When the German explorer Albert von Le Coq was at Kizil as part of his grand travels to "borrow" ancient artifacts in Central Asia (carving frescos right off the walls in some cases!), he was stunned to come upon cave temples in what was by that time the middle of nowhere with murals of such beauty that he described them to be "the finest in all of Turkestan."
These murals were of astounding beauty. And most surprising of all was the blue pigment used in the paintings decorating the cave walls. He would write,
“…the extravagant use of a brilliant blue – the well-known ultramarine which, in the time of Benvenuto Cellini was frequently employed by the Italian painters, and was bought at double its weight in gold."
A color likened to the brilliant blue of the heavens above; as Le Coq explains, this ultramarine pigment was the same blue pigment so beloved by the Renaissance painters. How is it possible, he wondered, that the most expensive blue in the Renaissance painter's palate was also to be found in this remote spot in Central Asia?
One Day many years ago somebody told me that all the true ultramarine paint in the world came from one mine in the heart of Asia.
It's true, it seems that all the ultramarine paint in the world was painstakingly derived from the lapis luzuli rocks mined from one place in northeast Afghanistan. Located not far from Bamiyan; from the Sar-e-sang mine in Afghanistan, donkeys transported the expensive pigment in rough sacks over an ocean of mountain ranges-- East to Central Asia and beyond, and West to Venice and beyond.
In Europe, the precious pigment was so expensive that it was worth more than gold, and the legendary painters of the Renaissance were forced to wait till their patrons provided them the pigment before they could apply the heavenly blue to Mary's robes (for by this time the color was symbolic of Mary).
Finlay says in today's money, a pound would cost about $3000.
The color is truly heavenly-- just look at the Wilton Diptych-- shown above. That is all lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. It is the same color blue that was used at Kizil in what is now Western China and the same color blue that was used in painting the great Buddhist statues that stood over the Bamiyan valley for 1400 years.
In Medieval Byzantium dark blue was the color reserved for an empress. It was also--along with gold--the costliest material of all and so was used in paintings of the Virgin Mary as an expression of devotion.The color became, therefore, a symbol of Mary, and this is where the term, la sacre bleu comes from too...
Cennino Cennini, in Il Libro dell'Arte, wrote that "Ultramarine blue is a color illustrious, beautiful and most perfect, beyond all other colors; one could not say anything about it, or do anything with it, that its quality would still not surpass."
Even the great Michaelangelo was famously unable to finish his painting The Entombment because his promised shipment of ultramarine fell through.
In the East too, lapis luzuli was treasured. Called vairya in Sanskrit, lapis luzuli was one of the Seven Buddhist treasures (七宝)--along with gold, silver, pearls, agate, crystal, and coral. In Japanese, it is written 瑠璃. Ruri is also used as a girl's name, signifying the beautiful gem-like quality of the color. In fact, one of the most beautiful women I ever met in my life had that heavenly name.
My own favorite blue is Huizong's blue --that shimmering lavendar blue he longed to re-create in his imperial ceramic glazes--like "the the color of the sky, in early morning after a rainshower..." That blue was the blue that would become a kind of longing in people --existing more in people's imaginations and hearts than anywhere else. But Cellini's blue--that lapis luzuli blue from Bamiyan-- is perhaps the most treasured blue of all times. It was, after all, a color to designate a celestial Queen.
The year was 1683 and the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, Kara Mustafa Pasha, led one of the most organized war machines on earth. He was leading them westward-- toward Vienna. We know now that his campaign would end in defeat. The Pasha himself held ultimately responsible, he would be made to suffer the punishment of death by strangulation; his head then delivered to the Sultan back in Constantinople in a velvet bag.
Make sure you tie the knott right, he is supposed to have said to his executioners as they prepared to tie the silken cord around his neck.
But imagine how optimistic he must have been just months earlier as he led the powerful Ottoman toward the city walls of Vienna.
Pure formality, the Ottoman army had first sent an official demand for surrender of the city. Both sides, however, were well aware that they would have to fight to the finish: take the city versus defend the city. Treaties, entreaties and traitors opening the gates from the inside not being likely options.
And so after receiving rejection to their official demand, the Ottoman army set to work digging tunnels under the city walls. Using little pick axes, they dug sitting down, creating tunnels in which they would use explosives to try and collapse the walls. The siege was vicious and food had been cut off, but the fortifications built by the Viennese a week before the arrival of the Ottoman army significantly slowed their adversaries down. Then, with the arrival of the Christian Polish relief army, the battle turned against the Pasha.
And, speaking of the famed Polish soldiers, perhaps the Battle of Vienna is most famous for their final calvary charge. The famed winged hussars-- led by the great King of Poland himself. After their triumph, he was said to have paraphrased Julius Caesar's famous quote:
"Venimus, Vidimus, Deus vincit" - "We came, We saw, God won."
**
I am listening to a really interesting In Our Time program about the Battle of Vienna. Even more than the famous naval battle at Lepanto, we know that the Battle of Vienna was at the time seen as a great clash of civilizations. Like the Battle of Talas or the Battle of Thermopylae, the Battle of Vienna was the stuff that would later be said to have profoundly changed the course of history. Indeed, even at the time, it was seen as a Clash of Civilizations: with Christians praying for a Christian victory in churches as far away as Britain and Catalonia.
The In Our Time homepage has this blurb on the battle:
The ensuing siege has been held responsible for many things, from the invention of the croissant to the creation of Viennese coffee. But most importantly, it has come to be seen as a clash of civilisations, one that helped to define a series of boundaries, between Europe and Asia, Christian and Muslim, Hapsburg and Ottoman, that influence the view between Vienna and Istanbul to this day. But to see the siege as a defining moment in east/west relations may be to read back into history an idea that was not true at the time.
This talk of boundaries is very interesting, I think, because it was more like a "series of boundaries" or "fault lines. Famous battles are almost always later said to have created boundaries between civilizations (as opposted to those less significantly interpreted battles fought between neighbors) And, this is certainly how the Battle of Talas, the Battle of Vienna and the Battle of Thermoplae are traditionally understood. The guests on the In Our Time show spoke about something they called "deep history," maybe a better term is simply "historical memory"? But, they discuss the way the battle continues to be significant in our historical memory even today; so that for example the issue of Turkey's inclusion in the EU would have a different emotive impact in Vienna then say in Britain.
**
Like many of the Readers of these Pages, I love history. And, I have mentioned before that I went through a period-- about 4 years in fact-- where I read almost exclusively song dynasty history. Reading in both Japanese and English, the books were all written in the style of intellectual history and hence were created in great part to "illuminate" the past (that is, they illuminated both the Song times but also the Tang times and the present times; see article on Al Andalus linked below, for example on revisionism in intellectual history).
I suppose, too, that this type of resionary or illuminary history-writing is in many ways the polar opposite of Kapuscinski's portrayal of Herodotus' project of "real time seeing" or "looking." As he says,
But not just to look but to try and write down what he saw in order not to forget it. Not necessarily that any truth can be illuminated but only this aim of leaving behind a trace of what happened. It is, I think, a human impulse-- this desire to remember. This was, after all, why Herodotus tells us that he wrote down his own travels-- in unending run-on sentences that overflowed onto countless papyrus scrolls.
