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Fables may be a long time in the coming

Lessons
On the outlook for wisdom
THE PILOT,
       "We should try to advance to the top of the hills while the sun is shining. In other words, as you strive, seek to make great hayballs that last for quite some time and can serve you well throughout winter time. Have sun-baths, therefore ... For very many responsibilities that go alongside with advancements socially, can be much more tiring than thought of beforehand, that's when reserves come in handy or are utterly needed. It often shows up. Wear and tear and gross responsibility may reduce the life-length by dozens of years unless you take care and know just how to deal with large adjustments and small details that blend into another and work together.
       And often "depressing" progress depends too much on the leader or leaders involved, draining them while they are at their peaks. They may get too little back for their various services, and get too weary to find the rustic pleasures and time for leisure that increase their odds for finding the right partner.
       If so, we shouldn't think that their visions of advancements have served them a little bit too well -

Bord

Contents

Frieze
Take care: Supporting "well medleys" are presupposed throughout:

Preface

Great value of our technology

VERY MUCH of what is presented here, is due to new technology. Technology in general may not be as dwarfing as it seems to be to some - You could ask a dentist about it.

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Chapter 1:

Holger Danske

WILLIAM Shakespeare's play, "Hamlet" takes place in the Danish castle of Kronborg. It lies a little to the north of Copenhagen, on a place where Denmark is closest to Sweden - only 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) apart. The castle was first built in 1420, its purpose was to help collect the excise and other taxes and fees from foreign ships wanting to sail through the strait Øresund. During 1574-85 the castle was rebuilt in a renaissance style. The castle has one of the most unpleasant prison cells around.
      Kronborg was equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry. The castle was in its time the most powerful fortress in the Nordic countries, and housed a large garrison. Sweden was the arch enemy at the time.
      King Frederik the Second lived at Kronborg after its expansion. Today, tourists can go on a tour of the castle, visit the museums on the ground floor or take a tour of the catacombes. They are very extensive. In the catacombs there is statue of one of the main Danish heroes - Holger Danske. The statue is of the memorial sort.


The legend

ACCORDING to the legend, Holger Danske was a mercenary at the court of the Franco-Roman emperor Charles in the 700s. They say he never lost a battle in his life. But then he got too homesick: he decided to walk from the South of France and Emperor Charles' court, back to Denmark - which he did. When he arrival at the place where Kronborg is now, he sat down and immediately fell asleep, and still sleeps today.
      Still according to the legend - which you should know is untrue - if Denmark at some point in time should have its sovereignty threatened, Holger will once more awake and do battle for Denmark. Other legends have grown up around him later.

The world-famous Danish poet and writer, Hans Christian Andersen, "knit" a story called Holger Danske. You find it condensed here, and it has nothing to add but fat - [Check]
      And the whole fat Anderson story is also available. [Check]

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Aphoristic wisdom

An aphorism is basically and foremost:
  1. Some concise statement of a principle; or
  2. A terse formulation of a truth; or
  3. A terse formulation or reformulation of a sentiment.
  4. A conside adage, or saying. The word "adage" means saying, akin to Greek "he said". So an aphorism can be a fitting saying, maybe marked by applomb and good manners. The adage can be in metaphorical form and often is, and can embody some common observation.
The concise, succinct aphorism can be a much memorable statement, and was so designed in the old days. The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates about symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the art of healing and medicine. His first aphorism is a kind of introduction to the book:
"Life is short, art long ... experience deceitful, judgement difficult."
Right after that he borders on giving vent to this: "It's not sufficient that the physician is (merely) ready to act - what is needed is to be prepared and fitted for the business."
      Aphorisms have been used for giving the precepts of medical schools, but aphoristic expressions were also much used in dealing with subjects that were late in developing their own principles or methodology, for example art and politics. The term was gradually applied to the principles of other fields, finally to any statement generally accepted as true. In our days it can be roughly synonymous with maxim.

This flower with or without a blue rim around it, is the symbol or mark we use as a hint for "aphoristic thought" in some of the texts on this address.

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Chapter 2 -

Great yoga aphorisms

Slapstick entry NOTHING is as good as being a philosopher if you aren't - or find yourself terribly alone - i.e. outsmarted. To be skilled in many pregnant, relevant ways, could likewise include know-how in how to make portraits with fit aplomb. Borth portraits and consise, terse statements may long live, but not your body. A good aphorism can be a condensed, smart saying that expresses some wisdom or measure of knowledge.

 House-dogs are useful to man; individual man can be useful to some god deeo inside. - Vedic wisdom [Cf. Puh 62]


Very often aphorisms go lightly at the side of some predominant life-style

1

Golden aphoristic sentences may long live by their bold strokes of insight, and for centuries.

Lessons
Those who mock softly and gently had better learn to accomplish nothing.
APHORISTIC wisdom may be marked by bold strokes as well as several magnificent approaches to a subject or problem. They can mock in gentle ways, both others and at times the writer himself.
      Aphorisms have been found to possess some balancing profundity. They can be elegant and terse at the same time, like lots of good proverbs. A good aphorism can be a condensed and enigmatic sort of prose, and preferred to poetry by several poets, and its varieties of humourous outlets appears to be quite endless. Some can be tendentious, some fit nicely - and some of these bold expressions apply inside an over-all scheme. It was the case with aphorisms taken to by renowned moralists of the 17th and 18th centuries. ¤

2

To be skilled in many pregnant, relevant ways, is a lot better than being skilled just in sentence formations

Skilled aplomb and tact could be different than the pithy approach of aphorism, as there is the risk that the pithy terms yield blunted insight along with them.
      Now, some can give vent to nice and fine reflections, others come close to humbling offenders in apt ways. And some tend to involve a hope of getting able to cope better. Golden aphorism can suggest we had better not expect overmuch from life, and does it in part by denouncing parts of it in advance. All the same a fine humorist won't take things too seriously, no matter what.
      Golden aphorism can include fanciful portraits and create a characters that haunt us in the author himself.
      In its own right the finest aphorism can be quite akin to a lyrical sort of sketch, much like a novel's plot it can be some essence or distilled quintessence. In very few lines an aphorism can enclose enough matter for the plot of a novel. And it can easily produce an impression of depth of insight. Conundrums and animal tales also provide lessons in the form of aphorisms. Good aphorisms don't have to be as platitudinous or as didactic as lessons attached to Aesop's fables.

