[continued from previous message]
Lord, who had sworn unto their ancestors to multiply them, sent one of
His angels to wash the babes, anoint them, stretch their limbs, and
swathe them. Then he would give them two smooth pebbles, from one of
which they sucked milk, and from the other honey. And God caused the
hair of the infants to grow down to their knees and serve them as a
protecting garment, and then He ordered the earth to receive the babes,
that they be sheltered therein until the time of their growing up, when
it would open its mouth and vomit forth the children, and they would
sprout up like the herb of the field and the grass of the forest.
.
When the Egyptians saw this, they went forth, every man to his field,
with his yoke of OXEN, and they PLOUGHED up the earth as one PLOUGHs
it at seed time. Yet they were unable to do harm to the infants of the
children of Israel that had been swallowed up and lay in the bosom of
the earth. Thus the people of Israel increased and waxed exceedingly.
And Pharaoh ordered his officers to go to Goshen, to look for the male
babes of the children of Israel, and when they discovered one, they tore
him from his mother's breast by force, and thrust him into the river."
But no one is so valiant as to be able to foil God's purposes, though
he contrive ten thousand subtle devices unto that end. The child
foretold by Pharaoh's dreams and by his astrologers was
brought up and kept concealed from the king's spies.>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Wyberg, observing the total solar eclipse of 8 April 1652
at Carrickfergus, Scotland.
.
". . . the country people tilling, loosed their PLOUGHs.
. The birds dropped to the ground." ---------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PHILOBIBLON OF RICHARD DE BURY
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY E. C. THOMAS
"TAKE THOU A BOOK INTO THINE HANDS AS SIMON THE JUST TOOK THE CHILD
JESUS INTO HIS ARMS TO CARRY HIM AND KISS HIM. AND WHEN THOU HAST
FINISHED READING, CLOSE THE BOOK AND GIVE THANKS FOR EVERY WORD
OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD; BECAUSE IN THE LORD'S FIELD THOU HAST
FOUND A HIDDEN TREASURE." -- THOMAS A KEMPIS: Doctrinale Juvenum
PREFACE | CONTENTS
The Author of the Book. Richard de Bury (1281-1345), so called
from being born near Bury St. Edmunds, was the son of Sir Richard
Aungerville. He studied at OXford; and was subsequently chosen to be
tutor to Prince Edward of Windsor, afterwards Edward III. His loyalty
to the cause of Queen Isabella and the Prince involved him in danger.
On the accession of his pupil he was made successively Cofferer, Treasurer
of the Wardrobe, Archdeacon of Northampton, Prebendary of Lincoln,
Sarum, and Lichfield, Keeper of the Privy Purse, Ambassador on two
occasions to Pope John XXII, who appointed him a chaplain of the papal
chapel, Dean of Wells, and ultimately, at the end of the year 1333,
Bishop of Durham; the King and Queen, the King of Scots, and all the
magnates north of the Trent, together with a multitude of nobles and
many others, were present at his enthronization. It is noteworthy that
during his stay at Avignon, probably in 1330, he made the acquaintance
of Petrarch, who has left us a brief account of their intercourse. In
1332 Richard visited Cambridge, as one of the King's commissioners, to
inquire into the state of the King's Scholars there, and perhaps then
became a member of the Gild of St. Mary--one of the two gilds which
founded Corpus Christi College.
In 1334 he became High Chancellor of England, and Treasurer in 1336,
resigning the former office in 1335, so that he might help the King
in dealing with affairs abroad and in Scotland. Wasted by long
sickness--longa infirmitate decoctus--on the 14th of April, 1345,
Richard de Bury died at Auckland, and was buried in Durham Cathedral.