I think it takes a certain kind of person to practice this type of history. (Does anyone really practice oral history anymore? Even the journalists nowadays seem to be in the narrative-making business) I find myself thinking a lot about the art of doing looking and tale-telling (l'histoire) -- about this idea of standing in the world and writing history as it actually is taking place; at that precise moment where present tense becomes past tense. Somehow I think it is bound up in the notion of the ethics of care. And, I wonder if doing oral history is not one of the most significant and humane approaches to history. Especially when it is practiced in order to tell the stories of those otherwise who would not have a voice: history as telling tales: l'histoire (as story and history)
Another really good In Our Time program called "A History of History" started off its show with these words:
In the 6th century AD, the bishop of Tours began his history of the world with a simple observation that “A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad”
That about sums it up I guess...
All the art work comes from Biblioddysey's fabulous post Feuerwerksbuch. The artillary is at least a hundred years "behind-the-times" but I was unable to find anything more contemporary to the Battle (sorry!)
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RECOMMENDED: This from William Dalrymple on the dangers of cultural provincialism and US politics: Home Truths on Abroad
He doesn't know what he doesn't know, said my friend, the Brilliant Master Wang Yangming. He knows nothing about human nature and anyway, The Great Learning shows us what are genuine knowledge and genuine action. It asks us ‘to love the good as we love the beautiful color and to hate the evil as we hate the bad odor.’ Here seeing the beautiful color belongs to knowledge, while loving it belongs to action. However, at the very moment one sees the beautiful color one has already loved it; it is not the case that one decides to love it only after seeing it. Similarly, smelling the bad odor belongs to knowledge, while hating it belongs to action. However, at the very moment one smells the bad odor, one has already hated it; it is not the case that one decides to hate it only after smelling it.” All anyone can really know is the view out the window right in front of them. They may think they know more than that but they don't, do they?
My friend was indeed famous for his unusual epistemology. The unity of knowledge and action (知行合一says in a nutshell, “If you want to know bitterness, you have to eat a bitter melon yourself.” No other knowledge is possible. All we know is what we do. And what we do is all we can know.
To approach the issue you would, I think, have to work well outside a Cartesian mind-body duality so that knowledge is always something *embodied* and therefore in this radical de-emphasis of the thinking-action divide, all knowledge is-- as embodied-- also an action. So, in this way, as the philosophers over at Warp, Weft and Way suggested, this pushes beyond Ryle's know-that versus the know-how dichotemy, to say that all Confucian knowing is a knowing-to.
Hence, knowing affects or informs, influences. At the same time, though, this is saying that all we can know is what we do- or what we see. "Vision pours in through the eyes," says Dante, "straight into imagination." Even through our very breath, (or 気) we take inside (内）what is outside (外) and can thereby be affected by osmosis. In such an epistemology, what is then emphasized is a sensitivity or a receptive sensibility to the shared world around us.
This is a partial rejection of knowledge ex nihilo with a strong emphasis on inter-relational and inter-subjective knowing. Knowing as doing. Doing as being.
Yes, the view out our window as we are in the act of looking.
It reminds me of the Renaissance idea of painting as a window on the world. As Leon Battista Alberti in the 15th century famously declared, painting should be like “a transparent window through which we look out into a section of the visible world.” Yes, the Venetians. In their exquisite subjective "eye-witness style chronicle of daily life," perhaps no one achieved this ideal like Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and Carpaccio. Really, no wonder Ottoman Miniaturist Master Effendi was stunned-- so different were these paintings from what he was accustomed to back home.
The Getty Center in LA has a gorgeous and endlessly fascinating work by Carpaccio, Hunting on the Lagoon.
Painted by Carpaccio at the very same moment that my friend, Master Yangming, was writing down his unusual theory of epstemology on the other side of the world, Hunting on the Lagoon had puzzled art historians for decades. The painting shimmers in atmosphereic effects. Painted in azurite, lead white, ultramarine, with touches of vermilion used for the red on the Moor's jacket, it is one of the great views out a window.
Hunting on the Lagoon. But, hunting water birds with a bow and arrow?
It was the Ming dynasty and the art of cormorant fishing had already arrived in Venice by that time. In Japan, you can still see this traditional way of fishing, called ukai. We saw it years ago by lamplight at night on boats that ply the Inuyama River, in Gifu Prefecture. The birds are trained to catch fish and deliver them back to their owners, the fisherman on the boats. Looking at the painting, while I spotted the cormorants without any problem, the practice was altered beyond recognition. The most fabulous lagoon in the world, during the Renaissance it must have been jam-packed with fish and mussels and clams and birds and, well, it must have been a wonderful place to spend an afternoon. And, these guys with their bows are clearly no fishermen.
I mean, I almost hate to draw attention to the big white lilies portruding from the water in the foreground of the painting. It surely must have driven art historians nuts for generations.
And, it wasn't until 1962 that a tentative answer to the mystery of the lilies was offered either.
You guessed it. There is another painting that has an empty vase.
An even more famous painting by Carpaccio, it hangs in the Correr Museum in Venice. Two Venetian Ladies was described by 19th century art collector John Ruskin as, "the best picture in the world." And, until 1962, with that bored look in their eyes and the high wooden clogs tossed in the corner, it was long assumed and insisted upon that these two ladies were courtesans.
But as Brilliant Master Yangming insisted, it is almost impossible to understand the view out the window unless you are the one doing the looking. All your knowledge will be based on rather shaky presuppositions otherwise.
Do you see the pretty majolica vase sitting on the railing of the balcony? Well, finally someone put two and two together. Someone looking at the empty vase surmissed --and then tests later confirmed-- that the lilies of Hunters fit right in that vase. Yes, the two paintings (paintings painted on wooden panels) fit together one on top of the other!
Talking about a window on the world, these paintings are believed to have been painted on a shutter or panels for a cabinet (the other painting facing this side being missing). Like pieces of a puzzle, looking at the paintings as a set, art historians now believe that these "ladies"-- rather then bored courtesan-- are probably the wives of the "fishermen," who are themselves no longer believed to be fishermen but rather aristocratic Venetians out hunting water fowl for sport on the lagoon.
The ladies, sitting on their elegant altane, are waiting-- waiting for the return of their men.
So this window on a world affords a view of two patrician ladies awaiting--finely clothed and surrounded in luxery, they look extraordinarily bored, don't they? They do not seem interested --though we certainly are-- in the view out their window of the most beautiful lagoon in the world. La Serenissima.
absence / absence Any episode of language which stages the absence of the loved object -- whatever its cause and its duration -- and which tends to transform this absence into an ordeal of abandonment-- Barthes
Queen Dido.
You will recall, the last we saw the two lovers, they were overwhelmed and lying in each other's arms-- whispering softly in Japanese: 愛していますよ, she says, "I love you."
