Ancient Babylonian Math

The NYTimes reports that there is an exhibit of ancient Babylonian Mathematics at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU.

Most of the ancient tablets appear to be classroom exercises, yet they may show a very high degree of sophistication, predating many of the Greek insights--such as the Pythagorean theorem--by millennia (or approximately 1500 years). The newspaper article indicates that Greek thought has shaped our own mathematical thought, but that we can see that we owe a great deal more to the Babylonians than previously thought. I should also note that much of our mathematics derives from medieval arabic mathematicians as well.

The tablets from Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University will be on exhibit until December 17. Unfortunately, I heard about this too late to take advantage of the exhibit and will not return to NY until after the exhibit closes. But I would love to hear or read people's responses below.

Sistine Chapel 360

I just saw this site that shows the inside of the Sistine Chapel in 360. You can use your mouse to look at different parts and to zoom in and out. All without having to be guided in like cattle with all the other tourists.

It's pretty cool.

Un-Creation

One of the more interesting things I have begun to notice in biblical literature in my past year of reading or so is something of "uncreation." This is not necessarily the cataclysm of the end of time, although it can be that. It is not quite that final. It is more of a working backward from order to chaos in order to reintroduce an element of chaos in the world, showing that God is the God of chaos and not just order. I find traces of this in Isaiah, but it is all over the poetry in Job, including Job's own personal "uncreation" in Job 3 (an observation I owe to one of my students) to God's cosmic "uncreation" in Job 38 onward (an observation I owe to Carol Newsom's book on Job). With this interest in mind, I read the following from Rumi's poems that is almost an uncreation at points:

I am sprung from you and likewise you have devoured me,
I melt in you since through you I froze.

Now you press me in your hand, now under your foot with grief;
for the grape does not become wine until it is pressed.

Like the light of the sun, you have cast us on the earth,
then little by little carried us back in that direction.

We return from the body's window like light into the orb of a sun,
pure of sin and blemish.

Whoever sees that orb says, "He has become alive,"
and whoever comes to the window says, "So-and-so is dead."

He has veiled our origin in that cup of pain and joy;
in the core of origin we are pure, all the rest left behind like dregs

(Rumi, Mystical Poems of Rumi, trans., A.J. Arberry, pp. 302-3)

This is definitely not the same as the chaos/cosmos theme in Job or elsewhere in ancient Jewish writings. It is almost like reading Hosea (the latter chapters), Job, and the end of 1 Corinthians together. In Hosea 10 and 11, there is much talk about devouring. Job seeks "uncreation" and self-annihilation by negating his own birth. But take this language and put it into a more positive spin of returning to one's source.

The antitheses are what caught my attention: the one who created will devour (like God in Hosea? like Kronos/Saturn?); the one who froze us will melt us. In language elsewhere in Rumi and other Sufis, I take the freezing as the placement of our true essence into form; the removal of the form "melts" us, but releases our unformed/pre-formed/un-created self. That is the first part. The second part is a purification: the breaking of grapes to create wine. But the pressing of wine has the same function: the removal and destruction (death) of the solid form for the liquid essence to flow and mature. Our bodies, though, are "dregs" while our true self is the soul that is purified wine.

These two first parts, then, focus on our form and formlessness, the next part shows why we need to pass beyond our form: to return. As the diffusion of the light of the sun we were cast upon the earth. Here Rumi sounds almost Sethian as souls are presented as rays of light cast upon the earth that will return to their source--the original orb--all without a demiurgical element, though. I am struck by the fact that the light's return to its source is gradual. It is not all at once. This indicates that Rumi is not seeing the, well, annihilation of the egoistic self as it is reabsorbed into its source in terms of death (or not solely), but as a self-annihilation that occurs in life. The deathlike scene of return comes next, when one returns through the body's window (the eye) to return to the sun. Light came into the body through the window and it will escape in the same way. Whoever looks at the source will think of the soul as finally truly alive (unfrozen); those who look at the form--the grape--will see death. In another poem, Rumi says concerning the only one who truly is: "Inwardly you are the soul of the soul of the soul, outwardly you are the sun of the sun." To return, in fact, one must go into one's most inward self to find the highest element of the universe.

Death, though, includes perhaps more than just death, but as Montaigne would say how death insinuates itself into our lives through pain and as well as joy. Such distractions, for Rumi, I think would be more like death--that is to be unconnected or less aware of one's origin--whereas through self-annihilation before and absorption into the one who truly is one truly exists and lives. The death of the egoistic, solid self is the birth of the diffusive liquid self that, as such, easily blends back into its sunny source.

