The Siege of London, AD 994

Extract from Gerpla (1952), chapter 23.

As for King Æthelred himself, when he received news that the viking army was on its way to London, he began vomiting more terribly than anyone has ever been known to, and lay bedridden in an out-of-the-way dwelling. Æthelred's men were either killed or taken captive, apart from those who retreated inland and managed to hide themselves in forests or farms.

The Vikings held course for London, arriving in the evening and mooring their ships tightly together on the river below London Bridge; they prepared to storm the town walls at daybreak. There was no army in the town, and none to defend it but the townsfolk themselves. When the Londoners came to realize that an overwhelming force was marching on their town, every one of them made preparations to defend his home and his possessions, each with the weapon, implement, or tool that he had at hand — there being a general shortage of arms normally considered suitable for war, and fighting men to wield them. Most of those who had any skill in arms were at work in the fields of their masters or served in Æthelred's army, or had hired themselves out to other kinds or sailed away on trading voyages. The men left in town were mainly old or children or youths, besides numerous women and cripples. There were also large numbers of lepers and beggars, as well as noseless fornicators and handless thieves.

When the horns signaled the attack, and the Vikings, shouting and screaming, rushed onto the piers, rattled their weapons, and erected ladders against the city walls, they encountered these folk, each jabbing with his own lance. Some of the townsfolk fought with brooms, others with pokers, some with shovels or pitchforks, and many with clubs and sledgehammers. Graybeards and paupers, as well as maimed thieves, fought with their crutches, and children with their toys. The townsfolk showered rocks on the Vikings, while respectable dames and poor women joined in the attack, some pregnant, others carrying babies in swaddling clothes on their backs. Unspoiled maidens and foul whores stood side-by-side and poured boiling urine over the attacker, while others hurled simmering pitch or pumped water on them from the river. Flaming brands were cast at the fleet — fires broke out widely and leapt from ship to ship. It was not long before the fleet was one massive blaze, and great numbers of the Vikings' ships sank. The townsfolk also managed to wreck all the ramps and ladders that the Vikings had thought would gain them access to the city. Every Viking that did manage to make it over the wall was surrounded and thronged by the crowd and pummeled with all sorts of base bludgeons, or stabbed with carving knives and table knives, files and awls, pins and knitting needles and shears, or bitten to death by the inhabitants and ripped to living shreds and thrown to the dogs.

English books say that at this point, when King Æthelred hears this news, he is so terrified that the spew sticks fast in his throat, like an avalanche obstructed by a narrow gully — for the fear that a land's rulers have of foreign conquerors is slight compared to their fear of their own subjects. When Æthelred hears how the townspeople of London are relentlessly burning and sinking the Norsemen's ships, and boiling the Vikings in piss and carving them up with table knives, he feels utterly betrayed— to learn that now, in the space of one morning, the wisdom handed down by sage English kings of old, that the Norsemen are invincible, is to be proven false by a crazy rabble, weaponless and ignorant of warfare, after England's army has fled to the woods or hidden itself in manger stalls.

Æthelred rises from his bed, hale once more, and sends men in haste to Thorkell Strutharaldsson the Tall to deliver the message that he wishes to parley with him and sue for peace with the Vikings. The Vikings respond quickly by retreating from the town and rowing their ships down the river — those that were not burned or sunk. They summon King Æthelred to meet them at the mouth of the river. There they make a pact that is often cited in English books, with King Æthelred promising to pay the Vikings a tribute of four-hundred-and-eighty hundreds in silver. Æthelred, being penniless, offers to open every door in London to the Vikings, and to designate them protectors of the city, and he pledges to command that they be honored above all others by the people of the land and loved most fervently of all their leaders, and to place at their disposal, beyond all other authorities in England, all the city's property and revenue. Thorkell and most of his men, being landless from birth, had never imagined claiming lands or kingdoms for themselves, but only of pillaging for kind or cash. In return for King Æthelred's offer, they pledge their true willingness to defend him from those subjects of his who stubbornly pit themselves against illustrious warlords and eminent conquerors using table knives and ladles, brooms and crutches, or who pour piss on the heads of men of renown.

