Hassan

  MASRUR
It is the Caliph's dawn.

                        JAFAR
Thy dawn, O Master!

                        ISHAK
        Thy dawn, O Master of the world, thy dawn;
        The hour the lilies open on the lawn,
        The hour the grey wings pass beyond the mountains,
        The hour of silence, when we hear the fountains,
        The hour that dreams are brighter and winds colder,
        The hour that young love wakes on a white shoulder,
        O Master of the world, the Persian Dawn.

        That hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee:
        Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea,
        The braves who fight thy war unsheathe the sabre,
        The slaves who work thy mines are lashed to labour,
        For thee the waggons of the world are drawn—
        The ebony of night, the red of dawn!
-copied from here.

Chase The Morning

I have acquired a copy of this edition of Chase The Morning by Michael Scott Rohan. This book comes highly recommended by SM Stirling and Sean M. Brooks. (Addendum: see combox.) Apparently, there are literary cross-references and opportunities for comparison with Poul Anderson. The title is extracted from the line, "Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea," in a poem by James Elroy Flecker, also quoted by both Anderson and Stirling. For previous blog references either to Rohan's novel or to Flecker's poem, see here.

However, I have yet to get into reading Chase The Morning and am still involved with Poul Anderson's contributions to Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars. This might lead to reading the Man-Kzin Wars series as a whole. Anderson's first contribution introduced Ulf Markham who shows up in one (?) (later: not just one) later-written installment set earlier. It will be interesting to compare the styles of different contributions, to learn how the installments are distributed through the Wars period and also to find out if a line is to be drawn between canonical and non-canonical contributions.

Today is Sheila's birthday so again blogging time will be limited.

Adrienne Rolfe's Library

SM Stirling, Conquistador (New York, 2004), Chapter Thirteen, p. 356.

One shelf:

Into the Alternate Universe
A World Unknown
The Gates of Creation
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
The Complete Paratime
Three Hearts and Three Lions
A Midsummer Tempest
Chase the Morning
The Key to Irunium
Worlds of If
Sideways in Time
Lest Darkness Fall
Guns of the South 

We are pleased to recognize two, highly appropriate, titles by Poul Anderson.
The most evocative of these titles, and covers, is Chase the Morning, a quotation from James Elroy Flecker's Hassan:

"Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea..."

Hassan is also in Adrienne's library.

Stirling concludes his The Peshawar Lancers by quoting this same line from Hassan.

The title of Anderson's The Fleet of Stars is a quotation from another poem by Flecker.

Flecker is quite a poet. (See also here.)

Optimism

When mankind explores and expands into the universe, there should be a great deal of optimism so let's find a few expressions of that in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.

En route to Saturn:

"'Here we are, safe and comfortable till we reach Saturn. After that we should never lack for excitement, or for material to work with on the way home.'
"'True.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Saturn Game" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 1-73 AT pp. 29-30.

On the Grand Survey:

"After three years we were weary and had suffered losses. Oh, the wonder wasn't gone. How could it ever go - from world after world after world?...
"It was still a heart-speeding thing to find another sentient race, actually more than to find another planet colonizable by man."
-Poul Anderson, "Wings of Victory" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 79-102 AT p. 79.

Exploring Gray/Avalon:

"'...[the Ythrians] have scientific curiosity and, yes, in them perhaps even more than in the humans who went along, a spirit of adventure. Oh, it was a wonderful thing to be young in that band!'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 103-134 AT p. 115.

For a student in San Francisco Integrate:

"'A certain Master Merchant I know will soon be in the market for another apprentice and accepts what I have to told him about you. Are you interested?'
"I collapsed into Betty's arms. She says she'll find a way to follow me."
-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 175-197 AT p. 197.

When journeyman David Falkayn has averted a war and explained that mercantilism is nobler than knighthood which depends on slavery or serfdom and killing:

"He murmured, as best he could in Latin, 'Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea...'"
-Poul Anderson, "A Sun Invisible" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 263-315 AT p. 314.

When Nicholas van Rijn recruits Emil Dalmady as an entrepreneur:

"'Afterward you go get rich, if you survive, and have a big ball of fun even if you don't. Hokay?'"
-Poul Anderson, "Esau" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 517-553 AT pp. 552-553.

When the Polesotechnic League has begun:

"'The world's great age begins anew....'
"As it has before, and will again...
"We cannot foretell what will come of it. We do not know where we are going. Nor do most of us care. For us it is enough that we are on our way." - Le Matelot.
-Poul Anderson, "Hiding Place" IN The Van Rijn Method, pp. 555-609 AT 555-556.