On Blogging the SBL on Blogging

One of the most enjoyable and best -attended sections I went to at the SBL this year was the panel on Biblioblogging. While as the speakers noted that blogging has been greatly expanding the past five years in the field of biblical studies (broadly conceived), it is measured not only by the number of bloggers but the number of unofficial and now official gatherings of the bloggers (many of whom know each other by their blog names rather than their real names--even when their real names are not secrets). As has been the case the past few years, there was a dinner (which I was unable to attend), a lunch organized by John Hobbins. This year, the bloggers have an official group that meets to discuss issues of blogging, online publication, and burgeoning online technologies in research and instruction.

The meeting I attended had a nice panel from a well-established scholar to a more recent dissertation defender and all in between; it included scholars on the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Targumim who came together to discuss their perspectives on this new technology. I am speaking more precisely of Jim Davila of Paleojudaica, whose paper is available on his site, Christian Brady or Targuman, also with his paper posted online, Michael Barber of the Sacred Page, James McGrath of Exploring Our Matrix, and Robert Cargill of XKV8R, the last three who have not (yet?) posted their papers online.

[Update: Robert Cargill has posted his discussion here, Michael Barber here, and James McGrath has promised to do so.]

[Update: Finally, James McGrath has posted his talk here]

It was an atmosphere of geekdom filled with a great deal of humor, prophetic prediction (both fulfilled and to come), and free exchange (open access?) of ideas.

There were many issues raised that new online technologies raise about our discipline in terms of how blogs are viewed (that is, should and could they be used for tenure and promotion committees, and if so, how could they be evaluated?), for pedagogical purposes (using blog platforms, pod- and vod-casts for dissemination of information, using possibilities for mixed medias that blogs are flexible enough platforms to hold to change the way we conceive of course construction--as well as research outlets), and the place of conferences--if panels are often already disseminating papers ahead of time (and Jim Davila always posts his papers ahead of the conference) would it not be better to have asynchronicity in participation by having a virtual conference, which would also be cheaper for those who cannot afford the traditional conference? Or a hybrid form of videoconferencing that allows people to come to panels physically (as usual) and for monitors to be set up so that others can participate virtually?

We do need to rethink the academic conference, I think. A couple years ago, I had written here (but I am currently too lazy to look for it, but I bet you can find it under the "academic conferences" tag) that conferences are a thing of the past and that virtual conferences in which people meet at a particular platform to exchange papers on topics and then write comments at the time or even later would be the way to go. At that time, however, I considered the traditional conference's continuing validity for two primary reasons: professional networking and for job interviews.

I am rethinking some of this. I have met a lot of scholars through my blogging activities (as well as publishers and book review distributors, etc.). Moreover, due to the economic difficulties of sending job search committees to conferences, so many places are using the phone interview or videophone interview as a replacement for the initial interview stage (before the traditional on-campus interview).

So where does that leave conferences? It retains the human face. As I have noted, as bloggers have increased, so have blogger-related activities at the SBL, both official and unofficial activities. They are face-time. While many bloggers do not come to these events (since there are hundreds of bloggers and only a couple to a few dozen come to the blogger events), most bloggers are not just sitting up curled with their computer on their bed all day. They are physically networking with people they have already networked with virtually. It is a solidification of a bond. Interestingly, I have two tendencies that I think I share with others: I am more likely seek out bloggers at the SBL to get a face and a voice and a physical presence to the person, and at the same time, I am more likely to read a blog of someone I have already met in person. It is a cycle that constantly feeds back into itself.

Perhaps soon we'll transition into a hybrid conference that is both physical and virtual--those who can physically and economically come will, but those who cannot will not be excluded and have a virtual presence.

As was noted in my first SBL session I attended that reviewed Guy Williams's new book on the Spirit World in the Pauline Epistles, we may have a new inflection of being somewhere in spirit.

This is just one of the many fruitful issues that came out of that single session--a rarity in the current climate of the proliferation of sections. I am sure that many other bloggers will blog about what they saw and heard and may want digital copies of the pictures that James McGrath showed.

If anything, the blogging section at the SBL inspired me to post again, which I have been doing so little lately.

