André Breton on Analogy: Inspiration, Poetry and Mysticism

Only on the level of analogy have I ever experienced intellectual pleasure. For me the only manifest truth in the world is governed by the spontaneous, clairvoyant, insolent connection established under certain conditions between two things whose conjunction would not be permitted by common sense. As much as I abhor, more than any other, the word therefore, replete with vanity and sullen delectation, so do I love passionately anything that flares up suddenly out of nowhere and thus breaks the thread of discursive thinking. What comes to light at the moment is an infinitely richer network of relations whose secret, as everything suggests, was known to early mankind. It is true that flare quickly dies out, but its glimmer is enough to help measure on their dismal scale the exchange values currently available that provide not answer except to basic questions of a utilitarian nature.

....

Poetic analogy has this in common with mystical analogy: it transgresses the rules of deduction to let the mind apprehend the interdependence of two objects of thought located on different planes. Logical thinking is incapable of establishing such a connection, which it deems a priori impossible. Poetic analogy is fundamentally different from mystical analogy in that it in no way presupposes the existence of an invisible universe that, from beyond the veil of the visible world, is trying to reveal itself.... When we consider the impression it creates, it is true that poetic analogy seems, like mystical analogy, to argue for an idea of a world branching out toward infinity and entirely permeated with the same sap. However, it remains without any effort within the sensible (even the sensual) realm, and it shows no propensity to lapse into the supernatural.

(André Breton, "Ascendant Sign," trans. Michel Parmentier and Jacqueline D'Amboise; in Literary Debate: Texts and Contexts)

Discovery of the Golden Bough?

From the Telegraph via Agade:

By Nick Squires in Rome
Published: 6:30AM GMT 18 Feb 2010
Golden Bough from Roman mythology 'found in Italy'

In Roman mythology, the bough was a tree branch with golden leaves
that enabled the Trojan hero Aeneas to travel through the underworld
safely.

They discovered the remains while excavating religious sanctuary built
in honour of the goddess Diana near an ancient volcanic lake in the
Alban Hills, 20 miles south of Rome.

They believe the enclosure protected a huge Cypress or oak tree which
was sacred to the Latins, a powerful tribe which ruled the region
before the rise of the Roman Empire.

The tree was central to the myth of Aeneas, who was told by a spirit
to pluck a branch bearing golden leaves to protect himself when he
ventured into Hades to seek counsel from his dead father.

In a second, more historically credible legend, the Latins believed it
symbolised the power of their priest-king.

Anyone who broke off a branch, even a fugitive slave, could then
challenge the king in a fight to the death. If the king was killed in
the battle, the challenger assumed his position as the tribe's leader.

The discovery was made near the town of Nemi by a team led by Filippo
Coarelli, a recently retired professor of archaeology at Perugia
University.

After months of excavations in the volcanic soil, they unearthed the
remains of a stone enclosure.

Shards of pottery surrounding the site date it to the mid to late
Bronze Age, between the 12th and 13th centuries BC.

....

In Aeneid 6, the Sybil says to Aeneas:

A bough is hidden in a shady tree;
its leaves and pliant stem are golden, set
aside as sacred to Proserpina.
The grove serves as its screen, and shades enclose
the bough in darkened valleys. Only he
may pass beneath earth's secret places who
first plucks the golden-leaved fruit of the tree.
Lovely Proserpina ordained that this
be offered her as gift. And when teh first
bough is torn off, a second grows again--
with leaves of gold, again of that same metal.

Within My Fantasy

I am in the middle of teaching Dante's Divine Comedy (the "Divine" purportedly added by Boccaccio), and lines that catch my attention at every reading is in Purgatorio, which, by the way, is my favorite of the three cantica.

Of fantasy, you that at times would snatch
us so from outward things--we notice nothing
although a thousand trumpets sound around us--

who moves you when the senses do not spur you?
A light that finds its form in Heaven moves you--
directly or led downward by God's will.

