Geological Time

1

Current estimates on the Grand Canyon suggest that the Colorado River has been gouging its way through the Colorado bedrock for about 17 million years.

The position now is that with the uplifting of the plateau the river has been able to cut down through nearly 2 billion years’ worth of rock strata.

 

That means that sediment has been laid down there for more than 2 billion years; that the area was a fairly level, fairly stable sea or lake bed for that time.

It means that the sediment has been weathered from neighbouring rock formations, then washed down there, laid down there, built up over, over that amount of time.

It means that previous rock formations existed there, and were weathered down. Which means those previous rock formations were uplifted rocks before the weathering began.

 

It means the sediment was fossilized by tremendous weight , creating frictional heat bonding the sediment together, to form rock minerals and crystals. To create a rock landscape.

And it also means that this fairly level, stable area has also been uplifted to its current height above the plain.

 

2

The time scale is phenomenal – how can we begin to imagine that length of time? And the energies needed to uplift that weight of rock – greater than any earthquake or volcanic activity we have ever known.

 

It is estimated that 25 to 30 million years ago the ape -monkey-man split occurred. This was around the time the great African Rift Valley… rifted. Previously to this it was a fairly level sedimentary plain. The rock layers crumpled and pulled apart. The upper region of this rift can still be seen and active on the Somali/Red Sea coast.

 

It is estimated that plate tectonics, which accounts for all this rifting and lifting, has been going on for about 3 billion years. It has also been estimated the most active tectonic period was about 1.1 billion years ago; after which it has slowed down as the earth cooled, as the plates became thicker, heavier.

The Good Old Days

1

There was a time it was strenuously ignored, denied even, that women had such as desires, sexual appetites, a normalcy of sexuality.

People, the Freuds, the Ibsens etc, had been battering at that wall a good while, before the gates were at last opened, the cat let out of the bag, and the whole roundedness of human behaviour allowed.

In the 1960s it became a duty to free oneself; for a woman especially the duty was a pressing matter: if one did not partake then one was still inhibited, still in the trap. If one did not particularly like or have an interest in everything one was supposed to in the sexual field, then the cloud was there, the doubt cast, the reputation and the cat-calls and names ready to be applied.

It was thought best for a younger woman to be liberated early to be entirely ‘free’; the age crept back and back: Goodmorning, Little Schoolgirl! Otherwise breaking out of the ‘strait-jacket’ of adulthood would be only so much more difficult, painful, even. So ran the thinking. The thinking always had a poor relationship with actuality.

There was always the proselytising: I remember Student meetings where self-styled demagogues would hold the stage and lay into the audience for half an hour or more for their being apathetic, that is, not doing what he thought they should be doing to support this strike, that sit-in, somewhere else’s something. The Underground Press became full of this, the International Times was taken over by a Red Faction who thought they held the key to everything, and people stopped reading.

For women and girls it became de rigeur to be someone’s ‘chick’, or ‘little lady’. I remember squirming at the time myself, young as I was, at this kind of talk and acting. And then there was all the compartmentalising of behaviour, expectation, circumscribed range of interests. Thank heavens for Women’s Lib, it lifted the lid on the circular thinking and self-interest.

There are always predators, the groomers and the defilers. And of yes some of them had long hair, fancy clothes.

2

Look back at some of the publications, the names that keep cropping up: the sheer egotism needed to drive oneself on, through the gaolings, leading demos, instigating happenings and actions – standing up above the crowd, speaking out, making oneself noticed, heard, listened to, engaged with, taken seriously. The egotistical belief in one’s sheer invincibility, importance – and along with that the belief the world was yours, its fruits were yours for the picking. And for some that included the young girls.

These were a few. Most had more scruples, saw scruples as necessary: the morality of freedom, it is a strange oxymoron, but it is a very potent mix. If anyone made a difference it was the ones with scruples.

This period did not last long – long enough for untold damage to be done to girls, though. No wonder women were so angry – all the ‘new society’ did was in many ways perpetuate the same abuse of women and girls that had been going on so long

The period that followed the sixties summer was one of involvement with self: to free the self first; but the circular, recursive trap caught many. Drugs took a greater hold. Where before had been a youth movement now everyone splintered into cliques, cults. And the reactions set in. Ugliness.

