Persis And Fortuna

(Fortuna in Vienna.)

Ensign Flandry, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Flandry thinks of Persis d'Io:

"...twice she had stepped between him and catastrophe..." (p. 189)

The first time, she had grabbed Hauksberg's right wrist and dragged his blaster down. The second time, she had consensual sex with the loathsome Otto Brummelmann. But it was sheer luck for Flandry that Hauksberg's concubine was so resourceful. And there is a lot of luck in the remaining Young Flandry novels as Flandry's daring plans, plots and ploys all succeed, apparently defying probability.

Audentes Fortuna Iuvat.

Or is luck a psychic power? See here.

Andrea says that his deity is Fortuna. Someone with my advantages in life could have been an inner conformist, an outer conformist or a non-conformist. I happened to be the third option but this seems to have been down to the genetic lottery. I do not believe in either reincarnation or rebirth and they just put the explanation further back in time.

Deaths And Luck

The People Of The Wind.

"...one Ythrian slain was too many, Arinnian thought, and a million Terrans were too few." (XI, p. 563)

Bad views, Arinnian. The object should be to end the conflict with as few deaths as possible on either side. He wants a million of his own species dead just because there is a territorial dispute between the Empire and the Domain? With that attitude, there will always be territorial disputes. But how many people think like that now?

"'Luck fare beside you, Hrill.'" (III, p. 465)

"'Luck be your friend, First Marchwarden.'" (X, p. 550)

"'Thank fortune, no one wanted to question him.'" (XI, p. 564)

Ythrians, and Ythrian-influenced human beings, invoke luck, not a deity. God the Hunter does not direct the course of events or answer prayers like a providential deity so does it follow, effectively, that Fortuna, luck personified, is responsible for the course of events? Maybe but the Roman goddess, Fortuna, is not to be entreated or thanked, merely respected. A priestess maintained the Temple of Fortuna but no prayers were offered there or thanks given. Luck, whether good or bad, had to be accepted and Audentes Fortuna Iuvat, a proverb that should appeal to Ythrians of the New Faith in their struggle against God the Hunter.

"Praise...?"

A Stone In Heaven, XIII.

"No further changes of trajectory seemed called for, praise fortune." (p. 177)

Never praise fortune! Fortuna must be neither entreated nor thanked, just accepted, although she does favour the brave, which Dominic Flandry is. Audentes fortuna iuvat. Although not, of course, believing in a literal goddess called Fortuna, I nevertheless do think first that luck can only be accepted and secondly that it - not literally "she" - definitely favours those who go out to find it and to meet it half way. This is one of those posts where, instead of discussing a work by Poul Anderson, we take the alternative course of hanging some observations about life on a single phrase, in this case just two words, from one of his works. However, Anderson provides us with so many pertinent phrases that we might wind up commenting on the whole of life. See The Quotable Time Patrol.

Although this is a short post, it has taken me some time to word it as appropriately as possible. I feel thankful for some - not all - aspects of life although there is clearly no one to thank - except maybe metaphorically or hypothetically.

Good luck to you all.

Reflections II

Although Manse Everard refers metaphorically to gods (see here), he really accepts another aspect of a pagan world-view. Everard inwardly reflects that the Tyrians are "...fundamentally right..." to think that:

"'...the world isn't entirely governed by laws of nature; it's capricious, changeable, magical.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2006), pp. 229-331 AT p, 254.

The friend of Italian descent whom I have mentioned is a Pagan who reveres the Roman goddess Fortuna. Apparently, a priestess kept her temple clean and neat although no prayers or sacrifices were offered there. Fortuna must be respected but not entreated although fortuna audaces iuvat.

That Latin proverb would make a good motto for the Time Patrol. Everard guards time sometimes by daring action as when he attacks two Exaltationists and their military escort and grabs a communicator to summon instant help. The course of history depends on such Time Patrol actions.