Guests from Overseas «Заморские гости»
Nicholas Roerich, 1901
oil on canvas, 85 by 112.5cm

The Adventures of Nasreddin and the Hat he Bought for Six Tangas

Nasreddin bought a tubeteika at the bazaar for six tangas. Everyone he met asked him: “How much money did the tubeteika cost you?” Nasreddin answered to the first of them, he answered to the second of them, he answered to the third of them, than he said: “If I answer to everyone, I will go crazy.” He took the tubeteika off his head, ran to the bazaar, and cried: “Hey, people! Go quickly to the square, gather somewhere there! The Big-ones have something to tell you.” All the people gathered at the square, and no one else remained in the city. Nasreddin came upon a high place, and cried: “Hey people, just to let you know, I bought this tubeteika for six tangas”

A tubeteika

[source]

House of Kindness

Bitola (Monastir), 1917 [Source: French Ministry of Culture]

Excerpt from chapter thirty-two of Life in the Tomb (Greek: Η ζωή εν τάφω) by Stratis Myrivilis, in which Sergeant Anthony Kostoulas takes a break from the trenches to nurse his bad leg, and is welcomed warmly into a Slavonic village.

The peasants who are my hosts welcomed me cordially, without any fuss. The moment I remained alone in their midst they began to talk to me all at once in a language which I don't understand but which I never tire of hearing. There are two old men, one youth, five or six women, and a whole army of babies. They all live in two contiguous houses sharing a roofed verandah which is extremely long and wide. There kept speaking to me energetically, all at once, and smiling, until they realized that their language was completely incomprehensible to me.

"Ne znaish... ne znaish?" (Don't you understand?)
"Ne znai?!" (Doesn't he understand?!)

Then, all together, they stopped talking to me and instead began to discuss me among themselves, struggling to divine what answers I would have given to the questions they had been asking for such a long time. While talking they kept turning and looking at me. I looked back at them, and smiled rather stupidly. Then they burst out laughing.

"Ne znaish." (You don't understand.)

But I did understand one thing extremely well: that these were simple, industrious, tormented people. I understood moreover that their words were benevolent, as pure and unadulterated as their bread, all fragrant with compassion and sympathy. That was why tears had welled into my eyes when they surrounded me and wrapped me in their kindhearted loquaciousness; why my hands had strained to enlarge themselves sufficiently to clasp the immense, rough palms as cragged as the bark of an oak.

I tremble in the very depths of my being when Anjo's two little daughters scramble onto my knees. I am bewildered and awkward in their presence; I have been away from children for so long that I don't know how to behave. They rummage endlessly in the bottomless pockets of my greatcoat. Just as they think they've come to the last one they suddenly discover still another (there are no end of pockets in these French coats). I understand their exclamation: "So many pockets!" and I see that the adults share their wonderment.

These two little girls are twins, so identical that they seem like two brightly colored gumdrops pressed out of the same mold. They have red cheeks, blue eyes and blond hair. In their corn-colored pigtails Anjo has braided strips of red and blue cloth with turquoise beads at the ends. The children are always full of mischief, their tiny roses and entire faces always filthy from the roasted corn which they never cease munching. As for their mother, she works away at her loom, her bare feet large and white as they move up and down on the treadles. She too is blond, tall. She speaks slowly, with measured words. Quite frequently she stops, shuttle in hand, and cheerfully scolds my tiny girlfriends who, serious and vociferous, hold veritable conferences about the insignia on my cap. Am I "Grrts" or "Srrp," Greek or Serb? Declare yourself! Their mother tells them that I am a "Grrts," a "dobar kristianin," and... to be careful of my aching leg.

But truly, at this point I am neither a Christian nor a Greek nor a Serb, but simply a human being filled with expectations, nostalgia and fatigue: an exhausted, content human being who admires these people -- envies them -- for being the lovely, openhearted creatures of a beneficent God. I marvel because every one of them (with the exception of the emaciated son) is strongly built and tall, with the simplicity possessed by mankind as a whole before it departed from the straight and narrow path. There are near God and near the earth, all of them. This you perceive from the very moment you set eyes on them. Their home, lamps, clothing, bread, plough, furniture: each is a piece of work which has passed through their industrious hands. Everything inside this house represents a victory in the never-ending battle which these hands have waged against raw material. That is why they are so gnarled, all calluses and knots, as though made of oak.

Their diet consists of cheese pies, peppers, lentils, flour-thickened soup strewn with red pepper, whole wheat bread, and large baked squashes which they cut into immense slices and eat the way we eat melon. They drink cold, refreshing water. They work the soil, which accords them a simple, monotonous happiness. Afterwards, when they grow old and infirm, their large tormented bodies spread over the ground like overripe fruit fallen from a tree, and they return to the earth. There they peacefully dissolve together with all their ancestors. Above them the golden wheat sprouts to its full height once more, the corn soughs throughout the night, and the reapers sing their ancient meandering songs. As for their souls (if we must assume that such things exist) these ascend towards heaven from the earthen thurible, like incense.

I watch these people in the evening as they stretch out on the floor to relax. Propped on one elbow, and using coarsely-whittled holders, they silently smoke a kind of colossal cigarette which they roll ever so slowly and lick with infinite care. The smoke rises to the ceiling and disappears. They watch absentmindedly as its slender bluish-white ribbon leaves the end of the cigarette and, with gentle quavers, ascends either directly or with undulations into the peaceful air which smells of haystacks, threshed cord, and newly scythed grass. This is how their souls will ascend toward the Lord's feet when the proper moment arrives.

Reclining like this for hours, they smoke away in silence. Perhaps they are thinking. Now and then they utter a word or two in a conversation as brief as the exchange of passwords; then they relapse into silence. On the other hand, they may not be thinking at all, and this should be hardly surprising, for simple people have the habit of relaxing not only to the depths of their bodies but to the depths of their minds. Thought for them is not a sickness; it is work. Until recently, they never even realized how happy they were. Only now have they recognized this happiness, now that they have seen the foreign hordes pouring in from the four corners of the earth, rushing to the attack across their fields and cemeteries, trampling their unapprehended well-being underfoot. "They are trampling it," their philosophy must stammer; "ergo it exists." Crossing themselves energetically, they pray God to restore their peace. Months ago a shell came through the ceiling of the verandah and left this House of Peace gravely wounded. This happened one summer; a bit of swallow's nest is still attached to the splintered beam. If only all those responsible for war would come to this place where I am sitting and writing, could fall on their knees in the center of our large verandah and gaze upwards through the gash which the cannons have left in the ceiling of this beneficent home, murdering its swallows! Through this gash they would perceive the blue eyes of an austere, wrathful God -- and then (perhaps) they would stop making war.

I am filled with reverence for this wounded roof which covers so much kindness. Blessings upon this holy sanctuary which has received me so hospitably beneath its red tiles and has stretched its protection over my suffering body. May heaven repay it for everything, and restore its persecuted swallows. Amen.

(Translated from the Modern Greek by Peter Bien)

Hazme de Nieve, Señor

Make me snow, Lord, to human pleasures;

Make me clay to your hands,

fire to your love

The Adventures of Beowulf and Godsylla

by Robert LeBlanc (2017) [source]

Meanehwæl, baccat meaddehæle, monstær lurccen;
Fulle few too many drincce, hie luccen for fyht.
Ðen Hreorfneorhtðhwr, son of Hrwærowþeororthwl,
Æsccen æwful jeork to steop outsyd.
Þud! Bashe! Crasch! Beoom! Ðe bigge gye
Eallum his bon brak, byt his nose offe;
Wicced Godsylla wæld on his asse.
Monstær moppe fleor wyþ eallum men in hælle.
Beowulf in bacceroome fonecall bemaccen wæs;
Hearen sond of ruccus sæd, "Hwæt ðe helle?"
Graben sheold strang ond swich-blæd scharp
Sond feorth to fyht ðe grimlic foe.
"Me," Godsylla sæd, "mac ðe minsemete."
Heoro cwyc geten heold wiþ fæmed half-nelson
Ond flyng him lic frisbe bac to fen.
Beowulf belly up to meaddehæle bar,
Sæd, "Ne foe beaten mie færsom cung-fu."
Eorderen cocca-colha yce-coeld, ðe reol þyng.

The Confession of Alessandro Serenelli, 1961

I'm nearly 80 years old. I'm about to depart.

Looking back at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself.

