Word of the Day: Cæsura

I have come not to bury Cæsar; indeed, I have not come to blog about him at all. But it is inevitable that those who see the word cæsura are likely to think of the word cæsar (or caesar).

A cæsura or caesura is a lapse; a discontinuity or interruption in the natural fabric of things. For example, if you had a bunch of good rulers, and then a backstabbing liar with megalomania and some paranoid delusions, followed by another bunch of good rulers, then you'd have to call that unusual fellow a cæsura in the tapestry.

The word is equivalent what we'd now call 'a glitch', perhaps. In fact, it comes from the Latin caedere: to end, to cut down or cut off, to break down the continuity of something.

But back to Caesar, who must still be on your mind as a lapse of sorts.

I remember once using the time-honoured phrase, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." That, of course, is taken from the 22nd chapter of St Matthew's gospel, and compares secular authority to the Divine.

A modern would-be Stalin I know took grave offence at this. He thought that when I said it, I meant him. I laughed when I said, "No sir, you are not Caesar."

Five years later, he tried to prove me wrong. He set up crude imitations of the abomination of desolation in the courts of the righteous, the emblems of Zeus — one black, one white — according to the ancient rites.

As any student of the classics should know, the eagle is the symbol of a rapacious Zeus, the divine abuser of authority who struck at Ganymede. Neither of the eagles in the courts of the Citadel is a soaring eagle; rather, one stoops to strike and the other sits in self-satisfaction, its rump too heavy to fly.

The time in which these abominations was set up is indeed a caesura in the history of the faithful. May it end soon, and may the symbols of a malicious power be removed as soon as possible.

Fire and Forget

After a long period of data-gathering and analysis, we sat by the River and wept, because we remembered Zion. Or something like that.

The results of the seven-year long study showed that the two big problems of the otherwise extremely successful institution were these:

1. Academic success based more on quality of intake (and adjustment of internal assessment) than on staff quality and developmental processes (no matter what certain spurious quality-control awards might have implied).
   
2. Inability or lack of desire to supply proper aftercare and upgrading of product offerings.

Frankly, one would not attach too much credence to such assertions, except that these findings were vetted by the very highest echelons of the body controlling this institution and its fellow subsidiaries. In all, an end-run for the research team and a can of worms for the searched team.

Also, a sad moment as we sat by the River. The eldest of us turned around and looked at the rest, and he said, This must not continue. It must not be seen that this nest specialises in kicking the fledglings out and measuring their success based on how great the kick is and not on whether the fledglings have been taught to fly. The counter-argument, of course, is that if the fledglings can fly, why bother about how they learn it? Well, it's all about integrity. This isn't nature; this is an institution of public character (as my tax accountant assured me). The point is to take in fledglings who would not normally learn how to fly and teach them to use their wings.

Ah well, I suppose that one can always hope for a better age.

Exit Strategy

This morning I ended up reading the 21st chapter of Ezekiel. For those of you seldom (or never) end up prowling around such distant chambers, the book of Ezekiel the prophet is one of the most visually and viscerally dramatic of apocalyptic writings. Ezekiel 21 is not an exception.

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

"Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel, and say to the land of Israel, thus saith the LORD; 'Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north: that all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more.'

"Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes. And it shall be, when they say unto thee,' Wherefore sighest thou?' that thou shalt answer, 'For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.'

Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

"Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD; 'Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished: it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree. And he hath given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.'

"'Cry and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh. Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more,' saith the Lord GOD.

"Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together. and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers. I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter. Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set. I will also smite mine hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest: I the LORD have said it."

It is all in the sheer dynamism of the phrasing, the graphic nature of the word-hoard, the eccentricity of punctuation. It is the voice of He who wields a terrible swift sword, who makes hearts melt and hands become enfeebled. The trial comes, and then the judgement, and who shall withstand the wrath?

One is tempted to take such literature out of context, irrationally and antitheologically. But one should be conscious and cautious about what exactly one intends to do. What if the tolling of the bell is not for the wicked who are obviously so, but for those who claim to be righteous and are not? What if this warning to ancient Israel has nothing to do with modern Israel, or to any modern Jerusalem that sets up the abomination of desolation within its gates? But there it is; when the eagles of Zeus are mounted in the gates of the once-consecrated city, it is the end.

Another Look

A reply (though not a rebuttal, nor even a rejoinder) to Second Class.

Sometimes, I suspect visual metaphors for knowledge come with too great a facility to the sons of men. From a literal looking back, as in my post this morning, people think of looking into the past. That's not necessarily the case, but let's consider both possibilities, and one more for the fun of it.

The literal act of looking back, the need to turn one's head to look, is of use only if one is going backwards, or if one is using that act to fix in one's mind the visual image of something one has already turned away from. We've heard phrases like 'to look back in anger' or 'to look back in regret'; these are metaphors engaging the visual aspects of memory, and not the optical aspects or the associated cognitive and perceptive aspects of using one's eyes. When Lot's wife and Orpheus looked back, the act was a prohibited one, not the thought; the physical look, not the memory.