3

There can be nothing as humbling as wisdom that's down-to-earth

THERE ARE many forms of aphorisms. One humorous article can contain skilled blends of aphoristic concerns and considerations, and also hide concerns that matter, even depths of religious convictions. The British Chesterton is known for that.
      Good and solid aphorisms can deal with reflections of many sorts where pointed maxims can become too sophisticated-cumbersome. Aphorisms are Biblical also and may strike deep roots, in verse and in prose. Enigmas and humour can operate hand in hand inside them and be attuned to deep roots of their own kinds. One sign is that aphorisms are found in many nations that long lived without fiction, epics, or even popular poetry.
      We find aphorisms in the book of Proverbs of the Bible; in the Afrikaans language, in Indian sutras - they are terse summaries of a special, guarded kind, often translated as aphorisms. Classy literature can be teeming with significant aphoristic wisdom poetry and such prose.
      The French favoured this art of expressing one's innermost thoughts: One great French poet, René Char, found in it the capacity to "pulverizing language" - a means to come greatly free from rhetoric and to emerge better. The 19th-century poets, Goethe, Novalis, Leopardi, Vigny, and Baudelaire, as well as painters such as Delacroix, Cézanne, Degas, and later Braque, cherished the epigrammatic, incisive form of expression.
      Authors of maxims and aphorisms strive to make their thinking terse and well-looking, even memorable. We find that pointedness of form is aimed at. Well-known French prose writers have scattered striking aphorisms through their prose works - Aphorisms often sum up the sense of a situation or the experience of a lifetime - maybe faultily, but with some sort of solidity of content anyhow. It may appear as something quite commonplace pungently expressed. Few ground rules can get formulated from them, maybe that's why some of them seem funny and costly? ¤
      Advocate solvency, first and foremost. Firm is often on top of sound moral advice. Blaise Pascal found that of all the manners of writing, the aphoristic prose style is the one that engraves itself most lastingly in the memories of men. ¤¤
      It can be a brilliant way of presenting carefully evaluated matter and had better be brought into the realm of didactic presentation nowadays, if it can make an indelible impression and really is a most economical means of communicating long experience and imparting even more than poetry by the ways it tends to represent a lot it's hard to find words for at times, or stuff that hardly fits in nicely in our surroundings.
      Good aphorisms can be quite emboldening for very many reasons. They may seduce somewhat by insistence on top of brevity of expression, by seeming candid and free-wheeling, and lack of complementary set-ups "for now" - like the aphorisms of Hippocrates. By their solid, figurative etchings or sketchings many interesting nuances and understandings tend to appear - some cryptic. In this we meet with one typical challenge of condensing wisdom. (8)
      A good aphorism rides some sort of neat tact fairly often - like French aplomb along with more or less philosophical insistence. Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, and La Bruyère were known for aphoristic summing-ups. It could be much better to bulwark better. It has to be admitted. (9)

 Do the likeliest, and God will do the rest. [Dp 104]


Lessons for later use - a homily is it
  1. Golden aphoristic sentences may long live by their bold strokes of insight, and for centuries. Aphorisms may have to do with a life style that hasn't become anything.
  2. To be skilled in many pregnant, relevant ways, is a lot better than being skilled just in sentence formations.
  3. There can be nothing as humbling as wisdom that's down-to-earth. We find aphorisms in the book of Proverbs of the Bible - Authors of maxims and aphorisms strive to make their thinking terse and well-looking, even memorable, due to some sort of solidity of content anyhow. It can be a brilliant way of presenting carefully evaluated matter by offhand-looking, relevant, solid, well-grounded figurative etchings.


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Fable as a means of expressing wisdom or oneself

Slapstick entry THERE IS reason to get assurance from fables that hint at that man at his best has to be above animals. Fables can include humans and gods also, if conditions calls for that sort of «other-speaking» help to ensure human conditions. It’s an old tradition aiming at impressing terribly well by bigwigs and cosy animals that carry one overlooked message: A Norwegian (man) at his best is not less than animals and Hindu gods.


Strong meat for experienced fellows

 The handy rule for fable-listeners is near to this proverb: Listen much and speak little. [Ap 420] Why is that so? Because fables or anecdotes or parables contain many messages beneath the surface, and those who can listen, are not fit for further efforts for then. St. Paul knew that his listeners had to have baby milk - much strong meat wasn’t given them. However, much experienced men and women may understand more in time.

1

Plotting, bossy conditions call for the «other-speaking» help to ensure human conditions

Go for ambiguous narratives to stay well
ON THE SURFACE, the fable (from the Latin fabula, "a telling") is very often a tale about animals who are personified and behave as though they were humans.
      The fable is a form of allegory. Allegory is from two combined Greek terms that mean "other-speaking", thus suggesting some expanded use of deceptive and oblique language. But in early Greek the term allegory was not used. Instead an idea of a hidden, underlying meaning was indicated by the Greek word for "underthought", hyponoia. Allegory contains both parable and fable.
      Now, fables can include humans and gods as characters, but tends to concentrate on animating the inanimate.
      The fable is one form of imaginative communication constructed so that readers or listeners are encouraged to look for meanings hidden beneath the literal surface of the fiction. Fables and parables may flourish under authoritarian conditions, including harsh upbringing. One impression left by the allegorical mode in fables is indirect, ambiguous, at times enigmatic symbolism which calls for interpretation again and again.
      When fables of Aesop were exported to Japan, an advanced Japanese fable form existed already. It had risen to prominence in the Kamakura period (1192-1333). Official histories of Japan were studded with fables: the Koji-ki (712; "Records of Ancient Matters") and the Nihon-shoki (700s, "Chronicles of Japan"). Also, the fudoki (dating from 713 and later) contained many fables on the theme of a small intelligent animal getting the better of a large stupid one. One strength of the fable form is arousing in the reader or listener a response to levels of meaning, because inherent plausibility in a matter-of-fact way is ruled out by such as talking animals. Aside from that, fable puts the emphasis on narrative. ¤

2

"- but I’m above puss"».

THE FAIR fable purports to tell a simple story. Nevertheless, good fables can be reread and reinterpreted. By awakening a drive to bring understanding or some more order into a tale through interpretation, fables can and should impart cultural values.
      The fable can be a particularly well structured illustrative tale fit for upbringing. First, inside fables we often find personified animal characters - fairly easy to link up to mentally. This is in part due to the inherent capabilities to half-identify oneself with low beings and animals when a child and youngster - near the bottom in their own enclaves as they find themselves in this way: «Dad’s above Mom, Mom’s above me, but I’m above pussy». (Norwegian lore)
      The tidied process of symbolic, naive identification eases understanding and paves the way for attainments later in life, if the lessons are good. It depends. Much has to be carved out for it. The process is one of assimilation, likeable coding and recodings later, if the time and conditions are favourable. In this way an excellent fable can be a seed that may sprout much later in old and new ways. ¤
      This is to say the fable variants of allegorical messages is very rich as an instructional agent inside the classroom and outside it. The help it offers, is largely linked to what’s figured to be incredibly analogy - or short, simple forms of naïve allegory. Many forms of literature elicit searching interpretation from the symbolic make-up inside it, and this fits for the excellent fable.

3

The fable of the Muromachi period and earlier, was evolved outside Europe’s influence. Artistic genius could bring it about

THE FABLE form can have its roots in cultures we know very little of, but which rose higher in finding excellent means of plausible upbringing than the USA of yesterday. Like parables, hyperboles and other analogies, the finest fables are means of handing down traditional folk wisdom: (1) here are fixed interpretations. (2) And also new interpretations happen to get passed down from one generation to the next. (3) Many of the official histories of Japan contain fables on the theme of a small intelligent animal getting the better of a large stupid one. The influence of Aesop's fables in Japan can be traced in stories written between the Muromachi period (1338-1573) and the 1800s - Jesuit missionaries introduced Aesop’s fables to Japan near the end of the Muromachi period.
      The personification device inside fables can be extended to trees, winds, streams, stones and other natural objects. The human significance of such single items is fairly often overlooked unless one has the means or keys to interpret afresh. Good schooling in psychoanalytic thinking, a common stock repertory of folkloric symbolic items; knowledge of the plausible or possible figurative significance of this and that go into the best search, which has to be artistic or semi-artistic of its own kind.
      The fable has room for anthropomorphic animals and inanimate creatures. It means it’s surreal in lots of ways, like a good folk tale. The moral and emboldening impact of the fable or parable falls on memory rather than on the critical faculty. ¤
      A fable can resemble a folktale - often its gist is expressed as an appended moral norm or maxim, though.


Homily:

  1. Plotting, bossy conditions calls for the «other-speaking» help to ensure human conditions. Fables can include humans and gods. Official histories can be studded with fables, it’s an old tradition that reflects communication genius.
  2. «Mom’s above me, but ... he who marries for wealth, sells his liberty. [Ap 645] There is reason to get assurance from fables that hint at that man at his best has to be above animals.
  3. The fable of the Muromachi period and earlier, was evolved outside Europe’s influence. Artistic genius could bring it about, rising high in finding fairer means of education than bullying: fostering through tales. There can also be a moral and emboldening impact of a bright fable. Tracking down traditional folk wisdom and literature forms that have survived and impress, is for getting to grips with educative measures that halfway ensure easy, long-term recall. It’s needed. Often the fable’s gist is expressed through a series of appended standards or understandings. We have evolved that.