"A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
"Fraught with a later prize;
"Another Orpheus sings again,
"And loves, and weeps, and dies.
"A new Ulysses leaves once more
"Calypso for his native shore." -Shelley.
-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 273-327 AT p. 273.

"Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea..."

I have been riveted by SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003). American correspondent, Sean M Brooks, suggested that a Poul Anderson fan should read some Stirling. Having now read this one novel, I am bound to agree with him. So what next? For me, more Stirling and more rereading of Anderson but also more reading and rereading of other works not connected to this blog: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is dying for me to get back to her!

The Peshawar Lancers has a conventional happy ending with three marriages and the heroes returning home:

"The lord of Rexin laughed softly, shook his head, and looked up through the fresh green leaves of the chinar trees and the exploding white and pink flowers of the orchards, up toward the manor and its gardens." (p. 458)

The text concludes with a characteristically evocative quotation from James Elroy Flecker, in this case from his "Ishak's Song." (This is a double link to Neil Gaiman because Gaiman also quotes Flecker and because Ishak is the Court Poet of Haroun al Raschid, who is the central character of Gaiman's Ramadan.)

I do not begrudge Stirling's characters their happy ending and do not wish any more adventures on them but I do want to know more about their history: the international situation and the threat of a second Fall.

Chase The Morning

Our Jewish merchant quotes the poem ending:

"'Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea!"
-SM Stirling, The Golden Princess (New York, 2015), Chapter Nineteen, p. 487.

We must refer to previous encounters with this poem: see here.

This has become a catch-phrase on the blog comparable to:

"Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end
"Methinks it is no journey." See here.

Poetry And Science Fiction

Mercatores tui auroram mari persequntur.

How often do poetry and sf interact?

James Elroy Flecker wrote a speculative poem about the future. See here.

Poul Anderson, Neil Gaiman, SM Stirling and Michael Scott Rohan quote Flecker.

Until David Birr pointed it out, I had completely overlooked Anderson's character, David Falkayn, quoting the same line from Flecker that concludes Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers:

"He murmured, as best he could in Latin, 'Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea...'"
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2009), p. 314.

But what is the Latin translation? This post begins with my attempt. Brian from our Latin class suggests:

tui mercatores mane ad ipse mare persequuntur.

Addendum: Andrew, our Latin Tutor, says:

mercatores meridiem trans mare persequuntur.

Later: We have established that "meridies" is "midday," not "morning."

Two days later: Mercatores mane trans mare... gives us alliteration but "aurora" is a poetic word for morning. In my first attempt at translation, I miss-spelt the verb and got the ablative case of mare wrong.

An Enforced Holiday

"A Sun Invisible," VII.

Falkayn, captured, becomes a house guest in Schloss Graustein, gaunt, dreary, on a high ridge, surrounded by forests with excellent hunting, with heavy but edible food, long conversations and occasional planetary guided tours in the company of his host, Landholder Graustein. Time hangs but Falkayn knows that, unbeknownst to his captors, the League is working on the problem and that he will be rescued.

He must persuade one of his captors that adjustment to League mercantilism will not be bad:

"'...even a knight must eat...'" (p. 314)

That is the entire basis of materialist philosophy. Mankind must eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, art, science or religion. Therefore, material production and economic development underlie and explain states, laws, art and religion, not vice versa. A Yellow Emperor did not initiate agriculture. Instead, agriculture generated the material surplus that eventually supported Emperors.

Falkayn continues:

"'...and our bread doesn't come from slaves or serfs or anyone who had to be killed.'" (ibid.)

Social progress occurs and can continue.

Finally, because the captor whom he is addressing is female, Falkayn invokes the romance of mercantilism:

"'Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea...'" (ibid.)

Can Anyone Help With This?

See Krishna.

On this blog, we quite often link to earlier posts on the same blog. When we do, we frequently find minor errors requiring correction, e.g., a name misspelt etc. In the post linked above, we have quoted from SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers but have omitted the page reference. My copy of this novel encompasses 458 pages of text. I might reread them all anyway - not a bad idea - but, meanwhile, does any other reader out there know the page reference for Athelstane King's reflection on the god Krishna?

The Peshawar Lancers and Conquistador are my two favourite SM Stirling novels, each conveying a sense of adventure on a new (to us) parallel Earth. These works are culminating peaks of an alternative history tradition that also includes both HG Wells and Poul Anderson. What's not to like?

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"Thy Merchants chase the morning down the sea