Within my fantasy I saw impressed
the savagery of one who then, transformed,
became the bird that most delights in song;

at this, my mind withdrew to the within,
to what imagining might bring: no thing
that came from the without could enter in.

Then into my deep fantasy there rained
one who was crucified; and as he died,
he showed his savagery and his disdain.

(Dante, Purgatorio 17:13-27)

In this ode to fantasy, Dante is describing his dreams, but there is something else about it. Fantasy, a word repeated three times ("O fantasy," "my fantasy," "my deep fantasy") may be an adequate term to describe the creative act itself. It is something that begins in one's brain, one's mind: "my mind withdrew to the within." It recalls Augustine's Neoplatonic emphasis on interiority (as seen in my previous post) of God being within. But when Dante withdraws to the within, he does not see God. One might see a reference to the Trinity: the "one who was crucified." But as the subsequent--unquoted lines--indicate it is actually not Jesus, but Haman, an arch villain. Nonetheless, this passage has the Augustinian feel about it.

Nonetheless, Augustine's interiority is based upon a theory of memory (Confessions book ten), while it seems to me that Dante's interiority is based upon something else and "fantasy" captures it quite well. "Fantasy" is more than memory; it "anticipates" Montaigne's power of the imagination. I think, however, that this passage is metonymic of the entire Comedy as a whole: Dante travels through hell, purgatory, and heaven through his imagination, through his deep fantasy within himself. The fantasy within is the source of all creativity, and, thereby, the source of one's self.

A Love Poem from St. Augustine

Late have I loved you,
Beauty so old and so new:
Late have I loved you.

And see, you were within
And I was within the external world
And sought you there,
And in my unlovely state
I plunged into those lovely created things
which you made
The lovely things kept me far from you
Though if they did not have their existence in you
They had no existence at all.

You called and cried out loud
And shattered my deafness
You were radiant and resplendent,
You put to flight my blindness.
You were fragrant,
And I drew in my breath and now pant after you.
I tasted you,
And I feel but hunger and thirst for you.
You touched me,
And I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.

(Augustine, Confessions X.xxvii (38))

Lego Egypt

Just saw this from Al-Ahram via Agade:

In "Secrets of the Pharaohs", Egypt's ancient monuments have been rebuilt in the basement exhibition area of the museum -- entirely in Lego.

Scale models of some of the nation's best-loved ancient buildings have been refashioned in large, colourful Lego bricks and are on display at the cool-lit basement gallery. Here is the Great Sphinx sitting in front of the three Giza Pyramids; here a team of ancient builders construct a temple while artisans decorate its walls and a scribe squats with a sheaf of papers to record the scene. Here is the mask of the boy king Tutankhamun, as well as some of his funerary collection.

The exhibition combines the fun of the famous Lego building blocks that everyone played with as children and the colourful and amazing history of ancient Egypt.

Visitors will have the chance to learn about daily life on the banks of the River Nile in ancient Egypt. There will be opportunities to learn how to write using ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. There will also be lessons about the mysterious Egyptian rituals surrounding death and the afterlife.

....

El-Seddik says the display is divided into six sections displaying different aspects of the ancient Egyptian civilisation; everyday life along the Nile; kings and their families; religious beliefs; and the afterlife, along with the many deities that were worshipped. At the end of the tour children are introduced to a small workshop where they can explore for themselves the civilisation of ancient Egypt through fabricating their own creation from Lego blocks.

....

Sounds pretty cool!

Augustine on Male Nipples

I am beginning to wonder if there is anything Augustine does not discuss in his massive collection of works. To the perennial question--"why do men have nipples?"--Augustine as always has an answer:

There are some details in the body which are there simply for aesthetic reasons, and for no practical purpose--for example, the nipples of a man's chest, and the beard on his face, the latter being clearly for a masculine ornament, not for protection. (Augustine, City of God 22.24; trans. Bettenson)

The "Great Artist," as Augustine calls God in his final books of the City of God, made male nipples and beards as ornaments, for purely aesthetic purposes. Indeed, an artist as accomplished as God is not limited to practicalities.