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Parable debate

Slapstick entry A GREAT parable appears as inherently plausible. And even if an informed thinker and poet could interpret it all right, there is often plenty of room for more sights at the back of that again, and often beside it. You seldom feel you get finished with it, no matter how. For all that it's also much true-to-life.
      The parable resembles the fable in getting short and simple, but with marked differences. Learn to design good fables and parables on your own if you want to be thought of as all right, no matter how, by writing on things you're through with or seldom take a liking to. Look to Jesus: They can be excellent for all-round counselling. - Cf. John 14;12.


Future's parable at hand?

1

An informed thinker and poet could interpret a parable very well, and still there would be room for more sights

A parable is informed enigmatic and widely studied
THE TERM parable is from the Greek parabole; it means comparison or similitude, from paraballein to compare.
      The most famous parables are in the New Testament, where Jesus uses the form to illustrate his message by telling a fictitious story that is nevertheless true-to-life. Aside from that, parables can often be fully understood only by an informed elite. It takes class to discern the meaning within such brief, enigmatic structures.
      The story inside a typical parable is inherently plausible. Moral or spiritual relations are set forth in it. And throughout Christian history, the pious tale or parable has been a popular preaching device. The more paradoxical aspects of the parable were revived in the 19th century through treatises on Christian faith and practice. They were written by the Danish philosopher Soeren Kierkegaard.
      The simple narratives of parables give them a mysterious, suggestive tone and make them stand out - often useful for the teaching of moral and spiritual truths it normally takes skill to study. ¤
      The parable resembles the fable in it in the essential qualities of brevity and simplicity, but there are major differences as well.

2

A parable appears as inherently plausible. That's one token

THROUGH the parable the easy thing for some insiders could be within reach for everyman. That's the methodology of Jesus. - See Matthew 13.
      If you study tick tack toe analysis here, you'll eventually learn how to make fables and parables on your own, and feel free to blend and merge some of them as you choose. Poets have that liberty. There is a wide range of options. Another is fable-near poetry.
      Now, a great parable can be further defined as an outstanding story with a wide range of influence. It can be a canonical attitude to go for; or sound moral seen. (Webster) Traditionally it was a short fictitious narrative.
      It’s now taken to mean a neat example as well. ¤

3

It's an agent of fairly general influence, like tales of Jesus.

IN ANCIENT Greek, the term parable took off from a kind of extended simile: it involved the use of a literary illustration: it could be a sweet illustration. Since that time the parable is a short fictitious story that can illustrate a deep norm, some principle, and some find the thing religious. (See Webster)
      You have to know how to write it. The tick tack toe designed is shaped in harmony with a parable. It is a parable. That's why you can relate to it like a parable of Jesus, and go on from there. It's easy to arrive at poetry on top of a tick tack toe scheme, as well as a fable or three.
      The parable invites a man to compare. Its storytelling aspect is usually "subordinated to the analogy it draws between a particular instance of human behaviour and human behaviour at large", writes Encyclopedia Britannica. Analogies need to be interpreted. The more diffuse and general they appear to be, the more enigmatic they become in time - there is that chance. Søren Kierkegaard's uses somewhat paradoxical aspects of the parable in the 1800s. And he influenced enigmatic works by Franz Kafka and Albert Camus.
      There are also parables in the Old Testament. The story of how David was taken to task by a prophet contains a parable: A man owned and loved a single sheep, and so on. That narrative is designed just like a parable of Jesus. ¤


Homily, or self-help exercises hinted at

 You and I could learn the new tick tack toe training program for future's fable writer. The good fable has much in common with a parable. There's good reason to merge these poetic art forms, ad lib. Instead of getting fixed or stuck in the older, dictated differences -
  1. Learn to interpret a parable well. Next write one yourself, by copying the great masters of the art. The art involves to leave room for more sights and nontheless stay true-to-life. The best parable resembles the fable in being terse and simple, but it can be somewhat more articulated. It's solid to choose both presentation form and poetic devices as over-arching need dictates.
  2. What is presented has to seem inherently plausible, and preferably be so as well. Through tick tack toe study, that scheming and further lessons from us, you may learn to compose fables and parables that are pertinent. They may make hearts glad, and so does fit music. It's one more of life's facts.
  3. The tick tack toe design is shaped in over-all congruence with a fit parable. Be aware that the general story can get enigmatic later unless explained at the onset.


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The art of solid story-telling enlighted through the parable form

Slapstick entry THROUGH the main parts and facets of parables and the history of their use and impact all around, let's admit that the good story can elicit much searching interpretation even if there's no real need for that.
      A good story of that kind has to be told with apt tact and perhaps the finest savoir faire - at times good things can be enacted for good entertainment. It can be doubted if computers can do all those sorts of things in three, real dimensions and know what they're doing.
      Frankly, to get tamed and trained for display isn't much, although some could have deserved it. Themes like this have to emerge within the ranks of already accepted professors and the super-brain of geniuses. Some try to cram their way on and up, but the harmful effects aren't even a minor part of the gospels. They often strive to interpret this and that for us in fair ways - It can be outright excellent for man's mind. And then several neurotic barricades to unwelcome insights can be set up by those offended. This is just to say that to deviate much in this and that way can have its price, just as the average lot of the average, blunted or dwarfed urban dweller in the next city around ...
      Some try to cram their way on and up, but the harmful effects aren't even a minor part of the gospels.
      The good parable and fable elicit interpretations at its best, and at times set up new cognitive schemes.


The art of solid love-making assisted

JESUS often portrayed this and that by use of parables, even how to make love in general - bridegroom and clever maidens and all that." - Matthew 25:1-13.
      Deep down inside a parable is a solution. It can be on how to make love and have a good sex life on top of parables of Jesus. Solomon had a thousand wives and harem concubines to derive lessons from. How to make love wisely and well was no small part of his drastic life:

1

Possible meanings well hidden is the big agent of influence

The easier they seem the more difficult they get after much time
DON'T get undermined. Let there be room for such as the advanced parable. Good literature isn't static all the time. It must be fluid also, in the process of being born and remade.
      The good poet may describe this and that by deft metaphors - and if significant parts fit together fairly well, the construction of the narrative leads up to the type of good tale we call a parable. He could describe the ascent of a hill in such a way that each physical step corresponds to a new stage in the soul's progress toward a thought-up higher level of existence. Or he could describe a much identical process in the form of fishing salmon or wading upstream like one. There aren't really any fixed limits to this metaphor-making, not basically.
      A good story is told or perhaps enacted. Norse myths around Thor were much like theatre plays in that they were enacted or enactable. Significant details - when interpreted - can be found to correspond to fit details of other systems of relations (by some secret, allegorical sense). The same holds true for very many parables.
      One significant fruit (consequence) of the art of story-telling is getting influential. Both parable-tellers and their stories may live very long through art. Jesus is not the only example. The prophet Nathan is another, and so on.
      In our technified system the art of communication could inculcate needed values through lots of good stories. They might do good to the sensitive ears of children that grow up and are supposed to govern the machines and computers later. It can be doubted if they can unless and until they arrive at very good values for that undertaking - a new one. New lessons have to be illustrated in bold enough ways to catch attention. Next the lessons shouldn't be undermined.
      In fact, good stories should help youngsters to get the better of this and that. Not only story-telling, not only the stratified society, not only the computer and its desk top finesses. It's quite an art. Not getting tamed and taking full care of well-nigh all sound aspects of being a human organism should come first. And how not to get tamed in new, urban ways is very important. There should have been parables, fables and fairy tales to warn against the bad sides of cities - the consumer neurosis, the slums, the losses of normal contacts and so on.
      To get tamed and trained in school isn't much. Visual imagery might give one or more antidotes - maybe not enough, maybe not the right stuff, but every little helps.
      Try the costly, significant influencing agents. They're found inside great stories that have lived long because little ones love some of them - before it's too late.
      Now, for all of us, "one Sunday morning" it's too late for well-nigh anybody. In the period towards that day, neat parables may suggest and enrich, and later breed a better fare all around. We seek influences that may help, due to their influencing elements. Dr. Martin Luther once illustrated the problem and its general solution almost like this:
      "If the world would perish tomorrow, still I'd still plant my apple tree today."
      A great statement. It was launched in a period where Jesuit missionaries introduced fables of Aesop to Japan. It was near the end of the Muromachi period (1338-1573) there. Fables and parables have much in common. Anecdotes are just as brilliant. The parable differs from the fable in the inherent plausibility of its story.
      Great parables are forms of imaginative literature or spoken utterance constructed in such a way that their receivers are encouraged to look for meanings hidden beneath the literal surface of the fiction. This cognitive process helps having a mind of your own - all needed for running your own business independently. The large society revolves on the wheels of just that sort of bold men.
      As for women, let them speak for themselves. They could have deserved it.
      The day you master all right stories by observing closely the ancient authors of that "influencing trade", that day you might gain the capacity to make a lot of sense by expert communications. And what are they? ¤
      In one sense, "the medium is the massage" for some of us. After taking in the wavelengths of the medium as well as what's being transmitted, after decent self-searching and perhaps feedback we could be ready for another round.
      For frogs it would be different. Things are different for frogs. It has to be admitted.
      Look to a parable of Jesus. It can be quite enigmatic and has many levels. If so, maybe the value of a great message isn't to be judged by just how starkly or limpid it stands out from the onset. And this can and should be debated, though.
      Great levelling ones who also possess giant reserves and insist, tend to rise into some forms of control and dictate what's seen to be rational and decent. And control in other hands than the average man's, tend to limit his range. So the interpretation of such as fables and novels should be within reach of the average man - the methods, the symbolic fitness parables deal in, and so on.
      We don't talk against good, but centralised outlooks by this. We talk against the compact lessening of an art and its skills. Basically, dependency isn't good for free men. That's a good point. Themes like this have to emerge within the ranks of already accepted professors and the like. Plain status is great help for getting heard, and maybe even fairly, cogently and rationally evaluated - we an lessons within fables and parables can be carefully ascertained by competent men. And why is that?
      On reason: good, enabling learning can't belong outside the realm and reach of the quite average brain and the mind it furnishes with much software or impressions. For we're all furnished with the kind. We speak of design, size and general make-up. It's much the same in an Einstein as in anybody else. There was performed an autopsy on the brain of the genius. It looked like the brain of everybody else, and that's all of it. What you eventually get inside your skull is what you normally subsist on. It tends to be that way.
      Normal or candid messages had better be adapted to how man's mind and brain works, and the form and transmitting agent of the good, bold messages matters, and giant business enterprises matter even more tomorrow. We had better combat their bad influence in time in order to enhance degrees of freedom.
      Bear in mind we talk of basic learning assets here. How important it is to master things from inside.
      The loveable value of fable and parable can be detected in the ready eagerness of listeners to hear more of the kind; and next in the budding capacity to recall and recount and try to interpret in fair ways according to standard rules of "the game". It's excellent for man's mind to do such things.
      But unless we can recall a message well - maybe through fit and normal human educative channels, we haven't arrived at the platform for higher forms of appropriation, or such mastery. In the Waldorf education they insist on just that salient feature. What's appropriate for a dog in the long run, is also regular contact with beings of its same kind. To be milked by a machine isn't that elevated. Progress of machines means machines taking over, and because of that what's usually thought of as progress by the uninitiated, stunts man for long. Maybe for ever. It's hard to say. Bring in self-reliance, said New England's philosopher Ralph W. Emerson. [See Tece]
      The significant value is the staunch-making lessons we arrive at from it. Mastery learning is a word used for it today.
      On top of that process we thrive.
      Designing well tailored messages in the outer garb of parables depends on much. It's a solidly complex activity. It rests on much study, and without the cognitive schemata that fables and good parables tend to bring, children loose chances to evaluate or detect what's central or relevant in a fabric they look into.
      Next, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. What determines the value of parable and fable messages in schools, may be tentatively evaluate by how well central messages are recalled. It can be tested. But understanding is different, and rests on higher capacities of learning. Dr. Benjamin Bloom goes into that. [Tece]
      It's much good to ask children and youngster what they make out of this and that, not only parables and fables messages, but other important messages around them too. Beginners often have to ask for meanings. And significant insights into meanings may need incubation periods - inner formations may take a long time. That's how it is to be a genius as well. Good things often take time to develop, so we can't always insist on hurry and surface attainments for the galleries either.
      Understanding can be arrived at in different ways, in different settings, and on different levels. This outlook is central in the teachings of Dr. Carl Rogers. He teaches us to listen to "the still, small voice" of the unevenness, the "organismic feeling" as he calls it. It's a very good method for probing responses from deeper segments of oneself. If Dr. Carl Jung is right, the subconscious mind is at least 9 times smarter than the normal waking consciousness, and for many very plausible reasons. Neurotic barricades to unwelcome insights is not the only one.
      The medium has its price, like the slapstick. The slapstick expert's trade isn't much relevant to what makes man wealthy and thriving in the first place.
      Attempts at fresh beginner interpretations are being done for Zen stories that look like fables. It is being done for fables of Aesop by the Comenius Group in New York, and so on.
      It helps to ascertain what it is, what the right measures are, and compose for the new medium to suit the average man.
      The typical computer and man doesn't operate on the same wavelengths. A man had better insist on his own wavelengths - they may contain playfulness, frivolity, sound humour and a knowledge that the computer isn't delicate, has no feelings, and doesn't care. The interface is a screen and it's much wise to limit the time use in front of it, for the sake of artistic meandering, for the sake of favouring more human-attuned impressions. Such things matter.
      Giant learning emboldens, the computer captures slaves.
      Look into that great assertion. We find similar tactforms of presentation in fit Nordic folklore.
      Some try to cram their way on and up, whereas gentlemen read significant wisdom through parables, fables and other narratives that demand other capacities than being broken in.
      It's good for man to arrive at his own imaginations. We happen to agree with Dr. Rudolf Steiner in that. Very much significant schooling that he gave rise to, trains the capacity to visualise - to form rich inner, mental pictures by good stories that are heard, first and foremost. It's a didactic element in Waldorf schools. The very best artists, scientists and criminals have the capacity to see fine things for themselves, act on their mental imagery, and come up with more paintings many don't like; more inventions some don't need; and great strides that leads to a new leader of the nation. It has happened in Africa many times, hasn't it?
      Africans have learnt to tell indirectly to their rulers, to preserve their own lives more and better. It's part of the African tradition of story-telling, no doubt.
      In a dire pucker, you too may embark on indirect messages at their best. The handed-over tradition in Europe is much identical with the best African one with fables, old symbolic animal actors that represent fixed positions and so on, and messages that may be very hard to find on the surface.
      Now you may form stories that give a textual body to a hidden, underlying message or meaning, some "underthought" others may guess at. Because the guessing is up to them, you may roam free for it. It happens.
      On the surface the parable is one short, simple form of naïve allegory. The theme of it has to be cleverly guessed at, or arrived at through surmision, much surmising. They may differ. And that's also a reason why figurative stories like parables means different things to different people, to many people. Because they're figurative, they're much general. And because they're much general they have a wide sweeping influence - and may reach into the souls and hearts of very many. Look to how Jesus did it and what he's loved and remembered for: His art of story-telling is no minor part of the gospels.