My behavior was influenced by print, mass-media and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking. And I did the same. I was not worried.

There were a lot of generous and devoted people who surrounded me, but I paid no attention to them because a violent force blinded me and pushed me toward a wrong way of life.

When I was 20 years-old, I committed a crime of passion. Now, that memory represents something horrible for me. Maria Goretti, now a Saint, was my good Angel, sent to me through Providence to guide and save me. I still have impressed upon my heart her words of rebuke and of pardon. She prayed for me, she interceded for her murderer. Thirty years of prison followed.

If I had been of age, I would have spent all my life in prison. I accepted to be condemned because it was my own fault.

Little Maria was really my light, my protectress; with her help, I behaved well during the 27 years of prison and tried to live honestly when I was again accepted among the members of society. The Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins from Marche, welcomed me with angelic charity into their monastery as a brother, not as a servant. I've been living with their community for 24 years, and now I am serenely waiting to witness the vision of God, to hug my loved ones again, and to be next to my Guardian Angel and her dear mother, Assunta.

I hope this letter that I wrote can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life.

Alessandro Serenelli, May 5, 1961

--- original Italian text ---

Sono vecchio di quasi 80 anni, prossimo a chiudere la mia giornata.

Dando uno sguardo al passato, riconosco che nella mia prima giovinezza infilai una strada falsa: la via del male che mi condusse alla rovina. Vedevo attraverso la stampa, gli spettacoli e i cattivi esempi che la maggior parte dei giovani segue quella via, senza darsi pensiero: ed io pure non me ne preoccupai. Persone credenti e praticanti le avevo vicino a me, ma non ci badavo, accecato da una forza bruta che mi sospingeva per una strada cattiva. Consumai a vent’anni il delitto passionale, del quale oggi inorridisco al solo ricordo. Maria Goretti, ora santa, fu l’angelo buono che la Provvidenza aveva messo avanti ai miei passi. Ho impresse ancora nel cuore le sue parole di rimprovero e di perdono. Pregò per me, intercedette per me, suo uccisore.
 
Seguirono trent’anni di prigione. Se non fossi stato minorenne, sarei stato condannato a vita. Accettai la sentenza meritata; rassegnato espiai la mia colpa.

Maria fu veramente la mia luce, la mia Protettrice; col suo aiuto mi diportai bene e cercai di vivere onestamente, quando la società mi riaccettò tra i suoi membri. I figli di San Francesco, i Minori Cappuccini delle Marche, con carità serafica mi hanno accolto fra loro non come un servo, ma come fratello. Con loro vivo dal 1936.
 
Ed ora aspetto sereno il momento di essere ammesso alla visione di Dio, di riabbracciare i miei cari, di essere vicino al mio angelo protettore e alla sua cara mamma, Assunta.

Coloro che leggeranno questa mia lettera vogliano trarre il felice insegnamento di fuggire il male, di seguire il bene, sempre, fin da fanciulli. Pensino che la religione coi suoi precetti non è una cosa di cui si può fare a meno, ma è il vero conforto, la unica via sicura in tutte le circostanze, anche le più dolorose della vita.

Pace e bene!

Excerpts from Report to Greco

1. My father spoke only rarely, never laughed, never engaged in brawls. He simply grated his teeth or clenched his fist at certain times, and if he happened to be holding a hard-shelled almond, rubbed it between his fingers and reduced it to dust. Once when he saw an aga place a packsaddle on a Christian and load him down like a donkey, so completely did his anger overcome him that he charged towards the Turk. He wanted to hurl and insult at him, but his lips had become contorted. Unable to utter a human word, he began to whinny like a horse. I was still a child. I stood there and watched, trembling with fright. And one midday as he was passing through a narrow land on his way home for dinner, he heard women shrieking and doors being slammed. A huge drunken Turk with drawn yataghan was pursuing Christians. He rushed upon my father the moment he saw him. The heat was torrid, and my father, tired from work, felt in no mood for a brawl. It occurred to him momentarily to turn into another lane and flee--no one was looking. But this would have been shameful. Untying the apron he had on, he wrapped it around his fist, and just as the colossal Turk began to raise the yataghan above his head, he gave him a punch in the belly and sprawled him out on the ground. Stooping, he wrenched the yataghan out of the other's grip and strode homeward. My mother brought him a clean shirt to put on--he was drenched in sweat--and I (I must have been about three years old) sat on the couch and gazed at him. His chest was covered with hair and steaming. As soon as he had changed and cooled off, he threw the yataghan down on the couch next to me. Then he turned to his wife.