Divine Horror: Ezekiel 20:26

The Bible is weird: this could be the subtitle of my introduction to biblical literature class. I have a tendency to point out those parts of the Bible that most people skim over because they are not particularly helpful for one's contemporary faith. There are these passages that, while overlooked most of the time in modern religious communities, when scrutinized and taken seriously shock the reader; remind the reader that these works are products of a different time and place.

I have been sort of collecting these passages this semester, and perhaps I will find some time to post some of the earlier ones I have discussed in class (Gen. 6:1-4; Exod. 4:24-26; most of 1 Kings 17-2 Kings 10, etc.). One such passage is for my class this friday. When reading Ezekiel's reasoning for the exile, which it is fruitful to compare to Isaiah's and Jeremiah's warnings, one finds that the problem is that the people have persistently and consistently not walked in God's ordinances and statutes (cf. Leviticus 18:1-5) and have not kept the sabbaths (the use is in the plural like in the Holiness writings). This problem was there since Egypt--that is, in Ezekiel 20, Ezekiel basically argues that there has not been a time when the Israelites actually did follow God's ordinances, statues, and properly revered God's sabbaths. This differs from the emphases in Jeremiah and Isaiah that the reason for (impending) destruction is lack of justice: not properly caring for the vulnerable in society, such as orphans, widows, and the oppressed. Although this surely can be included in Ezekiel's statutes and ordinances, the emphasis for Ezekiel tends to be more cultic: proper and improper worship. But in the process there is quite a difficult line:

and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD. (Ezek. 20:26)

Ezekiel, as noted, is very close on most topics to the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26), but on this point, compare Lev. 18:21 (see also Deut. 18:10):

You shall not give any of your children to devote them by fire to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.

It is unclear what offering one's child to Molech would be. Whether this is another deity or the LORD as king (Melech). In both passages, the practice offering one's child by fire (as a burnt offering) has a negative valuation. One might argue that "first-born" for Ezekiel is not one's own human children, but this would not explain why it is so horrifying. It takes the offering of the first-born sons (e.g., Exod. 22:29) very literally.

For Ezekiel, this burnt offering is a command from God; in Leviticus it is forbidden by God. While in Leviticus, this action would profane God's name, it is interesting to note that the reasoning behind God's actions in Ezekiel 20 throughout--the reason why God does not continually punish the Israelites--is for the sake of God's name. Thus while in Leviticus, offering one's children as a burnt offering profanes God, as a divine command in Ezekiel, it defiles the people.

So, let's run down the checklist for this one verse: God demands burnt offering of one's first-born child; God is trying to horrify; God is trying to defile through the very mechanisms of sacrifice. That is, sacrifice, which is supposed to remove one's ritual impurity and moral defilements is here the very means of that defilement (and again portrayed as a divine command).

These two too contrary passages end on the same Holiness note: "I am the LORD." It is a statement that punctuates the Holiness code; it is the exclamation point and the underlying powerful reason why one should obey. For the Ezekiel passage, this divinely inflicted horror is so that the people can actually KNOW that "I am the LORD." It is the ultimate expression of divine authority. God is demonstrating ultimacy by being beyond morality, ethics, and even purity and defilement. Horror demonstrates God's terrible power, instilling fear.

Most Important Archaeological Discovery!

Or at least archaeological argument: God drank beer! In a recent article in BAR. Here for the full article. Well, of course!

The Gods We Stand by

I am rereading William James's Varieties of Religious Experience for my fall class Interpreting Religious Experience, and ran across this passage in his lecture on the "Value of Saintliness."

The gods we stand by are the gods we need and can use, the gods whose demands on us are reinforcements of our demands on ourselves and on one another.

Spoken as a true pragmatist. This assertion of content that the popularity, "use," persistence of worship, etc., of any particular deity depends upon social circumstances of obligations and responsibilities between self and neighbor that make a society work reflects a pragmatic point of method: that religious issues of god, saintliness, etc., can be or can be best approached through social questions and standards. Together, they form a thesis that the divine, holy, and particularly the status of saintliness represent a distilled, idealized form of individual and social values.