Fortuna And The West

SM Stirling, The High King Of Montival (New York, 2011), Chapter Ten.

"'Fate and Fortuna willing...'" (p. 208)

See here. I agree that Fortuna rules. Each of us exists only because of a chance meeting between a sperm and an egg.

When Rudi's sister quotes the Histories, i.e., certain works of fiction, he replies, "'True...'" (p. 209) See here.

In the Histories, goodness comes from the West. In the Bible, wise men came from the East. For Chinese Buddhists, their wisdom came from the West and there is a Western Paradise. For many people politically, "the West" means US capitalist power.

These are a few notes that I made while reading this afternoon.

Ridenour's Reflection

"Outpost of Empire."

"Good God, [Ridenour] thought, if You do not exist - terrible God, if You do -..." (p. 50)

Many people believe that ultimate reality is a person whereas many others, including myself, believe that God is a personification. The most comprehensive spiritual philosophy in India acknowledges that some practitioners of yoga and meditation refer to the ultimate reality by a personal pronoun, "He," whereas others refer to that same reality as "THAT": personalism or impersonalism. Some people even try to say that reality is both. The Infinite has diverse and apparently contradictory aspects.

Are our lives controlled by many finite deities, by a single omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent deity or by Fortuna? My friend, Andrea, has told me about Fortuna, a personification of chance. If there are many, are they manifestations of one? I want to give thanks for many aspects of life but the thanks have to be conditional. Fortuna, if she is in charge, is to be neither entreated nor thanked but accepted - and she favours the brave. Dominic Flandry does not prevent but at least delays the inevitable.

Thank you, John Ridenour, not for answers but for reflections.

Fortune

Harvest The Fire, CHAPTER 2.

Nicol thinks of his Lunarian partner, Falaire:

"Let him bless fortune that for some reason she liked him." (p. 47)

Language preserves earlier world views. Thus, the English word, "fortune," is almost identical with the Latin, "Fortuna," the name of a goddess whom we have discussed before. Of course it is natural to thank God or to bless fortune when things go well. However, understandably, the goddess Fortuna was not to be addressed, entreated or thanked because luck cannot be influenced although she/it favors the brave, those who capitalize on their luck or who go out to find it.

Nicol, a poet, might approve the construction of a Temple of Fortuna on the Moon and would understand that no prayers or sacrifices are to be offered there.

Fate And Fortune

The Dog And The Wolf, XIV, 1.

When the Scoti approach, Gratillonius thinks:

"This was the day of battle. Mithras grant - fate, or whatever ruled the world, grant the revenge he himself wanted, for Dahut." (p. 267)

My friend, Andrea, our continuing blog character, thinks that what rules the world is chance personified as Fortuna Who is not to be entreated although Audentes Fortuna Iuvat. Both Gratillonius and his enemy, Niall, are brave so that that advantage cancels out. However, Gratillonius defends civilization whereas Niall preys on it so, if any gods - not Fortuna! - can influence the battle, I entreat their aid for Gratillonius.

Gratillonius passes from Mithraism to agnosticism to Christianity. He moves with history at that time. Now we have access to the scriptures of every tradition and can reach more informed conclusions or approach a universal synthesis.

Are The Gods Miserly Or Generous?

I have quoted Manse Everard's remark that the gods are a miserly lot five, now six, times. See here.

Here is Malcolm Lockridge's equivalent reflection:

"Life was physically harder in some places, harder on the spirit in others, and sometimes it destroyed both. At most, the gods gave only a little happiness; the rest was mere existence. Taken altogether, he didn't think they were less generous here and now than they had been to him."
-Poul Anderson, The Corridors Of Time, CHAPTER SIX, p. 53.

"The gods" are a way of reflecting on "life."

Two friends that I have met in Pagan moots:

Nygel, a Wiccan high priest, refers to "the gods";

Andrea says that his deity is Fortuna, personified chance.

