Hello everyone –
In this issue, I’d
like to share with you some snippets of things that I’ve been reading and
reflecting upon recently. There are some thematic elements that these passages
have in common, but they are also rather variegated. 😊 We begin with an invocation from one of
the oldest sacred books in the world – the Rig Veda from India.
Gayatri Mantra
Om Bhur Bhuvaḥ Swaḥ
Tat-savitur
Vareñyaṃ
Bhargo Devasya
Dhīmahi
Dhiyo Yonaḥ
Prachodayāt
– Rig Veda
3.62.10[11]
“We meditate on
that most adored Supreme Lord,
The Creator, whose
effulgence (divine light) illumines
All realms
(physical, mental and spiritual).
May this divine
light illumine our intellect.”
(Translation @ https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gayatri_Mantra)
Editor’s Note:
I’ve been revisiting the Gilgamesh Epic and related legends quite a bit recently. The prologue to the epic eulogizes the world’s first superhero, King Gilgamesh of Uruk (fl. ca. 27th century BCE) as follows:
“He who the heart
of all matters has proven, let him teach the nation, He who all knowledge
possesses, therein shall he school all the people, He shall his wisdom impart
and so shall they share it together. Gilgamesh — he was the Master of wisdom,
with knowledge of all things, He it was who discovered the secret concealed.
Aye, he handed down the tradition relating to things prediluvian, He went on a
journey afar, all aweary and worn with his toiling. He engraved on a tablet of
stone all the travail.”
-- Prologue to the Gilgamesh Epic (Slightly Modernized by the Editor from the 1929 Translation by R. Campbell Thompson)
After the death of his steadfast warrior-companion, Enkidu, Gilgamesh went on a
quest to find the secret of immortality in the far eastern regions of the
world. The following summary describes the events leading up to his meeting
with Siduri (the first Sibyl in world literature, who may have been Inanna, the
celestial intelligence of the planet Venus), along with the advice that she
gives to help him deal with his heartfelt grief.
Excerpt from
Chapter 8 of Myths of Babylonia and Assyria by Donald A. MacKenzie
(1915)
[Slightly
Modernized by the Editor]
Gilgamesh set out on his journey and in time reached a mountain chasm. Gazing
on the rugged heights, he beheld fierce lions and his heart trembled. Then he
cried upon the Moon god, who took pity upon him, and under divine protection
the hero pressed onward. He crossed the rocky range and then found himself
confronted by the tremendous mountain of Mashu – "Sunset Hill,” which
divided the land of the living from the western land of the dead. The mountain
peak rose to heaven, and its foundations were in Arallu, the underworld. A dark
tunnel pierced it and could be entered through a door, but the door was shut
and on either side were two monsters of horrible aspect – the gigantic
"scorpion man" and his wife, whose heads reached to the clouds. When
Gilgamesh beheld them he swooned with terror. But they did him no harm, perceiving
that he was a son of a god and had a body like a god.
When Gilgamesh revived, he realized that the monsters regarded him with eyes of
sympathy. Addressing the scorpion giant, he told that he desired to visit his
ancestor, Utnapishtim, who sat in the council of the gods and had divine
attributes. The giant warned him of the dangers which he would encounter,
saying that the mountain passage was twelve miles long and beamless and black.
Gilgamesh, however, resolved to encounter any peril, for he was no longer
afraid, and he was allowed to go forward. So he entered through the
monster-guarded mountain door and plunged into thick unbroken darkness. For
twice twelve hours he groped blindly onward, until he saw a ray of light.
Quickening his steps, he then escaped from the dreadful tunnel and once more
rejoiced in the rays of the Sun. He found himself in an enchanted garden, and
in the midst of it he saw a divine and beautiful tree towards which he
hastened. On its gleaming branches hung clusters of precious stones and its
leaves were of lapis lazuli. His eyes were dazzled, but he did not linger
there. Passing many other wonderful trees, he came to a shoreland, and he knew
that he was drawing nigh to the Sea of Death. The country which he entered was
ruled over by the sea lady whose name was Siduri. When she saw the pilgrim
drawing nigh, she entered her palace and shut the door.