Looking toward a New Year

I have been insanely busy lately. I have been finishing up my dissertation, and last week I finally distributed it. I have also taken a yearlong position at my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University, and so have been working on my fall classes, packing, moving, etc. In the midst of all of this professional business, I am getting married next month. Nonetheless, I have just found a window of time to create my "new faculty bio" for IWU. If anyone has been wondering what I have been up to since I haven't been posting, you can get an appetizer here:

Jared Calaway (IWU Class of ’03) is excited to be returning to IWU as a visiting faculty member after pursuing his M.A. (2005), M.Phil. (2007), and Ph.D. (expected August 2010) in the History of Religions in Late Antiquity at Columbia University in New York City. For two years in a row (Fall 2005-Spring 2007) he was the Morton Smith Presidential Fellow at Columbia, which enabled him to travel through Greece and Italy. For the past two years, he has taught a yearlong literature course for Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, covering twenty-six works of literature from the Iliad to Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. His dissertation investigates the interrelationship between sacred space and sacred time in ancient Jewish and Christian literature by tracing how the Sabbath and the Tabernacle variously come together in the Hebrew Bible, the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament. He has additionally co-authored a new translation and commentary on a late antique Coptic poem called The Thunder: Perfect Mind to be published this November by Palgrave. At IWU he will be joining the Religion Department and teaching “Religions of the World,” “Religious Experience,” and “Introduction to Biblical Literature.” He is looking forward to seeing some familiar faces, while getting to know some of the new.

That's what I have been, what I will be doing! And that's why I haven't been blogging much lately. If you have any suggestions for the courses I'll be teaching this fall, I would love to hear them. If you are around in the midwest, I would love to catch up sometime this academic year.

SBL and AAR Making Up

After a nasty break-up and trial separation, it seems the SBL and AAR have decided they want to be together after all. As a member of both organizations, I am happy to see this. This next year is going to be particularly ridiculous, since they are meeting in the same city--Atlanta--just a few weeks apart. We were already to meet together in San Francisco next year, but now we will also be meeting the following years in Chicago and Baltimore, which will be cold!

Here is the joint letter from Kent Richards and Jack Fitzmier, the presidents of the two organizations:

June 28, 2010

We are pleased to announce that on June 10, 2010, the Society of
Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion signed a Letter
of Intent that outlines an agreement to hold concurrent Annual
Meetings beginning in San Francisco in the fall of 2011. These
meetings will

Occur in the same city—though the venue will change from year to year;
Occur at the same time—the weekend before the US Thanksgiving holiday;
Feature a single, jointly managed Publishers/Software/Book Exhibit;
Feature a single, jointly managed Employment Center;
Feature distinct and separate AAR and SBL programs planned with open
communication between the organizations;
Encourage the organizations’ members to attend each other’s programs
and events at no additional cost;
Allow the organizations to pursue their unique, if sometimes
overlapping, missions;
Enhance cooperation, not competition, between the organizations.

The advertising for these conventions will use the city name, the
year, and will identify the SBL and AAR as hosts. For example, the
first of these meetings will be known as “Annual Meetings 2011 San
Francisco, hosted by the American Academy of Religion and the Society
of Biblical Literature.” This name will appear on the registration
gateway, on signage at the meetings, on promotional materials, and on
other common elements.

A Conventions Management Committee, consisting of the Executive
Directors and staff members from each organization, is developing
operating policies and procedures that expand on the considerable
detail that already exists in the Letter of Intent. Each year the
Committee will review the most recent meetings with an eye toward
making improvements in subsequent gatherings. Nine concurrent meetings
are being planned for 2011 through 2019. Beginning in 2013 the
organizations will begin operating on a seven-year planning horizon
that includes a mechanism by which the organizations can, on an annual
basis, extend the seven-year agreement for an additional year. Dates
and venues of the first three concurrent Annual Meetings are as
follows:

November 19-22, 2011 San Francisco
November 17-20, 2012 Chicago
November 23-26, 2013 Baltimore

We believe that concurrent meetings will serve the interests of our
members, will help to advance the many disciplines and areas of study
we represent, and will maintain and advance the critical inquiry that
characterizes the work of our societies. We invite you to join us in
building this exciting new future.

Cordially,

Jack Fitzmier
American Academy of Religion

Kent Richards
Society of Biblical Literature

Now we can be one of the largest conferences in the U.S. again behind the MLA.

Hyksos in the News

It isn't everyday that the Hyksos, the foreign invading group that ruled ancient Egypt for a time makes the news, but there is an article in the Guardian about possibly finding their capital in Egypt using radar imaging:

An Austrian archaeological team has used radar imaging to determine the extent of the ruins of the 3,500-year-old one-time capital of Egypt's foreign occupiers, according to the country's antiquities department.

Egypt was ruled for a century from 1664-1569 BC by the Hyksos, a group of warriors from Asia – possibly Semitic in origin – whose summer capital, Avaris, was in the northern Delta area.

See the rest here.

