Skip to main content

The Return of "Thus Spoke the Platypus" Part IV

Now this is the song of Utnapishtim that he sang at the rising of the sun between the mountain and the lake:

Out of the past does Wisdom speak, and out of the wasteland does it sing!
Seek ye the ancient way, for daylight is coming and will show the path.
O leave man's city and go out with anxious feet, for Wisdom comes with the dayspring.
The font of all our yesterdays, the font of our tomorrows: out of the same ocean
do they spring!
Now Utnapishtim will take a wife and father children,
For the Hope of men will come!
O that Wisdom would become a Man and speak with me!
For I love you, O Wisdom.
For I love you, O Wisdom.

Utnapishtim does not crown himself. Nay! He will fling his crown away!
For what can compare with Wisdom, who possesses us, and not we Wisdom?
Utnapishtim makes his crown an offering though it is but a paltry thing.
A coronet made all of thistles and water rushes, with faded water lilies!
Now Utnapishtim will take a wife and father children,
For the Hope of men will come!
O that Wisdom would become a Man and speak with me!
For I love you, O Wisdom.
For I love you, O Wisdom.

Join me in my merry dance! To the city of man return, in the train of holy Wisdom!
Love Life, for Life is stronger than death. Love Love, for Love is stronger than the grave.
Oh Life, and death, and Love, and grave, we bring you into our city.
In the train of holy Wisdom each has as much good as each can hold!
Now Utnapishtim will take a wife and father children,
For the Hope of men will come!
O that Wisdom would become a Man and speak with me!
For I love you, O Wisdom.
For I love you, O Wisdom.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
15 comments
Read more

California's Gods: Strange Platypus(es)

We've noticed lately a strange Californian dialectical twist: there, freeways take the definite article.  In other parts of the country one speaks of I 91 or 45 North.  In California, there's The 5, The 405, The 10.  Each of these freeways has its own quirks, a personality of sorts.  They aren't just stretches of pavement but presences, creatures that necessitate the definite article by their very individuality and uniqueness.  They are the angry gods to be worked, placated, feared, for without them life in California as we know it would cease.  Perhaps that's fitting for a land whose cities are named for saints and angels.  Mary may preside over the new pueblo of our lady of the angels, but the freeways slither like gigantic serpents through the waste places, malevolent spirits not yet trampled under foot.
9 comments
Read more

Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien: The Platypus Reads Part CXCIX

After spending a few weeks wrestling with Tolkien's interpretation of Beowulf , I found myself sitting down and reading Seamus Heaney's translation of the text during a spare moment.  I came to the place where Beowulf presents Hrothgar with the hilt of the ancient sword that slew Grendel's mother.  Hrothgar looks down at the hilt with its ancient runes and carvings depicting the war between the giants and God and meditates on the fortunes of men.  In a flash of insight, I thought: this is the whole poem! Let me explain.  Tolkien believed that the genuine contribution of the Northern peoples to European culture was the theory of courage.  The Northern heroes, at their best, were men who fought for order against chaos -a battle they knew they were doomed to lose.  If they were true heroes, their souls would join the gods and aid them in the final battle against darkness and its monsters and again go down fighting, spitting in the face of the meaninglessness...
3 comments
Read more