediately for consciousness; on the contrary, Truth. consciousness h'as a mediated relation to the inner being The Understanding must give up Force as the perfect and, as the Understanding, looks through this mediating object, and so it becomes the "Notion of Force." It is the play ofForces into the true background of Things. ( 143) "Notion of Force" because it is the moving negative principle that drives the dialectical movement. One thing seizes our attention immediately: Hegel has sudAfter the effort of Consciousness to distinguish between denly switched to the plural. Instead of having one thing the moments of the "One" and "Many" in terms of their for its object, the Understanding now concerns itself with content as an "inner" and an "outer" force proved unsuc- things. In fact, however, its object is still one: it is the "incessful, it next endeavored to differentiate between them ner being of Things," and the plurality exists not in the according to their form (137). If Consciousness managed object of the Understanding, but in the number of things in to draw an essential difference between different forms of which this object is present; that is to say, all things. Havforce, it could still retain force as its new object. With the ing had to bury Force because it fell short of the absolute, vaporization of the difference in the content of the two mo- the Understanding must produce an object that extends to ments, they were reduced to pure forces. The only remain- all things. Its focus changes from one thing to an object ing way for Consciousness to distinguish between them is that is in everything in the world; it is trying to find the to determine which one of the two forces initiates the heart of this world. At the very least, then, this new object struggle. This distinction would identify one of the forces is one that contains the truth of all objects, and in this sense, as the active and the other as passive. it has greater potential to become the Absolute. Consciousness, however, is unable to assign activity and passivity to these forces. One moment, or one force, apThe inner world, or supersensible beyond, has, however, proaches the other as something alien, or as Hegel says, come into being: it comes from the world of appearance which has mediated it; in other words , appearance is its "solicits" it. Now Consciousness realizes that the first force essence and in fact , its filling. The supersens ibl e is the could not have approached, or "solicited" the second force sensuous perceived as posited as it is in truth ; but the in the first place, had the second force not approached the truth of the sensuous and the perceived is to be appearfirst (137) . ance. The supersensible is therefore appearance qua Consciousness sees that the distinction between the two appearance. ( 14 7) moments in terms of their form is a trivial, merely nominal distinction. Thus the second trial of Consciousness to disThe truth of the inner world is thus the truth of appearance . tinguish between the forces failed as well. Force as subPerhaps one would like to call this movement the saving of stance, or as existing in its separate moments, slips away appearances, because Consciousness does not have to give from our hands . up its truth; it is contained in the new result. When talking The "Notion of Force qua Notion" is the failure of Force this way one must exercise caution. Logic teaches us that recognized as a failure . It is more than the simple Notion the object is no longer beyond our reach. There is no object of Force in that Consciousness realizes the essence of Force existing in a separate world with inaccessible foim and propto be just this- that the distinctions made in it are insigerties. The object is what Consciousness has made of it, nificant. Having watched the struggle of solicitation it sees and as the deve lopment has been a necessary logica l prothat the moments of Force have lost actuality: Consciousgression; the playground of forces, or appearance, necesness takes Force to be the thing in which these determinasarily determines the content of the next moment. tions lose their individuality and become one as the Notion. What is saved here is that which remains constant in the play of forces: "appearance qua appearance. " This LAW means that this next moment will take appearance as it really is, or a disappearing moment. But since the very esThis moment [the "Notion of Force qua Notion" ] is sence of this new true world was to conserve what is stable nothing less than the death of Force as a real object. What from the playground of forc es, it logically follows that its is th e new obj ect, and how does it overcome the problems of content should come from this playground. Force? Since it is the result of the previous movement, it This new moment therefore ought to contain the play must be the "Notion of Force qua Notion," only viewed from of forces, but contain them in their disappearing: "What is a different angle . Following the spiral of the dialectical immediate for the Understanding is the play of Forces; but movement, it must be the positive