CHAPTER I: THAT THE TREASURE OF WISDOM IS CHIEFLY CONTAINED IN BOOKS
The desirable treasure of wisdom and science, which all men desire by an instinct of nature, infinitely surpasses all the riches of the world; in respect of which precious stones are worthless; in comparison with which
silver is as clay and pure gold is as a little sand; at whose splendour
the sun and moon are dark to look upon; compared with whose marvellous sweetness honey and manna are bitter to the taste. O value of wisdom
that fadeth not away with time, virtue EVER flourishing, that cleanseth
its possessor from all venom! O heavenly gift of the divine bounty,
descending from the Father of lights, that thou mayest exalt the
rational soul to the very heavens! Thou art the celestial nourishment of
the intellect, which those who eat shall still hunger and those who
drink shall still thirst, and the gladdening harmony of the languishing
soul which he that hears shall nEVER be confounded. Thou art the
moderator and rule of morals, which he who follows shall not sin. By
thee kings reign and princes decree justice. By thee, rid of their
native rudeness, their minds and tongues being polished, the thorns of
vice being torn up by the roots, those men attain high places of honour,
and become fathers of their country, and companions of princes, who
without thee would have melted their spears into pruning-hooks and PLOUGHsHARES, or would perhaps be feeding swine with the prodigal.
.
Where dost thou chiefly lie hidden, O most elect treasure!
and where shall thirsting souls discover thee? ----------------------------------------------------
Goad, n. [AS. g[=a]d; perh. akin to AS. g[=a]r a dart, and E. gore.
See {Gore}, v. t.] A pointed instrument used to urge on a beast.
.
Goad, v. t. To prick; to drive with a goad; hence, to urge forward.
.
. That temptation that doth goad us on. --Shak.
.
Goad (Heb. malmad, only in Judg. 3: 31), an instrument used by PLOUGHMEN
for guiding their OXEN. ShamGAR slew six hundred Philistines with an
OX-goad. "The goad is a formidable weapon. It is sometimes ten feet
long, and has a sharp point. We could now see that the feat of ShamGAR
was not so very wonderful as some have been accustomed to think."
In 1 Sam. 13:21, a different Hebrew word is used, _dorban_, meaning
something pointed. The expression (Acts 9:5, omitted in the R.V.),
"It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks", i.e., against the
goad, was proverbial for unavailing resistance to superior power. ------------------------------------------------------------------
Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941). The Golden Bough. 1922.
. § 2. Demeter, the Pig and the Horse
.
http://www.bartleby.com/196/116.html
<<The Thesmophoria has its analogies in the folk-customs of
Northern Europe which have been already described. Just as at the Thesmophoria-an autumn festival in honour of the corn-goddess-swine's
flesh was partly eaten, partly kept in caverns till the following year,
when it was taken up to be sown with the seed-corn in the fields for the purpose of securing a good crop; so in the neighbourhood of Grenoble the
goat killed on the harvest-field is partly eaten at the harvest-supper,
partly pickled and kept till the next harvest; so at Pouilly the OX
killed on the harvest-field is partly eaten by the harvesters, partly
pickled and kept till the first day of sowing in spring, probably to be
then mixed with the seed, or eaten by the PLOUGHMEN, or both; so at
Udvarhely the feathers of the cock which is killed in the last sheaf at
harvest are kept till spring, and then sown with the seed on the field;
so in Hesse and Meiningen the flesh of pigs is eaten on Ash Wednesday or Candlemas, and the bones are kept till sowing-time, when they are put
into the field sown or mixed with the seed in the bag; so, lastly, the
corn from the last sheaf is kept till Christmas, made into the Yule
Boar, and afterwards broken and mixed with the seed-corn at sowing in
spring. Thus, to put it generally, the corn-spirit is killed in animal
form in autumn; part of his flesh is eaten as a sacrament by his
worshippers; and part of it is kept till next sowing-time or
harvest as a pledge and security for the continuance
or renewal of the corn-spirit's energies.>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/ursamajor.htm
. © Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
.
<<Undoubtedly the most familiar star pattern in the entire sky is
the seven stars that make up the shape popularly termed the PLOUGH
or Big Dipper, part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear.
