We meet Talbot.
Stephen wants him to read a bit first.
"He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text:" Ugh! I remember those days. We all having to stand up in front of everyone one at out school day masses and read scripture up on that dumb podium. I remember the stool shuffling around for the kids who hadnt hit puberty yet. Fumbling through big words and not pausing at comas or periods. You know it wasnt that bad really. Puberty sucks for everyone.
*Last chance edit* If I had paid more attention, I would have noticed "with odd glances at the text:" which totally answers my questions down the line. I didn't delete it because a a major reason why I'm doing this to document my progress and growth. I think it's important to show warts and all. That being said, my typing skills have developed some pretty bad habits over the years. So, I will go back and fix mistakes of that nature. Just as a public service.*
-" Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk through he be beneath the watery floor..."
A poem by John Milton Called Lycidas, typed, not Copy/Pasted
Yet once more, O ye lourels, and once more,
Ye myrtls brown and ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
without the need of some melodious tear.
Begin, the, Sister of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweet the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuses:
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And he passes turn,
And bid fair peace to my sable shroud!
For we were nursed upon the self same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the Morn,
We drove a-field, and doth together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties ere not mute;
Tempered to the oaten flute,
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damoetas loved to hear out song.
But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn.
The willows and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gar wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.
Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet were Deva spreads her wizard stream.
Ay me! I fondly dream
Rhad ye been there, S... for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, For her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it was uncessant care
To tend the homely, slighter shepherd's trade,
And strickly meditate the thankless Muse?
were it not better done, as other use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorndelights and live laborious days;
But, the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise."
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly one each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed
O fountain Arethuse,and though honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, Crowned with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was a higher mood.
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the Herald of the Sea
That came in Neptune's plea.
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from of each beaked promontory.
They knew now of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed:
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with her sister played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
"Ah! who hath reft" quoth he, "my dearest pledge?
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
He shook the mitred locks, and stern bespake:--
"How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as, for their bellies' sake,
Creep, and intrude, and climb in to the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook or have learnt aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped:
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist the draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf of privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more"
Return, Apheus; the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; return Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turn suck the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground on the vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsake dies,
The tufted crow-towe, and pale jassamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so, to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail though dally with false surmise,
Ay me! whilse thee the shores and sounding seas
Was far away, where'er thy bones are hurled;
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great Vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs the drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That Sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou are the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in the perilous flood.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey:
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay.
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
Stephen's mind, I think is wandering again.
"It must be a movement then, and actuality of the possible as possible. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieive where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the four of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast, candescent: form of forms."
"It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible."
"an actuality of the possible as possible"?
The idea that absolutely anything is possible? Say a seventy five year old black man from Alberta, with a bright pink hacksaw, just walks into my apartment and whispers "I only eat the chocolate part of Neapolitan ice cream. I just came I just came up with that, its extremely unlikely but, not impossible, and realizing that particular chain of events is actually possible? Help me out here. I have a superficial understanding of Aristotle. I think, he says, that everything that exists, has a uhhhh... a model, an example of the most basic form of itself in a would outside of ours. I don't have the vocabulary for this. Ok, you see in front of you a regular bank. Ignore the suspicious kin of cattle. That bank only exists because in another saturated sphere of absolute everything, there is a standard model of what a bank looks like. and we access that standard model though our imagination or subconscious. Am I correct? If so, It's actually not that hard to grasp, that is of course, I'm anywhere close to Aries' ballpark. Find a small child, give them 24 pack of markers, nice markers, Crayolas, don't be jerk, and ask them to draw your a picture of a bank, a blue sky, cows with burglar masks and a sun. That child will have no aesthetic skill but they will be able to show you the most basic version of everything you asked, because they are drawing from their '*"*'IMAGINATION!'*"*'
So, I spent all day thinking about this. Something was not right. I got home and realized that I was thinking of Plato and his Theory of Forms. Not Aristotle, Let's go a head and get this hashed out.
Plato, who actually taught Aristotle, Came up with this concept that the physical world, the place where I am right now, typing on my laptop, and you, out there flying a kite or something, is not actually "as real as timeless absolute unchangeable ideas". He says these "Ideas" are the nonphysical essences of all things, and the things that we can see and hold and shoot arrows at are just imitations of the prefect Idea. Think, that that bank with the burglarizing bovine, only exists as, copy, or actually an interpretation, of the absolute perfect idea of a bank. A bank that won't get run down or destroyed by bullet holes from the Great Livestock Skedaddle.