That eros （愛神）had intoxicated her in a cloud of longing and desire -- that cannot be denied. I ask, though, that you recall the cave scene (caves as female body/sexuality) when "torches of lightning blazed," and the "prisoners of lust" ("enthralled by shameless passion') make love
That was the first day of her ruin and the first cause for sorrows; for she is not moved by her appearance or reputation, now Dido no longer thinks of her love as a secret: she calls it marriage; she hides her fault by this name
Is everyone finally getting the picture?
They have made love, and she now believes they are married. Aeneas, for his part is probably thinking, "Hey, who said anything about marriage?"
And that is amour （恋愛）.
Turning back to daoism for a moment, last night I re-read a friend's work on the topic for the third time. And, if daoism urges us to put aside our various mental constructs (of Self, of how we think the world should be, etc.) and go back to the purity and honesty of childhood, I am left asking again, what if anything was Dido's reaction than a fit of love and abandonment? I wonder, if the ancients had this one 狂気の愛 (amour fou).
Burning incense and tossing oracle bones, I read Barthes like the Gialbo reads the yijing:
A classic word comes from the body, which expresses the emotion of absence (to sigh 溜息→感嘆 ): "to sigh for the bodily presence": the two halves of the androgyne sigh for each other, as if each breath, being incomplete, sought to mingle with the other: the image of the embrace 色 in that melts the two images into a single one: in amorous absence, I am, sadly, an unglued image that dries, yellows, shrivels.
So there she is-- walking over the Bridge of Sighs (溜息橋), but finds herself utterly unable to just turn around and walk back to the other side. And so in my reading, Dido does nothing （無為）-- or she does something 有為 (it's all in what direction you are facing on the bridge) but walking forward (or backward) she lies down in the flames; cursing all Trojans.
Regarding the wuwei world （無為自然）I found one japanese explanation I liked a lot-- though, I warn you I have no idea if this works for those dwelling in the State of Chu. And that is this, the kanji wei (為/为) means, "to do" and "to become" but in Japanese at least, the more common meaning of the kanji is "for the purpose of"-- and one blogger wrote how it is this that is the point of wuwei. Do not perform any action which you do for the purpose (...の為に）of something else. This means, basically, to always act in terms of ends (ends in themselves)-- never in terms of means. Being un-strategic and without ado... About Dido's heart, Brodsky said, "her love was like a fish."
Is she not the real hero of the epic?
I was listening to an In Our Time program on free will and not surprisingly, Aeneas was mentioned. Discussing the surprising lack of interest the hero has received by Hollywood, one of Bragg's guests mentioned that it may in part have been due to the hero's lack of free will. Indeed, out of all the ancient heroes, Aeneas is considered to be almost totally lacking in free will. Pious Aeneas and his duty. Controlled by destiny, there is almost no wiggle room in his mind.
But, of course, this is not the only reason Aeneas-among the ancient heroes-- has been looked down upon and sometimes even derided. For as Hubert Dreyfus said (and I agree), it's hard not to dislike him really.
For as my friend, the Count remarked :
Zeus has nothing to do with it. This is the sod part.(And it can be admirable: look at Odysseus, who is always, always, in every instance, the better man. Baby, he says to Calypso, you are everything a man would ever wish, but I love another. Calypso hates it, and can’t come to terms with it for seven long years. But in the end she does. And she does because at least she knows she is not being lied to, made a fool of, cheated. Usually — sometimes — even a woman spurned can admire character in a man).
The absence of the other holds my head underwater; gradually I drown, my air supply gives out: it is by this asphyxia that I reconstitute my "truth" and that I prepare what in love is Intractable.
The ancients told us that it was the heart that mattered. Thinking too much, they warned, will only give you a headache. And this fact was backed up by the finest research of Medieval physicians and theologians. Aristotelian philosophy had imparted to the Medievals that the heart was hot and dry-- often times burning hot; and that intelligence, emotion, passion and sensations all originated there, in that heat. Ibn Arabi further refined this by adding that, if the mind thinks (考）, the heart imagines （思・想）.
We find ourselves, therefore, back in a Medieval time when heart and imagination took center stage.
In addition to its heat, the Medieval heart was also believed to be extremely porous--something which inextricably connected inner with outer (and outer and inner). Heather Webb explains it thus:
It was thought that the air we breathed mixed with the blood in our hearts to form generative spirits that, sent back into the world, connected us to one another and to the greater circulating universe. According to the Aristotelian and Aquinian theory, the heart should imperfectly mimic the circulations of the heavens"
Through our breath, then, and our persistently beating hearts, we are connected to the world around us. One breathes in landscape, atmosphere and social context and breathes out heart and poetry.
Out to buy figs, young Dante was in a rush to arrive at the market. As he walked he imagined the smell of Sicilian lemons; of sweet sugar from Egypt; of perfumed vinegars and syrups made from grapes. Cherries, endives, oranges, spicy sausage; dried fruit, dried fish, mint, orange blossoms and roses---cumin, peppers and of course saffron. Just thinking about the perfume of these things caused him to quicken his pace. And, turning the corner to the lively street that followed the great River Arno, he spotted her. Beatrice. It had been precisely nine years since the first time he had caught glimpse of her, at a time when they had both still been only children. But he recognized her in an instant.
Then, as she approached him-- not surprising, given the story-- their eyes locked.
And as a thousand birds took flight in his heart, the man stood there barely breathing. Time stopped. Breath quickened and he let out an amorous sigh (溜息→感嘆).
Too quickly, however, Beatrice's friend, with whom she had been walking arm-in-arm, urged her to continue walking, and so Beatrice-- with just the most prefunctory greetings to her beloved-- walked away. Somehow, though, she felt absolutely sure that she would never be the same again.
In a dream later that night, The God of Love commands Dante: Vide cor tuum: Look upon your heart.
Dante. His world was largely un-interested in Nirvana or Enlightenment-- or any other project which saw our human lives as a resource to be shaped, utilized, improved and perfected. People didn't really seek to be the best me they could be. Nor did they go to elaborate lengths to avoid pain. For those in Dante's world, one needn't empty oneself or seek to detach oneself from emotions as their world was not a world of independent self-enclosed brains. Dwelling in a world that itself was bleeding and wounded (wounded Christ heart), poets and philosophers considered that the best one could do was to bravely and vigiliantly keep an open heart-- a generous heart (Sacred Heart).
And through one's own heart's wounds, from out of this would true art be created.
Dante was very clear about this.
But, the Middle Ages was a long time ago. So, imagine my surprise when visiting a psychic down on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood not that long ago, I was told: You have forgotten your Medieval heart. Your Gypsy heart.
**
In the Comedia, hopelessness is the greatest Sin of all and only in Hell, is a person's heart closed. Heart becomes cold and likewise --as Dante tells us again and again-- hell is not a hot place but rather is a full of ice. For in Hell, people harm themselves by hurting others.
Most of you, Dear Readers, will agree I am sure that it is the Medieval romantic trope par excellance. This image of the Lover ripping out his beating and bleeding heart and presenting it to the Beloved-- we see it over and over again in Medieval literature. A "macabre literalization of the metaphoric seat of love: the heart itself," says Robert Harrison in his book the Body of Beatrice.