.
In mythology, the Great Bear is identified with two separate
characters: Callisto, a paramour of Zeus; and Adrasteia,
one of the ash-tree nymphs who nursed the infant Zeus.
.
Callisto is said to have been the daughter of Lycaon, king of
Arcadia in the central Peloponnese. (An alternative story says that
she is not Lycaon's daughter but the daughter of Lycaon's son Ceteus.
In this version, Ceteus is identified with the constellation Hercules,
kneeling and holding up his hands in supplication to the gods
at his daughter's transformation into a bear.)
.
Callisto joined the retinue of Artemis, goddess of hunting. She
dressed in the same way as Artemis, tying her hair with a white
ribbon and pinning together her tunic with a brooch, and she soon
became the favourite hunting partner of Artemis, to whom she swore
a vow of chastity. One afternoon, as Callisto laid down her bow and
rested in a shady forest grove, Zeus caught sight of her and was
entranced. What happened next is described fully by Ovid in Book II
of his Metamorphoses. Cunningly assuming the appearance of Artemis,
Zeus entered the grove to be greeted warmly by the unsuspecting
Callisto. He lay beside her and embraced her. Before the startled
girl could react, Zeus revealed his true self and, despite
Callisto's struggles, had his way with her. Zeus returned to Olympus,
leaving the shame-filled Callisto scarcely able to face Artemis.
.
On a hot afternoon some months later, the hunting party came to a
cool river and decided to bathe. Artemis stripped off and led them in,
but Callisto hung back. As she reluctantly undressed, her advancing
pregnancy was finally revealed. Artemis, scandalized,
banished Callisto from her sight.
.
Worse was to come when Callisto gave birth to a son, Arcas. Hera, the
wife of Zeus, had not been slow to realize her husband's infidelity
and was now determined to take revenge on her rival. Hurling insults,
Hera grabbed Callisto by her hair and pulled her to the ground.
As Callisto lay spreadeagled, dark hairs began to sprout from her arms
and legs, her hands and feet turned into claws and her beautiful mouth
which Zeus had kissed turned into gaping jaws that uttered growls.
.
For 15 years Callisto roamed the woods in the shape of a bear, but
still with a human mind. Once a huntress herself, she was now pursued
by hunters. One day she came face to face with her son Arcas. Callisto recognized Arcas and tried to approach him, but he backed off in fear.
He would have speared the bear, not knowing it was really his mother,
had not Zeus intervened by sending a whirlwind that carried them up
into heaven, where Zeus transformed Callisto into the constellation
Ursa Major and Arcas into Boötes.
.
Hera was now even more enraged to find her rival glorified among
the stars, so she consulted her foster parents Tethys and Oceanus,
gods of the sea, and persuaded them never to let the bear bathe
in the northern waters. Hence, as seen from mid-northern latitudes,
the bear never sets below the horizon.
.
That this is the most familiar version of the myth is due to Ovid's pre-eminence as a storyteller, but there are other versions, some
older than Ovid. Eratosthenes, for instance, says that Callisto was
changed into a bear not by Hera but by Artemis as a punishment for
breaking her vow of chastity. Later, Callisto the bear and her son
Arcas were captured in the woods by shepherds who took them as a
gift to King Lycaon. Callisto and Arcas sought refuge in the temple
of Zeus, unaware that Arcadian law laid down the death penalty for
trespassers. (Yet another variant says that Arcas chased the bear
into the temple while hunting ?) To save them,
Zeus snatched them up and placed them in the sky.
.
The Greek mythographer Apollodorus says that Callisto was turned
into a bear by Zeus to disguise her from his wife Hera. But Hera
saw through the ruse and pointed out the bear to Artemis who shot
her down, thinking that she was a wild animal. Zeus sorrowfully
placed the image of the bear in the sky.
.
ARATUS makes a completely different identification of Ursa Major.