Oldest Images of the Apostles Found in Rome

From BBC News:

Art restorers in Italy have discovered what are believed to be the oldest paintings of some of Jesus Christ's apostles.

The faces of Apostles Andrew, John, Peter and Paul were uncovered using new laser technology in a catacomb in Rome.

The paintings date from the second half of the 4th Century or the early 5th Century, the restorers and Vatican officials believe.

The images may have influenced later depictions of Christ's early followers.

In the Mail

Today I received a copy of Amanda H. Podany's Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shapes the Ancient Near East from Oxford University Press.

Here is the product description:

Amanda Podany here takes readers on a vivid tour through a thousand years of ancient Near Eastern history, from 2300 to 1300 BCE, paying particular attention to the lively interactions that took place between the great kings of the day.

Allowing them to speak in their own words, Podany reveals how these leaders and their ambassadors devised a remarkably sophisticated system of diplomacy and trade. What the kings forged, as they saw it, was a relationship of friends-brothers-across hundreds of miles. Over centuries they worked out ways for their ambassadors to travel safely to one another's capitals, they created formal rules of interaction and ways to work out disagreements, they agreed to treaties and abided by them, and their efforts had paid off with the exchange of luxury goods that each country wanted from the other. Tied to one another through peace treaties and powerful obligations, they were also often bound together as in-laws, as a result of marrying one another's daughters. These rulers had almost never met one another in person, but they felt a strong connection--a real brotherhood--which gradually made wars between them less common. Indeed, any one of the great powers of the time could have tried to take over the others through warfare, but diplomacy usually prevailed and provided a respite from bloodshed. Instead of fighting, the kings learned from one another, and cooperated in peace.

A remarkable account of a pivotal moment in world history--the establishment of international diplomacy thousands of years before the United Nations--Brotherhood of Kings offers a vibrantly written history of the region often known as the "cradle of civilization."

I was attracted to it because I am interested in reading about ancient, particularly Bronze Age through Late Antiquity, relations, particularly trade routes, but diplomatic relations would also show up on my radar. The reason behind my interest is to consider the world of trade, diplomacy, etc., alongside the adaptation of particular stories or types of narratives from group to group, to see if there is a social and material underpinning to the circulation of stories. Of course, given that I am finishing up my dissertation this summer and preparing for three courses in the fall, I unfortunately will not be able to get to this book soon. But check back in around December or January and perhaps I'll have some thoughts on it then.

My Return to Illinois

Today I received my contract, and so can officially announce that I have received a visiting position at my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University. The wheel has come full circle: I left a student and will return a teacher. I will be there for a year. So, for those of you in the midwest, come stop by while you can!

The Temple of Living Pillars

Correspondences

La Nature est un temple où de vivant piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
-Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,

Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,
Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.

(Charles Baudelaire, "Correspondences," Les Fleurs du Mal)

This fantastic poem incites all of the senses, but perhaps mostly the most potent, memorable, and evanescent one of all: smell. It ranges from such sensuous activation to the rapture of the soul (les transports de l'esprit et des sens), all within the temple of living pillars that is nature. This temple is confusing (de confuses paroles) and dark (dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité), and yet familiar (regards familiers). It is beyond confusion and clarity, beyond light and darkness, encompassing them both (comme la nuit et comme la clarté). It is dense (des forêts de symboles) and vast, infinitesimal and infinite (ayant l'expansion des choses infinies). The second line, by the way, is where Victor Turner got the title for his book Forest of Symbols. Baudelaire's words, themselves, permeate like a sweet perfume in this natural temple, in this forest of symbols.

To Live in the Shadowy Realm of Dreams

All would be well
Could we but give us wholly to the dreams,
And get into their world that to the sense
Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly
Among substantial things; for it is dreams
That lift us to the flowing, changing world
That the heart longs for. What is love itself,
Even though it be the lightest of light above,
But dreams that hurry from beyond the world
To make low laughter more than meat and drink,
Though it but set us sighing? Fellow-wanderer,
Could we but mix ourselves into a dream,
Not in its image on the mirror!

(W.B. Yeats, The Shadowy Waters 177-89; 1906)

Standing in God's Holy Fire

Sailing to Byzantium

....

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

....

(W.B. Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium," The Tower, 1928)

Slouching towards Bethlehem

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

(W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming," Michael Robartes and the Dancer, 1921)

I really do not have much to say to this amazing poem. The centrifugal force of the first stanza of the doubly turning gyre, the falcon flying from the falconer loosened from its earthly tether, anarchy, blood-dimmed tide that drowns all innocence, are all best encapsulated, I think, in the line: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." The center spins and all spin chaotically away.