result yielded by the lack what is the True for it, is the simple inner world" (148). We of actuality of the forces. This Hegel christens the "inner have seen that in the play of forces all the differences that being of things": distinguish the two participating moments collapse. The different moments of the "One" and the "M any" with re- ENERGEIA spect to content, and the "soliciting" and "solicited" with respect to fmm, become interchangeable. The defining factor of this next moment is precisely the loss of all differences. The truth of the playground of forces , or appearance recognized as appearance, is Law. Before we begin the examination of what has thus filled in the emptiness of the "inner," let us notice that "Law of Force" is a distinctly physical expression. What Hegel means by Law is what is common to all of the Newtonian Laws. Recall Newton's Corollary 1 to the Laws in the Principia: it demonstrates the constrnction and validity of a forc e parallelogram. Such a force parallelogram can be constructed out of any number of forces, whether by separation or integration. One simple rule governs the procedure, and the extent of its power is undeniably one of the most far-reaching in physics . Here the individual forces are independent of experience; that is to say, we are free to separate the force of gravity into two or more vectors. In the process of integrating forces, the result is similarly a force that does not belong to any one of the participating bodies. We talk about the force of gravity and the force of a string holding an object, but when combined according to the First Corollary, we talk of a resultant force. The resultant force cannot be assigned to any one thing. It will certainly be expressed in the change or motion of something, but strictly speaking, it does not belong to any one body. The procedure according to which the resultant force is obtained remains indifferent to the forces of experience. It is detached from the snuggle itself. Its truth originates in the struggle, but is itself devoid of any such struggle. Here Fo~·ce in its actuality has died; what subsists is a rule that is universal. By Law, Hegel must mean something like the truth of the First Corollary. Consciousness has thus filled in the emptiness of the inner world. The content of the inner world are laws, which give a new foim to this realm. They incorporate the constant str·uggle of the appearances, but in themselves are stable:· 65 contain difference, the difference is universal, indeterminate." To have proper causes for all appearances requires many laws. But the plurality of the laws is something that goes against the very thing Consciousness was hoping to find in this solution : Law was supposed to be a unity . As the underlying heart of the world, its truth was supposed to consist precisely in its singularity as a governing principle. To find a solution to this new problem, Consciousness must create a "container" for all of the laws . This new object should include all the specific laws within it; it should be their unification. The name of this new object, by virtue of the place it occupies in the dialectical movement, is called the "Notion of law." At this point it seems to Consciousness that its new object is merely the negation of the many laws . Science in general aims at abstracting the accidental, unessential qualities of occurrences, and thus the majestic Moon is placed on an equal footing with the our planet of imperfections. But Hegel finds that the loss of all particularities leaves the general form empty . In the fusion of the specific laws, the new object loses all specificity and is stripped of any determinate significance. It is completely universal and lacks any reference to actuality . The object of Consciousness is now the "Notion of law," the essence of which is to express this emptiness. Logic, however, impels Consciousness to seek content for its new object. What it finds is that there is inherent necessity in the "Notion of law," though this necessity supersedes the truth of Law. This necessity is the common denominator of all the laws: they are laws because they are necessary. Consciousness grabs this necessity and makes it the positive content of the "Notion of law." Through this positive result Law reg~ins its form as a one :· it is that which is necessary. Consciousness thus recognizes Laws, on the one hand, containing several rules for distinct phenomena, but on the other, the unity of pure necessity. As Hegel goes on to explain, however, the necessity arrived at here is meaningless in a twofold manner. First, because given positive electricity, negative electricity is given Consequently, the supersensible world is an inert realm by definition. In other words , "positive" would mean nothof laws which, though beyond the perceived world ing without "negative." But that these two forms of elecfor this exhib its law only through incessant change - is tricities should be united in the one notion "Electricity ," equally present in it and is its direct tranquil image. (149) does not seem necessary. Second, because in the case of