He says that the bear represents one of the nymphs who raised Zeus in
the cave of Dicte on Crete. That cave, incidentally, is a real place
where local people still proudly point out the supposed place of Zeus's
birth. Rhea, his mother, had smuggled Zeus to Crete to escape Cronus,
his father. Cronus had swallowed all his previous children at birth for
fear that one day they would overthrow him as Zeus eventually did.
Apollodorus names the nurses of Zeus as Adrasteia and Ida, although
other sources give different names. Ida is represented by the
neighbouring constellation of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear.
.
These nymphs looked after Zeus for a year, while armed Cretan warriors
called the Curetes guarded the cave, clashing their spears against
their shields to drown the baby's cries from the ears of Cronus.
Adrasteia laid the infant Zeus in a cradle of gold and made for him
a golden ball that left a fiery trail like a meteor when thrown into
the air. Zeus drank the milk of the she-goat Amaltheia with his
foster-brother Pan. Zeus later placed Amaltheia in the sky as the
star Capella, while Adrasteia became the Great Bear although
why Zeus turned her into a bear is not explained.
.
ARATUS named the constellation Helice, meaning 'twister', apparently
from its circling of the pole, and said that the ancient Greeks steered
their ships by reference to it, whereas the Phoenicians used the Little
Bear (Ursa Minor). ARATUS said that the bears were also called wagons
or wains, from the fact that they wheel around the pole. The adjacent constellation Boötes is visualized as either the herdsman of the bear
or the wagon driver. But Germanicus Caesar said that he bears were also
called PLOUGHs because, as he wrote, 'the shape of a PLOUGH is the
closest to the real shape formed by their stars. According to Hyginus
the Romans referred to the Great Bear as Septentrio, meaning 'seven
PLOUGH OXEN', although he added the information that in ancient times
only two of the stars were considered OXEN, the other five forming a
wagon. On a star map of 1524 the German astronomer Peter Apian showed
Ursa Major as a team of three horses pulling a four-wheeled cart,
which he called Plaustrum.
.
Two stars in Ursa Major called Dubhe and Merak are popularly termed the Pointers. Dubhe's name comes from the Arabic al-dubb, 'the bear', while
Merak comes from the Arabic word al-maraqq meaning 'the flank' or
'groin'. At the tip of the bear's tail lies Eta Ursae Majoris, known
both as Alkaid, from the Arabic meaning 'the leader', or as Benetnasch,
from the Arabic meaning 'daughters of the bier' for the Arabs
regarded this figure not as a bear but as a bier or coffin [and]
the tail of the bear as a line of mourners leading the coffin.
.
Second in line along the tail is the wide double star Zeta Ursae
Majoris. The two members of the double, visible separately with keen
eyesight, are called Mizar and Alcor and were depicted as a horse and
its rider on the 1524 star chart of Peter Apian. The name Mizar is a
corruption of the Arabic al-maraqq, the same origin as the name Merak.
Its companion, Alcor, gets its name from a corruption of the Arabic
al-jaun, meaning 'the black horse or bull', the same origin as
the name Alioth which is applied to the next star along the tail,
Epsilon Ursae Majoris. Delta Ursae Majoris is named Megrez,
from the Arabic meaning 'root of the tail'. Gamma Ursae Majoris
is called Phad or Phecda, from the Arabic word meaning 'the thigh'.>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
. Plutarch's Lives: ARATUS vs. ARTAXERXES ------------------------------------------------------------------
. Sir Thomas Browne (1646; 6th ed., 1672)
. PseudodOXia Epidemica I:vi (pp. 20-25)
.
. Of Adherence unto Antiquity.
.
To omit how much of the wittiest piece of Ovid is beholden unto
Parthenius Chius; even the magnified Virgil hath borrowed, almost
in all his Works; his Eclogues from Theocritus, his Georgicks
from Hesiod and ARATUS, his Aeneads from Homer, the second Book
whereof containing the exploits of Sinon and the Trojan Horse
(as Macrobius observeth) he hath verbatim derived from Pisander. ------------------------------------------------------------------
LVSC. God be with you, sir, I'le leaue you to your poeticall fancies,
. and furies. I'le not be guiltie, I.