People personified external forces in order to get a handle on them and placate them. However, Fortuna is to be respected but never prayed to or entreated. Thus (I suggest), her temple is a half-way house between polytheism and atheism. She favors the brave - which Poul Anderson's heroes are.

A Proverb Hidden In The Prose

that was the chance she took, but chance had a way of favoring those who acted boldly
-copied from 15, here.

See also the Latin proverb, here.

Andrea is a pagan whose deity is Fortuna. Apparently, a priestess kept the Roman temple of Fortuna clean and tidy but no prayers were offered there because fortune must be respected and cannot be entreated. I agree that chance governs life.

Theology On Talwin

A Circus of Hells, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Three theological references:

(i) After reflecting on the violence of the Talwinian seasons, Flandry thinks:

"And Djana believes in a God Who gives a damn?

"Or should I say, Who gives a blessing." (p. 273)

(ii) If Anyone is in charge of Flandry's existence, then He has given him noble pleasures but must not take them away yet.

(iii) In the Merseian base, there is:

"...a gong to call for prayers to the God of a world two and a half light-centuries hence." (p. 275)

My Reflections On Different Concepts Of God

Imagine for a moment that we accept Biblical or Koranic monotheism, then read:

"...Indra, the god of thunder, excelled all other gods, for he came nearest to Brahman and he first knew that he was the Spirit Supreme."

-Juan Mascaro (trans.), Kena Upanishad, Part 4, IN Mascaro (trans.), The Upanishads (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1984), p. 53.

Hinduism ascends from polytheism through monotheism to monism. Surely a Biblical or Koranic monotheist would have to say that the author of Kena Upanishad intuited God even if, of course, we do not accept either the terminology or the conceptual framework through which he expressed that intuition? I would say that the prophets intuited a reality which they personified. Some mystics go further and depersonify It.

We can imagine that our life is an interaction with a person who sometimes dispenses pleasures or blessings. My friend, Andrea, conceives of this person as Fortuna who must not be entreated but who favours the brave. Audentes fortuna iuvat: appropriate for van Rijn, Falkayn and Flandry. 

Trichotomy: Three That Are Not One

Twice in the Prologue to Mirkheim, the text refers to what has been ordained by:

"...God, or destiny, or chance."

-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 1, 30 -

- a comprehensive phrase. I cannot think of a fourth option.

Destiny

The eldest of the seven Endless in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. 

Chance

Fortuna, the Roman deity preferred by Andrea whom I visit above the Old Pier Bookshop. She is not to be prayed to, entreated or thanked but favours the brave.

God

Abrahamic

Indian

Abrahamic

Jewish

Christian

Muslim

Indian

Hindu

Sikh (Hindu-Muslim synthesis)

(This classification makes Sikhism look like the ultimate monotheism.)

Extra-Solar Monotheisms In The Technic History

"the God" of the Merseian Roidhunate

"God the Hunter" in the Ythrian New Faith

the Ivanhoan Consecrate religion

Interactions

Martin Schuster subverts the Consecrate religion with the Kabbalah.

Djana envisages a Merseian Christ.

Wodenites convert to Terrestrial religions.

Christianity and Cosmenosis on Aeneas.

Regarding Djana: even a single image in a single mind is an aspect of the religious history of Technic civilization.

Assessment

Hindu monotheists worship Vishnu, Shiva or the Goddess. Vedantist philosophy can be interpreted theistically or monistically. As a monist, I appreciate the myths of Vishnu's evolutionary incarnations.

As a twenty-first-centurian, I think that quantum mechanics, genetics and history are realms of Fortuna, not of Destiny.

Audentes Fortuna Iuvat

Audentes fortuna iuvat = "Fortune favors the brave."

The image of falling snow is meant to illustrate the "...winter planet..." mentioned in the opening sentence of "The Game of Glory." See Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2010), p. 303.