The heart.
We forget now in our age of mind and reason that for a long time it was the heart that was thought to be what really mattered.
It all reminds me of Dante's dream from La Vita Nuova.
Exactly nine years had past since he had first caught glimpse of her as a nine year old child. Now aged 18, she walks in lovliness and in virtue. And, passing him on the street one day, she turned to greet him (salute as greeting, salute as "saving," in Italian).
Dante was overcome. And fell into sweet sleep.
Dreaming, the room became infused with a flame-coloured light as the God of Love, the Lord of Amor 愛神 appeared before Dante's eyes. Veiled in deep red, sighing and in great longing, Dante sees that in Amor's arms is his beloved, Beatrice, also draped in crimson.
Joyfully Amor seemed to me to hold my heart in his hand, and held in his arms my lady wrapped in a cloth sleeping. Then he woke her, and that burning heart he fed to her reverently, she fearing, afterwards he went not to be seen weeping.
Vide cor tuum: Look upon your heart. Thus commands Amor. And Dante looks and sees there that his heart, held tightly in Amor's fist, is red and on fire. Then, in fascination and amidst many sighs, the Lord wakes Beatrice and commands that she eat the Lover's heart. Amor feeds this heart to Beatrice as Dante watches in red. The act completed, Amor unexpectently turns sad. And gathering tightly to his chest the Lady held tightly in his arms, he thereby acsends to heaven in tears.
A mystery to be sure, even in Dante's lifetime, people were puzzled by his dream. Robert Harrison, in his book, describes how Dante's contemporary Cino da Pistoia interpreted the dream that Amor sought to show Dante that true love sees the lover desiring to have his heart be uttrely known to the Beloved. And he shows this by offering Dante's heart to Beatrice for consuming.
Another contemporary, however, advises that Dante try and "wash his testicles with plenty of water to disperse the noxious vapors that bring on the delirium of such visions."
恋愛.
I personally think (and I am basing this on my reading of Ibn Arabi's letters-- themselves so full of longing and sighing) that Amor begins to weep because he knows this is as close as Dante will ever get to his Beloved-- as she is doomed to die. For as Barthes says,
Any episode of language which stages the absence of the loved object -- whatever its cause and its duration -- and which tends to transform this absence into an ordeal of abandonment
This is seen in both the tears of God and the sighing of the poet. Like a Tibetan prayer wheel sending up a prayer to heaven with each turn of the wheel, so too do sighs and tears express the movement of inner to outer; the transcendence of our immediate and bodily felt sensual or spiritual desires upward.
Barthes:
A classic word comes from the body, which expresses the emotion of absence (to sigh 溜息→感嘆 ): "to sigh for the bodily presence": the two halves of the androgyne sigh for each other, as if each breath, being incomplete, sought to mingle with the other: the image of the embrace 色 in that melts the two images into a single one: in amorous absence, I am, sadly, an unglued image that dries, yellows, shrivels.
And as Dante sighs, Dante is deeply and forever moved by love:
From then on I say that Amor governed my soul, which as soon so soon wedded to him and began to acquire over me such certainty and command, through the power my imagination gave him, that I was forced to carry out his wishes fully.
What is so fascinating about this is that Dante admits that everything that came to pass did so through the free will of his own heart. That is, Dante freely surrendered to Amor.
Heart can only count to one.
It surrenders or it doesn't.
And, in an age which no longer prioritizes heart and where imagination hardly stands a chance, I have wondered in my darker moments, about the state of love. Do you think-- if we turn off our TVs-- we are still able to fall in love like Dante did-- in longing and amidst great sighs?
**
Here is Patrick Cassedy's inspired version of the Sonnet, Vide Cor Meum and even as joy becomes bitter tears, the poet is at peace; for "see my heart," he says.
Chorus: And thinking of her Sweet sleep overcame me I am your master See your heart And of this burning heart Your heart (Chorus: She trembling) Obediently eats. Weeping, I saw him then depart from me. Joy is converted To bitterest tears I am in peace My heart I am in peace See my heart
--from the archives (why the battle of talas is my favorite battle)
The almond groves of Samarqand, Bokhara, where red lilies blow. And Oxus, by whose yellow sand The grave white-turbaned merchants go --Oscar Wilde
1000 years before the infamous "Great Game," which was the name given to the intense rivalry that existed at the turn of the century between Czarist Russia and Victorian England for supremacy in Central Asia, there was another "Great Game." This older rivalry occurred between the Chinese, the Arabs, the Tibetans, and Turkish peoples.
And the region they were fighting for, you ask? Well, it was the same old stretch of land-- a stretch of land that has somehow remained right smack in the middle of everything for 1000 years.
To the East was China, and such was China's greatness under the Tang dynasty that none save the Arabs to the West were said to rival her. Rome had long been overrun, and for all intents and purposes Byzantium was in a state of great decline. The Arabs-- in what was a stunning rise to power-- after toppling the Persian Sassanian dynasty in 637, had next turned their attention to those lands to the East.
Despite the astonishing speed at which the countries of the Middle East came under the power of the Arabs and Islam, the nations of Central Asia, which had long been part of the Persian sphere of influence, proved to be a much tougher nut to crack. As the Arabs made increasing encroachments into areas long considered by the Chinese as being part of their sphere of influence (particularly that of Transoxiana) the Chinese and Arabs saw increased fighting occur along China's Western borders.
The Chinese, however, also had the Tibetan Empire (which had reached its zenith during Tang times) to the southwest and various nomadic peoples (such as the Turkish Uighurs and Mongols) with their shifting alliances and shifting moods to the north to contend with as well. Perhaps what is most surprising, as Susan Whitfield points our in her fascinating book, Life Along the Silk Road, is that these empires and super-powers clashed in places that were not only thousands of miles from their home bases, but were in some of the most remote spots on earth. The battles almost exclusively occurred on frozen mountain terrain or in desolate and burning deserts.
Of course, skirmishes like this continue down to today. I mean, we still see India, China, and Pakistan (among others) wrestling for control of a Himalayan peak 17,000 feet above sea level or some stretch of highway in the desert. You cannot help but think to yourself, if they really want that glacier that badly, why not give it to them? But, regiments of Indian, Chinese and Pakistani soldiers remain stationed high up in the mountains year-round. It is for strategic reasons, they are told, in strategic foreign policy that is as old as the silk road.
It is the terrain that perhaps more than anything defines Central Asia. In addition to being dominated by some of the highest mountain ranges on earth, the area is also home to some of the most deadly deserts and lifeless basin areas as well. Completely landlocked, it is a land of great extremes. Through this rough terrain, two great rivers flow north-- down from the mountains into the Aral Sea. These rivers are the lifeblood of the people.
To the West, forming a natural border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; and then between Tajikistan and Afghanistan is the Amu Darya. The river is known locally as the Jayhoun, which is thought to be derived from Gihon-- one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden of the Bible. We in the West know the river by its Classical Greek name, the Oxus. The other river, the Syr Darya flows the great length of Central Asia from the Krgyz Republic; briefly into Uzbekistan and then through Kazakhstan. This river is also commonly referred to by its ancient Greek name, the Jaxartes-- being perhaps most famous as the northernmost point of Alexander the Great's conquests in the East.