.
OVID. Be not, good ignorance : I'm glad th'ART gone :
. For thus alone, our eare shall better judge
. The hastie errours of our morning muse.
.
E Nuie, why tWITSt thou me, my time's spent ill ?
And call'st my verse, fruits of an idle quill ?
Or that (vnlike the line from whence I sprung)
.
Wars dustic honours I pursue not young ?
Or that I studie not the tedious lawes ;
And prostitute my voyce in euerie cause ?
Thy scope is mortall ; mine eternall fame :
Which through the world shall euer chaunt my name.
HOMER will liue, whil'st TENEDOS stands, and IDE,
Or, to the sea, fleed SIMOIS doth slide :
And so shall HESIOD too, while vines doe beare,
Or crooked sickles crop the ripened eare.
CALLIMACHVS, though in inuention lowe,
Shall still be sung : since he in art doth flowe.
No losse shall come to SOPHOCLES proud vaine.
With sunne, and moone, ARATVS shall remaine.
Whil'st slaues be false, fathers hard, and bawdes be whorish,
Whil'st harlots flatter, shall MENANDER flourish.
ENNIVS, though rude, and ACCIVS high-reard straine,
A fresh applause in euerie age shall gaine.
Of VARRO'S name, what eare shall not be told ?
Of IASONS ARGO ? and the fleece of gold ?
Then shall LVCRETIVS loftie numbers die,
When earth, and seas in fire and flames shall frie.
TYTIRVS, Tillage, ÆNEE shall be read,
Whil'st ROME of all the conquer'd world is head.
Till CVPIDS fires be out, and his bowe broken,
Thy verses (neate TIBVLLVS) shall be spoken.
Our GALLVS shall be knowne from east to west :
So shall LYCORIS, whom he now loues best.
The suffering PLOUGH-share, or the flint may weare :
But heauenly poesie no death can feare.
Kings shall giue place to it, and kingly showes,
The bankes ore which gold-bearing Tagus flowes.
Kneele hindes to trash : me let bright PHOEBVS swell,
With cups full flowing from the MVSES well.
Frost-fearing myrtie shall impale my head,
And of sad louers Ile be often read.
" Enuie, the liuing, not the dead, doth bite :
" For after death all men receiue their right.
Then, when this bodie fals in funerall fire, ----------------------------------------------
. Moby-Dick (1851)
.
http://www.melville.org/hmmoby.htm
.
<<First British edition (entitled The Whale), expurgated to avoid
offending delicate political and moral sensibilities, published in three volumes on October 18, 1851 by Richard Bentley, London. First American
edition published November 14, 1851 by Harper & Brothers, New York.
.
As letters to Richard Henry Dana and Richard Bentley attest, Melville
was far along on a new book by May 1850. This latest work was apparently another relatively simple adventure narrative in the manner of Typee or Redburn, "a romance of adventure, founded upon certain wild legends of
the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries, and illustrated by the author's own personal experience, of two years & more, as a harpooneer...."
.
Melville had promised Bentley that the book would be ready that
autumn, in expectation of which he was sent an advance of £150.
His financial situation was poor, nevertheless, he abandoned
the nearly-finished romance to spend an entire year rewriting
.
. under a spell of intense intellectual ferment
. further heightened by the study of SHAKESPEARE
. and a developing friendship with NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
.