Flandry is indeed lucky in what becomes l'affaire Nyanza. The Merseian agent, A'u, has:

"...fled Conjumar in a poisoned wreck of a spaceship, which might have gone twenty light years before killing its pilot..." (ibid.)

In a sphere twenty light years across, Flandry's men predictably find no trace of a being who must be lying low. However, two Earth-years later, while Flandry is directing Intelligence operations during the suppression of Brae, also in the Spican province, he and his escort pass near a bushwacked squad of marines. The single marine hit by the sniper, Thomas Umbolu, dies in Flandry's arms, saying just enough to suggest that someone might be inciting disaffection on his home planet.

Tom says:

"'It's him in Uhunhu that knows...shall freedom come from slave-masters, asked he in Uhunhu. He and his 'ull teach what we must know...'" (p. 305)

Investigation reveals that Tom is from a colony planet named Nyanza a mere five parsecs away where there is indeed disaffection - the Imperial resident has just been assassinated - and that Uhunhu is "...a permanently submerged area..." (p. 322) in the turbulent Nyanzan ocean. A'u is amphibious. Two investigations converge.

Everything that Flandry does after hearing Tom's dying words is down to his own skills and meticulousness as an Intelligence agent. He is well placed to take advantage of the luck, from his point of view, that Tom was shot where and when he was and that he spoke before he died.

Every Human Being

"Every writer, like every other human being, is unique, partly because of the accidents of heredity, partly because of the events of his or her life, perhaps especially early life."
-Poul Anderson, Going For Infinity (New York, 2002), Introduction, pp. 11-12.

I agree:

heredity;
life events;
early life.

So I do not believe in "rebirth." Buddhist teaching is accurate insofar as:

actions have consequences;
wrong actions have bad consequences;
bad consequences can include inner guilt, regret etc and also outer repercussions.

However, we do not seem to suffer the full possible consequences of wrong actions - hopefully, just enough to learn from. And, to quote my friend, Andrea, the goddess Fortuna seems to hold sway over much of what happens, starting with the accidents of heredity.

Gifts Of The Goddess

(This image is relevant.)

When my daughter was at primary school, somewhere between the ages of five and eleven, we had this conversation -

Aileen: Dad, do you know about gifts?
Me: What gifts?
A: There's air. That's a gift. There's fire. That's a gift...
Me: Gifts from who?
A: The gods.
Me: Who's told you this?
A: Mr. Bellamy.
Me (inwardly): Aileen's Headteacher's preaching polytheism. That's cool!

Of course, he was recounting a Greek myth. Everyone who exists has the gift of existence. Fortuna has selected us from among the many potential people who did not get born and I am grateful. Sometimes I want to ask the One why It has not created better servants but of course I do not believe that It is a person. Personification is a deeply ingrained mental habit.

Some individuals are specially gifted from birth.

Poul Anderson's Veleda:

communes with the sea and the goddess;
tells new stories about the goddess;
leads her people to war against Rome in the name of the goddess;
potentially remakes mythology, subordinating the Aesir to the goddess;
instead proclaims the goddess once again peaceful;
preserves the symbols of the star and the sea that later generations incorporate into the image of the Virgin Mary.

SM Stirling's Rudi Mackenzie:

is both handsome and skilled in war;
has a special affinity with a wild horse;
is identified as the Lady's Sword at his wiccanning;
is called forth by a foreigner's visions and Voice.

And if these be not gifts, then they will suffice until the real ones come along!

Non-Stop Action

Satan's World.

Life is lived at a fast pace. Chee Lan rescues David Falkayn on the Moon and both must immediately travel to the rogue planet, Satan, currently swinging around Beta Crucis. When, near Satan, an interrogated prisoner discloses the coordinates of the enemy planet, Dathyna, Chee Lan and Falkayn must immediately go there as spies while the Dathynans still believe that the location of their home planet remains a secret. Van Rijn deduces that his trade pioneer crew members have located Dathyna and have gone there to spy. In fact, he counts on this when he allows himself and Adzel to be taken prisoner by the Dathynans/Shenna. Even if Adzel and he cannot escape, they might be able to relay military intelligence to the other two. Long shots pay off. Two rescue two. Fortuna audentes iuvat.