2

The art of upbringing contains some significant elements that old parables

OFFICIAL stories in the Church may contain many parables. Making parables and fables more or less official, tends to make their influence go on, and grow wider. It happens. The growth of Christianity in the course of the last thousand years documents it much.
      Apart from official histories we have apocryphal matter. Because stories attributed to Jesus in these collections were not made official and repeated over and over in Sunday Sermons, they have lost much of their might in upbringing. But the day some minstrel forms a canon on top of them, such things may change. A lot cults "over there" substantiate that general hint on how thing often work.
      Through the significant elements of parables and the history of their use on all of us, we can admit that many forms of literature can elicit much searching interpretation and evolve new social enclaves.

3

And meticulous circumspection isn't outright stupid

THE INFLUENCE of good parable wisdom can be traced far back in stories that were written. As for orally transmitted parables, their contextual upbringing influence throughout Europe's history can't be evaluated with accuracy - what we have is more or less solid guesses or shots into the night in blunderbuss ways.
      The reason is that sound documentation of this and that can be largely missing. Further, documents we do have, may be a little irrelevant to what educators could seek to evaluate and estimate: the influence of parables or other parts of folklore as upbringing agents: We have to see that lots of very needed documentation platforms are missing. Still, there's very much we can do. Parables can be made anew through tick tack toe scheming, if you're meticulous and circumspect and master the basics of the craft - much free from taming. [Cf. Qmd, ch. 1-2.]
      A parable may involve an interpretative process: giving "body" to the surface narrative or breaking down this structure to see what themes or ideas run parallel to it. The device of personification can be extended with skill as you wish - to trees, winds, streams, stones, and other natural objects - just as it's done in fables of many sorts.
      Many fables tends to dwarf big guys - and underestimate the general set-up in nature. The big beast of prey often gets his prey. Nature's designed for that. Let's not be stupid and invent that the mouse is better and more loveable than the cat. Walt Disney did that perversion trick. It hardly pays to base a society on it, as far as we know. Having mentioned this, parable scheming and fable scheming doesn't have to be much different. We should try to portray things as they normally are, animals as they normally behave, if given a chance - and let the symbolism be better than "Mickey Mouse is okay", my dear friends. It's much better for relevant coping to be fairly naturally attuned to how things work and animals behave, as well as what they stand for (represent) in nature.
      Traditionally ascribed or portrayed qualities aren't always much fit. For example, the donkey isn't stupid; it's just enslaved, more or less. It's natural conduct can be much fit for a certain setting, and so it is with you, if you should have any doubts in the matter. ¤
      As we've been much into now, one significant feature of the general parable is that a norm of conduct appears to be woven into the story: let it be a good one. That's a norm that helps good coping, fair and square, in rough outline. And if others have other opinions, let them give vent to them and explain why man and considerations fit for man's basic thriving shouldn't come first in the "human zoo" - in man's world, that is. Today, exploitation of the countryside, animals and man is a great mare, a big witch.
      We can let parables we write be attuned to all sorts good stories with essential, symbolic shaping, for it's much of value to derive benefits from a solid tradition we happen to be inside.
      The traditional parable reached its height in long gone settings. Ours are different, and the future's still more alienating and dwarfing. The traditional parable seldom deals with anthropomorphic animals or inanimate creatures. Feel free to assess it.


Homily on the art of costly entertainment

 A good story often makes neurotics very angry, even if they don't see why. The parables left aside for the moment: We have to try to associate more with fine and sound persons that count, to our own possible advantage.
  1. A good story has to be told with apt tact, and to get tamed and trained for display isn't much, although neurotic may insist otherwise.
  2. Through broad-chested parables and the history of their use on all of us, we can admit that the good story may bring on new cognitive schemes through purports of rank and by eminent people who count.
  3. A good story often has all right assets and can give something much different. let it be good and feel free to assess it.
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Chapter 3 -

Swedenborg's biography

No darling, a Swedish mystic

The deep soul shows up through deep interests and the life too.
Swedenborg believed in his later years that everything before 1744-1745 was preparation for his mission as a revelator of extraordinary intellect -
      He travelled a lot, and later returned to Sweden with a portfolio of mechanical inventions including a submarine, an airplane, and a stove, and with dreams of founding an observatory that would give Sweden a prominent place in the field of astronomy. In addition, on his trips abroad, he made a practice of lodging with artisans and picking up their skills, which came to include lens grinding, bookbinding, and cartography. Indeed, he spent a good deal of time abroad.
      He wrote in another language than Swedish in order to reach out beyond the narrow or religiously cramped confines of Sweden.
      He was profoundly disappointed to be still a bachelor after two courtships that failed. Another major turn of events in Swedenborg's life came shortly after his father's death when he began to use his spare time "in search of the soul."
      At first he looked inside human anatomy. If the body was the kingdom of the soul, then that was where to look. Thus Emanuel spent time in dissection rooms, and the result was two substantial volumes. At the end, alas, he had to rely more on doctrine than on the scalpel - he decided that he simply had not been thorough enough.
      What did he do? He now projected eleven volumes, and apparently began on this massive project in 1741, at the age of fifty-three. As he worked, he started to have experiences of "photism," flashes of light or flame that he thought signalled that he had reached some particularly significant insight. It could be the other way round:
      He began his "prologue" to the first volume of the new series by describing a kind of inborn rational instinct for the truth. As he proceeded, the conviction grew that it simply was going to fail - photism or not, I dare say.
      About this time he began to record his dreams and to speculate on the guidance they offered. In his record of these dreams, we see a Swede struggling with intellectual pride, alienation from feelings, and distance-making over and over.
      On Easter weekend of 1744, this crisis issued in a mystical Christ vision.
      In other words, a much bad fare can be crowned with mystic living or the sight of Jesus. A very snug life can be the antithesis, but few know it. Yi Jing helps that, if you're careful, tidy and guarded, I hope.
      Look to Swedenborg. After a year of further struggle, a second vision, again at Easter time, left him with the conviction that he had been even called. What happened to the called ones in the New Testament? To be hated, maimed and routed out became the common fare of those who got called. That is an overlooked lesson. It should be well to counteract a bad fare from bottom to top, from beginning to end, and a good, stratified all-round system that is mirrored in personal life and how society is strata-formed, is for that. We find such a template inside Vedanta living, or Hinduism. I'm not speaking of religion here, but id-allied organisation in big lines - give and take.


The mystic vision

The vision took place in a London inn where he was having dinner and began with the appearance of a shadowy figure in the corner who told him emphatically,
      "Don't eat so much."
      It was good old Jesus that was about, they say. [Cf. Fa]


The cold story goes on

Later that night, Swedenborg was awakened by the same figure, who identified himself as good old Jesus and informed him that he was being commissioned to disclose the inner, spiritual meaning of the Bible.
      After this, Swedenborg reported, heaven and hell were opened to him. Swedenborg had almost daily "waking visions" of the spiritual world, and talked with angels and spirits. He began writing a Bible commentary, but left it incomplete. Uha. What kind of follow-up was that?
      Later he published much else that was not Bible exegesis, including five remarkable works. One was a very slender work on the inhabitants of the planets. Another, perhaps the most startling, was a small work called The Last Judgement, in which he described having witnessed this event in the spiritual world. (Shriek!) He wasted "inner-Bible" powers it seems -
      But as luck would have it, he was socially accessible and remained a member of the Swedish Parliament to the end of his life - also when he set out talking about the inner differences between the sexes met with in the spiritual world. The work on marriage was published in 1768. Emanuel was eighty years old then, and died in 1772 in London, after a life teeming with energy channelled into books hardly anyone dares to read nowadays.
      Emanuel remained gracious and grounded anyway: he appears to have gone astray in a gospel-commissioned way.