motion, time and space-the two moments of motion are In the form of Law, Consciousness has arrived at a new completely indifferent to one another. Without any diffitruth. By positing a unity b eyond the constant change of culty we can think of space by itself, or time by itse lf; there the play of forces , the play [of forces] becomes justified. If seems to be no inherent connection between them (153): one can assert that Law is true, its expression in the struggle of forces can also be asserted to be true. If one can think of The difference, then, in both cases is not a difference in Law as the cause of the play of forces, then the effects beits own self: either the universal, Force, is indifferent to come parts of the tluth of Law . the division which is the law, or the differences , the parts, There is, however, a negative consequence to saving of the Jaw are indifferent to one another. (154) the forces. This is what Hegel tells us in 150: "What seems to be defective in it (i.e. in the law) is that while it does �KOPAR 66 Without a necessary connection between two things, one cannot call them parts of a whole. If they were parts, they would have to have something common to them that was essential to the being of both. The necessity of the connection between the parts, or laws, and the whole, or Law as the "Notion of law," is precisely that the Understanding made an abstraction and found the truth of the former in that of the latter. Similarly, the necessary connection between the independent parts (for example space and time) arises from the Logic of the Understanding. Consciousness understands the separate moments of time and space as united in gravity, because Logic has connected these moments for it. For the Understanding, the moments of electricity are the same thing as Electricity, except one is the abstraction of the other two. When Consciousness alternates between the two forms of Electricity, it is said to "explain": The moments are indeed distinguished , but, at the same time, their difference is expressly said not to be a difference of the thing itself, and consequently is itself immediately cancelled again. This process is called "explanation." (154) Generally speaking, the purpose of an explanation is to shed some light on an obscure phrase or definition. The one who explains, in order to remain faithful to the truth of the plu·ase at hand, must find alternate means of expressing the exact content of the phrase. Thus, while the words used in the explanation ar.e different, what is said is the same. In the process of "explanation," the Understanding switches back and forth between thinking of Law in its two· separate components and thinking of it in its entirety. Both ways of looking at the matter belong to the Understanding 's view of the truth. Thus since the content of both forms of the explanation are the same, they are in fact connected in the object. Electricity is really positive and negative electricities, and space and time really compose gravity. To us, the audience, it is clear that here Consciousness is switching back and forth between h-uths that it has discovered in the object, but in which the distinctions are really within Consciousness: The reason why 'explaining' affords so much self-satisfaction is just because in it consciousness is, so to speak, communing directly with itself, enjoying only itself; although it seems to be busy with something else, it is in fact occupied only with itself. ( 163) The process of explanation is the perfect mirror-image of the play of forces, or appearance. The struggle between the soliciting force and the solicited force is the same as the struggle between Law expressed in its specificity, and Law as unity: In the process, then, of explaining, the to and fro of change which before was outside of the inner world and present only in the appearance, has penetrated into the supersensible world itself. ( 155) Consciousness is here faced with a problem opposite to that which it had to overcome in the sensible world. On the playground of forces, Consciousness saw a constant opposition that lacked determination. What was determined about it was only the existence of differences that gave rise to their underlying unity, Law. Law solved the problem of the play of forces by giving a stable ground to the constant change , or "absolute flux." In this law, all the differences were brought together into one medium. Here in the explanation, however, differences arise that are in fact not differences. Consciousness therefore devises a solution parallel to its earlier solution. What was missing from the first Law, or the way it was defective, was precisely the lack of flux. Without this, Law fell drastically short of reflecting the dynamic nature of the play of forces. This dynamism; this flux, is found in the process of explanation. This is the second time that Consciousness is presented with a scene of constant change. In the first case, the opposing forces of appearance lost their difference in the Law of the supersensible world . No~ in the second case, the fluctuating moments are evidently identical