Partridges At Twilight And Summer Grasses

On the one hand, the news of the world counsels us, on a daily basis: Abandon all hope!  On the other hand, the modern gods of Science, Progress, and utopian political schemes whisper in our ear:  We know the Truth.  We have a plan for you.  Trust us.  Both pieces of advice are falsehoods.

Consider the messengers.  The people who deliver these messages have no heart.  The individual soul is of no interest to them.  The media?  Social scientists?  Politicians?  Those in search of heart and soul need to look elsewhere.

Where, then, should we turn?  Well, as one might expect, I'm inclined to suggest that poetry may be a good place to start.  It is not the only place, of course.  We are in search of that which is "true and not feigning," wherever we can find it.

If we start our search with poetry, we can begin at random.  We would soon discover that a poem written during the first century, B. C., in the Roman Empire, a poem written in China during the T'ang Dynasty, a poem written in Japan during the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 17th century, and a poem written in Scotland in the 20th century all say essentially the same thing about how we live.

Ian Fleming (1906-1994), "Fisher Houses, Arbroath" (1949)

Let's start with Horace, addressing his female acquaintance Leuconoe.

Ah do not strive too much to know,
     My dear Leuconoe,
What the kind gods design to do
     With me and thee.

Ah do not you consult the stars,
     Contented bear thy doom,
Rather than thus increase thy fears
     For what will come:

Whether they'll give one winter more,
     Or else make this thy last;
Which breaks the waves on Tyrrhene shore
     With many a blast.

Be wise, and drink; cut off long cares
     From thy contracted span,
Nor stretch extensive hopes and fears
     Beyond a man:

E'en whilst we speak, the Envious Time
     Doth make swift haste away;
Then seize the present, use thy prime,
     Nor trust another day.

Horace (translated by Thomas Creech), Odes, Book I, Ode 11, in Thomas Creech, The Odes, Satires, and Epistles of Horace (1684).

Critical opinion is divided as to whether Horace is providing sage advice to a young friend or wooing a prospective lover.  But, whatever his motives, the advice is clear:  carpe diem (which Creech translates as "seize the present" rather than the usual "seize the day"), for you may not be here tomorrow.

Ian Fleming, "Window on the Sea" (1965)

The post-Enlightenment belief in the perfectibility of society, and in our ever-advancing march into a promised utopian future, is, not surprisingly, accompanied by ignorance of both human nature and history on the part of the true believers.  But, should the busybodies wish to educate themselves (an unlikely prospect), they need not look far to discover what they ought to have known from the start:  for centuries, poets have been telling us exactly how human nature and history work.

                    The Ruin of the Capital of Yueh

Hither returned Kou Chien, the King of Yueh, in triumph;
He had destroyed the Kingdom of Wu.
His loyal men came home in brilliance of brocade,
And the women of the court thronged the palace
Like flowers that fill the spring --
Now only a flock of partridges are flying in the twilight.

Li Po (translated by Shigeyoshi Obata), in Shigeyoshi Obata, The Works of Li Po (E. P. Dutton 1922).

The Kingdom of Wu was conquered by the Kingdom of Yueh in the 5th century, B. C.  A century later, the Kingdom of Yueh was conquered by the Kingdom of Chu.  A century or so later the Kingdom of Chu was conquered by the Qin Dynasty . . . . .

The poem brings to mind a passage from Herodotus:

"For the cities which were formerly great, have most of them become insignificant; and such as are at present powerful, were weak in the olden time.  I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay."

Herodotus (translated by George Rawlinson), in George Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, Volume 1, Book I, Section 5 (Fourth Edition 1880), page 148.

Ian Fleming, "Arbroath Harbour" (1952)

Basho wrote the following haiku in 1689, when visiting Hiraizumi, the site of a 12th century battle between two samurai clans.

     Ah!  Summer grasses!
All that remains
     Of the warriors' dreams.

Basho (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 3: Summer-Autumn (Hokuseido Press 1952), page 309.

Ian Fleming, "Arbroath Harbour" (1951)

Finally, Scotland in the 20th century brings us full circle.  Kingdoms, dynasties, clans.  An individual life.  One and the same.
                 
                   So Many Summers

Beside one loch, a hind's neat skeleton,
Beside another, a boat pulled high and dry:
Two neat geometries drawn in the weather:
Two things already dead and still to die.

I passed them every summer, rod in hand,
Skirting the bright blue or the spitting gray,
And, every summer, saw how the bleached timbers
Gaped wider and the neat ribs fell away.

Time adds one malice to another one --
Now you'd look very close before you knew
If it's the boat that ran, the hind went sailing.
So many summers, and I have lived them too.

Norman MacCaig, in Ewen McCaig (editor), The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon 2009).

