Heavy Metals

Gold is for the mistress—silver for the maid—
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
“Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
“But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all.”
Rudyard Kipling

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I've always loved poetry and how it fits in just nicely with all my other interests. The theological point to the poem quoted above is an interesting one, but to me, the alchemical point is even more so. Iron and the noble metals in Group 11 of the modern periodic table have been with us since the beginning of language - gol and iren are recognizable from the very roots of the Indo-Aryan languages.

But I'll save the lesson for my students. It'll be in their handouts. What passed through my mind in this age of iron-substitutes (aluminium, titanium, manganese) is more that the later metals have no sense of identity about them. People can somehow comprehend what a 'golden moment' is, or what 'ruling with an iron fist' is, or what to be 'born with a silver tongue' means. Yet, if I were to say, "Oh, what a scandium (light, flexible) way of treating the homeless!" or "His osmium (heavy, malodorous) nature emanated the stench of evil," or "She ran the class with a ruthenium (strong, inflexible) hand," I don't think many people would respond (fellow alchemists excepted).

Perhaps there should be a concerted effort to bring some of these other metals more into the public consciousness. We could have an Iridium Award for innovations with long-lasting effects, or a Vanadium Prize for the most multifaceted production. Maybe a Polonium Day, at which we could invite His Excellency the Polish Ambassador to speak? Or a Rhodium Seminar, where Rhodes Scholars could be persuaded to debate important issues...

Then again, maybe the classical metals are still the best. Let me quote just the first and last verses from W H Auden's The Shield of Achilles:

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She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.
.
.
.
The thin-lipped armorer,
Hephaestos, hobbled away;
Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.