[Primer source]
[His central concepts]

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A look into Dogen's teachings

Lessons
The Zen roshi Dogen (1200-53) believed quite a lot that doesn't hold water. For example, the earth isn't flat as a pancake.
Dogen instructed: "When the Emperor governs on the basis of his own [skilled] thinking, takes into account the precedents of the past, and seeks out virtuous ministers and when his government accords with the Will of Heaven, then good government prevails". ["Dog 45].
      To this: It can happen.

"I've heard it told but don't know whether it's true or not -
Because monks have no personal property, they make wisdom and virtue their treasures." [Dog 74].
      To this: The question is what sort of wisdom, and what sort of virtue. Instructed wisdom may be a bit false, and not as good as revealed wisdom from God The Holy Spirit.

"If someone who is without the mind that seeks the Way does something bad, don't - condemn him for doing evil. Just explain things to him in such a [fair] way that he doesn't become angry - Although you may be correct." [Dog 74].
      To this: The Bible holds that the offending guys have to be taken to task at once. Paul did. Jesus did.

Dogen: "A petty person takes offense at the slightest criticism." ["Dog 74].
      To this: So should you. It's usually best if you're fair. Don't let rats take over - that's my point.

There's more here: [Click]

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Chapter 4 -

Asura

1

Vibrant titans carry both gods and a lot more sombre beings, they say

Inside Hindu mythology
dubious avatars, cowardly devas
and man-eaters like crooked Kali
aren't blemished but hailed.
AN ASURA or ahura is a shape. The shape can be a garb, the garb can cover something, such as intimate functionings. Oriental asuras bear some likeness to Greek titans, and those fancy-construed beings could have a still older ancestry - in part derived from such as Iran, where Zoroaster flourished. These things seem well documented. [Cf. Gh]
      In Hindu mythology, asuras are a class of vibrant titans, viciously portrayed as terrible enemies of the gods and men. But that downfall of surprisingly all right or good titans hardly took place in Iran. There asura, or ahura, came to mean the supreme god, Ahura Mazda, and the devas, or daevas, became expelled as veritable demons. Let the very name of the ancient first-class god in Iran, Ahura Mazda, bear its simple witness for now. ¤
      According to Hindu myths, strife arose among asuras and soap opera devils (still devas) from India over the possession of costly nectar of unending living free from blemishes. We may surmise such a conflict is never ending, since both parties got hold of it - yes, potent asuras and deva-devils go for main role takers inside any man since - more or less. It should not be covered up that asuras won a lot in that conflict, which Hindus have handed over stories about.

2

Are there great asuras of eternal life?

IN the Vedic age the languages of Iran and India were nearly the same, and main cultural aspects were also similar. The Sanskrit of the ancient Rikveda and the old hymns in Persian by Zoroaster are surprisingly much closer than the Sanskrit of Rikveda and later Vedas, shows B. Surti. [Zah].
      The myths from both Indo-Aryan tracts reveal that at first both asuras and at times hypocritical devas were considered classes of gods. Hindu myths also hint at that great asuras and airy devas could work together for common benefit a long time ago. For one thing, they churned the mythical milky ocean [some guess it means the milky way] to extract potent, fluid elixir of eternal life. It was their intent. It's an Aryan myth. Find a straight condensation of it in the all right reader here: [Clh].

3

Horoscopes and demons are connected in Indian astrology.

BELIEVE as you must; in ancient astrology - it was got from Babylon or from Iran, says Encyclopedia Britannica - the same myth is said to show certain inner aspects of anybody. The Vishnu figure depicts a much hidden side of the deep personality of well-nigh anybody: the brilliantly seducing side. It can be counted on as that. And as in Greek cosmology, the so-called titans could be darkened operative influences tied in with the horoscope, which is the all-round "skeleton" inside Babylonian astrology. I like it. A Danish book on Indian astrology goes into the myth and its typical interpretations from best Hindu sources, namely Bhrigu lore. [Zae] (7)
      What is more, the Swiss Dr. C. G. Jung found that Babylonian astrology contains a lot wisdom from the forefathers. I definitely agree with him on that one. [See Foh] (9)

[#1,1; T+]

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Rabelais art, clowning in time

Slapstick entry MIKHAIL BAKHTIN writes of the French Dr. Francois Rabelais: "Rabelais' images have a certain undestroyable nonofficial nature."
      As a satirist and stylist Rabelais influenced James Joyce and may be seen as a major precursor of modernism through comic storytelling, both clear and obscure.
      He grew into a great and original interpreter of humanistic ideals and in time became a secular priest. His major works were condemned by the Sorbonne, at that time a bastion of rigid scholasticism, if not now - in some other keys, perhaps. [Cf. Siah]

HE SHOWED that it helps to stay consistent so as not to become a credulous buffoon (the Panurge figure portrays it well). The author-artist goes about solidly life-affirming in his way, and is still read today. He took to wildly obscene compressed humour out of disdain.
      Rabelais used comic condemnation. His books - there are four of them - stand up as a treasury of social criticism, but he was preoccupied with a basically serious quest inside that - life secrets that matter. His "wrapping" was the chivalrous romance, maybe mocked so. And with Rabelais, drinking often served as a symbol of good scholarship. He laughed at many types of sophistry and hermetism: Hermetic doctrine speak of hermetic practice. It can be a practice of being hermetically mysterious - maybe veiled and indirect.
      Also, his prose became a prodigious domain of experimentation. That was new, and not really allowed among learned men at his time. His works got censured. Some contain telling criticism of his own church - so telling that it can be difficult to believe that he was a priest.

FRANCOIS RABELAIS ranks with Boccaccio (author of the masterpiece Decameron) as a founding father of Western realism. For although some facets of his outputs look clownish, he was not a clown, and his major impact wasn't that of a clown either. Satire goes deeper. He also believed that the love of learning brought about dedication to it.
      This original poet and writer (ca. 1495-1553) lived at the same time as Calvin. Rabelais was a doctor, and he called Erasmus of Rotterdam his spiritual father - a bold, artistic priest he was. He let somewhat absurd, exuberant inventions remain to entertain far and wide. He went against marring spreading of gospel stuff.
      Books of Rabelais were solid, comic masterpieces, fairly near to elongated slapsticks. Inside his production a new educational philosophy shone and came to the fore, though it was inside a cunning mosaic of parody that was provided alongside. Sexual life or sexual irony frequently played a major role. Images of the body were offered - somewhat unfinished, at times. Old-fashioned scholastic pedagogy was soundly ridiculed. His attitude: human dignity can be based on the healthy balance of mind and body, and is to be fed though certain experiences.

WHAT DR. RABELAIS was about, was in part to show the cultivated reader fragments from his rich life experiences. On the surface he entertained with fairly liberating effects by exposing the cost of certain major, cramped follies and exaggerations in his day. Life had taught him something about the evils of trickery of advocates.
      Dr. Rabelais stood for the old Humanist view that a new age had dawned. Scientific studies were enthusiastically proposed by him. His didactic approach to nature wasn't arid or abstract. Yet he delighted in making references to ancient Latin works, as valuable knowledge had been accumulated in the classical world.