The resulting work was finally shipped to Bentley on September 10, 1851: although it received many positive reviews, it sold poorly and
accelerated the decline of Melville's literary reputation.>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.batcave.net/business/web/elements/runic.html http://zurix.apana.org.au/asatru/Webpage2/Ftpstone.htm
<<One of the best-known [memorial runestone] is the Kylver stone
(Gotland, ca. 400-450 C.E., thought to be part of a grave chamber),
GIVES US THE WHOLE FUTHARK for the first time,
together with the palindrome "SUEUS",
a word "generally (being) interpreted as
a palindrome for Gotlandic EUS: 'horse'">> ------------------------------------------------------------------ BOUSTROPHEDONIC
http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-bou1.htm
<<Of or relating to text written from left to right
and right to left in alternate lines.
Mainly of interest to palaeographers, this is a form of writing
which occurs principally in very ancient or rare texts.
Examples are the RONGO-RONGO script of EASTER ISLAND, some of
those in the Etruscan language, a few early Latin inscriptions
and some ancient Greek texts created in a transitional period
at about 500BC before which writing ran from right to left
but afterwards from left to right. The word is itself
from the Greek meaning "as the OX ploughs".>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
furrowards, bagawards, like yOXEN at the turnpaht ------------------------------------------------------------------ boustrophedontic cryptogram: "MAMRAI" -------------------------------------------------------------------
QUEEQUEG: (it will do; it is easy) "RARMAI" -------------------------------------------------------------------
The RONGO-RONGO of EASTER Island The MAMRAI Tablet
"Here say figurines billycoose arming and mounting.
Mounting and arming bellicose figurines see here."
<<The MAMRAI Tablet is the only rongorongo text the meaning of part of
which is known: a LUNAR CALENDAR identified as such by Thomas Barthelin
1958. Jacques Guy (1991) has argued that, rather than a lunar calendar
proper, those signs constitute in fact an astronomical canon for
predicting in advance when intercalary nights should be inserted in
the calendar to keep with the moon phases.>>
http://www.rongorongo.org/
http://www.rongorongo.org/corpus/mamari.html ------------------------------------------------------------------
RONGO-RONGO <=> ROKOVOKO -----------------------------------------------------------------
Moby-Dick (1851)
CHAPTER 12 Biographical
QUEEQUEG was a native of ROKOVOKO, an island far away to the West
and South. It is not down on any map; true places never are.
When a new-HATCHed savage running wild about his native woodlands in
a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green
sapling; even then, in QUEEQUEG's ambitious soul, lurked a strong
desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler
or two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High
Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives
of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins-
royal stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity
he nourished IN HIS UNTUTORED YOUTH. ------------------------------------------------------------------
April 6
------------------------------------------------------------------
648 -BC- Earliest total solar eclipse; chronicled by Greeks
6 -BC- Historical birth of Jesus Christ?
610 night the Koran descended to Earth [Monday before Palm S.]
1199 Richard I, the Lion-hearted, King of England (1189-99), dies
1327 Petrarch first sets eyes on Laura [Monday after Palm S.]
1348 Italian poet Petrarch's Laura, dies of plague
1483 Italian Raphael, [Raffaello Sanzio], born/christened?
1520 Italian Raphael, dies on his 37th birthday [Good Friday]
1528 German painter Albrecht Durer dies [Monday after Palm S.]
1580 6+ Kent earthquake badly damaged St Paul's in London
"to cassay the earthcrust at all of hours"
1584 Bridget de Vere's born. [Monday before Palm S.]
1590 Francis Walsingham, English secretary of state, dies
1614 El Greco (Domeniko Theotokopoulos) dies
1722 Adm. Roggeveen discovers EASTER ISLAND on day before EASTER
1789 GEORGE WASHINGTON elected President [Monday after Palm S.]
1830 Mormons Founders Day
1843 Wordsworth as Poet Laureate
1874 Harry Houdini born [Monday after EASTER] ---------------------------------------------------------------------
EASTER Island spotted by English?: Captain Davis 1688
EASTER Island discovered by Dutch: Adm. Roggeveen April 6, 1722
EASTER Island rediscovered? Spain's Felipe Gonzalas 1770
EASTER Island visited by Capt. Cook 1774
EASTER Island hieroglyphs FINALLY found!!! 1864 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.rongorongo.org/early.html http://www.rongorongo.org/theories/origin.html
<<Brother Eugène Eyraud was the first to mention the existence of wooden tablets and staffs covered in hieroglyphs, in a letter dated December
1864 to the vice-provincial of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of
Jesus and Mary, in Valparaiso, Chile.