What Spies Need

Reading spy fiction (I needn't list the authors again) gives us some idea of what spies need, particularly in war-time:

misdirection (if the enemy looks for you, make him look in the wrong place);

plausible cover (the ability to walk and talk unsuspected in the enemy capital);

a technical department providing forged documents and useful gadgets;

communications;

escape route;

combat skills (not all real-life spies have these but our favorite fictional secret agents do);

motivation;

intuition;

luck (Audentes fortuna iuvat).

Marcus Aurelius

To Turn The Tide.

Temporal displacement involves place name change. "Vienna, Austria" had been and becomes again "Provincia Pannonia Superior, Imperium Romanum."

Artorius' first meeting with Emperor Marcus Aurelius gets a massive buildup. In CHAPTER FIFTEEN, Marcus Aurelius discusses Artorius while still in Rome. In CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, Marcus Aurelius discusses Artorius after he has travelled to Vindobona in the Province of Pannona Superior. In CHAPTER EIGHTEEN, Artorius reflects that he is about to meet someone whose life and death he has studied and whose books he has read, then does meet him. The Emperor closely resembles his own face on coins and statues. Artorius quotes a book that Marcus Aurelius has not written yet and presumably will not write, or not in the same way, in this new timeline. 

This has to be a classic of time travel fiction.

(It was fortunate not only that the merchant Josephus who found the newly arrived and defenceless time travellers did not kill and rob them but instead helped them and treated them with respect but even that they had arrived near a road where they could be and were discovered immediately. However, my friend Andrea informs me that it is inappropriate either to entreat or to thank Fortuna.)

God-like or god-like

Poul Anderson, Brain Wave (London, 1977).

See previous post.

I compared a Community Association overseeing wildlife to the advanced civilization overseeing average IQ races. Although Nat Lewis says that they will be neither gods nor guides but givers, I think that their role will be god-like although not God-like.

"God," in the Biblical-Koranic sense, would be the omniscient, omnipotent creator from nothing of everything else. Such a being would be directly involved with every moment and every detail of every creature. By contrast, a "god," powerful but finite, would oversee one aspect of life, possibly from a distance, e.g., would preserve an ecology incorporating worms, birds and cats but without protecting any worm from a bird or bird from a cat.

They "'...will see that evil does not flourish too strongly...'" (p. 187). So they would have prevented the Holocaust? "'...and that hope and chance happen when they are most needed...we will not be embodied Fate, but perhaps we can be Luck.'" (ibid.) He means that they will cause beneficial events that look like luck, as when Brock's future wife, Sheila, reaches the farm but with their prior knowledge. (A friend of Italian descent reveres the Roman goddess, Fortuna.)

"God" in a mystical, monistic sense is an impersonal unity of all things, not to be confused with the personal God.

Birthday

Ensign Flandry, CHAPTER ONE.

I had skipped past the opening chapter so have glanced back at it. The Terrans make a bigger deal of the Emperor's Birthday than the British currently do of the King's, which we have recently passed: 14 November. Since King Charles' date of birth is 14 November 1948 and mine is 1 January 1949, he and I are the same age for most of the year with the King getting ahead in mid-November and me catching up in the New Year. Will I live into a fourth reign? The King has better medical care than me but is in poorer health so maybe this question is in the domain of my friend Andrea's preferred deity, Fortuna. This chapter introduces Crown Prince Josip who will have succeeded by the time of the third Flandry novel with disastrous consequences, his death later in the series sparking civil war and usurpation with loss of Imperial legitimacy. And that glance ahead covers most, although not all, of the remainder of the Flandry series. Each instalment, while it can be read as a discrete narrative, has its place in the series which has its place in the longer history, like the events in our lives.