Gilgamesh called out requesting that he should be allowed to enter, and mingled his entreaties with threats to break open the door. In the end Siduri appeared and spoke, saying:
“Gilgamesh,
whither are you hurrying?
The life that you
seek, you will not find.
When the gods
created humanity,
They fixed death
for humankind.
Life they took in
their own hand.
You, O Gilgamesh,
let your belly be filled!
Day and night be
merry,
Daily celebrate a
feast,
Day and night
dance and make merry!
Clean be your
clothes,
Your head be
washed, bathe in water!
Look joyfully on
the child that grasps your hand,
Be happy with the wife in your arms!”
Gilgamesh did not accept the counsel of the fatalistic sea lady. He asked her
how he could reach Utnapishtim, his ancestor, saying he was prepared to cross
the Sea of Death: if he could not cross it he would die of grief.
Siduri answered him, saying: "O Gilgamesh, no mortal is ferried over this
great sea. Who can pass over it save Shamash alone? The way is full of peril. O
Gilgamesh, how can you battle against the billows of death?"
At length, however, the sea lady revealed to the pilgrim that he might obtain
the aid of the sailor, Urshanabi, who served his ancestor Utnapishtim.
A Biblical Echo
of Siduri’s Advice:
Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 (JPS 1917, Slighted Modernized by
the Editor)
Go your way, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart;
for G*d has already accepted your works.
Let your garments be always white; and let your head lack no oil.
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of the life of your vanity,
which He has given you under the Sun, all the days of your vanity; for that is
your portion in life, and in your labor wherein you labor under the Sun.
King Gilgamesh
bids farewell to Siduri the Sibyl and one of her acolytes in this illustration
from Ishtar and Izdubar, a versified English paraphrase of the Gilgamesh
Epic by Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton, published in 1884. (Image Credit:
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)
“There is nothing
permanent except change.”
-- Heraclitus of
Ephesus (540-480 BCE), Proto-Stoic Greek Philosopher
“Ëala Ëarendel,
engla beorhtast,
ofer middan-geard
monnum sended.”
“Hail Ëarendel,
brightest of angels,
over Middle-Earth
to humankind sent.”
-- Cynewulf (Old
English, 9th Century CE)
“Ichigo, ichie.” =
“One life, one opportunity.”
-- Attributed to
Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591), Japanese Tea Master
“There is a tide
in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at
the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the
voyage of their life
Is bound in
shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea
are we now afloat;
And we must take
the current when it serves,
Or lose our
ventures.”
-- William
Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3
“Ulysses”
By Alfred, Lord
Tennyson (1809-1892), Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
(Lines in BOLD
have been most meaningful to me over the last few months.)
It little profits
that an idle king,
By this still
hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an
aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto
a savage race,
That hoard, and
sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from
travel; I will drink
Life to the lees.
All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have
suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and
alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding
drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea.
I am become a name;
For always roaming
with a hungry heart
Much have I seen
and known — cities of men
And manners,
climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least,
but honored of them all, —
And drunk delight
of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing
plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of
all that I have met;
Yet all
experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that
untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and
forever when I move.
How dull it is
to pause, to make an end,
To rust
unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to
breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too
little, and of one to me
Little remains;
but every hour is saved
From that
eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of
new things; and vile it were
For some three
suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray
spirit yearning in desire
To follow
knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the
utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son,
mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave
the scepter and the isle,
Well-loved of me,
discerning to fulfill
This labor, by
slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people,
and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the
useful and the good.
Most blameless is
he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties,
decent not to fail
In offices of
tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to
my household gods,
When I am gone. He
works his work, I mine.
There lies the
port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the
dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have
toiled, and wrought, and thought with me,
That ever with a
frolic welcome took
The thunder and
the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free
foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath
yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes
all; but something ere the end,
Some work of
noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men
that strove with gods.
The lights begin
to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day
wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with
many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late
to seek a newer world.
Push off, and
sitting well in order smite
The sounding
furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond
the sunset, and the baths
Of all the
western stars, until I die.
It may be that the
gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall
touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great
Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is
taken, much abides; and though
We are not now
that strength which in old days
Moved earth and
heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal
temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by
time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to
seek, to find, and not to yield.
Until next time –
Rob
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