Thor's Night, Magic, Words and Ode on a Grecian Urn

§1 (p. 318) Maimonides refs Ibn Wahsiya's On the Nabataean Agriculture, which apparently features the fable of a millenia-long dispute between an althea and mandragora, among the assorted talismanic or otherwise magical properties of various plants, as well as a small reference library of sympatheticmagic practices from Babylonian times. In other words, alaka-ZAM, mofo. Unfortunately, it appears that it has not been properly Englishified to date (excepting this partial translation w/ a skyscraping price-tag). Found this unfamiliar but nifty-looking website w/ some more information. I'll put this one in my ancient husbandry/falconry practices research backlog.

§2 Another fun paronym: baleno/balena = lightning/whale.

Also, I move to replace the word "balloon" in the English language w/ the infinitely more delightful palloncino.

§3 1024. Here's a go at Spode on Phoe'cian Bern. Puts total at 80 lines (Donne's The Rising Sunne (30) + Ode on a Grecian Urn (50) since ... whenever I started. A few weeks ago, if memory serves.)

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time
sylvan historian who canst thus express
a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme
what leaf-fringed legends haunt about thy shape
of deities or mortals or of both
in tempe or the dales of arcady
what men or gods are these what maidens loth
what mad pursuit what struggle to escape
what pipe and timbrels what wild ecstasy

heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
are sweeter, therefore, ye soft pipes play on
not to the sensual ear, but more endearin
pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone
fair youth beneath the trees thou canst never leave
thy song nor ever can those trees be bare
bold lover never never canst thou kiss
though winning near the goal, yet do not grieve
she cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss
forever wilt thou love and she be fair

a happy happy boughs that cannot shed
your leaves nor ever bid the spring adieu
and happy melodist unwearied
for ever piping songs for ever new
more happy love more happy happy love
for ever warm and still to be enjoyed
for ever panting and forever young
all breathing human passions far above
that leave a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd
a burning foreheard and a parching tongue

who are these coming to the sacrifice
to what green altar, o mysterious priest,
leadst thou that heifer lowing at the skies
and with all her silken flanks in garlands drest
what little town by river or sea-shore
or mountain-built with peaceful citadel
is emptied of its folk this pious morn
and, little town, thy streets forevermore
will silent be, and not a soul to tell
why thou art desolate, can e'er return

o attic shape! fair attitude. with brede
of marble men and maidens overwrought
with forest branches and the trodden weed
thou silent form dost tease out thought
as doth eternity cold pastoral
when old age shall this generation waste
thou shalt remain in midst of other woe
than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st
beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know
on earth --- and all ye need to know. [Q.E.D.]

 

Odin's Day: Maimonides & Italian

With just the rare deviation, Maimonides follows a progression from philology to philosophy to theology/exegesis to mysticism (a peculiar brand-blend of intellectual mysticism to boot).


Fun w/ Italian paronyms (courtesy of Using Italian: A Guide to Contemporary Usage):

Impazzire - to go mad.
Impazzare - to run wild.

Forca - hay-/pitchfork
Forcina - hairpin
Forcone - dung-fork, pitchfork
Forchetta - fork (for eating)

See auch Der Geisterfahrer over atl Constanze's bog.

Monday Night Lethargy

Inspection-prep at work today, which means the day was long and this post is short.

1024. Slowly, sloowly creeping thru Toad on a Cretian Fern.

Yeah, I got nuthin. I could rant about a variety of things, but why bother, really?

Actually, read a bit of Maimonides. Finished the latter half of Part II of the Guide for the Perplexed, which is far more exegesis than the hard-boiled philosophy of the earlier half. In the last chapter (XLVIII), a propos God-as-cause, argues that "the providing of a cause, in whatever manner this may take place, by substance, accident, freewill, or win, is always expressed by one of the five terms, commanding, saying, speaking, sending, or calling. "

So no real distinction exists between an "active"/"passive" or direct/indirect cause, and even "the prophets therefore omit sometimes the intermediate causes." Lady Luck, oh my!

In other news, the trichotillomania's worsened.

Fun with Maimonides

§1. Maimonides (p. 156), has a fun little passage expounding the motion of the fifth element, or celestial sphere, arguing that the sphere is an "intellectual being" inasmuch as its circular motion derives from "some idea" rather than a "natural property" (i.e. gravity). And I quote:

"For it would be absurd to assume that the principle of the circular motion of the spheres was like that of the rectilinear motion of a stone downward."

And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. Gravity is pretty absurd, really.

§2. Maimonides later quotes Pr xxv.2, which surely has been used as an epigraph for some novel somewhere.

"It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out."(ESV)

 Cf. for kicks and giggles:*

"Gloria Dei est celare verbum et gloria regum investigare sermonem." (Vulgate)
"La gloria di Dio è di celar la cosa; Ma la gloria dei re è d’investigare la cosa." (Giovanni Diodati, 1649)
"E’ gloria di Dio nascondere le cose; ma la gloria dei re sta nell’investigarle." (Riveduta, 1927)

*Phrase copyright me.

§3. Adam & Eve as conjoined twins. Quotes (w/o identifying) commentator who said "Adam and Eve were at first created as one being, having their backs united."Apparently unnamed commentator supported w/ "bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh." Brings another disturbing dimension to the already ripe "cleave unto" which Maimonides also quotes.

Wednesday Gallimaufry

Courtesy of a friend: The Strife of the Chase. Decent.

Maimonides discussing Tetragrammaton and various devices Jewish priests used to conceal name of god from the increasingly "impious people." Mentions a forty-two letter name of God. Kertwang.

Have a lot of creative writing projects coalescing in me noggin right now. Think, job/living situation allowing, I may actually do NaNoWriMo for once. Probs just do my sprawling, gratuitous, Ovidian cosmo-epic mega-novel to get the creative juices flowing. Work on Music of the Spheres after that. For some reason cut-and-dry philosophy always inspires me just as much as the best poetry (almost never get the same jolt from prose).

And let it be done: I will find a way to use the line "pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone" in my great American novel.

Tuesday farrago

1024. Figure I'll go with Grecian Urn rather than Nightingale. Bit more chipper and suits my chosen major better.

Lavoro. Last Friday I got swarmed by fire ants when moving a barricade, still itch like cuh-razy and I keeping waking up to discover I've been scratching them in my sleep. Arms look like I have chicken pox.

Reading, mhm. Going thru Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. Been on my long list for a while. Spends an inordinate number of pages convincing his readers that only the initiated/properly prepared should study metaphysics. Compares wisdom to the ocean: those who know how to swim will dive to the bottom and retrieve pearls, those who do not will drown. Lots of fun Hebrew words (including a bit relevant to the Wind Choplogic theme of the moment, supongo -- see picture below). Prob post in more detail at a later pt.

Otherwise, going thru Oxford Book of Mystical Verse and bouncing between Cortazar's Rayuela and some Italian studying. Want to read Scienza Nuova and some Bruno (see Joycean connection). E ancora sto cercando lavoro.

Because vento: