The Marvelous Mundane

Taking a break from reading Chaucer, and from investigating the sources for The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (notably, of course, the story of Reynard and Chaunticleer), as well as briefly dipping into George Lyman Kittredge’s analysis of how Chaucer tells his tales, I found myself reading two completely unrelated poems: “Sea Fever” by John Masefield, and “Horatius” by Thomas Babington Macaulay.

The latter is the famous story of Horatius at the bridge — though seriously abridged in the anthology I found it in (on the page facing the Masefield poem). Reading even the abridged verse makes all too clear how little need we have of most banal fantasy worlds and weak D&D imaginings*; our own myths and history are replete with all manner of wonders:

The Three stood calm and silent,
   And looked upon the foes,
And a great shout of laughter
   From all the vanguard rose;
And forth three chiefs came spurring
   Before the mighty mass;
To earth they sprang, their swords they drew,
And lifted high their shield, and flew
   To win the narrow pass.

Aunus, from green Tifernum,
   Lord of the hill of vines;
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves
   Sicken in Ilva’s mines;
And Picus, long to Clusium
   Vassal in peace and war,

Who led to fight his Umbrian powers
From that grey crag where, girt with towers,
The fortress of Nequinum towers
   O’er the pale waves of Nar.

Of course the original story is legend; even Livy — one of the primary ancient sources — doubts what he reports. But legend and meaning are what we humans give back willingly to this infinite universe of possibility and dream. We creatures seem to be the only ones who can do so, even if “these maps and legends have been misunderstood”. James Joyce posited that every man might recreate during each day the entire Odyssey of Ulysses. Perhaps that is true for every woman as well, though I don’t think so. The figure of Penelope seems more alike a sailor’s fantasy of the perfect wife, chaste at home while her husband goes a-whoring and adventuring — as Kenneth Rexroth noted. Perhaps the great epic of a woman’s journey has yet to find its worthy poet.

Be that as it may, I hope we all might notice the legends and meaning we create every day. As you combat the evils of foul traffic while retaining your courtesy and humanity, as we overcome the new challenges so that we can discover new experience, may the day be filled with that poetry and light that lifts our spirits “spite of despondence” and all such psychic weights. May your own story be one you will be proud to tell. And may we all make it safely home.

**The Masefield poem is the source for a line familiar to Star Trek fans of Captain Kirk: “all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by”

Airport Security

Made it through Atlanta security without getting the obligatory lecture about the safety of the full-body millimeter wave scan system that the TSA guy in San Diego told was now ‘mandatory’ to say to any one choosing to “opt out” of the aforementioned security screening. The woman at ATL just shouted “Male assist!” And told me to wait over there.

I am not surprised that the ‘mandatory’ recitation was only local to San Diego, and perhaps only to Terminal 2 (if not just that guy’s own crew, if indeed it was not his personal idea to tell me how much I’m helping the terrorists win by “opting out”). It underscores the arbitrary nature of power, and neither the reassurances of the safety of the electromagnetic rays which emit “no more radiation than you would get from a cell phone” nor the software which disguises possibly prurient info such as whether I hang right or left nor even the implied threat that he couldn’t say how long it would take to get someone to pat me down nor even the formerly humiliating fact of being patted down in public will deter me from “declining” the million dollar machines that made some rich lobbyist that much richer. I prefer any assault on liberty be literal and a spectacle for to be pondered rather than to have 100 GHz waves invisibly penetrate and violate my 4th Amendment rights.

Those Sirens Aren’t Mermaids, Just Voices in Your Head

More from the Book of Duh:

Again from the BBC, citing the US National Ocean Service: There are no such things as mermaids. Or, as the report more scientifically stated:

“No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.”

The wonders of scientific progress continue. Sailors can breathe more easily. Next up: Zombies and Vampires.