Augustine on Portents

Augustine discusses why seemingly unnatural things--like miracles, omens, and portents--are in fact natural. The argument is based upon the omnipotence of God. God creates all things by willing them. The process of willing is a natural consequence of God's omnipotence. If all things occur by God's will, and all things that occur by God's will naturally occur, then all things are natural: there can be no unnatural occurrences. His argument concerning the naturalness of portents is against his favorite punching-bag throughout the City of God, Varro (he is his favorite opponent, however, because he is one of the most formidable):

For how can an event by contrary to nature when it happens by the will of God, since the will of the great Creator assuredly is the nature of every created being? (City of God 21.8)

While this somewhat recapitulates my summary, it takes things a step further. It is not just that all things willed (created) by God are natural because creation itself is nature, natural, but that God's will is the nature of all created beings: it is not that God's will wills creation, but God's will is creation. This resonates with Genesis 1 where God speaks and it is. God's will cannot be fruitless or without consequence, but always occurs. If God need only speak or will and what God speaks/wills is, then what is is God's will. This, however, is just a mind-teasing introduction to the actual line that caught my attention in this seemingly endless opus by Augustine; a line on the naturalness of portents based upon our own lack of knowledge:

A portent, therefore, does not occur contrary to nature, but contrary to what is known of nature. (ibid.)

A post-Enlightenment rationalist or empiricist could not say it better. What seems as an unnatural occurrence is natural; its unnaturalness merely reflects our lack of knowledge of how the natural world works. This sounds a lot like the modernist scientific (although undoubtedly not a view shared by all) characterization of religion as taking care of what science cannot yet explain, but, most interestingly, it does so from the opposite perspective, since what we cannot know is how miracles naturally work, what laws of nature govern miracles, omens, and portents. While the one perspective uses this to dismiss the miraculous (since in modern definitions, the miraculous is contrary to nature), the other uses it to affirm it as the most natural thing; and these laws that govern nature are, themselves, the very will of God.

The Cost of Cultural Ignorance

According to the NYTimes city blogs, a plane had to make an unscheduled stop because of some mysterious straps a passenger had on his person. These mysterious straps evidently were tefillin and the "disruptive passenger" was praying.

Ironic Theft

Ha'aretz reports on the robbery of an exhibit on antiquities theft:

Ha'aretz English Language Edition
News
January 21, 2010 (Last update - 02:06 21/01/2010)

Antiquities thieves break into Ashdod exhibit on antiquities theft

By Yanir Yagna

In a display of what might be called ironic chutzpah, burglars broke
into an Ashdod museum this week and stole silver coins from the
Hellenistic period and other archaeological finds that were part of an
exhibit called "Antiquities Thieves in Israel."

The exhibit, at the Korin Maman Museum, displayed artifacts that the
Israel Antiquities Authority had previously recovered from antiquities
thieves. Now it seems the authority will have to begin its hunt all
over again.

The burglars neutralized the alarm system Tuesday night and stole a
bronze spear, two gold earrings, some pottery and the silver coins,
which feature the image of Alexander the Great.

"It's one of the weirdest things that ever happened here," said a
museum employee. "Someone actually went and stole the robbers
display."

....

It is nice to know that there are thieves out there with a sense of humor.

Sacrificing to Zeus

There is news about a mountaintop open-altar dedicated to Zeus that was used for over a millennium!

Zeus' altar of ashes
News from the Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting in
Anaheim, Calif.
By Bruce Bower

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Excavations at the Sanctuary of Zeus atop Greece’s
Mount Lykaion have revealed that ritual activities occurred there for
roughly 1,500 years, from the height of classic Greek civilization
around 3,400 years ago until just before Roman conquest in 146.

“We may have the first documented mountaintop shrine from the ancient
Greek world,” says project director David Romano of the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Ritual ceremonies were conducted in a part of the open-air sanctuary
called the ash altar of Zeus. It now consists of a mound of ash, stone
and various inscribed dedications to Zeus, the head god of Greek
mythology. Romano’s team has found no evidence of a temple or
structures of any kind on Mount Lykaion.