You wonder in retrospect whether the thinking came first, the spirit of thought, if you like, that was experienced in the coffee bars, the all-night talk sessions – or was the thinking just used to justify selfishness and indulgence of ego-appetites. Freedom as the ultimate in self indulgence.

3

It is now hard to imagine the commitment of the young before this period. Take, for instance, the Easter Marches, from 1958 to 1963,  London to Aldermaston: 52 miles each way. Four days on the road. The March was also reversed, to end up in rallies in London, the seat of power.

The CND Rallies – it was very urgent, committed, and very moral. Scruples, again. There were the outside cliques, groupings, gangs: Teddy Boys with their knuckledusters, purple hearts and flick knives; bikers with their bike chains, knives; Beatniks with their reefers. But there was also a fragile idealism.

‘You are all being manipulated!’ – by The Man, no doubt. I remember parents and papers saying this. It was convenient: Security Services letting slip that CND leaders were closet Stalinists. Probably some were, and of course Moscow made it that it was their duty to recruit.

The vast majority of people, from all backgrounds, were caught up in the urgency only, they had a focus, and impact. Young people recognising themselves, that they were young together, full of hope for a different future, full of enthusiasm and life. Summers in St Ives, sleeping on the beach: English summers, sunshine slanting through window slats, in a modernist light, colours fresh and full. Because it may be your last. The Bomb, the Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain. The Cuban Missile Crisis. There could be only the Now. Made doubly, trebly more potent.

3

What was the difference between those times and the violence of Mods and Rockers that followed? And later the Skinheads and increase in violence levels of the 1970s? How did these periods devolve; what was the dynamic behind it, what was the nature of the entropic movement?

Ask that kind of question and you require an answer on a similar basis, using similar phrasings and concepts. But what if the question itself was wrongly constructed, wrongly directed, wrongly weighted – what if its propositions should not be propositions at all but more multi-based, multi-faceted constructions? I have long doubted the veracity of the approach that broke down a question to its simplest forms, as though it were possible to disentangle it and still see it as a whole.

We cannot talk or think about generations – and there are no branches on the trees of genealogies: there is only foliage, leaves overlapping that make a whole cover – there are too many intermediary stages to make compartmentalism useful. I loved the Monkees – and Velvet Underground; I loved frothy pop, as well as early electronic music.

And I hated Star Trek – because it proposed a future of just the same mental attitudes and gender roles and self-righteous Westerner-think. And just the same limited range of solutions: bang-bang, thump and kill.

From the Mabinogion

Pwyll Prince of Dyfed.

If we look at the structure we see it is well considered, and revealing of the underlying intention of the tale.

Part 1

Pwyll was at Arberth; he  rode out hunting. He came across another’s pack of hounds which had brought down a stag. He drove them off and ‘baited his hounds’ on it instead. The other hunter rode up. It was Arawn, King of Anwm (the underworld), and was incensed: Pwyll had broken protocol and dishonoured him. They only way he could repay was to change places for one year and a day. They each took on the form of the other and took each other’s place. After the year, on the last day, Pwyll was to meet Arawn’s rival King Hafgan at a tryst. Pwyll was to strike one blow, no more.

Pwyll spent the year in pleasantry, hunting and fine talk; each night with the queen, though, was spent chastely. At the time of the tryst, Pwyll ordered the retinue that under no circumstances were any to aid him against Hafgan. The blow was dealt and King Hafgan pleading innocence of any wrong, died. Pwyll took over Hafgan’s province alongside with the one he was looking after.

The two re-exchanged forms and places, the debt of honour was paid.