at the outset. But Consciousness, to complete the correspondence between the sensuous world and the supersensible world, is in desperate need of constant change. Consciousness therefore creates a new Law that it calls the "law of appearance." The "law of appearance" is what disturbs the unity of the first Law; it is what makes two electricities out of one. The supersensible world is thus defined by two Laws: The Understanding thus learns that it is a law of appearance itself, that differences arise which are no differences, or that what is selfsame repels itself from itself; and similarly, that the differences are only such as are in reality no differences and which cancel themselves; in other words, what is not selfsame is self-attractive. ( 156) Here we have Hegel's brief summary of the two laws of the supersensible world. One of the Laws unites the differences: in the first Law, moments that are different become one . This "self-attractiveness" is exactly what we have seen between the soliciting force and the solicited force. The other, or second Law, to preserve the dynamics of life, breaks up the unity into different moments. The supersensible world is thus divided into two separate worlds. To wit, the first Law governs the first world, and the second Law governs the other one. These two kingdoms, the first supersensible world and the second, or what Hegel calls the inverted world, are not only different, but are the direct opposites of one another. While the first kingdom satisfied the need of Consciousness to find truth in a 67 ENERGEIA unity, the inverted world supplies the change that is also so indispensable to this truth. THE INFINITE The strife of the "One" and the "Many" here takes on a yet different form. With the opposition of the Laws, Consciousness has still not escaped the same problem. The first Law is what makes the "Many" a "One," while the second Law is what makes the "One" a "Many." There are, however, still two Laws. As a necessary step in the h·ansfo1mation, Consciousness must unify these two, separate, in fact, opposite Laws , and this opposition is just what allows Consciousness to do this. What Consciousness is trying to do is to identify a world that is the cause of the appearances of the sensuous world, but which, just because it is the cause of the sensuous world, also mirrors every aspect of that. Therefore this new world should contain the particular opposites found in the sensuous world, but should also be a world that is a unity. To raise the two kingdoms of the supersensib le world to this new level , the two kingdoms have to be direct opposites of each other that are nevertheless the same, or one world. Upon first examination, the second world is merely the opposite of the first one. The inverted world turns the first supersensible world upside down. It is fascinating to watch how the sensuous world has managed to completely duplicate itself. The birth of the inverted world has not only given motion to its stationary counterpart, but also allowed for the return of particularity. By being the opposite of the first supersensible world, the content of the "beyond" can be more specific than pure Electricity, for example. Because of the introduction of the second Law, both of the moments of "explanation" are present in the inner world. Thus both negative and positive electricity have their place in the "beyond." This admission is extended to other particulars. Because the content of the first supersensible world is immediately posited as an opposite in the second one, determinate contents, such as a particular color, or an individual taste, can now become the filling of this world. But the significance of the inverted world is more than to provide an opposite. What Hegel means here is that we must not assign reality to the objects of the inverted world. Thus if there is an object in the sensuous world that is dark, we must not think of it as really being light. The inverted world is not the world of opposite things, but the world of opposition. The reason for this is that Consciousness is trying to leave behind its object as a thing by entering into the supersensible world (hence the name "supersensible"). If one were to conceive of the inverted world as a realm filled with the opposites of what exist in the appearances, one would have to realize that the creation of the inverted world was in fact a waste of effort. There is absolutely no need for Consciousness to invent an inner, inverted world for the opposites of things. Whenever one sees something dark in appearance, or in the actual, sensuous world, one is bound to see something light immediately next to it. In fact, one would be unable to notice what is dark without the contrast provided by the light object. The significance of the inverted world, then, must be greater than being an opposite thing. The inverted world is not a thing that simply has an opposite somewhere. It is its essence to be an opposite, a "pure change," and as such, it must provide the something of which it is an opposite . The purpose of its very Law, the "law of appearance," is to create