Rabelais art, rabelais humour

Art that's somewhat attuned to Rabelaisian-looking imagery and irony, needs plenty of tact, tact and to stand up in search for good education.
      Such art doesn't have to be wildly obscene, really. It should have a tendency to rest on one basically serious quest. The imagery could be so telling, significant and daring that it can be revolting for dames, difficult to believe and hard to classify till the artistically bent priest-author seems long gone.
      Classy and significant items of the four-membered essays above have to be taken into account - maybe not all of them, but a good sample. Some of these could be:
  • Address the cultivated reader through mere fragments;
  • Use entertaining humour with fairly liberating effects;
  • Ridicule certain cramped follies heartily;
  • And go for the best.
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Chapter 5 -

From Ulysses

This is more or less a rendition for you, and our aim is to think well aligned with it. Ulysses recounts:


The hero Ulysses meets Circe

"On our voyage we sailed sadly on, glad - and came to the Aeaean island where Circe lives - a great and cunning goddess she is. We brought our ship into a safe harbour and rested for a while. When the morning of the third day came, I took my spear and went to see if I could find any signs of human handiwork, or hear the sound of voices. Climbing to the top of a high look-out I saw smoke from Circe's house. The smoke rose upwards in the middle of a dense forest of trees. I found it safest to go back to the ship, give the men their dinners, and send some of them to visit Circe, instead of going myself.
      When I had nearly got back to the ship a great stag came right into the middle of my path in the forest - He came to drink of the river nearby. As he passed I struck him dead. Then I set my foot on him and twisted rough grass and rushes into a good stout rope which I bound the four feet of the stag together with. I hung him round my neck and carried him to where the crew waited. There I threw him and said,
      "Look here, friends, were not going to die so much before our time after all."
      They began to cook him for dinner. I told them my visit plans. Their hearts sank and they wept bitterly, but there was nothing to be got by crying. We cast lots in a helmet, and the lot fell on Eurylochus. He set out with twenty-two men, and they wept. When they reached Circe's house, they found it built of cut stones. It was surrounded by tamed wolves and kingly cats. They were certainly enchanted and drugged into subjection - did not attack my men. So the men got terrified. As they got to the gates of the goddess's house, they could hear Circe inside, singing most beautifully. On this my man Polites said,
      "There's somebody inside, working at a loom and singing most beautifully; is she is woman or goddess, I wonder?"
      They called her and she came down, unfastened the door, and asked them to enter. They followed her, all except Eurylochus, who suspected mischief and stayed outside. When she had got them into her house, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them a mess with cheese, honey, meal.
Like pigs!
      But she drugged it with poisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she turned them into pigs by a stroke of her magic wand, and shut them up in her pigsties. They were like pigs - head, hair, and all, and they grunted just as pigs do. They also remembered everything as they were shut up squealing. Circe threw them some acorns and beech masts such as pigs eat. Back at the ship we forced his story out of Eyrylochus who had escaped the wicked mess. He said,
      "She came down, opened the door, and invited us in. Not one of them ever came out."
      Then I told Eurylochus to come back with me and show me the way. But he laid hold of me with both his hands and begged,
      "Sir, don't force me to do it. Rather try to escape at any rate."
      "Stay where you are, then, but I must go," I answered. When I got near the great house of the enchantress, I met what could have been a young man of magnificient youth and beauty on his cunning face. He said,
      "Poor chap, your men are shut up in Circe's pigsties, like so many wild boars in their lairs. You surely don't fancy that you can set them free? Entering, you'll have to stay with the rest of them. Let me tell you in advance: Circe is going to practice lots of wicked witchcraft on you. She'll mix a mess to eat, she'll drug the meal, but she won't be able to charm you, for I'll give you something that will prevent her spells from working.
      I further say: when Circe strikes you with her wand, draw your sword and bounce at her as though you're about to kill her. She'll then be frightened and will desire you to go to bed with her.
      Well, you want her to set your companions free, and take good care also of yourself, so make her swear solemnly that she'll plot no more mischief, or else she'll unman you when she's got you naked and make you fit for nothing."
      That was a quite long speech. As they young man spoke, he pulled a certain potent herb out of the ground an showed me how it was like. Then he went on his way. It was Mercury, I found. I went on to the house of Circe, my heart was clouded with care. I rune-called the goddess when I stood outside the pearly gate. As soon as she heard me she came down to my level, opened the door, and asked me to come in; so I followed her - alarmed in mind. She set me on a richly decorated seat and mixed a mess in a golden goblet. But she drugged it, for she meant me harm. When she had given it to me, she struck me with her wand.
      "There now," she cried fiendishly, "be off to the avatar's pigsty, and make your lair with the rest of them."
      But no sooner had she said it than she found it didn't work. So she fell with a loud scream, clasped my knees, and sobbed,
      "Who are you, where do you come from? Are you Aywir the Great or something? Why don't my drugs have the power to charm you? You must be spell-proof; the [alarmingly clever] Ulysses. Okay, then, let's go to bed: we may make friends and learn to trust each other."
      I answered,
      "Circe, you have just turned all my men into pigs. Now you mean to do me harm when you ask me to go to bed with you - you'll probably unman me and make me fit for nothing. I won't go to bed with you unless you first pledge to plot no further harm against me."
      She swore at once, and when she had finished her oath I went to bed with her. After it was over, the servants gave me a footstool under my feet. I sat without heeding what was before me. When Circe saw me sitting there, she came to me and said,
      "O boy, why do you sit like that? I have sworn I won't hurt you."
      I said, "Circe, If you want me to eat and drink, free my men and bring them to me, per favore."
      She went straight through the court with her wand in her hand and opened the pigsty doors. My men came out like so many prime hogs and stood looking at her as best they could. In a little while they became men again and looked better than before. They seized me by the hand and wept for joy till Circe became sad. She came up to me and said,
      "Ulysses, go back at once and next come back here ..."
      I agreed to this, and found the men by the ship. They were weeping and wailing for no good reason - much like the same reason as before - but things were different in the house of Circe. When they saw me these fellows began frisking round me as calves. I spoke comfortingly to them,
      "Come with me all of you as fast as you can to Circe's house, where there's great abundance."
      On this Eurylochus tried to hold them back, saying,
      "Alas, wretches that we are, what will become of us? Remember how the Cyclops treated us. Through sheer folly of Ulysses men lost their lives then."
      The men interceded for him, I let him live. We left for Circle's house, and Eurylockus came along too, after being frightened well enough for it. Circe came up to me and said the liberating,
      "Ulysses, I know how much you all have suffered, but that's over now. [Eat strawberries.] Stay here and eat and drink till you are once more as strong and hearty as you once were, for right now you're weakened in body and mind."
      We agreed. We stayed with Circe for a whole year, feasting on meat and wine. And the next thing you know is that we left. [How could we? Was anything better after that?]"