Part 2

Prince Pwyll was still unmarried. Amongst his retinue was rumour of a mysterious mound nearby, where anyone who spent the night was either set upon or found some marvel. They set to test it. On the first night a woman came past on a horse, finely arrayed. Pwyll sent a follower to see who she was. Try as he might though, and although her horse ambled he could not catch up with her. The next night the same. On the third night Pwyll himself resolved to do the job. He could not catch up with either, so hailed her, at which she stopped for him. She was Rhiannon, daughter of Hefydd the Old. She was to be betrothed against her will; her heart was set only on Pwyll. Pwyll was agreeable; they set off for her father’s to discuss the matter. A feast was ordered. A young man came, greeted Pwyll; Pwyll greeted him as honour demanded. The man asked a favour of Pwyll; he agreed to grant it. But it was Rhiannon’s hated betrother: Pwyll, on his honour had granted a favour without asking who it might me. He had to delay his marriage to Rhiannon for a year, whilst she spent it with the man, but chastely. After that year they must meet at a tryst.

At the tryst the man was tricked and captured, and only let go once he agreed to releasing Rhiannon. He did, and the marriage was allowed between Pwyll and Rhiannon.

Part 3

After three happy years Pwyll’s retinue became uneasy; they needed an heir, and there did not seem to be any chance. Put her by and find another wife, they said. He asked for another year. During that time a boy was born. The six midwives watching mother and baby fell asleep. Upon waking they could find no child. To save themselves they made it look as if Rhiannon had eaten the child in the night. She was distraught, sought counsel. As no body was to be found they advised her to take penance, over punishment. It was to last seven years: at the town gate she had to tell who would listen her tale, and offer to carry them in on her back.

In another part of the county lived Teyrnon Twryf Liant, Lord of Gwent Is-Coed. He noticed that whenever his prize mare foaled the foal disappeared. He resolved to discover what happened to them. His mare was ready to foal, so he spent the night with her. As she foaled a claw came through the window and grabbed it. He cut off the arm with his sword; he heard a great howling; he looked saw no one only a baby in fine covers that had been dropped. They looked after the child; he grew prodigiously. At the age of four they heard they tale of Rhiannon and her child. Seeing the resemblance, they took the child to court and returned him to his mother. They would take nothing in return: they had done the honourable thing.

This is a fine tale, and well told. I have divided it into Parts; in the book the tale consists of one long narrative divided at the salient parts by an extra spacing.

The structure is strong, and clear: there are here three episodes of loss: Pwyll of his Princedom, of his marriage, and of their child. The first and third Parts depict the loss as by magical/otherworldy means: Pwyll must enter the otherworld for a year; the child is abducted by otherworldly means. Both are returned at the end of a set time: four years for the child reflects the three years of marriage before the child’s birth and possibly the year previous spent apart. Alternatively the fourth year reflects the last year allowed by the retinue for the birth before more steps would be taken to procure an heir.

There are two trysts which decide the fate of Pwyll’s fortunes. Can we expect a third such bond or agreement in the last Part to complete a pattern? There is no tryst, nor need of one. What there is though, and this proves the intent of the whole, is Lord Teyrnon and wife returning the child they had given a name to and raised for four years – as the honorable thing to do. Honour is the key to the whole tale: it is lack of honourable conduct allows Pwyll to bait his hounds on another’s kill. Restitution proves Pwyll’s readiness to rule: he acts out Arawn’s kingly role in the otherworld, including adopting chastity, and also wrests another realm from King Hagfan. Honour without wisdom brings about the calamity of the marriage betrothal in Part two: Pwyll acted honourably to his guest, but not wisely in granting a stranger a favour.

Does the structure prove itself a ring? Part one parallels Part three, as outlined above on the theme of otherworldly loss. The tale opens with Prince Pwyll in Arberth; his first act is to go out hunting. The whole tale ends with the lost son replacing his deceased father, adding more land to his kingdom, and seeking out a wife. The paralleling we expect is more general: Part one and three repeat the acquisition of land and the otherworld agency themes. Otherworldly agency occurs also in the central Part: Rhiannon’s horse cannot be caught up with, no matter how strong the pursuing horse.