Work conducted over the past two years at the ash altar of Zeus has
unearthed material from many phases of Greek civilization. Finds
include pottery of various types, terra cotta figurines of people and
animals, and burned bones of sheep and goats.

Chemical analyses have revealed traces of red wine on the inside
surfaces of some pottery fragments, Romano says.
His team reported initial evidence of ritual activity at the ash altar
of Zeus in 2007. The new discoveries indicate that ancient Greeks kept
returning to the sacred site for a remarkably long time.

So, in short, it is an open-air altar, the only one found so far on a mountaintop, and the material remains indicates that goats and sheep were sacrificed (slaughtered and burned) there alongside votive offerings and libations. It would be interesting if the article discussed what was found in what phases--were sheep sacrificed at the same time as goats, etc.--to trace the development of sacrificial practices over 1500 years on one site and see how it matches other sacrificial practices throughout Greece, both in the immediate surrounding areas and places further afield. Just so not to be confused, 3400 years ago would place the (traceable) origins of this site to about the Mycenean period (Bronze Age Greece), before even the legendary date of the Trojan War. It just goes to show how persistent sacred spaces are!

Tongues of Fire: Omens of Roman Establishment in the Aeneid and Acts of the Apostles

"So did Creusa cry; her wailing filled
my father's house. But even then there comes
a sudden omen--wonderful to tell:
between the hands, before the faces of
his grieving parents, over Iulus' head
there leaps a lithe flametip that seems to shed
a radiance; the tongue of fire flickers,
harmless, a plays about his soft hair, grazes
his temples. Shuddering in our alarm,
we rush to shake the flames out of his hair
and quench the holy fire with water. But
Anchises raised his glad eyes to the stars
and lifted heavenward his voice and hands:
'O Jupiter, all-able one, if you
are moved by any prayers, look on us.
I only ask you this: if by our goodness
we merit it, then, Father, grant to us
your help and let your sign confirm these omens.'"
(Virgil, Aeneid 2.920-937; trans. Mandelbaum; cf. Fitzgerald translation in which the line numbering is 2.888-901)

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like a rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
(Acts 2:1-4)

At the conflagration of Troy, a tongue of fire rests upon Aeneas' son, Ascanius, yet only Aeneas' father, Anchises, recognizes the harmless, holy fire that does not burn for what it is: a great omen sent by Jupiter. It portends the great future of Aeneas as he will journey to and fro across the Aegean and then the Mediterranean--much like Odysseus/Ulysses did--to reach his final fate, his destiny, to provide a foundation for Rome and a found a lineage for its rulers leading all the way down to Augustus (one might recognize the similarity between Ascanius' other name, Iulus, and Augustus' adopted father's, Iulius (that is, Julius Caesar). The Aeneid is full of portents. One can almost open it at random and read a messianic prophecy of Aeneas' destiny and what great things will come from his descendants, especially Caesar--some have noted similarities to Jewish prophecy and have suggested an indirect connection via the Sybilline oracles from the Jewish prophetic tradition and Virgil's near obsession with prophecy.