As I have noted in the past, I cannot claim to have gained any wisdom during my years on Earth.  I am not qualified to give advice on how to live. But I do know that human nature never changes.  And I also know that the World is a paradise just as it is.  At this moment.

Ian Fleming, "Fisherman's Window"

A Lost World, Part Four: Antiquity

Simonides of Ceos (c. 556 - c. 468 B. C.) is best known as the author of the inscription that appeared on the monument to the Spartans that was erected after the battle of Thermopylae.  The inscription was recorded by Herodotus:

Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell
That here, obeying her behests, we fell.

George Rawlinson (translator), The History of Herodotus, Volume IV (1860), Book VII, Section 228, page 180.  The inscription has traditionally been ascribed to Simonides, although there has been scholarly debate on this point.

I am fond of this translation:

Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Simonides (translated by William Lisle Bowles), in Henry Wellesley (editor), Anthologia Polyglotta: A Selection of Versions in Various Languages, Chiefly from The Greek Anthology (1849).

This sort of restraint -- a restraint charged with unspoken emotion -- is largely absent from the modern world.  I do not wish to romanticize the ancient world:  it was a harsh and brutal place.  But there is a seemliness and a sense of proportion at work that are mostly missing in our own time.

Edward William Cooke

"Scheveningen Pincks Off the Coast of Yarmouth" (1864)

In the late 1890s, a marble block with a two-line inscription carved into it was discovered on the Greek island of Salamis, which gave its name to the culminating naval battle of the Greek-Persian Wars.  The Corinthians who died in the battle were buried on Salamis.  Here is the inscription, which has been attributed to Simonides:

O stranger, once we dwelt in Corinth blest with fountains;
Now the isle of Ajax holds our bones.

Simonides, quoted in Dio Chrysostom, The Thirty-Seventh, or Corinthian, Discourse, in H. Lamar Crosby (translator), Dio Chrysostom, Volume IV (Harvard University Press 1946).

Here is an alternative, sparer, translation.

Friend, we once were alive in the harbor city of Korinth.
Now the island city of Salamis is our grave.

Richmond Lattimore, Greek Lyrics (University of Chicago Press 1955).

Edward William Cooke

"A Dutch Galliot Aground on a Sandbank on the Biesbosch" (1878)

In Book I of De Divinatione, Cicero tells the following story of Simonides:

"[Simonides] once saw the dead body of some unknown man lying exposed and buried it.  Later, when he had it in mind to go on board a ship, he was warned in a vision by the person to whom he had given burial not to do so and that if he did he would perish in a shipwreck.  Therefore he turned back and all the others who sailed were lost."

Cicero, in William Armistead Falconer (translator), Cicero: De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione (Harvard University Press 1923).

William Wordsworth, who admired the poetry of Simonides, wrote the following untitled sonnet about the incident related by Cicero.

I find it written of Simonides
That travelling in strange countries once he found
A corpse that lay expos'd upon the ground,
For which, with pains, he caused due obsequies
To be performed, and paid all holy fees.
Soon after, this man's Ghost unto him came
And told him not to sail as was his aim,
On board a ship then ready for the seas.
Simonides, admonished by the ghost,
Remained behind; the ship the following day
Set sail, was wrecked, and all on board were lost.
Thus was the tenderest Poet that could be,
Who sang in ancient Greece his moving lay,
Saved out of many by his piety.

William Wordsworth, in Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire (editors), The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Volume Three (Oxford University Press 1954).  The poem was first published on October 10, 1803, in The Morning Post.

Edward William Cooke

"Venetian Fishing Craft Caught in a 'Borasca'" (1873)

As I have noted on a previous occasion, the fate of unfortunate mariners was a common subject of the Greek poetry of antiquity.  The following lovely poem by Callimachus has appeared here before, but it is worth revisiting at this time due to its resemblance to the story of Simonides and the abandoned corpse.

Stranger, whoe'er thou art, found stranded here,
O'er thee Leontichus heaped up this grave,
Whilst at his own hard lot he dropped a tear:
He too, a restless sea-bird, roams the wave.

Callimachus (translated by Henry Wellesley), in Henry Wellesley (editor), Anthologia Polyglotta: A Selection of Versions in Various Languages, Chiefly from The Greek Anthology (1849).

Given the role of the sea in the life of the Greeks, it is not surprising that Simonides wrote a number of poems about the misfortunes of seafarers. This is an inscription for a cenotaph.

O cloud-capt Geraneia, rock unblest!
Would thou hadst reared far hence thy haughty crest,
By Tanais wild, or wastes where Ister flows;
Nor looked on Sciron from thy silent snows!
A cold, cold corpse he lies beneath the wave,
This tomb speaks, tenantless, his ocean grave.