The second case is the Second Class viewpoint. To look back at the past is an honourable occupation, and a wise one; without knowledge of the past, one is doomed to a meaningless present and an implicitly useless future; after all, if your future is not engaged with your present, why are you looking forward to it? It would have no relationship to you at all (or you do not think that relationship is important), since in the future, you would not be looking back to the 'you' of now. I agree with the gist of that post, although I don't think it is quite a rejoinder, but a complement.

The last case is the peculiar one of modern heraldic interpretations. I've been resident on the island of Singapore for some time now, a city-state which in some historical accounts was founded by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. One of his legacies is an educational institution, which has a version of the Raffles arms bearing a two-headed gryphon, which is said to be looking back to the past and forward to the future.

This is clearly wrong; the two-headed eagle is a symbol of Empire, looking both east and west with rapacious eyes and greedy claws. That the Rafflesian eagle was made into a gryphon (an even hungrier, horse-eating beast) is merely tribute to the meaning of 'Singapore': 'Lion City'. In this case, the eagle is now grounded in a lion; the Raffles Institution has claws firmly planted on the island, never to take off again (as Raffles used to do, frequently).

If the modern Rafflesian interpretation is correct then, to be consistent with the trappings of Empire that the school still uses (Latin motto, baronet's helm etc) on its heraldry, the two eagle heads must symbolise a Western past and an Eastern future. It looks back into the West, just as Tolkien's elves do. It cannot let go of its colonial past. That's why it needs two heads.

Forty Years

"Forty years on, when afar and asunder, parted are those who are singing today..." is the first line of the reunion anthem of the old Harrow School, that bastion of classical English education.

Today I heard a colleague reflect on the fate of the 40-year old eagle. Aristotle's 'History of Animals' says that the eagle will smash off its overgrown beak against granite rocks when the beak is too heavy to allow it to fly well; the South African 1st Eagle Scouts' website has the same story, expanded for a modern audience. The story appears totally apocryphal, but might be related to some eagles' very real habit of tapping their beak against rocks to remove undigested food remains (bones, feathers, hair) stuck in the craw.

The story continues that the eagle does this to permit it a new lease of life. Lighter and less encumbered, it now has thirty more years to live. Se non é vero, é molto ben' trovato, I say, echoing the old Italian adage. It has shed its beak, feathers, and even talons - it can then grow them back and be as a young eagle again.

I suppose that despite the silliness of the whole story, my own reflections are cheerful on this point. Yes, indeed I have jettisoned my talons and beak and feathers; yes, indeed have I begun the growth of a new armamentarium. But I also think about Benjamin Franklin's protest regarding the use of the Bald Eagle as a national icon - and I reproduce them below for you:

"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

"With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country . . .

"I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."

Parallels

The word 'parallel' is Greek in origin, from 'para-', which means 'beside and distinct'; and 'allo-' which means 'in like manner or positional relationship'. A parallel, then, is something that is not the same as, but virtually equivalent to, that to which it is parallel. Greek prepositions are many and varied, but combining two in one word always leads to interesting vocabulary.

Here are snippets from a parallel universe, upon a summit one might vaguely have thought of as somewhat Olympian.

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"There is," said the elder statesman (now retired), "an institution that prides itself on putting up eagles in every courtyard, that puts its principles on display and violates them with impunity, that sets up a condition in which rule of law maintains order, but in which the law is an instrument constructed and administered by those intent on maintaining power and control.

"For where we speak of conflict, the word which our first speaker omitted must also be mentioned - and that word is power. It is a sad fact of our non-ideal world that many institutions perpetuate the power of those who no longer possess the right to power, the will to power, or the fact of power. These are old powers, no longer relevant to the modern world. What they have left is positional power, entrenched by decree, and they hang on to it ruthlessly.

"I am not speaking of the Roman Empire, although this might have applied equally to them."

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"It is a small entity," said the minister, "With the good fortune not to have any resources of note, except the will, mind and ability to sweat. I say 'good fortune', because human nature is such that if it had any resources to exploit, those in power would have wanted to attain positions of power to dip their hands into its cookie jar, or to rule and subjugate it.

"But it is a realistic entity. It functions on three principles: 1) that the world is not an ideal place (although it is a place for idealists); 2) that it can be of help to many and thus cement a place for itself; 3) that it can achieve far more than its resources seem to allow, by ingenuity, wit, patience, determination, and good humour.

"It cannot lead the world or drive global culture or revolution. But it can survive, thrive, and act as a model that others can see and be inspired by."

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Parallels are funny things. Sometimes, we see as through a glass darkly; sometimes, as face to face. (This is called optical dichroism.) Sometimes, we see with blinding sight, that happiness is not an affliction and sobriety not always a virtue. And sometimes, we are enlightened in all humility, and we reflect that the world is indeed a better place for people who can laugh at themselves.