Yet I am not so interested in the oft-observed similarities between Jewish and Virgilian prophecy, but the actual portent itself. Aeneas finds himself in a moment of stagnation and uncertainty as Troy falls around him. He seeks his family in his own home when he sees this miraculous event unfold. I am ignorant of such an image in Greco-Roman literature, yet the non-burning fire immediately recalls Exodus 3, of the burning bush that does not consume the bush, at least for a reader steeped equally in classical and biblical traditions. The Fitzgerald translation emphasizes the "harmless" nature of the tongue of fire, stating that it did not burn him even though it danced about his hair and the temples of his head. But it more directly resembles another call to action: Acts 2:1-4. There, too, tongues of fire rest upon the head--are there any other works that depict the initiatory omen as a tongue of fire about the head, or are these the only ones? In both the image is brief; if one skims or looks up momentarily, one will miss it. While in the Aeneid there was a singular tongue that rested upon Aeneas' son, the means of descent to reach Rome's glorious future, here they are multiple, divided, and distributed among all the disciples. The tongues of fire turn to fiery speech, as each of them begins to speak in tongues as the Spirit gives them the ability and, subsequently, Peter gives the sermon of his life as his powers of speech heat up. Peter, the rock upon whom Jesus would build his church, traditionally martyred at Rome, traditionally the first bishop of Rome, should shoot a flag into the air of literary memory, however, as we know that this, too, is a foundation story, one that may start a bit further south than Troy, but likewise moves from the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean to Rome, a story that will involve journeys--and similar near-death experiences--upon the stormy seas as the winds and waves rage, but the protagonist Aeneas, Paul will survive to (co-)found the Roman establishment. After their tribulations and trials, after their perilous journeys across the sea, Aeneas will found the city and its people, Peter and Paul will found its church. For both, the first omen to move from waiting and inaction to the circuitous route to Rome was a tongue of fire sent by their highest God.

Temple of Hadad in Aleppo

The Global Arab Network has a nice piece on the Temple of Baal-Hadad found within the Aleppo citadel (via Agade):

Syria (Aleppo) The discovery of the temple of the god Hadad in Aleppo Citadel is considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the late 20th century, according to an article published by Prof. Paolo Matthiae of Italy.

The god Hadad was mentioned in texts from Mari, Ebla and most other ancient Eastern sites, as old kingdoms uses to make offering to the god of storms in his main temple at the centre of the Amorite kingdom centered in Aleppo.

Head of the excavations department at the Aleppo Department of Archaeology and Museums Yousef Kanjo said the temple was discovered in 1929-1930, and later a Syrian-German expedition began work in the site in 1996, uncovering most of the temple over 12 seasons.

The expedition found out that the temple dates back to the third millennium BC, and is one of the largest temples of that period to be discovered in Syria and the East in general, and there is a strong likelihood that parts of it remain undiscovered.

....

Member of the Syrian-German expedition Mohammad al-Miftah the temple was renovated at various points during the middle of the third millennium BC (the Bronze Age), when the Hittite influence began to show in the temple, with sculptures and relief carvings replacing polished stone, in addition to the construction of a large statue of Hadad near the eastern wall.

The temple was vandalized after this and was later rebuilt in the 11th century BC, while the 10th century witnessed modifications and additions to the sculptures, with most of the old stones being used for different purposes. At this point, the temple contained a mixture of Assyrian, Hittite and Aramaic cultures.

The temple fell into disuse afterwards, losing its religious significance by the Hellenistic period when a large hole was dug in it and its stone was used to build other structures. However, the statue of Hadad was left intact and the hole was sealed, preserving many of the sculptures from harm and theft until major digs during the Byzantine caused damage to the eastern side of its main entrance.

....

Ur, Abraham's Birthplace, and Archaeology

According to AFP, Iraqi Archaeologists have found a new settlement (with writings) near ancient Ur--Abraham's birthplace and, incidentally, also where the earliest known Gilgamesh tablets were produced (and, in Sumerian, he is called Bilgamesh)-- that differs from other discovered settlements because it is in the desert rather than directly by a water source. I wonder if the writings indicate anything we didn't know before...

More on Scholarly Tattoos

I recently noted a request in the Chronicle for HIgher Education for scholars tattooed with their work to turn in their photos. Here is the follow-up with pics.