From ancient Greek times, the land between the rivers was known as Transoxiana-- or Oxiana.
It was not far from the Syr Darya River that the decisive Battle of Talas took place. Occurring in 751, the five day battle is one of the most important battles of the East (and yet few in the West have even heard of it!). The Arabs in their push Eastward (into lands previously held by the Persians) were seriously encroaching on China's strategic Silk Road Garrisons. Something had to be done, so the Emperor sent out his best forces under the leadership of the famed Korean commander Gao Xianshi. Known as Lord of the Mountains, Commander Gao had made a career out of inflicting defeat on China's enemies to the West. Inflicting defeat on Turks, Tibetans and Arabs, the battles were fought almost exclusively in the dazzlingly high Pamir Mountains.
Neither side wanted war-- as war would interrupt what had for centuries been the incredibly lucrative trade of luxury items that passed through Transoxiana. Silk was the most famous item traded, but passing from the West through Oxiana on its way East was the lucrative trade in furs, amber, honey and walrus ivory from Eastern Europe. Plus they each had other enemies to contend with as well. Sending emissaries to visit each other's capitals to negotiate, there is little doubt that neither side wanted war--- and yet they were on an inevitable collision course.
The underlying cause of the Battle actually had nothing whatsoever to do with Chinese-Arab relations, but rather was caused by tensions with Tibet and a local feud between two small Central Asian Kingdoms. The Tibetans at the time not only had a highly sophisticated culture but they also had a strong military-- a military which was on the move. They had caused China no end of troubles with their incursions further and further North (into areas long considered under Chinese suzerainty). To stave off any further ambitions, China established alliances with the Kingdoms to their rear in Kashmir and in the Pamirs. But, things came to a head when the King of the Kingdom of Gilgit announced himself as being pro-Tibetan. The Chinese had had enough and sent in their Commander of the Mountains, Gao Xianshi.
Swooping down on the enemy in a surprise attack, he destroyed the bridges into the Kingdom thereby cutting off help expected from the Tibetans, and before any allies could arrive to fight alongside them, Gao had cut off the heads of the King and his advisers. And that was that. Commander Gao became the Military Governor of the region, including Kucha and Kashmir and from that base, China kept a hand in all that went on in the area. (This battle forms the backdrop of Susan Whitfield's second Tale in her book, Life Along the Silk Road).
It seemed that an uneasy alliance between the Tibetans and Chinese, as well as the Chinese and Arabs had been formed, until a petty feud between two Kings further North in Transoxiana brought things to a head again. This time, it wasn't just the Tibetans either, but the Arabs who were also said to have played a role, when the King of Ferghana was deposed with the alleged help of both the Tibetans and Arabs. The deposed King escaped to Kucha were he requested help from his old ally Commander Gao who was still there as Military Governor. In the process of re-installing the King, Gao led massacres in three towns in Sogdiana, which were increasingly closer to the Arab-controlled regions.
Sensing the time had come to put the Chinese in their place, the Abbassid Governor in Khorasan mobilized his army. Marching from Merv, they crossed the Oxus, heading straight for Kashgar. The two Titans finally crossed paths on the banks of the Talas River, in Kyrgystan. During the encounter, the Arabs achieved a stunning victory which they credit to superior strategy. The Chinese, for their part, blame defection of their allies part way through the battle.
While it was neither excessively long or bloody, the Battle of Talas remains the battle people talk about. Arab sites give it an almost jihad-ish flavor as the battle which caused the "infidels to take flight." And both sides seem to agree that if the Battle had gone the other way, it would have been China , not Islam which would have been the great influence Central Asia. For with this battle, the lines were finally drawn in the sand: Turkestan belonged to the Arabs, and China thereafter withdrew to its garrisons in the Tarim Basin.
Nobody, of course, thinks that this one battle was the sole reason for the Chinese withdraw East of the Pamirs, but it became what was the last nail in the coffin of the Tang dynasty as the event that heralded on the infamous An Lushan Rebellion (755-763)-- see my post here for more on the man who would rock the empire.
It is said to have been the only time in history that the Arabs and Chinese fought, but the Battle of Talas was to have a profound impact on world history. As mentioned above, Chinese expansion West was firmly stopped at the Pamirs, and Central Asia would forever after be influenced by Arab and Islamic (Persian) culture. In addition, at the battle's end, Chinese paper-making artisans were kidnapped and brought back to the new Abbasid capital at Baghdad. At last, the mysteries of paper-making were unlocked. It was thanks to this technical know-how that the Arab empire embarked on what was a huge cultural enterprise to translate and propagate Greek philosophy, mathematics, and medicine.
Without this Arab effort, the great riches of Classical Greek culture would have been lost forever as Medieval Europe had turned its back on its classical past. The work of Aristotle was most famously preserved under the Arabs, but so too was Euclidean geometry and Alexandrian astronomy. Knowledge was not only preserved, but was also refined and re-worked into the great body of knowledge and culture which was propagated during the Arab golden age. For example. classical mathematical theory formed the basis of algebra, which was pioneered during the Golden Age of the Abbasinian dynasty.
Whether intentional or not, French philosophers (and your occasional Japanese academic) again and again urge us not to forget the pivotal role the Abbasids in Baghdad (with great Persian influence)-- as well as the Muslim philosophers and scholars of al-Andalus-- had on the Renaissance that occurred in Europe not long after. From the East, the Arabs received the technical achievements of the Chinese and Indians, and from the West, they took the body of Western Classical culture. They then dedicated themselves to preserving and expanding this body of knowledge. It was philosophers like Averroes and Avicenna who kept the light of philosophy and mathematics, physics and medicine burning brightly in what was a great cauldron of intellectual activity centered around Baghdad.
It seems at times-- whether one is interested in the achievements of the East or of the West-- that all roads truly lead to Oxiana; as Oxiana, perhaps more than anywhere on earth, has been a land that has stood at the crossroads of civilizations.
Gondolas, lights, and music-- he insinuated that I was moody; telling me I do "a good imitation of a nut." (Can you believe it?)
"That's good," I thought, recalling a poem about Venice written by Nietzsche. Robert Harrison, talking about the Philosophy of Moods, describes how Nietzsche-- a man of many moods-- once sang the poem in the middle of the night on a train from Turin back to Germany in a state of madness:
At the bridge of late I stood in the brown night. From afar came a song: as a golden drop it welled over the quivering surface. Gondolas, lights, and music-- drunken it swam out into the twilight.
My soul, a stringed instrument, sang to itself, invisibly touched, a secret gondola song, quivering with iridescent happiness. --Did anyone listen to it?
Trouble is we still live in an age of bread and circuses. Any real enchantment or imagination any of us may have will immediately be shot down as the ravings of a nutjob
The ravings of a nutjob-- don't you love it? But, nut-imitation skills-- or any imitation skills really!-- are not a bad thing to have, if you think about it. Remember how much pleasure Masetto had in Book Three of the Decameron? (Well, at least at first!)