The mysterious claw which seizes the baby/foal (there is the echo here of a horse-reverence we find in the following tale, amongst the Irish) and loss of arm immediately calls to mind Grendels’ arm in the hall of Heorot in Beowulf. We can only speculate that the composer of this tale was equally au fait with the Beowulf tale.  Wisdom would seem from this to be a virtue of the capacity of sight: because the young man was not recognised in Part two, the calamity befell Pwyll and Rhiannon’s betrothal. Because Teyrnon recognised the child’s resemblance to Pwyll in Part three he could be restored to his place and parents. Greek Athena, goddess of, yes, hunting, as well as wisdom was known for her keenness of sight, an ability of super-natural penetration. On a more contemporaneously accessible level there are Biblical references to sight and wisdom, mostly connected with the omnipotence of God and his all-seeing. Especially keen-sight, and all-sight are epithets of the divine/supernatural/otherworldly; that none could recognise Pwyll or Arawn in their opposite forms in Part one is important in this respect. Wisdom comes with honour, but also, and especially, with experience of both the natural and super-natural; it is also perhaps an epithet of royal lineage, that goes with good rule, respect and stable government. Not necessarily age, note.

The Lais of Marie de France continued: BISCLAVRET

Of the Lais of Marie de France, Bisclavret has aroused much controversy. Bisclavret, an early werewolf story, has gained comments as a misogynistic tale. In Bisclavret the married king Bisclavret regularly absents himself several days a week from his castle. Eventually his wife gets him to unveil his secret, in a time honoured fashion that goes at least back the Bible. He reveals that he turns into a wolf; that as long as his clothes remain he can change back. His wife then steals his clothes so he cannot change back, and once the king is declared missing, marries her new suitor. The deception is unmasked, king restored, and wife and new suitor/king suitably done away with.

How are we to read Bisclavret? This is deception of the worst kind: the loving embrace that then reveals one’s vulnerabilities to the world, as it were. Is this tale a prime example of the misogyny of the time, and especially of Church attitudes? We cannot read well the signs of older cultural models. As Dutch historian Johan Huizinga asserts in his excellent essays Men and Ideas, the marriage of convenience was very much the model for nobles and people of rank. Woman were commodities, because vehicles for succession through child-bearing; in the case of lack of issue, as we see in other tales, the man would be advised Put your wife aside, choose another to ensure an heir – because, of course, it was always the woman who could not conceive (I do suspect it was well-known that it was as much the man’s inability; this would never be stated in public, or the public place of text). The flip-side to this is, if a woman is so positioned with a man with doubtful proclivities, as in Bisclavret, the woman could be just as likely to ‘Put the man aside’ and find a mate better suited. And with all the elements of supplanting that goes with this.

One of the key writers on these topics Johan Huizinga, also commented: It is manifest that the political and military history of the last centuries of the Middle Ages as described by Froissart, Monstrelet, Chastellain… reveals very little chivalry and a great deal of covetousness, cruelty, cold calculation, well-understood self-interest, and diplomatic subtlety. The reality of history seems constantly to disavow the fanciful ideal of chivalry. (Chivalric Ideals in the Middle Ages). In Equitan the relationship of the seneschal and his wife perhaps fell under these last designations. That she is described in the text by Equitan, as a lady who needs love: the marriage, as most of the period was one of convenience and arrangement

We cannot, I suspect, judge Bisclavret’s wife by any standards than what we know of those of the time. It probably was not actually accepted practice for the wife to do this, put the husband aside – especially not a king – and hence its appearance in this tale: we glimpse something perhaps of Marie de France’s originality in her choice of content here. In this tale could we say then that the dynamic is in the discord between the reality of the mores of the time, and those of the chivalric mores some attempted to re-introduce? Is this the source of the dynamic of the Lais as a whole: contemporary discord and the search for harmony? We see the novelty and great achievement of Marie de France in writing about amour courtois against this background and winning favour and acclaim through doing so. This new perspective does seem to be the gestalt behind Marie de France writing-up, and presenting these Lais.