Jewish Food Laws from the Perspective of Fish

As noted in an earlier post, I am reading Jose Saramago's Gospel according to Jesus Christ, and, in a portion when Jesus is with Simon and Andrew telling them to cast their nets again when they had not yet caught fish. Upon having their nets surprisingly full of fish (and, in this version, Jesus is equally surprised, although has some troubling feelings that God--who is not portrayed in a particularly favorable light in the novel--is behind it), Saramago writes about the food laws, but from the perspective of the fish:

...the net may have caught fish, but the law, as elsewhere, is quite unambiguous, Behold what you may eat of the various aquatic species, you may eat anything in the waters, seas, and rivers that has fins and scales, but that which has neither fins nor scales, whether they be creatures that breed or that live in the water, you will shun and abhor them for all time, you will refrain from eating the flesh of everything in the water that has neither fins nor scales, and treat them as abomination. And so the despised fish with smooth skins, those that cannot be served at the table of the people of the Lord, were returned to the sea, many of them so accustomed to this by now that they no longer worried when caught in the nets, for they knew they would soon be back in the water and out of danger. With their fish mentality, they believed themselves the recipients of some special favor from the Creator, perhaps even of a special love, so that in time they came to consider themselves superior to other fish, for those in the boats must have committed grievous sins beneath the dark water for God to let them perish so mercilessly.
(trans. Giovonni Pontiero)

This is a particularly striking (at least to me) way of reframing the kashrut. For the unclean fish, the abominable sea creatures, it is a special dispensation; their neglect is salvation and the acceptance of the fish with fins and scales is a mark of their sinfulness. Perhaps God does have a special place in the heart for those animals rejected by the food laws and that's why they are forbidden to be eaten--that is at least one level of reading. The other level is parabolic: the rejected fish who think they are actually the good, righteous fish are those people who are righteous in their own eyes and yet, in reality, their very survival and seemingly good lives by comparison to other "fish" marks their rejection; those who we see as sinners, the kept fish, are the accepted ones. While in some ways Saramago's gospel could be read as an anti-gospel--in this very scene, Jesus is not in control; he has an intuition and the response troubles him and rightly so, because God is portrayed as a bloodthirsty villain whereas his opponent, Pastor, is portrayed as the one who seeks to save lives--this is a very gospel-like maneuver of reversal: those whom you see as righteous are the rejected; those who seem the sinners are the accepted.

Minoans in Egypt

Although Minoan civilization is a bit before my own period of study (and I even have a fairly wide definition of my period of study), I am often fascinated by examples of intercultural communication and exchange in the ancient world before the Hellenistic period (even though the Hellenistic and Roman periods are more my specialty) when such exchange traditionally seems more common (although as my use of "seems" indicates I tend to think this an illusion--it was always common; thus, my interest in the discovery of Minoan art in Egypt:

One of the most perplexing mysteries that Egyptologists and Aegean
experts are tackling is that of the frescoes of
Tell el-Dab'a, also known as Avaris.

This site was used as the capital of the Hyksos, at a time when they
ruled much of Egypt, from 1640 – 1530 BC. It is on the Nile Delta and
would have provided access to the Sinai, Levant and southern Egypt.

The site appears to have been abandoned for a time after the Hyksos
were driven out. However, by the end of the 18th dynasty (when the
Egyptians were back in control of their land), the site was in use and
sported with three – yes three – large palaces. They were ringed by an
enclosure wall. The whole complex was about 5.5 hectares in size.

There is no question that the frescoes at Tell el-Dab'a are Aegean influenced

Now here’s the mystery –

Two of those palaces were decorated, for a very short period of time,
with Minoan frescoes. These include drawings of bull-leaping scenes –
which are well known from the Palace of Knossos in Crete.

Site excavator Manfred Bietak published a book in 2007 that discussed
these frescoes and compared them with the more famous scenes at the
Palace of Knossos.

There is no question that the frescoes at Tell el-Dab'a are Aegean
influenced, and it seems likely that the artists are from Crete.
Dating them is tricky but from the stratigraphy and pottery they seem
to date to around the time of Thutmosis III.
What are They Doing in Egypt?

Previous theories suggested royal marriage between the Egyptians and the Minoans being the occasion for the frescoes, or perhaps a state visit of Minoan leaders. The newest theory has a current ring to it: artist unemployment:

At a lecture a few weeks ago in Toronto Professor Maria Shaw,of the
University of Toronto, proposed her own theory. Shaw has done
extensive archaeological work in Crete so her background is more from
the Aegean side of the coin.

