On Losers' Night in the Old Phoenix, Francois Villon composes a song. The second stanza runs:
"At Stamford Bridge did Harald the tall
"Win him a grave as long as he.
"Dick Crookback's hissed from a theater stall.
"Lionheart beggared his monarchy.
"Athenian men fared valiantly
"To die in the quarries of Syracuse.
"Bolivar cried he had plowed the sea.
"Even the dead have much to lose." (p. 115)
Poul Anderson wrote a historical trilogy about Harald Hardrada. In Anderson's Time Patrol story, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks," Manse Everard quotes Bolivar as having said that he had ploughed the sea. Anderson's multiverse is vast but also internally interconnected. How does Richard III's grave hiss and why from a theatre stall? He was buried in a church. What can the dead lose? These are people who have lost and then have died.
Further philosophical reflections:
"You don't see anything new by looking in the mirror, but by looking out the window."
-Poul Anderson, "Wellsprings of Dream" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. 235-247 AT p. 238.
We need to look through (literal) windows and in (metaphorical) mirrors. We can indeed realize important facts about ourselves through meditation. "Know thyself." Knowledge of motor mechanics helps drivers. Knowledge of self must help selves. Let's not counterpose windows and "mirrors." Anderson argues that the universe is more complex than our minds. Is it? Our brains are the most complex part of the universe. The external universe and our minds are "one universe."
Plato: Philosophy is preparation for death.
Aycharaych: Death is completion of life.
Synthesis: Philosophy is preparation for completion of life.
Comment: Yes. But add meditation to philosophy.
Aycharych is an Andersonian alien but I make no apology for synthesizing his insight with Plato's.
"[Hans Moravec] sees artificial intelligence fully equal to the human in another 40 years or so. This optimism has its doubters, including me..."
-ibid., p. 242.
"Wellsprings of Dream" was published 30 years ago. Another 10 years? Anderson describes Moravec's Mind Children (1988) as authoritative history followed by "...enthusiastic forecasting." (ibid.) We need enthusiasm but not always in forecasting.
7 comments:
Shakespeare scuppered Richard III's posthumous reputation, which people in his era attached considerable importance to.
OK.
Kaor, Paul!
Stirling beat me to mentioning how an angry Richard III might have reacted to Shakespeare's play traducing him. At least I hope I would have thought of that!
And the unjustly maligned King John spent his entire reign trying to clean up and cope with the mess his brother the Lionheart had made!
Ad astra! Sean
So the dead can lose their reputations.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! And that was first brought clearly home to me after reading Alan Lloyd's biography f King John, THE MALIGNED MONARCH, around 1975. The author went back to PRIMARY sources, such as the Pipe Rolls, containing many of John's letters, to find a more nuanced and accurate portrait of the king. And what he found contradicted in many ways what his enemies said and wrote about John.
Ad astra! Sean
John had the disadvantage of being not much of a fighter -- he lost the Norman parts of his domain, impoverishing a number of influential aristocrats.
And he wasn't much of a fighter in an age which practically worshiped martial prowess, and with Richard around as a counter-example.
Richard fought very well, both personally and as a commander... but he didn't accomplish much by it; it was an end in itself for him.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I am not sure I can entirely agree. I would need to reread Lloyd's book, but I recall him believing King John was a better soldier than his enemies said he was. He simply had to struggle with many problems and difficulties.
Ad astra! Sean
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