[It was later supposed that:]
The EASTER Islanders got the idea of writing from the Spaniards in 1770,
when they annexed the island and had local chiefs "sign" the treaty of annexation. None of those who hold this view (Emory, Bellwood, Fischer
to name a few) ever contemplated an alternative source, such as that the
EASTER Islanders may have got the idea of writing from other visitors, Roggeveen for instance.>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
QUEEQUEG was GEORGE WASHINGTON cannibalistically developed. -------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 10 A Bosom Friend
Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found QUEEQUEG there
quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some
time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on
the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face
that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with
a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to
himself in his heathenish way.
But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon,
going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on
his lap began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at
every fiftieth page- as I fancied- stopping for a moment, looking
vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling
whistle of astonishment. He would then begin again at the next
fifty; seeming to commence at number one each time, as though he could
not count more than fifty, and it was only by such a large number of
fifties being found together, that his astonishment at the multitude
of pages was excited.
With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and
hideously marred about the face- at least to my taste- his countenance
yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You
cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I
thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large,
deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit
that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a
certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness
could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never
cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his
head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter
relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will
not venture to decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically
an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of
General WASHINGTON's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It
had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the
brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long
promontories thickly wooded on top.
QUEEQUEG was GEORGE WASHINGTON cannibalistically developed.
Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to
be looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my
presence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance;
but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous
book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had
found thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this
indifference of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at
times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are
overawing; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems as
Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that QUEEQUEG never consorted at
all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made
no advances whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle
of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon
second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was
a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn,
that is- which was the only way he could get there- thrown among
people as strange to him as though he were in THE PLANET JUPITER; -------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Thorpe's dedication to the translation of Lucan?
TO HIS KIND AND TRUE FRIEND, EDWARD BLOUNT
<<Blount:
I purpose to be BLUNT with you, and out of my dullness
to encounter you with a dedication in the memory
of that pure elemental wit Chr. Marlowe,
whose GHOST or genius is to be SEEN WALK THE CHURCHYARD>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
if he do undertake to go a journey BACKWARD --------------------------------------------------------------------
http://hiwaay.net/~paul/bacon/devices/gestaintro.html
<<No Knight [of the Helmet] shall put out any money upon STRANGE returns
or performances to be made by his own person; as to hop up the stairs
to the top of ST. PAUL's without intermission; or any other such
-like agilities or endurances; except it may appear that the same
performances or practices do enable him to some service or employment;
as if he do undertake to go a journey BACKWARD, the same shall
be thought to enable him to be an ambassador into TURKEY.>>
<<The apparition walked BACKWARD from him; and at every step it took,
the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it,
it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When
they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its
hand, warning him to come no nearer.>>
<<Do you know whether they've sold the prize TURKEY that was hanging up
there -- Not the little prize TURKEY: the big one.' `What, the one as
big as me.' returned the boy.>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
Ghosts of PAULES CHURCHYARD ------------------------------------------------------------
VENVS AND ADONIS
Imprinted by Richard Field, and are to be fold at the
figne of the white Greyhound in PAULES CHURCHYARD. 1593.
"LUCRECE. London.
Printed by Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison,
and are to be sold at the signe of
the white Greyhound in PAULES CHURCHYARD, 1594" 4to. ------------------------------------------------------------
<<If we were not perfectly convinced that
Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there
would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a
stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,
than there would be in any other middle-aged
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy
spot -- say SAINT PAUL'S CHURCHYARD for instance --
literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.
[continued in next message]
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