Because they're too minor to be footnotes.
Before leaving shamanism I wanted to recommend the book The Ghost Dance by
Weston La Barre, a fascinating study of the origins of religion which touches
on many of the issues discussed here.
I also wanted to at least point out that Western poetry originated in a poetry
which was religious in a sense we've almost totally lost. Someone might today
for instance describe a poem like Dylan Thomas' "Poem in October" as an act of
worship, meaning that it passionately celebrates, in quasi-liturgical
language, the ultimate issues of life. To call ancient Greek poetry an act of
worship is a literal, not a metaphorical, statement. The statement "The
performance of Sophocles' Oedipus in the theatre of Dionysos was an act of
worship" is simply a statement of fact, like the statement "The celebration of
solemn high mass in St. Peter's cathedral in Rome is an act of worship." Less
is known about the place of religion preclassical Greek society, but I'm
convinced that Apollo and the Muses were as real for Homer and Sappho as
Christ and the angels were for Dante. I even think that Callimachus'
religious feeling is much less a literary artifice than many might assume,
though I'm probably in a minority there.
My posting of Campion's "There is none, O none but you" was a contribution to
the "Audience" topic (not the "Happiness" one, though the word appears in the
poem,) though no one seems to have realized it. I've been reading that poem
for decades but only now start to see how tricky and ironic it is. Well I'm
kind of slow some times. At any rate, "and fill the world with envied books"
is rather fine.
I kept the Elizabethan orthography of the poem, though some anthologies
modernize spelling and punctuation. Given my strong feelings that poetry
should be spoken utterance my fondness for Elizabethan printed language may
seem inconsistent, but I just can't find it in myself to prefer (from another
Campion poem)
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move
to
From that smoothe toong whose musicke hell can moue
"Smoothe toong" just looks smoother and more tongue-y than "smooth tongue."
As to the request for the story from Herodotus, I'd rather encourage people to
read the book. Surely the secret of happiness is worth a trip to the library.
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Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
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