You remember,
as the dawn was already changing from vermilion to orange, as the sun hasted to the horizon, the queen rose and roused all the company.
And carrying out her duty, she appointed Filostrato to be storyteller of the day. In those days, storytelling was important business and Filostrato took his job seriously-- telling the group about the young man, Masetto da Lamporecchio, who so pines for the lovely ladies of a nearby nunnery that he "feigns to be dumb" in order to obtain a gardener's position at the covent, whose women,
with one accord make haste to lie with him.
Listening to the story, who among the assembled ladies and gentlemen were not moved?
Why tell stories if no one is any longer capable of being moved by them, right? I have been spending a lot of time talking about imagination and storytelling, but, in the end perhaps what I am really trying to get at is this capacity to be engaged with life. That is, one's capacity of being moved by mood.
I know some of you may blame Peerless Helen. I mean, of course, all those dead Trojan soldiers for one thing. Virgil, too, I think came down hard on her. But, it's interesting to note that the ancients themselves had a more ambiguous understanding of Helen, whom they called, Peerless Among Women. For the ancients lived in great awe of the moods-- and so in one sense that great Mood that overcame Helen inspiring her--overcoming her--to run away with Paris, well by acting on it, was she not going with the Flow (it is hard in a sense to judge now because we cannot but help see it through Christian or even Roman terms, can we?) The above is pure Dreyfus-- but I like it.
And so, when my man Caesar called me moody, I asked him whether he thought that someone not prone to moods would be able to truly be moved by things? That is the question, is it not? If the strings are not pulled pretty tautly on the stringed instrument of our souls, nothing will revereberate within us. So, no, I don't think the opposite of "high strung" is laid back. I think the opposite is 鈍感= dull, insensitive, obtuse, flat.
This is much on my mind since I've been thinking of Heidegger and his concept of mood. For Heidegger, moods are very different from how we ordinarily think of them today. As Dreyfus explains
Until recently, if philosophers thought about moods or feelings at all, they thought of them as inner mental states. On this view, often called "Cartesian" after the French philosopher René Descartes, people are not really in a mood but moods are in people. A person's private feelings are expressed (made outer) by bodily movements, which can then be observed, interpreted, and responded to by another person through his or her movements.
For Heidegger, then, moods are not something inside a person but rather are something that a person can be in. That is, moods come over us; overcoming us. The German word famously reflects this, as philosophers like to remind us that die Stimmung [stimmungen?] means mood in terms of atmosphere ("ambiance"). Often likened to music or to weather, Heideggerean mood wraps itself around our bodies. It is something that we unconsciously attune ourselves too. Indeed, it is one way we have to grasp the way the world discloses itself to us.
Robert Harrison explains it thus:
"mood is a form of attunement between nature and spirit; between habitat and inhabitant"
People are wrapped in mood. This is different from emotion, like anger or sadness, which has a cause. Mood is something more general that comes without cause from outside us-- like a song, calling. Hence, moodiness could be seen as a kind of sensitive attunement.
Nietzsche steps out into the dark Venice night. Surrounded by the sound and smell of water, a mood overcomes him like a song-- quivering across the surface of the water.
Gondolas, lights, and music-- drunken it swam out into the twilight.
And he asks, Did anyone listen?
It is not unlike a Confucian scholar whose meticulous actions-- perfectly attuned to the situation-- are guided by a Confucian sensibility, or mood. Like the sound of jade reverberating off the walls of the great hall, the Confucian scholar just feels it-- this thing called virtue or proper conduct is something to which he attunes himself as embodied know-how guided by mood. And as Robert Harrison's guest, Sepp Gumbrecht suggests, in the same way that a violin will internally reverberate when bowed, this mood is internalized in the sense that it becomes almost impossible to really differentiate between outer environment and inner self as they are indeed inter-dependent.
Mood is how we situate ourselves in our circumstances sensitively. That different cultures across geography and time have emphasized or have sought to cultivate this sensibility to a greater or lesser degree is commonsensical. Sepp Gumbrecht holds up the ancient Greeks as one culture that placed great emphasis on cultivated sensibility (think of Helen of Troy). But we can also think of this in terms of cultivation in Confucian traditions. Confucian sensibility.
And so as a Medieval lady in Japan is overcome by longing during the time of long June rains, far away in in Florence, a group of ladies and gentlemen gather around the fountain in the garden to tell tales. As Filostrato tells of the wondrous adventures of the young man Masetto in the convent of young ladies, those listens were envloped in a wondrous and intoxicating mood. And who among those present was not moved?
And I leave you with Saburo Teshigawara's dance piece exploring stillness (danced to music by Gurdjieff).
What should have been one of the greatest homecomings in ancient times, instead ended in cold-blooded murder when the King's wife stabbed him to death that evening in the bath.
How did it come to that? You ask.
Even Odysseus-- the reluctant hero-- finally in the end made it safely home to his loving wife and son, didn't he?
And, hadn't the Greeks won the war after their rightful sack of Troy?
Why did she do it?
The chorus, too, demands an answer.
And, so in a series of stunning speeches, which would be the envy of any Washington speech writer, the queen lays out her case. Her husband-- the King-- has killed their beloved daughter, and for that he must die. That he had brought a concubine home with him from Troy and that she and her lover were already happily ruling the Kingdom ensconced in the castle were reasons as well. But Clytemnestra-- make no doubt about it-- is clear about her reasons: he killed their daughter and for that he must die.
So, she sets him up.
In what is one of the most famous homecoming scenes in all history-- Clytemnestra gives her husband Agamemnon the "red carpet treatment."
Laying out the family's priceless reddish-purple color tapestries, she urges him:
"Walk across, my Lord."
He tells her he will not. For that is the kind of arrogance that Persian Kings show-- believing themselves to be as all-mighty as the gods.
"We are democrats," he responds.
And when she continues begging him to glide across the sea of blood-red tapestries, he retorts:
"These are heirlooms, how can we soil our family heirlooms?"
In the end, exhausted perhaps from the trip, he allows himself to be persuaded and across he walks-- to his death. For this show of arrogance is the all-important piece of evidence that Clytemnestra will need as "reason" of the need she had to get rid of him; for most Athenians would have agreed that an all-powerful monarch in the style seen in Persia was something to be avoided at all costs.
In the translator's introduction, it is stated that "puffed up with ego, Agamemnon walks across the tapestries." (many of you will be more familiar with the translator's brother from his Chongqing days)
"Is Lattimore totally oblivious?" Asks Dreyfus, "Where did Agamemnon show any indication of being puffed up? Didn't he try in vain to argue with his wife till he just became exhausted and walked across to please her?"
Dreyfus has a point.
Judge for yourself:
AGAMEMNON Daughter of Leda, guardian of my home, your speech was, like my absence, far too long. Praise that's due to us should come from others. Then it's worthwhile. All those things you said— don't puff me up with such female honours, or grovel there before me babbling tributes, like some barbarian. Don't invite envy to cross my path by strewing it with cloth. That's how we honour gods, not human beings. For a mortal man to place his foot like this on rich embroidery is, in my view, not without some risk. So I'm telling you honour me as a man, not as a god. My fame proclaims itself. It doesn't need foot mats made out of such embroideries. Not even to think of doing something bad is god's greatest gift. When a man's life ends in great prosperity, only then can we declare that he's a happy man. Thus, if I act, in every circumstance, as I ought to now, there's nothing I need fear.