an opposition not outside, but within the object. It thus comes to be the case that the inverted world contains the first supersensible world in it. Now, since the first supersensible world developed out of the sensuous world, while the inverted world developed out of both of these, the inverted world also contains the sensuous world. In the inverted world we see a new, higher level of the Absolute: its truth includes the truths of the previous levels. [The] power of God is what is often referred to as the infinite power, or infinite goodness of God. Similarly, Kant', when writing about the logical function of the Understanding, insinuates that the "Affirmative" and the "Negative," when combined, yield the "Infinite" (B96). It is therefore no great surprise to us that what Consciousness finds in the inner difference of the inverted world is, in fact, the Infinite ( 160). Infinity here has three meanings ( 161). First, as we have said, the difference is one within the object. Second, if Infinity is the "beyond" of appearance, it provides the sensuous world with a firm, trne ground. And third, tlu·ough the firm ground, the opposite moments have a necessary connection to each other: they have a common "container" from which springs their difference. Hegel calls Infinity the "absolute Notion" because in it everything is negated. The negation at the same time is positive; it yields knowledge of the thing through its opposite. We, the viewers of the Becoming of Spirit, recognize that Infinity has been there all along; it has been the heart of the dialectical movement. The product of each new circle of the dialectical movement proves to be a truth that includes both an assertion and a negation. About Infinity, Hegel further says: Appearance, or the play of Forces, already displays it, but it is as 'explanation' that it first freely stands forth; and in being finally an object for consciousness, as that which it is, consciousness is thus self-consciousness. (163) The new, true object does not merely contribute to the development of Consciousness, but fundamentally reforms it. Enter Self-consciousness. Infinity, the catalyst, has been �68 implicit in the entire movement. In "appearance," the opposites are already in the process of disappearing: the forces consume each other. In "explanation," the Understanding is already aware of the fact that the difference between its moments is only a verbal, nonessential difference: Consciousness sees two different ways of expressing the same content. At last, Infinity is unveiled for Consciousness in the inner world : it becomes the object of Consciousness. KoPAR Of course, we, the audience, have seen all along that while Consciousness believed that it was digging deeper into the truth of the object, it was deceived, and in fact, was uncovering its own depths. Consciousness has never been able to access the object alone; it had to remove its own veils to see the truth of the object. All along, its object has been its own self. The transformation has allowed Consciousness to recognize this as well. Self-consciousness, this amazing result, is now the new shape on our stage. At this point it is still colorless: SelfCONCLUSION consciousness, just as all new truths in the course of the As Infinity becomes the object of Consciousness, Con- development, is at first an empty truth. Consciousness has sciousness realizes that because of the nature of its object, it not exited the stage; it has only changed form . In order to itself can simply no longer be a separate entity. Infinity see the truth about self-consciousness, one has to look at it includes everything: the distinction between subject and objectively, from the seat of the audience . Though Conobject vanishes, and Consciousness recognizes its object as sciousness can now look at itself objectively, it is still far its own self. The difference between subject and object was from looking at self-consciousness itself objectively. Selfthe final obstacle Consciousness had to overcome in order consciousness is the end of this cycle of the dialectical moveto see its object as we see it. Once Force became an object ment, but it is still only the beginning of the Science that for the actor, Consciousness first had to remove the veil that will expose the Absolute. Consciousness does not yet know was the distinction between the "One" and the "Many." The the content of self-consciousness; it does not know its prob"One" was the moment that expressed the thing as it was lems . For us, the audience, this result is astonishing in a difin-itself, or a single object, while the "Many" was the way the thing exhibited itself for-another, with many properties. ferent way. We are not merely taken aback by the recogniWhen Consciousness removed this veil, it saw that the dif- tion of our object as the actor on the stage is; we are amazed ference between the "inner" and the "outer" had disappeared. by the implications of this result. What this result tells us is Next came the task of eliminating the seeming differ- that we are the truth. The doubts of Descartes are now ence between "force that