"When your son grows up and goes to school," he said, "give him this as a pencil sharpener."

2. The priest had placed himself at the head of the grave, where he swung the censer up and down and murmured prayers under his breath. I leaned over the newly dug soil. Mold, putrefaction; I pinched my nostrils. Though I felt sick to my stomach, I did not go away. I waited. Bones? What bones? I kept asking myself, and I waited.

Suddenly the man who was bent over and digging stood up straight. His torso emerged above the pit. In his hands he held a skull. He cleaned the dirt off it, inserting his finger and pushing the mud out of the eye cavities, then placed it on the lip of the grave, leaned over again, and recommenced his digging.

"What is it?" I asked my uncle, trembling from fright.
"Can't you see? It's a dead person's head. A skull."
"Whose?"
"Don't you remember her? It's out neighbour Annika's."
"Annika's!"
I burst into tears and began to howl.
"Annika's! Annika's!" I cried. Throwing myself in the ground, I grabbed all the stones I could find and started to hurl them at the gravedigger.

Wailing and lamenting, I screamed how beautiful she was, how beautiful she smelled! She used to come to our house, place me on her knees and comb my curls with the comb she removed from her hair. She used to tickle me under the arms, and I giggled, I peeped like a bird.

My uncle took me in his arms, carried me off a little ways, and spoke to me angrily. "Why are you crying? What did you expect? She died. We're all going to die."

But I was thinking of her blond hair, her large eyes, the red lips which used to kiss me. And now...
"And her hair," I shrieked, "her lips, her eyes?..."
"Gone, gone. The earth ate them."
"Why, why? I don't want people to die!"
My uncle shrugged his shoulders. "When you grow up, you'll find out why."

I never did find out. I grew up, became old, and never did find out.

3. Pateropoulos in the first grade: a little old man, very short, fierce-eyed, with drooping mustache, and the switch constantly in hand. He hunted us down, collected us, then set us out in a row as though we were ducks and he were taking us to market to sell. "The bones are mind, the flesh is yours, Teacher," every father instructed him as he turned over his wild goat of a son. "Thrash him, thrash him until he becomes a man." And he thrashed us pitilessly. All of us, teacher and students alike, awaited the day when these many beatings would turn us into men. When I grew older and philanthropic theories began to mislead my mind. I termed this method barbarous. But when I came to know human nature still better, I blessed, and still bless, Pateropoulos's holy switch. It was this that taught us that suffering is the greatest guide along the ascent which leads from animal to man.

4. One day while reading the legend of Saint John of the Hut, I jumped to my feet and made a decision: "I shall go to Mount Athos to become a saint!" Without turning to look at my mother (Saint John of the Hut had not turned to look at his mother), I strode over the threshold and out into the street. Taking the most outlying lanes and running all the way for fear that one of my uncles might see me and take me back home, I reached the harbor, where I approached a caique, the one which was ready to weigh anchor first. A sun-roasted seaman was leaning over the iron bitt and struggling to undo the cable. Trembling with emotion, I went up to him.

"Can you take me with you, Captain?"
"Where do you want to go?"
"Mount Athos."
"Where? Mount Athos? To do what?"
"Become a saint."

The skipper shook with laughter. Clapping his hands as though shooing away a hen, he shouted, "Home! Home!"

I ran home in disgrace, crawled under the sofa, and never breathed a word to anyone. Today is the first time I admit it: my initial attempt to become a saint miscarried.

5. Early the next morning my father took me by the hand.
"Come," he said.
My mother became frightened. "Where are you taking the boy? Not a single Christian has left his house yet."
"Come," my father repeated. He opened the door and we went outside.
"Where are we going?" I asked. My hand was trembling inside his massive palm.
I looked up and down the street. It was deserted except for two Turkish women at the corner who were washing at the tap. The water had turned red.
"Are you afraid?"
"Yes."
"That doesn't matter. You'll get used to it."