Anyway, Aristotle was making his way, figuring life out, when he had a couple thoughts of his own, that contradicted his mentor. Ari's idea was instead of an conceptual, dare he say, Imaginary world, where the model of everything exist, how about this, let's take Plato's ghosty universe with all of the forms and ideas that real concrete things can not live up to. And we take the phenomenal world, that we can mess around with and just mash those two together in one universe and say that the things that we can see and touch, share both form and matter, I thinks that would make a lot more sense.
But what does this have to do with Stephen right night now? Nothing that I know of. I just felt like gabbing.
*Last chance edit. While I was proof reading the above paragraph, its kind of an interesting argument about the idea of heaven. One says that there is a place, a perfect place outside of what we know, but how does one know that this place would be perfect, if it didn't have less that perfect things to base it off of. While another would say, Instead of a perfect place like heaven, how about we say that everything, including the idea of a perfect everything, is in our own world? and It contains everything?*
Just thoughts
"it must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible."
Potentiality and actuality. These are two principles that Ari used to figure out all kinds of things.
First there is potentiality, this refers to any "possibility" that something can be said to have. That doesn't mean that he thought that all Possibilities are the same. and put special focus the particular possibilities that happen on their own, and when all of the right conditions are met.
Kontraŭ to that, we have Actuality, This is the action that makes the Potential or the Possibility of something into a real life actuality or a real thing.
It must me an ACTION of some sort then, an ACTUALITY of the POSSIBLE as an ACTUAL REAL THING.
"Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night"
Stephen spent many nights avoiding rough streets of Paris sitting in silence at St. Genevieves Library speaking Aristotle's confusing words to help him comprehend what he was reading.
"by his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. "
A seemingly small or fragile person Thailand, which is formally known as Siam, was very focuses on a book of strategy.
"Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of the brightness, shifting her dragon scalyfolds."
There are folks around me who have already or are currently filling their brains with information: these brains are under lamps, they are being pierced with lightly pulsing fingers or tentacles:
"In my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld"
In John Milton's Paradise Lost, there is a particular devil in Hell named Belial, who represents Sloth, one of the Se7en* sins. He is smart and a smooth talker who argued against any further war on heaven, because he couldn't be bothered
"In my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, Shifting her dragon scaly folds."
I picture myself inside my own personal hell as a reluctant shy person.
"Shifting her dragon scaly folds"
This had me going everywhere. At first I thought we were still working with the Belial reference, but I couldn't find any reference to the demon being explicitly female. Then I came across a quote from a long poem by William Morris called The Earthly Paradise, which, I thought, the matching of names kind of neat. Earthly Paradise, Paradise Lost. I dunno. Still nothing about a female dragon though. Finally, I find out about the myth of Cadmus. The founder of Thebes in Greek mythology.
So Cadmus, killed Aries'pet dragon, which had killed a bunch of his guys. Aries goes John Wick and gives Cadmus eight years of hard labor. During these difficult times, he ends up marrying Harmonia and her baggage of bad luck. Finally, Cadmus decides he has had enough, and asks Aries just to make him in to a dragon. Which Aries does.
Harmonia is very upset by this and embraces her dragon husband. This act of love, I guess, made Aries feel kind of guilty, and just turned her into a dragon also.
It's a cool story, but what it has to do with anything, I do not know.
*Last chance edit. Stephen is Cadmus, aka, a dragon, aka a demon. His wife is... who is wife or his love? He loves hes studious nature. Does he love his personal hell? I suppose that is what he is talking about. Stephen is the demon, Belial and Cadmus. His love is learning, reading books, and so on, And his love is turning in to a demon with him. kind of a self perpetuating torture machine. Possibly an interesting light in which to think about the Ouroboros.
"Thought is the thought of thought."
Thought is the awareness of thinking?
The ideas and concepts produced by my brain is the awareness of thinking?
The ideas and concepts produced by my brain is also my awareness of my brain producing ideas and concepts?
Thought is the potentiality of actuality?
Thought is the possibility to be anything?
Thought is the actuality of a possibility?
"Tranquil brightness"
Calm brightness. A contradictive type of statement compared to the talk of feeding brains and the mind's darkness.
"The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of form."
One could imagine the soul is absolutely everything. Its own grand and gooey universe ball: The soul is the universe that contains all of the things that all earthly objects are based off of.
In a sense, the soul is absolutely all things. The soul is the form that contains the forms that Plato theorizes about.
Let's see what we got.
Stephen spent many nights avoiding rough streets of Paris sitting in silence at St. Genevieves Library speaking Aristotle's confusing words out loud to help him comprehend what he was reading. A seemingly small or fragile person from Thailand, which is formally known as Siam, was sitting beside him very focused on a book of strategy. There are folks who have already or are currently filling their brains with information all around me: these brains are under lamps, they are being pierced with lightly pulsing fingers or tentacles: I picture myself inside my own personal hell as a reluctant shy person transforming into a monster. Thought is the actuality of all possibilities (maybe?) There is a calm brightness. In a sense, the soul is absolutely all things. The soul is the universe that contains the forms that Plato theorizes about.