solicited" and "force that was so- washed away and Kant's wall is burned to ashes. There is licited." By the removal of this veil, Consciousness has no room for despair: the philosopher can trust his philosoreduced the distinction between the "active" and the "pas- phy. The question of many centuries is answered: Truth is sive" into nothingness: Law became its new object. Finally, within our reach. But why now? How is it that self-consciousness is a in the medium of the Infinite, Consciousness learns that there is no distinction between itself and its object: the dif- result of the movement of something that was only clearly articulated at least three thousand years after man was first ference of subject and object is demolished. In the next section Hegel provides a brief description ashamed of his actions? What possible sense does it make of what self-consciousness is, not merely as a result of the to anive at such a self-explanatory notion after understand-· ing the ways in which remote physical objects interact? We transformation, but in our ordinary experience: must recall that Hegel is not trying to set up a table for the I distinguish myse lf from myself, and in doing so I am chronological evolution of the human mind. Hegel's object directly aware that what is distinguished from myself is is a logical order, a progression that makes sense of phinot different (from me). I, the selfsame being, repel losophy as a whole, even though it does not coincide with myse lf from myself; but what is posited as distinct from chronological order. Nevertheless, it is a bit strange that me, or as unl ike me, is immediate ly, in being so distinself-consciousness should come so late in the progression. guished, not a distinction for me. ( 164) E~erything in the metamorphosis of Consciousness is dependent upon the dialectical movement. The dialectical To justify this account, one can only appeal to everyone's movement takes fo r grante d that true knowledge arises from private experience. It should suffice to recall a situation in phenomenological knowledge. It accepts as a fact that Conwhich one is particularly uncomfortable with an action of sciousness cannot touch the object alone, but must reform one's own. In the midst of such a situation, I begin, in a itself in order to find truth. Everything else that Hegel presense, to observe myself from the outside. But no sooner sents in his exposition of the bi1ih of self-consciousness simhave I divided myself in this way than I realize that I feel ply follows the necessity prescribed by the Logic of the diaboth embarrassed and disapproving: to distance myself from lectical movement. To question the truth of self-consciousmyself is impossible. ness, we have to question the truth of Hegel's Logic . This is a complex and difficult task. Hegel puts forth some com- ENERGEIA pelling arguments in favor of his method, and I have discussed the essence of his method earlier. But however persuasive his arguments may be, they cannot be completely convincing. If we are to take the phases of Consciousness as true results, we must have some faith in the Logic of Hegel. After all, Hegel himself admits that principles, just because they are beginnings, are defective in themselves (24). Only the entirety of the system can justify the beginning . Self-consciousness, however, is not yet Spirit. The only way I can imagine testing the h-uth of this result is by examining whether self-consciousness, as described by Hegel, makes sense to us. Since we are not yet at the final stage of the. play, I cannot attempt to provide a rigorous proof here. I can, however, suggest a way in which Hegel's self-consciousness accords with our experience. What has come before it? 1. Sense-certainty; 2. Perception; 3. Force; 4. Law; and 5. Infinity. Now, is it not the case that these concepts are all prior to and included in the concept of self-consciousness? Though inner reflection is a peculiarly human attribute, we are outward beings. Everything about us is defined by our physical circumstances. To this effect writes Hume: I never can catch myself at any time without perception, and never can observe any thing but perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. (Book I Section Vl) 5 We are outreaching beings, with primarily outward experiences. Sense-Certainty and Perception are precisely the beginnings of these experiences. Force, as I have already pointed out, is fundamentally physical, and only in abstraction is it intellectual. But this abstraction is not particularly sophisticated ; simple induction will yield an intellectual force. We must have abstracted the concept of force from our elementary experiences well before Newton. To continue , the early ex istence of law is perhaps the most evident. We see things according to an order. Whether the order really exists, or is a mere imposition of our imagination, we nevertheless recognize it in everything we see and do . Our concept of infinity is probably the most difficult to account for. It seems to me that our understanding of infinity is merely intellectual. What I mean is that the kind