They debated back and forth. In the end, though, the King gave up and treaded upon the "sea of blood." Scholars continue to argue about exactly why he did finally acquiesce and walk across the tapestries.
But what of "these red tapestries dyed in the sea?"
In the translation above, the English word "cloth" is used, and that is probably a safe translation. I think Lattimore uses the word "carpet" but that doesn't quite seem right, does it? For carpets are made to be walked across. Even the heirloom rugs which one finds hanging in a millionaire's yurt could also probably be walked on without causing too much damage. Dreyfus, I think, prefers calling them tapestries, and that works, I think.
The walls of medieval castles were covered in tapestries of fantastic quality-- in fact, I think I read somewhere that tapestries were among the most costly heirlooms of Medieval Europe.
I have also seen the above translated as robes-- which is perhaps my personal favorite translation. The other day, I was having tea with a friend who had taken out several of her beautiful kimono to air them in the dry autumn weather. Silk brocades with golden threads were only to be out done by the most exquisite embroidery on the thinnest, most delicate silk I have ever seen. It was a splendid fortune in textiles, amassed by a woman who in her youth had been very successful in Osaka's water trade.
Dreyfus says, "It would have been like as if Clytemnestra had taken a dozen Monet paintings down from the walls, and laying them down, had said: Walk across my Lord." Textiles more costly than the finest oil paintings....
My tea teacher as well had warned me to never waste money on jewelry if you can buy textiles.
In the ancient world-- almost no matter where you look-- people who could, spent vast amounts of money on such textiles. And, before the invention of money, cloth formed a large bulk of things which were traded across borders. Indeed, it was the silk trade which was to give its name to the most legendary overland trade routes in history!
Agamemnon's robes were most probably woven from wool. The Persians were known for their exquisite dyed cloth in this material. Still, textile scholars remind us that the silk trade, while it took off in Han or Roman Empire times, actually goes back much further. In 1983 the New York Times ran an article about strips of woven silk found on an Egyptian mummy from 1000BC. Scientific studies showed this silk to be Chinese. Silk was also found in 7th century BC graves in Germany and 5th century BC graves in Greece. This latter date corresponding to Aeschylus' play.
It is not outside the realm of possibility that Agememnon's robes or tapestries were made of woven silk.
II.
More than the material, however, it is their color which intrigues. Many will know that these robes, "the blood red color of the sea," were dyed from the pigments gotten from mollusks-- thousands upon of sea creatures. This was the "purple" dyed linen of the Arc of the Covenant that was later to be the color of the robes of the greatest Roman emperors and the color of Cleopatra's "fragrant sails." Indeed, Cleopatra was said to have dwelled within a world of fragrant incense and a cloud of costly purple.
The color purple has long been associated with emperors and queens. While we say "purple" the term actually encompassed a large spectrum of colors from light pink to very dark fuchsia-- with the most sought after color being a shimmering dark red (sometimes referred to as the color of blood). The most refined-- and therefore the most sought after-- shade was this precise shimmering shade of blood, in fact.
The Phoenicians built their fortunes on trade in the dye-- and indeed, the color is known to us today as Tyrian purple. Based on the coast of Lebanon, the ancient mariners of the Mediterranean delivered cloth dyed in this purple of the sea throughout the ancient world. They say it would take 10,000 dead mollusks to dye one robe the coveted color.
It was smelly business too-- as dying inevitably is. But so lucrative was it that many peoples gave it a shot. No one, however, achieved as beautiful a shade of purple as the Phoenicians (who are believed to have used two species of mollusks: —the Purpura pelagia or Murex trunculus, and the Purfura lapillus or Buccinum lapillus).
Victoria Finlay tries to track down the color in her book, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, and it is really the only failed adventure in the book. The species have been hunted to the point of extinction and while she did get a glimpse of the huge ancient vats that were once used to make the luxerious dyes (wisely located downwind of the ancient city of Tyre), she is unable to find much of anything else in Lebanon and so travels to the New World where the Central American Indians continue to dye cloth in a similar color gotten from mollusks of a different species. (See this Post for more about her travels into Blue).
I would love to see cloth dyed this color. I cannot even really imagine what murax silk would have looked like, but it is something I would very much like to see.
III.
Anyway, the Phonecians and their trading...I have been thinking a lot lately about the silk road. In particular, I am-- as many here will know-- interested in the way the silk road is held up today as a symbol of something worth emulating for today's times.
For example, we see scholars in Europe (UNESCO scholars) discussing silk road exchanges as "two way streets" where, perhaps in contrast to monoculturalization or super-power monologues of today, silk road influence worked more like a true dialog. (And, how much of this is being romanticized is not really the point as the interesting thing is not the historical accuracy, but rather what contemporary phenomenon it is being contrasted with)
In history books as well, there is a stress on the manner in which trade led the way for these exchanges. And, sometimes when I read, while I feel that there is an implied contrast at how things occur in today's world, I am left with questions.
Aren't international exchanges even today based on trade? Or has the financial world changed to such an extent that two-way trade doesn't really exist any longer?
But, we know that huge trade imbalances existed during Roman times. Pliny (I seem to recall) took pains to complain about Roman trade deficits with India. Purple silk was banned in part for this reason in ancient Rome (being reserved for the emperor). But, if it is not contemporary trade imbalances, what then is being implied?
Decades ago, "finance" was generally understood as financing something other than finance itself; that is, stocks and bonds and money were tied to the production and circulation of goods and services, which were for the most part tangible, or "real" in economic parlance. Beginning with at least the oil crisis of the 1970s, finance has been transformed, now stunningly overshadowing the "real" economy. Left academics have coined the term "Financialization" to get at these changes. How big has finance become? That is a difficult question but think about this kind of statement (from the above linked Wikipedia page):
Thus, [in 2006] derivatives trading – mostly futures contracts on interest rates, foreign currencies, Treasury bonds, etc had reached a level of $1,200 trillion, $1.2 quadrillion, a year. By comparison, U.S. GDP in 2006 was $12.456 trillion.
Indeed, this week "trillion" has become a common reference. How big is the market in credit default swaps? We hear reports in the tens of trillions. Government action valued in the hundreds of billions seems puny by comparison. Welcome to the world of financialization.
Sam asks, what would Mencius think? I think it's a good question.
So, these topics remain on my mind, and I still am not exactly sure how to approach them: silk road trade versus contemporaray finance silk road cosmopolitanism versus contemporary globalization silk road international relations versus the Great Game
Checking in at the provincial warlord's homestead, I see someone left a comment here concerning the warlord's preposterous idea that the Tang dynasty is China's #4 most impressive dynasty. I can only say it again: he must be delusional (as clearly the Tang must be either #1 or --if I calculate my beloved's feelings into the calculation-- then, fine, #2) In any case, the comment had some interesting things to say about trade and is recommended reading. Whoever wrote it seems to have similar spelling issues that I have, so at first I wondered if I did in fact write the comment-- but reading it, I realized, no it wasn't me.