Circe tells of Scylla and Charybdis

Ulysses went to the house of Hades, and from there back to Circe. She knew what had happened, dressed herself and came to Ulysses and his men as fast as she could. While his men feasted, she told her man Ulysses about what to expect, so as to prevent suffering from misadventure either by land or sea.
       When the sun had set and darkness fell, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the ship. Then Circe took her man by the hand and bade him be seated away from the others, while she reclined by his side and asked about the men's adventures.
       "So far so good,' said she, when he had ended his story, "and now pay attention to what I am about to tell you: First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead men's bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must lash the rope's ends to the mast itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster.
       When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take; I will lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for yourself. On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against which the deep blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury; the blessed gods call these rocks the Wanderers. Here not even a bird may pass, no, not even the timid doves that bring ambrosia to Father Jove, but the sheer rock always carries off one of them, and Father Jove has to send another to make up their number; no ship that ever yet came to these rocks has got away again, but the waves and whirlwinds of fire are freighted with wreckage and with the bodies of dead men. The only vessel that ever sailed and got through, was the famous Argo on her way from the house of Aetes, and she too would have gone against these great rocks, only that Juno piloted her past them for the love she bore to Jason.
       Of these two rocks the one reaches heaven and its peak is lost in a dark cloud. This never leaves it, so that the top is never clear not even in summer and early autumn. No man though he had twenty hands and twenty feet could get a foothold on it and climb it, for it runs sheer up, as smooth as though it had been polished. In the middle of it there is a large cavern, looking West and turned towards Erebus; you must take your ship this way, but the cave is so high up that not even the stoutest archer could send an arrow into it. Inside it Scylla sits and yelps with a voice that you might take to be that of a young hound, but in truth she is a dreadful monster and no one- not even a god - could face her without being terror-struck. She has twelve mis-shapen feet, and six necks of the most prodigious length; and at the end of each neck she has a frightful head with three rows of teeth in each, all set very close together, so that they would crunch any one to death in a moment, and she sits deep within her shady cell thrusting out her heads and peering all round the rock, fishing for dolphins or dogfish or any larger monster that she can catch, of the thousands with which Amphitrite teems. No ship ever yet got past her without losing some men, for she shoots out all her heads at once, and carries off a man in each mouth.
       You will find the other rocks lie lower, but they are so close together that there is not more than a bowshot between them. [A large fig tree in full leaf grows upon it], and under it lies the sucking whirlpool of Charybdis. Three times in the day does she vomit forth her waters, and three times she sucks them down again; see that you be not there when she is sucking, for if you are, Neptune himself could not save you; you must hug the Scylla side and drive ship by as fast as you can, for you had better lose six men than your whole crew."
       "Is there no way,' said Ulysses, 'of escaping Charybdis, and at the same time keeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my men?"
       "You dare-devil,' replied the goddess, you are always wanting to fight somebody or something; you will not let yourself be beaten even by the immortals. For Scylla is not mortal; moreover she is savage, extreme, rude, cruel and invincible. There is no help for it; your best chance will be to get by her as fast as ever you can, for if you dawdle about her rock while you are putting on your armour, she may catch you with a second cast of her six heads, and snap up another half dozen of your men; so drive your ship past her at full speed, and roar out lustily to Crataiis who is Scylla's dam, bad luck to her; she will then stop her from making a second raid upon you."
Well, now you know major ideas involved in the rest of that tale:

Ulysses sails on

Circe went on,
       "After that you will come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god- seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look after their father's flocks and herds. If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and of your comrades; and even though you may yourself escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men."
       Here she ended, and dawn enthroned in gold began to show in heaven, whereon she returned inland. Ulysses then went on board and told his men to loose the ship from her moorings; so they at once got into her, took their places, and began to smite the grey sea with their oars.
       Circe befriended them with a fair wind that stayed steadily with them, keeping their sails well filled, so they did whatever wanted doing to the ship's gear, and let her go as wind and helmsman headed her.
       Then, much troubled in mind, Ulysses said to his men,
       "My friends, it is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so that whether we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope's ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still."
       He had hardly finished telling everything to the men before they all reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very favourable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a breath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails and stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the water with the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile Ulysses look a large wheel of wax and cut it up small with his sword. Then he kneaded the wax in his strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of the sun-god. Then he stopped the ears of all his men, and they bound him hands and feet to the mast as he stood upright on the crosspiece; but they went on rowing themselves. When they had got within earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that they were getting in shore and began with their singing.
       "Come here," they sang, "renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song- and he who listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world."
       Ulysses recalled,
       "They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear them further I made by frowning to my men that they should set me free; but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes bound me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of the Sirens' voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and unbound me.
       At once after we had got past the island I saw a great wave from which spray was rising, and I heard a loud roaring sound. The men were so frightened that they loosed hold of their oars, for the whole sea resounded with the rushing of the waters, but the ship stayed where it was, for the men had left off rowing. I went round, therefore, and exhorted them man by man not to lose heart.
       "My friends," said I, "this is not the first time that we have been in danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when the Cyclops shut us up in his cave; nevertheless, my courage and wise counsel saved us then, and we shall live to look back on all this as well. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say, trust in Jove and row on with might and main. As for you, coxswain, these are your orders; attend to them, for the ship is in your hands; turn her head away from these steaming rapids and hug the rock, or she will give you the slip and be over yonder before you know where you are, and you will be the death of us."
       So they did as I told them; but I said nothing about the awful monster Scylla, for I knew the men would not on rowing if I did, but would huddle together in the hold. In one thing only did I disobey Circe's strict instructions- I put on my armour. Then seizing two strong spears I took my stand on the ship Is bows, for it was there that I expected first to see the monster of the rock, who was to do my men so much harm; but I could not make her out anywhere, though I strained my eyes with looking the gloomy rock all over and over.
       Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind, for on the one hand was Scylla, and on the other dread Charybdis kept sucking up the salt water. As she vomited it up, it was like the water in a cauldron when it is boiling over upon a great fire, and the spray reached the top of the rocks on either side. When she began to suck again, we could see the water all inside whirling round and round, and it made a deafening sound as it broke against the rocks. We could see the bottom of the whirlpool all black with sand and mud, and the men were at their wit's ends for fear. While we were taken up with this, and were expecting each moment to be our last, Scylla pounced down suddenly upon us and snatched up my six best men. I was looking at once after both ship and men, and in a moment I saw their hands and feet ever so high above me, struggling in the air as Scylla was carrying them off, and I heard them call out my name in one last despairing cry. As a fisherman, seated, spear in hand, upon some jutting rock throws bait into the water to deceive the poor little fishes, and spears them with the ox's horn with which his spear is shod, throwing them gasping on to the land as he catches them one by one- even so did Scylla land these panting creatures on her rock and munch them up at the mouth of her den, while they screamed and stretched out their hands to me in their mortal agony. This was the most sickening sight that I saw throughout all my voyages.
       When we had passed the [Wandering] rocks, with Scylla and terrible Charybdis, we reached the noble island of the sun-god ..."

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Sound and fertile humour around the love and hate of the first potter

Q: How keen is the primal potter's sense of astrology-linked, good humour?
      A: A good joke is found to be more that halfway a sermon according to the Hasidim Jews. They contain the most conservative rabbis.

THE WELL-KNOWN rabbi This-and-that of There-and-then got a son who was turned into one of the rabbis who had many ardent followers. On every Sabbath this rabbi didn't expound the law of Moses or the Torah in the midst of followers. He cracked jokes, and diverted them with merry tales, and everybody, even the greybeards, laughed heartily.
      A visitor got surprised. "How can a holy teacher and his followers behave in such an outrageous way? Celebrating the Saturday with nonsense, funny stories and jest! Rabbi, be ashamed: read the Torah!"
      "Torah," exclaimed the rabbi. "What do you suppose I've been expounding here?" Sacred truth is found in all stories and jests!" ¤Ato 264.

 Who's a hero? He who suppresses the urge to tell a [Non-British] joke. - Jewish lore. ¤Ato 264.

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Adjoined

Abg: Jens Braarvig, tr.: Bhagavadgita. Gyldendal. Oslo, 1982.

Clh: Dimmit, Cornelia and van Buitenen, J. A. B. trs: Classical Hindu Mythology. Temple University. Philadelphia, 1978.

Dog: Masunaga, Reiho tr: A Primer of Soto Zen. A Translation of Dogen's Shobogenzo Zuimonki. University Press. Honolulu, 1975.

Fa: Fadiman, Clifton, ed: The Faber Book of Anecdotes. Faber and Faber. Boston & London, 1985.

Gh: Hjortsø, Leo. Græske guder og helte. 2nd ed. Politiken. København, 1984.

Si: Shastri, J. ed: Siva Purana, vol 1-4. Banarsidass. Delhi, 1969.

Siah: Latour, Bruno: Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Harvard University, Cambridge, 1987.

Toh: Sirnes, Tollak: - at vi skal elske hverandre. Gyldendal. Oslo, 1968.

Zae: Wandahl, Finn: Indisk astrologi. SphinX. København, 1989.

Zah: Surti, B.: Thus Spake Zarathushtra. 2nd ed. Ramakrishna. Madras, 1981.

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