of experience from which it could have stemmed would be one in which we fail to see the end of something. Imagine someone looking at the sky and aspiring to see beyond its obstinate blueness. He might decide that the sky is a neverending, ever-growing aether, or he might conclude that it definitely ends somewhere, only its boundary is beyond the reach of his eyes. Most of our experiences would support the latter conclusion: plants dry out, animals and people die of old age. All of these experiences suggest not the infinite, 69 but, on the contrary, the finite. But the concept of infinity can also be grasped as the power that destroys everything, or the might that puts an end to all oppositions. Thus death is infinite because nothing is exempt from its hands . The Infinity of Hegel is infinity in this sense. Of course, we cannot experience death. We are fully aware of its existence and of its power, but we cannot/eel it. The concept of infinity thus remains solely intellectual for us . We know it, but we don't understand it. I have organized a short list to summarize how our ordinary understanding of self-consciousness may be present in the metamorphosis of Hegel ' s Consciousness: 1. Self-consciousness is what allows me to notice myself as an object. But since I am an outward being, I must have had an experience with 'noticing objects outside me: I must have experienced Sense-Certainty. , 2. Self.;consciousness is what allows me to perceive my own actions. But for this I need the ability to describe myself as a being that is one, but with many actions. Me and my actions are my object here: to describe them I must have experienced Perception. 3. Self-consciousness is the medium in which I tear myself apart from myself: it is the greatest force imaginable. To understand this as a force, I must have experienced physical force and then abstracted it: I must understand Force. 4. Self-consciousness is that which renders me competent to make moral judgments of myself. For this, I must have an order, or law, within me : I must know Law. 5. And finally, self-consciousness is the medium in which all boundaries are destroyed. It is that which includes the opposite moments of subject and object, it is that in which all distinctions vanish: it is Infinity. Again, Self-consciousness is not the end of the journey of Consciousness. The transformation continues until Consciousness becomes the Absolute. Since the necessity of the progression is only exposed in the exposition of the progress itself, one can only speculate about where self-consciousness will lead. The overall movement up to this point has transformed the object of Consciousness into an object that is its own self. We have seen the way in which Consciousness has been distancing itself away from thinghood, and into the intellectual. The static nature of the object was replaced with the dynamics of Force, and the absolution of the Infinite. The birth of Self-consciousness fundamentally reforms the nature of the transformation. Whatever the Absolute Truth is going to be, it will have to be seen in self-consciousness. With self-consciousness comes life, and with life comes war. The journey will be long and arduous with countless hardships and a myriad of obstacles. In the course of the development, more and more boundaries must be destroyed and more distinctions must collapse. Eventually the distinction between man and divinity must arise in the play. �70 KoPAR Naturally, the result of this opposition must contain the truth as seated in self-consciousness. It is as if Consciousness has discovered that its object is a mirror in which it can see its own reflection. But the mirror is still foggy and the reflection obscure. Consciousness still has to wipe the mirror clear in order to see its ultimate truth, the Absolute. Consciousness has yet to learn that what it sees in self-consciousness is not merely itself, but Spirit, and it has yet to see that its actor shall enter the stage not solely as a consciousness, but as God. 0 Light Eternal, who in thyself alone Dwell'st and thyself know'st, and self-understood, Self-understanding, smilest on thine own! (Canto XXXIII, 124-126) 6 Part of Me Karina Hean, A 'oo ENDNOTES '[Due to space considerations, this essay has been considerably modified from its original f01m, which is available at the St. John's College Library.-Ed.] 2 All quotations from: Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit ; Translated by A.V . Miller, Oxford University Press, unless indicated otherwise. The number marks the paragraph, not the page. 3All Newton references from: Newton, Principia Vol. I; Translated by Andrew Motte, University of California Press 4Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; Translated by Norman Kemp Smith, St. Martin's Press. 5Hume, Treatise on Human Nature; Ed ., L.A. Selby-Bigge, Clarendon Press 6 Dante, Paradiso; Translated by Laurence Binyon, The Viking Press Sketch (woman) Melina Hoggard, A 'oo �Liberty Tree Cara Gormally, '02 �\ \ \ � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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