Seneca is stoically silent, while Ibn Arabi voices his complaints loudly on Facebook. It seems that some of you are not yet convinced that Dido had a point. The Gialbo-- in his typically subtle and yet sophisticated manner-- brings up the famous scene where Zhuangzi mourns his dead wife in order to try and better understand what exactly we are talking about:
I am at first taken aback by Seneca Crane's interpretation (see here). It is pure stoicism (I cannot help but think darkly). Although I do know what he means in a sense. That one is to "taste without tasting" (ddj63) etc. At the same time, I decide to go ahead and make my own translation of the passage to see if I cannot get to an interpretation that will be more satisfactory to me (and to Dido).
After completing my rendition, I discover, it's not all that different from Watson's-- except perhaps that I would want to stress much more this concept that Zhuangzi (otherwise known as ZZ) is basing both his behavior as well as the reason behind his behavior on something the Japanese translations have as 自然の法則 principles of nature and the dao 道理.
Ibn Arabi-- whose stamina for debate is unsurpassed-- has many problems with this, but for now I am sticking to this idea that what Watson call fate and what Legge calls "what is appointed for all" is really best expressed as the laws of nature or Way.
But more importantly, that this really boils down to one man's (the man we call ZZ) personal response to Way. And, that this personal response to Way has less stress on an objective-sounding normative "should" than the Roman version would suggest (I am basing my interpretation on online Japanese sources-- which many of you will be aware that I usually am more friendly to since after all they have been doing this a 1000 years). In fact, concerning this second point, two of the online sites I used had this last line explicitly translated something like, "and as for myself, I thought to cry like that would be ignoring what was natural as Way.... "
These small adjustments in emphasis lend for a translation that is much more intuitive to me:
(牡丹訳）
(trans) When Zhuangzi's wife died, Huizi found him singing and drumming.
Huizi asked him: "Zhuangdi, is it right to to be singing and drumming during a time of mourning? Afterall was it not your wife who lived with you all these years, raising your children? To not cry is one thing, but to sing and drum-- is this not a time for sadness (is not your reaction unnatural)?"
Zhuangzi replied: "Not at all. Was I not devastated when she first died? Did I not cry then?
"Thinking about it, though, I thought about that time before she was born when she had no real "existence." Not only did she have no real "existence" but she had no physical form. And without a body, she also had no spirit (氣). From out of this murky nothing, however, 氣 was generated and this was changed into "form." Now this body and 氣 has returned to it's origins-- and this is no different than the changing of the seasons. From spring to summer, from summer to fall, from fall to winter, this is the natural way of the world. That humans can return to a peaceful slumber in a great room within nature-- in this happy state, why would I then cry thinking of her like that? To cry after thinking of it in this way would be to ignore what is natural-- or the Way of Nature." (天命）
Watson calls this concept of 「命」 Fate. And, I don't dislike this-- as long as we remember that while for the Stoics, fate was like a dog tied to cart being dragged around town; for the daoist sage, what was fate other than simply the natural unfolding of events? Actually, just going by the Japanese, 天命 perhaps all it really suggests is the concept of all those things which are out of human hands-- or as wikipedia explains, "how one should live the life given to human beings by "heaven" (天から人間に与えられた一生をかけて行うべき命令のこと)
Ok, fate.
To my mind, the interesting question is: how does one know what to do in any given situation? How can person understand what is their fate? Well for the stoics, one knew fate (or Nature) through reason. And to cultivate reason one was to do everything in their power to diminish the emotions which could cloud our rational faculties (like our Lady Dido). Harvard tells me that his Latin professor once remarked in class that the main Stoic policy was, "Never fall in love, under any circumstances".
I just don't see that as being part of the daoist mindset since emotions and passions are not categorically dismissed in the same way. And indeed, to "not act" is-- in fact-- to act. "Not acting" as such is an absurd concept so we really, I think, have to be not so quick to dismiss poor Dido just because she acted (even in this case cursing unto suicide!). Because of course, even had she not acted with passion, she still would have been acting.
How can one possible judge what was in harmony with the way and what was not? Well, I am left with the idea that our fate (or Way) is known through our intuition and to cultivate intuition one seeks to heighten sensibility in what is in the end a very individual project. And, I would suggest that only those involved-- including Dido's subjects-- only they could pass accurate ethical judgement-- after the fact.
**
So, what does that say about Zhuangzi mourning his dead wife? Well, I reject that it says anything whatsoever about the limits of our loving relationships-- at the same time agreeing with Professor A Ku that it recommends-- rather than any sort of emotional detachment-- rather it prescribes an individual commitment to staying in the present tense and yes-- going with the flow (even if that means cursing onto suicide).
Indeed, when I read the passage, it resonates to me as one long meditation which has as its base ZZ's tremendously attached love for his wife. For if he wasn't so enthralled by her as to be devastated by her passing, why would he have thought about this so deeply. It is absolutely beautiful, I think.
And no where does he say, "better not to be attached to love," but rather-- better to understand that death is nothing to be fearful of as death is part of the natural cycle of things (自然の循環 ）. Where Confucian teaches, "just take care of your life and death will take care of itself," our Man from the State of Song, says that death is as part of nature as the passing of the seasons. It is not only not a sad event, but it is all part of the way things are (無為自然→自然の規則的な循環 ）
As a side note, I read a very interesting paper last night as I lay next to Adonis watching him sleep like an angel. Written by a professor at Nihon Daigaku, Kunitsugu Kosaka, it presents wuwei as being not something that humans do alone, but rather that it is nature that is wuwei. Again and again the paper had this phrase 無為自然 and so this I think is the best clue to understanding what wuwei is (and perhaps it is something that all daoists need to take their own stand on in individual ways?)
**
Anyway, I learn that my man Ibn Arabi also plays the guqin. Over at his very bare-bones abode, he writes very beautifully about a piece of music called Mozi Grieving over Silk, explaining,
Mozi was walking through town one day when he came across silk dyers plying their trade. He was moved to tears by this scene as it led him to reflect that on the inevitable force exerted on man by his surroundings, his relationships, and his experiences. Life dyes us: we can never go back to the way we were, let alone imagine how we might have turned out if this hue, that hue had never bled through us.
And when I complain
Yes, I think it is true that life dyes us– every single experience. Therefore, don’t you think only the cowardly turn away?
He wisely responds-- whether you turn away or not, life will dye you.
True. But, we also don't want to turn away from life or our emotions, right?
We are forever launched into a dialectical dance: our emotional dispositions respond to, but also create, entirely new contexts. We obviously can't judge new situations with anything other than our old dispositions; but if we apply ourselves to take as comprehensive a view of the new context as possible, the totality of our emotional reactions will generate new paradigm scenarios, from which emerge fresh axiological judgments.
Happy birthday to Sam, and to the man who made me smile all day long yesterday after telling me, "I am no Roman-- I am all about the love" this is for you:
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