Turning the corner, we headed toward the harbor gate. We passed a house that was still smoking and many others with broken doors, blood still on the thresholds. When we reached the main square with its lion-scupltured fountain and the huge old plane tree at the edge, my father stopped.
"Look!" he said, pointing with his hand.

I looked up toward the plane tree and uttered a cry. Three hanged men were swinging there, one next to the other. They were barefooted, dressed only in their nightshirts, and deep green tongues were hanging out of their mouths. Unable to endure the sight, I turned my head away and clung to my father's knees. But he grasped my head with his hand and rotated it toward the plane tree.

"Look!" he ordered me again.
My eyes filled with hanged men.
"As long as you live--do you hear--may these hanged men never be out of your sight!"
"Who killed them?"
"Liberty, God bless it!"

I did not understand. Goggle-eyed, I stared and stared at the three bodies that were slowly swaying among the yellowing leaves of the plane tree.
My father swept his glance around him and pricked up his ears. The streets were deserted. He turned to me.

"Can you touch them?"
"No!" I answered, terrified.
"You can!... Come!"
We went close; my father crossed himself hurriedly, repeatedly
"Touch their feet!" he commanded.
He took my hand. I felt their cold, crusty skin against the tips of my fingers. The night dew was still upon them.
"Kiss them! Do obeisance!" my father now commanded. Seeing me try to make a break and get away, he seized me beneath the arms, lifted me, bent my head downward, and forcefully glued my mouth to the rigid feet.

He put me down. My knees could not support me. He leaned over and looked at me.
"That was to help you get used to it," he said.

Once more he took me by the hand. We returned home. My mother was standing behind the door waiting anxiously.
"Where in God's name did you go?" she asked, seizing me avidly and kissing me.
"We went to do obeisance," answered my father, and he gave me a trustful look.

Tamana

Your quest is my objective, as long as I live,
Of you alone I talk, while I have a tongue.
God knows how it all may end,
Impatient am I, intemperate he.
For you alone I yearn, if yearn at all,
You are my desire, if I harbour one.
Much have I travelled in the garden of this world,
Peerless is the flower of friendship in its scent and hue.
A blessing is the sense of sight, the sight of friends a boon,
You and I will cease to be, once our eyes are shut.
Who else, o Dard, should my eyes accost?
He alone is present wheresoever I look.

-- Khwaja Mir Dard (1721-1785)

Father Makarios

"Do you still wrestle with the devil, Father Makarios?" I asked him.
"Not any longer, my child. I have grown old now, and he has grown old with me. He doesn't have the strength... I wrestle with God."
"With God!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "And you hope to win?"
"I hope to lose, my child. My bones remain with me still, and they continue to resist."
"Yours is a hard life, Father. I too want to be saved. Is there no other way?"
"More agreeable?" asked the ascetic, smiling compassionately.
"More human, Father."
"One, only one."
"What is it?"
"Ascent. To climb a series of steps. From the full stomach to hunger, from the slaked throat to thirst, from joy to suffering. God sits at the summit of hunger, thirst, and suffering; the devil sits at the summit of the comfortable life. Choose."

Nikos KAZANTZAKIS, Report to Greco, pp. 222-223
Earlier excerpt c.f. Catholic News (Archdiocese of Singapore)

The Horse and the Crane

"Och över denna vida sanka mark flög Tranan med avmätta vingslag. Och marken var fast som en hed och dundrade. Och Tranans ben tunna som förkolnade halmstrån. Och Häst'n: stor och svart och stingslig och oskyldig som bara Månlidhästen."

"And over this wide watery land flew the Crane with measured wing-strokes And the ground was solid as a moor and thundered. And the Crane’s legs thin as charred straw And the Horse big and black and tetchy and innocent like no-one but the Horse of Månliden."

Tale of the Fishwife and its Sad Fate

Note: [See original post] noun genders are indicated by colour

It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm.

And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth -- will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog deserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin -- which he eats, himself, as his Reward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot -- she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys it; she attacks its Hand and destroys her also; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg(?) and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck -- he goes; now its Chin -- it goes; now its Nose -- she goes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. Time presses -- is there none to succor and save?

