Uail maqq Carbri of Tuath Caelchon in Mide:
"'...that would have been as the Gods willed, and a fickle lot They are, as every sailor and warrior well knows.'" (XXIII, 5, p. 466)
Manson Emmert Everard, Unattached agent, Time Patrol:
"A man had to take whatever the gods offered him, and they were a miserly lot."
-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 55-112 AT 4, p. 74.
Uail believes in the literal existence of "the Gods." Everard does not. But both use polytheistic language to express their experience of life. Such language comes easily to Everard because he spends time in societies where that is the conceptual framework.
"Under the moon, first with mistletoe, second with drawn blades, last with blood from themselves, by Lug and Christ and the threefold Mother, they plighted their faith." (XXII, 6, p. 448)
These names are relevant if they inspire the men who are plighting their faith.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
A slightly comic example of men using this kind of polytheistic language would be Victorian and Edwardian men sometimes exclaiming "By Jove"! Not because they believed in Jupiter, but because they wanted to avoid abusing names and titles of the true God.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: or, to put it another way, to show off their Classical education -- which was a serious status-marker then.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That too was a point I should have made. After all, I make an occasional point of demonstrating some pretense of Classical "learning" by mentioning Marcus Aurelius' MEDITATIONS or the CONSOLATION of Boethius.
(Visualize me puffing out my chest and strutting around quoting the Emperor or Boethius!) (G)
Ad astra! Sean
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