"It would die at last, all of this, centuries hence, as everything must die; but first, how mightily would it have lived! How rich would be its heritage!"
-Poul Anderson, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 229-331 AT p. 328.
In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, the anti-Humanist counterrevolution:
"'...bought for Earth a few more decades of freedom...
"Men died and civilizations died, but before they died they lived. No effort was altogether futile."
-"Cold Victory," p. 70.
Poul Anderson's philosophy is expressed in two of his series. We have found parallels between the Time Patrol and the Technic History. This time, it is between the Time Patrol and the Psychotechnic History.
2 comments:
IIRC, Tyre "died" because Alexander the Great and his army stormed it, burned it to the ground and sold all the survivors into slavery...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True, the Phoenician era of Tyre's history ended with Alexander of Macedon's siege and destruction of the city.
But the elegiac bits Paul quoted from Anderson reminded me of what I considered a very similar passage from Book V, Chapter I of THE LORD OF THE RINGS (Gandalf speaking): "And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come."
Ad astra! Sean
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