Yes! Joy, joy, with flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generous she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased from its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of it for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good square responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots.

-- Mark Twain, in The Awful German Tongue (1880)

Let him boast

Take yourselves for instance, brothers, at the time when you were called:
how many of you were wise in the ordinary sense of the word,
----- how many were influential people, or came from noble families?

No, it was to shame the wise that God chose what is foolish by human reckoning,
and to shame what is strong that he chose what is weak by human reckoning;

Those whom the world thinks common and contemptible
-----are the ones that God has chosen
----- -- those who are nothing at all to show up those who are everything.
The human race has nothing to boast about to God,
but you, God has made members of Christ Jesus
and by God's doing he has become our wisdom,
----- and our virtue, and our holiness, and our freedom.
As scripture says:
----- if anyone wants to boast, let him boast about the Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Bishop George Berkeley

"Men learn the elements of science from others;
and every learner hath a deference more or less to authority,
especially the younger learners,
few of that kind caring to dwell long upon principles,
but including rather to take them on trust:
And things early admitted by repetition become familiar:
And this familiarity at length passeth for evidence."

-- A Defence of Freethinking in Mathematics (1735)

Iasyr Shivaza

This poem from Soviet Kyrgyzstan is written in the oddly out-of-place language of Dungan, a dialect of Mandarin spoken across Central Asia and written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
The poet in question is Iasyr Shivaza, a.k.a. Ясыр Шывазы a.k.a. 雅斯尔·十娃子, a celebrated Dungan poet.
For those who can read Cyrillic, enjoy!

Source: Rimsky-Korsakoff (1991) (via Wikipedia)

Бый хўтер

Тэйон җошон, бый хўтер, Ни тэ гощин.
Ни лян җин гуон фадини, Чиди чун фын.
Йисыр ни до тяншонли, Зущён бый юн.
Йисыр зу до хуайүанли. Ба щян хуар вын.
Җяр хуардини, вә канди, Ниди щин го.
Дусы ниди да хуайүан, Ни ющир луә.
Ни лян хун хуар фадини, Тэёнйибан.
Дын нидини мо җүхуар. Щүәбый модан...
Нисы чунтян, гуон зоди; Хуар кэди вон.
Зун луәбудо, хўтер-а, Җин фуершон.

白蝴蝶儿

太阳照上，白蝴蝶儿，你太高兴。
你连金光耍的呢，骑的春风。
一时你到天上了，走向白云。
一时走到花园里，把鲜花儿闻。
拣花儿的你，我看的，你的心高。
都是你的大花园，你有心儿落。
你连红花儿耍的呢，太阳一般。
等你的呢毛菊花儿，雪白牡丹。。。
你是春天，光找的，花儿开的旺。
总落不到，蝴蝶儿啊，金树叶儿上。

Perl

We'll write more about Perl after we decipher the following code:
perl -wlne'END{print$n}eof&&$n++;/<title>([^<]+)/i&&$n--' *

Intepretation
The code in question (from the collection "The road to Perligata") is a lament over the coming apocalypse, an expression of the author's Weltschmerz and the futility of all human endeavors. Let us take it step by step:

-wlne'
-The world is near its end.

END{print$n}
-At the end the sum of all our sins and virtues will be reckoned and the judgement revealed.

eof&&$n++;
-As the evil of mankind ends, perhaps the end itself is a positive thing.

/<title>([^<]+)/
-We are preoccupied with fame and titles

i
-And insensitive to the suffering of others.

&&$n--
-All this is for nought, and only hastens our demise.

' *
-For in the end, we are but stardust.

[source]

Dawkins on Hysteria

"Priestly abuse of children is nowadays taken to mean sexual abuse, and I feel obliged, at the outset, to get the whole matter of sexual abuse into proportion and out of the way. Others have noted that we live in a time of hysteria about paedophilia, a mob psychology that calls to mind the Salem witch-hunts of 1692… All three of the boarding schools I attended employed teachers whose affections for small boys overstepped the bounds of propriety. That was indeed reprehensible. Nevertheless, if, fifty years on, they had been hounded by vigilantes or lawyers as no better than child murderers, I should have felt obliged to come to their defence, even as the victim of one of them (an embarrassing but otherwise harmless experience).