Ok, I think I get it.
Stephen is watching Talbot, working his way through John Milton's long ass poem and is reminded of his times trying work his way though Aristotle's confusing ideas. He especially has depressing memories being both clever and uninterested in pursuing a social life. In spite of that, he also feels a calm comfort in understanding, or at least trying to understand the nature of existence, in one way or another.
Talbot continues reading out loud and makes it through a few more lines and repeats:
"Through the dear might of him that walked the waves.
Through the dear might... Stephen interrupts saying "Turn over, I don't see anything."
This confuses both me and Talbot.
"His hand turned the page over. He leaded back and went on again, having just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these craven hears his shadow lies and the scoffer's heart and lips and on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him coin of the tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's to God what is God's A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven on the church's looms. Aye.
"His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again,"
I don't understand. Was Talbot just going to keep reading a blank space at the bottom of the page? Or was he reciting it from memory? I won't get caught up on it. moving on.
"He leaned back and went on again, having just remembered.
Yeah, probably memorizing it.
"Of him that walked the waves"
This is a part of the poem where Milton says, that even though his buddy has drowned and dead, like Jesus,he will wake up again, I noticed in the poem itself and in this book, "Him" is capitalized talking about God/Jesus. He also walked on water, so they say. But in this paragraph, "him" is lower cased. In Stephen's mental meanderings, are we still talking about Jesus or are we talking about someone else now?
"Here also over these craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and on mine.
Here also above these cowardly hearts his shadow lies and the mocking persons hear and lips and on mine
Above whose cowardly hearts, the students?
Here also above these students cowardly hearts, Stephens shadow lies on the mocking persons heart and lips and mine
or
God's shadow lies on the mocking persons heart and lips and mine
"It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of tribute.
Stephen/God's shadow like upon the students/people's faces who offered him coin of tribute.
" To Caeser what is Caesar's to God what is God's"
I know this one! When Jesus was doing his European tour, some smart aleck tried to trap him with a snappy question. "Should Jew's pay taxes to the Romans?" Their hope was for him to say "No" which would please the Jews just fine, or "Yes" which then the Roman's would deal with. Getting him out of their hair. But Mary didn't raise now fool. Came back with "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God things that or God's" meaning which could mean a couple things, neither him nor his dad, give a care about earthly things like taxes, when it come to his real home Heaven.
"A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on the church's looms. Ay.
Riddle me riddle me randy ro.
My father gave me seeds to sow."
Jesus gave them a zinger, that they were going to have to chew on for a while."
"My father gave me seeds to sow"
God, my dad, gave me. Jesus, the ability to teach and confuse people.
or
God, my god gave me. Stephen the ability to teach and confuse people.
Back to reality, op there goes Talbot and the rest of the kids packing up there stuff, getting ready to leave and go play hockey.
Stephen, Throws a riddle at the kids.
The cock crew
The sky was blue:
The bells in heaven
Were striking eleven.
'Tis time for this poor soul
To go to Heaven.
What is it?
The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.
Yeah, I don't get it either.
The children groan as they leave the room. An old timey dad joke I suppose. I looked this up, but it started to get into spoilers, so I ran away.
Glossary
Gabbled - Gibberjabber
Swarthy - Dark skinned
Con - To study really hard, or memorize a piece of writing.
About - the British use this word to indicate the location of a thing or things around a particular place. "There are shady cattle about"
Thought - An idea or opinion produced by thinking, or occurring suddenly in the mind
or
The action of process of thinking
or
The formation of opinions, especially as a philosophy or system of ideas, or the opinions so formed
or
Careful consideration or attention
or
Concern for another's well-being or convenience
Craven- Cowardly
Scoffer - Someone who mock others, usually about religious or moral issues.
Other Things
John Milton- This man was born 12/9/1609 and dies 11/8/1674. He was an English poet, intellectual and a civil servant who later worked with Oliver Cromwell. His biggest deal was writing Paradise lost. That is a pretty big deal actually, most of the things that your thought were in the bible later found out weren't they were probably from that poem, the seven sins and such.
Wrote a bunch of other stuff though. Like Areopagitica, which spoke against Pre-publication censorship, which allowed the government to censor works, before they are released to the public.
and William Blake was a big fan of him also!
Places
Sainte-Geneviève Library - or Bibliothèque Sainte Genevieive is a very nice looking library in Paris.
Characters
Talbot - One of Stephens students who can recite part of Lycidas.
*Ahh! see what I did there?
