Monday 28 March 2022

Titania On Mortality And Imagination

Titania speaks in works by Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman:

"'Ye mortals do have powers, do know things, which are for aye denied the Faerie race,' she said. 'Among them is the strength of mortal love.' Wistfulness tinged her speech: 'Mine ageless, flighty kind knows love ... of sorts ... but simply pleasantly, like songs or sweets. True human love is not a comedy; time makes it tragic. In those heights and depths rise dawns and storms beyond our understanding, the awe and the abidingness of death.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), vi, p. 53.
 
Titania: You wish to see the distant realms? Very well.
But know this first: the places you will visit, the places that you will see, do not exist.
 
Titania: For there are only two worlds - - your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy.
Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there.
 
Titania: These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power, provide refuge, and pain.
 
Titania: They give your world meaning.
They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. Do you understand?
 
Timothy Hunter: No.
 
-Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic, Volume III, The Land Of Summer's Twilight (New York, 1991), p. 34, panels 2-5, p. 35, panel 1.

10 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I thought Anderson's Titania to make more sense than Gaiman's version.

That use of "for aye" interested me. Yes, Anderson meant "forever" but "aye" is more often understood as a somewhat antiquated "yes," so I wondered how it could be used for a very different meaning.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

There is a usage in which "for aye" does mean "forever."

Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

I have heard it pronounced like "eye."

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I thought the word "aye" is pronounced like "eye"?

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Alright. When used to mean "forever," "for aye" can sound like "for A."

Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Without imagination, we would not be human.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I dunno, "for A" sounds pretty weak and non-emphatic to me. "For aye" (sounding like "for EYE" sounds stronger and sharper.

And would an intelligent race TRULY be intelligent at all? No, they would be well on the way to becoming like the Zolotyans in "The High Ones."

Ad astra! Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Dang! I meant to say "And would an intelligent race with NO imagination TRULY be intelligent at all?"

Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: pronunciation varies by dialect. "Aye", in the English dialects that still use it as an affirmative, can be pronounced as 'A' (the name of the letter), or as 'oie','eye' or as 'Aaaah-y'

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Got it: dialectal variants for pronouncing "aye." But a soft "a" for "for aa" still seems weak.

Ad astra! Sean