"The Roman Catholic Church has borne a heavy share of such retrospective opprobrium. For all sorts of reasons I dislike the Roman Catholic Church. But I dislike unfairness even more, and I can’t help wondering whether this one institution has been unfairly demonized over the issue, especially in Ireland and America… We should be aware of the remarkable power of the mind to concoct false memories, especially when abetted by unscrupulous therapists and mercenary lawyers. The psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has shown great courage, in the face of spiteful vested interests, in demonstrating how easy it is for people to concoct memories that are entirely false but which seem, to the victim, every bit as real as true memories. This is so counter-intuitive that juries are easily swayed by sincere but false testimony from witnesses."

- The God Delusion, pps 315-16

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia [detail] / acrylic on canvas / 2 March 2010 (view whole painting)
The Wisdom of God cries aloud,
The Lord created me when his purpose first unfolded,
before the oldest of his works.
From everlasting I was firmly set,
from the beginning, before earth came into being.
The deep was not, when I was born,
there were no springs to gush with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
before the hills, I came to birth;
before he made the earth, the countryside,
or the first grains of the world's dust.

When he fixed the heavens firm, I was there,
when he drew a ring on the surface of the deep,
when he thickened the clouds above,
when he fixed fast the springs of the deep,
when he assigned the sea its boundaries
and the waters will not invade the shore --
when he laid down the foundations of the earth,
I was by his side, a master craftsman,
delighting him day after day,
ever at play in his presence,
at play everywhere in his world,
delighting to be with the sons of men.

-- Proverbs 8:22-31

Apologetics Fail

The oft-quoted excerpt from an interview between Christopher Hitchens (atheist) and Marilyn Sewell (retired Unitarian minister)

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

And because Sewell threw off too much ballast, it could only happen that the many Christians that linked to this excerpt didn't take sides with her.

[source]

Lermontov

from the aforementioned novel, a side story featuring Lermontov, a Russian poet

The competition continued: everyone tried to be the center of attention. Someone played the piano, couples danced, adjacent groups loudly laughed and talked: people tried to outdo each other in wit, everyone tried to surpass the others and be seen.

Martynov was there, too; tall, handsome, almost operetta elegant in his uniform and with a large dagger, surrounded by women. Oh, how much he irritated Lermontov! God was unjust to give such a handsome face to that idiot and short legs to Lermontov. But if the poet lacked long legs, he had a sarcastic wit that had lifted him high.

He approached Martynov's group and awaited his opportunity. Then he made an insolent remark and watched the stunned faces near him.

And still another insolent remark, and then another, so that the handsome Martynov is insulted at last. He reprimands Lermontov before the entire company.

What? Should Lermontov take back his witty remarks? Should he apologize? Never!

His friends warn him. It's insane to risk a duel over foolishness. It's best to calm things down. Your life, Lermontov, is more precious than that laughable will-o'-the-wisp, honor!

What? Is there something more precious than honor?
Yes, Lermontov, your life, your work.
No, there is nothing more precious than honor!

Honor is merely the hunger of your vanity, Lermontov. Honor is a mirror illusion, honor is merely a spectacle for this insignificant audience, which will no longer be here tomorrow!

But Lermontov and the moments in which he is living are as immense as eternity, and the ladies and gentlemen watching him are the world's amphitheater! Either he will cross this amphitheater with a firm and virile step, or he will not deserve to live!

The Saint named Sophia

The Wisdom of God cries aloud,
The Lord created me when his purpose first unfolded,
before the oldest of his works.
From everlasting I was firmly set,
from the beginning, before earth came into being.
The deep was not, when I was born,
there were no springs to gush with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
before the hills, I came to birth;
before he made the earth, the countryside,
or the first grains of the world's dust.

When he fixed the heavens firm, I was there,
when he drew a ring on the surface of the deep,
when he thickened the clouds above,
when he fixed fast the springs of the deep,
when he assigned the sea its boundaries
and the waters will not invade the shore --
when he laid down the foundations of the earth,
I was by his side, a master craftsman,
delighting him day after day,
ever at play in his presence,
at play everywhere in his world,
delighting to be with the sons of men.

-- Proverbs 8:22-31
(The Jerusalem Bible)