Simonides (translated by Robert Bland), in J. H. Merivale (editor), Collections from The Greek Anthology (1833).  Mount Geraneia is located on the Isthmus of Corinth.  Tanais was a Greek colony located on the far northeastern corner of the Sea of Azov, on the banks of the River Don.  Ister was the Greek name for the Danube.  Sciron (also spelled "Sceiron") probably refers to the Sceironian Rocks, a rugged region on the Isthmus of Corinth.

Here is an epitaph.

A land not thine hath shed its dust o'er thee,
A fated wanderer o'er the Pontic sea:
No joys for thee of sweet regretted home;
To sea-girt Chios thou didst never come.

Simonides (translated by Robert Bland), Ibid.  The Pontic Sea was the Greek name for the Black Sea.  Chios is an island in the Aegean Sea near the coast of Turkey.

Edward William Cooke, "Off the Port of Havre" (1840)

Herodotus And William Cowper: On Certain Customs Of Thrace

Herodotus relates the following anecdote about the Trausi, who were one of the tribes of Thrace:

"The Trausi in all else resemble the other Thracians, but have customs at births and deaths which I will now describe.  When a child is born all its kindred sit round about it in a circle and weep for the woes it will have to undergo now that it is come into the world, making mention of every ill that falls to the lot of human kind; when, on the other hand, a man has died, they bury him with laughter and rejoicings, and say that now he is free from a host of sufferings, and enjoys the completest happiness."

Herodotus, The Histories, Book V, Chapter 4 (translated by George Rawlinson) (1859).  When I came across this passage, I realized that the Trausi may have anticipated the gloomy conclusion arrived at centuries later by Arthur Schopenhauer and Giacomo Leopardi:  that humans would be better off if they had never been born.  (As I said, gloomy.)

                                               Caspar David Friedrich
                                        "Graveyard under Snow" (1826)

I had not thought about the passage for a while, but recently I came across a poem titled "The Thracian." The poem is a translation by William Cowper of the Latin original, which was written by Vincent Bourne.  Bourne (1695-1747) was an Englishman who wrote poetry in Latin.  Cowper was a pupil of Bourne's at Westminster School.  Later in his life, Cowper translated a number of Bourne's poems.

               The Thracian

Thracian parents, at his birth,
   Mourn their babe with many a tear,
But with undissembled mirth
   Place him breathless on his bier.

Greece and Rome with equal scorn,
   "O the savages!" exclaim,
"Whether they rejoice or mourn,
   "Well entitled to the name!"

But the cause of this concern,
   And this pleasure, would they trace,
Even they might somewhat learn
   From the savages of Thrace.

                                                  Frans Francken
                   "Death Invites the Old Man for a Last Dance" (1635)

How To Live, Part One: "Honor To Those Who In The Life They Lead Define And Guard A Thermopylae"

I fear that the poems in my ongoing "Life Explained" series are a bit on the gloomy side.  Fortunately, there is another group of short and to-the-point poems out there:  poems on How To Live.  But do not be alarmed!  We are not about to embark upon some sort of Panglossian self-help program.

However, over the centuries, poets have seen fit to offer us advice on how best to negotiate the perils that await us.  This advice is worth considering, especially in light of the oftentimes harrowing prospects offered up by our "Life Explained" poets.  Let's begin with C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933):

                    Thermopylae

Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they are rich, and when they are poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.

And even more honor is due to them
when they foresee (as many do foresee)
that in the end Ephialtis will make his appearance,
that the Medes will break through after all.

C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems (translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard) (Princeton University Press 1992).

                Massimo d'Azeglio, "The Battle of Thermopylae" (1823)

Ephialtis (an alternate spelling is "Ephialtes") was the Greek traitor who showed the Persians (i.e., "the Medes") a path through the mountains that led to the rear of the Greek position at Thermopylae.  Herodotus writes:

Now, as the [Persian] King was in a great strait, and knew not how he should deal with the emergency, Ephialtes, the son of Eurydemus, a man of Malis, came to him and was admitted to a conference.  Stirred by the hope of receiving a rich reward at the King's hands, he had come to tell him of the pathway which led across the mountain to Thermopylae; by which disclosure he brought destruction on the band of Greeks who had there withstood the barbarians.  This Ephialtes afterwards, from fear of the Lacedaemonians, fled into Thessaly; and during his exile, in an assembly of the Amphictyons held at Pylae, a price was set upon his head by the Pylagorae.

Herodotus, The Histories, Book VII, Chapter 213 (translated by George Rawlinson) (1862).

                Jacques-Louis David, "Leonidas at Thermopylae" (1814)