She believes that the frescoes were drawn by out of work Minoan
artists – who travelled to Egypt as the Minoan civilization was
declining.

Professor Shaw’s argument works like this-

Cretan rulers controlled their art extremely carefully. Shaw said that
the bull-leaping scenes are a symbol of the Palace of Knossos and are
found nowhere else on the island. “I stress in no other palaces,” she
said.

Also half-rosettes, the flowery decoration seen on the scenes at Tell
el-Dab'a, are “a sign of royalty... it’s amazing that it was
appropriated and used at Tell el-Dab'a.”

Given that the bull-leaping and half-rosette symbols were tightly
controlled on Crete, it makes no sense that the rulers would let their
artists paint them in a foreign country.

So, again, what are they doing in Egypt?

Shaw believes that the paintings date to a time when the Palace of
Knossos was in decline (ca. 1400 BC). The artists that worked there
would have found themselves out of work and needing a new benefactor.
“Artists must have left from there and went find jobs in Egypt,” said
Shaw.

Also, as the Palace of Knossos declined so did the willingness to
honour its symbols of rule.
“The respect or fear that people had not to imitate Knossos - went
with Knossos,” said Shaw.

It’s also no surprise that Egyptian rulers would sanction the use of Minoan art.

Egypt at that time was open to foreign influences. The Amarna letters
show that Egypt was wheeling and dealing diplomatically in the Near
East. Paintings have been found showing people from the Aegean
bringing gifts to Egypt. Minoan motifs have also been found in
Egyptian tombs.

“There was an interest in Egypt of things Minoan,” said Shaw.

Further backing up her point is evidence from the site of Mycenae in
Greece. Fragments of a bull leaping scene, similar to those found at
Knossos, have been found there as well - further proof that when
Knossos fell, its art and artists travelled far and wide.

In the darkness of our current knowledge of antiquity all is speculation, but the diaspora of Minoan artists seeking employment does sound intriguing.

Invictus

I just viewed the movie, Invictus, and, in honor of watching it, I decided to make the poem from which the movie takes its title my quote of the day:

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Jose Saramago on Job

I'm currently reading Nobel Prize winner for literature Jose Saramago's novel, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, a fascinating retelling of the gospel story that delves in and out of dilemmas of morality, etc. A couple major issues are: was the "angel" who appeared to Mary from God or Satan? A second major dilemma is why didn't Joseph warn the rest of the village when he discovered Herod's plans to massacre all the infants in Bethlehem? In the book, the angel (from God? from Satan?) comes and tells Mary that Joseph's inaction in this respect is unforgivable and, in fact, for the rest of his life he will be haunted by nightmares (from God? from Satan?) about this deadly fault of omission. In fact, at points, the novel puts Joseph and God in the same boat: why didn't GOD warn the rest of the people? Both God and Joseph are haunted by their mistake that costed so many innocent lives. In this context, a short reverie on God and Satan's bet concerning Job occurs:

It is true that God compensated Job by repaying him twice as much as He had taken, but what about all those other men, in whose name no book was ever written, men deprived of everything and given nothing in return, to whom everything was promised and nothing fulfilled.
(Trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

In his sorrow and his attempt to overcome his error, Joseph tries to have as many children as possible with Mary and they do have many, but he cannot replace all of the children. In such a context, the narrator of the tale brings in a story of a man who lost all of his children and receives "replacements" at the end of the tale--twice as many sons and daughters. But can they ever really be "replaced"? How can you possibly replace a life, particularly your own child's? Even if Joseph could numerically account for all the children killed by Herod's men, that is not a replacement. But this passage indicates that Job, a special case in righteousness, a special case in suffering, is also a special case in repayment: no one else seems to get repaid double or even equivalent of what was once lost. Promised everything by God, by prophets, by religious and civil authorities, the anonymous ones (those "whose name no book was ever written") receive nothing.