This stanza of chaos invokes a cosmic storm; the apocalyptic storm of the Second Coming. It is a chaos that seeks meaning; a chaos that seeks revelation. Even if that revelation is death and destruction, it is foreseen death and destruction in the sight of eternity--the divine plan of the Second Coming. That the Egyptian sphinx is the spirit of the world would indeed be a vexing image. It is a vexing figure: the sphinx who tells riddles is itself a riddle. This makes the world itself a riddle, but it also makes this world a ruin. A ruin has two sides: it is incomplete due to the ravages of time, but it also has endured the ravages of time. The sphinx as the world spirit is an enduring image that counterposes the instability of the first stanza. Both, however, are unsettled as a new beast slouches toward Bethlehem. The new beast born in Jesus' birthplace. A nightmare to be brought up. A violent thing that has taken its time to come to its consummation. Slouching may be slovenly, but it is also unhurried. The rough beast will work at its own pace to bring a violent end to the chaos by chaos.

Clouds about the Fallen Sun

These are the Clouds

These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
The majesty that shuts his burning eye:
The weak lay hand on what the strong has done,
Till that be tumbled that was lifted high
And discord follow upon unison,
And all things at one common level lie.
And therefore, friend, if your great race were run
And these things came, so much the more thereby
Have you made greatness your companion,
Although it be for children that you sigh:
These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
The majesty that shuts his burning eye.

(W. B. Yeats, "These are the Clouds," The Green Helmet and Other Poems, 1910)

I don't know why, but I found this poem particularly beautiful. Published in 1910 it anticipates the sense of brokenness and fallenness to permeate literature and philosophy after World War I (see, e.g., Woolf and Proust) and especially World War II (do I need to say more than Paul Celan?). Yet as an Irish poet, Yeats acutely sensed imposition from foreign powers, living in a country without self-governance but with great local ferment (to understate). But such historical circumstances may or may not have prompted this sense of brokenness, which, with all great and insightful works, speak beyond the moment of their writing.

First there is a poignancy in the opening couplet. There is an ominous tone with clouds gathering about the sun, as one slips into grayness and darkness when light should have been possible. There is not a full storm at play, but the gathering clouds simply shut out the light and who knows when the sun will shine through again, when the sun shall re-open his burning eye and bring light back to us. The repetition of the couplet at the end of the poem creates a sense of sadness, the end of poem, at first reading, shows no progress from the beginning. The clouds gather; the sun's eye is shut; there is no light. Its return is left for the future, but "although it be for children that you sigh" somberly indicates that the end of the darkness is not in sight for one's own and even for one's children's lifetimes. It seems endless.

I have difficulty reading the middle portion's tone. The weak lay hand on what the strong has done bringing it tumbling down. Is this the clouds? Is the "majesty" of the sun the equivalent of the strong? The clouds and weak then associated with discord and the majestic sun and strong associated with the previous (but now lost) unison? It seems so. Thus sun=strength=unity and clouds=weak=discord. It is with the next lines that difficulties really come in my mind. Since now that the strong's achievements have been brought down and the sun's majesty is shaded, "all things at one common level lie." This line seems to prompt eulogy: "And therefore, friend, if your great race were run / And these things came, so much the more thereby / Have you made greatness your companion." Vocatively addressing "friend," who has run his "great race" and these things came--these things being the breaking down of the strong and the hiding of the sun and the sowing of discord and the destruction of unity--his friend has made "greatness" is companion. How is this so? If the weak has brought down the strong and all things at common level lie, is it that the weak is now strong, the last shall now be first--or to be totally without hierarchy the weak now has access to greatness. The tumbling of the edifice of the strong that leads to temporary discord (and one whose end is not quite in sight) is also a moment of opportunity. In this second thought, the friend who has achieved greatness does not sigh from the grief of the children's grim future, but his current "sigh" represents the great effort and race that secures their future by gathering the clouds and forcing the majestic sun (cipher for monarchy?) to turn its scorching heat elsewhere. As such, while at first glance the gathering clouds seem somber and sad, it is rather hopeful at the same time if those clouds provide shade from debilitating heat and if WE are those clouds. Even though Yeats has given the exact same couplet at the beginning and end, by the end it has acquired a very different (even opposing) valuation and feeling.