If we apply Huizinga’s assertion we can perhaps see a more contemporaneous interpretation that gives an alternative reading. We dabble here with Intentionality: how can we gauge Marie de France’s intentionality in this tale? When we look again at Equitan we see how the writer valued romantic love above the mores of her time, we see in the central part of the tale, the ‘heart’ of the tale where the story was leading, and from where the consequences derive, how the constancy of the affair between Equitan and the seneschal’s wife was lauded: in all that time he neither took another lover nor neglected her, that he was willing to kill for her so they could take up an honourable relationship in marriage. But is there anything in here that shows her ‘bucking the trend’, rather than producing a romantic fantasy? In the tale of Equitan we hear the wife’s fears and doubts, and they are indeed given full expression: they match the king’s for intensity and responsible awareness. She is no member of the ‘lower orders’ struck dumb, abashed or overawed by being feted by the king; she is her own woman, and well aware of the responsibilities of her and, later we see, his position. So, yes, I think we do see here cause for reading intentionality in the Lais.

CABBAGES AND KINGS: a chiasmus

 1

Alciabades

i

Pisander in Athens, in time of war

with armsful of presents (labelled ‘If’,

labelled ‘Trust Me’, ‘Guaranteed’),

 

says: “Alciabades …”,  (whoa, place him later – )

“…should be recalled, and the democratic

whatyoucallit, bodypolitic

thingy…” – (slight misdirection) – “… you know,

the constitution,  changed…”  (madness, surely)…

 

but they were counting off, like he was

on fingers – how they loved newfangleness -

now placed his, and they with him, this point, thus,

-  the sophist’s snake in the attic vase – this Then:

“…then they would have the king their ally.”

 

(Read: Paymaster, and read: Buy Me, Cheap;

read Desperate, Patched, and Thin.)

 

ii

Though Phrynichus, intrigued against intriguer,

said Alciabades cared little for cause

so long as he was recalled: democracy, oligarchy…

-  what we were free to do, what we were bound to do …

 

and how he feared the discovery of his inability,

and how that was what woke him constantly.

 

But no one listened nor wanted knowledge,

only peace, and so Phrynichus, the worn

and compromised rag that was their conscience,

readied himself for the assassin’s knife.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

Cromwell

i

“That we may understand really

the bottom of our desires…” …

“…not just plausible and good things

but seasonable and honest…”…

“…what we were, where we are,

what we were bound to do, what we are free to do….”

he paused, for he understood, then,

desires can change.

And when offered the crown

“…three times he put it by, each time

a little more reluctantly…”

I noticed this.

“Time was we had not boggled at this word.”

he said. To kill a king is no newfangleness.

ii

The Divine Rights of Kings – and of assassins;

Pascal’s Provincial Letters, their quiet reading,

subversively plots out the reasoning -

like a knot garden, a quiet strength

in the midst of tumult, where God

is the repository of conscience, and conscience

the true measure of action.

When God is wrenched out of gesture

let conscience be questioned

I would like to think

by each cut, slash… despatch.

iii

Naseby Hill, and the King coming on

from before, Prince Rupert from the right -

auxiliaries challenged their phalanx

and it broke.

How many stumbled, caught, vulnerable, died

in that garden, the rabbit warren

they charged across? The underground chambers

palpitating with life.

 

 

Lord of the Rings: Reprise

I have to thank Diana Wynne Jones for indicating a seasonal structure of the tale. This holds for the first two volumes, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers. As she writes, the journey from the Shire did indeed begin in autumn. It was a delayed exit, after the Birthday Party, and Gandalf’s revealing last visit. Perhaps the events on Weathertop are suggestive of Halloween. The gathering of peoples at Rivendell suggestive of Christmas-tide/New Year By the time the Fellowship gets to Caradhras the snows are there. Lothlorien is perpetually in leaf, we learn. It is one of the places outside of the seasons, time even.

And yet the sequence would suggest that Rivendell represents All Soul’s Day: the past does come alive at the Council of Elrond; many ghosts from the past, and people connected with past deeds and events gather here. In this case, and it seems a strong one, then the Weathertop episode is suggestive of being earlier than Guy Fawkes’ Night.

When Frodo and Sam arrived in Ithilien towards the end of Book Four it was Spring, the scents of flowers and herbs so encouraged the hobbits but make Gollum choke. The last volume, Return of the King is divided between the growing strength of the year as Minas Tirith’s fortunes grow stronger, and the perpetual Winter landscape of Mordor that Frodo and Sam travelled through. This is suggestive of an overall midsummer to midsummer sequence; this is indeed a traditional timescale and structure. Consider the timescale in more detail: Diana Wynne Jones noted that as the Ents and the hobbits attacked Isengard, Sam was entering Cirith Ungol to rescue Frodo: a deliberate tower reversal. As the long-anticipated arrival of the Rohirrim entered Minas Tirith at last, Frodo and Sam entered into Mordor proper.

I have resisted reading the sequence of the whole three volumes as a Christian calendar, and yet it is tempting to read Frodo and Sam’s journey through Mordor as the deepening darkness of Tenebrae. The main events on Mount Doom would then be Easter Friday, and Golgotha: Frodo’s weakness at the end echoing Christ’s cry Why have you forsaken me? Does the War of the Ring end at Easter? And the crowning of Aragorn occur at midsummer? We have echoes in this of many Old and Middle English texts. On this scale the hobbit’s journey would begin in autumn and end the following autumn back in the Shire. The leaving from Grey Havens would then be a proper Old Year leave-taking, as all the people who represented the ‘old way’, the Third Age, depart and make way for the new.

The appendices of The Return of the King give a month-by-month, almost day-by-day chronology of the War of the Ring. There the main Weathertop episode is given as October 6th. The Fellowship sets out from Rivendell on December 25th. Frodo looked in the mirror of Galadrial on February 14th. Then it is noted that Aragorn took the Paths of the Dead on April 8th. At that time Frodo and Sam were held by Faramir in Ithilien. By the 14th Sam had just recued Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol, Denethor had killed himself, and nearly Faramir, and the battle of Pelennor Fields was just to begin. It is interesting to note that the book comments: 23rd April the Minas Tirith company approached the Black Gates and Aragorn ‘dismissed the faint -hearted, and Frodo and Samwise cast away their arms and gear.’ Here is a deliberate parallel on the casting-away of the cumbersome, superfluous and ‘dead weight’.

I cited these entries because the first events fall on significant dates – Weathertop’s dating remains an anomaly – and the latter ties in all dates and events. Tolkien places the destruction of the Ring, and diminishment of Sauron, on April 25th. Why is this date significant? For Tolkien it may mark the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli, or 1916’s Anzac Day. It might signify the surrender of German troops in northern Italy and the fall of Mussolini, 1945. That Tolkien served in WWI we know – the significance of the Gallipolit Campaign, and of  Anzac were significant for all; but whether his son, the recipient of the unfolding story, served in northern Italy, I do not know.

There are elements of the tale that do not seem to fit anywhere in either of these schemes: the Mines of Moria, Paths of the Dead, maybe even Shelob’s Lair sequence, for one follows neither a specific seasonal nor Christian schemata. Recent editions of the books include extensive appendices. The seasonal, even monthly, time scale is carefully plotted there. I still see no foundation of a Roman Catholic calendar in the overall sequence of events.

OLD EMPIRE

The refurb on the Regal Ballroom was done with the wrong shade,

using youthful and dynamic hues. It should be faded glory.

The tale it is telling the world of supplements, glossy mags

is now of the primped and preened, when its real story

is one all recognise: decline, and old grandeur; the rags

of State and empire, that still adhere in a place like this:

the peeling  of frescoes, gilt  cornices; the loss of prestige, trade.

 

The Jubilee Line rattles the foundations; a dust ghost

with glinting buttons, bayonet, in auditorium, on stairs.

The ballroom built over previous habitations; it replaced

a minor palace, Girls’ Academy. From those stairs

we watched the building of our dream of State, and how we placed

ourselves within it; both pros and cons raised in one toast.

 

Doorway sleepers choose here for the warm draughts at night;

that they are here at all is still appalling: ‘The homeless,’

we now say, ‘are always with us.’; cite this as right.

How all now sleep in the glow from old warmth, alone;

the half-life of old empire continues to light us

long after it’s left us. ‘Dead is the right of might!’, we blithely recite.